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WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT

BY

"PISISTRATUS CAXTON"

(LORD LYTTON)

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

In which the history opens with a description of the social manners,
habits, and amusements of the English People, as exhibited in an
immemorial National Festivity.--Characters to be commemorated in the
history, introduced and graphically portrayed, with a nasological
illustration.--Original suggestions as to the idiosyncrasies
engendered by trades and callings, with other matters worthy of
note, conveyed in artless dialogue after the manner of Herodotus,
Father of History (mother unknown).

It was a summer fair in one of the prettiest villages in Surrey. The
main street was lined with booths, abounding in toys, gleaming crockery,
gay ribbons, and gilded ginger bread. Farther on, where the street
widened into the ample village-green, rose the more pretending fabrics
which lodged the attractive forms of the Mermaid, the Norfolk Giant; the
Pig-faced Lady, the Spotted Boy, and the Calf with Two Heads; while high
over even these edifices, and occupying the most conspicuous vantage-
ground, a lofty stage promised to rural playgoers the "Grand Melodramatic
Performance of The Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child." Music,
lively if artless, resounded on every side,--drums, fifes, penny-
whistles, cat-calls, and a hand-organ played by a dark foreigner, from
the height of whose shoulder a cynical but observant monkey eyed the
hubbub and cracked his nuts.

It was now sunset,--the throng at the fullest,--an animated, joyous
scene. The, day had been sultry; no clouds were to be seen, except low
on the western horizon, where they stretched, in lengthened ridges of
gold and purple, like the border-land between earth and sky. The tall
elms on the green were still, save, near the great stage, one or two,
upon which had climbed young urchins, whose laughing faces peered forth,
here and there, from the foliage trembling under their restless
movements.

Amidst the crowd, as it streamed saunteringly along, were two spectators;
strangers to the place, as was notably proved by the attention they
excited, and the broad jokes their dress and appearance provoked from the
rustic wits,--jokes which they took with amused good-humour, and
sometimes retaliated with a zest which had already made them very popular
personages. Indeed, there was that about them which propitiated liking.
They were young; and the freshness of enjoyment was so visible in their
faces, that it begot a sympathy, and wherever they went, other faces
brightened round them.

One of the two whom we have thus individualized was of that enviable age,
ranging from five-and-twenty to seven-and-twenty, in which, if a man
cannot contrive to make life very pleasant,--pitiable indeed must be the
state of his digestive organs. But you might see by this gentleman's
countenance that if there were many like him, it would be a worse world
for the doctors. His cheek, though not highly coloured, was yet ruddy
and clear; his hazel eyes were lively and keen; his hair, which escaped
in loose clusters from a jean shooting-cap set jauntily on a well-shaped
head, was of that deep sunny auburn rarely seen but in persons of
vigorous and hardy temperament. He was good-looking on the whole, and
would have deserved the more flattering epithet of handsome, but for his
nose, which was what the French call "a nose in the air,"--not a nose
supercilious, not a nose provocative, as such noses mostly are, but a
nose decidedly in earnest to make the best of itself and of things in
general,--a nose that would push its way up in life, but so pleasantly
that the most irritable fingers would never itch to lay hold of it. With
such a nose a man might play the violoncello, marry for love, or even
write poetry, and yet not go to the dogs.

Never would he stick in the mud so long as he followed that nose in the
air.

By the help of that nose this gentleman wore a black velveteen jacket of
foreign cut; a mustache and imperial (then much rarer in England than
they have been since the Siege of Sebastopol); and yet left you perfectly
convinced that he was an honest Englishman, who had not only no designs
on your pocket, but would not be easily duped by any designs upon his
own.

The companion of the personage thus sketched might be somewhere about
seventeen; but his gait, his air, his lithe, vigorous frame, showed a
manliness at variance with the boyish bloom of his face. He struck the
eye much more than his elder comrade. Not that he was regularly
handsome,--far from it; yet it is no paradox to say that he was
beautiful, at least, few indeed were the women who would not have called
him so. His hair, long like his friend's, was of a dark chestnut, with
gold gleaming through it where the sun fell, inclining to curl, and
singularly soft and silken in its texture. His large, clear, dark-blue,
happy eyes were fringed with long ebon lashes, and set under brows which
already wore the expression of intellectual power, and, better still, of
frank courage and open loyalty. His complexion was fair, and somewhat
pale, and his lips in laughing showed teeth exquisitely white and even.
But though his profile was clearly cut, it was far from the Greek ideal;
and he wanted the height of stature which is usually considered essential
to the personal pretensions of the male sex. Without being positively
short, he was still under middle height, and from the compact development
of his proportions, seemed already to have attained his full growth. His
dress, though not foreign, like his comrade's, was peculiar: a broad-
brimmed straw hat, with a wide blue ribbon; shirt collar turned down,
leaving the throat bare; a dark-green jacket of thinner material than
cloth; white trousers and waistcoat completed his costume. He looked
like a mother's darling,--perhaps he was one.

Scratch across his back went one of those ingenious mechanical
contrivances familiarly in vogue at fairs, which are designed to impress
upon the victim to whom they are applied, the pleasing conviction that
his garment is rent in twain.

The boy turned round so quickly that he caught the arm of the offender,--
a pretty village-girl, a year or two younger than himself. "Found in the
act, sentenced, punished," cried he, snatching a kiss, and receiving a
gentle slap. "And now, good for evil, here's a ribbon for you; choose."

The girl slunk back shyly, but her companions pushed her forward, and she
ended by selecting a cherry-coloured ribbon, for which the boy paid
carelessly, while his elder and wiser friend looked at him with grave,
compassionate rebuke, and grumbled out,--"Dr. Franklin tells us that once
in his life he paid too dear for a whistle; but then he was only seven
years old, and a whistle has its uses. But to pay such a price for a
scratch-back!--Prodigal! Come along."

As the friends strolled on, naturally enough all the young girls who
wished for ribbons, and were possessed of scratch-backs, followed in
their wake. Scratch went the instrument, but in vain.

"Lasses," said the elder, turning sharply upon them his nose in the air,
"ribbons are plentiful,--shillings scarce; and kisses, though pleasant in
private, are insipid in public. What, still! Beware! know that,
innocent as we seem, we are women-eaters; and if you follow us farther,
you are devoured! "So saying, he expanded his jaws to a width so
preternaturally large, and exhibited a row of grinders so formidable,
that the girls fell back in consternation. The friends turned down a
narrow alley between the booths, and though still pursued by some
adventurous and mercenary spirits, were comparatively undisturbed as they
threaded their way along the back of the booths, and arrived at last on
the village-green, and in front of the Great Stage.

"Oho, Lionel!" quoth the elder friend; "Thespian and classical,--worth
seeing, no doubt." Then turning to a grave cobbler in leathern apron,
who was regarding with saturnine interest the motley figures ranged in
front of the curtain as the Drumatis Persona, he said, "You seem
attracted, sir; you have probably already witnessed the performance."
"Yes," returned the Cobbler; "this is the third day, and to-morrow's the
last. I are n't missed once yet, and I sha' n't miss; but it are n't
what it was a while back."

"'That is sad; but then the same thing is said of everything by everybody
who has reached your respectable age, friend. Summers, and suns, stupid
old watering-places, and pretty young women, `are n't what they were a
while back.' If men and things go on degenerating in this way, our
grandchildren will have a dull time of it."

The Cobbler eyed the young man, and nodded approvingly. He had sense
enough to comprehend the ironical philosophy of the reply; and our
Cobbler loved talk out of the common way. "You speaks truly and
cleverly, sir. But if old folks do always say that things are worse than
they were, ben't there always summat in what is always said? I'm for the
old times; my neighbour, Joe Spruce, is for the new, and says we are all
a-progressing. But he 's a pink; I 'm a blue."

"You are a blue?" said the boy Lionel; "I don't understand."

"Young 'un, I'm a Tory,--that's blue; and Spruce is a Rad,--that's pink!
And, what is more to the purpose, he is a tailor, and I'm a cobbler."

"Aha!" said the elder, with much interest; "more to the purpose is it?
How so?"

The Cobbler put the forefinger of the right hand on the forefinger of the
left; it is the gesture of a man about to ratiocinate or demonstrate, as
Quintilian, in his remarks on the oratory of fingers, probably observes;
or if he has failed to do so, it is a blot in his essay.

"You see, sir," quoth the Cobbler, "that a man's business has a deal to
do with his manner of thinking. Every trade, I take it, has ideas as
belong to it. Butchers don't see life as bakers do; and if you talk to a
dozen tallow-chandlers, then to a dozen blacksmiths, you will see tallow-
chandlers are peculiar, and blacksmiths too."

"You are a keen observer," said he of the jean cap, admiringly; "your
remark is new to me; I dare say it is true."

"Course it is; and the stars have summat to do with it; for if they order
a man's calling, it stands to reason that they order a man's mind to fit
it. Now, a tailor sits on his board with others, and is always a-talking
with 'em, and a-reading the news; therefore he thinks, as his fellows do,
smart and sharp, bang up to the day, but nothing 'riginal and all his
own, like. But a cobbler," continued the man of leather, with a majestic
air, "sits by hisself, and talks with hisself; and what he thinks gets
into his head without being put there by another man's tongue."

"You enlighten me more and more," said our friend with the nose in the
air, bowing respectfully,--"a tailor is gregarious, a cobbler solitary.
The gregarious go with the future, the solitary stick by the past. I
understand why you are a Tory and perhaps a poet."

"Well, a bit of one," said the Cobbler, with an iron smile. "And many 's
the cobbler who is a poet,--or discovers marvellous things in a crystal,
--whereas a tailor, sir" (spoken with great contempt), "only sees the
upper leather of the world's sole in a newspaper."

Here the conversation was interrupted by a sudden pressure of the crowd
towards the theatre. The two young friends looked up, and saw that the
new object of attraction was a little girl, who seemed scarcely ten years
old, though in truth she was about two years older. She had just emerged
from behind the curtain, made her obeisance to the crowd, and was now
walking in front of the stage with the prettiest possible air of
infantine solemnity. "Poor little thing!" said Lionel. "Poor little
thing!" said the Cobbler. And had you been there, my reader, ten to one
but you would have said the same. And yet she was attired in white
satin, with spangled flounces and a tinsel jacket; and she wore a wreath
of flowers (to be sure, the flowers were not real) on her long fair
curls, with gaudy bracelets (to be sure, the stones were mock) on her
slender arms. Still there was something in her that all this finery
could not vulgarize; and since it could not vulgarize, you pitied her for
it. She had one of those charming faces that look straight into the
hearts of us all, young and old. And though she seemed quite self-
possessed, there was no effrontery in her air, but the ease of a little
lady, with a simple child's unconsciousness that there was anything in
her situation to induce you to sigh, "Poor thing!"

"You should see her act, young gents," said the Cobbler: "she plays
uncommon. But if you had seen him as taught her,--seen him a year ago."

"Who's he?"

"Waife, sir; mayhap you have heard speak of Waife?"

"I blush to say, no."

"Why, he might have made his fortune at Common Garden; but that's a long
story. Poor fellow! he's broke down now, anyhow. But she takes care of
him, little darling: God bless thee!" and the Cobbler here exchanged a
smile and a nod with the little girl, whose face brightened when she saw
him amidst the crowd.

"By the brush and pallet of Raphael!" cried the elder of the young men,
"before I am many hours older I must have that child's head!"

"Her head, man!" cried the Cobbler, aghast.

"In my sketch-book. You are a poet,--I a painter. You know the little
girl?"

"Don't I! She and her grandfather lodge with me; her grandfather,--
that's Waife,--marvellous man! But they ill-uses him; and if it warn't
for her, he'd starve. He fed them all once: he can feed them no longer;
he'd starve. That's the world: they use up a genus, and when it falls on
the road, push on; that's what Joe Spruce calls a-progressing. But
there's the drum! they're a-going to act; won't you look in, gents?"

"Of course," cried Lionel,--"of course. And, hark ye, Vance, we'll toss
up which shall be the first to take that little girl's head."

"Murderer in either sense of the word!" said Vance, with a smile that
would have become Correggio if a tyro had offered to toss up which should
be the first to paint a cherub.

CHAPTER II.

The historian takes a view of the British stage as represented by
the irregular drama, the regular having (ere the date of the events
to which this narrative is restricted) disappeared from the vestiges
of creation.

They entered the little theatre, and the Cobbler with them; but the last
retired modestly to the threepenny row. The young gentlemen were
favoured with reserved seats, price one shilling. "Very dear," murmured
Vance, as he carefully buttoned the pocket to which he restored a purse
woven from links of steel, after the fashion of chain mail. Ah,
Messieurs and Confreres the Dramatic Authors, do not flatter yourselves
that we are about to give you a complacent triumph over the Grand
Melodrame of "The Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child." We grant it
was horrible rubbish, regarded in an aesthetic point of view, but it was
mighty effective in the theatrical. Nobody yawned; you did not even hear
a cough, nor the cry of that omnipresent baby, who is always sure to set
up an unappeasable wail in the midmost interest of a classical five-act
piece, represented for the first time on the metropolitan boards. Here
the story rushed on, /per fas aut nefas/, and the audience went with it.
Certes, some man who understood the stage must have put the incidents
together, and then left it to each illiterate histrio to find the words,
--words, my dear confreres, signify so little in an acting play. The
movement is the thing. Grand secret! Analyze, practise it, and restore
to grateful stars that lost Pleiad the British Acting Drama.

Of course the Bandit was an ill-used and most estimable man. He had some
mysterious rights to the Estate and Castle of the Remorseless Baron.
That titled usurper, therefore, did all in his power to hunt the Bandit
out in his fastnesses and bring him to a bloody end. Here the interest
centred itself in the Bandit's child, who, we need not say, was the
little girl in the wreath and spangles, styled in the playbill "Miss
Juliet Araminta Wife," and the incidents consisted in her various devices
to foil the pursuit of the Baron and save her father. Some of these
incidents were indebted to the Comic Muse, and kept the audience in a
broad laugh. Her arch playfulness here was exquisite. With what
vivacity she duped the High Sheriff, who had the commands of his king to
take the Bandit alive or dead, into the belief that the very Lawyer
employed by the Baron was the criminal in disguise, and what pearly teeth
she showed when the Lawyer was seized and gagged! how dexterously she
ascertained the weak point in the character of the "King's Lieutenant"
(jeune premier), who was deputed by his royal master to aid the
Remorseless Baron in trouncing the Bandit! how cunningly she learned that
he was in love with the Baron's ward (jeune amoureuse), whom that
unworthy noble intended to force into a marriage with himself on account
of her fortune! how prettily she passed notes to and fro, the Lieutenant
never suspecting that she was the Bandit's child, and at last got the
king's soldier on her side, as the event proved! And oh, how gayly, and
with what mimic art, she stole into the Baron's castle, disguised as a
witch, startled his conscience with revelations and predictions,
frightened all the vassals with blue lights and chemical illusions, and
venturing even into the usurper's own private chamber, while the tyrant
was tossing restless on the couch, over which hung his terrible sword,
abstracted from his coffer the deeds that proved the better rights of the
persecuted Bandit! Then, when he woke before she could escape with her
treasure, and pursued her with his sword, with what glee she apparently
set herself on fire, and skipped out of the casement in an explosion of
crackers! And when the drama approached its /denouement/, when the
Baron's men, and the royal officers of justice, had, despite all her
arts, tracked the Bandit to the cave, in which, after various retreats,
he lay hidden, wounded by shots, and bruised by a fall from a precipice,
--with what admirable byplay she hovered around the spot, with what
pathos she sought to decoy away the pursuers! it was the skylark playing
round the nest. And when all was vain,--when, no longer to be deceived,
the enemies sought to seize her, how mockingly she eluded them, bounded
up the rock, and shook her slight finger at them in scorn! Surely she
will save that estimable Bandit still! Now, hitherto, though the Bandit
was the nominal hero of the piece, though you were always hearing of
him,--his wrongs, virtues, hairbreadth escapes,--he had never been seen.
Not Mrs. Harris, in the immortal narrative, was more quoted and more
mythical. But in the last scene there was the Bandit, there in his
cavern, helpless with bruises and wounds, lying on a rock. In rushed the
enemies, Baron, High Sheriff, and all, to seize him. Not a word spoke
the Bandit, but his attitude was sublime,--even Vance cried "bravo;" and
just as he is seized, halter round his neck, and about to be hanged, down
from the chasm above leaps his child, holding the title-deeds, filched
from the Baron, and by her side the King's Lieutenant, who proclaims the
Bandit's pardon, with due restoration to his honours and estates, and
consigns to the astounded Sheriff the august person of the Remorseless
Baron. Then the affecting scene, father and child in each other's arms;
and then an exclamation, which had been long hovering about the lips of
many of the audience, broke out, "Waife, Waife!" Yes, the Bandit, who
appeared but in the last scene, and even then uttered not a word, was the
once great actor on that itinerant Thespian stage, known through many a
fair for his exuberant humour, his impromptu jokes, his arch eye, his
redundant life of drollery, and the strange pathos or dignity with which
he could suddenly exalt a jester's part, and call forth tears in the
startled hush of laughter; he whom the Cobbler had rightly said, "might
have made a fortune at Covent Garden." There was the remnant of the old
popular mime!--all his attributes of eloquence reduced to dumb show!
Masterly touch of nature and of art in this representation of him,--touch
which all who had ever in former years seen and heard him on that stage
felt simultaneously. He came in for his personal portion of dramatic
tears. "Waife, Waife!" cried many a village voice, as the little girl
led him to the front of the stage.

He hobbled; there was a bandage round his eyes. The plot, in describing
the accident that had befallen the Bandit, idealized the genuine
infirmities of the man,--infirmities that had befallen him since last
seen in that village. He was blind of one eye; he had become crippled;
some malady of the trachea or larynx had seemingly broken up the once
joyous key of the old pleasant voice. He did not trust himself to speak,
even on that stage, but silently bent his head to the rustic audience;
and Vance, who was an habitual playgoer, saw in that simple salutation
that the man was an artistic actor. All was over, the audience streamed
out, much affected, and talking one to the other. It had not been at all
like the ordinary stage exhibitions at a village fair. Vance and Lionel
exchanged looks of surprise, and then, by a common impulse, moved towards
the stage, pushed aside the curtain, which had fallen, and were in that
strange world which has so many reduplications, fragments of one broken
mirror, whether in the proudest theatre or the lowliest barn,--nay,
whether in the palace of kings, the cabinet of statesmen, the home of
domestic life,--the world we call "Behind the Scenes."

CHAPTER III.

Striking illustrations of lawless tyranny and infant avarice
exemplified in the social conditions of Great Britain.--
Superstitions of the dark ages still in force amongst the trading
community, furnishing valuable hints to certain American
journalists, and highly suggestive of reflections humiliating to the
national vanity.

The Remorseless Baron, who was no other than the managerial proprietor of
the stage, was leaning against a sidescene with a pot of porter in his
hand. The King's Lieutenant might be seen on the background, toasting a
piece of cheese on the point of his loyal sword. The Bandit had crept
into a corner, and the little girl was clinging to him fondly as his hand
was stroking her fair hair. Vance looked round, and approached the
Bandit,--"Sir, allow me to congratulate you; your bow was admirable. I
have never seen John Kemble; before my time: but I shall fancy I have
seen him now,--seen him on the night of his retirement from the stage.
As to your grandchild, Miss Juliet Araminta, she is a perfect
chrysolite."

Before Mr. Waife could reply, the Remorseless Baron stepped up in a
spirit worthy of his odious and arbitrary character. "What do you do
here, sir? I allow no conspirators behind the scenes earwigging my
people."

"I beg pardon respectfully: I am an artist,--a pupil of the Royal
Academy; I should like to make a sketch of Miss Juliet Araminta."

"Sketch! nonsense."

"Sir," said Lionel, with the seasonable extravagance of early youth, "my
friend would, I am sure, pay for the sitting--handsomely!"

"Ha!" said the manager, softened, "you speak like a gentleman, sir: but,
sir, Miss Juliet Araminta is under my protection; in fact, she is my
property. Call and speak to me about it to-morrow, before the first
performance begins, which is twelve o'clock. Happy to see any of your
friends in the reserved seats. Busy now, and--and--in short--excuse me
--servant, sir--servant, sir."

The Baron's manner left no room for further parley. Vance bowed, smiled,
and retreated. But meanwhile his young friend had seized the opportunity
to speak both to Waife and his grandchild; and when Vance took his arm
and drew him away, there was a puzzled, musing expression on Lionel's
face, and he remained silent till they had got through the press of such
stragglers as still loitered before the stage, and were in a quiet corner
of the sward. Stars and moon were then up,--a lovely summer night.

"What on earth are you thinking of, Lionel? I have put to you three
questions, and you have not answered one."

"Vance," answered Lionel, slowly, "the oddest thing! I am so
disappointed in that little girl,--greedy and mercenary!"

"Precocious villain! how do you know that she is greedy and mercenary?"

"Listen: when that surly old manager came up to you, I said something--
civil, of course--to Waife, who answered in a hoarse, broken voice, but
in very good language. Well, when I told the manager that you would pay
for the sitting, the child caught hold of my arm hastily, pulled me down
to her own height, and whispered, 'How much will he give?' Confused by a
question so point-blank, I answered at random, 'I don't know; ten
shillings, perhaps.' You should have seen her face!"

"See her face! radiant,--I should think so. Too much by half!"
exclaimed Vance. "Ten shillings! Spendthrift!" "Too much! she looked
as you might look if one offered you ten shillings for your picture of
'Julius Cmsar considering whether he should cross the Rubicon.' But when
the manager had declared her to be his property, and appointed you to
call to-morrow,--implying that he was to be paid for allowing her to
sit,--her countenance became overcast, and she muttered sullenly, 'I'll
not sit; I'll not!' Then she turned to her grandfather, and something
very quick and close was whispered between the two; and she pulled me by
the sleeve, and said in my ear--oh, but so eagerly!--'I want three
pounds, sir,--three pounds!--if he would give three pounds; and come to
our lodgings,--Mr. Merle, Willow Lane. Three pounds,--three!,' And with
those words hissing in my ear, and coming from that fairy mouth, which
ought to drop pearls and diamonds, I left her," added Lionel, as gravely
as if he were sixty, "and lost an illusion!"

"Three pounds!" cried Vance, raising his eyebrows to the highest arch of
astonishment, and lifting his nose in the air towards the majestic moon,
--"three pounds!--a fabulous sum! Who has three pounds to throw away?
Dukes, with a hundred thousand a year in acres, have not three pounds to
draw out of their pockets in that reckless, profligate manner. Three
pounds!--what could I not buy for three pounds? I could buy the Dramatic
Library, bound in calf, for three pounds; I could buy a dress coat for
three pounds (silk lining not included); I could be lodged for a month
for three pounds! And a jade in tinsel, just entering on her teens, to
ask three pounds for what? for becoming immortal on the canvas of Francis
Vance?--bother!"

Here Vance felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned round quickly, as a
man out of temper does under similar circumstances, and beheld the sweat
face of the Cobbler.

"Well, master, did not she act fine?--how d'ye like her?"

"Not much in her natural character; but she sets a mighty high value on
herself."

"Anan, I don't take you."

"She'll not catch me taking her! Three pounds!--three kingdoms! Stay,"
cried Lionel to the Cobbler; "did not you say she lodged with you? Are
you Mr. Merle?"

"Merle's my name, and she do lodge with me,--Willow Lane."

"Come this way, then, a few yards down the road,--more quiet. Tell me
what the child means, if you can;" and Lionel related the offer of his
friend, the reply of the manager, and the grasping avarice of Miss Juliet
Araminta.

The Cobbler made no answer; and when the young friends, surprised at his
silence, turned to look at him, they saw he was wiping his eyes with his
sleeves.

"Poor little thing!" he said at last, and still more pathetically than
he had uttered the same words at her appearance in front of the stage;
"'tis all for her grandfather; I guess,--I guess."

"Oh," cried Lionel, joyfully, "I am so glad to think that. It alters the
whole case, you see, Vance."

"It don't alter the case of the three pounds," grumbled Vance. "What's
her grandfather to me, that I should give his grandchild three pounds,
when any other child in the village would have leaped out of her skin to
have her face upon my sketch-book and five shillings in her pocket? Hang
her grandfather!"

They were now in the main road. The Cobbler seated himself on a lonely
milestone, and looked first at one of the faces before him, then at the
other; that of Lionel seemed to attract him the most, and in speaking it
was Lionel whom he addressed.

"Young master," he said, "it is now just four years ago, when Mr. Rugge,
coming here, as he and his troop had done at fair-time ever sin' I can
mind of, brought with him the man you have seen to-night, William Waife;
I calls him Gentleman Waife. However that man fell into sick straits,
how he came to join sich a carawan, would puzzle most heads. It puzzles
Joe Spruce, uncommon; it don't puzzle me."

"Why?" asked Vance.

"Cos of Saturn!"

"Satan?"

"Saturn,--dead agin his Second and Tenth House, I'll swear. Lord of
Ascendant, mayhap; in combustion of the Sun,--who knows?"

"You're not an astrologer?" said Vance, suspiciously, edging off.

"Bit of it; no offence."

"What does it signify?" said Lionel, impatiently; "go on. So you called
Mr. Waife 'Gentleman Waife;' and if you had not been an astrologer you
would have been puzzled to see him in such a calling."

"Ay, that's it; for he warn't like any as we ever see on these boards
hereabouts; and yet he warn't exactly like a Lunnon actor, as I have seen
'em in Lunnon, either, but more like a clever fellow who acted for the
spree of the thing. He had sich droll jests, and looked so comical, yet
not commonlike, but always what I calls a gentleman,--just as if one o'
ye two were doing a bit of sport to please your friends. Well, he drew
hugely, and so he did, every time he came, so that the great families in
the neighbourhood would go to hear him; and he lodged in my house, and
had pleasant ways with him, and was what I call a scollard. But still I
don't want to deceive ye, and I should judge him to have been a wild dog
in his day. Mercury ill-aspected,--not a doubt of it. Last year it so
happened that one of the great gents who belong to a Lunnon theatre was
here at fair-time. Whether he had heard of Waife chanceways, and come
express to judge for hisself, I can't say; like eno'. And when he had
seen Gentleman Waife act, he sent for him to the inn--Red Lion--and
offered him a power o' money to go to Lunnon,--Common Garden. Well, sir,
Waife did not take to it all at once, but hemmed and hawed, and was at
last quite coaxed into it, and so he went. But bad luck came on it; and
I knew there would, for I saw it all in my crystal."

"Oh," exclaimed Vance, "a crystal, too; really it is getting late, and if
you had your crystal about you, you might see that we want to sup."

"What happened?" asked Lionel, more blandly, for he saw the Cobbler, who
had meant to make a great effect by the introduction of the crystal, was
offended.

"What happened? why, just what I foreseed. There was an accident in the
railway 'tween this and Lunnon, and poor Waife lost an eye, and was a
cripple for life: so he could not go on the Lunnon stage at all; and what
was worse, he was a long time atwixt life and death, and got summat bad
on his chest wi' catching cold, and lost his voice, and became the sad
object you have gazed on, young happy things that ye are."

"But he got some compensation from the railway, I suppose?" said Vance,
with the unfeeling equanimity of a stoical demon.

"He did, and spent it. I suppose the gentleman broke out in him as soon
as he had money, and, ill though he was, the money went. Then it seems
he had no help for it but to try and get back to Mr. Rugge. But Mr.
Rugge was sore and spiteful at his leaving; for Rugge counted on him, and
had even thought of taking the huge theatre at York, and bringing out
Gentleman Waife as his trump card. But it warn't fated, and Rugge
thought himself ill-used, and so at first he would have nothing more to
say to Waife. And truth is, what could the poor man do for Rugge? But
then Waife produces little Sophy."

"You mean Juliet Araminta?" said Vance.

"Same--in private life she be Sophy. And Waife taught her to act, and
put together the plays for her. And Rugge caught at her; and she
supports Waife with what she gets; for Rugge only gives him four
shillings a week, and that goes on 'baccy and such like."

"Such like--drink, I presume?" said Vance.

"No--he don't drink. But he do smoke, and he has little genteel ways
with him, and four shillings goes on 'em. And they have been about the
country this spring, and done well, and now they be here. But Rugge
behaves shocking hard to both on 'em: and I don't believe he has any
right to her in law, as he pretends,--only a sort of understanding which
she and her grandfather could break if they pleased; and that's what they
wish to do, and that's why little Sophy wants the three pounds."

"How?" cried Lionel, eagerly. "If they had three pounds could they get
away? and if they did, how could they live? Where could they go?"

"That's their secret. But I heard Waife say--the first night they came
here--I that if he could get three pounds, he had hit on a plan to be
independent like. I tell you what put his back up: it was Rugge
insisting on his coming on the stage agin, for he did not like to be seen
such a wreck. But he was forced to give in; and so he contrived to cut
up that play-story, and appear hisself at the last without speaking."

"My good friend," cried young Lionel, "we are greatly obliged to you for
your story; and we should much like to see little Sophy and her
grandfather at your house to-morrow,--can we?"

"Certain sure you can, after the play's over; to-night, if you like."

"No, to-morrow: you see my friend is impatient to get back now; we will
call to-morrow."

"'T is the last day of their stay," said the Cobbler. "But you can't be
sure to see them safely at my house afore ten o'clock at night; and not a
word to Rugge! mum!"

"Not a word to Rugge," returned Lionel; "good-night to you."

The young men left the Cobbler still seated on the milestone, gazing on
the stars and ruminating. They walked briskly down the road.

"It is I who have had the talk now," said Lionel, in his softest tone.
He was bent on coaxing three pounds out of his richer friend, and that
might require some management. For amongst the wild youngsters in Mr.
Vance's profession, there ran many a joke at the skill with which he
parried irregular assaults on his purse; and that gentleman, with his
nose more than usually in the air, having once observed to such scoffers
"that they were quite welcome to any joke at his expense," a wag had
exclaimed, "At your expense! Don't fear; if a joke were worth a
farthing, you would never give that permission."

So when Lionel made that innocent remark, the softness of his tone warned
the artist of some snake in the grass, and he prudently remained silent.
Lionel, in a voice still sweeter, repeated,--"It is I who have all the
talk now!"

"Naturally," then returned Vance, "naturally you have, for it is you,
I suspect, who alone have the intention to pay for it, and three pounds
appear to be the price. Dearish, eh?"

"Ah, Vance, if I had three pounds!"

"Tush; and say no more till we have supped. I have the hunger of a
wolf."

Just in sight of the next milestone the young travellers turned a few
yards down a green lane, and reached a small inn on the banks of the
Thames. Here they had sojourned for the last few days, sketching,
boating, roaming about the country from sunrise, and returning to supper
and bed at nightfall. It was the pleasantest little inn,--an arbour,
covered with honeysuckle, between the porch and the river,--a couple of
pleasure-boats moored to the bank; and now all the waves rippling under
the moonlight.

"Supper and lights in the arbour," cried Vance to the waiting-maid, "hey,
presto, quick! while we turn in to wash our hands. And hark! a quart jug
of that capital whiskey-toddy."

CHAPTER IV.

Being a chapter that links the past to the future by the gradual
elucidation of antecedents.

O wayside inns and pedestrian rambles! O summer nights, under
honeysuckle arbours, on the banks of starry waves! O Youth, Youth!

Vance ladled out the toddy and lighted his cigar; then, leaning his head
on his hand and his elbow on the table, he looked with an artist's eye
along the glancing river.

"After all," said he, "I am glad I am a painter; and I hope I may live to
be a great one."

"No doubt, if you live, you will be a great one," cried Lionel, with
cordial sincerity. "And if I, who can only just paint well enough to
please myself, find that it gives a new charm to Nature--"

"Cut sentiment," quoth Vance, "and go on."

"What," continued Lionel, unchilled by the admonitory interruption, "must
you feel who can fix a fading sunshine--a fleeting face--on a scrap of
canvas, and say 'Sunshine and Beauty, live there forever!'"

VANCE.--"Forever! no! Colours perish, canvas rots. What remains to us
of Zeuxis? Still it is prettily said on behalf of the poetic side of the
profession; there is a prosaic one;--we'll blink it. Yes; I am glad to
be a painter. But you must not catch the fever of my calling. Your poor
mother would never forgive me if she thought I had made you a dauber by
my example."

LIONEL (gloomily).--"No. I shall not be a painter! But what can I be?
How shall I ever build on the earth one of the castles I have built in
the air? Fame looks so far,--Fortune so impossible. But one thing I am
bent upon" (speaking with knit brow and clenched teeth), "I will gain an
independence somehow, and support my mother."

VANCE.--"Your mother is supported: she has the pension--"

LIONEL.--"Of a captain's widow; and" (he added with a flushed cheek) "a
first floor that she lets to lodgers."

VANCE.--"No shame in that! Peers let houses; and on the Continent,
princes let not only first floors, but fifth and sixth floors, to say
nothing of attics and cellars. In beginning the world, friend Lionel, if
you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully,
put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand
occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating
sackcloth on the side next to the skin. Even kings don't wear the
dalmaticum except at a coronation. Independence you desire; good. But
are you dependent now? Your mother has given you an excellent education,
and you have already put it to profit. My dear boy," added Vance, with
unusual warmth, "I honour you; at your age, on leaving school, to have
shut yourself up, translated Greek and Latin per sheet for a bookseller,
at less than a valet's wages, and all for the purpose of buying comforts
for your mother; and having a few pounds in your own pockets, to rove
your little holiday with me and pay your share of the costs! Ah, there
are energy and spirit and life in all that, Lionel, which will found upon
rock some castle as fine as any you have built in air. Your hand, my
boy."

This burst was so unlike the practical dryness, or even the more unctuous
humour, of Frank Vance, that it took Lionel by surprise, and his voice
faltered as he pressed the hand held out to him. He answered, "I don't
deserve your praise, Vance, and I fear the pride you tell me to put under
lock and key has the larger share of the merit you ascribe to better
motives. Independent? No! I have never been so."

VANCE.--"Well, you depend on a parent: who, at seventeen does not?"

LIONEL.--"I did not mean my mother; of course, I could not be too proud
to take benefits from her. But the truth is simply this--, my father had
a relation, not very near, indeed,--a cousin, at about as distant a
remove, I fancy, as a cousin well can be. To this gentleman my mother
wrote when my poor father died; and he was generous, for it is he who
paid for my schooling. I did not know this till very lately. I had a
vague impression, indeed, that I had a powerful and wealthy kinsman who
took an interest in me, but whom I had never seen."

VANCE.--"Never seen?"

LIONEL.--"No. And here comes the sting. On leaving school last
Christmas, my mother, for the first time, told me the extent of my
obligations to this benefactor, and informed me that he wished to know my
own choice as to a profession,--that if I preferred Church or Bar, he
would maintain me at college."

VANCE.--"Body o' me! where's the sting in that? Help yourself to toddy,
my boy, and take more genial views of life."

LIONEL.--"You have not heard me out. I then asked to see my benefactor's
letters; and my mother, unconscious of the pain she was about to inflict,
showed me not only the last one, but all she had received from him. Oh,
Vance, they were terrible, those letters! The first began by a dry
acquiescence in the claims of kindred, a curt proposal to pay my
schooling; but not one word of kindness, and a stern proviso that the
writer was never to see nor hear from me. He wanted no gratitude; he
disbelieved in all professions of it. His favours would cease if I
molested him. 'Molested' was the word; it was bread thrown to a dog."

VANCE.--"Tut! Only a rich man's eccentricity. A bachelor, I presume?"

LIONEL.--"My mother says he has been married, and is a widower."

VANCE.--"Any children?"

LIONEL.--"My mother says none living; but I know little or nothing about
his family."

Vance looked with keen scrutiny into the face of his boyfriend, and,
after a pause, said, drily,--"Plain as a pikestaff. Your relation is one
of those men who, having no children, suspect and dread the attention of
an heir presumptive; and what has made this sting, as you call it, keener
to you is--pardon me--is in some silly words of your mother, who, in
showing you the letters, has hinted to you that that heir you might be,
if you were sufficiently pliant and subservient. Am I not right?"

Lionel hung his head, without reply.

VANCE (cheeringly).--"So, so; no great harm as yet. Enough of the first
letter. What was the last?"

LIONEL.--"Still more offensive. He, this kinsman, this patron, desired
my mother to spare him those references to her son's ability and promise,
which, though natural to herself, had slight interest to him,--him, the
condescending benefactor! As to his opinion, what could I care for the
opinion of one I had never seen? All that could sensibly affect my--oh,
but I cannot go on with those cutting phrases, which imply but this, 'All
I can care for is the money of a man who insults me while he gives it.'"

VANCE (emphatically).--"Without being a wizard, I should say your
relative was rather a disagreeable person,--not what is called urbane and
amiable,--in fact, a brute."

LIONEL.--"You will not blame me, then, when I tell you that I resolved
not to accept the offer to maintain me at college, with which the letter
closed. Luckily Dr. Wallis (the head master of my school), who had
always been very kind to me, had just undertaken to supervise a popular
translation of the classics. He recommended me, at my request, to the
publisher engaged in the undertaking, as not incapable of translating
some of the less difficult Latin authors,--subject to his corrections.
When I had finished the first instalment of the work thus intrusted to
me, my mother grew alarmed for my health, and insisted on my taking some
recreation. You were about to set out on a pedestrian tour. I had, as
you say, some pounds in my pocket; and thus I have passed with you the
merriest days of my life."

VANCE.--"What said your civil cousin when your refusal to go to college
was conveyed to him?"

LIONEL.--"He did not answer my mother's communication to that effect till
just before I left home, and then,--no, it was not his last letter from
which I repeated that withering extract,--no, the last was more galling
still, for in it he said that if, in spite of the ability and promise
that had been so vaunted, the dulness of a college and the labour of
learned professions were so distasteful to me, he had no desire to
dictate to my choice, but that as he did not wish one who was, however
remotely, of his blood, and bore the name of Haughton, to turn shoeblack
or pickpocket--Vance--Vance!"

VANCE.--"Lock up your pride--the sackcloth frets you--and go on; and that
therefore he--"

LIONEL.--"Would buy me a commission in the army, or get me an appointment
in India."

VANCE.--"Which did you take?"

LIONEL (passionately). "Which! so offered,--which?--of course neither!
But distrusting the tone of my mother's reply, I sat down, the evening
before I left home, and wrote myself to this cruel man. I did not show
any letter to my mother,--did not tell her of it. I wrote shortly,--that
if he would not accept my gratitude, I would not accept his benefits;
that shoeblack I might be,--pickpocket, no! that he need not fear I
should disgrace his blood or my name; and that I would not rest till,
sooner or later, I had paid him back all that I had cost him, and felt
relieved from the burdens of an obligation which--which--" The boy
paused, covered his face with his hands, and sobbed.

Vance, though much moved, pretended to scold his friend, but finding that
ineffectual, fairly rose, wound his arm brother-like round him, and drew
him from the arbour to the shelving margin of the river. "Comfort," then
said the Artist, almost solemnly, as here, from the inner depths of his
character, the true genius of the man came forth and spoke,--"comfort,
and look round; see where the islet interrupts the tide, and how
smilingly the stream flows on. See, just where we stand, how the slight
pebbles are fretting the wave would the wave if not fretted make that
pleasant music? A few miles farther on, and the river is spanned by a
bridge, which busy feet now are crossing: by the side of that bridge now
is rising a palace; all the men who rule England have room in that
palace. At the rear of the palace soars up the old Abbey where kings
have their tombs in right of the names they inherit; men, lowly as we,
have found tombs there, in right of the names which they made. Think,
now, that you stand on that bridge with a boy's lofty hope, with a man's
steadfast courage; then turn again to that stream, calm with starlight,
flowing on towards the bridge,--spite of islet and pebbles."

Lionel made no audible answer, though his lips murmured, but he pressed
closer and closer to his friend's side; and the tears were already dried
on his cheek, though their dew still glistened in his eyes.

CHAPTER V.

Speculations on the moral qualities of the Bandit.--Mr. Vance, with
mingled emotions, foresees that the acquisition of the Bandit's
acquaintance may be attended with pecuniary loss.

Vance loosened the boat from its moorings, stepped in, and took up the
oars. Lionel followed, and sat by the stern. The Artist rowed on
slowly, whistling melodiously in time to the dash of the oars. They soon
came to the bank of garden-ground surrounding with turf on which fairies
might have danced one of those villas never seen out of England. From
the windows of the villa the lights gleamed steadily; over the banks,
dipping into the water, hung large willows breathlessly; the boat gently
brushed aside their pendent boughs, and Vance rested in a grassy cove.

"And faith," said the Artist, gayly,--"faith," said he, lighting his
third cigar, "it is time we should bestow a few words more on the
Remorseless Baron and the Bandit's Child! What a cock-and-a-bull story
the Cobbler told us! He must have thought us precious green."

LIONEL (roused).--"Nay, I see nothing so wonderful in the story, though
much that is sad. You must allow that Waife may have been a good actor:
you became quite excited merely at his attitude and bow. Natural,
therefore, that he should have been invited to try his chance on the
London stage; not improbable that he may have met with an accident by the
train, and so lost his chance forever; natural, then, that he should
press into service his poor little grandchild, natural, also, that,
hardly treated and his pride hurt, he should wish to escape."

VANCE.--"And more natural than all that he should want to extract from
our pockets three pounds, the Bandit! No, Lionel, I tell you what is not
probable, that he should have disposed of that clever child to a vagabond
like Rugge: she plays admirably. The manager who was to have engaged him
would have engaged her if he had seen her. I am puzzled."

LIONEL.--"True, she is an extraordinary child. I cannot say how she has
interested me." He took out his purse, and began counting its contents.
"I have nearly three pounds left," he cried joyously. "L2. 18s. if I
give up the thought of a longer excursion with you, and go quietly
home--"

VANCE.--"And not pay your share of the bill yonder?"

LIONEL.--"Ah, I forgot that! But come, I am not too proud to borrow
from you: it is not for a selfish purpose."

VANCE.--"Borrow from me, Cato! That comes of falling in with bandits
and their children. No; but let us look at the thing like men of sense.
One story is good till another is told. I will call by myself on Rugge
to-morrow, and hear what he says; and then, if we judge favourably of the
Cobbler's version, we will go at night and talk with the Cobbler's
lodgers; and I dare say," added Vance, kindly, but with a sigh,--"I
daresay the three pounds will be coaxed out of me! After all, her head
is worth it. I want an idea for Titania."

LIONEL (joyously).--"My dear Vance, you are the best fellow in the
world."

VANCE.--"Small compliment to humankind! Take the oars: it is your turn
now."

Lionel obeyed; the boat once more danced along the tide--thoro' reeds,--
--thoro' waves, skirting the grassy islet--out into pale moonlight. They
talked but by fits and starts. What of?--a thousand things! Bright
young hearts, eloquent young tongues! No sins in the past; hopes
gleaming through the future. O summer nights, on the glass of starry
waves! O Youth, Youth!

CHAPTER VI.

Wherein the historian tracks the public characters that fret their
hour on the stage, into the bosom of private life.--The reader is
invited to arrive at a conclusion which may often, in periods of
perplexity, restore ease to his mind; namely, that if man will
reflect on all the hopes he has nourished, all the fears he has
admitted, all the projects he has formed, the wisest thing he can
do, nine times out of ten, with hope, fear, and project, is to let
them end with the chapter--in smoke.

It was past nine o'clock in the evening of the following day. The
exhibition at Mr. Rugge's theatre had closed for the season in that
village, for it was the conclusion of the fair. The final performance
had been begun and ended somewhat earlier than on former nights. The
theatre was to be cleared from the ground by daybreak, and the whole
company to proceed onward betimes in the morning. Another fair awaited
them in an adjoining county, and they had a long journey before them.

Gentleman Waife and his Juliet Araminta had gone to their lodgings over
the Cobbler's stall. Their rooms were homely enough, but had an air not
only of the comfortable, but the picturesque. The little sitting-room
was very old-fashioned,--panelled in wood that had once been painted
blue, with a quaint chimney-piece that reached to the ceiling. That part
of the house spoke of the time of Charles I., it might have been tenanted
by a religious Roundhead; and, framed-in over the low door, there was a
grim, faded portrait of a pinched-faced saturnine man, with long lank
hair, starched band, and a length of upper lip that betokened relentless
obstinacy of character, and might have curled in sullen glee at the
monarch's scaffold, or preached an interminable sermon to the stout
Protector. On a table, under the deep-sunk window, were neatly arrayed
a few sober-looking old books; you would find amongst them Colley's
"Astrology," Owen Feltham's "Resolves," Glanville "On Witches," the
"Pilgrim's Progress," an early edition of "Paradise Lost," and an old
Bible; also two flower-pots of clay brightly reddened, and containing
stocks; also two small worsted rugs, on one of which rested a carved
cocoa-nut, on the other an egg-shaped ball of crystal,--that last the
pride and joy of the cobbler's visionary soul. A door left wide open
communicated with an inner room (very low was its ceiling), in which the
Bandit slept, if the severity of his persecutors permitted him to sleep.
In the corner of the sitting-room, near that door, was a small horsehair
sofa, which, by the aid of sheets and a needlework coverlid, did duty for
a bed, and was consigned to the Bandit's child. Here the tenderness of
the Cobbler's heart was visible, for over the coverlid were strewed
sprigs of lavender and leaves of vervain; the last, be it said, to induce
happy dreams, and scare away witchcraft and evil spirits. On another
table, near the fireplace, the child was busied in setting out the tea-
things for her grandfather. She had left in the property-room of the
theatre her robe of spangles and tinsel, and appeared now in a simple
frock. She had no longer the look of Titania, but that of a lively,
active, affectionate human child; nothing theatrical about her now, yet
still, in her graceful movements, so nimble but so noiseless, in her
slight fair hands, in her transparent colouring, there was Nature's own
lady,--that SOMETHING which strikes us all as well-born and high-bred:
not that it necessarily is so; the semblances of aristocracy, in female
childhood more especially, are often delusive. The /souvenance/ flower,
wrought into the collars of princes, springs up wild on field and fell.

Gentleman Waife, wrapped negligently in a gray dressing-gown and seated
in an old leathern easy-chair, was evidently out of sorts. He did not
seem to heed the little preparations for his comfort, but, resting his
cheek on his right hand, his left drooped on his crossed knees,--an
attitude rarely seen in a man when his heart is light and his spirits
high. His lips moved: he was talking to himself. Though he had laid
aside his theatrical bandage over both eyes, he wore a black patch over
one, or rather where one had been; the eye exposed was of singular
beauty, dark and brilliant. For the rest, the man had a striking
countenance, rugged, and rather ugly than otherwise, but by no means
unprepossessing; full of lines and wrinkles and strong muscle, with large
lips of wondrous pliancy, and an aspect of wistful sagacity, that, no
doubt, on occasion could become exquisitely comic,--dry comedy,--the
comedy that makes others roar when the comedian himself is as grave as a
judge.

You might see in his countenance, when quite in its natural repose, that
Sorrow had passed by there; yet the instant the countenance broke into
play, you would think that Sorrow must have been sent about her business
as soon as the respect due to that visitor, so accustomed to have her own
way, would permit. Though the man was old, you could not call him
aged. One-eyed and crippled, still, marking the muscular arm, the
expansive chest, you would have scarcely called him broken or infirm.
And hence there was a certain indescribable pathos in his whole
appearance, as if Fate had branded, on face and form, characters in which
might be read her agencies on career and mind,--plucked an eye from
intelligence, shortened one limb for life's progress, yet left whim
sparkling out in the eye she had spared, and a light heart's wild spring
in the limb she had maimed not.

"Come, Grandy, come," said the little girl, coaxingly; "your tea will get
quite cold; your toast is ready, and here is such a nice egg; Mr. Merle
says you may be sure it is new laid. Come, don't let that hateful man
fret you: smile on your own Sophy; come."

"If," said Mr. Waife, in a hollow undertone, if I were alone in the
world--"

"Oh, Grandy!"

"'I know a spot on which a bed-post grows,
And do remember where a roper lives.'

Delightful prospect, not to be indulged; for if I were in peace at one
end of the rope, what would chance to my Sophy, left forlorn at the
other?"

"Don't talk so, or I shall think you are sorry to have taken care of me."

"Care of thee, oh, child! and what care? It is thou who takest care of
me. Put thy hands from thy mouth; sit down, darling, there, opposite,
and let us talk. Now, Sophy, thou hast often said that thou wouldst be
glad to be out of this mode of life, even for one humbler and harder:
think well, is it so?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, grandfather."

"No more tinsel dresses and flowery wreaths; no more applause; no more of
the dear divine stage excitement; the heroine and fairy vanished; only a
little commonplace child in dingy gingham, with a purblind cripple for
thy sole charge and playmate; Juliet Araminta evaporated evermore into
little Sophy!"

"It would be so nice!" answered little Sophy, laughing merrily.

"What would make it nice?" asked the Comedian, turning on her his
solitary piercing eye, with curious interest in his gaze.

Sophy left her seat, and placed herself on a stool at her grandfather's
knee; on that knee she clasped her tiny hands, and shaking aside her
curls, looked into his face with confident fondness. Evidently these two
were much more than grandfather and grandchild: they were friends, they
were equals, they were in the habit of consulting and prattling with each
other. She got at his meaning, however covert his humour; and he to the
core of her heart, through its careless babble. Between you and me,
Reader, I suspect that, in spite of the Comedian's sagacious wrinkles,
the one was as much a child as the other.

"Well," said Sophy, "I will tell you, Grandy, what would make it nice: no
one would vex and affront you,--we should be all by ourselves; and then,
instead of those nasty lamps and those dreadful painted creatures, we
could go out and play in the fields and gather daisies; and I could run
after butterflies, and when I am tired I should come here, where I am
now, any time of the day, and you would tell me stories and pretty
verses, and teach me to write a little better than I do now, and make
such a wise little woman of me; and if I wore gingham--but it need not be
dingy, Grandy--it would be all mine, and you would be all mine too, and
we'd keep a bird, and you'd teach it to sing; and oh, would it not be
nice!"

"But still, Sophy, we should have to live, and we could not live upon
daisies and butterflies. And I can't work now; for the matter of that,
I never could work: more shame for me, but so it is. Merle says the
fault is in the stars,--with all my heart. But the stars will not go to
the jail or the workhouse instead of me. And though they want nothing to
eat, we do."

"But, Grandy, you have said every day since the first walk you took after
coming here, that if you had three pounds, we could get away and live by
ourselves and make a fortune!"

"A fortune!--that's a strong word: let it stand. A fortune! But still,
Sophy, though we should be free of this thrice-execrable Rugge, the
scheme I have in my head lies remote from daisies and butterflies. We
should have to dwell in towns and exhibit!"

"On a stage, Grandy?" said Sophy, resigned, but sorrowful.

"No, not exactly: a room would do."

"And I should not wear those horrid, horrid dresses, nor mix with those
horrid, horrid painted people."

"No."

"And we should be quite alone, you and I?"

"Hum! there would be a third."

"Oh, Grandy, Grandy!" cried Sophy, in a scream of shrill alarm. "I
know, I know; you are thinking of joining us with the Pig-faced Lady!"

MR. WAIFE (not a muscle relaxed).--"A well-spoken and pleasing
gentlewoman. But no such luck: three pounds would not buy her."

SOPHIE.--"I am glad of that: I don't care so much for the Mermaid; she's
dead and stuffed. But, oh!" (another scream) "perhaps 't is the Spotted
Boy?"

MR. WAIFE.--"Calm your sanguine imagination; you aspire too high! But
this I will tell you, that our companion, whatsoever or whosoever that
companion may be, will be one you will like."

"I don't believe it," said Sophy, shaking her head. "I only like you.
But who is it?"

"Alas!" said Mr. Waife, "it is no use pampering ourselves with vain
hopes: the three pounds are not forthcoming. You heard what that brute
Rugge said, that the gentleman who wanted to take your portrait had
called on him this morning, and offered 10s. for a sitting,--that is, 5s.
for you, 5s. for Rugge; and Rugge thought the terms reasonable."

"But I said I would not sit."

"And when you did say it, you heard Rugge's language to me--to you.
And now you must think of packing up, and be off at dawn with the rest.
And," added the comedian, colouring high, "I must again parade, to boors
and clowns, this mangled form; again set myself out as a spectacle of
bodily infirmity,--man's last degradation. And this I have come to--I!"

"No, no, Grandy, it will not last long! we will get the three pounds.
We have always hoped on!--hope still! And, besides, I am sure those
gentlemen will come here tonight. Mr. Merle said they would, at ten
o'clock. It is near ten now, and your tea cold as a stone."

She hung on his neck caressingly, kissing his furrowed brow, and leaving
a tear there, and thus coaxed him till he set-to quietly at his meal; and
Sophy shared it--though she had no appetite in sorrowing for him--but to
keep him company; that done, she lighted his pipe with the best canaster,
--his sole luxury and expense; but she always contrived that he should
afford it.

Mr. Waife drew a long whiff, and took a more serene view of affairs. He
who doth not smoke hath either known no great griefs, or refuseth himself
the softest consolation, next to that which comes from Heaven. "What,
softer than woman?" whispers the young reader. Young reader, woman
teases as well as consoles. Woman makes half the sorrows which she
boasts the privilege to soothe. Woman consoles us, it is true, while we
are young and handsome! when we are old and ugly, woman snubs and scolds
us. On the whole, then, woman in this scale, the weed in that, Jupiter,
hang out thy balance, and weigh them both; and if thou give the
preference to woman, all I can say is, the next time Juno ruffles thee,
--O Jupiter, try the weed.

CHAPTER VII.

The historian, in pursuance of his stern duties, reveals to the
scorn of future ages some of the occult practices which discredit
the march of light in the nineteenth century.

"May I come in?" asked the Cobbler, outside the door. "Certainly come
in," said Gentleman Waife. Sophy looked wistfully at the aperture, and
sighed to see that Merle was alone. She crept up to him.

"Will they not come?" she whispered. "I hope so, pretty one; it be n't
ten yet."

"Take a pipe, Merle," said Gentleman Waife, with a Grand Comedian air.

"No, thank you kindly; I just looked in to ask if I could do anything for
ye, in case--in case ye must go tomorrow."

"Nothing: our luggage is small, and soon packed. Sophy has the money to
discharge the meaner part of our debt to you."

"I don't value that," said the Cobbler, colouring.

"But we value your esteem," said Mr. Waife, with a smile that would have
become a field-marshal. "And so, Merle, you think, if I am a broken-down
vagrant, it must be put to the long account of the celestial bodies!"

"Not a doubt of it," returned the Cobbler, solemnly. "I wish you would
give me date and place of Sophy's birth that's what I want; I'd take her
horryscope. I'm sure she'd be lucky."

"I'd rather not, please," said Sophy, timidly.

"Rather not?--very odd. Why?"

"I don't want to know the future."

"That is odder and odder," quoth the Cobbler, staring; "I never heard a
girl say that afore."

"Wait till she's older, Mr. Merle," said Waife: "girls don't want to know
the future till they want to be married."

"Summat in that," said the Cobbler. He took up the crystal. "Have you
looked into this ball, pretty one, as I bade ye?"

"Yes, two or three times."

"Ha! and what did you see?"

"My own face made very long," said Sophy,--"as long as that--,"
stretching out her hands.

The Cobbler shook his head dolefully, and screwing up one eye, applied
the other to the mystic ball.

MR. WAIFE.--"Perhaps you will see if those two gentlemen are coming."

SOPHY.--"Do, do! and if they will give us three pounds!"

COBBLER (triumphantly).--"Then you do care to know the future, after
all?"

SOPHY.--"Yes, so far as that goes; but don't look any further, pray."

COBBLER (intent upon the ball, and speaking slowly, and in jerks).--"A
mist now. Ha! an arm with a besom--sweeps all before it."

SOPHY (frightened).--"Send it away, please."

COBBLER--"It is gone. Ha! there's Rugge,--looks very angry,--savage,
indeed."

WAIFE.--"Good sign that! proceed."

COBBLER.--"Shakes his fist; gone. Ha! a young man, boyish, dark hair."

SOPHY (clapping her hands).--"That is the young gentleman--the very young
one, I mean--with the kind eyes; is he coming?--is he, is he?"

WAIFE--"Examine his pockets! do you see there three pounds?"

COBBLER (testily).--"Don't be a-interrupting. Ha! he is talking with
another gentleman, bearded."

SOPHY (whispering to her grandfather).--"The old young gentleman."

COBBLER (putting down the crystal, and with great decision).--"They are
coming here; I see 'd them at the corner of the lane, by the public-
house, two minutes' walk to this door." He took out a great silver
watch: "Look, Sophy, when the minute-hand gets there (or before, if they
walk briskly), you will hear them knock."

Sophy clasped her hands in mute suspense, half-credulous, half-doubting;
then she went and opened the room-door, and stood on the landing-place to
listen. Merle approached the Comedian, and said in a low voice, "I wish
for your sake she had the gift."

WAIFE.--"The gift!--the three pounds!--so do I!"

COBBLER.--"Pooh! worth a hundred times three pounds; the gift,--the
spirituous gift."

WAIFE.--"Spirituous! don't like the epithet,--smells of gin!"

COBBLER.--"Spirituous gift to see in the crystal: if she had that, she
might make your fortune."

WAIFE (with a 'sudden change of countenance).--"Ah! I never thought of
that. But if she has not the gift, I could teach it her,--eh?"

COBBLER (indignantly).--"I did not think to hear this from you, Mr.
Waife. Teach her,--you! make her an impostor, and of the wickedest kind,
inventing lies between earth and them as dwell in the seven spheres!
Fie! No, if she hasn't the gift natural, let her alone: what here is not
heaven-sent is devil-taught."

WAIFE (awed, but dubious).--"Then you really think you saw all that you
described, in that glass egg?"

COBBLER.--"Think!--am I a liar? I spoke truth, and the proof is--
there--!" Rat-tat went the knocker at the door.

"The two minutes are just up," said the Cobbler; and Cornelius Agrippa
could not have said it with more wizardly effect.

"They are come, indeed," said Sophy, re-entering the room softly: "I hear
their voices at the threshold."

The Cobbler passed by in silence, descended the stairs, and conducted
Vance and Lionel into the Comedian's chamber; there he left them, his
brow overcast. Gentleman Waife had displeased him sorely.

CHAPTER VIII.

Showing the arts by which a man, however high in the air Nature may
have formed his nose, may be led by that nose, and in directions
perversely opposite to those which, in following his nose, he might
be supposed to take; and, therefore, that nations the most liberally
endowed with practical good sense, and in conceit thereof, carrying
their noses the most horizontally aloof, when they come into
conference with nations more skilled in diplomacy and more practised
in "stage-play," end by the surrender of the precise object which it
was intended they should surrender before they laid their noses
together.

We all know that Demosthenes said, Everything in oratory was acting,--
stage-play. Is it in oratory alone that the saying holds good? Apply it
to all circumstances of fife, "stage-play, stage-play, stage-play!"--only
/ars est celare artem/, conceal the art. Gleesome in soul to behold his
visitors, calculating already on the three pounds to be extracted from
them, seeing in that hope the crisis in his own checkered existence, Mr.
Waife rose from his seat in superb /upocrisia/ or stage-play, and asked,
with mild dignity,--"To what am I indebted, gentlemen, for the honour of
your visit?"

In spite of his, nose, even Vance was taken aback. Pope says that Lord
Bolingbroke had "the nobleman air." A great comedian Lord Bolingbroke
surely was. But, ah, had Pope seen Gentleman Waife! Taking advantage of
the impression he had created, the actor added, with the finest
imaginable breeding,--"But pray be seated;" and, once seeing them seated,
resumed his easy-chair, and felt himself master of the situation.

"Hum!" said Vance, recovering his self-possession, after a pause--"hum!"

"Hem!" re-echoed Gentleman Waife; and the two men eyed each other much in
the same way as Admiral Napier might have eyed the fort of Cronstadt, and
the fort of Cronstadt have eyed Admiral Napier.

Lionel struck in with that youthful boldness which plays the deuce with
all dignified strategical science.

"You must be aware why we come, sir; Mr. Merle will have explained. My
friend, a distinguished artist, wished to make a sketch, if you do not
object, of this young lady's very"--

"Pretty little face," quoth Vance, taking up the dis course. "Mr. Rugge,
this morning, was willing,--I understand that your grandchild refused.
We are come here to see if she will be more complaisant under your own
roof, or Under Mr. Merle's, which, I take it, is the same thing for the
present."--Sophy had sidled up to Lionel. He might not have been
flattered if be knew why she preferred him to Vance. She looked on him
as a boy, a fellow-child; and an instinct, moreover, told her, that more
easily through him than his shrewd-looking bearded guest could she attain
the object of her cupidity,--"three pounds!"

"Three pounds!" whispered Sophy, with the tones of an angel, into
Lionel's thrilling ear.

MR. WAIFE.--"Sir, I will be frank with you." At that ominous
commencement, Mr. Vance recoiled, and mechanically buttoned his trousers
pocket. Mr. Waife noted the gesture with his one eye, and proceeded
cautiously, feeling his way, as it were, towards the interior of the
recess thus protected. "My grandchild declined your flattering proposal
with my full approbation. She did not consider--neither did I--that the
managerial rights of Mr. Rugge entitled him to the moiety of her face--
off the stage." The Comedian paused, and with a voice, the mimic
drollery of which no hoarseness could altogether mar, chanted the old
line,--

"'My face is my fortune, sir,' she said."

Vance smiled; Lionel laughed; Sophy nestled still nearer to the boy.

GENTLEMAN WAIFE (with pathos and dignity).--"You see before you an old
man: one way of life is the same to me as another. But she,--do you
think Mr. Rugge's stage the right place for her?"

VANCE.--"Certainly not. Why did you not introduce her to the London
Manager who would have engaged yourself?"

Waife could not conceal a slight change of countenance. "How do I know
she would have succeeded? She had never then trod the boards. Besides,
what strikes you as so good in a village show may be poor enough in a
metropolitan theatre. Gentlemen, I do my best for her; you cannot think
otherwise, since she maintains me! I am no OEdipus, yet she is my
Antigone."

VANCE.--"You know the classics, sir. Mr. Merle said you were a scholar!
--read Sophocles in his native Greek, I presume, sir?"

MR. WAIFE.--"You jeer at the unfortunate: I am used to it."

VANCE (confused).--"I did not mean to wound you: I beg pardon. But your
language and manner are not what--what one might expect to find in a--in
a--Bandit persecuted by a remorseless Baron."

MR. WAIFE.--"Sir, you say you are an artist. Have you heard no tales of
your professional brethren,--men of genius the highest, who won fame,
which I never did, and failed of fortunes, as I have done? Their own
fault, perhaps,--improvidence, wild habits, ignorance of the way how to
treat life and deal with their fellow-men; such fault may have been mine
too. I suffer for it: no matter; I ask none to save me. You are a
painter: you would place her features on your canvas; you would have her
rank amongst your own creations. She may become a part of your
immortality. Princes may gaze on the effigies of the innocent happy
childhood, to which your colours lend imperishable glow. They may ask
who and what was this fair creature? Will you answer, 'One whom I found
in tinsel, and so left, sure that she would die in rags!'--Save her!"

Lionel drew forth his purse, and poured its contents on the table. Vance
covered them with his broad hand, and swept them into his own pocket! At
that sinister action Waife felt his heart sink into his shoes; but his
face was as calm as a Roman's, only he resumed his pipe with a prolonged
and testy whiff.

"It is I who am to take the portrait, and it is I who will pay for it,"
said Vance. "I understand that you have a pressing occasion for"--

"Three pounds!" muttered Sophy, sturdily, through the tears which her
grandfather's pathos had drawn forth from her downcast eyes, "Three
pounds--three--three."

"You shall have them. But listen: I meant only to take a sketch; I must
now have a finished portrait. I cannot take this by candlelight. You
must let me come here to-morrow; and yet to-morrow, I understand, you
meant to leave?"

WAIFE.--"If you will generously bestow on us the sum you say, we shall
not leave the village till you have completed your picture. It is Mr.
Rugge and his company we will leave."

VANCE.--"And may I venture to ask what you propose to do, towards a new
livelihood for yourself and your grandchild, by the help of a sum which
is certainly much for me to pay,--enormous, I might say, /quoad/ me,--but
small for a capital whereon to set up a business?"

WAIFE.--"Excuse me if I do not answer that very natural question at
present. Let me assure you that that precise sum is wanted for an
investment which promises her and myself an easy existence. But to
insure my scheme, I must keep it secret. Do you believe me?"

"I do!" cried Lionel; and Sophy, whom by this time he had drawn upon his
lap, put her arm gratefully round his neck.

"There is your money, sir, beforehand," said Vance, declining downward
his betrayed and resentful nose, and depositing three sovereigns on the
table.

"And how do you know," said Waife, smiling, "that I may not be off
to-night with your money and your model!"

"Well," said Vance, curtly, "I think it is on the cards. Still, as John
Kemble said when rebuked for too large an alms,

"'It is not often that I do these things,
But when I do, I do them handsomely.'"

"Well applied, and well delivered, sir," said the Comedian, "only you
should put a little more emphasis on the word do."

"Did I not put enough? I am sure I felt it strongly; no one can feel the
do more!"

Waife's pliant face relaxed into a genial brightness. The /equivoque/
charmed him. However, not affecting to comprehend it, he thrust back the
money, and said,--"No, sir, not a shilling till the picture is completed.
Nay, to relieve your mind, I will own that, had I no scruple more
delicate, I would rather receive nothing till Mr. Rugge is gone. True,
he has no right to any share in it. But you see before you a man who,
when it comes to arguing, could never take a wrangler's degree,--never
get over the Asses' Bridge, sir. Plucked at it scores of times clean as
a feather. But do not go yet. You came to give us money: give us what,
were I rich, I should value more highly,--a little of your time. You,
sir, are an artist; and you, young gentleman?" addressing Lionel.

LIONEL (colouring).--"I--am nothing as yet."

WAIFE.--"You are fond of the drama, I presume, both of you? Apropos of
John Kemble, you, sir, said that you have never heard him. Allow me, so
far as this cracked voice can do it, to give you a faint idea of him."

"I shall be delighted," said Vance, drawing nearer to the table, and
feeling more at his ease. "But since I see you smoke, may I take the
liberty to light my cigar?"

"Make yourself at home," said Gentleman Waife, with the good-humour of a
fatherly host. And, all the while, Lionel and Sophy were babbling
together, she still upon his lap.

Waife began his imitation of John Kemble. Despite the cracked voice, it
was admirable. One imitation drew on another; then succeeded anecdotes
of the Stage, of the Senate, of the Bar. Waife had heard great orators,
whom every one still admires for the speeches which nobody nowadays ever
reads; he gave a lively idea of each. And then came sayings of dry
humour and odd scraps of worldly observation; and time flew on pleasantly
till the clock struck twelve, and the young guests tore themselves away.

"Merle, Merle!" cried the Comedian, when they were gone.

Merle appeared.

"We don't go to-morrow. When Rugge sends for us (as he will do at
daybreak), say so. You shall lodge us a few days longer, and then--and
then--my little Sophy, kiss me, kiss me! You are saved at least from
those horrid painted creatures!"

"Ah, ah!" growled Merle from below, "he has got the money! Glad to hear
it. But," he added, as he glanced at sundry weird and astrological
symbols with which he had been diverting himself, "that's not it. The
true horary question, is, WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?"

CHAPTER IX.

The historian shows that, notwithstanding the progressive spirit of
the times, a Briton is not permitted, without an effort, "to
progress" according to his own inclinations.

Sophy could not sleep. At first she was too happy. Without being
conscious of any degradation in her lot amongst the itinerant artists of
Mr. Rugge's exhibition,--how could she, when her beloved and revered
protector had been one of those artists for years?--yet instinctively she
shrank from their contact. Doubtless, while absorbed in some stirring
part, she forgot companions, audience, all, and enjoyed what she
performed,--necessarily enjoyed, for her acting was really excellent,
and where no enjoyment there no excellence; but when the histrionic
enthusiasm was not positively at work, she crept to her grandfather with
something between loathing and terror of the "painted creatures" and her
own borrowed tinsel.

But, more than all, she felt acutely every indignity or affront offered
to Gentleman Waife. Heaven knows, these were not few; and to escape from
such a life--to be with her grandfather alone, have him all to herself to
tend and to pet, to listen to and to prattle with--seemed to her the
consummation of human felicity. Ah, but should she be all alone? Just
as she was lulling herself into a doze, that question seized and roused
her. And then it was not happiness that kept her waking: it was what is
less rare in the female breast, curiosity. Who was to be the mysterious
third, to whose acquisition the three pounds were evidently to be
devoted? What new face had she purchased by the loan of her own? Not
the Pig-faced Lady nor the Spotted Boy. Could it be the Norfolk Giant or
the Calf with two Heads? Horrible idea! Monstrous phantasmagoria began
to stalk before her eyes; and to charm them away, with great fervour she
fell to saying her prayers,--an act of devotion which she had forgotten,
in her excitement, to perform before resting her head on the pillow,--an
omission, let us humbly hope, not noted down in very dark characters by
the recording angel.

That act over, her thoughts took a more comely aspect than had been worn
by the preceding phantasies, reflected Lionel's kind looks and repeated
his gentle words. "Heaven bless him!" she said with emphasis, as a
supplement to the habitual prayers; and then tears gathered to her
grateful eyelids, for she was one of those beings whose tears come slow
from sorrow, quick from affection. And so the gray dawn found her still-
wakeful, and she rose, bathed her cheeks in the cold fresh water, and
drew them forth with a glow like Hebe's. Dressing herself with the quiet
activity which characterized all her movements, she then opened the
casement and inhaled the air. All was still in the narrow lane; the
shops yet unclosed. But on the still trees behind the shops the birds
were beginning to stir and chirp. Chanticleer, from some neighbouring
yard, rang out his brisk rereillee. Pleasant English summer dawn in the
pleasant English country village. She stretched her graceful neck far
from the casement, trying to catch a glimpse of the blue river. She had
seen its majestic flow on the day they had arrived at the fair, and
longed to gain its banks; then her servitude to the stage forbade her.
Now she was to be free! O joy! Now she might have her careless hours of
holiday; and, forgetful of Waife's warning that their vocation must be
plied in towns, she let her fancy run riot amidst visions of green fields
and laughing waters, and in fond delusion gathered the daisies and chased
the butterflies. Changeling transferred into that lowest world of Art
from the cradle of civil Nature, her human child's heart yearned for the
human childlike delights. All children love the country, the flowers,
the sward, the birds, the butterflies; or if some do not, despair, O
Philanthropy, of their afterlives!

She closed the window, smiling to herself, stole through the adjoining
doorway, and saw that her grandfather was still asleep. Then she busied
herself in putting the little sitting-room to rights, reset the table for
the morning meal, watered the stocks, and finally took up the crystal and
looked into it with awe, wondering why the Cobbler could see so much, and
she only the distorted reflection of her own face. So interested,
however, for once, did she become in the inspection of this mystic globe,
that she did not notice the dawn pass into broad daylight, nor hear a
voice at the door below,--nor, in short, take into cognition the external
world, till a heavy tread shook the floor, and then, starting, she beheld
the Remorseless Baron, with a face black enough to have darkened the
crystal of Dr. Dee himself.

"Ho, ho," said Mr. Rugge, in hissing accents which had often thrilled the
threepenny gallery with anticipative horror. "Rebellious, eh?--won't
come? Where's your grandfather, baggage?"

Sophy let fall the crystal--a mercy it was not brokenand gazed vacantly
on the Baron.

"Your vile scamp of a grandfather?"

SOPHY (with spirit).--"He is not vile. You ought to be ashamed of
yourself speaking so, Mr. Rugge!"

Here simultaneously, Mr. Waife, hastily indued in his gray dressing-gown,
presented himself at the aperture of the bedroom door, and the Cobbler on
the threshold of the sitting-room. The Comedian stood mute, trusting
perhaps to the imposing effect of his attitude. The Cobbler, yielding to
the impulse of untheatric man, put his head doggedly on one side, and
with both hands on his hips said,

"Civil words to my lodgers, master, or out you go!"

The Remorseless Baron glared vindictively, first at one and then at the
other; at length he strode up to Waife, and said, with a withering grin,
"I have something to say to you; shall I say it before your landlord?"

The Comedian waved his hand to the Cobbler.

"Leave us, my friend; I shall not require you. Step this way, Mr.
Rugge." Rugge entered the bedroom, and Waife closed the door behind him.

"Anan," quoth the Cobbler, scratching his head. "I don't quite take your
grandfather's giving in. British ground here! But your Ascendant cannot
surely be in such malignant conjunction with that obstreperous tyrant as
to bind you to him hand and foot. Let's see what the crystal thinks of
it. 'Take it up gently, and come downstairs with me."

"Please, no; I'll stay near Grandfather," said Sophy, resolutely. "He
sha'n't be left helpless with that rude man."

The Cobbler could not help smiling. "Lord love you," said he; "you have
a spirit of your own, and if you were my wife I should be afraid of you.
But I won't stand here eavesdropping; mayhap your grandfather has secrets
I'm not to hear: call me if I'm wanted." He descended. Sophy, with less
noble disdain of eavesdropping, stood in the centre of the room, holding
her breath to listen. She heard no sound; she had half a mind to put her
ear to the keyhole, but that seemed even to her a mean thing, if not
absolutely required by the necessity of the case. So there she still
stood, her head bent down, her finger raised: oh, that Vance could have
so painted her!

CHAPTER X.

Showing the causes why men and nations, when one man or nation
wishes to get for its own arbitrary purposes what the other man or
nation does not desire to part with, are apt to ignore the mild
precepts of Christianity, shock the sentiments and upset the
theories of Peace Societies.

"Am I to understand," said Mr. Rugge, in a whisper, when Waife had drawn
him to the farthest end of the inner room, with the bed-curtains between
their position and the door, deadening the sound of their voices,--"am I
to understand that, after my taking you and that child to my theatre out
of charity, and at your own request, you are going to quit me without
warning,--French leave; is that British conduct?"

"Mr. Rugge," replied Waife, deprecatingly, "I have no engagement with you
beyond an experimental trial. We were free on both sides for three
months,--you to dismiss us any day, we to leave you. The experiment does
not please its: we thank you and depart."

RUGGE.--"That is not the truth. I said I was free to dismiss you both,
if the child did not suit. You, poor helpless creature, could be of no
use. But I never heard you say you were to be free too. Stands to
reason not! Put my engage ments at a Waife's mercy! I, Lorenzo Rugge!
--stuff! But I am a just man, and a liberal man, and if you think you
ought to have a higher salary, if this ungrateful proceeding is only, as
I take it, a strike for wages, I will meet you. Juliet Araminta does
play better than I could have supposed; and I'll conclude an engagement
on good terms, as we were to have done if the experiment answered, for
three years." Waife shook his head. "You are very good, Mr. Rugge, but
it is not a strike. My little girl does not like the life at any price;
and, since she supports me, I am bound to please her. Besides," said the
actor, with a stiffer manner, "you have broken faith with me. It was
fully understood that I was to appear no more on your stage; all my task
was to advise with you in the performances, remodel the plays, help in
the stage-management; and you took advantage of my penury, and, when I
asked for a small advance, insisted on forcing these relics of what I was
upon the public pity. Enough: we part. I bear no malice."

RUGGE.--"Oh, don't you? No more do I. But I am a Briton, and I have the
spirit of one. You had better not make an enemy of me."

WAIFE.--"I am above the necessity of making enemies. I have an enemy
ready made in myself."

Rugge placed a strong bony hand upon the cripple's arm. "I dare say you
have! A bad conscience, sir. How would you like your past life looked
into, and blabbed out?"

GENTLEMAN WAIFE (mournfully).--"The last four years of it have been spent
in your service, Mr. Rugge. If their record had been blabbed out for my
benefit, there would not have been a dry eye in the house."

RUGGE. "I disdain your sneer. When a scorpion nursed at my bosom sneers
at me, I leave it to its own reflections. But I don't speak of the years
in which that scorpion has been enjoying a salary and smoking canaster at
my expense. I refer to an earlier dodge in its checkered existence. Ha,
sir, you wince! I suspect I can find out something about you which
would--"

WAIFE (fiercely).--"Would what?"

RUGGE.--"Oh, lower your tone, sir; no bullying me. I suspect! I have
good reason for suspicion; and if you sneak off in this way, and cheat me
out of my property in Juliet Araminta, I will leave no stone unturned to
prove what I suspect: look to it, slight man! Come, I don't wish to
quarrel; make it up, and" (drawing out his pocket-book) "if you want cash
down, and will have an engagement in black and white for three years for
Juliet Araminta, you may squeeze a good sum out of me, and go yourself
where you please: you'll never be troubled by me. What I want is the
girl."

All the actor laid aside, Waife growled out, "And hang me; sir, if you
shall have the girl!"

At this moment Sophy opened the door wide, and entered boldly. She had
heard her grandfather's voice raised, though its hoarse tones did not
allow her to distinguish his words. She was alarmed for him. She came
in, his guardian fairy, to protect him from the oppressor of six feet
high. Rugge's arm was raised, not indeed to strike, but rather to
declaim. Sophy slid between him and her grandfather, and, clinging round
the latter, flung out her own arm, the forefinger raised menacingly
towards the Remorseless Baron. How you would have clapped if you had
seen her so at Covent Garden! But I'll swear the child did not know she
was acting. Rugge did, and was struck with admiration and regretful rage
at the idea of losing her.

"Bravo!" said he, involuntarily. "Come, come, Waife, look at her: she
was born for the stage. My heart swells with pride. She is my property,
morally speaking; make her so legally; and hark, in your ear, fifty
pounds. Take me in the humour,--Golconda opens,--fifty pounds!"

"No," said the vagrant.

"Well," said Rugge, sullenly; "let her speak for herself."

"Speak, child. You don't wish to return to Mr. Rugge,--and without me,
too,--do you, Sophy?"

"Without you, Grandy! I'd rather die first."

"You hear her; all is settled between us. You have had our services up
to last night; you have paid us up to last night; and so good morning to
you, Mr. Rugge."

"My dear child," said the manager, softening his voice as much as he
could, "do consider. You shall be so made of without that stupid old
man. You think me cross, but 't is he who irritates and puts me out of
temper. I 'm uncommon fond of children. I had a babe of my own once,--
upon my honour, I had,--and if it had not been for convulsions, caused by
teething, I should be a father still. Supply to me the place of that
beloved babe. You shall have such fine dresses; all new,--choose 'em
yourself,--minced veal and raspberry tarts for dinner every Sunday. In
three years, under my care, you will become a great actress, and make
your fortune, and marry a lord,--lords go out of their wits for great
actresses,--whereas, with him, what will you do? drudge and rot and
starve; and he can't live long, and then where will you be? 'T is a
shame to hold her so, you idle old vagabond."

"I don't hold her," said Waife, trying to push her away. "There's
something in what the man says. Choose for yourself, Sophy."

SOPHY (suppressing a sob).--"How can you have the heart to talk so,
Grandy? I tell you, Mr. Rugge, you are a bad man, and I hate you, and
all about you; and I'll stay with Grandfather; and I don't care if I do
starve: he sha'n't!"

MR. RUGGE (clapping both hands on the crown of his hat, and striding to
the door).--"William Waife, beware 't is done. I'm your enemy. As for
you, too dear but abandoned infant, stay with him: you'll find out very
soon who and what he is; your pride will have a fall, when--"

Waife sprang forward, despite his lameness,--both his fists clenched, his
one eye ablaze; his broad burly torso confronted and daunted the stormy
manager. Taller and younger though Rugge was, he cowered before the
cripple he had so long taunted and humbled. The words stood arrested
on his tongue. "Leave the room instantly!" thundered the actor,
in a voice no longer broken. "Blacken my name before that child by one
word, and I will dash the next down your throat." Rugge rushed to the
door, and keeping it ajar between Waife and himself, he then thrust in
his head, hissing forth,

"Fly, caitiff, fly! my revenge shall track your secret and place you in
my power. Juliet Araminta shall yet be mine." With these awful words
the Remorseless Baron cleared the stairs in two bounds, and was out of
the house.

Waife smiled contemptuously. But as the street-door clanged on the
form of the angry manager, the colour faded from the old man's face.
Exhausted by the excitement he had gone through, he sank on a chair,
and, with one quick gasp as for breath, fainted away.

CHAPTER XI.

Progress of the Fine Arts.--Biographical anecdotes.--Fluctuations in
the value of money.--Speculative tendencies of the time.

Whatever the shock which the brutality of the Remorseless Baron inflicted
on the nervous system of the persecuted but triumphant Bandit, it had
certainly subsided by the time Vance and Lionel entered Waife's
apartment; for they found grandfather and grandchild seated near the open
window, at the corner of the table (on which they had made room for their
operations by the removal of the carved cocoanut, the crystal egg, and
the two flower-pots), eagerly engaged, with many a silvery laugh from the
lips of Sophy, in the game of dominos.

Mr. Waife had been devoting himself, for the last hour and more, to the
instruction of Sophy in the mysteries of that intellectual amusement; and
such pains did he take, and so impressive were his exhortations, that his
happy pupil could not help thinking to herself that this was the new art
upon which Waife depended for their future livelihood. She sprang up,
however, at the entrance of the visitors, her face beaming with grateful
smiles; and, running to Lionel and taking him by the hand, while she
courtesied with more respect to Vance, she exclaimed, "We are free!
thanks to you, thanks to you both! He is gone! Mr. Rugge is gone!"

"So I saw on passing the green; stage and all," said Vance, while Lionel
kissed the child and pressed her to his side. It is astonishing how
paternal he felt,--how much she had crept into his heart.

"Pray, sir," asked Sophy, timidly, glancing to Vance, "has the Norfolk
Giant gone too?"

VANCE.--"I fancy so--all the shows were either gone or going."

SOPHY.--"The Calf with Two Heads?"

VANCE.--"Do you regret it?"

SOPHY.--"Oh, dear, no."

Waife, who after a profound bow, and a cheery "Good day, gentlemen,"
had hitherto remained silent, putting away the dominoes, now said,
"I suppose, sir, you would like at once to begin your sketch?"

VANCE.--"Yes; I have brought all my tools; see, even the canvas. I wish
it were larger, but it is all I have with me of that material: 't is
already stretched; just let me arrange the light."

WAIFE.--"If you don't want me, gentlemen, I will take the air for half-
an-hour or so. In fact, I may now feel free to look after my
investment."

SOPHY (whispering Lionel).--"You are sure the Calf has gone as well as
the Norfolk Giant?"

Lionel wonderingly replied that he thought so; and Waife disappeared into
his room, whence he soon emerged, having doffed his dressing-gown for a
black coat, by no means threadbare, and well brushed. Hat, stick, and
gloves in hand, he really seemed respectable,--more than respectable,--
Gentleman Waife every inch of him; and saying, "Look your best, Sophy,
and sit still, if you can," nodded pleasantly to the three, and hobbled
down the stairs. Sophy--whom Vance had just settled into a chair, with
her head bent partially down (three-quarters), as the artist had released

"The loose train of her amber-dropping hair,"

and was contemplating aspect and position with a painter's meditative
eye-started up, to his great discomposure, and rushed to the window. She
returned to her seat with her mind much relieved. Waife was walking in
an opposite direction to that which led towards the whilolm quarters of
the Norfolk Giant and the Two-headed Calf.

"Come, come," said Vance, impatiently, "you have broken an idea in half.
I beg you will not stir till I have placed you; and then, if all else of
you be still, you may exercise your tongue. I give you leave to talk."

SOPHY (penitentially).--"I am so sorry--I beg pardon. Will that do,
sir?"

VANCE.--"Head a little more to the right,--so, Titania watching Bottom
asleep. Will you lie on the floor, Lionel, and do Bottom?"

LIONEL (indignantly).--"Bottom! Have I an ass's head?"

VANCE.--"Immaterial! I can easily imagine that you have one. I want
merely an outline of figure,--something sprawling and ungainly."

LIONEL (sulkily).--"Much obliged to you; imagine that too."

VANCE.--"Don't be so disobliging. It is necessary that she should look
fondly at something,--expression in the eye." Lionel at once reclined
himself incumbent in a position as little sprawling and ungainly as he
could well contrive.

VANCE.--"Fancy, Miss Sophy, that this young gentleman is very dear to
you. Have you got a brother?"

SOPHY.--"Ah, no, sir."

VANCE.--"Hum. But you have, or have had, a doll?"

SOPHY.--"Oh, yes; Grandfather gave me one."

VANCE.--"And you were fond of that doll?"

SOPHY.--"Very."

VANCE.--"Fancy that young gentleman is your doll grown big, that it is
asleep, and you are watching that no one hurts it; Mr. Rugge, for
instance. Throw your whole soul into that thought,--love for doll,
apprehension of Rugge. Lionel, keep still, and shut your eyes; do."

LIONEL (grumbling).--"I did not come here to be made a doll of."

VANCE.--"Coax him to be quiet, Miss Sophy, and sleep peaceably, or I
shall do him a mischief. I can be a Rugge, too, if I am put out."

SOPHY (in the softest tones).--"Do try and sleep, sir: shall I get you a
pillow?"

LIONEL.--"No, thank you: I'm very comfortable now," settling his head
upon his arm; and after one upward glance towards Sophy, the lids closed
reluctantly over his softened eyes. A ray of sunshine came aslant
through the half-shut window, and played along the boy's clustering hair
and smooth pale cheek. Sophy's gaze rested on him most benignly.

"Just so," said Vance; "and now be silent till I have got the attitude
and fixed the look."

The artist sketched away rapidly with a bold practised hand, and all was
silent for about half-an-hour, when he said, "You May get up, Lionel; I
have done with you for the present."

SOPHY.--"And me too--may I see?"

VANCE.--"No, but you may talk now. So you had a doll? What has become
of it?"

SOPHY.--"I left it behind, sir. Grandfather thought it would distract me
from attending to his lessons and learning my part."

VANCE.--"You love your grandfather more than the doll?"

SOPHY.--"Oh! a thousand million million times more."

VANCE.--"He brought you up, I suppose? Have you no father,--no mother?"

SOPHY.--"I have only Grandfather."

LIONEL.--"Have you always lived with him?"

SOPHY.--"Dear me, no; I was with Mrs. Crane till Grandfather came from
abroad, and took me away, and put me with some very kind people; and
then, when Grandfather had that bad accident, I came to stay with him,
and we have been together ever since."

LIONEL.--"Was Mrs. Crane no relation of yours?"

SOPHY.--"No, I suppose not, for she was not kind; I was so miserable: but
don't talk of it; I forget that now. I only wish to remember from the
time Grandfather took me in his lap, and told me to be a good child and
love him; and I have been happy ever since."

"You are a dear good child," said Lionel, emphatically, "and I wish I had
you for my sister."

VANCE.--"When your grandfather has received from me that exorbitant--not
that I grudge it--sum, I should like to ask, What will he do with it? As
he said it was a secret, I must not pump you."

SOPHY.--"What will he do with it? I should like to know, too, sir; but
whatever it is I don't care, so long as I and Grandfather are together."

Here Waife re-entered. "Well, how goes on the picture?"

VANCE.--"Tolerably, for the first sitting; I require two more."

WAIFE.--"Certainly; only--only" (he drew aside Vance, and whispered),
"only the day after to-morrow, I fear I shall want the money. It is an
occasion that never will occur again: I would seize it."

VANCE.--"Take the money now."

WAIFE.--"Well, thank you, sir; you are sure now that we shall not run
away; and I accept your kindness; it will make all safe."

Vance, with surprising alacrity, slipped the sovereigns into the old
man's hand; for truth to say, though thrifty, the artist was really
generous. His organ of caution was large, but that of acquisitiveness
moderate. Moreover, in those moments when his soul expanded with his
art, he was insensibly less alive to the value of money. And strange it
is that, though States strive to fix for that commodity the most abiding
standards, yet the value of money to the individual who regards it shifts
and fluctuates, goes up and down half-a-dozen times a day. For any part,
I honestly declare that there are hours in the twenty-four--such, for
instance, as that just before breakfast, or that succeeding a page of
this History in which I have been put out of temper with my performance
and myself--when any one in want of five shillings at my disposal would
find my value of that sum put it quite out of his reach; while at other
times--just after dinner, for instance, or when I have effected what
seems to me a happy stroke, or a good bit of colour, in this historical
composition--the value of those five shillings is so much depreciated
that I might be,--I think so, at least,--I might be almost tempted to
give them away for nothing. Under some such mysterious influences in the
money-market, Vance therefore felt not the loss of his three sovereigns;
and returning to his easel, drove away Lionel and Sophy, who had taken
that opportunity to gaze on the canvas.

"Don't do her justice at all," quoth Lionel; "all the features
exaggerated."

"And you pretend to paint!" returned Vance, in great scorn, and throwing
a cloth over his canvas. "To-morrow, Mr. Waife, the same hour. Now,
Lionel, get your hat, and come away."

Vance carried off the canvas, and Lionel followed slowly. Sophy gazed at
their departing forms from the open window; Waife stumped about the room,
rubbing his hands, "He'll do; he 'll do: I always thought so." Sophy
turned: "Who'll do?--the young gentleman? Do what?"

WAIFE.-"The young gentleman?-as if I was thinking of him! Our new
companion; I have been with him this last hour. Wonderful natural
gifts."

SOPHY (ruefully).--"It is alive, then?"

WAIFE.--"Alive! yes, I should think so."

SOPHY (half-crying.)--"I am very sorry; I know I shall hate it."

WAIFF.--"Tut, darling: get me my pipe; I'm happy."

SOPHY (cutting short her fit of ill-humour).--"Are you? then I am, and I
will not hate it."

CHAPTER XII.

In which it is shown that a man does this or declines to do that for
reasons best known to himself,--a reserve which is extremely
conducive to the social interests of a community, since the
conjecture into the origin and nature of those reasons stimulates
the inquiring faculties, and furnishes the staple of modern
conversation. And as it is not to be denied that, if their
neighbours left them nothing to guess at, three-fourths of civilized
humankind, male or female, would have nothing to talk about; so we
cannot too gratefully encourage that needful curiosity termed by the
inconsiderate tittle-tattle or scandal, which saves the vast
majority of our species from being reduced to the degraded condition
of dumb animals.

The next day the sitting was renewed: but Waife did not go out, and the
conversation was a little more restrained; or rather, Waife had the
larger share in it. The Comedian, when he pleased, could certainly be
very entertaining. It was not so much in what he said as his manner of
saying it. He was a strange combination of sudden extremes, at one while
on a tone of easy but not undignified familiarity with his visitors, as
if their equal in position, their superior in years; then abruptly,
humble, deprecating, almost obsequious, almost servile; and then again,
jerked as it were into pride and stiffness, falling back, as if the
effort were impossible, into meek dejection. Still the prevalent
character of the man's mood and talk was social, quaint, cheerful.
Evidently he was by original temperament a droll and joyous humourist,
with high animal spirits; and, withal, an infantine simplicity at times,
like the clever man who never learns the world and is always taken in.

A circumstance, trifling in itself, but suggestive of speculation either
as to the character or antecedent circumstances of Gentleman Waife, did
not escape Vance's observation. Since his rupture with Mr. Rugge, there
was a considerable amelioration in that affection of the trachea, which,
while his engagement with Rugge lasted, had rendered the Comedian's
dramatic talents unavailable on the stage. He now expressed himself
without the pathetic hoarseness or cavernous wheeze which had previously
thrown a wet blanket over his efforts at discourse. But Vance put no
very stern construction on the dissimulation which his change seemed to
denote. Since Waife was still one-eyed and a cripple, he might very
excusably shrink from reappearance on the stage, and affect a third
infirmity to save his pride from the exhibition of the two infirmities
that were genuine.

That which most puzzled Vance was that which had most puzzled the
Cobbler,--What could the man once have been? how fallen so low?--for fall
it was, that was clear. The painter, though not himself of patrician
extraction, had been much in the best society. He had been a petted
favourite in great houses. He had travelled. He had seen the world.
He had the habits and instincts of good society.

Now, in what the French term the /beau monde/, there are little traits
that reveal those who have entered it,--certain tricks of phrase, certain
modes of expression,--even the pronunciation of familiar words, even the
modulation of an accent. A man of the most refined bearing may not have
these peculiarities; a man, otherwise coarse and brusque in his manner,
may. The slang of the /beau monde/ is quite apart from the code of high
breeding. Now and then, something in Waife's talk seemed to show that he
had lighted on that beau-world; now and then, that something wholly
vanished. So that Vance might have said, "He has been admitted there,
not inhabited it."

Yet Vance could not feel sure, after all; comedians are such takes in.
But was the man, by the profession of his earlier life, a comedian?
Vance asked the question adroitly.

"You must have taken to the stage young?" said he.

"The stage!" said Waife; "if you mean the public stage, no. I have acted
pretty often in youth, even in childhood, to amuse others, never
professionally to support myself, till Mr. Rugge civilly engaged me four
years ago."

"Is it possible,--with your excellent education! But pardon me; I have
hinted my surprise at your late vocation before, and it displeased you."

"Displeased me!" said Waife, with an abject, depressed manner; "I hope
I said nothing that would have misbecome a poor broken vagabond like me.
I am no prince in disguise,--a good-for-nothing varlet who should be too
grateful to have something to keep himself from a dunghill."

LIONEL.--"Don't talk so. And but for your accident you might now be the
great attraction on the metropolitan stage. Who does not respect a
really fine actor?"

WAIFE (gloomily).--"The metropolitan stage! I was talked into it: I am
glad even of the accident that saved me; say no more of that, no more of
that. But I have spoiled your sitting. Sophy, you see, has left her
chair."

"I have done for to-day," said Vance; "to-morrow, and my task is ended."

Lionel came up to Vance and whispered him; the painter, after a pause,
nodded silently, and then said to Waife,

"We are going to enjoy the fine weather on the Thames (after I have put
away these things), and shall return to our inn--not far hence--to sup,
at eight o'clock. Supper is our principal meal; we rarely spoil our days
by the ceremonial of a formal dinner. Will you do us the favour to sup
with us? Our host has a wonderful whiskey, which when raw is Glenlivat,
but refined into toddy is nectar. Bring your pipe, and let us hear John
Kemble again."

Waife's face lighted up. "You are most kind; nothing I should like so
much. But--" and the light fled, the face darkened--"but no; I cannot
--you don't know--that is--I--I have made a vow to myself to decline all
such temptations. I humbly beg you'll excuse me."

VANCE.--" Temptations! of what kind,--the whiskey toddy?"

WAIFE (puffing away a sigh).--"Ah, yes; whiskey toddy, if you please.
Perhaps I once loved a glass too well, and could not resist a glass too
much now; and if I once broke the rule and became a tippler, what would
happen to Juliet Araminta? For her sake don't press me."

"Oh, do go, Grandy; he never drinks,--never anything stronger than tea,
I assure you, sir: it can't be that."

"It is, silly child, and nothing else," said Waife, positively, drawing
himself up,--"excuse me."

Lionel began brushing his hat with his sleeve, and his face worked; at
last he said, "Well, sir, then may I ask another favour? Mr. Vance and I
are going to-morrow, after the sitting, to see Hampton Court; we have
kept that excursion to the last before leaving these parts. Would you
and little Sophy come with us in the boat? We will have no whiskey
toddy, and we will bring you both safe home."

WAIFE.--"What--I! what--I! You are very young, sir,--a gentleman born
and bred, I'll swear; and you to be seen, perhaps by some of your friends
or family, with an old vagrant like me, in the Queen's palace,--the
public gardens! I should be the vilest wretch if I took such advantage
of your goodness. 'Pretty company,' they would say, 'you had got into.'
With me! with me! Don't be alarmed, Mr. Vance not to be thought of."

The young men were deeply affected.

"I can't accept that reason," said Lionel, tremulously, "though I must
not presume to derange your habits. But she may go with us, mayn't she?
We'll take care of her, and she is dressed so plainly and neatly, and
looks such a little lady" (turning to Vance).

"Yes, let her come with us," said the artist, benevolently; though he by
no means shared in Lionel's enthusiastic desire for her company. He
thought she would be greatly in their way.

"Heaven bless you both!" answered Waife; "and she wants a holiday; she
shall have it."

"I'd rather stay with you, Grandy: you'll be so lone."

"No, I wish to be out all to-morrow,-the investment! I shall not be
alone; making friends with our future companion, Sophy."

"And can do without me already? heigh-ho!"

VANCE.--"So that's settled; good-by to you."

CHAPTER XIII.

Inspiring effect of the Fine Arts: the vulgar are moved by their
exhibition into generous impulses and flights of fancy, checked by
the ungracious severities of their superiors, as exemplified in the
instance of Cobbler Merle and his servant of-all-work.

The next day, perhaps with the idea of removing all scruple from Sophy's
mind, Waife had already gone after his investment when the friends
arrived. Sophy at first was dull and dispirited, but by degrees she
brightened up; and when, the sitting over and the picture done (save such
final touches as Vance reserved for solitary study), she was permitted to
gaze at her own effigy, she burst into exclamations of frank delight.
"Am I like that! is it possible? Oh, how beautiful! Mr. Merle, Mr.
Merle, Mr. Merle!" and running out of the room before Vance could stop
her, she returned with the Cobbler, followed, too, by a thin gaunt girl,
whom he pompously called his housekeeper, but who in sober truth was
servant-of-all-work. Wife he had none: his horoscope, he said, having
Saturn in square to the Seventh House, forbade him to venture upon
matrimony. All gathered round the picture; all admired, and with
justice: it was a chef-d'oeuvre. Vance in his maturest day never painted
more charmingly. The three pounds proved to be the best outlay of
capital he had ever made. Pleased with his work, he was pleased even
with that unsophisticated applause.

"You must have Mercury and Venus very strongly aspected," quoth the
Cobbler; "and if you have the Dragon's Head in the Tenth House, you may
count on being much talked of after you are dead."

"After I am dead!--sinister omen!" said Vance, discomposed. "I have no
faith in artists who count on being talked of after they are dead. Never
knew a dauber who did not! But stand back: time flies; tie up your hair;
put on your bonnet, Titania. You have a shawl?--not tinsel, I hope!
quieter the better. You stay and see to her, Lionel."

Said the gaunt servant-of-all-work to Mr. Merle, "I'd let the gentleman
paint me, if he likes: shall I tell him, master?"

"Go back to the bacon, foolish woman. Why, he gave L3 for her likeness,
'cause of her Benefics! But you'd have to give him three years' wages
afore he'd look you straight in the face, 'cause, you see, your Aspects
are crooked. And," added the Cobbler, philosophizing, "when the Malefics
are dead agin a girl's mug, man is so constituted by natur' that he can't
take to that mug unless it has a golden handle. Don't fret, 't is not
your fault: born under Scorpio,--coarse-limbed,--dull complexion; and the
Head of the Dragon aspected of Infortunes in all your Angles."

CHAPTER XIV.

The historian takes advantage of the summer hours vouchsafed to the
present life of Mr. Waife's grandchild, in order to throw a few
gleams of light on her past.--He leads her into the palace of our
kings, and moralizes thereon; and, entering the Royal Gardens, shows
the uncertainty of human events, and the insecurity of British laws,
by the abrupt seizure and constrained deportation of an innocent and
unforeboding Englishman.

Such a glorious afternoon! The capricious English summer was so kind
that day to the child and her new friends! When Sophy's small foot once
trod the sward, had she been really Queen of the Green People, sward and
footstep could not more joyously have met together. The grasshopper
bounded in fearless trust upon the hem of her frock; she threw herself
down on the grass and caught him, but, oh, so tenderly! and the gay
insect, dear to poet and fairy, seemed to look at her from that quaint
sharp face of his with sagacious recognition, resting calmly on the palm
of her pretty hand; then when he sprang off, little moth-like butterflies
peculiar to the margins of running waters quivered up from the herbage,
fluttering round her. And there, in front, lay the Thames, glittering
through the willows, Vance getting ready the boat, Lionel seated by her
side, a child like herself, his pride of incipient manhood all forgotten;
happy in her glee; she loving him for the joy she felt, and blending his
image evermore in her remembrance with her first summer holiday,--with
sunny beams, glistening leaves, warbling birds, fairy wings, sparkling
waves. Oh, to live so in a child's heart,--innocent, blessed, angel-
like,--better, better than the troubled reflection upon woman's later
thoughts, better than that mournful illusion, over which tears so bitter
are daily shed,--better than First Love! They entered the boat. Sophy
had never, to the best of her recollection, been in a boat before. All
was new to her: the lifelike speed of the little vessel; that world of
cool green weeds, with the fish darting to and fro; the musical chime of
oars; those distant stately swans. She was silent now--her heart was
very full.

"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked Lionel, resting on the oar.

"Thinking!--I was not thinking."

"What then?"

"I don't know,--feeling, I suppose."

"Feeling what?"

"As if between sleeping and waking; as the water perhaps feels, with the
sunlight on it!"

"Poetical," said Vance, who, somewhat of a poet himself, naturally
sneered at poetical tendencies in others; "but not so bad in its way.
Ah, have I hurt your vanity? there are tears in your eyes."

"No, sir," said Sophy, falteringly. "But I was thinking then."

"Ah," said the artist, "that's the worst of it; after feeling ever comes
thought; what was yours?"

"I was sorry poor Grandfather was not here, that's all."

"It was not our fault: we pressed him cordially," said Lionel.

"You did indeed, sir, thank you! And I don't know why he refused you."
The young men exchanged compassionate glances.

Lionel then sought to make her talk of her past life, tell him more of
Mrs. Crane. Who and what was she?

Sophy could not or would not tell. The remembrances were painful; she
had evidently tried to forget them. And the people with whom Waife had
placed her, and who had been kind?

The Misses Burton; and they kept a day-school, and taught Sophy to read,
write, and cipher. They lived near London, in a lane opening on a great
common, with a green rail before the house, and had a good many pupils,
and kept a tortoise shell cat and a canary. Not much to enlighten her
listener did Sophy impart here.

And now they neared that stately palace, rich in associations of storm
and splendour,--of the grand Cardinal; the iron-clad Protector; Dutch
William of the immortal memory, whom we tried so hard to like, and in
spite of the great Whig historian, that Titian of English prose, can only
frigidly respect. Hard task for us Britons to like a Dutchman who
dethrones his father-in-law, and drinks schnaps! Prejudice certainly;
but so it is. Harder still to like Dutch William's unfilial Fran! Like
Queen Mary! I could as soon like Queen Goneril! Romance flies from the
prosperous phlegmatic AEneas; flies from his plump Lavinia, his "fidus
Achates," Bentinck; flies to follow the poor deserted fugitive Stuart,
with all his sins upon his head. Kings have no rights divine, except
when deposed and fallen; they are then invested with the awe that belongs
to each solemn image of mortal vicissitude,--vicissitude that startles
the Epicurean, "insanientis sapientiae consultus," and strikes from his
careless lyre the notes that attest a god! Some proud shadow chases
another from the throne of Cyrus, and Horace hears in the thunder the
rush of Diespiter, and identifies Providence with the Fortune that
snatches off the diadem in her whirring swoop. But fronts discrowned
take a new majesty to generous natures: in all sleek prosperity there is
something commonplace; in all grand adversity, something royal.

The boat shot to the shore; the young people landed, and entered the arch
of the desolate palace. They gazed on the great hall and the presence-
chamber, and the long suite of rooms with faded portraits; Vance as an
artist, Lionel as an enthusiastic, well-read boy, Sophy as a wondering,
bewildered, ignorant child. And then they emerged into the noble garden,
with its regal trees. Groups were there of well dressed persons. Vance
heard himself called by name. He had forgotten the London world,--
forgotten, amidst his midsummer ramblings, that the London season was
still ablaze; and there, stragglers from the great focus, fine people,
with languid tones and artificial jaded smiles, caught him in his
wanderer's dress, and walking side by side with the infant wonder of Mr.
Rugge's show, exquisitely neat indeed, but still in a coloured print, of
a pattern familiar to his observant eye in the windows of many a shop
lavish of tickets, and inviting you to come in by the assurance that it
is "selling off." The artist stopped, coloured, bowed, answered the
listless questions put to him with shy haste: he then attempted to
escape; they would not let him.

"You MUST come back and dine with us at the Star and Garter," said Lady
Selina Vipont. "A pleasant party,--you know most of them,--the Dudley
Slowes, dear old Lady Frost, those pretty Ladies Prymme, Janet and
Wilhelmina."

"We can't let you off," said, sleepily, Mr. Crampe, a fashionable wit,
who rarely made more than one bon mot in the twenty-four hours, and spent
the rest of his time in a torpid state.

VANCE.--"Really you are too kind, but I am not even dressed for--"

LADY SELINA.--"So charmingly dressed-so picturesque! Besides, what
matters? Every one knows who you are. Where on earth have you been?"

VANCE.--"Rambling about, taking sketches."

LADY SELINA (directing her eyeglass towards Lionel and Sophy, who stood
aloof).--"But your companions, your brother? and that pretty little
girl,--your sister, I suppose?"

VANCE (shuddering).--"No, not relations. I took charge of the boy,--
clever young fellow; and the little girl is--"

LADY SELINA.--"Yes. The little girl is--"

VANCE.--"A little girl, as you see: and very pretty, as you say,--subject
for a picture."

LADY SELINA (indifferently).--"Oh, let the children go and amuse
themselves somewhere. Now we have found you; positively you are our
prisoner."

Lady Selina Vipont was one of the queens of London; she had with her that
habit of command natural to such royalties. Frank Vance was no tuft-
hunter, but once under social influences, they had their effect on him,
as on most men who are blest with noses in the air. Those great ladies,
it is true, never bought his pictures; but they gave him the position
which induced others to buy them. Vance loved his art; his art needed
its career. Its career was certainly brightened and quickened by the
help of rank and fashion.

In short, Lady Selina triumphed, and the painter stepped back to Lionel.
"I must go to Richmond with these people. I know you'll excuse me.
I shall be back to-night somehow. By the by, as you are going to the
post-office here for the letter you expect from your mother, ask for my
letters too. You will take care of little Sophy, and [in a whisper]
hurry her out of the garden, or that Grand Mogul feminine, Lady Selina,
whose condescension would crush the Andes, will be stopping her as my
/protege/, falling in raptures with that horrid coloured print, saying,
'Dear, what pretty sprigs! where can such things be got?' and learning
perhaps how Frank Vance saved the Bandit's Child from the Remorseless
Baron. 'T is your turn now. Save your friend. The Baron was a lamb
compared to a fine lady." He pressed Lionel's unresponding hand, and was
off to join the polite merrymaking of the Frosts, Slowes, and Prymmes.

Lionel's pride ran up to the fever-heat of its thermometer; more roused,
though, on behalf of the unconscious Sophy than himself.

"Let us come into the town, lady-bird, and choose a doll. You may have
one now, without fear of distracting you from what I hate to think you
ever stooped to perform."

As Lionel, his crest erect and nostril dilated, and holding Sophy firmly
by the hand, took his way out from the gardens, he was obliged to pass
the patrician party, of whom Vance now made one.

His countenance and air, as he swept by, struck them all, especially Lady
Selina. "A very distinguished-looking boy," said she. "What a fine
face! Who did you say he was, Mr. Vance?"

VANCE.--"His name is Haughton,--Lionel Haughton."

LADY SELINA.--"Haughton! Haughton! Any relation to poor dear Captain
Haughton,--Charlie Haughton, as he was generally called?"

Vance, knowing little more of his young friend's parentage than that his
mother let lodgings, at which, once domiciliated himself, he had made the
boy's acquaintance, and that she enjoyed the pension of a captain's
widow, replied carelessly,--

"His father was a captain, but I don't know whether he was a Charlie."

MR. CRAMPE (the wit).--"Charlies are extinct! I have the last in a
fossil,--box and all."

General laugh. Wit shut up again.

LADY SELINA.--"He has a great look of Charlie Haughton. Do you know if
he is connected with that extraordinary man, Mr. Darrell?"

VANCE.--"Upon my word, I do not. What Mr. Darrell do you mean?"

Lady Selina, with one of those sublime looks of celestial pity with which
personages in the great world forgive ignorance of names and genealogies
in those not born within its orbit, replied, "Oh, to be sure. It is not
exactly in the way of your delightful art to know Mr. Darrell, one of the
first men in Parliament, a connection of mine."

LADY FROST (nippingly).--"You mean Guy Darrell, the lawyer."

LADY SELINA.--"Lawyer--true; now I think of it, he was a lawyer. But his
chief fame was in the House of Commons. All parties agreed that he might
have commanded any station; but he was too rich perhaps to care
sufficiently about office. At all events, Parliament was dissolved when
he was at the height of his reputation, and he refused to be re-elected."

One SIR GREGORY STOLLHEAD (a member of the House of Commons, young,
wealthy, a constant attendant, of great promise, with speeches that were
filled with facts, and emptied the benches).--"I have heard of him.
Before my time; lawyers not much weight in the House now."

LADY SELINA.--"I am told that Mr. Darrell did not speak like a lawyer.
But his career is over; lives in the country, and sees nobody; a thousand
pities; a connection of mine, too; great loss to the country. Ask your
young friend, Mr. Vance, if Mr. Darrell is not his relation. I hope so,
for his sake. Now that our party is in power, Mr. Darrell could command
anything for others, though he has ceased to act with us. Our party is
not forgetful of talent."

LADY FROST (with icy crispness).--"I should think not: it has so little
of that kind to remember."

SIR GREGORY.--"Talent is not wanted in the House of Commons now; don't go
down, in fact. Business assembly."

LADY SELINA (suppressing a yawn).--"Beautiful day! We had better think
of going back to Richmond."

General assent, and slow retreat.

CHAPTER XV.

The historian records the attachment to public business which
distinguishes the British legislator.--Touching instance of the
regret which ever in patriotic bosoms attends the neglect of a
public duty.

From the dusty height of a rumble-tumble affixed to Lady Selina Vipont's
barouche, and by the animated side of Sir Gregory Stollhead, Vance caught
sight of Lionel and Sophy at a corner of the spacious green near the
Palace. He sighed; he envied them. He thought of the boat, the water,
the honeysuckle arbour at the little inn,--pleasures he had denied
himself,--pleasures all in his own way. They seemed still more alluring
by contrast with the prospect before him; formal dinner at the Star and
Garter, with titled Prymmes, Slowes, and Frosts, a couple of guineas a
head, including light wines, which he did not drink, and the expense of a
chaise back by himself. But such are life and its social duties,--such,
above all, ambition and a career. Who that would leave a name on his
tombstone can say to his own heart, "Perish Stars and Garters: my
existence shall pass from day to day in honeysuckle arbours!"

Sir Gregory Stollhead interrupted Vance's revery by an impassioned
sneeze. "Dreadful smell of hay!" said the legislator, with watery eyes.
"Are you subject to the hay fever? I am! A-tisha-tisha-tisha [sneezing]
--country frightfully unwholesome at this time of year. And to think
that I ought now to be in the House,--in my committee-room; no smell of
hay there; most important committee."

VANCE (rousing himself).--"Ah--on what?"

SIR GREGORY (regretfully).--"Sewers."

CHAPTER XVI.

Signs of an impending revolution, which, like all revolutions, seems
to come of a sudden, though its causes have long been at work; and
to go off in a tantrum, though its effects must run on to the end of
a history.

Lionel could not find in the toy-shops of the village a doll good enough
to satisfy his liberal inclinations, but he bought one which amply
contented the humbler aspirations of Sophy. He then strolled to the
post-office. There were several letters for Vance; one for himself in
his mother's handwriting. He delayed opening it for the moment. The day
was far advanced Sophy must be hungry. In vain she declared she was not.
They passed by a fruiterer's stall. The strawberries and cherries were
temptingly fresh; the sun still very powerful. At the back of the
fruiterer's was a small garden, or rather orchard, smiling cool through
the open door; little tables laid out there. The good woman who kept the
shop was accustomed to the wants and tastes of humble metropolitan
visitors. But the garden was luckily now empty: it was before the usual
hour for tea-parties; so the young folks had the pleasantest table under
an apple-tree, and the choice of the freshest fruit. Milk and cakes were
added to the fare. It was a banquet, in Sophy's eyes, worthy that happy
day. And when Lionel had finished his share of the feast, eating fast,
as spirited, impatient boys formed to push on in life and spoil their
digestion are apt to do; and while Sophy was still lingering over the
last of the strawberries, he threw himself back on his chair and drew
forth his letter. Lionel was extremely fond of his mother, but her
letters were not often those which a boy is over-eager to read.
It is not all mothers who understand what boys are,--their quick
susceptibilities, their precocious manliness, all their mystical ways
and oddities. A letter from Mrs. Haughton generally somewhat fretted
and irritated Lionel's high-strung nerves, and he had instinctively put
off the task of reading the one he held, till satisfied hunger and cool-
breathing shadows, and rest from the dusty road, had lent their soothing
aid to his undeveloped philosophy.

He broke the seal slowly; another letter was enclosed within. At the
first few words his countenance changed; he uttered a slight exclamation,
read on eagerly; then, before concluding his mother's epistle, hastily
tore open that which it had contained, ran his eye over its contents,
and, dropping both letters on the turf below, rested his face on his hand
in agitated thought. Thus ran his mother's letter:

MY DEAR BOY,--How could you! Do it slyly!! Unknown to your own mother!!
I could not believe it of you!!!! Take advantage of my confidence in
showing you the letters of your father's cousin, to write to himself--
clandestinely!--you, who I thought had such an open character, and who
ought to appreciate mine. Every one who knows me says I am a woman in
ten thousand,--not for beauty and talent (though I have had my admirers
for them too), but for GOODNESS I As a wife and mother, I may say I have
been exemplary. I had sore trials with the dear captain--and IMMENSE
temptations. But he said on his death-bed, "Jessica, you are an angel."
And I have had offers since,--IMMENSE offers,--but I devoted myself to my
child, as you know. And what I have put up with, letting the first
floor, nobody can tell; and only a widow's pension,--going before a
magistrate to get it paid! And to think my own child, for whom I have
borne so much, should behave so cruelly to me! Clandestine! that is that
which stabs me. Mrs. Inman found me crying, and said, "What is the
matter?--you who are such an angel, crying like a baby!" And I could
not help saying, "'T is the serpent's tooth, Mrs. L" What you wrote to
your benefactor (and I had hoped patron) I don't care to guess; something
very rude and imprudent it must be, judging by the few lines he addressed
to me. I don't mind copying them for you to read. All my acts are
aboveboard, as often and often Captain H. used to say, "Your heart is in
a glass case, Jessica;" and so it is! but my son keeps his under lock
and key.

"Madam [this is what he writes to me], your son has thought fit to
infringe the condition upon which I agreed to assist you on his behalf.
I enclose a reply to himself, which I beg you will give to his own hands
without breaking the seal. Since it did not seem to you indiscreet to
communicate to a boy of his years letters written solely to yourself, you
cannot blame me if I take your implied estimate of his capacity to judge
for himself of the nature of a correspondence, and of the views and
temper of, madam, your very obedient servant." And that's all to me.

I send his letter to you,--seal unbroken. I conclude he has done with
you forever, and your CAREER is lost! But if it be so, oh, my poor, poor
child I at that thought I have not the heart to scold you further. If it
be so, come home to me, and I 'll work and slave for you, and you shall
keep up your head and be a gentleman still, as you are, every inch of
you. Don't mind what I've said at the beginning, dear: don't you know
I'm hasty; and I was hurt. But you could not mean to be sly and
underhand: 'twas only your high spirit, and it was my fault; I should not
have shown you the letters. I hope you are well, and have quite lost
that nasty cough, and that Mr. Vance treats you with proper respect. I
think him rather too pushing and familiar, though a pleasant young man on
the whole. But, after all, he is only a painter Bless you, my child,
and don't have secrets again from your poor mother.
JESSICA HAUGHTON.

The enclosed letter was as follows:--

LIONEL HAUGHTON,--Some men might be displeased at receiving such a
letter as you have addressed to me; I am not. At your years, and
under the same circumstances, I might have written a letter much in
the same spirit. Relieve your mind: as yet you owe me no
obligations; you have only received back a debt due to you. My
father was poor; your grandfather, Robert Haughton, assisted him in
the cost of my education. I have assisted your father's son; we are
quits. Before, however, we decide on having done with each other
for the future, I suggest to you to pay me a short visit. Probably
I shall not like you, nor you me. But we are both gentlemen, and
need not show dislike too coarsely. If you decide on coming, come
at once, or possibly you may not find me here. If you refuse, I
shall have a poor opinion of your sense and temper, and in a week I
shall have forgotten your existence. I ought to add that your
father and I were once warm friends, and that by descent I am the
head not only of my own race, which ends with me, but of the
Haughton family, of which, though your line assumed the name, it was
but a younger branch. Nowadays young men are probably not brought
up to care for these things: I was. Yours,

GUY HAUGHTON DARRELL.

MANOR HOUSE, FAWLEY.

Sophy picked up the fallen letters, placed them on Lionel's lap, and
looked into his face wistfully. He smiled, resumed his mother's epistle,
and read the concluding passages, which he had before omitted. Their
sudden turn from reproof to tenderness melted him. He began to feel that
his mother had a right to blame him for an act of concealment. Still she
never would have consented to his writing such a letter; and had that
letter been attended with so ill a result? Again he read Mr. Darrell's
blunt but not offensive lines. His pride was soothed: why should he not
now love his father's friend? He rose briskly, paid for the fruit, and
went his way back to the boat with Sophy. As his oars cut the wave he
talked gayly, but he ceased to interrogate Sophy on her past. Energetic,
sanguine, ambitious, his own future entered now into his thoughts.
Still, when the sun sank as the inn came partially into view from the
winding of the banks and the fringe of the willows, his mind again
settled on the patient, quiet little girl, who had not ventured to ask
him one question in return for all he had put so unceremoniously to her.
Indeed, she was silently musing over words he had inconsiderately let
fall,--"What I hate to think you had ever stooped to perform." Little
could Lionel guess the unquiet thoughts which those words might hereafter
call forth from the brooding deepening meditations of lonely childhood!
At length said the boy abruptly, as he had said once before,

"I wish, Sophy, you were my sister." He added in a saddened tone, "I
never had a sister: I have so longed for one! However, surely we shall
meet again. You go to-morrow so must I."

Sophy's tears flowed softly, noiselessly.

"Cheer up, lady-bird, I wish you liked me half as much as I like you!"

"I do like you: oh, so much!" cried Soppy, passionately. "Well, then,
you can write, you say?"

"A little."

"You shall write to me now and then, and I to you. I'll talk to your
grandfather about it. Ah, there he is, surely!" The boat now ran into
the shelving creek, and by the honeysuckle arbour stood Gentleman Waife,
leaning on his stick.

"You are late," said the actor, as they landed, and Sophy sprang into his
arms. "I began to be uneasy, and came here to inquire after you. You
have not caught cold, child?"

SOPHY.--"Oh, no."

LIONEL.--"She is the best of children. Pray, come into the inn, Mr.
Waife; no toddy, but some refreshment."

WAIFE.--"I thank you,--no, sir; I wish to get home at once. I walk
slowly; it will be dark soon."

Lionel tried in vain to detain him. There was a certain change in Mr.
Waife's manner to him: it was much more distant; it was even pettish,
if not surly. Lionel could not account for it; thought it mere whim at
first: but as be walked part of the way back with them towards the
village, this asperity continued, nay increased. Lionel was hurt; he
arrested his steps.

"I see you wish to have your grandchild to yourself now. May I call
early to-morrow? Sophy will tell you that I hope we may not altogether
lose sight of each other. I will give you my address when I call."

"What time to-morrow, sir?"

"About nine."

Waife bowed his head and walked on, but Sophy looked back towards her boy
friend, sorrowfully, gratefully; twilight in the skies that had been so
sunny,--twilight in her face that had been so glad! She looked back
once, twice, thrice, as Lionel halted on the road and kissed his hand.
The third time Waife said with unwonted crossness,--

"Enough of that, Sophy; looking after young men is not proper! What does
he mean about 'seeing each other, and giving me his address'?"

"He wished me to write to him sometimes and he would write to me."

Waife's brow contracted; but if, in the excess of grandfatherly caution,
he could have supposed that the bright-hearted boy of seventeen meditated
ulterior ill to that fairy child in such a scheme for correspondence, he
must have been in his dotage, and he had not hitherto evinced any signs
of that.

Farewell, pretty Sophy! the evening star shines upon yon elm-tree that
hides thee from view. Fading-fading grows the summer landscape; faded
already from the landscape thy gentle image! So ends a holiday in life.
Hallow it, Sophy; hallow it, Lionel! Life's holidays are not too many!

CHAPTER XVII.

By this chapter it appeareth that he who sets out on a career can
scarcely expect to walk in perfect comfort, if he exchanges his own
thick-soled shoes for dress-boots which were made for another man's
measure, and that the said boots may not the less pinch for being
brilliantly varnished.--It also showeth, for the instruction of Men
and States, the connection between democratic opinion and wounded
self-love; so that, if some Liberal statesman desire to rouse
against an aristocracy the class just below it, he has only to
persuade a fine lady to be exceedingly civil "to that sort of
people."

Vance, returning late at night, found his friend still up in the little
parlour, the windows open, pacing the floor with restless strides,
stopping now and then to look at the moon upon the river.

"Such a day as I have had! and twelve shillings for the fly, 'pikes not
included," said Vance, much out of humour--

"'I fly from plate, I fly from pomp,

I fly from falsehood's specious grin;' I forget the third line. I know
the last is--"

'To find my welcome at an inn.'

You are silent: I annoyed you by going--could not help it--pity me, and
lock up your pride."

"No, my dear Vance, I was hurt for a moment, but that's long since over!"

"Still you seem to have something on your mind," said Vance, who had now
finished reading his letters, lighted his cigar, and was leaning against
the window as the boy continued to walk to and fro.

"That is true: I have. I should like your advice. Read that letter.
Ought I to go? Would it look mercenary, grasping? You know what I
mean."

Vance approached the candles and took the letter. He glanced first at
the signature. "Darrell," he exclaimed. "Oh, it is so, then!" He read
with great attention, put down the letter, and shook Lionel by the hand.
"I congratulate you: all is settled as it should be. Go? of course: you
would be an ill-mannered lout if you did not. Is it far from hence must
you return to town first?"

LIONEL.--"No, I find I can get across the country,--two hours by the
railway. There is a station at the town which bears the post-mark of the
letter. I shall make for that, if you advise it."

"You knew I should advise it, or you would not have tortured your
intellect by those researches into Bradshaw."

"Shrewdly said," answered Lionel, laughing; "but I wished for your
sanction of my crude impressions."

"You never told me your cousin's name was Darrell: not that I should have
been much wiser if you had; but, thunder and lightning, Lionel! do you
know that your cousin Darrell is a famous man?"

LIONEL.--"Famous!--Nonsense. I suppose he was a good lawyer, for I have
heard my mother say, with a sort of contempt, that he had made a great
fortune at the bar."

VANCE.--"But he was in Parliament."

LIONEL.--"Was he? I did not know."

VANCE.--"And this is senatorial fame! You never heard your schoolfellows
talk of Mr. Darrell?--they would not have known his name if you had
boasted of it?"

LIONEL.--"Certainly not."

VANCE.--"Would your schoolfellows have known the names of Wilkie, of
Landseer, of Turner, Maclise? I speak of painters."

LIONEL.--"I should think so, indeed."

VANCE (soliloquizing).--"And yet Her Serene Sublimity-ship, Lady Selina
Vipont, says to me with divine compassion, 'Not in the way of your
delightful art to know such men as Mr. Darrell!' Oh, as if I did not see
through it, too, when she said, /a propos/ of my jean cap and velveteen
jacket, 'What matters how you dress? Every one knows who you are!'
Would she have said that to the earl of Dunder, or even to Sir Gregory
Stollhead? No. I am the painter Frank Vance,--nothing more nor less;
and if I stood on my head in a check shirt and a sky-coloured apron, Lady
Selina Vipont would kindly murmur, 'Only Frank Vance the painter: what
does it signify?' Aha!--and they think to put me to use, puppets and lay
figures! it is I who put them to use! Hark ye, Lionel, you are nearer
akin to these fine folks than I knew of. Promise me one thing: you may
become of their set, by right of your famous Mr. Darrell; if ever you
hear an artist, musician, scribbler, no matter what, ridiculed as a tuft-
hunter,--seeking the great, and so forth,--before you join in the laugh,
ask some great man's son, with a pedigree that dates from the Ark, 'Are
you not a toad-eater too? Do you want political influence; do you stand
contested elections; do you curry and fawn upon greasy Sam the butcher
and grimy Tom the blacksmith for a vote? Why? useful to your career,
necessary to your ambition? Aha! is it meaner to curry and fawn upon
white-handed women and elegant coxcombs? Tut, tut! useful to a career,
necessary to ambition!'" Vance paused, out of breath. The spoiled
darling of the circles,--he, to talk such republican rubbish! Certainly
he must have taken his two guineas' worth out of those light wines.
Nothing so treacherous! they inflame the brain like fire, while melting
on the palate like ice. All inhabitants of lightwine countries are
quarrelsome and democratic.

LIONEL (astounded).--"No one, I am sure, could have meant to call you a
tuft-hunter; of course, every one knows that a great painter--"

VANCE.--"Dates from Michael Angelo, if not from Zeuxis! Common
individuals trace their pedigree from their own fathers! the children of
Art from Art's founders!"

Oh, Vance, Vance, you are certainly drunk! If that comes from dining
with fine people at the Star and Garter, you would be a happier man and
as good a painter if your toddy were never sipped save in honeysuckle
arbours.

"But," said Lionel, bewildered, and striving to turn his friend's
thoughts, "what has all this to do with Mr. Darrell?"

VANCE.--"Mr. Darrell might have been one of the first men in the kingdom.
Lady Selina Vipout says so, and she is related, I believe, to every
member in the Cabinet. Mr. Darrell can push you in life, and make your
fortune, without any great trouble on your own part. Bless your stars,
and rejoice that you are not a painter!"

Lionel flung his arm round the artist's broad breast. "Vance, you are
cruel!" It was his turn to console the painter, as the painter had three
nights before /a propos/ of the same Mr. Darrell consoled him. Vance
gradually sobered down, and the young men walked forth in the moonlight.
And the eternal stars had the same kind looks for Vance as they had
vouchsafed to Lionel.

"When do you start?" asked the painter, as they mounted the stairs to
bed.

"To-morrow evening. I miss the early train, for I must call first and
take leave of Sophy. I hope I may see her again in after life."

"And I hope, for your sake, that if so, she may not be in the same
coloured print, with Lady Selina Vipont's eyeglass upon her!"

"What!" said Lionel, laughing; "is Lady Selina Vipont so formidably
rude?"

"Rude! nobody is rude in that delightful set. Lady Selina Vipont is
excruciatingly--civil."

CHAPTER XVIII.

Being devoted exclusively to a reflection, not inapposite to the
events in this history nor to those in any other which chronicles
the life of men.

There is one warning lesson in life which few of us have not received,
and no book that I can call to memory has noted down with an adequate
emphasis. It is this: "Beware of parting!" The true sadness is not in
the pain of the parting, it is in the When and the How you are to meet
again with the face about to vanish from your view! From the passionate
farewell to the woman who has your heart in her keeping, to the cordial
good-by exchanged with pleasant companions at a watering-place, a
country-house, or the close of a festive day's blithe and careless
excursion,--a cord, stronger or weaker, is snapped asunder in every
parting, and Time's busy fingers are not practised in re-splicing broken
ties. Meet again you may; will it be in the same way?--with the same
sympathies?--with the same sentiments? Will the souls, hurrying on in
diverse paths, unite once more, as if the interval had been a dream?
Rarely, rarely! Have you not, after even a year, even a month's absence,
returned to the same place, found the same groups reassembled, and yet
sighed to yourself, "But where is the charm that once breathed from the
spot, and once smiled from the faces?" A poet has said, "Eternity itself
cannot restore the loss struck from the minute." Are you happy in the
spot on which you tarry with the persons whose voices are now melodious
to your ear? beware of parting; or, if part you must, say not in insolent
defiance to Time and Destiny, "What matters!--we shall soon meet again."

Alas, and alas! when we think of the lips which murmured, "Soon meet
again," and remember how in heart, soul, and thought, we stood forever
divided the one from the other, when, once more face to face, we each
inly exclaimed, "Met again!"

The air that we breathe makes the medium through which sound is conveyed;
be the instrument unchanged, be the force which is applied to it the
same, still the air that thou seest not, the air to thy ear gives the
music.

Ring a bell underneath an exhausted receiver, thou wilt scarce hear the
sound; give the bell due vibration by free air in warm daylight, or sink
it down to the heart of the ocean, where the air, all compressed, fills
the vessel around it,' and the chime, heard afar, starts thy soul, checks
thy footstep, unto deep calls the deep,--a voice from the ocean is borne
to thy soul.

Where then the change, when thou sayest, "Lo, the same metal,--why so
faint-heard the ringing?" Ask the air that thou seest not, or above thee
in sky, or below thee in ocean. Art thou sure that the bell, so faint-
heard, is not struck underneath an exhausted receiver?

CHAPTER XIX.

The wandering inclinations of nomad tribes not to be accounted for
on the principles of action peculiar to civilized men, who are
accustomed to live in good houses and able to pay the income tax.--
When the money that once belonged to a man civilized vanishes into
the pockets of a nomad, neither lawful art nor occult science can,
with certainty, discover what he will do with it.--Mr. Vance
narrowly escapes well-merited punishment from the nails of the
British Fair--Lionel Haughton, in the temerity of youth, braves the
dangers of a British Railway.

The morning was dull and overcast, rain gathering in the air, when Vance
and Lionel walked to Waife's lodging. As Lionel placed his hand on the
knocker of the private door, the Cobbler, at his place by the window in
the stall beside, glanced towards him, and shook his head.

"No use knocking, gentlemen. Will you kindly step in?--this way."

"Do you mean that your lodgers are out?" asked Vance.

"Gone!" said the Cobbler, thrusting his awl with great vehemence through
the leather destined to the repair of a ploughman's boot.

"Gone--for good!" cried Lionel; "you cannot mean it. I call by
appointment."

"Sorry, sir, for your trouble. Stop a bit; I have a letter here for
you." The Cobbler dived into a drawer, and from a medley of nails and
thongs drew forth a letter addressed to L. Haughton, Esq.

"Is this from Waife? How on earth did he know my surname? you never
mentioned it, Vance?"

"Not that I remember. But you said you found him at the inn, and they
knew it there. It is on the brass-plate of your knapsack. No matter,--
what does he say?" and Vance looked over his friend's shoulder and read.

SIR,--I most respectfully thank you for your condescending kindness
to me and my grandchild; and your friend, for his timely and
generous aid. You will pardon me that the necessity which knows no
law obliges me to leave this place some hours before the time of
your proposed visit. My grandchild says you intended to ask her
sometimes to write to you. Excuse me, sir--on reflection, you will
perceive how different your ways of life are from those which she
must tread with me. You see before you a man who--but I forget; you
see him no more, and probably never will.

Your most humble and most obliged, obedient servant,

W. W.

VANCE.--"Who never more may trouble you--trouble you! Where have they
gone?"

COBBLER.--"Don't know; would you like to take a peep in the crystal--
perhaps you've the gift, unbeknown?"

VANCE.--"Not I--bah! Come away, Lionel."

"Did not Sophy even leave any message for me?" asked the boy,
sorrowfully.

"To be sure she did; I forgot-no, not exactly a message, but this--I was
to be sure to give it to you." And out of his miscellaneous receptacle
the Cobbler extracted a little book. Vance looked and laughed,--"The
Butterflies' Ball and the Grasshoppers' Feast."

Lionel did not share the laugh. He plucked the book to himself, and read
on the fly-leaf, in a child's irregular scrawl, blistered, too, with the
unmistakable trace of fallen tears, these words:--

Do not Scorn it. I have nothing else I can think of which is All
Mine. Miss Jane Burton gave it me for being Goode. Grandfather
says you are too high for us, and that I shall not see you More; but
I shall never forget how kind you were, never--never. Sophy.

Said the Cobbler, his awl upright in the hand which rested on his knee,
"What a plague did the 'Stronomers discover Herschel for? You see, sir,"
addressing Vance, "things odd and strange all come along o' Herschel."

"What!--Sir John?"

"No, the star he poked out. He's a awful star for females! hates 'em
like poison! I suspect he's been worriting hisself into her nativity,
for I got out from her the year, month, and day she was born, hour
unbeknown, but, calkeiating by noon, Herschel was dead agin her in the
Third and Ninth House,--Voyages, Travels, Letters, News, Church Matters,
and such like. But it will all come right after he's transited. Her
Jupiter must be good. But I only hope," added the Cobbler, solemnly,
"that they won't go a-discovering any more stars. The world did a deal
better without the new one, and they do talk of a Neptune--as bad as
Saturn!"

"And this is the last of her!" said Lionel, sadly, putting the book into
his breast-pocket. "Heaven shield her wherever she goes!"

VANCE.--"Don't you think Waife and the poor little girl will come back
again?"

COBBLER.--"P'raps; I know he was looking hard into the county map at the
stationer's over the way; that seems as if he did not mean to go very
far. P'raps he may come back."

VANCE.--"Did he take all his goods with him?"

COBBLER.--"Barrin' an old box,--nothing in it, I expect, but theatre
rubbish,--play-books, paints, an old wig, and sick like. He has good
clothes,--always had; and so has she, but they don't make more than a
bundle."

VANCE. "But surely you must know what the old fellow's project is. He
has got from me a great sum: what will he do with it?"

COBBLER.--"Just what has been a-bothering me. What will he do with it?
I cast a figure to know; could not make it out. Strange signs in Twelfth
House. Enemies and Big Animals. Well, well, he's a marbellous man, and
if he warn't a misbeliever in the crystal, I should say he was under
Herschel; for you see, sir" (laying hold of Vance's button, as he saw
that gentleman turning to escape),--"you see Herschel, though he be a
sinister chap eno', specially in affairs connected with t' other sex,
disposes the native to dive into the mysteries of natur'. I'm a Herschel
man, out and outer; born in March, and--"

"As mad as its hares," muttered Vance, wrenching his button from the
Cobbler's grasp, and impatiently striding off. But he did not effect his
escape so easily, for, close at hand, just at the corner of the lane, a
female group, headed by Merle's gaunt housekeeper, had been silently
collecting from the moment the two friends had paused at the Cobbler's
door. And this petticoated divan suddenly closing round the painter, one
pulled him by the sleeve, another by the jacket, and a third, with a nose
upon which somebody had sat in early infancy, whispered, "Please, sir,
take my picter fust."

Vance stared aghast,--"Your picture, you drab!" Here another model of
rustic charms, who might have furnished an ideal for the fat scullion in
"Tristram Shandy," bobbing a courtesy put in her rival claim.

"Sir, if you don't objex to coming into the kitching after the family has
gone to bed, I don't care if I lets you make a minnytur of me for two
pounds."

"Miniature of you, porpoise!"

"Polly, sir, not Porpus,--ax pardon. I shall clean myself, and I have a
butyful new cap,--Honeytun, and--"

"Let the gentleman go, will you?" said a third; "I am surprised at ye,
Polly. The kitching, unbeknown! Sir, I'm in the nussery; yes, sir; and
Alissus says you may take me any time, purvided you'll take the babby, in
the back parlour; yes, sir, No. 5 in the High Street. Mrs. Spratt,--yes,
sir. Babby has had the small-pox; in case you're a married gentleman
with a family; quite safe there; yes, sir."

Vance could endure no more, and, forgetful of that gallantry which should
never desert the male sex, burst through the phalanx with an anathema,
blackening alike the beauty and the virtue of those on whom it fell, that
would have justified a cry of shame from every manly bosom, and which at
once changed into shrill wrath the supplicatory tones with which he had
been hitherto addressed. Down the street he hurried and down the street
followed the insulted fair. "Hiss--hiss--no gentleman, no gentleman!
Aha-skulk off--do--low blaggurd!" shrieked Polly. From their counters
shop-folks rushed to their doors. Stray dogs, excited by the clamour,
ran wildly after the fugitive man, yelping "in madding bray"! Vance,
fearing to be clawed by the females if he merely walked, sure to be
bitten by the dogs if he ran, ambled on, strove to look composed, and
carry his nose high in its native air, till, clearing the street, he saw
a hedgerow to the right; leaped it with an agility which no stimulus less
preternatural than that of self-preservation could have given to his
limbs, and then shot off like an arrow, and did not stop, till, out of
breath, he dropped upon the bench in the sheltering honeysuckle arbour.
Here he was still fanning himself with his cap, and muttering
unmentionable expletives, when he was joined by Lionel, who had tarried
behind to talk more about Sophy to the Cobbler, and who, unconscious that
the din which smote his ear was caused by his ill-starred friend, had
been enticed to go upstairs and look after Sophy in the crystal,--vainly.
When Vance had recited his misadventures, and Lionel had sufficiently
condoled with him, it became time for the latter to pay his share of the
bill, pack up his knapsack, and start for the train. Now, the station
could only be reached by penetrating the heart of the village, and Vance
swore that he had had enough of that. "Peste!" said he; "I should pass
right before No. 5 in the High Street, and the nuss and the babby will be
there on the threshold, like Virgil's picture of the infernal regions,

"'Infantumque anima; flentes in limine primo.'

We will take leave of each other here. I shall go by the boat to
Chertsey whenever I shall have sufficiently recovered my shaken nerves.
There are one or two picturesque spots to be seen in that neighbourhood.
In a few days I shall be in town! write to me there, and tell me how you
get on. Shake hands, and Heaven speed you. But, ah! now you have paid
your moiety of the bill, have you enough left for the train?"

"Oh, yes, the fare is but a few shillings; but, to be sure, a fly to
Fawley? I ought not to go on foot" (proudly); "and, too, supposing he
affronts me, and I have to leave his house suddenly? May I borrow a
sovereign? My mother will call and repay it."

VANCE (magnificently).--"There it is, and not much more left in my
purse,--that cursed Star and Garter! and those three pounds!"

LIONEL (sighing).--"Which were so well spent! Before you sell that
picture, do let me make a copy."

VANCE.--"Better take a model of your own. Village full of them; you
could bargain with a porpoise for half the money which I was duped into
squandering away on a chit! But don't look so grave; you may copy me if
you can!"

"Time to start, and must walk brisk, sir," said the jolly landlord,
looking in.

"Good-by, good-by."

And so departed Lionel Haughton upon an emprise as momentous to that
youth-errant as Perilous Bridge or Dragon's Cave could have been to
knight-errant of old.

"Before we decide on having done with each other, a short visit,"--so ran
the challenge from him who had everything to give unto him who had
everything to gain. And how did Lionel Haughton, the ambitious and
aspiring, contemplate the venture in which success would admit him within
the gates of the golden Carduel an equal in the lists with the sons of
paladins, or throw him back to the arms of the widow who let a first
floor in the back streets of Pimlico? Truth to say, as he strode
musingly towards the station for starting, where the smoke-cloud now
curled from the wheel-track of iron, truth to say, the anxious doubt
which disturbed him was not that which his friends might have felt on his
behalf. In words, it would have shaped itself thus,--"Where is that poor
little Sophy! and what will become of her--what?" But when, launched on
the journey, hurried on to its goal, the thought of the ordeal before him
forced itself on his mind, he muttered inly to himself, "Done with each
other; let it be as he pleases, so that I do not fawn on his pleasure.
Better a million times enter life as a penniless gentleman, who must work
his way up like a man, than as one who creeps on his knees into fortune,
shaming birthright of gentleman or soiling honour of man." Therefore
taking into account the poor cousin's vigilant pride on the /qui vive/
for offence, and the rich cousin's temper (as judged by his letters) rude
enough to resent it, we must own that if Lionel Haughton has at this
moment what is commonly called "a chance," the question as yet is not,
What is that chance? but, What will he do with it? And as the reader
advances in this history, he will acknowledge that there are few
questions in this world so frequently agitated, to which the solution is
more important to each puzzled mortal than that upon which starts every
sage's discovery, every novelist's plot,--that which applies to MAN'S
LIFE, from its first sleep in the cradle, "WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?"

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

Primitive character of the country in certain districts of Great
Britain.--Connection between the features of surrounding scenery and
the mental and moral inclinations of man, after the fashion of all
sound ethnological historians.--A charioteer, to whom an experience
of British laws suggests an ingenious mode of arresting the progress
of Roman Papacy, carries Lionel Haughton and his fortunes to a place
which allows of description and invites repose.

In safety, but with naught else rare enough, in a railway train, to
deserve commemoration, Lionel reached the station to which he was bound.
He there inquired the distance to Fawley Manor House; it was five miles.
He ordered a fly, and was soon wheeled briskly along a rough parish road,
through a country strongly contrasting the gay river scenery he had so
lately quitted,--quite as English, but rather the England of a former
race than that which spreads round our own generation like one vast
suburb of garden-ground and villas. Here, nor village nor spire, nor
porter's lodge came in sight. Rare even were the cornfields; wide spaces
of unenclosed common opened, solitary and primitive, on the road,
bordered by large woods, chiefly of beech, closing the horizon with
ridges of undulating green. In such an England, Knights Templars might
have wended their way to scattered monasteries, or fugitive partisans in
the bloody Wars of the Roses have found shelter under leafy coverts.

The scene had its romance, its beauty-half savage, half gentle-leading
perforce the mind of any cultivated and imaginative gazer far back from
the present day, waking up long-forgotten passages from old poets. The
stillness of such wastes of sward, such deeps of woodland, induced the
nurture of revery, gravely soft and lulling. There, Ambition might give
rest to the wheel of Ixion, Avarice to the sieve of the Danaids; there,
disappointed Love might muse on the brevity of all human passions, and
count over the tortured hearts that have found peace in holy meditation,
or are now stilled under grassy knolls. See where, at the crossing of
three roads upon the waste, the landscape suddenly unfolds, an upland in
the distance, and on the upland a building, the first sign of social man.
What is the building? only a silenced windmill, the sails dark and sharp
against the dull leaden sky.

Lionel touched the driver,--"Are we yet on Mr. Darrell's property?" Of
the extent of that property he had involuntarily conceived a vast idea.

"Lord, sir, no; we be two miles from Squire Darrell's. He han't much
property to speak of hereabouts. But he bought a good bit o' land, too,
some years ago, ten or twelve mile t' other side o' the county. First
time you are going to Fawley, sir?"

"Yes."

"Ah! I don't mind seeing you afore; and I should have known you if I
had, for it is seldom indeed I have a fare to Fawley old Manor House. It
must be, I take it, four or five years ago sin' I wor there with a gent,
and he went away while I wor feeding the horse; did me out o' my back
fare. What bisness had he to walk when he came in my fly? Shabby."

"Mr. Darrell lives very retired, then? sees few persons?" "S'pose so.
I never seed him as I knows on; see'd two o' his hosses though,--rare
good uns;" and the driver whipped on his own horse, took to whistling,
and Lionel asked no more.

At length the chaise stopped at a carriage gate, receding from the road,
and deeply shadowed by venerable trees,--no lodge. The driver,
dismounting, opened the gate.

"Is this the place?"

The driver nodded assent, remounted, and drove on rapidly through what
night by courtesy he called a park. The enclosure was indeed little
beyond that of a good-sized paddock; its boundaries were visible on every
side: but swelling uplands covered with massy foliage sloped down to its
wild, irregular turf soil,--soil poor for pasturage, but pleasant to the
eye; with dell and dingle, bosks of fantastic pollards; dotted oaks of
vast growth; here and there a weird hollow thorn-tree; patches of fern
and gorse. Hoarse and loud cawed the rooks; and deep, deep as from the
innermost core of the lovely woodlands came the mellow note of the
cuckoo. A few moments more a wind of the road brought the house in
sight. At its rear lay a piece of water, scarcely large enough to be
styled a lake; too winding in its shaggy banks, its ends too concealed by
tree and islet, to be called by the dull name of pond. Such as it was it
arrested the eye before the gaze turned towards the house: it had an air
of tranquillity so sequestered, so solemn. A lively man of the world
would have been seized with spleen at the first glimpse of it; but he who
had known some great grief, some anxious care, would have drunk the calm
into his weary soul like an anodyne. The house,--small, low, ancient,
about the date of Edward VI., before the statelier architecture of
Elizabeth. Few houses in England so old, indeed, as Fawley Manor House.
A vast weight of roof, with high gables; windows on the upper story
projecting far over the lower part; a covered porch with a coat of half-
obliterated arms deep panelled over the oak door. Nothing grand, yet all
how venerable! But what is this? Close beside the old, quiet,
unassuming Manor House rises the skeleton of a superb and costly pile,
--a palace uncompleted, and the work evidently suspended,--perhaps long
since, perhaps now forever. No busy workmen nor animated scaffolding.
The perforated battlements roofed over with visible haste,--here with
slate, there with tile; the Elizabethan mullion casements unglazed; some
roughly boarded across,--some with staring forlorn apertures, that showed
floorless chambers, for winds to whistle through and rats to tenant.
Weeds and long grass were growing over blocks of stone that lay at hand.
A wallflower had forced itself into root on the sill of a giant oriel.
The effect was startling. A fabric which he who conceived it must have
founded for posterity,--so solid its masonry, so thick its walls,--and
thus abruptly left to moulder; a palace constructed for the reception of
crowding guests, the pomp of stately revels, abandoned to owl and bat.
And the homely old house beside it, which that lordly hall was doubtless
designed to replace, looking so safe and tranquil at the baffled
presumption of its spectral neighbour.

The driver had rung the bell, and now turning back to the chaise met
Lionel's inquiring eye, and said, "Yes; Squire Darrell began to build
that--many years ago--when I was a boy. I heerd say it was to be the
show-house of the whole county. Been stopped these ten or a dozen
years."

"Why?--do you know?"

"No one knows. Squire was a laryer, I b'leve: perhaps he put it into
Chancery. My wife's grandfather was put into Chancery jist as he was
growing up, and never grew afterwards: never got out o' it; nout ever
does. There's our churchwarden comes to me with a petition to sign agin
the Pope. Says I, 'That old Pope is always in trouble: what's he bin
doin' now?' Says he, 'Spreading! He's a-got into Parlyment, and he's
now got a colledge, and we pays for it. I does n't know how to stop him.'
Says I, 'Put the Pope into Chancery, along with wife's grandfather, and
he'll never spread agin.'"

The driver had thus just disposed of the Papacy, when an elderly servant
out of livery opened the door. Lionel sprang from the chaise, and paused
in some confusion: for then, for the first time, there darted across him
the idea that he had never written to announce his acceptance of Mr.
Darrell's invitation; that he ought to have done so; that he might not be
expected. Meanwhile the servant surveyed him with some surprise. "Mr.
Darrell?" hesitated Lionel, inquiringly.

"Not at home, sir," replied the man, as if Lionel's business was over,
and he had only to re-enter his chaise. The boy was naturally rather
bold than shy, and he said, with a certain assured air, "My name is
Haughton. I come here on Mr. Darrell's invitation."

The servant's face changed in a moment; he bowed respectfully. "I beg
pardon, sir. I will look for my master; he is somewhere on the grounds."
The servant then approached the fly, took out the knapsack, and,
observing Lionel had his purse in his hand, said, "Allow me to save you
that trouble, sir. Driver, round to the stable-yard." Stepping back
into the house, the servant threw open a door to the left, on entrance,
and advanced a chair. "If you will wait here a moment, sir, I will seek
for my master."

CHAPTER II.

Guy Darrell--and Stilled Life.

The room in which Lionel now found himself was singularly quaint. An
antiquarian or architect would have discovered at a glance that at some
period it had formed part of the entrance-hall; and when, in Elizabeth's
or James the First's day, the refinement in manners began to penetrate
from baronial mansions to the homes of the gentry, and the entrance-hall
ceased to be the common refectory of the owner and his dependants, this
apartment had been screened off by perforated panels, which for the sake
of warmth and comfort had been filled up into solid wainscot by a
succeeding generation. Thus one side of the room was richly carved with
geometrical designs and arabesque pilasters, while the other three sides
were in small simple panels, with a deep fantastic frieze in plaster,
depicting a deer-chase in relief and running be tween woodwork and
ceiling. The ceiling itself was relieved by long pendants without any
apparent meaning, and by the crest of the Darrells,--a heron, wreathed
round with the family motto, "Ardua petit Ardea." It was a dining-room,
as was shown by the character of the furniture. But there was no attempt
on the part of the present owner, and there had clearly been none on the
part of his predecessor, to suit the furniture to the room. The
furniture, indeed, was of the heavy, graceless taste of George the
First,--cumbrous chairs in walnut-tree, with a worm-eaten mosaic of the
heron on their homely backs, and a faded blue worsted on their seats; a
marvellously ugly sideboard to match, and on it a couple of black
shagreen cases, the lids of which were flung open, and discovered the
pistol-shaped handles of silver knives. The mantelpiece reached to the
ceiling, in panelled compartments, with heraldic shields, and supported
by rude stone Caryatides. On the walls were several pictures,--family
portraits, for the names were inscribed on the frames. They varied in
date from the reign of Elizabeth to that of George I. A strong family
likeness pervaded them all,--high features, dark hair, grave aspects,--
save indeed one, a Sir Ralph Haughton Darrell, in a dress that spoke him
of the holiday date of Charles II.,--all knots, lace, and ribbons;
evidently the beau of the race; and he had blue eyes, a blonde peruke, a
careless profligate smile, and looked altogether as devil-me-care,
rakehelly, handsome, good-for-nought, as ever swore at a drawer, beat a
watchman, charmed a lady, terrified a husband, and hummed a song as he
pinked his man.

Lionel was still gazing upon the effigies of this airy cavalier when the
door behind him opened very noiselessly, and a man of imposing presence
stood on the threshold,--stood so still, and the carved mouldings of the
doorway so shadowed, and as it were cased round his figure, that Lionel,
on turning quickly, might have mistaken him for a portrait brought into
bold relief from its frame by a sudden fall of light. We hear it,
indeed, familiarly said that such a one is like an old picture. Never
could it be more appositely said than of the face on which the young
visitor gazed, much startled and somewhat awed. Not such as inferior
limners had painted in the portraits there, though it had something in
common with those family lineaments, but such as might have looked
tranquil power out of the canvas of Titian.

The man stepped forward, and the illusion passed. "I thank you," he
said, holding out his hand, "for taking me at my word, and answering me
thus in person." He paused a moment, surveying Lionel's countenance with
a keen but not unkindly eye, and added softly, "Very like your father."

At these words Lionel involuntarily pressed the hand which he had taken.
That hand did not return the pressure. It lay an instant in Lionel's
warm clasp--not repelling, not responding--and was then very gently
withdrawn.

"Did you come from London?"

"No, sir; I found your letter yesterday at Hampton Court. I had been
staying some days in that neighbourhood. I came on this morning: I was
afraid too unceremoniously; your kind welcome reassures me there."

The words were well chosen and frankly said. Probably they pleased the
host, for the expression of his countenance was, on the whole,
propitious; but he merely inclined his head with a kind of lofty
indifference, then, glancing at his watch, he rang the bell.
The servant entered promptly. "Let dinner be served within an hour."

"Pray, sir," said Lionel, "do not change your hours on my account."

Mr. Darrell's brow slightly contracted. Lionel's tact was in fault
there; but the great man answered quietly, "All hours are the same to me;
and it were strange if a host could be deranged by consideration to his
guest,--on the first day too. Are you tired? Would you like to go to
your room, or look out for half an hour? The sky is clearing."

"I should so like to look out, sir."

"This way then."

Mr. Darrell, crossing the hall, threw open a door opposite to that by
which Lionel entered, and the lake (we will so call it) lay before them,
--separated from the house only by a shelving gradual declivity, on which
were a few beds of flowers,--not the most in vogue nowadays, and disposed
in rambling old-fashioned parterres. At one angle, a quaint and
dilapidated sun-dial; at the other, a long bowling-alley, terminated by
one of those summer-houses which the Dutch taste, following the
Revolution of 1688, brought into fashion. Mr. Darrell passed down this
alley (no bowls there now), and observing that Lionel looked curiously
towards the summer-house, of which the doors stood open, entered it. A
lofty room with coved ceiling, painted with Roman trophies of helms and
fasces, alternated with crossed fifes and fiddles, painted also.

"Amsterdam manners," said Mr. Darrell, slightly shrugging his shoulders.
"Here a former race heard music, sang glees, and smoked from clay pipes.
That age soon passed, unsuited to English energies, which are not to be
united with Holland phlegm! But the view from the window-look out there.
I wonder whether men in wigs and women in hoops enjoyed that. It is a
mercy they did not clip those banks into a straight canal!"

The view was indeed lovely,--the water looked so blue and so large and so
limpid, woods and curving banks reflected deep on its peaceful bosom.

"How Vance would enjoy this!" cried Lionel. "It would come into a
picture even better than the Thames."

"Vance? who is Vance?"

"The artist,--a great friend of mine. Surely, sir, you have heard of him
or seen his pictures!"

"Himself and his pictures are since my time. Days tread down days for
the recluse, and be forgets that celebrities rise with their suns, to
wane with their moons,

"'Truditur dies die,
Novaeque pergunt interire lunae'"

"All suns do not set; all moons do not wane!" cried Lionel, with blunt
enthusiasm. "When Horace speaks elsewhere of the Julian star, he
compares it to a moon--'inter ignes minores'--and surely Fame is not
among the orbs which 'pergunt interire,'--hasten on to perish!"

"I am glad to see that you retain your recollections of Horace," said Mr.
Darrell, frigidly, and without continuing the allusion to celebrities;
"the most charming of all poets to a man of my years, and" (he very dryly
added) "the most useful for popular quotation to men at any age."

Then sauntering forth carelessly, he descended the sloping turf, came to
the water-side, and threw himself at length on the grass: the wild thyme
which he crushed sent up its bruised fragrance. There, resting his face
on his hand, Darrell gazed along the water in abstracted silence. Lionel
felt that he was forgotten; but he was not hurt. By this time a strong
and admiring interest for his cousin had sprung up within his breast: he
would have found it difficult to explain why. But whosoever at that
moment could have seen Guy Darrell's musing countenance, or whosoever,
a few minutes before, could have heard the very sound of his voice,
sweetly, clearly full; each slow enunciation unaffectedly, mellowly
distinct,--making musical the homeliest; roughest word, would have
understood and shared the interest which Lionel could not explain. There
are living human faces, which, independently of mere physical beauty,
charm and enthrall us more than the most perfect lineaments which Greek
sculptor ever lent to a marble face; there are key-notes in the thrilling
human voice, simply uttered, which can haunt the heart, rouse the
passions, lull rampant multitudes, shake into dust the thrones of guarded
kings, and effect more wonders than ever yet have been wrought by the
most artful chorus or the deftest quill.

In a few minutes the swans from the farther end of the water came sailing
swiftly towards the bank on which Darrell reclined. He had evidently
made friends with them, and they rested their white breasts close on the
margin, seeking to claim his notice with a low hissing salutation, which,
it is to be hoped, they changed for something less sibilant in that
famous song with which they depart this life.

Darrell looked up. "They come to be fed," said he, "smooth emblems of
the great social union. Affection is the offspring of utility. I am
useful to them: they love me." He rose, uncovered, and bowed to the
birds in mock courtesy: "Friends, I have no bread to give you."

LIONEL.--"Let me run in for some. I would be useful too."

MR. DARRELL.--"Rival!--useful to my swans?"

LIONEL (tenderly).--"Or to you, sir."

He felt as if he had said too much, and without waiting for permission,
ran indoors to find some one whom he could ask for the bread.

"Sonless, childless, hopeless, objectless!" said Darrell, murmuringly to
himself, and sank again into revery.

By the time Lionel returned with the bread, another petted friend had
joined the master. A tame doe had caught sight of him from her covert
far away, came in light bounds to his side, and was pushing her delicate
nostril into his drooping hand. At the sound of Lionel's hurried step,
she took flight, trotted off a few paces, then turned, looking.

"I did not know you had deer here."

"Deer!--in this little paddock!--of course not; only that doe. Fairthorn
introduced her here. By the by," continued Darrell, who was now throwing
the bread to the swans, and had resumed his careless, unmeditative
manner, "you were not aware that I have a brother hermit,--a companion be
sides the swans and the doe. Dick Fairthorn is a year or two younger
than myself, the son of my father's bailiff. He was the cleverest boy at
his grammar-school. Unluckily he took to the flute, and unfitted himself
for the present century. He condescends, however, to act as my
secretary,--a fair classical scholar, plays chess, is useful to me,--I am
useful to him. We have an affection for each other. I never forgive any
one who laughs at him. The half-hour bell, and you will meet him at
dinner. Shall we come in and dress?"

They entered the house; the same man-servant was in attendance in the
hall. "Show Mr. Haughton to his room." Darrell inclined his head--I use
that phrase, for the gesture was neither bow nor nod--turned down a
narrow passage and disappeared.

Led up an uneven staircase of oak, black as ebony, with huge balustrades,
and newel-posts supporting clumsy balls, Lionel was conducted to a small
chamber, modernized a century ago by a faded Chinese paper, and a
mahogany bedstead, which took up three-fourths of the space, and was
crested with dingy plumes, that gave it the cheerful look of a hearse;
and there the attendant said, "Have you the key of your knapsack, sir?
shall I put out your things to dress?" Dress! Then for the first time
the boy remembered that he had brought with him no evening dress,--nay,
evening dress, properly so called, he possessed not at all in any corner
of the world. It had never yet entered into his modes of existence.
Call to mind when you were a boy of seventeen, "betwixt two ages hovering
like a star," and imagine Lionel's sensations. He felt his cheek burn as
if he had been detected in a crime. "I have no dress things," he said
piteously; "only a change of linen, and this," glancing at the summer
jacket. The servant was evidently a most gentleman-like man: his native
sphere that of groom of the chambers. "I will mention it to Mr. Darrell;
and if you will favour me with your address in London, I will send to
telegraph for what you want against to-morrow."

"Many thanks," answered Lionel, recovering his presence of mind; "I will
speak to Mr. Darrell myself."

"There is the hot water, sir; that is the bell. I have the honour to be
placed at your commands." The door closed, and Lionel unlocked his
knapsack; other trousers, other waistcoat had he,--those worn at the
fair, and once white. Alas! they had not since then passed to the care
of the laundress. Other shoes,--double-soled for walking. There was no
help for it but to appear at dinner, attired as he had been before, in
his light pedestrian jacket, morning waistcoat flowered with sprigs, and
a fawn-coloured nether man. Could it signify much,--only two men? Could
the grave Mr. Darrell regard such trifles?--Yes, if they intimated want
of due respect.

"Durum! sed fit levius Patientia
Quicquid corrigere est nefas."

On descending the stairs, the same high-bred domestic was in waiting to
show him into the library. Mr. Darrell was there already, in the simple
but punctilious costume of a gentleman who retains in seclusion the
habits customary in the world. At the first glance Lionel thought he saw
a slight cloud of displeasure on his host's brow. He went up to Mr.
Darrell ingenuously, and apologized for the deficiencies of his itinerant
wardrobe. "Say the truth," said his host; "you thought you were coming
to an old churl, with whom ceremony was misplaced."

"Indeed no!" exclaimed Lionel. "But--but I have so lately left school."

"Your mother might have thought for you."

"I did not stay to consult her, indeed, sir; I hope you are not
offended."

"No, but let me not offend you if I take advantage of my years and our
relationship to remark that a young man should be careful not to let
himself down below the standard of his own rank. If a king could bear to
hear that he was only a ceremonial, a private gentleman may remember that
there is but a ceremonial between himself and--his hatter!"

Lionel felt the colour mount his brow; but Darrell pressing the
distasteful theme no further, and seemingly forgetting its purport,
turned his remarks carelessly towards the weather. "It will be fair
to-morrow: there is no mist on the hill yonder. Since you have a painter
for a friend, perhaps you yourself are a draughtsman. There are some
landscape effects here which Fairthorn shall point out to you."

"I fear, Mr. Darrell," said Lionel, looking down, "that to-morrow I must
leave you."

"So soon? Well, I suppose the place must be very dull."

"Not that--not that; but I have offended you, and I would not repeat the
offence. I have not the 'ceremonial' necessary to mark me as a
gentleman,--either here or at home."

"So! Bold frankness and ready wit command ceremonials," returned
Darrell, and for the first time his lip wore a smile. "Let me present to
you Mr. Fairthorn," as the door, opening, showed a shambling awkward
figure, with loose black knee-breeches and buckled shoes. The figure
made a strange sidelong bow; and hurrying in a lateral course, like
a crab suddenly alarmed, towards a dim recess protected by a long table,
sank behind a curtain fold, and seemed to vanish as a crab does amidst
the shingles.

"Three minutes yet to dinner, and two before the lettercarrier goes,"
said the host, glancing at his watch. "Mr. Fairthorn, will you write a
note for me?" There was a mutter from behind the curtain. Darrell
walked to the place, and whispered a few words, returned to the hearth,
rang the bell. "Another letter for the post, Mills: Mr. Fairthorn is
sealing it. You are looking at my book-shelves, Lionel. As I understand
that your master spoke highly of you, I presume that you are fond of
reading."

"I think so, but I am not sure," answered Lionel, whom his cousin's
conciliatory words had restored to ease and good-humour.

"You mean, perhaps, that you like reading, if you may choose your own
books."

"Or rather, if I may choose my own time to read them, and that would not
be on bright summer days."

"Without sacrificing bright summer days, one finds one has made little
progress when the long winter nights come."

"Yes, sir. But must the sacrifice be paid in books? I fancy I learned
as much in the play-ground as I did n the schoolroom, and for the last
few months, in much my own master, reading hard in the forenoon, it is
true, for many hours at a stretch, and yet again for a few hours at
evening, but rambling also through the streets, or listening to a few
friends whom I have contrived to make,--I think, if I can boast of any
progress at all, the books have the smaller share in it."

"You would, then, prefer an active life to a studious one?"

"Oh, yes--yes."

"Dinner is served," said the decorous Mr. Mills, throwing open the door.

CHAPTER III.

In our happy country every man's house is his castle. But however
stoutly he fortify it, Care enters, as surely as she did in Horace's
time, through the porticos of a Roman's villa. Nor, whether
ceilings be fretted with gold and ivory, or whether only coloured
with whitewash, does it matter to Care any more than it does to a
house-fly. But every tree, be it cedar or blackthorn, can harbour
its singing-bird; and few are the homes in which, from nooks least
suspected, there starts not a music. Is it quite true that, "non
avium citharaeque cantus somnum reducent"? Would not even Damocles
himself have forgotten the sword, if the lute-player had chanced on
the notes that lull?

The dinner was simple enough, but well dressed and well served. One
footman, in plain livery, assisted Mr. Mills. Darrell ate sparingly, and
drank only water, which was placed by his side iced, with a single glass
of wine at the close of the repast, which he drank on bending his head to
Lionel, with a certain knightly grace, and the prefatory words of
"Welcome here to a Haughton." Mr. Fairthorn was less abstemious; tasted
of every dish, after examining it long through a pair of tortoise-shell
spectacles, and drank leisurely through a bottle of port, holding up
every glass to the light. Darrell talked with his usual cold but not
uncourteous indifference. A remark of Lionel on the portraits in the
room turned the conversation chiefly upon pictures, and the host showed
himself thoroughly accomplished in the attributes of the various schools
and masters. Lionel, who was very fond of the art, and indeed painted
well for a youthful amateur, listened with great delight.

"Surely, sir," said he, struck much with a very subtile observation upon
the causes why the Italian masters admit of copyists with greater
facility than the Flemish,--"surely, sir, you yourself must have
practised the art of painting?"

"Not I; but I instructed myself as a judge of pictures, because at one
time I was a collector."

Fairthorn, speaking for the first time: "The rarest collection,--such
Albert Durers! such Holbeins! and that head by Leonardo da Vinci!" He
stopped; looked extremely frightened; helped himself to the port, turning
his back upon his host, to hold, as usual, the glass to the light.

"Are they here, sir?" asked Lionel.

Darrell's face darkened, and he made no answer; but his head sank on his
breast, and he seemed suddenly absorbed in gloomy thought. Lionel felt
that he had touched a wrong chord, and glanced timidly towards Fairthorn;
but that gentleman cautiously held up his finger, and then rapidly put it
to his lip, and as rapidly drew it away. After that signal the boy did
not dare to break the silence, which now lasted uninterruptedly till
Darrell rose, and with the formal and superfluous question, "Any more
wine?" led the way back to the library. There he ensconced himself in an
easy-chair, and saying, "Will you find a book for yourself, Lionel?"
took a volume at random from the nearest shelf, and soon seemed absorbed
in its contents. The room, made irregular by baywindows, and shelves
that projected as in public libraries, abounded with nook and recess. To
one of these Fairthorn sidled himself, and became invisible. Lionel
looked round the shelves. No belles lettres of our immediate generation
were found there; none of those authors most in request in circulating
libraries and literary institutes. The shelves disclosed no poets, no
essayists, no novelists, more recent than the Johnsonian age. Neither in
the lawyer's library were to be found any law books; no, nor the
pamphlets and parliamentary volumes that should have spoken of the once
eager politician. But there were superb copies of the ancient classics.
French and Italian authors were not wanting, nor such of the English as
have withstood the test of time. The larger portions of the shelves
seemed, however, devoted to philosophical works. Here alone was novelty
admitted, the newest essays on science, or the best editions of old works
thereon. Lionel at length made his choice,--a volume of the "Faerie
Queene." Coffee was served; at a later hour tea. The clock struck ten.
Darrell laid down his book.

"Mr. Fairthorn, the flute!"

From the recess a mutter; and presently--the musician remaining still
hidden--there came forth the sweetest note,--so dulcet, so plaintive!
Lionel's ear was ravished. The music suited well with the enchanted page
through which his fancy had been wandering dreamlike,--the flute with the
"Faerie Queene." As the air flowed liquid on, Lionel's eyes filled with
tears. He did not observe that Darrell was intently watching him. When
the music stopped, he turned aside to wipe the tears from his eyes.
Somehow or other, what with the poem, what with the flute, his thoughts
had wandered far, far hence to the green banks and blue waves of the
Thames,--to Sophy's charming face, to her parting childish gift! And
where was she now? Whither passing away, after so brief a holiday, into
the shadows of forlorn life? Darrell's bell-like voice smote his ear.

"Spenser; you love him! Do you write poetry?" "No, sir: I only feel
it!"

"Do neither!" said the host, abruptly. Then, turning away, he lighted
his candle, murmured a quick good-night, and disappeared through a side-
door which led to his own rooms.

Lionel looked round for Fairthorn, who now emerged /ab anqulo/ from his
nook.

"Oh, Mr. Fairthorn, how you have enchanted me! I never believed the
flute could have been capable of such effects!"

Mr. Fairthorn's grotesque face lighted up. He took off his spectacles,
as if the better to contemplate the face of his eulogist. "So you were
pleased! really?" he said, chuckling a strange, grim chuckle, deep in his
inmost self.

"Pleased! it is a cold word! Who would not be more than pleased?"

"You should hear me in the open air."

"Let me do so-to-morrow."

"My dear young sir, with all my heart. Hist!"--gazing round as if
haunted,--"I like you. I wish him to like you. Answer all his questions
as if you did not care how he turned you inside out. Never ask him a
question, as if you sought to know what he did not himself confide. So
there is some thing, you think, in a flute, after all? There are people
who prefer the fiddle."

"Then they never heard your flute, Mr. Fairthorn." The musician again
emitted his discordant chuckle, and, nodding his head nervously and
cordially, shambled away without lighting a candle, and was engulfed in
the shadows of some mysterious corner.

CHAPTER IV.

The old world and the new.

It was long before Lionel could sleep. What with the strange house and
the strange master, what with the magic flute and the musician's
admonitory caution, what with tender and regretful reminiscences of
Sophy, his brain had enough to work on. When he slept at last, his
slumber was deep and heavy, and he did not wake till gently shaken by the
well-bred arm of Mr. Mills. "I humbly beg pardon: nine o'clock, sir, and
the breakfast-bell going to ring." Lionel's toilet was soon hurried
over; Mr. Darrell and Fairthorn were talking together as he entered the
breakfast-room,--the same room as that in which they had dined.

"Good morning, Lionel," said the host. "No leave-taking to-day, as you
threatened. I find you have made an appointment with Mr. Fairthorn, and
I shall place you under his care. You may like to look over the old
house, and make yourself"--Darrell paused "at home," jerked out Mr.
Fairthorn, filling up the hiatus. Darrell turned his eye towards the
speaker, who evidently became much frightened, and, after looking in vain
for a corner, sidled away to the window and poked himself behind the
curtain. "Mr. Fairthorn, in the capacity of my secretary, has learned to
find me thoughts, and put them in his own words," said Darrell, with a
coldness almost icy. He then seated himself at the breakfast-table;
Lionel followed his example, and Mr. Fairthorn, courageously emerging,
also took a chair and a roll. "You are a true diviner, Mr. Darrell,"
said Lionel; "it is a glorious day."

"But there will be showers later. The fish are at play on the surface of
the lake," Darrell added, with a softened glance towards Fairthorn, who
was looking the picture of misery. "After twelve, it will be just the
weather for trout to rise; and if you fish, Mr. Fairthorn will lend you a
rod. He is a worthy successor of Izaak Walton, and loves a companion as
Izaak did, but more rarely gets one."

"Are there trout in your lake, sir?"

"The lake! You must not dream of invading that sacred water. The
inhabitants of rivulets and brooks not within my boundary are beyond the
pale of Fawley civilization, to be snared and slaughtered like Caifres,
red men, or any other savages, for whom we bait with a missionary and
whom we impale on a bayonet. But I regard my lake as a politic
community, under the protection of the law, and leave its denizens to
devour each other, as Europeans, fishes, and other cold-blooded creatures
wisely do, in order to check the overgrowth of population. To fatten one
pike it takes a great many minnows. Naturally I support the vested
rights of pike. I have been a lawyer."

It would be in vain to describe the manner in which Mr. Darrell vented
this or similar remarks of mocking irony or sarcastic spleen. It was not
bitter nor sneering, but in his usual mellifluous level tone and
passionless tranquillity.

The breakfast was just over as a groom passed in front of the windows
with a led horse. "I am going to leave you, Lionel," said the host, "to
make--friends with Mr. Fairthorn, and I thus complete, according to my
own original intention, the sentence which he diverted astray." He
passed across the hall to the open house-door, and stood by the horse,
stroking its neck and giving some directions to the groom. Lionel and
Fairthorn followed to the threshold, and the beauty of the horse provoked
the boy's admiration: it was a dark muzzled brown, of that fine old-
fashioned breed of English roadster which is now so seldom seen,--showy,
bownecked, long-tailed, stumbling, reedy hybrids, born of bad barbs, ill-
mated, having mainly supplied their place. This was, indeed, a horse of
great power, immense girth of loin, high shoulder, broad hoof; and such a
head! the ear, the frontal, the nostril! you seldom see a human
physiognomy half so intelligent, half so expressive of that high spirit
and sweet generous temper, which, when united, constitute the ideal of
thorough-breeding, whether in horse or man. The English rider was in
harmony with the English steed. Darrell at this moment was resting his
arm lightly on the animal's shoulder, and his head still uncovered. It
has been said before that he was, of imposing presence; the striking
attribute of his person, indeed, was that of unconscious grandeur; yet,
though above the ordinary height, he was not very tall-five feet eleven
at the utmost-and far from being very erect. On the contrary, there was
that habitual bend in his proud neck which men who meditate much and live
alone almost invariably contract. But there was, to use an expression
common with our older writers, that "great air" about him which filled
the eye, and gave him the dignity of elevated stature, the commanding
aspect that accompanies the upright carriage. His figure was inclined to
be slender, though broad of shoulder and deep of chest; it was the figure
of a young man and probably little changed from what it might have been
at five-and-twenty. A certain youthfulness still lingered even on the
countenance,--strange, for sorrow is supposed to expedite the work of
age; and Darrell had known sorrow of a kind most adapted to harrow his
peculiar nature, as great in its degree as ever left man's heart in
ruins. No gray was visible in the dark brown hair, that, worn short
behind, still retained in front the large Jove-like curl. No wrinkle,
save at the corner of the eyes, marred the pale bronze of the firm cheek;
the forehead was smooth as marble, and as massive. It was that forehead
which chiefly contributed to the superb expression of his whole aspect.
It was high to a fault; the perceptive organs, over a dark, strongly-
marked, arched eyebrow, powerfully developed, as they are with most
eminent lawyers; it did not want for breadth at the temples; yet, on the
whole, it bespoke more of intellectual vigour and dauntless will than of
serene philosophy or all-embracing benevolence. It was the forehead of a
man formed to command and awe the passions and intellect of others by the
strength of passions in himself, rather concentred than chastised, and by
an intellect forceful from the weight of its mass rather than the
niceness of its balance. The other features harmonized with that brow;
they were of the noblest order of aquiline, at once high and delicate.
The lip had a rare combination of exquisite refinement and inflexible
resolve. The eye, in repose, was cold, bright, unrevealing, with a
certain absent, musing, self-absorbed expression, that often made the
man's words appear as if spoken mechanically, and assisted towards that
seeming of listless indifference to those whom he addressed, by which he
wounded vanity without, perhaps, any malice prepense. But it was an eye
in which the pupil could suddenly expand, the hue change from gray to
dark, and the cold still brightness flash into vivid fire. It could not
have occurred to any one, even to the most commonplace woman, to have
described Darrell's as a handsome face; the expression would have seemed
trivial and derogatory; the words that would have occurred to all, would
have been somewhat to this effect: "What a magnificent countenance! What
a noble head!" Yet an experienced physiognomist might have noted that
the same lineaments which bespoke a virtue bespoke also its neighbouring
vice; that with so much will there went stubborn obstinacy; that with
that power of grasp there would be the tenacity in adherence which
narrows, in astringing, the intellect; that a prejudice once conceived,
a passion once cherished, would resist all rational argument for
relinquishment. When men of this mould do relinquish prejudice or
passion, it is by their own impulse, their own sure conviction that what
they hold is worthless: then they do not yield it graciously; they fling
it from them in scorn, but not a scorn that consoles. That which they
thus wrench away had "grown a living part of themselves;" their own flesh
bleeds; the wound seldom or never heals. Such men rarely fail in the
achievement of what they covet, if the gods are neutral; but, adamant
against the world, they are vulnerable through their affections. Their
love is intense, but undemonstrative; their hatred implacable, but
unrevengeful,--too proud to revenge, too galled to pardon.

There stood Guy Darrell, to whom the bar had destined its highest
honours, to whom the senate had accorded its most rapturous cheers; and
the more you gazed on him as he there stood, the more perplexed became
the enigma,--how with a career sought with such energy, advanced with
such success, the man had abruptly subsided into a listless recluse, and
the career had been voluntarily resigned for a home without neighbours, a
hearth without children.

"I had no idea," said Lionel, as Darrell rode slowly away, soon lost from
sight amidst the thick foliage of summer trees,--"I had no idea that my
cousin was so young!"

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Fairthorn; "he is only a year older than I am!"

"Older than you!" exclaimed Lionel, staring in blunt amaze at the
elderly-looking personage beside him; "yet true, he told me so himself."

"And I am fifty-one last birthday." "Mr. Darrell fifty-two! Incredible!"

"I don't know why we should ever grow old, the life we lead," observed
Mr. Fairthorn, readjusting his spectacles. "Time stands so still!
Fishing, too, is very conducive to longevity. If you will follow me, we
will get the rods; and the flute,--you are quite sure you would like the
flute? Yes! thank you, my dear young sir. And yet there are folks who
prefer the fiddle!"

"Is not the sun a little too bright for the fly at present; and will you
not, in the meanwhile, show me over the house?"

"Very well; not that this house has much worth seeing. The other indeed
would have had a music-room! But, after all, nothing like the open air
for the flute. This way."

I spare thee, gentle reader, the minute inventory of Fawley Manor House.
It had nothing but its antiquity to recommend it. It had a great many
rooms, all, except those used as the dining-room and library, very small,
and very low,--innumerable closets, nooks,--unexpected cavities, as if
made on purpose for the venerable game of hide-and-seek. Save a stately
old kitchen, the offices were sadly defective even for Mr. Darrell's
domestic establishment, which consisted but of two men and four maids
(the stablemen not lodging in the house). Drawing-room properly speaking
that primitive mansion had none. At some remote period a sort of gallery
under the gable roofs (above the first floor), stretching from end to end
of the house, might have served for the reception of guests on grand
occasions; for fragments of mouldering tapestry still here and there
clung to the walls; and a high chimney-piece, whereon, in plaster relief,
was commemorated the memorable fishing party of Antony and Cleopatra,
retained patches of colour and gilding, which must when fresh have made
the Egyptian queen still more appallingly hideous, and the fish at the
end of Antony's hook still less resembling any creature known to
ichthyologists.

The library had been arranged into shelves from floor to roof by Mr.
Darrell's father, and subsequently, for the mere purpose of holding as
many volumes as possible, brought out into projecting wings (college-
like) by Darrell himself, without any pretension to mediaeval character.
With this room communicated a small reading-closet, which the host
reserved to himself; and this, by a circular stair cut into the massive
wall, ascended first into Mr. Darrell's sleeping-chamber, and thence into
a gable recess that adjoined the gallery, and which the host had fitted
up for the purpose of scientific experiments in chemistry or other
branches of practical philosophy. These more private rooms Lionel was
not permitted to enter. Altogether the house was one of those cruel
tenements which it would be a sin to pull down, or even materially to
alter, but which it would be an hourly inconvenience for a modern family
to inhabit. It was out of all character with Mr. Darrell's former
position in life, or with the fortune which Lionel vaguely supposed him
to possess, and considerably underrated. Like Sir Nicholas Bacon, the
man had grown too large for his habitation.

"I don't wonder," said Lionel, as, their wanderings over, he and
Fairthorn found themselves in the library, "that Mr. Darrell began to
build a new house. But it would have been a great pity to pull down this
for it."

"Pull down this! Don't hint at such an idea to Mr. Darrell. He would as
soon have pulled down the British Monarchy! Nay, I suspect, sooner."

"But the new building must surely have swallowed up the old one?"

"Oh, no; Mr. Darrell had a plan by which he would have enclosed this
separately in a kind of court, with an open screen-work or cloister; and
it was his intention to appropriate it entirely to mediaeval antiquities,
of which he has a wonderful collection. He had a notion of illustrating
every earlier reign in which his ancestors flourished,--different
apartments in correspondence with different dates. It would have been a
chronicle of national manners."

"But, if it be not an impertinent question, where is this collection?
In London?"

"Hush! hush! I will give you a peep of some of the treasures, only don't
betray me."

Fairthorn here, with singular rapidity, considering that he never moved
in a straightforward direction, undulated into the open air in front of
the house, described a rhomboid towards a side-buttress in the new
building, near to which was a postern-door; unlocked that door from a key
in his pocket, and, motioning Lionel to follow him, entered within the
ribs of the stony skeleton. Lionel followed in a sort of supernatural
awe, and beheld, with more substantial alarm, Mr. Fairthorn winding up an
inclined plank which lie embraced with both arms, and by which he
ultimately ascended to a timber joist in what should have been an upper
floor, only flooring there was none. Perched there, Fairthorn glared
down on Lionel through his spectacles. "Dangerous," he said
whisperingly; "but one gets used to everything! If you feel afraid,
don't venture!"

Lionel, animated by that doubt of his courage, sprang up the plank,
balancing himself schoolboy fashion, with outstretched arms, and gained
the side of his guide.

"Don't touch me!" exclaimed Mr. Fairthorn, shrinking, "or we shall both
be over. Now observe and imitate." Dropping himself, then, carefully
and gradually, till he dropped on the timber joist as if it were a
velocipede, his long legs dangling down, he with thigh and hand impelled
himself onward till he gained the ridge of a wall, on which he delivered
his person, and wiped his spectacles.

Lionel was not long before he stood in the same place. "Here we are,"
said Fairthorn.

"I don't see the collection," answered Lionel, first peering down athwart
the joists upon the rugged ground overspread with stones and rubbish,
then glancing up through similar interstices above to the gaunt rafters.

"Here are some,--most precious," answered Fairthorn, tapping behind him.
"Walled up, except where these boards, cased in iron, are nailed across,
with a little door just big enough to creep through; but that is locked,
--Chubb's lock, and Mr. Darrell keeps the key!--treasures for a palace!
No, you can't peep through here--not a chink; but come on a little
further,--mind your footing."

Skirting the wall, and still on the perilous ridge, Fairthorn crept on,
formed an angle, and stopping short, clapped his eye to the crevice of
some planks nailed rudely across a yawning aperture. Lionel found
another crevice for himself, and saw, piled up in admired disorder,
pictures, with their backs turned to a desolate wall, rare cabinets, and
articles of curious furniture, chests, boxes, crates,--heaped pell-mell.
This receptacle had been roughly floored in deal, in order to support its
miscellaneous contents, and was lighted from a large window (not visible
in front of the house), glazed in dull rough glass, with ventilators.

"These are the heavy things, and least costly things, that no one could
well rob. The pictures here are merely curious as early specimens,
intended for the old house, all spoiling and rotting; Mr. Darrell wishes
them to do so, I believe! What he wishes must be done! my dear young sir:
a prodigious mind; it is of granite!"

"I cannot understand it," said Lionel, aghast. "The last man I should
have thought capriciously whimsical."

"Whimsical! Bless my soul! don't say such a word, don't, pray! or the
roof will fall down upon us! Come away. You have seen all you can see.
You must go first now; mind that loose stone there!"

Nothing further was said till they were out of the building; and Lionel
felt like a knight of old who had been led into sepulchral halls by a
wizard.

CHAPTER V.

The annals of empire are briefly chronicled in family records
brought down to the present day, showing that the race of men is
indeed "like leaves on trees, now green in youth, now withering on
the ground." Yet to the branch the most bare will green leaves
return, so long as the sap can remount to the branch from the root;
but the branch which has ceased to take life from the root--hang it
high, hang it low--is a prey to the wind and the woodman.

It was mid-day. The boy and his new friend were standing apart, as
becomes silent anglers, on the banks of a narrow brawling rivulet,
running through green pastures, half a mile from the house. The sky was
overcast, as Darrell had predicted, but the rain did not yet fall. The
two anglers were not long before they had filled a basket with small
trout. Then Lionel, who was by no means fond of fishing, laid his rod on
the bank, and strolled across the long grass to his companion.

"It will rain soon," said he. "Let us take advantage of the present
time, and hear the flute, while we can yet enjoy the open air. No, not
by the margin, or you will be always looking after the trout. On the
rising ground, see that old thorn tree; let us go and sit under it. The
new building looks well from it. What a pile it would have been! I may
not ask you, I suppose, why it is left uncompleted. Perhaps it would
have cost too much, or would have been disproportionate to the estate."

"To the present estate it would have been disproportioned, but not to the
estate Mr. Darrell intended to add to it. As to cost, you don't know
him. He would never have undertaken what he could not afford to
complete; and what he once undertook, no thoughts of the cost would have
scared him from finishing. Prodigious mind,--granite! And so rich!"
added Fairthorn, with an air of great pride. "I ought to know; I write
all his letters on money matters. How much do you think he has, without
counting land?"

"I cannot guess."

"Nearly half a million; in two years it will be more than half a million.
And he had not three hundred a year when he began life; for Fawley was
sadly mortgaged."

"Is it possible! Could any lawyer make half a million at the bar?"

"If any man could, Mr. Darrell would. When he sets his mind on a thing,
the thing is done; no help for it. But his fortune was not all made at
the bar, though a great part of it was. An old East Indian bachelor of
the same name, but who had never been heard of hereabouts till he wrote
from Calcutta to Mr. Darrell (inquiring if they were any relation, and
Mr. Darrell referred him to the College-at-Arms, which proved that they
came from the same stock ages ago), left him all his money. Mr. Darrell
was not dependent on his profession when he stood up in Parliament. And
since we have been here, such savings! Not that Mr. Darrell is
avaricious, but how can he spend money in this place? You should have
seen the establishment we kept in Carlton Gardens. Such a cook too,
--a French gentleman, looked like a marquis. Those were happy days, and
proud ones! It is true that I order the dinner here, but it can't be the
same thing. Do you like fillet of veal?--we have one to-day."

"We used to have fillet of veal at school on Sundays. I thought it good
then."

"It makes a nice mince," said Mr. Fairthorn, with a sensual movement of
his lips. "One must think of dinner when one lives in the country: so
little else to think of! Not that Mr. Darrell does, but then he is
granite!"

"Still," said Lionel, smiling, "I do not get my answer. Why was the
house uncompleted? and why did Mr. Darrell retire from public life?"

"He took both into his head; and when a thing once gets there, it is no
use asking why. But," added Fairthorn, and his innocent ugly face
changed into an expression of earnest sadness,--"but no doubt he had his
reasons. He has reasons for all he does, only they lie far, far away
from what appears on the surface,--far as that rivulet lies from its
source! My dear young sir, Mr. Darrell has known griefs on which it does
not become you and me to talk. He never talks of them. The least I can
do for my benefactor is not to pry into his secrets, nor babble them out.
And he is so kind, so good, never gets into a passion; but it is so awful
to wound him,--it gives him such pain; that's why he frightens me,--
frightens me horribly; and so he will you when you come to know him.
Prodigious mind!--granite,--overgrown with sensitive plants. Yes, a
little music will do us both good."

Mr. Fairthorn screwed his flute, an exceedingly handsome one. He pointed
out its beauties to Lionel--a present from Mr. Darrell last Christmas--
and then he began. Strange thing, Art! especially music. Out of an
art, a man may be so trivial you would mistake him for an imbecile,--at
best a grown infant. Put him into his art, and how high he soars above
you! How quietly he enters into a heaven of which he has become a
denizen, and unlocking the gates with his golden key, admits you to
follow, a humble reverent visitor.

In his art, Fairthorn was certainly a master, and the air he now played
was exquisitely soft and plaintive; it accorded with the clouded yet
quiet sky, with the lone but summer landscape, with Lionel's melancholic
but not afflicted train of thought. The boy could only murmur
"Beautiful!" when the musician ceased.

"It is an old air," said Fairthorn; "I don't think it is known. I found
its scale scrawled down in a copy of the 'Eikon Basilike,' with the name
of 'Joannes Darrell, Esq., Aurat,' written under it. That, by the date,
was Sir John Darrell, the cavalier who fought for Charles I., father of
the graceless Sir Ralph, who flourished under Charles II. Both their
portraits are in the dining-room."

"Tell me something of the family; I know so little about it,--not even
how the Haughtons and Darrells seem to have been so long connected. I
see by the portraits that the Haughton name was borne by former Darrells,
then apparently dropped, now it is borne again by my cousin."

"He bears it only as a Christian name. Your grandfather was his sponsor.
But he is nevertheless the head of your family."

"So he says. How?"

Fairthorn gathered himself up, his knees to his chin, and began in the
tone of a guide who has got his lesson by heart; though it was not long
before he warmed into his subject.

"The Darrells are supposed to have got their name from a knight in the
reign of Edward III., who held the lists in a joust victoriously against
all comers, and was called, or called himself, John the Dare-all; or, in
old spelling, the Der-all. They were amongst the most powerful families
in the country; their alliances were with the highest houses,--
Montfichets, Nevilles, Mowbrays; they descended through such marriages
from the blood of Plantagenet kings. You'll find their names in
chronicles in the early French wars. Unluckily they attached themselves
to the fortunes of Earl Warwick, the king-maker, to whose blood they were
allied; their representative was killed in the fatal field of Barnet;
their estates were of course confiscated; the sole son and heir of that
ill-fated politician passed into the Low Countries, where he served as a
soldier. His son and grandson followed the same calling under foreign
banners. But they must have kept up the love of the old land; for in the
latter part of the reign of Henry VIII., the last male Darrell returned
to England with some broad gold pieces saved by himself or his exiled
fathers, bought some land in this county, in which the ancestral
possessions had once been large, and built the present house, of a size
suited to the altered fortunes of a race that in a former age had manned
castles with retainers. The baptismal name of the soldier who thus
partially refounded the old line in England was that now borne by your
cousin, Guy,--a name always favoured by Fortune in the family annals; for
in Elizabeth's time, from the rank of small gentry, to which their
fortune alone lifted them since their return to their native land, the
Darrells rose once more into wealth and eminence under a handsome young
Sir Guy,--we have his picture in black flowered velvet,--who married the
heiress of the Haughtons, a family that had grown rich under the Tudors,
and was in high favour with the Maiden-Queen. This Sir Guy was
befriended by Essex and knighted by Elizabeth herself. Their old house
was then abandoned for the larger mansion of the Haughtons, which had
also the advantage of being nearer to the Court, The renewed prosperity
of the Darrells was of short duration. The Civil Wars came on, and Sir
John Darrell took the losing side. He escaped to France with his only
son. He is said to have been an accomplished, melancholy man; and my
belief is, that he composed that air which you justly admire for its
mournful sweetness. He turned Roman Catholic and died in a convent. But
the son, Ralph, was brought up in France with Charles II, and other gay
roisterers. On the return of the Stuart, Ralph ran off with the daughter
of the Roundhead to whom his estates had been given, and, after getting
them back, left his wife in the country, and made love to other men's
wives in town. Shocking profligate! no fruit could thrive upon such a
branch. He squandered all he could squander, and would have left his
children beggars, but that he was providentially slain in a tavern brawl
for boasting of a lady's favours to her husband's face. The husband
suddenly stabbed him,--no fair duello, for Sir Ralph was invincible with
the small sword. Still the family fortune was much dilapidated, yet
still the Darrells lived in the fine house of the Haughtons, and left
Fawley to the owls. But Sir Ralph's son, in his old age, married a
second time, a young lady of high rank, an earl's daughter. He must have
been very much in love with her, despite his age, for to win her consent
or her father's he agreed to settle all the Haughton estates on her and
the children she might bear to him. The smaller Darrell property had
already been entailed on his son by his first marriage. This is how the
family came to split. Old Darrell had children by his second wife; the
eldest of those children took the Haughton name and inherited the
Haughton property. The son by the first marriage had nothing but Fawley
and the scanty domain round it. You descend from the second marriage,
Mr. Darrell from the first. You understand now, my dear young sir?"
"Yes, a little; but I should very much like to know where those fine
Haughton estates are now?"

"Where they are now? I can't say. They were once in Middlesex.
Probably much of the land, as it was sold piecemeal, fell into small
allotments, constantly changing hands. But the last relics of the
property were, I know, bought on speculation by Cox the distiller; for,
when we were in London, by Mr. Darrell's desire I went to look after
them, and inquire if they could be repurchased. And I found that so
rapid in a few years has been the prosperity of this great commercial
country, that if one did buy them back, one would buy twelve villas,
several streets, two squares, and a paragon! But as that symptom of
national advancement, though a proud thought in itself, may not have any
pleasing interest for you, I return to the Darrells. From the time in
which the Haughton estate had parted from them, they settled back in
their old house of Fawley. But they could never again hold up their
heads with the noblemen and great squires in the county. As much as they
could do to live at all upon the little patrimony; still the reminiscence
of what they had been made them maintain it jealously and entail it
rigidly. The eldest son would never have thought of any profession or
business; the younger sons generally became soldiers, and being always a
venturesome race, and having nothing particular to make them value their
existence, were no less generally killed off betimes. The family became
thoroughly obscure, slipped out of place in the county, seldom rose to be
even justices of the peace, never contrived to marry heiresses again,
but only the daughters of some neighbouring parson or squire as poor as
themselves, but always of gentle blood. Oh, they were as proud as
Spaniards in that respect! So from father to son, each generation grew
obscurer and poorer; for, entail the estate as they might, still some
settlements on it were necessary, and no settlements were ever brought
into it; and thus entails were cut off to admit some new mortgage, till
the rent-roll was somewhat less than L300 a year when Mr. Darrell's
father came into possession. Yet somehow or other he got to college,
where no Darrell had been since the time of the Glorious Revolution, and
was a learned man and an antiquary,--A GREAT ANTIQUARY! You may have
read his works. I know there is one copy of them in the British Museum,
and there is another here, but that copy Mr. Darrell keeps under lock and
key."

"I am ashamed to say I don't even know the titles of those works."

"There were 'Popular Ballads on the Wars of the Roses;' 'Darrelliana,'
consisting of traditional and other memorials of the Darrell family;
'Inquiry into the Origin of Legends Connected with Dragons;' 'Hours
amongst Monumental Brasses,' and other ingenious lucubrations above the
taste of the vulgar; some of them were even read at the Royal Society of
Antiquaries. They cost much to print and publish. But I have heard my
father, who was his bailiff, say that he was a pleasant man, and was fond
of reciting old scraps of poetry, which he did with great energy; indeed,
Mr. Darrell declares that it was the noticing, in his father's animated
and felicitous elocution, the effects that voice, look, and delivery can
give to words, which made Mr. Darrell himself the fine speaker he is.
But I can only recollect the antiquary as a very majestic gentleman, with
a long pigtail--awful, rather, not so much so as his son, but still awful
--and so sad-looking; you would not have recovered your spirits for a
week if you had seen him, especially when the old house wanted repairs,
and he was thinking how he could pay for them!"

"Was Mr. Darrell, the present one, an only child?"

"Yes, and much with his father, whom he loved most dearly, and to this
day he sighs if he has to mention his father's name! He has old Mr.
Darrell's portrait over the chimney-piece in his own reading-room; and he
had it in his own library in Carlton Gardens. Our Mr. Darrell's mother
was very pretty, even as I remember her: she died when he was about ten
years old. And she too was a relation of yours,--a Haughton by blood,--
but perhaps you will be ashamed of her, when I say she was a governess in
a rich mercantile family. She had been left an orphan. I believe old
Mr. Darrell (not that he was old then) married her because the Haughtons
could or would do nothing for her, and because she was much snubbed and
put upon, as I am told governesses usually are,--married her because,
poor as he was, he was still the head of both families, and bound to do
what he could for decayed scions. The first governess a Darrell, ever
married; but no true Darrell would have called that a mesalliance since
she was still a Haughton and 'Fors non mutat genus,'--Chance does not
change race."

"But how comes it that the Haughtons, my grandfather Haughton, I suppose,
would do nothing for his own kinswoman?"

"It was not your grandfather Robert Haughton, who was a generous man,--
he was then a mere youngster, hiding himself for debt,--but your great--
grandfather, who was a hard man and on the turf. He never had money to
give,--only money for betting. He left the Haughton estates sadly
clipped. But when Robert succeeded, he came forward, was godfather to
our Mr. Darrell, insisted on sharing the expense of sending him to Eton,
where he became greatly distinguished; thence to Oxford, where he
increased his reputation; and would probably have done more for him, only
Mr. Darrell, once his foot on the ladder, wanted no help to climb to the
top."

"Then my grandfather, Robert, still had the Haughton estates? Their last
relics had not been yet transmuted by Mr. Cox into squares and a
paragon?"

"No; the grand old mansion, though much dilapidated, with its park,
though stripped of salable timber, was still left with a rental from
farms that still appertained to the residence, which would have sufficed
a prudent man for the luxuries of life, and allowed a reserve fund to
clear off the mortgages gradually. Abstinence and self-denial for one or
two generations would have made a property, daily rising in value as the
metropolis advanced to its outskirts, a princely estate for a third. But
Robert Haughton, though not on the turf, had a grand way of living; and
while Guy Darrell went into the law to make a small patrimony a large
fortune, your father, my dear young sir, was put into the Guards to
reduce a large patrimony--into Mr. Cox's distillery."

Lionel coloured, but remained silent.

Fairthorn, who was as unconscious in his zest of narrator that he was
giving pain as an entomologist in his zest for collecting when he pins a
live moth in his cabinet, resumed: "Your father and Guy Darrell were warm
friends as boys and youths. Guy was the elder of the two, and Charlie
Haughton (I beg your pardon, he was always called Charlie) looked up to
him as to an elder brother. Many's the scrape Guy got him out of; and
many a pound, I believe, when Guy had some funds of his own, did Guy lend
to Charlie."

"I am very sorry to hear that," said Lionel, sharply. Fairthorn looked
frightened. "I 'm afraid I have made a blunder. Don't tell Mr.
Darrell."

"Certainly not; I promise. But how came my father to need this aid, and
how came they at last to quarrel?"

Your father Charlie became a gay young man about town, and very much the
fashion. He was like you in person, only his forehead was lower, and his
eye not so steady. Mr. Darrell studied the law in chambers. When Robert
Haughton died, what with his debts, what with his father's, and what with
Charlie's post-obits and I O U's, there seemed small chance indeed of
saving the estate to the Haughtons. But then Mr. Darrell looked close
into matters, and with such skill did he settle them that he removed the
fear of foreclosure; and what with increasing the rental here and there,
and replacing old mortgages by new at less interest, he contrived to
extract from the property an income of nine hundred pounds a year to
Charlie (three times the income Darrell had inherited himself), where
before it had seemed that the debts were more than the assets.
Foreseeing how much the land would rise in value, he then earnestly
implored Charlie (who unluckily had the estate in fee-simple, as Mr.
Darrell has this, to sell if he pleased) to live on his income, and in a
few years a part of the property might be sold for building purposes, on
terms that would save all the rest, with the old house in which Darrells
and Haughtons both had once reared generations. Charlie promised, I
know, and I've no doubt, my dear young sir, quite sincerely; but all men
are not granite! He took to gambling, incurred debts of honour, sold the
farms one by one, resorted to usurers, and one night, after playing six
hours at piquet, nothing was left for him but to sell all that remained
to Mr. Cox the distiller, unknown to Mr. Darrell, who was then married
himself, working hard, and living quite out of news of the fashionable
world. Then Charlie Haughton sold out of the Guards, spent what he got
for his commission, went into the Line; and finally, in a country town,
in which I don't think he was quartered, but having gone there on some
sporting speculation, was unwillingly detained, married--"

"My mother!" said Lionel, haughtily; "and the best of women she is.
What then?"

"Nothing, my dear young sir,--nothing, except that Mr. Darrell never
forgave it. He has his prejudices: this marriage shocked one of them."

"Prejudice against my poor mother! I always supposed so! I wonder why?
The most simple-hearted, inoffensive, affectionate woman."

"I have not a doubt of it; but it is beginning to rain. Let us go home.
I should like some luncheon: it breaks the day."

"Tell me first why Mr. Darrell has a prejudice against my mother.
I don't think that he has even seen her. Unaccountable caprice! Shocked
him, too,--what a word! Tell me--I beg--I insist."

"But you know," said Fairthorn, half piteously, half snappishly, "that
Mrs. Haughton was the daughter of a linendraper, and her father's money
got Charlie out of the county jail; and Mr. Darrell said, 'Sold even your
name!' My father heard him say it in the hall at Fawley. Mr. Darrell
was there during a long vacation, and your father came to see him. Your
father fired up, and they never saw each other, I believe, again."

Lionel remained still as if thunder-stricken. Something in his mother's
language and manner had at times made him suspect that she was not so
well born as his father. But it was not the discovery that she was a
tradesman's daughter that galled him; it was the thought that his father
was bought for the altar out of the county jail! It was those cutting
words, "Sold even your name." His face, before very crimson, became
livid; his head sank on his breast. He walked towards the old gloomy
house by Fairthorn's side, as one who, for the first time in life, feels
on his heart the leaden weight of an hereditary shame.

CHAPTER VI.

Showing how sinful it is in a man who does not care for his honour
to beget children.

When Lionel saw Mr. Fairthorn devoting his intellectual being to the
contents of a cold chicken-pie, he silently stepped out of the room and
slunk away into a thick copse at the farthest end of the paddock. He
longed to be alone. The rain descended, not heavily, but in penetrating
drizzle; he did not feel it, or rather he felt glad that there was no
gaudy mocking sunlight. He sat down forlorn in the hollows of a glen
which the copse covered, and buried his face in his clasped hands.

Lionel Haughton, as the reader may have noticed, was no premature man,--
a manly boy, but still a habitant of the twilight, dreamy, shadow-land of
boyhood. Noble elements were stirring fitfully within him, but their
agencies were crude and undeveloped. Sometimes, through the native
acuteness of his intellect, he apprehended truths quickly and truly as a
man; then, again, through the warm haze of undisciplined tenderness, or
the raw mists of that sensitive pride in which objects, small in
themselves, loom large with undetected outlines, he fell back into the
passionate dimness of a child's reasoning. He was intensely ambitious;
Quixotic in the point of honour; dauntless in peril: but morbidly
trembling at the very shadow of disgrace, as a foal, destined to be the
war-horse and trample down levelled steel, starts in its tranquil
pastures at the rustling of a leaf. Glowingly romantic, but not inclined
to vent romance in literary creations, his feelings were the more high-
wrought and enthusiastic because they had no outlet in poetic channels.
Most boys of great ability and strong passion write verses--it is
Nature's relief to brain and heart at the critical turning age. Most
boys thus gifted do so; a few do not, and out of those few Fate selects
the great men of action,--those large luminous characters that stamp
poetry on the world's prosaic surface. Lionel had in him the pith and
substance of Fortune's grand nobodies, who become Fame's abrupt
somebodies when the chances of life throw suddenly in their way a noble
something, to be ardently coveted and boldly won. But I repeat, as yet
he was a boy; so he sat there, his hands before his face, an unreasoning
self-torturer. He knew now why this haughty Darrell had written with so
little tenderness and respect to his beloved mother. Darrell looked on
her as the cause of his ignoble kinsman's "sale of name;" nay, most
probably ascribed to her not the fond girlish love which levels all
disparities of rank, but the vulgar cold-blooded design to exchange her
father's bank-notes for a marriage beyond her station. And he was the
debtor to this supercilious creditor, as his father had been before him.
His father! till then he had been so proud of that relationship! Mrs.
Haughton had not been happy with her captain; his confirmed habits of
wild dissipation had embittered her union, and at last worn away her
wifely affections. But she had tended and nursed him in his last illness
as the lover of her youth; and though occasionally she hinted at his
faults, she ever spoke of him as the ornament of all society,--poor,
it is true, harassed by unfeeling creditors, but the finest of fine
gentlemen. Lionel had never heard from her of the ancestral estates sold
for a gambling debt; never from her of the county jail nor the mercenary
misalliance. In boyhood, before we have any cause to be proud of
ourselves, we are so proud of our fathers, if we have a decent excuse for
it. Of his father could Lionel Haughton be proud now? And Darrell was
cognizant of his paternal disgrace, had taunted his father in yonder old
hall--for what?--the marriage from which Lionel sprang! The hands grew
tighter and tighter before that burning face. He did not weep, as he had
done in Vance's presence at a thought much less galling. Not that tears
would have misbecome him. Shallow judges of human nature are they who
think that tears in themselves ever misbecome boy or even man. Well did
the sternest of Roman writers place the arch distinction of humanity
aloft from all meaner of Heaven's creatures, in the prerogative of tears!
Sooner mayst thou trust thy purse to a professional pickpocket than give
loyal friendship to the man who boasts of eyes to which the heart never
mounts in dew! Only, when man weeps he should be alone,--not because
tears are weak, but because they should be sacred. Tears are akin to
prayers. Pharisees parade prayer! impostors parade tears. O Pegasus,
Pegasus,--softly, softly,--thou hast hurried me off amidst the clouds:
drop me gently down--there, by the side of the motionless boy in the
shadowy glen.

CHAPTER VII.

Lionel Haughton, having hitherto much improved his chance of
fortune, decides the question, "What will he do with it?"

"I have been seeking you everywhere," said a well-known voice; and a hand
rested lightly on Lionel's shoulder. The boy looked up, startled, but
yet heavily, and saw Guy Darrell, the last man on earth he could have
desired to see. "Will you come in for a few minutes? you are wanted."

"What for? I would rather stay here. Who can want me?"

Darrell, struck by the words and the sullen tone in which they were
uttered, surveyed Lionel's face for an instant, and replied in a voice
involuntarily more kind than usual,--

"Some one very commonplace, but since the Picts went out of fashion, very
necessary to mortals the most sublime. I ought to apologize for his
coming. You threatened to leave me yesterday because of a defect in your
wardrobe. Mr. Fairthorn wrote to my tailor to hasten hither and repair
it. He is here. I commend him to your custom! Don't despise him
because he makes for a man of my remote generation. Tailors are keen
observers and do not grow out of date so quickly as politicians."

The words were said with a playful good-humour very uncommon to Mr.
Darrell. The intention was obviously kind and kinsmanlike. Lionel
sprang to his feet; his lip curled, his eye flashed, and his crest rose.

"No, sir; I will not stoop to this! I will not be clothed by your
charity,--yours! I will not submit to an implied taunt upon my poor
mother's ignorance of the manners of a rank to which she was not born!
You said we might not like each other, and, if so, we should part
forever. I do not like you, and I will go!" He turned abruptly, and
walked to the house--magnanimous. If Mr. Darrell had not been the most
singular of men, he might well have been offended. As it was, though few
were less accessible to surprise, he was surprised. But offended? Judge
for yourself. "I declare," muttered Guy Darrell, gazing on the boy's
receding figure, "I declare that I almost feel as if I could once again
be capable of an emotion! I hope I am not going to like that boy! The
old Darrell blood in his veins, surely. I might have spoken as he did at
his age, but I must have had some better reason for it. What did I say
to justify such an explosion?

"/Quid feci?--ubi lapsus?/ Gone, no doubt, to pack up his knapsack, and
take the Road to Ruin! Shall I let him go? Better for me, if I am
really in danger of liking him; and so be at his mercy to sting--what?
my heart! I defy him; it is dead. No; he shall not go thus. I am the
head of our joint houses. Houses! I wish he had a house, poor boy! And
his grandfather loved me. Let him go? I will beg his pardon first; and
he may dine in his drawers if that will settle the matter."

Thus, no less magnanimous than Lionel, did this misanthropical man follow
his ungracious cousin. "Ha!" cried Darrell, suddenly, as, approaching
the threshold, he saw Mr. Fairthorn at the dining-room window occupied in
nibbing a pen upon an ivory thumb-stall--"I have hit it! That abominable
Fairthorn has been shedding its prickles! How could I trust flesh and
blood to such a bramble? I'll know what it was this instant!" Vain
menace! No sooner did Mr. Fairthorn catch glimpse of Darrell's
countenance within ten yards of the porch, than, his conscience taking
alarm, he rushed incontinent from the window, the apartment, and, ere
Darrell could fling open the door, was lost in some lair--"nullis
penetrabilis astris"--in that sponge-like and cavernous abode wherewith
benignant Providence had suited the locality to the creature.

CHAPTER VIII.

New imbroglio in that ever-recurring, never-to-be-settled question,
"What will he do with it?"

With a disappointed glare and a baffled shrug of the shoulder, Mr.
Darrell turned from the dining-room, and passed up the stairs to Lionel's
chamber, opened the door quickly, and extending his hand said, in that
tone which had disarmed the wrath of ambitious factions, and even (if
fame lie not) once seduced from the hostile Treasury-bench a placeman's
vote, "I must have hurt your feelings, and I come to beg your pardon!"

But before this time Lionel's proud heart, in which ungrateful anger
could not long find room, had smitten him for so ill a return to well-
meant and not indelicate kindness. And, his wounded egotism appeased
by its very outburst, he had called to mind Fairthorn's allusions to
Darrell's secret griefs,--griefs that must have been indeed stormy so to
have revulsed the currents of a life. And, despite those griefs, the
great man had spoken playfully to him,--playfully in order to make light
of obligations. So when Guy Darrell now extended that hand, and stooped
to that apology, Lionel was fairly overcome. Tears, before refused, now
found irresistible way. The hand he could not take, but, yielding to his
yearning impulse, he threw his arms fairly round his host's neck, leaned
his young cheek upon that granite breast, and sobbed out incoherent words
of passionate repentance, honest, venerating affection. Darrell's face
changed, looking for a moment wondrous soft; and then, as by an effort of
supreme self-control, it became severely placid. He did not return that
embrace, but certainly he in no way repelled it; nor did he trust himself
to speak till the boy had exhausted the force of his first feelings, and
had turned to dry his tears.

Then he said, with a soothing sweetness: "Lionel Haughton, you have
the heart of a gentleman that can never listen to a frank apology for
unintentional wrong but what it springs forth to take the blame to itself
and return apology tenfold. Enough! A mistake no doubt, on both sides.
More time must elapse before either can truly say that he does not like
the other. Meanwhile," added Darrell, with almost a laugh,--and that
concluding query showed that even on trifles the man was bent upon either
forcing or stealing his own will upon others,--"meanwhile must I send
away the tailor?" I need not repeat Lionel's answer.

CHAPTER IX.

DARRELL--mystery in his past life--What has he done with it?

Some days passed, each day varying little from the other. It was the
habit of Darrell if he went late to rest to rise early. He never allowed
himself more than five hours sleep. A man greater than Guy Darrell--Sir
Walter Raleigh--carved from the solid day no larger a slice for Morpheus.
And it was this habit perhaps, yet more than temperance in diet, which
preserved to Darrell his remarkable youthfulness of aspect and frame, so
that at fifty-two he looked, and really was, younger than many a strong
man of thirty-five. For, certain it is, that on entering middle life,
he who would keep his brain clear, his step elastic, his muscles from
fleshiness, his nerves from tremor,--in a word, retain his youth in spite
of the register,--should beware of long slumbers. Nothing ages like
laziness. The hours before breakfast Darrell devoted first to exercise,
whatever the weather; next to his calm scientific pursuits. At ten
o'clock punctually he rode out alone and seldom returned till late in
the afternoon. Then he would stroll forth with Lionel into devious
woodlands, or lounge with him along the margin of the lake, or lie down
on the tedded grass, call the boy's attention to the insect populace
which sports out its happy life in the summer months, and treat of the
ways and habits of each varying species, with a quaint learning, half
humorous, half grave. He was a minute observer and an accomplished
naturalist. His range of knowledge was, indeed, amazingly large for a
man who has had to pass his best years in a dry and absorbing study:
necessarily not so profound in each section as that of a special
professor; but if the science was often on the surface, the thoughts he
deduced from what he knew were as often original and deep. A maxim of
his, which he dropped out one day to Lionel in his careless manner, but
pointed diction, may perhaps illustrate his own practice and its results
"Never think it enough to have solved the problem started by another mind
till you have deduced from it a corollary of your own."

After dinner, which was not over till past eight o'clock, they always
adjourned to the library, Fairthorn vanishing into a recess, Darrell and
Lionel each with his several book, then an air on the flute, and each to
his own room before eleven. No life could be more methodical; yet to
Lionel it had an animating charm, for his interest in his host daily
increased, and varied his thoughts with perpetual occupation. Darrell,
on the contrary, while more kind and cordial, more cautiously on his
guard not to wound his young guest's susceptibilities than he had been
before the quarrel and its reconciliation, did not seem to feel for
Lionel the active interest which Lionel felt for him. He did not, as
most clever men are apt to do in their intercourse with youth, attempt
to draw him out, plumb his intellect, or guide his tastes. If he was
at times instructive, it was because talk fell on subjects on which it
pleased himself to touch, and in which he could not speak without
involuntarily instructing. Nor did he ever allure the boy to talk of his
school-days, of his friends, of his predilections, his hopes, his future.
In short, had you observed them together, you would have never supposed
they were connections, that one could and ought to influence and direct
the career of the other. You would have said the host certainly liked
the guest, as any man would like a promising, warm-hearted, high-
spirited, graceful boy, under his own roof for a short time, but who felt
that that boy was nothing to him; would soon pass from his eye; form
friends, pursuits, aims, with which he could be in no way commingled, for
which he should be wholly irresponsible. There was also this peculiarity
in Darrell's conversation; if he never spoke of his guest's past and
future, neither did he ever do more than advert in the most general terms
to his own. Of that grand stage on which he had been so brilliant an
actor he imparted no reminiscences; of those great men, the leaders of
his age, with whom he had mingled familiarly, he told no anecdotes.
Equally silent was he as to the earlier steps in his career, the modes
by which he had studied, the accidents of which he had seized advantage,
--silent there as upon the causes he had gained, or the debates he had
adorned. Never could you have supposed that this man, still in the prime
of public life, had been the theme of journals and the boast of party.
Neither did he ever, as men who talk easily at their own hearths are
prone to do, speak of projects in the future, even though the projects be
no vaster than the planting of a tree or the alteration of a parterre,--
projects with which rural life so copiously and so innocently teems. The
past seemed as if it had left to him no memory, the future as if it
stored for him no desire. But did the past leave no memory? Why then
at intervals would the book slide from his eye, the head sink upon the
breast, and a shade of unutterable dejection darken over the grand beauty
of that strong stern countenance? Still that dejection was not morbidly
fed and encouraged, for he would fling it from him with a quick impatient
gesture of the head, resume the book resolutely, or change it for another
which induced fresh trains of thought, or look over Lionel's shoulder,
and make some subtile comment on his choice, or call on Fairthorn for the
flute; and in a few minutes the face was severely serene again. And be
it here said, that it is only in the poetry of young gentlemen, or the
prose of lady novelists, that a man in good health and of sound intellect
wears the livery of unvarying gloom. However great his causes of sorrow,
he does not forever parade its ostentatious mourning, nor follow the
hearse of his hopes with the long face of an undertaker. He will still
have his gleams of cheerfulness, his moments of good humour. The old
smile will sometimes light the eye, and awake the old playfulness of the
lip. But what a great and critical sorrow does leave behind is often far
worse than the sorrow itself has been. It is a change in the inner man,
which strands him, as Guy Darrell seemed stranded, upon the shoal of the
Present; which the more he strives manfully to bear his burden warns him
the more from dwelling on the Past; and the more impressively it enforces
the lesson of the vanity of human wishes strikes the more from his
reckoning illusive hopes in the Future. Thus out of our threefold
existence two parts are annihilated,--the what has been, the what shall
be. We fold our arms, stand upon the petty and steep cragstone, which
alone looms out of the Measureless Sea, and say to ourselves, looking
neither backward nor beyond, "Let us bear what is;" and so for the moment
the eye can lighten and the lip can smile.

Lionel could no longer glean from Mr. Fairthorn any stray hints upon
the family records. That gentleman had evidently been reprimanded for
indiscretion, or warned against its repetition, and he became as reserved
and mum as if he had just emerged from the cave of Trophonius. Indeed he
shunned trusting himself again alone to Lionel, and affecting a long
arrear of correspondence on behalf of his employer, left the lad during
the forenoons to solitary angling, or social intercourse with the swans
and the tame doe. But from some mystic concealment within doors would
often float far into the open air the melodies of that magic flute; and
the boy would glide back, along the dark-red mournful walls of the old
house, or the futile pomp of pilastered arcades in the uncompleted new
one, to listen to the sound: listening, he, blissful boy, forgot the
present; he seized the unchallenged royalty of his years. For him no
rebels in the past conspired with poison to the wine-cup, murder to the
sleep. No deserts in the future, arresting the march of ambition, said,
"Here are sands for a pilgrim, not fields for a conqueror."

CHAPTER X.

In which chapter the history quietly moves on to the next.

Thus nearly a week had gone, and Lionel began to feel perplexed as to the
duration of his visit. Should he be the first to suggest departure? Mr.
Darrell rescued him from that embarrassment. On the seventh day, Lionel
met his host in a lane near the house, returning from his habitual ride.
The boy walked home by the side of the horseman, patting the steed,
admiring its shape, and praising the beauty of another saddle-horse,
smaller and slighter, which he had seen in the paddock exercised by a
groom. "Do you ever ride that chestnut? I think it even handsomer than
this."

"Half our preferences are due to the vanity they flatter. Few can ride
this horse; any one, perhaps, that."

"There speaks the Dare-all!" said Lionel, laughing. The host did not
look displeased.

"Where no difficulty, there no pleasure," said he in his curt laconic
diction. "I was in Spain two years ago. I had not an English horse
there, so I bought that Andalusian jennet. What has served him at need,
no /preux chevalier/ would leave to the chance of ill-usage. So the
jennet came with me to England. You have not been much accustomed to
ride, I suppose?"

"Not much; but my dear mother thought I ought to learn. She pinched for
a whole year to have me taught at a riding-school during one school
vacation."

"Your mother's relations are, I believe, well off. Do they suffer her to
pinch?"

"I do not know that she has relations living; she never speaks of them."

"Indeed!" This was the first question on home matters that Darrell had
ever directly addressed to Lionel. He there dropped the subject, and
said, after a short pause, "I was not aware that you are a horseman, or I
would have asked you to accompany me; will you do so to-morrow, and mount
the jennet?"

"Oh, thank you; I should like it so much."

Darrell turned abruptly away from the bright, grateful eyes. "I am only
sorry," he added, looking aside, "that our excursions can be but few. On
Friday next I shall submit to you a proposition; if you accept it, we
shall part on Saturday,--liking each other, I hope: speaking for myself,
the experiment has not failed; and on yours?"

"On mine!--oh, Mr. Darrell, if I dared but tell you what recollections of
yourself the experiment will bequeath to me!"

"Do not tell me, if they imply a compliment," answered Darrell, with the
low silvery laugh which so melodiously expressed indifference and
repelled affection. He entered the stable-yard, dismounted; and on
returning to Lionel, the sound of the flute stole forth, as if from the
eaves of the gabled roof. "Could the pipe of Horace's Faunus be sweeter
than that flute?" said Darrell,

"'Utcunque dulci, Tyndare, fistula,
Valles,' etc.

What a lovely ode that is! What knowledge of town life! what
susceptibility to the rural! Of all the Latins, Horace is the only one
with whom I could wish to have spent a week. But no! I could not have
discussed the brief span of human life with locks steeped in Malobathran
balm and wreathed with that silly myrtle. Horace and I would have
quarrelled over the first heady bowl of Massie. We never can quarrel
now! Blessed subject and poet-laureate of Queen Proserpine, and, I dare
swear, the most gentlemanlike poet she ever received at court; henceforth
his task is to uncoil the asps from the brows of Alecto, and arrest the
ambitious Orion from the chase after visionary lions."

CHAPTER XI.

Showing that if a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good
heart is a letter of credit.

The next day they rode forth, host and guest, and that ride proved an
eventful crisis in the fortune of Lionel Haughton. Hitherto I have
elaborately dwelt on the fact that whatever the regard Darrell might
feel for him, it was a regard apart from that interest which accepts a
responsibility and links to itself a fate. And even if, at moments, the
powerful and wealthy man had felt that interest, he had thrust it from
him. That he meant to be generous was indeed certain, and this he had
typically shown in a very trite matter-of-fact way. The tailor, whose
visit had led to such perturbation, had received instructions beyond the
mere supply of the raiment for which he had been summoned; and a large
patent portmanteau, containing all that might constitute the liberal
outfit of a young man in the rank of gentleman, had arrived at Fawley,
and amazed and moved Lionel, whom Darrell had by this time thoroughly
reconciled to the acceptance of benefits. The gift denoted this:
"In recognizing you as kinsman, I shall henceforth provide for you as
gentleman." Darrell indeed meditated applying for an appointment in one
of the public offices, the settlement of a liberal allowance, and a
parting shake of the hand, which should imply, "I have now behaved as
becomes me: the rest belongs to you. We may never meet again. There is
no reason why this good-by may not be forever."

But in the course of that ride, Darrell's intentions changed. Wherefore?
You will never guess! Nothing so remote as the distance between cause
and effect, and the cause for the effect here was--poor little Sophy.

The day was fresh, with a lovely breeze, as the two riders rode briskly
over the turf of rolling commons, with the feathery boughs of
neighbouring woodlands tossed joyously to and fro by the sportive summer
wind. The exhilarating exercise and air raised Lionel's spirits, and
released his tongue from all trammels; and when a boy is in high spirits,
ten to one but he grows a frank egotist, feels the teeming life of his
individuality, and talks about himself. Quite unconsciously, Lionel
rattled out gay anecdotes of his school-days; his quarrel with a
demoniacal usher; how he ran away; what befell him; how the doctor went
after, and brought him back; how splendidly the doctor behaved,--neither
flogged nor expelled him, but after patiently listening, while he rebuked
the pupil, dismissed the usher, to the joy of the whole academy; how he
fought the head boy in the school for calling the doctor a sneak; how,
licked twice, he yet fought that head boy a third time, and licked him;
how, when head boy himself, he had roused the whole school into a civil
war, dividing the boys into Cavaliers and Roundheads; how clay was rolled
out into cannon-balls and pistol-shots, sticks shaped into swords, the
playground disturbed to construct fortifications; how a slovenly stout
boy enacted Cromwell; how he himself was elevated into Prince Rupert; and
how, reversing all history, and infamously degrading Cromwell, Rupert
would not consent to be beaten; and Cromwell at the last, disabled by an
untoward blow across the knuckles, ignominiously yielded himself
prisoner, was tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to be shot! To all
this rubbish did Darrell incline his patient ear,--not encouraging, not
interrupting, but sometimes stifling a sigh at the sound of Lionel's
merry laugh, or the sight of his fair face, with heightened glow on his
cheeks, and his long silky hair, worthy the name of lovelocks, blown by
the wind from the open loyal features, which might well have graced the
portrait of some youthful Cavalier. On bounded the Spanish jennet, on
rattled the boy rider. He had left school now, in his headlong talk; he
was describing his first friendship with Frank Vance, as a lodger at his
mother's; how example fired him, and he took to sketch-work and painting;
how kindly Vance gave him lessons; how at one time he wished to be a
painter; how much the mere idea of such a thing vexed his mother, and how
little she was moved when he told her that Titian was of a very ancient
family, and that Francis I., archetype of gentleman, visited Leonardo da
Vinci's sick-bed; and that Henry VIII. had said to a pert lord who had
snubbed Holbein, "I can make a lord any day, but I cannot make a
Holbein!" how Mrs. Haughton still confounded all painters in the general
image of the painter and the plumber who had cheated her so shamefully in
the renewed window-sashes and redecorated walls, which Time and the four
children of an Irish family had made necessary to the letting of the
first floor. And these playful allusions to the maternal ideas were
still not irreverent, but contrived so as rather to prepossess Darrell in
Mrs. Haughton's favour by bringing out traits of a simple natural mother,
too proud, perhaps, of her only son, not caring what she did, how she
worked, so that he might not lose caste as a born Haughton. Darrell
understood, and nodded his head approvingly. "Certainly," he said,
speaking almost for the first time, "Fame confers a rank above that of
gentlemen and of kings; and as soon as she issues her patent of nobility,
it matters not a straw whether the recipient be the son of a Bourbon or
of a tallow-chandler. But if Fame withhold her patent; if a well-born
man paint aldermen, and be not famous (and I dare say you would have been
neither a Titian nor a Holbein),--why, he might as well be a painter and
plumber, and has a better chance even of bread and cheese by standing to
his post as gentleman. Mrs. Haughton was right, and I respect her."

"Quite right. If I lived to the age of Methuselah, I could not paint a
head like Frank Vance."

"And even he is not famous yet. Never heard of him."

"He will be famous: I am sure of it; and if you lived in London, you
would hear of him even now. Oh, sir! such a portrait as he painted the
other day! But I must tell you all about it." And therewith Lionel
plunged at once, medias res, into the brief broken epic of little Sophy,
and the eccentric infirm Belisarius for whose sake she first toiled and
then begged; with what artless eloquence he brought out the colours of
the whole story,--now its humour, now its pathos; with what beautifying
sympathy he adorned the image of the little vagrant girl, with her mien
of gentlewoman and her simplicity of child; the river excursion to
Hampton Court; her still delight; how annoyed he felt when Vance seemed
ashamed of her before those fine people; the orchard scene in which he
had read Darrell's letter, that, for the time, drove her from the
foremost place in his thoughts; the return home, the parting, her wistful
look back, the visit to the Cobbler's next day; even her farewell gift,
the nursery poem, with the lines written on the fly-leaf, he had them by
heart! Darrell, the grand advocate, felt he could not have produced on a
jury, with those elements, the effect which that boy-narrator produced on
his granite self.

"And, oh, sir!" cried Lionel, checking his horse, and even arresting
Darrell's with bold right hand--"oh," said he, as he brought his moist
and pleading eyes in full battery upon the shaken fort to which he had
mined his way--"oh, sir! you are so wise and rich and kind, do rescue
that poor child from the penury and hardships of such a life! If you
could but have seen and heard her! She could never have been born to it!
You look away: I offend you! I have no right to tax your benevolence for
others; but, instead of showering favours upon me, so little would
suffice for her!--if she were but above positive want, with that old man
(she would not be happy without him), safe in such a cottage as you give
to your own peasants! I am a man, or shall be one soon; I can wrestle
with the world, and force my way somehow; but that delicate child, a
village show, or a beggar on the high road!--no mother, no brother, no
one but that broken-down cripple, leaning upon her arm as his crutch. I
cannot bear to think of it. I am sure I shall meet her again somewhere;
and when I do, may I not write to you, and will you not come to her help?
Do speak; do say 'Yes,' Mr. Darrell."

The rich man's breast heaved slightly; he closed his eyes, but for a
moment. There was a short and sharp struggle with his better self, and
the better self conquered.

"Let go my reins; see, my horse puts down his ears; he may do you a
mischief. Now canter on: you shall be satisfied. Give me a moment to
--to unbutton my coat: it is too tight for me."

CHAPTER XII.

Guy Darrell gives way to an impulse, and quickly decides what he
will do with it.

"Lionel Haughton," said Guy Darrell, regaining his young cousin's side,
and speaking in a firm and measured voice, "I have to thank you for one
very happy minute; the sight of a heart so fresh in the limpid purity of
goodness is a luxury you cannot comprehend till you have come to my age;
journeyed, like me, from Dan to Beersheba, and found all barren. Heed
me: if you had been half-a-dozen years older, and this child for whom you
plead had been a fair young woman, perhaps just as innocent, just as
charming,--more in peril,--my benevolence would have lain as dormant as a
stone. A young man's foolish sentiment for a pretty girl,--as your true
friend, I should have shrugged my shoulders and said, 'Beware!' Had I
been your father, I should have taken alarm and frowned. I should have
seen the sickly romance which ends in dupes and deceivers. But at your
age, you, hearty, genial, and open-hearted boy,--you, caught but by the
chivalrous compassion for helpless female childhood,--oh, that you were
my son,--oh, that my dear father's blood were in those knightly veins!
I had a son once! God took him;" the strong man's lips quivered: he
hurried on. "I felt there was manhood in you, when you wrote to fling my
churlish favours in my teeth; when you would have left my roof-tree in a
burst of passion which might be foolish, but was nobler than the wisdom
of calculating submission, manhood, but only perhaps man's pride as man,
--man's heart not less cold than winter. To-day you have shown me
something far better than pride; that nature which constitutes the heroic
temperament is completed by two attributes,--unflinching purpose,
disinterested humanity. I know not yet if you have the first; you reveal
to me the second. Yes! I accept the duties you propose to me; I will do
more than leave to you the chance of discovering this poor child. I will
direct my solicitor to take the right steps to do so. I will see that
she is safe from the ills you feel for her. Lionel, more still, I am
impatient till I write to Mrs. Haughton. I did her wrong. Remember, I
have never seen her. I resented in her the cause of my quarrel with your
father, who was once dear to me. Enough of that. I disliked the tone of
her letters to me. I disliked it in the mother of a boy who had Darrell
blood; other reasons too,--let them pass. But in providing for your
education; I certainly thought her relations provided for her support.
She never asked me for help there; and, judging of her hastily, I thought
she would not have scrupled to do so, if my help there had not been
forestalled. You have made me understand her better; and, at all events,
three-fourths of what we are in boyhood most of us owe to our mothers!
You are frank, fearless, affectionate, a gentleman. I respect the mother
who has such a son."

Certainly praise was rare upon Darrell's lips; but when he did praise, he
knew how to do it! And no man will ever command others who has not by
nature that gift! It cannot be learned. Art and experience can only
refine its expression.

CHAPTER XIII.

He who sees his heir in his own child, carries his eye over hopes and
possessions lying far beyond his gravestone, viewing his life, even here,
as a period but closed with a comma. He who sees his heir in another
man's child, sees the full stop at the end of the sentence.

Lionel's departure was indefinitely postponed; nothing more was said of
it. Meanwhile Darrell's manner towards him underwent a marked change.
The previous indifference the rich kinsman had hitherto shown as to the
boy's past life, and the peculiarities of his intellect and character,
wholly vanished. He sought now, on the contrary, to plumb thoroughly the
more hidden depths which lurk in the nature of every human being, and
which, in Lionel, were the more difficult to discern from the vivacity
and candour which covered with so smooth and charming a surface a pride
tremulously sensitive, and an ambition that startled himself in the hours
when solitude and revery reflect upon the visions of youth the giant
outline of its own hopes.

Darrell was not dissatisfied with the results of his survey; yet often,
when perhaps most pleased, a shade would pass over his countenance; and
had a woman who loved him been by to listen, she would have heard the
short slight sigh which came and went too quickly for the duller sense of
man's friendship to recognize it as the sound of sorrow.

In Darrell himself, thus insensibly altered, Lionel daily discovered more
to charm his interest and deepen his affection. In this man's nature
there were, indeed, such wondrous under-currents of sweetness, so
suddenly gushing forth, so suddenly vanishing again! And exquisite in
him were the traits of that sympathetic tact which the world calls fine
breeding, but which comes only from a heart at once chivalrous and
tender, the more bewitching in Darrell from their contrast with a manner
usually cold, and a bearing so stamped with masculine, self-willed,
haughty power. Thus--days went on as if Lionel had become a very child
of the house. But his sojourn was in truth drawing near to a close not
less abrupt and unexpected than the turn in his host's humours to which
he owed the delay of his departure.

One bright afternoon, as Darrell was standing at the window of his
private study, Fairthorn, who had crept in on some matter of business,
looked at his countenance long and wistfully, and then, shambling up to
his side, put one hand on his shoulder with a light timid touch, and,
pointing with the other to Lionel, who was lying on the grass in front of
the casement reading the "Faerie Queene," said, "Why do you take him to
your heart if he does not comfort it?"

Darrell winced and answered gently, "I did not know you were in the room.
Poor Fairthorn; thank you!"

"Thank me!--what for?"

"For a kind thought. So, then, you like the boy?"

"Mayn't I like him?" asked Fairthorn, looking rather frightened; "surely
you do!"

"Yes, I like him much; I am trying my best to love him. But, but"--
Darrell turned quickly, and the portrait of his father over the
mantelpiece came full upon his sight,--an impressive, a haunting face,
--sweet and gentle, yet with the high narrow brow and arched nostril of
pride, with restless melancholy eyes, and an expression that revealed the
delicacy of intellect, but not its power. There was something forlorn,
but imposing, in the whole effigy. As you continued to look at the
countenance, the mournful attraction grew upon you. Truly a touching and
a most lovable aspect. Darrell's eyes moistened.

"Yes, my father, it is so!" he said softly. "All my sacrifices were in
vain. The race is not to be rebuilt! No grandchild of yours will
succeed me,--me, the last of the old line! Fairthorn, how can I love
that boy? He may be my heir, and in his veins not a drop of my father's
blood!"

"But he has the blood of your father's ancestors; and why must you think
of him as your heir?--you, who, if you would but go again into the world,
might yet find a fair wi--"

With such a stamp came Darrell's foot upon the floor that the holy and
conjugal monosyllable dropping from Fairthorn's lips was as much cut in
two as if a shark had snapped it. Unspeakably frightened, the poor man
sidled away, thrust himself behind a tall reading-desk, and, peering
aslant from that covert, whimpered out, "Don't, don't now, don't be so
awful; I did not mean to offend, but I'm always saying something I did
not mean; and really you look so young still "(coaxingly), "and, and--"

Darrell, the burst of rage over, had sunk upon a chair, his face bowed
over his hands, and his breast heaving as if with suppressed sobs.

The musician forgot his fear; he sprang forward, almost upsetting the
tall desk; he flung himself on his knees at Darrell's feet, and exclaimed
in broken words, "Master, master, forgive me! Beast that I was! Do look
up--do smile or else beat me--kick me."

Darrell's right hand slid gently from his face, and fell into Fairthorn's
clasp.

"Hush, hush," muttered the man of granite; "one moment, and it will be
over."

One moment! That might be but a figure of speech; yet before Lionel had
finished half the canto that was plunging him into fairyland, Darrell was
standing by him with his ordinary tranquil mien; and Fairthorn's flute
from behind the boughs of a neighbouring lime-tree was breathing out an
air as dulcet as if careless Fauns still piped in Arcady, and Grief were
a far dweller on the other side of the mountains, of whom shepherds,
reclining under summer leaves, speak as we speak of hydras and unicorns,
and things in fable.

On, on swelled the mellow, mellow, witching music; and now the worn man
with his secret sorrow, and the boy with his frank glad laugh, are
passing away, side by side, over the turf, with its starry and golden
wild-flowers, under the boughs in yon Druid copse, from which they start
the ringdove,--farther and farther, still side by side, now out of sight,
as if the dense green of the summer had closed around them like waves.
But still the flute sounds on, and still they hear it, softer and softer
as they go. Hark! do you not hear it--you?

CHAPTER XIV.

There are certain events which to each man's life are as comets to
the earth, seemingly strange and erratic portents; distinct from the
ordinary lights which guide our course and mark our seasons, yet
true to their own laws, potent in their own influences. Philosophy
speculates on their effects, and disputes upon their uses; men who
do not philosophize regard them as special messengers and bodes of
evil.

They came out of the little park into a by-lane; a vast tract of common
land, yellow with furze and undulated with swell and hollow, spreading in
front; to their right the dark beechwoods, still beneath the weight of
the July noon. Lionel had been talking about the "Faerie Queene,"
knight-errantry, the sweet impossible dream-life that, safe from Time,
glides by bower and hall, through magic forests and by witching eaves in
the world of poet-books. And Darrell listened, and the flute-notes
mingled with the atmosphere faint and far off, like voices from that
world itself.

Out then they came, this broad waste land before them; and Lionel said
merrily,--

"But this is the very scene! Here the young knight, leaving his father's
hall, would have checked his destrier, glancing wistfully now over that
green wild which seems so boundless, now to the 'umbrageous horror' of
those breathless woodlands, and questioned himself which way to take for
adventure."

"Yes," said Darrell, coming out from his long reserve on all that
concerned his past life,--"Yes, and the gold of the gorse-blossoms
tempted me; and I took the waste land." He paused a moment, and renewed:
"And then, when I had known cities and men, and snatched romance from
dull matter-of-fact, then I would have done as civilization does with
romance itself,--I would have enclosed the waste land for my own
aggrandizement. Look," he continued, with a sweep of the hand round the
width of prospect, "all that you see to the verge of the horizon, some
fourteen years ago, was to have been thrown into the pretty paddock we
have just quitted, and serve as park round the house I was then building.
Vanity of human wishes! What but the several proportions of their common
folly distinguishes the baffled squire from the arrested conqueror?
Man's characteristic cerebral organ must certainly be acquisitiveness."

"Was it his organ of acquisitiveness that moved Themistocles to boast
that 'he could make a small state great'?" "Well remembered,--
ingeniously quoted," returned Darrell, with the polite bend of his
stately head. "Yes, I suspect that the coveting organ had much to do
with the boast. To build a name was the earliest dream of Themistocles,
if we are to accept the anecdote that makes him say, 'The trophies of
Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep,' To build a name, or to create a
fortune, are but varying applications of one human passion. The desire
of something we have not is the first of our childish remembrances: it
matters not what form it takes, what object it longs for; still it is to
acquire! it never deserts us while we live."

"And yet, if I might, I should like to ask, what you now desire that you
do not possess?"

"I--nothing; but I spoke of the living! I am dead. Only," added
Darrell, with his silvery laugh, "I say, as poor Chesterfield said before
me, 'It is a secret: keep it.'"

Lionel made no reply; the melancholy of the words saddened him: but
Darrell's manner repelled the expression of sympathy or of interest; and
the boy fell into conjecture, what had killed to the world this man's
intellectual life?

And thus silently they continued to wander on till the sound of the flute
had long been lost to their ears. Was the musician playing still?

At length they came round to the other end of Fawley village, and Darrell
again became animated.

"Perhaps," said he, returning to the subject of talk that had been
abruptly suspended,--"perhaps the love of power is at the origin of each
restless courtship of Fortune: yet, after all, who has power with less
alloy than the village thane? With so little effort, so little thought,
the man in the manor-house can make men in the cottage happier here below
and more fit for a hereafter yonder. In leaving the world I come from
contest and pilgrimage, like our sires the Crusaders, to reign at home."

As he spoke, he entered one of the cottages. An old paralytic man was
seated by the fire, hot though the July sun was out of doors; and his
wife, of the same age, and almost as helpless, was reading to him a
chapter in the Old Testament,--the fifth chapter in Genesis, containing
the genealogy, age, and death of the patriarchs before the Flood. How
the faces of the couple brightened when Darrell entered. "Master Guy!"
said the old man, tremulously rising. The world-weary orator and lawyer
was still Master Guy to him.

"Sit down, Matthew, and let, me read you a chapter." Darrell took the
Holy Book, and read the Sermon on the Mount. Never had Lionel heard
anything like that reading; the feeling which brought out the depth of
the sense, the tones, sweeter than the flute, which clothed the divine
words in music. As Darrell ceased, some beauty seemed gone from the day.
He lingered a few minutes, talking kindly and familiarly, and then turned
into another cottage, where lay a sick woman. He listened to her
ailments, promised to send her something to do her good from his own
stores, cheered up her spirits, and, leaving her happy, turned to Lionel
with a glorious smile, that seemed to ask, "And is there not power in
this?"

Put it was the sad peculiarity of this remarkable man that all his moods
were subject to rapid and seemingly unaccountable variations. It was as
if some great blow had fallen on the mainspring of his organization, and
left its original harmony broken up into fragments each impressive in
itself, but running one into the other with an abrupt discord, as a harp
played upon by the winds. For, after this evident effort at self-
consolation or self-support in soothing or strengthening others, suddenly
Darrell's head fell again upon his breast, and he walked on, up the
village lane, heeding no longer either the open doors of expectant
cottagers or the salutation of humble passers-by. "And I could have been
so happy here!" he said suddenly. "Can I not be so yet? Ay, perhaps,
when I am thoroughly old,--tied to the world but by the thread of an
hour. Old men do seem happy; behind them, all memories faint, save those
of childhood and sprightly youth; before them, the narrow ford, and the
sun dawning up through the clouds on the other shore. 'T is the critical
descent into age in which man is surely most troubled; griefs gone, still
rankling; nor-strength yet in his limbs, passion yet in his heart-
reconciled to what loom nearest in the prospect,--the armchair and the
palsied head. Well! life is a quaint puzzle. Bits the most incongruous
join into each other, and the scheme thus gradually becomes symmetrical
and clear; when, lo! as the infant claps his hands and cries, 'See! see!
the puzzle is made out!' all the pieces are swept back into the box,--
black box with the gilded nails. Ho! Lionel, look up; there is our
village church, and here, close at my right, the churchyard!"

Now while Darrell and his young companion were directing their gaze to
the right of the village lane, towards the small gray church,--towards
the sacred burial-ground in which, here and there amongst humbler graves,
stood the monumental stone inscribed to the memory of some former
Darrell, for whose remains the living sod had been preferred to the
family vault; while both slowly neared the funeral spot, and leaned,
silent and musing, over the rail that fenced it from the animals turned
to graze on the sward of the surrounding green,--a foot-traveller, a
stranger in the place, loitered on the threshold of the small wayside
inn, about fifty yards off to the left of the lane, and looked hard at
the still figures of the two kinsmen.

Turning then to the hostess, who was standing somewhat within the
threshold, a glass of brandy-and-water in her hand, the third glass that
stranger had called for during his half hour's rest in the hostelry,
quoth the man,

"The taller gentleman yonder is surely your squire, is he not? but who
is the shorter and younger person?"

The landlady put forth her head.

"Oh! that is a relation of the squire down on a visit, sir. I heard
coachman say that the squire's taken to him hugely; and they do think at
the Hall that the young gentleman will be his heir."

"Aha!--indeed--his heir! What is the lad's name? What relation can he
be to Mr. Darrell?"

"I don't know what relation exactly, sir; but he is one of the Haughtons,
and they've been kin to the Fawley folks time out of mind."

"Haughton?--aha! Thank you, ma'am. Change, if you please."

The stranger tossed off his dram, and stretched his hand for his change.

"Beg pardon, sir, but this must be forring money," said the landlady,
turning a five-franc piece on her palm with suspicious curiosity.

"Foreign! Is it possible?" The stranger dived again into his pocket,
and apparently with some difficulty hunted out half-a-crown.

"Sixpence more, if you please, sir; three brandies, and bread-and-cheese
and the ale too, sir."

"How stupid I am! I thought that French coin was a five shilling piece.
I fear I have no English money about me but this half-crown; and I can't
ask you to trust me, as you don't know me."

"Oh, sir, 't is all one if you know the squire. You may be passing this
way again."

"I shall not forget my debt when I do, you may be sure," said the
stranger; and, with a nod, he walked away in the same direction as
Darrell and Lionel had already taken, through a turnstile by a public
path that, skirting the churchyard and the neighbouring parsonage, led
along a cornfield to the demesnes of Fawley.

The path was narrow, the corn rising on either side, so that two persons
could not well walk abreast. Lionel was some paces in advance, Darrell
walking slow. The stranger followed at a distance: once or twice he
quickened his pace, is if resolved to overtake Darrell; then apparently
his mind misgave him, and he again fell back.

There was something furtive and sinister about the man. Little could be
seen of his face, for he wore a large hat of foreign make, slouched deep
over his brow, and his lips and jaw were concealed by a dark and full
mustache and beard. As much of the general outline of the countenance as
remained distinguishable was nevertheless decidedly handsome; but a
complexion naturally rich in colour seemed to have gained the heated look
which comes with the earlier habits of intemperance before it fades into
the leaden hues of the later.

His dress bespoke pretension to a certain rank: but its component parts
were strangely ill-assorted, out of date, and out of repair; pearl-
coloured trousers, with silk braids down their sides; brodequins to
match,--Parisian fashion three years back, but the trousers shabby, the
braiding discoloured, the brodequins in holes. The coat-once a black
evening dress-coat--of a cut a year or two anterior to that of the
trousers; satin facing,-cloth napless, satin stained. Over all, a sort
of summer travelling-cloak, or rather large cape of a waterproof silk,
once the extreme mode with the lions of the Chaussee d'Autin whenever
they ventured to rove to Swiss cantons or German spas; but which, from a
certain dainty effeminacy in its shape and texture, required the minutest
elegance in the general costume of its wearer as well as the cleanliest
purity in itself. Worn by this traveller, and well-nigh worn out too,
the cape became a finery mournful as a tattered pennon over a wreck.

Yet in spite of this dress, however unbecoming, shabby, obsolete, a
second glance could scarcely fail to note the wearer as a man wonderfully
well-shaped,--tall, slender in the waist, long of limb, but with a girth
of chest that showed immense power; one of those rare figures that a
female eye would admire for grace, a recruiting sergeant for athletic
strength.

But still the man's whole bearing and aspect, even apart from the dismal
incongruities of his attire, which gave him the air of a beggared
spendthrift, marred the favourable effect that physical comeliness in
itself produces. Difficult to describe how,--difficult to say why,--but
there is a look which a man gets, and a gait which he contracts when the
rest of mankind cut him; and this man had that look and that gait.

"So, so," muttered the stranger. "That boy his heir? so, so. How can I
get to speak to him? In his own house he would not see me: it must be as
now, in the open air; but how catch him alone? and to lurk in the inn,
in his own village,--perhaps for a day,--to watch an occasion;
impossible! Besides, where is the money for it? Courage, courage!"
He quickened his pace, pushed back his hat. "Courage! Why not now?
Now or never!"

While the man thus mutteringly soliloquized, Lionel had reached the gate
which opened into the grounds of Fawley, just in the rear of the little
lake. Over the gate he swung himself lightly, and, turning back to
Darrell cried, "Here is the doe waiting to welcome you."

Just as Darrell, scarcely heeding the exclamation, and with his musing
eyes on the ground, approached the gate, a respectful hand opened it
wide, a submissive head bowed low, a voice artificially soft faltered
forth words, broken and, indistinct, but of which those most audible
were--"Pardon, me; something to communicate,--important; hear me."

Darrell started, just as the traveller almost touched him, started,
recoiled, as one on whose path rises a wild beast. His bended head
became erect, haughty, indignant, defying; but his cheek was pale, and
his lip quivered. "You here! You in England-at Fawley! You presume to
accost me! You, sir,--you!"

Lionel just caught the sound of the voice as the doe had come timidly up
to him. He turned round sharply, and beheld Darrell's stern, imperious
countenance, on which, stern and imperious though it was, a hasty glance
could discover, at once, a surprise that almost bordered upon fear. Of
the stranger still holding the gate he saw but the back, and his voice he
did not hear, though by the man's gesture he was evidently replying.
Lionel paused a moment irresolute; but as the man continued to speak, he
saw Darrell's face grow paler and paler, and in the impulse of a vague
alarm he hastened towards him; but just within three feet of the spot,
Darrell arrested his steps.

"Go home, Lionel; this person would speak to me in private." Then,
in a lower tone, he said to the stranger, "Close the gate, sir; you are
standing upon the land of my fathers. If you would speak with me, this
way;" and, brushing through the corn, Darrell strode towards a patch of
waste land that adjoined the field: the man followed him, and both passed
from Lionel's eyes. The doe had come to the gate to greet her master;
she now rested her nostrils on the bar, with a look disappointed and
plaintive.

"Come," said Lionel, "come." The doe would not stir.

So the boy walked on alone, not much occupied with what had just passed.
"Doubtless," thought he, "some person in the neighbourhood upon country
business."

He skirted the lake, and seated himself on a garden bench near the house.
What did he there think of?--who knows? Perhaps of the Great World;
perhaps of little Sophy! Time fled on: the sun was receding in the west
when Darrell hurried past him without speaking, and entered the house.

The host did not appear at dinner, nor all that evening. Mr. Mills made
an excuse: Mr. Darrell did not feel very well.

Fairthorn had Lionel all to himself, and having within the last few days
reindulged in open cordiality to the young guest, he was especially
communicative that evening. He talked much on Darrell, and with all the
affection that, in spite of his fear, the poor flute-player felt for his
ungracious patron. He told many anecdotes of the stern man's tender
kindness to all that came within its sphere. He told also anecdotes more
striking of the kind man's sternness where some obstinate prejudice, some
ruling passion, made him "granite."

"Lord, my dear young sir," said Fairthorn, "be his most bitter open
enemy, and fall down in the mire, the first hand to help you would be Guy
Darrell's; but be his professed friend, and betray him to the worth of a
straw, and never try to see his face again if you are wise,--the most
forgiving and the least forgiving of human beings. But--"

The study door noiselessly opened, and Darrell's voice called out,
"Fairthorn, let me speak with you."

CHAPTER XV.

Every street has two sides, the shady side and the sunny. When two
men shake hands and part, mark which of the two takes the sunny
side: he will be the younger man of the two.

The next morning, neither Darrell nor Fairthorn appeared at breakfast;
but as soon as Lionel had concluded that meal, Mr. Mills informed him,
with customary politeness, that Mr. Darrell wished to speak with him in
the study. Study, across the threshold of which Lionel had never yet set
footstep! He entered it now with a sentiment of mingled curiosity and
awe. Nothing in it remarkable, save the portrait of the host's father
over the mantelpiece. Books strewed tables, chairs, and floors in the
disorder loved by habitual students. Near the window was a glass bowl
containing gold-fish, and close by, in its cage, a singing-bird. Darrell
might exist without companionship in the human species, but not without
something which he protected and cherished,--a bird, even a fish.

Darrell looked really ill: his keen eye was almost dim, and the lines in
his face seemed deeper. But he spoke with his usual calm, passionless
melody of voice.

"Yes," he said, in answer to Lionel's really anxious inquiry; "I am ill.
Idle persons like me give way to illness. When I was a busy man, I never
did; and then illness gave way to me. My general plans are thus, if not
actually altered, at least hurried to their consummation sooner than I
expected. Before you came here, I told you to come soon, or you might
not find me. I meant to go abroad this summer; I shall now start at
once. I need the change of scene and air. You will return to London
to-day."

"To-day! You are not angry with me?"

"Angry! boy and cousin--no!" resumed Darrell, in a tone of unusual
tenderness. "Angry-fie! But since the parting must be, 't is well to
abridge the pain of long farewell. You must wish, too, to see your
mother, and thank her for rearing you up so that you may step from
poverty into ease with a head erect. You will give to Mrs. Haughton this
letter: for yourself, your inclinations seem to tend towards the army.
But before you decide on that career, I should like you to see something
more of the world. Call to-morrow on Colonel Morley, in Curzon Street:
this is his address. He will receive by to-day's post a note from me,
requesting him to advise you. Follow his counsels in what belongs to the
world. He is a man of the world,--a distant connection of mine, who will
be kind to you for my sake. Is there more to say? Yes. It seems an
ungracious speech; but I should speak it. Consider yourself sure from
me of an independent income. Never let idle sycophants lead you into
extravagance by telling you that you will have more. But indulge not the
expectation, however plausible, that you will be my heir."

"Mr. Darrell--oh, sir--"

"Hush! the expectation would be reasonable; but I am a strange being.
I might marry again,--have heirs of my own. Eh, sir,-0why not?" Darrell
spoke these last words almost fiercely, and fixed his eyes on Lionel as
he repeated,--"Why not?" But seeing that the boy's face evinced no
surprise, the expression of his own relaxed, and he continued calmly,--
"Enough; what I have thus rudely said was kindly meant. It is a treason
to a young man to let him count on a fortune which at last is left away
from him. Now, Lionel, go; enjoy your spring of life! Go, hopeful and
light-hearted. If sorrow reach you, battle with it; if error mislead
you, come fearlessly to me for counsel. Why, boy, what is this?--tears?
Tut, tut."

"It is your goodness," faltered Lionel. "I cannot help it. And is there
nothing I can do for you in return?"

Yes, much. Keep your name free from stain, and your heart open to such
noble emotions as awaken tears like those. Ah, by the by, I heard from
my lawyer to-day about your poor little protegee. Not found yet, but he
seems sanguine of quick success. You shall know the moment I hear more."

"You will write to me, then, sir, and I may write to you?"

"As often as you please. Always direct to me here."

"Shall you be long abroad?"

Darrell's brows met. "I don't know," said he, curtly. "Adieu."

He opened the door as he spoke.

Lionel looked at him with wistful yearning, filial affection, through his
swimming eyes. "God bless you, sir," he murmured simply, and passed
away.

"That blessing should have come from me!" said Darrell to himself, as he
turned back, and stood on his solitary hearth. "But they on whose heads
I once poured a blessing, where are they,--where? And that man's tale,
reviving the audacious fable which the other, and I verily believe the
less guilty knave of the two, sought to palm on me years ago! Stop; let
me weigh well what he said. If it were true! Oh, shame, shame!"

Folding his arms tightly on his breast, Darrell paced the room with slow,
measured strides, pondering deeply. He was, indeed, seeking to suppress
feeling, and to exercise only judgment; and his reasoning process seemed
at length fully to satisfy him, for his countenance gradually cleared,
and a triumphant smile passed across it. "A lie,--certainly a palpable
and gross lie; lie it must and shall be. Never will I accept it as
truth. Father" (looking full at the portrait over the mantel-shelf),
"Father, fear not--never--never!"

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

Certes, the lizard is a shy and timorous creature. He runs into
chinks and crannies if you come too near to him, and sheds his very
tail for fear, if you catch it by the tip. He has not his being in
good society: no one cages him, no one pets. He is an idle vagrant.
But when he steals through the green herbage, and basks unmolested
in the sun, he crowds perhaps as much enjoyment into one summer hour
as a parrot, however pampered and erudite, spreads over a whole
drawing-room life spent in saying "How dye do" and "Pretty Poll."

ON that dull and sombre summer morning in which the grandfather and
grandchild departed from the friendly roof of Mr. Merle, very dull and
very sombre were the thoughts of little Sophy. She walked slowly behind
the gray cripple, who had need to lean so heavily on his staff, and her
eye had not even a smile for the golden buttercups that glittered on dewy
meads alongside the barren road.

Thus had they proceeded apart and silent till they had passed the second
milestone. There, Waife, rousing from his own reveries, which were
perhaps yet more dreary than those of the dejected child, halted
abruptly, passed his hand once or twice rapidly over his forehead, and,
turning round to Sophy, looked into her face with great kindness as she
came slowly to his side.

"You are sad, little one?" said he.

"Very sad, Grandy."

"And displeased with me? Yes, displeased that I have taken you suddenly
away from the pretty young gentleman, who was so kind to you, without
encouraging the chance that you were to meet with him again."

"It was not like you, Grandy," answered Sophy; and her under-lip slightly
pouted, while the big tears swelled to her eye.

"True," said the vagabond; "anything resembling common-sense is not like
me. But don't you think that I did what I felt was best for you? Must I
not have some good cause for it, whenever I have the heart deliberately
to vex you?"

Sophy took his hand and pressed it, but she could not trust herself to
speak, for she felt that at such effort she would have burst out into
hearty crying. Then Waife proceeded to utter many of those wise sayings,
old as the hills, and as high above our sorrows as hills are from the
valley in which we walk. He said how foolish it was to unsettle the mind
by preposterous fancies and impossible hopes. The pretty young gentleman
could never be anything to her, nor she to the pretty young gentleman.
It might be very well for the pretty young gentleman to promise to
correspond with her, but as soon as he returned to his friends he would
have other things to think of, and she would soon be forgotten; while
she, on the contrary, would be thinking of him, and the Thames and the
butterflies, and find hard life still more irksome. Of all this, and
much more, in the general way of consolers who set out on the principle
that grief is a matter of logic, did Gentleman Waife deliver himself with
a vigour of ratiocination which admitted of no reply, and conveyed not a
particle of comfort. And feeling this, that great actor--not that he was
acting then-suddenly stopped, clasped the child in his arms, and murmured
in broken accents,--"But if I see you thus cast down, I shall have no
strength left to hobble on through the world; and the sooner I lie down,
and the dust is shovelled over me, why, the better for you; for it seems
that Heaven sends you friends, and I tear you from them."

And then Sophy fairly gave way to her sobs: she twined her little arms
round the old man's neck convulsively, kissed his rough face with
imploring pathetic fondness, and forced out through her tears, "Don't
talk so! I've been ungrateful and wicked. I don't care for any one but
my own dear, dear Grandy."

After this little scene, they both composed themselves, and felt much
lighter of heart. They pursued their journey, no longer apart, but side
by side, and the old man leaning, though very lightly, on the child's
arm. But there was no immediate reaction from gloom to gayety. Waife
began talking in softened undertones, and vaguely, of his own past
afflictions; and partial as was the reference, how vast did the old man's
sorrows seem beside the child's regrets; and yet he commented on them as
if rather in pitying her state than grieving for his own.

"Ah, at your age, my darling, I had not your troubles and hardships. I
had not to trudge these dusty roads on foot with a broken-down good-for-
nothing scatterling; I trod rich carpets, and slept under silken
curtains. I took the air in gay carriages,--I such a scapegrace; and
you, little child, you so good! All gone, all melted away from me, and
not able now to be sure that you will have a crust of bread this day
week."

"Oh, yes! I shall have bread, and you too, Grandy," cried Sophy, with
cheerful voice. "It was you who taught me to pray to God, and said that
in all your troubles God had been good to you: and He has been so good to
me since I prayed to Him; for I have no dreadful Mrs. Crane to beat me
now, and say things more hard to bear than beating; and you have taken me
to yourself. How I prayed for that! And I take care of you too,
Grandy,--don't I? I prayed for that too; and as to carriages," added
Sophy, with superb air, "I don't care if I am never in a carriage as long
as I live; and you know I have been in a van, which is bigger than a
carriage, and I didn't like that at all. But how came people to behave
so ill to you, Grandy?"

"I never said people behaved ill to me, Sophy."

"Did not they take away the carpets and silk curtains, and all the fine
things you had as a little boy?"

"I don't know," replied Waife, with a puzzled look, "that people actually
took them away; but they melted away.

"However, I had much still to be thankful for: I was so strong, and had
such high spirits, Sophy, and found people not behaving ill to me,--quite
the contrary, so kind. I found no Crane (she monster) as you did, my
little angel. Such prospects before me, if I had walked straight towards
them! But I followed my own fancy, which led me zigzag; and now that I
would stray back into the high road, you see before you a man whom a
Justice of the Peace could send to the treadmill for presuming to live
without a livelihood."

SOPHY.--"Not without a livelihood!--the what did you call it?--
independent income,--that is, the Three Pounds, Grandy?"

WAIFE (admiringly).--"Sensible child. That is true. Yes, Heaven is very
good to me still. Ah! what signifies fortune? How happy I was with my
dear Lizzy, and yet no two persons could live more from hand to mouth."

SOPHY (rather jealously).--"tizzy?"

WAIFE (with moistened eyes, and looking down).--"My wife. She was only
spared to me two years: such sunny years! And how grateful I ought to be
that she did not live longer. She was saved--such--such--such shame and
misery!" A long pause.

Waife resumed, with a rush from memory, as if plucking himself from the
claws of a harpy,--"What's the good of looking back? A man's gone self
is a dead thing. It is not I--now tramping this road, with you to lean
upon--whom I see, when I would turn to look behind on that which I once
was: it is another being, defunct and buried; and when I say to myself,
'that being did so and so,' it is like reading an epitaph on a tombstone.
So, at last, solitary and hopeless, I came back to my own land; and I
found you,--a blessing greater than I had ever dared to count on. And
how was I to maintain you, and take you from that long-nosed alligator
called Crane, and put you in womanly gentle hands; for I never thought
then of subjecting you to all you have since undergone with me,--I who
did not know one useful thing in life by which a man can turn a penny.
And then, as I was all alone in a village ale-house, on my way back from-
it does not signify from what, or from whence, but I was disappointed and
despairing, Providence mercifully threw in my way--Mr. Rugge, and
ordained me to be of great service to that ruffian, and that ruffian of
great use to me."

Sorfiy.--"Ah, how was that?"

WAIFE.--"It was fair time in the village wherein I stopped, and Rugge's
principal actor was taken off by delirium tremens, which is Latin for a
disease common to men who eat little and drink much. Rugge came into the
alehouse bemoaning his loss. A bright thought struck me. Once in my day
I had been used to acting. I offered to try my chance on Mr. Rugge's
stage: he caught at me, I at him. I succeeded: we came to terms, and my
little Sophy was thus taken from that ringleted crocodile, and placed
with Christian females who wore caps and read their Bible. Is not Heaven
good to us, Sophy; and to me too--me, such a scamp?"

"And you did all that,--suffered all that for my sake?"

"Suffered, but I liked it. And, besides, I must have done something; and
there were reasons--in short, I was quite happy; no, not actually happy,
but comfortable and merry. Providence gives thick hides to animals that
must exist in cold climates; and to the man whom it reserves for sorrow,
Providence gives a coarse, jovial temper. Then, when by a mercy I was
saved from what I most disliked and dreaded, and never would have thought
of but that I fancied it might be a help to you,--I mean the London
stage,--and had that bad accident on the railway, how did it end? Oh!
in saving you" (and Waife closed his eyes and shuddered), "in saving your
destiny from what might be much worse for you, body and soul, than the
worst that has happened to you with me. And so we have been thrown
together; and so you have supported me; and so, when we could exist
without Mr. Rugge, Providence got rid of him for us. And so we are now
walking along the high road; and through yonder trees you can catch a
peep of the roof under which we are about to rest for a while; and there
you will learn what I have done with the Three Pounds!"

"It is not the Spotted Boy, Grandy?"

"No," said Waife, sighing; "the Spotted Boy is a handsome income; but let
us only trust in Providence, and I should not wonder if our new
acquisition proved a monstrous--"

"Monstrous!"

"Piece of good fortune."

CHAPTER II.

The investment revealed.

Gentleman Waife passed through a turnstile, down a narrow lane, and
reached a solitary cottage. He knocked at the door; an old peasant woman
opened it, and dropped him a civil courtesy. "Indeed, sir, I am glad you
are come. I 'se most afeared he be dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed Waife. "Oh, Sophy, if he should be dead!"

"Who?"

Waife did not heed the question. "What makes you think him dead?" said
he, fumbling in his pockets, from which he at last produced a key. "You
have not been disobeying my strict orders, and tampering with the door?"

"Lor' love ye, no, sir. But he made such a noise at fust--awful! And
now he's as still as a corpse. And I did peep through the keyhole, and
he was stretched stark."

"Hunger, perhaps," said the Comedian; "'t is his way when he has been
kept fasting much over his usual hours. Follow me, Sophy." He put aside
the woman, entered the sanded kitchen, ascended a stair that led from it;
and Sophy following, stopped at a door and listened: not a sound.
Timidly he unlocked the portals and crept in, when, suddenly such a
rush,--such a spring, and a mass of something vehement yet soft, dingy
yet whitish, whirled past the actor, and came pounce against Sophy, who
therewith uttered a shriek. "Stop him, stop him, for heaven's sake,"
cried Waife. "Shut the door below,--seize him." Downstairs, however,
went the mass, and downstairs after it hobbled Waife, returning in a few
moments with the recaptured and mysterious fugitive. "There," he cried
triumphantly to Sophy, who, standing against the wall with her face
buried in her frock, long refused to look up,--"there,--tame as a lamb,
and knows me. See!" he seated himself on the floor, and Sophy,
hesitatingly opening her eyes, beheld gravely gazing at her from under a
profusion of shaggy locks an enormous--

CHAPTER III.

Denoumente!

POODLE!

CHAPTER IV.

Zoology in connection with history.

"Walk to that young lady, sir,--walk, I say." The poodle slowly rose on
his hind legs, and, with an aspect inexpressibly solemn, advanced towards
Sophy, who hastily receded into the room in which the creature had been
confined.

"Make a bow--no--a bow, sir; that is right: you can shake hands another
time. Run down, Sophy, and ask for his dinner."

"Yes; that I will;" and Sophy flew down the stairs.

The dog, still on his hind legs, stood in the centre of the floor
dignified, but evidently expectant.

"That will do; lie down and die. Die this moment, sir." The dog
stretched himself out, closed his eyes, and to all appearance gave up the
ghost. "A most splendid investment," said Waife, with enthusiasm; "and
upon the whole, clog cheap. Ho! you are not to bring up his dinner; it
is not you who are to make friends with the dog; it is my little girl;
send her up; Sophy, Sophy!"

"She be fritted, sir," said the woman, holding a plate of canine
comestibles; "but lauk, sir, bent he really dead?"

"Sophy, Sophy"

"Please let me stay here, Grandy," said Sophy's voice from the foot of
the stairs.

"Nonsense! it is sixteen hours since he has had a morsel to eat. And he
will never bite the hand that feeds him now. Come up, I say."

Sophy slowly reascended, and Waife summoning the poodle to life, insisted
upon the child's feeding him. And indeed, when that act of charity was
performed, the dog evinced his gratitude by a series of unsophisticated
bounds and waggings of the tail, which gradually removed Sophy's
apprehensions, and laid the foundation for that intimate friendship which
is the natural relation between child and dog.

"And how did you come by him?" asked Sophy; "and is this really the--the
INVESTMENT?"

"Shut the door carefully, but see first that the woman is not listening.
Lie down, sir, there, at the feet of the young lady. Good dog! How did
I come by him? I will tell you. The first day we arrived at the village
which we have just left I went into the tobacconist's. While I was
buying my ounce of canaster that dog entered the shop. In his mouth was
a sixpence wrapped in paper. He lifted himself on his hind legs, and
laid his missive on the counter. The shopwoman--you know her, Mrs.
Traill--unfolded the paper and read the order. 'Clever dog that, sir,'
said she. 'To fetch and carry?' said I, indifferently. 'More than that,
sir; you shall see. The order is for two penn'orth of snuff. The dog
knows he is to take back fourpence. I will give him a penny
short.' So she took the sixpence and gave the dog threepence out of it.
The dog shook his head and looked gravely into her face. 'That's all
you'll get,' said she. The dog shook his head again, and tapped his paw
once on the counter, as much as to say, 'I'm not to be done: a penny
more, if you please.' 'If you'll not take that, you shall have nothing,'
said Mrs. Traill, and she took back the threepence."

"Dear! and what did the dog do then,--snarl or bite?" "Not so; he knew
he was in his rights, and did not lower himself by showing bad temper.
The dog looked quietly round, saw a basket which contained two or three
pounds of candles lying in a corner for the shop boy to take to some
customer; took up the basket in his mouth, and turned tail, as much as to
say, 'Tit for tat then.' He understood, you see, what is called 'the law
of reprisals.' 'Come back this moment,' cried Mrs. Traill. The dog
walked out of the shop; then she ran after him, and counted the fourpence
before him, on which he dropped the basket, picked up the right change,
and went off demurely. 'To whom does that poodle belong?' said I. 'To a
poor drunken man,' said Mrs. Traill; 'I wish it was in better hands.'
'So do I, ma'am,' answered I; 'did he teach it?' 'No, it was taught by
his brother, who was an old soldier, and died in his house two weeks ago.
It knows a great many tricks, and is quite young. It might make a
fortune as a show, sir.' So I was thinking. I inquired the owner's
address, called on him, and found him disposed to sell the dog. But he
asked L3, a sum that seemed out of the question then. Still I kept the
dog in my eye; called every day to make friends with it, and ascertain
its capacities. And at last, thanks to you, Sophy, I bought the dog; and
what is more, as soon as I had two golden sovereigns to show, I got him
for that sum, and we have still L1. left (besides small savings from our
lost salaries) to go to the completion of his education, and the
advertisement of his merits. I kept this a secret from Merle,--from all.
I would not even let the drunken owner know where I took the dog to
yesterday. I brought him here, where, I learned in the village, there
were two rooms to let, locked him up, and my story is told."

"But why keep it such a secret?"

"Because I don't want Rugge to trace us. He might do one a mischief;
because I have a grand project of genteel position and high prices for
the exhibition of that dog. And why should it be known where we come
from, or what we were? And because, if the owner knew where to find the
dog, he might decoy it back from us. Luckily he had not made the dog so
fond of him but what, unless it be decoyed, it will accustom itself to
us. And now I propose that we should stay a week or so here, and devote
ourselves exclusively to developing the native powers of this gifted
creature. Get out the dominos."

"What is his name?"

"Ha! that is the first consideration. What shall be his name?"

"Has he not one already?"

"Yes,--trivial and unattractive,--Mop! In private life it might pass.
But in public life--give a dog a bad name and hang him. Mop, indeed!"

Therewith Mop, considering himself appealed to, rose and stretched
himself.

"Right," said Gentleman Waife; "stretch yourself--you decidedly require
it."

CHAPTER V.

Mop becomes a personage.--Much thought is bestowed on the verbal
dignities, without which a personage would become a mop.--The
importance of names is apparent in all history.--If Augustus had
called himself king, Rome would have risen against him as a Tarquin;
so he remained a simple equestrian, and modestly called himself
Imperator.--Mop chooses his own title in a most mysterious manner,
and ceases to be Mop.

"The first noticeable defect in your name of Mop," said Gentleman Waife,
"is, as you yourself denote, the want of elongation. Monosyllables are
not imposing, and in striking compositions their meaning is elevated by
periphrasis; that is to say, Sophy, that what before was a short truth,
an elegant author elaborates into a long stretch."

"Certainly," said Sophy, thoughtfully; "I don't think the name of Mop
would draw! Still he is very like a mop."

"For that reason the name degrades him the more, and lowers him from an
intellectual phenomenon to a physical attribute, which is vulgar. I hope
that that dog will enable us to rise in the scale of being. For whereas
we in acting could only command a threepenny audience--reserved seats a
shilling--he may aspire to half-crowns and dress-boxes; that is, if we
can hit on a name which inspires respect. Now, although the dog is big,
it is not by his size that he is to become famous, or we might call him
Hercules or Goliath; neither is it by his beauty, or Adonis would not be
unsuitable. It is by his superior sagacity and wisdom. And there I am
puzzled to find his prototype amongst mortals; for, perhaps, it may be my
ignorance of history--"

"You ignorant, indeed, Grandfather!"

"But considering the innumerable millions who have lived on the earth, it
is astonishing how few I can call to mind who have left behind them a
proverbial renown for wisdom. There is, indeed, Solomon, but he fell off
at the last; and as he belongs to sacred history, we must not take a
liberty with his name. Who is there very, very wise, besides Solomon?
Think, Sophy,--Profane History."

Sophy (after a musing pause).--"Puss in Boots."

"Well, he was wise; but then he was not human; he was a cat. Ha!
Socrates. Shall we call him Socrates, Socrates, Socrates?"

SOPHY.--"Socrates, Socrates!" Mop yawned.

WAIFE.--"He don't take to Socrates,--prosy!"

SOPHY.--"Ah, Mr. Merle's book about the Brazen Head, Friar Bacon! He
must have been very wise."

WAIFE.--"Not bad; mysterious, but not recondite; historical, yet
familiar. What does Mop say to it? Friar, Friar, Friar Bacon, sir,
--Friar!"

SOPHY (coaxingly).--"Friar!"

Mop, evidently conceiving that appeal is made to some other personage,
canine or human, not present, rouses up, walks to the door, smells at the
chink, returns, shakes his head, and rests on his haunches, eying his two
friends superciliously.

SOPHY.--"He does not take to that name."

WAIFE.--"He has his reasons for it; and indeed there are many worthy
persons who disapprove of anything that savours of magical practices.
Mop intimates that on entering public life one should beware of offending
the respectable prejudices of a class."

Mr. Waife then, once more resorting to the recesses of scholastic memory,
plucked therefrom, somewhat by the head and shoulders, sundry names
reverenced in a by-gone age. He thought of the seven wise men of Greece,
but could only recall the nomenclature of two out of the--even,--a sad
proof of the distinction between collegiate fame and popular renown. He
called Thales; he called Bion. Mop made no response. "Wonderful
intelligence!" said Waife; "he knows that Thales and Bion would not
draw!--obsolete."

Mop was equally mute to Aristotle. He pricked up his cars at Plato,
perhaps because the sound was not wholly dissimilar from that of Ponto,
--a name of which he might have had vague reminiscences. The Romans not
having cultivated an original philosophy, though they contrived to
produce great men without it, Waife passed by that perished people. He
crossed to China, and tried Confucius. Mop had evidently never heard of
him.

"I am at the end of my list, so far as the wise men are concerned," said
Waife, wiping his forehead. "If Mop were to distinguish himself by
valour, one would find heroes by the dozen,--Achilles, and Hector, and
Julius Caesar, and Pompey, and Bonaparte, and Alexander the Great, and
the Duke of Marlborough. Or, if he wrote poetry, we could fit him to a
hair. But wise men certainly are scarce, and when one has hit on a wise
man's name it is so little known to the vulgar that it would carry no
more weight with it than Spot or Toby. But necessarily some name the dog
must have, and take to sympathetically."

Sophy meanwhile had extracted the dominos from Waife's bundle, and with
the dominos an alphabet and a multiplication-table in printed capitals.
As the Comedian's one eye rested upon the last, he exclaimed, "But after
all, Mop's great strength will probably be in arithmetic, and the science
of numbers is the root of all wisdom. Besides, every man, high and low,
wants to make a fortune, and associations connected with addition and
multiplication are always pleasing. Who, then, is the sage at
computation most universally known? Unquestionably Cocker! He must take
to that, Cocker, Cocker" (commandingly),--"C-o-c-k-e-r" (with persuasive
sweetness).

Mop looked puzzled; he put his head first on one side, then on the other.

SOPHY (with mellifluous endearment).--"Cocker, good Cocker; Cocker dear!"

BOTH.--"Cocker, Cocker, Cocker!"

Excited and bewildered, Mop put up his head, and gave vent to his
perplexities in a long and lugubrious howl, to which certainly none who
heard it could have desired addition or multiplication.

"Stop this instant, sir,--stop; I shoot you! You are dead,--down!"
Waife adjusted his staff to his shoulder gun-wise; and at the word of
command, "Down," Mop was on his side, stiff and lifeless. "Still," said
Waife, "a name connected with profound calculation would be the most
appropriate; for instance, Sir Isaac--"

Before the. Comedian could get out the word Newton, Mop had sprung to
his four feet, and, with wagging tail and wriggling back, evinced a sense
of beatified recognition.

"Astounding!" said Waife, rather awed. "Can it be the name?
Impossible. Sir Isaac, Sir Isaac!"

"Bow-wow!" answered Mop, joyously.

"If there be any truth in the doctrine of metempsychosis," faltered
Gentleman Waife, "if the great Newton could have transmigrated into that
incomparable animal! Newton, Newton!" To that name Mop made no
obeisance, but, evidently still restless, walked round the room, smelling
at every corner, and turning to look back with inquisitive earnestness at
his new master.

"He does not seem to catch at the name of Newton," said Waife, trying it
thrice again, and vainly, "and yet he seems extremely well versed in the
principle of gravity. Sir Isaac!" The dog bounded towards him, put his
paws on his shoulder, and licked his face. "Just cut out those figures
carefully, my dear, and see if we can get him to tell us how much twice
ten are--I mean by addressing him as Sir Isaac."

Sophy cut the figures from the multiplication table, and arranged them,
at Waife's instruction, in a circle on the floor. "Now, Sir Isaac." Mop
lifted a paw, and walked deliberately round the letters. "Now, Sir
Isaac, how much are ten times two?" Mop deliberately made his survey and
calculation, and, pausing at twenty, stooped, and took the letters in his
mouth.

"It is not natural," cried Sophy, much alarmed. "It must be wicked, and
I'd rather have nothing to do with it, please."

"Silly child! He was but obeying my sign. He had been taught that trick
already under the name of Mop. The only strange thing is, that he should
do it also under the name of Sir Isaac, and much more cheerfully too.
However, whether he has been the great Newton or not, a live dog is
better than a dead lion. But it is clear that, in acknowledging the name
of Sir Isaac, he does not encourage us to take that of Newton; and he is
right: for it might be thought unbecoming to apply to an animal, however
extraordinary, who by the severity of fortune is compelled to exhibit his
talents for a small pecuniary reward, the family name of so great a
philosopher. Sir Isaac, after all, is a vague appellation; any dog has a
right to be Sir Isaac--Newton may be left conjectural. Let us see if we
can add to our arithmetical information. Look at me, Sir Isaac." Sir
Isaac looked and grinned affectionately; and under that title learned a
new combination with a facility that might have relieved Sophy's mind of
all superstitious belief that the philosopher was resuscitated in the
dog, had she known that in life that great master of calculations the
most abstruse could not accurately cast up a simple sum in addition.
Nothing brought him to the end of his majestic tether like dot and carry
one. Notable type of our human incompleteness, where men might deem our
studies had made us most complete! Notable type, too, of that grandest
order of all human genius which seems to arrive at results by intuition,
which a child might pose by a row of figures on a slate, while it is
solving the laws that link the stars to infinity! But /revenons a nos
moutons/, what was the astral attraction that incontestably bound the
reminiscences of Mop to the cognominal distinction of Sir Isaac? I had
prepared a very erudite and subtle treatise upon this query, enlivened by
quotations from the ancient Mystics,--such as Iamblicus and Proclus,--as
well as by a copious reference to the doctrine of the more modern
Spiritualists, from Sir Kenelm Digby and Swedenborg, to Monsieur Cahagnet
and Judge Edwards. It was to be called Inquiry into the Law of
Affinities, by Philomopsos: when, unluckily for my treatise, I arrived at
the knowledge of a fact which, though it did not render the treatise less
curious, knocked on the head the theory upon which it was based. The
baptismal name of the old soldier, Mop's first proprietor and earliest
preceptor, was Isaac; and his master being called in the homely household
by that Christian name, the sound had entered into Mop's youngest and
most endeared associations. His canine affections had done much towards
ripening his scholastic education. "Where is Isaac?" "Call Isaac!"
"Fetch Isaac his hat," etc. Stilled was that name when the old soldier
died; but when heard again, Mop's heart was moved, and in missing the old
master, he felt more at home with the new. As for the title, "Sir," it
was a mere expletive in his ears. Such was the fact, and such the
deduction to be drawn from it. Not that it will satisfy every one. I
know that philosophers who deny all that they have not witnessed, and
refuse to witness what they resolve to deny, will reject the story in
toto; and will prove, by reference to their own dogs, that a dog never
recognizes the name of his master,--never yet could be taught arithmetic.
I know also that there are Mystics who will prefer to believe that Mop
was in direct spiritual communication with unseen Isaacs, or in a state
of clairvoyance, or under the influence of the odic fluid. But did we
ever yet find in human reason a question with only one side to it? Is
not truth a polygon? Have not sages arisen in our day to deny even the
principle of gravity, for which we bad been so long contentedly taking
the word of the great Sir Isaac? It is that blessed spirit of
controversy which keeps the world going; and it is that which, perhaps,
explains why Mr. Waife, when his memory was fairly put to it, could
remember, out of the history of the myriads who have occupied our planet
from the date of Adam to that in which I now write, so very few men whom
the world will agree to call wise, and out of that very few so scant a
percentage with names sufficiently known to make them more popularly
significant of pre-eminent sagacity than if they had been called--Mops.

CHAPTER VI.

The vagrant having got his dog, proceeds to hunt fortune with it,
leaving behind him a trap to catch rats.--What the trap does catch
is "just like his luck."

Sir Isaac, to designate him by his new name, improved much upon
acquaintance. He was still in the ductile season of youth, and took
to learning as an amusement to himself. His last master, a stupid sot,
had not gained his affections; and perhaps even the old soldier, though
gratefully remembered and mourned, had not stolen into his innermost
heart, as Waife and Sophy gently contrived to do. In short, in a very
few days he became perfectly accustomed and extremely attached to them.
When Waife had ascertained the extent of his accomplishments, and added
somewhat to their range in matters which cost no great trouble, he
applied himself to the task of composing a little drama which might bring
them all into more interesting play, and in which though Sophy and
himself were performers the dog had the premier role. And as soon as
this was done, and the dog's performances thus ranged into methodical
order and sequence, he resolved to set off to a considerable town at some
distance, and to which Mr. Rugge was no visitor.

His bill at the cottage made but slight inroad into his pecuniary
resources; for in the intervals of leisure from his instructions to Sir
Isaac, Waife had performed various little services to the lone widow with
whom they lodged, which Mrs. Saunders (such was her name) insisted upon
regarding as money's worth. He had repaired and regulated to a minute an
old clock which had taken no note of time for the last three years; he
had mended all the broken crockery by some cement of his own invention,
and for which she got him the materials. And here his ingenuity was
remarkable, for when there was only a fragment to be found of a cup and a
fragment or two of a saucer, he united them both into some pretty form,
which, if not useful, at all events looked well on a shelf. He bound, in
smart showy papers, sundry tattered old books which had belonged to his
landlady's defunct husband, a Scotch gardener, and which she displayed on
a side table, under the japan tea-tray. More than all, he was of service
to her in her vocation; for Mrs. Saunders eked out a small pension--which
she derived from the affectionate providence of her Scotch husband, in
insuring his life in her favour--by the rearing and sale of poultry; and
Waife saved her the expense of a carpenter by the construction of a new
coop, elevated above the reach of the rats, who had hitherto made sad
ravage amongst the chickens; while he confided to her certain secrets in
the improvement of breed and the cheaper processes of fattening, which
excited her gratitude no less than her wonder. "The fact is," said
Gentleman Waife, "that my life has known makeshifts. Once, in a foreign
country, I kept poultry, upon the principle that the poultry should keep
me."

Strange it was to notice such versatility of invention, such readiness of
resource, such familiarity with divers nooks and crannies in the
practical experience of life, in a man now so hard put to it for a
livelihood. There are persons, however, who might have a good stock of
talent, if they did not turn it all into small change. And you, reader,
know as well as I do, that when a sovereign or a shilling is once broken
into, the change scatters and dispends itself in a way quite
unaccountable. Still coppers are useful in household bills; and when
Waife was really at a pinch, somehow or other, by hook or by crook, he
scraped together intellectual halfpence enough to pay his way.

Mrs. Saunders grew quite fond of her lodgers. Waife she regarded as a
prodigy of genius; Sophy was the prettiest and best of children. Sir
Isaac, she took for granted, was worthy of his owners. But the Comedian
did not confide to her his dog's learning, nor the use to which he
designed to put it. And in still greater precaution, when he took his
leave, he extracted from Mrs. Saunders a solemn promise that she would
set no one on his track in case of impertinent inquiries.

"You see before you," said he, "a man who has enemies, such as rats are
to your chickens: chickens despise rats when raised, as yours are now,
above the reach of claws and teeth. Some day or other I may so raise a
coop for that little one: I am too old for coops. Meanwhile, if a rat
comes sneaking here after us, send it off the wrong way, with a flea in
its ear."

Mrs. Saunders promised, between tears and laughter; blessed Waife, kissed
Sophy, patted Sir Isaac, and stood long at her threshold watching the
three, as the early sun lit their forms receding in the narrow green
lane,--dewdrops sparkling on the hedgerows, and the skylark springing
upward from the young corn.

Then she slowly turned indoors, and her home seemed very solitary. We
can accustom ourselves to loneliness, but we should beware of infringing
the custom. Once admit two or three faces seated at your hearthside, or
gazing out from your windows on the laughing sun, and when they are gone,
they carry off the glow from your grate and the sunbeam from your panes.
Poor Mrs. Saunders! in vain she sought to rouse herself, to put the rooms
to rights, to attend to the chickens to distract her thoughts. The one-
eyed cripple, the little girl, the shaggy-faced dog, still haunted her;
and when at noon she dined all alone off the remnants of the last night's
social supper, the very click of the renovated clock seemed to say,
"Gone, gone;" and muttering, "Ah! gone," she reclined back on her chair,
and indulged herself in a good womanlike cry. From this luxury she was
startled by a knock at the door. "Could they have come back?" No; the
door opened, and a genteel young man, in a black coat and white
neckcloth, stepped in.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am--your name 's Saunders--sell poultry?"

"At your service, sir. Spring chickens?" Poor people, whatever their
grief, must sell their chickens, if they have any to sell.

"Thank you, ma'am; not at this moment. The fact is, that I call to make
some inquiries Have not you lodgers here?"

Lodgers! at that word the expanding soul of Mrs. Saunders reclosed
hermetically; the last warning of Waife revibrated in her ears this white
neckclothed gentleman, was he not a rat?

"No, sir, I ha'n't no lodgers."

"But you have had some lately, eh? a crippled elderly man and a little
girl."

"Don't know anything about them; leastways," said Mrs. Saunders, suddenly
remembering that she was told less to deny facts than to send inquirers
upon wrong directions," leastways, at this blessed time. Pray, sir, what
makes you ask?"

"Why, I was instructed to come down to ------, and find out where this
person, one William Waife, had gone. Arrived yesterday, ma'am. All I
could hear is, that a person answering to his description left the place
several days ago, and had been seen by a boy, who was tending sheep, to
come down the lane to your house, and you were supposed to have lodgers
(you take lodgers sometimes, I think, ma'am), because you had been buying
some trifling articles of food not in your usual way of custom.
Circumstantial evidence, ma'am: you can have no motive to conceal the
truth."

"I should think not indeed, sir," retorted Mrs. Saunders, whom the
ominous words "circumstantial evidence" set doubly on her guard. "I did
see a gentleman such as you mention, and a pretty young lady, about ten
days agone, or so, and they did lodge here a night or two, but they are
gone to--"

"Yes, ma'am,--gone where?"

"Lunnon."

"Really--very likely. By the train or on foot?"

"On foot, I s'pose."

"Thank you, ma'am. If you should see them again, or hear where they are,
oblige me by conveying this card to Mr. Waife. My employer, ma'am, Mr.
Gotobed, Craven Street, Strand,--eminent solicitor. He has something of
importance to communciate to Mr. Waife."

"Yes, sir,--a lawyer; I understand." And as of all ratlike animals in
the world Mrs. Saunders had the ignorance to deem a lawyer was the most
emphatically devouring, she congratulated herself with her whole heart on
the white lies she had told in favour of the intended victims.

The black-coated gentleman having thus obeyed his instructions and
attained his object, nodded, went his way, and regained the fly which he
had left at the turnstile. "Back to the inn," cried he, "quick: I must
be in time for the three o'clock train to London."

And thus terminated the result of the great barrister's first
instructions to his eminent solicitor to discover a lame man and a little
girl. No inquiry, on the whole, could have been more skilfully
conducted. Mr. Gotobed sends his head clerk; the head clerk employs the
policeman of the village; gets upon the right track; comes to the right
house; and is altogether in the wrong,--in a manner highly creditable to
his researches.

"In London, of course: all people of that kind come back to London," said
Mr. Gotobed. "Give me the heads in writing, that I may report to my
distinguished client. Most satisfactory. That young man will push his
way,--businesslike and methodical."

CHAPTER VII.

The cloud has its silver lining.

Thus turning his back on the good fortune which he had so carefully
cautioned Mrs. Saunders against favouring on his behalf, the vagrant was
now on his way to the ancient municipal town of Gatesboro', which, being
the nearest place of fitting opulence and population, Mr. Waife had
resolved to honour with the debut of Sir Isaac as soon as he had
appropriated to himself the services of that promising quadruped.
He had consulted a map of the county before quitting Mr. Merle's roof,
and ascertained that he could reach Gatesboro' by a short cut for foot-
travellers along fields and lanes. He was always glad to avoid the high
road: doubtless for such avoidance he had good reasons. But prudential
reasons were in this instance supported by vagrant inclinations. High
roads are for the prosperous. By-paths and ill-luck go together. But
by-paths have their charm, and ill-luck its pleasant moments.

They passed then from the high road into a long succession of green
pastures, through which a straight public path conducted them into one of
those charming lanes never seen out of this bowery England,--a lane deep
sunk amidst high banks with overhanging oaks, and quivering ash, gnarled
wych-elm, vivid holly and shaggy brambles, with wild convolvulus and
creeping woodbine forcing sweet life through all. Sometimes the banks
opened abruptly, leaving patches of green sward, and peeps through still
sequestered gates, or over moss-grown pales, into the park or paddock of
some rural thane. New villas or old manor-houses on lawny uplands,
knitting, as it were, together England's feudal memories with England's
freeborn hopes,--the old land with its young people; for England is so
old, and the English are so young! And the gray cripple and the bright-
haired child often paused, and gazed upon the demesnes and homes of
owners whose lots were cast in such pleasant places. But there was no
grudging envy in their gaze; perhaps because their life was too remote
from those grand belongings. And therefore they could enjoy and possess
every banquet of the eye. For at least the beauty of what we see is ours
for the moment, on the simple condition that we do not covet the thing
which gives to our eyes that beauty. As the measureless sky and the
unnumbered stars are equally granted to king and to beggar; and in our
wildest ambition we do not sigh for a monopoly of the empyrean, or the
fee-simple of the planets: so the earth too, with all its fenced gardens
and embattled walls, all its landmarks of stern property and churlish
ownership, is ours too by right of eye. Ours to gaze on the fair
possessions with such delight as the gaze can give; grudging to the
unseen owner his other, and, it may be, more troubled rights, as little
as we grudge an astral proprietor his acres of light in Capricorn.
Benignant is the law that saith, "Thou shalt not covet."

When the sun was at the highest our wayfarers found a shadowy nook for
their rest and repast. Before them ran a shallow limpid trout-stream;
on the other side its margin, low grassy meadows, a farmhouse in the
distance, backed by a still grove, from which rose a still church tower
and its still spire. Behind them, a close-shaven sloping lawn terminated
the hedgerow of the lane; seen clearly above it, with parterres of
flowers on the sward, drooping lilacs and laburnums farther back, and a
pervading fragrance from the brief-lived and rich syringas. The cripple
had climbed over a wooden rail that separated the lane from the rill, and
seated himself under the shade of a fantastic hollow thorn-tree. Sophy,
reclined beside him, was gathering some pale scentless violets from a
mound which the brambles had guarded from the sun. The dog had descended
to the waters to quench his thirst, but still stood knee-deep in the
shallow stream, and appeared lost in philosophical contemplation of a
swarm of minnows, which his immersion had disturbed, but which now made
itself again visible on the farther side of the glassy brook, undulating
round and round a tiny rocklet which interrupted the glide of the waves,
and caused them to break into a low melodious murmur. "For these and all
thy mercies, O Lord, make us thankful," said the victim of ill-luck, in
the tritest words of a pious custom. But never, perhaps, at aldermanic
feasts was the grace more sincerely said.

And then he untied the bundle, which the dog, who had hitherto carried it
by the way, had now carefully deposited at his side. "As I live,"
ejaculated Waife, "Mrs. Saunders is a woman in ten thousand. See, Sophy,
not contented with the bread and cheese to which I bade her stint her
beneficence, a whole chicken,--a little cake too for you, Sophy; she has
not even forgotten the salt. Sophy, that woman deserves the handsomest
token of our gratitude; and we will present her with a silver teapot the
first moment we can afford it."

His spirits exhilarated by the unexpected good cheer, the Comedian gave
way to his naturally blithe humour; and between every mouthful he rattled
or rather drolled on, now infant-like, now sage-like. He cast out the
rays of his liberal humour, careless where they fell,--on the child, on
the dog, on the fishes that played beneath the wave, on the cricket that
chirped amidst the grass; the woodpecker tapped the tree, and the
cripple's merry voice answered it in bird-like mimicry. To this riot of
genial babble there was a listener, of whom neither grandfather nor
grandchild was aware. Concealed by thick brushwood a few paces farther
on, a young angler, who might be five or six and twenty, had seated
himself, just before the arrival of our vagrant to those banks and
waters, for the purpose of changing an unsuccessful fly. At the sound of
voices, perhaps suspecting an unlicensed rival, for that part of the
stream was preserved,--he had suspended his task, and noiselessly put
aside the clustering leaves to reconnoitre. The piety of Waife's simple
grace seemed to surprise him pleasingly, for a sweet approving smile
crossed his lips. He continued to look and to listen. He forgot the
fly, and a trout sailed him by unheeded. But Sir Isaac, having probably
satisfied his speculative mind as to the natural attributes of minnows,
now slowly reascended the bank, and after a brief halt and a sniff,
walked majestically towards the hidden observer, looked at him with great
solemnity, and uttered an inquisitive bark,--a bark not hostile, not
menacing; purely and dryly interrogative. Thus detected, the angler
rose; and Waife, whose attention was directed that way by the bark, saw
him, called to Sir Isaac, and said politely, "There is no harm in my dog,
sir."

The young man muttered some inaudible reply, and, lifting up his rod as
in sign of his occupation or excuse for his vicinity, came out from the
intervening foliage, and stepped quietly to Waife's side. Sir Isaac
followed him, sniffed again, seemed satisfied; and seating himself on his
haunches, fixed his attention upon the remains of the chicken which lay
defenceless on the grass. The new comer was evidently of the rank of
gentleman; his figure was slim and graceful, his face pale, meditative,
refined. He would have impressed you at once with the idea of what he
really was,--an Oxford scholar; and you would perhaps have guessed him
designed for the ministry of the Church, if not actually in orders.

CHAPTER VIII.

Mr. Waife excites the admiration, and benignly pities the infirmity,
of an Oxford scholar.

"You are str-str-strangers?" said the Oxonian, after a violent exertion
to express himself, caused by an impediment in his speech.

WAIFE.--"Yes, sir, travellers. I trust we are not trespassing: this is
not private ground, I think?"

OXONIAN.--"And if-f-f-f--it were, my f-f-father would not war-n-n you
off-ff--f."

"Is it your father's ground, then? Sir, I beg you a thousand pardons."

The apology was made in the Comedian's grandest style: it imposed greatly
on the young scholar. Waife might have been a duke in disguise; but I
will do the angler the justice to say that such discovery of rank would
have impressed him little more in the vagrant's favour. It had been that
impromptu "grace"--that thanksgiving which the scholar felt was for
something more than the carnal food--which had first commanded his
respect and wakened his interest. Then that innocent careless talk--part
uttered to dog and child, part soliloquized, part thrown out to the ears
of the lively teeming Nature--had touched a somewhat kindred chord in the
angler's soul; for he was somewhat of a poet and much of a soliloquist,
and could confer with Nature, nor feel that impediment in speech which
obstructed his intercourse with men. Having thus far indicated that oral
defect in our new acquaintance, the reader will cheerfully excuse me for
not enforcing it over much. Let it be among the things /subaudita/, as
the sense of it gave to a gifted and aspiring nature, thwarted in the
sublime career of Preacher, an exquisite mournful pain. And I no more
like to raise a laugh at his infirmity behind his back, than I should
before his pale, powerful, melancholy face; therefore I suppress the
infirmity in giving the reply.

OXONIAN.--" On the other side the lane, where the garden slopes downward,
is my father's house. This ground is his property certainly, but he puts
it to its best use, in lending it to those who so piously acknowledge
that Father from whom all good comes. Your child, I presume, sir?"

"My grandchild."

"She seems delicate: I hope you have not far to go?"

"Not very far, thank you, sir. But my little girl looks more delicate
than she is. You are not tired, darling?"

"Oh, not at all!" There was no mistaking the looks of real love
interchanged between the old man and the child; the scholar felt much
interested and somewhat puzzled.

"Who and what could they be? so unlike foot wayfarers!" On the other
hand, too, Waife took a liking to the courteous young man, and conceived
a sincere pity for his physical affliction. But he did not for those
reasons depart from the discreet caution he had prescribed to himself in
seeking new fortunes and shunning old perils, so he turned the subject.

"You are an angler, sir? I suppose the trout in the stream run small?"

"Not very: a little higher up I have caught them at four pounds weight."

WAIFE.--"There goes a fine fish yonder,--see! balancing himself between
those weeds."

OXONIAN.--"Poor fellow, let him be safe to-day. After all, it is a cruel
sport, and I should break myself of it. But it is strange that whatever
our love for Nature we always seek some excuse for trusting ourselves
alone to her. A gun, a rod, a sketch-book, a geologist's hammer, an
entomologist's net, a something."

WAIFE.--"Is it not because all our ideas would run wild if not
concentrated on a definite pursuit? Fortune and Nature are earnest
females, though popular beauties; and they do not look upon coquettish
triflers in the light of genuine wooers."

The Oxonian, who, in venting his previous remark, had thought it likely
he should be above his listener's comprehension, looked surprised. What
pursuits, too, had this one-eyed philosopher?

"You have a definite pursuit, sir?"

"I--alas! when a man moralizes, it is a sign that he has known error: it
is because I have been a trifler that I rail against triflers. And
talking of that, time flies, and we must be off and away."

Sophy re-tied the bundle. Sir Isaac, on whom, meanwhile, she had
bestowed the remains of the chicken, jumped up and described a circle.

"I wish you success in your pursuit, whatever it be," stuttered out the
angler.

"And I no less heartily, sir, wish you success in yours."

"Mine! Success there is beyond my power."

"How, sir? Does it rest so much with others?"

"No, my failure is in myself. My career should be the Church, my pursuit
the cure of souls, and--and--this pitiful infirmity! How can I speak the
Divine Word--I--I--a stutterer!"

The young man did not pause for an answer, but plunged through the
brushwood that bespread the banks of the rill, and his hurried path could
be traced by the wave of the foliage through which he forced his way.

"We all have our burdens," said Gentleman Waife, as Sir Isaac took up the
bundle and stalked on, placid and refreshed.

CHAPTER IX.

The nomad, entering into civilized life, adopts its arts, shaves his
poodle, and puts on a black coat.--Hints at the process by which a
Cast-off exalts himself into a Take-in.

At twilight they stopped at a quiet inn within eight miles of Gatesboro'.
Sophy, much tired, was glad to creep to bed. Waife sat up long after
her; and, in preparation for the eventful morrow, washed and shaved Sir
Isaac. You would not have known the dog again; he was dazzling. Not
Ulysses, rejuvenated by Pallas Athene, could have been more changed for
the better. His flanks revealed a skin most daintily mottled; his tail
became leonine, with an imperial tuft; his mane fell in long curls like
the beard of a Ninevite king; his boots were those of a courtier in the
reign of Charles II.; his eyes looked forth in dark splendour from locks
white as the driven snow. This feat performed, Waife slept the sleep of
the righteous, and Sir Isaac, stretched on the floor beside the bed,
licked his mottled flanks and shivered: "/il faut souffrir pour etre
beau/." Much marvelling, Sophy the next morning beheld the dog; but,
before she was up, Waife had paid the bill and was waiting for her on
the road, impatient to start. He did not heed her exclamation, half
compassionate, half admiring; he was absorbed in thought. Thus they
proceeded slowly on till within two miles of the town, and then Waife
turned aside, entered a wood, and there, with the aid of Sophy, put the
dog upon a deliberate rehearsal of the anticipated drama. The dog was
not in good spirits, but he went through his part with mechanical
accuracy, though slight enthusiasm.

"He is to be relied upon, in spite of his French origin," said Waife.
"All national prejudice fades before the sense of a common interest.
And we shall always find more genuine solidity of character in a French
poodle than in an English mastiff, whenever a poodle is of use to us and
the mastiff is not. But oh, waste of care! oh, sacrifice of time to
empty names! oh, emblem of fashionable education! It never struck me
before,--does it not, child though thou art, strike thee now,--by the
necessities of our drama, this animal must be a French dog?"

"Well, Grandfather?"

"And we have given him an English name! Precious result of our own
scholastic training, taught at preparatory academies precisely that which
avails us naught when we are to face the world! What is to be done?
Unlearn him his own cognomen,--teach him another name,--too late, too
late. We cannot afford the delay."

"I don't see why he should be called any name at all. He observes your
signs just as well without."

"If I had but discovered that at the beginning. Pity! Such a fine name
too. Sir Isaac! /Vanitas vanitatum!/ What desire chiefly kindles the
ambitious? To create a name, perhaps bequeath a title,--exalt into Sir
Isaacs a progeny of slops! And, after all, it is possible (let us hope
it in this instance) that a sensible young dog may learn his letters and
shoulder his musket just as well, though all the appellations by which
humanity knows him be condensed into a pitiful monosyllable.
Nevertheless (as you will find when you are older), people are obliged in
practice to renounce for themselves the application of those rules which
they philosophically prescribe for others. Thus, while I grant that a
change of name for that dog is a question belonging to the policy of Ifs
and Buts, commonly called the policy of Expediency, about which one may
differ from others and one's own self every quarter of an hour, a change
of name for me belongs to the policy of Must and Shall; namely the policy
of Necessity, against which let no dog bark,--though I have known dogs
howl at it! William Waife is no more: he is dead; he is buried; and even
Juliet Araminta is the baseless fabric of a vision."

Sophy raised inquiringly her blue guileless eyes.

"You see before you a man who has used up the name of Waife, and who on
entering the town of Gatesboro' becomes a sober, staid, and respectable
personage, under the appellation of Chapman. You are Miss Chapman.
Rugge and his Exhibition 'leave not a wrack behind.'"

Sophy smiled, and then sighed,--the smile for her grandfather's gay
spirits; wherefore the sigh? Was it that some instinct in that fresh,
loyal nature revolted from the thought of these aliases, which, if
requisite for safety, were still akin to imposture? If so, poor child,
she had much yet to set right with her conscience! All I can say is,
that after she had smiled she sighed. And more reasonably might a reader
ask his author to subject a zephyr to the microscope than a female's sigh
to analysis.

"Take the dog with you, my dear, back into the lane; I will join you in a
few minutes. You are neatly dressed, and, if not, would look so. I, in
this old coat, have the air of a pedler, so I will change it, and enter
the town of Gatesboro' in the character of--a man whom you will soon see
before you. Leave those things alone, de-Isaacized Sir Isaac! Follow
your mistress,--go!"

Sophy left the wood, and walked on slowly towards the town, with her hand
pensively resting on Sir Isaac's head. In less than ten minutes she was
joined by Waife, attired in respectable black; his hat and shoes well
brushed; a new green shade to his eye; and with his finest air of /Pere
noble/. He was now in his favourite element. HE WAS ACTING: call it not
imposture. Was Lord Chatham an impostor when he draped his flannels into
the folds of the toga, and arranged the curls of his wig so as to add
more sublime effect to the majesty of his brow and the terrors of its
nod? And certainly, considering that Waife, after all, was but a
professional vagabond, considering all the turns and shifts to which he
has been put for bread and salt, the wonder is, not that he is full of
stage tricks and small deceptions, but that he has contrived to retain at
heart so much childish simplicity. When a man for a series of years has
only had his wits to live by, I say not that he is necessarily a rogue,--
he may be a good fellow; but you can scarcely expect his code of honour
to be precisely the same as Sir Philip Sidney's. Homer expresses through
the lips of Achilles that sublime love of truth which even in those
remote times was the becoming characteristic of a gentleman and a
soldier. But then, Achilles is well off during his whole life, which,
though distinguished, is short. On the other hand Ulysses, who is sorely
put to it, kept out of his property in Ithaca, and, in short, living on
his wits, is not the less befriended by the immaculate Pallas because his
wisdom savours somewhat of stage trick and sharp practice. And as to
convenient aliases and white fibs, where would have been the use of his
wits, if Ulysses had disdained such arts, and been magnanimously munched
up by Polyphemus? Having thus touched on the epic side of Mr. Waife's
character with the clemency due to human nature, but with the caution
required by the interests of society, permit him to resume a "duplex
course," sanctioned by ancient precedent, but not commended to modern
imitation.

Just as our travellers neared the town, the screech of a railway whistle
resounded towards the right,--a long train rushed from the jaws of a
tunnel and shot into the neighbouring station.

"How lucky!" exclaimed Waife; "make haste, my dear!"

Was he going to take the train? Pshaw! he was at his journey's end.
He was going to mix with the throng that would soon stream through those
white gates into the town; he was going to purloin the respectable
appearance of a passenger by the train. And so well did he act the part
of a bewildered stranger just vomited forth into unfamiliar places by one
of those panting steam monsters,--so artfully, amidst the busy
competition of nudging elbows, over-bearing shoulders, and the
impedimenta of carpet-bags, portmanteaus, babies in arms, and shin-
assailing trucks, did he look round, consequentially, on the /qui vive/,
turning his one eye, now on Sophy, now on Sir Isaac, and griping his
bundle to his breast as if he suspected all his neighbours to be Thugs,
condottieri, and swellmob,--that in an instant fly-men, omnibus drivers,
cads, and porters marked him for their own. "Gatesboro' Arms," "Spread
Eagle," "Royal Hotel," "Saracen's Head; very comfortable, centre of High
Street, opposite the Town Hall,"--were shouted, bawled, whispered, or
whined into his ear.

"Is there an honest porter?" asked the Comedian, piteously. An Irishman
presented himself. "And is it meself can serve your honour?"--"Take this
bundle, and walk on before me to the High Street."--"Could not I take the
bundle, Grandfather? The man will charge so much," said the prudent
Sophy. "Hush! you indeed!" said the Pere Noble, as if addressing an
exiled Altesse royale,--"you take a bundle--Miss--Chapman!"

They soon gained the High Street. Waife examined the fronts of the
various inns which they passed by with an eye accustomed to decipher the
physiognomy of hostelries. The Saracen's Head pleased him, though its
imposing size daunted Sophy. He arrested the steps of the porter,
"Follow me close," and stepped across the open threshold into the bar.
The landlady herself was there, portly and imposing, with an auburn
toupet, a silk gown, a cameo brooch, and an ample bosom.

"You have a private sitting-room, ma'am?" said the Comedian, lifting his
hat. There are so many ways of lifting a hat,-for instance, the way for
which Louis XIV. was so renowned. But the Comedian's way on the present
occasion rather resembled that of the late Duke of B--------, not quite
royal, but as near to royalty as becomes a subject. He added, recovering
his head,--"And on the first floor?" The landlady did not courtesy, but
she bowed, emerged from the bar, and set foot on the broad stairs; then,
looking back graciously, her eyes rested on Sir Isaac, who had stalked
forth in advance and with expansive nostrils sniffed. She hesitated.
"Your dog, sir! shall Boots take it round to the stables?"

"The stables, ma'am--the stables, my dear," turning to Sophy, with a
smile more ducal than the previous bow; "what would they say at home if
they heard that noble animal was consigned to-stables? Ma'am, my dog is
my companion, and as much accustomed to drawing-rooms as I am myself."
Still the landlady paused. The dog might be accustomed to drawing-rooms,
but her drawing-room was not accustomed to dogs. She had just laid down
a new carpet. And such are the strange and erratic affinities in nature,
such are the incongruous concatenations in the cross-stitch of ideas,
that there are associations between dogs and carpets, which, if wrongful
to the owners of dogs, beget no unreasonable apprehensions in the
proprietors of carpets. So there stood the landlady, and there stood the
dog! and there they might be standing to this day had not the Comedian
dissolved the spell. "Take up my effects again," said he, turning to the
porter; "doubtless they are more habituated to distinguish between dog
and dog at the Royal Hotel."

The landlady was mollified in a moment. Nor was it only the rivalries
that necessarily existed between the Saracen's Head and the Royal Hotel
that had due weight with her. A gentleman who could not himself deign to
carry even that small bundle must be indeed a gentleman! Had he come
with a portmanteau--even with a carpet-bag--the porter's service would
have been no evidence of rank; but accustomed as she was chiefly to
gentlemen engaged in commercial pursuits, it was new to her experience,
--a gentleman with effects so light, and hands so aristocratically
helpless. Herein were equally betokened the two attributes of birth and
wealth; namely, the habit of command and the disdain of shillings. A
vague remembrance of the well-known story how a man and his dog had
arrived at the Granby Hotel, at Harrowgate, and been sent away roomless
to the other and less patrician establishment, because, while he had a
dog, he had not a servant; when, five minutes after such dismissal, came
carriages and lackeys and an imperious valet, asking for his grace the
Duke of A--------, who had walked on before with his dog, and who, oh,
everlasting thought of remorse! had been sent away to bring the other
establishment into fashion,--a vague reminiscence of that story, I say,
flashed upon the landlady's mind, and she exclaimed, "I only thought,
sir, you might prefer the stables; of course, it is as you please. This
way, sir. He is a fine animal, indeed, and seems mild."

"You may bring up the bundle, porter," quoth the Pere Noble. "Take my
arm, my dear; these steps are very steep."

The landlady threw open the door of a handsome sitting-room,--her best:
she pulled down the blinds to shut out the glare of the sun; then
retreating to the threshold awaited further orders.

"Rest yourself, my dear," said the Actor, placing Sophy on a couch with
that tender respect for sex and childhood which so specially belongs to
the high-bred. "The room will do, ma'am. I will let you know later
whether we shall require beds. As to dinner, I am not particular,--
a cutlet, a chicken, what you please, at seven o'clock. Stay, I beg your
pardon for detaining you, but where does the Mayor live?"

"His private residence is a mile out of the town, but his counting-house
is just above the Town Hall,--to the right, sir."

"Name?"

"Mr. Hartopp!"

"Hartopp! Ah! to be sure! Hartopp. His political opinions, I think,
are" (ventures at a guess) "enlightened?"

LANDLADY.--"Very much so, sir. Mr. Hartopp is highly respected."

WAIFE.--"The chief municipal officer of a town so thriving--fine shops
and much plate glass--must march with the times. I think I have heard
that Mr. Hartopp promotes the spread of intelligence and the propagation
of knowledge."

LANDLADY (rather puzzled).--"I dare say, sir. The Mayor takes great
interest in the Gatesboro' Athemeum and Literary Institute."

WAIFE.--"Exactly what I should have presumed from his character and
station. I will detain you no longer, ma'am" (ducal bow). The landlady
descended the stairs. Was her guest a candidate for the representation
of the town at the next election? March with the times!--spread of
intelligence! All candidates she ever knew had that way of expressing
themselves,--"March" and "Spread." Not an address had parliamentary
aspirant put forth to the freemen and electors of Gatesboro' but what
"March" had been introduced by the candidate, and "Spread" been suggested
by the committee. Still she thought that her guest, upon the whole,
looked and bowed more like a member of the Upper House,--perhaps one of
the amiable though occasionally prosy peers who devote the teeth of
wisdom to the cracking of those very hard nuts, "How to educate the
masses," "What to do with our criminals," and such like problems, upon
which already have been broken so many jawbones tough as that with which
Samson slew the Philistines.

"Oh, Grandfather!" sighed Sophy, "what are you about? We shall be
ruined, you, too, who are so careful not to get into debt. And what have
we left to pay the people here?"

"Sir Isaac! and THIS!" returned the Comedian, touching his forehead. "Do
not alarm yourself: stay here and repose; and don't let Sir Isaac out of
the room on any account!"

He took off his hat, brushed the nap carefully with his sleeve, replaced
it on his head,--not jauntily aside, not like a jeune premier, but with
equilateral brims, and in composed fashion, like a /pere noble/; then,
making a sign to Sir Isaac to rest quiet, be passed to the door; there he
halted, and turning towards Sophy, and, meeting her wistful eyes, his
own eye moistened. "Ah!" he murmured, "Heaven grant I may succeed now,
for if I do, then you shall indeed be a little lady!"

He was gone.

CHAPTER X.

Showing with what success Gentleman Waife assumes the pleasing part
of friend to the enlightenment of the age and the progress of the
people.

On the landing-place, Waife encountered the Irish porter, who, having
left the bundle in the drawing-room, was waiting patiently to be paid for
his trouble.

The Comedian surveyed the good-humoured shrewd face, on every line of
which was writ the golden maxim, "Take things asy." "I beg your pardon,
my friend; I had almost forgotten you. Have you been long in this town?"

"Four years, and long life to your honour!"

"Do you know Mr. Hartopp, the Mayor?"

"Is it his worship the Mayor? Sure and it is the Mayor as has made a man
o' Mike Callaghan."

The Comedian evinced urbane curiosity to learn the history of that
process, and drew forth a grateful tale. Four summers ago Mike had
resigned the "first gem of the sea" in order to assist in making hay for
a Saxon taskmaster.

Mr. Hartopp, who farmed largely, had employed him in that rural
occupation. Seized by a malignant fever, Mr. Hartopp had helped him
through it, and naturally conceived a liking for the man he helped.
Thus, as Mike became convalescent, instead of passing the poor man back
to his own country, which at that time gave little employment to the
surplus of its agrarian population beyond an occasional shot at a
parson,--an employment, though animated, not lucrative, he exercised
Mike's returning strength upon a few light jobs in his warehouse; and
finally, Mike marrying imprudently the daughter of a Gatesboro'
operative, Mr. Hartopp set him up in life as a professional messenger
and porter, patronized by the Corporation. The narrative made it evident
that Mr. Hartopp was a kind and worthy man, and the Comedian's heart
warmed towards him.

"An honour to our species, this Mr. Hartopp!" said Waife, striking his
staff upon the floor; "I covet his acquaintance. Would he see you if you
called at his counting-house?"

Mike replied in the affirmative with eager pride. "Mr. Hartopp would see
him at once. Sure, did not the Mayor know that time was money? Mr.
Hartopp was not a man to keep the poor waiting."

"Go down and stay outside the hall door; you shall take a note for me to
the Mayor."

Waife then passed into the bar, and begged the favour of a sheet of note-
paper. The landlady seated him at her own desk, and thus wrote the
Comedian:

"Mr. Chapman presents his compliments to the Mayor of Gatesboro',
and requests the Honour of a very short interview. Mr. Chapman's
deep interest in the permanent success of those literary institutes
which are so distinguished a feature of this enlightened age, and
Mr. Mayor's well-known zeal in the promotion of those invaluable
societies, must be Mr. Chapman's excuse for the liberty he ventures
to take in this request. Mr. C. may add that of late he has
earnestly directed his attention to the best means of extracting new
uses from those noble but undeveloped institutions.

"Saracens Head, &c."

This epistle, duly sealed and addressed, Waife delivered to the care of
Mike Callaghan; and simultaneously he astounded that functionary with no
less a gratuity than half a crown. Cutting short the fervent blessings
which this generous donation naturally called forth, the Comedian said,
with his happiest combination of suavity and loftiness, "And should the
Mayor ask you what sort of person I am,--for I have not the honour to be
known to him, and there are so many adventurers about, that he might
reasonably expect me to be one, perhaps you can say that I don't look
like a person he need be afraid to admit. You know a gentleman by sight!
Bring back an answer as soon as may be; perhaps I sha'n't stay long in
the town. You will find me in the High Street, looking at the shops."

The porter took to his legs, impatient to vent his overflowing heart upon
the praises of this munificent stranger. A gentleman, indeed! Mike
should think so! If Mike's good word with the Mayor was worth money,
Gentleman Waife had put his half-crown out upon famous interest.

The Comedian strolled along the High Street, and stopped before a
stationer's shop, at the window of which was displayed a bill, entitled,

GATESBORO' ATHENIEUM
AND LITERARY INSTITUTE.

LECTURE ON CONCHOLOGY.

BY PROFESSOR LONG.
Author of "Researches into the Natural
History of Limpets."

Waife entered the shop, and lifted his hat,--"Permit me, sir, to look at
that hand-bill."

"Certainly, sir; but the lecture is over; you can see by the date: it
came off last week. We allow the bills of previous proceedings at our
Athenaeum to be exposed at the window till the new bills are prepared,
--keeps the whole thing alive, sir."

"Conchology," said the Comedian, "is a subject which requires deep
research, and on which a learned man may say much without fear of
contradiction. But how far is Gatesboro' from the British Ocean?"

"I don't know exactly, sir,--a long way."

"Then, as shells are not familiar to the youthful remembrances of your
fellow-townsmen, possibly the lecturer may have found an audience rather
select than numerous."

"It was a very attentive audience, sir, and highly respectable: Miss
Grieve's young ladies' (the genteelest seminary in the town) attended."

WAIFE.--"Highly creditable to the young ladies. But, pardon me, is your
Athenaeum a Mechanics' institute?"

SHOPMAN.--"It was so called at first. But, somehow or other, the mere
operatives fell off, and it was thought advisable to change the word
'Mechanics' into the word 'Literary.' Gatesboro' is not a manufacturing
town, and the mechanics here do not realize the expectations of that
taste for abstract science on which the originators of these societies
founded their--"

WAIFE (insinuatingly interrupting).--"Their calculations of intellectual
progress and their tables of pecuniary return. Few of these societies,
I am told, are really self-supporting: I suppose Professor Long is!--and
if he resides in Gatesboro', and writes on limpets, he is probably a man
of independent fortune."

SHOPMAN.--"Why, sir, the professor was engaged from London,--five guineas
and his travelling expenses. The funds of the society could ill afford
such outlay; but we have a most worthy mayor, who, assisted by his
foreman, Mr. Williams, our treasurer, is, I may say, the life and soul
of the institute."

"A literary man himself, your mayor?"

The shopman smiled. "Not much in that way, sir; but anything to
enlighten the working classes. This is Professor Long's great work upon
limpets, two vols. post octavo. The Mayor has just presented it to the
library of the institute. I was cutting the leaves when you came in."

"Very prudent in you, sir. If limpets were but able to read printed
character in the English tongue, this work would have more interest for
them than the ablest investigations upon the political and social history
of man. But," added the Comedian, shaking his head mournfully, "the
human species is not testaceous; and what the history of man might be to
a limpet, the history of limpets is to a man." So saying, Mr. Waife
bought a sheet of cardboard and some gilt foil, relifted his hat, and
walked out.

The shopman scratched his head thoughtfully; he glanced from his window
at the form of the receding stranger, and mechanically resumed the task
of cutting those leaves, which, had the volumes reached the shelves of
the library uncut, would have so remained to the crack of doom.

Mike Callaghan now came in sight, striding fast; "Mr. Mayor sends his
love--bother-o'-me--his respex; and will be happy to see your honour."

In three minutes more the Comedian was seated in a little parlour that
adjoined Mr. Hartopp's counting-house,--Mr. Hartopp seated also, vis-a-
vis. The Mayor had one of those countenances upon which good-nature
throws a sunshine softer than Claude ever shed upon canvas. Josiah
Hartopp had risen in life by little other art than that of quiet
kindliness. As a boy at school, he had been ever ready to do a good turn
to his school-fellows; and his school-fellows at last formed themselves
into a kind of police, for the purpose of protecting Jos. Hartopp's pence
and person from the fists and fingers of each other. He was evidently so
anxious to please his master, not from fear of the rod, but the desire to
spare that worthy man the pain of inflicting it, that he had more trouble
taken with his education than was bestowed on the brightest intellect
that school ever reared; and where other boys were roughly flogged, Jos.
Hartopp was soothingly patted on the head, and told not to be cast down,
but try again. The same even-handed justice returned the sugared chalice
to his lips in his apprenticeship to an austere leather-seller, who, not
bearing the thought to lose sight of so mild a face, raised him into
partnership, and ultimately made him his son-in-law and residuary
legatee. Then Mr. Hartopp yielded to the advice of friends who desired
his exaltation, and from a leather-seller became a tanner. Hides
themselves softened their asperity to that gentle dealer, and melted into
golden fleeces. He became rich enough to hire a farm for health and
recreation. He knew little of husbandry, but he won the heart of a
bailiff who might have reared a turnip from a deal table. Gradually the
farm became his fee-simple, and the farmhouse expanded into a villa.
Wealth and honours flowed in from a brimmed horn. The surliest man in
the town would have been ashamed of saying a rude thing to Jos. Hartopp.
If he spoke in public, though he hummed and hawed lamentably, no one was
so respectfully listened to. As for the parliamentary representation of
the town, he could have returned himself for one seat and Mike Callaghan
for the other, had he been so disposed. But he was too full of the milk
of humanity to admit into his veins a drop from the gall of party. He
suffered others to legislate for his native land, and (except on one
occasion when he had been persuaded to assist in canvassing, not indeed
the electors of Gatesboro', but those of a distant town in which he
possessed some influence, on behalf of a certain eminent orator) Jos.
Hartopp was only visible in politics whenever Parliament was to be
petitioned in favour of some humane measure, or against a tax that would
have harassed the poor.

If anything went wrong with him in his business, the whole town combined
to set it right for him. Was a child born to him, Gatesboro' rejoiced as
a mother. Did measles or scarlatina afflict his neighbourhood, the first
anxiety of Gatesboro' was for Mr. Hartopp's nursery. No one would have
said Mrs. Hartopp's nursery; and when in such a department the man's name
supersedes the woman's, can more be said in proof of the tenderness he
excites? In short, Jos. Hartopp was a notable instance of a truth not
commonly recognized; namely, that affection is power, and that, if you do
make it thoroughly and unequivocally clear that you love your neighbours,
though it may not be quite so well as you love yourself,--still,
cordially and disinterestedly, you will find your neighbours much better
fellows than Mrs. Grundy gives them credit for,--but always provided that
your talents be not such as to excite their envy, nor your opinions such
as to offend their prejudices.

MR. HARTOPP.--"You take an interest, you say, in literary institutes, and
have studied the subject?"

THE COMEDIAN.--"Of late, those institutes have occupied my thoughts as
representing the readiest means of collecting liberal ideas into a
profitable focus."

MR. HARTOPP.--"Certainly it is a great thing to bring classes together in
friendly union."

THE COMEDIAN.--"For laudable objects."

MR. HARTOPP.--"To cultivate their understandings."

THE COMEDIAN.--"To warm their hearts."

MR. HARTOPP.--"To give them useful knowledge."

THE COMEDIAN.--"And pleasurable sensations."

MR. HARTOPP.--"In a word, to instruct them."

THE COMEDIAN.--"And to amuse."

"Eh!" said the Mayor,--"amuse!"

Now, every one about the person of this amiable man was on the constant
guard to save him from the injurious effects of his own benevolence; and
accordingly his foreman, hearing that he was closeted with a stranger,
took alarm, and entered on pretence of asking instructions about an order
for hides, in reality, to glower upon the intruder, and keep his master's
hands out of imprudent pockets.

Mr. Hartopp, who, though not brilliant, did not want for sense, and
was a keener observer than was generally supposed, divined the kindly
intentions of his assistant. "A gentleman interested in the Gatesboro'
Athenaeum. My foreman, sir,--Mr. Williams, the treasurer of our
institute. Take a chair, Williams."

"You said to amuse, Mr. Chapman, but--"

"You did not find Professor Long on conchology amusing."

"Why," said the Mayor, smiling blandly, "I myself am not a man of
science, and therefore his lecture, though profound, was a little dry
to me."

"Must it not have been still more dry to your workmen, Mr. Mayor?"

"They did not attend," said Williams. "Up-hill task we have to secure
the Gatesboro' mechanics, when anything really solid is to be addressed
to their understandings."

"Poor things, they are so tired at night," said the Mayor,
compassionately; "but they wish to improve themselves, and they take
books from the library."

"Novels," quoth the stern Williams: "it will be long before they take out
that valuable 'History of Limpets."

"If a lecture were as amusing as a novel, would not they attend it?"
asked the Comedian.

"I suppose they would," returned Mr. Williams. "But our object is to
instruct; and instruction, sir--"

"Could be made amusing. If, for instance, the lecturer could produce a
live shell-fish, and, by showing what kindness can do towards developing
intellect and affection in beings without soul,--make man himself more
kind to his fellow-man?"

Mr. Williams laughed grimly. "Well, sir!"

"This is what I should propose to do."

"With a shell-fish!" cried the Mayor.

"No, sir; with a creature of nobler attributes,--A DOG!"

The listeners stared at each other like dumb animals as Waife continued,-
"By winning interest for the individuality of a gifted quadruped, I
should gradually create interest in the natural history of its species.
I should lead the audience on to listen to comparisons with other members
of the great family which once associated with Adam. I should lay the
foundation for an instructive course of natural history, and from
vertebrated mammifers who knows but we might gradually arrive at the
nervous system of the molluscous division, and produce a sensation by the
production of a limpet?"

"Theoretical," said Mr. Williams.

"Practical, sir; since I take it for granted that the Athenaeum, at
present, is rather a tax upon the richer subscribers, including Mr.
Mayor."

"Nothing to speak of," said the mild Hartopp. Williams looked towards
his master with unspeakable love, and groaned. "Nothing indeed--oh!"

"These societies should be wholly self-supporting," said the Comedian,
"and inflict no pecuniary loss upon Mr. Mayor."

"Certainly," said Williams, "that is the right principle. Mr. Mayor
should be protected."

"And if I show you how to make these societies self-supporting--"

"We should be very much obliged to you."

"I propose, then, to give an exhibition at your rooms." Mr. Williams
nudged the Mayor, and coughed, the Comedian not appearing to remark cough
nor nudge.

"Of course gratuitously. I am not a professional lecturer, gentlemen."

Mr. Williams looked charmed to hear it.

"And when I have made my first effort successful, as I feel sure it will
be, I will leave it to you, gentlemen, to continue my undertaking. But I
cannot stay long here. If the day after to-morrow--"

"That is our ordinary soiree night," said the Mayor. "But you said a
dog, sir,--dogs not admitted,-eh, Williams?"

MR. WILLIAMS.--"A mere by-law, which the subcommittee can suspend if
necessary. But would not the introduction of a live animal be less
dignified than--"

"A dead failure," put in the Comedian, gravely. The Mayor would have
smiled, but he was afraid of doing so lest he might hurt the feelings of
Mr. Williams, who did not seem to take the joke.

"We are a purely intellectual body," said the latter gentleman, "and a
dog--"

"A learned dog, I presume," observed the Mayor.

MR. WILLIAMS (nodding).--"Might form a dangerous precedent for the
introduction of other quadrupeds. We might thus descend even to the
level of a learned pig. We are not a menagerie, Mr.--Mr.--"

"Chapman," said the Mayor, urbanely.

"Enough," said the Comedian, rising with his grand air; "if I considered
myself at liberty, gentlemen, to say who and what I am, you would be sure
that I am not trifling with what I consider a very grave and important
subject. As to suggesting anything derogatory to the dignity of science,
and the eminent repute of the Gatesboro' Athenaeum, it would be idle to
vindicate myself. These gray hairs are--"

He did not conclude that sentence, save by a slight wave of the hand.
The two burgesses bowed reverentially, and the Comedian went on,--

"But when you speak of precedent, Mr. Williams, allow me to refer you to
precedents in point. Aristotle wrote to Alexander the Great for animals
to exhibit to the Literary Institute of Athens. At the colleges in Egypt
lectures were delivered on a dog called Anubis, as inferior, I boldly
assert, to that dog which I have referred to, as an Egyptian College to
a British Institute. The ancient Etrurians, as is shown by the erudite
Schweighduser in that passage--you understand Greek, I presume, Mr.
Williams?"

Mr. Williams could not say he did.

THE COMEDIAN.--"Then I will not quote that passage in Schweighauser upon
the Molossian dogs in general, and the dog of Alcibiades in particular.
But it proves beyond a doubt, that, in every ancient literary institute,
learned dogs were highly estimated; and there was even a philosophical
Academy called the Cynic,--that is, Doggish, or Dog-school, of which
Diogenes was the most eminent professor. He, you know, went about with a
lantern looking for an honest man, and could not find one! Why? Because
the Society of Dogs had raised his standard of human honesty to an
impracticable height. But I weary you; otherwise I could lecture on in
this way for the hour together, if you think the Gatesboro' operatives
prefer erudition to amusement."

"A great scholar," whispered Mr. Williams.--Aloud: "and I've nothing to
say against your precedents, sir. I think you have made out that part of
the case. But, after all, a learned dog is not so very uncommon as to be
in itself the striking attraction which you appear to suppose."

"It is not the mere learning of my dog of which I boast," replied the
Comedian. "Dogs may be learned, and men too; but it is the way that
learning is imparted, whether by dog or man, for the edification of the
masses, in order, as Pope expresses himself, 'to raise the genius and to
mend the heart' that alone adorns the possessor, exalts the species,
interests the public, and commands the respect of such judges as I see
before me." The grand bow.

"Ah!" said Mr. Williams, hesitatingly, "sentiments that do honour to
your head and heart; and if we could, in the first instance, just see the
dog privately."

"'Nothing easier!" said the Comedian. "Will you do me the honour to
meet him at tea this evening?"

"Rather will you not come and take tea at my house?" said the Mayor,
with a shy glance towards Mr. Williams.

THE COMEDIAN.--"You are very kind; but my time is so occupied that I have
long since made it a rule to decline all private invitations out of my
own home. At my years, Mr. Mayor, one may be excused for taking leave of
society and its forms; but you are comparatively young men. I presume on
the authority of these gray hairs, and I shall expect you this evening,
--say at nine o'clock." The Actor waved his hand graciously and
withdrew.

"A scholar AND a gentleman," said Williams, emphatically. And the Mayor,
thus authorized to allow vent to his kindly heart, added, "A humourist,
and a pleasant one. Perhaps he is right, and our poor operatives would
thank us more for a little innocent amusement than for those lectures,
which they may be excused for thinking rather dull, since even you fell
asleep when Professor Long got into the multilocular shell of the very
first class of cephalous mollusca; and it is my belief that harmless
laughter has a good moral effect upon the working class,--only don't
spread it about that I said so, for we know excellent persons of a
serious turn of mind whose opinions that sentiment might shock."

CHAPTER XI.

HISTORICAL PROBLEM: "Is Gentleman Waife a swindler or a man of
genius?" ANSWER: "Certainly a swindler, if he don't succeed."
Julius Caesar owed two millions when he risked the experiment of
being general in Gaul. If Julius Caesar had not lived to cross the
Rubicon and pay off his debts, what would his creditors have called
Julius Caesar?

I need not say that Mr. Hartopp and his foreman came duly to tea, but the
Comedian exhibited Sir Isaac's talents very sparingly,--just enough to
excite admiration without sating curiosity. Sophy, whose pretty face and
well-bred air were not unappreciated, was dismissed early to bed by a
sign from her grandfather, and the Comedian then exerted his powers to
entertain his visitors, so that even Sir Isaac was soon forgotten. Hard
task, by writing, to convey a fair idea of this singular vagrant's
pleasant vein. It was not so much what he said as the way of saying it,
which gave to his desultory talk the charm of humour. He had certainly
seen an immense deal of life somehow or other; and without appearing at
the time to profit much by observation, without perhaps being himself
conscious that he did profit, there was something in the very
/enfantillage/ of his loosest prattle, by which, with a glance of the
one lustrous eye and a twist of the mobile lip, he could convey the
impression of an original genius playing with this round world of ours--
tossing it up, catching it again--easily as a child plays with its party-
coloured ball. His mere book-knowledge was not much to boast of, though
early in life he must have received a fair education. He had a
smattering of the ancient classics, sufficient, perhaps, to startle
the unlearned. If he had not read them, he had read about them; and at
various odds and ends of his life he had picked up acquaintance with the
popular standard modern writers. But literature with him was the
smallest stripe in the party-coloured ball. Still it was astonishing how
far and wide the Comedian could spread the sands of lore that the winds
had drifted round the door of his playful, busy intellect. Where, for
instance, could he ever have studied the nature and prospects of
Mechanics' Institutes? and yet how well he seemed to understand them.
Here, perhaps, his experience in one kind of audience helped him to the
key to all miscellaneous assemblages. In fine, the man was an actor; and
if he had thought fit to act the part of Professor Long himself, he would
have done it to the life.

The two burghers had not spent so pleasant an evening for many years. As
the clock struck twelve, the Mayor, whose gig had been in waiting a whole
hour to take him to his villa, rose reluctantly to depart.

"And," said Williams, "the bills must be out to-morrow. What shall we
advertise?"

"The simpler the better," said Waife; "only pray head the performance
with the assurance that it is under the special patronage of his worship
the Mayor."

The Mayor felt his breast swell as if he had received some overwhelming
personal obligation.

"Suppose it run thus," continued the Comedian,--"Illustrations from
Domestic Life and Natural History, with LIVE examples: PART FIRST--THE
DOG!"

"It will take," said the Mayor: "dogs are such popular animals!"

"Yes," said Williams; "and though for that very reason some might think
that by the 'live example of a dog' we compromised the dignity of the
Institute, still the importance of Natural History--"

"And," added the Comedian, "the sanctifying influences of domestic
life--"

"May," concluded Mr. Williams, "carry off whatever may seem to the higher
order of minds a too familiar attraction in the--dog!"

"I do not fear the result," said Waife, "provided the audience be
sufficiently numerous; for that (which is an indispensable condition to a
fair experiment) I issue hand-bills, only where distributed by the
Mayor."

"Don't be too sanguine. I distributed bills on behalf of Professor Long,
and the audience was not numerous. How ever, I will do my best. Is
there nothing more in which I can be of use to you, Mr. Chapman?"

"Yes, later." Williams took alarm, and approached the Mayor's breast-
pocket protectingly. The Comedian withdrew him aside and whispered, "I
intend to give the Mayor a little outline of the exhibition, and bring
him into it, in order that his fellow-townsmen may signify their regard
for him by a cheer; it will please his good heart, and be touching,
you'll see--mum!" Williams shook the Comedian by the hand, relieved,
affected, and confiding.

The visitors departed; and the Comedian lighted his hand-candlestick,
whistled to Sir Isaac, and went to bed without one compunctious thought
upon the growth of his bill and the deficit in his pockets. And yet it
was true, as Sophy implied, that the Comedian had an honest horror of
incurring debt. He generally thought twice before he risked owing even
the most trifling bill; and when the bill came in, if it left him
penniless, it was paid. And, now, what reckless extravagance! The best
apartments! dinner, tea, in the first hotel of the town! half-a-crown to
a porter! That lavish mode of life renewed with the dawning sun! not a
care for the morrow; and I dare not conjecture how few the shillings in
that purse. What aggravation, too, of guilt! Bills incurred without
means under a borrowed name! I don't pretend to be a lawyer; but it
looks to me very much like swindling. Yet the wretch sleeps. But are we
sure that we are not shallow moralists? Do we carry into account the
right of genius to draw bills upon the Future? Does not the most prudent
general sometimes burn his ships? Does not the most upright merchant
sometimes take credit on the chance of his ventures? May not that
peaceful slumberer be morally sure that he has that argosy afloat in his
own head, which amply justifies his use of the "Saracen's"? If his plan
should fail? He will tell you that is impossible! But if it should
fail, you say. Listen; there runs a story-I don't vouch for its truth:
I tell it as it was told to me--there runs a storv that in the late
Russian war a certain naval veteran, renowned for professional daring and
scientific invention, was examined before some great officials as to the
chances of taking Cronstadt. "If you send me," said the admiral, "with
so many ships of the line, and so many gunboats, Cronstadt of course will
be taken." "But," said a prudent lord, "suppose it should not be taken?"
"That is impossible: it must be taken!" "Yes," persisted my lord, "you
think so, no doubt; but still, if it should not be taken,--what then?"
"What then?--why, there's an end of the British fleet!" The great men
took alarm, and that admiral was not sent. But they misconstrued the
meaning of his answer. He meant not to imply any considerable danger to
the British fleet. He meant to prove that one hypothesis was impossible
by the suggestion of a counter-impossibility more self-evident. "It is
impossible but what I shall take Cronstadt!" "But if you don't take it!"
"It is impossible but what I shall take it; for if I don't take it,
there's an end of the British fleet; and as it is impossible that there
should be an end of the British fleet, it is impossible that I should not
take Cronstadt!"--Q.E.D.

CHAPTER XII.

In which everything depends on Sir Isaac's success in discovering
the law of attraction.

On the appointed evening, at eight o'clock, the great room of the
Gatesboro' Athenaeum was unusually well filled. Not only had the Mayor
exerted himself to the utmost for that object, but the hand-bill itself
promised a rare relief from the prosiness of abstract enlightenment and
elevated knowledge. Moreover, the stranger himself had begun to excite
speculation and curiosity. He was an amateur, not a cut-and-dry
professor. The Mayor and Mr. Williams had both spread the report that
there was more in him than appeared on the surface; prodigiously learned,
but extremely agreeable, fine manners, too!--Who could he be? Was
Chapman his real name? etc.

The Comedian had obtained permission to arrange the room beforehand.
He had the raised portion of it for his stage, and he had been fortunate
enough to find a green curtain to be drawn across it. From behind this
screen he now emerged and bowed. The bow redoubled the first
conventional applause. He then began a very short address,--extremely
well delivered, as you may suppose, but rather in the conversational than
the oratorical style. He said it was his object to exhibit the
intelligence of that Universal Friend of Man, the Dog, in some manner
appropriate, not only to its sagacious instincts, but to its affectionate
nature, and to convey thereby the moral that talents, however great,
learning, however deep, were of no avail, unless rendered serviceable to
Man. (Applause.) He must be pardoned then, if, in order to effect this
object, he was compelled to borrow some harmless effects from the stage.
In a word, his dog could represent to them the plot of a little drama.
And he, though he could not say that he was altogether unaccustomed to
public speaking (here a smile, modest, but august as that of some famous
parliamentary orator who makes his first appearance at a vestry), still
wholly new to its practice in the special part he had undertaken, would
rely on their indulgence to efforts aspiring to no other merit than that
of aiding the Hero of the Piece in a familiar illustration of those
qualities in which dogs might give a lesson to humanity. Again he bowed,
and retired behind the curtain. A pause of three minutes! the curtain
drew up. Could that be the same Mr. Chapman whom the spectators beheld
before them? Could three minutes suffice to change the sleek,
respectable, prosperous-looking gentleman who had just addressed them
into that image of threadbare poverty and hunger-pinched dejection?
Little aid from theatrical costume: the clothes seemed the same, only to
have grown wondrous aged and rusty. The face, the figure, the man,--
these had undergone a transmutation beyond the art of the mere stage
wardrobe, be it ever so amply stored, to effect. But for the patch over
the eye, you could not have recognized Mr. Chapman. There was, indeed,
about him, still, an air of dignity; but it was the dignity of woe,--
a dignity, too, not of an affable civilian, but of some veteran soldier.
You could not mistake. Though not in uniform, the melancholy man must
have been a warrior! The way the coat was buttoned across the chest, the
black stock tightened round the throat, the shoulders thrown back in the
disciplined habit of a life, though the head bent forward in the
despondency of an eventful crisis,--all spoke the decayed but not
ignoble hero of a hundred fields.

There was something foreign, too, about the veteran's air. Mr. Chapman
had looked so thoroughly English: that tragical and meagre personage
looked so unequivocally French.

Not a word had the Comedian yet said; and yet all this had the first
sight of him conveyed to the audience. There was an amazed murmur, then
breathless stillness; the story rapidly unfolded itself, partly by words,
much more by look and ac tion. There sat a soldier who had fought under
Napoleon at Marengo and Austerlitz, gone through the snows of Muscovy,
escaped the fires of Waterloo,--the soldier of the Empire! Wondrous
ideal of a wondrous time! and nowhere winning more respect and awe than
in that land of the old English foe, in which with slight knowledge of
the Beautiful in Art, there is so reverent a sympathy for all that is
grand in Man! There sat the soldier, penniless and friendless, there,
scarcely seen, reclined his grandchild, weak and slowly dying for the
want of food; and all that the soldier possesses wherewith to buy bread
for the day, is his cross of the Legion of Honour. It was given to him
by the hand of the Emperor: must he pawn or sell it? Out on the pomp of
decoration which we have substituted for the voice of passionate nature
on our fallen stage! Scenes so faithful to the shaft of a column,--
dresses by which an antiquary can define a date to a year! Is delusion
there? Is it thus we are snatched from Thebes to Athens? No; place a
really fine actor on a deal board, and for Thebes and Athens you may hang
up a blanket! Why, that very cross which the old soldier holds--away
from his sight--in that tremulous hand, is but patched up from the foil
and cardboard bought at the stationer's shop. You might see it was
nothing more, if you tried to see. Did a soul present think of such
minute investigation? Not one. In the actor's hand that trumpery became
at once the glorious thing by which Napoleon had planted the sentiment of
knightly heroism in the men whom Danton would have launched upon earth
ruthless and bestial, as galley-slaves that had burst their chain.

The badge, wrought from foil and cardboard, took life and soul: it begot
an interest, inspired a pathos, as much as if it had been made--oh! not
of gold and gems, but of flesh and blood. And the simple broken words
that the veteran addressed to it! The scenes, the fields, the hopes, the
glories it conjured up! And now to be wrenched away,--sold to supply
Man's humblest, meanest wants,--sold--the last symbol of such a past!
It was indeed "/propter vitam vivendi perdere causas/." He would have
starved rather,--but the child? And then the child rose up and came into
play. She would not suffer such a sacrifice,--she was not hungry,--she
was not weak; and when her voice failed her, she looked up into that iron
face and smiled,--nothing but a smile. Outcame the pocket-handkerchiefs!
The soldier seizes the cross, and turns away. It shall be sold! As he
opens the door, a dog enters gravely,--licks his hand, approaches the
table, raises itself on its hind legs, surveys the table dolefully,
shakes its head, whines, comes to its master, pulls him by the skirt,
looks into his face inquisitively.

What does all this mean? It soon comes out, and very naturally. The dog
belonged to an old fellow-soldier, who had gone to the Isle of France to
claim his share in the inheritance of a brother who had settled and died
there, and who, meanwhile, had confided it to the care of our veteran,
who was then in comparatively easy circumstances, since ruined by the
failure and fraud of a banker to whom he had intrusted his all; and his
small pension, including the yearly sum to which his cross entitled him,
had been forestalled and mortgaged to pay the petty debts which, relying
on his dividend from the banker, he had innocently incurred. The dog's
owner had been gone for months; his return might be daily expected.
Meanwhile the dog was at the hearth, but the wolf at the door. Now, this
sagacious animal had been taught to perform the duties of messenger and
major-domo. At stated intervals he applied to his master for sous, and
brought back the supplies which the sous purchased. He now, as usual,
came to the table for the accustomed coin--the last sou was gone,--the
dog's occupation was at an end. But could not the dog be sold?
Impossible: it was the property of another,--a sacred deposit; one would
be as bad as the fraudulent banker if one could apply to one's own
necessities the property one holds in trust. These little biographical
particulars came out in that sort of bitter and pathetic humour which a
study of Shakspeare, or the experience of actual life, had taught the
Comedian to be a natural relief to an intense sorrow. The dog meanwhile
aided the narrative by his by-play. Still intent upon the sous, he
thrust his nose into his master's pockets; he appealed touchingly to the
child, and finally put back his head and vented his emotion in a
lugubrious and elegiacal howl. Suddenly there is heard without the sound
of a showman's tin trumpet! Whether the actor had got some obliging
person to perform on that instrument, or whether, as more likely, it was
but a trick of ventriloquism, we leave to conjecture. At that note, an
idea seemed to seize the dog. He ran first to his master, who was on the
threshold about to depart; pulled him back into the centre of the room:
next he ran to the child, dragging her towards the same spot, though with
great tenderness, and then, uttering a joyous bark, he raised himself on
his hind legs and, with incomparable solemnity, performed a minuet step!
The child catches the idea from the dog. Was he not more worth seeing
than the puppet-show in the streets? might not people give money to see
him, and the old soldier still keep his cross? To-day there is a public
fete in the gardens yonder: that showman must be going thither; why not
go too? What! he the old soldier,--he stoop to show off a dog! he! he!
The dog looked at him deprecatingly and stretched himself on the floor--
lifeless.

Yes, that is the alternative--shall his child die too, and he be too
proud to save her? Ah! and if the cross can be saved also! But pshaw!
what did the dog know that people would care to see? Oh, much, much.
When the child was alone and sad, it would come and play with her. See
those old dominos! She ranged them on the floor, and the dog leaped up
and came to prove his skill. Artfully, then, the Comedian had planned
that the dog should make some sad mistakes, alternated by some marvellous
surprises. No, he would not do: yes, he would do. The audience took it
seriously, and became intensely interested in the dog's success; so sorry
for his blunders, so triumphant in his lucky hits. And then the child
calmed the hasty irritable old man so sweetly, and corrected the dog so
gently, and talked to the animal; told it how much they relied on it, and
produced her infant alphabet, and spelt out "Save us." The dog looked at
the letters meditatively, and henceforth it was evident that he took more
pains. Better and better; he will do, he will do! The child shall not
starve, the cross shall not be sold. Down drops the curtain.
End of Act I.

Act II. opens with a dialogue spoken off the stage. Invisible dramatis
persona, that subsist, with airy tongues, upon the mimetic art of the
Comedian. You understand that there is a vehement dispute going on. The
dog must not be admitted into a part of the gardens where a more refined
and exclusive section of the company have hired seats, in order to
contemplate, without sharing, the rude dances or jostling promenade of
the promiscuous merry-makers. Much hubbub, much humour; some persons for
the dog, some against him; privilege and decorum here, equality and
fraternity there. A Bonapartist colonel sees the cross on the soldier's
breast, and, /mille tonnerres/! he settles the point. He pays for three
reserved seats,--one for the soldier, one for the child, and a third for
the dog. The veteran enters,--the child, not strong enough to have
pushed through the crowd, raised on his shoulder, Rolla-like; the dog led
by a string. He enters erect and warrior-like; his spirit has been
roused by contest; his struggles have been crowned by victory. But (and
here the art of the drama and the actor culminated towards the highest
point)--but he now at once includes in the list of his dramatis persona
the whole of his Gatesboro' audience. They are that select company into
which he has thus forced his way. As he sees them seated before him, so
calm, orderly, and dignified, /mauvaise honte/ steals over the breast
more accustomed to front the cannon than the battery of ladies' eyes.
He places the child in a chair abashed and humbled; he drops into a seat
beside her shrinkingly; and the dog, with more self-possession and sense
of his own consequence, brushes with his paw some imaginary dust from a
third chair, as in the superciliousness of the well dressed, and then
seats himself, and looks round with serene audacity.

The chairs were skilfully placed on one side of the stage, as close as
possible to the front row of the audience. The soldier ventures a
furtive glance along the lines, and then speaks to his grandchild in
whispered, bated breath: "Now they are there, what are they come for?
To beg? He can never have the boldness to exhibit an animal for sous,--
impossible; no, no, let them slink back again and sell the cross." And
the child whispers courage; bids him look again along the rows; those
faces seem very kind. He again lifts his eyes, glances round, and with
an extemporaneous tact that completed the illusion to which the audience
were already gently lending themselves, made sundry complimentary
comments on the different faces actually before him, selected most
felicitously. The audience, taken by surprise, as some fair female, or
kindly burgess, familiar to their associations, was thus pointed out to
their applause, became heartily genial in their cheers and laughter.
And the Comedian's face, unmoved by such demonstrations,--so shy and
sad, insinuated its pathos underneath cheer and laugh. You now learned
through the child that a dance, on which the company had been supposed to
be gazing, was concluded, and that they would not be displeased by an
interval of some other diversion. Now was the tune! The dog, as if to
convey a sense of the prevalent ennui, yawned audibly, patted the child
on the shoulder, and looked up in her face. "A game of dominos,"
whispered the little girl. The dog gleefully grinned assent. Timidly
she stole forth the old dominos, and ranged them on the ground; on which
she slipped from her chair, the dog slipped from his; they began to play.
The experiment was launched; the soldier saw that the curiosity of the
company was excited, that the show would commence, the sons follow; and
as if he at least would not openly shame his service and his Emperor, he
turned aside, slid his hand to his breast, tore away his cross, and hid
it. Scarce a murmured word accompanied the action, the acting said all;
and a noble thrill ran through the audience. Oh, sublime art of the
mime!

The Mayor sat very near where the child and dog were at play. The
Comedian had (as he before implied he would do) discreetly prepared that
gentleman for direct and personal appeal. The little girl turned her
blue eyes innocently towards Mr. Hartopp, and said, "The dog beats me,
sir; will you try what you can do?"

A roar, and universal clapping of hands, amidst which the worthy
magistrate stepped on the stage. At the command of its young mistress
the dog made the magistrate a polite bow, and straight to the game went
magistrate and dog. From that time the interest became, as it were,
personal to all present. "Will you come, sir," said the child to a young
gentleman, who was straining his neck to see how the dominos were played,
"and observe that it is all fair? You, too, sir?" to Mr. Williams. The
Comedian stood beside the dog, whose movements he directed with
undetected skill, while appearing only to fix his eyes on the ground in
conscious abasement. Those on the rows from behind now pressed forward;
those in advance either came on the stage, or stood up intently
contemplating. The Mayor was defeated, the crowd became too thick, and
the caresses bestowed on the dog seemed to fatigue him. He rose and
retreated to a corner haughtily. "Manners, sir," said the soldier; "it
is not for the like of us to be proud; excuse him, ladies and gentlemen.
"He only wishes to please all," said the child, deprecatingly. "Say how
many would you have round us at a time, so that the rest may not be
prevented seeing you." She spread the multiplication figures before the
dog; the dog put his paw on 10. "Astonishing!" said the Mayor.

"Will you choose them yourself, sir?"

The dog nodded, walked leisurely round, keeping one eye towards the one
eye of his master and selected ten persons, amongst whom were the Mayor,
Mr. Williams, and three pretty young ladies who had been induced to
ascend the stage. The others were chosen no less judiciously.

The dog was then artfully led on from one accomplishment to another,
much within the ordinary range which bounds the instruction of learned
animals. He was asked to say how many ladies were on the stage: he spelt
three. What were their names? "The Graces." Then he was asked who was
the first magistrate in the town. The dog made a bow to the Mayor.
"What had made that gentleman first magistrate?" The dog looked to the
alphabet and spelt "Worth." "Were there any persons present more
powerful than the Mayor?" The dog bowed to the three young ladies.
"What made them more powerful?" The dog spelt "Beauty." When ended the
applause these answers received, the dog went through the musket exercise
with the soldier's staff; and as soon as he had performed that, he came
to the business part of the exhibition, seized the hat which his master
had dropped on the ground, and carried it round to each person on the
stage. They looked at one another. "He is a poor soldier's dog," said
the child, hiding her face. "No, no; a soldier cannot beg," cried the
Comedian. The Mayor dropped a coin in the hat; others did the same or
affected to do it. The dog took the hat to his master, who waved him
aside. There was a pause. The dog laid the hat softly at the soldier's
feet, and looked up at the child beseechingly. "What," asked she,
raising her head proudly--"what secures WORTH and defends BEAUTY?" The
dog took up the staff and shouldered it. "And to what can the soldier
look for aid when he starves and will not beg?" The dog seemed puzzled,
--the suspense was awful. "Good heavens," thought the Comedian, "if the
brute should break down after all!--and when I took such care that the
words should lie undisturbed-right before his nose!" With a deep sigh
the veteran started from his despondent attitude, and crept along the
floor as if for escape--so broken-down, so crestfallen. Every eye was on
that heartbroken face and receding figure; and the eye of that
heartbroken face was on the dog, and the foot of that receding figure
seemed to tremble, recoil, start, as it passed by the alphabetical
letters which still lay on the ground as last arranged. "Ah! to what
should he look for aid?" repeated the grandchild, clasping her little
hands. The dog had now caught the cue, and put his paw first upon
"WORTH," and then upon "BEAUTY."

"Worth!" cried the ladies--"Beauty!" exclaimed the Mayor. "Wonderful,
wonderful!"

"Take up the hat," said the child, and turning to the Mayor--"Ah! tell
him, sir, that what Worth and Beauty give to Valour in distress is not
alms but tribute."

The words were little better than a hack claptrap; but the sweet voice
glided through the assembly, and found its way into every heart.

"Is it so?" asked the old soldier, as his hand hoveringly passed above
the coins. "Upon my honour it is, sir!" said the Mayor, with serious
emphasis. The audience thought it the best speech he had ever made in
his life, and cheered him till the roof rang again. "Oh! bread, bread,
for you, darling!" cried the veteran, bowing his head over the child, and
taking out his cross and kissing it with passion; "and the badge of
honour still for me!"

While the audience was in the full depth of its emotion, and generous
tears in many an eye, Waife seized his moment, dropped the actor, and
stepped forth to the front as the man--simple, quiet, earnest man--artless
man!

"This is no mimic scene, ladies and gentlemen. It is a tale in real life
that stands out before you. I am here to appeal to those hearts that are
not vainly open to human sorrows. I plead for what I have represented.
True, that the man who needs your aid is not one of that soldiery which
devastated Europe. But he has fought in battles as severe, and been left
by fortune to as stern a desolation. True, he is not a Frenchman; he is
one of a land you will not love less than France,--it is your own. He,
too, has a child whom he would save from famine. He, too, has nothing
left to sell or to pawn for bread,--except--oh, not this gilded badge,
see, this is only foil and cardboard,--except, I say, the thing itself,
of which you respect even so poor a symbol,--nothing left to sell or to
pawn but Honour! For these I have pleaded this night as a showman; for
these, less haughty than the Frenchman, I stretch my hands towards you
without shame; for these I am a beggar."

He was silent. The dog quietly took up the hat and approached the Mayor
again. The Mayor extracted the half-crown he had previously deposited,
and dropped into the hat two golden sovereigns. Who does not guess the
rest? All crowded forward,--youth and age, man and woman. And most
ardent of all were those whose life stands most close to vicissitude,
most exposed to beggary, most sorely tried in the alternative between
bread and honour. Not an operative there but spared his mite.

CHAPTER XIII.

Omne ignotum pro magnifico.--Rumour, knowing nothing of his
antecedents, exalts Gentleman Waife into Don Magnifico.

The Comedian and his two coadjutors were followed to the Saracen's Head
inn by a large crowd, but at respectful distance. Though I know few
things less pleasing than to have been decoyed and entrapped into an
unexpected demand upon one's purse,--when one only counted, too, upon
an agreeable evening,--and hold, therefore, in just abhorrence the
circulating plate which sometimes follows a public oration, homily, or
other eloquent appeal to British liberality; yet, I will venture to say,
there was not a creature whom the Comedian had surprised into impulsive
beneficence who regretted his action, grudged its cost, or thought he had
paid too dear for his entertainment. All had gone through a series of
such pleasurable emotions that all had, as it were, wished a vent for
their gratitude; and when the vent was found, it became an additional
pleasure. But, strange to say, no one could satisfactorily explain to
himself these two questions,--for what, and to whom had he given his
money? It was not a general conjecture that the exhibitor wanted the
money for his own uses. No; despite the evidence in favour of that idea,
a person so respectable, so dignified, addressing them, too, with that
noble assurance to which a man who begs for himself is not morally
entitled,--a person thus characterized must be some high-hearted
philanthropist who condescended to display his powers at an Institute
purely intellectual, perhaps on behalf of an eminent but decayed author,
whose name, from the respect due to letters, was delicately concealed.
Mr. Williams, considered the hardest head and most practical man in the
town, originated and maintained that hypothesis. Probably the stranger
was an author himself, a great and affluent author. Had not great and
affluent authors--men who are the boast of our time and land--acted, yea,
on a common stage, and acted inimitably too, on behalf of some lettered
brother or literary object? Therefore in these guileless minds, with all
the pecuniary advantages of extreme penury and forlorn position, the
Comedian obtained the respect due to prosperous circumstances and high
renown. But there was one universal wish expressed by all who had been
present, as they took their way homeward; and that wish was to renew the
pleasure they had experienced, even if they paid the same price for it.
Could not the long-closed theatre be re-opened, and the great man be
induced by philanthropic motives, and an assured sum raised by voluntary
subscriptions, to gratify the whole town, as he had gratified its
selected intellect? Mr. Williams, in a state of charitable thaw, now
softest of the soft, like most hard men when once softened, suggested
this idea to the Mayor. The Mayor said evasively that he would think of
it, and that he intended to pay his respects to Mr. Chapman before he
returned home, that very night: it was proper. Mr. Williams and many
others wished to accompany his worship. But the kind magistrate
suggested that Mr. Chapman would be greatly fatigued: that the presence
of many might seem more an intrusion than a compliment; that he, the
Mayor, had better go alone, and at a somewhat later hour, when Mr.
Chapman, though not retired to bed, might have had time for rest and
refreshment. This delicate consideration had its weight; and the streets
were thin when the Mayor's gig stopped, on its way villa-wards, at the
Saracen's Head.

CHAPTER XIV.

It is the interval between our first repinings and our final
resignation, in which, both with individuals and communities, is to
be found all that makes a history worth telling. Ere yet we yearn
for what is out of our reach, we are still in the cradle. When
wearied out with our yearnings, desire again falls asleep; we are on
the deathbed.

Sophy (leaning on her grandfather's arm as they ascend the stair of the
Saracen's Head).--"But I am so tired, Grandy: I'd rather go to bed at
once, please!"

GENTLEMAN WAIFE.--"Surely you could take something to eat first--
something nice,--Miss Chapman?"--(Whispering close), "We can live in
clover now,--a phrase which means" (aloud to the landlady, who crossed
the landing-place above) "grilled chicken and mushrooms for supper,
ma'am! Why don't you smile, Sopby? Oh, darling, you are ill!"

"No, no, Grandy, dear; only tired: let me go to bed. I shall be better
to-morrow; I shall indeed!"

Waife looked fondly into her face, but his spirits were too much
exhilarated to allow him to notice the unusual flush upon her cheek,
except with admiration of the increased beauty which the heightened
colour gave to her soft features.

"Well," said he, "you are a pretty child!--a very pretty child, and you
act wonderfully. You would make a fortune on the stage; but--"

SOPHY (eagerly).--"But--no, no, never!--not the stage!"

WAIFE.--"I don't wish you to go on the stage, as you know. A private
exhibition--like the one to-night, for instance--has" (thrusting his
hand into his pocket) "much to recommend it."

SOPHY (with a sigh).--"Thank Heaven! that is over now; and you'll not be
in want of money for a long, long time! Dear Sir Isaac!"

She began caressing Sir Isaac, who received her attentions with solemn
pleasure. They were now in Sophy's room; and Waife, after again pressing
the child in vain to take some refreshment, bestowed on her his kiss and
blessing, and whistled "/Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre/" to Sir Isaac,
who, considering that melody an invitation to supper, licked his lips,
and stalked forth, rejoicing, but decorous.

Left alone, the child breathed long and hard, pressing her hands to her
bosom, and sank wearily on the foot of the bed. There were no shutters
to the window, and the moonlight came in gently, stealing across that
part of the wall and floor which the ray of the candle left in shade.
The girl raised her eyes slowly towards the window,--towards the glimpse
of the blue sky, and the slanting lustre of the moon. There is a certain
epoch in our childhood, when what is called the romance of sentiment
first makes itself vaguely felt. And ever with the dawn of that
sentiment the moon and the stars take a strange and haunting fascination.
Few persons in middle life-even though they be genuine poets--feel the
peculiar spell in the severe stillness and mournful splendour of starry
skies which impresses most of us, even though no poets at all, in that
mystic age when Childhood nearly touches upon Youth, and turns an unquiet
heart to those marvellous riddles within us and without, which we cease
to conjecture when experience has taught us that they have no solution
upon this side the grave. Lured by the light, the child rose softly,
approached the window, and, resting her upturned face upon both hands,
gazed long into the heavens, communing evidently with herself, for her
lips moved and murmured indistinctly. Slowly she retired from the
casement, and again seated herself at the foot of the bed, disconsolate.
And then her thoughts ran somewhat thus, though she might not have shaped
them exactly in the same words: "No, I cannot understand it. Why was I
contented and happy before I knew him? Why did I see no harm, no shame
in this way of life--not even on that stage with those people--until he
said, 'It was what he wished I had never stooped to'? And Grandfather
says our paths are so different they cannot cross each other again.
There is a path of life, then, which I can never enter; there is a path
on which I must always, always walk, always, always, always that path,--
no escape! Never to come into that other one where there is no disguise,
no hiding, no false names,--never, never!" she started impatiently, and
with a wild look,--"It is killing me!"

Then, terrified by her own impetuosity, she threw herself on the bed,
weeping low. Her heart had now gone back to her grandfather; it was
smiting her for ingratitude to him. Could there be shame or wrong in
what he asked,--what he did? And was she to murmur if she aided him to
exist? What was the opinion of a stranger boy compared to the approving
sheltering love of her sole guardian and tried fostering friend? And
could people choose their own callings and modes of life? If one road
went this way, another that, and they on the one road were borne farther
and farther away from those on the other--as that idea came, consolation
stopped, and in her noiseless weeping there was a bitterness as of
despair. But the tears ended by relieving the grief that caused them.
Wearied out of conjecture and complaint, her mind relapsed into the old
native, childish submission. With a fervour in which there was self-
reproach she repeated her meek, nightly prayer, that God would bless her
dear grandfather, and suffer her to be his comfort and support. Then
mechanically she undressed, extinguished the candle, and crept into bed.
The moonlight became bolder and bolder; it advanced tip the floors, along
the walls; now it floods her very pillow, and seems to her eyes to take a
holy loving kindness, holier and more loving as the lids droop beneath
it. A vague remembrance of some tale of "guardian spirits," with which
Waife had once charmed her wonder, stirred through her lulling thoughts,
linking itself with the presence of that encircling moonlight. There!
see the eyelids are closed, no tear upon their fringe. See the dimples
steal out as the sweet lips are parted. She sleeps, she dreams already!
Where and what is the rude world of waking now? Are there not guardian
spirits? Deride the question if thou wilt, stern man, the reasoning and
self-reliant; but thou, O fair mother, who hast marked the strange
happiness on the face of a child that has wept itself to sleep, what
sayest thou to the soft tradition, which surely had its origin in the
heart of the earliest mother?

CHAPTER XV.

There is no man so friendless but what he can find a friend sincere
enough to tell him disagreeable truths.

Meanwhile the Comedian had made himself and Sir Isaac extremely
comfortable. No unabstemious man by habit was Gentleman Waife. He could
dine on a crust, and season it with mirth; and as for exciting drinks,
there was a childlike innocence in his humour never known to a brain that
has been washed in alcohol. But on this special occasion, Waife's heart
was made so bounteous by the novel sense of prosperity that it compelled
him to treat himself. He did honour to the grilled chicken to which he
had vainly tempted Sophy. He ordered half a pint of port to be mulled
into negus. He helped himself with a bow, as if himself were a guest,
and nodded each time he took off his glass, as much as to say, "Your
health, Mr. Waife!" He even offered a glass of the exhilarating draught
to Sir Isaac, who, exceedingly offended, retreated under the sofa, whence
he peered forth through his deciduous ringlets, with brows knit in grave
rebuke. Nor was it without deliberate caution--a whisker first, and then
a paw--that he emerged from his retreat, when a plate heaped with the
remains of the feast was placed upon the hearth-rug.

The supper over, and the attendant gone, the negus still left, Waife
lighted his pipe, and, gazing on Sir Isaac, thus addressed that canine
philosopher: "Illustrious member of the Quadrupedal Society of Friends to
Man, and, as possessing those abilities for practical life which but few
friends to man ever display in his service, promoted to high rank--
Commissary-General of the Victualling Department, and Chancellor of the
Exchequer--I have the honour to inform you that a vote of thanks in your
favour has been proposed in this house, and carried unanimously." Sir
Isaac, looking shy, gave another lick to the plate, and wagged his tail.
"It is true that thou wert once (shall I say it?) in fault at 'Beauty and
Worth,'--thy memory deserted thee; thy peroration was on the verge of a
breakdown; but 'Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit, I as the Latin
grammar philosophically expresseth it. Mortals the wisest, not only on
two legs but even upon four, occasionally stumble. The greatest general,
statesman, sage, is not he who commits no blunder, but he who best
repairs a blunder and converts it to success. This was thy merit and
distinction! It hath never been mine! I recognize thy superior genius.
I place in thee unqualified confidence; and consigning thee to the arms
of Morpheus, since I see that panegyric acts on thy nervous system as a
salubrious soporific, I now move that this House do resolve itself into a
Committee of Ways and Means for the Consideration of the Budget!"

Therewith, while Sir Isaac fell into a profound sleep the Comedian
deliberately emptied his pockets on the table; and arranging gold and
silver before him, thrice carefully counted the total, and then divided
it into sundry small heaps.

"That's for the bill," quoth he,--"Civil List!--a large item. That's
for Sophy, the darling! She shall have a teacher, and learn Music,--
Education Grant; Current Expenses for the next fortnight; Miscellaneous
Estimates; tobacco,--we'll call that Secret-service Money. Ah, scamp,
vagrant, is not Heaven kind to thee at last? A few more such nights, and
who knows but thine old age may have other roof than the workhouse? And
Sophy?--Ah, what of her? Merciful Providence, spare my life till she has
outgrown its uses!" A tear came to his eye; he brushed it away quickly,
and, recounting his money, hummed a joyous tune.

The door opened; Waife looked up in surprise, sweeping his hand over the
coins, and restoring them to his pocket. The Mayor entered.

As Mr. Hartopp walked slowly up the room, his eye fixed Waife's; and that
eye was so searching, though so mild, that the Comedian felt himself
change colour. His gay spirits fell,--falling lower and lower, the
nearer the Mayor's step came to him; and when Hartopp, without speaking,
took his hand,--not in compliment, not in congratulation, but pressed it
as if in deep compassion, still looking him full in the face, with those
pitying, penetrating eyes, the actor experienced a sort of shock as if he
were read through, despite all his histrionic disguises, read through to
his heart's core; and, as silent as his visitor, sank back in his chair,
--abashed, disconcerted.

MR. HARTOPP.--"Poor man!"

THE COMEDIAN (rousing himself with an effort, but still confused).--
"Down, Sir Isaac, down! This visit, Mr. Mayor, is an honour which may
well take a dog by surprise! Forgive him!"

MR. HARTOPP (patting Sir Isaac, who was inquisitively sniffing his
garments, and drawing a chair close to the actor, who thereon edged his
own chair a little away,--in vain; for, on that movement, Mr. Hartopp
advanced in proportion).--"Your dog is a very admirable and clever
animal; but in the exhibition of a learned dog there is something which
tends to sadden one. By what privations has he been forced out of his
natural ways? By what fastings and severe usage have his instincts been
distorted into tricks? Hunger is a stern teacher, Mr. Chapman; and to
those whom it teaches, we cannot always give praise unmixed with pity."

THE COMEDIAN (ill at ease under this allegorical tone, and surprised at a
quicker intelligence in Mr. Hartopp than he had given that person credit
for).--"You speak like an oracle, Mr. Mayor; but that dog, at least, has
been mildly educated and kindly used. Inborn genius, sir, will have its
vent. Hum! a most intelligent audience honoured us to-night; and our
best thanks are due to you."

MR. HARTOPP.--"Mr. Chapman, let us be frank with each other. I am not a
clever man; perhaps a dull one. If I had set up for a clever man, I
should not be where I am now. Hush! no compliments. But my life has
brought me into frequent contact with those who suffer; and the dullest
of us gain a certain sharpness in the matters to which our observation is
habitually drawn. You took me in at first, it is true. I thought you
were a philanthropical humourist, who might have crotchets, as many
benevolent men, with time on their hands and money in their pockets, are
apt to form. But when it came to the begging hat (I ask your pardon;
don't let me offend you), when it came to the begging hat, I recognized
the man who wants philanthropy from others, and whose crotchets are to be
regarded in a professional point of view. Sir, I have come here alone,
because I alone perhaps see the case as it really is. Will you confide
in me? you may do it safely. To be plain, who and what are you?"

THE COMEDIAN (evasively).--"What do you take me for, Mr. Mayor? What can
I be other than an itinerant showman, who has had resort to a harmless
stratagem in order to obtain an audience, and create a surprise that
might cover the naked audacity of the 'begging hat'!"

MR. HARTOPP (gravely).--"When a man of your ability and education is
reduced to such stratagems, he must have committed some great faults.
Pray Heaven it be no worse than faults!"

THE COMEDIAN (bitterly).--"That is always the way with the prosperous.
Is a man unfortunate? They say, 'Why don't he help himself?' Does he
try to help himself? They say, 'With so much ability, why does not he
help himself better?' Ability and education! Snares and springes, Mr.
Mayor! Ability and education! the two worst mantraps that a poor fellow
can put his foot into! Aha! Did not you say if you had set up to be
clever, you would not be where you now are:' A wise saying; I admire you
for it. Well, well, I and my dog have amused your townsfolk; they have
amply repaid us. We are public servants; according as we act in public--
hiss us or applaud. Are we to submit to an inquisition into our private
character? Are you to ask how many mutton bones has that dog stolen?
how many cats has he worried? or how many shirts has the showman in his
wallet? how many debts has he left behind him? what is his rent-roll
on earth, and his account with Heaven? Go and put those questions to
ministers, philosophers, generals, poets. When they have acknowledged
your right to put them, come to me and the other dog."

MR. HARTOPP (rising and drawing on his gloves).--"I beg your pardon! I
have done, sir. And yet I conceived an interest in you. It is because I
have no talents myself that I admire those who have. I felt a mournful
anxiety, too, for your poor little girl,--so young, so engaging. And is
it necessary that you should bring up that child in a course of life
certainly equivocal, and to females dangerous?"

The Comedian lifted his eyes suddenly, and stared hard at the face of his
visitor, and in that face there was so much of benevolent humanity, so
much sweetness contending with authoritative rebuke, that the vagabond's
hardihood gave way! He struck his breast, and groaned aloud.

MR. HARTOPP (pressing on the advantage he had gained).--"And have you no
alarm for her health? Do you not see how delicate she is? Do you not
see that her very talent comes from her susceptibility to emotions which
must wear her away?"

WAIFE.-"No, no! stop, stop, stop! you terrify me, you break my heart.
Man, man! it is all for her that I toil and show and beg,--if you call it
begging. Do you think I care what becomes of this battered hulk? Not a
straw. What am I to do? What! what! You tell me to confide in you;
wherefore? How can you help me? Would you give me employment? What am
I fit for? Nothing! You could find work and bread for an Irish
labourer, nor ask who or what he was; but to a man who strays towards
you, seemingly from a sphere in which, if Poverty enters, she drops a
courtesy, and is called 'genteel,' you cry, 'Hold, produce your passport;
where are your credentials, references?' I have none. I have slipped
out of the world I once moved in. I can no more appeal to those I knew
in it than if I had transmigrated from one of yon stars, and said, 'See
there what I was once!' Oh, but you do not think she looks ill!--do you?
do you? Wretch that I am! And I thought to save her!"

The old man trembled from head to foot, and his cheek was as pale as
ashes.

Again the good magistrate took his hand, but this time the clasp was
encouraging. "Cheer up: where there is a will there is a way; you
justify the opinion I formed in your favour despite all circumstances
to the contrary. When I asked you to confide in me, it was not from
curiosity, but because I would serve you if I can. Reflect on what I
have said. True, you can know but little of me. Learn what is said of
me by my neighbours before you trust me further. For the rest, to-morrow
you will have many proposals to renew your performance. Excuse me if I
do not actively encourage it. I will not, at least, interfere to your
detriment; but--"

"But," exclaimed Waife, not much heeding this address, "but you think she
looks ill? you think this is injuring her? you think I am murdering my
grandchild,--my angel of life, my all?"

"Not so; I spoke too bluntly. Yet still--"

"Yes, yes, yet still--"

"Still, if you love her so dearly, would you blunt her conscience and
love of truth? Were you not an impostor tonight? Would you ask her to
reverence and imitate and pray for an impostor?"

"I never saw it in that light!" faltered Waife, struck to the soul;
"never, never, so help me Heaven!"

"I felt sure you did not," said the Mayor; "you saw but the sport of the
thing; you took to it as a schoolboy. I have known many such men, with
high animal spirits like yours. Such men err thoughtlessly; but did they
ever sin consciously, they could not keep those high spirits! Good
night, Mr. Chapman, I shall hear from you again."

The door closed on the form of the visitor; Waife's head sank on his
breast, and all the deep lines upon brow and cheek stood forth, records
of mighty griefs revived,--a countenance so altered, now its innocent
arch play was gone, that you would not have known it. At length he rose
very quietly, took up the candle, and stole into Sophy's room. Shading
the light with careful hand, he looked on her face as she slept. The
smile was still upon the parted lip: the child was still in the fairyland
of dreams. But the cheek was thinner than it had been weeks ago, and the
little hand that rested on the coverlet seemed wasted. Waife took that
hand noiselessly into his own! it was hot and dry. He dropped it with a
look of unutterable fear and anguish, and, shaking his head piteously;
stole back again. Seating himself by the table at which he had been
caught counting his gains, he folded his arms, and rooted his gaze on the
floor; and there, motionless, and as if in stupefied suspense of thought
itself, he sat till the dawn crept over the sky,--till the sun shone into
the windows. The dog, crouched at his feet, sometimes started up and
whined as to attract his notice: he did not heed it. The clock struck
six; the house began to stir. The chambermaid came into the room. Waife
rose and took his hat, brushing its nap mechanically with his sleeve.
"Who did you say was the best here?" he asked with a vacant smile,
touching the chambermaid's arm.

"Sir! the best--what?"

"The best doctor, ma'am; none of your parish apothecaries,--the best
physician,--Dr. Gill,--did you say Gill? Thank you; his address, High
Street. Close by, ma'am." With his grand bow,--such is habit!--
Gentleman Waife smiled graciously, and left the room. Sir Isaac
stretched himself and followed.

CHAPTER XVI.

In every civilized society there is found a race of men who retain
the instincts of the aboriginal cannibal, and live upon their
fellow-men as a natural food. These interesting but formidable
bipeds, having caught their victim, invariably select one part of
his body on which to fasten their relentless grinders. The part
thus selected is peculiarly susceptible, Providence having made it
alive to the least nibble; it is situated just above the hip-joint,
it is protected by a tegument of exquisite fibre, vulgarly called
"THE BREECHES POCKET." The thoroughbred Anthropophagite usually
begins with his own relations and friends; and so long as he
confines his voracity to the domestic circle, the law interferes
little, if at all, with his venerable propensities. But when he has
exhausted all that allows itself to be edible in the bosom of
private life, the man-eater falls loose on society, and takes to
prowling,--then "Sauve qui peut!" the laws rouse themselves, put on
their spectacles, call for their wigs and gowns, and the
Anthropophagite turned prowler is not always sure of his dinner. It
is when he has arrived at this stage of development that the man-
eater becomes of importance, enters into the domain of history, and
occupies the thoughts of Moralists.

On the same morning in which Waife thus went forth from the Saracen's
Head in quest of the doctor, but at a later hour, a man, who, to judge by
the elaborate smartness of his attire, and the jaunty assurance of his
saunter, must have wandered from the gay purlieus of Regent Street,
threaded his way along the silent and desolate thoroughfares that
intersect the remotest districts of Bloomsbury. He stopped at the turn
into a small street still more sequestered than those which led to it,
and looked up to the angle on the wall whereon the name of the street
should have been inscribed. But the wall had been lately whitewashed,
and the whitewash had obliterated the expected epigraph. The man
muttered an impatient execration; and, turning round as if to seek a
passenger of whom to make inquiry, beheld on the opposite side of the way
another man apparently engaged in the same research. Involuntarily each
crossed over the road towards the other.

"Pray, sir," quoth the second wayfarer in that desert, "can you tell me
if this is a street that is called a Place,--Podden Place, Upper?"

"Sir," returned the sprucer wayfarer, "it is the question I would have
asked of you."

"Strange!"

"Very strange indeed that more than one person can, in this busy age,
employ himself in discovering a Podden Place! Not a soul to inquire of,
--not a shop that I see, not an orange-stall!"

"Ha!" cried the other, in a hoarse sepulchral voice, "Ha! there is a pot-
boy! Boy! boy! boy! I say. Hold, there! hold! Is this Podden Place,
--Upper?"

"Yes, it be," answered the pot-boy, with a sleepy air, caught in that
sleepy atmosphere; and chiming his pewter against an area rail with a
dull clang, he chanted forth "Pots oho!" with a note as dirge-like as
that which in the City of the Plague chanted "Out with the dead!"

Meanwhile the two wayfarers exchanged bows and parted; the sprucer
wayfarer whether from the indulgence of a reflective mood, or from an
habitual indifference to things and persons not concerning him, ceased to
notice his fellow-solitary, and rather busied himself in sundry little
coquetries appertaining to his own person. He passed his hand through
his hair, re-arranged the cock of his hat, looked complacently at his
boots, which still retained the gloss of the morning's varnish, drew down
his wristbands, and, in a word, gave sign of a man who desires to make an
effect, and feels that he ought to do it. So occupied was he in this
self-commune that when he stopped at length at one of the small doors in
the small street and lifted his hand to the knocker, he started to see
that Wayfarer the Second was by his side. The two men now examined each
other briefly but deliberately. Wayfarer the First was still young,--
certainly handsome, but with an indescribable look about the eye and lip,
from which the other recoiled with an instinctive awe,--a hard look, a
cynical look,--a sidelong, quiet, defying, remorseless look. His clothes
were so new of gloss that they seemed put on for the first time, were
shaped to the prevailing fashion, and of a taste for colours less subdued
than is usual with Englishmen, yet still such as a person of good mien
could wear without incurring the charge of vulgarity, though liable to
that of self-conceit. If you doubted that the man were a gentleman, you
would have been puzzled to guess what else he could be. Were it not for
the look we have mentioned, and which was perhaps not habitual, his
appearance might have been called prepossessing. In his figure there was
the grace, in his step the elasticity which come from just proportions
and muscular strength. In his hand he carried a supple switch-stick,
slight and innocuous to appearance, but weighted at the handle after the
fashion of a life-preserver. The tone of his voice was not displeasing
to the ear, though there might be something artificial in the swell of
it,--the sort of tone men assume when they desire to seem more frank and
off-hand than belongs to their nature,--a sort of rollicking tone which
is to the voice what swagger is to, the gait. Still that look! it
produced on you the effect which might be created by some strange animal,
not without beauty, but deadly to man. Wayfarer the Second was big and
burly, middle-aged, large-whiskered, his complexion dirty. He wore a
wig,--a wig evident, unmistakable,--a wig curled and rusty,--over the wig
a dingy white hat. His black stock fitted tight round his throat, and
across his breast he had thrown the folds of a Scotch plaid.

WAYFARER THE FIRST.--"YOU call here, too,--on Mrs. Crane?"

WAYFARER THE SECOND.--"Mrs. Crane? you too? Strange!"

WAYFARER THE FIRST (with constrained civility).--"Sir, I call on
business,--private business."

WAYFARER THE SECOND (with candid surliness).--"So do I."

WAYFARER THE FIRST.--"Oh!"

WAYFARER THE SECOND.--"Ha! the locks unbar!"

The door opened, and an old meagre woman-servant presented herself.

WAYFARER THE FIRST (gliding before the big man with a serpent's
undulating celerity of movement).--"Mrs. Crane lives here?"--"Yes!"
"She's at home I suppose?"--"Yes!"--"Take up my card; say I come alone,
not with this gentleman."

Wayfarer the Second seems to have been rather put out by the manner of
his rival. He recedes a step.

"You know the lady of this mansion well, sir?" "Extremely well."

"Ha! then I yield you the precedence; I yield it, sir, but conditionally.
You will not be long?"

"Not a moment longer than I can help; the land will be clear for you in
an hour or less."

"Or less, so please you, let it be or less. Servant, sir."

"Sir, yours: come, my Hebe, track the dancers; that is, go up the stairs,
and let me renew the dreams of youth in the eyes of Bella!"

The old woman meanwhile had been turning over the card in her withered
palm, looking from the card to the visitor's face, and then to the card
again, and mumbling to herself. At length she spoke:

"You, Mr. Losely! you!--Jasper Losely! how you be changed! what ha' ye
done to yourself? where's your comeliness? where's the look that stole
ladies' hearts? you, Jasper Losely! you are his goblin!"

"Hold your peace, old hussey!" said the visitor, evidently annoyed at
remarks so disparaging. "I am Jasper Losely, more bronzed of cheek, more
iron of hand." He raised his switch with a threatening gesture, that
might be in play, for the lips wore smiles, or might be in earnest, for
the brows were bent; and pushing into the passage, and shutting the door,
said, "Is your mistress up stairs? show me to her room, or--"

The old crone gave him one angry glance, which sank frightened beneath
the cruel gleam of his eyes, and hastening up the stairs with a quicker
stride than her age seemed to warrant, cried out, "Mistress, mistress!
here is Mr. Losely! Jasper Losely himself!" By the time the visitor had
reached the landing-place of the first floor, a female form had emerged
from a room above, a female face peered over the banisters. Losely
looked up and started as he saw it. A haggard face,--the face of one
over whose life there has passed a blight. When last seen by him it had
possessed beauty, though of a masculine rather than womanly character.
Now of that beauty not a trace! the cheeks shrunk and hollow left the
nose sharp, long, beaked as a bird of prey. The hair, once glossy in its
ebon hue, now grizzled, harsh, neglected, hung in tortured, tangled
meshes,--a study for an artist who would paint a fury. But the eyes were
bright,--brighter than ever; bright now with a glare that lighted up the
whole face bending over the man. In those burning eyes was there love?
was there hate? was there welcome? was there menace? Impossible to
distinguish; but at least one might perceive that there was joy.

"So," said the voice from above, "so we do meet at last, Jasper Losely!
you are come!"

Drawing a loose kind of dressing-robe more closely round her, the
mistress of the house now descended the stairs, rapidly, flittingly, with
a step noiseless as a spectre's, and, grasping Losely firmly by the hand,
led him into a chill, dank, sunless drawing-room, gazing into his face
fixedly all the while.

He winced and writhed. "There, there, let us sit down, my dear Mrs.
Crane."

"And once I was called Bella."

"Ages ago! Basta! All things have their end. Do take those eyes of
yours off my face; they were always so bright! and--really--now they are
perfect burning-glasses! How close it is! Peuh! I am dead tired. May
I ask for a glass of water; a drop of wine in it--or--brandy will do as
well."

"Ho! you have come to brandy and morning drams, eh, Jasper?" said Mrs.