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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20610-8.txt b/20610-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2805eb --- /dev/null +++ b/20610-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22838 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar +Tupper, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Editor: W. C. Armstrong + +Release Date: February 16, 2007 [EBook #20610] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE WORKS OF TUPPER *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE + +COMPLETE PROSE WORKS + +OF + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, ESQ. + +COMPRISING + + THE CROCK OF GOLD, + + THE TWINS, + + AN AUTHOR'S MIND, + + HEART, + + PROBABILITIES, ETC. + + +REVISED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS EDITION BY W. C. ARMSTRONG. + +HARTFORD: +PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON +1851. + + ++-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. This | +|omnibus edition consists of four separately published works which | +|contain many inconsistencies. These are as in the originals. | ++-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + +PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. + + +Mr. Tupper has achieved a popularity for his works, which +has rarely been enjoyed by any one at so early a period of life; +he being now only between thirty-five and forty years of age. +Where all are so intrinsically valuable, it is difficult to determine +which particular work has contributed most to his rapid and +enviable advancement; yet, were an award indispensable, we +should feel constrained to make it in favour of his '_Proverbial +Philosophy_.' It is one of those unique productions which commends +itself to all classes of readers, and from the perusal of +which _all_ cannot but derive substantial means of improvement. +Familiar truths are so cogently treated therein, as to leave an +indelible impression upon the mind, which could not, perhaps, +have been so thoroughly made in any other manner; and the +"thoughts and arguments" may be perused and rëperused with +an advantage but few other writings are capable of yielding. + +The rapid and extensive sale of several editions, issued in +other places--some of them of rather an indifferent character, as +regards mechanical execution--and the increasing demand still +manifested for them, has induced the present publishers to collect +the entire works of Mr. Tupper, and to stereotype them in a +style worthy of their excellence. Each work has been thoroughly +revised, and the errors which disfigure some other editions have +been carefully corrected--an advantage readily appreciable by +those who discriminate in their selections for the library or the +centre-table. + + + * * * * * + + +THE + +CROCK OF GOLD; + +A RURAL NOVEL. + +BY + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, ESQ., M.A., + + +AUTHOR OF + +"PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY." + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAP. PAGE. + +1. The Labourer; and his Dawning Discontent 11 + +2. The Family; the Home; and more Repinings 14 + +3. The Contract 17 + +4. The Lost Theft 21 + +5. The Inquest 23 + +6. The Bailiff; and a Bitter Trial 27 + +7. Wrongs and Ruin 32 + +8. The Covetous Dream 35 + +9. The Poacher 38 + +10. Ben Burke's Strange Adventure 41 + +11. Sleep 45 + +12. Love 48 + +13. The Discovery 52 + +14. Jonathan's Store 56 + +15. Another Discovery, and the Earnest of Good Things 58 + +16. How the Home was blessed thereby 62 + +17. Care 65 + +18. Investment 68 + +19. Calumny 72 + +20. The Bailiff's Visit 74 + +21. The Capture 77 + +22. The Aunt and her Nephew 80 + +23. Schemes 83 + +24. The Devil's Counsel 87 + +25. The Ambuscade 89 + +26. Preliminaries 92 + +27. Robbery 95 + +28. Murder 96 + +29. The Reward 97 + +30. Second Thoughts 100 + +31. Mammon; and Contentment 102 + +32. Next Morning 104 + +33. The Alarm 106 + +34. Doubts 108 + +35. Fears 109 + +36. Prison Comforts 111 + +37. Good Counsel 113 + +38. Experience 114 + +39. Jonathan's Troth 115 + +40. Suspicions 118 + +41. Grace's Alternative 119 + +42. The Dismissal 122 + +43. Simon alone 124 + +44. The Trial 127 + +45. Roger's Defence 129 + +46. The Witness 130 + +47. Mr. Sharp's Advocacy 133 + +48. Sentence and Death 140 + +49. Righteous Mammon 143 + +50. The Crock a Blessing 144 + +51. Popularity 147 + +52. Roger at the Swan 149 + +53. Roger's Triumph 151 + +54. Sir John's Parting Speech 152 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LABOURER; AND HIS DAWNING DISCONTENT. + + +Roger Acton woke at five. It was a raw March morning, still +dark, and bitterly cold, while at gusty intervals the rain beat in +against the crazy cottage-window. Nevertheless, from his poor pallet he +must up and rouse himself, for it will be open weather by sunrise, and +his work lies two miles off; Master Jennings is not the man to show him +favour if he be late, and Roger cannot afford to lose an hour: so he +shook off the luxury of sleep, and rose again to toil with weary effort. + +"Honest Roger," as the neighbours called him, was a fair specimen of a +class which has been Britain's boast for ages, and may be still again, +in measure, but at present that glory appears to be departing: a class +much neglected, much enduring; thoroughly English--just, industrious, +and patient; true to the altar, and loyal to the throne; though haply +shaken somewhat now from both those noble faiths--warped in their +principles, and blunted in their feelings, by lying doctrines and harsh +economies; a class--I hate the cold cant term--a race of honourable men, +full of cares, pains, privations--but of pleasures next to none; whose +life at its most prosperous estate is labour, and in death we count him +happy who did not die a pauper. Through them, serfs of the soil, the +earth yields indeed her increase, but it is for others; from the fields +of plenty they glean a scanty pittance, and fill the barns to bursting, +while their children cry for bread. Not that Roger for his part often +wanted work; he was the best hand in the parish, and had earned of his +employers long ago the name of Steady Acton; but the fair wages for a +fair day's labour were quite another thing, and the times went very hard +for him and his. A man himself may starve, while his industry makes +others fat: and a liberal landlord all the winter through may keep his +labourers in work, while a crafty, overbearing bailiff mulcts them in +their wages. + +For the outward man, Acton stood about five feet ten, a gaunt, spare, +and sinewy figure, slightly bent; his head sprinkled with gray; his face +marked with those rigid lines, which tell, if not of positive famine, at +least of too much toil on far too little food; in his eye, patience and +good temper; in his carriage, a mixture of the sturdy bearing, necessary +to the habitual exercise of great muscular strength, together with that +gait of humility--almost humiliation--which is the seal of oppression +upon poverty. He might be about forty, or from that to fifty, for +hunger, toil, and weather had used him the roughest; while, for all +beside, the patched and well-worn smock, the heavily-clouted high-laced +boots, a dingy worsted neck-tie, and an old felt hat, complete the +picture of externals. + +But, for the matter of character within, Roger is quite another man. If +his rank in this world is the lowest, many potentates may envy him his +state elsewhere. His heart is as soft, as his hand is horny; with the +wandering gipsy or the tramping beggar, thrust aside, perhaps +deservedly, as impudent impostors from the rich man's gate, has he +often-times shared his noon-day morsel: upright and sincere himself, he +thinks as well of others: he scarcely ever heard the Gospels read in +church, specially about Eastertide, but the tears would trickle down his +weather-beaten face: he loves children--his neighbour's little ones as +well as his own: he will serve any one for goodness' sake without reward +or thanks, and is kind to the poor dumb cattle: he takes quite a pride +in his little rod or two of garden, and is early and late at it, both +before and after the daily sum of labour: he picks up a bit of knowledge +here and there, and somehow has contrived to amass a fund of information +for which few would give him credit from his common looks; and he joins +to that stock of facts a natural shrewdness to use his knowledge wisely. +Though with little of what is called sentiment, or poetry, or fancy in +his mind (for harsh was the teaching of his childhood, and meagre the +occasions of self-culture ever since), the beauty of creation is by no +means lost upon him, and he notices at times its wisdom too. With a +fixed habit of manly piety ever on his lips and ever in his heart, he +recognises Providence in all things, just, and wise, and good. More than +so; simply as a little child who endures the school-hour for the +prospect of his play-time, Roger Acton bears up with noble meekness +against present suffering, knowing that his work and trials and +troubles are only for a little while, but his rest and his reward remain +a long hereafter. He never questioned this; he knew right well Who had +earned it for him; and he lived grateful and obedient, filling up the +duties of his humble station. This was his faith, and his works followed +it. He believed that God had placed him in his lot, to be a labourer, +and till God's earth, and, when his work is done, to be sent on better +service in some happier sphere: the where, or the how, did not puzzle +him, any more than divers other enigmatical whys and wherefores of his +present state; he only knew this, that it would all come right at last: +and, barring sin (which he didn't comprehend), somehow all was right at +present. What if poverty pinched him? he was a great heir still; what if +oppression bruised him? it would soon be over. He trusted to his Pilot, +like the landsman in a storm; to his Father, as an infant in the dark. +For guilt, he had a Saviour, and he thought of him in penitence; for +trouble, a Guardian, and he looked to him in peace; and as for toil, +back-breaking toil, there was another Master whom he served with spade, +and mattock, and a thankful heart, while he only seemed to be working +for the landlord or his bailiff. + +Such a man then had been Roger Acton from his youth up till now, or, if +sadness must be told, nearly until now; for, to speak truth, his heart +at times would fail him, and of late he had been bitter in repinings and +complaint. For a day or two, in particular, he had murmured loudly. It +was hard, very hard, that an honest, industrious man, as he was, should +so scantily pick a living out of this rich earth: after all said, let +the parson preach as he will, it's a fine thing to have money, and that +his reverence knows right well, or he wouldn't look so closely for his +dues. [N.B. Poor Mr. Evans was struggling as well as he could to bring +up six children, on a hundred and twenty pounds per annum.] Roger, too, +was getting on in years, with a blacker prospect for the future than +when he first stood behind a plough-tail. Then there were many wants +unsatisfied, which a bit of gold might buy; and his wife teased him to +be doing something better. Thus was it come at length to pass, that, +although he had endured so many years, he now got discontented at his +penury;--what human heart can blame him?--and with murmurings came +doubt; with doubt of Providence, desire of lucre; so the sunshine of +religion faded from his path;--what mortal mind can wonder? + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE FAMILY; THE HOME; AND MORE REPININGS. + + +Now, if Malthus and Martineau be verily the pundits that men +think them, Roger had twice in his life done a very foolish thing: he +had sinned against society, statistics, and common sense, by a two-fold +marriage. The wife of his youth (I am afraid he married early) had once +been kitchen-maid at the Hall; but the sudden change from living +luxuriously in a great house, to the griping poverty of a cotter's +hovel, had changed, in three short years, the buxom country girl into an +emaciated shadow of her former self, and the sorrowing husband buried +her in her second child-bed. The powers of the parish clapped their +hands; political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a +coarse-featured farmer (he meant no ill), who occasionally had given +Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the +fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Ay, and Heaven take the babies +also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken! +scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as +before, was more mechanical, less high-motived: and many a year of +dreary widowhood he mourned a loss all the greater, though any thing but +bitterer, for the infants so left motherless. To these, now grown into a +strapping youth and a bright-eyed graceful girl, had he been the +tenderest of nurses, and well supplied the place of her whom they had +lost. Neighbours would have helped him gladly--sometimes did; and many +was the hinted offer (disinterested enough, too, for in that match +penury must have been the settlement, and starvation the dower), of +giving them a mother's kindly care; but Roger could not quite so soon +forget the dead: so he would carry his darlings with him to his work, +and feed them with his own hard hands; the farmers winked at it, and +never said a word against the tiny trespassers; their wives and +daughters loved the little dears, bringing them milk and possets; and +holy angels from on high may have oft-times hovered about this rude +nurse, tending his soft innocents a-field, and have wept over the poor +widower and his orphans, tears of happy sorrow and benevolent affection. +Yea, many a good angel has shed blessings on their heads! + +Within the last three years, and sixteen from the date of his first +great grief, Roger had again got married. His daughter was growing into +early womanhood, and his son gave him trouble at times, and the cottage +wanted a ruling hand over it when he was absent, and rheumatism now and +then bade him look out for a nurse before old age, and Mary Alder was a +notable middle-aged careful sort of soul, and so she became Mary Acton. +All went on pretty well, until Mrs. Acton began to have certain little +ones of her own; and then the step-mother would break out (a contingency +poor Roger hadn't thought of), separate interests crept in, and her own +children fared before the others; so it came to pass that, however truly +there was a ruling hand at home, and however well the rheumatism got +nursed (for Mary was a good wife in the main), the grown-up son and +daughter felt themselves a little jostled out. Grace, gentle and +submissive, found all her comforts shrunk within the space of her father +and her Bible; Thomas, self-willed and open-hearted, sought his pleasure +any where but at home, and was like to be taking to wrong courses +through domestic bickering: Grace had the dangerous portion, beauty, +added to her lowly lot, and attracted more admiration than her father +wished, or she could understand; while the frank and bold spirit of +Thomas Acton exposed him to the perilous friendship of Ben Burke the +poacher, and divers other questionable characters. + +Of these elements, then, are our labourer and his family composed; and +before Roger Acton goes abroad at earliest streak of dawn, we will take +a casual peep within his dwelling. It consists of four bare rubble +walls, enclosing a grouted floor, worn unevenly, and here and there in +holes, and puddly. There were but two rooms in the tenement, one on the +ground, and one over-head; which latter is with no small difficulty got +at by scaling a ladder-like stair-case that fronts the cottage-door. +This upper chamber, the common dormitory, for all but Thomas, who sleeps +down stairs, has a thin partition at one end of it, to screen off the +humble truckle-bed where Grace Acton forgets by night the troubles of +the day; and the remainder of the little apartment, sordid enough, and +overhung with the rough thatch, black with cobweb, serves for the father +and mother with their recent nursery. Each room has its shattery +casement, to let in through linchened panes, the doubtful light of +summer, and the much more indubitable wind, and rain, and frost of +wintry nights. A few articles of crockery and some burnished tins +decorate the shelves of the lower apartment; which used to be much +tidier before the children came, and trimmer still when Grace was sole +manager: in a doorless cupboard are apparent sundry coarse edibles, as +the half of a huge unshapely home-made loaf, some white country cheese, +a mass of lumpy pudding, and so forth; beside it, on the window-sill, is +better bread, a well-thumbed Bible, some tracts, and a few odd volumes +picked up cheap at fairs; an old musket (occasionally Ben's companion, +sometimes Tom's) is hooked to the rafters near a double rope of onions; +divers gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of +George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of +Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted +over the mantel-piece: which, among other chattels and possessions, +conspicuously bears its own burden of Albert and Victoria--two plaster +heads, resplendently coloured, highly varnished, looking with arched +eye-brows of astonishment on their uninviting palace, and royally +contrasting with the sombre hue of poverty on all things else. The +pictures had belonged to Mary, no small portion of her virgin wealth; +and as for the statuary, those two busts had cost loyal Roger far more +in comparison than any corporation has given to P.R.A., for majesty and +consortship in full. There is, moreover, in the room, by way of +household furniture, a ricketty, triangular, and tri-legged table, a +bench, two old chairs with rush-bottoms, and a yard or two of matting +that the sexton gave when the chancel was new laid. I don't know that +there is any thing else to mention, unless it be a gaunt lurcher +belonging to Ben Burke, and with all a dog's resemblance to his master, +who lies stretched before the hearth where the peaty embers never quite +die out, but smoulder away to a heap of white ashes; over these is +hanging a black boiler, the cook of the family; and beside them, on a +substratum of dry heather, and wrapped about with an old blanket, nearly +companioned by his friend, the dog, snores Thomas Acton, still fast +asleep, after his usual extemporaneous fashion. + +As to the up-stairs apartment, it contained little or nothing but its +living inmates, their bedsteads and tattered coverlids, and had an air +of even more penury and discomfort than the room below; so that, what +with squalling children, a scolding wife, and empty stomach, and that +cold and wet March morning, it is little wonder maybe (though no small +blame), that Roger Acton had not enough of religion or philosophy to +rise and thank his Maker for the blessings of existence. + +He had just been dreaming of great good luck. Poor people often do so; +just as Ugolino dreamt of imperial feasts, and Bruce, in his delirious +thirst on the Sahara, could not banish from his mind the cool fountains +of Shiraz, and the luxurious waters of old Nile. Roger had unfortunately +dreamt of having found a crock of gold--I dare say he will tell us his +dream anon--and just as he was counting out his treasure, that blessed +beautiful heap of shining money--cruel habit roused him up before the +dawn, and his wealth faded from his fancy. So he awoke at five, anything +but cheerfully. + +It was Grace's habit, good girl, to read to her father in the morning a +few verses from the volume she best loved: she always woke betimes when +she heard him getting up, and he could hear her easily from her little +flock-bed behind the lath partition; and many a time had her dear +religious tongue, uttering the words of peace, soothed her father's +mind, and strengthened him to meet the day's affliction; many times it +raised his thoughts from the heavy cares of life to the buoyant hopes of +immortality. Hitherto, Roger had owed half his meek contentedness to +those sweet lessons from a daughter's lips, and knew that he was +reaping, as he heard, the harvest of his own paternal care, and +heaven-blest instructions. However, upon this dark morning, he was full +of other thoughts, murmurings, and doubts, and poverty, and riches. So, +when Grace, after her usual affectionate salutations, gently began to +read, + +"The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with +the glory--" + +Her father strangely stopped her on a sudden with-- + +"Enough, enough, my girl! God wot, the sufferings are grievous, and the +glory long a-coming." + +Then he heavily went down stairs, and left Grace crying. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE CONTRAST. + + +Thus, full of carking care, while he pushed aside the proffered +consolation, Roger Acton walked abroad. There was yet but a glimmer of +faint light, and the twittering of birds told more assuringly of morning +than any cheerful symptom on the sky: however, it had pretty well ceased +raining, that was one comfort, and, as Roger, shouldering his spade, and +with the day's provision in a handkerchief, trudged out upon his daily +duty, those good old thoughts of thankfulness came upon his mind, and he +forgot awhile the dream that had unstrung him. Turning for a moment to +look upon his hovel, and bless its inmates with a prayer, he half +resolved to run back, and hear a few more words, if only not to vex his +darling child: but there was now no time to spare; and then, as he gazed +upon her desolate abode--so foul a casket for so fair a jewel--his +bitter thoughts returned to him again, and he strode away, repining. + +Acton's cottage was one of those doubtful domiciles, whose only +recommendation it is, that they are picturesque in summer. At present we +behold a reeking rotting mass of black thatch in a cheerless swamp; but, +as the year wears on, those time-stained walls, though still both damp +and mouldy, will be luxuriantly overspread with creeping +plants--honeysuckle, woodbine, jessamine, and the everblowing monthly +rose. Many was the touring artist it had charmed, and Suffolk-street had +seen it often: spectators looked upon the scene as on an old familiar +friend, whose face they knew full well, but whose name they had +forgotten for the minute. Many were the fair hands that had immortalized +its beauties in their albums, and frequent the notes of admiration +uttered by attending swains: particularly if there chanced to be taken +into the view a feathery elm that now creaked overhead, and dripped on +the thatch like the dropping-well at Knaresborough, and (in the near +distance) a large pond, or rather lake, upon whose sedgy banks, gay--not +now, but soon about to be--with flowering reeds and bright green +willows, the pretty cottage stood. In truth, if man were but an +hibernating animal, invisible as dormice in the winter, and only to be +seen with summer swallows, Acton's cottage at Hurstley might have been a +cantle cut from the Elysian-fields. But there are certain other seasons +in the year, and human nature cannot long exist on the merely +"picturesque in summer." + +Some fifty yards, or so, from the hither shore, we discern a roughly +wooded ait, Pike Island to wit, a famous place for fish, and the grand +rendezvous for woodcocks; which, among other useful and ornamental +purposes, serves to screen out the labourer's hovel, at this the +narrowest part of the lake, from a view of that fine old mansion on the +opposite shore, the seat of Sir John Vincent, a baronet just of age, and +the great landlord of the neighbourhood. Toward this mansion, scarcely +yet revealed in the clear gray eye of morning, our humble hero, having +made the long round of the lake, is now fast trudging; and it may merit +a word or two of plain description, to fill up time and scene, till he +gets nearer. + +A smooth grassy eminence, richly studded with park-like clumps of trees, +slopes up from the water's very edge to--Hurstley Hall; yonder goodly, +if not grand, Elizabethan structure, full of mullioned windows, carved +oak panels, stone-cut coats of arms, pinnacles, and traceries, and +lozenges, and drops; and all this glory crowned by a many-gabled, +high-peaked roof. A grove of evergreens and American shrubs hides the +lower windows from vulgarian gaze--for, in the neighbourly feeling of +our ancestors, a public way leads close along the front; while, behind +the house, and inaccessible to eyes profane, are drawn terraced gardens, +beautifully kept, and blooming with a perpetual succession of the +choicest flowers. The woods and shrubberies around, attempted some half +a century back to be spoilt by the meddlesome bad taste of Capability +Brown, have been somewhat too resolutely robbed of the formal avenues, +clipped hedges, and other topiarian adjuncts which comport so well with +the starch prudery of things Elizabethan; but they are still replete +with grotto, fountain, labyrinth, and alcove--a very paradise for the +more court-bred rank of sylphs, and the gentler elves of Queen Titania. + +However, we have less to do with the gardens than, probably, the elves +have; and as Roger now, just at breaking day, is approaching the windows +somewhat too curiously for a poor man's manners, it may not be amiss if +we bear him company. He had pretty well recovered of his fit of +discontent, for morning air and exercise can soon chase gloom away; so +he cheerily tramped along, thinking as he went, how that, after all, it +is a middling happy world, and how that the raindrops, now that it had +cleared up, hung like diamonds on the laurels, when of a sudden, as he +turned a corner near the house, there broke upon his ear, at that quiet +hour, such a storm of boisterous sounds--voices so loud with oaths and +altercation--such a calling, clattering, and quarrelling, as he had +never heard the like before. So no wonder that he stepped aside to see +it. + +The noise proceeded from a ground-floor window, or rather from three +windows, lighted up, and hung with draperies of crimson and gold: one of +the casements, flaring meretriciously in the modest eye of morn, stood +wide open down to the floor, probably to cool a heated atmosphere; and +when Roger Acton, with a natural curiosity, went on tiptoe, looked in, +and just put aside the curtain for a peep, to know what on earth could +be the matter, he saw a vision of waste and wealth, at which he stood +like one amazed, for a poor man's mind could never have conceived its +equal. + +Evidently, he had intruded on the latter end of a long and luxurious +revel. Wax-lights, guttering down in gilded chandeliers, poured their +mellow radiance round in multiplied profusion--for mirrors made them +infinite; crimson and gold were the rich prevailing tints in that wide +and warm banqueting-room; gayly-coloured pictures, set in frames that +Roger fancied massive gold, hung upon the walls at intervals; a +wagon-load of silver was piled upon the sideboard; there blazed in the +burnished grate such a fire as poverty might imagine on a frozen +winter's night, but never can have thawed its blood beside: fruits, and +wines, and costly glass were scattered in prodigal disorder on the +board--just now deserted of its noisy guests, who had crowded round a +certain green table, where cards and heaps of sovereigns appeared to be +mingled in a mass. Roger had never so much as conceived it possible that +there could be wealth like this: it was a fairy-land of Mammon in his +eyes: he stood gasping like a man enchanted; and in the contemplation of +these little hills of gold--in their covetous longing contemplation, he +forgot the noisy quarrel he had turned aside to see, and thirsted for +that rich store earnestly. + +In an instant, as he looked (after the comparative lull that must +obviously have succeeded to the clamours he had first heard), the roar +and riot broke out worse than ever. There were the stormy revellers, as +the rabble rout of Comus and his crew, filling that luxurious room with +the sounds of noisy execration and half-drunken strife. Young Sir John, +a free and generous fellow, by far the best among them all, has +collected about him those whom he thought friends, to celebrate his +wished majority; they had now kept it up, night after night, hard upon a +week; and, as well became such friends--the gambler, the duellist, the +man of pleasure, and the fool of Fashion--they never yet had separated +for their day-light beds, without a climax to their orgie, something +like the present scene. + +Henry Mynton, high in oath, and dashing down his cards, has charged Sir +Richard Hunt with cheating (it was _sauter la coupe_ or _couper la +saut_, or some such mystery of iniquity, I really cannot tell which): +Sir Richard, a stout dark man, the patriarch of the party, glossily +wigged upon his head, and imperially tufted on his chin, retorts with a +pungent sarcasm, calmly and coolly uttered; that hot-headed fool +Silliphant, clearly quite intoxicated, backs his cousin Mynton's view of +the case by the cogent argument of a dice-box at Sir Richard's head--and +at once all is struggle, strife, and uproar. The other guests, young +fellows of high fashion, now too much warmed with wine to remember their +accustomed Mohican cold-bloodedness--those happy debtors to the prowess +of a Stultz, and walking advertisers of Nugee--take eager part with the +opposed belligerents: more than one decanter is sent hissing through +the air; more than one bloody coxcomb witnesses to the weight of a +candle-stick and its hurler's clever aim: uplifted chairs are made the +weapons of the chivalric combatants; and along with divers other less +distinguished victims in the melée, poor Sir John Vincent, rushing into +the midst, as a well-intentioned host, to quell the drunken brawl, gets +knocked down among them all; the tables are upset, the bright gold runs +about the room in all directions--ha! no one heeds it--no one owns +it--one little piece rolled right up to the window-sill where Roger +still looked on with all his eyes; it is but to put his hand in--the +window is open to the floor--nay a finger is enough: greedily, one +undecided moment, did he gaze upon the gold; he saw the hideous contrast +of his own dim hovel and that radiant chamber--he remembered the pining +faces of his babes, and gentle Grace with all her hardships--he thought +upon his poverty and well deserts--he looked upon wastefulness of wealth +and wantonness of living--these reflections struck him in a moment; no +one saw him, no one cared about the gold; that little blessed morsel, +that could do him so much good; all was confusion, all was opportunity, +and who can wonder that his fingers closed upon the sovereign, and that +he picked it up? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE LOST THEFT. + + +Stealthily and quickly "honest Roger" crept away, for his +conscience smote him on the instant: he felt he had done wrong; at any +rate, the sovereign was not his--and once the thought arose in him to +run back, and put it where he found it: but it was now become too +precious in his sight, that little bit of gold--and they, the rioters +there, could not want it, might not even miss it; and then its righteous +uses--it should be well spent, even if ill-got: and thus, so many +mitigations crowded in to excuse, if not to applaud the action, that +within a little while his warped mind had come to call the theft a +god-send. + +O Roger, Roger! alas for this false thought of that wrong deed! the +poisonous gold has touched thy heart, and left on it a spot of cancer: +the asp has bitten thee already, simple soul. This little seed will grow +into a huge black pine, that shall darken for a while thy heaven, and +dig its evil roots around thy happiness. Put it away, Roger, put it +away: covet not unhallowed gold. + +But Roger felt far otherwise; and this sudden qualm of conscience once +quelled (I will say there seemed much of palliation in the matter), a +kind of inebriate feeling of delight filled his mind, and Steady Acton +plodded on to the meadow yonder, half a mile a-head, in a species of +delirious complacency. Here was luck indeed, filling up the promise of +his dreams. His head was full of thoughts, pleasant holiday thoughts, of +the many little useful things, the many small indulgences, that bit of +gold should buy him. He would change it on the sly, and gradually bring +the shillings home as extra pay for extra work; for, however much his +wife might glory in the chance, and keep his secret, well he knew that +Grace would have a world of things to say about it, and he feared to +tell his daughter of the deed. However, she should have a ribbon, so she +should, good girl, and the pedlar shouldn't pass the door unbidden; +Mary, too, might have a cotton kerchief, and the babes a doll and a +rattle, and poor Thomas a shilling to spend as he liked; and so, in +happy revery, the kind father distributed his ill-got sovereign. + +For a while he held it in his hand, as loth to part from the tangible +possession of his treasure; but manual contact could not last all day, +and, as he neared his scene of labour--he came late after all, by the +by, and lost the quarter-day, but it mattered little now--he began to +cogitate a place of safety; and carefully put it in his fob. Poor +fellow--he had never had enough to stow so well away before: his pockets +had been thought quite trust-worthy enough for any treasures hitherto: +never had he used that fob for watch, or note, or gold--and his +predecessor in the cast-off garment had probably been quite aware how +little that false fob was worthy of the name of savings' bank; it was in +the situation of the Irishman's illimitable rope, with the end cut off. +So while Roger was brewing up vast schemes of nascent wealth, and +prosperous days at last, the filched sovereign, attracted by centripetal +gravity, had found a passage downwards, and had straightway rolled into +a crevice of mother-earth, long before its "brief lord" had commenced +his day's labour. Yes, it had been lost a good hour ere he found it out, +for he had fancied that he had felt it there, and often did he feel, but +his fancy was a button; and when he made the dread discovery, what a +sting of momentary anguish, what a sickening fear, what an eager search! +and, as the grim truth became more evident, that, indeed, beyond all +remedy, his new-got, ill-got, egg of coming wealth was all clean +gone--oh! this was worm-wood, this was bitter as gall, and the strong +man well-nigh fainted. It was something sad to have done the ill--but +misery to have done it all for nothing: the sin was not altogether +pleasant to his taste, but it was aloe itself to lose the reward. And +when, pale and sick, leaning on his spade, he came to his old strength +again, what was the reaction? Compunction at incipient crime, and +gratitude to find its punishment so mercifully speedy, so lenient, so +discriminative? I fear that if ever he had these thoughts at all, he +chased them wilfully away: his disappointment, far from being softened +into patience, was sharpened to a feeling of revenge at fate; and all +his hope now was--such another chance, gold, more gold, never mind how; +more gold, he burnt for gold, he lusted after gold! + +We must leave him for a time to his toil and his reflections, and touch +another topic of our theme. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE INQUEST. + + +Just a week before the baronet came of age, and a fortnight +from the present time, an awful and mysterious event had happened at the +Hall: the old house-keeper, Mrs. Quarles, had been found dead in her +bed, under circumstances, to say the very least, of a black and +suspicious appearance. The county coroner had got a jury of the +neighbours impanelled together; who, after sitting patiently on the +inquest, and hearing, as well as seeing, the following evidence, could +arrive at no verdict more specific than the obvious fact, that the poor +old creature had been "found dead." The great question lay between +apoplexy and murder; and the evidence tended to a well-matched conflict +of opinions. + +First, there lay the body, quietly in bed, tucked in tidily and +undisturbed, with no marks of struggling, none whatever--the clothes lay +smooth, and the chamber orderly: yet the corpse's face was of a purple +hue, the tongue swollen, the eyes starting from their sockets: it might, +indeed, possibly have been an apoplectic seizure, which took her in her +sleep, and killed her as she lay; _but_ that the gripe of clutching +fingers had left their livid seals upon the throat, and countenanced +the dreadful thought of strangulation! + +Secondly, a surgeon (one Mr. Eager, the Union doctor, a very young +personage, wrong withal and radical) maintained that this actual +strangulation might have been effected by the hands of the deceased +herself, in the paroxysm of a rush of blood to the brain; and he +fortified his wise position by the instance of a late statesman, who, he +averred, cut his throat with a pen-knife, to relieve himself of pressure +on the temples: while another surgeon--Stephen Cramp, he was farrier as +well, and had been, until lately, time out of mind, the village +Æsculapius, who looked with scorn on his pert rival, and opposed him +tooth and nail on all occasions--insisted that it was not only +physically impossible for poor Mrs. Quarles so to have strangled +herself, but more particularly that, if she had done so, she certainly +could not have laid herself out so decently afterwards; therefore, that +as some one else had kindly done the latter office for her, why not the +former too? + +Thirdly, Sarah Stack, the still-room maid, deposed, that Mrs. Quarles +always locked her door before she went to bed, but that when she +(deponent) went to call her as usual on the fatal morning, the door was +just ajar; and so she found her dead: while parallel with this, tending +to implicate some domestic criminal, was to be placed the equally +uncommon fact, that the other door of Mrs. Quarles's room, leading to +the lawn, was open too:--be it known that Mrs. Quarles was a stout +woman, who could'nt abide to sleep up-stairs, for fear of fire; +moreover, that she was a nervous woman, who took extraordinary +precautions for her safety, in case of thieves. Thus, unaccountably +enough, the murderer, if there was any, was as likely to have come from +the outside, as from the in. + +Fourthly, the murderer in this way is commonly a thief, and does the +deed for mammon-sake; but the new house-keeper, lately installed, made +her deposition, that, by inventories duly kept and entered--for her +honoured predecessor, rest her soul! had been a pattern of +regularity--all Mrs. Quarles's goods and personal chattels were found to +be safe and right in her room--some silver spoons among them too--ay, +and a silver tea-pot; while, as to other property in the house, with +every room full of valuables, nothing whatever was missing from the +lists, except, indeed, what was scarce worth mention (unless one must be +very exact), sundry crocks and gallipots of honey, not forthcoming; +these, however, it appeared probable that Mrs. Quarles had herself +consumed in a certain mixture she nightly was accustomed too, of rum, +horehound, and other matters sweetened up with honey, for her +hoarseness. It seemed therefore clear she was not murdered for her +property, nor by any one intending to have robbed the house. + +Against this it was contended, and really with some show of reason, that +as Mrs. Quarles was thought to have a hoard, always set her face against +banks, railway shares, speculations, and investments, and seemed to have +left nothing behind her but her clothes and so forth, it was still +possible that the murderer who took the life, might have also been the +thief to take the money. + +Fifthly, Simon Jennings--butler in doors, bailiff out of doors, and +general factotum every where to the Vincent interest--for he had managed +to monopolize every place worth having, from the agent's book to the +cellar-man's key--the said Simon deposed, that on the night in question, +he heard the house-dog barking furiously, and went out to quiet him; but +found no thieves, nor knew any reason why the dog should have barked so +much. + +Now, the awkward matter in this deposition (if Mr. Jennings had not been +entirely above suspicion--the idea was quite absurd--not to mention that +he was nephew to the deceased, a great favourite with her, and a man +altogether of the very strictest character), the awkward matters were +these: the nearest way out to the dog, indeed the only way but casement +windows on that side of the house, was through Mrs. Quarles's room: she +had had the dog placed there for her special safety, as she slept on the +ground floor; and it was not to be thought that Mr. Jennings could do so +incorrect a thing as to pass through her room after bed-time, locked or +unlocked--indeed, when the question was delicately hinted to him, he was +quite shocked at it--quite shocked. But if he did not go that way, which +way did he go? He deposed, indeed, and his testimony was no ways to be +doubted, that he went through the front door, and so round; which, under +the circumstances, was at once a very brave and a very foolish thing to +do; for it is, first, little wisdom to go round two sides of a square to +quiet a dog, when one might have easily called to him from the +men-servants' window; and secondly, albeit Mr. Jennings was a strict +man, an upright man, shrewd withal, and calculating, no one had ever +thought him capable of that Roman virtue, courage. Still, he had +reluctantly confessed to this one heroic act, and it was a bold one, so +let him take the credit of it--mainly because-- + +Sixthly, Jonathan Floyd, footman, after having heard the dog bark at +intervals, surely for more than a couple of hours, thought he might as +well turn out of his snug berth for a minute, just to see what ailed +the dog, or how many thieves were really breaking in. Well, as he +looked, he fancied he saw a boat moving on the lake, but as there was no +moon, he might have been mistaken. + +_By a Juryman._ It might be a punt. + +_By another._ He did'nt know how many boats there were on the +lake-side: they had a boat-house at the Hall, by the water's edge, and +therefore he concluded something in it; really did'nt know; might be a +boat, might be a punt, might be both--or neither. + +_By the Coroner._ Could not swear which way it was moving; and, really, +if put upon his Bible oath, wouldn't be positive about a boat at all, it +was so dark, and he was so sleepy. + +Not long afterwards, as the dog got still more violent, he turned his +eyes from straining after shadows on the lake, to look at home, and then +all at once noticed Mr. Jennings trying to quiet the noisy animal with +the usual blandishments of "Good dog, good dog--quiet, Don, quiet--down, +good dog--down, Don, down!" + +_By a Juryman._ He would swear to the words. + +But Don would not hear of being quiet. After that, knowing all must be +right if Mr. Jennings was about, he (deponent) turned in again, went to +sleep, and thought no more of it till he heard of Mrs. Quarles's death +in the morning. If he may be so bold as to speak his mind, he thinks the +house-keeper, being fat, died o' the 'plexy in a nateral way, and that +the dog barking so, just as she was a-going off, is proof positive of +it. He'd often heard of dogs doing so; they saw the sperit gliding away, +and barked at it; his (deponent's) own grandmother-- + +At this juncture--for the court was getting fidgetty--the coroner cut +short the opinions of Jonathan Floyd: and when Mr. Crown, summing up, +presented in one focus all this evidence to the misty minds of the +assembled jurymen, it puzzled them entirely; they could not see their +way, fairly addled, did not know at all what to make of it. On the +threshold, there was no proof it was a murder--the Union doctor was loud +and staunch on this; and next, there seemed to be no motive for the +deed, and no one to suspect of it: so they left the matter open, found +her simply "Dead," and troubled their heads no more about the business. + +Good Mr. Evans, the vicar, preached her funeral sermon, only as last +Sunday, amplifying the idea that she "was cut off in the midst of her +days:" and thereby encouraging many of the simpler folks, who knew that +Mrs. Quarles had long passed seventy, in the luminous notion that +house-keepers in great establishments are privileged, among other +undoubted perquisites, to live to a hundred and forty, unless cut off by +apoplexy or murder. + +Mr. Simon Jennings, as nephew and next of kin, followed the body to its +last home in the capacity of chief mourner; to do him justice, he was a +real mourner, bewailed her loudly, and had never been the same man +since. Moreover, although aforetime not much given to indiscriminate +charity, he had now gained no small credit by distributing his aunt's +wardrobe among the poorer families at Hurstley. It was really very kind +of him, and the more so, as being altogether unexpected: he got great +praise for this, did Mr. Jennings; specially, too, because he had gained +nothing whatever from his aunt's death, though her heir and probable +legatee, and clearly was a disappointed man. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE BAILIFF; AND A BITTER TRIAL. + + +Jennings--Mr. Simon Jennings--for he prided himself much both +on the Mr. and the Simon, was an upright man, a very upright man indeed, +literally so as well as metaphorically. He was not tall certainly, but +what there was of him stood bolt upright. Many fancied that his neck was +possessed of some natural infirmity, or rather firmity, of +unbendableness, some little-to-be-envied property of being a perpetual +stiff-neck; and they were the more countenanced in this theory, from the +fact that, within a few days past, Mr. Jennings had contracted an ugly +knack of carrying his erect head in the comfortless position of peeping +over his left shoulder; not always so, indeed, but often enough to be +remarkable; and then he would occasionally start it straight again, eyes +right, with a nervous twitch, any thing but pleasant to the marvelling +spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some +vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr. +Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to +wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an enterprising practitioner, glib +in theory, and bold in practice--and it had been mutually agreed between +them that "stomach" was the cause of these unhandsome symptoms; acridity +of the gastric juice, consequent indigestion and spasm, and generally a +hypochondriacal habit of body. Mr. Jennings must take certain draughts +thrice a day, be very careful of his diet, and keep his mind at ease. As +to Simon himself, he was, poor man, much to be pitied in this ideal +visitation; for, though his looks confessed that he saw, or fancied he +saw, a something, he declared himself wholly at a loss to explain what +that something was: moreover, contrary to former habits of an +ostentatious boldness, he seemed meekly to shrink from observation: and, +as he piously acquiesced in the annoyance, would observe that his +unpleasant jerking was "a little matter after all, and that, no doubt, +the will of Providence." + +Independently of these new grimaces, Simon's appearance was little in +his favour: not that his small dimensions signified--Cæsar, and +Buonaparte, and Wellington, and Nelson, all were little men--not that +his dress was other than respectable--black coat and waistcoat, white +stiff cravat, gray trowsers somewhat shrunk in longitude, good +serviceable shoe-leather (of the shape, if not also of the size, of +river barges), and plenty of unbleached cotton stocking about the +gnarled region of his ankles. All this was well enough; nature was +beholden to that charity of art which hides a multitude of failings; but +the face, where native man looks forth in all his unadornment, that it +was which so seldom pre-possessed the many who had never heard of +Jenning's strict character and stern integrity. The face was a sallow +face, peaked towards the nose, with head and chin receding; lit withal +by small protrusive eyes, so constructed, that the whites all round were +generally visible, giving them a strange and staring look; elevated +eye-brows; not an inch of whisker, but all shaved sore right up to the +large and prominent ear; and lank black, hair, not much of it, scantily +thatching all smooth. Then his arms, oscillating as he walked (as if the +pendulum by which that rigid man was made to go his regular routine), +were much too long for symmetry: and altogether, to casual view, Mr. +Jennings must acknowledge to a supercilious, yet sneaking air--which +charity has ere now been kind enough to think a conscious rectitude +towards man, and a soft-going humility with God. + +When the bailiff takes his round about the property, as we see him now, +he is mounted--to say he rides would convey far too equestrian a +notion--he is mounted on a rough-coated, quiet, old, white +shooting-pony; the saddle strangely girded on with many bands about the +belly, the stirrups astonishingly short, and straps never called upon to +diminish that long whity-brown interval between shoe and trowser: Mr. +Jennings sits his steed with nose aloft, and a high perch in the +general, somewhat loosely, and, had the pony been a Bucephalus rather +than a Rozinante, not a little perilously. Simon is jogging hitherwards +toward Roger Acton, as he digs the land-drain across this marshy meadow: +let us see how it fares now with our poor hero. + +Occupation--yes, duteous occupation--has exerted its wholsesome +influences, and, thank God! Roger is himself again. He has been very +sorry half the day, both for the wicked feelings of the morning, and +that still more wicked theft--a bad business altogether, he cannot bear +to think of it; the gold was none of his, whosesoever it might be--he +ought not to have touched it--vexed he did, but cannot help it now; it +is well he lost it too, for ill-got money never came to any good: +though, to be sure, if he could only get it honestly, money would make a +man of him. + +I am not sure of that, Roger, it may be so sometimes; but, in my +judgment, money has unmade more men than made them. + +"How now, Acton, is not this drain dug yet! You have been about it much +too long, sir; I shall fine you for this." + +"Please you, Muster Jennings, I've stuck to it pretty tightly too, +barring that I make to-day three-quarters, being late: but it's heavy +clay, you see, Mr. Simon--wet above and iron-hard below: it shall all be +ready by to-morrow, Mr. Simon." + +Whether the "Mr. Simon" had its softening influence, or any other +considerations lent their soothing aid, we shall see presently; for the +bailiff added, in a tone unusually indulgent, + +"Well, Roger, see it is done, and well done; and now I have just another +word to say to you: his honour is coming round this way, and if he asks +you any questions, remember to be sure and tell him this--you have got a +comfortable cottage, very comfortable, just repaired, you want for +nothing, and are earning twelve shillings a week." + +"God help me, Muster Jennings: why my wages are but eight, and my hovel +scarcely better than a pig-pound." + +"Look you, Acton; tell Sir John what you have told me, and you are a +ruined man. Make it twelve to his honour, as others shall do: who +knows," he added, half-coaxing, half-soliloquizing, "perhaps his honour +may really make it twelve, instead of eight." + +"Oh, Muster Jennings! and who gets the odd four?" + +"What, man! do you dare to ask me that? Remember, sir, at your peril, +that you, and all the rest, _have had_ twelve shillings a-week wages +whenever you have worked on this estate--not a word!--and that, if you +dare speak or even think to the contrary, you never earn a penny here +again. But here comes John Vincent, my master, as I, Simon Jennings, am +yours: be careful what you say to him." + +Sir John Devereux Vincent, after a long minority, had at length shaken +off his guardians, and become master of his own doings, and of Hurstley +Hall. The property was in pretty decent order, and funds had accumulated +vastly: all this notwithstanding a thousand peculations, and the +suspicious incident that one of the guardians was a "highly respectable" +solicitor. Sir John, like most new brooms, had with the best intentions +resolved upon sweeping measures of great good; especially also upon +doing a great deal with his own eyes and ears; but, like as aforesaid, +he was permitted neither to hear nor see any truths at all. Just now, +the usual night's work took him a little off the hooks, and we must make +allowances; really, too, he was by far the soberest of all those choice +spirits, and drank and played as little as he could; and even, under +existing disadvantages, he managed by four o'clock post meridiem to +inspect a certain portion of the estate duly every day, under the +prudential guidance of his bailiff Jennings. There, that good-looking, +tall young fellow on the blood mare just cantering up to us is Sir John; +the other two are a couple of the gallant youths now feasting at the +Hall: ay, two of the fiercest foes in last night's broil. Those heated +little matters are easily got over. + +"Hollo, Jennings! what the devil made you give that start? you couldn't +look more horrified if ghosts were at your elbow: why, your face is the +picture of death; look another way, man, do, or my mare will bolt." + +"I beg your pardon, Sir John, but the spasm took me: it is my infirmity; +forgive it. This meadow, you perceive, Sir John, requires drainage, and +afterwards I propose to dress it with free chalk to sweeten the grass. +Next field, you will take notice, the guano--" + +"Well, well--Jennings--and that poor fellow there up to his knees in +mud, is he pretty tolerably off now?" + +"Oh, your honour," said the bailiff, with a knowing look, "I only wish +that half the little farmers hereabouts were as well to do as he is: a +pretty cottage, Sir John, half an acre of garden, and twelve shillings a +week, is pretty middling for a single man." + +"Aha--is it?--well; but the poor devil looks wretched enough too--I will +just ask him if he wants any thing now." + +"Don't, Sir John, pray don't; pray permit me to advise your honour: +these men are always wanting. 'Acton's cottage' is a proverb; and Roger +there can want for nothing honestly; nevertheless, as I know your +honour's good heart, and wish to make all happy, if you will suffer me +to see to it myself--" + +"Certainly, Jennings, do, do by all means, and thank you: here, just to +make a beginning, as we're all so jolly at the Hall, and that poor +fellow's up to his neck in mud, give him this from me to drink my health +with." + +Acton, who had dutifully held aloof, and kept on digging steadily, was +still quite near enough to hear all this; at the magical word "give," he +looked up hurriedly, and saw Sir John Vincent toss a piece of gold--yes, +on his dying oath, a bright new sovereign--to Simon Jennings. O blessed +vision, and gold was to be his at last! + +"Come along, Mynton; Hunt, now mind you try and lame that big beast of a +raw-boned charger among these gutters, will you? I'm off, Jennings; meet +me, do you hear, at the Croft to-mor--" + +So the three friends galloped away; and John Vincent really felt more +light-hearted and happy than at any time the week past, for having so +properly got rid of a welcome bit of gold. + +"Roger Acton! come up here, sir, out of that ditch: his honour has been +liberal enough to give you a shilling to drink his health with." + +"A shilling, Muster Jennings?" said the poor astonished man; "why I'll +make oath it was a pound; I saw it myself. Come, Muster Jennings, don't +break jokes upon a poor man's back." + +"Jokes, Acton? sticks, sir, if you say another word: take John Vincent's +shilling." + +"Oh, sir!" cried Roger, quite unmanned at this most cruel +disappointment; "be merciful--be generous--give me my gold, my own bit +of gold! I'll swear his honour gave it for me: blessings on his head! +You know he did, Mr. Simon; don't play upon me!" + +"Play upon you?--generous--your gold--what is it you mean, man? We'll +have no madmen about us, I can tell you; take the shilling, or else--" + +"'Rob not the poor, because he is poor, for the Lord shall plead his +cause,'" was the solemn answer. + +"Roger Acton!"--the bailiff gave a scared start, as usual, and, +recovering himself, looked both white and stern: "you have dared to +quote the Bible against me: deeply shall you rue it. Begone, man! your +work on this estate is at an end." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +WRONGS AND RUIN. + + +A very miserable man was Roger Acton now, for this last trial +was the worst of all. The vapours of his discontent had almost passed +away--that bright pernicious dream was being rapidly forgotten--the +morning's ill-got coin, "thank the Lord, it was lost as soon as found," +and penitence had washed away that blot upon his soul; but here, an +honest pound, liberally bestowed by his hereditary landlord--his own +bright bit of gold--the only bit but one he ever had (and how different +in innocence from that one!)--a seeming sugar-drop of kindness, shed by +the rich heavens on his cup of poverty--to have this meanly filched away +by a grasping, grinding task-master--oh, was it not a bitter trial? What +affliction as to this world's wealth can a man meet worse than this? + +Acton's first impulse was to run to the Hall, and ask to see Sir +John:--"Out; won't be back till seven, and then can see nobody; the +baronet will be dressing for dinner, and musn't be disturbed." Then he +made a vain effort to speak with Mr. Jennings, and plead with him: yes, +even on his knees, if must be. Mr. Simon could not be so bad; perhaps it +was a long joke after all--the bailiff always had a queer way with him. +Or, if indeed the man meant robbery, loudly to threaten him, that all +might hear, to bring the house about his ears, and force justice, if he +could not fawn it. But both these conflicting expedients were vetoed. +Jonathan Floyd, who took in Acton's meek message of "humbly craved leave +to speak with Master Jennings," came back with the inexplicable mandate, +"Warn Roger Acton from the premises." So, he must needs bide till +to-morrow morning, when, come what might, he resolved to see his honour, +and set some truths before him. + +Acton was not the only man on the estate who knew that he had a +landlord, generous, not to say prodigal--a warm-hearted, +well-intentioned master, whose mere youth a career of sensuality had not +yet hardened, nor a course of dissipation been prolonged enough to +distort his feelings from the right. And Acton, moreover, was not the +only man who wondered how, with such a landlord (ay, and the guardians +before him were always well-spoken gentle-folks, kindly in their +manners, and liberal in their looks), wages could be kept so low, and +rents so high, and indulgences so few, and penalties so many. There +were fines for every thing, and no allowances of hedgebote, or +housebote, or any other time-honoured right; the very peat on the common +must be paid for, and if a child picked a bit of fagot the father was +mulcted in a shilling. Mr. Jennings did all this, and always pleaded his +employers' orders; nay, if any grumbled, as men would now and then, he +would affect to think it strange that the gentlemen guardians, with the +landlord at their head, could be so hard upon the poor: he would not be +so, credit him, if he had been born a gentleman; but the bailiff, men, +must obey orders, like the rest of you; these are hard times for +Hurstley, he would say, and we must all rub over them as best we can. +According to Simon, it was as much as his own place was worth to remit +one single penny of a fine, or make the least indulgence for calamity; +while, as to lowering a cotter's rent, or raising a ditcher's wages, he +dared not do it for his life; folks must not blame him, but look to the +landlord. + +Now, all this, in the long absence of any definite resident master at +the Hall, sounded reasonable, if true; and Mr. Jennings punctually paid, +however bad the terms; so the poor men bode their time, and looked for +better days. And the days long-looked-for now were come; but were they +any better? The baronet, indeed, seemed bent upon inquiry, reform, +redress; but, as he never went without the right-hand man, his +endeavours were always unsuccessful. At first it would appear that the +bailiff had gone upon his old plan, shrugging up his shoulders to the +men at the master's meanness, while he praised to the landlord the +condition of his tenants; but this could not long deceive, so he turned +instanter on another tack; he assumed the despot, issuing authoritative +edicts, which no one dared to disobey; he made the labourer hide his +needs, and intercepted at its source the lord's benevolence; he began to +be found out, so the bolder spirits said, in filching with both hands +from man and master; and, to the mind of more than one shrewd observer, +was playing the unjust steward to admiration. + +But stop: let us hear the other side; it is possible we may have been +mistaken. Bailiffs are never popular, particularly if they are too +honest, and this one is a stern man with a repulsive manner. Who knows +whether his advice to Acton may not have been wise and kind, and would +not have conduced to a general rise of wages? Who can prove, nay, +venture to insinuate, any such systematic roguery against a man hitherto +so strict, so punctual, so sanctimonious? Even in the case of Sir John's +golden gift, Jennings may be right after all; it is quite possible that +Roger was mistaken, and had gilt a piece of silver with his longings; +and the upright man might well take umbrage at so vile an imputation as +that hot and silly speech; it was foolish, very foolish, to have quoted +text against him, and no wonder that the labourer got dismissed for it. +Then again to return to wages--who knows? it might be, all things +considered, the only way of managing a rise; the bailiff must know his +master's mind best, and Acton had been wise to have done as he bade him; +perhaps it really was well-meant, and might have got him twelve +shillings a-week, instead of eight as hitherto; perhaps Simon was a +shrewd man, and arranged it cleverly; perhaps Roger was an honest man, +and couldn't but think others so. + +Any how, though, all was lost now, and he blamed his own rash tongue, +poor fellow, for what he could not help fearing was the ruin of himself +and all he loved. With a melancholy heart, he shouldered his spade, and +slowly plodded homewards. How long should he have a home? How was he to +get bread, to get work, if the bailiff was his enemy? How could he face +his wife, and tell her all the foolish past and dreadful future? How +could he bear to look on Grace, too beautiful Grace, and torture his +heart by fancying her fate? Thomas, too, his own brave boy, whom utter +poverty might drive to desperation? And the poor babes, his little +playful pets, what on earth would become of them? There was the Union +workhouse to be sure, but Acton shuddered at the thought; to be +separated from every thing he loved, to give up his little all, and be +made both a prisoner and a slave, all for the sake of what?--daily +water-gruel, and a pauper's branded livery. Or they might perchance go +beyond the seas, if some Prince Edward's Company would help him and his +to emigrate; ay, thought he, and run new risks, encounter fresh dangers, +lose every thing, get nothing, and all the trouble taken merely to +starve three thousand miles from home. No, no; at his time of life, he +could not be leaving for ever old friends, old habits, old fields, old +home, old neighbourhood--where he had seen the saplings grow up trees, +and the quick toppings change into a ten-foot hedge; where the very +cattle knew his step, and the clods broke kindly to his ploughshare; and +more than all, the dear old church, where his forefathers had worshipped +from the Conquest, and the old mounds where they slept, +and--and--and--that one precious grave of his dear lost Annie--could he +leave it? Oh God, no! he had done no ill, he had committed no crime--why +should he prefer the convict's doom, and seek to be transported for +life? + +A miserable walk home was that, and full of wretched thoughts. Poor +Roger Acton, tossed by much trouble, vexed with sore oppression, I wish +that you had prayed in your distress; stop, he did pray, and that +vehemently; but it was not for help, or guidance, or patience, or +consolation--he only prayed for gold. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE COVETOUS DREAM. + + +Once at home, the sad truth soon was told. Roger's look alone +spoke of some calamity, and he had but little heart or hope to keep the +matter secret. True, he said not a word about the early morning's sin; +why should he? he had been punished for it, and he had repented; let him +be humbled before God, but not confess to man. However, all about the +bailiff, and the landlord, and the thieved gift, and the sudden +dismissal, the sure ruin, the dismal wayside plans, and fears, and dark +alternatives, without one hope in any--these did poor Acton fluently +pour forth with broken-hearted eloquence; to these Grace listened +sorrowfully, with a face full of gentle trust in God's blessing on the +morrow's interview; these Mary, the wife, heard to an end, with--no +storm of execration on ill-fortune, no ebullition of unjust rage against +a fool of a husband, no vexing sneers, no selfish apprehensions. Far +from it; there really was one unlooked-for blessing come already to +console poor Roger; and no little compensation for his trouble was the +way his wife received the news. He, unlucky man, had expected something +little short of a virago's talons, and a beldame's curse; he had +experienced on less occasions something of the sort before; but now that +real affliction stood upon the hearth, Mary Acton's character rose with +the emergency, and she greeted her ruined husband with a kindness +towards him, a solemn indignation against those who grind the poor, and +a sober courage to confront evil, which he little had imagined. + +"Bear up, Roger; here, goodman, take the child, and don't look quite so +downcast; come what may, I'll share your cares, and you shall halve my +pleasures; we will fight it out together." + +Moreover, cross, and fidgetty, and scolding, as Mary had been ever +heretofore, to her meek step-daughter Grace, all at once, as if just to +disappoint any preconcerted theory, now that actual calamity was come, +she turned to be a kind good mother to her. Roger and his daughter could +scarcely believe their ears. + +"Grace, dear, I know you're a sensible good girl, try and cheer your +father." And then the step-dame added, + +"There now, just run up, fetch your prayer-book down, and read a little +to us all to do us good."--The fair, affectionate girl, unused to the +accents of kindness, could not forbear flinging her arms round Mary +Acton's neck, and loving her, as Ruth loved Naomi. + +Then with a heavenly smile upon her face, and a happy heart within her +to keep the smile alight, her gentle voice read these words--it will do +us good to read them too: + + "Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. + O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. + If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, + O Lord, who may abide it? + Because there is mercy with thee; therefore shall thou be feared. + I look for the Lord, my soul doth wait for him: in his word is my trust. + My soul fleeth unto the Lord, before the morning watch, + before the morning watch. + O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy: + and with him is plenteous redemption. + And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins." + +"Isn't the last word 'troubles,' child? look again; I think it's +'troubles' either there, or leastways in the Bible-psalm." + +"No, father, sins, 'from all his sins;' and 'iniquities' in the +Bible-version--look, father." + +"Well, girl, well; I wish it had been 'troubles;' 'from all his +troubles' is a better thought to my mind: God wot, I have plenty on 'em, +and a little lot of gold would save us from them all." + +"Gold, father? no, my father--God." + +"I tell you, child," said Roger, ever vacillating in his strong +temptation between habitual religion and the new-caught lust of money, +"if only on a sudden I could get gold by hook or by crook, all my cares +and all your troubles would be over on the instant." + +"Oh, dear father, do not hope so; and do not think of troubles more than +sins; there is no deliverance in Mammon; riches profit not in the day of +evil, and ill-got wealth tends to worse than poverty." + +"Well, any how, I only wish that dream of mine came true." + +"Dream, goodman--what dream?" said his wife. + +"Why, Poll, I dreamt I was a-working in my garden, hard by the celery +trenches in the sedge; and I was moaning at my lot, as well I may: and a +sort of angel came to me, only he looked dark and sorrowful, and kindly +said, 'What would you have, Roger?' I, nothing fearful in my dream, for +all the strangeness of his winged presence, answered boldly, 'Money;' he +pointed with his finger, laughed aloud, and vanished away: and, as for +me, I thought a minute wonderingly, turned to look where he had pointed, +and, O the blessing! found a crock of gold!" + +"Hush, father! that dark angel was the devil; he has dropt ill thoughts +upon your heart: I would I could see you as you used to be, dear father, +till within these two days." + +"Whoever he were, if he brought me gold, he would bring me blessing. +There's meat and drink, and warmth and shelter, in the yellow gold--ay, +and rest from labour, child, and a power of rare good gifts." + +"If God had made them good, and the gold were honest gains, still, +father, even so, you forget righteousness, and happiness, and wisdom. +Money gives us none of these, but it might take them all away: dear +father, let your loving Grace ask you, have you been better, happier, +wiser, even from the wishing it so much?" + +"Daughter, daughter, I tell you plainly, he that gives me gold, gives me +all things: I wish I found the crock the de--the angel, I mean, brought +me." + +"O father," murmured Grace, "do not breathe the wicked wish; even if you +found it without any evil angel's help, would the gold be rightfully +your own?" + +"Tush, girl!" said her mother; "get the gold, feed the children, and +then to think about the right." + +"Ay, Grace, first drive away the toils and troubles of this life," added +Roger, "and then one may try with a free mind to discover the comforts +of religion." + +Poor Grace only looked up mournfully, and answered nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE POACHER. + + +A sudden knock at the door here startled the whole party, and +Mary Acton, bustling up, drew the bolt to let in--first, a lurcher, one +Rover to wit, our gaunt ember-loving friend of Chapter II.; secondly, +Thomas Acton, full flush, who carried the old musket on his shoulder, +and seemed to have something else under his smock; and thirdly, Ben +Burke, a personage of no small consequence to us, and who therefore +deserves some specific introduction. + +Big Ben, otherwise Black Burke, according to the friendship or the +enmity of those who named him, was a huge, rough, loud, good-humoured, +dare-devil sort of an individual, who lived upon what he considered +common rights. His dress was of the mongrel character, a well-imagined +cross between a ploughman's and a sailor's; the bottle-green frock of +the former, pattern-stitched about the neck as ingeniously as if a tribe +of Wisconsin squaws had tailored it--and mighty fishing boots, vast as +any French postillion's, acting as a triton's tail to symbolize the +latter: a red cotton handkerchief (dirty-red of course, as all things +else were dirty, for cleanliness had little part in Ben), occupied just +now the more native region of a halter; and a rusty fur cap crowned the +poacher; I repeat it--crowned the poacher; for in his own estimation, +and that of many others too, Ben was, if not quite an emperor, at least +an Agamemnon, a king of men, a natural human monarch; in truth, he felt +as much pride in the title Burke the Poacher (and with as great justice +too, for aught I know), as Ali-Hamet-Ghee-the-Thug eastwards, or +William-of-Normandy-the-Conqueror westwards, may be thought respectively +to have cherished, on the score of their murderous and thievish +surnames. + +There was no small good, after all, in poor Ben; and a mountain of +allowance must be flung into the scales to counterbalance his +deficiencies. However coarse, and even profane, in his talk (I hope the +gentle reader will excuse me alike for eliding a few elegant extracts +from his common conversation, and also for reminding him +characteristically, now and then, that Ben's language is not entirely +Addisonian), however rough of tongue and dissonant in voice, Ben's heart +will be found much about in the right place; nay, I verily believe it +has more of natural justice, human kindness, and right sympathies in +it, than are to be found in many of those hard and hollow cones that +beat beneath the twenty-guinea waistcoats of a Burghardt or a +Buckmaster. Ay, give me the fluttering inhabitant of Ben Burke's cowskin +vest; it is worth a thousand of those stuffed and artificial denizens, +whose usual nest is figured satin and cut velvet. + +Ben stole--true--he did not deny it; but he stole naught but what he +fancied was wrongfully withheld him: and, if he took from the rich, who +scarcely knew he robbed them, he shared his savoury booty with the poor, +and fed them by his daring. Like Robin Hood of old, he avenged himself +on wanton wealth, and frequently redressed by it the wrongs of penury. +Not that I intend to break a lance for either of them, nor to go any +lengths in excusing; slight extenuation is the limit for prudent +advocacy in these cases. Robin Hood and Benjamin Burke were both of them +thieves; bold men--bad men, if any will insist upon the bad; they sinned +against law, and order, and Providence; they dug rudely at the roots of +social institutions; they spoke and acted in a dangerous fashion about +rights of men and community of things. But set aside the statutes of +Foresting and Venery, disfranchise pheasants, let it be a cogent thing +that poverty and riches approach the golden mean somewhat less +unequally, and we shall not find much of criminality, either in Ben or +Robin. + +For a general idea, then, of our poaching friend:--he is a gigantic, +black-whiskered, humorous, ruddy mortal, full of strange oaths, which we +really must not print, and bearded like the pard, and he tumbles in +amongst our humble family party, with-- + +"Bless your honest heart, Roger! what makes you look so sodden? I'm a +lord, if your eyes a'n't as red as a hedge-hog's; and all the rest o' +you, too; why, you seem to be pretty well merry as mutes. Ha! I see what +it is," added Ben, pouring forth a benediction on their frugal supper; +"it's that precious belly-ache porridge that's a-giving you all the +'flensy. Tip it down the sink, dame, will you now? and trust to me for +better. Your Tom here, Roger, 's a lad o' mettle, that he is; ay, and +that old iron o' yours as true as a compass; and the pheasants would +come to it, all the same as if they'd been loadstoned. Here, dame, pluck +the fowl, will you: drop 'em, Tom."--And Thomas Acton flung upon the +table a couple of fine cock-pheasants. + +Roger, Mary, and Grace, who were well accustomed to Ben Burke's eloquent +tirades, heard the end of this one with anxiety and silence; for Tom +had never done the like before. Grace was first to expostulate, but was +at once cut short by an oath from her brother, whose evident state of +high excitement could not brook the semblance of reproof. Mary Acton's +marketing glance was abstractedly fixed upon the actual _corpus +delicti_; each fine plump bird, full-plumaged, young-spurred; yes, they +were still warm, and would eat tender, so she mechanically began to +pluck them; while, as for poor downcast Roger, he remembered, with a +conscience-sting that almost made him start, his stolen bit of money in +the morning--so, how could he condemn? He only looked pityingly on +Thomas, and sighed from the bottom of his heart. + +"Why, what's the matter now?" roared Ben; "one 'ud think we was bailiffs +come to raise the rent, 'stead of son Tom and friendly Ben; hang it, +mun, we aint here to cheat you out o' summut--no, not out o' peace o' +mind neither; so, if you don't like luck, burn the fowls, or bury 'em, +and let brave Tom risk limbo for nothing." + +"Oh, Ben!" murmured Grace, "why will you lead him astray? Oh, brother! +brother! what have you done?" she said, sorrowfully. + +"Miss Grace,"--her beauty always awed the poacher, and his rugged +Caliban spirit bowed in reverence before her Ariel soul--"I wish I was +as good as you, but can't be: don't condemn us, Grace; leastways, first +hear me, and then say where's the harm or sin on it. Twelve hundred head +o' game--I heard John Gorse, the keeper, tell it at the Jerry--twelve +hundred head were shot at t'other day's battew: Sir John--no blame to +him for it--killed a couple o' hundred to his own gun: and though they +sent away a coachful, and gave to all who asked, and feasted themselves +chuckfull, and fed the cats, and all, still a mound, like a haycock, o' +them fine fat fowl, rotted in a mass, and were flung upon the dungpit. +Now, Miss Grace, that ere salt pea-porridge a'n't nice, a'n't wholesome; +and, bless your pretty mouth, it ought to feed more sweetly. Look at +Acton, isn't he half-starved. Is Tom, brave boy, full o' the fat o' the +land? Who made fowl, I should like to know, and us to eat 'em? And +where's the harm or sin in bringing down a bird? No, Miss, them ere +beaks, dammem (beg humble pardon, Miss, indeed I won't again) them ere +justices, as they call themselves, makes hard laws to hedge about their +own pleasures; and if the poor man starves, he starves; but if he stays +his hunger with the free, wild birds of heaven, they prison him and +punish him, and call him poacher." + +"Ben, those who make the laws, do so under God's permission; and they +who break man's law, break His law." + +"Nonsense, child,"--suddenly said Roger; "hold your silly tongue. Do +you mean to tell us, God's law and man's law are the same thing! No, +Grace, I can't stomach that; God makes right, and man makes +might--riches go one way, and poor men's wrong's another. Money, money's +the great law-maker, and a full purse frees him that has it, while it +turns the jailor's key on the wretch that has it not: one of those +wretches is the hopeless Roger Acton. Well, well," he added, after a +despondent sigh, "say no more about it all; that's right, +good-wife--why, they do look plump. And if I can't stomach Grace's +text-talk there, I'm sure I can the birds; for I know what keeps crying +cupboard lustily." + +It was a faint effort to be gay, and it only showed his gloom the +denser. Truly, he has quite enough to make him sad; but this is an +unhealthy sadness: the mists of mammon-worship, rising up, meet in the +mid æther of his mind, these lowering clouds of discontent: and the +seeming calamity, that should be but a trial to his faith, looks too +likely to wreck it. + +So, then, the embers were raked up, the trivet stuck a-top, the savoury +broil made ready; and (all but Grace, who would not taste a morsel, but +went up straight to bed) never had the Actons yet sate down before so +rich a supper. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +BEN BURKE'S STRANGE ADVENTURE. + + +"Take a pull, Roger, and pass the flask," was the cordial +prescription of Ben Burke, intended to cure a dead silence, generated +equally of eager appetites and self-accusing consciences; so saying, he +produced a quart wicker-bottle, which enshrined, according to his +testimony, "summut short, the right stuff, stinging strong, that had +never seen the face of a wishy-washy 'ciseman." But Roger touched it +sparingly, for the vaunted nectar positively burnt his swallow: till +Ben, pulling at it heartily himself, by way of giving moral precept the +full benefit of a good example, taught Roger not to be afraid of it, and +so the flask was drained. + +Under such communicative influence, Acton's tale of sorrows and +oppressions, we may readily believe, was soon made known; and as +readily, that it moved Ben's indignant and gigantic sympathies to an +extent of imprecation on the eyes, timbers, and psychological existence +of Mr. Jennings, very little edifying. One thing, however, made amends +for the license of his tongue; the evident sincerity and warmth with +which his coarse but kindly nature proffered instant aid, both offensive +and defensive. + +"It's a black and burning shame, Honest Roger, and right shall have his +own, somehow, while Big Ben has a heart in the old place, and a hand to +help his friend." And the poacher having dealt his own broad breast a +blow that would have knocked a tailor down, stretched out to Acton the +huge hand that had inflicted it. + +"More than that, Roger--hark to this, man!" and, as he slapped his +breeches pocket, there was the chink as of a mine of money shaken to its +foundations: "hark to this, man! and more than hark, have! Here, good +wife, hold your apron!" And he flung into her lap a handful of silver. + +Roger gave a sudden shout of wonder, joy, and avarice: and then as +instantaneously turning very pale, he slowly muttered, "Hush, Ben! is it +bloody money?" and almost shrieked as he added, "and my poor boy Tom, +too, with you! God-a-mercy, mun! how came ye by it?" + +"Honestly, neighbour, leastways, middling honest: don't damp a good +fellow's heart, when he means to serve you." + +"Tell me only that my boy is innocent!--and the money--yes, yes, I'll +keep the money;" for his wife seemed to be pushing it from her at the +thought. + +"I innocent, father! I never know'd till this minute that Ben had any +blunt at all--did I, Ben?--and I only brought him and Rover here to sup, +because I thought it neighbourly and kind-like." + +Poor Tom had till now been very silent: some how the pheasants lay heavy +on his stomach. + +"Is it true, Ben, is it true? the lad isn't a thief, the lad isn't a +murderer? Oh, God! Burke, tell me the truth! + +"Blockhead!" was the courteous reply, "what, not believe your own son? +Why, neighbour Acton, look at the boy: would that frank-faced, +open-hearted fellow do worse, think you, than Black Burke? And would I, +bad as I be, turn the bloody villain to take a man's life? No, +neighbour; Ben kills game, not keepers: he sets his wire for a hare, but +wouldn't go to pick a dead man's pocket. All that's wrong in me, mun, +the game-laws put there; but I'm neither burglar, murderer, +highwayman--no, nor a mean, sneaking thief; however the quality may +think so, and even wish to drive me to it. Neither, being as I be no +rogue, could I bear to live a fool; but I should be one, neighbour, and +dub myself one too, if I didn't stoop to pick up money that a madman +flings away." + +"Madman? pick up money? tell us how it was, Ben," interposed female +curiosity. + +"Well, neighbours, listen: I was a-setting my night-lines round Pike +Island yonder, more nor a fortnight back; it was a dark night and a +mizzling, or morning rather, 'twixt three and four; by the same token, +I'd caught a power of eels. All at once, while I was fixing a trimmer, a +punt came quietly up: as for me, Roger, you know I always wades it +through the muddy shallow: well, I listens, and a chap creeps ashore--a +mad chap, with never a tile to his head, nor a sole to his feet--and +when I sings out to ax him his business, the lunatic sprung at me like a +tiger: I didn't wish to hurt a little weak wretch like him, specially +being past all sense, poor nat'ral! so I shook him off at once, and held +him straight out in this here wice." [Ben's grasp could have cracked any +cocoa-nut.] "He trembled like a wicked thing; and when I peered close +into his face, blow me but I thought I'd hooked a white devil--no one +ever see such a face: it was horrible too look at. 'What are you arter, +mun?' says I; 'burying a dead babby?' says I. 'Give us hold here--I'm +bless'd if I don't see though what you've got buckled up there.' With +that, the little white fool--it's sartin he was mad--all on a sudden +flings at my head a precious hard bundle, gives a horrid howl, jumps +into the punt, and off again, afore I could wink twice. My head a'n't a +soft un, I suppose; but when a lunatic chap hurls at it with all his +might a barrow-load of crockery at once, it's little wonder that my +right eye flinched a minute, and that my right hand rubbed my right eye; +and so he freed himself, and got clear off. Rum start this, thinks I: +but any how he's flung away a summut, and means to give it me: what can +it be? thinks I. Well, neighbours, if I didn't know the chap was mad +afore, I was sartain of it now; what do you think of a grown man--little +enough, truly, but out of long coats too--sneaking by night to Pike +Island, to count out a little lot of silver, and to guzzle twelve +gallipots o' honey? There it was, all hashed up in an old shawl, a slimy +mesh like birdlime: no wonder my eye was a leetle blackish, when +half-a-dozen earthern crocks were broken against it. I was angered +enough, I tell you, to think any man could be such a fool as to bring +honey there to eat or to hide--when at once I spied summut red among +the mess; and what should it be but a pretty little China house, +red-brick-like, with a split in the roof for droppings, and ticketed +'Savings-bank:' the chink o' that bank you hears now: and the bank +itself is in the pond, now I've cleaned the till out." + +"Wonderful sure! But what did you do with the honey, Ben?--some of the +pots wasn't broke," urged notable Mrs. Acton. + +"Oh, burn the slimy stuff, I warn't going to put my mouth out o' taste +o' bacca, for a whole jawful of tooth-aches: I'll tell you, dame, what I +did with them ere crocks, wholes, and parts. There's never a stone on +Pike Island, it's too swampy, and I'd forgot to bring my pocketful, as +usual. The heaviest fish, look you, always lie among the sedge, +hereabouts and thereabouts, and needs stirring, as your Tom knows well; +so I chucked the gallipots fur from me, right and left, into the +shallows, and thereby druv the pike upon my hooks. A good night's work I +made of it too, say nothing of the Savings-bank; forty pound o' pike and +twelve of eel warn't bad pickings." + +"Dear, it was a pity though to fling away the honey; but what became of +the shawl, Ben?" Perhaps Mrs. Acton thought of looking for it. + +"Oh, as for that, I was minded to have sunk it, with its mess of +sweet-meats and potsherds; but a thought took me, dame, to be +'conomical for once: and I was half sorry too that I'd flung away the +jars, for I began to fancy your little uns might ha' liked the stuff; so +I dipped the clout like any washerwoman, rinshed, and squeezed, and +washed the mess away, and have worn it round my waist ever since; here, +dame, I haven't been this way for a while afore to-night; but I meant to +ask you if you'd like to have it; may be 'tan't the fashion though." + +"Good gracious, Ben! why that's Mrs. Quarles's shawl, I'd swear to it +among a hundred; Sarah Stack, at the Hall, once took and wore it, when +Mrs. Quarles was ill a-bed, and she and our Thomas walked to church +together. Yes--green, edged with red, and--I thought so--a yellow circle +in the middle; here's B.Q., for Bridget Quarles, in black cotton at the +corner. Lackapity! if they'd heard of all this at the Inquest! I tell +you what, Big Ben, it's kindly meant of you, and so thank you heartily, +but that shawl would bring us into trouble; so please take it yourself +to the Hall, and tell 'em fairly how you came by it." + +"I don't know about that Poll Acton; perhaps they might ask me for the +Saving-bank, too--eh, Roger!" + +"No, no, wife; no, it'll never do to lose the money! let a bygone be a +bygone, and don't disturb the old woman in her grave. As to the shawl, +if it's like to be a tell-tale, in my mind, this hearth's the safest +place for it." + +So he flung it on the fire; there was a shrivelling, smouldering, guilty +sort of blaze, and the shawl was burnt. + +Roger Acton, you are falling quickly as a shooting star; already is your +conscience warped to connive, for lucre's sake, at some one's secret +crimes. You had better, for the moral of the matter, have burnt your +right hand, as Scævola did, than that shawl. Beware! your sin will bring +its punishment. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +SLEEP. + + +Grace, in her humble truckle-bed, lay praying for her father; +not about his trouble, though that was much, but for the spots of sin +she could discern upon his soul. + +Alas! an altered man was Roger Acton; almost since morning light, the +leprosy had changed his very nature. The simple-minded Christian, +toiling in contentment for his daily bread, cheerful for the passing +day, and trustful for the coming morrow, this fair state was well-nigh +faded away; while a bitterness of feeling against (in one word) +GOD--against unequal partialities in providence, against things as they +exist; and this world's inexplicable government--was gnawing at his very +heart-strings, and cankering their roots by unbelief. It is a speedy +process--throw away faith with its trust for the past, love for the +present, hope for the future--and you throw away all that makes sorrow +bearable, or joy lovely; the best of us, if God withheld his help, would +apostatize like Peter, ere the cock crew thrice; and, at times, that +help has wisely been withheld, to check presumptuous thoughts, and teach +how true it is that the creature depends on the Creator. Just so we +suffer a wilful little child, who is tottering about in leading-strings, +to go alone for a minute, and have a gentle fall. And just so Roger +here, deserted for a time of those angelic ministrations whose +efficiency is proved by godliness and meekness, by patience and content, +is harassed in his spirit as by harpies, by selfishness and pride, and +fretful doublings; by a grudging hate of labour, and a fiery lust of +gold. Temptation comes to teach a weak man that he was fitted for his +station, and his station made for him; that fulfilment of his ignorant +desires will only make his case the worse, and that + + Providence alike is wise + In what he gives and what denies. + +Meanwhile, gentle Grace, on her humble truckle-bed, is full of prayers +and tears, uneasily listening to the indistinct and noisy talk, and +hearing, now and then, some louder oath of Ben's that made her shudder. +Yes, she heard, too, the smashing sound, when the poacher flung the +money down, and she feared it was a mug or a plate--no slight domestic +loss; and she heard her father's strange cry, when he gave that +wondering shout of joyous avarice, and she did not know what to fear. +Was he ill? or crazed! or worse--fallen into bad excesses? How she +prayed for him! + +Poor Ben, too, honest-hearted Ben; she thought of him in charity, and +pleaded for his good before the Throne of Mercy. Who knows but Heaven +heard that saintly virgin prayer? There is love in Heaven yet for poor +Ben Burke. + +And if she prayed for Ben, with what an agony of deep-felt intercession +did she plead for Thomas Acton, that own only brother of hers, just a +year the younger to endear him all the more, her playmate, care, and +charge, her friend and boisterous protector. The many sorrowing hours +she had spent for his sake, and the thousand generous actions he had +done for hers! Could she forget how the stripling fought for her that +day, when rude Joseph Green would help her over the style? Could she but +remember how slily he had put aside, for more than half a year, a little +heap of copper earnings--weeding-money, and errand-money, and +harvest-money--and then bounteously spent it all at once in giving her a +Bible on her birth-day? And when, coming across the fields with him +after leasing, years ago now, that fierce black bull of Squire Ryle's +was rushing down upon us both, how bravely did the noble boy attack him +with a stake, as he came up bellowing, and make the dreadful monster +turn away! Ah! I looked death in the face then, but for thee, my +brother! Remember him, my God, for good! + +"Poor father! poor father! Well, I am resolved upon one thing: I'll go, +with Heaven's blessing, to the Hall myself, and see Sir John, to-morrow; +he shall hear the truth, for"--And so Grace fell asleep. + +Roger, when he went to bed, came to similar conclusions. He would speak +up boldly, that he would, without fear or favour. Ben's most seasonable +bounty, however to be questioned on the point of right, made him feel +entirely independent, both of bailiffs and squires, and he had now no +anxieties, but rather hopes, about to-morrow. He was as good as they, +with money in his pocket; so he'd down to the Hall, and face the baronet +himself, and blow his bailiff out o' water: that should be his business +by noon. Another odd idea, too, possessed him, and he could not sleep at +night for thinking of it: it was a foolish fancy, but the dream might +have put it in his head: what if one or other of those honey-jars, so +flung here and there among the rushes, were in fact another sort of +"Savings-bank"--a crock of gold? It was a thrilling thought--his very +dream, too; and the lot of shillings, and the shawl--ay, and the +inquest, and the rumours how that Mrs. Quarles had come to her end +unfairly, and no hoards found--and--and the honey-pots missing. Ha! at +any rate he'd have a search to-morrow. No bugbear now should hinder him; +money's money; he'd ask no questions how it got there. His own bit of +garden lay the nearest to Pike Island, and who knows but Ben might have +slung a crock this way? It wouldn't do to ask him, though--for Burke +might look himself, and get the crock--was Roger's last and selfish +thought, before he fell asleep. + +As to Mrs. Acton, she, poor woman, had her own thoughts, fearful ones, +about that shawl, and Ben's mysterious adventure. No cloudy love of +mammon had overspread her mind, to hide from it the hideousness of +murder; in her eyes, blood was terrible, and not the less so that it +covered gold. She remembered at the inquest--be sure she was there among +the gossips--the facts, so little taken notice of till now, the keys in +the cupboard, where the honey-pots were not, and how Jonathan Floyd had +seen something on the lake, and the marks of a man's hand on the throat; +and, God forgive her for saying so, but Mr. Jennings was a little, +white-faced man. How wrong was it of Roger to have burnt that shawl! how +dull of Ben not to have suspected something! but then the good fellow +suspects nobody, and, I dare say, now doesn't know my thoughts. But +Roger does, more shame for him; or why burn the shawl? Ah! thought she, +with all the gossip rampart in her breast, if I could only have taken it +to the Hall myself, what a stir I should have caused! Yes, she would +have reaped a mighty field of glory by originating such a whirlwind of +inquiries and surmises. Even now, so attractive was the mare's nest, she +would go to the Hall by morning, and tell Sir John himself all about +the burnt shawl, and Pike Island, and the galli--And so she fell fast +asleep. + +With respect to Ben, Tom, and Rover, a well-matched triad, as any Isis, +Horus, and Nepthys, they all flung themselves promiscuously on the hard +floor beside the hearth, "basked at the fire their hairy strength," and +soon were snoring away beautifully in concert, base, tenor, and treble, +like a leash of glee-singers. No thoughts troubled them, either of +mammon or murder: so long before the meditative trio up-stairs, they had +set a good example, and fallen asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +LOVE. + + +With the earliest peep of day arose sweet Grace, full of +cheerful hope, and prayer, and happy resignation. She had a great deal +to do that morning; for, innocent girl, she had no notion that it was +quite possible to be too early at the Hall; her only fear was being too +late. Then there were all the household cares to see to, and the dear +babes to dress, and the place to tidy up, and breakfast to get ready, +and, any how, she could not be abroad till half-past eight: so, to her +dismay, it must be past nine before ever she can see Sir John. Let us +follow her a little: for on this important day we shall have to take the +adventures of our labourer's family one at a time. + +By twenty minutes to nine, Grace had contrived to bustle on her things, +give the rest the slip, and be tripping to the Hall. It is nearly two +miles off, as we already know; and Grace is such a pretty creature that +we can clearly do no better than employ our time thitherward by taking a +peep at her. + +Sweet Grace Acton, we will not vex thy blushing maiden modesty by +elaborate details of form, and face, and feature. Perfect womanhood at +fair eighteen: let that fill all the picture up with soft and swelling +charms; no wadding, or padding, or jigot, or jupe--but all those +graceful undulations are herself: no pearl-powder, no carmine, no +borrowed locks, no musk, or ambergris--but all those feeble helps of +meretricious art excelled and superseded by their just originals in +nature. It will not do to talk, as a romancer may, of velvet cheeks and +silken tresses; or invoke, to the aid of our inadequate description, +roses, and swans, and peaches, and lilies. Take the simple village +beauty as she is. Did you ever look on prettier lips or sweeter +eyes--more glossy natural curls upon a whiter neck? And how that little +red-riding-hood cloak, and the simple cottage hat tied down upon her +cheeks, and the homely russet gown, all too short for modern fashions, +and the white, well-turned ankle, and the tidy little leather shoe, and +the bunch of snow drops in her tucker, and the neat mittens contrasting +darkly with her fair, bare arms--pretty Grace, how well all these become +thee! There, trip along, with health upon thy cheek, and hope within thy +heart; who can resist so eloquent a pleader? Haste on, haste on: save +thy father in his trouble, as thou hast blest him in his sin--this +rustic lane is to thee the path of duty--Heaven speed thee on it! + +More slowly now, and with more anxious thoughts, more heart-weakness, +more misgiving--Grace approacheth the stately mansion: and when she +timidly touched the "Servants'" bell, for she felt too lowly for the +"Visiters',"--and when she heard how terribly loud it was, how +long it rung, and what might be the issue of her--wasn't it +ill-considered?--errand--the poor girl almost fainted at the sound. + +As she leaned unconsciously for strength against the door, it opened on +a sudden, and Jonathan Floyd, in mute amazement, caught her in his arms. + +"Why, Grace Acton! what's the matter with you?" Jonathan knew Grace +well; they had been at dame's-school together, and in after years +attended the same Sunday class at church. There had been some talk among +the gossips about Jonathan and Grace, and ere now folks had been kind +enough to say they would make a pretty couple. And folks were right, +too, as well as kind: for a fine young fellow was Jonathan Floyd, as any +duchess's footman; tall, well built, and twenty-five; Antinous in a +livery. Well to do, withal, though his wages don't come straight to him; +for, independently of his place--and the baronet likes him for his good +looks and proper manners--he is Farmer Floyd's only son, on the hill +yonder, as thriving a small tenant as any round abouts; and he is proud +of his master, of his blue and silver uniform, of old Hurstley, and of +all things in general, except himself. + +"But what on earth's the matter, Grace?" he was obliged to repeat, for +the dear girl's agitation was extreme. + +"Jonathan, can I see the baronet?" + +"What, at nine in the morning, Grace Acton! Call again at two, and you +may find him getting up. He hasn't been three hours a-bed yet, and +there's nobody about but Sarah Stack and me. I wish those Lunnun sparks +would but leave the place: they do his honour no good, I'm thinking." + +"Not till two!" was the slow and mournful ejaculation. What a damper to +her buoyant hopes: and Providence had seen fit to give her ill-success. +Is it so? Prosperity may come in other shapes. + +"Why, Grace," suddenly said Floyd, in a very nervous way, "what makes +you call upon my master in this tidy trim?" + +"To save my father," answered Innocence. + +"How? why? Oh don't, Grace, don't! I'll save him--I will indeed--what is +it? Oh, don't, don't!" + +For the poor affectionate fellow conjured on the spot the black vision +of a father saved by a daughter's degradation. + +"Don't, Jonathan?--it's my duty, and God will bless me in it. That cruel +Mr. Jennings has resolved upon our ruin, and I wished to tell Sir John +the truth of it." + +At this hearing, Jonathan brightened up, and glibly said, "Ah, indeed, +Jennings is a trouble to us all: a sad life I've led of it this year +past; and I've paid him pretty handsomely too, to let me keep the place: +while, as for John Page and the grooms, and Mr. Coachman and the +helpers, they don't touch much o' their wages on quarter-day, I know." + +"Oh, but we--we are ruined! ruined! Father is forbidden now to labour +for our bread." And then with many tears she told her tale. + +"Stop, Miss Grace," suddenly said Jonathan, for her beauty and eloquence +transformed the cottager into a lady in his eyes, and no wonder; "pray, +stop a minute, Miss--please to take a seat; I sha'n't be gone an +instant." + +And the good-hearted fellow, whose eyes had long been very red, broke +away at a gallop; but he was back again almost as soon as gone, panting +like a post-horse. "Oh, Grace! don't be angry! do forgive me what I am +going to do." + +"Do, Jonathan?" and the beauty involuntarily started--"I hope it's +nothing wrong," she added, solemnly. + +"Whether right or wrong, Grace, take it kindly; you have often bade me +read my Bible, and I do so many times both for the sake of it and you; +ay, and meet with many pretty sayings in it: forgive me if I act on +one--'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" With that, he +thrust into her hand a brass-topped, red-leather purse, stuffed with +money. Generous fellow! all the little savings, that had heretofore +escaped the prying eye and filching grasp of Simon Jennings. There was +some little gold in it, more silver, and a lot of bulky copper. + +"Dear Jonathan!" exclaimed Grace, quite thrown off her guard of maidenly +reserve, "this is too kind, too good, too much; indeed, indeed it is: I +cannot take the purse." And her bright eyes overflowed again. + +"Well, girl," said Jonathan, gulping down an apple in his throat, "I--I +won't have the money, that's all. Oh, Grace, Grace!" he burst out +earnestly, "let me be the blessed means of helping you in trouble--I +would die to do it, Grace; indeed I would!" + +The dear girl fell upon his neck, and they wept together like two loving +little sisters. + +"Jonathan"--her duteous spirit was the first to speak--"forgive this +weakness of a foolish woman's heart: I will not put away the help which +God provides us at your friendly hands: only this, kind brother--let me +call you brother--keep the purse; if my father pines for want of work, +and the babes at home lack food, pardon my boldness if I take the help +you offer. Meanwhile, God in heaven bless you, Jonathan, as He will!" + +And she turned to go away. + +"Won't you take a keepsake, Grace--one little token? I wish I had any +thing here but money to give you for my sake." + +"It would even be ungenerous in me to refuse you, brother; one little +piece will do." + +Jonathan fumbled up something in a crumpled piece of paper, and said +sobbingly--"Let it be this new half-crown, Grace: I won't say, keep it +always; only when you want to use that and more, I humbly ask you'll +please come to me." + +Now a more delicate, a more unselfish act, was never done by man: along +with the half-crown he had packed up two sovereigns! and thereby not +only escaped thanks, concealed his own beneficence, and robbed his purse +of half its little store; but actually he was, by doing so, depriving +himself for a month, or maybe more, of a visit from Grace Acton. Had it +been only half-a-crown, and want had pinched the family (neither Grace +nor Jonathan could guess of Ben Burke's bounty, and for all they knew +Roger had not enough for the morrow's meals)--had poverty come in like +an armed man, and stood upon their threshold a grim sentinel--doubtless +she must have run to him within a day or two. How sweet would it have +been to have kept her coming day by day, and to a commoner affection how +excusable! but still how selfish, how unlike the liberal and honourable +feeling that filled the manly heart of Jonathan Floyd! It was a noble +act, and worthy of a long parenthesis. + +If Grace Acton had looked back as she hurried down the avenue, she would +have seen poor Jonathan still watching her with all his eyes till she +was out of sight. Perhaps, though, she might have guessed it--there is a +sympathy in these things, the true animal magnetism--and I dare say that +was the very reason why she did not once turn her head. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE DISCOVERY. + + +Roger Acton had not slept well; had not slept at all till +nearly break of day, except in the feverish fashion of half dream half +revery. There were thick-coming fancies all night long about what Ben +had said and done: and more than once Roger had thought of the +expediency of getting up, to seek without delay the realization of that +one idea which now possessed him--a crock of gold. When he put together +one thing and another, he considered it almost certain that Ben had +flung away among the lot no mere honey-pot, but perhaps indeed a +money-pot: Burke hadn't half the cunning of a child; more fool he, and +maybe so much the better for me, thought money-bitten, selfish Roger. +Thus, in the night's hot imaginations, he resolved to find the spoil; to +will, was then to do: to do, was then to conquer. However, Nature's +sweet restorer came at last, and, when he woke, the idea had sobered +down--last night's fancies were preposterous. So, it was with a heavy +heart he got up later than his wont--no work before him, nothing to do +till the afternoon, when he might see Sir John, except it be to dig a +bit in his little marshy garden. When Grace ran to the Hall, Roger was +going forth to dig. + +Now, I know quite well that the reader is as fully aware as I am, what +is about to happen; but it is impossible to help the matter. If the +heading of this chapter tells the truth, a "discovery" of some sort is +inevitable. Let us preliminarize a thought or two, if thereby we can +hang some shadowy veil of excuse over a too naked mystery. First and +foremost, truth is strange, stranger, _et-cetera_; and this +_et-cetera_, pregnant as one of Lyttleton's, intends to add the +superlative strangest, to the comparative stranger of that seldom-quoted +sentiment. To every one of us, in the course of our lives, something +quite as extraordinary has befallen more than once. What shall we say of +omens, warnings, forebodings? What of the most curious runs of luck; the +most whimsical freaks of fortune; the unaccountable things that happen +round us daily, and no one marvels at them, till he reads of them in +print? Even as Macpherson, ingenious, if not ingenuous, gathered Ossian +from the lips of Highland hussifs, and made the world with modern Attila +to back it, wonder at the stores that are hived on old wives' tongues; +even so might any other literary, black-smith hammer from the ore of +common gossip a regular Vulcan's net of superstitious "facts." Never yet +was uttered ghost story, that did not breed four others; every one at +table is eager to record his, or his aunt's, experience in that line; +and the mass of queer coincidences, inexplicable incidents, indubitable +seeings, hearings, doings, and sufferings; which you and I have heard of +in this popular vein of talk, would amply excuse the wildest fictionist +for the most extravagant adventure--the more improbable, the nearer +truth. Talk of the devil, said our ancestors--let "&c." save us from the +consequence. Think of any thing vehemently, and it is an even chance it +happens: be confident, you conquer; be obstinate in willing, and events +shall bend humbly to their lord: nay, dream a dream, and if you +recollect it in the morning, and it bother you next day, and you cannot +get it out of your head for a week, and the matter positively haunt you, +ten to one but it finds itself or makes itself fulfilled, some odd day +or other. Just so, doubtless, will it prove to be with Roger's dream: I +really cannot help the matter. + +Again, it is more than likely that the reader is clever, very clever, +and that any attempts at concealment would be merely futile. From the +first page he has discovered who is the villain, and who the victim: the +title alone tells him of the golden hinge on which the story turns: he +can look through stone walls, if need be, or mesmerically see, without +making use of eyes: no peep-holes for him, as for Pyramus and Thisbe: no +initiation requisite for any hidden mysteries; all arcana are revealed +to him, every sanctum is a highway. No art of mortal pen can defeat this +mischief of acuteness: character is character; oaks grow of acorns, and +the plan of a life may be detected in a microscopic speech. The career +of Mr. Jennings is as much predestined by us to iniquity, from the first +intimation that he never makes excuse, as honest Roger is to trouble +and temptation from the weary effort wherewithal he woke. And, even now, +pretty Grace and young Sir John, the reader thinks that he can guess at +nature's consequence; while, with respect to Roger's going forth to dig +this morning, he sees it straight before him, need not ask for the +result. Well, if the shrewd reader has the eye of Lieuenhöeck, and can +discern, cradled in the small triangular beech-mast, a noble +forest-tree, with silvery trunk, branching arms, and dark-green foliage, +he deserves to be complimented indeed, for his own keen skill; but, at +the same time, Nature will not hurry herself for him, but will quietly +educe results which he foreknew--or thought he did--a century ago. And +is there not the highest Art in this unveiled simplicity: to lead the +reader onwards by a straight road, with the setting sun a-blaze at the +end of it, knowing his path, knowing its object, yet still borne on with +spirits unexhausted and unflagging foot? Trust me, there is better +praise in this, than in dazzling the distracted glance with a perpetual +succession of luminous fire-flies, and dragging your fair novel-reader, +harried and excited, through the mazes of a thousand incidents. + +Thirdly, and lastly, in this prefatorial say, there is to be considered +that inevitable defeator of all printed secrets--impatience. Nothing is +easier, nothing commoner (most wise people do it, whose fate is, that +they must keep up with the race of current publication, and therefore +must keep down the still-increasing crowd of authorial creations), +nothing is more venial, more laudable, than to read the last chapter +first; and so, finding out all mysteries at once, to save one's self a +vast deal of unnecessary trouble. And, for mere tale-telling, this may +be sufficient. What need to burden memory with imaginary statements, or +to weary out one's sympathies on trite fictitious woes?--come to the +catastrophe at once: the uncle hanged; the heir righted; the heroine, an +orange-flowered bride; and the white-headed grandmother, after all her +wrongs, winding up the story with a prudent moral. Now, this may all be +very well with histories that merely carry a sting in the tail, whose +moral is the warning of the rattlesnake, and whose hot-exciting interest +is posted with the scorpion's venom. They are the Dragon of Wantley, +with one caudal point--a barbed termination: we, like Moore of Moore +Hall, all point, covered with spikes: every where we boast ourselves an +ethical hedge-hog, all-over-armed with keen morals--a Rumour painted +full of tongues, echoing all around with revealing of secrets. The +feelings of our humble hero, altered Roger Acton, are worthy to be +studied by the great, to be sifted by the rich; and Grace's simple +tongue may teach the sage, for its wisdom cometh from above; and +Jonathan, for all his shoulder-knot and smart cockade, is worthy to give +lessons to his master: that master, also, is far better than you think +him; and poor Burke too, for true humanity's sake: so we get a mint of +morals, set aside the story. It is not raw material, but the +workmanship, that gives its value to the flowered damask; our +grand-dames' sumptuous taffeties and stand-alone brocades are but spun +silk-worms' interiors; the fairest statue is intrinsically but a mass of +clumsy stone, until, indeed, the sculptor has rough-hewn it, and shaped +it, and chiselled it, and finished all the touches with sand-paper. This +story of '_The Crock of Gold_' purports to be a Dutch picture, as +becometh boors, their huts, their short and simple annals; so that, +after its moralities, the mass of minute detail is the only thing that +gives it any value. + +Now, whilst all of you have been yawning through these egotistic +phrases, Roger has been digging in his garden; there he is, pecking away +at what once was the celery-bed, but now are fallow trenches; celery, as +we all know, is a water-loving plant, doing best in marshy-land, so no +wonder the trenches open on the sedge, and the muddy shallow opposite +Pike Island puddles up to them. There needs be no suspense, no mystery +at all; Roger's dream had clearly sent him thither, for he should not +have levelled those trenches yet awhile, it was a little too soon--bad +husbandry; and, barring the appearance of a devil, Roger's dream came +true. Yes, under the roots of a clump of bullrush, he lifted out with +his spade--a pot of Narbonne honey! + +When first he spied the pot, his heart was in his mouth--it must be +gold, and with tottering knees he raised the precious burden. But, woful +disappointment! the word "Honey," with plenty of French and Fortnum on +another pasted label, stared him in the face; it was sweet and slimy too +about the neck; there was no sort of jingle when he shook the crock; +what though it be heavy?--honey's heavy; and it was tied over quite in a +common way with pig's bladder, and his clumsy trembling fingers could +not undo that knot; and thus, with a miserable sense of cheated poverty, +he threw it down beside the path, and would, perhaps, have flung it +right away in sheer disgust, but for the reflection that the little ones +might like it. Once, indeed, the glorious doubt of maybe gold came back +upon his mind, and he lifted up the spade to smash the baffling pot, and +so make sure of what it might contain;--make sure, eh? why, you would +only lose the honey, whispered domestic economy. So he left the jar to +be opened by his wife when he should go in. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +JONATHAN'S STORE. + + +And where has Mrs. Acton been all this morning? Off to the +Hall, very soon after Grace had got away; and she rung at the side +entrance, hard by the kitchen, most fortunately caught Sarah Stack +about, and had a good long gossip with her; telling her, open-mouthed, +all about Ben Burke having found a shawl of Mrs. Quarles's on the +island; and how, it being very rotten, yes, and smelling foul, Ben had +been fool enough to burn it; what a pity! how could the shawl have got +there? if it only could ha' spoken what it knew! And the bereaved +gossips mourned together over secrets undivulged, and their evidence +destroyed. As to the crockery, for a miraculous once in life, Mrs. Acton +held her tongue about a thing she knew, and said not a syllable +concerning it. Roger would be mad to lose the money. Just at parting +with her friend Mary Acton was going out by the wrong door, through the +hall, but luckily did no more than turn the handle; or she never could +have escaped bouncing in upon the lovers' interview, and thereby +occasioning a chaos of confusion. For, be it whispered, the step-dame +was not a little jealous of her ready-made daughter's beauty, persisted +in calling her a child, and treated her any thing but kindly and +sisterly, as her full-formed woman's loveliness might properly have +looked for. Only imagine, if the Hecate had but seen Jonathan's lit-up +looks, or Grace's down-cast blushes; for it really slipped my +observation to record that there were blushes, and probably some cause +for them when the keep-sake was given and accepted; only conceive if +the step-mother had heard Jonathan's afterward soliloquy, when he was +watching pretty Grace as she tripped away--and how much he seemed to +think of her eyes and eye-lashes! I am reasonably fearful, had she heard +and seen all this--Poll Acton's nails might have possibly drawn blood +from the cheeks of Jonathan Floyd. As it was, the little god of love +kindly warded from his votaries the coming of so crabbed an antagonist. + +Grace has now reached home again, blessing her overruling stars to have +escaped notice so entirely both in going and returning; for the mother +was hard at washing near the well, having got in half an hour before, +and father has not yet left off digging in his garden. So she crept up +stairs quietly, put away her Sunday best, and is just dropping on her +knees beside her truckle-bed, to speak of all her sorrows to her +Heavenly friend, and to thank him for the kindness He had raised her in +an earthly one. She then, with no small trepidation, took out of her +tucker, just below those withered snow-drops, the crumpled bit of paper +that held Jonathan's parting gift. It was surprising how her tucker +heaved; she could hardly get at the parcel. She wanted to look at that +half-crown; not that she feared it was a bad one, or was curious about +coins, or felt any pleasure in possessing such a sum: but there was such +a don't-know-what connected with that new half-crown, which made her +long to look at it; so she opened the paper--and found its golden +fellows! O noble heart! O kind, generous, unselfish--yes, beloved +Jonathan! But what is she to do with the sovereigns? Keep them? No, she +cannot keep them, however precious in her sight as proofs of deep +affection; but she will call as soon as possible, and give them back, +and insist upon his taking them, and keeping them too--for her, if no +otherwise. And the dear innocent girl was little aware herself how glad +she felt of the excuse to call so soon again at Hurstley. + +Meantime, for safety, she put the money in her Bible. + +What hallowed gold was that? Gained by honest industry, saved by +youthful prudence, given liberally and unasked, to those who needed, and +could not pay again; with a delicate consideration, an heroic essay at +concealment, a voluntary sacrifice of self, of present pleasure, +passion, and affection. And there it lies, the little store, hidden up +in Grace's Bible. She has prayed over it, thanked over it, interceded +over it, for herself, for it, for others. How different, indeed, from +ordinary gold, from common sin-bought mammon; how different from that +unblest store, which Roger Acton covets; how purified from meannesses, +and separate from harms! This is of that money, the scarcest coins of +all the world, endued with all good properties in heaven and in earth, +whereof it had been written, "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, +saith the Lord of hosts." + +Such alone are truly riches--well-earned, well-saved, well-sanctified, +well-spent. The wealthiest of European capitalists--the Croesus of +modern civilization--may be but a pauper in that better currency, +whereof a sample has been shown in the store of Jonathan Floyd. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ANOTHER DISCOVERY, AND THE EARNEST OF GOOD THINGS. + + +"Dame, here's one o' Ben's gallipots he flung away: it's naught +but honey, dame--marked so--no crock of gold; don't expect it; no such +thing; luck like that isn't for such as me: though, being as it is, the +babes may like it, with their dry bread: open it, good-wife: I hope the +water mayn't ha' spoilt it." + +The notable Mary Acton produced certain scissors, hanging from her +pocket by a tape, and cut a knot, which to Roger had been Gordian's. + +"Why, it's bran, Acton, not honey; look here, will you." She tilted it +up, and, along with a cloud of saw-dust, dropped out a heavy hail-storm +of--little bits of leather! + +"Hallo? what's that?" said Roger, eagerly: "it's gold, gold, I'll be +sworn!" It was so. + +Every separate bit of money, whatever kind of coins they were, had been +tidily sewn up in a shred of leather; remnants of old gloves of all +colours; and the Narbonne jar contained six hundred and eighty-seven of +them. These, of course, were hastily picked up from the path whereon +they had first fallen, were counted out at home, and the glittering +contents of most of those little leather bags ripped up were immediately +discovered. Oh dear! oh dear! such a sight! Guineas and half-guineas, +sovereigns and half-sovereigns, quite a little hill of bright, clean, +prettily-figured gold. + +"Hip, hip, hooray!" shouted Roger, in an ecstacy; "Hurrah, hurrah, +hurrah!" and in the madness of his joy, he executed an extravagant pas +seul; up went his hat, round went his heels, and he capered awkwardly +like a lunatic giraffe. + +"Here's an end to all our troubles, Poll: we're as good as gentle-folks +now; catch me a-calling at the Hall, to bother about Jennings and Sir +John: a fig for bailiffs, and baronets, parsons, and prisons, and all," +and again he roared Hooray! "I tell you what though, old 'ooman, we must +just try the taste of our glorious golden luck, before we do any thing +else. Bide a bit, wench, and hide the hoard till I return. I'm off to +the Bacchus's Arms, and I'll bring you some stingo in a minute, old +gal." So off he ran hot-foot, to get an earnest of the blessing of his +crock of gold. + +The minute that was promised to produce the stingo, proved to be rather +of a lengthened character; it might, indeed, have been a minute, or the +fraction of one, in the planet Herschel, whose year is as long as +eighty-five of our Terra's, but according to Greenwich calculation, it +was nearer like two hours. + +The little Tom and Jerry shop, that rejoiced in the classical heraldry +of Bacchus's Arms, had been startled from all conventionalities by the +unwonted event of the demand, "change for a sovereign?" and when it was +made known to the assembled conclave that Roger Acton was the fortunate +possessor, that even assumed an appearance positively miraculous. + +"Why, honest Roger, how in the world could you ha' come by that?" was +the troublesome inquiry of Dick the Tanner. + +"Well, Acton, you're sharper than I took you for, if you can squeeze +gold out of bailiff Jennings," added Solomon Snip; and Roger knew no +better way of silencing their tongues, than by profusely drenching them +in liquor. So he stood treat all round, and was forced to hobanob with +each; and when that was gone, he called for more to keep their curiosity +employed. Now, all this caused delay; and if Mary had been waiting for +the "stingo," she would doubtless have had reasonable cause for anger +and impatience: however, she, for her part, was so pleasantly occupied, +like Prince Arthur's Queen, in counting out the money, that, to say the +truth, both lord and liquor were entirely forgotten. + +But another cause that lengthened out the minute, was the embarrassing +business of where to find the change. Bacchus's didn't chalk up trust, +where hard money was flung upon the counter; but all the accumulated +wealth of Bacchus's high-priest, Tom Swipey, and of the seven +worshippers now drinking in his honour, could not suffice to make up +enough of change: therefore, after two gallons left behind him in +libations as aforesaid, and two more bottled up for a drink-offering at +home, Roger was contented to be owed seven and fourpence; a debt never +likely to be liquidated. Much speculation this afforded to the gossips; +and when the treater's back was turned, they touched their foreheads, +for the man was clearly crazed, and they winked to each other with a +gesture of significance. + +Grace, while musing on her new half-crown--it was strange how long she +looked at it--had heard with real amazement that uproarious huzzaing! +and, just as her father had levanted for the beer, glided down from her +closet, and received the wondrous tidings from her step-mother. She +heard in silence, if not in sadness: intuitive good sense proclaimed to +her that this sudden gush of wealth was a temptation, even if she felt +no secret fears on the score of--shall we call it superstition?--that +dream, this crock, that dark angel--and this so changed spirit of her +once religious father: what could she think? she meekly looked to Heaven +to avert all ill. + +Mary Acton also was less elated and more alarmed than she cared to +confess: not that she, any more than Grace, knew or thought about lords +of manors, or physical troubles on the score of finding the crock: but +Mrs. Quarles's shawl, and sundry fearful fancies tinged with blood, +these worried her exceedingly, and made her look upon the gold with an +uneasy feeling, as if it were an unclean thing, a sort of Achan's wedge. + +At last, here comes Roger back, somewhat unsteadily I fear, with a stone +two-gallon jar of what he was pleased to avouch to be "the down-right +stingo." "Hooray, Poll!" (he had not ceased shouting all the way from +Bacchus's,) "Hooray--here I be again, a gentle-folk, a lord, a king, +Poll: why daughter Grace, what's come to you? I won't have no dull looks +about to-day, girl. Isn't this enough to make a poor man merry? No more +troubles, no more toil, no more 'humble sarvent,' no more a ragged, +plodding ploughman: but a lord, daughter Grace--a great, rich, luxurious +lord--isn't this enough to make a man sing out hooray?--Thank the crock +of gold for this--Oh, blessed crock!" + +"Hush, father, hush! that gold will be no blessing to you; Heaven send +it do not bring a curse. It will be a sore temptation, even if the +rights of it are not in some one else: we know not whom it may belong +to, but at any rate it cannot well be ours." + +"Not ours, child? whose in life is it then?" + +Mary Acton, made quite meek by a superstitious dread of having money of +the murdered, stepped in to Grace's help, whom her father's fierce +manner had appalled, with "Roger, it belonged to Mrs. Quarles, I'm +morally sure on it--and must now be Simon Jennings's, her heir." + +"What?" he almost frantically shrieked, "shall that white hell-hound rob +me yet again? No, dame--I'll hang first! the crock I found, the crock +I'll keep: the money's mine, whoever did the murder." Then, changing his +mad tone into one of reckless inebriate gayety--for he was more than +half-seas over even then from the pot-house toastings and excitement--he +added, "But come, wenches, down with your mugs, and help me to get +through the jar: I never felt so dry in all my life. Here's blessings on +the crock, on him as sent it, him as has it, and on all the joy and +comfort it's to bring us! Come, drink, drink--we must all drink +that--but where's Tom?" + +If Roger had been quite himself, he never would have asked so +superfluous a question: for Tom was always in one and the same company, +albeit never in one and the same place: he and his Pan-like Mentor were +continually together, studying wood-craft, water-craft, and all manner +of other craft connected with the antique trade of picking and stealing. + +"Where's Tom?" + +Grace, glad to have to answer any reasonable question, mildly answered, +"Gone away with Ben, father." + +Alas! that little word, Ben, gave occasion to reveal a depth in Roger's +fall, which few could have expected to behold so soon. To think that the +liberal friend, who only last night had frankly shared his all with him, +whose honest glowing heart would freely shed its blood for him, that he +in recollection should be greeted with a loathing! Ben would come, and +claim some portion of his treasure--he would cry halves--or, who knows? +might want all--all: and take it by strong arm, or by threat to 'peach +against him:--curse that Burke! he hated him. + +Oh, Steady Acton! what has made thee drink and swear? Oh, Honest Roger! +what has planted guile, and suspicion, and malice in thy heart? Are +these the mere first-fruits of coveting and having? Is this the earliest +blessing of that luck which many long for--the finding of a crock of +gold? + +We would not enlarge upon the scene; a painful one at all times, when +man forgets his high prerogative, and drowns his reason in the tankard: +but, in a Roger Acton's case, lately so wise, temperate, and patient, +peculiarly distressing. Its chief features were these. Grace tasted +nothing, but mournfully looked on: once only she attempted to +expostulate, but was met--not with fierce oaths, nor coarse chidings, +nor even with idiotic drivelling--oh no! worse than that she felt: he +replied to her with the maudlin drunken promise, "If she'd only be a +good girl, and let him bide, he'd give her a big Church-bible, bound in +solid gold--that 'ud make the book o' some real value, Grace." Poor +broken-hearted daughter--she rushed to her closet in a torrent of tears. + +As for Mary Acton, she was miraculously meek and dumb; all the scold was +quelled within her; the word "blood" was the Petruchio that tamed that +shrew; she could see a plenty of those crimson spots, which might + + "The multitudinous seas incarnadine, + Making the green, one red," + +dancing in the sun-beams, dotted on the cottage walls, sprinkled as +unholy water, over that foul crock. Would not the money be a curse to +them any how, say nothing of the danger? If things went on as they +began, Mary might indeed have cause for fear: actually, she could not +a-bear to look upon the crock; she quite dreaded it, as if it had +contained a "bottled devil." So there she sat ever so long--silent, +thoughtful, and any thing but comfortable. + +What became of Roger until next day at noon, neither he nor I can tell: +true, his carcase lay upon the floor, and the two-gallon jar was empty. +But, for the real man, who could answer to the name of Roger Acton, the +sensitive and conscious soul--that was some where galloping away for +fifteen hours in the Paradise of fools: the Paradise? no--the Maëlstrom; +tossed about giddily and painfully in one whirl of tumultuous +drunkenness. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +HOW THE HOME WAS BLEST THEREBY. + + +It will surprise no one to be told that, however truly such an +excess may have been the first, it was by no means the last exploit of +our altered labourer in the same vein of heroism. Bacchus's was quite +close, and he needs must call for his change; he had to call often; +drank all quits; changed another sovereign, and was owed again; but, +trust him, he wasn't going to be cheated out of that: take care of the +pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves. But still it was +ditto repeated; changing, being owed, grudging, grumbling: at last he +found out the famous new plan of owing himself; and as Bacchus's did not +see fit to reject such wealthy customers, Roger soon chalked up a +yard-long score, and grew so niggardly that they could not get a penny +from him. + +It is astonishing how immediately wealth brings in, as its companion, +meanness: they walk together, and stand together, and kneel together, as +the hectoring, prodigal Faulconbridge, the Bastard Plantagenet in _King +John_, does with his white-livered, puny brother, Robert. Wherefore, no +sooner was Roger blest with gold, than he resolved not to be such a fool +as to lose liberally, or to give away one farthing. To give, I say, for +extravagant indulgence is another thing; and it was a fine, proud +pleasure to feast a lot of fellows at his sole expense. If meanness is +brother to wealth, it is at any rate first cousin to extravagance. + +When the dowager collects "her dear five hundred friends" to parade +before the fresh young heirs her wax-light lovely daughters--when all is +glory, gallopade, and Gunter--when Rubini warbles smallest, and +Lablanche is heard as thunder on the stairs--speak, tradesmen, ye who +best can tell, the closeness that has catered for that feast; tell it +out, ye famished milliners, ground down to sixpence on a ball-dress +bill; whisper it, ye footmen, with your wages ever due; let Gath, let +Askelon re-echo with the truth, that extortion is the parent of +extravagance! + +Now, that episode should have been in a foot note; but no one takes the +trouble to read notes; and with justice too; for if a man has any thing +to say, let him put it in his text, as orderly as may be. And, if order +be sometimes out of the question, as seems but clearly suitable at +present to our hero's manner of life, it is wise to go boldly on, +without so prim an usher; to introduce our thoughts as they reveal +themselves, ignorant of "their own degrees," not "standing on the order +of their coming," but, as a pit crowd on a benefit-night, bustling over +one another, helter-skelter, "in most admired disorder." This will well +comport with Roger's daily life: for, notwithstanding the frequent +interference of an Amazon wife--regardless of poor, dear Grace's gentle +voice and melancholy eyes--in spite of a conscience pricking in his +breast, with the spines of a horse-chestnut, that evil crock +appeared from the beginning to have been found for but one sole +purpose--_videlicet_, that of keeping alight in Roger's brain the fire +of mad intoxication. Yes, there were sundry other purposes, too, which +may as well be told directly. + +The utter dislocation of all home comforts occupied the foremost rank. +True--in comparison with the homes of affluence and halls of +luxury--those comforts may have formerly seemed few and far between; yet +still the angel of domestic peace not seldom found a rest within the +cottage. Not seldom? always: if sweet-eyed Grace be such an angel, that +ever-abiding guest, full of love, duty, piety, and cheerfulness. But +now, after long-enduring anguish, vexed in her righteous soul by the +shocking sights and sounds of the drunkard and his parasites (for all +the idle vagabonds about soon flocked around rich Acton, and were freely +welcome to his reckless prodigality), Grace had been forced to steal +away, and seek refuge with a neighbour. Here was one blessing the less. + +Another wretched change was in the wife. Granted, Mary Acton had not +ever been the pink of politeness, the violet of meekness, nor the rose +of entire amiability: but if she were a scold, that scolding was well +meant; and her irate energies were incessantly directed towards +cleanliness, economy, quiet, and other _notabilia_ of a busy house-wife. +She did her best to keep the hovel tidy, to make the bravest show with +their scanty chattels, to administer discreetly the stores of their +frugal larder, and to recompense the good-man returning from his hard +day's work, with much of rude joy and bustling kindness. But now, after +the first stupor of amazement into which the crock and its consequences +threw her, Poll Acton grew to be a fury: she raged and stormed, and well +she might, at filth and discomfort in her home, at nauseous dregs and +noisome fumes, at the orgie still kept up, day by day, and night by +night, through the length of that first foul week, which succeeded the +fortunate discovery. And not in vain she raged and stormed--and fought +too; for she did fight--ay, and conquered: and miserable Roger, now in +full possession of those joys which he had longed for at the casement of +Hurstley Hall, was glad to betake himself to the bench at Bacchus's, +whither he withdrew his ragged regiment. Thus, that crock had spoilt all +there was to spoil in the temper and conduct of the wife. + +Look also at the pretty prattling babes, twin boys of two years old, +whom Roger used to hasten home to see; who had to say their simple +prayers; to be kissed, and comforted, and put to bed; to be made happier +by a wild flower picked up on his path, than if the gift had been a +coral with gold bells: where were they now? neglected, dirty, fretting +in a corner, their red eyes full of wonder at father's altered ways, and +their quick minds watching, with astonished looks, the progress of +domestic discord. How the crock of gold has nipped those early blossoms +as a killing frost! + +Again, there used to be, till this sad week of wealth and riotous +hilarity, that constantly recurring blessing of the morn and evening +prayer which Roger read aloud, and Grace's psalm or chapter; and +afterwards the frugal meal--too scanty, perhaps, and coarse--but still +refreshing, thank the Lord, and seasoned well with health and appetite; +and the heart-felt sense of satisfaction that all around was earned by +honest labour; and there was content, and hope of better times, and +God's good blessing over every thing. + +Now, all these pleasures had departed; gold, unhallowed gold, gotten +hastily in the beginning, broadcast on the rank strong soil of a heart +that coveted it earnestly, had sprung up as a crop of poisonous tares, +and choked the patch of wheat; gold, unhallowed gold, light come, light +gone, had scared or killed the flock of unfledged loves that used to +nestle in the cotter's thatch, as surely as if the cash were stones, +flung wantonly by truants at a dove-cot; and forth from the crock, that +egg of wo, had been hatched a red-eyed vulture, to tyrannize in this sad +home, where but lately the pelican had dwelt, had spread her fostering +wing, and poured out the wealth of her affections. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +CARE. + + +But other happy consequences soon became apparent. If Acton in +his tipsy state was mad, in his intervals of soberness he was thoroughly +miserable. And this, not merely on the score of sickness, exhaustion, +prostrated spirits, blue-devils, or other the long catalogue of a +drunkard's joys; not merely from a raging wife, and a wretched home; not +merely from the stings, however sharp, however barbed, of a conscience +ill at ease, that would rise up fiercely like a hissing snake, and +strike the black apostate to the earth: these all, doubtless, had their +pleasant influences, adding to the lucky finder's bliss: but there was +another root of misery most unlooked for, and to the poor who dream of +gold, entirely paradoxical. + +The possession of that crock was the heaviest of cares. Where on earth +was he to hide it? how to keep it safely, secretly? What if he were +robbed of it in some sly way! O, thought of utter wo! it made the +fortunate possessor quiver like an aspen. Or what, if some one or more +of those blustering boon companions were to come by night with a +bludgeon and a knife, and--and cut his throat, and find the treasure? +or, worse still, were to torture him, set him on the fire like a +saucepan (he had heard of Turpin having done so with a rich old woman), +and make him tell them "where" in his extremity of pains, and give up +all, and then--and then murder him at last, outright, and afterwards +burn the hovel over his head, babes and all, that none might live to +tell the tale? These fears set him on the rack, and furnished one +inciting cause to that uninterrupted orgie; he must be either mad or +miserable, this lucky finder. + +Also, even in his tipsy state, he could not cast off care: he might in +his cups reveal the dangerous secret of having found a crock of gold. A +secret still it was: Grace, his wife, and himself, were the only souls +who knew it. Dear Grace feared to say a word about the business: not in +apprehension of the law, for she never thought of that too probable +intrusion on the finder: but simply because her unsophisticated piety +believed that God, for some wise end, had allowed the Evil One to tempt +her father; she, indeed, did not know the epigram, + + The devil now is wiser than of yore: + He tempts by making rich--not making poor: + +but she did not conceive that notion in her mind; she contrasted the +wealthy patriarch Job, tried by poverty and pain, but just and patient +in adversity--with the poor labourer Acton, tried by luxury and wealth, +and proved to be apostate in prosperity: so she held her tongue, and +hitherto had been silent on a matter of so much local wonder as her +father's sudden wealth, in the midst of urgent curiosity and +extraordinary rumours. + +Mary was kept quiet as we know, by superstition of a lower grade, the +dread of having money of the murdered, a thought she never breathed to +any but her husband; and to poor uninitiated Grace (who had not heard a +word of Ben's adventure), her answer about Mrs. Quarles and Mr. Jennings +in the dawn of the crock's first blessing, had been entirely +unintelligible: Mary, then, said never a word, but looked on dreadingly +to see the end. + +As for Roger himself, he was too much in apprehension of a landlord's +claims, and of a task-master's extortions, to breath a syllable about +the business. So he hid his crock as best he could--we shall soon hear +how and where--took out sovereign after sovereign day by day, and made +his flush of instant wealth a mystery, a miracle, a legacy, good luck, +any thing, every thing but the truth: and he would turn fiercely round +to the frequent questioner with a "What's that to you?--Nobody's +business but mine:" and then would coaxingly add the implied bribe to +secresy, in his accustomed invitation--"And now, what'll you take?"--a +magical phrase, which could suffice to quell murmurs for the time, and +postponed curiosity to appetite. Thus the fact was still unknown, and +weighed on Roger's mind as a guilty concealment, an oppressive secret. +What if any found it out? + +For immediate safety--the evening after his memorable first fifteen +hours of joy--he buried the crock deeply in a hole in his garden, +filling all up hard with stones and brick-bats; and when he had +smoothed it straight and workmanlike, remembered that he surely hadn't +kept out enough to last him; so up it had to come again--five more taken +out, and the crock was restored to its unquiet grave. + +Scarcely had he done this, than it became dark, and he began to fancy +some one might have seen him hide it; those low mean tramps (never +before had he refused the wretched wayfarers his sympathy) were always +sneaking about, and would come and dig it up in the night: so he went +out in the dark and the rain, got at it with infinite trouble and a +broken pickaxe, and exultingly brought the crock in-doors; where he +buried it a third time, more securely, underneath the grouted floor, +close beside the fire in the chimney-corner: it was now nearly midnight, +and he went to bed. + +Hardly had he tumbled in, after pulling on a nightcap of the flagon, +than the dread idea overtook him that his treasure might be melted! Was +there ever such a fool as he? Well, well, to think he could fling his +purse on the fire! What a horrid thought! Metallurgy was a science quite +unknown to Roger; he only considered gold as heavy as lead, and +therefore probably as fusible: so down he bustled, made another hole, a +deeper one too this time, in the floor under the dresser, where, +exhausted with his toil and care, he deposited the crock by four in the +morning--and so retired once more. + +All in vain--nobody ever knew when Black Burke might be returning from +his sporting expeditions--and that beast of a lurcher would be sure to +be creeping in this morning, and would scratch it up, and his brute of a +master would get it all! This fancy was the worst possible: and Roger +rose again, quite sick at heart, pale, worn, and trembling with a +miser's haggard joys. Where should he hide that crock--the epithet +"cursed" crock escaped him this time in his vexed impatience. In the +house and in the garden, it was equally unsafe. + +Ha! a bright thought indeed: the hollow in the elm-tree, creaking +overhead, just above the second arm: so the poor, shivering wretch, +almost unclad, swarmed up that slimy elm, and dropped his treasure in +the hollow. Confusion! how deep it was: he never thought of that; here +was indeed something too much of safety: and then those boys of +neighbour Goode's were birds'-nesting continually, specially round the +lake this spring. What an idiot he was not to have remembered this! And +up he climbed again, thrust in his arm to the shoulder, and managed to +repossess himself a fifth time of that blessed crock. + +Would that the elm had been hollow to its root, and beneath the root a +chasm bottomless, and that Plutus in that Narbonne jar had served as a +supper to Pluto in the shades! Better had it been for thee, my Roger. + +But he had not hid it yet; so, that night--or rather that cold morning +about six, the drenched, half-frozen Fortunatus carried it to bed with +him: and a precious warming-pan it made: for nothing would satisfy the +finder of its presence but perpetual bodily contact:--accordingly, he +placed it in his bosom, and it chilled him to the back-bone. + +Yes; that was undoubtedly the safest way; to carry the spoil about with +him; so, next noon--how could he get up till noon after such a woful +night?--next noon he emptied the jar, and tying up its contents in a +handkerchief, proceeded to wear it as a girdle; for an hour he clattered +about the premises, making as much jingle as a wagoner's team of bells; +laden heavily with gold, like the [Greek: ibebusto] genius in Herodotus: +but he soon found out this would not do at all; for, independently of +all concealment at an end, so long as his secret store was rattling as +he walked, louder than military spurs or sabre-tackle, he soberly +reflected that he might--possibly, possibly, though not probably--get a +glass too much again, by some mere accident or other; and then to be +robbed of his golden girdle, this cincture of all joy! O, terrible +thought! as well [this is my fancy, not Rogers's] deprive Venus of her +zone, and see how the beggared Queen of Beauty could exist without her +treasury, the Cestus. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +INVESTMENT. + + +Next day, the wealthy Roger had higher aspirations. Why should +not he get interest for his money, like lords and gentlefolk? His gold +had been lying idle too long; more fool he: it ought to breed money +somehow, he knew that; for, like most poor men whose sole experience of +investment is connected with the Lombard's golden balls, he took exalted +views of usury. Was he to be "hiding up his talent in a napkin--?" + +Ah!--he remembered and applied the holy parable, but it smote across his +heart like a flash of frost, a chilling recollection of good things past +and gone. What had he been doing with his talents--for he once +possessed the ten? had he not squandered piety, purity, and patience? +where were now his gratitude to God, his benevolence to man? the +father's duteous care, the husband's industry and kindness, the +labourer's faith, the Christian's hope--who had spent all these?--Till +money's love came in, and money-store to feed it, the poor man had been +rich: but now, rotten to the core, by lust of gold, the rich is poor +indeed. + +However, such considerations did not long afflict him--for we know that +lookers-on see more than players--and if Roger had encouraged half our +wise and sober thoughts, he might have been a better man: but Roger +quelled the thoughts, and silenced them; and thoughts are tender +intonations, shy little buzzing sounds, soon scared by coarser noise: +Roger had no mind to cherish those small fowls; so they flew back again +to Heaven's gate, homeless and uncomforted as weeping peri's. + +The bank--the county bank--Shark, Breakem, and Company--this was the +specious Eldorado, the genuine gold-increaser, the hive where he would +store his wealth (as honey left for the bees in winter), and was to have +it soon returned fourfold. It was indeed a thought to make the rich man +glad, that all his shining heap was just like a sample of seed-corn, and +the pocket-full should next year fill a sack. How grudgingly he now +began to mourn over past extravagance, five pieces gone within the week! +how close and careful he resolved to be in future! how he would scrape +and economize to get and save but one more of those sweet little seeds, +that yield more gold--more gold! And if Roger had been privileged in +youth to have fed upon the wisdom of the Eton Latin grammar, he could +have now quoted with some experimental unction the "_Crescit Amor_" +line, which every body well knows how to finish. Truly, it was growing +with his growth, and rioting in strength above his weakness. + +Swollen with this expanding love, he packed up his money in what were, +though he knew it not, _rouleaux_, but to his plebeian eyes looked more +like golden sausages: and he would take it to the bank, and they should +bow to him, and Sir him, and give him forthwith more than he had +brought; and if those summary gains were middling great--say twice as +much, to be moderate--he thought he might afford himself a chaise coming +back, and return to Hurstley Common like a nabob. Thus, full of wealthy +fancies, after one glass more, off set Roger to the county town, with +his treasure in a bundle. + +Half-way to it, as hospitality has ordained to be the case wherever +there be half-ways, occurred a public-house: and really, +notwithstanding all our monied neophyte's economical resolutions, his +throat was so "uncommon dry," that he needs must stop there to refresh +the muscles of his larynx: so, putting down his bundle on the settle, he +called for a foaming tankard, and thanking the crock, as his evil wont +now was, sat down to drink and think. Here was prosperity indeed, a +flood of astonishing good fortune: that he, but a little week agone, a +dirty ditcher--so was he pleased to designate his former self--a ragged +wretch, little better than a tramp, should be now progressing like a +monarch, with a mighty bag of gold to enrich his county town. To enrich, +and be thereby the richer; for Roger's actions of finance were so +simple, as to run the risk of being called sublimely indistinct: he took +it as an axiom that "money bred money," but in what way to draw forth +its generative properties, whether or not by some new-fangled manure, he +was entirely ignorant; and it clearly was his wisdom to leave all that +mystery of money-making solely to the banker. All he cared about was +this: to come back richer than he came--and, lo! how rich he was +already. Lolling at high noon, on a Wednesday too, in the extremest mode +of rustic beauism, with a bag of gold by his side, and a pot of porter +in his hand--here was an accumulation of magnificence--all the +prepositions pressed into his service. His wildest hopes exceeded, and +almost nothing left to wish. Blown up with the pride and importance of +the moment, and some little oblivious from the potent porter--he had +paid and sallied forth, and marched a mile upon his way, full of golden +fancies, a rich luxurious lord as he was--when all on a sudden the +hallucination crossed his dull pellucid mind, that he had left the store +behind him! O, pungent terror!--O, most exquisite torture! was it clean +gone, stolen, lost, lost, lost for ever? Rushing back in an agony of +fear, that made the ruddy hostess think him crazed, with his hair on +end, and a face as if it had been white-washed, he flew to the tap-room, +and--almost fainted for ecstasy of joy when he found it, where he had +laid it, on the settle! + +Better had you lost it, Roger; better had your ecstasy been sorrow: +there is more trouble yet for you, from that bad crock of gold. But if +your lesson is not learnt, and you still think otherwise, go on a little +while exultingly as now I see you, and hug the treasure to your +heart--the treasure that will bring you yet more misery. + +And now the town is gained, the bank approached. What! that big barred, +guarded place, looking like a mighty mouse-trap? he didn't half like to +venture in. At last he pushed the door ajar, and took a peep; there +were muskets over the mantel-piece, ostentatiously ticketed as "Loaded! +Beware!" there were leather buckets ranged around the walls: he did not +in any degree like it: was he to expose his treasure in this idiot +fashion to all the avowed danger of fire and thieves? However, since he +had come so far, he would get some interest for his money, that he +would--so he'd just make bold to step to the counter and ask a very +obsequious bald-headed gentleman, who sired him quite affably, + +"How much, Master, will you be pleased to give me for my gold?" + +The gentleman looked queerish, as if he did not comprehend the question, +and answered, "Oh! certainly, sir--certainly--we do not object to give +you our notes for it," at the same time producing an extremely dirty +bundle of worn-out bits of paper. + +Roger stroked his chin. + +"But, Master, my meaning is, not how many o' them brown bits o' paper +you'll sell me for my gold here," and he exhibited a greater store than +Mr. Breakem had seen at once upon his counter for a year, "but how much +more gold you'll send me back with than what I've brought? by way of +interest, you know, or some such law: for I don't know much about the +Funds, Master." + +"Indeed, sir," replied the civil banker, who wished by any means to +catch the clodpole's spoil--"you are very obliging; we shall be glad to +allow you two-and-a-half per centum per annum for the deposit you are +good enough to leave in our keeping." + +"Leave in your keeping, Master! no, I didn't say that! by your leave, +I'll keep it myself!" + +"In that case, sir, I really do not see how I can do business with you." + +True enough; and Roger would never have been such a monetary blockhead, +had he not been now so generally tipsy; the fumes of beer had mingled +with his plan, and all his usual shrewdness had been blunted into folly +by greediness of lucre on the one side, and potent liquors on the other. +The moment that the banker's parting speech had reached his ear, the +absurdity of Roger's scheme was evident even to himself, and with a bare +"Good day, Master," he hurriedly took his bundle from the counter, and +scuttled out as quick as he could. + +His feelings, walking homeward, were any thing but pleasant; the bubble +of his ardent hope was burst: he never could have more than the paltry +little sum he carried in that bundle: what a miser he would be of it: +how mean it now seemed in his eyes--a mere sample-bag of seed, instead +of the wide-waving harvest! Ah, well; he would save and scrape--ay, and +go back to toil again--do any thing rather than spend. + +Got home, the difficulty now recurred, where was he to hide it? The +store was a greater care than ever, now those rascally bankers knew of +it. He racked his brain to find a hiding-place, and, at length, really +hit upon a good one. He concealed the crock, now replenished with its +contents, in the thatch just over his bed's head: it was a rescued +darling: so he tore a deep hole, and nested it quite snugly. + +Perhaps it did not matter much, but the rain leaked in by that hole all +night, and fortunate Roger woke in the morning drenched with wet, and +racked by rheumatism. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +CALUMNY. + + +More blessings issue from the crock; Pandora's box is set wide +open, and all the sweet inhabitants come forth. If apprehensions for its +safety made the finder full of care, the increased whisperings of the +neighbourhood gave him even deeper reason for anxiety. In vain he told +lie upon lie about a legacy of some old uncle in the clouds; in vain he +stuck to the foolish and transparent falsehood, with a dogged +pertinacity that appealed, not to reason, but to blows; in vain he made +affirmation weaker by his oath, and oaths quite unconvincing by his +cudgel: no one believed him: and the mystery was rendered more +inexplicable from his evidently nervous state and uneasy terror of +discovery. + +He had resolved at the outset, cunningly as he fancied, to change no +more than one piece of gold in the same place; though Bacchus's +undoubtedly proved the rule by furnishing an exception: and the +consequence came to be, that there was not a single shop in the whole +county town, nor a farm-house in all the neighbourhood round, where +Roger Acton had not called to change a sovereign. True, the silver had +seldom been forthcoming; still, he had asked for it; and where in life +could he have got the gold? Many was the rude questioner, whose +curiosity had been quenched in drink; many the insufferable pryer, whom +club-law had been called upon to silence. Meanwhile, Roger steadily kept +on, accumulating silver where he could: for his covetous mind delighted +in the mere semblance of an increase to his store, and took some +untutored numismatic interest in those pretty variations of his +idol--money. + +But if Roger's heap increased, so did the whispers and suspicions of the +country round; they daily grew louder, and more clamorous; and soon the +charitable nature of chagrined wonder assumed a shape more heart-rending +to the wretched finder of that golden hoard, than any other care, or +fear, or sin, that had hitherto torn him. It only was a miracle that the +neighbours had not thought of it before; seldom is the world so +unsuspicious; but then honest Roger's forty years of character were +something--they could scarcely think the man so base; and, above all, +gentle Grace was such a favourite with all, was such a pattern of +purity, and kindliness, and female conduct, that the tongue would have +blistered to its roots, that had uttered scorn of her till now. As +things were, though, could any thing be clearer? Was charity herself to +blame in putting one and one together? Sir John was rich, was young, +gay, and handsome; but Grace was poor--but indisputably beautiful, and +probably had once been innocent: some had seen her going to the Hall at +strange times and seasons--for in truth, she often did go there; +Jonathan and Sarah Stack, of course, were her dearest friends on earth: +and so it came to pass, that, through the blessing of the crock, honest +Roger was believed to live on the golden wages of his daughter's shame! +Oh, coarse and heartless imputation! Oh, bitter price to pay for secresy +and wonderful good fortune! In vain the wretched father stormed, and +swore, and knocked down more than one foul-spoken fellow that had +breathed against dear Grace. None but credited the lie, and many envious +wretches actually gloried in the scandal; I grieve to say that +women--divers venerable virgins--rejoiced that this pert hussey was at +last found out; she was too pretty to be good, too pious to be pure; now +at length they were revenged upon her beauty; now they had their triumph +over one that was righteous over-much. For other people, they would urge +the reasonable question, how else came Roger by the cash? and getting no +answer, or worse than none--a prevaricating, mystifying mere +put-off--they had hardly an alternative in common exercise of judgment: +therefore, "Shame on her," said the neighbours, "and the bitterest shame +on him:" and the gaffers and grand-dames shook their heads virtuously. + +Yet worse: there was another suggestion, by no means contradictory, +though simultaneous: what had become of Tom? ay--that bold young +fellow--Thomas Acton, Ben Burke's friend: why was he away so long, +hiding out of the country? they wondered. + +The suspected Damon and Pythias had gone a county off to certain fens, +and were, during this important week, engaged in a long process of +ensnaring ducks. + +Old Gaffer White had muttered something to Gossip Heartley, which Dick +the Tanner overheard, wherein Tom Acton and a gun, and Burke, and +burglary, and throats cut, and bags of gold, were conspicuous +ingredients: so that Roger Acton's own dear Tom, that eagle-eyed and +handsome better image of himself, stood accused, before his quailing +father's face, of robbery and murder. + +Both--both darlings, dead Annie's little orphaned pets, thus stricken by +one stone to infamy! Grace, scouted as a hussey, an outcast, a bad girl, +a wanton--blessed angel! Thomas--generous boy--keenly looked for, in his +near return, to be seized by rude hands, manacled, and dragged away, and +tried on suspicion as a felon--for what? that crock of gold. Yet Roger +heard it all, knew it all, writhed at it all, as if scorpions were +lashing him; but still he held on grimly, keeping that bad secret. +Should he blab it out, and so be poor again, and lose the crock? + +That our labourer's changed estate influenced his bodily health, under +this accumulated misery and desperate excitement, began to be made +manifest to all. The sturdy husbandman was transformed into a tremulous +drunkard; the contented cottager, into a querulous hypochondriac; the +calm, religious, patient Christian, into a tumultuous blasphemer. Could +all this be, and even Roger's iron frame stand up against the battle! +No, the strength of Samson has been shorn. The crock has poured a +blessing on its finder's very skin, as when the devil covered Job with +boils. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE BAILIFF'S VISIT. + + +One day at noon, ere the first week well was over since the +fortunate discovery of gold, as Roger lay upon his bed, recovering from +an overnight's excess, tossed with fever, vexation, and anxiety, he was +at once surprised and frightened by a visit from no less a personage +than Mr. Simon Jennings. And this was the occasion of his presence: + +Directly the gathering storm of rumours had collected to that focus of +all calumny, the destruction of female character and murder charged upon +the innocent, Grace Acton had resolved upon her course; secresy could be +kept no longer; her duty now appeared to be, to publish the story of her +father's lucky find. + +Grace, we may observe, had never been bound to silence, but only imposed +it on herself from motives of tenderness to one, whom she believed to be +taken in the toils of a temptation. She, simple soul, knew nothing of +manorial rights, nor wotted she that any could despoil her father of his +money; but even if such thoughts had ever crossed her mind, she loathed +the gold that had brought so much trouble on them all, and cared not how +soon it was got rid of. Her father's health, honour, happiness, were +obviously at stake; perhaps, also, her brother's very life: and, as for +herself, the martyr of calumny looked piously to heaven, offered up her +outraged heart, and resolved to stem this torrent of misfortune. +Accordingly, with a noble indignation worthy of her, she had gone +straightway to the Hall, to see the baronet, to tell the truth, fling +aside a charge which she could scarcely comprehend, and openly vindicate +her offended honour. She failed--many imagine happily for her own peace, +if Sir John had not been better than his friends--in gaining access to +the Lord of Hurstley; but she did see Mr. Jennings, who serenely +interposed, and listened to all she came to say--"her father had been +unfortunate enough to find a crock of money on the lake side near his +garden." + +When Jennings heard the tale, he started as if stung by a wasp: and +urging Grace to tell it no one else (though the poor girl "must," she +said, "for honour's sake"), he took up his hat, and ran off breathlessly +to Acton's cottage. Roger was at home, in bed, and sick; there was no +escape; and Simon chuckled at the lucky chance. So he crept in, +carefully shut the door, put his finger on his lips to hush Roger's note +of admiration at so little wished a vision; and then, with one of his +accustomed scared and fearful looks behind him, muttered under his +breath, + +"Man, that gold is mine: I have paid its price to the uttermost; give me +the honey-pot." + +Roger's first answer was a vulgar oath; but his tipsy courage faded soon +away before old habits of subserviency, and he faltered out, +"I--I--Muster Jennings! I've got no pot of gold!" + +"Man, you lie! you have got the money! give it me at once--and--" he +added in a low, hoarse voice, "we will not say a word about the murder." + +"Murder!" echoed the astonished man. + +"Ay, murder, Acton:--off! off, I say!" he muttered parenthetically, then +wrestled for a minute violently, as with something in the air; and +recovering as from a spasm, calmly added, + +"Ay, murder for the money." + +"I--I!" gasped Roger; "I did no murder, Muster Jennings!" + +A new light seemed to break upon the bailiff, and he answered with a +tone of fixed determination, + +"Acton, you are the murderer of Bridget Quarles." + +Roger's jaw dropped, dismay was painted on his features, and certainly +he did look guilty enough. But Simon proceeded in a tenderer tone; + +"Notwithstanding, give me the gold, Acton, and none shall know a word +about the murder. We will keep all quiet, Roger Acton, all nice and +quiet, you know;" and he added, coaxingly, "come, Roger, give me up this +crock of gold." + +"Never!" with a fierce anathema, answered our hero, now himself again: +the horrid accusation had entranced him for a while, but this coaxing +strain roused up all the man in him: "Never!" and another oath confirmed +it. + +"Acton, give it up, I say!" was shouted in rejoinder, and Jennings +glared over him with his round and staring eyes as he lay faint upon his +bed--"Give up the crock, or else--" + +"Else what? you whitened villain." + +The bailiff flung himself at Roger's neck, and almost shrieked, "I'll +serve you as I--" + +There was a tremendous struggle; attacked at unawares, for the moment he +was nearly mastered; but Acton's tall and wiry frame soon overpowered +the excited Jennings, and long before you have read what I have +written--he has leaped out of bed--seized--doubled up--and flung the +battered bailiff headlong down the narrow stair-case to the bottom. This +done, Roger, looking like Don Quixote de la Mancha in his penitential +shirt, mounted into bed again, and quietly lay down; wondering, +half-sober, at the strange and sudden squall. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE CAPTURE. + + +He had not long to wonder. Jennings got up instantly, despite +of bruises, posted to the Hall, took a search-warrant from Sir John's +study, (they were always ready signed, and Jennings filled one up,) and +returned with a brace of constables to search the cottage. + +Then Roger, as he lay musing, fancied he heard men's voices below, and +his wife, who had just come in, talking to them; what could they want? +tramps, perhaps: or Ben? he shuddered at the possibility; with Tom too; +and he felt ashamed to meet his son. So he turned his face to the wall, +and lay musing on--he hadn't been drinking too much over-night--Oh, no! +it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be +told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and +resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one +came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a +deep whisper from the further end of the room, + +"Acton, give me the gold, and the men shall go away; it is not yet too +late; tell me where to find the crock of gold." + +An oath was the reply; and, at a sign from Jennings, up came the other +two. + +"We have searched every where, Mr. Simon Jennings, both cot and garden; +ground disturbed in two or three places, but nothing under it; in-doors +too, the floor is broken by the hearth and by the dresser, but no signs +of any thing there: now, Master Acton, tell us where it is, man, and +save us all the trouble." + +Roger's newly-learnt vocabulary of oaths was drawn upon again. + +"Did you look in the ash-pit?" asked Jennings. + +"No, sir." + +"Well, while you two search this chamber, I will examine it myself." + +Mr. Jennings apparently entertained a wholesome fear of Acton's powers +of wrestling. + +Up came Simon in a hurry back again, with a lot of little empty leather +bags he had raked out, and--the fragment of a shawl! the edges burnt, it +was a corner bit, and marked B.Q. + +"What do you call this, sir?" asked the exulting bailiff. + +"Curse that Burke!"--thought Roger; but he said nothing. + +And the two men up stairs had searched, and pried, and hunted every +where in vain; the knotty mattress had been ripped up, the chimney +scrutinized, the floor examined, the bed-clothes overhauled, and as for +the thatch, if it hadn't been for Roger Acton's constant glance upwards +at his treasure in the roof, I am sure they never would have found it. +But they did at last: there it was, the crock of gold, full proof of +robbery and murder! + +"Aha!" said Simon, in a complacent triumph, "Mrs. Quarles's identical +honey-pot, full of her clean bright gold, and many pieces still encased +in those tidy leather bags;" and his round eyes glistened again; but all +at once, with a hurried look over his left shoulder, he exclaimed, +involuntarily, in a very different tone, "Ha! away, I say!--" Then he +snatched the crock up eagerly, and nursed it like a child. + +"Come along with us, Master Acton, you're wanted somewhere else; up, +man, look alive, will you?" + +And Roger dressed himself mechanically. It was no manner of use, not in +the least worth while resisting, innocent though he was; his treasure +had been found, and taken from him; he had nothing more to live for; his +gold was gone--his god; where was the wisdom of fighting for any thing +else; let them take him to prison if they would, to the jail, to the +gallows, to any-whither, now his gold was gone. So he put on his +clothes without a murmur, and went with them as quiet as a lamb. + +Never was there a clearer case; the housekeeper's hoard had been found +in his possession, with a fragment of her shawl; and Sir John Vincent +was very well aware of the mystery attending the old woman's death; +besides, he was in a great hurry to be off; for Pointer, and Silliphant, +and Lord George Pypp, were to have a hurdle race with him that day, for +a heavy bet; so he really had not time to go deep into the matter; and +the result of five minutes' talk before the magisterial chairs (Squire +Ryle having been summoned to assist) was, that, on the accusation of +Simon Jennings, Roger Acton was fully committed to the county jail, to +be tried at next assizes, for Bridget Quarles's murder. + +Thank God! poor Roger, it has come to this. What other way than this was +there to save thee from thy sin--to raise thee from thy fall? Where +else, but in a prison, could you get the silent, solitary hours leading +you again to wholesome thought and deep repentance? Where else could you +escape the companionship of all those loose and low associates, sottish +brawlers, ignorant and sensual unbelievers, vagabond radicals, and +other lewd fellows of the baser sort, that had drank themselves drunk at +your expense, and sworn to you as captain! The place, the time, the +means for penitence are here. The crisis of thy destiny is come. + +Honest Roger, Steady Acton, did I not see thy guardian angel--after all +his many tears, aggrieved and broken spirit!--did I not see him lift his +swollen eyes in gratitude to Heaven, and benevolence to thee, and smile +a smile of hopeful joy when that damned crock was found? + +Gladly could he thank his Lord, to behold the temptation at an end. + +Did I not see the devil slink away from thee abashed, issuing like an +adder from thy heart, and then, with a sudden Protean change, driven +from thy hovel as a thunder-cloud dispersing, when Simon Jennings seized +the jar, hugged it as his household-god--and took it home with him--and +counted out the gold--and locked the bloody treasure in his iron-chest? + +Fitly did the murderer lock up curses with his spoil. + +And when God smote thine idol, dashing Dagon to the ground, and thy +heart was sore with disappointment, and tender as a peeled fig--when +hope was dead for earth, and conscience dared not look beyond it--ah! +Roger, did I judge amiss when I saw, or thought I saw, those eyes full +of humble shame, those lips quivering with remorseful sorrow? + +We will leave thee in the cold stone cell--with thy well-named angel +Grace to comfort thee, and pray with thee, and help thee back to God +again, and so repay the debt that a daughter owes her father. + +Happy prison! where the air is sweetened by the frankincense of piety, +and the pavement gemmed with the flowers of hope, and the ceiling arched +with Heaven's bow of mercy, and the walls hung around with the dewy +drapery of penitence! + +Happy prison! where the talents that were lost are being found again, +gathered in humility from this stone floor; where poor-making riches are +banished from the postern, and rich-making poverty streameth in as light +from the grated window; where care vexeth not now the labourer emptied +of his gold, and calumny's black tooth no longer gnaws the heart-strings +of the innocent. + +Hark! it is the turnkey, coming round to leave the pittance for the day: +he is bringing in something in an earthern jar. Speak, Roger Acton, +which will you choose, man--a prisoner's mess of pottage--or a crock of +gold? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THE AUNT AND HER NEPHEW. + + +While we leave Roger Acton in the jail, waiting for the very +near assizes, and wearing every hour away in penitence and prayer, it +will be needful to our story that we take a retrospective glance at +certain events, of no slight importance. + +I must now speak of things, of which there is no human witness; +recording words, and deeds, whereof Heaven alone is cognizant, Heaven +alone--and Hell! For there are secret matters, which the murdered cannot +tell us, and the murderer dare not--let him confess as fully as he will. +Therefore, with some omnipresent sense, some invisible ubiquity, I must +note down scenes as they occurred, whether mortal eye has witnessed them +or not; I must lay bare secret thoughts, unlatch the hidden chambers of +the heart, and duly set out, as they successively arose, the idea which +tongue had not embodied, the feeling which no action had expressed. + +Hitherto, we have pretty well preserved inviolate the three grand +unities--time, place, circumstance; and even now we do not sin against +the first and chiefest, however we may seem so to sin; for, had it +suited my purpose to have begun with the beginning, and to have placed +the present revelations foremost, the strictest stickler for the unities +would have only had to praise my orthodox adherence to them. As it is, I +have chosen, for interest sake, to shuffle my cards a little; and two +knaves happen to have turned up together just at this time and place. +The time is just three weeks ago--a week before the baronet came of age, +and a fortnight antecedent to the finding of the crock; which, as we +know, after blessing Roger for a se'nnight, has at last left him in +jail. The place is the cozy house-keepers room at Hurstley: and the +brace of thorough knaves, to enact then and there as _dramatis personæ_, +includes Mistress Bridget Quarles, a fat, sturdy, bluffy, old woman, of +a jolly laugh withal, and a noisy tongue--and our esteemed acquaintance +Mister Simon Jennings. The aunt, house-keeper, had invited the nephew, +butler, to take a dish of tea with her, and rum-punch had now succeeded +the souchong. + +"Well, Aunt Quarles, is it your meaning to undertake a new master?" + +"Don't know, nephy--can't say yet what he'll be like: if he'll leave us +as we are, won't say wont." + +"Ay, as we are, indeed; comfortable quarters, and some little to put by, +too: a pretty penny you will have laid up all this while, I'll be bound: +I wager you now it is a good five hundred, aunt--come, done for a +shilling." + +"Get along, foolish boy; a'n't you o' the tribe o' wisdom too--ha, ha, +ha!" + +"I will not say," smirked Simon, "that my nest has not a feather." + +"It's easy work for us, Nep; we hunt in couples: you the men, and I the +maids--ha, ha!" + +"Tush, Aunt Bridget! that speech is not quite gallant, I fear." And the +worshipful extortioners giggled jovially. + +"But it's true enough for all that, Simon: how d'ye manage it, eh, boy? +much like me, I s'pose; wages every quarter from the maids, dues from +tradesmen Christmas-tide and Easter, regular as Parson Evans's; pretty +little bits tacked on weekly to the bills, beside presents from every +body; and so, boy, my poor forty pounds a-year soon mounts up to a +hundred." + +"Ay, ay, Aunt Bridget--but I get the start of you, though you probably +were born a week before-hand: talk of parsons, look at me, a regular +grand pluralist monopolist, as any bishop can be; butler in doors, +bailiff out of doors, land-steward, house-steward, cellar-man, and +pay-master. I am not all this for naught, Aunt Quarles: if so much goes +through my fingers, it is but fair that something stick." + +"True, Simon--O certainly; but if you come to boasting, my boy, I don't +carry this big bunch o' keys for nothing neither. Lord love you! why +merely for cribbings in the linen-line for one month, John Draper +swapped me that there shawl: none o' my clothes ever cost me a penny, +and I a'n't quite as bare as a new-born baby neither. Look at them +trunks, bless you!" + +"Ay, ay, aunt, I'll be bound the printer of your prayer-book has left +out a 'not,' before the 'steal,' eh?--ha! ha!" + +"Fie, naughty Simon, fie! them's not stealings, them's parquisites. +Where's the good o' living in a great house else? But come, Si, haven't +you struck out the 'not,' for yourself, though the printer did his duty, +eh, Nep?" + +"Not a bit, aunt--not a bit: all sheer honesty and industry. Look at my +pretty little truck-shop down the village. Wo betide the labourer that +leaves off dealing there! not one that works at Hurstley, but eats my +bread and bacon; besides the 'tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff.'" + +"Pretty fairish articles, eh? I never dealt with you, Si: no, Nep, +no--you never saw the colour o' my money." + +Jennings gave a start, as if a thought had pricked him; but gayly +recovering himself, said, + +"Oh, as to pretty fairish, I know there is one thing about the bacon +good enough; ay, and the bread too--the very best of prices; ha! ha! is +not that good? And for the other genuine articles, I don't know that +much of the tea comes from China--and the coffee is sold ground, because +it is burnt maize--and there's a plenty of wholesome cabbage leaf cut up +in the tobacco--while as for snuff, I give them a dry, peppery, choky, +sneezy dust, and I dare say that it does its duty." + +It was astonishing how innocently the worthy couple laughed together. + +"My only trouble, Aunt Quarles, is where to keep my gains--what to do +with them. I am quite driven to the strong-box system, interest is so +bad; and as to speculations, they are nervous things, and sicken one. I +invest in the Great Western one day--a tunnel falls in, so I sell my +shares the next, and send the proceeds to Australia; then, looking at +the map, I see the island isn't clean chalked out all round, and +beginning to fear that the sea will get in where it a'n't made +water-tight by the Admiralty, I call the money home again. You see I +don't know what to do with gold when I get it. Where do you keep yours +now, aunt, I wonder?" + +"O, Nep, never mind me; you rattle on so I can't get in never a word. +I'll only tell you where I don't keep it. Not at Breakem's bank, for +they're brewers, and hosiers, and chandlers, and horse-dealers--ay, and +swindlers too, the whole 'company' on 'em; not in mortgages, for I hate +the very smell of a lawyer, with all his pounce and parchment; not in +Gover'me't 'nuities, for I'm an old 'ooman, boy; and not in the Three +per Cents, nor any other per cents, for I've sense enough to know that +my highest interest lies in counting out, as my first principle is +dropping in." And the fat female laughed herself purple at the venerable +joke. + +Simon was a courtier, and laughed too, as immoderately as possible. + +"Ah! I dare say now you have got a Chubb's patent somewhere full of +gold?" he asked somewhat anxiously; "take your punch, aunt, wont you? I +do not see you drink." + +"Simon, mark me; fools who want to be robbed put their money into an +iron chest, that thieves may know exactly where to find it; they might +as well ticket it 'cash,' and advertise to Newgate--come and steal. I +know a little better than to be such a fool." + +"Yes, certainly--I dare say now you keep it in your work-box, or sew it +up in your stays, or hide it in the mattress, or in an old tea-pot, +maybe." And Jennings eyed her narrowly. + +"Nephew, what rhymes to money?" + +"Money?--Well I can't say I am a poet--stony, perhaps. At least," added +the benevolent individual, "when I have raised a wretch's rent to gain a +little more by him, stony is not a bad shield to lift against prayers, +and tears, and orphans, and widows, and starvation, and all such +nonsense." + +"Not bad, neither, Nep: but there's a better rhyme than that." + +"You cannot mean honey, aunt? when I guessed stony, I thought you might +have some snug little cash cellar under the flags. But honey? are you +such a thorough Mrs. Rundle as to pickle and preserve your very guineas, +the same as you do strawberries or apricots in syrup?" + +"Oh, you clever little fool! how prettily you do talk on: your tongue's +as tidy as your cash-book: when you've any money to put by, come to Aunt +Bridget for a crock to hide it in: mayn't one use a honey-pot, as Teddy +Rourke would say, barring the honey?" + +"Ha! and so you hide the hoard up there, aunt, eh? along with the +preserves in a honey-pot, do you?" + +"We'll see--we'll see, some o' these long days; not that the money's to +be yours, Nep--you're rich enough, and don't want it; there's your poor +sister Scott with her fourteen children, and Aunt Bridget must give her +a lift in life: she was a good niece to me, Simon, and never left my +side before she married: maybe she'll have cause to bless the dead." + +Jennings hardly spoke a word more; but drained his glass in silence, got +up a sudden stomach-ache, and wished his aunt good-night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +SCHEMES. + + +We must follow Simon Jennings to his room. He felt keenly +disappointed. Money was the idol of his heart, as it is of many million +others. He had robbed, lied, extorted, tyrannized; he had earned scorn, +ill-report, and hatred; nay, he had even diligently gone to work, and +lost his own self-love and self-respect in the service of his darling +idol. He was at once, for lucre's sake, the mean, cringing fawner, and +the pitiless, iron despot; to the rich he could play supple parasite, +while the poor man only knew him as an unrelenting persecutor; with the +good, and they were chiefly of the fairer, softer sex, he walked in +meekness, the spiritual hypocrite; the while, it was his boast to +over-reach the worst in low duplicity and crooked dealing. All this he +was for gold. When the eye of the world was on him, and intuition warned +him of the times, he was ever the serene, the correct, with a smooth +tongue and an oily smile; but in the privacy of some poor hovel, where +his debtor sued for indulgence, or some victim of his passions (he had +more depravities than one) threw her wretched self upon his pity, then +could Simon Jennings lash sternness into rage, and heat his brazen heart +with the embers of inveterate malice. It was as if the serpent, that +voluble, insinuating reptile, which had power to fascinate poor Eve, +turned to rend her when she had fallen, erect, with flashing eyes, and +bristling crest, with venomed fangs, and hissing. Behold, +snake-worshippers of Mexico, the prototype of your grim idol, in +Mammon's model slave and specimen disciple! + +Such a man was Simon Jennings, a soul given up to gold--exclusively to +gold; for although, as we have hinted, and as hereafter may appear, he +could sell himself at times to other sins, still these were but as stars +in his evil firmament, while covetousness ruled it like the sun; or, if +the beauteous stars and blessed sun be an image too hallowed for his +wickedness, we may find a fitter in some stagnant pool, where the +pestilential vapour over all is Mammonism, and the dull, fat weeds that +rot beneath, are pride, craftiness, and lechery. In fact, to speak of +passions in a heart such as his, were a palpable misnomer; all was +reduced to calculation; his rage was fostered to intimidate, and where +the wretch seemed kinder, his kindnesses were aimed at power, as an +object, rather than at pleasure--the power to obtain more gold. + +For it is a dreadful truth (which I would not dare to utter if such +crimes had never been), that a reprobate of the bailiff Jennings's stamp +may, by debts, or fines, or kind usurious loans, entrap a beggared +creature in his toils; and then lyingly propose remission at the secret +sacrifice of honour, in some one, over whom that dastard beggar has +control; and having this point gained, the seducer is quite capable of +using, for still more extortion, the power which a threatening of +exposure gives, when the criminally weak has stooped to sin, on promises +of silence and delivery from ruin. I wish there may be no poor yeoman +in this broad land, of honourable name withal, he and his progenitors +for ages, who can tell the tale of his own base fears, a creditor's +exactions, and some dependant victim's degradation: some orphaned niece, +some friendless ward, immolated in her earliest youth at the shrine of +black-hearted Mammon; I wish there may be no sleek middle-man guilty of +the crimes here charged upon Simon Jennings. + +This worthy, then, had been introduced at Hurstley by his aunt, Mrs. +Quarles, on the occurrence of a death vacancy in the lad-of-all-work +department, during the long ungoverned space of young Sir John's +minority. As the precious "lad" grew older, and divers in-door +potentates died off, the house-keeper had power to push her nephew on to +pageship, footmanship, and divers other similar crafts, even to the +final post of butler; while his own endeavours, backed by his aunt's +interest, managed to secure for him the rule out of doors no less than +in, and the closest possible access to guardians and landlords, to the +tenants--and their rent. + +Now, the amiable Mrs. Quarles had contrived the elevation of her nephew, +and connived at his monopolies, mainly to fit in cleverly with her own +worldly weal; for it would never have done to have risked the loss of +innumerable perquisites, and other peculations, by the possible advent +of an honest butler. But, while the worshipful Simon, to do him only +justice, fully answered Mrs. Bridget's purpose, and even added much to +her emoluments; still he was no mere derivative scion, but an +independent plant, and entertained views of his own. He had his own +designs, and laid himself out to entrap his aunt's affections; or +rather, for I cannot say he greatly valued these, to secure her good +graces, and worm himself within the gilded clauses of her will; she was +an old woman, rolling in gold, no doubt had a will; and as for himself, +he was younger by five-and-thirty years, so he could afford to wait a +little, before trying on her shoes. The petty schemes of thievery and +cheating, which he in his Quotem capacities had practised, were to his +eyes but as driblets of wealth in comparison with the mighty stream of +his old aunt's savings. Not that he had done amiss, trust him! but then +he knew the amount of his own hoard to a farthing, while of hers he was +entirely ignorant; so, on the principle of '_omne ignotum pro +mirifico_,' he pondered on its vastness with indefinite amazement, +although probably it might not reach the quarter of his own. For it +should in common charity be stated, that, with all her hiding and hiving +propensities, Mrs. Quarles, however usually a screw, was by fits and +starts an extravagant woman, and besides spending on herself, had +occasionally helped her own kith and kin; poor niece Scott, in +particular, had unconsciously come in for many pleasant pilferings, and +had to thank her good aunt for innumerable filched groceries, and +hosieries, and other largesses, which (the latter in especial) really +had contributed, with sundry other more self indulgent expenses, to make +no small havoc of the store. + +Still, this store was Simon's one main chance, the chief prize in his +hope's lottery; and it was with a pang, indeed, that he found all his +endeavours to compass its possession had been vain. Was that endless +cribbage nothing, and the weary Bible-lessons on a Sunday, and the +constant fetchings and carryings, and the forced smiles, sham +congratulations, and other hypocritical affections--fearing for his dear +aunt's dropsy, and inquiring so much about her bunions--was all this +dull servitude to meet with no reward? With none? worse than none! Fool +that he was! had he schemed, and plotted, and flattered, and +cozened--ay, and given away many pretty little presents, lost decoys, +that had cost hard money, all for nothing--less than nothing--to be +laughed at and postponed to his Methodist sister Scott? The impudence of +deliberately telling him he "didn't want it, and was rich enough!" as if +"enough" could ever be good grammar after such a monosyllable as "rich;" +and "want it" indeed! of course he wanted it; if not, why had he slaved +so many years? want it, indeed! if to hope by day, and to dream by +night--if to leave no means untried of delicately showing how he longed +for it--if to grow sick with care, and thin with coveting--if this were +to want the gold, good sooth, he wanted it. Don't tell him of starving +brats, his own very bowels pined for it; don't thrust in his face the +necessities of others--the necessity is his; he must have it--he will +have it--talk of necessity! + +Wait a bit: is there no way of managing some better end to all this? no +mode of giving the right turn to that wheel of fortune, round which his +cares and calculations have been hovering so long? Is there no +conceivable method of possessing that vast hoard? + +Bless me! how huge it must be! and Simon turned whiter at the thought: +only add up Mother Quarles's income for fifty-five years: she is +seventy-five at least, and came here a girl of twenty. Simon's hair +stood on end, and his heart went like a mill-clapper, as he mentally +figured out the sum. + +Is there no possibility of contriving matters so that I may be the +architect of my own good luck, and no thanks at all to the old witch +there? Dear--what a glorious fancy--let me think a little. Cannot I get +at the huge hoard some how? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE DEVIL'S COUNSEL. + + +"Steal it," said the Devil. + +Simon was all of a twitter; for though he fancied his own heart said it, +still his ear-drum rattled, as if somebody had spoken. + +Simon--that ear-drum was to put you off your guard: the deaf can hear +the devil: he needs no tympanum to commune with the spirit: listen +again, Simon; your own thoughts echo every word. + +"Steal it: hide in her room; you know she has a shower-bath there, which +nobody has used for years, standing in a corner; two or three cloaks in +it, nothing else: it locks inside, how lucky! ensconce yourself there, +watch the old woman to sleep--what a fat heavy sleeper she is!--quietly +take her keys, and steal the store: remember, it is a honey-pot. +Nothing's easier--or safer. Who'd suspect you?" + +"Splendid! and as good as done," triumphantly exclaimed the nephew, +snapping his fingers, and prancing with glee;--"a glorious fancy! bless +my lucky star!" + +If there be a planet Lucifer, that was Simon's lucky star. + +And so, Mrs Quarles the biter is going to be bit, eh? It generally is so +in this world's government. You, who brought in your estimable nephew to +aid and abet in your own dishonest ways, are, it seems, going to be +robbed of all your knavish gains by him. This is taking the wise in +their own craftiness, I reckon: and richly you deserve to lose all your +ill-got hoard. At the same time, Mrs. Quarles--I will be just--there are +worse people in the world than you are: in comparison with your nephew, +I consider you a grosser kind of angel; and I really hope no harm may +befall your old bones beyond the loss of your money. However, if you are +to lose this, it is my wish that poor Mrs. Scott, or some other honest +body, may get it, and not Simon; or rather, I should not object that he +may get it first, and get hung for getting it, too, before the sister +has the hoard. + +Our friend, Simon Jennings, could not sleep that night; his reveries and +scheming lasted from the rum-punch's final drop, at ten P.M., to +circiter two A.M., and then, or thenabouts, the devil hinted "steal it;" +and so, not till nearly four, he began to shut his eyes, and dream +again, as his usual fashion was, of adding up receipts in five figures, +and of counting out old Bridget's hoarded gold. + +Next day, notwithstanding nocturnal semi-sleeplessness, he awoke as +brisk as a bee, got up in as exhilarated a state as any gas-balloon, and +was thought to be either surprisingly in spirits, or spirits +surprisingly in him; none knew which, "where each seemed either." That +whole day long, he did the awkwardest things, and acted in the most +absent manner possible; Jonathan thought Mr. Simon was beside himself; +Sarah Stack, foolish thing! said he was in love, and was observed to +look in the glass several times herself; other people did not know what +to think--it was quite a mystery. To recount only a few of his +unprecedented exploits on that day of anticipative bliss: + +First, he asked the porter how his gout was, and gave him a thimble-full +of whiskey from his private store. + +Secondly, he paid Widow Soper one whole week's washing in full, without +the smallest deduction or per centage. + +Thirdly, he ordered of Richard Buckle, commonly called Dick the Tanner, +a lot of cart harness, without haggling for price, or even asking it. + +And, fourthly, he presented old George White, who was coming round with +a subscription paper for a dead pig--actually, he presented old Gaffer +White with the sum of two-pence out of his own pocket! never was such +careless prodigality. + +But the little world of Hurstley did not know what we know. They +possessed no clue to the secret happiness wherewithal Simon Jennings +hugged himself; they had no inkling of the crock of gold; they thought +not he was going to be suddenly so rich; they saw no cause, as we do, +why he should feel to be like a great heir on the eve of his majority; +they wotted not that Sir John Devereux Vincent, Baronet, had scarcely +more agreeable or triumphant feelings when his clock struck twenty-one, +than Simon Jennings, butler, as the hour of his hope drew nigh. + +If a destiny like this man's can ever have a crisis, the hour of his +hope is that; but downward still, into a lower gulf, has been +continually his bad career; there is (unless a miracle intervene) no +stopping in the slope on which he glides, albeit there may be +precipices. He that rushes in his sledge down the artificial ice-hills +of St. Petersburgh, skims along not more swiftly than Jennings, from the +altitude of infant innocence, had sheered into the depths of full-grown +depravity; but even he can fall, and reach, with startling suddenness, a +lower deep. + +As if that Russian mountain, hewn asunder midway, were fitted flush to +a Norwegian cliff, beetling precipitately over the whirlpool; then tilt +the sledge with its furred inmate over the slope, let it skim with +quicker impetus the smoking ice, let it touch that beetling edge, and, +leaping from the tangent, let it dart through the air, let it strike the +eddying waters, be sucked hurriedly down that hoarse black throat, wind +among the roots of the everlasting hills, and split upon the loadstone +of the centre. + +Even such a fate, "down, down to hell," will come to Simon Jennings; +wrapped in the furs of complacency, seated in the sledge of +covetousness, a-down the slippery launch of well-worn evil habit--over +the precipice of crime--into the billows of impenitent remorse--to be +swallowed by the vortex of Gehenna! + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE AMBUSCADE. + + +Night came, and with it all black thoughts. Not that they were +black at once, any more than darkness leaps upon the back of noon, +without the intervening cloak of twilight. Oh dear, no! Simon's thoughts +accommodated themselves fitly to the time of day. They had been, for +him, at early morning, pretty middling white, that is whity-brown; +thence they passed, with the passing hour kindly, through the shades of +burnt sienna, raw umber, and bistre; until, just as we may notice in the +case of marking-ink; that which, five minutes ago, was as water only +delicately dirtied, has become a fixed and indelible black. + +Simon was resolved upon the spoil, come what might; although his waking +sensations of buoyancy, his noon-day cogitations of a calmer kind, and +his even-tide determined scheming, had now given way to a nervous and +unpleasant trepidation. So he poured spirits down to keep his spirits +up. Very early after dark, he had watched his opportunity while Mrs. +Quarles was scolding in the kitchen, had slipped shoeless and +unperceived, from his pantry into the housekeeper's room, and locked +himself securely in the shower bath. Hapless wight! it was very little +after six yet, and there he must stand till twelve or so: his foresight +had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him. +But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though his rabbit +back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with +exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is +failing him for fear. + +Yes, fear, and with good reason too for fear; "nothing easier, nothing +safer," said his black adviser; how easily for bodily pains, how safely +for chances of detection, was he getting at the promised crock of gold! + +"Mr. Jennings! Mr. Simon! where in the world was Mr. Jennings?" nobody +knew; he must have gone out somewhere. Strange, too--and left his hat +and great-coat. + +Here's a general for an ambuscade; Oh, Simon, Simon! you have had the +whole day to think of it--how is it that both you and your dark friend +overlooked in your calculations the certainty of search, and the chance +of a discovery? The veriest school-boy, when he hid himself, would hide +his hat. I am half afraid that you are in that demented state, which +befits the wretch ordained to perish. + +But where is Mr. Jennings? that was the continued cry for four agonizing +hours of dread and difficulty. Sarah, the still-room maid, was sitting +at her work, unluckily in Mrs. Quarles's room; she had come in shortly +after Simon's secret entry; there she sat, and he dared not stir. And +they looked every where--except in the right place; to do the devil +justice, it was a capital hiding-corner that; rooms, closets, passages, +cellars, out-houses, gardens, lofts, tenements, and all the "general +words," in a voluminous conveyance, were searched and searched in vain; +more than one groom expected (hoped is a truer word) to find Mr. +Jennings hanging by a halter from the stable-lamp; more than one +exhilarated labourer, hastily summoned for the search, was sounding the +waters with a rake and rope, in no slight excitement at the thought of +fishing up a deceased bailiff. + +It was a terrible time for the ensconced one: sometimes he thought of +coming out, and treating the affair as a bit of pleasantry: but then the +devil had taken off his shoes--as a Glascow captain deals with his cargo +of refractory Irishers; how could he explain that? his abominable old +aunt was shrewd, and he knew how clearly she would guess at the truth; +if he desired to make sure of losing every chance, he could come out +now, and reveal himself; but if he nourished still the hope of counting +out that crock of gold, he'll bide where he is, and trust to--to--to +fate. The wretch had "Providence" on his blistered tongue. + +If, under the circumstances, any thing could be added to Simon's +gratification, such pleasing addition was afforded in overhearing, as +Lord Brougham did, the effect which his rumoured death produced on the +minds of those who best had known him. It so happened, Sarah was sick, +and did not join the universal hunt; accordingly, being the only +audience, divers ambassadors came to tell her constantly the same most +welcome news, that Jennings had not yet been found. + +"Lawk, Sally," said a helper, "what a blessing it'll be, if that mean +old thief's dead; I'll go to town, if 'tis so, get a dozen Guy's-day +rockets, tie 'em round with crape, and spin 'em over the larches: +that'll be funeral fun won't it? and it'll sarve to tell the neighbours +of our luck in getting rid on him." + +"I doan't like your thought, Tom," said another staider youth: "it's +ill-mirth playing leap-frog over tomb-stones, and poor bravery insulting +the dead. Besides, I'm thinking the bad man that's taken from us an't a +going up'ards, so it's no use lending him a light. I wish we may all lie +in a cooler grave than he does, and not have to go quite so deep +down'ard." + +"Gee up for Lady-day!" exclaimed the emancipated coachman; "why, Sall, I +shall touch my whole lump of wages free for the fust time: and I only +wish the gals had our luck." + +"Here, Sarah," interposed a kind and ruddy stable youth, "as we're all +making free with Mr. Simon's own special ale, I've thought to bring you +a nogging on't: come, you're not so sick as you can't drink with all the +rest on us--The bailiff, and may none on us never see his face no more!" + +These, and similar testimonials to the estimation in which Simon's +character was held, must have gratified not a little the hearer of his +own laudations: now and then, he winced so that Sarah might have heard +him move: but her ear was alive to nothing but the news-bringers, and +her eyes appeared to be fixed upon the linen she was darning. That +Jennings vowed vengeance, and wreaked it afterwards too, on the youths +that so had shown their love, was his solitary pleasure in the +shower-bath. But his critics were too numerous for him to punish all: +they numbered every soul in the house, besides the summoned aiders--only +excepting three: Sarah, who really had a head-ache, and made but little +answers to the numerous glad envoys; Jonathan Floyd, whose charity did +not altogether hate the man, and who really felt alarmed at his absence; +and chiefest, Mrs. Quarles, who evinced more affection for her nephew +than any thought him worthy of exciting--she wrung her hands, wept, +offered rewards, bustled about every where, and kept calling +blubberingly for "Simon--poor dear Simon." + +At length, that fearful hue and cry began to subside--the hubbub came +to be quieter: neighbour-folks went home, and inmates went to bed. Sarah +Stack put aside her work, and left the room. + +What a relief to that hidden caitiff! his feet, standing on the cold, +damp iron so many hours, bare of brogues, were mere ice--only that they +ached intolerably: he had not dared to move, to breathe, and was all +over in one cramp: he did not bring the brandy-bottle with him, as he +once had planned; for calculation whispered--"Don't, your head will be +the clearer; you must not muddle your brains;" and so his caution +over-reached itself, as usual; his head was in a fog, and his brains in +a whirlwind, for lack of other stimulants than fear and pain. + +O Simon, how your prudence cheats you! five mortal hours of anguish and +anxiety in one unalterable posture, without a single drop of +creature-comfort; and all this preconcerted too! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +PRELIMINARIES. + + +At last, just as the nephew was positively fainting from +exhaustion, in came his kind old aunt to bed. She talked a good deal to +herself, did Mrs. Quarles, and Simon heard her say, + +"Poor fellow--poor, dear Simon, he was taken bad last night, and has +seemed queerish in the head all day: pray God nothing's amiss with the +boy!" + +The boy's heart (he was forty) smote him as he heard: yes, even he was +vexed that Aunt Bridget could be so foolishly fond of him. But he would +go on now, and not have all his toil for nothing. "I'm in for it," said +he, "and there's an end." + +Ay, Simon, you are, indeed, in for it; the devil has locked you in--but +as to the end, we shall see, we shall see. + +"I shouldn't wonder now," the good old soul went on to say, "if +Simon's wentured out without his hat to cool a head-ache: his +grand-father--peace be with him! died, poor man, in a Lunacy 'Sylum: +alack, Si, I wish you mayn't be going the same road. No, no, I hope +not--he's always so prudent-like, and wise, and good; so kind, too, to a +poor old fool like me:" and the poor old fool began to cry again. + +"Silly boy--but he'll take cold at any rate: Sarah!" (here Mrs. Quarles +rung her bell, and the still-maid answered it.) "Sarah Stack, sit up +awhile for Mr. Jennings, and when he comes in, send him here to me. Poor +boy," she went on soliloquizing, "he shall have a drop or two to comfort +his stomach, and keep the chill out." + +The poor boy, lying _perdu_, shuddered at the word chill, and really +wished his aunt would hold her tongue. But she didn't. + +"Maybe now," the affectionate old creature proceeded, "maybe Simon was +vexed at what I let drop last night about the money. I know he loves his +sister Scott, as I do: but it'll seem hard, too, to leave him nothing. I +must make my will some day, I 'spose; but don't half like the job: it's +always so nigh death. Yes--yes, dear Si shall have a snug little +corner." + +The real Simon Pure, in his own snug little corner, writhed again. Mrs. +Quarles started at the noise, looked up the chimney, under the bed, +tried the doors and windows, and actually went so near the mark as to +turn the handle of the shower-bath; "Drat it," said she, "Sarah must ha' +took away the key: well, there can't be nothing there but cloaks, that's +one comfort." + +Last of all, a thought struck her--it must have been a mouse at the +preserves. And Mrs. Quarles forthwith opened the important cupboard, +where Jennings now well knew the idol of his heart was shrined. Then +another thought struck Mrs. Quarles, though probably no unusual one, and +she seemed to have mounted on a chair, and to be bringing down some +elevated piece of crockery. Simon could see nothing with his eyes, but +his ears made up for them: if ever Dr. Elliotson produced clairvoyance +in the sisters Okey, the same sharpened apprehensions ministered to the +inner man of Simon Jennings through the instrumental magnet of his +inordinately covetous desires. Therefore, though his retina bore no +picture of the scene, the feelers of his mind went forth, informing him +of every thing that happened. + +Down came a Narbonne honey-pot--Simon saw that first, and it was as the +lamp of Aladdin in his eyes: then the bladder was whipped off, and the +crock set open on the table. Jennings, mad as Darius's horse at the +sight of the object he so longed for, once thought of rushing from his +hiding-place, taking the hoard by a _coup de main_, and running off +straightway to America: but--deary me--that'll never do; I mustn't leave +my own strong-box behind me, say nothing of hat and shoes: and if I stop +for any thing, she'd raise the house. + +While this was passing through the immaculate mind of Simon Jennings, +Bridget had been cutting up an old glove, and had made one of its +fingers into a very tidy little leather sacklet; into this she deposited +a bright half sovereign, spoil of the day, being the douceur of a needy +brush-maker, who wished to keep custom, and, of course, charged all +these vails on the current bill for mops and stable-sponges. + +"Ha!" muttered she, "it's your last bill here, Mr. Scrubb, I can tell +you; so, you were going to put me off with a crown-piece, were you? and +actually that bit of gold might as well have been a drop of blood wrung +from you: yes--yes, Mr. Scrubb, I could see that plainly; and so you've +done for yourself." + +Then, having sewed up the clever little bag, she dropped it into the +crock: there was no jingle, all dumby: prudent that, in his aunt--for +the dear morsels of gold were worth such tender keeping, and leather +would hinder them from wear and tear, set aside the clink being +silenced. So, the nephew secretly thanked Bridget for the wrinkle, and +thought how pleasant it would be to stuff old gloves with his own yellow +store. Ah, yes, he would do that--to-morrow morning. + +Meanwhile, the pig-skin is put on again, and the honey-pot stored away: +and Simon instinctively stood a tip-toe to peep ideally into that +wealthy corner cupboard. His mind's eye seemed to see more honey-pots! +Mammon help us! can they all be full of gold? why, any one of them would +hold a thousand pounds. And Simon scratched the palms of his hands, and +licked his lips at the thought of so much honey. + +But see, Mrs. Quarles has, in her peculiar fashion, undressed herself: +that is to say, she has taken off her outer gown, her cap and wig--and +then has _added_ to the volume of her under garments, divers night +habiliments, flannelled and frilled: while wrappers, manifold as a +turbaned Turk's, protect ear-ache, tooth-ache, head-ache, and face-ache, +from the elves of the night. + +And now, that the bedstead creaks beneath her weight, (as well it may, +for Bridget is a burden like Behemoth,) Simon's heart goes thump so +loud, that it was a wonder the poor woman never heard it. That heart in +its hard pulsations sounded to me like the carpenter hammering on her +coffin-lid: I marvel that she did not take it for a death-watch tapping +to warn her of her end. But no: Simon held his hand against his heart to +keep it quiet: he was so very fearful the pitapating would betray him. +Never mind, Simon; don't be afraid; she is fast asleep already; and her +snore is to thee as it were the challenge of a trumpeter calling to the +conflict. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +ROBBERY. + + +Hush--hush--hush! + +Stealthily on tiptoe, with finger on his lips, that fore-doomed man +crept out. + +"The key is in the cupboard still--ha! how lucky: saves time that, and +trouble, and--and--risk! Oh, no--there can be no risk now," and the +wretch added, "thank God!" + +The devil loves such piety as this. + +So Simon quietly turned the key, and set the cupboard open: it was to +him a Bluebeard's chamber, a cave of the Forty Thieves, a garden of the +Genius in Aladdin, a mysterious secret treasure-house of wealth +uncounted and unseen. + +What a galaxy of pickle-pots! tier behind tier of undoubted +currant-jelly, ranged like the houses in Algiers! vasty jars of +gooseberry! delicate little cupping-glasses full of syruped fruits! Yet +all these candied joys, which probably enhance a Mrs. Rundle's heaven, +were as nothing in the eyes of Simon--sweet trash, for all he cared +they might be vulgar treacle. His ken saw nothing but the +honey-pots--embarrassing array--a round dozen of them! All alike, all +posted in a brown line, like stout Dutch sentinels with their hands in +their breeches pockets, and set aloft on that same high-reached shelf. +Must he really take them all? impracticable: a positive sack full. +What's to be done?--which is he to leave behind? that old witch +contrived this identity and multitude for safety's sake. But what if he +left the wrong one, and got clear off with the valuable booty of two +dozen pounds of honey? Confusion! that'll never do: he must take them +all, or none; all, all's the word; and forthwith, as tenderly as +possible, the puzzled thief took down eleven pots of honey to his one of +gold--all pig-bladdered, all Fortnumed--all slimy at the string; +"Confound that cunning old aunt of mine," said Simon, aloud; and took no +notice that the snores surceased. + +Then did he spread upon the table a certain shawl, and set the crocks in +order on it: and it was quite impossible to leave behind that pretty +ostentatious "Savings' Bank," which the shrewd hoarder kept as a feint +to lure thieves from her hidden gold, by an open exhibition of her +silver: unluckily, though, the shillings, not being leathered up nor +branned, rattled like a Mandarin toy, as the trembling hand of Jennings +deposited the bank beside the crockeries--and, at the well-known sound, +I observed (though Simon did not, as he was in a trance of addled +triumph) or fancied I observed Mrs. Quarles's head move: but as she said +nothing, perhaps I was mistaken. Thus stood Simon at the table, +surveying his extraordinary spoils. + +And while he looked, the Mercy of God, which never yet hath seen the +soul too guilty for salvation, spake to him kindly, and whispered in his +ear, "Poor, deluded man--there is yet a moment for escape--flee from +this temptation--put all back again--hasten to thy room, to thy prayers, +repent, repent: even thou shalt be forgiven, and none but God, who will +forgive thee, shall know of this bad crime. Turn now from all thy sins; +the gate of bliss is open, if thou wilt but lift the latch." + +It was one moment of irresolute delay; on that hinge hung Eternity. The +gate swung upon its pivot, that should shut out hell, or heaven! + +Simon knit his brow--bit his nails--and answered quite out loud, "What! +and after all to lose the crock of gold?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +MURDER. + + +He had waked her! + +In an instant the angel form of Mercy melted away--and there stood the +devil with his arms folded. + +"Murder!--fire!--rape!--thieves!--what, Nephew Jennings, is that you, +with all my honey pots? Help! help! help!" + +"Phew-w-w!" whistled the devil: "I tell you what, Master Simon, you must +quiet the old woman, she bellows like a bull, the house'll be about your +ears in a twinkling--she'll hang you for this!" + +Yes--he must quiet her--the game was up; he threatened, he implored, but +she would shriek on; she slept alone on the ground-floor, and knew she +must roar loudly to be heard above the drawing-rooms; she would not be +quieted--she would shriek--and she did. What must he do? she'll raise +the house!--Stop her mouth, stop her mouth, I say, can't you?--No, she's +a powerful, stout, heavy woman, and he cannot hold her: ha! she has +bitten his finger to the bone, like a very tigress! look at the blood! + +"Why can't you touch her throat; no teeth there, bless you! that's the +way the wind comes: bravo! grasp it--tighter! tighter! tighter!" + +She struggled, and writhed, and wrestled, and fought--but all was +strangling silence; they rolled about the floor together, tumbled on the +bed, scuffled round the room, but all in horrid silence; neither uttered +a sound, neither had a shoe on--but all was earnest, wicked, +death-dealing silence. + +Ha! the desperate victim has the best of it; gripe harder, Jennings; she +has twisted her fingers in your neckcloth, and you yourself are choking: +fool! squeeze the swallow, can't you? try to make your fingers meet in +the middle--lower down, lower down, grasp the gullet, not the ears, +man--that's right; I told you so: tighter, tighter, tighter! again; ha, +ha, ha, bravo! bravo!--tighter, tighter, tighter! + +At length the hideous fight was coming to an end--though a hungry +constrictor, battling with the huge rhinoceros, and crushing his mailed +ribs beneath its folds, could not have been so fierce or fearful; fewer +now, and fainter are her struggles; that face is livid blue--the eyes +have started out, and goggle horribly; the tongue protrudes, swollen and +black. Aha! there is another convulsive effort--how strong she is still! +can you hold her, Simon?--can he?--All the fiend possessed him now with +savage exultation: can he?--only look! gripe, gripe still, you are +conquering, strong man! she is getting weaker, weaker; here is your +reward, gold! gold! a mighty store uncounted; one more grasp, and it is +all your own--relent now, she hangs you. Come, make short work of it, +break her neck--gripe harder--back with her, back with here against the +bedstead: keep her down, down I say--she must not rise again. Crack! +went a little something in her neck--did you hear it? There's the +death-rattle, the last smothery complicated gasp--what, didn't you hear +that? + +And the devil congratulated Simon on his victory. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE REWARD. + + +Till the wretch had done the deed, he scarcely knew that it was +doing. It was a horrid, mad excitement, where the soul had spread its +wings upon the whirlwind, and heeded not whither it was hurried. A +terrible necessity had seemed to spur him onwards all the while, and +one thing so succeeded to another, that he scarce could stop at any but +the first. From the moment he had hidden in the shower-bath (but for +God's interposing mercy), his doom appeared to have been +sealed--robbery, murder, false witness, and--damnation! + +Crime is the rushing rapid, which, but for some kind miracle, inevitably +carries on through circling eddies, and a foamy swinging tide, to the +cataract of death and wo: haste, poor fisherman of Erie, paddle hard +back, stem the torrent, cling to the shore, hold on tight by this +friendly bough; know you not whither the headlong current drives? hear +you not the roar of many waters, the maddening rush as of an ocean +disenthralled? feel you not the earth trembling at the thunder--see you +not the heaven clouded o'er with spray? Helpless wretch--thy frail canoe +has leapt that dizzy water-cliff, Niagara! + +But if, in doing that fell deed, madness raged upon the minutes, now +that it was done--all still, all calm, all quiet, Terror held the +hour-glass of Time. There lay the corpse, motionless, though coiled and +cramped in the attitude of struggling agony; and the murderer gazed upon +his victim with a horror most intense. Fly! fly!--he dared not stop to +think: fly! fly! any whither--as you are--wait for nothing; fly! thou +caitiff, for thy life! So he caught up the blood-bought spoils, and was +fumbling with shaky fingers at the handle of the garden-door, when the +unseen tempter whispered in his ear, + +"I say, Simon, did not your aunt die of apoplexy?" + +O, kind and wise suggestion! O, lightsome, tranquillizing thought! +Thanks! thanks! thanks!--And if the arch fiend had revealed himself in +person at the moment, Simon would have worshipped at his feet. + +"But," and as he communed with his own black heart, there needed now no +devil for his prompter--"if this matter is to be believed, I must +contrive a little that it may look likelier. Let me see:--yes, we must +lay all tidy, and the old witch shall have died in her sleep; apoplexy! +capital indeed; no tell-tales either. Well, I must set to work." + +Can mortal mind conceive that sickening office?--To face the strangled +corpse, yet warm; to lift the fearful burden in his arms, and order out +the heavily-yielding limbs in the ease of an innocent sleep? To arrange +the bed, smooth down the tumbled coverlid, set every thing straight +about the room, and erase all tokens of that dread encounter? It needed +nerves of iron, a heart all stone, a cool, clear head, a strong arm, a +mindful, self-protecting spirit; but all these requisites came to +Simon's aid upon the instant; frozen up with fear, his heart-strings +worked that puppet-man rigidly as wires; guilt supplied a reckless +energy, a wild physical power, which actuates no human frame but one +saturate with crime, or madness; and in the midst of those terrific +details, the murderer's judgment was so calm and so collected, that +nothing was forgotten, nothing unconsidered--unless, indeed, it were +that he out-generalled himself by making all too tidy to be natural. +Hence, suspicion at the inquest; for the "apoplexy" thought was really +such a good one, that, but for so exact a laying out, the fat old corpse +might have easily been buried without one surmise of the way she met her +end. Again and again, in the history of crimes, it is seen that a "Judas +hangs himself;" and albeit, as we know, the murderer has hitherto +escaped detection, still his own dark hour shall arrive in its due +place. + +The dreadful office done, he asked himself again, or maybe took counsel +of the devil (for that evil master always cheats his servants), "What +shall I do with my reward, this crock--these crocks of gold? It might be +easy to hide one of them, but not all; and as to leaving any behind, +that I won't do. About opening them to see which is which--" + +"I tell you what," said the tempter, as the clock struck three, +"whatever you do, make haste; by morning's dawn the house and garden +will be searched, no doubt, and the crocks found in your possession. +Listen to me--I'm your friend, bless you! remember the apoplexy. Pike +Island yonder is an unfrequented place; take the punt, hide all there +now, and go at your best leisure to examine afterwards; but whatever you +do, make haste, my man." + +Then Jennings crept out by the lawn-door, thereby rousing the house-dog; +but he skirted the laurels in their shadow, and it was dark and +mizzling, so he reached the punt both quickly and easily. + +The quiet, and the gloom, and the dropping rain, strangely affected him +now, as he plied his punt-pole; once he could have wept in his remorse, +and another time he almost shrieked in fear. How lonesome it seemed! how +dreadful! and that death-dyed face behind him--ha! woman, away I say! +But he neared the island, and, all shoeless as he was, crept up its +muddy bank. + +"Hallo! nybor, who be you a-poaching on my manor, eh? that bean't good +manners, any how." + +Ben Burke has told us all the rest. + +But, when Burke had got his spoils--when the biter had been bitten--the +robber robbed--the murderer stripped of his murdered victim's +money--when the bereaved miscreant, sullenly returning in the dark, +damp night, tracked again the way he came upon that lonely lake--no one +yet has told us, none can rightly tell, the feelings which oppressed +that God-forsaken man. He seemed to feel himself even a sponge which, +the evil one had bloated with his breath, had soaked it then in blood, +had squeezed it dry again, and flung away! He was Satan's broken tool--a +weed pulled up by the roots, and tossed upon the fire; alone--alone in +all the universe, without countenance or sympathy from God, or man, or +devil; he yearned to find, were it but a fiend to back him, but in vain; +they held aloof, he could see them vaguely through the gloom--he could +hear them mocking him aloud among the patter of the rain-drops--ha! ha! +ha--the pilfered fool! + +Bitterly did he rue his crime--fearfully he thought upon its near +discovery--madly did he beat his miserable breast, to find that he had +been baulked of his reward, yet spent his soul to earn it. + +Oh--when the house-dog bayed at him returning, how he wished he was that +dog! he went to him, speaking kindly to him, for he envied that +dog--"Good dog--good dog!" + +But more than envy kept him lingering there: the wretched man did it for +delay--yes, though morn was breaking on the hills--one more--one more +moment of most precious time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +SECOND THOUGHTS. + + +For--again he must go through that room! + +No other entrance is open--not a window, not a door: all close as a +prison: and only by the way he went, by the same must he return. + +He trembled all over, as a palsied man, when he touched the lock: with +stiffening hair, and staring eyes, he peeped in at that well-remembered +chamber: he entered--and crept close up to the corpse, stealthily and +dreadingly--horror! what if she be alive still? + +SHE WAS. + +Not quite dead--not quite dead yet! a gurgling in the bruised throat--a +shadowy gleam of light and life in those protruded eyes--an irregular +convulsive heaving at the chest: she might recover! what a fearful +hope: and, if she did, would hang him--ha! he went nearer; she was +muttering something in a moanful way--it was, "Simon did it--Simon did +it--Simon did it--Si--Si--Simon did--" he should be found out! + +Yet once again, for the last time, the long-suffering Mercy of the Lord +stood like Balaam's angel in the way, pleading with that miserable man +at the bed-side of her whom he had strangled. And even then, that +Guardian Spirit came not with chiding on his tongue, but He uttered +words of hope, while his eyes were streaming with sorrow and with pity. + +"Most wretched of the sinful sons of men, even now there may be mercy +for thee, even now plenteous forgiveness. True, thou must die, and pay +the earthly penalty of crimes like thine: but do my righteous bidding, +and thy soul shall live. Go to that poor, suffocating creature--cherish +the spark of life--bind up the wounds which thou hast rent, pouring in +oil and wine: rouse the house--seek assistance--save her life--confess +thy sin--repent--and though thou diest for this before the tribunal of +thy fellows, God will yet be gracious--he will raise again her whom thou +hadst slain--and will cleanse thy blood-stained soul." + +Thus in Simon's ear spake that better conscience. + +But the reprobate had cast off Faith; he could not pledge the Present +for the Future; he shuddered at the sword of Justice, and would not +touch the ivory sceptre of Forgiveness. No: he meditated horrid +iteration--and again the fiend possessed him! What! not only lose the +crock of gold, but all his own bright store? and give up every thing of +this world's good for some imaginary other, and meekly confess, and +meanly repent--and--and all this to resuscitate that hated old aunt of +his, who would hang him, and divorce him from his gold? + +No! he must do the deed again--see, she is moving--she will recover! her +chest heaves visibly--she breathes--she speaks--she knows me--ha! +down--down, I say! + +Then, with deliberate and damning resolution--to screen off temporal +danger, and count his golden hoards a little longer--that awful criminal +touched the throat again: and he turned his head away not to see that +horrid face, clutched the swollen gullet with his icy hands, and +strangled her once more! + +"This time all is safe," said Simon. And having set all smooth as +before, he stole up to his own chamber. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MAMMON, AND CONTENTMENT. + + +Ay, safe enough: and the murderer went to bed. To bed? No. + +He tumbled about the clothes, to make it seem that he had lain there: +but he dared neither lie down, nor shut his eyes. Then, the darkness +terrified him: the out-door darkness he could have borne, and Mrs. +Quarles's chamber always had a night-lamp burning: but the darkness of +his own room, of his own thoughts, pressed him all around, as with a +thick, murky, suffocating vapour. So, he stood close by the window, +watching the day-break. + +As for sleep, never more did wholesome sleep rëvisit that atrocious +mind: laudanum, an ever-increasing dose of merciless laudanum, that was +the only power which ever seemed to soothe him. For a horrid vision +always accompanied him now: go where he might, do what he would, from +that black morning to eternity, he went a haunted man--a scared, +sleepless, horror-stricken wretch. That livid face with goggling eyes, +stuck to him like a shadow; he always felt its presence, and sometimes, +also, could perceive it as if bodily peeping over his shoulder, next his +cheek; it dogged him by day, and was his incubus by night; and often he +would start and wrestle, for the desperate grasp of the dying appeared +to be clutching at his throat: so, in his ghostly fears, and bloody +conscience, he had girded round his neck a piece of thin sheet-iron in +his cravat, which he wore continually as armour against those clammy +fingers: no wonder that he held his head so stiff. + +O Gold--accursed Mammon! is this the state of those who love thee +deepest? is this their joy, who desire thee with all their heart and +soul--who serve thee with all their might--who toil for thee--plot for +thee--live for thee--dare for thee--die for thee? Hast thou no better +bliss to give thy martyrs--no choicer comfort for thy most consistent +worshippers, no fairer fate for those, whose waking thoughts, and +dreaming hopes, and intricate schemes, and desperate deeds, were only +aimed at gold, more gold? God of this world, if such be thy rewards, let +me ever escape them! idol of the knave, false deity of the fool, if this +be thy blessing on thy votaries--come, curse me, Mammon, curse thou me! + +For, "The love of money is the root of all evil." It groweth up a +little plant of coveting; presently the leaves get rank, the branches +spread, and feed on petty thefts; then in their early season come the +blossoms, black designs, plots, involved and undeveloped yet, of foul +conspiracies, extortions on the weak, rich robbings of the wealthy, the +threatened slander, the rewarded lie, malice, perjury, sacrilege; then +speedily cometh on the climax, the consummate flower, dark-red murder: +and the fruit bearing in itself the seeds that never die, is righteous, +wrathful condemnation. + +Dyed with all manner of iniquity, tinged with many colours like the +Mohawk in his woods, goeth forth in a morning the covetous soul. His +cheek is white with envy, his brow black with jealous rage, his livid +lips are full of lust, his thievish hands spotted over with the crimson +drops of murder. "The poison of asps is under his lips; and his feet are +swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in his ways; and there +is no fear of God before his eyes." + +O, ye thousands--the covetous of this world's good--behold at what a +fire ye do warm yourselves! dread it: even now, ye have imagined many +deaths, whereby your gains may be the greater; ye have caught, in +wishful fancy, many a parting sigh; ye have closed, in a heartless +revery, many a glazing eye--yea, of those your very nearest, whom your +hopes have done to death: and are ye guiltless? God and conscience be +your judges! + +Even now ye have compassed many frauds, connived at many meannesses, +trodden down the good, and set the bad on high--all for gold--hard gold; +and are ye the honest--the upright? Speak out manfully your excuse, if +you can find one, ye respectables of merchandise, ye traders, bartering +all for cash, ye Scribes, ye Pharisees, hypocrites, all honourable men. + +Even now, your dreams are full of money-bags; your cares are how to add +superfluity to wealth; ye fawn upon the rich, ye scorn the poor, ye pine +and toil both night and day for gold, more gold; and are ye happy? +Answer me, ye covetous ones. + +Yet are there righteous gains, God's blessing upon labour: yet is there +rightful hope to get those righteous gains. Who can condemn the poor +man's care, though Faith should make his load the lighter? And who will +extenuate the rich man's coveting, whose appetite grows with what it +feeds on? "Having food and raiment, be therewith content;" that is the +golden mean; to that is limited the philosophy of worldliness: the man +must live, by labour and its earnings; but having wherewithal for him +and his temperately, let him tie the mill-stone of anxiety to the wing +of Faith, and speed that burden to his God. + +If Wealth come, beware of him, the smooth false friend: there is +treachery in his proffered hand, his tongue is eloquent to tempt, lust +of many harms is lurking in his eye, he hath a hollow heart; use him +cautiously. + +If Penury assail, fight against him stoutly, the gaunt grim foe: the +curse of Cain is on his brow, toiling vainly; he creepeth with the worm +by day, to raven with the wolf by night: diseases battle by his side, +and crime followeth his footsteps. Therefore fight against him boldly, +and be of a good courage, for there are many with thee; not alone the +doled alms, the casual aids dropped from compassion, or wrung out by +importunity; these be only temporary helps, and indulgence in them +pampers the improvident; but look thou to a better host of strong +allies, of resolute defenders; turn again to meet thy duties, needy one: +no man ever starved, who even faintly tried to do them. Look to thy God, +O sinner! use reason wisely; cherish honour; shrink not from toil, +though somewhile unrewarded; preserve frank bearing with thy fellows; +and in spite of all thy sins--forgiven; all thy follies--flung away; all +the trickeries of this world--scorned; all competitions--disregarded; +all suspicions--trodden under foot; thou neediest and raggedest of +labourers' labourers--Enough shall be thy portion, ere a week hath +passed away. + +Well did Agur-the-Wise counsel Ithiel and Ucal his disciples, when he +uttered in their ears before his God, this prayerful admonition, "Two +things have I required of Thee; deny me them not before I die: remove +far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me +with food convenient for me. Lest I be full, and deny Thee, saying, Who +is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and dishonour the name of the +Lord my God." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +NEXT MORNING. + + +Day dawned apace; and a glorious cavalcade of flaming clouds +heralded the Sun their captain. From far away, round half the wide +horizon, their glittering spears advanced. Heaven's highway rang with +the trampling of their horse-hoofs, and the dust went up from its +jewelled pavement as spray from the bottom of a cataract. Anon, he +came, the chieftain of that on-spurring host! his banner blazed upon the +sky; his golden crest was seen beneath, nodding with its ruddy plumes; +over the south-eastern hills he arose in radiant armour. Fair Nature, +waking at her bridegroom's voice, arrived so early from a distant clime, +smiled upon him sleepily, gladdening him in beauty with her sweet +half-opened eyelids, and kissing him in faithfulness with +dew-besprinkled lips. + +And he looked forth upon the world from his high chariot, holding back +the coursers that must mount the steep of noon: and he heard the morning +hymn of thankfulness to Heaven from the mountains, and the valleys, and +the islands of the sea; the prayer of man and woman, the praise of +lisping tongues, the hum of insect joy upon the air, the sheep-bell +tinkling in the distance, the wild bird's carol, and the lowing kine, +the mute minstrelsy of rising dews, and that stilly scarce-heard +universal melody of wakeful plants and trees, hastening to turn their +spring-buds to the light--this was the anthem he, the Lord of Day, now +listened to--this was the song his influences had raised to bless the +God who made him. + +And he saw, from his bright throne of wide derivative glory, Hope flying +forth upon her morning missions, visiting the lonesome, comforting the +sorrowful, speaking cheerfully to Care, and singing in the ear of +Labour: and he watched that ever-welcome friend, flitting with the +gleams of light to every home, to every heart; none but gladly let her +in; her tapping finger opened the very prison doors; the heavy head of +Sloth rejoiced to hear her call; and every common Folly, every common +Sin--ay, every common Crime--warmed his unconscious soul before her +winning beauty. + +Yet, yet was there one, who cursed that angel's coming; and the holy Eye +of day wept pityingly to see an awful child of man who dared not look on +Hope. + +The murderer stood beside his casement, watching that tranquil scene: +with bloodshot eyes and haggard stare, he gazed upon the waking world; +for one strange minute he forgot, entranced by innocence and beauty; but +when the stunning tide of memory, that had ebbed that one strange +minute, rolled back its mighty flood upon his mind, the murderer swooned +away. + +And he came to himself again all too soon; for when he arose, building +up his weak, weak limbs, as if he were a column of sand, the cruel +giant, Guilt, lifted up his club, and felled the wretch once more. + +How long he lay fainting, he knew not then; if any one had vowed it was +a century, Simon, as he gradually woke, could not have gainsaid the man; +but he only lay four seconds in that white oblivious trance--for Fear, +Fear knocked at his heart:--Up, man, up!--you need have all your wits +about you now;--see, it is broad day--the house will be roused before +you know where you are, and then will be shouted out that awful +name--Simon Jennings! Simon Jennings! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +THE ALARM. + + +He arose, held up on either hand that day as if fighting +against Amalek;--despair buttressed him on one side, and secresy shored +him on the other: behind that wall of stone his heart had strength to +beat. + +He arose; and listened at the key-hole anxiously: all silent, quiet, +quiet still; the whole house asleep: nothing found out yet. And he bit +his nails to the quick, that they bled again: but he never felt the +pain. + +Hush!--yes, somebody's about: it is Jonathan's step; and hark, he is +humming merrily, "Hail, smiling morn, that opes the gates of day?" Wo, +wo--what a dismal gulph between Jonathan and me! And he beat his breast +miserably. But, Jonathan cannot find it out--he never goes to Mrs. +Quarles's room. Oh! this suspense is horrible: haste, haste, some kind +soul, to make the dread discovery! And he tore his hair away by +handfulls. + +"Hark!--somebody else--unlatching shutters; it will be Sarah--ha! she is +tapping at the housekeeper's room--yes, yes, and she will make it known, +O terrible joy!--A scream! it is Sarah's voice--she has seen her dead, +dead, dead;--but is she indeed dead?" + +The miscreant quivered with new fears; she might still mutter "Simon did +it!" + +And now the house is thoroughly astir; running about in all directions; +and shouting for help; and many knocking loudly at the murderer's own +door--"Mr. Jennings! Mr. Jennings!--quick--get up--come down--quick, +quick--your aunt's found dead in her bed!" + +What a relief to the trembling wretch!--she _was_ dead. He could have +blessed the voice that told him his dread secret was so safe. But his +parched tongue may never bless again: curses, curses are all its +blessings now. + +And Jennings came out calmly from his chamber, a white, stern, +sanctimonious man, lulling the storm with his wise presence:--"God's +will be done," said he; "what can poor weak mortals answer Him?" And he +played cleverly the pious elder, the dignified official, the +affectionate nephew: "Ah, well, my humble friends, behold what life is: +the best of us must come to this; my poor, dear aunt, the late +house-keeper, rest her soul--I feared it might be this way some night or +other: she was a stout woman, was our dear, deceased Bridget--and, +though a good kind soul, lived much on meat and beer: ah well, ah well!" +And he concealed his sentimental hypocrisy in a cotton pocket-handkerchief. + +"Alas, and well-a-day! that it should have come to this. Apoplexy--you +see, apoplexy caught her as she slept: we may as well get her buried at +once: it is unfortunately too clear a case for any necessity to open the +body; and our young master is coming down on Tuesday, and I could not +allow my aunt's corpse to be so disrespectful as to stop till it became +offensive. I will go to the vicar myself immediately." + +"Begging pardon, Mr. Jennings," urged Jonathan Floyd, "there's a strange +mark here about the throat, poor old 'ooman." + +"Ay," added Sarah, "and now I come to think of it, Mrs. Quarles's +room-door was ajar; and bless me, the lawn-door's not locked neither! +Who could have murdered her?" + +"Murdered? there's no murder here, silly wench," said Jennings, with a +nervous sneer. + +"I don't know that, Mr. Simon," gruffly interposed the coachman; "it's a +case for a coroner, I'll be bail; so here I goes to bring him: let all +bide as it is, fellow-sarvents; murder will out, they say." + +And off he set directly--not without a shrewd remark from Mr. Jennings, +about letting him escape that way; which seemed all very sage and +likely, till the honest man came back within the hour, and a _posse +comitatus_ at his heels. + +We all know the issue of that inquest. + +Now, if any one requests to be informed how Jennings came to be looked +for as usual in his room, after that unavailing search last night, I +reply, this newer, stronger excitement for the minute made the house +oblivious of that mystery; and if people further will persist to know, +how that mystery of his absence was afterwards explained (though I for +my part would gladly have said nothing of the bailiff's own excuse), let +it be enough to hint, that Jennings winked with a knowing and gallant +expression of face; alluded to his private key, and a secret return at +two in the morning from some disreputable society in the neighbourhood; +made the men laugh, and the women blush; and, altogether, as he might +well have other hats and coats, the delicate affair was not unlikely. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +DOUBTS. + + +And so, this crock of gold--gained through extortion, by the +frauds of every day, the meannesses of every hour--this concrete +oppression to the hireling in his wages--this mass of petty pilferings +from poverty--this continuous obstruction to the charities of +wealth--this cockatrice's egg--this offspring of iniquity--had already +been baptized in blood before poor Acton found it, and slain its earthly +victim ere it wrecked his faith; already had it been perfected by crime, +and destroyed the murderer's soul, before it had endangered the life of +slandered innocence. + +Is there yet more blessing in the crock? more fearful interest still, to +carry on its story to an end? Must another sacrifice bleed before the +shrine of Mammon, and another head lie crushed beneath the heel of that +monster--his disciple? + +Come on with me, and see the end; push further still, there is a +labyrinth ahead to attract and to excite; from mind to mind crackles the +electric spark: and when the heart thrillingly conceives, its +children-thoughts are as arrows from the hand of the giant, flying +through that mental world--the hearts of other men. Fervent still from +its hot internal source, this fountain gushes up; no sluggish +Lethe-stream is here, dull, forgetful, and forgotten; but liker to the +burning waves of Phlegethon, mingling at times (though its fire is still +unquenched), with the pastoral rills of Tempe, and the River from the +Mount of God. + +Lower the sail--let it flap idly on the wind--helm a-port--and so to +smoother waters: return to common life and humbler thoughts. + +It may yet go hard with Roger Acton. Jennings is a man of character, +especially the farther from his home; the county round take him for a +model of propriety, a sample of the strictest conduct. We know the bad +man better; but who dare breathe against the bailiff in his +power--against the caitiff in his sleek hypocrisy--that, while he makes +a show of both humilities, he fears not God nor man? What shall hinder, +that the perjured wretch offer up to the manes of the murdered the +life-blood of the false-accused? May he not live yet many years, heaping +up gold and crime? And may not sweet Grace Acton--her now repentant +father--the kindly Jonathan--his generous master, and if there be any +other of the Hurstley folk we love, may they not all meet destruction at +his hands, as a handful of corn before the reaper's sickle? I say not +that they shall, but that they might. Acton's criminal state of mind, +and his hunger after gold--gold any how--have earned some righteous +retribution, unless Providence in mercy interpose; and young Sir John, +in nowise unblameable himself, with wealth to tempt the spoiler, lives +in the spoiler's very den; and as to Jonathan and Grace, this world has +many martyrs. If Heaven in its wisdom use the wicked as a sword, Heaven +is but just; but if in its vengeance that sword of the wicked is turned +against himself, Heaven showeth mercy all unmerited. To a criminal like +Jennings, let loose upon the world, without the clog of conscience to +retard him, and with the spur of covetousness ever urging on, any thing +in crime is possible--is probable: none can sound those depths: and when +we raise our eyes on high to the Mighty Moral Governor, and note the +clouds of mystery that thunder round his Throne--He may permit, or he +may control; who shall reach those heights? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +FEARS. + + +Moreover, innocent of blood, as we know Roger Acton to be, +appearances are strongly against him: and in such a deed as secret, +midnight murder, which none but God can witness, multiplied appearances +justify the world in condemning one who seems so guilty. + +The first impression against Roger is a bad one, for all the neighbours +know how strangely his character had been changing for the worse of +late: he is not like the same man; sullen and insubordinate, he was +turned away from work for his bold and free demeanor; as to church, +though he had worn that little path these forty years, all at once he +seems to have entirely forgotten the way hither. + +He lives, nobody knows how--on bright, clean gold, nobody knows whence: +his daughter says, indeed, that her father found a crock of gold in his +garden--but she needs not have held her tongue so long, and borne so +many insults, if that were all the truth; and, mark this! even though +she says it, and declares it on her Bible-oath, Acton himself most +strenuously denied all such findings--but went about with impudent tales +of legacy, luck, nobody knows what; the man prevaricated continually, +and got angry when asked about it--cudgelling folks, and swearing +like--like any one but old-time "honest Roger." + +Only look, too, where he lives: in a lone cottage opposite Pike Island, +on the other side of which is Hurstley Hall, the scene of robbery and +murder: was not a boat seen that night upon the lake? and was not the +lawn-door open? How strangely stupid in the coroner and jury not to have +imagined this before! how dull it was of every body round not to have +suspected murder rather more strongly, with those finger-marks about the +throat, and not to have opened their eyes a little wider, when the +murderer's cottage was within five hundred yards of that open lawn-door! + +Then again--when Mr. Jennings, in his strict and searching way, accused +the culprit, he never saw a man so confused in all his life! and on +repeating the charge before those two constables, they all witnessed his +guilty consternation: experienced men, too, they were, and never saw a +felon if Acton wasn't one; the dogged manner in which he went with them +so quietly was quite sufficient; innocent men don't go to jail in that +sort of way, as if they well deserved it. + +But, strongest of all, if any shadow of a doubt remained, the most +fearful proof of Roger's guilt lay in the scrap of shawl--the little +leather bags--and the very identical crock of gold! There it was, +nestled in the thatch within a yard of his head, as he lay in bed at +noon-day guarding it. + +One proof, weaker than the weakest of all these banded together, has ere +now sufficed to hang the guilty; and many, many fears have I that this +multitude of seeming facts, conspiring in a focus against Roger Acton, +will be quite enough to overwhelm the innocent. "Nothing lies like a +fact," said Dr. Johnson: and statistics prove it, at least as well as +circumstantial evidence. + +The matter was as clear as day-light, and long before the trial came +about, our poor labourer had been hanged outright in the just judgment +of Hurstley-cum-Piggesworth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +PRISON COMFORTS. + + +Many blessings, more than he had skill to count, had visited +poor Acton in his cell. His gentle daughter Grace, sweet minister of +good thoughts--she, like a loving angel, had been God's instrument of +penitence and peace to him. He had come to himself again, in solitude, +by nights, as a man awakened from a feverish dream; and the hallowing +ministrations of her company by day had blest reflective solitude with +sympathy and counsel. + +Good-wife Mary, too, had been his comforting and cheering friend. +Immediately the crock of gold had been taken from its ambush in the +thatch, it seemed as if the chill which had frozen up her heart had been +melted by a sudden thaw. Roger Acton was no longer the selfish prodigal, +but the guiltless, persecuted penitent; her care was now to soothe his +griefs, not to scold him for excesses; and indignation at the false and +bloody charge made him appear a martyr in her eyes. As to his accuser, +Jennings, Mary had indeed her own vague fancies and suspicions, but +there being no evidence, nor even likelihood to support them, she did +not dare to breathe a word; she might herself accuse him falsely. Ben, +who alone could have thrown a light upon the matter, had always been +comparatively a stranger at Hurstley; he was no native of the place, and +had no ties there beyond wire and whip-cord: he would appear in that +locality now and then in his eccentric orbit, like a comet, and, soon +departing thence, would take away Tom as his tail; but even when there, +he was mainly a night-prowler, seldom seen by day, and so little versed +in village lore, so rarely mingling with its natives, that neither +Jennings nor Burke knew one another by sight. His fame indeed was known, +but not his person. At present, he and Tom were still fowling in some +distant fens, nobody could tell where; so that Roger's only witness, who +might have accounted for the crock and its finding, was as good as dead +to him; to make Ben's absence more unusually prolonged, and his +rëappearance quite incalculable, he had talked of going with his cargo +of wild ducks "either to London or to Liverpool, he didn't rightly know +which." + +Nevertheless, Mary comforted her husband, and more especially herself, +by the hope of his return as a saving witness; though it was always +doubtful how far Burke's numerous peccadilloes against property would +either find him at large, or authorize the poacher in walking straight +before the judges. Still Ben's possible interposition was one source of +hope and cheerful expectation. Then the good wife would leave her babes +at home, safely in a neighbour's charge, and stay and sit many long +hours with poor Roger, taking turns with Grace in talking to him +tenderly, making little of home-troubles past, encouraging him to wear a +stout heart, and filling him with gratitude for all her kindly care. +Thus did she bless, and thus was made a blessing, through the loss and +absence of that crock of gold. + +For Roger himself, he had repented; bitterly and deeply, as became his +headlong fall: no sweet luxuries of grief, no soothing sorrow, no +chastened meditative melancholy--such mild penitence as this, he +thought, could be but a soberer sort of joy for virgins, saints, and +martyrs: no--he, bad man, was unworthy of those melting pleasures, and +in sturdy self-revenge he flung them from him, choosing rather to feel +overwhelmed with shame, contrition, and reproaches. A humbled man with a +broken heart within him--such was our labourer, penitent in prison; and +when he contrasted his peaceful, pure, and Christian course those forty +years of poverty, with his blasphemous and infidel career for the one +bad week of wealth, he had no patience with himself--only felt his fall +the greater; and his judgment of his own guilt, with a natural +exaggeration, went the length of saying--I am scarcely less guilty +before God and man, than if, indeed, my hands were red with murder, and +my casual finding had been robbery. He would make no strong appeals to +the bar of justice, as an innocent condemned; not he--not he: innocent, +indeed? his wicked, wicked courses--(an old man, too--gray-headed, with +no young blood in him to excuse, no inexperience to extenuate), these +deserved--did he say hanging? it was a harsher syllable--hell: and the +contrite sinner gladly would have welcomed all the terrors of the +gibbet, in hope to take full vengeance on himself for his wicked thirst +for gold and all its bitter consequences. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +GOOD COUNSEL. + + +But Grace advised him better. "Be humbled as you may before +God, my father, but stand up boldly before man: for in his sight, and by +his law, you are little short of blameless. I would not, dearest father, +speak to you of sins, except for consolation under them; for it ill +becomes a child to see the failings of a parent. But when I know at once +how innocent you are in one sense, and how not quite guiltless in +another, I wish my words may comfort you, if you will hear them, father. +Covetousness, not robbery--excess, not murder--these were your only +sins; and concealment was not wise, neither was a false report +befitting. Money, the idol of millions, was your temptation: its earnest +love, your fault; its possession, your misfortune. Forgive me, father, +if I speak too freely. Good Mr. Evans, who has been so kind to us for +years, (never kinder than since you were in prison,) can speak better +than I may, of sins forgiven, and a Friend to raise the fallen: it is +not for poor Grace to school her dear and honoured father. If you feel +yourself guilty of much evil in the sight of Him before whom the angels +bow in meekness--I need not tell you that your sorrow is most wise, and +well-becoming. But this must not harm your cause with men: though tired +of life, though hopeless in one's self, though bad, and weak, and like +to fall again, we are still God's servants upon earth, bound to guard +the life he gives us. Neither must you lightly allow the guilt of +unrighteous condemnation to fall upon the judge who tries you; nor let +your innocent blood cry to God for vengeance on your native land. +Manfully confront the false accuser, tell openly the truth, plead your +own cause firmly, warmly, wisely:--so, God defend the right!" + +And as Grace Acton said these words, in all the fervour of a daughter's +love, with a flushed cheek, parted lips, and her right hand raised to +Him whom she invoked, she looked like an inspired prophetess, or the +fair maid of Orleans leading on to battle. + +In an instant afterwards, she humbly added, + +"Forgive me any thing I may have said, that seems to chide my father." + +"Bless you, bless you, dearest one!" was Roger's sobbing prayer, who +had listened to her wisdom breathlessly. "Ah, daughter," then exclaimed +the humbled, happy man, "I'll try to do all you ask me, Grace; but it is +a hard thing to feel myself so wicked, and to have to speak up boldly +like a Christian man." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +EXPERIENCE. + + +Then, with disjointed sentences, suited to the turmoil of his +thoughts, half in a soliloquy, half as talking to his daughter, Roger +Acton gave his hostile testimony to the worth of wealth. + +"Oh, fool, fool that I have been, to set so high a price on gold! To +have hungered and thirsted for it--to have coveted earnestly so bad a +gift--to have longed for Mammon's friendship, which is enmity with God! +What has not money cost me? Happiness:--ay, wasn't it to have given me +happiness? and the little that I had (it was much, Grace, not little, +very much--too much--God be praised for it!) all, all the happiness I +had, gold took away. Look at our dear old home--shattered and scattered, +as now I wish that crock had been. Health, too; were it not for gold, +and all gold gave, I had been sturdy still, and capable; but my nights +maddened with anxieties, my days worried with care, my head feverish +with drink, my heart rent by conscience--ah, my girl, my girl, when I +thought much of poverty and its hardships, of toil, and hunger, and +rheumatics, I little imagined that wealth had heavier cares and pains: I +envied them their wanton life of pleasure at the Hall, and little knew +how hard it was: well are they called hard-livers who drink, and game, +and have nothing to do, except to do wickedness continually. +Religion--can it bide with money, child? I never knew my wicked heart, +till fortune made me rich; not until then did I guess how base, lying, +false, and bad was "honest Roger;" how sensual, coarse, and brutal, was +that hypocrite "steady Acton". Money is a devil, child, or pretty near +akin. Then I complained of toil, too, didn't I?--Ah, what are all the +aches I ever felt--labouring with spade and spud in cold and rain, +hungry belike, and faint withal--what are they all at their worst (and +the worst was very seldom after all), to the gnawing cares, the hideous +fears, the sins--the sins, my girl, that tore your poor old father? +Wasn't it to be an end of troubles, too, this precious crock of gold? +Wo's me, I never knew real trouble till I had it! Look at me, and judge; +what has made me live like a beast, sin like a heathen, and lie down +here like a felon? what has made me curse Ben Burke--kind, hearty, +friendly Ben?--and given my poor good boy an ill-report as having stolen +and slain? all this crock of gold. But O, my Grace, to think that the +crock's curses touched thee, too! didn't it madden me to hear them? +Dear, pure, patient child, my darling, injured daughter, here upon my +knees I pray, forgive that wrong!" And he fell at her feet beseechingly. + +"My father," said the noble girl, lifting up his head, and passionately +kissing it; "when they whispered so against me, and Jonathan heard the +wicked things men said, I would have borne it all, all in silence, and +let them all believe me bad, father, if I could have guessed that by +uttering the truth, I should have seen thee here, in a dungeon, treated +as a--murderer! How was I to tell that men could be so base, as to +charge such crimes upon the innocent, when his only fault, or his +misfortune, was to find a crock of gold? Oh! forgive me, too, this +wrong, my father!" + +And they wept in each other's arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +JONATHAN'S TROTH. + + +Grace had been all but an inmate of the prison, ever since her +father had been placed there on suspicion. Early and late, and often in +the day, was the duteous daughter at his cell, for the governor and the +turn-keys favoured her. Who could resist such beauty and affection, +entreating to stay with a father about to stand on trial for his life, +and making every effort to be allowed only to pray with him? Thus did +Grace spend all the week before those dread assizes. + +As to her daily maintenance, ever since that bitter morning when the +crock was found, her spiritual fears had obliged her to abstain from +touching so much as one penny of that unblest store; and, seeing that +honest pride would not let her be supported by grudged and common +charity, she had thankfully suffered the wages of her now betrothed +Jonathan to serve as means whereon she lived, and (what cost more than +all her humble wants) whereby she could administer many little comforts +to her father in his prison. When she was not in the cell, Grace was +generally at the Hall, to the scandal of more than one Hurstleyan +gossip; but perhaps they did not know how usually kind Sarah Stack was +of the company, to welcome her with Jonathan, and play propriety. Sarah +was a true friend, one for adversity, and though young herself, and not +ill-looking, did not envy Grace her handsome lover; on the contrary, she +did all to make them happy, and had gone the friendly length of +insisting to find Grace and her family in tea and sugar, while all this +lasted. I like that much in Sarah Stack. + +However, the remainder of the virtuous world were not so considerate, +nor so charitable. Many neighbours shunned the poor girl, as if +contaminated by the crimes which Roger had undoubtedly committed: the +more elderly unmarried sisterhood, as we have chronicled already, were +overjoyed at the precious opportunity:--"Here was the pert vixen, whom +all the young fellows so shamelessly followed, turned out, after all, a +murderer's daughter;--they wished her joy of her eyes, and lips, and +curls, and pretty speeches: no good ever came of such naughty ways, that +the men liked so." + +Nay, even the tipsy crew at Bacchus's affected to treat her name with +scorn:--"The girl had made much noise about being called a trull, as if +many a better than she wasn't one; and, after all, what was the prudish +wench? a sort of she-butcher; they had no patience with her proud +looks." + +As to farmer Floyd, he made a great stir about his boy being about to +marry a felon's daughter; and the affectionate mother, with many +elaborate protestations, had "vowed to Master Jonathan, that she would +rather lay him out with her own hands, and a penny on each eye, than see +a Floyd disgrace himself in that 'ere manner." + +And uncles, aunts, and cousins, most disinterestedly exhorted that the +obstinate youth be disinherited--"Ay, Mr. Floyd, I wish your son was a +high-minded man like his father; but there's a difference, Mr. Floyd; I +wish he had your true blue yeoman's honour, and the spirit that becomes +his father's son: if the lad was mine, I'd cut him off with a shilling, +to buy a halter for his drab of a wife. Dang it, Mrs. Floyd, it'll never +do to see so queer a Mrs. Jonathan Junior, a standing in your tidy shoes +beside this kitchen dresser." + +These estimable counsels were, I grieve to say, of too flattering a +nature to displease, and of too lucrative a quality not to be +continually repeated; until, really, Jonathan was threatened with +beggary and the paternal malediction, if he would persist in his +disreputable attachment. + +Nevertheless, Jonathan clung to the right like a hero. + +"Granting poor Acton is the wretch you think--but I do not believe one +word of it--does his crime make his daughter wicked too? No; she is an +angel, a pure and blessed creature, far too good for such a one as I. +And happy is the man that has gained her love; he should not give her up +were she thrice a felon's daughter. My father and mother," Jonathan went +on to say, "never found a fault in her till now. Who was more welcome on +the hill than pretty Grace? who would oftenest come to nurse some sickly +lamb, but gentle Grace? who was wont, from her childhood up, to run home +with me so constantly, when school was over, and pleased my kinsfolk so +entirely with her nice manners and kind ways? Hadn't he fought for her +more than once, and though he came home with bruises on his face, his +mother praised him for it?" Then, with a natural divergence from the +strict subject-matter of objection, vicarious felony, Jonathan went on +to argue about other temporal disadvantages. "Hadn't he heard his father +say, that, if she had but money, she was fit to be a countess? and was +money, then, the only thing, whereof the having, or the not having, +could make her good or bad?--money, the only wealth for soul, and mind, +and body? Are affections nothing, are truth and honour nothing, religion +nothing, good sense nothing, health nothing, beauty nothing--unless +money gild them all? Nonsense!" said Jonathan, indignantly, warmed by +his amatory eloquence; "come weal, come wo, Grace and I go down to the +grave together; for better, if she can be better--for worse, if she +could sin--Grace Acton is my wealth, my treasure, and possession; and +let man do his worst, God himself will bless us!" + +So, all this knit their loves: she knew, and he felt, that he was going +in the road of nobleness and honour; and the fiery ordeal which he had +to struggle through, raised that hearty earthly lover more nearly to a +level with his heavenly-minded mistress. Through misfortune and +mistrust, and evil rumours all around, in spite of opposition from false +friends, and the scorn of slanderous foes, he stood by her more +constantly, perchance more faithfully, than if the course of true-love +had been smoother: he was her escort morning and evening to and from the +prison; his strong arm was the dread of babbling fools that spoke a word +of disrespect against the Actons; and his brave tongue was now making +itself heard, in open vindication of the innocent. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +SUSPICIONS. + + +Yes--Jonathan Floyd was beginning to speak out boldly certain +strange suspicions he had entertained of Jennings. It was a courageous, +a rash, a dangerous thing to do: he did not know but what it might have +jeoparded his life, say nothing of his livelihood: but Floyd did it. + +Ever since that inquest, contrived to be so quickly and so quietly got +over, he had noticed Simon's hurried starts, his horrid looks, his +altered mien in all he did and said, his new nervous ways at +nightfall--John Page to sleep in Mr. Jennings's chamber, and a +rush-light perpetually--his shudder whenever he had occasion to call at +the housekeeper's room, and his evident shrinking from the frequent +phrase "Mrs. Quarles's murder." + +Then again, Jonathan would often lie awake at nights, thinking over +divers matters connected with his own evidence before the coroner, which +he began to see might be of great importance. Jennings said, he had gone +out to still the dog by the front door--didn't he?--"How then, Mr. +Jennings, did you contrive to push back the top bolt? The Hall chairs +had not come then, and you are a little fellow, and you know that nobody +in the house could reach, without a lift, that bolt but me. Besides, +before Sir John came down, the hinges of that door creaked, like a +litter o' kittens screaming, and the lock went so hard for want of use +and oil, that I'll be sworn your gouty chalkstone fingers could never +have turned it: now, I lay half awake for two hours, and heard no creak, +no key turned; but I tell you what I did hear though, and I wish now I +had said it at that scanty, hurried inquest; I heard what I now believe +were distant screams (but I was so sleepy), and a kind of muffled +scuffling ever so long: but I fancied it might be a horse in the stable +kicking among the straw in a hunter's loose box. I can guess what it was +now--cannot you, Mr. Simon?--I say, butler, you must have gone out to +quiet Don--who by the way can't abear the sight of you--through Mrs. +Quarles's room: and, for all your threats, I'm not afeard to tell you +what I think. First answer me this, Mr. Simon Jennings:--where were you +all that night, when we were looking for you?--Oh! you choose to forget, +do you? I can help your memory, Mr. Butler; what do you think of the +shower-bath in Mother Quarles's room?" + +As Jonathan, one day at dinner in the servants' hall, took occasion to +direct these queries to the presiding Simon, the man gave such a horrid +start, and exclaimed, "Away, I say!" so strangely, that Jonathan could +doubt no longer--nor, in fact, any other of the household: Jennings gave +them all round a vindictive scowl, left the table, hastened to his own +room, and was seen no more that day. + +Speculation now seemed at an end, it had ripened into probability;--but +what evidence was there to support so grave a charge against this rigid +man? Suspicions are not half enough to go upon--especially since Roger +Acton seemed to have had the money. Therefore, though the folks at +Hurstley, Sir John, his guests, and all the house, could not but think +that Mr. Jennings acted very oddly--still, he had always been a strange +creature, an unpopular bailiff; nobody understood him. So, Floyd, to his +own no small danger, stood alone in accusing the man openly. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +GRACE'S ALTERNATIVE. + + +Very shortly after that remarkable speech in the servants' +hall, Jonathan found another reason for believing that Mr. Simon +Jennings was equal to any imaginable amount of human wickedness. That +reason will shortly now appear; but we must first of all dig at its +roots somewhat deeper than Jonathan's mental husbandry could manage. + +If any trait of character were wanting to complete the desperate infamy +of Jennings--(really I sometimes hope that his grandfather's madness had +a kind of rëawakening in this accursed man)--it was furnished by a new +and shrewd scheme for feeding to the full his lust of gold. The bailiff +had more than once, as we have hinted, found means to increase his evil +hoard, by having secretly gained power over female innocence and honest +reputation: similarly he now devised a deep-laid plot, nothing short of +diabolical. His plot was this: and I choose to hurry over such foul +treason. Let a touch or two hint its outlines: those who will, may paint +up the picture for themselves. Simon looked at Sir John--young, gay, +wealthy; he coveted his purse, and fancied that the surest bait to catch +that fish was fair Grace Acton: if he could entrap her for his master +(to whom he gave full credit for delighting in the plan), he counted +surely on magnificent rewards. How then to entrap her? Thus:--he, +representing himself as prosecutor of Roger, the accused, held for him, +he averred, the keys of life and death: he would set this idea (whether +true or not little mattered, if it served his purpose) before an +affectionate daughter, who should have it in her power to save her +parent, if, and only if, she would yield herself to Jennings: and he +well knew that, granting she gave herself secretly to him first, on such +a bribe as her father's liberation, he would have no difficulty whatever +in selling her second-hand beauty on his own terms to his master. It was +a foul scheme, and shall not be enlarged upon: but (as will appear) thus +slightly to allude to it was needful to our tale, as well as to the +development of character in Mammon's pattern-slave, and to the fullness +of his due retribution in this world. I may add, that if any thing could +make the plan more heinous--if any shade than blackest can be +blacker--this extra turpitude is seen in the true consideration, that +the promise to Grace of her father's safety would be entirely futile--as +Jennings knew full well; the crown was prosecutor, not he: and +circumstantial evidence alone would be sufficient to condemn. Again, it +really is nothing but bare justice to remark, with reference to Sir +John, that the deep-dyed villain reckoned quite without his host; for +however truly the baronet had oft-times been much less a self-denying +Scipio than a wanton Alcibiades, still the fine young fellow would have +flung Simon piecemeal to his hounds, if ever he had breathed so +atrocious a temptation: the maid was pledged, and Vincent knew it. + +Now, it so happened that one evening at dusk, when Grace as usual was +obliged to leave the prison, there was no Jonathan in waiting to +accompany her all the dreary long way home: this was strange, as his +good-hearted master, privately informed of his noble attachment, never +refused the man permission, but winked, for the time, at his frequent +evening absence. Nevertheless, on this occasion, as would happen now and +then, Floyd could not escape from the dining-room; probably because--Mr. +Jennings had secretly gone forth to escort the girl himself. +Accordingly, instead of loved Jonathan, sidled up to her the loathsome +Simon. + +Let me not soil these pages by recording, in however guarded phrase, the +grossness of this wretch's propositions; it was a long way to Hurstley, +and the reptile never ceased tormenting her every step of it, till the +village was in sight: twice she ran, and he ran too, keeping up with +her, and pouring into her ear a father's cruel fate and his own +detestable alternative. She never once spoke to him, but kept on praying +in her own pure mind for a just acquittal; not for one moment would she +entertain the wicked thought of "doing evil that good might come;" and +so, with flushed cheek, tingling ears, the mien of an insulted empress, +and the dauntless resolution of a heroine, she hastened on to Hurstley. + +Look here! by great good fortune comes Jonathan Floyd to meet her. + +"Save me, Jonathan, save me!" and she fainted in his arms. + +Now, truth to say, though Sir John knew it, Simon did not, that Grace +was Jonathan's beloved and betrothed; and the cause lay simply in this, +that Jonathan had frankly told his master of it, when he found the +dreadful turn things had taken with poor Roger; but as to Simon, no +mortal in the neighbourhood ever communicated with him, further than as +urged by fell necessity. Of course, the lovers' meetings were as private +as all such matters generally are; and Sarah's aid managed them +admirably. Therefore it now came to pass that Simon and Jonathan looked +on each other in mutual astonishment, and needs must wait until Grace +Acton could explain the "save me." Not but that Jennings seemed much as +if he wished to run away; but he did not know how to manage it. + +"Dear Jonathan," she whispered feebly, "save me from Simon Jennings." + +In an instant, Jonathan's grasp was tightly involved in the bailiff's +stiff white neckcloth. And Grace, with much maidenly reserve, told her +lover all she dared to utter of that base bartering for her father's +life. + +"Come straight along with me, you villain, straight to the master!" And +the sturdy Jonathan, administering all the remainder of the way (a +quarter of a mile of avenue made part of it) innumerable kickings and +cuffings, hauled the half-mummied bailiff into the servants' hall. + +"Now then, straight before the master! John Page, be so good as to knock +at the dining-room door, and ask master very respectfully if his honour +will be good enough to suffer me to speak to him." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE DISMISSAL. + + +It was after dinner. Sir John and his friends had somehow been +less jovial than usual; they were absolutely dull enough to be talking +politics. So, when the boy of many buttons tapped at the door, and +meekly brought in Jonathan's message, recounting also how he had got Mr. +Jennings in tow for some inexplicable crime, the strangeness of the +affair was a very welcome incident: both host and guests hailed it an +adventure. + +"By all means, let Jonathan come in." + +The trio were just outside; and when the blue and silver footman, +hauling in by his unrelinquished throat that scared bailiff, and +followed by the blushing village beauty, stood within the room, Sir John +and his half-dozen friends greeted the _tableau_ with united +acclamations. + +"I say, Pypp, that's a devilish fine creature," metaphorically remarked +the Honorable Lionel Poynter. + +"Yaas." Lord George was a long, sallow, slim young man, with a goatish +beard, like the Duc d'Aumale's; he affected extreme fashion and infinite +_sangfroid_. + +"Well, Jonathan, what is it?" asked the baronet. + +"Why, in one word, my honoured master, this scoundrel here has been +wickedly insulting my own poor dear Grace, by promising to save her +father from the gallows if--if--" + +"If what, man? speak out," said Mr. Poynter. + +"You don't mean to say, Jennings, that you are brute enough to be +seducing that poor man Roger's daughter, just as he's going to be tried +for his life?" asked Sir John. + +Simon uttered nothing in reply; but Grace burst into tears. + +"A fair idea that, 'pon my honour," drawled the chivalrous Pypp, +proceeding to direct his delicate attentions towards the weeping damsel. + +"Simon Jennings," said Sir John, after pausing in vain for his reply, "I +have long wished to get rid of you, sir. Silence! I know you, and have +been finding out your rascally proceedings these ten days past. I have +learnt much, more than you may fancy: and now this crowning villany +[what if he had known of the ulterior designs?] gives me fair occasion +to say once and for ever, begone!" + +Jennings drew himself up with an air of insufferable impudence, and +quietly answered, + +"John Vincent, I am proud to leave your service. I trust I can afford to +live without your help." + +There was a general outcry at this speech, and Jonathan collared him +again; but the baronet calmly set all straight by saying, + +"Perhaps, sir, you may not be aware that your systematic thievings and +extortions have amply justified me in detaining your iron chest and +other valuables, until I find out how you may have come by them." + +This was the _coup de grace_ to Jennings, who looked scared and +terrified:--what! all gone--all, his own beloved hoard, and that +dear-bought crock of gold? Then Sir John added, after one minute of +dignified and indignant silence, + +"Begone!--Jonathan put him out; and if you will kick him out of the +hall-door on your private account, I'll forgive you for it." + +With that, the liveried Antinous raised the little monster by the small +of the back, drew him struggling from the presence, and lifting him up +like a football, inflicted one enormous kick that sent him spinning down +the whole flight of fifteen marble stairs. This exploit accomplished to +the satisfaction of all parties, Jonathan naturally enough returned to +look for Grace; and his master, with a couple of friends who had run to +the door to witness the catastrophe, returned immediately before him. + +"Lord George Pypp, you will oblige me by leaving the young woman alone;" +was Sir John's first angry reproof when he perceived the rustic beauty +radiant with indignation at some mean offence. + +"The worthy baronet wa-ants her for himself," drawled Pypp. + +"Say that again, my lord, and you shall follow Jennings." + +Whilst the noble youth was slowly elaborating a proper answer, +Jonathan's voice was heard once more: he had long looked very white, +kept both hands clenched, and seemed as if, saving his master's +presence, he could, and would have vanquished the whole room of them. + +"Master, have I your honour's permission to speak?" + +"No, Jonathan, I'll speak for you; if, that is to say, Lord George +will--" + +"Paardon me, Sir John Devereux Vincent, your feyllow--and his master, +are not fit company for Lord George Pypp;"--and he leisurely proceeded +to withdraw. + +"Stop a minute, Pypp, I've just one remark to make," hurriedly exclaimed +Mr. Lionel Poynter, "if Sir John will suffer me; Vincent, my good +friend, we are wrong--Pypp's wrong, and so am I. First then, let me beg +pardon of a very pretty girl, for making her look prettier by blushes; +next, as the maid really is engaged to you, my fine fellow, it is not +beneath a gentleman to say, I hope that you'll forgive me for too warmly +admiring your taste; as for George's imputation, Vincent--" + +"I beyg to observe," enunciated the noble scion, "I'm awf, Poynter." + +He gradually drew himself away, and the baronet never saw him more. + +"For shame, Pypp!" shouted after him the warm-hearted Siliphant; "I tell +you what it is, Vincent, you must let me give a toast:--'Grace and her +lover!' here, my man, your master allows you to take a glass of wine +with us; help your beauty too." + +The toast was drank with high applause: and before Jonathan humbly led +away his pleased and blushing Grace, he took an opportunity of saying, + +"If I may be bold enough to speak, kind gentlemen, I wish to thank you: +I oughtn't to be long, for I am nothing but your servant; let it be +enough to say my heart is full. And I'm in hopes it wouldn't be very +wrong in me, kind gentlemen, to propose;--'My noble master--honour and +happiness to him!'" + +"Bravo! Jonathan, bravo-o-o-o!" there was a clatter of glasses;--and the +humble pair of lovers retreated under cover of the toast. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +SIMON ALONE. + + +Jennings gathered himself up, from that Jew-of-Malta tumble +down the steps, less damaged by the fall than could have been imagined +possible; the fact being that his cat-like nature had stood him in good +stead--he had lighted on his feet; and nothing but a mighty dorsal +bruise bore witness to the prowess of a Jonathan. + +But, if his body was comparatively sound, the inner man was bruised all +over: he crept back, and retreated to his room, in as broken and +despondent a frame of mind, as any could have wished to bless him +wherewithal. However, he still had one thing left to live for: his +hoard--that precious hoard within his iron box, and then--the crock of +gold. He took Sir John's threat about detaining, and so forth, as +merely future, and calculated on rendering it nugatory, by decamping +forthwith, chattels and all; but he little expected to find that the +idea had already been acted upon! + +On that identical afternoon, when Simon had gone forth to insult Grace +Acton with his villanous proposals, Sir John, on returning from a ride, +had commanded his own seal to be placed on all Mr. Jennings's effects, +and the boxes to be forthwith removed to a place of safety: induced +thereto by innumerable proofs from every quarter that the bailiff had +been cheating him on a most liberal scale, and plundering his tenants +systematically. Therefore, when Jennings hastened to his chamber to +console himself for all things by looking at his gold, and counting out +a bag or two--it was gone, gone, irrevocably gone! safely stored away +for rigid scrutiny in the grated muniment-room of Hurstley. Oh, what a +howl the caitiff gave, when he saw that his treasure had been taken! he +was a wild bull in a net; a crocodile caught upon the hooks; a hyena at +bay. What could he do? which way should he turn? how help himself, or +get his gold again? Unluckily--Oh, confusion, confusion!--his +account-books were along with all his hoard, those tell-tale legers, +wherein he had duly noted down, for his own private and triumphant +glance, the curious difference between his lawful and unlawful gains; +there, was every overcharge recorded, every matter of extortion +systematically ranged, that he might take all the tenants in their turn; +there, were filed the receipts of many honest men, whom the guardians +and Sir John had long believed to be greatly in arrear; there, was +recorded at length the catalogue of dues from tradesmen; there, the list +of bribes for the custom of the Hall. It would amply authorize Sir John +in appropriating the whole store; and Jennings thought of this with +terror. Every thing was now obviously lost, lost! Oh, sickening little +word, all lost! all he had ever lived for--all which had made him live +the life he did--all which made him fear to die. "Fear to die--ha! who +said that? I will not fear to die; yes, there is one escape left, I will +hazard the blind leap; this misery shall have an end--this sleepless, +haunted, cheated, hated wretch shall live no longer--ha! ha! ha! ha! +I'll do it! I'll do it!" + +Then did that wretched man strive in vain to kill himself, for his hour +was not yet come. His first idea was laudanum--that only mean of any +thing like rest to him for many weeks; and pouring out all he had, a +little phial, nearly half a wine-glass full, he quickly drank it off: no +use--no use; the agitation of his mind was too intense, and the habit +of a continually increasing dose had made him proof against the poison; +it would not even lull him, but seemed to stretch and rack his nerves, +exciting him to deeds of bloody daring. Should he rush out, like a Malay +running a muck, with a carving-knife in each hand, and kill right and +left:--vengeance! vengeance! on Jonathan Floyd, and John Vincent? No, +no; for some of them at last would overcome him, think him mad, and, O +terror!--his doom for life, without the means of death, would be +solitary confinement. "Stay! with this knife in my hand--means of +death--yes, it shall be so." And he hurriedly drew the knife across his +throat; no use, nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from +cutting--he dared not cut again; a little bloody scratch was all. + +But the heart, the heart--that should be easier! And the miscreant, not +quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture. Not yet, +Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows. "Ha! +hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of that before?" + +He mounted on a chair with a gimlet in his hand, and screwed it tightly +into the wainscotting as high as he could reach; then he took a cord +from the sacking of his bed, secured it to the gimlet, made a noose, put +his head in, kicked the chair away--and swung by his wounded neck; in +vain, all in vain; as he struggled in the agonies of self-protecting +nature, the handle of the gimlet came away, and he fell heavily to the +ground. + +"Bless us!" said Sarah to one of the house-maids, as they were arranging +their curl-papers to go to bed: "what can that noise be in Mr. +Jennings's room? his tall chest of drawers has fallen, I shouldn't +wonder: it was always unsafe to my mind. Listen, Jenny, will you?" + +Jenny crept out, and, as laudable females sometimes do, listened at +Simon's key-hole. + +"Lack-a-daisy, Sall, such a groaning and moaning; p'raps he's a-dying: +put on your cap again, and tell Jonathan to go and see." + +Sarah did as she was bid, and Jonathan did as he was bid; and there was +Mr. Jennings on the floor, blue in the face, with a halter round his +neck. + +The house was soon informed of the interesting event, and the bailiff +was nursed as tenderly as if he had been a sucking babe; fomentations, +applications, hot potations: but he soon came to again, without any hope +or wish to repeat the dread attempt: he was kept in bed, closely +watched, and Stephen Cramp, together with his rival, Eager, remained +continually in alternate attendance: until a day or two recovered him as +strong as ever. I told you, Simon Jennings, that your time was not yet +come. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +THE TRIAL. + + +The trial now came on, and Roger Acton stood arraigned of +robbery and murder. I must hasten over lengthy legal technicalities, +which would only serve to swell this volume, without adding one iota to +its interest or usefulness. Nothing could be easier, nothing more worth +while, as a matter of mere book-making, than to tear a few pages out of +some musty record of Criminal Court Practice or other Newgate +Calendar-piece of authorship, and wade wearily through the length and +breadth of indictments, speeches, examinations, and all the other +learned clatter of six hours in the judgment-halls of law. If the reader +wishes for all this, let him pore over those unhealthy-looking books, +whose exterior is dove-coloured as the kirtle of innocence, but their +inwards black as the conscience of guilt; whitened sepulchres, all +spotless without; but within them are enshrined the quibbling knavery, +the distorted ingenuity, the mystifying learnedness, the warped and +warping views of truth, the lying, slandering, bad-excusing, +good-condemning principles and practices of those who cater for their +custom at the guiltiest felon's cell, and would glory in defending +Lucifer himself. + +In the case of sheer innocence, indeed, as Roger's was--or in one of +much doubt and secresy, where the client denies all guilt, and the +counsel sees reason to believe him--let the advocate manfully battle out +his cause: but where crime has poured out his confessions in a +counsellor's ear--is not this man bought by gold to be a partaker and +abettor in his sins, when he strives with all his might to clear the +guilty, and not seldom throws the hideous charge on innocence? If the +advocate has no wish to entrap his own conscience, nor to damage the +tissue of his honour, let him reject the client criminal who confesses, +and only plead for those from whom he has had no assurance of their +guilt; or, better far, whose innocence he heartily believes in. + +Such an advocate was Mr. Grantly, a barrister of talents and experience, +who, from motives of the purest benevolence, did all that in him lay for +Roger Acton. In one thing, however, and that of no small import, the +kindly cautious man of law had contrived to do more harm than good: for, +after having secretly made every effort, but in vain, to find Ben Burke +as a witness--and after having heard that the aforesaid Ben was a +notorious poacher, and only intimate at Hurstley with Acton and his +family--he strongly recommended Roger to say nothing about the man or +his adventure, as the acknowledgment of such an intimacy would only +damage his cause: all that need appear was, that he found the crock in +his garden, never mind how he "thought" it got there: poachers are not +much in the habit of flinging away pots of gold, and no jury would +believe but that the ill-reputed personage in question was an accomplice +in the murder, and had shared the spoil with his friend Roger Acton. All +this was very shrewd; and well meant; but was not so wise, for all that, +as simple truth would have been: nevertheless, Roger acquiesced in it, +for a better reason than Mr. Grantly's--namely, this: his feelings +toward poor Ben had undergone an amiable revulsion, and, well aware how +the whole neigbourhood were prejudiced against him for his freebooting +propensities, he feared to get his good rough friend into trouble if he +mentioned his nocturnal fishing at Pike island; especially when he +considered that little red Savings' Bank, which, though innocent as to +the getting, was questionable as to the rights of spending, and that, +really, if he involved the professed poacher in this mysterious affair, +he might put his liberty or life into very serious jeopardy. On this +account, then, which Grace could not entirely find fault with (though +she liked nothing that savoured of concealment), Roger Acton agreed to +abide by Mr. Grantly's advice; and thus he never alluded to his +connexion with the poacher. + +Enlightened as we are, and intimate with all the hidden secrets of the +story, we may be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding all Mr. +Grantly's ingenuity, and all the siftings of cross-questioners, the case +was clear as light against poor Acton. No _alibi_, he lived upon the +spot. No witnesses to character; for Roger's late excesses had wiped +away all former good report: kind Mr. Evans himself, with tears in his +eyes, acknowledged sadly that Acton had once been a regular church-goer, +a frequent communicant: but had fallen off of late, poor fellow! And +then, in spite of protestations to the contrary, behold! the _corpus +delicti_--that unlucky crock of gold, actually in the man's possession, +and the fragment of shawl--was not that sufficient? + +Jonathan Floyd in open court had been base enough to accuse Mr. Jennings +of the murder. Mr. Jennings indeed! a strict man of high character, +lately dismissed, after twenty years' service, in the most arbitrary +manner by young Sir John, who had taken a great liking to the Actons. +People could guess why, when they looked on Grace: and Grace, too, was +sufficient reason to account for Jonathan's wicked suspicions; of +course, it was the lover's interest to throw the charge on other people. +As to Mr. Jennings himself, just recovered from a fit of illness, it was +astonishing how liberally and indulgently he prayed the court to show +the prisoner mercy: his white and placid face looked quite benevolently +at him--and this respectable person was a murderer, eh, Mr. Jonathan? + +So, when the judge summed up, and clearly could neither find nor make a +loop-hole for the prisoner, the matter seemed accomplished; all knew +what the verdict must be--poor Roger Acton had not the shadow of a +chance. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +ROGER'S DEFENCE. + + +Then, while the jury were consulting--they would not leave the +box, it seemed so clear--Roger broke the death-like silence; and he +said: + +"Judge, I crave your worship's leave to speak: and hearken to me, +countrymen. Many evil things have I done in my time, both against God +and my neighbour: I am ashamed, as well I may be, when I think on 'em: I +have sworn, and drunk, and lied; I have murmured loudly--coveted +wickedly--ay, and once I stole. It was a little theft, I lost it on the +spot, and never stole again: pray God, I never may. Nevertheless, +countrymen, and sinful though I be in the sight of Him who made us, +according to man's judgment and man's innocency, I had lived among you +all blameless, until I found that crock of gold. I did find it, +countrymen, as God is my witness, and, therefore, though a sinner, I +appeal to Him: He knoweth that I found it in the sedge that skirts my +garden, at the end of my own celery trench. I did wickedly and foolishly +to hide my find, worse to deny it, and worst of all to spend it in the +low lewd way I did. But of robbery I am guiltless as you are. And as to +this black charge of murder, till Simon Jennings spoke the word, I never +knew it had been done. Folk of Hurstley, friends and neighbours, you all +know Roger Acton--the old-time honest Roger of these forty years, +before the devil made him mad by giving him much gold--did he ever +maliciously do harm to man or woman, to child or poor dumb brute?--No, +countrymen, I am no murderer. That the seemings are against me, I wot +well; they may excuse your judgment in condemning me to death--and I and +the good gentleman there who took my part (Heaven bless you, sir!) +cannot go against the facts: but they speak falsely, and I truly; Roger +Acton is an innocent man: may God defend the right!" + +"Amen!" earnestly whispered a tremulous female voice, "and God will save +you, father." + +The court was still as death, except for sobbing; the jury were doubting +and confounded; in vain Mr. Jennings, looking at the foreman, shook his +head and stroked his chin in an incredulous and knowing manner; clearly +they must retire, not at all agreed; and the judge himself, that masqued +man in flowing wig and ermine, but still warmed by human sympathies, +struck a tear from his wrinkled cheek; and all seemed to be +involuntarily waiting (for the jury, though unable to decide, had not +yet left their box), to see whether any sudden miracle would happen to +save a man whom evidence made so guilty, and yet he bore upon his open +brow the genuine signature of Innocence. + +"Silence, there, silence! you can't get in; there's no room for'ards!" +But a couple of javelin-men at the door were knocked down right and +left, and through the dense and suffocating crowd, a black-whiskered +fellow, elbowing his way against their faces, spite of all obstruction, +struggled to the front behind the bar. Then, breathless with gigantic +exertion (it was like a mammoth treading down the cedars), he roared +out, + +"Judge, swear me, I'm a witness; huzza! it's not too late." + +And the irreverent gentleman tossed a fur cap right up to the skylight. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +THE WITNESS. + + +Mr. Grantly brightened up at once, Grace looked happily to +Heaven, and Roger Acton shouted out, + +"Thank God! thank God!--there's Ben Burke!" + +Yes, he had heard miles away of his friend's danger about an old shawl +and a honey-pot full of gold, and he had made all speed, with Tom in his +train, to come and bear witness to the innocence of Roger. The sensation +in court, as may be well conceived, was thrilling; but a vociferous +crier, and the deep anxiety to hear this sturdy witness, soon reduced +all again to silence. + +Then did they swear Benjamin Burke, who, to the scandal of his cause, +would insist upon stating his profession to be "poacher;" and at first, +poor simple fellow, seemed to have a notion that a sworn witness meant +one who swore continually; but he was soon convinced otherwise, and his +whole demeanour gradually became as polite and deferent as his coarse +nature would allow. And Ben told his adventure on Pike island, as we +have heard him tell it, pretty much in the same words, for the judge and +Mr. Grantly let him take his own courses; and then he added (with a +characteristic expletive, which we may as well omit, seeing it +occasioned a cry of "order" in the court), "There, if that there +white-livered little villain warn't the chap that brought the crocks, my +name an't Ben Burke." + +"Good Heavens! Mr. Jennings, what's the matter?" said a briefless one, +starting up: this was Mr. Sharp, a personage on former occasions +distinguished highly as a thieves' advocate, but now, unfortunately, out +of work. "Loosen his cravat, some one there; the gentleman is in fits." + +"Oh, Aunt--Aunt Quarles, don't throttle me; I'll tell all--all; let go, +let go!" and the wretched man slowly recovered, as Ben Burke said, + +"Ay, my lord, ask him yourself, the little wretch can tell you all about +it." + +"I submit, my lurd," interposed the briefless one, "that this +respectable gentleman is taken ill, and that his presence may now be +dispensed with, as a witness in the cause." + +"No, sir, no;" deliberately answered Jennings; "I must stay: the time I +find is come; I have not slept for weeks; I am exhausted utterly; I have +lost my gold; I am haunted by her ghost; I can go no where but that face +follows me--I can do nothing but her fingers clutch my throat. It is +time to end this misery. In hope to lay her spirit, I would have offered +up a victim: but--but she will not have him. Mine was the hand that--" + +"Pardon me," upstarted Mr. Sharp, "this poor gentleman is a mono-maniac; +pray, my lurd, let him be removed while the trial is proceeding." + +"You horse-hair hypocrite, you!" roared Ben, "would you hang the +innocent, and save the guilty?" + +Would he? would Mr. Philip Sharp? Ay, that he would; and glad of such a +famous opportunity. What! would not Newgate rejoice, and Horsemonger be +glad? Would not his bag be filled with briefs from the community of +burglars, and his purse be rich in gold subscribed by the brotherhood of +thieves? Great at once would be his name among the purlieus of iniquity: +and every rogue in London would retain but Philip Sharp. Would he? ask +him again. + +But Jennings quietly proceeded like a speaking statue. + +"I am not mad, most noble--" [the Bible-read villain was from habit +quoting Paul]--"my lord, I mean. My hand did the deed: I throttled her" +(here he gave a scared look over his shoulder): "yes--I did it once and +again: I took the crock of gold. You may hang me now, Aunt Quarles." + +"My lurd, my lurd, this is a most irregular proceeding," urged Mr. +Sharp; "on the part of the prisoner--I, I crave pardon--on behalf of +this most respectable and deluded gentleman, Mr. Simon Jennings, I +contend that no one may criminate himself in this way, without the +shadow of evidence to support such suicidal testimony. Really, my +lurd--" + +"Oh, sir, but my father may go free?" earnestly asked Grace. But Ben +Burke's voice--I had almost written woice--overwhelmed them all: + +"Let me speak, judge, an't it please your honour, and take you notice, +Master Horsehair. You wan't ewidence, do you, beyond the man's +confession: here, I'll give it you. Look at this here wice:" and he +stretched forth his well-known huge and horny hand: + +"When I caught that dridful little reptil by the arm, he wriggled like a +sniggled eel, so I was forced you see, to grasp him something tighter, +and could feel his little arm-bones crack like any chicken's: now then, +if his left elbow an't black and blue, though it's a month a-gone and +more, I'll eat it. Strip him and see." + +No need to struggle with the man, or tear his coat off. Jennings +appeared only too glad to find that there was other evidence than his +own foul tongue, and that he might be hung at last without sacking-rope +or gimlet; so, he quietly bared his arm, and the elbow looked all manner +of colours--a mass of old bruises. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +MR. SHARP'S ADVOCACY. + + +The whole court trembled with excitement: it was deep, still +silence; and the judge said, + +"Prisoner at the bar, there is now no evidence against you: gentlemen of +the jury, of course you will acquit him." + +The foreman: "All agreed, my lord, not guilty." + +"Roger Acton," said the judge, "to God alone you owe this marvellous, +almost miraculous, interposition: you have had many wrongs innocently to +endure, and I trust that the right feelings of society will requite you +for them in this world, as, if you serve Him, God will in the next. You +are honourably acquitted, and may leave this bar." + +In vain the crier shouted, in vain the javelin-men helped the crier, the +court was in a tumult of joy; Grace sprang to her father's neck, and Sir +John Vincent, who had been in attendance sitting near the judge all the +trial through, came down to him, and shook his hand warmly. + +Roger's eyes ran over, and he could only utter, + +"Thank God! thank God! He does better for me than I deserved." But the +court was hushed at last: the jury rësworn; certain legal forms and +technicalities speedily attended to, as counts of indictment, and so +forth: and the judge then quietly said, + +"Simon Jennings, stand at that bar." + +He stood there like an image. + +"My lurd, I claim to be prisoner's counsel." + +"Mr. Sharp--the prisoner shall have proper assistance by all means; but +I do not see how it will help your case, if you cannot get your client +to plead not guilty." + +While Mr. Philip Sharp converses earnestly with the criminal in +confidential whispers, I will entertain the sagacious reader with a few +admirable lines I have just cut out of a newspaper: they are headed + + "SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH AND EXCLUSION OF EVIDENCE. + +"Lawyers abhor any short cut to the truth. The pursuit is the thing for +their pleasure and profit, and all their rules are framed for making the +most of it. + +"Crime is to them precisely what the fox is to the sportsman: and the +object is not to pounce on it, and capture it at once, but to have a +good run for it, and to exhibit skill and address in the chase. Whether +the culprit or the fox escape or not, is a matter of indifference, the +run being the main thing. + +"The punishment of crime is as foreign to the object of lawyers, as the +extirpation of the fox is to that of sportsmen. The sportsman, because +he hunts the fox, sees in the summary destruction of the fox by the hand +of a clown, an offence foul, strange, and unnatural, little short of +murder. The lawyer treats crime in the same way: his business is the +chase of it; but, that it may exist for the chase, he lays down rules +protecting it against surprises and capture by any methods but those of +the forensic field. + +"One good turn deserves another, and as the lawyer owes his business to +crime, he naturally makes it his business to favour and spare it as much +as possible. To seize and destroy it wherever it can be got at, seems to +him as barbarous as shooting a bird sitting, or a hare in her form, does +to the sportsman. The phrase, to give _law_, for the allowance of a +start, or any chance of escape, expresses the methods of lawyers in the +pursuit of crime, and has doubtless been derived from their practice. + +"Confession is the thing most hateful to law, for this stops its sport +at the outset. It is the surrender of the fox to the hounds. 'We don't +want your stinking body,' says the lawyer; 'we want the run after the +scent. Away with you, be off; retract your admission, take the benefit +of telling a lie, give us employment, and let us take our chance of +hunting out, in our roundabout ways, the truth, which we will not take +when it lies before us.'" + + * * * * * + +As I perceive that Mr. Sharp has not yet made much impression upon the +desponding prisoner, suffer me to recommend to your notice another +sensible leader: the abuse which it would combat calls loudly for +amendment. There is plenty of time to spare, for some preliminaries of +trial have yet to be arranged, and the judge has just stepped out to get +a sandwich, and every body stands at ease; moreover, gentle reader, the +paragraphs following are well worthy of your attention. Let us name +them, + + "MORBID SYMPATHIES. + +"We have often thought that the tenderness shown by our law to presumed +criminals is as injurious as it is inconsistent and excessive. A +miserable beggar, a petty rioter, the wretch who steals a loaf to +satisfy the gnawings of his hunger, is roughly seized, closely examined, +and severely punished; meanwhile, the plain common sense of our mobs, if +not of our magistracy, has pitied the offender, and perhaps acquitted +him. But let some apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant +deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human belief, have +killed, disembowelled, and dismembered; let him have united the coolness +of consummate craft to the boldest daring of iniquity, and straightway +(though the generous crowd may hoot and hunt the wretch with yelling +execration) he finds in law and lawyers, refuge, defenders, and +apologists. Tenderly and considerately is he cautioned on no account to +criminate himself: he is exhorted, even by judges, to withdraw the +honest and truthful plea of 'guilty,' now the only amends which such a +one can make to the outraged laws of God and man: he is defended, even +to the desperate length of malignant accusation of the innocent, by +learned men, whose aim it is to pervert justice and screen the guilty! +he is lodged and tended with more circumstances of outward comfort and +consideration than he probably has ever experienced in all his life +before; and if, notwithstanding the ingenuity of his advocates, and the +merciful glosses of his judge, a simple-minded British jury capitally +convict him, and he is handed over to the executioner, he still finds +pious gentlemen ready to weep over him in his cell, and titled dames to +send him white camellias, to wear upon his heart when he is hanging.[A] + +"Now what is the necessary consequence of this, but a mighty, a +fearfully influential premium on crime? And what is its radical cause, +but the absurd indulgence wherewith our law greets the favoured, +_because_ the atrocious criminal? Upon what principle of propriety, or +of natural justice, should a seeming murderer not be--we will not say +sternly, but even kindly--catechised, and for his very soul's sake +counselled to confess his guilt? Why should the _morale_ of evidence be +so thoroughly lost sight of, and a malefactor, who is ready to +acknowledge crime, or unable, when questioned, to conceal it, on no +account be listened to, lest he may do his precious life irreparable +harm? It is not agonized repentance, or incidental disclosure, that +makes the culprit his own executioner, but his crime that has preceded; +it is not the weak, avowing tongue, but the bold and bloody hand. + +"We are unwilling to allude specifically to the name of any recent +malefactor in connexion with these plain remarks; for, in the absence +alike of hindered voluntary confession and of incomplete legal evidence, +we would not prejudge, that is, prejudice a case. But we do desire to +exclaim against any further exhibition of that morbid tenderness +wherewith all persons are sure to be treated, if only they are accused +of enormities more than usually disgusting; and we specially protest +against that foolish, however ancient, rule in our criminal law, which +discourages and rejects the slenderest approach to a confession, while +it has sacrificed many an innocent victim to the uncertainty of +evidence, supported by nothing more safe than outward circumstantials." + +At length, and after much gesticulation and protestation, Mr. Sharp has +succeeded; he had apparently innoculated the miserable man with hopes; +for the miscreant now said firmly, "I plead not guilty." + + * * * * * + +The briefless one looked happy--nay, triumphant: Jennings was a wealthy +man, all knew; and, any how, he should bag a bouncing fee. How far such +money was likely to do him any good, he never stopped to ask. "Money is +money," said Philip Sharp and the Emperor Vespasian. + +We need not trouble ourselves to print Mr. Sharp's very flashy, flippant +speech. Suffice it to say, that, not content with asserting vehemently +on his conscience as a Christian, on his honour as a man, that Simon +Jennings was an innocent, maligned, persecuted individual; labouring, +perhaps, under mono-mania, but pure and gentle as the babe new-born--not +satisfied with traducing honest Ben Burke as a most suspicious witness, +probably a murderer--ay, _the_ murderer himself, a mere riotous ruffian +[Ben here chucked his cap at him, and thereby countenanced the charge], +a mere scoundrel, not to say scamp, whom no one should believe upon his +oath; he again, with all the semblance of sincerity, accused, however +vainly, Roger Acton: and lastly, to the disgust and astonishment of the +whole court, added, with all acted appearances of fervent zeal for +justice, "And I charge his pious daughter, too, that far too pretty +piece of goods, Grace Acton, with being accessory to this atrocious +crime after the fact!" + +There was a storm of shames and hisses; but the judge allayed it, +quietly saying, + +"Mr. Sharp, be so good as to confine your attention to your client; he +appears to be quite worthy of you." + +Then Mr. Sharp, like the firm just man immortalized by Flaccus, stood +stout against the visage of the judge, sneered at the wrath of citizens +commanding things unjust, turned to Ben Burke minaciously, calling him +"_Dux inquieti turbidus Adriæ_" [as Burke had heard this quotation, he +thought it was about the "ducks" he had been decoying], and altogether +seemed not about to be put down, though the huge globe crack about his +ears. After this, he calmly worded on, seeming to regard the judge's +stinging observation with the same sort of indifference as the lion +would a dew-drop on his mane; and having poured out all manner of +voluminous bombast, he gradually ran down, and came to a conclusion; +then, jumping up refreshed, like the bounding of a tennis-ball, he +proceeded to call witnesses; and, judging from what happened at the +inquest, as well as because he wished to overwhelm a suspected and +suspecting witness, he pounced, somewhat infelicitously, on Jonathan +Floyd. + +"So, my fine young fellow, you are a footman, eh, at Hurstley?" + +"Yes, sir, an' it please you--or rather, an' it please my master." + +"You remember what happened on the night of the late Mrs. Quarles's +decease?" + +"Oh, many things happened; Mr. Jennings was lost, he wasn't to be found, +he was hid somewhere, nobody saw him till next morning." + +"Stop, sirrah! not quite so quick, if you please; you are on your oath, +be careful what you say. I have it in evidence, sirrah, before the +coroner;" and he looked triumphantly about him at this clencher to all +Jonathan's testimony; "that you saw him yourself that night speaking to +the dog; what do you mean by swearing that nobody saw him till next +morning?" + +"Well, mister, I mean this; whether or no poor old Mrs. Quarles saw her +affectionate nephew that night before the clock struck twelve, there's +none alive to tell; but no one else did--for Sarah and I sat up for him +till past midnight. He was hidden away somewhere, snug enough; and as I +verily believe, in the poor old 'ooman's own--" + +"Silence, silence! sir, I say; we want none of your impertinent guesses +here, if you please: to the point, sirrah, to the point; you swore +before the coroner, that you had seen Mr. Jennings, in his courage and +his kindness, quieting the dog that very night, and now--" + +"Oh," interrupted Jonathan in his turn, "for the matter of that, when I +saw him with the dog, it was hard upon five in the morning. And here, +gentlemen," added Floyd, with a promiscuous and comprehensive bow all +round, "if I may speak my mind about the business--" + +"Go down, sir!" said Mr. Sharp, who began to be afraid of truths. + +"Pardon me, this may be of importance," remarked Roger Acton's friend; +"say what you have to say, young man." + +"Well, then, gentlemen and my lord, I mean to say thus much. Jennings +there, the prisoner (and I'm glad to see him standing at the bar), swore +at the inquest that he went to quiet Don, going round through the front +door; now, none could get through that door without my hearing of him; +and certainly a little puny Simon like him could never do so without I +came to help him; for the lock was stiff with rust, and the bolt out of +his reach." + +"Stop, young man; my respected client, Mr. Jennings, got upon a chair." + +"Indeed, sir? then he must ha' created the chair for that special +purpose: there wasn't one in the hall then; no, nor for two days after, +when they came down bran-new from Dowbiggins in London, with the rest o' +the added furnitur' just before my honoured master." + +This was conclusive, certainly; and Floyd proceeded. + +"Now, gentlemen and my lord, if Jennings did not go that way, nor the +kitchen-way neither--for he always was too proud for scullery-door and +kitchen--and if he did not give himself the trouble to unfasten the +dining-room or study windows, or to unscrew the iron bars of his own +pantry, none of which is likely, gentlemen--there was but one other way +out, and that way was through Bridget Quarles's own room. Now--" + +"Ah--that room, that bed, that corpse, that crock!--It is no use, no +use," the wretched miscreant added slowly, after his first hurried +exclamations; "I did the deed, I did it! guilty, guilty." And, +notwithstanding all Mr. Sharp's benevolent interferences, and appeals to +judge and jury on the score of mono-mania, and shruggings-up of +shoulders at his client's folly, and virtuous indignation at the evident +leaning of the court--the murderer detailed what he had done. He spoke +quietly and firmly, in his usually stern and tyrannical style, as if +severe upon himself, for being what?--a man of blood, a thief, a +perjured false accuser? No, no; lower in the scale of Mammon's judgment, +worse in the estimate of him whose god is gold; he was now a pauper, a +mere moneyless forked animal; a beggared, emptied, worthless, penniless +creature: therefore was he stern against his ill-starred soul, and took +vengeance on himself for being poor. + +It was a consistent feeling, and common with the mercantile of this +world; to whom the accidents of fortune are every thing, and the +qualities of mind nothing; whose affections ebb and flow towards +friends, relations--yea, their own flesh and blood, with the varying +tide of wealth: whom a luckless speculation in cotton makes an enemy, +and gambling gains in corn restore a friend; men who fall down mentally +before the golden calf, and offer up their souls to Nebuchadnezzar's +idol: men who never saw harm nor shame in the craftiest usurer or +meanest pimp, provided he has thousands in the three per cents.; and +whose indulgent notions of iniquity reach their climax in the +phrase--the man is poor. + +So then, with unhallowed self-revenge, Simon rigidly detailed his +crimes: he led the whole court step by step, as I have led the reader, +through the length and breadth of that terrible night: of the facts he +concealed nothing, and the crowded hall of judgment shuddered as one +man, when he came to his awful disclosure, hitherto unsuspected, +unimagined, of that second strangulation: as to feelings, he might as +well have been a galvanized mummy, an automaton lay-figure enunciating +all with bellows and clapper, for any sense he seemed to have of shame, +or fear, or pity; he admitted his lie about the door, complimented Burke +on the accuracy of his evidence, and declared Roger Acton not merely +innocent, but ignorant of the murder. + +This done, without any start or trepidation in his manner as formerly, +he turned his head over his left shoulder, and said, in a deep whisper, +heard all over the court, "And now, Aunt Quarles, I am coming; look out, +woman, I will have my revenge for all your hauntings: again shall we +wrestle, again shall we battle, again shall I throttle you, again, +again!" + +O, most fearful thought! who knoweth but it may be true? that spirits of +wickedness and enmity may execute each other's punishment, as those of +righteousness and love minister each other's happiness! that--damned +among the damned--the spirit of a Nero may still delight in torturing, +and that those who in this world were mutual workers of iniquity, may +find themselves in the next, sworn retributors of wrath? No idle threat +was that of the demoniac Simon, and possibly with no vain fears did the +ghost of the murdered speed away. + +When the sensation of horror, which for a minute delayed the +court-business, and has given us occasion to think that fearful thought, +when this had gradually subsided, the foreman of the jury, turning to +the judge, said, + +"My lord, we will not trouble your lordship to sum up; we are all +agreed--Guilty." + +One word about Mr. Sharp: he was entirely chagrined; his fortunes were +at stake; he questioned whether any one in Newgate would think of him +again. To make matters worse, when he whispered for a fee to Mr. +Jennings (for he did whisper, however contrary to professional +etiquette), that worthy gentleman replied by a significant sneer, to the +effect that he had not a penny to give him, and would not if he had: +whereupon Mr. Sharp began to coincide with the rest of the world in +regarding so impoverished a murderer as an atrocious criminal; then, +turning from his client with contempt, he went to the length of +congratulating Roger on his escape, and actually offered his hand to Ben +Burke. The poacher's reply was characteristic: "As you means it kindly, +Master Horsehair, I won't take it for an insult: howsomdever, either +your hand or mine, I won't say which, is too dirty for shaking. Let me +do you a good turn, Master: there's a blue-bottle on your wig; I think +as it's Beelzebub a-whispering in your ear: allow me to drive him away." +And the poacher dealt him such a cuff that this barrister reeled again; +and instantly afterwards took advantage of the cloud of hair-powder to +leave the court unseen. + +[A] It has been stated as a fact, that a certain Lady L---- +S----, in her last interview with a young man, condemned to death for +the brutal murder of his sweetheart, presented him with a white +camellia, as a token of eternal peace, which the gallant gentleman +actually wore at the gallows in his button-hole. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +SENTENCE AND DEATH. + + +Silence, silence! shouted the indignant crier, and the +episodical cause of Burke, _v._ Sharp, was speedily hushed. + +The eyes of all now concentred on the miserable criminal; for the time, +every thing else seemed forgotten. Roger, Grace, and Ben, grouped +together in the midst of many friends, who had crowded round them to +congratulate, leaned forward like the rest of that dense hall, as simply +thralled spectators. Mr. Grantly lifted up a pair of very moistened eyes +behind his spectacles, and looked earnestly on, with his wig, from +agitation, wriggled tails in front. The judge (it was good old Baron +Parker) put on the black cap to pronounce sentence. There was a pause. + +But we have forgotten Simon Jennings--what was he about? did that +"cynosure of neighbouring eyes" appear alarmed at his position, anxious +at his fate, or even attentive to what was going on? No: he not only +appeared, but was, the most unconcerned individual in the whole court: +he even tried to elude utter vacancy of thought by amusing himself with +external things about him: and, on Wordsworth's principle of inducing +sleep by counting + + "A flock of sheep, that leisurely pass by, + One after one," + +he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind's sake, how many +folks were looking at him. Only see--he is turning his white stareful +face in every direction, and his lips are going a thousand and +forty-one, a thousand and forty-two, a thousand and forty-three; he will +not hurry it over, by leaving out the "thousand:" alas! this holiday of +idiotic occupation is all the respite now his soul can know. + +And the judge broke that awful silence, saying, + +"Prisoner at the bar, you are convicted on your own confession, as well +as upon other evidence, of crimes too horrible to speak of. The +deliberate repetition of that fearful murder, classes you among the +worst of wretches whom it has been my duty to condemn: and when to this +is added your perjured accusation of an innocent man, whom nothing but a +miracle has rescued, your guilt becomes appalling--too hideous for human +contemplation. Miserable man, prepare for death, and after that the +judgment; yet, even for you, if you repent, there may be pardon; it is +my privilege to tell even you, that life and hope are never to be +separated, so long as God is merciful, or man may be contrite. The +Sacrifice of Him who died for us all, for you, poor fellow-creature +[here the good judge wept for a minute like a child]--for you, no less +than for me, is available even to the chief of sinners. It is my duty +and my comfort to direct your blood-stained, but immortal soul, eagerly +to fly to that only refuge from eternal misery. As to this world, your +career of wickedness is at an end: covetousness has conceived and +generated murder; and murder has even over-stept its common bounds, to +repeat the terrible crime, and then to throw its guilt upon the +innocent. Entertain no hope whatever of a respite; mercy in your case +would be sin. + +"The sentence of the court is, that you, Simon Jennings, be taken from +that bar to the county jail, and thence on this day fortnight to be +conveyed to the place of execution within the prison, and there by the +hands of the common hangman be hanged by the neck--" + +At the word "neck," in the slow and solemn enunciation of the judge, +issued a terrific scream from the mouth of Simon Jennings: was he mad +after all--mad indeed? or was he being strangled by some unseen +executioner? Look at him, convulsively doing battle with an invisible +foe! his eyes start; his face gets bluer and bluer; his hands, fixed +like griffin's talons, clutch at vacancy--he wrestles--struggles--falls. + +All was now confusion: even the grave judge, who had necessarily stopped +at that frightful interruption, leaned eagerly over his desk, while +barristers and serjeants learned in the law crowded round the prisoner: +"He is dying! air, there--air! a glass of water, some one!" + +About a thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a +tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed any thing but +nitrogen for four hours. + +He was dying: and three several doctors, hoisted over the heads of an +admiring multitude, rushed to his relief with thirsty lancets: +apoplexy--oh, of course, apoplexy: and they nodded to each other +confidentially. + +Yes, he was dying: they might not move him now: he must die in his sins, +at that dread season, upon that dread spot. Perjury, robbery, and +murder--all had fastened on his soul, and were feeding there like +harpies at a Strophadian feast, or vultures ravening on the liver of +Prometheus. Guilt, vengeance, death had got hold of him, and rent him, +as wild horses tearing him asunder different ways; he lay there +gurgling, strangling, gasping, panting: none could help him, none could +give him ease; he was going on the dark, dull path in the bottom of that +awful valley, where Death's cold shadow overclouds it like a canopy; he +was sinking in that deep black water, that must some day drown us +all--pray Heaven, with hope to cheer us then, and comfort in the fierce +extremity! His eye filmed, his lower jaw relaxed, his head dropped +back--he was dying--dying--dying-- + +On a sudden, he rallied! his blood had rushed back again from head to +heart, and all the doctors were deceived--again he battled, and fought, +and wrestled, and flung them from him; again he howled, and his eyes +glared lightning--mad? Yes, mad--stark mad! quick--quick--we cannot hold +him: save yourselves there! + +But he only broke away from them to stand up free--then he gave one +scream, leaped high into the air, and fell down dead in the dock, with a +crimson stream of blood issuing from his mouth. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +RIGHTEOUS MAMMON. + + +Thus the crock of gold had gained another victim. Is the curse of its +accumulation still unsatisfied? Must more misery be born of that +unhallowed store? Shall the poor man's wrongs, and his little ones' cry +for bread, and the widows' vain appeal for indulgence in necessity, and +the debtor's useless hope for time--more time--and the master's misused +bounty, and the murmuring dependants' ever-extorted dues--must the +frauds, falsehoods, meannesses, and hardnesses of half a century long, +concentrate in that small crock--must these plead still for bloody +judgments from on high against all who touch that gold? + +No! the miasma is dispelled: the curse is gone: the crimes are expiated. +The devil in that jar is dispossessed, and with Simon's last gasp has +returned unto his own place. The murderer is dead, and has thereby laid +the ghost of his mate in sin, the murdered victim; while that victim has +long ago paid by blood for her many years of mean domestic pilfering. + +And now I see a better angel hovering round the crock: it is purified, +sanctified, accepted. It is become a talent from the Lord, instead of a +temptation from the devil; and the same coin, which once has been but +dull, unrighteous mammon, through justice, thankfulness, and piety, +shineth as the shekel of the temple. Gratefully, as from God, the +rightful owner now may take the gift. + +For, gold is a creature of God, representing many excellencies: the +sweat of honest Industry distils to gold; the hot-spring of Genius +congeals to gold; the blessing upon Faithfulness is often showered in +gold; and Charities not seldom are guerdoned back with gold. Let no man +affect to despise what Providence hath set so high in power. None do so +but the man who has it not, and who knows that he covets it in vain. +Sour grapes--sour grapes--for he may not touch the vintage. This is not +the verdict of the wise; the temptation he may fear, the cares he may +confess, the misuse he may condemn: yet will he acknowledge that, +received at God's hand, and spent in his service, there is scarce a +creature in this nether world of higher name than Money. + +Beauty fadeth; Health dieth; Talents--yea, and Graces--go to bloom in +other spheres--but when Benevolence would bless, and bless for ages, +his blessing is vain, but for money--when Wisdom would teach, and teach +for ages, the teacher must be fed, and the school built, and the scholar +helped upon his way by money--righteous money. There is a righteous +money as there is unrighteous mammon; but both have their ministrations +here limited to earth and time; the one, a fruit of heaven--the other, a +fungus from below: yet the fruit will bring no blessing, if the Grower +be forgotten; neither shall the fungus yield a poison, if warmed awhile +beneath the better sun. Like all other gifts, given to us sweet, but +spoilt in the using, gold may turn to good or ill: Health may kick, like +fat Jeshurun in his wantonness; Power may change from beneficence to +tyranny; Learning may grow critical in motes until it overlooks the +sunbeam; Love may be degraded to an instinct; Zaccheus may turn +Pharisee; Religion may cant into the hypocrite, or dogmatize to +theologic hate. Even so it is with money: its power of doing good has no +other equivalent in this world than its power of doing evil: it is like +fire--used for hospitable warmth, or wide-wasting ravages; like air--the +gentle zephyr, or the destroying hurricane. Nevertheless, all is for +this world--this world only; a matter extraneous to the spirit, always +foreign, often-times adversary: let a man beware of lading himself with +that thick clay. + +I see a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy +breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies; +so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its +foot on shore, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking +in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing--in +vain--in vain thou triest to rise--Pactolus chains thee down. + +Even such is wealth unto the wisest; wealth at its purest source, +exponent of labour and of mind. But, to the frequent fool, heaped with +foulest dross--for the cygnet of Pactolus and those golden sands, +read--the hippopotamus wallowing in the Niger, and smothered in a bay of +mud. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +THE CROCK A BLESSING. + + +There was no will found: it is likely Mrs. Quarles had never made one; +she feared death too much, and all that put her in mind of it. So the +next of kin, the only one to have the crock of gold, was Susan Scott, a +good, honest, hard-working woman, whom Jennings, by many arts, had kept +away from Hurstley: her husband, a poor thatcher, sadly out of work +except in ricking time, and crippled in both legs by having fallen from +a hay-stack: and as to the family, it was already as long a flight of +steps as would reach to an ordinary first floor, with a prospect (so the +gossips said) of more in the distance. Susan was a Wesleyan +Methodist--many may think, more the pity: but she neither disliked +church, nor called it steeple-house: only, forasmuch as Hagglesfield was +blessed with a sporting parson, the chief reminders of whose presence in +the parish were strifes perpetual about dues and tithes, it is little +blame or wonder, if the starving sheep went anywhither else for +pasturage and water. So, then, Susan was a good mother, a kind +neighbour, a religious, humble-minded Christian: is it not a comfort now +to know that the gold was poured into her lap, and that she hallowed her +good luck by prayers and praises? + +I judge it worth while stepping over to Hagglesfield for a couple of +minutes, to find out how she used that gold, and made the crock a +blessing. Susan first thought of her debts: so, to every village shop +around, I fear they were not a few, which had kindly given her credit, +some for weeks, some for months, and more than one for a year, the happy +house-wife went to pay in full; and not this only, but with many +thanks, to press a little present upon each, for well-timed help in her +adversity. + +The next thought was near akin to it: to take out of pawn divers valued +articles, two or three of which had been her mother's; for Reuben's +lameness, poor man, kept him much out of work, and the childer came so +quick, and ate so fast, and wore out such a sight of shoes, that, but +for an occasional appeal to Mrs. Quarles--it was her one fair feature +this--they must long ago have been upon the parish: now, however, all +the ancestral articles were redeemed, and honour no doubt with them. + +Thirdly, Susan went to her minister in best bib and tucker, and humbly +begged leave to give a guinea to the school; and she hoped his reverence +wouldn't be above accepting a turkey and chine, as a small token of her +gratitude to him for many consolations: it pleased me much to hear that +the good man had insisted upon Susan and her husband coming to eat it +with him the next day at noon. + +Fourthly, Susan prudently set to work, and rigged out the whole family +in tidy clothes, with a touch of mourning upon each for poor Aunt +Bridget, and unhappy brother Simon; while the fifthly, sixthly, and to +conclude, were concerned in a world of notable and useful schemes, with +a strong resolution to save as much as possible for schooling and +getting out the children. + +It was wonderful to see how much good was in that gold, how large a fund +of blessing was hidden in that crock: Reuben Scott gained health, the +family were fed, clad, taught; Susan grew in happiness at least as truly +as in girth; and Hagglesfield beheld the goodness of that store, whose +curse had startled all Hurstley-cum-Piggesworth. + +But also at Hurstley now are found its consequential blessings. + +We must take another peep at Roger and sweet Grace; they, and Ben too, +and Jonathan, and Jonathan's master, may all have cause to thank an +overruling Providence, for blessing on the score of Bridget's crock. +Only before I come to that, I wish to be dull a little hereabouts, and +moralize: the reader may skip it, if he will--but I do not recommend him +so to do. + +For, evermore in the government of God, good groweth out of evil: and, +whether man note the fact or not, Providence, with secret care, doth +vindicate itself. There is justice done continually, even on this stage +of trial, though many pine and murmur: substantial retribution, even in +this poor dislocated world of wrong, not seldom overtakes the sinner, +not seldom encourages the saint. Encourages? yea, and punishes: blessing +him with kind severity; teaching him to know himself a mere bad root, if +he be not grafted on his God; proving that the laws which govern life +are just, and wise, and kind; showing him that a man's own heart's +desire, if fulfilled, would probably tend to nothing short of sin, +sorrow, and calamity; that many seeming goods are withheld, because they +are evils in disguise; and many seeming ills allowed, because they are +masqueraded blessings; and demonstrating, as in this strange tale, that +the unrighteous Mammon is a cruel master, a foul tempter, a pestilent +destroyer of all peace, and a teeming source of both world's misery. + +Listen to the sayings of the Wisest King of men: + +"As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous +is an everlasting foundation." + +"The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his +stead." + +"He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall +flourish as a branch." + +"Better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues without +right." + +"The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor +for the upright." + +"A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the +wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just." + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + +POPULARITY. + + +The storm is lulled: the billows of temptation have ebbed away +from shore, and the clouds of adversity have flown to other skies. + +"The winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon +the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of +the turtle is heard in our land: the fig-tree putteth forth his green +figs, and the blossoms of the vine smell sweetly. Arise, and come away." + +Yesterday's trial, and its unlooked-for issue, have raised Roger Acton +to the rank of hero. The town's excitement is intense: and the little +inn, where he and Grace had spent the night in gratitude and prayerful +praise, is besieged by carriages full of lords and gentlemen, eager to +see and speak with Roger. + +Humbly and reverently, yet preserving an air of quiet self-possession, +the labourer received their courteous kindnesses; and acquitted himself +of what may well be called the honours of that levee, with a dignity +native to the true-born Briton, from the time of Caractacus at Rome to +our own. + +But if Roger was a demi-god, Grace was at the least a goddess; she +charmed all hearts with her modest beauty. Back with the shades of +night, and the prison-funeral of Jennings, fled envy, hatred, malice, +and all uncharitableness; the elderly sisterhood of Hurstley, not to be +out of a fashion set by titled dames, hastened to acknowledge her +perfections; Calumny was shamed, and hid his face; the uncles, aunts, +and cousins of the hill-top yonder, were glad to hold their tongues, and +bite their nails in peace: Farmer Floyd and his Mrs. positively came +with peace-offerings--some sausage-meat, elder-wine, jam, and other +dainties, which were to them the choicest sweets of life: and as for +Jonathan, he never felt so proud of Grace in all his life before; the +handsome fellow stood at least a couple of inches taller. + +Honest Ben Burke, too, that most important witness--whose coming was as +Blucher's at Waterloo, and secured the well-earned conquest of the +day--though it must be confessed that his appearance was something of +the satyr, still had he been Phoebus Apollo in person, he would +scarcely have excited sincerer admiration. More than one fair creature +sketched his unkempt head, and loudly wished that its owner was a +bandit; more than one bright eye discovered beauty in his open +countenance--though a little soap and water might have made it more +distinguishable. Well--well--honest Ben--they looked, and wisely looked, +at the frank and friendly mind hidden under that rough carcase, and +little wonder that they loved it. + +Now, to all this stream of hearty English sympathy, the kind and proper +feeling of young Sir John resolved to give a right direction. His +fashionable friends were gone, except Silliphant and Poynter, both good +fellows in the main, and all the better for the absence (among others) +of that padded old debauchee, Sir Richard Hunt, knight of the order of +St. Sapphira--that frivolous inanity, Lord George Pypp--and that +professed gentleman of gallantry, Mr. Harry Mynton. The follies and the +vices had decamped--had scummed off, so to speak--leaving the more +rectified spirits behind them, to recover at leisure, as best they +might, from all that ferment of dissipation. So, then, there was now +neither ridicule, nor interest, to stand in the way of a young and +wealthy heir's well-timed schemes of generosity. + +Well-timed they were, and Sir John knew it, though calculation seldom +had a footing in his warm and heedless heart; but he could not shut his +eyes to the fact, that the state of feeling among his hereditary +labourers was any thing but pleasant. In truth, owing to the desperate +malpractices of Quarles and Jennings, perhaps no property in the kingdom +had got so ill a name as Hurstley: discontent reigned paramount; +incendiary fires had more than once occurred; threatening notices, very +ill-spelt, and signed by one _soi-disant_ Captain Blood, had been +dropped, in dead of winter, at the door-sills of the principal farmers; +and all the other fruits of long-continued penury, extortion, and +mis-government, were hanging ripe upon the bough--a foul and fatal +harvest. + +Therefore, did the kind young landlord, who had come to live among his +own peasantry, resolve, not more nobly than wisely, to seize an +opportunity so good as this, for restoring, by a stroke of generous +policy, peace and content on his domain. No doubt, the baronet rejoiced, +as well he might, at the honourable acquittal of innocence, and the +mysteries of murder now cleared up; he made small secret of his +satisfaction at the doom of Jennings; and, as for Bridget Quarles, by +all he could learn of her from tenants' wives, and other female +dependants, he had no mind to wish her back again, or to think her fate +ill-timed: nevertheless, he was even more glad of an occasion to +vindicate his own good feelings; and prove to the world that bailiff +Simon Jennings was a very opposite character to landlord Sir John +Devereux Vincent. + +To carry out his plan, he determined to redress all wrongs within one +day, and to commence by bringing "honest Roger" in triumph home again to +Hurstley; following the suggestion of Baron Parker, to make some social +compensation for his wrongs. With this view, Sir John took counsel of +the county-town authorities, and it was agreed unanimously, excepting +only one dissenting vote--a rich and radical Quaker, one Isaac Sneak, +grocer, and of the body corporate, who refused to lose one day's service +of his shopmen, and thereby (I rejoice to add) succeeded in getting rid +of fifteen good annual customers--it was agreed, then, and arranged that +the morrow should be a public holiday. All Sir John's own tenantry, as +well as Squire Ryle's, and some of other neighbouring magnates, were to +have a day's wages without work, on the easy conditions of attending the +procession in their smartest trim, and of banqueting at Hurstley +afterwards. So, then, the town-band was ordered to be in attendance next +morning by eleven at the Swan, a lot of old election colours were shaken +from their dust and cobwebs, the bell-ringers engaged, vasty +preparations of ale and beef made at Hurstley Hall--an ox to be roasted +whole upon the terrace, and a plum-pudding already in the cauldron of +two good yards in circumference--and all that every body hoped for that +night, was a fine May-day to-morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +ROGER AT THE SWAN. + + +Meanwhile, eventide came on: the crowd of kindly gentle-folks +had gone their several ways; and Roger Acton found himself (through Sir +John's largess) at free quarters in the parlour of the Swan, with Grace +by his side, and many of his mates in toil and station round him. + +"Grace," said her father on a sudden, "Grace--my dear child--come +hither." She stood in all her loveliness before him. Then he took her +hand, looked up at her affectionately, and leaned back in the old oak +chair. + +"Hear me, mates and neighbours; to my own girl, Grace, under God, I owe +my poor soul's welfare. I have nothing, would I had, to give her in +return:" and the old man (he looked ten years older for his six weeks, +luck, and care, and trouble)--the old man could not get on at all with +what he had to say--something stuck in his throat--but he recovered, and +added cheerily, with an abrupt and rustic archness, "I don't know, +mates, whether after all I can't give the good girl something: I can +give her--away! Come hither, Jonathan Floyd; you are a noble fellow, +that stood by us in adversity, and are almost worthy of my angel Grace." +And he joined their hands. + +"Give us thy blessing too, dear father!" + +They kneeled at his feet on the sanded floor, in the midst of their +kinsfolk and acquaintance, and he, stretching forth his hands like a +patriarch, looked piously up to heaven, and blessed them there. + +"Grace," he added, "and Jonathan my son, I need not part with you--I +could not. I have heard great tidings. To-morrow you shall know how kind +and good Sir John is: God bless him! and send poor England's children of +the soil many masters like him. + +"And now, mates, one last word from Roger Acton; a short word, and a +simple, that you may not forget it. My sin was love of money: my +punishment, its possession. Mates, remember Him who sent you to be +labourers, and love the lot He gives you. Be thankful if His blessing on +your industry keeps you in regular work and fair wages: ask no more from +God of this world's good. Believe things kindly of the gentle-folks, for +many sins are heaped upon their heads, whereof their hearts are +innocent. Never listen to the counsels of a servant, who takes away his +master's character: for of such are the poor man's worst oppressors. Be +satisfied with all your lowliness on earth, and keep your just ambitions +for another world. Flee strong liquors and ill company. Nurse no heated +hopes, no will-o'-the-wisp bright wishes: rather let your warmest hopes +be temperately these--health, work, wages: and as for wishing, mates, +wish any thing you will--sooner than to find a crock of gold." + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +ROGER'S TRIUMPH. + + +The steeples rang out merrily, full chime; High street was gay with +streamers; the town-band busily assembling; a host of happy urchins from +emancipated schools, were shouting in all manner of keys all manner of +gleeful noises: every body seemed a-stir. + +A proud man that day was Roger Acton; not of his deserts--they were +worse than none, he knew it; not of the procession--no silly child was +he, to be caught with toy and tinsel; God wot, he was meek enough in +self--and as for other pride, he knew from old electioneerings, what a +humbling thing is triumph. + +But when he saw from the windows of the Swan, those crowds of new-made +friends trooping up in holiday suits with flags, and wands, and +corporation badges--when the band for a commencement struck up the +heart-stirring hymn 'God save the Queen,'--when the horsemen, and +carriages, and gigs, and carts assembled--when the baronet's own +barouche and four, dashing up to the door, had come from Hurstley Hall +for _him_--when Sir John, the happiest of the happy, alighting with his +two friends, had displaced them for Roger and Grace, while the kind +gentlemen took horse, and headed the procession--when Ben Burke (as +clean as soap could get him, and bedecked in new attire) was ordered to +sit beside Jonathan in the rumble-tumble--when the cheering, and the +merry-going bells, and the quick-march 'British Grenadiers,' rapidly +succeeding the national anthem--when all these tokens of a generous +sympathy smote upon his ears, his eyes, his heart, Roger Acton wept +aloud--he wept for very pride and joy: proud and glad was he that day of +his country, of his countrymen, of his generous landlord, of his gentle +Grace, of his vindicated innocence, and of God, "who had done so great +things for him." + +So, the happy cavalcade moved on, horse and foot, and carts and +carriages, through the noisy town, along the thronged high road, down +the quiet lanes that lead to Hurstley; welcomed at every cottage-door +with boisterous huzzas, and adding to its ranks at every corner. And so +they reached the village, where the band struck up, + + "See the conquering hero comes, + Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!" + +Is not this returning like a nabob, Roger? Hath not God blest thee +through the crock of gold at last, in spite of sin? + +There, at the entrance by the mile-stone, stood Mary and the babes, with +a knot of friends around her, bright with happiness; on the top of it +was perched son Tom, waving the blue and silver flag of Hurstley, and +acting as fugleman to a crowd of uproarious cheerers; and beside it, on +the bank, sat Sarah Stack, overcome with joy, and sobbing like a +gladsome Niobe. + +And the village bells went merrily; every cottage was gay with spring +garlands, and each familiar face lit up with looks of kindness; Hark! +hark!--"Welcome, honest Roger, welcome home again!" they shout: and the +patereroes on the lawn thunder a salute; "welcome, honest +neighbour;"--and up went, at bright noon, Tom Stableboy's dozen of +rockets wrapped around with streamers of glazed calico--"welcome, +welcome!" + +Good Mr. Evans stood at the door of fine old Hurstley, in wig, and band, +and cassock, to receive back his wandering sheep that had been lost: and +the school-children, ranged upon the steps, thrillingly sang out the +beautiful chant, "I will arise, and go to my Father, and will say unto +Him, 'Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no +more worthy to be called thy son!'" + +Every head was uncovered, and every cheek ran down with tears. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +SIR JOHN'S PARTING SPEECH. + + +Then Sir John, standing up in the barouche at his own +hall-door, addressed the assembled multitude: + +"Friends, we are gathered here to-day, in the cause of common justice +and brotherly kindness. There are many of you whom I see around me, my +tenants, neighbours, or dependants, who have met with wrongs and +extortions heretofore, but you all shall be righted in your turn; trust +me, men, the old hard times are gone, your landlord lives among you, and +his first care shall be to redress your many grievances, paying back the +gains of your oppressor." + +"God bless you, sir, God bless you!" was the echo from many a gladdened +heart. + +"But before I hear your several claims in turn, which shall be done +to-morrow, our chief duty this day is to recompense an honest man for +all that he has innocently suffered. It is five-and-thirty years, as I +find by my books, on this very first of May, since Roger Acton first +began to work at Hurstley; till within this now past evil month, he has +always been the honest steady fellow that you knew him from his youth: +what say you, men, to having as a bailiff one of yourselves; a kind and +humble man, a good man, the best hand in the parish in all the works of +your vocation--a steady mind, an honest heart--what say ye all to Roger +Acton?" + +There was a whirlwind of tumultuous applause. + +"Moreover, men, though you all, each according to his measure and my +means, shall meet with liberal justice for your lesser ills, yet we must +all remember that Bailiff Acton here had nearly died a felon's death, +through that bad man Jennings and the unlucky crock of gold; in +addition, extortion has gone greater lengths with him, than with any +other on the property; I find that for the last twenty years, Roger +Acton has regularly paid to that monster of oppression who is now dead, +a double rent--four guineas instead of forty shillings. I desire, as a +good master, to make amends for the crimes of my wicked servant; +therefore in this bag, Bailiff Acton, is returned to you all the rent +you ever paid;" [Roger could not speak for tears;]--"and your cottage +repaired and fitted, with an acre round it, is yours and your +children's, rent-free for ever." + +"Huzzah, huzzah!" roared Ben from the dickey, in a gush of disinterested +joy; and then, like an experienced toast-master, he marshalled in due +hip, hip, hip order, the shouts of acclamation that rent the air. In an +interval of silence, Sir John added, + +"As for you, good-hearted fellow, if you will only mend your speech, +I'll make you one of my keepers; you shall call yourself licensed +poacher, if you choose." + +"Blessings on your honour! you've made an honest man o' me." + +"And now, Jonathan Floyd, I have one word to say to you, sir. I hear you +are to marry our Roger's pretty Grace." Jonathan appeared like a sheep +in livery. + +"You must quit my service." Jonathan was quite alarmed. "Do you suppose, +Master Jonathan, that I can house at Hurstley, before a Lady Vincent +comes amongst us to keep the gossips quiet, such a charming little wife +as that, and all her ruddy children?" + +It was Grace's turn to feel confused, so she "looked like a rose in +June," and blushed all over, as Charles Lamb's Astræa did, down to the +ankle. + +"Yes, Jonathan, you and I must part, but we part good friends: you have +been a noble lover: may you make the girl a good and happy husband! +Jennings has been robbing me and those about me for years: it is +impossible to separate specially my rights from his extortions: but all, +as I have said, shall be satisfied: meanwhile, his hoards are mine. I +appropriate one half of them for other claimants; the remaining half I +give to Grace Floyd as dower. Don't be a fool, Jonathan, and blubber; +look to your Grace there, she's fainting--you can set up landlord for +yourself, do you hear?--for I make yours honestly, as much as Roger +found in his now lucky Crock of Gold." + +Poor Roger, quite unmanned, could only wave his hat, and--the curtain +falls amid thunders of applause. + + +END OF THE CROCK OF GOLD. + + + * * * * * + + +THE TWINS; + +A DOMESTIC NOVEL. + + +BY + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S. + +AUTHOR OF + +PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAP. PAGE. + +1. Place; Time; Circumstance 157 + +2. The Heroes 161 + +3. The Arrival 166 + +4. The General and his Ward 168 + +5. Jealousy 172 + +6. The Confidante 174 + +7. The Course of True Love 177 + +8. The Mystery 180 + +9. How to clear it up 182 + +10. Aunt Green's Legacy 184 + +11. Preparations, and Departure 188 + +12. The Escape 192 + +13. News of Charles 196 + +14. The Tête-à-Tête 199 + +15. Satisfaction 202 + +16. How Charles Fared 204 + +17. The General's Return 207 + +18. Intercalary 211 + +19. Julian's Departure 213 + +20. Enlightenment 215 + +21. Charles at Madras 216 + +22. Revelations 219 + +23. Convalescence 222 + +24. Charles Delayed 224 + +25. Trials 229 + +26. Julian 231 + +27. Charles's Return, &c. 233 + +28. Julian turns up, &c. 237 + +29. The old Scotch Nurse goes home 238 + +30. Final 241 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +PLACE: TIME: CIRCUMSTANCE. + + +Burleigh-Singleton is a pleasant little watering-place on the southern +coast of England, entirely suitable for those who have small incomes and +good consciences. The latter, to residents especially, are at least as +indispensable as the former: seeing that, however just the reputation of +their growing little town for superior cheapness in matters of meat and +drink, its character in things regarding men and manners is quite as +undeniable for preëminent dullness. + +Not but that it has its varieties of scene, and more or less of +circumstances too: there are, on one flank, the breezy Heights, with +flag-staff and panorama; on the other, broad and level water-meadows, +skirted by the dark-flowing Mullet, running to the sea between its +tortuous banks: for neighbourhood, Pacton Park is one great +attraction--the pretty market-town of Eyemouth another--the everlasting, +never-tiring sea a third; and, at high-summer, when the Devonshire lanes +are not knee-deep in mire, the nevertheless immeasurably filthy, though +picturesque, mud-built village of Oxton. + +Then again (and really as I enumerate these multitudinous advantages, I +begin to relent for having called it dull), you may pick up curious +agate pebbles on the beach, as well as corallines and scarce sea-weeds, +good for gumming on front-parlour windows; you may fish _for_ whitings +in the bay, and occasionally catch them; you may wade in huge caoutchouc +boots among the muddy shallows of the Mullet, and shoot _at_ cormorants +and curlews; you may walk to satiety between high-banked and rather +dirty cross-roads; and, if you will scramble up the hedge-row, may get +now and then peeps of undulated country landscape. + +Moreover, you have free liberty to drop in any where to +"tiffin"--Burleigh being very Indianized, and a guest always welcome; +indeed, so Indianized is it, so populous in jaundiced cheek and ailing +livers, that you may openly assert, without fear of being misunderstood +(if you wish to vary your common phrase of loyalty), that Victoria sits +upon the "musnud" of Great Britain; you may order curry in the smallest +pot-house, and still be sure to get the rice well-cooked; you may call +your house-maid "ayah," without risk of warning for impertinence; you +may vent your wrath against indolent waiters in eloquence of "jaa, +soostee;" and, finally, you may go to the library, and besides the +advantage of the day-before-yesterday's Times, you may behold in bilious +presence an affable, but authoritative, old gentleman, who introduces +himself, "Sir, you see in me the hero of Puttymuddyfudgepoor." + +You may even now see such an one, I say, and hear him too, if you will +but go to Burleigh; seeing he has by this time over-lived the year or so +whereof our tale discourses. He has, by dint of service, attained to the +dignity of General H.E.I.C.S., and--which he was still longer coming +to--the wisdom of being a communicative creature; though possibly, by a +natural rëaction, at present he carries anti-secresy a little too far, +and verges on the gossiping extreme. But, at the time to which we must +look back to commence this right-instructive story, General Tracy was +still drinking "Hodgson's Pale" in India, was so taciturn as to be +considered almost dumb, and had not yet lifted up his yellow visage upon +Albion's white cliffs, nor taken up head-quarters in his final rest of +Burleigh-Singleton. + +Nevertheless, with reference to quartering at Burleigh, a certain +long-neglected wife of his, Mrs. Tracy, had; and that for the period of +at least the twenty-one years preceding: how and wherefore I proceed to +tell. + +A common case and common fate was that of Mrs. Tracy. She had married, +both early and hastily, a gallant lieutenant, John George Julian Tracy, +to wit, the military germ of our future general; their courtship and +acquaintance previous to matrimony extended over the not inconsiderable +space of three whole weeks--commencing with a country ball; and after +marriage, honey-moon inclusive, they lived the life of cooing doves for +three whole months. + +And now came the furlough's end: Mr. Tracy, in his then habitual reserve +(a quiet man was he), had concealed its existence altogether: and, for +aught Jane knew, the hearty invalid was to remain at home for ever: but +months soon slip away; and so it came to pass, that on a certain next +Wednesday he must be on his way back to the Presidency of Madras, +and--if she will not follow him--he must leave her. + +However, there was a certain old relative, one Mrs. Green, a childless +widow--rich, capricious, and infirm--whom Jane Tracy did not wish to +lose sight of: her money was well worth both watching and waiting for; +and the captain, whom a lucky chance had now lifted out of the +lieutenancy, was easily persuaded to forego the pleasure of his wife's +company till the somewhat indefinite period of her old aunt's death. + +How far sundry discoveries made in the unknown regions of each other's +temper reconciled him to this retrograding bachelorship, and her to her +widowhood-bewitched, I will not undertake to say: but I will hazard the +remark, anti-poor-law though it seemeth, that the separation of man and +wife, however convenient, lucrative, or even mutually pleasant, is a +dereliction of duty, which always deserves, and generally meets, its +proper and discriminative punishment. Had the young wife faithfully +performed her Maker's bidding, and left all other ties unstrung to +cleave unto her lord; had she considered a husband's true affections +before all other wealth, and resolved to share his dangers, to solace +his cares, to be his blessing through life, and his partner even unto +death, rather than selfishly to seek her own comfort, and consult her +own interest--the tale of crime and sadness, which it is my lot to tell, +would never have had truth for its foundation. + +Ill-matched for happiness though they were, however well-matched as to +mutual merit, the common man of pleasure and the frivolous woman of +fashion, still the wisest way to fuse their minds to union, the +likeliest receipt for moral good and social comfort, would have been +this course of foreign scenes, of new faces, sprinkled with a seasoning +of adventure, hardship, danger, in a distant land. Gradually would they +have learned to bear and forbear; the petty quarrel would have been +forgotten in the frequent kindness; the rougher edges of temper and +opinion would insensibly have smoothed away; new circumstances would +have brought out better feelings under happier skies; old acquaintances, +false friends forgotten, would have neutralized old feuds: and, by +long-living together, though it were perhaps amid various worries and +many cares, they might still have come to a good old age with more than +average happiness, and more than the common run of love. Patience in +dutiful enduring brings a sure reward: and marriage, however irksome a +constraint to the foolish and the gay, is still so wise an ordinance, +that the most ill-assorted couple imaginable will unconsciously grow +happy, if they only remain true to one another, and will learn the +wisdom always to hope and often to forgive. + +The Tracys, however, overlooked all this, and mutual friends (those +invariable foes to all that is generous and unworldly) smiled upon the +prudence of their temporary separation. The captain was to come home +again on furlough in five years at furthest, even if the aunt held out +so long; and this availed to keep his wife in the rear-guard; therefore, +Mrs. Tracy wiped her eyes, bade adieu to her retreating lord in Plymouth +Sound, and determined to abide, with other expectant dames and Asiatic +invalided heroes, at Burleigh-Singleton, until she might go to him, or +he return to her: for pleasant little Burleigh, besides its contiguity +to arriving Indiamen, was advantageous as being the dwelling-place of +aforesaid Mrs. Green;--that wealthy, widowed aunt, devoutly wished in +heaven: and the considerate old soul had offered her designing niece a +home with her till Tracy could come back. + +During the first year of absence, ship-letters and India-letters arrived +duteously in consecutive succession: but somehow or other, the regular +post, in no long time afterwards, became unfaithful to its trust; and if +Mrs. Jane heard quarterly, which at any rate she did through the agent, +when he remitted her allowance, she consoled herself as to the captain's +well-being: in due course of things, even this became irregular; he was +far up the country, hunting, fighting, surveying, and what not; and no +wonder that letters, if written at all, which I rather doubt, got lost. +Then there came a long period of positive and protracted silence--months +of it--years of it; barring that her checks for cash were honoured still +at Hancock's, though they could tell her nothing of her lord; so that +Mrs. Tracy was at length seriously recommended by her friends to become +a widow; she tried on the cap, and looked into many mirrors; but, after +long inspection, decided upon still remaining a wife, because the weeds +were so clearly unbecoming. Habit, meanwhile, and that still-existing +old aunt, who seemed resolved to live to a hundred, kept her as before +at Burleigh: and, seeing that a few months after the captain's departure +she had presented the world, not to say her truant lord, with twins, she +had always found something to do in the way of, what she considered, +education, and other juvenile amusement: that is to say, when the +gayeties of a circle of fifteen miles in radius left her any time to +spare in such a process. The twins--a brace of boys--were born and bred +at Burleigh, and had attained severally to twenty years of age, just +before their father came home again as brevet-major-general. But both +they, and that arrival, deserve special detail, each in its own chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE HEROES. + + +Mrs. Tracy's sons were as unlike each other as it is well possible for +two human beings to be, both in person and character. Julian, whose +forward and bold spirit gained him from the very cradle every +prerogative of eldership (and he did struggle first into life, too, so +he was the first-born), had grown to be a swarthy, strong, big-boned +man, of the Roman-nosed, or, more physiognomically, the Jewish cast of +countenance; with melo-dramatic elf-locks, large whiskers, and +ungovernable passions; loud, fierce, impetuous; cunning, too, for all +his overbearing clamour; and an embodied personification of those choice +essentials to criminal happiness--a hard heart and a good digestion. +Charles, on the contrary (or, as logicians would say, on the +contradictory), was fair-haired, blue-eyed, of Grecian features; slim, +though well enough for inches, and had hitherto (as the commonalty have +it) "enjoyed" weak health: he was gentle and affectionate in heart, pure +and religious in mind, studious and unobtrusive in habits. It was a +wonder to see the strange diversity between those own twin-brothers, +born within the same hour, and, it is superfluous to add, of the same +parents; brought up in all outward things alike, and who had shared +equally in all that might be called advantage or disadvantage, of +circumstance or education. + +Certain is it that minds are different at birth, and require as +different a treatment as Iceland moss from cactuses, or bull-dogs from +bull-finches: certain is it, too, that Julian, early submitted and +resolutely broken in, would have made as great a man, as Charles, +naturally meek, did make a good one; but for the matter of educating her +boys, poor Mrs. Tracy had no more notion of the feat, than of squaring +the circle, or determining the longitude. She kept them both at home, +till the peevish aunt could suffer Julian's noise no longer: the house +was a Pandemonium, and the giant grown too big for that castle of +Otranto; so he must go at any rate; and (as no difference in the +treatment of different characters ever occurred to any body) of course +Charles must go along with him. Away they went to an expensive school, +which Julian's insubordination on the instant could not brook--and, +accordingly, he ran away; without doubt, Charles must be taken away too. +Another school was tried, Julian got expelled this time; and Charles, +in spite of prizes, must, on system, be removed with him: so forth, with +like wisdom, all through the years of adolescence and instruction, those +ill-matched brothers were driven as a pair. Then again, for fashion's +sake, and Aunt Green's whims, the circumspective mother, notwithstanding +all her inconsistencies, gave each of them prettily bound hand-books of +devotion; which the one used upon his knees, and the other lit cigars +withal; both extremes having exceeded her intention: and she proved +similarly overreached when she persisted in treating both exactly alike, +as to liberal allowances, and liberty of will; the result being, that +one of her sons "foolishly" spent his money in a multitude of charitable +hobbies; and that the other was constantly supplied with means for (the +mother was sorry to say it, vulgar) dissipation. By consequence, Charles +did more good, and Julian more evil, than I have time to stop and tell +off. + +If any thing in this life must be personal, peculiar, and specific, it +is education: we take upon ourselves to speak thus dogmatically, not of +mere school-teaching only, _musa_, _musæ_, and so forth; nor yet of +lectures, on relative qualities of carbon and nitrogen in vegetables; +no, nor even of schemes of theology, or codes of morals; but we do speak +of the daily and hourly reining-in, or letting-out, of discouragement in +one appetite, and encouragement in another; of habitual formation of +characters in their diversity; and of shaping their bear's-cub, or that +child-angel, the natural human mind, to its destined ends; that it may +turn out, for good, according to its several natures, to be either the +strong-armed, bold-eyed, rough-hewer of God's grand designs, or the +delicate-fingered polisher of His rarest sculptures. Julian, +well-trained, might have grown to be a Luther; and many a gentle soul +like Charles, has turned out a coxcomb and a sensualist. + +The boys were born, as I have said, in the regulation order of things, a +few months after Captain Tracy sailed away for India some full score of +years, and more, from this present hour, when we have seen him seated as +a general in the library at Burleigh; and, until the last year, they had +never seen their father--scarcely ever heard of him. + +The incidents of their lives had been few and common-place: it would be +easy, but wearisome, to specify the orchards and the bee-hives which +Julian had robbed as a school-boy; the rebellions he had headed; the +monkey tricks he had played upon old fish-women; and the cruel havoc he +made of cats, rats, and other poor tormented creatures, who had +ministered to his wanton and brutalizing joys. In like manner, wearily, +but easily, might I relate how Charles grew up the nurse's darling, +though little of his flaunting mother's; the curly-pated young +book-worm; the sympathizing, innoffensive, gentle heart, whose effort +still it was to countervail his brother's evil: how often, at the risk +of blows, had he interposed to save some drowning puppy: how often paid +the bribe for Julian's impunity, when mulcted for some damage done in +the way of broken windows, upset apple-stalls, and the like: how often +had he screened his bad twin-brother from the flagellatory consequences +of sheer idleness, by doing for him all his school-tasks: how often +striven to guide his insensate conscience to truth, and good, and +wisdom: how often, and how vainly! + +And when the youths grew up, and their good and evil grew up with them, +it were possible to tell you a heart-rending tale of Julian's treachery +to more than one poor village beauty; and many a pleasing trait of +Charles's pure benevolence, and wise zeal to remedy his brother's +mischiefs. The one went about doing ill, and the other doing good: +Julian, on account of obligations, more truly than in spite of them, +hated Charles; and yet one great aim of all Charles's amiabilities +tended continually to Julian's good, and he strove to please him, too, +while he wished to bless him. The one had grown to manhood, full of +unrepented sins, and ripe for darker crime: the other had attained a +like age of what is somewhat satirically called discretion, having +amassed, with Solon of old, "knowledge day by day," having lived a life +of piety and purity, and blest with a cheerful disposition, that teemed +with happy thoughts. + +They had, of course, in the progress of human life, been both laid upon +the bed of sickness, where, with similar contrast, the one lay muttering +discontent, and the other smiling patiently: they had both been in +dangers by land and by sea, where Julian, though not a little lacking to +himself at the moment of peril, was still loudly minacious till it came +too near; while Charles, with all his caution, was more actually +courageous, and in spite of all his gentleness, stood against the worst +undaunted: they had both, with opposite motives and dissimilar modes of +life, passed through various vicissitudes of feeling, scene, society; +and the influence of circumstance on their different characters, +heightened or diminished, bettered or depraved, by the good or evil +principle in each, had produced their different and probable results. + +Thus, strangely dissimilar, the twin-brothers together stand before us: +Julian the strong impersonation of the animal man, as Charles of the +intellectual; Julian, matter; Charles, spirit; Julian, the creature of +this world, tending to a lower and a worse: Charles, though in the +world, not of the world, and reaching to a higher and a better. + +Mrs. Tracy, the mother of this various progeny, had been somewhat of a +beauty in her day, albeit much too large and masculine for the taste of +ordinary mortals; and though now very considerably past forty, the vain +vast female was still ambitious of compliment, and greedy of admiration. +That Julian should be such a woman's favourite will surprise none: she +had, she could have, no sympathies with mild and thoughtful Charles; but +rather dreaded to set her flaunting folly in the light of his wise +glance, and sought to hide her humbled vanity from his pure and keen +perceptions. His very presence was a tacit rebuke to her social +dissipation, and she could not endure the mild radiance of his virtues. +He never fawned and flattered her, as Julian would; but had even +suffered filial presumption (it could not be affection--O dear, no!) to +go so far as gently to expostulate at what he fancied wrong; he never +gave her reason to contrast, with happy self-complacence, her own soul's +state with Charles's, however she could with Julian's: and then, too, +she would indulgently allow her foolish mind--a woman's, though a +parent's--to admire that tall, black, bandit-looking son, above the +slight build, the delicate features, and almost feminine elegance of his +brother: she found Julian always ready to countenance and pamper her +gayest wishes, and was glad to make him her escort every where--at +balls, and fêtes, and races, and archery parties; while as to Charles, +he would be the stay-at-home, the milk-sop, the learned pundit, the +pious prayer-monger, any thing but the ladies' man. Yes: it is little +wonder that Mrs. Tracy's heart clave to Julian, the masculine image of +herself; while it barely tolerated Charles, who was a rarefied and +idealized likeness of the absent and forgotten Tracy. + +But the mother--and there are many silly mothers, almost as many as +silly men and silly maids--in her admiration of the outward form of +manliness, overlooked the true strength, and chivalry, and nobleness of +mind which shone supreme in Charles. How would Julian have acted in such +a case as this?--a sheep had wandered down the cliff's face to a narrow +ledge of rock, whence it could not come back again, for there was no +room to turn: Julian would have pelted it, and set his bull-dog at it, +and rejoiced to have seen the poor animal's frantic leaps from shingly +shelf to shelf, till it would be dashed to pieces. But how did Charles +act? With the utmost courage, and caution, and presence of mind, he +crept down, and, at the risk of his life, dragged the bleating, +unreluctant creature up again; it really seemed as if the ungrateful +poor dumb brute recognised its humane friend, and suffered him to rescue +it without a struggle or a motion that might have endangered both. + +Again: a burly costermonger was belabouring his donkey, and the wretched +beast fell beneath his cudgel: strange to say, Julian and Charles were +walking together that time; and the same sight affected each so +differently, that the one sided with the cruel man, and the other with +his suffering victim: Charles, in momentary indignation, rushed up to +the fellow, wrested the cudgel from his hand, and flung it over the +cliff; while Julian was so base, so cowardly, as to reward such generous +interference, by holding his weaker brother's arms, and inviting the +wrathful costermonger to expend the remainder of his phrensy on unlucky +Charles. Yes, and when at home Mrs. Tracy heard all this, she was silly +enough, wicked enough, to receive her truly noble son with ridicule, and +her other one, the child of her disgrace, with approval. + +"It will teach you, Master Charles, not to meddle with common people and +their donkeys; and you may thank your brother Julian for giving you a +lesson how a gentleman should behave." + +Poor Charles! but poorer Julian, and poorest Mrs. Tracy! + +It would be easy, if need were, to enumerate multiplied examples tending +towards the same end--a large, masculine-featured mother's foolish +preference of the loud, bold, worldly animal, before the meek, kind, +noble, spiritual. And the results of all these many matters were, that +now, at twenty years of age, Charles found himself, as it were, alone in +a strange land, with many common friends indeed abroad, but at home no +nearer, dearer ties to string his heart's dank lyre withal; neither +mother nor brother, nor any other kind familiar face, to look upon his +gentleness in love, or to sympathize with his affections, unapprehended, +unappreciated: so--while Mrs. Tracy was the showy, gay, and vapid thing +she ever had been, and Julian the same impetuous mother's son which his +very nurse could say she knew him--Charles grew up a shy and silent +youth, necessarily reserved, for lack of some one to understand him; +necessarily chilled, for want of somebody to love him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE ARRIVAL. + + +The young men were thus situated as regards both the world and one +another, and Mrs. Tracy had almost entirely forgotten the fact, that she +possessed a piece of goods so supererogatory as her husband (a property +too which her children had never quite realized), when all on a sudden, +one ordinary morning, the postman's-knock brought to her breakfast-table +at Burleigh-Singleton the following epistle: + + "British Channel, Thursday, March 11th, 1842. + "The Sir William Elphinston, E.I.M. + +"DEAR JANE: You will be surprised to find that you are to see me so +soon, I dare say, especially as it is now some years since you will have +heard from me. The reason is, I have been long in an out-of-the-way part +of India, where there is little communication with Europe, and so you +will excuse my not writing. We hope to find ourselves to-night in +Plymouth roads, where I shall get into a pilot-boat, and so shall see +you to-morrow. You may, therefore, now expect your affectionate husband, + + "J.G.J. TRACY, General H.E.I.C.S. + +"P.S.1.--Remember me to our boy, or boys--which is it? + +"P.S.2.--I bring with me the daughter of a friend in India, who is come +over for a year or two's polish at a first-rate school. Of course you +will be glad to receive her as our guest. + + "J.G.J.T." + +This loving letter was the most startling event that had ever attempted +to unnerve Mrs. Tracy; and she accordingly managed, for effect and +propriety's sake, to grow very faint upon the spot, whether for joy, or +sorrow, or fear of lost liberty, or hope of a restored lord, doth not +appear; she had so long been satisfied with receiving quarterly pay from +the India agents, that she forgot it was an evidence of her husband's +existence; and, lo! here he was returning a general, doubtlessly a +magnificent moustachioed individual, and she was to be Mrs. General! so +that when she came completely to herself, after that feint of a faint, +she was thinking of nothing but court-plumes, oriental pearls, and her +gallant Tracy's uniform. + +The postscripts also had their influence: Charles, naturally +affectionate, and willing to love a hitherto unseen father, felt hurt, +as well he might, at the "boy, or boys;" while Julian, who ridiculed his +brother's sentimentality, was already fancying that the "daughter of a +friend" might be a pleasant addition to the dullness of +Burleigh-Singleton. + +Preparations vast were made at once for the general's reception; from +attic to kitchen was sounded the tocsin of his coming. Julian was all +bustle and excitement, to his mother's joy and pride; while Charles +merited her wrath by too much of his habitual and paternal quietude, +particularly when he withdrew his forces altogether from the loud +domestic fray, by retreating up-stairs to cogitate and muse, perhaps to +make a calming prayer or two about all these matters of importance. As +for Mrs. Tracy herself, she was even now, within the first hour of that +news, busily engaged in collecting cosmetics, trinkets, blonde lace, and +other female finery, resolved to trick herself out like Jezebel, and win +her lord once more; whilst the pernicious old aunt, who still lived on, +notwithstanding all those twenty years of patience, as vivacious as +before, grumbled and scolded so much at this upsetting of her house, +that there was really some risk of her altering the will at last, and +cutting out Jane Tracy after all. + +And the morrow morning came, as if it were no more than an ordinary +Friday, and with it came expectancy; and noon succeeded, and with it +spirits alternately elated and depressed; and evening drew in, with +heart-sickness and chagrin at hopes or prophecies deferred; and night, +and next morning, and still the general came not. So, much weeping at +that vexing disappointment, after so many pains to please, Mrs. Tracy +put aside her numerous aids and appliances, and lay slatternly a-bed, to +nurse a head-ache until noon; and all had well nigh forgotten the +probable arrival, when, to every body's dismay, a dusty chaise and four +suddenly rattled up the terrace, and stopped at our identical number +seven. + +Then was there scuffling up, and getting down, and making preparation in +hot haste; and a stout gentleman with a gamboge face descended from the +chaise, exploding wrath like a bomb-shell, that so important an approach +had made such slight appearance of expectancy: it was disrespectful to +his rank, and he took care to prove he was somebody, by blowing up the +very innocent post-boys. This accomplished, he gallantly handed out +after him a pretty-looking miss in her teens. Poor Mrs. Tracy, _en +papillotes_, looked out at the casement like any one but Jezebel attired +for bewitching, and could have cried for vexation; in fact, she did, +and passed it off for feeling. Aunt Green, whom the general at first +lovingly saluted as his wife (for the poor man had entirely forgotten +the uxorial appearance), was all in a pucker for deafness, blindness, +and evident misapprehension of all things in general, though clearly +pleased, and flattered at her gallant nephew's salutation. Julian, with +what grace of manner he could muster, was already playing the agreeable +to that pretty ward, after having, to the general's great surprise, +introduced himself to him as his son; while Charles, who had rushed into +the room, warm-heartedly to fling himself into his father's arms, was +repelled on the spot for his affection: General Tracy, with a military +air, excused himself from the embrace, extending a finger to the unknown +gentleman, with somewhat of offended dignity. + +At last, down came the wife: our general at once perceived himself +mistaken in the matter of Mrs. Green; and, coldly bowing to the +bedizened dame, acknowledged her pretensions with a courteous-- + +"Mrs. General Tracy, allow me to introduce to you Miss Emily Warren, the +daughter of a very particular friend of mine:--Miss Warren, Mrs. Tracy." + +For other welcomings, mutual astonishment at each other's fat, some +little sorrowful talk of the twenty years ago, and some dull paternal +jest about this dozen feet of sons, made up the chilly meeting: and the +slender thread of sentimentals, which might possibly survive it, was +soon snapt by paying post-boys, orders after luggage, and devouring +tiffin. + +The only persons who felt any thing at all, were Mrs. Tracy, vexed at +her dishabille, and mortified at so cool a reception of, what she hoped, +her still unsullied beauties; and Charles, poor fellow, who ran up to +his studious retreat, and soothed his grief, as best he might, with +philosophic fancies: it was so cold, so heartless, so unkind a greeting. +Romantic youth! how should the father have known him for a son? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE GENERAL AND HIS WARD. + + +It is surprising what a change twenty years of a tropical sun can make +in the human constitution. The captain went forth a good-looking, +good-tempered man, destitute neither of kind feelings nor masculine +beauty: the general returned bloated, bilious, irascible, entirely +selfish, and decidedly ill-favoured. Such affections as he ever had +seemed to have been left behind in India--that new world, around which +now all his associations and remembrances revolved; and the reserve +(clearly rëproduced in Charles), the habit of silence whereof we took +due notice in the spring-tide of his life, had now grown, perhaps from +some oppressive secret, into a settled, moody, continuous taciturnity, +which made his curious wife more vexed at him than ever; for, +notwithstanding all the news he must have had to tell her, the company +of John George Julian Tracy proved to his long-expectant Jane any thing +but cheering or instructive. His past life, and present feelings, to say +nothing of his future prospects, might all be but a blank, for any thing +the general seemed to care: brandy and tobacco, an easy chair, and an +ordnance map of India, with Emily beside him to talk about old times, +these were all for which he lived: and even the female curiosity of a +wife, duly authorized to ask questions, could extract from him +astonishingly little of his Indian experiences. As to his wealth, +indeed, Mrs. Tracy boldly made direct inquiry; for Julian set her on to +beg for a commission, and Charles also was anxious for a year or two at +college; but the general divulged not much: albeit he vouchsafed to both +his sons a liberally increased allowance. It was only when his wife, +piqued at such reserve, pettishly remarked, + +"At any rate, sir, I may be permitted to hope, that Miss Warren's +friends are kind enough to pay her expenses;" + +That the veteran, in high dudgeon at any imputation on his Indian +acquaintances, sternly answered, + +"You need not be apprehensive, madam; Emily Warren is amply provided +for." Words which sank deep into the prudent mother's mind. + +But we must not too long let dock-leaves hide a violet; it is high time, +and barely courteous now, to introduce that beautiful exotic, Emily +Warren. Her own history, as she will tell it to Charles hereafter, was +so obscure, that she knew little of it certainly herself, and could +barely gather probabilities from scattered fragments. At present, we +have only to survey results in a superficial manner: in their due +season, we will dig up all the roots. + +No heroine can probably engage our interest or sympathy who possesses +the infirmity of ugliness: it is not in human nature to admire her, and +human nature is a thing very much to be consulted. Moreover, no one ever +yet saw an amiable personage, who was not so far pleasing, or, in other +parlance, so far pretty. I cannot help the common course of things; and +however hackneyed be the thought, however common-place the phrase, it is +true, nevertheless, that beauty, singular beauty, would be the first +idea of any rational creature, who caught but a glimpse of Emily Warren; +and I should account it little wonder if, upon a calmer gaze, that +beauty were found to have its deepest, clearest fountain in those large +dark eyes of heir's. + +Aware as I may be, that "large dark eyes" are no novelty in tales like +this; and famous for rare originality as my pen (not to say genius) +would become, if an attempt were herein made to interest the world in a +pink-eyed heroine, still I prefer plodding on in the well-worn path of +pleasant beauty; and so long as Nature's bounty continues to supply so +well the world we live in with large dark eyes, and other feminine +perfections, our Emily, at any rate, remains in fashion; and if she has +many pretty peers, let us at least not peevishly complain of them. A +graceful shape is, luckily, almost the common prerogative of female +youthfulness; a dimpled smile, a cheerful, winning manner, regular +features, and a mass of luxuriant brown hair--these all heroines +have--and so has our's. + +But no heroine ever had yet Emily Warren's eyes; not identically only, +which few can well deny; but similarly also, which the many must be good +enough to grant: and very few heroes, indeed, ever saw their equal; +though, if any hereabouts object, I will not be so cruel or unreasonable +as to hope they will admit it. At first, full of soft light, gentle and +alluring, they brighten up to blaze upon you lustrously, and fascinate +the gazer's dazzled glance: there are depths in them that tell of the +unfathomable soul, heights in them that speak of the spirit's +aspirations. It is gentleness and purity, no less than sensibility and +passion, that look forth in such strange power from those windows of the +mind: it is not the mere beautiful machine, fair form, and pleasing +colours, but the heaven-born light of tenderness and truth, streaming +through the lens, that takes the fond heart captive. Charles, for one, +could not help looking long and keenly into Emily Warren's eyes; they +magnetized him, so that he might not turn away from them: entranced him, +that he would not break their charm, had he been able: and then the long +tufted eyelashes droop so softly over those blazing suns--that I do not +in the least wonder at Charles's impolite, perhaps, but still natural +involuntary stare, and his mute abstracted admiration: the poor youth is +caught at once, a most willing captive--the moth has burnt its wings, +and flutters still happily around that pleasant warming radiance. How +his heart yearned for something to love, some being worthy of his own +most pure affections: and lo! these beauteous eyes, true witnesses of +this sweet mind, have filled him for ever and a day with love at first +sight. + +But gentle Charles was not the only conquest: the fiery Julian, too, +acknowledged her supremacy, bowed his stubborn neck, and yoked himself +at once, another and more rugged captive, to the chariot of her charms. +It was Caliban, as well as Ferdinand, courting fair Miranda. In his +lower grade, he loved--fiercely, coarsely: and the same passion, which +filled his brother's heart with happiest aspirations, and pure unselfish +tenderness towards the beauteous stranger, burnt him up as an inward and +consuming fire: Charles sunned himself in heaven's genial beams, while +Julian was hot with the lava-current of his own bad heart's volcano. + +It will save much trouble, and do away with no little useless mystery, +to declare, at the outset, which of these opposite twin-brothers our +dark-eyed Emily preferred. She was only seventeen in years; but an +Indian sky had ripened her to full maturity, both of form and feelings: +and having never had any one whom she cared to think upon, and let her +heart delight in, till Charles looked first upon her beauty wonderingly, +it is no marvel if she unconsciously reciprocated his young heart's +thought--before ever he had breathed it to himself. Julian's admiration +she entirely overlooked; she never thought him more than civil--barely +that, perhaps--however he might flatter himself: but her heart and eyes +were full of his fair contrast, the light seen brighter against +darkness; Charles all the dearer for a Julian. Intensely did she love +him, as only tropic blood can love; intently did she gaze on him, when +any while he could not see her face, as only those dark eyes could gaze: +and her mind, all too ignorant but greedy of instruction, no less than +her heart, rich in sympathies and covetous of love, went forth, and fed +deliciously on the intellectual brow, and delicate flushing cheek of her +noble-minded Charles. Not all in a day, nor a week, nor a month, did +their loves thus ripen together. Emily was a simple child of nature, who +had every thing to learn; she scarcely knew her Maker's name, till +Charles instructed her in God's great love: the stars were to her only +shining studs of gold, and the world one mighty plain, and men and women +soulless creatures of a day, and the wisdom of creation unconsidered, +and the book of natural knowledge close sealed up, till Charles set out +before his eager student the mysteries of earth and heaven. Oh, those +blessed hours of sweet teaching! when he led her quick delighted steps +up the many avenues of science to the central throne of God! Oh, those +happy moments, never to return, when her eyes in gentle thankfulness for +some new truth laid open to them, flashed upon her youthful Mentor, love +and intelligence, and pleased admiring wonder! Sweet spring-tide of +their loves, who scarcely knew they loved, yet thought of nothing but +each other; who walked hand in hand, as brother and sister, in the +flowery ways of mutual blessing, mutual dependence: alas, alas! how +brief a space can love, that guest from heaven, dwell on earth +unsullied! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +JEALOUSY. + + +For Julian soon perceived that Charles was no despicable rival. At +first, self-flattery, and the habitual contempt wherewith he regarded his +brother, blinded him to Emily's attachment: moreover, in the scenes of +gayety and the common social circle, she never gave him cause to complain +of undue preferences; readily she leant upon his arm, cheerfully +accompanied him in morning-visits, noon-day walks, and evening parties; +and if pale Charles (in addition to the more regular masters, dancing +and music, and other pieces of accomplishment) thought proper to bore +her with his books for sundry hours every day, Julian found no fault +with that;--the girl was getting more a woman of the world, and all +for him: she would like her play-time all the better for such schoolings, +and him to be the truant at her side. + +But when, from ordinary civilities, the coarse loud lover proceeded to +particular attentions; when he affected to press her delicate hand, and +ventured to look what he called love into her eyes, and to breathe silly +nothings in her ear--he could deceive himself no longer, notwithstanding +all his vanity; as legibly as looks could write it, he read disgust +upon her face, and from that day forth she shunned him with undisguised +abhorrence. Poor innocent maid! she little knew the man's black mind, +who thus dared to reach up to the height of her affections; but she saw +enough of character in his swart scowling face, and loud assuming manners, +to make her dread his very presence, as a thunder-cloud across +her summer sky. + +Then did the baffled Julian begin to look around him, and took notice +of her deepening love of Charles; nay, even purposely, she seemed now +to make a difference between them, as if to check presumption and +encourage merit. And he watched their stolen glances, how tremblingly +they met each other's gaze; and he would often-times roughly break in +upon their studies, to look on their confused disquietude with the pallid +frowns of envy: he would insult poor Charles before her, in hope to +humble him in her esteem; but mild and Christian patience made her +see him as a martyr: he would even cast rude slights on her whom he +professed to love, with the view of raising his brother's chastened wrath, +but was forced to quail and sneak away beneath her quick indignant +glance, ere her more philosophical lover had time to expostulate with +the cowardly savage. + +Meanwhile, what were the parents about? The general had given out, +indeed, that he had brought Emily over for schooling; but he seemed so +fond of her (in fact, she was the only thing to prove he wore a heart), +that he never could resolve upon sending her away from, what she now +might well call, home. Often, in some strange dialect of Hindostan, did +they converse together, of old times and distant shores; none but Emily +might read him to sleep--none but Emily wake him in the morning with +a kiss--none but Emily dare approach him in his gouty torments--none +but Emily had any thing like intimate acquaintance with that moody +iron-hearted man. + +As to his sons, or the two young men he might presume to be his sons, he +neither knew them, nor cared to know. Bare civilities, as between man +and man, constituted all which their intercourse amounted to: what were +those young fellows, stout or slim, to him? mere accidents of a +soldier's gallantries and of an ill-assorted marriage. He neither had, +nor wished to have, any sympathies with them: Julian might be as bad as +he pleased, and Charles as good, for any thing the general seemed to +heed: they could not dive with him into the past, and the sports of +Hindostan: they reminded him, simply, of his wife, for pleasures of +Memory; of the grave, for pleasures of Hope: he was older when he looked +at them: and they seemed to him only living witnesses of his folly as +lieutenant, in the choice of Mrs. Tracy. I will not take upon myself to +say, that he had any occasion to congratulate himself on the latter +reminiscence. + +So he quickly acquiesced in Julian's wish for a commission, and +entirely approved of Charles's college schemes. After next September, +the funds should be forthcoming: not but that he was rich enough, and +to spare, any month in the year: but he would be vastly richer then, +from prize-money, or some such luck. It was more prudent to delay +until September. + +With reference to Emily--no, no--I could see at once that General +Tracy never had any serious intention to part with Emily; but she had +all manner of masters at home, and soon made extraordinary progress. +As for the matter of his sons falling in love with her, attractive in all +beauty though she were, he never once had given it a thought: for, first, +he was too much a man of the world to believe in such ideal trash as +love: and next, he totally forgot that his "boy, or boys," had human +feelings. So, when his wife one day gave him a gentle and triumphant +hint of the state of affairs, it came upon him overwhelmingly, like an +avalanche: his yellow face turned flake-white, he trembled as he stood, +and really seemed to take so natural a probability to heart as the most +serious of evils. + +"My son Julian in love with Emily! and if not he, at any rate Charles! +What the devil, madam, can you mean by this dreadful piece of +intelligence?--It's impossible, ma'am; nonsense! it can't be true; it +shan't, ma'am." + +And the general, having issued his military mandates, wrapped himself +in secresy once more; satisfied that both of those troublesome sons +were to leave home after the next quarter, and the prize-money at +Hancock's. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE CONFIDANTE. + + +But Mrs. Tracy had the best reason for believing her intelligence was +true, and she could see very little cause for regarding it as dreadful. +True, one son would have been enough for this wealthy Indian +heiress--but still it was no harm to have two strings to her bow. Julian +was her favourite, and should have the girl if she could manage it; but +if Emily Warren would not hear of such a husband, why Charles Tracy may +far better get her money than any body else. + +That she possessed great wealth was evident: such jewellery, such +Trinchinopoli chains, such a blaze of diamonds _en suite_, such a +multitude of armlets, and circlets, and ear-rings, and other oriental +finery, had never shone on Devonshire before: at the Eyemouth ball, men +worshipped her, radiant in beauty, and gorgeously apparelled. Moreover, +money overflowed her purse, her work-box, and her jewel-case: Charles's +village school, and many other well-considered charities, rejoiced in +the streams of her munificence. The general had given her a banker's +book of signed blank checks, and she filled up sums at pleasure: such +unbounded confidence had he in her own prudence and her far-off father's +liberality. The few hints her husband deigned to give, encouraged Mrs. +Tracy to conclude, that she would be a catch for either of her sons; +and, as for the girl herself, she had clearly been brought up to order +about a multitude of servants, to command the use of splendid equipages, +and to spend money with unsparing hand. + +Accordingly, one day when Julian was alone with his mother, their +conversation ran as follows: + +"Well, Julian dear, and what do you think of Emily Warren?" + +"Think, mother? why--that she's deuced pretty, and dresses like an +empress: but where did the general pick her up, eh?--who is she?" + +"Why, as to who she is--I know no more than you; she is Emily Warren: +but as to the great question of what she is, I know that she is rolling +in riches, and would make one of my boys a very good wife." + +"Oh, as to wife, mother, one isn't going to be fool enough to marry for +love now-a-days: things are easier managed hereabouts, than that: but +money makes it quite another thing. So, this pretty minx is rich, is +she?" + +"A great heiress, I assure you, Julian." + +"Bravo, bravo-o! but how to make the girl look sweet upon me, mother? +There's that white-livered fellow, Charles--" + +"Never mind him, boy; do you suppose he would have the heart to make +love to such a splendid creature as Miss Warren: fy, Julian, for a faint +heart: Charles is well enough as a Sabbath-school teacher, but I hope he +will not bear away the palm of a ladye-love from my fine high-spirited +Julian." Poor Mrs. Tracy was as flighty and romantic at forty-five as +she had been at fifteen. + +The fine high-spirited Julian answered not a word, but looked +excessively cross; for he knew full well that Charles's chance was to +his in the ratio of a million to nothing. + +"What, boy," went on the prudent mother, "still silent! I am afraid +Emily's good looks have been thrown away upon you, and that your heart +has not found out how to love her." + +"Love her, mother? Curses! would you drive me mad? I think and dream of +nothing but that girl: morning, noon, and night, her eyes persecute me: +go where I will, and do what I will, her image haunts me: d----n it, +mother' don't I love the girl?" + +[Oh love, love! thou much-slandered monosyllable, how desperately do bad +men malign thee!] + +"Hush, Julian; pray be more guarded in your language; I am glad to see +though that your heart is in the right place: suppose now that I aid +your suit a little? I dare say I could do a great deal for you, my son; +and nothing could be more delightful to your mother than to try and make +her Julian happy." + +True, Mrs. Tracy; you were always theatrically given, and played the +coquette in youth; so in age the character of go-between befits you +still: dearly do you love to dabble in, what you are pleased to call, +"_une affaire du coeur_." + +"Mother," after a pause, replied her hopeful progeny, "if the girl had +been only pretty, I shouldn't have asked any body's help; for marriage +was never to my liking, and folks may have their will of prouder +beauties than this Emily, without going to church for it; but money +makes it quite another matter: and I may as well have the benefit of +your assistance in this matter o' money, eh mother? matrimony, you know: +an heiress and a beauty may be worth the wedding-ring; besides, when my +commission comes, I can follow the good example that my parents set me, +you know; and, after a three months' honey-mooning, can turn bachelor +again for twenty years or so, as our governor-general did, and so leave +wifey at home, till she becomes a Mrs. General like you." + +Now, strange to say, this heartless bit of villany was any thing but +unpleasing to the foolish, flattered heart of Mrs. Tracy; he was a chip +of the old block, no better than his father: so she thanked "dear +Julian" for his confidence, with admiration and emotion; and looking +upwards, after the fashion of a Covent Garden martyr, blessed him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE, ETC. + + +"Emily, my dear, take Julian's arm: here, Charles, come and change with +me; I should like a walk with you to Oxton, to see how your little +scholars get on." So spake the intriguing mother. + +"Why, that is just what I was going to do with Charles," said Emily, +"and if Julian will excuse me--" + +"Oh, never mind me, Miss Warren, pray; come along with me, will you, +mother?" + +So they paired off in more well-matched couples (for Julian luckily took +huff), and went their different ways: with those went hatred, envy, +worldly scheming, and that lowest sort of love that ill deserves the +name; with these remain all things pure, affectionate, benevolent. + +"Charles, dear," (they were just like brother and sister, innocent and +loving), "how kind it is of you to take me with you; if you only knew +how I dreaded Julian!" + +"Why, Emmy? can he have offended you in any way?" + +"Oh, Charles, he is so rude, and says such silly things, and--I am quite +afraid to be alone with him." + +"What--what--what does he say to you, Emily?" hurriedly urged her +half-avowed lover. + +"Oh, don't ask me, Charles--pray drop the subject;" and, as she blushed, +tears stood in her eyes. + +Charles bit his lip and clenched his fist involuntarily; but an instant +word of prayer drove away the spirit of hatred, and set up love +triumphant in its place. + +"My Emily--oh, what have I said? may I--may I call you my Emily? +dearest, dearest girl!" escaped his lips, and he trembled at his own +presumption. It was a presumptuous speech indeed; but it burst from the +well of his affections, and he could not help it. + +Her answer was not in words, and yet his heart-strings thrilled beneath +the melody; for her eyes shed on him a blaze of love that made him +almost faint before them. In an instant, they understood, without a +word, the happy truth, that each one loved the other. + +"Precious, precious Emily!" They were now far away from Burleigh, in the +fields; and he seized her hand, and covered it with kisses. + +What more they said I was not by to hear, and if I had been would not +have divulged it. There are holy secrets of affection, which those who +can remember their first love--and first love is the only love worth +mentioning--may think of for themselves. Well, far better than my feeble +pencilling can picture, will they fill up this slight sketch. That walk +to Oxton, that visit to the village school, was full of generous +affections unrepressed, the out-pourings of two deep-welled hearts, +flowing forth in sympathetic ecstasy. The trees, and fields, and +cottages were bathed in heavenly light, and the lovers, happy in each +other's trust, called upon the all-seeing God to bless the best +affections of His children. + +And what a change these mutual confessions made in both their minds! +Doubt was gone; they _were_ beloved; oh, richest treasure of joy! Fear +was gone; they dared declare their love; oh, purest river of all +sublunary pleasures! No longer pale, anxious, thoughtful, worn by the +corroding care of "Does she--does she love?"--Charles was, from that +moment, a buoyant, cheerful, exhilarated being--a new character; he put +on manliness, and fortitude, and somewhat of involuntary pride; whilst +Emily felt, that enriched by the affections of him whom she regarded as +her wisest, kindest earthly friend, by the acquisition of his love, who +had led her heart to higher good than this world at its best can give +her, she was elevated and ennobled from the simple Indian child, into +the loved and honoured Christian woman. They went on that important walk +to Oxton feeble, divided, unsatisfied in heart: they returned as two +united spirits, one in faith, one in hope, one in love; both heavenly +and earthly. + +But the happy hour is past too soon; and, home again, they mixed once +more with those conflicting elements of hatred and contention. + +"Emily," asked the general, in a very unusual stretch of curiosity, +"where have you been to with Charles Tracy? You look flushed, my dear; +what's the matter?" + +Of course "nothing" was the matter: and the general was answered wisely, +for love was nothing in his average estimate of men and women. + +"Charles, what can have come to you? I never saw you look so happy in my +life," was the mother's troublesome inquiry; "why, our staid youth +positively looks cheerful." + +Charles's walk had refreshed him, taken away his head-ache, put him in +spirits, and all manner of glib reasons for rejoicing. + +"You were right, Julian," whispered Mrs. Tracy, "and we'll soon put the +stopper on all this sort of thing." + +So, then, the moment our guiltless pair of lovers had severally stolen +away to their own rooms, there to feast on well-remembered looks, and +words, and hopes--there to lay before that heavenly Friend, whom both +had learned to trust, all their present joys, as aforetime all their +cares--Mrs. Tracy looked significantly at Julian, and thus addressed her +ever stern-eyed lord: + +"So, general, the old song's coming true to us, I find, as to other +folks, who once were young together: + + "'And when with envy Time, transported, seeks to rob us of our joys, + You'll in your girls again be courted, and I'll go wooing in my boys.'" + +So said or sung the flighty Mrs. Tracy. It was as simple and innocent a +quotation as could possibly be made; I suppose most couples, who ever +heard the stanza, and have grown-up children, have thought upon its dear +domestic beauty: but it strangely affected the irascible old general. He +fumed and frowned, and looked the picture of horror; then, with a fierce +oath at his wife and sons, he firmly said-- + +"Woman, hold your fool's tongue: begone, and send Emily to me this +minute: stop, Mr. Julian--no--run up for your brother Charles, and come +you all to me in the study. Instantly, sir! do as I bid you, without a +word." + +Julian would gladly have fought it out with his imperative father; but, +nevertheless, it was a comfort to have to fetch pale Charles for a +jobation; so he went at once. And the three young people, two of them +trembling with affections overstrained, and the third indurated in +effrontery, stood before that stern old man. + +"Emily, child,"--and he added something in Hindostanee, "have I been +kind to you--and do you owe me any love?" + +"Dear, dear sir, how can you ask me that?" said the warm-affectioned +girl, falling on her knees in tears. + +"Get up, sweet child, and hear me: you see those boys; as you love me, +and yourself, and happiness, and honour--dare not to think of either, +one moment, as your husband." + +Emily fainted; Charles staggered to assist her, though he well-nigh +swooned himself; and Julian folded his arms with a resolute air, as +waiting to hear what next. + +But the general disappointed him: he had said his say: and, as volatile +salts, a lady's maid, and all that sort of rëinvigoration, seemed +essential to Emily's recovery, he rang the bell forthwith: so the +pleasant family party broke up without another word. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MYSTERY. + + +Our lovers would not have been praiseworthy, perhaps not human, had they +not met in secret once and again. True, their regularly concerted +studies were forbidden, and they never now might openly walk out +unaccompanied: but love (who has not found this out?) is both daring and +ingenious; and notwithstanding all that Emily purposed about doing as +the general so strangely bade her, they had many happy meetings, rich +with many happy words: all the happier no doubt for their stolen +sweetness. + +There was one great and engrossing subject which often had employed +their curiosity; who and what was Emily Warren? for the poor girl did +not know herself. All she could guess, she told Charles, as he zealously +cross-questioned her from time to time: and the result of his inquiries +would appear to be as follows: + +Emily's earliest recollections were of great barbaric pomp; huge +elephants richly caparisoned, mighty fans of peacock's tails, lines of +matchlock men, tribes of jewelled servants, a gilded palace, with its +gardens and fountains: plenty of rare gems to play with, and a splendid +queenly woman, whom she called by the Hindoo name for mother. The +general, too, was there among her first associations, as the gallant +Captain Tracy, with his company of native troops. + +Then an era happened in her life; a tearful leave-taking with that proud +princess, who scarcely would part with her for sorrow; but the captain +swore it should be so: and an old Scotch-woman, her nurse, she could +remember, who told her as a child, but whether religiously or not she +could not tell, "Darling, come to me when you wish to know who made +you;" and then Mrs. Mackie went and spoke to the princess, and soothed +her, that she let the child depart peacefully. Most of her gorgeous +jewellery dated from that earliest time of inexplicable oriental +splendour. + +After those infantine seven years, the captain took her with him to his +station up the country, where she lived she knew not how long, in a +strong hill-fort, one Puttymuddyfudgepoor, where there was a great deal +of fighting, and besieging, and storming, and cannonading; but it ceased +at last, and the captain, who then soon successively became both major +and colonel, always kept her in his own quarters, making her his little +pet; and, after the fighting was all over, his brother-officers would +take her out hunting in their howdahs, and she had plenty of +palanquin-bearers, sepoys, and servants at command; and, what was more, +good nurse Mackie was her constant friend and attendant. + +Time wore on, and many little incidents of Indian life occurred, which +varied every day indeed, but still left nothing consequential behind +them: there were tiger-hunts, and incursions of Scindian tribes, and +Pindarree chieftains taken captive, and wounded soldiers brought into +the hospital; and often had she and good nurse Mackie tended at the sick +bed-side. And the colonel had the jungle fever, and would not let her go +from his sight; so she caught the fever too, and through Heaven's mercy +was recovered. And the colonel was fonder of her now than ever, calling +her his darling little child, and was proud to display her early budding +beauty to his military friends--pleasant sort of gentlemen, who gave her +pretty presents. + +Then she grew up into womanhood, and saw more than one fine uniform at +her feet, but she did not comprehend those kindnesses: and the general +(he was general now) got into great passions with them, and stormed, and +swore, and drove them all away. Nurse Mackie grew to be old, and +sometimes asked her, "Can you keep a secret, child?--no, no, I dare not +trust you yet: wait a wee, wait a wee, my bonnie, bonnie bairn." + +And now speedily came the end. The general resolved on returning to his +own old shores: chiefly, as it seemed, to avoid the troublesome +pertinacity of sundry suitors, who sought of him the hand of Emily +Warren for, by this name she was beginning to be called: in her earliest +recollection she was Amina; then at the hill-fort, Emily--Emily--nothing +for years but Emily: and as she grew to womanhood, the general bade her +sign her name to notes, and leave her card at houses, as Emily Warren: +why, or by what right, she never thought of asking. But nurse Mackie had +hinted she might have had "a better name and a truer;" and therefore, +she herself had asked the general what this hint might mean; and he was +so angry that he discharged nurse Mackie at Madras, directly he arrived +there to take ship for England. + +Then, just before embarking, poor nurse Mackie came to her secretly, and +said, "Child, I will trust you with a word; you are not what he thinks +you." And she cried a great deal, and longed to come to England; but +the general would not hear of it; so he pensioned her off, and left her +at Madras, giving somebody strict orders not to let her follow him. + +Nevertheless, just as they were getting into the boat to cross the surf, +the affectionate old soul ran out upon the strand, and called to her +"Amy Stuart! Amy Stuart!" to the general's great amazement as clearly as +her own; and she held up a packet in her hand as they were pushing off, +and shouted after her, "Child--child! if you would have your rights, +remember Jeanie Mackie!" + +After that, succeeded the monotony of a long sea voyage. The general at +first seemed vexed about Mrs. Mackie, and often wished that he had asked +her what she meant; however, his brow soon cleared, for he reflected +that a discarded servant always tells falsehoods, if only to make her +master mischief. + +"The voyage over, Charles, with all its cards, quadrilles, doubling the +cape, crossing the line, and the wearisome routine of sky and sea, the +quarter-deck and cabin, we found ourselves at length in Plymouth Sound; +left the Indiaman to go up the channel; and I suppose the post-chaise +may be consigned to your imagination." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +HOW TO CLEAR IT UP. + + +In all this there was mystery enough for a dozen lovers to have crazed +their brains about. Emily might be a queen of the East, defrauded of +hereditary glories, and at any rate deserved such rank, if Charles was +to be judge; but what was more important, if the general had any reason +at all for his arbitrary mandate prohibiting their love, it was very +possible that reason was a false one. + +Meantime, Charles had little now to live for, except his dear forbidden +Emily, any more than she for him. And to peace of mind in both, the +elucidation of that mystery which hung about her birth, grew more +needful day by day. At last, one summer evening, when they had managed a +quiet walk upon the sands under the Beacon cliff, Charles said abruptly, +after some moments of abstraction, "Dearest, I am resolved." + +"Resolved, Charles! what about?" and she felt quite alarmed; for her +lover looked so stern, that she could not tell what was going to happen +next. + +"I'll clear it up, that I will; I only wish I had the money." + +"Why, Charles, what in the world are you dreaming about? you frighten +me, dearest; are you ill? don't look so serious, pray." + +"Yes, Emily, I will; at once too. I'm off to Madras by next packet; or, +that is to say, would, if I could get my passage free." + +"My noble Charles, if that were the only objection, I would get you all +the means; for the kind--kind general suffers me to have whatever sums I +choose to ask for. Only, Charles, indeed I cannot spare you; do not--do +not go away and leave me; there's Julian, too--don't leave me--and you +might never come back, and--and--" all the remainder was lost in +sobbing. + +"No, my Emmy, we must not use the general's gold in doing what he might +not wish; it would be ungenerous. I will try to get somebody to lend me +what I want--say Mrs. Sainsbury, or the Tamworths. And as for leaving +you, my love, have no fears for me or for yourself; situated as we are, +I take it as a duty to go, and make you happier, setting you in rights, +whatever these may be; and for the rest, I leave you in His holy keeping +who can preserve you alike in body, as in soul, from all things that +would hurt you, and whose mercy will protect me in all perils, and bring +me back to you in safety. This is my trust, Emmy." + +"Dear Charles, you are always wiser and better than I am: let it be so +then, my best of friends. Seek out good nurse Mackie, I can give you +many clues, hear what she has to say; and may the God of your own poor +fatherless Emily speed your holy mission! Yet there is one thing, +Charles; ought you not to ask your parents for their leave to go? You +are better skilled to judge than I can be, though." + +"Emmy, whom have I to ask? my father? he cares not whither I go nor what +becomes of me; I hardly know him, and for twenty years of my short life +of twenty-one, scarcely believed in his existence; or should I ask my +mother? alas--love! I wish I could persuade myself that she would wish +me back again if I were gone; moreover, how can I respect her judgment, +or be guided by her counsel, whose constant aim has been to thwart my +feeble efforts after truth and wisdom, and to pamper all ill growths in +my unhappy brother Julian? No, Emily; I am a man now, and take my own +advice. If a parent forbade me, indeed, and reasonably, it would be fit +to acquiesce; but knowing, as I have sad cause to know, that none but +you, my love, will be sorry for my absence, as for your sake alone that +absence is designed, I need take counsel only of us who are here +present--your own sweet eyes, myself, and God who seeth us." + +"True--most true, dear Charles; I knew that you judged rightly." + +"Moreover, Emmy, secresy is needful for the due fulfilment of my +purpose." (Charles little thought how congenial to his nature was that +same secresy.) "None but you must know where I am, or whither I am gone. +For if there really is any mystery which the general would conceal from +us, be assured he both could and would frustrate all my efforts if he +knew of my design. The same ship that carried me out would convey an +emissary from him, and nurse Mackie never could be found by me. I must +go then secretly, and, for our peace sake, soon; how dear to me that +embassy will be, entirely undertaken in my darling Emmy's cause!" + +"But--but, Charles, what if Julian, in your absence--" + +"Hark, my own betrothed! while I am near you--and I say it not of +threat, but as in the sight of One who has privileged me to be your +protector--you are safe from any serious vexation; and the moment I am +gone, fly to my father, tell him openly your fears, and he will scatter +Julian's insolence to the winds of heaven." + +"Thank you--thank you, wise dear Charles; you have lifted a load from my +poor, weak, woman's heart, that had weighed it down too heavily. I will +trust in God more, and dread Julian less. Oh! how I will pray for you +when far away." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AUNT GREEN'S LEGACY. + + +At last--at last, Mrs. Green fell ill, and, hard upon the over-ripe age +of eighty-seven, seemed likely to drop into the grave--to the +unspeakable delight of her expectant relatives. Sooth to say, niece +Jane, the soured and long-waiting legatee, had now for years been +treating the poor old woman very scurvily: she had lived too long, and +had grown to be a burden; notwithstanding that her ample income still +kept on the house, and enabled the general to nurse his own East India +Bonds right comfortably. But still the old aunt would not die, and as +they sought not her, nor heir's (quite contrary to St. Paul's +disinterestedness), she was looked upon in the light of an incumbrance, +on her own property and in her own house. Mrs. Tracy longed to throw off +the yoke of dependance, and made small secret of the hatred of the +fetter: for the old woman grew so deaf and blind, that there could be no +risk at all, either in speaking one's mind, or in thoroughly neglecting +her. + +However, now that the harvest of hope appeared so near, the legatee +renewed her old attentions: Death was a guest so very welcome to the +house, that it is no wonder that his arrival was hourly expected with +buoyant cheerfulness, and a something in the mask of kindliness: but I +suspect that lamb-skin concealed a very wolf. So, Mrs. Tracy tenderly +inquired of the doctor, and the doctor shook his head; and other doctors +came to help, and shook their heads together. The patient still grew +worse--O, brightening prospect!--though, now and then, a cordial draught +seemed to revive her so alarmingly, that Mrs. Tracy affectionately +urging that the stimulants would be too exciting for the poor dear +sufferer's nerves, induced Dr. Graves to discontinue them. Then those +fearful scintillations in her lamp of life grew fortunately duller, and +the nurse was by her bed-side night and day; and the old aunt became +more and more peevish, and was more and more spoken of by the Tracy +family--in her possible hearing, as "that dear old soul"--out of it, +"that vile old witch." + +Charles, to be sure, was an exception in all this, as he ever was: for +he took on him the Christian office of reading many prayers to the poor +decaying creature, and (only that his father would not hear of such a +thing) desired to have the vicar to assist him. Emily also, full of +sympathy, and disinterested care, would watch the fretful patient, hour +after hour, in those long, dull nights of pain; and the poor, old, +perishing sinner loved her coming, for she spoke to her the words of +hope and resignation. Whether that sweet missionary, scarcely yet a +convert from her own dark creed--(Alas! the Amina had offered unto +Juggernaut, and Emily of the strong hill-fort had scarcely heard of any +truer God; and the fair girl was a woman-grown before, in her first +earthly love, she also came to know the mercies Heaven has in store for +us)--whether unto any lasting use she prayed and reasoned with that +hard, dried heart, none but the Omniscient can tell. Let us hope: let us +hope; for the fretful voice was stilled, and the cloudy forehead +brightened, and the haggard eyes looked cheerfully to meet the +inevitable stroke of death. Thus in wisdom and in charity, in patience +and in faith, that gentle pair of lovers comforted the dying soul. + +However, days rolled away, and Aunt Green lingered on still, tenaciously +clinging unto life: until one morning early, she felt so much better, +that she insisted on being propped up by pillows, and seeing all the +household round her bed to speak to them. So up came every one, in no +small hope of legacies, and what the lawyers call "_donationes mortis +causâ_." + +The general was at her bed's-head, with, I am ashamed to say, perhaps +unconsciously, a countenance more ridiculous than lugubrious; though he +tried to subdue the buoyancy of hope and to put on looks of decent +mourning; on the other side, the long-expectant legatee, Niece Jane, +prudently concealed her questionable grief behind a scented +pocket-handkerchief. Julian held somewhat aloof, for the scene was too +depressing for his taste: so he affected to read a prayer-book, wrong +way up, with his tongue in his cheek: Charles, deeply solemnized at the +near approach of death, knelt at the poor invalid's bedside; and Emily +stood by, leaning over her, suffused in tears. At the further corners of +the bed, might be seen an old servant or two; and Mrs. Green's butler +and coachman, each a forty years' fixture, presented their gray heads at +the bottom of the room, and really looked exceedingly concerned. + +Mrs. Green addressed them first, in her feeble broken manner: +"Grant--and John--good and faithful--thank you--thank you both; and you +too, kind Mrs. Lloyd, and Sally, and nurse--what's-your-name: give them +the packets, nurse--all marked--first drawer, desk: there--there--God +bless you--good--faithful." + +The old servants, full of sorrow at her approaching loss, were comforted +too: for a kind word, and a hundred pound note a-piece, made amends for +much bereavement: the sick-nurse found her gift was just a tithe of +their's, and recognised the difference both just and kind. + +"Niece Jane--you've waited--long--for--this day: my will--rewards you." + +"O dear--dear aunt, pray don't talk so; you'll recover yet, pray--pray +don't:" she pretended to drown the rest in sorrow, but winked at her +husband over the handkerchief. + +"Julian!" (the precious youth attempted to look miserable, and came as +called,) "you will find--I have remembered--you, Julian." So he winked, +too, at his mother, and tried to blubber a "thank you." + +"Charles--where's Charles? give me your hand, Charles dear--let me feel +your face: here, Charles--a little pocket-book--good lad--good lad. +There's Emily, too--dear child, she came--too late--I forgot her--I +forgot her! general give her half--half--if you love--love--Emi--" + +All at once her jaw dropped; her eyes, which had till now been +preternaturally bright, filmed over; her head fell back upon the pillow; +and the rich old aunt was dead. + +Julian gave a shout that might have scared the parting spirit! + +Really, the general was shocked, and Mrs. Tracy too; and the servants +murmured "shame--shame!" poor Charles hid his face; Emily looked up +indignantly; but Julian asked, with an oath, "Where's the good of being +hypocrites?" and then added, "now, mother, let us find the will." + +Then the nurse went to close the dim glazed eyes; and the other +sorrowing domestics slunk away; and Charles led Emily out of the chamber +of death, saddened and shocked at such indecent haste. + +Meanwhile, the hopeful trio rummaged every drawer--tumbled out the +mingled contents of boxes, desk, and escritoire--still, no will--no +will: and at last the nurse, who more than once had muttered, "Shame on +you all," beneath her breath, said, + +"If you want the will, it's under her pillow: but don't disturb her yet, +poor thing!" + +Julian's rude hand had already thrust aside the lifeless, yielding head, +and clutched the will: the father and mother--though humbled and +wonder-stricken at his daring--gathered round him; and he read aloud, +boldly and steadily to the end, though with scowling brow, and many +curses interjectional: + +"In the name of God, Amen. I, Constance Green, make this my last will +and testament. Forasmuch as my niece, Jane Tracy, has watched and waited +for my death these two-and-twenty years, I leave her all the shoes, +slippers, and goloshes, whereof I may happen to die possessed: item, I +leave Julian, her son, my '_Whole Duty of Man_,' convinced that he is +deficient in it all: item, I confirm all the gifts which I intend to +make upon my death-bed: item, forasmuch as General Tracy, my niece's +husband, on his return from abroad, greeted me with much affection, I +bequeath and give to him five thousand pounds' worth of Exchequer bills, +now in my banker's hands; and appoint him my sole executor. As to my +landed property, it will all go, in course of law, to my heir, Samuel +Hayley, and may he and his long enjoy it. And as to the remainder of my +personal effects, including nine thousand pounds bank stock, my Dutch +fives, and other matters, whereof I may die possessed (seeing that my +relatives are rich enough without my help), I give and bequeath the +same, subject as hereinbefore stated, to the trustees, for the time +being, of the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, in trust, for the purposes +of that charitable institution. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set +my hand and seal this 13th day of May, 1840. + + "CONSTANCE GREEN." + +"Duly signed, sealed, and delivered! d----nation!" was Julian's brief +epilogue--"General, let's burn it." + +"You can if you please, Mr. Julian," interposed the nurse, who had +secretly enjoyed all this, "and if you like to take the consequences; +but, as each of the three witnesses has the will sealed up in copy, and +the poor deceased there took pains to sign them all, perhaps--" + +This settled the affair: and the discomfited expectants made a +precipitate retreat. As the general, however, got vastly more than he +expected, for his individual merits; and seeing that he loved Emily as +much as he hated both Julian and his wife, he really felt well-pleased +upon the whole, and took on him the duties of executor with +cheerfulness. So they buried Aunt Green as soon as might be. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +PREPARATIONS AND DEPARTURE. + + +Charles's pocket-book was full of clean bank notes, fifteen hundred +pounds' worth: it contained also a diamond ring, and a lock of silvery +hair; the latter a proof of affectionate sentiment in the kind old soul, +that touched him at the heart. + +"And now, my Emmy, the way is clear to us; Providence has sent me this, +that I may right you, dearest: and it will be wise in us to say nothing +of our plans. Avoid inquiries--for I did not say conceal or falsify +facts: but, while none but you, love, heed of my departure, and while I +go for our sakes alone, we need not invite disappointment by +open-mouthed publicity. To those who love me, Emmy, I am frank and +free; but with those who love us not, there is a wisdom and a justice in +concealment. They do not deserve confidence, who will not extend to us +their sympathy. None but yourself must know whither I am bound; and, +after some little search for curiosity's sake, when a week is past and +gone, no soul will care for me of those at home. With you, I will manage +to communicate by post, directing my letters to Mrs. Sainsbury, at +Oxton: I will prepare her for it. She knows my love for you, and how +they try to thwart us; but even she, however trustworthy, need not be +told my destination yet awhile, until 'India' appears upon the +post-mark. How glad will you be, dearest one, how happy in our +secret--to read my heart's own thoughts, when I am far away--far away, +clearing up mine Emmy's cares, and telling her how blessed I feel in +ministering to her happiness!" + +Such was the substance of their talk, while counting out the +pocket-book. + +Charles's remaining preparations were simple enough, now his purse was +flush of money: he resolved upon taking from his home no luggage +whatever: preferring to order down, from an outfitting house in London, +a regular kit of cadet's necessaries, to wait for him at the Europe +Hotel, Plymouth, on a certain day in the ensuing week. So that, burdened +only with his Emmy's miniature, and his pocket-book of bank notes, he +might depart quietly some evening, get to Plymouth in a prëconcerted +way, by chaise or coach, before the morrow morning; thence, a boat to +meet the ship off-shore, and then--hey, for the Indies! + +It was as well-devised a scheme as could possibly be planned; though its +secresy, especially with a mother in the case, may be a moot point as to +the abstract moral thereof: nevertheless, concretely, the only heart his +so mysterious absence would have pained, was made aware of all: then, +again, secresy had been the atmosphere of his daily life, the breath of +his education; and he too sorely knew his mother would rejoice at the +departure, and Julian, too--all the more certainly, as both brothers +were now rivals professed for the hand of Emily Warren: as to the +general, he might, or he might not, smoke an extra cheroot in the +excitement of his wonder; and if he cared about it anyways more +tragically than tobacco might betray, Emily knew how to comfort him. + +With respect to other arrangements, Emmy furnished Charles with letters +to certain useful people at Madras, and in particular to the "somebody" +who looked after Mrs. Mackie: so, the mystery was easy of access, and he +doubted not of overcoming, on the spot, every unseen difficulty. The +plan of leaving all luggage behind, a capital idea, would enable him to +go forth freely and unshackled, with an ordinary air, in hat and +great-coat, as for an evening's walk; and was quite in keeping with the +natural reserve of his whole character--a bad habit of secresy, which he +probably inherited from his father, the lieutenant of old times. And +yet, for all the wisdom, and mystery, and shrewd settling of the plan, +its accomplishment was as nearly as possible most fatally defeated. + +The important evening arrived; for the Indiaman--it was our old friend +Sir William Elphinston--would be off Plymouth, next morning: the goods +had been, for a day or two, safely deposited at the Europe, as per +invoice, all paid: the lovers, in this last, this happiest, yet by far +the saddest of their stolen interviews, had exchanged vows and kisses, +and upon the beach, beneath those friendly cliffs, had commended one +another to their Father in heaven. They had returned to the unsocial +circle of home; all was fixed; the clock struck nine: and Charles, +accidentally squeezing Emily's hand, rose to leave the tea-table. + +"Where are you going, Mr. Charles?" + +"I am going out, Julian." + +"Thank you, sir! I knew that, but whither? General, I say, here's +Charles going to serenade somebody by moonlight." + +The brandy-sodden parent, scarcely conscious, said something about his +infernal majesty; and, "What then?--let him go, can't you?" + +"Well, Julian dear, perhaps your brother will not mind your going with +him; particularly as Emily stays at home with me." + +This Mrs. Tracy spoke archly, intended as a hint to induce Julian to +remain: but he had other thoughts--and simply said, in an ill-tempered +tone of voice, "Done, Charles." + +It was a dilemma for our escaping hero; but glancing a last look at +Emily, he departed, and walked on some way as quietly as might be with +Julian by his side: thinking, perhaps, he would soon be tired; and +suffering him to fancy, if he would, that Charles was bound either on +some amorous pilgrimage, or some charitable mission. But they left +Burleigh behind them--and got upon the common--and passed it by, far out +of sight and out of hearing--and were skirting the high banks of the +darkly-flowing Mullet--and still there was Julian sullenly beside him. +In vain Charles had tried, by many gentle words, to draw him into common +conversation: Julian would not speak, or only gave utterance to some +hinted phrase of insult: his brow was even darker than usual, and night +was coming on apace, and he still tramped steadily along beside his +brother, digging his sturdy stick into the clay, for very spite's sake. +At length, as they yet walked along the river's side in that +unfrequented place, Julian said, on a sudden, in a low strange tone, as +if keeping down some rising rage within him, + +"Mr. Charles, you love Emily Warren." + +"Well, Julian, and who can help loving her?" + +It was innocently said; but still a maddening answer, for he loved her +too. + +"And, sirrah," the brother hoarsely added, "she--she does not--does +not--hate you, sir, as I do." + +"My good Julian, pray do not be so violent; I cannot help it if the dear +girl loves me." + +"But I can, though!" roared Julian, with an oath, and lifted up his +stick--it was nearer like a club--to strike his brother. + +"Julian, Julian, what are you about? Good Heavens! you would not--you +dare not--give over--unhand me, brother; what have I done, that you +should strike me? Oh! leave me--leave me--pray." + +"Leave you? I will leave you!" the villain almost shouted, and smote him +to the ground with his lead-loaded stick. It was a blow that must have +killed him, but for the interposing hat, now battered down upon his +bleeding head. Charles, at length thoroughly aroused, though his foe +must be a brother, struggled with unusual strength in self-preserving +instinct, wrested the club from Julian's hand, and stood on the +defensive. + +Julian was staggered: and, after a moment's irresolution, drawing a +pistol from his pocket, said, in a terribly calm voice, + +"Now, sir! I have looked for such a meeting many days--alone, by night, +with you! I would not willingly draw trigger, for the noise might bring +down other folks upon us, out of Oxton yonder: but, drop that stick, or +I fire." + +Charles was noble enough, without another word, to fling the club into +the river: it was not fear of harm, but fear of sin, that made him trust +himself defenceless to a brother, a twin-brother, in the dark: he could +not be so base, a murderer, a fratricide! Oh! most unhallowed thought! +Save him from this crime, good God! Then, instantaneously reflecting, +and believing he decided for the best, when he saw the ruffian glaring +on him with exulting looks, as upon an unarmed rival at his mercy, with +no man near to stay the deed, and none but God to see it, Charles +resolved to seek safety from so terrible a death in flight. + +Oxton was within one mile; and, clearly, this was not like flying from +danger as a coward, but fleeing from attempted crime, as a brother and +a Christian. Julian snatched at him to catch him as he passed: and, +failing in this, rushed after him. It was a race for life! and they went +like the wind, for two hundred yards, along that muddy high-banked walk. + +Suddenly, Charles slipped upon the clay, that he fell; and Julian, with +a savage howl, leapt upon him heavily. + +Poor youth, he knew that death was nigh, and only uttered, "God forgive +you, brother! oh, spare me--or, if not me, spare yourself--Julian, +Julian!" + +But the monster was determined. Exerting the whole force of his +herculean frame, he seized his scarce-resisting victim as he lay, and, +lifting him up like a child, flung his own twin-brother head foremost +into that darkly-flowing current! + +There was one piercing cry--a splash--a struggle; and again nothing +broke upon the silent night, but the murmur of that swingeing tide, as +the Mullet hurried eddying to the sea. + +Julian listened a minute or two, flung some stones at random into the +river, and then hastily ran back to Burleigh, feeling like a Cain. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE ESCAPE. + + +But the overruling hand of Him whose aid that victim had invoked, was +now stretched forth to save! and the strong-flowing tide, that ran too +rapidly for Charles to sink in it, was commissioned from on High to +carry him into an angle of that tortuous stream, where he clung by +instinct to the bushes. Silence was his wisdom, while the murderer was +near: and so long as Julian's footsteps echoed on the banks, Charles +stirred not, spoke not, but only silently thanked God for his wonderful +deliverance. However, the footsteps quickly died away, though heard far +off clattering amid the still and listening night; and Charles, +thankfully, no less than cautiously, drew himself out of the stream, +very little harmed beyond a drenching: for the waters had recovered him +at once from the effects of that desperate blow. + +It was with a sense of exultation, freedom, independence, that he now +hastened scatheless on his way; dripping garments mattered nothing, nor +mud, nor the loss of his demolished hat: the pocket-book was safe, and +Emmy's portrait, (how he kissed it, then!) and luckily a travelling cap +was in his great-coat pocket: so with a most buoyant feeling of animal +delight, as well as of religious gratitude, he sped merrily once more +upon his secret expedition. Thank Heaven! Emmy could not know the peril +he had past: and wretched Julian would now have dreadful reason of his +own for this mysterious absence: and it was a pleasant thing to trudge +along so freely in the starlight, on the private embassy of love. Happy +Charles! I know not if ever more exhilarated feelings blessed the youth; +they made him trip along the silent road, in a gush of joyfulness, at +the rate of some six miles an hour; I know not if ever such delicious +thoughts of Emily's attachment, and those gorgeous mysteries in India, +of adventure, enterprise, escape, had heretofore caused his heart to +bound so lightsomely within him, like some elastic spring. I know not if +ever strong reliance upon Providential care, more earnest prayers, +praises, intercessions (for poor Julian, too,) were offered on the altar +of his soul. Happy Charles! + +So he went on and on--long past Oxton, and Eyemouth, and Surbiton, and +over the ferry, and through the sleeping turnpikes, and past the bridge, +and along the broad high-road, until gray of morning's dawn revealed the +suburbs of Plymouth. + +Of course he missed the mail by which he intended to have gone--for +Julian's dread act delayed him. + +Long before his journey's end, his clothes were thoroughly dried, and +violent exercise had shaken off all possible rheumatic consequence of +that fearful plunge beneath the waters: five-and-twenty miles in four +hours and three-quarters, is a tolerable recipe for those who have +tumbled into rivers. We must recollect that he had gone as quick as he +could, for fear of being late, now the coach had passed. At a little +country inn, he brushed, and washed, and made toilet as well as he was +able, took a glass of good Cognac, both hot and strong; and felt more of +a man than ever. + +Then, having loitered awhile, and well-remembered Emily in his prayers, +at about eight in the morning he presented himself among his luggage at +the Europe in gentlemanly trim, and soon got all on board the pilot +boat, to meet the Indiaman just outside the breakwater. We may safely +leave him there, happy, hopeful Charles! Sanguine for the future, +exulting in the present, and thankful for the past: already has he +poured out all his joys before that Friend who loves her too, and +invoked His blessing on a scheme so well designed, so providentially +accomplished. + +I had almost forgotten Julian: wretched, hardened man, and how fared he? +The moment he had flung his brother into that dark stream, and the +waters closed above him greedily that he was gone--gone for ever, he +first threw in stones to make a noise like life upon the stream, but +that cheatery was only for an instant: he was alone--a murderer, alone! +the horrors of silence, solitude, and guilt, seized upon him like three +furies: so his quick retreating walk became a running; and the running +soon was wild and swift for fear; and ever as he ran, that piercing +scream came upon the wind behind, and hooted him: his head swam, his +eyes saw terrible sights, his ears heard terrible sounds--and he scoured +into quiet, sleeping Burleigh like a madman. However, by some strange +good luck, not even did the slumbering watchman see him: so he got +in-doors as usual with the latch-key (it was not the first time he had +been out at night), crept up quietly, and hid himself in his own +chamber. + +And how did he spend those hours of guilty solitude? in terrors? in +remorse? in misery? Not he: Julian was too wise to sit and think, and in +the dark too; but he lit both reading lamps to keep away the gloom, and +smoked and drank till morning's dawn to stupify his conscience. + +Then, to make it seem all right, he went down to breakfast as usual, +though any thing but sober, and met unflinchingly his mother's natural +question-- + +"Good morning, Julian--where's Charles?" + +"How should I know, mother; isn't he up yet?" + +"No, my dear; and what is more, I doubt if he came home last night." + +"Hollo, Master Charles! pretty doings these, Mr. Sabbath-teacher! so he +slept out, eh, mother?" + +"I don't know--but where did you leave him, Julian?" + +"Who! I? did I go out with him? Oh! yes, now I recollect: let's see, we +strolled together midway to Oxton, and, as he was going somewhat +further, there I left him?" + +How true the words, and yet how terribly false their meaning! + +"Dear me, that's very odd--isn't it, general?" + +"Not at all, ma'am--not at all; leave the lad alone, he'll be back by +dinner-time: I didn't think the boy had so much spirit." + +Emily, to whom the general's hint was Greek, looked up cheerfully and in +her own glad mind chuckled at her Charles's bold adventure. + +But the day passed, off, and they sent out men to seek for him: and +another--and all Burleigh was a-stir: and another--and the coast-guards +from Lyme to Plymouth Sound searched every hole and corner: and +another--when his mother wept five minutes: and another--when the wonder +was forgotten. + +However, they did not put on mourning for the truant: he might turn up +yet: perhaps he was at Oxford. + +Emily had not much to do in comforting the general for his dear son's +loss; it clearly was a gain to him, and he felt far freer than when +wisdom's eye was on him. Charles had been too keen for father, mother, +and brother; too good, too amiable: he saw their ill, condemned it by +his life, and showed their dark too black against his brightness. The +unnatural deficiency of mother's love had not been overrated: Julian had +all her heart; and she felt only obliged to the decamping Charles for +leaving Emily so free and clear to his delightful brother. She never +thought him dead: death was a repulsive notion at all times to her: no +doubt he would turn up again some day. And Julian joked with her about +that musty proverb "a bad penny." + +As to our dear heroine, she never felt so happy in all her life before +as now, even when her Charles had been beside her; for within a day of +his departure he had written her a note full of affection, hope, and +gladness; assuring her of his health, and wealth, and safe arrival on +board the Indiaman. The noble-hearted youth never said one single word +about his brother's crime: but he did warn his Emmy to keep close beside +the general. This note she got through Mrs. Sainsbury; that invalid lady +at Oxton, who never troubled herself to ask or hear one word beyond her +own little world--a certain physic-corner cupboard. + +And thou--poor miserable man--thou fratricide in mind--and to thy best +belief in act, how drags on now the burden of thy life? For a day or +two, spirits and segars muddled his brain, and so kept thoughts away: +but within a while they came on him too piercingly, and Julian writhed +beneath those scorpion stings of hot and keen remorse: and when the +coast-guards dragged the Mullet, how that caitiff trembled! and when +nothing could be found, how he wondered fearingly! The only thing the +wretched man could do, was to loiter, day after day, and all day long, +upon the same high path which skirts the tortuous stream. Fascinated +there by hideous recollections, he could not leave the spot for hours: +and his soft-headed, romantic mother, noticing these deep abstractions, +blessed him--for her Julian was now in love with Emily. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +NEWS OF CHARLES. + + +Ay--in love with Emily! Fiercely now did Julian pour his thoughts that +way; if only hoping to forget murder in another strong excitement. +Julian listened to his mother's counsels; and that silly, cheated woman +playfully would lean upon his arm, like a huge, coy confidante, and fill +his greedy ears (that heard her gladly for very holiday's sake from +fearful apprehensions), with lover's hopes, lover's themes, his Emily's +perfection. Delighted mother--how proud and pleased was she! quite in +her own element, fanning dear Julian's most sentimental flame, and +scheming for him interviews with Emily. + +It required all her skill--for the girl clung closely to her guardian: +he, unconscious Argus, never tired of her company; and she, remembering +dear Charles's hint, and dreading to be left alone with Julian, would +persist to sit day after day at her books, music, or needle-work in the +study, charming General Tracy by her pretty Hindoo songs. With him she +walked out, and with him she came in; she would read to him for hours, +whether he snored or listened; and, really, both mother and son were +several long weeks before their scheming could come to any thing. A +_tête-à-tête_ between Julian and Emily appeared as impossible to manage, +as collision between Jupiter and Vesta. + +However, after some six weeks of this sort of mining and counter-mining +(for Emily divined their wishes), all on a sudden one morning the +general received a letter that demanded his immediate presence for a day +or two in town; something about prize-money at Puttymuddyfudgepoor. +Emily was too high-spirited, too delicate in mind, to tell her guardian +of fears which never might be realized; and so, with some forebodings, +but a cheerful trust, too, in a Providence above her, she saw the +general off without a word, though not without a tear; he too, that +stern, close man, was moved: it was strange to see them love each other +so. + +The moment he was gone, she discreetly kept her chamber for the day, on +plea of sickness; she had cried very heartily to see him leave her--he +had never yet left her once since she could recollect--and thus she +really had a head-ache, and a bad one. + +Julian Tracy gave such a start, that he knocked off a cheffonier of +rare china and glass standing at his elbow; and the smash of mandarins +and porcelain gods would have been enough, at any other time, to have +driven his mother crazy. + +"Charles alive?" shouted he. + +"Yes, Julian--why not? You saw him off, you know: cannot you remember?" + +Now to that guilty wretch's mind the fearful notion instantaneously +occurred, that Emily Warren was in some strange, wild way bantering him; +she knew his dreadful secret--"he _had_ seen him off." He trembled like +an aspen as she looked on him. + +"Oh yes, he remembered, certainly; but--but where was her letter?" + +"Never mind that, Julian; you surely would not read another person's +letters, Monsieur le Chevalier Bayard?" + +Emily was as gay at heart that morning as a sky-lark, and her innocent +pleasantry proved her strongest shield. Julian dared not ask to see the +letter--scarcely dared to hope she had one, and yet did not know what to +think. As to any love scene now, it was quite out of the question, +notwithstanding all his mother's hints and management; a new exciting +thought entirely filled him: was he a Cain, a fratricide, or not? was +Charles alive after all? And, for once in his life, Julian had some +repentant feelings; for thrilling hope was nigh to cheer his gloom. + +It really seemed as if Emily, sweet innocent, could read his inmost +thoughts. "At any rate," observed she, playfully, "Bayard may take the +postman's privilege, and see the outside." + +With that, she produced the ship-letter that had put her in such +spirits, legibly dated some twenty-two days ago. Yes, Charles's hand, +sure enough! Julian could swear to it among a thousand. And he fainted +dead away. + +What an astonishing event! how Mrs. Tracy praised her noble-spirited +boy! How the bells rang! and hot water, and cold water, and salts, and +rubbings, and _eau de Cologne_, and all manner of delicate attentions, +long sustained, at length contributed to Julian's restoration. Moreover, +even Emily was agreeably surprised; she had never seen him in so amiable +a light before; this was all feeling, all affection for his brother--her +dear--dear Charles. And when Mrs. Tracy heard what Emily said of +Julian's feeling heart, she became positively triumphant; not half so +much at Charles's safety, and all that, as at Julian's burst of feeling. +She was quite right, after all; he was worthy to be her favourite, and +she felt both flattered and obliged to him for fainting dead away. +"Yes--yes, my dear Miss Warren, depend upon it Julian has fine feelings, +and a good heart." And Emily began to condemn both Charles and herself +for lack of charity, and to think so too. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE TETE-A-TETE. + + +No sooner had "dear Julian" recovered, which he really had not quite +accomplished until the day had begun to wear away (so great a shock had +that intelligence of Charles been to his guilty mind), than the +gratified and prudent mother fancied this a famous opportunity to leave +the young couple to themselves. It was after dinner, when they had +retired to the drawing-room; and I will say that Emily had never seemed +so favourably disposed towards that rough, but generous, heart before. +So then, on some significant pretence, well satisfied her favourite was +himself again, as bold, and black, and boisterous as ever, the masculine +mother kissed her hand to them, as a fat fairy might be supposed to do, +and operatically tripped away, coyly bidding Emily "take care of Julian +till she should come back again." + +The momentary gleam of good which glanced across that bad man's heart +has faded away hours ago; his repentant thoughts had been occasioned +more from the sudden relief he experienced at running now no risks for +having murdered, than for any better feeling towards his brother, or any +humbler notions of himself. Nay, a strong rëaction occurred in his ideas +the moment he had seen his brother's writing; and when he fainted, he +fainted from the struggle in his mind of manifold exciting causes, such +as these:--hatred, jealousy, what he called love, though a lower name +befitted it, and vexation that his brother was--not dead. Oh mother, +mother! if your poor weak head had but been wise enough to read that +heart, would you still have loved it as you do? Alas--it is a deep +lesson in human nature this--she would! for Mrs. General Tracy was one +of those obstinate, yet superficial characters, whom no reason can +convince that they are wrong, no power can oblige to confess themselves +mistaken. She rejoiced to hear him called "her very image;" and +predominant vanity in the large coquette extended to herself at +second-hand; self was her idol substance, and its delightful shadow was +this mother's son. + +The moment Mrs. Tracy left the room, Julian perceived his opportunity: +Charles, detested rival, far away at sea; the guardian gone to London; +Emily in an unusual flow of affability and kindness, and he--alone with +her. Rashly did he bask his soul in her delicious beauty, deliberately +drinking deep of that intoxicating draught. Giving the rein to passion, +he suffered that tumultuous steed to hurry him whither it would, in mad +unbridled course. He sat so long silently gazing at her with the +lack-lustre eyes of low and dull desire, that Emily, quite thrown off +her guard by that amiable fainting for his brother, addressed him in her +innocent kind-heartedness, + +"Are you not recovered yet, dear Julian?" + +The effect was instantaneous: scarcely crediting his ears that heard her +call him "dear," his eyes, that saw her winning smile upon him, he +started from his chair, and trembling with agitation, flung himself at +her feet, to Emily's unqualified astonishment. + +"Why, Julian, what's the matter?--unhand me, sir! let go!" (for he had +got hold of her wrist.) + +The passionate youth seized her hand--that one with Charles's ring upon +it--and would have kissed it wildly with polluting lips, had she not +shrieked suddenly "Help! help!" + +Instantly his other hand was roughly dashed upon her mouth--so roughly +that it almost knocked her backwards--and the blood flowed from her +wounded lip; but by a preternatural effort, the indignant Indian queen +hurled the ruffian from her, flew to the bell, and kept on ringing +violently. + +In less than half a minute all the household was around her, headed by +the startled Mrs. Tracy, who had all the while been listening in the +other drawing-room: butler, footmen, house-maids, ladies'-maids, cook, +scullions, and all rushed in, thinking the house was on fire. + +No need to explain by a word. Emily, radiant in imperial charms, stood, +like inspired Cassandra, flashing indignation from her eyes at the +cowering caitiff on the floor. The mother, turning all manner of +colours, dropped on her knees to "poor Julian's" assistance, affecting +to believe him taken ill. But Emily Warren, whose insulted pride +vouchsafed not a word to that guilty couple, soon undeceived all +parties, by addressing the butler in a voice tremulous and broken-- + +"Mr. Saunders--be so good--as to go--to Sir Abraham Tamworth's--in the +square--and request of him--a night's--protection--for a +poor--defenceless, insulted woman!" + +She could hardly utter the last words for choking tears: but immediately +battling down her feelings, added, with the calmness of a heroine-- + +"You are a father, Mr. Saunders--set all this before Sir Abraham +strongly, but delicately. + +"Footmen! so long as that wretch is in the room, protect me, as you are +men." + +And the stately beauty placed herself between the two liveried lacqueys, +as Zenobia in the middle of her guards. + +"Marguerite!"--the pretty little Française tripped up to her--"wipe this +blood from my face." + +Beautiful, insulted creature! I thought that I looked upon some wounded +Boadicea, with her daughters extracting the arrow from her cheek. + +"And now, kind Charlotte, fetch my cloak; and follow me to Prospect +House, with what I may require for the night. Till the general's return, +I stay not here one minute." + +Then, without a syllable, or a look of leave-taking, the wise and noble +girl--doubtless unconsciously remembering her early Hindoo braveries, +the lines of matchlock men, the bowing slaves, the processions, and her +jewelled state of old--marched away in magnificent beauty, accompanied +in silence by the whole astonished household. + +Mrs. Tracy and her son were left alone: the silly, silly mother thought +him "hardly used." Julian, whose natural effrontery had entirely +deserted him, looked like what he was--a guilty coward: and the mother, +who had pampered up her "fine high-spirited son" to his full-grown +criminality by a foolish education, really--when she had time to think +of any thing but him--was excessively frightened. The general would be +back to-morrow, and then--and then!--she dreaded to picture that +explosion of his wrath. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +SATISFACTION. + + +Sir Abraham Tamworth, G.C.B.--a fine old Admiral of the White, who +somewhat looked down upon the rank of General, H.E.I.C.S.--was +astonished, as well he might be, at Mr. Saunders, and his message: and, +of course, most gladly acquiesced in acting as poor Emily's protector. +Accordingly, however jealous Lady Tamworth and her daughters might +heretofore have felt of that bright beauty at the balls, they were now +all genuine sympathy, indignation, and affection. Emily, I need hardly +say, went straight up stairs to have her cry out. + +"Whom are you writing to, George, in such a hurry?" asked the admiral, +of a fine moustachioed son, George St. Vincent Tamworth, of the Royal +Horse Guards, who had just got six months' leave of absence for the sake +of marriage with his cousin. + +The gallant soldier tossed a billet to his father, who mounted his +spectacles, and quietly read it at the lamp. + +"Captain Tamworth desires Mr. Julian Tracy's company to-morrow morning, +at seven o'clock, in the third meadow on the Oxton road. The captain +brings a friend with him; also pistols and a surgeon; and he desires Mr. +Tracy to do the like: Prospect House, Thursday evening." + +"So, George, you consider him a gentleman, do you? I am afraid it's a +poor compliment to our fair young friend." And he quietly crumpled up +the challenge in his iron hand. + +"Really, sir!--you surprise me;--pardon me, but I will send that note: +mustn't I chastise the fellow for this insufferable outrage?" + +"No doubt, George, no doubt of it at all: when a lady is insulted, and a +man (not to say a queen's officer) stands by without taking notice of +it, he deserves whipping at the cart's-tail, and Coventry for life. I've +no patience, boy, with such mean meekness, as putting up with bullying +insolence when a woman's in the case. Let a man show moral courage, if +he can and will, in his own affront; I honour him who turns on his heel +from common personal insult, and only wish my own old blood was cool +enough to do so: but the mother, wife, and sister, ay, George, and the +poor defenceless one, be she lady, peasant, or menial, who comes to us +for safety in a woman's dress, we must take up their quarrel, or we are +not men!--" + +"Don't interrupt him, George," uxoriously suggested Lady Tamworth, +"your father hasn't done talking yet." For George was getting terribly +impatient; he knew, from sad experience, how much the admiral was given +to prosing. However, the oration soon proceeded to our captain's entire +satisfaction, after his progenitor had paused awhile for breath's sake +in his eloquence. + +"--Take up their quarrel, or we are not men. Nevertheless, boy, I cannot +see the need of pistols. The only conceivable case for violent redress, +is woman's wrong: and he who wrongs a woman, cannot be a gentleman; +therefore, ought not to be met on equal terms. For other causes of +duello, as hot-headed speeches, rudenesses, or slights, forgive, forbear +to fan the flame, and never be above apologizing: but in an outrage such +as this, let a fine-built fellow, such as you are, George (and the women +should show wisdom in their choice of champions), let a man, and a +queen's officer as you are, treat this brute, Julian Tracy, as a +martinet huntsman would a hound thrown out. As for me, boy, I'm going to +call on Mrs. Tracy at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning--and, without +presuming to advise a six foot two of a son, I think--I think, if I were +you, I would be dutiful enough to say--'Father, I will accompany +you--and take a horsewhip with me.'" + +"Agreed, agreed, sir!" replied the well-pleased son, and her ladyship +too vouchsafed her approbation. + +Emily had gone to bed long ago, or rather to her chamber; where the +three Misses Tamworth had been all kindness, curiosity, and consolation. +So, Sir Abraham and his lady, now the speech was finished, followed +their example of retirement: and the captain newly blood-knotted his +hunting-whip, _con amore_, not to say _con spirito_, overnight. + +Nobody will wonder to hear, that when the gallant representatives of +army and navy called next morning at number seven, Mrs. Tracy and her +son were "not at home:" and of course it would be far too Julian-like a +proceeding, for true gentleman to think of forcing their company on the +probably ensconced in-dwellers. Accordingly, they marched away, without +having deigned to leave a card; the captain taking on himself the duty +of perambulating sentinel, while his father proceeded to the library as +usual. Judge of the glad surprise, when, within ten minutes, our +vindictive George perceived the admiral coming back again, full-sail, +with the mother and son in tow, creeping amicably enough up the terrace. +Sir Abraham had given her his arm, and precious Mr. Julian was a little +in the rear: for the old folks were talking confidentially. + +George St. Vincent, placing his whip in the well-known position of +"Cane, a mystery," advanced to meet them; and, just after passing his +father, with whom he exchanged a very comfortable glance, discovered +that the heroic Julian, who had caught a glimpse of the ill-concealed +weapon, was slinking quickly round a corner to avoid him. It was +certainly undignified to run, but the gallant captain did run, +nevertheless and soon caught the coward by the collar. + +Then, at arm's length, was the hunting-whip applied, full-swing; up the +terrace, and down the parade, and through High-street, and Smith-street, +and Oxton-road, and aristocratical Pacton-square, and the well-thronged +plebeian market-place; lash, lash, lash, in furious and fast succession +on the writhing roaring culprit; to the universal excoriation of Mr. +Julian Tracy, and the amazement of an admiring and soon-collected +crowd--the rank, beauty, and fashion--of Burleigh Singleton. Julian was +strong indeed, and a coal-heaver in build, but conscience had unnerved +him; and the coarse noisy bully always is a coward: therefore, it was a +pleasant thing to see how easy came the captain's work to him--he had +nothing to do but to lash, lash, lash, double-thonged, like a +slave-driver: and, except that he made the caitiff move along, to be a +spectacle to man and woman, up and down the town, he might as well, for +any difficulty in the deed, have been employed in scarifying a +gate-post. + +At last, thoroughly exhausted with having inflicted as much punishment +as any three drummers at a soldier's whipping-match, and spying out his +"tiger" in the throng, our gallant Avenging Childe tossed the heavy whip +to the trim cockaded little man, that he might carry home that +instrument of vengeance, deliberately wiped his wet mustachios, and +giving Julian one last kick, let the fellow part in peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +HOW CHARLES FARED. + + +Having thus found protectors for poor Emily, and disposed of her +assailant to the entire satisfaction of all mankind, let us turn +seawards, and take a look at Charles. + +Now, "no earthly power,"--as a certain ex-chancellor protested--shall +induce me to do so mean a thing as to open Charles's letters, and spread +them forth before the public gaze. Doubtless, they were all things +tender, warm, and eloquent; doubtless, they were tinted rosy hue, with +love's own blushes, and made glorious with the golden light of +unaffected piety. I only read them myself in a reflected way, by looking +into Emily's eyes; and I saw, from their ever-changing radiance, how +feelingly he told of his affections; how fervently he poured out all his +heart upon the page; how evidently tears and kisses had made many words +illegible; how wise, sanguine, happy, and religious, was her own devoted +Charles. + +Of the trivial incidents of voyaging, his letters said not much: though +cheerful and agreeable in his floating prison, with the various exported +marrying-maidens and transported civil officers, who constitute the +average bulk of Indian cargoes outward bound, Charles mixed but little +in their society, seldom danced, seldom smoked, seldom took a hand at +whist, or engaged in the conflicts of backgammon. Sharks, storms, +water-spouts; the meeting divers vessels, and exchanging post-bags; +tar-barrelled Neptune of the line, Cape Town with its mountain and the +Table-cloth, long-rolling seas; and similar common-places, Charles did +not think proper to enlarge upon: no more do I. Life is far too short +for all such petty details: and, more pointedly, a wire-drawn book is +the just abhorrence of a generous public. + +The letters came frequently: for Charles did little else all day but +write to Emmy, so as always to be ready with a budget for the next piece +of luck--a home-bound ship. He had many things to teach her yet, sweet +student; and it was a beautiful sight to see how her mind expanded as an +opening flower before the sun of tenderness and wisdom. Each letter, +both in writing and in reading, was the child of many prayers: and even +the loveliness of Emily grew more soft, more elevated, "as it had been +the face of an angel," when feeding in solitary joy on those effusions +of her lover's heart. + +Of course, he could not hear from her, until the overland mail might +haply bring him letters at Madras: so that, as our Irish friends would +say, with all her will to tell him of her love, "the reciprocity must +needs be all on one side." But Emily did write too; earnestly, happily: +and poured her very heart out in those eloquent burning words. I dare +say Charles will get the letter now within a day or two: for the roaring +surf of Madras is on the horizon, almost within sight. + +Nevertheless, before he gets there, and can read those +letters--precious, precious manuscripts--it will be my painful duty, as +a chronicler of (what might well be) truth, to put the reader in +possession of one little hint, which seemed likeliest to wreck the +happiness of these two children of affection. + +I am Emily's invisible friend: and as the dear girl ran to me one +morning, with tears in her eyes, to ask me what I thought of a certain +mysterious paragraph, I need not scruple to lay it straight before the +reader. + +At the end of a voluminous love-letter, which I really did not think of +prying into, occurred the following postscript, evidently written at the +last moment of haste. + +"Oh! my precious Emmy, I have just heard the most fearful rumour of ill +that could possibly befall us: the captain of our ship--you will +remember Captain Forbes, he knew you and the general well, he said--has +just assured me that--that--! I dare not, cannot write the awful words. +Oh! my own Emmy--Heaven grant you be my own!--pray, pray, as I will +night and day, that rumour be not true: for if it be, my love, both God +and man forbid us ever to meet again! How I wish I could explain it all, +or that I had never heard so much, or never written it here, and told it +you, though thus obscurely: for I can't destroy this letter now, the +ships are just parting company, and there is no time to write another. +Yet will I hope, love, against hope. Who knows? through God's good +mercy, it may all be cleared up still. If not--if not--strive to forget +for ever, your unhappy "CHARLES. + +"Perhaps--O, glorious thought!--Nurse Mackie may know better than the +captain, after all; and yet, he seems so positive: if he is right, there +is nothing for us both but Wo! Wo! Wo!" + +Now, to say plain truth, when Emily showed me this, I looked very blank +upon it. That Charles had heard some meddlesome report, which (if true) +was to be an insuperable barrier to their future union, struck me at a +glimpse. But I had not the heart to hint it to her; and only encouraged +hope--hope, in God's help, through the means of Mrs. Mackie and her +papers. + +As for the poor girl herself, she asked me, in much humility, and with +many sobs, if I did not fear that her Hindoo mystery was this:--she was +the vilest of the vile, a Pariah, an outcast, whose very presence is +contamination! + +Beautiful, loving, heavenly-hearted creature! so humble in the midst of +her majestic loveliness! how touching was the thought, that she thus +readily acquiesced in any the deepest humiliation holy Providence had +seen fit to send her; and though the sentence would have crushed her +happiness for ever, till the day of death, that she could still look up +and say, "Be it to thine handmaid even as thou wilt." + +As I had no better method of explaining the matter, and as her infantine +reminiscences and prejudices about caste were strong, I even let her +think so, if she would: it was a far better alternative than my own sad +thoughts about the business: and, however painful was the process, it +was something consolatory to observe, that this voluntary humiliation +mellowed and chastened her own character, subduing tropical fires, and +tempering the virgin gold by meekness. + +Oh! Charles, Charles, my poor fellow, "who have cast your all upon a +die, and must abide the issue of the throw," I most fervently hope that +gossiping Captain Forbes spoke falsely: it is a comfort to reflect that +the world is often very liberal in attributing the honours of paternity +to some who really do not deserve them. And if a rich old bachelor looks +kindly on a foundling, is it not pure malice on that sole account of +charity to hail him father? Besides--there's Nurse Mackie.--Speed to +Madras, poor youth, and keep your courage up. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE GENERAL'S RETURN. + + +In a most unwonted flow of animal spirits, and an entire affability +which restored him at once to the rank of a communicative creature, +General Tracy came back on Friday night. He had met with marvellous +prosperity; for Hancock's had been paying off the prize-money; and his +own lion's share, as general, in the easy process of dethroning half a +dozen diamond-hilted rajahs and nabobs, amounted to something like four +lacs of rupees, nearly half a crore! Such a flush of wealth, and he was +rich already without it, exhilarated the bilious old gentleman so +strangely, that positive peonies were blooming in his cheeks; and, as if +this was not miracle enough, he had brought his wife as a present +Maurice's '_Antiquities of India_,' gloriously bound, and had even been +so superfluous as to purchase a new pair of double-barrelled pistols for +Julian: the lad was a fine young fellow after all, and ought to be +encouraged in snuffing out a candle; as for Emily's _petit cadeau_, it +was a fifty guinea set of cameos, the choicest in their way that Howell +and James's had to show him. Moreover, he had sent a Bow-street officer +to Oxford, to make inquiries after Charles: actually, good fortune had +made him at once humanized and happy. + +So the chaise rattled up, and the general bounded out, and flew into the +arms of his wondering wife, as Paris might have flown to Helen, or +Leander to his heroine--the only feminine Hero, whom grammar recognises. +It was past eleven at night: therefore he did not think to ask for +Julian; no doubt the boy was gone to bed. + +Indeed, he had; and was tossing his wealed body, full of pains, and +aches, and bruises, as softly as he could upon the feather-bed: he had +need of poultices all over, and a quart of Friar's Balsam would have +done him little good: after his well-merited thrashing, the flogged +hound had slunk to his kennel, and locked himself sullenly in, without +even speaking to his mother. Tobacco-fumes exuded from the key-hole, and +I doubt not other creature-comforts lent the muddled man their aid. + +However, after the first rush of news to Mrs. Tracy, her lord, who had +every moment been expecting the door to fly open, and Emily to fall into +his arms--for strangely did they love each other--suddenly asked, + +"But, where's Emmy all this time! she knows I'm here?--not got to bed, +is she?--knew I was coming?--" + +"Oh! general, I'll tell you all about it to-morrow morning." + +"About what, madam? Great God! has any harm befallen the child? +Speak--speak, woman!" + +"Dear--dear--Oh! what shall I say?" sobbed the silly mother. +"Emily--Emily, poor dear Julian--" + +"What the devil, ma'am, of Julian?" The general turned white as a sheet, +and rang the bell, in singular calmness; probably for a dram of brandy. +Saunders answered it so instantly, that I rather suspect he was waiting +just outside. + +The moment Mrs. Tracy saw the gray-headed butler, anticipating all that +he might say, she brushed past him, and hurriedly ran up-stairs. + +"What's all this, Mr. Saunders? where's Miss Warren?" And the poor old +guardian seemed ready to faint at his reply: but he heard it out +patiently. + +"I am very sorry to say, general, that Miss Emily has been forced to +take refuge at Sir Abraham Tamworth's: but she's well, sir, and safe, +sir; quite well and safe," the good man hastened to say, "only I'm +afraid that Mr. Julian had been taking liberties with--" + +I dare not write the general's imprecation: then, as he clenched the +arms of his easy-chair, as with the grasp of the dying, he asked, in a +quick wild way-- + +"But what was it?--what happened?" + +"Nothing to fear, sir--nothing at all, general;--I am thankful to say, +that all I saw, and all we all saw, was Miss Emily pulling at the +bell-rope with blood upon her face, and Mr. Julian on the floor: but I +took the young lady to Sir Abraham's immediately, general, at her own +desire." + +The father arose sternly; his first feeling was to kill Julian; but the +second, a far better one, predominated--he must go and see Emily at +once. + +So, faintly leaning on the butler's arm, the poor old man (whom a moiety +of ten minutes, with its crowding fears, had made to look some ten years +older,) proceeded to the square, and knocked up Sir Abraham at midnight, +and the admiral came down, half asleep, in dressing-gown and slippers, +vexed at having been knocked up from his warm berth so uncomfortably: it +put him sorely in remembrance of his hardships as a middy. + +"Kind neighbour, thank you, thank you; where's Emmy? take me to my +Emmy;" and the iron-hearted veteran wept like a driveller. + +Sir Abraham looked at him queerly: and then, in a cheerful, friendly +way, replied-- + +"Dear general, do not be so moved: the girl's quite safe with us; you'll +see her to-morrow morning. All's right; she was only frightened, and +George has given the fellow a proper good licking: and the girl's a-bed, +you know; and, eh? what?"-- + +For the poor old man, like one bereaved, said, supplicatingly-- + +"In mercy take me to her--precious child!" + +"My dear sir--pray consider--it's impossible; fine girl, you know;--Lady +Tamworth, too--can't be, can't be, you know, general." + +And the mystified Sir Abraham looked to Saunders for an explanation-- + +"Was his master drunk?" + +"I must speak to her, neighbour; I must, must, and will--dear, dear +child: come up with me, sir, come; do not trifle with a breaking heart, +neighbour!" + +There was a heart still in that hard-baked old East Indian. + +It was impossible to resist such an appeal: so the two elders crept up +stairs, and knocked softly at her chamber-door. Clearly, the girl was +asleep: she had sobbed herself to sleep; the general had been looked for +all day long, and she was worn with watching; he could hardly come at +midnight; so the dear affectionate child had sobbed herself to sleep. + +"Allow me, Sir Abraham." And General Tracy whispered something at the +key-hole in a strange tongue. + +Not Aladdin's "open Sesame" could have been more magical. In a moment, +roused up suddenly from sleep, and forgetting every thing but those +tender recollections of gentle care in infancy, and kindness all through +life, the child of nature startled out of bed, drew the bolt, and in +beauteous disarray, fell into that old man's arms! + +It was enough; he had seen her eye to eye--she lived: and the +white-haired veteran, suffered himself to be led away directly from the +landing, like a child, by his sympathizing neighbour. + +"My heart is lighter now, Sir Abraham: but I am a poor weak old man, and +owe you an explanation for this outburst; some day--some day, not now. +O, if you could guess how I have nursed that pretty babe when alone in +distant lands; how I have doated on her little winning ways, and been +gladdened by the music of her prattle; how I have exulted to behold her +loveliness gradually expanding, as she was ever at my side, in peril as +in peace, in camp as in quarters, in sickness as in health, +still--still, the blessed angel of a bad man's life--a wicked, hard old +man, kind neighbour--if you knew more--more, than for her sake I dare +tell you--and if you could conceive the love my Emmy bears for me, you +would not think it strange--think it strange--" He could not say a +syllable more; and the admiral, with Mr. Saunders, too, who joined them +in the study, looked very little able to console that poor old man. For +they all had hearts, and trickling eyes to tell them. + +Then having arranged a shake-down for his master in Sir Abraham's +study--for the guardian would not leave his dear one ever +again--Saunders went home, purposing to attend with razors in the +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +INTERCALARY. + + +The Tamworths did not altogether live at Burleigh Singleton--it was far +too petty a place for them; dullness all the year round (however +pleasant for a month or so, as a holiday from toilsome pleasures) would +never have done for Lady Tamworth and her daughters: but they regularly +took Prospect House for six weeks in the summer season, when tired of +Portland Place, and Huntover, their fine estate in Cheshire: and so, +from constant annual immigration, came as much to be regarded +Burleighites, as swifts and swallows to be ranked as British birds. I +only hint at this piece of information, for fear any should think it +unlikely, that grandees of Sir Abraham's condition could exist for ever +in a place where the day-before-yesterday's '_Times_' is first +intelligence. + +Moreover, as another interjectional touch, it is only due to my +life-likenesses to record, that Mrs. Green's, although a terrace-house, +and ranked as humble number seven, was, nevertheless, a tolerably +spacious mansion, well suited for the dignity of a butler to repose in: +for Mrs. Green had added an entire dwelling on the inland side, as, like +most maritime inhabitants, she was thoroughly sick of the sea, and never +cared to look at it, though living there still, from mere disinclination +to stir: so, then, it was quite a double house, both spacious and +convenient. As for the inglorious incident of Julian's latch-key, I +should not wonder if many wide street-doors to many marble halls are +conscious of similar convenient fastenings, if gentlemen of Julian's +nocturnal tastes happen to be therein dwelling. Another little matter is +worth one word. The house had been Mrs. Green's, a freehold, and was, +therefore, now her heir's; but the general, as an executor, remained +there still, until his business was finished; in fact, he took his +year's liberty. + +He had returned from India rolling in gold; for some great princess or +other--I think they called her a Begum or a Glumdrum, or other such like +Gulliverian appellative--had been singularly fond of him, and had loaded +him in early life with favours--not only kisses, and so forth, but +jewellery and gold pagodas. And lately, as we know, Puttymuddyfudgepoor, +with its radiating rajahs and nabobs, had proved a mine of wealth: for a +crore is ten lacs, and a lac of rupees is any thing but a lack of +money--although rupees be money, and the "middle is distributed;" in +spite of logic, then, a lack means about twelve thousand pounds: and +four of them, according to Cocker, some fifty thousand. It would appear +then, that with the produce of the Begum's diamonds, converted into +money long ago, and some of them as big as linnet's eggs--and not to +take account of Mrs. Green's trifling pinch of the five Exchequer bills, +all handed over at once to Emily--the General's present fortune was +exactly one hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds. + +Of course, _he_ wasn't going to bury himself at Burleigh Singleton much +longer; and yet, for all that stout intention of houses and lands, and +carriages and horses, in almost any other county or country, it is as +true as any thing in this book, that he was a resident still, a +lease-holder of Aunt Green's house, long after the _dénouement_ of this +story; in many things an altered man, but still identical in one; the +unchangeable resolve (though never to be executed) of leaving Burleigh +at farthest by next Michaelmas. Most folks who talk much, do little; and +taciturn as the general now is, and has been ever throughout life, it +will surprise nobody who has learned from hard experience how silly and +harmful a thing is secresy (exceptionables excepted), to find that he +grew to be a garrulous old man, gossipping for ever of past, present, +future, and, not least, about his deeds at Puttymuddyfudgepoor. + +General Tracy is by this time awake again; if ever indeed he slept on +that uncomfortable shakedown; and, after Mr. Saunders and the +razor-strop, has greeted brightly-beaming Emily with more than usual +tenderness. Her account of the transaction made his very blood boil; +especially as her pretty pouting lips were lacerated cruelly inside: +that rude blow on the mouth had almost driven the teeth through them. +How confidingly she told her artless tale; how gently did her fond +protector kiss that poor pale cheek; and how sternly did he vow full +vengeance on the caitiff! Not even Emily's intercession could avail to +turn his wrath aside. He could hardly help flying off at once to do +something dreadful; but common courtesy to all the Tamworth family +obliged him to defer for an hour all the terrible things he meant to do. +So he began to bolt his breakfast fiercely as a cannibal, and saluted +Lady Tamworth and her daughters with such savage looks, that the captain +considerately suggested: + +"Here, general," (handing him a most formidable carving-knife,) "charge +that boar's head, grinning defiance at us on the side-board; it will do +you good to hew his brawny neck. My mother, I am sure, for one, will +thank you to do the honours there instead of me. Isn't it a comfort now, +to know that I broke the handle of my hunting-whip across the fellow's +back, and wore all the whip-cord into skeins. Come, I say, general, +don't eat us all round; and pray have mercy on that poor, flogged, +miserable sinner." + +This banter did him good, especially as he saw Emily smiling; so he +relaxed his knit brow, condescended to look less like Giant Blunderbore, +soon became marvellous chatty, and ate up two French rolls, an egg, some +anchovies, a round of toast, and a mighty slice of brawn; these, washed +down with a couple of cups of tea, soothed him into something like +complacency. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +JULIAN'S DEPARTURE. + + +Long before the general got home, still in exalted dudgeon (indeed soon +after the general had left home over night), the bird had flown; for the +better part of valour suggested to our evil hero, that it would be +discreet to render himself a scarce commodity for a season; and as soon +as ever his mother had run up to his room-door to tell him of his +danger, when her lord was cross-questioning the butler, he resolved upon +instant flight. Accordingly, though sore and stiff, he hurried up, +dressed again, watched his father out, and tumbling over Mrs. Tracy, who +was sobbing on the stairs, ran for one moment to the general's room; +there he seized a well-remembered cash-box, and instinctively possessed +himself of those new, neat, double-barrelled pistols: a bully never goes +unarmed. These brief arrangements made, off he set, before his father +could have time to return from Pacton Square. + +Therefore, when the general called, we need not marvel that he found him +not; no one but the foolish mother (so neglected of her son, yet still +excusing him) stood by to meet his wrath. He would not waste it on her; +so long as Julian was gone, his errand seemed accomplished; for all he +came to do was to expel him from the house. So, as far as regarded Mrs. +Tracy, her husband, wotting well how much she was to blame, merely +commanded her to change her sleeping-room, and occupy Mr. Julian's in +future. + +The silly woman was even glad to do it; and comforted herself from time +to time with prying into her own boy's exemplary manuscripts, memoranda +of moralities, and so forth; with weeping, like Lady Constance, over his +empty "unpuffed" clothes; with reading ever and anon his choice +collection of standard works, among which '_Don Juan_' and Mr. Thomas +Paine were by far the most presentable; and with tasting, till it grew +to be a habit, his private store of spirituous liquors. Thus did she +mourn many days for long-lost Julian. + +I am quite aware what became of him. The wretched youth, mad for Emily's +love, and tortured by the tyranny of passion, had nothing else to live +for or to die for. He accordingly took refuge in the hovel of a +smuggler, an old friend of his, not many miles away, disguised himself +in fisherman's costume, and bode his opportunity. + +Beauteous girl! how often have I watched thee with straining eyes and +aching heart, as thou wentest on thy summer's walk so oftentimes to +Oxton, there to exercise thy bountiful benevolence in comforting the +sick, gladdening the wretched, and lingering, with love's own look, in +Charles's village school; how often have I prayed, that guardian angels +might be about thy path as about thy bed! For the prowling tiger was on +thy track, poor innocent one, and many, many times nothing but one of +God's seeming accidents hath saved thee. Who was that strange man so +often in the way? At one time a wounded Spanish legionist, with head +bound up; at another, an old beggar upon crutches; at another, a floury +miller with a donkey and a sack; at another, a black looking man, in +slouching sailor's hat and fishing-boots? + +Fair, pure creature! thou hast often dropped a shilling in that beggar's +hand, and pitied that poor maimed soldier; once, too, a huge gipsy woman +would have had thee step aside, and hear thy fortunes. Heaven guarded +thee then, sweet Emily; for both girl and lover though thou art, thou +would'st not listen to the serpent's voice, however fair might be the +promises. And Heaven guarded thee ever, bidding some one pass along the +path just as the ruffian might have gagged thy smiling mouth, and +hurried thee away amongst his fellows; and more than once, especially, +those school children, bursting out of Charles's school at dusk, have +unconsciously escorted thee in safety from the perils of that tiger on +thy track. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +ENLIGHTENMENT. + + +The general could not now be kept in ignorance of Charles's expedition; +in fact, he had found his heart, and began resolutely to use it. So, the +very day on which he had lost Julian, he intended very eagerly to seek +out Charles; for the Oxford search had failed, and no wonder. Now, +though Emily had told, as we well know, to both mother and son her +secret, the father was not likely to be any the wiser; for he now never +spoke to his wife, and could not well speak to his son. However, one +day, an hour after an overland letter, a very exhilarating one, dated +Madras, whereof we shall hear anon, fair Emily, in the fullness of her +heart, could not help saying, + +"Dearest sir, you are often thinking of poor lost Charles, I know; and +you are very anxious about him too, though nobody but myself, who am +always with you, can perceive it: what if you heard he was safe and +well?" + +"Have you heard any tidings of my poor boy, Emmy?" + +She looked up archly, and said, "Why not?" her beautiful eyes adding, as +plainly as eyes could speak, "I love him, and you know it; of course I +have heard frequently from dear, dear Charles." + +But the guardian met her looks with a keen and chilling answer: "Why +not! why not! Does he dare to write to you, and you to love him? Oh, +that I had told them both a year ago! But where is he now, child? Don't +cry, I will not speak so angrily again, my Emmy." + +"I hardly dare to tell you, dearest sir: you have always been as a +father to me, and I never knew any other; but there are things I cannot +explain to myself, and I was very wretched; and so, kind guardian, +Charles--Charles was so good--" + +"What has he done?--where has he gone?" hastily asked his father. + +"Oh, don't, don't be angry with us; in a word, he is gone to Madras, to +find out Nurse Mackie, and to tell me who I am." + +The poor old man, who had treasured up so long some mystery, probably a +very diaphanous one, for Emily's own dear sake in the world's esteem, +and from the long bad habit of reserve, fell back into his chair as if +he had been shot; but he did not faint, nor gasp, nor utter a sound; he +only looked at her so long and sorrowfully, that she ran to him, and +covered his pale face with her own brown curls, kissing him, and wiping +from his cheek her starting tears. + +"Emmy, dear--I can tell you--and I--no, no, not now, not now; if he +comes back--then--then; poor children! Oh, the sin of secresy!" + +"But, dearest sir, do not be so sad; Charles has happy news, he says." + +"Happy, child? Good Heaven! would it could be so!" + +"Indeed, indeed, a week ago he was as miserable as any could be, and so +was I; for he heard something terrible about me--I don't know what--but +I feared I was a--Pariah! However, now he is all joy, and coming home +again as soon as possible." + +The general shook, his head mournfully, as physicians do when hope is +gone; but still he looked perplexed and thoughtful. + +"You will show me the letters, dear, I dare say: but I do not command +you, Emmy; do as you like." + +"Certainly, my own kindest guardian--all, all, and instantly." + +And flying up to her room, she returned with as much closely-written +manuscript as would have taken any but a lover's eye a full week to +decipher. The general, not much given to literary matters, looked quite +scared at such a prospect. + +"Wait, Emmy; not all, not all; show me the last." + +I dare say Emily will forgive me if I get it set up legibly in print. +May I, dear? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +CHARLES AT MADRAS. + + +Luckily enough for all mankind in general, and our lovers in particular, +Charles's last letter was very unlike some that had preceded it; for +instead of the usual "Oh, my love"'s, "sweet, sweet eyes," "darling"'s, +and all manner of such chicken-hearted nonsense, it was positively +sensible, rational, not to say utilitarian: though I must acknowledge +that here and there it degenerates into the affectionate, or +Stromboli-vein of letter-writing, at opening especially; and really now +and then I shall take leave to indicate omitted inflammations by a *. + +"DEAREST, DEAREST EMMY, + + * * * * * + +[and so forth, a very galaxy of stars to the bottom of this page; enough +to put the compositor out of his terrestrial senses.] + +"You see I have recovered my spirits, dearest, and am not now afraid to +tell you how I love you. Oh, that detestable Captain Forbes! let him not +cross my path, gossiping blockhead! on pain of carrying about 'til +deth,' in the middle of his face, a nose two inches longer. I heartily +wish I had never listened for an instant to such vile insinuations; and +when I look at this red right hand of mine, that dared to pen the trash +in that black postscript, I look at it as Cranmer did, and (but that it +is yours, Emmy, not mine), could wish it burnt. But no fears now, my +girl, huzza, huzza! I believe every one about me thinks me daft; and so +I am for very joyfulness; notwithstanding, let me be didactic, or you +will say so too. I really will endeavour to rein in, and go along in the +regular hackney trot, that you may partly comprehend me. Well, then, +here goes; try your paces, Dobbin. + +"On the morning of Sunday, April 11th, 1842, the good ship +Elphinston--(that's the way to begin, I suppose, as per ledger, +log-book, and midshipman's epistles to mamma)--in fact, dear, we cast +anchor just outside a furious wall of surf, which makes Madras a very +formidable place for landing; and every one who dares to do so certain +of a watering. There lay the city, most invitingly to storm-tost tars, +with its white palaces, green groves, and yellow belt of sand, blue +hills in the distance, and all else _coleur de rose_. But--but, Emmy, +there was no getting at this paradise, except by struggling through a +couple of miles of raging foam, that would have made mince-meat of the +Spanish Armada, and have smashed Sir William Elphinston to pieces. How, +then, did we manage to survive it? for, thank God always, here I am to +tell the tale. Listen, Emmy dear, and I will try not to be tedious. + +"We were bundled out of the rolling ship into some huge flat-bottomed +boats, like coal-barges, and even so, were grated and ground several +times by the churning waves on the ragged reefs beneath us: and, just as +I was enjoying the see-saw, and trying to comfort two poor drenched +women-kind who were terribly afraid of sharks, a huge, cream-coloured +breaker came bustling alongside of us, and roaring out 'Charles Tracy,' +gobbled me up bodily. Well, dearest, it wasn't the first time I had +floundered in the waters [noble Charles! noble Charles! he had long +forgiven Julian]; so I was battling on as well as I could, with a stout +heart and a steady arm, when--don't be afraid--a _Catamaran_ caught me! +If you haven't fainted (bless those pretty eyes of your's, my Emmy!) +read on; and you will find that this alarming sort of animal is neither +an albatross nor an alligator, but simply--a life-boat with a Triton in +the stern. Yes, God's messenger of life to me and happiness to you, my +girl, came in the shape of a kindly, chattering, blue-skinned, human +creature, who dragged me out of the surf, landed me safely, and, I need +not say, got paid with more than hearty thanks. So, I scuffled to the +custom-house to look after my traps and fellow-passengers, like a +dripping merman. + +"'Who is that miserable old woman, bothering every body?' asked I of a +very civil searcher, profuse in his salaams. + +"'Oh, Sahib, you will know for yourself, presently: she's always hanging +about here, to get news of somebody in England, I believe--and to try to +find a charitable captain who will take her all the way for nothing: +rather too much of a good thing, you know, Sahib.' + +[We really cannot undertake to scribble broken English: so we will +translate any thing that may mysteriously have been chatted by +havildars, and coolies; and all manner of strange names.] + +"'Poor old soul--she looks very wretched: what's her name?' asked I, +carelessly. + +"'Oh, I never troubled to inquire, Sahib: I believe she was an old +servant left behind as lumber, and she pesters every one, day by day, +about some 'bonnie bonnie bairn.'" + +"In a moment, Emmy, I had seized on dear nurse Mackie! + +"Very old, very deaf, very infirm--she fancied I was driving her away, +as many others might have done; and, with a truly piteous face, +pleaded-- + +"'Gude sir, have mercy on a puir auld soul--and let her ask for her +sweet young mistress, only once, sir--only once more.' + +"'Emily Warren?' said I. + +Her wrinkled face brightened over as with glory--and she answered-- + +"'Bless the mouth that spake it, and these ears that hear her name! +yes--yes--yes--they call her so; where is she? how is she? have you seen +her? is she yet alive?' + +"Leading away the affectionate old soul from the crowd that was +collecting round us, I left orders about luggage as a traveller should, +and then told her all I knew: and I know you pretty well, I think, my +Emmy. + +"Her joy was like a mad woman's: the dear old Hecate pranced, and +danced, and sung, and shouted like nothing but a mother when she finds +her long-lost child: not that she's your mother, Emmy dear. +No--no--matters are better than that: all she vouchsafes, though, to +tell me is, that you are a lady born and bred, and--for I cannot find +the words to inform your pure mind clearer--that 'you are not what he +thinks you.'" + +[Here followeth another twinkling universe of stars; + + * * * * * * * + +and thereafter our cavalier condescendeth again to matters of fact.] + +"Nurse Mackie of course comes back with me next packet; this letter goes +by the overland mail more quickly than we can; gladly would I go too, +but the old woman, whose life is essential to your rights, would die of +fatigue by the way; as it is, I am obliged to coddle her, and feed her, +and ptisan her, like a sick baby, bless her dear old heart that loves my +darling Emmy! She has a pack of papers with her, which she will not +open, till the general is by her side: if she unfortunately dies before +we can return, I am to have them, and all will be right. But the old +soul is so afraid of being left behind (as you throw away the +orange-peel after you have squeezed it), that she will not tell me a +word about them yet; so, I only gather what I can from her cautious +garrulity, hints about a Begum and a captain, and the Stuarts, and a +Putty-what-d'ye-call-it. And it is all in document, as well as +_viva-voce_ (this means 'gossip,' dear). So now you may be expecting us, +as soon as ever we can get to you. Tell the general all this, and give +him my best love, next after your's Emmy; for he is my father still, and +my very heart yearns after him: O, that he were kinder with me as I see +he is with you, dear, and more open with us all! Also, kiss, if she will +let you, my mother for me, and I hope you will have hinted to her long +ago, that I am only playing truant. How is poor--poor Julian? he will +understand me, if you tell him I forgive him, and will never say one +word about our little tiff. And now dearest Emmy--" + +[The remainder of this letter must, believe me, be as starry as before.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +REVELATIONS. + + +General Tracy gave a long-drawn sigh: and tears--tears of true +affection--stood in those most fish-like eyes, as he mournfully said, +"Bless him, bless dear Charles, almost as much as you, my own sweet +Emmy. Heaven send it be true--for Heaven can work miracles. But without +a miracle, Emily, in sober sadness I declare it, you must forget--_your +brother Charles, my daughter_!" + +Emily fell flat upon her face, so cold, so white, that he believed her +dead. + +Oh! that he had never--never said that word: or better still, poor +father, that you had never kept the dreadful secret from them. The +adultery, indeed, was sin; but years of ill-concealings have multiplied +its punishment. Wretched father--wretched children! that must bear an +erring father's curse. + +Oh! that Jeanie Mackie may have reasons, proofs; and be not an impostor +after all, dressing up a tale that over-sanguine Charles may bring her +back again to Scotland. Well--well! I am full of sadness and +perplexities: but we shall hear it out anon. Heaven help them! + +Emily was taken very ill, and had a long fit of sickness. Day and +night--night and day, did her poor wasting anxious father watch by her +bed-side, gentle as the gentlest nurse--tender as the tenderest of +mothers. And, indeed, the Lord of Life and Wisdom was gracious to them +both; raising up the poor weak child again; and teaching that old man, +through this daughter of his shame and sin in youth, that religion is a +cure for all things. Ay, "the blessed angel of a bad man's life," +indeed--indeed was she; and he humbly knelt, as little children kneel, +that hard and dried old man; and his eyes caught the ray of Heaven's +mercy, looking up in joy to read forgiveness; and his heart was bathed +in penitence--the rock flowed out amain; and his mind was quickened into +faith--he lived, he breathed "a new-born babe," that poor and bad old +man, given to the prayers of his own daughter! + +All this while, Mrs. Tracy, thrown upon her own resources, has been +continually tasting dear Julian's store, and finding out excuses for his +trivial peccadilloes. And when, from the recesses of his desk, she had +routed out (in company with sundry more, rather contrasting with a +mother's pure advice) a few of her own letters, which had not yet been +destroyed, she would doat by the hour on these proofs of his affection. +And then, her spirits were so low; and his choice smuggled Hollands so +requisite to screw them up to par again; and no sooner had they rallied, +than they would once more begin to droop; so she cried a good deal, and +kept her bed; and very often did not remember exactly, whether she was +lying down there, or figuring on the Esplanade with Julian, and--all +that sort of thing: accordingly, it is not to be wondered at if, in +Aunt Green's double-house, the general and Emily saw very little of her, +and during all this illness, had almost forgotten her existence. +Nevertheless, she was alive still, and as vast as ever--though a course +of strong waters had shattered her nerves considerably; even more so, +than her real mother's grief at Julian's protracted absence. + +Never had he been heard of since he left, hard heart; though he might +have guessed a mother's sorrow, and was not far away, and often lingered +near the house in strange disguises. It would have been easy for him, in +some clever way or other, latch-key and all, to have gained access to +her, and comforted her, and given her some real proof, that all the love +she had shed on him had not been utterly thrown away; but he didn't--he +didn't; and I know not of a darker trait in Julian's whole career; he +was insensible to love--a mother's love. + +For love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man; +when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; Fear he answers blow to +blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but Love, that sun +against whose melting beams the Winter cannot stand, that soft-subduing +slumber which wrestles down the giant, there is not one human creature +in a million--not a thousand men in all earth's huge quintillion, whose +clay-heart is hardened against love. + +Yet was Julian one of those select ones; an awful instance of that +possible, that actual, though happily that scarcest of all characters, a +man, + + "Black, with _no_ virtue, and a thousand crimes." + +The amiable villain--one whose generosity redeems his guilt, whose +kindliness outweighs his folly, or whose beauty charms the eye to +overlook his baseness--this too common hero is an object, an example +fraught with perilous interest. Charles Duval, the polite; Paul +Clifford, the handsome; Richard Turpin, brave and true; Jack Sheppard, +no ignoble mind and loving still his mother; these, and such as these, +with Schiller's '_Robbers_' and the like, are dangerous to gaze on, as +Germany, if not England too, remembers well. But, not more true to life, +though far less common to be met with, is Julian's incorrigible mind: +one, in whose life are no white days; one, on whose heart are no bright +spots; when Heaven's pity spoke to him, he ridiculed; as, when His +threatenings thundered, he defied. Of this world only, and tending to a +worse appetite was all he lived for: and the core of appetite is iron +selfishness. + +The filched cash-box proved to be too well-filled for him to trouble +himself with thinking of his mother yet awhile: and his smuggling +acquaintances, a rough-featured, blasphemous crew, set him as their +chief, so long as he swore loudest, drank deepest, and had money at +command. He hid the money, that they should not secretly steal from him +that to which he owed his bad supremacy; and his double-barrels, shotted +to the muzzle, were far too formidable for any hope of getting at it by +open brute force. Nevertheless, they were "fine high-spirited" fellows +those, bold, dark men, of Julian's own kidney; who toasted in their cups +each other's crimes, and the ghost or two that ought to have been +haunting them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +CONVALESCENCE. + + +Very slowly did Emily recover, for the blow had been more than she could +bear: nothing but religion gave her any chance at all: and the phials, +blisterings, bleedings, would have been in vain, in vain--she must have +died long ago--had it not been for the remembrance of God's love, +resignation to His will, and trust in the wisdom of his Providence. But +these specific remedies gradually brought her round, while the kind-eyed +doctors praised their own prescriptions: and after many rallyings and +relapses, delirious ramblings, and intervals of hallowed Christian +peace, the eye of Love's meek martyr brightened up once more, and health +flushed again upon her cheek. + +She recovered, God be praised! for her death would have been poor +Charles's too; and the same grave that yawned for her and him would have +closed upon their father also. Even as it was, when she arose from off +the weary bed of sickness, it was to be a nurse herself, and watch +beside that patient, weak old man. He could not bear her out of his +sight all the fever through; but eagerly would listen to her hymns and +prayers, joining in them faintly like a dying saint. With the saddening +secret, which had so long pressed upon his mind, he seemed to have +thrown off his old nature, as a cast skin: and now he was all frankness +for reserve, all piety for profaneness, all peacefulness for blusterings +and wrath. + +He remembered then poor Julian and his mother: taking blame to himself, +justly, deeply, for neglected duties, chilling lack of sympathy, and +that dull domestic sin, that still continued evil of unnatural +omissions--stern reserve. And he would gladly have seen Julian by his +bedside, to have freely forgiven the lad, and welcomed him home again, +and begun once more, in openness and charity, all things fair and new: +but Julian was not to be found, though rewards were offered, and +placards posted up, and emissaries from the Detective Police-force +sought him far and wide. Alas! the bold bad man had heard with scorn of +his father's penitence, and knew that he would gladly have received +him;--but what cared he for kindnesses or pardons? He only lived to +waylay Emily. + +As for Mrs. Tracy, she was seldom in a state to appear; but one day she +managed to refrain a little, and came to see her husband, almost sober. +I was, authorially speaking, behind the door, and saw and heard as +follows: + +The old man, worn and emaciate, was weakly sitting up in bed, and Emma +by his side, with the Bible in her lap: she casually shut it as the +mother entered. + +"Well, Miss Warren, there's a time for all things; but this is neither +morning, noon, nor night: nor Sunday either, nor holiday, that I know +of; it's eleven o'clock on Tuesday, Miss--and I think you might as well +leave the general at peace, without troubling him for ever with your +prayer-books and your Bibles." + +"Jane, my dear, I requested it of Emily; come and sit by me, and take my +hand, wife." + +"Thank you, sir, you are very obliging: not while that young woman is in +the room.--You ought to be ashamed of yourself, General Tracy." + +Poor Emmy ran away to weep. It seems that, in her delirium, she had +spoken many things, and the servants blabbed them out to Mrs. Tracy. + +"Ah, my poor wife, indeed I am: both ashamed and sorry--heartily sorry. +But God forgives me, Jenny, and I hope that you will too." + +"Upon, my word, general, you carry it off with a high hand: and, not +content, sir, with insulting me in my own home by bringing here your +other women's children, you have expelled poor dear, dear Julian." + +"Jane, if you will remember, he ran away himself; and you know that now +I gladly would receive him: we are all prodigal sons together, and if +God can bear with us, Jane, we ought to look kindly on each other." + +"Ha! that's always the way with old sinners like you--canting +hypocrites! Be a man, General Tracy, if you can, and talk sense. I never +did any harm or sin in all my life yet, and don't intend to: and my +poor boy Julian's well enough, if they'd only let him alone; but nobody +understands his heart but me. Good boy, I'm sure there's virtue enough +left in him, if he loves his mother."--_If_ he loves his mother. + +"Jane, dear, I sent for you to kiss you; for I could not die in peace, +nor live in peace (whichever God may please), without your pardon, Jane, +for a thousand unkindnesses--but, especially for the sin that gave me +Emily. Forgive me this, my wife." + +"Never, sir!" rejoined that miserable mind; and fancied that she was +acting virtuously. She thrust aside the kindly proffered hand; scowled +at him with darkened brow; drew up her commanding height; and, calling +Mrs. Siddons to remembrance, brushed away in the indignant attitude of a +tragedy queen. + +Emmy ran again to her father, and the vain bad mother to her bottle; we +must leave them to their various avocations. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +CHARLES DELAYED. + + +Few things could well be more unlikely than that Emily should hear of +Charles again before she saw him: for, having left Madras as speedily as +might be, now that his mission was so easily, yet so naturally, +accomplished--having posted, as we know, his overland letter--and having +got on board the fast-sailing ship Samarang, Captain Trueman, Charles, +in the probable course of things, if he wrote at all, must have been his +own postman. But the Fates--(our Christianity can afford to wink now and +then at Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; for, at any rate, they are as +reasonable creatures as Chance, Luck, and Accident,)--the Fates willed +it otherwise: and, accordingly, it is in my power to lay before the +reader another genuine lucubration of Charles Tracy. + +A change had come over the spirit of their dream, those youthful lovers: +and agonizing doubt must rack their hearts, threatening to rend them +both asunder. It is evident to me that Charles's letter (which Emily +showed to me with a melancholy face) was on principle less warm, less +dottable with stars, and more conversant with things of this world; +high, firm, honourable principle; intending very gently, very gradually, +to wean her from him, if he could; for his faith in Jeanie Mackie had +been shaken, and--but let us hear him tell us of it all himself. + + "I.E.M. Samarang. St. Helena. + +"You will wonder, my dear Emily, to hear again before you see me: but I +am glad of this providential opportunity, as it may serve to prepare us +both. Naturally enough you will ask, why Charles cannot accompany this +letter? I will tell you, dear, in one word--Mrs. Mackie is now lying +very ill on shore; and, as far as our poor ship is concerned, you shall +hear about it all anon. Several of the passengers, who were in a hurry +to get home, have left us, and gone in the packet-boat that takes you +this letter: gladly, as you know, would I have accompanied them, for I +long to see you, poor dear girl; but it was impossible to leave the old +woman, upon whom alone, under God, our hopes of earthly happiness +depend: if, alas! we still can dream about such hopes. + +"Oh, Emily--I heartily wish that, having finished my embassage by that +instantaneous finding of the old Scotch nurse, I had never been so +superfluous as to have left those letters of introduction, wherewith you +kindly supplied me, in an innocent wish to help our cause. But I felt +solitary too, waiting at Madras for the next ship to England; and in my +folly, forgetful of the single aim with which I had come, Jeanie Mackie, +to wit, I thought I might as well use my present opportunities, and see +what I could of the place and its inhabitants. + +"With that view, I left my letters at Government House, at Mr. +Clarkson's, Colonel Bunting's, Mrs. Castleton's, and elsewhere, +according to direction; and immediately found answer in a crowd of +invitations. I need not vex you nor myself, Emmy, writing as I do with a +heavy, heavy heart, by describing gayeties in which I felt no pleasure, +even when amongst them, for my Emmy was not there: splendour, +prodigality, and red-hot rooms, only made endurable by perpetually +fanning punkahs: pompous counsellors, authorities, and other men in +office, and a glut of military uniforms: vulgar wealth, transparent +match-making, and predominating dullness: along with some few of the +charities and kindnesses of life (Mrs. Bunting, in particular, is an +amiable, motherly, good-hearted woman), all these you will readily fancy +for yourself. + +"My trouble is deeper than any thing so slight as the common satiations +of _ennui_: for I have heard in these circles in which your--my--the +general, I mean, chiefly mixed, so much of that ill-rumour that it +cannot all be false: they knew it all, and were certain of it all, too +well, Emily, dear. And I have been pestering Nurse Mackie night and day; +but the old woman is so afraid of being left behind any where, or thrown +overboard, or dropped, upon some desert rock, that she is quite cross, +and won't say a single word in answer, even when I tell her all these +terrible tales. Her resolution is, not to reveal one syllable more, +until she sets foot on England; and several people at Madras annoyed me +exceedingly by saying, that this kind of thing is an old trick with +people who wish to be sent home again. She has hidden away her papers +somewhere; not that I was going to steal them: but it shows how little +trust she puts in any thing, or any one, except the keeping of her own +secret. However, she does adhere obstinately, and hopefully for us, to +her original hint, 'you are not what he thinks you;' although she will +not condescend to any single proof, or explanation, against the mighty +mass of evidence, which probabilities, and common rumour, and the +general's own belief, have heaped together. When I call you Emmy, +too--the old soul, in her broad Scotch way, always corrects me, and +invokes a blessing upon 'A-amy:' so there is a mystery somewhere: at +least, I fervently hope there is: and, if the old woman has been playing +us false, let us resign ourselves to God, my girl; for our fate will be +that matters are as people say they are--and then my old black +postscript ends too truly with a wo, wo, wo--! + +"But I must shake off all this lethargy of gloom, dearest, dearest +girl--how can I dare to call you so? Let me, therefore, rush for comfort +into other thoughts; and tell you at once of the fearful dangers we have +now mercifully escaped; for the Samarang lies like a log in this +friendly port, dismasted, and next to a wreck. + +"I proceed to show you about it; perhaps I shall be tedious--but I do it +as a little rest, my own soul's love, from anxious, earnest, +heart-distracting prayers continually, continually, that the sorrow +which I spoke of be not true. Sometimes, a light breaks in, and I +rejoice in the most sanguine hope: at others, gloom-- + +"But a truce to all this, I say. Here shall follow didactically the +cause why the good ship Samarang is not by this time in the Docks. + +"We were lying somewhere about the tropical belt, Capricorn you know, +(O, those tender lessons in geography, my Emmy!) quite becalmed; the sea +like glass, and the sky like brass, and the air in a most stagnant heat: +our good ship motionless, dead in a dead blue sea it was + +'Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.' + +"The sails were hanging loosely in the shrouds: every one set, from +sky-scraper to stud-sail, in hopes to catch a breath of wind. My +fellow-passengers and the crew, almost melted, were lying about, as weak +as parboiled eels: it was high-noon, all things silent and subdued by +that intolerable blaze; for the vertical sun, over our multiplied +awnings and umbrellas, burnt us up, fierce as a furnace. + +"I was leaning over the gangway, looking wistfully at the cool, clear, +deep sea, wherefrom the sailors were trying to persuade a shark to come +on board us, when, all at once, in the south-east quarter, I noticed a +little round black cloud, thrown up from the horizon like a +cricket-ball. As any thing is attractive in such sameness as perpetual +sea and sky, my discovery was soon made known, and among the first to +our captain. + +"Calling for his Dolland, and bidding his second lieutenant run quick to +the cabin and look at the barometer, he viewed the little cloud in +evident anxiety, and shook his head with a solemn air: more than one +light-hearted woman thinking he was quizzing them. + +"Up came Lieutenant Joyce, looking as if he had seen a ghost in the +cabin. + +"'The mercury, sir, is falling just as rapidly as it would rise if you +plunged it into boiling water: an inch a minute or so!" + +"Our captain saw the danger instantly, and, brave as Trueman is, I never +saw a man look paler. + +"To drive all the passengers below, and pen them in with closed hatches +and storm-shutters, (so hot, Emmy, that the black-hole of Calcutta must +have been an ice-house to it: how the foolish people abused our wise +skipper, and more than one pompous old Indian threatened him with an +action for false imprisonment!) this huddling away was the first effort; +and simultaneously with it, the crew were all over the rigging, furling +sails, hurriedly, hurriedly. + +"Meanwhile (for I was last on deck), that little cloud seemed whirling +within itself, and many others gathered round it, all dancing about on +the horizon, as if sheaves of mischief tossed about by devils: I don't +wish to be poetical, Emmy, for my heart is very, very sad; but if ever +the powers of the air sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, they were +gathering in their harvest at that door. Underneath the skipping clouds, +which came on quickly, leaping over each other, as when the wain is +loaded by a score of hands, I noticed a sea approaching, such as Pharaoh +must have seen, when the wall of waters fell upon him; and premonitory +winds came whistling by, and two or three sails were flapping in them +still, and I was hurried down stairs after all the rest of us. + +"Then, on a sudden, it appeared not winds, nor waves, nor thunder, but +as if the squadroned cavalry of heaven had charged across the seas, and +crushed our battered ship beneath their horse-hoofs! We were flung down +flat on our beam ends; and the two or three unfurled sails, bursting +with the noise of a cannon, were scattered miles away to lee-ward as if +they had been paper. As for the poor fellows in the rigging, the spirit +of the storm had already made them his: twenty of our men were swept +away by that tornado. + +"Then there was hewing and cleaving on deck, the clatter of many axes +and hatchets: for we were in imminent danger of being capsized, keel +uppermost, and our only chance was to cut away the masts. + +"The muscles of courage were tried then, my Emmy, and the strength which +religion gives a man. I felt sensibly held up by the Everlasting Arms: I +could listen to the still small Voice in the midst of a crash which +might have been the end of all things: though in darkness, God had given +me light; though in uttermost peril, my peace was never calmer in our +little village school. + +"And the billows were knocking at the poor ship's side like sledge +hammers; and the lightnings fell around us scorchingly, with forked +bolts, as arrows from the hand of a giant; the thunders overhead, close +overhead, crashing from a concave cloud that hung about us heavily--a +dense, black, suffocating curtain--roared and raved as nothing earthly +can, but thunder in the tropics; the rain was as a cataract, literally +rushing in a mass: the winds appeared not winds, nor whirlwinds, but +legions of emancipated demons shrieking horribly, and flapping their +wide wings; a flock of night-birds flying from the dawn; and all else +was darkness, confusion, rolling and rocking about, the screams of +women, the shouts of men, curses and prayers, agony, despair, +and--peace, deep peace. + +"On a sudden, to our great astonishment, all was silent again, +oppressively silent; and, but for the swell upon the seas, all still. +The tornado had rushed by: that troop of Tartar horse, having sacked the +village, are departed, now in full retreat: the blackness and the fury +are beheld on our lee, hastening across the broad Atlantic to Cuba or +Jamaica: and behold, a tranquil temperate sky, a kindly rolling sea, a +favouring breeze, and--not a sail, but some slight jury-rig, to catch +it. + +"Many days we drifted like a log upon the wave; provisions running +short, and water--water under tropical suns--scantily dealt out in +tea-cups. Then, poor old Mackie's health gave way; and I dreaded for her +death: one living witness is worth a cart-load of cold documents. So I +nursed and watched her constantly: till the foolish folks on board began +to say I was her son: ah! me, for your sake I wish it had been so. + +"And at length, just as some among the sailors were hinting at a mutiny +for spirits, and our last case of Gamble's meat was opened for the sick, +our look-out on the jury-mast gave the welcome note of 'Land!' and soon, +to us on deck, the heights of St. Helena rose above the sea. Towed in by +friendly aid, here we are, then, precious Emily, refitting: and, as it +must be a week yet before we can be ready, I have taken my old woman to +a lodging upon land, and rejoice (what have I to do with joy?) to see +her speedily recovering." + +The remainder of Charles's long letter is so stupid, so gloomy, so +loving, and so little to the purpose, that I take an editor's privilege, +and omit it altogether. Of course he was coming home again, as soon as +the Samarang and Jeanie Mackie would permit. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +TRIALS. + + +The general recovered; as slowly, indeed, as Emily had, but it is +gratifying to add, as surely. And now that loving couple might be seen, +weakly creeping out together, when the day was finest: tottering white +December leaning on a sickly fragile May. There were no concealments now +between them, no reservings, and heart-stricken Emily heard from her +repentant father's lips the story of her birth: she was, he said, his +own daughter by a native princess, the Begum Dowlia Burruckjutli. + +A bitter--bitter truth was that: the destruction of all her hopes, +pleasures, and affections. It had now become to her a sin to love that +dearest one of all things lovely on this earth: duty, paramount and +stern, commanded her, without a shadow of reprieve, to execute on +herself immediately the terrible sentence of banishing her own +betrothed: nay, more, she must forget him, erase his precious image from +her heart, and never, never see that brother more. And Charles must feel +the same, and do the like; oh! sorrow, passing words! and their two +commingled souls must be violently wrenched apart; for such love in them +were crime. + +Dear children of affection--it is a dreadful lesson this for both of +you; but most wise, most needful--or the hand that guideth all things, +never would have sent it. Know ye not for comfort, that ye are of those +to whom all things work together for good? Know ye not for counsel, that +the excess of love is an idolatry that must be blighted? It is well, +children, it is well, that ye should thus carry your wounded hearts for +balm to the altar of God; it is well that ye should bow in meekness to +His will, in readiness to His wisdom. Ye are learning the lesson +speedily, as docile children should; and be assured of high reward from +the Teacher who hath set it you. Poor Charles! white and wan, thy cheek +is grown transparent with anxiety, and thy blue eye dim with hope +deferred: poor Emmy, sick and weak, thou weariest Heaven with thy +prayers, and waterest thy couch with thy tears. Yet, a little while; +this discipline is good: storm and wind, frost and rushing rains, are as +needful to the forest-tree as sun and gentle shower; the root is +strengthening, and its fibres spreading out: and loving still each other +with the best of human love, ye justly now have found out how to anchor +all your strongest hopes, and deepest thoughts, on Him who made you for +himself. Who knoweth? wisely acquiescing in His will, humbly trusting to +His mercy, and bringing the holocaust of your inflamed affections as an +offering of duty to your God--who knoweth? Cannot He interpose? will He +not befriend you? For His arm is power, and His heart is love. + +Days rolled on in dull monotony, and grew to weeks more slowly than +before; earthly hopes had been levelled with the dust; life had +forgotten to be joyous: there was, indeed, the calm, the peace, the +resignation, the heavenly ante-past, and the soul-entrancing prayer; but +human life to Emily was flat, wearisome, and void; she felt like a nun, +immolated as to this world: even as Charles, too, had resolved to be an +anchorite, a stern, hard, mortified man, who once had feelings and +affections. The rëaction in both those fond young hearts had even +overstept the golden mean: and Mercy interposed to make all right, and +to bless them in each other once again. + +Only look at this _billet-doux_ from Charles, just come in, and dated +Plymouth: + +"Huzzah--for Emily and England: huzzah for the land of freedom! no +secrets now--dear, dear old Jeanie Mackie has given me proofs positive: +all I have to wish is that she could move: but she is very ill; so, as +we touched here on the voyage up channel, I landed her and myself, +thinking to kiss, within a day, my darling Emmy. But I cannot get her +out of bed this morning, and dare not leave her: though an hour's delay +seems almost insupportable. If I possibly can manage it, I will bring +the dear old faithful creature, wrapped in blankets, by chaise +to-morrow. Tell my father all this: and say to him--he will understand, +perhaps, though you may not, my blessed girl--say to him, that 'he is +mistaken, and all are mistaken--you are not what they think you.' A +thousand kisses. Expect, then, on bright to-morrow to see your happy, +happy + "CHARLES." + +"P.S. Hip! hip! hip!--huzzah!" + +Dearest Emily had taken up the note with fears and trembling: she laid +it down, as they that reap in joy; and I never in my life saw any thing +so beautiful as her eyes at that glad minute; the smile through the +tear, the light through the gloom, the verdure of high summer springing +through the Alpine snows, the mild and lustrous moon emerging from a +baffled thunder-cloud. + +And, although the general mournfully shook his head, distrustfully and +despondingly; though he only uttered, "Poor children--dear +children--would to Heaven that it could be so;"--and he, for one, was +evidently innoculated, as before, with all the old thoughts of gloom, +sadness, and anxiety;--still Emily hoped-for Charles hoped--and Jeanie +Mackie was so certain. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +JULIAN. + + +Next day, a fine summer afternoon, when our feeble convalescents had +gone out together, they found the fresh air so invigorating, and +themselves so much stronger, that they prolonged their walk half-way to +Oxton. The pasture-meadows, rich and rank, were alive with flocks and +herds; the blue sea lazily beat time, as, ticking out the seconds, it +melodiously broke upon the sleeping shore; the darkly-flowing Mullet +swept sounding to the sea between its tortuous banks; and upon that old +high foot-path skirting the stream, now shady with hazels, and now +flowery with meadow-sweet, crept our chastened pair. + +Just as they were nearing a short angle in the river, the spot where +Charles had been preserved, they noticed for the first time a +rough-looking fisherman, who, unseen, had tracked their steps some +hundred yards; he had a tarpaulin over his shoulder, very unnecessarily, +as it would seem, on so fine and warm a day; and a slouching +sou'-wester, worn askew, flapped across the strange man's face. + +He came on quickly, though cautiously, looking right and left; and Emily +trembled on her guardian's feeble arm. Yes--she is right; the fisherman +approaches--she detects him through it all: and now he scorns disguise; +flinging off his cap and the tarpaulin, stands before them--Julian! + +"So, sir--you tremble now, do you, gallant general: give me the girl." +And he levelled at his father one of those double-barrelled pistols, +full-cock. + +"Julian, my son, I forgive you, Julian; take my hand, boy." + +"What--coward? now you can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!--the +girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging to that weak +old man. + +Julian levelled again; indeed, indeed it was only as a threat; +but his hand shook with passion--the weapon was full-cock, +hair-triggered--shotted heavily as always--hark, hark!--And his father +fell upon the turf, covered with blood! + +When a wicked man tampers with unintended crime, even accident falls out +against him. Many a one has richly merited death for many other sins, +than that isolated, haply accidental one which he has hanged for. + +Julian, horror-stricken, pale and trembling, flew instinctively to help +his father: but Emily has circled him already with her arms; and listen, +Julian--your dying father speaks to you. + +"Boy, I forgive--I forgive: but--Emily, no, no, cannot, cannot +be--Julian--she--she is your _sister_!" and the old man swooned away, +from loss of blood and the excitement of that awful scene. + +Not a word in reply said that poor sinner, maddened with his life-long +crimes, the fratricide in will, the parricide in deed, and all for--a +sister. But growing whiter as he stood, a marble man with bristling +hair, he slowly drew the other pistol from his pocket, put the muzzle to +his mouth, and, firing as he fell, leapt into the darkly-flowing Mullet! + +The current, all too violent to sink in, and uncommissioned now to +save, hurried its black burden to the sea; and a crimson streak of gore +marked the track of the suicide. + +The old man was not dead; but a brace of bullets taking effect upon his +feeble frame--one through the shoulder, and another which had grazed his +head--had been quite enough to make him seem so. Forgetful of all but +that dear sufferer, and totally ignorant of Julian's fate--for she +neither saw nor heard any thing, nor feared even for her own imminent +peril, while her father lay dying on the grass--Emily had torn off her +scarf, and bound up, as well as she could, the ghastly scored head and +broken shoulder. She succeeded in staunching the blood--for no great +vessel had been severed--and so simple an application as grass dipped in +water, proved to be a good specific. Then, to her exceeding joy, those +eyes opened again, and that dear tongue faintly whispered--"Bless you." + +Oh, that blessing! for it fell upon her heart: and fervently she knelt +down there, and thanked the Great Preserver. + +And now, for friendly help; there is no one near: and it is growing +dusk; and she dared not leave him there alone one minute--for +Julian--dreaded Julian, may return, and kill him. What shall she do? How +to get him home? Alas, alas! he may die where he is lying. + +Hark, Emmy, hark! The shouts of happy children bursting out of school! +See, dearest--see: here they come homewards merrily from Oxton. + +Thus, rewarded through the instrumentality of her own benevolence, help +was speedily obtained; and Mrs. Sainsbury's invalid-chair, hurried to +the spot by an escort of indignant rustics, soon conveyed the recovering +patient to the comforts of his own home, and the appliances of medical +assistance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +CHARLES'S RETURN; AND MRS. MACKIE'S EXPLANATION. + + +And now the happy day was come at length; that day formerly so +hoped-for, latterly so feared, but last of all, hailed with the joy that +trembles at its own intensity. The very morning after the sad occurrence +it has just been my lot to chronicle--while the general was having his +wounds dressed, slight ones, happily, but still he was not safe, as +inflammation might ensue--while Mrs. Tracy was indulging in her third +tumbler, mixed to whet her appetite for shrimps--and while Emily was +deciphering, for the forty thousandth time, Charles's sanguine +_billet-doux_--lo! a dusty chaise and smoking posters, and a sun-burnt +young fellow springing out, and just upon the stairs--they were locked +in each other's arms! + +Oh, the rapture of that instant! it can but happen once within a life. +Ye that have loved, remember such a meeting; and ye that never loved, +conceive it if you can; for my pen hath little skill to paint so bright +a pleasure. It is to be all heart, all pulse, all sympathy, all +spirit--but the warm soft kiss, that rarified bloom of the Material. + +How the sick old nurse got out, cased in many blankets; how she was +bundled up stairs, and deposited safely on a sofa, no poet is alive to +sing: to those who would record the payment of postillions, let me leave +so sweet a theme. + +The first fond greeting over, and those tumults of affection sobered +down, Charles rejoiced to find how lovingly the general met him; the +kind and good old man fell upon his neck, as the father in the parable. +Many things were then to be made known: and many questions answered, as +best might be, about a mother and a brother; but well aware of all +things ourselves, let us be satisfied that Charles heard in due time all +they had to tell him; though neither Emily nor the general could explain +what had become of Julian after that terrible encounter. In their +belief, he had fled for very life, thinking he had killed his father. +Poor wretched man, thought Charles--on that same spot, too, where he +would have murdered me! And for his mother--why came she not down +eagerly and happily, as mothers ever do, to greet her long-lost son? Do +not ask, Charles; do not press the question. Think her ill, dying, +dead--any thing but--drunken. He ran to her room-door; but it was +locked--luckily. + +Now, Charles--now speedily to business; happy business that, if I may +trust the lover's flushing cheek, and Emily's radiant eyes; but a +mournful one too, and a fearful, if I turn my glance to that poor old +man, wounded in body and stricken in mind--who waits to hear, in more +despondency than hope, what he knows to be the bitter truth--the truth +that must be told, to the misery of those dear children. + +Faint and weak though she appeared, Jeanie Mackie's waning life +spirited up for the occasion; her dim eye kindled; her feeble frame was +straight and strong; energy nerved her as she spoke; this hour is the +errand of her being. + +Long she spoke, and loudly, in her broad Scotch way; and the general +objected many things, but was answered to them all; and there was close +cross-questioning, slow-caution, keen examination of documents and +letters: catechisms, solecisms, Scottisms; reminiscences rubbed up, +mistakes corrected; and the grand result of all, Emily a Stuart, and the +general not her father! I am only enabled to give a brief account of +that important colloquy. + +It appears, that when Captain Tracy's company was quartered to the west +of the Gwalior, sent thither to guard the Begum Dowlia against sundry of +her disaffected subjects, a certain Lieutenant James Stuart was one +among those welcome brave allies. That our gallant Tracy was the +beautiful Begum's favourite soon became notorious to all; and not less +so, that the Begum herself was precisely in the same interesting +situation as Mrs. James Stuart. The two ladies, Pagan and Christian, +were, technically speaking, running a race together. Well, just as times +drew nigh, poor Lieutenant Stuart was unfortunately killed in an +insurrection headed by some fanatics, who disapproved of foreign +friends, and perhaps of their princess's situation. His death proved +fatal also to that kind and faithful wife of his--a dark Italian lady of +high family, whose love for James had led her to follow him even into +Central Hindoostan: she died in giving birth to a babe; and Jeanie +Mackie, the lieutenant's own foster-mother, who waited on his wife +through all their travels, assisted the poor orphan into this bleak +world, and loved it as her own. + +Two days after all this, the Begum herself had need of Mrs. Mackie: for +it was prudent to conceal some things, if she could, from certain +Brahmins, who were to her what John Knox had erstwhile been to Mary: and +Jeanie Mackie, burdened with her little Amy Stuart, aided in the birth +of a female Tracy-Begum. So, the nurse tended both babes; and more than +once had marvelled at their general resemblance; Amy's mother looked out +again from those dark eyes; there was not a shade between the children. + +Now, Mrs. Mackie perceived, in a very little while, how fond both +Christian and Pagan appeared of their own child; and how little notice +was taken by any body of the poor Scotch gentleman's orphan. +Accordingly, with a view to give her favourite all worldly advantages, +she adroitly changed the children; and, while she was still kind and +motherly to the little Tracy-Begum, she had the satisfaction to see her +pet supposititiously brought up in all the splendours of an Eastern +court. + +Years wore away, for Captain Tracy was quite happy, the Begum being a +fine showy woman, and the pretty child his playmate and pastime: so he +never cared to stir from his rich quarters, till the company's orders +forced him: and then Puttymuddyfudgepoor hailed him accumulatively both +major and colonel. + +When he found that he must go, he insisted on carrying off the child; +and the Begum was as resolute against it. Then Mrs. Mackie, eager to +expedite little Stuart in her escape, went to the princess, told her how +that, in anticipation of this day, she had changed the children, and got +great rewards for thus restoring to the mother her own offspring. + +The remainder of that old Scotch nurse's very prosy tale may be left to +be imagined: for all that was essential has been stated: and the +documents in proof of all were these-- + +First: The marriage certificates of James Stuart and Ami di Romagna, +duly attested, both in the Protestant and Romanist forms. + +Secondly: Divers letters to Lieutenant Stewart from his friends at +Glenmuir; others to Mrs. Stuart, from her father, the old Marquis di +Romagna, at Naples: several trinkets, locks of hair, the wedding-ring, +&c. + +Thirdly: A grant written in the Hindoostanee character, from the Begum +Dowlia, promising the pension of thirty rupees a month to Jeanie Mackie, +for having so cleverly preserved to her the child: together with a +regular judicial acknowledgement, both from several of Tracy's own +sepoys, and from the Begum herself, that the girl, whom Captain Tracy +was so fond of, was, to the best of their belief, Amy Stuart. + +Fourthly: A miniature of Mrs. James Stuart, exactly portraying the +features of her daughter--this bright, beautiful, dark-eyed face--our +own beloved Emily Warren. + +And to all that accumulated evidence, Jeanie Mackie bore her living +testimony; clearly, unhesitatingly, and well assured, in the face of God +and man. + +Doubt was at an end; fear was at an end; hope was come, and joy. Happy +were the lovers, happy Jeanie Mackie, but happiest of all appeared the +general himself. For now she might be his daughter indeed, sweet Emmy +Tracy still, dear Charles's loving wife. And he blessed them as they +knelt, and gave them to each other; well-rewarded children of affection, +who had prayed in their distress! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +JULIAN TURNS UP: AND THERE'S AN END OF MRS. TRACY. + + +There is a muddy sort of sand-bank, acting as a delta to the Mullet, +just where it spreads from deep to shallow, and falls into the sea. +Strange wild fowl abound there, coming from the upper clouds in flocks; +and at high water, very little else but rushes can be seen, to testify +its sub-marine existence. + +A knot of fishermen, idling on the beach, have noticed an uncommon +flight of Royston crows gathered at the island, with the object, as it +would appear, of battening on a dead porpoise, or some such body, just +discernible among the rushes. Stop--that black heap may be kegs of +whiskey;--where's the glass? + +Every one looked: it warn't barrels--and it warn't a porpoise: what was +it, then? they had universally nothing on earth to do, so they pushed +off in company to see. + +I watched the party off, and they poked among the rushes, and heaved out +what seemed to me a seal: so I ran down to the beach to look at the +strange creature they had captured. Something wrapped in a sail; no +doubt for exhibition at per head. + +But they brought out that black burden solemnly, laying it on the beach +at Burleigh: a crowd quickly collected round them, that I could not see +the creature: and some ran for a magistrate, and some for a parson. Then +men in office came--made a way through the crowd, and I got near: so +near, that my foolish curiosity lifted up the sail, and I beheld--what +had been Julian. + +O, sickening sight: for all which the pistol had spared of that swart +and hairy face, had been preyed upon by birds and fishes! + +There was a hurried inquest: the poor general and Emily deposed to what +they knew, and the rustics, who escorted him from Oxton. The verdict +could be only one--self-murder. + +So, by night, on that same swampy island, when the tide was low, they +buried him, deeply staked into the soil, lest the waves should disinter +him, without a parting prayer. Such is the end of the wicked. + +In a day or two, I noticed that a rude wooden cross had been set over +the spot: and it gratified me much to hear that a rough-looking crew of +smugglers had boldly come and fixed it there, to hallow, if they could, +a comrade's grave. + +However, these poor fellows had been cheated hours before: Charles's +brotherly care had secured the poor remains, and the vicar winked a +blind permission: so Charles buried them by night in the church-yard +corner, under the yew, reading many prayers above them. + +Two fierce-looking strange men went to that burial with reverent looks, +as it were chief mourners; and when all the rites were done, I heard +them gruffly say to Charles, "God bless you, sir, for this!" + +When the mother heard those tidings of her son, she was sobered on the +instant, and ran about the house with all a mother's grief, shrieking +like a mad woman. But all her shrieks and tears could not bring back +poor Julian; deep, deep in the silent grave, she cannot wake him--cannot +kiss him now. Ah well! ah well! + +Then did she return to his dear room, desperate for him--and Hollands +once, twice, thrice, she poured out a full tumbler of the burning fluid, +and drank it off like water; and it maddened her brain: her mind was in +a phrensy of delirium, while her body shook as with a palsy. + +Let us draw the curtain; for she died that night. + +They buried her in Aunt Green's grave: what a meeting theirs will be at +the day of resurrection! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE OLD SCOTCH NURSE GOES HOME. + + +Six months at least--this is clearly not a story of the unities--six +months' interval must now elapse before the wedding-day. Charles and +Emmy--for he called her Emmy still, though Jeanie Mackie would persist +in mouthing it to "Aamy,"--wished to have it delayed a year, in respect +for the memory of those who, with all their crime and folly, were not +the less a mother and a brother: but the general would not hear of such +a thing; he was growing very old, he said; although actually he seemed +to have taken out a new lease of life, so young again and buoyant was +the new-found heart within him; and thus growing old, he was full of +fatherly fear that he should not live to see his children's happiness. +It was only reasonable and proper that our pair of cooing doves should +acquiesce in his desire. + +Meanwhile, I am truly sorry to say it, Jeanie Mackie died; for it would +have been a good novel-like incident to have suffered the faithful old +creature to have witnessed her favourite's wedding, and then to have +been forthwith killed out of the way, by--perishing in the vestry. +However, things were ordered otherwise, and Jeanie Mackie did not live +to see the wedding: if you wish to know how and where she died, let me +tell you at once. + +Scotland--Argyleshire--Glenmuir; this was the focus of her hopes and +thoughts--that poor old Indian exile! She had left it, as a buxom +bright-haired lassie: but oaks had now grown old that she had planted +acorns; and grandmothers had died palsied, whom she remembered born; +still, around the mountains and the lakes, those changeless features of +her girlhood's rugged home, the old woman's memory wandered; they were +pictured in her mind's eye hard, and clear, and definite as if she +looked upon them now. And her soul's deep hope was to see them once +again. + +There was yet another object which made her yearn for Scotland. +Lieutenant Stuart had been the younger of two brothers, the eldest born +of whom became, upon his father's, the old laird's, death, Glenmuir and +Glenmurdock. Now, though twice married, this elder brother, the new +laird, never had a child; and the clear consequence was, that Amy Stuart +was likely to become sole heiress of her ancestor's possessions. The +lieutenant's marriage with an Italian and a Romanist had been, +doubtless, any thing but pleasant to his friends; the strict old +Presbyterians, and the proud unsullied family of Stuart, could not +palate it at all. Nevertheless, he did marry the girl, according to the +rites of both churches, and there was an end of it; so, innumerable +proverbs coming to their aid about "curing and enduring" and "must +be's," and the place where "marriages are made," &c., the several aunts +and cousins were persuaded at length to wink at the iniquity, and to +correspond both with Mrs. James and her backsliding lieutenant. Of the +offspring of that marriage, and her orphaned state, and of Mrs. Mackie's +care, and the indefinite detention in central Hindostan, they had heard +often-times; for, as there is no corner of the world where a Scot may +not be met with, so, with laudable nationality, they all hang together; +and Glenmuir was written to frequently, all about the child, through +Jeanie Mackie, "her mark," and a scholarly sergeant, Duncan Blair. + +Amy's rights--or Emmy let us call her still, as Charles did--were now, +therefore, the next object of Mrs. Mackie's zeal; and all parties +interested willingly listened to the plan of spending one or two of +those weary weeks in rubbing up relationships in Scotland; the general +also was not a little anxious about heritage and acres. Accordingly, off +they set in the new travelling-carriage, with due notice of approach, +heartily welcomed, to Dunstowr Castle, the fine old feudal stronghold of +Robert Stuart, Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock. + +The journey, the arrival, and the hearty hospitality; and how the gray +old chieftain kissed his pretty niece; and how welcome her betrothed +Charles and her kind life-long guardian, and her faithful nurse were +made; and how the beacons blazed upon the hill-tops, and the mustering +clan gathered round about old Dunstowr; and how the laird presented to +them all their beautiful future mistress, and how Jeanie Mackie and her +documents travelled up to Edinburgh, where writers to the signet +pestered her heart-sick with over-caution; and how the case was all +cleared up, and the distant disappointed cousin, who had irrationally +hoped to be the heir, was gladdened, if not satisfied, with a pension +and a cantle of Glenmuir; and how all was joyfulness and feasting, when +Amy Stuart was acknowledged in her rights--the bagpipes and the wassail, +salmon, and deer, and black-cock, with a river of mountain dew: let +others tell who know Dunstowr; for as I never was there, of course I +cannot faithfully describe it. Should such an historian as I condescend +to sheer inventions? + +With respect to Jeanie Mackie, I could learn no more than this: she was +sprightly and lively, and strong as ever, though in her ninetieth year, +till her foster-child was righted, and the lawyers had allowed her her +claim. But then there seemed nothing else to live for; so her life +gradually faded from her eye, as an expiring candle; and she would doze +by the hour, sitting on a settle in the sun, basking her old heart in +the smile of those old mountains. None knew when she died, to a minute; +for she died sitting in the sun, in the smile of those old mountains. + +They buried her, with much of rustic pomp, in the hill-church of +Glenmuir, where all her fathers slept around her; and Emily and Charles, +hand-in-hand, walked behind her coffin mournfully. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +FINAL. + + +Gladly would the laird have had marriage at Dunstower, and have given +away the beauteous bride himself: but there must still be two months +more of decent mourning, and the general had long learned to sigh for +the maligned delights of Burleigh Singleton. So, Glenmuir could only get +a promise of reappearance some fine summer or other: and, after another +day's deer-stalking, which made the general repudiate telescopes from +that day forth (the poor man's eyes had actually grown lobster-like with +straining after antlers)--the travelling-carriage, and four lean kine +from Inverary, whisked away the trio towards the South. + +And now, in due time, were the Tamworths full of joy--congratulating, +sympathizing, merrymaking; and the three young ladies behaved admirably +in the capacity of pink and silver bridesmaids; while George proved +equally kind in attending (as he called it) Charles's "execution," +wherein he was "turned off;" and the admiral, G.C.B. was so +hand-in-glove with the general, H.E.I.C.S., that I have reason to +believe they must have sworn eternal friendship, after the manner of the +modern Germans. + +How beautiful our Emmy looked--I hate the broad Scotch Aamy--how bright +her flashing eyes, and how fragrantly the orange-blossoms clustered in +her rich brown hair; let him speak lengthily, whose province it may be +to spin three volumes out of one: for me, I always wish to recollect +that readers possess, on the average, at least as much imagination as +writers. And why should you not exercise it now? Is not Emmy in her +bridal-dress a theme well worth a revery? + +For a similar reason, I must clearly disappoint feminine expectation, by +forbearing to descant upon Charles's slight but manly form, and his +Grecian beauty, &c., all the better for the tropics, and the trials and +the troubles he had passed. + +When Captain Forbes, just sitting down to his soup in the Jamaica +Coffee-house, read in the _Morning Post_, the marriage of Charles Tracy +with Amy Stuart, he delivered himself mentally as follows: + +"There now! Poets talk of 'love,' and I stick to 'human nature.' When +that fine young fellow sailed with me, hardly a year ago, in the Sir +William Elphinston, he was over head and heels in love with old Jack +Tracy's pretty girl, Emily Warren: but I knew it wouldn't last long: I +don't believe in constancy for longer than a week. It does one's heart +good to see how right one is; here's what I call proof. My sentimental +spark kisses Emily Warren, and marries Amy Stuart." The captain, happier +than before, called complacently for Cayenne pepper, and relished his +mock-turtle with a higher gusto. + +It is worth recording, that the same change of name mystified slanderous +friends in the Presidency of Madras. + +And now, kind-eyed reader, this story of '_The Twins_' must leave off +abruptly at the wedding. As in its companion-tale, '_The Crock of +Gold_,' one grand thesis for our thoughts was that holy wise command, +"Thou shall not covet," and as its other comrade '_Heart_' is founded on +"Thou shalt not bear false witness," so in this, the seed-corn of the +crop, were five pure words, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Other +morals doubtless grew up round us, for all virtue hangs together in a +bunch: the harms of secresy, false witness, inordinate affections, and +red murder: but in chief, as we have said. + +Moreover, I wish distinctly to make known, for dear "domestic" sake, +that so far from our lovers' happiness having been consummated (that is, +finished) in the honey-moon--it was only then begun. How long they are +to live thus happily together, Heaven, who wills all things good, alone +can tell; I wish them three score years. Little ones, I hear, arrive +annually--to the unqualified joy, not merely of papa and mamma, but also +of our communicative old general, his friend the G.C.B., and (all but +most of any) the Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock, whose heart has been +entirely rejoiced by Charles Tracy having added to his name, and to his +children's names, that of Stuart. + +Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Stuart are often at Glenmuir; but oftener at +Burleigh, where the general, I fancy, still resides. He protests that he +never will keep a secret again: long may he live to say so! + + +END OF THE TWINS. + + + * * * * * + + +HEART; + +A SOCIAL NOVEL. + +BY + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S. + +AUTHOR OF + +PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAP. PAGE. + +1. Wherein two Anxious Parents hold a Colloquy 245 + +2. How the Daughter has a Heart; and, what is commoner, a Lover 249 + +3. Paternal Amiabilities 252 + +4. Excusatory 257 + +5. Wherein a well-meaning Mother acts very foolishly 260 + +6. Pleasant Brother John 263 + +7. Providence sees fit to help Villany 268 + +8. The Rogue's Triumph 273 + +9. False-Witness Kills a Mother, and would willingly Starve a Sister 278 + +10. How to Help one's self 283 + +11. Fraud cuts his fingers with his own Edged Tools 289 + +12. Heart's-Core 293 + +13. Hope's Birth to Innocence, and Hope's Death to Fraud 296 + +14. Probable Reconciliation 298 + +15. The Father finds his Heart for ever 302 + +16. A Word about Originality, and Mourning 306 + +17. The House of Feasting 308 + +18. The End of the Heartless 312 + +19. Wherein matters are concluded 320 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +WHEREIN TWO ANXIOUS PARENTS HOLD A COLLOQUY. + + +"Is he rich, ma'am? is he rich? ey? what--what? is he rich?" + +Sir Thomas was a rapid little man, and quite an epicure in the use of +that luscious monosyllable. + +"Is he rich, Lady Dillaway? ey? what?" + +"Really, Thomas, you never give me time to answer," replied the +quintescence of quietude, her ladyship; "and then it is perpetually the +same question, and--" + +"Well, ma'am, can there be a more important question asked? I repeat it, +is he rich? ey? what? + +"You know, Sir Thomas, we never are agreed about the meaning of that +word; but I should say, very." + +As Lady Dillaway always spoke quite softly in a whisper, she had failed +to enlighten the knight; but he seemed, notwithstanding, to have caught +her intention instinctively; for he added, in his impetuous, imperious +way, + +"No nonsense now, about talents and virtues, and all such trash; but +quick, ma'am, quick--is the man rich?" + +"In talents, as you mention the word, certainly, very rich; a more +clever or accomplished--" + +"Cut it short, ma'am--cut it short, I say--I'll have no adventurers, who +live by their wits, making up to my daughter--pedantic puppies, good for +ushers, nothing else. What do they mean by knowing so much? ey? what?" + +"And then, Sir Thomas, if you will only let me speak, a man of purer +morals, finer feelings, higher Christian--" + +"Bah! well enough for curates: go on, ma'am--go on, and make haste to +the point of all points--is he rich?" + +"You know I never will make haste, Thomas, for I never can have +patience, and you shall hear; I am little in the habit of judging people +entirely by their purses, not even a son-in-law, provided there is a +sufficiency on the one side or the other for--" + +"Quick, mum--quick--rich--rich? will the woman drive me mad?" and Sir +Thomas Dillaway, Knight, rattled loose cash in both pockets more +vindictively than ever. But the spouse, nothing hurried, still crept on +in her _sotto voce adantino_ style, + +"Mr. Clements owes nothing, has something, and above and beside all his +good heart, good mind, good fame, good looks, good family, possesses a +contented--" + +"Pish! contented, bah!" our hasty knight's nose actually curled upwards +in utter scorn as he added, "Now, that's enough--quite enough. I'll bet +a plum the man's poor. Contented indeed! did you ever know a rich man +yet who was contented--ey? mum--ey? or a poor one that wasn't--ey? what? +I've no patience with those contented fellows: it's my belief they +steal away the happiness of monied men. If this Mr. Clements was +rich--rich, one wouldn't mind so much about talents, virtues, and +contentment--work-house blessings; but the man's poor, I know +it--poo-o-or!" + +Sir Thomas had a method quite his own of pronouncing those contradictory +monosyllables, rich and poor: the former he gave out with an unctuous, +fish-saucy gusto, and the word seemed to linger on his palate as a +delicious morsel in the progress of delightful deglutition; but when he +uttered the word poor, it was with that "mewling and puking" miserable +face, appropriated from time immemorial to the gulping of a black +draught. + +"No, Lady Dillaway, right about's the next word I shall say to that +smooth-looking pauper, Mr. Henry Clements--to think of his impudence, +making up to my daughter, indeed! a poo-o-o-r man, too." + +"I did not tell you he was poor, Sir Thomas: you have run away with that +idea on your own account: the young man has enough for the present, owes +nothing for the past, and reasonable expectations for the-- + +"Future, I suppose, ey? what? I hate futures, all the lot of 'em: cash +down, ready money, bird in the hand, that's my ticket, mum: +expectations, indeed! Well, go on--go on; I'm as patient as a--as a +mule, you see; go on, will you; I may as well hear it all out, Lady +Dillaway." + +"Well, Sir Thomas, since you think so little of the future, I will not +insist on expectations; though I really can only excuse your methods of +judging by the fancy that you are far too prudent in fearing for the +future: however, if you will not admit this, let me take you on your own +ground, the present; perhaps Mr. Clements may not possess quite as much +as I could wish him, but then surely, dear Thomas, our daughter must +have more than--" + +I object to seeing oaths in print; unless it must be once in a way, as a +needful point of character: probably the reader's sagacity will supply +many omissions of mine in the eloquence of Sir Thomas Dillaway and +others. But his calm spouse, nothing daunted, quietly whispered on--"You +know, Thomas, you have boasted to me that your capital is doubling every +year; penny-postage has made the stationery business most prosperous; +and if you were wealthy when the old king knighted you as lord mayor, +surely you can spare something handsome now for an only daughter, who--" + +"Ma'am!" almost barked the affectionate father, "if Maria marries money, +she shall have money, and plenty of it, good girl; but if she will +persist in wedding a beggar, she may starve, mum, starve, and all her +poverty-stricken brats too, for any pickings they shall get out of my +pocket. Ey? what? you pretend to read your Bible, mum--don't you know +we're commanded to 'give to him that hath, and to take away from him +that--'" + +"For shame, Sir Thomas Dillaway!" interrupted the wife, as well she +might, for all her quietude: she was a good sort of woman, and her +better nature aroused its wrath at this vicious application of a truth +so just when applied to morals and graces, so bitterly iniquitous in the +case of this world's wealth. I wish that our ex-lord mayor's distorted +text may not be one of real and common usage. So, silencing her lord, +whose character it was to be overbearing to the meek, but cringing to +any thing like rebuke or opposition, she forthwith pushed her +advantages, adding-- + +"Your income is now four thousand a-year, as you have told me, Thomas, +every hour of every day, since your last lucky hit in the government +contract for blue-elephants and whitey-browns. We have only John and +Maria; and John gets enough out of his own stock-brokering business to +keep his curricle and belong to clubs--and--alas! my fears are many for +my poor dear boy--I often wish, Thomas, that our John was not so well +supplied with money: whereas, poor Maria--" + +"Tush, ma'am, you're a fool, and have no respect at all for monied men. +Jack's a rich man, mum--knows a trick or two, sticks at nothing on +'Change, shrewd fellow, and therefore, of course I don't stint him: ha! +he's a regular Witney comforter, that boy--makes money--ay, for all his +seeming extravagance, the clever little rogue knows how to keep it, too. +If you only knew, ma'am, if you only knew--but we don't blab to fools." + +I dare say "fools" will hear the wise man's secret some day. + +"Well, Thomas, I am sure I have no wish to pry into business +transactions; all my present hope is to help the cause of our poor dear +Maria." + +"Don't call the girl 'poor,' Lady Dillaway; it's no recommendation, I +can tell you, though it may be true enough. Girls are a bad spec, unless +they marry money. If our girl does this, well; she will indeed be to me +a dear Maria, though not a poo-o-o-r one; if she doesn't, let her bide, +and be an old maid; for as to marrying this fellow Clement's, I'll cut +him adrift to-morrow." + +"If you do, Sir Thomas, you will break our dear child's heart." + +"Heart, ma'am! what business has my daughter with a heart?" [what, +indeed?] "I hate hearts; they were sent, I believe, purposely to make +those who are plagued with 'em poo-o-o-r. Heart, indeed! When did heart +ever gain money? ey? what? It'll give, O yes, plenty--plenty, to +charities, and churches, and orphans, and beggars, and any thing else, +by way of getting rid of gold; but as to gaining--bah! heart +indeed--pauperizing bit of muscle! save me from wearing under my +waistcoat what you're pleased to call a heart. No, mum, no; if the girl +has got a heart to break, I've done with her. Heart indeed! she either +marries money and my blessing, or marries beggary and my curse. But I +should like to know who wants her to marry at all? Let her die an old +maid." + +Probably this dialogue need go no farther: in the coming chapter we will +try to be didactic. Meantime, to apostrophize ten words upon that last +heartless sentence: + +"Let her die an old maid." An old maid! how many unrecorded sorrows, how +much of cruel disappointment and heart-cankering delay, how often-times +unwritten tragedies are hidden in that thoughtless little phrase! O, the +mass of blighted hopes, of slighted affections, of cold neglect, and +foolish contumely, wrapped up in those three syllables! Kind heart, kind +heart, never use them; neither lightly as in scorn, nor sadly as in +pity: spare that ungenerous reproach. What! canst thou think that from a +feminine breast the lover, the wife, the mother, can be utterly sponged +away without long years of bitterness? Can Nature's wounds be +cicatrized, or her soft feelings seared, without a thousand secret +pangs? Hath it been no trial to see youthful bloom departing, and middle +age creep on, without some intimate one to share the solitude of life? +Ay, and the coming prospect too--hath it greater consolations than the +retrospect? How faintly common friends can fill that hollow of the +heart! How feebly can their kindness, at the warmest, imitate the +sympathies and love of married life! And in the days of sickness, or the +hour of death--to be lonely, childless, husbandless, to be lightly cared +for, little missed--who can wonder that all those bruised and broken +yearnings should ferment within the solitary mind, and some, times sour +up the milk of human kindness? Be more considerate, more just, more +loving to that injured heart of woman; it hath loved deeply in its day; +but imperative duty or untoward circumstances nipped those early +blossoms, and often generosity towards others, or the constancy of +youthful blighted love, has made it thus alone. There was an age in this +world's history, and may be yet again (if Heart is ever to be monarch of +this social sphere), when those who lived and died as Jephthah's +daughter, were reckoned worthily with saints and martyrs; Heed thou, +thus, of many such, for they have offered up their hundred warm +yearnings, a hecatomb of human love, to God, the betrothed of their +affections; and they move up and down among this inconsiderate world, +doing good, Sisters of Charity, full of pure benevolence, and beneficent +beyond the widow's mite. Heed kinder then, and blush for very shame, O +man and woman! looking on this noble band of ill-requited virgins; +remember all their trials, and imitate their deeds; for among the legion +of that unreguarded sisterhood whom you coldly call old maids, are often +seen the world's chief almoners of warm unselfish sympathy, generous in +mind, if not in means, and blooming with the immortal youth of charity +and kindliness. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +HOW THE DAUGHTER HAS A HEART; AND, WHAT IS COMMONER, A LOVER. + + +Yes, Maria Dillaway, though Sir Thomas's own daughter, had a heart, a +warm and good one: it was her only beauty, but assuredly at once the +best adornment and cosmetic in the world. The mixture of two such +conflicting characters as her father and mother might (with common +Providence to bless the pair) unitedly produce heart; although their +plebeian countenances could hardly be expected without a direct miracle +to generate beauty. Maria inherited from her father at once his +impetuosity and his little button-nose: although the latter was neither +purple nor pimply, and the former was more generous and better directed: +from her mother she derived what looked to any one at first sight very +like red hair, along with great natural sweetness of disposition: albeit +her locks had less of fire, and her sweetness more of it: sympathy was +added to gentleness, zeal to patience, and universal tenderness to a +general peace with all the world; for that extreme quietude, almost +apathy, alluded to before, having been superseded by paternal +impetuosity, the result of all was Heart. She doated on her mother; and +(how she contrived this, it is not quite so easy to comprehend) she +found a great deal loveable even in her father. But in fact she loved +every body. Charity was the natural atmosphere of her kind and feeling +soul--always excusing, assisting, comforting, blessing; charity lent +music to her tongue, and added beauty to her eyes--charity gave grace to +an otherwise ordinary figure, and lit her freckled cheek with the spirit +of loveliness. Let us be just--nay, more: let us be partial, to the good +looks of poor dear Maria. Notwithstanding the snub nose (it is not +snub; who says it is snub?--it is _mignon_, personified good +nature)--notwithstanding the carroty hair (I declare, it was nothing but +a fine pale auburn after all)--notwithstanding the peppered face (oh, +how sweetly rayed with smiles!) and the common figure (gentle, +unobtrusive, full of delicate attentions)--yes, notwithstanding all +these unheroinals, no one who had a heart himself could look upon Maria +without pleasure and approval. She was the very incarnation of +cheerfulness, kindness, and love: you forgot the greenish colour of +those eyes which looked so tenderly at you, and so often-times were +dimmed with tears of unaffected pity; her smile, at any rate, was most +enchanting, the very sunshine of an amiable mind; her lips dropped +blessings; her brow was an open plain of frankness and candour; +sincerity, warmth, disinterested sweet affections threw such a lustre of +loveliness over her form, as well might fascinate the mind alive to +spiritual beauty: and altogether, in spite of natural defects and +disadvantages--_nez retroussé_, Cleopatra locks, and all--no one but +those constituted like her materialized father and his kind, ever looked +upon Maria without unconsciously admiring her, he scarcely knew for +what. Though there appeared little to praise, there certainly was every +thing to please; and faulty as in all pictorial probability was each +lineament of face and line of form, taken separately and by detail, the +veil of universal charity softened and united them into one harmonious +whole, making of Maria Dillaway a most pleasant, comfortable, wife-like +little personage. + +At least, so thought Henry Clements. Neither was it any sudden +fortnight's fancy, but the calm consideration of two full years. Maria's +was a character which grew upon your admiration gradually--a character +to like at first just a little; then to be led onwards imperceptibly +from liking to loving; and thence from fervid summer probably to fever +heat. She dawned upon young Henry like the blush of earliest morn, still +shining brighter and fairer till glorious day was come. + +He had casually made her acquaintance in the common social circle, and +even on first introduction had been much pleased, not to say captivated, +with her cordial address, frank unsophisticated manners, and winsome +looks; he contrasted her to much advantage with the affected coquette, +the cold formal prude, the flippant woman of fashion, the empty heads +and hollow hearts wherewithal society is peopled. He had long been +wearied out with shallow courtesies, frigid compliments, and other +conventional hypocrisies, up and down the world; and wanted something +better to love than mere surface beauty, mere elegant accomplishment--in +a word, he yearned for Heart, and found the object of his longings in +affectionate Maria. + +This first casual acquaintance he had of course taken every opportunity +to improve as best he might, and happily found himself more and more +charmed on every fresh occasion. How heartily glad she was to see him! +how unaffectedly sincere in her amiable joy! how like a kind sister, a +sympathizing friend, a very true-love--a dear, cheerful, warm-hearted +girl, who would make the very model for a wife! + +It is little wonder that, with all external drawbacks, now well-nigh +forgotten, the handsome Henry Clements found her so attractive; nor +that, following diligently his points of advantage, he progressed from +acquaintanceship to intimacy, and intimacy to avowed admiration; and +thence (between ourselves) to the resolute measure of engagement. + +I say between ourselves, because nobody else in the world knew it but +the billing pair of lovers; and even they have got the start of us only +by a few hours. As for Henry Clements, he was a free man in all senses, +with nobody to bias his will or control his affections--an orphan, +unclogged by so much as an uncle or aunt to take him to task on the +score of his attachment, or to plague him with impertinent advice. His +father, Captain Clements of the seventieth, had fallen "gloriously" on +the bloody field of Waterloo, and the pensioned widow had survived her +gallant hero barely nine winters; leaving little Henry thrown upon the +wide world at ten years of age, under the nominal guardianship of some +very distant Ulster cousin of her own, a Mackintosh, Mackenzie, or +Macfarlane--it is not yet material which; and as for the lad's little +property, his poor patrimony of two hundred a-year had hitherto amply +sufficed for Harrow and for Cambridge (where he had distinguished +himself highly), for his chambers in the Temple, and his quiet +bachelor-mode of life as a man of six-and-twenty. + +Accordingly, our lover took counsel of nobody but Maria's beaming eyes, +when he almost unconsciously determined to lay siege to her: he really +could not make up his mind to the preliminary formal process of storming +Sir Thomas in his counting-house, at the least until he had made sure +that Maria's kind looks were any thing more particular than universal +charity; and as to Lady Dillaway, it was impossible to broach so +delicate a business to her till the daughter had looked favourably as +aforesaid, set aside her ladyship's formidable state of quiescence, and +apparent (though only apparent) lack of sympathy. So the lover still +went on sunning his soul from time to time in Maria's kindly smiles, +until one day, that is, yesterday, they mutually found out by some happy +accident how very dear they were to each other; and mutually vowed ever +to continue so. It was quite a surprise this, even to both of them--an +extemporary unrehearsed outburst of the heart; and Maria discovered +herself pledged before she had made direct application to mamma about +the business. However, once done, she hastened to confide the secret to +her mother's ear, earnestly requesting her to break it to papa. With how +little of success, we have learnt already. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +PATERNAL AMIABILITIES. + + +Maria, as we know, loved her father, for she loved every thing that +breathes; but she would not have been human had she not also feared him. +In fact, he was to her a very formidable personage, and one would have +thought any thing but an amiable one. Over Maria's gentle kindness he +could domineer as loftily as he would cringe in cowardly humiliation to +the boisterous effrontery of that unscrupulous and wily stock-jobber, +"my son Jack." With the tyranny proper to a little mind, he would +trample on the neck of a poor meek daughter's filial duty, desiring to +honour its parent by submission; and then, with consistent meanness, +would lick the dust like a slave before an undutiful only son, who had +amply redeemed all possible criminalities by successful (I did not say +honest) gambling in the funds, and otherwise. + +Yes! John Dillaway was rich; and, climax to his praise, rich by his own +keen skill, independent of his father, though he condescended still to +bleed him. In this "money century," as Kohl, the graphic traveller, has +called it, riches "cover the multitude of sins;" leaving poor Maria's +charity to cover its own naked virtues, if it can. So John was the +father's darling, notwithstanding the very heartless and unbecoming +conduct he had exhibited daily for these thirty years, and the marked +scorn wherewithal he treated that pudgy city knight, his dear +progenitor; but then, let us repeat it as Sir Thomas did--Jack was +rich--rich, and such a comfort to his father; whereas Maria, poor fool, +with all her cheap unmarketable love and duty, never had earned a +penny--never could, but was born to be a drain upon him. Therefore did +he scorn her, and put aside her kindnesses, because she could not "make +money." + +For what end on earth should a man make money! It is reasonable to +reply, for the happiness' sake of others and himself; but, in the +frequent case of a rich and cold Sir Thomas, what can be the object in +such? Not to purchase happiness therewith himself, nor yet to distribute +it to others; a very dog in the manger, he snarls above the hay he +cannot eat, and is full of any thoughts rather than of giving: whilst, +as for his own pleasure, he manifestly will not stop a minute to enjoy a +taste of happiness, even if he finds it in his home; nay, more, if it +meets him by the way, and wishes to cling about his heart, he will be +found often to fling it off with scorn, as a reaper would the wild sweet +corn-flower in some handful of wheat he is cutting. O, Sir Thomas! is +not poor Maria's love worth more than all your rich rude Jack's sudden +flush of money? is it not a deeper, higher, purer, wiser, more abundant +source of pleasure? You have yet to learn the wealth of her affections, +and his poverty of soul. + +It was not without heart-sickness, believe me, sore days and weeping +nights, that affectionate Maria saw her father growing more and more +estranged from her. True, he had never met her love so warmly that it +was not somewhat checked and chilled; true, his nature had reversed the +law of reason, by having systematically treated her with less and less +of kindness ever since the nursery; she did seem able to remember +something like affection in him while she was a prattling infant; but as +the mental daylight dawned apace, and she grew (one would fancy) +worthier of a rational creature's love, it strangely had diminished year +by year; moreover, she could scarcely look back upon one solitary +occasion, whereon her father's voice had instructed her in knowledge, +spoken to her in sympathy, or guided her footsteps to religion. Still, +habituated as she long had now become to this daily martyrdom of heart, +and sorely bruised by coarse and common worldliness as had been every +fibre of her feelings, she could not help perceiving that things got +worse and worse, as the knight grew richer and richer; and often-times +her eyes ran over bitterly for coldness and neglect. There was, indeed, +her mother to fly to; but she never had been otherwise than a very quiet +creature, who made but little show of what feeling she possessed; and +then the daughter's loving heart was affectionately jealous of her +father too. + +"Why should he be so cold, with all his impetuosity? so formal, in spite +of his rapidity? so little generous of spirit, notwithstanding all his +wonderful prosperity?" + +Ah, Maria, if you had not been quite so unsophisticated, you would have +left out the latter "notwithstanding." Nothing hardens the heart, dear +child, like prosperity; and nothing dries up the affections more +effectually than this hot pursuit of wealth. The deeper a man digs into +the gold mine, the less able--ay, less willing--is he to breathe the +sweet air of upper earth, or to bask in the daylight of heaven: +downward, downward still, he casts the anchor of his grovelling +affections, and neither can nor will have a heart for any thing but +gold. + +Moreover, have you wondered, dear Maria, at the common fact (one sees it +in every street, in every village), that parental love is oftenest at +its zenith in the nursery, and then falls lower and lower on the +firmament of human life, as the child gets older and older? Look at all +dumb brutes, the lower animals of this our earth; is it not thus by +nature's law with them? The lioness will perish to preserve that very +whelp, whom she will rend a year or two hence, meeting the young lion in +the forest; the hen, so careful of her callow brood, will peck at them, +and buffet them away, directly they are fully fledged; the cow forgets +how much she once loved yonder well-grown heifer; and the terrier-bitch +fights for a bit of gristle with her own two-year-old, whom she used to +nurse so tenderly, and famished her own bowels to feed. And can you +expect that men, who make as little use as possible of Heart, that +unlucrative commodity--who only exercise Reason for shrewd purposes of +gain, not wise purposes of good, and who might as well belong to +Cunningham's "City of O," for any souls they seem to carry about with +them--can you expect that such unaffectioned, unintelligent, +unspiritualized animals, can rise far above the brute in feeling for +their offspring? No, Maria; the nursery plaything grows into the exiled +school-boy; and the poor child, weaned from all he ought to love, soon +comes to be regarded in the light of an expensive youth; he is kept at +arm's length, unblest, uncaressed, unloved, unknown; then he grows up +apace, and tops his father's inches; he is a man now, and may well be +turned adrift; if he can manage to make money, they are friends; but if +he can only contrive to spend it, enemies. Then the complacent father +moans about ingratitude, for he did his duty by the boy in sending him +to school. + +O, faults and follies of the by-gone times, which lingered even to a +generation now speedily passing away!--ye are waning with it, and a +better dawn has broken on the world. Happily for man, the multiplication +of his kind, and pervading competition in all manner, of things +mercantile, are breaking down monopolies, and hindering unjust +accumulation, with its necessary love of gain. "Satisfied with little" +is young England's cry; a better motto than the "Craving after much" of +their fathers. No longer immersed, single-handed, in a worldly business, +which seven competitors now relieve him of; no longer engrossed with the +mint of gold gains, which a dozen honest rivals now are sharing with him +eagerly, the parent has leisure to instruct his children's minds, to +take an interest in their pursuits, and to cultivate their best +affections. Home is no longer the place perpetually to be driven from; +the voices of paternal duty and domestic love are thrillingly raised to +lead the tuneful chorus of society; and fathers, as well as mothers, are +beginning to desire that their children may be able to remember them +hereafter as the ever-sympathizing friend, the wisely indulgent teacher, +the guide of their religion, and the guardian of their love; quite as +much as the payer of their bills and the filler of their purses. + +The misfortune of a past and passing generation has been, too much money +in too few hands; its faults, neglect of duty; its folly, to expect +therefrom the too-high meed of well-earned gratitude; and from this +triple root has grown up social selfishness, a general lack of Heart. No +parent ever yet, since the world was, did his duty properly, as God +intended him to do it, by the affections of the mind and the yearnings +of the heart, as well as by the welfare of the body with its means, and +lived to complain of an ungrateful child. He may think he did his duty; +oh yes, good easy man! and say so too, very, very bitterly; and the +world may echo his most partial verdict, crying shame on the unnatural +Goneril and Regan, bad daughters who despise the Lear in old age, or on +the dissolute and graceless youth, whose education cost so much, and +yields so very little. But money cannot compensate that maiden or that +youth for early and habitual injustice done to their budding minds, +their sensitive hearts, their craving souls, in higher, deeper, holier +things than even cash could buy. "Home affections"--this was the magic +phrase inscribed upon the talisman they stole from that graceless youth; +and the loss of home affections is scantily counterbalanced at the best +by a critical acquaintance with '_Dawes's Canons_,' and '_Bos on +Ellipses_,' in his ardent spring of life, and by a little more of the +paternal earnings which the legacy-office gives him in his manhood. + +But let us not condemn generations past and passing, and wink at our +own-time sins; we have many motes yet in our eyes, not to call them very +beams. The infant school, the factory, the Union, and other wholesale +centralizations, ruin the affections of our poor. O, for the +spinning-wheel again within the homely cottage, and those difficult +spellings by the grand-dame's knee! There is wisdom and stability in a +land thick-set with such early local anchorages; but the other is all +false, republican, and unaffectioned. So, too, the luxurious city club +has cheated many a young pair of their just domestic happiness, for the +husband grew dissatisfied with home and all its poor humilities; whilst +a bad political philosophy, discouraging marriage and denouncing +offspring, has insidiously crept into the very core of private families, +setting children against parents and parents against children, because a +cold expediency winks at the decay of morals, and all united social +influences strike at the sacrifice of Heart. + +We are forgetting you, poor affectionate Maria, and yet will it comfort +your charity to listen. For the time is coming--yea, now is--when a more +generous, though poorer age will condemn the Mammon phrensy of that +which has preceded it. Boldly do we push our standards in advance, +pressing on the flying foe, certain that a gallant band will follow. +Fearlessly, here and there, is heard the voice of some solitary zealot, +some isolated missionary for love, and truth, and philanthropic good, +some dauntless apostle in the cause of Heart, denouncing selfish wealth +as the canker of society: and, hark! that voice is not alone; there is a +murmur on the breeze as the sound of many waters; it comes, it comes! +and the young have caught it up; and manhood hears the thrilling strain +that sinks into his soul; and old age, feebly listening, wonders (never +too late) that he had not hitherto been wiser; and the whole social +universe electrically touched from man to man, I hear them in their +new-born generosities, penitently shouting "God and Heart!" even louder +than they execrate the memory of Dagon. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +EXCUSATORY. + + +It really may be numbered among doubts whether it is possible to +exaggerate the dangers into which a fictionist may fall. My marvel is, +that any go unstabbed. How on earth did Cervantes continue to grow old, +after having pointed the finger of derision at all grave Spain? There is +Boccaccio, too; he lived to turn threescore, in spite of the thousand +husbands and wives, who might pretty well imagine that he spoke of them. +Only consider how many villains, drawn to the life, Walter Scott +created. What! were there no heads found to fit his many caps, hats, +helmets, and other capillary properties? What! are we so blind, so few +of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs. +Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs. +Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes +acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap, +and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! +avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, +should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should +have drunk the blood of James? Hath every "[dash] good-natured friend" +forgotten to be officious, and neglected to demonstrate to relations and +acquaintances that this white villain is Mr. A., and that old virgin +poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous veteran, Have the critics +yet forgiven Mr. John Paragraph--forgotten, is impossible? and how is +it no house-keeper has arsenicked my soup, O rash recruit, for the +mysteries of perquisite divulged in Mrs. Quarles? + +A dangerous craft is the tale-wright's, and difficult as dangerous. +Human nature goes in casts, as garden-pots do. Lo, you! the crowd of +thumb-pots; mean little tiny minds in multitudes, as near alike as +possible. Then there are the frequent thirty-twos, average "clever +creatures" in this mental age, wherein no one can make an ordinary +how-d'ye-do acquaintance without being advertised of his or her +surprising talents: and to pass by all intermediate sizes, here and +there standing by himself, in all the prickly pride of an immortal aloe, +some one big pot monopolizes all the cast of earth, domineering over the +conservatory as Brutus's colossal Cæsar, or his metempsychosis in a +Wellington. + +Again: no painter ever yet drew life-likeness, who had not the living +models at least in his mind's eye: but no good painter ever yet betrayed +the model in his figure; unless (though these instances are rarish too) +we except, _pace_ Lawrence, the mystery of portraiture. He takes indeed +a line here and a colour there; but he softens this and heightens that; +so that none but he can well discover any trace of Homer's noble head in +yonder sightless beggar, or Juno's queenly form in the Welsh woman +trudging with her strawberry load to Covent Garden market. + +Flatter not thyself, fair Helen, I have not pictured thee in gentle +Grace: tremble not, my little white friend Clatter, thou art by no means +Simon Jennings. Dark Caroline Blunt, it is true thou hast fine eyes; +nevertheless, in nothing else (I am sorry to assure thee) art thou at +all like Emily Warren. Flaunting Lady Busbury, be calm; if you had not +been so wrathful, I never should have thought of you--undoubtedly you +are not the type of Mrs. Tracy. + +Why will all these people don my imaginary characters? Truly, it may +seem to be a compliment, as proving that they speak from heart to heart, +of universal human nature, not unaptly; still is their inventor or +creator embarrassed terribly by such unwelcome honours; your precious +balms oppress him, gentle friends; lift off your palm branches; indeed, +he is unworthy of these petty triumphs; and, to be serious, he detests +them. + +No: once and for all, let a plain first person say it, I abjure +personalities; my arrows are shot at a venture; and if they hit any one +at all, it is only that he stands in my shaft's way, and the harness of +his conscience is unbuckled. The target of my feeble aim is general--to +pierce the heart of evil, evil in the form of social heartlessness: it +is no fault of mine, if some alarmed particulars will crowd about the +mark. Ideal characters, ideal incidents, ideal scenes--to these I +honestly pledge myself: but as most men have two eyes, being neither +naturally monocular nor triocular, so most men of their own special cast +have similar distinguishable sympathies. + +The overweening love of money is a seed, a soil, and a sun that +generates a certain crop: the aim of my poor husbandry is only to reap +this; but my sickle does not wish to wound the growers: let them stand +aside; or, better far, let them help me cut those rank and clogging +tares, and bind them up in bundles to be burned. Heart is a +sweet-smelling shrub, ill to stand against the chilling breath of +worldliness: my small care desires to cherish this; gather round it, +friends! shelter it beside me. How many fragrant flowers now are +bursting into beauty! how cheering is their scent! how healthful the +aroma of their bloom! Pluck them with me; they are sweet, delicate, and +lustrous to look upon, even as the night-blowing cereus. + +Henceforth then, social circle, feel at peace with such as I am, whose +public parable would teach, without any thought of personality, entirely +disclaiming private interpretations: there are other people stout +besides one's uncle, other people deaf besides one's aunt. Sir Thomas +Dillaway is not Alderman Bunce, nor any other friend or foe I wot of; a +mere creature of the counting-house, he is a human ledger-mushroom: rub +away the mildew from your hearts, if any seem to see yourselves in him: +neither have I ventured to transplant Miss Cassiopeia Curtis's red hair +to dear Maria's head: imitate her graces, if you will, maiden; but +charge me not with copying your locks. Though "my son Jack" be a +boisterous big rogue, on 'Change, and off it--let not mine own honest +stock-broker put that hat upon his head, in the mono-mania that it fits +him, because he may heretofore have been both bull and bear; and as for +any other heroes yet to come upon this scene, to enact the tragedy or +comedy of Heart--"Know all men by these presents,"--your humble +servant's will is to smite bad principles, not offending persons; to +crusade against evil manners, not his guilty fellow-men. + +Wo is me! who am I, that I should satirize my brethren?--Yet, wo is +me--if I silently hide the sin I see. Make me not an offender for a +word, seeing that my purposes are good. Be not hypercritical, for +Heart's sake, against a man whose aim it is to help the cause of Heart. +Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "_tu +quoque_:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it. +Heaven send to him that writes, as liberally as to those who read (yea, +more, according to his deeper needs and failings) the grace to +counteract all mammonizing blights, and to cultivate this garden of the +Heart. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +WHEREIN A WELL-MEANING MOTHER ACTS VERY FOOLISHLY. + + +Returned from her unsuccessful embassage, Lady Dillaway +determined--kind, calm soul--to hide the bitter truth from poor Maria, +that her father was inexorably adverse. A scene was of all things that +indentical article least liked by the quiescent mother; and that her +warm-hearted daughter would enact one, if she heard those echoes of +paternal love, was clearly a problem requiring no demonstration. + +Accordingly, with well-intentioned kindliness, but shallowish wisdom, +and most questionable propriety, Maria was persuaded to believe that her +father had hem'd and haw'd a little, had objected no doubt to Henry's +lack of money, but would certainly, on second thoughts, consider the +affair more favourably: + +"You know your father's way, my love; leave him to himself, and I am +sure his better feeling will not fail to plead your cause: it will be +prudent, however, just for quiet's sake, to see less of Henry Clements +for a day or two, till the novelty of my intelligence blows over. +Meantime, do not cry, dear child; take courage, all will be well; and I +will give you my free leave to console your Henry too." + +"Dearest, dearest mamma, how can I thank you sufficiently for all this? +But why may I not now at once fly to papa, tell him all I feel and wish +cordially and openly, and touch his dear kind heart? I am sure he would +give us both his sanction and his blessing, if he only knew how much I +love him, and my own dear Henry." + +"Sweet child," sighed out mamma, "I wish he would, I trust he would, I +believe indeed he will some day: but be advised by me, Maria, I know +your father better than you do; only keep quiet, and all will come round +well. Do not broach the subject to him--be still, quite still; and, +above all, be careful that your father does not yet awhile meet Mr. +Clements." + +"But, dearest mamma, how can I be so silent when my heart is full? and +then I hate that gloomy sort of secresy. Do let me ask papa, and tell +him all myself. Perhaps he himself will kindly break the ice for me, now +that your dear mouth has told him all, mamma. How I wish he would!" + +"Alas, Maria, you always are so sanguine: your father is not very much +given, I fear, to that sort of sociality. No, my love; if you only will +be ruled by me, and will do as I do, managing to hold your tongue, I +think you need not apprehend many conversational advances on your +father's part." + +Poor Maria had more than one reason to fear all this was true, too true; +so her lip only quivered, and her eyes overflowed as usual. + +Thereafter, Lady Dillaway had all the talk to herself, and she smoothly +whispered on without let or hindrance; and what between really hoping +things kindly of her husband's better feelings, and desiring to lighten +the anxieties of dear Maria's heart, she placed the whole affair in such +a calm, warm, and glowing Claude-light, as apparently to supply an +emendation (no doubt the right reading) to the well known aphorism-- + + "The course of true love never did run smooth-_er_." + +In fine, our warm and confiding Maria ran up to her own room quite +elated after that interview; and she heartily thanked God that those +dreaded obstacles to her affection were so easily got over, and that her +dear, dear father had proved so kind. + +It is quite a work of supererogation to report how speedily the welcome +news were made known, by _billet-doux_, to Henry Clements; but they +rather smote his conscience, too, when he reflected that he had not yet +made formal petition to the powers on his own account. To be sure, they +(the lovers, to wit) were engaged only yesterday, quite in an +unintended, though delightful, way: and, previously to that important +_tête-à-tête_, however much he may have thought of only dear +Maria--however frequently he found himself beside her in the circle of +their many mutual friends--however happily he hoped for her +love--however foolishly he reveried about her kindness in the solitude +of his Temple garret--still he never yet had seen occasion to screw his +courage to the sticking point, and boldly place his bliss at hard Sir +Thomas's disposal. Some day--not yet--perhaps next week, at any rate not +exactly to-day--these were his natural excuses; and they availed him +even to the other side of that social Rubicon, engagement. Nevertheless, +now at length something must decidedly be done; and, within half an +hour, Finsbury's deserted square echoed to the heroic knock of Mr. Henry +Clements, fully determined upon claiming his Maria at her father's +hands. + +The knight was out; probably, or rather certainly, not yet returned from +his counting-house in St. Benet's Sherehog. So, perforce, our hero could +only have an audience with his lady. + +The same glossing over of unpalatable truths--the same quiet-breathing +counsel--the same tranquil sort of hopefulness--fully satisfied the +lover that his cause was gained. How could he think otherwise? In the +father's absence, he had broached that mighty topic to the mother, who +even now hailed him as her son, and promised him his father's favour. +What could be more delicious than all this? and what more honourable, +while prudent, too, and filial, than to acquiesce in Lady Dillaway's +fears about her husband's nervousness at the sight of one who was to +take from him an only and beloved daughter? It was delicacy +itself--charming; and Henry determined to make his presence, for the +first few days, as scarce as possible in the sight of that affectionate +father. + +And thus it came to pass that two open and most honourable minds, +pledged to heartiest love, could not find one speck of sin in loving on +clandestinely. Nay, was it clandestine at all? Is it, then, merely a +legal fiction, and not a religious truth, that husband and wife are one? +and is it not quite as much a matrimonial as a moral one that father and +mother are so too? Was it not decidedly enough to have spoken to the +latter, especially when she undertook to answer for the former? Sir +Thomas was a man engrossed in business; and, doubtless, left such +affairs of the Heart to the kinder keeping of Lady Dillaway. No; there +was nothing secret nor clandestine in the matter; and I entirely absolve +both Henry and Maria. They could not well have acted otherwise if any +harm should come to it, the mother is to blame. + +Lady Dillaway, without doubt, should have known her husband better; but +her tranquil love of our dear Maria seemed to have infatuated her into +simply believing--what she so much wished--her happiness secure. She +heeded not how little sympathy Sir Thomas felt with lovers; and only +encouraged her innocent child to play the dangerous game of unconscious +disobedience. Accordingly, consistent with that same quiet kindness of +character which had smoothed away all difficulties hitherto, the +indulgent mother now allowed the loving pair to meet alone, for the +first time permissively, to tell each other all their happiness. Lady +Dillaway left the drawing-room, and sent Maria to the heart that beat +with hers. + +Who shall describe the beauty of that interview--the gush of first +affections bursting up unchecked, unchidden, as hot springs round the +Hecla of this icy world! They loved and were beloved--openly, devotedly, +sincerely, disinterestedly. Henry had never calculated even once how +much the city knight could give his daughter; and as for Maria, if she +had not naturally been a girl all heart, the home wherein she was +brought up had so disgusted her of still-repeated riches, that (it is +easy of belief) the very name of poverty would be music to her ears. +Accordingly, how they flew into each other's arms, and shed many happy +tears, and kissed many kindest kisses, and looked many tenderest things, +and said many loving words, "let Petrarch's spirit in heroics sing:" as +for our present prosaical Muse, she delights in such affections too +naturally and simply to wish to cripple them with rhymes, or confine +them in sonnets; she despises decoration of simple and beautiful +Nature--gilding gold, and painting lilies; and she loves to throw a veil +of secret sanctity over all such heaven-blest attachments. "Hence! ye +profane,"--these are no common lovers: I believe their spirits, still +united in affections that increase with time, will go down to the valley +of death unchangeably together; and will thence emerge to brighter bliss +hand in hand throughout eternity--a double Heart with one pulse, loving +God, and good, and one another! + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +PLEASANT BROTHER JOHN. + + +"Ho, ho! I suspected as much; so this fellow Clements has been hanging +about us at parties, and dropping in here so often, for the sake of Miss +Maria, ey?"--For the door had noisily burst open to let in Mr. John +Dillaway, who under grumbled as above. + +"Dear John, I am so rejoiced to see you; I am sure it will make you as +happy as myself, brother, to hear the good news: papa and mamma are so +kind, and---- I need not introduce to you my ---- you have often met him +here, John--Mr. Henry Clements." + +"Sir, your most obedient." The vulgar little purse-proud citizen made an +impudent sort of distant bow, and looked for all the world like a coated +Caliban sarcastically cringing to a well-bred Ferdinand. + +Poor Henry felt quite taken aback at such frigid formality; and dear +Maria's very heart was in her mouth: but the brother tartly added, "If +Mr. Clements wishes to see Sir Thomas--that's his knock: he was +following me close behind: I saw him; but, as I make it a point never +to walk with the governor, perhaps it's as well for you two I dropped +in first by way of notice, ey?" + +It was a dilemma, certainly--after all that Lady Dillaway had said and +recommended: fortunately, however, her lord the knight, when the street +door was opened to him, hastened straightway to his own "study," where +he had to consult some treatise upon tare and tret, and a recent +pamphlet upon the undoubted social duty, '_Run for Gold_;' so that +awkward rencounter was avoided; and Mr. Clements, taking up his hat, was +enabled to accomplish a dignified retreat. + +"Dear John, your manner grieves me; I wish you had been kinder to my--to +Henry Clements." + +"Oh, you do, do you? does the governor know of all this? the fellow's a +beggar." + +"For shame, John! you shall not call my noble Henry such names: of +course papa has heard all." + +"And approves of all this spooneying, ey, miss?" + +"Brother, brother, do be gentler with me: mamma's great kindness has +smoothed away all objections, and surely you will be glad, John, to have +at last a brother of your own to love you as I do." + +"Ey? what? another thief to go shares with me when the governor cuts up? +Thank you, miss, I'd rather be excused. You are quite enough, I can tell +you, for you make my whole a half; nobody wants a third: much obliged to +you, though." [Interjections may as well be understood.] + +"O, dear brother, you hurt me, indeed you do: I am sure (if it were +right to say so) I would not wish to live a minute, if poor Maria's +death could--could make you any happier;--O John, my heart will----" +[Her tears can as readily be understood as his interjections.] + +If a domestic railroad could have been cleverly constructed to Maria's +chamber from every room in that great house, it would have stood her in +good stead; for every day, from some room or other, this poor girl of +feeling had to rush up stairs in a torrent of grief. Yearning after +sympathy and love, neither felt nor understood by the minds with whom +she herded, a trio of worldliness, apathy, and coarse brutality, her +bosom ached as an empty void: treated with habitual neglect and cold +indifference, made various (as occasion might present) by stern rebuke +or bitter sarcasm, her heart was sore within its cell, and the poor dear +child lived a life of daily martyrdom, her feelings smitten upon the +desecrated altar of home by the "foes of her own household." + +And not least hostile in the band of those home-foes was this only +brother, John. Look at him as he stands alone there, muttering after her +as she ran up stairs, "Plague take the girl!" and let me tell you what I +know of him. + +That thick-set form, with its pock-marked face, imprisons as base a +spirit as Baal's. He was a chip of the old block, and something more. If +the father had a heart with "gold" written on it, the son had no heart +at all, but gold was in its place. Thoroughly unscrupulous as to ways +and means, and simply acting on the phrase "_quocunque modo rem_," he +seemed to have neither conscience of evil, nor dread of danger. In two +words, he was a "bold bad" man, divested equally of fear and feeling. +The memoirs of his past life hitherto, without controversy very little +edifying, may be guessed with quite sufficient accuracy for all +characteristic purposes from the coarse, sensual, worldly, and +iniquitous result now standing for his portraiture before us. We will +waste on such a type of heartlessness as few words as possible: let his +conduct show the man. + +Just now, this worthy had risen into high favour with his father: we +already know why; he had suddenly got rich on his own account, and for +that very sufficient reason drew any additional sums he pleased on "the +governor's." The trick or two, whereat Sir Thomas hinted, and which so +wise a man would not have blabbed to fools, are worthy of record; not +merely as illustrative of character, but (in one case at least, as we +may find hereafter) for the sake of ulterior consequences. + +John Dillaway's first exploit in the money-making line was a clever one. +He managed to possess himself of a carrier-pigeon of the Antwerp breed, +one among a flock kept for stock-jobbing purposes, by a certain great +capitalist; and he contrived that this trained bird should wheel down +among the merchants just at noon one fine day in the Royal Exchange. The +billet under its wing contained certain cabalistic characters, and the +plain-spoken intelligence, "_Louis Philippe est mort!_" In a minute +after these most revolutionizing news, French funds, then at one hundred +and twelve, were toppling down below ninety, and our prudent John was +buying stock in all directions: nay, he even made some considerable +bargains at eighty-seven. There was a complete panic in the market, and +wretched was the man who possessed French fives. The afternoon's work so +beautifully finished, John spent that night as true-born Britons are +reported to have done before the battle of Hastings, rioting in drunken +bliss, and panting for the morrow; and when the morrow came, and the +Paris post with it, I must leave it to be understood with what +complacency of triumph our enterprising stock-jobber hastened to sell +again at one hundred and fourteen, pocketing, in the aggregate, a +difference of several thousand pounds. It was a feat altogether to +ravish a delighted father's heart, and no wonder that he counted John so +great a comfort. + +Trick number two had been at once even more lucrative and more +dangerous. As a stock-broker, this enterprising Mr. Dillaway had +peculiar opportunities of investigating closely certain records in the +office for unclaimed dividends: he had an object in such close +inspection, and discovered soon that one Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of +Ballyriggan, near Belfast, was a considerable proprietor, and had made +no claim for years. Why should so much money lie idle? Was the woman +dead? Probably not; for in that case executors or administrators would +have touched it. Legatees and next of kin are little apt to forget such +matters. Well, then, if this Mrs. Jane Mackenzie is alive, she must be a +careless old fool, and we'll try if we can't kill her on paper, and so +come in for spoils instead of kith and kin. "Shrewd Jack," as they +called him in the Alley, chuckled within himself at so feasible a plot. + +Accordingly, in an artful and well-concocted way, which we may readily +conceive, but it were weary to detail, John Dillaway managed to forge a +will of Jane Mackenzie aforesaid; and inducing some dressed-up "ladies" +of his acquaintance to personate the weeping nieces of deceased +(doubtless with no lack of Irish witnesses beside, competent to swear to +any thing), he contrived to pass probate at Doctors' Commons, and get +twelve thousand two hundred and forty-three pounds, bank annuities +transferred, as per will, to the two ladies legatees. As the munificent +_douceur_ of a thousand pounds a-piece had (for the present) stopped the +mouths of those supposititious nieces, who stipulated for not a farthing +more nor less, clever John Dillaway a second time had the filial +opportunity of rejoicing his father's heart by this wholesale +money-making. Ten thousand pounds bank stock was manifestly another good +day's work; and seeing our John had not appeared at all in the +transaction, even as the ladies' stock-broker, things were made so safe, +that the chuckling knight, when he heard all this (albeit he did +tenderly fy, fy a little at first), was soon induced to think "my son +Jack" the very best boy and the very cleverest dog in Christendom: at +once a parent's pride and joy. Yes, Lady Dillaway--such a comfort! And +the worshipful stationer apostrophized "rich Jack" with lips that seemed +to smack of Creasy's Brighton sauce, whilst his calm spouse appeared to +acquiesce in her amiable John's good fortune. The mystified mother +little guessed that it was felony. + +This good son's new-born wealth, besides the now liberal paternal +largess (for his allowance grew larger in proportion as he might seem to +need it less), of course availed to introduce him to some fashionable +and estimable circles of society, whither it might not at all times be +discreet in us to follow him; amongst other places, whether or not the +Pandemonium in Jermyn street proved to him another gold mine, we have +not yet heard; but John Dillaway was often there, the intimate friend of +many splendid cavaliers who lived upon their industry, familiar with a +whole rookery of blacklegs, patron of two or three pigeonable city +sparks, and, on the whole, flusher of money than ever. His quiet mother, +if she cared about her son at all, and probably she did care when her +health permitted, might well be apprehensive on the score of that +increasing wealth which made the father's joy. + +However, with all his prosperity Mr. John as yet professed himself by no +means satisfied; he was far too greedy of gain, and ever since he had +come to man's estate, had amiably longed to be an only child. Not that +he heeded a monopoly of the parental feelings and affections, nor even +that he meditated murdering Maria--oh dear, no: rather too troublesome +that, and quite unnecessary; it would be entirely sufficient if he could +manage so to influence his father as to cut that superfluous sister +Maria very short indeed in the matter of cash. With this generous and +amiable view, he now for a course of sundry years had whispered, +back-bitten, and lied; he had, as occasion offered, taken mean +advantages of Maria's outspeaking honesty, had set her warm-hearted +sayings and charitable doings in the falsest lights, and had entirely +"mildewed the ear" of her listening papa. The knight in truth listened +unreluctantly; it was consolation, if not happiness to him, if he could +make or find excuses for harshness to a being who would not worship +wealth; it would be joy and pride, and an honour to his idol, if he +should keep Maria pretty short of cash, and so make her own its +preciousness; triumphant would he feel, as a merely-moneyed man, to see +troublesome, obtrusive Heart, with all its win-ways, and whimperings, +and incomprehensible spirituality, with its sermons and its prayers, +bending before him "for a bit of bread." Yes, poor loving disinterested +Maria ran every chance of being disinherited, from the false witness of +her brother, simply because she gave him antecedent opportunities, by +her honest likings and dislikings, by her bold rebuke of wrong and open +zeal for right, by her scorn of hypocrisies as to what she did feel, or +did not feel, and by the unpopular fact that she wore a heart, and +refused to be the galley-slave of gold. + +"Oh, ho, then!" said our crafty John, "we shall soon set this all right +with our governor; thank you for the chance, Miss Maria. If father +doesn't kick out this Clements, and cut you off with a shilling, he is +not Sir Thomas, and I am not his son." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +PROVIDENCE SEES FIT TO HELP VILLANY. + + +"Now that's what I call bones." + +It was a currish image, suggestive of the choicest satisfaction. Let us +try to discover what good news such an idiosyncrasy as that of John +Dillaway would be pleased to designate as "bones." He had forthwith gone +to his father's room as merry at the chance of ousting poor Maria, as +the heartlessness of avarice could make him; and omnipresent authorship +jotted down the dialogue that follows: + +"So, governor, there's to be a wedding here, I find; when does it come +off?" + +"Ey? what? a wedding? whose?" + +"Oh, ho! you don't know, ey? I guessed as much: what do you think now of +our laughing, and crying, and kissing, and praying Miss Maria with-- + +"Not that beggar Clements? Ey? what? d----" &c., &c. + +"Ha, ha, ha, ha! I thought so; why not, governor? Are you an old mole, +that you haven't seen it these six weeks? Are you stone deaf, that all +their pretty speeches have been wasted on you? All I can say is, that if +Mr. and Mrs. Clements an't spliced, it's pretty well time they should +be, and-- + +"Sir Thomas Dillaway rattled out so terrible an oath about Maria's +disinheritance if she ventured upon a marriage, that even John was +staggered at such a dreadful curse; nevertheless, an instantaneous +reflection soon caused that curse to be viewed metaphorically as a +"bone;" and the generous brother cautiously proceeded-- + +"Why, governor, all this is very odd, must say; when I caught 'em +kissing up there ten minutes ago, they were sharp enough to swear that +you knew all about it, and that you were so 'very, very kind.'" + +How is it possible, intelligent reader, to avoid perpetual allusion to +an oath? We must not pare the lion's claws, and give bad men soft +speeches: pr'ythee, supply an occasional interjection, and believe that +in this place Sir Thomas swore most awfully; then, in a complete +phrensy, he vowed that he "would turn Maria out of house and home this +minute." This was another "bone," clearly. + +But it was now becoming politic to calm him. Shrewd Jack was well aware +that Maria would relinquish all, and sacrifice, not merely her own +heart, but her Henry's too, rather than be guilty of filial +disobedience. All this storming, hopeful as it looked, might still be +premature, and do no substantial good; nay, if this wrath broke out too +soon, Maria would at once give way, become more dutiful than ever, and +his golden chance was gone. No: they were not married yet. Let the +wedding somehow first take place, and then--! and then!--for now he knew +which way the wind blew; so the scheming youth calmed his rising +triumphs, and counselled his progenitor as follows: + +"Well, governor, I never saw so green a blade in all my born days. Can't +you see, now, that it's all cram this, just to put you in spirits, old +boy, in case of such things happening? It was wicked too of me to tease +you so--but I'm so jolly, governor; such luck in Jermyn street--I knew +you'd like a joke served up with such rich sauce as this is, ey? only +look!" It was half a hatful of bank notes raked up at the hazard table. + +Sir Thomas's gray eyes darted swiftly at the spoil; often as he had +warned and scolded Jack about the matter of Jermyn street (for Jack was +bold enough never to conceal one of his little foibles), the father had +now nothing to object; for, in his philosophy, the end justified the +means. With most of this wise world, he looked upon success as in the +nature of virtue, and failure as the surest sign of vice; accordingly +his ire was diverted on the moment, and blazed in admiration of son +Jack: and that estimable creature immediately determined it was wise to +speak in tones of unwonted affection respecting his sister. + +"Now, governor, I put it to you plump, isn't this hatful enough to make +a man beside himself, so as not to stick at a white lie or two? Dear +Maria there is no more going to become a Mrs. Clements than you are; she +cut the fellow dead long ago: so mind, that's a tough old bird, you +don't say one word to her about him; it would be just raking up the +cinders again, you know, and you might be fool enough to raise a flame. +No, governor, if it's any consolation to you, that pauper connection has +been all at an end this month; not but what the beggar's got my mother's +ear still, I fancy; but as to Maria, she detests him. So take my advice, +and don't tease the poor girl about the business. Now, then, that this +is all settled, and now that you 're the merrier for that silly bit of +storming at nothing, just listen: the wedding's my own! isn't Jack +Dillaway a clever fellow now, to have caught a Right Honourable +Ladyship, with a park in Yorkshire, a palace in Wales, and a mansion in +Grosvenor square?" + +At this _extempore_ invention, the delighted parent rained so many +blessings on his progeny, that John knew the tide was turned at once. +Our ex-lord mayor had high ambitions, dating from the year of glory +onwards; so that nothing could be more prudent or well-timed that this +ideal aristocratic connection. Jack was a good fellow, a dear boy; and +he added to his apparent amiabilities now by reiterating counsels of +kindness and silence towards "poor dear sister Maria, whom he had been +making the scape-goat all this time;" after which done, our stock-jobber +feigned a pressing engagement with some fashionable friends, and left +his father to ruminate upon his worth in lonely admiration. + +Well; if that clever and gratuitous lie was not another "bone," I am at +a loss to know what could be a "bone" to such a hound: therefore it +appears that Dillaway had three of them at least to gladden him in +solitude; and he went on revealing to wonder-stricken angels, and to us, +the secrets of his crafty soul, as he thus soliloquized: + +"Yes, marry the fools first, and then for spoils at leisure; it won't be +easy though, she's so consummate filial, and he so bloated up with +honour. They'll never wed, I'm clear, unless the governor's by to bless +'em; and as to managing that, and the cutting-adrift scheme too, one +kills the other. How the deuce to do it? Eh--do I see a light?" + +He did. A light lurid sulphurous gleam upon the midnight of his mind +seemed to show the way before him, as wisp-fire in a marsh. He did see a +light, and its character was this: + +Quite aware of his mother's tranquil hopefulness, and that his kind good +sister was ingenuous as the day, he soon apprehended the state of +affairs; and, resolving to increase those misunderstandings on all +sides, he quickly perceived that he could triumph in the keen +Machiavellian policy, "_divide et impera_." The plan became more obvious +as he calmly thought it out. Evidently his first step must be to +ingratiate himself with both Henry and Maria, as the sympathizing +brother, a very easy task among such charitable fools: number two should +be to persuade them, as the mother did, that Sir Thomas, generally a +reserved unsocial man at home (and that in especial to Maria), was very +nervous at the thought of losing his dear daughter, and (while he +acquiesced in the common fate of parents and the usual way of the world) +begged that his coming bereavement might be obtruded on him as little as +possible--Mr. Clements always to avoid him, and Maria to hold her +tongue: number three, to amuse his father all the while by the prospect +of his own high alliance, so as effectually to hoodwink him from what +was going on: and, number four, to send him up to Yorkshire a week hence +(on some fool's errand to inquire after the imaginary countess's +imaginary mortgages), leaving behind him an autograph epistle (which our +John well knew how to write), recommending "that the ceremony be +performed immediately and in his absence, to spare his feelings on the +spot," mentioning "son John as his worthy substitute to give dear Maria +away," and enclosing them at once his "blessing and a hundred pound note +to help them on their honey-moon." + +"John Dillaway, if craft be a virtue, thou art an archangel: but if +Heaven's chief requirement is the heart, thou art very like a +devil--very. If selfishness deserves the meed of praise, who more +honourable than thou art? But if a heartless man can never reach to +happiness, I know who will live to curse the hour of his birth, and is +doomed to perish miserably." + +It was a clever scheme, and had unscrupulous hands to work it. Mystified +by quiet Lady Dillaway as our lovers had been from the first, entirely +unsuspicious of all guile, and rejoicing in their brother's marvellous +amiability, never surely were such happy days; always together while the +knight was at his counting-house, they gladly acquiesced in his +beautifully paternal nervousness; it was a delightful trait of character +in the dear old man; and a very respectable proof that love is keen-eyed +enough to believe what it wishes, but is stone-blind to any thing that +might possibly counteract its hopes. Then again, the mother was a close +ally; for having set her quiet heart upon the match, Lady Dillaway at +once encouraged all John's sympathetic scheme, on the prudent principle +of getting the young couple inextricably married first, and then +obliging her lord to be reconciled afterwards to what he could not help. +Sir Thomas himself, poor blinkered creature, was full of the most +aristocratical and wealthy fancies, and only yearned to inspect the +acres of his future honourable grand-children. He was, from these +fanciful causes, unusually affable and indulgent to Maria; spoke so +kindly always that she was all but dissolving thrice a-day; and, from +his constant reveries about the countess, appeared perpetually to be +brooding over dear Maria's soon approaching loss. Poor girl! more than +once she had determined to give it all up, and make her father happy by +serving him still in single blessedness: but then, how could she break +dear Henry's heart, as well as her own? No, no: they should live very +near to Finsbury square, and be in and out constantly, and papa should +never miss her: how delightful was all this! + +As for John himself, (our heartless model-man, strange contrast to +Maria's perfect charity!) he chuckled hugely as his scheme now ripened +fast. He had long been putting all things in train for the wedding +to-morrow. Every body knew it except Sir Thomas who--what between Jack's +prudent watchfulness, his habitual counting-house hours, his usually +unsocial silence, and his now asserted wish for "not one word upon the +subject,"--was at once kept in total ignorance of all; and yet, as +ambassadorial John constantly gave out to Clements and Maria, in an +amiable nervous state of natural acquiescence. Next day, then, the +besotted father was about to be packed post for Yorkshire; the important +letter, with its enclosed bank note, was already written and sealed, as +like the governor's hand as possible; a license had been long ago +provided, and the clergyman bespoke, by the brotherly officiousness of +John; neither Henry Clements, who was too delicate, too unsuspecting for +prudent business-papers, nor Maria, whose heart was never likely to have +conceived the thought, had even once alluded to a settlement; Lady +Dillaway was lying, as her wont was, on her habitual sofa, in tranquil +ecstasy, at to-morrow morning's wedding: and Holy Providence, for wise +purposes no doubt, had seen fit to aid a villain in his deep-laid +treacherous designs. + +The Wednesday dawned: Sir Thomas was to be off early, poor man, all agog +for right honourable acres; and Maria could no longer restrain the +expression of her glad and grateful feelings. Up she got by six, threw +herself in her kind dear father's way; and though, to spare his +feelings, she said not a word about the marriage, prayed him on her +knees for a blessing. The startled parent, believing all this frantic +show of feeling was sufficiently to be accounted for by his own long and +no doubt dangerous journey, blessed her as devoutly as ever he could; +and when the carriage drove away, left her in his study, overcome with +joy, affection, and admiration of his fine heart, exquisite +sensibilities, and generous feelings. Then, as a crowning-stone to all +the bliss, if any lingering doubt existed in the mind of Clements, who +had more than once expressed dislike at Sir Thomas's silent and +unsatisfying sympathy--the letter--the letter, whereof kind brother +John, secretly initiated, had some days forewarned them of its +probability--that letter, which explained at once all a father's kind +anxieties, and made up for all his cold reserve, was found on Sir +Thomas's own table! How amiable, how beautifully sensitive, how liberal +too! Lady Dillaway plumed herself in a whispering transport upon her +just appreciation of the father's better feelings; a kinder heart +manifestly never existed than her husband's, though he did take strange +methods of proving it: the bridesmaids, two daughters of a friend and +neighbour, privy to the coming mystery three days, approved highly of so +unobtrusive an old gentleman: Maria was all pantings, blushings, +weepings, and rejoicings; Henry Clements, handsome, pale, and agitated; +perhaps, misgiving too, and a little displeased at the father's absence; +however, Mr. John Dillaway gave away the bride with a most paternal air; +and, just as Sir Thomas was changing horses at Huntingdon, our innocent +lovers were indissolubly married. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ROGUE'S TRIUMPH. + + +Never was there such a happy couple; nor a more auspicious day. Away +they went, in deep delight, too joyful to be merry, in a holy transport +of affection, and its dearest hope fulfilled. They seemed to be in love +with all the world, for every thing around them wore a lustre of +deliciousness: and when the smoking posters left them at Salt hill, and +that well-matched husband and wife sat down to their first boiled fowl, +it would probably be a bathos to allude to angelic bliss; but they +nevertheless were, and knew they were, the happiest of mortals. If any +thing could add to Henry's self-complacency at that moment, it was the +recollection of his own truly disinterested conduct; for only yesterday +he had transferred all his little property to that kind and brotherly +fellow John Dillaway, in trust for Maria Clements, should any possible +reverse of fortune affect her father's or his own prosperity. Yes; and +John had been so wise as to make the two hundred a-year already a third +more, by investing (as he said) what had been a few thousands of three +per cents. in some capital "independent" bank shares of +Australasia--safe as a mountain, and productive as a valley. + +All this appeared very prosperous and pleasant: but we of the initiated +into the secrets of character, may reasonably apprehend that Henry's +little all would have been safer any where than in Dillaway's +possession: and "possession," I am sorry to declare, is a word used +advisedly; for Mr. John required a largish floating capital to enable +him to go to the desperate lengths he did at hazard and _rouge-et-noir_; +and I am afraid that if Mr. or Mrs. Clements were to receive any of +those so-called Austral dividends, they would only have been taking +three hundred pounds a-year out of their principal moneys in John's +immaculate keeping. + +Leaving then those wedded lovers to their honey-moon of joy, and shrewd +Jack gloating not merely over the full success of his nefarious plan, +but also over this unexpected acquisition of poor Clement's few +thousands, let us return to Sir Thomas--or, to be quite accurate, let us +return with him. + +In high dudgeon, full of fire and fury, back rushed the knight, sore +under the sense of having been made an April-fool of in July; for no one +in the place whereto he went, had ever heard of a widow'd Countess of +Lancing; and her ladyship's acres, if any where at all, were undoubtedly +not in the North Riding. But clever son John, meeting his indignant +father on the threshold, soon made all that right by a word. + +"Well, if ever! why, stupid, I said Diddlington, not Darlington." + +Into the accuracy of this distinction it is needless to inquire: and +then the ingenuous youth went on to observe-- + +"But all's right as it is now; you may as well not have seen the +property, and better, too, as things have turned out roughly, governor: +the match is off, and you may well congratulate me. Such an escape--I +just discovered it, and was barely in time: you hadn't been gone two +hours when I found it all out, through a clever devil of a lawyer, who +was hired by my father's son to look into incumbrances, and keep a sharp +look-out for a mutual settlement; that old harridan of a ladyship is +over head and ears in debt; and, it seems, I was to have paid all +straight, or _i. e._ you, governor, ey? As to the Yorkshire acres, the +old woman had but a life interest in the mere bit that wasn't deeply +mortgaged--and not a very long life either, seeing she is seventy. So, +bless your clever boy again, old governor, he's free." + +The knight had nothing to object: Jack's ready lie had plenty of reasons +in it: and so he blessed his clever boy again. + +"But I say, governor, I rather think that you've astonished us all: what +on earth made you turn so soft of a sudden, and write that letter?" + +"What letter? ey? what?"--Sir Thomas might well inquire. + +"That's a good joke, governor--you keep it up to the last, I see; what a +close old file it is! What letter? why, the letter you wrote to Maria +and her lord, telling them to marry." + +"Marry? ey? what, Maria? what--what is it all?" The poor old man was +thoroughly bewildered. + +"Well done, governor--bravo! you can carry it off as cleverly as if you +were an actor; do you mean to say now you didn't leave a letter behind +you here upon your table, bidding Maria marry in your absence to spare +your paternal feelings (kind old boy, it is, too!) and enclosing them +one hundred pounds for the honey-moon?" + +The mystified father made some inarticulate expression of ignorant +amazement, and our stock-jobber went on: + +"So of course they're married and off--Mr. and Mrs. Cle----" + +A whirlwind of disastrous imprecations cut all short; and then in a +voice choked with passion he gasped out-- + +"But--but are they married--are they married? how do you know it? can't +we catch 'em first, ey? what!" + +"How do I know it? that's a good un now, father, when I had it under +your hand to give the girl away myself instead of you. Do you mean to +say you didn't write that letter?" + +"Boy, I tell you, I've written nothing--I know nothing; you speak in +riddles." + +"Well then, governor, if I do, I'll to guess 'em: I begin to see how it +was all brought about--but they did it cleverly too, and were quite too +many for me. Only listen: that fellow Clements, ay, and Miss Maria too +(artful minx, I know her), must have forged a letter as if from you to +get poor fools, me and my mother, to see 'em spliced, while you were +tooling to Yorkshire." + +"Impossible--ey? what? I'll--I'll--I'll--" + +"Now, governor, don't stand there doing nothing but denying all I say; +only you go yourself, and ask my mother if she didn't see the letter--if +they didn't marry upon it, and if that precious sister of mine doesn't +richly deserve every thing she'll some day get from her affectionate, +her excellent, her ill-used father?" + +Iago's self, or his master, smooth-tongued Belial, could not have +managed matters better. + +The incredulous knight, scarcely able to discover how far it might not +still be all a joke, especially after his Yorkshire expedition, rushed +up to Lady Dillaway; on her usual sofa, quietly knitting, and thinking +of her Maria's second day of happiness. + +"So, ma'am--ey? what? is it true? are they married? is it true? +married--ey? what?" + +"Certainly, Thomas, they were only too glad, and I will add, so was I, +to get your kind--" + +"Mine? I give leave? ey? what? Madam, we're cheated, fooled--I never +wrote any letter." + +"Most astonishing; I saw it myself, Thomas, your own hand; and our dear +John too." + +"Ay, ay--he sees through it all, and so do I now--ey? what? that +precious pair of rogues forged it! Now, ma'am, what don't they deserve, +I should like to know?" + +It was quite a blow, and a very hard one, to the poor tranquil mother. +Could her dear Maria really have been so base, and that noble-looking +Henry too? how dreadfully deceived in them, if this proved true! And how +could she think it false? A letter contrived to expedite their marriage +in the father's casual absence, which no one could have thought of +writing but Sir Thomas himself, or the impatient lovers. So poor Lady +Dillaway could only fall a-crying very miserably; whereupon her husband +more than half suspected her of being an accomplice in the despicable +plot. + +"Now then, ma'am, I'm determined: as they are married, the thing's at an +end; we can't untie that knot--but, once tied, I've done with the girl; +they may starve, for any help they'll get of me: and as for you, mum, +give 'em money at your peril; stay, to make sure of it, Lady Dillaway, I +shall stint you to whatever you choose to ask me for out of my own +pocket; never draw another cheque on Jones's, do you hear? ey? what? for +your cheques shall not be honoured, ma'am. And now, from this hour, you +and I have only one child, John." + +"Oh, Thomas--Thomas! be merciful to poor Maria! indeed, she was +deceived; she believed it all--poor Maria!" + +"Ma'am, never mention that woman again--ey? what? deceived? Yes, she +deceived you and me, and John, and all. Wicked wretch! and all to marry +a beggar! Well, ma'am, there's one comfort left; the fellow married her +for money, and he's caught in his own trap; never a penny of mine shall +either of them see. Henceforth, Lady Dillaway, we have no daughter; dear +John is the only child left us for old age." + +In spite of himself, of wrath, and disappointment, the father spoke in a +moved and broken manner; and his weeping wife attempted to explain, +console, and soothe him; but all in vain--he was inexorable and +inveterate against those mean deceivers. To say truth, the poor mother +was staggered too, especially when her managing son set all the matter +in what he stated to be the right light; for he had, the whole business +through, whispered so separately to each, and had seemed to say so +little openly (making his mother believe that his sister told him of the +coming letter, and a choice variety of other embellishments), that he +was now looked upon as the very martyr to roguish plotting, in having +been induced to give away his sister. Excellent, mistaken John! + +And forthwith John became installed sole heir, proving the most dutiful +of sons: how glibly would he tell them any sort of welcome news, +original or selected; how many anecdotes could he invent to prove his +own merits and certain other folks' deficiencies; how amiably would he +fetch and carry slippers and smelling-bottles, and write notes, and read +newspapers, and make himself every thing by turns (he devoutly hoped it +would be nothing long) to his poor dear parents, as became an only +child! It was quite affecting--and both father and mother, softened in +spite of themselves at the loss of that Maria, often would talk over the +new-found virtues of their most exemplary son. His character came out +now with five-fold lustre when contrasted with his former usual +ruggedness: no widow ever had a one sick child more tender, more +considerate, more dutiful, than rude Jack Dillaway. + +He gained his end; saw the new will signed; earwigged the lawyer; and +kept a copy of it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +FALSE-WITNESS KILLS A MOTHER, AND WOULD WILLINGLY STARVE A SISTER. + + +Day by day, letters, doubtless full of happiness and Heart, were left by +the promiscuous and undiscerning postman at the house in Finsbury +square, from our excellent calumniated couple; but, seeing that there +were always two sieves waiting ready to sift it before it came to Lady +Dillaway's turn--to wit, John in the hall, and Sir Thomas in his study, +it came to pass that every letter with those malefactors' hand and seal +on it got burnt instanter, and unopened. + +How many troubles might mankind be spared if they would only stop to +hear each other's explanations! How many ailments, both of body and +soul, if explanations only came more frequently and freely! Melancholy +from that dreadful doubt, and all these cold delays, viewing her +daughter as a criminal, the husband as a swindler, and all this long +course of silence as very, very heartless and seemingly conclusive of +their guilt, the poor mother sickened fast upon her couch: she had for +years always been an invalid, wan and wo-begone, living upon ether, gum, +and chicken-broth; but her white skin now grew whiter, her faint voice +fainter, the energies of life in her debilitated frame weaker than ever; +it was no mere hypochondria, or other fanciful malady: her calm heart +seemed to be dying down within her, as a plant that has earth-grubs +gnawing at its root--she grew very ill. Days, weeks of silence--her +heart was sick with hope deferred. How could Maria, with all her seeming +warmth, treat her with such utter negligence? But now the honey-moon was +coming to an end: they must call and see her some day again, surely; how +strangely unkind not to answer those motherly and anxious letters, sent +to their first known stage, Salt hill, and thereafter to be forwarded. + +O, cold continued crime! Bad man, bad man, thy mother's own hand-writing +shall plead against thee at the last dread day. For those coveted +letters of affection, often sent on both those loving parts, had been +regularly and ruthlessly intercepted, opened, mocked, and burnt! How +could the man have stood case-proof against those letters--his mother's +anxious outbursts of affection towards a lost, an innocent, a +calumniated sister? For selfishness had dried up in that hard and wily +man all the milk of human kindness. + +And our loving pair, upon their travels, were as much hurt and surprised +at this long silence as poor Lady Dillaway herself: it was most +mysterious, inexplicable. The only letter they had received ever since +they had left home was one--only one, from John, which had frightened +them exceedingly. Some practical joker (the bridesmaid's brother was +suspected), by way of giving Maria a present on her approaching wedding, +as it would seem, had cleverly imitated her father's hand-writing, +and--that letter was a forgery! to every body's great amazement. Nobody +could, according to his own account, be kinder than John, who had done +more than mortal things to appease his father; but the old man remained +implacable. It was a meanly-contrived clandestine match, he said; and he +never intended to set eyes on them again! As for John, he in that letter +had strongly counselled them to keep away, and trust to him for bringing +his father round. In the midst of their terrible dilemma, kind brother +John seemed as an angel sent by Heaven to assist them. + +Dear children of affection and calamity! how innocently did they walk +into the snare; and how closely doth the wicked man draw his toils +around them. Who can accuse them of any wrong (the hopefulness of love +considered) in point either of honour or duty? And shall they not be +righted at the last? It may be so--it shall be so: but Holy Providence +hath purposes of good in plunging those twin wedded hearts deep beneath +the billows of earthly destitution. The wicked must prosper for a while, +in this as in a million other cases, and the good for their season +struggle with adversity; that the one may be destroyed for ever, and the +others may add to this world's wealth the incalculable riches of +another. + +They had spent the few first weeks of marriage among the pleasant lakes +and hills of Westmoreland and Cumberland, wandering together, in +delightful interchange of thought, from glen to glen, from tairn to +tairn, all about Ambleside, Helvellyn, and Lodore, Ullswater, +Saddleback, and Schiddaw. Maria's ever-flickering smile seemed to throw +a sun-beam over the darkest moor, even in those darkest hours of doubt, +heart-sickening anxiety, and grief at the neglect which they +experienced; while Henry's well-informed good sense not only availed to +cheer the sad Maria, but made every rock a point of interest, and showed +every little flower a miracle of wisdom. There were hundreds of +extemporaneous "lover's seats," where they had "rested, to be thankful" +for the past, joyful for the present, and hopeful for the future; and +every ramble that they took might deservedly take the name, style, and +title of a "lover's walk!" Happy times--happy times! but still there +might be happier; yes, and happiest, too, they seemed to whisper, if +ever they should have a merry little nursery of prattling boys and +girls! But I am not so entirely in the confidence of those young folks +as to be certain about what they seemed to whisper: in that pretty +prattling sentence were they not getting a little beyond the honey-moon? +Yes--yes, young Hymen is too full of new-found pleasure to heed those +holier joys of calm old marriage; for wedded love is as a coil of line, +lengthening with the lapse of years, fitted and intended, day after day, +to be continually sounding a lower and a lower deep in the ocean of +happiness. + +Returned to town, it was the immediate care of our fond, confused, and +unfortunate young couple to call at the old house in Finsbury square; +where, to their great dismay and misery, they encountered a formal +standing order for their non-admission. The domestics were new, had been +strictly warned against the name of Clements, and, in effect, were +creatures of the worthy John. It was a deplorable business; they did not +know what to think, nor how to act. Letters left at the door, couched in +whatever terms of humility, kindliness, and just excuse, were equally +unavailing; for the Cerberus there was too well sopped by pleasant +brother John ever to deliver them to any one but him. It was entirely +hopeless--extraordinary--a most wretched state of things. What were they +to do? The only practicable mode of getting at Sir Thomas, and, +therefore, at some explanation of these mysteries, was obviously to +watch for him, and meet him in the street. As for Lady Dillaway, she was +very ill, and kept her chamber, which was as resolutely guarded from +incursion or excursion as Danæ's herself--yea, more so, for gold was +added to her guards: Sir Thomas, going to and from his counting-house, +appeared to be the only weak point in the enemy's fortifications. + +Poor old man! he was, or thought he was, harder, colder, more inveterate +than ever: and his duteous son John rarely let him venture out alone, +for fear of some such meeting, casual or intended. Accordingly, one day +when the Clements and the Dillaways mutually spied each other afar off, +and a junction seemed inevitable, John's promptitude bade his father +(generously as it looked, for paternal peace of mind's sake) return a +few paces, get into a cab, and so slip home, the while he valiantly +stepped forward to meet the enemy. + +"Mr. Clements! my father (I grieve to say) will hear no reason, nor any +excuse whatever; he totally refuses to see you or Mrs. Clements." + +"O, dearest John! what have I done--what has Henry done, that papa, and +you, and dear mamma, should all be so unkind to us?" + +"You have married, Mrs. Clements, contrary to your father's wish and +knowledge: and he has cast you off--I must say--deservedly." + +"Brother, brother! you know I was deceived, and Henry too. This is +cruel, most cruel: let me see my beloved father but one moment!" + +"His commands are to the contrary, madam; and I at least obey them. +Henceforth you are a stranger to us all." + +The poor broken-hearted girl fell into her husband's arms, stone-white: +but her hard brother, making no account whatever of all that show of +feeling, only took the trouble quietly to address Henry Clements. +"Misfortunes never come single, they say; it is no fault of mine if the +proverb hits Mr. Henry Clements. I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, +that the Austral Independent bank has stopped payment, and is not +expected to refund to its depositors or shareholders one penny in the +pound." + +"Impossible, Mr. Dillaway! You answered for its stability yourself: and +the proposition came originally from you. I hope surely, surely, you may +have been misinformed of these bad news." + +"It is true, sir--too true for you: the wisest man on 'change is often +out of reckoning. I have nothing now of yours in my hands, sir: you are +aware that no writings passed between us." + +"Great Heaven! be just and merciful! Are we, then, to be utterly +ruined?" + +"Really, sir, you know your own affairs better than I can.--Your +servant, Mr. Clements." + +O, hard and wicked heart!--what will not such a miscreant do for money? +Nothing, I am clear, but the cowardly fear of discovery prevents John +Dillaway from becoming a positive parricide by very arsenic or razor, so +as to grasp his cheated father's will and wealth. And this assertion +will appear not in the least uncharitable, when the reader is in this +place reminded that Henry Clements's own little property had never been +Australized at all, but was still safe and snug in the coffers of crafty +John. Jermyn street--or the sharpers congregated there--had drained him +very considerably; all his own ill-got gains had been gradually raked +away by the croupier at the gaming-table; and unsuspecting Henry's +little trust-fund was to be the next bank on which the brother played. + +Poor Henry and Maria! What will they do? where will they go? how will +they live? Hard questions all, not to be answered in a hurry. We shall +see. There was one comfort, though, amidst all their misery;--they did +not find the adage a true one, which alludes to poverty coming in at the +door, and love flying out of the window; for they never loved each other +more deeply--more devotedly--than when daily bread was growing a +scarcity, and daily life almost a burden. But we are anticipating. + +And how fared the parents all this while? was the erring daughter +entirely forgotten? No, no. Son John, indeed, took good care to hinder +any amicable feelings of relapse to intrude upon his father's +resolution. But the old man was not easy, nevertheless; often thought of +poor Maria; and could not clearly make out who had forged the letter. +Had it not been for that wicked brother John, a meeting--an +explanation--a reconciliation--would undoubtedly have taken place: but +he was shrewd enough to keep them asunder, and did not take much to +heart his father's altered spirits and breaking state of health: his +will and wealth were seemingly all the nearer. + +And what of that poor stricken mother? Wasted to a shadow, feverish and +weak, she lay for weeks, counting the dreary hours, till she heard of +dear, though unnatural, Maria. Oh! the heartless caitiff, John! will he +thus watch his mother die by inches, when one true word from his lips +could restore her to tranquillity and health? Yes, he would--he did--the +wretch! She gradually pined--waned--wasted; the candle of her life burnt +down into the hollow socket--glimmering awhile--flared and reeled, and +then--one night, quietly and suddenly--went out! She entered on the +world of spirits, where all secrets show revealed; and there she read, +almost before she died--whilst yet the black curtain of eternity was +gradually rising to receive her--the innocence of good Maria, and the +deep-stained villany of John. Her last words--uttered supernaturally +from her quiescence, with the fervour of a visionary whose ken is more +than mortal--were "Look, look, Thomas!--beware of John. O poor, poor +innocent outcast!--O rich, rich heart of love--Maria! my Mari--a--!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +HOW TO HELP ONE'S SELF. + + +Where then did they live, and how--that noble and calumniated couple? +They had done no wrong, nor even, as it seems to us, the semblance of +wrong, unless it be by having acquiesced in the foolishness of secresy, +and thus aided the contrivance of false witness; for aught else, their +only social error had been lack of business caution among business men. +Feeling generously themselves, they gave others credit for the like good +feeling; acting upon honourable impulse, they believed that other men +would act so too. Heart was the hindrance in their way;--too much +sensitiveness towards all about them; too swift a surrender of the +judgment to the affections: too imprudent a reliance upon other men of +the world; though, when they trusted to a father's love, and a brother's +honesty, prudence herself might have almost been dispensed with. +Machinations of the wicked and the shrewd hemmed them in to their +un-doing: and really, they, children more or less of affluent homes, +born and bred in plenty, who had moved all their lives long in circles +of comparative wealth and wastefulness, now seemed likely to come to the +galling want of necessary sustenance. Was it not to teach them deeper +feeling for the poor, if ever God again should give them riches? Was it +not, by poverty, to try those hearts which had passed so blamelessly +through all the ordeals and temptations of wealth, in order that they +worthily might wear the double crown given only to such as remain +unhardened by prosperity, unembittered by adversity? Was it not to +discipline our warm Maria's love, and to chasten her Henry's very +gentlemanly pride into the due Christian proportions--self-respect with +self-humiliation? Was it not, chiefest and best, to school their hearts +for heaven, and, by feeding them on miseries and wrongs a little while, +to fix their affections on things above rather than on things of this +world? Yes: Providence has many ends in view, and they all tend +consistently to one great focus--the ultimate advantage of the good by +means of the confusion of the wicked. + +Meanwhile came trouble on apace. Henry Clements justly felt aggrieved, +insulted; and the sentiment of pride, improper only from excess, +determined him to make no more advances: all that man could do, that +is, which a gentleman ought to do, he had done; but letters and visits +proved equally unavailing. He had come to the resolution that he would +make no more efforts himself, nor scarcely let Maria make any. As for +her, poor soul! she was now in grievous tribulation, with sad, +sufficient reason for it too; seeing that, in addition to her father's +anger, still protracted--in addition to that vile forgery imputed to her +craft, and whereof she had been made the guilty victim--in addition to +their own soon pressing money-wants, and that heartless fraud of John's +against her husband's little all (though she counted of it only as a +luckless speculation)--she had just become acquainted, through the +public prints, of her dear good mother's death, even before she had +heard of any illness. What bitter pangs were there for her, poor child! +That she should have lost that mother just then, without forgiveness, +without blessing--whilst all was unexplained, and their whole conduct of +affections without guile, wore the hideous mask of base, undutiful +contrivance! Cheer up, Maria; cheer up! only in this bad world can +innocence be sullied with a doubt: cheer up! the spirit of that mother +whom you loved on earth knows it well already; learned it while yet she +was leaving the body of her death: cheer up! she is still near you +both--dear children of affliction and affection! and God has +commissioned her for good to be your ministering angel. + +With reference to means of living, they appeared limited at once to a +little ready money, and a few personal chattels and trinkets; without so +much as one pound of capital to back the young house-keepers, or a +shilling's-worth of interest or dividend or earnings coming in for +weekly bills. Clements had been utterly confounded in all his economical +arrangements by that sudden bitter breach of trust; and, albeit (as we +have hinted), his aim in marriage was not money; still, without much of +worldly calculation, he might prudently have looked for some provision +on Maria's part at least equal to his own: in fact, the fond young +couple had reasonably set their hearts upon that golden mean--four +hundred a-year to begin with. Now, however, by two fell swoops--brother +John's dishonesty and Sir Thomas's resolve of disinheritance--all this +rational and moderate expectation had been dashed to atoms; and the +cottage of contented competence appeared but as a castle in the +clouds--a mere airy matter of undiluted moonshine. Thus, when that +happiest of honeymoons had dwindled down the hundred-pound bank-note +(shrewd John's well-expended bait) to the fractional part of a ten, and +our newly-married pair came to put together their united resources, +wherewithal to travel through the world, they could muster but very +little:--considering, too, the future, and the promise of an early +increase to provide for, forty-seven pounds was not quite a fortune; and +a few articles of jewellery did not much increase it. + +We need not imagine that Henry calmly acquiesced without a struggle in +the roguish fraud which had impoverished him; but, notwithstanding all +his best endeavours, he found, to his dismay, that the case was +irremediable: the transfer-books, indeed, were evidence; and equity +would give credit for the trust: but that the "Independent bank" had +failed was a simple fact; and so long as John stood ready to swear he +had invested in it, there was an end to the business. Be sure, shrewd +Jack was not likely to leave any thing dubious or unsatisfactory in the +affair. Austral papers were easily got at now, cheap as whitey-brown; +and for any help the law could give him, poor Henry Clements might as +well engage the wind-raising services of a Lapland witch. + +He must put his shoulder to the wheel without delay; manifestly, his +profession of the law, however unlucrative till now, must be the mighty +lever that should raise him quickly to the summit of opulence and fame: +and he vigorously set to work, as the briefless are forced to do, +inditing a new law-book, which should lift him high in honour with those +magnates on the bench; being, as he was, a court-counsel, not a chamber +one, an eloquent pleader too (if the world would only give him a +hearing), he unluckily took for his thesis the questionable '_Doctrine +of Defence_;' combating magnanimously on the loftiest moral grounds all +manner of received opinions, time-honoured fictions, legitimated +quibbles, and other things which (as he was pleased to put it) "render +the majesty of the law ridiculous to the ears of common sense, and +iniquitous in the sight of Christian judgment." Rash youth! forensic +Quixote! better had you plodded on, without this extra industry and +skill, in the hopeless idleness and solitude of your Temple +garret--better had you burnt your wig and gown outright, with all the +airy briefs to come that fluttered round them, than have owned yourself +the author of that heretical piece of moral mawkishness--'_The Doctrine +of Defence_, by Henry Clements.' + +He had with difficulty found a publisher--a chilling incident enough in +itself, considering an author's feelings for his book-child; and when +found, the scarcely satisfactory arrangement was insisted on, of mutual +participation in profit and loss: in other parlance, the bookseller +pocketing the first, and the author unpocketing the second. Thus it came +to pass, that after three months' toil and enormous collation of +cases--after extravagant indulgence of the most ardent hopes--glory, +good, and gold, consequent instantaneously on this happy +publication--after reasonably expecting that judges would quote it in +their ermine, and sergeants consult it in their silk--that London would +be startled by the event from the humdrum of its ordinary routine--and +the wondering world applaud the name of Henry Clements--O, +heart-sickening reality! what was the result of his exertions? + +"So, that puppy Clements has taken upon himself to put us all to school +about whom we may defend, and how, I see---- Hang the fellow's +impudence!" grunted a fat Old Bailey counsel to his peers, well aware +that the luckless author sat nervously within ear-shot. + +"I know whose junior that modest swain shall never be;" simpered +Sergeant Tiffin. + +"The fellow's done for himself," was the simultaneous verdict of a +well-wigged band of brothers. And what else they might have added in +their charity poor Clements never knew, for he crept away to his garret, +stricken with disappointment. There he must encounter other trials of +the heart: two or three reviews and newspapers lay upon his table, just +sent in by the bookseller, as per order; for they contained, in +spirit-stirring print, notices of '_Clements on Defence_.' Unluckily for +his present peace of mind, poor fellow, the periodicals in question were +none of the humaner sort; no kindly encouraging '_Literary Register_,' +no soft-spoken '_Courtier_,' no patient '_Investigator_,' no +generously-indulgent '_Critical Gazette_:' these more amiable journals +would be slower in the field--some six weeks hence, perhaps, creeping on +with philanthropic sloth: but fiercer prints, which dart hebdomadal +wrath at every trembling seeker of their parsimonious praise, had whipt +up their malice to deliver the first swift blow against our hapless +neophyte in print. Thus, when, with nervous preboding, Henry took up the +'_Watchman_,' in eager hope for favour to his poor dear book, he turned +quite sick at heart to find the lying verdict run as follows, though the +small type in which it spake was a comfort too: + +"A careless compilation of insignificant cases, clumsily thrown +together, and calculated to set its author high indeed upon the rolls of +fame; proving to the world that a Mr. Henry Clements can reason very +feebly; that his premises are habitually false; and that presumptuous +preaching is the natural accompaniment of extreme ignorance." + +By all that worries man, but this was too bad: "careless?"--every word +had been a care to him: "clumsy?"--in composition it was Addison's own +self: "feeble?"--if he was good for any thing, he was good for logic: +"false?"--not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but +it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous?"--it was bold and masculine, +certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential: +"ignorant?"--ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how +Clements had been studying!--And yet this most lying sentence, a +congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic +scribe, who perhaps had barely dipped into the book, was at the moment +circulating in every library of the kingdom, proclaiming our poor +barrister a fool! + +O, thou watchful scribe, forbear! for it is cowardly--they cannot smite +again: forbear! for it is cruel--the hearts of wife and mother and lover +ache upon your idle words: forbear! it is unreasonable--for often-times +a word would prove that Rhadamanthus' self is wrong: forbear, calumnious +scribe! and heed the harms you do, when you rob some poor struggler of +his character for sense, and make the bread of the hungry to fail. + +'_The Corinthian_,' another snarling watch-dog in the courts of the +temple of Fame, followed instinctively the same injurious wake: it was a +leisurely sarcastic anatomization, quite enough to blight any young +candidate's prospects, supposing that mankind respected such a verdict; +if not to make him cut his throat, granting that the victim should be +sensitive as Keats. The generous review in question may be judged of by +its first line and last sentence; as Hercules from his advancing foot, +or Cuvier's Megatherium from the relics of its great toe. Thus it +commenced: + +"When a disappointed man, intolerant of fortune," &c., &c., and it wound +up many stinging observations with this grateful climax following: + + "We trust we have now said enough to prove that if a man will be + bold enough to 'depreciate censure,'--will attack what he is + pleased to consider abuses, however countenanced by high + authority--and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn + courts of law, he deserves--what does he not deserve?--to be + addressed henceforth by a name suggestive at once of ignorance, + presumption, and conceit, as Mr. Henry Clements." + +Now, will it be believed that a trivial error of the press mainly +conduced to occasion this hostility? Our poor author had been weak +enough to "deprecate censure" in his penny-wise humility, and the +printer had negatived his meaning as above: "_hinc illæ lachrymæ_." Oh, +but how the ragged tooth of calumny gnawed his very heart! + +'_The Legal Recorder_' was another of those early unfavourables; being +as a matter of course adverse too, and not very disinterestedly either: +for it played the exalted part of pet puffer to a rival publisher, who +wanted no other reason for condemning this book of Mr. Clements than +that it came from the legal officina of an opponent in his trade. There +was another paper or two, but Clements felt so utterly disheartened that +he did not dare to look at them. I wish he had; they would have +comforted him, pouring balm upon his wounded pride by their kind and +cordial praises: but ill-luck ruled the hour, so he burnt them +forthwith, and lost much literary comforting. + +To sauce up all this pleasantry with a smack of concreted pleasure +itself, the last and only remaining document upon the table was a civil +note from Mr. Wormwood, publisher and bookseller, enclosing the +following items with his compliments: + + To 500 copies '_Doctrine of Defence_,' £124 3 + To advertising ditto, 25 0 + To 10 per cent. on sales, &c. + Supplied to author, 12 copies, &c. + Given to periodicals for review, 15 copies, &c. + +Against all which was the solitary offset of "three copies sold;" +leaving as our Henry's _share_ of now certain loss a matter of eighty +pounds: which, between ourselves, was only a very little more than the +whole cost of that untoward publication. Mr. Wormwood hoped to hear from +Mr. Clements at his earliest convenience, as a certain sum was to be +made up on a certain day, and the book-trade never had been at a lower +ebb, and prompt payment would be esteemed a great accommodation, +and--all that stereotyped sort of thing. + +Poor Clements--reviled author, ruined lawyer, almost reckless +wight--here was an extinguisher indeed to the morning's brilliant hopes! +What an overwhelming debt to that ill-used couple in their altered +circumstances! How entirely by his own strong effort had he swamped his +legal expectations! Just as a man who cannot swim splashes himself into +certain suffocation; whereas, if he would but lie quite still, he was +certain to have floated on as safe as cork. + +Well: to cut a long story short, our unlucky author found that he must +pay, and pay forthwith, or incur a lawyer's bill for his debt to Mr. +Wormwood: so he gave up his Temple garret, sold his books, nicknacks, +and superfluous habiliments, added to the proceeds their forty pounds of +capital, and a neck-chain of Maria's; and, at tremendous sacrifices, +found himself once more out of danger, because out of debt. But it was a +bad prospect truly for the future--ay, and for the present too; a few +pounds left would soon be gone--and then dear Maria's confinement was +approaching, and a hundred wants and needs, little and great: +accordingly, they made all haste to get rid of their suburban dwelling +in the City Road, collected their few valuables remaining, and retreated +with all economical speed to a humble lodging in a cheap back street at +Islington. + +That little parlor was a palace of love: in the midst of her deep +sorrow, sweet Maria never failed of her amiable charities--nay, she was +even cheerful, hopeful--happy, and rendering happy: a thousand times a +day had Henry cause to bless his "wedded angel." And, showing his love +by more than words, he resolutely set about another literary enterprise, +anonymous this time for very fear's sake; but Providence saw fit to +bless his efforts with success. He wrote a tragedy, a clever and a good +one too; though '_The Watchman_' did sneer about "modern Shakspeares," +and '_The Corinthian_,' pouncing on some trifling fault, pounded it with +would-be giant force: nevertheless, for it was a famous English theme, +he luckily got them to accept it at the Haymarket, and '_Boadicea_' drew +full houses; so the author had his due ninth night, and pocketed, +instead of fame (for he grimly kept his secret) enough to enable him to +print his tragedy for private satisfaction; and that piece of vanity +accomplished, he still found himself seven pounds before-hand with the +world. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +FRAUD CUTS HIS FINGERS WITH HIS OWN EDGED TOOLS. + + +Unpleasant as it is to feel obliged to be the usher of ill company, I +must now introduce to the fastidious public a brace of characters any +thing but reputable. It were possible indeed to slur them over with a +word; but I have deeper ends in view for a glance so superficial: we may +learn a lesson in charity, we may gain some schooling of the heart, even +from those "ladies-legatees." + +Do you remember them, the supposititious nieces, aiders and abetters in +our stock-jobber's forged will? Two flashy, showy women, _not_ of easy +virtue, but of none at all--special intimates of John Dillaway, and the +genus of his like, and habitual frequenters of divers choice and +pleasant places of resort. + +The reason of their introduction here is two-fold: first, they have to +play a part in our tale--a part of righteous retribution; and, secondly, +they have to instruct us incidentally in this lesson of true morals and +human charity--dread, denounce, and hate the sin, but feel a just +compassion for the sinner. Let us take the latter object first, and bear +with the brief epitome of facts which have blighted those unfortunates +to what they are. + +Look at these two women, impudent brawlers, foul with vice: can there be +any excuses made for them, considered as distinct from their condition? +God knoweth: listen to their histories; and fear not that thy virtuous +glance will be harmed or misdirected, or a minute of thy precious time +ill-spent. + +Anna Bates and Julia Manners (their latest _noms de guerre_ will serve +all nominative purposes as well as any other) had arrived at the same +lowest level of female degradation by very different downward roads. +Anna's father had been a country curate, unfortunate through life, +because utterly imprudent, and neither too wise a man nor too good a +one, or depend upon it his orphan could not have come to this: "Never +saw I the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." But the +father died carelessly as he had lived--in debt, with all his little +affairs at sixes and sevens; and his widow with her budding daughter, +saving almost nothing from the wreck, set up for milliners at Hull. Then +did the mother pique herself upon playing her cards cleverly; for +gallant Captain Croker was quite smitten with the girl. Poor child--she +loved, listened, and was lost; a more systematic traitor of affection +never breathed than that fine man; so she left by night her soft +intriguing broken-spirited mother, followed her Lothario from barrack to +barrack, and at last--he flung her away! Who can wonder at the reckless +and dissolute result? Whom had she to care for her--whom had she to +love? She must live thus, or starve. Without credit, character, or hope, +or help, the friendless unprotected wretch was thrown upon the town. +When the last accounts are opened, oblivious General Croker will find an +ell-long score of crimes laid to his charge, whereof he little reckons +in his sear and yellow leaf. The trusting victim of seduction has a +legion of excuses for the wretched one she is. + +Again; for another case whereon the better-favoured heart may ruminate +in charity. Miss Julia Manners had a totally different experience but +man can little judge how mainly the iron hand of circumstance confined +that life-long sinner to the ways and works of guilt. In the nervous +language of the Bible--(hear it, men and women, without shrinking from +the words)--that poor girl was "the seed of the adulterer and the +whore:" born in a brothel, amongst outcasts from a better mass of +life--brought up from the very cradle amid sounds and scenes of utter +vice (whereof we dare not think or speak one moment of the many years +she dwelt continuously among them)--educated solely as a profligate, and +ignorant alike of sin, righteousness, and a judgment to come--had she +then a chance of good, or one hopeful thought of being better than she +was? The water of holy baptism never bedewed that brow; the voice of +motherly counsel never touched those ears; her eyes were unskilled to +read the records of wisdom; her feet untutored to follow after holiness; +her heart unconscious of those evils which she never knew condemned; her +soul--she never heard or thought of one! Oh, ye well-born, well-bred, ye +kindly, carefully, prayerfully instructed daughters of innocence and +purity, pause, pause, ere your charity condemns: hate the sin, but love +the sinner: think it out further, for yourselves, in all those details +which I have not time to touch, skill to describe, nor courage to +encounter; think out as kindly as ye may this episode of just +indulgence; there is wisdom in this lesson of benevolence, and +after-sweetness too, though the earliest taste of it be bitter; think it +out; be humbler of your virtue, scarcely competent to err; be more +grateful to that Providence which hath filled your lot with good; and be +gentler-hearted, more generous-handed unto those whose daily life +is--all temptation. + +Now, these two ladies (who extenuates their guilt, caviller? who +breathes one iota of excuse for their wicked manner of life? who does +not utterly denounce the foul and flagrant sin, whilst he leaves to a +secret-searching God the judgment of the sinner?)--these two ladies, I +say, had of late become very sore plagues to Mr. John Dillaway. They had +flared out their hush-money like duchesses, till the whole town rang +about their equipage and style; and now, that all was spent, they +pestered our stock-jobber for more. They came at an unlucky season, a +season of "ill luck!" such a miraculous run of it, as nothing could +explain to any rational mind but loaded dice, packed cards, contrivance +and conspiracy. Nevertheless, our worthy John went on staking, and +betting, and playing, resolute to break the bank, until it was no +wonder at all to any but his own shrewd genius, that he found himself +one feverish morning well nigh penniless. At such a moment then, called +our ladies-legatees, clamorous for hush-money. + +As a matter most imperatively of course, not a farthing more should be +forthcoming, and many oaths avouched that stern determination. They +ought to be ashamed of themselves, after such an enormous bribe to +each--as if shame of any kind had part or lot in those feminine +accomplices: it was a sanguine thought of Mr. John Dillaway. But the +ladies were not ashamed, nor silenced, nor any thing like satisfied. So, +having thoroughly fatigued themselves with out-swearing and +out-threatening, our sneerful stock-jobber, they resolved upon exposing +him, come what might. For their own guilty part in that transaction of +Mrs. Jane Mackenzie's pseudo-will, good sooth, the wretched women had no +characters to lose, nor scarcely aught else on which one could set a +value. Danger and the trial would be an excitement to their pallid +spirits, possible transportation even seemed a ray of hope, since any +thing was better than the town; and in their sinful recklessness, +liberty or life itself was little higher looked on than a dice's stake. +Moreover, as to all manner of personal pains and penalties, there was +every chance of getting off scot-free, provided they lost no time, went +not one before the other, but doubly turned queen's evidence at once +against their worthy coadjutor and employer. In the hope, then, of +ruining him, if not of getting scathelessly off themselves, these +ladies-legatees mustered once more from the mazes of St. Giles's the +pack of competent Irish witnesses, collected whatever documentary or +other evidence looked likeliest to help their ends, and then one early +day presented themselves before the lord-mayor, eager to destroy at a +blow that pleasant Mr. Dillaway. + +The proceedings were long, cautious, tedious, and secret: emissaries to +Belfast, Doctors' Commons, and the bank: the stamp office was stirred to +its foundations; and Canterbury staggered at the fraud. Thus within a +week the proper officials were in a condition to prosecute, and the +issue of immense examinations tended to that point of satisfaction, the +haling Mr. Dillaway to prison on the charge of having forged a will. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +HEART'S CORE. + + +They were come into great want, poor Henry and Maria: they had not +wherewithal for daily sustenance. The few remaining trinkets, books, +clothes, and other available moveables had been gradually pledged away, +and to their full amount--at least, the pawnbroker said so. That unlucky +publication of the law book, so speedily condemned and heartlessly +ridiculed, had wrecked all Henry's possible prospects in the courts; and +as for help from friends--the casual friends of common life--he was too +proud to beg for that--too sensitive, too self-respectful. Relations he +had none, or next to none--that distant cousin of his mother's, the +Mac-something, whom he had never even seen, but who, nevertheless, had +acted as his guardian. + +Much as he suspected Dillaway in the matter of that bitter breach of +trust, he had neither ready money to proceed against him, (nor, when he +came to think it over) any legal grounds at all to go upon; for, as we +have said before, even granting there should be evidence adduced of the +transfer of stock from the name of Clements to that of Dillaway, still +it was a notorious fact that the "Independent bank" had failed, whereto +the stock-broker could swear he had intrusted it. In short, shrewd Jack +had managed all that affair to admiration; and poor Clements was ruined +without hope, and defrauded without remedy. + +Then, again, we already know how that Lady Dillaway was dead, so help +from her was simply impossible; and the miserable father Sir Thomas was +kept too closely up to the mark of resolute anger by slanderous John, to +give them any aid, if they applied to him; but, in truth, as to personal +application, Henry would not for pride, and Maria now could not, for her +near-at-hand motherly condition. Her frequent letters, as we may be +sure, were intercepted; and, even if Sir Thomas now and then yearned +after his lost child, it had become a matter of physical impossibility +to find out where she lived. Thus were they hopelessly sinking, day by +day, into all the bitter waves of want. Not but that Henry strived, as +we have seen, and shall yet see: still his endeavours had been very +nearly fruitless--and, perchance, till all available moveables had been +pawned outright, very feeble too. Now, however, that Maria, in her +sorrow and her need, must soon become a mother, the state of things grew +terrible indeed; their horizon was all over black with clouds. + +No: not all over. There is light under the darkness, a growing light +that shall dispel the darkness; a precious light upon their souls, the +early dawn of Heaven's eternal day; God's final end in all their +troubles, the reaping-time of joy for their sowing-time of tears. + +Without cant, affectation, or hypocrisy, there is but one panacea for +the bruised or broken heart, available alike in all times, all places, +and all circumstances: and he who knows not what that is, has more to +learn than I can teach him. That pure substantial comfort is born of +Heaven's hope, and faith in Heaven's wisdom; it is a solid confidence in +God's great love, but faintly shadowed out by all the charities of +earth. Human affections in their manifold varieties are little other +than an echo of that Voice, "Come unto me; Comfort ye, comfort ye; I +will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters; thy +Maker is thy Husband; he hath loved thee with an everlasting love; when +thou goest through the fire, I will be with thee, through the waters, +they shall not overflow thee; eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither +hath it entered into the mind of man to conceive the blessings which His +love hath laid in store for _thee_." + +Heart's-ease in heart's-affliction--this they found in God; turning to +Him with all their hearts, and pouring out their hearts before Him, they +trusted in Him heartily for both worlds' good. Therefore did He give +them their heart's desire, satisfying all their mind: wherefore did they +love each other now with a newly-added plenitude of love, mutually in +reference to Him who loved them, and gave Himself for them: therefore +did they feel in their distresses more gladness at their hearts, than in +the days of luxury and affluence, the increase of their oil and their +wine. + +For this is the great end of all calamities. God doth not willingly +afflict: trouble never cometh without an urgent cause; and though man in +his perverseness often misses all the prize of purity, whilst he pays +all the penalty of pain; still the motive that sent sorrow was the +same--O, that there were a better heart in them! + +In many modes the heart of man is tried, as gold must be refined, by +many methods; and happiest is the heart, that, being tried by many, +comes purest out of all. If prosperity melts it as a flux, well; but +better too than well, if the acid of affliction afterwards eats away all +unseen impurities; whereas, to those with whom the world is in their +hearts, affluence only hardens, and penury embitters, and thus, though +burnt in many fires, their hearts are dross in all. Like those sullen +children in the market-place, they feel no sympathies with heaven or +with earth: unthankful in prosperity, unsoftened by adversity, well may +it be said of them, Hearts of stone, hearts of stone! + +Not of such were Henry and Maria: naturally warm in affections and +generous in sympathies, it needed but the pilot's hand to steer their +hearts aright: the energies of life were there, both fresh and full, +lacking but direction heavenwards; and chastisement wisely interposed to +wean those yearning spirits from the brief and feverish pursuits of +unsatisfying life, to the rest and the rewards of an eternity. Then were +they wedded indeed, heart answering to heart; then were they strong +against all the ills of life, those hearts that were established by +grace; then spake they often one to another out of the abundance of +their hearts; and in spite of all their sorrows, they were happy, for +their hearts were right with God. + +Let the grand idea suffice, unencumbered by the multitude of details. +Whatsoever things are true, honest and just; whatsoever things are pure, +lovely, or of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any +praise--believe of those twin hearts that God had given them all. +Patience, hope, humility; faith, tenderness, and charity; prayer, trust, +benevolence, and joy: this was the lot of the afflicted! It was good for +them that they had been in trouble; for they had gained from it a wealth +that is above the preciousness of rubies, deservedly dearer to their +hearts than the thousands of gold and silver. + +What a contrast then was shown between God's kindness and man's +coldness! No one of their fellows seemed to give them any heed: but He +cared for them, and on Him they cast their cares. Former friends +appeared to stand aloof, self-dependent and unsympathizing; but God was +ever near, kindly bringing help in every extremity, which always seemed +at hand, yet ever kept away: smoothing the pillow of sickness, +comforting the troubled spirit, and treading down calamity and calumny +and care; as a conqueror conquering for them. So, they learned the +priceless wisdom which adversity would teach to all on whom she +frowneth; when earthly hopes are wrecked, to anchor fast on God; and if +affluence should ever come again, to aid the poor afflicted with +heartiness, beneficence, and home-taught sympathy. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +HOPE'S BIRTH TO INNOCENCE, AND HOPE'S DEATH TO FRAUD. + + +John Dillaway's sudden loss of property, his character exploded as a +monied man, and the strong probability of his turning out a felon, had a +great effect on the spirits of Sir Thomas. He had called upon his +promising son in prison, had found him very sulky, disinclined for +social intercourse, and any thing but filial; all he condescended to +growl, with a characteristic d---- or two interlarding his eloquence, +was this taunting speech: + +"Well, governor, I may thank you and your counsels for this. Here's a +precious end to all my clever tricks of trade! I wish you joy of your +son, and of your daughter too, old man. Who wrote that letter? What, not +found out yet? and does she still starve for it? Who gained money as you +bade him--never mind how? And is now going to do honour to the family +all round the world, ey?--Ha, ha, ha!" + +The poor unhappy father tottered away as quickly as he could, while yet +the brutal laughter of that unnatural son rang upon his ears. He was +quite miserable, let him turn which way he would. On 'Change the name +had been disgraced--posted up for scorn on the board of degradation: at +home, there was no pliant son and heir, to testify against Maria, and to +close the many portals of a wretched father's heart. He grew very +wretched--very mopy; determined upon cutting adrift shrewd Jack himself, +as a stigma on the name which had once held the mace of mayoralty; made +his will petulantly, for good and all, in favour of Stationer's hall, +and felt very like a man who had lived in vain. "Cut it down; why +cumbereth it the earth?" + +Meanwhile, in those two opposite quarters of the world of London, +Newgate and Islington, Sir Thomas's two discarded children were bearing +in a different way their different privations. Poor Maria's hour of +peril had arrived; and amidst all those pains, dangers, and necessities, +a soft and smiling babe was born into the world; gladness filled their +hearts, and praise was on their tongues, when the happy father and +mother kissed that first-born son. It was a splendid boy, they said, and +should redeem his father's fortunes: there was hope in the future, let +the past be what it may; and this new bond of union to that happy +wedded pair made the present--one unclouded scene of gratitude and love. +Who shall sing of the humble ale-caudle, and those cheerful givings to +surrounding poor, scarcely poorer than themselves? Who shall record how +kind was Henry, how useful was the nurse, how liberal the doctor, how +sympathizing all? Who shall tell how tenderly did Providence step in +with another author's night of that same tragedy, and how other avenues +to literary gain stood wide open to industry and genius? It was +happiness all, happiness, and triumph: they were weathering the storm +famously, and had safely passed the breakers of False witness. + +Amidst the other part of London sate a sullen fellow, quite alone, in +Newgate, looking for his trial on the morrow, and prophesying accurately +enough how some two days hence, he, John Dillaway, of Broker's alley, +son and heir of the richest stationer in Europe, was to appear in the +character of a convicted felon, and be probably condemned to +transportation for life. A pleasant retrospect was his, a pleasanter +aspect, and a pleasanter prospect; all was pleasure assuredly. + +And the morrow duly came; with those implacable approvers, those +accurate Irish witnesses, those tell-tale documents, that prosecuting +crown and bank, that dogged jury, and that sentencing recorder: so then, +by a little after noon, to the scandal of Finsbury square, John Dillaway +discovered that the "wise man's trick or two in the money market" was +about to be rewarded with twenty-one years of transportation. + +Of this interesting fact Henry Clements became acquainted by an +occasional peep into the public prints; and he perceived to his +astonishment, that the defrauded Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of Ballyriggan, +near Belfast, could surely be none other than his mother's Ulster +cousin, the nominal guardian of his boyhood! To be sure, it mattered +little enough to him, for the old lady had never been much better than a +stranger to him, and at present appeared only in that useless character +to an expectant, a person despoiled of her money; nevertheless, of that +identical money, certain sanguine friends had heretofore given him +expectations in the event of her death, seeing that she had nobody to +leave it to, except himself and the public charities of the United +Kingdom: clearly, this cousin must have been the defrauded bank +annuitant, and he could not help feeling more desolate than ever; for +John Dillaway's evil influences had robbed him now of name, fame, +fortune, and what hope regards as much as any--expectations. Yet--must +not the bank of England bear the brunt of all this forgery, and account +for its stock to that innocent depositor? Old Mrs. Jane was sinking +into dotage, probably had plenty of other money, and scarcely seemed to +stir about the business; therefore, legitimately interested as Henry +indubitably was, he took upon him to write to his antiquated relative, +and in so doing managed to please her mightily: renewed whatever +interest she ever might have felt in him, enabled her to enforce her +just claim, and really stood a likelier chance than ever of coming in +for competency some day. However, for the present, all was penury still. +Clements had been too delicate for even a hint at his deplorable +condition: and his distant relative's good feeling, so providentially +renewed, served indeed to gild the future, but did not avail to +gingerbread the present. So they struggled on as well as they could: +both very thankful for the chance which had caused a coalition between +sensitiveness and interest; and Maria at least more anxious than ever +for a reconciliation with her father, now that all his ardent hopes had +been exploded in son John. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +PROBABLE RECONCILIATION. + + +It was no use--none at all. Nature was too strong for him; and a higher +force than even potent Nature. In vain Sir Thomas pish'd, and tush'd, +and bah'd; in vain he buried himself chin-deep amongst the century of +ledgers that testified of gainful years gone by, and were now mustily +rotting away in the stagnant air of St. Benet's Sherehog: interest had +lost its interest for him, profits profited not, speculation's self had +dull, lack-lustre eyes, and all the hard realities of utilitarian life +were become weary, flat, and stale. Sir Thomas was a miserable man--a +bereaved old man--who nevertheless clung to what was left, and struggled +not to grieve for what was lost: there was a terrible strife going on +secretly within him, dragging him this way and that: a little, lightning +flash of good had been darted by Omnipotence right through the +stone-built caverns of his heart, and was smouldering a concentred flame +within its innermost hollow; a small soft-skinned seed had been dropped +by the Father of Spirits into that iron-bound soil, and it was swelling +day by day under the case-hardened surface, gradually with gentle +violence, despite of all the locks and gates, and bolts and bars, a +silent enemy had somehow crept within the fortress of his feelings, +ready at any unguarded moment to fling the portals open. The rock had a +sealed fountain leaping within it, as an infant in the womb. The poor +old man, the worldly cold old man, was giving way. + +Happy misery! for his breaking heart revealed a glorious jewel at the +core. Oh, sorrow beyond price! for natural affections, bursting up amid +these unsunned snows, were a hot-spring to that Iceland soul. Oh, +bitter, bitter penitence most blest! which broke down the money-proud +man, which bruised and kneaded him, humbled, smote, and softened him, +and made him come again a little child--a loving, yearning, little +child--a child with pity in its eyes, with prayer upon its tongue, with +generous affection in its heart. "Oh, Maria! precious, cast-off child, +where art thou, where art thou, where art thou--starving? And canst +thou, blessed God, forgive? And will not thy great mercy bring her to me +yet again? Oh, what a treasury of love have I mis-spent; what riches of +the Heart, what only truest wealth, have I, poor prodigal, been +squandering! Unhappy son--unhappy father of the perjured, heartless, +miserable John! Wo is me! Where art thou, dear child, my pure and best +Maria?" + +We may well guess, far too well, how it was that dear Maria came not +near him. She had been, prior to confinement, very, very ill: nigh to +death: the pangs of travail threatened to have seized upon her all too +soon, when wasted with sorrow, and weakened by want. She lay, long +weeks, battling for life, in her little back parlour, at Islington, +tended night and day by her kind, good husband. + +But did she not often (you will say) urge him, earnestly as the dying +ask, to seek out her father or brother (she had not been told of his +conviction), and to let them know this need? Why, then, did he so often +put her off with faint excuses, and calm her with coming hopes, and do +any thing, say any thing, suffer any thing, rather than execute the +fervent wish of the affectionate Maria? It is easily understood. With, +and notwithstanding, all the high sentiments, strong sense, and warm +feelings of Henry Clements, he was too proud to seek any succour of the +Dillaways. Sooner than give that hard old man, or, beforetime, that keen +malicious young one, any occasion to triumph over his necessitous +condition, he himself would starve: ay, and trust to Heaven his darling +wife and child; but not trust these to them. Never, never--if the +heart-divorcing work-house were their doom--should that father or that +brother hear from him a word of supplication, or one murmur of +complaint. Nay; he took pains to hinder their knowledge of this trouble: +all the world, rather than those two men. Let penury, disease, the very +parish-beadle triumph over him, but not those two. It was a natural +feeling for a sensitive mind like his--but in many respects a wrong one. +It was to put away, deliberately, the helping hand of Providence, +because it bade him kiss the rod. It was a direct preference of honour +to humility. It was an unconsciously unkind consideration of himself +before those whom he nevertheless believed and called more dear to him +than life--but not than honour. Therefore it was that the hand-bills he +had so often seen pasted upon walls were disregarded, that the numerous +newspaper advertisements remained unanswered, and that all the efforts +of an almost frantic father to find his long-lost daughter were in vain. + +Meanwhile, to be just upon poor Clements, who really fancied he was +doing right in this, he left no stone unturned to obtain a provision for +his beloved wife and child. Frequently, by letters (as little urgent as +affection and necessity would suffer him), he had pressed upon some +powerful friends for that vague phantom of a gentlemanly +livelihood--"something under government;" a hope improbable of +accomplishment, indefinite as to view, but still a hope: especially, +since very civil answers came to his request, couched in terms of +official guardedness. He had called anxiously upon "old friends," in +pretty much of his usual elegant dress (for he was wise enough, or proud +enough, never to let his poverty be seen in his attire), and they made +many polite inquiries after "Mrs. Clements," and "Where are you living?" +and "How is it you never come our way?" and "Clements has cut us all +dead," and so forth. It was really entirely his own fault, but he never +could contrive to tell the truth: and when one day, in a careless tone +of voice, he threw out something about "Do you happen to have ten pounds +about you?" to a dashing young blood of his acquaintance--the dashing +young blood affected to treat it as a joke--"You married men, lucky +dogs, with your regular establishments, are too hard upon us poor +bachelors, who have nothing but clubs to go to. I give you my honour, +Clements, ten pounds would dine me for a fortnight:--spare me this time, +there's a fine fellow: take the trouble to write a cheque on your +bankers--here's paper--and my tiger shall get it cashed for you while +you wait: we poor bachelors are never flush." But Clements had already +owned it was a mere "_obiter dictum_,"--nothing but a joke of prudent +marriage against extravagant bachelorship. + +Ah, what a bitter joke was that! On the verge of that yes or no, to be +uttered by his frank young friend, trembled reluctant honour; +home-affections were imploring in that careless tone of voice; hunger +put that off-hand question. It was vain; a cruel killing effort for his +pride: so Henry Clements never asked again; withdrew himself from +friends; grew hopeless, all but reckless; and his only means of living +were picked up scantily from the by-ways of literature. An occasional +guinea from a magazine, a copy of that luckily anonymous tragedy now and +then sold by him from house to house (he always disguised himself at +such times), a little indexing to be done for publishers, and a little +correcting of the press for printers--these formed the trifling and +uncertain pittance upon which the pale family existed. Poor Henry +Clements, proud Henry Clements, you had, indeed, a dose of physic for +your pride: bitter draughts, bitter draughts, day after day; but, for +all that weak and wasted wife, dearly, devotedly beloved; for all the +pining infant, with its angel face and beautiful smiles: for all the +strong pleadings of affection, yea, and gnawing hunger too, the strong +man's pride was stronger. And had not God's good providence proved +mercifully strongest of them all, that family of love would have starved +outright for pride. + +But Heaven's favour willed it otherwise. By something little short of +miracle, where food was scant and medicine scarce, the poor emaciated +mother gradually gained strength--that long, low fever left her, health +came again upon her cheek, her travail passed over prosperously, the +baby too thrived, (oh, more than health to mothers!) and Maria Clements +found herself one morning strong enough to execute a purpose she had +long most anxiously designed. "Henry was wrong to think so harshly of +her father. She knew he would not spurn her away: he must be kind, for +she loved him dearly still. Wicked as it doubtless was of her [dear +innocent girl] to have done any thing contrary to his wishes, she was +sure he would relieve her in her utmost need. He could not, could not be +so hard as poor dear Henry made him." So, taking advantage of her +husband's absence during one of his literary pilgrimages, she took her +long-forgotten bonnet and shawl, and, with the baby in her arms, flew on +the wings of love, duty, penitence, and affection to her dear old home +in Finsbury square. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE FATHER FINDS HIS HEART FOR EVER. + + +He had been at death's door, sinking out of life, because he had nothing +now to live for. He still was very weak in bed, faint, and worn, and +white, propped up with pillows--that poor, bereaved old man. Ever since +Lady Dillaway's most quiet death he had felt alone in the world. True, +while she lived she had seemed to him a mere tranquil trouble, a useless +complacent piece of furniture, often in his way; but now that she was +dead, what a void was left where she had been--mere empty space, cold +and death-like. She had left him quite alone. + +Then again--of John, poor John, he would think, and think +continually--not about the little vulgar pock-marked man of 'change, the +broker, the rogue, the coward--but of a happy curly child, with +sparkling eyes--a merry-hearted, ruddy little fellow, romping with his +sister--ay, in this very room; here is the identical China vase he +broke, all riveted up; there is the corner where he would persist to +nestle his dormice. Ah, dear child! precious child! where is he +now?--Where and what indeed! Alas, poor father! had you known what I do, +and shall soon inform the world, of that bad man's awful end, one more, +one fiercest pang would have tormented you: but Heaven spared that pang. +Nevertheless, the bitter contrast of the child and of the man had made +him very wretched--and to the widower's solitude added the father's +sadness. + +And worst of all--Maria's utter loss--that dear, warm-hearted, innocent, +ill-used, and yet beloved daughter. Why did he spurn her away? and keep +her away so long?--oh, hard heart, hard heart! Was she not innocent, +after all? and John, bad John, too probably the forger of that letter, +as the forger of this will? And now that he should give his life to see +her, and kiss her, and--no, no, not forgive her, but pray to be forgiven +by her--"Where is she? why doesn't she come to hold up my poor weak +head--to see how fervently my dead old heart has at last learnt to +love--to help a bad, and hard, a pardoned and penitent old man to die in +perfect peace--to pray with me, for me, to God, our God, my daughter! +Where is she--how can I find her out--why will she not come to me all +this sorrowful year? Oh come, come, dear child--our Father send thee to +me--come and bless me ere I die--come, my Maria!" + +Magical, or contrived, as it may seem to us, the poor old man was +actually bemoaning himself thus, when our dear heroine of the Heart +faintly knocked at her old home door. It opened; a faded-looking woman, +with a baby in her arms, rushed past the astonished butler: and, just as +her father was praying out aloud for Heaven to speed her to him, that +daughter's step was at the bed-room door. + +Before she turned the handle (some house-maid had recognised her on the +stairs, and told her, with an impudent air, that "Sir Thomas was ill +a-bed"), she stopped one calming instant to gain strength of God for +that dreaded interview, and to check herself from bursting in upon the +chamber of sickness, so as to disquiet that dear weak patient. So, she +prayed, gently turned the handle, and heard those thrilling +words--"Come, my Maria!" + +It was enough; their hearts burst out together like twin fountains, +rolling their joyful sorrows together towards the sea of endless love, +as a swollen river that has broken through some envious and constraining +dam! It was enough; they wept together, rejoiced together, kissed and +clasped each other in the fervour of full love: the babe lay smiling and +playing on the bed: Maria, in a torrent of happiest tears, fondled that +poor old man, who was crying and laughing by turns, as little children +do--was praising God out loud like a saint, and calling down blessings +on his daughter's head in all the transports of a new-found Heart. What +a world of things they had to tell of--how much to explain, excuse, +forgive, and be forgiven, especially about that wicked letter--how +fervently to make up now for love that long lay dormant--how heartily to +bless each other, and to bless again! Who can record it all? Who can +even sketch aright the heavenly hues that shone about that scene of the +affections? Alas, my pen is powerless--yea, no mortal hand can trace +those heavenly hues. Angels that are round the penitent's, the good +man's bed--ye alone who witness it, can utter what ye see: ye alone, +rejoicingly with those rejoicing, gladly speed aloft frequent +ambassadors to Him, the Lord of Love, with some new beauteous trait, +some rare ecstatic thought, some pure delighted look, some more burning +prayer, some gem of Heaven's jewellery more brilliant than the rest, +which raises happy envy of your bright compeers. I see your shining +bands crowding enamoured round that scene of human tenderness; while now +and then some peri-like seraph of your thronging spiritual forms will +gladly wing away to find favour of his God for a tear, or a prayer, or a +holy thought dropped by his ministering hands into the treasury of +Heaven. + +But the cup of joy is large and deep: it is an ocean in capacity: and +mantling though it seemeth to the brim, God's bounty poureth on. + +Another step is on the stairs! You have guessed it, Henry Clements. +Returning home wearily, after a disheartening expedition, and finding +his wife, to his great surprise, gone out, sick and weak, as still he +thought her, he had calculated justly on the direction whereunto her +heart had carried her; he had followed her speedily, and, with many +self-compunctions, he had determined to be proud no more, and to help, +with all his heart, in that holy reconciliation. See! at the bed-side, +folding Maria with one arm, and with his other hand tightly clasped in +both of that kind and changed old man's, stands Henry Clements. + +Ay, changed indeed! Who could have discovered in that joy-illumined +brow, in those blessing-dropping lips, in those eyes full of penitence, +and pity, and peace, and praise, and prayer, the harsh old usurer--the +crafty money-cankered knave of dim St. Benet's Sherehog--the cold +husband--the cruel father--the man without a heart? Ay, changed--changed +for ever now, an ever of increasing happiness and love. Who or what had +caused this deep and mighty change? Natural affection was the sword, and +God's the arm that wielded it. None but he could smite so deeply; and +when he smote, pour balm into the wound: none but He could kill death, +that dead dried heart, and quicken life within its mummied caverns: none +but the Voice, which said "Let there be light," could work this common +miracle of "Let there be love." + +He grew feebler--feebler, that dying kind old man: it had been too much +for him, doubtlessly; he had long been ill, and should long ago have +died; but that he had lived for this; and now the end seemed near. They +never left his bed-side then for days and nights, that new-found son and +daughter: physicians came, and recommended that the knight be quite +alone, quite undisturbed: but Sir Thomas would not, could not--it were +cruelty to force it; so he lay feebly on his back, holding on either +side the hands of Henry and Maria. + +It was not so very long: they had come almost in the nick of time: a few +days and hours at the most, and all will then be over. So did they watch +and pray. + +And the old man faintly whispered: + +"Henry--son Henry: poor John, forgive him, as you and our God have now +forgiven me; poor John--when he comes back again from those long years +of slavery, give him a home, son--give him a home, and enough to keep +him honest; tell him I love him, and forgive him; and remind him that I +died, praying Heaven for my poor boy's soul. + +"Henry and Maria--I had, since my great distresses, well nigh forgotten +this world's wealth; but now, thank God, I have thought of it all for +your sakes: in my worst estate of mind I made a wicked will. It is in +that drawer--quick, give it me. + +"Thanks--thanks--there is time to tear it; and these good friends, Dr. +Jones and Mr. Blair, take witness--I destroy this wicked will; and my +only child, Maria, has my wealth in course of law. Wealth, yes--if well +used, let us call it wealth; for riches may indeed be made a mine of +good, and joy, and righteousness. I am unworthy to use any of it well, +unworthy of the work, unworthy of the reward: use it well, my holier +children, wisely, liberally, kindly: God give you to do great good with +it; God give you to feel great happiness in all your doing good. My +hands that saved and scraped it all, also often-times by evil hardness, +now penitently washed in the Fountain of Salvation, heartily renounce +that evil. Be ye my stewards; give liberally to many needy. Oh me, my +sin! children, to my misery you know what need is: I can say no more; +poor sinful man, how dare I preach to others? Children, dearest ones, I +am a father still; and I would bless you--bless you! + +"I grow weak, but my heart seems within me to grow stronger--I go--I go, +to the Home of Heart, where He that sits upon the throne is Love, and +where all the pulses of all the beings there thrill in unison with him, +the Great Heart of Heaven! I, even I, am one of the redeemed--my heart +is fixed, I will sing and give praise; I, even I, the hardest and the +worst, forgiven, accepted! Who are ye, bright messengers about my bed, +heralds of glory? I go--I go--one--one more, Maria--one last kiss; we +meet--again--in Heaven!" + +Had he fainted? yes--his countenance looked lustrous, yet diminishing in +glory, even as a setting sun; the living smile faded gradually away, and +a tranquil cold calm crept over his cheeks: the angelic light which made +his eyes so beautiful to look at, was going out--going out: all was +peace--peace--deep peace. + +O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting? + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +A WORD ABOUT ORIGINALITY AND MOURNING. + + +When a purely inventive genius concocts a fabulous tale, it is clearly +competent to him so to order matters, that characters shall not die off +till his book is shortly coming to an end: and had your obedient servant +now been engaged in the architecture of a duly conventional story, +arranged in pattern style, with climax in the middle and a brace of ups +and downs to play supporters, doubtless he might easy have kept alive +both father and mother to witness the triumph of innocence, and have +produced their deaths at the last as a kind of "sweet sorrow," or honied +sting, wherewithal to point his moral. Such, however, was not my +authorship's intention; and, seeing that a wilful pen must have its way, +I have chosen to construct my own veracious tale, respecting the +incidents of life and death, much as such events not unfrequently occur, +that is, at an inconvenient season: for though such accessories to the +fact of dying, as triumphant conversion, or a tranquil going out, may +appear to be a little out of the common way, still the circumstance of +death itself often in real life seems to come as out of time, as your +wisdom thinks in the present book of Heart. People will die untowardly, +and people will live provokingly, notwithstanding all that novelists +have said and poets sung to the contrary: and if two characters out of +our principal five have already left the mimic scene, it will now be my +duty only to show, as nature and society do, how, of those three +surviving chief _dramatis personæ_, two of them--to wit, our hero and +heroine of Heart--gathered many friends about their happy homestead, did +a world of good, and, in fine, furnish our volume with a suitable +counterpoise to the mass of selfish sin, which (at its height in the +only remaining character) it has been my fortune to record and to +condemn as the opposite topic of heartlessness. + +If writers will be bound by classic rules, and walk on certain roads +because other folks have gone that way before them, needs must that +ill-starred originality perish from this world's surface, and find +refuge (if it can) in the gentle moon or Sirius. Therefore, let us +boldly trespass from the trodden paths, let us rather shake off the +shackles of custom than hug them as an ornament approved: and, +notwithstanding both parental deaths, seemingly ill-timed for the +happiness of innocence, let us acquiesce in the facts, as plain matters +of history, not dubious thoughts of fiction; and let us gather to the +end any good we can, either from the miserable solitude of a selfish +Dillaway, or from the hearty social circle of our happy married pair. + +Need I, sons and daughters, need I record at any length how Maria +mourned for her father? If you now have parents worthy of your love, if +you now have hearts to love them, I may safely leave that theme to your +affections: "now" is for all things "the accepted time," now is the day +for reconciliations: our life is a perpetual now. However unfilial you +may have been, however stern or negligent they, if there is now the will +to bless, and now the heart to love, all is well--well at the last, well +now for evermore--thank Heaven for so glad a consummation. Oh, that my +pen had power to make many fathers kind, many children trustful! Oh, +that by some burning word I could thaw the cold, shame sarcasms, and +arouse the apathetic! Oh that, invoking upon every hearth, whereto this +book may come, the full free blaze of home affections, my labour of love +be any thing but vain, when God shall have blessed what I am writing! + +Yes, children, dear Maria did mourn for her father, but she mourned as +those who hope; his life had been forgiven, and his death was as a +saints's: as for her, rich rewarded daughter at the last, one word of +warm acknowledgement, one look of true affection, one tear of deep +contrition, would have been superabundant to clear away all the many +clouds, the many storms of her past home-life: and as for our Maker, +with his pure and spotless justice, faith in the sacrifice had passed +all sin to him, and love of the Redeemer had proved that faith the true +one. How should a daughter mourn for such a soul? With tears of joy; +with sighs--of kindred hopefulness; with happiest resolve to live as he +had died; with instant prayer that her last end be like his. + +There is a plain tablet in St. Benet's church, just within the +altar-rail, bearing--no inscription about Lord Mayoralty, Knighthood, or +the Worshipful Company of Stationers--but full of facts more glorious +than every honour under heaven; for the words run thus: + + SORROWFUL, YET REJOICING, + A DAUGHTER'S LOVE HAS PLACED THIS TABLET + TO THE MEMORY OF + T H O M A S D I L L A W A Y; + A MAN WHO DIED IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST, + IN THE LOVE OF GOD, AND IN THE HOPE OF HEAVEN. + +Noble epitaph! Let us so live, that the like of this may be truth on our +tomb-stones. Seek it, rather than wealth, before honour, instead of +pleasure; for, indeed, those words involve within their vast +significancy riches unsearchable, glory indestructible, and pleasure for +evermore! Hide them, as a string of precious pearls, within the casket +of your hearts. + +I had almost forgotten, though Maria never could, another neighbouring +tablet to record the peaceful exit of her mother; however, as this had +been erected by Sir Thomas in his life-time, and was plastered thick +with civic glories and heathen virtues, possibly the transcript may be +spared: there was only one sentence that looked true about the epitaph, +though I wished it had been so in every sense; but, to common eyes, it +had seemed quite suitable to the physical quietude of living Lady +Dillaway, to say, "Her end was peace;" although, perhaps, the husband +little thought how sore that mother's heart was for dear Maria's loss, +how full of anxious doubts her mind about Maria's sin. Poor soul, +however peaceful now that spirit has read the truth, in the hour of her +departure it had been with her far otherwise: her dying bed was as a +troubled sea, for she died of a broken heart. + +Yearly, on the anniversaries of their respective deaths, the growing +clan of Clements make a solemn pilgrimage to their grand paternal +shrine, attending service on those days (or the holiday nearest to +them), at St. Benet's Sherehog; and Maria's eyes are very moist on such +occasions; though hope sings gladly too within her wise and cheerful +heart. She does not seem to have lost those friends; they are only gone +before. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. + + +But in fact, with our happy married folks an anniversary of some sort is +perpetually recurring: wedding-days, birth-days, and all manner of +festival occasions, worthy (as the old Romans would have said) to be +noted up with chalk, happened in that family of love weekly--almost +daily. They cultivated well the grateful soil of Heart, by a thousand +little dressings and diggings; courting to it the warm sunshine of the +skies, the zephyrs of pleasant recollections, and the genial dews of +sympathy. And very wise were all those labours of delight; for their +sons and their daughters grew up as the polished corners in the temple; +moulded with delicate affections, their moral essence sharp, and clearly +edged with sensitive feelings, as if they had sprung fresh from the +hands of God, their sculptor, and the world had not rubbed off the +master-touches of His chisel. For, in this dull world, we cheat +ourselves and one another of innocent pleasures by the score, through +very carelessness and apathy: courted day after day by happy memories, +we rudely brush them off with this indiscriminating bosom, the stern +material present: invited to help in rendering joyful many a patient +heart, we neglect the little word that might have done it, and +continually defraud creation of its share of kindliness from us. The +child made merrier by your interest in his toy; the old domestic +flattered by your seeing him look so well; the poor, better helped by +your blessing than your penny (though give the penny too); the labourer, +cheered upon his toil by a timely word of praise; the humble friend +encouraged by your frankness; equals made to love you by the expression +of your love; and superiors gratified by attention and respect, and +looking out to benefit the kindly--how many pleasures here for any hand +to gather; how many blessings here for any heart to give! Instead of +these, what have we rife about the world? Frigid compliment--for warmth +is vulgar; reserve of tongue--for it is folly to be talkative; +composure, never at fault--for feelings are dangerous things; +gravity--for that looks wise; coldness--for other men are cold; +selfishness--for every one is struggling for his own. This is all false, +all bad; the slavery chain of custom riveted by the foolishness of +fashion; because there ever is a band of men and women, who have nothing +to recommend them but externals--their looks or their dresses, their +rank or their wealth--and in order to exalt the honour of these, they +agree to set a compact seal of silence on the heart and on the mind; +lest the flood of humbler men's affections, or of wiser men's +intelligence, should pale their tinsel-praise; and the warm and the wise +too softly acquiesce in this injury done to heartiness shamed by the +effrontery of cold calm fools, and the shallow dignity of an empty +presence. Turn the tables on them, ye truer gentry, truer nobility, +truer royalty of the heart and of the mind; speak freely, love warmly, +laugh cheerfully, explain frankly, exhort zealously, admire liberally, +advise earnestly--be not ashamed to show you have a heart: and if some +cold-blooded simpleton greet your social effort with a sneer, repay +him--for you can well afford a richer gift than his whole treasury +possesses--repay him with a kind good-humoured smile: it would have +shamed Jack Dillaway himself. If a man persists to be silent in a crowd +for vanity's sake, instead of sociable, as good company expects, count +him simply for a fool; you will not be far wrong; he remembers the +copy-book at school, no doubt, with its large-text aphorism, "Silence is +wisdom;" and thinking in an easy obedience to gain credit from mankind +by acting on that questionable sentence, the result is what you +perpetually see--a self-contained, self-satisfied, selfish, and reserved +young puppy. Hint to such an incommunicative comrade, that the fashion +now is coming about, to talk and show your wisdom; not to sit in shallow +silence, hiding hard your folly; soon shall you loosen the flood-gates +of his speech; and society will even thank you for it; for, bore as the +chatterer may oft-times be, still he does the frank companion's duty; +and at any rate is vastly preferable to the dull, unwarmed, +unsympathetic watcher at the festal board, who sits there to exhibit his +painted waistcoat instead of the heart that should be in it, and +patiently waits, with a snakish eye and a bitter tongue, to aid +conversation with a sarcasm. + +Henry and Maria had many hearty friends to keep their many +anniversaries. They were well enough for wealth, as we may guess without +much trouble; for the knight had left three thousand a-year behind him, +and Maria, as sole heiress, had no difficulty in establishing her claim +to it; but it may be well to put mankind in memory how hospitably, how +charitably, how wisely, and how heartily they stewarded it. I need not +stop to tell of local charities assisted, good societies supported, and +of philanthropic good done by means of their money, both at home and +abroad: nor detail their many dinners, and other festal opportunities, +rivets in the lengthening chain of ordinary friendship: but I do wish to +make honourable mention of one happiest anniversary, which, while it +commemorated fine young Master Harry's birth, rejoiced the many poor of +Lower-Sack street, Islington. + +The birth-day itself was kept at home with all the honours, in their old +house at Finsbury square; Maria would not leave that house, for old +acquaintance sake. Master Harry, a frank-faced, open-hearted, +curly-headed boy of ten (at least when I dined there, for he has +probably grown older since), was of course the happy hero of the feast, +ably supported by divers joyful brothers and sisters, who had all +contributed to their elder brother's triumph on that day, by the +contribution of their various presents--one a little scent bag, another +a rude drawing, another a book-marker, and so forth, all probably +worthless in the view of selfish calculation, but inestimable according +to the currency of Heart. Half-a-dozen choice old friends closed the +list of company; and a noisy rout of boys and girls were added in the +early evening, full of negus, and sponge-cake, snap-dragon, and +blindman's-buff, with merry music, and a golden-flood of dances and +delight. + +We dined early; and, to be very confidential with you, I thought (until +I found out reasons why), that the bill-of-fare upon the table was +inordinately large, not to say vulgar; for the board was overloaded with +solid sweets and savouries: so, in my uncharitable mind, I set all that +down to the uncivilized hospitality asserted of a citizen's feast, and +(for aught I know) still rife in St. Mary Axe and Finsbury square. + +Never mind how the dinner passed off, nor how jovially the children kept +it up till near eleven: for I learnt, in an incidental way, what was +regularly done upon the morrow; and I am sure it will gratify my readers +to learn it too, as a trait of considerate kindness which will gladden +man and woman's heart. + +On the seventh of April in every year (Harry's birth-day was the sixth), +Henry and Maria used to go on an humble pilgrimage to Lower Sack street, +Islington. Not to shame the poor by fine clothes or their usual +equipage, they sedulously donned on that occasion the same now faded +suits they had worn in their adversity, and made their progress in a +hackney-coach. They would have walked for humility's sake and sympathy, +but that the coach in question was crammed full of eatables and +drinkables, nicely packed up in well-considered parcels, consisting of +the vast _débris_ of yesterday's overwhelming feast, with a sackful of +tea and sugar added. Their pockets also, as I took the liberty of +inquiring at Sack street afterwards, must have been well stored, for +their largess was munificent. Then would they go to that identical +lodgings of years gone by, where they had so struggled with adversity, +now in the happy contrast of wealth and peace and thankfulness to +Heaven, and of joy at doing good. That parlour was right liberally hired +for the day, and all the poor in Sack street were privileged to call, +where Mrs. Clements held her levee. They came in an orderly stream, +clean for the occasion, and full of gratitude and blessings; and, to be +just upon the poor, no impostor had ever been known to intrude upon the +privilege of Sack street. As for dear Maria, she regularly broke down +just as the proceedings commenced, and Henry's manlier hand had to give +away the spoil; whilst Maria sobbed beside him, as if her heart would +break. Then did the good old nurse come in for a cold round of beef, +with tea, sugar, and a sovereign; and the bed-ridden neighbour up-stairs +for jellied soup, and other condiments, with a similar royal climax; and +the cobbler over the way carried off ham and chickens, with apple-puffs +and a bottle of wine: and so some thirty or forty families were +gladdened for the hour, and made wealthy for a week. Altogether they +divided amongst them a coachful of comestibles, and a pocketful of coin. + +It would be impertinent in us to intrude so far on privacy, as to record +how Henry and Maria passed much time in prayer and praise on that +interesting anniversary; it is unnecessary too, for in fact they did not +stop for anniversaries to do that sort of thing. Be sure that good +thoughts and good words are ever found preceding good and grateful +deeds. It is quite enough to know that they did God service in doing +good to man. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE END OF THE HEARTLESS. + + +There is plenty of contrast in this poor book, if that be any virtue. +Let us turn our eyes away from those scenes of love and cheerfulness, of +benevolence and peace. Let us leave Maria in her nursery, hearing the +little ones their lessons; and Henry cutting the leaves of a nice new +book, fresh from the press, while his home-taught son and heir is +playing at pot-hooks and hangers in a copy-book beside him. Let us +recollect their purity of mind, their holiness of motive, and their +happiness of life; these are the victims of false-witness. And how fares +the wretch that would have starved them? + +The fate of John Dillaway is at once so tragical, so interesting, and so +instructive, that it will be well for us to be transported for awhile, +and give this rogue the benefit of honest company. + +For many months I had seen a sullen lowering fellow, with cropped head, +ironed-legs, and the motley garments of disgrace, driven forth at early +morning with his gang of bad compeers; a slave, toiling till night-fall +in piling cannon-balls, and chipping off the rust with heavy hammers; a +sentinel stood near with a loaded musket; they might not speak to each +other, that miserable gang; hope was dead among them; life had no +delights; they wreaked their silent hatred on those hammered +cannon-balls. The man who struck the fiercest, that sullen convict with +the lowering brow, was our stock-jobber, John Dillaway. + +Soon after that foretaste of slavery at Woolwich, the ship sailed, +freighted with incarnate crime; her captain was a ruffian; (could he +help it with such cargoes?) her crew, the offscouring of all nations; +and the Chesapeake herself was an old rotten hull, condemned, after one +more voyage, to be broken up; a creaking, foul, unsafe vessel, full of +rats, cockroaches, and other vermin. + +The sun glared ungenially at that blot upon the waters, breeding +infectious disease; the waves flung the hated burden from one to the +other, disdainful of her freight of sin; the winds had no commission for +fair sailing, but whistled through the rigging crossways, howling in the +ears of many in that ship, as if they carried ghosts along with them: +the very rocks and reefs butted her off the creamy line of breakers, as +sea-unicorns distorting; no affectionate farewell blessed her departure; +no hearty welcomes await her at the port. + +And they sailed many days as in a floating hell, hot, miserable, and +cursing; the scanty meal was flung to them like dog's-meat, and they +lapped the putrid water from a pail; gang by gang for an hour they might +pace the smoking deck, and then and thence were driven down to fester in +the hold for three-and-twenty more. O, those closed hatches by night! +what torments were the kernel of that ship! Suffocated by the heat and +noxious smells; bruised against each other, and by each other's blows, +as the black unwieldy vessel staggered about among the billows, the +wretched mass of human misery wore away those tropical nights in horrid +imprecation; worse than crowded slaves upon the Spanish Main, from the +blister of crime upon their souls, and their utter lack of hopefulness +for ever. + +And now, after all the shattering storms, and haggard sufferings, and +degrading terrors of that voyage, they neared the metropolis of sin; +some town on Botany Bay, a blighted shore--where each man, looking at +his neighbour, sees in him an outcast from heaven. They landed in +droves, that ironed flock of men; and the sullenest-looking scoundrel of +them all was John Dillaway. + +There were murderers among his gang; but human passions, which had +hurried them to crime, now had left them as if wrecked upon a lee +shore--humbled and remorseful, and heaven's happier sun shed some light +upon their faces: there were burglars; but the courage which could dare +those deeds, now lending strength to bear the stroke of punishment, +enabled them to walk forth even cheerily to meet their doom of labour: +there was rape; but he hid himself, ashamed, vowing better things: fiery +arson, too, was there, sorry for his rash revenge: also, conspiracy and +rebellion, confessing that ambition such as theirs had been wickedness +and folly; and common frauds, and crimes, and social sins; bad enough, +God wot, yet hopeful; but the mean, heartless, devilish criminality of +our young Dagon beat them all. If to be hard-hearted were a virtue, the +best man there was Dillaway. + +And now they were to be billeted off among the sturdy colonists as +farm-servants, near a-kin to slaves; tools in the rough hands of men who +pioneer civilization, with all the vices of the social, and all the +passions of the savage. And on the strand, where those task-masters +congregated to inspect the new-come droves, each man selected according +to his mind: the rougher took the roughest, and the gentler, the +gentlest; the merry-looking field farmer sought out the cheerful, and +the sullen backwoods settler chose the sullen. Dillaway's master was a +swarthy, beetled-browed caitiff, who had worn out his own seven years of +penalty, and had now set up tyrant for himself. + +As a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in a stagnant little clearing +of the forest, our convict toiled continually--continually--like +Caliban: all days alike; hewing at the mighty trunk and hacking up the +straggling branches; no hope--no help--no respite; and the iron of +servile tyranny entered into his very soul. Ay--ay; the culprit +convicted, when he hears in open court, with an impudent assurance, the +punishment that awaits him on those penal shores, little knows the +terrors of that sentence. Months and years--yea, haply to gray hairs and +death, slavery unmitigated--uncomforted; toil and pain; toil and sorrow; +toil, and nothing to cheer; even to the end, vain tasked toil. Old +hopes, old recollections, old feelings, violently torn up by the roots. +No familiar face in sickness, no patient nurse beside the dying bed: no +hope for earth, and no prospect of heaven: but, in its varying phases, +one gloomy glaring orb of ever-present hell. + +It grew intolerable--intolerable; he was beaten, mocked, and almost a +maniac. Escape--escape! Oh, blessed thought! into the wild free woods! +there, with the birds and flowers, hill and dale, fresh air and liberty! +Oh, glad hope--mad hope! His habitual cunning came to his aid; he +schemed, he contrived, he accomplished. The jutting heads of the rivets +having been diligently rubbed away from his galling fetter by a big +stone--a toil of weeks--he one day stood unshackled, having watched his +time to be alone. An axe was in his hand, and the saved single dinner of +pea-bread. That beetled-browed task-master slumbered in the hut; that +brother convict--(why need he care for him, too? every one for himself +in this world)--that kinder, humbler, better man was digging in the +open; if he wants to escape, let him think of himself: John Dillaway has +enough to take care for. Now, then; now, unobserved, unsuspected; now is +the chance! Joy, life, and liberty! Oh, glorious prospect--for this +inland world is unexplored. + +He stole away, with panting heart, and fearfully exulting eye; he +ran--ran--ran, for miles--it may have been scores of them--till +night-fall, on the soft and pleasant greensward under those high echoing +woods. None pursued; safe--safe; and deliciously he slept that night +beneath a spreading wattle-tree, after the first sweet meal of freedom. + +Next morning, waked up like the starting kangaroos around him (for John +Dillaway had not bent the knee in prayer since childhood), off he set +triumphant and refreshed: his arm was strong, and he trusted in it, his +axe was sharp, and he looked to that for help; he knew no other God. Off +he set for miles--miles--miles: still that continuous high acacia wood, +though less naturally park-like, often-times choked with briars, and +here and there impervious a-head. Was it all this same starving forest +to the wide world's end? He dug for roots, and found some acrid bulbs +and tubers, which blistered up his mouth; but he was hungry, and ate +them; and dreaded as he ate. Were they poisonous? Next to it, Dillaway; +so he hurried eagerly to dilute their griping juices with the mountain +streams near which he slept: the water was at least kindly cooling to +his hot throat; he drank huge draughts, and stayed his stomach. + +Next morning, off again: why could he not catch and eat some of those +half-tame antelopes? Ha! He lay in wait hours--hours, near the torrent +to which they came betimes to slake their thirst: but their beautiful +keen eyes saw him askance--and when he rashly hoped to hunt one down +afoot, they went like the wind for a minute--then turned to look at him +afar off, mockingly--poor, panting, baffled creeper. + +No; give it up--this savoury hope of venison; he must go despondently on +and on; and he filled his belly with grass. Must he really starve in +this interminable wood! He dreamt that night of luxurious city feasts, +the turtle, turbot, venison, and champagne; and then how miserably weak +he woke. But he must on wearily and lamely, for ever through this +wood--objectless, except for life and liberty. Oh, that he could meet +some savage, and do him battle for the food he carried; or that a dead +bird, or beast, or snake lay upon his path; or that one of those +skipping kangaroos would but come within the reach of his oft-aimed +hatchet! No: for all the birds and flowers, and the free wild woods, and +hill, and dale, and liberty, he was starving--starving; so he browsed +the grass as Nebuchadnezzar in his lunacy. And the famished wretch would +have gladly been a slave again. + +Next morning, he must lie and perish where he slept, or move on: he +turned to the left, not to go on for ever; probably, ay, too probably, +he had been creeping round a belt. Oh, precious thought of change! for +within three hours there was light a-head, light beneath the tangled +underwood: he struggled through the last cluster of thick bushes, +longing for a sight of fertile plain, and open country. Who knows? are +there not men dwelling there with flocks and herds, and food and plenty? +Yes--yes, and Dillaway will do among them yet. You envious boughs, delay +me not! He tore aside the last that hid his view, and found that he was +standing on the edge of an ocean of sand--hot yellow sand to the +horizon! + +He fainted--he had like to have died; but as for prayer--he only +muttered curses on this bitter, famishing disappointment. He dared not +strike into the wood again--he dared not advance upon that yellow sea +exhausted and unprovisioned: it was his wisdom to skirt the wood; and so +he trampled along weakly--weakly. This liberty to starve is horrible! + +Is it, John Dillaway? What, have you no compunctions at that word +starve? no bitter, dreadful recollections? Remember poor Maria, that own +most loving sister, wanting bread through you. Remember Henry Clements, +and their pining babe; remember your own sensual feastings and +fraudulent exultation, and how you would utterly have starved the good, +the kind, the honest! This same bitter cup is filled for your own lips, +and you must drink it to the dregs. Have you no compunctions, man? +nothing tapping at your heart? for you must _starve_! + +No! not yet--not yet! for chance (what Dillaway lyingly called +chance)--in his moments of remorse at these reflections, when God had +hoped him penitent at last, and, if he still continued so, might save +him--sent help in the desert! For, as he reelingly trampled along on the +rank herbage between this forest and that sea of sand, just as he was +dying of exhaustion, his faint foot trod upon a store of life and +health! It was an Emeu's ill-protected nest; and he crushed, where he +had trodden, one of those invigorating eggs. Oh, joy--joy--no +thanks--but sensual joy! There were three of them, and each one meat for +a day; ash-coloured without, but the within--the within--full of sweet +and precious yolk! Oh, rich feast, luscious and refreshing: cheer +up--cheer up: keep one to cross the desert with: ay--ay, luck will come +at last to clever Jack! how shrewd it was of me to find those eggs! + +Thus do the wicked forget thee, blessed God! thou hast watched this bad +man day by day, and all the dark nights through, in tender expectation +of some good: Thou hast been with him hourly in that famishing forest, +tempting him by starvation to--repentance; and how gladly did Thine +eager mercy seize this first opportunity of half-formed penitence to +bless and help him--even him, liberally and unasked! Thanks to +Thee--thanks to Thee! Why did not that man thank Thee? Who more grieved +at his thanklessness than Thou art? Who more sorry for the righteous and +necessary doom which the impenitence of heartlessness drags down upon +itself? + +And Providence was yet more kind, and man yet more ungrateful; mercy +abounding over the abundant sin. For the famished vagrant diligently +sought about for more rich prizes; and, as the manner is of those +unnatural birds to leave their eggs carelessly to the hatching of the +sunshine, he soon stumbled on another nest. "Ha--ha!" said he, "clever +Jack Dillaway of Broker's alley isn't done up yet: no--no, trust him for +taking care of number one; now then for the desert; with these four huge +eggs and my trusty hatchet, deuce take it, but I'll manage somehow!" + +Thus, deriving comfort from his bold hard heart, he launched +unhesitatingly upon that sea of sand: with aching toil through +the loose hot soil he ploughed his weary way, footsore, for +leagues--leagues--lengthened leagues; yellow sand all round, before, and +on either hand, as far as eye can stretch, and behind and already in the +distance that terrible forest of starvation. But what, then, is the name +of this burnt plain, unwatered by one liquid drop, unvisited even by +dews in the cold dry night? Have you not yet found a heart, man, to +thank Heaven for that kind supply of recreative nourishment, sweet as +infant's food, the rich delicious yolk, which bears up still your +halting steps across this world of sand? No heart--no heart of +flesh--but a stone--a cold stone, and hard as yonder rocky hillock. + +He climbed it for a view--and what a view! a panorama of perfect +desolation, a continent of vegetable death. His spirit almost failed +within him; but he must on--on, or perish where he stood. Taking no +count of time, and heedless as to whither he might wander, so it be not +back again along that awful track of liberty he longed for, he crept on +by little and little, often resting, often dropping for fatigue, night +and day--day and night: he had made his last meal; he laid him down to +die--and already the premonitory falcon flapped him with its heavy wing. +Ha! what are all those carrion fowls congregated there for? Are they +battening on some dead carcase? O, hope--hope! there is the smell of +food upon the wind: up, man, up--battle with those birds, drive them +away, hew down that fierce white eagle with your axe; what right have +they to precious food, when man, their monarch, starves? So, the poor +emaciated culprit seized their putrid prey, and the scared fowls hovered +but a little space above, waiting instinctively for this new victim: +they had not left him much--it was a feast of remnants--pickings from +the skeleton of some small creature that had perished in the desert--a +wombat, probably, starved upon its travels; but a royal feast it was to +that famishing wretch: and, gathering up the remainder of those +priceless morsels, which he saved for some more fearful future, again he +crept upon his way. Still the same, night and day--day and night--for he +could only travel a league a-day: and at length, a shadowy line between +the sand and sky--far, far off, but circling the horizon as a bow of +hope. Shall it be a land of plenty, green, well-watered meadows, the +pleasant homes of man, though savage, not unfriendly? O hope, +unutterable! or is it (O despair!) another of those dreadful woods, +starving solitude under the high-arched gum-trees. + +Onward he crept; and the line on the horizon grew broader and darker: +onward, still; he was exulting, he had conquered, he was bold and hard +as ever. He got nearer, now within some dozen miles; it was an +indistinct distance, but green at any rate; huzza--never mind +night-fall; he cannot wait, nor rest, with this Elysium before him: so +he toiled along through all the black night, and a friendly storm of +rain refreshed him, as his thirsty pores drank in the cooling stream. +Aha! by morning's dawn he should be standing on the edge of that green +paradise, fresh as a young lion, and no thanks to any one but his own +shrewd indomitable self. + +Morning dawned--and through the vague twilight loomed some high and +tangled wall of green foliage, stretching seemingly across the very +world. Most sickening sight! a matted, thorny jungle, one of those +primeval woods again, but closer, thicker, darker than the park-like +one before; rank and prickly herbage in a rotting swamp, crowding up +about the stately trees. Must he battle his way through? Well, then, if +it must be so, he must and will; any thing rather than this hot and +blistering sand. If he is doomed by fate to starve, be it in the shade, +not in that fierce sun. So, he weakly plied his hatchet, flinging +himself with boldness on that league-thick hedge of thorns; his way was +choked with thorns; he struggled under tearing spines, and through +prickly underwood, and over tangled masses of briery plants, clinging to +him every where around, as with a thousand taloned claws; he is +exhausted, extrication is impossible; he beats the tough creepers with +his dulled hatchet, as a wounded man vainly; ha! one effort more--a +dying effort--must he be impaled upon these sharp aloes, and +strange-leafed prickly shrubs; they have caught him there, those thirsty +poisoned hooks, innumerable as his sins; his way, whichever way he +looks, is hedged up high with thorns--thick-set thorns--sturdy, tearing +thorns, that he cannot battle through them. Emaciated, bleeding, rent, +fainting, famished, he must perish in the merciless thicket into which +hard-heartedness had flung him! + +Before he was well dead, those flapping carrion fowls had found him out; +they were famishing too, and half forgot their natural distaste for +living meat. He fought them vainly, as the dying fight; soon there were +other screams in that echoing solitude, besides the screeching falcons! +and when they reached his heart (if its matter aptly typified its +spirit), that heart should have been a very stone for hardness. + +So let the selfish die! alone, in the waste howling wilderness; so let +him starve uncared-for, whose boast it was that he had never felt for +other than himself--who mocked God, and scorned man--whose motto +throughout life, one sensual, unsympathizing, harsh routine, was this: +"Take care of the belly, and the heart will take care of itself!"--who +never had a wish for other's good, a care for other's evil, a thought +beyond his own base carcase; who was a man--no man--a wretch, without a +heart. So let him perish miserably; and the white eagles pick his +skeleton clean in yonder tangled jungle! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +WHEREIN MATTERS ARE CONCLUDED. + + +Certain folks at Ballyriggan, near Belfast, observe to me, with not a +little Irish truth, that it is by no means easy to conclude a history +never intended to be finished. It so happens that my good friends the +clan Clements are still enjoying life and all it sweets, beneficent in +their generation; and as for their hearts' affections, that story +without an end will still be heard, ringing on its happy changes, in the +presence of God and of his immortal train, when every reader of these +records shall have been to this world dead. Out of the heart are the +issues of life, and within, it is life's well-spring. Death is but a +little narrow gate, in a dark rough pass among the mountains, where each +must go alone, one by one, in solemn silence, for the avalanches hanging +overhead; one by one, in breathless caution, for there is but barely a +footing; one by one, for none can help his brother on the track: the +steady eye of faith, the firm foot of righteousness, the staff of hope +to comfort and support--these be the only helps. And each one carries +with him, as his sole possession on that lonely journey, no heaps of +wealth--no trappings of honour; these burdens of the camel must all be +lifted off, ere he can struggle through that gully in the rocks--"The +Needle's Eye;" but the sole possession which every wayfarer must take +with him into those broad plains where only Spirit can be seen, and Sin +no longer can be hid, is the shrine of his affections, the casket of his +precious pearls in life--his Heart, unmantled and unmasked. And if in +time it had been a well of love, flowing towards God in penitence, and +irrigating this world's garden with charities and blessed works, that +little sparkling stream shall then burst forth from this rocky portal of +the grave, a river of joy and peace, to gladden even more the sunny +provinces of heaven. For the heart with its affections, never dieth: +they may, indeed, flow inward, and corrupt to selfishness; becoming +then, in lieu of fountains of waters, gushing forth to everlasting life, +a bottomless volcano of hot lava, tempestuous and involved, setting up +the creature as his own foul god, and living the perpetual death-bed of +the damned; or they may nobly burst the banks of self, and, rising +momentarily higher and higher, till every Nilometer is drowned, will +seek for ever, with expanding strength, to reach the unapproachable +level of that source in the Most Highest whence they originally sprung. +For this cause, the kindest fatherly word which ever reached man's ear, +the surest scheme for happiness that ever touched his reason, was one +from God's own heart--"My son, give me thy heart." + +They lived upon the blessing of that Word, our noble, kindly pair. To +enlarge upon the thought as respects a better world is well for those +who will: for if He that made the eye and framed the ear, by the +stronger argument Himself must see and hear, so he that fashioned +loveliness and moulded the affections, how well-deserving must that +Beautiful Spirit be of his rational creature's heart! Away with mawkish +cant and stale sentimentalities! let us think, and speak, and feel as +men, framed by nature's urgent law to the lovely and to hate the vile. +Oh, that the advocates for Him, the Good One, would oftener plead His +cause by the human affections--by generosity, by sympathy, by gentleness +and patience, by self-denying love, and soul absolving beauty; for these +are of the essence of God, and their spiritual influence on reason. A +child writes upon his heart that warmer code of morals, which the iron +tool of threatening availeth not to grave upon the rock, while the voice +of love can change that rock into a spring of water. + +But we must descend from our altitudes, and speak of lower things; for +the time and space forbid much longer intrusion on your courtesy. A few +ravelling threads of this our desultory tale have yet to be gathered up, +as tidily as may be. Suffer, then, such mingling of my thoughts: the web +I weave has many threads, woven with divers colours. Human nature is +nothing if not inconsistent; and I have no more notion of irreverence in +turning from a high topic to a low one, than a bee may be fancied to +have of irrelevant idleness in flitting from the sweet violet to the +scented dahlia. We may gather honey out of every flower. Have you not +often noticed, that riches generally come to a man, when he least stands +in need of them? Directly a middle-aged heir succeeds to his +long-expected heritage, half-a-dozen aunts and second cousins are sure +to die off and leave him super-abounding legacies, any one of which +would have helped his poverty stricken youth, and made him of +independent mind throughout his servile manhood. The other day (the idea +remains the same, though the fact is to be questioned) the richest lord +in Europe dug up a chest of hoarded coins, many thousand pound's worth, +simply because he didn't want it: and, if such particularization were +not improper or invidious, you or I might name a brace of friends +a-piece, who, having once lacked bread in the career of life, suddenly +have found themselves monopolizing two or three great fortunes. As too +few things are certain, novel writers less like truth in their +descriptions, than where ample wealth falls upon the hero just in the +nick of time. Providence intends to teach by penury: yes, and by +prosperity too: and we almost never see the reward given, or the no less +reward withheld, just as the scholar has begun to spell his lesson, and +before he has had the chance of getting it by heart. + +That another death should occur, in the progress of this tale, must be +counted for no fault of mine; especially as I am not about to introduce +another death-bed. One need not have the mummy always at our feasts. +Surely, too, these deaths have ever been on fit occasion: one broken +heart; one bereaved, yet comforted; and one which perished in its sin of +uttermost hard-heartedness. And here, if any insurance clerk, or other +interested person, will show cause why Mrs. Jane Mackenzie should not +die at the age of ninety-two, I would keep her alive if I could; but the +fact is, I cannot: she died. Henry Clements never saw her, any more that +I, nor dear Maria. But that was no earthly reason wherefore-- + +_First_, Maria should not bewail the dear old relative's loss with all +her heart and eyes, and children and household in mourning. + +Nor, _secondly_, wherefore Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, aforesaid, of +Ballyriggan, province of Ulster, should not leave her estate of +Ballyriggan, aforesaid, and a vast heap of other property, to the only +surviving though distant scion of her family, Henry Clements. + +Nor, _thirdly_, wherefore I should not record the fact, as duly bound in +my capacity of honest historian. + +This accession of property was large, almost overwhelming, when added to +Maria's patrimony of three thousand a-year, the produce of St. Benet's +Sherehog: for besides and beyond a considerable breadth of Irish acres, +sundry houses in Belfast, and an accumulation of half-forgotten funds, +the Bank of England found itself necessitated (from particular +circumstances of ill-caution in its servants) to refund the whole of +that twelve thousand forty-three pounds bank annuities, which Jack +Dillaway and his ladies had already made away with. + +Rich, however, as Clements had become, he felt himself only as a great +lord's steward to help a needy world; and I never heard that he spent a +sixpence more upon himself, his equipage, or his family, from being some +thousands a-year richer: though I certainly did hear that, owing to this +legacy, every tenant upon Ballyriggan, and a vast number of struggling +families in Spitalfields and round about St. Benet's, had ample cause +to bless Heaven and the good man of Finsbury square. As for dear Maria, +it rejoiced her generous heart to find that Henry (whose gentlemanly +pride had all along been reproaching him for pauperism) was now become +pretty well her equal in wealth; even as her humility long had known him +her superior in mind, good looks, and good family. + +Another thread in my discourse, hanging loosely on the world, concerns +our lady-legatees. What became of Miss Julia, after the safe and +successful issue of that vengeful trial, I never heard: and, perhaps, it +may be wise not to inquire: if she changed her name, she did not change +her nature: and is probably still to be numbered among the sect of +Strand peripatetics. + +But of Anna Bates I have pleasanter news to tell. With respect to +repentance, let us be charitable, and hope, even if we cannot be so +sanguine as firmly to believe; but at any rate we may rest assured of an +outward reformation, and an honest manner of life. The miracle happened +thus: After the trial and condemnation of Dillaway, poor Anna Bates felt +entirely disappointed that she had not the chance of better things +presented to her mind by transportation; the two approvers, to her +dismay--poor thing!--were graciously pardoned for their evidence; and, +whereas, the one of them returned to her old courses more devotedly than +ever, the other resolved to make one strong effort to extricate her +loathing self from the gulf in which she lay. Fortunately for her, our +Maria had the heart to pity and to help a frail and fallen sister; and +when the poor disconsolate woman, finding her to be the sister of that +evil paramour, came to Mrs. Clements in distress, revealing all her past +sins and sorrows, and pleading for some generous hand to lift her out of +that miserable state, she did not plead in vain. Maria spurned her not +away, nor coldly disbelieved her promise of amendment; but, taking +counsel of her husband, she gave the poor woman sufficient means of +setting up a milliner's shop at Hull, where, under her paternal name of +Stellingburne, our Fleet street lady-legatee still survives, earning a +decent livelihood, and little suspected amongst her kindly neighbours of +ever having been much worse than a strictly honest woman. + +For another thread, if the reader, in his ample curiosity, wishes to be +informed how it became possible for me to learn the fate of Dillaway, +let him know, that up to the hour of escape, I derived it easily from +living witnesses; and thereafter, that certain settlers, having set out +to explore the country, found a human skeleton stretched upon a thicket +which, from the _débris_ of convicts' clothes, and the hatchet stamped +with his initials, was easily decided to be that bad man's. It always +had struck me, as a remarkable piece of retribution, that whereas John +made Austral shares a plea for ruining Henry Clements, a howling Austral +wilderness was made the means of starving him. Maria never heard what +became of her brother; but still looks for his return some day with +affectionate and earnest expectation. + +Another little matter to be mentioned is the fact, that Henry Clements, +in his leisure from business, and freedom from care, resolved to attain +some literary glories; and first, he published his now-renowned tragedy +of '_Boadicea_,' with his name at length, giving a mint of proceeds to +that very proper charity the Theatrical Fund. Secondly, he followed up +his tragic triumph by a splendid '_Caractacus_,' by way of a companion +picture. Thirdly, he turned to his maligned law-treatise on _Defence_, +and boldly published a capital vindication thereof, flinging down his +gauntlet to the judges both of law and literature. It was strange, by +the way, and instructive also, to find with what a deferential air the +wealthy writer now was listened to; and how meekly both '_Watchman_' and +'_Corinthian_' kissed the smiling hand of the literary genius, who--gave +such sumptuous dinners; for Henry, of his mere kindness, (not +bribery--don't imagine him so weak,) now that he was known as a Mæcenas +amongst authors, made no invidious distinctions between literary +magnates, but effectually overcame evil with good by his hearty +hospitality to '_Corinthian_' and '_Watchman_' editors, as well as to +other potent wielders of the pen of fame, who had erstwhile favoured +the productions of his genius. + +The last dinner he gave, I, an old friend of the family, was present; +and when the ladies went up-stairs, I had, as usual, the honour of +enacting vice. It was according to Finsbury taste and custom, to produce +toasts and speeches; whether cold high-breeding would have sanctioned +this or not, little matters: it was warm and cordial, and we all liked +it; moreover, finding ourselves at Rome, we unanimously did as other +Romans do: and this I take to be politeness. Among the speeches, that +which proposed the health of the host and hostess caused the chiefest +roar of clamorous joy: it was a happy-looking friend who spoke, and what +he said was much as follows: + +"Clements, my dear fellow, you are the happiest man I know--except +myself; at least, in one thing I am happier--for I can call you friend, +whereas you can only return the compliment with such a sorry substitute +as I am." + +[This ingenious flattery was much ridiculed afterwards; but I pledge my +word the man intended what he said; moreover, he went on, utterly +regardless of surrounding critics, in all the seeming egotism of a warm +and open heart.] + +"Clements--I cannot help telling you how heartily I love you;" (Hear, +hear!) "and I wish I had known you thirty years instead of three, to +have said so with the unction of my earliest recollections: but we +cannot help antiquity, you know. Let us all the rather make up now by +heartiness for all lost time. I think, nay, am sure, that I speak the +language of all present in telling you I love you:" (an enormous +hear-hearing, which rose above the drawing-room floor; Harry Clements +singularly distinguished himself, in proving how he loved his father; a +fine young fellow he grows too, and I wish, between ourselves, to catch +him for a son-in-law some day;)--"Yes, Clements, I do love you, and your +children, and your wife, for there is the charm of heart about you all: +in yourself, in your Maria, in that fine frank youth, and those dear +warm girls up stairs" (every word was bravoed to the echo), "in every +one of you, all the charities and amenities, all the kindnesses and the +cheerfulness of life appear to be embodied; you love both God and man; +the rich and the poor alike may bless you, Clements, and your admirable +Maria; whilst, as for yourselves, you may both well thank God, whose +mercy made you what you are." + +Clements hid his face, and Harry sobbed with joyfulness. + +"Friends! a toast and sentiment, with all the honours: 'This happy +family! and may all who know them now, or come to hear of them in +future, cultivate as they do all the home affections, and acknowledge +that there is no wealth of man's, which may compare with riches of the +heart.'" + + +THE END OF HEART. + + + * * * * * + + +AN AUTHOR'S MIND; + +THE BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES: + + +"A BOOKFUL OF BOOKS," OR "THIRTY BOOKS IN ONE." + + +EDITED BY + +M.F. TUPPER, ESQ., M. A. + + +"En un mot, mes amis, je n'ai entrepris de vous contenter tous en +général; ainsi, une et autres en particulier; et par spécial, +moymême."--PASQUIER. + + + * * * * * + + +SUBJECTS. + PAGE. + +The Author's Mind; a ramble 331 + +Nero, a tragedy 353 + +Opium, a history 361 + +Charlotte Clopton, a novel 364 + +The Marvellous, a hand-book 371 + +Psychotherion, an argument 376 + +The Confessional, a tale 377 + +The Prior of Marrick, an autobiography 379 + +The Seven Churches, a dissertation 384 + +Revision, an essay 386 + +Homely Expositions, a compilation 386 + +Lay Sermons, a contribution 386 + +Scriptural Physics, a treatise 387 + +Heathenism, an apology 387 + +Biblical Similes, an investigation 389 + +Home, an epic 390 + +Grecian Sayings, a series 398 + +Heptalogia, a collection 400 + +Alfred, an oratorio 403 + +Alfred's Life, a translation 406 + +National Memorials, a proposal 408 + +Politics, a manual 411 + +Woman, a subject 414 + +False Steps, a pamphlet 415 + +King's Evidence, a satire 417 + +Poetics, a melange 422 + +Humoristics, a medley 423 + +Journals, a decade 426 + +Lay Hints, an appeal 427 + +Anti-Xurion, a crusade 431 + +The Squire, a portraiture 434 + +The Author's Tribunal, an oration 437 + +Zoilomastrix, a title 443 + +Epilogue, a conclusion 443 + +Appendix, an after-thought 445 + + + + +ANNOUNCEMENT. + +BY THE EDITOR. + + +The writer of this strange book (a particular friend of mine) came to me +a few mornings ago with a very happy face and a very blotty manuscript. +"Congratulate me," he began, "on having dispersed an armada of +head-aches hitherto invincible, on having exorcised my brain of its +legionary spectres, and brushed away the swarming thoughts that used to +persecute my solitude; I can now lie down as calmly as the lamb, and +rise as gayly as the lark; instead of a writhing Laocoon, my just-found +Harlequin's wand has changed me into infant Hercules brandishing his +strangled snakes; I have mowed, for the nonce, the docks, mallows, +hogweed, and wild-parsley of my rank field, and its smooth green carpet +looks like a rich meadow; I am free, happy, well at ease: argal, an thou +lovest me, congratulate." + +Wider and wider still stared out my wonder, to hear my usually sober +friend so voluble in words and so profuse of images: I saw at once it +was a set speech, prepared for an impromptu occasion; nevertheless, as +he was clearly in an enviable state of disenthraldom from +thoughtfulness, I graciously accorded him a sympathetic smile. And then +this more than Gregorian cure for the head-ache! here was an anodyne +infinitely precious to one so brain-feverish as I: had all this pleasure +and comfort arisen from such common-place remedials as a dear young +lover's courtesy or a deceased old miser's codicil, I should long ago +have heard all about it; for, between ourselves, my friend was never +known to keep a secret. There was evidently more than this in the +discovery; and when my curiosity, provoked by his laughing silence, was +naturally enough exhibiting itself in a "What on earth----?" he broke +out with the abruptness of an Abernethy, "Read my book." + +Well, I did read it; and, in candid disparagement, as amicably bound, +can readily believe what I was told afterwards, that, to except a very +small portion of older material, it had been at chance intervals rapidly +thrown off in a couple of months, (the old current-quill style,) chiefly +with the view of relieving a too prolific brain: it appeared to me a +mere idle overflowing of the brimful mind; an honest, indeed, but often +useless exposure of multifarious fancies--some good, some bad, and not a +few indifferent; an incautious uncalled-for confession of a thousand +thoughts, little worth the printing, if the very writing were not indeed +superfluous. Nevertheless, with all its faults, I thought the book a +novelty, and liked it not the less for its off-hand fashion; it had +something of the free, fresh, frank air of an old-school squire at +Christmas-tide, suggestive as his misletoe, cheerful as his face, and +careless as his hospitality. Knowing then that my friend had been more +than once an author--indeed, he tells us so himself--and perceiving, +from innumerable symptoms, that he meditated putting also this before +the world, I thought kindly to anticipate his wishes by proposing its +publication: but I was rather curtly answered with a "Did I suppose +these gnats were intended to be shrined in amber? these mere minnows to +be treated with the high consideration due only to potted char and white +bait? these fleeting thoughts fixed in stone before that Gorgon-head, +the public? these ephemeral fancies dropped into the true elixir of +immortality, printer's-ink? these----" I stopped him, for this other +mighty mouthful of images betrayed the hypocrite--"Yes, I did." An +involuntary smile assured me he did too, and the cause proceeded thus: +first, a promise not to burn the book; then a Bentley to the rescue, +with accessory considerations; and then, the due administration of a +little wholesome flattery: by this time we had obtained permission, +after modest reluctance pretty well enacted, to transform the deformity +of manuscript into the well-proportioned elegance of print. But, this +much gained, our author would not yield to any argument we could urge +upon the next point, viz: leave to produce the volume, duly fathered +with his name. "Not he indeed; he loved quiet too well; he might, it was +true, secretly like the bantling, but cared not to acknowledge it before +a populous reading-world, every individual whereof esteems himself and +herself competent to criticize!" Mr. Publisher, deeply disinterested, of +course, bristled up at the notion of any thing anonymous; and the only +alternative remaining was the stale expedient of an editor; that editor, +in brief, to be none other than myself, a very palpable-obscure: and let +this excuse my name upon the title-page. + +Now, as editor, I have had to do--what seems, by the way, to be regarded +by collective wisdom as the best thing possible--nothing: my author +would not suffer the change of a syllable, for all his seeming +carelessness about the THING, as he called it; so, I had no +more for my part than humbly to act the Helot, and try to set decently +upon the public tables a genuine mess of Spartan porridge. + +M. F. T. + +_Albury, Guildford_. + + + + +AN AUTHOR'S MIND: + +THE + +BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES. + + + + +A RAMBLE. + + +In these days of universal knowledge, schoolmaster and scholars all +abroad together, quotation is voted pedantry, and to interpret is +accounted an impertinence; yet will I boldly proclaim, as a mere fact, +clear to the perceptions of all it may concern, "This book deserves +richly of the Sosii." And that for the best of reasons: it is not only a +book, but a book full of books; not merely a new book, but a +little-library of new books; thirty books in one, a very harvest of +epitomized authorship, the cream of a whole fairy dairy of quiescent +post-octavos. It is not--O, mark ye this, my Sosii, (and by the way, +gentle ladies, these were worshipful booksellers of old, the Murrays and +the Bentleys of imperial Rome,)--it is not the dull concreted elongation +of one isolated hackneyed idea--supposing in every work there _be one_, +a charitable hypothesis--wire-drawn, and coaxed, and hammered through +three regulation volumes; but the scarcely-more-than-hinted abstractions +of some forty thousand flitting notions--hasty, yet meditative Hamlets; +none of those lengthy, drawling emblems of Laertes--driven in flocks to +the net of the fowler, and penned with difficult compression within +these modest limits. So "goe forth, littel boke," and make thyself a +friend among those good husbandmen, who tend the trees of knowledge, and +bring their fruit to the world's market. + +Now, reader, one little preliminary parley with you about myself: here +beginneth the trouble of authorship, but it is a trouble causing ease; +ease from thoughts--thoughts--thoughts, which never cease to make one's +head ache till they are fixed on paper; ease from dreams by night and +reveries by day, (thronging up in crowds behind, like Deucalion's +children, or a serried host in front, like Jason's instant army,) +harassing the brain, and struggling for birth, a separate existence, a +definite life; ease, in a cessation of that continuous internal hum of +aërial forget-me-nots, clamouring to be recorded. O, happy unimaginable +vacancy of mind, to whistle as you walk for want of thought! O, mental +holiday, now as impossible to me, as to take a true school-boy's +interest in rounders and prisoner's base! An author's mind--and remember +always, friend, I write in character, so judge not as egotistic vanity +merely the well playing of my _rôle_--such a mind is not a sheet of +smooth wax, but a magic stone indented with fluttering inscriptions; no +empty tenement, but a barn stored to bursting: it is a painful pressure, +constraining to write for comfort's sake; an appetite craving to be +satisfied, as well as a power to be exerted; an impetus that longs to +get away, rather than a dormant dynamic: thrice have I (let me confess +it) poured forth the alleviating volume as an author, a real +author--real, because for very peace of mind, involuntarily; but still +the vessel fills; still the indigenous crop springs up, choking a better +harvest, seeds of foreign growth; still those Lernæan necks sprout +again, claiming with many mouths to explain, amuse, suggest, and +controvert--to publish invention, and proscribe error. Truly, it were +enviable to be less apprehensive, less retentive; to be fitted with a +colander-mind, like that penal cask which forty-nine Danaïdes might not +keep from leaking; to be, sometimes at least, suffered for a holiday to +ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal, +perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often +cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of +a man--fret, wear, worry him; to be irritable, is the conditional tax +laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery +makes him hasty, quick, nervous as a haunted hunted man: minds of +coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a +texture; they cannot estimate the wish that a duller sword were in a +tougher scabbard; the river, not content with channel and restraining +banks, overflows perpetually; the extortionate exacting armies of the +Ideal and the Causal persecute MY spirit, and I would make a +patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders of my peace: I write +these things only to be quit of them, and not to let the crowd increase; +I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu and Elijah with the +priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental nurselings; a dire +resolve has filled me to effect a premature destruction of the literary +populace superfoetating in my brain--plays, novels, essays, tales, +homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and poetics, politics and +rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators of +maltreated Aristotle: I will exhibit them in their state chaotic; I will +addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not chirp; I will reveal, and +secrets shall not waste me; I will write, and thoughts shall not batten +on me. + +The world is too full of books, and I yearn not causelessly to add more +than this involuntary unit: bottles, bottles--invariable bottles--was +the one idea of a most clever Head at Nieder-Selters; books, +books--accumulating books--press upon my conscience in this literary +London: despairing auctioneers hate the sound, ruined publishers dread +it, surfeited readers grumble at it, and the very cheese-monger begins +to be an epicure as to which grand work is next to be demolished. +Friendships and loves tremble at the daily recurrence of "Have you read +this?" and "Mind you buy that;" wise men shun a blue-belle, sure that +she will recommend a book; and the yet wiser treat themselves to +solitary confinement, that they may not have to meet the last new batch +of authors, and be obliged to purchase, if not to peruse, their +never-ending books. I fear to increase the plague, to be convicted an +abettor of great evils, though by the measure of a little one. I am +infected, and I know it: but for science-sake I break the quarantine, +and in my magnanimity would be victimized unknown, consigning to a +speedy grave this useless offspring, together with its too productive +parent, and saving of a race so hopeless little else than their +prëdetermined names--in fact, their title-pages. + +But is that indeed little? Speak, authors with piles of ready-written +copy, is not the theme (so often carried out beyond, or beside, or even +against its original purpose) less perplexing than the after-thought +thesis? Bear witness, readers, bit by a mysterious advertisement in the +'_Morning Post_,' are names, indeed, not matters of much weight? Press +forward, Sosii aforesaid, and answer me truly, is not a title-page the +better part of many books? Cheap promises of stale pleasure, false hopes +of dull interest, imprimaturs of deceived fancy, lying visions of the +future unfulfilled, title-pages still do good service to the cause +of--bookselling. + +And, to commence, let me elucidate mine own--I mean the first, the head +and front of this offending phalanx--mine own, _par excellence_, '_An +Authors Mind_:' such in sooth it shall be found, for richer or poorer, +for better or for worse; not of selfish, but of common application; not +so much individually of mine own, as generically of authors; a medley +of crudities; an undigested mass, as any in the maw of Polypheme; a +fermenting hotchpotch of half-formed things, illustrative, among other +matters, of the Lucretian theory, those close-cohering atoms; a farrago +of thoughts, and systems of thoughts, in most admired disorder, which +would symbolize the Copernican astronomy, with its necessary clash of +whirling orbs, about as well as the intangible chaos of Berkeleyan +metaphysics. + +So much then on the moment for the monosyllable "Mind;"--whereof +followeth, indeed, all the more hereafter; but--"An author's?"--what +author's? You would see my patent of such rank, my commission to wear +such honourable uniform. Pr'ythee be content with simple assurance that +it is so; consider the charm of unsatisfied curiosity, and pry not; let +me sit unseen, a spectator; for this once I would go _in domino_. +Heretofore, "credit me, fair Discretion, your Affability" hath achieved +glory, and might Solomonize on its vanity at least as well as poor +discomfited, discovered Sir Piercie Shafton: heretofore, I have stood +forth in good causes, with helm unbarred, and due proclamation of name, +style, and title, an avowed author; and might sermonize thus upon +success, that a little censure loseth more friends than much praise +winneth enemies. So now, with visor down, and a white shield, as a young +knight-candidate unknown, it pleases my leisure to take my pastime in +the tourney: and so long as in truthful prowess I bear me gallantly and +gently, who is he that hath a right to unlatch my helmet, or where is +the herald that may challenge my rank? Nevertheless, inquisitive, +consider the mysteries that lie in the Turkish-looking _sobriquet_ of +"Mufti;" its vowels and its consonants are full of strict intention I +never saw cause why the most charming of essayists hid himself in +"Elia," but he may for all that have had pregnant reasons; even so, (but +that slender wit could read my riddle,) you shall perhaps find fault +with my Mussulman agnomen; still you and I equally participate in this +shallow secret, and within so brief a word is concealed the key to +unlock the casket that tempts your curiosity: however, the less said of +so diaphanous a mystery, the better. + +And let me remark this of the mode anonymous; a mode, indeed, to +purposes of shame, and slander, and falsity of all kinds too often +prostituted for the present, bear with it; sometimes it is well to go +disguised, and the voice of one unseen lacks not eager listeners; we +address your judgment, unbiased by the prejudice or sanction of a name: +we put forth, lightly and negligently, those lesser matters which +opportunity hath not yet matured; we escape the nervous pains, the +literary perils of the hardier acknowledged. Only of this one thing be +sure; we--(no, I; why should unregal, unhierarchal I affect +pluralities?)--I hope to keep inviolate, as much when masked as when +avowed, the laws of truth, charity, sincerity, and honour; and, +although, among my many booklets, the grave and the gay will be found in +near approximation, I trust--will it offend any to tell them that I +pray?--to do no ill service at any time to the cause of that true +religion which resents not the neighbourhood of innocent cheerfulness. I +show you, friend, my honest mind. + +I by itself, I; odious mono-literal; thinnest, feeblest, most +insignificant of letters, I dread your egotistic influence as my bane; +they will not suffer you, nor bear with a book so speckled with your +presence. Still, world, hear me; mercifully spare a poor grammarian the +penance of perpetual third persons; let an individual tender conscience +escape censure for using the true singular in preference to that +imposing lie, the plural. Suffer a humble unit to speak of himself as I, +and, once for all, let me permissively disclaim intentional self-conceit +in the needful usage of isolated I-ship. + +These few preliminaries being settled, though I fear little to the +satisfaction of either party concerned, let us proceed--further to +preliminarize; for you will find, even to the end, as you may have found +out already from the beginning, that your white knight is mounted rather +on an ambling preambling palfrey, than on any determinate charger; +curveting and prancing, and rambling and scrambling at his own unmanaged +will: scorning the bit and bridle, too hot to bear the spur, careless of +listing laws, and wishing rather playfully to show his paces, than to +tilt against a foe. + +An author's mind, _quà_ author, is essentially a gossip; an oral, +ocular, imaginative, common-place book: a _pot pourri_ mixed from the +_hortus siccus_ of education, and the greener garden of internal thought +that springs in fresh verdure about the heart's own fountain; a compound +of many metals flowing from the mental crucible as one--perchance a base +alloy, perchance new, and precious, and beautiful as the fine brass of +Corinth; an accidental meeting in the same small chamber of many +spiritual essences that combine, as by magnetism into some strange and +novel substance; a mixture of appropriations, made lawfully a man's own +by labour spent upon the raw material; corn-clad Egypt rescued from a +burnt Africa by the richness of a swelling Nile--the black forest of +pines changed into a laughing vineyard by skill, enterprise, and +culture--the mechanism of Frankenstein's man of clay, energized at +length by the spark Promethean. + +And now, reader, do you begin to comprehend me, and my title? '_An +Author's Mind_' is first in the field, and, as with root and fruit, must +take precedence of its booklets; bear then, if you will, with this +desultory anatomization of itself yet a little longer, and then in good +time and moderate space you will come to the rudiments--bones, so to +speak--of its many members, the frame-work on which its nerves and +muscles hang, the names of its unborn children, the title-pages of its +own unprinted books. + +Philosophers and fools, separately or together, as the case may be--for +folly and philosophy not seldom form one Janus-head, and Minerva's bird +seems sometimes not ill-fitted with the face of Momus--these and their +thousand intermediates have tried in all ages to define that quaint +enigma, Man: and I wot not that any pundit of literature hath better +succeeded than the nameless, fameless man--or woman, was it?--or haply +some innocent shrewd child--who whilom did enunciate that MAN IS A +WRITING ANIMAL: true as arithmetic, clear as the sunbeam, rational +as Euclid, a discerning, just, exclusive definition. That he is "capable +of laughter," is well enough even for thy deathless fame, O Stagyrite! +but equally (so Buffon testifies) are apes and monkeys, horses and +hyenas; whether perforce of tickling or sympathy, or native notions of +the humorous, we will not stop to contend. That he actually is "an +animal whose best wisdom is laughter," hath but little reason in it, +Democrite, seeing there are such obvious anomalies among men as suicidal +jesters and cachinating idiots; nevertheless, my punster of Abdera, thy +whimsical fancy, surviving the wreck of dynasties, and too light to sink +in the billows of oblivion, is now become the popular thought, the +fashionable dress of heretofore moping wisdom: crow, an thou wilt, jolly +old chanticleer, but remember thee thou crowest on a dunghill; man is +not a mere merry-andrew. Neither is he exclusively "a weeping animal," +lugubrious Heraclite, no better definer than thy laughter-loving foe: +that man weeps, or ought to weep, the world within him and the world +without him indeed bear testimony: but is he the only mourner in this +valley of grief, this travailing creation? No, no; they walk lengthily +in black procession: yet is this present writing not the fit season for +enlarging upon sorrows; we must not now mourn and be desolate as a poor +bird grieving for its pilfered young--is Macduff's lamentable cry for +his lost little ones, "All--what, all?" more piteous?--we must now +indulge in despondent fears, like yonder hard-run stag, with terror in +his eye, and true tears coursing down his melancholy face: we must not +now mourn over cruelty and ingratitude, like that poor old worn-out +horse, crying--positively crying, and looking imploringly for merciful +rest into man's iron face; we must not scream like the wounded hare, nor +beat against our cage like the wild bird prisoned from its freedom. +Moreover, Heraclite, even in thine own day thou mightest well have heard +of the classic wailings of Philomel for Atys, or of consumptive Canens, +that shadow of a voice, for her metamorphosed Pie, and have known that +very crocodiles have tears: pass on, thy desolate definition hath not +served for man. + +With flippant tongue a mercantile cosmopolite, stable in statistics and +learned in the leger, here interposes an erudite suggestion: "Man is a +calculating animal." Surely, so he is, unless he be a spendthrift; but +he still shares his quality with others; for the squirrel hoards his +nuts, the aunt lays in her barley-corns, the moon knoweth her seasons, +and the sun his going down: moreover, Chinese slates, multiplying +rulers, and, as their aggregated wisdom, Babbage's machine, will stoutly +contest so mechanical a fancy. Savoury steams, and those too smelling +strongly of truth, assault the nostrils, as a Vitellite--what a name of +hungry omen for the imperial devourer!--plausibly insinuates man to be +"a cooking animal." Who can gainsay it? and wherewithal, but with +domesticated monkeys, does he share this happy attribute? It is true, +the butcher-bird spits his prey on a thorn, the slow epicurean boa +glazes his mashed antelope, the king of vultures quietly waits for a +gamey taste and the rapid roasting of the tropics: but all this care, +all this caloric, cannot be accounted culinary, and without a question, +the kitchen _is_ a sphere where the lord of creation reigns supreme: +still, thou best of practical philosophers, caterer for daily +dinners--man--MAN, I say, is not altogether a compact of edible +commons, a Falstaff pudding-bag robbed of his seasoning wit, a mere +congeries of food and pickles; moreover, honest Gingel of "fair" fame +hath (or used to have, "in my warm youth, when George the Third was +king,") automatons, [pray, observe, Sosii, I am not pedant or wiseacre +enough to indite _automata_; we conquering Britons stole that word among +many others from poor dead Greece, who couldn't want it; having made it +ours in the singular, why be bashful about the plural! So also of +memorandums, omnibuses, [you remember Farren's _omni_BI!] +necropolises, gymnasiums, eukeirogeneions, and other unlegacied +property of dear departed Rome and Greece. All this, as you see, +is clearly parenthetical;] well, then, Gingel has automatons, that will +serve you up all kinds of delicate viands, pleasant meats, and +choice cates by clock-work, to say nothing of Jones' patent +all-in-a-moment-any-thing-whatsoever cooking apparatus: no mine +Apiciite, Heliogabalite, Sardanapalite, Seftonite, Udite, thou of +extravagant ancestry and indifferent digestion; little, indeed, as you +may credit me, man is not all stomach, nor altogether formed alone for +feeding. Remember Æsop's parable, the belly and the members; and, above +them all, do not overlook the head. + +What think you then of "a featherless biped?" gravely suggests a rusty +Plinyite. Absolute sir, and most obsolete Roman, doubtless you never had +the luck to set eyes upon a turkey at Christmas; the poor bare _bipes +implumis_, a forked creature, waiting to be forked supererogatively; ay, +and _risibilis_ to boot, if ever all concomitants of the hearty old +festival were properly provocative of decent mirth. Thus then return we +to our muttons, and time enough, quotha: literary pundit, (whose is the +notable saying?) thy definition is bomb-proof, thy fancy unscaleable, +thy thought too deep for undermining; that notion is at the head of the +poll, a candidate approved of Truth's most open borough; for, in spite +of secretary-birds with pens stuck clerk-like behind their ears (as +useless an emblem of sinecure office as gold keys, silver, and +coronation armour)--in spite of whole flights of geese, capable enough +of saving capitols, but impotent to wield one of their own +all-conquering quills--in spite, also, (keen-eyed categorists, be to my +faults in ratiocination a little blind, for very cheerfulness,) in +spite, I say, of copying presses, manifold inditers, and automaton +artists, MAN IS A WRITING ANIMAL. + +Wearily enough, you will think, have we disposed of this one definition: +but recollect, and take me for a son of leisure, an amateur tourist of +Parnassus, an idling gatherer of way-side flowers in the vale of +Thessaly, a careless, unbusied, "contemplative man," recreating himself +by gentle craft on the banks of much-poached Helicon; and if you, my +casual friend, be neither like-minded in fancy nor like-fitted in +leisure, courteously consider that we may not travel well together: at +this station let us stop, freely forgiving each other for mutual +misliking; to your books, to your business, to your fowling, to your +feasting, to your mummery, to your nunnery--go: my track lays away from +the highroad, in and out between yonder hills, among thickets, mossy +rocks, green hollows, high fern, and the tangled hair of hiding +river-gods; I meet not pedlers and bagsmen, but stumble upon fawns just +dropped, and do not scare their doting mothers; I quench not my noonday +thirst with fiery drams from a brazen tap, but, lying over the cold +brook, drink to its musical Naiades; I walk no dusty roads of a +working-day world, but flit upon the pleasant places of one made up of +holidays. + +A truce to this truancy, and method be my maxim: let us for a moment +link our reasonings, and solder one stray rivet; man being a writing +animal, there still remains the question, what is writing? Ah, there's +the rub: a very comfortable definition would it be, if every pen-holder +and pen-wiper could truly claim that kingship of the universe--that +imagery of his Maker--that mystical, marvellous, immortal, intellectual, +abstraction, manhood: but, what then is WRITING? Ye tons of +invoices, groaning shelves of incalculable legers, parchment abhorrences +of rare Charles Lamb, we think not now of you; dreary piles of +unhealthy-looking law-books, hypochondriacal heaps of medical +experiences, plodding folios of industrious polemics, slow elaborations +of learned dullness, we spare your native dust; letters unnumbered, in +all stages of cacography, both physical and metaphysical, alack! most of +you must slip through the meshes of our definition yet unwove; poor +deciduous leaves of the forest, that, at your best, serve only--it is +yet a good purpose--to dress the common soil of human kindness, without +attaining to the praise of wreaths and chaplets ever hanging in the +Muses' temple; flowers withered on the stalk, whose blooming beauty no +lover's hand has dropped upon the sacred waters of Siloa, like the +Hindoo's garland on her Ganges; prolix, vain, ephemeral letters +(especially enveloped penny-posters)--and sparing only some few redolent +of truth, wisdom, and affection--your bulky majority of flippant trash, +staid advices, dunnings, hoaxings, lyings, and slanderings, degrade you +to a lower rank than that we take on us to designate as "writing." + +And what, O what--"how poor is he that hath not patience!"--shall we +predicate of the average viscera of circulating libraries?--abominable +viscera!--isn't that the word, my young Hippocrates?--A parley--a +parley! and the terms of truce are these: If this present pastime of +mine (for pastime it is, so spurn not at its logic,) be mercifully +looked on by you, lady novelists and male dittoes--yet truly there are +giants in your ranks, as Scott, and Ward, and Hugo, and Le Sage, +towering above ten thousand pigmies--if I be spared your censures +well-deserved, interchangeably as toward your authorships will I +exercise the charitable wisdom of silence: a white flag or a white +feather is my best alternative in soothing or avoiding so terrible a +host; and verily, to speak kinder of those whose wit, and genius, and +graphic powers have so smoothed this old world's wrinkled face of care, +many brilliant, many clever, many well-intended caterers to public +amusement, throng your ill-ordered ranks: still, there are numbered to +your shame as followers of the fool's-cap standard, the huge corrupting +mass of depraved moralists, meagre trash-inditers, treacherous +scandal-mongers, men about town who immortalize their shame, and the +dull, pernicious school of feather-brained Romancists: and take this +sentence for a true one, a _verum-dictum_. But enough, there are others, +and those not few, even far less veniable; ye priers into family +secrets--fawning, false guests at the great man's open house, eagerly +jotting down with paricidal pen the unguarded conversation of the +hospitable board--shame on your treason, on its wages, and its fame! ye +countless gatherers and disposers of other men's stuff; chiels amang us +takin' notes, an' faith, to prent 'em too, perpetually, without +mitigation or remorse; ye men of paste and scissors, who so often +falsely, feebly, faithlessly, and tastelessly are patching into a +Harlequin whole the _disjecta membra_ of some great hacked-up +reputation; can such as ye are tell me what it is to write? Writing is +the concreted fruit of thinking, the original expression of new +combinations of idea, the fresh chemical product of educational +compounds long simmering in the mind, the possession of a sixth sense, +distinguishing intelligence, and proclaiming it to the four winds; +writing is not labour, but ease; not care, but happiness; not the petty +pilferings of poverty, but the large overflowings of mental affluence; +it begs not on the highway, but gives great largess, like a king; it +preys not on a neighbour's wealth, but enriches him; it may light, +indeed, a lamp, at another's candle, but pays him back with brilliancy; +it may borrow fire from the common stock, but uses it for genial warmth +and noble hospitality. + +Remember well, good critic, (for verily bad there be,) my purposes in +this odd volume--this queer, unsophisticate, uncultivated book: to empty +my mind, to clear my brain of cobwebs, to lift off my head a porters's +load of fancy articles; and as in a bottle of bad champaign, the first +glass, leaping out hurryskurry, at a railroad pace boiling a gallop, +carries off with it bits of cork and morsels of rosin, even such is the +first ebullition of my thoughts: take them for what they are worth, and +blame no one but your discontented self that they are no better. Do you +suppose, keen sir, that I am not quite self-conscious of their +shallowness, utter contempt of subordination and selection, their empty +reasoning and pellucid vanity?--There I have saved you the labour of a +sentence, and present you with a killing verdict for myself. After a +little, perhaps, your patience may find me otherwise; of clearer flow, +but flatter flavour: these desultorinesses must first of all be +immolated, for in their Ariel state they vex me, but I bind them down +like slaving Calibans, by the magic of a pen; and glad shall I be to +victimize my monsters, eager to dissipate my musquito-like tormentors; +yea, I would "take up arms against a sea"--["Arms against a sea?" +dearest Shakspeare, would that Theobald, or Johnson's stock-butt, "the +Oxford Editor," had indeed interpolated that unconscionable image! It +has been sapiently remarked by some hornet of criticism, that +"Shakspeare was a clever man;" but cleverer far must that champion +stand forth who wars with any prospect of success upon seas; perhaps +Xerxes might have thought of it--or your Astley's brigand, who +rushes sword in hand on an ocean of green baize. Who shall cure me of +parentheses?]--well, "a sea of troubles, [thoughts trouble us more than +things--I sin again; close it;] and by opposing, end them;" that is, by +setting forth these troublous thoughts opposite, in stately black and +white, I clip their wings, and make them peck among my poultry, and not +swarm about my heaven. But soon must I be more continuous; turn over to +my future title-pages, and spare your objurgation; a little more of this +medley while the fit lasts, and afterward a staid course of better +accustomed messes; a few further variations on this lawless theme of +authorship, and then to try simpler tunes; briefly, and yet to be +grandiloquent, as a last round of this giddy climax, after noisy +clashing Chaos there shall roll out, "perfect, smooth, and round," green +young worldlets, moving in quiet harmony, and moulded with systematic +skill. + +As an author, meanwhile, let man be most specifically characterized: a +real author, voluntary in his motives, but involuntary as regards his +acts authorial; full of matter, prolific of images and arguments, +teeming, bursting, with something, much, too much, to say, and well +witting how to say it: none of your poor devils compulsory from +poverty--Plutus help them!--whose penury of pocket is (pardon me) too +often equitably balanced by their emptiness of head; and far less one of +the lady's-maid school, who will glory in describing a dish of cutlets +at Calais, or an ill-trimmed bonnet, or the contents of an old maid's +reticule, or of a young gentleman's portmanteau, or those rare occasions +for sentimentality, moonlight, twilight, arbours, and cascades, in the +moderate space of an hour by Shrewsbury clock: but a man who has it +weightily upon his mind to explain himself and others, to insist, +refute, enjoin: a man--frown not, fair helpmates; the controversial pen, +as the controversial sword, be ours; we will leave your flower-beds and +sweeter human nurseries, despotism over cooks and Penelobean penance +upon carpet-work; nay, a trip to Margate prettily described, easy +lessons and gentle hymns in behalf of those dear prattlers, and for the +more coerulean sort, "lyrics to the Lost one," or stanzas on a sickly +geranium, miserably perishing in the mephitic atmosphere of routs--these +we masculine tyrants, we Dionysii of literature, ill-naturedly have +accounted your prerogatives of authorship. But who then are Sévigné and +Somerville, Edgeworth and De Staël, Barbauld and Benger, and Aikin, and +Jameson, Hemans, Landon, and a thousand more, not less learned, less +accomplished, nor less useful? Forgive, great names, my half-repeated +slander: riding with the self-conceited _cortège_ of male critics, my +boasted loyalty was well-nigh guilty of _lèze majesté_: but I repudiate +the thought; my verdict shall have no reproach in it, as my championship +no fear: how much has man to learn from woman! teach us still to look on +humanity in love, on nature in thankfulness, on death without fear, on +heaven without presumption; fairest, forgive those foolish and ungallant +calumnies of my ruder sex, who boast themselves your teachers--making +yet this wise use of the slander: never be so bold in authorship, as to +hazard the loss of your sweet, retiring, modest, amiable, natural +dependence: never stand out as champions on the arena of strife, but if +you will, strew it with posies for the king of the tournament; it ill +becomes you to be wrestlers, though a Lycurgus allowed it, and Atalanta, +another Eve, was tripped up by an apple in the foot-race. So digressing, +return we to our author; to wit, a man, _homo_--a human, as they say in +the west--with news of actual value to communicate, and powers of pen +competent to do so graphically, honestly, kindly, boldly. + +Much as we may emulate Homer's wordy braggadocios in boasting ourselves +far better than our fathers, still, great was the wisdom of our +ancestors: and that time-tried wisdom has given us three things that +make a man; he must build a house, have a child, write a book: and of +this triad of needfuls, who perceives not the superior and innate +majesty of the last requisite?--"Build a house?" I humbly conceive, and +steal my notion from the same ancestral source, that, in nine cases out +of ten, fools build houses for wise men to live in; besides, if houses +be made a test of supreme manhood, your modern wholesale runner-up of +lath and plaster tenements, warranted to stand seven years--provided +quadrilles be excluded, and no larger flock of guests _than six_ be +permitted to settle on one spot--such a jackal for surgeons, such a +reprobate provider for accident-wards as this, would be among our +heroes, a prize-man, the flower of the species. "Children" too?--very +happy, beautiful, heart-gladdening creations--God bless them all, and +scatter those who love them not!--but still for a proof of more than +average humanity, somewhat common, somewhat overwhelming: rabbits beat +us here, with all our fecundity, so offensive to Martineau and Malthus. +But as to "books"--common enough, too, smirks gentle reader: pardon, +courteous sir, most rare--at least in my sense; I speak not of flat +current shillings, but the bold medallions of ancient Syracuse; I heed +not the dull thousands of minted gold and silver, but the choice +coin-sculptures of Larissa and Tarentum. There do indeed flow hourly, +from an ever-welling press, rivers of words; there are indeed shoaling +us up on all sides a throng of well-bound volumes--novels, histories, +poems, plays, memoirs, and so forth--to all appearance, books: but if by +"books" be intended originality of matter, independent arguments, water +turned wine, by the miracle of right-thinking, and not a mere +re-decantering of dregs from other vessels--these many masqueraded +forms, these multiplied images of little-varied likenesses, these +Protean herds, will not stay to be counted, nor abide judgment, nor +brook scrutiny, but will merge and melt by thousands into the one, or +the two, real, original, sterling books. We live in a monopolylogue of +authorship: an idea goes forth to the world's market-place well dressed +from the wardrobe of some master-mind; it greets the public with a +captivating air, and straightway becomes the rage; it seems epidemical; +it comes out simultaneously as a piece of political economy, a +cookery-book, a tragedy, a farce, a novel, a religious experience, an +abstract _ism_, or a concrete _ology_; till the poor worn-out, +dissipated shadow of a thought looks so feeble, thin, fashionably +affected and fashionably infected, that its honest, bluff old father, +for very shame, disowns it. Thus has it come to pass, that one or two +minds, in this golden age of scribbling, have, to speak radically, been +the true originators of a million volumes, which haply shall have sprung +from the seed of some singular book, or of books counted in the dual. + +Indignant authors, be not merciless on my candour: I confess too much +whereof I hold you guilty; I am one of yourselves, and I question not +that few of you can beat me in a certain sort of--I will say, +unintended, plagiarism; you are thieves--patience--I thieve from +thieves; Diogenes cannot see me any more than you; you copy phrases, I +am perpetually and unconsciously filching thoughts; my entomological +netted-scissors, wherewith I catch those small fowl on the wing, are +always within reach; you will never find me without well-tenanted +pill-boxes in my pocket, and perhaps a buzzing captive or two stuck in +spinning thraldom on my castor; you are petty larceners, I profess the +like _métier_ of intellectual abstractor; you pilfer among a crowd of +volumes, manuscripts, rare editions, conflicting commentators, and your +success depends upon rëusage of the old materials; whereas I sit alone +and bookless in my dining-parlour, thinking over bygone fancies, +rëconsidering exploded notions, appropriating all I find of lumber in +the warehouse of my memory, and, if need be, without scruple, quietly +digesting, as my special provender, the thoughts of others, originated +ages ago. + +Is it necessary to remind you--dropping this lightsome vein for a +precious moment--that I am penning away my "crudites," off-hand, at the +top of my speed? that my set intention is, if possible, to jot down +instanter my heavy brainful, and feel for once light headed?--I stick to +my title, '_An Author's Mind_,' and that with a laudable scorn of +concealment, and an honest purpose not to pretend it better or wiser +than it is; then let no one blame me on the score of my fashion of +speech, or my sarcasms mingled with charity; for consistency with me +were inconsistent. + +Neither let me, poor innocent, be accused of giving license to what a +palled public and dyspeptical reviewers will call for the thousandth +time a _cacoethes_; word of cabalistic look, unknown to Dr. Dilworth. +Truly, my masters, though disciple I be of venerable Martinus the +Scribbler; though, for aught I know, himself in progress of +transmigration; still, I submit, my cornucopia is not crammed with +leaves and chopped straw; and if, in utter carelessness, the fruit is +poured out pell-mell after this desultory fashion, yet, I wot, it _is_ +fruit, though whether ripe or crude, or rotten, my husbandry takes +little thought: the mixture serves for my cider-press, and, fermentation +over, the product will be clarified. Judge me too, am I not consecutive? +I've shown man to be a writing animal; and writing, what it is and is +not; and meanwhile have been routing recreatively at pen's point whims, +and fancies, and ideas, and images, pulled in manfully by head and +shoulders: and now--after an episode, quite relevant and quite +Herodotean, concerning the consequences of a bit of successful +authorship on a man's scheme of life, to illustrate yet more the +"author's mind"--I shall proceed to tell all men how many books I might, +could, should, or would have written, but for reiterated and legitimated +_buts_, and how near of kin I must esteem myself to the illustrious J. +of nursery rhymes, being, as he is or was, "Mister Joe Jenkins, who +played on the fiddle, and began twenty tunes, but left off in the +middle." Moreover, no one can be ignorant of the close consanguinity +recognised in every age and every dictionary between I and J. But now +for the episode: + +If ever a toy were symbolical of life, that toy was a kaleidoscope: the +showy bits of tinsel, coloured glass, silk, beads, and feathers, with +here and there perchance a stray piece of iridescent ore or a pin, each, +in its turn of ideal multiplication, filling successively the field of +vision; the trifling touch that will disenchant the fairest patterns; +the slightest change, as in chemical arithmetic, that will make the +whole mixture a poison or a cordial. A man is vexed, the nerve of his +equanimity thrillingly touched at the tender elbow, and forthwith his +whole wholesome body writhes in pain; while, to speak morally, those +useful reminders of life's frailty, the habitual side-thorns--spurs of +diligence, incentives to better things--are exaggerated into sixfold +spears, and terribly stop the way, like long-lanced Achæans: a careless +fit succeeds to one of spleen, and vanity well spangled, pretty baubles, +stars and trinkets and trifles, fill their cycle, to magnetize with +folly that rolling world the brain: another twist, and love is lord +paramount, a paltry bit of glass, casually rose-coloured, shedding its +warm blush over all the reflective powers: suddenly an overcast, for +that marplot, Disappointment, has obtruded a most vexatiously reiterated +morsel of lamp-black: again Hope's little bit of blue paint makes azure +rainbows all about the firmament of man's own inner world; and at last +an atom of gold-dust specks all the glasses with its lurid yellow, and +haply leaves the old miser to his master-passion. So, ever changing day +by day, every man's life is but a kaleidoscope. Stay; this simile is +somewhat of the longest, but the whim is upon me, and I must have my +way; the fit possesses me to try a sonnet, and I shall look far for a +fairer thesis; he that hates verse--and the Muses now-a-days are too +old-maidish to look many lovers--may skip it, and no harm done; but one +or two may like this stave on + + +LIFE. + + + I saw a child with a kaleidoscope, + Turning at will the tesselated field; + And straight my mental eye became unseal'd, + I learnt of life, and read its horoscope: + Behold, how fitfully the patterns change! + The scene is azure now with hues of Hope; + Now sobered gray by Disappointment strange; + With Love's own roses blushing, warm and bright; + Black with Hate's heat, or white with Envy's cold; + Made glorious by Religion's purple light; + Or sicklied o'er with yellow lust of Gold; + So, good or evil coming, peace or strife, + Zeal when in youth, and Avarice when old, + In changeful, chanceful phases passeth life. + +It is well I was not stopped before my lawful fourteenth rhyme by yonder +prosaic gentleman, humbly listening in front, who asks, with somewhat of +malicious triumph, whereto does all this lead?--Categorically, sir, +[there is no argument in the world equal to a word of six syllables,] +categorically, sir, to this: of all life's turns and twists, few things +produce more change to the daring _debutant_ than successful authorship; +it is as if, applying our simile, a fragment of printed bookishness +among those kaleidoscopic morsels, having worked its way into the field +of vision, had there got stereotyped by a photogenic process: in fact, +it fixes on it a prëdestinated "author's mind." + +An author's mind! what a subject for the lights and shadows of +metaphysical portraiture! what a panorama of images! what a whirling +scene of ever-changing incidents! what a store-house for thoughts! what +a land of marvels! what untrodden heights, what unexplored depths of an +ever-undiscovered country! That strange world hath a structure and a +furniture all its own; its chalcedonic rocks are painted with rare +creatures floating in their liquid-seeming hardness; forms of other +spheres lie buried in its lias cliffs; seeds of unknown plants, relics +of unlimnèd reptiles, fragments of an old creation, the ruins of a +fanciful cosmogony, lie hid until the day of their requiral beneath its +fertile soil: and then its lawless botany; flowers of glorious hue hung +upon the trees of its forests; luscious fruits flung liberally among the +mosses of its banks; air-plants sailing in its atmosphere; unanchored +water-lilies dancing in its bright cascades; and this, too, a world, an +inner secret world, peopled with unthought images, specimens of a +peculiar creation; outlandish forms are started from its thickets, the +dragon and the cherub are numbered with its winged inhabitants, and +herds of uncouth shape pasture on its meadows. Who can sound its seas, +deep calling unto deep? who can stand upon the hill-tops, height +beckoning unto height? who can track its labyrinths? who can map its +caverns? A limitless essence, an unfailing spring, an evergreen +fruit-tree, a riddle unsolved, a quaint museum, a hot-bed of inventions, +an over-mantling tankard, a whimsical motley, a bursting volcano, a +full, independent, generous--a poor, fettered, jealous, Anomaly, +such--bear witness--is an author's mind. O, theme of many topics! chaos +of ill-sorted fancies! Let us come now to the jealousies, the real or +imaginary wrongs of authorship: hereafter treat we this at lengthier; +"for the time present"--I quote the facetious Lord Coke, when writing on +that highly exhilerating topic, the common-law--"hereof let this little +taste suffice." Is it not a wrong to be taken for a mere book-merchant, +a mercenary purveyor of learning and invention, of religion and +philosophy, of instruction, or even of amusements, for the sole +consideration of value received, as one would use a stalking-horse for +getting near a stag? this, too, when ten to one some cormorant on the +tree of knowledge, some staid-looking publisher in decent mourning, is +complacently pocketing the profits, and modestly charging you with loss? +and this, moreover and more poignantly, when the flame of responsibility +on some high subject is blazing at your heart, and the young Elihu, even +if he would, cannot keep silence? Is it not a wrong to find pearls +unprized, because many a modern, like his Celtic progenitors, (for I +must not say like swine,) would sooner crush an acorn? to know your +estimation among men ebbs and flows according to the accident of +success, rather than the quality of merit? to be despised as an animal +who must necessarily be living on his wits in some purlieu, answering to +that antiquated reproach, a Grub-street attic; or suspected among +gentler company in this most mercantile age for a pickpocket, a pauper, +a _chevalier d'industrie_? And then those hounds upon the bleeding +flanks of many a hunted author, those open-mouthed inexorable critics, +(I allude to the Pariah class, not to the higher caste brethren,) how +suddenly they rend one, and fear not! Only for others do I speak, and in +no degree on account of having felt their fangs, as many have done, my +betters; gentle and kind, as domesticated spaniels, have reviewers in +general been to your humble confessor, and for such courtesies is he +their debtor. But who can be ignorant how frequently some hapless writer +is impaled alive on the stake of ridicule, that a flagging magazine may +be served up with _sauce piquante_, and pander to the world for its +waning popularity by the malice of a pungent article? who, while as a +rule he may honour the bench of critics for patience, talent, and +impartiality, is not conusant of those exceptions, not seldom of +occurence, where obvious rancour has caused the unkindly condemnation; +where personal inveteracy aims from behind the Ajax shield of anonymous +reviewing, and shoots, like a cowardly Teucer, the foe fair-exposed +whom he dares not fight with?--But, as will be seen hereafter, I +trespass on a title-page, and here will add no more than this: Is it not +a wrong of double edge, that while the world makes no excuse for the +writhing writer, on the reasonable ground that after all he may be +innocent of what his critics blame him for, the same good-natured world, +on almost every occasion of magazine applause, believes either that the +author has written for himself the favourable notice, or that pecuniary +bribes have made the honest editor his tool? Verily, my public, thou art +not generous here; ay, and thou art grievously deceived, as well as +sordid: for by careless praise, causeless censure, credit given for +corrupt bribery, and no allowance made for unamiable criticisms, poor +maltreated authors speak to many wrongs: and of them more anon. + +What moreover shall we say of chilling friendships, near estrangements, +heartless lovers loitering behind, shy acquaintance dropping off? +Verily, there is a mighty sifting: you have dared to stand alone, have +expounded your mind in imperishable print, have manifested wit enough to +outface folly, sufficient moral courage to condemn vice, and more than +is needful of good wisdom to shame the oracles of worldliness: and so +some dread you, some hate, and many shun: the little selfish asterisks +in that small sky fly from your constellatory glories: you are +independent, a satellite of none: you have dared to think, write, print, +in all ways contrary to many; and if wise men and good be loud in their +applause, you arrive at the dignity of manifold hatreds; but if those +and their inferiors condemn, you sink into the bathos of multiplied +contempts. Of other wrongs somewhen and where, hereafter; meanwhile, a +better prospect glows on the kaleidoscopic field--a flattering accession +of new and ardent friends: "Sir," said an old priest to a young author, +"you have made a soft pillow for your head when it comes to be as white +as mine is;" a pretty saying of sweet charity, and such sink deep: as +for the younger and the warmer, being mostly of the softer sex, some +will profess admiring sensations that border not a little on idolatries; +others, gayer, will appear in the dress of careless, unskillful +admiration; not a few, both men and women, go indeed weakly along with +the current stream of popularity, but, to say truth, look happiest when +they find some stinging notice that may mortify the new bold candidate +for glory; while, last and best, a fewer, a very much fewer, do +handsomely the liberal part of friends, commending where they can, +objecting where they must, sincere in sorrow for a fault, rejoicing +without envy for a virtue. + +Many like phenomena has authorship: a certain class of otherwise +humanized and well-intentioned people begin to regard your scribe as a +monster--not a so-called "lion" to be sought, but some strange creature +to be dreaded: Perdition! what if he should be cogitating a novel or a +play, and means to make free with our characters? what if that libellous +cöpartnership of Saunders and Ottley is permitted to display our faults +and foibles, flimsily disguised, before a mocking world? Disappointed +maidens that hover on the verge of forty, and can sympathize with +Jephtha's daughter in her lonely mournings, causelessly begin to fear +that a mischievous author may appropriate their portraits; venerable +bachelors, who have striven to earn some little local notoriety by the +diligent use of an odd phrase, a quaint garment, or an eccentric fling +in the peripatetic, dread a satirist's powers of retributive burlesque; +table orators suddenly grow dumb, for they suspect such a caitiff +intends cold-blooded plagiarisms from their eloquence; the twinkling +stars of humble village spheres shun him for an ominous comet, whose +very trail robs them of light, or as paling glow-worms hide away before +some prying lantern; and all who have in one way or another prided +themselves on some harmless peculiarity, avoid his penetrating glance as +the eye of a basilisk. Then, again, those casual encounters of witlings +in the world authorial, so anticipated by a hostess, so +looked-forward-to by guests! In most cases, how forlorn they be! how +dull; constrained, suspicious! like rival traders, with pockets +instinctively buttoned up, and glaring each upon the other with most +uncommunicative aspects; not brothers at a banquet, but combatants and +wrestlers, watching for solecisms in the other's talk, or toiling to +drag in some laboured witticism of their own, after the classical +precedent of Hercules and Cerberus: those feasts of reason, how vapid! +those flows of soul, how icily congealing! those Attic nights, how dim +and dismal! Once more; and, remember me, I speak in a personated +character of the general, and not experimentally; so, flinging self +aside, let me speak what I have seen: grant that the world-without crown +a man with bays, and lead him to his Theban home with tokens of +rejoicing; is the victor there set on high, chapleted, and honoured as +Nemean heroes should be or does he not rather droop instantly again into +the obscure unit among a level mass, only the less welcome for having +stood up, a Saul or a Musæus, with his head above his fellows? Verily, +no man is a proph--Enough, enough! for ours is a prerogative, a glorious +calling, and the crown of barren leaves is costlier than his of Rabbah; +enough, enough! sing we the praises, count we well the pleasures of +fervent, overflowing authorship. There, in perfect shape before the +eyes--there, well born in beauty--there perpetually (so your fondness +hopes) to live--slumbers in her best white robe the mind's own fairest +daughter; the Minerva has sprung in panoply from that parental aching +head, and stands in her immortal independence; an Eve, his own heart's +fruit, welcomes delighted Adam. You have made something, some good work, +bodily; your communion has commenced with those of times to come; your +mind has produced a witness to its individuality; there is a tablet +sacred to its memory standing among men for ever. + +A thinker is seldom great in conversation, and the glib talkers who have +silenced such a one frequently in clamorous argument, founder in his +deep thoughts, blundering, like Stephanos and Trinculos--(let Caliban be +swamped;) such generous revenge is sweet: a writer often unexplained, +because speaking little, and that little foolishly mayhap, and lightly +for the holiday's sake of an unthoughful rest, finds his opportunities +in printing, and gives the self-expounding that he needs; such +heart-emptyings yield heart-ease: an author, who has done his good work +well--for such a one alone we speak--while, privately, he scarce could +have refreshed mankind by petty driblets--in the perpetuity, publicity, +and universal acceptation of his high and honourable calling, does good +by wholesale, irrigates countries, and gladdens largely the large heart +of human society. And are not these unbounded pleasures, spreading over +life, and comforting the struggles of a death-bed? Yes: rising as +Ezekiel's river from ankle to knee, from knee to girdle, from girdle to +the overflowing flood--far beyond those lowest joys, which many wise +have trampled under foot, of praise, and triumph, and profit--the +authorship of good, that has made men better; that has consoled sorrow, +advanced knowledge, humbled arrogance, and blest humanity; that has sent +the guilty to his prayers, and has gladdened the Christian in his +praises--the authorship of good, that has shown God in his loveliness, +and man in his dependence; that has aided the cause of charity, and +shamed the face of sin--this high beneficence, this boundless +good-doing, hath indeed a rich recompense, a glorious reward! + +But we must speed on, and sear these hydra-necks, or we shall have as +many heads to our discourse, and as puzzling, as any treatise of the +Puritan divinity. Let us hasten to be practical; let us not so long +forget the promised title-pages; let it at length satisfy to show, more +than theoretically, how authorship stirs up the mind to daily-teeming +projects, and then casts out its half-made progeny; how scraps of paper +come to be covered with the cabala of half-written thoughts, +thenceforward doomed to suffer the dispersion-fate of Sibylline leaves; +how stores of mingled information gravitate into something of order, +each seed herding with its fellows; and how every atom of mixed metal, +educationally held in solution by the mind, is sought out by a keen +precipitating test, gregariously building up in time its own true +crystal. + +Hereabouts, therefore, and hereafter, in as frank a fashion as +heretofore, artlessly, too, and, but for crowding fancies, briefly shall +follow a full and free confession of the embryo circulating library now +in the book-case of my brain; only premising, for the last of all last +times, that while I know it to be morally impossible that all should be +pleased herewith, I feel it to be intellectually improbable that any one +mind should equally be satisfied with each of the many parts of a +performance so various, inconsistent, and unusual; premising, also, that +wherein I may have stumbled upon other people's titles, it is +unwittingly and unwillingly; for the age breeds books so quickly, that a +man must read harder than I do to peruse their very names; and premising +this much farther, that I profess to be a sort of dog in the manger, +neither using up my materials myself, nor letting any one else do so; +and that, whether I shall happen or not, at any time future to amplify +and perfect any of these matters, I still proclaim to all bookmakers and +booksellers, STEAL NOT; for so surely as I catch any one thus +behaving--and truly, my masters, the temptation is but small--I will +stick a "_Sic vos, non vobis,_" on his brazen forehead. + +Wait! there remaineth yet a moment in which to say out the remnant of my +mind, "an author's mind," its last parting speech, its dying utterances +before extreme unction. I owe all the world apologies; I would pray a +catholic forgiveness. Authors and reviewers, critics, and the +undiscriminating many, fair women, honest men, I cry your pardons +universally! I do confess the learning of my mind to lie, strangely and +Pisa-like, inveterately as at Welsh Caérphilli, out of the perpendicular +of truth; it is my disposition to make the most of all things, for good +or for evil; I write, speak, and think, as if I were but an unhallowed +special pleader; I colour highly, and my outlines are too strong; I am +guilty on all sides of unintentional misstatements, consequent on the +powerful gusts of feeling that burst upon my irritable breast; my heart +is no smooth Dead Sea, but the still vexed Bermoothes: therefore I would +print my penitence; I would publish my confessions; I would not hide my +humbleness; and it pleases me to pour out in sonnet-form my +unconventional + + +APOLOGY TO ALL. + + + --For I have sinn'd; oh! grievously and often; + Exaggerated ill, and good denied; + Blacken'd the shadows only born to soften; + And Truth's own light unkindly misapplied: + Alas! for charities unloved, uncherish'd, + When some stern judgment, haply erring wide, + Hath sent my fancy forth, to dream and tell + Other men's deeds all evil! Oh, my heart! + Renew once more thy generous youth, half perish'd; + Be wiser, kindlier, better than thou art! + And first, in fitting meekness, offer well + All earnest, candid prayers, to be forgiven + For worldly, harsh, unjust, unlovable + Thoughts and suspicions against man and Heaven! + +Friends all, let this be my best amendment: bear with the candour, +homely though it may be, of your author's mind; and suffer its further +revelations of unborn manuscript with charitable listening; for they +would come forth in real order of time, the first having priority, and +not the best, ungarnished, unweeded, uncared-for, humbly, and without +any further flourish of trumpets. + + * * * * * + +Serjeant Ion--I beg his pardon, Talfourd--somewhere gives it as his +opinion, that most people, in any way troubled with a mind, have at some +time or other meditated a tragedy. Truly, too, it _is_ a fine vehicle +for poetical solemnities, a stout-built vessel for an author's graver +thoughts; and the bare possibility of seeing one's own heart-stirring +creation visually set before a crowded theatre, the preclusive echoes +of anticipated thundering applause, the expected grilling silence +attendant on a pet scene or sentiment, all the tangible, accessories of +painting and music, clever acting and effective situation, and beyond +and beside these the certain glories of the property-wardrobe, make most +young minds press forward to the little-likely prize of successful +tragedy. That at one weak period I was bitten, my honesty would scorn to +deny; but fortunately for my peace of mind, "Melpomene looked upon me +with an aspect of little favour," and sturdy truth-telling Tacitus made +me at last but lightly regardful of my subject. Moreover, my Pegasus was +visited with a very abrupt pull-up from other causes; it has been my +fatality more than once or twice, as you will ere long see, to drop upon +other people's topics--for who can find any thing new under the +sun?--and I had already been mentally delivered of divers fag-ends of +speeches, stinging dialogues, and choice tit-bits of scenes, (all of +which I will mercifully spare you,) when a chance peep into Johnson's +'_Lives of the Poets_' showed me mine own fine subject as the work of +some long-forgotten bard! This moral earthquake demolished in a moment +my goodly aërial fabric; the fair plot burst like a meteor; and an +after-recollection of a certain French tragedy-queen, Agrippina, showed +me that the ground was still further preoccupied. But it is high time to +tell the destined name of my abortive play; in four letters, then, + + + + +NERO; + +A CLASSICAL TRAGEDY: + +IN SEVEN SCENES. + + +And now, in pity to an afflicted parent, hear for a while his +offspring's Roscian capabilities. First of all, however, (and you know +how I rejoice in all things preliminary,) let me clear my road by +explanations: we must pioneer away a titular objection, "in seven +scenes," and an assumed merit, in the term "classical." I abhor +scene-shifters; at least, their province lies more among pantomimes, +farces, and comedies, than in the region of the solemn tragic muse; her +incidents should rather partake of the sculpture-like dignity of +_tableaux_. My unfashionable taste approves not of a serious story being +cut up into a vast number of separate and shuffled sections; and the +whistle and sliding panels detract still more from the completeness of +illusion: I incline as much as is possible to the Classic unities of +time, place, and circumstances, wishing, moreover, every act to be a +scene, and every scene an act; with a comfortable green curtain, that +cool resting-place for the haggard eye, to be the grass-like drop, +mildly alternating with splendid crime and miserable innocence: away +with those gaudy intermediates, and, still worse, some intruded ballet; +bring back Garrick's baize, and crush the dynasty of head-aches. + +But onward: let me further extenuate the term, seven scenes; the +utterance seven "acts" would sound horrific, full of extremities of +weariness; but my meaning actually is none other than seven acts of one +scene each: for the number seven, there always have been decent reasons, +and ours may best appear as we proceed, less than a brief seven seeming +insufficient, and more, superfluous; again, so mystical a number has a +staid propriety, and a due double climax of rise and fall. Now, as to +our adjective "classical:" Why not, in heroic drama, have something +a-kin to the old Greek chorus, with its running comment upon motives and +moralities, somewhat as the mighty-master has set forth in his truly +patriotic '_Henry the Fifth?_'--However, taking other grounds, the +epithet is justified, both by the subject and the proposed unmodern +method of its treatment: but of all this enough, for, on second +thoughts, perhaps we may do without the chorus. + +It is obvious that no historical play can strictly preserve the true +unity of time; cause and effect move slower in the actual machinery of +life, than the space of some three hours can allow for: we must +unavoidably clump them closer; and so long as a circumstance might as +well have happened at one time as at another, I consider that the poet +is justified in crowding prior events as near as he may please towards +the goal of their catastrophe. If then any slight inaccuracy as to dates +arrests your critical ken, believe that it is not ignorantly careless, +but learnedly needful. One other objection, and I have done. No man is +an utter inexcusable, irremediable villain; there is a spot of light, +however hidden, somewhere; and, notwithstanding the historian's picture, +it may charitably be doubted whether we have made due allowance for his +most reasonable prejudice even in Nero's case. Human nature has produced +many monsters; but, amongst a thousand crimes, there has proverbially +lingered in each some one seedling of a virtue; and when we consider the +corruption of manners in old Rome, the idolatrous flatteries hemming in +the prince, the universal lie that hid all things from his better +perceptions, we can fancy some slight extenuation for his mad career. +Not that it ever was my aim, in modern fashion, to excuse villany, or to +gild the brass brow of vice; and verily, I have not spared my odious +hero; nevertheless, in selecting so unamiable a subject, (or rather +emperor,) I wished not to conceal that even in the worst of men there is +a soil for hope and charity; and that if despotism has high +prerogatives, its wealth and state are desperate temptations, whose +dangers mightily predominate, and whose necessary influences, if quite +unbiased, tend to utter misery. + +Now to introduce our _dramatis personæ_, with their "cast,"--for better +effect--rather unreasonably presumed. _Nero_--(Macready, who would +impersonate him grandly, and who, moreover, whether complimented or not +by the likeness, wears a head the very counterpart of Nero's, as every +Numismatist will vouch,)--a naturally noble spirit, warped by sensuality +and pride into a very tyrant; liberal in gifts, yet selfish in passion; +not incapable of a higher sort of love, yet liable to sudden changes, +and at times tempestuously cruel. _Nattalis_--(say Vandenhoff,)--his +favourite and evil genius, originally a Persian slave, and still wearing +the Eastern costume: a sort of Iago, spiriting up the willing Nero to +all varieties of wickedness, getting him deified, and otherwise +mystifying the poor besotted prince with all kinds of pleasure and +glory, to subserve certain selfish ends of rapine, power, and +licentiousness, and to avenge, perhaps, the misfortunes of his own +country on the chief of her destroyers. _Marcus Manlius_--(who better +than Charles Kean?--supposing these artistic combinations not to be +quite impossible,)--a fine young soldier, of course loving the heroine, +captain of Nero's body-guard, chivalrous, honourable, noble, and +faithful to his bad master amid conflicting trials. _Publius +Dentatus_--(any _bould_ speaker; besides, it would be rather too much to +engage all the actors yet awhile;)--a worthy old Roman, father of the +heroine. _Galba_, the chief mover in the catastrophe, as also the opener +of its causes, an intriguing and fierce, but well-intentioned patriot, +who ultimately becomes the next emperor. With _Curtius_ a tribune, +senators, conspirators, soldiers, priests, flamens, &c. And so, after +the ungallant fashion of theatrical play-wrights, as to a class inferior +to the very &c. of masculines--(of less intention withal than one of +those &cs. of crabbed Littleton, like an old shoe fricasséed into +savourings of all things by its inimitable Coke,)--come we to the +women-kind. _Agrippina_, (one of the school of Siddons,) empress-mother, +a strong-minded, Lady-Macbeth sort of woman, and the only person in the +world who can awe her amiable son. _Lucia,_ (_you_ cannot be spared +here, clever Helen Faucit)--the heroine, secretly a Christian affianced +to Manlius; a character of martyr's daring and woman's love. _Rufa_, a +haggard old sibyl, with both private and public reasons for detesting +Nero and Nattalis: and all the fitting female attendants to conclude the +list. + +Each scene, in which each act will be included, should be pictorially, +so to speak, a _tableau_ in the commencement, and a _tableau_ of +situation in the end. Let us draw up upon scene _the first_. +Back-ground, Rome burning; in front, ruins of fine Tuscan villa, still +smoking; and a terminal altar in the garden. Plebs. running to and fro, +full of conventional little speeches, with goods, parents, penates, and +other lumber, rescued from the flames; till a tribune, (hight Curtius,) +in a somewhat incendiary oration concerning poor men's calamities, and +against the powers that be, sends them to the capital with a procession +of flamines Diales and vestals, dirging solemnly a Roman hymn [some "_Ad +Capitolium, Ad Jovis solium_," and so forth] to good music. At the +end of the train come in Publius and Lucia, to whom from opposite +hurriedly walks Galba, full of talk of omens, direful doings, patriotism, +and old Rome's ruin. To these let there be added--to speak +mathematically--open-hearted Manlius; and let there follow certain +disceptatious converse about Nero, Manlius excusing him, extenuating his +vices by his temptations, giving military anecdotes of his earlier +virtues, and in fact striving to make the most of him, a very gentle +monster: Galba throwing in, sarcastically, blacker shadows. After +disputation, the father and lovers walk off, leaving Galba alone for a +moment's soliloquy; and, from behind the terminal altar, unseen Sibyl +hails him Cæsar; he, astonished at the airy voice so coincident with his +own feelings, thinks it ideal, chides his babbling thoughts, and so +forth: then enter to him suddenly chance-met noble citizens, burnt out +of house and home, who declaim furiously against Nero. Sibyl, still +unseen from behind the altar, again hails Galba as future Cæsar; who, no +longer doubting his ears, and all present taking the omen, they conspire +at the altar with drawn swords, and as the Sibyl suddenly +presides--_tableau_--and down drops the soft green baize. This first +act, you perceive, is stirring, introductory of many characters; and the +picture of the seven-hilled city, seen in a transparent blaze, might +give the followers of Stanfield a triumph. + +_Second_: The senate scene, producing another monstrous crime of Nero's, +also inaccurately dated. In the full august assembly, Nero discovered +enthroned, not unmajestic in deportment, yet effeminately chapleted, and +holding a lyre: suppose him just returned from Elis, a pancratist, the +world's acknowledged champion. Nattalis, ever foremost in flatteries, +after praising the prince's exploits in Greece, avows that, like Paris +in Troy, and Alexander at Persepolis, Nero _had_ gloriously fired Rome; +he found it wood, and wished to leave it marble; (so, the catafalque at +the Invalides of the twice-buried Corsican;) in destroying, as well as +blessing, he had asserted his divinity; any after due allusions to +Phoenixes, and fire-kingships, and _coups-de-soliel_ falling from the +same Apollo so great upon the guitar, Nattalis moves that Nero should be +worshipped, and calls on the priest of Jupiter to set a good example. +None dare refuse, and the senate bend before him; whereupon enter, in +clerical procession, augurs, and diviners, men at arms with pole-axes, +and coronaled white bulls, paraded before sacrifice: all this pandering +to present love of splendour and picturesque effect. In the midst of +these classical preparations, enters, with a bevy of attendants, the +haughty queen-like Agrippina, whom Nero, having sent for to complete his +triumph, commands to bend too; but she stoutly refusing, and taking him +fiercely to task, objurgating likewise Rome's degenerate +gray-beards--great bustle--senate broken up hurriedly--and she, with a +"_feri ventrem_," dragged off to be killed by her son's order. Nero +alone with Nattalis by imperial command; his momentary compunction +nullified by the wily Iago, who turns off the subject smoothly to a new +object of desire: Publius was the only senator not in his place, and +Publius has a daughter, the fairest in Rome, Lucia--had not the emperor +noticed her among Agrippina's women? Nero, charmed with any scheme of +novelty that may change remorseful thoughts, is induced, nothing loth, +to attempt the subtle abduction of the heroine; a body-guard, headed as +always by Manlius, ready in the vestibule to escort him, and exit. +Nattalis, alone for a minute, betrays his own selfish schemes concerning +Lucia, who had refused him before, and alludes to his secret reasons for +urging on the maddened Nero to the worst excesses. + +_Third scene_ (or part, or _act_, if it must be so), expounds, in +fitting contrast to the foregoing, the tender loves of Lucia and +Manlius; a gentle home-scene, a villa and its terraced gardens: also, as +Lucia is a Christian, we have, poetically, and not puritanically, an +insight into her scruples of conscience as to the heathenism of her +lover: and also into _his_ consistent nobility of character, not willing +to surrender the religion of his fathers unconvinced. To them rushes in +Publius, who has been warned by friend Galba of the near approach of +Nattalis and a guard, to seize Lucia for disreputable Nero: no possible +escape, and all urge Lucia to imitate Virginia, Lucretia, and others of +like Dian fame, by cowardly self-murder; she is high-principled, and +won't: then they--the father and lover--request leave to kill her; +conflicting passions and considerable stage effect; Lucia, who with calm +courage derides the dastard sacrifice, standing unharmed between those +loving thirsty swords: in a grand speech, she makes her quiet departure +a test of Manlius' love, and her ultimate deliverance to be a proof to +him that her God is the true God, the God who guards the innocent. +Manlius, struck with her martyr-like constancy, professes that if indeed +she is saved out of this great trouble, he will embrace her faith, +renounce his own, and so break down the of wealth and rank, are alike +thrown away upon Publius; at last, the prince promises; and when +Publius, after a burst of earnest eloquence, proclaims the new pleasure +to consist in _showing mercy_, Nero's utter wrath, his hurricane of +hate, revoking that hasty promise, and hurrying away old Publius to die +at the same stake with his daughter. + +_Seventh_: the catastrophe scene lies in the Coliseum amphitheatre; (I +mean the older one, anterior to Vespasian's:) bloody games pictured +behind, and those "human torches" at fiery intervals. Nero, enthroned in +side front, surrounded by a brilliant court, amongst whom are some of +the conspirators: at other side Publius and Lucia, tied at one stake in +white robes, back to back, to die before Nero's eyes, Manlius and +soldiers guarding them: he, Manlius, having nobly resolved to test +miraculous assistance to the last, but now tremblingly believing the +chance of a Providence interfering, since Lucia's escape from Nero at +the golden house. Just as the emperor, after a sarcastic speech, +characteristically interlarded with courtier conversation, is commanding +the fagot to be lighted, and Lucia's constant faith has bade Manlius _do +it_--a rush of Nattalis with attendant conspirators and Rufa the Sibyl, +up to Nero; Nattalis strikes him, but the sword breaks short off on the +hidden armour; Nero's majestic rising for a moment, asserting himself +Cæsar still, the inviolable majesty;--suddenly stopped by a centripetal +rush of the conspirators; who kill him, (after he has vainly attempted +in despair to kill himself,) and Galba sits on the throne, while Nero, +unpitied and unhelped, gasps out in the middle his dying speech. +Meanwhile, at the other side, Manlius has killed Nattalis for his +treachery, cut the bonds of Publius and Lucia, and all ends in moral +justice for the triumph of good, and the defeat of evil; Manlius and +Lucia, hand in hand, Publius with white head and upraised hands blessing +them, Nero, a mangled corpse, Nattalis in his dying agonies persecuted +by the vindictive Rufa, and Galba hailed as Cæsar by the assembled +Romans. So, upon a magnificent _tableau_, slowly falls the lawny +curtain. + +Patient reader, what think you of my long-winded tragedy? No quibbling +about Nero having really died in a drain, four years after the murder of +Aggrippina; no learned disquisitions, if you please, as to his innocence +of Rome's fire, a counterpart to our slander on the Papacy in the matter +of London's; spare me, I pray you, learned pundit, your suspicions about +Galba's too probable _alibi_ in Spain. Tell me rather this: do I falsify +history in any thing more important than mere accidental anachronisms +and anatopisms? do I make an untrue delineation of character, blackening +the good, or white-washing the wicked? Do I not, by introducing Nero's +three greatest crimes so near upon his assassination, merely accelerate +the interval between causes and effect? And is not tragic dignity +justified in varnishing, with other compost than the dregs of Rome, the +exit of the last true Cæsar of the Augustan family? For all the rest, +good manager, provide me actors, and I am even now uncertain--such is my +weakness--whether this skeleton might not at some time be clad with +flesh and skin, and a decent Roman toga. I fear it will yet haunt me as +a '_Midsummer Night's Dream_,' destroying my quiet with involuntary +shreds and patches of long-metred blank; the notion is still vivacious, +albeit scotched: Alexandrine though the synopsis appear, it must not be +thrown on the highroad as a dead snake; nay, let me cherish it yet on my +hearth, and not hurl it away like a _bonum waviatum_; a little more +boiling up of Roman messes in my brain, and my tragedy might flow forth +spontaneously as lava. What if this book be, after all, a sort of +pilot-balloon, to show my huge Nassau the way the wind blows--a feeler +as to which and which may please? Whether or not this be so, I will +still confess on, emptying my brain of booklets, and, if by happy +possibility I can keep my secret, shall hear unsuspected, friend, _your_ +verdict. + + * * * * * + +I must rather hope, than expect, that my next bit of possible authorship +is not like the last, a subject forestalled. Scribbling as I find myself +for very listlessness in a dull country-house, there's not a publisher's +index within thirty miles; so, for lack of evidence to the contrary, I +may legitimately, for at least a brief period of self-delusion, imagine +the intoxicating field my own. And yet so fertile, important, +interesting a subject, cannot have been quite overlooked by the corps of +professed literary labourer's: the very title-page would insure five +thousand readers (especially with a Brunswicker death's-head and +marrow-bones added underneath). + + + + +OPIUM; + +A HISTORY; + + +standing alone in single blackiness: Opium, a magnificent theme, +warranted to fill a huge octavo: and certain, from sheer variety of +information, to lead into the captivity of admiring criticism minds of +every calibre. Its natural history, with due details of all manner of +poppies, their indigenous habitats, botanical characters, ratios of +increase, and the like; its human history, discovery as a drug; how, +when, where, and by whom cultivated; dissertations as to the possibility +of Chaldean, Pharaonic, Grecian, or Roman opium eating, with most +erudite extracts out of all sorts of scribes, from Sanchoniathon down to +Juvenal, on these topics; its medicinal uses, properties, accidents, and +abuses; as to whether it might not be used homoeopathically or in +infinitesimal doses, to infuse a love of the pleasures of imagination +into clodpoles, lawyers' clerks, and country cousins; its intellectual +possibilities of usefulness, stimulating the brain; its moral ditto, +allaying irritability; together with a dreadful detail of its evils in +excess, idiotizing, immoralizing, ruining soul and body. Plenty of stout +unquestionable statistics, from all crannies of the globe, to +corroborate all the above to the extreme satisfaction of practical men, +with causes and consequences of its insane local popularity. All this, +moreover, at present, with especial reference to China and the East; +added to the moral bearings of the Opium-war, and our national +responsibilities relative to that unlucky traffic. The metaphysical +question stated and answered, whether or not prohibition of any thing +does not lead to its desire; showing the increasing appetency of those +sottish Serics for the forbidden vice, and illustrating Gay's fable of +the foolish young cock, who ne'er had been in that condition, but for +his mother's prohibition: moreover, how is it, that so captivating a +form of intoxication is so little rife among our drunken journeymen? +queries, however, as to this; and whether or not the humbug of +teetotalism (a modern speculation, got up by and for the benefit of +grocers and sugar-planters on the one side, schismatics and conspiring +demagogues on the other,) has already substituted opium-eating, +drinking, or smoking, for the wholesomer toddies, among factory folk and +the finest pisantry. Millions of anecdotes regarding Eastern Rajahs, +Western Locofocos, Southern Moors, and North-country Muscovites, as to +the drug in its abuses: strange cures (if any) of strange ailments of +mind or body by its prudent use: how to wean men and nations from those +deleterious chewings and smokings; with true and particular accounts of +such splendid self-conquests as Coleridge and De Quincey, and--shall I +add another, a living name?--have attained to. Then, again, what a field +for poetical vagaries, and madnesses of imagination, would be afforded +by the subject of opium-dreams! Now, strictly speaking, in order to +hallucinate honestly, your opium-writer ought to have had some +practical knowledge of opium-eating: then could he descant with the +authority of experience--yea, though he write himself thereby down an +ass--on its effects upon mind and body; then could he tell of luxuries +and torments in true Frenchified detail; then could he expound its pains +and pleasures with all the eloquence of personal conviction. But, as to +such real risk of poisoning myself, and of making I wot not how actual a +mooncalf, of my present sound mind and body, I herein would reasonably +demur: and, if I wanted dreams, would tax my fancy, and not my +apothecary's bill. Dreams? I need not whiff opium, nor toss off laudanum +negus, to imagine myself--a young Titan, sucking fiery milk from the +paps of a volcano; a despot so limitless and magnificent, as to spurn +such a petty realm as the Solar System, with Cassiopeia, Boötes, and his +dog, to boot; an intellect, so ravished, that it feels all flame, or a +mass of matter so inert, that it lies for ages in the silent depths of +ocean, a lump of primeval metal: Madness, with the red-hot iron hissing +in his brain: Murder, with the blood-hound ghost, over land, over sea, +through crowds, deserts, woods, and happy fields, ever tracking silently +in horrid calmness; the oppression of indefinite Guilt, with that Holy +Eye still watching; the consciousness of instant danger, the sense of +excruciating pain, the intolerable tyranny of vague wild fear, without +will or power to escape: spurring for very life on a horse of marble: +flying upward to meet the quick-falling skies--O, that universal +crash!--greeted in a new-entered world with the execrations of the +assembled dead--that hollow, far-echoing, malicious laughter--that +hurricane-sound of clattering skulls; to be pent up, stifling like a +toad, in a limestone rock for centuries; to be haunted, hunted, hooted; +to eat off one's own head with its cruel madly crunching under-jaw; +to--but enough of horrors: and as to delights, all that Delacroix +suggests of perfume, and Mahomet of Houris, and Gunter of cookery, and +the German opera of music: all Camilla-like running unexertive, all that +sea unicorns can effect in swift swimming, or storm-caught condors in +things aërial; all the rapid travellings of Puck from star to star, +system to system, all things beauteous, exhilarating, ecstatic--ages of +all these things, warranted to last. Now, multiply all these several +alls by forty-nine, and the product will serve for as exaggerated a +statement as possible of opium pandering to pleasure; yes, by +forty-nine, by seven times seven at the least, that we be not accused of +extenuating so fatal an excitement; for it is competent to conceive +one's self expanded into any unlimited number of bodies, seven sevens +being the algebraic _n_, and if so, into their huge undefined +aggregate; a giant's pains are throes indeed, a giant's pleasures indeed +flood over. But, we may do harm to morality and truth, by falsely making +much of a faint, fleeting, paltry, excitation. The brain waltzing +intoxicated, the heart panting as in youth's earliest affection, the +mind broad, and deep, and calm, a Pacific in the sunshine, the body +lapped in downy rest, with every nerve ministering to its comfort; what +more can one, merely and professedly of this world of sensualism--an +opium-eater for instance--conceive of bliss? Such imaginative flights as +these, with its pungent final interrogatory, suggestive to man's +selfishness of joys as yet untried, might tempt to tamper with the dear +delight; whereas the plain statement of the most that opium could +minister to happiness, as contrasted with those false vain views of it, +remind me of Tennyson's poetical '_Timbuctoo_,' gorgeous as a new +Jerusalem in Apocalyptic glories, and the mean filth-obstructed kraals +dotted on an arid plain, to which, for very truthfulness, his soaring +fancy drops plumbdown, as the shot eagle in '_Der Freischutz_.' + +Let this then serve as a meagre sketch of my defunct treatise on opium: +think not that I love the subject, curious and fertile though it be; +perhaps, philosophically regarded, it is not a better one than _gin_; +but ears polite endure not the plebeian monosyllable, unless indeed with +a rëduplicated _n_, as Mr. Lane _will_ have it our whilom genie should +be spelt: accordingly, I magnanimously give up the whole idea, and am +liberal enough, in this my dying determination, to sign a codicil, +bequeathing opium to my executors. + + * * * * * + + +Novelism is a field so filled with copy-holders, so populously tenanted +in common, that it requires no light investigation to find a site +unoccupied, and a hero or heroine waiting to be hired. Nevertheless, I +seem to myself to have lighted on a rich and little-cultivated corner; +imagining that the subject is a good one, because still untouched, +founded on facts, and with amplifiable variations that border on the +probable. He that lionizes Stratford-on-Avon, will remember in one of +the Shakspearian museums of that classic town, the pictured trance of +hapless + + + + +CHARLOTTE CLOPTON, + + +as it was limned in death-seeming life. He will be shown the tombs of +her ancient family in Stratford church, and the door of that fatal +vault; he will hear something of her noble birth--her fine +character--her fascinating beauty--her short, innocent, eventful +life--her horrible death. Consider, too, the age and locality in which +she lived, Elizabethan, Shakspeare's; the great contemporary characters +that might be casually introduced; the mysterious suicide, in that dim +dreadful pool at the end of the terraced walk among the cropped yews, of +her poor only sister, Margaret; equalled only in the miserable interest +by that of Charlotte herself. And then for a plot: some darkly hinted +parricide of years agone, in the generation but one preceding, has dropt +its curse upon the now guiltless, but, by the law of Providence, +still-not-acquitted family; a parricide consequent on passionate love, +differing religions, and the Montague-and-Capulet-school of hating +feudal fathers--Theodore Clopton having been a Catholic, Alice Beauvoir +a Protestant; an introductory recountal of old Beauvoir's withering +curse on the Clopton family for Theodore's abduction of his daughter, +followed by the tragic event of the father and son, Cloptons', mutual +hatred, and the former found in his own park with the broken point of +his son's sword in him, the latter flying the realm: the curse has slept +for a generation; and now two fair daughters are all that remain to the +high-bred Sir Clement and his desponding lady, on whom the Beauvoir +descendant, a bitterest enemy, takes care to remind them the hovering +curse must burst. This Rowland Beauvoir is the villain of the story, +whose sole aim it is, after the fulfilment of his own libertine wishes, +to see the curse accomplished: and Charlotte's love for a certain young +Saville, whom Beauvoir hates as his handsome rival in court patronage, +as well as her pointed refusal of himself, gives new and present life to +his ancestral grudge. The lovers are espoused, and to make Sir Clement's +joy the greater, Saville has interest sufficient to meet the old +knight's humour of keeping up the ancient family name, by getting it +added to his own; so that the Beauvoir hatred and parricidal curse seem +likely to be frustrated. But--the first hindrance to their union is poor +sister Margaret's secret and infatuated love for that scheming villain +Rowland, her then too probable seduction, melancholic madness, and +suicide: successively upon this follow the last illnesses and deaths of +the heart-broken old people, whom Rowland's dreadful ubiquity terrifies +in their very chamber of disease; and as the too likely consequence of +such accumulated sorrows on a creature of exquisite sensibility, +Charlotte, the only remaining heiress of that ancient lineage, +gradually, and with all the semblance of death, falls into her terrible +trance. Rowland, who, through his intimacy with Margaret, knows all the +secret passages and sliding panels of the old mansion, and who thereby +gets mysterious admission whenever he pleases, comes into that silent +chamber, and finds Saville mourning over his dead-seeming bride: she, +all the while, though unable to move, in an agony of self-consciousness; +and at last, when Rowland in fiendish triumph pronounces the curse +complete, to the extreme horror of both, by an effort of tortured mind +over apparently inanimate matter, rolls her glazed eyes, and gives an +involuntary groan: having thus to all appearance confirmed the curse, +she lies more marble-white, more corpse-like, more entranced than ever. +Then, after long lingering, draws on the horrible catastrophe: a +catastrophe, alas! as far at least as regards the heroine, _quite true_. +Fully aware of all that is going on--the preparations for burial, the +misery of her lover, the gratified malice of her foe--she is placed in +the coffin: the rites proceed, her heart-stricken espoused takes his +last long leave, she is carried to the grave, locked in the family vault +under Stratford church, and there left alone, fearfully buried alive! +And then, after a day or two, how shrieks and groans are heard in the +church-yard by truant school-boys, and are placed to the account of the +curse: how, at last, her despairing lover demands to have the vault +opened; and the wretch Rowland--partly from curiosity, partly from +malice--determined to be there to see. As they and some church-followers +come near the door of the vault, they hear knockings, and desperate +plunges within; Saville swoons away, the crowd falls back in terror, and +the hardened Rowland alone dares unlock the door. Instantly, in her +shroud, mad, starved, with the flesh gnawed from her own fair shoulders, +rushes out the maniac Charlotte: in phrensied half-reason she has seized +Rowland by the throat, with the strength of insanity has strangled him, +and then falls dead upon the steps of the vault! Of Saville--who, as +having swooned, is spared all this scene of horror, and who leaves the +country for ever--little or nothing is more said: and Clopton Hall +remains a ruin, tenanted by ghosts and bats. + +P.S. If thought fit, after the fashion of Parisian charcoal-burners in +ill-ventilated bed-rooms, Charlotte may have recorded her experiences in +the vault, by writing with a rusty nail on the coffin-plates. + +Now, the gist of this Victor-Hugo tale of terror is its general truth: a +true end of a truly-named family, in its own neighbourhood, and long +since extinct: the house, now rëbuilt and rëstyled--the vault--the +picture of that poor unfortunate, (how unsearchable in real life often +are the ways of Providence! how frequently the innocent suffer for the +guilty!)--the gloomy well--and something extant of the story--remains +still, and are known to some at Stratford. To do the thing graphically, +one should go there, and gain materials on the spot: and nothing could +be easier than to mix with them fifteenth-and-sixteenth-century +costumes, modes of thought, and historical allusions; accessories of the +humorous, if the age demands it, might relieve the pathetic; Charlotte's +own innocence and piety might be made to soften her hard fate, with the +assurance of a better life; Saville might become a wisely-resigned +recluse; and while the sins of the fathers are not gently, though +justly, visited on the children, the villain of the story meets his full +reward. + +Behold, then, hungry novel-monger, what grist is here for the mill! +Behold, Sosii, what capabilities of orders from every library in the +kingdom!--As doomed ones, and denounced ones, and undying ones, and +unseen ones, seem to be such taking titles, what think you of the +_Buried-alive-one_!--is it not new, thrilling, terrible? Who is he that +would pander to the popular taste for details of dreadful, cruel, +criminal, and useless abominations? "Should such a one as I?" In +emptying my head of the notion, I have ministered too much already: but +the sample of henbane is poured out, an offering to the infernal manes, +and poisons no longer the current of my thoughts. Thy ghost, poor +beautiful Charlotte! shall not be disturbed by me; thy misfortunes sleep +with thee. Nevertheless, this tale about a more amiable Charlotte than +Werter's, so naturally also falling into the orthodox three-volume +measure, is capable of being fabricated into something of deep, +romantic, tragical interest; such a character, in such circumstances, in +such an age, and such a place: I commend it to those of the Anglo-Gallic +school, who love the domestically horrible, and delight in unsunned +sorrows: but, I throw not any one topic away as a waif, for the casual +passer-by to pick up on the highway. Shadows, indeed, are flung upon the +waters, but Phulax still holds the substance with tenacious teeth. + +Stop awhile, my dog and shadow, and generously drop the world a morsel; +be not quite so bold when no one thinks of robbing you, and spare your +gasconade: the expediency of a sample has been cleverly suggested, and +WE _ego et canis meus_, royal in munificence, do graciously +accede. Will this serve the purpose, my ever-pensive public? At any +rate, with some aid of intellect in readers, it is happily an extract +which explains itself--the death of poor infatuated Margaret: we will +suppose preliminaries, and hazard the abrupt. + + * * * * * + +"That bitter speech shot home; it had sped like an arrow to her brain: +it had flown to her heart like the breath of pestilence: for Rowland to +be rough, uncourteous, unkind, might cause indeed many a pang; but such +conduct had long become a habit, and woman's charitable soul excused +moroseness in him, whom she loved more than life itself, more than +honour. But now, when the dread laugh of a seemingly more righteous +world was daily, hourly, to be feared against her--when the cold finger +of scorn was preparing to be pointed at her fading beauty, and her +altered form--now, when indulgence is most due, and cruelty has a sting +more scorpion than ever--to be taunted with that once-kind tongue with +having rightfully inherited _a curse_--to be told, in a sort of fiendish +triumph, that some ancient family grudge, forsooth, against her father's +fame, certainly as much as the selfish motives of a libertine professed, +had warped the will of Rowland to her ruin--to know, to hear, yea, from +his own lips, that the oft-repented crime of her warm and credulous +youth--of her too free, unsuspicious affection--had calmly been +contrived by the heart she clung to for her first, her only love--here +was misery, here was madness! + +"Rowland, at the approach of footsteps, had hastily slunk away behind +the accustomed panel, and alone in the chamber was left poor Margaret: +his last sneering speech, the mockery of his sarcastic pity, were still +haunting her ear with echoes full of wretchedness; and she had uttered +one faint cry, and sunk swooning on a couch, when her sister entered. + +"Charlotte, gentle Charlotte, had nothing of the hardness of a heroine; +her mind, as her most fair body, was delicate, nervous, spiritualized; +but the instinct of imperious duty ever gave her strength in the day of +trial. Long with an elder sister's eye had she watched and feared for +Margaret; she had palliated natural levity by evident warmth of +disposition, and excused follies of the judgment by kindness of the +heart. Charlotte was no child; in any other case, she had been keener of +perception; but in that of a young, generous, and most loving sister, +suspicion had been felt as a wickedness, and had long been lulled +asleep: now, however, it awaked in all its terrors; and, as Margaret lay +fainting, the sorrowful condition of one soon to be a mother who never +was a wife, was only too apparent. She touched her, sprinkled water on +her pale face, and, as the fixed eyes opened suddenly, Charlotte started +at their strange wild glare: they glittered with a freezing brilliancy, +and stared around with the vacuity of an image. Could Margaret be mad? +She bit her tender lips with sullen rage, and a gnashing desperation; +her cheek was cold, white, and clammy as the cheek of a corpse; her +hair, still woven with the strings of pearl she often wore, hung down +loose and dishevelled, except that on her flushing brow the crisp curls +stood on end, as a nest of snakes. And now a sudden thought seemed to +strike the brain; her eyes were set in a steady horror; slowly, with +dread determination, as if inspired by some fearful being, other than +herself, uprose Margaret; and, while her frightened sister, shuddering, +fell back, she glided, still gazing on vacancy, to the door: so, like a +ghost through the dark corridor, down those old familiar stairs, and +away through the Armory-hall; Charlotte now more calmly following, for +her father's library, where his use was to study late, opened out of it, +and surely the conscience-stricken Margaret was going in her penitence +to him. But, see! she has silently passed by; her hand is on the lock of +the hall-door; with one last look of despairing recklessness behind her, +as taking an eternal leave of that awe-struck sister, the door turns +upon its hinge, and she, still with slow solemnity, goes out. Whither, +oh God!--whither? The night is black as pitch, rainy, tempestuous; the +old knight's guests at Clopton Hall have gladly and right wisely +preferred even such questionable accommodation as the blue chamber, the +dreary white apartment looking on the moat--nay, the haunted room of the +parricide himself--to encountering the dangers and darkness of a +night-return so desperate; but Margaret, in her gayest evening attire, +near upon so foul a midnight in November, stalks like a spectre down the +splashy steps. Charlotte follows, calls, runs to her--but cannot rescue +from some settled purpose, horribly suggested, that gentle fearful +creature, now so changed. Suddenly in the dark she has lost her. Which +way did the maniac turn?--whither in that desolate gloom shall Charlotte +fly to find her? Guided by the taper still twinkling in her father's +study, she rushes back in terror to the hall; and then--Help, +help!--torches, torches! The household is roused, dull lanterns glance +among the shrubberies; pine-lights, ill-shielded from wind and rain by +cap or cloak, are seen dotting the park in every direction, and dance +about through the darkness, like sportive wild-fires: Sir Clement in +moody calmness looks prepared for any thing the worst, like a man who +anticipates evil long-deserved; the broken-hearted mother is on her +knees at the cold door-steps, striving to pierce the gloom with her +eyes, and ejaculating distracted prayers: and so the live-long +night--that night of doubt, and dread, and dreariness--through bitter +hours of confusion and dismay, they sought poor Margaret--and found her +not! + +"But, with morning's light came the awful certainty. At the end of a +terraced walk, mournfully shaded by high-cropped yews, stood an arbour, +and behind it, half-hidden among rank weeds, was an old half-forgotten +fountain; there, on many a sultry summer night, had Rowland met with +Margaret, and there had she resolved in terrible remorse to perish. With +the seeming fore-thought of reason, and the resolution of a phrensied +fortitude, she had bound a quantity of matted weeds about her face, and +twisted her hands in her fettering garments, that the shallow pool might +not in cruel kindness fail to drown her; she lay scarcely half immersed +in those waters of death; a few lazy tench floating sluggishly about, +appeared to be curiously inspecting their ghastly, uninvited guest; and +the fragments of an enamelled miniature, with some torn letters in the +hand-writing of Rowland Beauvoir, were found scattered on the +overflowing margin of the pool." + + * * * * * + +Well, unkindly whelp, if your bone has no pickings better than this, not +a cur shall envy you the sorry banquet. Yet, had my genius been better +educated in the science of French cookery, this might have been served +up with higher seasoning as a savoury _ragout_: but you get it in +simplicity, scarce grilled; and in sooth, good world, it is easier to +sneer at a novel than to imagine one; and far more self-complacency may +be gained by manfully affecting to despise the novelist, than by adding +to his honours in the compliment of humble imitation. + + * * * * * + +Things supernatural have every where and every when exercised mortal +curiosity. Fear and credulity support the arms of superstition, fierce +as city griffins, rampant as the lion and the unicorn; and forasmuch as +no creature, Nelson not excepted, can truly boast of having never known +fear, and no man also--from polite Voltaire, shrewd Hume, Leviathan +Hobbes, and erudite Gibbon, down to the most stultified +Van-Diemanite--can honestly swear himself free from the influence of +some sort of faith, for thus much the marvellous and the terrible meet +with universal popularity. Now, one or two curious matters connected +with those "more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of +in your philosophy," which have even occurred to mine own self, +(whereof, to gratify you, shall be a little more anon), have heretofore +induced me to touch upon sundry interesting points, which, like pikemen +round their chief, throng about the topic of + + + + +THE MARVELLOUS. + + +A book, so simply titled, with haply underneath a gigantic note of +admiration between two humble queries ?!? would positively, my worthy +publisher, make your worship's fortune. For it should concern ghosts, +dreams, omens, coincidences, good-and-bad luck, warnings, and true +vaticinations: no childish collection, however, of unsupported trumpery, +but authenticated cases staidly evidenced, and circumstantially +detailed; no Mother Goose-cap's tales, no Dick the Ploughman's dreams, +no stories from the '_Terrific Register_,' nor fancies of hysterical +females in Adult asylums; even Merlin witch-finders, and Taliesins +should be excluded: and, in lieu of all such common-places, I should +propose an anecdotic treatise in the manner scientifical. Macnish's +'_Philosophy of Sleep_,' Scott's '_Demonology_,' treatises on +Apparitions, and many a rare black-letter alchemical pamphlet, might +lend us here their aid; the British Museum is full of well-attested +ghost-stories, and there are very few old ladies unable to add to the +supply: then, this ghost department might be climaxed by the author's +own experience; forasmuch as he is ready to avouch that a person's fetch +was heard by many, and seen by some, in an old country-house, a hundred +miles away from the place of death, at the instant of its happening. + +As to omens, aforesaid witness deposes that the sceptre, ball, and cross +were struck by lightning out of King John's hand, in the Schools +quadrangle at Oxford, immediately on the accession of William the +Reformer; and all the world is cognusant that York Minster, the Royal +Exchange, and the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire near about +the commencement of open hostility, among ruling powers, to our church, +commerce, and constitution; and I myself can tell a tale of no less than +eight remarkable warnings happening one day to a poor friend, who died +on the next, which none could be expected to believe unless I delivered +it on oath as having been an eye-witness to the facts. Dreams +also--strange, vague, mysterious word; there is a gloomy look in it, a +dreary intonation that makes the very flesh creep: the records of public +justice will show many a murder revealed by them, as instance the Red +Barn; more than one poor client, in the clutch of a "respectable" +attorney, has been helped to his rights by their influence; from +Agamemnon and Pilate, down to Napoleon, the oppressors of mankind have +in those had kindly warning. Dreams--how many millions false and +foolish, for the one proving to be true!--but that one, how clear, +determinate, and lasting, as ministered by far other agency than +imagination taking its sport while reason slumbers! Who has not tales to +tell of dreams? A warning not to go on board such and such a ship--which +founders; a strange unlikely scene fixed upon the mind, concerning +friends and circumstances miles away, exactly in the manner and at the +time of its occurrence; the fore-shown coming of an unexpected guest; +the pourtrayed visage of a secret enemy: these, and others like these, +many can attest, and I not least. And of other marvels, though here left +unconsidered, yet might much be said: truths so strange, that the pages +of romance would not trench on such extravagance; combinations so +unlikely, that thrice twelve cast successively by proper dice, were but +probability to those. Thus, in authorial fashion, has the marvellous +dwelt upon my mind; and thus would I suggest a hand-book thereof to +catering booksellers and the insatiable public. + + * * * * * + +Against bears in a stage-coach, pointers in a drawing-room, lap dogs in +a _vis-à-vis_, and monkeys in a lady's boudoir, my love of comfort and +propriety enters strong protest; an emancipated parrot attracts my +sympathy far less than bright-eyed children feeding their testy pet, for +I dread the cannibal temptation of those soft fair fingers, when brought +into collision with Polly's hook and eye; gigantic Newfoundlanders +dragging their perpetual chains, larks and linnets trilling the faint +song of liberty behind their prison bars, cold green snakes stewing in a +school-boy's pocket, and dormice nestling in a lady's glove, summon my +antipathies; a cargo of five hundred pigs, with whom I had once the +honour of sailing from Cork to London, were far from pleasant as +_compagnons de voyage_; neither can I sleep with kittens in the room. +Nevertheless, no one can profess truer compassion, truer friendship (if +you will) for the animal creation: often have I walked on in weariness, +rather than increase the strain upon the Rosinantes of an omnibus; and +my greatest school scrape was occasioned by thrashing the favoured scion +of a noble house for cruelty to a cat. Such and such-like--for we learn +from Æsop (Fable eighty-eight, to wit) that trumpeters deserve to be +unpopular--is my physical zeal in the cause of poor dumb brutes: nor is +my regard for them the less in matters metaphysical. Bishop Butler, we +may all of us remember, in 'THE _Analogy_' argues that the +objector against a man's immortality must show good cause why that +which exists, should ever cease to exist; and, until that good cause be +shown, the weight of probability is in favour of continual being. Now, +for my part, I wish to be informed why this probability should not be +extended to that innocent maltreated class, whom God's mercy made with +equal skill, and sustains with equal care, as in the case of man, +and--dare we add?--of angels. Doth He not feed the ravens? Do the young +lions not gather what He giveth? Doth a sparrow fall to the ground +without Our Father? and is not the unsinning multitude of Nineveh's +young children climaxed with "much cattle?" It is true, there may be +mighty difference between "the spirit of a man that goeth upward, and +the spirit of a beast that goeth downward in the earth:" but mark this, +there _is_ a spirit in the beast; and as man's eternal heaven may lie in +some superior sphere, so that temporarily designed for the lower animals +may be seen in the renovated earth. It is also true, that St. Paul, +arguing for the temporal livelihood of Christian ministers from the type +of "not muzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn," asks, "Doth God +care for oxen?"--or, in effect, doth He legislate (I speak soberly, +though the sublime treads on the ridiculous,) for a stable?--and the +implication is, "To thy dutiful husbandry, O man! such lesser cares are +left." Sorry, righteously sorry, would it make any good man's heart to +think that the Creator had ceased to care for the meanest of his +creatures: in a certain sense + + "He sees with equal eye, as God of all, + A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;" + +and, assured that carelessness in a just Creator of his poor dependent +creatures must be impossible, I submit that, critically speaking, some +laudable variation might be made in that text by the simple +consideration that [Greek: melei] is not so strictly rendered "care for" +as [Greek: kedetai]. Scripture, then, so far from militating against the +possible truth, that animals have souls, would seem, by a side-long +glance, to countenance the doctrine: and now let us for a passing moment +turn and see what aid is given to us by moral philosophy. + +No case can be conceived more hard or more unjust than that of a +sentient creature (on the hypothesis of its having no soul, no +conscience, necessarily quite innocent), thrown into a world of cruelty +and tyranny, without the chance of compensation for sufferings +undeserved. Neither can any good government be so partial, as (limiting +the whole existence of animals to an hour, a day, a year,) to allow one +of a litter to be pampered with continual luxuries, and another to be +tortured for all its little life by blows, famine, disease--and in its +lingering death by the scientific scalpels of a critical Majendie or a +cold-blooded Spallanzani. Remember, that in the so-called parallel case +of partialities among men--the this-world's choice of a Jacob, the +this-world's rejection of an Esau--the answer is obvious: there are two +scales to the balance, there is yet another world. Far be it from us to +think that all things are not then to be cleared up; that the innocent +little ones of Kedar and the exterminated Canaanites will not then be +heard one by one, and no longer be mingled up indiscriminately in an +overwhelming national judgment; that the pleas of evil education and +example, of hereditary taint and common usage, will be then thrown aside +as vain excuse; and that eventual justice will not with facility explain +every riddle in the moral government of God. But in the case of soulless +extinguished animals, there is, there can be no compensation, no +explanation; whether in pain or pleasure, they have lived and they have +died forgotten by their Maker, and left to the casual kindness or +cruelty of, towards them at least, irresponsible masters. How different +the view opened to us by the possibility of soul being apportioned in +various measure among the lower animals: there is a clue given "to +justify the ways of God to"--brutes: we need not then consider, with a +certain French abbé, that they are fallen angels, doing penance for +their sins; we need not, with old Pythagoras and latter Brahmins, +account them stationed lodges, homes of transmigration for the spirits +of men in process of being purged from their offences: we need not +regard them as Avatars of Vishnu, or incarnations of Apis, visible +deities craving the idolatries of India and Egypt. The truth commends +itself by mere simplicity: nakedness betrays its Eve-like innocence of +guile or error: those living creatures whom we call brutes and beasts, +have, in their degree, the breath of God within them, as well as His +handiwork upon them. And, candid theologian, tell me why--in that +Millenium so long looked-for, when, after a fiery purgation, this earth +shall have its sabbath, and when those who for a time were "caught up +into the air," descending again with their Lord and his ten thousand +saints, shall bodily dwell with others risen in the flesh for that happy +season on this renovated globe--tell me why there should not be some +tithe of the animal creation made to rise again to minister in pleasure, +as they once ministered in pain? And for the rest, the other nine, what +hinders them from tenanting a thousand happy fields in other of the +large domains of space? What hinders those poor dumb slaves from +enjoying some emancipate existence--we need not perhaps accord them +more of immortality than justice, demands for compensation--for a +definite time, a millennium let us think, in scores of those million +orbs that twinkle in the galaxy? + + Space stretches wide enough for every grain + Of the broad sands that curb our swelling seas, + Each separate in its sphere, to stand apart + As far as sun from sun. + +Shall I then say what hinders?--the littleness of man's mind, refusing +possibility of room for those countless quadrillions; and the +selfishness of his pride, scorning the more generous savage, whose +doctrine (certainly too lax in liberality) raises the beast to a level +with mankind, and + + "Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky, + His faithful dog shall bear him company." + +Truly, the Creator's justice, and mercy, and the majesty of his kingdom, +give hope of after-life to all creation: Saint Antony of Padua did waste +time in homilizing birds, beasts, and fishes; but may they not find +blessings, though ignorant of priests?--And now, suffer me, in my +current fashion, to glance at a few other considerations affecting this +topic. It will be admitted, I suppose, that the lower animals possess, +in their degree, similar cerebral or at least nervous mechanism with +ourselves; in their degree, I say; for a zoöphyte and a caterpillar have +brains, though not in the head; and to this day Waterton does not know +whether he shot a man or a monkey, so closely is his nondescript linked +with either hand to the grovelling Australian and the erect orang +outang. Brutes are nerved as we are, and uncivilized man possesses +instincts like them: all we can with any show of reason deny them is +moral sense, and in our arbitrary refusal of this, and our summary +disposal of what we are pleased to term instinct, we take credit to +ourselves for exclusive participation in that immaterial essence which +is called Soul. But is it, in candour, true that brutes have no moral +sense? Obviously, since moral sense is a growing thing, and ascending in +the scale of being, and since man is its chief receptacle on earth, we +ought to be able to take the best instances of animal morals from those +creatures which have come most within the influence of human example; as +pets of every kind, but mainly dogs. Does not a puppy, that has stolen a +sweet morsel from some butcher's stall, fly, though none pursue him? Is +a fox-hound not conscience-stricken for his harry of the sheep-fold? and +who will deny some sense of duty, and no little strength of affection, +in a shepherd's dog? Have not Cowper's now historic hares displayed an +educated and unnatural confidence; and many a gray parrot, though +limited in speech, said many a witty thing?--Again, read some common +collection of canine anecdotes: What essential difference is there +between the affectionate watch kept by man over his brother's bed of +sickness, and that which has been known of more than one poor cur, whose +solicitude has extended even to dying on his master's grave? The +soldier's faithful poodle licks his wounds upon the stormy battle-field; +and Landseer's colley-dog tears up the turf, and howls the shepherd's +requiem. What real distinction can we make between a high sense of duty +in the captain who is the last to leave his sinking ship, and that in +the watchful terrier, whom neither tempting morsels nor menaced blows +can induce to desert the ploughman's smock committed to his care? Once +more: Who does not recognise individuality of character in animals? A +dog, or a horse, or a tame deer, or, in fact, any domesticated creature, +will act throughout life, in a certain course of disposition, at least +as consistently as most masters: it will also have its whims and ways, +likings and dislikings, habits, fears, joys, and sorrows; and, verily, +in patience, courage, gratitude, and obedience, will put its monarch to +the blush. + +But upon this theme--meagre as the sketch may be, fanciful, +illogical--my cursory notions have too long detained you. I had intended +barely to have introduced a black-looking Greek composite, serving for +name to an unwritten essay which we will imagine in existence as + + + + +PSYCHOTHERION, + +AN INCONCLUSIVE ARGUMENT ON THE SOULS OF BRUTES; + + +And my thoughts have run on thus far so little conclusively (I humbly +admit to you), that we will, to save trouble, leave the riddle as +unsolved as ever, and gain no better advantage than thus having loosely +adverted to another fancy of your author's mind. + + * * * * * + +Not yet is my mind a simple freeman, a private, unincumbered, individual +self-possessor: its slaves are not yet all manumitted; I lack not +subjects; I am no lord of depopulated regions; albeit my aim is indeed +akin to that of old Rufus, and Goldsmith's tyrannical Squire of Auburn; +I wish to clear my hunting-grounds, to make a solitude, and call it +peace. Slowly, but still surely, am I working out that will. Meanwhile, +however, there is no need to advertise for heroes; they are only too +rife, clinging like bats to the curtains of my chambers of imagery, or +with attendant satellites hanging in bunches, as swarming bees about +their monarch, to the rafters of my brain. Selection is the hardest +difficulty; here is the labour, here the toil; because for just +selection there should be good reasons. Now, amongst other my +multitudinous authorial projects, this perhaps is not the worst; namely, +by a series of dissimilar novels, psychological rather than religious, +and for interest's sake laid in diverse ages and countries, to +illustrate separately the most rampant errors of the Papacy. For +example, say that Lewis's '_Monk_' is a strong delineation of the evils +consequent on constrained and unchosen celibacy; though its colouring be +meretricious, though its details offend the moralities of nature, still +it is a book replete to thoughtful minds with terrible teaching--be not +high-minded, but fear. In like manner, guilty thoughts dropped upon +innocent young hearts in that foul corner, + + + + +THE CONFESSIONAL, + + +might make a stirring tale, or haply a series of them: the cowled +hypocrite suggesting crime to those whose answer is all innocence; his +schemes of ambition, or avarice, or lust, slowly elaborated by the +fiend-like purposes to which he puts his ill-used knowledge of the human +heart; his sacrilegious violation of the holy grievings made by mistaken +penitence. History should bring its collateral assistance: the Medicean +Queens, Venice, bloody Spain, hard-visaged monks calmly directing the +engines of torture, the poison of anonymous calumny, and dread secrets +more dreadfully betrayed, could furnish much of truthful precedent. The +bad obstructions placed between the sinner and his God by selfish +priestcraft; the souls that would return again, like Noah's weary dove, +enticed by ravens to forsake the ark, mate with them, and feed on their +banquet of corruption; the social, religious, philosophic, and eternal +harms brought out in full detail; the progress of this world's misery in +the lives of the confessing, and of studious crime in the heart of the +absolver: a scene laid among the high Alps, and the sunny plains they +topple over; the time, that of some murderous Simon de Montfort; the +actors, Waldensian saints, and demon inquisitors; the prominent +characters, a plausible intriguing friar, (as of old a monk of Cluni,) +whose ambition is the popedom, and whose conscience has no scruple +about means, bloody, bad, vindictive, atheistic; and then his victims, a +youth that he trains from infancy to the sole end of poisoning, subtly +and slowly, all who stand in his path; a girl who loves this youth, and +who, flying from the foul friar in the day of temptation, betakes her to +the mountains, and ultimately saves her lover from his terrible +destination in guilt, by hiding him in her own haven of refuge, the +persecuted little church; and with these materials to work upon, I need +hardly detail to you an intricate plot and an obvious _dénouement_. + +This class of theme, it is probable, has exercised the talents of many; +but as the evils of confessing to deceitful man, and of blind trust in +his deleterious advice, have not specifically met my eye, the subject is +new to me, and may be so to others. Still, I stay not now further to +enlarge upon it; I must press on; and will not cruelly encourage the +birth of thoughts brought forth only to be destroyed, like father +Saturn's babes--the anthropophagite. + +A good reason for selection at last presents itself. Sundry collateral +ancestors of mine [every body from Cain downwards must have had +ancestors; so no quibbling, please, nor quarrelling about so exploded an +absurdity as family-pride,] were lucky enough in days lang syne to +appropriate to themselves, amongst other matters, a respectable +allowance of forfeited monastic territory; and I know it by this token: +that in yonder venerable chest of archives and muniments, rest in their +own dust of ages, duly and clearly assorted, all those abbey deeds from +the times of Henry Beauclerc. Here's a fine unlooked-for opportunity of +making dull ancestral spots classic ground, famous among men; here's a +chance of immortalizing the crumbling ruins of an obscure, but +interesting, abbey-church; here's a fair field for dragging in all that +one knows or does not know, all that parchments can prove, or fancy can +invent, of redoubtable or reprobate progenitors, and investing the place +of their possessions with a glory beyond heraldry. Much is on my mind of +the desperate evils consequent on the Romish rule of idol-worship: and +why not lay my scene on the wild banks of the Swale, among the bleak, +rough moors that stand round Richmond, and the gullies that run between +the Yorkshire hills? Why not talk about those names of gentle blood, +familiar to the ear as household words, Uvedale and Scrope, Vavasour and +Ratcliffe? Why not press into the service of instructive novelism truths +stranger than fiction, among characters more marked, and names of higher +note, than the whole hot-pressed family of the Fitzes? + +All this might be accomplished, were it worth the worry, in + + + + +THE PRIOR OF MARRICK. + + +And now for a story of idolatry. It seems an absurdity, an insanity; it +is one--both. But think it out. Is it quite impossible, quite +incredible? Let me sketch the outline of so strange infatuation. Our +prior was once a good man--an easy, kind, and amiable: he takes the cowl +in early youth, partly because he is the younger son of an unfighting +family, and must, partly because he is melancholy, and will. And +wherefore melancholy? There was brought up with him, from the very +nursery, a fair girl, the weeping orphan of a neighbouring squire, who +had buckled on his harness, and fallen in the wars: they loved, of +course, and the deeper, because secretly and without permission: they +were too young to marry, and indeed had thought little of the matter; +still, substance and shadow, body and soul, were scarcely more needful +to each other, or more united. But--a hacking cough--a hectic cheek--a +wasting frame, were to blue-eyed Mary the remorseless harbingers of +death, and Eustace, standing on her early grave, was in heart a widower: +henceforth he had no aim in life; the cloister was--so thought he, as +many do--his best refuge, to dream upon the past, to soothe his present +sorrows, and earn for a future world the pleasures lost in this. Time, +the best anodyne short of what Eustace could not buy at +Rome--true-healing godliness--alleviates his grief, and makes him less +sad, but not wiser; years pass, the desire of prëeminence in his own +small world has hitherto furnished incentives to existence, and he find +himself a prior too soon; for he has nothing more to live for. Yes: +there is an object; the turmoil of small ambition with its petty cares +is past, and the now motiveless man lingers in yearning thought on the +only white spot in his gloomy journey, the green oasis of his desert +life, that dream of early love. He has long loved the fair, quiet image +of our Lady of Marrick, unwittingly, for another Mary's sake; +half-oblivious of the past in scheming for the present, he has knelt at +midnight before that figure of the Virgin-mother, and knew not why he +trembled; he thought it the ecstacy of devotion, the warm-gushing flood +of calmness, which prayer confers upon care confessed. But now, he sees +it, he knows it; there is, indeed, good cause: how miraculously the +white marble face grows into resemblance with _hers!_ the same sainted +look of delicate unearthly beauty, the same white cheek, so still and +unruffled even by a smile, the same turn of heavenly triumph on the lip, +the same wild compassion in the eye! Great God--he loves again!--that +staid, grave, melancholy man, loves with more than youthful fondness; +the image is now dearer than the most sacred; there is a halo round it, +like light from heaven: he adores its placid, eternal, changeless +aspect; if it could move, the charm would half dissolve; he loves it--as +an image! And then how rapturously joins he with the wondering choir of +more stagnant worshippers, while they yield to this substantial form, +this stone-transmigration of his love, this tangible, unpassionate, +abiding, present deity, the holy hymns of praise, due only to the unseen +God! How gladly he sings her titles, ascribing all excellence to her! +How tenderly falls he at her feet, with eyes lighted as in youth! How +earnestly he prays to his fixed image--_to_ it, not _through_ it, for +his heart is _there_! How zealously he longs for her honour, her worship +among men--hers, the presiding idol of that Gothic pile, the hallowed +Lady, the goddess-queen of Marrick! Stop--can he do nothing for her, can +he venture nothing in her service? Other shrines are rich, other images +decked in gold and jewels; there is yet an object for his useless life, +there are yet ends to be attained, ends--that can justify the means. He +longs for wealth, he plots for it, he dares for it: he plans lying +miracles, and thousands flock to the shrine; he waylays dying men, and, +by threatened dread of torments of the damned, extortionizes conscience +into unjust riches for himself; he accuses the innocent, and reaps the +fine; he connives at the guilty, and fingers the bribe. So wealth flows +in, and the altar of his idol is hung with cloth of gold, her diadem is +alight with gems, costly offerings deck her temple, bending crowds kneel +to her divinity. Is he not happy? Is he not content? Oh, no: an +insatiate demon has possessed him; with more than Pygmalion's insanity, +he loves that image; he dreams, he thinks of that one unchanging form. +The marvelling brotherhood, credulous witnesses of such deep devotion, +hold him for a saint; and Rome, at the wish of the world, sends him, as +to a living St. Eustatius, the patent of canonization: they praise him, +honour him, pray to him; but he contemptuously (and they take it for +humility) spurns a gift which speaks of any other heaven than the +presence of that one fair, beautiful, beloved statue. A thought fills +him, and that with joy: he has heard of sacrifices in old time, +immolations, offerings up of self, as the highest act of a devout +worshipper; he cares not for earth nor for heaven; and one night, in his +enthusiastic vigils, the phrensy of idolatry arms that old man's own +weak hand against himself, and he falls at the statue's feet, +self-murdered, _its_ martyr. + +Here were scope for psychology; here were subtle unwindings of motive, +trackings of reason, intricate anatomizations of the heart. All ages, +before these last in which we live, have been worshippers, even to +excess, of "unknown gods," "too superstitious:" we, upon whom the ends +of the world are fallen, may be thought to be beyond a danger into which +the wisest of old time were entrapped: we scarcely allow that the +Brahmin may, notwithstanding, be a learned man and a shrewd, when we see +him fall before his monster; we have not wits to understand how the +Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman dynasties could be so besotted. +For this superior illumination of mind, let us thank not ourselves, but +the Light of the world; and, warned by the history of ages, let us +beware how we place created things to mediate between us and the most +High; let us be shy of symbolic emblems--of pictures, images, +observances--lest they grow into forms that engross the mind, and fill +it with a swarm of substantial idols. + +Now, this tale of the '_Prior of Marrick_' would, but for the present +premature abortion, have seen daylight in the form of an +auto-biography--the catastrophe, of course, being added by some +brother-monk, who winds up all with his moral: and to get at this +auto-biographical sketch--a thing of fragments and wild soliloquies, +incidentally laying bare the heart's disease, and the poisonous +breathings of idolatrous influence--I could easily, and after the true +novelist fashion, fabricate a scheme, somewhat as follows: Let me go +gayly to the Moors by rail, coach, or cart, say for a sportsman's +pastime, a truant vicar's week, or an audit-clerk's holiday: I drop upon +the ruined abbey, now indeed with scarcely a vestige of its former +beauty remaining, but still used as a burial-place; being a bit of an +antiquary, I rout up the sexton, (sexton, cobbler, and general +huckster,) resolved to lionize the old desecrated precinct: I find the +sexton a character, a humourist; he, cobbler-like, looks inquisitively +at my caoutchouc shooting-shoes, and hints that he too is an artist in +the water-proof line; then follows question as how, and rejoinder as +thus. Our sexton has got a name among his neighbours for his capital +double-leather brogues, warranted to carry you dry-shod through a river; +and, warmed by my brandy-flask and _bonhomie_, considering me moreover +little likely to set up a rival shop, cunningly communicates his secret: +he puts parchment between the leathers--Parchment, my good man? where +can you get your parchment hereabouts? I spoke innocently, for I thought +only of ticketing some grouse for my friends southward: but the question +staggered my sexton so sensibly, that I came to the uncharitable +conclusion--he had stolen it. And then follows confession: how, among +the rubbish in a vault, he had found a small oak chest--broke it +open--no coins, no trinkets, "no nothing,"--except parchment; a lot of +leaves tidily written, and--warranted to keep out the wet. A few +shillings and a tankard make the treasure mine, I promising as extra to +send a huge bundle of ancient indentures in place of the precious +manuscript. Thus, in the way of Mackenzie's '_Man of Feeling_,' we +become fragmentary where we fear to be tedious; and so, in a good +historic epoch, among the wars of the Roses, surrounded by friars and +nuns, outlaws and border-riders, chivalrous knights and sturdy bowyers, +consign I to the oblivescent firm of Capulet and Co. my happily +destroyed '_Prior of Marrick_.' + + * * * * * + +A crank boat needs ballast; and of happy fortune is it for a disposition +towards natural levity, when educational gravity has helped to steady +it. Upon the vivacious, let the reflective supervene: to the gay, suffer +in its season the addition of the serious. Amongst other wholesome +topics of meditation--for wholesome it is to the healthy spirit, +although of some little danger to the presumptuous and inflated--the +study of the sure word of Prophecy has more than once excited the +writing propensity of your author's mind. On most matters it has been my +fate, rather from habits of incurable revery than from any want of +opportunities, to think more than to read; and therefore it is, with +very due diffidence, that as far as others and their judgments are +concerned, I can ever hope to claim originality or novelty. To my own +conscience, however, these things are reversed; for contemplation has +produced that as new to my own mind, which may be old to others deeper +read, and has thought those ideas original, which are only so to its own +fancy. Very little, then, must such as I reasonably hope to add on +Prophetical Interpretation; the Universal Wisdom of two millenaries +cannot be expected to gain any thing from the passing thought of a +hodiernal unit: if any fancies in my brain are really new, and hitherto +unbroached upon the subject, it can scarcely be doubted but that they +are false; so very little reliance do principles of catholicity allow to +be placed upon "private interpretations." + +With thus much of apology to those alike who will find, and those who +will not find, any thing of novelty in my notions, I still do not +withhold them. By here a little and there a little, is the general mind +instructed: it would be better for the world if every mighty tome really +contributed its grain. + +The prophecies of Holy Writ appear to me to have one great peculiarity, +distinguishing them from all other prophecies, if any, real or +pretended; and that peculiarity I deferentially conceive to be this: +that, whereas all human prophecies profess to have but one fulfilment, +the divine have avowedly many true fulfilments. The former may indeed +light upon some one coincidence, and may exult in the accident as a +proof of truth; the latter bounds as it were (like George Herbert's +sabbaths) from one to another, and another, through some forty +centuries, equally fulfilled in each case, but still looking forward +with hope to some grander catastrophe: it is not that they are loosely +suited, like the Delphic oracles, to whatever may turn up, but that +they, by a felicitous adaptation, sit closely into each era which the +Architect of Ages has arranged. Pythonic divination may be likened to a +loose bag, which would hold and involve with equal ease almost any +circumstance; biblical prophecy to an exact mould, into which alone, +though not all similar in perfection, its own true casts will fit: or +again, in another view of the matter, accept this similitude: let the +All-seeing Eye be the centre of many concentric circles, beholding +equally in perspective the circumference of each, and for accordance +with human periods of time measuring off segments by converging radii: +separately marked on each segment of the wheel within wheel, in the way +of actual fulfilment, as well as type and antitype, will appear its +satisfied word of prophecy, shining onward yet as it becomes more and +more final, until time is melted in eternity. Thus, it is perhaps not +impossible that every interpretation of wise and pious men may alike be +right, and hold together; for different minds travel on the different +peripheries. So our Lord (to take a familiar instance) speaks of his +second advent in terms equally applicable to the destruction of one +city, of the accumulated hosts at Armageddon, and of this material +earth: Antiochus and Antichrist occur prospectively within the same pair +of radii at differing distances; and, in like manner and varying +degrees, may, for aught we can tell, such incarnations of the evil +principle as papal Rome, or revolutionary Europe, or infidel +Cosmopolitism; or, again, such heads of parties, such indexes of the +general mind, as a Cæsar, an Attila, a Cromwell, a Napoleon, a--whoever +be the next. So also of hours, days, years, eras; all may and do cöexist +in harmonious and mutual relations. Good men, those who combine prayer +with study, need not fear necessary difference of result, from holding +different views; the grand error is too loosely generalizing; a little +circle suits our finite ken; we cannot, as yet, mentally span the +universe. These crude and cursory remarks may serve to introduce a +likely-looking idea to which my thoughts have given entertainment, and +which, with others of a similar sort, were once to have come forth in an +essay-form, headed + + + + +THE SEVEN CHURCHES; + + +moreover, for aught that has come across my reading, to be additionally +styled '_A New Interpretation, for these Latter Days_.' Without desiring +to do other than quite confirm the literal view, as having related +primarily to those local churches of old times, geographically in Asia +Minor; without attempting to dispute that they may have an individual +reference to varieties of personal character, and probably of different +Christian sects; I imagine that we may discover, in the Apocalyptic +prospect of these seven churches, an historical view of Christianity, +from the earliest ages to the last: beginning as it did, purely, warmly, +and laboriously, with the apostolic emblematic Ephesus, and to end with +the "shall He find faith on earth" of lukewarm Laodicea: thus Smyrna +would symbolize the state of the church under Diocletian, the +"tribulation ten days:" Pergamus, perhaps the Byzantine age, "where +Satan's seat is" the Balaam and Balak of empire and priesthood; +Thyatira, the avowed commencement of the Papacy, "Jezebel," &c.; Sardis, +the dreary void of the dark ages, the "ready to die;" Philadelphia, the +rise of Protestantism, "an open door, a little strength;" and Laodicea, +(the riches of civilization choking the plant of Christianity,) its +decline, and, but for the Founder's second coming, its fall; if, indeed, +this were possible. + +The elucidation of these several hints might show some striking +confirmations of the notion; which, as every thing else in this book, +would humbly claim your indulgence, reader, for my sketches must be +rapid, and their descriptions brief. Concurrently, however, with this, +(which I know not whether any prophetic scholiasts have mentioned or +not,) there may be deduced a still further interpretation, equally, as +far as I am concerned, underived from the lucubrations of others. This +other interpretation involves a typical view of the general +characteristics of Christendom's seven true churches, as they are to be +found standing at the coming of their Lord; the Asiatic seven may be +assimilated, in their religious peculiarities, with the national +Protestant churches of modern Europe: what order should be preserved in +this assimilation, unless indeed it be that of eldership, it might be +difficult to decide; but, excluding those communities which idol-worship +has unchurched, and leaving out of view such anomalies as America +presents, having no national religion, we shall find seven true churches +now existing, between which and the Asiatics many curious parallels +might be run: the seven are, those of England, Scotland, Holland, +Prussia, perhaps Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany. Without professing to +be quite confident as to the list, the idea remains the same: it is but +a light hint on a weighty subject, demanding more investigation than my +slender powers can at present compass. It is merely thrown out as +undigested matter; a crude notion let it rest: if ever I aspire to the +dignity and dogmatism of a theological teacher, it must be after more +and deeper inquiry of the Newtons, Faber, Frere, Croly, Keith, and other +learned interpreters, than it is possible or proper to make in a hurry: +volumes have been, and volumes might be again, written for and against +any prophecy unfulfilled; it is dangerous to teach speculations; for, if +found false, they tend to bring holy truths into disrepute. Let me then +put upon the shelf, as a humble layman should, my hitherto +unaccomplished prophetical treatise; and receive its mention for little +more than my true revelation of another phase of authorship. + + * * * * * + +And many like attempts have been hazarded by me in the mode theological; +though, from some cause or other, they have mostly fallen abortive. Were +mention here made of the more completed efforts of your author's mind, +in this walk of literature, or of others, it might too evidently lay +bare the mystery of my mask; a piece of secret information intended not +as yet to be bestowed. But this book--purporting to be the medley of my +mind, the _bonâ fide_ emptying of its multifarious fancies--must of +necessity, if honest, pourtray all the wanings and waxings of an +ever-changing lunar disposition: so, haply you shall turn from a play to +a sermon, from a novel to a moral treatise, from a satire or an epigram +to a religious essay. Such and so inconsistent is authorial man. Here +then, in somewhat of order, should have followed lengthily various other +writings of serious import, half-fashioned, and from conflicting reasons +left--perhaps for ever--half-finished. But considering the crude and +apparently careless nature of this present book, and taking into account +the solemn and responsible manner in which such high topics ought +invariably to be treated, I have struck out, without remorse or mercy, +all except a mere mention of the subjects alluded to. The contiguity of +lighter matter demands this sacrifice; not that I am one of those who +deem a cheerful face and a prayerful heart incongruous: there is danger +in a man, however religious, when his brow lowers, and his cheek is +stern; so did Cromwell murder Charles; so did Mary (though bigoted, +sincere,) consign Cranmer to the flames and Jane to the scaffold: +innocence and mirth are near of kin, and the tear of penitence is no +stranger to the laughter-loving eye. But I ramble as usual. Let it +suffice to say, that in accordance with common prejudices, I suffer my +mind to be shorn of its consecrated rays; for albeit my moral censor has +spared the prophetical ideas, and one or two other serious sobrieties, +on the ground that, although they are mere hints, they are at all events +hints of good, still more experimental and more hazardous pieces of +biblical criticism have been not unwisely immolated. The full cause of +this will appear in the mere title of the first of these half-attempted +essays, viz: + + + + +THE WISDOM OF REVISION; + + +whereof my predication shall be simply and strictly _nil_. + +The next piece of serious study, as yet little more than a root in my +mind, was to have fructified in the form of + + + + +HOMELY EXPOSITIONS, + + +or domestic readings in Scripture for daily use in family worship, with +an easy, sensible, useful sort of commentary; a book calculated +expressly for the understandings, wants, vices, temptations, and +peculiarities of household servants, and quite opposed to the usual +plans of injuriously raising doubts to lay them, of insisting upon +obsolete Judaisms, of strict theological controversy, of enlarging to +satiety on the meaning of passages too obvious to require explanation, +and ingeniously slurring over those which really need it; indeed, of +pursuing the courses generally adopted by the mass of commentators. + +A further notion extended to + + + + +LAY SERMONS, + + +whereof are many written: their principal peculiarities consist in being +each of a quarter-hour length, as little as possible regarding Jews and +their didactic histories, and, as much as might be, crowding ideas, and +images, and out-of-the-way knowledge of all sorts, into the good service +of illustrating Gospel truths. + +Another religious essay has been relinquished, although to a great +degree effected, from the apprehension that it may suggest matter +fanciful or false: also, in part, from the material being perhaps of too +slender a character to insist upon. Its name stood thus, + + + + +SCRIPTURAL PHYSICS; + + +being an attempt to vindicate the wisdom of Holy Writ in matters of +natural science; for example, cosmogony, geology, the probable centre of +the earth, the vitality and circulation of the blood, hints of magnetism +and electricity, a solar system, a plurality of worlds, the earth's +shape, inclined axis, situation in space, and connection with other +spheres, the separate existence of disembodied life, the laws of optics, +much of recondite natural history:--all these can be easily proved to be +alluded to in detached, or ingeniously compared, passages of the Hebrew +Scriptures. It is very likely, however, that Huntington has anticipated +some of this, although I have never met with his writings; and a great +deal more of it is mentioned in notes and sermons which many have read +or heard. Until, therefore, I become surer of neither invading the +provinces of others, nor of detracting from their wisdom, let those +ill-written fancies still lie dormant in my desk. + +A fifth tractate on things theological, still in the egg state, was to +have been indued with the rather startling appellation of + + + + +AN APOLOGY FOR HEATHENISM; + + +especially as contrasted with practical atheism, which, truth to tell, +is the contradictory sort of religion most universally professed among +the moderns: working out the idea, that any-how it is better to have +many objects of veneration than none, and that, although idol-worship is +a dreadful sin, still it is not so utterly hopeless as actual +ungodliness. That, among the heathens, temporal judgment ever vindicated +the true Divinity; whereas the consummation of the more modern +unworshiping world will be an eternal one: so, by the difference in +punishments comparing that of their criminalities. Showing also that, +however corrupted afterwards by impure rites and fatuous iniquities, +heathenism was, in its most ancient form, little more than the +hieroglyphic dress of truth: this exemplified by Moses and the brazen +serpent, by interpretations of Grecian mythology, shown, after the +manner of perhaps too ingenious Lord Bacon, to be consistent with +philosophy and religion; by the way, in which Egyptian priests satisfied +so good and shrewd, though credulous, a mind as that of Herodotus; by +Hesiod's '_Theogony_;' by the practical testimony of the whole educated +world in earliest times to the deep meaning involved in idolatrous +rites; by the mysteries of Eleusis in particular; by the characters of +all most enlightened heathens--as Cicero, Socrates, and +Plato--(half-convinced of the Godhead's unity, and still afraid to +disavow His plurality,) contrasted with those of the school of Pyrrho, +and Lucretius, and the later Epicureans. The possibility of early +allusions to the Trinity, as "Let us make man," _etc._, having led to +the idea of more than one God; and if so, in some sort, its veniality. + +All the above might be applied with some force, and, if so, with no +little value, to modern false semblances of religion, and non-religion; +to Roman Catholicism, with its images, its services in an unknown +tongue, its symbols, its adoption of heathen festivals, its actual +placing of many Gods in the throne of One; to Mammonism, as practically +a religion as if the golden calf of Babylon were standard at Cornhill; +to Voluptatism--if I may fabricate a name for pleasure-hunters, +following still, with Corybantic fury, the orgic revels of Osiris or +Astarte: in brief, to all the shades of human heresy, on this side or on +that of the golden mean, the worship of one true God, as revealed to us +in His three mysterious characters. + +But, query? Has not all this, and the very title, for any thing I know, +been done already by another, by a wiser? and, if so, by whom?--Speak, +some friend: it is the misfortune of mere thinkers (and this present +amygdaloid mass, this breccia book, exemplifies it well) to stumble +frequently upon fancies too good not to have been long ago appropriated +by others like-minded. A read, or heard, hint may be the unerring clue, +and we vainly imagine some old labyrinth to be our new discovery: +education renders up the master-key, and we come to regard ancient +treasuries as wealth of our own amassing, from which we deem it our +right to filch as recklessly as he from the mint of Croesus, who so +filled his pockets--ay, his mouth--that we read he [Greek: hebebusto]. +Who, in this age of literature, can be fully condemned, or heartily +acquitted of plagiarism? An age--and none so little in advance or in +arrear of it as I--of easy writing and discursive reading, of ideas +unpatented, and books that have outlived copy-right. But this has +detained us long enough: for the present, my brain is quit of its +heathenish exculpations: let us pass on; many regiments are yet to be +reviewed; their uniforms [_Hibernicè_] are various, but their flag is +one. + +A last serious subject--(they grow tedious)--is a fair field for +ingenious explanation and Oriental poetry, + + + + +THE SIMILES OF SCRIPTURE: + + +(of course "similes" is an English word: the author of a recent '_Essay +on Magna Charta_' has been _learned_ enough to write it "similæ," for +which original piece of Latinity let him be congratulated; I safely +follow Johnson, who would have roared like a lion at "similia;" and, +though Shakspeare does write it "similies," it may stoutly be contended +that this is of mixed metal, and that Matthew Prior's "similes" is the +purer sample: all the above being a praiseworthy parenthesis.) + +The similes of Scripture, then, were to have been demonstrated apt and +happy: for there is indeed both majesty, and loveliness, and propriety, +and strict resemblance in them. "As a rolling thing before the +whirlwind,"--"as when a standard-bearer fainteth"--"as the rushing of +mighty waters,"--"as gleaning grapes when the vintage is done,"--"as a +dream,"--"as the morning dew,"--"as"--but the whole book is a garden of +similitudes; they are "like the sand upon the sea-shore for multitude." +It is, however, too true, that often-times the baldness of translation +deprives poetry, Eastern especially, of its fervour, its glow, its gush, +and blush of beauty: to quote Aristotle's example, it too frequently +converts the rosy-fingered Morn into the red-fisted; and so the poetry +of dawning-day, with its dew-dropped flowers, its healthy refreshment, +its "rosy-fingers" drawing aside the star-spangled curtain of night, +falls at once into the low notion of a foggy morning, and is suggestive +only of red-fisted Abigails struggling continuously with the deposits of +a London atmosphere. In like manner, (for all this has not been an +episode beside the purpose,) many a roughly rendered similitude of +Scripture might be advantageously vindicated; local diversities and +Orientalisms might be explained in such a treatise: for example, in the +'_Canticles_,' the "beloved among the sons," is compared with an +apple-tree among the trees of the wood: now, amongst us, an apple-tree +is stunted and unsightly, and always degenerates in a wood; whereas the +Eastern apple-tree, probably one of the citron class, (to be more +correct,) may be a magnificent monarch of the forest. "Camphire," to a +Western mind, is not suggestive of the sweetest perfume, and perhaps +the word may be amended into the marginal "cypress," or cedar, or some +other: as "a bottle in the smoke," loses its propriety for an image, +until shown to be a wine-skin. "Who is this that cometh out of the +wilderness, like pillars of smoke?"--probably intending the +swiftly-rushing columns of _sand_ flying on the wings of the whirlwind. +"Thine eyes are like the fish-pools in Heshbon," might well be softened +into fountains--tearful, calm, resplendent, and rejoicing; and in +showing the poetic fitness of comparing the bride to a landscape, it +might clearly be set out how emblematic of Jewish millennial prosperity +and of Christian universality, that bride was; while comparisons of a +like un-European imagery might be taken from other Eastern poets, who +will not scruple to compare that rare beauty, a straight Grecian nose, +with a tower, and admire above all things the Cleopatra-coloured hair +which they call purple, and we auburn. Very much might be done in this +vein of literature, but it must be by a man at once an Oriental scholar +and a natural poet: the idioms of ancient and modern times should be +more considered, and something of apologetic explanation offered to an +English ear for phrases such as "the mountains skipping like rams," "the +horse swallowing the ground with fierceness," and represented as being +afraid as a grasshopper. A thousand like instances could be displayed +with little searching; let the above be taken as they are meant, for +good, and as of zeal for showing the best of books to the best +advantage: but it will appear that this essay trenches on the former one +so slenderly hinted at, as '_The Wisdom of Revision_,' therefore has +been stated too much at length already. Let it then rest on the shelf +till a better season. For this time, good reader, I, following up the +object of self-relieving, thank you for your patience, and will turn to +other themes of a more sublunary aspect. + + * * * * * + +One of the most natural and indigenous productions of a true author's +mind, is, by common consent, an epic poem: verily, a wearisome, +unnecessary, unfashionable bit of writing. Nevertheless, let my candour +humbly acknowledge that, for the larger canticle of two mortal days, I +was brooding over, and diligently brewing up, a right happy, capital, +and noble-minded thesis, no other than + + + + +HOME. + + +Alas, for the epidemy to which, few can doubt, ideas are subject! Alas, +for the conflict of prolific geniuses, wherewith the world's quiet is +disturbed! not impossibly, this very book now in progress of inditing +will come to be classed as a "Patch-work," an "Olla Podrida," a "Book +without a name," or some other such like _rechauffée_ publication; +whereas I protest its idea to be exclusively mine own, and conceived +long before its seeming congeners saw the light in definite +advertisements--at least to my beholding. And similarly went it with my +poor epic: scarcely had a general plan suggested itself to my musings, +and divers particular morsels thereof assumed "their unpremeditative +lay;" scarcely had I jotted down a staid synopsis, and a goodly array of +metrical specimens; when some intrusive newspaper displayed to me in +black and white a good-natured notice of somebody else's '_Home, an +Epic_.' So, as in the case of '_Nero_,' and haply of other subjects, had +it come to pass, that my high-mettled racer had made another false +start; that my just-discovered island, so gladly to have been +self-appropriated, was found to have, sticking on one corner of it, the +flag of another king; that the havoc of my brain, subsiding calmly into +the pendulum regularities of metre, was much ado about nothing; and all +those pretty fancies were the catalogued property of another. Such a +subject, too! intrinsically worthy of a niche in the temple of Fame, +besides Hope, Memory, and Imagination, _if_ only one could manage it +well enough to be named in the same breath with Campbell, Rogers, and +Akenside. Well, it was a mental mortification; for I am full of moral +land-marks, and would not (poetically speaking) for the world move +rooted termini into other people's grounds. Whether the field has been +well or ill preoccupied I wot not, having neither seen the poem nor +heard its maker's name: therefore shall my charity hope well of it, and +mourn over the unmerited oblivion which generally greets modern +poetry--yea, upon its very natal-day. Nevertheless, as an upright man +will never wish barefacedly to steal from others, so does he determine +at all times to claim independently his own: to be robbed, and not +resent it (I speak foolishly), is the next mean thing after pilfering +itself; and rash will be thy daring, O literary larcener! (can such +things be?) if thou art found unpermissively appropriating even such +sorry spoil as these poor seedlings of still possible volumes. + +Prose and verse are allowed to have some disguising differences, at +least in termination; and as we must not--so hints the public +taste--spoil honest prose, bad as it may be, with too much intermixture +of worse verse, it will be prudent in me to be sparing of my specimens. +Yet, who will endure so _staccato_ a page of jerking sentences as a +confirmed synopsis?--"Well, any thing rather than poetry," says the +world; so, for better or worse, I will jot down prosaically a few of my +all but impromptu imaginings on Home. + +After some general propositions, it would be proper to indulge the +orthodoxy of invocation; not to Muses, however, but to the subject +itself; for now-a-days, in lieu of definite deities, our worship has +regard to theories, doctrines, and other abstract idolisms: and +thereafter should follow at length an historical retrospect of domestic +life, from the savage to the transition states of hunters and warriors; +Nimrods and New Zealanders; Actæons and Avanese, Attilas, Roderics, and +all the Ercles' vein or that of mad Cambyses, Hindoos and Fuegians, +Greece, Egypt, Etruria, and Troy, in those old days when funds and taxes +were not invented, but people had to fight for their dinner, and be +their own police: so in a due course of circumconsideration to more +modern conditions, from ourselves as central civilization, to Cochin +China, and extreme Mexico, to Archangel and Polynesia. + +Divers national peculiarities of the _physique_ of homes; as, Tartars' +tents, Esquimaux snow-pits, Caffre kraals, Steppe huts, South-sea +palm-thatch, tree-villages, caves, log-cabins, and so forth. Then, a +wide view of the homes of higher society, first Continental, afterwards +British through all the different phases of comfort to be found in +heath-hovels, cottages, ornées, villas, parsonage-houses, squirealities, +seats, town mansions, and royal palaces. Thus, with a contrastive peep +or two about the feverish neighbourhood of a factory, up this musty +alley, and down that winding lane, we should have considered briefly all +the external accidents of home. The miserable condition of the homeless, +whether rich or poor; an oak with its tap-root broken, a house on +wheels, a boat without a compass, and all that sort of thing: together +with due declamation about soldiers spending twenty years in India, +shipwrecked Robinson Crusoes far from native Hull, cadets going out +hopelessly forever, emigrants, convicts, missionaries, and all other +absentees, voluntary or involuntary. Tirades upon abject poverty, wanton +affluence, poor laws, mendicancy, and Ireland; not omitting some +thrilling cases of barbaric destitution. + +Now come we lawfully to descant upon matters more mental and +sentimental--the _metaphysique_ of the subject--the pleasures and pains +of Home. As thus, most cursorily: the nursery, with its dear innocent +joys; the school-boy, holiday feelings and scholastic cruelties; the +desk-abhorring clerk; the over-worked milliner; the starving family of +factory children, and of agricultural labourers, and of workers in coal +mines and iron furnaces, with earnest exhortations to the rich to pour +their horns of plenty on the poor. England, once a safer and a happier +land, under the law of charity: now fast verging into a despotic +centralized system, kept together by bayonets and constables' staves. +Home a refuge for all; for queens and princes from their cumbrous state, +as well as for clowns from their hedging and ditching. The home of love, +and its thousand blessings, founded on mutual confidence, religion, +open-heartedness, communion of interest, absence of selfishness, and so +on: the honoured father, due subordination, and results; the loving +wife, obedient children, and cheerful servants. Absolute, though most +kind, monarchy the best government for a home; with digressions about +Austria and China, and such laudable paternal rule; and _contra_, bitter +castigation of republican misrule, its evils and their results, for +which see Old Athens and New York, and certain spots half-way between +them. + +The pains of home: most various indeed, caused by all sorts of opposite +harms--too much constraint or too little, open bad example or impossible +good example, omissions and commissions, duty relaxed by indulgence, and +duty tightened into tyranny; but mainly and generally attributable to +the non-assertion or other abuse of parental authority. The spoiled +child, and his progress of indulgence, unchecked passions, dissipation, +crime, and ruin. Interested interlopers, as former friends, relatives, +flatterers, and busy parasites, undermining that bond of confidence +without which home falls to pieces; the gloomy spirit of reserve, +discouraging every thing like generous open-heartedness; menial +influences lowering their subject to their own base level; discords, +religious, political, and social; the harmful consequence of +over-expenditure to ape the hobbies or grandeur of the wealthier; +foolish education beyond one's sphere, as the baker's daughter taking +lessons in Italian, and opera-stricken butcher's-boys strumming the +guitar; immoral tendencies, gambling, drinking, and other dissipations; +and the aggregate of discomforts, of every sort and kind; with cures for +all these evils; and to end finally by a grand climax of supplication, +invocation, imprecation, resignation, and beatification, in the regular +crash of a stout-expiring overture. + +It's all very well, objects reader, and very easy to consider this done; +but the difficulty is--not so much to do it, answers writer, as to +escape the bother of prolixity by proving how much has been done, and +how speedily all might be even completed, had poor poesy in these +ticketing times only a fair field and no disfavour; for there is at hand +good grist, ready ground, baked and caked, and waiting for its eaters. +But in this age of prose-devouring and verse-despising, hardy indeed +should I be, if I adventured to bore the poor, much-abused, +uncomplaining public with hundreds of lines out of a dormant epic; the +very phrase is a lullaby; it's as catching as a yawn; well will it be +for me if my thread-bare domino conceals me, for whose better fame could +brook the scandal of having fathered or fostered so slumbering an +embryo?--Let then a few shreds and patches suffice--a brick or two for +the house: and verily I know they will, be they never so scanty; for +what man of education does not now entertain a just abhorrence of the +Muses, the nine antiquated maiden aunts destined for ever to be +pensioned on that money-making nice young man, Mammon's great +heir-at-law, Prose Prose, Esq.? + +With humblest fear, then, and infinite apology, behold, in all sober +seriousness, what the labour of such a file as I am might betimes work +into a respectable commencement; I don't pretend it _is_ one; but +_valeat quantum_, take it as it stands, unweeded, unpruned, uncared-for, +unaltered, + + Home, happy word, dear England's ancient boast, + Thou strongest castle on her sea-girt coast, + Thou full fair name for comfort, love, and rest, + Haven of refuge found and peace possest, + Oasis in the desert, star of light + Spangling the dreary dark of this world's night, + All-hallowed spot of angel-trodden ground + Where Jacob's ladder plants its lowest round, + Imperial realm amid the slavish world, + Where Freedom's banner ever floats unfurl'd, + Fair island of the blest, earth's richest wealth, + Her plague-struck body's little all of health, + Home, gentle name, I woo thee to my song, + To thee my praise, to thee my prayers belong: + Inspire me with thy beauty, bid me teem + With gracious musings worthy of my theme: + Spirit of Love, the soul of Home thou art, + Fan with divinest thoughts my kindling heart; + Spirit of Power, in pray'rs thine aid I ask, + Uphold me, bless me to my holy task; + Spirit of Truth, guide thou my wayward wing; + Love, Power, and Truth, be with me while I sing. + +_V'la_: my consolation is that somewhere may be read, in hot-pressed +print, too, many worse poeticals than these, which, however, nine +readers out of ten will have had the worldly wisdom to skip; and the +tenth is soon satiated: yet a tithe is something, at least so think the +modern Levites; so, then, on second thoughts, a victim who is so good a +listener must not be let off quite so cheaply. However, to vary a little +this melancholy musing, and to gild the compulsory pill, Reserve shall +be served up sonnet-wise. (P. S. I love the sonnet, maligned as it is +both by ill-attempting friend and semi-sneering foe: of course, in our +epic, Reserve ambles not about in this uncertain rhyme, but duly stalks +abroad in the uniform dress; iambically still, though extricated from +those involutions, time out of mind the requisite of sonnets.) Stand +forth to be chastised, unpopular + + +RESERVE. + + + Thou chilling, freezing fiend, Love's mortal bane, + Lethargic poison of the moral sense, + Killing those high-soul'd children of the brain, + Warm Enterprise and noble Confidence, + Fly from the threshold, traitor--get thee hence! + Without thee, we are open, cheerful, kind; + Mistrusting none but self, injurious self, + Of and to others wishing only good; + With thee, suspicions crowd the gloomy mind, + Suggesting all the world a viperous brood + That acts a base bad part in hope of pelf: + Virtue stands shamed, Truth mute misunderstood, + Honour unhonoured, Courage lacking nerve, + Beneath thy dull domestic curse, Reserve. + +Without professing much tendency to the uxorious, all may blamelessly +confess that they see exceeding beauty in a good wife; and we need never +apologize for the unexpected company of ladies: at off-hand then let +this one sit for her portrait. Enduring listener, will the following +serve our purpose in striving worthily to apostrophize + + +THE WIFE. + + Behold, how fair of eye, and mild of mien, + Walks forth of marriage yonder gentle queen: + What chaste sobriety whene'er she speaks, + What glad content sits smiling on her cheeks, + What plans of goodness in that bosom glow, + What prudent care is throned upon her brow, + What tender truth in all she does or says, + What pleasantness and peace in all her ways! + For ever blooming on that cheerful face + Home's best affections grow divine in grace; + Her eyes are ray'd with love, serene and bright; + Charity wreathes her lips with smiles of light; + Her kindly voice hath music in its notes; + And heav'n's own atmosphere around her floats! + +Thus, wife-like, for better or worse, is the above _portrait charmant_ +consigned to the dingy digits of an unidistinguishing printer's-devil; +so doth Cæsar's dust come to stop a bung-hole. One morsel more, about +children, blessed children, and for this bout I shall have tilted +sufficiently in the Muses' court; or, if it must be so said, unhandsome +critic, stilted to satiety in false heroics: stay--not false; judge me, +my heart. Suppose then an imaginary parent thus to speak about his + + +INFANT DAUGHTERS. + + Oh ye, my beauteous nest of snow-white doves, + What wealth could price for me your guileless loves? + My earthly cherubim, my precious pearls, + My pretty flock of loving little girls, + My stores of happiness with least alloy, + My treasuries of hope and trembling joy! + Yon toothless darling, nestled soft and warm + On a young yearning mother's cradling arm; + The soft angelic smiles of natural grace + Tinting with love that other little face; + And the sweet budding of this sinless mind + In winning ways, that round my heart-strings wind, + Dear winning ways--dear nameless winning ways, + That send me joyous to my God in praise. + +Enough! not heartlessly, but to shame the heartlessness of YOUR +_ennui_, let me veil those holiest affections; yes, even at the risk of +leaving nominatives widowed of their faithful verbs, will I, until +required, epicise no more. Let these mauled bits be intimations of what +a little care might have made a little better. Gladly will I keep all +the remainder in a state quiescent, even to doubling Horace's wholesome +prescription of nine years: for it is impossible but that your fervent +poet, in the heat of inspiration, (credit me, lack-wits, there is such a +thing,) should blurt out many an unpalatable bit of advice, rebuke, or +virtuous indignation against homes in general, for the which sundry +conscience-stricken particulars might uncharitably arraign him. But +divers other notions are crowding into the retina of my mind's-eye: I +must leave my epic as you see it, and bid farewell, a long farewell, to +'_Home_.' Still shall my egotism have to appear for many weary pages a +most impartial and universal friend to the world of bibliopolists; I +cater multifariously for all varieties of the literary profession: +booksellers at least must own me as their friend, though the lucky purse +of Fortunatus saves me from being impaled upon the point of poor +Goldsmith's epigram, and I leave to [----] the questionable praise of +being their hack. For Bentley and Hatchard, alike with Rivington and +Frazer, for Colburn and Nisbet, as well as Knight, Tilt, Tyas, Moxon, +and Murray, I seem to be gratuitously pouring out in equal measure my +versatile meditations; at this sign all customers may be suited; only, +shop-lifters will be visited with the utmost rigour of that obnoxious +monosyllable.--Well, poor Epic, good night to you, and my benison on +those who love you. + + * * * * * + +To any one, much in the habit of thoughtful revery, how very +unsatisfactory those notions look in writing. He can't half unravel the +chaotic cobwebs of his mind; as he plods along penning it, a thousand +fancies flit about him too intangibly for fixed words, and his +ever-teeming hot imagination cannot away with the slow process of +concreted composition. For me, I must write impromptu, or not at all; +none of your conventional impromptus, toils of half-a-day, as little +instantaneous as sundry patent lights; no working-up of laborious +epigrams, sedulously sharpened antitheses, or scintillative trifles, +diligently filed and polished; but the positive impromptu of longing to +be an adept at shorthand-writing, by way of catching as they fly those +swift-winged thoughts; not quick enough by half; most of those bright +colours unfixed; most of those fair semi-notions unrecorded. To say +nothing of reasons of time, there being other things to do, and reasons +of space, there being other things to write. And thus, good friend, +affectionately believe the best of these crude intimations of things +intellectual, which the husbandry of good diligence, and the golden +shower of Danæ's enamoured, and the smiles of the Sun of encouragement +might heretofore have ripened into authorship; nay, more, perhaps may +still: believe, generously, that if I could coil off quietly, like +unwrapped cocoons, all these epics, tragics, theologies, pathetics, +analytics, and didactics, they would show in fairer forms, and +better-defined proportions: believe, also, truly, that I could, if I +would, and that I would, if the game were worth its candle. + +But, sooth to say, the over-gorged public may well regard that +small-tomed author with most favourable eye, who condenses himself +within the narrowest limits; a _diable boiteux_, not the huge spirit of +the Hartz; concentrated meat-lozenges, not _soup maigre_; pocket-pistols +of literature, not lumbering parks of its artillery. Verily, there is a +mightier mass of typography than of readers; and the reading world, from +very brevity of life, must rush, at a Bedouin pace, over the illimitable +plains of newspaper publication, while the pyramids of dusty folio are +left to stand in solitary proud neglect. The cursory railroad spirit is +abroad: we abhor that old painful ploughing through axle-deep ruts: the +friend who will skate with us, is welcomer than he who holds us freezing +by the button; and the teacher, who suggestively bounds in his balloon +on the tops of a chain of arguments, is more popular in lecturing than +he of the old school, who must duteously and laboriously struggle up and +down those airy promontories. + +I love an avenue, though, like Lord Ashburton's magnificent mile of +yew-trees, it may lead to nothing, and therefore have not expunged this +unnecessary preface: rather, will I bluntly come upon a next subject, +another work in my unseen circulating library, + + + + +THE SEVEN SAYINGS OF GRECIAN WISDOM, + +ILLUSTRATED IN SEVEN TALES. + + +Cordially may this theme be commended to the more illuminating +booksellers: well would it be greeted by the picture-loving public. It +might come out from time to time as a periodical, in a classical +wrapper: might be decorated with the sages' physiognomies, copied from +antique gems, with the fancied passage in each one's life that provoked +the saying, and with specific illustrations of the exemplifying story. +There should be a brilliant preface, introducing the seven sages to each +other and the reader, after the ensample of Plutarch, and exhausting all +the antiquarianism, all the memoirism, and all the varia-lectionism of +the subject. The different tales should be of different countries and +ages of the world, to insure variety, and give an easier exit to +_ennui_. As thus: Solon's "Know thyself" might be fitted to an Eastern +favourite raised suddenly to power, or a poor and honest Glasgow weaver +all upon a day served as heir to a Scotch barony, when he forthwith +falls into fashionable vices. Chilo's "Note the end of life" might +concern the merriment of the drunkard's career, and its end--delirium +tremens, or spontaneous combustion: better, perhaps, as less vulgarian, +the grandeur and assassination of some Milanese ducal tyrant. The +"Watch your opportunity" of Pittacus could be shown in the fortunes of +some Whittington of trade, some Washington of peace, or some Napoleon of +war. Bias's uncharitable bias, believing the worst of the world, might +seem to some a truism, to others a falsehood, according as their fellows +have served them well or ill; but a brief history of some hypocrite's +life, some misanthrope's experience, or some Arabian Stylobatist's +resolve to be perched above this black earth on a column like a stork, +might help to prove that "the majority are wicked." As for Periander's +aphorism, that "to industry all things are possible," pyramid-building +old Egypt, or the Druids of Stonehenge, or Scottish proverbial +perseverance in Australian sheep rearing and Canadian timber clearing, +will carry the point by acclamation. Cleobulus, praising "moderation in +all things," would glorify a moral warning of universal application, as +to pleasures, riches, and rank; or especially perhaps as preferring true +temperance before its modern tee-total false pretences; or lauding some +Richard Cromwell's choice of a quiet country life, before the turbulent +honours of a proffered Protectorate; while Thales, with his all but old +English proverb of "more haste, less speed," would apply admirably to +Sultan Mahmoud's ruinous reforms; or to the actual injury gulled Britain +has done to the condition of negroes in general by a vastly too +precipitate abolition of the slave-trade: a vile evil, indeed, but a +cancer of too long creeping to be cured in a day, a rottenness too +deeply seated in the frame-work of the world to be extirpated by such +caustic surgery as fire and sword; or to be quacked into health by +patent gold-salve. + +Seven such tales, shrewdly setting out their several aims, and +illustrative of good moral maxims which wise heathens live by, would (I +trow and trust) be somewhat better, more original--ay, and more +entertaining, too--than the common run of magazine adventures. It may +not here be fair to particularize further than in the way of avowing my +unmitigated contempt for the exploits of highwaymen, swindlers, men +about town, and ladies of the _pavé_. I protest against gilding crimes, +and palliating follies. Serve the public tables with better food, good +Pandarus. Those commentators on the Newgate calendar, those +bringers-into-fashion of the mysteries of vice, must not be quite +acquitted of the evils they have caused: brilliancy of dialogue, and +graphic power of delineation, are only weapons in a madman's hand, if +the moral be corrupting and profane. To cheerful, hearty, +care-dispelling humour, to such merry faces as Pickwick and +Co.--inimitable Pickwick--hail, all hail! but triumphs of burglary, and +escapes of murderers, aroint ye! + +Why then should I throw this cargo overboard?--Friend, my ship is too +full; _if_ I could only do one thing at a time, and could finish it +within the limits of its originating fit, these things all might be less +abortive. But I doubt if my glorification of Greek aphorisms ever +reaches any higher apotheosis than the airy castles sketchily built +above. + + * * * * * + +Similar in idea with these last tales, but essentially more sacred as to +character, would be an illustrative elucidation of the seven last +sayings of our Blessed Lord, when dying in the crucifixion. The Romish +Church, in some of her imposing ceremonies, has caused the sayings to be +exhibited on seven banners, which are occasionally carried before the +holy cross: from this I probably derived the idea of detaching these +sentences from the frame-work of their contexts, and regarding them in +some sort as aphorisms. For a name, not to be tautologous, should be +proposed a Græco-Anglicism, + + + + +THE HEPTALOGIA; + +OUR SAVIOUR'S SEVEN LAST SAYINGS. + + +The addition of "hagia" might be rather too Attic for English ears; and +I know not whether "the Sacred Heptalogia" would not also be too +mystical. This series of tales is capable of like illustration with the +last, except in the matter of portraits, unless indeed some eminent +fathers of the church, or some authenticated enamels, gems, or coins, +(if any,) displaying our Lord's likeness, served the purpose; and of +course the character of the stories should not be much in dissonance +with the sacredness of the text. The first might well enforce +forgiveness of enemies, especially if their hatred springs from +misapprehension. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do:" +many a true story of religious persecution, as of Inquisitorial +torture, exacted by sincere bigotry, and endured by equally sincere +conviction, would illustrate the prayer, and the scene might be laid +among Waldensian saints and the friars of Madrid. The second tale might +enlarge upon a promised Paradise, the assurance of pardon, and the +efficacy of repentance: the certainty of hope and life being +co-extensive, so that it might still be said of the seeming worst, the +brigand and the blasphemer, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise;" +a story to check presumption, while it encourages the humility of +pentitent hope; the details of a prodigal's career and his return, say +a falsely philosophizing German student, or the excesses of some not +ungenerous outburst of youthful wantonness; haply, a fair and passionate +Neapolitan. The third might well regard filial piety: "Behold thy +son--behold thy mother:" illustrated perhaps by a slave scene in +Morocco, or the last adieus between a Maccabæan mother, and her noble +children rushing on duteous death; or the dangers of a son, during the +Reign of Terror, protecting his proscribed parents; or allusive to the +case of many razed and fired homes in the Irish rebellion. The fourth, +necessarily a tale of overwhelming calamity ultimately triumphant, "My +God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"--the confidence of _my_ God +still, even in His recognised judgments trusted in as merciful: the +history of many an unrecorded Job; a parent bereaved of his fair dear +children; an aged merchant beggared by the roguery of others, and his +very name blamelessly dishonoured; the extremity of a martyr's +sufferings; or some hunted soul's temptation. The fifth, "I thirst;" +which might be commented on, either morally only, as referring to a +thirst after religion, virtue, and knowledge--or physically also, in +some story of well-endured miseries at sea on a wrecking craft; or of +Christian resignation even to the horrible death of drought among the +torrid sands of Africa; or some noble act, like that of Sir Philip +Sidney on the battle-field, or David's libation of that desired draught +from the well of Bethlehem. I need not remark that all these sayings +might primarily be applied to their Good Utterer, if it seemed more +advisable to shape the publication into seven sermons: but this, it will +at once be perceived, is not the present object; the word "sermons" has +to most men a repulsive sound, and a tale, similar in disguised motive, +may win, where an orderly discourse might unhappily repel: a teacher's +best influences are the indirect: like the conquering troops at +Culloden, his charge will be oblique; his weapon will strike the +unguarded flank, and not the opposing target. The sixth, "It is +finished;" perhaps, not only as a fact on the true, the necessary value +of the Christian scheme of redemption being so completed; but, more +generally, to display the evils and dangers of leaving mental, +spiritual, or even worldly good designs unfinished: a tale of natural +procrastination conquered, difficulties overcome, prejudices broken +down, and gigantic good effected: a Russian Peter, a literary Johnson, a +missionary Neff, a Wesley, or a Henry Martyn. The seventh, descanting +upon noble patience, and agonies vanquished by faith, the death and +glorious expectance of a martyr, the end of one of Fox's heroes; +"Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Of necessity in these +Christian tales there would be more of sameness than in those heathen; +because it would be improper and impolitic, with such theses, to enter +much into the lower human passions and the common events of life. But my +intentions of further proceeding in this matter have, as at present, +very sensibly subsided; for many wise and many good might reasonably +object to making those holy last dying words mere pegs to hang moral +tales upon. The idea might please one little sect, and anger half the +world; I care not to behold it accomplished, and question my own +capabilities; only, as it has been an authorial project heretofore +conceived by me, suffer it to boast this brief existence. + + * * * * * + +It is scandalously reported of some folks that they are not musical, a +calumny that has been whispered of myself: and, though against my own +convictions, (who will confess he "has not music in his soul?") I partly +acquiesce; that is to say--for, of such a charge, self-defence claims to +explain a little--although I _am_ charmed with all manner of music, +still for choice I prefer a German chorus to an Italian solo, and an +English glee to a French jig. Accordingly the operatic world have every +reason to despise my taste: especially if I add that Welsh songs, and +Scotch and Irish national melodies--[where are our English +gone?]--rejoice my heart beyond Mozart and Rossini. And now this next +little notion is scarcely of substance sufficient to assume the garb of +authorship: it is little more than a passing whim, but I choose for the +very notion's sake to make it better known. Except in a very few +instances--as Haydn's '_Seasons_,' e.g.--Oratorios, from some +conventional idea of Lent, we may suppose, seem obligated to concern +matters sacred. Of course, every body is aware of the prayerful meaning +of the name; but we know also that a madrigal has long ago put off its +monkish robe of a hymn to the Virgin, and worn the more laic habit of a +love song. Now, it is a fact, that very many good men who delight in +Handel's melody, and of course cannot object to psalms and anthems, +entertain conscientious objections to hearing the Bible set to music in +a concert-room; and sure may we all be, that, unless the whole thing be +regarded as a religious service, (in a mixed gay company who think of +sound more than sense, not very easy,) the warbling of sacred phrases, +and variations on the summoning trumpet, and imitated angelic praise, +and the unfelt expressions of musical repentance, and unfearing +despondency of guilt in recitative, are any thing but congenial to a +mind properly attuned. I hope I am neither prudish, nor squeamish, nor +splenetic, but speak only what many feel, and few care to express. Now, +the cure in future for all this would be very simple: Why not have some +lay oratorios? Protestants have appropriated the madrigal, and listen, +delighted with its melody, without the needless offence of seeming to +countenance idolatry; why should they not have solemn music, new or +ancient as may be adapted, administering to their patriotism, or their +tragic interests, or historic recollections, without grating against +their feelings of religious veneration?--To be specific, let me suggest +a subject, and show, for the benefit of any Pindar of this day, its +musical capabilities: we are, or ought to be as Englishmen, all stirred +at the name of + + + + +ALFRED; + + +and he would minister as well to the harmonies of an oratorio as Abel, +or Jephtha, Moses, or St. Paul--nay, as the Messiah, or the last dread +Judgment. Remember, our Alfred was a proficient himself, and spied the +Danish forces in the character of a harper. What scope were here for +gentle airs, and stirring Saxon songs! He harangues his patriot band, +and a manly Phillips would personify with admirable taste the truly +royal bard: he leaves Athel-switha his wife, and a fair flock of +children in sanctuary, while he rushes to the battle-field: the +churchmen might receive their queenly charge with music: the Danes riot +in their unguarded camp with drinking-snatches, and old-country-staves: +a storm might occur, with elemental crash: the succeeding silence of +nature, and distant coming on of the patriot troops at midnight; their +war-songs and marches nearer and nearer; the invaders surprised in their +camp and in their cups; the hurlyburly of the fight--a hail-stone chorus +of arrows, a clash of thousand swords, trumpets, drums, and clattering +horse-hoofs; a silent interval, to introduce a single combat between +Alfred and Hubba the Dane, with Homeric challenges, tenor and bass; the +routed foe, in clamorous and discordant staccato; the conquerors +pressing on in steady overwhelming concord; how are the mighty +fallen--and praise to the God of battles! + +Most briefly, then, thus: there is religion enough to keep it solemn, +without being so experimental as to intrude upon personal prejudice. The +notion is too slight, and too slenderly worked out, even for admission +here, if I were not still, my shrewd and mindful reader, sedulously +endeavouring to get rid of all my brain-oppressing fancies: and this, +happening to come uppermost as I write, finds itself caught, to my +comfort. It is commended, if worth any thing, to the musical proficient: +for I might as well think of adding a note to the gamut as of trying to +compose an oratorio. + + * * * * * + +The authorial mind is infinitely versatile: books and book-making are +indeed its special privilege, forte, and distinguishing peculiarity; but +still its thoughts and regards are ever cast towards originality of +idea, though unwritten and unprinted, in all the multitudinous +departments of science and of art. Thus, mechanical invention, chemical +discovery, music as above, painting as elsewhere, sculpture as below, +give it exercise continually. The authorial mind never is at rest, but +always to be seen mounted and careering on one hobby-horse or other out +of its untiring stud. If the coin of some rude Parthian, or the +fragments of some old Ephesian frieze, serve not as a scope for its +present ingenuities, it will break out in a new method of grafting +raspberries on a rosebush, in the comfortable cut of a pilot-coat, or +the safest machinery for a steamer. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_ is a rule +of moderation it repudiates; incessant energy provokes unabated +meddling, and its intuitive qualities of penetration, adaptation, and +concentration, are only hindered by the accidents of life from carrying +any one thing out to the point at least of respectable attainment. Look +at Michael Angelo; poet, painter, sculptor, architect, and author: and +if indeed we are not told of Milton having modeled, or Horace having +built up other monuments than his own imperishable fame, still nothing +but manual habit and the world's encouragement were wanting to perfect, +in the concrete, the conceptions of those plastic minds. Who will deny +that Hogarth was a novelist and play-wright, if not indeed a +heart-rending tragedian? Who will refuse to those nameless monastic +architects who planned and fashioned the fretted towers of Gloucester, +the stern solidity of Durham, the fairy steeple of Strasburg, or the +delicate pinnacles of Milan, the praise due to them of being genuine +poets of the immortal Epic? Phidas and Praxiteles, Canova and +Thorswaldsen, are in this view real authors, as undoubtedly as Homer or +Dante, Sallust or Racine; and to rise highest in this argument, the +heavens and the earth are but mighty scrolls of an Omniscient Author, +fairly written in a universal tongue of grandeur and beauty, of skill, +poetry, philosophy, and love. + +But let me not seem to prove too much, and so leap over my horse instead +of vaulting into the saddle: though authorship may claim thus +extensively every master-mind, from the Adorable Former of all things +down to the humblest potter at his wheel fashioning the difficult +ellipse; still, in human parlance, must we limit it to common +acceptations, and think of little more than scribe, in the name of +author. Nevertheless, let such seeds of thought as here are carelessly +flung out, nurtured in the good soil of charity, and not unkindly forced +into foolish accusations of my own conceit, whereas their meaning is +general, (as if forsooth selfishly dibbled in with vain particularity, +and not liberally broadcast that he may run that reads,)--let such crude +considerations excuse my own weak and uninjurious invasion of the +provinces of other men. The wisdom for social purposes of infinitesimal +division of labour, may be proved good by working well; but its lowering +influences on the individual mind cannot be doubted: that an intelligent +man should for a life-time be doomed to watch a valve, or twist +pin-heads, or wind cotton, or lacquer coffin-nails, cannot be improving; +and while I grant great evil in my desultory excesses, still I may make +some use of that argument in the converse, and plead that it is good to +exercise the mind on all things. Thus, in my assumed métier of +authorship, let notions be extenuated that popularly concern it little, +and yield admittance to any thought that may lead to that Athenian +desideratum, "some new thing." + +While the echoes of the name of Alfred still linger on the mind, and our +patriotism looks back with gratitude on his thousand virtues unsullied +by a fault, (at least that History, seldom so indulgent, has +recorded,)--while we reflect that in him were combined the wise king, +the victorious general, the enlightened scholar, the humble Christian, +the learned author, the excellent father, the admirable MAN in +all public and private relations, in domestic alike with social duties, +I cannot help wishing that forgetful England had raised some +architectural trophy, as a worthy testimonial of Alfred the noble and +the good. Whether Oxford, his pet child--or Westminster Hall, as mindful +of the code he gave us--or Greenwich, as the evening resting-place of +those sons of thunder whom the genius of Alfred first raised up to man +our wooden walls--should be the site of some great national memorial, +might admit of question; but there can be none that something of the +kind has been owing now near upon a thousand years, and that it will +well become us to claim boastingly for England so true, so glorious a +hero. With a view to expedite this object, and strictly to bear upon the +topic in author-fashion, it has come into my thought how much we want a + + + + +LIFE OF ALFRED: + + +my little reading knows of none, beyond what dictionaries have gathered +from popular history and vague tradition, rather than manuscripts of old +time, and Asser, the original biographer. Of this last work, written +originally in Saxon, and since translated into Latin, I submit that a +popular English version is imperatively called for; a translation from a +translation being never advisable, (compare Smollett's Anglo-Gallified +dilution of '_Don Quixote_,') the primary source should be again +consulted; and seeing that profound ignorance of the ancient Saxon +coupled with, as now, total indifference about its acquisition, place me +in the list of incapables, I leave the good suggestion to be used by +pundits of the Camden or Roxburghe or other book-learned society. If it +may have been already done by some neglected scribe, bring it to the +light, and let us see the bright example set to all future ages by that +early Crichton; if never yet accomplished, my zeal is over-paid should +the hint be ever acted on; and if, which is still possible, an English +version of the life of Alfred should be positively rife and common among +the reading public, your humble ignoramus has nothing for it but to pray +pardon of its author for not having known him, and to walk softly with +the world for writing so much before he reads. + +But this is an accessory--an episode; I plead for a statue to King +Alfred: and--(now for another episode; is there _no_ cure for these +desperate parentheses?)--_apropos_ of statues, let me, in the simple +untaught light of nature, suggest a word or two with regard to some +recent under-takings. Notwithstanding classical precedents, whereof more +presently, it does seem ridiculous to common sense, to set a man like a +scavenger-bird at Calcutta, or a stork at Athens, or a sonorous Muezzin, +or a sun-dried Simeon Stylites, on the top of a column a hundred feet +high: sculpture imitates life, and who would not shudder at such an +unguarded elevation? sculpture imitates life, and who can recognise a +countenance so much among the clouds? Again for the precedents: I +presume that Pompey's pillar, (which, indeed, perhaps never had any +thing on its summit except some Egyptian emblem, as the cap and throne +of higher and lower Egypt, or a key of the Nile as likely as any thing,) +is the most notable, if not the first, of solitary columns: now, +Pompey, or, as some prefer, Diocletian, and others Alexander Severus, +had that fine pillar ferried over from the quarries of Lycian Xanthus; +at least, this is a good idea, seeing that near that place still lie +three or four other columns of like gigantic dimensions, unfinished, and +believed to have been intended to support the triglyph of some new +temple. Pompey's idea was to fix the pillar up as a sea-mark, for either +entering the harbour of Alexandria, or to denote shallows, anchorage, or +the like; but apart from this actual utility, and apart also from its +acknowledged ornament as a sentinel on that flat strand, I take it to be +an architectural absurdity to erect a regular-made column with little or +nothing to support: an obelisk now, or a naval trophy, or a tower +decorated with shields, or a huge stele or cippus, or a globe, or a +pyramid, or a Waltham-cross sort of edifice, (of course all these +supporting nothing on their apices,) in fact, _any thing but_ a +Corinthian or Tuscan, or other regular pillar, seems to be permissable; +but for base, shaft, and capital to have nothing to do but lift a +telescopic man from earth's maternal surface, does look not a little +unreasonable; and therefore as much out of taste, as for the marble arch +at Buckingham Palace to spend its energies in supporting a flag-staff. + +The magnificent column of Trajan is exempted from this hasty bit of +criticism, (as also of course is its modern counterpart, Napoleon's,) +because it is, both from decoration and proportions, out of the +recognised orders of architecture; it partakes rather of the character +of a triumphal tower, than of one among many pillars separated chiefly +from the rest; the man is a superlative accessory, a climax to his +positive exploits; he does not stand a-top, as if dropt from a balloon, +but like a gallant climber treading on his conquests: and, as to +Phocas's column at Rome, I shall only say, that it illustrates my +meaning, except in so far as an immense base to the super-imposed +statuere deems it from the jockey imputation of carrying too light a +weight. Now, with respect to the Nelson memorial, your meddlesome scribe +had an unexhibited notion of his own. Mehemet Ali is understood to have +given certain two obelisks respectively to the French and English +nations: the Parisians appropriated theirs, and have set it up, +thorn-like, in their midst, perhaps as an emblem of what African +conquest has been in the heartside of France; but we English, less +imaginative, and therefore less antiquarian, have permitted our _petit +cadeau_ to lie among its ruins of Luxor or Karnac, unclaimed and +unconsidered. + +Nelson of the Nile might have had this consecrated to his honour: and +if, as is probable, it be of insufficient elevation, I should have +proposed a high flight of steps and a base, screened all round by +shallow Egyptian entrances, with an Etruscan sarcophagus just within the +principal one, (Egypt and Etruria were cousins germane,) and an +alto-relievo of Nelson dying, but victorious, recumbent on the lid: the +globe and wings, emblems alike of Nelson's rapidity, his universal fame, +and his now-emaciated spirit, might be sculptured over each entrance; a +sphinx, or a Prudhoe lion, being allusive to England as well as Egypt, +should sit guardiant at each corner of the steps; and the three +remaining doorways would be represented closed, and carved externally +with some allegorical personations of Nelson's career, of the Nile, +Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. This, then, had it been strictly in my +métier, (a happy métier mine of literary leisure,) should have been my +limnèd outline for the Nelson testimonial: the real interesting antique +needle, rising from the midst of its solid Egyptian architecture, and +pointing to the skies; not a steeple, however, but merely the obelisk +raised upon a heavy base, only hollowed far enough to admit of an +interior alto-relievo. + +It is probable that the exhibition of designs, which an _alibi_ +prevented me from seeing, included several obelisks; but the +peculiarities I should have insisted on, would have been first to make +good use of the real thing, the rarely carved old Egypt's porphyry; and, +next, to have had our hero's likeness within reasonable distance of the +eye. + +But to return from this other desperate digression: Alfred, the great +and wise, deserves his Saxon cross; or let him lie enshrined in a grove +of florid Gothic pinnacles, a fretted roof on clustered columns +reverently keeping off the rain; or, best of all, let him stand majestic +in his own-time costume, colossal bronze on a cube of granite, and so +put to shame the elegancies of a Windsor uniform, and the absurdity of +sticking heroes, as at St. George's, Bloomsbury, and elsewhere, on the +summit of a steeple. So, friend, let all this tirade serve to introduce +a most unlikely and chaotic treatise on + + + + +NATIONAL MEMORIALS. + + +Politics are a sore temptation to any writer, and of dalliance with a +Delilah so seductive it is futile to declare that I am innocent. My +principles positively are known to myself; which is a measure of +self-knowledge, in these any-thing-arian days, of that cabinet +coin-climax the "8th degree of rarity;" and that those choice +principles may not be concealed from so kind an eye as yours, friend +reader, hear me profess myself honestly--if you approve, or +shamelessly--if you _will_ so think it--"a rabid Tory!" At least, by +such a nomenclature sundry veracious journals, daily leaders of the +public opinion, would call me, were such a groundling as I prominent +enough to attract their indignation; and, from all that can be gathered +from their condemnatory clauses against others like minded, I have no +little reason to be proud of the title. For, on collation of such +clauses with their causes, I find, and therefore take (under correction +always) the rabid Tory to be--a temperate lover of order, whom his +mother has taught to "fear God," his father to "honour the king," and +his pastor to "meddle not with them who are given to change." A rabid +Tory, in matters of national expenditure, remembers to have heard an old +unexploded proverb, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth, and +there is that withholdeth what is due, but it tendeth to poverty;" and +he is by no means sure that a certain mismanaged nation is not +immolating her prosperity to what actuaries would call economical +principles. A rabid Tory is bigoted enough to entertain a ridiculous +fear of that generation abstraction, Catholic Rome, whom further he is +sufficiently vulgar-minded to consider as a lady of easy virtue arrayed +in the colours of a cardinal: he thinks one Luther to be somewhat more +than a renegade monk; and is childish enough to venerate, when a man, +the same Liturgy which his grandmother had taught him when a boy. For +other matters, the higher born, the better bred, the more classically +educated, and the more extensively possessed of moneys and lands our +honest-spoken Tory may be, ten to one the more is he afflicted with this +rabbies: and his mad propensities become positively criminal, when, as a +magistrate or a captain of dragoons, he thinks himself bound in +honourable duty to quell the enthusiasm of some disinterested patriots, +whose innocent wishes rise no higher than to subvert the existing order +of things, to secure for themselves a reasonable share of parks, +palaces, and pocket-money, and (as the very justifiable means for so +happy an end) manfully to sacrifice in the temple of Freedom the rogues +who would object to being robbed, and the tyrants who would be bloody +enough to fight for life and liberty. + +A rabid Tory--you see it is a pet name of mine--feels no little contempt +for a squeezable character; and he is well assured, from history as well +as on his own conviction, that the noble army of martyrs lived and died +upon his principles: whereas the retrograde regiment of cowards, whom +the wisdom of providing for personal safety has in battle induced to run +away, _relictis non bene parmulis_--the clamorous cohort of bullies, +whom the necessities of impending castigation have sensibly induced to +eat their words--the volunteer company of light-heeled swindlers, whom +nature instructs that they must live, and honesty has neglected to +inform how--every one, in short, whose grand maxim (_quocunque modo +rem_) is temporizing expediency, and with whom the cogent argument "you +shall" has more force than the silly conscience-whisper of "you +ought,"--contributes to swell the band which the professor of Toryism, +the abstracted follower of principles and not of men, has the honour of +beholding in the angle of his diagram, inscribed "contradictory." Not +that your true Tory believes so ill of _all_ his adversaries; there are +some few geese among the cranes; an Abdiel here and there, who has long +felt irksome in the host, but for false shame is there still; sundry +men, having ambitious or illuminated wives, and too amiable, or too +prudent, to attempt a breach of peace at home; some thronging the +opposite benches, because their fathers and grandfathers topographically +occupied those same seats--a decent reason, supposing similarity of +places and names, to insure similarity of principles and practice; and +some--I dislike them not for honesty--confessing and upholding the +republican extremes, upon a belief that all short of these are but an +unsatisfactory part of a great and glorious experiment. Now, the rabid +Tory prefers an open foe to a false friend; but your go-between, your +midway sneak, your shuttlecock, your perjured miser who will swear to +any thing for an extra per centage--all these are his detestation: and +although he will readily acknowledge some good and some wise in the +adversary's ranks, still he recognises that tri-coloured banner as the +one under which all naturally fight, who are poor in both worlds--with +neither money nor religion. Thus much of my reasonable rabies. + +One may hate principles without hating men; and for this sentiment we +have the Highest Example. Things are either right or wrong; if right, +do; if wrong, forbear: nothing can be absolutely indifferent, and to do +a little actual evil in order to compass great hypothetical good, is +false morality, and, therefore bad government. Why should not honesty +and plain-dealing be as inviolable publicly as privately? Why be guilty +of such mean self-stultification as to say one thing and do another? It +is criminal in rulers to give a helping hand to the evil which they deem +unavoidable; let them, in preference, cease to rule, and imitate the +noble threat of that king for half a century whose conscience bade him +abdicate rather than do wrong. + +But to come abruptly on a title-page: often-times, in reading +deleterious leading articles in wrong-sided newspapers, have I longed to +set before the world of faction + + + + +A MANUAL OF GOOD POLITICS, + + +which indeed has already been half-done, if decently begun be +synonymous. With this view has my author's mind heretofore thought over +many scriptural texts, characters, doctrines, and usages; yet, let me +freely confess the upshot of those efforts to be little satisfactory: +for I fear much, that though there be grounds enough to go upon for one +who is already fixed in right political principle, [orthodoxy being, as +is common among arguers, _my_ doxy,] there may not be sufficient so to +reason from as to convince the thousands, ready and willing to gainsay +them: and Locke's utter annihilation of poor ridiculous well-intentioned +Filmer, makes one wary, of taking up and defending a position so little +tenable, as, for instance, Adam's primary grant for the foundation of +absolute monarchy, or of attempting to nullify natural freedom by the +dubious succession of patriarchal power. At the same time, (competency +for so great a task being conceded--no small supposition, by the way,) +much remains to be done in this field of discourse; as, the fearful +example made of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for conduct very analogous +with numberless instances of modern Liberalism; the rights of rulers, as +well as of the governed; of kings, as well as people; the connexion +subsisting now, as through all former ages, between church and +state--well indeed and deeply argued out already by such great minds as +Coleridge and Gladstone, but perhaps, for general usefulness, requiring +a more brief and popular discourse; the question of passive obedience; +the true though unfashionable doctrine of man's general depravity +invalidating the consignment of power to the masses; and so forth. There +are, however, if Scripture is to be held a constitutional guide, some +examples to a certain extent contrary to the argument: as, elective +monarchy in the case of Saul; non-legitimate succession in families even +where election is omitted, as in the case of Solomon; and, honestly to +say it, many other difficulties of a like nature. In fact, upon the +whole, this distinction might be drawn; that although the Bible at large +favours what we may, for shortness' sake, term Conservative politics, +still it would not be easy to deduce from its page as code of rules, so +necessarily of a social, temporary, and accidental nature: The principle +is given, but little of the practice; the seed of true and undefiled +religion produces among other good fruit what we will call Conservatism, +but we must be very microscopic to detect that fruit in the seed: of +this admission let my _Liberal_ adversary make--as indeed he will--the +most; but let him remember that truth has always been most economically +distributed. It is a material too costly to be broadcast before swine; +and in slender evidence lurks more of moral test, than in stout +arguments and open miracles. At any rate, as unfitted for the task, I +leave it. For any thing mine un-book-learned ignorance can tell, the +very title may be as old as Christianity itself; it is a good name, and +a fair field. + +This manual was commenced in the form of familiar letters to a radical +acquaintance, whom I had resolved to convert triumphantly; but John +Locke disarmed me, without, however, having gained a convert: he made me +drop my weapon as Prospero with Ferdinand; but the fault lay with +Ferdinand, for want of equal power in the magic art. + + * * * * * + +"MEASURES, NOT MEN" is, as we have hinted already, the +ground-work of a true Tory's political creed; and measures themselves +only in so far as they expound and are consistent with principles. A man +may fail; the stoutest partisan become a renegado; and the pet measure +of a doughtiest champion may after all prove traitorous, unwise, +unworthy: but principle is eternally an unerring guide, a master to +whose words it is safe to swear, a leader whose flag is never lowered in +compromise, nor sullied by defeat. Defalcations of the generally +upright, derelictions of duty by the usually noble-minded, shake not +that man's faith which is founded on principle: for the cowardice, or +rashness, or dishonesty of some individual captain, he may feel shame, +but never for the _cause_ in which such hold commissions; he may often +find much fault with _soi-disant_ Tories, but never with the 'ism they +profess. We over-step their follies; we disclaim their corruptions; we +date above their faults; we wash our hands of their abuses. An +abstracted student in his chamber, building up his faith from the +foundations, and trying every stone of the edifice, takes little heed of +who is for him, and who against him, so Conscience is the architect, and +the Master of the house looks on approving. A man's mind is but one +whole; be it palace or hovel, feudal stronghold or Italian villa, it is +all of a piece: a duly subordinated spirit bears no superstructure of +the Radical, and the friable soil of discontented Liberalism, is too +sandy a foundation for ponderous fanes of the religious. + +I rejoice in being accounted one of those unheroic, and therefore more +useful, members of society, who profess to be by no means ambitious of +reigning. A plain country gentleman, with a mind (thank Heaven!) well at +ease, and things generally, both external and internal, being in his +case consentaneous with happiness, would appear to have reached the acme +of human felicity; and no one but a fool cares, in any world, to +exemplify the dog's preference for the shadow. Unenvious, therefore, of +royalty, and fully crediting that _never-quoted_ sentiment of +Shakspeare's "Uneasy," &c., my motto, within the legitimate limits of +right reason, and in common with that of some ridiculed philosopher of +Roundhead times, is the prudent saying, "Whoever's king, I'll be +subject!"--ay, and for the masculine I place the epicene. While, +however, in sober practice of right subordination, and under existing +circumstances of just rule, we gladly would amplify the maxim, (as in +courtesy, gallantry, loyalty, and honest kind feeling strongly bound,) +still in mere speculation, and irrespectively of things as they are, our +abstract musings tended to approve the original word in its unextended +gender. Every one of Edmund Burke's school would honour the ensign of +Divine vice-regency wherever he found it; but, apart from this +uninquisitive respect, he will claim to be reasonably patriotic, +patriotically rational; habit encourages to practice one thing, but +theory may induce to think another. Now, little credence as so +unenlightened so illiberal an integer as I give to an equalization in +the rights of man, certainly on many accounts my blindness gives less to +the rights of women with man, and very far less to those rights over +man: it might be inconvenient to be specific as to reason; but the +working of an ultra-republican scheme, in which females should ballot as +well as males, would briefly illustrate my meaning. Barbarism makes +gentle woman our slave; right civilization raises her into a loving +helpmate; but what kind of wisdom exalts her into mastery? + +Readily, however, shall sleep in dull suppression sundry comments on a +certain Rhenish law, whereof my author's mind had at one time studiously +cogitated a grave and wholesome homily. For our censor of the press, one +strait-laced Mr. Better Judgment, has, "with his abhorred shears," +clipped off the more eloquent and spirited portion of a trenchant +argument concerning--the revealed doctrine of a superior sex, the social +evils of female domination, church-headships considered as to type and +antitype, improper influences, necessary hindrances, anomalous example, +feminine infirmities, and an infinitude more such various objections +springing out of this fertile subject. Thereafter might have come the +historical view, evils and perils, for the majority of instances, +following in the wake of such mastery. However, to leave these +questionable matters quiescent, the principles of passive obedience +mildly interpose, forbidding to stir the waters of commotion, although +with healing objects, for the sake of an abstract theory; there is +ill-meant change enough afloat, without any call for well-intentioned +meddlers to launch more. So, judicious after-thought resolves rather to +strengthen too-much-weakened authority, in these ungovernable times, +than attempt to prove its weaknesses inherent; to look obstinately at +the golden side only of the double-wielded shield: instead of picking +away at a soft stone in constitutional foundations, our feeble wish +magnanimously prefers to prop it and plaster it, flinging away that +injurious pick-axe. The title of this once-considered lucubration is far +too suggestive to carping minds of more than the much that it means, to +be without objection: nevertheless, I did begin, and therefore, always +under shelter of a domino, and protesting against any who would move my +mask, I confess to + + + + +WOMAN, A SUBJECT: + + +it was a mere speculative argument; a flock of fancies now roaming +unregarded in some cloudy limbo. Let them fly into oblivion--"black, +white, and gray, with all their trumpery." + + * * * * * + +Notwithstanding these present hostile argumentations, politics are to me +what they doubtless are to many others, subjects and disquisitions +little short of hateful; perpetual mulligatawney; curried capsicums; a +very heating, unsatisfactory, unwholesome sort of food. How many +pleasant dinner-parties have been abruptly broken up by the introduction +of this dish! How many white waistcoats unblanched by projectile +wine-glasses on account of this impetuous theme! How many little-civil +wars produced from the pips of this apple of contention! Yes, I hate it; +and for this cause, good readers, (who may chance to have been used +scurvily, some six pages back, in respect of your opinions, honest as +my own, though fixed in full hostility--and so, courteously be entreated +for your pardons,) for this cause of hate, I beseech you to regard me as +sacrificing my present inclination to my future quiet. We have heard of +women marrying men they may detest, in order to get rid of them: even +with such an object is here indited the last I ever intend to say about +politics. The shadows of notions fixed upon this page will cease to +haunt my brain; and let no one doubt but that after relief from these +pent-up humours, I shall walk forth less intolerant, less unamiable, +less indignant than as heretofore. But, meanwhile, suffer with all +brevity that I say out this small say, and deliver my patriotic +conscience; for many a head-ache has obfuscated your author's mind in +consequence of other abortive bits of political common-place. Every +successive measure of small triumphant Whiggery, every piece of what my +view of the case would designate non-government or mis-government, has +pinched, vexed, bruised, and stung my fervent country's love day by day, +session after session. Like thousands of others, I have been a greyhound +in the leash, a bolt in the bow, longing to take my turn on the arena: +eager as any Shrovetide 'prentice for a fling at negligence, peculation +and injustice, and other the long black catalogue of British injuries. +Socialism, Chartism, Ribandism; Spain, Canada, China; freed criminals, +and imprisoned poverty; penny wisdom, and pound folly; the universal +centralizing system, corrupting all generous individualities: patriotism +ridiculed, and questionable loyalty patted on the back; vice in full +patronage, and virtue out of countenance; Protestantism discouraged, +Popery taken by the hand; Dissent of _any_ kind preferred to sober +Orthodoxy; and, fitting climax, all this done under pretences of perfect +wisdom, and most exquisite devotion to the crown and the +constitution:--these things have made me too often sympathize in Colonel +Crockett's humour, tiger-like, with a dash of the alligator. Accordingly +let me not deny having once attempted a bitter diatribe, in petto, +surnamed + + + + +FALSE STEPS; + +BRITAIN'S HIGHROAD TO RUIN; + + +a production of the pamphlet class, and, like its confraternity, +destined at longest to the life ephemeral. But, to say truth, I found +all that sort of thing done so much better, spicier, cleverer, in +numberless newspaper articles, than my lack of the particular knowledge +requisite, and my little practice in controversy, could have managed, +that I wisely drew in my horns, sheathed my toasting-iron, and decided +upon not proceeding political pamphleteer, till, on awaking some fine +morning, I find myself returned to parliament for an immaculate +constituency. + +Patient reader, of whatever creed, do not hate me for my politics, nor +despise the foolish candour of confession. Henceforth, I will not +trouble you, but abjure the subject; except, indeed, my sturdy friend +"the Squire," soon to be introduced to you, insists upon his +after-dinner topic: but we will cut him short; for, in fact, nothing can +be more provoking, tedious, useless, and causative of ill-blood, than +this perpetual intermeddling of private ignoramuses, like him and me, +with matters they do not understand, nor can possibly ameliorate. + + * * * * * + +A poet is born a poet, as all the world is well aware; and your +thorough-paced lawyer is not less born a lawyer; while the junction of +these two most militant incompatibles clearly bears out the hackneyed +quotation as above, with the final misfit, that is, "_non fit_." Your +poetaster at the bar is that grotesque ideal, which Flaccus thought so +funny that his friends _must_ laugh; (although really, Romans, it _is_ +possible to contemplate a sort of sphinx figure, "a human head to a +horse's neck," and so on, varied plumes and all, without much chance of +a guffaw;) and yonder sickly-looking clerk, perched upon his high stool, +penning "stanzas while he should engross," is the lugubrious caricature +of Apollo on his Pegassus, with Helicon for inkstand. + +It may be nothing extraordinary that, jostled in so wide a theatre as +ours of the world, chance-comers should not, at once or at all, +comfortably find their proper places; but that wise-looking chaperons, +having with prospective caution duly taken a box, should by malice +prepense thrust all the big people in front, and all the little folks +behind, is rather hard upon the latter, and not a little foolish in +itself. Even so in life: who does not wish a thousand times he could +help some people to change places? Look at this long fellow, fit for +Frederick of Prussia's regiment of giants: his parents and guardians +have bent him double, broken his spirit, and spoiled his paces, by +cramming him, a giraffe in the stable, between that frigate's gun-decks +as a middy: while yonder martial little bantam, by dint of exaggerated +heels, and exalted bear-skin, peeps about among his grenadiers, much as +Brutus and Cassius did with their collossal Cæsar. So also of minds: +look at brilliant Burns, the exciseman; and quaintly versatile Lamb, the +common city clerk: Look at--had you only patience, you should have +examples by the gross; but, to make a shorter tale of it, (I presume +this shows the etymology of cur-tail,) just think over the pack of your +acquaintance, and see if you could not shuffle those kings, queens--yes, +and knaves too--more to your satisfaction, and their own advantage: at +least, so most folks imagine, silly meddlers as they are; for, after +all, what with human versatility, and the fact of a probationary state, +and the influence of habit, and the drudging example set by others, +things work so kindly as they are, that, notwithstanding misfits, the +wiser few must be of Pope's mind, "whatever is, is right;"--ay, that it +is. + +A year or two ago--if your author is little better than one of the +foolish now, what in charity must he have been then?--I took it upon me +to indite an innocent, stingless satire, whereof for samples take the +following. Skip them one and all; you will, if you are wise, for they +bear the ban of rhyme, are peevish, dull, ill-reasoned; but if you are +not wise, (and, strange to say, malicious people tell me there are many +such,) you may wish to see in print a metred inconclusive grumble. Take +it, then, if you will, as I do, merely for a change; at any rate, your +manciple has furnished this buttery of yours with ample choice of +viands; and omnivoracious as man may be--gormandizing, with gusto, fat +moths in Australia, cockchafers at Florence, frogs in France, and snails +in Switzerland, equally as all less objectionable meats, drinks, fruits, +roots, composites, and simples--still, in reason, no one can be expected +or expect himself to like every thing: have charity, for what suits not +one man's taste may please the palate of another; so hear me +complacently turn + + + + +"KING'S EVIDENCE," + + +and give heed to certain confessions, extorted under the _peine forte et +dure_ of a whilom state legal. Yet, when I come to consider of this, +(_mihi cogitanti_, as school themes invariably commenced,) it strikes my +memory that all confessions, short of the last dying one, are weak and +foolish impertinence; whether Jean Jacques or Mr. Adams thought so, or +caused others to think so, are separate topics beside the question: for +myself, I will spare you a satire dotted with as many I's as an Argus +pheasant; and, without exacting upon good-nature by troublesome +contributions, will hazard a few couplets concerning Blackstone's +cast-off mistress, the Law. One word more though: undoubting of thine +amiability, friend that hast walked with me hitherto in peace, I will be +tame as a purring cat, and sheathe my talons; therefore are you still +unteased by divers sly speeches and sarcastic hints, of and concerning +innumerable black sheep that crowd about a woolsack; especially of +certain "highly respectables," whom the omnipotence of parliament (no +less power presumably being competent) commands to be accounted +"gentlemen." Should then my meagre sketches seem but little spiteful, +accord me credit for tolerance at the expense of wit, (yea, in mine own +garbled satire, hear it Juvenal!) and view them kindly in the same light +as you would sundry emasculated extracts from a discreet Family +Shakspeare. Indignation ever speaks in short sharp queries; and it is +well for the printer's pocket that the self-experience hereof was +considered inadmissible, for a new fount of notes of interrogation must +have been procured: as it is, we are sailing quietly on the Didactic +Ocean, and have, I fear, been engaged some time upon topics actionable +on a charge of _scandalum magnatum_. Hereof then just a little sample: +let us call it '_A Judgment in the Rolls Court_;' or in any other; I +care not. + + Precedent's slave, this mountebank decides + As great Authority, not Reason, guides. + "'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say + Faults can be mended at this time of day, + For Coke himself declared--no matter what-- + Can Justice suffer what Lord Coke would not? + And if 1 Siderfin, p. 10, you scan, + Lord Hoax has fixed the rule, that learned man: + I cannot, dare not, if I would, be just, + My hands are tied, and follow Hoax I must; + That _very_ learned Lord could not be wrong. + Besides, in fact, it has been settled long, + For the great case of Hitchcock versus Bundy + Decided--(Cro. Eliz. per Justice Grundy), + That [black was white];--and so, what can I say? + Landmarks are things must not be moved away: + I cannot put the clock of Wisdom back, + And solemnly pronounce that black _is_ black. + Though plaintiff has the right, I grant it clear, + I must be ruled by Hoax and Hitchcock here: + Equity follows, does not mend the laws: + Therefore declare, defendant gains the cause." + +Then, as virtuously bound, Indignation interrogates sundry +ejaculations; or, if you like it better, ejaculates sundry +interrogations: as thus, take a brace: + + If right and reason both combine in one, + Why, in God's name, should justice not be done? + If law be not a lie, and judgments jokes, + Why not _be just_, and cut adrift Lord Hoax? + +After a vast deal more in this vein of literature--for you perceive my +present purpose is dissection in part of this ancient rhyme--we arrive +at a magnanimous-- + + No! Right shall have his own, put off no longer + By rule of Former, or by whim of Stronger; + Nor, because Jack goes tumbling down the hill, + Shall precedent create a tumbling Jill. + Public opinion soon shall change the scene, + And wash the Law's Augæan stable clean; + Sweep out the Temple, drive the sellers thence, + And lead, in novel triumph, Common Sense. + +Verily, this is of the dullest, but it is brief: endure it, and pray you +consider the deadliness of the topic, and the barbarous cruelty +wherewith courtesy has clipped the wings of my poor spite. Let us turn +to other title-pages; assuring all the world that no specific mountebank +has been here intended, and that nothing more is meant than a nerveless +blow against legal cant, quainter than Quarles's, and against that +well-known species of Equity, which must have been so titled from like +antiquated reasons with those that induced Numa and his company to call +a dark grove, lucus. + + * * * * * + +How many foes, in this utilitarian era, has that very unwarrantable +vice, called Poetry! All who despise love and love-making, all who +prefer billiards to meditation, all who value hard cash above mental +riches, feel privileged to hate it; while really, typographers, the +illegible diamond print in which you generally set it up, whether in +book, or newspaper, or handbill, or magazine, induces many an +indifferent peruser to skip the poem for the sake of his eye-sight. I +presume that the monosyllable, rhyme, comprehends pretty nearly all that +the world at large intends by poetry; and, in the same manner as certain +critics have sneered at Livy--no, it was Tacitus--for commencing his +work with a bad hexameter, so many a reader will now-a-days condemn a +whole book, because it is somewhere found guilty of harbouring a +distich. But poetry, friend World, means far other than rhyme; its +etymology would yield "creation," or "fabrication," of sense as well as +sound, and of melody for the eye as well as melody for the ear. So did +[_epoiese_] Milton; and so did not---- Well, I myself, if you will. Yet, +in fact, there are fifty other kinds of poetries, beside the poetry of +words: as the poetry of life--affection, honour, and hope, and +generosity; the poetry of beauty--never mind what features decorate the +Dulcinea, for this species of poetry is felt and seen almost only in +first love; the poetry of motion, as first-rates majestically sailing, +furiously scudding waves, bending corn-fields, and, briefly, all things +moveable but railway-trains; the poetry of rest, as pyramids, a tropical +calm, an arctic winter, and generally all things quiescent but a +slumbering alderman; the poetry of music, heard oftener in a country +milkmaid's evening song, than in many a concert-room; the poetry of +elegance, more natural to weeping willows, unbroken colts, flames, +swans, ivy-clad arches, greyhounds, yea, to young donkeys, than to those +_pirouette_-ing and _very_ active _danseuses_ of the opera; the poetry +of nature, as mountains, waterfalls, storms, summer evenings, and all +manner of landscapes, except Holland and Siberia; the poetry of art, +acqueducts, minarets, Raphael's colouring, and Poussin's intricate +designs; the poetry of ugliness, well seen in monkeys and Skye terriers; +and the poetry of awkwardness, whereof the brightest example is Mr. +trans-Atlantic Rice. And, verily, many other poetries there be, as of +impudence (for which consult the experience of swindlers); of prose, +(for which see Addison); of energy, of sleep, of battle and of peace: +for it is an easy-seeming artfulness, the most fascinating manner of +doing as of saying, complication simplified, and every thing effected to +its bravest advantage. Poetry wants a champion in these days, who will +save her from her friends: O, namby-pamby "lovers of the Nine!" your +innumerous dull lyrics--ay, and mine--your unnatural heroics--I too have +sinned thus--your up-hill sonnets--that labour of folly have I known as +well--in brief, your misnamed poetry, hath done grievous damage to the +cause you toil for. Yet I would avow thus much, for I believe it: as an +average, we have beaten our ancestors; seldom can we take up a paper or +a periodical which does not show us verses worthy of great names; the +age is full of highly respectable, if not superlative poetry; and truly +may we consider that the very abundance of good versification has +lowered the price of poets, and therefore, in this marketing world, has +robbed them of proper estimation. Doubtless, there have been mighty men +of song higher in rank, as earlier in time, than any now who dare to try +a chirrup: but there are also many of our anonymous minstrels, with whom +the greater number of the so-called old English poets could not with +advantage to the ancients justly be compared. Look at '_Johnson's +Lives_.' Who can read the book, and the specimens it glorifies, without +rejoicing in his prose, and thoroughly despising their poetry?--With a +few brilliant exceptions, of course, (for ill-used Milton, Pope--and +shall we in the same sentence put Dryden?--are there,) a more wretched +set of halfpenny-a-liners never stormed mob-trodden Parnassus. The +poetry of Queen Anne's time and thereabouts, I judge to have been at the +lowest bathos of badness; all satyrs, and swains, fulsome flattery of +titles, and foolish adoration of painted shepherdesses: poor weak +hobbling lines, eked out by 'eds and expletives, often terminated by +false rhymes, and made lamer by triplets and dreary Alexandrines; +ill-selected subjects, laboured, indelicate, or impossible similes, +passions frigid as Diana, wit's weapons dull as lead. Yet these (many +exceptions doubtless there were, and many redeeming _morceaux_ even in +the worst, charitable reader, but as of the rule we speak not falsely), +these are the poets of England, the men our great grandfathers delighted +to honour, the feared, the praised, the pensioned, and those whom we +their children still denominate--the poets! Praise, praise your stars, +ye lucky imps of Fame! who could tolerate you now-a-days?--You lived in +golden times, when Dorset, Harley, Bolingbroke, Halifax, and Company, +gave away places of a thousand a-year, as but justly due to any man who +could pen a roaring song, fabricate a fulsome sonnet, or bewail in +meagre elegiacs the still-resisting virtue of some persecuted Stella! +Happy fellows, easy conquisitors of wealth and fame, autocrats of +coffee-houses, feted and favoured by town-bred dames! In those good old +times for the fashionable Nine, an epic was sure to lead to a +Ministry-of-State, and even an epigram produced its pension: to be a +poet, or reputed so, was to be--eligible for all things; and the +fortunate possessor of a rhyming dictionary might have governed Europe +with his metrical protocols. But these halcyon times are of the +past--and so, verily, are their heroes. Farewell, a long farewell, +children of oblivion! farewell, Spratt, Smith, Duke, Hughes, King, +Pomfret, Phillips, and Blackmore: ye who, in that day of very small +things, just rose, as your Leviathan biographer so often testifies, "to +a degree of merit above mediocrity:" ye who--but (Candor and good +Charity, I thank you for the hint,) limited indeed is my knowledge of +your writings, ye long-departed poets, whom I thus am base enough to +pilfer of your bays; and therefore, if any man among you penned aught of +equal praise with "_My Mind to me a Kingdom is_," or "_No Glory I covet, +no Riches I want_," humbly do I cry that good man's pardon. Believe that +I have only seen the château of your fame, but never the rock on which +it rested; and therefore candidly consider, if I might not with reason +have accounted it a castle in the air? + +Now, after this wholesale species of poetical massacre, this rifling of +old Etruscan tombs of their honourable spoil, a very pleasant ninny +would that poetaster stand forth, whose inanely conceited daring +exhibited specimens from his own mint, as medals in fit contrast with +those slandered "things of base alloy." No, as with politics, so with +poetry; in public I abjure and do renounce the minx: and although +privately my author's mind is so silly as to doat right lovingly on such +an ancient mistress, and has wasted much time and paper in her praise or +service, still that mind is sufficiently self-possessed in worldly +prudence, as to set seemingly little store on the worth of an +acquaintance so little in the fashion. Therefore I disown and disclaim + + + + +A VOLUME OF POETICS, + + +ill-fated offspring of a foolish father; miscellaneous collection of +occasionals and fugitives, longer or shorter, as the army of Bombastes. +Poetical as in verity I must confess to have been, (using the word +"poetical" as most men use it, and the words "have been" in the sense of +Troy's existence,) there must have lingered in me, even at that +hallucinating period, some little remnant of prosaic wisdom; for it is +now long since that I consigned to the most voracious of elements all +the more love-sick rhythmicals, and all the more hateful satiricals. +Now, I will maintain that act of incremation to be one of true heroism, +nearly equal to the judgment of Brutus; nor less is it matter of +righteous boasting to have immolated (warned by Charles Lamb's ghost) +divers albuminous preparations, which to have to do, were, Clio knows, +little pleasure, and to have done, we all know, as little praise. Such +light follies are like skeins of cotton, or adjectives, or babies, unfit +to stand alone; haply, well enough, times and things considered, but +totally unworthy to be dragged out of their contexts into the +imperishability of print; it is to take flies out of treacle, and embalm +them in clear amber. As to sonnets, what real author's mind will not, +if honest, confess to the almost daily recurrence of that symptom of his +disease? With mine, at least, they have increased, and are increasing; +yea, more--as a certain statesman suggested of Ireland's multitudinous +_pisantry_, or as tavern patriots declare of the power of the +crown--they ought to be diminished. Nevertheless, resolutely do I hope +that some of these at least are little worthy of the days of good Queen +Anne. + +In matters of the sacred muse, lengthily as others have I trespassed +heretofore; the most protracted _fytte_, however, made a respectable +inroad on a new metrical version of the '_Psalms_,' attempting at any +rate closer accuracy from the Hebrew than Brady's, and juster rhymes +than Sternhold's: but this has since been better done by another bard. +On the whole budget of exploded poeticals is now legibly inscribed "to +be kept till called for," a period rather more indefinite than the +promise of a spendthrift's payment. Let them rest in peace, those +unfortunate poetics! + +There are also in the bundle, if I rightly do remember me, sundry +metricals of the humorous sort, which may be considered as really +_waste-failures_ as any tainted hams that ever were yclept Westphalias. +For of all dreary and lugubrious perpetrations in print, nothing can be +more desolate than laboured witticism. A pun is a momentary spark dropt +upon the tinder-box of social intercourse; and to detach such a sentence +from its producing circumstances, is about as efficacious a method of +producing laughter, as the scintillatory flint and steel struck upon wet +grass would be of generating light. Few things are less digestible than +abortive efforts at the humorous; the stream of conversation instantly +freezes up; the disconcerted punster wears the look of his well-known +kinsman, the detected pickpocket; and a scribe, so mercilessly suicidal +as regards his better fame, deserves, when a plain blunt jury comes to +sit upon the body, to be found in mystical Latin, _felo de se_, or in +plain English "a fellow deceased." + +"There shall come in the last days, scoffers;" those same last days in +which "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." It +is true that these phrases (quoted with the deepest reverence, though +found in lighter company) are forcibly taken from their context; but +still, the judgment of many wise among us will agree that they present a +remarkable coincidence: in this view of the case, and it is a most +serious one, the concurrent notoriety of humour having just arisen like +a phoenix from its ashes, of railroads and steamboats having partially +annihilated space, and of the strides which education, if not intellect, +has made upon the highroad of human improvement, assumes an importance +greater than the things themselves deserve. To a truly philosophic ken, +there is no such thing as a trifle; the ridiculous is but skin-deep, +papillæ on the surface of society; cut a little deeper, you will find +the veins and arteries of wisdom. Therefore will a sober man not deride +the notion that comic almanacs, comic Latin grammars, comic hand-books +of sciences and arts, and the great prevalence of comicality in popular +views taken of life and of death, of incident and of character, of evil +and of good, are, in reality, signs of the times. These straws, so thick +upon the wind, and so injuriously mote-like to the visual organs, are +flying forward before a storm. As symptoms of changing nationality, and +of a disposition to make fun of all things ancient and honourable, and +wise, and mighty, and religious, they serve to evidence a state of the +universal mind degenerated and diseased. Still, let us not be too +severe; and, as to individual confessions, let not me play the +hypocrite. Like every thing else, good in its good use, and evil only in +abuse of its excesses, humour is capable of filling, and has filled, no +lightly-estimable part in the comedy of temporal happiness. What a good +thing it is to raise an innocent and cheerful laugh; to inoculate +moroseness with hearty merriment; to hunt away misbelieving care, if not +with better prayers, at the lowest with a pack of yelping cachinations; +to make pain forget his head-ache by the anodyne of mirth! Truly, humour +has its laudable and kindly uses: it is the mind's play-time after +office-drudgery--an easy recreation from thought, anxiety, or study. +Only when it usurps, or foolishly attempts to usurp, the office of more +than a temporary alleviation; when it affects to set up as an atheistic +panacea; when it professes to walk as an abiding companion, lighting you +on your way with injurious gleams (as that dreadful figure in Dante, who +lanterns his path by the glaring eyes of his own truncated head); and +when it ceases to become merely the casual scintillation, the flitting +_ignus fatuus_ of a summer evening--then only is wit to be condemned. +Often, for mine own poor part in this most mirthful age, have I had + + + + +HEARTY LAUGHS, + +IN PROSE AND VERSE; + + +but take no thought of preserving their echoes, or of shrining them in +the eternal basalt of print, like to the oft-repeated cries of Lurley's +hunted in-dweller. The humorous infection caught also me, as a thing +inevitable; but the case, I wot, proved an unfavourable one: and who +dare enter the arena of contention with these mighty men of Momus, these +acknowledged sages of laughter, (pardon me for omitting some fifty +more,) so familiar to the tickled ear, as Boz, and Sam Slick, Ingoldsby, +and Peter Plymley, Titmarsh, Hood, Hook; not to mention--(but that +artists are authors)--laughter-loving Leech, Pickwickian Phiz, and +inimitable Cruikshank? Nevertheless, let a tender conscience penitently +ask, is it quite an innocent matter to lend a hand in rendering the age +more careless than perchance, but for such ministrations, it would cease +to be? Is it quite wise in a writer, by following in that wake, to be +reputed at once to help in doing harm, and help to do harm to his own +reputation? There are professors enough in this quadrangle of the +college of amusement, popular and extant in flourishing obesity, without +so dull a volunteer as Mr. Self intruding his humours on the world: and +surely the far-echoing voices of a couple of cannons, thundering their +mirth throughout Europe from the jolly quarters of St. Paul's, may well +frighten into silence a poor solitary pop-gun, which, as the frog with +the bull, might burst in an attempt at competition, or, like Bottom's +Numidian lion, could imitate the mighty roar only as gently as your +sucking-dove. + + * * * * * + +Grapho-mania, or the love of scribbling, is clearly the great +distinguishing characteristic of an author's mind; pen and ink are to +it, what bread and butter are to its lodging-house the body: observe, we +do not hazard a remark so false as that the one produces the +other--their relations are far from being mutual; but we only suggest +that the mind, as well as the body, hobbles like a three-legged +OEdipus, resting on its proper staff of life. And what can be more +provocative of scribbling than travel? How eagerly we hasten to describe +unheard-of adventures, how anxiously record exaggerated marvels! to +prove some printed hand-book _quite wrong_ in the number of steps up a +round-tower: or to crush, as a wicked vender of execrable wines, the +once fair fame of some over-charging inn-keeper! Then, again, how +pleasant to immortalize the holiday, and read in after-years the story +of that happy trip langsyne; how pleasant to gladden the kind eyes of +friends, that must stay at home, with those wonder-telling journals, and +to taste the dulcet joys of those first essays at authorship. A great +charm is there in jotting down the day's tour, and in describing the +mountains and museums, the lakes and lazzaroni, the dishes and disasters +that have made it memorable: moreover, for fixing scenery on the mental +retina, as well as for comparison of notes as to an _alibi_, for duly +remembering things heard and seen, as well as for being humbled in +having (as a matter inevitable) left unseen just the best lion of the +whole tour, journals are a most praiseworthy pastime, and usually rank +among the earliest efforts of an embryo author's mind. + +It is a thing of commonest course, that, in this age of inveterate +locomotion, your present humble friend, now talking in this candid +fashion with your readership, has been every where, seen every thing, +and done his touristic devoirs like every body else about him: also, as +a like circumstance of etymological triviality, that he has severally, +and from time to time, recorded for self-amusement and the edification +of others all such matters as holiday-making school-boys and +boarding-misses, and government-clerks in their swift-speeding vacation, +and elderly gentlemen vainly striving to enjoy their first fretful +continental trip, usually think proper to descant upon. Of such +manuscripts the world is clearly full; no catacomb of mummies more +fertile of papyri; no traveller so poor but he has by him a packet of +precious notes, whereon he sets much store: every tourist thinks he can +reasonably emulate clever Basil Hall, in his eloquent fragments of +voyages and travels; and I, for my part, a truth-teller to my own +detriment, am ashamed to confess the existence of + + + + +A DECADE OF JOURNALS; + + +which of olden time my _cacoethes_ produced as regularly as recurred the +summer solstice. Unlike that of Livy's, I am satisfied that this poor +Decade be irrevocably lost; but, for dear recollection's sake of days +gone by, intend it at least to be spared from malicious incremation. +Records of roamings in romantic youth, witnesses of wayward way-side +wanderings, gayly with alliterative titles might your contents, _à la +Roscoe_, be set forth. But--what conceivable news can be told at this +time of day about the trampled Continent, and the crowded British isles? +Had my luck led me to Lapland or Formosa, to Mexico or Timbuctoo, to the +top of Egyptian pyramids or the bottom of Polish salt-mines, my +authorship would long since have publicly declared, in common with many +a monkey, that it had "seen the world." As things are, to Bruce, +Buckingham, Belzoni, and that glorious anomaly, the blind brave Holman, +let us leave the harvest of praise, worthy to be reaped as their own by +modern travellers. + + * * * * * + +More, yet more, most exemplary of listeners; and a web or webs of very +various texture. Let any man tell truths of himself, and seem to be +consistent, if he can. From grave to gay, from simple to severe, is the +line most expressive of such foolish versatility as mine; _varium et +mutabile semper_, to one thing constant never. I have heard, or read, +among the experiences of a popular preacher, that one of his most +vexatious petty temptations, was the rise of humorous notions in his +mind the moment he stepped into the pulpit; and it is well known that +many a comic actor has been afflicted with the blackest melancholy while +supporting right facetiously his best, because most ludicrous character. +Let such thoughts then as these, of the frailties incident to man, serve +to excuse the present juxtaposition of fancies in themselves +diametrically opposite. + +It is proper to preamble somewhat of apology before announcing the next +presumptuous tractate; presumptuous, because affecting to advise some +thousands of men whose office alike and average character are sacred, +and just, and excellent. Why then intrude such unrequired counsel? Read +the next five pages, and take your answer. Zealously inflamed for the +cause of truth, if not also charitably wroth against sundry lukewarm +cumber-earth incumbents, and certainly more in love with the +Church-of-England prayer-book than with her no-ways-extenuated evils of +omission or commission, I wrote, not long since, [and truly, not long +since, for few things in this book can boast of higher antiquity than a +most modern existence, some things being the birth of an hour, some of a +day, a week, or a month; and not more than one or two above a twelve +month's age.--Alas, for Horace's forgotten counsels!--alas, for Pope's +and Boileau's reiterated prescription of revisal for--_morbleu et +parbleu_--nine years!] I wrote then a good cantle of an essay addressed +to the clergy on some matters of judicious amelioration, which we will +call, if you please--and if the word hints be not objectionable-- + + + + +LAY HINTS. + + +Now, as to the unclerical authorship of this, it is wise that it be done +out of métier. Laymen are more likely to gain attention in these +matters, from the very fact of their influence being an indirect one, +speaking as they do rather from the social arm-chair, the high-stool of +the counting-house, or the benches of whilom St. Stephen's, than _ex +cathedrâ_ as of office and of duty. + +It would be a fair exemplification of the stolid prowess of a Quixote +tilting against, yea, stouter foes than wind-mills, were I to have +commenced with an attack upon external church architecture: this topic +let us leave to the fraternity of builders; only asking by what rule of +taste an obelisk-like spire, is so often stuck upon the roof of a +Grecian temple, and by what rule of convenience gigantic columns so +commonly and resolutely sentinel the narrowest of exits and entrances. +Let us be more commonly contented, as well we may, with our grand, +appropriate, and impressive indigenous kind of architecture--Gothic, +Norman, and Saxon: the temple of Ephesus was not suitable to be fitted +up with galleries, nor was the Parthenon meant to be surmounted by a +steeple. But all this is useless gossip. + +Similarly Quixotic would be any tirade against pews, those pet +strongholds of snug exclusive selfishness; bad in principle, as +perpetually separating within wooden walls members of the same +communion; unwholesome in practice, confining in those antre-like +parallelograms the close-pent air; unsightly in appearance, as any one +will testify, whose soul is exalted above the iron beauties of a plain +conventicle; expensive in their original formation, their fittings and +repairs; and, when finished, occupying perhaps one-fourth of the area of +a church already ten times too small for its neighbouring population. +Fixed benches, or a strong muster of chairs, or such modes of +congregational accommodation as public meeting-rooms and ordinary +lecture-rooms present, seems to me more consistent and more convenient. +But all this again is vain talking--a very empty expenditure of words; +we must be satisfied with churches as they are; and, after all, let me +readily admit that steeples are imposing in the distance, and of use as +belfries; (probably of like intent were the strange columnar towers of +Ireland;) and with regard to pews, let me confess that practice finds +perfect what theory condemns as wrong, so--let these things pass. + +Nevertheless, let me begin upon the threshold with the extortionate and +abominable race of pew-women, beadles, clerks, vergers, bell-ringers, +and other fee-hungry ravens hovering around and about almost every +hallowed precinct: pray you, reform all that, and copy railroad +companies in forbidding those begrudged gratuities to mendicant and +ever-grumbling menials. Next, give more sublunary heed, we beseech you, +to the comforts or discomforts incidental to doors, windows, stoves, +paint, dust, dirt, and general ventilation; consider the cold, fevers, +lumbagos, rheums, life-long aches, and fatal pains too often caught +helplessly and needlessly by the devout worshipper in a town or country +church. Look to your organist, that he wot something of the value of +time and the mysteries of tune; or, if a country parson, drill cleverly +that insubordinate phalanx of _soi-disant_ musicians, a rustic +orchestra; and exclude from the latter, at all mortal hazards, the +huntsman's horn, the volunteer fiddle, and the shrill squeaking of the +wry-necked pipe. Much is being now done for congregational psalmody; but +when will country folks give up their murderous execution of the +fugue-full anthem, and when will London congregations understand that +the singing-psalms are not set apart exclusively for charity-children? +When shall Bishop Kenn's '_Awake my soul_,' cease to be our noonday +exhortation; and a literal invocation for sweet sleep to close our +eye-lids no longer be the ill-considered prelude to an afternoon +discourse? Take some trouble to improve and educate, or get rid of, if +possible, your generally vulgar, illiterate, ill-conditioned clerk; +insist upon his v's and h's: let him shut up his shoe-stall; and raise +in the scale of society one of the leaders of its worship: as, at +present, these stagnant, recreant, ignorant clerks are sad +stumbling-blocks; no help to the congregation, and a nuisance to its +minister. In reading--suffer this foolishness, my masters--fight against +the too frequent style of dogged, dormant, dull formality; we take you +for earnest living guides to our devotion, not mere dead organs of an +oft-repeated service; quicken us by your manner; a psalm so spoken is +better than the sermon. In more fitting places has your author long ago +delivered his mind concerning matters of a character more directly +sacred than shall here find room; as, the sacrament with its holy +mysteries, and the many things amendable in ordinary preachments; but +for these my unseasonable Wisdom shrouds itself in Silence: therefore, +to do away with details, and apply a general rule, above all things, and +in all things, strive by judicious acquiescence with human wants, and +likings, and failings too, if conscientiously you can, as well as by +spirited and true devotion, to break down the sluggish mounds of needful +uniformity, and to build up round the church a rampart of good sense: +and so, Heaven bless your labours! A word more: if it be possible, take +no fees at a baptism, and let it not be thought, by either rich or poor, +that an entrance into Christ's fold must be paid for; no, nor at a +burial; but let the service for the Christian dead be accorded freely, +without money and without price. To a wedding, the same ideas are not +perhaps so closely applicable; therefore we will generously suffer that +you keep your customs there; but on the introduction of a little one to +the bosom of the church, or restoring the body of a saint to Him who +made it of the dust, nothing can be more repulsive to right religious +feelings than to be bothered by a fee-seeking clerk, thrusting in your +face an itching palm: to the poor, these things are more than a mere +annoyance; they amount to a hardship and a hindrance; for such demands +at such seasons are often nothing less than a bitter extortion upon the +self-denial of conscientious duty. + +More might be added; but enough, too much has been alluded to. Nothing +would strengthen the bulwarks of our Zion more than such easy reforms as +these: recent happy revivals in our church would thus be more +solidified; and where, as now, many have been lulled to slumber, many +grieved, many become disgusted or Dissenters, our sons and our daughters +would grow up as the polished corners of the temple, and crowds would +throng the courts of our holy and beautiful House. + +Suffer thus far, clerical and lay, these crude hints: in all things have +I studied brevity, throughout this little bookful; therefore are you +spared a perusal of my reasons, and so be indulgent for their absence. I +"touch your ears" but lightly; be you for charity, as in old Rome, my +favourable witnesses. + + * * * * * + +My before-mentioned Censor of the press had a very considerable mind to +dock all mention of the following intended _brochure_. But I answered, +Really, Mr. Judgment, (better or worse, as occasion may register your +Agnomen,) you must not weigh trifles in gold-assaying scales; be not so +particular as to the polish of a thumb-nail; endure a little incoherent +pastime; count not the several stems of hay, straw, stubble--but suffer +them to be pitch-forked _en masse_, and unconsidered: it is their +privilege, in common with that of certain others--lightnesses that froth +upon the surface of society. Moreover, let me remind your worship's +classicality that no one of mortals is sapient at all times. Item, that +if friend Flaccus be not a calumniator, even the rigid virtue of the +antiquer Cato delighted in so stimulant a vanity as wine hot. So give +the colt his head, and let it go: remembering always that this same +colt, as straying without a responsible rider, is indeed liable to be +impounded by any who can catch him; but still, if he be found to have +done great damage to his master's character, or to a neighbour's fences, +the estray shall rather be abandoned than acknowledged. Let then this +unequal work, this ill-assorted bundle of dry book-plants, this +undirected parcel of literary stuff, be accounted much in the same +situation as that of the wanton caitiff-colt, so likely to bait a-pound, +and afterwards to be sold for payment of expenses, in true bailiff-sense +of justice. And let thus much serve as discursive prolegomena to a +notion, scarcely worth recording, but for the wonder, that no professed +writer (at least to my small knowledge) has entered on so common-sense a +field. Paris, I remember, some years ago was inundated with copies of a +treatise on the important art of tying the cravat; every shop-window +displayed the mystic diagrams, and every stiff neck proclaimed its +popularity. This was my yesterday's-conceived precedent for entertaining +the bright hope of illuminating London on the subject of shaving: + + + + +ANTI-XURION; + +A CRUSADE AGAINST RAZORS, + + +should have been my taking title; and perchance the learned treatise +might have been characteristically illustrated with steel cuts. Shaving +is a wider topic than most people think for; it is a species of insanity +that has afflicted man in all ages, deprived him of nature's best +adornment in every country under heaven. So contradictorily too; as +thus: the Spanish friar shaves all but a rim round his head, which rim +alone sundry North American aborigines determine to extirpate; John +Chinaman nourishes exclusively a long cue, just on that same inch of +crown-land which the P.P. sedulously keeps as bare as his palm: all the +Orientals shave the head, and cherish the beard; all the Occidentals +immolate the beard, and leave the honours of the head untouched. Then, +again, the strange successive fashions in this same unnatural, unneedful +depilation; look at the vagaries of young France: not to descend also to +savage men, and their clumsy shell-scrapings; and to devote but little +time to the voluminous topic of wigs, male and female, cavalier and +caxon, Marlborough and monstrous maccaroni--from the plaited +Absalom-looking periwig of a Pharaoh in the British Museum, to +Truefitt's last patent self-adjuster. Of all these follies, and their +root a razor, might we show the manifest absurdity: we might argue upon +Eastern stupidity as caused by thickness of the skull, such thickness +being the substitute for thatchy hair suggested by kind ill-used Nature +as the hot brain's best protection: we might reason upon the average +sheepishness of this peaceful West, as due to having shorn the lion of +his mane, Phoebus of his glory, man of his majestic beard. Then the +martyrdom it is to many! who stoically, day after day, persist in +scratching to the quick their irritable chins, and after all to little +better end than the diligent earning of tooth-aches, ear-aches, colds, +sore throats, and unbecoming blank faces. Habit, it is true, makes us +deem that a comfort, and our better halves (or those we would fain have +so) think that a beauty, which our forerunners of old time would have +held a plague, a disgrace, a deformity, a mortification: prisoned +paupers in the Union think it an insufferable hardship to go bearded, +and King David's ambassadors would have given their right eyes _not_ to +have been shaved; so much are we the slaves of custom: Sheffield also, +it is equally true, is a town that humane men would not wish to ruin; by +razors they of Sheffield live, and shaving is their substance. But, as +in the case of the smoother and softer sex, we are convinced that the +wand of fashion would presently convert their heterodox anti-barbal +prejudices: so, in the case of harder-ware Sheffield, while we hope to +live to see razors regarded as antiquarian rarities, (even as a +watchman's rattle, or the many-caped coats of the semi-extinct class +_Welleria coachmanensis_ are now some time become,) still we desire all +possible multiplication to the tribe of trimming scissors. Like Ireland, +we shout for long-denied justice; give us our beards. That reasonable +indulgence shall never be abused; our Catholic emancipation of moustache +and imperial, whisker and the rest, shall not be a pretence for lion's +manes, or the fringe of goats and monkeys: we would not so far follow +unsophisticated nature as to relapse into barbarous wild men; but +diligently squaring, pointing, combing, and perfuming those natural +manly decorations, after the most approved modes of Raleigh, Walsingham, +and Shakspeare, and heroical Edward the Black Prince, and venerable +apostolic Bede, we will encroach little further than to discard our +comfortless starched collars and strangling stocks, to adopt once more +in lieu thereof open necks and vandyke borders. + +Of course, (here, priest-like, we take our ell,) there must follow upon +this a grand and glorious revolution in male attire. This present +close-fitting, undignified set of habiliments, which no chisel dare +imitate--this cumbersome, unbecoming garb--might, should, ought to be, +and would be, superseded by slashed gay jerkins, and picturesque nether +garments: cap and feather throwing into shade the modern hat, ugliest +of all imaginable head-dresses; and in lieu of the smock-frock +Macintosh, or coarse-featured bear-skin, Ciceronian mantles flowing from +the shoulders, or lighter capes of the elegant olden-time Venitian. By +way of distinguishing the now confused classes of society, my radical +reform in dress would go to recommend that nobles and gentry wear their +own heraldic colours and livery buttons; and humbler domesticated +creatures walk, as modest gentlefolks do now, in what sundry have +presumed to call "Mufti." To be briefer; in dress, if nothing more, let +us sensibly retrograde to the days of good Queen Bess: I will not say, +copy a Sir Piercie Shafton, who boasts of having "danced the salvage man +at the mummery of Clerkenwell, in a suit of flesh-coloured silk, trimmed +with fur;" neither, under these dingy skies, would I care to walk abroad +with Sir Philip Sidney in satin boots, or with Oliver Goldsmith in a +peach-coloured doublet: but still, for very comfort's sake, let us break +our bonds of cloth and buckram, and, in so far as adornment is +concerned, let us exchange this staid funeral monotony for the gallant +garb of our ancestors, the brave costumes of our Edwards and the bluff +King Hal. + +Behold, too scornful friend, how my Tory rabies reaches to the wardrobe. +The modern dress of illuminated Europe has, in my humble opinion, gone +far to weaken the old empire of the Porte, to denationalize Egypt, to +degenerate the Jews, to mammonize once generous Greece, and carry +republican equality into the great prairies of America: it is the +undistinguishing, humiliating, unchivalrous livery of our cold +cosmopolites. But enough of this: pews and spires are to my Quixotism +not more unextinguishable foes, than coats, cravats, waistcoats, and +unnameables. + +And now an honest word at parting, about such trivialities of +authorship. Why should a poor shepherd of the Landes for ever wear his +stilts? Or a tragic actor, like some mortified La Trapist, never be +allowed to laugh? Or Mr. Green be denied any other carriage than the +wicker car of his balloon? Even so, dear reader, pr'ythee suffer a +serious sort of author sometimes to take off his wig and spectacles, and +condescend to think of such minor matters as the toilet and its +still-recurring duties. And, if you _should_ find out the veritable name +of your weak confessing scribe, think not the less kindly of his graver +volumes; this one is his pastime, his holiday laugh, his purposely +truant, lawless, desultory recreance: impute not folly to the face of +cheerfulness; be charitable to such mixtures of alternate gayety and +soberness as in thine own mind, if thou searchest, thou shall find; let +me laugh with those that laugh, as well as sympathize with weepers; and +cavil not at those inconsistencies, which of a verity are man's right +attributes. + + * * * * * + +Ideas lie round about us, thick as daisies in a summer meadow. For my +own part, I know not what a walk, or a talk, or a peep into a book may +lead me to. Brunel hit upon the notion of a tunnel-shield, from the +casual sight of a certain water-beetle, to whom the God of Nature had +given a protecting buckler for its head. Newton found out gravitation, +by reasoning on the fall of an apple from the tree. Almost every +invention has been the suggestion of an accident. Even so, to descend +from great things to small, did a solitary stroll in most-English +Devonshire hint to me the next fair topic. It was while wandering about +the Pyrenean neighbourhood of Linton and Ly'mouth not many months ago, +that my reveries became concentrated for divers hallucinating hours on a +very pretty book, with a very pretty title. And here let me remark +episodically, that I pride myself on titles; what compositors call +"monkeyfying the title-page" is known to be a talent of itself, and one +moreover to which in these days of advertisements and superficialities +many a meagre book has owed its popular acceptance. The titles of +generations back seemed not to have been regarded honest, if they did +not exhibit on their face a true and particular table of contents; +whereas in these sad times, (with many, not with me,) mystery is a good +rule, but falsehood is a better. Again, those honest-speaking authors of +the past scrupled not to designate their writings as '_A Most Erudite +Treatise_' on so-and-so, or a '_A Right Ingenious Handling of the +Mysteries_' of such-and-such, whereas modern hypocrisy aims at +under-rating its own pet work; and more than one book has been ruined in +the market, for having been carelessly titled by the definite THE; as +if, forsooth, it were the world's arbiter of that one topic, +self-constituted pundit of, e.g., title-pages. And this word brings me +back: consider the truly English music of this one: + + + + +THE SQUIRE, + +AND HIS BEAUTIFUL HOME, + + +a fine old country gentleman, pleasantly located, affluent, +noble-minded, wise, and patriotic. This was to have been shown forth, in +wish at least, as somewhat akin to, or congenerous with '_The Doctor_, +&c.,'--that rambling wonder of strange and multifarious reading: or +'_The Rectory of Valehead_,' or '_Vicar of Wakefield_,' or '_The Family +Robinson Crusoe_,' still unwrecked; or many another hearty, cheerful or +pathetic tale of home, sweet home: and yet as to design and execution +strictly original and unplagiaristic. The first chapters (simple healthy +writing, redolent of green pastures, and linchened rocks, and dew-dropt +mountains,) might introduce localities; the beautiful home itself, an +Elizabethan mansion, with its park, lake, hill and valley scenery; a +peep at the blue mile-off sea, brawling brooks, oak-woods, +conservatories, rookery, and all such pleasant adjuncts of that most +fortunate of pleasure-hunters, a country squire, with a princely +rent-roll. Then should be detailed, circumstantially, the lord of the +beautiful home, a picture of the hospitable virtues; the wife of the +beautiful home, a portraiture of happy domesticity, admirable also as a +mother, a nurse, a neighbour, and the poor's best friend: children must +abound, of course, or the home is a heaven uninhabited; and shrewd hints +might hereabouts be dropped as to the judicious or injudicious in +matters educational: servants, too, both old and young, with discussions +on their modern treatment, and on that better class of bygones, whom +kindness made not familiar, and the right assertion of authority +provoked not into insolence; whose interest for the dear old family was +never merged in their own, and whose honesty was as unsuspected as that +of young master himself, or sweet little mistress Alice. + +After all this, might we descant upon the squire's characteristics. Take +him as a politician: liberal, that is to say, (for his frown is on me at +a phrase so doubtful,) generous, tolerant, kind, and manly; but none of +your low-bred slanderers of that noble name, so generally tyrants at +home and cowardly abroad--mean agitating fellows, the scum of disgorging +society, raised by turbulence and recklessness from the bottom to the +surface: oh no, none of these; but, for all his just liberality, an +honest, honourable, loyal, church-going, uncompromising Tory: with a +detail of his reasons, notions, and practices thereabouts, inclusive of +his conduct at elections, his wholesome influence over an otherwise +unguided or ill-guided tenantry, and as concerning other miscalled +corruptions: his open argumentation of the representative doctrine, that +it ought to stop short as soon as ever the religion, the learning, and +the wealth of a country are fairly represented; that in fact the poor +man thinks little of his vote, unless indeed in worse cases looking for +a bribe; and that the principle is pushed into ruinous absurdities when +the destitution, the crime, and the ignorance of a nation demand their +proper representatives; that, almost as a consequence of human average +depravity, the greater the franchise's extension, the worse in all ways +become those who impersonate the enfranchised; and so, after due +condemnation of Whiggery, to stultify Chartism, and that demoralizing +lie, the ballot. Then as to the squire's religion; and certain +confabulations with his parson, his household, his harvest-home +tenantry, and local preachers of dissent and schism; his creed, +practice, and favourable samples of daily life. Moreover, our squire +should have somewhat to tell of personal history and adventures; a youth +of poor dependence on a miser uncle; a storm-tost early manhood, +consequent on his high uncompromising principles; then the miser's +death, without the base injustice of that cruel will, which an +eleventh-hour penitence destroyed: the squire comes to his property, +marries his one old flame, effects reformations, attains popularity, +happiness, and other due prosperities. Anecdotes of particular passages, +as in affliction or in joy; his son lamed for life, or his house half +burnt down, his attack by highwaymen, or election for parliament. The +squire's general confidence in man, sympathy with frailties, and success +in regenerating long-lost characters. His discourse on field sports, +displaying the amiable intellectuality of a Gilbert White as opposed to +the blood-thirsty Nimrodism and Ramrodism of a mad Mytton. A marriage; a +funeral; a disputed legacy of some eccentric relative; with its +agreeable concomitants of heartless selfish strife, rebuked by the +squire's noble example: the conventicle gently put down by dint of +gradual desertions, and church-going as tenderly extended; vestry +demagogues and parochial incendiaries chastised by our squire; and +divers other adventures, conversations, situations, and conditions, +illustrative of that grand character, a fine old English gentleman, all +of the olden time. + +Altogether, if well managed, a book like this would be calculated to do +substantial good in these days of no principle or bad principle. A +captivating example well applied--witness the uses of biography--is +infectious among the well-inclined and well-informed. But--but--but--I +fancy there may exist, and do exist already, admirable books of just +this character. I have heard of, but not seen, '_The Portrait of a +Christian Gentleman_,' and another '_of a Churchman_:' doubtless, these, +combined with a sort of Mr. Dovedale in that clever impossible +'_Floreston_,' or an equally unnatural and charming Sir Charles +Grandison, with a dash of scenery and a sprinkle of anecdote, would +make up, far better than I could fabricate, the fair fine character that +once I thought to sketch. Moreover, to a plain gentleman, living in the +country, of perfectly identical ideas with those of the squire on all +imaginable topics, gifted too (we will not say with quite his princely +rent-roll, but at any rate) with sundry like advantages in the way of +decent affluence, pleasant scenery, an old house, a good wife, and fair +children--with plenty of similar adventures and circumstantials--and the +necessary proportion of highwaymen, radicals, rascals, and schismatics +dotted all about his neighbourhood, the idea would seem, to say the +least, somewhat egotistic. But why may not humble individualities be +generalized in grander shapes? why not glorify the picture of a cottage +with colouring of Turner's most imaginative palette? An author, like an +artist, seldom does his work well unless he has nature before him: +exalted and idealized, the Roman beggar goes forth a Jupiter, and +country wenches help a Howard to his Naiads. Nevertheless, let the +Squire and his train pass us by, indefinite as Banquo's progeny: let his +beautiful home be sublimely indistinct; even such are Martin's ætherial +cities: the thought shall rest unfructified at present--a mummied, vital +seed. The review is over, and the Squire's troop of yeomanry not +required: so let them wait till next year's muster. + + * * * * * + +Few novelties are more called for, in this halcyon age of authorship, +this summer season for the Sosii, this every-day-a-birth-day for some +five-and-twenty books, than the establishment of a recognised literary +tribunal, some judgment-hall of master spirits, from whose calm, +unhurried, unbiased verdict, there should be no appeal. Far, very far be +it from me to arraign modern reviewers either of partialities or +incapacity; indeed, it is probable that few men of high talent, +character, and station, have not, at some time or other, temporarily at +least contributed to swell their ranks: moreover, from one they have +treated so magnanimously, they shall not get the wages of ingratitude; +they have been kind to my dear book-children, and I--_don't be so +curious_--thank them for their courtesy with all a father's feeling +toward the liberal friends of his sons and daughters. Speaking +generally, (for, not to flatter any class of men, truly there are rogues +in all,) I am bold to call them candid, honest, clever men; quite +superior, as a body, to every thing like bribery and corruption, and, +with human limitations, little influenced by motives, either of +prejudice or favour. For indefatigable industry, unexampled patience, +and powers of mind very far above what are commonly attributed to them, +I, for my humble judgment, would give our periodical journalists their +honourable due: I am playing no Aberdeenshire game of mutual scratching; +I am too hardened now in the ways of print to be much more than +indifferent as to common praise or censure; that honey-moon is over with +me, when a laudatory article in some kindly magazine sent a thrill from +eye to heart, from heart to shoe-sole understanding: I no longer feel +rancorous with inveterate wrath against a poor editor whose faint +praise, impotent to d----, has yet abundant force to induce a hearty +return of the compliment: like some case-hardened rock, so little while +ago but soft young coral, the surges may lash me, but leave no mark; the +sun may shine, but cannot melt me. Argal, as the clown says, is my +verdict honest: and further now to prove it so, shall come the +limitations. + +With all my gratitude and right good feeling to our diurnal and +hebdomadal amusers and instructors, I cannot but consider that gazette +and newspaper reviewers are insufficient and unsatisfactory judges of +literature, if not indeed sometimes erring guides to the public taste; +the main cause of this consisting in the essential rapidity of their +composition. There is not--from the multiplicity of business to be got +through, there cannot be--adequate time allowed for any thing like +justice to the claims of each author. Periodicals that appear at longer +intervals are in all reason more or less excepted from this objection; +but by the daily and weekly majority, the labours of a life-time are +cursorily glanced at, hastily judged from some isolated passage, +summarily found laudable or guilty; and this weak opinion, strongly +enough expressed as some compensation in solid superstructure for the +sandiness of its foundations, is circulated by thousands over all +corners of the habitable world. To say that the public (those so-called +reviewers of reviews, but wiser to be looked on only as perusers,) +balance all such false verdicts, might indeed be true in the long run, +but unfortunately it is not: for first, no run at all, far less a long +one, is permitted to the persecuted production; and next, it is +notorious, that people think very much as they are told to think. Now, I +have already stated at too much length that I have no personalities to +complain of, no self-interests to serve: for the past I have been well +entreated; and for the future, supposing such an unlikelihood as more +hypothetical books, I am hard, bold, sanguine, stoical; while, as for +the present, though I refuse not my gauntlet to any man, my visor shall +be raised by none. But I enter the list for others, my kinsmen in +composing. Authors, to speak it generally, are an ill-used race, because +judged hastily, often superciliously, for evil or for good. It is +impossible for the poor public, (who, besides having to earn daily +bread, have to wade through all the daily papers,) from mere lack of +hours in the day, to entertain any opinions of their own about a book or +books: the money to buy them is one objection, the time to read them +another; to say less of the capacity, the patience, and the will. +Without question, they are guided by their teachers; and the grand fault +of these is, their everlasting hurry. + +At another necessary failing of reviewers I would only delicately hint. +The royal We is very imposing; for example, the king of magazines, No. +134, (need I name it?) informs us, p. 373, "We happen to have now in +wear a good long coat of imperial gray," &c.; and some fifteen lines +lower down, "We are now mending our pen with a small knife," and so +forth: now all this grandiloquence serves to conceal the individual; and +to reduce my other great objection to a single letter, let us only +recollect that this powerful, this despotic We, is, being interpreted, +nothing but an I by itself, a simple scribe, a single and plebeian +number one. A mere unit, an anonymous, irresponsible unit, dissects in a +quarter of an hour the grand result of some ten years; and this +momentary influence on one man's mind, (perhaps wearied, or piqued, or +biased, or haply unskilled in the point at issue, but at all events +inevitably in a hurry to jump at a conclusion,) this light accidental +impression is sounded forth to the ends of the earth, and leads public +opinion in a verdict of thunder. And as for yon impertinent +parenthesis--or pertinent, as some will say--give me grace thus blandly +to suggest a possibility. The mighty editorial We, upon whose +authoritative tones the world's opinion will probably be pivoted--whose +pen by casual ridicule or as casual admiration makes or mars the fortune +of some pains-taking literary labourer--whose dictum carelessly +dispenses local honour or disgrace, and has before now by sharp +sarcasms, speaking daggers though using none, even killed more than one +over-sensitive Keats--this monarchic We is but a frail mortal, liable at +least to "some of the imperfections of our common nature, gentlemen," +as, for example, to be morose, impatient, splenetic, and the more if +over-worked. Neither should I waive in this place, in this my rostrum of +blunt, plain speech, the many censurable cases, unhappily too well +authenticated, where personal enmity has envenomed the reviewing pen +against a writer, and stabs in the dark have wounded good men's fame. +Neither, again, those other instances where reviewers, not being +omniscient, (yet is their knowledge most various and brilliant,) having +been from want of specific information incompetent to judge of the +matters in question, have striven to shroud their ignorance of the +greater topic in clamorous attacks of its minor incidents; burrowing +into a mound if they cannot force a breach through the rampart; and +mystifying things so cleverly with doubts, that we cannot see the +blessed sun himself for very fog. + +Now really, good folk, all this should be amended: would that the +WE were actually plural; would that we had a well-selected +bench of literary judges; would that some higher sort of Stationers' +Hall or Athenæum were erected into an acknowledged tribunal of an +author's merits or demerits; would that, to wish the very least, the +wholesome practice of a well-considered imprimatur were revived! Let +famous men, whose reputation is firm-fixed--our Wordsworths, Hallams, +Campbells, Crolys, Wilsons, Bulwers, and the like--decide in the case of +at least all who desire such decision. I suppose, as no one in these +selfish times will take trouble without pay, that either the judges +should be numbered among state pensioners, or that each work so +calmly examined must produce its regular fee: but these are +after-considerations; and be sure no writer will grudge a guinea for +calm, unbought, unsuspected justice bestowed upon his brain-child. Let +all those members of the tribunal, deciding by ballot, (here in an +assembly where all are good, great, and honest, I shrink not from that +word of evil omen,) judge, as far as possible, together and not +separately, of all kinds of literature: I would not have poets +sentencing all the poetry, historians all the history, novelists all the +novels, and theologists all the works upon religion; for humanity is at +the best infirm, and motives little searchable; but let all judge +equally in a sort of open court. The machinery might be difficult, and I +cannot show its workings in so slight an essay; but surely it is a +strange thing in civilization, and a stranger when we consider what +literature does for us, blessing our world or banning it--it is a wonder +and a shame that books of whatever tendency are so cast forth upon the +waters to sink or swim at hazard. I acknowledge, friend, your present +muttering, Utopian! Arcadian! Formosan! to be not ill-founded: the +sketch is a hasty one; but though it may have somewhat in common with +the vagaries of Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, and that king in +impudence, George Psalmanazar, still I stand upon this ground, that many +an ill-used author wants protection, and that society, for its own sake +as well as his, ought to supply a court for literary reputation. Some +poor man the other day, and in a reputable journal too, had five +new-born tragedies strangled and mangled in as many lines: we need not +suppose him a Shakspeare, but he might have been one for aught of +evidence given to the contrary; at any rate, five at once, five mortal +tragedies, (so puppy-fashion born and drowned,) must, however carelessly +executed, have been the offspring of no common mind. Again, how often is +not a laborious historiographer, particularly if of contrary politics, +dismissed with immediate contempt, because, perchance, in his three full +volumes, he has admitted two false dates, or haply mistakes the +christened name of some Spanish admiral! Once more, how continually are +not critical judgments falsified by the very extracts on which they +rest! how often the pet passage of one review is the stock butt of +another! Here you will say is cure and malady together, like viper's fat +and fang: I trow not; mainly because not one man in a thousand takes the +trouble to judge for himself. But it is needless to enumerate such +instances; every man's conscience or his memory will supply examples +wholesale: therefore, maltreated authors, bear witness to your own +wrongs: jealously regarded by a struggling brotherhood, cruelly baited +by self-constituted critics, the rejected of publishers, the victimized +by booksellers, the garbled in statement, misinterpreted in meaning, +suspected of friends, persecuted by foes--"O that mine enemy would write +a book!" It is to put a neck into a noose, to lie quietly in the grove +of Dr. Guillot's humane prescription: or, if not quite so tragical as +this, it is at least to sit voluntarily in the stocks with Sir Hudibras, +and dare the world's contempt; while fashionable--or unfashionable +idiots, who are scarcely capable of a grammatical answer to a dinner +invitation, (those formidably confounded he's and him's!)--think +themselves privileged to join some inane laugh against a clever, but not +yet famous, author, because, forsooth, one character in his novel may be +an old acquaintance, or one epithet in a long poem may be weak, +indelicate, tasteless, or foolish, or one philosophical fact in an essay +is misstated, or one statistical conclusion seems to be exaggerated. It +is perfectly paltry to behold stupid fellows, whose intellects against +your most ordinary scribe vary from a rush-light to a "long four," as +compared with a roasting, roaring kitchen-fire, affecting contemptuously +to look down upon some unjustly neglected or mercilessly castigated +labourer in the brick-fields of literature, for not being--can he help +it?--a first-rate author, or because one reviewer in seven thinks he +might have done his subject better justice. Take my word for it--if +indeed I can be a fair witness--the man who has written a book, is above +the unwriting average, and, as such, should be ranked mentally above +them: no light research, and tact, and industry, and head-and-hand +labour, are sufficient for a volume; even certain stolid performances in +print do not shake my judgment; for arrant blockheads as sundry authors +undoubtedly are, the average (mark, not all men, but the average) +unwriting man is an author's intellectual inferior. All men, however +well capable, have not perchance the appetite, nor the industry, nor the +opportunity to fabricate a volume; nor, supposing these requisites, the +moral courage (for moral courage, if not physical, must form part of an +author's mind,) to publish the lucubration: but "I magnify mine office" +above the unnumbered host of unwriting, uninformed, loose, unlettered +gentry, who (as full of leisure as a cabbage, and as overflowing with +redundant impudence as any Radical mob,) mainly tend to form by their +masses the average penless animal-man, who could not hold a candle to +any the most mediocre of the Marsyas-used authors of haply this week's +journals. Spare them, victorious Apollos, spare! if libels that diminish +wealth be punishable, is there no moral guilt in those legalized libels +that do their utmost to destroy a character for wisdom, wit, learning, +industry, and invention?--Critical flayer, try thou to write a book; +learn experimentally how difficult, yet relieving; how nervous, yet +gladdening; how ungracious, yet very sweet; how worldly-foolish, yet +most wise; how conversant with scorn, yet how noble and ennobling an +attribute of man, is--authorship. + +All this rhetoric, impatient friend--and be a friend still, whether +writer, reviewer, or unauthorial--serves at my most expeditious pace, +opposing notions considered, to introduce what is (till to-morrow, or +perhaps the next coming minute, but at any rate for this flitting +instant of time,) my last notion of possible, but not probable, +authorship: a rhodomontade oration, rather than an essay, after my own +desultory and yet determinate fashion, to have been entituled--so is it +spelled by act of parliament, and therefore let us in charity hope +rightly--to have been entituled then, + + + + +THE AUTHOR'S TRIBUNAL; + +A COURT OF APPEAL AGAINST AMATEUR AND CONNOISSEUR CRITICISMS: + + +and (the present being the next minute whereof I spake above) there has +just hopped into my mind another taking title, which I generously +present to any smarting scribe who may meditate a prose version of +'_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_'--_videlicet_, + + + + +ZOILOMASTRIX. + + +At length then have I liberty to yawn--a freedom whereof doubtless my +readers have long been liverymen: I have written myself and my inkstand +dry as Rosamond's pond; my brain is relieved, recreated, emptied; I go +no longer heavily, as one that mourneth; and with gleeful face can I +assure you that your author's mind is once again as light as his heart: +but when crowding fancies come thick upon it, they bow it, and break it, +and weary it, as clouds of pigeons settling gregariously on a +trans-Atlantic forest; and when those thronging thoughts are comfortably +fixed on paper, one feels, as an apple-tree may be supposed to feel, all +the difference between the heavy down-dragging crop of autumn and the +winged aërial blossom of sweet spring-tide. An involuntary author, just +eased for the time of ever-exacting and accumulating notions, can +sympathize with holiday-making Atlas, chuckling over a chance so lucky +as the transfer of his pack to Hercules; and can comprehend the relief +it must have been to that foolish sage in Rasselas, when assured that he +no longer was afflicted with the care of governing a galaxy of worlds. + +Some people are born to talk, with an incessant tongue illustrating +perpetuity of motion in the much-abused mouth; some to indite solid +continuous prose, with a labour-loving pen ever tenanting the hand; but +I clearly was born a zoölogical anomaly, _with a pen in my mouth_, a +sort of serpent-tongue. Heaven give it wisdom, and put away its poison! + +Such being my character from birth, a paper-gossip, a writer from the +cradle, I ought not demurely to apologize for nature's handicraft, nor +excuse this light affliction of chattering in print.--Who asks you to +read it?--Neither let me cast reflections on your temper or your +intellect by too humble exculpation of this book of many themes; or must +I then regard you as those sullen children in the market-place, whom +piping cannot please, and sorrow cannot soften? + +And now, friend, I've done. Require not, however shrewd your guess, my +acknowledgment of this brain-child; forgive all unintended harms; supply +what is lacking in my charities; politically, socially, authorially, +think that I bigotize in theoretic fun, but am incarnate Tolerance for +practical earnest. And so, giving your character fairer credit than if I +feared you as one of those captious cautious people who make a man +offender for an ill-considered word; commending to the cordial warmth of +Humanity my unhatched score and more of book-eggs, to perfect which I +need an Eccaleobion of literature; and scorning, as heartily as any +Sioux chief, to prolong palaver, when I have nothing more to say; suffer +me thus courteously to take of you my leave. And forasmuch as Lord +Chesterfield recommends an exit to be heralded by a pungent speech, let +me steal from quaint old Norris the last word wherewith I trouble you: +"These are my thoughts; I might have spun them out into a greater +length, but that I think a little plot of ground, thick-sown, is better +than a great field, which for the most part of it lieth fallow." + + + + +APPENDIX. + +AN AFTER-THOUGHT. + + +It will be quite in keeping with your author's mind, and consistently +characteristic of his desultory indoles--(not indolence, pray you, good +Anglican, albeit thereunto akin,)--if after having thus formally taken +his _congé_ with the help of a Petronius so redoubtable as Chesterfield, +he just steps back again to induce you to have another last ramble. Now, +the wherefore of this might sentimentally be veiled, were I but little +honest, in professed attachment for my amiable reader, as though with +Romeo I cried, "Parting in such sweet sorrow, that I could say farewell +till it be morrow;" or it might be extenuated cacoethically, as though a +new crop of fancies were sprung up already, an after-math rank and wild, +before the gladdening shower of commendation has yet freshened-up my +brown hay-field: or it might be disguised falsely, as if a parcel of +precious MSS. had been lost by penny-postage, or stolen in the purlieus +of Shoe-lane; but, instead of all these unworthy subterfuges, the truth +shall be told plainly; we are yet too short by a sheet (so hints our +publishing Procrustes) of the marketable volume. Accordingly, whether or +not in this booklet your readership has already found seed sufficient +for cyclopædias, I am free to admit that the expectant butter-man at +least has not his legitimate post-octavo allowance of three hundred +pages; and to fill this aching void as cleverly and quickly as I can, is +my first object in so rapid a return. That honesty is the best policy, +deny who dare? + +Still it is competent for me to confess worthier objects, (although, in +point of their arising, they were secondary,) as further illustrative of +my '_Author's Mind_' shown in other specimens; for example, a +linsey-woolsey tapestry of many colours shall be hung upon the end of +this arcade; the last few trees in this poor avenue shall bear the +flowers of poetry as well as the fruit of prose; my swan (O, dub it not +a goose!) would, like a _prima-donna_, go off this theatre of fancy, +singing. And again, suffer me, good friend, to think your charity still +willing to be pleased: many weary pages back, I offered you to part with +me in peace, if you felt small sympathies with a rambler so whimsical +and lawless; surely, having walked together kindly until now, we shall +not quarrel at the last. + +Empty, however--empty, and rejoicing in its unthoughtful emptiness--have +I boasted this my head but a page or two ago; and that boast, for all +the critic's sneer, that no one will deny it, shall not be taken from me +by renewal of determined meditations; now that my house is swept and +garnished, I would not beckon back those old inhabitants. Neither let me +heed so lightly of your intellect, as to hope to satisfy its reading +with the scanty harvest of a _soil effete_; this license of writing up +to measure shall not show me sterile, any more than that emancipation +shall, by indulgence of thought, be disenchanted. And now to solve the +problem: not to think, for my mind is in a regimen of truancy; not to +fail in pleasing, if it be possible, the great world's implacable +palate, therefore to eschew dilution of good liquor; and yet to render +up in fair array the fitting tale of pages: well, if I may not +metaphysically draw upon internal resources, I can at least externally +and physically resort to yonder--desk; (drawer would have savoured of +the Punic, which Scipio and I blot out with equal hate;) for therein lie +_perdus_ divers poeticals I fain would see in print; yea, start not at +"poeticals," carp not at the threatening sound, for verily, even as +carp--so called from _carpere_, to catch if you can, and the Saxon capp, +to cavil, because when caught they don't pay for mastication--even as +carp, a muddy fish, difficult to hook, and provocate of hostile +criticism, conceals its lack of savour in the flavour of port-wine--even +so shall strong prose-sauce be served up with my poor dozen of sonnets: +and ye who would uncharitably breathe that they taste stronger of +Lethe's mud than of Helicon's sweet water, treat me to a better dish, or +carp not at my fishing. + +Imagination, as I need not tell psychologists by this time, is my +tyrant; I cannot sleep, nor sit out a sermon, nor remember yesterday, +nor read in peace, (how calm in blessed quiet people seem to read!) +without the distraction of a thousand fancies: I hold this an infirmity, +not an accomplishment; a thing to be conquered, not to be coveted: and +still I love it, suffering those chains of gossamer to wind about me, +that seductive honey-jar yet again to trap me, like some poor insect; +thus then my foolish idolatry heretofore hath hailed + + +IMAGINATION. + + My fond first love, sweet mistress of my mind, + Thy beautiful sublimity hath long + Charm'd mine affections, and entranced my song, + Thou spirit-queen, that sit'st enthroned, enshrined + Within this suppliant heart; by day and night + My brain is full of thee: ages of dreams, + Thoughts of a thousand worlds in visions bright, + Fear's dim terrific train, Guilt's midnight schemes, + Strange peeping eyes, soft smiling fairy faces, + Dark consciousness of fallen angels nigh, + Sad converse with the dead, or headlong races + Down the straight cliffs, or clinging on a shelf + Of brittle shale, or hunted thro' the sky!-- + O, God of mind, I shudder at myself! + +Now, friend reader, you have accustomed yourself to think that every +thing in rhyme, _i. e._, poetry, as you somewhat scornfully call it, +must be false: and I am sorry to be obliged to grant you that a leaning +towards plain matter-of-fact, is no wise characteristic of metrical +enthusiasts. But believe me for a truth-teller; that sonnet (did you +read it?) hints at some fearful verities; and that you may further +apprehend this sweet ideal mistress of your author's mind, suffer me to +introduce to your acquaintance + + +IMAGINATION PERSONIFIED. + + Dread Monarch-maid, I see thee now before me, + Searching my soul with those mysterious eyes, + Spell-bound I stand, thy presence stealing o'er me, + While all unnerved my trembling spirit dies: + Oh, what a world of untold wonder lies + Within thy silent lips! how rare a light + Of conquer'd joys and ecstasies repress'd + Beneath thy dimpled cheek shines half-confess'd! + In what luxuriant masses, glossy bright, + Those raven locks fall shadowing thy fair breast! + And, lo! that bursting brow, with gorgeous wings, + And vague young forms of beauty coyly hiding + In thy crisp curls, like cherubs there abiding-- + Charmer, to thee my heart enamour'd springs. + +Such, then, and of me so well beloved, is that abstracted Platonism. But +verily the fear of imagination would far outbalance any love of it, if +crime had peopled for a man that viewless world with spectres, and the +Medusa-head of Justice were shaking her snakes in his face. And, by way +of a parergon observation, how terrible, most terrible, to the guilty +soul must be the solitary silent system now so popular among those cold +legislative schemers, who have ground the poor man to starvation, and +would hunt the criminal to madness! How false is that political +philosophy which seeks to reform character by leaving conscience caged +up in loneliness for months, to gnaw into its diseased self, rather than +surrounding it with the wholesome counsels of better living minds. It is +not often good for man to be alone: and yet in its true season, +(parsimoniously used, not prodigally abused,) solitude does fair +service, rendering also to the comparatively innocent mind precious +pleasures: religion prësupposed, and a judgment strong enough of muscle +to rein-in the coursers of Imagination's car, I judge it good advice to +prescribe for most men an occasional course of + + +SOLITUDE. + + Therefore delight thy soul in solitude, + Feeding on peace; if solitude it be + To feel that million creatures, fair and good, + With gracious influences circle thee; + To hear the mind's own music; and to see + God's glorious world with eyes of gratitude, + Unwatch'd by vain intruders. Let me shrink + From crowds, and prying faces, and the noise + Of men and merchandise; far nobler joys + Than chill Society's false hand hath given, + Attend me when I'm left alone to think. + To think--alone?--Ah, no, not quite alone; + Save me from that--cast out from earth and heaven, + A friendless, Godless, isolated ONE! + +But of these higher metaphysicals, these fancy-bred extravagations, +perhaps somewhat too much: you will dub me dreamer, if not proser--or +rather, poet, as the more modern reproach. Let us then, by way of +clearing our mind at once of these hallucinations, go forth quickly into +the fresh green fields, and expatiate with glad hearts on these +full-blown glories of + + +SUMMER. + + Warm summer! Yes, the very word is warm; + The hum of bees is in it, and the sight + Of sunny fountains glancing silver light, + And the rejoicing world, and every charm + Of happy nature in her hour of love, + Fruits, flowers, and flies, in rainbow-glory bright: + The smile of God glows graciously above, + And genial earth is grateful; day by day + Old faces come again with blossoms gay, + Gemming in gladness meadow, garden, grove: + Haste with thy harvest, then, my softened heart, + Awake thy better hopes of better days, + Bring in thy fruits and flowers of thanks and praise, + And in creation's pæan take thy part. + +How different in sterner beauty was the landscape not long since! The +energies of universal life prisoned up in temporary obstruction; every +black hedge-row tufted with woolly snow, like some Egyptian mother +mourning for her children; shrubs and plants fettered up in glittering +chains, motionless as those stone-struck feasters before the head of +Gorgon; and the dark-green fir-trees swathed in heavy curtains of +iridescent whiteness. Contrast is ever pleasurable; therefore we need +scarcely apologize for an ice in the dog-days--I mean for this present +unseasonable introduction of dead + + +WINTER. + + As some fair statue, white and hard and cold, + Smiling in marble, rigid, yet at rest, + Or like some gentle child of beauteous mould, + Whose placid face and softly swelling breast + Are fixed in death, and on them bear imprest + His magic seal of peace--so, frozen, lies + The loveliness of nature: every tree + Stands hung with lace against the clear blue skies; + The hills are giant waves of glistering snow; + Rare and northern fowl, now strangely tame to see, + With ruffling plumage cluster on the bough, + And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like, the wren + Hides in the new-cut hedge; and all things now + Fear starving Winter more than cruel men. + +Ay, "cruel men:" that truest epithet for monarch-man must be the tangent +from which my Pegasus shall strike his hoof for the next flight. Who +does not writhe while reading details of cruelty, and who would not +rejoice to find even there somewhat of + + +CONSOLATION? + + Scholar of Reason, Grace, and Providence, + Restrain thy bursting and indignant tears; + With tenderest might unerring Wisdom steers + Through those mad seas the bark of Innocence. + Doth thy heart burn for vengeance on the deed-- + Some barbarous deed wrought out by cruelty + On woman, or on famish'd childhood's need, + Yea, on these fond dumb dogs--doth thy heart bleed + For pity, child of sensibility? + Those tears are gracious, and thy wrath most right + Yet patience, patience; there is comfort still; + The Judge is just; a world of love and light + Remains to counterpoise the load of ill, + And the poor victim's cup with angel's food to fill. + +For, as my Psycotherion has long ago informed you, I hope there is some +sort of heaven yet in reserve for the brute creation: if otherwise, in +respect of costermongers' donkeys, Kamskatdales' gaunt starved dogs, the +Guacho's horse, spurred deep with three-inch rowels, the angler's worm, +Strasburgh geese, and poor footsore curs harnessed to ill-balanced +trucks--for all these and many more I, for one, sadly stand in need of +consolation. Meanwhile, let us change the subject. After a dose of cruel +cogitations, and this corrupting converse with Phalaris and Domitian, +what better sweetener of thoughts than an "olive-branch" in the waters +of Marah? Spend a moment in the nursery; it is happily fashionable now, +as well as pleasurable, to sport awhile with Nature's prettiest +playthings; the praises of children are always at the tip of my--pen, +that is, tongue, you remember, and often have I told the world, in all +the pride of print, of my fond infantile predilections: then let this +little Chanson be added to the rest; we will call it + + +MARGARET. + + A song of gratitude and cheerful prayer + Still shall go forth my pretty babes to greet, + As on life's firmament, serenely fair, + Their little stars arise, with aspects sweet + Of mild successive radiance: that small pair, + Ellen and Mary, having gone before + In this affection's welcome, the dear debt + Here shall be paid to gentle Margaret: + Be thou indeed a pearl--in pureness, more + Than beauty, praise, or price; full be thy cup, + Mantling with grace, and truth with mercy met, + With warm and generous charities flowing o'er; + And when the Great King makes his jewels up, + Shine forth, child-angel, in His coronet! + +And while hovering about this fairy-land of sweet-home scenery, and +confessing thankfully to these domestic affections, your author knows +one heart at least that will be gladdened, one face that will be +brightened by the following + + +BIRTH-DAY PRAYER. + + Mother, dear mother, no unmeaning rhyme, + No mere ingenious compliment of words, + My heart pours forth at this auspicious time: + I know a simple honest prayer affords + More music on affection's thrilling cords, + More joy, than can be measured or express'd + In song most sweet, or eloquence sublime. + Mother, I bless thee! God doth bless thee too! + In these thy children's children thou _art_ blest, + With dear old pleasures springing up anew: + And blessings wait upon thee still, my mother! + Blessings to come, this many a happy year; + For, losing thee, where could we find another + So kind, so true, so tender, and--so dear? + +Is it an impertinence--I speak etymologically--to have dropped that +sonnet here?--Be it as you will, my Zoilus; let me stand convicted of +honesty and love: I ask no higher praise in this than to have pleased my +mother. + + * * * * * + +Penman as I am, have been, and shall be, innumerable letters have grown +beneath my goose-quill. Who cannot say the same indeed? For in these +patriotic days, for mere country's love and post-office prosperity, +every body writes to every body about every thing, or, as oftener +happens, about nothing. Nevertheless, I wish some kind pundit would +invent a corrosive ink, warranted to consume a letter within a week +after it had been read and answered: then should we have fewer of those +ephemeral documents treasured up in pigeon-holes, and docketed +correspondence for possible publication. Not Byron, nor Lamb, nor West, +nor Gray, with all their epistolary charms, avail to persuade my +prejudice that it is honest to publish a private letter: if written with +that view, the author is a hypocrite in his friendships; if not so, the +decent veil of privacy is torn from social life, confidence is rebuked, +betrayed, destroyed; and the suspicion of eaves-droppings and casual +scribblings to be posthumously printed, makes silence truly wisdom, and +grim reserve a virtue. This public appetite for secret information, and, +if possible, for hinted scandal--this unhallowed spirit of outward +curiosity trespassing upon the sacred precincts of a man's own +circle--is to the real author's mind a thing to be feared, if he is +weak--to be circumspectly watched, if he is wise. Such is the present +hunger for this kind of reading, that it would be diffidence, not +presumption, in the merest school-boy to dread the future publication of +his holiday letters; who knows--I may jump scathless from the Monument, +or in these Popish times become excommunicated by special bull, or fly +round the world in a balloon, or attain to the authorship of forty +volumes, or be half-smothered by a valet-de-place, or get indicted for +inveterate Toryism, or any how, I may--notwithstanding all present +obscurities that intervene--wake one of these fine mornings, and find +myself famous: and what then? The odds at Tattersall's would be twelve +to one that sundry busy-bodies, booksellers or otherwise, would scrape +together with malice prepense, and keep _câchet_ for future print, a +multitude of careless scrawls that should have been burnt within an hour +of the reading. Now, is not this a thing to be exclaimed against? And, +utterly improbable on the ground of any merit in themselves as I should +judge their publication (but for certain stolidities of the same sort, +that often-times have wearied me in print), I choose to let my author's +mind here enter its eternal protest against any such treachery regarding +private + + +LETTERS. + + Tear, scatter, burn, destroy--but keep them not; + I hate, I dread those living witnesses + Of varying self, of good or ill forgot, + Of altered hopes, and withered kindnesses. + Oh! call not up those shadows of the dead, + Those visions of the past, that idly blot + The present with regret for blessings fled: + This hand that wrote, this ever-teeming head, + This flickering heart is full of chance and change; + I would not have you watch my weaknesses, + Nor how my foolish likings roam and range, + Nor how the mushroom friendships of a day + Hastened in hot-bed ripeness to decay, + Nor how to mine own self I grow so strange. + +So anathema to editors, maranatha to publishers of all such hypothetical +post-obits! + + * * * * * + +Every one can comprehend something of an author's ease, when he sees his +manuscript in print: it is safe; no longer a treasure uninsurable, no +longer a locked-up care: it is emancipated, glorified, incapable of real +extermination; it has reached a changeless condition; the chrysalis of +illegible cacography has burst its bonds, and flies living through the +world on the wings of those true Dædali, Faust, and Gutenberg: the +transition-state is passed: henceforth for his brain-child set free from +that nervous slumber, its parent calmly can expect the oblivion of no +more than a death-like sleep, if he be not indeed buoyed up with certain +hope of immortality. "'Tis pleasant sure to see one's self in print," is +the adequate cause for ninety books out of a hundred; and, though zeal +might be the ostentatious stalking-horse, my candour shall give no +better excuse for the fourteen lines that follow; they require but this +preface: a most venerable chapel of old time, picturesque and full of +interest, is dropping to decay, within a mile of me; where it is, and +whose the fault, are askings improper to be answered: nevertheless, I +cast upon the waters this meagre morsel of + + +APPEAL. + + Shame on thee, Christian, cold and covetous one! + The laws (I praise them not for this) declare + That ancient, loved, deserted house of prayer + As money's worth a layman landlord's own. + Then use it as thine own; thy mansion there + Beneath the shadow of this ruinous church + Stands new and decorate; thine every shed + And barn is neat and proper; I might search + Thy comfortable farms, and well despair + Of finding dangerous ruin overhead, + And damp unwholesome mildew on the walls: + Arouse thy better self: restore it; see, + Through thy neglect the holy fabric falls! + Fear, lest that crushing guilt should fall on thee. + +I fear much, poor book, this finale of jingling singing will jar upon +the public ear; all men must shrink from a lengthy snake with a rattle +in its tail: and this ballast a-stern of over-ponderous poetry may +chance to swamp so frail a skiff. But I have promised a dozen sonnets in +this after-thought Appendix; yea, and I will keep that promise at all +mortal hazards, even to the superadded unit proverbial of dispensing +Fornarinas. Ten have been told off fairly, and now we come upon the gay +court-cards. After so much of villanous political ferment, society +returns at length to its every-day routine, heedful of other oratory +than harangues from the hustings, and glad of other reading than +figurative party-speeches. Yet am I bold to recur, just for a thought or +two, to my whilom patriotic hopes and fears: fears indeed came first +upon me, but hopes finally out-voted them: briefly, then, begin upon the +worst, and endure, with what patience you possess, this creaky stave of +bitter + + +POLITICS. + + Chill'd is the patriot's hope, the poet's prayer: + Alas for England, and her tarnish'd crown, + Her sun of ancient glory going down, + Her foes triumphant in her friends' despair: + What wonder should the billows overwhelm + A bark so mann'd by Comus and his crew, + "Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm?" + Yet, no!--we will not fear; the loathing realm + At length has burst its chains; a motley few, + The pseudo-saint, the boasting infidel, + The demagogue, and courtier, hand in hand + No more besiege our Zion's citadel: + But high in hope comes on this nobler band + For God, the sovereign, and our father-land. + +That last card, you may remember, must reckon as the knave; and +therefore is consistently regarding an ominous trisyllable, which rhymes +to "knavish tricks" in the national anthem; our suit now leads us in +regular succession to the queen, a topic (it were Milesian to say a +subject) whereon now, as heretofore, my loyalty shall never be found +lacking. In old Rome's better antiquity, a slave was commissioned to +whisper counsel in the ear of triumphant generals or emperors; and, in +old England's less enlightened youth, a baubled fool was privileged to +blurt out verities, which bearded wisdom dared not hint at. Now, I boast +myself free, a citizen of no mean city--my commission signed by duty--my +counsel guarantied by truth: and if, O still intruding Zoilus, the +liberality of your nature provokes you to class me truly in the family +of fools, let your antiquarian ignorance of those licensed Gothamites +blush at its abortive malice; the arrow of your sarcasm bounds from my +target blunted; pick up again the harmless reed: for, not to insist upon +the prevalence of knaves, and their moral postponement to mere +lack-wits, let me tell you that wise men, and good men, and shrewd men, +were those ancient baubled fools: therefore would I gladly be thought of +their fraternity. + +But our twelfth sonnet is waiting, save the mark! Stay: there ought to +intervene a solemn pause; for your author's mind, on the spur of the +occasion, pours forth an unpremeditated song of free-spoken, +uncompromising, patriotic counsel; let its fervency atone for its +presumption + + Bold in my freedom, yet with homage meek, + As duty prompts and loyalty commands, + To thee, O, queen of empires! would I speak. + Behold, the most high God hath giv'n to thee + Kingdoms and glories, might and majesty, + Setting thee ruler over many lands; + Him first to serve, O monarch, wisely seek: + And many people, nations, languages, + Have laid their welfare in thy sovereign hands; + Them next to bless, to prosper and to please, + Nobly forget thyself, and thine own ease: + Rebuke ill-counsel; rally round thy state + The scattered good, and true, and wise, and great: + So Heav'n upon thee shed sweet influences! + +And now for my Raffaellesque disguise of a vulgar baker's twelve, the +largess muffin of Mistress Fornarina: thirteen cards to a suit, and +thirteen to the dozen, are proverbially the correct thing; but, as in +regular succession I have come upon the king card, I am free to +confess--(pen, why will you repeat again such a foolish, stale +Joe-Millerism?)--the subject a dilemma. Natheless, my good nature shall +give a royal chance to criticism most malign: whether candour +acknowledge it or not, doubtless the author's mind reigns dominant in +the author's book; and, notwithstanding the self-silence of blind +Mæonides, (a right notable exception,) it holds good as a rule that the +majority of original writings, directly or indirectly, concern a man's +own self; his whims and his crotchets, his knowledge and his ignorance, +wisdom and folly, experiences and suspicions, therein find a place +prepared for them. Scott's life naturally produced his earlier novels; +in the '_Corsair_,' the '_Childe_,' and the '_Don_,' no one can mistake +the hero-author; Southey's works, Shelley's, and Wordsworth's, are full +of adventure, feeling, and fancy, personal to the writers, at least +equally with the sonnets of Petrarch or of Shakspeare. And as with +instances illustrious as those, so with all humbler followers, the +skiffs, pinnaces, and heavy barges in the wake of those gallant ships: +an author's library, and his friends, his hobbies and amusements, +business and pleasure, fears and wishes, accidents of life, and +qualities of soul, all mingle in his writings with a harmonizing +individuality; nay, the very countenance and hand-writing, alike with +choice of subject and style and method of their treatment, illustrate, +in one word, the author's mind. These things being so, what hinders it +from occupying, as in honesty it does, the king's place in this pack of +sonnets? Nevertheless, forasmuch as by such occupancy an ill-tempered +sarcasm might charge it with conceit; know then that my humbler meaning +here is to put it lowest and last, even in the place of wooden-spoon; +for this also (being mindful of the twelve apostle-spoons from old time +antecedent) is a legitimate thirteener: and so, while in extricating my +muse from the folly of serenading a non-existent king, I have candidly +avowed the general selfishness of printing, believe that, in this +avowal, I take the lowest seat, so well befitting one of whom it may +ungraciously be asked, Where do fools buy their logic? + +List, then, oh list! while generically, not individually I claim for +authorship + + +THE CATHEDRAL MIND. + + Temple of truths most eloquently spoken, + Shrine of sweet thoughts veiled round with words of power, + The '_Author's Mind_,' in all its hallowed riches, + Stands a cathedral: full of precious things; + Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken, + Cloister, and aisle, dark crypt, and aëry tower: + Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches, + And secret stores, and heap'd-up offerings, + Art's noblest gems, with every fruit and flower, + Paintings and sculpture, choice imaginings, + Its plenitude of wealth and praise betoken: + An ever-burning lamp portrays the soul; + Deep music all around enchantment flings; + And God's great Presence consecrates the whole. + +Now at length, in all verity, I have said out my say: nor publisher nor +printer shall get more copy from me: neither, indeed, would it before +have been the case, for all that Damastic argument, were it not that +many beginnings--and you remember my proverbial preliminarizing--should, +for mere antithesis' sake, be endowed with a counterpoise of many +endings. So, in this second parting, let me humbly suggest to gentle +reader these: that nothing is at once more plebeian and unphilosophical +than--censure, in a world where nothing can be perfect, and where apathy +is held to be good-breeding; _item_, (I am quoting Scott,) that "it is +much more easy to destroy than to build, to criticise than to compose;" +_item_, (Sir Walter again, _ipsissima verba_, in a letter to Miss +Seward,) that there are certain literary "gentlemen who appear to be a +sort of tinkers, who, unable to _make_ pots and pans, set up for +_menders_ of them, and often make two holes in patching one;" _item_, +that in such possible cases as "exercise" for "exorcise," "repeat" for +"repent," "depreciate" for "deprecate," and the like, an indifferent +scribe is always at the mercy of compositors; and lastly, that if it is, +by very far, easier to read a book than to write one, it is also, by at +least as much, worthier of a noble mind to give credit for good +intentions, rather than for bad, or indifferent, or none at all, even +where hyper-criticism may appear to prove that the effort itself has +been a failure. + + + * * * * * + + +PROBABILITIES; + +AN AID TO FAITH. + +BY + +Martin Farquhar Tupper, A.M., F.R.S. + +THE AUTHOR OF + +"PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY +ALMOST THOU PERSUADEST ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN." + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + +SUBJECTS. PAGE. + +An Aid to Faith 459 + +God and his Attributes 466 + +The Triunity 472 + +The Godhead Visible 476 + +The Origin of Evil 480 + +Cosmogony 485 + +Adam 488 + +The Fall 490 + +The Flood 493 + +Noah 495 + +Babel 497 + +Job 499 + +Joshua 504 + +The Incarnation 506 + +Mahometanism 509 + +Romanism 511 + +The Bible 517 + +Heaven and Hell 521 + +An Offer 525 + +Conclusion 526 + + + + +AN AID TO FAITH. + + +The certainty of those things which most surely are believed among us, +is a matter quite distinct from their antecedent probability or +improbability. We know, and take for facts, that Cromwell and Napoleon +existed, and are persuaded that their characters and lives were such as +history reports them: but it is another thing, and one eminently +calculated to disturb any disbeliever of such history, if a man were +enabled to show, that, from the condition of social anarchy, there was +an antecedent likelihood for the use of military despots; that, from the +condition of a popular puritanism, or a popular infidelity, it was +previously to have been expected that such leaders should have the +several characteristics of a bigoted zeal for religion, or a craving +appetite for worldly glory; that, from the condition liable to +revolutions, it was probable to find such despots arising out of the +middle class; and that, from the condition of reaction incidental to all +human violences, there was a clear expectability that the power of such +military monarchs should not be continued to their natural heirs. + +Such a line of argument, although in no measure required for the +corroboration of facts, might have considerable power to persuade _à +priori_ the man, who had not hitherto seen reason to credit such facts +from posterior evidence. It would have rolled away a great stone, which +to such a mind might otherwise have stood as a stumbling-block on the +very threshold of truth. It would have cleared off a heavy mist, which +might prevent him from discerning the real nature of the scene in which +he stood. It would have shown him that, what others know to be fact, is, +even to him who does not know it, become antecedently probable; and that +Reason is not only no enemy to Faith, but is ready and willing to +acknowledge its alliance. + +Take a second illustration, by way of preliminary. A woodman, cleaving +an oak, finds an iron ball in its centre; he sees the fact, and of +course believes; some others believing on his testimony. But a certain +village-pundit, habitually sceptical of all marvels, is persuaded that +the wonder has been fabricated by our honest woodman; until the parson, +a good historian, coming round that way, proclaims it a most interesting +circumstance, because it was one naturally to have been expected; for +that, here was the spot where, two hundred years ago, a great battle had +been fought: and it was no improbability at all that a carbine-bullet +should have penetrated a sapling, nor that the tree should thereafter +have grown old with the iron at its heart. How unreasonable then would +appear the pundit's incredulity, if persisted in: how suddenly +enlightened the rational faith of the rustic: how seasonable would be +felt the useful learning of him, whose knowledge well applied can thus +unfetter truth from the bandages of ignorance. + +Illustrations, if apt, are so well adapted to persuade towards a +particular line of argument, that, at the risk of diffuseness, and +because minds being various are variously touched, one by one thought +and one by another, I think fit to add yet more of a similar tendency: +in the hope that, by a natural induction, such instances may smoothe our +way. + +When an eminent living geologist was prosecuting his researches at +Kirkdale cave, Yorkshire, he had calculated so nicely on the antecedent +probabilities, that his commands to the labourers were substantially +these: "Take your mattocks, and pick up that stone flooring; then take +your basket, and fill it--with the bones of hyænas and other creatures +which you will find there." We may fancy the ridicule wherewith +ignorance might have greeted science: but lo, the triumph of philosophy, +when its mandate soon assumed a bodily shape in--bushels of bones gnawed +as by wild beasts, and here and there a grinning skull that looked like +a hyæna's! Do we not see how this bears on our coming argument? Such a +deposit was very unlikely to be found there in the eyes of the +unenlightened: but very likely to the wise man's ken. The real +probabilities were in favour of a strange fact, though the seeming +probabilities were against it. + +Take another. We are all now convinced of the existence of America; and +so, some three or four hundred years back, was Christopher Columbus--but +nobody else. Alone, he proved that mighty continent so probable, from +geometrical measurements, and the balance of the world, and tides, and +trade-winds, and casual floatsams driven from some land beneath the +setting sun, that he was antecedently convinced of the fact: and it +would have been a shock to his reason, as well as to his faith, had he +found himself able to sail due west from Lisbon to China, without having +struck against his huge probability. I purposely abstain from applying +every illustration, or showing its specific difference regarding our +theme. It is better to lead a mind to think for itself than to endeavour +to forestall every notion. + +Another. A Kissoor merchant in Timbuctoo is told of the existence of +water hard and cold as marble. All the experience of his nation is +against it. He disbelieves. However, after no long time, the testimony +of two native princes who have been _fêted_ in England, and have seen +ice, shakes his once not unreasonable incredulity: and the additional +idea brought soon to his remembrance, that, as lead cools down from hot +fluidity to a solid lump, so, in the absence of solar heat, in all +probability would water--corroborates and makes acceptable by analogous +likelihood the doctrine simultaneously evidenced by credible witnesses. + +Yet one more illustration for the last. Few things in nature appear more +unlikely to the illiterate, than that a living toad should be found +prisoned in a block of limestone; nevertheless, evidence goes to prove +that such cases are not uncommon. Now, if, instead of limestone, which +is a water-product, the creature had been found embedded in granite, +which is a fire-product; although the fact might have been from +eye-sight equally unimpeachable, how much more unlikely such a +circumstance would have appeared in the judgment of science. To the +rustic, the limestone case is as stout a puzzle as the granite one; but +_à priori_, the philosopher--taking into account the aqueous fluidity of +such a matrix at a period when reptiles were abundant, the torpid +qualities of the toad itself, and the fact that time is scarcely an +element in the absence of air--arrives at an antecedent probability, +which comforts his acceptance of the fact. The granite would have +staggered his reason, even though his own experience or the testimony of +others were sufficient, nay, imperative, to assure his faith: but in the +case of limestone, Reason even helps Faith; nay, anticipates and leads +it in, by suggesting the wonder to be previously probable. How truly, +and how strongly this bears upon our theme, let any such philosophizing +mind consider. + +But enough of illustrations: although these, multipliable to any amount, +might bring, each in its own case, some specific tendency to throw light +upon the path we mean to tread: it is wiser perhaps, as implying more +confidence in the reader's intellectual powers, to leave other analogous +cases to the suggestion of his own mind; also, not to vex him in every +instance with the intrusive finger of an obvious application. +Meanwhile, it is a just opportunity to clear the way at once of some +obstructions, by disposing of a few matters personal to the writer; and +by touching upon sundry other preliminary considerations. + +1. The line of thought proposed is intended to show it probable that any +thing which has been or is, might, viewed antecedently to its existence, +by an exercise of pure reason, have by possibility been guessed: and on +the hypothesis of sufficient keenness and experience, that this idea may +be carried even to the future. Any thing, meaning every thing, is a word +not used unadvisedly; for this is merely a suggestive treatise, starting +a rule capable of infinite application: and, notwithstanding that we +have here and now confined its elucidation to some matters of religious +moment only, as occupying a priority of importance, and at all times +deserving the lead; still, if knowledge availed, and time and space +permitted, I scarcely doubt that a vigorous and illuminated intellect +might so far enlarge on the idea, as to show the antecedent probability +of every event which has happened in the kingdoms of nature, providence, +and grace: nay, of directing his guess at coming matters with no +uncertain aim into the realms of the immediate future. The perception of +cause in operation enables him to calculate the consequence, even +perhaps better than the prophecy of cause could in the prior case enable +him to suspect the consequence. But, in this brief life, and under its +disturbing circumstances, there is little likelihood of accomplishing in +practice all that the swift mind sees it easy to dream in theory: and if +other and wiser pens are at all helped in the good aim to justify the +ways of God with man, and to clear the course of truth, by some of the +notions broadcast in this treatise, its errand will be well fulfilled. + +2. Whether or not the leading idea, so propounded, is new, or is new in +its application as an auxiliary to Christian evidences, the writer is +unaware: to his own mind it has occurred quite spontaneously and on a +sudden; neither has he scrupled to place it before others with whatever +ill advantage of celerity, because it seemed to his own musings to shed +a flood of light upon deep truths, which may not prove unwelcome nor +unuseful to the doubting minds of many. It is true that in this, as in +most other human efforts, the realization of idea in concrete falls far +short of its abstract conception in the mind: there, all was clear, +quick, and easy; here, the necessity of words, and the constraints of an +unwilling perseverance, clog alike the wings of fancy and the feet of +sober argument: insomuch that the difference is felt to be quite +humiliating between the thoughts as they were thought, and the thoughts +as they are written. Minerva, springing from the head of Jove, is not +more unlike the heavily-treading Vulcan. + +3. Necessarily, that the argument be (so to speak) complete, and on the +wise principle that no fortresses be left untaken in the rear, it must +be the writer's fate to attempt a demonstration of the anterior +probability of truths, which a child of reason can not only now never +doubt as fact, but never could have thought improbable. Instance the +first effort, showing it to have been expectable that there should, in +any conceived beginning, have existed a Something, a Great Spirit, whom +we call God. To have to argue of the mighty Maker, that HE was an +antecedent probability, would appear a most needless attempt; if it did +not occur as the first link in a chain of arguments less open to +objection by the thoughtless. With our little light to try to prove _à +priori_ the dazzling mystery of a Divine Tri-unity, might (unreasonably +viewed) be assailed as a presumptuous and harmful thing; but it is our +wise prerogative, if and when we can, to "Prove all things." Moreover, +we live in a world wherein Truth's greatest enemy is the man who shrinks +from endeavouring at least to clear away the mists and clouds that veil +her precious aspect; and at a time when it behooves the reverent +Christian to put on his panoply of faith and prayer, and meet in +argument, according to the grace and power given to him--not indeed the +blaspheming infidel, for such a foe is unreasonable and unworthy of an +answer, but--the often candid, anxious, and involuntary doubter; the +mind, which, righteously vexed with the thousand corruptions of truth, +and sorely disappointed at the conduct of its herd of false disciples, +from a generous misconception is embracing error: the mind, never enough +tenderly treated, but commonly taunted as a sceptic which yet with a +natural manliness asserts the just prerogative of thinking for itself: +fairly enough requiring, though rarely finding, evidence either to prop +the weakness of a merely educational faith, or to argue away the +objections to Christianity so rife in the clashing doctrines and unholy +lives of its pseudo-sectaries. One of our poets hath said, "He has no +hope who never had a fear:" it is quite as true (and take this saying +for thy comfort, any harassed misbelieving mind), He has no faith, who +never had a doubt. There is hope of a mind which doubts, because it +thinks; because it troubles itself to think about what the mass of +nominal Christians live threescore years and die of very mammonism, +without having had one earnest thought about one difficulty, or one +misgiving: there is hope of a man, who, not licentious nor scornful, +from simple misconception, misbelieves; there is just and reasonable +hope that (the misconception once removed) his faith will shine forth +all the warmer for a temporary state of winter. To such do I address +myself: not presumptuously imagining that I can satisfy by my poor +thoughts all the doubts, cavils and objections of minds so keen and +curious; not affecting to sail well among the shoals of metaphysics, nor +to plumb unerringly the deeper gulphs of reason; but asking them for +awhile to bear with me and hear me to the end patiently; with me, +convinced of what ([Greek: kat' exochên]) is Truth, by far surer and +stronger arguments than any of the less considerations here expounded as +auxiliary thereto; to bear with me, and prove for themselves at this +penning of my thoughts (if haply I am helped in such high enterprise), +whether indeed those doctrines and histories which the Christian world +admit, were antecedently improbable, that is, unreasonable: whether, on +the contrary, there did not exist, prior to any manifestation of such +facts and doctrines, an exceeding likelihood that they would be so and +so developed: and whether on the whole, led by reason to the threshold +of faith, it may be worth while to encounter other arguments, which have +rendered probabilities now certain. + +4. It is very material to keep in memory the only scope and object of +this essay. We do not pretend to add one jot of evidence, but only to +prepare the mind to receive evidence: we do not attempt to prove facts, +but only to accelerate their admission by the removal of prejudice. If a +bed-ridden meteorologist is told that it rains, he may or he may not +receive the fact from the force of testimony; but he will certainly be +more prëdisposed to receive it, if he finds that his weatherglass is +falling rather than rising. The fact remains the same, it rains; but the +mind--precluded by circumstances from positive personal assurance of +such fact, and able only to arrive at truth from exterior evidence--is +in a fitter state for belief of the fact from being already made aware +that it was probable. Let it not then be inferred, somewhat perversely, +that because antecedent probabilities are the staple of our present +argument, the theme itself, Religion, rests upon hypotheses so slender: +it rests not at all upon such straws as probabilities, but on posterior +evidence far more firm. What we now attempt is not to prop the ark, but +favourably to prëdispose the mind of any reckless Uzzah, who might +otherwise assail it; not to strengthen the weak places of religion, but +to annul such disinclination to receive Truth, as consists in prejudice +and misconception of its likelihood. The goodly ship is built upon the +stocks, the platforms are reared, and the cradle is ready; but mistaken +prëconceptions may scatter the incline with gravel-stones rather than +with grease, and thus put a needless hindrance to the launching: whereas +a clear idea that the probabilities are in favour, rather than the +reverse, will make all smooth, lubricate, and easy. If, then, we fail in +this attempt, no disservice whatever is done to Truth itself; no breach +is made in the walls, no mine sprung, no battlement dismantled; all the +evidences remain as they were; we have taken nothing away. Even granting +matters seemed anteriorily improbable, still, if evidence proved them +true, such anterior unlikelihood would entirely be merged in the stoutly +proven facts. Moreover, if we be adjudged to have succeeded, we have +added nothing to Truth itself; no, nor to its outworks. That sacred +temple stands complete, firm and glorious from corner-stone to +top-stone. We do but sweep away the rubbish at its base; the drifting +desert sands that choke its portals. We only serve that cause (a most +high privilege), by enlisting a prëjudgment in its favour. We propose +herein an auxiliary to evidence, not evidence itself; a finger-post to +point the way to faith; a little light of reason on its path. The risk +is really nothing; but the advantage, under favour, may be much. + +5. It is impossible to elude the discussion of topics, which in their +direct tendencies, or remoter inferences, may, to the author at least, +prove dangerous or disputable ground. If a "great door and effectual" is +opened to him, doubtless he will raise or meet with many adversaries. +Besides mere haters of his creed, despisers of his arguments, and +protestors, loud and fierce against his errors; he may possibly fall +foul of divers unintended heresies; he may stumble unwittingly on the +relics of exploded schisms; he may exhume controversies in metaphysical +or scholastical polemics, long and worthily extinct. If this be so, he +can only plead, _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_. But it is +open to him also to protest against the common critical folly of making +an offender for a word: of driving analogies on all four feet, and +straining thoughts beyond their due proportions. Above all, never let a +reader stir one inch beyond, far less against, his own judgment: if +there seem to be sufficient reasons, well: if otherwise, let me walk +uncompanied. The first step especially is felt to be a very difficult +one; perhaps very debatable: for aught I know, it may be merely a vain +insect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, and +easily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, it +seemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth, +though somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and +language. Moreover, it would have been, in such _à priori_ argument, +ridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: for +this cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and however +supererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers, +those keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish to +serve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will be +ready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great +Cause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit), +it was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, with +an obvious somewhat of justice, pure reason may desire to begin at the +beginning. No one, who thinks at all upon religion, however +misbelieving, can entertain any mental prejudice against the existence +of a Deity, or against the received character of His attributes. Such a +man would be merely in a savage state, irrational: whilst his own mind, +so speculating, would stand itself proof positive of an Intellectual +Father; either immediately, as in the first man's case, or mediately, as +in our own, it must have sprung out of that Being, who is emphatically +the Good One--God. But if, as is possible, a mind, capable of thinking, +and keen to think on other themes, from any cause, educational or moral, +has neglected this great track of mediation, has "forgotten God," and +"had him _not_ in all his thoughts," such an one I invite to walk with +me; and, in spite of all incompleteness and insufficiency, uncaptious of +much that may haply be fanciful or false, briefly and in outline to test +with me sundry probabilities of the Christian scheme, considered +antecedently to its elucidation. + + + + +A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES. + + +I will commence with a noble, and, as I believe, an inspired sentence: +than which no truth uttered by philosophers ever was more clearly or +more sublimely expressed. "In the beginning was the Word: and the Word +was with God; and the Word was God." In its due course, we will consider +especially the difference between the Word and God; likewise the seeming +contradiction, but true concord, of being simultaneously God, and with +God. At present, and previously to the true commencement of our _à +priori_ thoughts, let us, by a word or two, paraphrase that brief but +comprehensive sentence, "In the beginning was the Word." Eternity has no +beginning, as it has no end: the clock of Time is futile there: it +might as well attempt to go in vacuo. Nevertheless, in respect to +finite intelligences like ourselves, seeing that eternity is an idea +totally inconceivable, it is wise, nay it is only possible, to be +presented to the mind piecemeal. Even our deepest mathematicians do not +scruple to speak of points "infinitely remote;" as if in that phrase +there existed no contradiction of terms. So, also, we pretend in our +emptiness to talk of eternity past, time present, and eternity to come; +the fact being that, muse as a man may, he can entertain no idea of an +existence which is not measurable by time: any more than he can conceive +of a colour unconnected with the rainbow, or of a musical note beyond +the seven sounds. The plain intention of the words is this: place the +starting-post of human thought as far back into eternity as you will, be +it what man counts a thousand ages, or ten thousand times ten thousand, +or be these myriads multiplied again by millions, still, in any such +Beginning, and in the beginning of all beginnings (for so must creatures +talk)--then was God. He Was: the scholar knows full well the force of +the original term, the philological distinctions between [Greek: eimi] +and [Greek: gignomai]: well pleased, he reads as of the Divinity [Greek: +ên], He self-existed; and equally well pleased he reads of the humanity +[Greek: egennêthê], he was born. The thought and phrase [Greek: ên] +sympathizes, if it has not an identity, with the Hebrew's unutterable +Name. HE then, whose title, amongst all others likewise denoting +excellence supreme and glory underivative, is essentially "I am;" HE +who, relatively to us as to all creation else, has a new name wisely +chosen in "the Word,"--the great expression of the idea of God; this +mighty Intelligence is found in any such beginning self-existent. That +teaching is a mere fact, known posteriorly from the proof of all things +created, as well as by many wonderful signs, and the clear voice of +revelation. We do not attempt to prove it; that were easy and obvious: +but our more difficult endeavour at present is to show how antecedently +probable it was that God should be: and that so being, He should be +invested with the reasonable attributes, wherewithal we know His +glorious Nature to be clothed. + +Take then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that +"originally" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter to +prove, _à posteriori_, that Something did exist; because something +exists now: every matter and every derived spirit must have had a +Father; _ex nihilo nihil fit_, is not more a truth, than that creation +must have had a Creator. However, leaving this plain path (which I only +point at by the way for obvious mental uses), let us now try to get at +the great antecedent probability that in the beginning Something should +have been, rather than Nothing. + +The term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence, +as Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact a +negation, which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible to +be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be +somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that +of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without +the previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vi +termini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, +prësupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would still +and for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for its +removal; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. The +chances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity; +and the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence. +It was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginable +beginning from which reason can start, Something should be found +existent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability. + +Next; of what nature and extent is this Something, this Being, likely to +be?--There will be either one such being, or many: if many, the many +either sprang from the one, or the mass are all self-existent; in the +former case, there would be a creation and a God: in the latter, there +would be many Gods. Is the latter antecedently more probable?--let us +see. First, it is evident that if many are probable, few are more +probable, and one most probable of all. The more possible gods you take +away, the more do impediments diminish; until, that is to say, you +arrive at that One Being, whom we have already proved probable. +Moreover, many must be absolutely united as one; in which case the many +is a gratuitous difficulty, because they may as well be regarded for all +purposes of worship or argument as one God: or the many must have been +in essence more or less disunited; in which case, as a state of any +thing short of pure concord carries in itself the seeds of dissolution, +needs must that one or other of the many (long before any possible +beginnings, as we count beginnings, looking down the past vista of +eternity), would have taken opportunity by such disturbing causes to +become absolute monarch: whether by peaceful persuasion, or hostile +compulsion, or other mode of absorbing disunions, would be indifferent; +if they were not all improbable, as unworthy of the God. Perpetuity of +discord is a thing impossible; every thing short of unity tends to +decomposition. Any how then, given the element of eternity to work in, +a one great Supreme Being was, in the created beginning, an _à priori_ +probability. That all other assumptions than that of His true and +eternal Oneness are as false in themselves as they are derogatory to the +rational views of deity, we all now see and believe; but the direct +proofs of this are more strictly matters of revelation than of reason: +albeit reason too can discern their probabilities. Wise heathens, such +as Socrates and Cicero, who had not our light, arrived nevertheless at +some of this perception; and thus, through conscience and intelligence, +became a law unto themselves: because that, to them, as now to any one +of us who may not yet have seen the light, the anterior likelihood +existed for only one God, rather than more; a likelihood which prepares +the mind to take as a fundamental truth, "The Lord our God is one +Jehovah." + +Next; Self-existence combined with unity must include the probable +attribute, or character, Ubiquity; as I now proceed to show. On the same +principle as that by which we have seen Something to be likelier than +Nothing, we conclude that the same Something is more probable to be +every where, than the same Nothing (if the phrase were not absurd), to +be any where: we may, so to speak, divide infinity into spaces, and +prove the position in each instance: moreover, as that Something is +essentially--not a unit as of many, but--unity involving all, it follows +as most probable that this Whole Being should be ubiquitous; in other +parlance, that the one God should be every where at once: also, there +being no limit to what we call Space, nor any imaginable hostile power +to place a constraint upon the One Great Being, this Whole Being must be +ubiquitous to a degree strictly infinite: "HE is in every place, +beholding the evil and the good." + +Such a consideration (and it is a perfectly true one) renders necessary +the next point, to wit, that God is a Spirit. No possible substance can +be every where at once: essence may, but not substance. Corporeity in +any shape must be local; local is finite; and we have just proved the +anterior probability of a One great Existence being (notwithstanding +unity of essence) infinite. Illocal and infinite are convertible terms: +spirit is illocal; and, as God is infinite--that is, illocal--it is +clear that "God is a Spirit." + +We have thus (not attempting to build up faith by such slight tools, but +only using them to cut away prejudice) arrived at the high probability +of a God invested with His natural qualities or attributes; +Self-existence, Unity, the faculty of being every where at once and that +every where Infinitude; and essentially of a Spiritual nature, not +material. His moral, or accidental attributes (so to speak), were, +antecedently to their expression, equally easy of being proved +probable. First, with respect to Power: given no disturbing cause--(we +shall soon consider the question of permitted evil, and its origin; but +this, however disturbing to creatures, will be found not only none to +God, but, as it were, only a ray of His glory suffered to be broken for +prismatic beauty's sake, a flash of the direction of His energies +suffered to be diverted for the superior triumph of good in that day +when it shall be shown that "God hath made all things for himself, yea, +even the wicked for the time of visitation")--with the _datum_ then of +no disturbing cause obstructing or opposing, an infinite being must be +able to do all things within the sphere of such infinity: in other +phrase, He must be all-powerful. Just so, an impetus in vacuity suffers +no check, but ever sails along among the fleet of worlds; and the innate +Impulse of the Deity must expand and energize throughout that +infinitude, Himself. For a like reason of ubiquity, God must know all +things: it is impossible to escape from the strong likelihood that any +intelligent being must be conversant of what is going on under his very +eye. Again; in the case both of Power and Knowledge, alike with the +coming attributes of Goodness and Wisdom--(wisdom considered as morally +distinct from mere knowledge or awaredness; it being quite possible to +conceive a cold eye seeing all things heedlessly, and a clear mind +knowing all things heartlessly)--in the case, I say, of all these +accidental attributes, there recurs for argument, one analogous to that +by which we showed the anterior probability of a self-existence. Things +positive must precede things negative. Sight must have been, before +blindness is possible; and before we can arrive at a just idea of no +sight. Power must be precursor to an abstraction from power, or +weakness. The minor-existence of ignorance is an impossibility, unless +you prëallow the major-existence of wisdom; for it amounts to a debasing +or a diminution of wisdom. Sin is well defined to be, the transgression +of law; for without law, there can be no sin. So, also, without wisdom, +there can be no ignorance; without power, there can be no weakness; +without goodness, there can be no evil. + +Furthermore. An affirmative--such as wisdom, power, goodness--can exist +absolutely; it is in the nature of a Something: but a negative--such as +ignorance, weakness, evil--can only exist relatively; and it would, +indeed, be a Nothing, were it not for the previous and now simultaneous +existence of its wiser, stronger, and better origin. Abstract evil is as +demonstrably an impossibility as abstract ignorance, or abstract +weakness. If evil could have self-existed, it would in the moment of its +eternal birth have demolished itself. Virtue's intrinsic concord tends +to perpetual being: vice's innate discord struggles always with a force +towards dissolution. Goodness, wisdom, power have existences, and have +had existences from all eternity, though gulphed within the Godhead; and +that, whether evidenced in act or not: but their corruptions have had no +such original existence, but are only the same entities perverted. Love +would be love still, though there were no existent object for its +exercise: Beauty would be beauty still, though there were no created +thing to illustrate its fairness: Power would be power still, though +there be no foe to combat, no difficulty to be overcome. Hatred, +ill-favour, weakness, are only perversions or diminutions of these. +Power exists independently of muscles or swords or screws or levers; +love, independently of kind thoughts, words, and actions; beauty, +independently of colours, shapes, and adaptations. Just so is Wisdom +philosophically spoken of by a truly royal and noble author: + +"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out the knowledge of clever +inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; I +have strength. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before +his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or +ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; +before the mountains were fixed, or the hills were made. When He +prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face +of the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened +the foundations of the deep: Then was I by him, as one brought up with +him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing +in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons +of men." + +King Solomon well knew of Whom he wrote thus nobly. Eternal wisdom, +power, and goodness, all prospectively thus yearning upon man, and +incorporate in One, whose name, among his many names, is Wisdom. Wisdom, +as a quality, existed with God; and, constituting full pervasion of his +essence, was God. + +But to return, and bind to a conclusion our ravelled thoughts. As, +originally, the self-existent being, unbounded, all-knowing, might take +up, so to speak, if He willed, these eternal affirmative excellences of +wisdom, power, and goodness; and as these, to every rational +apprehension, are highly worthy of his choice, whereas their derivative +and inferior corruptions would have been most derogatory to any +reasonable estimate of His character; how much more likely was it that +He should prefer the higher rather than the lower, should take the +affirmative before the negative, should "choose the good, and refuse the +evil,"--than endure to be endowed with such garbled, demoralizing, +finite attributes as those wherewith the heathen painted the Pantheon. +What high antecedent probability was there, that if a God should be (and +this we have proved highly probable too)--He should be One, ubiquitous, +self-existent, spiritual: that He should be all-mighty, all-wise, and +all-good? + + + + +THE TRIUNITY. + + +Another deep and inscrutable topic is now to engage our thoughts--the +mystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, the +Christian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them with +reverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any such +mind will be courteous enough to his friendly opponent, and wise enough +respecting his own interest and safety lest these things be true, to +enter upon all such subjects with the seriousness befitting their +importance, and with the restraining thought that in fact they may be +sacred. + +Let us then consider, antecedently to all experience, with what sort of +deity pure reason would have been satisfied. It has already arrived at +Unity, and the foregoing attributes. But what kind of Unity is probable? +Unity of Person, or unity of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easily +understandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness, +which yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its own +expansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert the +superior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us come +then to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to be +supposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yet +he must be one: and oneness is the idea most easily apprehended of all +possible ideas. The meanest of intellectual creatures could comprehend +his Maker, and in so far top his heights, if God, being truly one in one +view, were yet only one in every view: if, that is to say, there existed +no mystery incidental to his nature: nay, if that mystery did not +amount to the difficulty of a seeming contradiction. I judge it likely, +and with confidence, that Reason would prërequire for his God, a Being, +at once infinitely easy to be apprehended by the lowest of His spiritual +children, and infinitely difficult to be comprehended by the highest of +His seraphim. Now, there can be guessed only two ways of compassing such +a prërequirement: one, a moral way; such as inventing a deity who could +be at once just and unjust, every where and no where, good and evil, +powerful and weak; this is the heathen phase of Numen's character, and +is obviously most objectionable in every point of view: the other would +be a physical way; such as requiring a God who should be at once +material and immaterial, abstraction and concretion; or, for a still +more confounding paradox to Reason (considered as antagonist to Faith, +in lieu of being strictly its ally), an arithmetical contradiction, an +algebraic mystery, such as would be included in the idea of Composite +Unity; one involving many, and many collapsed into one. Some such enigma +was probable in Reason's guess at the nature of his God. It is the +Christian way; and one entirely unobjectionable: because it is the only +insuperable difficulty as to His Nature which does not debase the notion +of Divinity. But there are also other considerations. + +For, secondly. The self-existent One is endowed, as we found probable, +with abundant loving-kindness, goodness overflowing and perpetual. Is it +reasonable to conceive that such a character could for a moment be +satisfied with absolute solitariness? that infinite benevolence should, +in any possible beginning, be discovered existent in a sort of selfish +only-oneness? Such a supposition is, to the eye of even unenlightened +Reason, so clearly a _reductio ad absurdum_, that men in all countries +and ages have been driven to invent a plurality of Gods, for very +society sake: and I know not but that they are anteriorly wiser and more +rational than the man who believes in a Benevolent Existence eternally +one, and no otherwise than one. Let me not be mistaken to imply that +there was any likelihood of many cöexistent gods: that was a reasonable +improbability, as we have already seen, perhaps a spiritual +impossibility: but the anterior likelihood of which I speak goes to +show, that in One God there should be more than one cöexistence: each, +by arithmetical mystery, but not absurdity, pervading all, cöequals, +each being God, and yet not three Gods, but one God. That there should +be a rational difficulty here--or, rather, an irrational one--I have +shown to be Reason's prërequirement: and if such a one as I, or any +other creature, could now and here (ay, or any when or any where, in +the heights of highest heaven, and the far-stretching distance of +eternity) solve such intrinsic difficulty, it would demonstrably be one +not worthy of its source, the wise design of God: it would prove that +riddle read, which uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling of +the creature mind. No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far more +reverent, to acquiesce in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable from +the nature of the Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, and +indulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of nobler +intelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and to +exercise withal their keen and lofty minds. + +But we have not yet done. Some further thoughts remain to be thrown out +in the third place, as to the prëconceivable fitness or propriety of +that Holy Union, which we call the trinity of Persons who constitute the +Self-existent One. If God, being one in one sense, is yet likely to +appear, humanly speaking, more than one in another sense; we have to +inquire anteriorly of the probable nature of such other intimate Being +or Beings: as also, whether such addition to essential oneness is likely +itself to be more than one or only one. As to the former of these +questions: if, according to the presumption of reason (and according +also to what we have since learned from revelation; but there may be +good policy in not dotting this book with chapter and verse)--if the +Deity thus loved to multiply Himself; then He, to whom there can exist +no beginning, must have so loved, so determined, and so done from all +eternity. Now, any conceivable creation, however originated, must have +had a beginning, place it as far back as you will. In any succession of +numbers, however infinitely they may stretch, the commencement at least +is a fixed point, one. But, this multiplication of + +Deity, this complex simplicity, this intricate easiness, this obvious +paradox, this sub-division and con-addition of a One, must have taken +place, so soon as ever eternal benevolence found itself alone; that is, +in eternity, and not in any imaginable time. So then, the Being or +Beings would probably not have been creative, but of the essence of +Deity. Take also for an additional argument, that it is an idea which +detracts from every just estimate of the infinite and all-wise God to +suppose He should take creatures into his eternal counsels, or consort, +so to speak, familiarly with other than the united sub-divisions, +persons, and cöequals of Himself. It was reasonable to prëjudge that the +everlasting companions of Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus, +it appears antecedently probable that (what from the poverty of +language we must call) the multiplication of the one God should not have +been created beings; that is, should have been divine; a term, which +includes, as of right, the attribution to each such Holy Person, of all +the wondrous characteristics of the Godhead. + +Again: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-called +sub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think it +will be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfect +number; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties; +nor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to be +discerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the consideration +that every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a consequence: +neither, to draw any inferences from the social maxim that for counsel, +companionship, and conversation, the number three has some special +fitness. Some other similar fancies, not altogether valueless, might be +alluded to. It seems preferable, however, on so grand a theme, to +attempt a deeper dive, and a higher flight. We would then, reverently as +always, albeit equally as always with the free-born boldness of God's +intellectual children, attempt to prëjudge how many, and with what +distinctive marks, the holy beings into whom (Greek: ôst epos eipein) +God, for very Benevolence sake, pours out Essential Unity, were likely +to be. + +Let us consider what principles, as in the case of a forthcoming +creation, would probably be found in action, to influence such +creation's Author. + +First of all, there would be Will, a will energized by love, disposing +to create: a phase of Deity aptly and comprehensively typified to all +minds by the name of a universal Father: this would be the primary +impersonation of God. And is it not so? + +Secondly: there would be (with especial reference to that idea of +creation which doubtless at most remote beginnings occupied the Good +One's contemplation), there would be next, I repeat, in remarkable +adaptation to all such benevolent views, the great idea of principle, +Obedience; conforming to a Father's righteous laws, acquiescing in his +just will, and returning love for love: such a phase could not be better +shadowed out to creatures than by an Eternal Son; the dutiful yet +supreme, the subordinate yet cöequal, the amiable yet exalted Avatar of +our God. This was probable to have been the second impersonation of +Deity. And is it not so? + +Thirdly: Springing from the conjoint ideas of the Father and the Son, +and with similar prospection to such instantly creative universe, there +would occur the grand idea of Generation; the mighty cöequal, pure, and +quickening Impulse: aptly announced to men and angels as the Holy +Spirit. This was to have been the third impersonation of Divinity. And +is it not so? + +Of all these--under illumination of the fore-known fact, I speak, in +their aspect of anterior probability. With respect to more possible +Persons, I at least cannot invent one. There is, to my reflection, +neither need nor fitness for a fourth, or any further Principle. If +another can, let him look well that he be not irrationally demolishing +an attribute and setting it up as a principle. Obedience is not an +attribute; nor Generation; nor Will: whilst the attribute of Love, +pervading all, sets these only possible three Principles going together +as One in a mysterious harmony. I would not be misunderstood; persons +are not principles; but principles may be illustrated and incorporative +in persons. Essential Love, working distinctively throughout the Three, +unites them instinctively as One: even as the attribute Wisdom designs, +and the attribute Power arranges all the scheme of Godhead. + +And now I ask Reason, whether, prësupposing keenness, he might not have +arrived by calculation of probabilities at the likelihood of these great +doctrines: that the nature of God would be an apparent contradiction: +that such contradiction should not be moral, but physical; or rather +verging towards the metaphysical, as immaterial and more profound: that +God, being One, should yet, in his great Love, marvellously have been +companioned from eternity by Himself: and that such Holy and United +Confraternity should be so wisely contrived as to serve for the bright +unapproachable exemplar of love, obedience, and generation to all the +future universe, such Triunity Itself existing uncreated. + + + + +THE GODHEAD VISIBLE. + + +We have hitherto mused on the Divinity, as on Spirit invested with +attributes: and this idea of His nature was enough for all requirements +antecedently to a creation. At whatever beginning we may suppose such +creation to have commenced, whether countless ages before our present +[Greek: kosmos], or only a sufficient time to have prepared the crust of +earth; and to whatever extent we may imagine creation to have spread, +whether in those remote periods originally to our system alone and at +after eras to its accompanying stars and galaxies and firmaments; or at +one and the same moment to have poured material existence over space to +which our heavens are as nothing: whatever, and whenever, and wherever +creation took place, it would appear to be probable that some one person +of the Deity should, in a sort, become more or less concretely +manifested; that is, in a greater or a minor degree to such created +minds and senses visible. Moreover, for purposes at least of a +concentrated worship of such creatures, that He should occasionally, or +perhaps habitually, appear local. I mean, that the King of all spiritual +potentates and the subordinate Excellencies of brighter worlds than +ours, the Sovereign of those whom we call angels, should will to be +better known to and more aptly conceived by such His admiring creatures, +in some usual glorious form, and some wonted sacred place. Not that any +should see God, as purely God; but, as God relatively to them, in the +capacity of King, Creator, and the Object of all reasonable worship. It +seems anteriorly probable that one at least of the Persons in the +Godhead should for this purpose assume a visibility; and should hold His +court of adoration in some central world, such as now we call +indefinitely Heaven. That such probability did exist in the human +forecast, as concerns a heaven and the form of God, let the testimony of +all nations now be admitted to corroborate. Every shape from a cloud to +a crocodile, and every place from Æther to Tartarus, have been peopled +by man's not quite irrational device with their so-called gods. But we +must not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is our +harder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt the +probabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a more +distant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility that +there should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein he +would be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such his +creatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being finite, +can only comprehend the infinite in his attribute of unity: the other +attributes being apprehended (or comprehended partially) in finite +phases. But, unity being a purely intellectual thought, one high and dry +beyond the moral feelings, involves none of the requisites of a +spiritual, that is an affectionate, worship; such worship as it was +likely that a beneficent Being would, for his creatures' own elevation +in happiness, command and inspire towards Himself. In order, therefore, +to such worship and such inspiration acting through reason, it would +appear fitting that the Deity should manifest Himself especially with +reference to that heavenly Exemplar, the Three Divine Persons of the +One Supreme Essence already shown to have been probable. And it seems +likeliest and discreetest to my thinking, that, with this view, the +secondary phase, loving Obedience, under the dictate of the primary +phase, a loving Will, and energized by the tertiary or conjoining phase +a loving Quickening Entity, should assume the visible type of Godhead, +and thus concentrate unto Himself the worship of all worlds. I can +conceive no scheme more simply profound, more admirably suited to its +complex purposes, than that He, in whom dwelt the fullness of the +Godhead, bodily, should take the form of God, in order that unto Him +every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and +things in regions under the earth. Was not all this reasonably to have +been looked for? and tested afterwards by Scripture, in its frequent +allusions to some visible phase of Deity, when the Lord God walked with +Adam, and Enoch, and Abraham, and Peter, and James, and John--I ask, is +it not the case? + +The latter point remaining to be thus briefly touched upon, respects the +probable shape to be assumed and worn, familiarly enough to be +recognised as His, by Deity thus vouchsafing Himself visible. And here +we must look down the forward stream of Time, and search among the +creatures whom thereafter God should make, to arrive at some good reason +for, some antecedent probability of, the form which he should thus +frequently inhabit. Fire, for example, a pure and spirit-like nature, +would not have been a guess unworthy of reason: but this, besides its +humbler economic uses, would endanger an idolatry of the natural emblem. +So also would light be no irrational thought. And it is true that God +might, and probably would, invest Himself in one or both of these pure +essences, so seemingly congenial to a nature higher than ours: but then +there would be some nucleus to the brilliancy and the burning; these +would be as a veil to the Divinity; we should have need, before He were +truly visible, that the veil were laid aside: we should have to shred +away to the nucleus, which (and not the fire or light) would be the form +of God. Similar objections, in themselves or in their idolatrizing +tendencies, would lie against any such shape as a cloud, or a rainbow, +or an angel (whatever such a being may resemble), or in fact any other +conceivable creature, whether good as the angelic case or indifferent as +that of the cloud, which the Deity, though assuming often, would +nevertheless in every instance assume in conjunction with such his +ordinary creature, and could not entirely monopolize. I mean; if God had +the shape of a cloud, or of a rainbow, common clouds and rainbows would +come to be thought gods too. Reason would anticipate this objection to +such created and too-favoured shapes: more; in every case, but one, he +would be quite at a loss to look for some type, clearly apt and +probable. That one case he might discern to be this. Known unto God are +all things from the beginning to the end: and, in His fore-knowledge, +Reason might have been enlightened to prophesy (as we shall hereafter +see) that for certain wise and good ends one great family out of the +myriads who rejoice in being called God's children, would in a most +marked manner fall away from Him through disobedience; and should +thereby earn, if not the annihilation of their being, at least its +endless separation from the Blessed. Manifestly, the wisdom and +benevolence of God would be eager and swift to devise a plan for the +redemption of so lost a race. Why He should permit their fall at all +will be reverentially descanted on in its proper section; meanwhile, how +is it probable that God, first, by any theory consistently with truth +and justice, could, and next by power and contrivance actually would, +lift up again this sinful family from the pit of condemnation? Reason is +to search the question well: and after much thought, you will arrive at +the truth that there was but one way probable. Rebellion against the +Great and Self-existent Author of all things, must needfully involve +infinite punishment; if only because He is infinite, and his laws of an +eternal sanction. The problem then was, how to inflict the unbounded +punishment thus claimed by justice for a transgressional condition, and +yet at love's demand to set the prisoner free: how to be just, and +simultaneously justifier of the guilty. That was a question +magnificently solved by God alone: magnificently about to be solved, as +according to our argument seemed probable, by God Triune, in wondrous +self-involving council. The solution would be rationally this. Himself, +in his character of filial obedience, should pay the utter penalty to +Himself in his character of paternal authority, whilst Himself in the +character of quickening spirit, should restore the ransomed family from +death to life, from the power of evil unto good. Was not this a most +probable, a most reasonably probable scheme? was it not altogether wise +and philosophical, as well as entirely generous and kind to wretched +men? + +And (returning to our present topic), was it not antecedently to have +been expected that God the Son (so to put it) should, in the shape He +was thereafter to assume upon earth, appear upon the eternal throne of +heaven? In a shape, however glorified and etherealized, with glistening +countenance and raiment bright as the light, nevertheless resembling +that more humble form, the Son of Man, who was afterwards thus by a +circle of probabilities to be made in the form of God; in a shape, not +liable, from its very sinfulness, to the deification either of other +worlds or of this [hero-worship is another and a lower thing altogether; +we speak here of true idolatries:]--was it unlikely, I say, that in such +a shape Deity should have deigned to become visible, and have blazed +Manifested God, the central Sun of Heaven?--This probability, prior to +our forth-flowing thoughts on the Incarnation, though in some measure +anticipating them, will receive further light from the views soon to be +set forth. I know not but that something is additionally due to the +suggestion following; namely: that, raise our swift imagination to what +height we may, and stretch our searching reason to the uttermost, we +cannot, despite of all inventive energies and powers of mind, conceive +any shape more beautiful, more noble, more worthy for a rational +intelligence to dwell in, more in one Homeric word [Greek: theoeides], +than the glorified and etherealized human form divine. Let this serve as +Reason's short reply to any charge of anthropomorphism in the doctrines +of his creed: it was probable that God should be revealed to His +creation; and as to the form of any such revealed essence in any such +infinite beginnings of His work, the most likely of all would appear to +be that one, wherein He, in the ages then to come, was well resolved to +earn the most glorious of all triumphs, the merciful reconciliation of +everlasting justice with everlasting love, the wise and wondrous scheme +of God forgiving sinners. + + + + +THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. + + +It will now be opportune to attempt elucidation of one of the darkest +and deepest riddles ever propounded to the finite understanding; the _à +priori_ likelihood of evil: not, mind, its eternal existence, which is a +false doctrine; but its probable procession from the earliest created +beings, which is a true one. + +At first sight, nothing could appear more improbable: nothing more +inconsistent with the recognised attributes of God, than that error, +pain, and sorrow should be mingled in His works. These, the spontaneous +offspring of His love, one might (not all wisely) argue, must always be +good and happy--because perfect as Himself. Because perfect?-- Therein +lies the fallacy, which reason will at once lay bare. Perfection is +attributable to no possible creature: perfection argues infinity, and +infinity is one of the prerogatives of God. However good, "very good," a +creation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fall +short of that Best, which is in effect the only state purely +unexceptionable. For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdom +undiminished from the single true standard, God's wisdom: in other +phrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, that +is, verging towards folly. Again; no creature can be presumed of a +purity so spotless as to rank in an equality with that of the Almighty: +in other words, neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature, can +exist who is not more or less--I will not say impure, positively, +but--unpure negatively. Thus, the birth-mark of creation must have been +an inclination towards folly, and from purity. The mere idea of +creatures would involve, as its great need-be, the qualifying clause +that these emanations from perfection be imperfect; and that these +children of purity be liable to grow unpure. They must either be thus +natured, or exist of the essence of God, that is, be other persons and +phases of the Deity: such a case was possible certainly; but, as we have +already shown, not probable. And it were possible, that, in consequence +of some redemption such as we have spoken of, creatures might by +ingraftation into God become so entirely part of Him--bone of bone, and +flesh of flesh, and spirit of spirit--that an exhortation to such blest +beings should reasonably run, "Be ye perfect." But this infinite +munificence of the Godhead in redemption was not to be found among His +bounties as Creator. It might indeed arise afterwards, as setting up +again the fallen creature in some safe niche of Deity: and we now know +it has arisen: "we are complete in Him." + +But this, though relevant, is a digression. Returning, and to produce +some further argument against all creature perfectness; let us consider +how rational it seems to prësuppose that the mighty Maker in his +boundless love should have willed to form a long chain of classes of +existence more and more subordinated each to the other, each good of its +kind and happy in its way, but yet all needfully more or less removed +from the high standard of uncreate Perfection. These descending links, +these graduations downwards, must involve a nearer or remoter approach +to evil. Now, we must bear in mind that Evil is not a principle, but a +perversion: it amounts merely to a denial, a limitation, a corruption of +good, not to the dignity of its abstract antagonism. Familiarly, but +fallaciously, we talk of the evil principle, the contradictory to good: +we might as well talk of the nosologic principle, the contradictory to +health; or the darkness principle, the contradictory to light. They are +contraries, but not contradictories: they have no positive, but only a +relative existence. Good and evil are verily foes, but originally there +was one cemented friendship: slender beginnings consequent on a +creation, began to cause the breach: the civil war arose out of a state +of primitive peace: images betray us into errors, or I might add with a +protest against the risk of being misinterpreted, that like brothers +turned to a deadly hate, they nevertheless sprang not originally out of +two hostile and opposite hemispheres, but from one paternal hearth. Not, +however, in any sense that God is the author of evil; but that God's +workmanship, the finite creature, needfully perverted good. + +The origin of evil--that is, its birth--is a term true and clear: +original evil--that is, giving it no birth but an antedate to all +created things, suffering it to run parallel with God and good from all +eternity--this is a term false and misty. The probability that good +would be warped, and grow deteriorate; that wisdom would be dwindled +down into less and less wisdom, or foolishness; and power degenerated +more and more towards imbecility; must arise, directly a creature should +spring out of the Creator; and that, let astronomy or geology name any +date they will: Adam is a definite date; perhaps also the first +day's--or period's--work: but the Beginning of Creation is undated. It +would then, under this impression of the necessary defalcation of the +creature from the strict straight line, be rational to look for +deviations: it would be rational to prësuppose that God--just, and good, +and pure, and wise--should righteously be able to "charge his angels +with folly," should verily declare that "the heavens are not pure in his +sight." + +Further; it would be a possible chance (which considerations soon +succeeding would render even probable) that for a wise humiliation of +the reasoning creature, and a just exaltation of the only Source of life +and light and all things, one or more of such first created beings, or +angels, should be suffered to fall, possibly from the vastest height, +and at first by the slenderest beginnings, lower and lower into folly, +impurity, and all other derelictions from the excellence of God. The +lines, once unparalleled, would, without a check, go further apart for +all eternity; albeit, the primal deviation arose in time. The aerolite, +dropping slowly at first, increases in swiftness as it multiplies the +fathoms of descent: and if the abyss be really bottomless, how +impossible a check or a return. + +Some such terrible example would amount to a reasonable likelihood, if +only for a lesson and a warning: to all intelligent hierarchs, be not +high-minded, but fear; to all responsible beings, keep righteousness and +reverence, and tempt not God; to all the Virtues, Dominations, +Obediences, and due Subordinations of unknown glorious worlds, a loud +and living exhortation to exercise, and not to let grow dim their +spiritual energies, in efforts after goodness, wisdom, and purity. A +creature state, to be happy, must be a progressive state: the capability +of progression argues lack, or a tendency from good: and progression +itself needs a spur, lest indolence relapse towards evil. + +Additionally: we must remember that a creature's excellence before God +is the reasonable service which he freely renders: freedom, dangerous +prerogative, involves choice: and choice necessitates the possibility of +error. The command to a rational intelligence would be, do this, and +live; do it not, and die: if thou doest, it is well done, good and +faithful servant; thou hast mounted by thine own heaven-blest exertions +to a higher approach towards infinite perfection; enter thou into the +joy, not merely of a creature, but of thy Lord. But, if thou doest not, +it is wo to thee, unworthy hireling; thou hast broken the tie that bound +thee to thy Maker--obedience, the root of happiness; thou livest on +indeed, because the Former of all things cancelleth not nor endeth his +beginning; but henceforth thine existence is, as a river which +earthquakes have divorced from its bed, and instead of flowing on for +ever through the fair pastures of peace and among the mountain roots of +everlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong, +turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic +marshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless +stream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours +its unresting waters into the thirsty sands of the Sahara. + +It was indeed probable (as since we know it to be true) that the +generous Giver of all things would in the vast majority of cases +minister such secret help to His weaker spiritual children, that, far +from failing of continuous obedience, they should find it so unceasingly +easier and happier that their very natures would soon come to be imbued +with that pervading habit: and that thus, the longer any creature stood +upright, the stronger should he rest in righteousness; until, at no very +distant period, it should become morally impossible for him to fall. +Such would soon be the condition of myriads, perhaps almost the whole, +of heaven's innumerable host: and with respect to any darker Unit in +that multitude, for the good of all permitted to make early shipwreck +of himself, simply by leaving his intelligence to plume its wings into +presumptuous flight, and by allowing his pristine goodness or wisdom to +grow rusty from non-usage until that sacred panoply were eaten into +holes; with respect to any such unhappy one, and all others (if others +be) who should listen to his glozing, and make a common cause in his +rebellion, where, I ask, is any injustice, or even unkindness done to +him by Deity? Where is any moral improbability that such a traitor +should be; or any just inconsistency chargeable on the attributes of God +in consequence of such his being? Whom can he in reason accuse but +himself for what he is? And what misery can such a one complain of, +which is not the work of his own hands? And lest the Great Offender +should urge against his God, why didst thou make me thus?--Is not the +answer obvious, I made thee, but not thus. And on the rejoinder, Why +didst thou not keep me as thou madest me? Is not the reply just, I made +thee reasonable, I led thee to the starting place, I taught thee and set +thee going well in the beginning; thou art intelligent and free, and +hast capacities of Mine own giving: wherefore didst thou throw aside My +grace, and fly in the face of thy Creator? + +On the whole; consider that I speak only of probabilities. There is a +depth in this abyss of thought, which no human plummet is long enough to +sound; there is a maze in this labyrinth to be tracked by no mortal +clue. It involves the truth, How unsearchable are his judgments: Thou +hidest thy ways in the sea, and thy paths in the deep waters, and thy +footsteps are not known. The weak point of man's argument lies in the +suggested recollection, that doubtless the Deity could, if He would, +have upheld all the universe from falling by his gracious power; and +that the attribute of love concludes that so He would. However, these +three brief considerations further will go some way to solve the +difficulty, and to strengthen the weak point; first, there are other +attributes besides love to run concurrently with it, as truth, justice, +and unchangeableness:--Secondly, that grace is not grace, if manifested +indiscriminately to all: and thirdly, that to our understanding at least +there was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities of +Goodness, and the contrivances of Wisdom, but by the infused permission +of some physical and moral evils: Mercy, benevolence, design, would in a +universe of best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow +stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's +excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is not +then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was +not such existence an antecedent probability? + +Of these matters, thus curtly: it is time, in a short recapitulation, to +reflect, that, from foregoing causes, mysteries were probable around the +throne of heaven: and, as I have attempted to show, the mystery of +imperfection, a concrete not an abstract, was likely to have sprung out +of any creature universe. Reason perceives that a Gordion knot was +likely to have become entangled; in the intricate complexities of +abounding good to be mingled needfully with its own deficiencies, +corruptions, and perversions: and this having been shown by Reason as +anteriorly probable, its difficult involvements are now since cut by the +sword of conquering Faith. + + + + +COSMOGONY. + + +These deep themes having been descanted on, however from their nature +unsatisfactorily and with whatever human weakness, let us now endeavour +mentally to transport ourselves to a period immediately antecedent to +our own world's birth. We should then have been made aware that a great +event was about to take place; whereat, from its foreseen consequences, +the hierarchies of heaven would be prompt to shout for joy, and the holy +ones of God to sing for gratitude. It was no common case of a creation; +no merely onemore orb, of third-rate unimportance, amongst the million +others of higher and more glorious praise: but it was a globe and a race +about to be unique in character and fate, and in the far-spread results +of their existence. On it and of its family was to be contrived the +scene, wherein, to the admiration of the universe, God himself in Person +was going visibly to make head against corruption in creation, and for +ever thus to quench that possibility again: wherein He was marvellously +to invent and demonstrate how Mercy and Truth should meet together, how +Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other. There, was going to be +set forth the wonderfully complicated battle-plan, by which, force +countervailing force, and design converging all things upon one fixed +point, Good, concrete in the creature, should overwhelm not without +strife and wounds Evil concrete in the creature, and all things, "even +the wicked," should be seen harmoniously blending in the glory of the +attributes of God. The mythologic Pan, [Greek: to pan] the great +Universal All, was deeply interested in the struggle: for the seed of +the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; not merely as respected the +small orb about to be, but concerning heaven itself, the unbounded +"haysh hamaim," wherefrom dread Lucifer was thus to be ejected. On the +earth, a mere planet of humble lustre, which the prouder suns around +might well despise, was to be exhibited this noble and analogous result; +the triumph of a lower intelligence, such as man, over a higher +intelligence, such as angel: because, the former race, however frail, +however weak, were to find their nature taken into God, and should have +for their grand exemplar, leader and brother, the Very Lord of all +arrayed in human guise; while the latter, the angelic fallen mass, in +spite of all their pristine wisdom and excellency, were to set up as +their captain him, who may well and philosophically be termed their +Adversary. + +This dark being, probably the mightiest of all mere creatures as the +embodiment of corrupted good and perversion of an archangelic wisdom, +was about to be suffered to fall victim to his own overtopping +ambitions, and to drag with him a third part of the heavenly host--some +tributary monarchs of the stars: thus he, and those his colleagues, +should become a spectacle and a warning to all creatures else; to stand +for spirits' reading in letters of fire a deeply burnt-in record how +vast a gulf there is between the Maker and the made; how impassable a +barrier between the derived intelligence and its infinite Creator. Such +an unholy leader in rebellion against good--let us call him _A_ or _B_, +or why not for very euphony's sake Lucifer and Satanas?--such a +corrupted excellence of heaven was to meet his final and inevitable +disgrace to all eternity on the forthcoming battle-field of earth. Would +it not be probable then that our world, soon to be fashioned and stocked +with its teeming reasonable millions, should concentrate to itself the +gaze of the universe, and, from the deeds to be done in it, should +arrogate towards man a deep and fixed attention: that "the morning stars +should sing together, and all the sons of God should shout for joy." Let +us too, according to the power given to us, partake of such attention +antecedently in some detail: albeit, as always, very little can be +tracked of the length and breadth of our theme. + +What would probably be the nature of such world and of such creatures, +in a physical point of view? and what, in a moral point of view? It is +not necessary to divide these questions: for the one so bears upon the +other, or rather the latter so directs and pervades the former, that we +may briefly treat of both as one. + +The first probability would be, that, as the creature Man so to be +abased and so to be exalted must be a responsible and reasonable being, +every thing--with miraculous exceptions just enough to prove the +rule--every thing around him should also be responsible and reasonable. +In other words, that, with such exceptions as before alluded to, the +whole texture of this world should bear to an inquisitive intellect the +stamp of cause and effect: whilst for the mass, such cause and effect +should be so little intrusive, that their easier religion might +recognise God in all things immediately, rather than mediately. For +instance: take the cases of stone, and of coal; the one so needful for +man's architecture, the other for his culinary warmth. Now, however +simple piety might well thank the Maker for having so stored earth with +these for necessary uses; they ought, to a more learned, though not less +pious ken, to seem not to have been created by an effort of the Great +Father _quâ stone_, or _quâ coal_. Such a view might satisfy the +ordinary mind: but thinkers would see no occasion for a miracle; when +Christ raises Lazarus from the dead, it would have been a philosophical +fault to have found the grave-clothes and swathing bandages ready +loosened also. Unassisted man can do that: and unhelped common causes +can generate stone and coal. The deposits of undated floods, the +periodical currents of lava, the still and stagnant lake, and the +furious up-bursting earthquake; all these would be called into play, and +not the unrequired, I had almost said unreasonable, energies, which we +call miracle. An agglutination of shells, once peopled with life; a +crystallized lump of segregate minerals, once in a molten state; a mass +of carbonated foliage and trunks of tropical trees, buried by long +changes under the soil, whereover they had once waved greenly luxuriant; +these, and no other, should have been man's stone and coal. This +instance affects the reasonableness of such material creation. Take +another, bearing upon its analogous responsibilities. As there was to be +warred in this world the contest between good and evil, it would be +expectable that the crust of man's earth, anteriorly to man's existence +on it, should be marked with some traces that the evil, though newly +born so far as might regard man's own disobedience, nevertheless had +existed antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there should +exist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the gigantic +ichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closed +upon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks of +having desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoes +should have ravaged fair continents prolific of animal and vegetable +life: that, in fine, though man's death came by man's sin, yet that +death and sin were none of man's creating: he was only to draw down upon +his head a prëexistent wo, an ante-toppling rock. Observe then, that +these geological phenomena are only illustrations of my meaning: and +whether such parables be true or false, the argument remains the same: +we never build upon the sand of simile, but only use it here and there +for strewing on the floor. Still, I will acknowledge that the +introduction of such fossil instances appears to me wisely thrown in as +affects their antecedent probability, because ignorant comments upon +scriptural cosmogony have raised the absurdest objections against the +truth of scriptural science. There is not a tittle of known geological +fact, which is not absolutely reconcilable with Genesis and Job. But +this is a word by the way: although aimed not without design against one +of the poor and paltry weak-holds of the infidel. + + + + +ADAM. + + +Remembering, then, that these are probabilities, and that the whole +treatise purports to be nothing but a sketch, and not a finished +picture, we have suggestively thus thrown out that the material world, +man's home as man, was likely to have been prepared, as we posteriorly +know it to be. Now, what of man's own person, circumstances, and +individuality? Was it likely that the world should be stocked at once +with many several races, or with one prolific seed? with a specimen of +every variety of the genus man, or with the one generic type capable of +forming those varieties?--Answer. One is by far the likelier in itself, +because one thing must needs be more probable than many things: +additionally; Wisdom and Power are always economical, and where one will +suit the purpose, superfluities are rejected. That this one seed, +covering with its product a various globe under all imaginable +differences of circumstance and climate, should, in the lapse of ages, +generate many species of the genus Man, was antecedently probable. For +example, morality, peace and obedience would exercise transforming +powers: their opposites the like in an opposite way. We can well fancy a +mild and gentle race, as the Hindoo, to spring from the former +educationals: and a family with flashing eyes and strongly-visaged +natures, as the Malay, from a state of hatred, war, and license. We can +well conceive that a tropical sun should carbonize some of that tender +fabric the skin, adding also swift blood and fierce passions: while an +arctic climate would induce a sluggish, stunted race. And, when to these +considerations we add that of promiscuous unions, we arrive at the just +likelihood that the whole family of man, though springing from one root, +should, in the course of generations, be what now we see it. + +Further. How should this prolific original, the first man, be created? +and for a name let us call him Adam; a justly-chosen name enough, as +alluding to his medium colour, ruddiness. Should he have been cast upon +the ground an infant, utterly helpless, requiring miraculous aid and +guidance at every turn? Should he be originated in boyhood, that hot and +tumultuous time, when the creature is most rash, and least qualified for +self-government? or should he be first discerned as an adult, in his +prime, equal alike to obedience and rule, to moral control and moral +energy? + +Add also here; is it probable there would be any needless interval +placed to pröcreations? or rather, should not such original seed be able +immediately to fulfil the blank world call upon him, and as the +greatly-teeming human father be found fitted from his birth to propagate +his kind? The questions answer themselves. + +Again. Should this first man have been discovered originally surrounded +with all the appliances of an after-civilization, clad, and housed, and +rendered artificial? nor rather, in a noble and naturally royal aspect +appear on the stage of life as king of the natural creation, sole warder +of a garden of fruits, with all his food thus readily concocted, and an +eastern climate tempered to his nakedness? + +Now, as to the solitariness of this one seed. From what we have already +mused respecting God's benevolence, it would seem probable that the +Maker might not see it good that man should be alone. The seed, +originally one, proved (as was likely) to resemble its great parent, +God, and to be partitionable, or reducible into persons; though with +reasonable differences as between creature and Creator. Woman--Eve, the +living or life-giving--was likely to have sprung out of the composite +seed, Man, in order to companionship and fit society. Moreover, it were +expectable that in the pattern creature, composite man, there should be +involved some apt, mysterious typification of the same creature, after a +fore-known fall restored, as in its perfect state of rëunion with its +Maker. _A posteriori_, the figurative notion is, that the Redeemed +family, or mystical spouse, is incorporated in her husband, the +Redeemer: not so much in the idea of marriage, as (taking election into +view) of a cöcreation; as it were rib of rib, and life woven into life, +not copulated or conjoined, but immingled in the being. This is a +mystery most worthy of deep searching; a mystery deserving philosophic +care, not less than the more unilluminate enjoyment of humble and +believing Christians. I speak concerning Christ and his church. + + + + +THE FALL. + + +There is a special fitness in the fact, long since known and now to be +perceived probable, that if mankind should fail in disobedience, it +should rather be through the woman than through the man. Because, the +man, _quâ man_, and the deputed head of all inferior creatures, was +nearer to his Creator, than the woman; who, _quâ woman_, proceeded out +of man. She was, so to speak, one step further from God, _ab origine_, +than man was; therefore, more liable to err and fall away. To my own +mind, I confess, it appears that nothing is more anteriorly probable +than the plain, scriptural story of Adam and Eve: so simple that the +child delights in it; so deep that the philosopher lingers there with an +equal, but more reasonable joy. + +For, let us now come to the probabilities of a temptation; and a fall; +and what temptation; and how ordered. + +The heavenly intelligences beheld the model-man and model-woman, +rational beings, and in all points "very good." The Adversary panted for +the fray, demanding some test of the obedience of this new, favourite +race. And the Lord God was willing that the great controversy, which he +fore-knew, and for wise purposes allowed, should immediately commence. +Where was the use of a delay? If you will reply, To give time to +strengthen Adam's moral powers: I rejoin, he was made with more than +enough of strength infused against any temptation not entering by the +portal of his will: and against the open door of will neither time nor +habits can avail. Moreover, the trial was to be exceedingly simple; no +difficult abstinence, for man might freely eat of every thing but one; +no natural passion tempted; no exertion of intelligence requisite. Adam +lived in a garden; and his Maker, for proof of reasonable obedience, +provides the most easy and obvious test of it--do not eat that apple. +Was it, in reality, an improbable test; an unsuitable one? Was it not, +rather, the likeliest in itself, and the fittest as addressed to the +new-born, rational animal, which imagination could invent, or an amiable +fore-knowledge of all things could desire? Had it been to climb some +arduous height without looking back, or on no account to gaze upon the +sun, how much less apt and easy of obedience! Thus much for the test. + +Now, as to the temptation and its ordering. A creature, to be tempted +fairly, must be tempted by another equal or lower creature; and through +the senses. If mere spirit strives with spirit, plus matter, the strife +is unequal: the latter is clogged; he has to fight in the net of +Retiarius. But if both are netted, if both are spirit plus matter, (that +is, material creatures,) there is no unfairness. Therefore, it would +seem reasonable that the Adversary in person should descend from his +mere spirituality into some tangible and humbled form. This could not +well be man's, nor the semblance of man's: for the first pair would well +know that they were all mankind: and, if the Lord God himself was +accustomed to be seen of them as in a glorified humanity, it would be +manifestly a moral incongruity to invest the devil in a similar form. It +must, then, be the shape of some other creature; as a lion, or a lamb, +or--why not a serpent? Is there any improbability here? and not rather +as apt an avatar of the sinuous and wily rebel, the dangerous, +fascinating foe, as poetry at least, nay, as any sterner contrivance +could invent? The plain fact is, that Reason--given keenness--might have +guessed this also antecedently a likelihood. + +A few words more on other details probable to the temptation. Wonderful +as it may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of the +first woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted in +human phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way could +the tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautiful +snake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by a +natural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice the +serpent, _i.e._ Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It was +likely to have been keenly managed. Is it possible, O fair and favoured +mistress of this beautiful garden, that your Maker has debarred you from +its very choicest fruit? Only see its potencies for good: I, a poor +reptile, am instantly thereby endued with knowledge and the privilege of +speech. Am I dead for the eating?--ye shall not surely die; but shall +become as gods yourselves; and this your Maker knoweth. + +The marvellous fruit, invested thus with mystery, and tinctured with +the secret charm of a thing unreasonably, nay, harmfully, forbidden, +would then be allowed silently to plead its own merits. It was good for +food: a young creature's first thought. It was pleasant to the eyes: +addressing a higher sense than mere bodily appetite, than mental +predilection for form and colour which marks fine breeding among men. It +was also to be desired to make one wise; here was the climax, the great +moral inducement which an innocent being might well be taken with; +irrespectively of the one qualification that this wisdom was to be +plucked in spite of God. Doubtless, it were probable, that had man not +fallen, the knowledge of good would never have been long withheld: but +he chose to reap the crop too soon, and reaped it mixed with tares, +good, and evil. + +I need not enlarge, in sermon form, upon the theme. It was probable that +the weaker creature, Woman, once entrapped, she would have charms enough +to snare her husband likewise: and the results thus perceived to have +been likely, we have long since known for fact. That a depraved +knowledge should immediately occasion some sort of clothing to be +instituted by the great moral Governor, was likely: and there would be +nothing near at hand, in fact nothing else suitable, but the skins of +beasts. There is also a high probability that some sort of slaying +should take place instantly on the fall, by way of reference to the +coming sacrifice for sin; and for a type of some imputed righteousness. +God covered Man's evil nakedness with the skins of innocent slain +animals: even so, Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and +whose sin is covered. + +With respect to restoration from any such fall. There seems a remarkable +prior probability for it, if we take into account the empty places in +heaven, the vacant starry thrones which sin had caused to be untenanted. +Just as, in after years, Israel entered into the cities and the gardens +of the Canaanite and other seven nations, so it was anteriorly likely, +would the ransomed race of Men come to be inheritors of the mansions +among heavenly places, which had been left unoccupied by the fallen host +of Lucifer. There was a gap to be filled: and probably there would be +some better race to fill it. + + + + +THE FLOOD. + + +Themes like those past and others still to come, are so immense, that +each might fairly ask a volume for its separate elucidation. A few +seeds, pregnant with thought, are all that we have here space, or time, +or power to drop beside the world's highway. The grand outlines of our +race command our first attention: we cannot stop to think and speak of +every less detail. Therefore, now would I carry my companion across the +patriarchal times at once to the era of the Deluge. Let us speculate, as +hitherto, antecedently, throwing our minds as it were into some angelic +prior state. + +If, as we have seen probable, evil (a concretion always, not an +abstraction) made some perceptible ravages even in the unbounded sphere +of a heavenly creation, how much more rapid and overwhelming would its +avalanche (once ill-commenced) be seen, when the site of its infliction +was a poor band of men and women prisoned on a speck of earth. How +likely was it that, in the lapse of no long time, the whole world should +have been "corrupt before God, and filled with wickedness." How +probable, that taking into account the great duration of pristine human +life, the wicked family of man should speedily have festered up into an +intolerable guiltiness. And was this dread result of the primal curse +and disobedience to be regarded as the Adversary's triumph? Had this +Accuser--the Saxon word is Devil--had this Slanderer of God's attribute +then really beaten Good? or was not rather all this swarming sin an +awful vindication to the universe of the great need-be that God +unceasingly must hold his creature up lest he fall, and that out of Him +is neither strength nor wisdom? Was Deity, either in Adam's case or +this, baffled--nor rather justified? Was it an experiment which had +really failed; nor rather one which, by its very seeming failure, proved +the point in question, the misery of creatures when separate from God? +Yea, the evil one was being beaten down beneath his very trophies in sad +Tarpeian triumph: through conquest and his children's sins heightening +his own misery. + +Let us now advert to a few of the anterior probabilities affecting this +evil earth's catastrophe. It is not competent to us to trench upon such +ulterior views as are contained in the idea of types relatively to +anti-types. Neither will we take the fanciful or poetical aspect of +coming calamity, that earth, befouled with guilt, was likely to be +washed clean by water. It is better to ask, as more relevant, in what +other way more benevolent than drowning could, short of miracle, the +race be made extinct? They were all to die in their sins, and swell in +another sphere the miserable hosts of Satan. There was no hope for them, +for there was no repentance. It was infinitely probable that God's +long-suffering had worn out every reasonable effort for their +restoration. They were then to die; but how?--in the least painful +manner possible. Intestine wars, fevers, famines, a general burning-up +of earth and all its millions, were any of these preferable sorts of +death to that caused by the gradual rise of water, with hope of life +accorded still even to the last gurgle? Assuredly, if "the tender +mercies of the wicked are cruel," the judgments of the Good one are +tempered well with mercy. + +Moreover, in the midst of this universal slaughter there was one good +seed to be preserved: and, as Heaven never works a miracle where common +cause will suit the present purpose, it would have been inconsistent to +have extirpated the wicked by any such means as must demonstrate the +good to have been saved only by super-human agency. + +The considerations of humanity, and of the divine less-intervention, add +that of the natural and easy agency of a long-commissioned comet. No +"_Deus e machinâ_" was needed for this effort: one of His ministers of +flaming fire was charged to call forth the services of water. This was +an easy and majestic interference. Ever since man fell--yea, ages before +it--the omniscient eye of God had foreseen all things that should +happen: and his ubiquity had, possibly from The Beginning, sped a comet +on its errant way, which at a calculated period was to serve to wash the +globe clean of its corruptions: was to strike the orbit of earth just in +the moment of its passage, and disturbing by attraction the fountains of +the great deep, was temporarily to raise their level. Was not this a +just, a sublime, and a likely plan? Was it not a merciful, a perfect, +and a worthy way? Who should else have buried the carcases on those +fierce battle-fields, or the mouldering heaps of pestilence and +famine?--But, when at Jehovah's summons, heaving to the comet's mass, +the pure and mighty sea rises indignant from its bed, by drowning to +cleanse the foul and mighty land--how easy an engulfing of the corpses; +how awful that universal burial; how apt their monumental epitaph +written in water, "The wicked are like the troubled sea that cannot +rest;" how dread the everlasting requiem chanted for the whelmed race by +the waves roaring above them: yea, roaring above them still! for in +that chaotic hour it seems probable to reason that the land changed +place with ocean; thus giving the new family of man a fresh young world +to live upon. + + + + +NOAH. + + +When the world, about to grow so wicked, was likely thus to have been +cleansed, and so renewed, the great experiment of man's possible +righteousness was probable to be repeated in another form. We may fancy +some high angelic mind to have gone through some such line of thought as +this, respecting the battle and combatants. Were those champions, +Lucifer and Adam, really fit to be matched together? Was the tourney +just; were the weapons equal; was it, after all, a fair fight?--on one +side, the fallen spirit, mighty still, though fallen, subtlest, most +unscrupulous, most malicious, exerting every energy to rear a rebel +kingdom against God; on the other, a new-born, inexperienced, innocent, +and trustful creature, a poor man vexed with appetites, and as naked for +absolute knowledge in his mind as for garments on his body. Was it, in +this view of the case, an equal contest? were the weapons of that +warfare matched and measured fairly? + +Some such objection, we may suppose, might seem to have been admissible, +as having a show at least of reason: and, after the world was to have +been cleansed of all its creatures in the manner I have mentioned, a new +champion is armed for the conflict, totally different in every respect; +and to reason's view vastly superior. + +This time, the Adam of renewed earth is to be the best and wisest, nay, +the only good and wise one of the whole lost family: a man, with the +experience of full six hundred years upon his hoary brow, with the +unspeakable advantage of having walked with God all those long-drawn +centuries, a patriarch of twenty generations, recognised as the one +great and faithful witness, the only worshipper and friend of his +Creator. Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only spark +of spiritual "consolation" in the midst of earth's dark death? and was +not he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of the +devil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renew +the fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah. + +Before we touch upon the immediate fall of this new Adam also, at a time +when God and reason had deserted him, it will be more orderly to allude +to the circumstances of his preservation in the flood. How, in such a +hurlyburly of the elements, should the chosen seed survive? No house, +nor hill-top, no ordinary ship would serve the purpose: still less the +unreasonable plan of any cavern hermetically sealed, or any aerial +chariot miraculously lifted up above the lower firmament. To use plain +and simple words, I can fancy no wiser method than a something between a +house and a diving-bell; a vessel, entirely storm-tight and water-tight, +which nevertheless for necessary air should have an open window at the +top: say, one a cubit square. This, properly hooded against deluging +rain, and supplied with such helps to ventilation as leathern pipes, air +tunnels and similar appliances, would not be an impracticable method. +However, instead of being under water as a diving-bell, the vessel would +be better made to float upon the rising flood, and thus continually +keeping its level, would be ready to strike land as the waters assuaged. + +Now, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs be +very large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering cause +and effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to suppose +that the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean of +existence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence so +ordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as a +pair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal the +renewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. The +lengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark--a vessel +which must include forests of timber and consume generations in +building; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strange +animals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical old man; not to mention +also the hoary Preacher's own century of exortations: with how great +moral force all this living warning would be calculated to act upon the +world of wickedness and doom! Here was the great ante-diluvian +potentate, Noah, a patriarch of ages, wealthy beyond our +calculations--(for how else without a needless succession of miracles +could he have built and stocked the ark?)--a man of enormous substance, +good report, and exalted station, here was he for a hundred and twenty +years engaged among crowds of unbelieving workmen, in constructing a +most extravagant ship, which, forsooth, filled with samples of all this +world's stores, was to sail with our only good family in search of a +better. Moreover, Noah here declares that our dear old mother-earth is +to be destroyed for her iniquities by rain and sea: and he exhorts us by +a solid evidence of his own faith at least, if by nothing else, to +repent, and turn to him, whom Abel, Seth, and Enoch, as well as this +good Noah, represent as our Maker. Would not such sneers and taunts be +probable: would they not amply vindicate the coming judgment? Was not +the "long-suffering of God" likely to have thus been tried "while the +ark was preparing?" and when the catastrophe should come, had not that +evil generation been duly warned against it? On the whole, it would have +been Reason's guess that Noah should be saved as he was; that the ark +should have been as we read of it in Genesis; and that the very +immensity of its construction should have served for a preaching to +mankind. As to any idea that the ark is an unreasonable (some have even +said ridiculous) incident to the deluge, it seems to me to have +furnished a clear case of antecedent probability. + +Lastly: Noah's fall was very likely to have happened: not merely in the +theological view of the matter, as an illustration of the truth that no +human being can stand fast in righteousness: but from the just +consideration that he imported with him the seeds of an impure state of +society, the remembered luxuries of that old world. For instance, among +the plants of earth which Noah would have preserved for future insertion +in the soil, he could not have well forgotten the generous, treacherous +Vine. That to a righteous man, little used to all unhallowed sources of +exhilaration, this should have been a stepping-stone to a defalcation +from God, was likely. It was probable in itself, and shows the honesty +as well as the verisimilitude of Scripture to read, that "Noah began to +be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and +was drunken." There was nothing here but what, taking all things into +consideration, Reason might have previously guessed. Why then withhold +the easier matter of an afterward belief? + + + + +BABEL. + + +This book ought to be read, as mentally it is written, with at the end +of every sentence one of those _et ceteras_, which the genius of a Coke +interpreted so keenly of the genius of a Littleton: for, far more +remains on each subject to be said, than in any one has been attempted. + +Let us pass on to the story of Babel: I can conceive nothing more _à +priori_ probable than the account we read in Scripture. Briefly consider +the matter. A multitude of men, possibly the then whole human family, +once more a fallen race, emigrate towards the East, and come to a vast +plain in the region of Shinar, afterwards Chaldæa. Fertile, +well-watered, apt for every mundane purpose, it yet wanted one great +requisite. The degenerate race "put not their trust in God:" they did +not believe but that the world might some day be again destroyed by +water: and they required a point of refuge in the possible event of a +second deluge from the broken bounds of ocean and the windows of the +skies. They had come from the West; more strictly the North-west, a land +of mountains, as they deemed them, ready-made refuges: and their scheme, +a probable one enough, was to construct some such mountain artificially, +so that its top might reach the clouds, as did the summit of Ararat. +This would serve the twofold purpose of outwitting any further attempt +to drown them, and of making for themselves a proud name upon the earth. +So, the Lord God, in his etherealized human form (having taken counsel +with His own divine compeers), coming in the guise wherein He was wont +to walk with Adam and with Enoch and his other saints of men, "came down +and saw the tower:" truly, He needed not have come, for ubiquity was +his, and omniscience; but in the days when God and man were (so to +speak) less chronologically divided than as now, and while yet the +trial-family was young, it does not seem unlikely that He should. God +then, in his aspect of the Head of all mankind, took notice of that +dangerous and unholy combination: and He made within His Triune Mind the +wise resolve to break their bond of union. Omniscience had herein a view +to ulterior consequences benevolent to man, and He knew that it would be +a wise thing for the future world, as well as a discriminative check +upon the race then living, to confuse the universal language into many +discordant dialects. Was this in any sense an improbable or improper +method of making "the devices of the wicked to be of none effect, and of +laughing to scorn the counsels of the mighty?" Was it not to have been +expected that a fallen race should be disallowed the combinative force +necessary to a common language, but that such force should be dissipated +and diverted for moral usages into many tongues?--There they were, all +the chiefs of men congregated to accomplish a vast, ungodly scheme: and +interposing Heaven to crush such insane presumption--and withal +thereafter designing to bless by arranging through such means the future +interchange of commerce and the enterprise of nationalities--He, in his +Trinity, was not unlikely to have said, "Let us go down, and confound +their language." What better mode could have been devised to scatter +mankind, and so to people the extremities of earth? In order that the +various dialects should crystallize apart, each in its discriminative +lump, the nucleus of a nation; that thereafter the world might be able +no longer to unite as one man against its Lord, but by conflicting +interests, the product of conflicting languages, might give to good a +better chance of not being altogether overwhelmed; that, though many "a +multitude might go to do evil," it should not thenceforward be the whole +consenting family of man; but that, here by one and there by one, the +remembrance of God should be kept extant, and evil no longer acquire an +accumulated force, by having all the world one nation. + + + + +JOB. + + +Every scriptural incident and every scriptural worthy deserves its own +particular discussion: and might easily obtain it. For example; the +anterior probability that human life in patriarchal times should have +been very much prolonged, was obvious; from consideration of--1, the +benevolence of God; 2, the inexperience of man; and 3, the claim so +young a world would hold upon each of its inhabitants: whilst Holy Writ +itself has prepared an answer to the probable objection, that the years +were lunar years, or months; by recording that Arphaxad and Salah and +Eber and Peleg and Reu and Serug and Nahor, descendants of Shem, each +had children at the average age of two-and-thirty, and yet the lives of +all varied in duration from a hundred and fifty years to five hundred. +And many similar credibilities might be alluded to: what shall I say of +Abraham's sacrifice, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jonah also, and +Elisha, and of the prophets? for the time would fail me to tell how +probable and simple in each instance is its deep and marvellous history. +There is food for philosophic thought in every page of ancient Jewish +Scripture scarcely less than in those of primitive Christianity: here, +after our fashion, we have only touched upon a sample. + +The opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many very +needlessly: to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally and +really happened. It is one of those few places where we get an insight +into what is going on elsewhere: it is a lifting off the curtain of +eternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantly +presented in the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about it +here, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities +will be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by the +doubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. It +signifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so +long as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity, +and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, if +written by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself. Whether then Job, the +wealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, or +whoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true; +and the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have been +decreed a component part of revelation. Without it, there would have +been wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the long +and dreary interval of several hundred years: there would never have +been given for man's help the example of a fortitude, and patience, and +trust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection and +redeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in Jewish +Scripture: as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyond +all modern instance. However, the excellences of that narrative are +scarcely our theme: we return to the starting-post of its probability, +especially with reference to its supernatural commencement. What we have +shown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and the +denizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two first +chapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these two +chapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected. + +Let us see what happened: + +"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before +the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, +whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going +to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the +Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is +none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that +feareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, +Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and +about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast +blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the +land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he will +curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that +he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So +Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."--[Job 1. 6-13.] + +It is a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, its +quiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: in +allusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons of +God: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on his +servant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: note, Satan's +constant imputation against piety when blessed of God with worldly +wealth, Doth he serve for naught? I can discern no cause wherefore all +this scene should not have truly happened; not as in vision of some holy +man, but as in fact. Let us read on, before further comment: + +"Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves +before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself +before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And +Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, +and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast +thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the +earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth +evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me +against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, +and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his +life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, +and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, +Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So Satan went forth from +the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole +of his foot unto his crown." + +Some such scene, displaying the devil's malice, slandering sneers, and +permitted power, recommends itself to my mind as antecedently to have +been looked for: in order that we might know from what quarter many of +life's evils come; with what aims and ends they are directed; what +limits are opposed to our foe; and Who is on our side. We needed some +such insight into the heavenly places; some such hint of what is +continually going on before the Lord's tribunal; we wanted this plain +and simple setting forth of good and evil in personal encounter, of +innocence awhile given up to malice for its chastening and its triumph. +Lo, all this so probable scene is here laid open to us, and many, +against reason, disbelieve it! + +Note, in allusion to our after-theme, the _locus_ of heaven, that there +is some such usual place of periodical gathering. Note, the open +unchiding loveliness dwelling in the Good One's words, as contrasted +with the subtle, slanderous hatred of the Evil. And then the vulgar +proverb, Skin for skin: this pious Job is so intensely selfish, that let +him lose what he may, he heeds it not; he cares for nothing out of his +own skin. And there are many more such notabilities. + +Why did I produce these passages at length? For their Doric simplicity; +for their plain and masculine features; for their obvious truthfulness; +for their manifest probability as to fact, and expectability previously +to it. Why on earth should they be doubted in their literal sense? and +were they not more likely to have happened than to have been invented? +We have no such geniuses now as this writer must have been, who by the +pure force of imagination could have created that tableau. Milton had +Job to go to. Simplicity is proof presumptive in favour of the plain +inspiration of such passages: for the plastic mind which could conceive +so just a sketch, would never have rested satisfied, without having +painted and adorned it picturesquely. Such rare flights of fancy are +always made the most of. + +One or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last give +way, was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had another +fall; albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God's +chosen three, "Noah, Daniel, and Job:" and worthy that the Lord should +bless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touch +on; the great compensation which God gave to Job. + +Children can never be regarded as other than individualities: and +notwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its quality +is, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children to +be born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If a +father loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching +void that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, and +because I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in the +difficulty, I wish to say a word about Job's children, lost and found. +It will clear away what is to some minds a moral and affectionate +objection. Now, this is the state of the case. + +The patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels, and +oxen, and so forth; and ten children. All these are represented to him +by witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his +great loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and +purposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from +different parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses +had been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience +follows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or +false. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the +good man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by +the double of every thing once lost--his children remain the same in +number, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor +children, really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, and +schemed it; and the singly-coming messengers believed it all, as also +did the well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to say +that these things happened; but that certain emissaries said they +happened. I think the devil missed his mark: that the messengers were +scared by some abortive diabolic efforts; and that, (with a natural +increase of camels, &c., meanwhile,) the patriarch's paternal heart was +more than compensated at the last, by the restoration of his own dear +children. They were dead, and are alive again; they were lost, and are +found. Like Abraham returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was the +Resurrection in a figure. + +If to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job were +real, therefore, similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply, +that in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in the +other, bodily. In the latter case, positive, personal pain, was the gist +of the matter: in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mind +be overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable affliction +as children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed the +evil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how double +was the joy of Job over those ten dear children. + +Again, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job at +the last really has twice as many children as before, for that he has +ten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth: I must, in answer, +think that explanation as unsatisfactory to us, as the verity of it +would have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not so +numerically nor vicariously consoled: and it is, perhaps, worth while +here to have thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case, +if only to rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer of +being confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternal +reward was anteriorly more probable. + + + + +JOSHUA. + + +How many of our superficial thinkers have been staggered at the great +miracle recorded of Joshua; and how few, even of the deeper sort, +comparatively, may have discerned its aptness, its science, and its +anterior likelihood: "Sun! stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, +in the valley of Ajalon." Now, consider, for we hope to vindicate even +this stupendous event from the charge of improbability. + +Baal and Ashtaroth, chief idols of the Canaanites, were names for sun +and moon. It would manifestly be the object of God and His ambassador to +cast utter scorn on such idolatry. And what could be more apt than that +Joshua, commissioned to extirpate the corrupted race, should +miraculously be enabled, as it were, to bind their own gods to aid in +the destruction of such votaries? + +Again: what should Joshua want with the moon for daylight, to help him +to rout the foes of God more fiercely? Why not, according to the +astronomical ignorance of those days, let her sail away, unconsorted by +the sun, far beyond the valley of Ajalon? There was a reason, here, of +secret, unobtruded science: if the sun stopped, the moon must stop too; +that is to say, both apparently: the fact being that the earth must, for +the while, rest on its axis. This, I say, is a latent, scientific hint; +and so, likewise, is the accompanying mention as a fact, that the Lord +immediately "rained great stones out of heaven" upon the flying host. +For would it not be the case that, if the diurnal rotation of earth were +suddenly to stop, the impetus of motion would avail to raise high into +the air by centrifugal force, and fling down again by gravity, such +unanchored things as fragments of rock? + +Once more: our objector will here perhaps inquire, Why not then command +the earth to stop--and not the sun and moon? if thus probably Joshua or +his Inspirer knew better? Answer. Only let a reasonable man consider +what would have been the moral lesson both to Israelite and to +Canaanite, if the great successor of Moses had called out, +incomprehensibly to all, "Earth, stand thou still on thine axis;"--and +lo! as if in utter defiance of such presumption, and to vindicate openly +the heathen gods against the Jewish, the very sun and moon in heaven +stopped, and glared on the offender. I question whether such a noon-day +miracle might not have perverted to idolatry the whole believing host: +and almost reasonably too. The strictly philosophical terms would have +entirely nullified the whole moral influence. God in his word never +suffers science to hinder the progress of truth: a worldly philosophy +does this almost in every instance, darkening knowledge with a cloud of +words: but the science of the Bible is usually concealed in some +neighbouring hint quite handy to the record of the phenomena expressed +in ordinary language. In fact, for all common purposes, no astronomer +finds fault with such phrases as the moon rising, or the sun setting: he +speaks according to the appearance, though he knows perfectly well that +the earth is the cause of it, and not the sun or moon. Carry this out in +Joshua's case. + +On the whole, the miracle was very plain, very comprehensible, and very +probable. It had good cause: for Canaan felt more confidence in the +protection of his great and glorious Baal, than stiff-necked Judah in +his barely-seen divinity: and surely it was wise to vindicate the true +but invisible God by the humiliation of the false and far-seen idol. +This would constitute to all nations the quickly-rumoured proof that +Jehovah of the Israelites was God in heaven above as well as on the +earth beneath. And, considering the peculiar idolatries of Canaan, it +seems to me that no miracle could have been better placed and better +timed--in other words, anteriorly more probable--than the command of +obedience to the sun and to the moon. I suppose that few persons who +read this book will be unaware, that the circumstance is alluded to as +well in that honest heathen, old Herodotus, as in the learned Jew +Josephus. The volumes are not near me for reference to quotations: but +such is fact: it will be found in Herodotus, about the middle of +Euterpe, connected with an allusion to the analogous case of Hezekiah. + +No miracles, on the whole (to take one after-view of the matter), could +have been better tested: for two armies (not to mention all surrounding +countries) must have seen it plainly and clearly: if then it had never +occurred, what a very needless exposure of the falsity of the Jewish +Scriptures! These were open, published writings, accessible to all: +Cyrus and Darius and Alexander read them, and Ethiopian eunuchs; +Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, with all other nations of the earth, had +free access to those records. Only imagine if some recent history of +England, Adolphus's, or Stebbing's, contained an account of a certain +day in George the Fourth's reign having had twenty-four hour's daylight +instead of the usual admixture; could the intolerable falsehood last a +minute? Such a placard would be torn away from the records of the land +the moment a rash hand had fixed it there. But, if the matter were +fact, how could any historian neglect it?--In one sense, the very +improbability of such a marvel being recorded, argues the probability of +it having actually occurred. + +Much more might here be added: but our errand is accomplished, if any +stumbling-block had been thus easily removed from some erring thinker's +path. Surely, we have given him some reason for faith's due acceptance +of Joshua's miracle. + + + + +THE INCARNATION. + + +In touching some of the probabilities of our blessed Lord's career, it +would be difficult to introduce and illustrate the subject better, than +by the following anecdote. Whence it is derived, has escaped my memory; +but I have a floating notion that it is told of Socrates in Xenophon or +Plato. At any rate, by way of giving fixity thereto and picturesqueness, +let us here report the story as of the Athenian Solomon: + +Surrounded by his pupils, the great heathen Reasoner was being +questioned and answering questions: in particular respecting the +probability that the universal God would be revealed to his creatures. +"What a glorious King would he appear!" said one, possibly the brilliant +Alcibiades: "What a form of surpassing beauty!" said another, not +unlikely the softer Crito. "Not so, my children," answered Socrates. +"Kings and the beautiful are few, and the God, if he came on earth as an +exemplar, would in shape and station be like the greater number." +"Indeed, Master? then how should he fail of being made a King of men, +for his goodness, and his majesty, and wisdom?" "Alas! my children," was +pure Reason's just rejoinder, "[Greek: oi pleiones kakoi], most men are +so wicked that they would hate his purity, despise his wisdom, and as +for his majesty, they could not truly see it. They might indeed admire +for a time, but thereafter (if the God allowed it), they would even hunt +and persecute and kill him." "Kill him!" exclaimed the eager group of +listeners; "kill Him? how should they, how could they, how dare they +kill God?" "I did not say, kill God," would have been wise Socrates's +reply, "for God existeth ever: but men in enmity and envy might even be +allowed to kill that human form wherein God walked for an ensample. That +they could, were God's humility: that they should, were their own +malice: that they dared, were their own grievous sin and peril of +destruction. Yea," went on the keen-eyed sage, "men would slay him by +some disgraceful death, some lingering, open, and cruel death, even such +as the death of slaves!"--Now slaves, when convicted of capital crime, +were always crucified. + +Whatever be thought of the genuineness of the anecdote, its uses are the +same to us. Reason might have arrived at the salient points of Christ's +career, and at His crucifixion! + +I will add another topic: How should the God on earth arrive there? We +have shown that His form would probably be such as man's; but was he to +descend bodily from the atmosphere at the age of full-grown perfection, +or to rise up out of the ground with earthquakes and fire, or to appear +on a sudden in the midst of the market-place, or to come with legions of +his heavenly host to visit his Temple? There was a wiser way than these, +more reasonable, probable, and useful. Man required an exemplar for +every stage of his existence up to the perfection of his frame. The +infant, and the child, and the youth, would all desire the human-God to +understand their eras; they would all, if generous and such as he would +love, long to feel that He has sympathy with them in every early trial, +as in every later grief. Moreover, the God coming down with supernatural +glories or terrors would be a needless expense of ostentatious power. +He, whose advent is intended for the encouragement of men to exercise +their reason and their conscience; whose exhortation is "he that hath +ears to hear, let him hear;" that pure Being, who is the chief preacher +of Humility, and the great teacher of man's responsible +condition--surely, he would hardly come in any way astoundingly +miraculous, addressing his advent not to faith, but to sight, and +challenging the impossibility of unbelief by a galaxy of spiritual +wonders. Yet, if He is to come at all--and a word or two of this +hereafter--it must be either in some such strange way; or in the usual +human way; or in a just admixture of both. As the first is needlessly +overwhelming to the responsible state of man, so the second is +needlessly derogatory to the pure essence of God; and the third idea +would seem to be most probable. Let us guess it out. Why should not this +highest Object of faith and this lowest Subject of obedience be born, +seemingly by human means, but really by divine? Why should there not be +found some unspotted holy virgin, betrothed to a just man and soon to be +his wife, who, by the creative power of Divinity, should miraculously +conceive the shape divine, which God himself resolved to dwell in? Why +should she not come of a lineage and family which for centuries before +had held such expectation? Why should not the just man, her affianced, +who had never known her yet, being warned of God in a dream of this +strange, immaculate conception, "fear not to take unto him Mary his +wife," lest the unbelieving world should breathe slander on her purity, +albeit he should really know her not until after the Holy Birth. There +is nothing unreasonable here; every step is previously credible: and +invention's self would be puzzled to devise a better scheme. The +Virgin-born would thus be a link between God and man, the great +Mediator: his natures would fulfil every condition required of their +double and their intimate conjunction. He would have arrived at humanity +without its gross beginnings, and have veiled his Godhead for a while in +a pure though mortal tenement. He would have participated in all the +tenderness of woman's nature, and thus have reached the keenest +sensibilities of men. + +Themes such as these are inexhaustible: and I am perpetually conscious +of so much left unsaid, that at every section I seem to have said next +to nothing. Nevertheless, let it go; the good seed yet shall germinate. +"Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after many +days." + +It may to some minds be a desideratum, to allude to the anterior +probability that God should come in the flesh. Much of this has been +anticipated under the head of Visible Deity and elsewhere; as this +treatise is so short, one may reasonably expect every reader to take it +in regular course. For additional considerations: the Benevolent Maker +would hardly leave his creatures to perish, without one word of warning +or one gleam of knowledge. The question of the Bible is considered +further on: but exclusively of written rules and dogmas, it was likely +that Our Father should commission chosen servants of his own, orally to +teach and admonish; because it would be in accordance with man's +reasonable nature, that he should best and easiest learn from the +teaching his brethren. So then, after all lesser ambassadors had failed, +it was to be expected that He should send the highest one of all, +saying, "They will reverence my Son." We know that this really did occur +by innumerable proofs, and wonderful signs posterior: and now, after the +event, we discern it to have been anteriorly probable. + +It was also probable in another light. This world is a world of +incarnations; nothing has a real and potential existence, which is not +embodied in some form. A theory is nothing; if no personal philosopher, +no sect, or school of learners, takes it up. An opinion is mere air; +without the multitude to give it all the force of a mighty wind. An +idea is mere spiritual light; if unclad in deeds, or in words written or +spoken. So, also, of the Godhead: He would be like all these. He would +pervade words spoken, as by prophets or preachers: He would include +words written, as in the Bible: He would influence crowds with +spirit-stirring sentiments: He would embody the theory of all things in +one simple, philosophic form. As this material world is constituted, God +could not reveal himself at all, excepting by the aid of matter. I mean; +even granting that He spiritually inspired a prophet, still the man was +necessary: he becomes an inspired man; not mere inspiration. So, also, +of a book; which is the written labour of inspired men. There is no +doing without the Humanity of God, so far as this world is concerned, +any more than His Deity can be dispensed with, regarding the worlds +beyond worlds, and the ages of ages, and the dread for ever and ever. + + + + +MAHOMETANISM. + + +It seems expedient that, in one or two instances, I should attempt the +illustration of this rule of probability in matters beyond the Bible. As +very fair ones, take Mahometanism and Romanism. And first of the former. + +At the commencement of the seventh century, or a little previously to +that era, we know that a fierce religion sprang up, promulgated by a +false prophet. I wish briefly to show that this was antecedently to have +been expected. + +In a moral point of view, the Christian world, torn by all manner of +schisms, and polluted by all sorts of heresies, had earned for the human +race, whether accepting the gospel or refusing it, some signal and +extensive punishment at the hands of Him, who is the Great Retributor as +well as the Munificent Rewarder. In a physical point of view, the +civilized kingdoms of the earth had become stagnant, arguing that +corrupt and poisonous calm which is the herald of a coming tempest. The +heat of a true religion had cooled down into lukewarm disputations about +nothings, scholastical and casuistic figments; whilst at the same time +the prevalence of peaceful doctrines had amalgamated all classes into a +luxurious indolence. Passionate Man is not to be so satisfied; and the +time was fully come for the rise of some fierce spirit, who should +change the tinsel theology of the crucifix for the iron religion of the +sword: who should blow in the ears of the slumbering West the shrill +war-blast of Eastern fervencies; who should exchange the dull rewards of +canonization due to penance, or an after-life voluntary humiliation +under pseudo-saints and angels, for the human and comprehensible joys of +animal appetite and military glory: who should enlist under his banner +all the frantic zeal, all the pent-up licentiousness, all the +heart-burning hatreds of mankind, stifled either by a positive +barbarism, or the incense-laden cloud of a scarcely-masked idolatry. + +Thus, and then, was likely to arise a bold and self-confiding hero, +leaning on his own sword: a man of dark sentences, who, by judiciously +pilfering from this quarter and from that shreds of truth to jewel his +black vestments of error, and by openly proclaiming that Oneness of the +object of all worship which besotted Christendom had then, from undue +reverence to saints and martyrs, virgins and archangels, well nigh +forgotten; a man who, by pandering to human passions and setting wide as +virtue's avenue the flower-tricked gates of vice; should thus, like +Lucifer before him, in a comet-like career of victory, sweep the +startled firmament of earth, and drag to his erratic orbit the stars of +heaven from their courses. + +Mahomet; his humble beginnings; his iron perseverance under early +probable checks; his blind, yet not all unsublime, dependence on +fatality; his ruthless, yet not all undeserved, infliction of fire and +sword upon the cowering coward race that filled the western +world;--these, and all whatever else besides attended his train of +triumphs, and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs, +and Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day--constitute to a thinking +mind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability. +Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot +Koran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed, +quoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth) +should have had such free course and been glorified, while so-called +Truth, _pede claudo_, has limped on even as now cautiously and +ingloriously through the well-suspicious world; let him who thinks he +sees in Mahomet's success an answer to the foolish argument of some, who +test the truth of Christianity by its Gentile triumphs; let him ponder +these things. Reason, the God of his idolatry, might, with an +archangel's ken, have prophesied some Mahomet's career: and, so far from +such being in the nature of any objection to Faith, the idea thus thrown +out, well-mused upon, will be seen to lend Faith an aid in the way of +previous likelihood. + +"There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" How admirably calculated +such a war-cry would be for the circumstances of the seventh century. +The simple sublimity of Oneness, as opposed to school-theology and +catholic demons: the glitter of barbaric pomp, instead of tame +observances: the flashing scimetar of ambition to supersede the cross: a +turban aigretted with jewels for the twisted wreath of thorns. As human +nature is, and especially in that time was, nothing was more expectable +(even if prophetic records had not taught it), than the rise and +progress of that great False Prophet, whose waving crescent even now +blights the third part of earth. + + + + +ROMANISM. + + +We all know how easy it is to prophesy after the event: but it would be +uncandid and untrue to confound this remark with another, cousin-germane +to it; to wit: how easy it is to discern of any event, after it has +happened, whether or not it were antecedently likely. When the race is +over, and the best horse has won (or by clever jockey-management, the +worst), how obviously could any gentleman on the turf, now in possession +of particulars, have seen the event to have been so probable, that he +would have staked all upon its issue. + +Carry out this familiar idea; which, as human nature goes, is none the +weaker as to illustration, because it is built upon the rule "_parvis +componere magna_." Let us sketch a line or two of that great +fore-shadowing cartoon, the probabilities of Romanism. + +That our blessed Master, even in His state as man, beheld its evil +characteristics looming on the future, seems likely not alone from both +His human keenness and His divine omniscience, but from here and there a +hint dropped in his biography. Why should He, on several occasions, have +seemed, I will say with some apparent sharpness, to have rebuked His +virgin mother.--"Woman, what have I to do with thee?"--"Who are my +mother and my brethren?"--"Yea--More blessed than the womb which bare +me, and the paps that I have sucked, is the humblest of my true +disciples." Let no one misunderstand me: full well I know the just +explanations which palliate such passages; and the love stronger than +death which beat in that Filial heart. But, take the phrases as they +stand; and do they not in reason constitute some warning and some +prophecy that men should idolize the mother? Nothing, in fact, was more +likely than that a just human reverence to the most favoured among women +should have increased into her admiring worship: until the humble and +holy Mary, with the sword of human anguish at her heart, should become +exaggerated and idealized into Mother of God--instead of Jesus's human +matrix, Queen of heaven, instead of a ransomed soul herself, the joy of +angels--in lieu of their lowly fellow-worshipper, and the Rapture of the +blessed--thus dethroning the Almighty. + +Take a second instance: why should Peter, the most loving, most +generous, most devoted of them all, have been singled out from among the +twelve--with a "Get thee behind me, Satan?"--it really had a harsh +appearance; if it were not that, prophetically speaking, and not +personally, he was set in the same category with Judas, the "one who was +a devil." I know the glosses, and the contexts, and the whole amount of +it. Folios have been written, and may be written again, to disprove the +text; but the more words, the less sense: it stands, a record graven in +the Rock; that same Petra, whereon, as firm and faithful found, our Lord +Jesus built his early Church: it stands, a mark indelibly burnt into +that hand, to whom were intrusted, not more specially than to any other +of the saintly sent, the keys of the kingdom of heaven: it stands, along +with the same Peter's deep and terrible apostacy, a living witness +against some future Church, who should set up this same Peter as the +Jupiter of their Pantheon: who should positively be idolizing now an +image christened Peter, which did duty two thousand years ago as a +statue of Libyan Jove! But even this glaring compromise was a matter +probable, with the data of human ambitions, and a rotten Christianity. + +Examples such as these might well be multiplied: bear with a word or two +more, remembering always that the half is not said which might be said +in proof; nor in answering the heap of frivolous objections. + +Why, unless relics and pseudo-sacred clothes were to be prophetically +humbled into their own mere dust and nothing-worthiness, why should the +rude Roman soldiery have been suffered to cast lots for that vestment, +which, if ever spiritual holiness could have been infused into mere +matter, must indeed have remained a relic worthy of undoubted worship? +It was warm with the Animal heat of the Man inhabited by God: it was +half worn out in the service of His humble travels, and had even, on +many occasions, been the road by which virtue had gone out; not of it, +but of Him. What! was this wonderful robe to work no miracles? was it +not to be regarded as a sort of outpost of the being who was Human-God? +Had it no essential sacredness, no _noli-me-tangere_ quality of shining +away the gambler's covetous glance, of withering his rude and venturous +hand, or of poisoning, like some Nessus' shirt, the lewd ruffian who +might soon thereafter wear it? Not in the least. This woven web, to +which a corrupted state of feeling on religion would have raised +cathedrals as its palaces, with singing men and singing women, and +singing eunuchs too, to celebrate its virtues; this coarse cloth of some +poor weaver's, working down by the sea of Galilee or in some lane of +Zion, was still to remain, and be a mere unglorified, economical, useful +garment. Far from testifying to its own internal mightiness, it probably +was soon sold by the fortunate Roman die-thrower to a second-hand shop +of the Jewish metropolis; and so descended from beggar to beggar till it +was clean worn out. We never hear that, however easy of access so +inestimable relic might then have been considered, any one of the +numerous disciples, in the fervour of their earliest zeal, threw away +one thought for its redemption. Is it not strange that no St. Helena was +at hand to conserve such a desirable invention? Why is there no St. +Vestment to keep in countenance a St. Sepulchre and a St. Cross? The +poor cloth, in primitive times, really was despised. We know well enough +what happened afterwards about handkerchiefs imbued with miraculous +properties from holy Paul's body for the nonce: but this is an inferior +question, and the matter was temporary; the superior case is proved, and +besides the rule _omne majus continet in se minus_ there are differences +quite intelligible between the cases, whereabout our time would be less +profitably employed than in passing on and leaving them unquestioned. +Suffice it to say, that "God worked those special miracles," and not the +unconscious "handkerchiefs or aprons." "Te Deum laudamus!" is +Protestantism's cry; "Sudaria laudemus!" would swell the Papal choirs. + +Let such considerations as these then are in sample serve to show how +evidently one might prove from anterior circumstances, (and the canon of +Scripture is an anterior circumstance,) the probability of the rise and +progress of the Roman heresies. And if any one should ask, how was such +a system more likely to arise under a Gentile rather than a Jewish +theocracy? why was a St. Paul, or a St. Peter, or a St. Dunstan, or a +St. Gengulphus, more previously expectable than a St. Abraham, a St. +David, a St. Elisha, or a St. Gehazi? I answer, from the idea of +idolatry, so adapted to the Gentile mind, and so abhorrent from the +Jewish. Martyred Abel, however well respected, has never reached the +honours of a niche beside the altar. Jephtha's daughter, for all her +mourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of,) for any other +than a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times, +the mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or in +gold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St. +Moses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung about +the dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, that +wretched and insensate being, calling himself rational and godly, who +had ventured to solicit the good services of Isaiah as his intercessor, +or to plead the merits of St. Ezekiel as the make-weight for his sins? + +It was just this, and reasonably to have been expected; for when the Jew +brought in his religion, he demolished every false god, broke their +images, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, when +a worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned their +banners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in their +portly representatives,) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustling +with seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likely +to have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which, +newly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, keeps yet St. Bacchus +and St. Venus, St. Mars and St. Apollo, perched in sobered robes upon +the so-called Christian altar; which yet pays divine honours to an +ancyle or a rusty nail; to the black stones at Delphi, or the +gold-shrined bones at Aix; which yet sanctifies the chickens of the +capitol, or the cock that startled Peter; which yet lets a wealthy +sinner, by his gold, bribe the winking Pythoness, or buy dispensing +clauses from "the Lord our God, the Pope." + +There is yet a swarm of other notions pressing on the mind, which tend +to prove that Popery might have been anticipated. Take this view. The +religion of Christ is holy, self-denying; not of this world's praise, +and ending with the terrible sanction of eternity for good or evil: it +sets up God alone supreme, and cuts down creature-merit to a point +perpetually diminishing; for the longer he does well, the more he owes +to the grace which enabled him to do it. + +Now, man's nature is, as we know, diametrically opposite to all this: +and unable to escape from the conviction of Christian truth in some +sense, he would bend his shrewd invention to the attempt of warping +that stern truth to shapes more consistent with his idiosyncrasies. A +religious plan might be expected, which, in lieu of a difficult, holy +spirituality, should exact easy, mere observances; to say a thousand +Paters with the tongue, instead of one "Our Father," from the heart; to +exact genuflections by the score, but not a single prostration of the +spirit; to write the cross in water on the forehead often-times, but +never once to bear its mystic weight upon the shoulder. In spite of +self-denial, cleverly kept in sight by means of eggs, and pulse, and +hair-cloth, to pamper the deluded flesh with many a carnal holiday; in +contravention of a kingdom not of this world, boldly to usurp the +temporal dominion of it all: instead of the overwhelming +incomprehensibility of an eternal doom, to comfort the worst with false +assurance of a purgatory longer or shorter; that after all, vice may be +burnt out; and who knows but that gold, buying up the prayers and +superfluous righteousness of others, may not make the fiery ordeal an +easy one? In lieu of a God brought near to his creatures, infinite +purity in contact with the grossest sin, as the good Physician loveth; +how sage it seemed to stock the immeasurable distance with intermediate +numia, cycle on epicycle, arc on arc, priest and bishop and pope, and +martyr, and virgin, and saint, and angel, all in their stations, at due +interval soliciting God to be (as if His blessed Majesty were not so of +Himself!) the sinner's friend. How comfortable this to man's sweet +estimation of his own petty penances; how glorifying to those "filthy +rags," his so-called righteousness: how apt to build up the hierarchist +power; how seemingly analogous with man's experience here, where clerks +lay the case before commissioners, and commissioners before the +government, and the government before the sovereign. + +All this was entirely expectable: and I can conceive that a deep +Reasoner among the first apostles, even without such supernal light as +"the Spirit speaking expressly," might have so calculated on the +probabilities to come, as to have written, long ago, words akin to +these: "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving +heed to seductive doctrines, and fanciful notions about intermediate +deities, ([Greek: daimoniôn],) perverting truth by hypocritical +departures from it, searing conscience against its own cravings after +spiritual holiness, forbidding marriage, (to invent another virtue,) and +commanding abstinence from God's good gifts, as a means of building up a +creature-merit by voluntary humiliation." At the likelihood that such +"profane and old wives' fables" should thereafter have arisen, might +Paul without a miracle have possibly arrived. + +Yet again: take another view. The Religion of Christ, though intended +to be universal in some better era of this groaning earth, was, until +that era cometh, meant and contrived for any thing rather than a +Catholicity. True, the Church is so far Catholic that it numbers of its +blessed company men of every clime and every age, from righteous Abel +down to the last dear babe christened yester-morning; true, the +commission is "to all nations, teaching them:" but, what mean the +simultaneous and easily reconciled expressions--come out from among +them, little flock, gathered out of the Gentiles, a peculiar people, a +church militant, and not triumphant, here on earth? Thus shortly of a +word much misinterpreted: let us now see what the Romanist does, what, +(on human principles,) he would be probable to do, with this +discriminating religion. He, chiefly for temporal gains, would make it +as expansive as possible: there should be room at that table for every +guest, whether wedding-garmented or not; there would be sauces in that +poisonous feast, fitted to every palate. For the cold, ascetical mind, a +cell and a scourge, and a record kept of starving fancies as calling +them ecstatic visions vouchsafed by some old Stylite to bless his +favoured worshipper; for the painted demirep of fashionable life, there +would be a pretty pocket-idol, and the snug confessional well tenanted +by a not unsympathizing father; for the pure girl, blighted in her +heart's first love, the papist would afford that seemingly merciful +refuge, that calm and musical and gentle place, the irrevocable nunnery; +a place, for all its calmness, and its music, and its gentle +reputations, soon to be abhorred of that poor child as a living tomb, +the extinguisher of all life's aims, all its duties, uses and delights: +for the bandit, a tythe of the traveller's gold would avail to pay away +the murder, and earn for him a heap of merits kept within the cash-box: +the educated, high-born and finely-moulded mind might be well amused +with architecture, painting, carving, sweet odours, and the most +wondrous music that has ever cheated man, even while he offers up his +easy adorations, and departs, equally complacent at the choral remedies +as at the priestly absolution; while, for those good few, the truly +pious and enlightened children of Rome, who mourn the corruptions of +their church, and explain away, with trembling tongue, her obvious +errors and idolatries, for these the wily scheme, so probable, devised +an undoubted mass of truth to be left among the rubbish. True doctrines, +justly held by true martyrs and true saints, holy men of God who have +died in that communion; ordinances and an existence which creep up, +(heedless of corruption though,) step by step, through past antiquity, +to the very feet of the Founder; keen casuists, competent to prove any +point of conscience or objection, and that indisputably, for they climax +all by the high authority of Popes and councils that cannot be deceived: +pious treatises and manuals, verily of flaming heat, for they mingle the +yearnings of a constrained celibacy with the fervencies of worship and +the cravings after God. Yes, there is meat here for every human mouth; +only that, alas for men! the meat is that which perisheth, and not +endureth unto everlasting life. Rome, thou wert sagely schemed; and if +Lucifer devised thee not for the various appetencies of poor, +deceivable, Catholic Man, verily it were pity, for thou art worthy of +his handiwork. All things to all men, in any sense but the right, +signifies nothing to anybody: in the sense of falsehoods, take the +former for thy motto; in that of single truth, in its intensity, the +latter. + +Let not then the accident--the probable accident--of the Italian +superstition place any hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all at +sea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world +else to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is +but in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, +stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful +strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of +the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her +friends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard that +any writer, from Julian to Hobbes, ever disputed his human truth or +wisdom) "Needs must that offences come; but wo be to that man by whom +the offence cometh. If they come, be not shaken in faith: lo, I have +told you before. And if others fall away, or do ought else than my +bidding, what is that to thee? follow thou ME." + + + + +THE BIBLE. + + +Whilst I attempt to show, as now I desire to do, that the Bible should +be just the book it is, from considerations of anterior probability, I +must expand the subject a little; dividing it, first, into the +likelihood of a revelation at all; and secondly, into that of its +expectable form and character. + +The first likelihood has its birth in the just Benevolence of our +heavenly Father, who without dispute never leaves his rational creatures +unaided by some sort of guiding light, some manifestation of himself so +needful to their happiness, some sure word of consolation in sorrow, or +of brighter hope in persecution. That it must have been thus an _à +priori_ probability, has been all along proved by the innumerable +pretences of the kind so constant up and down the world: no nation ever +existed in any age or country, whose seers and wise men of whatever name +have not been believed to hold commerce with the Godhead. We may judge +from this, how probable it must ever have been held. The Sages of old +Greece were sure of it from reason: and not less sure from accepted +superstition those who reverenced the Brahmin, or the priest of +Heliopolis, or the medicine-man among the Rocky Mountains, or the Llama +of old Mexico. I know that our ignorance of some among the most +brutalized species of mankind, as the Bushmen in Caffraria, and the +tribes of New South Wales, has failed to find among their rites any +thing akin to religion: but what may we not yet have to learn of good +even about such poor outcasts? how shall we prove this negative? For +aught we know, their superstitions at the heart may be as deep and as +deceitful as in others; and, even on the contrary side, the exception +proves the rule: the rule that every people concluded a revelation so +likely, that they have one and all contrived it for themselves. + +Thus shortly of the first: and now, secondly, how should God reveal +himself to men? In such times as those when the world was yet young, and +the Church concentrated in a family or an individual, it would probably +be by an immediate oral teaching; the Lord would speak with Adam; He +would walk with Enoch; He would, in some pure ethereal garb, talk with +Abraham, as friend to friend. And thereafter, as men grew, and +worshippers were multiplied, He would give some favoured servant a +commission to be His ambassador: He would say to an Ezekiel, "Go unto +the house of Israel, and speak my words to them:" He would bid a +Jeremiah "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words +that I have spoken to thee:" He would give Daniel a deep vision, not to +be interpreted for ages, "Shut up the words, and seal the book even to +the time of the end:" He would make Moses grave His precepts in the +rock, and Job record his trials with a pen of iron. For a family, the +Beatic Vision was enough: for a congregated nation, as once at Sinai, +oral proclamations: for one generation or two around the world, the zeal +and eloquence of some great "multitude of preachers:" but, indubitably, +if God willed to bless the universal race, and drop the honey of his +words distilling down the hour-glass of Time from generation to +generation even to the latter days, there was no plan more probable, +none more feasible, than the pen of a ready writer. + +Further: and which concerns our argument: what were likely to be the +characteristic marks of such a revelation? Exclusively of a pervading +holiness, and wisdom, and sublimity, which could not be dispensed with, +and in some sort should be worthy of the God; there would be, it was +probable, frequent evidences of man's infirmity, corrupting all he +toucheth. The Almighty works no miracles for little cause: one miracle +alone need be current throughout Scripture: to wit, that which preserves +it clean and safe from every perilous error. But, in the succession of a +thousand scribes each copying from the other, needs must that the tired +hand and misty eye would occasionally misplace a letter: this was no +nodus worthy of a God's descent to dissipate by miracle. + +Again: the original prophets themselves were men of various characters +and times and tribes. God addresses men through their reason; he bound +not down a seer "with bit and bridle, like the horse that has no +understanding"--but spoke as to a rational being--"What seest thou?" +"Hear my words;"--"Give ear unto my speech." Was it not then likely that +the previous mode of thought and providential education in each holy man +of God should mingle irresistibly with his inspired teaching? Should not +the herdsman of Tehoa plead in pastoral phrase, and the royal son of +Amoz denounce with strong authority? Should not David whilst a shepherd +praise God among his flocks, and when a king, cry "Give the King thy +judgments?" The Bible is full of this human individuality; and nothing +could be thought as humanly more probable: but we must, with this +diversity, connect the other probability also, that which should show +the work to be divine; which would prove (as is literally the case) +that, in spite of all such natural variety, all such unbiassed freedom +both of thought and speech, there pervades the whole mass a oneness, a +marvellous consistency, which would be likely to have been designed by +God, though little to have been dreamt by man. + +Once more on this full topic. Difficulties in Scripture were expectable +for many reasons; I can only touch a few. Man is rational as he is +responsible: God speaks to his mind and moral powers: and the mind +rejoices, and moralities grow strong in conquest of the difficult and +search for the mysterious. The muscles of the spiritual athlete pant for +such exertion; and without it, they would dwindle into trepid +imbecility. Curious man, courageous man, enterprising, shrewd, and +vigourous man, yet has a constant enemy to dread in his own indolence: +now, a lion in the path will wake up Sloth himself: and the very +difficulties of religion engender perseverance. + +Additionally: I think there is somewhat in the consideration, that, if +all revealed truth had been utterly simple and easy, it would have +needed no human interpreter; no enlightened class of men, who, according +to the spirit of their times, and the occasions of their teaching, might +"in season and out of season preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort, +with all long-suffering and doctrine." I think there existed an anterior +probability that Scripture should be as it is, often-times difficult, +obscure, and requiring the aid of many wise to its elucidation; because, +without such characteristic, those many wise and good would never have +been called for. Suppose all truth revealed as clearly and indisputably +to the meanest intellect as a sum in addition is, where were the need or +use of that noble Christian company who are every where man's almoners +for charity, and God's ambassadors for peace? + +A word or two more, and I have done. The Bible would, as it seems to me +probable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for the +wicked: to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generous +dispositions: to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evil +inclinations. In these two senses, it would address the whole family +man: and every one should find in it something to his liking. Purity +should there perceive green pastures and still waters, and a tender +Shepherd for its innocent steps: and carnal appetite should here and +there discover some darker spot, which the honesty of heaven had filled +with memories of its chiefest servants' sins; some record of adultery or +murder wherewith to feast his maw for condemnation. While the good man +should find in it meat divine for every earthly need, the sneerer should +proclaim it the very easiest manual for his jests and lewd profanities. +The unlettered should not lack humble, nay vulgar, images and words, to +keep himself in countenance: neither should the learned look in vain for +reasonings; the poet for sublimities; the curious mind for mystery; nor +the sorrowing heart for prayer. I do discern, in that great book, a +wondrous adaptability to minds of every calibre: and it is just what +might antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men at +many different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of a +volume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, and +people; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man's +heart with deep conviction, and cuts down "the hoary head of him who +goeth on still in his wickedness." + +On the whole, respecting faults, or incongruities, or objectionable +parts in Scripture, however to have been expected, we must recollect +that the more they are viewed, the more the blemishes fade, and are +altered into beauties. + +A little child had picked up an old stone, defaced with time-stains: the +child said the stone was dirty, covered with blotches and all colours: +but his father brings a microscope, and shows to his astonished glance +that what the child thought dirt, is a forest of beautiful lichens, +fruited mosses, and strange lilliputian plants with shapely animalcules +hiding in the leaves, and rejoicing in their tiny shadow. Every blemish, +justly seen, had turned to be a beauty: and Nature's works are +vindicated good, even as the Word of Grace is wise. + + + + +HEAVEN AND HELL. + + +Probably enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this important +subject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous, +and absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to the +objection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written. +Nevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reach +something more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere of +common apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts, +fancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localities +and other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, I +wish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching to +distinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for, +more especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, and +our risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when +"the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven;" and +when "HE was taken up, and a cloud received him?" Those happy mortals +did not waste away to intangible spiritualities, as they rose above the +world; their bodies were not melted as they broke the bonds of +gravitation, and pierced earth's swathing atmosphere: they went up +somewhither; the question is where they went to. It is a question of +great interest to us; however, among those matters which are rather +curious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that are +redeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, "in +the clouds, to meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to be +ever with the Lord." I wish to show this to be expected as in our case, +and expectable previously to it. + +We have, in the book of Job, a peep at some place of congregation: some +one, as it is likely, of the mighty globes in space, set apart as God's +especial temple. Why not? they all are worlds; and the likelihood being +in favour of overbalancing good, rather than of preponderating evil from +considerations that affect God's attributes and the happiness of his +creatures, it is probable that the great majority of these worlds are +unfallen mansions of the blessed. Perhaps each will be a kingdom for one +of earth's redeemed, and if so, there will at last be found fulfilled +that prevailing superstition of our race, that each man has his star: +without insisting upon this, we may reflect that there is no one +universal opinion which has not its foundation in truth. Tradition may +well have dropped the thought from Adam downwards, that the stars may +some day be our thrones. We know their several vastness, and can guess +their glory: verily a mighty meed for miserable services on earth, to +find a just ambition gladdened with the rule of spheres, to which Terra +is a point; while that same ambition is sanctified and legalized by +ruling as vicegerent of Jehovah. + +Is this unlikely, or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, and +nearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let a +man muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; let +him see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will, +unexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worlds +unknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let every +grain of sand on every shore be gathered, and more innumerable yet +appear that galaxy of spheres. Let us think that night looks down upon +us here, with the million eyes of heaven. And for some focus of them +all, some spot where God himself enthroned receives the homage of all +crowns, and the worship of all creature service, what is there +unreasonable in suggesting for a place some such an one as is instanced +below? + +I have just cut the following paragraph out of a newspaper: Is this the +ridiculous tripping up the sublime? I think otherwise: it is honest to +use plain terms. I speak as unto wise men--judge ye what I say. With +respect to the fact of information, it may or it may not be true; but +even if untrue, the idea is substantially the same, and I cannot help +supposing that with angels and archangels and the whole company of +heaven, such bodily saints as Enoch is, (and similar to him all risen, +holy men will be,) meet for happy sabbaths in some glorious orb akin or +superior to the following: + +"A central Sun.--Dr. Madier, the Professor of Astronomy at Dorpat, has +published the results of the researches pursued by him uninterruptedly +during the last sixty years, upon the movements of the so-called fixed +stars. These more particularly relate to the star Alcyone, (discovered +by him,) the brightest of the seven bright stars of the group of the +Pleiades. This star he states to be the central sun of all the systems +of stars known to us. He gives its distance from the boundaries of our +system at thirty-four million times the distance of the sun from our +earth, a distance which it takes five hundred and thirty-seven years for +light to traverse. Our sun takes one hundred and eighty-two million +years to accomplish its course round this central body, whose mass is +one hundred and seventeen million times larger than the sun." + +One hundred and seventeen million times larger than the Sun! itself, for +all its vastness, not more than half one million times bigger than this +earth. To some such globe we may let our fancies float, and anchor there +our yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such as +imagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself to +reason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus of +its brightness, and the fountain of its peace. + +A topic far less pleasant, but alike of interest to us poor men, is the +probable home of evil; and here I may be laughed at--laugh, but listen, +and if, listening, some reason meets thine ear, laugh at least no +longer. + +We know that, for spirit's misery as for spirit's happiness, there is no +need of place: "no matter where, for I am still the same," said one most +miserable being. More--in the case of mere spirits, there is no need for +any apparatus of torments, or fires, or other fearful things. But, when +spirit is married to matter, the case is altered; needs must a place to +prison the matter, and a corporal punishment to vex it. + +Nothing is unlikely here; excepting--will a man urge?--the dread +duration of such hell. This is a parenthesis; but it shall not be +avoided, for the import of that question is deep, and should be answered +clearly. A man, a body and soul inmixt, body risen incorruptible, and +soul rested from its deeds, must exist for ever. I touch not here the +proofs--assume it. Now, if he lives for ever, and deliberately chooses +evil, his will consenting as well as his infirmity, and conscience +seared by persisted disobedience, what course can such a wilful, +rational, responsible being pursue than one perpetually erratic? How +should it not be that he gets worse and worse in morals, and more and +more miserable in fact? and when to this we add, that such wretched +creatures are to herd together, continually flying further away from the +only source of Happiness and Good; and to this, that they have earned by +sin, remorses and regrets, and positive inflictions; how probable seems +a hell, the sinner's doom eternal. The apt mathematical analogy of lines +thrown out of parallel, helps this for illustration: for ever and for +ever they are stretching more remote, and infinity itself cannot rëunite +their travel. + +This, then, as a passing word; a sad one. Honest thinker, do not scorn +it, for thine own soul's sake. "Now is the time of grace, now is the day +of salvation." To return. A place of punishment exists; to what quarter +shall we look for its anterior probability? I think there is a +likelihood very near us. There may be one, possibly, beneath us, in the +bowels of this fiery-bursting earth; whither went Korah and his company? +This idea is not without its arguments, just analogies, and scriptural +hints. But my judgment inclines towards another. This trial-world, we +know, is to be purified and restored, and made a new earth: it was even +to be expected that Redemption should do this, and I like not to imagine +it the crust and case of hell, but rather, as thus: At the birth of this +same world, there was struck off from its burning mass at a tangent, a +mournful satellite, to be the home of its immortal evil; the convict +shore for exiled sin and misery; a satellite of strange differences, as +guessed by Virgil in his musings upon Tartarus, where half the orb is, +from natural necessities, blistered up by constant heats, the other half +frozen by perennial cold. A land of caverns, and volcanoes, miles deep, +miles high; with no water, no perceptible air: imagine such a dreadful +world, with neither air nor water! incapable of feeding life like ours, +but competent to be a place where undying wretchedness may struggle for +ever. A melancholy orb, the queen of night, chief nucleus of all the +dark idolatries of earth; the Moon, Isis, Hecate, Ashtaroth, Diana of +the Ephesians! + +This expression of a thought by no means improbable, gives an easy +chance to shallow punsters; but ridicule is no weapon against reason. +Why should not the case be so? Why should not Earth's own satellite, +void, as yet, be on the resurrection of all flesh, the raft whereon to +float away Earth's evil? Read of it astronomically; think of it as +connected with idols; regard it as the ruler of earth's night; consider +that the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere; and what is there in my +fancy quite improbable? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so, but +only suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hitherto +suggested. Think how that awful, melancholy eye looks down on deeds of +darkness how many midnight crimes, murders, thefts, adulteries, and +witchcrafts, that would have shrunk into nonentity from open, honest +day, have paled the conscious Moon! Add to all this, it is the only +world, besides our own, whereof astronomers can tell us, It is fallen. + + + + +AN OFFER. + + +Nothing were easier than to have made this book a long one; but that was +not the writer's object: as well because of the musty Greek proverb +about long books; which in every time and country are sure never to be +read through by one in a thousand; as because it is always wiser to +suggest than to exhaust a topic; which may be as "a fruit-tree yielding +fruit after its kind whose seed is in itself." The writer then intended +only to touch upon a few salient points, and not to discuss every +question, however they might crowd upon his mind: time and space alike +with mental capabilities forbade an effort so gigantic: added to which, +such a course seemed to be unnecessary, as the rule of probability, thus +illustrated, might be applied by others in every similar instance. +Still, as the errand of this book is usefulness, and its author's hope +is, under Heaven, to do good, one personal hint shall here be thrown +upon the highway. Without arrogating to myself the wisdom or the +knowledge to solve one in twenty of the doubts possible to be +propounded; without also designing even to attempt such solutions, +unless well assured of the genuine anxiety of the doubter; and +preliminarizing the consideration, that a fitting diffidence in the +advocate's own powers is no reason why he should not make wide efforts +in his holy cause; that, such reasonable essays to do good have no sort +of brotherhood with a fanatical Spiritual Quixotism; and that, to my own +apprehensions, the doubts of a rationalizing mind are in the nature of +honourable foes, to be treated with delicacy, reverence, and kindness, +rather than with a cold distance and an ill-concealed contempt; +preliminarizing, lastly, the thought--"Who is sufficient for these +things?"--I nevertheless thus offer, according to the grace and power +given to me, my best but humble efforts so far to dissipate the doubts +of some respecting any scriptural fact, as may lie within the province +of showing or attempting to show its previous credibility. This is not a +challenge to the curious casuist or the sneering infidel; but an +invitation to the honest mind harassed by unanswered queries: no +gauntlet thrown down, but a brother's hand stretched out. Such +questions, if put to the writer, through his publisher by letter, may +find their reply in a future edition: supposing, that is to say, that +they deserve an answer, whether as regards their own merits or the +temper of the mind who doubts; and supposing also that the writer has +the power and means to answer them discreetly. It is only a fair rule of +philanthropy (and that without arrogating any unusual "strength") to +"bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves:" and +nothing would to me give greater happiness than to be able, as I am +willing, to remove any difficulties lying in the track of Faith before a +generous mind. I hang out no glistening holly-bush a-flame with its +ostentatious berries as promising good wine; but rather over my portal +is the humbler and hospitable mistletoe, assuring every wearied pilgrim +in the way, that though scanty be the fare, he shall find a hearty +welcome. + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + +I have thus endeavoured (with solicited help of Heaven) to place before +the world anew a few old truths: truths inestimably precious. Remember, +they cannot have lost by any such advocacy as is contained in the idea +of their being shown antecedently probable; for this idea affects not at +all the fact of their existence; the thing is; whether probable or not; +there is, in esse, an ornithorhyncus; its posse is drowned in esse: +there exists no doubt of it: evidence, whether of senses physical, or of +considerations moral, puts the circumstance beyond the sphere of +disputation. But such truths as we have spoken of do, nevertheless, gain +something as to--not their merits, these are all their own +substantially; nor their positive proofs, these are adjectives properly +attendant on them, but as to--their acceptability among the incredulous +of men; they gain, I say, even by such poor pleading as mine, from being +shown anteriorly probable. Take an illustration in the case of that +strange and anomalous creature mentioned just above. Its habitat is in a +land where plums grow with the stones outside, where aboriginal dogs +have never been heard to bark, where birds are found covered with hair, +and where mammals jump about like frogs! If these are shown to be +literal facts, the mind is thereby well prepared for any animal +monstrosity: and it staggers not in unbelief (on evidence of honest +travellers) even when informed of a creature with a duck's bill and a +beaver's body: it really amounted in Australia to an antecedent +probability. + +Carry this out to matters not a quarter so incredible, ye thinkers, ye +free-thinkers; neither be abashed at being named as thinking freely: +were not those Bereans more noble in that they searched to see? For my +humble part, I do commend you for it: treacherous is the hand that roots +up the inalienable right of private judgment; the foundation-stone of +Protestantism, the great prerogative of reason, the key-note of +conscience, the sole vindex of a man's responsibility: evil and false is +the so-called reverential wisdom which lays down in place of the truth +that each man's conscience is a law unto himself, the tyranny of other +men's authority. Cheap and easy and perilled is the faith, which clings +to the skirt of others; which leans upon the broken staff of +priestcraft, until those poisoned splinters pierce the hand. + +Prove all things; holding fast that which is good: good to thine own +reasonable conscience, if unwarped by casuistries, and unblinded by +licentiousness. Prove all things, if you can, "from the egg to the +apple:" he is a poor builder of his creed, who takes one brick on +credit. Be able, as you can be, (if only you are willing so far to be +wisely inconsistent, as to bend the stubborn knee betimes, and though +with feeble glance to look to heaven, and though with stammering tongue +to pray for aid,) be able, as it is thy right, O man of God--to give a +Reason for the faith that is in thee. + + + THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete Prose Works of Martin +Farquhar Tupper, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE WORKS OF TUPPER *** + +***** This file should be named 20610-8.txt or 20610-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/1/20610/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/20610-8.zip b/20610-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8840831 --- /dev/null +++ b/20610-8.zip diff --git a/20610-h.zip b/20610-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..469297a --- /dev/null +++ b/20610-h.zip diff --git a/20610-h/20610-h.htm b/20610-h/20610-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffde969 --- /dev/null +++ b/20610-h/20610-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,22761 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper, Esq., M.A.. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + div.trans-note {border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; + margin: 3em 15%; padding: 1em; text-align: center;} + + + .author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;} + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; visibility: hidden; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar +Tupper, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Editor: W. C. Armstrong + +Release Date: February 16, 2007 [EBook #20610] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE WORKS OF TUPPER *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>THE<br /> + +COMPLETE PROSE WORKS<br /></h1> + +<h4>OF<br /></h4> + +<h2>MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, ESQ.</h2> + +<h4>COMPRISING</h4> + +<h3><a href="#CROCK_OF_GOLD">THE CROCK OF GOLD,</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#TWINS">THE TWINS,</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#MIND">AN AUTHOR'S MIND,</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#HEART">HEART,</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#PROBABILITIES">PROBABILITIES, ETC.</a><br /><br /></h3> + + +<h4>REVISED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS EDITION BY W. C. ARMSTRONG.</h4> + +<p class='center'>HARTFORD:<br /> +PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON<br /> +1851.</p> + +<div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. This +omnibus edition consists of four separately published works which contain many inconsistencies. These are as in the originals. + </div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h2>PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>Mr. Tupper has achieved a popularity for his works, which +has rarely been enjoyed by any one at so early a period of life; +he being now only between thirty-five and forty years of age. +Where all are so intrinsically valuable, it is difficult to determine +which particular work has contributed most to his rapid and +enviable advancement; yet, were an award indispensable, we +should feel constrained to make it in favour of his '<i>Proverbial +Philosophy</i>.' It is one of those unique productions which commends +itself to all classes of readers, and from the perusal of +which <i>all</i> cannot but derive substantial means of improvement. +Familiar truths are so cogently treated therein, as to leave an +indelible impression upon the mind, which could not, perhaps, +have been so thoroughly made in any other manner; and the +"thoughts and arguments" may be perused and rëperused with +an advantage but few other writings are capable of yielding.</p> + +<p>The rapid and extensive sale of several editions, issued in +other places--some of them of rather an indifferent character, as +regards mechanical execution--and the increasing demand still +manifested for them, has induced the present publishers to collect +the entire works of Mr. Tupper, and to stereotype them in a +style worthy of their excellence. Each work has been thoroughly +revised, and the errors which disfigure some other editions have +been carefully corrected--an advantage readily appreciable by +those who discriminate in their selections for the library or the +centre-table.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>THE</h1> + +<h1><a name="CROCK_OF_GOLD" id="CROCK_OF_GOLD"></a>CROCK OF GOLD;</h1> + +<h3>A RURAL NOVEL.</h3> + + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, ESQ., M.A.,</h3> + + +<h4>AUTHOR OF</h4> + +<h3>"PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY."</h3> + + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="TABLE OF CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.—THE LABOURER; AND HIS DAWNING DISCONTENT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.—THE FAMILY; THE HOME; AND MORE REPININGS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.—THE CONTRAST.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.—THE LOST THEFT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.—THE INQUEST.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.—THE BAILIFF; AND A BITTER TRIAL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.—WRONGS AND RUIN.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.—THE COVETOUS DREAM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.—THE POACHER.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.—BEN BURKE'S STRANGE ADVENTURE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.—SLEEP.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.—LOVE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.—THE DISCOVERY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.—JONATHAN'S STORE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.—ANOTHER DISCOVERY, AND THE EARNEST OF GOOD THINGS</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.—HOW THE HOME WAS BLEST THEREBY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.—CARE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.—INVESTMENT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.—CALUMNY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.—THE BAILIFF'S VISIT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.—THE CAPTURE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.—THE AUNT AND HER NEPHEW.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.—SCHEMES.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.—THE DEVIL'S COUNSEL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.—THE AMBUSCADE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.—PRELIMINARIES.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.—ROBBERY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.—MURDER.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.—THE REWARD.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.—SECOND THOUGHTS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.—MAMMON, AND CONTENTMENT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.—NEXT MORNING.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.—THE ALARM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.—DOUBTS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.—FEARS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI.—PRISON COMFORTS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII.—GOOD COUNSEL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII.—EXPERIENCE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX.—JONATHAN'S TROTH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL.—SUSPICIONS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI.—GRACE'S ALTERNATIVE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII.—THE DISMISSAL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII.—SIMON ALONE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV.—THE TRIAL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLV">CHAPTER XLV.—ROGER'S DEFENCE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVI">CHAPTER XLVI.—THE WITNESS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVII">CHAPTER XLVII.—MR. SHARP'S ADVOCACY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLVIII">CHAPTER XLVIII.—SENTENCE AND DEATH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIX">CHAPTER XLIX.—RIGHTEOUS MAMMON.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_L">CHAPTER L.—THE CROCK A BLESSING.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_LI">CHAPTER LI.—POPULARITY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_LII">CHAPTER LII.—ROGER AT THE SWAN.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_LIII">CHAPTER LIII.—ROGER'S TRIUMPH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_LIV">CHAPTER LIV.—SIR JOHN'S PARTING SPEECH.</a></td></tr> +</table> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_010" id="Page_010"></a>[Pg 010]</span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_011" id="Page_011"></a>[Pg 011]</span></p><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_012" id="Page_012"></a>[Pg 012]</span><br /></p> +<h2>THE CROCK OF GOLD.<br /><br /></h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a><b>CHAPTER I.</b></h3> + +<h4>THE LABOURER; AND HIS DAWNING DISCONTENT.</h4> + + +<p>Roger Acton woke at five. It was a raw March morning, still +dark, and bitterly cold, while at gusty intervals the rain beat in +against the crazy cottage-window. Nevertheless, from his poor pallet he +must up and rouse himself, for it will be open weather by sunrise, and +his work lies two miles off; Master Jennings is not the man to show him +favour if he be late, and Roger cannot afford to lose an hour: so he +shook off the luxury of sleep, and rose again to toil with weary effort.</p> + +<p>"Honest Roger," as the neighbours called him, was a fair specimen of a +class which has been Britain's boast for ages, and may be still again, +in measure, but at present that glory appears to be departing: a class +much neglected, much enduring; thoroughly English—just, industrious, +and patient; true to the altar, and loyal to the throne; though haply +shaken somewhat now from both those noble faiths—warped in their +principles, and blunted in their feelings, by lying doctrines and harsh +economies; a class—I hate the cold cant term—a race of honourable men, +full of cares, pains, privations—but of pleasures next to none; whose +life at its most prosperous estate is labour, and in death we count him +happy who did not die a pauper. Through them, serfs of the soil, the +earth yields indeed her increase, but it is for others; from the fields +of plenty they glean a scanty pittance, and fill the barns to bursting, +while their children cry for bread. Not that Roger for his part often +wanted work; he was the best hand in the parish, and had earned of his +employers long ago the name of Steady Acton; but the fair wages for a +fair day's labour were quite another thing, and the times went very hard +for him and his. A man himself may starve, while his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_013" id="Page_013"></a>[Pg 013]</span>industry makes +others fat: and a liberal landlord all the winter through may keep his +labourers in work, while a crafty, overbearing bailiff mulcts them in +their wages.</p> + +<p>For the outward man, Acton stood about five feet ten, a gaunt, spare, +and sinewy figure, slightly bent; his head sprinkled with gray; his face +marked with those rigid lines, which tell, if not of positive famine, at +least of too much toil on far too little food; in his eye, patience and +good temper; in his carriage, a mixture of the sturdy bearing, necessary +to the habitual exercise of great muscular strength, together with that +gait of humility—almost humiliation—which is the seal of oppression +upon poverty. He might be about forty, or from that to fifty, for +hunger, toil, and weather had used him the roughest; while, for all +beside, the patched and well-worn smock, the heavily-clouted high-laced +boots, a dingy worsted neck-tie, and an old felt hat, complete the +picture of externals.</p> + +<p>But, for the matter of character within, Roger is quite another man. If +his rank in this world is the lowest, many potentates may envy him his +state elsewhere. His heart is as soft, as his hand is horny; with the +wandering gipsy or the tramping beggar, thrust aside, perhaps +deservedly, as impudent impostors from the rich man's gate, has he +often-times shared his noon-day morsel: upright and sincere himself, he +thinks as well of others: he scarcely ever heard the Gospels read in +church, specially about Eastertide, but the tears would trickle down his +weather-beaten face: he loves children—his neighbour's little ones as +well as his own: he will serve any one for goodness' sake without reward +or thanks, and is kind to the poor dumb cattle: he takes quite a pride +in his little rod or two of garden, and is early and late at it, both +before and after the daily sum of labour: he picks up a bit of knowledge +here and there, and somehow has contrived to amass a fund of information +for which few would give him credit from his common looks; and he joins +to that stock of facts a natural shrewdness to use his knowledge wisely. +Though with little of what is called sentiment, or poetry, or fancy in +his mind (for harsh was the teaching of his childhood, and meagre the +occasions of self-culture ever since), the beauty of creation is by no +means lost upon him, and he notices at times its wisdom too. With a +fixed habit of manly piety ever on his lips and ever in his heart, he +recognises Providence in all things, just, and wise, and good. More than +so; simply as a little child who endures the school-hour for the +prospect of his play-time, Roger Acton bears up with noble meekness +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_014" id="Page_014"></a>[Pg 014]</span>against present suffering, knowing that his work and trials and +troubles are only for a little while, but his rest and his reward remain +a long hereafter. He never questioned this; he knew right well Who had +earned it for him; and he lived grateful and obedient, filling up the +duties of his humble station. This was his faith, and his works followed +it. He believed that God had placed him in his lot, to be a labourer, +and till God's earth, and, when his work is done, to be sent on better +service in some happier sphere: the where, or the how, did not puzzle +him, any more than divers other enigmatical whys and wherefores of his +present state; he only knew this, that it would all come right at last: +and, barring sin (which he didn't comprehend), somehow all was right at +present. What if poverty pinched him? he was a great heir still; what if +oppression bruised him? it would soon be over. He trusted to his Pilot, +like the landsman in a storm; to his Father, as an infant in the dark. +For guilt, he had a Saviour, and he thought of him in penitence; for +trouble, a Guardian, and he looked to him in peace; and as for toil, +back-breaking toil, there was another Master whom he served with spade, +and mattock, and a thankful heart, while he only seemed to be working +for the landlord or his bailiff.</p> + +<p>Such a man then had been Roger Acton from his youth up till now, or, if +sadness must be told, nearly until now; for, to speak truth, his heart +at times would fail him, and of late he had been bitter in repinings and +complaint. For a day or two, in particular, he had murmured loudly. It +was hard, very hard, that an honest, industrious man, as he was, should +so scantily pick a living out of this rich earth: after all said, let +the parson preach as he will, it's a fine thing to have money, and that +his reverence knows right well, or he wouldn't look so closely for his +dues. [N.B. Poor Mr. Evans was struggling as well as he could to bring +up six children, on a hundred and twenty pounds per annum.] Roger, too, +was getting on in years, with a blacker prospect for the future than +when he first stood behind a plough-tail. Then there were many wants +unsatisfied, which a bit of gold might buy; and his wife teased him to +be doing something better. Thus was it come at length to pass, that, +although he had endured so many years, he now got discontented at his +penury;—what human heart can blame him?—and with murmurings came +doubt; with doubt of Providence, desire of lucre; so the sunshine of +religion faded from his path;—what mortal mind can wonder?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_015" id="Page_015"></a>[Pg 015]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>THE FAMILY; THE HOME; AND MORE REPININGS.</h4> + + +<p>Now, if Malthus and Martineau be verily the pundits that men +think them, Roger had twice in his life done a very foolish thing: he +had sinned against society, statistics, and common sense, by a two-fold +marriage. The wife of his youth (I am afraid he married early) had once +been kitchen-maid at the Hall; but the sudden change from living +luxuriously in a great house, to the griping poverty of a cotter's +hovel, had changed, in three short years, the buxom country girl into an +emaciated shadow of her former self, and the sorrowing husband buried +her in her second child-bed. The powers of the parish clapped their +hands; political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a +coarse-featured farmer (he meant no ill), who occasionally had given +Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the +fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Ay, and Heaven take the babies +also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken! +scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as +before, was more mechanical, less high-motived: and many a year of +dreary widowhood he mourned a loss all the greater, though any thing but +bitterer, for the infants so left motherless. To these, now grown into a +strapping youth and a bright-eyed graceful girl, had he been the +tenderest of nurses, and well supplied the place of her whom they had +lost. Neighbours would have helped him gladly—sometimes did; and many +was the hinted offer (disinterested enough, too, for in that match +penury must have been the settlement, and starvation the dower), of +giving them a mother's kindly care; but Roger could not quite so soon +forget the dead: so he would carry his darlings with him to his work, +and feed them with his own hard hands; the farmers winked at it, and +never said a word against the tiny trespassers; their wives and +daughters loved the little dears, bringing them milk and possets; and +holy angels from on high may have oft-times hovered about this rude +nurse, tending his soft innocents a-field, and have wept over the poor +widower and his orphans, tears of happy sorrow and benevolent affection. +Yea, many a good angel has shed blessings on their heads!</p> + +<p>Within the last three years, and sixteen from the date of his first +great grief, Roger had again got married. His daughter was growing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_016" id="Page_016"></a>[Pg 016]</span>into +early womanhood, and his son gave him trouble at times, and the cottage +wanted a ruling hand over it when he was absent, and rheumatism now and +then bade him look out for a nurse before old age, and Mary Alder was a +notable middle-aged careful sort of soul, and so she became Mary Acton. +All went on pretty well, until Mrs. Acton began to have certain little +ones of her own; and then the step-mother would break out (a contingency +poor Roger hadn't thought of), separate interests crept in, and her own +children fared before the others; so it came to pass that, however truly +there was a ruling hand at home, and however well the rheumatism got +nursed (for Mary was a good wife in the main), the grown-up son and +daughter felt themselves a little jostled out. Grace, gentle and +submissive, found all her comforts shrunk within the space of her father +and her Bible; Thomas, self-willed and open-hearted, sought his pleasure +any where but at home, and was like to be taking to wrong courses +through domestic bickering: Grace had the dangerous portion, beauty, +added to her lowly lot, and attracted more admiration than her father +wished, or she could understand; while the frank and bold spirit of +Thomas Acton exposed him to the perilous friendship of Ben Burke the +poacher, and divers other questionable characters.</p> + +<p>Of these elements, then, are our labourer and his family composed; and +before Roger Acton goes abroad at earliest streak of dawn, we will take +a casual peep within his dwelling. It consists of four bare rubble +walls, enclosing a grouted floor, worn unevenly, and here and there in +holes, and puddly. There were but two rooms in the tenement, one on the +ground, and one over-head; which latter is with no small difficulty got +at by scaling a ladder-like stair-case that fronts the cottage-door. +This upper chamber, the common dormitory, for all but Thomas, who sleeps +down stairs, has a thin partition at one end of it, to screen off the +humble truckle-bed where Grace Acton forgets by night the troubles of +the day; and the remainder of the little apartment, sordid enough, and +overhung with the rough thatch, black with cobweb, serves for the father +and mother with their recent nursery. Each room has its shattery +casement, to let in through linchened panes, the doubtful light of +summer, and the much more indubitable wind, and rain, and frost of +wintry nights. A few articles of crockery and some burnished tins +decorate the shelves of the lower apartment; which used to be much +tidier before the children came, and trimmer still when Grace was sole +manager: in a doorless cupboard are apparent sundry coarse edibles, as +the half of a huge unshapely home-made loaf, some white country <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_017" id="Page_017"></a>[Pg 017]</span>cheese, +a mass of lumpy pudding, and so forth; beside it, on the window-sill, is +better bread, a well-thumbed Bible, some tracts, and a few odd volumes +picked up cheap at fairs; an old musket (occasionally Ben's companion, +sometimes Tom's) is hooked to the rafters near a double rope of onions; +divers gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of +George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of +Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted +over the mantel-piece: which, among other chattels and possessions, +conspicuously bears its own burden of Albert and Victoria—two plaster +heads, resplendently coloured, highly varnished, looking with arched +eye-brows of astonishment on their uninviting palace, and royally +contrasting with the sombre hue of poverty on all things else. The +pictures had belonged to Mary, no small portion of her virgin wealth; +and as for the statuary, those two busts had cost loyal Roger far more +in comparison than any corporation has given to P.R.A., for majesty and +consortship in full. There is, moreover, in the room, by way of +household furniture, a ricketty, triangular, and tri-legged table, a +bench, two old chairs with rush-bottoms, and a yard or two of matting +that the sexton gave when the chancel was new laid. I don't know that +there is any thing else to mention, unless it be a gaunt lurcher +belonging to Ben Burke, and with all a dog's resemblance to his master, +who lies stretched before the hearth where the peaty embers never quite +die out, but smoulder away to a heap of white ashes; over these is +hanging a black boiler, the cook of the family; and beside them, on a +substratum of dry heather, and wrapped about with an old blanket, nearly +companioned by his friend, the dog, snores Thomas Acton, still fast +asleep, after his usual extemporaneous fashion.</p> + +<p>As to the up-stairs apartment, it contained little or nothing but its +living inmates, their bedsteads and tattered coverlids, and had an air +of even more penury and discomfort than the room below; so that, what +with squalling children, a scolding wife, and empty stomach, and that +cold and wet March morning, it is little wonder maybe (though no small +blame), that Roger Acton had not enough of religion or philosophy to +rise and thank his Maker for the blessings of existence.</p> + +<p>He had just been dreaming of great good luck. Poor people often do so; +just as Ugolino dreamt of imperial feasts, and Bruce, in his delirious +thirst on the Sahara, could not banish from his mind the cool fountains +of Shiraz, and the luxurious waters of old Nile. Roger had unfortunately +dreamt of having found a crock of gold—I dare say he will tell us his +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_018" id="Page_018"></a>[Pg 018]</span>dream anon—and just as he was counting out his treasure, that blessed +beautiful heap of shining money—cruel habit roused him up before the +dawn, and his wealth faded from his fancy. So he awoke at five, anything +but cheerfully.</p> + +<p>It was Grace's habit, good girl, to read to her father in the morning a +few verses from the volume she best loved: she always woke betimes when +she heard him getting up, and he could hear her easily from her little +flock-bed behind the lath partition; and many a time had her dear +religious tongue, uttering the words of peace, soothed her father's +mind, and strengthened him to meet the day's affliction; many times it +raised his thoughts from the heavy cares of life to the buoyant hopes of +immortality. Hitherto, Roger had owed half his meek contentedness to +those sweet lessons from a daughter's lips, and knew that he was +reaping, as he heard, the harvest of his own paternal care, and +heaven-blest instructions. However, upon this dark morning, he was full +of other thoughts, murmurings, and doubts, and poverty, and riches. So, +when Grace, after her usual affectionate salutations, gently began to +read,</p> + +<p>"The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with +the glory—"</p> + +<p>Her father strangely stopped her on a sudden with—</p> + +<p>"Enough, enough, my girl! God wot, the sufferings are grievous, and the +glory long a-coming."</p> + +<p>Then he heavily went down stairs, and left Grace crying.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>THE CONTRAST.</h4> + + +<p>Thus, full of carking care, while he pushed aside the proffered +consolation, Roger Acton walked abroad. There was yet but a glimmer of +faint light, and the twittering of birds told more assuringly of morning +than any cheerful symptom on the sky: however, it had pretty well ceased +raining, that was one comfort, and, as Roger, shouldering his spade, and +with the day's provision in a handkerchief, trudged out upon his daily +duty, those good old thoughts of thankfulness came upon his mind, and he +forgot awhile the dream that had unstrung him. Turning <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_019" id="Page_019"></a>[Pg 019]</span>for a moment to +look upon his hovel, and bless its inmates with a prayer, he half +resolved to run back, and hear a few more words, if only not to vex his +darling child: but there was now no time to spare; and then, as he gazed +upon her desolate abode—so foul a casket for so fair a jewel—his +bitter thoughts returned to him again, and he strode away, repining.</p> + +<p>Acton's cottage was one of those doubtful domiciles, whose only +recommendation it is, that they are picturesque in summer. At present we +behold a reeking rotting mass of black thatch in a cheerless swamp; but, +as the year wears on, those time-stained walls, though still both damp +and mouldy, will be luxuriantly overspread with creeping +plants—honeysuckle, woodbine, jessamine, and the everblowing monthly +rose. Many was the touring artist it had charmed, and Suffolk-street had +seen it often: spectators looked upon the scene as on an old familiar +friend, whose face they knew full well, but whose name they had +forgotten for the minute. Many were the fair hands that had immortalized +its beauties in their albums, and frequent the notes of admiration +uttered by attending swains: particularly if there chanced to be taken +into the view a feathery elm that now creaked overhead, and dripped on +the thatch like the dropping-well at Knaresborough, and (in the near +distance) a large pond, or rather lake, upon whose sedgy banks, gay—not +now, but soon about to be—with flowering reeds and bright green +willows, the pretty cottage stood. In truth, if man were but an +hibernating animal, invisible as dormice in the winter, and only to be +seen with summer swallows, Acton's cottage at Hurstley might have been a +cantle cut from the Elysian-fields. But there are certain other seasons +in the year, and human nature cannot long exist on the merely +"picturesque in summer."</p> + +<p>Some fifty yards, or so, from the hither shore, we discern a roughly +wooded ait, Pike Island to wit, a famous place for fish, and the grand +rendezvous for woodcocks; which, among other useful and ornamental +purposes, serves to screen out the labourer's hovel, at this the +narrowest part of the lake, from a view of that fine old mansion on the +opposite shore, the seat of Sir John Vincent, a baronet just of age, and +the great landlord of the neighbourhood. Toward this mansion, scarcely +yet revealed in the clear gray eye of morning, our humble hero, having +made the long round of the lake, is now fast trudging; and it may merit +a word or two of plain description, to fill up time and scene, till he +gets nearer.</p> + +<p>A smooth grassy eminence, richly studded with park-like clumps of trees, +slopes up from the water's very edge to—Hurstley Hall; yonder <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_020" id="Page_020"></a>[Pg 020]</span>goodly, +if not grand, Elizabethan structure, full of mullioned windows, carved +oak panels, stone-cut coats of arms, pinnacles, and traceries, and +lozenges, and drops; and all this glory crowned by a many-gabled, +high-peaked roof. A grove of evergreens and American shrubs hides the +lower windows from vulgarian gaze—for, in the neighbourly feeling of +our ancestors, a public way leads close along the front; while, behind +the house, and inaccessible to eyes profane, are drawn terraced gardens, +beautifully kept, and blooming with a perpetual succession of the +choicest flowers. The woods and shrubberies around, attempted some half +a century back to be spoilt by the meddlesome bad taste of Capability +Brown, have been somewhat too resolutely robbed of the formal avenues, +clipped hedges, and other topiarian adjuncts which comport so well with +the starch prudery of things Elizabethan; but they are still replete +with grotto, fountain, labyrinth, and alcove—a very paradise for the +more court-bred rank of sylphs, and the gentler elves of Queen Titania.</p> + +<p>However, we have less to do with the gardens than, probably, the elves +have; and as Roger now, just at breaking day, is approaching the windows +somewhat too curiously for a poor man's manners, it may not be amiss if +we bear him company. He had pretty well recovered of his fit of +discontent, for morning air and exercise can soon chase gloom away; so +he cheerily tramped along, thinking as he went, how that, after all, it +is a middling happy world, and how that the raindrops, now that it had +cleared up, hung like diamonds on the laurels, when of a sudden, as he +turned a corner near the house, there broke upon his ear, at that quiet +hour, such a storm of boisterous sounds—voices so loud with oaths and +altercation—such a calling, clattering, and quarrelling, as he had +never heard the like before. So no wonder that he stepped aside to see +it.</p> + +<p>The noise proceeded from a ground-floor window, or rather from three +windows, lighted up, and hung with draperies of crimson and gold: one of +the casements, flaring meretriciously in the modest eye of morn, stood +wide open down to the floor, probably to cool a heated atmosphere; and +when Roger Acton, with a natural curiosity, went on tiptoe, looked in, +and just put aside the curtain for a peep, to know what on earth could +be the matter, he saw a vision of waste and wealth, at which he stood +like one amazed, for a poor man's mind could never have conceived its +equal.</p> + +<p>Evidently, he had intruded on the latter end of a long and luxurious +revel. Wax-lights, guttering down in gilded chandeliers, poured their +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_021" id="Page_021"></a>[Pg 021]</span>mellow radiance round in multiplied profusion—for mirrors made them +infinite; crimson and gold were the rich prevailing tints in that wide +and warm banqueting-room; gayly-coloured pictures, set in frames that +Roger fancied massive gold, hung upon the walls at intervals; a +wagon-load of silver was piled upon the sideboard; there blazed in the +burnished grate such a fire as poverty might imagine on a frozen +winter's night, but never can have thawed its blood beside: fruits, and +wines, and costly glass were scattered in prodigal disorder on the +board—just now deserted of its noisy guests, who had crowded round a +certain green table, where cards and heaps of sovereigns appeared to be +mingled in a mass. Roger had never so much as conceived it possible that +there could be wealth like this: it was a fairy-land of Mammon in his +eyes: he stood gasping like a man enchanted; and in the contemplation of +these little hills of gold—in their covetous longing contemplation, he +forgot the noisy quarrel he had turned aside to see, and thirsted for +that rich store earnestly.</p> + +<p>In an instant, as he looked (after the comparative lull that must +obviously have succeeded to the clamours he had first heard), the roar +and riot broke out worse than ever. There were the stormy revellers, as +the rabble rout of Comus and his crew, filling that luxurious room with +the sounds of noisy execration and half-drunken strife. Young Sir John, +a free and generous fellow, by far the best among them all, has +collected about him those whom he thought friends, to celebrate his +wished majority; they had now kept it up, night after night, hard upon a +week; and, as well became such friends—the gambler, the duellist, the +man of pleasure, and the fool of Fashion—they never yet had separated +for their day-light beds, without a climax to their orgie, something +like the present scene.</p> + +<p>Henry Mynton, high in oath, and dashing down his cards, has charged Sir +Richard Hunt with cheating (it was <i>sauter la coupe</i> or <i>couper la +saut</i>, or some such mystery of iniquity, I really cannot tell which): +Sir Richard, a stout dark man, the patriarch of the party, glossily +wigged upon his head, and imperially tufted on his chin, retorts with a +pungent sarcasm, calmly and coolly uttered; that hot-headed fool +Silliphant, clearly quite intoxicated, backs his cousin Mynton's view of +the case by the cogent argument of a dice-box at Sir Richard's head—and +at once all is struggle, strife, and uproar. The other guests, young +fellows of high fashion, now too much warmed with wine to remember their +accustomed Mohican cold-bloodedness—those happy debtors to the prowess +of a Stultz, and walking advertisers of Nugee—take eager part with the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_022" id="Page_022"></a>[Pg 022]</span>opposed belligerents: more than one decanter is sent hissing through +the air; more than one bloody coxcomb witnesses to the weight of a +candle-stick and its hurler's clever aim: uplifted chairs are made the +weapons of the chivalric combatants; and along with divers other less +distinguished victims in the melée, poor Sir John Vincent, rushing into +the midst, as a well-intentioned host, to quell the drunken brawl, gets +knocked down among them all; the tables are upset, the bright gold runs +about the room in all directions—ha! no one heeds it—no one owns +it—one little piece rolled right up to the window-sill where Roger +still looked on with all his eyes; it is but to put his hand in—the +window is open to the floor—nay a finger is enough: greedily, one +undecided moment, did he gaze upon the gold; he saw the hideous contrast +of his own dim hovel and that radiant chamber—he remembered the pining +faces of his babes, and gentle Grace with all her hardships—he thought +upon his poverty and well deserts—he looked upon wastefulness of wealth +and wantonness of living—these reflections struck him in a moment; no +one saw him, no one cared about the gold; that little blessed morsel, +that could do him so much good; all was confusion, all was opportunity, +and who can wonder that his fingers closed upon the sovereign, and that +he picked it up?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>THE LOST THEFT.</h4> + + +<p>Stealthily and quickly "honest Roger" crept away, for his +conscience smote him on the instant: he felt he had done wrong; at any +rate, the sovereign was not his—and once the thought arose in him to +run back, and put it where he found it: but it was now become too +precious in his sight, that little bit of gold—and they, the rioters +there, could not want it, might not even miss it; and then its righteous +uses—it should be well spent, even if ill-got: and thus, so many +mitigations crowded in to excuse, if not to applaud the action, that +within a little while his warped mind had come to call the theft a +god-send.</p> + +<p>O Roger, Roger! alas for this false thought of that wrong deed! the +poisonous gold has touched thy heart, and left on it a spot of cancer: +the asp has bitten thee already, simple soul. This little seed will grow +into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_023" id="Page_023"></a>[Pg 023]</span>a huge black pine, that shall darken for a while thy heaven, and +dig its evil roots around thy happiness. Put it away, Roger, put it +away: covet not unhallowed gold.</p> + +<p>But Roger felt far otherwise; and this sudden qualm of conscience once +quelled (I will say there seemed much of palliation in the matter), a +kind of inebriate feeling of delight filled his mind, and Steady Acton +plodded on to the meadow yonder, half a mile a-head, in a species of +delirious complacency. Here was luck indeed, filling up the promise of +his dreams. His head was full of thoughts, pleasant holiday thoughts, of +the many little useful things, the many small indulgences, that bit of +gold should buy him. He would change it on the sly, and gradually bring +the shillings home as extra pay for extra work; for, however much his +wife might glory in the chance, and keep his secret, well he knew that +Grace would have a world of things to say about it, and he feared to +tell his daughter of the deed. However, she should have a ribbon, so she +should, good girl, and the pedlar shouldn't pass the door unbidden; +Mary, too, might have a cotton kerchief, and the babes a doll and a +rattle, and poor Thomas a shilling to spend as he liked; and so, in +happy revery, the kind father distributed his ill-got sovereign.</p> + +<p>For a while he held it in his hand, as loth to part from the tangible +possession of his treasure; but manual contact could not last all day, +and, as he neared his scene of labour—he came late after all, by the +by, and lost the quarter-day, but it mattered little now—he began to +cogitate a place of safety; and carefully put it in his fob. Poor +fellow—he had never had enough to stow so well away before: his pockets +had been thought quite trust-worthy enough for any treasures hitherto: +never had he used that fob for watch, or note, or gold—and his +predecessor in the cast-off garment had probably been quite aware how +little that false fob was worthy of the name of savings' bank; it was in +the situation of the Irishman's illimitable rope, with the end cut off. +So while Roger was brewing up vast schemes of nascent wealth, and +prosperous days at last, the filched sovereign, attracted by centripetal +gravity, had found a passage downwards, and had straightway rolled into +a crevice of mother-earth, long before its "brief lord" had commenced +his day's labour. Yes, it had been lost a good hour ere he found it out, +for he had fancied that he had felt it there, and often did he feel, but +his fancy was a button; and when he made the dread discovery, what a +sting of momentary anguish, what a sickening fear, what an eager search! +and, as the grim truth became more evident, that, indeed, beyond all +remedy, his new-got, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_024" id="Page_024"></a>[Pg 024]</span>ill-got, egg of coming wealth was all clean +gone—oh! this was worm-wood, this was bitter as gall, and the strong +man well-nigh fainted. It was something sad to have done the ill—but +misery to have done it all for nothing: the sin was not altogether +pleasant to his taste, but it was aloe itself to lose the reward. And +when, pale and sick, leaning on his spade, he came to his old strength +again, what was the reaction? Compunction at incipient crime, and +gratitude to find its punishment so mercifully speedy, so lenient, so +discriminative? I fear that if ever he had these thoughts at all, he +chased them wilfully away: his disappointment, far from being softened +into patience, was sharpened to a feeling of revenge at fate; and all +his hope now was—such another chance, gold, more gold, never mind how; +more gold, he burnt for gold, he lusted after gold!</p> + +<p>We must leave him for a time to his toil and his reflections, and touch +another topic of our theme.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>THE INQUEST.</h4> + + +<p>Just a week before the baronet came of age, and a fortnight +from the present time, an awful and mysterious event had happened at the +Hall: the old house-keeper, Mrs. Quarles, had been found dead in her +bed, under circumstances, to say the very least, of a black and +suspicious appearance. The county coroner had got a jury of the +neighbours impanelled together; who, after sitting patiently on the +inquest, and hearing, as well as seeing, the following evidence, could +arrive at no verdict more specific than the obvious fact, that the poor +old creature had been "found dead." The great question lay between +apoplexy and murder; and the evidence tended to a well-matched conflict +of opinions.</p> + +<p>First, there lay the body, quietly in bed, tucked in tidily and +undisturbed, with no marks of struggling, none whatever—the clothes lay +smooth, and the chamber orderly: yet the corpse's face was of a purple +hue, the tongue swollen, the eyes starting from their sockets: it might, +indeed, possibly have been an apoplectic seizure, which took her in her +sleep, and killed her as she lay; <i>but</i> that the gripe of clutching +fingers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_025" id="Page_025"></a>[Pg 025]</span>had left their livid seals upon the throat, and countenanced +the dreadful thought of strangulation!</p> + +<p>Secondly, a surgeon (one Mr. Eager, the Union doctor, a very young +personage, wrong withal and radical) maintained that this actual +strangulation might have been effected by the hands of the deceased +herself, in the paroxysm of a rush of blood to the brain; and he +fortified his wise position by the instance of a late statesman, who, he +averred, cut his throat with a pen-knife, to relieve himself of pressure +on the temples: while another surgeon—Stephen Cramp, he was farrier as +well, and had been, until lately, time out of mind, the village +Æsculapius, who looked with scorn on his pert rival, and opposed him +tooth and nail on all occasions—insisted that it was not only +physically impossible for poor Mrs. Quarles so to have strangled +herself, but more particularly that, if she had done so, she certainly +could not have laid herself out so decently afterwards; therefore, that +as some one else had kindly done the latter office for her, why not the +former too?</p> + +<p>Thirdly, Sarah Stack, the still-room maid, deposed, that Mrs. Quarles +always locked her door before she went to bed, but that when she +(deponent) went to call her as usual on the fatal morning, the door was +just ajar; and so she found her dead: while parallel with this, tending +to implicate some domestic criminal, was to be placed the equally +uncommon fact, that the other door of Mrs. Quarles's room, leading to +the lawn, was open too:—be it known that Mrs. Quarles was a stout +woman, who could'nt abide to sleep up-stairs, for fear of fire; +moreover, that she was a nervous woman, who took extraordinary +precautions for her safety, in case of thieves. Thus, unaccountably +enough, the murderer, if there was any, was as likely to have come from +the outside, as from the in.</p> + +<p>Fourthly, the murderer in this way is commonly a thief, and does the +deed for mammon-sake; but the new house-keeper, lately installed, made +her deposition, that, by inventories duly kept and entered—for her +honoured predecessor, rest her soul! had been a pattern of +regularity—all Mrs. Quarles's goods and personal chattels were found to +be safe and right in her room—some silver spoons among them too—ay, +and a silver tea-pot; while, as to other property in the house, with +every room full of valuables, nothing whatever was missing from the +lists, except, indeed, what was scarce worth mention (unless one must be +very exact), sundry crocks and gallipots of honey, not forthcoming; +these, however, it appeared probable that Mrs. Quarles had herself +consumed in a certain mixture she nightly was accustomed too, of rum, +horehound, and other matters <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_026" id="Page_026"></a>[Pg 026]</span>sweetened up with honey, for her +hoarseness. It seemed therefore clear she was not murdered for her +property, nor by any one intending to have robbed the house.</p> + +<p>Against this it was contended, and really with some show of reason, that +as Mrs. Quarles was thought to have a hoard, always set her face against +banks, railway shares, speculations, and investments, and seemed to have +left nothing behind her but her clothes and so forth, it was still +possible that the murderer who took the life, might have also been the +thief to take the money.</p> + +<p>Fifthly, Simon Jennings—butler in doors, bailiff out of doors, and +general factotum every where to the Vincent interest—for he had managed +to monopolize every place worth having, from the agent's book to the +cellar-man's key—the said Simon deposed, that on the night in question, +he heard the house-dog barking furiously, and went out to quiet him; but +found no thieves, nor knew any reason why the dog should have barked so +much.</p> + +<p>Now, the awkward matter in this deposition (if Mr. Jennings had not been +entirely above suspicion—the idea was quite absurd—not to mention that +he was nephew to the deceased, a great favourite with her, and a man +altogether of the very strictest character), the awkward matters were +these: the nearest way out to the dog, indeed the only way but casement +windows on that side of the house, was through Mrs. Quarles's room: she +had had the dog placed there for her special safety, as she slept on the +ground floor; and it was not to be thought that Mr. Jennings could do so +incorrect a thing as to pass through her room after bed-time, locked or +unlocked—indeed, when the question was delicately hinted to him, he was +quite shocked at it—quite shocked. But if he did not go that way, which +way did he go? He deposed, indeed, and his testimony was no ways to be +doubted, that he went through the front door, and so round; which, under +the circumstances, was at once a very brave and a very foolish thing to +do; for it is, first, little wisdom to go round two sides of a square to +quiet a dog, when one might have easily called to him from the +men-servants' window; and secondly, albeit Mr. Jennings was a strict +man, an upright man, shrewd withal, and calculating, no one had ever +thought him capable of that Roman virtue, courage. Still, he had +reluctantly confessed to this one heroic act, and it was a bold one, so +let him take the credit of it—mainly because—</p> + +<p>Sixthly, Jonathan Floyd, footman, after having heard the dog bark at +intervals, surely for more than a couple of hours, thought he might as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_027" id="Page_027"></a>[Pg 027]</span>well turn out of his snug berth for a minute, just to see what ailed +the dog, or how many thieves were really breaking in. Well, as he +looked, he fancied he saw a boat moving on the lake, but as there was no +moon, he might have been mistaken.</p> + +<p><i>By a Juryman.</i> It might be a punt.</p> + +<p><i>By another.</i> He did'nt know how many boats there were on the +lake-side: they had a boat-house at the Hall, by the water's edge, and +therefore he concluded something in it; really did'nt know; might be a +boat, might be a punt, might be both—or neither.</p> + +<p><i>By the Coroner.</i> Could not swear which way it was moving; and, really, +if put upon his Bible oath, wouldn't be positive about a boat at all, it +was so dark, and he was so sleepy.</p> + +<p>Not long afterwards, as the dog got still more violent, he turned his +eyes from straining after shadows on the lake, to look at home, and then +all at once noticed Mr. Jennings trying to quiet the noisy animal with +the usual blandishments of "Good dog, good dog—quiet, Don, quiet—down, +good dog—down, Don, down!"</p> + +<p><i>By a Juryman.</i> He would swear to the words.</p> + +<p>But Don would not hear of being quiet. After that, knowing all must be +right if Mr. Jennings was about, he (deponent) turned in again, went to +sleep, and thought no more of it till he heard of Mrs. Quarles's death +in the morning. If he may be so bold as to speak his mind, he thinks the +house-keeper, being fat, died o' the 'plexy in a nateral way, and that +the dog barking so, just as she was a-going off, is proof positive of +it. He'd often heard of dogs doing so; they saw the sperit gliding away, +and barked at it; his (deponent's) own grandmother—</p> + +<p>At this juncture—for the court was getting fidgetty—the coroner cut +short the opinions of Jonathan Floyd: and when Mr. Crown, summing up, +presented in one focus all this evidence to the misty minds of the +assembled jurymen, it puzzled them entirely; they could not see their +way, fairly addled, did not know at all what to make of it. On the +threshold, there was no proof it was a murder—the Union doctor was loud +and staunch on this; and next, there seemed to be no motive for the +deed, and no one to suspect of it: so they left the matter open, found +her simply "Dead," and troubled their heads no more about the business.</p> + +<p>Good Mr. Evans, the vicar, preached her funeral sermon, only as last +Sunday, amplifying the idea that she "was cut off in the midst of her +days:" and thereby encouraging many of the simpler folks, who knew that +Mrs. Quarles had long passed seventy, in the luminous notion that +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_028" id="Page_028"></a>[Pg 028]</span>house-keepers in great establishments are privileged, among other +undoubted perquisites, to live to a hundred and forty, unless cut off by +apoplexy or murder.</p> + +<p>Mr. Simon Jennings, as nephew and next of kin, followed the body to its +last home in the capacity of chief mourner; to do him justice, he was a +real mourner, bewailed her loudly, and had never been the same man +since. Moreover, although aforetime not much given to indiscriminate +charity, he had now gained no small credit by distributing his aunt's +wardrobe among the poorer families at Hurstley. It was really very kind +of him, and the more so, as being altogether unexpected: he got great +praise for this, did Mr. Jennings; specially, too, because he had gained +nothing whatever from his aunt's death, though her heir and probable +legatee, and clearly was a disappointed man.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<h4>THE BAILIFF; AND A BITTER TRIAL.</h4> + + +<p>Jennings—Mr. Simon Jennings—for he prided himself much both +on the Mr. and the Simon, was an upright man, a very upright man indeed, +literally so as well as metaphorically. He was not tall certainly, but +what there was of him stood bolt upright. Many fancied that his neck was +possessed of some natural infirmity, or rather firmity, of +unbendableness, some little-to-be-envied property of being a perpetual +stiff-neck; and they were the more countenanced in this theory, from the +fact that, within a few days past, Mr. Jennings had contracted an ugly +knack of carrying his erect head in the comfortless position of peeping +over his left shoulder; not always so, indeed, but often enough to be +remarkable; and then he would occasionally start it straight again, eyes +right, with a nervous twitch, any thing but pleasant to the marvelling +spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some +vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr. +Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to +wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an enterprising practitioner, glib +in theory, and bold in practice—and it had been mutually agreed between +them that "stomach" was the cause of these unhandsome symptoms; acridity +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_029" id="Page_029"></a>[Pg 029]</span>of the gastric juice, consequent indigestion and spasm, and generally a +hypochondriacal habit of body. Mr. Jennings must take certain draughts +thrice a day, be very careful of his diet, and keep his mind at ease. As +to Simon himself, he was, poor man, much to be pitied in this ideal +visitation; for, though his looks confessed that he saw, or fancied he +saw, a something, he declared himself wholly at a loss to explain what +that something was: moreover, contrary to former habits of an +ostentatious boldness, he seemed meekly to shrink from observation: and, +as he piously acquiesced in the annoyance, would observe that his +unpleasant jerking was "a little matter after all, and that, no doubt, +the will of Providence."</p> + +<p>Independently of these new grimaces, Simon's appearance was little in +his favour: not that his small dimensions signified—Cæsar, and +Buonaparte, and Wellington, and Nelson, all were little men—not that +his dress was other than respectable—black coat and waistcoat, white +stiff cravat, gray trowsers somewhat shrunk in longitude, good +serviceable shoe-leather (of the shape, if not also of the size, of +river barges), and plenty of unbleached cotton stocking about the +gnarled region of his ankles. All this was well enough; nature was +beholden to that charity of art which hides a multitude of failings; but +the face, where native man looks forth in all his unadornment, that it +was which so seldom pre-possessed the many who had never heard of +Jenning's strict character and stern integrity. The face was a sallow +face, peaked towards the nose, with head and chin receding; lit withal +by small protrusive eyes, so constructed, that the whites all round were +generally visible, giving them a strange and staring look; elevated +eye-brows; not an inch of whisker, but all shaved sore right up to the +large and prominent ear; and lank black, hair, not much of it, scantily +thatching all smooth. Then his arms, oscillating as he walked (as if the +pendulum by which that rigid man was made to go his regular routine), +were much too long for symmetry: and altogether, to casual view, Mr. +Jennings must acknowledge to a supercilious, yet sneaking air—which +charity has ere now been kind enough to think a conscious rectitude +towards man, and a soft-going humility with God.</p> + +<p>When the bailiff takes his round about the property, as we see him now, +he is mounted—to say he rides would convey far too equestrian a +notion—he is mounted on a rough-coated, quiet, old, white +shooting-pony; the saddle strangely girded on with many bands about the +belly, the stirrups astonishingly short, and straps never called upon to +diminish that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_030" id="Page_030"></a>[Pg 030]</span>long whity-brown interval between shoe and trowser: Mr. +Jennings sits his steed with nose aloft, and a high perch in the +general, somewhat loosely, and, had the pony been a Bucephalus rather +than a Rozinante, not a little perilously. Simon is jogging hitherwards +toward Roger Acton, as he digs the land-drain across this marshy meadow: +let us see how it fares now with our poor hero.</p> + +<p>Occupation—yes, duteous occupation—has exerted its wholsesome +influences, and, thank God! Roger is himself again. He has been very +sorry half the day, both for the wicked feelings of the morning, and +that still more wicked theft—a bad business altogether, he cannot bear +to think of it; the gold was none of his, whosesoever it might be—he +ought not to have touched it—vexed he did, but cannot help it now; it +is well he lost it too, for ill-got money never came to any good: +though, to be sure, if he could only get it honestly, money would make a +man of him.</p> + +<p>I am not sure of that, Roger, it may be so sometimes; but, in my +judgment, money has unmade more men than made them.</p> + +<p>"How now, Acton, is not this drain dug yet! You have been about it much +too long, sir; I shall fine you for this."</p> + +<p>"Please you, Muster Jennings, I've stuck to it pretty tightly too, +barring that I make to-day three-quarters, being late: but it's heavy +clay, you see, Mr. Simon—wet above and iron-hard below: it shall all be +ready by to-morrow, Mr. Simon."</p> + +<p>Whether the "Mr. Simon" had its softening influence, or any other +considerations lent their soothing aid, we shall see presently; for the +bailiff added, in a tone unusually indulgent,</p> + +<p>"Well, Roger, see it is done, and well done; and now I have just another +word to say to you: his honour is coming round this way, and if he asks +you any questions, remember to be sure and tell him this—you have got a +comfortable cottage, very comfortable, just repaired, you want for +nothing, and are earning twelve shillings a week."</p> + +<p>"God help me, Muster Jennings: why my wages are but eight, and my hovel +scarcely better than a pig-pound."</p> + +<p>"Look you, Acton; tell Sir John what you have told me, and you are a +ruined man. Make it twelve to his honour, as others shall do: who +knows," he added, half-coaxing, half-soliloquizing, "perhaps his honour +may really make it twelve, instead of eight."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Muster Jennings! and who gets the odd four?"</p> + +<p>"What, man! do you dare to ask me that? Remember, sir, at your peril, +that you, and all the rest, <i>have had</i> twelve shillings a-week wages +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_031" id="Page_031"></a>[Pg 031]</span>whenever you have worked on this estate—not a word!—and that, if you +dare speak or even think to the contrary, you never earn a penny here +again. But here comes John Vincent, my master, as I, Simon Jennings, am +yours: be careful what you say to him."</p> + +<p>Sir John Devereux Vincent, after a long minority, had at length shaken +off his guardians, and become master of his own doings, and of Hurstley +Hall. The property was in pretty decent order, and funds had accumulated +vastly: all this notwithstanding a thousand peculations, and the +suspicious incident that one of the guardians was a "highly respectable" +solicitor. Sir John, like most new brooms, had with the best intentions +resolved upon sweeping measures of great good; especially also upon +doing a great deal with his own eyes and ears; but, like as aforesaid, +he was permitted neither to hear nor see any truths at all. Just now, +the usual night's work took him a little off the hooks, and we must make +allowances; really, too, he was by far the soberest of all those choice +spirits, and drank and played as little as he could; and even, under +existing disadvantages, he managed by four o'clock post meridiem to +inspect a certain portion of the estate duly every day, under the +prudential guidance of his bailiff Jennings. There, that good-looking, +tall young fellow on the blood mare just cantering up to us is Sir John; +the other two are a couple of the gallant youths now feasting at the +Hall: ay, two of the fiercest foes in last night's broil. Those heated +little matters are easily got over.</p> + +<p>"Hollo, Jennings! what the devil made you give that start? you couldn't +look more horrified if ghosts were at your elbow: why, your face is the +picture of death; look another way, man, do, or my mare will bolt."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Sir John, but the spasm took me: it is my infirmity; +forgive it. This meadow, you perceive, Sir John, requires drainage, and +afterwards I propose to dress it with free chalk to sweeten the grass. +Next field, you will take notice, the guano—"</p> + +<p>"Well, well—Jennings—and that poor fellow there up to his knees in +mud, is he pretty tolerably off now?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, your honour," said the bailiff, with a knowing look, "I only wish +that half the little farmers hereabouts were as well to do as he is: a +pretty cottage, Sir John, half an acre of garden, and twelve shillings a +week, is pretty middling for a single man."</p> + +<p>"Aha—is it?—well; but the poor devil looks wretched enough too—I will +just ask him if he wants any thing now."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_032" id="Page_032"></a>[Pg 032]</span>"Don't, Sir John, pray don't; pray permit me to advise your honour: +these men are always wanting. 'Acton's cottage' is a proverb; and Roger +there can want for nothing honestly; nevertheless, as I know your +honour's good heart, and wish to make all happy, if you will suffer me +to see to it myself—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Jennings, do, do by all means, and thank you: here, just to +make a beginning, as we're all so jolly at the Hall, and that poor +fellow's up to his neck in mud, give him this from me to drink my health +with."</p> + +<p>Acton, who had dutifully held aloof, and kept on digging steadily, was +still quite near enough to hear all this; at the magical word "give," he +looked up hurriedly, and saw Sir John Vincent toss a piece of gold—yes, +on his dying oath, a bright new sovereign—to Simon Jennings. O blessed +vision, and gold was to be his at last!</p> + +<p>"Come along, Mynton; Hunt, now mind you try and lame that big beast of a +raw-boned charger among these gutters, will you? I'm off, Jennings; meet +me, do you hear, at the Croft to-mor—"</p> + +<p>So the three friends galloped away; and John Vincent really felt more +light-hearted and happy than at any time the week past, for having so +properly got rid of a welcome bit of gold.</p> + +<p>"Roger Acton! come up here, sir, out of that ditch: his honour has been +liberal enough to give you a shilling to drink his health with."</p> + +<p>"A shilling, Muster Jennings?" said the poor astonished man; "why I'll +make oath it was a pound; I saw it myself. Come, Muster Jennings, don't +break jokes upon a poor man's back."</p> + +<p>"Jokes, Acton? sticks, sir, if you say another word: take John Vincent's +shilling."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir!" cried Roger, quite unmanned at this most cruel +disappointment; "be merciful—be generous—give me my gold, my own bit +of gold! I'll swear his honour gave it for me: blessings on his head! +You know he did, Mr. Simon; don't play upon me!"</p> + +<p>"Play upon you?—generous—your gold—what is it you mean, man? We'll +have no madmen about us, I can tell you; take the shilling, or else—"</p> + +<p>"'Rob not the poor, because he is poor, for the Lord shall plead his +cause,'" was the solemn answer.</p> + +<p>"Roger Acton!"—the bailiff gave a scared start, as usual, and, +recovering himself, looked both white and stern: "you have dared to +quote the Bible against me: deeply shall you rue it. Begone, man! your +work on this estate is at an end."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_033" id="Page_033"></a>[Pg 033]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<h4>WRONGS AND RUIN.</h4> + + +<p>A very miserable man was Roger Acton now, for this last trial +was the worst of all. The vapours of his discontent had almost passed +away—that bright pernicious dream was being rapidly forgotten—the +morning's ill-got coin, "thank the Lord, it was lost as soon as found," +and penitence had washed away that blot upon his soul; but here, an +honest pound, liberally bestowed by his hereditary landlord—his own +bright bit of gold—the only bit but one he ever had (and how different +in innocence from that one!)—a seeming sugar-drop of kindness, shed by +the rich heavens on his cup of poverty—to have this meanly filched away +by a grasping, grinding task-master—oh, was it not a bitter trial? What +affliction as to this world's wealth can a man meet worse than this?</p> + +<p>Acton's first impulse was to run to the Hall, and ask to see Sir +John:—"Out; won't be back till seven, and then can see nobody; the +baronet will be dressing for dinner, and musn't be disturbed." Then he +made a vain effort to speak with Mr. Jennings, and plead with him: yes, +even on his knees, if must be. Mr. Simon could not be so bad; perhaps it +was a long joke after all—the bailiff always had a queer way with him. +Or, if indeed the man meant robbery, loudly to threaten him, that all +might hear, to bring the house about his ears, and force justice, if he +could not fawn it. But both these conflicting expedients were vetoed. +Jonathan Floyd, who took in Acton's meek message of "humbly craved leave +to speak with Master Jennings," came back with the inexplicable mandate, +"Warn Roger Acton from the premises." So, he must needs bide till +to-morrow morning, when, come what might, he resolved to see his honour, +and set some truths before him.</p> + +<p>Acton was not the only man on the estate who knew that he had a +landlord, generous, not to say prodigal—a warm-hearted, +well-intentioned master, whose mere youth a career of sensuality had not +yet hardened, nor a course of dissipation been prolonged enough to +distort his feelings from the right. And Acton, moreover, was not the +only man who wondered how, with such a landlord (ay, and the guardians +before him were always well-spoken gentle-folks, kindly in their +manners, and liberal in their looks), wages could be kept so low, and +rents <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_034" id="Page_034"></a>[Pg 034]</span>so high, and indulgences so few, and penalties so many. There +were fines for every thing, and no allowances of hedgebote, or +housebote, or any other time-honoured right; the very peat on the common +must be paid for, and if a child picked a bit of fagot the father was +mulcted in a shilling. Mr. Jennings did all this, and always pleaded his +employers' orders; nay, if any grumbled, as men would now and then, he +would affect to think it strange that the gentlemen guardians, with the +landlord at their head, could be so hard upon the poor: he would not be +so, credit him, if he had been born a gentleman; but the bailiff, men, +must obey orders, like the rest of you; these are hard times for +Hurstley, he would say, and we must all rub over them as best we can. +According to Simon, it was as much as his own place was worth to remit +one single penny of a fine, or make the least indulgence for calamity; +while, as to lowering a cotter's rent, or raising a ditcher's wages, he +dared not do it for his life; folks must not blame him, but look to the +landlord.</p> + +<p>Now, all this, in the long absence of any definite resident master at +the Hall, sounded reasonable, if true; and Mr. Jennings punctually paid, +however bad the terms; so the poor men bode their time, and looked for +better days. And the days long-looked-for now were come; but were they +any better? The baronet, indeed, seemed bent upon inquiry, reform, +redress; but, as he never went without the right-hand man, his +endeavours were always unsuccessful. At first it would appear that the +bailiff had gone upon his old plan, shrugging up his shoulders to the +men at the master's meanness, while he praised to the landlord the +condition of his tenants; but this could not long deceive, so he turned +instanter on another tack; he assumed the despot, issuing authoritative +edicts, which no one dared to disobey; he made the labourer hide his +needs, and intercepted at its source the lord's benevolence; he began to +be found out, so the bolder spirits said, in filching with both hands +from man and master; and, to the mind of more than one shrewd observer, +was playing the unjust steward to admiration.</p> + +<p>But stop: let us hear the other side; it is possible we may have been +mistaken. Bailiffs are never popular, particularly if they are too +honest, and this one is a stern man with a repulsive manner. Who knows +whether his advice to Acton may not have been wise and kind, and would +not have conduced to a general rise of wages? Who can prove, nay, +venture to insinuate, any such systematic roguery against a man hitherto +so strict, so punctual, so sanctimonious? Even in the case of Sir John's +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_035" id="Page_035"></a>[Pg 035]</span>golden gift, Jennings may be right after all; it is quite possible that +Roger was mistaken, and had gilt a piece of silver with his longings; +and the upright man might well take umbrage at so vile an imputation as +that hot and silly speech; it was foolish, very foolish, to have quoted +text against him, and no wonder that the labourer got dismissed for it. +Then again to return to wages—who knows? it might be, all things +considered, the only way of managing a rise; the bailiff must know his +master's mind best, and Acton had been wise to have done as he bade him; +perhaps it really was well-meant, and might have got him twelve +shillings a-week, instead of eight as hitherto; perhaps Simon was a +shrewd man, and arranged it cleverly; perhaps Roger was an honest man, +and couldn't but think others so.</p> + +<p>Any how, though, all was lost now, and he blamed his own rash tongue, +poor fellow, for what he could not help fearing was the ruin of himself +and all he loved. With a melancholy heart, he shouldered his spade, and +slowly plodded homewards. How long should he have a home? How was he to +get bread, to get work, if the bailiff was his enemy? How could he face +his wife, and tell her all the foolish past and dreadful future? How +could he bear to look on Grace, too beautiful Grace, and torture his +heart by fancying her fate? Thomas, too, his own brave boy, whom utter +poverty might drive to desperation? And the poor babes, his little +playful pets, what on earth would become of them? There was the Union +workhouse to be sure, but Acton shuddered at the thought; to be +separated from every thing he loved, to give up his little all, and be +made both a prisoner and a slave, all for the sake of what?—daily +water-gruel, and a pauper's branded livery. Or they might perchance go +beyond the seas, if some Prince Edward's Company would help him and his +to emigrate; ay, thought he, and run new risks, encounter fresh dangers, +lose every thing, get nothing, and all the trouble taken merely to +starve three thousand miles from home. No, no; at his time of life, he +could not be leaving for ever old friends, old habits, old fields, old +home, old neighbourhood—where he had seen the saplings grow up trees, +and the quick toppings change into a ten-foot hedge; where the very +cattle knew his step, and the clods broke kindly to his ploughshare; and +more than all, the dear old church, where his forefathers had worshipped +from the Conquest, and the old mounds where they slept, +and—and—and—that one precious grave of his dear lost Annie—could he +leave it? Oh God, no! he had done no ill, he had committed no crime—why +should he prefer the convict's doom, and seek to be transported for +life?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_036" id="Page_036"></a>[Pg 036]</span>A miserable walk home was that, and full of wretched thoughts. Poor +Roger Acton, tossed by much trouble, vexed with sore oppression, I wish +that you had prayed in your distress; stop, he did pray, and that +vehemently; but it was not for help, or guidance, or patience, or +consolation—he only prayed for gold.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h4>THE COVETOUS DREAM.</h4> + + +<p>Once at home, the sad truth soon was told. Roger's look alone +spoke of some calamity, and he had but little heart or hope to keep the +matter secret. True, he said not a word about the early morning's sin; +why should he? he had been punished for it, and he had repented; let him +be humbled before God, but not confess to man. However, all about the +bailiff, and the landlord, and the thieved gift, and the sudden +dismissal, the sure ruin, the dismal wayside plans, and fears, and dark +alternatives, without one hope in any—these did poor Acton fluently +pour forth with broken-hearted eloquence; to these Grace listened +sorrowfully, with a face full of gentle trust in God's blessing on the +morrow's interview; these Mary, the wife, heard to an end, with—no +storm of execration on ill-fortune, no ebullition of unjust rage against +a fool of a husband, no vexing sneers, no selfish apprehensions. Far +from it; there really was one unlooked-for blessing come already to +console poor Roger; and no little compensation for his trouble was the +way his wife received the news. He, unlucky man, had expected something +little short of a virago's talons, and a beldame's curse; he had +experienced on less occasions something of the sort before; but now that +real affliction stood upon the hearth, Mary Acton's character rose with +the emergency, and she greeted her ruined husband with a kindness +towards him, a solemn indignation against those who grind the poor, and +a sober courage to confront evil, which he little had imagined.</p> + +<p>"Bear up, Roger; here, goodman, take the child, and don't look quite so +downcast; come what may, I'll share your cares, and you shall halve my +pleasures; we will fight it out together."</p> + +<p>Moreover, cross, and fidgetty, and scolding, as Mary had been ever +heretofore, to her meek step-daughter Grace, all at once, as if just to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_037" id="Page_037"></a>[Pg 037]</span>disappoint any preconcerted theory, now that actual calamity was come, +she turned to be a kind good mother to her. Roger and his daughter could +scarcely believe their ears.</p> + +<p>"Grace, dear, I know you're a sensible good girl, try and cheer your +father." And then the step-dame added,</p> + +<p>"There now, just run up, fetch your prayer-book down, and read a little +to us all to do us good."—The fair, affectionate girl, unused to the +accents of kindness, could not forbear flinging her arms round Mary +Acton's neck, and loving her, as Ruth loved Naomi.</p> + +<p>Then with a heavenly smile upon her face, and a happy heart within her +to keep the smile alight, her gentle voice read these words—it will do +us good to read them too:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Because there is mercy with thee; therefore shall thou be feared.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I look for the Lord, my soul doth wait for him: in his word is my trust.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My soul fleeth unto the Lord, before the morning watch, before the morning watch.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy: and with him is plenteous redemption.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"Isn't the last word 'troubles,' child? look again; I think it's +'troubles' either there, or leastways in the Bible-psalm."</p> + +<p>"No, father, sins, 'from all his sins;' and 'iniquities' in the +Bible-version—look, father."</p> + +<p>"Well, girl, well; I wish it had been 'troubles;' 'from all his +troubles' is a better thought to my mind: God wot, I have plenty on 'em, +and a little lot of gold would save us from them all."</p> + +<p>"Gold, father? no, my father—God."</p> + +<p>"I tell you, child," said Roger, ever vacillating in his strong +temptation between habitual religion and the new-caught lust of money, +"if only on a sudden I could get gold by hook or by crook, all my cares +and all your troubles would be over on the instant."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear father, do not hope so; and do not think of troubles more than +sins; there is no deliverance in Mammon; riches profit not in the day of +evil, and ill-got wealth tends to worse than poverty."</p> + +<p>"Well, any how, I only wish that dream of mine came true."</p> + +<p>"Dream, goodman—what dream?" said his wife.</p> + +<p>"Why, Poll, I dreamt I was a-working in my garden, hard by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_038" id="Page_038"></a>[Pg 038]</span>celery +trenches in the sedge; and I was moaning at my lot, as well I may: and a +sort of angel came to me, only he looked dark and sorrowful, and kindly +said, 'What would you have, Roger?' I, nothing fearful in my dream, for +all the strangeness of his winged presence, answered boldly, 'Money;' he +pointed with his finger, laughed aloud, and vanished away: and, as for +me, I thought a minute wonderingly, turned to look where he had pointed, +and, O the blessing! found a crock of gold!"</p> + +<p>"Hush, father! that dark angel was the devil; he has dropt ill thoughts +upon your heart: I would I could see you as you used to be, dear father, +till within these two days."</p> + +<p>"Whoever he were, if he brought me gold, he would bring me blessing. +There's meat and drink, and warmth and shelter, in the yellow gold—ay, +and rest from labour, child, and a power of rare good gifts."</p> + +<p>"If God had made them good, and the gold were honest gains, still, +father, even so, you forget righteousness, and happiness, and wisdom. +Money gives us none of these, but it might take them all away: dear +father, let your loving Grace ask you, have you been better, happier, +wiser, even from the wishing it so much?"</p> + +<p>"Daughter, daughter, I tell you plainly, he that gives me gold, gives me +all things: I wish I found the crock the de—the angel, I mean, brought +me."</p> + +<p>"O father," murmured Grace, "do not breathe the wicked wish; even if you +found it without any evil angel's help, would the gold be rightfully +your own?"</p> + +<p>"Tush, girl!" said her mother; "get the gold, feed the children, and +then to think about the right."</p> + +<p>"Ay, Grace, first drive away the toils and troubles of this life," added +Roger, "and then one may try with a free mind to discover the comforts +of religion."</p> + +<p>Poor Grace only looked up mournfully, and answered nothing.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_039" id="Page_039"></a>[Pg 039]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<h4>THE POACHER.</h4> + + +<p>A sudden knock at the door here startled the whole party, and +Mary Acton, bustling up, drew the bolt to let in—first, a lurcher, one +Rover to wit, our gaunt ember-loving friend of Chapter II.; secondly, +Thomas Acton, full flush, who carried the old musket on his shoulder, +and seemed to have something else under his smock; and thirdly, Ben +Burke, a personage of no small consequence to us, and who therefore +deserves some specific introduction.</p> + +<p>Big Ben, otherwise Black Burke, according to the friendship or the +enmity of those who named him, was a huge, rough, loud, good-humoured, +dare-devil sort of an individual, who lived upon what he considered +common rights. His dress was of the mongrel character, a well-imagined +cross between a ploughman's and a sailor's; the bottle-green frock of +the former, pattern-stitched about the neck as ingeniously as if a tribe +of Wisconsin squaws had tailored it—and mighty fishing boots, vast as +any French postillion's, acting as a triton's tail to symbolize the +latter: a red cotton handkerchief (dirty-red of course, as all things +else were dirty, for cleanliness had little part in Ben), occupied just +now the more native region of a halter; and a rusty fur cap crowned the +poacher; I repeat it—crowned the poacher; for in his own estimation, +and that of many others too, Ben was, if not quite an emperor, at least +an Agamemnon, a king of men, a natural human monarch; in truth, he felt +as much pride in the title Burke the Poacher (and with as great justice +too, for aught I know), as Ali-Hamet-Ghee-the-Thug eastwards, or +William-of-Normandy-the-Conqueror westwards, may be thought respectively +to have cherished, on the score of their murderous and thievish +surnames.</p> + +<p>There was no small good, after all, in poor Ben; and a mountain of +allowance must be flung into the scales to counterbalance his +deficiencies. However coarse, and even profane, in his talk (I hope the +gentle reader will excuse me alike for eliding a few elegant extracts +from his common conversation, and also for reminding him +characteristically, now and then, that Ben's language is not entirely +Addisonian), however rough of tongue and dissonant in voice, Ben's heart +will be found much about in the right place; nay, I verily believe it +has more of natural <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_040" id="Page_040"></a>[Pg 040]</span>justice, human kindness, and right sympathies in +it, than are to be found in many of those hard and hollow cones that +beat beneath the twenty-guinea waistcoats of a Burghardt or a +Buckmaster. Ay, give me the fluttering inhabitant of Ben Burke's cowskin +vest; it is worth a thousand of those stuffed and artificial denizens, +whose usual nest is figured satin and cut velvet.</p> + +<p>Ben stole—true—he did not deny it; but he stole naught but what he +fancied was wrongfully withheld him: and, if he took from the rich, who +scarcely knew he robbed them, he shared his savoury booty with the poor, +and fed them by his daring. Like Robin Hood of old, he avenged himself +on wanton wealth, and frequently redressed by it the wrongs of penury. +Not that I intend to break a lance for either of them, nor to go any +lengths in excusing; slight extenuation is the limit for prudent +advocacy in these cases. Robin Hood and Benjamin Burke were both of them +thieves; bold men—bad men, if any will insist upon the bad; they sinned +against law, and order, and Providence; they dug rudely at the roots of +social institutions; they spoke and acted in a dangerous fashion about +rights of men and community of things. But set aside the statutes of +Foresting and Venery, disfranchise pheasants, let it be a cogent thing +that poverty and riches approach the golden mean somewhat less +unequally, and we shall not find much of criminality, either in Ben or +Robin.</p> + +<p>For a general idea, then, of our poaching friend:—he is a gigantic, +black-whiskered, humorous, ruddy mortal, full of strange oaths, which we +really must not print, and bearded like the pard, and he tumbles in +amongst our humble family party, with—</p> + +<p>"Bless your honest heart, Roger! what makes you look so sodden? I'm a +lord, if your eyes a'n't as red as a hedge-hog's; and all the rest o' +you, too; why, you seem to be pretty well merry as mutes. Ha! I see what +it is," added Ben, pouring forth a benediction on their frugal supper; +"it's that precious belly-ache porridge that's a-giving you all the +'flensy. Tip it down the sink, dame, will you now? and trust to me for +better. Your Tom here, Roger, 's a lad o' mettle, that he is; ay, and +that old iron o' yours as true as a compass; and the pheasants would +come to it, all the same as if they'd been loadstoned. Here, dame, pluck +the fowl, will you: drop 'em, Tom."—And Thomas Acton flung upon the +table a couple of fine cock-pheasants.</p> + +<p>Roger, Mary, and Grace, who were well accustomed to Ben Burke's eloquent +tirades, heard the end of this one with anxiety and silence; for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_041" id="Page_041"></a>[Pg 041]</span> Tom +had never done the like before. Grace was first to expostulate, but was +at once cut short by an oath from her brother, whose evident state of +high excitement could not brook the semblance of reproof. Mary Acton's +marketing glance was abstractedly fixed upon the actual <i>corpus +delicti</i>; each fine plump bird, full-plumaged, young-spurred; yes, they +were still warm, and would eat tender, so she mechanically began to +pluck them; while, as for poor downcast Roger, he remembered, with a +conscience-sting that almost made him start, his stolen bit of money in +the morning—so, how could he condemn? He only looked pityingly on +Thomas, and sighed from the bottom of his heart.</p> + +<p>"Why, what's the matter now?" roared Ben; "one 'ud think we was bailiffs +come to raise the rent, 'stead of son Tom and friendly Ben; hang it, +mun, we aint here to cheat you out o' summut—no, not out o' peace o' +mind neither; so, if you don't like luck, burn the fowls, or bury 'em, +and let brave Tom risk limbo for nothing."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ben!" murmured Grace, "why will you lead him astray? Oh, brother! +brother! what have you done?" she said, sorrowfully.</p> + +<p>"Miss Grace,"—her beauty always awed the poacher, and his rugged +Caliban spirit bowed in reverence before her Ariel soul—"I wish I was +as good as you, but can't be: don't condemn us, Grace; leastways, first +hear me, and then say where's the harm or sin on it. Twelve hundred head +o' game—I heard John Gorse, the keeper, tell it at the Jerry—twelve +hundred head were shot at t' other day's battew: Sir John—no blame to +him for it—killed a couple o' hundred to his own gun: and though they +sent away a coachful, and gave to all who asked, and feasted themselves +chuckfull, and fed the cats, and all, still a mound, like a haycock, o' +them fine fat fowl, rotted in a mass, and were flung upon the dungpit. +Now, Miss Grace, that ere salt pea-porridge a'n't nice, a'n't wholesome; +and, bless your pretty mouth, it ought to feed more sweetly. Look at +Acton, isn't he half-starved. Is Tom, brave boy, full o' the fat o' the +land? Who made fowl, I should like to know, and us to eat 'em? And +where's the harm or sin in bringing down a bird? No, Miss, them ere +beaks, dammem (beg humble pardon, Miss, indeed I won't again) them ere +justices, as they call themselves, makes hard laws to hedge about their +own pleasures; and if the poor man starves, he starves; but if he stays +his hunger with the free, wild birds of heaven, they prison him and +punish him, and call him poacher."</p> + +<p>"Ben, those who make the laws, do so under God's permission; and they +who break man's law, break His law."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_042" id="Page_042"></a>[Pg 042]</span>"Nonsense, child,"—suddenly said Roger; "hold your silly tongue. Do +you mean to tell us, God's law and man's law are the same thing! No, +Grace, I can't stomach that; God makes right, and man makes +might—riches go one way, and poor men's wrong's another. Money, money's +the great law-maker, and a full purse frees him that has it, while it +turns the jailor's key on the wretch that has it not: one of those +wretches is the hopeless Roger Acton. Well, well," he added, after a +despondent sigh, "say no more about it all; that's right, +good-wife—why, they do look plump. And if I can't stomach Grace's +text-talk there, I'm sure I can the birds; for I know what keeps crying +cupboard lustily."</p> + +<p>It was a faint effort to be gay, and it only showed his gloom the +denser. Truly, he has quite enough to make him sad; but this is an +unhealthy sadness: the mists of mammon-worship, rising up, meet in the +mid æther of his mind, these lowering clouds of discontent: and the +seeming calamity, that should be but a trial to his faith, looks too +likely to wreck it.</p> + +<p>So, then, the embers were raked up, the trivet stuck a-top, the savoury +broil made ready; and (all but Grace, who would not taste a morsel, but +went up straight to bed) never had the Actons yet sate down before so +rich a supper.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3> + +<h4>BEN BURKE'S STRANGE ADVENTURE.</h4> + + +<p>"Take a pull, Roger, and pass the flask," was the cordial +prescription of Ben Burke, intended to cure a dead silence, generated +equally of eager appetites and self-accusing consciences; so saying, he +produced a quart wicker-bottle, which enshrined, according to his +testimony, "summut short, the right stuff, stinging strong, that had +never seen the face of a wishy-washy 'ciseman." But Roger touched it +sparingly, for the vaunted nectar positively burnt his swallow: till +Ben, pulling at it heartily himself, by way of giving moral precept the +full benefit of a good example, taught Roger not to be afraid of it, and +so the flask was drained.</p> + +<p>Under such communicative influence, Acton's tale of sorrows and +oppressions, we may readily believe, was soon made known; and as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_043" id="Page_043"></a>[Pg 043]</span>readily, that it moved Ben's indignant and gigantic sympathies to an +extent of imprecation on the eyes, timbers, and psychological existence +of Mr. Jennings, very little edifying. One thing, however, made amends +for the license of his tongue; the evident sincerity and warmth with +which his coarse but kindly nature proffered instant aid, both offensive +and defensive.</p> + +<p>"It's a black and burning shame, Honest Roger, and right shall have his +own, somehow, while Big Ben has a heart in the old place, and a hand to +help his friend." And the poacher having dealt his own broad breast a +blow that would have knocked a tailor down, stretched out to Acton the +huge hand that had inflicted it.</p> + +<p>"More than that, Roger—hark to this, man!" and, as he slapped his +breeches pocket, there was the chink as of a mine of money shaken to its +foundations: "hark to this, man! and more than hark, have! Here, good +wife, hold your apron!" And he flung into her lap a handful of silver.</p> + +<p>Roger gave a sudden shout of wonder, joy, and avarice: and then as +instantaneously turning very pale, he slowly muttered, "Hush, Ben! is it +bloody money?" and almost shrieked as he added, "and my poor boy Tom, +too, with you! God-a-mercy, mun! how came ye by it?"</p> + +<p>"Honestly, neighbour, leastways, middling honest: don't damp a good +fellow's heart, when he means to serve you."</p> + +<p>"Tell me only that my boy is innocent!—and the money—yes, yes, I'll +keep the money;" for his wife seemed to be pushing it from her at the +thought.</p> + +<p>"I innocent, father! I never know'd till this minute that Ben had any +blunt at all—did I, Ben?—and I only brought him and Rover here to sup, +because I thought it neighbourly and kind-like."</p> + +<p>Poor Tom had till now been very silent: some how the pheasants lay heavy +on his stomach.</p> + +<p>"Is it true, Ben, is it true? the lad isn't a thief, the lad isn't a +murderer? Oh, God! Burke, tell me the truth!</p> + +<p>"Blockhead!" was the courteous reply, "what, not believe your own son? +Why, neighbour Acton, look at the boy: would that frank-faced, +open-hearted fellow do worse, think you, than Black Burke? And would I, +bad as I be, turn the bloody villain to take a man's life? No, +neighbour; Ben kills game, not keepers: he sets his wire for a hare, but +wouldn't go to pick a dead man's pocket. All that's wrong in me, mun, +the game-laws put there; but I'm neither burglar, murderer, +highwayman—no, nor a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_044" id="Page_044"></a>[Pg 044]</span>mean, sneaking thief; however the quality may +think so, and even wish to drive me to it. Neither, being as I be no +rogue, could I bear to live a fool; but I should be one, neighbour, and +dub myself one too, if I didn't stoop to pick up money that a madman +flings away."</p> + +<p>"Madman? pick up money? tell us how it was, Ben," interposed female +curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Well, neighbours, listen: I was a-setting my night-lines round Pike +Island yonder, more nor a fortnight back; it was a dark night and a +mizzling, or morning rather, 'twixt three and four; by the same token, +I'd caught a power of eels. All at once, while I was fixing a trimmer, a +punt came quietly up: as for me, Roger, you know I always wades it +through the muddy shallow: well, I listens, and a chap creeps ashore—a +mad chap, with never a tile to his head, nor a sole to his feet—and +when I sings out to ax him his business, the lunatic sprung at me like a +tiger: I didn't wish to hurt a little weak wretch like him, specially +being past all sense, poor nat'ral! so I shook him off at once, and held +him straight out in this here wice." [Ben's grasp could have cracked any +cocoa-nut.] "He trembled like a wicked thing; and when I peered close +into his face, blow me but I thought I'd hooked a white devil—no one +ever see such a face: it was horrible too look at. 'What are you arter, +mun?' says I; 'burying a dead babby?' says I. 'Give us hold here—I'm +bless'd if I don't see though what you've got buckled up there.' With +that, the little white fool—it's sartin he was mad—all on a sudden +flings at my head a precious hard bundle, gives a horrid howl, jumps +into the punt, and off again, afore I could wink twice. My head a'n't a +soft un, I suppose; but when a lunatic chap hurls at it with all his +might a barrow-load of crockery at once, it's little wonder that my +right eye flinched a minute, and that my right hand rubbed my right eye; +and so he freed himself, and got clear off. Rum start this, thinks I: +but any how he's flung away a summut, and means to give it me: what can +it be? thinks I. Well, neighbours, if I didn't know the chap was mad +afore, I was sartain of it now; what do you think of a grown man—little +enough, truly, but out of long coats too—sneaking by night to Pike +Island, to count out a little lot of silver, and to guzzle twelve +gallipots o' honey? There it was, all hashed up in an old shawl, a slimy +mesh like birdlime: no wonder my eye was a leetle blackish, when +half-a-dozen earthern crocks were broken against it. I was angered +enough, I tell you, to think any man could be such a fool as to bring +honey there to eat or to hide—when at once I spied summut red <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_045" id="Page_045"></a>[Pg 045]</span>among +the mess; and what should it be but a pretty little China house, +red-brick-like, with a split in the roof for droppings, and ticketed +'Savings-bank:' the chink o' that bank you hears now: and the bank +itself is in the pond, now I've cleaned the till out."</p> + +<p>"Wonderful sure! But what did you do with the honey, Ben?—some of the +pots wasn't broke," urged notable Mrs. Acton.</p> + +<p>"Oh, burn the slimy stuff, I warn't going to put my mouth out o' taste +o' bacca, for a whole jawful of tooth-aches: I'll tell you, dame, what I +did with them ere crocks, wholes, and parts. There's never a stone on +Pike Island, it's too swampy, and I'd forgot to bring my pocketful, as +usual. The heaviest fish, look you, always lie among the sedge, +hereabouts and thereabouts, and needs stirring, as your Tom knows well; +so I chucked the gallipots fur from me, right and left, into the +shallows, and thereby druv the pike upon my hooks. A good night's work I +made of it too, say nothing of the Savings-bank; forty pound o' pike and +twelve of eel warn't bad pickings."</p> + +<p>"Dear, it was a pity though to fling away the honey; but what became of +the shawl, Ben?" Perhaps Mrs. Acton thought of looking for it.</p> + +<p>"Oh, as for that, I was minded to have sunk it, with its mess of +sweet-meats and potsherds; but a thought took me, dame, to be +'conomical for once: and I was half sorry too that I'd flung away the +jars, for I began to fancy your little uns might ha' liked the stuff; so +I dipped the clout like any washerwoman, rinshed, and squeezed, and +washed the mess away, and have worn it round my waist ever since; here, +dame, I haven't been this way for a while afore to-night; but I meant to +ask you if you'd like to have it; may be 'tan't the fashion though."</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, Ben! why that's Mrs. Quarles's shawl, I'd swear to it +among a hundred; Sarah Stack, at the Hall, once took and wore it, when +Mrs. Quarles was ill a-bed, and she and our Thomas walked to church +together. Yes—green, edged with red, and—I thought so—a yellow circle +in the middle; here's B.Q., for Bridget Quarles, in black cotton at the +corner. Lackapity! if they'd heard of all this at the Inquest! I tell +you what, Big Ben, it's kindly meant of you, and so thank you heartily, +but that shawl would bring us into trouble; so please take it yourself +to the Hall, and tell 'em fairly how you came by it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know about that Poll Acton; perhaps they might ask me for the +Saving-bank, too—eh, Roger!"</p> + +<p>"No, no, wife; no, it'll never do to lose the money! let a bygone be a +bygone, and don't disturb the old woman in her grave. As to the shawl, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_046" id="Page_046"></a>[Pg 046]</span>if it's like to be a tell-tale, in my mind, this hearth's the safest +place for it."</p> + +<p>So he flung it on the fire; there was a shrivelling, smouldering, guilty +sort of blaze, and the shawl was burnt.</p> + +<p>Roger Acton, you are falling quickly as a shooting star; already is your +conscience warped to connive, for lucre's sake, at some one's secret +crimes. You had better, for the moral of the matter, have burnt your +right hand, as Scævola did, than that shawl. Beware! your sin will bring +its punishment.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3> + +<h4>SLEEP.</h4> + + +<p>Grace, in her humble truckle-bed, lay praying for her father; +not about his trouble, though that was much, but for the spots of sin +she could discern upon his soul.</p> + +<p>Alas! an altered man was Roger Acton; almost since morning light, the +leprosy had changed his very nature. The simple-minded Christian, +toiling in contentment for his daily bread, cheerful for the passing +day, and trustful for the coming morrow, this fair state was well-nigh +faded away; while a bitterness of feeling against (in one word) +GOD—against unequal partialities in providence, against things as they +exist; and this world's inexplicable government—was gnawing at his very +heart-strings, and cankering their roots by unbelief. It is a speedy +process—throw away faith with its trust for the past, love for the +present, hope for the future—and you throw away all that makes sorrow +bearable, or joy lovely; the best of us, if God withheld his help, would +apostatize like Peter, ere the cock crew thrice; and, at times, that +help has wisely been withheld, to check presumptuous thoughts, and teach +how true it is that the creature depends on the Creator. Just so we +suffer a wilful little child, who is tottering about in leading-strings, +to go alone for a minute, and have a gentle fall. And just so Roger +here, deserted for a time of those angelic ministrations whose +efficiency is proved by godliness and meekness, by patience and content, +is harassed in his spirit as by harpies, by selfishness and pride, and +fretful doublings; by a grudging hate of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_047" id="Page_047"></a>[Pg 047]</span>labour, and a fiery lust of +gold. Temptation comes to teach a weak man that he was fitted for his +station, and his station made for him; that fulfilment of his ignorant +desires will only make his case the worse, and that</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Providence alike is wise</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In what he gives and what denies.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, gentle Grace, on her humble truckle-bed, is full of prayers +and tears, uneasily listening to the indistinct and noisy talk, and +hearing, now and then, some louder oath of Ben's that made her shudder. +Yes, she heard, too, the smashing sound, when the poacher flung the +money down, and she feared it was a mug or a plate—no slight domestic +loss; and she heard her father's strange cry, when he gave that +wondering shout of joyous avarice, and she did not know what to fear. +Was he ill? or crazed! or worse—fallen into bad excesses? How she +prayed for him!</p> + +<p>Poor Ben, too, honest-hearted Ben; she thought of him in charity, and +pleaded for his good before the Throne of Mercy. Who knows but Heaven +heard that saintly virgin prayer? There is love in Heaven yet for poor +Ben Burke.</p> + +<p>And if she prayed for Ben, with what an agony of deep-felt intercession +did she plead for Thomas Acton, that own only brother of hers, just a +year the younger to endear him all the more, her playmate, care, and +charge, her friend and boisterous protector. The many sorrowing hours +she had spent for his sake, and the thousand generous actions he had +done for hers! Could she forget how the stripling fought for her that +day, when rude Joseph Green would help her over the style? Could she but +remember how slily he had put aside, for more than half a year, a little +heap of copper earnings—weeding-money, and errand-money, and +harvest-money—and then bounteously spent it all at once in giving her a +Bible on her birth-day? And when, coming across the fields with him +after leasing, years ago now, that fierce black bull of Squire Ryle's +was rushing down upon us both, how bravely did the noble boy attack him +with a stake, as he came up bellowing, and make the dreadful monster +turn away! Ah! I looked death in the face then, but for thee, my +brother! Remember him, my God, for good!</p> + +<p>"Poor father! poor father! Well, I am resolved upon one thing: I'll go, +with Heaven's blessing, to the Hall myself, and see Sir John, to-morrow; +he shall hear the truth, for"—And so Grace fell asleep.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_048" id="Page_048"></a>[Pg 048]</span>Roger, when he went to bed, came to similar conclusions. He would speak +up boldly, that he would, without fear or favour. Ben's most seasonable +bounty, however to be questioned on the point of right, made him feel +entirely independent, both of bailiffs and squires, and he had now no +anxieties, but rather hopes, about to-morrow. He was as good as they, +with money in his pocket; so he'd down to the Hall, and face the baronet +himself, and blow his bailiff out o' water: that should be his business +by noon. Another odd idea, too, possessed him, and he could not sleep at +night for thinking of it: it was a foolish fancy, but the dream might +have put it in his head: what if one or other of those honey-jars, so +flung here and there among the rushes, were in fact another sort of +"Savings-bank"—a crock of gold? It was a thrilling thought—his very +dream, too; and the lot of shillings, and the shawl—ay, and the +inquest, and the rumours how that Mrs. Quarles had come to her end +unfairly, and no hoards found—and—and the honey-pots missing. Ha! at +any rate he'd have a search to-morrow. No bugbear now should hinder him; +money's money; he'd ask no questions how it got there. His own bit of +garden lay the nearest to Pike Island, and who knows but Ben might have +slung a crock this way? It wouldn't do to ask him, though—for Burke +might look himself, and get the crock—was Roger's last and selfish +thought, before he fell asleep.</p> + +<p>As to Mrs. Acton, she, poor woman, had her own thoughts, fearful ones, +about that shawl, and Ben's mysterious adventure. No cloudy love of +mammon had overspread her mind, to hide from it the hideousness of +murder; in her eyes, blood was terrible, and not the less so that it +covered gold. She remembered at the inquest—be sure she was there among +the gossips—the facts, so little taken notice of till now, the keys in +the cupboard, where the honey-pots were not, and how Jonathan Floyd had +seen something on the lake, and the marks of a man's hand on the throat; +and, God forgive her for saying so, but Mr. Jennings was a little, +white-faced man. How wrong was it of Roger to have burnt that shawl! how +dull of Ben not to have suspected something! but then the good fellow +suspects nobody, and, I dare say, now doesn't know my thoughts. But +Roger does, more shame for him; or why burn the shawl? Ah! thought she, +with all the gossip rampart in her breast, if I could only have taken it +to the Hall myself, what a stir I should have caused! Yes, she would +have reaped a mighty field of glory by originating such a whirlwind of +inquiries and surmises. Even now, so attractive was the mare's nest, she +would go to the Hall by morning, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_049" id="Page_049"></a>[Pg 049]</span>and tell Sir John himself all about +the burnt shawl, and Pike Island, and the galli—And so she fell fast +asleep.</p> + +<p>With respect to Ben, Tom, and Rover, a well-matched triad, as any Isis, +Horus, and Nepthys, they all flung themselves promiscuously on the hard +floor beside the hearth, "basked at the fire their hairy strength," and +soon were snoring away beautifully in concert, base, tenor, and treble, +like a leash of glee-singers. No thoughts troubled them, either of +mammon or murder: so long before the meditative trio up-stairs, they had +set a good example, and fallen asleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3> + +<h4>LOVE.</h4> + + +<p>With the earliest peep of day arose sweet Grace, full of +cheerful hope, and prayer, and happy resignation. She had a great deal +to do that morning; for, innocent girl, she had no notion that it was +quite possible to be too early at the Hall; her only fear was being too +late. Then there were all the household cares to see to, and the dear +babes to dress, and the place to tidy up, and breakfast to get ready, +and, any how, she could not be abroad till half-past eight: so, to her +dismay, it must be past nine before ever she can see Sir John. Let us +follow her a little: for on this important day we shall have to take the +adventures of our labourer's family one at a time.</p> + +<p>By twenty minutes to nine, Grace had contrived to bustle on her things, +give the rest the slip, and be tripping to the Hall. It is nearly two +miles off, as we already know; and Grace is such a pretty creature that +we can clearly do no better than employ our time thitherward by taking a +peep at her.</p> + +<p>Sweet Grace Acton, we will not vex thy blushing maiden modesty by +elaborate details of form, and face, and feature. Perfect womanhood at +fair eighteen: let that fill all the picture up with soft and swelling +charms; no wadding, or padding, or jigot, or jupe—but all those +graceful undulations are herself: no pearl-powder, no carmine, no +borrowed locks, no musk, or ambergris—but all those feeble helps of +meretricious art excelled and superseded by their just originals in +nature. It will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_050" id="Page_050"></a>[Pg 050]</span>not do to talk, as a romancer may, of velvet cheeks and +silken tresses; or invoke, to the aid of our inadequate description, +roses, and swans, and peaches, and lilies. Take the simple village +beauty as she is. Did you ever look on prettier lips or sweeter +eyes—more glossy natural curls upon a whiter neck? And how that little +red-riding-hood cloak, and the simple cottage hat tied down upon her +cheeks, and the homely russet gown, all too short for modern fashions, +and the white, well-turned ankle, and the tidy little leather shoe, and +the bunch of snow drops in her tucker, and the neat mittens contrasting +darkly with her fair, bare arms—pretty Grace, how well all these become +thee! There, trip along, with health upon thy cheek, and hope within thy +heart; who can resist so eloquent a pleader? Haste on, haste on: save +thy father in his trouble, as thou hast blest him in his sin—this +rustic lane is to thee the path of duty—Heaven speed thee on it!</p> + +<p>More slowly now, and with more anxious thoughts, more heart-weakness, +more misgiving—Grace approacheth the stately mansion: and when she +timidly touched the "Servants'" bell, for she felt too lowly for the +"Visiters',"—and when she heard how terribly loud it was, how long it +rung, and what might be the issue of her—wasn't it +ill-considered?—errand—the poor girl almost fainted at the sound.</p> + +<p>As she leaned unconsciously for strength against the door, it opened on +a sudden, and Jonathan Floyd, in mute amazement, caught her in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Why, Grace Acton! what's the matter with you?" Jonathan knew Grace +well; they had been at dame's-school together, and in after years +attended the same Sunday class at church. There had been some talk among +the gossips about Jonathan and Grace, and ere now folks had been kind +enough to say they would make a pretty couple. And folks were right, +too, as well as kind: for a fine young fellow was Jonathan Floyd, as any +duchess's footman; tall, well built, and twenty-five; Antinous in a +livery. Well to do, withal, though his wages don't come straight to him; +for, independently of his place—and the baronet likes him for his good +looks and proper manners—he is Farmer Floyd's only son, on the hill +yonder, as thriving a small tenant as any round abouts; and he is proud +of his master, of his blue and silver uniform, of old Hurstley, and of +all things in general, except himself.</p> + +<p>"But what on earth's the matter, Grace?" he was obliged to repeat, for +the dear girl's agitation was extreme.</p> + +<p>"Jonathan, can I see the baronet?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_051" id="Page_051"></a>[Pg 051]</span>"What, at nine in the morning, Grace Acton! Call again at two, and you +may find him getting up. He hasn't been three hours a-bed yet, and +there's nobody about but Sarah Stack and me. I wish those Lunnun sparks +would but leave the place: they do his honour no good, I'm thinking."</p> + +<p>"Not till two!" was the slow and mournful ejaculation. What a damper to +her buoyant hopes: and Providence had seen fit to give her ill-success. +Is it so? Prosperity may come in other shapes.</p> + +<p>"Why, Grace," suddenly said Floyd, in a very nervous way, "what makes +you call upon my master in this tidy trim?"</p> + +<p>"To save my father," answered Innocence.</p> + +<p>"How? why? Oh don't, Grace, don't! I'll save him—I will indeed—what is +it? Oh, don't, don't!"</p> + +<p>For the poor affectionate fellow conjured on the spot the black vision +of a father saved by a daughter's degradation.</p> + +<p>"Don't, Jonathan?—it's my duty, and God will bless me in it. That cruel +Mr. Jennings has resolved upon our ruin, and I wished to tell Sir John +the truth of it."</p> + +<p>At this hearing, Jonathan brightened up, and glibly said, "Ah, indeed, +Jennings is a trouble to us all: a sad life I've led of it this year +past; and I've paid him pretty handsomely too, to let me keep the place: +while, as for John Page and the grooms, and Mr. Coachman and the +helpers, they don't touch much o' their wages on quarter-day, I know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but we—we are ruined! ruined! Father is forbidden now to labour +for our bread." And then with many tears she told her tale.</p> + +<p>"Stop, Miss Grace," suddenly said Jonathan, for her beauty and eloquence +transformed the cottager into a lady in his eyes, and no wonder; "pray, +stop a minute, Miss—please to take a seat; I sha'n't be gone an +instant."</p> + +<p>And the good-hearted fellow, whose eyes had long been very red, broke +away at a gallop; but he was back again almost as soon as gone, panting +like a post-horse. "Oh, Grace! don't be angry! do forgive me what I am +going to do."</p> + +<p>"Do, Jonathan?" and the beauty involuntarily started—"I hope it's +nothing wrong," she added, solemnly.</p> + +<p>"Whether right or wrong, Grace, take it kindly; you have often bade me +read my Bible, and I do so many times both for the sake of it and you; +ay, and meet with many pretty sayings in it: forgive me if I act on +one—'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" With that, he +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_052" id="Page_052"></a>[Pg 052]</span>thrust into her hand a brass-topped, red-leather purse, stuffed with +money. Generous fellow! all the little savings, that had heretofore +escaped the prying eye and filching grasp of Simon Jennings. There was +some little gold in it, more silver, and a lot of bulky copper.</p> + +<p>"Dear Jonathan!" exclaimed Grace, quite thrown off her guard of maidenly +reserve, "this is too kind, too good, too much; indeed, indeed it is: I +cannot take the purse." And her bright eyes overflowed again.</p> + +<p>"Well, girl," said Jonathan, gulping down an apple in his throat, "I—I +won't have the money, that's all. Oh, Grace, Grace!" he burst out +earnestly, "let me be the blessed means of helping you in trouble—I +would die to do it, Grace; indeed I would!"</p> + +<p>The dear girl fell upon his neck, and they wept together like two loving +little sisters.</p> + +<p>"Jonathan"—her duteous spirit was the first to speak—"forgive this +weakness of a foolish woman's heart: I will not put away the help which +God provides us at your friendly hands: only this, kind brother—let me +call you brother—keep the purse; if my father pines for want of work, +and the babes at home lack food, pardon my boldness if I take the help +you offer. Meanwhile, God in heaven bless you, Jonathan, as He will!"</p> + +<p>And she turned to go away.</p> + +<p>"Won't you take a keepsake, Grace—one little token? I wish I had any +thing here but money to give you for my sake."</p> + +<p>"It would even be ungenerous in me to refuse you, brother; one little +piece will do."</p> + +<p>Jonathan fumbled up something in a crumpled piece of paper, and said +sobbingly—"Let it be this new half-crown, Grace: I won't say, keep it +always; only when you want to use that and more, I humbly ask you'll +please come to me."</p> + +<p>Now a more delicate, a more unselfish act, was never done by man: along +with the half-crown he had packed up two sovereigns! and thereby not +only escaped thanks, concealed his own beneficence, and robbed his purse +of half its little store; but actually he was, by doing so, depriving +himself for a month, or maybe more, of a visit from Grace Acton. Had it +been only half-a-crown, and want had pinched the family (neither Grace +nor Jonathan could guess of Ben Burke's bounty, and for all they knew +Roger had not enough for the morrow's meals)—had poverty come in like +an armed man, and stood upon their threshold a grim sentinel—doubtless +she must have run to him within a day or two. How sweet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_053" id="Page_053"></a>[Pg 053]</span>would it have +been to have kept her coming day by day, and to a commoner affection how +excusable! but still how selfish, how unlike the liberal and honourable +feeling that filled the manly heart of Jonathan Floyd! It was a noble +act, and worthy of a long parenthesis.</p> + +<p>If Grace Acton had looked back as she hurried down the avenue, she would +have seen poor Jonathan still watching her with all his eyes till she +was out of sight. Perhaps, though, she might have guessed it—there is a +sympathy in these things, the true animal magnetism—and I dare say that +was the very reason why she did not once turn her head.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h3> + +<h4>THE DISCOVERY.</h4> + + +<p>Roger Acton had not slept well; had not slept at all till +nearly break of day, except in the feverish fashion of half dream half +revery. There were thick-coming fancies all night long about what Ben +had said and done: and more than once Roger had thought of the +expediency of getting up, to seek without delay the realization of that +one idea which now possessed him—a crock of gold. When he put together +one thing and another, he considered it almost certain that Ben had +flung away among the lot no mere honey-pot, but perhaps indeed a +money-pot: Burke hadn't half the cunning of a child; more fool he, and +maybe so much the better for me, thought money-bitten, selfish Roger. +Thus, in the night's hot imaginations, he resolved to find the spoil; to +will, was then to do: to do, was then to conquer. However, Nature's +sweet restorer came at last, and, when he woke, the idea had sobered +down—last night's fancies were preposterous. So, it was with a heavy +heart he got up later than his wont—no work before him, nothing to do +till the afternoon, when he might see Sir John, except it be to dig a +bit in his little marshy garden. When Grace ran to the Hall, Roger was +going forth to dig.</p> + +<p>Now, I know quite well that the reader is as fully aware as I am, what +is about to happen; but it is impossible to help the matter. If the +heading of this chapter tells the truth, a "discovery" of some sort is +inevitable. Let us preliminarize a thought or two, if thereby we can +hang some shadowy veil of excuse over a too naked mystery. First and +foremost, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_054" id="Page_054"></a>[Pg 054]</span>truth is strange, stranger, <i>et-cetera</i>; and this +<i>et-cetera</i>, pregnant as one of Lyttleton's, intends to add the +superlative strangest, to the comparative stranger of that seldom-quoted +sentiment. To every one of us, in the course of our lives, something +quite as extraordinary has befallen more than once. What shall we say of +omens, warnings, forebodings? What of the most curious runs of luck; the +most whimsical freaks of fortune; the unaccountable things that happen +round us daily, and no one marvels at them, till he reads of them in +print? Even as Macpherson, ingenious, if not ingenuous, gathered Ossian +from the lips of Highland hussifs, and made the world with modern Attila +to back it, wonder at the stores that are hived on old wives' tongues; +even so might any other literary, black-smith hammer from the ore of +common gossip a regular Vulcan's net of superstitious "facts." Never yet +was uttered ghost story, that did not breed four others; every one at +table is eager to record his, or his aunt's, experience in that line; +and the mass of queer coincidences, inexplicable incidents, indubitable +seeings, hearings, doings, and sufferings; which you and I have heard of +in this popular vein of talk, would amply excuse the wildest fictionist +for the most extravagant adventure—the more improbable, the nearer +truth. Talk of the devil, said our ancestors—let "&c." save us from the +consequence. Think of any thing vehemently, and it is an even chance it +happens: be confident, you conquer; be obstinate in willing, and events +shall bend humbly to their lord: nay, dream a dream, and if you +recollect it in the morning, and it bother you next day, and you cannot +get it out of your head for a week, and the matter positively haunt you, +ten to one but it finds itself or makes itself fulfilled, some odd day +or other. Just so, doubtless, will it prove to be with Roger's dream: I +really cannot help the matter.</p> + +<p>Again, it is more than likely that the reader is clever, very clever, +and that any attempts at concealment would be merely futile. From the +first page he has discovered who is the villain, and who the victim: the +title alone tells him of the golden hinge on which the story turns: he +can look through stone walls, if need be, or mesmerically see, without +making use of eyes: no peep-holes for him, as for Pyramus and Thisbe: no +initiation requisite for any hidden mysteries; all arcana are revealed +to him, every sanctum is a highway. No art of mortal pen can defeat this +mischief of acuteness: character is character; oaks grow of acorns, and +the plan of a life may be detected in a microscopic speech. The career +of Mr. Jennings is as much predestined by us to iniquity, from the first +intimation that he never makes excuse, as honest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_055" id="Page_055"></a>[Pg 055]</span> Roger is to trouble +and temptation from the weary effort wherewithal he woke. And, even now, +pretty Grace and young Sir John, the reader thinks that he can guess at +nature's consequence; while, with respect to Roger's going forth to dig +this morning, he sees it straight before him, need not ask for the +result. Well, if the shrewd reader has the eye of Lieuenhöeck, and can +discern, cradled in the small triangular beech-mast, a noble +forest-tree, with silvery trunk, branching arms, and dark-green foliage, +he deserves to be complimented indeed, for his own keen skill; but, at +the same time, Nature will not hurry herself for him, but will quietly +educe results which he foreknew—or thought he did—a century ago. And +is there not the highest Art in this unveiled simplicity: to lead the +reader onwards by a straight road, with the setting sun a-blaze at the +end of it, knowing his path, knowing its object, yet still borne on with +spirits unexhausted and unflagging foot? Trust me, there is better +praise in this, than in dazzling the distracted glance with a perpetual +succession of luminous fire-flies, and dragging your fair novel-reader, +harried and excited, through the mazes of a thousand incidents.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, and lastly, in this prefatorial say, there is to be considered +that inevitable defeator of all printed secrets—impatience. Nothing is +easier, nothing commoner (most wise people do it, whose fate is, that +they must keep up with the race of current publication, and therefore +must keep down the still-increasing crowd of authorial creations), +nothing is more venial, more laudable, than to read the last chapter +first; and so, finding out all mysteries at once, to save one's self a +vast deal of unnecessary trouble. And, for mere tale-telling, this may +be sufficient. What need to burden memory with imaginary statements, or +to weary out one's sympathies on trite fictitious woes?—come to the +catastrophe at once: the uncle hanged; the heir righted; the heroine, an +orange-flowered bride; and the white-headed grandmother, after all her +wrongs, winding up the story with a prudent moral. Now, this may all be +very well with histories that merely carry a sting in the tail, whose +moral is the warning of the rattlesnake, and whose hot-exciting interest +is posted with the scorpion's venom. They are the Dragon of Wantley, +with one caudal point—a barbed termination: we, like Moore of Moore +Hall, all point, covered with spikes: every where we boast ourselves an +ethical hedge-hog, all-over-armed with keen morals—a Rumour painted +full of tongues, echoing all around with revealing of secrets. The +feelings of our humble hero, altered Roger Acton, are worthy to be +studied by the great, to be sifted by the rich; and Grace's simple +tongue may teach the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_056" id="Page_056"></a>[Pg 056]</span>sage, for its wisdom cometh from above; and +Jonathan, for all his shoulder-knot and smart cockade, is worthy to give +lessons to his master: that master, also, is far better than you think +him; and poor Burke too, for true humanity's sake: so we get a mint of +morals, set aside the story. It is not raw material, but the +workmanship, that gives its value to the flowered damask; our +grand-dames' sumptuous taffeties and stand-alone brocades are but spun +silk-worms' interiors; the fairest statue is intrinsically but a mass of +clumsy stone, until, indeed, the sculptor has rough-hewn it, and shaped +it, and chiselled it, and finished all the touches with sand-paper. This +story of '<i>The Crock of Gold</i>' purports to be a Dutch picture, as +becometh boors, their huts, their short and simple annals; so that, +after its moralities, the mass of minute detail is the only thing that +gives it any value.</p> + +<p>Now, whilst all of you have been yawning through these egotistic +phrases, Roger has been digging in his garden; there he is, pecking away +at what once was the celery-bed, but now are fallow trenches; celery, as +we all know, is a water-loving plant, doing best in marshy-land, so no +wonder the trenches open on the sedge, and the muddy shallow opposite +Pike Island puddles up to them. There needs be no suspense, no mystery +at all; Roger's dream had clearly sent him thither, for he should not +have levelled those trenches yet awhile, it was a little too soon—bad +husbandry; and, barring the appearance of a devil, Roger's dream came +true. Yes, under the roots of a clump of bullrush, he lifted out with +his spade—a pot of Narbonne honey!</p> + +<p>When first he spied the pot, his heart was in his mouth—it must be +gold, and with tottering knees he raised the precious burden. But, woful +disappointment! the word "Honey," with plenty of French and Fortnum on +another pasted label, stared him in the face; it was sweet and slimy too +about the neck; there was no sort of jingle when he shook the crock; +what though it be heavy?—honey's heavy; and it was tied over quite in a +common way with pig's bladder, and his clumsy trembling fingers could +not undo that knot; and thus, with a miserable sense of cheated poverty, +he threw it down beside the path, and would, perhaps, have flung it +right away in sheer disgust, but for the reflection that the little ones +might like it. Once, indeed, the glorious doubt of maybe gold came back +upon his mind, and he lifted up the spade to smash the baffling pot, and +so make sure of what it might contain;—make sure, eh? why, you would +only lose the honey, whispered domestic economy. So he left the jar to +be opened by his wife when he should go in.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_057" id="Page_057"></a>[Pg 057]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> + +<h4>JONATHAN'S STORE.</h4> + + +<p>And where has Mrs. Acton been all this morning? Off to the +Hall, very soon after Grace had got away; and she rung at the side +entrance, hard by the kitchen, most fortunately caught Sarah Stack +about, and had a good long gossip with her; telling her, open-mouthed, +all about Ben Burke having found a shawl of Mrs. Quarles's on the +island; and how, it being very rotten, yes, and smelling foul, Ben had +been fool enough to burn it; what a pity! how could the shawl have got +there? if it only could ha' spoken what it knew! And the bereaved +gossips mourned together over secrets undivulged, and their evidence +destroyed. As to the crockery, for a miraculous once in life, Mrs. Acton +held her tongue about a thing she knew, and said not a syllable +concerning it. Roger would be mad to lose the money. Just at parting +with her friend Mary Acton was going out by the wrong door, through the +hall, but luckily did no more than turn the handle; or she never could +have escaped bouncing in upon the lovers' interview, and thereby +occasioning a chaos of confusion. For, be it whispered, the step-dame +was not a little jealous of her ready-made daughter's beauty, persisted +in calling her a child, and treated her any thing but kindly and +sisterly, as her full-formed woman's loveliness might properly have +looked for. Only imagine, if the Hecate had but seen Jonathan's lit-up +looks, or Grace's down-cast blushes; for it really slipped my +observation to record that there were blushes, and probably some cause +for them when the keep-sake was given and accepted; only conceive if +the step-mother had heard Jonathan's afterward soliloquy, when he was +watching pretty Grace as she tripped away—and how much he seemed to +think of her eyes and eye-lashes! I am reasonably fearful, had she heard +and seen all this—Poll Acton's nails might have possibly drawn blood +from the cheeks of Jonathan Floyd. As it was, the little god of love +kindly warded from his votaries the coming of so crabbed an antagonist.</p> + +<p>Grace has now reached home again, blessing her overruling stars to have +escaped notice so entirely both in going and returning; for the mother +was hard at washing near the well, having got in half an hour before, +and father has not yet left off digging in his garden. So she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_058" id="Page_058"></a>[Pg 058]</span>crept up +stairs quietly, put away her Sunday best, and is just dropping on her +knees beside her truckle-bed, to speak of all her sorrows to her +Heavenly friend, and to thank him for the kindness He had raised her in +an earthly one. She then, with no small trepidation, took out of her +tucker, just below those withered snow-drops, the crumpled bit of paper +that held Jonathan's parting gift. It was surprising how her tucker +heaved; she could hardly get at the parcel. She wanted to look at that +half-crown; not that she feared it was a bad one, or was curious about +coins, or felt any pleasure in possessing such a sum: but there was such +a don't-know-what connected with that new half-crown, which made her +long to look at it; so she opened the paper—and found its golden +fellows! O noble heart! O kind, generous, unselfish—yes, beloved +Jonathan! But what is she to do with the sovereigns? Keep them? No, she +cannot keep them, however precious in her sight as proofs of deep +affection; but she will call as soon as possible, and give them back, +and insist upon his taking them, and keeping them too—for her, if no +otherwise. And the dear innocent girl was little aware herself how glad +she felt of the excuse to call so soon again at Hurstley.</p> + +<p>Meantime, for safety, she put the money in her Bible.</p> + +<p>What hallowed gold was that? Gained by honest industry, saved by +youthful prudence, given liberally and unasked, to those who needed, and +could not pay again; with a delicate consideration, an heroic essay at +concealment, a voluntary sacrifice of self, of present pleasure, +passion, and affection. And there it lies, the little store, hidden up +in Grace's Bible. She has prayed over it, thanked over it, interceded +over it, for herself, for it, for others. How different, indeed, from +ordinary gold, from common sin-bought mammon; how different from that +unblest store, which Roger Acton covets; how purified from meannesses, +and separate from harms! This is of that money, the scarcest coins of +all the world, endued with all good properties in heaven and in earth, +whereof it had been written, "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, +saith the Lord of hosts."</p> + +<p>Such alone are truly riches—well-earned, well-saved, well-sanctified, +well-spent. The wealthiest of European capitalists—the Crœsus of +modern civilization—may be but a pauper in that better currency, +whereof a sample has been shown in the store of Jonathan Floyd.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_059" id="Page_059"></a>[Pg 059]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h3> + +<h4>ANOTHER DISCOVERY, AND THE EARNEST OF GOOD THINGS.</h4> + + +<p>"Dame, here's one o' Ben's gallipots he flung away: it's naught +but honey, dame—marked so—no crock of gold; don't expect it; no such +thing; luck like that isn't for such as me: though, being as it is, the +babes may like it, with their dry bread: open it, good-wife: I hope the +water mayn't ha' spoilt it."</p> + +<p>The notable Mary Acton produced certain scissors, hanging from her +pocket by a tape, and cut a knot, which to Roger had been Gordian's.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's bran, Acton, not honey; look here, will you." She tilted it +up, and, along with a cloud of saw-dust, dropped out a heavy hail-storm +of—little bits of leather!</p> + +<p>"Hallo? what's that?" said Roger, eagerly: "it's gold, gold, I'll be +sworn!" It was so.</p> + +<p>Every separate bit of money, whatever kind of coins they were, had been +tidily sewn up in a shred of leather; remnants of old gloves of all +colours; and the Narbonne jar contained six hundred and eighty-seven of +them. These, of course, were hastily picked up from the path whereon +they had first fallen, were counted out at home, and the glittering +contents of most of those little leather bags ripped up were immediately +discovered. Oh dear! oh dear! such a sight! Guineas and half-guineas, +sovereigns and half-sovereigns, quite a little hill of bright, clean, +prettily-figured gold.</p> + +<p>"Hip, hip, hooray!" shouted Roger, in an ecstacy; "Hurrah, hurrah, +hurrah!" and in the madness of his joy, he executed an extravagant pas +seul; up went his hat, round went his heels, and he capered awkwardly +like a lunatic giraffe.</p> + +<p>"Here's an end to all our troubles, Poll: we're as good as gentle-folks +now; catch me a-calling at the Hall, to bother about Jennings and Sir +John: a fig for bailiffs, and baronets, parsons, and prisons, and all," +and again he roared Hooray! "I tell you what though, old 'ooman, we must +just try the taste of our glorious golden luck, before we do any thing +else. Bide a bit, wench, and hide the hoard till I return. I'm off to +the Bacchus's Arms, and I'll bring you some stingo in a minute, old +gal." So off he ran hot-foot, to get an earnest of the blessing of his +crock of gold.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_060" id="Page_060"></a>[Pg 060]</span>The minute that was promised to produce the stingo, proved to be rather +of a lengthened character; it might, indeed, have been a minute, or the +fraction of one, in the planet Herschel, whose year is as long as +eighty-five of our Terra's, but according to Greenwich calculation, it +was nearer like two hours.</p> + +<p>The little Tom and Jerry shop, that rejoiced in the classical heraldry +of Bacchus's Arms, had been startled from all conventionalities by the +unwonted event of the demand, "change for a sovereign?" and when it was +made known to the assembled conclave that Roger Acton was the fortunate +possessor, that even assumed an appearance positively miraculous.</p> + +<p>"Why, honest Roger, how in the world could you ha' come by that?" was +the troublesome inquiry of Dick the Tanner.</p> + +<p>"Well, Acton, you're sharper than I took you for, if you can squeeze +gold out of bailiff Jennings," added Solomon Snip; and Roger knew no +better way of silencing their tongues, than by profusely drenching them +in liquor. So he stood treat all round, and was forced to hobanob with +each; and when that was gone, he called for more to keep their curiosity +employed. Now, all this caused delay; and if Mary had been waiting for +the "stingo," she would doubtless have had reasonable cause for anger +and impatience: however, she, for her part, was so pleasantly occupied, +like Prince Arthur's Queen, in counting out the money, that, to say the +truth, both lord and liquor were entirely forgotten.</p> + +<p>But another cause that lengthened out the minute, was the embarrassing +business of where to find the change. Bacchus's didn't chalk up trust, +where hard money was flung upon the counter; but all the accumulated +wealth of Bacchus's high-priest, Tom Swipey, and of the seven +worshippers now drinking in his honour, could not suffice to make up +enough of change: therefore, after two gallons left behind him in +libations as aforesaid, and two more bottled up for a drink-offering at +home, Roger was contented to be owed seven and fourpence; a debt never +likely to be liquidated. Much speculation this afforded to the gossips; +and when the treater's back was turned, they touched their foreheads, +for the man was clearly crazed, and they winked to each other with a +gesture of significance.</p> + +<p>Grace, while musing on her new half-crown—it was strange how long she +looked at it—had heard with real amazement that uproarious huzzaing! +and, just as her father had levanted for the beer, glided down from her +closet, and received the wondrous tidings from her step-mother. She +heard in silence, if not in sadness: intuitive good sense proclaimed to +her that this sudden gush of wealth was a temptation, even if she felt +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_061" id="Page_061"></a>[Pg 061]</span>no secret fears on the score of—shall we call it superstition?—that +dream, this crock, that dark angel—and this so changed spirit of her +once religious father: what could she think? she meekly looked to Heaven +to avert all ill.</p> + +<p>Mary Acton also was less elated and more alarmed than she cared to +confess: not that she, any more than Grace, knew or thought about lords +of manors, or physical troubles on the score of finding the crock: but +Mrs. Quarles's shawl, and sundry fearful fancies tinged with blood, +these worried her exceedingly, and made her look upon the gold with an +uneasy feeling, as if it were an unclean thing, a sort of Achan's wedge.</p> + +<p>At last, here comes Roger back, somewhat unsteadily I fear, with a stone +two-gallon jar of what he was pleased to avouch to be "the down-right +stingo." "Hooray, Poll!" (he had not ceased shouting all the way from +Bacchus's,) "Hooray—here I be again, a gentle-folk, a lord, a king, +Poll: why daughter Grace, what's come to you? I won't have no dull looks +about to-day, girl. Isn't this enough to make a poor man merry? No more +troubles, no more toil, no more 'humble sarvent,' no more a ragged, +plodding ploughman: but a lord, daughter Grace—a great, rich, luxurious +lord—isn't this enough to make a man sing out hooray?—Thank the crock +of gold for this—Oh, blessed crock!"</p> + +<p>"Hush, father, hush! that gold will be no blessing to you; Heaven send +it do not bring a curse. It will be a sore temptation, even if the +rights of it are not in some one else: we know not whom it may belong +to, but at any rate it cannot well be ours."</p> + +<p>"Not ours, child? whose in life is it then?"</p> + +<p>Mary Acton, made quite meek by a superstitious dread of having money of +the murdered, stepped in to Grace's help, whom her father's fierce +manner had appalled, with "Roger, it belonged to Mrs. Quarles, I'm +morally sure on it—and must now be Simon Jennings's, her heir."</p> + +<p>"What?" he almost frantically shrieked, "shall that white hell-hound rob +me yet again? No, dame—I'll hang first! the crock I found, the crock +I'll keep: the money's mine, whoever did the murder." Then, changing his +mad tone into one of reckless inebriate gayety—for he was more than +half-seas over even then from the pot-house toastings and excitement—he +added, "But come, wenches, down with your mugs, and help me to get +through the jar: I never felt so dry in all my life. Here's blessings on +the crock, on him as sent it, him as has it, and on all the joy and +comfort it's to bring us! Come, drink, drink—we must all drink +that—but where's Tom?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_062" id="Page_062"></a>[Pg 062]</span>If Roger had been quite himself, he never would have asked so +superfluous a question: for Tom was always in one and the same company, +albeit never in one and the same place: he and his Pan-like Mentor were +continually together, studying wood-craft, water-craft, and all manner +of other craft connected with the antique trade of picking and stealing.</p> + +<p>"Where's Tom?"</p> + +<p>Grace, glad to have to answer any reasonable question, mildly answered, +"Gone away with Ben, father."</p> + +<p>Alas! that little word, Ben, gave occasion to reveal a depth in Roger's +fall, which few could have expected to behold so soon. To think that the +liberal friend, who only last night had frankly shared his all with him, +whose honest glowing heart would freely shed its blood for him, that he +in recollection should be greeted with a loathing! Ben would come, and +claim some portion of his treasure—he would cry halves—or, who knows? +might want all—all: and take it by strong arm, or by threat to 'peach +against him:—curse that Burke! he hated him.</p> + +<p>Oh, Steady Acton! what has made thee drink and swear? Oh, Honest Roger! +what has planted guile, and suspicion, and malice in thy heart? Are +these the mere first-fruits of coveting and having? Is this the earliest +blessing of that luck which many long for—the finding of a crock of +gold?</p> + +<p>We would not enlarge upon the scene; a painful one at all times, when +man forgets his high prerogative, and drowns his reason in the tankard: +but, in a Roger Acton's case, lately so wise, temperate, and patient, +peculiarly distressing. Its chief features were these. Grace tasted +nothing, but mournfully looked on: once only she attempted to +expostulate, but was met—not with fierce oaths, nor coarse chidings, +nor even with idiotic drivelling—oh no! worse than that she felt: he +replied to her with the maudlin drunken promise, "If she'd only be a +good girl, and let him bide, he'd give her a big Church-bible, bound in +solid gold—that 'ud make the book o' some real value, Grace." Poor +broken-hearted daughter—she rushed to her closet in a torrent of tears.</p> + +<p>As for Mary Acton, she was miraculously meek and dumb; all the scold was +quelled within her; the word "blood" was the Petruchio that tamed that +shrew; she could see a plenty of those crimson spots, which might</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"The multitudinous seas incarnadine,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Making the green, one red,"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>dancing in the sun-beams, dotted on the cottage walls, sprinkled as +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_063" id="Page_063"></a>[Pg 063]</span>unholy water, over that foul crock. Would not the money be a curse to +them any how, say nothing of the danger? If things went on as they +began, Mary might indeed have cause for fear: actually, she could not +a-bear to look upon the crock; she quite dreaded it, as if it had +contained a "bottled devil." So there she sat ever so long—silent, +thoughtful, and any thing but comfortable.</p> + +<p>What became of Roger until next day at noon, neither he nor I can tell: +true, his carcase lay upon the floor, and the two-gallon jar was empty. +But, for the real man, who could answer to the name of Roger Acton, the +sensitive and conscious soul—that was some where galloping away for +fifteen hours in the Paradise of fools: the Paradise? no—the Maëlstrom; +tossed about giddily and painfully in one whirl of tumultuous +drunkenness.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h3> + +<h4>HOW THE HOME WAS BLEST THEREBY.</h4> + + +<p>It will surprise no one to be told that, however truly such an +excess may have been the first, it was by no means the last exploit of +our altered labourer in the same vein of heroism. Bacchus's was quite +close, and he needs must call for his change; he had to call often; +drank all quits; changed another sovereign, and was owed again; but, +trust him, he wasn't going to be cheated out of that: take care of the +pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves. But still it was +ditto repeated; changing, being owed, grudging, grumbling: at last he +found out the famous new plan of owing himself; and as Bacchus's did not +see fit to reject such wealthy customers, Roger soon chalked up a +yard-long score, and grew so niggardly that they could not get a penny +from him.</p> + +<p>It is astonishing how immediately wealth brings in, as its companion, +meanness: they walk together, and stand together, and kneel together, as +the hectoring, prodigal Faulconbridge, the Bastard Plantagenet in <i>King +John</i>, does with his white-livered, puny brother, Robert. Wherefore, no +sooner was Roger blest with gold, than he resolved not to be such a fool +as to lose liberally, or to give away one farthing. To give, I say, for +extravagant indulgence is another thing; and it was a fine, proud +pleasure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_064" id="Page_064"></a>[Pg 064]</span>to feast a lot of fellows at his sole expense. If meanness is +brother to wealth, it is at any rate first cousin to extravagance.</p> + +<p>When the dowager collects "her dear five hundred friends" to parade +before the fresh young heirs her wax-light lovely daughters—when all is +glory, gallopade, and Gunter—when Rubini warbles smallest, and +Lablanche is heard as thunder on the stairs—speak, tradesmen, ye who +best can tell, the closeness that has catered for that feast; tell it +out, ye famished milliners, ground down to sixpence on a ball-dress +bill; whisper it, ye footmen, with your wages ever due; let Gath, let +Askelon re-echo with the truth, that extortion is the parent of +extravagance!</p> + +<p>Now, that episode should have been in a foot note; but no one takes the +trouble to read notes; and with justice too; for if a man has any thing +to say, let him put it in his text, as orderly as may be. And, if order +be sometimes out of the question, as seems but clearly suitable at +present to our hero's manner of life, it is wise to go boldly on, +without so prim an usher; to introduce our thoughts as they reveal +themselves, ignorant of "their own degrees," not "standing on the order +of their coming," but, as a pit crowd on a benefit-night, bustling over +one another, helter-skelter, "in most admired disorder." This will well +comport with Roger's daily life: for, notwithstanding the frequent +interference of an Amazon wife—regardless of poor, dear Grace's gentle +voice and melancholy eyes—in spite of a conscience pricking in his +breast, with the spines of a horse-chestnut, that evil crock appeared +from the beginning to have been found for but one sole +purpose—<i>videlicet</i>, that of keeping alight in Roger's brain the fire +of mad intoxication. Yes, there were sundry other purposes, too, which +may as well be told directly.</p> + +<p>The utter dislocation of all home comforts occupied the foremost rank. +True—in comparison with the homes of affluence and halls of +luxury—those comforts may have formerly seemed few and far between; yet +still the angel of domestic peace not seldom found a rest within the +cottage. Not seldom? always: if sweet-eyed Grace be such an angel, that +ever-abiding guest, full of love, duty, piety, and cheerfulness. But +now, after long-enduring anguish, vexed in her righteous soul by the +shocking sights and sounds of the drunkard and his parasites (for all +the idle vagabonds about soon flocked around rich Acton, and were freely +welcome to his reckless prodigality), Grace had been forced to steal +away, and seek refuge with a neighbour. Here was one blessing the less.</p> + +<p>Another wretched change was in the wife. Granted, Mary Acton had not +ever been the pink of politeness, the violet of meekness, nor the rose +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_065" id="Page_065"></a>[Pg 065]</span>of entire amiability: but if she were a scold, that scolding was well +meant; and her irate energies were incessantly directed towards +cleanliness, economy, quiet, and other <i>notabilia</i> of a busy house-wife. +She did her best to keep the hovel tidy, to make the bravest show with +their scanty chattels, to administer discreetly the stores of their +frugal larder, and to recompense the good-man returning from his hard +day's work, with much of rude joy and bustling kindness. But now, after +the first stupor of amazement into which the crock and its consequences +threw her, Poll Acton grew to be a fury: she raged and stormed, and well +she might, at filth and discomfort in her home, at nauseous dregs and +noisome fumes, at the orgie still kept up, day by day, and night by +night, through the length of that first foul week, which succeeded the +fortunate discovery. And not in vain she raged and stormed—and fought +too; for she did fight—ay, and conquered: and miserable Roger, now in +full possession of those joys which he had longed for at the casement of +Hurstley Hall, was glad to betake himself to the bench at Bacchus's, +whither he withdrew his ragged regiment. Thus, that crock had spoilt all +there was to spoil in the temper and conduct of the wife.</p> + +<p>Look also at the pretty prattling babes, twin boys of two years old, +whom Roger used to hasten home to see; who had to say their simple +prayers; to be kissed, and comforted, and put to bed; to be made happier +by a wild flower picked up on his path, than if the gift had been a +coral with gold bells: where were they now? neglected, dirty, fretting +in a corner, their red eyes full of wonder at father's altered ways, and +their quick minds watching, with astonished looks, the progress of +domestic discord. How the crock of gold has nipped those early blossoms +as a killing frost!</p> + +<p>Again, there used to be, till this sad week of wealth and riotous +hilarity, that constantly recurring blessing of the morn and evening +prayer which Roger read aloud, and Grace's psalm or chapter; and +afterwards the frugal meal—too scanty, perhaps, and coarse—but still +refreshing, thank the Lord, and seasoned well with health and appetite; +and the heart-felt sense of satisfaction that all around was earned by +honest labour; and there was content, and hope of better times, and +God's good blessing over every thing.</p> + +<p>Now, all these pleasures had departed; gold, unhallowed gold, gotten +hastily in the beginning, broadcast on the rank strong soil of a heart +that coveted it earnestly, had sprung up as a crop of poisonous tares, +and choked the patch of wheat; gold, unhallowed gold, light come, light +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_066" id="Page_066"></a>[Pg 066]</span>gone, had scared or killed the flock of unfledged loves that used to +nestle in the cotter's thatch, as surely as if the cash were stones, +flung wantonly by truants at a dove-cot; and forth from the crock, that +egg of wo, had been hatched a red-eyed vulture, to tyrannize in this sad +home, where but lately the pelican had dwelt, had spread her fostering +wing, and poured out the wealth of her affections.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h3> + +<h4>CARE.</h4> + + +<p>But other happy consequences soon became apparent. If Acton in +his tipsy state was mad, in his intervals of soberness he was thoroughly +miserable. And this, not merely on the score of sickness, exhaustion, +prostrated spirits, blue-devils, or other the long catalogue of a +drunkard's joys; not merely from a raging wife, and a wretched home; not +merely from the stings, however sharp, however barbed, of a conscience +ill at ease, that would rise up fiercely like a hissing snake, and +strike the black apostate to the earth: these all, doubtless, had their +pleasant influences, adding to the lucky finder's bliss: but there was +another root of misery most unlooked for, and to the poor who dream of +gold, entirely paradoxical.</p> + +<p>The possession of that crock was the heaviest of cares. Where on earth +was he to hide it? how to keep it safely, secretly? What if he were +robbed of it in some sly way! O, thought of utter wo! it made the +fortunate possessor quiver like an aspen. Or what, if some one or more +of those blustering boon companions were to come by night with a +bludgeon and a knife, and—and cut his throat, and find the treasure? +or, worse still, were to torture him, set him on the fire like a +saucepan (he had heard of Turpin having done so with a rich old woman), +and make him tell them "where" in his extremity of pains, and give up +all, and then—and then murder him at last, outright, and afterwards +burn the hovel over his head, babes and all, that none might live to +tell the tale? These fears set him on the rack, and furnished one +inciting cause to that uninterrupted orgie; he must be either mad or +miserable, this lucky finder.</p> + +<p>Also, even in his tipsy state, he could not cast off care: he might in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_067" id="Page_067"></a>[Pg 067]</span>his cups reveal the dangerous secret of having found a crock of gold. A +secret still it was: Grace, his wife, and himself, were the only souls +who knew it. Dear Grace feared to say a word about the business: not in +apprehension of the law, for she never thought of that too probable +intrusion on the finder: but simply because her unsophisticated piety +believed that God, for some wise end, had allowed the Evil One to tempt +her father; she, indeed, did not know the epigram,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The devil now is wiser than of yore:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He tempts by making rich—not making poor:</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>but she did not conceive that notion in her mind; she contrasted the +wealthy patriarch Job, tried by poverty and pain, but just and patient +in adversity—with the poor labourer Acton, tried by luxury and wealth, +and proved to be apostate in prosperity: so she held her tongue, and +hitherto had been silent on a matter of so much local wonder as her +father's sudden wealth, in the midst of urgent curiosity and +extraordinary rumours.</p> + +<p>Mary was kept quiet as we know, by superstition of a lower grade, the +dread of having money of the murdered, a thought she never breathed to +any but her husband; and to poor uninitiated Grace (who had not heard a +word of Ben's adventure), her answer about Mrs. Quarles and Mr. Jennings +in the dawn of the crock's first blessing, had been entirely +unintelligible: Mary, then, said never a word, but looked on dreadingly +to see the end.</p> + +<p>As for Roger himself, he was too much in apprehension of a landlord's +claims, and of a task-master's extortions, to breath a syllable about +the business. So he hid his crock as best he could—we shall soon hear +how and where—took out sovereign after sovereign day by day, and made +his flush of instant wealth a mystery, a miracle, a legacy, good luck, +any thing, every thing but the truth: and he would turn fiercely round +to the frequent questioner with a "What's that to you?—Nobody's +business but mine:" and then would coaxingly add the implied bribe to +secresy, in his accustomed invitation—"And now, what'll you take?"—a +magical phrase, which could suffice to quell murmurs for the time, and +postponed curiosity to appetite. Thus the fact was still unknown, and +weighed on Roger's mind as a guilty concealment, an oppressive secret. +What if any found it out?</p> + +<p>For immediate safety—the evening after his memorable first fifteen +hours of joy—he buried the crock deeply in a hole in his garden, +filling <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_068" id="Page_068"></a>[Pg 068]</span>all up hard with stones and brick-bats; and when he had +smoothed it straight and workmanlike, remembered that he surely hadn't +kept out enough to last him; so up it had to come again—five more taken +out, and the crock was restored to its unquiet grave.</p> + +<p>Scarcely had he done this, than it became dark, and he began to fancy +some one might have seen him hide it; those low mean tramps (never +before had he refused the wretched wayfarers his sympathy) were always +sneaking about, and would come and dig it up in the night: so he went +out in the dark and the rain, got at it with infinite trouble and a +broken pickaxe, and exultingly brought the crock in-doors; where he +buried it a third time, more securely, underneath the grouted floor, +close beside the fire in the chimney-corner: it was now nearly midnight, +and he went to bed.</p> + +<p>Hardly had he tumbled in, after pulling on a nightcap of the flagon, +than the dread idea overtook him that his treasure might be melted! Was +there ever such a fool as he? Well, well, to think he could fling his +purse on the fire! What a horrid thought! Metallurgy was a science quite +unknown to Roger; he only considered gold as heavy as lead, and +therefore probably as fusible: so down he bustled, made another hole, a +deeper one too this time, in the floor under the dresser, where, +exhausted with his toil and care, he deposited the crock by four in the +morning—and so retired once more.</p> + +<p>All in vain—nobody ever knew when Black Burke might be returning from +his sporting expeditions—and that beast of a lurcher would be sure to +be creeping in this morning, and would scratch it up, and his brute of a +master would get it all! This fancy was the worst possible: and Roger +rose again, quite sick at heart, pale, worn, and trembling with a +miser's haggard joys. Where should he hide that crock—the epithet +"cursed" crock escaped him this time in his vexed impatience. In the +house and in the garden, it was equally unsafe.</p> + +<p>Ha! a bright thought indeed: the hollow in the elm-tree, creaking +overhead, just above the second arm: so the poor, shivering wretch, +almost unclad, swarmed up that slimy elm, and dropped his treasure in +the hollow. Confusion! how deep it was: he never thought of that; here +was indeed something too much of safety: and then those boys of +neighbour Goode's were birds'-nesting continually, specially round the +lake this spring. What an idiot he was not to have remembered this! And +up he climbed again, thrust in his arm to the shoulder, and managed to +repossess himself a fifth time of that blessed crock.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_069" id="Page_069"></a>[Pg 069]</span>Would that the elm had been hollow to its root, and beneath the root a +chasm bottomless, and that Plutus in that Narbonne jar had served as a +supper to Pluto in the shades! Better had it been for thee, my Roger.</p> + +<p>But he had not hid it yet; so, that night—or rather that cold morning +about six, the drenched, half-frozen Fortunatus carried it to bed with +him: and a precious warming-pan it made: for nothing would satisfy the +finder of its presence but perpetual bodily contact:—accordingly, he +placed it in his bosom, and it chilled him to the back-bone.</p> + +<p>Yes; that was undoubtedly the safest way; to carry the spoil about with +him; so, next noon—how could he get up till noon after such a woful +night?—next noon he emptied the jar, and tying up its contents in a +handkerchief, proceeded to wear it as a girdle; for an hour he clattered +about the premises, making as much jingle as a wagoner's team of bells; +laden heavily with gold, like the ιβἑβυστο genius in Herodotus: +but he soon found out this would not do at all; for, independently of +all concealment at an end, so long as his secret store was rattling as +he walked, louder than military spurs or sabre-tackle, he soberly +reflected that he might—possibly, possibly, though not probably—get a +glass too much again, by some mere accident or other; and then to be +robbed of his golden girdle, this cincture of all joy! O, terrible +thought! as well [this is my fancy, not Rogers's] deprive Venus of her +zone, and see how the beggared Queen of Beauty could exist without her +treasury, the Cestus.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3> + +<h4>INVESTMENT.</h4> + + +<p>Next day, the wealthy Roger had higher aspirations. Why should +not he get interest for his money, like lords and gentlefolk? His gold +had been lying idle too long; more fool he: it ought to breed money +somehow, he knew that; for, like most poor men whose sole experience of +investment is connected with the Lombard's golden balls, he took exalted +views of usury. Was he to be "hiding up his talent in a napkin—?"</p> + +<p>Ah!—he remembered and applied the holy parable, but it smote across his +heart like a flash of frost, a chilling recollection of good things past +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_070" id="Page_070"></a>[Pg 070]</span>and gone. What had he been doing with his talents—for he once +possessed the ten? had he not squandered piety, purity, and patience? +where were now his gratitude to God, his benevolence to man? the +father's duteous care, the husband's industry and kindness, the +labourer's faith, the Christian's hope—who had spent all these?—Till +money's love came in, and money-store to feed it, the poor man had been +rich: but now, rotten to the core, by lust of gold, the rich is poor +indeed.</p> + +<p>However, such considerations did not long afflict him—for we know that +lookers-on see more than players—and if Roger had encouraged half our +wise and sober thoughts, he might have been a better man: but Roger +quelled the thoughts, and silenced them; and thoughts are tender +intonations, shy little buzzing sounds, soon scared by coarser noise: +Roger had no mind to cherish those small fowls; so they flew back again +to Heaven's gate, homeless and uncomforted as weeping peri's.</p> + +<p>The bank—the county bank—Shark, Breakem, and Company—this was the +specious Eldorado, the genuine gold-increaser, the hive where he would +store his wealth (as honey left for the bees in winter), and was to have +it soon returned fourfold. It was indeed a thought to make the rich man +glad, that all his shining heap was just like a sample of seed-corn, and +the pocket-full should next year fill a sack. How grudgingly he now +began to mourn over past extravagance, five pieces gone within the week! +how close and careful he resolved to be in future! how he would scrape +and economize to get and save but one more of those sweet little seeds, +that yield more gold—more gold! And if Roger had been privileged in +youth to have fed upon the wisdom of the Eton Latin grammar, he could +have now quoted with some experimental unction the "<i>Crescit Amor</i>" +line, which every body well knows how to finish. Truly, it was growing +with his growth, and rioting in strength above his weakness.</p> + +<p>Swollen with this expanding love, he packed up his money in what were, +though he knew it not, <i>rouleaux</i>, but to his plebeian eyes looked more +like golden sausages: and he would take it to the bank, and they should +bow to him, and Sir him, and give him forthwith more than he had +brought; and if those summary gains were middling great—say twice as +much, to be moderate—he thought he might afford himself a chaise coming +back, and return to Hurstley Common like a nabob. Thus, full of wealthy +fancies, after one glass more, off set Roger to the county town, with +his treasure in a bundle.</p> + +<p>Half-way to it, as hospitality has ordained to be the case wherever +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_071" id="Page_071"></a>[Pg 071]</span>there be half-ways, occurred a public-house: and really, +notwithstanding all our monied neophyte's economical resolutions, his +throat was so "uncommon dry," that he needs must stop there to refresh +the muscles of his larynx: so, putting down his bundle on the settle, he +called for a foaming tankard, and thanking the crock, as his evil wont +now was, sat down to drink and think. Here was prosperity indeed, a +flood of astonishing good fortune: that he, but a little week agone, a +dirty ditcher—so was he pleased to designate his former self—a ragged +wretch, little better than a tramp, should be now progressing like a +monarch, with a mighty bag of gold to enrich his county town. To enrich, +and be thereby the richer; for Roger's actions of finance were so +simple, as to run the risk of being called sublimely indistinct: he took +it as an axiom that "money bred money," but in what way to draw forth +its generative properties, whether or not by some new-fangled manure, he +was entirely ignorant; and it clearly was his wisdom to leave all that +mystery of money-making solely to the banker. All he cared about was +this: to come back richer than he came—and, lo! how rich he was +already. Lolling at high noon, on a Wednesday too, in the extremest mode +of rustic beauism, with a bag of gold by his side, and a pot of porter +in his hand—here was an accumulation of magnificence—all the +prepositions pressed into his service. His wildest hopes exceeded, and +almost nothing left to wish. Blown up with the pride and importance of +the moment, and some little oblivious from the potent porter—he had +paid and sallied forth, and marched a mile upon his way, full of golden +fancies, a rich luxurious lord as he was—when all on a sudden the +hallucination crossed his dull pellucid mind, that he had left the store +behind him! O, pungent terror!—O, most exquisite torture! was it clean +gone, stolen, lost, lost, lost for ever? Rushing back in an agony of +fear, that made the ruddy hostess think him crazed, with his hair on +end, and a face as if it had been white-washed, he flew to the tap-room, +and—almost fainted for ecstasy of joy when he found it, where he had +laid it, on the settle!</p> + +<p>Better had you lost it, Roger; better had your ecstasy been sorrow: +there is more trouble yet for you, from that bad crock of gold. But if +your lesson is not learnt, and you still think otherwise, go on a little +while exultingly as now I see you, and hug the treasure to your +heart—the treasure that will bring you yet more misery.</p> + +<p>And now the town is gained, the bank approached. What! that big barred, +guarded place, looking like a mighty mouse-trap? he didn't half like to +venture in. At last he pushed the door ajar, and took a peep; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_072" id="Page_072"></a>[Pg 072]</span>there +were muskets over the mantel-piece, ostentatiously ticketed as "Loaded! +Beware!" there were leather buckets ranged around the walls: he did not +in any degree like it: was he to expose his treasure in this idiot +fashion to all the avowed danger of fire and thieves? However, since he +had come so far, he would get some interest for his money, that he +would—so he'd just make bold to step to the counter and ask a very +obsequious bald-headed gentleman, who sired him quite affably,</p> + +<p>"How much, Master, will you be pleased to give me for my gold?"</p> + +<p>The gentleman looked queerish, as if he did not comprehend the question, +and answered, "Oh! certainly, sir—certainly—we do not object to give +you our notes for it," at the same time producing an extremely dirty +bundle of worn-out bits of paper.</p> + +<p>Roger stroked his chin.</p> + +<p>"But, Master, my meaning is, not how many o' them brown bits o' paper +you'll sell me for my gold here," and he exhibited a greater store than +Mr. Breakem had seen at once upon his counter for a year, "but how much +more gold you'll send me back with than what I've brought? by way of +interest, you know, or some such law: for I don't know much about the +Funds, Master."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir," replied the civil banker, who wished by any means to +catch the clodpole's spoil—"you are very obliging; we shall be glad to +allow you two-and-a-half per centum per annum for the deposit you are +good enough to leave in our keeping."</p> + +<p>"Leave in your keeping, Master! no, I didn't say that! by your leave, +I'll keep it myself!"</p> + +<p>"In that case, sir, I really do not see how I can do business with you."</p> + +<p>True enough; and Roger would never have been such a monetary blockhead, +had he not been now so generally tipsy; the fumes of beer had mingled +with his plan, and all his usual shrewdness had been blunted into folly +by greediness of lucre on the one side, and potent liquors on the other. +The moment that the banker's parting speech had reached his ear, the +absurdity of Roger's scheme was evident even to himself, and with a bare +"Good day, Master," he hurriedly took his bundle from the counter, and +scuttled out as quick as he could.</p> + +<p>His feelings, walking homeward, were any thing but pleasant; the bubble +of his ardent hope was burst: he never could have more than the paltry +little sum he carried in that bundle: what a miser he would be of it: +how mean it now seemed in his eyes—a mere sample-bag of seed, instead +of the wide-waving harvest! Ah, well; he would save <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_073" id="Page_073"></a>[Pg 073]</span>and scrape—ay, and +go back to toil again—do any thing rather than spend.</p> + +<p>Got home, the difficulty now recurred, where was he to hide it? The +store was a greater care than ever, now those rascally bankers knew of +it. He racked his brain to find a hiding-place, and, at length, really +hit upon a good one. He concealed the crock, now replenished with its +contents, in the thatch just over his bed's head: it was a rescued +darling: so he tore a deep hole, and nested it quite snugly.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it did not matter much, but the rain leaked in by that hole all +night, and fortunate Roger woke in the morning drenched with wet, and +racked by rheumatism.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h3> + +<h4>CALUMNY.</h4> + + +<p>More blessings issue from the crock; Pandora's box is set wide +open, and all the sweet inhabitants come forth. If apprehensions for its +safety made the finder full of care, the increased whisperings of the +neighbourhood gave him even deeper reason for anxiety. In vain he told +lie upon lie about a legacy of some old uncle in the clouds; in vain he +stuck to the foolish and transparent falsehood, with a dogged +pertinacity that appealed, not to reason, but to blows; in vain he made +affirmation weaker by his oath, and oaths quite unconvincing by his +cudgel: no one believed him: and the mystery was rendered more +inexplicable from his evidently nervous state and uneasy terror of +discovery.</p> + +<p>He had resolved at the outset, cunningly as he fancied, to change no +more than one piece of gold in the same place; though Bacchus's +undoubtedly proved the rule by furnishing an exception: and the +consequence came to be, that there was not a single shop in the whole +county town, nor a farm-house in all the neighbourhood round, where +Roger Acton had not called to change a sovereign. True, the silver had +seldom been forthcoming; still, he had asked for it; and where in life +could he have got the gold? Many was the rude questioner, whose +curiosity had been quenched in drink; many the insufferable pryer, whom +club-law had been called upon to silence. Meanwhile, Roger steadily kept +on, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_074" id="Page_074"></a>[Pg 074]</span>accumulating silver where he could: for his covetous mind delighted +in the mere semblance of an increase to his store, and took some +untutored numismatic interest in those pretty variations of his +idol—money.</p> + +<p>But if Roger's heap increased, so did the whispers and suspicions of the +country round; they daily grew louder, and more clamorous; and soon the +charitable nature of chagrined wonder assumed a shape more heart-rending +to the wretched finder of that golden hoard, than any other care, or +fear, or sin, that had hitherto torn him. It only was a miracle that the +neighbours had not thought of it before; seldom is the world so +unsuspicious; but then honest Roger's forty years of character were +something—they could scarcely think the man so base; and, above all, +gentle Grace was such a favourite with all, was such a pattern of +purity, and kindliness, and female conduct, that the tongue would have +blistered to its roots, that had uttered scorn of her till now. As +things were, though, could any thing be clearer? Was charity herself to +blame in putting one and one together? Sir John was rich, was young, +gay, and handsome; but Grace was poor—but indisputably beautiful, and +probably had once been innocent: some had seen her going to the Hall at +strange times and seasons—for in truth, she often did go there; +Jonathan and Sarah Stack, of course, were her dearest friends on earth: +and so it came to pass, that, through the blessing of the crock, honest +Roger was believed to live on the golden wages of his daughter's shame! +Oh, coarse and heartless imputation! Oh, bitter price to pay for secresy +and wonderful good fortune! In vain the wretched father stormed, and +swore, and knocked down more than one foul-spoken fellow that had +breathed against dear Grace. None but credited the lie, and many envious +wretches actually gloried in the scandal; I grieve to say that +women—divers venerable virgins—rejoiced that this pert hussey was at +last found out; she was too pretty to be good, too pious to be pure; now +at length they were revenged upon her beauty; now they had their triumph +over one that was righteous over-much. For other people, they would urge +the reasonable question, how else came Roger by the cash? and getting no +answer, or worse than none—a prevaricating, mystifying mere +put-off—they had hardly an alternative in common exercise of judgment: +therefore, "Shame on her," said the neighbours, "and the bitterest shame +on him:" and the gaffers and grand-dames shook their heads virtuously.</p> + +<p>Yet worse: there was another suggestion, by no means contradictory, +though simultaneous: what had become of Tom? ay—that bold young +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_075" id="Page_075"></a>[Pg 075]</span>fellow—Thomas Acton, Ben Burke's friend: why was he away so long, +hiding out of the country? they wondered.</p> + +<p>The suspected Damon and Pythias had gone a county off to certain fens, +and were, during this important week, engaged in a long process of +ensnaring ducks.</p> + +<p>Old Gaffer White had muttered something to Gossip Heartley, which Dick +the Tanner overheard, wherein Tom Acton and a gun, and Burke, and +burglary, and throats cut, and bags of gold, were conspicuous +ingredients: so that Roger Acton's own dear Tom, that eagle-eyed and +handsome better image of himself, stood accused, before his quailing +father's face, of robbery and murder.</p> + +<p>Both—both darlings, dead Annie's little orphaned pets, thus stricken by +one stone to infamy! Grace, scouted as a hussey, an outcast, a bad girl, +a wanton—blessed angel! Thomas—generous boy—keenly looked for, in his +near return, to be seized by rude hands, manacled, and dragged away, and +tried on suspicion as a felon—for what? that crock of gold. Yet Roger +heard it all, knew it all, writhed at it all, as if scorpions were +lashing him; but still he held on grimly, keeping that bad secret. +Should he blab it out, and so be poor again, and lose the crock?</p> + +<p>That our labourer's changed estate influenced his bodily health, under +this accumulated misery and desperate excitement, began to be made +manifest to all. The sturdy husbandman was transformed into a tremulous +drunkard; the contented cottager, into a querulous hypochondriac; the +calm, religious, patient Christian, into a tumultuous blasphemer. Could +all this be, and even Roger's iron frame stand up against the battle! +No, the strength of Samson has been shorn. The crock has poured a +blessing on its finder's very skin, as when the devil covered Job with +boils.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h3> + +<h4>THE BAILIFF'S VISIT.</h4> + + +<p>One day at noon, ere the first week well was over since the +fortunate discovery of gold, as Roger lay upon his bed, recovering from +an overnight's excess, tossed with fever, vexation, and anxiety, he was +at once <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_076" id="Page_076"></a>[Pg 076]</span>surprised and frightened by a visit from no less a personage +than Mr. Simon Jennings. And this was the occasion of his presence:</p> + +<p>Directly the gathering storm of rumours had collected to that focus of +all calumny, the destruction of female character and murder charged upon +the innocent, Grace Acton had resolved upon her course; secresy could be +kept no longer; her duty now appeared to be, to publish the story of her +father's lucky find.</p> + +<p>Grace, we may observe, had never been bound to silence, but only imposed +it on herself from motives of tenderness to one, whom she believed to be +taken in the toils of a temptation. She, simple soul, knew nothing of +manorial rights, nor wotted she that any could despoil her father of his +money; but even if such thoughts had ever crossed her mind, she loathed +the gold that had brought so much trouble on them all, and cared not how +soon it was got rid of. Her father's health, honour, happiness, were +obviously at stake; perhaps, also, her brother's very life: and, as for +herself, the martyr of calumny looked piously to heaven, offered up her +outraged heart, and resolved to stem this torrent of misfortune. +Accordingly, with a noble indignation worthy of her, she had gone +straightway to the Hall, to see the baronet, to tell the truth, fling +aside a charge which she could scarcely comprehend, and openly vindicate +her offended honour. She failed—many imagine happily for her own peace, +if Sir John had not been better than his friends—in gaining access to +the Lord of Hurstley; but she did see Mr. Jennings, who serenely +interposed, and listened to all she came to say—"her father had been +unfortunate enough to find a crock of money on the lake side near his +garden."</p> + +<p>When Jennings heard the tale, he started as if stung by a wasp: and +urging Grace to tell it no one else (though the poor girl "must," she +said, "for honour's sake"), he took up his hat, and ran off breathlessly +to Acton's cottage. Roger was at home, in bed, and sick; there was no +escape; and Simon chuckled at the lucky chance. So he crept in, +carefully shut the door, put his finger on his lips to hush Roger's note +of admiration at so little wished a vision; and then, with one of his +accustomed scared and fearful looks behind him, muttered under his +breath,</p> + +<p>"Man, that gold is mine: I have paid its price to the uttermost; give me +the honey-pot."</p> + +<p>Roger's first answer was a vulgar oath; but his tipsy courage faded soon +away before old habits of subserviency, and he faltered out,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_077" id="Page_077"></a>[Pg 077]</span> +"I—I—Muster Jennings! I've got no pot of gold!"</p> + +<p>"Man, you lie! you have got the money! give it me at once—and—" he +added in a low, hoarse voice, "we will not say a word about the murder."</p> + +<p>"Murder!" echoed the astonished man.</p> + +<p>"Ay, murder, Acton:—off! off, I say!" he muttered parenthetically, then +wrestled for a minute violently, as with something in the air; and +recovering as from a spasm, calmly added,</p> + +<p>"Ay, murder for the money."</p> + +<p>"I—I!" gasped Roger; "I did no murder, Muster Jennings!"</p> + +<p>A new light seemed to break upon the bailiff, and he answered with a +tone of fixed determination,</p> + +<p>"Acton, you are the murderer of Bridget Quarles."</p> + +<p>Roger's jaw dropped, dismay was painted on his features, and certainly +he did look guilty enough. But Simon proceeded in a tenderer tone;</p> + +<p>"Notwithstanding, give me the gold, Acton, and none shall know a word +about the murder. We will keep all quiet, Roger Acton, all nice and +quiet, you know;" and he added, coaxingly, "come, Roger, give me up this +crock of gold."</p> + +<p>"Never!" with a fierce anathema, answered our hero, now himself again: +the horrid accusation had entranced him for a while, but this coaxing +strain roused up all the man in him: "Never!" and another oath confirmed +it.</p> + +<p>"Acton, give it up, I say!" was shouted in rejoinder, and Jennings +glared over him with his round and staring eyes as he lay faint upon his +bed—"Give up the crock, or else—"</p> + +<p>"Else what? you whitened villain."</p> + +<p>The bailiff flung himself at Roger's neck, and almost shrieked, "I'll +serve you as I—"</p> + +<p>There was a tremendous struggle; attacked at unawares, for the moment he +was nearly mastered; but Acton's tall and wiry frame soon overpowered +the excited Jennings, and long before you have read what I have +written—he has leaped out of bed—seized—doubled up—and flung the +battered bailiff headlong down the narrow stair-case to the bottom. This +done, Roger, looking like Don Quixote de la Mancha in his penitential +shirt, mounted into bed again, and quietly lay down; wondering, +half-sober, at the strange and sudden squall.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_078" id="Page_078"></a>[Pg 078]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h3> + +<h4>THE CAPTURE.</h4> + + +<p>He had not long to wonder. Jennings got up instantly, despite +of bruises, posted to the Hall, took a search-warrant from Sir John's +study, (they were always ready signed, and Jennings filled one up,) and +returned with a brace of constables to search the cottage.</p> + +<p>Then Roger, as he lay musing, fancied he heard men's voices below, and +his wife, who had just come in, talking to them; what could they want? +tramps, perhaps: or Ben? he shuddered at the possibility; with Tom too; +and he felt ashamed to meet his son. So he turned his face to the wall, +and lay musing on—he hadn't been drinking too much over-night—Oh, no! +it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be +told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and +resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one +came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a +deep whisper from the further end of the room,</p> + +<p>"Acton, give me the gold, and the men shall go away; it is not yet too +late; tell me where to find the crock of gold."</p> + +<p>An oath was the reply; and, at a sign from Jennings, up came the other +two.</p> + +<p>"We have searched every where, Mr. Simon Jennings, both cot and garden; +ground disturbed in two or three places, but nothing under it; in-doors +too, the floor is broken by the hearth and by the dresser, but no signs +of any thing there: now, Master Acton, tell us where it is, man, and +save us all the trouble."</p> + +<p>Roger's newly-learnt vocabulary of oaths was drawn upon again.</p> + +<p>"Did you look in the ash-pit?" asked Jennings.</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"Well, while you two search this chamber, I will examine it myself."</p> + +<p>Mr. Jennings apparently entertained a wholesome fear of Acton's powers +of wrestling.</p> + +<p>Up came Simon in a hurry back again, with a lot of little empty leather +bags he had raked out, and—the fragment of a shawl! the edges burnt, it +was a corner bit, and marked B.Q.</p> + +<p>"What do you call this, sir?" asked the exulting bailiff.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_079" id="Page_079"></a>[Pg 079]</span>"Curse that Burke!"—thought Roger; but he said nothing.</p> + +<p>And the two men up stairs had searched, and pried, and hunted every +where in vain; the knotty mattress had been ripped up, the chimney +scrutinized, the floor examined, the bed-clothes overhauled, and as for +the thatch, if it hadn't been for Roger Acton's constant glance upwards +at his treasure in the roof, I am sure they never would have found it. +But they did at last: there it was, the crock of gold, full proof of +robbery and murder!</p> + +<p>"Aha!" said Simon, in a complacent triumph, "Mrs. Quarles's identical +honey-pot, full of her clean bright gold, and many pieces still encased +in those tidy leather bags;" and his round eyes glistened again; but all +at once, with a hurried look over his left shoulder, he exclaimed, +involuntarily, in a very different tone, "Ha! away, I say!—" Then he +snatched the crock up eagerly, and nursed it like a child.</p> + +<p>"Come along with us, Master Acton, you're wanted somewhere else; up, +man, look alive, will you?"</p> + +<p>And Roger dressed himself mechanically. It was no manner of use, not in +the least worth while resisting, innocent though he was; his treasure +had been found, and taken from him; he had nothing more to live for; his +gold was gone—his god; where was the wisdom of fighting for any thing +else; let them take him to prison if they would, to the jail, to the +gallows, to any-whither, now his gold was gone. So he put on his +clothes without a murmur, and went with them as quiet as a lamb.</p> + +<p>Never was there a clearer case; the housekeeper's hoard had been found +in his possession, with a fragment of her shawl; and Sir John Vincent +was very well aware of the mystery attending the old woman's death; +besides, he was in a great hurry to be off; for Pointer, and Silliphant, +and Lord George Pypp, were to have a hurdle race with him that day, for +a heavy bet; so he really had not time to go deep into the matter; and +the result of five minutes' talk before the magisterial chairs (Squire +Ryle having been summoned to assist) was, that, on the accusation of +Simon Jennings, Roger Acton was fully committed to the county jail, to +be tried at next assizes, for Bridget Quarles's murder.</p> + +<p>Thank God! poor Roger, it has come to this. What other way than this was +there to save thee from thy sin—to raise thee from thy fall? Where +else, but in a prison, could you get the silent, solitary hours leading +you again to wholesome thought and deep repentance? Where else could you +escape the companionship of all those loose and low associates, sottish +brawlers, ignorant and sensual unbelievers, vagabond <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_080" id="Page_080"></a>[Pg 080]</span>radicals, and +other lewd fellows of the baser sort, that had drank themselves drunk at +your expense, and sworn to you as captain! The place, the time, the +means for penitence are here. The crisis of thy destiny is come.</p> + +<p>Honest Roger, Steady Acton, did I not see thy guardian angel—after all +his many tears, aggrieved and broken spirit!—did I not see him lift his +swollen eyes in gratitude to Heaven, and benevolence to thee, and smile +a smile of hopeful joy when that damned crock was found?</p> + +<p>Gladly could he thank his Lord, to behold the temptation at an end.</p> + +<p>Did I not see the devil slink away from thee abashed, issuing like an +adder from thy heart, and then, with a sudden Protean change, driven +from thy hovel as a thunder-cloud dispersing, when Simon Jennings seized +the jar, hugged it as his household-god—and took it home with him—and +counted out the gold—and locked the bloody treasure in his iron-chest?</p> + +<p>Fitly did the murderer lock up curses with his spoil.</p> + +<p>And when God smote thine idol, dashing Dagon to the ground, and thy +heart was sore with disappointment, and tender as a peeled fig—when +hope was dead for earth, and conscience dared not look beyond it—ah! +Roger, did I judge amiss when I saw, or thought I saw, those eyes full +of humble shame, those lips quivering with remorseful sorrow?</p> + +<p>We will leave thee in the cold stone cell—with thy well-named angel +Grace to comfort thee, and pray with thee, and help thee back to God +again, and so repay the debt that a daughter owes her father.</p> + +<p>Happy prison! where the air is sweetened by the frankincense of piety, +and the pavement gemmed with the flowers of hope, and the ceiling arched +with Heaven's bow of mercy, and the walls hung around with the dewy +drapery of penitence!</p> + +<p>Happy prison! where the talents that were lost are being found again, +gathered in humility from this stone floor; where poor-making riches are +banished from the postern, and rich-making poverty streameth in as light +from the grated window; where care vexeth not now the labourer emptied +of his gold, and calumny's black tooth no longer gnaws the heart-strings +of the innocent.</p> + +<p>Hark! it is the turnkey, coming round to leave the pittance for the day: +he is bringing in something in an earthern jar. Speak, Roger Acton, +which will you choose, man—a prisoner's mess of pottage—or a crock of +gold?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_081" id="Page_081"></a>[Pg 081]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h3> + +<h4>THE AUNT AND HER NEPHEW.</h4> + + +<p>While we leave Roger Acton in the jail, waiting for the very +near assizes, and wearing every hour away in penitence and prayer, it +will be needful to our story that we take a retrospective glance at +certain events, of no slight importance.</p> + +<p>I must now speak of things, of which there is no human witness; +recording words, and deeds, whereof Heaven alone is cognizant, Heaven +alone—and Hell! For there are secret matters, which the murdered cannot +tell us, and the murderer dare not—let him confess as fully as he will. +Therefore, with some omnipresent sense, some invisible ubiquity, I must +note down scenes as they occurred, whether mortal eye has witnessed them +or not; I must lay bare secret thoughts, unlatch the hidden chambers of +the heart, and duly set out, as they successively arose, the idea which +tongue had not embodied, the feeling which no action had expressed.</p> + +<p>Hitherto, we have pretty well preserved inviolate the three grand +unities—time, place, circumstance; and even now we do not sin against +the first and chiefest, however we may seem so to sin; for, had it +suited my purpose to have begun with the beginning, and to have placed +the present revelations foremost, the strictest stickler for the unities +would have only had to praise my orthodox adherence to them. As it is, I +have chosen, for interest sake, to shuffle my cards a little; and two +knaves happen to have turned up together just at this time and place. +The time is just three weeks ago—a week before the baronet came of age, +and a fortnight antecedent to the finding of the crock; which, as we +know, after blessing Roger for a se'nnight, has at last left him in +jail. The place is the cozy house-keepers room at Hurstley: and the +brace of thorough knaves, to enact then and there as <i>dramatis personæ</i>, +includes Mistress Bridget Quarles, a fat, sturdy, bluffy, old woman, of +a jolly laugh withal, and a noisy tongue—and our esteemed acquaintance +Mister Simon Jennings. The aunt, house-keeper, had invited the nephew, +butler, to take a dish of tea with her, and rum-punch had now succeeded +the souchong.</p> + +<p>"Well, Aunt Quarles, is it your meaning to undertake a new master?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_082" id="Page_082"></a>[Pg 082]</span>"Don't know, nephy—can't say yet what he'll be like: if he'll leave us +as we are, won't say wont."</p> + +<p>"Ay, as we are, indeed; comfortable quarters, and some little to put by, +too: a pretty penny you will have laid up all this while, I'll be bound: +I wager you now it is a good five hundred, aunt—come, done for a +shilling."</p> + +<p>"Get along, foolish boy; a'n't you o' the tribe o' wisdom too—ha, ha, +ha!"</p> + +<p>"I will not say," smirked Simon, "that my nest has not a feather."</p> + +<p>"It's easy work for us, Nep; we hunt in couples: you the men, and I the +maids—ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>"Tush, Aunt Bridget! that speech is not quite gallant, I fear." And the +worshipful extortioners giggled jovially.</p> + +<p>"But it's true enough for all that, Simon: how d'ye manage it, eh, boy? +much like me, I s'pose; wages every quarter from the maids, dues from +tradesmen Christmas-tide and Easter, regular as Parson Evans's; pretty +little bits tacked on weekly to the bills, beside presents from every +body; and so, boy, my poor forty pounds a-year soon mounts up to a +hundred."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, Aunt Bridget—but I get the start of you, though you probably +were born a week before-hand: talk of parsons, look at me, a regular +grand pluralist monopolist, as any bishop can be; butler in doors, +bailiff out of doors, land-steward, house-steward, cellar-man, and +pay-master. I am not all this for naught, Aunt Quarles: if so much goes +through my fingers, it is but fair that something stick."</p> + +<p>"True, Simon—O certainly; but if you come to boasting, my boy, I don't +carry this big bunch o' keys for nothing neither. Lord love you! why +merely for cribbings in the linen-line for one month, John Draper +swapped me that there shawl: none o' my clothes ever cost me a penny, +and I a'n't quite as bare as a new-born baby neither. Look at them +trunks, bless you!"</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay, aunt, I'll be bound the printer of your prayer-book has left +out a 'not,' before the 'steal,' eh?—ha! ha!"</p> + +<p>"Fie, naughty Simon, fie! them's not stealings, them's parquisites. +Where's the good o' living in a great house else? But come, Si, haven't +you struck out the 'not,' for yourself, though the printer did his duty, +eh, Nep?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit, aunt—not a bit: all sheer honesty and industry. Look at my +pretty little truck-shop down the village. Wo betide the labourer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_083" id="Page_083"></a>[Pg 083]</span>that +leaves off dealing there! not one that works at Hurstley, but eats my +bread and bacon; besides the 'tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff.'"</p> + +<p>"Pretty fairish articles, eh? I never dealt with you, Si: no, Nep, +no—you never saw the colour o' my money."</p> + +<p>Jennings gave a start, as if a thought had pricked him; but gayly +recovering himself, said,</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to pretty fairish, I know there is one thing about the bacon +good enough; ay, and the bread too—the very best of prices; ha! ha! is +not that good? And for the other genuine articles, I don't know that +much of the tea comes from China—and the coffee is sold ground, because +it is burnt maize—and there's a plenty of wholesome cabbage leaf cut up +in the tobacco—while as for snuff, I give them a dry, peppery, choky, +sneezy dust, and I dare say that it does its duty."</p> + +<p>It was astonishing how innocently the worthy couple laughed together.</p> + +<p>"My only trouble, Aunt Quarles, is where to keep my gains—what to do +with them. I am quite driven to the strong-box system, interest is so +bad; and as to speculations, they are nervous things, and sicken one. I +invest in the Great Western one day—a tunnel falls in, so I sell my +shares the next, and send the proceeds to Australia; then, looking at +the map, I see the island isn't clean chalked out all round, and +beginning to fear that the sea will get in where it a'n't made +water-tight by the Admiralty, I call the money home again. You see I +don't know what to do with gold when I get it. Where do you keep yours +now, aunt, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>"O, Nep, never mind me; you rattle on so I can't get in never a word. +I'll only tell you where I don't keep it. Not at Breakem's bank, for +they're brewers, and hosiers, and chandlers, and horse-dealers—ay, and +swindlers too, the whole 'company' on 'em; not in mortgages, for I hate +the very smell of a lawyer, with all his pounce and parchment; not in +Gover'me't 'nuities, for I'm an old 'ooman, boy; and not in the Three +per Cents, nor any other per cents, for I've sense enough to know that +my highest interest lies in counting out, as my first principle is +dropping in." And the fat female laughed herself purple at the venerable +joke.</p> + +<p>Simon was a courtier, and laughed too, as immoderately as possible.</p> + +<p>"Ah! I dare say now you have got a Chubb's patent somewhere full of +gold?" he asked somewhat anxiously; "take your punch, aunt, wont you? I +do not see you drink."</p> + +<p>"Simon, mark me; fools who want to be robbed put their money into an +iron chest, that thieves may know exactly where to find it; they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_084" id="Page_084"></a>[Pg 084]</span>might +as well ticket it 'cash,' and advertise to Newgate—come and steal. I +know a little better than to be such a fool."</p> + +<p>"Yes, certainly—I dare say now you keep it in your work-box, or sew it +up in your stays, or hide it in the mattress, or in an old tea-pot, +maybe." And Jennings eyed her narrowly.</p> + +<p>"Nephew, what rhymes to money?"</p> + +<p>"Money?—Well I can't say I am a poet—stony, perhaps. At least," added +the benevolent individual, "when I have raised a wretch's rent to gain a +little more by him, stony is not a bad shield to lift against prayers, +and tears, and orphans, and widows, and starvation, and all such +nonsense."</p> + +<p>"Not bad, neither, Nep: but there's a better rhyme than that."</p> + +<p>"You cannot mean honey, aunt? when I guessed stony, I thought you might +have some snug little cash cellar under the flags. But honey? are you +such a thorough Mrs. Rundle as to pickle and preserve your very guineas, +the same as you do strawberries or apricots in syrup?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you clever little fool! how prettily you do talk on: your tongue's +as tidy as your cash-book: when you've any money to put by, come to Aunt +Bridget for a crock to hide it in: mayn't one use a honey-pot, as Teddy +Rourke would say, barring the honey?"</p> + +<p>"Ha! and so you hide the hoard up there, aunt, eh? along with the +preserves in a honey-pot, do you?"</p> + +<p>"We'll see—we'll see, some o' these long days; not that the money's to +be yours, Nep—you're rich enough, and don't want it; there's your poor +sister Scott with her fourteen children, and Aunt Bridget must give her +a lift in life: she was a good niece to me, Simon, and never left my +side before she married: maybe she'll have cause to bless the dead."</p> + +<p>Jennings hardly spoke a word more; but drained his glass in silence, got +up a sudden stomach-ache, and wished his aunt good-night.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h3> + +<h4>SCHEMES.</h4> + + +<p>We must follow Simon Jennings to his room. He felt keenly +disappointed. Money was the idol of his heart, as it is of many million +others. He had robbed, lied, extorted, tyrannized; he had earned scorn, +ill-report, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_085" id="Page_085"></a>[Pg 085]</span>and hatred; nay, he had even diligently gone to work, and +lost his own self-love and self-respect in the service of his darling +idol. He was at once, for lucre's sake, the mean, cringing fawner, and +the pitiless, iron despot; to the rich he could play supple parasite, +while the poor man only knew him as an unrelenting persecutor; with the +good, and they were chiefly of the fairer, softer sex, he walked in +meekness, the spiritual hypocrite; the while, it was his boast to +over-reach the worst in low duplicity and crooked dealing. All this he +was for gold. When the eye of the world was on him, and intuition warned +him of the times, he was ever the serene, the correct, with a smooth +tongue and an oily smile; but in the privacy of some poor hovel, where +his debtor sued for indulgence, or some victim of his passions (he had +more depravities than one) threw her wretched self upon his pity, then +could Simon Jennings lash sternness into rage, and heat his brazen heart +with the embers of inveterate malice. It was as if the serpent, that +voluble, insinuating reptile, which had power to fascinate poor Eve, +turned to rend her when she had fallen, erect, with flashing eyes, and +bristling crest, with venomed fangs, and hissing. Behold, +snake-worshippers of Mexico, the prototype of your grim idol, in +Mammon's model slave and specimen disciple!</p> + +<p>Such a man was Simon Jennings, a soul given up to gold—exclusively to +gold; for although, as we have hinted, and as hereafter may appear, he +could sell himself at times to other sins, still these were but as stars +in his evil firmament, while covetousness ruled it like the sun; or, if +the beauteous stars and blessed sun be an image too hallowed for his +wickedness, we may find a fitter in some stagnant pool, where the +pestilential vapour over all is Mammonism, and the dull, fat weeds that +rot beneath, are pride, craftiness, and lechery. In fact, to speak of +passions in a heart such as his, were a palpable misnomer; all was +reduced to calculation; his rage was fostered to intimidate, and where +the wretch seemed kinder, his kindnesses were aimed at power, as an +object, rather than at pleasure—the power to obtain more gold.</p> + +<p>For it is a dreadful truth (which I would not dare to utter if such +crimes had never been), that a reprobate of the bailiff Jennings's stamp +may, by debts, or fines, or kind usurious loans, entrap a beggared +creature in his toils; and then lyingly propose remission at the secret +sacrifice of honour, in some one, over whom that dastard beggar has +control; and having this point gained, the seducer is quite capable of +using, for still more extortion, the power which a threatening of +exposure gives, when the criminally weak has stooped to sin, on promises +of silence and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_086" id="Page_086"></a>[Pg 086]</span>delivery from ruin. I wish there may be no poor yeoman +in this broad land, of honourable name withal, he and his progenitors +for ages, who can tell the tale of his own base fears, a creditor's +exactions, and some dependant victim's degradation: some orphaned niece, +some friendless ward, immolated in her earliest youth at the shrine of +black-hearted Mammon; I wish there may be no sleek middle-man guilty of +the crimes here charged upon Simon Jennings.</p> + +<p>This worthy, then, had been introduced at Hurstley by his aunt, Mrs. +Quarles, on the occurrence of a death vacancy in the lad-of-all-work +department, during the long ungoverned space of young Sir John's +minority. As the precious "lad" grew older, and divers in-door +potentates died off, the house-keeper had power to push her nephew on to +pageship, footmanship, and divers other similar crafts, even to the +final post of butler; while his own endeavours, backed by his aunt's +interest, managed to secure for him the rule out of doors no less than +in, and the closest possible access to guardians and landlords, to the +tenants—and their rent.</p> + +<p>Now, the amiable Mrs. Quarles had contrived the elevation of her nephew, +and connived at his monopolies, mainly to fit in cleverly with her own +worldly weal; for it would never have done to have risked the loss of +innumerable perquisites, and other peculations, by the possible advent +of an honest butler. But, while the worshipful Simon, to do him only +justice, fully answered Mrs. Bridget's purpose, and even added much to +her emoluments; still he was no mere derivative scion, but an +independent plant, and entertained views of his own. He had his own +designs, and laid himself out to entrap his aunt's affections; or +rather, for I cannot say he greatly valued these, to secure her good +graces, and worm himself within the gilded clauses of her will; she was +an old woman, rolling in gold, no doubt had a will; and as for himself, +he was younger by five-and-thirty years, so he could afford to wait a +little, before trying on her shoes. The petty schemes of thievery and +cheating, which he in his Quotem capacities had practised, were to his +eyes but as driblets of wealth in comparison with the mighty stream of +his old aunt's savings. Not that he had done amiss, trust him! but then +he knew the amount of his own hoard to a farthing, while of hers he was +entirely ignorant; so, on the principle of '<i>omne ignotum pro +mirifico</i>,' he pondered on its vastness with indefinite amazement, +although probably it might not reach the quarter of his own. For it +should in common charity be stated, that, with all her hiding and hiving +propensities, Mrs. Quarles, however usually a screw, was by fits and +starts an extravagant woman, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_087" id="Page_087"></a>[Pg 087]</span>besides spending on herself, had +occasionally helped her own kith and kin; poor niece Scott, in +particular, had unconsciously come in for many pleasant pilferings, and +had to thank her good aunt for innumerable filched groceries, and +hosieries, and other largesses, which (the latter in especial) really +had contributed, with sundry other more self indulgent expenses, to make +no small havoc of the store.</p> + +<p>Still, this store was Simon's one main chance, the chief prize in his +hope's lottery; and it was with a pang, indeed, that he found all his +endeavours to compass its possession had been vain. Was that endless +cribbage nothing, and the weary Bible-lessons on a Sunday, and the +constant fetchings and carryings, and the forced smiles, sham +congratulations, and other hypocritical affections—fearing for his dear +aunt's dropsy, and inquiring so much about her bunions—was all this +dull servitude to meet with no reward? With none? worse than none! Fool +that he was! had he schemed, and plotted, and flattered, and +cozened—ay, and given away many pretty little presents, lost decoys, +that had cost hard money, all for nothing—less than nothing—to be +laughed at and postponed to his Methodist sister Scott? The impudence of +deliberately telling him he "didn't want it, and was rich enough!" as if +"enough" could ever be good grammar after such a monosyllable as "rich;" +and "want it" indeed! of course he wanted it; if not, why had he slaved +so many years? want it, indeed! if to hope by day, and to dream by +night—if to leave no means untried of delicately showing how he longed +for it—if to grow sick with care, and thin with coveting—if this were +to want the gold, good sooth, he wanted it. Don't tell him of starving +brats, his own very bowels pined for it; don't thrust in his face the +necessities of others—the necessity is his; he must have it—he will +have it—talk of necessity!</p> + +<p>Wait a bit: is there no way of managing some better end to all this? no +mode of giving the right turn to that wheel of fortune, round which his +cares and calculations have been hovering so long? Is there no +conceivable method of possessing that vast hoard?</p> + +<p>Bless me! how huge it must be! and Simon turned whiter at the thought: +only add up Mother Quarles's income for fifty-five years: she is +seventy-five at least, and came here a girl of twenty. Simon's hair +stood on end, and his heart went like a mill-clapper, as he mentally +figured out the sum.</p> + +<p>Is there no possibility of contriving matters so that I may be the +architect of my own good luck, and no thanks at all to the old witch +there? Dear—what a glorious fancy—let me think a little. Cannot I get +at the huge hoard some how?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_088" id="Page_088"></a>[Pg 088]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h3> + +<h4>THE DEVIL'S COUNSEL.</h4> + + +<p>"Steal it," said the Devil.</p> + +<p>Simon was all of a twitter; for though he fancied his own heart said it, +still his ear-drum rattled, as if somebody had spoken.</p> + +<p>Simon—that ear-drum was to put you off your guard: the deaf can hear +the devil: he needs no tympanum to commune with the spirit: listen +again, Simon; your own thoughts echo every word.</p> + +<p>"Steal it: hide in her room; you know she has a shower-bath there, which +nobody has used for years, standing in a corner; two or three cloaks in +it, nothing else: it locks inside, how lucky! ensconce yourself there, +watch the old woman to sleep—what a fat heavy sleeper she is!—quietly +take her keys, and steal the store: remember, it is a honey-pot. +Nothing's easier—or safer. Who'd suspect you?"</p> + +<p>"Splendid! and as good as done," triumphantly exclaimed the nephew, +snapping his fingers, and prancing with glee;—"a glorious fancy! bless +my lucky star!"</p> + +<p>If there be a planet Lucifer, that was Simon's lucky star.</p> + +<p>And so, Mrs Quarles the biter is going to be bit, eh? It generally is so +in this world's government. You, who brought in your estimable nephew to +aid and abet in your own dishonest ways, are, it seems, going to be +robbed of all your knavish gains by him. This is taking the wise in +their own craftiness, I reckon: and richly you deserve to lose all your +ill-got hoard. At the same time, Mrs. Quarles—I will be just—there are +worse people in the world than you are: in comparison with your nephew, +I consider you a grosser kind of angel; and I really hope no harm may +befall your old bones beyond the loss of your money. However, if you are +to lose this, it is my wish that poor Mrs. Scott, or some other honest +body, may get it, and not Simon; or rather, I should not object that he +may get it first, and get hung for getting it, too, before the sister +has the hoard.</p> + +<p>Our friend, Simon Jennings, could not sleep that night; his reveries and +scheming lasted from the rum-punch's final drop, at ten P.M., to +circiter two A.M., and then, or thenabouts, the devil hinted "steal it;" +and so, not till nearly four, he began to shut his eyes, and dream +again, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_089" id="Page_089"></a>[Pg 089]</span>as his usual fashion was, of adding up receipts in five figures, +and of counting out old Bridget's hoarded gold.</p> + +<p>Next day, notwithstanding nocturnal semi-sleeplessness, he awoke as +brisk as a bee, got up in as exhilarated a state as any gas-balloon, and +was thought to be either surprisingly in spirits, or spirits +surprisingly in him; none knew which, "where each seemed either." That +whole day long, he did the awkwardest things, and acted in the most +absent manner possible; Jonathan thought Mr. Simon was beside himself; +Sarah Stack, foolish thing! said he was in love, and was observed to +look in the glass several times herself; other people did not know what +to think—it was quite a mystery. To recount only a few of his +unprecedented exploits on that day of anticipative bliss:</p> + +<p>First, he asked the porter how his gout was, and gave him a thimble-full +of whiskey from his private store.</p> + +<p>Secondly, he paid Widow Soper one whole week's washing in full, without +the smallest deduction or per centage.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, he ordered of Richard Buckle, commonly called Dick the Tanner, +a lot of cart harness, without haggling for price, or even asking it.</p> + +<p>And, fourthly, he presented old George White, who was coming round with +a subscription paper for a dead pig—actually, he presented old Gaffer +White with the sum of two-pence out of his own pocket! never was such +careless prodigality.</p> + +<p>But the little world of Hurstley did not know what we know. They +possessed no clue to the secret happiness wherewithal Simon Jennings +hugged himself; they had no inkling of the crock of gold; they thought +not he was going to be suddenly so rich; they saw no cause, as we do, +why he should feel to be like a great heir on the eve of his majority; +they wotted not that Sir John Devereux Vincent, Baronet, had scarcely +more agreeable or triumphant feelings when his clock struck twenty-one, +than Simon Jennings, butler, as the hour of his hope drew nigh.</p> + +<p>If a destiny like this man's can ever have a crisis, the hour of his +hope is that; but downward still, into a lower gulf, has been +continually his bad career; there is (unless a miracle intervene) no +stopping in the slope on which he glides, albeit there may be +precipices. He that rushes in his sledge down the artificial ice-hills +of St. Petersburgh, skims along not more swiftly than Jennings, from the +altitude of infant innocence, had sheered into the depths of full-grown +depravity; but even he can fall, and reach, with startling suddenness, a +lower deep.</p> + +<p>As if that Russian mountain, hewn asunder midway, were fitted flush <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_090" id="Page_090"></a>[Pg 090]</span>to +a Norwegian cliff, beetling precipitately over the whirlpool; then tilt +the sledge with its furred inmate over the slope, let it skim with +quicker impetus the smoking ice, let it touch that beetling edge, and, +leaping from the tangent, let it dart through the air, let it strike the +eddying waters, be sucked hurriedly down that hoarse black throat, wind +among the roots of the everlasting hills, and split upon the loadstone +of the centre.</p> + +<p>Even such a fate, "down, down to hell," will come to Simon Jennings; +wrapped in the furs of complacency, seated in the sledge of +covetousness, a-down the slippery launch of well-worn evil habit—over +the precipice of crime—into the billows of impenitent remorse—to be +swallowed by the vortex of Gehenna!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h3> + +<h4>THE AMBUSCADE.</h4> + + +<p>Night came, and with it all black thoughts. Not that they were +black at once, any more than darkness leaps upon the back of noon, +without the intervening cloak of twilight. Oh dear, no! Simon's thoughts +accommodated themselves fitly to the time of day. They had been, for +him, at early morning, pretty middling white, that is whity-brown; +thence they passed, with the passing hour kindly, through the shades of +burnt sienna, raw umber, and bistre; until, just as we may notice in the +case of marking-ink; that which, five minutes ago, was as water only +delicately dirtied, has become a fixed and indelible black.</p> + +<p>Simon was resolved upon the spoil, come what might; although his waking +sensations of buoyancy, his noon-day cogitations of a calmer kind, and +his even-tide determined scheming, had now given way to a nervous and +unpleasant trepidation. So he poured spirits down to keep his spirits +up. Very early after dark, he had watched his opportunity while Mrs. +Quarles was scolding in the kitchen, had slipped shoeless and +unperceived, from his pantry into the housekeeper's room, and locked +himself securely in the shower bath. Hapless wight! it was very little +after six yet, and there he must stand till twelve or so: his foresight +had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him. +But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_091" id="Page_091"></a>[Pg 091]</span>his rabbit +back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with +exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is +failing him for fear.</p> + +<p>Yes, fear, and with good reason too for fear; "nothing easier, nothing +safer," said his black adviser; how easily for bodily pains, how safely +for chances of detection, was he getting at the promised crock of gold!</p> + +<p>"Mr. Jennings! Mr. Simon! where in the world was Mr. Jennings?" nobody +knew; he must have gone out somewhere. Strange, too—and left his hat +and great-coat.</p> + +<p>Here's a general for an ambuscade; Oh, Simon, Simon! you have had the +whole day to think of it—how is it that both you and your dark friend +overlooked in your calculations the certainty of search, and the chance +of a discovery? The veriest school-boy, when he hid himself, would hide +his hat. I am half afraid that you are in that demented state, which +befits the wretch ordained to perish.</p> + +<p>But where is Mr. Jennings? that was the continued cry for four agonizing +hours of dread and difficulty. Sarah, the still-room maid, was sitting +at her work, unluckily in Mrs. Quarles's room; she had come in shortly +after Simon's secret entry; there she sat, and he dared not stir. And +they looked every where—except in the right place; to do the devil +justice, it was a capital hiding-corner that; rooms, closets, passages, +cellars, out-houses, gardens, lofts, tenements, and all the "general +words," in a voluminous conveyance, were searched and searched in vain; +more than one groom expected (hoped is a truer word) to find Mr. +Jennings hanging by a halter from the stable-lamp; more than one +exhilarated labourer, hastily summoned for the search, was sounding the +waters with a rake and rope, in no slight excitement at the thought of +fishing up a deceased bailiff.</p> + +<p>It was a terrible time for the ensconced one: sometimes he thought of +coming out, and treating the affair as a bit of pleasantry: but then the +devil had taken off his shoes—as a Glascow captain deals with his cargo +of refractory Irishers; how could he explain that? his abominable old +aunt was shrewd, and he knew how clearly she would guess at the truth; +if he desired to make sure of losing every chance, he could come out +now, and reveal himself; but if he nourished still the hope of counting +out that crock of gold, he'll bide where he is, and trust to—to—to +fate. The wretch had "Providence" on his blistered tongue.</p> + +<p>If, under the circumstances, any thing could be added to Simon's +gratification, such pleasing addition was afforded in overhearing, as +Lord<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_092" id="Page_092"></a>[Pg 092]</span> Brougham did, the effect which his rumoured death produced on the +minds of those who best had known him. It so happened, Sarah was sick, +and did not join the universal hunt; accordingly, being the only +audience, divers ambassadors came to tell her constantly the same most +welcome news, that Jennings had not yet been found.</p> + +<p>"Lawk, Sally," said a helper, "what a blessing it'll be, if that mean +old thief's dead; I'll go to town, if 'tis so, get a dozen Guy's-day +rockets, tie 'em round with crape, and spin 'em over the larches: +that'll be funeral fun won't it? and it'll sarve to tell the neighbours +of our luck in getting rid on him."</p> + +<p>"I doan't like your thought, Tom," said another staider youth: "it's +ill-mirth playing leap-frog over tomb-stones, and poor bravery insulting +the dead. Besides, I'm thinking the bad man that's taken from us an't a +going up'ards, so it's no use lending him a light. I wish we may all lie +in a cooler grave than he does, and not have to go quite so deep +down'ard."</p> + +<p>"Gee up for Lady-day!" exclaimed the emancipated coachman; "why, Sall, I +shall touch my whole lump of wages free for the fust time: and I only +wish the gals had our luck."</p> + +<p>"Here, Sarah," interposed a kind and ruddy stable youth, "as we're all +making free with Mr. Simon's own special ale, I've thought to bring you +a nogging on't: come, you're not so sick as you can't drink with all the +rest on us—The bailiff, and may none on us never see his face no more!"</p> + +<p>These, and similar testimonials to the estimation in which Simon's +character was held, must have gratified not a little the hearer of his +own laudations: now and then, he winced so that Sarah might have heard +him move: but her ear was alive to nothing but the news-bringers, and +her eyes appeared to be fixed upon the linen she was darning. That +Jennings vowed vengeance, and wreaked it afterwards too, on the youths +that so had shown their love, was his solitary pleasure in the +shower-bath. But his critics were too numerous for him to punish all: +they numbered every soul in the house, besides the summoned aiders—only +excepting three: Sarah, who really had a head-ache, and made but little +answers to the numerous glad envoys; Jonathan Floyd, whose charity did +not altogether hate the man, and who really felt alarmed at his absence; +and chiefest, Mrs. Quarles, who evinced more affection for her nephew +than any thought him worthy of exciting—she wrung her hands, wept, +offered rewards, bustled about every where, and kept calling +blubberingly for "Simon—poor dear Simon."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_093" id="Page_093"></a>[Pg 093]</span>At length, that fearful hue and cry began to subside—the hubbub came +to be quieter: neighbour-folks went home, and inmates went to bed. Sarah +Stack put aside her work, and left the room.</p> + +<p>What a relief to that hidden caitiff! his feet, standing on the cold, +damp iron so many hours, bare of brogues, were mere ice—only that they +ached intolerably: he had not dared to move, to breathe, and was all +over in one cramp: he did not bring the brandy-bottle with him, as he +once had planned; for calculation whispered—"Don't, your head will be +the clearer; you must not muddle your brains;" and so his caution +over-reached itself, as usual; his head was in a fog, and his brains in +a whirlwind, for lack of other stimulants than fear and pain.</p> + +<p>O Simon, how your prudence cheats you! five mortal hours of anguish and +anxiety in one unalterable posture, without a single drop of +creature-comfort; and all this preconcerted too!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3> + +<h4>PRELIMINARIES.</h4> + + +<p>At last, just as the nephew was positively fainting from +exhaustion, in came his kind old aunt to bed. She talked a good deal to +herself, did Mrs. Quarles, and Simon heard her say,</p> + +<p>"Poor fellow—poor, dear Simon, he was taken bad last night, and has +seemed queerish in the head all day: pray God nothing's amiss with the +boy!"</p> + +<p>The boy's heart (he was forty) smote him as he heard: yes, even he was +vexed that Aunt Bridget could be so foolishly fond of him. But he would +go on now, and not have all his toil for nothing. "I'm in for it," said +he, "and there's an end."</p> + +<p>Ay, Simon, you are, indeed, in for it; the devil has locked you in—but +as to the end, we shall see, we shall see.</p> + +<p>"I shouldn't wonder now," the good old soul went on to say, "if Simon's +wentured out without his hat to cool a head-ache: his +grand-father—peace be with him! died, poor man, in a Lunacy 'Sylum: +alack, Si, I wish you mayn't be going the same road. No, no, I hope +not—he's always so prudent-like, and wise, and good; so kind, too, to a +poor old fool like me:" and the poor old fool began to cry again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_094" id="Page_094"></a>[Pg 094]</span>"Silly boy—but he'll take cold at any rate: Sarah!" (here Mrs. Quarles +rung her bell, and the still-maid answered it.) "Sarah Stack, sit up +awhile for Mr. Jennings, and when he comes in, send him here to me. Poor +boy," she went on soliloquizing, "he shall have a drop or two to comfort +his stomach, and keep the chill out."</p> + +<p>The poor boy, lying <i>perdu</i>, shuddered at the word chill, and really +wished his aunt would hold her tongue. But she didn't.</p> + +<p>"Maybe now," the affectionate old creature proceeded, "maybe Simon was +vexed at what I let drop last night about the money. I know he loves his +sister Scott, as I do: but it'll seem hard, too, to leave him nothing. I +must make my will some day, I 'spose; but don't half like the job: it's +always so nigh death. Yes—yes, dear Si shall have a snug little +corner."</p> + +<p>The real Simon Pure, in his own snug little corner, writhed again. Mrs. +Quarles started at the noise, looked up the chimney, under the bed, +tried the doors and windows, and actually went so near the mark as to +turn the handle of the shower-bath; "Drat it," said she, "Sarah must ha' +took away the key: well, there can't be nothing there but cloaks, that's +one comfort."</p> + +<p>Last of all, a thought struck her—it must have been a mouse at the +preserves. And Mrs. Quarles forthwith opened the important cupboard, +where Jennings now well knew the idol of his heart was shrined. Then +another thought struck Mrs. Quarles, though probably no unusual one, and +she seemed to have mounted on a chair, and to be bringing down some +elevated piece of crockery. Simon could see nothing with his eyes, but +his ears made up for them: if ever Dr. Elliotson produced clairvoyance +in the sisters Okey, the same sharpened apprehensions ministered to the +inner man of Simon Jennings through the instrumental magnet of his +inordinately covetous desires. Therefore, though his retina bore no +picture of the scene, the feelers of his mind went forth, informing him +of every thing that happened.</p> + +<p>Down came a Narbonne honey-pot—Simon saw that first, and it was as the +lamp of Aladdin in his eyes: then the bladder was whipped off, and the +crock set open on the table. Jennings, mad as Darius's horse at the +sight of the object he so longed for, once thought of rushing from his +hiding-place, taking the hoard by a <i>coup de main</i>, and running off +straightway to America: but—deary me—that'll never do; I mustn't leave +my own strong-box behind me, say nothing of hat and shoes: and if I stop +for any thing, she'd raise the house.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_095" id="Page_095"></a>[Pg 095]</span>While this was passing through the immaculate mind of Simon Jennings, +Bridget had been cutting up an old glove, and had made one of its +fingers into a very tidy little leather sacklet; into this she deposited +a bright half sovereign, spoil of the day, being the douceur of a needy +brush-maker, who wished to keep custom, and, of course, charged all +these vails on the current bill for mops and stable-sponges.</p> + +<p>"Ha!" muttered she, "it's your last bill here, Mr. Scrubb, I can tell +you; so, you were going to put me off with a crown-piece, were you? and +actually that bit of gold might as well have been a drop of blood wrung +from you: yes—yes, Mr. Scrubb, I could see that plainly; and so you've +done for yourself."</p> + +<p>Then, having sewed up the clever little bag, she dropped it into the +crock: there was no jingle, all dumby: prudent that, in his aunt—for +the dear morsels of gold were worth such tender keeping, and leather +would hinder them from wear and tear, set aside the clink being +silenced. So, the nephew secretly thanked Bridget for the wrinkle, and +thought how pleasant it would be to stuff old gloves with his own yellow +store. Ah, yes, he would do that—to-morrow morning.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the pig-skin is put on again, and the honey-pot stored away: +and Simon instinctively stood a tip-toe to peep ideally into that +wealthy corner cupboard. His mind's eye seemed to see more honey-pots! +Mammon help us! can they all be full of gold? why, any one of them would +hold a thousand pounds. And Simon scratched the palms of his hands, and +licked his lips at the thought of so much honey.</p> + +<p>But see, Mrs. Quarles has, in her peculiar fashion, undressed herself: +that is to say, she has taken off her outer gown, her cap and wig—and +then has <i>added</i> to the volume of her under garments, divers night +habiliments, flannelled and frilled: while wrappers, manifold as a +turbaned Turk's, protect ear-ache, tooth-ache, head-ache, and face-ache, +from the elves of the night.</p> + +<p>And now, that the bedstead creaks beneath her weight, (as well it may, +for Bridget is a burden like Behemoth,) Simon's heart goes thump so +loud, that it was a wonder the poor woman never heard it. That heart in +its hard pulsations sounded to me like the carpenter hammering on her +coffin-lid: I marvel that she did not take it for a death-watch tapping +to warn her of her end. But no: Simon held his hand against his heart to +keep it quiet: he was so very fearful the pitapating would betray him. +Never mind, Simon; don't be afraid; she is fast asleep already; and her +snore is to thee as it were the challenge of a trumpeter calling to the +conflict.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_096" id="Page_096"></a>[Pg 096]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3> + +<h4>ROBBERY.</h4> + + +<p>Hush—hush—hush!</p> + +<p>Stealthily on tiptoe, with finger on his lips, that fore-doomed man +crept out.</p> + +<p>"The key is in the cupboard still—ha! how lucky: saves time that, and +trouble, and—and—risk! Oh, no—there can be no risk now," and the +wretch added, "thank God!"</p> + +<p>The devil loves such piety as this.</p> + +<p>So Simon quietly turned the key, and set the cupboard open: it was to +him a Bluebeard's chamber, a cave of the Forty Thieves, a garden of the +Genius in Aladdin, a mysterious secret treasure-house of wealth +uncounted and unseen.</p> + +<p>What a galaxy of pickle-pots! tier behind tier of undoubted +currant-jelly, ranged like the houses in Algiers! vasty jars of +gooseberry! delicate little cupping-glasses full of syruped fruits! Yet +all these candied joys, which probably enhance a Mrs. Rundle's heaven, +were as nothing in the eyes of Simon—sweet trash, for all he cared they +might be vulgar treacle. His ken saw nothing but the +honey-pots—embarrassing array—a round dozen of them! All alike, all +posted in a brown line, like stout Dutch sentinels with their hands in +their breeches pockets, and set aloft on that same high-reached shelf. +Must he really take them all? impracticable: a positive sack full. +What's to be done?—which is he to leave behind? that old witch +contrived this identity and multitude for safety's sake. But what if he +left the wrong one, and got clear off with the valuable booty of two +dozen pounds of honey? Confusion! that'll never do: he must take them +all, or none; all, all's the word; and forthwith, as tenderly as +possible, the puzzled thief took down eleven pots of honey to his one of +gold—all pig-bladdered, all Fortnumed—all slimy at the string; +"Confound that cunning old aunt of mine," said Simon, aloud; and took no +notice that the snores surceased.</p> + +<p>Then did he spread upon the table a certain shawl, and set the crocks in +order on it: and it was quite impossible to leave behind that pretty +ostentatious "Savings' Bank," which the shrewd hoarder kept as a feint +to lure thieves from her hidden gold, by an open exhibition of her +silver: unluckily, though, the shillings, not being leathered up nor +branned, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_097" id="Page_097"></a>[Pg 097]</span>rattled like a Mandarin toy, as the trembling hand of Jennings +deposited the bank beside the crockeries—and, at the well-known sound, +I observed (though Simon did not, as he was in a trance of addled +triumph) or fancied I observed Mrs. Quarles's head move: but as she said +nothing, perhaps I was mistaken. Thus stood Simon at the table, +surveying his extraordinary spoils.</p> + +<p>And while he looked, the Mercy of God, which never yet hath seen the +soul too guilty for salvation, spake to him kindly, and whispered in his +ear, "Poor, deluded man—there is yet a moment for escape—flee from +this temptation—put all back again—hasten to thy room, to thy prayers, +repent, repent: even thou shalt be forgiven, and none but God, who will +forgive thee, shall know of this bad crime. Turn now from all thy sins; +the gate of bliss is open, if thou wilt but lift the latch."</p> + +<p>It was one moment of irresolute delay; on that hinge hung Eternity. The +gate swung upon its pivot, that should shut out hell, or heaven!</p> + +<p>Simon knit his brow—bit his nails—and answered quite out loud, "What! +and after all to lose the crock of gold?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h3> + +<h4>MURDER.</h4> + + +<p>He had waked her!</p> + +<p>In an instant the angel form of Mercy melted away—and there stood the +devil with his arms folded.</p> + +<p>"Murder!—fire!—rape!—thieves!—what, Nephew Jennings, is that you, +with all my honey pots? Help! help! help!"</p> + +<p>"Phew-w-w!" whistled the devil: "I tell you what, Master Simon, you must +quiet the old woman, she bellows like a bull, the house'll be about your +ears in a twinkling—she'll hang you for this!"</p> + +<p>Yes—he must quiet her—the game was up; he threatened, he implored, but +she would shriek on; she slept alone on the ground-floor, and knew she +must roar loudly to be heard above the drawing-rooms; she would not be +quieted—she would shriek—and she did. What must he do? she'll raise +the house!—Stop her mouth, stop her mouth, I say, can't you?—No, she's +a powerful, stout, heavy woman, and he cannot hold her: ha! she has +bitten his finger to the bone, like a very tigress! look at the blood!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_098" id="Page_098"></a>[Pg 098]</span>"Why can't you touch her throat; no teeth there, bless you! that's the +way the wind comes: bravo! grasp it—tighter! tighter! tighter!"</p> + +<p>She struggled, and writhed, and wrestled, and fought—but all was +strangling silence; they rolled about the floor together, tumbled on the +bed, scuffled round the room, but all in horrid silence; neither uttered +a sound, neither had a shoe on—but all was earnest, wicked, +death-dealing silence.</p> + +<p>Ha! the desperate victim has the best of it; gripe harder, Jennings; she +has twisted her fingers in your neckcloth, and you yourself are choking: +fool! squeeze the swallow, can't you? try to make your fingers meet in +the middle—lower down, lower down, grasp the gullet, not the ears, +man—that's right; I told you so: tighter, tighter, tighter! again; ha, +ha, ha, bravo! bravo!—tighter, tighter, tighter!</p> + +<p>At length the hideous fight was coming to an end—though a hungry +constrictor, battling with the huge rhinoceros, and crushing his mailed +ribs beneath its folds, could not have been so fierce or fearful; fewer +now, and fainter are her struggles; that face is livid blue—the eyes +have started out, and goggle horribly; the tongue protrudes, swollen and +black. Aha! there is another convulsive effort—how strong she is still! +can you hold her, Simon?—can he?—All the fiend possessed him now with +savage exultation: can he?—only look! gripe, gripe still, you are +conquering, strong man! she is getting weaker, weaker; here is your +reward, gold! gold! a mighty store uncounted; one more grasp, and it is +all your own—relent now, she hangs you. Come, make short work of it, +break her neck—gripe harder—back with her, back with here against the +bedstead: keep her down, down I say—she must not rise again. Crack! +went a little something in her neck—did you hear it? There's the +death-rattle, the last smothery complicated gasp—what, didn't you hear +that?</p> + +<p>And the devil congratulated Simon on his victory.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h3> + +<h4>THE REWARD.</h4> + + +<p>Till the wretch had done the deed, he scarcely knew that it was +doing. It was a horrid, mad excitement, where the soul had spread its +wings upon the whirlwind, and heeded not whither it was hurried. A +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_099" id="Page_099"></a>[Pg 099]</span>terrible necessity had seemed to spur him onwards all the while, and +one thing so succeeded to another, that he scarce could stop at any but +the first. From the moment he had hidden in the shower-bath (but for +God's interposing mercy), his doom appeared to have been +sealed—robbery, murder, false witness, and—damnation!</p> + +<p>Crime is the rushing rapid, which, but for some kind miracle, inevitably +carries on through circling eddies, and a foamy swinging tide, to the +cataract of death and wo: haste, poor fisherman of Erie, paddle hard +back, stem the torrent, cling to the shore, hold on tight by this +friendly bough; know you not whither the headlong current drives? hear +you not the roar of many waters, the maddening rush as of an ocean +disenthralled? feel you not the earth trembling at the thunder—see you +not the heaven clouded o'er with spray? Helpless wretch—thy frail canoe +has leapt that dizzy water-cliff, Niagara!</p> + +<p>But if, in doing that fell deed, madness raged upon the minutes, now +that it was done—all still, all calm, all quiet, Terror held the +hour-glass of Time. There lay the corpse, motionless, though coiled and +cramped in the attitude of struggling agony; and the murderer gazed upon +his victim with a horror most intense. Fly! fly!—he dared not stop to +think: fly! fly! any whither—as you are—wait for nothing; fly! thou +caitiff, for thy life! So he caught up the blood-bought spoils, and was +fumbling with shaky fingers at the handle of the garden-door, when the +unseen tempter whispered in his ear,</p> + +<p>"I say, Simon, did not your aunt die of apoplexy?"</p> + +<p>O, kind and wise suggestion! O, lightsome, tranquillizing thought! +Thanks! thanks! thanks!—And if the arch fiend had revealed himself in +person at the moment, Simon would have worshipped at his feet.</p> + +<p>"But," and as he communed with his own black heart, there needed now no +devil for his prompter—"if this matter is to be believed, I must +contrive a little that it may look likelier. Let me see:—yes, we must +lay all tidy, and the old witch shall have died in her sleep; apoplexy! +capital indeed; no tell-tales either. Well, I must set to work."</p> + +<p>Can mortal mind conceive that sickening office?—To face the strangled +corpse, yet warm; to lift the fearful burden in his arms, and order out +the heavily-yielding limbs in the ease of an innocent sleep? To arrange +the bed, smooth down the tumbled coverlid, set every thing straight +about the room, and erase all tokens of that dread encounter? It needed +nerves of iron, a heart all stone, a cool, clear head, a strong arm, a +mindful, self-protecting spirit; but all these requisites came to +Simon's aid upon the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></a>[Pg 100]</span>instant; frozen up with fear, his heart-strings +worked that puppet-man rigidly as wires; guilt supplied a reckless +energy, a wild physical power, which actuates no human frame but one +saturate with crime, or madness; and in the midst of those terrific +details, the murderer's judgment was so calm and so collected, that +nothing was forgotten, nothing unconsidered—unless, indeed, it were +that he out-generalled himself by making all too tidy to be natural. +Hence, suspicion at the inquest; for the "apoplexy" thought was really +such a good one, that, but for so exact a laying out, the fat old corpse +might have easily been buried without one surmise of the way she met her +end. Again and again, in the history of crimes, it is seen that a "Judas +hangs himself;" and albeit, as we know, the murderer has hitherto +escaped detection, still his own dark hour shall arrive in its due +place.</p> + +<p>The dreadful office done, he asked himself again, or maybe took counsel +of the devil (for that evil master always cheats his servants), "What +shall I do with my reward, this crock—these crocks of gold? It might be +easy to hide one of them, but not all; and as to leaving any behind, +that I won't do. About opening them to see which is which—"</p> + +<p>"I tell you what," said the tempter, as the clock struck three, +"whatever you do, make haste; by morning's dawn the house and garden +will be searched, no doubt, and the crocks found in your possession. +Listen to me—I'm your friend, bless you! remember the apoplexy. Pike +Island yonder is an unfrequented place; take the punt, hide all there +now, and go at your best leisure to examine afterwards; but whatever you +do, make haste, my man."</p> + +<p>Then Jennings crept out by the lawn-door, thereby rousing the house-dog; +but he skirted the laurels in their shadow, and it was dark and +mizzling, so he reached the punt both quickly and easily.</p> + +<p>The quiet, and the gloom, and the dropping rain, strangely affected him +now, as he plied his punt-pole; once he could have wept in his remorse, +and another time he almost shrieked in fear. How lonesome it seemed! how +dreadful! and that death-dyed face behind him—ha! woman, away I say! +But he neared the island, and, all shoeless as he was, crept up its +muddy bank.</p> + +<p>"Hallo! nybor, who be you a-poaching on my manor, eh? that bean't good +manners, any how."</p> + +<p>Ben Burke has told us all the rest.</p> + +<p>But, when Burke had got his spoils—when the biter had been bitten—the +robber robbed—the murderer stripped of his murdered victim's +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></a>[Pg 101]</span>money—when the bereaved miscreant, sullenly returning in the dark, +damp night, tracked again the way he came upon that lonely lake—no one +yet has told us, none can rightly tell, the feelings which oppressed +that God-forsaken man. He seemed to feel himself even a sponge which, +the evil one had bloated with his breath, had soaked it then in blood, +had squeezed it dry again, and flung away! He was Satan's broken tool—a +weed pulled up by the roots, and tossed upon the fire; alone—alone in +all the universe, without countenance or sympathy from God, or man, or +devil; he yearned to find, were it but a fiend to back him, but in vain; +they held aloof, he could see them vaguely through the gloom—he could +hear them mocking him aloud among the patter of the rain-drops—ha! ha! +ha—the pilfered fool!</p> + +<p>Bitterly did he rue his crime—fearfully he thought upon its near +discovery—madly did he beat his miserable breast, to find that he had +been baulked of his reward, yet spent his soul to earn it.</p> + +<p>Oh—when the house-dog bayed at him returning, how he wished he was that +dog! he went to him, speaking kindly to him, for he envied that +dog—"Good dog—good dog!"</p> + +<p>But more than envy kept him lingering there: the wretched man did it for +delay—yes, though morn was breaking on the hills—one more—one more +moment of most precious time.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h3> + +<h4>SECOND THOUGHTS.</h4> + + +<p>For—again he must go through that room!</p> + +<p>No other entrance is open—not a window, not a door: all close as a +prison: and only by the way he went, by the same must he return.</p> + +<p>He trembled all over, as a palsied man, when he touched the lock: with +stiffening hair, and staring eyes, he peeped in at that well-remembered +chamber: he entered—and crept close up to the corpse, stealthily and +dreadingly—horror! what if she be alive still?</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">She was.</span></p> + +<p>Not quite dead—not quite dead yet! a gurgling in the bruised throat—a +shadowy gleam of light and life in those protruded eyes—an irregular +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></a>[Pg 102]</span>convulsive heaving at the chest: she might recover! what a fearful +hope: and, if she did, would hang him—ha! he went nearer; she was +muttering something in a moanful way—it was, "Simon did it—Simon did +it—Simon did it—Si—Si—Simon did—" he should be found out!</p> + +<p>Yet once again, for the last time, the long-suffering Mercy of the Lord +stood like Balaam's angel in the way, pleading with that miserable man +at the bed-side of her whom he had strangled. And even then, that +Guardian Spirit came not with chiding on his tongue, but He uttered +words of hope, while his eyes were streaming with sorrow and with pity.</p> + +<p>"Most wretched of the sinful sons of men, even now there may be mercy +for thee, even now plenteous forgiveness. True, thou must die, and pay +the earthly penalty of crimes like thine: but do my righteous bidding, +and thy soul shall live. Go to that poor, suffocating creature—cherish +the spark of life—bind up the wounds which thou hast rent, pouring in +oil and wine: rouse the house—seek assistance—save her life—confess +thy sin—repent—and though thou diest for this before the tribunal of +thy fellows, God will yet be gracious—he will raise again her whom thou +hadst slain—and will cleanse thy blood-stained soul."</p> + +<p>Thus in Simon's ear spake that better conscience.</p> + +<p>But the reprobate had cast off Faith; he could not pledge the Present +for the Future; he shuddered at the sword of Justice, and would not +touch the ivory sceptre of Forgiveness. No: he meditated horrid +iteration—and again the fiend possessed him! What! not only lose the +crock of gold, but all his own bright store? and give up every thing of +this world's good for some imaginary other, and meekly confess, and +meanly repent—and—and all this to resuscitate that hated old aunt of +his, who would hang him, and divorce him from his gold?</p> + +<p>No! he must do the deed again—see, she is moving—she will recover! her +chest heaves visibly—she breathes—she speaks—she knows me—ha! +down—down, I say!</p> + +<p>Then, with deliberate and damning resolution—to screen off temporal +danger, and count his golden hoards a little longer—that awful criminal +touched the throat again: and he turned his head away not to see that +horrid face, clutched the swollen gullet with his icy hands, and +strangled her once more!</p> + +<p>"This time all is safe," said Simon. And having set all smooth as +before, he stole up to his own chamber.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></a>[Pg 103]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h3> + +<h4>MAMMON, AND CONTENTMENT.</h4> + + +<p>Ay, safe enough: and the murderer went to bed. To bed? No.</p> + +<p>He tumbled about the clothes, to make it seem that he had lain there: +but he dared neither lie down, nor shut his eyes. Then, the darkness +terrified him: the out-door darkness he could have borne, and Mrs. +Quarles's chamber always had a night-lamp burning: but the darkness of +his own room, of his own thoughts, pressed him all around, as with a +thick, murky, suffocating vapour. So, he stood close by the window, +watching the day-break.</p> + +<p>As for sleep, never more did wholesome sleep rëvisit that atrocious +mind: laudanum, an ever-increasing dose of merciless laudanum, that was +the only power which ever seemed to soothe him. For a horrid vision +always accompanied him now: go where he might, do what he would, from +that black morning to eternity, he went a haunted man—a scared, +sleepless, horror-stricken wretch. That livid face with goggling eyes, +stuck to him like a shadow; he always felt its presence, and sometimes, +also, could perceive it as if bodily peeping over his shoulder, next his +cheek; it dogged him by day, and was his incubus by night; and often he +would start and wrestle, for the desperate grasp of the dying appeared +to be clutching at his throat: so, in his ghostly fears, and bloody +conscience, he had girded round his neck a piece of thin sheet-iron in +his cravat, which he wore continually as armour against those clammy +fingers: no wonder that he held his head so stiff.</p> + +<p>O Gold—accursed Mammon! is this the state of those who love thee +deepest? is this their joy, who desire thee with all their heart and +soul—who serve thee with all their might—who toil for thee—plot for +thee—live for thee—dare for thee—die for thee? Hast thou no better +bliss to give thy martyrs—no choicer comfort for thy most consistent +worshippers, no fairer fate for those, whose waking thoughts, and +dreaming hopes, and intricate schemes, and desperate deeds, were only +aimed at gold, more gold? God of this world, if such be thy rewards, let +me ever escape them! idol of the knave, false deity of the fool, if this +be thy blessing on thy votaries—come, curse me, Mammon, curse thou me!</p> + +<p>For, "The love of money is the root of all evil." It groweth up a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></a>[Pg 104]</span>little plant of coveting; presently the leaves get rank, the branches +spread, and feed on petty thefts; then in their early season come the +blossoms, black designs, plots, involved and undeveloped yet, of foul +conspiracies, extortions on the weak, rich robbings of the wealthy, the +threatened slander, the rewarded lie, malice, perjury, sacrilege; then +speedily cometh on the climax, the consummate flower, dark-red murder: +and the fruit bearing in itself the seeds that never die, is righteous, +wrathful condemnation.</p> + +<p>Dyed with all manner of iniquity, tinged with many colours like the +Mohawk in his woods, goeth forth in a morning the covetous soul. His +cheek is white with envy, his brow black with jealous rage, his livid +lips are full of lust, his thievish hands spotted over with the crimson +drops of murder. "The poison of asps is under his lips; and his feet are +swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in his ways; and there +is no fear of God before his eyes."</p> + +<p>O, ye thousands—the covetous of this world's good—behold at what a +fire ye do warm yourselves! dread it: even now, ye have imagined many +deaths, whereby your gains may be the greater; ye have caught, in +wishful fancy, many a parting sigh; ye have closed, in a heartless +revery, many a glazing eye—yea, of those your very nearest, whom your +hopes have done to death: and are ye guiltless? God and conscience be +your judges!</p> + +<p>Even now ye have compassed many frauds, connived at many meannesses, +trodden down the good, and set the bad on high—all for gold—hard gold; +and are ye the honest—the upright? Speak out manfully your excuse, if +you can find one, ye respectables of merchandise, ye traders, bartering +all for cash, ye Scribes, ye Pharisees, hypocrites, all honourable men.</p> + +<p>Even now, your dreams are full of money-bags; your cares are how to add +superfluity to wealth; ye fawn upon the rich, ye scorn the poor, ye pine +and toil both night and day for gold, more gold; and are ye happy? +Answer me, ye covetous ones.</p> + +<p>Yet are there righteous gains, God's blessing upon labour: yet is there +rightful hope to get those righteous gains. Who can condemn the poor +man's care, though Faith should make his load the lighter? And who will +extenuate the rich man's coveting, whose appetite grows with what it +feeds on? "Having food and raiment, be therewith content;" that is the +golden mean; to that is limited the philosophy of worldliness: the man +must live, by labour and its earnings; but having wherewithal for him +and his temperately, let him tie the mill-stone of anxiety to the wing +of Faith, and speed that burden to his God.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a>[Pg 105]</span>If Wealth come, beware of him, the smooth false friend: there is +treachery in his proffered hand, his tongue is eloquent to tempt, lust +of many harms is lurking in his eye, he hath a hollow heart; use him +cautiously.</p> + +<p>If Penury assail, fight against him stoutly, the gaunt grim foe: the +curse of Cain is on his brow, toiling vainly; he creepeth with the worm +by day, to raven with the wolf by night: diseases battle by his side, +and crime followeth his footsteps. Therefore fight against him boldly, +and be of a good courage, for there are many with thee; not alone the +doled alms, the casual aids dropped from compassion, or wrung out by +importunity; these be only temporary helps, and indulgence in them +pampers the improvident; but look thou to a better host of strong +allies, of resolute defenders; turn again to meet thy duties, needy one: +no man ever starved, who even faintly tried to do them. Look to thy God, +O sinner! use reason wisely; cherish honour; shrink not from toil, +though somewhile unrewarded; preserve frank bearing with thy fellows; +and in spite of all thy sins—forgiven; all thy follies—flung away; all +the trickeries of this world—scorned; all competitions—disregarded; +all suspicions—trodden under foot; thou neediest and raggedest of +labourers' labourers—Enough shall be thy portion, ere a week hath +passed away.</p> + +<p>Well did Agur-the-Wise counsel Ithiel and Ucal his disciples, when he +uttered in their ears before his God, this prayerful admonition, "Two +things have I required of Thee; deny me them not before I die: remove +far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me +with food convenient for me. Lest I be full, and deny Thee, saying, Who +is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and dishonour the name of the +Lord my God."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h3> + +<h4>NEXT MORNING.</h4> + + +<p>Day dawned apace; and a glorious cavalcade of flaming clouds +heralded the Sun their captain. From far away, round half the wide +horizon, their glittering spears advanced. Heaven's highway rang with +the trampling of their horse-hoofs, and the dust went up from its +jewelled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></a>[Pg 106]</span>pavement as spray from the bottom of a cataract. Anon, he +came, the chieftain of that on-spurring host! his banner blazed upon the +sky; his golden crest was seen beneath, nodding with its ruddy plumes; +over the south-eastern hills he arose in radiant armour. Fair Nature, +waking at her bridegroom's voice, arrived so early from a distant clime, +smiled upon him sleepily, gladdening him in beauty with her sweet +half-opened eyelids, and kissing him in faithfulness with +dew-besprinkled lips.</p> + +<p>And he looked forth upon the world from his high chariot, holding back +the coursers that must mount the steep of noon: and he heard the morning +hymn of thankfulness to Heaven from the mountains, and the valleys, and +the islands of the sea; the prayer of man and woman, the praise of +lisping tongues, the hum of insect joy upon the air, the sheep-bell +tinkling in the distance, the wild bird's carol, and the lowing kine, +the mute minstrelsy of rising dews, and that stilly scarce-heard +universal melody of wakeful plants and trees, hastening to turn their +spring-buds to the light—this was the anthem he, the Lord of Day, now +listened to—this was the song his influences had raised to bless the +God who made him.</p> + +<p>And he saw, from his bright throne of wide derivative glory, Hope flying +forth upon her morning missions, visiting the lonesome, comforting the +sorrowful, speaking cheerfully to Care, and singing in the ear of +Labour: and he watched that ever-welcome friend, flitting with the +gleams of light to every home, to every heart; none but gladly let her +in; her tapping finger opened the very prison doors; the heavy head of +Sloth rejoiced to hear her call; and every common Folly, every common +Sin—ay, every common Crime—warmed his unconscious soul before her +winning beauty.</p> + +<p>Yet, yet was there one, who cursed that angel's coming; and the holy Eye +of day wept pityingly to see an awful child of man who dared not look on +Hope.</p> + +<p>The murderer stood beside his casement, watching that tranquil scene: +with bloodshot eyes and haggard stare, he gazed upon the waking world; +for one strange minute he forgot, entranced by innocence and beauty; but +when the stunning tide of memory, that had ebbed that one strange +minute, rolled back its mighty flood upon his mind, the murderer swooned +away.</p> + +<p>And he came to himself again all too soon; for when he arose, building +up his weak, weak limbs, as if he were a column of sand, the cruel +giant, Guilt, lifted up his club, and felled the wretch once more.</p> + +<p>How long he lay fainting, he knew not then; if any one had vowed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></a>[Pg 107]</span>it was +a century, Simon, as he gradually woke, could not have gainsaid the man; +but he only lay four seconds in that white oblivious trance—for Fear, +Fear knocked at his heart:—Up, man, up!—you need have all your wits +about you now;—see, it is broad day—the house will be roused before +you know where you are, and then will be shouted out that awful +name—Simon Jennings! Simon Jennings!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h3> + +<h4>THE ALARM.</h4> + + +<p>He arose, held up on either hand that day as if fighting +against Amalek;—despair buttressed him on one side, and secresy shored +him on the other: behind that wall of stone his heart had strength to +beat.</p> + +<p>He arose; and listened at the key-hole anxiously: all silent, quiet, +quiet still; the whole house asleep: nothing found out yet. And he bit +his nails to the quick, that they bled again: but he never felt the +pain.</p> + +<p>Hush!—yes, somebody's about: it is Jonathan's step; and hark, he is +humming merrily, "Hail, smiling morn, that opes the gates of day?" Wo, +wo—what a dismal gulph between Jonathan and me! And he beat his breast +miserably. But, Jonathan cannot find it out—he never goes to Mrs. +Quarles's room. Oh! this suspense is horrible: haste, haste, some kind +soul, to make the dread discovery! And he tore his hair away by +handfulls.</p> + +<p>"Hark!—somebody else—unlatching shutters; it will be Sarah—ha! she is +tapping at the housekeeper's room—yes, yes, and she will make it known, +O terrible joy!—A scream! it is Sarah's voice—she has seen her dead, +dead, dead;—but is she indeed dead?"</p> + +<p>The miscreant quivered with new fears; she might still mutter "Simon did +it!"</p> + +<p>And now the house is thoroughly astir; running about in all directions; +and shouting for help; and many knocking loudly at the murderer's own +door—"Mr. Jennings! Mr. Jennings!—quick—get up—come down—quick, +quick—your aunt's found dead in her bed!"</p> + +<p>What a relief to the trembling wretch!—she <i>was</i> dead. He could have +blessed the voice that told him his dread secret was so safe. But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></a>[Pg 108]</span>his +parched tongue may never bless again: curses, curses are all its +blessings now.</p> + +<p>And Jennings came out calmly from his chamber, a white, stern, +sanctimonious man, lulling the storm with his wise presence:—"God's +will be done," said he; "what can poor weak mortals answer Him?" And he +played cleverly the pious elder, the dignified official, the +affectionate nephew: "Ah, well, my humble friends, behold what life is: +the best of us must come to this; my poor, dear aunt, the late +house-keeper, rest her soul—I feared it might be this way some night or +other: she was a stout woman, was our dear, deceased Bridget—and, +though a good kind soul, lived much on meat and beer: ah well, ah well!" +And he concealed his sentimental hypocrisy in a cotton pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Alas, and well-a-day! that it should have come to this. Apoplexy—you +see, apoplexy caught her as she slept: we may as well get her buried at +once: it is unfortunately too clear a case for any necessity to open the +body; and our young master is coming down on Tuesday, and I could not +allow my aunt's corpse to be so disrespectful as to stop till it became +offensive. I will go to the vicar myself immediately."</p> + +<p>"Begging pardon, Mr. Jennings," urged Jonathan Floyd, "there's a strange +mark here about the throat, poor old 'ooman."</p> + +<p>"Ay," added Sarah, "and now I come to think of it, Mrs. Quarles's +room-door was ajar; and bless me, the lawn-door's not locked neither! +Who could have murdered her?"</p> + +<p>"Murdered? there's no murder here, silly wench," said Jennings, with a +nervous sneer.</p> + +<p>"I don't know that, Mr. Simon," gruffly interposed the coachman; "it's a +case for a coroner, I'll be bail; so here I goes to bring him: let all +bide as it is, fellow-sarvents; murder will out, they say."</p> + +<p>And off he set directly—not without a shrewd remark from Mr. Jennings, +about letting him escape that way; which seemed all very sage and +likely, till the honest man came back within the hour, and a <i>posse +comitatus</i> at his heels.</p> + +<p>We all know the issue of that inquest.</p> + +<p>Now, if any one requests to be informed how Jennings came to be looked +for as usual in his room, after that unavailing search last night, I +reply, this newer, stronger excitement for the minute made the house +oblivious of that mystery; and if people further will persist to know, +how that mystery of his absence was afterwards explained (though I for +my part would gladly have said nothing of the bailiff's own excuse), let +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></a>[Pg 109]</span>it be enough to hint, that Jennings winked with a knowing and gallant +expression of face; alluded to his private key, and a secret return at +two in the morning from some disreputable society in the neighbourhood; +made the men laugh, and the women blush; and, altogether, as he might +well have other hats and coats, the delicate affair was not unlikely.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h3> + +<h4>DOUBTS.</h4> + + +<p>And so, this crock of gold—gained through extortion, by the +frauds of every day, the meannesses of every hour—this concrete +oppression to the hireling in his wages—this mass of petty pilferings +from poverty—this continuous obstruction to the charities of +wealth—this cockatrice's egg—this offspring of iniquity—had already +been baptized in blood before poor Acton found it, and slain its earthly +victim ere it wrecked his faith; already had it been perfected by crime, +and destroyed the murderer's soul, before it had endangered the life of +slandered innocence.</p> + +<p>Is there yet more blessing in the crock? more fearful interest still, to +carry on its story to an end? Must another sacrifice bleed before the +shrine of Mammon, and another head lie crushed beneath the heel of that +monster—his disciple?</p> + +<p>Come on with me, and see the end; push further still, there is a +labyrinth ahead to attract and to excite; from mind to mind crackles the +electric spark: and when the heart thrillingly conceives, its +children-thoughts are as arrows from the hand of the giant, flying +through that mental world—the hearts of other men. Fervent still from +its hot internal source, this fountain gushes up; no sluggish +Lethe-stream is here, dull, forgetful, and forgotten; but liker to the +burning waves of Phlegethon, mingling at times (though its fire is still +unquenched), with the pastoral rills of Tempe, and the River from the +Mount of God.</p> + +<p>Lower the sail—let it flap idly on the wind—helm a-port—and so to +smoother waters: return to common life and humbler thoughts.</p> + +<p>It may yet go hard with Roger Acton. Jennings is a man of character, +especially the farther from his home; the county round take him for a +model of propriety, a sample of the strictest conduct. We know <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"></a>[Pg 110]</span>the bad +man better; but who dare breathe against the bailiff in his +power—against the caitiff in his sleek hypocrisy—that, while he makes +a show of both humilities, he fears not God nor man? What shall hinder, +that the perjured wretch offer up to the manes of the murdered the +life-blood of the false-accused? May he not live yet many years, heaping +up gold and crime? And may not sweet Grace Acton—her now repentant +father—the kindly Jonathan—his generous master, and if there be any +other of the Hurstley folk we love, may they not all meet destruction at +his hands, as a handful of corn before the reaper's sickle? I say not +that they shall, but that they might. Acton's criminal state of mind, +and his hunger after gold—gold any how—have earned some righteous +retribution, unless Providence in mercy interpose; and young Sir John, +in nowise unblameable himself, with wealth to tempt the spoiler, lives +in the spoiler's very den; and as to Jonathan and Grace, this world has +many martyrs. If Heaven in its wisdom use the wicked as a sword, Heaven +is but just; but if in its vengeance that sword of the wicked is turned +against himself, Heaven showeth mercy all unmerited. To a criminal like +Jennings, let loose upon the world, without the clog of conscience to +retard him, and with the spur of covetousness ever urging on, any thing +in crime is possible—is probable: none can sound those depths: and when +we raise our eyes on high to the Mighty Moral Governor, and note the +clouds of mystery that thunder round his Throne—He may permit, or he +may control; who shall reach those heights?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h3> + +<h4>FEARS.</h4> + + +<p>Moreover, innocent of blood, as we know Roger Acton to be, +appearances are strongly against him: and in such a deed as secret, +midnight murder, which none but God can witness, multiplied appearances +justify the world in condemning one who seems so guilty.</p> + +<p>The first impression against Roger is a bad one, for all the neighbours +know how strangely his character had been changing for the worse of +late: he is not like the same man; sullen and insubordinate, he was +turned away from work for his bold and free demeanor; as to church, +though <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a>[Pg 111]</span>he had worn that little path these forty years, all at once he +seems to have entirely forgotten the way hither.</p> + +<p>He lives, nobody knows how—on bright, clean gold, nobody knows whence: +his daughter says, indeed, that her father found a crock of gold in his +garden—but she needs not have held her tongue so long, and borne so +many insults, if that were all the truth; and, mark this! even though +she says it, and declares it on her Bible-oath, Acton himself most +strenuously denied all such findings—but went about with impudent tales +of legacy, luck, nobody knows what; the man prevaricated continually, +and got angry when asked about it—cudgelling folks, and swearing +like—like any one but old-time "honest Roger."</p> + +<p>Only look, too, where he lives: in a lone cottage opposite Pike Island, +on the other side of which is Hurstley Hall, the scene of robbery and +murder: was not a boat seen that night upon the lake? and was not the +lawn-door open? How strangely stupid in the coroner and jury not to have +imagined this before! how dull it was of every body round not to have +suspected murder rather more strongly, with those finger-marks about the +throat, and not to have opened their eyes a little wider, when the +murderer's cottage was within five hundred yards of that open lawn-door!</p> + +<p>Then again—when Mr. Jennings, in his strict and searching way, accused +the culprit, he never saw a man so confused in all his life! and on +repeating the charge before those two constables, they all witnessed his +guilty consternation: experienced men, too, they were, and never saw a +felon if Acton wasn't one; the dogged manner in which he went with them +so quietly was quite sufficient; innocent men don't go to jail in that +sort of way, as if they well deserved it.</p> + +<p>But, strongest of all, if any shadow of a doubt remained, the most +fearful proof of Roger's guilt lay in the scrap of shawl—the little +leather bags—and the very identical crock of gold! There it was, +nestled in the thatch within a yard of his head, as he lay in bed at +noon-day guarding it.</p> + +<p>One proof, weaker than the weakest of all these banded together, has ere +now sufficed to hang the guilty; and many, many fears have I that this +multitude of seeming facts, conspiring in a focus against Roger Acton, +will be quite enough to overwhelm the innocent. "Nothing lies like a +fact," said Dr. Johnson: and statistics prove it, at least as well as +circumstantial evidence.</p> + +<p>The matter was as clear as day-light, and long before the trial came +about, our poor labourer had been hanged outright in the just judgment +of Hurstley-cum-Piggesworth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"></a>[Pg 112]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI.</h3> + +<h4>PRISON COMFORTS.</h4> + + +<p>Many blessings, more than he had skill to count, had visited +poor Acton in his cell. His gentle daughter Grace, sweet minister of +good thoughts—she, like a loving angel, had been God's instrument of +penitence and peace to him. He had come to himself again, in solitude, +by nights, as a man awakened from a feverish dream; and the hallowing +ministrations of her company by day had blest reflective solitude with +sympathy and counsel.</p> + +<p>Good-wife Mary, too, had been his comforting and cheering friend. +Immediately the crock of gold had been taken from its ambush in the +thatch, it seemed as if the chill which had frozen up her heart had been +melted by a sudden thaw. Roger Acton was no longer the selfish prodigal, +but the guiltless, persecuted penitent; her care was now to soothe his +griefs, not to scold him for excesses; and indignation at the false and +bloody charge made him appear a martyr in her eyes. As to his accuser, +Jennings, Mary had indeed her own vague fancies and suspicions, but +there being no evidence, nor even likelihood to support them, she did +not dare to breathe a word; she might herself accuse him falsely. Ben, +who alone could have thrown a light upon the matter, had always been +comparatively a stranger at Hurstley; he was no native of the place, and +had no ties there beyond wire and whip-cord: he would appear in that +locality now and then in his eccentric orbit, like a comet, and, soon +departing thence, would take away Tom as his tail; but even when there, +he was mainly a night-prowler, seldom seen by day, and so little versed +in village lore, so rarely mingling with its natives, that neither +Jennings nor Burke knew one another by sight. His fame indeed was known, +but not his person. At present, he and Tom were still fowling in some +distant fens, nobody could tell where; so that Roger's only witness, who +might have accounted for the crock and its finding, was as good as dead +to him; to make Ben's absence more unusually prolonged, and his +rëappearance quite incalculable, he had talked of going with his cargo +of wild ducks "either to London or to Liverpool, he didn't rightly know +which."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Mary comforted her husband, and more especially herself, +by the hope of his return as a saving witness; though it was always +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"></a>[Pg 113]</span>doubtful how far Burke's numerous peccadilloes against property would +either find him at large, or authorize the poacher in walking straight +before the judges. Still Ben's possible interposition was one source of +hope and cheerful expectation. Then the good wife would leave her babes +at home, safely in a neighbour's charge, and stay and sit many long +hours with poor Roger, taking turns with Grace in talking to him +tenderly, making little of home-troubles past, encouraging him to wear a +stout heart, and filling him with gratitude for all her kindly care. +Thus did she bless, and thus was made a blessing, through the loss and +absence of that crock of gold.</p> + +<p>For Roger himself, he had repented; bitterly and deeply, as became his +headlong fall: no sweet luxuries of grief, no soothing sorrow, no +chastened meditative melancholy—such mild penitence as this, he +thought, could be but a soberer sort of joy for virgins, saints, and +martyrs: no—he, bad man, was unworthy of those melting pleasures, and +in sturdy self-revenge he flung them from him, choosing rather to feel +overwhelmed with shame, contrition, and reproaches. A humbled man with a +broken heart within him—such was our labourer, penitent in prison; and +when he contrasted his peaceful, pure, and Christian course those forty +years of poverty, with his blasphemous and infidel career for the one +bad week of wealth, he had no patience with himself—only felt his fall +the greater; and his judgment of his own guilt, with a natural +exaggeration, went the length of saying—I am scarcely less guilty +before God and man, than if, indeed, my hands were red with murder, and +my casual finding had been robbery. He would make no strong appeals to +the bar of justice, as an innocent condemned; not he—not he: innocent, +indeed? his wicked, wicked courses—(an old man, too—gray-headed, with +no young blood in him to excuse, no inexperience to extenuate), these +deserved—did he say hanging? it was a harsher syllable—hell: and the +contrite sinner gladly would have welcomed all the terrors of the +gibbet, in hope to take full vengeance on himself for his wicked thirst +for gold and all its bitter consequences.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"></a>[Pg 114]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII.</h3> + +<h4>GOOD COUNSEL.</h4> + + +<p>But Grace advised him better. "Be humbled as you may before +God, my father, but stand up boldly before man: for in his sight, and by +his law, you are little short of blameless. I would not, dearest father, +speak to you of sins, except for consolation under them; for it ill +becomes a child to see the failings of a parent. But when I know at once +how innocent you are in one sense, and how not quite guiltless in +another, I wish my words may comfort you, if you will hear them, father. +Covetousness, not robbery—excess, not murder—these were your only +sins; and concealment was not wise, neither was a false report +befitting. Money, the idol of millions, was your temptation: its earnest +love, your fault; its possession, your misfortune. Forgive me, father, +if I speak too freely. Good Mr. Evans, who has been so kind to us for +years, (never kinder than since you were in prison,) can speak better +than I may, of sins forgiven, and a Friend to raise the fallen: it is +not for poor Grace to school her dear and honoured father. If you feel +yourself guilty of much evil in the sight of Him before whom the angels +bow in meekness—I need not tell you that your sorrow is most wise, and +well-becoming. But this must not harm your cause with men: though tired +of life, though hopeless in one's self, though bad, and weak, and like +to fall again, we are still God's servants upon earth, bound to guard +the life he gives us. Neither must you lightly allow the guilt of +unrighteous condemnation to fall upon the judge who tries you; nor let +your innocent blood cry to God for vengeance on your native land. +Manfully confront the false accuser, tell openly the truth, plead your +own cause firmly, warmly, wisely:—so, God defend the right!"</p> + +<p>And as Grace Acton said these words, in all the fervour of a daughter's +love, with a flushed cheek, parted lips, and her right hand raised to +Him whom she invoked, she looked like an inspired prophetess, or the +fair maid of Orleans leading on to battle.</p> + +<p>In an instant afterwards, she humbly added,</p> + +<p>"Forgive me any thing I may have said, that seems to chide my father."</p> + +<p>"Bless you, bless you, dearest one!" was Roger's sobbing prayer, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a>[Pg 115]</span>who +had listened to her wisdom breathlessly. "Ah, daughter," then exclaimed +the humbled, happy man, "I'll try to do all you ask me, Grace; but it is +a hard thing to feel myself so wicked, and to have to speak up boldly +like a Christian man."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII.</h3> + +<h4>EXPERIENCE.</h4> + + +<p>Then, with disjointed sentences, suited to the turmoil of his +thoughts, half in a soliloquy, half as talking to his daughter, Roger +Acton gave his hostile testimony to the worth of wealth.</p> + +<p>"Oh, fool, fool that I have been, to set so high a price on gold! To +have hungered and thirsted for it—to have coveted earnestly so bad a +gift—to have longed for Mammon's friendship, which is enmity with God! +What has not money cost me? Happiness:—ay, wasn't it to have given me +happiness? and the little that I had (it was much, Grace, not little, +very much—too much—God be praised for it!) all, all the happiness I +had, gold took away. Look at our dear old home—shattered and scattered, +as now I wish that crock had been. Health, too; were it not for gold, +and all gold gave, I had been sturdy still, and capable; but my nights +maddened with anxieties, my days worried with care, my head feverish +with drink, my heart rent by conscience—ah, my girl, my girl, when I +thought much of poverty and its hardships, of toil, and hunger, and +rheumatics, I little imagined that wealth had heavier cares and pains: I +envied them their wanton life of pleasure at the Hall, and little knew +how hard it was: well are they called hard-livers who drink, and game, +and have nothing to do, except to do wickedness continually. +Religion—can it bide with money, child? I never knew my wicked heart, +till fortune made me rich; not until then did I guess how base, lying, +false, and bad was "honest Roger;" how sensual, coarse, and brutal, was +that hypocrite "steady Acton". Money is a devil, child, or pretty near +akin. Then I complained of toil, too, didn't I?—Ah, what are all the +aches I ever felt—labouring with spade and spud in cold and rain, +hungry belike, and faint withal—what are they all at their worst (and +the worst was very seldom after all), to the gnawing cares, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"></a>[Pg 116]</span>hideous +fears, the sins—the sins, my girl, that tore your poor old father? +Wasn't it to be an end of troubles, too, this precious crock of gold? +Wo's me, I never knew real trouble till I had it! Look at me, and judge; +what has made me live like a beast, sin like a heathen, and lie down +here like a felon? what has made me curse Ben Burke—kind, hearty, +friendly Ben?—and given my poor good boy an ill-report as having stolen +and slain? all this crock of gold. But O, my Grace, to think that the +crock's curses touched thee, too! didn't it madden me to hear them? +Dear, pure, patient child, my darling, injured daughter, here upon my +knees I pray, forgive that wrong!" And he fell at her feet beseechingly.</p> + +<p>"My father," said the noble girl, lifting up his head, and passionately +kissing it; "when they whispered so against me, and Jonathan heard the +wicked things men said, I would have borne it all, all in silence, and +let them all believe me bad, father, if I could have guessed that by +uttering the truth, I should have seen thee here, in a dungeon, treated +as a—murderer! How was I to tell that men could be so base, as to +charge such crimes upon the innocent, when his only fault, or his +misfortune, was to find a crock of gold? Oh! forgive me, too, this +wrong, my father!"</p> + +<p>And they wept in each other's arms.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX.</h3> + +<h4>JONATHAN'S TROTH.</h4> + + +<p>Grace had been all but an inmate of the prison, ever since her +father had been placed there on suspicion. Early and late, and often in +the day, was the duteous daughter at his cell, for the governor and the +turn-keys favoured her. Who could resist such beauty and affection, +entreating to stay with a father about to stand on trial for his life, +and making every effort to be allowed only to pray with him? Thus did +Grace spend all the week before those dread assizes.</p> + +<p>As to her daily maintenance, ever since that bitter morning when the +crock was found, her spiritual fears had obliged her to abstain from +touching so much as one penny of that unblest store; and, seeing that +honest pride would not let her be supported by grudged and common +charity, she had thankfully suffered the wages of her now betrothed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"></a>[Pg 117]</span> +Jonathan to serve as means whereon she lived, and (what cost more than +all her humble wants) whereby she could administer many little comforts +to her father in his prison. When she was not in the cell, Grace was +generally at the Hall, to the scandal of more than one Hurstleyan +gossip; but perhaps they did not know how usually kind Sarah Stack was +of the company, to welcome her with Jonathan, and play propriety. Sarah +was a true friend, one for adversity, and though young herself, and not +ill-looking, did not envy Grace her handsome lover; on the contrary, she +did all to make them happy, and had gone the friendly length of +insisting to find Grace and her family in tea and sugar, while all this +lasted. I like that much in Sarah Stack.</p> + +<p>However, the remainder of the virtuous world were not so considerate, +nor so charitable. Many neighbours shunned the poor girl, as if +contaminated by the crimes which Roger had undoubtedly committed: the +more elderly unmarried sisterhood, as we have chronicled already, were +overjoyed at the precious opportunity:—"Here was the pert vixen, whom +all the young fellows so shamelessly followed, turned out, after all, a +murderer's daughter;—they wished her joy of her eyes, and lips, and +curls, and pretty speeches: no good ever came of such naughty ways, that +the men liked so."</p> + +<p>Nay, even the tipsy crew at Bacchus's affected to treat her name with +scorn:—"The girl had made much noise about being called a trull, as if +many a better than she wasn't one; and, after all, what was the prudish +wench? a sort of she-butcher; they had no patience with her proud +looks."</p> + +<p>As to farmer Floyd, he made a great stir about his boy being about to +marry a felon's daughter; and the affectionate mother, with many +elaborate protestations, had "vowed to Master Jonathan, that she would +rather lay him out with her own hands, and a penny on each eye, than see +a Floyd disgrace himself in that 'ere manner."</p> + +<p>And uncles, aunts, and cousins, most disinterestedly exhorted that the +obstinate youth be disinherited—"Ay, Mr. Floyd, I wish your son was a +high-minded man like his father; but there's a difference, Mr. Floyd; I +wish he had your true blue yeoman's honour, and the spirit that becomes +his father's son: if the lad was mine, I'd cut him off with a shilling, +to buy a halter for his drab of a wife. Dang it, Mrs. Floyd, it'll never +do to see so queer a Mrs. Jonathan Junior, a standing in your tidy shoes +beside this kitchen dresser."</p> + +<p>These estimable counsels were, I grieve to say, of too flattering a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"></a>[Pg 118]</span>nature to displease, and of too lucrative a quality not to be +continually repeated; until, really, Jonathan was threatened with +beggary and the paternal malediction, if he would persist in his +disreputable attachment.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, Jonathan clung to the right like a hero.</p> + +<p>"Granting poor Acton is the wretch you think—but I do not believe one +word of it—does his crime make his daughter wicked too? No; she is an +angel, a pure and blessed creature, far too good for such a one as I. +And happy is the man that has gained her love; he should not give her up +were she thrice a felon's daughter. My father and mother," Jonathan went +on to say, "never found a fault in her till now. Who was more welcome on +the hill than pretty Grace? who would oftenest come to nurse some sickly +lamb, but gentle Grace? who was wont, from her childhood up, to run home +with me so constantly, when school was over, and pleased my kinsfolk so +entirely with her nice manners and kind ways? Hadn't he fought for her +more than once, and though he came home with bruises on his face, his +mother praised him for it?" Then, with a natural divergence from the +strict subject-matter of objection, vicarious felony, Jonathan went on +to argue about other temporal disadvantages. "Hadn't he heard his father +say, that, if she had but money, she was fit to be a countess? and was +money, then, the only thing, whereof the having, or the not having, +could make her good or bad?—money, the only wealth for soul, and mind, +and body? Are affections nothing, are truth and honour nothing, religion +nothing, good sense nothing, health nothing, beauty nothing—unless +money gild them all? Nonsense!" said Jonathan, indignantly, warmed by +his amatory eloquence; "come weal, come wo, Grace and I go down to the +grave together; for better, if she can be better—for worse, if she +could sin—Grace Acton is my wealth, my treasure, and possession; and +let man do his worst, God himself will bless us!"</p> + +<p>So, all this knit their loves: she knew, and he felt, that he was going +in the road of nobleness and honour; and the fiery ordeal which he had +to struggle through, raised that hearty earthly lover more nearly to a +level with his heavenly-minded mistress. Through misfortune and +mistrust, and evil rumours all around, in spite of opposition from false +friends, and the scorn of slanderous foes, he stood by her more +constantly, perchance more faithfully, than if the course of true-love +had been smoother: he was her escort morning and evening to and from the +prison; his strong arm was the dread of babbling fools that spoke a word +of disrespect against the Actons; and his brave tongue was now making +itself heard, in open vindication of the innocent.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a>[Pg 119]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XL" id="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL.</h3> + +<h4>SUSPICIONS.</h4> + + +<p>Yes—Jonathan Floyd was beginning to speak out boldly certain +strange suspicions he had entertained of Jennings. It was a courageous, +a rash, a dangerous thing to do: he did not know but what it might have +jeoparded his life, say nothing of his livelihood: but Floyd did it.</p> + +<p>Ever since that inquest, contrived to be so quickly and so quietly got +over, he had noticed Simon's hurried starts, his horrid looks, his +altered mien in all he did and said, his new nervous ways at +nightfall—John Page to sleep in Mr. Jennings's chamber, and a +rush-light perpetually—his shudder whenever he had occasion to call at +the housekeeper's room, and his evident shrinking from the frequent +phrase "Mrs. Quarles's murder."</p> + +<p>Then again, Jonathan would often lie awake at nights, thinking over +divers matters connected with his own evidence before the coroner, which +he began to see might be of great importance. Jennings said, he had gone +out to still the dog by the front door—didn't he?—"How then, Mr. +Jennings, did you contrive to push back the top bolt? The Hall chairs +had not come then, and you are a little fellow, and you know that nobody +in the house could reach, without a lift, that bolt but me. Besides, +before Sir John came down, the hinges of that door creaked, like a +litter o' kittens screaming, and the lock went so hard for want of use +and oil, that I'll be sworn your gouty chalkstone fingers could never +have turned it: now, I lay half awake for two hours, and heard no creak, +no key turned; but I tell you what I did hear though, and I wish now I +had said it at that scanty, hurried inquest; I heard what I now believe +were distant screams (but I was so sleepy), and a kind of muffled +scuffling ever so long: but I fancied it might be a horse in the stable +kicking among the straw in a hunter's loose box. I can guess what it was +now—cannot you, Mr. Simon?—I say, butler, you must have gone out to +quiet Don—who by the way can't abear the sight of you—through Mrs. +Quarles's room: and, for all your threats, I'm not afeard to tell you +what I think. First answer me this, Mr. Simon Jennings:—where were you +all that night, when we were looking for you?—Oh! you choose to forget, +do you? I can help your memory, Mr. Butler; what do you think of the +shower-bath in Mother Quarles's room?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"></a>[Pg 120]</span>As Jonathan, one day at dinner in the servants' hall, took occasion to +direct these queries to the presiding Simon, the man gave such a horrid +start, and exclaimed, "Away, I say!" so strangely, that Jonathan could +doubt no longer—nor, in fact, any other of the household: Jennings gave +them all round a vindictive scowl, left the table, hastened to his own +room, and was seen no more that day.</p> + +<p>Speculation now seemed at an end, it had ripened into probability;—but +what evidence was there to support so grave a charge against this rigid +man? Suspicions are not half enough to go upon—especially since Roger +Acton seemed to have had the money. Therefore, though the folks at +Hurstley, Sir John, his guests, and all the house, could not but think +that Mr. Jennings acted very oddly—still, he had always been a strange +creature, an unpopular bailiff; nobody understood him. So, Floyd, to his +own no small danger, stood alone in accusing the man openly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLI" id="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI.</h3> + +<h4>GRACE'S ALTERNATIVE.</h4> + + +<p>Very shortly after that remarkable speech in the servants' +hall, Jonathan found another reason for believing that Mr. Simon +Jennings was equal to any imaginable amount of human wickedness. That +reason will shortly now appear; but we must first of all dig at its +roots somewhat deeper than Jonathan's mental husbandry could manage.</p> + +<p>If any trait of character were wanting to complete the desperate infamy +of Jennings—(really I sometimes hope that his grandfather's madness had +a kind of rëawakening in this accursed man)—it was furnished by a new +and shrewd scheme for feeding to the full his lust of gold. The bailiff +had more than once, as we have hinted, found means to increase his evil +hoard, by having secretly gained power over female innocence and honest +reputation: similarly he now devised a deep-laid plot, nothing short of +diabolical. His plot was this: and I choose to hurry over such foul +treason. Let a touch or two hint its outlines: those who will, may paint +up the picture for themselves. Simon looked at Sir John—young, gay, +wealthy; he coveted his purse, and fancied that the surest bait to catch +that fish was fair Grace Acton: if he could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"></a>[Pg 121]</span>entrap her for his master +(to whom he gave full credit for delighting in the plan), he counted +surely on magnificent rewards. How then to entrap her? Thus:—he, +representing himself as prosecutor of Roger, the accused, held for him, +he averred, the keys of life and death: he would set this idea (whether +true or not little mattered, if it served his purpose) before an +affectionate daughter, who should have it in her power to save her +parent, if, and only if, she would yield herself to Jennings: and he +well knew that, granting she gave herself secretly to him first, on such +a bribe as her father's liberation, he would have no difficulty whatever +in selling her second-hand beauty on his own terms to his master. It was +a foul scheme, and shall not be enlarged upon: but (as will appear) thus +slightly to allude to it was needful to our tale, as well as to the +development of character in Mammon's pattern-slave, and to the fullness +of his due retribution in this world. I may add, that if any thing could +make the plan more heinous—if any shade than blackest can be +blacker—this extra turpitude is seen in the true consideration, that +the promise to Grace of her father's safety would be entirely futile—as +Jennings knew full well; the crown was prosecutor, not he: and +circumstantial evidence alone would be sufficient to condemn. Again, it +really is nothing but bare justice to remark, with reference to Sir +John, that the deep-dyed villain reckoned quite without his host; for +however truly the baronet had oft-times been much less a self-denying +Scipio than a wanton Alcibiades, still the fine young fellow would have +flung Simon piecemeal to his hounds, if ever he had breathed so +atrocious a temptation: the maid was pledged, and Vincent knew it.</p> + +<p>Now, it so happened that one evening at dusk, when Grace as usual was +obliged to leave the prison, there was no Jonathan in waiting to +accompany her all the dreary long way home: this was strange, as his +good-hearted master, privately informed of his noble attachment, never +refused the man permission, but winked, for the time, at his frequent +evening absence. Nevertheless, on this occasion, as would happen now and +then, Floyd could not escape from the dining-room; probably because—Mr. +Jennings had secretly gone forth to escort the girl himself. +Accordingly, instead of loved Jonathan, sidled up to her the loathsome +Simon.</p> + +<p>Let me not soil these pages by recording, in however guarded phrase, the +grossness of this wretch's propositions; it was a long way to Hurstley, +and the reptile never ceased tormenting her every step of it, till the +village was in sight: twice she ran, and he ran too, keeping up with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"></a>[Pg 122]</span>her, and pouring into her ear a father's cruel fate and his own +detestable alternative. She never once spoke to him, but kept on praying +in her own pure mind for a just acquittal; not for one moment would she +entertain the wicked thought of "doing evil that good might come;" and +so, with flushed cheek, tingling ears, the mien of an insulted empress, +and the dauntless resolution of a heroine, she hastened on to Hurstley.</p> + +<p>Look here! by great good fortune comes Jonathan Floyd to meet her.</p> + +<p>"Save me, Jonathan, save me!" and she fainted in his arms.</p> + +<p>Now, truth to say, though Sir John knew it, Simon did not, that Grace +was Jonathan's beloved and betrothed; and the cause lay simply in this, +that Jonathan had frankly told his master of it, when he found the +dreadful turn things had taken with poor Roger; but as to Simon, no +mortal in the neighbourhood ever communicated with him, further than as +urged by fell necessity. Of course, the lovers' meetings were as private +as all such matters generally are; and Sarah's aid managed them +admirably. Therefore it now came to pass that Simon and Jonathan looked +on each other in mutual astonishment, and needs must wait until Grace +Acton could explain the "save me." Not but that Jennings seemed much as +if he wished to run away; but he did not know how to manage it.</p> + +<p>"Dear Jonathan," she whispered feebly, "save me from Simon Jennings."</p> + +<p>In an instant, Jonathan's grasp was tightly involved in the bailiff's +stiff white neckcloth. And Grace, with much maidenly reserve, told her +lover all she dared to utter of that base bartering for her father's +life.</p> + +<p>"Come straight along with me, you villain, straight to the master!" And +the sturdy Jonathan, administering all the remainder of the way (a +quarter of a mile of avenue made part of it) innumerable kickings and +cuffings, hauled the half-mummied bailiff into the servants' hall.</p> + +<p>"Now then, straight before the master! John Page, be so good as to knock +at the dining-room door, and ask master very respectfully if his honour +will be good enough to suffer me to speak to him."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"></a>[Pg 123]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLII" id="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII.</h3> + +<h4>THE DISMISSAL.</h4> + + +<p>It was after dinner. Sir John and his friends had somehow been +less jovial than usual; they were absolutely dull enough to be talking +politics. So, when the boy of many buttons tapped at the door, and +meekly brought in Jonathan's message, recounting also how he had got Mr. +Jennings in tow for some inexplicable crime, the strangeness of the +affair was a very welcome incident: both host and guests hailed it an +adventure.</p> + +<p>"By all means, let Jonathan come in."</p> + +<p>The trio were just outside; and when the blue and silver footman, +hauling in by his unrelinquished throat that scared bailiff, and +followed by the blushing village beauty, stood within the room, Sir John +and his half-dozen friends greeted the <i>tableau</i> with united +acclamations.</p> + +<p>"I say, Pypp, that's a devilish fine creature," metaphorically remarked +the Honorable Lionel Poynter.</p> + +<p>"Yaas." Lord George was a long, sallow, slim young man, with a goatish +beard, like the Duc d'Aumale's; he affected extreme fashion and infinite +<i>sangfroid</i>.</p> + +<p>"Well, Jonathan, what is it?" asked the baronet.</p> + +<p>"Why, in one word, my honoured master, this scoundrel here has been +wickedly insulting my own poor dear Grace, by promising to save her +father from the gallows if—if—"</p> + +<p>"If what, man? speak out," said Mr. Poynter.</p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say, Jennings, that you are brute enough to be +seducing that poor man Roger's daughter, just as he's going to be tried +for his life?" asked Sir John.</p> + +<p>Simon uttered nothing in reply; but Grace burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"A fair idea that, 'pon my honour," drawled the chivalrous Pypp, +proceeding to direct his delicate attentions towards the weeping damsel.</p> + +<p>"Simon Jennings," said Sir John, after pausing in vain for his reply, "I +have long wished to get rid of you, sir. Silence! I know you, and have +been finding out your rascally proceedings these ten days past. I have +learnt much, more than you may fancy: and now this crowning villany +[what if he had known of the ulterior designs?] gives me fair occasion +to say once and for ever, begone!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a>[Pg 124]</span>Jennings drew himself up with an air of insufferable impudence, and +quietly answered,</p> + +<p>"John Vincent, I am proud to leave your service. I trust I can afford to +live without your help."</p> + +<p>There was a general outcry at this speech, and Jonathan collared him +again; but the baronet calmly set all straight by saying,</p> + +<p>"Perhaps, sir, you may not be aware that your systematic thievings and +extortions have amply justified me in detaining your iron chest and +other valuables, until I find out how you may have come by them."</p> + +<p>This was the <i>coup de grace</i> to Jennings, who looked scared and +terrified:—what! all gone—all, his own beloved hoard, and that +dear-bought crock of gold? Then Sir John added, after one minute of +dignified and indignant silence,</p> + +<p>"Begone!—Jonathan put him out; and if you will kick him out of the +hall-door on your private account, I'll forgive you for it."</p> + +<p>With that, the liveried Antinous raised the little monster by the small +of the back, drew him struggling from the presence, and lifting him up +like a football, inflicted one enormous kick that sent him spinning down +the whole flight of fifteen marble stairs. This exploit accomplished to +the satisfaction of all parties, Jonathan naturally enough returned to +look for Grace; and his master, with a couple of friends who had run to +the door to witness the catastrophe, returned immediately before him.</p> + +<p>"Lord George Pypp, you will oblige me by leaving the young woman alone;" +was Sir John's first angry reproof when he perceived the rustic beauty +radiant with indignation at some mean offence.</p> + +<p>"The worthy baronet wa-ants her for himself," drawled Pypp.</p> + +<p>"Say that again, my lord, and you shall follow Jennings."</p> + +<p>Whilst the noble youth was slowly elaborating a proper answer, +Jonathan's voice was heard once more: he had long looked very white, +kept both hands clenched, and seemed as if, saving his master's +presence, he could, and would have vanquished the whole room of them.</p> + +<p>"Master, have I your honour's permission to speak?"</p> + +<p>"No, Jonathan, I'll speak for you; if, that is to say, Lord George +will—"</p> + +<p>"Paardon me, Sir John Devereux Vincent, your feyllow—and his master, +are not fit company for Lord George Pypp;"—and he leisurely proceeded +to withdraw.</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute, Pypp, I've just one remark to make," hurriedly exclaimed +Mr. Lionel Poynter, "if Sir John will suffer me; Vincent, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"></a>[Pg 125]</span>my good +friend, we are wrong—Pypp's wrong, and so am I. First then, let me beg +pardon of a very pretty girl, for making her look prettier by blushes; +next, as the maid really is engaged to you, my fine fellow, it is not +beneath a gentleman to say, I hope that you'll forgive me for too warmly +admiring your taste; as for George's imputation, Vincent—"</p> + +<p>"I beyg to observe," enunciated the noble scion, "I'm awf, Poynter."</p> + +<p>He gradually drew himself away, and the baronet never saw him more.</p> + +<p>"For shame, Pypp!" shouted after him the warm-hearted Siliphant; "I tell +you what it is, Vincent, you must let me give a toast:—'Grace and her +lover!' here, my man, your master allows you to take a glass of wine +with us; help your beauty too."</p> + +<p>The toast was drank with high applause: and before Jonathan humbly led +away his pleased and blushing Grace, he took an opportunity of saying,</p> + +<p>"If I may be bold enough to speak, kind gentlemen, I wish to thank you: +I oughtn't to be long, for I am nothing but your servant; let it be +enough to say my heart is full. And I'm in hopes it wouldn't be very +wrong in me, kind gentlemen, to propose;—'My noble master—honour and +happiness to him!'"</p> + +<p>"Bravo! Jonathan, bravo-o-o-o!" there was a clatter of glasses;—and the +humble pair of lovers retreated under cover of the toast.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII" id="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII.</h3> + +<h4>SIMON ALONE.</h4> + + +<p>Jennings gathered himself up, from that Jew-of-Malta tumble +down the steps, less damaged by the fall than could have been imagined +possible; the fact being that his cat-like nature had stood him in good +stead—he had lighted on his feet; and nothing but a mighty dorsal +bruise bore witness to the prowess of a Jonathan.</p> + +<p>But, if his body was comparatively sound, the inner man was bruised all +over: he crept back, and retreated to his room, in as broken and +despondent a frame of mind, as any could have wished to bless him +wherewithal. However, he still had one thing left to live for: his +hoard—that precious hoard within his iron box, and then—the crock of +gold.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"></a>[Pg 126]</span> He took Sir John's threat about detaining, and so forth, as +merely future, and calculated on rendering it nugatory, by decamping +forthwith, chattels and all; but he little expected to find that the +idea had already been acted upon!</p> + +<p>On that identical afternoon, when Simon had gone forth to insult Grace +Acton with his villanous proposals, Sir John, on returning from a ride, +had commanded his own seal to be placed on all Mr. Jennings's effects, +and the boxes to be forthwith removed to a place of safety: induced +thereto by innumerable proofs from every quarter that the bailiff had +been cheating him on a most liberal scale, and plundering his tenants +systematically. Therefore, when Jennings hastened to his chamber to +console himself for all things by looking at his gold, and counting out +a bag or two—it was gone, gone, irrevocably gone! safely stored away +for rigid scrutiny in the grated muniment-room of Hurstley. Oh, what a +howl the caitiff gave, when he saw that his treasure had been taken! he +was a wild bull in a net; a crocodile caught upon the hooks; a hyena at +bay. What could he do? which way should he turn? how help himself, or +get his gold again? Unluckily—Oh, confusion, confusion!—his +account-books were along with all his hoard, those tell-tale legers, +wherein he had duly noted down, for his own private and triumphant +glance, the curious difference between his lawful and unlawful gains; +there, was every overcharge recorded, every matter of extortion +systematically ranged, that he might take all the tenants in their turn; +there, were filed the receipts of many honest men, whom the guardians +and Sir John had long believed to be greatly in arrear; there, was +recorded at length the catalogue of dues from tradesmen; there, the list +of bribes for the custom of the Hall. It would amply authorize Sir John +in appropriating the whole store; and Jennings thought of this with +terror. Every thing was now obviously lost, lost! Oh, sickening little +word, all lost! all he had ever lived for—all which had made him live +the life he did—all which made him fear to die. "Fear to die—ha! who +said that? I will not fear to die; yes, there is one escape left, I will +hazard the blind leap; this misery shall have an end—this sleepless, +haunted, cheated, hated wretch shall live no longer—ha! ha! ha! ha! +I'll do it! I'll do it!"</p> + +<p>Then did that wretched man strive in vain to kill himself, for his hour +was not yet come. His first idea was laudanum—that only mean of any +thing like rest to him for many weeks; and pouring out all he had, a +little phial, nearly half a wine-glass full, he quickly drank it off: no +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"></a>[Pg 127]</span>use—no use; the agitation of his mind was too intense, and the habit +of a continually increasing dose had made him proof against the poison; +it would not even lull him, but seemed to stretch and rack his nerves, +exciting him to deeds of bloody daring. Should he rush out, like a Malay +running a muck, with a carving-knife in each hand, and kill right and +left:—vengeance! vengeance! on Jonathan Floyd, and John Vincent? No, +no; for some of them at last would overcome him, think him mad, and, O +terror!—his doom for life, without the means of death, would be +solitary confinement. "Stay! with this knife in my hand—means of +death—yes, it shall be so." And he hurriedly drew the knife across his +throat; no use, nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from +cutting—he dared not cut again; a little bloody scratch was all.</p> + +<p>But the heart, the heart—that should be easier! And the miscreant, not +quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture. Not yet, +Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows. "Ha! +hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of that before?"</p> + +<p>He mounted on a chair with a gimlet in his hand, and screwed it tightly +into the wainscotting as high as he could reach; then he took a cord +from the sacking of his bed, secured it to the gimlet, made a noose, put +his head in, kicked the chair away—and swung by his wounded neck; in +vain, all in vain; as he struggled in the agonies of self-protecting +nature, the handle of the gimlet came away, and he fell heavily to the +ground.</p> + +<p>"Bless us!" said Sarah to one of the house-maids, as they were arranging +their curl-papers to go to bed: "what can that noise be in Mr. +Jennings's room? his tall chest of drawers has fallen, I shouldn't +wonder: it was always unsafe to my mind. Listen, Jenny, will you?"</p> + +<p>Jenny crept out, and, as laudable females sometimes do, listened at +Simon's key-hole.</p> + +<p>"Lack-a-daisy, Sall, such a groaning and moaning; p'raps he's a-dying: +put on your cap again, and tell Jonathan to go and see."</p> + +<p>Sarah did as she was bid, and Jonathan did as he was bid; and there was +Mr. Jennings on the floor, blue in the face, with a halter round his +neck.</p> + +<p>The house was soon informed of the interesting event, and the bailiff +was nursed as tenderly as if he had been a sucking babe; fomentations, +applications, hot potations: but he soon came to again, without any hope +or wish to repeat the dread attempt: he was kept in bed, closely +watched, and Stephen Cramp, together with his rival, Eager, remained +continually in alternate attendance: until a day or two recovered him as +strong as ever. I told you, Simon Jennings, that your time was not yet +come.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"></a>[Pg 128]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV" id="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV.</h3> + +<h4>THE TRIAL.</h4> + + +<p>The trial now came on, and Roger Acton stood arraigned of +robbery and murder. I must hasten over lengthy legal technicalities, +which would only serve to swell this volume, without adding one iota to +its interest or usefulness. Nothing could be easier, nothing more worth +while, as a matter of mere book-making, than to tear a few pages out of +some musty record of Criminal Court Practice or other Newgate +Calendar-piece of authorship, and wade wearily through the length and +breadth of indictments, speeches, examinations, and all the other +learned clatter of six hours in the judgment-halls of law. If the reader +wishes for all this, let him pore over those unhealthy-looking books, +whose exterior is dove-coloured as the kirtle of innocence, but their +inwards black as the conscience of guilt; whitened sepulchres, all +spotless without; but within them are enshrined the quibbling knavery, +the distorted ingenuity, the mystifying learnedness, the warped and +warping views of truth, the lying, slandering, bad-excusing, +good-condemning principles and practices of those who cater for their +custom at the guiltiest felon's cell, and would glory in defending +Lucifer himself.</p> + +<p>In the case of sheer innocence, indeed, as Roger's was—or in one of +much doubt and secresy, where the client denies all guilt, and the +counsel sees reason to believe him—let the advocate manfully battle out +his cause: but where crime has poured out his confessions in a +counsellor's ear—is not this man bought by gold to be a partaker and +abettor in his sins, when he strives with all his might to clear the +guilty, and not seldom throws the hideous charge on innocence? If the +advocate has no wish to entrap his own conscience, nor to damage the +tissue of his honour, let him reject the client criminal who confesses, +and only plead for those from whom he has had no assurance of their +guilt; or, better far, whose innocence he heartily believes in.</p> + +<p>Such an advocate was Mr. Grantly, a barrister of talents and experience, +who, from motives of the purest benevolence, did all that in him lay for +Roger Acton. In one thing, however, and that of no small import, the +kindly cautious man of law had contrived to do more harm than good: for, +after having secretly made every effort, but in vain, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a>[Pg 129]</span>find Ben Burke +as a witness—and after having heard that the aforesaid Ben was a +notorious poacher, and only intimate at Hurstley with Acton and his +family—he strongly recommended Roger to say nothing about the man or +his adventure, as the acknowledgment of such an intimacy would only +damage his cause: all that need appear was, that he found the crock in +his garden, never mind how he "thought" it got there: poachers are not +much in the habit of flinging away pots of gold, and no jury would +believe but that the ill-reputed personage in question was an accomplice +in the murder, and had shared the spoil with his friend Roger Acton. All +this was very shrewd; and well meant; but was not so wise, for all that, +as simple truth would have been: nevertheless, Roger acquiesced in it, +for a better reason than Mr. Grantly's—namely, this: his feelings +toward poor Ben had undergone an amiable revulsion, and, well aware how +the whole neigbourhood were prejudiced against him for his freebooting +propensities, he feared to get his good rough friend into trouble if he +mentioned his nocturnal fishing at Pike island; especially when he +considered that little red Savings' Bank, which, though innocent as to +the getting, was questionable as to the rights of spending, and that, +really, if he involved the professed poacher in this mysterious affair, +he might put his liberty or life into very serious jeopardy. On this +account, then, which Grace could not entirely find fault with (though +she liked nothing that savoured of concealment), Roger Acton agreed to +abide by Mr. Grantly's advice; and thus he never alluded to his +connexion with the poacher.</p> + +<p>Enlightened as we are, and intimate with all the hidden secrets of the +story, we may be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding all Mr. +Grantly's ingenuity, and all the siftings of cross-questioners, the case +was clear as light against poor Acton. No <i>alibi</i>, he lived upon the +spot. No witnesses to character; for Roger's late excesses had wiped +away all former good report: kind Mr. Evans himself, with tears in his +eyes, acknowledged sadly that Acton had once been a regular church-goer, +a frequent communicant: but had fallen off of late, poor fellow! And +then, in spite of protestations to the contrary, behold! the <i>corpus +delicti</i>—that unlucky crock of gold, actually in the man's possession, +and the fragment of shawl—was not that sufficient?</p> + +<p>Jonathan Floyd in open court had been base enough to accuse Mr. Jennings +of the murder. Mr. Jennings indeed! a strict man of high character, +lately dismissed, after twenty years' service, in the most arbitrary +manner by young Sir John, who had taken a great liking to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"></a>[Pg 130]</span> Actons. +People could guess why, when they looked on Grace: and Grace, too, was +sufficient reason to account for Jonathan's wicked suspicions; of +course, it was the lover's interest to throw the charge on other people. +As to Mr. Jennings himself, just recovered from a fit of illness, it was +astonishing how liberally and indulgently he prayed the court to show +the prisoner mercy: his white and placid face looked quite benevolently +at him—and this respectable person was a murderer, eh, Mr. Jonathan?</p> + +<p>So, when the judge summed up, and clearly could neither find nor make a +loop-hole for the prisoner, the matter seemed accomplished; all knew +what the verdict must be—poor Roger Acton had not the shadow of a +chance.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLV" id="CHAPTER_XLV"></a>CHAPTER XLV.</h3> + +<h4>ROGER'S DEFENCE.</h4> + + +<p>Then, while the jury were consulting—they would not leave the +box, it seemed so clear—Roger broke the death-like silence; and he +said:</p> + +<p>"Judge, I crave your worship's leave to speak: and hearken to me, +countrymen. Many evil things have I done in my time, both against God +and my neighbour: I am ashamed, as well I may be, when I think on 'em: I +have sworn, and drunk, and lied; I have murmured loudly—coveted +wickedly—ay, and once I stole. It was a little theft, I lost it on the +spot, and never stole again: pray God, I never may. Nevertheless, +countrymen, and sinful though I be in the sight of Him who made us, +according to man's judgment and man's innocency, I had lived among you +all blameless, until I found that crock of gold. I did find it, +countrymen, as God is my witness, and, therefore, though a sinner, I +appeal to Him: He knoweth that I found it in the sedge that skirts my +garden, at the end of my own celery trench. I did wickedly and foolishly +to hide my find, worse to deny it, and worst of all to spend it in the +low lewd way I did. But of robbery I am guiltless as you are. And as to +this black charge of murder, till Simon Jennings spoke the word, I never +knew it had been done. Folk of Hurstley, friends and neighbours, you all +know Roger Acton—the old-time honest Roger of these forty years, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"></a>[Pg 131]</span>before the devil made him mad by giving him much gold—did he ever +maliciously do harm to man or woman, to child or poor dumb brute?—No, +countrymen, I am no murderer. That the seemings are against me, I wot +well; they may excuse your judgment in condemning me to death—and I and +the good gentleman there who took my part (Heaven bless you, sir!) +cannot go against the facts: but they speak falsely, and I truly; Roger +Acton is an innocent man: may God defend the right!"</p> + +<p>"Amen!" earnestly whispered a tremulous female voice, "and God will save +you, father."</p> + +<p>The court was still as death, except for sobbing; the jury were doubting +and confounded; in vain Mr. Jennings, looking at the foreman, shook his +head and stroked his chin in an incredulous and knowing manner; clearly +they must retire, not at all agreed; and the judge himself, that masqued +man in flowing wig and ermine, but still warmed by human sympathies, +struck a tear from his wrinkled cheek; and all seemed to be +involuntarily waiting (for the jury, though unable to decide, had not +yet left their box), to see whether any sudden miracle would happen to +save a man whom evidence made so guilty, and yet he bore upon his open +brow the genuine signature of Innocence.</p> + +<p>"Silence, there, silence! you can't get in; there's no room for'ards!" +But a couple of javelin-men at the door were knocked down right and +left, and through the dense and suffocating crowd, a black-whiskered +fellow, elbowing his way against their faces, spite of all obstruction, +struggled to the front behind the bar. Then, breathless with gigantic +exertion (it was like a mammoth treading down the cedars), he roared +out,</p> + +<p>"Judge, swear me, I'm a witness; huzza! it's not too late."</p> + +<p>And the irreverent gentleman tossed a fur cap right up to the skylight.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVI" id="CHAPTER_XLVI"></a>CHAPTER XLVI.</h3> + +<h4>THE WITNESS.</h4> + + +<p>Mr. Grantly brightened up at once, Grace looked happily to +Heaven, and Roger Acton shouted out,</p> + +<p>"Thank God! thank God!—there's Ben Burke!"</p> + +<p>Yes, he had heard miles away of his friend's danger about an old <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"></a>[Pg 132]</span>shawl +and a honey-pot full of gold, and he had made all speed, with Tom in his +train, to come and bear witness to the innocence of Roger. The sensation +in court, as may be well conceived, was thrilling; but a vociferous +crier, and the deep anxiety to hear this sturdy witness, soon reduced +all again to silence.</p> + +<p>Then did they swear Benjamin Burke, who, to the scandal of his cause, +would insist upon stating his profession to be "poacher;" and at first, +poor simple fellow, seemed to have a notion that a sworn witness meant +one who swore continually; but he was soon convinced otherwise, and his +whole demeanour gradually became as polite and deferent as his coarse +nature would allow. And Ben told his adventure on Pike island, as we +have heard him tell it, pretty much in the same words, for the judge and +Mr. Grantly let him take his own courses; and then he added (with a +characteristic expletive, which we may as well omit, seeing it +occasioned a cry of "order" in the court), "There, if that there +white-livered little villain warn't the chap that brought the crocks, my +name an't Ben Burke."</p> + +<p>"Good Heavens! Mr. Jennings, what's the matter?" said a briefless one, +starting up: this was Mr. Sharp, a personage on former occasions +distinguished highly as a thieves' advocate, but now, unfortunately, out +of work. "Loosen his cravat, some one there; the gentleman is in fits."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Aunt—Aunt Quarles, don't throttle me; I'll tell all—all; let go, +let go!" and the wretched man slowly recovered, as Ben Burke said,</p> + +<p>"Ay, my lord, ask him yourself, the little wretch can tell you all about +it."</p> + +<p>"I submit, my lurd," interposed the briefless one, "that this +respectable gentleman is taken ill, and that his presence may now be +dispensed with, as a witness in the cause."</p> + +<p>"No, sir, no;" deliberately answered Jennings; "I must stay: the time I +find is come; I have not slept for weeks; I am exhausted utterly; I have +lost my gold; I am haunted by her ghost; I can go no where but that face +follows me—I can do nothing but her fingers clutch my throat. It is +time to end this misery. In hope to lay her spirit, I would have offered +up a victim: but—but she will not have him. Mine was the hand that—"</p> + +<p>"Pardon me," upstarted Mr. Sharp, "this poor gentleman is a mono-maniac; +pray, my lurd, let him be removed while the trial is proceeding."</p> + +<p>"You horse-hair hypocrite, you!" roared Ben, "would you hang the +innocent, and save the guilty?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"></a>[Pg 133]</span>Would he? would Mr. Philip Sharp? Ay, that he would; and glad of such a +famous opportunity. What! would not Newgate rejoice, and Horsemonger be +glad? Would not his bag be filled with briefs from the community of +burglars, and his purse be rich in gold subscribed by the brotherhood of +thieves? Great at once would be his name among the purlieus of iniquity: +and every rogue in London would retain but Philip Sharp. Would he? ask +him again.</p> + +<p>But Jennings quietly proceeded like a speaking statue.</p> + +<p>"I am not mad, most noble—" [the Bible-read villain was from habit +quoting Paul]—"my lord, I mean. My hand did the deed: I throttled her" +(here he gave a scared look over his shoulder): "yes—I did it once and +again: I took the crock of gold. You may hang me now, Aunt Quarles."</p> + +<p>"My lurd, my lurd, this is a most irregular proceeding," urged Mr. +Sharp; "on the part of the prisoner—I, I crave pardon—on behalf of +this most respectable and deluded gentleman, Mr. Simon Jennings, I +contend that no one may criminate himself in this way, without the +shadow of evidence to support such suicidal testimony. Really, my +lurd—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, but my father may go free?" earnestly asked Grace. But Ben +Burke's voice—I had almost written woice—overwhelmed them all:</p> + +<p>"Let me speak, judge, an't it please your honour, and take you notice, +Master Horsehair. You wan't ewidence, do you, beyond the man's +confession: here, I'll give it you. Look at this here wice:" and he +stretched forth his well-known huge and horny hand:</p> + +<p>"When I caught that dridful little reptil by the arm, he wriggled like a +sniggled eel, so I was forced you see, to grasp him something tighter, +and could feel his little arm-bones crack like any chicken's: now then, +if his left elbow an't black and blue, though it's a month a-gone and +more, I'll eat it. Strip him and see."</p> + +<p>No need to struggle with the man, or tear his coat off. Jennings +appeared only too glad to find that there was other evidence than his +own foul tongue, and that he might be hung at last without sacking-rope +or gimlet; so, he quietly bared his arm, and the elbow looked all manner +of colours—a mass of old bruises.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"></a>[Pg 134]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVII" id="CHAPTER_XLVII"></a>CHAPTER XLVII.</h3> + +<h4>MR. SHARP'S ADVOCACY.</h4> + + +<p>The whole court trembled with excitement: it was deep, still +silence; and the judge said,</p> + +<p>"Prisoner at the bar, there is now no evidence against you: gentlemen of +the jury, of course you will acquit him."</p> + +<p>The foreman: "All agreed, my lord, not guilty."</p> + +<p>"Roger Acton," said the judge, "to God alone you owe this marvellous, +almost miraculous, interposition: you have had many wrongs innocently to +endure, and I trust that the right feelings of society will requite you +for them in this world, as, if you serve Him, God will in the next. You +are honourably acquitted, and may leave this bar."</p> + +<p>In vain the crier shouted, in vain the javelin-men helped the crier, the +court was in a tumult of joy; Grace sprang to her father's neck, and Sir +John Vincent, who had been in attendance sitting near the judge all the +trial through, came down to him, and shook his hand warmly.</p> + +<p>Roger's eyes ran over, and he could only utter,</p> + +<p>"Thank God! thank God! He does better for me than I deserved." But the +court was hushed at last: the jury rësworn; certain legal forms and +technicalities speedily attended to, as counts of indictment, and so +forth: and the judge then quietly said,</p> + +<p>"Simon Jennings, stand at that bar."</p> + +<p>He stood there like an image.</p> + +<p>"My lurd, I claim to be prisoner's counsel."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Sharp—the prisoner shall have proper assistance by all means; but +I do not see how it will help your case, if you cannot get your client +to plead not guilty."</p> + +<p>While Mr. Philip Sharp converses earnestly with the criminal in +confidential whispers, I will entertain the sagacious reader with a few +admirable lines I have just cut out of a newspaper: they are headed</p> + +<p class='center'> +"<span class="smcap">suppression of truth and exclusion of evidence.</span> +</p> + +<p>"Lawyers abhor any short cut to the truth. The pursuit is the thing for +their pleasure and profit, and all their rules are framed for making the +most of it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"></a>[Pg 135]</span>"Crime is to them precisely what the fox is to the sportsman: and the +object is not to pounce on it, and capture it at once, but to have a +good run for it, and to exhibit skill and address in the chase. Whether +the culprit or the fox escape or not, is a matter of indifference, the +run being the main thing.</p> + +<p>"The punishment of crime is as foreign to the object of lawyers, as the +extirpation of the fox is to that of sportsmen. The sportsman, because +he hunts the fox, sees in the summary destruction of the fox by the hand +of a clown, an offence foul, strange, and unnatural, little short of +murder. The lawyer treats crime in the same way: his business is the +chase of it; but, that it may exist for the chase, he lays down rules +protecting it against surprises and capture by any methods but those of +the forensic field.</p> + +<p>"One good turn deserves another, and as the lawyer owes his business to +crime, he naturally makes it his business to favour and spare it as much +as possible. To seize and destroy it wherever it can be got at, seems to +him as barbarous as shooting a bird sitting, or a hare in her form, does +to the sportsman. The phrase, to give <i>law</i>, for the allowance of a +start, or any chance of escape, expresses the methods of lawyers in the +pursuit of crime, and has doubtless been derived from their practice.</p> + +<p>"Confession is the thing most hateful to law, for this stops its sport +at the outset. It is the surrender of the fox to the hounds. 'We don't +want your stinking body,' says the lawyer; 'we want the run after the +scent. Away with you, be off; retract your admission, take the benefit +of telling a lie, give us employment, and let us take our chance of +hunting out, in our roundabout ways, the truth, which we will not take +when it lies before us.'"</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As I perceive that Mr. Sharp has not yet made much impression upon the +desponding prisoner, suffer me to recommend to your notice another +sensible leader: the abuse which it would combat calls loudly for +amendment. There is plenty of time to spare, for some preliminaries of +trial have yet to be arranged, and the judge has just stepped out to get +a sandwich, and every body stands at ease; moreover, gentle reader, the +paragraphs following are well worthy of your attention. Let us name +them,</p> + +<p class='center'> +"<span class="smcap">morbid sympathies</span>. +</p> + +<p>"We have often thought that the tenderness shown by our law to presumed +criminals is as injurious as it is inconsistent and excessive. A +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a>[Pg 136]</span>miserable beggar, a petty rioter, the wretch who steals a loaf to +satisfy the gnawings of his hunger, is roughly seized, closely examined, +and severely punished; meanwhile, the plain common sense of our mobs, if +not of our magistracy, has pitied the offender, and perhaps acquitted +him. But let some apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant +deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human belief, have +killed, disembowelled, and dismembered; let him have united the coolness +of consummate craft to the boldest daring of iniquity, and straightway +(though the generous crowd may hoot and hunt the wretch with yelling +execration) he finds in law and lawyers, refuge, defenders, and +apologists. Tenderly and considerately is he cautioned on no account to +criminate himself: he is exhorted, even by judges, to withdraw the +honest and truthful plea of 'guilty,' now the only amends which such a +one can make to the outraged laws of God and man: he is defended, even +to the desperate length of malignant accusation of the innocent, by +learned men, whose aim it is to pervert justice and screen the guilty! +he is lodged and tended with more circumstances of outward comfort and +consideration than he probably has ever experienced in all his life +before; and if, notwithstanding the ingenuity of his advocates, and the +merciful glosses of his judge, a simple-minded British jury capitally +convict him, and he is handed over to the executioner, he still finds +pious gentlemen ready to weep over him in his cell, and titled dames to +send him white camellias, to wear upon his heart when he is hanging.<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p> + +<p>"Now what is the necessary consequence of this, but a mighty, a +fearfully influential premium on crime? And what is its radical cause, +but the absurd indulgence wherewith our law greets the favoured, +<i>because</i> the atrocious criminal? Upon what principle of propriety, or +of natural justice, should a seeming murderer not be—we will not say +sternly, but even kindly—catechised, and for his very soul's sake +counselled to confess his guilt? Why should the <i>morale</i> of evidence be +so thoroughly lost sight of, and a malefactor, who is ready to +acknowledge crime, or unable, when questioned, to conceal it, on no +account be listened to, lest he may do his precious life irreparable +harm? It is not agonized repentance, or incidental disclosure, that +makes the culprit his own executioner, but his crime that has preceded; +it is not the weak, avowing tongue, but the bold and bloody hand.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"></a>[Pg 137]</span>"We are unwilling to allude specifically to the name of any recent +malefactor in connexion with these plain remarks; for, in the absence +alike of hindered voluntary confession and of incomplete legal evidence, +we would not prejudge, that is, prejudice a case. But we do desire to +exclaim against any further exhibition of that morbid tenderness +wherewith all persons are sure to be treated, if only they are accused +of enormities more than usually disgusting; and we specially protest +against that foolish, however ancient, rule in our criminal law, which +discourages and rejects the slenderest approach to a confession, while +it has sacrificed many an innocent victim to the uncertainty of +evidence, supported by nothing more safe than outward circumstantials."</p> + +<p>At length, and after much gesticulation and protestation, Mr. Sharp has +succeeded; he had apparently innoculated the miserable man with hopes; +for the miscreant now said firmly, "I plead not guilty."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The briefless one looked happy—nay, triumphant: Jennings was a wealthy +man, all knew; and, any how, he should bag a bouncing fee. How far such +money was likely to do him any good, he never stopped to ask. "Money is +money," said Philip Sharp and the Emperor Vespasian.</p> + +<p>We need not trouble ourselves to print Mr. Sharp's very flashy, flippant +speech. Suffice it to say, that, not content with asserting vehemently +on his conscience as a Christian, on his honour as a man, that Simon +Jennings was an innocent, maligned, persecuted individual; labouring, +perhaps, under mono-mania, but pure and gentle as the babe new-born—not +satisfied with traducing honest Ben Burke as a most suspicious witness, +probably a murderer—ay, <i>the</i> murderer himself, a mere riotous ruffian +[Ben here chucked his cap at him, and thereby countenanced the charge], +a mere scoundrel, not to say scamp, whom no one should believe upon his +oath; he again, with all the semblance of sincerity, accused, however +vainly, Roger Acton: and lastly, to the disgust and astonishment of the +whole court, added, with all acted appearances of fervent zeal for +justice, "And I charge his pious daughter, too, that far too pretty +piece of goods, Grace Acton, with being accessory to this atrocious +crime after the fact!"</p> + +<p>There was a storm of shames and hisses; but the judge allayed it, +quietly saying,</p> + +<p>"Mr. Sharp, be so good as to confine your attention to your client; he +appears to be quite worthy of you."</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Sharp, like the firm just man immortalized by Flaccus, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"></a>[Pg 138]</span>stood +stout against the visage of the judge, sneered at the wrath of citizens +commanding things unjust, turned to Ben Burke minaciously, calling him +"<i>Dux inquieti turbidus Adriæ</i>" [as Burke had heard this quotation, he +thought it was about the "ducks" he had been decoying], and altogether +seemed not about to be put down, though the huge globe crack about his +ears. After this, he calmly worded on, seeming to regard the judge's +stinging observation with the same sort of indifference as the lion +would a dew-drop on his mane; and having poured out all manner of +voluminous bombast, he gradually ran down, and came to a conclusion; +then, jumping up refreshed, like the bounding of a tennis-ball, he +proceeded to call witnesses; and, judging from what happened at the +inquest, as well as because he wished to overwhelm a suspected and +suspecting witness, he pounced, somewhat infelicitously, on Jonathan +Floyd.</p> + +<p>"So, my fine young fellow, you are a footman, eh, at Hurstley?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, an' it please you—or rather, an' it please my master."</p> + +<p>"You remember what happened on the night of the late Mrs. Quarles's +decease?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, many things happened; Mr. Jennings was lost, he wasn't to be found, +he was hid somewhere, nobody saw him till next morning."</p> + +<p>"Stop, sirrah! not quite so quick, if you please; you are on your oath, +be careful what you say. I have it in evidence, sirrah, before the +coroner;" and he looked triumphantly about him at this clencher to all +Jonathan's testimony; "that you saw him yourself that night speaking to +the dog; what do you mean by swearing that nobody saw him till next +morning?"</p> + +<p>"Well, mister, I mean this; whether or no poor old Mrs. Quarles saw her +affectionate nephew that night before the clock struck twelve, there's +none alive to tell; but no one else did—for Sarah and I sat up for him +till past midnight. He was hidden away somewhere, snug enough; and as I +verily believe, in the poor old 'ooman's own—"</p> + +<p>"Silence, silence! sir, I say; we want none of your impertinent guesses +here, if you please: to the point, sirrah, to the point; you swore +before the coroner, that you had seen Mr. Jennings, in his courage and +his kindness, quieting the dog that very night, and now—"</p> + +<p>"Oh," interrupted Jonathan in his turn, "for the matter of that, when I +saw him with the dog, it was hard upon five in the morning. And here, +gentlemen," added Floyd, with a promiscuous and comprehensive bow all +round, "if I may speak my mind about the business—"</p> + +<p>"Go down, sir!" said Mr. Sharp, who began to be afraid of truths.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"></a>[Pg 139]</span>"Pardon me, this may be of importance," remarked Roger Acton's friend; +"say what you have to say, young man."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, gentlemen and my lord, I mean to say thus much. Jennings +there, the prisoner (and I'm glad to see him standing at the bar), swore +at the inquest that he went to quiet Don, going round through the front +door; now, none could get through that door without my hearing of him; +and certainly a little puny Simon like him could never do so without I +came to help him; for the lock was stiff with rust, and the bolt out of +his reach."</p> + +<p>"Stop, young man; my respected client, Mr. Jennings, got upon a chair."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir? then he must ha' created the chair for that special +purpose: there wasn't one in the hall then; no, nor for two days after, +when they came down bran-new from Dowbiggins in London, with the rest o' +the added furnitur' just before my honoured master."</p> + +<p>This was conclusive, certainly; and Floyd proceeded.</p> + +<p>"Now, gentlemen and my lord, if Jennings did not go that way, nor the +kitchen-way neither—for he always was too proud for scullery-door and +kitchen—and if he did not give himself the trouble to unfasten the +dining-room or study windows, or to unscrew the iron bars of his own +pantry, none of which is likely, gentlemen—there was but one other way +out, and that way was through Bridget Quarles's own room. Now—"</p> + +<p>"Ah—that room, that bed, that corpse, that crock!—It is no use, no +use," the wretched miscreant added slowly, after his first hurried +exclamations; "I did the deed, I did it! guilty, guilty." And, +notwithstanding all Mr. Sharp's benevolent interferences, and appeals to +judge and jury on the score of mono-mania, and shruggings-up of +shoulders at his client's folly, and virtuous indignation at the evident +leaning of the court—the murderer detailed what he had done. He spoke +quietly and firmly, in his usually stern and tyrannical style, as if +severe upon himself, for being what?—a man of blood, a thief, a +perjured false accuser? No, no; lower in the scale of Mammon's judgment, +worse in the estimate of him whose god is gold; he was now a pauper, a +mere moneyless forked animal; a beggared, emptied, worthless, penniless +creature: therefore was he stern against his ill-starred soul, and took +vengeance on himself for being poor.</p> + +<p>It was a consistent feeling, and common with the mercantile of this +world; to whom the accidents of fortune are every thing, and the +qualities of mind nothing; whose affections ebb and flow towards +friends, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"></a>[Pg 140]</span>relations—yea, their own flesh and blood, with the varying +tide of wealth: whom a luckless speculation in cotton makes an enemy, +and gambling gains in corn restore a friend; men who fall down mentally +before the golden calf, and offer up their souls to Nebuchadnezzar's +idol: men who never saw harm nor shame in the craftiest usurer or +meanest pimp, provided he has thousands in the three per cents.; and +whose indulgent notions of iniquity reach their climax in the +phrase—the man is poor.</p> + +<p>So then, with unhallowed self-revenge, Simon rigidly detailed his +crimes: he led the whole court step by step, as I have led the reader, +through the length and breadth of that terrible night: of the facts he +concealed nothing, and the crowded hall of judgment shuddered as one +man, when he came to his awful disclosure, hitherto unsuspected, +unimagined, of that second strangulation: as to feelings, he might as +well have been a galvanized mummy, an automaton lay-figure enunciating +all with bellows and clapper, for any sense he seemed to have of shame, +or fear, or pity; he admitted his lie about the door, complimented Burke +on the accuracy of his evidence, and declared Roger Acton not merely +innocent, but ignorant of the murder.</p> + +<p>This done, without any start or trepidation in his manner as formerly, +he turned his head over his left shoulder, and said, in a deep whisper, +heard all over the court, "And now, Aunt Quarles, I am coming; look out, +woman, I will have my revenge for all your hauntings: again shall we +wrestle, again shall we battle, again shall I throttle you, again, +again!"</p> + +<p>O, most fearful thought! who knoweth but it may be true? that spirits of +wickedness and enmity may execute each other's punishment, as those of +righteousness and love minister each other's happiness! that—damned +among the damned—the spirit of a Nero may still delight in torturing, +and that those who in this world were mutual workers of iniquity, may +find themselves in the next, sworn retributors of wrath? No idle threat +was that of the demoniac Simon, and possibly with no vain fears did the +ghost of the murdered speed away.</p> + +<p>When the sensation of horror, which for a minute delayed the +court-business, and has given us occasion to think that fearful thought, +when this had gradually subsided, the foreman of the jury, turning to +the judge, said,</p> + +<p>"My lord, we will not trouble your lordship to sum up; we are all +agreed—Guilty."</p> + +<p>One word about Mr. Sharp: he was entirely chagrined; his fortunes were +at stake; he questioned whether any one in Newgate would think <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a>[Pg 141]</span>of him +again. To make matters worse, when he whispered for a fee to Mr. +Jennings (for he did whisper, however contrary to professional +etiquette), that worthy gentleman replied by a significant sneer, to the +effect that he had not a penny to give him, and would not if he had: +whereupon Mr. Sharp began to coincide with the rest of the world in +regarding so impoverished a murderer as an atrocious criminal; then, +turning from his client with contempt, he went to the length of +congratulating Roger on his escape, and actually offered his hand to Ben +Burke. The poacher's reply was characteristic: "As you means it kindly, +Master Horsehair, I won't take it for an insult: howsomdever, either +your hand or mine, I won't say which, is too dirty for shaking. Let me +do you a good turn, Master: there's a blue-bottle on your wig; I think +as it's Beelzebub a-whispering in your ear: allow me to drive him away." +And the poacher dealt him such a cuff that this barrister reeled again; +and instantly afterwards took advantage of the cloud of hair-powder to +leave the court unseen.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLVIII" id="CHAPTER_XLVIII"></a>CHAPTER XLVIII.</h3> + +<h4>SENTENCE AND DEATH.</h4> + + +<p>Silence, silence! shouted the indignant crier, and the +episodical cause of Burke, <i>v.</i> Sharp, was speedily hushed.</p> + +<p>The eyes of all now concentred on the miserable criminal; for the time, +every thing else seemed forgotten. Roger, Grace, and Ben, grouped +together in the midst of many friends, who had crowded round them to +congratulate, leaned forward like the rest of that dense hall, as simply +thralled spectators. Mr. Grantly lifted up a pair of very moistened eyes +behind his spectacles, and looked earnestly on, with his wig, from +agitation, wriggled tails in front. The judge (it was good old Baron +Parker) put on the black cap to pronounce sentence. There was a pause.</p> + +<p>But we have forgotten Simon Jennings—what was he about? did that +"cynosure of neighbouring eyes" appear alarmed at his position, anxious +at his fate, or even attentive to what was going on? No: he not only +appeared, but was, the most unconcerned individual in the whole court: +he even tried to elude utter vacancy of thought by amusing himself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"></a>[Pg 142]</span>with +external things about him: and, on Wordsworth's principle of inducing +sleep by counting</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"A flock of sheep, that leisurely pass by,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">One after one,"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind's sake, how many +folks were looking at him. Only see—he is turning his white stareful +face in every direction, and his lips are going a thousand and +forty-one, a thousand and forty-two, a thousand and forty-three; he will +not hurry it over, by leaving out the "thousand:" alas! this holiday of +idiotic occupation is all the respite now his soul can know.</p> + +<p>And the judge broke that awful silence, saying,</p> + +<p>"Prisoner at the bar, you are convicted on your own confession, as well +as upon other evidence, of crimes too horrible to speak of. The +deliberate repetition of that fearful murder, classes you among the +worst of wretches whom it has been my duty to condemn: and when to this +is added your perjured accusation of an innocent man, whom nothing but a +miracle has rescued, your guilt becomes appalling—too hideous for human +contemplation. Miserable man, prepare for death, and after that the +judgment; yet, even for you, if you repent, there may be pardon; it is +my privilege to tell even you, that life and hope are never to be +separated, so long as God is merciful, or man may be contrite. The +Sacrifice of Him who died for us all, for you, poor fellow-creature +[here the good judge wept for a minute like a child]—for you, no less +than for me, is available even to the chief of sinners. It is my duty +and my comfort to direct your blood-stained, but immortal soul, eagerly +to fly to that only refuge from eternal misery. As to this world, your +career of wickedness is at an end: covetousness has conceived and +generated murder; and murder has even over-stept its common bounds, to +repeat the terrible crime, and then to throw its guilt upon the +innocent. Entertain no hope whatever of a respite; mercy in your case +would be sin.</p> + +<p>"The sentence of the court is, that you, Simon Jennings, be taken from +that bar to the county jail, and thence on this day fortnight to be +conveyed to the place of execution within the prison, and there by the +hands of the common hangman be hanged by the neck—"</p> + +<p>At the word "neck," in the slow and solemn enunciation of the judge, +issued a terrific scream from the mouth of Simon Jennings: was he mad +after all—mad indeed? or was he being strangled by some unseen +executioner? Look at him, convulsively doing battle with an invisible +foe! his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"></a>[Pg 143]</span>eyes start; his face gets bluer and bluer; his hands, fixed +like griffin's talons, clutch at vacancy—he wrestles—struggles—falls.</p> + +<p>All was now confusion: even the grave judge, who had necessarily stopped +at that frightful interruption, leaned eagerly over his desk, while +barristers and serjeants learned in the law crowded round the prisoner: +"He is dying! air, there—air! a glass of water, some one!"</p> + +<p>About a thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a +tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed any thing but +nitrogen for four hours.</p> + +<p>He was dying: and three several doctors, hoisted over the heads of an +admiring multitude, rushed to his relief with thirsty lancets: +apoplexy—oh, of course, apoplexy: and they nodded to each other +confidentially.</p> + +<p>Yes, he was dying: they might not move him now: he must die in his sins, +at that dread season, upon that dread spot. Perjury, robbery, and +murder—all had fastened on his soul, and were feeding there like +harpies at a Strophadian feast, or vultures ravening on the liver of +Prometheus. Guilt, vengeance, death had got hold of him, and rent him, +as wild horses tearing him asunder different ways; he lay there +gurgling, strangling, gasping, panting: none could help him, none could +give him ease; he was going on the dark, dull path in the bottom of that +awful valley, where Death's cold shadow overclouds it like a canopy; he +was sinking in that deep black water, that must some day drown us +all—pray Heaven, with hope to cheer us then, and comfort in the fierce +extremity! His eye filmed, his lower jaw relaxed, his head dropped +back—he was dying—dying—dying—</p> + +<p>On a sudden, he rallied! his blood had rushed back again from head to +heart, and all the doctors were deceived—again he battled, and fought, +and wrestled, and flung them from him; again he howled, and his eyes +glared lightning—mad? Yes, mad—stark mad! quick—quick—we cannot hold +him: save yourselves there!</p> + +<p>But he only broke away from them to stand up free—then he gave one +scream, leaped high into the air, and fell down dead in the dock, with a +crimson stream of blood issuing from his mouth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"></a>[Pg 144]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XLIX" id="CHAPTER_XLIX"></a>CHAPTER XLIX.</h3> + +<h4>RIGHTEOUS MAMMON.</h4> + + +<p>Thus the crock of gold had gained another victim. Is the curse of its +accumulation still unsatisfied? Must more misery be born of that +unhallowed store? Shall the poor man's wrongs, and his little ones' cry +for bread, and the widows' vain appeal for indulgence in necessity, and +the debtor's useless hope for time—more time—and the master's misused +bounty, and the murmuring dependants' ever-extorted dues—must the +frauds, falsehoods, meannesses, and hardnesses of half a century long, +concentrate in that small crock—must these plead still for bloody +judgments from on high against all who touch that gold?</p> + +<p>No! the miasma is dispelled: the curse is gone: the crimes are expiated. +The devil in that jar is dispossessed, and with Simon's last gasp has +returned unto his own place. The murderer is dead, and has thereby laid +the ghost of his mate in sin, the murdered victim; while that victim has +long ago paid by blood for her many years of mean domestic pilfering.</p> + +<p>And now I see a better angel hovering round the crock: it is purified, +sanctified, accepted. It is become a talent from the Lord, instead of a +temptation from the devil; and the same coin, which once has been but +dull, unrighteous mammon, through justice, thankfulness, and piety, +shineth as the shekel of the temple. Gratefully, as from God, the +rightful owner now may take the gift.</p> + +<p>For, gold is a creature of God, representing many excellencies: the +sweat of honest Industry distils to gold; the hot-spring of Genius +congeals to gold; the blessing upon Faithfulness is often showered in +gold; and Charities not seldom are guerdoned back with gold. Let no man +affect to despise what Providence hath set so high in power. None do so +but the man who has it not, and who knows that he covets it in vain. +Sour grapes—sour grapes—for he may not touch the vintage. This is not +the verdict of the wise; the temptation he may fear, the cares he may +confess, the misuse he may condemn: yet will he acknowledge that, +received at God's hand, and spent in his service, there is scarce a +creature in this nether world of higher name than Money.</p> + +<p>Beauty fadeth; Health dieth; Talents—yea, and Graces—go to bloom in +other spheres—but when Benevolence would bless, and bless for ages, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"></a>[Pg 145]</span>his blessing is vain, but for money—when Wisdom would teach, and teach +for ages, the teacher must be fed, and the school built, and the scholar +helped upon his way by money—righteous money. There is a righteous +money as there is unrighteous mammon; but both have their ministrations +here limited to earth and time; the one, a fruit of heaven—the other, a +fungus from below: yet the fruit will bring no blessing, if the Grower +be forgotten; neither shall the fungus yield a poison, if warmed awhile +beneath the better sun. Like all other gifts, given to us sweet, but +spoilt in the using, gold may turn to good or ill: Health may kick, like +fat Jeshurun in his wantonness; Power may change from beneficence to +tyranny; Learning may grow critical in motes until it overlooks the +sunbeam; Love may be degraded to an instinct; Zaccheus may turn +Pharisee; Religion may cant into the hypocrite, or dogmatize to +theologic hate. Even so it is with money: its power of doing good has no +other equivalent in this world than its power of doing evil: it is like +fire—used for hospitable warmth, or wide-wasting ravages; like air—the +gentle zephyr, or the destroying hurricane. Nevertheless, all is for +this world—this world only; a matter extraneous to the spirit, always +foreign, often-times adversary: let a man beware of lading himself with +that thick clay.</p> + +<p>I see a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy +breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies; +so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its +foot on shore, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking +in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing—in +vain—in vain thou triest to rise—Pactolus chains thee down.</p> + +<p>Even such is wealth unto the wisest; wealth at its purest source, +exponent of labour and of mind. But, to the frequent fool, heaped with +foulest dross—for the cygnet of Pactolus and those golden sands, +read—the hippopotamus wallowing in the Niger, and smothered in a bay of +mud.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_L" id="CHAPTER_L"></a>CHAPTER L.</h3> + +<h4>THE CROCK A BLESSING.</h4> + + +<p>There was no will found: it is likely Mrs. Quarles had never made one; +she feared death too much, and all that put her in mind of it. So the +next of kin, the only one to have the crock of gold, was Susan Scott, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"></a>[Pg 146]</span>a +good, honest, hard-working woman, whom Jennings, by many arts, had kept +away from Hurstley: her husband, a poor thatcher, sadly out of work +except in ricking time, and crippled in both legs by having fallen from +a hay-stack: and as to the family, it was already as long a flight of +steps as would reach to an ordinary first floor, with a prospect (so the +gossips said) of more in the distance. Susan was a Wesleyan +Methodist—many may think, more the pity: but she neither disliked +church, nor called it steeple-house: only, forasmuch as Hagglesfield was +blessed with a sporting parson, the chief reminders of whose presence in +the parish were strifes perpetual about dues and tithes, it is little +blame or wonder, if the starving sheep went anywhither else for +pasturage and water. So, then, Susan was a good mother, a kind +neighbour, a religious, humble-minded Christian: is it not a comfort now +to know that the gold was poured into her lap, and that she hallowed her +good luck by prayers and praises?</p> + +<p>I judge it worth while stepping over to Hagglesfield for a couple of +minutes, to find out how she used that gold, and made the crock a +blessing. Susan first thought of her debts: so, to every village shop +around, I fear they were not a few, which had kindly given her credit, +some for weeks, some for months, and more than one for a year, the happy +house-wife went to pay in full; and not this only, but with many +thanks, to press a little present upon each, for well-timed help in her +adversity.</p> + +<p>The next thought was near akin to it: to take out of pawn divers valued +articles, two or three of which had been her mother's; for Reuben's +lameness, poor man, kept him much out of work, and the childer came so +quick, and ate so fast, and wore out such a sight of shoes, that, but +for an occasional appeal to Mrs. Quarles—it was her one fair feature +this—they must long ago have been upon the parish: now, however, all +the ancestral articles were redeemed, and honour no doubt with them.</p> + +<p>Thirdly, Susan went to her minister in best bib and tucker, and humbly +begged leave to give a guinea to the school; and she hoped his reverence +wouldn't be above accepting a turkey and chine, as a small token of her +gratitude to him for many consolations: it pleased me much to hear that +the good man had insisted upon Susan and her husband coming to eat it +with him the next day at noon.</p> + +<p>Fourthly, Susan prudently set to work, and rigged out the whole family +in tidy clothes, with a touch of mourning upon each for poor Aunt +Bridget, and unhappy brother Simon; while the fifthly, sixthly, and to +conclude, were concerned in a world of notable and useful schemes, with +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"></a>[Pg 147]</span>a strong resolution to save as much as possible for schooling and +getting out the children.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful to see how much good was in that gold, how large a fund +of blessing was hidden in that crock: Reuben Scott gained health, the +family were fed, clad, taught; Susan grew in happiness at least as truly +as in girth; and Hagglesfield beheld the goodness of that store, whose +curse had startled all Hurstley-cum-Piggesworth.</p> + +<p>But also at Hurstley now are found its consequential blessings.</p> + +<p>We must take another peep at Roger and sweet Grace; they, and Ben too, +and Jonathan, and Jonathan's master, may all have cause to thank an +overruling Providence, for blessing on the score of Bridget's crock. +Only before I come to that, I wish to be dull a little hereabouts, and +moralize: the reader may skip it, if he will—but I do not recommend him +so to do.</p> + +<p>For, evermore in the government of God, good groweth out of evil: and, +whether man note the fact or not, Providence, with secret care, doth +vindicate itself. There is justice done continually, even on this stage +of trial, though many pine and murmur: substantial retribution, even in +this poor dislocated world of wrong, not seldom overtakes the sinner, +not seldom encourages the saint. Encourages? yea, and punishes: blessing +him with kind severity; teaching him to know himself a mere bad root, if +he be not grafted on his God; proving that the laws which govern life +are just, and wise, and kind; showing him that a man's own heart's +desire, if fulfilled, would probably tend to nothing short of sin, +sorrow, and calamity; that many seeming goods are withheld, because they +are evils in disguise; and many seeming ills allowed, because they are +masqueraded blessings; and demonstrating, as in this strange tale, that +the unrighteous Mammon is a cruel master, a foul tempter, a pestilent +destroyer of all peace, and a teeming source of both world's misery.</p> + +<p>Listen to the sayings of the Wisest King of men:</p> + +<p>"As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous +is an everlasting foundation."</p> + +<p>"The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his +stead."</p> + +<p>"He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall +flourish as a branch."</p> + +<p>"Better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues without +right."</p> + +<p>"The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor +for the upright."</p> + +<p>"A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the +wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a>[Pg 148]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LI" id="CHAPTER_LI"></a>CHAPTER LI.</h3> + +<h4>POPULARITY.</h4> + + +<p>The storm is lulled: the billows of temptation have ebbed away +from shore, and the clouds of adversity have flown to other skies.</p> + +<p>"The winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon +the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of +the turtle is heard in our land: the fig-tree putteth forth his green +figs, and the blossoms of the vine smell sweetly. Arise, and come away."</p> + +<p>Yesterday's trial, and its unlooked-for issue, have raised Roger Acton +to the rank of hero. The town's excitement is intense: and the little +inn, where he and Grace had spent the night in gratitude and prayerful +praise, is besieged by carriages full of lords and gentlemen, eager to +see and speak with Roger.</p> + +<p>Humbly and reverently, yet preserving an air of quiet self-possession, +the labourer received their courteous kindnesses; and acquitted himself +of what may well be called the honours of that levee, with a dignity +native to the true-born Briton, from the time of Caractacus at Rome to +our own.</p> + +<p>But if Roger was a demi-god, Grace was at the least a goddess; she +charmed all hearts with her modest beauty. Back with the shades of +night, and the prison-funeral of Jennings, fled envy, hatred, malice, +and all uncharitableness; the elderly sisterhood of Hurstley, not to be +out of a fashion set by titled dames, hastened to acknowledge her +perfections; Calumny was shamed, and hid his face; the uncles, aunts, +and cousins of the hill-top yonder, were glad to hold their tongues, and +bite their nails in peace: Farmer Floyd and his Mrs. positively came +with peace-offerings—some sausage-meat, elder-wine, jam, and other +dainties, which were to them the choicest sweets of life: and as for +Jonathan, he never felt so proud of Grace in all his life before; the +handsome fellow stood at least a couple of inches taller.</p> + +<p>Honest Ben Burke, too, that most important witness—whose coming was as +Blucher's at Waterloo, and secured the well-earned conquest of the +day—though it must be confessed that his appearance was something of +the satyr, still had he been Phœbus Apollo in person, he would +scarcely have excited sincerer admiration. More than one fair creature +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"></a>[Pg 149]</span>sketched his unkempt head, and loudly wished that its owner was a +bandit; more than one bright eye discovered beauty in his open +countenance—though a little soap and water might have made it more +distinguishable. Well—well—honest Ben—they looked, and wisely looked, +at the frank and friendly mind hidden under that rough carcase, and +little wonder that they loved it.</p> + +<p>Now, to all this stream of hearty English sympathy, the kind and proper +feeling of young Sir John resolved to give a right direction. His +fashionable friends were gone, except Silliphant and Poynter, both good +fellows in the main, and all the better for the absence (among others) +of that padded old debauchee, Sir Richard Hunt, knight of the order of +St. Sapphira—that frivolous inanity, Lord George Pypp—and that +professed gentleman of gallantry, Mr. Harry Mynton. The follies and the +vices had decamped—had scummed off, so to speak—leaving the more +rectified spirits behind them, to recover at leisure, as best they +might, from all that ferment of dissipation. So, then, there was now +neither ridicule, nor interest, to stand in the way of a young and +wealthy heir's well-timed schemes of generosity.</p> + +<p>Well-timed they were, and Sir John knew it, though calculation seldom +had a footing in his warm and heedless heart; but he could not shut his +eyes to the fact, that the state of feeling among his hereditary +labourers was any thing but pleasant. In truth, owing to the desperate +malpractices of Quarles and Jennings, perhaps no property in the kingdom +had got so ill a name as Hurstley: discontent reigned paramount; +incendiary fires had more than once occurred; threatening notices, very +ill-spelt, and signed by one <i>soi-disant</i> Captain Blood, had been +dropped, in dead of winter, at the door-sills of the principal farmers; +and all the other fruits of long-continued penury, extortion, and +mis-government, were hanging ripe upon the bough—a foul and fatal +harvest.</p> + +<p>Therefore, did the kind young landlord, who had come to live among his +own peasantry, resolve, not more nobly than wisely, to seize an +opportunity so good as this, for restoring, by a stroke of generous +policy, peace and content on his domain. No doubt, the baronet rejoiced, +as well he might, at the honourable acquittal of innocence, and the +mysteries of murder now cleared up; he made small secret of his +satisfaction at the doom of Jennings; and, as for Bridget Quarles, by +all he could learn of her from tenants' wives, and other female +dependants, he had no mind to wish her back again, or to think her fate +ill-timed: nevertheless, he was even more glad of an occasion to +vindicate his own good <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"></a>[Pg 150]</span>feelings; and prove to the world that bailiff +Simon Jennings was a very opposite character to landlord Sir John +Devereux Vincent.</p> + +<p>To carry out his plan, he determined to redress all wrongs within one +day, and to commence by bringing "honest Roger" in triumph home again to +Hurstley; following the suggestion of Baron Parker, to make some social +compensation for his wrongs. With this view, Sir John took counsel of +the county-town authorities, and it was agreed unanimously, excepting +only one dissenting vote—a rich and radical Quaker, one Isaac Sneak, +grocer, and of the body corporate, who refused to lose one day's service +of his shopmen, and thereby (I rejoice to add) succeeded in getting rid +of fifteen good annual customers—it was agreed, then, and arranged that +the morrow should be a public holiday. All Sir John's own tenantry, as +well as Squire Ryle's, and some of other neighbouring magnates, were to +have a day's wages without work, on the easy conditions of attending the +procession in their smartest trim, and of banqueting at Hurstley +afterwards. So, then, the town-band was ordered to be in attendance next +morning by eleven at the Swan, a lot of old election colours were shaken +from their dust and cobwebs, the bell-ringers engaged, vasty +preparations of ale and beef made at Hurstley Hall—an ox to be roasted +whole upon the terrace, and a plum-pudding already in the cauldron of +two good yards in circumference—and all that every body hoped for that +night, was a fine May-day to-morrow.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LII" id="CHAPTER_LII"></a>CHAPTER LII.</h3> + +<h4>ROGER AT THE SWAN.</h4> + + +<p>Meanwhile, eventide came on: the crowd of kindly gentle-folks +had gone their several ways; and Roger Acton found himself (through Sir +John's largess) at free quarters in the parlour of the Swan, with Grace +by his side, and many of his mates in toil and station round him.</p> + +<p>"Grace," said her father on a sudden, "Grace—my dear child—come +hither." She stood in all her loveliness before him. Then he took her +hand, looked up at her affectionately, and leaned back in the old oak +chair.</p> + +<p>"Hear me, mates and neighbours; to my own girl, Grace, under God, I owe +my poor soul's welfare. I have nothing, would I had, to give her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"></a>[Pg 151]</span>in +return:" and the old man (he looked ten years older for his six weeks, +luck, and care, and trouble)—the old man could not get on at all with +what he had to say—something stuck in his throat—but he recovered, and +added cheerily, with an abrupt and rustic archness, "I don't know, +mates, whether after all I can't give the good girl something: I can +give her—away! Come hither, Jonathan Floyd; you are a noble fellow, +that stood by us in adversity, and are almost worthy of my angel Grace." +And he joined their hands.</p> + +<p>"Give us thy blessing too, dear father!"</p> + +<p>They kneeled at his feet on the sanded floor, in the midst of their +kinsfolk and acquaintance, and he, stretching forth his hands like a +patriarch, looked piously up to heaven, and blessed them there.</p> + +<p>"Grace," he added, "and Jonathan my son, I need not part with you—I +could not. I have heard great tidings. To-morrow you shall know how kind +and good Sir John is: God bless him! and send poor England's children of +the soil many masters like him.</p> + +<p>"And now, mates, one last word from Roger Acton; a short word, and a +simple, that you may not forget it. My sin was love of money: my +punishment, its possession. Mates, remember Him who sent you to be +labourers, and love the lot He gives you. Be thankful if His blessing on +your industry keeps you in regular work and fair wages: ask no more from +God of this world's good. Believe things kindly of the gentle-folks, for +many sins are heaped upon their heads, whereof their hearts are +innocent. Never listen to the counsels of a servant, who takes away his +master's character: for of such are the poor man's worst oppressors. Be +satisfied with all your lowliness on earth, and keep your just ambitions +for another world. Flee strong liquors and ill company. Nurse no heated +hopes, no will-o'-the-wisp bright wishes: rather let your warmest hopes +be temperately these—health, work, wages: and as for wishing, mates, +wish any thing you will—sooner than to find a crock of gold."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"></a>[Pg 152]</span></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LIII" id="CHAPTER_LIII"></a>CHAPTER LIII.</h3> + +<h4>ROGER'S TRIUMPH.</h4> + + +<p>The steeples rang out merrily, full chime; High street was gay with +streamers; the town-band busily assembling; a host of happy urchins from +emancipated schools, were shouting in all manner of keys all manner of +gleeful noises: every body seemed a-stir.</p> + +<p>A proud man that day was Roger Acton; not of his deserts—they were +worse than none, he knew it; not of the procession—no silly child was +he, to be caught with toy and tinsel; God wot, he was meek enough in +self—and as for other pride, he knew from old electioneerings, what a +humbling thing is triumph.</p> + +<p>But when he saw from the windows of the Swan, those crowds of new-made +friends trooping up in holiday suits with flags, and wands, and +corporation badges—when the band for a commencement struck up the +heart-stirring hymn 'God save the Queen,'—when the horsemen, and +carriages, and gigs, and carts assembled—when the baronet's own +barouche and four, dashing up to the door, had come from Hurstley Hall +for <i>him</i>—when Sir John, the happiest of the happy, alighting with his +two friends, had displaced them for Roger and Grace, while the kind +gentlemen took horse, and headed the procession—when Ben Burke (as +clean as soap could get him, and bedecked in new attire) was ordered to +sit beside Jonathan in the rumble-tumble—when the cheering, and the +merry-going bells, and the quick-march 'British Grenadiers,' rapidly +succeeding the national anthem—when all these tokens of a generous +sympathy smote upon his ears, his eyes, his heart, Roger Acton wept +aloud—he wept for very pride and joy: proud and glad was he that day of +his country, of his countrymen, of his generous landlord, of his gentle +Grace, of his vindicated innocence, and of God, "who had done so great +things for him."</p> + +<p>So, the happy cavalcade moved on, horse and foot, and carts and +carriages, through the noisy town, along the thronged high road, down +the quiet lanes that lead to Hurstley; welcomed at every cottage-door +with boisterous huzzas, and adding to its ranks at every corner. And so +they reached the village, where the band struck up,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"See the conquering hero comes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a>[Pg 153]</span>Is not this returning like a nabob, Roger? Hath not God blest thee +through the crock of gold at last, in spite of sin?</p> + +<p>There, at the entrance by the mile-stone, stood Mary and the babes, with +a knot of friends around her, bright with happiness; on the top of it +was perched son Tom, waving the blue and silver flag of Hurstley, and +acting as fugleman to a crowd of uproarious cheerers; and beside it, on +the bank, sat Sarah Stack, overcome with joy, and sobbing like a +gladsome Niobe.</p> + +<p>And the village bells went merrily; every cottage was gay with spring +garlands, and each familiar face lit up with looks of kindness; Hark! +hark!—"Welcome, honest Roger, welcome home again!" they shout: and the +patereroes on the lawn thunder a salute; "welcome, honest +neighbour;"—and up went, at bright noon, Tom Stableboy's dozen of +rockets wrapped around with streamers of glazed calico—"welcome, +welcome!"</p> + +<p>Good Mr. Evans stood at the door of fine old Hurstley, in wig, and band, +and cassock, to receive back his wandering sheep that had been lost: and +the school-children, ranged upon the steps, thrillingly sang out the +beautiful chant, "I will arise, and go to my Father, and will say unto +Him, 'Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no +more worthy to be called thy son!'"</p> + +<p>Every head was uncovered, and every cheek ran down with tears.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_LIV" id="CHAPTER_LIV"></a>CHAPTER LIV.</h3> + +<h4>SIR JOHN'S PARTING SPEECH.</h4> + + +<p>Then Sir John, standing up in the barouche at his own +hall-door, addressed the assembled multitude:</p> + +<p>"Friends, we are gathered here to-day, in the cause of common justice +and brotherly kindness. There are many of you whom I see around me, my +tenants, neighbours, or dependants, who have met with wrongs and +extortions heretofore, but you all shall be righted in your turn; trust +me, men, the old hard times are gone, your landlord lives among you, and +his first care shall be to redress your many grievances, paying back the +gains of your oppressor."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154"></a>[Pg 154]</span>"God bless you, sir, God bless you!" was the echo from many a gladdened +heart.</p> + +<p>"But before I hear your several claims in turn, which shall be done +to-morrow, our chief duty this day is to recompense an honest man for +all that he has innocently suffered. It is five-and-thirty years, as I +find by my books, on this very first of May, since Roger Acton first +began to work at Hurstley; till within this now past evil month, he has +always been the honest steady fellow that you knew him from his youth: +what say you, men, to having as a bailiff one of yourselves; a kind and +humble man, a good man, the best hand in the parish in all the works of +your vocation—a steady mind, an honest heart—what say ye all to Roger +Acton?"</p> + +<p>There was a whirlwind of tumultuous applause.</p> + +<p>"Moreover, men, though you all, each according to his measure and my +means, shall meet with liberal justice for your lesser ills, yet we must +all remember that Bailiff Acton here had nearly died a felon's death, +through that bad man Jennings and the unlucky crock of gold; in +addition, extortion has gone greater lengths with him, than with any +other on the property; I find that for the last twenty years, Roger +Acton has regularly paid to that monster of oppression who is now dead, +a double rent—four guineas instead of forty shillings. I desire, as a +good master, to make amends for the crimes of my wicked servant; +therefore in this bag, Bailiff Acton, is returned to you all the rent +you ever paid;" [Roger could not speak for tears;]—"and your cottage +repaired and fitted, with an acre round it, is yours and your +children's, rent-free for ever."</p> + +<p>"Huzzah, huzzah!" roared Ben from the dickey, in a gush of disinterested +joy; and then, like an experienced toast-master, he marshalled in due +hip, hip, hip order, the shouts of acclamation that rent the air. In an +interval of silence, Sir John added,</p> + +<p>"As for you, good-hearted fellow, if you will only mend your speech, +I'll make you one of my keepers; you shall call yourself licensed +poacher, if you choose."</p> + +<p>"Blessings on your honour! you've made an honest man o' me."</p> + +<p>"And now, Jonathan Floyd, I have one word to say to you, sir. I hear you +are to marry our Roger's pretty Grace." Jonathan appeared like a sheep +in livery.</p> + +<p>"You must quit my service." Jonathan was quite alarmed. "Do you suppose, +Master Jonathan, that I can house at Hurstley, before a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155"></a>[Pg 155]</span> Lady Vincent +comes amongst us to keep the gossips quiet, such a charming little wife +as that, and all her ruddy children?"</p> + +<p>It was Grace's turn to feel confused, so she "looked like a rose in +June," and blushed all over, as Charles Lamb's Astræa did, down to the +ankle.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Jonathan, you and I must part, but we part good friends: you have +been a noble lover: may you make the girl a good and happy husband! +Jennings has been robbing me and those about me for years: it is +impossible to separate specially my rights from his extortions: but all, +as I have said, shall be satisfied: meanwhile, his hoards are mine. I +appropriate one half of them for other claimants; the remaining half I +give to Grace Floyd as dower. Don't be a fool, Jonathan, and blubber; +look to your Grace there, she's fainting—you can set up landlord for +yourself, do you hear?—for I make yours honestly, as much as Roger +found in his now lucky Crock of Gold."</p> + +<p>Poor Roger, quite unmanned, could only wave his hat, and—the curtain +falls amid thunders of applause.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTE</h4> + +<div class='footnotes'> +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> It has been stated as a fact, that a certain Lady L—— +S——, in her last interview with a young man, condemned to death for +the brutal murder of his sweetheart, presented him with a white +camellia, as a token of eternal peace, which the gallant gentleman +actually wore at the gallows in his button-hole.</p></div></div> + + +<h4>END OF THE CROCK OF GOLD.</h4> + +<hr style="width: 85%;" /> + +<h1><a name="TWINS" id="TWINS"></a>THE TWINS;</h1> + +<h4>A DOMESTIC NOVEL.</h4> + + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S.</h3> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF</h4> + +<h4>PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.</h4> + + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TABLE OF CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Ia">CHAPTER I.—PLACE: TIME: CIRCUMSTANCE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IIa">CHAPTER II.—THE HEROES.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIa">CHAPTER III.—THE ARRIVAL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IVa">CHAPTER IV.—THE GENERAL AND HIS WARD.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Va">CHAPTER V.—JEALOUSY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIa">CHAPTER VI.—THE CONFIDANTE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIa">CHAPTER VII.—THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE, ETC.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIa">CHAPTER VIII.—THE MYSTERY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IXa">CHAPTER IX.—HOW TO CLEAR IT UP.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Xa">CHAPTER X.—AUNT GREEN'S LEGACY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIa">CHAPTER XI.—PREPARATIONS AND DEPARTURE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIIa">CHAPTER XII.—THE ESCAPE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIIIa">CHAPTER XIII.—NEWS OF CHARLES.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIVa">CHAPTER XIV.—THE TETE-A-TETE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVa">CHAPTER XV.—SATISFACTION.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIa">CHAPTER XVI.—HOW CHARLES FARED.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIIa">CHAPTER XVII.—THE GENERAL'S RETURN.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIIIa">CHAPTER XVIII.—INTERCALARY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIXa">CHAPTER XIX.—JULIAN'S DEPARTURE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXa">CHAPTER XX.—ENLIGHTENMENT.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIa">CHAPTER XXI.—CHARLES AT MADRAS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIIa">CHAPTER XXII.—REVELATIONS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIIIa">CHAPTER XXIII.—CONVALESCENCE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIVa">CHAPTER XXIV.—CHARLES DELAYED.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVa">CHAPTER XXV.—TRIALS.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIa">CHAPTER XXVI.—JULIAN</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIIa">CHAPTER XXVII.—CHARLES'S RETURN; AND MRS. MACKIE'S EXPLANATION.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIIIa">CHAPTER XXVIII.—JULIAN TURNS UP: AND THERE'S AN END OF MRS. TRACY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIXa">CHAPTER XXIX.—THE OLD SCOTCH NURSE GOES HOME.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXa">CHAPTER XXX.—FINAL.</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /></p> +<h1>THE TWINS</h1> +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a></p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Ia" id="CHAPTER_Ia"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>PLACE: TIME: CIRCUMSTANCE.</h4> + + +<p>Burleigh-Singleton is a pleasant little watering-place on the southern +coast of England, entirely suitable for those who have small incomes and +good consciences. The latter, to residents especially, are at least as +indispensable as the former: seeing that, however just the reputation of +their growing little town for superior cheapness in matters of meat and +drink, its character in things regarding men and manners is quite as +undeniable for preëminent dullness.</p> + +<p>Not but that it has its varieties of scene, and more or less of +circumstances too: there are, on one flank, the breezy Heights, with +flag-staff and panorama; on the other, broad and level water-meadows, +skirted by the dark-flowing Mullet, running to the sea between its +tortuous banks: for neighbourhood, Pacton Park is one great +attraction—the pretty market-town of Eyemouth another—the everlasting, +never-tiring sea a third; and, at high-summer, when the Devonshire lanes +are not knee-deep in mire, the nevertheless immeasurably filthy, though +picturesque, mud-built village of Oxton.</p> + +<p>Then again (and really as I enumerate these multitudinous advantages, I +begin to relent for having called it dull), you may pick up curious +agate pebbles on the beach, as well as corallines and scarce sea-weeds, +good for gumming on front-parlour windows; you may fish <i>for</i> whitings +in the bay, and occasionally catch them; you may wade in huge caoutchouc +boots among the muddy shallows of the Mullet, and shoot <i>at</i> cormorants +and curlews; you may walk to satiety between high-banked and rather +dirty cross-roads; and, if you will scramble up the hedge-row, may get +now and then peeps of undulated country landscape.</p> + +<p>Moreover, you have free liberty to drop in any where to +"tiffin"—Burleigh being very Indianized, and a guest always welcome; +indeed, <a name="Page_158" id="Page_158"></a>so Indianized is it, so populous in jaundiced cheek and ailing +livers, that you may openly assert, without fear of being misunderstood +(if you wish to vary your common phrase of loyalty), that Victoria sits +upon the "musnud" of Great Britain; you may order curry in the smallest +pot-house, and still be sure to get the rice well-cooked; you may call +your house-maid "ayah," without risk of warning for impertinence; you +may vent your wrath against indolent waiters in eloquence of "jaa, +soostee;" and, finally, you may go to the library, and besides the +advantage of the day-before-yesterday's Times, you may behold in bilious +presence an affable, but authoritative, old gentleman, who introduces +himself, "Sir, you see in me the hero of Puttymuddyfudgepoor."</p> + +<p>You may even now see such an one, I say, and hear him too, if you will +but go to Burleigh; seeing he has by this time over-lived the year or so +whereof our tale discourses. He has, by dint of service, attained to the +dignity of General H.E.I.C.S., and—which he was still longer coming +to—the wisdom of being a communicative creature; though possibly, by a +natural rëaction, at present he carries anti-secresy a little too far, +and verges on the gossiping extreme. But, at the time to which we must +look back to commence this right-instructive story, General Tracy was +still drinking "Hodgson's Pale" in India, was so taciturn as to be +considered almost dumb, and had not yet lifted up his yellow visage upon +Albion's white cliffs, nor taken up head-quarters in his final rest of +Burleigh-Singleton.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, with reference to quartering at Burleigh, a certain +long-neglected wife of his, Mrs. Tracy, had; and that for the period of +at least the twenty-one years preceding: how and wherefore I proceed to +tell.</p> + +<p>A common case and common fate was that of Mrs. Tracy. She had married, +both early and hastily, a gallant lieutenant, John George Julian Tracy, +to wit, the military germ of our future general; their courtship and +acquaintance previous to matrimony extended over the not inconsiderable +space of three whole weeks—commencing with a country ball; and after +marriage, honey-moon inclusive, they lived the life of cooing doves for +three whole months.</p> + +<p>And now came the furlough's end: Mr. Tracy, in his then habitual reserve +(a quiet man was he), had concealed its existence altogether: and, for +aught Jane knew, the hearty invalid was to remain at home for ever: but +months soon slip away; and so it came to pass, that on a certain next +Wednesday he must be on his way back to the Presidency of Madras, +and—if she will not follow him—he must leave her.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159"></a>However, there was a certain old relative, one Mrs. Green, a childless +widow—rich, capricious, and infirm—whom Jane Tracy did not wish to +lose sight of: her money was well worth both watching and waiting for; +and the captain, whom a lucky chance had now lifted out of the +lieutenancy, was easily persuaded to forego the pleasure of his wife's +company till the somewhat indefinite period of her old aunt's death.</p> + +<p>How far sundry discoveries made in the unknown regions of each other's +temper reconciled him to this retrograding bachelorship, and her to her +widowhood-bewitched, I will not undertake to say: but I will hazard the +remark, anti-poor-law though it seemeth, that the separation of man and +wife, however convenient, lucrative, or even mutually pleasant, is a +dereliction of duty, which always deserves, and generally meets, its +proper and discriminative punishment. Had the young wife faithfully +performed her Maker's bidding, and left all other ties unstrung to +cleave unto her lord; had she considered a husband's true affections +before all other wealth, and resolved to share his dangers, to solace +his cares, to be his blessing through life, and his partner even unto +death, rather than selfishly to seek her own comfort, and consult her +own interest—the tale of crime and sadness, which it is my lot to tell, +would never have had truth for its foundation.</p> + +<p>Ill-matched for happiness though they were, however well-matched as to +mutual merit, the common man of pleasure and the frivolous woman of +fashion, still the wisest way to fuse their minds to union, the +likeliest receipt for moral good and social comfort, would have been +this course of foreign scenes, of new faces, sprinkled with a seasoning +of adventure, hardship, danger, in a distant land. Gradually would they +have learned to bear and forbear; the petty quarrel would have been +forgotten in the frequent kindness; the rougher edges of temper and +opinion would insensibly have smoothed away; new circumstances would +have brought out better feelings under happier skies; old acquaintances, +false friends forgotten, would have neutralized old feuds: and, by +long-living together, though it were perhaps amid various worries and +many cares, they might still have come to a good old age with more than +average happiness, and more than the common run of love. Patience in +dutiful enduring brings a sure reward: and marriage, however irksome a +constraint to the foolish and the gay, is still so wise an ordinance, +that the most ill-assorted couple imaginable will unconsciously grow +happy, if they only remain true to one another, and will learn the +wisdom always to hope and often to forgive.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160"></a>The Tracys, however, overlooked all this, and mutual friends (those +invariable foes to all that is generous and unworldly) smiled upon the +prudence of their temporary separation. The captain was to come home +again on furlough in five years at furthest, even if the aunt held out +so long; and this availed to keep his wife in the rear-guard; therefore, +Mrs. Tracy wiped her eyes, bade adieu to her retreating lord in Plymouth +Sound, and determined to abide, with other expectant dames and Asiatic +invalided heroes, at Burleigh-Singleton, until she might go to him, or +he return to her: for pleasant little Burleigh, besides its contiguity +to arriving Indiamen, was advantageous as being the dwelling-place of +aforesaid Mrs. Green;—that wealthy, widowed aunt, devoutly wished in +heaven: and the considerate old soul had offered her designing niece a +home with her till Tracy could come back.</p> + +<p>During the first year of absence, ship-letters and India-letters arrived +duteously in consecutive succession: but somehow or other, the regular +post, in no long time afterwards, became unfaithful to its trust; and if +Mrs. Jane heard quarterly, which at any rate she did through the agent, +when he remitted her allowance, she consoled herself as to the captain's +well-being: in due course of things, even this became irregular; he was +far up the country, hunting, fighting, surveying, and what not; and no +wonder that letters, if written at all, which I rather doubt, got lost. +Then there came a long period of positive and protracted silence—months +of it—years of it; barring that her checks for cash were honoured still +at Hancock's, though they could tell her nothing of her lord; so that +Mrs. Tracy was at length seriously recommended by her friends to become +a widow; she tried on the cap, and looked into many mirrors; but, after +long inspection, decided upon still remaining a wife, because the weeds +were so clearly unbecoming. Habit, meanwhile, and that still-existing +old aunt, who seemed resolved to live to a hundred, kept her as before +at Burleigh: and, seeing that a few months after the captain's departure +she had presented the world, not to say her truant lord, with twins, she +had always found something to do in the way of, what she considered, +education, and other juvenile amusement: that is to say, when the +gayeties of a circle of fifteen miles in radius left her any time to +spare in such a process. The twins—a brace of boys—were born and bred +at Burleigh, and had attained severally to twenty years of age, just +before their father came home again as brevet-major-general. But both +they, and that arrival, deserve special detail, each in its own chapter.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IIa" id="CHAPTER_IIa"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>THE HEROES.</h4> + + +<p>Mrs. Tracy's sons were as unlike each other as it is well possible for +two human beings to be, both in person and character. Julian, whose +forward and bold spirit gained him from the very cradle every +prerogative of eldership (and he did struggle first into life, too, so +he was the first-born), had grown to be a swarthy, strong, big-boned +man, of the Roman-nosed, or, more physiognomically, the Jewish cast of +countenance; with melo-dramatic elf-locks, large whiskers, and +ungovernable passions; loud, fierce, impetuous; cunning, too, for all +his overbearing clamour; and an embodied personification of those choice +essentials to criminal happiness—a hard heart and a good digestion. +Charles, on the contrary (or, as logicians would say, on the +contradictory), was fair-haired, blue-eyed, of Grecian features; slim, +though well enough for inches, and had hitherto (as the commonalty have +it) "enjoyed" weak health: he was gentle and affectionate in heart, pure +and religious in mind, studious and unobtrusive in habits. It was a +wonder to see the strange diversity between those own twin-brothers, +born within the same hour, and, it is superfluous to add, of the same +parents; brought up in all outward things alike, and who had shared +equally in all that might be called advantage or disadvantage, of +circumstance or education.</p> + +<p>Certain is it that minds are different at birth, and require as +different a treatment as Iceland moss from cactuses, or bull-dogs from +bull-finches: certain is it, too, that Julian, early submitted and +resolutely broken in, would have made as great a man, as Charles, +naturally meek, did make a good one; but for the matter of educating her +boys, poor Mrs. Tracy had no more notion of the feat, than of squaring +the circle, or determining the longitude. She kept them both at home, +till the peevish aunt could suffer Julian's noise no longer: the house +was a Pandemonium, and the giant grown too big for that castle of +Otranto; so he must go at any rate; and (as no difference in the +treatment of different characters ever occurred to any body) of course +Charles must go along with him. Away they went to an expensive school, +which Julian's insubordination on the instant could not brook—and, +accordingly, he ran away; without doubt, Charles must be taken away too. +Another school was tried, Julian <a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a>got expelled this time; and Charles, +in spite of prizes, must, on system, be removed with him: so forth, with +like wisdom, all through the years of adolescence and instruction, those +ill-matched brothers were driven as a pair. Then again, for fashion's +sake, and Aunt Green's whims, the circumspective mother, notwithstanding +all her inconsistencies, gave each of them prettily bound hand-books of +devotion; which the one used upon his knees, and the other lit cigars +withal; both extremes having exceeded her intention: and she proved +similarly overreached when she persisted in treating both exactly alike, +as to liberal allowances, and liberty of will; the result being, that +one of her sons "foolishly" spent his money in a multitude of charitable +hobbies; and that the other was constantly supplied with means for (the +mother was sorry to say it, vulgar) dissipation. By consequence, Charles +did more good, and Julian more evil, than I have time to stop and tell +off.</p> + +<p>If any thing in this life must be personal, peculiar, and specific, it +is education: we take upon ourselves to speak thus dogmatically, not of +mere school-teaching only, <i>musa</i>, <i>musæ</i>, and so forth; nor yet of +lectures, on relative qualities of carbon and nitrogen in vegetables; +no, nor even of schemes of theology, or codes of morals; but we do speak +of the daily and hourly reining-in, or letting-out, of discouragement in +one appetite, and encouragement in another; of habitual formation of +characters in their diversity; and of shaping their bear's-cub, or that +child-angel, the natural human mind, to its destined ends; that it may +turn out, for good, according to its several natures, to be either the +strong-armed, bold-eyed, rough-hewer of God's grand designs, or the +delicate-fingered polisher of His rarest sculptures. Julian, +well-trained, might have grown to be a Luther; and many a gentle soul +like Charles, has turned out a coxcomb and a sensualist.</p> + +<p>The boys were born, as I have said, in the regulation order of things, a +few months after Captain Tracy sailed away for India some full score of +years, and more, from this present hour, when we have seen him seated as +a general in the library at Burleigh; and, until the last year, they had +never seen their father—scarcely ever heard of him.</p> + +<p>The incidents of their lives had been few and common-place: it would be +easy, but wearisome, to specify the orchards and the bee-hives which +Julian had robbed as a school-boy; the rebellions he had headed; the +monkey tricks he had played upon old fish-women; and the cruel havoc he +made of cats, rats, and other poor tormented creatures, who had +ministered to his wanton and brutalizing joys. In like <a name="Page_163" id="Page_163"></a>manner, wearily, +but easily, might I relate how Charles grew up the nurse's darling, +though little of his flaunting mother's; the curly-pated young +book-worm; the sympathizing, innoffensive, gentle heart, whose effort +still it was to countervail his brother's evil: how often, at the risk +of blows, had he interposed to save some drowning puppy: how often paid +the bribe for Julian's impunity, when mulcted for some damage done in +the way of broken windows, upset apple-stalls, and the like: how often +had he screened his bad twin-brother from the flagellatory consequences +of sheer idleness, by doing for him all his school-tasks: how often +striven to guide his insensate conscience to truth, and good, and +wisdom: how often, and how vainly!</p> + +<p>And when the youths grew up, and their good and evil grew up with them, +it were possible to tell you a heart-rending tale of Julian's treachery +to more than one poor village beauty; and many a pleasing trait of +Charles's pure benevolence, and wise zeal to remedy his brother's +mischiefs. The one went about doing ill, and the other doing good: +Julian, on account of obligations, more truly than in spite of them, +hated Charles; and yet one great aim of all Charles's amiabilities +tended continually to Julian's good, and he strove to please him, too, +while he wished to bless him. The one had grown to manhood, full of +unrepented sins, and ripe for darker crime: the other had attained a +like age of what is somewhat satirically called discretion, having +amassed, with Solon of old, "knowledge day by day," having lived a life +of piety and purity, and blest with a cheerful disposition, that teemed +with happy thoughts.</p> + +<p>They had, of course, in the progress of human life, been both laid upon +the bed of sickness, where, with similar contrast, the one lay muttering +discontent, and the other smiling patiently: they had both been in +dangers by land and by sea, where Julian, though not a little lacking to +himself at the moment of peril, was still loudly minacious till it came +too near; while Charles, with all his caution, was more actually +courageous, and in spite of all his gentleness, stood against the worst +undaunted: they had both, with opposite motives and dissimilar modes of +life, passed through various vicissitudes of feeling, scene, society; +and the influence of circumstance on their different characters, +heightened or diminished, bettered or depraved, by the good or evil +principle in each, had produced their different and probable results.</p> + +<p>Thus, strangely dissimilar, the twin-brothers together stand before us: +Julian the strong impersonation of the animal man, as Charles of the +intellectual; Julian, matter; Charles, spirit; Julian, the creature of +this <a name="Page_164" id="Page_164"></a>world, tending to a lower and a worse: Charles, though in the +world, not of the world, and reaching to a higher and a better.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tracy, the mother of this various progeny, had been somewhat of a +beauty in her day, albeit much too large and masculine for the taste of +ordinary mortals; and though now very considerably past forty, the vain +vast female was still ambitious of compliment, and greedy of admiration. +That Julian should be such a woman's favourite will surprise none: she +had, she could have, no sympathies with mild and thoughtful Charles; but +rather dreaded to set her flaunting folly in the light of his wise +glance, and sought to hide her humbled vanity from his pure and keen +perceptions. His very presence was a tacit rebuke to her social +dissipation, and she could not endure the mild radiance of his virtues. +He never fawned and flattered her, as Julian would; but had even +suffered filial presumption (it could not be affection—O dear, no!) to +go so far as gently to expostulate at what he fancied wrong; he never +gave her reason to contrast, with happy self-complacence, her own soul's +state with Charles's, however she could with Julian's: and then, too, +she would indulgently allow her foolish mind—a woman's, though a +parent's—to admire that tall, black, bandit-looking son, above the +slight build, the delicate features, and almost feminine elegance of his +brother: she found Julian always ready to countenance and pamper her +gayest wishes, and was glad to make him her escort every where—at +balls, and fêtes, and races, and archery parties; while as to Charles, +he would be the stay-at-home, the milk-sop, the learned pundit, the +pious prayer-monger, any thing but the ladies' man. Yes: it is little +wonder that Mrs. Tracy's heart clave to Julian, the masculine image of +herself; while it barely tolerated Charles, who was a rarefied and +idealized likeness of the absent and forgotten Tracy.</p> + +<p>But the mother—and there are many silly mothers, almost as many as +silly men and silly maids—in her admiration of the outward form of +manliness, overlooked the true strength, and chivalry, and nobleness of +mind which shone supreme in Charles. How would Julian have acted in such +a case as this?—a sheep had wandered down the cliff's face to a narrow +ledge of rock, whence it could not come back again, for there was no +room to turn: Julian would have pelted it, and set his bull-dog at it, +and rejoiced to have seen the poor animal's frantic leaps from shingly +shelf to shelf, till it would be dashed to pieces. But how did Charles +act? With the utmost courage, and caution, and presence of mind, he +crept down, and, at the risk of his life, dragged the bleating, +<a name="Page_165" id="Page_165"></a>unreluctant creature up again; it really seemed as if the ungrateful +poor dumb brute recognised its humane friend, and suffered him to rescue +it without a struggle or a motion that might have endangered both.</p> + +<p>Again: a burly costermonger was belabouring his donkey, and the wretched +beast fell beneath his cudgel: strange to say, Julian and Charles were +walking together that time; and the same sight affected each so +differently, that the one sided with the cruel man, and the other with +his suffering victim: Charles, in momentary indignation, rushed up to +the fellow, wrested the cudgel from his hand, and flung it over the +cliff; while Julian was so base, so cowardly, as to reward such generous +interference, by holding his weaker brother's arms, and inviting the +wrathful costermonger to expend the remainder of his phrensy on unlucky +Charles. Yes, and when at home Mrs. Tracy heard all this, she was silly +enough, wicked enough, to receive her truly noble son with ridicule, and +her other one, the child of her disgrace, with approval.</p> + +<p>"It will teach you, Master Charles, not to meddle with common people and +their donkeys; and you may thank your brother Julian for giving you a +lesson how a gentleman should behave."</p> + +<p>Poor Charles! but poorer Julian, and poorest Mrs. Tracy!</p> + +<p>It would be easy, if need were, to enumerate multiplied examples tending +towards the same end—a large, masculine-featured mother's foolish +preference of the loud, bold, worldly animal, before the meek, kind, +noble, spiritual. And the results of all these many matters were, that +now, at twenty years of age, Charles found himself, as it were, alone in +a strange land, with many common friends indeed abroad, but at home no +nearer, dearer ties to string his heart's dank lyre withal; neither +mother nor brother, nor any other kind familiar face, to look upon his +gentleness in love, or to sympathize with his affections, unapprehended, +unappreciated: so—while Mrs. Tracy was the showy, gay, and vapid thing +she ever had been, and Julian the same impetuous mother's son which his +very nurse could say she knew him—Charles grew up a shy and silent +youth, necessarily reserved, for lack of some one to understand him; +necessarily chilled, for want of somebody to love him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IIIa" id="CHAPTER_IIIa"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>THE ARRIVAL.</h4> + + +<p>The young men were thus situated as regards both the world and one +another, and Mrs. Tracy had almost entirely forgotten the fact, that she +possessed a piece of goods so supererogatory as her husband (a property +too which her children had never quite realized), when all on a sudden, +one ordinary morning, the postman's-knock brought to her breakfast-table +at Burleigh-Singleton the following epistle:</p> + +<p class='center'> +"British Channel, Thursday, March 11th, 1842.</p> +<p class='author'>"The Sir William Elphinston, E.I.M. +</p> + +<p>"DEAR JANE: You will be surprised to find that you are to see me so +soon, I dare say, especially as it is now some years since you will have +heard from me. The reason is, I have been long in an out-of-the-way part +of India, where there is little communication with Europe, and so you +will excuse my not writing. We hope to find ourselves to-night in +Plymouth roads, where I shall get into a pilot-boat, and so shall see +you to-morrow. You may, therefore, now expect your affectionate husband,</p> + +<p class='author'>"J.G.J. TRACY, General H.E.I.C.S.</p> + +<p>"P.S.1.—Remember me to our boy, or boys—which is it?</p> + +<p>"P.S.2.—I bring with me the daughter of a friend in India, who is come +over for a year or two's polish at a first-rate school. Of course you +will be glad to receive her as our guest.</p> + +<p class='author'>"J.G.J.T."</p> + +<p>This loving letter was the most startling event that had ever attempted +to unnerve Mrs. Tracy; and she accordingly managed, for effect and +propriety's sake, to grow very faint upon the spot, whether for joy, or +sorrow, or fear of lost liberty, or hope of a restored lord, doth not +appear; she had so long been satisfied with receiving quarterly pay from +the India agents, that she forgot it was an evidence of her husband's +existence; and, lo! here he was returning a general, doubtlessly a +magnificent moustachioed individual, and she was to be Mrs. General! so +that when she came completely to herself, after that feint of a faint, +she was thinking of nothing but court-plumes, oriental pearls, and her +gallant Tracy's uniform.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167"></a>The postscripts also had their influence: Charles, naturally +affectionate, and willing to love a hitherto unseen father, felt hurt, +as well he might, at the "boy, or boys;" while Julian, who ridiculed his +brother's sentimentality, was already fancying that the "daughter of a +friend" might be a pleasant addition to the dullness of +Burleigh-Singleton.</p> + +<p>Preparations vast were made at once for the general's reception; from +attic to kitchen was sounded the tocsin of his coming. Julian was all +bustle and excitement, to his mother's joy and pride; while Charles +merited her wrath by too much of his habitual and paternal quietude, +particularly when he withdrew his forces altogether from the loud +domestic fray, by retreating up-stairs to cogitate and muse, perhaps to +make a calming prayer or two about all these matters of importance. As +for Mrs. Tracy herself, she was even now, within the first hour of that +news, busily engaged in collecting cosmetics, trinkets, blonde lace, and +other female finery, resolved to trick herself out like Jezebel, and win +her lord once more; whilst the pernicious old aunt, who still lived on, +notwithstanding all those twenty years of patience, as vivacious as +before, grumbled and scolded so much at this upsetting of her house, +that there was really some risk of her altering the will at last, and +cutting out Jane Tracy after all.</p> + +<p>And the morrow morning came, as if it were no more than an ordinary +Friday, and with it came expectancy; and noon succeeded, and with it +spirits alternately elated and depressed; and evening drew in, with +heart-sickness and chagrin at hopes or prophecies deferred; and night, +and next morning, and still the general came not. So, much weeping at +that vexing disappointment, after so many pains to please, Mrs. Tracy +put aside her numerous aids and appliances, and lay slatternly a-bed, to +nurse a head-ache until noon; and all had well nigh forgotten the +probable arrival, when, to every body's dismay, a dusty chaise and four +suddenly rattled up the terrace, and stopped at our identical number +seven.</p> + +<p>Then was there scuffling up, and getting down, and making preparation in +hot haste; and a stout gentleman with a gamboge face descended from the +chaise, exploding wrath like a bomb-shell, that so important an approach +had made such slight appearance of expectancy: it was disrespectful to +his rank, and he took care to prove he was somebody, by blowing up the +very innocent post-boys. This accomplished, he gallantly handed out +after him a pretty-looking miss in her teens. Poor Mrs. Tracy, <i>en +papillotes</i>, looked out at the casement like any one but Jezebel attired +for bewitching, and could have cried for vexation; in <a name="Page_168" id="Page_168"></a>fact, she did, +and passed it off for feeling. Aunt Green, whom the general at first +lovingly saluted as his wife (for the poor man had entirely forgotten +the uxorial appearance), was all in a pucker for deafness, blindness, +and evident misapprehension of all things in general, though clearly +pleased, and flattered at her gallant nephew's salutation. Julian, with +what grace of manner he could muster, was already playing the agreeable +to that pretty ward, after having, to the general's great surprise, +introduced himself to him as his son; while Charles, who had rushed into +the room, warm-heartedly to fling himself into his father's arms, was +repelled on the spot for his affection: General Tracy, with a military +air, excused himself from the embrace, extending a finger to the unknown +gentleman, with somewhat of offended dignity.</p> + +<p>At last, down came the wife: our general at once perceived himself +mistaken in the matter of Mrs. Green; and, coldly bowing to the +bedizened dame, acknowledged her pretensions with a courteous—</p> + +<p>"Mrs. General Tracy, allow me to introduce to you Miss Emily Warren, the +daughter of a very particular friend of mine:—Miss Warren, Mrs. Tracy."</p> + +<p>For other welcomings, mutual astonishment at each other's fat, some +little sorrowful talk of the twenty years ago, and some dull paternal +jest about this dozen feet of sons, made up the chilly meeting: and the +slender thread of sentimentals, which might possibly survive it, was +soon snapt by paying post-boys, orders after luggage, and devouring +tiffin.</p> + +<p>The only persons who felt any thing at all, were Mrs. Tracy, vexed at +her dishabille, and mortified at so cool a reception of, what she hoped, +her still unsullied beauties; and Charles, poor fellow, who ran up to +his studious retreat, and soothed his grief, as best he might, with +philosophic fancies: it was so cold, so heartless, so unkind a greeting. +Romantic youth! how should the father have known him for a son?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IVa" id="CHAPTER_IVa"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>THE GENERAL AND HIS WARD.</h4> + + +<p>It is surprising what a change twenty years of a tropical sun can make +in the human constitution. The captain went forth a good-looking, +good-tempered man, destitute neither of kind feelings nor masculine +<a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a>beauty: the general returned bloated, bilious, irascible, entirely +selfish, and decidedly ill-favoured. Such affections as he ever had +seemed to have been left behind in India—that new world, around which +now all his associations and remembrances revolved; and the reserve +(clearly rëproduced in Charles), the habit of silence whereof we took +due notice in the spring-tide of his life, had now grown, perhaps from +some oppressive secret, into a settled, moody, continuous taciturnity, +which made his curious wife more vexed at him than ever; for, +notwithstanding all the news he must have had to tell her, the company +of John George Julian Tracy proved to his long-expectant Jane any thing +but cheering or instructive. His past life, and present feelings, to say +nothing of his future prospects, might all be but a blank, for any thing +the general seemed to care: brandy and tobacco, an easy chair, and an +ordnance map of India, with Emily beside him to talk about old times, +these were all for which he lived: and even the female curiosity of a +wife, duly authorized to ask questions, could extract from him +astonishingly little of his Indian experiences. As to his wealth, +indeed, Mrs. Tracy boldly made direct inquiry; for Julian set her on to +beg for a commission, and Charles also was anxious for a year or two at +college; but the general divulged not much: albeit he vouchsafed to both +his sons a liberally increased allowance. It was only when his wife, +piqued at such reserve, pettishly remarked,</p> + +<p>"At any rate, sir, I may be permitted to hope, that Miss Warren's +friends are kind enough to pay her expenses;"</p> + +<p>That the veteran, in high dudgeon at any imputation on his Indian +acquaintances, sternly answered,</p> + +<p>"You need not be apprehensive, madam; Emily Warren is amply provided +for." Words which sank deep into the prudent mother's mind.</p> + +<p>But we must not too long let dock-leaves hide a violet; it is high time, +and barely courteous now, to introduce that beautiful exotic, Emily +Warren. Her own history, as she will tell it to Charles hereafter, was +so obscure, that she knew little of it certainly herself, and could +barely gather probabilities from scattered fragments. At present, we +have only to survey results in a superficial manner: in their due +season, we will dig up all the roots.</p> + +<p>No heroine can probably engage our interest or sympathy who possesses +the infirmity of ugliness: it is not in human nature to admire her, and +human nature is a thing very much to be consulted. Moreover, no one ever +yet saw an amiable personage, who was not so far pleasing, <a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"></a>or, in other +parlance, so far pretty. I cannot help the common course of things; and +however hackneyed be the thought, however common-place the phrase, it is +true, nevertheless, that beauty, singular beauty, would be the first +idea of any rational creature, who caught but a glimpse of Emily Warren; +and I should account it little wonder if, upon a calmer gaze, that +beauty were found to have its deepest, clearest fountain in those large +dark eyes of heir's.</p> + +<p>Aware as I may be, that "large dark eyes" are no novelty in tales like +this; and famous for rare originality as my pen (not to say genius) +would become, if an attempt were herein made to interest the world in a +pink-eyed heroine, still I prefer plodding on in the well-worn path of +pleasant beauty; and so long as Nature's bounty continues to supply so +well the world we live in with large dark eyes, and other feminine +perfections, our Emily, at any rate, remains in fashion; and if she has +many pretty peers, let us at least not peevishly complain of them. A +graceful shape is, luckily, almost the common prerogative of female +youthfulness; a dimpled smile, a cheerful, winning manner, regular +features, and a mass of luxuriant brown hair—these all heroines +have—and so has our's.</p> + +<p>But no heroine ever had yet Emily Warren's eyes; not identically only, +which few can well deny; but similarly also, which the many must be good +enough to grant: and very few heroes, indeed, ever saw their equal; +though, if any hereabouts object, I will not be so cruel or unreasonable +as to hope they will admit it. At first, full of soft light, gentle and +alluring, they brighten up to blaze upon you lustrously, and fascinate +the gazer's dazzled glance: there are depths in them that tell of the +unfathomable soul, heights in them that speak of the spirit's +aspirations. It is gentleness and purity, no less than sensibility and +passion, that look forth in such strange power from those windows of the +mind: it is not the mere beautiful machine, fair form, and pleasing +colours, but the heaven-born light of tenderness and truth, streaming +through the lens, that takes the fond heart captive. Charles, for one, +could not help looking long and keenly into Emily Warren's eyes; they +magnetized him, so that he might not turn away from them: entranced him, +that he would not break their charm, had he been able: and then the long +tufted eyelashes droop so softly over those blazing suns—that I do not +in the least wonder at Charles's impolite, perhaps, but still natural +involuntary stare, and his mute abstracted admiration: the poor youth is +caught at once, a most willing captive—the moth has <a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"></a>burnt its wings, +and flutters still happily around that pleasant warming radiance. How +his heart yearned for something to love, some being worthy of his own +most pure affections: and lo! these beauteous eyes, true witnesses of +this sweet mind, have filled him for ever and a day with love at first +sight.</p> + +<p>But gentle Charles was not the only conquest: the fiery Julian, too, +acknowledged her supremacy, bowed his stubborn neck, and yoked himself +at once, another and more rugged captive, to the chariot of her charms. +It was Caliban, as well as Ferdinand, courting fair Miranda. In his +lower grade, he loved—fiercely, coarsely: and the same passion, which +filled his brother's heart with happiest aspirations, and pure unselfish +tenderness towards the beauteous stranger, burnt him up as an inward and +consuming fire: Charles sunned himself in heaven's genial beams, while +Julian was hot with the lava-current of his own bad heart's volcano.</p> + +<p>It will save much trouble, and do away with no little useless mystery, +to declare, at the outset, which of these opposite twin-brothers our +dark-eyed Emily preferred. She was only seventeen in years; but an +Indian sky had ripened her to full maturity, both of form and feelings: +and having never had any one whom she cared to think upon, and let her +heart delight in, till Charles looked first upon her beauty wonderingly, +it is no marvel if she unconsciously reciprocated his young heart's +thought—before ever he had breathed it to himself. Julian's admiration +she entirely overlooked; she never thought him more than civil—barely +that, perhaps—however he might flatter himself: but her heart and eyes +were full of his fair contrast, the light seen brighter against +darkness; Charles all the dearer for a Julian. Intensely did she love +him, as only tropic blood can love; intently did she gaze on him, when +any while he could not see her face, as only those dark eyes could gaze: +and her mind, all too ignorant but greedy of instruction, no less than +her heart, rich in sympathies and covetous of love, went forth, and fed +deliciously on the intellectual brow, and delicate flushing cheek of her +noble-minded Charles. Not all in a day, nor a week, nor a month, did +their loves thus ripen together. Emily was a simple child of nature, who +had every thing to learn; she scarcely knew her Maker's name, till +Charles instructed her in God's great love: the stars were to her only +shining studs of gold, and the world one mighty plain, and men and women +soulless creatures of a day, and the wisdom of creation unconsidered, +and the book of natural knowledge close sealed up, till<a name="Page_172" id="Page_172"></a> Charles set out +before his eager student the mysteries of earth and heaven. Oh, those +blessed hours of sweet teaching! when he led her quick delighted steps +up the many avenues of science to the central throne of God! Oh, those +happy moments, never to return, when her eyes in gentle thankfulness for +some new truth laid open to them, flashed upon her youthful Mentor, love +and intelligence, and pleased admiring wonder! Sweet spring-tide of +their loves, who scarcely knew they loved, yet thought of nothing but +each other; who walked hand in hand, as brother and sister, in the +flowery ways of mutual blessing, mutual dependence: alas, alas! how +brief a space can love, that guest from heaven, dwell on earth +unsullied!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Va" id="CHAPTER_Va"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>JEALOUSY.</h4> + + +<p>For Julian soon perceived that Charles was no despicable rival. At +first, self-flattery, and the habitual contempt wherewith he regarded his +brother, blinded him to Emily's attachment: moreover, in the scenes of +gayety and the common social circle, she never gave him cause to complain +of undue preferences; readily she leant upon his arm, cheerfully +accompanied him in morning-visits, noon-day walks, and evening parties; +and if pale Charles (in addition to the more regular masters, dancing +and music, and other pieces of accomplishment) thought proper to bore +her with his books for sundry hours every day, Julian found no fault +with that;—the girl was getting more a woman of the world, and all +for him: she would like her play-time all the better for such schoolings, +and him to be the truant at her side.</p> + +<p>But when, from ordinary civilities, the coarse loud lover proceeded to +particular attentions; when he affected to press her delicate hand, and +ventured to look what he called love into her eyes, and to breathe silly +nothings in her ear—he could deceive himself no longer, notwithstanding +all his vanity; as legibly as looks could write it, he read disgust +upon her face, and from that day forth she shunned him with undisguised +abhorrence. Poor innocent maid! she little knew the man's black mind, +who thus dared to reach up to the height of her affections; but she saw +<a name="Page_173" id="Page_173"></a>enough of character in his swart scowling face, and loud assuming manners, +to make her dread his very presence, as a thunder-cloud across +her summer sky.</p> + +<p>Then did the baffled Julian begin to look around him, and took notice +of her deepening love of Charles; nay, even purposely, she seemed now +to make a difference between them, as if to check presumption and +encourage merit. And he watched their stolen glances, how tremblingly +they met each other's gaze; and he would often-times roughly break in +upon their studies, to look on their confused disquietude with the pallid +frowns of envy: he would insult poor Charles before her, in hope to +humble him in her esteem; but mild and Christian patience made her +see him as a martyr: he would even cast rude slights on her whom he +professed to love, with the view of raising his brother's chastened wrath, +but was forced to quail and sneak away beneath her quick indignant +glance, ere her more philosophical lover had time to expostulate with +the cowardly savage.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, what were the parents about? The general had given out, +indeed, that he had brought Emily over for schooling; but he seemed so +fond of her (in fact, she was the only thing to prove he wore a heart), +that he never could resolve upon sending her away from, what she now +might well call, home. Often, in some strange dialect of Hindostan, did +they converse together, of old times and distant shores; none but Emily +might read him to sleep—none but Emily wake him in the morning with +a kiss—none but Emily dare approach him in his gouty torments—none +but Emily had any thing like intimate acquaintance with that moody +iron-hearted man.</p> + +<p>As to his sons, or the two young men he might presume to be his sons, he +neither knew them, nor cared to know. Bare civilities, as between man +and man, constituted all which their intercourse amounted to: what were +those young fellows, stout or slim, to him? mere accidents of a +soldier's gallantries and of an ill-assorted marriage. He neither had, +nor wished to have, any sympathies with them: Julian might be as bad as +he pleased, and Charles as good, for any thing the general seemed to +heed: they could not dive with him into the past, and the sports of +Hindostan: they reminded him, simply, of his wife, for pleasures of +Memory; of the grave, for pleasures of Hope: he was older when he looked +at them: and they seemed to him only living witnesses of his folly as +lieutenant, in the choice of Mrs. Tracy. I will not take upon myself to +say, that he had any occasion to congratulate himself on the latter +reminiscence.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174"></a>So he quickly acquiesced in Julian's wish for a commission, and +entirely approved of Charles's college schemes. After next September, +the funds should be forthcoming: not but that he was rich enough, and +to spare, any month in the year: but he would be vastly richer then, +from prize-money, or some such luck. It was more prudent to delay +until September.</p> + +<p>With reference to Emily—no, no—I could see at once that General +Tracy never had any serious intention to part with Emily; but she had +all manner of masters at home, and soon made extraordinary progress. +As for the matter of his sons falling in love with her, attractive in all +beauty though she were, he never once had given it a thought: for, first, +he was too much a man of the world to believe in such ideal trash as +love: and next, he totally forgot that his "boy, or boys," had human +feelings. So, when his wife one day gave him a gentle and triumphant +hint of the state of affairs, it came upon him overwhelmingly, like an +avalanche: his yellow face turned flake-white, he trembled as he stood, +and really seemed to take so natural a probability to heart as the most +serious of evils.</p> + +<p>"My son Julian in love with Emily! and if not he, at any rate Charles! +What the devil, madam, can you mean by this dreadful piece of +intelligence?—It's impossible, ma'am; nonsense! it can't be true; it +shan't, ma'am."</p> + +<p>And the general, having issued his military mandates, wrapped himself +in secresy once more; satisfied that both of those troublesome sons +were to leave home after the next quarter, and the prize-money at +Hancock's.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIa" id="CHAPTER_VIa"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<h4>THE CONFIDANTE.</h4> + + +<p>But Mrs. Tracy had the best reason for believing her intelligence was +true, and she could see very little cause for regarding it as dreadful. +True, one son would have been enough for this wealthy Indian +heiress—but still it was no harm to have two strings to her bow. Julian +was her favourite, and should have the girl if she could manage it; but +if Emily<a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a> Warren would not hear of such a husband, why Charles Tracy may +far better get her money than any body else.</p> + +<p>That she possessed great wealth was evident: such jewellery, such +Trinchinopoli chains, such a blaze of diamonds <i>en suite</i>, such a +multitude of armlets, and circlets, and ear-rings, and other oriental +finery, had never shone on Devonshire before: at the Eyemouth ball, men +worshipped her, radiant in beauty, and gorgeously apparelled. Moreover, +money overflowed her purse, her work-box, and her jewel-case: Charles's +village school, and many other well-considered charities, rejoiced in +the streams of her munificence. The general had given her a banker's +book of signed blank checks, and she filled up sums at pleasure: such +unbounded confidence had he in her own prudence and her far-off father's +liberality. The few hints her husband deigned to give, encouraged Mrs. +Tracy to conclude, that she would be a catch for either of her sons; +and, as for the girl herself, she had clearly been brought up to order +about a multitude of servants, to command the use of splendid equipages, +and to spend money with unsparing hand.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, one day when Julian was alone with his mother, their +conversation ran as follows:</p> + +<p>"Well, Julian dear, and what do you think of Emily Warren?"</p> + +<p>"Think, mother? why—that she's deuced pretty, and dresses like an +empress: but where did the general pick her up, eh?—who is she?"</p> + +<p>"Why, as to who she is—I know no more than you; she is Emily Warren: +but as to the great question of what she is, I know that she is rolling +in riches, and would make one of my boys a very good wife."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to wife, mother, one isn't going to be fool enough to marry for +love now-a-days: things are easier managed hereabouts, than that: but +money makes it quite another thing. So, this pretty minx is rich, is +she?"</p> + +<p>"A great heiress, I assure you, Julian."</p> + +<p>"Bravo, bravo-o! but how to make the girl look sweet upon me, mother? +There's that white-livered fellow, Charles—"</p> + +<p>"Never mind him, boy; do you suppose he would have the heart to make +love to such a splendid creature as Miss Warren: fy, Julian, for a faint +heart: Charles is well enough as a Sabbath-school teacher, but I hope he +will not bear away the palm of a ladye-love from my fine high-spirited +Julian." Poor Mrs. Tracy was as flighty and romantic at forty-five as +she had been at fifteen.</p> + +<p>The fine high-spirited Julian answered not a word, but looked +excessively cross; for he knew full well that Charles's chance was to +his in the ratio of a million to nothing.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176"></a>"What, boy," went on the prudent mother, "still silent! I am afraid +Emily's good looks have been thrown away upon you, and that your heart +has not found out how to love her."</p> + +<p>"Love her, mother? Curses! would you drive me mad? I think and dream of +nothing but that girl: morning, noon, and night, her eyes persecute me: +go where I will, and do what I will, her image haunts me: d——n it, +mother' don't I love the girl?"</p> + +<p>[Oh love, love! thou much-slandered monosyllable, how desperately do bad +men malign thee!]</p> + +<p>"Hush, Julian; pray be more guarded in your language; I am glad to see +though that your heart is in the right place: suppose now that I aid +your suit a little? I dare say I could do a great deal for you, my son; +and nothing could be more delightful to your mother than to try and make +her Julian happy."</p> + +<p>True, Mrs. Tracy; you were always theatrically given, and played the +coquette in youth; so in age the character of go-between befits you +still: dearly do you love to dabble in, what you are pleased to call, +"<i>une affaire du cœur</i>."</p> + +<p>"Mother," after a pause, replied her hopeful progeny, "if the girl had +been only pretty, I shouldn't have asked any body's help; for marriage +was never to my liking, and folks may have their will of prouder +beauties than this Emily, without going to church for it; but money +makes it quite another matter: and I may as well have the benefit of +your assistance in this matter o' money, eh mother? matrimony, you know: +an heiress and a beauty may be worth the wedding-ring; besides, when my +commission comes, I can follow the good example that my parents set me, +you know; and, after a three months' honey-mooning, can turn bachelor +again for twenty years or so, as our governor-general did, and so leave +wifey at home, till she becomes a Mrs. General like you."</p> + +<p>Now, strange to say, this heartless bit of villany was any thing but +unpleasing to the foolish, flattered heart of Mrs. Tracy; he was a chip +of the old block, no better than his father: so she thanked "dear +Julian" for his confidence, with admiration and emotion; and looking +upwards, after the fashion of a Covent Garden martyr, blessed him.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIIa" id="CHAPTER_VIIa"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<h4>THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE, ETC.</h4> + + +<p>"Emily, my dear, take Julian's arm: here, Charles, come and change with +me; I should like a walk with you to Oxton, to see how your little +scholars get on." So spake the intriguing mother.</p> + +<p>"Why, that is just what I was going to do with Charles," said Emily, +"and if Julian will excuse me—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind me, Miss Warren, pray; come along with me, will you, +mother?"</p> + +<p>So they paired off in more well-matched couples (for Julian luckily took +huff), and went their different ways: with those went hatred, envy, +worldly scheming, and that lowest sort of love that ill deserves the +name; with these remain all things pure, affectionate, benevolent.</p> + +<p>"Charles, dear," (they were just like brother and sister, innocent and +loving), "how kind it is of you to take me with you; if you only knew +how I dreaded Julian!"</p> + +<p>"Why, Emmy? can he have offended you in any way?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Charles, he is so rude, and says such silly things, and—I am quite +afraid to be alone with him."</p> + +<p>"What—what—what does he say to you, Emily?" hurriedly urged her +half-avowed lover.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't ask me, Charles—pray drop the subject;" and, as she blushed, +tears stood in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Charles bit his lip and clenched his fist involuntarily; but an instant +word of prayer drove away the spirit of hatred, and set up love +triumphant in its place.</p> + +<p>"My Emily—oh, what have I said? may I—may I call you my Emily? +dearest, dearest girl!" escaped his lips, and he trembled at his own +presumption. It was a presumptuous speech indeed; but it burst from the +well of his affections, and he could not help it.</p> + +<p>Her answer was not in words, and yet his heart-strings thrilled beneath +the melody; for her eyes shed on him a blaze of love that made him +almost faint before them. In an instant, they understood, without a +word, the happy truth, that each one loved the other.</p> + +<p>"Precious, precious Emily!" They were now far away from Burleigh, in the +fields; and he seized her hand, and covered it with kisses.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178"></a>What more they said I was not by to hear, and if I had been would not +have divulged it. There are holy secrets of affection, which those who +can remember their first love—and first love is the only love worth +mentioning—may think of for themselves. Well, far better than my feeble +pencilling can picture, will they fill up this slight sketch. That walk +to Oxton, that visit to the village school, was full of generous +affections unrepressed, the out-pourings of two deep-welled hearts, +flowing forth in sympathetic ecstasy. The trees, and fields, and +cottages were bathed in heavenly light, and the lovers, happy in each +other's trust, called upon the all-seeing God to bless the best +affections of His children.</p> + +<p>And what a change these mutual confessions made in both their minds! +Doubt was gone; they <i>were</i> beloved; oh, richest treasure of joy! Fear +was gone; they dared declare their love; oh, purest river of all +sublunary pleasures! No longer pale, anxious, thoughtful, worn by the +corroding care of "Does she—does she love?"—Charles was, from that +moment, a buoyant, cheerful, exhilarated being—a new character; he put +on manliness, and fortitude, and somewhat of involuntary pride; whilst +Emily felt, that enriched by the affections of him whom she regarded as +her wisest, kindest earthly friend, by the acquisition of his love, who +had led her heart to higher good than this world at its best can give +her, she was elevated and ennobled from the simple Indian child, into +the loved and honoured Christian woman. They went on that important walk +to Oxton feeble, divided, unsatisfied in heart: they returned as two +united spirits, one in faith, one in hope, one in love; both heavenly +and earthly.</p> + +<p>But the happy hour is past too soon; and, home again, they mixed once +more with those conflicting elements of hatred and contention.</p> + +<p>"Emily," asked the general, in a very unusual stretch of curiosity, +"where have you been to with Charles Tracy? You look flushed, my dear; +what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>Of course "nothing" was the matter: and the general was answered wisely, +for love was nothing in his average estimate of men and women.</p> + +<p>"Charles, what can have come to you? I never saw you look so happy in my +life," was the mother's troublesome inquiry; "why, our staid youth +positively looks cheerful."</p> + +<p>Charles's walk had refreshed him, taken away his head-ache, put him in +spirits, and all manner of glib reasons for rejoicing.</p> + +<p>"You were right, Julian," whispered Mrs. Tracy, "and we'll soon put the +stopper on all this sort of thing."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179"></a>So, then, the moment our guiltless pair of lovers had severally stolen +away to their own rooms, there to feast on well-remembered looks, and +words, and hopes—there to lay before that heavenly Friend, whom both +had learned to trust, all their present joys, as aforetime all their +cares—Mrs. Tracy looked significantly at Julian, and thus addressed her +ever stern-eyed lord:</p> + +<p>"So, general, the old song's coming true to us, I find, as to other +folks, who once were young together:</p> + +<p class='center'> +"'And when with envy Time, transported, seeks to rob us of our joys,<br /> +You'll in your girls again be courted, and I'll go wooing in my boys.'" +</p> + +<p>So said or sung the flighty Mrs. Tracy. It was as simple and innocent a +quotation as could possibly be made; I suppose most couples, who ever +heard the stanza, and have grown-up children, have thought upon its dear +domestic beauty: but it strangely affected the irascible old general. He +fumed and frowned, and looked the picture of horror; then, with a fierce +oath at his wife and sons, he firmly said—</p> + +<p>"Woman, hold your fool's tongue: begone, and send Emily to me this +minute: stop, Mr. Julian—no—run up for your brother Charles, and come +you all to me in the study. Instantly, sir! do as I bid you, without a +word."</p> + +<p>Julian would gladly have fought it out with his imperative father; but, +nevertheless, it was a comfort to have to fetch pale Charles for a +jobation; so he went at once. And the three young people, two of them +trembling with affections overstrained, and the third indurated in +effrontery, stood before that stern old man.</p> + +<p>"Emily, child,"—and he added something in Hindostanee, "have I been +kind to you—and do you owe me any love?"</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear sir, how can you ask me that?" said the warm-affectioned +girl, falling on her knees in tears.</p> + +<p>"Get up, sweet child, and hear me: you see those boys; as you love me, +and yourself, and happiness, and honour—dare not to think of either, +one moment, as your husband."</p> + +<p>Emily fainted; Charles staggered to assist her, though he well-nigh +swooned himself; and Julian folded his arms with a resolute air, as +waiting to hear what next.</p> + +<p>But the general disappointed him: he had said his say: and, as volatile +salts, a lady's maid, and all that sort of rëinvigoration, seemed +essential to Emily's recovery, he rang the bell forthwith: so the +pleasant family party broke up without another word.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIa" id="CHAPTER_VIIIa"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h4>THE MYSTERY.</h4> + + +<p>Our lovers would not have been praiseworthy, perhaps not human, had they +not met in secret once and again. True, their regularly concerted +studies were forbidden, and they never now might openly walk out +unaccompanied: but love (who has not found this out?) is both daring and +ingenious; and notwithstanding all that Emily purposed about doing as +the general so strangely bade her, they had many happy meetings, rich +with many happy words: all the happier no doubt for their stolen +sweetness.</p> + +<p>There was one great and engrossing subject which often had employed +their curiosity; who and what was Emily Warren? for the poor girl did +not know herself. All she could guess, she told Charles, as he zealously +cross-questioned her from time to time: and the result of his inquiries +would appear to be as follows:</p> + +<p>Emily's earliest recollections were of great barbaric pomp; huge +elephants richly caparisoned, mighty fans of peacock's tails, lines of +matchlock men, tribes of jewelled servants, a gilded palace, with its +gardens and fountains: plenty of rare gems to play with, and a splendid +queenly woman, whom she called by the Hindoo name for mother. The +general, too, was there among her first associations, as the gallant +Captain Tracy, with his company of native troops.</p> + +<p>Then an era happened in her life; a tearful leave-taking with that proud +princess, who scarcely would part with her for sorrow; but the captain +swore it should be so: and an old Scotch-woman, her nurse, she could +remember, who told her as a child, but whether religiously or not she +could not tell, "Darling, come to me when you wish to know who made +you;" and then Mrs. Mackie went and spoke to the princess, and soothed +her, that she let the child depart peacefully. Most of her gorgeous +jewellery dated from that earliest time of inexplicable oriental +splendour.</p> + +<p>After those infantine seven years, the captain took her with him to his +station up the country, where she lived she knew not how long, in a +strong hill-fort, one Puttymuddyfudgepoor, where there was a great deal +of fighting, and besieging, and storming, and cannonading; but it ceased +<a name="Page_181" id="Page_181"></a>at last, and the captain, who then soon successively became both major +and colonel, always kept her in his own quarters, making her his little +pet; and, after the fighting was all over, his brother-officers would +take her out hunting in their howdahs, and she had plenty of +palanquin-bearers, sepoys, and servants at command; and, what was more, +good nurse Mackie was her constant friend and attendant.</p> + +<p>Time wore on, and many little incidents of Indian life occurred, which +varied every day indeed, but still left nothing consequential behind +them: there were tiger-hunts, and incursions of Scindian tribes, and +Pindarree chieftains taken captive, and wounded soldiers brought into +the hospital; and often had she and good nurse Mackie tended at the sick +bed-side. And the colonel had the jungle fever, and would not let her go +from his sight; so she caught the fever too, and through Heaven's mercy +was recovered. And the colonel was fonder of her now than ever, calling +her his darling little child, and was proud to display her early budding +beauty to his military friends—pleasant sort of gentlemen, who gave her +pretty presents.</p> + +<p>Then she grew up into womanhood, and saw more than one fine uniform at +her feet, but she did not comprehend those kindnesses: and the general +(he was general now) got into great passions with them, and stormed, and +swore, and drove them all away. Nurse Mackie grew to be old, and +sometimes asked her, "Can you keep a secret, child?—no, no, I dare not +trust you yet: wait a wee, wait a wee, my bonnie, bonnie bairn."</p> + +<p>And now speedily came the end. The general resolved on returning to his +own old shores: chiefly, as it seemed, to avoid the troublesome +pertinacity of sundry suitors, who sought of him the hand of Emily +Warren for, by this name she was beginning to be called: in her earliest +recollection she was Amina; then at the hill-fort, Emily—Emily—nothing +for years but Emily: and as she grew to womanhood, the general bade her +sign her name to notes, and leave her card at houses, as Emily Warren: +why, or by what right, she never thought of asking. But nurse Mackie had +hinted she might have had "a better name and a truer;" and therefore, +she herself had asked the general what this hint might mean; and he was +so angry that he discharged nurse Mackie at Madras, directly he arrived +there to take ship for England.</p> + +<p>Then, just before embarking, poor nurse Mackie came to her secretly, and +said, "Child, I will trust you with a word; you are not what he thinks +you." And she cried a great deal, and longed to come to Eng<a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a>land; but +the general would not hear of it; so he pensioned her off, and left her +at Madras, giving somebody strict orders not to let her follow him.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, just as they were getting into the boat to cross the surf, +the affectionate old soul ran out upon the strand, and called to her +"Amy Stuart! Amy Stuart!" to the general's great amazement as clearly as +her own; and she held up a packet in her hand as they were pushing off, +and shouted after her, "Child—child! if you would have your rights, +remember Jeanie Mackie!"</p> + +<p>After that, succeeded the monotony of a long sea voyage. The general at +first seemed vexed about Mrs. Mackie, and often wished that he had asked +her what she meant; however, his brow soon cleared, for he reflected +that a discarded servant always tells falsehoods, if only to make her +master mischief.</p> + +<p>"The voyage over, Charles, with all its cards, quadrilles, doubling the +cape, crossing the line, and the wearisome routine of sky and sea, the +quarter-deck and cabin, we found ourselves at length in Plymouth Sound; +left the Indiaman to go up the channel; and I suppose the post-chaise +may be consigned to your imagination."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IXa" id="CHAPTER_IXa"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<h4>HOW TO CLEAR IT UP.</h4> + + +<p>In all this there was mystery enough for a dozen lovers to have crazed +their brains about. Emily might be a queen of the East, defrauded of +hereditary glories, and at any rate deserved such rank, if Charles was +to be judge; but what was more important, if the general had any reason +at all for his arbitrary mandate prohibiting their love, it was very +possible that reason was a false one.</p> + +<p>Meantime, Charles had little now to live for, except his dear forbidden +Emily, any more than she for him. And to peace of mind in both, the +elucidation of that mystery which hung about her birth, grew more +needful day by day. At last, one summer evening, when they had managed a +quiet walk upon the sands under the Beacon cliff, Charles said abruptly, +after some moments of abstraction, "Dearest, I am resolved."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183"></a>"Resolved, Charles! what about?" and she felt quite alarmed; for her +lover looked so stern, that she could not tell what was going to happen +next.</p> + +<p>"I'll clear it up, that I will; I only wish I had the money."</p> + +<p>"Why, Charles, what in the world are you dreaming about? you frighten +me, dearest; are you ill? don't look so serious, pray."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Emily, I will; at once too. I'm off to Madras by next packet; or, +that is to say, would, if I could get my passage free."</p> + +<p>"My noble Charles, if that were the only objection, I would get you all +the means; for the kind—kind general suffers me to have whatever sums I +choose to ask for. Only, Charles, indeed I cannot spare you; do not—do +not go away and leave me; there's Julian, too—don't leave me—and you +might never come back, and—and—" all the remainder was lost in +sobbing.</p> + +<p>"No, my Emmy, we must not use the general's gold in doing what he might +not wish; it would be ungenerous. I will try to get somebody to lend me +what I want—say Mrs. Sainsbury, or the Tamworths. And as for leaving +you, my love, have no fears for me or for yourself; situated as we are, +I take it as a duty to go, and make you happier, setting you in rights, +whatever these may be; and for the rest, I leave you in His holy keeping +who can preserve you alike in body, as in soul, from all things that +would hurt you, and whose mercy will protect me in all perils, and bring +me back to you in safety. This is my trust, Emmy."</p> + +<p>"Dear Charles, you are always wiser and better than I am: let it be so +then, my best of friends. Seek out good nurse Mackie, I can give you +many clues, hear what she has to say; and may the God of your own poor +fatherless Emily speed your holy mission! Yet there is one thing, +Charles; ought you not to ask your parents for their leave to go? You +are better skilled to judge than I can be, though."</p> + +<p>"Emmy, whom have I to ask? my father? he cares not whither I go nor what +becomes of me; I hardly know him, and for twenty years of my short life +of twenty-one, scarcely believed in his existence; or should I ask my +mother? alas—love! I wish I could persuade myself that she would wish +me back again if I were gone; moreover, how can I respect her judgment, +or be guided by her counsel, whose constant aim has been to thwart my +feeble efforts after truth and wisdom, and to pamper all ill growths in +my unhappy brother Julian? No, Emily; I am a man now, and take my own +advice. If a parent forbade me, indeed, and reasonably, it would be fit +to acquiesce; but knowing, as I <a name="Page_184" id="Page_184"></a>have sad cause to know, that none but +you, my love, will be sorry for my absence, as for your sake alone that +absence is designed, I need take counsel only of us who are here +present—your own sweet eyes, myself, and God who seeth us."</p> + +<p>"True—most true, dear Charles; I knew that you judged rightly."</p> + +<p>"Moreover, Emmy, secresy is needful for the due fulfilment of my +purpose." (Charles little thought how congenial to his nature was that +same secresy.) "None but you must know where I am, or whither I am gone. +For if there really is any mystery which the general would conceal from +us, be assured he both could and would frustrate all my efforts if he +knew of my design. The same ship that carried me out would convey an +emissary from him, and nurse Mackie never could be found by me. I must +go then secretly, and, for our peace sake, soon; how dear to me that +embassy will be, entirely undertaken in my darling Emmy's cause!"</p> + +<p>"But—but, Charles, what if Julian, in your absence—"</p> + +<p>"Hark, my own betrothed! while I am near you—and I say it not of +threat, but as in the sight of One who has privileged me to be your +protector—you are safe from any serious vexation; and the moment I am +gone, fly to my father, tell him openly your fears, and he will scatter +Julian's insolence to the winds of heaven."</p> + +<p>"Thank you—thank you, wise dear Charles; you have lifted a load from my +poor, weak, woman's heart, that had weighed it down too heavily. I will +trust in God more, and dread Julian less. Oh! how I will pray for you +when far away."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Xa" id="CHAPTER_Xa"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3> + +<h4>AUNT GREEN'S LEGACY.</h4> + + +<p>At last—at last, Mrs. Green fell ill, and, hard upon the over-ripe age +of eighty-seven, seemed likely to drop into the grave—to the +unspeakable delight of her expectant relatives. Sooth to say, niece +Jane, the soured and long-waiting legatee, had now for years been +treating the poor old woman very scurvily: she had lived too long, and +had grown to be a burden; notwithstanding that her ample income still +kept on the <a name="Page_185" id="Page_185"></a>house, and enabled the general to nurse his own East India +Bonds right comfortably. But still the old aunt would not die, and as +they sought not her, nor heir's (quite contrary to St. Paul's +disinterestedness), she was looked upon in the light of an incumbrance, +on her own property and in her own house. Mrs. Tracy longed to throw off +the yoke of dependance, and made small secret of the hatred of the +fetter: for the old woman grew so deaf and blind, that there could be no +risk at all, either in speaking one's mind, or in thoroughly neglecting +her.</p> + +<p>However, now that the harvest of hope appeared so near, the legatee +renewed her old attentions: Death was a guest so very welcome to the +house, that it is no wonder that his arrival was hourly expected with +buoyant cheerfulness, and a something in the mask of kindliness: but I +suspect that lamb-skin concealed a very wolf. So, Mrs. Tracy tenderly +inquired of the doctor, and the doctor shook his head; and other doctors +came to help, and shook their heads together. The patient still grew +worse—O, brightening prospect!—though, now and then, a cordial draught +seemed to revive her so alarmingly, that Mrs. Tracy affectionately +urging that the stimulants would be too exciting for the poor dear +sufferer's nerves, induced Dr. Graves to discontinue them. Then those +fearful scintillations in her lamp of life grew fortunately duller, and +the nurse was by her bed-side night and day; and the old aunt became +more and more peevish, and was more and more spoken of by the Tracy +family—in her possible hearing, as "that dear old soul"—out of it, +"that vile old witch."</p> + +<p>Charles, to be sure, was an exception in all this, as he ever was: for +he took on him the Christian office of reading many prayers to the poor +decaying creature, and (only that his father would not hear of such a +thing) desired to have the vicar to assist him. Emily also, full of +sympathy, and disinterested care, would watch the fretful patient, hour +after hour, in those long, dull nights of pain; and the poor, old, +perishing sinner loved her coming, for she spoke to her the words of +hope and resignation. Whether that sweet missionary, scarcely yet a +convert from her own dark creed—(Alas! the Amina had offered unto +Juggernaut, and Emily of the strong hill-fort had scarcely heard of any +truer God; and the fair girl was a woman-grown before, in her first +earthly love, she also came to know the mercies Heaven has in store for +us)—whether unto any lasting use she prayed and reasoned with that +hard, dried heart, none but the Omniscient can tell. Let us hope: let us +hope; for the fretful voice was stilled, and the cloudy forehead +brightened, and the hag<a name="Page_186" id="Page_186"></a>gard eyes looked cheerfully to meet the +inevitable stroke of death. Thus in wisdom and in charity, in patience +and in faith, that gentle pair of lovers comforted the dying soul.</p> + +<p>However, days rolled away, and Aunt Green lingered on still, tenaciously +clinging unto life: until one morning early, she felt so much better, +that she insisted on being propped up by pillows, and seeing all the +household round her bed to speak to them. So up came every one, in no +small hope of legacies, and what the lawyers call "<i>donationes mortis +causâ</i>."</p> + +<p>The general was at her bed's-head, with, I am ashamed to say, perhaps +unconsciously, a countenance more ridiculous than lugubrious; though he +tried to subdue the buoyancy of hope and to put on looks of decent +mourning; on the other side, the long-expectant legatee, Niece Jane, +prudently concealed her questionable grief behind a scented +pocket-handkerchief. Julian held somewhat aloof, for the scene was too +depressing for his taste: so he affected to read a prayer-book, wrong +way up, with his tongue in his cheek: Charles, deeply solemnized at the +near approach of death, knelt at the poor invalid's bedside; and Emily +stood by, leaning over her, suffused in tears. At the further corners of +the bed, might be seen an old servant or two; and Mrs. Green's butler +and coachman, each a forty years' fixture, presented their gray heads at +the bottom of the room, and really looked exceedingly concerned.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Green addressed them first, in her feeble broken manner: +"Grant—and John—good and faithful—thank you—thank you both; and you +too, kind Mrs. Lloyd, and Sally, and nurse—what's-your-name: give them +the packets, nurse—all marked—first drawer, desk: there—there—God +bless you—good—faithful."</p> + +<p>The old servants, full of sorrow at her approaching loss, were comforted +too: for a kind word, and a hundred pound note a-piece, made amends for +much bereavement: the sick-nurse found her gift was just a tithe of +their's, and recognised the difference both just and kind.</p> + +<p>"Niece Jane—you've waited—long—for—this day: my will—rewards you."</p> + +<p>"O dear—dear aunt, pray don't talk so; you'll recover yet, pray—pray +don't:" she pretended to drown the rest in sorrow, but winked at her +husband over the handkerchief.</p> + +<p>"Julian!" (the precious youth attempted to look miserable, and came as +called,) "you will find—I have remembered—you, Julian." So he winked, +too, at his mother, and tried to blubber a "thank you."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187"></a>"Charles—where's Charles? give me your hand, Charles dear—let me feel +your face: here, Charles—a little pocket-book—good lad—good lad. +There's Emily, too—dear child, she came—too late—I forgot her—I +forgot her! general give her half—half—if you love—love—Emi—"</p> + +<p>All at once her jaw dropped; her eyes, which had till now been +preternaturally bright, filmed over; her head fell back upon the pillow; +and the rich old aunt was dead.</p> + +<p>Julian gave a shout that might have scared the parting spirit!</p> + +<p>Really, the general was shocked, and Mrs. Tracy too; and the servants +murmured "shame—shame!" poor Charles hid his face; Emily looked up +indignantly; but Julian asked, with an oath, "Where's the good of being +hypocrites?" and then added, "now, mother, let us find the will."</p> + +<p>Then the nurse went to close the dim glazed eyes; and the other +sorrowing domestics slunk away; and Charles led Emily out of the chamber +of death, saddened and shocked at such indecent haste.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the hopeful trio rummaged every drawer—tumbled out the +mingled contents of boxes, desk, and escritoire—still, no will—no +will: and at last the nurse, who more than once had muttered, "Shame on +you all," beneath her breath, said,</p> + +<p>"If you want the will, it's under her pillow: but don't disturb her yet, +poor thing!"</p> + +<p>Julian's rude hand had already thrust aside the lifeless, yielding head, +and clutched the will: the father and mother—though humbled and +wonder-stricken at his daring—gathered round him; and he read aloud, +boldly and steadily to the end, though with scowling brow, and many +curses interjectional:</p> + +<p>"In the name of God amen. I, Constance Green, make this my last will +and testament. Forasmuch as my niece, Jane Tracy, has watched and waited +for my death these two-and-twenty years, I leave her all the shoes, +slippers, and goloshes, whereof I may happen to die possessed: item, I +leave Julian, her son, my '<i>Whole Duty of Man</i>,' convinced that he is +deficient in it all: item, I confirm all the gifts which I intend to +make upon my death-bed: item, forasmuch as General Tracy, my niece's +husband, on his return from abroad, greeted me with much affection, I +bequeath and give to him five thousand pounds' worth of Exchequer bills, +now in my banker's hands; and appoint him my sole executor. As to my +landed property, it will all go, in course of law, to my heir, <a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a>Samuel +Hayley, and may he and his long enjoy it. And as to the remainder of my +personal effects, including nine thousand pounds bank stock, my Dutch +fives, and other matters, whereof I may die possessed (seeing that my +relatives are rich enough without my help), I give and bequeath the +same, subject as hereinbefore stated, to the trustees, for the time +being, of the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, in trust, for the purposes +of that charitable institution. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set +my hand and seal this 13th day of May, 1840.</p> + +<p class='author'>"<span class='smcap'>Constance Green.</span>"</p> + +<p>"Duly signed, sealed, and delivered! d——nation!" was Julian's brief +epilogue—"General, let's burn it."</p> + +<p>"You can if you please, Mr. Julian," interposed the nurse, who had +secretly enjoyed all this, "and if you like to take the consequences; +but, as each of the three witnesses has the will sealed up in copy, and +the poor deceased there took pains to sign them all, perhaps—"</p> + +<p>This settled the affair: and the discomfited expectants made a +precipitate retreat. As the general, however, got vastly more than he +expected, for his individual merits; and seeing that he loved Emily as +much as he hated both Julian and his wife, he really felt well-pleased +upon the whole, and took on him the duties of executor with +cheerfulness. So they buried Aunt Green as soon as might be.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIa" id="CHAPTER_XIa"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3> + +<h4>PREPARATIONS AND DEPARTURE.</h4> + + +<p>Charles's pocket-book was full of clean bank notes, fifteen hundred +pounds' worth: it contained also a diamond ring, and a lock of silvery +hair; the latter a proof of affectionate sentiment in the kind old soul, +that touched him at the heart.</p> + +<p>"And now, my Emmy, the way is clear to us; Providence has sent me this, +that I may right you, dearest: and it will be wise in us to say nothing +of our plans. Avoid inquiries—for I did not say conceal or falsify +facts: but, while none but you, love, heed of my departure, and while I +go for our sakes alone, we need not invite disappointment by +open-<a name="Page_189" id="Page_189"></a>mouthed publicity. To those who love me, Emmy, I am frank and +free; but with those who love us not, there is a wisdom and a justice in +concealment. They do not deserve confidence, who will not extend to us +their sympathy. None but yourself must know whither I am bound; and, +after some little search for curiosity's sake, when a week is past and +gone, no soul will care for me of those at home. With you, I will manage +to communicate by post, directing my letters to Mrs. Sainsbury, at +Oxton: I will prepare her for it. She knows my love for you, and how +they try to thwart us; but even she, however trustworthy, need not be +told my destination yet awhile, until 'India' appears upon the +post-mark. How glad will you be, dearest one, how happy in our +secret—to read my heart's own thoughts, when I am far away—far away, +clearing up mine Emmy's cares, and telling her how blessed I feel in +ministering to her happiness!"</p> + +<p>Such was the substance of their talk, while counting out the +pocket-book.</p> + +<p>Charles's remaining preparations were simple enough, now his purse was +flush of money: he resolved upon taking from his home no luggage +whatever: preferring to order down, from an outfitting house in London, +a regular kit of cadet's necessaries, to wait for him at the Europe +Hotel, Plymouth, on a certain day in the ensuing week. So that, burdened +only with his Emmy's miniature, and his pocket-book of bank notes, he +might depart quietly some evening, get to Plymouth in a prëconcerted +way, by chaise or coach, before the morrow morning; thence, a boat to +meet the ship off-shore, and then—hey, for the Indies!</p> + +<p>It was as well-devised a scheme as could possibly be planned; though its +secresy, especially with a mother in the case, may be a moot point as to +the abstract moral thereof: nevertheless, concretely, the only heart his +so mysterious absence would have pained, was made aware of all: then, +again, secresy had been the atmosphere of his daily life, the breath of +his education; and he too sorely knew his mother would rejoice at the +departure, and Julian, too—all the more certainly, as both brothers +were now rivals professed for the hand of Emily Warren: as to the +general, he might, or he might not, smoke an extra cheroot in the +excitement of his wonder; and if he cared about it anyways more +tragically than tobacco might betray, Emily knew how to comfort him.</p> + +<p>With respect to other arrangements, Emmy furnished Charles with letters +to certain useful people at Madras, and in particular to the "somebody" +who looked after Mrs. Mackie: so, the mystery was easy of access, and he +doubted not of overcoming, on the spot, every unseen dif<a name="Page_190" id="Page_190"></a>ficulty. The +plan of leaving all luggage behind, a capital idea, would enable him to +go forth freely and unshackled, with an ordinary air, in hat and +great-coat, as for an evening's walk; and was quite in keeping with the +natural reserve of his whole character—a bad habit of secresy, which he +probably inherited from his father, the lieutenant of old times. And +yet, for all the wisdom, and mystery, and shrewd settling of the plan, +its accomplishment was as nearly as possible most fatally defeated.</p> + +<p>The important evening arrived; for the Indiaman—it was our old friend +Sir William Elphinston—would be off Plymouth, next morning: the goods +had been, for a day or two, safely deposited at the Europe, as per +invoice, all paid: the lovers, in this last, this happiest, yet by far +the saddest of their stolen interviews, had exchanged vows and kisses, +and upon the beach, beneath those friendly cliffs, had commended one +another to their Father in heaven. They had returned to the unsocial +circle of home; all was fixed; the clock struck nine: and Charles, +accidentally squeezing Emily's hand, rose to leave the tea-table.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going, Mr. Charles?"</p> + +<p>"I am going out, Julian."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir! I knew that, but whither? General, I say, here's +Charles going to serenade somebody by moonlight."</p> + +<p>The brandy-sodden parent, scarcely conscious, said something about his +infernal majesty; and, "What then?—let him go, can't you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Julian dear, perhaps your brother will not mind your going with +him; particularly as Emily stays at home with me."</p> + +<p>This Mrs. Tracy spoke archly, intended as a hint to induce Julian to +remain: but he had other thoughts—and simply said, in an ill-tempered +tone of voice, "Done, Charles."</p> + +<p>It was a dilemma for our escaping hero; but glancing a last look at +Emily, he departed, and walked on some way as quietly as might be with +Julian by his side: thinking, perhaps, he would soon be tired; and +suffering him to fancy, if he would, that Charles was bound either on +some amorous pilgrimage, or some charitable mission. But they left +Burleigh behind them—and got upon the common—and passed it by, far out +of sight and out of hearing—and were skirting the high banks of the +darkly-flowing Mullet—and still there was Julian sullenly beside him. +In vain Charles had tried, by many gentle words, to draw him into common +conversation: Julian would not speak, or only gave utterance to some +hinted phrase of insult: his brow was even darker than usual, and night +was coming on apace, and he still tramped steadily <a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a>along beside his +brother, digging his sturdy stick into the clay, for very spite's sake. +At length, as they yet walked along the river's side in that +unfrequented place, Julian said, on a sudden, in a low strange tone, as +if keeping down some rising rage within him,</p> + +<p>"Mr. Charles, you love Emily Warren."</p> + +<p>"Well, Julian, and who can help loving her?"</p> + +<p>It was innocently said; but still a maddening answer, for he loved her +too.</p> + +<p>"And, sirrah," the brother hoarsely added, "she—she does not—does +not—hate you, sir, as I do."</p> + +<p>"My good Julian, pray do not be so violent; I cannot help it if the dear +girl loves me."</p> + +<p>"But I can, though!" roared Julian, with an oath, and lifted up his +stick—it was nearer like a club—to strike his brother.</p> + +<p>"Julian, Julian, what are you about? Good Heavens! you would not—you +dare not—give over—unhand me, brother; what have I done, that you +should strike me? Oh! leave me—leave me—pray."</p> + +<p>"Leave you? I will leave you!" the villain almost shouted, and smote him +to the ground with his lead-loaded stick. It was a blow that must have +killed him, but for the interposing hat, now battered down upon his +bleeding head. Charles, at length thoroughly aroused, though his foe +must be a brother, struggled with unusual strength in self-preserving +instinct, wrested the club from Julian's hand, and stood on the +defensive.</p> + +<p>Julian was staggered: and, after a moment's irresolution, drawing a +pistol from his pocket, said, in a terribly calm voice,</p> + +<p>"Now, sir! I have looked for such a meeting many days—alone, by night, +with you! I would not willingly draw trigger, for the noise might bring +down other folks upon us, out of Oxton yonder: but, drop that stick, or +I fire."</p> + +<p>Charles was noble enough, without another word, to fling the club into +the river: it was not fear of harm, but fear of sin, that made him trust +himself defenceless to a brother, a twin-brother, in the dark: he could +not be so base, a murderer, a fratricide! Oh! most unhallowed thought! +Save him from this crime, good God! Then, instantaneously reflecting, +and believing he decided for the best, when he saw the ruffian glaring +on him with exulting looks, as upon an unarmed rival at his mercy, with +no man near to stay the deed, and none but God to see it, Charles +resolved to seek safety from so terrible a death in flight.</p> + +<p>Oxton was within one mile; and, clearly, this was not like flying from +<a name="Page_192" id="Page_192"></a>danger as a coward, but fleeing from attempted crime, as a brother and +a Christian. Julian snatched at him to catch him as he passed: and, +failing in this, rushed after him. It was a race for life! and they went +like the wind, for two hundred yards, along that muddy high-banked walk.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, Charles slipped upon the clay, that he fell; and Julian, with +a savage howl, leapt upon him heavily.</p> + +<p>Poor youth, he knew that death was nigh, and only uttered, "God forgive +you, brother! oh, spare me—or, if not me, spare yourself—Julian, +Julian!"</p> + +<p>But the monster was determined. Exerting the whole force of his +herculean frame, he seized his scarce-resisting victim as he lay, and, +lifting him up like a child, flung his own twin-brother head foremost +into that darkly-flowing current!</p> + +<p>There was one piercing cry—a splash—a struggle; and again nothing +broke upon the silent night, but the murmur of that swingeing tide, as +the Mullet hurried eddying to the sea.</p> + +<p>Julian listened a minute or two, flung some stones at random into the +river, and then hastily ran back to Burleigh, feeling like a Cain.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIIa" id="CHAPTER_XIIa"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3> + +<h4>THE ESCAPE.</h4> + + +<p>But the overruling hand of Him whose aid that victim had invoked, was +now stretched forth to save! and the strong-flowing tide, that ran too +rapidly for Charles to sink in it, was commissioned from on High to +carry him into an angle of that tortuous stream, where he clung by +instinct to the bushes. Silence was his wisdom, while the murderer was +near: and so long as Julian's footsteps echoed on the banks, Charles +stirred not, spoke not, but only silently thanked God for his wonderful +deliverance. However, the footsteps quickly died away, though heard far +off clattering amid the still and listening night; and Charles, +thankfully, no less than cautiously, drew himself out of the stream, +very little harmed beyond a drenching: for the waters had recovered him +at once from the effects of that desperate blow.</p> + +<p>It was with a sense of exultation, freedom, independence, that he now +<a name="Page_193" id="Page_193"></a>hastened scatheless on his way; dripping garments mattered nothing, nor +mud, nor the loss of his demolished hat: the pocket-book was safe, and +Emmy's portrait, (how he kissed it, then!) and luckily a travelling cap +was in his great-coat pocket: so with a most buoyant feeling of animal +delight, as well as of religious gratitude, he sped merrily once more +upon his secret expedition. Thank Heaven! Emmy could not know the peril +he had past: and wretched Julian would now have dreadful reason of his +own for this mysterious absence: and it was a pleasant thing to trudge +along so freely in the starlight, on the private embassy of love. Happy +Charles! I know not if ever more exhilarated feelings blessed the youth; +they made him trip along the silent road, in a gush of joyfulness, at +the rate of some six miles an hour; I know not if ever such delicious +thoughts of Emily's attachment, and those gorgeous mysteries in India, +of adventure, enterprise, escape, had heretofore caused his heart to +bound so lightsomely within him, like some elastic spring. I know not if +ever strong reliance upon Providential care, more earnest prayers, +praises, intercessions (for poor Julian, too,) were offered on the altar +of his soul. Happy Charles!</p> + +<p>So he went on and on—long past Oxton, and Eyemouth, and Surbiton, and +over the ferry, and through the sleeping turnpikes, and past the bridge, +and along the broad high-road, until gray of morning's dawn revealed the +suburbs of Plymouth.</p> + +<p>Of course he missed the mail by which he intended to have gone—for +Julian's dread act delayed him.</p> + +<p>Long before his journey's end, his clothes were thoroughly dried, and +violent exercise had shaken off all possible rheumatic consequence of +that fearful plunge beneath the waters: five-and-twenty miles in four +hours and three-quarters, is a tolerable recipe for those who have +tumbled into rivers. We must recollect that he had gone as quick as he +could, for fear of being late, now the coach had passed. At a little +country inn, he brushed, and washed, and made toilet as well as he was +able, took a glass of good Cognac, both hot and strong; and felt more of +a man than ever.</p> + +<p>Then, having loitered awhile, and well-remembered Emily in his prayers, +at about eight in the morning he presented himself among his luggage at +the Europe in gentlemanly trim, and soon got all on board the pilot +boat, to meet the Indiaman just outside the breakwater. We may safely +leave him there, happy, hopeful Charles! Sanguine for the future, +exulting in the present, and thankful for the past: already has <a name="Page_194" id="Page_194"></a>he +poured out all his joys before that Friend who loves her too, and +invoked His blessing on a scheme so well designed, so providentially +accomplished.</p> + +<p>I had almost forgotten Julian: wretched, hardened man, and how fared he? +The moment he had flung his brother into that dark stream, and the +waters closed above him greedily that he was gone—gone for ever, he +first threw in stones to make a noise like life upon the stream, but +that cheatery was only for an instant: he was alone—a murderer, alone! +the horrors of silence, solitude, and guilt, seized upon him like three +furies: so his quick retreating walk became a running; and the running +soon was wild and swift for fear; and ever as he ran, that piercing +scream came upon the wind behind, and hooted him: his head swam, his +eyes saw terrible sights, his ears heard terrible sounds—and he scoured +into quiet, sleeping Burleigh like a madman. However, by some strange +good luck, not even did the slumbering watchman see him: so he got +in-doors as usual with the latch-key (it was not the first time he had +been out at night), crept up quietly, and hid himself in his own +chamber.</p> + +<p>And how did he spend those hours of guilty solitude? in terrors? in +remorse? in misery? Not he: Julian was too wise to sit and think, and in +the dark too; but he lit both reading lamps to keep away the gloom, and +smoked and drank till morning's dawn to stupify his conscience.</p> + +<p>Then, to make it seem all right, he went down to breakfast as usual, +though any thing but sober, and met unflinchingly his mother's natural +question—</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Julian—where's Charles?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know, mother; isn't he up yet?"</p> + +<p>"No, my dear; and what is more, I doubt if he came home last night."</p> + +<p>"Hollo, Master Charles! pretty doings these, Mr. Sabbath-teacher! so he +slept out, eh, mother?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know—but where did you leave him, Julian?"</p> + +<p>"Who! I? did I go out with him? Oh! yes, now I recollect: let's see, we +strolled together midway to Oxton, and, as he was going somewhat +further, there I left him?"</p> + +<p>How true the words, and yet how terribly false their meaning!</p> + +<p>"Dear me, that's very odd—isn't it, general?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all, ma'am—not at all; leave the lad alone, he'll be back by +dinner-time: I didn't think the boy had so much spirit."</p> + +<p>Emily, to whom the general's hint was Greek, looked up cheerfully and in +her own glad mind chuckled at her Charles's bold adventure.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195"></a>But the day passed, off, and they sent out men to seek for him: and +another—and all Burleigh was a-stir: and another—and the coast-guards +from Lyme to Plymouth Sound searched every hole and corner: and +another—when his mother wept five minutes: and another—when the wonder +was forgotten.</p> + +<p>However, they did not put on mourning for the truant: he might turn up +yet: perhaps he was at Oxford.</p> + +<p>Emily had not much to do in comforting the general for his dear son's +loss; it clearly was a gain to him, and he felt far freer than when +wisdom's eye was on him. Charles had been too keen for father, mother, +and brother; too good, too amiable: he saw their ill, condemned it by +his life, and showed their dark too black against his brightness. The +unnatural deficiency of mother's love had not been overrated: Julian had +all her heart; and she felt only obliged to the decamping Charles for +leaving Emily so free and clear to his delightful brother. She never +thought him dead: death was a repulsive notion at all times to her: no +doubt he would turn up again some day. And Julian joked with her about +that musty proverb "a bad penny."</p> + +<p>As to our dear heroine, she never felt so happy in all her life before +as now, even when her Charles had been beside her; for within a day of +his departure he had written her a note full of affection, hope, and +gladness; assuring her of his health, and wealth, and safe arrival on +board the Indiaman. The noble-hearted youth never said one single word +about his brother's crime: but he did warn his Emmy to keep close beside +the general. This note she got through Mrs. Sainsbury; that invalid lady +at Oxton, who never troubled herself to ask or hear one word beyond her +own little world—a certain physic-corner cupboard.</p> + +<p>And thou—poor miserable man—thou fratricide in mind—and to thy best +belief in act, how drags on now the burden of thy life? For a day or +two, spirits and segars muddled his brain, and so kept thoughts away: +but within a while they came on him too piercingly, and Julian writhed +beneath those scorpion stings of hot and keen remorse: and when the +coast-guards dragged the Mullet, how that caitiff trembled! and when +nothing could be found, how he wondered fearingly! The only thing the +wretched man could do, was to loiter, day after day, and all day long, +upon the same high path which skirts the tortuous stream. Fascinated +there by hideous recollections, he could not leave the spot for hours: +and his soft-headed, romantic mother, noticing these deep abstractions, +blessed him—for her Julian was now in love with Emily.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIIIa" id="CHAPTER_XIIIa"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h3> + +<h4>NEWS OF CHARLES.</h4> + + +<p>Ay—in love with Emily! Fiercely now did Julian pour his thoughts that +way; if only hoping to forget murder in another strong excitement. +Julian listened to his mother's counsels; and that silly, cheated woman +playfully would lean upon his arm, like a huge, coy confidante, and fill +his greedy ears (that heard her gladly for very holiday's sake from +fearful apprehensions), with lover's hopes, lover's themes, his Emily's +perfection. Delighted mother—how proud and pleased was she! quite in +her own element, fanning dear Julian's most sentimental flame, and +scheming for him interviews with Emily.</p> + +<p>It required all her skill—for the girl clung closely to her guardian: +he, unconscious Argus, never tired of her company; and she, remembering +dear Charles's hint, and dreading to be left alone with Julian, would +persist to sit day after day at her books, music, or needle-work in the +study, charming General Tracy by her pretty Hindoo songs. With him she +walked out, and with him she came in; she would read to him for hours, +whether he snored or listened; and, really, both mother and son were +several long weeks before their scheming could come to any thing. A +<i>tête-à-tête</i> between Julian and Emily appeared as impossible to manage, +as collision between Jupiter and Vesta.</p> + +<p>However, after some six weeks of this sort of mining and counter-mining +(for Emily divined their wishes), all on a sudden one morning the +general received a letter that demanded his immediate presence for a day +or two in town; something about prize-money at Puttymuddyfudgepoor. +Emily was too high-spirited, too delicate in mind, to tell her guardian +of fears which never might be realized; and so, with some forebodings, +but a cheerful trust, too, in a Providence above her, she saw the +general off without a word, though not without a tear; he too, that +stern, close man, was moved: it was strange to see them love each other +so.</p> + +<p>The moment he was gone, she discreetly kept her chamber for the day, on +plea of sickness; she had cried very heartily to see him leave her—he +had never yet left her once since she could recollect—and thus she +really had a head-ache, and a bad one.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a>Julian Tracy gave such a start, that he knocked off a cheffonier of +rare china and glass standing at his elbow; and the smash of mandarins +and porcelain gods would have been enough, at any other time, to have +driven his mother crazy.</p> + +<p>"Charles alive?" shouted he.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Julian—why not? You saw him off, you know: cannot you remember?"</p> + +<p>Now to that guilty wretch's mind the fearful notion instantaneously +occurred, that Emily Warren was in some strange, wild way bantering him; +she knew his dreadful secret—"he <i>had</i> seen him off." He trembled like +an aspen as she looked on him.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, he remembered, certainly; but—but where was her letter?"</p> + +<p>"Never mind that, Julian; you surely would not read another person's +letters, Monsieur le Chevalier Bayard?"</p> + +<p>Emily was as gay at heart that morning as a sky-lark, and her innocent +pleasantry proved her strongest shield. Julian dared not ask to see the +letter—scarcely dared to hope she had one, and yet did not know what to +think. As to any love scene now, it was quite out of the question, +notwithstanding all his mother's hints and management; a new exciting +thought entirely filled him: was he a Cain, a fratricide, or not? was +Charles alive after all? And, for once in his life, Julian had some +repentant feelings; for thrilling hope was nigh to cheer his gloom.</p> + +<p>It really seemed as if Emily, sweet innocent, could read his inmost +thoughts. "At any rate," observed she, playfully, "Bayard may take the +postman's privilege, and see the outside."</p> + +<p>With that, she produced the ship-letter that had put her in such +spirits, legibly dated some twenty-two days ago. Yes, Charles's hand, +sure enough! Julian could swear to it among a thousand. And he fainted +dead away.</p> + +<p>What an astonishing event! how Mrs. Tracy praised her noble-spirited +boy! How the bells rang! and hot water, and cold water, and salts, and +rubbings, and <i>eau de Cologne</i>, and all manner of delicate attentions, +long sustained, at length contributed to Julian's restoration. Moreover, +even Emily was agreeably surprised; she had never seen him in so amiable +a light before; this was all feeling, all affection for his brother—her +dear—dear Charles. And when Mrs. Tracy heard what Emily said of +Julian's feeling heart, she became positively triumphant; not half so +much at Charles's safety, and all that, as at Julian's burst of feeling. +She was quite right, after all; he was worthy to be her favour<a name="Page_199" id="Page_199"></a>ite, and +she felt both flattered and obliged to him for fainting dead away. +"Yes—yes, my dear Miss Warren, depend upon it Julian has fine feelings, +and a good heart." And Emily began to condemn both Charles and herself +for lack of charity, and to think so too.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIVa" id="CHAPTER_XIVa"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> + +<h4>THE TETE-A-TETE.</h4> + + +<p>No sooner had "dear Julian" recovered, which he really had not quite +accomplished until the day had begun to wear away (so great a shock had +that intelligence of Charles been to his guilty mind), than the +gratified and prudent mother fancied this a famous opportunity to leave +the young couple to themselves. It was after dinner, when they had +retired to the drawing-room; and I will say that Emily had never seemed +so favourably disposed towards that rough, but generous, heart before. +So then, on some significant pretence, well satisfied her favourite was +himself again, as bold, and black, and boisterous as ever, the masculine +mother kissed her hand to them, as a fat fairy might be supposed to do, +and operatically tripped away, coyly bidding Emily "take care of Julian +till she should come back again."</p> + +<p>The momentary gleam of good which glanced across that bad man's heart +has faded away hours ago; his repentant thoughts had been occasioned +more from the sudden relief he experienced at running now no risks for +having murdered, than for any better feeling towards his brother, or any +humbler notions of himself. Nay, a strong rëaction occurred in his ideas +the moment he had seen his brother's writing; and when he fainted, he +fainted from the struggle in his mind of manifold exciting causes, such +as these:—hatred, jealousy, what he called love, though a lower name +befitted it, and vexation that his brother was—not dead. Oh mother, +mother! if your poor weak head had but been wise enough to read that +heart, would you still have loved it as you do? Alas—it is a deep +lesson in human nature this—she would! for Mrs. General Tracy was one +of those obstinate, yet superficial characters, whom no reason can +convince that they are wrong, no power can oblige to confess themselves +mistaken. She rejoiced to hear him called "her <a name="Page_200" id="Page_200"></a>very image;" and +predominant vanity in the large coquette extended to herself at +second-hand; self was her idol substance, and its delightful shadow was +this mother's son.</p> + +<p>The moment Mrs. Tracy left the room, Julian perceived his opportunity: +Charles, detested rival, far away at sea; the guardian gone to London; +Emily in an unusual flow of affability and kindness, and he—alone with +her. Rashly did he bask his soul in her delicious beauty, deliberately +drinking deep of that intoxicating draught. Giving the rein to passion, +he suffered that tumultuous steed to hurry him whither it would, in mad +unbridled course. He sat so long silently gazing at her with the +lack-lustre eyes of low and dull desire, that Emily, quite thrown off +her guard by that amiable fainting for his brother, addressed him in her +innocent kind-heartedness,</p> + +<p>"Are you not recovered yet, dear Julian?"</p> + +<p>The effect was instantaneous: scarcely crediting his ears that heard her +call him "dear," his eyes, that saw her winning smile upon him, he +started from his chair, and trembling with agitation, flung himself at +her feet, to Emily's unqualified astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Why, Julian, what's the matter?—unhand me, sir! let go!" (for he had +got hold of her wrist.)</p> + +<p>The passionate youth seized her hand—that one with Charles's ring upon +it—and would have kissed it wildly with polluting lips, had she not +shrieked suddenly "Help! help!"</p> + +<p>Instantly his other hand was roughly dashed upon her mouth—so roughly +that it almost knocked her backwards—and the blood flowed from her +wounded lip; but by a preternatural effort, the indignant Indian queen +hurled the ruffian from her, flew to the bell, and kept on ringing +violently.</p> + +<p>In less than half a minute all the household was around her, headed by +the startled Mrs. Tracy, who had all the while been listening in the +other drawing-room: butler, footmen, house-maids, ladies'-maids, cook, +scullions, and all rushed in, thinking the house was on fire.</p> + +<p>No need to explain by a word. Emily, radiant in imperial charms, stood, +like inspired Cassandra, flashing indignation from her eyes at the +cowering caitiff on the floor. The mother, turning all manner of +colours, dropped on her knees to "poor Julian's" assistance, affecting +to believe him taken ill. But Emily Warren, whose insulted pride +vouchsafed not a word to that guilty couple, soon undeceived all +parties, by addressing the butler in a voice tremulous and broken—</p> + +<p><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201"></a>"Mr. Saunders—be so good—as to go—to Sir Abraham Tamworth's—in the +square—and request of him—a night's—protection—for a +poor—defenceless, insulted woman!"</p> + +<p>She could hardly utter the last words for choking tears: but immediately +battling down her feelings, added, with the calmness of a heroine—</p> + +<p>"You are a father, Mr. Saunders—set all this before Sir Abraham +strongly, but delicately.</p> + +<p>"Footmen! so long as that wretch is in the room, protect me, as you are +men."</p> + +<p>And the stately beauty placed herself between the two liveried lacqueys, +as Zenobia in the middle of her guards.</p> + +<p>"Marguerite!"—the pretty little Française tripped up to her—"wipe this +blood from my face."</p> + +<p>Beautiful, insulted creature! I thought that I looked upon some wounded +Boadicea, with her daughters extracting the arrow from her cheek.</p> + +<p>"And now, kind Charlotte, fetch my cloak; and follow me to Prospect +House, with what I may require for the night. Till the general's return, +I stay not here one minute."</p> + +<p>Then, without a syllable, or a look of leave-taking, the wise and noble +girl—doubtless unconsciously remembering her early Hindoo braveries, +the lines of matchlock men, the bowing slaves, the processions, and her +jewelled state of old—marched away in magnificent beauty, accompanied +in silence by the whole astonished household.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tracy and her son were left alone: the silly, silly mother thought +him "hardly used." Julian, whose natural effrontery had entirely +deserted him, looked like what he was—a guilty coward: and the mother, +who had pampered up her "fine high-spirited son" to his full-grown +criminality by a foolish education, really—when she had time to think +of any thing but him—was excessively frightened. The general would be +back to-morrow, and then—and then!—she dreaded to picture that +explosion of his wrath.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVa" id="CHAPTER_XVa"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h3> + +<h4>SATISFACTION.</h4> + + +<p>Sir Abraham Tamworth, G.C.B.—a fine old Admiral of the White, who +somewhat looked down upon the rank of General, H.E.I.C.S.—was +astonished, as well he might be, at Mr. Saunders, and his message: and, +of course, most gladly acquiesced in acting as poor Emily's protector. +Accordingly, however jealous Lady Tamworth and her daughters might +heretofore have felt of that bright beauty at the balls, they were now +all genuine sympathy, indignation, and affection. Emily, I need hardly +say, went straight up stairs to have her cry out.</p> + +<p>"Whom are you writing to, George, in such a hurry?" asked the admiral, +of a fine moustachioed son, George St. Vincent Tamworth, of the Royal +Horse Guards, who had just got six months' leave of absence for the sake +of marriage with his cousin.</p> + +<p>The gallant soldier tossed a billet to his father, who mounted his +spectacles, and quietly read it at the lamp.</p> + +<p>"Captain Tamworth desires Mr. Julian Tracy's company to-morrow morning, +at seven o'clock, in the third meadow on the Oxton road. The captain +brings a friend with him; also pistols and a surgeon; and he desires Mr. +Tracy to do the like: Prospect House, Thursday evening."</p> + +<p>"So, George, you consider him a gentleman, do you? I am afraid it's a +poor compliment to our fair young friend." And he quietly crumpled up +the challenge in his iron hand.</p> + +<p>"Really, sir!—you surprise me;—pardon me, but I will send that note: +mustn't I chastise the fellow for this insufferable outrage?"</p> + +<p>"No doubt, George, no doubt of it at all: when a lady is insulted, and a +man (not to say a queen's officer) stands by without taking notice of +it, he deserves whipping at the cart's-tail, and Coventry for life. I've +no patience, boy, with such mean meekness, as putting up with bullying +insolence when a woman's in the case. Let a man show moral courage, if +he can and will, in his own affront; I honour him who turns on his heel +from common personal insult, and only wish my own old blood was cool +enough to do so: but the mother, wife, and sister, ay, George, and the +poor defenceless one, be she lady, peasant, or menial, who comes to us +for safety in a woman's dress, we must take up their quarrel, or we are +not men!—"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a>"Don't interrupt him, George," uxoriously suggested Lady Tamworth, +"your father hasn't done talking yet." For George was getting terribly +impatient; he knew, from sad experience, how much the admiral was given +to prosing. However, the oration soon proceeded to our captain's entire +satisfaction, after his progenitor had paused awhile for breath's sake +in his eloquence.</p> + +<p>"—Take up their quarrel, or we are not men. Nevertheless, boy, I cannot +see the need of pistols. The only conceivable case for violent redress, +is woman's wrong: and he who wrongs a woman, cannot be a gentleman; +therefore, ought not to be met on equal terms. For other causes of +duello, as hot-headed speeches, rudenesses, or slights, forgive, forbear +to fan the flame, and never be above apologizing: but in an outrage such +as this, let a fine-built fellow, such as you are, George (and the women +should show wisdom in their choice of champions), let a man, and a +queen's officer as you are, treat this brute, Julian Tracy, as a +martinet huntsman would a hound thrown out. As for me, boy, I'm going to +call on Mrs. Tracy at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning—and, without +presuming to advise a six foot two of a son, I think—I think, if I were +you, I would be dutiful enough to say—'Father, I will accompany +you—and take a horsewhip with me.'"</p> + +<p>"Agreed, agreed, sir!" replied the well-pleased son, and her ladyship +too vouchsafed her approbation.</p> + +<p>Emily had gone to bed long ago, or rather to her chamber; where the +three Misses Tamworth had been all kindness, curiosity, and consolation. +So, Sir Abraham and his lady, now the speech was finished, followed +their example of retirement: and the captain newly blood-knotted his +hunting-whip, <i>con amore</i>, not to say <i>con spirito</i>, overnight.</p> + +<p>Nobody will wonder to hear, that when the gallant representatives of +army and navy called next morning at number seven, Mrs. Tracy and her +son were "not at home:" and of course it would be far too Julian-like a +proceeding, for true gentleman to think of forcing their company on the +probably ensconced in-dwellers. Accordingly, they marched away, without +having deigned to leave a card; the captain taking on himself the duty +of perambulating sentinel, while his father proceeded to the library as +usual. Judge of the glad surprise, when, within ten minutes, our +vindictive George perceived the admiral coming back again, full-sail, +with the mother and son in tow, creeping amicably enough up the terrace. +Sir Abraham had given her his arm, and precious Mr. Julian was a little +in the rear: for the old folks were talking confidentially.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204"></a>George St. Vincent, placing his whip in the well-known position of +"Cane, a mystery," advanced to meet them; and, just after passing his +father, with whom he exchanged a very comfortable glance, discovered +that the heroic Julian, who had caught a glimpse of the ill-concealed +weapon, was slinking quickly round a corner to avoid him. It was +certainly undignified to run, but the gallant captain did run, +nevertheless and soon caught the coward by the collar.</p> + +<p>Then, at arm's length, was the hunting-whip applied, full-swing; up the +terrace, and down the parade, and through High-street, and Smith-street, +and Oxton-road, and aristocratical Pacton-square, and the well-thronged +plebeian market-place; lash, lash, lash, in furious and fast succession +on the writhing roaring culprit; to the universal excoriation of Mr. +Julian Tracy, and the amazement of an admiring and soon-collected +crowd—the rank, beauty, and fashion—of Burleigh Singleton. Julian was +strong indeed, and a coal-heaver in build, but conscience had unnerved +him; and the coarse noisy bully always is a coward: therefore, it was a +pleasant thing to see how easy came the captain's work to him—he had +nothing to do but to lash, lash, lash, double-thonged, like a +slave-driver: and, except that he made the caitiff move along, to be a +spectacle to man and woman, up and down the town, he might as well, for +any difficulty in the deed, have been employed in scarifying a +gate-post.</p> + +<p>At last, thoroughly exhausted with having inflicted as much punishment +as any three drummers at a soldier's whipping-match, and spying out his +"tiger" in the throng, our gallant Avenging Childe tossed the heavy whip +to the trim cockaded little man, that he might carry home that +instrument of vengeance, deliberately wiped his wet mustachios, and +giving Julian one last kick, let the fellow part in peace.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIa" id="CHAPTER_XVIa"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h3> + +<h4>HOW CHARLES FARED.</h4> + + +<p>Having thus found protectors for poor Emily, and disposed of her +assailant to the entire satisfaction of all mankind, let us turn +seawards, and take a look at Charles.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205"></a>Now, "no earthly power,"—as a certain ex-chancellor protested—shall +induce me to do so mean a thing as to open Charles's letters, and spread +them forth before the public gaze. Doubtless, they were all things +tender, warm, and eloquent; doubtless, they were tinted rosy hue, with +love's own blushes, and made glorious with the golden light of +unaffected piety. I only read them myself in a reflected way, by looking +into Emily's eyes; and I saw, from their ever-changing radiance, how +feelingly he told of his affections; how fervently he poured out all his +heart upon the page; how evidently tears and kisses had made many words +illegible; how wise, sanguine, happy, and religious, was her own devoted +Charles.</p> + +<p>Of the trivial incidents of voyaging, his letters said not much: though +cheerful and agreeable in his floating prison, with the various exported +marrying-maidens and transported civil officers, who constitute the +average bulk of Indian cargoes outward bound, Charles mixed but little +in their society, seldom danced, seldom smoked, seldom took a hand at +whist, or engaged in the conflicts of backgammon. Sharks, storms, +water-spouts; the meeting divers vessels, and exchanging post-bags; +tar-barrelled Neptune of the line, Cape Town with its mountain and the +Table-cloth, long-rolling seas; and similar common-places, Charles did +not think proper to enlarge upon: no more do I. Life is far too short +for all such petty details: and, more pointedly, a wire-drawn book is +the just abhorrence of a generous public.</p> + +<p>The letters came frequently: for Charles did little else all day but +write to Emmy, so as always to be ready with a budget for the next piece +of luck—a home-bound ship. He had many things to teach her yet, sweet +student; and it was a beautiful sight to see how her mind expanded as an +opening flower before the sun of tenderness and wisdom. Each letter, +both in writing and in reading, was the child of many prayers: and even +the loveliness of Emily grew more soft, more elevated, "as it had been +the face of an angel," when feeding in solitary joy on those effusions +of her lover's heart.</p> + +<p>Of course, he could not hear from her, until the overland mail might +haply bring him letters at Madras: so that, as our Irish friends would +say, with all her will to tell him of her love, "the reciprocity must +needs be all on one side." But Emily did write too; earnestly, happily: +and poured her very heart out in those eloquent burning words. I dare +say Charles will get the letter now within a day or two: for the roaring +surf of Madras is on the horizon, almost within sight.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206"></a>Nevertheless, before he gets there, and can read those +letters—precious, precious manuscripts—it will be my painful duty, as +a chronicler of (what might well be) truth, to put the reader in +possession of one little hint, which seemed likeliest to wreck the +happiness of these two children of affection.</p> + +<p>I am Emily's invisible friend: and as the dear girl ran to me one +morning, with tears in her eyes, to ask me what I thought of a certain +mysterious paragraph, I need not scruple to lay it straight before the +reader.</p> + +<p>At the end of a voluminous love-letter, which I really did not think of +prying into, occurred the following postscript, evidently written at the +last moment of haste.</p> + +<p>"Oh! my precious Emmy, I have just heard the most fearful rumour of ill +that could possibly befall us: the captain of our ship—you will +remember Captain Forbes, he knew you and the general well, he said—has +just assured me that—that—! I dare not, cannot write the awful words. +Oh! my own Emmy—Heaven grant you be my own!—pray, pray, as I will +night and day, that rumour be not true: for if it be, my love, both God +and man forbid us ever to meet again! How I wish I could explain it all, +or that I had never heard so much, or never written it here, and told it +you, though thus obscurely: for I can't destroy this letter now, the +ships are just parting company, and there is no time to write another. +Yet will I hope, love, against hope. Who knows? through God's good +mercy, it may all be cleared up still. If not—if not—strive to forget +for ever, your unhappy</p> +<p class='author'>"<span class='smcap'>Charles.</span></p> + +<p>"Perhaps—O, glorious thought!—Nurse Mackie may know better than the +captain, after all; and yet, he seems so positive: if he is right, there +is nothing for us both but Wo! Wo! Wo!"</p> + +<p>Now, to say plain truth, when Emily showed me this, I looked very blank +upon it. That Charles had heard some meddlesome report, which (if true) +was to be an insuperable barrier to their future union, struck me at a +glimpse. But I had not the heart to hint it to her; and only encouraged +hope—hope, in God's help, through the means of Mrs. Mackie and her +papers.</p> + +<p>As for the poor girl herself, she asked me, in much humility, and with +many sobs, if I did not fear that her Hindoo mystery was this:—she was +the vilest of the vile, a Pariah, an outcast, whose very presence is +contamination!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a>Beautiful, loving, heavenly-hearted creature! so humble in the midst of +her majestic loveliness! how touching was the thought, that she thus +readily acquiesced in any the deepest humiliation holy Providence had +seen fit to send her; and though the sentence would have crushed her +happiness for ever, till the day of death, that she could still look up +and say, "Be it to thine handmaid even as thou wilt."</p> + +<p>As I had no better method of explaining the matter, and as her infantine +reminiscences and prejudices about caste were strong, I even let her +think so, if she would: it was a far better alternative than my own sad +thoughts about the business: and, however painful was the process, it +was something consolatory to observe, that this voluntary humiliation +mellowed and chastened her own character, subduing tropical fires, and +tempering the virgin gold by meekness.</p> + +<p>Oh! Charles, Charles, my poor fellow, "who have cast your all upon a +die, and must abide the issue of the throw," I most fervently hope that +gossiping Captain Forbes spoke falsely: it is a comfort to reflect that +the world is often very liberal in attributing the honours of paternity +to some who really do not deserve them. And if a rich old bachelor looks +kindly on a foundling, is it not pure malice on that sole account of +charity to hail him father? Besides—there's Nurse Mackie.—Speed to +Madras, poor youth, and keep your courage up.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIIa" id="CHAPTER_XVIIa"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h3> + +<h4>THE GENERAL'S RETURN.</h4> + + +<p>In a most unwonted flow of animal spirits, and an entire affability +which restored him at once to the rank of a communicative creature, +General Tracy came back on Friday night. He had met with marvellous +prosperity; for Hancock's had been paying off the prize-money; and his +own lion's share, as general, in the easy process of dethroning half a +dozen diamond-hilted rajahs and nabobs, amounted to something like four +lacs of rupees, nearly half a crore! Such a flush of wealth, and he was +rich already without it, exhilarated the bilious old gentleman so +strangely, that positive peonies were blooming in his cheeks; and, as if +this was not miracle enough, he had brought his wife as a <a name="Page_208" id="Page_208"></a>present +Maurice's '<i>Antiquities of India</i>,' gloriously bound, and had even been +so superfluous as to purchase a new pair of double-barrelled pistols for +Julian: the lad was a fine young fellow after all, and ought to be +encouraged in snuffing out a candle; as for Emily's <i>petit cadeau</i>, it +was a fifty guinea set of cameos, the choicest in their way that Howell +and James's had to show him. Moreover, he had sent a Bow-street officer +to Oxford, to make inquiries after Charles: actually, good fortune had +made him at once humanized and happy.</p> + +<p>So the chaise rattled up, and the general bounded out, and flew into the +arms of his wondering wife, as Paris might have flown to Helen, or +Leander to his heroine—the only feminine Hero, whom grammar recognises. +It was past eleven at night: therefore he did not think to ask for +Julian; no doubt the boy was gone to bed.</p> + +<p>Indeed, he had; and was tossing his wealed body, full of pains, and +aches, and bruises, as softly as he could upon the feather-bed: he had +need of poultices all over, and a quart of Friar's Balsam would have +done him little good: after his well-merited thrashing, the flogged +hound had slunk to his kennel, and locked himself sullenly in, without +even speaking to his mother. Tobacco-fumes exuded from the key-hole, and +I doubt not other creature-comforts lent the muddled man their aid.</p> + +<p>However, after the first rush of news to Mrs. Tracy, her lord, who had +every moment been expecting the door to fly open, and Emily to fall into +his arms—for strangely did they love each other—suddenly asked,</p> + +<p>"But, where's Emmy all this time! she knows I'm here?—not got to bed, +is she?—knew I was coming?—"</p> + +<p>"Oh! general, I'll tell you all about it to-morrow morning."</p> + +<p>"About what, madam? Great God! has any harm befallen the child? +Speak—speak, woman!"</p> + +<p>"Dear—dear—Oh! what shall I say?" sobbed the silly mother. +"Emily—Emily, poor dear Julian—"</p> + +<p>"What the devil, ma'am, of Julian?" The general turned white as a sheet, +and rang the bell, in singular calmness; probably for a dram of brandy. +Saunders answered it so instantly, that I rather suspect he was waiting +just outside.</p> + +<p>The moment Mrs. Tracy saw the gray-headed butler, anticipating all that +he might say, she brushed past him, and hurriedly ran up-stairs.</p> + +<p>"What's all this, Mr. Saunders? where's Miss Warren?" And the poor old +guardian seemed ready to faint at his reply: but he heard it out +patiently.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209"></a>"I am very sorry to say, general, that Miss Emily has been forced to +take refuge at Sir Abraham Tamworth's: but she's well, sir, and safe, +sir; quite well and safe," the good man hastened to say, "only I'm +afraid that Mr. Julian had been taking liberties with—"</p> + +<p>I dare not write the general's imprecation: then, as he clenched the +arms of his easy-chair, as with the grasp of the dying, he asked, in a +quick wild way—</p> + +<p>"But what was it?—what happened?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing to fear, sir—nothing at all, general;—I am thankful to say, +that all I saw, and all we all saw, was Miss Emily pulling at the +bell-rope with blood upon her face, and Mr. Julian on the floor: but I +took the young lady to Sir Abraham's immediately, general, at her own +desire."</p> + +<p>The father arose sternly; his first feeling was to kill Julian; but the +second, a far better one, predominated—he must go and see Emily at +once.</p> + +<p>So, faintly leaning on the butler's arm, the poor old man (whom a moiety +of ten minutes, with its crowding fears, had made to look some ten years +older,) proceeded to the square, and knocked up Sir Abraham at midnight, +and the admiral came down, half asleep, in dressing-gown and slippers, +vexed at having been knocked up from his warm berth so uncomfortably: it +put him sorely in remembrance of his hardships as a middy.</p> + +<p>"Kind neighbour, thank you, thank you; where's Emmy? take me to my +Emmy;" and the iron-hearted veteran wept like a driveller.</p> + +<p>Sir Abraham looked at him queerly: and then, in a cheerful, friendly +way, replied—</p> + +<p>"Dear general, do not be so moved: the girl's quite safe with us; you'll +see her to-morrow morning. All's right; she was only frightened, and +George has given the fellow a proper good licking: and the girl's a-bed, +you know; and, eh? what?"—</p> + +<p>For the poor old man, like one bereaved, said, supplicatingly—</p> + +<p>"In mercy take me to her—precious child!"</p> + +<p>"My dear sir—pray consider—it's impossible; fine girl, you know;—Lady +Tamworth, too—can't be, can't be, you know, general."</p> + +<p>And the mystified Sir Abraham looked to Saunders for an explanation—</p> + +<p>"Was his master drunk?"</p> + +<p>"I must speak to her, neighbour; I must, must, and will—dear, dear +child: come up with me, sir, come; do not trifle with a breaking heart, +neighbour!"</p> + +<p><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"></a>There was a heart still in that hard-baked old East Indian.</p> + +<p>It was impossible to resist such an appeal: so the two elders crept up +stairs, and knocked softly at her chamber-door. Clearly, the girl was +asleep: she had sobbed herself to sleep; the general had been looked for +all day long, and she was worn with watching; he could hardly come at +midnight; so the dear affectionate child had sobbed herself to sleep.</p> + +<p>"Allow me, Sir Abraham." And General Tracy whispered something at the +key-hole in a strange tongue.</p> + +<p>Not Aladdin's "open Sesame" could have been more magical. In a moment, +roused up suddenly from sleep, and forgetting every thing but those +tender recollections of gentle care in infancy, and kindness all through +life, the child of nature startled out of bed, drew the bolt, and in +beauteous disarray, fell into that old man's arms!</p> + +<p>It was enough; he had seen her eye to eye—she lived: and the +white-haired veteran, suffered himself to be led away directly from the +landing, like a child, by his sympathizing neighbour.</p> + +<p>"My heart is lighter now, Sir Abraham: but I am a poor weak old man, and +owe you an explanation for this outburst; some day—some day, not now. +O, if you could guess how I have nursed that pretty babe when alone in +distant lands; how I have doated on her little winning ways, and been +gladdened by the music of her prattle; how I have exulted to behold her +loveliness gradually expanding, as she was ever at my side, in peril as +in peace, in camp as in quarters, in sickness as in health, +still—still, the blessed angel of a bad man's life—a wicked, hard old +man, kind neighbour—if you knew more—more, than for her sake I dare +tell you—and if you could conceive the love my Emmy bears for me, you +would not think it strange—think it strange—" He could not say a +syllable more; and the admiral, with Mr. Saunders, too, who joined them +in the study, looked very little able to console that poor old man. For +they all had hearts, and trickling eyes to tell them.</p> + +<p>Then having arranged a shake-down for his master in Sir Abraham's +study—for the guardian would not leave his dear one ever +again—Saunders went home, purposing to attend with razors in the +morning.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIIIa" id="CHAPTER_XVIIIa"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3> + +<h4>INTERCALARY.</h4> + + +<p>The Tamworths did not altogether live at Burleigh Singleton—it was far +too petty a place for them; dullness all the year round (however +pleasant for a month or so, as a holiday from toilsome pleasures) would +never have done for Lady Tamworth and her daughters: but they regularly +took Prospect House for six weeks in the summer season, when tired of +Portland Place, and Huntover, their fine estate in Cheshire: and so, +from constant annual immigration, came as much to be regarded +Burleighites, as swifts and swallows to be ranked as British birds. I +only hint at this piece of information, for fear any should think it +unlikely, that grandees of Sir Abraham's condition could exist for ever +in a place where the day-before-yesterday's '<i>Times</i>' is first +intelligence.</p> + +<p>Moreover, as another interjectional touch, it is only due to my +life-likenesses to record, that Mrs. Green's, although a terrace-house, +and ranked as humble number seven, was, nevertheless, a tolerably +spacious mansion, well suited for the dignity of a butler to repose in: +for Mrs. Green had added an entire dwelling on the inland side, as, like +most maritime inhabitants, she was thoroughly sick of the sea, and never +cared to look at it, though living there still, from mere disinclination +to stir: so, then, it was quite a double house, both spacious and +convenient. As for the inglorious incident of Julian's latch-key, I +should not wonder if many wide street-doors to many marble halls are +conscious of similar convenient fastenings, if gentlemen of Julian's +nocturnal tastes happen to be therein dwelling. Another little matter is +worth one word. The house had been Mrs. Green's, a freehold, and was, +therefore, now her heir's; but the general, as an executor, remained +there still, until his business was finished; in fact, he took his +year's liberty.</p> + +<p>He had returned from India rolling in gold; for some great princess or +other—I think they called her a Begum or a Glumdrum, or other such like +Gulliverian appellative—had been singularly fond of him, and had loaded +him in early life with favours—not only kisses, and so forth, but +jewellery and gold pagodas. And lately, as we know, Puttymuddyfudgepoor, +with its radiating rajahs and nabobs, had proved a mine of wealth: for a +crore is ten lacs, and a lac of rupees is any thing but a <a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a>lack of +money—although rupees be money, and the "middle is distributed;" in +spite of logic, then, a lack means about twelve thousand pounds: and +four of them, according to Cocker, some fifty thousand. It would appear +then, that with the produce of the Begum's diamonds, converted into +money long ago, and some of them as big as linnet's eggs—and not to +take account of Mrs. Green's trifling pinch of the five Exchequer bills, +all handed over at once to Emily—the General's present fortune was +exactly one hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds.</p> + +<p>Of course, <i>he</i> wasn't going to bury himself at Burleigh Singleton much +longer; and yet, for all that stout intention of houses and lands, and +carriages and horses, in almost any other county or country, it is as +true as any thing in this book, that he was a resident still, a +lease-holder of Aunt Green's house, long after the <i>dénouement</i> of this +story; in many things an altered man, but still identical in one; the +unchangeable resolve (though never to be executed) of leaving Burleigh +at farthest by next Michaelmas. Most folks who talk much, do little; and +taciturn as the general now is, and has been ever throughout life, it +will surprise nobody who has learned from hard experience how silly and +harmful a thing is secresy (exceptionables excepted), to find that he +grew to be a garrulous old man, gossipping for ever of past, present, +future, and, not least, about his deeds at Puttymuddyfudgepoor.</p> + +<p>General Tracy is by this time awake again; if ever indeed he slept on +that uncomfortable shakedown; and, after Mr. Saunders and the +razor-strop, has greeted brightly-beaming Emily with more than usual +tenderness. Her account of the transaction made his very blood boil; +especially as her pretty pouting lips were lacerated cruelly inside: +that rude blow on the mouth had almost driven the teeth through them. +How confidingly she told her artless tale; how gently did her fond +protector kiss that poor pale cheek; and how sternly did he vow full +vengeance on the caitiff! Not even Emily's intercession could avail to +turn his wrath aside. He could hardly help flying off at once to do +something dreadful; but common courtesy to all the Tamworth family +obliged him to defer for an hour all the terrible things he meant to do. +So he began to bolt his breakfast fiercely as a cannibal, and saluted +Lady Tamworth and her daughters with such savage looks, that the captain +considerately suggested:</p> + +<p>"Here, general," (handing him a most formidable carving-knife,) "charge +that boar's head, grinning defiance at us on the side-board; it will do +you good to hew his brawny neck. My mother, I am sure, for <a name="Page_213" id="Page_213"></a>one, will +thank you to do the honours there instead of me. Isn't it a comfort now, +to know that I broke the handle of my hunting-whip across the fellow's +back, and wore all the whip-cord into skeins. Come, I say, general, +don't eat us all round; and pray have mercy on that poor, flogged, +miserable sinner."</p> + +<p>This banter did him good, especially as he saw Emily smiling; so he +relaxed his knit brow, condescended to look less like Giant Blunderbore, +soon became marvellous chatty, and ate up two French rolls, an egg, some +anchovies, a round of toast, and a mighty slice of brawn; these, washed +down with a couple of cups of tea, soothed him into something like +complacency.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIXa" id="CHAPTER_XIXa"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h3> + +<h4>JULIAN'S DEPARTURE.</h4> + + +<p>Long before the general got home, still in exalted dudgeon (indeed soon +after the general had left home over night), the bird had flown; for the +better part of valour suggested to our evil hero, that it would be +discreet to render himself a scarce commodity for a season; and as soon +as ever his mother had run up to his room-door to tell him of his +danger, when her lord was cross-questioning the butler, he resolved upon +instant flight. Accordingly, though sore and stiff, he hurried up, +dressed again, watched his father out, and tumbling over Mrs. Tracy, who +was sobbing on the stairs, ran for one moment to the general's room; +there he seized a well-remembered cash-box, and instinctively possessed +himself of those new, neat, double-barrelled pistols: a bully never goes +unarmed. These brief arrangements made, off he set, before his father +could have time to return from Pacton Square.</p> + +<p>Therefore, when the general called, we need not marvel that he found him +not; no one but the foolish mother (so neglected of her son, yet still +excusing him) stood by to meet his wrath. He would not waste it on her; +so long as Julian was gone, his errand seemed accomplished; for all he +came to do was to expel him from the house. So, as far as regarded Mrs. +Tracy, her husband, wotting well how much she was to blame, merely +commanded her to change her sleeping-room, and occupy Mr. Julian's in +future.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214"></a>The silly woman was even glad to do it; and comforted herself from time +to time with prying into her own boy's exemplary manuscripts, memoranda +of moralities, and so forth; with weeping, like Lady Constance, over his +empty "unpuffed" clothes; with reading ever and anon his choice +collection of standard works, among which '<i>Don Juan</i>' and Mr. Thomas +Paine were by far the most presentable; and with tasting, till it grew +to be a habit, his private store of spirituous liquors. Thus did she +mourn many days for long-lost Julian.</p> + +<p>I am quite aware what became of him. The wretched youth, mad for Emily's +love, and tortured by the tyranny of passion, had nothing else to live +for or to die for. He accordingly took refuge in the hovel of a +smuggler, an old friend of his, not many miles away, disguised himself +in fisherman's costume, and bode his opportunity.</p> + +<p>Beauteous girl! how often have I watched thee with straining eyes and +aching heart, as thou wentest on thy summer's walk so oftentimes to +Oxton, there to exercise thy bountiful benevolence in comforting the +sick, gladdening the wretched, and lingering, with love's own look, in +Charles's village school; how often have I prayed, that guardian angels +might be about thy path as about thy bed! For the prowling tiger was on +thy track, poor innocent one, and many, many times nothing but one of +God's seeming accidents hath saved thee. Who was that strange man so +often in the way? At one time a wounded Spanish legionist, with head +bound up; at another, an old beggar upon crutches; at another, a floury +miller with a donkey and a sack; at another, a black looking man, in +slouching sailor's hat and fishing-boots?</p> + +<p>Fair, pure creature! thou hast often dropped a shilling in that beggar's +hand, and pitied that poor maimed soldier; once, too, a huge gipsy woman +would have had thee step aside, and hear thy fortunes. Heaven guarded +thee then, sweet Emily; for both girl and lover though thou art, thou +would'st not listen to the serpent's voice, however fair might be the +promises. And Heaven guarded thee ever, bidding some one pass along the +path just as the ruffian might have gagged thy smiling mouth, and +hurried thee away amongst his fellows; and more than once, especially, +those school children, bursting out of Charles's school at dusk, have +unconsciously escorted thee in safety from the perils of that tiger on +thy track.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXa" id="CHAPTER_XXa"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h3> + +<h4>ENLIGHTENMENT.</h4> + + +<p>The general could not now be kept in ignorance of Charles's expedition; +in fact, he had found his heart, and began resolutely to use it. So, the +very day on which he had lost Julian, he intended very eagerly to seek +out Charles; for the Oxford search had failed, and no wonder. Now, +though Emily had told, as we well know, to both mother and son her +secret, the father was not likely to be any the wiser; for he now never +spoke to his wife, and could not well speak to his son. However, one +day, an hour after an overland letter, a very exhilarating one, dated +Madras, whereof we shall hear anon, fair Emily, in the fullness of her +heart, could not help saying,</p> + +<p>"Dearest sir, you are often thinking of poor lost Charles, I know; and +you are very anxious about him too, though nobody but myself, who am +always with you, can perceive it: what if you heard he was safe and +well?"</p> + +<p>"Have you heard any tidings of my poor boy, Emmy?"</p> + +<p>She looked up archly, and said, "Why not?" her beautiful eyes adding, as +plainly as eyes could speak, "I love him, and you know it; of course I +have heard frequently from dear, dear Charles."</p> + +<p>But the guardian met her looks with a keen and chilling answer: "Why +not! why not! Does he dare to write to you, and you to love him? Oh, +that I had told them both a year ago! But where is he now, child? Don't +cry, I will not speak so angrily again, my Emmy."</p> + +<p>"I hardly dare to tell you, dearest sir: you have always been as a +father to me, and I never knew any other; but there are things I cannot +explain to myself, and I was very wretched; and so, kind guardian, +Charles—Charles was so good—"</p> + +<p>"What has he done?—where has he gone?" hastily asked his father.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't, don't be angry with us; in a word, he is gone to Madras, to +find out Nurse Mackie, and to tell me who I am."</p> + +<p>The poor old man, who had treasured up so long some mystery, probably a +very diaphanous one, for Emily's own dear sake in the world's esteem, +and from the long bad habit of reserve, fell back into his chair as if +he had been shot; but he did not faint, nor gasp, nor utter a sound; he +only looked at her so long and sorrowfully, that she ran to him, and +covered his pale face with her own brown curls, kissing him, and wiping +from his cheek her starting tears.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216"></a>"Emmy, dear—I can tell you—and I—no, no, not now, not now; if he +comes back—then—then; poor children! Oh, the sin of secresy!"</p> + +<p>"But, dearest sir, do not be so sad; Charles has happy news, he says."</p> + +<p>"Happy, child? Good Heaven! would it could be so!"</p> + +<p>"Indeed, indeed, a week ago he was as miserable as any could be, and so +was I; for he heard something terrible about me—I don't know what—but +I feared I was a—Pariah! However, now he is all joy, and coming home +again as soon as possible."</p> + +<p>The general shook, his head mournfully, as physicians do when hope is +gone; but still he looked perplexed and thoughtful.</p> + +<p>"You will show me the letters, dear, I dare say: but I do not command +you, Emmy; do as you like."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, my own kindest guardian—all, all, and instantly."</p> + +<p>And flying up to her room, she returned with as much closely-written +manuscript as would have taken any but a lover's eye a full week to +decipher. The general, not much given to literary matters, looked quite +scared at such a prospect.</p> + +<p>"Wait, Emmy; not all, not all; show me the last."</p> + +<p>I dare say Emily will forgive me if I get it set up legibly in print. +May I, dear?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIa" id="CHAPTER_XXIa"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h3> + +<h4>CHARLES AT MADRAS.</h4> + + +<p>Luckily enough for all mankind in general, and our lovers in particular, +Charles's last letter was very unlike some that had preceded it; for +instead of the usual "Oh, my love"'s, "sweet, sweet eyes," "darling"'s, +and all manner of such chicken-hearted nonsense, it was positively +sensible, rational, not to say utilitarian: though I must acknowledge +that here and there it degenerates into the affectionate, or +Stromboli-vein of letter-writing, at opening especially; and really now +and then I shall take leave to indicate omitted inflammations by a *.</p> + +<p>"<span class='smcap'>Dearest, Dearest Emmy</span>,</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span +style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span +style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span></p> + +<p>[and so forth, a very galaxy of stars to the bottom of this page; enough +to put the compositor out of his terrestrial senses.]</p> + +<p><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217"></a>"You see I have recovered my spirits, dearest, and am not now afraid to +tell you how I love you. Oh, that detestable Captain Forbes! let him not +cross my path, gossiping blockhead! on pain of carrying about 'til +deth,' in the middle of his face, a nose two inches longer. I heartily +wish I had never listened for an instant to such vile insinuations; and +when I look at this red right hand of mine, that dared to pen the trash +in that black postscript, I look at it as Cranmer did, and (but that it +is yours, Emmy, not mine), could wish it burnt. But no fears now, my +girl, huzza, huzza! I believe every one about me thinks me daft; and so +I am for very joyfulness; notwithstanding, let me be didactic, or you +will say so too. I really will endeavour to rein in, and go along in the +regular hackney trot, that you may partly comprehend me. Well, then, +here goes; try your paces, Dobbin.</p> + +<p>"On the morning of Sunday, April 11th, 1842, the good ship +Elphinston—(that's the way to begin, I suppose, as per ledger, +log-book, and midshipman's epistles to mamma)—in fact, dear, we cast +anchor just outside a furious wall of surf, which makes Madras a very +formidable place for landing; and every one who dares to do so certain +of a watering. There lay the city, most invitingly to storm-tost tars, +with its white palaces, green groves, and yellow belt of sand, blue +hills in the distance, and all else <i>coleur de rose</i>. But—but, Emmy, +there was no getting at this paradise, except by struggling through a +couple of miles of raging foam, that would have made mince-meat of the +Spanish Armada, and have smashed Sir William Elphinston to pieces. How, +then, did we manage to survive it? for, thank God always, here I am to +tell the tale. Listen, Emmy dear, and I will try not to be tedious.</p> + +<p>"We were bundled out of the rolling ship into some huge flat-bottomed +boats, like coal-barges, and even so, were grated and ground several +times by the churning waves on the ragged reefs beneath us: and, just as +I was enjoying the see-saw, and trying to comfort two poor drenched +women-kind who were terribly afraid of sharks, a huge, cream-coloured +breaker came bustling alongside of us, and roaring out 'Charles Tracy,' +gobbled me up bodily. Well, dearest, it wasn't the first time I had +floundered in the waters [noble Charles! noble Charles! he had long +forgiven Julian]; so I was battling on as well as I could, with a stout +heart and a steady arm, when—don't be afraid—a <i>Catamaran</i> caught me! +If you haven't fainted (bless those pretty eyes of your's, my Emmy!) +read on; and you will find that this alarming sort of animal is neither +an albatross nor an alligator, but simply—a life-boat with a<a name="Page_218" id="Page_218"></a> Triton in +the stern. Yes, God's messenger of life to me and happiness to you, my +girl, came in the shape of a kindly, chattering, blue-skinned, human +creature, who dragged me out of the surf, landed me safely, and, I need +not say, got paid with more than hearty thanks. So, I scuffled to the +custom-house to look after my traps and fellow-passengers, like a +dripping merman.</p> + +<p>"'Who is that miserable old woman, bothering every body?' asked I of a +very civil searcher, profuse in his salaams.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, Sahib, you will know for yourself, presently: she's always hanging +about here, to get news of somebody in England, I believe—and to try to +find a charitable captain who will take her all the way for nothing: +rather too much of a good thing, you know, Sahib.'</p> + +<p>[We really cannot undertake to scribble broken English: so we will +translate any thing that may mysteriously have been chatted by +havildars, and coolies; and all manner of strange names.]</p> + +<p>"'Poor old soul—she looks very wretched: what's her name?' asked I, +carelessly.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, I never troubled to inquire, Sahib: I believe she was an old +servant left behind as lumber, and she pesters every one, day by day, +about some 'bonnie bonnie bairn.'"</p> + +<p>"In a moment, Emmy, I had seized on dear nurse Mackie!</p> + +<p>"Very old, very deaf, very infirm—she fancied I was driving her away, +as many others might have done; and, with a truly piteous face, +pleaded—</p> + +<p>"'Gude sir, have mercy on a puir auld soul—and let her ask for her +sweet young mistress, only once, sir—only once more.'</p> + +<p>"'Emily Warren?' said I.</p> + +<p>Her wrinkled face brightened over as with glory—and she answered—</p> + +<p>"'Bless the mouth that spake it, and these ears that hear her name! +yes—yes—yes—they call her so; where is she? how is she? have you seen +her? is she yet alive?'</p> + +<p>"Leading away the affectionate old soul from the crowd that was +collecting round us, I left orders about luggage as a traveller should, +and then told her all I knew: and I know you pretty well, I think, my +Emmy.</p> + +<p>"Her joy was like a mad woman's: the dear old Hecate pranced, and +danced, and sung, and shouted like nothing but a mother when she finds +her long-lost child: not that she's your mother, Emmy dear. +No—no—matters are better than that: all she vouchsafes, though, to +tell me is, <a name="Page_219" id="Page_219"></a>that you are a lady born and bred, and—for I cannot find +the words to inform your pure mind clearer—that 'you are not what he +thinks you.'"</p> + +<p>[Here followeth another twinkling universe of stars;</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span +style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span +style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span></p> + +<p>and thereafter our cavalier condescendeth again to matters of fact.]</p> + +<p>"Nurse Mackie of course comes back with me next packet; this letter goes +by the overland mail more quickly than we can; gladly would I go too, +but the old woman, whose life is essential to your rights, would die of +fatigue by the way; as it is, I am obliged to coddle her, and feed her, +and ptisan her, like a sick baby, bless her dear old heart that loves my +darling Emmy! She has a pack of papers with her, which she will not +open, till the general is by her side: if she unfortunately dies before +we can return, I am to have them, and all will be right. But the old +soul is so afraid of being left behind (as you throw away the +orange-peel after you have squeezed it), that she will not tell me a +word about them yet; so, I only gather what I can from her cautious +garrulity, hints about a Begum and a captain, and the Stuarts, and a +Putty-what-d'ye-call-it. And it is all in document, as well as +<i>viva-voce</i> (this means 'gossip,' dear). So now you may be expecting us, +as soon as ever we can get to you. Tell the general all this, and give +him my best love, next after your's Emmy; for he is my father still, and +my very heart yearns after him: O, that he were kinder with me as I see +he is with you, dear, and more open with us all! Also, kiss, if she will +let you, my mother for me, and I hope you will have hinted to her long +ago, that I am only playing truant. How is poor—poor Julian? he will +understand me, if you tell him I forgive him, and will never say one +word about our little tiff. And now dearest Emmy—"</p> + +<p>[The remainder of this letter must, believe me, be as starry as before.]</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span +style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span +style="margin-left: 4em;">*</span><span style="margin-left: +4em;">*</span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIIa" id="CHAPTER_XXIIa"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h3> + +<h4>REVELATIONS.</h4> + + +<p>General Tracy gave a long-drawn sigh: and tears—tears of true +affection—stood in those most fish-like eyes, as he mournfully said, +"Bless him, bless dear Charles, almost as much as you, my own sweet<a name="Page_220" id="Page_220"></a> +Emmy. Heaven send it be true—for Heaven can work miracles. But without +a miracle, Emily, in sober sadness I declare it, you must forget—<i>your +brother Charles, my daughter</i>!"</p> + +<p>Emily fell flat upon her face, so cold, so white, that he believed her +dead.</p> + +<p>Oh! that he had never—never said that word: or better still, poor +father, that you had never kept the dreadful secret from them. The +adultery, indeed, was sin; but years of ill-concealings have multiplied +its punishment. Wretched father—wretched children! that must bear an +erring father's curse.</p> + +<p>Oh! that Jeanie Mackie may have reasons, proofs; and be not an impostor +after all, dressing up a tale that over-sanguine Charles may bring her +back again to Scotland. Well—well! I am full of sadness and +perplexities: but we shall hear it out anon. Heaven help them!</p> + +<p>Emily was taken very ill, and had a long fit of sickness. Day and +night—night and day, did her poor wasting anxious father watch by her +bed-side, gentle as the gentlest nurse—tender as the tenderest of +mothers. And, indeed, the Lord of Life and Wisdom was gracious to them +both; raising up the poor weak child again; and teaching that old man, +through this daughter of his shame and sin in youth, that religion is a +cure for all things. Ay, "the blessed angel of a bad man's life," +indeed—indeed was she; and he humbly knelt, as little children kneel, +that hard and dried old man; and his eyes caught the ray of Heaven's +mercy, looking up in joy to read forgiveness; and his heart was bathed +in penitence—the rock flowed out amain; and his mind was quickened into +faith—he lived, he breathed "a new-born babe," that poor and bad old +man, given to the prayers of his own daughter!</p> + +<p>All this while, Mrs. Tracy, thrown upon her own resources, has been +continually tasting dear Julian's store, and finding out excuses for his +trivial peccadilloes. And when, from the recesses of his desk, she had +routed out (in company with sundry more, rather contrasting with a +mother's pure advice) a few of her own letters, which had not yet been +destroyed, she would doat by the hour on these proofs of his affection. +And then, her spirits were so low; and his choice smuggled Hollands so +requisite to screw them up to par again; and no sooner had they rallied, +than they would once more begin to droop; so she cried a good deal, and +kept her bed; and very often did not remember exactly, whether she was +lying down there, or figuring on the Esplanade with Julian, and—all +that sort of thing: accordingly, it is not to be wondered at if, in<a name="Page_221" id="Page_221"></a> +Aunt Green's double-house, the general and Emily saw very little of her, +and during all this illness, had almost forgotten her existence. +Nevertheless, she was alive still, and as vast as ever—though a course +of strong waters had shattered her nerves considerably; even more so, +than her real mother's grief at Julian's protracted absence.</p> + +<p>Never had he been heard of since he left, hard heart; though he might +have guessed a mother's sorrow, and was not far away, and often lingered +near the house in strange disguises. It would have been easy for him, in +some clever way or other, latch-key and all, to have gained access to +her, and comforted her, and given her some real proof, that all the love +she had shed on him had not been utterly thrown away; but he didn't—he +didn't; and I know not of a darker trait in Julian's whole career; he +was insensible to love—a mother's love.</p> + +<p>For love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man; +when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; Fear he answers blow to +blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but Love, that sun +against whose melting beams the Winter cannot stand, that soft-subduing +slumber which wrestles down the giant, there is not one human creature +in a million—not a thousand men in all earth's huge quintillion, whose +clay-heart is hardened against love.</p> + +<p>Yet was Julian one of those select ones; an awful instance of that +possible, that actual, though happily that scarcest of all characters, a +man,</p> + +<p class='center'> +"Black, with <i>no</i> virtue, and a thousand crimes."<br /> +</p> + +<p>The amiable villain—one whose generosity redeems his guilt, whose +kindliness outweighs his folly, or whose beauty charms the eye to +overlook his baseness—this too common hero is an object, an example +fraught with perilous interest. Charles Duval, the polite; Paul +Clifford, the handsome; Richard Turpin, brave and true; Jack Sheppard, +no ignoble mind and loving still his mother; these, and such as these, +with Schiller's '<i>Robbers</i>' and the like, are dangerous to gaze on, as +Germany, if not England too, remembers well. But, not more true to life, +though far less common to be met with, is Julian's incorrigible mind: +one, in whose life are no white days; one, on whose heart are no bright +spots; when Heaven's pity spoke to him, he ridiculed; as, when His +threatenings thundered, he defied. Of this world only, and tending to a +worse appetite was all he lived for: and the core of appetite is iron +selfishness.</p> + +<p>The filched cash-box proved to be too well-filled for him to trouble +himself with thinking of his mother yet awhile: and his smuggling +<a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a>acquaintances, a rough-featured, blasphemous crew, set him as their +chief, so long as he swore loudest, drank deepest, and had money at +command. He hid the money, that they should not secretly steal from him +that to which he owed his bad supremacy; and his double-barrels, shotted +to the muzzle, were far too formidable for any hope of getting at it by +open brute force. Nevertheless, they were "fine high-spirited" fellows +those, bold, dark men, of Julian's own kidney; who toasted in their cups +each other's crimes, and the ghost or two that ought to have been +haunting them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIIIa" id="CHAPTER_XXIIIa"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h3> + +<h4>CONVALESCENCE.</h4> + + +<p>Very slowly did Emily recover, for the blow had been more than she could +bear: nothing but religion gave her any chance at all: and the phials, +blisterings, bleedings, would have been in vain, in vain—she must have +died long ago—had it not been for the remembrance of God's love, +resignation to His will, and trust in the wisdom of his Providence. But +these specific remedies gradually brought her round, while the kind-eyed +doctors praised their own prescriptions: and after many rallyings and +relapses, delirious ramblings, and intervals of hallowed Christian +peace, the eye of Love's meek martyr brightened up once more, and health +flushed again upon her cheek.</p> + +<p>She recovered, God be praised! for her death would have been poor +Charles's too; and the same grave that yawned for her and him would have +closed upon their father also. Even as it was, when she arose from off +the weary bed of sickness, it was to be a nurse herself, and watch +beside that patient, weak old man. He could not bear her out of his +sight all the fever through; but eagerly would listen to her hymns and +prayers, joining in them faintly like a dying saint. With the saddening +secret, which had so long pressed upon his mind, he seemed to have +thrown off his old nature, as a cast skin: and now he was all frankness +for reserve, all piety for profaneness, all peacefulness for blusterings +and wrath.</p> + +<p>He remembered then poor Julian and his mother: taking blame to himself, +justly, deeply, for neglected duties, chilling lack of sympathy, <a name="Page_223" id="Page_223"></a>and +that dull domestic sin, that still continued evil of unnatural +omissions—stern reserve. And he would gladly have seen Julian by his +bedside, to have freely forgiven the lad, and welcomed him home again, +and begun once more, in openness and charity, all things fair and new: +but Julian was not to be found, though rewards were offered, and +placards posted up, and emissaries from the Detective Police-force +sought him far and wide. Alas! the bold bad man had heard with scorn of +his father's penitence, and knew that he would gladly have received +him;—but what cared he for kindnesses or pardons? He only lived to +waylay Emily.</p> + +<p>As for Mrs. Tracy, she was seldom in a state to appear; but one day she +managed to refrain a little, and came to see her husband, almost sober. +I was, authorially speaking, behind the door, and saw and heard as +follows:</p> + +<p>The old man, worn and emaciate, was weakly sitting up in bed, and Emma +by his side, with the Bible in her lap: she casually shut it as the +mother entered.</p> + +<p>"Well, Miss Warren, there's a time for all things; but this is neither +morning, noon, nor night: nor Sunday either, nor holiday, that I know +of; it's eleven o'clock on Tuesday, Miss—and I think you might as well +leave the general at peace, without troubling him for ever with your +prayer-books and your Bibles."</p> + +<p>"Jane, my dear, I requested it of Emily; come and sit by me, and take my +hand, wife."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir, you are very obliging: not while that young woman is in +the room.—You ought to be ashamed of yourself, General Tracy."</p> + +<p>Poor Emmy ran away to weep. It seems that, in her delirium, she had +spoken many things, and the servants blabbed them out to Mrs. Tracy.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my poor wife, indeed I am: both ashamed and sorry—heartily sorry. +But God forgives me, Jenny, and I hope that you will too."</p> + +<p>"Upon, my word, general, you carry it off with a high hand: and, not +content, sir, with insulting me in my own home by bringing here your +other women's children, you have expelled poor dear, dear Julian."</p> + +<p>"Jane, if you will remember, he ran away himself; and you know that now +I gladly would receive him: we are all prodigal sons together, and if +God can bear with us, Jane, we ought to look kindly on each other."</p> + +<p>"Ha! that's always the way with old sinners like you—canting +hypocrites! Be a man, General Tracy, if you can, and talk sense. I never +<a name="Page_224" id="Page_224"></a>did any harm or sin in all my life yet, and don't intend to: and my +poor boy Julian's well enough, if they'd only let him alone; but nobody +understands his heart but me. Good boy, I'm sure there's virtue enough +left in him, if he loves his mother."—<i>If</i> he loves his mother.</p> + +<p>"Jane, dear, I sent for you to kiss you; for I could not die in peace, +nor live in peace (whichever God may please), without your pardon, Jane, +for a thousand unkindnesses—but, especially for the sin that gave me +Emily. Forgive me this, my wife."</p> + +<p>"Never, sir!" rejoined that miserable mind; and fancied that she was +acting virtuously. She thrust aside the kindly proffered hand; scowled +at him with darkened brow; drew up her commanding height; and, calling +Mrs. Siddons to remembrance, brushed away in the indignant attitude of a +tragedy queen.</p> + +<p>Emmy ran again to her father, and the vain bad mother to her bottle; we +must leave them to their various avocations.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIVa" id="CHAPTER_XXIVa"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h3> + +<h4>CHARLES DELAYED.</h4> + + +<p>Few things could well be more unlikely than that Emily should hear of +Charles again before she saw him: for, having left Madras as speedily as +might be, now that his mission was so easily, yet so naturally, +accomplished—having posted, as we know, his overland letter—and having +got on board the fast-sailing ship Samarang, Captain Trueman, Charles, +in the probable course of things, if he wrote at all, must have been his +own postman. But the Fates—(our Christianity can afford to wink now and +then at Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; for, at any rate, they are as +reasonable creatures as Chance, Luck, and Accident,)—the Fates willed +it otherwise: and, accordingly, it is in my power to lay before the +reader another genuine lucubration of Charles Tracy.</p> + +<p>A change had come over the spirit of their dream, those youthful lovers: +and agonizing doubt must rack their hearts, threatening to rend them +both asunder. It is evident to me that Charles's letter (which Emily +showed to me with a melancholy face) was on principle less warm, less +dottable with stars, and more conversant with things of this <a name="Page_225" id="Page_225"></a>world; +high, firm, honourable principle; intending very gently, very gradually, +to wean her from him, if he could; for his faith in Jeanie Mackie had +been shaken, and—but let us hear him tell us of it all himself.</p> + +<p class='author'>"I.E.M. Samarang. St. Helena.</p> + +<p>"You will wonder, my dear Emily, to hear again before you see me: but I +am glad of this providential opportunity, as it may serve to prepare us +both. Naturally enough you will ask, why Charles cannot accompany this +letter? I will tell you, dear, in one word—Mrs. Mackie is now lying +very ill on shore; and, as far as our poor ship is concerned, you shall +hear about it all anon. Several of the passengers, who were in a hurry +to get home, have left us, and gone in the packet-boat that takes you +this letter: gladly, as you know, would I have accompanied them, for I +long to see you, poor dear girl; but it was impossible to leave the old +woman, upon whom alone, under God, our hopes of earthly happiness +depend: if, alas! we still can dream about such hopes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Emily—I heartily wish that, having finished my embassage by that +instantaneous finding of the old Scotch nurse, I had never been so +superfluous as to have left those letters of introduction, wherewith you +kindly supplied me, in an innocent wish to help our cause. But I felt +solitary too, waiting at Madras for the next ship to England; and in my +folly, forgetful of the single aim with which I had come, Jeanie Mackie, +to wit, I thought I might as well use my present opportunities, and see +what I could of the place and its inhabitants.</p> + +<p>"With that view, I left my letters at Government House, at Mr. +Clarkson's, Colonel Bunting's, Mrs. Castleton's, and elsewhere, +according to direction; and immediately found answer in a crowd of +invitations. I need not vex you nor myself, Emmy, writing as I do with a +heavy, heavy heart, by describing gayeties in which I felt no pleasure, +even when amongst them, for my Emmy was not there: splendour, +prodigality, and red-hot rooms, only made endurable by perpetually +fanning punkahs: pompous counsellors, authorities, and other men in +office, and a glut of military uniforms: vulgar wealth, transparent +match-making, and predominating dullness: along with some few of the +charities and kindnesses of life (Mrs. Bunting, in particular, is an +amiable, motherly, good-hearted woman), all these you will readily fancy +for yourself.</p> + +<p>"My trouble is deeper than any thing so slight as the common satiations +of <i>ennui</i>: for I have heard in these circles in which your—my—the +general, I mean, chiefly mixed, so much of that ill-rumour that it +<a name="Page_226" id="Page_226"></a>cannot all be false: they knew it all, and were certain of it all, too +well, Emily, dear. And I have been pestering Nurse Mackie night and day; +but the old woman is so afraid of being left behind any where, or thrown +overboard, or dropped, upon some desert rock, that she is quite cross, +and won't say a single word in answer, even when I tell her all these +terrible tales. Her resolution is, not to reveal one syllable more, +until she sets foot on England; and several people at Madras annoyed me +exceedingly by saying, that this kind of thing is an old trick with +people who wish to be sent home again. She has hidden away her papers +somewhere; not that I was going to steal them: but it shows how little +trust she puts in any thing, or any one, except the keeping of her own +secret. However, she does adhere obstinately, and hopefully for us, to +her original hint, 'you are not what he thinks you;' although she will +not condescend to any single proof, or explanation, against the mighty +mass of evidence, which probabilities, and common rumour, and the +general's own belief, have heaped together. When I call you Emmy, +too—the old soul, in her broad Scotch way, always corrects me, and +invokes a blessing upon 'A-amy:' so there is a mystery somewhere: at +least, I fervently hope there is: and, if the old woman has been playing +us false, let us resign ourselves to God, my girl; for our fate will be +that matters are as people say they are—and then my old black +postscript ends too truly with a wo, wo, wo—!</p> + +<p>"But I must shake off all this lethargy of gloom, dearest, dearest +girl—how can I dare to call you so? Let me, therefore, rush for comfort +into other thoughts; and tell you at once of the fearful dangers we have +now mercifully escaped; for the Samarang lies like a log in this +friendly port, dismasted, and next to a wreck.</p> + +<p>"I proceed to show you about it; perhaps I shall be tedious—but I do it +as a little rest, my own soul's love, from anxious, earnest, +heart-distracting prayers continually, continually, that the sorrow +which I spoke of be not true. Sometimes, a light breaks in, and I +rejoice in the most sanguine hope: at others, gloom—</p> + +<p>"But a truce to all this, I say. Here shall follow didactically the +cause why the good ship Samarang is not by this time in the Docks.</p> + +<p>"We were lying somewhere about the tropical belt, Capricorn you know, +(O, those tender lessons in geography, my Emmy!) quite becalmed; the sea +like glass, and the sky like brass, and the air in a most stagnant heat: +our good ship motionless, dead in a dead blue sea it was</p> + +<p>'Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.'</p> + +<p><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227"></a>"The sails were hanging loosely in the shrouds: every one set, from +sky-scraper to stud-sail, in hopes to catch a breath of wind. My +fellow-passengers and the crew, almost melted, were lying about, as weak +as parboiled eels: it was high-noon, all things silent and subdued by +that intolerable blaze; for the vertical sun, over our multiplied +awnings and umbrellas, burnt us up, fierce as a furnace.</p> + +<p>"I was leaning over the gangway, looking wistfully at the cool, clear, +deep sea, wherefrom the sailors were trying to persuade a shark to come +on board us, when, all at once, in the south-east quarter, I noticed a +little round black cloud, thrown up from the horizon like a +cricket-ball. As any thing is attractive in such sameness as perpetual +sea and sky, my discovery was soon made known, and among the first to +our captain.</p> + +<p>"Calling for his Dolland, and bidding his second lieutenant run quick to +the cabin and look at the barometer, he viewed the little cloud in +evident anxiety, and shook his head with a solemn air: more than one +light-hearted woman thinking he was quizzing them.</p> + +<p>"Up came Lieutenant Joyce, looking as if he had seen a ghost in the +cabin.</p> + +<p>"'The mercury, sir, is falling just as rapidly as it would rise if you +plunged it into boiling water: an inch a minute or so!"</p> + +<p>"Our captain saw the danger instantly, and, brave as Trueman is, I never +saw a man look paler.</p> + +<p>"To drive all the passengers below, and pen them in with closed hatches +and storm-shutters, (so hot, Emmy, that the black-hole of Calcutta must +have been an ice-house to it: how the foolish people abused our wise +skipper, and more than one pompous old Indian threatened him with an +action for false imprisonment!) this huddling away was the first effort; +and simultaneously with it, the crew were all over the rigging, furling +sails, hurriedly, hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile (for I was last on deck), that little cloud seemed whirling +within itself, and many others gathered round it, all dancing about on +the horizon, as if sheaves of mischief tossed about by devils: I don't +wish to be poetical, Emmy, for my heart is very, very sad; but if ever +the powers of the air sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, they were +gathering in their harvest at that door. Underneath the skipping clouds, +which came on quickly, leaping over each other, as when the wain is +loaded by a score of hands, I noticed a sea approaching, such as Pharaoh +must have seen, when the wall of waters fell upon him; and premonitory +winds came whistling by, and two or three sails were flapping in them +still, and I was hurried down stairs after all the rest of us.</p><p><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228"></a></p> + +<p>"Then, on a sudden, it appeared not winds, nor waves, nor thunder, but +as if the squadroned cavalry of heaven had charged across the seas, and +crushed our battered ship beneath their horse-hoofs! We were flung down +flat on our beam ends; and the two or three unfurled sails, bursting +with the noise of a cannon, were scattered miles away to lee-ward as if +they had been paper. As for the poor fellows in the rigging, the spirit +of the storm had already made them his: twenty of our men were swept +away by that tornado.</p> + +<p>"Then there was hewing and cleaving on deck, the clatter of many axes +and hatchets: for we were in imminent danger of being capsized, keel +uppermost, and our only chance was to cut away the masts.</p> + +<p>"The muscles of courage were tried then, my Emmy, and the strength which +religion gives a man. I felt sensibly held up by the Everlasting Arms: I +could listen to the still small Voice in the midst of a crash which +might have been the end of all things: though in darkness, God had given +me light; though in uttermost peril, my peace was never calmer in our +little village school.</p> + +<p>"And the billows were knocking at the poor ship's side like sledge +hammers; and the lightnings fell around us scorchingly, with forked +bolts, as arrows from the hand of a giant; the thunders overhead, close +overhead, crashing from a concave cloud that hung about us heavily—a +dense, black, suffocating curtain—roared and raved as nothing earthly +can, but thunder in the tropics; the rain was as a cataract, literally +rushing in a mass: the winds appeared not winds, nor whirlwinds, but +legions of emancipated demons shrieking horribly, and flapping their +wide wings; a flock of night-birds flying from the dawn; and all else +was darkness, confusion, rolling and rocking about, the screams of +women, the shouts of men, curses and prayers, agony, despair, +and—peace, deep peace.</p> + +<p>"On a sudden, to our great astonishment, all was silent again, +oppressively silent; and, but for the swell upon the seas, all still. +The tornado had rushed by: that troop of Tartar horse, having sacked the +village, are departed, now in full retreat: the blackness and the fury +are beheld on our lee, hastening across the broad Atlantic to Cuba or +Jamaica: and behold, a tranquil temperate sky, a kindly rolling sea, a +favouring breeze, and—not a sail, but some slight jury-rig, to catch +it.</p> + +<p>"Many days we drifted like a log upon the wave; provisions running +short, and water—water under tropical suns—scantily dealt out in +tea-cups. Then, poor old Mackie's health gave way; and I dreaded for her +<a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a>death: one living witness is worth a cart-load of cold documents. So I +nursed and watched her constantly: till the foolish folks on board began +to say I was her son: ah! me, for your sake I wish it had been so.</p> + +<p>"And at length, just as some among the sailors were hinting at a mutiny +for spirits, and our last case of Gamble's meat was opened for the sick, +our look-out on the jury-mast gave the welcome note of 'Land!' and soon, +to us on deck, the heights of St. Helena rose above the sea. Towed in by +friendly aid, here we are, then, precious Emily, refitting: and, as it +must be a week yet before we can be ready, I have taken my old woman to +a lodging upon land, and rejoice (what have I to do with joy?) to see +her speedily recovering."</p> + +<p>The remainder of Charles's long letter is so stupid, so gloomy, so +loving, and so little to the purpose, that I take an editor's privilege, +and omit it altogether. Of course he was coming home again, as soon as +the Samarang and Jeanie Mackie would permit.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVa" id="CHAPTER_XXVa"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h3> + +<h4>TRIALS.</h4> + + +<p>The general recovered; as slowly, indeed, as Emily had, but it is +gratifying to add, as surely. And now that loving couple might be seen, +weakly creeping out together, when the day was finest: tottering white +December leaning on a sickly fragile May. There were no concealments now +between them, no reservings, and heart-stricken Emily heard from her +repentant father's lips the story of her birth: she was, he said, his +own daughter by a native princess, the Begum Dowlia Burruckjutli.</p> + +<p>A bitter—bitter truth was that: the destruction of all her hopes, +pleasures, and affections. It had now become to her a sin to love that +dearest one of all things lovely on this earth: duty, paramount and +stern, commanded her, without a shadow of reprieve, to execute on +herself immediately the terrible sentence of banishing her own +betrothed: nay, more, she must forget him, erase his precious image from +her heart, and never, never see that brother more. And Charles must feel +the same, and do <a name="Page_230" id="Page_230"></a>the like; oh! sorrow, passing words! and their two +commingled souls must be violently wrenched apart; for such love in them +were crime.</p> + +<p>Dear children of affection—it is a dreadful lesson this for both of +you; but most wise, most needful—or the hand that guideth all things, +never would have sent it. Know ye not for comfort, that ye are of those +to whom all things work together for good? Know ye not for counsel, that +the excess of love is an idolatry that must be blighted? It is well, +children, it is well, that ye should thus carry your wounded hearts for +balm to the altar of God; it is well that ye should bow in meekness to +His will, in readiness to His wisdom. Ye are learning the lesson +speedily, as docile children should; and be assured of high reward from +the Teacher who hath set it you. Poor Charles! white and wan, thy cheek +is grown transparent with anxiety, and thy blue eye dim with hope +deferred: poor Emmy, sick and weak, thou weariest Heaven with thy +prayers, and waterest thy couch with thy tears. Yet, a little while; +this discipline is good: storm and wind, frost and rushing rains, are as +needful to the forest-tree as sun and gentle shower; the root is +strengthening, and its fibres spreading out: and loving still each other +with the best of human love, ye justly now have found out how to anchor +all your strongest hopes, and deepest thoughts, on Him who made you for +himself. Who knoweth? wisely acquiescing in His will, humbly trusting to +His mercy, and bringing the holocaust of your inflamed affections as an +offering of duty to your God—who knoweth? Cannot He interpose? will He +not befriend you? For His arm is power, and His heart is love.</p> + +<p>Days rolled on in dull monotony, and grew to weeks more slowly than +before; earthly hopes had been levelled with the dust; life had +forgotten to be joyous: there was, indeed, the calm, the peace, the +resignation, the heavenly ante-past, and the soul-entrancing prayer; but +human life to Emily was flat, wearisome, and void; she felt like a nun, +immolated as to this world: even as Charles, too, had resolved to be an +anchorite, a stern, hard, mortified man, who once had feelings and +affections. The rëaction in both those fond young hearts had even +overstept the golden mean: and Mercy interposed to make all right, and +to bless them in each other once again.</p> + +<p>Only look at this <i>billet-doux</i> from Charles, just come in, and dated +Plymouth:</p> + +<p>"Huzzah—for Emily and England: huzzah for the land of freedom! no +secrets now—dear, dear old Jeanie Mackie has given me proofs posi<a name="Page_231" id="Page_231"></a>tive: +all I have to wish is that she could move: but she is very ill; so, as +we touched here on the voyage up channel, I landed her and myself, +thinking to kiss, within a day, my darling Emmy. But I cannot get her +out of bed this morning, and dare not leave her: though an hour's delay +seems almost insupportable. If I possibly can manage it, I will bring +the dear old faithful creature, wrapped in blankets, by chaise +to-morrow. Tell my father all this: and say to him—he will understand, +perhaps, though you may not, my blessed girl—say to him, that 'he is +mistaken, and all are mistaken—you are not what they think you.' A +thousand kisses. Expect, then, on bright to-morrow to see your happy, +happy</p> + +<p class='author'>"<span class='smcap'>Charles.</span>"</p> + +<p>"P.S. Hip! hip! hip!—huzzah!"</p> + +<p>Dearest Emily had taken up the note with fears and trembling: she laid +it down, as they that reap in joy; and I never in my life saw any thing +so beautiful as her eyes at that glad minute; the smile through the +tear, the light through the gloom, the verdure of high summer springing +through the Alpine snows, the mild and lustrous moon emerging from a +baffled thunder-cloud.</p> + +<p>And, although the general mournfully shook his head, distrustfully and +despondingly; though he only uttered, "Poor children—dear +children—would to Heaven that it could be so;"—and he, for one, was +evidently innoculated, as before, with all the old thoughts of gloom, +sadness, and anxiety;—still Emily hoped-for Charles hoped—and Jeanie +Mackie was so certain.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIa" id="CHAPTER_XXVIa"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3> + +<h4>JULIAN.</h4> + + +<p>Next day, a fine summer afternoon, when our feeble convalescents had +gone out together, they found the fresh air so invigorating, and +themselves so much stronger, that they prolonged their walk half-way to +Oxton. The pasture-meadows, rich and rank, were alive with flocks and +herds; the blue sea lazily beat time, as, ticking out the seconds, it +melodiously broke upon the sleeping shore; the darkly-flowing Mullet +swept sounding to the sea between its tortuous banks; and upon that <a name="Page_232" id="Page_232"></a>old +high foot-path skirting the stream, now shady with hazels, and now +flowery with meadow-sweet, crept our chastened pair.</p> + +<p>Just as they were nearing a short angle in the river, the spot where +Charles had been preserved, they noticed for the first time a +rough-looking fisherman, who, unseen, had tracked their steps some +hundred yards; he had a tarpaulin over his shoulder, very unnecessarily, +as it would seem, on so fine and warm a day; and a slouching +sou'-wester, worn askew, flapped across the strange man's face.</p> + +<p>He came on quickly, though cautiously, looking right and left; and Emily +trembled on her guardian's feeble arm. Yes—she is right; the fisherman +approaches—she detects him through it all: and now he scorns disguise; +flinging off his cap and the tarpaulin, stands before them—Julian!</p> + +<p>"So, sir—you tremble now, do you, gallant general: give me the girl." +And he levelled at his father one of those double-barrelled pistols, +full-cock.</p> + +<p>"Julian, my son, I forgive you, Julian; take my hand, boy."</p> + +<p>"What—coward? now you can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!—the +girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging to that weak +old man.</p> + +<p>Julian levelled again; indeed, indeed it was only as a threat; but +his hand shook with passion—the weapon was full-cock, +hair-triggered—shotted heavily as always—hark, hark!—And his father +fell upon the turf, covered with blood!</p> + +<p>When a wicked man tampers with unintended crime, even accident falls out +against him. Many a one has richly merited death for many other sins, +than that isolated, haply accidental one which he has hanged for.</p> + +<p>Julian, horror-stricken, pale and trembling, flew instinctively to help +his father: but Emily has circled him already with her arms; and listen, +Julian—your dying father speaks to you.</p> + +<p>"Boy, I forgive—I forgive: but—Emily, no, no, cannot, cannot +be—Julian—she—she is your <i>sister</i>!" and the old man swooned away, +from loss of blood and the excitement of that awful scene.</p> + +<p>Not a word in reply said that poor sinner, maddened with his life-long +crimes, the fratricide in will, the parricide in deed, and all for—a +sister. But growing whiter as he stood, a marble man with bristling +hair, he slowly drew the other pistol from his pocket, put the muzzle to +his mouth, and, firing as he fell, leapt into the darkly-flowing Mullet!</p> + +<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a>The current, all too violent to sink in, and uncommissioned now to +save, hurried its black burden to the sea; and a crimson streak of gore +marked the track of the suicide.</p> + +<p>The old man was not dead; but a brace of bullets taking effect upon his +feeble frame—one through the shoulder, and another which had grazed his +head—had been quite enough to make him seem so. Forgetful of all but +that dear sufferer, and totally ignorant of Julian's fate—for she +neither saw nor heard any thing, nor feared even for her own imminent +peril, while her father lay dying on the grass—Emily had torn off her +scarf, and bound up, as well as she could, the ghastly scored head and +broken shoulder. She succeeded in staunching the blood—for no great +vessel had been severed—and so simple an application as grass dipped in +water, proved to be a good specific. Then, to her exceeding joy, those +eyes opened again, and that dear tongue faintly whispered—"Bless you."</p> + +<p>Oh, that blessing! for it fell upon her heart: and fervently she knelt +down there, and thanked the Great Preserver.</p> + +<p>And now, for friendly help; there is no one near: and it is growing +dusk; and she dared not leave him there alone one minute—for +Julian—dreaded Julian, may return, and kill him. What shall she do? How +to get him home? Alas, alas! he may die where he is lying.</p> + +<p>Hark, Emmy, hark! The shouts of happy children bursting out of school! +See, dearest—see: here they come homewards merrily from Oxton.</p> + +<p>Thus, rewarded through the instrumentality of her own benevolence, help +was speedily obtained; and Mrs. Sainsbury's invalid-chair, hurried to +the spot by an escort of indignant rustics, soon conveyed the recovering +patient to the comforts of his own home, and the appliances of medical +assistance.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIIa" id="CHAPTER_XXVIIa"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3> + +<h4>CHARLES'S RETURN; AND MRS. MACKIE'S EXPLANATION.</h4> + + +<p>And now the happy day was come at length; that day formerly so +hoped-for, latterly so feared, but last of all, hailed with the joy that +trembles at its own intensity. The very morning after the sad occurrence +it <a name="Page_234" id="Page_234"></a>has just been my lot to chronicle—while the general was having his +wounds dressed, slight ones, happily, but still he was not safe, as +inflammation might ensue—while Mrs. Tracy was indulging in her third +tumbler, mixed to whet her appetite for shrimps—and while Emily was +deciphering, for the forty thousandth time, Charles's sanguine +<i>billet-doux</i>—lo! a dusty chaise and smoking posters, and a sun-burnt +young fellow springing out, and just upon the stairs—they were locked +in each other's arms!</p> + +<p>Oh, the rapture of that instant! it can but happen once within a life. +Ye that have loved, remember such a meeting; and ye that never loved, +conceive it if you can; for my pen hath little skill to paint so bright +a pleasure. It is to be all heart, all pulse, all sympathy, all +spirit—but the warm soft kiss, that rarified bloom of the Material.</p> + +<p>How the sick old nurse got out, cased in many blankets; how she was +bundled up stairs, and deposited safely on a sofa, no poet is alive to +sing: to those who would record the payment of postillions, let me leave +so sweet a theme.</p> + +<p>The first fond greeting over, and those tumults of affection sobered +down, Charles rejoiced to find how lovingly the general met him; the +kind and good old man fell upon his neck, as the father in the parable. +Many things were then to be made known: and many questions answered, as +best might be, about a mother and a brother; but well aware of all +things ourselves, let us be satisfied that Charles heard in due time all +they had to tell him; though neither Emily nor the general could explain +what had become of Julian after that terrible encounter. In their +belief, he had fled for very life, thinking he had killed his father. +Poor wretched man, thought Charles—on that same spot, too, where he +would have murdered me! And for his mother—why came she not down +eagerly and happily, as mothers ever do, to greet her long-lost son? Do +not ask, Charles; do not press the question. Think her ill, dying, +dead—any thing but—drunken. He ran to her room-door; but it was +locked—luckily.</p> + +<p>Now, Charles—now speedily to business; happy business that, if I may +trust the lover's flushing cheek, and Emily's radiant eyes; but a +mournful one too, and a fearful, if I turn my glance to that poor old +man, wounded in body and stricken in mind—who waits to hear, in more +despondency than hope, what he knows to be the bitter truth—the truth +that must be told, to the misery of those dear children.</p> + +<p>Faint and weak though she appeared, Jeanie Mackie's waning life +<a name="Page_235" id="Page_235"></a>spirited up for the occasion; her dim eye kindled; her feeble frame was +straight and strong; energy nerved her as she spoke; this hour is the +errand of her being.</p> + +<p>Long she spoke, and loudly, in her broad Scotch way; and the general +objected many things, but was answered to them all; and there was close +cross-questioning, slow-caution, keen examination of documents and +letters: catechisms, solecisms, Scottisms; reminiscences rubbed up, +mistakes corrected; and the grand result of all, Emily a Stuart, and the +general not her father! I am only enabled to give a brief account of +that important colloquy.</p> + +<p>It appears, that when Captain Tracy's company was quartered to the west +of the Gwalior, sent thither to guard the Begum Dowlia against sundry of +her disaffected subjects, a certain Lieutenant James Stuart was one +among those welcome brave allies. That our gallant Tracy was the +beautiful Begum's favourite soon became notorious to all; and not less +so, that the Begum herself was precisely in the same interesting +situation as Mrs. James Stuart. The two ladies, Pagan and Christian, +were, technically speaking, running a race together. Well, just as times +drew nigh, poor Lieutenant Stuart was unfortunately killed in an +insurrection headed by some fanatics, who disapproved of foreign +friends, and perhaps of their princess's situation. His death proved +fatal also to that kind and faithful wife of his—a dark Italian lady of +high family, whose love for James had led her to follow him even into +Central Hindoostan: she died in giving birth to a babe; and Jeanie +Mackie, the lieutenant's own foster-mother, who waited on his wife +through all their travels, assisted the poor orphan into this bleak +world, and loved it as her own.</p> + +<p>Two days after all this, the Begum herself had need of Mrs. Mackie: for +it was prudent to conceal some things, if she could, from certain +Brahmins, who were to her what John Knox had erstwhile been to Mary: and +Jeanie Mackie, burdened with her little Amy Stuart, aided in the birth +of a female Tracy-Begum. So, the nurse tended both babes; and more than +once had marvelled at their general resemblance; Amy's mother looked out +again from those dark eyes; there was not a shade between the children.</p> + +<p>Now, Mrs. Mackie perceived, in a very little while, how fond both +Christian and Pagan appeared of their own child; and how little notice +was taken by any body of the poor Scotch gentleman's orphan. +Accordingly, with a view to give her favourite all worldly advantages, +she adroitly <a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"></a>changed the children; and, while she was still kind and +motherly to the little Tracy-Begum, she had the satisfaction to see her +pet supposititiously brought up in all the splendours of an Eastern +court.</p> + +<p>Years wore away, for Captain Tracy was quite happy, the Begum being a +fine showy woman, and the pretty child his playmate and pastime: so he +never cared to stir from his rich quarters, till the company's orders +forced him: and then Puttymuddyfudgepoor hailed him accumulatively both +major and colonel.</p> + +<p>When he found that he must go, he insisted on carrying off the child; +and the Begum was as resolute against it. Then Mrs. Mackie, eager to +expedite little Stuart in her escape, went to the princess, told her how +that, in anticipation of this day, she had changed the children, and got +great rewards for thus restoring to the mother her own offspring.</p> + +<p>The remainder of that old Scotch nurse's very prosy tale may be left to +be imagined: for all that was essential has been stated: and the +documents in proof of all were these—</p> + +<p>First: The marriage certificates of James Stuart and Ami di Romagna, +duly attested, both in the Protestant and Romanist forms.</p> + +<p>Secondly: Divers letters to Lieutenant Stewart from his friends at +Glenmuir; others to Mrs. Stuart, from her father, the old Marquis di +Romagna, at Naples: several trinkets, locks of hair, the wedding-ring, +&c.</p> + +<p>Thirdly: A grant written in the Hindoostanee character, from the Begum +Dowlia, promising the pension of thirty rupees a month to Jeanie Mackie, +for having so cleverly preserved to her the child: together with a +regular judicial acknowledgement, both from several of Tracy's own +sepoys, and from the Begum herself, that the girl, whom Captain Tracy +was so fond of, was, to the best of their belief, Amy Stuart.</p> + +<p>Fourthly: A miniature of Mrs. James Stuart, exactly portraying the +features of her daughter—this bright, beautiful, dark-eyed face—our +own beloved Emily Warren.</p> + +<p>And to all that accumulated evidence, Jeanie Mackie bore her living +testimony; clearly, unhesitatingly, and well assured, in the face of God +and man.</p> + +<p>Doubt was at an end; fear was at an end; hope was come, and joy. Happy +were the lovers, happy Jeanie Mackie, but happiest of all appeared the +general himself. For now she might be his daughter indeed, sweet Emmy +Tracy still, dear Charles's loving wife. And he blessed them as they +knelt, and gave them to each other; well-rewarded children of affection, +who had prayed in their distress!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIIIa" id="CHAPTER_XXVIIIa"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h3> + +<h4>JULIAN TURNS UP: AND THERE'S AN END OF MRS. TRACY.</h4> + + +<p>There is a muddy sort of sand-bank, acting as a delta to the Mullet, +just where it spreads from deep to shallow, and falls into the sea. +Strange wild fowl abound there, coming from the upper clouds in flocks; +and at high water, very little else but rushes can be seen, to testify +its sub-marine existence.</p> + +<p>A knot of fishermen, idling on the beach, have noticed an uncommon +flight of Royston crows gathered at the island, with the object, as it +would appear, of battening on a dead porpoise, or some such body, just +discernible among the rushes. Stop—that black heap may be kegs of +whiskey;—where's the glass?</p> + +<p>Every one looked: it warn't barrels—and it warn't a porpoise: what was +it, then? they had universally nothing on earth to do, so they pushed +off in company to see.</p> + +<p>I watched the party off, and they poked among the rushes, and heaved out +what seemed to me a seal: so I ran down to the beach to look at the +strange creature they had captured. Something wrapped in a sail; no +doubt for exhibition at per head.</p> + +<p>But they brought out that black burden solemnly, laying it on the beach +at Burleigh: a crowd quickly collected round them, that I could not see +the creature: and some ran for a magistrate, and some for a parson. Then +men in office came—made a way through the crowd, and I got near: so +near, that my foolish curiosity lifted up the sail, and I beheld—what +had been Julian.</p> + +<p>O, sickening sight: for all which the pistol had spared of that swart +and hairy face, had been preyed upon by birds and fishes!</p> + +<p>There was a hurried inquest: the poor general and Emily deposed to what +they knew, and the rustics, who escorted him from Oxton. The verdict +could be only one—self-murder.</p> + +<p>So, by night, on that same swampy island, when the tide was low, they +buried him, deeply staked into the soil, lest the waves should disinter +him, without a parting prayer. Such is the end of the wicked.</p> + +<p>In a day or two, I noticed that a rude wooden cross had been set over +the spot: and it gratified me much to hear that a rough-looking crew of +smugglers had boldly come and fixed it there, to hallow, if they could, +a comrade's grave.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238"></a>However, these poor fellows had been cheated hours before: Charles's +brotherly care had secured the poor remains, and the vicar winked a +blind permission: so Charles buried them by night in the church-yard +corner, under the yew, reading many prayers above them.</p> + +<p>Two fierce-looking strange men went to that burial with reverent looks, +as it were chief mourners; and when all the rites were done, I heard +them gruffly say to Charles, "God bless you, sir, for this!"</p> + +<p>When the mother heard those tidings of her son, she was sobered on the +instant, and ran about the house with all a mother's grief, shrieking +like a mad woman. But all her shrieks and tears could not bring back +poor Julian; deep, deep in the silent grave, she cannot wake him—cannot +kiss him now. Ah well! ah well!</p> + +<p>Then did she return to his dear room, desperate for him—and Hollands +once, twice, thrice, she poured out a full tumbler of the burning fluid, +and drank it off like water; and it maddened her brain: her mind was in +a phrensy of delirium, while her body shook as with a palsy.</p> + +<p>Let us draw the curtain; for she died that night.</p> + +<p>They buried her in Aunt Green's grave: what a meeting theirs will be at +the day of resurrection!</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIXa" id="CHAPTER_XXIXa"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h3> + +<h4>THE OLD SCOTCH NURSE GOES HOME.</h4> + + +<p>Six months at least—this is clearly not a story of the unities—six +months' interval must now elapse before the wedding-day. Charles and +Emmy—for he called her Emmy still, though Jeanie Mackie would persist +in mouthing it to "Aamy,"—wished to have it delayed a year, in respect +for the memory of those who, with all their crime and folly, were not +the less a mother and a brother: but the general would not hear of such +a thing; he was growing very old, he said; although actually he seemed +to have taken out a new lease of life, so young again and buoyant was +the new-found heart within him; and thus growing old, he was full of +fatherly fear that he should not live to see his children's happiness. +It was only reasonable and proper that our pair of cooing doves should +acquiesce in his desire.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239"></a>Meanwhile, I am truly sorry to say it, Jeanie Mackie died; for it would +have been a good novel-like incident to have suffered the faithful old +creature to have witnessed her favourite's wedding, and then to have +been forthwith killed out of the way, by—perishing in the vestry. +However, things were ordered otherwise, and Jeanie Mackie did not live +to see the wedding: if you wish to know how and where she died, let me +tell you at once.</p> + +<p>Scotland—Argyleshire—Glenmuir; this was the focus of her hopes and +thoughts—that poor old Indian exile! She had left it, as a buxom +bright-haired lassie: but oaks had now grown old that she had planted +acorns; and grandmothers had died palsied, whom she remembered born; +still, around the mountains and the lakes, those changeless features of +her girlhood's rugged home, the old woman's memory wandered; they were +pictured in her mind's eye hard, and clear, and definite as if she +looked upon them now. And her soul's deep hope was to see them once +again.</p> + +<p>There was yet another object which made her yearn for Scotland. +Lieutenant Stuart had been the younger of two brothers, the eldest born +of whom became, upon his father's, the old laird's, death, Glenmuir and +Glenmurdock. Now, though twice married, this elder brother, the new +laird, never had a child; and the clear consequence was, that Amy Stuart +was likely to become sole heiress of her ancestor's possessions. The +lieutenant's marriage with an Italian and a Romanist had been, +doubtless, any thing but pleasant to his friends; the strict old +Presbyterians, and the proud unsullied family of Stuart, could not +palate it at all. Nevertheless, he did marry the girl, according to the +rites of both churches, and there was an end of it; so, innumerable +proverbs coming to their aid about "curing and enduring" and "must +be's," and the place where "marriages are made," &c., the several aunts +and cousins were persuaded at length to wink at the iniquity, and to +correspond both with Mrs. James and her backsliding lieutenant. Of the +offspring of that marriage, and her orphaned state, and of Mrs. Mackie's +care, and the indefinite detention in central Hindostan, they had heard +often-times; for, as there is no corner of the world where a Scot may +not be met with, so, with laudable nationality, they all hang together; +and Glenmuir was written to frequently, all about the child, through +Jeanie Mackie, "her mark," and a scholarly sergeant, Duncan Blair.</p> + +<p>Amy's rights—or Emmy let us call her still, as Charles did—were now, +therefore, the next object of Mrs. Mackie's zeal; and all parties +<a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a>interested willingly listened to the plan of spending one or two of +those weary weeks in rubbing up relationships in Scotland; the general +also was not a little anxious about heritage and acres. Accordingly, off +they set in the new travelling-carriage, with due notice of approach, +heartily welcomed, to Dunstowr Castle, the fine old feudal stronghold of +Robert Stuart, Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock.</p> + +<p>The journey, the arrival, and the hearty hospitality; and how the gray +old chieftain kissed his pretty niece; and how welcome her betrothed +Charles and her kind life-long guardian, and her faithful nurse were +made; and how the beacons blazed upon the hill-tops, and the mustering +clan gathered round about old Dunstowr; and how the laird presented to +them all their beautiful future mistress, and how Jeanie Mackie and her +documents travelled up to Edinburgh, where writers to the signet +pestered her heart-sick with over-caution; and how the case was all +cleared up, and the distant disappointed cousin, who had irrationally +hoped to be the heir, was gladdened, if not satisfied, with a pension +and a cantle of Glenmuir; and how all was joyfulness and feasting, when +Amy Stuart was acknowledged in her rights—the bagpipes and the wassail, +salmon, and deer, and black-cock, with a river of mountain dew: let +others tell who know Dunstowr; for as I never was there, of course I +cannot faithfully describe it. Should such an historian as I condescend +to sheer inventions?</p> + +<p>With respect to Jeanie Mackie, I could learn no more than this: she was +sprightly and lively, and strong as ever, though in her ninetieth year, +till her foster-child was righted, and the lawyers had allowed her her +claim. But then there seemed nothing else to live for; so her life +gradually faded from her eye, as an expiring candle; and she would doze +by the hour, sitting on a settle in the sun, basking her old heart in +the smile of those old mountains. None knew when she died, to a minute; +for she died sitting in the sun, in the smile of those old mountains.</p> + +<p>They buried her, with much of rustic pomp, in the hill-church of +Glenmuir, where all her fathers slept around her; and Emily and Charles, +hand-in-hand, walked behind her coffin mournfully.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241"></a></p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXa" id="CHAPTER_XXXa"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h3> + +<h4>FINAL.</h4> + + +<p>Gladly would the laird have had marriage at Dunstower, and have given +away the beauteous bride himself: but there must still be two months +more of decent mourning, and the general had long learned to sigh for +the maligned delights of Burleigh Singleton. So, Glenmuir could only get +a promise of reappearance some fine summer or other: and, after another +day's deer-stalking, which made the general repudiate telescopes from +that day forth (the poor man's eyes had actually grown lobster-like with +straining after antlers)—the travelling-carriage, and four lean kine +from Inverary, whisked away the trio towards the South.</p> + +<p>And now, in due time, were the Tamworths full of joy—congratulating, +sympathizing, merrymaking; and the three young ladies behaved admirably +in the capacity of pink and silver bridesmaids; while George proved +equally kind in attending (as he called it) Charles's "execution," +wherein he was "turned off;" and the admiral, G.C.B. was so +hand-in-glove with the general, H.E.I.C.S., that I have reason to +believe they must have sworn eternal friendship, after the manner of the +modern Germans.</p> + +<p>How beautiful our Emmy looked—I hate the broad Scotch Aamy—how bright +her flashing eyes, and how fragrantly the orange-blossoms clustered in +her rich brown hair; let him speak lengthily, whose province it may be +to spin three volumes out of one: for me, I always wish to recollect +that readers possess, on the average, at least as much imagination as +writers. And why should you not exercise it now? Is not Emmy in her +bridal-dress a theme well worth a revery?</p> + +<p>For a similar reason, I must clearly disappoint feminine expectation, by +forbearing to descant upon Charles's slight but manly form, and his +Grecian beauty, &c., all the better for the tropics, and the trials and +the troubles he had passed.</p> + +<p>When Captain Forbes, just sitting down to his soup in the Jamaica +Coffee-house, read in the <i>Morning Post</i>, the marriage of Charles Tracy +with Amy Stuart, he delivered himself mentally as follows:</p> + +<p>"There now! Poets talk of 'love,' and I stick to 'human nature.' When +that fine young fellow sailed with me, hardly a year ago, in the Sir +William Elphinston, he was over head and heels in love with old<a name="Page_242" id="Page_242"></a> Jack +Tracy's pretty girl, Emily Warren: but I knew it wouldn't last long: I +don't believe in constancy for longer than a week. It does one's heart +good to see how right one is; here's what I call proof. My sentimental +spark kisses Emily Warren, and marries Amy Stuart." The captain, happier +than before, called complacently for Cayenne pepper, and relished his +mock-turtle with a higher gusto.</p> + +<p>It is worth recording, that the same change of name mystified slanderous +friends in the Presidency of Madras.</p> + +<p>And now, kind-eyed reader, this story of '<i>The Twins</i>' must leave off +abruptly at the wedding. As in its companion-tale, '<i>The Crock of +Gold</i>,' one grand thesis for our thoughts was that holy wise command, +"Thou shall not covet," and as its other comrade '<i>Heart</i>' is founded on +"Thou shalt not bear false witness," so in this, the seed-corn of the +crop, were five pure words, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Other +morals doubtless grew up round us, for all virtue hangs together in a +bunch: the harms of secresy, false witness, inordinate affections, and +red murder: but in chief, as we have said.</p> + +<p>Moreover, I wish distinctly to make known, for dear "domestic" sake, +that so far from our lovers' happiness having been consummated (that is, +finished) in the honey-moon—it was only then begun. How long they are +to live thus happily together, Heaven, who wills all things good, alone +can tell; I wish them three score years. Little ones, I hear, arrive +annually—to the unqualified joy, not merely of papa and mamma, but also +of our communicative old general, his friend the G.C.B., and (all but +most of any) the Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock, whose heart has been +entirely rejoiced by Charles Tracy having added to his name, and to his +children's names, that of Stuart.</p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Stuart are often at Glenmuir; but oftener at +Burleigh, where the general, I fancy, still resides. He protests that he +never will keep a secret again: long may he live to say so!</p> + + +<h4>END OF THE TWINS.</h4> + + + <h1><a name="HEART" id="HEART"></a>HEART;</h1> + + <h2>A SOCIAL NOVEL.</h2> + + <h4>BY</h4> + + <h2>MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S.</h2> + + <h4>AUTHOR OF</h4> + + <h3>PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY.</h3> + + <p class='center'>HARTFORD:<br /> + PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON.<br /> + 1851.<br /><br /></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Ib"><b>CHAPTER I.—WHEREIN TWO ANXIOUS PARENTS HOLD A COLLOQUY</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IIb"><b>CHAPTER II.—HOW THE DAUGHTER HAS A HEART; AND, WHAT IS COMMONER, A LOVER</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIb"><b>CHAPTER III.—PATERNAL AMIABILITIES</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IVb"><b>CHAPTER IV.—EXCUSATORY</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Vb"><b>CHAPTER V.—WHEREIN A WELL-MEANING MOTHER ACTS VERY FOOLISHLY</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIb"><b>CHAPTER VI.—PLEASANT BROTHER JOHN</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIb"><b>CHAPTER VII.—PROVIDENCE SEES FIT TO HELP VILLANY</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIb"><b>CHAPTER VIII.—THE ROGUE'S TRIUMPH</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IXb"><b>CHAPTER IX.—FALSE-WITNESS KILLS A MOTHER, AND WOULD WILLINGLY STARVE A SISTER</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Xb"><b>CHAPTER X.—HOW TO HELP ONE'S SELF</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIb"><b>CHAPTER XI.—FRAUD CUTS HIS FINGERS WITH HIS OWN EDGED TOOLS</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIIb"><b>CHAPTER XII.—HEART'S-CORE</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIIIb"><b>CHAPTER XIII.—HOPE'S BIRTH TO INNOCENCE, AND HOPE'S DEATH TO FRAUD</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIVb"><b>CHAPTER XIV.—PROBABLE RECONCILIATION</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVb"><b>CHAPTER XV.—THE FATHER FINDS HIS HEART FOR EVER</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIb"><b>CHAPTER XVI.—A WORD ABOUT ORIGINALITY, AND MOURNING</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIIb"><b>CHAPTER XVII.—THE HOUSE OF FEASTING</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIIIb"><b>CHAPTER XVIII.—THE END OF THE HEARTLESS</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIXb"><b>CHAPTER XIX.—WHEREIN MATTERS ARE CONCLUDED</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /></p> +<h2>HEART.</h2> +<p><br /></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_Ib" id="CHAPTER_Ib"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3><h3>WHEREIN TWO ANXIOUS PARENTS HOLD A COLLOQUY.</h3> +</div> + +<p>"Is he rich, ma'am? is he rich? ey? what—what? is he rich?"</p> + +<p>Sir Thomas was a rapid little man, and quite an epicure in the use of +that luscious monosyllable.</p> + +<p>"Is he rich, Lady Dillaway? ey? what?"</p> + +<p>"Really, Thomas, you never give me time to answer," replied the +quintescence of quietude, her ladyship; "and then it is perpetually the +same question, and—"</p> + +<p>"Well, ma'am, can there be a more important question asked? I repeat it, +is he rich? ey? what?</p> + +<p>"You know, Sir Thomas, we never are agreed about the meaning of that +word; but I should say, very."</p> + +<p>As Lady Dillaway always spoke quite softly in a whisper, she had failed +to enlighten the knight; but he seemed, notwithstanding, to have caught +her intention instinctively; for he added, in his impetuous, imperious +way,</p> + +<p>"No nonsense now, about talents and virtues, and all such trash; but +quick, ma'am, quick—is the man rich?"</p> + +<p>"In talents, as you mention the word, certainly, very rich; a more +clever or accomplished—"</p> + +<p>"Cut it short, ma'am—cut it short, I say—I'll have no adventurers, who +live by their wits, making up to my daughter—pedantic puppies, good for +ushers, nothing else. What do they mean by knowing so much? ey? what?"</p> + +<p>"And then, Sir Thomas, if you will only let me speak, a man of purer +morals, finer feelings, higher Christian—"</p> + +<p>"Bah! well enough for curates: go on, ma'am—go on, and make haste to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span>the point of all points—is he rich?"</p> + +<p>"You know I never will make haste, Thomas, for I never can have +patience, and you shall hear; I am little in the habit of judging people +entirely by their purses, not even a son-in-law, provided there is a +sufficiency on the one side or the other for—"</p> + +<p>"Quick, mum—quick—rich—rich? will the woman drive me mad?" and Sir +Thomas Dillaway, Knight, rattled loose cash in both pockets more +vindictively than ever. But the spouse, nothing hurried, still crept on +in her <i>sotto voce adantino</i> style,</p> + +<p>"Mr. Clements owes nothing, has something, and above and beside all his +good heart, good mind, good fame, good looks, good family, possesses a +contented—"</p> + +<p>"Pish! contented, bah!" our hasty knight's nose actually curled upwards +in utter scorn as he added, "Now, that's enough—quite enough. I'll bet +a plum the man's poor. Contented indeed! did you ever know a rich man +yet who was contented—ey? mum—ey? or a poor one that wasn't—ey? what? +I've no patience with those contented fellows: it's my belief they +steal away the happiness of monied men. If this Mr. Clements was rich—rich, +one wouldn't mind so much about talents, virtues, and contentment—work-house +blessings; but the man's poor, I know it—poo-o-or!"</p> + +<p>Sir Thomas had a method quite his own of pronouncing those contradictory +monosyllables, rich and poor: the former he gave out with an unctuous, +fish-saucy gusto, and the word seemed to linger on his palate as a +delicious morsel in the progress of delightful deglutition; but when he +uttered the word poor, it was with that "mewling and puking" miserable +face, appropriated from time immemorial to the gulping of a black +draught.</p> + +<p>"No, Lady Dillaway, right about's the next word I shall say to that +smooth-looking pauper, Mr. Henry Clements—to think of his impudence, +making up to my daughter, indeed! a poo-o-o-r man, too."</p> + +<p>"I did not tell you he was poor, Sir Thomas: you have run away with that +idea on your own account: the young man has enough for the present, owes +nothing for the past, and reasonable expectations for the—</p> + +<p>"Future, I suppose, ey? what? I hate futures, all the lot of 'em: cash +down, ready money, bird in the hand, that's my ticket, mum: +expectations, indeed! Well, go on—go on; I'm as patient as a—as a +mule, you see; go on, will you; I may as well hear it all out, Lady +Dillaway."</p> + +<p>"Well, Sir Thomas, since you think so little of the future, I will not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span> +insist on expectations; though I really can only excuse your methods of +judging by the fancy that you are far too prudent in fearing for the +future: however, if you will not admit this, let me take you on your own +ground, the present; perhaps Mr. Clements may not possess quite as much +as I could wish him, but then surely, dear Thomas, our daughter must +have more than—"</p> + +<p>I object to seeing oaths in print; unless it must be once in a way, as a +needful point of character: probably the reader's sagacity will supply +many omissions of mine in the eloquence of Sir Thomas Dillaway and +others. But his calm spouse, nothing daunted, quietly whispered on—"You +know, Thomas, you have boasted to me that your capital is doubling every +year; penny-postage has made the stationery business most prosperous; +and if you were wealthy when the old king knighted you as lord mayor, +surely you can spare something handsome now for an only daughter, who—"</p> + +<p>"Ma'am!" almost barked the affectionate father, "if Maria marries money, +she shall have money, and plenty of it, good girl; but if she will +persist in wedding a beggar, she may starve, mum, starve, and all her +poverty-stricken brats too, for any pickings they shall get out of my +pocket. Ey? what? you pretend to read your Bible, mum—don't you know +we're commanded to 'give to him that hath, and to take away from him +that—'"</p> + +<p>"For shame, Sir Thomas Dillaway!" interrupted the wife, as well she +might, for all her quietude: she was a good sort of woman, and her +better nature aroused its wrath at this vicious application of a truth +so just when applied to morals and graces, so bitterly iniquitous in the +case of this world's wealth. I wish that our ex-lord mayor's distorted +text may not be one of real and common usage. So, silencing her lord, +whose character it was to be overbearing to the meek, but cringing to +any thing like rebuke or opposition, she forthwith pushed her +advantages, adding—</p> + +<p>"Your income is now four thousand a-year, as you have told me, Thomas, +every hour of every day, since your last lucky hit in the government +contract for blue-elephants and whitey-browns. We have only John and +Maria; and John gets enough out of his own stock-brokering business to +keep his curricle and belong to clubs—and—alas! my fears are many for +my poor dear boy—I often wish, Thomas, that our John was not so well +supplied with money: whereas, poor Maria—"</p> + +<p>"Tush, ma'am, you're a fool, and have no respect at all for monied men. +Jack's a rich man, mum—knows a trick or two, sticks at noth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span>ing on +'Change, shrewd fellow, and therefore, of course I don't stint him: ha! +he's a regular Witney comforter, that boy—makes money—ay, for all his +seeming extravagance, the clever little rogue knows how to keep it, too. +If you only knew, ma'am, if you only knew—but we don't blab to fools."</p> + +<p>I dare say "fools" will hear the wise man's secret some day.</p> + +<p>"Well, Thomas, I am sure I have no wish to pry into business +transactions; all my present hope is to help the cause of our poor dear +Maria."</p> + +<p>"Don't call the girl 'poor,' Lady Dillaway; it's no recommendation, I +can tell you, though it may be true enough. Girls are a bad spec, unless +they marry money. If our girl does this, well; she will indeed be to me +a dear Maria, though not a poo-o-o-r one; if she doesn't, let her bide, +and be an old maid; for as to marrying this fellow Clement's, I'll cut +him adrift to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"If you do, Sir Thomas, you will break our dear child's heart."</p> + +<p>"Heart, ma'am! what business has my daughter with a heart?" [what, +indeed?] "I hate hearts; they were sent, I believe, purposely to make +those who are plagued with 'em poo-o-o-r. Heart, indeed! When did heart +ever gain money? ey? what? It'll give, O yes, plenty—plenty, to +charities, and churches, and orphans, and beggars, and any thing else, +by way of getting rid of gold; but as to gaining—bah! heart +indeed—pauperizing bit of muscle! save me from wearing under my +waistcoat what you're pleased to call a heart. No, mum, no; if the girl +has got a heart to break, I've done with her. Heart indeed! she either +marries money and my blessing, or marries beggary and my curse. But I +should like to know who wants her to marry at all? Let her die an old +maid."</p> + +<p>Probably this dialogue need go no farther: in the coming chapter we will +try to be didactic. Meantime, to apostrophize ten words upon that last +heartless sentence:</p> + +<p>"Let her die an old maid." An old maid! how many unrecorded sorrows, how +much of cruel disappointment and heart-cankering delay, how often-times +unwritten tragedies are hidden in that thoughtless little phrase! O, the +mass of blighted hopes, of slighted affections, of cold neglect, and +foolish contumely, wrapped up in those three syllables! Kind heart, kind +heart, never use them; neither lightly as in scorn, nor sadly as in +pity: spare that ungenerous reproach. What! canst thou think that from a +feminine breast the lover, the wife, the mother, can be utterly sponged +away without long years of bitterness? Can Nature's wounds be +cicatrized, or her soft feelings seared, without a thousand secret +pangs? Hath it been no trial to see youthful bloom departing, and middle +age creep on, without some intimate one to share the solitude of life? +Ay, and the coming prospect too—hath it greater consolations than the +retrospect? How faintly common friends can fill that hollow of the +heart! How feebly can their kindness, at the warmest, imitate the +sympathies and love of married life! And in the days of sickness, or the +hour of death—to be lonely, childless, husbandless, to be lightly cared +for, little missed—who can wonder that all those bruised and broken +yearnings should ferment within the solitary mind, and some, times sour +up the milk of human kindness? Be more considerate, more just, more +loving to that injured heart of woman; it hath loved deeply in its day; +but imperative duty or untoward circumstances nipped those early +blossoms, and often generosity towards others, or the constancy of +youthful blighted love, has made it thus alone. There was an age in this +world's history, and may be yet again (if Heart is ever to be monarch of +this social sphere), when those who lived and died as Jephthah's +daughter, were reckoned worthily with saints and martyrs; Heed thou, +thus, of many such, for they have offered up their hundred warm +yearnings, a hecatomb of human love, to God, the betrothed of their +affections; and they move up and down among this inconsiderate world, +doing good, Sisters of Charity, full of pure benevolence, and beneficent +beyond the widow's mite. Heed kinder then, and blush for very shame, O +man and woman! looking on this noble band of ill-requited virgins; +remember all their trials, and imitate their deeds; for among the legion +of that unreguarded sisterhood whom you coldly call old maids, are often +seen the world's chief almoners of warm unselfish sympathy, generous in +mind, if not in means, and blooming with the immortal youth of charity +and kindliness.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IIb" id="CHAPTER_IIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3><h3>HOW THE DAUGHTER HAS A HEART; AND, WHAT IS COMMONER, A LOVER.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Yes, Maria Dillaway, though Sir Thomas's own daughter, had a heart, a +warm and good one: it was her only beauty, but assuredly at once the +best adornment and cosmetic in the world. The mixture of two such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> +conflicting characters as her father and mother might (with common +Providence to bless the pair) unitedly produce heart; although their +plebeian countenances could hardly be expected without a direct miracle +to generate beauty. Maria inherited from her father at once his +impetuosity and his little button-nose: although the latter was neither +purple nor pimply, and the former was more generous and better directed: +from her mother she derived what looked to any one at first sight very +like red hair, along with great natural sweetness of disposition: albeit +her locks had less of fire, and her sweetness more of it: sympathy was +added to gentleness, zeal to patience, and universal tenderness to a +general peace with all the world; for that extreme quietude, almost +apathy, alluded to before, having been superseded by paternal +impetuosity, the result of all was Heart. She doated on her mother; and +(how she contrived this, it is not quite so easy to comprehend) she +found a great deal loveable even in her father. But in fact she loved +every body. Charity was the natural atmosphere of her kind and feeling +soul—always excusing, assisting, comforting, blessing; charity lent +music to her tongue, and added beauty to her eyes—charity gave grace to +an otherwise ordinary figure, and lit her freckled cheek with the spirit +of loveliness. Let us be just—nay, more: let us be partial, to the good +looks of poor dear Maria. Notwithstanding the snub nose (it is not +snub; who says it is snub?—it is <i>mignon</i>, personified good +nature)—notwithstanding the carroty hair (I declare, it was nothing but +a fine pale auburn after all)—notwithstanding the peppered face (oh, +how sweetly rayed with smiles!) and the common figure (gentle, +unobtrusive, full of delicate attentions)—yes, notwithstanding all +these unheroinals, no one who had a heart himself could look upon Maria +without pleasure and approval. She was the very incarnation of +cheerfulness, kindness, and love: you forgot the greenish colour of +those eyes which looked so tenderly at you, and so often-times were +dimmed with tears of unaffected pity; her smile, at any rate, was most +enchanting, the very sunshine of an amiable mind; her lips dropped +blessings; her brow was an open plain of frankness and candour; +sincerity, warmth, disinterested sweet affections threw such a lustre of +loveliness over her form, as well might fascinate the mind alive to +spiritual beauty: and altogether, in spite of natural defects and +disadvantages—<i>nez retroussé</i>, Cleopatra locks, and all—no one but +those constituted like her materialized father and his kind, ever looked +upon Maria without unconsciously admiring her, he scarcely knew for +what. Though there appeared little to praise, there certainly was every +thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> to please; and faulty as in all pictorial probability was each +lineament of face and line of form, taken separately and by detail, the +veil of universal charity softened and united them into one harmonious +whole, making of Maria Dillaway a most pleasant, comfortable, wife-like +little personage.</p> + +<p>At least, so thought Henry Clements. Neither was it any sudden +fortnight's fancy, but the calm consideration of two full years. Maria's +was a character which grew upon your admiration gradually—a character +to like at first just a little; then to be led onwards imperceptibly +from liking to loving; and thence from fervid summer probably to fever +heat. She dawned upon young Henry like the blush of earliest morn, still +shining brighter and fairer till glorious day was come.</p> + +<p>He had casually made her acquaintance in the common social circle, and +even on first introduction had been much pleased, not to say captivated, +with her cordial address, frank unsophisticated manners, and winsome +looks; he contrasted her to much advantage with the affected coquette, +the cold formal prude, the flippant woman of fashion, the empty heads +and hollow hearts wherewithal society is peopled. He had long been +wearied out with shallow courtesies, frigid compliments, and other +conventional hypocrisies, up and down the world; and wanted something +better to love than mere surface beauty, mere elegant accomplishment—in +a word, he yearned for Heart, and found the object of his longings in +affectionate Maria.</p> + +<p>This first casual acquaintance he had of course taken every opportunity +to improve as best he might, and happily found himself more and more +charmed on every fresh occasion. How heartily glad she was to see him! +how unaffectedly sincere in her amiable joy! how like a kind sister, a +sympathizing friend, a very true-love—a dear, cheerful, warm-hearted +girl, who would make the very model for a wife!</p> + +<p>It is little wonder that, with all external drawbacks, now well-nigh +forgotten, the handsome Henry Clements found her so attractive; nor +that, following diligently his points of advantage, he progressed from +acquaintanceship to intimacy, and intimacy to avowed admiration; and +thence (between ourselves) to the resolute measure of engagement.</p> + +<p>I say between ourselves, because nobody else in the world knew it but +the billing pair of lovers; and even they have got the start of us only +by a few hours. As for Henry Clements, he was a free man in all senses, +with nobody to bias his will or control his affections—an orphan, +unclogged by so much as an uncle or aunt to take him to task on the +score of his attachment, or to plague him with impertinent advice. His +father, Captain Clements of the seventieth, had fallen "gloriously" on +the bloody field of Waterloo, and the pensioned widow had survived her +gallant hero barely nine winters; leaving little Henry thrown upon the +wide world at ten years of age, under the nominal guardianship of some +very distant Ulster cousin of her own, a Mackintosh, Mackenzie, or +Macfarlane—it is not yet material which; and as for the lad's little +property, his poor patrimony of two hundred a-year had hitherto amply +sufficed for Harrow and for Cambridge (where he had distinguished +himself highly), for his chambers in the Temple, and his quiet +bachelor-mode of life as a man of six-and-twenty.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, our lover took counsel of nobody but Maria's beaming eyes, +when he almost unconsciously determined to lay siege to her: he really +could not make up his mind to the preliminary formal process of storming +Sir Thomas in his counting-house, at the least until he had made sure +that Maria's kind looks were any thing more particular than universal +charity; and as to Lady Dillaway, it was impossible to broach so +delicate a business to her till the daughter had looked favourably as +aforesaid, set aside her ladyship's formidable state of quiescence, and +apparent (though only apparent) lack of sympathy. So the lover still +went on sunning his soul from time to time in Maria's kindly smiles, +until one day, that is, yesterday, they mutually found out by some happy +accident how very dear they were to each other; and mutually vowed ever +to continue so. It was quite a surprise this, even to both of them—an +extemporary unrehearsed outburst of the heart; and Maria discovered +herself pledged before she had made direct application to mamma about +the business. However, once done, she hastened to confide the secret to +her mother's ear, earnestly requesting her to break it to papa. With how +little of success, we have learnt already.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IIIb" id="CHAPTER_IIIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3><h3>PATERNAL AMIABILITIES.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Maria, as we know, loved her father, for she loved every thing that +breathes; but she would not have been human had she not also feared him. +In fact, he was to her a very formidable personage, and one would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> have +thought any thing but an amiable one. Over Maria's gentle kindness he +could domineer as loftily as he would cringe in cowardly humiliation to +the boisterous effrontery of that unscrupulous and wily stock-jobber, +"my son Jack." With the tyranny proper to a little mind, he would +trample on the neck of a poor meek daughter's filial duty, desiring to +honour its parent by submission; and then, with consistent meanness, +would lick the dust like a slave before an undutiful only son, who had +amply redeemed all possible criminalities by successful (I did not say +honest) gambling in the funds, and otherwise.</p> + +<p>Yes! John Dillaway was rich; and, climax to his praise, rich by his own +keen skill, independent of his father, though he condescended still to +bleed him. In this "money century," as Kohl, the graphic traveller, has +called it, riches "cover the multitude of sins;" leaving poor Maria's +charity to cover its own naked virtues, if it can. So John was the +father's darling, notwithstanding the very heartless and unbecoming +conduct he had exhibited daily for these thirty years, and the marked +scorn wherewithal he treated that pudgy city knight, his dear +progenitor; but then, let us repeat it as Sir Thomas did—Jack was +rich—rich, and such a comfort to his father; whereas Maria, poor fool, +with all her cheap unmarketable love and duty, never had earned a +penny—never could, but was born to be a drain upon him. Therefore did +he scorn her, and put aside her kindnesses, because she could not "make +money."</p> + +<p>For what end on earth should a man make money! It is reasonable to +reply, for the happiness' sake of others and himself; but, in the +frequent case of a rich and cold Sir Thomas, what can be the object in +such? Not to purchase happiness therewith himself, nor yet to distribute +it to others; a very dog in the manger, he snarls above the hay he +cannot eat, and is full of any thoughts rather than of giving: whilst, +as for his own pleasure, he manifestly will not stop a minute to enjoy a +taste of happiness, even if he finds it in his home; nay, more, if it +meets him by the way, and wishes to cling about his heart, he will be +found often to fling it off with scorn, as a reaper would the wild sweet +corn-flower in some handful of wheat he is cutting. O, Sir Thomas! is +not poor Maria's love worth more than all your rich rude Jack's sudden +flush of money? is it not a deeper, higher, purer, wiser, more abundant +source of pleasure? You have yet to learn the wealth of her affections, +and his poverty of soul.</p> + +<p>It was not without heart-sickness, believe me, sore days and weeping +nights, that affectionate Maria saw her father growing more and more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span> +estranged from her. True, he had never met her love so warmly that it +was not somewhat checked and chilled; true, his nature had reversed the +law of reason, by having systematically treated her with less and less +of kindness ever since the nursery; she did seem able to remember +something like affection in him while she was a prattling infant; but as +the mental daylight dawned apace, and she grew (one would fancy) +worthier of a rational creature's love, it strangely had diminished year +by year; moreover, she could scarcely look back upon one solitary +occasion, whereon her father's voice had instructed her in knowledge, +spoken to her in sympathy, or guided her footsteps to religion. Still, +habituated as she long had now become to this daily martyrdom of heart, +and sorely bruised by coarse and common worldliness as had been every +fibre of her feelings, she could not help perceiving that things got +worse and worse, as the knight grew richer and richer; and often-times +her eyes ran over bitterly for coldness and neglect. There was, indeed, +her mother to fly to; but she never had been otherwise than a very quiet +creature, who made but little show of what feeling she possessed; and +then the daughter's loving heart was affectionately jealous of her +father too.</p> + +<p>"Why should he be so cold, with all his impetuosity? so formal, in spite +of his rapidity? so little generous of spirit, notwithstanding all his +wonderful prosperity?"</p> + +<p>Ah, Maria, if you had not been quite so unsophisticated, you would have +left out the latter "notwithstanding." Nothing hardens the heart, dear +child, like prosperity; and nothing dries up the affections more +effectually than this hot pursuit of wealth. The deeper a man digs into +the gold mine, the less able—ay, less willing—is he to breathe the +sweet air of upper earth, or to bask in the daylight of heaven: +downward, downward still, he casts the anchor of his grovelling +affections, and neither can nor will have a heart for any thing but +gold.</p> + +<p>Moreover, have you wondered, dear Maria, at the common fact (one sees it +in every street, in every village), that parental love is oftenest at +its zenith in the nursery, and then falls lower and lower on the +firmament of human life, as the child gets older and older? Look at all +dumb brutes, the lower animals of this our earth; is it not thus by +nature's law with them? The lioness will perish to preserve that very +whelp, whom she will rend a year or two hence, meeting the young lion in +the forest; the hen, so careful of her callow brood, will peck at them, +and buffet them away, directly they are fully fledged; the cow forgets +how<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> much she once loved yonder well-grown heifer; and the terrier-bitch +fights for a bit of gristle with her own two-year-old, whom she used to +nurse so tenderly, and famished her own bowels to feed. And can you +expect that men, who make as little use as possible of Heart, that +unlucrative commodity—who only exercise Reason for shrewd purposes of +gain, not wise purposes of good, and who might as well belong to +Cunningham's "City of O," for any souls they seem to carry about with +them—can you expect that such unaffectioned, unintelligent, +unspiritualized animals, can rise far above the brute in feeling for +their offspring? No, Maria; the nursery plaything grows into the exiled +school-boy; and the poor child, weaned from all he ought to love, soon +comes to be regarded in the light of an expensive youth; he is kept at +arm's length, unblest, uncaressed, unloved, unknown; then he grows up +apace, and tops his father's inches; he is a man now, and may well be +turned adrift; if he can manage to make money, they are friends; but if +he can only contrive to spend it, enemies. Then the complacent father +moans about ingratitude, for he did his duty by the boy in sending him +to school.</p> + +<p>O, faults and follies of the by-gone times, which lingered even to a +generation now speedily passing away!—ye are waning with it, and a +better dawn has broken on the world. Happily for man, the multiplication +of his kind, and pervading competition in all manner, of things +mercantile, are breaking down monopolies, and hindering unjust +accumulation, with its necessary love of gain. "Satisfied with little" +is young England's cry; a better motto than the "Craving after much" of +their fathers. No longer immersed, single-handed, in a worldly business, +which seven competitors now relieve him of; no longer engrossed with the +mint of gold gains, which a dozen honest rivals now are sharing with him +eagerly, the parent has leisure to instruct his children's minds, to +take an interest in their pursuits, and to cultivate their best +affections. Home is no longer the place perpetually to be driven from; +the voices of paternal duty and domestic love are thrillingly raised to +lead the tuneful chorus of society; and fathers, as well as mothers, are +beginning to desire that their children may be able to remember them +hereafter as the ever-sympathizing friend, the wisely indulgent teacher, +the guide of their religion, and the guardian of their love; quite as +much as the payer of their bills and the filler of their purses.</p> + +<p>The misfortune of a past and passing generation has been, too much money +in too few hands; its faults, neglect of duty; its folly, to expect +therefrom the too-high meed of well-earned gratitude; and from this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> +triple root has grown up social selfishness, a general lack of Heart. No +parent ever yet, since the world was, did his duty properly, as God +intended him to do it, by the affections of the mind and the yearnings +of the heart, as well as by the welfare of the body with its means, and +lived to complain of an ungrateful child. He may think he did his duty; +oh yes, good easy man! and say so too, very, very bitterly; and the +world may echo his most partial verdict, crying shame on the unnatural +Goneril and Regan, bad daughters who despise the Lear in old age, or on +the dissolute and graceless youth, whose education cost so much, and +yields so very little. But money cannot compensate that maiden or that +youth for early and habitual injustice done to their budding minds, +their sensitive hearts, their craving souls, in higher, deeper, holier +things than even cash could buy. "Home affections"—this was the magic +phrase inscribed upon the talisman they stole from that graceless youth; +and the loss of home affections is scantily counterbalanced at the best +by a critical acquaintance with '<i>Dawes's Canons</i>,' and '<i>Bos on +Ellipses</i>,' in his ardent spring of life, and by a little more of the +paternal earnings which the legacy-office gives him in his manhood.</p> + +<p>But let us not condemn generations past and passing, and wink at our +own-time sins; we have many motes yet in our eyes, not to call them very +beams. The infant school, the factory, the Union, and other wholesale +centralizations, ruin the affections of our poor. O, for the +spinning-wheel again within the homely cottage, and those difficult +spellings by the grand-dame's knee! There is wisdom and stability in a +land thick-set with such early local anchorages; but the other is all +false, republican, and unaffectioned. So, too, the luxurious city club +has cheated many a young pair of their just domestic happiness, for the +husband grew dissatisfied with home and all its poor humilities; whilst +a bad political philosophy, discouraging marriage and denouncing +offspring, has insidiously crept into the very core of private families, +setting children against parents and parents against children, because a +cold expediency winks at the decay of morals, and all united social +influences strike at the sacrifice of Heart.</p> + +<p>We are forgetting you, poor affectionate Maria, and yet will it comfort +your charity to listen. For the time is coming—yea, now is—when a more +generous, though poorer age will condemn the Mammon phrensy of that +which has preceded it. Boldly do we push our standards in advance, +pressing on the flying foe, certain that a gallant band will follow. +Fearlessly, here and there, is heard the voice of some solitary zealot, +some isolated missionary for love, and truth, and philanthropic good, +some dauntless apostle in the cause of Heart, denouncing selfish wealth +as the canker of society: and, hark! that voice is not alone; there is a +murmur on the breeze as the sound of many waters; it comes, it comes! +and the young have caught it up; and manhood hears the thrilling strain +that sinks into his soul; and old age, feebly listening, wonders (never +too late) that he had not hitherto been wiser; and the whole social +universe electrically touched from man to man, I hear them in their +new-born generosities, penitently shouting "God and Heart!" even louder +than they execrate the memory of Dagon.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IVb" id="CHAPTER_IVb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3><h3>EXCUSATORY.</h3> +</div> + +<p>It really may be numbered among doubts whether it is possible to +exaggerate the dangers into which a fictionist may fall. My marvel is, +that any go unstabbed. How on earth did Cervantes continue to grow old, +after having pointed the finger of derision at all grave Spain? There is +Boccaccio, too; he lived to turn threescore, in spite of the thousand +husbands and wives, who might pretty well imagine that he spoke of them. +Only consider how many villains, drawn to the life, Walter Scott +created. What! were there no heads found to fit his many caps, hats, +helmets, and other capillary properties? What! are we so blind, so few +of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs. +Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs. +Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes +acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap, +and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! +avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, +should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should +have drunk the blood of James? Hath every "[dash] good-natured friend" +forgotten to be officious, and neglected to demonstrate to relations and +acquaintances that this white villain is Mr. A., and that old virgin +poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous veteran, Have the critics +yet forgiven Mr. John Paragraph—forgotten, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> impossible? and how is +it no house-keeper has arsenicked my soup, O rash recruit, for the +mysteries of perquisite divulged in Mrs. Quarles?</p> + +<p>A dangerous craft is the tale-wright's, and difficult as dangerous. +Human nature goes in casts, as garden-pots do. Lo, you! the crowd of +thumb-pots; mean little tiny minds in multitudes, as near alike as +possible. Then there are the frequent thirty-twos, average "clever +creatures" in this mental age, wherein no one can make an ordinary +how-d'ye-do acquaintance without being advertised of his or her +surprising talents: and to pass by all intermediate sizes, here and +there standing by himself, in all the prickly pride of an immortal aloe, +some one big pot monopolizes all the cast of earth, domineering over the +conservatory as Brutus's colossal Cæsar, or his metempsychosis in a +Wellington.</p> + +<p>Again: no painter ever yet drew life-likeness, who had not the living +models at least in his mind's eye: but no good painter ever yet betrayed +the model in his figure; unless (though these instances are rarish too) +we except, <i>pace</i> Lawrence, the mystery of portraiture. He takes indeed +a line here and a colour there; but he softens this and heightens that; +so that none but he can well discover any trace of Homer's noble head in +yonder sightless beggar, or Juno's queenly form in the Welsh woman +trudging with her strawberry load to Covent Garden market.</p> + +<p>Flatter not thyself, fair Helen, I have not pictured thee in gentle +Grace: tremble not, my little white friend Clatter, thou art by no means +Simon Jennings. Dark Caroline Blunt, it is true thou hast fine eyes; +nevertheless, in nothing else (I am sorry to assure thee) art thou at +all like Emily Warren. Flaunting Lady Busbury, be calm; if you had not +been so wrathful, I never should have thought of you—undoubtedly you +are not the type of Mrs. Tracy.</p> + +<p>Why will all these people don my imaginary characters? Truly, it may +seem to be a compliment, as proving that they speak from heart to heart, +of universal human nature, not unaptly; still is their inventor or +creator embarrassed terribly by such unwelcome honours; your precious +balms oppress him, gentle friends; lift off your palm branches; indeed, +he is unworthy of these petty triumphs; and, to be serious, he detests +them.</p> + +<p>No: once and for all, let a plain first person say it, I abjure +personalities; my arrows are shot at a venture; and if they hit any one +at all, it is only that he stands in my shaft's way, and the harness of +his conscience is unbuckled. The target of my feeble aim is general—to +pierce the heart of evil, evil in the form of social heartlessness: it +is no fault of mine, if some alarmed particulars will crowd about the +mark.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> Ideal characters, ideal incidents, ideal scenes—to these I +honestly pledge myself: but as most men have two eyes, being neither +naturally monocular nor triocular, so most men of their own special cast +have similar distinguishable sympathies.</p> + +<p>The overweening love of money is a seed, a soil, and a sun that +generates a certain crop: the aim of my poor husbandry is only to reap +this; but my sickle does not wish to wound the growers: let them stand +aside; or, better far, let them help me cut those rank and clogging +tares, and bind them up in bundles to be burned. Heart is a +sweet-smelling shrub, ill to stand against the chilling breath of +worldliness: my small care desires to cherish this; gather round it, +friends! shelter it beside me. How many fragrant flowers now are +bursting into beauty! how cheering is their scent! how healthful the +aroma of their bloom! Pluck them with me; they are sweet, delicate, and +lustrous to look upon, even as the night-blowing cereus.</p> + +<p>Henceforth then, social circle, feel at peace with such as I am, whose +public parable would teach, without any thought of personality, entirely +disclaiming private interpretations: there are other people stout +besides one's uncle, other people deaf besides one's aunt. Sir Thomas +Dillaway is not Alderman Bunce, nor any other friend or foe I wot of; a +mere creature of the counting-house, he is a human ledger-mushroom: rub +away the mildew from your hearts, if any seem to see yourselves in him: +neither have I ventured to transplant Miss Cassiopeia Curtis's red hair +to dear Maria's head: imitate her graces, if you will, maiden; but +charge me not with copying your locks. Though "my son Jack" be a +boisterous big rogue, on 'Change, and off it—let not mine own honest +stock-broker put that hat upon his head, in the mono-mania that it fits +him, because he may heretofore have been both bull and bear; and as for +any other heroes yet to come upon this scene, to enact the tragedy or +comedy of Heart—"Know all men by these presents,"—your humble +servant's will is to smite bad principles, not offending persons; to +crusade against evil manners, not his guilty fellow-men.</p> + +<p>Wo is me! who am I, that I should satirize my brethren?—Yet, wo is +me—if I silently hide the sin I see. Make me not an offender for a +word, seeing that my purposes are good. Be not hypercritical, for +Heart's sake, against a man whose aim it is to help the cause of Heart. +Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "<i>tu +quoque</i>:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it. +Heaven send to him that writes, as liberally as to those who read (yea, +more, according to his deeper needs and failings) the grace to +counteract all mammonizing blights, and to cultivate this garden of the +Heart.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_Vb" id="CHAPTER_Vb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3><h3>WHEREIN A WELL-MEANING MOTHER ACTS VERY FOOLISHLY.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Returned from her unsuccessful embassage, Lady Dillaway +determined—kind, calm soul—to hide the bitter truth from poor Maria, +that her father was inexorably adverse. A scene was of all things that +indentical article least liked by the quiescent mother; and that her +warm-hearted daughter would enact one, if she heard those echoes of +paternal love, was clearly a problem requiring no demonstration.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, with well-intentioned kindliness, but shallowish wisdom, +and most questionable propriety, Maria was persuaded to believe that her +father had hem'd and haw'd a little, had objected no doubt to Henry's +lack of money, but would certainly, on second thoughts, consider the +affair more favourably:</p> + +<p>"You know your father's way, my love; leave him to himself, and I am +sure his better feeling will not fail to plead your cause: it will be +prudent, however, just for quiet's sake, to see less of Henry Clements +for a day or two, till the novelty of my intelligence blows over. +Meantime, do not cry, dear child; take courage, all will be well; and I +will give you my free leave to console your Henry too."</p> + +<p>"Dearest, dearest mamma, how can I thank you sufficiently for all this? +But why may I not now at once fly to papa, tell him all I feel and wish +cordially and openly, and touch his dear kind heart? I am sure he would +give us both his sanction and his blessing, if he only knew how much I +love him, and my own dear Henry."</p> + +<p>"Sweet child," sighed out mamma, "I wish he would, I trust he would, I +believe indeed he will some day: but be advised by me, Maria, I know +your father better than you do; only keep quiet, and all will come round +well. Do not broach the subject to him—be still, quite still; and, +above all, be careful that your father does not yet awhile meet Mr. +Clements."</p> + +<p>"But, dearest mamma, how can I be so silent when my heart is full? and +then I hate that gloomy sort of secresy. Do let me ask papa, and tell +him all myself. Perhaps he himself will kindly break the ice for me, now +that your dear mouth has told him all, mamma. How I wish he would!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span></p> + +<p>"Alas, Maria, you always are so sanguine: your father is not very much +given, I fear, to that sort of sociality. No, my love; if you only will +be ruled by me, and will do as I do, managing to hold your tongue, I +think you need not apprehend many conversational advances on your +father's part."</p> + +<p>Poor Maria had more than one reason to fear all this was true, too true; +so her lip only quivered, and her eyes overflowed as usual.</p> + +<p>Thereafter, Lady Dillaway had all the talk to herself, and she smoothly +whispered on without let or hindrance; and what between really hoping +things kindly of her husband's better feelings, and desiring to lighten +the anxieties of dear Maria's heart, she placed the whole affair in such +a calm, warm, and glowing Claude-light, as apparently to supply an +emendation (no doubt the right reading) to the well known aphorism—</p> + +<p class='center'> +"The course of true love never did run smooth-<i>er</i>." +</p> + +<p>In fine, our warm and confiding Maria ran up to her own room quite +elated after that interview; and she heartily thanked God that those +dreaded obstacles to her affection were so easily got over, and that her +dear, dear father had proved so kind.</p> + +<p>It is quite a work of supererogation to report how speedily the welcome +news were made known, by <i>billet-doux</i>, to Henry Clements; but they +rather smote his conscience, too, when he reflected that he had not yet +made formal petition to the powers on his own account. To be sure, they +(the lovers, to wit) were engaged only yesterday, quite in an +unintended, though delightful, way: and, previously to that important +<i>tête-à-tête</i>, however much he may have thought of only dear +Maria—however frequently he found himself beside her in the circle of +their many mutual friends—however happily he hoped for her +love—however foolishly he reveried about her kindness in the solitude +of his Temple garret—still he never yet had seen occasion to screw his +courage to the sticking point, and boldly place his bliss at hard Sir +Thomas's disposal. Some day—not yet—perhaps next week, at any rate not +exactly to-day—these were his natural excuses; and they availed him +even to the other side of that social Rubicon, engagement. Nevertheless, +now at length something must decidedly be done; and, within half an +hour, Finsbury's deserted square echoed to the heroic knock of Mr. Henry +Clements, fully determined upon claiming his Maria at her father's +hands.</p> + +<p>The knight was out; probably, or rather certainly, not yet returned from +his counting-house in St. Benet's Sherehog. So, perforce, our hero could +only have an audience with his lady.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span></p> + +<p>The same glossing over of unpalatable truths—the same quiet-breathing +counsel—the same tranquil sort of hopefulness—fully satisfied the +lover that his cause was gained. How could he think otherwise? In the +father's absence, he had broached that mighty topic to the mother, who +even now hailed him as her son, and promised him his father's favour. +What could be more delicious than all this? and what more honourable, +while prudent, too, and filial, than to acquiesce in Lady Dillaway's +fears about her husband's nervousness at the sight of one who was to +take from him an only and beloved daughter? It was delicacy +itself—charming; and Henry determined to make his presence, for the +first few days, as scarce as possible in the sight of that affectionate +father.</p> + +<p>And thus it came to pass that two open and most honourable minds, +pledged to heartiest love, could not find one speck of sin in loving on +clandestinely. Nay, was it clandestine at all? Is it, then, merely a +legal fiction, and not a religious truth, that husband and wife are one? +and is it not quite as much a matrimonial as a moral one that father and +mother are so too? Was it not decidedly enough to have spoken to the +latter, especially when she undertook to answer for the former? Sir +Thomas was a man engrossed in business; and, doubtless, left such +affairs of the Heart to the kinder keeping of Lady Dillaway. No; there +was nothing secret nor clandestine in the matter; and I entirely absolve +both Henry and Maria. They could not well have acted otherwise if any +harm should come to it, the mother is to blame.</p> + +<p>Lady Dillaway, without doubt, should have known her husband better; but +her tranquil love of our dear Maria seemed to have infatuated her into +simply believing—what she so much wished—her happiness secure. She +heeded not how little sympathy Sir Thomas felt with lovers; and only +encouraged her innocent child to play the dangerous game of unconscious +disobedience. Accordingly, consistent with that same quiet kindness of +character which had smoothed away all difficulties hitherto, the +indulgent mother now allowed the loving pair to meet alone, for the +first time permissively, to tell each other all their happiness. Lady +Dillaway left the drawing-room, and sent Maria to the heart that beat +with hers.</p> + +<p>Who shall describe the beauty of that interview—the gush of first +affections bursting up unchecked, unchidden, as hot springs round the +Hecla of this icy world! They loved and were beloved—openly, devotedly, +sincerely, disinterestedly. Henry had never calculated even once how +much the city knight could give his daughter; and as for Maria, if she +had not naturally been a girl all heart, the home wherein she was +brought up had so disgusted her of still-repeated riches, that (it is +easy of belief) the very name of poverty would be music to her ears. +Accordingly, how they flew into each other's arms, and shed many happy +tears, and kissed many kindest kisses, and looked many tenderest things, +and said many loving words, "let Petrarch's spirit in heroics sing:" as +for our present prosaical Muse, she delights in such affections too +naturally and simply to wish to cripple them with rhymes, or confine +them in sonnets; she despises decoration of simple and beautiful +Nature—gilding gold, and painting lilies; and she loves to throw a veil +of secret sanctity over all such heaven-blest attachments. "Hence! ye +profane,"—these are no common lovers: I believe their spirits, still +united in affections that increase with time, will go down to the valley +of death unchangeably together; and will thence emerge to brighter bliss +hand in hand throughout eternity—a double Heart with one pulse, loving +God, and good, and one another!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIb" id="CHAPTER_VIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3><h3>PLEASANT BROTHER JOHN.</h3> +</div> + +<p>"Ho, ho! I suspected as much; so this fellow Clements has been hanging +about us at parties, and dropping in here so often, for the sake of Miss +Maria, ey?"—For the door had noisily burst open to let in Mr. John +Dillaway, who under grumbled as above.</p> + +<p>"Dear John, I am so rejoiced to see you; I am sure it will make you as +happy as myself, brother, to hear the good news: papa and mamma are so +kind, and—— I need not introduce to you my—— you have often met him +here, John—Mr. Henry Clements."</p> + +<p>"Sir, your most obedient." The vulgar little purse-proud citizen made an +impudent sort of distant bow, and looked for all the world like a coated +Caliban sarcastically cringing to a well-bred Ferdinand.</p> + +<p>Poor Henry felt quite taken aback at such frigid formality; and dear +Maria's very heart was in her mouth: but the brother tartly added, "If +Mr. Clements wishes to see Sir Thomas—that's his knock: he was +following me close behind: I saw him; but, as I make it a point never +to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span> walk with the governor, perhaps it's as well for you two I dropped +in first by way of notice, ey?"</p> + +<p>It was a dilemma, certainly—after all that Lady Dillaway had said and +recommended: fortunately, however, her lord the knight, when the street +door was opened to him, hastened straightway to his own "study," where +he had to consult some treatise upon tare and tret, and a recent +pamphlet upon the undoubted social duty, '<i>Run for Gold</i>;' so that +awkward rencounter was avoided; and Mr. Clements, taking up his hat, was +enabled to accomplish a dignified retreat.</p> + +<p>"Dear John, your manner grieves me; I wish you had been kinder to my—to +Henry Clements."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you do, do you? does the governor know of all this? the fellow's a +beggar."</p> + +<p>"For shame, John! you shall not call my noble Henry such names: of +course papa has heard all."</p> + +<p>"And approves of all this spooneying, ey, miss?"</p> + +<p>"Brother, brother, do be gentler with me: mamma's great kindness has +smoothed away all objections, and surely you will be glad, John, to have +at last a brother of your own to love you as I do."</p> + +<p>"Ey? what? another thief to go shares with me when the governor cuts up? +Thank you, miss, I'd rather be excused. You are quite enough, I can tell +you, for you make my whole a half; nobody wants a third: much obliged to +you, though." [Interjections may as well be understood.]</p> + +<p>"O, dear brother, you hurt me, indeed you do: I am sure (if it were +right to say so) I would not wish to live a minute, if poor Maria's +death could—could make you any happier;—O John, my heart will——" +[Her tears can as readily be understood as his interjections.]</p> + +<p>If a domestic railroad could have been cleverly constructed to Maria's +chamber from every room in that great house, it would have stood her in +good stead; for every day, from some room or other, this poor girl of +feeling had to rush up stairs in a torrent of grief. Yearning after +sympathy and love, neither felt nor understood by the minds with whom +she herded, a trio of worldliness, apathy, and coarse brutality, her +bosom ached as an empty void: treated with habitual neglect and cold +indifference, made various (as occasion might present) by stern rebuke +or bitter sarcasm, her heart was sore within its cell, and the poor dear +child lived a life of daily martyrdom, her feelings smitten upon the +desecrated altar of home by the "foes of her own household."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span></p> + +<p>And not least hostile in the band of those home-foes was this only +brother, John. Look at him as he stands alone there, muttering after her +as she ran up stairs, "Plague take the girl!" and let me tell you what I +know of him.</p> + +<p>That thick-set form, with its pock-marked face, imprisons as base a +spirit as Baal's. He was a chip of the old block, and something more. If +the father had a heart with "gold" written on it, the son had no heart +at all, but gold was in its place. Thoroughly unscrupulous as to ways +and means, and simply acting on the phrase "<i>quocunque modo rem</i>," he +seemed to have neither conscience of evil, nor dread of danger. In two +words, he was a "bold bad" man, divested equally of fear and feeling. +The memoirs of his past life hitherto, without controversy very little +edifying, may be guessed with quite sufficient accuracy for all +characteristic purposes from the coarse, sensual, worldly, and +iniquitous result now standing for his portraiture before us. We will +waste on such a type of heartlessness as few words as possible: let his +conduct show the man.</p> + +<p>Just now, this worthy had risen into high favour with his father: we +already know why; he had suddenly got rich on his own account, and for +that very sufficient reason drew any additional sums he pleased on "the +governor's." The trick or two, whereat Sir Thomas hinted, and which so +wise a man would not have blabbed to fools, are worthy of record; not +merely as illustrative of character, but (in one case at least, as we +may find hereafter) for the sake of ulterior consequences.</p> + +<p>John Dillaway's first exploit in the money-making line was a clever one. +He managed to possess himself of a carrier-pigeon of the Antwerp breed, +one among a flock kept for stock-jobbing purposes, by a certain great +capitalist; and he contrived that this trained bird should wheel down +among the merchants just at noon one fine day in the Royal Exchange. The +billet under its wing contained certain cabalistic characters, and the +plain-spoken intelligence, "<i>Louis Philippe est mort!</i>" In a minute +after these most revolutionizing news, French funds, then at one hundred +and twelve, were toppling down below ninety, and our prudent John was +buying stock in all directions: nay, he even made some considerable +bargains at eighty-seven. There was a complete panic in the market, and +wretched was the man who possessed French fives. The afternoon's work so +beautifully finished, John spent that night as true-born Britons are +reported to have done before the battle of Hastings, rioting in drunken +bliss, and panting for the morrow; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> when the morrow came, and the +Paris post with it, I must leave it to be understood with what +complacency of triumph our enterprising stock-jobber hastened to sell +again at one hundred and fourteen, pocketing, in the aggregate, a +difference of several thousand pounds. It was a feat altogether to +ravish a delighted father's heart, and no wonder that he counted John so +great a comfort.</p> + +<p>Trick number two had been at once even more lucrative and more +dangerous. As a stock-broker, this enterprising Mr. Dillaway had +peculiar opportunities of investigating closely certain records in the +office for unclaimed dividends: he had an object in such close +inspection, and discovered soon that one Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of +Ballyriggan, near Belfast, was a considerable proprietor, and had made +no claim for years. Why should so much money lie idle? Was the woman +dead? Probably not; for in that case executors or administrators would +have touched it. Legatees and next of kin are little apt to forget such +matters. Well, then, if this Mrs. Jane Mackenzie is alive, she must be a +careless old fool, and we'll try if we can't kill her on paper, and so +come in for spoils instead of kith and kin. "Shrewd Jack," as they +called him in the Alley, chuckled within himself at so feasible a plot.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, in an artful and well-concocted way, which we may readily +conceive, but it were weary to detail, John Dillaway managed to forge a +will of Jane Mackenzie aforesaid; and inducing some dressed-up "ladies" +of his acquaintance to personate the weeping nieces of deceased +(doubtless with no lack of Irish witnesses beside, competent to swear to +any thing), he contrived to pass probate at Doctors' Commons, and get +twelve thousand two hundred and forty-three pounds, bank annuities +transferred, as per will, to the two ladies legatees. As the munificent +<i>douceur</i> of a thousand pounds a-piece had (for the present) stopped the +mouths of those supposititious nieces, who stipulated for not a farthing +more nor less, clever John Dillaway a second time had the filial +opportunity of rejoicing his father's heart by this wholesale +money-making. Ten thousand pounds bank stock was manifestly another good +day's work; and seeing our John had not appeared at all in the +transaction, even as the ladies' stock-broker, things were made so safe, +that the chuckling knight, when he heard all this (albeit he did +tenderly fy, fy a little at first), was soon induced to think "my son +Jack" the very best boy and the very cleverest dog in Christendom: at +once a parent's pride and joy. Yes, Lady Dillaway—such a comfort! And +the worshipful stationer apostrophized "rich Jack" with lips that seemed +to smack of Creasy's Brighton sauce, whilst<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span> his calm spouse appeared to +acquiesce in her amiable John's good fortune. The mystified mother +little guessed that it was felony.</p> + +<p>This good son's new-born wealth, besides the now liberal paternal +largess (for his allowance grew larger in proportion as he might seem to +need it less), of course availed to introduce him to some fashionable +and estimable circles of society, whither it might not at all times be +discreet in us to follow him; amongst other places, whether or not the +Pandemonium in Jermyn street proved to him another gold mine, we have +not yet heard; but John Dillaway was often there, the intimate friend of +many splendid cavaliers who lived upon their industry, familiar with a +whole rookery of blacklegs, patron of two or three pigeonable city +sparks, and, on the whole, flusher of money than ever. His quiet mother, +if she cared about her son at all, and probably she did care when her +health permitted, might well be apprehensive on the score of that +increasing wealth which made the father's joy.</p> + +<p>However, with all his prosperity Mr. John as yet professed himself by no +means satisfied; he was far too greedy of gain, and ever since he had +come to man's estate, had amiably longed to be an only child. Not that +he heeded a monopoly of the parental feelings and affections, nor even +that he meditated murdering Maria—oh dear, no: rather too troublesome +that, and quite unnecessary; it would be entirely sufficient if he could +manage so to influence his father as to cut that superfluous sister +Maria very short indeed in the matter of cash. With this generous and +amiable view, he now for a course of sundry years had whispered, +back-bitten, and lied; he had, as occasion offered, taken mean +advantages of Maria's outspeaking honesty, had set her warm-hearted +sayings and charitable doings in the falsest lights, and had entirely +"mildewed the ear" of her listening papa. The knight in truth listened +unreluctantly; it was consolation, if not happiness to him, if he could +make or find excuses for harshness to a being who would not worship +wealth; it would be joy and pride, and an honour to his idol, if he +should keep Maria pretty short of cash, and so make her own its +preciousness; triumphant would he feel, as a merely-moneyed man, to see +troublesome, obtrusive Heart, with all its win-ways, and whimperings, +and incomprehensible spirituality, with its sermons and its prayers, +bending before him "for a bit of bread." Yes, poor loving disinterested +Maria ran every chance of being disinherited, from the false witness of +her brother, simply because she gave him antecedent opportunities, by +her honest likings and dislikings, by her bold rebuke of wrong and open +zeal for right, by her scorn of hypocrisies as to what she did feel, or +did not feel, and by the unpopular fact that she wore a heart, and +refused to be the galley-slave of gold.</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho, then!" said our crafty John, "we shall soon set this all right +with our governor; thank you for the chance, Miss Maria. If father +doesn't kick out this Clements, and cut you off with a shilling, he is +not Sir Thomas, and I am not his son."</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIIb" id="CHAPTER_VIIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3><h3>PROVIDENCE SEES FIT TO HELP VILLANY.</h3> +</div> + +<p>"Now that's what I call bones."</p> + +<p>It was a currish image, suggestive of the choicest satisfaction. Let us +try to discover what good news such an idiosyncrasy as that of John +Dillaway would be pleased to designate as "bones." He had forthwith gone +to his father's room as merry at the chance of ousting poor Maria, as +the heartlessness of avarice could make him; and omnipresent authorship +jotted down the dialogue that follows:</p> + +<p>"So, governor, there's to be a wedding here, I find; when does it come +off?"</p> + +<p>"Ey? what? a wedding? whose?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho! you don't know, ey? I guessed as much: what do you think now of +our laughing, and crying, and kissing, and praying Miss Maria with—</p> + +<p>"Not that beggar Clements? Ey? what? d——" &c., &c.</p> + +<p>"Ha, ha, ha, ha! I thought so; why not, governor? Are you an old mole, +that you haven't seen it these six weeks? Are you stone deaf, that all +their pretty speeches have been wasted on you? All I can say is, that if +Mr. and Mrs. Clements an't spliced, it's pretty well time they should +be, and—</p> + +<p>"Sir Thomas Dillaway rattled out so terrible an oath about Maria's +disinheritance if she ventured upon a marriage, that even John was +staggered at such a dreadful curse; nevertheless, an instantaneous +reflection soon caused that curse to be viewed metaphorically as a +"bone;" and the generous brother cautiously proceeded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"Why, governor, all this is very odd, must say; when I caught 'em +kissing up there ten minutes ago, they were sharp enough to swear that +you knew all about it, and that you were so 'very, very kind.'"</p> + +<p>How is it possible, intelligent reader, to avoid perpetual allusion to +an oath? We must not pare the lion's claws, and give bad men soft +speeches: pr'ythee, supply an occasional interjection, and believe that +in this place Sir Thomas swore most awfully; then, in a complete +phrensy, he vowed that he "would turn Maria out of house and home this +minute." This was another "bone," clearly.</p> + +<p>But it was now becoming politic to calm him. Shrewd Jack was well aware +that Maria would relinquish all, and sacrifice, not merely her own +heart, but her Henry's too, rather than be guilty of filial +disobedience. All this storming, hopeful as it looked, might still be +premature, and do no substantial good; nay, if this wrath broke out too +soon, Maria would at once give way, become more dutiful than ever, and +his golden chance was gone. No: they were not married yet. Let the +wedding somehow first take place, and then—! and then!—for now he knew +which way the wind blew; so the scheming youth calmed his rising +triumphs, and counselled his progenitor as follows:</p> + +<p>"Well, governor, I never saw so green a blade in all my born days. Can't +you see, now, that it's all cram this, just to put you in spirits, old +boy, in case of such things happening? It was wicked too of me to tease +you so—but I'm so jolly, governor; such luck in Jermyn street—I knew +you'd like a joke served up with such rich sauce as this is, ey? only +look!" It was half a hatful of bank notes raked up at the hazard table.</p> + +<p>Sir Thomas's gray eyes darted swiftly at the spoil; often as he had +warned and scolded Jack about the matter of Jermyn street (for Jack was +bold enough never to conceal one of his little foibles), the father had +now nothing to object; for, in his philosophy, the end justified the +means. With most of this wise world, he looked upon success as in the +nature of virtue, and failure as the surest sign of vice; accordingly +his ire was diverted on the moment, and blazed in admiration of son +Jack: and that estimable creature immediately determined it was wise to +speak in tones of unwonted affection respecting his sister.</p> + +<p>"Now, governor, I put it to you plump, isn't this hatful enough to make +a man beside himself, so as not to stick at a white lie or two? Dear +Maria there is no more going to become a Mrs. Clements than you are; she +cut the fellow dead long ago: so mind, that's a tough old bird,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span> you +don't say one word to her about him; it would be just raking up the +cinders again, you know, and you might be fool enough to raise a flame. +No, governor, if it's any consolation to you, that pauper connection has +been all at an end this month; not but what the beggar's got my mother's +ear still, I fancy; but as to Maria, she detests him. So take my advice, +and don't tease the poor girl about the business. Now, then, that this +is all settled, and now that you 're the merrier for that silly bit of +storming at nothing, just listen: the wedding's my own! isn't Jack +Dillaway a clever fellow now, to have caught a Right Honourable +Ladyship, with a park in Yorkshire, a palace in Wales, and a mansion in +Grosvenor square?"</p> + +<p>At this <i>extempore</i> invention, the delighted parent rained so many +blessings on his progeny, that John knew the tide was turned at once. +Our ex-lord mayor had high ambitions, dating from the year of glory +onwards; so that nothing could be more prudent or well-timed that this +ideal aristocratic connection. Jack was a good fellow, a dear boy; and +he added to his apparent amiabilities now by reiterating counsels of +kindness and silence towards "poor dear sister Maria, whom he had been +making the scape-goat all this time;" after which done, our stock-jobber +feigned a pressing engagement with some fashionable friends, and left +his father to ruminate upon his worth in lonely admiration.</p> + +<p>Well; if that clever and gratuitous lie was not another "bone," I am at +a loss to know what could be a "bone" to such a hound: therefore it +appears that Dillaway had three of them at least to gladden him in +solitude; and he went on revealing to wonder-stricken angels, and to us, +the secrets of his crafty soul, as he thus soliloquized:</p> + +<p>"Yes, marry the fools first, and then for spoils at leisure; it won't be +easy though, she's so consummate filial, and he so bloated up with +honour. They'll never wed, I'm clear, unless the governor's by to bless +'em; and as to managing that, and the cutting-adrift scheme too, one +kills the other. How the deuce to do it? Eh—do I see a light?"</p> + +<p>He did. A light lurid sulphurous gleam upon the midnight of his mind +seemed to show the way before him, as wisp-fire in a marsh. He did see a +light, and its character was this:</p> + +<p>Quite aware of his mother's tranquil hopefulness, and that his kind good +sister was ingenuous as the day, he soon apprehended the state of +affairs; and, resolving to increase those misunderstandings on all +sides, he quickly perceived that he could triumph in the keen +Machiavellian policy, "<i>divide et impera</i>." The plan became more obvious +as he calmly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> thought it out. Evidently his first step must be to +ingratiate himself with both Henry and Maria, as the sympathizing +brother, a very easy task among such charitable fools: number two should +be to persuade them, as the mother did, that Sir Thomas, generally a +reserved unsocial man at home (and that in especial to Maria), was very +nervous at the thought of losing his dear daughter, and (while he +acquiesced in the common fate of parents and the usual way of the world) +begged that his coming bereavement might be obtruded on him as little as +possible—Mr. Clements always to avoid him, and Maria to hold her +tongue: number three, to amuse his father all the while by the prospect +of his own high alliance, so as effectually to hoodwink him from what +was going on: and, number four, to send him up to Yorkshire a week hence +(on some fool's errand to inquire after the imaginary countess's +imaginary mortgages), leaving behind him an autograph epistle (which our +John well knew how to write), recommending "that the ceremony be +performed immediately and in his absence, to spare his feelings on the +spot," mentioning "son John as his worthy substitute to give dear Maria +away," and enclosing them at once his "blessing and a hundred pound note +to help them on their honey-moon."</p> + +<p>"John Dillaway, if craft be a virtue, thou art an archangel: but if +Heaven's chief requirement is the heart, thou art very like a +devil—very. If selfishness deserves the meed of praise, who more +honourable than thou art? But if a heartless man can never reach to +happiness, I know who will live to curse the hour of his birth, and is +doomed to perish miserably."</p> + +<p>It was a clever scheme, and had unscrupulous hands to work it. Mystified +by quiet Lady Dillaway as our lovers had been from the first, entirely +unsuspicious of all guile, and rejoicing in their brother's marvellous +amiability, never surely were such happy days; always together while the +knight was at his counting-house, they gladly acquiesced in his +beautifully paternal nervousness; it was a delightful trait of character +in the dear old man; and a very respectable proof that love is keen-eyed +enough to believe what it wishes, but is stone-blind to any thing that +might possibly counteract its hopes. Then again, the mother was a close +ally; for having set her quiet heart upon the match, Lady Dillaway at +once encouraged all John's sympathetic scheme, on the prudent principle +of getting the young couple inextricably married first, and then +obliging her lord to be reconciled afterwards to what he could not help. +Sir Thomas himself, poor blinkered creature, was full of the most +aristocratical and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> wealthy fancies, and only yearned to inspect the +acres of his future honourable grand-children. He was, from these +fanciful causes, unusually affable and indulgent to Maria; spoke so +kindly always that she was all but dissolving thrice a-day; and, from +his constant reveries about the countess, appeared perpetually to be +brooding over dear Maria's soon approaching loss. Poor girl! more than +once she had determined to give it all up, and make her father happy by +serving him still in single blessedness: but then, how could she break +dear Henry's heart, as well as her own? No, no: they should live very +near to Finsbury square, and be in and out constantly, and papa should +never miss her: how delightful was all this!</p> + +<p>As for John himself, (our heartless model-man, strange contrast to +Maria's perfect charity!) he chuckled hugely as his scheme now ripened +fast. He had long been putting all things in train for the wedding +to-morrow. Every body knew it except Sir Thomas who—what between Jack's +prudent watchfulness, his habitual counting-house hours, his usually +unsocial silence, and his now asserted wish for "not one word upon the +subject,"—was at once kept in total ignorance of all; and yet, as +ambassadorial John constantly gave out to Clements and Maria, in an +amiable nervous state of natural acquiescence. Next day, then, the +besotted father was about to be packed post for Yorkshire; the important +letter, with its enclosed bank note, was already written and sealed, as +like the governor's hand as possible; a license had been long ago +provided, and the clergyman bespoke, by the brotherly officiousness of +John; neither Henry Clements, who was too delicate, too unsuspecting for +prudent business-papers, nor Maria, whose heart was never likely to have +conceived the thought, had even once alluded to a settlement; Lady +Dillaway was lying, as her wont was, on her habitual sofa, in tranquil +ecstasy, at to-morrow morning's wedding: and Holy Providence, for wise +purposes no doubt, had seen fit to aid a villain in his deep-laid +treacherous designs.</p> + +<p>The Wednesday dawned: Sir Thomas was to be off early, poor man, all agog +for right honourable acres; and Maria could no longer restrain the +expression of her glad and grateful feelings. Up she got by six, threw +herself in her kind dear father's way; and though, to spare his +feelings, she said not a word about the marriage, prayed him on her +knees for a blessing. The startled parent, believing all this frantic +show of feeling was sufficiently to be accounted for by his own long and +no doubt dangerous journey, blessed her as devoutly as ever he could; +and when the carriage drove away, left her in his study, overcome with +joy, affection, and admiration of his fine heart, exquisite +sensibilities, and generous feelings. Then, as a crowning-stone to all +the bliss, if any lingering doubt existed in the mind of Clements, who +had more than once expressed dislike at Sir Thomas's silent and +unsatisfying sympathy—the letter—the letter, whereof kind brother +John, secretly initiated, had some days forewarned them of its +probability—that letter, which explained at once all a father's kind +anxieties, and made up for all his cold reserve, was found on Sir +Thomas's own table! How amiable, how beautifully sensitive, how liberal +too! Lady Dillaway plumed herself in a whispering transport upon her +just appreciation of the father's better feelings; a kinder heart +manifestly never existed than her husband's, though he did take strange +methods of proving it: the bridesmaids, two daughters of a friend and +neighbour, privy to the coming mystery three days, approved highly of so +unobtrusive an old gentleman: Maria was all pantings, blushings, +weepings, and rejoicings; Henry Clements, handsome, pale, and agitated; +perhaps, misgiving too, and a little displeased at the father's absence; +however, Mr. John Dillaway gave away the bride with a most paternal air; +and, just as Sir Thomas was changing horses at Huntingdon, our innocent +lovers were indissolubly married.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_VIIIb" id="CHAPTER_VIIIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3><h3>THE ROGUE'S TRIUMPH.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Never was there such a happy couple; nor a more auspicious day. Away +they went, in deep delight, too joyful to be merry, in a holy transport +of affection, and its dearest hope fulfilled. They seemed to be in love +with all the world, for every thing around them wore a lustre of +deliciousness: and when the smoking posters left them at Salt hill, and +that well-matched husband and wife sat down to their first boiled fowl, +it would probably be a bathos to allude to angelic bliss; but they +nevertheless were, and knew they were, the happiest of mortals. If any +thing could add to Henry's self-complacency at that moment, it was the +recollection of his own truly disinterested conduct; for only yesterday +he had transferred all his little property to that kind and brotherly +fellow John Dillaway, in trust for Maria Clements, should any possible<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> +reverse of fortune affect her father's or his own prosperity. Yes; and +John had been so wise as to make the two hundred a-year already a third +more, by investing (as he said) what had been a few thousands of three +per cents. in some capital "independent" bank shares of +Australasia—safe as a mountain, and productive as a valley.</p> + +<p>All this appeared very prosperous and pleasant: but we of the initiated +into the secrets of character, may reasonably apprehend that Henry's +little all would have been safer any where than in Dillaway's +possession: and "possession," I am sorry to declare, is a word used +advisedly; for Mr. John required a largish floating capital to enable +him to go to the desperate lengths he did at hazard and <i>rouge-et-noir</i>; +and I am afraid that if Mr. or Mrs. Clements were to receive any of +those so-called Austral dividends, they would only have been taking +three hundred pounds a-year out of their principal moneys in John's +immaculate keeping.</p> + +<p>Leaving then those wedded lovers to their honey-moon of joy, and shrewd +Jack gloating not merely over the full success of his nefarious plan, +but also over this unexpected acquisition of poor Clement's few +thousands, let us return to Sir Thomas—or, to be quite accurate, let us +return with him.</p> + +<p>In high dudgeon, full of fire and fury, back rushed the knight, sore +under the sense of having been made an April-fool of in July; for no one +in the place whereto he went, had ever heard of a widow'd Countess of +Lancing; and her ladyship's acres, if any where at all, were undoubtedly +not in the North Riding. But clever son John, meeting his indignant +father on the threshold, soon made all that right by a word.</p> + +<p>"Well, if ever! why, stupid, I said Diddlington, not Darlington."</p> + +<p>Into the accuracy of this distinction it is needless to inquire: and +then the ingenuous youth went on to observe—</p> + +<p>"But all's right as it is now; you may as well not have seen the +property, and better, too, as things have turned out roughly, governor: +the match is off, and you may well congratulate me. Such an escape—I +just discovered it, and was barely in time: you hadn't been gone two +hours when I found it all out, through a clever devil of a lawyer, who +was hired by my father's son to look into incumbrances, and keep a sharp +look-out for a mutual settlement; that old harridan of a ladyship is +over head and ears in debt; and, it seems, I was to have paid all +straight, or <i>i. e.</i> you, governor, ey? As to the Yorkshire acres, the +old woman had but a life interest in the mere bit that wasn't deeply +mort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span>gaged—and not a very long life either, seeing she is seventy. So, +bless your clever boy again, old governor, he's free."</p> + +<p>The knight had nothing to object: Jack's ready lie had plenty of reasons +in it: and so he blessed his clever boy again.</p> + +<p>"But I say, governor, I rather think that you've astonished us all: what +on earth made you turn so soft of a sudden, and write that letter?"</p> + +<p>"What letter? ey? what?"—Sir Thomas might well inquire.</p> + +<p>"That's a good joke, governor—you keep it up to the last, I see; what a +close old file it is! What letter? why, the letter you wrote to Maria +and her lord, telling them to marry."</p> + +<p>"Marry? ey? what, Maria? what—what is it all?" The poor old man was +thoroughly bewildered.</p> + +<p>"Well done, governor—bravo! you can carry it off as cleverly as if you +were an actor; do you mean to say now you didn't leave a letter behind +you here upon your table, bidding Maria marry in your absence to spare +your paternal feelings (kind old boy, it is, too!) and enclosing them +one hundred pounds for the honey-moon?"</p> + +<p>The mystified father made some inarticulate expression of ignorant +amazement, and our stock-jobber went on:</p> + +<p>"So of course they're married and off—Mr. and Mrs. Cle——"</p> + +<p>A whirlwind of disastrous imprecations cut all short; and then in a +voice choked with passion he gasped out—</p> + +<p>"But—but are they married—are they married? how do you know it? can't +we catch 'em first, ey? what!"</p> + +<p>"How do I know it? that's a good un now, father, when I had it under +your hand to give the girl away myself instead of you. Do you mean to +say you didn't write that letter?"</p> + +<p>"Boy, I tell you, I've written nothing—I know nothing; you speak in +riddles."</p> + +<p>"Well then, governor, if I do, I'll to guess 'em: I begin to see how it +was all brought about—but they did it cleverly too, and were quite too +many for me. Only listen: that fellow Clements, ay, and Miss Maria too +(artful minx, I know her), must have forged a letter as if from you to +get poor fools, me and my mother, to see 'em spliced, while you were +tooling to Yorkshire."</p> + +<p>"Impossible—ey? what? I'll—I'll—I'll—"</p> + +<p>"Now, governor, don't stand there doing nothing but denying all I say; +only you go yourself, and ask my mother if she didn't see the letter—if +they didn't marry upon it, and if that precious sister of mine doesn't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> +richly deserve every thing she'll some day get from her affectionate, +her excellent, her ill-used father?"</p> + +<p>Iago's self, or his master, smooth-tongued Belial, could not have +managed matters better.</p> + +<p>The incredulous knight, scarcely able to discover how far it might not +still be all a joke, especially after his Yorkshire expedition, rushed +up to Lady Dillaway; on her usual sofa, quietly knitting, and thinking +of her Maria's second day of happiness.</p> + +<p>"So, ma'am—ey? what? is it true? are they married? is it true? +married—ey? what?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Thomas, they were only too glad, and I will add, so was I, +to get your kind—"</p> + +<p>"Mine? I give leave? ey? what? Madam, we're cheated, fooled—I never +wrote any letter."</p> + +<p>"Most astonishing; I saw it myself, Thomas, your own hand; and our dear +John too."</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay—he sees through it all, and so do I now—ey? what? that +precious pair of rogues forged it! Now, ma'am, what don't they deserve, +I should like to know?"</p> + +<p>It was quite a blow, and a very hard one, to the poor tranquil mother. +Could her dear Maria really have been so base, and that noble-looking +Henry too? how dreadfully deceived in them, if this proved true! And how +could she think it false? A letter contrived to expedite their marriage +in the father's casual absence, which no one could have thought of +writing but Sir Thomas himself, or the impatient lovers. So poor Lady +Dillaway could only fall a-crying very miserably; whereupon her husband +more than half suspected her of being an accomplice in the despicable +plot.</p> + +<p>"Now then, ma'am, I'm determined: as they are married, the thing's at an +end; we can't untie that knot—but, once tied, I've done with the girl; +they may starve, for any help they'll get of me: and as for you, mum, +give 'em money at your peril; stay, to make sure of it, Lady Dillaway, I +shall stint you to whatever you choose to ask me for out of my own +pocket; never draw another cheque on Jones's, do you hear? ey? what? for +your cheques shall not be honoured, ma'am. And now, from this hour, you +and I have only one child, John."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Thomas—Thomas! be merciful to poor Maria! indeed, she was +deceived; she believed it all—poor Maria!"</p> + +<p>"Ma'am, never mention that woman again—ey? what? deceived?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span> Yes, she +deceived you and me, and John, and all. Wicked wretch! and all to marry +a beggar! Well, ma'am, there's one comfort left; the fellow married her +for money, and he's caught in his own trap; never a penny of mine shall +either of them see. Henceforth, Lady Dillaway, we have no daughter; dear +John is the only child left us for old age."</p> + +<p>In spite of himself, of wrath, and disappointment, the father spoke in a +moved and broken manner; and his weeping wife attempted to explain, +console, and soothe him; but all in vain—he was inexorable and +inveterate against those mean deceivers. To say truth, the poor mother +was staggered too, especially when her managing son set all the matter +in what he stated to be the right light; for he had, the whole business +through, whispered so separately to each, and had seemed to say so +little openly (making his mother believe that his sister told him of the +coming letter, and a choice variety of other embellishments), that he +was now looked upon as the very martyr to roguish plotting, in having +been induced to give away his sister. Excellent, mistaken John!</p> + +<p>And forthwith John became installed sole heir, proving the most dutiful +of sons: how glibly would he tell them any sort of welcome news, +original or selected; how many anecdotes could he invent to prove his +own merits and certain other folks' deficiencies; how amiably would he +fetch and carry slippers and smelling-bottles, and write notes, and read +newspapers, and make himself every thing by turns (he devoutly hoped it +would be nothing long) to his poor dear parents, as became an only +child! It was quite affecting—and both father and mother, softened in +spite of themselves at the loss of that Maria, often would talk over the +new-found virtues of their most exemplary son. His character came out +now with five-fold lustre when contrasted with his former usual +ruggedness: no widow ever had a one sick child more tender, more +considerate, more dutiful, than rude Jack Dillaway.</p> + +<p>He gained his end; saw the new will signed; earwigged the lawyer; and +kept a copy of it.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_IXb" id="CHAPTER_IXb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3><h3>FALSE-WITNESS KILLS A MOTHER, AND WOULD WILLINGLY STARVE A SISTER.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Day by day, letters, doubtless full of happiness and Heart, were left by +the promiscuous and undiscerning postman at the house in Finsbury +square, from our excellent calumniated couple; but, seeing that there +were always two sieves waiting ready to sift it before it came to Lady +Dillaway's turn—to wit, John in the hall, and Sir Thomas in his study, +it came to pass that every letter with those malefactors' hand and seal +on it got burnt instanter, and unopened.</p> + +<p>How many troubles might mankind be spared if they would only stop to +hear each other's explanations! How many ailments, both of body and +soul, if explanations only came more frequently and freely! Melancholy +from that dreadful doubt, and all these cold delays, viewing her +daughter as a criminal, the husband as a swindler, and all this long +course of silence as very, very heartless and seemingly conclusive of +their guilt, the poor mother sickened fast upon her couch: she had for +years always been an invalid, wan and wo-begone, living upon ether, gum, +and chicken-broth; but her white skin now grew whiter, her faint voice +fainter, the energies of life in her debilitated frame weaker than ever; +it was no mere hypochondria, or other fanciful malady: her calm heart +seemed to be dying down within her, as a plant that has earth-grubs +gnawing at its root—she grew very ill. Days, weeks of silence—her +heart was sick with hope deferred. How could Maria, with all her seeming +warmth, treat her with such utter negligence? But now the honey-moon was +coming to an end: they must call and see her some day again, surely; how +strangely unkind not to answer those motherly and anxious letters, sent +to their first known stage, Salt hill, and thereafter to be forwarded.</p> + +<p>O, cold continued crime! Bad man, bad man, thy mother's own hand-writing +shall plead against thee at the last dread day. For those coveted +letters of affection, often sent on both those loving parts, had been +regularly and ruthlessly intercepted, opened, mocked, and burnt! How +could the man have stood case-proof against those letters—his mother's +anxious outbursts of affection towards a lost, an innocent, a +calumniated sister? For selfishness had dried up in that hard and wily +man all the milk of human kindness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span></p> + +<p>And our loving pair, upon their travels, were as much hurt and surprised +at this long silence as poor Lady Dillaway herself: it was most +mysterious, inexplicable. The only letter they had received ever since +they had left home was one—only one, from John, which had frightened +them exceedingly. Some practical joker (the bridesmaid's brother was +suspected), by way of giving Maria a present on her approaching wedding, +as it would seem, had cleverly imitated her father's hand-writing, +and—that letter was a forgery! to every body's great amazement. Nobody +could, according to his own account, be kinder than John, who had done +more than mortal things to appease his father; but the old man remained +implacable. It was a meanly-contrived clandestine match, he said; and he +never intended to set eyes on them again! As for John, he in that letter +had strongly counselled them to keep away, and trust to him for bringing +his father round. In the midst of their terrible dilemma, kind brother +John seemed as an angel sent by Heaven to assist them.</p> + +<p>Dear children of affection and calamity! how innocently did they walk +into the snare; and how closely doth the wicked man draw his toils +around them. Who can accuse them of any wrong (the hopefulness of love +considered) in point either of honour or duty? And shall they not be +righted at the last? It may be so—it shall be so: but Holy Providence +hath purposes of good in plunging those twin wedded hearts deep beneath +the billows of earthly destitution. The wicked must prosper for a while, +in this as in a million other cases, and the good for their season +struggle with adversity; that the one may be destroyed for ever, and the +others may add to this world's wealth the incalculable riches of +another.</p> + +<p>They had spent the few first weeks of marriage among the pleasant lakes +and hills of Westmoreland and Cumberland, wandering together, in +delightful interchange of thought, from glen to glen, from tairn to +tairn, all about Ambleside, Helvellyn, and Lodore, Ullswater, +Saddleback, and Schiddaw. Maria's ever-flickering smile seemed to throw +a sun-beam over the darkest moor, even in those darkest hours of doubt, +heart-sickening anxiety, and grief at the neglect which they +experienced; while Henry's well-informed good sense not only availed to +cheer the sad Maria, but made every rock a point of interest, and showed +every little flower a miracle of wisdom. There were hundreds of +extemporaneous "lover's seats," where they had "rested, to be thankful" +for the past, joyful for the present, and hopeful for the future; and +every ram<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span>ble that they took might deservedly take the name, style, and +title of a "lover's walk!" Happy times—happy times! but still there +might be happier; yes, and happiest, too, they seemed to whisper, if +ever they should have a merry little nursery of prattling boys and +girls! But I am not so entirely in the confidence of those young folks +as to be certain about what they seemed to whisper: in that pretty +prattling sentence were they not getting a little beyond the honey-moon? +Yes—yes, young Hymen is too full of new-found pleasure to heed those +holier joys of calm old marriage; for wedded love is as a coil of line, +lengthening with the lapse of years, fitted and intended, day after day, +to be continually sounding a lower and a lower deep in the ocean of +happiness.</p> + +<p>Returned to town, it was the immediate care of our fond, confused, and +unfortunate young couple to call at the old house in Finsbury square; +where, to their great dismay and misery, they encountered a formal +standing order for their non-admission. The domestics were new, had been +strictly warned against the name of Clements, and, in effect, were +creatures of the worthy John. It was a deplorable business; they did not +know what to think, nor how to act. Letters left at the door, couched in +whatever terms of humility, kindliness, and just excuse, were equally +unavailing; for the Cerberus there was too well sopped by pleasant +brother John ever to deliver them to any one but him. It was entirely +hopeless—extraordinary—a most wretched state of things. What were they +to do? The only practicable mode of getting at Sir Thomas, and, +therefore, at some explanation of these mysteries, was obviously to +watch for him, and meet him in the street. As for Lady Dillaway, she was +very ill, and kept her chamber, which was as resolutely guarded from +incursion or excursion as Danæ's herself—yea, more so, for gold was +added to her guards: Sir Thomas, going to and from his counting-house, +appeared to be the only weak point in the enemy's fortifications.</p> + +<p>Poor old man! he was, or thought he was, harder, colder, more inveterate +than ever: and his duteous son John rarely let him venture out alone, +for fear of some such meeting, casual or intended. Accordingly, one day +when the Clements and the Dillaways mutually spied each other afar off, +and a junction seemed inevitable, John's promptitude bade his father +(generously as it looked, for paternal peace of mind's sake) return a +few paces, get into a cab, and so slip home, the while he valiantly +stepped forward to meet the enemy.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Clements! my father (I grieve to say) will hear no reason, nor any +excuse whatever; he totally refuses to see you or Mrs. Clements."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span></p> + +<p>"O, dearest John! what have I done—what has Henry done, that papa, and +you, and dear mamma, should all be so unkind to us?"</p> + +<p>"You have married, Mrs. Clements, contrary to your father's wish and +knowledge: and he has cast you off—I must say—deservedly."</p> + +<p>"Brother, brother! you know I was deceived, and Henry too. This is +cruel, most cruel: let me see my beloved father but one moment!"</p> + +<p>"His commands are to the contrary, madam; and I at least obey them. +Henceforth you are a stranger to us all."</p> + +<p>The poor broken-hearted girl fell into her husband's arms, stone-white: +but her hard brother, making no account whatever of all that show of +feeling, only took the trouble quietly to address Henry Clements. +"Misfortunes never come single, they say; it is no fault of mine if the +proverb hits Mr. Henry Clements. I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, +that the Austral Independent bank has stopped payment, and is not +expected to refund to its depositors or shareholders one penny in the +pound."</p> + +<p>"Impossible, Mr. Dillaway! You answered for its stability yourself: and +the proposition came originally from you. I hope surely, surely, you may +have been misinformed of these bad news."</p> + +<p>"It is true, sir—too true for you: the wisest man on 'change is often +out of reckoning. I have nothing now of yours in my hands, sir: you are +aware that no writings passed between us."</p> + +<p>"Great Heaven! be just and merciful! Are we, then, to be utterly +ruined?"</p> + +<p>"Really, sir, you know your own affairs better than I can.—Your +servant, Mr. Clements."</p> + +<p>O, hard and wicked heart!—what will not such a miscreant do for money? +Nothing, I am clear, but the cowardly fear of discovery prevents John +Dillaway from becoming a positive parricide by very arsenic or razor, so +as to grasp his cheated father's will and wealth. And this assertion +will appear not in the least uncharitable, when the reader is in this +place reminded that Henry Clements's own little property had never been +Australized at all, but was still safe and snug in the coffers of crafty +John. Jermyn street—or the sharpers congregated there—had drained him +very considerably; all his own ill-got gains had been gradually raked +away by the croupier at the gaming-table; and unsuspecting Henry's +little trust-fund was to be the next bank on which the brother played.</p> + +<p>Poor Henry and Maria! What will they do? where will they go? how will +they live? Hard questions all, not to be answered in a hurry.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> We shall +see. There was one comfort, though, amidst all their misery;—they did +not find the adage a true one, which alludes to poverty coming in at the +door, and love flying out of the window; for they never loved each other +more deeply—more devotedly—than when daily bread was growing a +scarcity, and daily life almost a burden. But we are anticipating.</p> + +<p>And how fared the parents all this while? was the erring daughter +entirely forgotten? No, no. Son John, indeed, took good care to hinder +any amicable feelings of relapse to intrude upon his father's +resolution. But the old man was not easy, nevertheless; often thought of +poor Maria; and could not clearly make out who had forged the letter. +Had it not been for that wicked brother John, a meeting—an +explanation—a reconciliation—would undoubtedly have taken place: but +he was shrewd enough to keep them asunder, and did not take much to +heart his father's altered spirits and breaking state of health: his +will and wealth were seemingly all the nearer.</p> + +<p>And what of that poor stricken mother? Wasted to a shadow, feverish and +weak, she lay for weeks, counting the dreary hours, till she heard of +dear, though unnatural, Maria. Oh! the heartless caitiff, John! will he +thus watch his mother die by inches, when one true word from his lips +could restore her to tranquillity and health? Yes, he would—he did—the +wretch! She gradually pined—waned—wasted; the candle of her life burnt +down into the hollow socket—glimmering awhile—flared and reeled, and +then—one night, quietly and suddenly—went out! She entered on the +world of spirits, where all secrets show revealed; and there she read, +almost before she died—whilst yet the black curtain of eternity was +gradually rising to receive her—the innocence of good Maria, and the +deep-stained villany of John. Her last words—uttered supernaturally +from her quiescence, with the fervour of a visionary whose ken is more +than mortal—were "Look, look, Thomas!—beware of John. O poor, poor +innocent outcast!—O rich, rich heart of love—Maria! my Mari—a—!"</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_Xb" id="CHAPTER_Xb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3><h3>HOW TO HELP ONE'S SELF.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Where then did they live, and how—that noble and calumniated couple? +They had done no wrong, nor even, as it seems to us, the semblance of +wrong, unless it be by having acquiesced in the foolishness of secresy, +and thus aided the contrivance of false witness; for aught else, their +only social error had been lack of business caution among business men. +Feeling generously themselves, they gave others credit for the like good +feeling; acting upon honourable impulse, they believed that other men +would act so too. Heart was the hindrance in their way;—too much +sensitiveness towards all about them; too swift a surrender of the +judgment to the affections: too imprudent a reliance upon other men of +the world; though, when they trusted to a father's love, and a brother's +honesty, prudence herself might have almost been dispensed with. +Machinations of the wicked and the shrewd hemmed them in to their +un-doing: and really, they, children more or less of affluent homes, +born and bred in plenty, who had moved all their lives long in circles +of comparative wealth and wastefulness, now seemed likely to come to the +galling want of necessary sustenance. Was it not to teach them deeper +feeling for the poor, if ever God again should give them riches? Was it +not, by poverty, to try those hearts which had passed so blamelessly +through all the ordeals and temptations of wealth, in order that they +worthily might wear the double crown given only to such as remain +unhardened by prosperity, unembittered by adversity? Was it not to +discipline our warm Maria's love, and to chasten her Henry's very +gentlemanly pride into the due Christian proportions—self-respect with +self-humiliation? Was it not, chiefest and best, to school their hearts +for heaven, and, by feeding them on miseries and wrongs a little while, +to fix their affections on things above rather than on things of this +world? Yes: Providence has many ends in view, and they all tend +consistently to one great focus—the ultimate advantage of the good by +means of the confusion of the wicked.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile came trouble on apace. Henry Clements justly felt aggrieved, +insulted; and the sentiment of pride, improper only from excess, +determined him to make no more advances: all that man could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span> do, that +is, which a gentleman ought to do, he had done; but letters and visits +proved equally unavailing. He had come to the resolution that he would +make no more efforts himself, nor scarcely let Maria make any. As for +her, poor soul! she was now in grievous tribulation, with sad, +sufficient reason for it too; seeing that, in addition to her father's +anger, still protracted—in addition to that vile forgery imputed to her +craft, and whereof she had been made the guilty victim—in addition to +their own soon pressing money-wants, and that heartless fraud of John's +against her husband's little all (though she counted of it only as a +luckless speculation)—she had just become acquainted, through the +public prints, of her dear good mother's death, even before she had +heard of any illness. What bitter pangs were there for her, poor child! +That she should have lost that mother just then, without forgiveness, +without blessing—whilst all was unexplained, and their whole conduct of +affections without guile, wore the hideous mask of base, undutiful +contrivance! Cheer up, Maria; cheer up! only in this bad world can +innocence be sullied with a doubt: cheer up! the spirit of that mother +whom you loved on earth knows it well already; learned it while yet she +was leaving the body of her death: cheer up! she is still near you +both—dear children of affliction and affection! and God has +commissioned her for good to be your ministering angel.</p> + +<p>With reference to means of living, they appeared limited at once to a +little ready money, and a few personal chattels and trinkets; without so +much as one pound of capital to back the young house-keepers, or a +shilling's-worth of interest or dividend or earnings coming in for +weekly bills. Clements had been utterly confounded in all his economical +arrangements by that sudden bitter breach of trust; and, albeit (as we +have hinted), his aim in marriage was not money; still, without much of +worldly calculation, he might prudently have looked for some provision +on Maria's part at least equal to his own: in fact, the fond young +couple had reasonably set their hearts upon that golden mean—four +hundred a-year to begin with. Now, however, by two fell swoops—brother +John's dishonesty and Sir Thomas's resolve of disinheritance—all this +rational and moderate expectation had been dashed to atoms; and the +cottage of contented competence appeared but as a castle in the +clouds—a mere airy matter of undiluted moonshine. Thus, when that +happiest of honeymoons had dwindled down the hundred-pound bank-note +(shrewd John's well-expended bait) to the fractional part of a ten, and +our newly-married pair came to put together their united resources, +wherewithal to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> travel through the world, they could muster but very +little:—considering, too, the future, and the promise of an early +increase to provide for, forty-seven pounds was not quite a fortune; and +a few articles of jewellery did not much increase it.</p> + +<p>We need not imagine that Henry calmly acquiesced without a struggle in +the roguish fraud which had impoverished him; but, notwithstanding all +his best endeavours, he found, to his dismay, that the case was +irremediable: the transfer-books, indeed, were evidence; and equity +would give credit for the trust: but that the "Independent bank" had +failed was a simple fact; and so long as John stood ready to swear he +had invested in it, there was an end to the business. Be sure, shrewd +Jack was not likely to leave any thing dubious or unsatisfactory in the +affair. Austral papers were easily got at now, cheap as whitey-brown; +and for any help the law could give him, poor Henry Clements might as +well engage the wind-raising services of a Lapland witch.</p> + +<p>He must put his shoulder to the wheel without delay; manifestly, his +profession of the law, however unlucrative till now, must be the mighty +lever that should raise him quickly to the summit of opulence and fame: +and he vigorously set to work, as the briefless are forced to do, +inditing a new law-book, which should lift him high in honour with those +magnates on the bench; being, as he was, a court-counsel, not a chamber +one, an eloquent pleader too (if the world would only give him a +hearing), he unluckily took for his thesis the questionable '<i>Doctrine +of Defence</i>;' combating magnanimously on the loftiest moral grounds all +manner of received opinions, time-honoured fictions, legitimated +quibbles, and other things which (as he was pleased to put it) "render +the majesty of the law ridiculous to the ears of common sense, and +iniquitous in the sight of Christian judgment." Rash youth! forensic +Quixote! better had you plodded on, without this extra industry and +skill, in the hopeless idleness and solitude of your Temple +garret—better had you burnt your wig and gown outright, with all the +airy briefs to come that fluttered round them, than have owned yourself +the author of that heretical piece of moral mawkishness—'<i>The Doctrine +of Defence</i>, by Henry Clements.'</p> + +<p>He had with difficulty found a publisher—a chilling incident enough in +itself, considering an author's feelings for his book-child; and when +found, the scarcely satisfactory arrangement was insisted on, of mutual +participation in profit and loss: in other parlance, the bookseller +pocketing the first, and the author unpocketing the second. Thus it came +to pass, that after three months' toil and enormous collation of +cases—after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span> extravagant indulgence of the most ardent hopes—glory, +good, and gold, consequent instantaneously on this happy +publication—after reasonably expecting that judges would quote it in +their ermine, and sergeants consult it in their silk—that London would +be startled by the event from the humdrum of its ordinary routine—and +the wondering world applaud the name of Henry Clements—O, +heart-sickening reality! what was the result of his exertions?</p> + +<p>"So, that puppy Clements has taken upon himself to put us all to school +about whom we may defend, and how, I see—— Hang the fellow's +impudence!" grunted a fat Old Bailey counsel to his peers, well aware +that the luckless author sat nervously within ear-shot.</p> + +<p>"I know whose junior that modest swain shall never be;" simpered +Sergeant Tiffin.</p> + +<p>"The fellow's done for himself," was the simultaneous verdict of a +well-wigged band of brothers. And what else they might have added in +their charity poor Clements never knew, for he crept away to his garret, +stricken with disappointment. There he must encounter other trials of +the heart: two or three reviews and newspapers lay upon his table, just +sent in by the bookseller, as per order; for they contained, in +spirit-stirring print, notices of '<i>Clements on Defence</i>.' Unluckily for +his present peace of mind, poor fellow, the periodicals in question were +none of the humaner sort; no kindly encouraging '<i>Literary Register</i>,' +no soft-spoken '<i>Courtier</i>,' no patient '<i>Investigator</i>,' no +generously-indulgent '<i>Critical Gazette</i>:' these more amiable journals +would be slower in the field—some six weeks hence, perhaps, creeping on +with philanthropic sloth: but fiercer prints, which dart hebdomadal +wrath at every trembling seeker of their parsimonious praise, had whipt +up their malice to deliver the first swift blow against our hapless +neophyte in print. Thus, when, with nervous preboding, Henry took up the +'<i>Watchman</i>,' in eager hope for favour to his poor dear book, he turned +quite sick at heart to find the lying verdict run as follows, though the +small type in which it spake was a comfort too:</p> + +<p>"A careless compilation of insignificant cases, clumsily thrown +together, and calculated to set its author high indeed upon the rolls of +fame; proving to the world that a Mr. Henry Clements can reason very +feebly; that his premises are habitually false; and that presumptuous +preaching is the natural accompaniment of extreme ignorance."</p> + +<p>By all that worries man, but this was too bad: "careless?"—every word +had been a care to him: "clumsy?"—in composition it was Addi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span>son's own +self: "feeble?"—if he was good for any thing, he was good for logic: +"false?"—not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but +it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous?"—it was bold and masculine, +certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential: +"ignorant?"—ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how +Clements had been studying!—And yet this most lying sentence, a +congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic +scribe, who perhaps had barely dipped into the book, was at the moment +circulating in every library of the kingdom, proclaiming our poor +barrister a fool!</p> + +<p>O, thou watchful scribe, forbear! for it is cowardly—they cannot smite +again: forbear! for it is cruel—the hearts of wife and mother and lover +ache upon your idle words: forbear! it is unreasonable—for often-times +a word would prove that Rhadamanthus' self is wrong: forbear, calumnious +scribe! and heed the harms you do, when you rob some poor struggler of +his character for sense, and make the bread of the hungry to fail.</p> + +<p>'<i>The Corinthian</i>,' another snarling watch-dog in the courts of the +temple of Fame, followed instinctively the same injurious wake: it was a +leisurely sarcastic anatomization, quite enough to blight any young +candidate's prospects, supposing that mankind respected such a verdict; +if not to make him cut his throat, granting that the victim should be +sensitive as Keats. The generous review in question may be judged of by +its first line and last sentence; as Hercules from his advancing foot, +or Cuvier's Megatherium from the relics of its great toe. Thus it +commenced:</p> + +<p>"When a disappointed man, intolerant of fortune," &c., &c., and it wound +up many stinging observations with this grateful climax following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We trust we have now said enough to prove that if a man will be +bold enough to 'depreciate censure,'—will attack what he is +pleased to consider abuses, however countenanced by high +authority—and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn +courts of law, he deserves—what does he not deserve?—to be +addressed henceforth by a name suggestive at once of ignorance, +presumption, and conceit, as Mr. Henry Clements."</p></div> + +<p>Now, will it be believed that a trivial error of the press mainly +conduced to occasion this hostility? Our poor author had been weak +enough to "deprecate censure" in his penny-wise humility, and the +printer had negatived his meaning as above: "<i>hinc illæ lachrymæ</i>." Oh, +but how the ragged tooth of calumny gnawed his very heart!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span></p> + +<p>'<i>The Legal Recorder</i>' was another of those early unfavourables; being +as a matter of course adverse too, and not very disinterestedly either: +for it played the exalted part of pet puffer to a rival publisher, who +wanted no other reason for condemning this book of Mr. Clements than +that it came from the legal officina of an opponent in his trade. There +was another paper or two, but Clements felt so utterly disheartened that +he did not dare to look at them. I wish he had; they would have +comforted him, pouring balm upon his wounded pride by their kind and +cordial praises: but ill-luck ruled the hour, so he burnt them +forthwith, and lost much literary comforting.</p> + +<p>To sauce up all this pleasantry with a smack of concreted pleasure +itself, the last and only remaining document upon the table was a civil +note from Mr. Wormwood, publisher and bookseller, enclosing the +following items with his compliments:</p> + +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align='left'>To 500 copies '<i>Doctrine of Defence</i>,'</td><td align='right'>£124 3</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>To advertising ditto,</td><td align='right'>25 0</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>To 10 per cent. on sales,</td><td align='right'>&c.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Supplied to author, 12 copies,</td><td align='right'>&c.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Given to periodicals for review, 15 copies,</td><td align='right'>&c.</td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>Against all which was the solitary offset of "three copies sold;" +leaving as our Henry's <i>share</i> of now certain loss a matter of eighty +pounds: which, between ourselves, was only a very little more than the +whole cost of that untoward publication. Mr. Wormwood hoped to hear from +Mr. Clements at his earliest convenience, as a certain sum was to be +made up on a certain day, and the book-trade never had been at a lower +ebb, and prompt payment would be esteemed a great accommodation, +and—all that stereotyped sort of thing.</p> + +<p>Poor Clements—reviled author, ruined lawyer, almost reckless +wight—here was an extinguisher indeed to the morning's brilliant hopes! +What an overwhelming debt to that ill-used couple in their altered +circumstances! How entirely by his own strong effort had he swamped his +legal expectations! Just as a man who cannot swim splashes himself into +certain suffocation; whereas, if he would but lie quite still, he was +certain to have floated on as safe as cork.</p> + +<p>Well: to cut a long story short, our unlucky author found that he must +pay, and pay forthwith, or incur a lawyer's bill for his debt to Mr. +Wormwood: so he gave up his Temple garret, sold his books, nicknacks, +and superfluous habiliments, added to the proceeds their forty pounds of +capital, and a neck-chain of Maria's; and, at tremendous sacrifices, +found himself once more out of danger, because out of debt. But it was a +bad prospect truly for the future—ay, and for the present too; a few +pounds left would soon be gone—and then dear Maria's confinement was +approaching, and a hundred wants and needs, little and great: +accordingly, they made all haste to get rid of their suburban dwelling +in the City Road, collected their few valuables remaining, and retreated +with all economical speed to a humble lodging in a cheap back street at +Islington.</p> + +<p>That little parlor was a palace of love: in the midst of her deep +sorrow, sweet Maria never failed of her amiable charities—nay, she was +even cheerful, hopeful—happy, and rendering happy: a thousand times a +day had Henry cause to bless his "wedded angel." And, showing his love +by more than words, he resolutely set about another literary enterprise, +anonymous this time for very fear's sake; but Providence saw fit to +bless his efforts with success. He wrote a tragedy, a clever and a good +one too; though '<i>The Watchman</i>' did sneer about "modern Shakspeares," +and '<i>The Corinthian</i>,' pouncing on some trifling fault, pounded it with +would-be giant force: nevertheless, for it was a famous English theme, +he luckily got them to accept it at the Haymarket, and '<i>Boadicea</i>' drew +full houses; so the author had his due ninth night, and pocketed, +instead of fame (for he grimly kept his secret) enough to enable him to +print his tragedy for private satisfaction; and that piece of vanity +accomplished, he still found himself seven pounds before-hand with the +world.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIb" id="CHAPTER_XIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3><h3>FRAUD CUTS HIS FINGERS WITH HIS OWN EDGED TOOLS.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Unpleasant as it is to feel obliged to be the usher of ill company, I +must now introduce to the fastidious public a brace of characters any +thing but reputable. It were possible indeed to slur them over with a +word; but I have deeper ends in view for a glance so superficial: we may +learn a lesson in charity, we may gain some schooling of the heart, even +from those "ladies-legatees."</p> + +<p>Do you remember them, the supposititious nieces, aiders and abetters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> in +our stock-jobber's forged will? Two flashy, showy women, <i>not</i> of easy +virtue, but of none at all—special intimates of John Dillaway, and the +genus of his like, and habitual frequenters of divers choice and +pleasant places of resort.</p> + +<p>The reason of their introduction here is two-fold: first, they have to +play a part in our tale—a part of righteous retribution; and, secondly, +they have to instruct us incidentally in this lesson of true morals and +human charity—dread, denounce, and hate the sin, but feel a just +compassion for the sinner. Let us take the latter object first, and bear +with the brief epitome of facts which have blighted those unfortunates +to what they are.</p> + +<p>Look at these two women, impudent brawlers, foul with vice: can there be +any excuses made for them, considered as distinct from their condition? +God knoweth: listen to their histories; and fear not that thy virtuous +glance will be harmed or misdirected, or a minute of thy precious time +ill-spent.</p> + +<p>Anna Bates and Julia Manners (their latest <i>noms de guerre</i> will serve +all nominative purposes as well as any other) had arrived at the same +lowest level of female degradation by very different downward roads. +Anna's father had been a country curate, unfortunate through life, +because utterly imprudent, and neither too wise a man nor too good a +one, or depend upon it his orphan could not have come to this: "Never +saw I the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." But the +father died carelessly as he had lived—in debt, with all his little +affairs at sixes and sevens; and his widow with her budding daughter, +saving almost nothing from the wreck, set up for milliners at Hull. Then +did the mother pique herself upon playing her cards cleverly; for +gallant Captain Croker was quite smitten with the girl. Poor child—she +loved, listened, and was lost; a more systematic traitor of affection +never breathed than that fine man; so she left by night her soft +intriguing broken-spirited mother, followed her Lothario from barrack to +barrack, and at last—he flung her away! Who can wonder at the reckless +and dissolute result? Whom had she to care for her—whom had she to +love? She must live thus, or starve. Without credit, character, or hope, +or help, the friendless unprotected wretch was thrown upon the town. +When the last accounts are opened, oblivious General Croker will find an +ell-long score of crimes laid to his charge, whereof he little reckons +in his sear and yellow leaf. The trusting victim of seduction has a +legion of excuses for the wretched one she is.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span></p> + +<p>Again; for another case whereon the better-favoured heart may ruminate +in charity. Miss Julia Manners had a totally different experience but +man can little judge how mainly the iron hand of circumstance confined +that life-long sinner to the ways and works of guilt. In the nervous +language of the Bible—(hear it, men and women, without shrinking from +the words)—that poor girl was "the seed of the adulterer and the +whore:" born in a brothel, amongst outcasts from a better mass of +life—brought up from the very cradle amid sounds and scenes of utter +vice (whereof we dare not think or speak one moment of the many years +she dwelt continuously among them)—educated solely as a profligate, and +ignorant alike of sin, righteousness, and a judgment to come—had she +then a chance of good, or one hopeful thought of being better than she +was? The water of holy baptism never bedewed that brow; the voice of +motherly counsel never touched those ears; her eyes were unskilled to +read the records of wisdom; her feet untutored to follow after holiness; +her heart unconscious of those evils which she never knew condemned; her +soul—she never heard or thought of one! Oh, ye well-born, well-bred, ye +kindly, carefully, prayerfully instructed daughters of innocence and +purity, pause, pause, ere your charity condemns: hate the sin, but love +the sinner: think it out further, for yourselves, in all those details +which I have not time to touch, skill to describe, nor courage to +encounter; think out as kindly as ye may this episode of just +indulgence; there is wisdom in this lesson of benevolence, and +after-sweetness too, though the earliest taste of it be bitter; think it +out; be humbler of your virtue, scarcely competent to err; be more +grateful to that Providence which hath filled your lot with good; and be +gentler-hearted, more generous-handed unto those whose daily life +is—all temptation.</p> + +<p>Now, these two ladies (who extenuates their guilt, caviller? who +breathes one iota of excuse for their wicked manner of life? who does +not utterly denounce the foul and flagrant sin, whilst he leaves to a +secret-searching God the judgment of the sinner?)—these two ladies, I +say, had of late become very sore plagues to Mr. John Dillaway. They had +flared out their hush-money like duchesses, till the whole town rang +about their equipage and style; and now, that all was spent, they +pestered our stock-jobber for more. They came at an unlucky season, a +season of "ill luck!" such a miraculous run of it, as nothing could +explain to any rational mind but loaded dice, packed cards, contrivance +and conspiracy. Nevertheless, our worthy John went on staking, and +betting, and playing, resolute to break the bank, until it was no +wonder<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> at all to any but his own shrewd genius, that he found himself +one feverish morning well nigh penniless. At such a moment then, called +our ladies-legatees, clamorous for hush-money.</p> + +<p>As a matter most imperatively of course, not a farthing more should be +forthcoming, and many oaths avouched that stern determination. They +ought to be ashamed of themselves, after such an enormous bribe to +each—as if shame of any kind had part or lot in those feminine +accomplices: it was a sanguine thought of Mr. John Dillaway. But the +ladies were not ashamed, nor silenced, nor any thing like satisfied. So, +having thoroughly fatigued themselves with out-swearing and +out-threatening, our sneerful stock-jobber, they resolved upon exposing +him, come what might. For their own guilty part in that transaction of +Mrs. Jane Mackenzie's pseudo-will, good sooth, the wretched women had no +characters to lose, nor scarcely aught else on which one could set a +value. Danger and the trial would be an excitement to their pallid +spirits, possible transportation even seemed a ray of hope, since any +thing was better than the town; and in their sinful recklessness, +liberty or life itself was little higher looked on than a dice's stake. +Moreover, as to all manner of personal pains and penalties, there was +every chance of getting off scot-free, provided they lost no time, went +not one before the other, but doubly turned queen's evidence at once +against their worthy coadjutor and employer. In the hope, then, of +ruining him, if not of getting scathelessly off themselves, these +ladies-legatees mustered once more from the mazes of St. Giles's the +pack of competent Irish witnesses, collected whatever documentary or +other evidence looked likeliest to help their ends, and then one early +day presented themselves before the lord-mayor, eager to destroy at a +blow that pleasant Mr. Dillaway.</p> + +<p>The proceedings were long, cautious, tedious, and secret: emissaries to +Belfast, Doctors' Commons, and the bank: the stamp office was stirred to +its foundations; and Canterbury staggered at the fraud. Thus within a +week the proper officials were in a condition to prosecute, and the +issue of immense examinations tended to that point of satisfaction, the +haling Mr. Dillaway to prison on the charge of having forged a will.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIIb" id="CHAPTER_XIIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3><h3>HEART'S CORE.</h3> +</div> + +<p>They were come into great want, poor Henry and Maria: they had not +wherewithal for daily sustenance. The few remaining trinkets, books, +clothes, and other available moveables had been gradually pledged away, +and to their full amount—at least, the pawnbroker said so. That unlucky +publication of the law book, so speedily condemned and heartlessly +ridiculed, had wrecked all Henry's possible prospects in the courts; and +as for help from friends—the casual friends of common life—he was too +proud to beg for that—too sensitive, too self-respectful. Relations he +had none, or next to none—that distant cousin of his mother's, the +Mac-something, whom he had never even seen, but who, nevertheless, had +acted as his guardian.</p> + +<p>Much as he suspected Dillaway in the matter of that bitter breach of +trust, he had neither ready money to proceed against him, (nor, when he +came to think it over) any legal grounds at all to go upon; for, as we +have said before, even granting there should be evidence adduced of the +transfer of stock from the name of Clements to that of Dillaway, still +it was a notorious fact that the "Independent bank" had failed, whereto +the stock-broker could swear he had intrusted it. In short, shrewd Jack +had managed all that affair to admiration; and poor Clements was ruined +without hope, and defrauded without remedy.</p> + +<p>Then, again, we already know how that Lady Dillaway was dead, so help +from her was simply impossible; and the miserable father Sir Thomas was +kept too closely up to the mark of resolute anger by slanderous John, to +give them any aid, if they applied to him; but, in truth, as to personal +application, Henry would not for pride, and Maria now could not, for her +near-at-hand motherly condition. Her frequent letters, as we may be +sure, were intercepted; and, even if Sir Thomas now and then yearned +after his lost child, it had become a matter of physical impossibility +to find out where she lived. Thus were they hopelessly sinking, day by +day, into all the bitter waves of want. Not but that Henry strived, as +we have seen, and shall yet see: still his endeavours had been very +nearly fruitless—and, perchance, till all available moveables had been +pawned outright, very feeble too. Now, however, that Maria, in her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span> +sorrow and her need, must soon become a mother, the state of things grew +terrible indeed; their horizon was all over black with clouds.</p> + +<p>No: not all over. There is light under the darkness, a growing light +that shall dispel the darkness; a precious light upon their souls, the +early dawn of Heaven's eternal day; God's final end in all their +troubles, the reaping-time of joy for their sowing-time of tears.</p> + +<p>Without cant, affectation, or hypocrisy, there is but one panacea for +the bruised or broken heart, available alike in all times, all places, +and all circumstances: and he who knows not what that is, has more to +learn than I can teach him. That pure substantial comfort is born of +Heaven's hope, and faith in Heaven's wisdom; it is a solid confidence in +God's great love, but faintly shadowed out by all the charities of +earth. Human affections in their manifold varieties are little other +than an echo of that Voice, "Come unto me; Comfort ye, comfort ye; I +will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters; thy +Maker is thy Husband; he hath loved thee with an everlasting love; when +thou goest through the fire, I will be with thee, through the waters, +they shall not overflow thee; eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither +hath it entered into the mind of man to conceive the blessings which His +love hath laid in store for <i>thee</i>."</p> + +<p>Heart's-ease in heart's-affliction—this they found in God; turning to +Him with all their hearts, and pouring out their hearts before Him, they +trusted in Him heartily for both worlds' good. Therefore did He give +them their heart's desire, satisfying all their mind: wherefore did they +love each other now with a newly-added plenitude of love, mutually in +reference to Him who loved them, and gave Himself for them: therefore +did they feel in their distresses more gladness at their hearts, than in +the days of luxury and affluence, the increase of their oil and their +wine.</p> + +<p>For this is the great end of all calamities. God doth not willingly +afflict: trouble never cometh without an urgent cause; and though man in +his perverseness often misses all the prize of purity, whilst he pays +all the penalty of pain; still the motive that sent sorrow was the +same—O, that there were a better heart in them!</p> + +<p>In many modes the heart of man is tried, as gold must be refined, by +many methods; and happiest is the heart, that, being tried by many, +comes purest out of all. If prosperity melts it as a flux, well; but +better too than well, if the acid of affliction afterwards eats away all +unseen impurities; whereas, to those with whom the world is in their +hearts, affluence only hardens, and penury embitters, and thus, though<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span> +burnt in many fires, their hearts are dross in all. Like those sullen +children in the market-place, they feel no sympathies with heaven or +with earth: unthankful in prosperity, unsoftened by adversity, well may +it be said of them, Hearts of stone, hearts of stone!</p> + +<p>Not of such were Henry and Maria: naturally warm in affections and +generous in sympathies, it needed but the pilot's hand to steer their +hearts aright: the energies of life were there, both fresh and full, +lacking but direction heavenwards; and chastisement wisely interposed to +wean those yearning spirits from the brief and feverish pursuits of +unsatisfying life, to the rest and the rewards of an eternity. Then were +they wedded indeed, heart answering to heart; then were they strong +against all the ills of life, those hearts that were established by +grace; then spake they often one to another out of the abundance of +their hearts; and in spite of all their sorrows, they were happy, for +their hearts were right with God.</p> + +<p>Let the grand idea suffice, unencumbered by the multitude of details. +Whatsoever things are true, honest and just; whatsoever things are pure, +lovely, or of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any +praise—believe of those twin hearts that God had given them all. +Patience, hope, humility; faith, tenderness, and charity; prayer, trust, +benevolence, and joy: this was the lot of the afflicted! It was good for +them that they had been in trouble; for they had gained from it a wealth +that is above the preciousness of rubies, deservedly dearer to their +hearts than the thousands of gold and silver.</p> + +<p>What a contrast then was shown between God's kindness and man's +coldness! No one of their fellows seemed to give them any heed: but He +cared for them, and on Him they cast their cares. Former friends +appeared to stand aloof, self-dependent and unsympathizing; but God was +ever near, kindly bringing help in every extremity, which always seemed +at hand, yet ever kept away: smoothing the pillow of sickness, +comforting the troubled spirit, and treading down calamity and calumny +and care; as a conqueror conquering for them. So, they learned the +priceless wisdom which adversity would teach to all on whom she +frowneth; when earthly hopes are wrecked, to anchor fast on God; and if +affluence should ever come again, to aid the poor afflicted with +heartiness, beneficence, and home-taught sympathy.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIIIb" id="CHAPTER_XIIIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3><h3>HOPE'S BIRTH TO INNOCENCE, AND HOPE'S DEATH TO FRAUD.</h3> +</div> + +<p>John Dillaway's sudden loss of property, his character exploded as a +monied man, and the strong probability of his turning out a felon, had a +great effect on the spirits of Sir Thomas. He had called upon his +promising son in prison, had found him very sulky, disinclined for +social intercourse, and any thing but filial; all he condescended to +growl, with a characteristic d—— or two interlarding his eloquence, +was this taunting speech:</p> + +<p>"Well, governor, I may thank you and your counsels for this. Here's a +precious end to all my clever tricks of trade! I wish you joy of your +son, and of your daughter too, old man. Who wrote that letter? What, not +found out yet? and does she still starve for it? Who gained money as you +bade him—never mind how? And is now going to do honour to the family +all round the world, ey?—Ha, ha, ha!"</p> + +<p>The poor unhappy father tottered away as quickly as he could, while yet +the brutal laughter of that unnatural son rang upon his ears. He was +quite miserable, let him turn which way he would. On 'Change the name +had been disgraced—posted up for scorn on the board of degradation: at +home, there was no pliant son and heir, to testify against Maria, and to +close the many portals of a wretched father's heart. He grew very +wretched—very mopy; determined upon cutting adrift shrewd Jack himself, +as a stigma on the name which had once held the mace of mayoralty; made +his will petulantly, for good and all, in favour of Stationer's hall, +and felt very like a man who had lived in vain. "Cut it down; why +cumbereth it the earth?"</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, in those two opposite quarters of the world of London, +Newgate and Islington, Sir Thomas's two discarded children were bearing +in a different way their different privations. Poor Maria's hour of +peril had arrived; and amidst all those pains, dangers, and necessities, +a soft and smiling babe was born into the world; gladness filled their +hearts, and praise was on their tongues, when the happy father and +mother kissed that first-born son. It was a splendid boy, they said, and +should redeem his father's fortunes: there was hope in the future, let +the past be what it may; and this new bond of union to that happy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> +wedded pair made the present—one unclouded scene of gratitude and love. +Who shall sing of the humble ale-caudle, and those cheerful givings to +surrounding poor, scarcely poorer than themselves? Who shall record how +kind was Henry, how useful was the nurse, how liberal the doctor, how +sympathizing all? Who shall tell how tenderly did Providence step in +with another author's night of that same tragedy, and how other avenues +to literary gain stood wide open to industry and genius? It was +happiness all, happiness, and triumph: they were weathering the storm +famously, and had safely passed the breakers of False witness.</p> + +<p>Amidst the other part of London sate a sullen fellow, quite alone, in +Newgate, looking for his trial on the morrow, and prophesying accurately +enough how some two days hence, he, John Dillaway, of Broker's alley, +son and heir of the richest stationer in Europe, was to appear in the +character of a convicted felon, and be probably condemned to +transportation for life. A pleasant retrospect was his, a pleasanter +aspect, and a pleasanter prospect; all was pleasure assuredly.</p> + +<p>And the morrow duly came; with those implacable approvers, those +accurate Irish witnesses, those tell-tale documents, that prosecuting +crown and bank, that dogged jury, and that sentencing recorder: so then, +by a little after noon, to the scandal of Finsbury square, John Dillaway +discovered that the "wise man's trick or two in the money market" was +about to be rewarded with twenty-one years of transportation.</p> + +<p>Of this interesting fact Henry Clements became acquainted by an +occasional peep into the public prints; and he perceived to his +astonishment, that the defrauded Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of Ballyriggan, +near Belfast, could surely be none other than his mother's Ulster +cousin, the nominal guardian of his boyhood! To be sure, it mattered +little enough to him, for the old lady had never been much better than a +stranger to him, and at present appeared only in that useless character +to an expectant, a person despoiled of her money; nevertheless, of that +identical money, certain sanguine friends had heretofore given him +expectations in the event of her death, seeing that she had nobody to +leave it to, except himself and the public charities of the United +Kingdom: clearly, this cousin must have been the defrauded bank +annuitant, and he could not help feeling more desolate than ever; for +John Dillaway's evil influences had robbed him now of name, fame, +fortune, and what hope regards as much as any—expectations. Yet—must +not the bank of England bear the brunt of all this forgery, and account +for its stock to that innocent depositor? Old Mrs. Jane was sinking +into dotage, probably had plenty of other money, and scarcely seemed to +stir about the business; therefore, legitimately interested as Henry +indubitably was, he took upon him to write to his antiquated relative, +and in so doing managed to please her mightily: renewed whatever +interest she ever might have felt in him, enabled her to enforce her +just claim, and really stood a likelier chance than ever of coming in +for competency some day. However, for the present, all was penury still. +Clements had been too delicate for even a hint at his deplorable +condition: and his distant relative's good feeling, so providentially +renewed, served indeed to gild the future, but did not avail to +gingerbread the present. So they struggled on as well as they could: +both very thankful for the chance which had caused a coalition between +sensitiveness and interest; and Maria at least more anxious than ever +for a reconciliation with her father, now that all his ardent hopes had +been exploded in son John.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIVb" id="CHAPTER_XIVb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3><h3>PROBABLE RECONCILIATION.</h3> +</div> + +<p>It was no use—none at all. Nature was too strong for him; and a higher +force than even potent Nature. In vain Sir Thomas pish'd, and tush'd, +and bah'd; in vain he buried himself chin-deep amongst the century of +ledgers that testified of gainful years gone by, and were now mustily +rotting away in the stagnant air of St. Benet's Sherehog: interest had +lost its interest for him, profits profited not, speculation's self had +dull, lack-lustre eyes, and all the hard realities of utilitarian life +were become weary, flat, and stale. Sir Thomas was a miserable man—a +bereaved old man—who nevertheless clung to what was left, and struggled +not to grieve for what was lost: there was a terrible strife going on +secretly within him, dragging him this way and that: a little, lightning +flash of good had been darted by Omnipotence right through the +stone-built caverns of his heart, and was smouldering a concentred flame +within its innermost hollow; a small soft-skinned seed had been dropped +by the Father of Spirits into that iron-bound soil, and it was swelling +day by day under the case-hardened surface, gradually with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> gentle +violence, despite of all the locks and gates, and bolts and bars, a +silent enemy had somehow crept within the fortress of his feelings, +ready at any unguarded moment to fling the portals open. The rock had a +sealed fountain leaping within it, as an infant in the womb. The poor +old man, the worldly cold old man, was giving way.</p> + +<p>Happy misery! for his breaking heart revealed a glorious jewel at the +core. Oh, sorrow beyond price! for natural affections, bursting up amid +these unsunned snows, were a hot-spring to that Iceland soul. Oh, +bitter, bitter penitence most blest! which broke down the money-proud +man, which bruised and kneaded him, humbled, smote, and softened him, +and made him come again a little child—a loving, yearning, little +child—a child with pity in its eyes, with prayer upon its tongue, with +generous affection in its heart. "Oh, Maria! precious, cast-off child, +where art thou, where art thou, where art thou—starving? And canst +thou, blessed God, forgive? And will not thy great mercy bring her to me +yet again? Oh, what a treasury of love have I mis-spent; what riches of +the Heart, what only truest wealth, have I, poor prodigal, been +squandering! Unhappy son—unhappy father of the perjured, heartless, +miserable John! Wo is me! Where art thou, dear child, my pure and best +Maria?"</p> + +<p>We may well guess, far too well, how it was that dear Maria came not +near him. She had been, prior to confinement, very, very ill: nigh to +death: the pangs of travail threatened to have seized upon her all too +soon, when wasted with sorrow, and weakened by want. She lay, long +weeks, battling for life, in her little back parlour, at Islington, +tended night and day by her kind, good husband.</p> + +<p>But did she not often (you will say) urge him, earnestly as the dying +ask, to seek out her father or brother (she had not been told of his +conviction), and to let them know this need? Why, then, did he so often +put her off with faint excuses, and calm her with coming hopes, and do +any thing, say any thing, suffer any thing, rather than execute the +fervent wish of the affectionate Maria? It is easily understood. With, +and notwithstanding, all the high sentiments, strong sense, and warm +feelings of Henry Clements, he was too proud to seek any succour of the +Dillaways. Sooner than give that hard old man, or, beforetime, that keen +malicious young one, any occasion to triumph over his necessitous +condition, he himself would starve: ay, and trust to Heaven his darling +wife and child; but not trust these to them. Never, never—if the +heart-divorcing work-house were their doom—should that father or that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> +brother hear from him a word of supplication, or one murmur of +complaint. Nay; he took pains to hinder their knowledge of this trouble: +all the world, rather than those two men. Let penury, disease, the very +parish-beadle triumph over him, but not those two. It was a natural +feeling for a sensitive mind like his—but in many respects a wrong one. +It was to put away, deliberately, the helping hand of Providence, +because it bade him kiss the rod. It was a direct preference of honour +to humility. It was an unconsciously unkind consideration of himself +before those whom he nevertheless believed and called more dear to him +than life—but not than honour. Therefore it was that the hand-bills he +had so often seen pasted upon walls were disregarded, that the numerous +newspaper advertisements remained unanswered, and that all the efforts +of an almost frantic father to find his long-lost daughter were in vain.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, to be just upon poor Clements, who really fancied he was +doing right in this, he left no stone unturned to obtain a provision for +his beloved wife and child. Frequently, by letters (as little urgent as +affection and necessity would suffer him), he had pressed upon some +powerful friends for that vague phantom of a gentlemanly +livelihood—"something under government;" a hope improbable of +accomplishment, indefinite as to view, but still a hope: especially, +since very civil answers came to his request, couched in terms of +official guardedness. He had called anxiously upon "old friends," in +pretty much of his usual elegant dress (for he was wise enough, or proud +enough, never to let his poverty be seen in his attire), and they made +many polite inquiries after "Mrs. Clements," and "Where are you living?" +and "How is it you never come our way?" and "Clements has cut us all +dead," and so forth. It was really entirely his own fault, but he never +could contrive to tell the truth: and when one day, in a careless tone +of voice, he threw out something about "Do you happen to have ten pounds +about you?" to a dashing young blood of his acquaintance—the dashing +young blood affected to treat it as a joke—"You married men, lucky +dogs, with your regular establishments, are too hard upon us poor +bachelors, who have nothing but clubs to go to. I give you my honour, +Clements, ten pounds would dine me for a fortnight:—spare me this time, +there's a fine fellow: take the trouble to write a cheque on your +bankers—here's paper—and my tiger shall get it cashed for you while +you wait: we poor bachelors are never flush." But Clements had already +owned it was a mere "<i>obiter dictum</i>,"—nothing but a joke of prudent +marriage against extravagant bachelorship.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span></p> + +<p>Ah, what a bitter joke was that! On the verge of that yes or no, to be +uttered by his frank young friend, trembled reluctant honour; +home-affections were imploring in that careless tone of voice; hunger +put that off-hand question. It was vain; a cruel killing effort for his +pride: so Henry Clements never asked again; withdrew himself from +friends; grew hopeless, all but reckless; and his only means of living +were picked up scantily from the by-ways of literature. An occasional +guinea from a magazine, a copy of that luckily anonymous tragedy now and +then sold by him from house to house (he always disguised himself at +such times), a little indexing to be done for publishers, and a little +correcting of the press for printers—these formed the trifling and +uncertain pittance upon which the pale family existed. Poor Henry +Clements, proud Henry Clements, you had, indeed, a dose of physic for +your pride: bitter draughts, bitter draughts, day after day; but, for +all that weak and wasted wife, dearly, devotedly beloved; for all the +pining infant, with its angel face and beautiful smiles: for all the +strong pleadings of affection, yea, and gnawing hunger too, the strong +man's pride was stronger. And had not God's good providence proved +mercifully strongest of them all, that family of love would have starved +outright for pride.</p> + +<p>But Heaven's favour willed it otherwise. By something little short of +miracle, where food was scant and medicine scarce, the poor emaciated +mother gradually gained strength—that long, low fever left her, health +came again upon her cheek, her travail passed over prosperously, the +baby too thrived, (oh, more than health to mothers!) and Maria Clements +found herself one morning strong enough to execute a purpose she had +long most anxiously designed. "Henry was wrong to think so harshly of +her father. She knew he would not spurn her away: he must be kind, for +she loved him dearly still. Wicked as it doubtless was of her [dear +innocent girl] to have done any thing contrary to his wishes, she was +sure he would relieve her in her utmost need. He could not, could not be +so hard as poor dear Henry made him." So, taking advantage of her +husband's absence during one of his literary pilgrimages, she took her +long-forgotten bonnet and shawl, and, with the baby in her arms, flew on +the wings of love, duty, penitence, and affection to her dear old home +in Finsbury square.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVb" id="CHAPTER_XVb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3><h3>THE FATHER FINDS HIS HEART FOR EVER.</h3> +</div> + +<p>He had been at death's door, sinking out of life, because he had nothing +now to live for. He still was very weak in bed, faint, and worn, and +white, propped up with pillows—that poor, bereaved old man. Ever since +Lady Dillaway's most quiet death he had felt alone in the world. True, +while she lived she had seemed to him a mere tranquil trouble, a useless +complacent piece of furniture, often in his way; but now that she was +dead, what a void was left where she had been—mere empty space, cold +and death-like. She had left him quite alone.</p> + +<p>Then again—of John, poor John, he would think, and think +continually—not about the little vulgar pock-marked man of 'change, the +broker, the rogue, the coward—but of a happy curly child, with +sparkling eyes—a merry-hearted, ruddy little fellow, romping with his +sister—ay, in this very room; here is the identical China vase he +broke, all riveted up; there is the corner where he would persist to +nestle his dormice. Ah, dear child! precious child! where is he +now?—Where and what indeed! Alas, poor father! had you known what I do, +and shall soon inform the world, of that bad man's awful end, one more, +one fiercest pang would have tormented you: but Heaven spared that pang. +Nevertheless, the bitter contrast of the child and of the man had made +him very wretched—and to the widower's solitude added the father's +sadness.</p> + +<p>And worst of all—Maria's utter loss—that dear, warm-hearted, innocent, +ill-used, and yet beloved daughter. Why did he spurn her away? and keep +her away so long?—oh, hard heart, hard heart! Was she not innocent, +after all? and John, bad John, too probably the forger of that letter, +as the forger of this will? And now that he should give his life to see +her, and kiss her, and—no, no, not forgive her, but pray to be forgiven +by her—"Where is she? why doesn't she come to hold up my poor weak +head—to see how fervently my dead old heart has at last learnt to +love—to help a bad, and hard, a pardoned and penitent old man to die in +perfect peace—to pray with me, for me, to God, our God, my daughter! +Where is she—how can I find her out—why will she not come to me all +this sorrowful year? Oh come, come, dear child—our Father send thee to +me—come and bless me ere I die—come, my Maria!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span></p> + +<p>Magical, or contrived, as it may seem to us, the poor old man was +actually bemoaning himself thus, when our dear heroine of the Heart +faintly knocked at her old home door. It opened; a faded-looking woman, +with a baby in her arms, rushed past the astonished butler: and, just as +her father was praying out aloud for Heaven to speed her to him, that +daughter's step was at the bed-room door.</p> + +<p>Before she turned the handle (some house-maid had recognised her on the +stairs, and told her, with an impudent air, that "Sir Thomas was ill +a-bed"), she stopped one calming instant to gain strength of God for +that dreaded interview, and to check herself from bursting in upon the +chamber of sickness, so as to disquiet that dear weak patient. So, she +prayed, gently turned the handle, and heard those thrilling +words—"Come, my Maria!"</p> + +<p>It was enough; their hearts burst out together like twin fountains, +rolling their joyful sorrows together towards the sea of endless love, +as a swollen river that has broken through some envious and constraining +dam! It was enough; they wept together, rejoiced together, kissed and +clasped each other in the fervour of full love: the babe lay smiling and +playing on the bed: Maria, in a torrent of happiest tears, fondled that +poor old man, who was crying and laughing by turns, as little children +do—was praising God out loud like a saint, and calling down blessings +on his daughter's head in all the transports of a new-found Heart. What +a world of things they had to tell of—how much to explain, excuse, +forgive, and be forgiven, especially about that wicked letter—how +fervently to make up now for love that long lay dormant—how heartily to +bless each other, and to bless again! Who can record it all? Who can +even sketch aright the heavenly hues that shone about that scene of the +affections? Alas, my pen is powerless—yea, no mortal hand can trace +those heavenly hues. Angels that are round the penitent's, the good +man's bed—ye alone who witness it, can utter what ye see: ye alone, +rejoicingly with those rejoicing, gladly speed aloft frequent +ambassadors to Him, the Lord of Love, with some new beauteous trait, +some rare ecstatic thought, some pure delighted look, some more burning +prayer, some gem of Heaven's jewellery more brilliant than the rest, +which raises happy envy of your bright compeers. I see your shining +bands crowding enamoured round that scene of human tenderness; while now +and then some peri-like seraph of your thronging spiritual forms will +gladly wing away to find favour of his God for a tear, or a prayer, or a +holy thought dropped by his ministering hands into the treasury of +Heaven.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span></p> + +<p>But the cup of joy is large and deep: it is an ocean in capacity: and +mantling though it seemeth to the brim, God's bounty poureth on.</p> + +<p>Another step is on the stairs! You have guessed it, Henry Clements. +Returning home wearily, after a disheartening expedition, and finding +his wife, to his great surprise, gone out, sick and weak, as still he +thought her, he had calculated justly on the direction whereunto her +heart had carried her; he had followed her speedily, and, with many +self-compunctions, he had determined to be proud no more, and to help, +with all his heart, in that holy reconciliation. See! at the bed-side, +folding Maria with one arm, and with his other hand tightly clasped in +both of that kind and changed old man's, stands Henry Clements.</p> + +<p>Ay, changed indeed! Who could have discovered in that joy-illumined +brow, in those blessing-dropping lips, in those eyes full of penitence, +and pity, and peace, and praise, and prayer, the harsh old usurer—the +crafty money-cankered knave of dim St. Benet's Sherehog—the cold +husband—the cruel father—the man without a heart? Ay, changed—changed +for ever now, an ever of increasing happiness and love. Who or what had +caused this deep and mighty change? Natural affection was the sword, and +God's the arm that wielded it. None but he could smite so deeply; and +when he smote, pour balm into the wound: none but He could kill death, +that dead dried heart, and quicken life within its mummied caverns: none +but the Voice, which said "Let there be light," could work this common +miracle of "Let there be love."</p> + +<p>He grew feebler—feebler, that dying kind old man: it had been too much +for him, doubtlessly; he had long been ill, and should long ago have +died; but that he had lived for this; and now the end seemed near. They +never left his bed-side then for days and nights, that new-found son and +daughter: physicians came, and recommended that the knight be quite +alone, quite undisturbed: but Sir Thomas would not, could not—it were +cruelty to force it; so he lay feebly on his back, holding on either +side the hands of Henry and Maria.</p> + +<p>It was not so very long: they had come almost in the nick of time: a few +days and hours at the most, and all will then be over. So did they watch +and pray.</p> + +<p>And the old man faintly whispered:</p> + +<p>"Henry—son Henry: poor John, forgive him, as you and our God have now +forgiven me; poor John—when he comes back again from those long years +of slavery, give him a home, son—give him a home, and enough to keep +him honest; tell him I love him, and forgive him; and remind him that I +died, praying Heaven for my poor boy's soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span></p> + +<p>"Henry and Maria—I had, since my great distresses, well nigh forgotten +this world's wealth; but now, thank God, I have thought of it all for +your sakes: in my worst estate of mind I made a wicked will. It is in +that drawer—quick, give it me.</p> + +<p>"Thanks—thanks—there is time to tear it; and these good friends, Dr. +Jones and Mr. Blair, take witness—I destroy this wicked will; and my +only child, Maria, has my wealth in course of law. Wealth, yes—if well +used, let us call it wealth; for riches may indeed be made a mine of +good, and joy, and righteousness. I am unworthy to use any of it well, +unworthy of the work, unworthy of the reward: use it well, my holier +children, wisely, liberally, kindly: God give you to do great good with +it; God give you to feel great happiness in all your doing good. My +hands that saved and scraped it all, also often-times by evil hardness, +now penitently washed in the Fountain of Salvation, heartily renounce +that evil. Be ye my stewards; give liberally to many needy. Oh me, my +sin! children, to my misery you know what need is: I can say no more; +poor sinful man, how dare I preach to others? Children, dearest ones, I +am a father still; and I would bless you—bless you!</p> + +<p>"I grow weak, but my heart seems within me to grow stronger—I go—I go, +to the Home of Heart, where He that sits upon the throne is Love, and +where all the pulses of all the beings there thrill in unison with him, +the Great Heart of Heaven! I, even I, am one of the redeemed—my heart +is fixed, I will sing and give praise; I, even I, the hardest and the +worst, forgiven, accepted! Who are ye, bright messengers about my bed, +heralds of glory? I go—I go—one—one more, Maria—one last kiss; we +meet—again—in Heaven!"</p> + +<p>Had he fainted? yes—his countenance looked lustrous, yet diminishing in +glory, even as a setting sun; the living smile faded gradually away, and +a tranquil cold calm crept over his cheeks: the angelic light which made +his eyes so beautiful to look at, was going out—going out: all was +peace—peace—deep peace.</p> + +<p>O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting?</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIb" id="CHAPTER_XVIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XVI.</h3><h3>A WORD ABOUT ORIGINALITY AND MOURNING.</h3> +</div> + +<p>When a purely inventive genius concocts a fabulous tale, it is clearly +competent to him so to order matters, that characters shall not die off +till his book is shortly coming to an end: and had your obedient servant +now been engaged in the architecture of a duly conventional story, +arranged in pattern style, with climax in the middle and a brace of ups +and downs to play supporters, doubtless he might easy have kept alive +both father and mother to witness the triumph of innocence, and have +produced their deaths at the last as a kind of "sweet sorrow," or honied +sting, wherewithal to point his moral. Such, however, was not my +authorship's intention; and, seeing that a wilful pen must have its way, +I have chosen to construct my own veracious tale, respecting the +incidents of life and death, much as such events not unfrequently occur, +that is, at an inconvenient season: for though such accessories to the +fact of dying, as triumphant conversion, or a tranquil going out, may +appear to be a little out of the common way, still the circumstance of +death itself often in real life seems to come as out of time, as your +wisdom thinks in the present book of Heart. People will die untowardly, +and people will live provokingly, notwithstanding all that novelists +have said and poets sung to the contrary: and if two characters out of +our principal five have already left the mimic scene, it will now be my +duty only to show, as nature and society do, how, of those three +surviving chief <i>dramatis personæ</i>, two of them—to wit, our hero and +heroine of Heart—gathered many friends about their happy homestead, did +a world of good, and, in fine, furnish our volume with a suitable +counterpoise to the mass of selfish sin, which (at its height in the +only remaining character) it has been my fortune to record and to +condemn as the opposite topic of heartlessness.</p> + +<p>If writers will be bound by classic rules, and walk on certain roads +because other folks have gone that way before them, needs must that +ill-starred originality perish from this world's surface, and find +refuge (if it can) in the gentle moon or Sirius. Therefore, let us +boldly trespass from the trodden paths, let us rather shake off the +shackles of custom than hug them as an ornament approved: and, +notwithstanding both<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span> parental deaths, seemingly ill-timed for the +happiness of innocence, let us acquiesce in the facts, as plain matters +of history, not dubious thoughts of fiction; and let us gather to the +end any good we can, either from the miserable solitude of a selfish +Dillaway, or from the hearty social circle of our happy married pair.</p> + +<p>Need I, sons and daughters, need I record at any length how Maria +mourned for her father? If you now have parents worthy of your love, if +you now have hearts to love them, I may safely leave that theme to your +affections: "now" is for all things "the accepted time," now is the day +for reconciliations: our life is a perpetual now. However unfilial you +may have been, however stern or negligent they, if there is now the will +to bless, and now the heart to love, all is well—well at the last, well +now for evermore—thank Heaven for so glad a consummation. Oh, that my +pen had power to make many fathers kind, many children trustful! Oh, +that by some burning word I could thaw the cold, shame sarcasms, and +arouse the apathetic! Oh that, invoking upon every hearth, whereto this +book may come, the full free blaze of home affections, my labour of love +be any thing but vain, when God shall have blessed what I am writing!</p> + +<p>Yes, children, dear Maria did mourn for her father, but she mourned as +those who hope; his life had been forgiven, and his death was as a +saints's: as for her, rich rewarded daughter at the last, one word of +warm acknowledgement, one look of true affection, one tear of deep +contrition, would have been superabundant to clear away all the many +clouds, the many storms of her past home-life: and as for our Maker, +with his pure and spotless justice, faith in the sacrifice had passed +all sin to him, and love of the Redeemer had proved that faith the true +one. How should a daughter mourn for such a soul? With tears of joy; +with sighs—of kindred hopefulness; with happiest resolve to live as he +had died; with instant prayer that her last end be like his.</p> + +<p>There is a plain tablet in St. Benet's church, just within the +altar-rail, bearing—no inscription about Lord Mayoralty, Knighthood, or +the Worshipful Company of Stationers—but full of facts more glorious +than every honour under heaven; for the words run thus:</p> + + <p class='center'>SORROWFUL, YET REJOICING,<br /> + A DAUGHTER'S LOVE HAS PLACED THIS TABLET<br /> + TO THE MEMORY OF<br /> + T H O M A S D I L L A W A Y;<br /> + A MAN WHO DIED IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST,<br /> + IN THE LOVE OF GOD, AND IN THE HOPE OF HEAVEN.</p> + + +<p>Noble epitaph! Let us so live, that the like of this may be truth on our +tomb-stones. Seek it, rather than wealth, before honour, instead of +pleasure; for, indeed, those words involve within their vast +significancy riches unsearchable, glory indestructible, and pleasure for +evermore! Hide them, as a string of precious pearls, within the casket +of your hearts.</p> + +<p>I had almost forgotten, though Maria never could, another neighbouring +tablet to record the peaceful exit of her mother; however, as this had +been erected by Sir Thomas in his life-time, and was plastered thick +with civic glories and heathen virtues, possibly the transcript may be +spared: there was only one sentence that looked true about the epitaph, +though I wished it had been so in every sense; but, to common eyes, it +had seemed quite suitable to the physical quietude of living Lady +Dillaway, to say, "Her end was peace;" although, perhaps, the husband +little thought how sore that mother's heart was for dear Maria's loss, +how full of anxious doubts her mind about Maria's sin. Poor soul, +however peaceful now that spirit has read the truth, in the hour of her +departure it had been with her far otherwise: her dying bed was as a +troubled sea, for she died of a broken heart.</p> + +<p>Yearly, on the anniversaries of their respective deaths, the growing +clan of Clements make a solemn pilgrimage to their grand paternal +shrine, attending service on those days (or the holiday nearest to +them), at St. Benet's Sherehog; and Maria's eyes are very moist on such +occasions; though hope sings gladly too within her wise and cheerful +heart. She does not seem to have lost those friends; they are only gone +before.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIIb" id="CHAPTER_XVIIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XVII.</h3><h3>THE HOUSE OF FEASTING.</h3> +</div> + +<p>But in fact, with our happy married folks an anniversary of some sort is +perpetually recurring: wedding-days, birth-days, and all manner of +festival occasions, worthy (as the old Romans would have said) to be +noted up with chalk, happened in that family of love weekly—almost +daily. They cultivated well the grateful soil of Heart, by a thousand +little dressings and diggings; courting to it the warm sunshine of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> +skies, the zephyrs of pleasant recollections, and the genial dews of +sympathy. And very wise were all those labours of delight; for their +sons and their daughters grew up as the polished corners in the temple; +moulded with delicate affections, their moral essence sharp, and clearly +edged with sensitive feelings, as if they had sprung fresh from the +hands of God, their sculptor, and the world had not rubbed off the +master-touches of His chisel. For, in this dull world, we cheat +ourselves and one another of innocent pleasures by the score, through +very carelessness and apathy: courted day after day by happy memories, +we rudely brush them off with this indiscriminating bosom, the stern +material present: invited to help in rendering joyful many a patient +heart, we neglect the little word that might have done it, and +continually defraud creation of its share of kindliness from us. The +child made merrier by your interest in his toy; the old domestic +flattered by your seeing him look so well; the poor, better helped by +your blessing than your penny (though give the penny too); the labourer, +cheered upon his toil by a timely word of praise; the humble friend +encouraged by your frankness; equals made to love you by the expression +of your love; and superiors gratified by attention and respect, and +looking out to benefit the kindly—how many pleasures here for any hand +to gather; how many blessings here for any heart to give! Instead of +these, what have we rife about the world? Frigid compliment—for warmth +is vulgar; reserve of tongue—for it is folly to be talkative; +composure, never at fault—for feelings are dangerous things; +gravity—for that looks wise; coldness—for other men are cold; +selfishness—for every one is struggling for his own. This is all false, +all bad; the slavery chain of custom riveted by the foolishness of +fashion; because there ever is a band of men and women, who have nothing +to recommend them but externals—their looks or their dresses, their +rank or their wealth—and in order to exalt the honour of these, they +agree to set a compact seal of silence on the heart and on the mind; +lest the flood of humbler men's affections, or of wiser men's +intelligence, should pale their tinsel-praise; and the warm and the wise +too softly acquiesce in this injury done to heartiness shamed by the +effrontery of cold calm fools, and the shallow dignity of an empty +presence. Turn the tables on them, ye truer gentry, truer nobility, +truer royalty of the heart and of the mind; speak freely, love warmly, +laugh cheerfully, explain frankly, exhort zealously, admire liberally, +advise earnestly—be not ashamed to show you have a heart: and if some +cold-blooded simpleton greet your social effort with a sneer, repay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> +him—for you can well afford a richer gift than his whole treasury +possesses—repay him with a kind good-humoured smile: it would have +shamed Jack Dillaway himself. If a man persists to be silent in a crowd +for vanity's sake, instead of sociable, as good company expects, count +him simply for a fool; you will not be far wrong; he remembers the +copy-book at school, no doubt, with its large-text aphorism, "Silence is +wisdom;" and thinking in an easy obedience to gain credit from mankind +by acting on that questionable sentence, the result is what you +perpetually see—a self-contained, self-satisfied, selfish, and reserved +young puppy. Hint to such an incommunicative comrade, that the fashion +now is coming about, to talk and show your wisdom; not to sit in shallow +silence, hiding hard your folly; soon shall you loosen the flood-gates +of his speech; and society will even thank you for it; for, bore as the +chatterer may oft-times be, still he does the frank companion's duty; +and at any rate is vastly preferable to the dull, unwarmed, +unsympathetic watcher at the festal board, who sits there to exhibit his +painted waistcoat instead of the heart that should be in it, and +patiently waits, with a snakish eye and a bitter tongue, to aid +conversation with a sarcasm.</p> + +<p>Henry and Maria had many hearty friends to keep their many +anniversaries. They were well enough for wealth, as we may guess without +much trouble; for the knight had left three thousand a-year behind him, +and Maria, as sole heiress, had no difficulty in establishing her claim +to it; but it may be well to put mankind in memory how hospitably, how +charitably, how wisely, and how heartily they stewarded it. I need not +stop to tell of local charities assisted, good societies supported, and +of philanthropic good done by means of their money, both at home and +abroad: nor detail their many dinners, and other festal opportunities, +rivets in the lengthening chain of ordinary friendship: but I do wish to +make honourable mention of one happiest anniversary, which, while it +commemorated fine young Master Harry's birth, rejoiced the many poor of +Lower-Sack street, Islington.</p> + +<p>The birth-day itself was kept at home with all the honours, in their old +house at Finsbury square; Maria would not leave that house, for old +acquaintance sake. Master Harry, a frank-faced, open-hearted, +curly-headed boy of ten (at least when I dined there, for he has +probably grown older since), was of course the happy hero of the feast, +ably supported by divers joyful brothers and sisters, who had all +contributed to their elder brother's triumph on that day, by the +contribution of their various presents—one a little scent bag, another +a rude drawing, another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> a book-marker, and so forth, all probably +worthless in the view of selfish calculation, but inestimable according +to the currency of Heart. Half-a-dozen choice old friends closed the +list of company; and a noisy rout of boys and girls were added in the +early evening, full of negus, and sponge-cake, snap-dragon, and +blindman's-buff, with merry music, and a golden-flood of dances and +delight.</p> + +<p>We dined early; and, to be very confidential with you, I thought (until +I found out reasons why), that the bill-of-fare upon the table was +inordinately large, not to say vulgar; for the board was overloaded with +solid sweets and savouries: so, in my uncharitable mind, I set all that +down to the uncivilized hospitality asserted of a citizen's feast, and +(for aught I know) still rife in St. Mary Axe and Finsbury square.</p> + +<p>Never mind how the dinner passed off, nor how jovially the children kept +it up till near eleven: for I learnt, in an incidental way, what was +regularly done upon the morrow; and I am sure it will gratify my readers +to learn it too, as a trait of considerate kindness which will gladden +man and woman's heart.</p> + +<p>On the seventh of April in every year (Harry's birth-day was the sixth), +Henry and Maria used to go on an humble pilgrimage to Lower Sack street, +Islington. Not to shame the poor by fine clothes or their usual +equipage, they sedulously donned on that occasion the same now faded +suits they had worn in their adversity, and made their progress in a +hackney-coach. They would have walked for humility's sake and sympathy, +but that the coach in question was crammed full of eatables and +drinkables, nicely packed up in well-considered parcels, consisting of +the vast <i>débris</i> of yesterday's overwhelming feast, with a sackful of +tea and sugar added. Their pockets also, as I took the liberty of +inquiring at Sack street afterwards, must have been well stored, for +their largess was munificent. Then would they go to that identical +lodgings of years gone by, where they had so struggled with adversity, +now in the happy contrast of wealth and peace and thankfulness to +Heaven, and of joy at doing good. That parlour was right liberally hired +for the day, and all the poor in Sack street were privileged to call, +where Mrs. Clements held her levee. They came in an orderly stream, +clean for the occasion, and full of gratitude and blessings; and, to be +just upon the poor, no impostor had ever been known to intrude upon the +privilege of Sack street. As for dear Maria, she regularly broke down +just as the proceedings commenced, and Henry's manlier hand had to give +away the spoil; whilst Maria sobbed beside him, as if her heart would +break. Then did the good old nurse come in for a cold round of beef, +with tea, sugar, and a sovereign; and the bed-ridden neighbour up-stairs +for jellied soup, and other condiments, with a similar royal climax; and +the cobbler over the way carried off ham and chickens, with apple-puffs +and a bottle of wine: and so some thirty or forty families were +gladdened for the hour, and made wealthy for a week. Altogether they +divided amongst them a coachful of comestibles, and a pocketful of coin.</p> + +<p>It would be impertinent in us to intrude so far on privacy, as to record +how Henry and Maria passed much time in prayer and praise on that +interesting anniversary; it is unnecessary too, for in fact they did not +stop for anniversaries to do that sort of thing. Be sure that good +thoughts and good words are ever found preceding good and grateful +deeds. It is quite enough to know that they did God service in doing +good to man.</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XVIIIb" id="CHAPTER_XVIIIb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3><h3>THE END OF THE HEARTLESS.</h3> +</div> + +<p>There is plenty of contrast in this poor book, if that be any virtue. +Let us turn our eyes away from those scenes of love and cheerfulness, of +benevolence and peace. Let us leave Maria in her nursery, hearing the +little ones their lessons; and Henry cutting the leaves of a nice new +book, fresh from the press, while his home-taught son and heir is +playing at pot-hooks and hangers in a copy-book beside him. Let us +recollect their purity of mind, their holiness of motive, and their +happiness of life; these are the victims of false-witness. And how fares +the wretch that would have starved them?</p> + +<p>The fate of John Dillaway is at once so tragical, so interesting, and so +instructive, that it will be well for us to be transported for awhile, +and give this rogue the benefit of honest company.</p> + +<p>For many months I had seen a sullen lowering fellow, with cropped head, +ironed-legs, and the motley garments of disgrace, driven forth at early +morning with his gang of bad compeers; a slave, toiling till night-fall +in piling cannon-balls, and chipping off the rust with heavy hammers; a +sentinel stood near with a loaded musket; they might not speak<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span> to each +other, that miserable gang; hope was dead among them; life had no +delights; they wreaked their silent hatred on those hammered +cannon-balls. The man who struck the fiercest, that sullen convict with +the lowering brow, was our stock-jobber, John Dillaway.</p> + +<p>Soon after that foretaste of slavery at Woolwich, the ship sailed, +freighted with incarnate crime; her captain was a ruffian; (could he +help it with such cargoes?) her crew, the offscouring of all nations; +and the Chesapeake herself was an old rotten hull, condemned, after one +more voyage, to be broken up; a creaking, foul, unsafe vessel, full of +rats, cockroaches, and other vermin.</p> + +<p>The sun glared ungenially at that blot upon the waters, breeding +infectious disease; the waves flung the hated burden from one to the +other, disdainful of her freight of sin; the winds had no commission for +fair sailing, but whistled through the rigging crossways, howling in the +ears of many in that ship, as if they carried ghosts along with them: +the very rocks and reefs butted her off the creamy line of breakers, as +sea-unicorns distorting; no affectionate farewell blessed her departure; +no hearty welcomes await her at the port.</p> + +<p>And they sailed many days as in a floating hell, hot, miserable, and +cursing; the scanty meal was flung to them like dog's-meat, and they +lapped the putrid water from a pail; gang by gang for an hour they might +pace the smoking deck, and then and thence were driven down to fester in +the hold for three-and-twenty more. O, those closed hatches by night! +what torments were the kernel of that ship! Suffocated by the heat and +noxious smells; bruised against each other, and by each other's blows, +as the black unwieldy vessel staggered about among the billows, the +wretched mass of human misery wore away those tropical nights in horrid +imprecation; worse than crowded slaves upon the Spanish Main, from the +blister of crime upon their souls, and their utter lack of hopefulness +for ever.</p> + +<p>And now, after all the shattering storms, and haggard sufferings, and +degrading terrors of that voyage, they neared the metropolis of sin; +some town on Botany Bay, a blighted shore—where each man, looking at +his neighbour, sees in him an outcast from heaven. They landed in +droves, that ironed flock of men; and the sullenest-looking scoundrel of +them all was John Dillaway.</p> + +<p>There were murderers among his gang; but human passions, which had +hurried them to crime, now had left them as if wrecked upon a lee +shore—humbled and remorseful, and heaven's happier sun shed some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span> light +upon their faces: there were burglars; but the courage which could dare +those deeds, now lending strength to bear the stroke of punishment, +enabled them to walk forth even cheerily to meet their doom of labour: +there was rape; but he hid himself, ashamed, vowing better things: fiery +arson, too, was there, sorry for his rash revenge: also, conspiracy and +rebellion, confessing that ambition such as theirs had been wickedness +and folly; and common frauds, and crimes, and social sins; bad enough, +God wot, yet hopeful; but the mean, heartless, devilish criminality of +our young Dagon beat them all. If to be hard-hearted were a virtue, the +best man there was Dillaway.</p> + +<p>And now they were to be billeted off among the sturdy colonists as +farm-servants, near a-kin to slaves; tools in the rough hands of men who +pioneer civilization, with all the vices of the social, and all the +passions of the savage. And on the strand, where those task-masters +congregated to inspect the new-come droves, each man selected according +to his mind: the rougher took the roughest, and the gentler, the +gentlest; the merry-looking field farmer sought out the cheerful, and +the sullen backwoods settler chose the sullen. Dillaway's master was a +swarthy, beetled-browed caitiff, who had worn out his own seven years of +penalty, and had now set up tyrant for himself.</p> + +<p>As a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in a stagnant little clearing +of the forest, our convict toiled continually—continually—like +Caliban: all days alike; hewing at the mighty trunk and hacking up the +straggling branches; no hope—no help—no respite; and the iron of +servile tyranny entered into his very soul. Ay—ay; the culprit +convicted, when he hears in open court, with an impudent assurance, the +punishment that awaits him on those penal shores, little knows the +terrors of that sentence. Months and years—yea, haply to gray hairs and +death, slavery unmitigated—uncomforted; toil and pain; toil and sorrow; +toil, and nothing to cheer; even to the end, vain tasked toil. Old +hopes, old recollections, old feelings, violently torn up by the roots. +No familiar face in sickness, no patient nurse beside the dying bed: no +hope for earth, and no prospect of heaven: but, in its varying phases, +one gloomy glaring orb of ever-present hell.</p> + +<p>It grew intolerable—intolerable; he was beaten, mocked, and almost a +maniac. Escape—escape! Oh, blessed thought! into the wild free woods! +there, with the birds and flowers, hill and dale, fresh air and liberty! +Oh, glad hope—mad hope! His habitual cunning came to his aid; he +schemed, he contrived, he accomplished. The jutting heads<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span> of the rivets +having been diligently rubbed away from his galling fetter by a big +stone—a toil of weeks—he one day stood unshackled, having watched his +time to be alone. An axe was in his hand, and the saved single dinner of +pea-bread. That beetled-browed task-master slumbered in the hut; that +brother convict—(why need he care for him, too? every one for himself +in this world)—that kinder, humbler, better man was digging in the +open; if he wants to escape, let him think of himself: John Dillaway has +enough to take care for. Now, then; now, unobserved, unsuspected; now is +the chance! Joy, life, and liberty! Oh, glorious prospect—for this +inland world is unexplored.</p> + +<p>He stole away, with panting heart, and fearfully exulting eye; he +ran—ran—ran, for miles—it may have been scores of them—till +night-fall, on the soft and pleasant greensward under those high echoing +woods. None pursued; safe—safe; and deliciously he slept that night +beneath a spreading wattle-tree, after the first sweet meal of freedom.</p> + +<p>Next morning, waked up like the starting kangaroos around him (for John +Dillaway had not bent the knee in prayer since childhood), off he set +triumphant and refreshed: his arm was strong, and he trusted in it, his +axe was sharp, and he looked to that for help; he knew no other God. Off +he set for miles—miles—miles: still that continuous high acacia wood, +though less naturally park-like, often-times choked with briars, and +here and there impervious a-head. Was it all this same starving forest +to the wide world's end? He dug for roots, and found some acrid bulbs +and tubers, which blistered up his mouth; but he was hungry, and ate +them; and dreaded as he ate. Were they poisonous? Next to it, Dillaway; +so he hurried eagerly to dilute their griping juices with the mountain +streams near which he slept: the water was at least kindly cooling to +his hot throat; he drank huge draughts, and stayed his stomach.</p> + +<p>Next morning, off again: why could he not catch and eat some of those +half-tame antelopes? Ha! He lay in wait hours—hours, near the torrent +to which they came betimes to slake their thirst: but their beautiful +keen eyes saw him askance—and when he rashly hoped to hunt one down +afoot, they went like the wind for a minute—then turned to look at him +afar off, mockingly—poor, panting, baffled creeper.</p> + +<p>No; give it up—this savoury hope of venison; he must go despondently on +and on; and he filled his belly with grass. Must he really starve in +this interminable wood! He dreamt that night of luxurious city feasts, +the turtle, turbot, venison, and champagne; and then how miserably weak +he woke. But he must on wearily and lamely, for ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> through this +wood—objectless, except for life and liberty. Oh, that he could meet +some savage, and do him battle for the food he carried; or that a dead +bird, or beast, or snake lay upon his path; or that one of those +skipping kangaroos would but come within the reach of his oft-aimed +hatchet! No: for all the birds and flowers, and the free wild woods, and +hill, and dale, and liberty, he was starving—starving; so he browsed +the grass as Nebuchadnezzar in his lunacy. And the famished wretch would +have gladly been a slave again.</p> + +<p>Next morning, he must lie and perish where he slept, or move on: he +turned to the left, not to go on for ever; probably, ay, too probably, +he had been creeping round a belt. Oh, precious thought of change! for +within three hours there was light a-head, light beneath the tangled +underwood: he struggled through the last cluster of thick bushes, +longing for a sight of fertile plain, and open country. Who knows? are +there not men dwelling there with flocks and herds, and food and plenty? +Yes—yes, and Dillaway will do among them yet. You envious boughs, delay +me not! He tore aside the last that hid his view, and found that he was +standing on the edge of an ocean of sand—hot yellow sand to the +horizon!</p> + +<p>He fainted—he had like to have died; but as for prayer—he only +muttered curses on this bitter, famishing disappointment. He dared not +strike into the wood again—he dared not advance upon that yellow sea +exhausted and unprovisioned: it was his wisdom to skirt the wood; and so +he trampled along weakly—weakly. This liberty to starve is horrible!</p> + +<p>Is it, John Dillaway? What, have you no compunctions at that word +starve? no bitter, dreadful recollections? Remember poor Maria, that own +most loving sister, wanting bread through you. Remember Henry Clements, +and their pining babe; remember your own sensual feastings and +fraudulent exultation, and how you would utterly have starved the good, +the kind, the honest! This same bitter cup is filled for your own lips, +and you must drink it to the dregs. Have you no compunctions, man? +nothing tapping at your heart? for you must <i>starve</i>!</p> + +<p>No! not yet—not yet! for chance (what Dillaway lyingly called +chance)—in his moments of remorse at these reflections, when God had +hoped him penitent at last, and, if he still continued so, might save +him—sent help in the desert! For, as he reelingly trampled along on the +rank herbage between this forest and that sea of sand, just as he was +dying of exhaustion, his faint foot trod upon a store of life and +health! It was an Emeu's ill-protected nest; and he crushed, where he +had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span> trodden, one of those invigorating eggs. Oh, joy—joy—no +thanks—but sensual joy! There were three of them, and each one meat for +a day; ash-coloured without, but the within—the within—full of sweet +and precious yolk! Oh, rich feast, luscious and refreshing: cheer +up—cheer up: keep one to cross the desert with: ay—ay, luck will come +at last to clever Jack! how shrewd it was of me to find those eggs!</p> + +<p>Thus do the wicked forget thee, blessed God! thou hast watched this bad +man day by day, and all the dark nights through, in tender expectation +of some good: Thou hast been with him hourly in that famishing forest, +tempting him by starvation to—repentance; and how gladly did Thine +eager mercy seize this first opportunity of half-formed penitence to +bless and help him—even him, liberally and unasked! Thanks to +Thee—thanks to Thee! Why did not that man thank Thee? Who more grieved +at his thanklessness than Thou art? Who more sorry for the righteous and +necessary doom which the impenitence of heartlessness drags down upon +itself?</p> + +<p>And Providence was yet more kind, and man yet more ungrateful; mercy +abounding over the abundant sin. For the famished vagrant diligently +sought about for more rich prizes; and, as the manner is of those +unnatural birds to leave their eggs carelessly to the hatching of the +sunshine, he soon stumbled on another nest. "Ha—ha!" said he, "clever +Jack Dillaway of Broker's alley isn't done up yet: no—no, trust him for +taking care of number one; now then for the desert; with these four huge +eggs and my trusty hatchet, deuce take it, but I'll manage somehow!"</p> + +<p>Thus, deriving comfort from his bold hard heart, he launched +unhesitatingly upon that sea of sand: with aching toil through +the loose hot soil he ploughed his weary way, footsore, for +leagues—leagues—lengthened leagues; yellow sand all round, before, and +on either hand, as far as eye can stretch, and behind and already in the +distance that terrible forest of starvation. But what, then, is the name +of this burnt plain, unwatered by one liquid drop, unvisited even by +dews in the cold dry night? Have you not yet found a heart, man, to +thank Heaven for that kind supply of recreative nourishment, sweet as +infant's food, the rich delicious yolk, which bears up still your +halting steps across this world of sand? No heart—no heart of +flesh—but a stone—a cold stone, and hard as yonder rocky hillock.</p> + +<p>He climbed it for a view—and what a view! a panorama of perfect +desolation, a continent of vegetable death. His spirit almost failed +within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> him; but he must on—on, or perish where he stood. Taking no +count of time, and heedless as to whither he might wander, so it be not +back again along that awful track of liberty he longed for, he crept on +by little and little, often resting, often dropping for fatigue, night +and day—day and night: he had made his last meal; he laid him down to +die—and already the premonitory falcon flapped him with its heavy wing. +Ha! what are all those carrion fowls congregated there for? Are they +battening on some dead carcase? O, hope—hope! there is the smell of +food upon the wind: up, man, up—battle with those birds, drive them +away, hew down that fierce white eagle with your axe; what right have +they to precious food, when man, their monarch, starves? So, the poor +emaciated culprit seized their putrid prey, and the scared fowls hovered +but a little space above, waiting instinctively for this new victim: +they had not left him much—it was a feast of remnants—pickings from +the skeleton of some small creature that had perished in the desert—a +wombat, probably, starved upon its travels; but a royal feast it was to +that famishing wretch: and, gathering up the remainder of those +priceless morsels, which he saved for some more fearful future, again he +crept upon his way. Still the same, night and day—day and night—for he +could only travel a league a-day: and at length, a shadowy line between +the sand and sky—far, far off, but circling the horizon as a bow of +hope. Shall it be a land of plenty, green, well-watered meadows, the +pleasant homes of man, though savage, not unfriendly? O hope, +unutterable! or is it (O despair!) another of those dreadful woods, +starving solitude under the high-arched gum-trees.</p> + +<p>Onward he crept; and the line on the horizon grew broader and darker: +onward, still; he was exulting, he had conquered, he was bold and hard +as ever. He got nearer, now within some dozen miles; it was an +indistinct distance, but green at any rate; huzza—never mind +night-fall; he cannot wait, nor rest, with this Elysium before him: so +he toiled along through all the black night, and a friendly storm of +rain refreshed him, as his thirsty pores drank in the cooling stream. +Aha! by morning's dawn he should be standing on the edge of that green +paradise, fresh as a young lion, and no thanks to any one but his own +shrewd indomitable self.</p> + +<p>Morning dawned—and through the vague twilight loomed some high and +tangled wall of green foliage, stretching seemingly across the very +world. Most sickening sight! a matted, thorny jungle, one of those +primeval woods again, but closer, thicker, darker than the park-like +one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> before; rank and prickly herbage in a rotting swamp, crowding up +about the stately trees. Must he battle his way through? Well, then, if +it must be so, he must and will; any thing rather than this hot and +blistering sand. If he is doomed by fate to starve, be it in the shade, +not in that fierce sun. So, he weakly plied his hatchet, flinging +himself with boldness on that league-thick hedge of thorns; his way was +choked with thorns; he struggled under tearing spines, and through +prickly underwood, and over tangled masses of briery plants, clinging to +him every where around, as with a thousand taloned claws; he is +exhausted, extrication is impossible; he beats the tough creepers with +his dulled hatchet, as a wounded man vainly; ha! one effort more—a +dying effort—must he be impaled upon these sharp aloes, and +strange-leafed prickly shrubs; they have caught him there, those thirsty +poisoned hooks, innumerable as his sins; his way, whichever way he +looks, is hedged up high with thorns—thick-set thorns—sturdy, tearing +thorns, that he cannot battle through them. Emaciated, bleeding, rent, +fainting, famished, he must perish in the merciless thicket into which +hard-heartedness had flung him!</p> + +<p>Before he was well dead, those flapping carrion fowls had found him out; +they were famishing too, and half forgot their natural distaste for +living meat. He fought them vainly, as the dying fight; soon there were +other screams in that echoing solitude, besides the screeching falcons! +and when they reached his heart (if its matter aptly typified its +spirit), that heart should have been a very stone for hardness.</p> + +<p>So let the selfish die! alone, in the waste howling wilderness; so let +him starve uncared-for, whose boast it was that he had never felt for +other than himself—who mocked God, and scorned man—whose motto +throughout life, one sensual, unsympathizing, harsh routine, was this: +"Take care of the belly, and the heart will take care of itself!"—who +never had a wish for other's good, a care for other's evil, a thought +beyond his own base carcase; who was a man—no man—a wretch, without a +heart. So let him perish miserably; and the white eagles pick his +skeleton clean in yonder tangled jungle!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em"> +<a name="CHAPTER_XIXb" id="CHAPTER_XIXb"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> +<h3>CHAPTER XIX.</h3><h3>WHEREIN MATTERS ARE CONCLUDED.</h3> +</div> + +<p>Certain folks at Ballyriggan, near Belfast, observe to me, with not a +little Irish truth, that it is by no means easy to conclude a history +never intended to be finished. It so happens that my good friends the +clan Clements are still enjoying life and all it sweets, beneficent in +their generation; and as for their hearts' affections, that story +without an end will still be heard, ringing on its happy changes, in the +presence of God and of his immortal train, when every reader of these +records shall have been to this world dead. Out of the heart are the +issues of life, and within, it is life's well-spring. Death is but a +little narrow gate, in a dark rough pass among the mountains, where each +must go alone, one by one, in solemn silence, for the avalanches hanging +overhead; one by one, in breathless caution, for there is but barely a +footing; one by one, for none can help his brother on the track: the +steady eye of faith, the firm foot of righteousness, the staff of hope +to comfort and support—these be the only helps. And each one carries +with him, as his sole possession on that lonely journey, no heaps of +wealth—no trappings of honour; these burdens of the camel must all be +lifted off, ere he can struggle through that gully in the rocks—"The +Needle's Eye;" but the sole possession which every wayfarer must take +with him into those broad plains where only Spirit can be seen, and Sin +no longer can be hid, is the shrine of his affections, the casket of his +precious pearls in life—his Heart, unmantled and unmasked. And if in +time it had been a well of love, flowing towards God in penitence, and +irrigating this world's garden with charities and blessed works, that +little sparkling stream shall then burst forth from this rocky portal of +the grave, a river of joy and peace, to gladden even more the sunny +provinces of heaven. For the heart with its affections, never dieth: +they may, indeed, flow inward, and corrupt to selfishness; becoming +then, in lieu of fountains of waters, gushing forth to everlasting life, +a bottomless volcano of hot lava, tempestuous and involved, setting up +the creature as his own foul god, and living the perpetual death-bed of +the damned; or they may nobly burst the banks of self, and, rising +momentarily higher and higher, till every Nilometer is drowned, will +seek for ever, with expanding strength, to reach the unapproachable +level of that source in the Most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span> Highest whence they originally sprung. +For this cause, the kindest fatherly word which ever reached man's ear, +the surest scheme for happiness that ever touched his reason, was one +from God's own heart—"My son, give me thy heart."</p> + +<p>They lived upon the blessing of that Word, our noble, kindly pair. To +enlarge upon the thought as respects a better world is well for those +who will: for if He that made the eye and framed the ear, by the +stronger argument Himself must see and hear, so he that fashioned +loveliness and moulded the affections, how well-deserving must that +Beautiful Spirit be of his rational creature's heart! Away with mawkish +cant and stale sentimentalities! let us think, and speak, and feel as +men, framed by nature's urgent law to the lovely and to hate the vile. +Oh, that the advocates for Him, the Good One, would oftener plead His +cause by the human affections—by generosity, by sympathy, by gentleness +and patience, by self-denying love, and soul absolving beauty; for these +are of the essence of God, and their spiritual influence on reason. A +child writes upon his heart that warmer code of morals, which the iron +tool of threatening availeth not to grave upon the rock, while the voice +of love can change that rock into a spring of water.</p> + +<p>But we must descend from our altitudes, and speak of lower things; for +the time and space forbid much longer intrusion on your courtesy. A few +ravelling threads of this our desultory tale have yet to be gathered up, +as tidily as may be. Suffer, then, such mingling of my thoughts: the web +I weave has many threads, woven with divers colours. Human nature is +nothing if not inconsistent; and I have no more notion of irreverence in +turning from a high topic to a low one, than a bee may be fancied to +have of irrelevant idleness in flitting from the sweet violet to the +scented dahlia. We may gather honey out of every flower. Have you not +often noticed, that riches generally come to a man, when he least stands +in need of them? Directly a middle-aged heir succeeds to his +long-expected heritage, half-a-dozen aunts and second cousins are sure +to die off and leave him super-abounding legacies, any one of which +would have helped his poverty stricken youth, and made him of +independent mind throughout his servile manhood. The other day (the idea +remains the same, though the fact is to be questioned) the richest lord +in Europe dug up a chest of hoarded coins, many thousand pound's worth, +simply because he didn't want it: and, if such particularization were +not improper or invidious, you or I might name a brace of friends +a-piece, who, having once lacked bread in the career of life, suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span> +have found themselves monopolizing two or three great fortunes. As too +few things are certain, novel writers less like truth in their +descriptions, than where ample wealth falls upon the hero just in the +nick of time. Providence intends to teach by penury: yes, and by +prosperity too: and we almost never see the reward given, or the no less +reward withheld, just as the scholar has begun to spell his lesson, and +before he has had the chance of getting it by heart.</p> + +<p>That another death should occur, in the progress of this tale, must be +counted for no fault of mine; especially as I am not about to introduce +another death-bed. One need not have the mummy always at our feasts. +Surely, too, these deaths have ever been on fit occasion: one broken +heart; one bereaved, yet comforted; and one which perished in its sin of +uttermost hard-heartedness. And here, if any insurance clerk, or other +interested person, will show cause why Mrs. Jane Mackenzie should not +die at the age of ninety-two, I would keep her alive if I could; but the +fact is, I cannot: she died. Henry Clements never saw her, any more that +I, nor dear Maria. But that was no earthly reason wherefore—</p> + +<p><i>First</i>, Maria should not bewail the dear old relative's loss with all +her heart and eyes, and children and household in mourning.</p> + +<p>Nor, <i>secondly</i>, wherefore Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, aforesaid, of +Ballyriggan, province of Ulster, should not leave her estate of +Ballyriggan, aforesaid, and a vast heap of other property, to the only +surviving though distant scion of her family, Henry Clements.</p> + +<p>Nor, <i>thirdly</i>, wherefore I should not record the fact, as duly bound in +my capacity of honest historian.</p> + +<p>This accession of property was large, almost overwhelming, when added to +Maria's patrimony of three thousand a-year, the produce of St. Benet's +Sherehog: for besides and beyond a considerable breadth of Irish acres, +sundry houses in Belfast, and an accumulation of half-forgotten funds, +the Bank of England found itself necessitated (from particular +circumstances of ill-caution in its servants) to refund the whole of +that twelve thousand forty-three pounds bank annuities, which Jack +Dillaway and his ladies had already made away with.</p> + +<p>Rich, however, as Clements had become, he felt himself only as a great +lord's steward to help a needy world; and I never heard that he spent a +sixpence more upon himself, his equipage, or his family, from being some +thousands a-year richer: though I certainly did hear that, owing to this +legacy, every tenant upon Ballyriggan, and a vast number of struggling +families in Spitalfields and round about St. Benet's, had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> ample cause +to bless Heaven and the good man of Finsbury square. As for dear Maria, +it rejoiced her generous heart to find that Henry (whose gentlemanly +pride had all along been reproaching him for pauperism) was now become +pretty well her equal in wealth; even as her humility long had known him +her superior in mind, good looks, and good family.</p> + +<p>Another thread in my discourse, hanging loosely on the world, concerns +our lady-legatees. What became of Miss Julia, after the safe and +successful issue of that vengeful trial, I never heard: and, perhaps, it +may be wise not to inquire: if she changed her name, she did not change +her nature: and is probably still to be numbered among the sect of +Strand peripatetics.</p> + +<p>But of Anna Bates I have pleasanter news to tell. With respect to +repentance, let us be charitable, and hope, even if we cannot be so +sanguine as firmly to believe; but at any rate we may rest assured of an +outward reformation, and an honest manner of life. The miracle happened +thus: After the trial and condemnation of Dillaway, poor Anna Bates felt +entirely disappointed that she had not the chance of better things +presented to her mind by transportation; the two approvers, to her +dismay—poor thing!—were graciously pardoned for their evidence; and, +whereas, the one of them returned to her old courses more devotedly than +ever, the other resolved to make one strong effort to extricate her +loathing self from the gulf in which she lay. Fortunately for her, our +Maria had the heart to pity and to help a frail and fallen sister; and +when the poor disconsolate woman, finding her to be the sister of that +evil paramour, came to Mrs. Clements in distress, revealing all her past +sins and sorrows, and pleading for some generous hand to lift her out of +that miserable state, she did not plead in vain. Maria spurned her not +away, nor coldly disbelieved her promise of amendment; but, taking +counsel of her husband, she gave the poor woman sufficient means of +setting up a milliner's shop at Hull, where, under her paternal name of +Stellingburne, our Fleet street lady-legatee still survives, earning a +decent livelihood, and little suspected amongst her kindly neighbours of +ever having been much worse than a strictly honest woman.</p> + +<p>For another thread, if the reader, in his ample curiosity, wishes to be +informed how it became possible for me to learn the fate of Dillaway, +let him know, that up to the hour of escape, I derived it easily from +living witnesses; and thereafter, that certain settlers, having set out +to explore the country, found a human skeleton stretched upon a thicket<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> +which, from the <i>débris</i> of convicts' clothes, and the hatchet stamped +with his initials, was easily decided to be that bad man's. It always +had struck me, as a remarkable piece of retribution, that whereas John +made Austral shares a plea for ruining Henry Clements, a howling Austral +wilderness was made the means of starving him. Maria never heard what +became of her brother; but still looks for his return some day with +affectionate and earnest expectation.</p> + +<p>Another little matter to be mentioned is the fact, that Henry Clements, +in his leisure from business, and freedom from care, resolved to attain +some literary glories; and first, he published his now-renowned tragedy +of '<i>Boadicea</i>,' with his name at length, giving a mint of proceeds to +that very proper charity the Theatrical Fund. Secondly, he followed up +his tragic triumph by a splendid '<i>Caractacus</i>,' by way of a companion +picture. Thirdly, he turned to his maligned law-treatise on <i>Defence</i>, +and boldly published a capital vindication thereof, flinging down his +gauntlet to the judges both of law and literature. It was strange, by +the way, and instructive also, to find with what a deferential air the +wealthy writer now was listened to; and how meekly both '<i>Watchman</i>' and +'<i>Corinthian</i>' kissed the smiling hand of the literary genius, who—gave +such sumptuous dinners; for Henry, of his mere kindness, (not +bribery—don't imagine him so weak,) now that he was known as a Mæcenas +amongst authors, made no invidious distinctions between literary +magnates, but effectually overcame evil with good by his hearty +hospitality to '<i>Corinthian</i>' and '<i>Watchman</i>' editors, as well as to +other potent wielders of the pen of fame, who had erstwhile favoured +the productions of his genius.</p> + +<p>The last dinner he gave, I, an old friend of the family, was present; +and when the ladies went up-stairs, I had, as usual, the honour of +enacting vice. It was according to Finsbury taste and custom, to produce +toasts and speeches; whether cold high-breeding would have sanctioned +this or not, little matters: it was warm and cordial, and we all liked +it; moreover, finding ourselves at Rome, we unanimously did as other +Romans do: and this I take to be politeness. Among the speeches, that +which proposed the health of the host and hostess caused the chiefest +roar of clamorous joy: it was a happy-looking friend who spoke, and what +he said was much as follows:</p> + +<p>"Clements, my dear fellow, you are the happiest man I know—except +myself; at least, in one thing I am happier—for I can call you friend, +whereas you can only return the compliment with such a sorry substitute +as I am."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span></p> + +<p>[This ingenious flattery was much ridiculed afterwards; but I pledge my +word the man intended what he said; moreover, he went on, utterly +regardless of surrounding critics, in all the seeming egotism of a warm +and open heart.]</p> + +<p>"Clements—I cannot help telling you how heartily I love you;" (Hear, +hear!) "and I wish I had known you thirty years instead of three, to +have said so with the unction of my earliest recollections: but we +cannot help antiquity, you know. Let us all the rather make up now by +heartiness for all lost time. I think, nay, am sure, that I speak the +language of all present in telling you I love you:" (an enormous +hear-hearing, which rose above the drawing-room floor; Harry Clements +singularly distinguished himself, in proving how he loved his father; a +fine young fellow he grows too, and I wish, between ourselves, to catch +him for a son-in-law some day;)—"Yes, Clements, I do love you, and your +children, and your wife, for there is the charm of heart about you all: +in yourself, in your Maria, in that fine frank youth, and those dear +warm girls up stairs" (every word was bravoed to the echo), "in every +one of you, all the charities and amenities, all the kindnesses and the +cheerfulness of life appear to be embodied; you love both God and man; +the rich and the poor alike may bless you, Clements, and your admirable +Maria; whilst, as for yourselves, you may both well thank God, whose +mercy made you what you are."</p> + +<p>Clements hid his face, and Harry sobbed with joyfulness.</p> + +<p>"Friends! a toast and sentiment, with all the honours: 'This happy +family! and may all who know them now, or come to hear of them in +future, cultivate as they do all the home affections, and acknowledge +that there is no wealth of man's, which may compare with riches of the +heart.'"</p> + +<h4>THE END OF HEART.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span></h4> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h1><a name="MIND" id="MIND"></a>AN AUTHOR'S MIND;</h1> + +<h3>THE BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES:</h3> + + +<h4>"A BOOKFUL OF BOOKS," OR "THIRTY BOOKS IN ONE."</h4> + + +<h4>EDITED BY</h4> + +<h2>M. F. TUPPER, ESQ., M. A.</h2> + + +<blockquote><p class='center'>"En un mot, mes amis, je n'ai entrepris de vous contenter tous en +général; ainsi, une et autres en particulier; et par spécial, +moymême."—<span class="smcap">Pasquier.</span></p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>ANNOUNCEMENT.</h2> + +<h3>BY THE EDITOR.</h3> + + +<p>The writer of this strange book (a particular friend of mine) came to me +a few mornings ago with a very happy face and a very blotty manuscript. +"Congratulate me," he began, "on having dispersed an armada of +head-aches hitherto invincible, on having exorcised my brain of its +legionary spectres, and brushed away the swarming thoughts that used to +persecute my solitude; I can now lie down as calmly as the lamb, and +rise as gayly as the lark; instead of a writhing Laocoon, my just-found +Harlequin's wand has changed me into infant Hercules brandishing his +strangled snakes; I have mowed, for the nonce, the docks, mallows, +hogweed, and wild-parsley of my rank field, and its smooth green carpet +looks like a rich meadow; I am free, happy, well at ease: argal, an thou +lovest me, congratulate."</p> + +<p>Wider and wider still stared out my wonder, to hear my usually sober +friend so voluble in words and so profuse of images: I saw at once it +was a set speech, prepared for an impromptu occasion; nevertheless, as +he was clearly in an enviable state of disenthraldom from +thoughtfulness, I graciously accorded him a sympathetic smile. And then +this more than Gregorian cure for the head-ache! here was an anodyne +infinitely precious to one so brain-feverish as I: had all this pleasure +and comfort arisen from such common-place remedials as a dear young +lover's courtesy or a deceased old miser's codicil, I should long ago +have heard all about it; for, between ourselves, my friend was never +known to keep a secret. There was evidently more than this in the +discovery; and when my curiosity, provoked by his laughing silence, was +naturally enough exhibiting itself in a "What on earth——?" he broke +out with the abruptness of an Abernethy, "Read my book."</p> + +<p>Well, I did read it; and, in candid disparagement, as amicably bound, +can readily believe what I was told afterwards, that, to except a very +small portion of older material, it had been at chance intervals rapidly +thrown off in a couple of months, (the old current-quill style,) chiefly +with the view of relieving a too prolific brain: it appeared to me a +mere idle overflowing of the brimful mind; an honest, indeed, but often +useless exposure of multifarious fancies—some good, some bad, and not a +few indifferent; an incautious uncalled-for confession of a thousand +thoughts, little worth the printing, if the very writing were not indeed +superfluous. Nevertheless, with all its faults, I thought the book a +novelty, and liked it not the less for its off-hand fashion; it had +something of the free, fresh, frank air of an old-school squire at +Christmas-tide, suggestive as his misletoe, cheerful as his face, and +careless as his hospitality. Knowing then that my friend had been more +than once an author—indeed, he tells us so himself—and perceiving, +from innumerable symptoms, that he meditated putting also this before +the world, I thought kindly to anticipate his wishes by proposing its +publication: but I was rather curtly answered with a "Did I suppose +these gnats were intended to be shrined in amber? these mere minnows to +be treated with the high consideration due only to potted char and white +bait? these fleeting thoughts fixed in stone before that Gorgon-head, +the public? these ephemeral fancies dropped into the true elixir of +immortality, printer's-ink? these——" I stopped him, for this other +mighty mouthful of images betrayed the hypocrite—"Yes, I did." An +involuntary smile assured me he did too, and the cause proceeded thus: +first, a promise not to burn the book; then a Bentley to the rescue, +with accessory considerations; and then, the due administration of a +little wholesome flattery: by this time we had obtained permission, +after modest reluctance pretty well enacted, to transform the deformity +of manuscript into the well-proportioned elegance of print. But, this +much gained, our author would not yield to any argument we could urge +upon the next point, viz: leave to produce the volume, duly fathered +with his name. "Not he indeed; he loved quiet too well; he might, it was +true, secretly like the bantling, but cared not to acknowledge it before +a populous reading-world, every individual whereof esteems himself and +herself competent to criticize!" Mr. Publisher, deeply disinterested, of +course, bristled up at the notion of any thing anonymous; and the only +alternative remaining was the stale expedient of an editor; that editor, +in brief, to be none other than myself, a very palpable-obscure: and let +this excuse my name upon the title-page.</p> + +<p>Now, as editor, I have had to do—what seems, by the way, to be regarded +by collective wisdom as the best thing possible—nothing: my author +would not suffer the change of a syllable, for all his seeming +carelessness about the <span class="smcap">THING</span>, as he called it; so, I had no +more for my part than humbly to act the Helot, and try to set decently +upon the public tables a genuine mess of Spartan porridge.</p> + +<p class='author'>M. F. T.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;"><i>Albury, Guildford.</i></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="TABLE OF CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Ic">CHAPTER I.—THE AUTHOR'S MIND; A RAMBLE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IIc">CHAPTER II.—NERO, A TRAGEDY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IIIc">CHAPTER III.—OPIUM, A HISTORY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IVc">CHAPTER IV.—CHARLOTTE CLOPTON, A NOVEL</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Vc">CHAPTER V.—THE MARVELLOUS, A HAND-BOOK</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIc">CHAPTER VI.—PSYCHOTHERION, AN ARGUMENT</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIc">CHAPTER VII.—THE CONFESSIONAL, A TALE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIc">CHAPTER VIII.—THE PRIOR OF MARRICK, AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IXc">CHAPTER IX.—THE SEVEN CHURCHES, A DISSERTATION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_Xc">CHAPTER X.—REVISION, AN ESSAY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIc">CHAPTER XI.—HOMELY EXPOSITIONS, A COMPILATION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIIc">CHAPTER XII.—LAY SERMONS, A CONTRIBUTION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIIIc">CHAPTER XIII.—SCRIPTURAL PHYSICS, A TREATISE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIVc">CHAPTER XIV.—HEATHENISM, AN APOLOGY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVc">CHAPTER XV.—BIBLICAL SIMILES, AN INVESTIGATION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIc">CHAPTER XVI.—HOME, AN EPIC</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIIc">CHAPTER XVII.—GRECIAN SAYINGS, A SERIES</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIIIc">CHAPTER XVIII.—HEPTALOGIA, A COLLECTION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIXc">CHAPTER XIX.—ALFRED, AN ORATORIO</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXc">CHAPTER XX.—ALFRED'S LIFE, A TRANSLATION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIc">CHAPTER XXI.—NATIONAL MEMORIALS, A PROPOSAL</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIIc">CHAPTER XXII.—POLITICS, A MANUAL</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIIIc">CHAPTER XXIII.—WOMAN, A SUBJECT</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIVc">CHAPTER XXIV.—FALSE STEPS, A PAMPHLET</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVc">CHAPTER XXV.—KING'S EVIDENCE, A SATIRE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIc">CHAPTER XXVI.—POETICS, A MELANGE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIIc">CHAPTER XXVII.—HUMORISTICS, A MEDLEY</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIIIc">CHAPTER XXVIII.—JOURNALS, A DECADE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIXc">CHAPTER XXIX.—LAY HINTS, AN APPEAL</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXc">CHAPTER XXX.—ANTI-XURION, A CRUSADE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIc">CHAPTER XXXI.—THE SQUIRE, A PORTRAITURE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIIc">CHAPTER XXXII.—THE AUTHOR'S TRIBUNAL, AN ORATION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIIIc">CHAPTER XXXIII.—ZOILOMASTRIX, A TITLE</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIVc">CHAPTER XXXIV.—EPILOGUE, A CONCLUSION</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVc">CHAPTER XXXV.—APPENDIX, AN AFTER-THOUGHT</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /></p> +<h2>AN AUTHOR'S MIND:</h2> + +<h4>THE</h4> + +<h3>BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES.</h3> +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Ic" id="CHAPTER_Ic"></a>A RAMBLE.</h3> + + +<p>In these days of universal knowledge, schoolmaster and scholars all +abroad together, quotation is voted pedantry, and to interpret is +accounted an impertinence; yet will I boldly proclaim, as a mere fact, +clear to the perceptions of all it may concern, "This book deserves +richly of the Sosii." And that for the best of reasons: it is not only a +book, but a book full of books; not merely a new book, but a +little-library of new books; thirty books in one, a very harvest of +epitomized authorship, the cream of a whole fairy dairy of quiescent +post-octavos. It is not—O, mark ye this, my Sosii, (and by the way, +gentle ladies, these were worshipful booksellers of old, the Murrays and +the Bentleys of imperial Rome,)—it is not the dull concreted elongation +of one isolated hackneyed idea—supposing in every work there <i>be one</i>, +a charitable hypothesis—wire-drawn, and coaxed, and hammered through +three regulation volumes; but the scarcely-more-than-hinted abstractions +of some forty thousand flitting notions—hasty, yet meditative Hamlets; +none of those lengthy, drawling emblems of Laertes—driven in flocks to +the net of the fowler, and penned with difficult compression within +these modest limits. So "goe forth, littel boke," and make thyself a +friend among those good husbandmen, who tend the trees of knowledge, and +bring their fruit to the world's market.</p> + +<p>Now, reader, one little preliminary parley with you about myself: here +beginneth the trouble of authorship, but it is a trouble causing ease; +ease from thoughts—thoughts—thoughts, which never cease to make one's +head ache till they are fixed on paper; ease from dreams by night and +reveries by day, (thronging up in crowds behind, like Deucalion's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> +children, or a serried host in front, like Jason's instant army,) +harassing the brain, and struggling for birth, a separate existence, a +definite life; ease, in a cessation of that continuous internal hum of +aërial forget-me-nots, clamouring to be recorded. O, happy unimaginable +vacancy of mind, to whistle as you walk for want of thought! O, mental +holiday, now as impossible to me, as to take a true school-boy's +interest in rounders and prisoner's base! An author's mind—and remember +always, friend, I write in character, so judge not as egotistic vanity +merely the well playing of my <i>rôle</i>—such a mind is not a sheet of +smooth wax, but a magic stone indented with fluttering inscriptions; no +empty tenement, but a barn stored to bursting: it is a painful pressure, +constraining to write for comfort's sake; an appetite craving to be +satisfied, as well as a power to be exerted; an impetus that longs to +get away, rather than a dormant dynamic: thrice have I (let me confess +it) poured forth the alleviating volume as an author, a real +author—real, because for very peace of mind, involuntarily; but still +the vessel fills; still the indigenous crop springs up, choking a better +harvest, seeds of foreign growth; still those Lernæan necks sprout +again, claiming with many mouths to explain, amuse, suggest, and +controvert—to publish invention, and proscribe error. Truly, it were +enviable to be less apprehensive, less retentive; to be fitted with a +colander-mind, like that penal cask which forty-nine Danaïdes might not +keep from leaking; to be, sometimes at least, suffered for a holiday to +ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal, +perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often +cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of +a man—fret, wear, worry him; to be irritable, is the conditional tax +laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery +makes him hasty, quick, nervous as a haunted hunted man: minds of +coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a +texture; they cannot estimate the wish that a duller sword were in a +tougher scabbard; the river, not content with channel and restraining +banks, overflows perpetually; the extortionate exacting armies of the +Ideal and the Causal persecute <span class="smcap">MY</span> spirit, and I would make a +patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders of my peace: I write +these things only to be quit of them, and not to let the crowd increase; +I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu and Elijah with the +priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental nurselings; a dire +resolve has filled me to effect a premature destruction of the literary +populace superfœtating in my brain—plays, novels,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> essays, tales, +homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and poetics, politics and +rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators of +maltreated Aristotle: I will exhibit them in their state chaotic; I will +addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not chirp; I will reveal, and +secrets shall not waste me; I will write, and thoughts shall not batten +on me.</p> + +<p>The world is too full of books, and I yearn not causelessly to add more +than this involuntary unit: bottles, bottles—invariable bottles—was +the one idea of a most clever Head at Nieder-Selters; books, +books—accumulating books—press upon my conscience in this literary +London: despairing auctioneers hate the sound, ruined publishers dread +it, surfeited readers grumble at it, and the very cheese-monger begins +to be an epicure as to which grand work is next to be demolished. +Friendships and loves tremble at the daily recurrence of "Have you read +this?" and "Mind you buy that;" wise men shun a blue-belle, sure that +she will recommend a book; and the yet wiser treat themselves to +solitary confinement, that they may not have to meet the last new batch +of authors, and be obliged to purchase, if not to peruse, their +never-ending books. I fear to increase the plague, to be convicted an +abettor of great evils, though by the measure of a little one. I am +infected, and I know it: but for science-sake I break the quarantine, +and in my magnanimity would be victimized unknown, consigning to a +speedy grave this useless offspring, together with its too productive +parent, and saving of a race so hopeless little else than their +prëdetermined names—in fact, their title-pages.</p> + +<p>But is that indeed little? Speak, authors with piles of ready-written +copy, is not the theme (so often carried out beyond, or beside, or even +against its original purpose) less perplexing than the after-thought +thesis? Bear witness, readers, bit by a mysterious advertisement in the +'<i>Morning Post</i>,' are names, indeed, not matters of much weight? Press +forward, Sosii aforesaid, and answer me truly, is not a title-page the +better part of many books? Cheap promises of stale pleasure, false hopes +of dull interest, imprimaturs of deceived fancy, lying visions of the +future unfulfilled, title-pages still do good service to the cause +of—bookselling.</p> + +<p>And, to commence, let me elucidate mine own—I mean the first, the head +and front of this offending phalanx—mine own, <i>par excellence</i>, '<i>An +Authors Mind</i>:' such in sooth it shall be found, for richer or poorer, +for better or for worse; not of selfish, but of common application; not +so much individually of mine own, as generically of authors; a medley<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> +of crudities; an undigested mass, as any in the maw of Polypheme; a +fermenting hotchpotch of half-formed things, illustrative, among other +matters, of the Lucretian theory, those close-cohering atoms; a farrago +of thoughts, and systems of thoughts, in most admired disorder, which +would symbolize the Copernican astronomy, with its necessary clash of +whirling orbs, about as well as the intangible chaos of Berkeleyan +metaphysics.</p> + +<p>So much then on the moment for the monosyllable "Mind;"—whereof +followeth, indeed, all the more hereafter; but—"An author's?"—what +author's? You would see my patent of such rank, my commission to wear +such honourable uniform. Pr'ythee be content with simple assurance that +it is so; consider the charm of unsatisfied curiosity, and pry not; let +me sit unseen, a spectator; for this once I would go <i>in domino</i>. +Heretofore, "credit me, fair Discretion, your Affability" hath achieved +glory, and might Solomonize on its vanity at least as well as poor +discomfited, discovered Sir Piercie Shafton: heretofore, I have stood +forth in good causes, with helm unbarred, and due proclamation of name, +style, and title, an avowed author; and might sermonize thus upon +success, that a little censure loseth more friends than much praise +winneth enemies. So now, with visor down, and a white shield, as a young +knight-candidate unknown, it pleases my leisure to take my pastime in +the tourney: and so long as in truthful prowess I bear me gallantly and +gently, who is he that hath a right to unlatch my helmet, or where is +the herald that may challenge my rank? Nevertheless, inquisitive, +consider the mysteries that lie in the Turkish-looking <i>sobriquet</i> of +"Mufti;" its vowels and its consonants are full of strict intention I +never saw cause why the most charming of essayists hid himself in +"Elia," but he may for all that have had pregnant reasons; even so, (but +that slender wit could read my riddle,) you shall perhaps find fault +with my Mussulman agnomen; still you and I equally participate in this +shallow secret, and within so brief a word is concealed the key to +unlock the casket that tempts your curiosity: however, the less said of +so diaphanous a mystery, the better.</p> + +<p>And let me remark this of the mode anonymous; a mode, indeed, to +purposes of shame, and slander, and falsity of all kinds too often +prostituted for the present, bear with it; sometimes it is well to go +disguised, and the voice of one unseen lacks not eager listeners; we +address your judgment, unbiased by the prejudice or sanction of a name: +we put forth, lightly and negligently, those lesser matters which +opportunity hath not yet matured; we escape the nervous pains, the +literary perils<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> of the hardier acknowledged. Only of this one thing be +sure; we—(no, I; why should unregal, unhierarchal I affect +pluralities?)—I hope to keep inviolate, as much when masked as when +avowed, the laws of truth, charity, sincerity, and honour; and, +although, among my many booklets, the grave and the gay will be found in +near approximation, I trust—will it offend any to tell them that I +pray?—to do no ill service at any time to the cause of that true +religion which resents not the neighbourhood of innocent cheerfulness. I +show you, friend, my honest mind.</p> + +<p>I by itself, I; odious mono-literal; thinnest, feeblest, most +insignificant of letters, I dread your egotistic influence as my bane; +they will not suffer you, nor bear with a book so speckled with your +presence. Still, world, hear me; mercifully spare a poor grammarian the +penance of perpetual third persons; let an individual tender conscience +escape censure for using the true singular in preference to that +imposing lie, the plural. Suffer a humble unit to speak of himself as I, +and, once for all, let me permissively disclaim intentional self-conceit +in the needful usage of isolated I-ship.</p> + +<p>These few preliminaries being settled, though I fear little to the +satisfaction of either party concerned, let us proceed—further to +preliminarize; for you will find, even to the end, as you may have found +out already from the beginning, that your white knight is mounted rather +on an ambling preambling palfrey, than on any determinate charger; +curveting and prancing, and rambling and scrambling at his own unmanaged +will: scorning the bit and bridle, too hot to bear the spur, careless of +listing laws, and wishing rather playfully to show his paces, than to +tilt against a foe.</p> + +<p>An author's mind, <i>quà</i> author, is essentially a gossip; an oral, +ocular, imaginative, common-place book: a <i>pot pourri</i> mixed from the +<i>hortus siccus</i> of education, and the greener garden of internal thought +that springs in fresh verdure about the heart's own fountain; a compound +of many metals flowing from the mental crucible as one—perchance a base +alloy, perchance new, and precious, and beautiful as the fine brass of +Corinth; an accidental meeting in the same small chamber of many +spiritual essences that combine, as by magnetism into some strange and +novel substance; a mixture of appropriations, made lawfully a man's own +by labour spent upon the raw material; corn-clad Egypt rescued from a +burnt Africa by the richness of a swelling Nile—the black forest of +pines changed into a laughing vineyard by skill, enterprise, and +culture—the mechanism of Frankenstein's man of clay, energized at +length by the spark Promethean.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> + +<p>And now, reader, do you begin to comprehend me, and my title? '<i>An +Author's Mind</i>' is first in the field, and, as with root and fruit, must +take precedence of its booklets; bear then, if you will, with this +desultory anatomization of itself yet a little longer, and then in good +time and moderate space you will come to the rudiments—bones, so to +speak—of its many members, the frame-work on which its nerves and +muscles hang, the names of its unborn children, the title-pages of its +own unprinted books.</p> + +<p>Philosophers and fools, separately or together, as the case may be—for +folly and philosophy not seldom form one Janus-head, and Minerva's bird +seems sometimes not ill-fitted with the face of Momus—these and their +thousand intermediates have tried in all ages to define that quaint +enigma, Man: and I wot not that any pundit of literature hath better +succeeded than the nameless, fameless man—or woman, was it?—or haply +some innocent shrewd child—who whilom did enunciate that <span class="smcap">MAN IS A +WRITING ANIMAL</span>: true as arithmetic, clear as the sunbeam, rational +as Euclid, a discerning, just, exclusive definition. That he is "capable +of laughter," is well enough even for thy deathless fame, O Stagyrite! +but equally (so Buffon testifies) are apes and monkeys, horses and +hyenas; whether perforce of tickling or sympathy, or native notions of +the humorous, we will not stop to contend. That he actually is "an +animal whose best wisdom is laughter," hath but little reason in it, +Democrite, seeing there are such obvious anomalies among men as suicidal +jesters and cachinating idiots; nevertheless, my punster of Abdera, thy +whimsical fancy, surviving the wreck of dynasties, and too light to sink +in the billows of oblivion, is now become the popular thought, the +fashionable dress of heretofore moping wisdom: crow, an thou wilt, jolly +old chanticleer, but remember thee thou crowest on a dunghill; man is +not a mere merry-andrew. Neither is he exclusively "a weeping animal," +lugubrious Heraclite, no better definer than thy laughter-loving foe: +that man weeps, or ought to weep, the world within him and the world +without him indeed bear testimony: but is he the only mourner in this +valley of grief, this travailing creation? No, no; they walk lengthily +in black procession: yet is this present writing not the fit season for +enlarging upon sorrows; we must not now mourn and be desolate as a poor +bird grieving for its pilfered young—is Macduff's lamentable cry for +his lost little ones, "All—what, all?" more piteous?—we must now +indulge in despondent fears, like yonder hard-run stag, with terror in +his eye, and true tears coursing down his melancholy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> face: we must not +now mourn over cruelty and ingratitude, like that poor old worn-out +horse, crying—positively crying, and looking imploringly for merciful +rest into man's iron face; we must not scream like the wounded hare, nor +beat against our cage like the wild bird prisoned from its freedom. +Moreover, Heraclite, even in thine own day thou mightest well have heard +of the classic wailings of Philomel for Atys, or of consumptive Canens, +that shadow of a voice, for her metamorphosed Pie, and have known that +very crocodiles have tears: pass on, thy desolate definition hath not +served for man.</p> + +<p>With flippant tongue a mercantile cosmopolite, stable in statistics and +learned in the leger, here interposes an erudite suggestion: "Man is a +calculating animal." Surely, so he is, unless he be a spendthrift; but +he still shares his quality with others; for the squirrel hoards his +nuts, the aunt lays in her barley-corns, the moon knoweth her seasons, +and the sun his going down: moreover, Chinese slates, multiplying +rulers, and, as their aggregated wisdom, Babbage's machine, will stoutly +contest so mechanical a fancy. Savoury steams, and those too smelling +strongly of truth, assault the nostrils, as a Vitellite—what a name of +hungry omen for the imperial devourer!—plausibly insinuates man to be +"a cooking animal." Who can gainsay it? and wherewithal, but with +domesticated monkeys, does he share this happy attribute? It is true, +the butcher-bird spits his prey on a thorn, the slow epicurean boa +glazes his mashed antelope, the king of vultures quietly waits for a +gamey taste and the rapid roasting of the tropics: but all this care, +all this caloric, cannot be accounted culinary, and without a question, +the kitchen <i>is</i> a sphere where the lord of creation reigns supreme: +still, thou best of practical philosophers, caterer for daily +dinners—man—<span class="smcap">MAN</span>, I say, is not altogether a compact of edible +commons, a Falstaff pudding-bag robbed of his seasoning wit, a mere +congeries of food and pickles; moreover, honest Gingel of "fair" fame +hath (or used to have, "in my warm youth, when George the Third was +king,") automatons, [pray, observe, Sosii, I am not pedant or wiseacre +enough to indite <i>automata</i>; we conquering Britons stole that word among +many others from poor dead Greece, who couldn't want it; having made it +ours in the singular, why be bashful about the plural! So also of +memorandums, omnibuses, [you remember Farren's <i>omni</i><span class="smcap">BI</span>!] +necropolises, gymnasiums, eukeirogeneions, and other unlegacied +property of dear departed Rome and Greece. All this, as you see, +is clearly parenthetical;] well, then, Gingel has automatons, that will +serve you up all kinds of delicate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> viands, pleasant meats, and +choice cates by clock-work, to say nothing of Jones' patent +all-in-a-moment-any-thing-whatsoever cooking apparatus: no mine +Apiciite, Heliogabalite, Sardanapalite, Seftonite, Udite, thou of +extravagant ancestry and indifferent digestion; little, indeed, as you +may credit me, man is not all stomach, nor altogether formed alone for +feeding. Remember Æsop's parable, the belly and the members; and, above +them all, do not overlook the head.</p> + +<p>What think you then of "a featherless biped?" gravely suggests a rusty +Plinyite. Absolute sir, and most obsolete Roman, doubtless you never had +the luck to set eyes upon a turkey at Christmas; the poor bare <i>bipes +implumis</i>, a forked creature, waiting to be forked supererogatively; ay, +and <i>risibilis</i> to boot, if ever all concomitants of the hearty old +festival were properly provocative of decent mirth. Thus then return we +to our muttons, and time enough, quotha: literary pundit, (whose is the +notable saying?) thy definition is bomb-proof, thy fancy unscaleable, +thy thought too deep for undermining; that notion is at the head of the +poll, a candidate approved of Truth's most open borough; for, in spite +of secretary-birds with pens stuck clerk-like behind their ears (as +useless an emblem of sinecure office as gold keys, silver, and +coronation armour)—in spite of whole flights of geese, capable enough +of saving capitols, but impotent to wield one of their own +all-conquering quills—in spite, also, (keen-eyed categorists, be to my +faults in ratiocination a little blind, for very cheerfulness,) in +spite, I say, of copying presses, manifold inditers, and automaton +artists, <span class="smcap">MAN IS A WRITING ANIMAL</span>.</p> + +<p>Wearily enough, you will think, have we disposed of this one definition: +but recollect, and take me for a son of leisure, an amateur tourist of +Parnassus, an idling gatherer of way-side flowers in the vale of +Thessaly, a careless, unbusied, "contemplative man," recreating himself +by gentle craft on the banks of much-poached Helicon; and if you, my +casual friend, be neither like-minded in fancy nor like-fitted in +leisure, courteously consider that we may not travel well together: at +this station let us stop, freely forgiving each other for mutual +misliking; to your books, to your business, to your fowling, to your +feasting, to your mummery, to your nunnery—go: my track lays away from +the highroad, in and out between yonder hills, among thickets, mossy +rocks, green hollows, high fern, and the tangled hair of hiding +river-gods; I meet not pedlers and bagsmen, but stumble upon fawns just +dropped, and do not scare their doting mothers; I quench not my noonday +thirst with fiery drams from a brazen tap, but, lying over the cold +brook, drink to its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> musical Naiades; I walk no dusty roads of a +working-day world, but flit upon the pleasant places of one made up of +holidays.</p> + +<p>A truce to this truancy, and method be my maxim: let us for a moment +link our reasonings, and solder one stray rivet; man being a writing +animal, there still remains the question, what is writing? Ah, there's +the rub: a very comfortable definition would it be, if every pen-holder +and pen-wiper could truly claim that kingship of the universe—that +imagery of his Maker—that mystical, marvellous, immortal, intellectual, +abstraction, manhood: but, what then is <span class="smcap">WRITING</span>? Ye tons of +invoices, groaning shelves of incalculable legers, parchment abhorrences +of rare Charles Lamb, we think not now of you; dreary piles of +unhealthy-looking law-books, hypochondriacal heaps of medical +experiences, plodding folios of industrious polemics, slow elaborations +of learned dullness, we spare your native dust; letters unnumbered, in +all stages of cacography, both physical and metaphysical, alack! most of +you must slip through the meshes of our definition yet unwove; poor +deciduous leaves of the forest, that, at your best, serve only—it is +yet a good purpose—to dress the common soil of human kindness, without +attaining to the praise of wreaths and chaplets ever hanging in the +Muses' temple; flowers withered on the stalk, whose blooming beauty no +lover's hand has dropped upon the sacred waters of Siloa, like the +Hindoo's garland on her Ganges; prolix, vain, ephemeral letters +(especially enveloped penny-posters)—and sparing only some few redolent +of truth, wisdom, and affection—your bulky majority of flippant trash, +staid advices, dunnings, hoaxings, lyings, and slanderings, degrade you +to a lower rank than that we take on us to designate as "writing."</p> + +<p>And what, O what—"how poor is he that hath not patience!"—shall we +predicate of the average viscera of circulating libraries?—abominable +viscera!—isn't that the word, my young Hippocrates?—A parley—a +parley! and the terms of truce are these: If this present pastime of +mine (for pastime it is, so spurn not at its logic,) be mercifully +looked on by you, lady novelists and male dittoes—yet truly there are +giants in your ranks, as Scott, and Ward, and Hugo, and Le Sage, +towering above ten thousand pigmies—if I be spared your censures +well-deserved, interchangeably as toward your authorships will I +exercise the charitable wisdom of silence: a white flag or a white +feather is my best alternative in soothing or avoiding so terrible a +host; and verily, to speak kinder of those whose wit, and genius, and +graphic powers have so smoothed this old world's wrinkled face of care, +many brilliant, many clever,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> many well-intended caterers to public +amusement, throng your ill-ordered ranks: still, there are numbered to +your shame as followers of the fool's-cap standard, the huge corrupting +mass of depraved moralists, meagre trash-inditers, treacherous +scandal-mongers, men about town who immortalize their shame, and the +dull, pernicious school of feather-brained Romancists: and take this +sentence for a true one, a <i>verum-dictum</i>. But enough, there are others, +and those not few, even far less veniable; ye priers into family +secrets—fawning, false guests at the great man's open house, eagerly +jotting down with paricidal pen the unguarded conversation of the +hospitable board—shame on your treason, on its wages, and its fame! ye +countless gatherers and disposers of other men's stuff; chiels amang us +takin' notes, an' faith, to prent 'em too, perpetually, without +mitigation or remorse; ye men of paste and scissors, who so often +falsely, feebly, faithlessly, and tastelessly are patching into a +Harlequin whole the <i>disjecta membra</i> of some great hacked-up +reputation; can such as ye are tell me what it is to write? Writing is +the concreted fruit of thinking, the original expression of new +combinations of idea, the fresh chemical product of educational +compounds long simmering in the mind, the possession of a sixth sense, +distinguishing intelligence, and proclaiming it to the four winds; +writing is not labour, but ease; not care, but happiness; not the petty +pilferings of poverty, but the large overflowings of mental affluence; +it begs not on the highway, but gives great largess, like a king; it +preys not on a neighbour's wealth, but enriches him; it may light, +indeed, a lamp, at another's candle, but pays him back with brilliancy; +it may borrow fire from the common stock, but uses it for genial warmth +and noble hospitality.</p> + +<p>Remember well, good critic, (for verily bad there be,) my purposes in +this odd volume—this queer, unsophisticate, uncultivated book: to empty +my mind, to clear my brain of cobwebs, to lift off my head a porters's +load of fancy articles; and as in a bottle of bad champaign, the first +glass, leaping out hurryskurry, at a railroad pace boiling a gallop, +carries off with it bits of cork and morsels of rosin, even such is the +first ebullition of my thoughts: take them for what they are worth, and +blame no one but your discontented self that they are no better. Do you +suppose, keen sir, that I am not quite self-conscious of their +shallowness, utter contempt of subordination and selection, their empty +reasoning and pellucid vanity?—There I have saved you the labour of a +sentence, and present you with a killing verdict for myself. After a +little, perhaps, your patience may find me otherwise; of clearer flow,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> +but flatter flavour: these desultorinesses must first of all be +immolated, for in their Ariel state they vex me, but I bind them down +like slaving Calibans, by the magic of a pen; and glad shall I be to +victimize my monsters, eager to dissipate my musquito-like tormentors; +yea, I would "take up arms against a sea"—["Arms against a sea?" +dearest Shakspeare, would that Theobald, or Johnson's stock-butt, "the +Oxford Editor," had indeed interpolated that unconscionable image! It +has been sapiently remarked by some hornet of criticism, that +"Shakspeare was a clever man;" but cleverer far must that champion +stand forth who wars with any prospect of success upon seas; perhaps +Xerxes might have thought of it—or your Astley's brigand, who +rushes sword in hand on an ocean of green baize. Who shall cure me of +parentheses?]—well, "a sea of troubles, [thoughts trouble us more than +things—I sin again; close it;] and by opposing, end them;" that is, by +setting forth these troublous thoughts opposite, in stately black and +white, I clip their wings, and make them peck among my poultry, and not +swarm about my heaven. But soon must I be more continuous; turn over to +my future title-pages, and spare your objurgation; a little more of this +medley while the fit lasts, and afterward a staid course of better +accustomed messes; a few further variations on this lawless theme of +authorship, and then to try simpler tunes; briefly, and yet to be +grandiloquent, as a last round of this giddy climax, after noisy +clashing Chaos there shall roll out, "perfect, smooth, and round," green +young worldlets, moving in quiet harmony, and moulded with systematic +skill.</p> + +<p>As an author, meanwhile, let man be most specifically characterized: a +real author, voluntary in his motives, but involuntary as regards his +acts authorial; full of matter, prolific of images and arguments, +teeming, bursting, with something, much, too much, to say, and well +witting how to say it: none of your poor devils compulsory from +poverty—Plutus help them!—whose penury of pocket is (pardon me) too +often equitably balanced by their emptiness of head; and far less one of +the lady's-maid school, who will glory in describing a dish of cutlets +at Calais, or an ill-trimmed bonnet, or the contents of an old maid's +reticule, or of a young gentleman's portmanteau, or those rare occasions +for sentimentality, moonlight, twilight, arbours, and cascades, in the +moderate space of an hour by Shrewsbury clock: but a man who has it +weightily upon his mind to explain himself and others, to insist, +refute, enjoin: a man—frown not, fair helpmates; the controversial pen, +as the controversial sword, be ours; we will leave your flower-beds and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> +sweeter human nurseries, despotism over cooks and Penelobean penance +upon carpet-work; nay, a trip to Margate prettily described, easy +lessons and gentle hymns in behalf of those dear prattlers, and for the +more cœrulean sort, "lyrics to the Lost one," or stanzas on a sickly +geranium, miserably perishing in the mephitic atmosphere of routs—these +we masculine tyrants, we Dionysii of literature, ill-naturedly have +accounted your prerogatives of authorship. But who then are Sévigné and +Somerville, Edgeworth and De Staël, Barbauld and Benger, and Aikin, and +Jameson, Hemans, Landon, and a thousand more, not less learned, less +accomplished, nor less useful? Forgive, great names, my half-repeated +slander: riding with the self-conceited <i>cortège</i> of male critics, my +boasted loyalty was well-nigh guilty of <i>lèze majesté</i>: but I repudiate +the thought; my verdict shall have no reproach in it, as my championship +no fear: how much has man to learn from woman! teach us still to look on +humanity in love, on nature in thankfulness, on death without fear, on +heaven without presumption; fairest, forgive those foolish and ungallant +calumnies of my ruder sex, who boast themselves your teachers—making +yet this wise use of the slander: never be so bold in authorship, as to +hazard the loss of your sweet, retiring, modest, amiable, natural +dependence: never stand out as champions on the arena of strife, but if +you will, strew it with posies for the king of the tournament; it ill +becomes you to be wrestlers, though a Lycurgus allowed it, and Atalanta, +another Eve, was tripped up by an apple in the foot-race. So digressing, +return we to our author; to wit, a man, <i>homo</i>—a human, as they say in +the west—with news of actual value to communicate, and powers of pen +competent to do so graphically, honestly, kindly, boldly.</p> + +<p>Much as we may emulate Homer's wordy braggadocios in boasting ourselves +far better than our fathers, still, great was the wisdom of our +ancestors: and that time-tried wisdom has given us three things that +make a man; he must build a house, have a child, write a book: and of +this triad of needfuls, who perceives not the superior and innate +majesty of the last requisite?—"Build a house?" I humbly conceive, and +steal my notion from the same ancestral source, that, in nine cases out +of ten, fools build houses for wise men to live in; besides, if houses +be made a test of supreme manhood, your modern wholesale runner-up of +lath and plaster tenements, warranted to stand seven years—provided +quadrilles be excluded, and no larger flock of guests <i>than six</i> be +permitted to settle on one spot—such a jackal for surgeons, such a +reprobate provider for accident-wards as this, would be among our +heroes, a prize-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>man, the flower of the species. "Children" too?—very +happy, beautiful, heart-gladdening creations—God bless them all, and +scatter those who love them not!—but still for a proof of more than +average humanity, somewhat common, somewhat overwhelming: rabbits beat +us here, with all our fecundity, so offensive to Martineau and Malthus. +But as to "books"—common enough, too, smirks gentle reader: pardon, +courteous sir, most rare—at least in my sense; I speak not of flat +current shillings, but the bold medallions of ancient Syracuse; I heed +not the dull thousands of minted gold and silver, but the choice +coin-sculptures of Larissa and Tarentum. There do indeed flow hourly, +from an ever-welling press, rivers of words; there are indeed shoaling +us up on all sides a throng of well-bound volumes—novels, histories, +poems, plays, memoirs, and so forth—to all appearance, books: but if by +"books" be intended originality of matter, independent arguments, water +turned wine, by the miracle of right-thinking, and not a mere +re-decantering of dregs from other vessels—these many masqueraded +forms, these multiplied images of little-varied likenesses, these +Protean herds, will not stay to be counted, nor abide judgment, nor +brook scrutiny, but will merge and melt by thousands into the one, or +the two, real, original, sterling books. We live in a monopolylogue of +authorship: an idea goes forth to the world's market-place well dressed +from the wardrobe of some master-mind; it greets the public with a +captivating air, and straightway becomes the rage; it seems epidemical; +it comes out simultaneously as a piece of political economy, a +cookery-book, a tragedy, a farce, a novel, a religious experience, an +abstract <i>ism</i>, or a concrete <i>ology</i>; till the poor worn-out, +dissipated shadow of a thought looks so feeble, thin, fashionably +affected and fashionably infected, that its honest, bluff old father, +for very shame, disowns it. Thus has it come to pass, that one or two +minds, in this golden age of scribbling, have, to speak radically, been +the true originators of a million volumes, which haply shall have sprung +from the seed of some singular book, or of books counted in the dual.</p> + +<p>Indignant authors, be not merciless on my candour: I confess too much +whereof I hold you guilty; I am one of yourselves, and I question not +that few of you can beat me in a certain sort of—I will say, +unintended, plagiarism; you are thieves—patience—I thieve from +thieves; Diogenes cannot see me any more than you; you copy phrases, I +am perpetually and unconsciously filching thoughts; my entomological +netted-scissors, wherewith I catch those small fowl on the wing, are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> +always within reach; you will never find me without well-tenanted +pill-boxes in my pocket, and perhaps a buzzing captive or two stuck in +spinning thraldom on my castor; you are petty larceners, I profess the +like <i>métier</i> of intellectual abstractor; you pilfer among a crowd of +volumes, manuscripts, rare editions, conflicting commentators, and your +success depends upon rëusage of the old materials; whereas I sit alone +and bookless in my dining-parlour, thinking over bygone fancies, +rëconsidering exploded notions, appropriating all I find of lumber in +the warehouse of my memory, and, if need be, without scruple, quietly +digesting, as my special provender, the thoughts of others, originated +ages ago.</p> + +<p>Is it necessary to remind you—dropping this lightsome vein for a +precious moment—that I am penning away my "crudites," off-hand, at the +top of my speed? that my set intention is, if possible, to jot down +instanter my heavy brainful, and feel for once light headed?—I stick to +my title, '<i>An Author's Mind</i>,' and that with a laudable scorn of +concealment, and an honest purpose not to pretend it better or wiser +than it is; then let no one blame me on the score of my fashion of +speech, or my sarcasms mingled with charity; for consistency with me +were inconsistent.</p> + +<p>Neither let me, poor innocent, be accused of giving license to what a +palled public and dyspeptical reviewers will call for the thousandth +time a <i>cacoethes</i>; word of cabalistic look, unknown to Dr. Dilworth. +Truly, my masters, though disciple I be of venerable Martinus the +Scribbler; though, for aught I know, himself in progress of +transmigration; still, I submit, my cornucopia is not crammed with +leaves and chopped straw; and if, in utter carelessness, the fruit is +poured out pell-mell after this desultory fashion, yet, I wot, it <i>is</i> +fruit, though whether ripe or crude, or rotten, my husbandry takes +little thought: the mixture serves for my cider-press, and, fermentation +over, the product will be clarified. Judge me too, am I not consecutive? +I've shown man to be a writing animal; and writing, what it is and is +not; and meanwhile have been routing recreatively at pen's point whims, +and fancies, and ideas, and images, pulled in manfully by head and +shoulders: and now—after an episode, quite relevant and quite +Herodotean, concerning the consequences of a bit of successful +authorship on a man's scheme of life, to illustrate yet more the +"author's mind"—I shall proceed to tell all men how many books I might, +could, should, or would have written, but for reiterated and legitimated +<i>buts</i>, and how near of kin I must esteem myself to the illustrious J. +of nursery rhymes, being, as he is or was, "Mister Joe Jenkins, who +played on the fiddle, and began twenty tunes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> but left off in the +middle." Moreover, no one can be ignorant of the close consanguinity +recognised in every age and every dictionary between I and J. But now +for the episode:</p> + +<p>If ever a toy were symbolical of life, that toy was a kaleidoscope: the +showy bits of tinsel, coloured glass, silk, beads, and feathers, with +here and there perchance a stray piece of iridescent ore or a pin, each, +in its turn of ideal multiplication, filling successively the field of +vision; the trifling touch that will disenchant the fairest patterns; +the slightest change, as in chemical arithmetic, that will make the +whole mixture a poison or a cordial. A man is vexed, the nerve of his +equanimity thrillingly touched at the tender elbow, and forthwith his +whole wholesome body writhes in pain; while, to speak morally, those +useful reminders of life's frailty, the habitual side-thorns—spurs of +diligence, incentives to better things—are exaggerated into sixfold +spears, and terribly stop the way, like long-lanced Achæans: a careless +fit succeeds to one of spleen, and vanity well spangled, pretty baubles, +stars and trinkets and trifles, fill their cycle, to magnetize with +folly that rolling world the brain: another twist, and love is lord +paramount, a paltry bit of glass, casually rose-coloured, shedding its +warm blush over all the reflective powers: suddenly an overcast, for +that marplot, Disappointment, has obtruded a most vexatiously reiterated +morsel of lamp-black: again Hope's little bit of blue paint makes azure +rainbows all about the firmament of man's own inner world; and at last +an atom of gold-dust specks all the glasses with its lurid yellow, and +haply leaves the old miser to his master-passion. So, ever changing day +by day, every man's life is but a kaleidoscope. Stay; this simile is +somewhat of the longest, but the whim is upon me, and I must have my +way; the fit possesses me to try a sonnet, and I shall look far for a +fairer thesis; he that hates verse—and the Muses now-a-days are too +old-maidish to look many lovers—may skip it, and no harm done; but one +or two may like this stave on</p> + + +<h4>LIFE.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I saw a child with a kaleidoscope,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Turning at will the tesselated field;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And straight my mental eye became unseal'd,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I learnt of life, and read its horoscope:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Behold, how fitfully the patterns change!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The scene is azure now with hues of Hope;</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Now sobered gray by Disappointment strange;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With Love's own roses blushing, warm and bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Black with Hate's heat, or white with Envy's cold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Made glorious by Religion's purple light;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Or sicklied o'er with yellow lust of Gold;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So, good or evil coming, peace or strife,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Zeal when in youth, and Avarice when old,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In changeful, chanceful phases passeth life.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It is well I was not stopped before my lawful fourteenth rhyme by yonder +prosaic gentleman, humbly listening in front, who asks, with somewhat of +malicious triumph, whereto does all this lead?—Categorically, sir, +[there is no argument in the world equal to a word of six syllables,] +categorically, sir, to this: of all life's turns and twists, few things +produce more change to the daring <i>debutant</i> than successful authorship; +it is as if, applying our simile, a fragment of printed bookishness +among those kaleidoscopic morsels, having worked its way into the field +of vision, had there got stereotyped by a photogenic process: in fact, +it fixes on it a prëdestinated "author's mind."</p> + +<p>An author's mind! what a subject for the lights and shadows of +metaphysical portraiture! what a panorama of images! what a whirling +scene of ever-changing incidents! what a store-house for thoughts! what +a land of marvels! what untrodden heights, what unexplored depths of an +ever-undiscovered country! That strange world hath a structure and a +furniture all its own; its chalcedonic rocks are painted with rare +creatures floating in their liquid-seeming hardness; forms of other +spheres lie buried in its lias cliffs; seeds of unknown plants, relics +of unlimnèd reptiles, fragments of an old creation, the ruins of a +fanciful cosmogony, lie hid until the day of their requiral beneath its +fertile soil: and then its lawless botany; flowers of glorious hue hung +upon the trees of its forests; luscious fruits flung liberally among the +mosses of its banks; air-plants sailing in its atmosphere; unanchored +water-lilies dancing in its bright cascades; and this, too, a world, an +inner secret world, peopled with unthought images, specimens of a +peculiar creation; outlandish forms are started from its thickets, the +dragon and the cherub are numbered with its winged inhabitants, and +herds of uncouth shape pasture on its meadows. Who can sound its seas, +deep calling unto deep? who can stand upon the hill-tops, height +beckoning unto height? who can track its labyrinths? who can map its +caverns? A limitless essence, an unfailing spring, an evergreen +fruit-tree, a riddle unsolved, a quaint museum, a hot-bed of inventions, +an over-mantling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> tankard, a whimsical motley, a bursting volcano, a +full, independent, generous—a poor, fettered, jealous, Anomaly, +such—bear witness—is an author's mind. O, theme of many topics! chaos +of ill-sorted fancies! Let us come now to the jealousies, the real or +imaginary wrongs of authorship: hereafter treat we this at lengthier; +"for the time present"—I quote the facetious Lord Coke, when writing on +that highly exhilerating topic, the common-law—"hereof let this little +taste suffice." Is it not a wrong to be taken for a mere book-merchant, +a mercenary purveyor of learning and invention, of religion and +philosophy, of instruction, or even of amusements, for the sole +consideration of value received, as one would use a stalking-horse for +getting near a stag? this, too, when ten to one some cormorant on the +tree of knowledge, some staid-looking publisher in decent mourning, is +complacently pocketing the profits, and modestly charging you with loss? +and this, moreover and more poignantly, when the flame of responsibility +on some high subject is blazing at your heart, and the young Elihu, even +if he would, cannot keep silence? Is it not a wrong to find pearls +unprized, because many a modern, like his Celtic progenitors, (for I +must not say like swine,) would sooner crush an acorn? to know your +estimation among men ebbs and flows according to the accident of +success, rather than the quality of merit? to be despised as an animal +who must necessarily be living on his wits in some purlieu, answering to +that antiquated reproach, a Grub-street attic; or suspected among +gentler company in this most mercantile age for a pickpocket, a pauper, +a <i>chevalier d'industrie</i>? And then those hounds upon the bleeding +flanks of many a hunted author, those open-mouthed inexorable critics, +(I allude to the Pariah class, not to the higher caste brethren,) how +suddenly they rend one, and fear not! Only for others do I speak, and in +no degree on account of having felt their fangs, as many have done, my +betters; gentle and kind, as domesticated spaniels, have reviewers in +general been to your humble confessor, and for such courtesies is he +their debtor. But who can be ignorant how frequently some hapless writer +is impaled alive on the stake of ridicule, that a flagging magazine may +be served up with <i>sauce piquante</i>, and pander to the world for its +waning popularity by the malice of a pungent article? who, while as a +rule he may honour the bench of critics for patience, talent, and +impartiality, is not conusant of those exceptions, not seldom of +occurence, where obvious rancour has caused the unkindly condemnation; +where personal inveteracy aims from behind the Ajax shield of anonymous +reviewing, and shoots, like a cowardly Teucer, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> foe fair-exposed +whom he dares not fight with?—But, as will be seen hereafter, I +trespass on a title-page, and here will add no more than this: Is it not +a wrong of double edge, that while the world makes no excuse for the +writhing writer, on the reasonable ground that after all he may be +innocent of what his critics blame him for, the same good-natured world, +on almost every occasion of magazine applause, believes either that the +author has written for himself the favourable notice, or that pecuniary +bribes have made the honest editor his tool? Verily, my public, thou art +not generous here; ay, and thou art grievously deceived, as well as +sordid: for by careless praise, causeless censure, credit given for +corrupt bribery, and no allowance made for unamiable criticisms, poor +maltreated authors speak to many wrongs: and of them more anon.</p> + +<p>What moreover shall we say of chilling friendships, near estrangements, +heartless lovers loitering behind, shy acquaintance dropping off? +Verily, there is a mighty sifting: you have dared to stand alone, have +expounded your mind in imperishable print, have manifested wit enough to +outface folly, sufficient moral courage to condemn vice, and more than +is needful of good wisdom to shame the oracles of worldliness: and so +some dread you, some hate, and many shun: the little selfish asterisks +in that small sky fly from your constellatory glories: you are +independent, a satellite of none: you have dared to think, write, print, +in all ways contrary to many; and if wise men and good be loud in their +applause, you arrive at the dignity of manifold hatreds; but if those +and their inferiors condemn, you sink into the bathos of multiplied +contempts. Of other wrongs somewhen and where, hereafter; meanwhile, a +better prospect glows on the kaleidoscopic field—a flattering accession +of new and ardent friends: "Sir," said an old priest to a young author, +"you have made a soft pillow for your head when it comes to be as white +as mine is;" a pretty saying of sweet charity, and such sink deep: as +for the younger and the warmer, being mostly of the softer sex, some +will profess admiring sensations that border not a little on idolatries; +others, gayer, will appear in the dress of careless, unskillful +admiration; not a few, both men and women, go indeed weakly along with +the current stream of popularity, but, to say truth, look happiest when +they find some stinging notice that may mortify the new bold candidate +for glory; while, last and best, a fewer, a very much fewer, do +handsomely the liberal part of friends, commending where they can, +objecting where they must, sincere in sorrow for a fault, rejoicing +without envy for a virtue.</p> + +<p>Many like phenomena has authorship: a certain class of otherwise<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> +humanized and well-intentioned people begin to regard your scribe as a +monster—not a so-called "lion" to be sought, but some strange creature +to be dreaded: Perdition! what if he should be cogitating a novel or a +play, and means to make free with our characters? what if that libellous +cöpartnership of Saunders and Ottley is permitted to display our faults +and foibles, flimsily disguised, before a mocking world? Disappointed +maidens that hover on the verge of forty, and can sympathize with +Jephtha's daughter in her lonely mournings, causelessly begin to fear +that a mischievous author may appropriate their portraits; venerable +bachelors, who have striven to earn some little local notoriety by the +diligent use of an odd phrase, a quaint garment, or an eccentric fling +in the peripatetic, dread a satirist's powers of retributive burlesque; +table orators suddenly grow dumb, for they suspect such a caitiff +intends cold-blooded plagiarisms from their eloquence; the twinkling +stars of humble village spheres shun him for an ominous comet, whose +very trail robs them of light, or as paling glow-worms hide away before +some prying lantern; and all who have in one way or another prided +themselves on some harmless peculiarity, avoid his penetrating glance as +the eye of a basilisk. Then, again, those casual encounters of witlings +in the world authorial, so anticipated by a hostess, so +looked-forward-to by guests! In most cases, how forlorn they be! how +dull; constrained, suspicious! like rival traders, with pockets +instinctively buttoned up, and glaring each upon the other with most +uncommunicative aspects; not brothers at a banquet, but combatants and +wrestlers, watching for solecisms in the other's talk, or toiling to +drag in some laboured witticism of their own, after the classical +precedent of Hercules and Cerberus: those feasts of reason, how vapid! +those flows of soul, how icily congealing! those Attic nights, how dim +and dismal! Once more; and, remember me, I speak in a personated +character of the general, and not experimentally; so, flinging self +aside, let me speak what I have seen: grant that the world-without crown +a man with bays, and lead him to his Theban home with tokens of +rejoicing; is the victor there set on high, chapleted, and honoured as +Nemean heroes should be or does he not rather droop instantly again into +the obscure unit among a level mass, only the less welcome for having +stood up, a Saul or a Musæus, with his head above his fellows? Verily, +no man is a proph—Enough, enough! for ours is a prerogative, a glorious +calling, and the crown of barren leaves is costlier than his of Rabbah; +enough, enough! sing we the praises, count we well the pleasures of +fervent,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> overflowing authorship. There, in perfect shape before the +eyes—there, well born in beauty—there perpetually (so your fondness +hopes) to live—slumbers in her best white robe the mind's own fairest +daughter; the Minerva has sprung in panoply from that parental aching +head, and stands in her immortal independence; an Eve, his own heart's +fruit, welcomes delighted Adam. You have made something, some good work, +bodily; your communion has commenced with those of times to come; your +mind has produced a witness to its individuality; there is a tablet +sacred to its memory standing among men for ever.</p> + +<p>A thinker is seldom great in conversation, and the glib talkers who have +silenced such a one frequently in clamorous argument, founder in his +deep thoughts, blundering, like Stephanos and Trinculos—(let Caliban be +swamped;) such generous revenge is sweet: a writer often unexplained, +because speaking little, and that little foolishly mayhap, and lightly +for the holiday's sake of an unthoughful rest, finds his opportunities +in printing, and gives the self-expounding that he needs; such +heart-emptyings yield heart-ease: an author, who has done his good work +well—for such a one alone we speak—while, privately, he scarce could +have refreshed mankind by petty driblets—in the perpetuity, publicity, +and universal acceptation of his high and honourable calling, does good +by wholesale, irrigates countries, and gladdens largely the large heart +of human society. And are not these unbounded pleasures, spreading over +life, and comforting the struggles of a death-bed? Yes: rising as +Ezekiel's river from ankle to knee, from knee to girdle, from girdle to +the overflowing flood—far beyond those lowest joys, which many wise +have trampled under foot, of praise, and triumph, and profit—the +authorship of good, that has made men better; that has consoled sorrow, +advanced knowledge, humbled arrogance, and blest humanity; that has sent +the guilty to his prayers, and has gladdened the Christian in his +praises—the authorship of good, that has shown God in his loveliness, +and man in his dependence; that has aided the cause of charity, and +shamed the face of sin—this high beneficence, this boundless +good-doing, hath indeed a rich recompense, a glorious reward!</p> + +<p>But we must speed on, and sear these hydra-necks, or we shall have as +many heads to our discourse, and as puzzling, as any treatise of the +Puritan divinity. Let us hasten to be practical; let us not so long +forget the promised title-pages; let it at length satisfy to show, more +than theoretically, how authorship stirs up the mind to daily-teeming +projects, and then casts out its half-made progeny; how scraps of paper +come to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> be covered with the cabala of half-written thoughts, +thenceforward doomed to suffer the dispersion-fate of Sibylline leaves; +how stores of mingled information gravitate into something of order, +each seed herding with its fellows; and how every atom of mixed metal, +educationally held in solution by the mind, is sought out by a keen +precipitating test, gregariously building up in time its own true +crystal.</p> + +<p>Hereabouts, therefore, and hereafter, in as frank a fashion as +heretofore, artlessly, too, and, but for crowding fancies, briefly shall +follow a full and free confession of the embryo circulating library now +in the book-case of my brain; only premising, for the last of all last +times, that while I know it to be morally impossible that all should be +pleased herewith, I feel it to be intellectually improbable that any one +mind should equally be satisfied with each of the many parts of a +performance so various, inconsistent, and unusual; premising, also, that +wherein I may have stumbled upon other people's titles, it is +unwittingly and unwillingly; for the age breeds books so quickly, that a +man must read harder than I do to peruse their very names; and premising +this much farther, that I profess to be a sort of dog in the manger, +neither using up my materials myself, nor letting any one else do so; +and that, whether I shall happen or not, at any time future to amplify +and perfect any of these matters, I still proclaim to all bookmakers and +booksellers, <span class="smcap">steal not</span>; for so surely as I catch any one thus +behaving—and truly, my masters, the temptation is but small—I will +stick a "<i>Sic vos, non vobis,</i>" on his brazen forehead.</p> + +<p>Wait! there remaineth yet a moment in which to say out the remnant of my +mind, "an author's mind," its last parting speech, its dying utterances +before extreme unction. I owe all the world apologies; I would pray a +catholic forgiveness. Authors and reviewers, critics, and the +undiscriminating many, fair women, honest men, I cry your pardons +universally! I do confess the learning of my mind to lie, strangely and +Pisa-like, inveterately as at Welsh Caérphilli, out of the perpendicular +of truth; it is my disposition to make the most of all things, for good +or for evil; I write, speak, and think, as if I were but an unhallowed +special pleader; I colour highly, and my outlines are too strong; I am +guilty on all sides of unintentional misstatements, consequent on the +powerful gusts of feeling that burst upon my irritable breast; my heart +is no smooth Dead Sea, but the still vexed Bermoothes: therefore I would +print my penitence; I would publish my confessions; I would not hide my +humbleness; and it pleases me to pour out in sonnet-form my +unconventional<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>APOLOGY TO ALL.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">—For I have sinn'd; oh! grievously and often;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Exaggerated ill, and good denied;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Blacken'd the shadows only born to soften;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And Truth's own light unkindly misapplied:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Alas! for charities unloved, uncherish'd,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">When some stern judgment, haply erring wide,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Hath sent my fancy forth, to dream and tell</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Other men's deeds all evil! Oh, my heart!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Renew once more thy generous youth, half perish'd;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Be wiser, kindlier, better than thou art!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And first, in fitting meekness, offer well</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">All earnest, candid prayers, to be forgiven</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For worldly, harsh, unjust, unlovable</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thoughts and suspicions against man and Heaven!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Friends all, let this be my best amendment: bear with the candour, +homely though it may be, of your author's mind; and suffer its further +revelations of unborn manuscript with charitable listening; for they +would come forth in real order of time, the first having priority, and +not the best, ungarnished, unweeded, uncared-for, humbly, and without +any further flourish of trumpets.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Serjeant Ion—I beg his pardon, Talfourd—somewhere gives it as his +opinion, that most people, in any way troubled with a mind, have at some +time or other meditated a tragedy. Truly, too, it <i>is</i> a fine vehicle +for poetical solemnities, a stout-built vessel for an author's graver +thoughts; and the bare possibility of seeing one's own heart-stirring +creation visually set before a crowded theatre, the preclusive echoes +of anticipated thundering applause, the expected grilling silence +attendant on a pet scene or sentiment, all the tangible, accessories of +painting and music, clever acting and effective situation, and beyond +and beside these the certain glories of the property-wardrobe, make most +young minds press forward to the little-likely prize of successful +tragedy. That at one weak period I was bitten, my honesty would scorn to +deny; but fortunately for my peace of mind, "Melpomene looked upon me +with an aspect of little favour," and sturdy truth-telling Tacitus made +me at last but lightly regardful of my subject. Moreover, my Pegasus was +visited<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> with a very abrupt pull-up from other causes; it has been my +fatality more than once or twice, as you will ere long see, to drop upon +other people's topics—for who can find any thing new under the +sun?—and I had already been mentally delivered of divers fag-ends of +speeches, stinging dialogues, and choice tit-bits of scenes, (all of +which I will mercifully spare you,) when a chance peep into Johnson's +'<i>Lives of the Poets</i>' showed me mine own fine subject as the work of +some long-forgotten bard! This moral earthquake demolished in a moment +my goodly aërial fabric; the fair plot burst like a meteor; and an +after-recollection of a certain French tragedy-queen, Agrippina, showed +me that the ground was still further preoccupied. But it is high time to +tell the destined name of my abortive play; in four letters, then,</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IIc" id="CHAPTER_IIc"></a>NERO;</h3> + +<h3>A CLASSICAL TRAGEDY:</h3> + +<h4>IN SEVEN SCENES.</h4> + +<p>And now, in pity to an afflicted parent, hear for a while his +offspring's Roscian capabilities. First of all, however, (and you know +how I rejoice in all things preliminary,) let me clear my road by +explanations: we must pioneer away a titular objection, "in seven +scenes," and an assumed merit, in the term "classical." I abhor +scene-shifters; at least, their province lies more among pantomimes, +farces, and comedies, than in the region of the solemn tragic muse; her +incidents should rather partake of the sculpture-like dignity of +<i>tableaux</i>. My unfashionable taste approves not of a serious story being +cut up into a vast number of separate and shuffled sections; and the +whistle and sliding panels detract still more from the completeness of +illusion: I incline as much as is possible to the Classic unities of +time, place, and circumstances, wishing, moreover, every act to be a +scene, and every scene an act; with a comfortable green curtain, that +cool resting-place for the haggard eye, to be the grass-like drop, +mildly alternating with splendid crime and miserable innocence: away +with those gaudy intermediates, and, still worse, some intruded ballet; +bring back Garrick's baize, and crush the dynasty of head-aches.</p> + +<p>But onward: let me further extenuate the term, seven scenes; the +utterance seven "acts" would sound horrific, full of extremities of +weariness; but my meaning actually is none other than seven acts of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span> one +scene each: for the number seven, there always have been decent reasons, +and ours may best appear as we proceed, less than a brief seven seeming +insufficient, and more, superfluous; again, so mystical a number has a +staid propriety, and a due double climax of rise and fall. Now, as to +our adjective "classical:" Why not, in heroic drama, have something +a-kin to the old Greek chorus, with its running comment upon motives and +moralities, somewhat as the mighty-master has set forth in his truly +patriotic '<i>Henry the Fifth?</i>'—However, taking other grounds, the +epithet is justified, both by the subject and the proposed unmodern +method of its treatment: but of all this enough, for, on second +thoughts, perhaps we may do without the chorus.</p> + +<p>It is obvious that no historical play can strictly preserve the true +unity of time; cause and effect move slower in the actual machinery of +life, than the space of some three hours can allow for: we must +unavoidably clump them closer; and so long as a circumstance might as +well have happened at one time as at another, I consider that the poet +is justified in crowding prior events as near as he may please towards +the goal of their catastrophe. If then any slight inaccuracy as to dates +arrests your critical ken, believe that it is not ignorantly careless, +but learnedly needful. One other objection, and I have done. No man is +an utter inexcusable, irremediable villain; there is a spot of light, +however hidden, somewhere; and, notwithstanding the historian's picture, +it may charitably be doubted whether we have made due allowance for his +most reasonable prejudice even in Nero's case. Human nature has produced +many monsters; but, amongst a thousand crimes, there has proverbially +lingered in each some one seedling of a virtue; and when we consider the +corruption of manners in old Rome, the idolatrous flatteries hemming in +the prince, the universal lie that hid all things from his better +perceptions, we can fancy some slight extenuation for his mad career. +Not that it ever was my aim, in modern fashion, to excuse villany, or to +gild the brass brow of vice; and verily, I have not spared my odious +hero; nevertheless, in selecting so unamiable a subject, (or rather +emperor,) I wished not to conceal that even in the worst of men there is +a soil for hope and charity; and that if despotism has high +prerogatives, its wealth and state are desperate temptations, whose +dangers mightily predominate, and whose necessary influences, if quite +unbiased, tend to utter misery.</p> + +<p>Now to introduce our <i>dramatis personæ</i>, with their "cast,"—for better +effect—rather unreasonably presumed. <i>Nero</i>—(Macready, who would +impersonate him grandly, and who, moreover, whether complimented or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> not +by the likeness, wears a head the very counterpart of Nero's, as every +Numismatist will vouch,)—a naturally noble spirit, warped by sensuality +and pride into a very tyrant; liberal in gifts, yet selfish in passion; +not incapable of a higher sort of love, yet liable to sudden changes, +and at times tempestuously cruel. <i>Nattalis</i>—(say Vandenhoff,)—his +favourite and evil genius, originally a Persian slave, and still wearing +the Eastern costume: a sort of Iago, spiriting up the willing Nero to +all varieties of wickedness, getting him deified, and otherwise +mystifying the poor besotted prince with all kinds of pleasure and +glory, to subserve certain selfish ends of rapine, power, and +licentiousness, and to avenge, perhaps, the misfortunes of his own +country on the chief of her destroyers. <i>Marcus Manlius</i>—(who better +than Charles Kean?—supposing these artistic combinations not to be +quite impossible,)—a fine young soldier, of course loving the heroine, +captain of Nero's body-guard, chivalrous, honourable, noble, and +faithful to his bad master amid conflicting trials. <i>Publius +Dentatus</i>—(any <i>bould</i> speaker; besides, it would be rather too much to +engage all the actors yet awhile;)—a worthy old Roman, father of the +heroine. <i>Galba</i>, the chief mover in the catastrophe, as also the opener +of its causes, an intriguing and fierce, but well-intentioned patriot, +who ultimately becomes the next emperor. With <i>Curtius</i> a tribune, +senators, conspirators, soldiers, priests, flamens, &c. And so, after +the ungallant fashion of theatrical play-wrights, as to a class inferior +to the very &c. of masculines—(of less intention withal than one of +those &cs. of crabbed Littleton, like an old shoe fricasséed into +savourings of all things by its inimitable Coke,)—come we to the +women-kind. <i>Agrippina</i>, (one of the school of Siddons,) empress-mother, +a strong-minded, Lady-Macbeth sort of woman, and the only person in the +world who can awe her amiable son. <i>Lucia,</i> (<i>you</i> cannot be spared +here, clever Helen Faucit)—the heroine, secretly a Christian affianced +to Manlius; a character of martyr's daring and woman's love. <i>Rufa</i>, a +haggard old sibyl, with both private and public reasons for detesting +Nero and Nattalis: and all the fitting female attendants to conclude the +list.</p> + +<p>Each scene, in which each act will be included, should be pictorially, +so to speak, a <i>tableau</i> in the commencement, and a <i>tableau</i> of +situation in the end. Let us draw up upon scene <i>the first</i>. +Back-ground, Rome burning; in front, ruins of fine Tuscan villa, still +smoking; and a terminal altar in the garden. Plebs. running to and fro, +full of conventional little speeches, with goods, parents, penates, and +other lumber, rescued<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> from the flames; till a tribune, (hight Curtius,) +in a somewhat incendiary oration concerning poor men's calamities, and +against the powers that be, sends them to the capital with a procession +of flamines Diales and vestals, dirging solemnly a Roman hymn [some "<i>Ad +Capitolium, Ad Jovis solium</i>," and so forth] to good music. At the +end of the train come in Publius and Lucia, to whom from opposite +hurriedly walks Galba, full of talk of omens, direful doings, patriotism, +and old Rome's ruin. To these let there be added—to speak +mathematically—open-hearted Manlius; and let there follow certain +disceptatious converse about Nero, Manlius excusing him, extenuating his +vices by his temptations, giving military anecdotes of his earlier +virtues, and in fact striving to make the most of him, a very gentle +monster: Galba throwing in, sarcastically, blacker shadows. After +disputation, the father and lovers walk off, leaving Galba alone for a +moment's soliloquy; and, from behind the terminal altar, unseen Sibyl +hails him Cæsar; he, astonished at the airy voice so coincident with his +own feelings, thinks it ideal, chides his babbling thoughts, and so +forth: then enter to him suddenly chance-met noble citizens, burnt out +of house and home, who declaim furiously against Nero. Sibyl, still +unseen from behind the altar, again hails Galba as future Cæsar; who, no +longer doubting his ears, and all present taking the omen, they conspire +at the altar with drawn swords, and as the Sibyl suddenly +presides—<i>tableau</i>—and down drops the soft green baize. This first +act, you perceive, is stirring, introductory of many characters; and the +picture of the seven-hilled city, seen in a transparent blaze, might +give the followers of Stanfield a triumph.</p> + +<p><i>Second</i>: The senate scene, producing another monstrous crime of Nero's, +also inaccurately dated. In the full august assembly, Nero discovered +enthroned, not unmajestic in deportment, yet effeminately chapleted, and +holding a lyre: suppose him just returned from Elis, a pancratist, the +world's acknowledged champion. Nattalis, ever foremost in flatteries, +after praising the prince's exploits in Greece, avows that, like Paris +in Troy, and Alexander at Persepolis, Nero <i>had</i> gloriously fired Rome; +he found it wood, and wished to leave it marble; (so, the catafalque at +the Invalides of the twice-buried Corsican;) in destroying, as well as +blessing, he had asserted his divinity; any after due allusions to +Phœnixes, and fire-kingships, and <i>coups-de-soliel</i> falling from the +same Apollo so great upon the guitar, Nattalis moves that Nero should be +worshipped, and calls on the priest of Jupiter to set a good example. +None dare refuse, and the senate bend before him; whereupon enter, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> +clerical procession, augurs, and diviners, men at arms with pole-axes, +and coronaled white bulls, paraded before sacrifice: all this pandering +to present love of splendour and picturesque effect. In the midst of +these classical preparations, enters, with a bevy of attendants, the +haughty queen-like Agrippina, whom Nero, having sent for to complete his +triumph, commands to bend too; but she stoutly refusing, and taking him +fiercely to task, objurgating likewise Rome's degenerate +gray-beards—great bustle—senate broken up hurriedly—and she, with a +"<i>feri ventrem</i>," dragged off to be killed by her son's order. Nero +alone with Nattalis by imperial command; his momentary compunction +nullified by the wily Iago, who turns off the subject smoothly to a new +object of desire: Publius was the only senator not in his place, and +Publius has a daughter, the fairest in Rome, Lucia—had not the emperor +noticed her among Agrippina's women? Nero, charmed with any scheme of +novelty that may change remorseful thoughts, is induced, nothing loth, +to attempt the subtle abduction of the heroine; a body-guard, headed as +always by Manlius, ready in the vestibule to escort him, and exit. +Nattalis, alone for a minute, betrays his own selfish schemes concerning +Lucia, who had refused him before, and alludes to his secret reasons for +urging on the maddened Nero to the worst excesses.</p> + +<p><i>Third scene</i> (or part, or <i>act</i>, if it must be so), expounds, in +fitting contrast to the foregoing, the tender loves of Lucia and +Manlius; a gentle home-scene, a villa and its terraced gardens: also, as +Lucia is a Christian, we have, poetically, and not puritanically, an +insight into her scruples of conscience as to the heathenism of her +lover: and also into <i>his</i> consistent nobility of character, not willing +to surrender the religion of his fathers unconvinced. To them rushes in +Publius, who has been warned by friend Galba of the near approach of +Nattalis and a guard, to seize Lucia for disreputable Nero: no possible +escape, and all urge Lucia to imitate Virginia, Lucretia, and others of +like Dian fame, by cowardly self-murder; she is high-principled, and +won't: then they—the father and lover—request leave to kill her; +conflicting passions and considerable stage effect; Lucia, who with calm +courage derides the dastard sacrifice, standing unharmed between those +loving thirsty swords: in a grand speech, she makes her quiet departure +a test of Manlius' love, and her ultimate deliverance to be a proof to +him that her God is the true God, the God who guards the innocent. +Manlius, struck with her martyr-like constancy, professes that if indeed +she is saved out of this great trouble, he will embrace her faith, +renounce his own, and so break down the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> of wealth and rank, are alike +thrown away upon Publius; at last, the prince promises; and when +Publius, after a burst of earnest eloquence, proclaims the new pleasure +to consist in <i>showing mercy</i>, Nero's utter wrath, his hurricane of +hate, revoking that hasty promise, and hurrying away old Publius to die +at the same stake with his daughter.</p> + +<p><i>Seventh</i>: the catastrophe scene lies in the Coliseum amphitheatre; (I +mean the older one, anterior to Vespasian's:) bloody games pictured +behind, and those "human torches" at fiery intervals. Nero, enthroned in +side front, surrounded by a brilliant court, amongst whom are some of +the conspirators: at other side Publius and Lucia, tied at one stake in +white robes, back to back, to die before Nero's eyes, Manlius and +soldiers guarding them: he, Manlius, having nobly resolved to test +miraculous assistance to the last, but now tremblingly believing the +chance of a Providence interfering, since Lucia's escape from Nero at +the golden house. Just as the emperor, after a sarcastic speech, +characteristically interlarded with courtier conversation, is commanding +the fagot to be lighted, and Lucia's constant faith has bade Manlius <i>do +it</i>—a rush of Nattalis with attendant conspirators and Rufa the Sibyl, +up to Nero; Nattalis strikes him, but the sword breaks short off on the +hidden armour; Nero's majestic rising for a moment, asserting himself +Cæsar still, the inviolable majesty;—suddenly stopped by a centripetal +rush of the conspirators; who kill him, (after he has vainly attempted +in despair to kill himself,) and Galba sits on the throne, while Nero, +unpitied and unhelped, gasps out in the middle his dying speech. +Meanwhile, at the other side, Manlius has killed Nattalis for his +treachery, cut the bonds of Publius and Lucia, and all ends in moral +justice for the triumph of good, and the defeat of evil; Manlius and +Lucia, hand in hand, Publius with white head and upraised hands blessing +them, Nero, a mangled corpse, Nattalis in his dying agonies persecuted +by the vindictive Rufa, and Galba hailed as Cæsar by the assembled +Romans. So, upon a magnificent <i>tableau</i>, slowly falls the lawny +curtain.</p> + +<p>Patient reader, what think you of my long-winded tragedy? No quibbling +about Nero having really died in a drain, four years after the murder of +Aggrippina; no learned disquisitions, if you please, as to his innocence +of Rome's fire, a counterpart to our slander on the Papacy in the matter +of London's; spare me, I pray you, learned pundit, your suspicions about +Galba's too probable <i>alibi</i> in Spain. Tell me rather this: do I falsify +history in any thing more important than mere accidental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span> anachronisms +and anatopisms? do I make an untrue delineation of character, blackening +the good, or white-washing the wicked? Do I not, by introducing Nero's +three greatest crimes so near upon his assassination, merely accelerate +the interval between causes and effect? And is not tragic dignity +justified in varnishing, with other compost than the dregs of Rome, the +exit of the last true Cæsar of the Augustan family? For all the rest, +good manager, provide me actors, and I am even now uncertain—such is my +weakness—whether this skeleton might not at some time be clad with +flesh and skin, and a decent Roman toga. I fear it will yet haunt me as +a '<i>Midsummer Night's Dream</i>,' destroying my quiet with involuntary +shreds and patches of long-metred blank; the notion is still vivacious, +albeit scotched: Alexandrine though the synopsis appear, it must not be +thrown on the highroad as a dead snake; nay, let me cherish it yet on my +hearth, and not hurl it away like a <i>bonum waviatum</i>; a little more +boiling up of Roman messes in my brain, and my tragedy might flow forth +spontaneously as lava. What if this book be, after all, a sort of +pilot-balloon, to show my huge Nassau the way the wind blows—a feeler +as to which and which may please? Whether or not this be so, I will +still confess on, emptying my brain of booklets, and, if by happy +possibility I can keep my secret, shall hear unsuspected, friend, <i>your</i> +verdict.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>I must rather hope, than expect, that my next bit of possible authorship +is not like the last, a subject forestalled. Scribbling as I find myself +for very listlessness in a dull country-house, there's not a publisher's +index within thirty miles; so, for lack of evidence to the contrary, I +may legitimately, for at least a brief period of self-delusion, imagine +the intoxicating field my own. And yet so fertile, important, +interesting a subject, cannot have been quite overlooked by the corps of +professed literary labourer's: the very title-page would insure five +thousand readers (especially with a Brunswicker death's-head and +marrow-bones added underneath).</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IIIc" id="CHAPTER_IIIc"></a>OPIUM;</h3> + +<h3>A HISTORY;</h3> + + +<p>standing alone in single blackiness: Opium, a magnificent theme, +warranted to fill a huge octavo: and certain, from sheer variety of +information, to lead into the captivity of admiring criticism minds of +every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> calibre. Its natural history, with due details of all manner of +poppies, their indigenous habitats, botanical characters, ratios of +increase, and the like; its human history, discovery as a drug; how, +when, where, and by whom cultivated; dissertations as to the possibility +of Chaldean, Pharaonic, Grecian, or Roman opium eating, with most +erudite extracts out of all sorts of scribes, from Sanchoniathon down to +Juvenal, on these topics; its medicinal uses, properties, accidents, and +abuses; as to whether it might not be used homœopathically or in +infinitesimal doses, to infuse a love of the pleasures of imagination +into clodpoles, lawyers' clerks, and country cousins; its intellectual +possibilities of usefulness, stimulating the brain; its moral ditto, +allaying irritability; together with a dreadful detail of its evils in +excess, idiotizing, immoralizing, ruining soul and body. Plenty of stout +unquestionable statistics, from all crannies of the globe, to +corroborate all the above to the extreme satisfaction of practical men, +with causes and consequences of its insane local popularity. All this, +moreover, at present, with especial reference to China and the East; +added to the moral bearings of the Opium-war, and our national +responsibilities relative to that unlucky traffic. The metaphysical +question stated and answered, whether or not prohibition of any thing +does not lead to its desire; showing the increasing appetency of those +sottish Serics for the forbidden vice, and illustrating Gay's fable of +the foolish young cock, who ne'er had been in that condition, but for +his mother's prohibition: moreover, how is it, that so captivating a +form of intoxication is so little rife among our drunken journeymen? +queries, however, as to this; and whether or not the humbug of +teetotalism (a modern speculation, got up by and for the benefit of +grocers and sugar-planters on the one side, schismatics and conspiring +demagogues on the other,) has already substituted opium-eating, +drinking, or smoking, for the wholesomer toddies, among factory folk and +the finest pisantry. Millions of anecdotes regarding Eastern Rajahs, +Western Locofocos, Southern Moors, and North-country Muscovites, as to +the drug in its abuses: strange cures (if any) of strange ailments of +mind or body by its prudent use: how to wean men and nations from those +deleterious chewings and smokings; with true and particular accounts of +such splendid self-conquests as Coleridge and De Quincey, and—shall I +add another, a living name?—have attained to. Then, again, what a field +for poetical vagaries, and madnesses of imagination, would be afforded +by the subject of opium-dreams! Now, strictly speaking, in order to +hallucinate honestly, your opium-writer ought to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> have had some +practical knowledge of opium-eating: then could he descant with the +authority of experience—yea, though he write himself thereby down an +ass—on its effects upon mind and body; then could he tell of luxuries +and torments in true Frenchified detail; then could he expound its pains +and pleasures with all the eloquence of personal conviction. But, as to +such real risk of poisoning myself, and of making I wot not how actual a +mooncalf, of my present sound mind and body, I herein would reasonably +demur: and, if I wanted dreams, would tax my fancy, and not my +apothecary's bill. Dreams? I need not whiff opium, nor toss off laudanum +negus, to imagine myself—a young Titan, sucking fiery milk from the +paps of a volcano; a despot so limitless and magnificent, as to spurn +such a petty realm as the Solar System, with Cassiopeia, Boötes, and his +dog, to boot; an intellect, so ravished, that it feels all flame, or a +mass of matter so inert, that it lies for ages in the silent depths of +ocean, a lump of primeval metal: Madness, with the red-hot iron hissing +in his brain: Murder, with the blood-hound ghost, over land, over sea, +through crowds, deserts, woods, and happy fields, ever tracking silently +in horrid calmness; the oppression of indefinite Guilt, with that Holy +Eye still watching; the consciousness of instant danger, the sense of +excruciating pain, the intolerable tyranny of vague wild fear, without +will or power to escape: spurring for very life on a horse of marble: +flying upward to meet the quick-falling skies—O, that universal +crash!—greeted in a new-entered world with the execrations of the +assembled dead—that hollow, far-echoing, malicious laughter—that +hurricane-sound of clattering skulls; to be pent up, stifling like a +toad, in a limestone rock for centuries; to be haunted, hunted, hooted; +to eat off one's own head with its cruel madly crunching under-jaw; +to—but enough of horrors: and as to delights, all that Delacroix +suggests of perfume, and Mahomet of Houris, and Gunter of cookery, and +the German opera of music: all Camilla-like running unexertive, all that +sea unicorns can effect in swift swimming, or storm-caught condors in +things aërial; all the rapid travellings of Puck from star to star, +system to system, all things beauteous, exhilarating, ecstatic—ages of +all these things, warranted to last. Now, multiply all these several +alls by forty-nine, and the product will serve for as exaggerated a +statement as possible of opium pandering to pleasure; yes, by +forty-nine, by seven times seven at the least, that we be not accused of +extenuating so fatal an excitement; for it is competent to conceive +one's self expanded into any unlimited number of bodies, seven sevens +being the algebraic <i>n</i>, and if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> so, into their huge undefined +aggregate; a giant's pains are throes indeed, a giant's pleasures indeed +flood over. But, we may do harm to morality and truth, by falsely making +much of a faint, fleeting, paltry, excitation. The brain waltzing +intoxicated, the heart panting as in youth's earliest affection, the +mind broad, and deep, and calm, a Pacific in the sunshine, the body +lapped in downy rest, with every nerve ministering to its comfort; what +more can one, merely and professedly of this world of sensualism—an +opium-eater for instance—conceive of bliss? Such imaginative flights as +these, with its pungent final interrogatory, suggestive to man's +selfishness of joys as yet untried, might tempt to tamper with the dear +delight; whereas the plain statement of the most that opium could +minister to happiness, as contrasted with those false vain views of it, +remind me of Tennyson's poetical '<i>Timbuctoo</i>,' gorgeous as a new +Jerusalem in Apocalyptic glories, and the mean filth-obstructed kraals +dotted on an arid plain, to which, for very truthfulness, his soaring +fancy drops plumbdown, as the shot eagle in '<i>Der Freischutz</i>.'</p> + +<p>Let this then serve as a meagre sketch of my defunct treatise on opium: +think not that I love the subject, curious and fertile though it be; +perhaps, philosophically regarded, it is not a better one than <i>gin</i>; +but ears polite endure not the plebeian monosyllable, unless indeed with +a rëduplicated <i>n</i>, as Mr. Lane <i>will</i> have it our whilom genie should +be spelt: accordingly, I magnanimously give up the whole idea, and am +liberal enough, in this my dying determination, to sign a codicil, +bequeathing opium to my executors.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<p>Novelism is a field so filled with copy-holders, so populously tenanted +in common, that it requires no light investigation to find a site +unoccupied, and a hero or heroine waiting to be hired. Nevertheless, I +seem to myself to have lighted on a rich and little-cultivated corner; +imagining that the subject is a good one, because still untouched, +founded on facts, and with amplifiable variations that border on the +probable. He that lionizes Stratford-on-Avon, will remember in one of +the Shakspearian museums of that classic town, the pictured trance of +hapless</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IVc" id="CHAPTER_IVc"></a>CHARLOTTE CLOPTON,</h3> + +<p>as it was limned in death-seeming life. He will be shown the tombs of +her ancient family in Stratford church, and the door of that fatal +vault;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> he will hear something of her noble birth—her fine +character—her fascinating beauty—her short, innocent, eventful +life—her horrible death. Consider, too, the age and locality in which +she lived, Elizabethan, Shakspeare's; the great contemporary characters +that might be casually introduced; the mysterious suicide, in that dim +dreadful pool at the end of the terraced walk among the cropped yews, of +her poor only sister, Margaret; equalled only in the miserable interest +by that of Charlotte herself. And then for a plot: some darkly hinted +parricide of years agone, in the generation but one preceding, has dropt +its curse upon the now guiltless, but, by the law of Providence, +still-not-acquitted family; a parricide consequent on passionate love, +differing religions, and the Montague-and-Capulet-school of hating +feudal fathers—Theodore Clopton having been a Catholic, Alice Beauvoir +a Protestant; an introductory recountal of old Beauvoir's withering +curse on the Clopton family for Theodore's abduction of his daughter, +followed by the tragic event of the father and son, Cloptons', mutual +hatred, and the former found in his own park with the broken point of +his son's sword in him, the latter flying the realm: the curse has slept +for a generation; and now two fair daughters are all that remain to the +high-bred Sir Clement and his desponding lady, on whom the Beauvoir +descendant, a bitterest enemy, takes care to remind them the hovering +curse must burst. This Rowland Beauvoir is the villain of the story, +whose sole aim it is, after the fulfilment of his own libertine wishes, +to see the curse accomplished: and Charlotte's love for a certain young +Saville, whom Beauvoir hates as his handsome rival in court patronage, +as well as her pointed refusal of himself, gives new and present life to +his ancestral grudge. The lovers are espoused, and to make Sir Clement's +joy the greater, Saville has interest sufficient to meet the old +knight's humour of keeping up the ancient family name, by getting it +added to his own; so that the Beauvoir hatred and parricidal curse seem +likely to be frustrated. But—the first hindrance to their union is poor +sister Margaret's secret and infatuated love for that scheming villain +Rowland, her then too probable seduction, melancholic madness, and +suicide: successively upon this follow the last illnesses and deaths of +the heart-broken old people, whom Rowland's dreadful ubiquity terrifies +in their very chamber of disease; and as the too likely consequence of +such accumulated sorrows on a creature of exquisite sensibility, +Charlotte, the only remaining heiress of that ancient lineage, +gradually, and with all the semblance of death, falls into her terrible +trance. Rowland, who, through his intimacy with Margaret, knows all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> the +secret passages and sliding panels of the old mansion, and who thereby +gets mysterious admission whenever he pleases, comes into that silent +chamber, and finds Saville mourning over his dead-seeming bride: she, +all the while, though unable to move, in an agony of self-consciousness; +and at last, when Rowland in fiendish triumph pronounces the curse +complete, to the extreme horror of both, by an effort of tortured mind +over apparently inanimate matter, rolls her glazed eyes, and gives an +involuntary groan: having thus to all appearance confirmed the curse, +she lies more marble-white, more corpse-like, more entranced than ever. +Then, after long lingering, draws on the horrible catastrophe: a +catastrophe, alas! as far at least as regards the heroine, <i>quite true</i>. +Fully aware of all that is going on—the preparations for burial, the +misery of her lover, the gratified malice of her foe—she is placed in +the coffin: the rites proceed, her heart-stricken espoused takes his +last long leave, she is carried to the grave, locked in the family vault +under Stratford church, and there left alone, fearfully buried alive! +And then, after a day or two, how shrieks and groans are heard in the +church-yard by truant school-boys, and are placed to the account of the +curse: how, at last, her despairing lover demands to have the vault +opened; and the wretch Rowland—partly from curiosity, partly from +malice—determined to be there to see. As they and some church-followers +come near the door of the vault, they hear knockings, and desperate +plunges within; Saville swoons away, the crowd falls back in terror, and +the hardened Rowland alone dares unlock the door. Instantly, in her +shroud, mad, starved, with the flesh gnawed from her own fair shoulders, +rushes out the maniac Charlotte: in phrensied half-reason she has seized +Rowland by the throat, with the strength of insanity has strangled him, +and then falls dead upon the steps of the vault! Of Saville—who, as +having swooned, is spared all this scene of horror, and who leaves the +country for ever—little or nothing is more said: and Clopton Hall +remains a ruin, tenanted by ghosts and bats.</p> + +<blockquote><p>P.S. If thought fit, after the fashion of Parisian charcoal-burners in +ill-ventilated bed-rooms, Charlotte may have recorded her experiences in +the vault, by writing with a rusty nail on the coffin-plates.</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>Now, the gist of this Victor-Hugo tale of terror is its general truth: a +true end of a truly-named family, in its own neighbourhood, and long +since extinct: the house, now rëbuilt and rëstyled—the vault—the +picture of that poor unfortunate, (how unsearchable in real life often +are the ways of Providence! how frequently the innocent suffer for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> +guilty!)—the gloomy well—and something extant of the story—remains +still, and are known to some at Stratford. To do the thing graphically, +one should go there, and gain materials on the spot: and nothing could +be easier than to mix with them fifteenth-and-sixteenth-century +costumes, modes of thought, and historical allusions; accessories of the +humorous, if the age demands it, might relieve the pathetic; Charlotte's +own innocence and piety might be made to soften her hard fate, with the +assurance of a better life; Saville might become a wisely-resigned +recluse; and while the sins of the fathers are not gently, though +justly, visited on the children, the villain of the story meets his full +reward.</p> + +<p>Behold, then, hungry novel-monger, what grist is here for the mill! +Behold, Sosii, what capabilities of orders from every library in the +kingdom!—As doomed ones, and denounced ones, and undying ones, and +unseen ones, seem to be such taking titles, what think you of the +<i>Buried-alive-one</i>!—is it not new, thrilling, terrible? Who is he that +would pander to the popular taste for details of dreadful, cruel, +criminal, and useless abominations? "Should such a one as I?" In +emptying my head of the notion, I have ministered too much already: but +the sample of henbane is poured out, an offering to the infernal manes, +and poisons no longer the current of my thoughts. Thy ghost, poor +beautiful Charlotte! shall not be disturbed by me; thy misfortunes sleep +with thee. Nevertheless, this tale about a more amiable Charlotte than +Werter's, so naturally also falling into the orthodox three-volume +measure, is capable of being fabricated into something of deep, +romantic, tragical interest; such a character, in such circumstances, in +such an age, and such a place: I commend it to those of the Anglo-Gallic +school, who love the domestically horrible, and delight in unsunned +sorrows: but, I throw not any one topic away as a waif, for the casual +passer-by to pick up on the highway. Shadows, indeed, are flung upon the +waters, but Phulax still holds the substance with tenacious teeth.</p> + +<p>Stop awhile, my dog and shadow, and generously drop the world a morsel; +be not quite so bold when no one thinks of robbing you, and spare your +gasconade: the expediency of a sample has been cleverly suggested, and +<span class="smcap">WE</span> <i>ego et canis meus</i>, royal in munificence, do graciously +accede. Will this serve the purpose, my ever-pensive public? At any +rate, with some aid of intellect in readers, it is happily an extract +which explains itself—the death of poor infatuated Margaret: we will +suppose preliminaries, and hazard the abrupt.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That bitter speech shot home; it had sped like an arrow to her brain: +it had flown to her heart like the breath of pestilence: for Rowland to +be rough, uncourteous, unkind, might cause indeed many a pang; but such +conduct had long become a habit, and woman's charitable soul excused +moroseness in him, whom she loved more than life itself, more than +honour. But now, when the dread laugh of a seemingly more righteous +world was daily, hourly, to be feared against her—when the cold finger +of scorn was preparing to be pointed at her fading beauty, and her +altered form—now, when indulgence is most due, and cruelty has a sting +more scorpion than ever—to be taunted with that once-kind tongue with +having rightfully inherited <i>a curse</i>—to be told, in a sort of fiendish +triumph, that some ancient family grudge, forsooth, against her father's +fame, certainly as much as the selfish motives of a libertine professed, +had warped the will of Rowland to her ruin—to know, to hear, yea, from +his own lips, that the oft-repented crime of her warm and credulous +youth—of her too free, unsuspicious affection—had calmly been +contrived by the heart she clung to for her first, her only love—here +was misery, here was madness!</p> + +<p>"Rowland, at the approach of footsteps, had hastily slunk away behind +the accustomed panel, and alone in the chamber was left poor Margaret: +his last sneering speech, the mockery of his sarcastic pity, were still +haunting her ear with echoes full of wretchedness; and she had uttered +one faint cry, and sunk swooning on a couch, when her sister entered.</p> + +<p>"Charlotte, gentle Charlotte, had nothing of the hardness of a heroine; +her mind, as her most fair body, was delicate, nervous, spiritualized; +but the instinct of imperious duty ever gave her strength in the day of +trial. Long with an elder sister's eye had she watched and feared for +Margaret; she had palliated natural levity by evident warmth of +disposition, and excused follies of the judgment by kindness of the +heart. Charlotte was no child; in any other case, she had been keener of +perception; but in that of a young, generous, and most loving sister, +suspicion had been felt as a wickedness, and had long been lulled +asleep: now, however, it awaked in all its terrors; and, as Margaret lay +fainting, the sorrowful condition of one soon to be a mother who never +was a wife, was only too apparent. She touched her, sprinkled water on +her pale face, and, as the fixed eyes opened suddenly, Charlotte started +at their strange wild glare: they glittered with a freezing brilliancy, +and stared around with the vacuity of an image. Could Margaret be mad? +She bit her tender lips with sullen rage, and a gnashing desperation; +her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> cheek was cold, white, and clammy as the cheek of a corpse; her +hair, still woven with the strings of pearl she often wore, hung down +loose and dishevelled, except that on her flushing brow the crisp curls +stood on end, as a nest of snakes. And now a sudden thought seemed to +strike the brain; her eyes were set in a steady horror; slowly, with +dread determination, as if inspired by some fearful being, other than +herself, uprose Margaret; and, while her frightened sister, shuddering, +fell back, she glided, still gazing on vacancy, to the door: so, like a +ghost through the dark corridor, down those old familiar stairs, and +away through the Armory-hall; Charlotte now more calmly following, for +her father's library, where his use was to study late, opened out of it, +and surely the conscience-stricken Margaret was going in her penitence +to him. But, see! she has silently passed by; her hand is on the lock of +the hall-door; with one last look of despairing recklessness behind her, +as taking an eternal leave of that awe-struck sister, the door turns +upon its hinge, and she, still with slow solemnity, goes out. Whither, +oh God!—whither? The night is black as pitch, rainy, tempestuous; the +old knight's guests at Clopton Hall have gladly and right wisely +preferred even such questionable accommodation as the blue chamber, the +dreary white apartment looking on the moat—nay, the haunted room of the +parricide himself—to encountering the dangers and darkness of a +night-return so desperate; but Margaret, in her gayest evening attire, +near upon so foul a midnight in November, stalks like a spectre down the +splashy steps. Charlotte follows, calls, runs to her—but cannot rescue +from some settled purpose, horribly suggested, that gentle fearful +creature, now so changed. Suddenly in the dark she has lost her. Which +way did the maniac turn?—whither in that desolate gloom shall Charlotte +fly to find her? Guided by the taper still twinkling in her father's +study, she rushes back in terror to the hall; and then—Help, +help!—torches, torches! The household is roused, dull lanterns glance +among the shrubberies; pine-lights, ill-shielded from wind and rain by +cap or cloak, are seen dotting the park in every direction, and dance +about through the darkness, like sportive wild-fires: Sir Clement in +moody calmness looks prepared for any thing the worst, like a man who +anticipates evil long-deserved; the broken-hearted mother is on her +knees at the cold door-steps, striving to pierce the gloom with her +eyes, and ejaculating distracted prayers: and so the live-long +night—that night of doubt, and dread, and dreariness—through bitter +hours of confusion and dismay, they sought poor Margaret—and found her +not!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But, with morning's light came the awful certainty. At the end of a +terraced walk, mournfully shaded by high-cropped yews, stood an arbour, +and behind it, half-hidden among rank weeds, was an old half-forgotten +fountain; there, on many a sultry summer night, had Rowland met with +Margaret, and there had she resolved in terrible remorse to perish. With +the seeming fore-thought of reason, and the resolution of a phrensied +fortitude, she had bound a quantity of matted weeds about her face, and +twisted her hands in her fettering garments, that the shallow pool might +not in cruel kindness fail to drown her; she lay scarcely half immersed +in those waters of death; a few lazy tench floating sluggishly about, +appeared to be curiously inspecting their ghastly, uninvited guest; and +the fragments of an enamelled miniature, with some torn letters in the +hand-writing of Rowland Beauvoir, were found scattered on the +overflowing margin of the pool."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Well, unkindly whelp, if your bone has no pickings better than this, not +a cur shall envy you the sorry banquet. Yet, had my genius been better +educated in the science of French cookery, this might have been served +up with higher seasoning as a savoury <i>ragout</i>: but you get it in +simplicity, scarce grilled; and in sooth, good world, it is easier to +sneer at a novel than to imagine one; and far more self-complacency may +be gained by manfully affecting to despise the novelist, than by adding +to his honours in the compliment of humble imitation.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Things supernatural have every where and every when exercised mortal +curiosity. Fear and credulity support the arms of superstition, fierce +as city griffins, rampant as the lion and the unicorn; and forasmuch as +no creature, Nelson not excepted, can truly boast of having never known +fear, and no man also—from polite Voltaire, shrewd Hume, Leviathan +Hobbes, and erudite Gibbon, down to the most stultified +Van-Diemanite—can honestly swear himself free from the influence of +some sort of faith, for thus much the marvellous and the terrible meet +with universal popularity. Now, one or two curious matters connected +with those "more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of +in your philosophy," which have even occurred to mine own self, +(whereof, to gratify you, shall be a little more anon), have heretofore +induced me to touch upon sundry interesting points, which, like pikemen +round their chief, throng about the topic of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span></p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Vc" id="CHAPTER_Vc"></a>THE MARVELLOUS.</h3> + + +<p>A book, so simply titled, with haply underneath a gigantic note of +admiration between two humble queries ?!? would positively, my worthy +publisher, make your worship's fortune. For it should concern ghosts, +dreams, omens, coincidences, good-and-bad luck, warnings, and true +vaticinations: no childish collection, however, of unsupported trumpery, +but authenticated cases staidly evidenced, and circumstantially +detailed; no Mother Goose-cap's tales, no Dick the Ploughman's dreams, +no stories from the '<i>Terrific Register</i>,' nor fancies of hysterical +females in Adult asylums; even Merlin witch-finders, and Taliesins +should be excluded: and, in lieu of all such common-places, I should +propose an anecdotic treatise in the manner scientifical. Macnish's +'<i>Philosophy of Sleep</i>,' Scott's '<i>Demonology</i>,' treatises on +Apparitions, and many a rare black-letter alchemical pamphlet, might +lend us here their aid; the British Museum is full of well-attested +ghost-stories, and there are very few old ladies unable to add to the +supply: then, this ghost department might be climaxed by the author's +own experience; forasmuch as he is ready to avouch that a person's fetch +was heard by many, and seen by some, in an old country-house, a hundred +miles away from the place of death, at the instant of its happening.</p> + +<p>As to omens, aforesaid witness deposes that the sceptre, ball, and cross +were struck by lightning out of King John's hand, in the Schools +quadrangle at Oxford, immediately on the accession of William the +Reformer; and all the world is cognusant that York Minster, the Royal +Exchange, and the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire near about +the commencement of open hostility, among ruling powers, to our church, +commerce, and constitution; and I myself can tell a tale of no less than +eight remarkable warnings happening one day to a poor friend, who died +on the next, which none could be expected to believe unless I delivered +it on oath as having been an eye-witness to the facts. Dreams +also—strange, vague, mysterious word; there is a gloomy look in it, a +dreary intonation that makes the very flesh creep: the records of public +justice will show many a murder revealed by them, as instance the Red +Barn; more than one poor client, in the clutch of a "respectable" +attorney, has been helped to his rights by their influence; from +Agamemnon and Pilate, down to Napoleon, the oppressors of mankind have +in those had kindly warning. Dreams—how many millions false and +foolish, for the one proving to be true!—but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> that one, how clear, +determinate, and lasting, as ministered by far other agency than +imagination taking its sport while reason slumbers! Who has not tales to +tell of dreams? A warning not to go on board such and such a ship—which +founders; a strange unlikely scene fixed upon the mind, concerning +friends and circumstances miles away, exactly in the manner and at the +time of its occurrence; the fore-shown coming of an unexpected guest; +the pourtrayed visage of a secret enemy: these, and others like these, +many can attest, and I not least. And of other marvels, though here left +unconsidered, yet might much be said: truths so strange, that the pages +of romance would not trench on such extravagance; combinations so +unlikely, that thrice twelve cast successively by proper dice, were but +probability to those. Thus, in authorial fashion, has the marvellous +dwelt upon my mind; and thus would I suggest a hand-book thereof to +catering booksellers and the insatiable public.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Against bears in a stage-coach, pointers in a drawing-room, lap dogs in +a <i>vis-à-vis</i>, and monkeys in a lady's boudoir, my love of comfort and +propriety enters strong protest; an emancipated parrot attracts my +sympathy far less than bright-eyed children feeding their testy pet, for +I dread the cannibal temptation of those soft fair fingers, when brought +into collision with Polly's hook and eye; gigantic Newfoundlanders +dragging their perpetual chains, larks and linnets trilling the faint +song of liberty behind their prison bars, cold green snakes stewing in a +school-boy's pocket, and dormice nestling in a lady's glove, summon my +antipathies; a cargo of five hundred pigs, with whom I had once the +honour of sailing from Cork to London, were far from pleasant as +<i>compagnons de voyage</i>; neither can I sleep with kittens in the room. +Nevertheless, no one can profess truer compassion, truer friendship (if +you will) for the animal creation: often have I walked on in weariness, +rather than increase the strain upon the Rosinantes of an omnibus; and +my greatest school scrape was occasioned by thrashing the favoured scion +of a noble house for cruelty to a cat. Such and such-like—for we learn +from Æsop (Fable eighty-eight, to wit) that trumpeters deserve to be +unpopular—is my physical zeal in the cause of poor dumb brutes: nor is +my regard for them the less in matters metaphysical. Bishop Butler, we +may all of us remember, in '<span class="smcap">THE</span> <i>Analogy</i>' argues that the +objector against a man's immortality must show good cause why that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span> +which exists, should ever cease to exist; and, until that good cause be +shown, the weight of probability is in favour of continual being. Now, +for my part, I wish to be informed why this probability should not be +extended to that innocent maltreated class, whom God's mercy made with +equal skill, and sustains with equal care, as in the case of man, +and—dare we add?—of angels. Doth He not feed the ravens? Do the young +lions not gather what He giveth? Doth a sparrow fall to the ground +without Our Father? and is not the unsinning multitude of Nineveh's +young children climaxed with "much cattle?" It is true, there may be +mighty difference between "the spirit of a man that goeth upward, and +the spirit of a beast that goeth downward in the earth:" but mark this, +there <i>is</i> a spirit in the beast; and as man's eternal heaven may lie in +some superior sphere, so that temporarily designed for the lower animals +may be seen in the renovated earth. It is also true, that St. Paul, +arguing for the temporal livelihood of Christian ministers from the type +of "not muzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn," asks, "Doth God +care for oxen?"—or, in effect, doth He legislate (I speak soberly, +though the sublime treads on the ridiculous,) for a stable?—and the +implication is, "To thy dutiful husbandry, O man! such lesser cares are +left." Sorry, righteously sorry, would it make any good man's heart to +think that the Creator had ceased to care for the meanest of his +creatures: in a certain sense</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"He sees with equal eye, as God of all,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;"</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>and, assured that carelessness in a just Creator of his poor dependent +creatures must be impossible, I submit that, critically speaking, some +laudable variation might be made in that text by the simple +consideration that μελει is not so strictly rendered "care for" +as κεδεται. Scripture, then, so far from militating against the +possible truth, that animals have souls, would seem, by a side-long +glance, to countenance the doctrine: and now let us for a passing moment +turn and see what aid is given to us by moral philosophy.</p> + +<p>No case can be conceived more hard or more unjust than that of a +sentient creature (on the hypothesis of its having no soul, no +conscience, necessarily quite innocent), thrown into a world of cruelty +and tyranny, without the chance of compensation for sufferings +undeserved. Neither can any good government be so partial, as (limiting +the whole existence of animals to an hour, a day, a year,) to allow one +of a litter to be pampered with continual luxuries, and another to be +tortured for all its little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> life by blows, famine, disease—and in its +lingering death by the scientific scalpels of a critical Majendie or a +cold-blooded Spallanzani. Remember, that in the so-called parallel case +of partialities among men—the this-world's choice of a Jacob, the +this-world's rejection of an Esau—the answer is obvious: there are two +scales to the balance, there is yet another world. Far be it from us to +think that all things are not then to be cleared up; that the innocent +little ones of Kedar and the exterminated Canaanites will not then be +heard one by one, and no longer be mingled up indiscriminately in an +overwhelming national judgment; that the pleas of evil education and +example, of hereditary taint and common usage, will be then thrown aside +as vain excuse; and that eventual justice will not with facility explain +every riddle in the moral government of God. But in the case of soulless +extinguished animals, there is, there can be no compensation, no +explanation; whether in pain or pleasure, they have lived and they have +died forgotten by their Maker, and left to the casual kindness or +cruelty of, towards them at least, irresponsible masters. How different +the view opened to us by the possibility of soul being apportioned in +various measure among the lower animals: there is a clue given "to +justify the ways of God to"—brutes: we need not then consider, with a +certain French abbé, that they are fallen angels, doing penance for +their sins; we need not, with old Pythagoras and latter Brahmins, +account them stationed lodges, homes of transmigration for the spirits +of men in process of being purged from their offences: we need not +regard them as Avatars of Vishnu, or incarnations of Apis, visible +deities craving the idolatries of India and Egypt. The truth commends +itself by mere simplicity: nakedness betrays its Eve-like innocence of +guile or error: those living creatures whom we call brutes and beasts, +have, in their degree, the breath of God within them, as well as His +handiwork upon them. And, candid theologian, tell me why—in that +Millenium so long looked-for, when, after a fiery purgation, this earth +shall have its sabbath, and when those who for a time were "caught up +into the air," descending again with their Lord and his ten thousand +saints, shall bodily dwell with others risen in the flesh for that happy +season on this renovated globe—tell me why there should not be some +tithe of the animal creation made to rise again to minister in pleasure, +as they once ministered in pain? And for the rest, the other nine, what +hinders them from tenanting a thousand happy fields in other of the +large domains of space? What hinders those poor dumb slaves from +enjoying some emancipate existence—we need not perhaps accord them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span> +more of immortality than justice, demands for compensation—for a +definite time, a millennium let us think, in scores of those million +orbs that twinkle in the galaxy?</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Space stretches wide enough for every grain</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of the broad sands that curb our swelling seas,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Each separate in its sphere, to stand apart</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As far as sun from sun.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Shall I then say what hinders?—the littleness of man's mind, refusing +possibility of room for those countless quadrillions; and the +selfishness of his pride, scorning the more generous savage, whose +doctrine (certainly too lax in liberality) raises the beast to a level +with mankind, and</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His faithful dog shall bear him company."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Truly, the Creator's justice, and mercy, and the majesty of his kingdom, +give hope of after-life to all creation: Saint Antony of Padua did waste +time in homilizing birds, beasts, and fishes; but may they not find +blessings, though ignorant of priests?—And now, suffer me, in my +current fashion, to glance at a few other considerations affecting this +topic. It will be admitted, I suppose, that the lower animals possess, +in their degree, similar cerebral or at least nervous mechanism with +ourselves; in their degree, I say; for a zoöphyte and a caterpillar have +brains, though not in the head; and to this day Waterton does not know +whether he shot a man or a monkey, so closely is his nondescript linked +with either hand to the grovelling Australian and the erect orang +outang. Brutes are nerved as we are, and uncivilized man possesses +instincts like them: all we can with any show of reason deny them is +moral sense, and in our arbitrary refusal of this, and our summary +disposal of what we are pleased to term instinct, we take credit to +ourselves for exclusive participation in that immaterial essence which +is called Soul. But is it, in candour, true that brutes have no moral +sense? Obviously, since moral sense is a growing thing, and ascending in +the scale of being, and since man is its chief receptacle on earth, we +ought to be able to take the best instances of animal morals from those +creatures which have come most within the influence of human example; as +pets of every kind, but mainly dogs. Does not a puppy, that has stolen a +sweet morsel from some butcher's stall, fly, though none pursue him? Is +a fox-hound not conscience-stricken for his harry of the sheep-fold? and +who will deny some sense of duty, and no little strength of affection, +in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> a shepherd's dog? Have not Cowper's now historic hares displayed an +educated and unnatural confidence; and many a gray parrot, though +limited in speech, said many a witty thing?—Again, read some common +collection of canine anecdotes: What essential difference is there +between the affectionate watch kept by man over his brother's bed of +sickness, and that which has been known of more than one poor cur, whose +solicitude has extended even to dying on his master's grave? The +soldier's faithful poodle licks his wounds upon the stormy battle-field; +and Landseer's colley-dog tears up the turf, and howls the shepherd's +requiem. What real distinction can we make between a high sense of duty +in the captain who is the last to leave his sinking ship, and that in +the watchful terrier, whom neither tempting morsels nor menaced blows +can induce to desert the ploughman's smock committed to his care? Once +more: Who does not recognise individuality of character in animals? A +dog, or a horse, or a tame deer, or, in fact, any domesticated creature, +will act throughout life, in a certain course of disposition, at least +as consistently as most masters: it will also have its whims and ways, +likings and dislikings, habits, fears, joys, and sorrows; and, verily, +in patience, courage, gratitude, and obedience, will put its monarch to +the blush.</p> + +<p>But upon this theme—meagre as the sketch may be, fanciful, +illogical—my cursory notions have too long detained you. I had intended +barely to have introduced a black-looking Greek composite, serving for +name to an unwritten essay which we will imagine in existence as</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIc" id="CHAPTER_VIc"></a>PSYCHOTHERION,</h3> + +<h3>AN INCONCLUSIVE ARGUMENT ON THE SOULS OF BRUTES;</h3> + +<p>And my thoughts have run on thus far so little conclusively (I humbly +admit to you), that we will, to save trouble, leave the riddle as +unsolved as ever, and gain no better advantage than thus having loosely +adverted to another fancy of your author's mind.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Not yet is my mind a simple freeman, a private, unincumbered, individual +self-possessor: its slaves are not yet all manumitted; I lack not +subjects; I am no lord of depopulated regions; albeit my aim is indeed +akin to that of old Rufus, and Goldsmith's tyrannical Squire of Auburn;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> +I wish to clear my hunting-grounds, to make a solitude, and call it +peace. Slowly, but still surely, am I working out that will. Meanwhile, +however, there is no need to advertise for heroes; they are only too +rife, clinging like bats to the curtains of my chambers of imagery, or +with attendant satellites hanging in bunches, as swarming bees about +their monarch, to the rafters of my brain. Selection is the hardest +difficulty; here is the labour, here the toil; because for just +selection there should be good reasons. Now, amongst other my +multitudinous authorial projects, this perhaps is not the worst; namely, +by a series of dissimilar novels, psychological rather than religious, +and for interest's sake laid in diverse ages and countries, to +illustrate separately the most rampant errors of the Papacy. For +example, say that Lewis's '<i>Monk</i>' is a strong delineation of the evils +consequent on constrained and unchosen celibacy; though its colouring be +meretricious, though its details offend the moralities of nature, still +it is a book replete to thoughtful minds with terrible teaching—be not +high-minded, but fear. In like manner, guilty thoughts dropped upon +innocent young hearts in that foul corner,</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIIc" id="CHAPTER_VIIc"></a>THE CONFESSIONAL,</h3> + +<p>might make a stirring tale, or haply a series of them: the cowled +hypocrite suggesting crime to those whose answer is all innocence; his +schemes of ambition, or avarice, or lust, slowly elaborated by the +fiend-like purposes to which he puts his ill-used knowledge of the human +heart; his sacrilegious violation of the holy grievings made by mistaken +penitence. History should bring its collateral assistance: the Medicean +Queens, Venice, bloody Spain, hard-visaged monks calmly directing the +engines of torture, the poison of anonymous calumny, and dread secrets +more dreadfully betrayed, could furnish much of truthful precedent. The +bad obstructions placed between the sinner and his God by selfish +priestcraft; the souls that would return again, like Noah's weary dove, +enticed by ravens to forsake the ark, mate with them, and feed on their +banquet of corruption; the social, religious, philosophic, and eternal +harms brought out in full detail; the progress of this world's misery in +the lives of the confessing, and of studious crime in the heart of the +absolver: a scene laid among the high Alps, and the sunny plains they +topple over; the time, that of some murderous Simon de Montfort; the +actors, Waldensian saints, and demon inquisitors; the prominent +characters, a plausible intriguing friar, (as of old a monk of Cluni,) +whose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span> ambition is the popedom, and whose conscience has no scruple +about means, bloody, bad, vindictive, atheistic; and then his victims, a +youth that he trains from infancy to the sole end of poisoning, subtly +and slowly, all who stand in his path; a girl who loves this youth, and +who, flying from the foul friar in the day of temptation, betakes her to +the mountains, and ultimately saves her lover from his terrible +destination in guilt, by hiding him in her own haven of refuge, the +persecuted little church; and with these materials to work upon, I need +hardly detail to you an intricate plot and an obvious <i>dénouement</i>.</p> + +<p>This class of theme, it is probable, has exercised the talents of many; +but as the evils of confessing to deceitful man, and of blind trust in +his deleterious advice, have not specifically met my eye, the subject is +new to me, and may be so to others. Still, I stay not now further to +enlarge upon it; I must press on; and will not cruelly encourage the +birth of thoughts brought forth only to be destroyed, like father +Saturn's babes—the anthropophagite.</p> + +<p>A good reason for selection at last presents itself. Sundry collateral +ancestors of mine [every body from Cain downwards must have had +ancestors; so no quibbling, please, nor quarrelling about so exploded an +absurdity as family-pride,] were lucky enough in days lang syne to +appropriate to themselves, amongst other matters, a respectable +allowance of forfeited monastic territory; and I know it by this token: +that in yonder venerable chest of archives and muniments, rest in their +own dust of ages, duly and clearly assorted, all those abbey deeds from +the times of Henry Beauclerc. Here's a fine unlooked-for opportunity of +making dull ancestral spots classic ground, famous among men; here's a +chance of immortalizing the crumbling ruins of an obscure, but +interesting, abbey-church; here's a fair field for dragging in all that +one knows or does not know, all that parchments can prove, or fancy can +invent, of redoubtable or reprobate progenitors, and investing the place +of their possessions with a glory beyond heraldry. Much is on my mind of +the desperate evils consequent on the Romish rule of idol-worship: and +why not lay my scene on the wild banks of the Swale, among the bleak, +rough moors that stand round Richmond, and the gullies that run between +the Yorkshire hills? Why not talk about those names of gentle blood, +familiar to the ear as household words, Uvedale and Scrope, Vavasour and +Ratcliffe? Why not press into the service of instructive novelism truths +stranger than fiction, among characters more marked, and names of higher +note, than the whole hot-pressed family of the Fitzes?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span></p> + +<p>All this might be accomplished, were it worth the worry, in</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIc" id="CHAPTER_VIIIc"></a>THE PRIOR OF MARRICK.</h3> + +<p>And now for a story of idolatry. It seems an absurdity, an insanity; it +is one—both. But think it out. Is it quite impossible, quite +incredible? Let me sketch the outline of so strange infatuation. Our +prior was once a good man—an easy, kind, and amiable: he takes the cowl +in early youth, partly because he is the younger son of an unfighting +family, and must, partly because he is melancholy, and will. And +wherefore melancholy? There was brought up with him, from the very +nursery, a fair girl, the weeping orphan of a neighbouring squire, who +had buckled on his harness, and fallen in the wars: they loved, of +course, and the deeper, because secretly and without permission: they +were too young to marry, and indeed had thought little of the matter; +still, substance and shadow, body and soul, were scarcely more needful +to each other, or more united. But—a hacking cough—a hectic cheek—a +wasting frame, were to blue-eyed Mary the remorseless harbingers of +death, and Eustace, standing on her early grave, was in heart a widower: +henceforth he had no aim in life; the cloister was—so thought he, as +many do—his best refuge, to dream upon the past, to soothe his present +sorrows, and earn for a future world the pleasures lost in this. Time, +the best anodyne short of what Eustace could not buy at +Rome—true-healing godliness—alleviates his grief, and makes him less +sad, but not wiser; years pass, the desire of prëeminence in his own +small world has hitherto furnished incentives to existence, and he find +himself a prior too soon; for he has nothing more to live for. Yes: +there is an object; the turmoil of small ambition with its petty cares +is past, and the now motiveless man lingers in yearning thought on the +only white spot in his gloomy journey, the green oasis of his desert +life, that dream of early love. He has long loved the fair, quiet image +of our Lady of Marrick, unwittingly, for another Mary's sake; +half-oblivious of the past in scheming for the present, he has knelt at +midnight before that figure of the Virgin-mother, and knew not why he +trembled; he thought it the ecstacy of devotion, the warm-gushing flood +of calmness, which prayer confers upon care confessed. But now, he sees +it, he knows it; there is, indeed, good cause: how miraculously the +white marble face grows into resemblance with <i>hers!</i> the same sainted +look of delicate unearthly beauty, the same white cheek, so still and +unruffled even by a smile, the same turn of heavenly triumph on the lip, +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span> same wild compassion in the eye! Great God—he loves again!—that +staid, grave, melancholy man, loves with more than youthful fondness; +the image is now dearer than the most sacred; there is a halo round it, +like light from heaven: he adores its placid, eternal, changeless +aspect; if it could move, the charm would half dissolve; he loves it—as +an image! And then how rapturously joins he with the wondering choir of +more stagnant worshippers, while they yield to this substantial form, +this stone-transmigration of his love, this tangible, unpassionate, +abiding, present deity, the holy hymns of praise, due only to the unseen +God! How gladly he sings her titles, ascribing all excellence to her! +How tenderly falls he at her feet, with eyes lighted as in youth! How +earnestly he prays to his fixed image—<i>to</i> it, not <i>through</i> it, for +his heart is <i>there</i>! How zealously he longs for her honour, her worship +among men—hers, the presiding idol of that Gothic pile, the hallowed +Lady, the goddess-queen of Marrick! Stop—can he do nothing for her, can +he venture nothing in her service? Other shrines are rich, other images +decked in gold and jewels; there is yet an object for his useless life, +there are yet ends to be attained, ends—that can justify the means. He +longs for wealth, he plots for it, he dares for it: he plans lying +miracles, and thousands flock to the shrine; he waylays dying men, and, +by threatened dread of torments of the damned, extortionizes conscience +into unjust riches for himself; he accuses the innocent, and reaps the +fine; he connives at the guilty, and fingers the bribe. So wealth flows +in, and the altar of his idol is hung with cloth of gold, her diadem is +alight with gems, costly offerings deck her temple, bending crowds kneel +to her divinity. Is he not happy? Is he not content? Oh, no: an +insatiate demon has possessed him; with more than Pygmalion's insanity, +he loves that image; he dreams, he thinks of that one unchanging form. +The marvelling brotherhood, credulous witnesses of such deep devotion, +hold him for a saint; and Rome, at the wish of the world, sends him, as +to a living St. Eustatius, the patent of canonization: they praise him, +honour him, pray to him; but he contemptuously (and they take it for +humility) spurns a gift which speaks of any other heaven than the +presence of that one fair, beautiful, beloved statue. A thought fills +him, and that with joy: he has heard of sacrifices in old time, +immolations, offerings up of self, as the highest act of a devout +worshipper; he cares not for earth nor for heaven; and one night, in his +enthusiastic vigils, the phrensy of idolatry arms that old man's own +weak hand against himself, and he falls at the statue's feet, +self-murdered, <i>its</i> martyr.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + +<p>Here were scope for psychology; here were subtle unwindings of motive, +trackings of reason, intricate anatomizations of the heart. All ages, +before these last in which we live, have been worshippers, even to +excess, of "unknown gods," "too superstitious:" we, upon whom the ends +of the world are fallen, may be thought to be beyond a danger into which +the wisest of old time were entrapped: we scarcely allow that the +Brahmin may, notwithstanding, be a learned man and a shrewd, when we see +him fall before his monster; we have not wits to understand how the +Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman dynasties could be so besotted. +For this superior illumination of mind, let us thank not ourselves, but +the Light of the world; and, warned by the history of ages, let us +beware how we place created things to mediate between us and the most +High; let us be shy of symbolic emblems—of pictures, images, +observances—lest they grow into forms that engross the mind, and fill +it with a swarm of substantial idols.</p> + +<p>Now, this tale of the '<i>Prior of Marrick</i>' would, but for the present +premature abortion, have seen daylight in the form of an +auto-biography—the catastrophe, of course, being added by some +brother-monk, who winds up all with his moral: and to get at this +auto-biographical sketch—a thing of fragments and wild soliloquies, +incidentally laying bare the heart's disease, and the poisonous +breathings of idolatrous influence—I could easily, and after the true +novelist fashion, fabricate a scheme, somewhat as follows: Let me go +gayly to the Moors by rail, coach, or cart, say for a sportsman's +pastime, a truant vicar's week, or an audit-clerk's holiday: I drop upon +the ruined abbey, now indeed with scarcely a vestige of its former +beauty remaining, but still used as a burial-place; being a bit of an +antiquary, I rout up the sexton, (sexton, cobbler, and general +huckster,) resolved to lionize the old desecrated precinct: I find the +sexton a character, a humourist; he, cobbler-like, looks inquisitively +at my caoutchouc shooting-shoes, and hints that he too is an artist in +the water-proof line; then follows question as how, and rejoinder as +thus. Our sexton has got a name among his neighbours for his capital +double-leather brogues, warranted to carry you dry-shod through a river; +and, warmed by my brandy-flask and <i>bonhomie</i>, considering me moreover +little likely to set up a rival shop, cunningly communicates his secret: +he puts parchment between the leathers—Parchment, my good man? where +can you get your parchment hereabouts? I spoke innocently, for I thought +only of ticketing some grouse for my friends southward: but the question +staggered my sexton so sensibly, that I came to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span> uncharitable +conclusion—he had stolen it. And then follows confession: how, among +the rubbish in a vault, he had found a small oak chest—broke it +open—no coins, no trinkets, "no nothing,"—except parchment; a lot of +leaves tidily written, and—warranted to keep out the wet. A few +shillings and a tankard make the treasure mine, I promising as extra to +send a huge bundle of ancient indentures in place of the precious +manuscript. Thus, in the way of Mackenzie's '<i>Man of Feeling</i>,' we +become fragmentary where we fear to be tedious; and so, in a good +historic epoch, among the wars of the Roses, surrounded by friars and +nuns, outlaws and border-riders, chivalrous knights and sturdy bowyers, +consign I to the oblivescent firm of Capulet and Co. my happily +destroyed '<i>Prior of Marrick</i>.'</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>A crank boat needs ballast; and of happy fortune is it for a disposition +towards natural levity, when educational gravity has helped to steady +it. Upon the vivacious, let the reflective supervene: to the gay, suffer +in its season the addition of the serious. Amongst other wholesome +topics of meditation—for wholesome it is to the healthy spirit, +although of some little danger to the presumptuous and inflated—the +study of the sure word of Prophecy has more than once excited the +writing propensity of your author's mind. On most matters it has been my +fate, rather from habits of incurable revery than from any want of +opportunities, to think more than to read; and therefore it is, with +very due diffidence, that as far as others and their judgments are +concerned, I can ever hope to claim originality or novelty. To my own +conscience, however, these things are reversed; for contemplation has +produced that as new to my own mind, which may be old to others deeper +read, and has thought those ideas original, which are only so to its own +fancy. Very little, then, must such as I reasonably hope to add on +Prophetical Interpretation; the Universal Wisdom of two millenaries +cannot be expected to gain any thing from the passing thought of a +hodiernal unit: if any fancies in my brain are really new, and hitherto +unbroached upon the subject, it can scarcely be doubted but that they +are false; so very little reliance do principles of catholicity allow to +be placed upon "private interpretations."</p> + +<p>With thus much of apology to those alike who will find, and those who +will not find, any thing of novelty in my notions, I still do not +withhold them. By here a little and there a little, is the general mind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> +instructed: it would be better for the world if every mighty tome really +contributed its grain.</p> + +<p>The prophecies of Holy Writ appear to me to have one great peculiarity, +distinguishing them from all other prophecies, if any, real or +pretended; and that peculiarity I deferentially conceive to be this: +that, whereas all human prophecies profess to have but one fulfilment, +the divine have avowedly many true fulfilments. The former may indeed +light upon some one coincidence, and may exult in the accident as a +proof of truth; the latter bounds as it were (like George Herbert's +sabbaths) from one to another, and another, through some forty +centuries, equally fulfilled in each case, but still looking forward +with hope to some grander catastrophe: it is not that they are loosely +suited, like the Delphic oracles, to whatever may turn up, but that +they, by a felicitous adaptation, sit closely into each era which the +Architect of Ages has arranged. Pythonic divination may be likened to a +loose bag, which would hold and involve with equal ease almost any +circumstance; biblical prophecy to an exact mould, into which alone, +though not all similar in perfection, its own true casts will fit: or +again, in another view of the matter, accept this similitude: let the +All-seeing Eye be the centre of many concentric circles, beholding +equally in perspective the circumference of each, and for accordance +with human periods of time measuring off segments by converging radii: +separately marked on each segment of the wheel within wheel, in the way +of actual fulfilment, as well as type and antitype, will appear its +satisfied word of prophecy, shining onward yet as it becomes more and +more final, until time is melted in eternity. Thus, it is perhaps not +impossible that every interpretation of wise and pious men may alike be +right, and hold together; for different minds travel on the different +peripheries. So our Lord (to take a familiar instance) speaks of his +second advent in terms equally applicable to the destruction of one +city, of the accumulated hosts at Armageddon, and of this material +earth: Antiochus and Antichrist occur prospectively within the same pair +of radii at differing distances; and, in like manner and varying +degrees, may, for aught we can tell, such incarnations of the evil +principle as papal Rome, or revolutionary Europe, or infidel +Cosmopolitism; or, again, such heads of parties, such indexes of the +general mind, as a Cæsar, an Attila, a Cromwell, a Napoleon, a—whoever +be the next. So also of hours, days, years, eras; all may and do cöexist +in harmonious and mutual relations. Good men, those who combine prayer +with study, need not fear neces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>sary difference of result, from holding +different views; the grand error is too loosely generalizing; a little +circle suits our finite ken; we cannot, as yet, mentally span the +universe. These crude and cursory remarks may serve to introduce a +likely-looking idea to which my thoughts have given entertainment, and +which, with others of a similar sort, were once to have come forth in an +essay-form, headed</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IXc" id="CHAPTER_IXc"></a>THE SEVEN CHURCHES;</h3> + +<p>moreover, for aught that has come across my reading, to be additionally +styled '<i>A New Interpretation, for these Latter Days</i>.' Without desiring +to do other than quite confirm the literal view, as having related +primarily to those local churches of old times, geographically in Asia +Minor; without attempting to dispute that they may have an individual +reference to varieties of personal character, and probably of different +Christian sects; I imagine that we may discover, in the Apocalyptic +prospect of these seven churches, an historical view of Christianity, +from the earliest ages to the last: beginning as it did, purely, warmly, +and laboriously, with the apostolic emblematic Ephesus, and to end with +the "shall He find faith on earth" of lukewarm Laodicea: thus Smyrna +would symbolize the state of the church under Diocletian, the +"tribulation ten days:" Pergamus, perhaps the Byzantine age, "where +Satan's seat is" the Balaam and Balak of empire and priesthood; +Thyatira, the avowed commencement of the Papacy, "Jezebel," &c.; Sardis, +the dreary void of the dark ages, the "ready to die;" Philadelphia, the +rise of Protestantism, "an open door, a little strength;" and Laodicea, +(the riches of civilization choking the plant of Christianity,) its +decline, and, but for the Founder's second coming, its fall; if, indeed, +this were possible.</p> + +<p>The elucidation of these several hints might show some striking +confirmations of the notion; which, as every thing else in this book, +would humbly claim your indulgence, reader, for my sketches must be +rapid, and their descriptions brief. Concurrently, however, with this, +(which I know not whether any prophetic scholiasts have mentioned or +not,) there may be deduced a still further interpretation, equally, as +far as I am concerned, underived from the lucubrations of others. This +other interpretation involves a typical view of the general +characteristics of Christendom's seven true churches, as they are to be +found standing at the coming of their Lord; the Asiatic seven may be +assimilated, in their religious peculiarities, with the national +Protestant churches of modern Europe: what order should be preserved in +this assimilation, unless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> indeed it be that of eldership, it might be +difficult to decide; but, excluding those communities which idol-worship +has unchurched, and leaving out of view such anomalies as America +presents, having no national religion, we shall find seven true churches +now existing, between which and the Asiatics many curious parallels +might be run: the seven are, those of England, Scotland, Holland, +Prussia, perhaps Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany. Without professing to +be quite confident as to the list, the idea remains the same: it is but +a light hint on a weighty subject, demanding more investigation than my +slender powers can at present compass. It is merely thrown out as +undigested matter; a crude notion let it rest: if ever I aspire to the +dignity and dogmatism of a theological teacher, it must be after more +and deeper inquiry of the Newtons, Faber, Frere, Croly, Keith, and other +learned interpreters, than it is possible or proper to make in a hurry: +volumes have been, and volumes might be again, written for and against +any prophecy unfulfilled; it is dangerous to teach speculations; for, if +found false, they tend to bring holy truths into disrepute. Let me then +put upon the shelf, as a humble layman should, my hitherto +unaccomplished prophetical treatise; and receive its mention for little +more than my true revelation of another phase of authorship.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>And many like attempts have been hazarded by me in the mode theological; +though, from some cause or other, they have mostly fallen abortive. Were +mention here made of the more completed efforts of your author's mind, +in this walk of literature, or of others, it might too evidently lay +bare the mystery of my mask; a piece of secret information intended not +as yet to be bestowed. But this book—purporting to be the medley of my +mind, the <i>bonâ fide</i> emptying of its multifarious fancies—must of +necessity, if honest, pourtray all the wanings and waxings of an +ever-changing lunar disposition: so, haply you shall turn from a play to +a sermon, from a novel to a moral treatise, from a satire or an epigram +to a religious essay. Such and so inconsistent is authorial man. Here +then, in somewhat of order, should have followed lengthily various other +writings of serious import, half-fashioned, and from conflicting reasons +left—perhaps for ever—half-finished. But considering the crude and +apparently careless nature of this present book, and taking into account +the solemn and responsible manner in which such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> high topics ought +invariably to be treated, I have struck out, without remorse or mercy, +all except a mere mention of the subjects alluded to. The contiguity of +lighter matter demands this sacrifice; not that I am one of those who +deem a cheerful face and a prayerful heart incongruous: there is danger +in a man, however religious, when his brow lowers, and his cheek is +stern; so did Cromwell murder Charles; so did Mary (though bigoted, +sincere,) consign Cranmer to the flames and Jane to the scaffold: +innocence and mirth are near of kin, and the tear of penitence is no +stranger to the laughter-loving eye. But I ramble as usual. Let it +suffice to say, that in accordance with common prejudices, I suffer my +mind to be shorn of its consecrated rays; for albeit my moral censor has +spared the prophetical ideas, and one or two other serious sobrieties, +on the ground that, although they are mere hints, they are at all events +hints of good, still more experimental and more hazardous pieces of +biblical criticism have been not unwisely immolated. The full cause of +this will appear in the mere title of the first of these half-attempted +essays, viz:</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_Xc" id="CHAPTER_Xc"></a>THE WISDOM OF REVISION;</h3> + +<p>whereof my predication shall be simply and strictly <i>nil</i>.</p> + +<p>The next piece of serious study, as yet little more than a root in my +mind, was to have fructified in the form of</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIc" id="CHAPTER_XIc"></a>HOMELY EXPOSITIONS,</h3> + +<p>or domestic readings in Scripture for daily use in family worship, with +an easy, sensible, useful sort of commentary; a book calculated +expressly for the understandings, wants, vices, temptations, and +peculiarities of household servants, and quite opposed to the usual +plans of injuriously raising doubts to lay them, of insisting upon +obsolete Judaisms, of strict theological controversy, of enlarging to +satiety on the meaning of passages too obvious to require explanation, +and ingeniously slurring over those which really need it; indeed, of +pursuing the courses generally adopted by the mass of commentators.</p> + +<p>A further notion extended to</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIIc" id="CHAPTER_XIIc"></a>LAY SERMONS,</h3> + +<p>whereof are many written: their principal peculiarities consist in being +each of a quarter-hour length, as little as possible regarding Jews and +their didactic histories, and, as much as might be, crowding ideas, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> +images, and out-of-the-way knowledge of all sorts, into the good service +of illustrating Gospel truths.</p> + +<p>Another religious essay has been relinquished, although to a great +degree effected, from the apprehension that it may suggest matter +fanciful or false: also, in part, from the material being perhaps of too +slender a character to insist upon. Its name stood thus,</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIIIc" id="CHAPTER_XIIIc"></a>SCRIPTURAL PHYSICS;</h3> + +<p>being an attempt to vindicate the wisdom of Holy Writ in matters of +natural science; for example, cosmogony, geology, the probable centre of +the earth, the vitality and circulation of the blood, hints of magnetism +and electricity, a solar system, a plurality of worlds, the earth's +shape, inclined axis, situation in space, and connection with other +spheres, the separate existence of disembodied life, the laws of optics, +much of recondite natural history:—all these can be easily proved to be +alluded to in detached, or ingeniously compared, passages of the Hebrew +Scriptures. It is very likely, however, that Huntington has anticipated +some of this, although I have never met with his writings; and a great +deal more of it is mentioned in notes and sermons which many have read +or heard. Until, therefore, I become surer of neither invading the +provinces of others, nor of detracting from their wisdom, let those +ill-written fancies still lie dormant in my desk.</p> + +<p>A fifth tractate on things theological, still in the egg state, was to +have been indued with the rather startling appellation of</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIVc" id="CHAPTER_XIVc"></a>AN APOLOGY FOR HEATHENISM;</h3> + +<p>especially as contrasted with practical atheism, which, truth to tell, +is the contradictory sort of religion most universally professed among +the moderns: working out the idea, that any-how it is better to have +many objects of veneration than none, and that, although idol-worship is +a dreadful sin, still it is not so utterly hopeless as actual +ungodliness. That, among the heathens, temporal judgment ever vindicated +the true Divinity; whereas the consummation of the more modern +unworshiping world will be an eternal one: so, by the difference in +punishments comparing that of their criminalities. Showing also that, +however corrupted afterwards by impure rites and fatuous iniquities, +heathenism was, in its most ancient form, little more than the +hieroglyphic dress of truth: this exemplified by Moses and the brazen +serpent, by interpreta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>tions of Grecian mythology, shown, after the +manner of perhaps too ingenious Lord Bacon, to be consistent with +philosophy and religion; by the way, in which Egyptian priests satisfied +so good and shrewd, though credulous, a mind as that of Herodotus; by +Hesiod's '<i>Theogony</i>;' by the practical testimony of the whole educated +world in earliest times to the deep meaning involved in idolatrous +rites; by the mysteries of Eleusis in particular; by the characters of +all most enlightened heathens—as Cicero, Socrates, and +Plato—(half-convinced of the Godhead's unity, and still afraid to +disavow His plurality,) contrasted with those of the school of Pyrrho, +and Lucretius, and the later Epicureans. The possibility of early +allusions to the Trinity, as "Let us make man," <i>etc.</i>, having led to +the idea of more than one God; and if so, in some sort, its veniality.</p> + +<p>All the above might be applied with some force, and, if so, with no +little value, to modern false semblances of religion, and non-religion; +to Roman Catholicism, with its images, its services in an unknown +tongue, its symbols, its adoption of heathen festivals, its actual +placing of many Gods in the throne of One; to Mammonism, as practically +a religion as if the golden calf of Babylon were standard at Cornhill; +to Voluptatism—if I may fabricate a name for pleasure-hunters, +following still, with Corybantic fury, the orgic revels of Osiris or +Astarte: in brief, to all the shades of human heresy, on this side or on +that of the golden mean, the worship of one true God, as revealed to us +in His three mysterious characters.</p> + +<p>But, query? Has not all this, and the very title, for any thing I know, +been done already by another, by a wiser? and, if so, by whom?—Speak, +some friend: it is the misfortune of mere thinkers (and this present +amygdaloid mass, this breccia book, exemplifies it well) to stumble +frequently upon fancies too good not to have been long ago appropriated +by others like-minded. A read, or heard, hint may be the unerring clue, +and we vainly imagine some old labyrinth to be our new discovery: +education renders up the master-key, and we come to regard ancient +treasuries as wealth of our own amassing, from which we deem it our +right to filch as recklessly as he from the mint of Crœsus, who so +filled his pockets—ay, his mouth—that we read he ἑβεβυστο. +Who, in this age of literature, can be fully condemned, or heartily +acquitted of plagiarism? An age—and none so little in advance or in +arrear of it as I—of easy writing and discursive reading, of ideas +unpatented, and books that have outlived copy-right. But this has +detained us long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> enough: for the present, my brain is quit of its +heathenish exculpations: let us pass on; many regiments are yet to be +reviewed; their uniforms [<i>Hibernicè</i>] are various, but their flag is +one.</p> + +<p>A last serious subject—(they grow tedious)—is a fair field for +ingenious explanation and Oriental poetry,</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVc" id="CHAPTER_XVc"></a>THE SIMILES OF SCRIPTURE:</h3> + +<p>(of course "similes" is an English word: the author of a recent '<i>Essay +on Magna Charta</i>' has been <i>learned</i> enough to write it "similæ," for +which original piece of Latinity let him be congratulated; I safely +follow Johnson, who would have roared like a lion at "similia;" and, +though Shakspeare does write it "similies," it may stoutly be contended +that this is of mixed metal, and that Matthew Prior's "similes" is the +purer sample: all the above being a praiseworthy parenthesis.)</p> + +<p>The similes of Scripture, then, were to have been demonstrated apt and +happy: for there is indeed both majesty, and loveliness, and propriety, +and strict resemblance in them. "As a rolling thing before the +whirlwind,"—"as when a standard-bearer fainteth"—"as the rushing of +mighty waters,"—"as gleaning grapes when the vintage is done,"—"as a +dream,"—"as the morning dew,"—"as"—but the whole book is a garden of +similitudes; they are "like the sand upon the sea-shore for multitude." +It is, however, too true, that often-times the baldness of translation +deprives poetry, Eastern especially, of its fervour, its glow, its gush, +and blush of beauty: to quote Aristotle's example, it too frequently +converts the rosy-fingered Morn into the red-fisted; and so the poetry +of dawning-day, with its dew-dropped flowers, its healthy refreshment, +its "rosy-fingers" drawing aside the star-spangled curtain of night, +falls at once into the low notion of a foggy morning, and is suggestive +only of red-fisted Abigails struggling continuously with the deposits of +a London atmosphere. In like manner, (for all this has not been an +episode beside the purpose,) many a roughly rendered similitude of +Scripture might be advantageously vindicated; local diversities and +Orientalisms might be explained in such a treatise: for example, in the +'<i>Canticles</i>,' the "beloved among the sons," is compared with an +apple-tree among the trees of the wood: now, amongst us, an apple-tree +is stunted and unsightly, and always degenerates in a wood; whereas the +Eastern apple-tree, probably one of the citron class, (to be more +correct,) may be a magnificent monarch of the forest. "Camphire," to a +Western mind, is not suggestive of the sweetest perfume, and perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> +the word may be amended into the marginal "cypress," or cedar, or some +other: as "a bottle in the smoke," loses its propriety for an image, +until shown to be a wine-skin. "Who is this that cometh out of the +wilderness, like pillars of smoke?"—probably intending the +swiftly-rushing columns of <i>sand</i> flying on the wings of the whirlwind. +"Thine eyes are like the fish-pools in Heshbon," might well be softened +into fountains—tearful, calm, resplendent, and rejoicing; and in +showing the poetic fitness of comparing the bride to a landscape, it +might clearly be set out how emblematic of Jewish millennial prosperity +and of Christian universality, that bride was; while comparisons of a +like un-European imagery might be taken from other Eastern poets, who +will not scruple to compare that rare beauty, a straight Grecian nose, +with a tower, and admire above all things the Cleopatra-coloured hair +which they call purple, and we auburn. Very much might be done in this +vein of literature, but it must be by a man at once an Oriental scholar +and a natural poet: the idioms of ancient and modern times should be +more considered, and something of apologetic explanation offered to an +English ear for phrases such as "the mountains skipping like rams," "the +horse swallowing the ground with fierceness," and represented as being +afraid as a grasshopper. A thousand like instances could be displayed +with little searching; let the above be taken as they are meant, for +good, and as of zeal for showing the best of books to the best +advantage: but it will appear that this essay trenches on the former one +so slenderly hinted at, as '<i>The Wisdom of Revision</i>,' therefore has +been stated too much at length already. Let it then rest on the shelf +till a better season. For this time, good reader, I, following up the +object of self-relieving, thank you for your patience, and will turn to +other themes of a more sublunary aspect.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>One of the most natural and indigenous productions of a true author's +mind, is, by common consent, an epic poem: verily, a wearisome, +unnecessary, unfashionable bit of writing. Nevertheless, let my candour +humbly acknowledge that, for the larger canticle of two mortal days, I +was brooding over, and diligently brewing up, a right happy, capital, +and noble-minded thesis, no other than</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIc" id="CHAPTER_XVIc"></a>HOME.</h3> + +<p>Alas, for the epidemy to which, few can doubt, ideas are subject! Alas, +for the conflict of prolific geniuses, wherewith the world's quiet is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span> +disturbed! not impossibly, this very book now in progress of inditing +will come to be classed as a "Patch-work," an "Olla Podrida," a "Book +without a name," or some other such like <i>rechauffée</i> publication; +whereas I protest its idea to be exclusively mine own, and conceived +long before its seeming congeners saw the light in definite +advertisements—at least to my beholding. And similarly went it with my +poor epic: scarcely had a general plan suggested itself to my musings, +and divers particular morsels thereof assumed "their unpremeditative +lay;" scarcely had I jotted down a staid synopsis, and a goodly array of +metrical specimens; when some intrusive newspaper displayed to me in +black and white a good-natured notice of somebody else's '<i>Home, an +Epic</i>.' So, as in the case of '<i>Nero</i>,' and haply of other subjects, had +it come to pass, that my high-mettled racer had made another false +start; that my just-discovered island, so gladly to have been +self-appropriated, was found to have, sticking on one corner of it, the +flag of another king; that the havoc of my brain, subsiding calmly into +the pendulum regularities of metre, was much ado about nothing; and all +those pretty fancies were the catalogued property of another. Such a +subject, too! intrinsically worthy of a niche in the temple of Fame, +besides Hope, Memory, and Imagination, <i>if</i> only one could manage it +well enough to be named in the same breath with Campbell, Rogers, and +Akenside. Well, it was a mental mortification; for I am full of moral +land-marks, and would not (poetically speaking) for the world move +rooted termini into other people's grounds. Whether the field has been +well or ill preoccupied I wot not, having neither seen the poem nor +heard its maker's name: therefore shall my charity hope well of it, and +mourn over the unmerited oblivion which generally greets modern +poetry—yea, upon its very natal-day. Nevertheless, as an upright man +will never wish barefacedly to steal from others, so does he determine +at all times to claim independently his own: to be robbed, and not +resent it (I speak foolishly), is the next mean thing after pilfering +itself; and rash will be thy daring, O literary larcener! (can such +things be?) if thou art found unpermissively appropriating even such +sorry spoil as these poor seedlings of still possible volumes.</p> + +<p>Prose and verse are allowed to have some disguising differences, at +least in termination; and as we must not—so hints the public +taste—spoil honest prose, bad as it may be, with too much intermixture +of worse verse, it will be prudent in me to be sparing of my specimens. +Yet, who will endure so <i>staccato</i> a page of jerking sentences as a +confirmed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span> synopsis?—"Well, any thing rather than poetry," says the +world; so, for better or worse, I will jot down prosaically a few of my +all but impromptu imaginings on Home.</p> + +<p>After some general propositions, it would be proper to indulge the +orthodoxy of invocation; not to Muses, however, but to the subject +itself; for now-a-days, in lieu of definite deities, our worship has +regard to theories, doctrines, and other abstract idolisms: and +thereafter should follow at length an historical retrospect of domestic +life, from the savage to the transition states of hunters and warriors; +Nimrods and New Zealanders; Actæons and Avanese, Attilas, Roderics, and +all the Ercles' vein or that of mad Cambyses, Hindoos and Fuegians, +Greece, Egypt, Etruria, and Troy, in those old days when funds and taxes +were not invented, but people had to fight for their dinner, and be +their own police: so in a due course of circumconsideration to more +modern conditions, from ourselves as central civilization, to Cochin +China, and extreme Mexico, to Archangel and Polynesia.</p> + +<p>Divers national peculiarities of the <i>physique</i> of homes; as, Tartars' +tents, Esquimaux snow-pits, Caffre kraals, Steppe huts, South-sea +palm-thatch, tree-villages, caves, log-cabins, and so forth. Then, a +wide view of the homes of higher society, first Continental, afterwards +British through all the different phases of comfort to be found in +heath-hovels, cottages, ornées, villas, parsonage-houses, squirealities, +seats, town mansions, and royal palaces. Thus, with a contrastive peep +or two about the feverish neighbourhood of a factory, up this musty +alley, and down that winding lane, we should have considered briefly all +the external accidents of home. The miserable condition of the homeless, +whether rich or poor; an oak with its tap-root broken, a house on +wheels, a boat without a compass, and all that sort of thing: together +with due declamation about soldiers spending twenty years in India, +shipwrecked Robinson Crusoes far from native Hull, cadets going out +hopelessly forever, emigrants, convicts, missionaries, and all other +absentees, voluntary or involuntary. Tirades upon abject poverty, wanton +affluence, poor laws, mendicancy, and Ireland; not omitting some +thrilling cases of barbaric destitution.</p> + +<p>Now come we lawfully to descant upon matters more mental and +sentimental—the <i>metaphysique</i> of the subject—the pleasures and pains +of Home. As thus, most cursorily: the nursery, with its dear innocent +joys; the school-boy, holiday feelings and scholastic cruelties; the +desk-abhorring clerk; the over-worked milliner; the starving family of +fac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>tory children, and of agricultural labourers, and of workers in coal +mines and iron furnaces, with earnest exhortations to the rich to pour +their horns of plenty on the poor. England, once a safer and a happier +land, under the law of charity: now fast verging into a despotic +centralized system, kept together by bayonets and constables' staves. +Home a refuge for all; for queens and princes from their cumbrous state, +as well as for clowns from their hedging and ditching. The home of love, +and its thousand blessings, founded on mutual confidence, religion, +open-heartedness, communion of interest, absence of selfishness, and so +on: the honoured father, due subordination, and results; the loving +wife, obedient children, and cheerful servants. Absolute, though most +kind, monarchy the best government for a home; with digressions about +Austria and China, and such laudable paternal rule; and <i>contra</i>, bitter +castigation of republican misrule, its evils and their results, for +which see Old Athens and New York, and certain spots half-way between +them.</p> + +<p>The pains of home: most various indeed, caused by all sorts of opposite +harms—too much constraint or too little, open bad example or impossible +good example, omissions and commissions, duty relaxed by indulgence, and +duty tightened into tyranny; but mainly and generally attributable to +the non-assertion or other abuse of parental authority. The spoiled +child, and his progress of indulgence, unchecked passions, dissipation, +crime, and ruin. Interested interlopers, as former friends, relatives, +flatterers, and busy parasites, undermining that bond of confidence +without which home falls to pieces; the gloomy spirit of reserve, +discouraging every thing like generous open-heartedness; menial +influences lowering their subject to their own base level; discords, +religious, political, and social; the harmful consequence of +over-expenditure to ape the hobbies or grandeur of the wealthier; +foolish education beyond one's sphere, as the baker's daughter taking +lessons in Italian, and opera-stricken butcher's-boys strumming the +guitar; immoral tendencies, gambling, drinking, and other dissipations; +and the aggregate of discomforts, of every sort and kind; with cures for +all these evils; and to end finally by a grand climax of supplication, +invocation, imprecation, resignation, and beatification, in the regular +crash of a stout-expiring overture.</p> + +<p>It's all very well, objects reader, and very easy to consider this done; +but the difficulty is—not so much to do it, answers writer, as to +escape the bother of prolixity by proving how much has been done, and +how speedily all might be even completed, had poor poesy in these +ticketing times only a fair field and no disfavour; for there is at hand +good grist,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> ready ground, baked and caked, and waiting for its eaters. +But in this age of prose-devouring and verse-despising, hardy indeed +should I be, if I adventured to bore the poor, much-abused, +uncomplaining public with hundreds of lines out of a dormant epic; the +very phrase is a lullaby; it's as catching as a yawn; well will it be +for me if my thread-bare domino conceals me, for whose better fame could +brook the scandal of having fathered or fostered so slumbering an +embryo?—Let then a few shreds and patches suffice—a brick or two for +the house: and verily I know they will, be they never so scanty; for +what man of education does not now entertain a just abhorrence of the +Muses, the nine antiquated maiden aunts destined for ever to be +pensioned on that money-making nice young man, Mammon's great +heir-at-law, Prose Prose, Esq.?</p> + +<p>With humblest fear, then, and infinite apology, behold, in all sober +seriousness, what the labour of such a file as I am might betimes work +into a respectable commencement; I don't pretend it <i>is</i> one; but +<i>valeat quantum</i>, take it as it stands, unweeded, unpruned, uncared-for, +unaltered,</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Home, happy word, dear England's ancient boast,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thou strongest castle on her sea-girt coast,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thou full fair name for comfort, love, and rest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Haven of refuge found and peace possest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Oasis in the desert, star of light</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Spangling the dreary dark of this world's night,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">All-hallowed spot of angel-trodden ground</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Where Jacob's ladder plants its lowest round,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Imperial realm amid the slavish world,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Where Freedom's banner ever floats unfurl'd,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Fair island of the blest, earth's richest wealth,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her plague-struck body's little all of health,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Home, gentle name, I woo thee to my song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To thee my praise, to thee my prayers belong:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Inspire me with thy beauty, bid me teem</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With gracious musings worthy of my theme:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Spirit of Love, the soul of Home thou art,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Fan with divinest thoughts my kindling heart;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Spirit of Power, in pray'rs thine aid I ask,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Uphold me, bless me to my holy task;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Spirit of Truth, guide thou my wayward wing;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Love, Power, and Truth, be with me while I sing.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p><i>V'la</i>: my consolation is that somewhere may be read, in hot-pressed +print, too, many worse poeticals than these, which, however, nine +readers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span> out of ten will have had the worldly wisdom to skip; and the +tenth is soon satiated: yet a tithe is something, at least so think the +modern Levites; so, then, on second thoughts, a victim who is so good a +listener must not be let off quite so cheaply. However, to vary a little +this melancholy musing, and to gild the compulsory pill, Reserve shall +be served up sonnet-wise. (P. S. I love the sonnet, maligned as it is +both by ill-attempting friend and semi-sneering foe: of course, in our +epic, Reserve ambles not about in this uncertain rhyme, but duly stalks +abroad in the uniform dress; iambically still, though extricated from +those involutions, time out of mind the requisite of sonnets.) Stand +forth to be chastised, unpopular</p> + + +<h4>RESERVE.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thou chilling, freezing fiend, Love's mortal bane,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Lethargic poison of the moral sense,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Killing those high-soul'd children of the brain,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Warm Enterprise and noble Confidence,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fly from the threshold, traitor—get thee hence!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Without thee, we are open, cheerful, kind;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mistrusting none but self, injurious self,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of and to others wishing only good;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">With thee, suspicions crowd the gloomy mind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Suggesting all the world a viperous brood</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That acts a base bad part in hope of pelf:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Virtue stands shamed, Truth mute misunderstood,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Honour unhonoured, Courage lacking nerve,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beneath thy dull domestic curse, Reserve.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Without professing much tendency to the uxorious, all may blamelessly +confess that they see exceeding beauty in a good wife; and we need never +apologize for the unexpected company of ladies: at off-hand then let +this one sit for her portrait. Enduring listener, will the following +serve our purpose in striving worthily to apostrophize</p> + + +<h4>THE WIFE.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Behold, how fair of eye, and mild of mien,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Walks forth of marriage yonder gentle queen:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What chaste sobriety whene'er she speaks,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What glad content sits smiling on her cheeks,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What plans of goodness in that bosom glow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What prudent care is throned upon her brow,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What tender truth in all she does or says,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">What pleasantness and peace in all her ways!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For ever blooming on that cheerful face</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Home's best affections grow divine in grace;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her eyes are ray'd with love, serene and bright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Charity wreathes her lips with smiles of light;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her kindly voice hath music in its notes;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And heav'n's own atmosphere around her floats!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Thus, wife-like, for better or worse, is the above <i>portrait charmant</i> +consigned to the dingy digits of an unidistinguishing printer's-devil; +so doth Cæsar's dust come to stop a bung-hole. One morsel more, about +children, blessed children, and for this bout I shall have tilted +sufficiently in the Muses' court; or, if it must be so said, unhandsome +critic, stilted to satiety in false heroics: stay—not false; judge me, +my heart. Suppose then an imaginary parent thus to speak about his</p> + + +<h4>INFANT DAUGHTERS.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Oh ye, my beauteous nest of snow-white doves,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What wealth could price for me your guileless loves?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My earthly cherubim, my precious pearls,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My pretty flock of loving little girls,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My stores of happiness with least alloy,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My treasuries of hope and trembling joy!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yon toothless darling, nestled soft and warm</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On a young yearning mother's cradling arm;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The soft angelic smiles of natural grace</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tinting with love that other little face;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the sweet budding of this sinless mind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In winning ways, that round my heart-strings wind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Dear winning ways—dear nameless winning ways,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That send me joyous to my God in praise.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Enough! not heartlessly, but to shame the heartlessness of <span class="smcap">your</span> +<i>ennui</i>, let me veil those holiest affections; yes, even at the risk of +leaving nominatives widowed of their faithful verbs, will I, until +required, epicise no more. Let these mauled bits be intimations of what +a little care might have made a little better. Gladly will I keep all +the remainder in a state quiescent, even to doubling Horace's wholesome +prescription of nine years: for it is impossible but that your fervent +poet, in the heat of inspiration, (credit me, lack-wits, there is such a +thing,) should blurt out many an unpalatable bit of advice, rebuke, or +virtuous indignation against homes in general, for the which sundry +conscience-stricken particulars might uncharitably arraign him. But +divers other notions are crowding into the retina of my mind's-eye: I +must leave my epic as you see it, and bid farewell, a long farewell, to +'<i>Home</i>.' Still shall<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> my egotism have to appear for many weary pages a +most impartial and universal friend to the world of bibliopolists; I +cater multifariously for all varieties of the literary profession: +booksellers at least must own me as their friend, though the lucky purse +of Fortunatus saves me from being impaled upon the point of poor +Goldsmith's epigram, and I leave to [——] the questionable praise of +being their hack. For Bentley and Hatchard, alike with Rivington and +Frazer, for Colburn and Nisbet, as well as Knight, Tilt, Tyas, Moxon, +and Murray, I seem to be gratuitously pouring out in equal measure my +versatile meditations; at this sign all customers may be suited; only, +shop-lifters will be visited with the utmost rigour of that obnoxious +monosyllable.—Well, poor Epic, good night to you, and my benison on +those who love you.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>To any one, much in the habit of thoughtful revery, how very +unsatisfactory those notions look in writing. He can't half unravel the +chaotic cobwebs of his mind; as he plods along penning it, a thousand +fancies flit about him too intangibly for fixed words, and his +ever-teeming hot imagination cannot away with the slow process of +concreted composition. For me, I must write impromptu, or not at all; +none of your conventional impromptus, toils of half-a-day, as little +instantaneous as sundry patent lights; no working-up of laborious +epigrams, sedulously sharpened antitheses, or scintillative trifles, +diligently filed and polished; but the positive impromptu of longing to +be an adept at shorthand-writing, by way of catching as they fly those +swift-winged thoughts; not quick enough by half; most of those bright +colours unfixed; most of those fair semi-notions unrecorded. To say +nothing of reasons of time, there being other things to do, and reasons +of space, there being other things to write. And thus, good friend, +affectionately believe the best of these crude intimations of things +intellectual, which the husbandry of good diligence, and the golden +shower of Danæ's enamoured, and the smiles of the Sun of encouragement +might heretofore have ripened into authorship; nay, more, perhaps may +still: believe, generously, that if I could coil off quietly, like +unwrapped cocoons, all these epics, tragics, theologies, pathetics, +analytics, and didactics, they would show in fairer forms, and +better-defined proportions: believe, also, truly, that I could, if I +would, and that I would, if the game were worth its candle.</p> + +<p>But, sooth to say, the over-gorged public may well regard that +small-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>tomed author with most favourable eye, who condenses himself +within the narrowest limits; a <i>diable boiteux</i>, not the huge spirit of +the Hartz; concentrated meat-lozenges, not <i>soup maigre</i>; pocket-pistols +of literature, not lumbering parks of its artillery. Verily, there is a +mightier mass of typography than of readers; and the reading world, from +very brevity of life, must rush, at a Bedouin pace, over the illimitable +plains of newspaper publication, while the pyramids of dusty folio are +left to stand in solitary proud neglect. The cursory railroad spirit is +abroad: we abhor that old painful ploughing through axle-deep ruts: the +friend who will skate with us, is welcomer than he who holds us freezing +by the button; and the teacher, who suggestively bounds in his balloon +on the tops of a chain of arguments, is more popular in lecturing than +he of the old school, who must duteously and laboriously struggle up and +down those airy promontories.</p> + +<p>I love an avenue, though, like Lord Ashburton's magnificent mile of +yew-trees, it may lead to nothing, and therefore have not expunged this +unnecessary preface: rather, will I bluntly come upon a next subject, +another work in my unseen circulating library,</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIIc" id="CHAPTER_XVIIc"></a>THE SEVEN SAYINGS OF GRECIAN WISDOM,</h3> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATED IN SEVEN TALES.</h3> + +<p>Cordially may this theme be commended to the more illuminating +booksellers: well would it be greeted by the picture-loving public. It +might come out from time to time as a periodical, in a classical +wrapper: might be decorated with the sages' physiognomies, copied from +antique gems, with the fancied passage in each one's life that provoked +the saying, and with specific illustrations of the exemplifying story. +There should be a brilliant preface, introducing the seven sages to each +other and the reader, after the ensample of Plutarch, and exhausting all +the antiquarianism, all the memoirism, and all the varia-lectionism of +the subject. The different tales should be of different countries and +ages of the world, to insure variety, and give an easier exit to +<i>ennui</i>. As thus: Solon's "Know thyself" might be fitted to an Eastern +favourite raised suddenly to power, or a poor and honest Glasgow weaver +all upon a day served as heir to a Scotch barony, when he forthwith +falls into fashionable vices. Chilo's "Note the end of life" might +concern the merriment of the drunkard's career, and its end—delirium +tremens, or spontaneous combustion: better, perhaps, as less vulgarian, +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> grandeur and assassination of some Milanese ducal tyrant. The +"Watch your opportunity" of Pittacus could be shown in the fortunes of +some Whittington of trade, some Washington of peace, or some Napoleon of +war. Bias's uncharitable bias, believing the worst of the world, might +seem to some a truism, to others a falsehood, according as their fellows +have served them well or ill; but a brief history of some hypocrite's +life, some misanthrope's experience, or some Arabian Stylobatist's +resolve to be perched above this black earth on a column like a stork, +might help to prove that "the majority are wicked." As for Periander's +aphorism, that "to industry all things are possible," pyramid-building +old Egypt, or the Druids of Stonehenge, or Scottish proverbial +perseverance in Australian sheep rearing and Canadian timber clearing, +will carry the point by acclamation. Cleobulus, praising "moderation in +all things," would glorify a moral warning of universal application, as +to pleasures, riches, and rank; or especially perhaps as preferring true +temperance before its modern tee-total false pretences; or lauding some +Richard Cromwell's choice of a quiet country life, before the turbulent +honours of a proffered Protectorate; while Thales, with his all but old +English proverb of "more haste, less speed," would apply admirably to +Sultan Mahmoud's ruinous reforms; or to the actual injury gulled Britain +has done to the condition of negroes in general by a vastly too +precipitate abolition of the slave-trade: a vile evil, indeed, but a +cancer of too long creeping to be cured in a day, a rottenness too +deeply seated in the frame-work of the world to be extirpated by such +caustic surgery as fire and sword; or to be quacked into health by +patent gold-salve.</p> + +<p>Seven such tales, shrewdly setting out their several aims, and +illustrative of good moral maxims which wise heathens live by, would (I +trow and trust) be somewhat better, more original—ay, and more +entertaining, too—than the common run of magazine adventures. It may +not here be fair to particularize further than in the way of avowing my +unmitigated contempt for the exploits of highwaymen, swindlers, men +about town, and ladies of the <i>pavé</i>. I protest against gilding crimes, +and palliating follies. Serve the public tables with better food, good +Pandarus. Those commentators on the Newgate calendar, those +bringers-into-fashion of the mysteries of vice, must not be quite +acquitted of the evils they have caused: brilliancy of dialogue, and +graphic power of delineation, are only weapons in a madman's hand, if +the moral be corrupting and profane. To cheerful, hearty, +care-dispelling humour, to such merry faces as Pickwick and +Co.—inimitable Pickwick—hail, all hail! but triumphs of burglary, and +escapes of murderers, aroint ye!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span></p> + +<p>Why then should I throw this cargo overboard?—Friend, my ship is too +full; <i>if</i> I could only do one thing at a time, and could finish it +within the limits of its originating fit, these things all might be less +abortive. But I doubt if my glorification of Greek aphorisms ever +reaches any higher apotheosis than the airy castles sketchily built +above.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Similar in idea with these last tales, but essentially more sacred as to +character, would be an illustrative elucidation of the seven last +sayings of our Blessed Lord, when dying in the crucifixion. The Romish +Church, in some of her imposing ceremonies, has caused the sayings to be +exhibited on seven banners, which are occasionally carried before the +holy cross: from this I probably derived the idea of detaching these +sentences from the frame-work of their contexts, and regarding them in +some sort as aphorisms. For a name, not to be tautologous, should be +proposed a Græco-Anglicism,</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XVIIIc" id="CHAPTER_XVIIIc"></a>THE HEPTALOGIA;</h3> + +<h3>OUR SAVIOUR'S SEVEN LAST SAYINGS.</h3> + +<p>The addition of "hagia" might be rather too Attic for English ears; and +I know not whether "the Sacred Heptalogia" would not also be too +mystical. This series of tales is capable of like illustration with the +last, except in the matter of portraits, unless indeed some eminent +fathers of the church, or some authenticated enamels, gems, or coins, +(if any,) displaying our Lord's likeness, served the purpose; and of +course the character of the stories should not be much in dissonance +with the sacredness of the text. The first might well enforce +forgiveness of enemies, especially if their hatred springs from +misapprehension. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do:" +many a true story of religious persecution, as of Inquisitorial +torture, exacted by sincere bigotry, and endured by equally sincere +conviction, would illustrate the prayer, and the scene might be laid +among Waldensian saints and the friars of Madrid. The second tale might +enlarge upon a promised Paradise, the assurance of pardon, and the +efficacy of repentance: the certainty of hope and life being +co-extensive, so that it might still be said of the seeming worst, the +brigand and the blasphemer, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise;" +a story to check presumption, while it encourages the humility of +pentitent hope; the details of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> prodigal's career and his return, say +a falsely philosophizing German student, or the excesses of some not +ungenerous outburst of youthful wantonness; haply, a fair and passionate +Neapolitan. The third might well regard filial piety: "Behold thy +son—behold thy mother:" illustrated perhaps by a slave scene in +Morocco, or the last adieus between a Maccabæan mother, and her noble +children rushing on duteous death; or the dangers of a son, during the +Reign of Terror, protecting his proscribed parents; or allusive to the +case of many razed and fired homes in the Irish rebellion. The fourth, +necessarily a tale of overwhelming calamity ultimately triumphant, "My +God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"—the confidence of <i>my</i> God +still, even in His recognised judgments trusted in as merciful: the +history of many an unrecorded Job; a parent bereaved of his fair dear +children; an aged merchant beggared by the roguery of others, and his +very name blamelessly dishonoured; the extremity of a martyr's +sufferings; or some hunted soul's temptation. The fifth, "I thirst;" +which might be commented on, either morally only, as referring to a +thirst after religion, virtue, and knowledge—or physically also, in +some story of well-endured miseries at sea on a wrecking craft; or of +Christian resignation even to the horrible death of drought among the +torrid sands of Africa; or some noble act, like that of Sir Philip +Sidney on the battle-field, or David's libation of that desired draught +from the well of Bethlehem. I need not remark that all these sayings +might primarily be applied to their Good Utterer, if it seemed more +advisable to shape the publication into seven sermons: but this, it will +at once be perceived, is not the present object; the word "sermons" has +to most men a repulsive sound, and a tale, similar in disguised motive, +may win, where an orderly discourse might unhappily repel: a teacher's +best influences are the indirect: like the conquering troops at +Culloden, his charge will be oblique; his weapon will strike the +unguarded flank, and not the opposing target. The sixth, "It is +finished;" perhaps, not only as a fact on the true, the necessary value +of the Christian scheme of redemption being so completed; but, more +generally, to display the evils and dangers of leaving mental, +spiritual, or even worldly good designs unfinished: a tale of natural +procrastination conquered, difficulties overcome, prejudices broken +down, and gigantic good effected: a Russian Peter, a literary Johnson, a +missionary Neff, a Wesley, or a Henry Martyn. The seventh, descanting +upon noble patience, and agonies vanquished by faith, the death and +glorious expectance of a martyr, the end of one of Fox's heroes;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span> +"Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Of necessity in these +Christian tales there would be more of sameness than in those heathen; +because it would be improper and impolitic, with such theses, to enter +much into the lower human passions and the common events of life. But my +intentions of further proceeding in this matter have, as at present, +very sensibly subsided; for many wise and many good might reasonably +object to making those holy last dying words mere pegs to hang moral +tales upon. The idea might please one little sect, and anger half the +world; I care not to behold it accomplished, and question my own +capabilities; only, as it has been an authorial project heretofore +conceived by me, suffer it to boast this brief existence.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>It is scandalously reported of some folks that they are not musical, a +calumny that has been whispered of myself: and, though against my own +convictions, (who will confess he "has not music in his soul?") I partly +acquiesce; that is to say—for, of such a charge, self-defence claims to +explain a little—although I <i>am</i> charmed with all manner of music, +still for choice I prefer a German chorus to an Italian solo, and an +English glee to a French jig. Accordingly the operatic world have every +reason to despise my taste: especially if I add that Welsh songs, and +Scotch and Irish national melodies—[where are our English +gone?]—rejoice my heart beyond Mozart and Rossini. And now this next +little notion is scarcely of substance sufficient to assume the garb of +authorship: it is little more than a passing whim, but I choose for the +very notion's sake to make it better known. Except in a very few +instances—as Haydn's '<i>Seasons</i>,' e.g.—Oratorios, from some +conventional idea of Lent, we may suppose, seem obligated to concern +matters sacred. Of course, every body is aware of the prayerful meaning +of the name; but we know also that a madrigal has long ago put off its +monkish robe of a hymn to the Virgin, and worn the more laic habit of a +love song. Now, it is a fact, that very many good men who delight in +Handel's melody, and of course cannot object to psalms and anthems, +entertain conscientious objections to hearing the Bible set to music in +a concert-room; and sure may we all be, that, unless the whole thing be +regarded as a religious service, (in a mixed gay company who think of +sound more than sense, not very easy,) the warbling of sacred phrases, +and variations on the summoning trumpet, and imitated angelic praise,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span> +and the unfelt expressions of musical repentance, and unfearing +despondency of guilt in recitative, are any thing but congenial to a +mind properly attuned. I hope I am neither prudish, nor squeamish, nor +splenetic, but speak only what many feel, and few care to express. Now, +the cure in future for all this would be very simple: Why not have some +lay oratorios? Protestants have appropriated the madrigal, and listen, +delighted with its melody, without the needless offence of seeming to +countenance idolatry; why should they not have solemn music, new or +ancient as may be adapted, administering to their patriotism, or their +tragic interests, or historic recollections, without grating against +their feelings of religious veneration?—To be specific, let me suggest +a subject, and show, for the benefit of any Pindar of this day, its +musical capabilities: we are, or ought to be as Englishmen, all stirred +at the name of</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XIXc" id="CHAPTER_XIXc"></a>ALFRED;</h3> + +<p>and he would minister as well to the harmonies of an oratorio as Abel, +or Jephtha, Moses, or St. Paul—nay, as the Messiah, or the last dread +Judgment. Remember, our Alfred was a proficient himself, and spied the +Danish forces in the character of a harper. What scope were here for +gentle airs, and stirring Saxon songs! He harangues his patriot band, +and a manly Phillips would personify with admirable taste the truly +royal bard: he leaves Athel-switha his wife, and a fair flock of +children in sanctuary, while he rushes to the battle-field: the +churchmen might receive their queenly charge with music: the Danes riot +in their unguarded camp with drinking-snatches, and old-country-staves: +a storm might occur, with elemental crash: the succeeding silence of +nature, and distant coming on of the patriot troops at midnight; their +war-songs and marches nearer and nearer; the invaders surprised in their +camp and in their cups; the hurlyburly of the fight—a hail-stone chorus +of arrows, a clash of thousand swords, trumpets, drums, and clattering +horse-hoofs; a silent interval, to introduce a single combat between +Alfred and Hubba the Dane, with Homeric challenges, tenor and bass; the +routed foe, in clamorous and discordant staccato; the conquerors +pressing on in steady overwhelming concord; how are the mighty +fallen—and praise to the God of battles!</p> + +<p>Most briefly, then, thus: there is religion enough to keep it solemn, +without being so experimental as to intrude upon personal prejudice. The +notion is too slight, and too slenderly worked out, even for admis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>sion +here, if I were not still, my shrewd and mindful reader, sedulously +endeavouring to get rid of all my brain-oppressing fancies: and this, +happening to come uppermost as I write, finds itself caught, to my +comfort. It is commended, if worth any thing, to the musical proficient: +for I might as well think of adding a note to the gamut as of trying to +compose an oratorio.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>The authorial mind is infinitely versatile: books and book-making are +indeed its special privilege, forte, and distinguishing peculiarity; but +still its thoughts and regards are ever cast towards originality of +idea, though unwritten and unprinted, in all the multitudinous +departments of science and of art. Thus, mechanical invention, chemical +discovery, music as above, painting as elsewhere, sculpture as below, +give it exercise continually. The authorial mind never is at rest, but +always to be seen mounted and careering on one hobby-horse or other out +of its untiring stud. If the coin of some rude Parthian, or the +fragments of some old Ephesian frieze, serve not as a scope for its +present ingenuities, it will break out in a new method of grafting +raspberries on a rosebush, in the comfortable cut of a pilot-coat, or +the safest machinery for a steamer. <i>Ne sutor ultra crepidam</i> is a rule +of moderation it repudiates; incessant energy provokes unabated +meddling, and its intuitive qualities of penetration, adaptation, and +concentration, are only hindered by the accidents of life from carrying +any one thing out to the point at least of respectable attainment. Look +at Michael Angelo; poet, painter, sculptor, architect, and author: and +if indeed we are not told of Milton having modeled, or Horace having +built up other monuments than his own imperishable fame, still nothing +but manual habit and the world's encouragement were wanting to perfect, +in the concrete, the conceptions of those plastic minds. Who will deny +that Hogarth was a novelist and play-wright, if not indeed a +heart-rending tragedian? Who will refuse to those nameless monastic +architects who planned and fashioned the fretted towers of Gloucester, +the stern solidity of Durham, the fairy steeple of Strasburg, or the +delicate pinnacles of Milan, the praise due to them of being genuine +poets of the immortal Epic? Phidas and Praxiteles, Canova and +Thorswaldsen, are in this view real authors, as undoubtedly as Homer or +Dante, Sallust or Racine; and to rise highest in this argument, the +heavens and the earth are but mighty scrolls of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span> an Omniscient Author, +fairly written in a universal tongue of grandeur and beauty, of skill, +poetry, philosophy, and love.</p> + +<p>But let me not seem to prove too much, and so leap over my horse instead +of vaulting into the saddle: though authorship may claim thus +extensively every master-mind, from the Adorable Former of all things +down to the humblest potter at his wheel fashioning the difficult +ellipse; still, in human parlance, must we limit it to common +acceptations, and think of little more than scribe, in the name of +author. Nevertheless, let such seeds of thought as here are carelessly +flung out, nurtured in the good soil of charity, and not unkindly forced +into foolish accusations of my own conceit, whereas their meaning is +general, (as if forsooth selfishly dibbled in with vain particularity, +and not liberally broadcast that he may run that reads,)—let such crude +considerations excuse my own weak and uninjurious invasion of the +provinces of other men. The wisdom for social purposes of infinitesimal +division of labour, may be proved good by working well; but its lowering +influences on the individual mind cannot be doubted: that an intelligent +man should for a life-time be doomed to watch a valve, or twist +pin-heads, or wind cotton, or lacquer coffin-nails, cannot be improving; +and while I grant great evil in my desultory excesses, still I may make +some use of that argument in the converse, and plead that it is good to +exercise the mind on all things. Thus, in my assumed métier of +authorship, let notions be extenuated that popularly concern it little, +and yield admittance to any thought that may lead to that Athenian +desideratum, "some new thing."</p> + +<p>While the echoes of the name of Alfred still linger on the mind, and our +patriotism looks back with gratitude on his thousand virtues unsullied +by a fault, (at least that History, seldom so indulgent, has +recorded,)—while we reflect that in him were combined the wise king, +the victorious general, the enlightened scholar, the humble Christian, +the learned author, the excellent father, the admirable <span class="smcap">MAN</span> in +all public and private relations, in domestic alike with social duties, +I cannot help wishing that forgetful England had raised some +architectural trophy, as a worthy testimonial of Alfred the noble and +the good. Whether Oxford, his pet child—or Westminster Hall, as mindful +of the code he gave us—or Greenwich, as the evening resting-place of +those sons of thunder whom the genius of Alfred first raised up to man +our wooden walls—should be the site of some great national memorial, +might admit of question; but there can be none that something of the +kind has been owing now near upon a thousand years, and that it will +well become us to claim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span> boastingly for England so true, so glorious a +hero. With a view to expedite this object, and strictly to bear upon the +topic in author-fashion, it has come into my thought how much we want a</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXc" id="CHAPTER_XXc"></a>LIFE OF ALFRED:</h3> + +<p>my little reading knows of none, beyond what dictionaries have gathered +from popular history and vague tradition, rather than manuscripts of old +time, and Asser, the original biographer. Of this last work, written +originally in Saxon, and since translated into Latin, I submit that a +popular English version is imperatively called for; a translation from a +translation being never advisable, (compare Smollett's Anglo-Gallified +dilution of '<i>Don Quixote</i>,') the primary source should be again +consulted; and seeing that profound ignorance of the ancient Saxon +coupled with, as now, total indifference about its acquisition, place me +in the list of incapables, I leave the good suggestion to be used by +pundits of the Camden or Roxburghe or other book-learned society. If it +may have been already done by some neglected scribe, bring it to the +light, and let us see the bright example set to all future ages by that +early Crichton; if never yet accomplished, my zeal is over-paid should +the hint be ever acted on; and if, which is still possible, an English +version of the life of Alfred should be positively rife and common among +the reading public, your humble ignoramus has nothing for it but to pray +pardon of its author for not having known him, and to walk softly with +the world for writing so much before he reads.</p> + +<p>But this is an accessory—an episode; I plead for a statue to King +Alfred: and—(now for another episode; is there <i>no</i> cure for these +desperate parentheses?)—<i>apropos</i> of statues, let me, in the simple +untaught light of nature, suggest a word or two with regard to some +recent under-takings. Notwithstanding classical precedents, whereof more +presently, it does seem ridiculous to common sense, to set a man like a +scavenger-bird at Calcutta, or a stork at Athens, or a sonorous Muezzin, +or a sun-dried Simeon Stylites, on the top of a column a hundred feet +high: sculpture imitates life, and who would not shudder at such an +unguarded elevation? sculpture imitates life, and who can recognise a +countenance so much among the clouds? Again for the precedents: I +presume that Pompey's pillar, (which, indeed, perhaps never had any +thing on its summit except some Egyptian emblem, as the cap and throne +of higher and lower Egypt, or a key of the Nile as likely as any thing,) +is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span> most notable, if not the first, of solitary columns: now, +Pompey, or, as some prefer, Diocletian, and others Alexander Severus, +had that fine pillar ferried over from the quarries of Lycian Xanthus; +at least, this is a good idea, seeing that near that place still lie +three or four other columns of like gigantic dimensions, unfinished, and +believed to have been intended to support the triglyph of some new +temple. Pompey's idea was to fix the pillar up as a sea-mark, for either +entering the harbour of Alexandria, or to denote shallows, anchorage, or +the like; but apart from this actual utility, and apart also from its +acknowledged ornament as a sentinel on that flat strand, I take it to be +an architectural absurdity to erect a regular-made column with little or +nothing to support: an obelisk now, or a naval trophy, or a tower +decorated with shields, or a huge stele or cippus, or a globe, or a +pyramid, or a Waltham-cross sort of edifice, (of course all these +supporting nothing on their apices,) in fact, <i>any thing but</i> a +Corinthian or Tuscan, or other regular pillar, seems to be permissable; +but for base, shaft, and capital to have nothing to do but lift a +telescopic man from earth's maternal surface, does look not a little +unreasonable; and therefore as much out of taste, as for the marble arch +at Buckingham Palace to spend its energies in supporting a flag-staff.</p> + +<p>The magnificent column of Trajan is exempted from this hasty bit of +criticism, (as also of course is its modern counterpart, Napoleon's,) +because it is, both from decoration and proportions, out of the +recognised orders of architecture; it partakes rather of the character +of a triumphal tower, than of one among many pillars separated chiefly +from the rest; the man is a superlative accessory, a climax to his +positive exploits; he does not stand a-top, as if dropt from a balloon, +but like a gallant climber treading on his conquests: and, as to +Phocas's column at Rome, I shall only say, that it illustrates my +meaning, except in so far as an immense base to the super-imposed +statuere deems it from the jockey imputation of carrying too light a +weight. Now, with respect to the Nelson memorial, your meddlesome scribe +had an unexhibited notion of his own. Mehemet Ali is understood to have +given certain two obelisks respectively to the French and English +nations: the Parisians appropriated theirs, and have set it up, +thorn-like, in their midst, perhaps as an emblem of what African +conquest has been in the heartside of France; but we English, less +imaginative, and therefore less antiquarian, have permitted our <i>petit +cadeau</i> to lie among its ruins of Luxor or Karnac, unclaimed and +unconsidered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span></p> + +<p>Nelson of the Nile might have had this consecrated to his honour: and +if, as is probable, it be of insufficient elevation, I should have +proposed a high flight of steps and a base, screened all round by +shallow Egyptian entrances, with an Etruscan sarcophagus just within the +principal one, (Egypt and Etruria were cousins germane,) and an +alto-relievo of Nelson dying, but victorious, recumbent on the lid: the +globe and wings, emblems alike of Nelson's rapidity, his universal fame, +and his now-emaciated spirit, might be sculptured over each entrance; a +sphinx, or a Prudhoe lion, being allusive to England as well as Egypt, +should sit guardiant at each corner of the steps; and the three +remaining doorways would be represented closed, and carved externally +with some allegorical personations of Nelson's career, of the Nile, +Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. This, then, had it been strictly in my +métier, (a happy métier mine of literary leisure,) should have been my +limnèd outline for the Nelson testimonial: the real interesting antique +needle, rising from the midst of its solid Egyptian architecture, and +pointing to the skies; not a steeple, however, but merely the obelisk +raised upon a heavy base, only hollowed far enough to admit of an +interior alto-relievo.</p> + +<p>It is probable that the exhibition of designs, which an <i>alibi</i> +prevented me from seeing, included several obelisks; but the +peculiarities I should have insisted on, would have been first to make +good use of the real thing, the rarely carved old Egypt's porphyry; and, +next, to have had our hero's likeness within reasonable distance of the +eye.</p> + +<p>But to return from this other desperate digression: Alfred, the great +and wise, deserves his Saxon cross; or let him lie enshrined in a grove +of florid Gothic pinnacles, a fretted roof on clustered columns +reverently keeping off the rain; or, best of all, let him stand majestic +in his own-time costume, colossal bronze on a cube of granite, and so +put to shame the elegancies of a Windsor uniform, and the absurdity of +sticking heroes, as at St. George's, Bloomsbury, and elsewhere, on the +summit of a steeple. So, friend, let all this tirade serve to introduce +a most unlikely and chaotic treatise on</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIc" id="CHAPTER_XXIc"></a>NATIONAL MEMORIALS.</h3> + + +<p>Politics are a sore temptation to any writer, and of dalliance with a +Delilah so seductive it is futile to declare that I am innocent. My +principles positively are known to myself; which is a measure of +self-knowledge, in these any-thing-arian days, of that cabinet +coin-climax<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> the "8th degree of rarity;" and that those choice +principles may not be concealed from so kind an eye as yours, friend +reader, hear me profess myself honestly—if you approve, or +shamelessly—if you <i>will</i> so think it—"a rabid Tory!" At least, by +such a nomenclature sundry veracious journals, daily leaders of the +public opinion, would call me, were such a groundling as I prominent +enough to attract their indignation; and, from all that can be gathered +from their condemnatory clauses against others like minded, I have no +little reason to be proud of the title. For, on collation of such +clauses with their causes, I find, and therefore take (under correction +always) the rabid Tory to be—a temperate lover of order, whom his +mother has taught to "fear God," his father to "honour the king," and +his pastor to "meddle not with them who are given to change." A rabid +Tory, in matters of national expenditure, remembers to have heard an old +unexploded proverb, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth, and +there is that withholdeth what is due, but it tendeth to poverty;" and +he is by no means sure that a certain mismanaged nation is not +immolating her prosperity to what actuaries would call economical +principles. A rabid Tory is bigoted enough to entertain a ridiculous +fear of that generation abstraction, Catholic Rome, whom further he is +sufficiently vulgar-minded to consider as a lady of easy virtue arrayed +in the colours of a cardinal: he thinks one Luther to be somewhat more +than a renegade monk; and is childish enough to venerate, when a man, +the same Liturgy which his grandmother had taught him when a boy. For +other matters, the higher born, the better bred, the more classically +educated, and the more extensively possessed of moneys and lands our +honest-spoken Tory may be, ten to one the more is he afflicted with this +rabbies: and his mad propensities become positively criminal, when, as a +magistrate or a captain of dragoons, he thinks himself bound in +honourable duty to quell the enthusiasm of some disinterested patriots, +whose innocent wishes rise no higher than to subvert the existing order +of things, to secure for themselves a reasonable share of parks, +palaces, and pocket-money, and (as the very justifiable means for so +happy an end) manfully to sacrifice in the temple of Freedom the rogues +who would object to being robbed, and the tyrants who would be bloody +enough to fight for life and liberty.</p> + +<p>A rabid Tory—you see it is a pet name of mine—feels no little contempt +for a squeezable character; and he is well assured, from history as well +as on his own conviction, that the noble army of martyrs lived and died +upon his principles: whereas the retrograde regiment of cow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>ards, whom +the wisdom of providing for personal safety has in battle induced to run +away, <i>relictis non bene parmulis</i>—the clamorous cohort of bullies, +whom the necessities of impending castigation have sensibly induced to +eat their words—the volunteer company of light-heeled swindlers, whom +nature instructs that they must live, and honesty has neglected to +inform how—every one, in short, whose grand maxim (<i>quocunque modo +rem</i>) is temporizing expediency, and with whom the cogent argument "you +shall" has more force than the silly conscience-whisper of "you +ought,"—contributes to swell the band which the professor of Toryism, +the abstracted follower of principles and not of men, has the honour of +beholding in the angle of his diagram, inscribed "contradictory." Not +that your true Tory believes so ill of <i>all</i> his adversaries; there are +some few geese among the cranes; an Abdiel here and there, who has long +felt irksome in the host, but for false shame is there still; sundry +men, having ambitious or illuminated wives, and too amiable, or too +prudent, to attempt a breach of peace at home; some thronging the +opposite benches, because their fathers and grandfathers topographically +occupied those same seats—a decent reason, supposing similarity of +places and names, to insure similarity of principles and practice; and +some—I dislike them not for honesty—confessing and upholding the +republican extremes, upon a belief that all short of these are but an +unsatisfactory part of a great and glorious experiment. Now, the rabid +Tory prefers an open foe to a false friend; but your go-between, your +midway sneak, your shuttlecock, your perjured miser who will swear to +any thing for an extra per centage—all these are his detestation: and +although he will readily acknowledge some good and some wise in the +adversary's ranks, still he recognises that tri-coloured banner as the +one under which all naturally fight, who are poor in both worlds——with +neither money nor religion. Thus much of my reasonable rabies.</p> + +<p>One may hate principles without hating men; and for this sentiment we +have the Highest Example. Things are either right or wrong; if right, +do; if wrong, forbear: nothing can be absolutely indifferent, and to do +a little actual evil in order to compass great hypothetical good, is +false morality, and, therefore bad government. Why should not honesty +and plain-dealing be as inviolable publicly as privately? Why be guilty +of such mean self-stultification as to say one thing and do another? It +is criminal in rulers to give a helping hand to the evil which they deem +unavoidable; let them, in preference, cease to rule, and imitate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> the +noble threat of that king for half a century whose conscience bade him +abdicate rather than do wrong.</p> + +<p>But to come abruptly on a title-page: often-times, in reading +deleterious leading articles in wrong-sided newspapers, have I longed to +set before the world of faction</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIIc" id="CHAPTER_XXIIc"></a>A MANUAL OF GOOD POLITICS,</h3> + +<p>which indeed has already been half-done, if decently begun be +synonymous. With this view has my author's mind heretofore thought over +many scriptural texts, characters, doctrines, and usages; yet, let me +freely confess the upshot of those efforts to be little satisfactory: +for I fear much, that though there be grounds enough to go upon for one +who is already fixed in right political principle, [orthodoxy being, as +is common among arguers, <i>my</i> doxy,] there may not be sufficient so to +reason from as to convince the thousands, ready and willing to gainsay +them: and Locke's utter annihilation of poor ridiculous well-intentioned +Filmer, makes one wary, of taking up and defending a position so little +tenable, as, for instance, Adam's primary grant for the foundation of +absolute monarchy, or of attempting to nullify natural freedom by the +dubious succession of patriarchal power. At the same time, (competency +for so great a task being conceded—no small supposition, by the way,) +much remains to be done in this field of discourse; as, the fearful +example made of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for conduct very analogous +with numberless instances of modern Liberalism; the rights of rulers, as +well as of the governed; of kings, as well as people; the connexion +subsisting now, as through all former ages, between church and +state—well indeed and deeply argued out already by such great minds as +Coleridge and Gladstone, but perhaps, for general usefulness, requiring +a more brief and popular discourse; the question of passive obedience; +the true though unfashionable doctrine of man's general depravity +invalidating the consignment of power to the masses; and so forth. There +are, however, if Scripture is to be held a constitutional guide, some +examples to a certain extent contrary to the argument: as, elective +monarchy in the case of Saul; non-legitimate succession in families even +where election is omitted, as in the case of Solomon; and, honestly to +say it, many other difficulties of a like nature. In fact, upon the +whole, this distinction might be drawn; that although the Bible at large +favours what we may, for shortness' sake, term Conservative politics, +still it would not be easy to deduce from its page as code of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> rules, so +necessarily of a social, temporary, and accidental nature: The principle +is given, but little of the practice; the seed of true and undefiled +religion produces among other good fruit what we will call Conservatism, +but we must be very microscopic to detect that fruit in the seed: of +this admission let my <i>Liberal</i> adversary make—as indeed he will—the +most; but let him remember that truth has always been most economically +distributed. It is a material too costly to be broadcast before swine; +and in slender evidence lurks more of moral test, than in stout +arguments and open miracles. At any rate, as unfitted for the task, I +leave it. For any thing mine un-book-learned ignorance can tell, the +very title may be as old as Christianity itself; it is a good name, and +a fair field.</p> + +<p>This manual was commenced in the form of familiar letters to a radical +acquaintance, whom I had resolved to convert triumphantly; but John +Locke disarmed me, without, however, having gained a convert: he made me +drop my weapon as Prospero with Ferdinand; but the fault lay with +Ferdinand, for want of equal power in the magic art.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>"Measures, not men" is, as we have hinted already, the +ground-work of a true Tory's political creed; and measures themselves +only in so far as they expound and are consistent with principles. A man +may fail; the stoutest partisan become a renegado; and the pet measure +of a doughtiest champion may after all prove traitorous, unwise, +unworthy: but principle is eternally an unerring guide, a master to +whose words it is safe to swear, a leader whose flag is never lowered in +compromise, nor sullied by defeat. Defalcations of the generally +upright, derelictions of duty by the usually noble-minded, shake not +that man's faith which is founded on principle: for the cowardice, or +rashness, or dishonesty of some individual captain, he may feel shame, +but never for the <i>cause</i> in which such hold commissions; he may often +find much fault with <i>soi-disant</i> Tories, but never with the 'ism they +profess. We over-step their follies; we disclaim their corruptions; we +date above their faults; we wash our hands of their abuses. An +abstracted student in his chamber, building up his faith from the +foundations, and trying every stone of the edifice, takes little heed of +who is for him, and who against him, so Conscience is the architect, and +the Master of the house looks on approving. A man's mind is but one +whole; be it palace or hovel,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span> feudal stronghold or Italian villa, it is +all of a piece: a duly subordinated spirit bears no superstructure of +the Radical, and the friable soil of discontented Liberalism, is too +sandy a foundation for ponderous fanes of the religious.</p> + +<p>I rejoice in being accounted one of those unheroic, and therefore more +useful, members of society, who profess to be by no means ambitious of +reigning. A plain country gentleman, with a mind (thank Heaven!) well at +ease, and things generally, both external and internal, being in his +case consentaneous with happiness, would appear to have reached the acme +of human felicity; and no one but a fool cares, in any world, to +exemplify the dog's preference for the shadow. Unenvious, therefore, of +royalty, and fully crediting that <i>never-quoted</i> sentiment of +Shakspeare's "Uneasy," &c., my motto, within the legitimate limits of +right reason, and in common with that of some ridiculed philosopher of +Roundhead times, is the prudent saying, "Whoever's king, I'll be +subject!"—ay, and for the masculine I place the epicene. While, +however, in sober practice of right subordination, and under existing +circumstances of just rule, we gladly would amplify the maxim, (as in +courtesy, gallantry, loyalty, and honest kind feeling strongly bound,) +still in mere speculation, and irrespectively of things as they are, our +abstract musings tended to approve the original word in its unextended +gender. Every one of Edmund Burke's school would honour the ensign of +Divine vice-regency wherever he found it; but, apart from this +uninquisitive respect, he will claim to be reasonably patriotic, +patriotically rational; habit encourages to practice one thing, but +theory may induce to think another. Now, little credence as so +unenlightened so illiberal an integer as I give to an equalization in +the rights of man, certainly on many accounts my blindness gives less to +the rights of women with man, and very far less to those rights over +man: it might be inconvenient to be specific as to reason; but the +working of an ultra-republican scheme, in which females should ballot as +well as males, would briefly illustrate my meaning. Barbarism makes +gentle woman our slave; right civilization raises her into a loving +helpmate; but what kind of wisdom exalts her into mastery?</p> + +<p>Readily, however, shall sleep in dull suppression sundry comments on a +certain Rhenish law, whereof my author's mind had at one time studiously +cogitated a grave and wholesome homily. For our censor of the press, one +strait-laced Mr. Better Judgment, has, "with his abhorred shears," +clipped off the more eloquent and spirited portion of a trenchant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> +argument concerning—the revealed doctrine of a superior sex, the social +evils of female domination, church-headships considered as to type and +antitype, improper influences, necessary hindrances, anomalous example, +feminine infirmities, and an infinitude more such various objections +springing out of this fertile subject. Thereafter might have come the +historical view, evils and perils, for the majority of instances, +following in the wake of such mastery. However, to leave these +questionable matters quiescent, the principles of passive obedience +mildly interpose, forbidding to stir the waters of commotion, although +with healing objects, for the sake of an abstract theory; there is +ill-meant change enough afloat, without any call for well-intentioned +meddlers to launch more. So, judicious after-thought resolves rather to +strengthen too-much-weakened authority, in these ungovernable times, +than attempt to prove its weaknesses inherent; to look obstinately at +the golden side only of the double-wielded shield: instead of picking +away at a soft stone in constitutional foundations, our feeble wish +magnanimously prefers to prop it and plaster it, flinging away that +injurious pick-axe. The title of this once-considered lucubration is far +too suggestive to carping minds of more than the much that it means, to +be without objection: nevertheless, I did begin, and therefore, always +under shelter of a domino, and protesting against any who would move my +mask, I confess to</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIIIc" id="CHAPTER_XXIIIc"></a>WOMAN, A SUBJECT:</h3> + +<p>it was a mere speculative argument; a flock of fancies now roaming +unregarded in some cloudy limbo. Let them fly into oblivion—"black, +white, and gray, with all their trumpery."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Notwithstanding these present hostile argumentations, politics are to me +what they doubtless are to many others, subjects and disquisitions +little short of hateful; perpetual mulligatawney; curried capsicums; a +very heating, unsatisfactory, unwholesome sort of food. How many +pleasant dinner-parties have been abruptly broken up by the introduction +of this dish! How many white waistcoats unblanched by projectile +wine-glasses on account of this impetuous theme! How many little-civil +wars produced from the pips of this apple of contention! Yes, I hate it; +and for this cause, good readers, (who may chance to have been used +scurvily, some six pages back, in respect of your opinions, honest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span> as +my own, though fixed in full hostility—and so, courteously be entreated +for your pardons,) for this cause of hate, I beseech you to regard me as +sacrificing my present inclination to my future quiet. We have heard of +women marrying men they may detest, in order to get rid of them: even +with such an object is here indited the last I ever intend to say about +politics. The shadows of notions fixed upon this page will cease to +haunt my brain; and let no one doubt but that after relief from these +pent-up humours, I shall walk forth less intolerant, less unamiable, +less indignant than as heretofore. But, meanwhile, suffer with all +brevity that I say out this small say, and deliver my patriotic +conscience; for many a head-ache has obfuscated your author's mind in +consequence of other abortive bits of political common-place. Every +successive measure of small triumphant Whiggery, every piece of what my +view of the case would designate non-government or mis-government, has +pinched, vexed, bruised, and stung my fervent country's love day by day, +session after session. Like thousands of others, I have been a greyhound +in the leash, a bolt in the bow, longing to take my turn on the arena: +eager as any Shrovetide 'prentice for a fling at negligence, peculation +and injustice, and other the long black catalogue of British injuries. +Socialism, Chartism, Ribandism; Spain, Canada, China; freed criminals, +and imprisoned poverty; penny wisdom, and pound folly; the universal +centralizing system, corrupting all generous individualities: patriotism +ridiculed, and questionable loyalty patted on the back; vice in full +patronage, and virtue out of countenance; Protestantism discouraged, +Popery taken by the hand; Dissent of <i>any</i> kind preferred to sober +Orthodoxy; and, fitting climax, all this done under pretences of perfect +wisdom, and most exquisite devotion to the crown and the +constitution:—these things have made me too often sympathize in Colonel +Crockett's humour, tiger-like, with a dash of the alligator. Accordingly +let me not deny having once attempted a bitter diatribe, in petto, +surnamed</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIVc" id="CHAPTER_XXIVc"></a>FALSE STEPS;</h3> + +<h3>BRITAIN'S HIGHROAD TO RUIN;</h3> + +<p>a production of the pamphlet class, and, like its confraternity, +destined at longest to the life ephemeral. But, to say truth, I found +all that sort of thing done so much better, spicier, cleverer, in +numberless newspaper articles, than my lack of the particular knowledge +requisite, and my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> little practice in controversy, could have managed, +that I wisely drew in my horns, sheathed my toasting-iron, and decided +upon not proceeding political pamphleteer, till, on awaking some fine +morning, I find myself returned to parliament for an immaculate +constituency.</p> + +<p>Patient reader, of whatever creed, do not hate me for my politics, nor +despise the foolish candour of confession. Henceforth, I will not +trouble you, but abjure the subject; except, indeed, my sturdy friend +"the Squire," soon to be introduced to you, insists upon his +after-dinner topic: but we will cut him short; for, in fact, nothing can +be more provoking, tedious, useless, and causative of ill-blood, than +this perpetual intermeddling of private ignoramuses, like him and me, +with matters they do not understand, nor can possibly ameliorate.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>A poet is born a poet, as all the world is well aware; and your +thorough-paced lawyer is not less born a lawyer; while the junction of +these two most militant incompatibles clearly bears out the hackneyed +quotation as above, with the final misfit, that is, "<i>non fit</i>." Your +poetaster at the bar is that grotesque ideal, which Flaccus thought so +funny that his friends <i>must</i> laugh; (although really, Romans, it <i>is</i> +possible to contemplate a sort of sphinx figure, "a human head to a +horse's neck," and so on, varied plumes and all, without much chance of +a guffaw;) and yonder sickly-looking clerk, perched upon his high stool, +penning "stanzas while he should engross," is the lugubrious caricature +of Apollo on his Pegassus, with Helicon for inkstand.</p> + +<p>It may be nothing extraordinary that, jostled in so wide a theatre as +ours of the world, chance-comers should not, at once or at all, +comfortably find their proper places; but that wise-looking chaperons, +having with prospective caution duly taken a box, should by malice +prepense thrust all the big people in front, and all the little folks +behind, is rather hard upon the latter, and not a little foolish in +itself. Even so in life: who does not wish a thousand times he could +help some people to change places? Look at this long fellow, fit for +Frederick of Prussia's regiment of giants: his parents and guardians +have bent him double, broken his spirit, and spoiled his paces, by +cramming him, a giraffe in the stable, between that frigate's gun-decks +as a middy: while yonder martial little bantam, by dint of exaggerated +heels, and exalted bear-skin, peeps about among his grenadiers, much as +Brutus and Cassius did with their collossal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> Cæsar. So also of minds: +look at brilliant Burns, the exciseman; and quaintly versatile Lamb, the +common city clerk: Look at—had you only patience, you should have +examples by the gross; but, to make a shorter tale of it, (I presume +this shows the etymology of cur-tail,) just think over the pack of your +acquaintance, and see if you could not shuffle those kings, queens—yes, +and knaves too—more to your satisfaction, and their own advantage: at +least, so most folks imagine, silly meddlers as they are; for, after +all, what with human versatility, and the fact of a probationary state, +and the influence of habit, and the drudging example set by others, +things work so kindly as they are, that, notwithstanding misfits, the +wiser few must be of Pope's mind, "whatever is, is right;"—ay, that it +is.</p> + +<p>A year or two ago—if your author is little better than one of the +foolish now, what in charity must he have been then?—I took it upon me +to indite an innocent, stingless satire, whereof for samples take the +following. Skip them one and all; you will, if you are wise, for they +bear the ban of rhyme, are peevish, dull, ill-reasoned; but if you are +not wise, (and, strange to say, malicious people tell me there are many +such,) you may wish to see in print a metred inconclusive grumble. Take +it, then, if you will, as I do, merely for a change; at any rate, your +manciple has furnished this buttery of yours with ample choice of +viands; and omnivoracious as man may be—gormandizing, with gusto, fat +moths in Australia, cockchafers at Florence, frogs in France, and snails +in Switzerland, equally as all less objectionable meats, drinks, fruits, +roots, composites, and simples—still, in reason, no one can be expected +or expect himself to like every thing: have charity, for what suits not +one man's taste may please the palate of another; so hear me +complacently turn</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVc" id="CHAPTER_XXVc"></a>"KING'S EVIDENCE,"</h3> + +<p>and give heed to certain confessions, extorted under the <i>peine forte et +dure</i> of a whilom state legal. Yet, when I come to consider of this, +(<i>mihi cogitanti</i>, as school themes invariably commenced,) it strikes my +memory that all confessions, short of the last dying one, are weak and +foolish impertinence; whether Jean Jacques or Mr. Adams thought so, or +caused others to think so, are separate topics beside the question: for +myself, I will spare you a satire dotted with as many I's as an Argus +pheasant; and, without exacting upon good-nature by troublesome +contributions, will hazard a few couplets concerning Blackstone's +cast-off mistress, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> Law. One word more though: undoubting of thine +amiability, friend that hast walked with me hitherto in peace, I will be +tame as a purring cat, and sheathe my talons; therefore are you still +unteased by divers sly speeches and sarcastic hints, of and concerning +innumerable black sheep that crowd about a woolsack; especially of +certain "highly respectables," whom the omnipotence of parliament (no +less power presumably being competent) commands to be accounted +"gentlemen." Should then my meagre sketches seem but little spiteful, +accord me credit for tolerance at the expense of wit, (yea, in mine own +garbled satire, hear it Juvenal!) and view them kindly in the same light +as you would sundry emasculated extracts from a discreet Family +Shakspeare. Indignation ever speaks in short sharp queries; and it is +well for the printer's pocket that the self-experience hereof was +considered inadmissible, for a new fount of notes of interrogation must +have been procured: as it is, we are sailing quietly on the Didactic +Ocean, and have, I fear, been engaged some time upon topics actionable +on a charge of <i>scandalum magnatum</i>. Hereof then just a little sample: +let us call it '<i>A Judgment in the Rolls Court</i>;' or in any other; I +care not.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Precedent's slave, this mountebank decides</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As great Authority, not Reason, guides.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Faults can be mended at this time of day,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For Coke himself declared—no matter what—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Can Justice suffer what Lord Coke would not?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And if 1 Siderfin, p. 10, you scan,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Lord Hoax has fixed the rule, that learned man:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I cannot, dare not, if I would, be just,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My hands are tied, and follow Hoax I must;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That <i>very</i> learned Lord could not be wrong.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Besides, in fact, it has been settled long,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For the great case of Hitchcock versus Bundy</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Decided—(Cro. Eliz. per Justice Grundy),</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That [black was white];—and so, what can I say?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Landmarks are things must not be moved away:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I cannot put the clock of Wisdom back,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And solemnly pronounce that black <i>is</i> black.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Though plaintiff has the right, I grant it clear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">I must be ruled by Hoax and Hitchcock here:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Equity follows, does not mend the laws:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Therefore declare, defendant gains the cause."</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Then, as virtuously bound, Indignation interrogates sundry +ejacula<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>tions; or, if you like it better, ejaculates sundry +interrogations: as thus, take a brace:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">If right and reason both combine in one,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Why, in God's name, should justice not be done?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">If law be not a lie, and judgments jokes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Why not <i>be just</i>, and cut adrift Lord Hoax?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>After a vast deal more in this vein of literature—for you perceive my +present purpose is dissection in part of this ancient rhyme—we arrive +at a magnanimous—</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">No! Right shall have his own, put off no longer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">By rule of Former, or by whim of Stronger;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor, because Jack goes tumbling down the hill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Shall precedent create a tumbling Jill.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Public opinion soon shall change the scene,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And wash the Law's Augæan stable clean;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Sweep out the Temple, drive the sellers thence,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And lead, in novel triumph, Common Sense.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Verily, this is of the dullest, but it is brief: endure it, and pray you +consider the deadliness of the topic, and the barbarous cruelty +wherewith courtesy has clipped the wings of my poor spite. Let us turn +to other title-pages; assuring all the world that no specific mountebank +has been here intended, and that nothing more is meant than a nerveless +blow against legal cant, quainter than Quarles's, and against that +well-known species of Equity, which must have been so titled from like +antiquated reasons with those that induced Numa and his company to call +a dark grove, lucus.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>How many foes, in this utilitarian era, has that very unwarrantable +vice, called Poetry! All who despise love and love-making, all who +prefer billiards to meditation, all who value hard cash above mental +riches, feel privileged to hate it; while really, typographers, the +illegible diamond print in which you generally set it up, whether in +book, or newspaper, or handbill, or magazine, induces many an +indifferent peruser to skip the poem for the sake of his eye-sight. I +presume that the monosyllable, rhyme, comprehends pretty nearly all that +the world at large intends by poetry; and, in the same manner as certain +critics have sneered at Livy—no, it was Tacitus—for commencing his +work<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> with a bad hexameter, so many a reader will now-a-days condemn a +whole book, because it is somewhere found guilty of harbouring a +distich. But poetry, friend World, means far other than rhyme; its +etymology would yield "creation," or "fabrication," of sense as well as +sound, and of melody for the eye as well as melody for the ear. So did +[<i>epoiese</i>] Milton; and so did not—— Well, I myself, if you will. Yet, +in fact, there are fifty other kinds of poetries, beside the poetry of +words: as the poetry of life—affection, honour, and hope, and +generosity; the poetry of beauty—never mind what features decorate the +Dulcinea, for this species of poetry is felt and seen almost only in +first love; the poetry of motion, as first-rates majestically sailing, +furiously scudding waves, bending corn-fields, and, briefly, all things +moveable but railway-trains; the poetry of rest, as pyramids, a tropical +calm, an arctic winter, and generally all things quiescent but a +slumbering alderman; the poetry of music, heard oftener in a country +milkmaid's evening song, than in many a concert-room; the poetry of +elegance, more natural to weeping willows, unbroken colts, flames, +swans, ivy-clad arches, greyhounds, yea, to young donkeys, than to those +<i>pirouette</i>-ing and <i>very</i> active <i>danseuses</i> of the opera; the poetry +of nature, as mountains, waterfalls, storms, summer evenings, and all +manner of landscapes, except Holland and Siberia; the poetry of art, +acqueducts, minarets, Raphael's colouring, and Poussin's intricate +designs; the poetry of ugliness, well seen in monkeys and Skye terriers; +and the poetry of awkwardness, whereof the brightest example is Mr. +trans-Atlantic Rice. And, verily, many other poetries there be, as of +impudence (for which consult the experience of swindlers); of prose, +(for which see Addison); of energy, of sleep, of battle and of peace: +for it is an easy-seeming artfulness, the most fascinating manner of +doing as of saying, complication simplified, and every thing effected to +its bravest advantage. Poetry wants a champion in these days, who will +save her from her friends: O, namby-pamby "lovers of the Nine!" your +innumerous dull lyrics—ay, and mine—your unnatural heroics—I too have +sinned thus—your up-hill sonnets—that labour of folly have I known as +well—in brief, your misnamed poetry, hath done grievous damage to the +cause you toil for. Yet I would avow thus much, for I believe it: as an +average, we have beaten our ancestors; seldom can we take up a paper or +a periodical which does not show us verses worthy of great names; the +age is full of highly respectable, if not superlative poetry; and truly +may we consider that the very abundance of good versifica<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span>tion has +lowered the price of poets, and therefore, in this marketing world, has +robbed them of proper estimation. Doubtless, there have been mighty men +of song higher in rank, as earlier in time, than any now who dare to try +a chirrup: but there are also many of our anonymous minstrels, with whom +the greater number of the so-called old English poets could not with +advantage to the ancients justly be compared. Look at '<i>Johnson's +Lives</i>.' Who can read the book, and the specimens it glorifies, without +rejoicing in his prose, and thoroughly despising their poetry?—With a +few brilliant exceptions, of course, (for ill-used Milton, Pope—and +shall we in the same sentence put Dryden?—are there,) a more wretched +set of halfpenny-a-liners never stormed mob-trodden Parnassus. The +poetry of Queen Anne's time and thereabouts, I judge to have been at the +lowest bathos of badness; all satyrs, and swains, fulsome flattery of +titles, and foolish adoration of painted shepherdesses: poor weak +hobbling lines, eked out by 'eds and expletives, often terminated by +false rhymes, and made lamer by triplets and dreary Alexandrines; +ill-selected subjects, laboured, indelicate, or impossible similes, +passions frigid as Diana, wit's weapons dull as lead. Yet these (many +exceptions doubtless there were, and many redeeming <i>morceaux</i> even in +the worst, charitable reader, but as of the rule we speak not falsely), +these are the poets of England, the men our great grandfathers delighted +to honour, the feared, the praised, the pensioned, and those whom we +their children still denominate—the poets! Praise, praise your stars, +ye lucky imps of Fame! who could tolerate you now-a-days?—You lived in +golden times, when Dorset, Harley, Bolingbroke, Halifax, and Company, +gave away places of a thousand a-year, as but justly due to any man who +could pen a roaring song, fabricate a fulsome sonnet, or bewail in +meagre elegiacs the still-resisting virtue of some persecuted Stella! +Happy fellows, easy conquisitors of wealth and fame, autocrats of +coffee-houses, feted and favoured by town-bred dames! In those good old +times for the fashionable Nine, an epic was sure to lead to a +Ministry-of-State, and even an epigram produced its pension: to be a +poet, or reputed so, was to be—eligible for all things; and the +fortunate possessor of a rhyming dictionary might have governed Europe +with his metrical protocols. But these halcyon times are of the +past—and so, verily, are their heroes. Farewell, a long farewell, +children of oblivion! farewell, Spratt, Smith, Duke, Hughes, King, +Pomfret, Phillips, and Blackmore: ye who, in that day of very small +things, just rose, as your Leviathan biographer so often testifies, "to +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span> degree of merit above mediocrity:" ye who—but (Candor and good +Charity, I thank you for the hint,) limited indeed is my knowledge of +your writings, ye long-departed poets, whom I thus am base enough to +pilfer of your bays; and therefore, if any man among you penned aught of +equal praise with "<i>My Mind to me a Kingdom is</i>," or "<i>No Glory I covet, +no Riches I want</i>," humbly do I cry that good man's pardon. Believe that +I have only seen the château of your fame, but never the rock on which +it rested; and therefore candidly consider, if I might not with reason +have accounted it a castle in the air?</p> + +<p>Now, after this wholesale species of poetical massacre, this rifling of +old Etruscan tombs of their honourable spoil, a very pleasant ninny +would that poetaster stand forth, whose inanely conceited daring +exhibited specimens from his own mint, as medals in fit contrast with +those slandered "things of base alloy." No, as with politics, so with +poetry; in public I abjure and do renounce the minx: and although +privately my author's mind is so silly as to doat right lovingly on such +an ancient mistress, and has wasted much time and paper in her praise or +service, still that mind is sufficiently self-possessed in worldly +prudence, as to set seemingly little store on the worth of an +acquaintance so little in the fashion. Therefore I disown and disclaim</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIc" id="CHAPTER_XXVIc"></a>A VOLUME OF POETICS,</h3> + +<p>ill-fated offspring of a foolish father; miscellaneous collection of +occasionals and fugitives, longer or shorter, as the army of Bombastes. +Poetical as in verity I must confess to have been, (using the word +"poetical" as most men use it, and the words "have been" in the sense of +Troy's existence,) there must have lingered in me, even at that +hallucinating period, some little remnant of prosaic wisdom; for it is +now long since that I consigned to the most voracious of elements all +the more love-sick rhythmicals, and all the more hateful satiricals. +Now, I will maintain that act of incremation to be one of true heroism, +nearly equal to the judgment of Brutus; nor less is it matter of +righteous boasting to have immolated (warned by Charles Lamb's ghost) +divers albuminous preparations, which to have to do, were, Clio knows, +little pleasure, and to have done, we all know, as little praise. Such +light follies are like skeins of cotton, or adjectives, or babies, unfit +to stand alone; haply, well enough, times and things considered, but +totally unworthy to be dragged out of their contexts into the +imperishability of print; it is to take flies out of treacle, and embalm +them in clear amber.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> As to sonnets, what real author's mind will not, +if honest, confess to the almost daily recurrence of that symptom of his +disease? With mine, at least, they have increased, and are increasing; +yea, more—as a certain statesman suggested of Ireland's multitudinous +<i>pisantry</i>, or as tavern patriots declare of the power of the +crown—they ought to be diminished. Nevertheless, resolutely do I hope +that some of these at least are little worthy of the days of good Queen +Anne.</p> + +<p>In matters of the sacred muse, lengthily as others have I trespassed +heretofore; the most protracted <i>fytte</i>, however, made a respectable +inroad on a new metrical version of the '<i>Psalms</i>,' attempting at any +rate closer accuracy from the Hebrew than Brady's, and juster rhymes +than Sternhold's: but this has since been better done by another bard. +On the whole budget of exploded poeticals is now legibly inscribed "to +be kept till called for," a period rather more indefinite than the +promise of a spendthrift's payment. Let them rest in peace, those +unfortunate poetics!</p> + +<p>There are also in the bundle, if I rightly do remember me, sundry +metricals of the humorous sort, which may be considered as really +<i>waste-failures</i> as any tainted hams that ever were yclept Westphalias. +For of all dreary and lugubrious perpetrations in print, nothing can be +more desolate than laboured witticism. A pun is a momentary spark dropt +upon the tinder-box of social intercourse; and to detach such a sentence +from its producing circumstances, is about as efficacious a method of +producing laughter, as the scintillatory flint and steel struck upon wet +grass would be of generating light. Few things are less digestible than +abortive efforts at the humorous; the stream of conversation instantly +freezes up; the disconcerted punster wears the look of his well-known +kinsman, the detected pickpocket; and a scribe, so mercilessly suicidal +as regards his better fame, deserves, when a plain blunt jury comes to +sit upon the body, to be found in mystical Latin, <i>felo de se</i>, or in +plain English "a fellow deceased."</p> + +<p>"There shall come in the last days, scoffers;" those same last days in +which "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." It +is true that these phrases (quoted with the deepest reverence, though +found in lighter company) are forcibly taken from their context; but +still, the judgment of many wise among us will agree that they present a +remarkable coincidence: in this view of the case, and it is a most +serious one, the concurrent notoriety of humour having just arisen like +a phoenix from its ashes, of railroads and steamboats having partially<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span> +annihilated space, and of the strides which education, if not intellect, +has made upon the highroad of human improvement, assumes an importance +greater than the things themselves deserve. To a truly philosophic ken, +there is no such thing as a trifle; the ridiculous is but skin-deep, +papillæ on the surface of society; cut a little deeper, you will find +the veins and arteries of wisdom. Therefore will a sober man not deride +the notion that comic almanacs, comic Latin grammars, comic hand-books +of sciences and arts, and the great prevalence of comicality in popular +views taken of life and of death, of incident and of character, of evil +and of good, are, in reality, signs of the times. These straws, so thick +upon the wind, and so injuriously mote-like to the visual organs, are +flying forward before a storm. As symptoms of changing nationality, and +of a disposition to make fun of all things ancient and honourable, and +wise, and mighty, and religious, they serve to evidence a state of the +universal mind degenerated and diseased. Still, let us not be too +severe; and, as to individual confessions, let not me play the +hypocrite. Like every thing else, good in its good use, and evil only in +abuse of its excesses, humour is capable of filling, and has filled, no +lightly-estimable part in the comedy of temporal happiness. What a good +thing it is to raise an innocent and cheerful laugh; to inoculate +moroseness with hearty merriment; to hunt away misbelieving care, if not +with better prayers, at the lowest with a pack of yelping cachinations; +to make pain forget his head-ache by the anodyne of mirth! Truly, humour +has its laudable and kindly uses: it is the mind's play-time after +office-drudgery—an easy recreation from thought, anxiety, or study. +Only when it usurps, or foolishly attempts to usurp, the office of more +than a temporary alleviation; when it affects to set up as an atheistic +panacea; when it professes to walk as an abiding companion, lighting you +on your way with injurious gleams (as that dreadful figure in Dante, who +lanterns his path by the glaring eyes of his own truncated head); and +when it ceases to become merely the casual scintillation, the flitting +<i>ignus fatuus</i> of a summer evening—then only is wit to be condemned. +Often, for mine own poor part in this most mirthful age, have I had</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIIc" id="CHAPTER_XXVIIc"></a>HEARTY LAUGHS,</h3> + +<h3>IN PROSE AND VERSE;</h3> + +<p>but take no thought of preserving their echoes, or of shrining them in +the eternal basalt of print, like to the oft-repeated cries of Lurley's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> +hunted in-dweller. The humorous infection caught also me, as a thing +inevitable; but the case, I wot, proved an unfavourable one: and who +dare enter the arena of contention with these mighty men of Momus, these +acknowledged sages of laughter, (pardon me for omitting some fifty +more,) so familiar to the tickled ear, as Boz, and Sam Slick, Ingoldsby, +and Peter Plymley, Titmarsh, Hood, Hook; not to mention—(but that +artists are authors)—laughter-loving Leech, Pickwickian Phiz, and +inimitable Cruikshank? Nevertheless, let a tender conscience penitently +ask, is it quite an innocent matter to lend a hand in rendering the age +more careless than perchance, but for such ministrations, it would cease +to be? Is it quite wise in a writer, by following in that wake, to be +reputed at once to help in doing harm, and help to do harm to his own +reputation? There are professors enough in this quadrangle of the +college of amusement, popular and extant in flourishing obesity, without +so dull a volunteer as Mr. Self intruding his humours on the world: and +surely the far-echoing voices of a couple of cannons, thundering their +mirth throughout Europe from the jolly quarters of St. Paul's, may well +frighten into silence a poor solitary pop-gun, which, as the frog with +the bull, might burst in an attempt at competition, or, like Bottom's +Numidian lion, could imitate the mighty roar only as gently as your +sucking-dove.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Grapho-mania, or the love of scribbling, is clearly the great +distinguishing characteristic of an author's mind; pen and ink are to +it, what bread and butter are to its lodging-house the body: observe, we +do not hazard a remark so false as that the one produces the +other—their relations are far from being mutual; but we only suggest +that the mind, as well as the body, hobbles like a three-legged +Œdipus, resting on its proper staff of life. And what can be more +provocative of scribbling than travel? How eagerly we hasten to describe +unheard-of adventures, how anxiously record exaggerated marvels! to +prove some printed hand-book <i>quite wrong</i> in the number of steps up a +round-tower: or to crush, as a wicked vender of execrable wines, the +once fair fame of some over-charging inn-keeper! Then, again, how +pleasant to immortalize the holiday, and read in after-years the story +of that happy trip langsyne; how pleasant to gladden the kind eyes of +friends, that must stay at home, with those wonder-telling journals, and +to taste the dulcet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> joys of those first essays at authorship. A great +charm is there in jotting down the day's tour, and in describing the +mountains and museums, the lakes and lazzaroni, the dishes and disasters +that have made it memorable: moreover, for fixing scenery on the mental +retina, as well as for comparison of notes as to an <i>alibi</i>, for duly +remembering things heard and seen, as well as for being humbled in +having (as a matter inevitable) left unseen just the best lion of the +whole tour, journals are a most praiseworthy pastime, and usually rank +among the earliest efforts of an embryo author's mind.</p> + +<p>It is a thing of commonest course, that, in this age of inveterate +locomotion, your present humble friend, now talking in this candid +fashion with your readership, has been every where, seen every thing, +and done his touristic devoirs like every body else about him: also, as +a like circumstance of etymological triviality, that he has severally, +and from time to time, recorded for self-amusement and the edification +of others all such matters as holiday-making school-boys and +boarding-misses, and government-clerks in their swift-speeding vacation, +and elderly gentlemen vainly striving to enjoy their first fretful +continental trip, usually think proper to descant upon. Of such +manuscripts the world is clearly full; no catacomb of mummies more +fertile of papyri; no traveller so poor but he has by him a packet of +precious notes, whereon he sets much store: every tourist thinks he can +reasonably emulate clever Basil Hall, in his eloquent fragments of +voyages and travels; and I, for my part, a truth-teller to my own +detriment, am ashamed to confess the existence of</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIIIc" id="CHAPTER_XXVIIIc"></a>A DECADE OF JOURNALS;</h3> + +<p>which of olden time my <i>cacoethes</i> produced as regularly as recurred the +summer solstice. Unlike that of Livy's, I am satisfied that this poor +Decade be irrevocably lost; but, for dear recollection's sake of days +gone by, intend it at least to be spared from malicious incremation. +Records of roamings in romantic youth, witnesses of wayward way-side +wanderings, gayly with alliterative titles might your contents, <i>à la +Roscoe</i>, be set forth. But—what conceivable news can be told at this +time of day about the trampled Continent, and the crowded British isles? +Had my luck led me to Lapland or Formosa, to Mexico or Timbuctoo, to the +top of Egyptian pyramids or the bottom of Polish salt-mines, my +authorship would long since have publicly declared, in common with many +a monkey, that it had "seen the world." As things are, to Bruce,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> +Buckingham, Belzoni, and that glorious anomaly, the blind brave Holman, +let us leave the harvest of praise, worthy to be reaped as their own by +modern travellers.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>More, yet more, most exemplary of listeners; and a web or webs of very +various texture. Let any man tell truths of himself, and seem to be +consistent, if he can. From grave to gay, from simple to severe, is the +line most expressive of such foolish versatility as mine; <i>varium et +mutabile semper</i>, to one thing constant never. I have heard, or read, +among the experiences of a popular preacher, that one of his most +vexatious petty temptations, was the rise of humorous notions in his +mind the moment he stepped into the pulpit; and it is well known that +many a comic actor has been afflicted with the blackest melancholy while +supporting right facetiously his best, because most ludicrous character. +Let such thoughts then as these, of the frailties incident to man, serve +to excuse the present juxtaposition of fancies in themselves +diametrically opposite.</p> + +<p>It is proper to preamble somewhat of apology before announcing the next +presumptuous tractate; presumptuous, because affecting to advise some +thousands of men whose office alike and average character are sacred, +and just, and excellent. Why then intrude such unrequired counsel? Read +the next five pages, and take your answer. Zealously inflamed for the +cause of truth, if not also charitably wroth against sundry lukewarm +cumber-earth incumbents, and certainly more in love with the +Church-of-England prayer-book than with her no-ways-extenuated evils of +omission or commission, I wrote, not long since, [and truly, not long +since, for few things in this book can boast of higher antiquity than a +most modern existence, some things being the birth of an hour, some of a +day, a week, or a month; and not more than one or two above a twelve +month's age.—Alas, for Horace's forgotten counsels!—alas, for Pope's +and Boileau's reiterated prescription of revisal for—<i>morbleu et +parbleu</i>—nine years!] I wrote then a good cantle of an essay addressed +to the clergy on some matters of judicious amelioration, which we will +call, if you please—and if the word hints be not objectionable—</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXIXc" id="CHAPTER_XXIXc"></a>LAY HINTS.</h3> + +<p>Now, as to the unclerical authorship of this, it is wise that it be done +out of métier. Laymen are more likely to gain attention in these +mat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>ters, from the very fact of their influence being an indirect one, +speaking as they do rather from the social arm-chair, the high-stool of +the counting-house, or the benches of whilom St. Stephen's, than <i>ex +cathedrâ</i> as of office and of duty.</p> + +<p>It would be a fair exemplification of the stolid prowess of a Quixote +tilting against, yea, stouter foes than wind-mills, were I to have +commenced with an attack upon external church architecture: this topic +let us leave to the fraternity of builders; only asking by what rule of +taste an obelisk-like spire, is so often stuck upon the roof of a +Grecian temple, and by what rule of convenience gigantic columns so +commonly and resolutely sentinel the narrowest of exits and entrances. +Let us be more commonly contented, as well we may, with our grand, +appropriate, and impressive indigenous kind of architecture—Gothic, +Norman, and Saxon: the temple of Ephesus was not suitable to be fitted +up with galleries, nor was the Parthenon meant to be surmounted by a +steeple. But all this is useless gossip.</p> + +<p>Similarly Quixotic would be any tirade against pews, those pet +strongholds of snug exclusive selfishness; bad in principle, as +perpetually separating within wooden walls members of the same +communion; unwholesome in practice, confining in those antre-like +parallelograms the close-pent air; unsightly in appearance, as any one +will testify, whose soul is exalted above the iron beauties of a plain +conventicle; expensive in their original formation, their fittings and +repairs; and, when finished, occupying perhaps one-fourth of the area of +a church already ten times too small for its neighbouring population. +Fixed benches, or a strong muster of chairs, or such modes of +congregational accommodation as public meeting-rooms and ordinary +lecture-rooms present, seems to me more consistent and more convenient. +But all this again is vain talking—a very empty expenditure of words; +we must be satisfied with churches as they are; and, after all, let me +readily admit that steeples are imposing in the distance, and of use as +belfries; (probably of like intent were the strange columnar towers of +Ireland;) and with regard to pews, let me confess that practice finds +perfect what theory condemns as wrong, so—let these things pass.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, let me begin upon the threshold with the extortionate and +abominable race of pew-women, beadles, clerks, vergers, bell-ringers, +and other fee-hungry ravens hovering around and about almost every +hallowed precinct: pray you, reform all that, and copy railroad +companies in forbidding those begrudged gratuities to mendicant and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> +ever-grumbling menials. Next, give more sublunary heed, we beseech you, +to the comforts or discomforts incidental to doors, windows, stoves, +paint, dust, dirt, and general ventilation; consider the cold, fevers, +lumbagos, rheums, life-long aches, and fatal pains too often caught +helplessly and needlessly by the devout worshipper in a town or country +church. Look to your organist, that he wot something of the value of +time and the mysteries of tune; or, if a country parson, drill cleverly +that insubordinate phalanx of <i>soi-disant</i> musicians, a rustic +orchestra; and exclude from the latter, at all mortal hazards, the +huntsman's horn, the volunteer fiddle, and the shrill squeaking of the +wry-necked pipe. Much is being now done for congregational psalmody; but +when will country folks give up their murderous execution of the +fugue-full anthem, and when will London congregations understand that +the singing-psalms are not set apart exclusively for charity-children? +When shall Bishop Kenn's '<i>Awake my soul</i>,' cease to be our noonday +exhortation; and a literal invocation for sweet sleep to close our +eye-lids no longer be the ill-considered prelude to an afternoon +discourse? Take some trouble to improve and educate, or get rid of, if +possible, your generally vulgar, illiterate, ill-conditioned clerk; +insist upon his v's and h's: let him shut up his shoe-stall; and raise +in the scale of society one of the leaders of its worship: as, at +present, these stagnant, recreant, ignorant clerks are sad +stumbling-blocks; no help to the congregation, and a nuisance to its +minister. In reading—suffer this foolishness, my masters—fight against +the too frequent style of dogged, dormant, dull formality; we take you +for earnest living guides to our devotion, not mere dead organs of an +oft-repeated service; quicken us by your manner; a psalm so spoken is +better than the sermon. In more fitting places has your author long ago +delivered his mind concerning matters of a character more directly +sacred than shall here find room; as, the sacrament with its holy +mysteries, and the many things amendable in ordinary preachments; but +for these my unseasonable Wisdom shrouds itself in Silence: therefore, +to do away with details, and apply a general rule, above all things, and +in all things, strive by judicious acquiescence with human wants, and +likings, and failings too, if conscientiously you can, as well as by +spirited and true devotion, to break down the sluggish mounds of needful +uniformity, and to build up round the church a rampart of good sense: +and so, Heaven bless your labours! A word more: if it be possible, take +no fees at a baptism, and let it not be thought, by either rich or poor, +that an entrance into Christ's fold must be paid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> for; no, nor at a +burial; but let the service for the Christian dead be accorded freely, +without money and without price. To a wedding, the same ideas are not +perhaps so closely applicable; therefore we will generously suffer that +you keep your customs there; but on the introduction of a little one to +the bosom of the church, or restoring the body of a saint to Him who +made it of the dust, nothing can be more repulsive to right religious +feelings than to be bothered by a fee-seeking clerk, thrusting in your +face an itching palm: to the poor, these things are more than a mere +annoyance; they amount to a hardship and a hindrance; for such demands +at such seasons are often nothing less than a bitter extortion upon the +self-denial of conscientious duty.</p> + +<p>More might be added; but enough, too much has been alluded to. Nothing +would strengthen the bulwarks of our Zion more than such easy reforms as +these: recent happy revivals in our church would thus be more +solidified; and where, as now, many have been lulled to slumber, many +grieved, many become disgusted or Dissenters, our sons and our daughters +would grow up as the polished corners of the temple, and crowds would +throng the courts of our holy and beautiful House.</p> + +<p>Suffer thus far, clerical and lay, these crude hints: in all things have +I studied brevity, throughout this little bookful; therefore are you +spared a perusal of my reasons, and so be indulgent for their absence. I +"touch your ears" but lightly; be you for charity, as in old Rome, my +favourable witnesses.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>My before-mentioned Censor of the press had a very considerable mind to +dock all mention of the following intended <i>brochure</i>. But I answered, +Really, Mr. Judgment, (better or worse, as occasion may register your +Agnomen,) you must not weigh trifles in gold-assaying scales; be not so +particular as to the polish of a thumb-nail; endure a little incoherent +pastime; count not the several stems of hay, straw, stubble—but suffer +them to be pitch-forked <i>en masse</i>, and unconsidered: it is their +privilege, in common with that of certain others—lightnesses that froth +upon the surface of society. Moreover, let me remind your worship's +classicality that no one of mortals is sapient at all times. Item, that +if friend Flaccus be not a calumniator, even the rigid virtue of the +antiquer Cato delighted in so stimulant a vanity as wine hot. So give +the colt his head, and let it go: remembering always that this same +colt, as straying without a responsible rider, is indeed liable to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span> +impounded by any who can catch him; but still, if he be found to have +done great damage to his master's character, or to a neighbour's fences, +the estray shall rather be abandoned than acknowledged. Let then this +unequal work, this ill-assorted bundle of dry book-plants, this +undirected parcel of literary stuff, be accounted much in the same +situation as that of the wanton caitiff-colt, so likely to bait a-pound, +and afterwards to be sold for payment of expenses, in true bailiff-sense +of justice. And let thus much serve as discursive prolegomena to a +notion, scarcely worth recording, but for the wonder, that no professed +writer (at least to my small knowledge) has entered on so common-sense a +field. Paris, I remember, some years ago was inundated with copies of a +treatise on the important art of tying the cravat; every shop-window +displayed the mystic diagrams, and every stiff neck proclaimed its +popularity. This was my yesterday's-conceived precedent for entertaining +the bright hope of illuminating London on the subject of shaving:</p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXc" id="CHAPTER_XXXc"></a>ANTI-XURION;</h3> + +<h3>A CRUSADE AGAINST RAZORS,</h3> + +<p>should have been my taking title; and perchance the learned treatise +might have been characteristically illustrated with steel cuts. Shaving +is a wider topic than most people think for; it is a species of insanity +that has afflicted man in all ages, deprived him of nature's best +adornment in every country under heaven. So contradictorily too; as +thus: the Spanish friar shaves all but a rim round his head, which rim +alone sundry North American aborigines determine to extirpate; John +Chinaman nourishes exclusively a long cue, just on that same inch of +crown-land which the P.P. sedulously keeps as bare as his palm: all the +Orientals shave the head, and cherish the beard; all the Occidentals +immolate the beard, and leave the honours of the head untouched. Then, +again, the strange successive fashions in this same unnatural, unneedful +depilation; look at the vagaries of young France: not to descend also to +savage men, and their clumsy shell-scrapings; and to devote but little +time to the voluminous topic of wigs, male and female, cavalier and +caxon, Marlborough and monstrous maccaroni—from the plaited +Absalom-looking periwig of a Pharaoh in the British Museum, to +Truefitt's last patent self-adjuster. Of all these follies, and their +root a razor, might we show the manifest absurdity: we might argue upon +Eastern stupidity as caused by thickness of the skull, such thickness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span> +being the substitute for thatchy hair suggested by kind ill-used Nature +as the hot brain's best protection: we might reason upon the average +sheepishness of this peaceful West, as due to having shorn the lion of +his mane, Phœbus of his glory, man of his majestic beard. Then the +martyrdom it is to many! who stoically, day after day, persist in +scratching to the quick their irritable chins, and after all to little +better end than the diligent earning of tooth-aches, ear-aches, colds, +sore throats, and unbecoming blank faces. Habit, it is true, makes us +deem that a comfort, and our better halves (or those we would fain have +so) think that a beauty, which our forerunners of old time would have +held a plague, a disgrace, a deformity, a mortification: prisoned +paupers in the Union think it an insufferable hardship to go bearded, +and King David's ambassadors would have given their right eyes <i>not</i> to +have been shaved; so much are we the slaves of custom: Sheffield also, +it is equally true, is a town that humane men would not wish to ruin; by +razors they of Sheffield live, and shaving is their substance. But, as +in the case of the smoother and softer sex, we are convinced that the +wand of fashion would presently convert their heterodox anti-barbal +prejudices: so, in the case of harder-ware Sheffield, while we hope to +live to see razors regarded as antiquarian rarities, (even as a +watchman's rattle, or the many-caped coats of the semi-extinct class +<i>Welleria coachmanensis</i> are now some time become,) still we desire all +possible multiplication to the tribe of trimming scissors. Like Ireland, +we shout for long-denied justice; give us our beards. That reasonable +indulgence shall never be abused; our Catholic emancipation of moustache +and imperial, whisker and the rest, shall not be a pretence for lion's +manes, or the fringe of goats and monkeys: we would not so far follow +unsophisticated nature as to relapse into barbarous wild men; but +diligently squaring, pointing, combing, and perfuming those natural +manly decorations, after the most approved modes of Raleigh, Walsingham, +and Shakspeare, and heroical Edward the Black Prince, and venerable +apostolic Bede, we will encroach little further than to discard our +comfortless starched collars and strangling stocks, to adopt once more +in lieu thereof open necks and vandyke borders.</p> + +<p>Of course, (here, priest-like, we take our ell,) there must follow upon +this a grand and glorious revolution in male attire. This present +close-fitting, undignified set of habiliments, which no chisel dare +imitate—this cumbersome, unbecoming garb—might, should, ought to be, +and would be, superseded by slashed gay jerkins, and picturesque nether +garments:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> cap and feather throwing into shade the modern hat, ugliest +of all imaginable head-dresses; and in lieu of the smock-frock +Macintosh, or coarse-featured bear-skin, Ciceronian mantles flowing from +the shoulders, or lighter capes of the elegant olden-time Venitian. By +way of distinguishing the now confused classes of society, my radical +reform in dress would go to recommend that nobles and gentry wear their +own heraldic colours and livery buttons; and humbler domesticated +creatures walk, as modest gentlefolks do now, in what sundry have +presumed to call "Mufti." To be briefer; in dress, if nothing more, let +us sensibly retrograde to the days of good Queen Bess: I will not say, +copy a Sir Piercie Shafton, who boasts of having "danced the salvage man +at the mummery of Clerkenwell, in a suit of flesh-coloured silk, trimmed +with fur;" neither, under these dingy skies, would I care to walk abroad +with Sir Philip Sidney in satin boots, or with Oliver Goldsmith in a +peach-coloured doublet: but still, for very comfort's sake, let us break +our bonds of cloth and buckram, and, in so far as adornment is +concerned, let us exchange this staid funeral monotony for the gallant +garb of our ancestors, the brave costumes of our Edwards and the bluff +King Hal.</p> + +<p>Behold, too scornful friend, how my Tory rabies reaches to the wardrobe. +The modern dress of illuminated Europe has, in my humble opinion, gone +far to weaken the old empire of the Porte, to denationalize Egypt, to +degenerate the Jews, to mammonize once generous Greece, and carry +republican equality into the great prairies of America: it is the +undistinguishing, humiliating, unchivalrous livery of our cold +cosmopolites. But enough of this: pews and spires are to my Quixotism +not more unextinguishable foes, than coats, cravats, waistcoats, and +unnameables.</p> + +<p>And now an honest word at parting, about such trivialities of +authorship. Why should a poor shepherd of the Landes for ever wear his +stilts? Or a tragic actor, like some mortified La Trapist, never be +allowed to laugh? Or Mr. Green be denied any other carriage than the +wicker car of his balloon? Even so, dear reader, pr'ythee suffer a +serious sort of author sometimes to take off his wig and spectacles, and +condescend to think of such minor matters as the toilet and its +still-recurring duties. And, if you <i>should</i> find out the veritable name +of your weak confessing scribe, think not the less kindly of his graver +volumes; this one is his pastime, his holiday laugh, his purposely +truant, lawless, desultory recreance: impute not folly to the face of +cheerfulness; be charitable to such mixtures of alternate gayety and +soberness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> as in thine own mind, if thou searchest, thou shall find; let +me laugh with those that laugh, as well as sympathize with weepers; and +cavil not at those inconsistencies, which of a verity are man's right +attributes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Ideas lie round about us, thick as daisies in a summer meadow. For my +own part, I know not what a walk, or a talk, or a peep into a book may +lead me to. Brunel hit upon the notion of a tunnel-shield, from the +casual sight of a certain water-beetle, to whom the God of Nature had +given a protecting buckler for its head. Newton found out gravitation, +by reasoning on the fall of an apple from the tree. Almost every +invention has been the suggestion of an accident. Even so, to descend +from great things to small, did a solitary stroll in most-English +Devonshire hint to me the next fair topic. It was while wandering about +the Pyrenean neighbourhood of Linton and Ly'mouth not many months ago, +that my reveries became concentrated for divers hallucinating hours on a +very pretty book, with a very pretty title. And here let me remark +episodically, that I pride myself on titles; what compositors call +"monkeyfying the title-page" is known to be a talent of itself, and one +moreover to which in these days of advertisements and superficialities +many a meagre book has owed its popular acceptance. The titles of +generations back seemed not to have been regarded honest, if they did +not exhibit on their face a true and particular table of contents; +whereas in these sad times, (with many, not with me,) mystery is a good +rule, but falsehood is a better. Again, those honest-speaking authors of +the past scrupled not to designate their writings as '<i>A Most Erudite +Treatise</i>' on so-and-so, or a '<i>A Right Ingenious Handling of the +Mysteries</i>' of such-and-such, whereas modern hypocrisy aims at +under-rating its own pet work; and more than one book has been ruined in +the market, for having been carelessly titled by the definite THE; as +if, forsooth, it were the world's arbiter of that one topic, +self-constituted pundit of, e.g., title-pages. And this word brings me +back: consider the truly English music of this one:</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIc" id="CHAPTER_XXXIc"></a>THE SQUIRE,</h3> + +<h3>AND HIS BEAUTIFUL HOME,</h3> + +<p>a fine old country gentleman, pleasantly located, affluent, +noble-minded, wise, and patriotic. This was to have been shown forth, in +wish at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> least, as somewhat akin to, or congenerous with '<i>The Doctor</i>, +&c.,'—that rambling wonder of strange and multifarious reading: or +'<i>The Rectory of Valehead</i>,' or '<i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>,' or '<i>The Family +Robinson Crusoe</i>,' still unwrecked; or many another hearty, cheerful or +pathetic tale of home, sweet home: and yet as to design and execution +strictly original and unplagiaristic. The first chapters (simple healthy +writing, redolent of green pastures, and linchened rocks, and dew-dropt +mountains,) might introduce localities; the beautiful home itself, an +Elizabethan mansion, with its park, lake, hill and valley scenery; a +peep at the blue mile-off sea, brawling brooks, oak-woods, +conservatories, rookery, and all such pleasant adjuncts of that most +fortunate of pleasure-hunters, a country squire, with a princely +rent-roll. Then should be detailed, circumstantially, the lord of the +beautiful home, a picture of the hospitable virtues; the wife of the +beautiful home, a portraiture of happy domesticity, admirable also as a +mother, a nurse, a neighbour, and the poor's best friend: children must +abound, of course, or the home is a heaven uninhabited; and shrewd hints +might hereabouts be dropped as to the judicious or injudicious in +matters educational: servants, too, both old and young, with discussions +on their modern treatment, and on that better class of bygones, whom +kindness made not familiar, and the right assertion of authority +provoked not into insolence; whose interest for the dear old family was +never merged in their own, and whose honesty was as unsuspected as that +of young master himself, or sweet little mistress Alice.</p> + +<p>After all this, might we descant upon the squire's characteristics. Take +him as a politician: liberal, that is to say, (for his frown is on me at +a phrase so doubtful,) generous, tolerant, kind, and manly; but none of +your low-bred slanderers of that noble name, so generally tyrants at +home and cowardly abroad—mean agitating fellows, the scum of disgorging +society, raised by turbulence and recklessness from the bottom to the +surface: oh no, none of these; but, for all his just liberality, an +honest, honourable, loyal, church-going, uncompromising Tory: with a +detail of his reasons, notions, and practices thereabouts, inclusive of +his conduct at elections, his wholesome influence over an otherwise +unguided or ill-guided tenantry, and as concerning other miscalled +corruptions: his open argumentation of the representative doctrine, that +it ought to stop short as soon as ever the religion, the learning, and +the wealth of a country are fairly represented; that in fact the poor +man thinks little of his vote, unless indeed in worse cases looking for +a bribe; and that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> principle is pushed into ruinous absurdities when +the destitution, the crime, and the ignorance of a nation demand their +proper representatives; that, almost as a consequence of human average +depravity, the greater the franchise's extension, the worse in all ways +become those who impersonate the enfranchised; and so, after due +condemnation of Whiggery, to stultify Chartism, and that demoralizing +lie, the ballot. Then as to the squire's religion; and certain +confabulations with his parson, his household, his harvest-home +tenantry, and local preachers of dissent and schism; his creed, +practice, and favourable samples of daily life. Moreover, our squire +should have somewhat to tell of personal history and adventures; a youth +of poor dependence on a miser uncle; a storm-tost early manhood, +consequent on his high uncompromising principles; then the miser's +death, without the base injustice of that cruel will, which an +eleventh-hour penitence destroyed: the squire comes to his property, +marries his one old flame, effects reformations, attains popularity, +happiness, and other due prosperities. Anecdotes of particular passages, +as in affliction or in joy; his son lamed for life, or his house half +burnt down, his attack by highwaymen, or election for parliament. The +squire's general confidence in man, sympathy with frailties, and success +in regenerating long-lost characters. His discourse on field sports, +displaying the amiable intellectuality of a Gilbert White as opposed to +the blood-thirsty Nimrodism and Ramrodism of a mad Mytton. A marriage; a +funeral; a disputed legacy of some eccentric relative; with its +agreeable concomitants of heartless selfish strife, rebuked by the +squire's noble example: the conventicle gently put down by dint of +gradual desertions, and church-going as tenderly extended; vestry +demagogues and parochial incendiaries chastised by our squire; and +divers other adventures, conversations, situations, and conditions, +illustrative of that grand character, a fine old English gentleman, all +of the olden time.</p> + +<p>Altogether, if well managed, a book like this would be calculated to do +substantial good in these days of no principle or bad principle. A +captivating example well applied—witness the uses of biography—is +infectious among the well-inclined and well-informed. But—but—but—I +fancy there may exist, and do exist already, admirable books of just +this character. I have heard of, but not seen, '<i>The Portrait of a +Christian Gentleman</i>,' and another '<i>of a Churchman</i>:' doubtless, these, +combined with a sort of Mr. Dovedale in that clever impossible +'<i>Floreston</i>,' or an equally unnatural and charming Sir Charles +Grandison, with a dash<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> of scenery and a sprinkle of anecdote, would +make up, far better than I could fabricate, the fair fine character that +once I thought to sketch. Moreover, to a plain gentleman, living in the +country, of perfectly identical ideas with those of the squire on all +imaginable topics, gifted too (we will not say with quite his princely +rent-roll, but at any rate) with sundry like advantages in the way of +decent affluence, pleasant scenery, an old house, a good wife, and fair +children—with plenty of similar adventures and circumstantials—and the +necessary proportion of highwaymen, radicals, rascals, and schismatics +dotted all about his neighbourhood, the idea would seem, to say the +least, somewhat egotistic. But why may not humble individualities be +generalized in grander shapes? why not glorify the picture of a cottage +with colouring of Turner's most imaginative palette? An author, like an +artist, seldom does his work well unless he has nature before him: +exalted and idealized, the Roman beggar goes forth a Jupiter, and +country wenches help a Howard to his Naiads. Nevertheless, let the +Squire and his train pass us by, indefinite as Banquo's progeny: let his +beautiful home be sublimely indistinct; even such are Martin's ætherial +cities: the thought shall rest unfructified at present—a mummied, vital +seed. The review is over, and the Squire's troop of yeomanry not +required: so let them wait till next year's muster.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Few novelties are more called for, in this halcyon age of authorship, +this summer season for the Sosii, this every-day-a-birth-day for some +five-and-twenty books, than the establishment of a recognised literary +tribunal, some judgment-hall of master spirits, from whose calm, +unhurried, unbiased verdict, there should be no appeal. Far, very far be +it from me to arraign modern reviewers either of partialities or +incapacity; indeed, it is probable that few men of high talent, +character, and station, have not, at some time or other, temporarily at +least contributed to swell their ranks: moreover, from one they have +treated so magnanimously, they shall not get the wages of ingratitude; +they have been kind to my dear book-children, and I—<i>don't be so +curious</i>—thank them for their courtesy with all a father's feeling +toward the liberal friends of his sons and daughters. Speaking +generally, (for, not to flatter any class of men, truly there are rogues +in all,) I am bold to call them candid, honest, clever men; quite +superior, as a body, to every thing like bribery and corruption, and, +with human limitations, little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> influenced by motives, either of +prejudice or favour. For indefatigable industry, unexampled patience, +and powers of mind very far above what are commonly attributed to them, +I, for my humble judgment, would give our periodical journalists their +honourable due: I am playing no Aberdeenshire game of mutual scratching; +I am too hardened now in the ways of print to be much more than +indifferent as to common praise or censure; that honey-moon is over with +me, when a laudatory article in some kindly magazine sent a thrill from +eye to heart, from heart to shoe-sole understanding: I no longer feel +rancorous with inveterate wrath against a poor editor whose faint +praise, impotent to d——, has yet abundant force to induce a hearty +return of the compliment: like some case-hardened rock, so little while +ago but soft young coral, the surges may lash me, but leave no mark; the +sun may shine, but cannot melt me. Argal, as the clown says, is my +verdict honest: and further now to prove it so, shall come the +limitations.</p> + +<p>With all my gratitude and right good feeling to our diurnal and +hebdomadal amusers and instructors, I cannot but consider that gazette +and newspaper reviewers are insufficient and unsatisfactory judges of +literature, if not indeed sometimes erring guides to the public taste; +the main cause of this consisting in the essential rapidity of their +composition. There is not—from the multiplicity of business to be got +through, there cannot be—adequate time allowed for any thing like +justice to the claims of each author. Periodicals that appear at longer +intervals are in all reason more or less excepted from this objection; +but by the daily and weekly majority, the labours of a life-time are +cursorily glanced at, hastily judged from some isolated passage, +summarily found laudable or guilty; and this weak opinion, strongly +enough expressed as some compensation in solid superstructure for the +sandiness of its foundations, is circulated by thousands over all +corners of the habitable world. To say that the public (those so-called +reviewers of reviews, but wiser to be looked on only as perusers,) +balance all such false verdicts, might indeed be true in the long run, +but unfortunately it is not: for first, no run at all, far less a long +one, is permitted to the persecuted production; and next, it is +notorious, that people think very much as they are told to think. Now, I +have already stated at too much length that I have no personalities to +complain of, no self-interests to serve: for the past I have been well +entreated; and for the future, supposing such an unlikelihood as more +hypothetical books, I am hard, bold, sanguine, stoical; while, as for +the present, though I refuse not my gauntlet to any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> man, my visor shall +be raised by none. But I enter the list for others, my kinsmen in +composing. Authors, to speak it generally, are an ill-used race, because +judged hastily, often superciliously, for evil or for good. It is +impossible for the poor public, (who, besides having to earn daily +bread, have to wade through all the daily papers,) from mere lack of +hours in the day, to entertain any opinions of their own about a book or +books: the money to buy them is one objection, the time to read them +another; to say less of the capacity, the patience, and the will. +Without question, they are guided by their teachers; and the grand fault +of these is, their everlasting hurry.</p> + +<p>At another necessary failing of reviewers I would only delicately hint. +The royal We is very imposing; for example, the king of magazines, No. +134, (need I name it?) informs us, p. 373, "We happen to have now in +wear a good long coat of imperial gray," &c.; and some fifteen lines +lower down, "We are now mending our pen with a small knife," and so +forth: now all this grandiloquence serves to conceal the individual; and +to reduce my other great objection to a single letter, let us only +recollect that this powerful, this despotic We, is, being interpreted, +nothing but an I by itself, a simple scribe, a single and plebeian +number one. A mere unit, an anonymous, irresponsible unit, dissects in a +quarter of an hour the grand result of some ten years; and this +momentary influence on one man's mind, (perhaps wearied, or piqued, or +biased, or haply unskilled in the point at issue, but at all events +inevitably in a hurry to jump at a conclusion,) this light accidental +impression is sounded forth to the ends of the earth, and leads public +opinion in a verdict of thunder. And as for yon impertinent +parenthesis—or pertinent, as some will say—give me grace thus blandly +to suggest a possibility. The mighty editorial We, upon whose +authoritative tones the world's opinion will probably be pivoted—whose +pen by casual ridicule or as casual admiration makes or mars the fortune +of some pains-taking literary labourer—whose dictum carelessly +dispenses local honour or disgrace, and has before now by sharp +sarcasms, speaking daggers though using none, even killed more than one +over-sensitive Keats—this monarchic We is but a frail mortal, liable at +least to "some of the imperfections of our common nature, gentlemen," +as, for example, to be morose, impatient, splenetic, and the more if +over-worked. Neither should I waive in this place, in this my rostrum of +blunt, plain speech, the many censurable cases, unhappily too well +authenticated, where personal enmity has envenomed the reviewing pen +against a writer, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> stabs in the dark have wounded good men's fame. +Neither, again, those other instances where reviewers, not being +omniscient, (yet is their knowledge most various and brilliant,) having +been from want of specific information incompetent to judge of the +matters in question, have striven to shroud their ignorance of the +greater topic in clamorous attacks of its minor incidents; burrowing +into a mound if they cannot force a breach through the rampart; and +mystifying things so cleverly with doubts, that we cannot see the +blessed sun himself for very fog.</p> + +<p>Now really, good folk, all this should be amended: would that the +<span class="smcap">we</span> were actually plural; would that we had a well-selected +bench of literary judges; would that some higher sort of Stationers' +Hall or Athenæum were erected into an acknowledged tribunal of an +author's merits or demerits; would that, to wish the very least, the +wholesome practice of a well-considered imprimatur were revived! Let +famous men, whose reputation is firm-fixed—our Wordsworths, Hallams, +Campbells, Crolys, Wilsons, Bulwers, and the like—decide in the case of +at least all who desire such decision. I suppose, as no one in these +selfish times will take trouble without pay, that either the judges +should be numbered among state pensioners, or that each work so +calmly examined must produce its regular fee: but these are +after-considerations; and be sure no writer will grudge a guinea for +calm, unbought, unsuspected justice bestowed upon his brain-child. Let +all those members of the tribunal, deciding by ballot, (here in an +assembly where all are good, great, and honest, I shrink not from that +word of evil omen,) judge, as far as possible, together and not +separately, of all kinds of literature: I would not have poets +sentencing all the poetry, historians all the history, novelists all the +novels, and theologists all the works upon religion; for humanity is at +the best infirm, and motives little searchable; but let all judge +equally in a sort of open court. The machinery might be difficult, and I +cannot show its workings in so slight an essay; but surely it is a +strange thing in civilization, and a stranger when we consider what +literature does for us, blessing our world or banning it—it is a wonder +and a shame that books of whatever tendency are so cast forth upon the +waters to sink or swim at hazard. I acknowledge, friend, your present +muttering, Utopian! Arcadian! Formosan! to be not ill-founded: the +sketch is a hasty one; but though it may have somewhat in common with +the vagaries of Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, and that king in +impudence, George Psalmanazar, still I stand upon this ground, that many +an ill-used author wants protection, and that society, for its own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> sake +as well as his, ought to supply a court for literary reputation. Some +poor man the other day, and in a reputable journal too, had five +new-born tragedies strangled and mangled in as many lines: we need not +suppose him a Shakspeare, but he might have been one for aught of +evidence given to the contrary; at any rate, five at once, five mortal +tragedies, (so puppy-fashion born and drowned,) must, however carelessly +executed, have been the offspring of no common mind. Again, how often is +not a laborious historiographer, particularly if of contrary politics, +dismissed with immediate contempt, because, perchance, in his three full +volumes, he has admitted two false dates, or haply mistakes the +christened name of some Spanish admiral! Once more, how continually are +not critical judgments falsified by the very extracts on which they +rest! how often the pet passage of one review is the stock butt of +another! Here you will say is cure and malady together, like viper's fat +and fang: I trow not; mainly because not one man in a thousand takes the +trouble to judge for himself. But it is needless to enumerate such +instances; every man's conscience or his memory will supply examples +wholesale: therefore, maltreated authors, bear witness to your own +wrongs: jealously regarded by a struggling brotherhood, cruelly baited +by self-constituted critics, the rejected of publishers, the victimized +by booksellers, the garbled in statement, misinterpreted in meaning, +suspected of friends, persecuted by foes—"O that mine enemy would write +a book!" It is to put a neck into a noose, to lie quietly in the grove +of Dr. Guillot's humane prescription: or, if not quite so tragical as +this, it is at least to sit voluntarily in the stocks with Sir Hudibras, +and dare the world's contempt; while fashionable—or unfashionable +idiots, who are scarcely capable of a grammatical answer to a dinner +invitation, (those formidably confounded he's and him's!)—think +themselves privileged to join some inane laugh against a clever, but not +yet famous, author, because, forsooth, one character in his novel may be +an old acquaintance, or one epithet in a long poem may be weak, +indelicate, tasteless, or foolish, or one philosophical fact in an essay +is misstated, or one statistical conclusion seems to be exaggerated. It +is perfectly paltry to behold stupid fellows, whose intellects against +your most ordinary scribe vary from a rush-light to a "long four," as +compared with a roasting, roaring kitchen-fire, affecting contemptuously +to look down upon some unjustly neglected or mercilessly castigated +labourer in the brick-fields of literature, for not being—can he help +it?—a first-rate author, or because one reviewer in seven thinks he +might have done his subject<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> better justice. Take my word for it—if +indeed I can be a fair witness—the man who has written a book, is above +the unwriting average, and, as such, should be ranked mentally above +them: no light research, and tact, and industry, and head-and-hand +labour, are sufficient for a volume; even certain stolid performances in +print do not shake my judgment; for arrant blockheads as sundry authors +undoubtedly are, the average (mark, not all men, but the average) +unwriting man is an author's intellectual inferior. All men, however +well capable, have not perchance the appetite, nor the industry, nor the +opportunity to fabricate a volume; nor, supposing these requisites, the +moral courage (for moral courage, if not physical, must form part of an +author's mind,) to publish the lucubration: but "I magnify mine office" +above the unnumbered host of unwriting, uninformed, loose, unlettered +gentry, who (as full of leisure as a cabbage, and as overflowing with +redundant impudence as any Radical mob,) mainly tend to form by their +masses the average penless animal-man, who could not hold a candle to +any the most mediocre of the Marsyas-used authors of haply this week's +journals. Spare them, victorious Apollos, spare! if libels that diminish +wealth be punishable, is there no moral guilt in those legalized libels +that do their utmost to destroy a character for wisdom, wit, learning, +industry, and invention?—Critical flayer, try thou to write a book; +learn experimentally how difficult, yet relieving; how nervous, yet +gladdening; how ungracious, yet very sweet; how worldly-foolish, yet +most wise; how conversant with scorn, yet how noble and ennobling an +attribute of man, is—authorship.</p> + +<p>All this rhetoric, impatient friend—and be a friend still, whether +writer, reviewer, or unauthorial—serves at my most expeditious pace, +opposing notions considered, to introduce what is (till to-morrow, or +perhaps the next coming minute, but at any rate for this flitting +instant of time,) my last notion of possible, but not probable, +authorship: a rhodomontade oration, rather than an essay, after my own +desultory and yet determinate fashion, to have been entituled—so is it +spelled by act of parliament, and therefore let us in charity hope +rightly—to have been entituled then,</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIIc" id="CHAPTER_XXXIIc"></a>THE AUTHOR'S TRIBUNAL;</h3> + +<h3>A COURT OF APPEAL AGAINST AMATEUR AND CONNOISSEUR CRITICISMS:</h3> + +<p>and (the present being the next minute whereof I spake above) there has +just hopped into my mind another taking title, which I generously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> +present to any smarting scribe who may meditate a prose version of +'<i>English Bards and Scotch Reviewers</i>'—<i>videlicet</i>,</p> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIIIc" id="CHAPTER_XXXIIIc"></a>ZOILOMASTRIX.</h3> + + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIVc" id="CHAPTER_XXXIVc"></a>EPILOGUE;</h3> + + +<p>At length then have I liberty to yawn—a freedom whereof doubtless my +readers have long been liverymen: I have written myself and my inkstand +dry as Rosamond's pond; my brain is relieved, recreated, emptied; I go +no longer heavily, as one that mourneth; and with gleeful face can I +assure you that your author's mind is once again as light as his heart: +but when crowding fancies come thick upon it, they bow it, and break it, +and weary it, as clouds of pigeons settling gregariously on a +trans-Atlantic forest; and when those thronging thoughts are comfortably +fixed on paper, one feels, as an apple-tree may be supposed to feel, all +the difference between the heavy down-dragging crop of autumn and the +winged aërial blossom of sweet spring-tide. An involuntary author, just +eased for the time of ever-exacting and accumulating notions, can +sympathize with holiday-making Atlas, chuckling over a chance so lucky +as the transfer of his pack to Hercules; and can comprehend the relief +it must have been to that foolish sage in Rasselas, when assured that he +no longer was afflicted with the care of governing a galaxy of worlds.</p> + +<p>Some people are born to talk, with an incessant tongue illustrating +perpetuity of motion in the much-abused mouth; some to indite solid +continuous prose, with a labour-loving pen ever tenanting the hand; but +I clearly was born a zoölogical anomaly, <i>with a pen in my mouth</i>, a +sort of serpent-tongue. Heaven give it wisdom, and put away its poison!</p> + +<p>Such being my character from birth, a paper-gossip, a writer from the +cradle, I ought not demurely to apologize for nature's handicraft, nor +excuse this light affliction of chattering in print.—Who asks you to +read it?—Neither let me cast reflections on your temper or your +intellect by too humble exculpation of this book of many themes; or must +I then regard you as those sullen children in the market-place, whom +piping cannot please, and sorrow cannot soften?</p> + +<p>And now, friend, I've done. Require not, however shrewd your guess, my +acknowledgment of this brain-child; forgive all unintended harms; supply +what is lacking in my charities; politically, socially, authorially,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span> +think that I bigotize in theoretic fun, but am incarnate Tolerance for +practical earnest. And so, giving your character fairer credit than if I +feared you as one of those captious cautious people who make a man +offender for an ill-considered word; commending to the cordial warmth of +Humanity my unhatched score and more of book-eggs, to perfect which I +need an Eccaleobion of literature; and scorning, as heartily as any +Sioux chief, to prolong palaver, when I have nothing more to say; suffer +me thus courteously to take of you my leave. And forasmuch as Lord +Chesterfield recommends an exit to be heralded by a pungent speech, let +me steal from quaint old Norris the last word wherewith I trouble you: +"These are my thoughts; I might have spun them out into a greater +length, but that I think a little plot of ground, thick-sown, is better +than a great field, which for the most part of it lieth fallow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVc" id="CHAPTER_XXXVc"></a>APPENDIX.</h3> + +<h3>AN AFTER-THOUGHT.</h3> + + +<p>It will be quite in keeping with your author's mind, and consistently +characteristic of his desultory indoles—(not indolence, pray you, good +Anglican, albeit thereunto akin,)—if after having thus formally taken +his <i>congé</i> with the help of a Petronius so redoubtable as Chesterfield, +he just steps back again to induce you to have another last ramble. Now, +the wherefore of this might sentimentally be veiled, were I but little +honest, in professed attachment for my amiable reader, as though with +Romeo I cried, "Parting in such sweet sorrow, that I could say farewell +till it be morrow;" or it might be extenuated cacoethically, as though a +new crop of fancies were sprung up already, an after-math rank and wild, +before the gladdening shower of commendation has yet freshened-up my +brown hay-field: or it might be disguised falsely, as if a parcel of +precious MSS. had been lost by penny-postage, or stolen in the purlieus +of Shoe-lane; but, instead of all these unworthy subterfuges, the truth +shall be told plainly; we are yet too short by a sheet (so hints our +publishing Procrustes) of the marketable volume. Accordingly, whether or +not in this booklet your readership has already found seed sufficient +for cyclopædias, I am free to admit that the expectant butter-man at +least has not his legitimate post-octavo allowance of three hundred +pages; and to fill this aching void as cleverly and quickly as I can, is +my first object in so rapid a return. That honesty is the best policy, +deny who dare?</p> + +<p>Still it is competent for me to confess worthier objects, (although, in +point of their arising, they were secondary,) as further illustrative of +my '<i>Author's Mind</i>' shown in other specimens; for example, a +linsey-woolsey tapestry of many colours shall be hung upon the end of +this arcade; the last few trees in this poor avenue shall bear the +flowers of poetry as well as the fruit of prose; my swan (O, dub it not +a goose!)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span> would, like a <i>prima-donna</i>, go off this theatre of fancy, +singing. And again, suffer me, good friend, to think your charity still +willing to be pleased: many weary pages back, I offered you to part with +me in peace, if you felt small sympathies with a rambler so whimsical +and lawless; surely, having walked together kindly until now, we shall +not quarrel at the last.</p> + +<p>Empty, however—empty, and rejoicing in its unthoughtful emptiness—have +I boasted this my head but a page or two ago; and that boast, for all +the critic's sneer, that no one will deny it, shall not be taken from me +by renewal of determined meditations; now that my house is swept and +garnished, I would not beckon back those old inhabitants. Neither let me +heed so lightly of your intellect, as to hope to satisfy its reading +with the scanty harvest of a <i>soil effete</i>; this license of writing up +to measure shall not show me sterile, any more than that emancipation +shall, by indulgence of thought, be disenchanted. And now to solve the +problem: not to think, for my mind is in a regimen of truancy; not to +fail in pleasing, if it be possible, the great world's implacable +palate, therefore to eschew dilution of good liquor; and yet to render +up in fair array the fitting tale of pages: well, if I may not +metaphysically draw upon internal resources, I can at least externally +and physically resort to yonder—desk; (drawer would have savoured of +the Punic, which Scipio and I blot out with equal hate;) for therein lie +<i>perdus</i> divers poeticals I fain would see in print; yea, start not at +"poeticals," carp not at the threatening sound, for verily, even as +carp—so called from <i>carpere</i>, to catch if you can, and the Saxon capp, +to cavil, because when caught they don't pay for mastication—even as +carp, a muddy fish, difficult to hook, and provocate of hostile +criticism, conceals its lack of savour in the flavour of port-wine—even +so shall strong prose-sauce be served up with my poor dozen of sonnets: +and ye who would uncharitably breathe that they taste stronger of +Lethe's mud than of Helicon's sweet water, treat me to a better dish, or +carp not at my fishing.</p> + +<p>Imagination, as I need not tell psychologists by this time, is my +tyrant; I cannot sleep, nor sit out a sermon, nor remember yesterday, +nor read in peace, (how calm in blessed quiet people seem to read!) +without the distraction of a thousand fancies: I hold this an infirmity, +not an accomplishment; a thing to be conquered, not to be coveted: and +still I love it, suffering those chains of gossamer to wind about me, +that seductive honey-jar yet again to trap me, like some poor insect; +thus then my foolish idolatry heretofore hath hailed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>IMAGINATION.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My fond first love, sweet mistress of my mind,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy beautiful sublimity hath long</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Charm'd mine affections, and entranced my song,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thou spirit-queen, that sit'st enthroned, enshrined</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Within this suppliant heart; by day and night</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">My brain is full of thee: ages of dreams,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Thoughts of a thousand worlds in visions bright,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fear's dim terrific train, Guilt's midnight schemes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Strange peeping eyes, soft smiling fairy faces,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Dark consciousness of fallen angels nigh,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Sad converse with the dead, or headlong races</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Down the straight cliffs, or clinging on a shelf</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of brittle shale, or hunted thro' the sky!—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">O, God of mind, I shudder at myself!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Now, friend reader, you have accustomed yourself to think that every +thing in rhyme, <i>i. e.</i>, poetry, as you somewhat scornfully call it, +must be false: and I am sorry to be obliged to grant you that a leaning +towards plain matter-of-fact, is no wise characteristic of metrical +enthusiasts. But believe me for a truth-teller; that sonnet (did you +read it?) hints at some fearful verities; and that you may further +apprehend this sweet ideal mistress of your author's mind, suffer me to +introduce to your acquaintance</p> + + +<h4>IMAGINATION PERSONIFIED.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Dread Monarch-maid, I see thee now before me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Searching my soul with those mysterious eyes,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Spell-bound I stand, thy presence stealing o'er me,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">While all unnerved my trembling spirit dies:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Oh, what a world of untold wonder lies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Within thy silent lips! how rare a light</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of conquer'd joys and ecstasies repress'd</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Beneath thy dimpled cheek shines half-confess'd!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In what luxuriant masses, glossy bright,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Those raven locks fall shadowing thy fair breast!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And, lo! that bursting brow, with gorgeous wings,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And vague young forms of beauty coyly hiding</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">In thy crisp curls, like cherubs there abiding—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Charmer, to thee my heart enamour'd springs.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Such, then, and of me so well beloved, is that abstracted Platonism. But +verily the fear of imagination would far outbalance any love of it, if +crime had peopled for a man that viewless world with spectres, and the +Medusa-head of Justice were shaking her snakes in his face. And,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> by way +of a parergon observation, how terrible, most terrible, to the guilty +soul must be the solitary silent system now so popular among those cold +legislative schemers, who have ground the poor man to starvation, and +would hunt the criminal to madness! How false is that political +philosophy which seeks to reform character by leaving conscience caged +up in loneliness for months, to gnaw into its diseased self, rather than +surrounding it with the wholesome counsels of better living minds. It is +not often good for man to be alone: and yet in its true season, +(parsimoniously used, not prodigally abused,) solitude does fair +service, rendering also to the comparatively innocent mind precious +pleasures: religion prësupposed, and a judgment strong enough of muscle +to rein-in the coursers of Imagination's car, I judge it good advice to +prescribe for most men an occasional course of</p> + + +<h4>SOLITUDE.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Therefore delight thy soul in solitude,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Feeding on peace; if solitude it be</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">To feel that million creatures, fair and good,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With gracious influences circle thee;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To hear the mind's own music; and to see</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">God's glorious world with eyes of gratitude,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Unwatch'd by vain intruders. Let me shrink</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">From crowds, and prying faces, and the noise</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of men and merchandise; far nobler joys</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Than chill Society's false hand hath given,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Attend me when I'm left alone to think.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">To think—alone?—Ah, no, not quite alone;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Save me from that—cast out from earth and heaven,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A friendless, Godless, isolated <span class="smcap">ONE</span>!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>But of these higher metaphysicals, these fancy-bred extravagations, +perhaps somewhat too much: you will dub me dreamer, if not proser—or +rather, poet, as the more modern reproach. Let us then, by way of +clearing our mind at once of these hallucinations, go forth quickly into +the fresh green fields, and expatiate with glad hearts on these +full-blown glories of</p> + + +<h4>SUMMER.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Warm summer! Yes, the very word is warm;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The hum of bees is in it, and the sight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of sunny fountains glancing silver light,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And the rejoicing world, and every charm</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of happy nature in her hour of love,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fruits, flowers, and flies, in rainbow-glory bright:</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">The smile of God glows graciously above,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And genial earth is grateful; day by day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Old faces come again with blossoms gay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Gemming in gladness meadow, garden, grove:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Haste with thy harvest, then, my softened heart,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Awake thy better hopes of better days,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Bring in thy fruits and flowers of thanks and praise,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And in creation's pæan take thy part.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>How different in sterner beauty was the landscape not long since! The +energies of universal life prisoned up in temporary obstruction; every +black hedge-row tufted with woolly snow, like some Egyptian mother +mourning for her children; shrubs and plants fettered up in glittering +chains, motionless as those stone-struck feasters before the head of +Gorgon; and the dark-green fir-trees swathed in heavy curtains of +iridescent whiteness. Contrast is ever pleasurable; therefore we need +scarcely apologize for an ice in the dog-days—I mean for this present +unseasonable introduction of dead</p> + + +<h4>WINTER.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As some fair statue, white and hard and cold,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Smiling in marble, rigid, yet at rest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or like some gentle child of beauteous mould,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Whose placid face and softly swelling breast</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Are fixed in death, and on them bear imprest</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">His magic seal of peace—so, frozen, lies</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The loveliness of nature: every tree</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Stands hung with lace against the clear blue skies;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The hills are giant waves of glistering snow;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Rare and northern fowl, now strangely tame to see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With ruffling plumage cluster on the bough,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like, the wren</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Hides in the new-cut hedge; and all things now</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Fear starving Winter more than cruel men.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Ay, "cruel men:" that truest epithet for monarch-man must be the tangent +from which my Pegasus shall strike his hoof for the next flight. Who +does not writhe while reading details of cruelty, and who would not +rejoice to find even there somewhat of</p> + + +<h4>CONSOLATION?</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Scholar of Reason, Grace, and Providence,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Restrain thy bursting and indignant tears;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With tenderest might unerring Wisdom steers</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through those mad seas the bark of Innocence.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Doth thy heart burn for vengeance on the deed—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Some barbarous deed wrought out by cruelty</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">On woman, or on famish'd childhood's need,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yea, on these fond dumb dogs—doth thy heart bleed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">For pity, child of sensibility?</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Those tears are gracious, and thy wrath most right</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Yet patience, patience; there is comfort still;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The Judge is just; a world of love and light</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Remains to counterpoise the load of ill,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">And the poor victim's cup with angel's food to fill.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>For, as my Psycotherion has long ago informed you, I hope there is some +sort of heaven yet in reserve for the brute creation: if otherwise, in +respect of costermongers' donkeys, Kamskatdales' gaunt starved dogs, the +Guacho's horse, spurred deep with three-inch rowels, the angler's worm, +Strasburgh geese, and poor footsore curs harnessed to ill-balanced +trucks—for all these and many more I, for one, sadly stand in need of +consolation. Meanwhile, let us change the subject. After a dose of cruel +cogitations, and this corrupting converse with Phalaris and Domitian, +what better sweetener of thoughts than an "olive-branch" in the waters +of Marah? Spend a moment in the nursery; it is happily fashionable now, +as well as pleasurable, to sport awhile with Nature's prettiest +playthings; the praises of children are always at the tip of my—pen, +that is, tongue, you remember, and often have I told the world, in all +the pride of print, of my fond infantile predilections: then let this +little Chanson be added to the rest; we will call it</p> + + +<h4>MARGARET.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">A song of gratitude and cheerful prayer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Still shall go forth my pretty babes to greet,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As on life's firmament, serenely fair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Their little stars arise, with aspects sweet</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of mild successive radiance: that small pair,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Ellen and Mary, having gone before</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In this affection's welcome, the dear debt</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Here shall be paid to gentle Margaret:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Be thou indeed a pearl—in pureness, more</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Than beauty, praise, or price; full be thy cup,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Mantling with grace, and truth with mercy met,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With warm and generous charities flowing o'er;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And when the Great King makes his jewels up,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Shine forth, child-angel, in His coronet!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And while hovering about this fairy-land of sweet-home scenery, and +confessing thankfully to these domestic affections, your author knows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> +one heart at least that will be gladdened, one face that will be +brightened by the following</p> + + +<h4>BIRTH-DAY PRAYER.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mother, dear mother, no unmeaning rhyme,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">No mere ingenious compliment of words,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My heart pours forth at this auspicious time:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I know a simple honest prayer affords</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">More music on affection's thrilling cords,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">More joy, than can be measured or express'd</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">In song most sweet, or eloquence sublime.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mother, I bless thee! God doth bless thee too!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">In these thy children's children thou <i>art</i> blest,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">With dear old pleasures springing up anew:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And blessings wait upon thee still, my mother!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Blessings to come, this many a happy year;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For, losing thee, where could we find another</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">So kind, so true, so tender, and—so dear?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Is it an impertinence—I speak etymologically—to have dropped that +sonnet here?—Be it as you will, my Zoilus; let me stand convicted of +honesty and love: I ask no higher praise in this than to have pleased my +mother.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Penman as I am, have been, and shall be, innumerable letters have grown +beneath my goose-quill. Who cannot say the same indeed? For in these +patriotic days, for mere country's love and post-office prosperity, +every body writes to every body about every thing, or, as oftener +happens, about nothing. Nevertheless, I wish some kind pundit would +invent a corrosive ink, warranted to consume a letter within a week +after it had been read and answered: then should we have fewer of those +ephemeral documents treasured up in pigeon-holes, and docketed +correspondence for possible publication. Not Byron, nor Lamb, nor West, +nor Gray, with all their epistolary charms, avail to persuade my +prejudice that it is honest to publish a private letter: if written with +that view, the author is a hypocrite in his friendships; if not so, the +decent veil of privacy is torn from social life, confidence is rebuked, +betrayed, destroyed; and the suspicion of eaves-droppings and casual +scribblings to be posthumously printed, makes silence truly wisdom, and +grim reserve a virtue. This public appetite for secret information, and, +if possible, for hinted scandal—this unhallowed spirit of outward +curiosity trespassing upon the sacred precincts of a man's own +circle—is to the real author's mind a thing to be feared, if he is +weak—to be circum<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span>spectly watched, if he is wise. Such is the present +hunger for this kind of reading, that it would be diffidence, not +presumption, in the merest school-boy to dread the future publication of +his holiday letters; who knows—I may jump scathless from the Monument, +or in these Popish times become excommunicated by special bull, or fly +round the world in a balloon, or attain to the authorship of forty +volumes, or be half-smothered by a valet-de-place, or get indicted for +inveterate Toryism, or any how, I may—notwithstanding all present +obscurities that intervene—wake one of these fine mornings, and find +myself famous: and what then? The odds at Tattersall's would be twelve +to one that sundry busy-bodies, booksellers or otherwise, would scrape +together with malice prepense, and keep <i>câchet</i> for future print, a +multitude of careless scrawls that should have been burnt within an hour +of the reading. Now, is not this a thing to be exclaimed against? And, +utterly improbable on the ground of any merit in themselves as I should +judge their publication (but for certain stolidities of the same sort, +that often-times have wearied me in print), I choose to let my author's +mind here enter its eternal protest against any such treachery regarding +private</p> + + +<h4>LETTERS.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tear, scatter, burn, destroy—but keep them not;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I hate, I dread those living witnesses</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Of varying self, of good or ill forgot,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of altered hopes, and withered kindnesses.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Oh! call not up those shadows of the dead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Those visions of the past, that idly blot</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The present with regret for blessings fled:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">This hand that wrote, this ever-teeming head,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">This flickering heart is full of chance and change;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">I would not have you watch my weaknesses,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor how my foolish likings roam and range,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Nor how the mushroom friendships of a day</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Hastened in hot-bed ripeness to decay,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nor how to mine own self I grow so strange.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>So anathema to editors, maranatha to publishers of all such hypothetical +post-obits!</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p>Every one can comprehend something of an author's ease, when he sees his +manuscript in print: it is safe; no longer a treasure uninsurable, no +longer a locked-up care: it is emancipated, glorified, incapable of real +extermination; it has reached a changeless condition; the chrysalis of +illegible cacography has burst its bonds, and flies living through the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span> +world on the wings of those true Dædali, Faust, and Gutenberg: the +transition-state is passed: henceforth for his brain-child set free from +that nervous slumber, its parent calmly can expect the oblivion of no +more than a death-like sleep, if he be not indeed buoyed up with certain +hope of immortality. "'Tis pleasant sure to see one's self in print," is +the adequate cause for ninety books out of a hundred; and, though zeal +might be the ostentatious stalking-horse, my candour shall give no +better excuse for the fourteen lines that follow; they require but this +preface: a most venerable chapel of old time, picturesque and full of +interest, is dropping to decay, within a mile of me; where it is, and +whose the fault, are askings improper to be answered: nevertheless, I +cast upon the waters this meagre morsel of</p> + +<h4>APPEAL.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Shame on thee, Christian, cold and covetous one!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The laws (I praise them not for this) declare</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">That ancient, loved, deserted house of prayer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">As money's worth a layman landlord's own.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Then use it as thine own; thy mansion there</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Beneath the shadow of this ruinous church</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Stands new and decorate; thine every shed</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And barn is neat and proper; I might search</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Thy comfortable farms, and well despair</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Of finding dangerous ruin overhead,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And damp unwholesome mildew on the walls:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Arouse thy better self: restore it; see,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Through thy neglect the holy fabric falls!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Fear, lest that crushing guilt should fall on thee.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>I fear much, poor book, this finale of jingling singing will jar upon +the public ear; all men must shrink from a lengthy snake with a rattle +in its tail: and this ballast a-stern of over-ponderous poetry may +chance to swamp so frail a skiff. But I have promised a dozen sonnets in +this after-thought Appendix; yea, and I will keep that promise at all +mortal hazards, even to the superadded unit proverbial of dispensing +Fornarinas. Ten have been told off fairly, and now we come upon the gay +court-cards. After so much of villanous political ferment, society +returns at length to its every-day routine, heedful of other oratory +than harangues from the hustings, and glad of other reading than +figurative party-speeches. Yet am I bold to recur, just for a thought or +two, to my whilom patriotic hopes and fears: fears indeed came first +upon me, but hopes finally out-voted them: briefly, then, begin upon the +worst, and endure, with what patience you possess, this creaky stave of +bitter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p> + + +<h4>POLITICS.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Chill'd is the patriot's hope, the poet's prayer:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Alas for England, and her tarnish'd crown,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Her sun of ancient glory going down,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Her foes triumphant in her friends' despair:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">What wonder should the billows overwhelm</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">A bark so mann'd by Comus and his crew,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">"Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm?"</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Yet, no!—we will not fear; the loathing realm</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">At length has burst its chains; a motley few,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The pseudo-saint, the boasting infidel,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">The demagogue, and courtier, hand in hand</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">No more besiege our Zion's citadel:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">But high in hope comes on this nobler band</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For God, the sovereign, and our father-land.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>That last card, you may remember, must reckon as the knave; and +therefore is consistently regarding an ominous trisyllable, which rhymes +to "knavish tricks" in the national anthem; our suit now leads us in +regular succession to the queen, a topic (it were Milesian to say a +subject) whereon now, as heretofore, my loyalty shall never be found +lacking. In old Rome's better antiquity, a slave was commissioned to +whisper counsel in the ear of triumphant generals or emperors; and, in +old England's less enlightened youth, a baubled fool was privileged to +blurt out verities, which bearded wisdom dared not hint at. Now, I boast +myself free, a citizen of no mean city—my commission signed by duty—my +counsel guarantied by truth: and if, O still intruding Zoilus, the +liberality of your nature provokes you to class me truly in the family +of fools, let your antiquarian ignorance of those licensed Gothamites +blush at its abortive malice; the arrow of your sarcasm bounds from my +target blunted; pick up again the harmless reed: for, not to insist upon +the prevalence of knaves, and their moral postponement to mere +lack-wits, let me tell you that wise men, and good men, and shrewd men, +were those ancient baubled fools: therefore would I gladly be thought of +their fraternity.</p> + +<p>But our twelfth sonnet is waiting, save the mark! Stay: there ought to +intervene a solemn pause; for your author's mind, on the spur of the +occasion, pours forth an unpremeditated song of free-spoken, +uncompromising, patriotic counsel; let its fervency atone for its +presumption</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Bold in my freedom, yet with homage meek,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">As duty prompts and loyalty commands,</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 3em;">To thee, O, queen of empires! would I speak.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Behold, the most high God hath giv'n to thee</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Kingdoms and glories, might and majesty,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Setting thee ruler over many lands;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Him first to serve, O monarch, wisely seek:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">And many people, nations, languages,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Have laid their welfare in thy sovereign hands;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Them next to bless, to prosper and to please,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Nobly forget thyself, and thine own ease:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Rebuke ill-counsel; rally round thy state</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">The scattered good, and true, and wise, and great:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">So Heav'n upon thee shed sweet influences!</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And now for my Raffaellesque disguise of a vulgar baker's twelve, the +largess muffin of Mistress Fornarina: thirteen cards to a suit, and +thirteen to the dozen, are proverbially the correct thing; but, as in +regular succession I have come upon the king card, I am free to +confess—(pen, why will you repeat again such a foolish, stale +Joe-Millerism?)—the subject a dilemma. Natheless, my good nature shall +give a royal chance to criticism most malign: whether candour +acknowledge it or not, doubtless the author's mind reigns dominant in +the author's book; and, notwithstanding the self-silence of blind +Mæonides, (a right notable exception,) it holds good as a rule that the +majority of original writings, directly or indirectly, concern a man's +own self; his whims and his crotchets, his knowledge and his ignorance, +wisdom and folly, experiences and suspicions, therein find a place +prepared for them. Scott's life naturally produced his earlier novels; +in the '<i>Corsair</i>,' the '<i>Childe</i>,' and the '<i>Don</i>,' no one can mistake +the hero-author; Southey's works, Shelley's, and Wordsworth's, are full +of adventure, feeling, and fancy, personal to the writers, at least +equally with the sonnets of Petrarch or of Shakspeare. And as with +instances illustrious as those, so with all humbler followers, the +skiffs, pinnaces, and heavy barges in the wake of those gallant ships: +an author's library, and his friends, his hobbies and amusements, +business and pleasure, fears and wishes, accidents of life, and +qualities of soul, all mingle in his writings with a harmonizing +individuality; nay, the very countenance and hand-writing, alike with +choice of subject and style and method of their treatment, illustrate, +in one word, the author's mind. These things being so, what hinders it +from occupying, as in honesty it does, the king's place in this pack of +sonnets? Nevertheless, forasmuch as by such occupancy an ill-tempered +sarcasm might charge it with conceit; know then that my humbler meaning +here is to put it lowest and last, even in the place of wooden-spoon; +for this also (being mindful of the twelve apostle-spoons from old time +antecedent) is a legitimate thirteener: and so, while in extricating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> my +muse from the folly of serenading a non-existent king, I have candidly +avowed the general selfishness of printing, believe that, in this +avowal, I take the lowest seat, so well befitting one of whom it may +ungraciously be asked, Where do fools buy their logic?</p> + +<p>List, then, oh list! while generically, not individually I claim for +authorship</p> + +<h4>THE CATHEDRAL MIND.</h4> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Temple of truths most eloquently spoken,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Shrine of sweet thoughts veiled round with words of power,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">The '<i>Author's Mind</i>,' in all its hallowed riches,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Stands a cathedral: full of precious things;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Cloister, and aisle, dark crypt, and aëry tower:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And secret stores, and heap'd-up offerings,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Art's noblest gems, with every fruit and flower,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Paintings and sculpture, choice imaginings,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Its plenitude of wealth and praise betoken:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">An ever-burning lamp portrays the soul;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Deep music all around enchantment flings;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 5em;">And God's great Presence consecrates the whole.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Now at length, in all verity, I have said out my say: nor publisher nor +printer shall get more copy from me: neither, indeed, would it before +have been the case, for all that Damastic argument, were it not that +many beginnings—and you remember my proverbial preliminarizing—should, +for mere antithesis' sake, be endowed with a counterpoise of many +endings. So, in this second parting, let me humbly suggest to gentle +reader these: that nothing is at once more plebeian and unphilosophical +than—censure, in a world where nothing can be perfect, and where apathy +is held to be good-breeding; <i>item</i>, (I am quoting Scott,) that "it is +much more easy to destroy than to build, to criticise than to compose;" +<i>item</i>, (Sir Walter again, <i>ipsissima verba</i>, in a letter to Miss +Seward,) that there are certain literary "gentlemen who appear to be a +sort of tinkers, who, unable to <i>make</i> pots and pans, set up for +<i>menders</i> of them, and often make two holes in patching one;" <i>item</i>, +that in such possible cases as "exercise" for "exorcise," "repeat" for +"repent," "depreciate" for "deprecate," and the like, an indifferent +scribe is always at the mercy of compositors; and lastly, that if it is, +by very far, easier to read a book than to write one, it is also, by at +least as much, worthier of a noble mind to give credit for good +intentions, rather than for bad, or indifferent, or none at all, even +where hyper-criticism may appear to prove that the effort itself has +been a failure.</p> + +<h4>END OF AN AUTHOR'S MIND</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1><a name="PROBABILITIES" id="PROBABILITIES"></a>PROBABILITIES;<a name="Page_457" id="Page_457"></a></h1> + +<h4>AN AID TO FAITH.</h4> + + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S.</h3> + +<h4> THE AUTHOR OF "PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY</h4> + + +<h4>ALMOST THOU PERSUADEST ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN."</h4> + + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="TABLE OF CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#AN_AID_TO_FAITH">AN AID TO FAITH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#A_GOD_AND_HIS_ATTRIBUTES">A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_TRIUNITY">THE TRIUNITY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_GODHEAD_VISIBLE">THE GODHEAD VISIBLE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_ORIGIN_OF_EVIL">THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#COSMOGONY">COSMOGONY.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ADAM">ADAM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_FALL">THE FALL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_FLOOD">THE FLOOD.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#NOAH">NOAH.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#BABEL">BABEL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#JOB">JOB.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#JOSHUA">JOSHUA.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_INCARNATION">THE INCARNATION.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#MAHOMETANISM">MAHOMETANISM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#ROMANISM">ROMANISM.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#THE_BIBLE">THE BIBLE.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#HEAVEN_AND_HELL">HEAVEN AND HELL.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#AN_OFFER">AN OFFER.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION.</a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458"></a></p><p><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459"></a></p> +<p><br /></p> +<h2>PROBABILITIES.</h2> +<p><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + +<h3><a name="AN_AID_TO_FAITH" id="AN_AID_TO_FAITH"></a>AN AID TO FAITH.</h3> + + +<p>The certainty of those things which most surely are believed among us, +is a matter quite distinct from their antecedent probability or +improbability. We know, and take for facts, that Cromwell and Napoleon +existed, and are persuaded that their characters and lives were such as +history reports them: but it is another thing, and one eminently +calculated to disturb any disbeliever of such history, if a man were +enabled to show, that, from the condition of social anarchy, there was +an antecedent likelihood for the use of military despots; that, from the +condition of a popular puritanism, or a popular infidelity, it was +previously to have been expected that such leaders should have the +several characteristics of a bigoted zeal for religion, or a craving +appetite for worldly glory; that, from the condition liable to +revolutions, it was probable to find such despots arising out of the +middle class; and that, from the condition of reaction incidental to all +human violences, there was a clear expectability that the power of such +military monarchs should not be continued to their natural heirs.</p> + +<p>Such a line of argument, although in no measure required for the +corroboration of facts, might have considerable power to persuade <i>à +priori</i> the man, who had not hitherto seen reason to credit such facts +from posterior evidence. It would have rolled away a great stone, which +to such a mind might otherwise have stood as a stumbling-block on the +very threshold of truth. It would have cleared off a heavy mist, which +might prevent him from discerning the real nature of the scene in which +he stood. It would have shown him that, what others know to be fact, is, +even to him who does not know it, become antecedently probable; and that +Reason is not only no enemy to Faith, but is ready and willing to +acknowledge its alliance.</p> + +<p>Take a second illustration, by way of preliminary. A woodman, cleaving +an oak, finds an iron ball in its centre; he sees the fact, and <a name="Page_460" id="Page_460"></a>of +course believes; some others believing on his testimony. But a certain +village-pundit, habitually sceptical of all marvels, is persuaded that +the wonder has been fabricated by our honest woodman; until the parson, +a good historian, coming round that way, proclaims it a most interesting +circumstance, because it was one naturally to have been expected; for +that, here was the spot where, two hundred years ago, a great battle had +been fought: and it was no improbability at all that a carbine-bullet +should have penetrated a sapling, nor that the tree should thereafter +have grown old with the iron at its heart. How unreasonable then would +appear the pundit's incredulity, if persisted in: how suddenly +enlightened the rational faith of the rustic: how seasonable would be +felt the useful learning of him, whose knowledge well applied can thus +unfetter truth from the bandages of ignorance.</p> + +<p>Illustrations, if apt, are so well adapted to persuade towards a +particular line of argument, that, at the risk of diffuseness, and +because minds being various are variously touched, one by one thought +and one by another, I think fit to add yet more of a similar tendency: +in the hope that, by a natural induction, such instances may smoothe our +way.</p> + +<p>When an eminent living geologist was prosecuting his researches at +Kirkdale cave, Yorkshire, he had calculated so nicely on the antecedent +probabilities, that his commands to the labourers were substantially +these: "Take your mattocks, and pick up that stone flooring; then take +your basket, and fill it—with the bones of hyænas and other creatures +which you will find there." We may fancy the ridicule wherewith +ignorance might have greeted science: but lo, the triumph of philosophy, +when its mandate soon assumed a bodily shape in—bushels of bones gnawed +as by wild beasts, and here and there a grinning skull that looked like +a hyæna's! Do we not see how this bears on our coming argument? Such a +deposit was very unlikely to be found there in the eyes of the +unenlightened: but very likely to the wise man's ken. The real +probabilities were in favour of a strange fact, though the seeming +probabilities were against it.</p> + +<p>Take another. We are all now convinced of the existence of America; and +so, some three or four hundred years back, was Christopher Columbus—but +nobody else. Alone, he proved that mighty continent so probable, from +geometrical measurements, and the balance of the world, and tides, and +trade-winds, and casual floatsams driven from some land beneath the +setting sun, that he was antecedently convinced of the fact: and it +would have been a shock to his reason, as well as to his faith, had <a name="Page_461" id="Page_461"></a>he +found himself able to sail due west from Lisbon to China, without having +struck against his huge probability. I purposely abstain from applying +every illustration, or showing its specific difference regarding our +theme. It is better to lead a mind to think for itself than to endeavour +to forestall every notion.</p> + +<p>Another. A Kissoor merchant in Timbuctoo is told of the existence of +water hard and cold as marble. All the experience of his nation is +against it. He disbelieves. However, after no long time, the testimony +of two native princes who have been <i>fêted</i> in England, and have seen +ice, shakes his once not unreasonable incredulity: and the additional +idea brought soon to his remembrance, that, as lead cools down from hot +fluidity to a solid lump, so, in the absence of solar heat, in all +probability would water—corroborates and makes acceptable by analogous +likelihood the doctrine simultaneously evidenced by credible witnesses.</p> + +<p>Yet one more illustration for the last. Few things in nature appear more +unlikely to the illiterate, than that a living toad should be found +prisoned in a block of limestone; nevertheless, evidence goes to prove +that such cases are not uncommon. Now, if, instead of limestone, which +is a water-product, the creature had been found embedded in granite, +which is a fire-product; although the fact might have been from +eye-sight equally unimpeachable, how much more unlikely such a +circumstance would have appeared in the judgment of science. To the +rustic, the limestone case is as stout a puzzle as the granite one; but +<i>à priori</i>, the philosopher—taking into account the aqueous fluidity of +such a matrix at a period when reptiles were abundant, the torpid +qualities of the toad itself, and the fact that time is scarcely an +element in the absence of air—arrives at an antecedent probability, +which comforts his acceptance of the fact. The granite would have +staggered his reason, even though his own experience or the testimony of +others were sufficient, nay, imperative, to assure his faith: but in the +case of limestone, Reason even helps Faith; nay, anticipates and leads +it in, by suggesting the wonder to be previously probable. How truly, +and how strongly this bears upon our theme, let any such philosophizing +mind consider.</p> + +<p>But enough of illustrations: although these, multipliable to any amount, +might bring, each in its own case, some specific tendency to throw light +upon the path we mean to tread: it is wiser perhaps, as implying more +confidence in the reader's intellectual powers, to leave other analogous +cases to the suggestion of his own mind; also, not to vex him in every +instance with the intrusive finger of an obvious application.<a name="Page_462" id="Page_462"></a> +Meanwhile, it is a just opportunity to clear the way at once of some +obstructions, by disposing of a few matters personal to the writer; and +by touching upon sundry other preliminary considerations.</p> + +<p>1. The line of thought proposed is intended to show it probable that +any thing which has been or is, might, viewed antecedently to its +existence, by an exercise of pure reason, have by possibility been +guessed: and on the hypothesis of sufficient keenness and experience, +that this idea may be carried even to the future. Any thing, meaning +every thing, is a word not used unadvisedly; for this is merely a +suggestive treatise, starting a rule capable of infinite application: +and, notwithstanding that we have here and now confined its elucidation +to some matters of religious moment only, as occupying a priority of +importance, and at all times deserving the lead; still, if knowledge +availed, and time and space permitted, I scarcely doubt that a vigorous +and illuminated intellect might so far enlarge on the idea, as to show +the antecedent probability of every event which has happened in the +kingdoms of nature, providence, and grace: nay, of directing his guess +at coming matters with no uncertain aim into the realms of the immediate +future. The perception of cause in operation enables him to calculate +the consequence, even perhaps better than the prophecy of cause could in +the prior case enable him to suspect the consequence. But, in this brief +life, and under its disturbing circumstances, there is little likelihood +of accomplishing in practice all that the swift mind sees it easy to +dream in theory: and if other and wiser pens are at all helped in the +good aim to justify the ways of God with man, and to clear the course of +truth, by some of the notions broadcast in this treatise, its errand +will be well fulfilled.</p> + +<p>2. Whether or not the leading idea, so propounded, is new, or is new +in its application as an auxiliary to Christian evidences, the writer is +unaware: to his own mind it has occurred quite spontaneously and on a +sudden; neither has he scrupled to place it before others with whatever +ill advantage of celerity, because it seemed to his own musings to shed +a flood of light upon deep truths, which may not prove unwelcome nor +unuseful to the doubting minds of many. It is true that in this, as in +most other human efforts, the realization of idea in concrete falls far +short of its abstract conception in the mind: there, all was clear, +quick, and easy; here, the necessity of words, and the constraints of an +unwilling perseverance, clog alike the wings of fancy and the feet of +sober argument: insomuch that the difference is felt to be quite +humiliating between the thoughts as they were thought, and the thoughts +as they are <a name="Page_463" id="Page_463"></a>written. Minerva, +springing from the head of Jove, is not more unlike the heavily-treading +Vulcan.</p> + +<p>3. Necessarily, that the argument be (so to speak) complete, and on the +wise principle that no fortresses be left untaken in the rear, it must +be the writer's fate to attempt a demonstration of the anterior +probability of truths, which a child of reason can not only now never +doubt as fact, but never could have thought improbable. Instance the +first effort, showing it to have been expectable that there should, in +any conceived beginning, have existed a Something, a Great Spirit, whom +we call God. To have to argue of the mighty Maker, that HE was an +antecedent probability, would appear a most needless attempt; if it did +not occur as the first link in a chain of arguments less open to +objection by the thoughtless. With our little light to try to prove <i>à +priori</i> the dazzling mystery of a Divine Tri-unity, might (unreasonably +viewed) be assailed as a presumptuous and harmful thing; but it is our +wise prerogative, if and when we can, to "Prove all things." Moreover, +we live in a world wherein Truth's greatest enemy is the man who shrinks +from endeavouring at least to clear away the mists and clouds that veil +her precious aspect; and at a time when it behooves the reverent +Christian to put on his panoply of faith and prayer, and meet in +argument, according to the grace and power given to him—not indeed the +blaspheming infidel, for such a foe is unreasonable and unworthy of an +answer, but—the often candid, anxious, and involuntary doubter; the +mind, which, righteously vexed with the thousand corruptions of truth, +and sorely disappointed at the conduct of its herd of false disciples, +from a generous misconception is embracing error: the mind, never enough +tenderly treated, but commonly taunted as a sceptic which yet with a +natural manliness asserts the just prerogative of thinking for itself: +fairly enough requiring, though rarely finding, evidence either to prop +the weakness of a merely educational faith, or to argue away the +objections to Christianity so rife in the clashing doctrines and unholy +lives of its pseudo-sectaries. One of our poets hath said, "He has no +hope who never had a fear:" it is quite as true (and take this saying +for thy comfort, any harassed misbelieving mind), He has no faith, who +never had a doubt. There is hope of a mind which doubts, because it +thinks; because it troubles itself to think about what the mass of +nominal Christians live threescore years and die of very mammonism, +without having had one earnest thought about one difficulty, or one +misgiving: there is hope of a man, who, not licentious nor scornful, +from simple misconception, misbelieves; there is just and <a name="Page_464" id="Page_464"></a>reasonable +hope that (the misconception once removed) his faith will shine forth +all the warmer for a temporary state of winter. To such do I address +myself: not presumptuously imagining that I can satisfy by my poor +thoughts all the doubts, cavils and objections of minds so keen and +curious; not affecting to sail well among the shoals of metaphysics, nor +to plumb unerringly the deeper gulphs of reason; but asking them for +awhile to bear with me and hear me to the end patiently; with me, +convinced of what (κατ' εξοχἡν) is Truth, by far surer and +stronger arguments than any of the less considerations here expounded as +auxiliary thereto; to bear with me, and prove for themselves at this +penning of my thoughts (if haply I am helped in such high enterprise), +whether indeed those doctrines and histories which the Christian world +admit, were antecedently improbable, that is, unreasonable: whether, on +the contrary, there did not exist, prior to any manifestation of such +facts and doctrines, an exceeding likelihood that they would be so and +so developed: and whether on the whole, led by reason to the threshold +of faith, it may be worth while to encounter other arguments, which have +rendered probabilities now certain.</p> + +<p>4. It is very material to keep in memory the only scope and object of +this essay. We do not pretend to add one jot of evidence, but only to +prepare the mind to receive evidence: we do not attempt to prove facts, +but only to accelerate their admission by the removal of prejudice. If a +bed-ridden meteorologist is told that it rains, he may or he may not +receive the fact from the force of testimony; but he will certainly be +more prëdisposed to receive it, if he finds that his weatherglass is +falling rather than rising. The fact remains the same, it rains; but the +mind—precluded by circumstances from positive personal assurance of +such fact, and able only to arrive at truth from exterior evidence—is +in a fitter state for belief of the fact from being already made aware +that it was probable. Let it not then be inferred, somewhat perversely, +that because antecedent probabilities are the staple of our present +argument, the theme itself, Religion, rests upon hypotheses so slender: +it rests not at all upon such straws as probabilities, but on posterior +evidence far more firm. What we now attempt is not to prop the ark, but +favourably to prëdispose the mind of any reckless Uzzah, who might +otherwise assail it; not to strengthen the weak places of religion, but +to annul such disinclination to receive Truth, as consists in prejudice +and misconception of its likelihood. The goodly ship is built upon the +stocks, the platforms are reared, and the cradle is ready; but mistaken +prëconceptions may scatter the <a name="Page_465" id="Page_465"></a>incline with gravel-stones rather than +with grease, and thus put a needless hindrance to the launching: whereas +a clear idea that the probabilities are in favour, rather than the +reverse, will make all smooth, lubricate, and easy. If, then, we fail in +this attempt, no disservice whatever is done to Truth itself; no breach +is made in the walls, no mine sprung, no battlement dismantled; all the +evidences remain as they were; we have taken nothing away. Even granting +matters seemed anteriorily improbable, still, if evidence proved them +true, such anterior unlikelihood would entirely be merged in the stoutly +proven facts. Moreover, if we be adjudged to have succeeded, we have +added nothing to Truth itself; no, nor to its outworks. That sacred +temple stands complete, firm and glorious from corner-stone to +top-stone. We do but sweep away the rubbish at its base; the drifting +desert sands that choke its portals. We only serve that cause (a most +high privilege), by enlisting a prëjudgment in its favour. We propose +herein an auxiliary to evidence, not evidence itself; a finger-post to +point the way to faith; a little light of reason on its path. The risk +is really nothing; but the advantage, under favour, may be much.</p> + +<p>5. It is impossible to elude the discussion of topics, which in their +direct tendencies, or remoter inferences, may, to the author at least, +prove dangerous or disputable ground. If a "great door and effectual" is +opened to him, doubtless he will raise or meet with many adversaries. +Besides mere haters of his creed, despisers of his arguments, and +protestors, loud and fierce against his errors; he may possibly fall +foul of divers unintended heresies; he may stumble unwittingly on the +relics of exploded schisms; he may exhume controversies in metaphysical +or scholastical polemics, long and worthily extinct. If this be so, he +can only plead, <i>Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa</i>. But it is +open to him also to protest against the common critical folly of making +an offender for a word: of driving analogies on all four feet, and +straining thoughts beyond their due proportions. Above all, never let a +reader stir one inch beyond, far less against, his own judgment: if +there seem to be sufficient reasons, well: if otherwise, let me walk +uncompanied. The first step especially is felt to be a very difficult +one; perhaps very debatable: for aught I know, it may be merely a vain +insect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, and +easily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, it +seemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth, +though somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and +language.<a name="Page_466" id="Page_466"></a> Moreover, it would have been, in such <i>à priori</i> argument, +ridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: for +this cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and however +supererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers, +those keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish to +serve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will be +ready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great +Cause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit), +it was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, with +an obvious somewhat of justice, pure reason may desire to begin at the +beginning. No one, who thinks at all upon religion, however +misbelieving, can entertain any mental prejudice against the existence +of a Deity, or against the received character of His attributes. Such a +man would be merely in a savage state, irrational: whilst his own mind, +so speculating, would stand itself proof positive of an Intellectual +Father; either immediately, as in the first man's case, or mediately, as +in our own, it must have sprung out of that Being, who is emphatically +the Good One—God. But if, as is possible, a mind, capable of thinking, +and keen to think on other themes, from any cause, educational or moral, +has neglected this great track of mediation, has "forgotten God," and +"had him <i>not</i> in all his thoughts," such an one I invite to walk with +me; and, in spite of all incompleteness and insufficiency, uncaptious of +much that may haply be fanciful or false, briefly and in outline to test +with me sundry probabilities of the Christian scheme, considered +antecedently to its elucidation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="A_GOD_AND_HIS_ATTRIBUTES" id="A_GOD_AND_HIS_ATTRIBUTES"></a>A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES.</h3> + + +<p>I will commence with a noble, and, as I believe, an inspired sentence: +than which no truth uttered by philosophers ever was more clearly or +more sublimely expressed. "In the beginning was the Word: and the Word +was with God; and the Word was God." In its due course, we will consider +especially the difference between the Word and God; likewise the seeming +contradiction, but true concord, of being simultaneously God, and with +God. At present, and previously to the true commencement of our <i>à +priori</i> thoughts, let us, by a word or two, paraphrase that brief but +comprehensive sentence, "In the beginning was the Word." Eternity has no +beginning, as it has no end: the clock of Time is futile there: it +<a name="Page_467" id="Page_467"></a>might as well attempt to go in vacuo. Nevertheless, in respect to +finite intelligences like ourselves, seeing that eternity is an idea +totally inconceivable, it is wise, nay it is only possible, to be +presented to the mind piecemeal. Even our deepest mathematicians do not +scruple to speak of points "infinitely remote;" as if in that phrase +there existed no contradiction of terms. So, also, we pretend in our +emptiness to talk of eternity past, time present, and eternity to come; +the fact being that, muse as a man may, he can entertain no idea of an +existence which is not measurable by time: any more than he can conceive +of a colour unconnected with the rainbow, or of a musical note beyond +the seven sounds. The plain intention of the words is this: place the +starting-post of human thought as far back into eternity as you will, be +it what man counts a thousand ages, or ten thousand times ten thousand, +or be these myriads multiplied again by millions, still, in any such +Beginning, and in the beginning of all beginnings (for so must creatures +talk)—then was God. He Was: the scholar knows full well the force of +the original term, the philological distinctions between ειμι +and γιγνομαι: well pleased, he reads as of the Divinity +ἡν, He self-existed; and equally well pleased he reads of the humanity +ἑγεννἡθη, he was born. The thought and phrase ἡν +sympathizes, if it has not an identity, with the Hebrew's unutterable +Name. <span class="smcap">He</span> then, whose title, amongst all others likewise +denoting excellence supreme and glory underivative, is essentially "I +am;" <span class="smcap">He</span> who, relatively to us as to all creation else, has a +new name wisely chosen in "the Word,"—the great expression of the idea +of God; this mighty Intelligence is found in any such beginning +self-existent. That teaching is a mere fact, known posteriorly from the +proof of all things created, as well as by many wonderful signs, and the +clear voice of revelation. We do not attempt to prove it; that were easy +and obvious: but our more difficult endeavour at present is to show how +antecedently probable it was that God should be: and that so being, He +should be invested with the reasonable attributes, wherewithal we know +His glorious Nature to be clothed.</p> + +<p>Take then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that +"originally" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter to +prove, <i>à posteriori</i>, that Something did exist; because something +exists now: every matter and every derived spirit must have had a +Father; <i>ex nihilo nihil fit</i>, is not more a truth, than that creation +must have had a Creator. However, leaving this plain path (which I only +point at by the way for obvious mental uses), let us now try to get at +<a name="Page_468" id="Page_468"></a>the great antecedent probability that in the beginning Something should +have been, rather than Nothing.</p> + +<p>The term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence, +as Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact a +negation, which must prësuppose a matter once in being and possible to +be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be +somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that +of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without +the previous idea of <i>a</i> tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, <i>ex vi +termini</i>, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, +prësupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would still +and for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for its +removal; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. The +chances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity; +and the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence. +It was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginable +beginning from which reason can start, Something should be found +existent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability.</p> + +<p>Next; of what nature and extent is this Something, this Being, likely to +be?—There will be either one such being, or many: if many, the many +either sprang from the one, or the mass are all self-existent; in the +former case, there would be a creation and a God: in the latter, there +would be many Gods. Is the latter antecedently more probable?—let us +see. First, it is evident that if many are probable, few are more +probable, and one most probable of all. The more possible gods you take +away, the more do impediments diminish; until, that is to say, you +arrive at that One Being, whom we have already proved probable. +Moreover, many must be absolutely united as one; in which case the many +is a gratuitous difficulty, because they may as well be regarded for all +purposes of worship or argument as one God: or the many must have been +in essence more or less disunited; in which case, as a state of any +thing short of pure concord carries in itself the seeds of dissolution, +needs must that one or other of the many (long before any possible +beginnings, as we count beginnings, looking down the past vista of +eternity), would have taken opportunity by such disturbing causes to +become absolute monarch: whether by peaceful persuasion, or hostile +compulsion, or other mode of absorbing disunions, would be indifferent; +if they were not all improbable, as unworthy of the God. Perpetuity of +discord is a thing impossible; every thing short of unity tends to +<a name="Page_469" id="Page_469"></a>decomposition. Any how then, given the element of eternity to work in, +a one great Supreme Being was, in the created beginning, an <i>à priori</i> +probability. That all other assumptions than that of His true and +eternal Oneness are as false in themselves as they are derogatory to the +rational views of deity, we all now see and believe; but the direct +proofs of this are more strictly matters of revelation than of reason: +albeit reason too can discern their probabilities. Wise heathens, such +as Socrates and Cicero, who had not our light, arrived nevertheless at +some of this perception; and thus, through conscience and intelligence, +became a law unto themselves: because that, to them, as now to any one +of us who may not yet have seen the light, the anterior likelihood +existed for only one God, rather than more; a likelihood which prepares +the mind to take as a fundamental truth, "The Lord our God is one +Jehovah."</p> + +<p>Next; Self-existence combined with unity must include the probable +attribute, or character, Ubiquity; as I now proceed to show. On the same +principle as that by which we have seen Something to be likelier than +Nothing, we conclude that the same Something is more probable to be +every where, than the same Nothing (if the phrase were not absurd), to +be any where: we may, so to speak, divide infinity into spaces, and +prove the position in each instance: moreover, as that Something is +essentially—not a unit as of many, but—unity involving all, it follows +as most probable that this Whole Being should be ubiquitous; in other +parlance, that the one God should be every where at once: also, there +being no limit to what we call Space, nor any imaginable hostile power +to place a constraint upon the One Great Being, this Whole Being must be +ubiquitous to a degree strictly infinite: "<span class="smcap">he</span> is in every +place, beholding the evil and the good."</p> + +<p>Such a consideration (and it is a perfectly true one) renders necessary +the next point, to wit, that God is a Spirit. No possible substance can +be every where at once: essence may, but not substance. Corporeity in +any shape must be local; local is finite; and we have just proved the +anterior probability of a One great Existence being (notwithstanding +unity of essence) infinite. Illocal and infinite are convertible terms: +spirit is illocal; and, as God is infinite—that is, illocal—it is +clear that "God is a Spirit."</p> + +<p>We have thus (not attempting to build up faith by such slight tools, but +only using them to cut away prejudice) arrived at the high probability +of a God invested with His natural qualities or attributes; +Self-existence, Unity, the faculty of being every where at once and that +<a name="Page_470" id="Page_470"></a>every where Infinitude; and essentially of a Spiritual nature, not +material. His moral, or accidental attributes (so to speak), were, +antecedently to their expression, equally easy of being proved +probable. First, with respect to Power: given no disturbing cause—(we +shall soon consider the question of permitted evil, and its origin; but +this, however disturbing to creatures, will be found not only none to +God, but, as it were, only a ray of His glory suffered to be broken for +prismatic beauty's sake, a flash of the direction of His energies +suffered to be diverted for the superior triumph of good in that day +when it shall be shown that "God hath made all things for himself, yea, +even the wicked for the time of visitation")—with the <i>datum</i> then of +no disturbing cause obstructing or opposing, an infinite being must be +able to do all things within the sphere of such infinity: in other +phrase, He must be all-powerful. Just so, an impetus in vacuity suffers +no check, but ever sails along among the fleet of worlds; and the innate +Impulse of the Deity must expand and energize throughout that +infinitude, Himself. For a like reason of ubiquity, God must know all +things: it is impossible to escape from the strong likelihood that any +intelligent being must be conversant of what is going on under his very +eye. Again; in the case both of Power and Knowledge, alike with the +coming attributes of Goodness and Wisdom—(wisdom considered as morally +distinct from mere knowledge or awaredness; it being quite possible to +conceive a cold eye seeing all things heedlessly, and a clear mind +knowing all things heartlessly)—in the case, I say, of all these +accidental attributes, there recurs for argument, one analogous to that +by which we showed the anterior probability of a self-existence. Things +positive must precede things negative. Sight must have been, before +blindness is possible; and before we can arrive at a just idea of no +sight. Power must be precursor to an abstraction from power, or +weakness. The minor-existence of ignorance is an impossibility, unless +you prëallow the major-existence of wisdom; for it amounts to a debasing +or a diminution of wisdom. Sin is well defined to be, the transgression +of law; for without law, there can be no sin. So, also, without wisdom, +there can be no ignorance; without power, there can be no weakness; +without goodness, there can be no evil.</p> + +<p>Furthermore. An affirmative—such as wisdom, power, goodness—can exist +absolutely; it is in the nature of a Something: but a negative—such as +ignorance, weakness, evil—can only exist relatively; and it would, +indeed, be a Nothing, were it not for the previous and now <a name="Page_471" id="Page_471"></a>simultaneous +existence of its wiser, stronger, and better origin. Abstract evil is as +demonstrably an impossibility as abstract ignorance, or abstract +weakness. If evil could have self-existed, it would in the moment of its +eternal birth have demolished itself. Virtue's intrinsic concord tends +to perpetual being: vice's innate discord struggles always with a force +towards dissolution. Goodness, wisdom, power have existences, and have +had existences from all eternity, though gulphed within the Godhead; and +that, whether evidenced in act or not: but their corruptions have had no +such original existence, but are only the same entities perverted. Love +would be love still, though there were no existent object for its +exercise: Beauty would be beauty still, though there were no created +thing to illustrate its fairness: Power would be power still, though +there be no foe to combat, no difficulty to be overcome. Hatred, +ill-favour, weakness, are only perversions or diminutions of these. +Power exists independently of muscles or swords or screws or levers; +love, independently of kind thoughts, words, and actions; beauty, +independently of colours, shapes, and adaptations. Just so is Wisdom +philosophically spoken of by a truly royal and noble author:</p> + +<p>"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out the knowledge of clever +inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; I +have strength. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before +his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or +ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; +before the mountains were fixed, or the hills were made. When He +prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face +of the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened +the foundations of the deep: Then was I by him, as one brought up with +him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing +in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons +of men."</p> + +<p>King Solomon well knew of Whom he wrote thus nobly. Eternal wisdom, +power, and goodness, all prospectively thus yearning upon man, and +incorporate in One, whose name, among his many names, is Wisdom. Wisdom, +as a quality, existed with God; and, constituting full pervasion of his +essence, was God.</p> + +<p>But to return, and bind to a conclusion our ravelled thoughts. As, +originally, the self-existent being, unbounded, all-knowing, might take +up, so to speak, if He willed, these eternal affirmative excellences of +wisdom, power, and goodness; and as these, to every rational +appre<a name="Page_472" id="Page_472"></a>hension, are highly worthy of his choice, whereas their derivative +and inferior corruptions would have been most derogatory to any +reasonable estimate of His character; how much more likely was it that +He should prefer the higher rather than the lower, should take the +affirmative before the negative, should "choose the good, and refuse the +evil,"—than endure to be endowed with such garbled, demoralizing, +finite attributes as those wherewith the heathen painted the Pantheon. +What high antecedent probability was there, that if a God should be (and +this we have proved highly probable too)—He should be One, ubiquitous, +self-existent, spiritual: that He should be all-mighty, all-wise, and +all-good?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_TRIUNITY" id="THE_TRIUNITY"></a>THE TRIUNITY.</h3> + + +<p>Another deep and inscrutable topic is now to engage our thoughts—the +mystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, the +Christian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them with +reverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any such +mind will be courteous enough to his friendly opponent, and wise enough +respecting his own interest and safety lest these things be true, to +enter upon all such subjects with the seriousness befitting their +importance, and with the restraining thought that in fact they may be +sacred.</p> + +<p>Let us then consider, antecedently to all experience, with what sort of +deity pure reason would have been satisfied. It has already arrived at +Unity, and the foregoing attributes. But what kind of Unity is probable? +Unity of Person, or unity of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easily +understandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness, +which yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its own +expansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert the +superior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us come +then to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to be +supposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yet +he must be one: and oneness is the idea most easily apprehended of all +possible ideas. The meanest of intellectual creatures could comprehend +his Maker, and in so far top his heights, if God, being truly one in one +view, were yet only one in every view: if, that is to say, there existed +no mystery incidental to his nature: nay, if that <a name="Page_473" id="Page_473"></a>mystery did not +amount to the difficulty of a seeming contradiction. I judge it likely, +and with confidence, that Reason would prërequire for his God, a Being, +at once infinitely easy to be apprehended by the lowest of His spiritual +children, and infinitely difficult to be comprehended by the highest of +His seraphim. Now, there can be guessed only two ways of compassing such +a prërequirement: one, a moral way; such as inventing a deity who could +be at once just and unjust, every where and no where, good and evil, +powerful and weak; this is the heathen phase of Numen's character, and +is obviously most objectionable in every point of view: the other would +be a physical way; such as requiring a God who should be at once +material and immaterial, abstraction and concretion; or, for a still +more confounding paradox to Reason (considered as antagonist to Faith, +in lieu of being strictly its ally), an arithmetical contradiction, an +algebraic mystery, such as would be included in the idea of Composite +Unity; one involving many, and many collapsed into one. Some such enigma +was probable in Reason's guess at the nature of his God. It is the +Christian way; and one entirely unobjectionable: because it is the only +insuperable difficulty as to His Nature which does not debase the notion +of Divinity. But there are also other considerations.</p> + +<p>For, secondly. The self-existent One is endowed, as we found probable, +with abundant loving-kindness, goodness overflowing and perpetual. Is it +reasonable to conceive that such a character could for a moment be +satisfied with absolute solitariness? that infinite benevolence should, +in any possible beginning, be discovered existent in a sort of selfish +only-oneness? Such a supposition is, to the eye of even unenlightened +Reason, so clearly a <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>, that men in all countries +and ages have been driven to invent a plurality of Gods, for very +society sake: and I know not but that they are anteriorly wiser and more +rational than the man who believes in a Benevolent Existence eternally +one, and no otherwise than one. Let me not be mistaken to imply that +there was any likelihood of many cöexistent gods: that was a reasonable +improbability, as we have already seen, perhaps a spiritual +impossibility: but the anterior likelihood of which I speak goes to +show, that in One God there should be more than one cöexistence: each, +by arithmetical mystery, but not absurdity, pervading all, cöequals, +each being God, and yet not three Gods, but one God. That there should +be a rational difficulty here—or, rather, an irrational one—I have +shown to be Reason's prërequirement: and if such a one as I, or any +other crea<a name="Page_474" id="Page_474"></a>ture, could now and here (ay, or any when or any where, in +the heights of highest heaven, and the far-stretching distance of +eternity) solve such intrinsic difficulty, it would demonstrably be one +not worthy of its source, the wise design of God: it would prove that +riddle read, which uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling of +the creature mind. No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far more +reverent, to acquiesce in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable from +the nature of the Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, and +indulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of nobler +intelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and to +exercise withal their keen and lofty minds.</p> + +<p>But we have not yet done. Some further thoughts remain to be thrown out +in the third place, as to the prëconceivable fitness or propriety of +that Holy Union, which we call the trinity of Persons who constitute the +Self-existent One. If God, being one in one sense, is yet likely to +appear, humanly speaking, more than one in another sense; we have to +inquire anteriorly of the probable nature of such other intimate Being +or Beings: as also, whether such addition to essential oneness is likely +itself to be more than one or only one. As to the former of these +questions: if, according to the presumption of reason (and according +also to what we have since learned from revelation; but there may be +good policy in not dotting this book with chapter and verse)—if the +Deity thus loved to multiply Himself; then He, to whom there can exist +no beginning, must have so loved, so determined, and so done from all +eternity. Now, any conceivable creation, however originated, must have +had a beginning, place it as far back as you will. In any succession of +numbers, however infinitely they may stretch, the commencement at least +is a fixed point, one. But, this multiplication of</p> + +<p>Deity, this complex simplicity, this intricate easiness, this obvious +paradox, this sub-division and con-addition of a One, must have taken +place, so soon as ever eternal benevolence found itself alone; that is, +in eternity, and not in any imaginable time. So then, the Being or +Beings would probably not have been creative, but of the essence of +Deity. Take also for an additional argument, that it is an idea which +detracts from every just estimate of the infinite and all-wise God to +suppose He should take creatures into his eternal counsels, or consort, +so to speak, familiarly with other than the united sub-divisions, +persons, and cöequals of Himself. It was reasonable to prëjudge that the +everlasting companions of Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus, +it appears antecedently <a name="Page_475" id="Page_475"></a>probable that (what from the poverty of +language we must call) the multiplication of the one God should not have +been created beings; that is, should have been divine; a term, which +includes, as of right, the attribution to each such Holy Person, of all +the wondrous characteristics of the Godhead.</p> + +<p>Again: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-called +sub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think it +will be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfect +number; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties; +nor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to be +discerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the consideration +that every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a consequence: +neither, to draw any inferences from the social maxim that for counsel, +companionship, and conversation, the number three has some special +fitness. Some other similar fancies, not altogether valueless, might be +alluded to. It seems preferable, however, on so grand a theme, to +attempt a deeper dive, and a higher flight. We would then, reverently as +always, albeit equally as always with the free-born boldness of God's +intellectual children, attempt to prëjudge how many, and with what +distinctive marks, the holy beings into whom (ὡϛ ἑποϛ ειπἑιν) +God, for very Benevolence sake, pours out Essential Unity, were likely +to be.</p> + +<p>Let us consider what principles, as in the case of a forthcoming +creation, would probably be found in action, to influence such +creation's Author.</p> + +<p>First of all, there would be Will, a will energized by love, disposing +to create: a phase of Deity aptly and comprehensively typified to all +minds by the name of a universal Father: this would be the primary +impersonation of God. And is it not so?</p> + +<p>Secondly: there would be (with especial reference to that idea of +creation which doubtless at most remote beginnings occupied the Good +One's contemplation), there would be next, I repeat, in remarkable +adaptation to all such benevolent views, the great idea of principle, +Obedience; conforming to a Father's righteous laws, acquiescing in his +just will, and returning love for love: such a phase could not be better +shadowed out to creatures than by an Eternal Son; the dutiful yet +supreme, the subordinate yet cöequal, the amiable yet exalted Avatar of +our God. This was probable to have been the second impersonation of +Deity. And is it not so?</p> + +<p>Thirdly: Springing from the conjoint ideas of the Father and the<a name="Page_476" id="Page_476"></a> Son, +and with similar prospection to such instantly creative universe, there +would occur the grand idea of Generation; the mighty cöequal, pure, and +quickening Impulse: aptly announced to men and angels as the Holy +Spirit. This was to have been the third impersonation of Divinity. And +is it not so?</p> + +<p>Of all these—under illumination of the fore-known fact, I speak, in +their aspect of anterior probability. With respect to more possible +Persons, I at least cannot invent one. There is, to my reflection, +neither need nor fitness for a fourth, or any further Principle. If +another can, let him look well that he be not irrationally demolishing +an attribute and setting it up as a principle. Obedience is not an +attribute; nor Generation; nor Will: whilst the attribute of Love, +pervading all, sets these only possible three Principles going together +as One in a mysterious harmony. I would not be misunderstood; persons +are not principles; but principles may be illustrated and incorporative +in persons. Essential Love, working distinctively throughout the Three, +unites them instinctively as One: even as the attribute Wisdom designs, +and the attribute Power arranges all the scheme of Godhead.</p> + +<p>And now I ask Reason, whether, prësupposing keenness, he might not have +arrived by calculation of probabilities at the likelihood of these great +doctrines: that the nature of God would be an apparent contradiction: +that such contradiction should not be moral, but physical; or rather +verging towards the metaphysical, as immaterial and more profound: that +God, being One, should yet, in his great Love, marvellously have been +companioned from eternity by Himself: and that such Holy and United +Confraternity should be so wisely contrived as to serve for the bright +unapproachable exemplar of love, obedience, and generation to all the +future universe, such Triunity Itself existing uncreated.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_GODHEAD_VISIBLE" id="THE_GODHEAD_VISIBLE"></a>THE GODHEAD VISIBLE.</h3> + + +<p>We have hitherto mused on the Divinity, as on Spirit invested with +attributes: and this idea of His nature was enough for all requirements +antecedently to a creation. At whatever beginning we may suppose such +creation to have commenced, whether countless ages before our present +κὁσμοϛ, or only a sufficient time to have prepared the crust of +earth; and to whatever extent we may imagine creation to have spread, +whether in those remote periods originally to our system alone and at +after <a name="Page_477" id="Page_477"></a>eras to its accompanying stars and galaxies and firmaments; or at +one and the same moment to have poured material existence over space to +which our heavens are as nothing: whatever, and whenever, and wherever +creation took place, it would appear to be probable that some one person +of the Deity should, in a sort, become more or less concretely +manifested; that is, in a greater or a minor degree to such created +minds and senses visible. Moreover, for purposes at least of a +concentrated worship of such creatures, that He should occasionally, or +perhaps habitually, appear local. I mean, that the King of all spiritual +potentates and the subordinate Excellencies of brighter worlds than +ours, the Sovereign of those whom we call angels, should will to be +better known to and more aptly conceived by such His admiring creatures, +in some usual glorious form, and some wonted sacred place. Not that any +should see God, as purely God; but, as God relatively to them, in the +capacity of King, Creator, and the Object of all reasonable worship. It +seems anteriorly probable that one at least of the Persons in the +Godhead should for this purpose assume a visibility; and should hold His +court of adoration in some central world, such as now we call +indefinitely Heaven. That such probability did exist in the human +forecast, as concerns a heaven and the form of God, let the testimony of +all nations now be admitted to corroborate. Every shape from a cloud to +a crocodile, and every place from Æther to Tartarus, have been peopled +by man's not quite irrational device with their so-called gods. But we +must not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is our +harder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt the +probabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a more +distant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility that +there should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein he +would be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such his +creatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being finite, +can only comprehend the infinite in his attribute of unity: the other +attributes being apprehended (or comprehended partially) in finite +phases. But, unity being a purely intellectual thought, one high and dry +beyond the moral feelings, involves none of the requisites of a +spiritual, that is an affectionate, worship; such worship as it was +likely that a beneficent Being would, for his creatures' own elevation +in happiness, command and inspire towards Himself. In order, therefore, +to such worship and such inspiration acting through reason, it would +appear fitting that the Deity should manifest Himself especially with +reference to that heavenly Ex<a name="Page_478" id="Page_478"></a>emplar, the Three Divine Persons of the +One Supreme Essence already shown to have been probable. And it seems +likeliest and discreetest to my thinking, that, with this view, the +secondary phase, loving Obedience, under the dictate of the primary +phase, a loving Will, and energized by the tertiary or conjoining phase +a loving Quickening Entity, should assume the visible type of Godhead, +and thus concentrate unto Himself the worship of all worlds. I can +conceive no scheme more simply profound, more admirably suited to its +complex purposes, than that He, in whom dwelt the fullness of the +Godhead, bodily, should take the form of God, in order that unto Him +every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and +things in regions under the earth. Was not all this reasonably to have +been looked for? and tested afterwards by Scripture, in its frequent +allusions to some visible phase of Deity, when the Lord God walked with +Adam, and Enoch, and Abraham, and Peter, and James, and John—I ask, is +it not the case?</p> + +<p>The latter point remaining to be thus briefly touched upon, respects the +probable shape to be assumed and worn, familiarly enough to be +recognised as His, by Deity thus vouchsafing Himself visible. And here +we must look down the forward stream of Time, and search among the +creatures whom thereafter God should make, to arrive at some good reason +for, some antecedent probability of, the form which he should thus +frequently inhabit. Fire, for example, a pure and spirit-like nature, +would not have been a guess unworthy of reason: but this, besides its +humbler economic uses, would endanger an idolatry of the natural emblem. +So also would light be no irrational thought. And it is true that God +might, and probably would, invest Himself in one or both of these pure +essences, so seemingly congenial to a nature higher than ours: but then +there would be some nucleus to the brilliancy and the burning; these +would be as a veil to the Divinity; we should have need, before He were +truly visible, that the veil were laid aside: we should have to shred +away to the nucleus, which (and not the fire or light) would be the form +of God. Similar objections, in themselves or in their idolatrizing +tendencies, would lie against any such shape as a cloud, or a rainbow, +or an angel (whatever such a being may resemble), or in fact any other +conceivable creature, whether good as the angelic case or indifferent as +that of the cloud, which the Deity, though assuming often, would +nevertheless in every instance assume in conjunction with such his +ordinary creature, and could not entirely monopolize. I mean; if God had +the shape of a cloud, or of a rainbow, common clouds and <a name="Page_479" id="Page_479"></a>rainbows would +come to be thought gods too. Reason would anticipate this objection to +such created and too-favoured shapes: more; in every case, but one, he +would be quite at a loss to look for some type, clearly apt and +probable. That one case he might discern to be this. Known unto God are +all things from the beginning to the end: and, in His fore-knowledge, +Reason might have been enlightened to prophesy (as we shall hereafter +see) that for certain wise and good ends one great family out of the +myriads who rejoice in being called God's children, would in a most +marked manner fall away from Him through disobedience; and should +thereby earn, if not the annihilation of their being, at least its +endless separation from the Blessed. Manifestly, the wisdom and +benevolence of God would be eager and swift to devise a plan for the +redemption of so lost a race. Why He should permit their fall at all +will be reverentially descanted on in its proper section; meanwhile, how +is it probable that God, first, by any theory consistently with truth +and justice, could, and next by power and contrivance actually would, +lift up again this sinful family from the pit of condemnation? Reason is +to search the question well: and after much thought, you will arrive at +the truth that there was but one way probable. Rebellion against the +Great and Self-existent Author of all things, must needfully involve +infinite punishment; if only because He is infinite, and his laws of an +eternal sanction. The problem then was, how to inflict the unbounded +punishment thus claimed by justice for a transgressional condition, and +yet at love's demand to set the prisoner free: how to be just, and +simultaneously justifier of the guilty. That was a question +magnificently solved by God alone: magnificently about to be solved, as +according to our argument seemed probable, by God Triune, in wondrous +self-involving council. The solution would be rationally this. Himself, +in his character of filial obedience, should pay the utter penalty to +Himself in his character of paternal authority, whilst Himself in the +character of quickening spirit, should restore the ransomed family from +death to life, from the power of evil unto good. Was not this a most +probable, a most reasonably probable scheme? was it not altogether wise +and philosophical, as well as entirely generous and kind to wretched +men?</p> + +<p>And (returning to our present topic), was it not antecedently to have +been expected that God the Son (so to put it) should, in the shape He +was thereafter to assume upon earth, appear upon the eternal throne of +heaven? In a shape, however glorified and etherealized, with glistening +countenance and raiment bright as the light, nevertheless resembling +<a name="Page_480" id="Page_480"></a>that more humble form, the Son of Man, who was afterwards thus by a +circle of probabilities to be made in the form of God; in a shape, not +liable, from its very sinfulness, to the deification either of other +worlds or of this [hero-worship is another and a lower thing altogether; +we speak here of true idolatries:]—was it unlikely, I say, that in such +a shape Deity should have deigned to become visible, and have blazed +Manifested God, the central Sun of Heaven?—This probability, prior to +our forth-flowing thoughts on the Incarnation, though in some measure +anticipating them, will receive further light from the views soon to be +set forth. I know not but that something is additionally due to the +suggestion following; namely: that, raise our swift imagination to what +height we may, and stretch our searching reason to the uttermost, we +cannot, despite of all inventive energies and powers of mind, conceive +any shape more beautiful, more noble, more worthy for a rational +intelligence to dwell in, more in one Homeric word Θεοειδἑϛ, +than the glorified and etherealized human form divine. Let this serve as +Reason's short reply to any charge of anthropomorphism in the doctrines +of his creed: it was probable that God should be revealed to His +creation; and as to the form of any such revealed essence in any such +infinite beginnings of His work, the most likely of all would appear to +be that one, wherein He, in the ages then to come, was well resolved to +earn the most glorious of all triumphs, the merciful reconciliation of +everlasting justice with everlasting love, the wise and wondrous scheme +of God forgiving sinners.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_ORIGIN_OF_EVIL" id="THE_ORIGIN_OF_EVIL"></a>THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.</h3> + + +<p>It will now be opportune to attempt elucidation of one of the darkest +and deepest riddles ever propounded to the finite understanding; the <i>à +priori</i> likelihood of evil: not, mind, its eternal existence, which is a +false doctrine; but its probable procession from the earliest created +beings, which is a true one.</p> + +<p>At first sight, nothing could appear more improbable: nothing more +inconsistent with the recognised attributes of God, than that error, +pain, and sorrow should be mingled in His works. These, the spontaneous +offspring of His love, one might (not all wisely) argue, must always be +good and happy—because perfect as Himself. Because perfect?—<a name="Page_481" id="Page_481"></a> Therein +lies the fallacy, which reason will at once lay bare. Perfection is +attributable to no possible creature: perfection argues infinity, and +infinity is one of the prerogatives of God. However good, "very good," a +creation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fall +short of that Best, which is in effect the only state purely +unexceptionable. For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdom +undiminished from the single true standard, God's wisdom: in other +phrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, that +is, verging towards folly. Again; no creature can be presumed of a +purity so spotless as to rank in an equality with that of the Almighty: +in other words, neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature, can +exist who is not more or less—I will not say impure, positively, +but—unpure negatively. Thus, the birth-mark of creation must have been +an inclination towards folly, and from purity. The mere idea of +creatures would involve, as its great need-be, the qualifying clause +that these emanations from perfection be imperfect; and that these +children of purity be liable to grow unpure. They must either be thus +natured, or exist of the essence of God, that is, be other persons and +phases of the Deity: such a case was possible certainly; but, as we have +already shown, not probable. And it were possible, that, in consequence +of some redemption such as we have spoken of, creatures might by +ingraftation into God become so entirely part of Him—bone of bone, and +flesh of flesh, and spirit of spirit—that an exhortation to such blest +beings should reasonably run, "Be ye perfect." But this infinite +munificence of the Godhead in redemption was not to be found among His +bounties as Creator. It might indeed arise afterwards, as setting up +again the fallen creature in some safe niche of Deity: and we now know +it has arisen: "we are complete in Him."</p> + +<p>But this, though relevant, is a digression. Returning, and to produce +some further argument against all creature perfectness; let us consider +how rational it seems to prësuppose that the mighty Maker in his +boundless love should have willed to form a long chain of classes of +existence more and more subordinated each to the other, each good of its +kind and happy in its way, but yet all needfully more or less removed +from the high standard of uncreate Perfection. These descending links, +these graduations downwards, must involve a nearer or remoter approach +to evil. Now, we must bear in mind that Evil is not a principle, but a +perversion: it amounts merely to a denial, a limitation, a corruption of +good, not to the dignity of its abstract antagonism. Familiarly, but +<a name="Page_482" id="Page_482"></a>fallaciously, we talk of the evil principle, the contradictory to good: +we might as well talk of the nosologic principle, the contradictory to +health; or the darkness principle, the contradictory to light. They are +contraries, but not contradictories: they have no positive, but only a +relative existence. Good and evil are verily foes, but originally there +was one cemented friendship: slender beginnings consequent on a +creation, began to cause the breach: the civil war arose out of a state +of primitive peace: images betray us into errors, or I might add with a +protest against the risk of being misinterpreted, that like brothers +turned to a deadly hate, they nevertheless sprang not originally out of +two hostile and opposite hemispheres, but from one paternal hearth. Not, +however, in any sense that God is the author of evil; but that God's +workmanship, the finite creature, needfully perverted good.</p> + +<p>The origin of evil—that is, its birth—is a term true and clear: +original evil—that is, giving it no birth but an antedate to all +created things, suffering it to run parallel with God and good from all +eternity—this is a term false and misty. The probability that good +would be warped, and grow deteriorate; that wisdom would be dwindled +down into less and less wisdom, or foolishness; and power degenerated +more and more towards imbecility; must arise, directly a creature should +spring out of the Creator; and that, let astronomy or geology name any +date they will: Adam is a definite date; perhaps also the first +day's—or period's—work: but the Beginning of Creation is undated. It +would then, under this impression of the necessary defalcation of the +creature from the strict straight line, be rational to look for +deviations: it would be rational to prësuppose that God—just, and good, +and pure, and wise—should righteously be able to "charge his angels +with folly," should verily declare that "the heavens are not pure in his +sight."</p> + +<p>Further; it would be a possible chance (which considerations soon +succeeding would render even probable) that for a wise humiliation of +the reasoning creature, and a just exaltation of the only Source of life +and light and all things, one or more of such first created beings, or +angels, should be suffered to fall, possibly from the vastest height, +and at first by the slenderest beginnings, lower and lower into folly, +impurity, and all other derelictions from the excellence of God. The +lines, once unparalleled, would, without a check, go further apart for +all eternity; albeit, the primal deviation arose in time. The aerolite, +dropping slowly at first, increases in swiftness as it multiplies the +fathoms of descent: and if the abyss be really bottomless, how +impossible a check or a return.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483"></a>Some such terrible example would amount to a reasonable likelihood, if +only for a lesson and a warning: to all intelligent hierarchs, be not +high-minded, but fear; to all responsible beings, keep righteousness and +reverence, and tempt not God; to all the Virtues, Dominations, +Obediences, and due Subordinations of unknown glorious worlds, a loud +and living exhortation to exercise, and not to let grow dim their +spiritual energies, in efforts after goodness, wisdom, and purity. A +creature state, to be happy, must be a progressive state: the capability +of progression argues lack, or a tendency from good: and progression +itself needs a spur, lest indolence relapse towards evil.</p> + +<p>Additionally: we must remember that a creature's excellence before God +is the reasonable service which he freely renders: freedom, dangerous +prerogative, involves choice: and choice necessitates the possibility of +error. The command to a rational intelligence would be, do this, and +live; do it not, and die: if thou doest, it is well done, good and +faithful servant; thou hast mounted by thine own heaven-blest exertions +to a higher approach towards infinite perfection; enter thou into the +joy, not merely of a creature, but of thy Lord. But, if thou doest not, +it is wo to thee, unworthy hireling; thou hast broken the tie that bound +thee to thy Maker—obedience, the root of happiness; thou livest on +indeed, because the Former of all things cancelleth not nor endeth his +beginning; but henceforth thine existence is, as a river which +earthquakes have divorced from its bed, and instead of flowing on for +ever through the fair pastures of peace and among the mountain roots of +everlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong, +turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic +marshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless +stream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours +its unresting waters into the thirsty sands of the Sahara.</p> + +<p>It was indeed probable (as since we know it to be true) that the +generous Giver of all things would in the vast majority of cases +minister such secret help to His weaker spiritual children, that, far +from failing of continuous obedience, they should find it so unceasingly +easier and happier that their very natures would soon come to be imbued +with that pervading habit: and that thus, the longer any creature stood +upright, the stronger should he rest in righteousness; until, at no very +distant period, it should become morally impossible for him to fall. +Such would soon be the condition of myriads, perhaps almost the whole, +of heaven's innumerable host: and with respect to any darker Unit in +<a name="Page_484" id="Page_484"></a>that multitude, for the good of all permitted to make early shipwreck +of himself, simply by leaving his intelligence to plume its wings into +presumptuous flight, and by allowing his pristine goodness or wisdom to +grow rusty from non-usage until that sacred panoply were eaten into +holes; with respect to any such unhappy one, and all others (if others +be) who should listen to his glozing, and make a common cause in his +rebellion, where, I ask, is any injustice, or even unkindness done to +him by Deity? Where is any moral improbability that such a traitor +should be; or any just inconsistency chargeable on the attributes of God +in consequence of such his being? Whom can he in reason accuse but +himself for what he is? And what misery can such a one complain of, +which is not the work of his own hands? And lest the Great Offender +should urge against his God, why didst thou make me thus?—Is not the +answer obvious, I made thee, but not thus. And on the rejoinder, Why +didst thou not keep me as thou madest me? Is not the reply just, I made +thee reasonable, I led thee to the starting place, I taught thee and set +thee going well in the beginning; thou art intelligent and free, and +hast capacities of Mine own giving: wherefore didst thou throw aside My +grace, and fly in the face of thy Creator?</p> + +<p>On the whole; consider that I speak only of probabilities. There is a +depth in this abyss of thought, which no human plummet is long enough to +sound; there is a maze in this labyrinth to be tracked by no mortal +clue. It involves the truth, How unsearchable are his judgments: Thou +hidest thy ways in the sea, and thy paths in the deep waters, and thy +footsteps are not known. The weak point of man's argument lies in the +suggested recollection, that doubtless the Deity could, if He would, +have upheld all the universe from falling by his gracious power; and +that the attribute of love concludes that so He would. However, these +three brief considerations further will go some way to solve the +difficulty, and to strengthen the weak point; first, there are other +attributes besides love to run concurrently with it, as truth, justice, +and unchangeableness:—Secondly, that grace is not grace, if manifested +indiscriminately to all: and thirdly, that to our understanding at least +there was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities of +Goodness, and the contrivances of Wisdom, but by the infused permission +of some physical and moral evils: Mercy, benevolence, design, would in a +universe of best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow +stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's +excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is <a name="Page_485" id="Page_485"></a>not +then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was +not such existence an antecedent probability?</p> + +<p>Of these matters, thus curtly: it is time, in a short recapitulation, to +reflect, that, from foregoing causes, mysteries were probable around the +throne of heaven: and, as I have attempted to show, the mystery of +imperfection, a concrete not an abstract, was likely to have sprung out +of any creature universe. Reason perceives that a Gordion knot was +likely to have become entangled; in the intricate complexities of +abounding good to be mingled needfully with its own deficiencies, +corruptions, and perversions: and this having been shown by Reason as +anteriorly probable, its difficult involvements are now since cut by the +sword of conquering Faith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="COSMOGONY" id="COSMOGONY"></a>COSMOGONY.</h3> + + +<p>These deep themes having been descanted on, however from their nature +unsatisfactorily and with whatever human weakness, let us now endeavour +mentally to transport ourselves to a period immediately antecedent to +our own world's birth. We should then have been made aware that a great +event was about to take place; whereat, from its foreseen consequences, +the hierarchies of heaven would be prompt to shout for joy, and the holy +ones of God to sing for gratitude. It was no common case of a creation; +no merely onemore orb, of third-rate unimportance, amongst the million +others of higher and more glorious praise: but it was a globe and a race +about to be unique in character and fate, and in the far-spread results +of their existence. On it and of its family was to be contrived the +scene, wherein, to the admiration of the universe, God himself in Person +was going visibly to make head against corruption in creation, and for +ever thus to quench that possibility again: wherein He was marvellously +to invent and demonstrate how Mercy and Truth should meet together, how +Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other. There, was going to be +set forth the wonderfully complicated battle-plan, by which, force +countervailing force, and design converging all things upon one fixed +point, Good, concrete in the creature, should overwhelm not without +strife and wounds Evil concrete in the creature, and all things, "even +the wicked," should be seen harmoniously blending in the glory of the +attributes of God. The mythologic<a name="Page_486" id="Page_486"></a> Pan, το πἁν the great +Universal All, was deeply interested in the struggle: for the seed of +the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; not merely as respected the +small orb about to be, but concerning heaven itself, the unbounded +"haysh hamaim," wherefrom dread Lucifer was thus to be ejected. On the +earth, a mere planet of humble lustre, which the prouder suns around +might well despise, was to be exhibited this noble and analogous result; +the triumph of a lower intelligence, such as man, over a higher +intelligence, such as angel: because, the former race, however frail, +however weak, were to find their nature taken into God, and should have +for their grand exemplar, leader and brother, the Very Lord of all +arrayed in human guise; while the latter, the angelic fallen mass, in +spite of all their pristine wisdom and excellency, were to set up as +their captain him, who may well and philosophically be termed their +Adversary.</p> + +<p>This dark being, probably the mightiest of all mere creatures as the +embodiment of corrupted good and perversion of an archangelic wisdom, +was about to be suffered to fall victim to his own overtopping +ambitions, and to drag with him a third part of the heavenly host—some +tributary monarchs of the stars: thus he, and those his colleagues, +should become a spectacle and a warning to all creatures else; to stand +for spirits' reading in letters of fire a deeply burnt-in record how +vast a gulf there is between the Maker and the made; how impassable a +barrier between the derived intelligence and its infinite Creator. Such +an unholy leader in rebellion against good—let us call him <i>A</i> or <i>B</i>, +or why not for very euphony's sake Lucifer and Satanas?—such a +corrupted excellence of heaven was to meet his final and inevitable +disgrace to all eternity on the forthcoming battle-field of earth. Would +it not be probable then that our world, soon to be fashioned and stocked +with its teeming reasonable millions, should concentrate to itself the +gaze of the universe, and, from the deeds to be done in it, should +arrogate towards man a deep and fixed attention: that "the morning stars +should sing together, and all the sons of God should shout for joy." Let +us too, according to the power given to us, partake of such attention +antecedently in some detail: albeit, as always, very little can be +tracked of the length and breadth of our theme.</p> + +<p>What would probably be the nature of such world and of such creatures, +in a physical point of view? and what, in a moral point of view? It is +not necessary to divide these questions: for the one so bears upon the +other, or rather the latter so directs and pervades the former, that we +may briefly treat of both as one.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487"></a>The first probability would be, that, as the creature Man so to be +abased and so to be exalted must be a responsible and reasonable being, +every thing—with miraculous exceptions just enough to prove the +rule—every thing around him should also be responsible and reasonable. +In other words, that, with such exceptions as before alluded to, the +whole texture of this world should bear to an inquisitive intellect the +stamp of cause and effect: whilst for the mass, such cause and effect +should be so little intrusive, that their easier religion might +recognise God in all things immediately, rather than mediately. For +instance: take the cases of stone, and of coal; the one so needful for +man's architecture, the other for his culinary warmth. Now, however +simple piety might well thank the Maker for having so stored earth with +these for necessary uses; they ought, to a more learned, though not less +pious ken, to seem not to have been created by an effort of the Great +Father <i>quâ stone</i>, or <i>quâ coal</i>. Such a view might satisfy the +ordinary mind: but thinkers would see no occasion for a miracle; when +Christ raises Lazarus from the dead, it would have been a philosophical +fault to have found the grave-clothes and swathing bandages ready +loosened also. Unassisted man can do that: and unhelped common causes +can generate stone and coal. The deposits of undated floods, the +periodical currents of lava, the still and stagnant lake, and the +furious up-bursting earthquake; all these would be called into play, and +not the unrequired, I had almost said unreasonable, energies, which we +call miracle. An agglutination of shells, once peopled with life; a +crystallized lump of segregate minerals, once in a molten state; a mass +of carbonated foliage and trunks of tropical trees, buried by long +changes under the soil, whereover they had once waved greenly luxuriant; +these, and no other, should have been man's stone and coal. This +instance affects the reasonableness of such material creation. Take +another, bearing upon its analogous responsibilities. As there was to be +warred in this world the contest between good and evil, it would be +expectable that the crust of man's earth, anteriorly to man's existence +on it, should be marked with some traces that the evil, though newly +born so far as might regard man's own disobedience, nevertheless had +existed antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there should +exist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the gigantic +ichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closed +upon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks of +having desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoes +should have ravaged fair continents <a name="Page_488" id="Page_488"></a>prolific of animal and vegetable +life: that, in fine, though man's death came by man's sin, yet that +death and sin were none of man's creating: he was only to draw down upon +his head a prëexistent wo, an ante-toppling rock. Observe then, that +these geological phenomena are only illustrations of my meaning: and +whether such parables be true or false, the argument remains the same: +we never build upon the sand of simile, but only use it here and there +for strewing on the floor. Still, I will acknowledge that the +introduction of such fossil instances appears to me wisely thrown in as +affects their antecedent probability, because ignorant comments upon +scriptural cosmogony have raised the absurdest objections against the +truth of scriptural science. There is not a tittle of known geological +fact, which is not absolutely reconcilable with Genesis and Job. But +this is a word by the way: although aimed not without design against one +of the poor and paltry weak-holds of the infidel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ADAM" id="ADAM"></a>ADAM.</h3> + + +<p>Remembering, then, that these are probabilities, and that the whole +treatise purports to be nothing but a sketch, and not a finished +picture, we have suggestively thus thrown out that the material world, +man's home as man, was likely to have been prepared, as we posteriorly +know it to be. Now, what of man's own person, circumstances, and +individuality? Was it likely that the world should be stocked at once +with many several races, or with one prolific seed? with a specimen of +every variety of the genus man, or with the one generic type capable of +forming those varieties?—Answer. One is by far the likelier in itself, +because one thing must needs be more probable than many things: +additionally; Wisdom and Power are always economical, and where one will +suit the purpose, superfluities are rejected. That this one seed, +covering with its product a various globe under all imaginable +differences of circumstance and climate, should, in the lapse of ages, +generate many species of the genus Man, was antecedently probable. For +example, morality, peace and obedience would exercise transforming +powers: their opposites the like in an opposite way. We can well fancy a +mild and gentle race, as the Hindoo, to spring from the former +educationals: and a family with flashing eyes and strongly-visaged +natures, as the Malay, from a state of hatred, war, and license. We can +well conceive <a name="Page_489" id="Page_489"></a>that a tropical sun should carbonize some of that tender +fabric the skin, adding also swift blood and fierce passions: while an +arctic climate would induce a sluggish, stunted race. And, when to these +considerations we add that of promiscuous unions, we arrive at the just +likelihood that the whole family of man, though springing from one root, +should, in the course of generations, be what now we see it.</p> + +<p>Further. How should this prolific original, the first man, be created? +and for a name let us call him Adam; a justly-chosen name enough, as +alluding to his medium colour, ruddiness. Should he have been cast upon +the ground an infant, utterly helpless, requiring miraculous aid and +guidance at every turn? Should he be originated in boyhood, that hot and +tumultuous time, when the creature is most rash, and least qualified for +self-government? or should he be first discerned as an adult, in his +prime, equal alike to obedience and rule, to moral control and moral +energy?</p> + +<p>Add also here; is it probable there would be any needless interval +placed to pröcreations? or rather, should not such original seed be able +immediately to fulfil the blank world call upon him, and as the +greatly-teeming human father be found fitted from his birth to propagate +his kind? The questions answer themselves.</p> + +<p>Again. Should this first man have been discovered originally surrounded +with all the appliances of an after-civilization, clad, and housed, and +rendered artificial? nor rather, in a noble and naturally royal aspect +appear on the stage of life as king of the natural creation, sole warder +of a garden of fruits, with all his food thus readily concocted, and an +eastern climate tempered to his nakedness?</p> + +<p>Now, as to the solitariness of this one seed. From what we have already +mused respecting God's benevolence, it would seem probable that the +Maker might not see it good that man should be alone. The seed, +originally one, proved (as was likely) to resemble its great parent, +God, and to be partitionable, or reducible into persons; though with +reasonable differences as between creature and Creator. Woman—Eve, the +living or life-giving—was likely to have sprung out of the composite +seed, Man, in order to companionship and fit society. Moreover, it were +expectable that in the pattern creature, composite man, there should be +involved some apt, mysterious typification of the same creature, after a +fore-known fall restored, as in its perfect state of rëunion with its +Maker. <i>A posteriori</i>, the figurative notion is, that the Redeemed +family, or mystical spouse, is incorporated in her husband, the +Redeemer:<a name="Page_490" id="Page_490"></a> not so much in the idea of marriage, as (taking election into +view) of a cöcreation; as it were rib of rib, and life woven into life, +not copulated or conjoined, but immingled in the being. This is a +mystery most worthy of deep searching; a mystery deserving philosophic +care, not less than the more unilluminate enjoyment of humble and +believing Christians. I speak concerning Christ and his church.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_FALL" id="THE_FALL"></a>THE FALL.</h3> + + +<p>There is a special fitness in the fact, long since known and now to be +perceived probable, that if mankind should fail in disobedience, it +should rather be through the woman than through the man. Because, the +man, <i>quâ man</i>, and the deputed head of all inferior creatures, was +nearer to his Creator, than the woman; who, <i>quâ woman</i>, proceeded out +of man. She was, so to speak, one step further from God, <i>ab origine</i>, +than man was; therefore, more liable to err and fall away. To my own +mind, I confess, it appears that nothing is more anteriorly probable +than the plain, scriptural story of Adam and Eve: so simple that the +child delights in it; so deep that the philosopher lingers there with an +equal, but more reasonable joy.</p> + +<p>For, let us now come to the probabilities of a temptation; and a fall; +and what temptation; and how ordered.</p> + +<p>The heavenly intelligences beheld the model-man and model-woman, +rational beings, and in all points "very good." The Adversary panted for +the fray, demanding some test of the obedience of this new, favourite +race. And the Lord God was willing that the great controversy, which he +fore-knew, and for wise purposes allowed, should immediately commence. +Where was the use of a delay? If you will reply, To give time to +strengthen Adam's moral powers: I rejoin, he was made with more than +enough of strength infused against any temptation not entering by the +portal of his will: and against the open door of will neither time nor +habits can avail. Moreover, the trial was to be exceedingly simple; no +difficult abstinence, for man might freely eat of every thing but one; +no natural passion tempted; no exertion of intelligence requisite. Adam +lived in a garden; and his Maker, for proof of reasonable obedience, +provides the most easy and obvious test of it—do not eat that apple. +Was it, in reality, an improbable test; an unsuita<a name="Page_491" id="Page_491"></a>ble one? Was it not, +rather, the likeliest in itself, and the fittest as addressed to the +new-born, rational animal, which imagination could invent, or an amiable +fore-knowledge of all things could desire? Had it been to climb some +arduous height without looking back, or on no account to gaze upon the +sun, how much less apt and easy of obedience! Thus much for the test.</p> + +<p>Now, as to the temptation and its ordering. A creature, to be tempted +fairly, must be tempted by another equal or lower creature; and through +the senses. If mere spirit strives with spirit, plus matter, the strife +is unequal: the latter is clogged; he has to fight in the net of +Retiarius. But if both are netted, if both are spirit plus matter, (that +is, material creatures,) there is no unfairness. Therefore, it would +seem reasonable that the Adversary in person should descend from his +mere spirituality into some tangible and humbled form. This could not +well be man's, nor the semblance of man's: for the first pair would well +know that they were all mankind: and, if the Lord God himself was +accustomed to be seen of them as in a glorified humanity, it would be +manifestly a moral incongruity to invest the devil in a similar form. It +must, then, be the shape of some other creature; as a lion, or a lamb, +or—why not a serpent? Is there any improbability here? and not rather +as apt an avatar of the sinuous and wily rebel, the dangerous, +fascinating foe, as poetry at least, nay, as any sterner contrivance +could invent? The plain fact is, that Reason—given keenness—might have +guessed this also antecedently a likelihood.</p> + +<p>A few words more on other details probable to the temptation. Wonderful +as it may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of the +first woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted in +human phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way could +the tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautiful +snake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by a +natural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice the +serpent, <i>i.e.</i> Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It was +likely to have been keenly managed. Is it possible, O fair and favoured +mistress of this beautiful garden, that your Maker has debarred you from +its very choicest fruit? Only see its potencies for good: I, a poor +reptile, am instantly thereby endued with knowledge and the privilege of +speech. Am I dead for the eating?—ye shall not surely die; but shall +become as gods yourselves; and this your Maker knoweth.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492"></a>The marvellous fruit, invested thus with mystery, and tinctured with +the secret charm of a thing unreasonably, nay, harmfully, forbidden, +would then be allowed silently to plead its own merits. It was good for +food: a young creature's first thought. It was pleasant to the eyes: +addressing a higher sense than mere bodily appetite, than mental +predilection for form and colour which marks fine breeding among men. It +was also to be desired to make one wise; here was the climax, the great +moral inducement which an innocent being might well be taken with; +irrespectively of the one qualification that this wisdom was to be +plucked in spite of God. Doubtless, it were probable, that had man not +fallen, the knowledge of good would never have been long withheld: but +he chose to reap the crop too soon, and reaped it mixed with tares, +good, and evil.</p> + +<p>I need not enlarge, in sermon form, upon the theme. It was probable that +the weaker creature, Woman, once entrapped, she would have charms enough +to snare her husband likewise: and the results thus perceived to have +been likely, we have long since known for fact. That a depraved +knowledge should immediately occasion some sort of clothing to be +instituted by the great moral Governor, was likely: and there would be +nothing near at hand, in fact nothing else suitable, but the skins of +beasts. There is also a high probability that some sort of slaying +should take place instantly on the fall, by way of reference to the +coming sacrifice for sin; and for a type of some imputed righteousness. +God covered Man's evil nakedness with the skins of innocent slain +animals: even so, Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and +whose sin is covered.</p> + +<p>With respect to restoration from any such fall. There seems a remarkable +prior probability for it, if we take into account the empty places in +heaven, the vacant starry thrones which sin had caused to be untenanted. +Just as, in after years, Israel entered into the cities and the gardens +of the Canaanite and other seven nations, so it was anteriorly likely, +would the ransomed race of Men come to be inheritors of the mansions +among heavenly places, which had been left unoccupied by the fallen host +of Lucifer. There was a gap to be filled: and probably there would be +some better race to fill it.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493"></a></p> +<h3><a name="THE_FLOOD" id="THE_FLOOD"></a>THE FLOOD.</h3> + + +<p>Themes like those past and others still to come, are so immense, that +each might fairly ask a volume for its separate elucidation. A few +seeds, pregnant with thought, are all that we have here space, or time, +or power to drop beside the world's highway. The grand outlines of our +race command our first attention: we cannot stop to think and speak of +every less detail. Therefore, now would I carry my companion across the +patriarchal times at once to the era of the Deluge. Let us speculate, as +hitherto, antecedently, throwing our minds as it were into some angelic +prior state.</p> + +<p>If, as we have seen probable, evil (a concretion always, not an +abstraction) made some perceptible ravages even in the unbounded sphere +of a heavenly creation, how much more rapid and overwhelming would its +avalanche (once ill-commenced) be seen, when the site of its infliction +was a poor band of men and women prisoned on a speck of earth. How +likely was it that, in the lapse of no long time, the whole world should +have been "corrupt before God, and filled with wickedness." How +probable, that taking into account the great duration of pristine human +life, the wicked family of man should speedily have festered up into an +intolerable guiltiness. And was this dread result of the primal curse +and disobedience to be regarded as the Adversary's triumph? Had this +Accuser—the Saxon word is Devil—had this Slanderer of God's attribute +then really beaten Good? or was not rather all this swarming sin an +awful vindication to the universe of the great need-be that God +unceasingly must hold his creature up lest he fall, and that out of Him +is neither strength nor wisdom? Was Deity, either in Adam's case or +this, baffled—nor rather justified? Was it an experiment which had +really failed; nor rather one which, by its very seeming failure, proved +the point in question, the misery of creatures when separate from God? +Yea, the evil one was being beaten down beneath his very trophies in sad +Tarpeian triumph: through conquest and his children's sins heightening +his own misery.</p> + +<p>Let us now advert to a few of the anterior probabilities affecting this +evil earth's catastrophe. It is not competent to us to trench upon such +ulterior views as are contained in the idea of types relatively to +anti-types. Neither will we take the fanciful or poetical aspect of +coming calamity, that earth, befouled with guilt, was likely to be +washed <a name="Page_494" id="Page_494"></a>clean by water. It is better to ask, as more relevant, in what +other way more benevolent than drowning could, short of miracle, the +race be made extinct? They were all to die in their sins, and swell in +another sphere the miserable hosts of Satan. There was no hope for them, +for there was no repentance. It was infinitely probable that God's +long-suffering had worn out every reasonable effort for their +restoration. They were then to die; but how?—in the least painful +manner possible. Intestine wars, fevers, famines, a general burning-up +of earth and all its millions, were any of these preferable sorts of +death to that caused by the gradual rise of water, with hope of life +accorded still even to the last gurgle? Assuredly, if "the tender +mercies of the wicked are cruel," the judgments of the Good one are +tempered well with mercy.</p> + +<p>Moreover, in the midst of this universal slaughter there was one good +seed to be preserved: and, as Heaven never works a miracle where common +cause will suit the present purpose, it would have been inconsistent to +have extirpated the wicked by any such means as must demonstrate the +good to have been saved only by super-human agency.</p> + +<p>The considerations of humanity, and of the divine less-intervention, add +that of the natural and easy agency of a long-commissioned comet. No +"<i>Deus e machinâ</i>" was needed for this effort: one of His ministers of +flaming fire was charged to call forth the services of water. This was +an easy and majestic interference. Ever since man fell—yea, ages before +it—the omniscient eye of God had foreseen all things that should +happen: and his ubiquity had, possibly from The Beginning, sped a comet +on its errant way, which at a calculated period was to serve to wash the +globe clean of its corruptions: was to strike the orbit of earth just in +the moment of its passage, and disturbing by attraction the fountains of +the great deep, was temporarily to raise their level. Was not this a +just, a sublime, and a likely plan? Was it not a merciful, a perfect, +and a worthy way? Who should else have buried the carcases on those +fierce battle-fields, or the mouldering heaps of pestilence and +famine?—But, when at Jehovah's summons, heaving to the comet's mass, +the pure and mighty sea rises indignant from its bed, by drowning to +cleanse the foul and mighty land—how easy an engulfing of the corpses; +how awful that universal burial; how apt their monumental epitaph +written in water, "The wicked are like the troubled sea that cannot +rest;" how dread the everlasting requiem chanted for the whelmed race by +the waves roaring above them: yea, roaring above <a name="Page_495" id="Page_495"></a>them still! for in +that chaotic hour it seems probable to reason that the land changed +place with ocean; thus giving the new family of man a fresh young world +to live upon.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="NOAH" id="NOAH"></a>NOAH.</h3> + + +<p>When the world, about to grow so wicked, was likely thus to have been +cleansed, and so renewed, the great experiment of man's possible +righteousness was probable to be repeated in another form. We may fancy +some high angelic mind to have gone through some such line of thought as +this, respecting the battle and combatants. Were those champions, +Lucifer and Adam, really fit to be matched together? Was the tourney +just; were the weapons equal; was it, after all, a fair fight?—on one +side, the fallen spirit, mighty still, though fallen, subtlest, most +unscrupulous, most malicious, exerting every energy to rear a rebel +kingdom against God; on the other, a new-born, inexperienced, innocent, +and trustful creature, a poor man vexed with appetites, and as naked for +absolute knowledge in his mind as for garments on his body. Was it, in +this view of the case, an equal contest? were the weapons of that +warfare matched and measured fairly?</p> + +<p>Some such objection, we may suppose, might seem to have been admissible, +as having a show at least of reason: and, after the world was to have +been cleansed of all its creatures in the manner I have mentioned, a new +champion is armed for the conflict, totally different in every respect; +and to reason's view vastly superior.</p> + +<p>This time, the Adam of renewed earth is to be the best and wisest, nay, +the only good and wise one of the whole lost family: a man, with the +experience of full six hundred years upon his hoary brow, with the +unspeakable advantage of having walked with God all those long-drawn +centuries, a patriarch of twenty generations, recognised as the one +great and faithful witness, the only worshipper and friend of his +Creator. Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only spark +of spiritual "consolation" in the midst of earth's dark death? and was +not he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of the +devil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renew +the fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah.</p> + +<p>Before we touch upon the immediate fall of this new Adam also, at a time +when God and reason had deserted him, it will be more orderly to <a name="Page_496" id="Page_496"></a>allude +to the circumstances of his preservation in the flood. How, in such a +hurlyburly of the elements, should the chosen seed survive? No house, +nor hill-top, no ordinary ship would serve the purpose: still less the +unreasonable plan of any cavern hermetically sealed, or any aerial +chariot miraculously lifted up above the lower firmament. To use plain +and simple words, I can fancy no wiser method than a something between a +house and a diving-bell; a vessel, entirely storm-tight and water-tight, +which nevertheless for necessary air should have an open window at the +top: say, one a cubit square. This, properly hooded against deluging +rain, and supplied with such helps to ventilation as leathern pipes, air +tunnels and similar appliances, would not be an impracticable method. +However, instead of being under water as a diving-bell, the vessel would +be better made to float upon the rising flood, and thus continually +keeping its level, would be ready to strike land as the waters assuaged.</p> + +<p>Now, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs be +very large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering cause +and effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to suppose +that the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean of +existence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence so +ordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as a +pair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal the +renewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. The +lengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark—a vessel +which must include forests of timber and consume generations in +building; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strange +animals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical old man; not to mention +also the hoary Preacher's own century of exortations: with how great +moral force all this living warning would be calculated to act upon the +world of wickedness and doom! Here was the great ante-diluvian +potentate, Noah, a patriarch of ages, wealthy beyond our +calculations—(for how else without a needless succession of miracles +could he have built and stocked the ark?)—a man of enormous substance, +good report, and exalted station, here was he for a hundred and twenty +years engaged among crowds of unbelieving workmen, in constructing a +most extravagant ship, which, forsooth, filled with samples of all this +world's stores, was to sail with our only good family in search of a +better. Moreover, Noah here declares that our dear old mother-earth is +to be destroyed for her iniquities by rain and sea: and he exhorts us by +a solid evi<a name="Page_497" id="Page_497"></a>dence of his own faith at least, if by nothing else, to +repent, and turn to him, whom Abel, Seth, and Enoch, as well as this +good Noah, represent as our Maker. Would not such sneers and taunts be +probable: would they not amply vindicate the coming judgment? Was not +the "long-suffering of God" likely to have thus been tried "while the +ark was preparing?" and when the catastrophe should come, had not that +evil generation been duly warned against it? On the whole, it would have +been Reason's guess that Noah should be saved as he was; that the ark +should have been as we read of it in Genesis; and that the very +immensity of its construction should have served for a preaching to +mankind. As to any idea that the ark is an unreasonable (some have even +said ridiculous) incident to the deluge, it seems to me to have +furnished a clear case of antecedent probability.</p> + +<p>Lastly: Noah's fall was very likely to have happened: not merely in the +theological view of the matter, as an illustration of the truth that no +human being can stand fast in righteousness: but from the just +consideration that he imported with him the seeds of an impure state of +society, the remembered luxuries of that old world. For instance, among +the plants of earth which Noah would have preserved for future insertion +in the soil, he could not have well forgotten the generous, treacherous +Vine. That to a righteous man, little used to all unhallowed sources of +exhilaration, this should have been a stepping-stone to a defalcation +from God, was likely. It was probable in itself, and shows the honesty +as well as the verisimilitude of Scripture to read, that "Noah began to +be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and +was drunken." There was nothing here but what, taking all things into +consideration, Reason might have previously guessed. Why then withhold +the easier matter of an afterward belief?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="BABEL" id="BABEL"></a>BABEL.</h3> + + +<p>This book ought to be read, as mentally it is written, with at the end +of every sentence one of those <i>et ceteras</i>, which the genius of a Coke +interpreted so keenly of the genius of a Littleton: for, far more +remains on each subject to be said, than in any one has been attempted.</p> + +<p>Let us pass on to the story of Babel: I can conceive nothing more <i>à +priori</i> probable than the account we read in Scripture. Briefly consider +the matter. A multitude of men, possibly the then whole human <a name="Page_498" id="Page_498"></a>family, +once more a fallen race, emigrate towards the East, and come to a vast +plain in the region of Shinar, afterwards Chaldæa. Fertile, +well-watered, apt for every mundane purpose, it yet wanted one great +requisite. The degenerate race "put not their trust in God:" they did +not believe but that the world might some day be again destroyed by +water: and they required a point of refuge in the possible event of a +second deluge from the broken bounds of ocean and the windows of the +skies. They had come from the West; more strictly the North-west, a land +of mountains, as they deemed them, ready-made refuges: and their scheme, +a probable one enough, was to construct some such mountain artificially, +so that its top might reach the clouds, as did the summit of Ararat. +This would serve the twofold purpose of outwitting any further attempt +to drown them, and of making for themselves a proud name upon the earth. +So, the Lord God, in his etherealized human form (having taken counsel +with His own divine compeers), coming in the guise wherein He was wont +to walk with Adam and with Enoch and his other saints of men, "came down +and saw the tower:" truly, He needed not have come, for ubiquity was +his, and omniscience; but in the days when God and man were (so to +speak) less chronologically divided than as now, and while yet the +trial-family was young, it does not seem unlikely that He should. God +then, in his aspect of the Head of all mankind, took notice of that +dangerous and unholy combination: and He made within His Triune Mind the +wise resolve to break their bond of union. Omniscience had herein a view +to ulterior consequences benevolent to man, and He knew that it would be +a wise thing for the future world, as well as a discriminative check +upon the race then living, to confuse the universal language into many +discordant dialects. Was this in any sense an improbable or improper +method of making "the devices of the wicked to be of none effect, and of +laughing to scorn the counsels of the mighty?" Was it not to have been +expected that a fallen race should be disallowed the combinative force +necessary to a common language, but that such force should be dissipated +and diverted for moral usages into many tongues?—There they were, all +the chiefs of men congregated to accomplish a vast, ungodly scheme: and +interposing Heaven to crush such insane presumption—and withal +thereafter designing to bless by arranging through such means the future +interchange of commerce and the enterprise of nationalities—He, in his +Trinity, was not unlikely to have said, "Let us go down, and confound +their language." What better mode could have been <a name="Page_499" id="Page_499"></a>devised to scatter +mankind, and so to people the extremities of earth? In order that the +various dialects should crystallize apart, each in its discriminative +lump, the nucleus of a nation; that thereafter the world might be able +no longer to unite as one man against its Lord, but by conflicting +interests, the product of conflicting languages, might give to good a +better chance of not being altogether overwhelmed; that, though many "a +multitude might go to do evil," it should not thenceforward be the whole +consenting family of man; but that, here by one and there by one, the +remembrance of God should be kept extant, and evil no longer acquire an +accumulated force, by having all the world one nation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="JOB" id="JOB"></a>JOB.</h3> + + +<p>Every scriptural incident and every scriptural worthy deserves its own +particular discussion: and might easily obtain it. For example; the +anterior probability that human life in patriarchal times should have +been very much prolonged, was obvious; from consideration of—1, the +benevolence of God; 2, the inexperience of man; and 3, the claim so +young a world would hold upon each of its inhabitants: whilst Holy Writ +itself has prepared an answer to the probable objection, that the years +were lunar years, or months; by recording that Arphaxad and Salah and +Eber and Peleg and Reu and Serug and Nahor, descendants of Shem, each +had children at the average age of two-and-thirty, and yet the lives of +all varied in duration from a hundred and fifty years to five hundred. +And many similar credibilities might be alluded to: what shall I say of +Abraham's sacrifice, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jonah also, and +Elisha, and of the prophets? for the time would fail me to tell how +probable and simple in each instance is its deep and marvellous history. +There is food for philosophic thought in every page of ancient Jewish +Scripture scarcely less than in those of primitive Christianity: here, +after our fashion, we have only touched upon a sample.</p> + +<p>The opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many very +needlessly: to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally and +really happened. It is one of those few places where we get an insight +into what is going on elsewhere: it is a lifting off the curtain of +eternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantly +pre<a name="Page_500" id="Page_500"></a>sented in the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about it +here, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities +will be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by the +doubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. It +signifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so +long as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity, +and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, if +written by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself. Whether then Job, the +wealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, or +whoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true; +and the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have been +decreed a component part of revelation. Without it, there would have +been wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the long +and dreary interval of several hundred years: there would never have +been given for man's help the example of a fortitude, and patience, and +trust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection and +redeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in Jewish +Scripture: as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyond +all modern instance. However, the excellences of that narrative are +scarcely our theme: we return to the starting-post of its probability, +especially with reference to its supernatural commencement. What we have +shown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and the +denizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two first +chapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these two +chapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected.</p> + +<p>Let us see what happened:</p> + +<p>"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before +the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, +whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going +to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the +Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is +none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that +feareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, +Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and +about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast +blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the +land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he will +curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that +he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put <a name="Page_501" id="Page_501"></a>not forth thine hand. So +Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."—[Job 1. 6-13.]</p> + +<p>It is a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, its +quiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: in +allusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons of +God: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on his +servant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: note, Satan's +constant imputation against piety when blessed of God with worldly +wealth, Doth he serve for naught? I can discern no cause wherefore all +this scene should not have truly happened; not as in vision of some holy +man, but as in fact. Let us read on, before further comment:</p> + +<p>"Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves +before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself +before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And +Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, +and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast +thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the +earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth +evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me +against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, +and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his +life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, +and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, +Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So Satan went forth from +the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole +of his foot unto his crown."</p> + +<p>Some such scene, displaying the devil's malice, slandering sneers, and +permitted power, recommends itself to my mind as antecedently to have +been looked for: in order that we might know from what quarter many of +life's evils come; with what aims and ends they are directed; what +limits are opposed to our foe; and Who is on our side. We needed some +such insight into the heavenly places; some such hint of what is +continually going on before the Lord's tribunal; we wanted this plain +and simple setting forth of good and evil in personal encounter, of +innocence awhile given up to malice for its chastening and its triumph. +Lo, all this so probable scene is here laid open to us, and many, +against reason, disbelieve it!</p> + +<p>Note, in allusion to our after-theme, the <i>locus</i> of heaven, that there +is some such usual place of periodical gathering. Note, the open +<a name="Page_502" id="Page_502"></a>unchiding loveliness dwelling in the Good One's words, as contrasted +with the subtle, slanderous hatred of the Evil. And then the vulgar +proverb, Skin for skin: this pious Job is so intensely selfish, that let +him lose what he may, he heeds it not; he cares for nothing out of his +own skin. And there are many more such notabilities.</p> + +<p>Why did I produce these passages at length? For their Doric simplicity; +for their plain and masculine features; for their obvious truthfulness; +for their manifest probability as to fact, and expectability previously +to it. Why on earth should they be doubted in their literal sense? and +were they not more likely to have happened than to have been invented? +We have no such geniuses now as this writer must have been, who by the +pure force of imagination could have created that tableau. Milton had +Job to go to. Simplicity is proof presumptive in favour of the plain +inspiration of such passages: for the plastic mind which could conceive +so just a sketch, would never have rested satisfied, without having +painted and adorned it picturesquely. Such rare flights of fancy are +always made the most of.</p> + +<p>One or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last give +way, was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had another +fall; albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God's +chosen three, "Noah, Daniel, and Job:" and worthy that the Lord should +bless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touch +on; the great compensation which God gave to Job.</p> + +<p>Children can never be regarded as other than individualities: and +notwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its quality +is, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children to +be born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If a +father loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching +void that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, and +because I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in the +difficulty, I wish to say a word about Job's children, lost and found. +It will clear away what is to some minds a moral and affectionate +objection. Now, this is the state of the case.</p> + +<p>The patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels, and +oxen, and so forth; and ten children. All these are represented to him +by witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his +great loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and +purposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from +different parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses +<a name="Page_503" id="Page_503"></a>had been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience +follows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or +false. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the +good man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by +the double of every thing once lost—his children remain the same in +number, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor +children, really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, and +schemed it; and the singly-coming messengers believed it all, as also +did the well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to say +that these things happened; but that certain emissaries said they +happened. I think the devil missed his mark: that the messengers were +scared by some abortive diabolic efforts; and that, (with a natural +increase of camels, &c., meanwhile,) the patriarch's paternal heart was +more than compensated at the last, by the restoration of his own dear +children. They were dead, and are alive again; they were lost, and are +found. Like Abraham returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was the +Resurrection in a figure.</p> + +<p>If to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job were +real, therefore, similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply, +that in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in the +other, bodily. In the latter case, positive, personal pain, was the gist +of the matter: in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mind +be overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable affliction +as children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed the +evil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how double +was the joy of Job over those ten dear children.</p> + +<p>Again, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job at +the last really has twice as many children as before, for that he has +ten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth: I must, in answer, +think that explanation as unsatisfactory to us, as the verity of it +would have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not so +numerically nor vicariously consoled: and it is, perhaps, worth while +here to have thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case, +if only to rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer of +being confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternal +reward was anteriorly more probable.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504"></a></p> +<h3><a name="JOSHUA" id="JOSHUA"></a>JOSHUA.</h3> + + +<p>How many of our superficial thinkers have been staggered at the great +miracle recorded of Joshua; and how few, even of the deeper sort, +comparatively, may have discerned its aptness, its science, and its +anterior likelihood: "Sun! stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, +in the valley of Ajalon." Now, consider, for we hope to vindicate even +this stupendous event from the charge of improbability.</p> + +<p>Baal and Ashtaroth, chief idols of the Canaanites, were names for sun +and moon. It would manifestly be the object of God and His ambassador to +cast utter scorn on such idolatry. And what could be more apt than that +Joshua, commissioned to extirpate the corrupted race, should +miraculously be enabled, as it were, to bind their own gods to aid in +the destruction of such votaries?</p> + +<p>Again: what should Joshua want with the moon for daylight, to help him +to rout the foes of God more fiercely? Why not, according to the +astronomical ignorance of those days, let her sail away, unconsorted by +the sun, far beyond the valley of Ajalon? There was a reason, here, of +secret, unobtruded science: if the sun stopped, the moon must stop too; +that is to say, both apparently: the fact being that the earth must, for +the while, rest on its axis. This, I say, is a latent, scientific hint; +and so, likewise, is the accompanying mention as a fact, that the Lord +immediately "rained great stones out of heaven" upon the flying host. +For would it not be the case that, if the diurnal rotation of earth were +suddenly to stop, the impetus of motion would avail to raise high into +the air by centrifugal force, and fling down again by gravity, such +unanchored things as fragments of rock?</p> + +<p>Once more: our objector will here perhaps inquire, Why not then command +the earth to stop—and not the sun and moon? if thus probably Joshua or +his Inspirer knew better? Answer. Only let a reasonable man consider +what would have been the moral lesson both to Israelite and to +Canaanite, if the great successor of Moses had called out, +incomprehensibly to all, "Earth, stand thou still on thine axis;"—and +lo! as if in utter defiance of such presumption, and to vindicate openly +the heathen gods against the Jewish, the very sun and moon in heaven +stopped, and glared on the offender. I question whether such a noon-day +miracle might not have perverted to idolatry the whole believing host: +and almost reasonably too. The strictly philosophical terms <a name="Page_505" id="Page_505"></a>would have +entirely nullified the whole moral influence. God in his word never +suffers science to hinder the progress of truth: a worldly philosophy +does this almost in every instance, darkening knowledge with a cloud of +words: but the science of the Bible is usually concealed in some +neighbouring hint quite handy to the record of the phenomena expressed +in ordinary language. In fact, for all common purposes, no astronomer +finds fault with such phrases as the moon rising, or the sun setting: he +speaks according to the appearance, though he knows perfectly well that +the earth is the cause of it, and not the sun or moon. Carry this out in +Joshua's case.</p> + +<p>On the whole, the miracle was very plain, very comprehensible, and very +probable. It had good cause: for Canaan felt more confidence in the +protection of his great and glorious Baal, than stiff-necked Judah in +his barely-seen divinity: and surely it was wise to vindicate the true +but invisible God by the humiliation of the false and far-seen idol. +This would constitute to all nations the quickly-rumoured proof that +Jehovah of the Israelites was God in heaven above as well as on the +earth beneath. And, considering the peculiar idolatries of Canaan, it +seems to me that no miracle could have been better placed and better +timed—in other words, anteriorly more probable—than the command of +obedience to the sun and to the moon. I suppose that few persons who +read this book will be unaware, that the circumstance is alluded to as +well in that honest heathen, old Herodotus, as in the learned Jew +Josephus. The volumes are not near me for reference to quotations: but +such is fact: it will be found in Herodotus, about the middle of +Euterpe, connected with an allusion to the analogous case of Hezekiah.</p> + +<p>No miracles, on the whole (to take one after-view of the matter), could +have been better tested: for two armies (not to mention all surrounding +countries) must have seen it plainly and clearly: if then it had never +occurred, what a very needless exposure of the falsity of the Jewish +Scriptures! These were open, published writings, accessible to all: +Cyrus and Darius and Alexander read them, and Ethiopian eunuchs; +Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, with all other nations of the earth, had +free access to those records. Only imagine if some recent history of +England, Adolphus's, or Stebbing's, contained an account of a certain +day in George the Fourth's reign having had twenty-four hour's daylight +instead of the usual admixture; could the intolerable falsehood last a +minute? Such a placard would be torn away from the records of the land +the moment a rash hand had fixed it there. But, if <a name="Page_506" id="Page_506"></a>the matter were +fact, how could any historian neglect it?—In one sense, the very +improbability of such a marvel being recorded, argues the probability of +it having actually occurred.</p> + +<p>Much more might here be added: but our errand is accomplished, if any +stumbling-block had been thus easily removed from some erring thinker's +path. Surely, we have given him some reason for faith's due acceptance +of Joshua's miracle.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_INCARNATION" id="THE_INCARNATION"></a>THE INCARNATION.</h3> + + +<p>In touching some of the probabilities of our blessed Lord's career, it +would be difficult to introduce and illustrate the subject better, than +by the following anecdote. Whence it is derived, has escaped my memory; +but I have a floating notion that it is told of Socrates in Xenophon or +Plato. At any rate, by way of giving fixity thereto and picturesqueness, +let us here report the story as of the Athenian Solomon:</p> + +<p>Surrounded by his pupils, the great heathen Reasoner was being +questioned and answering questions: in particular respecting the +probability that the universal God would be revealed to his creatures. +"What a glorious King would he appear!" said one, possibly the brilliant +Alcibiades: "What a form of surpassing beauty!" said another, not +unlikely the softer Crito. "Not so, my children," answered Socrates. +"Kings and the beautiful are few, and the God, if he came on earth as an +exemplar, would in shape and station be like the greater number." +"Indeed, Master? then how should he fail of being made a King of men, +for his goodness, and his majesty, and wisdom?" "Alas! my children," was +pure Reason's just rejoinder, "οι ρλεἱονες κακοι, most men are +so wicked that they would hate his purity, despise his wisdom, and as +for his majesty, they could not truly see it. They might indeed admire +for a time, but thereafter (if the God allowed it), they would even hunt +and persecute and kill him." "Kill him!" exclaimed the eager group of +listeners; "kill Him? how should they, how could they, how dare they +kill God?" "I did not say, kill God," would have been wise Socrates's +reply, "for God existeth ever: but men in enmity and envy might even be +allowed to kill that human form wherein God walked for an ensample. That +they could, were God's humility: that they should, were their own +malice: that they dared, were their own grievous sin and peril of +destruction. Yea," went on the keen-eyed <a name="Page_507" id="Page_507"></a>sage, "men would slay him by +some disgraceful death, some lingering, open, and cruel death, even such +as the death of slaves!"—Now slaves, when convicted of capital crime, +were always crucified.</p> + +<p>Whatever be thought of the genuineness of the anecdote, its uses are the +same to us. Reason might have arrived at the salient points of Christ's +career, and at His crucifixion!</p> + +<p>I will add another topic: How should the God on earth arrive there? We +have shown that His form would probably be such as man's; but was he to +descend bodily from the atmosphere at the age of full-grown perfection, +or to rise up out of the ground with earthquakes and fire, or to appear +on a sudden in the midst of the market-place, or to come with legions of +his heavenly host to visit his Temple? There was a wiser way than these, +more reasonable, probable, and useful. Man required an exemplar for +every stage of his existence up to the perfection of his frame. The +infant, and the child, and the youth, would all desire the human-God to +understand their eras; they would all, if generous and such as he would +love, long to feel that He has sympathy with them in every early trial, +as in every later grief. Moreover, the God coming down with supernatural +glories or terrors would be a needless expense of ostentatious power. +He, whose advent is intended for the encouragement of men to exercise +their reason and their conscience; whose exhortation is "he that hath +ears to hear, let him hear;" that pure Being, who is the chief preacher +of Humility, and the great teacher of man's responsible +condition—surely, he would hardly come in any way astoundingly +miraculous, addressing his advent not to faith, but to sight, and +challenging the impossibility of unbelief by a galaxy of spiritual +wonders. Yet, if He is to come at all—and a word or two of this +hereafter—it must be either in some such strange way; or in the usual +human way; or in a just admixture of both. As the first is needlessly +overwhelming to the responsible state of man, so the second is +needlessly derogatory to the pure essence of God; and the third idea +would seem to be most probable. Let us guess it out. Why should not this +highest Object of faith and this lowest Subject of obedience be born, +seemingly by human means, but really by divine? Why should there not be +found some unspotted holy virgin, betrothed to a just man and soon to be +his wife, who, by the creative power of Divinity, should miraculously +conceive the shape divine, which God himself resolved to dwell in? Why +should she not come of a lineage and family which for centuries before +had held such expectation? Why should not the just man, her <a name="Page_508" id="Page_508"></a>affianced, +who had never known her yet, being warned of God in a dream of this +strange, immaculate conception, "fear not to take unto him Mary his +wife," lest the unbelieving world should breathe slander on her purity, +albeit he should really know her not until after the Holy Birth. There +is nothing unreasonable here; every step is previously credible: and +invention's self would be puzzled to devise a better scheme. The +Virgin-born would thus be a link between God and man, the great +Mediator: his natures would fulfil every condition required of their +double and their intimate conjunction. He would have arrived at humanity +without its gross beginnings, and have veiled his Godhead for a while in +a pure though mortal tenement. He would have participated in all the +tenderness of woman's nature, and thus have reached the keenest +sensibilities of men.</p> + +<p>Themes such as these are inexhaustible: and I am perpetually conscious +of so much left unsaid, that at every section I seem to have said next +to nothing. Nevertheless, let it go; the good seed yet shall germinate. +"Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after many +days."</p> + +<p>It may to some minds be a desideratum, to allude to the anterior +probability that God should come in the flesh. Much of this has been +anticipated under the head of Visible Deity and elsewhere; as this +treatise is so short, one may reasonably expect every reader to take it +in regular course. For additional considerations: the Benevolent Maker +would hardly leave his creatures to perish, without one word of warning +or one gleam of knowledge. The question of the Bible is considered +further on: but exclusively of written rules and dogmas, it was likely +that Our Father should commission chosen servants of his own, orally to +teach and admonish; because it would be in accordance with man's +reasonable nature, that he should best and easiest learn from the +teaching his brethren. So then, after all lesser ambassadors had failed, +it was to be expected that He should send the highest one of all, +saying, "They will reverence my Son." We know that this really did occur +by innumerable proofs, and wonderful signs posterior: and now, after the +event, we discern it to have been anteriorly probable.</p> + +<p>It was also probable in another light. This world is a world of +incarnations; nothing has a real and potential existence, which is not +embodied in some form. A theory is nothing; if no personal philosopher, +no sect, or school of learners, takes it up. An opinion is mere air; +without the multitude to give it all the force of a mighty wind.<a name="Page_509" id="Page_509"></a> An +idea is mere spiritual light; if unclad in deeds, or in words written or +spoken. So, also, of the Godhead: He would be like all these. He would +pervade words spoken, as by prophets or preachers: He would include +words written, as in the Bible: He would influence crowds with +spirit-stirring sentiments: He would embody the theory of all things in +one simple, philosophic form. As this material world is constituted, God +could not reveal himself at all, excepting by the aid of matter. I mean; +even granting that He spiritually inspired a prophet, still the man was +necessary: he becomes an inspired man; not mere inspiration. So, also, +of a book; which is the written labour of inspired men. There is no +doing without the Humanity of God, so far as this world is concerned, +any more than His Deity can be dispensed with, regarding the worlds +beyond worlds, and the ages of ages, and the dread for ever and ever.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="MAHOMETANISM" id="MAHOMETANISM"></a>MAHOMETANISM.</h3> + + +<p>It seems expedient that, in one or two instances, I should attempt the +illustration of this rule of probability in matters beyond the Bible. As +very fair ones, take Mahometanism and Romanism. And first of the former.</p> + +<p>At the commencement of the seventh century, or a little previously to +that era, we know that a fierce religion sprang up, promulgated by a +false prophet. I wish briefly to show that this was antecedently to have +been expected.</p> + +<p>In a moral point of view, the Christian world, torn by all manner of +schisms, and polluted by all sorts of heresies, had earned for the human +race, whether accepting the gospel or refusing it, some signal and +extensive punishment at the hands of Him, who is the Great Retributor as +well as the Munificent Rewarder. In a physical point of view, the +civilized kingdoms of the earth had become stagnant, arguing that +corrupt and poisonous calm which is the herald of a coming tempest. The +heat of a true religion had cooled down into lukewarm disputations about +nothings, scholastical and casuistic figments; whilst at the same time +the prevalence of peaceful doctrines had amalgamated all classes into a +luxurious indolence. Passionate Man is not to be so satisfied; and the +time was fully come for the rise of some fierce spirit, who <a name="Page_510" id="Page_510"></a>should +change the tinsel theology of the crucifix for the iron religion of the +sword: who should blow in the ears of the slumbering West the shrill +war-blast of Eastern fervencies; who should exchange the dull rewards of +canonization due to penance, or an after-life voluntary humiliation +under pseudo-saints and angels, for the human and comprehensible joys of +animal appetite and military glory: who should enlist under his banner +all the frantic zeal, all the pent-up licentiousness, all the +heart-burning hatreds of mankind, stifled either by a positive +barbarism, or the incense-laden cloud of a scarcely-masked idolatry.</p> + +<p>Thus, and then, was likely to arise a bold and self-confiding hero, +leaning on his own sword: a man of dark sentences, who, by judiciously +pilfering from this quarter and from that shreds of truth to jewel his +black vestments of error, and by openly proclaiming that Oneness of the +object of all worship which besotted Christendom had then, from undue +reverence to saints and martyrs, virgins and archangels, well nigh +forgotten; a man who, by pandering to human passions and setting wide as +virtue's avenue the flower-tricked gates of vice; should thus, like +Lucifer before him, in a comet-like career of victory, sweep the +startled firmament of earth, and drag to his erratic orbit the stars of +heaven from their courses.</p> + +<p>Mahomet; his humble beginnings; his iron perseverance under early +probable checks; his blind, yet not all unsublime, dependence on +fatality; his ruthless, yet not all undeserved, infliction of fire and +sword upon the cowering coward race that filled the western +world;—these, and all whatever else besides attended his train of +triumphs, and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs, +and Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day—constitute to a thinking +mind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability. +Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot +Koran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed, +quoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth) +should have had such free course and been glorified, while so-called +Truth, <i>pede claudo</i>, has limped on even as now cautiously and +ingloriously through the well-suspicious world; let him who thinks he +sees in Mahomet's success an answer to the foolish argument of some, who +test the truth of Christianity by its Gentile triumphs; let him ponder +these things. Reason, the God of his idolatry, might, with an +archangel's ken, have prophesied some Mahomet's career: and, so far from +such being in the nature of any objection to Faith, the idea thus thrown +out, well-mused <a name="Page_511" id="Page_511"></a>upon, will be seen to lend Faith an aid in the way of +previous likelihood.</p> + +<p>"There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" How admirably calculated +such a war-cry would be for the circumstances of the seventh century. +The simple sublimity of Oneness, as opposed to school-theology and +catholic demons: the glitter of barbaric pomp, instead of tame +observances: the flashing scimetar of ambition to supersede the cross: a +turban aigretted with jewels for the twisted wreath of thorns. As human +nature is, and especially in that time was, nothing was more expectable +(even if prophetic records had not taught it), than the rise and +progress of that great False Prophet, whose waving crescent even now +blights the third part of earth.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="ROMANISM" id="ROMANISM"></a>ROMANISM.</h3> + + +<p>We all know how easy it is to prophesy after the event: but it would be +uncandid and untrue to confound this remark with another, cousin-germane +to it; to wit: how easy it is to discern of any event, after it has +happened, whether or not it were antecedently likely. When the race is +over, and the best horse has won (or by clever jockey-management, the +worst), how obviously could any gentleman on the turf, now in possession +of particulars, have seen the event to have been so probable, that he +would have staked all upon its issue.</p> + +<p>Carry out this familiar idea; which, as human nature goes, is none the +weaker as to illustration, because it is built upon the rule "<i>parvis +componere magna</i>." Let us sketch a line or two of that great +fore-shadowing cartoon, the probabilities of Romanism.</p> + +<p>That our blessed Master, even in His state as man, beheld its evil +characteristics looming on the future, seems likely not alone from both +His human keenness and His divine omniscience, but from here and there a +hint dropped in his biography. Why should He, on several occasions, have +seemed, I will say with some apparent sharpness, to have rebuked His +virgin mother.—"Woman, what have I to do with thee?"—"Who are my +mother and my brethren?"—"Yea—More blessed than the womb which bare +me, and the paps that I have sucked, is the humblest of my true +disciples." Let no one misunderstand me: full well I know the just +explanations which palliate such passages; <a name="Page_512" id="Page_512"></a>and the love stronger than +death which beat in that Filial heart. But, take the phrases as they +stand; and do they not in reason constitute some warning and some +prophecy that men should idolize the mother? Nothing, in fact, was more +likely than that a just human reverence to the most favoured among women +should have increased into her admiring worship: until the humble and +holy Mary, with the sword of human anguish at her heart, should become +exaggerated and idealized into Mother of God—instead of Jesus's human +matrix, Queen of heaven, instead of a ransomed soul herself, the joy of +angels—in lieu of their lowly fellow-worshipper, and the Rapture of the +blessed—thus dethroning the Almighty.</p> + +<p>Take a second instance: why should Peter, the most loving, most +generous, most devoted of them all, have been singled out from among the +twelve—with a "Get thee behind me, Satan?"—it really had a harsh +appearance; if it were not that, prophetically speaking, and not +personally, he was set in the same category with Judas, the "one who was +a devil." I know the glosses, and the contexts, and the whole amount of +it. Folios have been written, and may be written again, to disprove the +text; but the more words, the less sense: it stands, a record graven in +the Rock; that same Petra, whereon, as firm and faithful found, our Lord +Jesus built his early Church: it stands, a mark indelibly burnt into +that hand, to whom were intrusted, not more specially than to any other +of the saintly sent, the keys of the kingdom of heaven: it stands, along +with the same Peter's deep and terrible apostacy, a living witness +against some future Church, who should set up this same Peter as the +Jupiter of their Pantheon: who should positively be idolizing now an +image christened Peter, which did duty two thousand years ago as a +statue of Libyan Jove! But even this glaring compromise was a matter +probable, with the data of human ambitions, and a rotten Christianity.</p> + +<p>Examples such as these might well be multiplied: bear with a word or two +more, remembering always that the half is not said which might be said +in proof; nor in answering the heap of frivolous objections.</p> + +<p>Why, unless relics and pseudo-sacred clothes were to be prophetically +humbled into their own mere dust and nothing-worthiness, why should the +rude Roman soldiery have been suffered to cast lots for that vestment, +which, if ever spiritual holiness could have been infused into mere +matter, must indeed have remained a relic worthy of undoubted worship? +It was warm with the Animal heat of the Man inhabited by God: it was +half worn out in the service of His humble travels, and had even, <a name="Page_513" id="Page_513"></a>on +many occasions, been the road by which virtue had gone out; not of it, +but of Him. What! was this wonderful robe to work no miracles? was it +not to be regarded as a sort of outpost of the being who was Human-God? +Had it no essential sacredness, no <i>noli-me-tangere</i> quality of shining +away the gambler's covetous glance, of withering his rude and venturous +hand, or of poisoning, like some Nessus' shirt, the lewd ruffian who +might soon thereafter wear it? Not in the least. This woven web, to +which a corrupted state of feeling on religion would have raised +cathedrals as its palaces, with singing men and singing women, and +singing eunuchs too, to celebrate its virtues; this coarse cloth of some +poor weaver's, working down by the sea of Galilee or in some lane of +Zion, was still to remain, and be a mere unglorified, economical, useful +garment. Far from testifying to its own internal mightiness, it probably +was soon sold by the fortunate Roman die-thrower to a second-hand shop +of the Jewish metropolis; and so descended from beggar to beggar till it +was clean worn out. We never hear that, however easy of access so +inestimable relic might then have been considered, any one of the +numerous disciples, in the fervour of their earliest zeal, threw away +one thought for its redemption. Is it not strange that no St. Helena was +at hand to conserve such a desirable invention? Why is there no St. +Vestment to keep in countenance a St. Sepulchre and a St. Cross? The +poor cloth, in primitive times, really was despised. We know well enough +what happened afterwards about handkerchiefs imbued with miraculous +properties from holy Paul's body for the nonce: but this is an inferior +question, and the matter was temporary; the superior case is proved, and +besides the rule <i>omne majus continet in se minus</i> there are differences +quite intelligible between the cases, whereabout our time would be less +profitably employed than in passing on and leaving them unquestioned. +Suffice it to say, that "God worked those special miracles," and not the +unconscious "handkerchiefs or aprons." "Te Deum laudamus!" is +Protestantism's cry; "Sudaria laudemus!" would swell the Papal choirs.</p> + +<p>Let such considerations as these then are in sample serve to show how +evidently one might prove from anterior circumstances, (and the canon of +Scripture is an anterior circumstance,) the probability of the rise and +progress of the Roman heresies. And if any one should ask, how was such +a system more likely to arise under a Gentile rather than a Jewish +theocracy? why was a St. Paul, or a St. Peter, or a St. Dunstan, or a +St. Gengulphus, more previously expectable than a St. Abra<a name="Page_514" id="Page_514"></a>ham, a St. +David, a St. Elisha, or a St. Gehazi? I answer, from the idea of +idolatry, so adapted to the Gentile mind, and so abhorrent from the +Jewish. Martyred Abel, however well respected, has never reached the +honours of a niche beside the altar. Jephtha's daughter, for all her +mourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of,) for any other +than a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times, +the mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or in +gold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St. +Moses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung about +the dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, that +wretched and insensate being, calling himself rational and godly, who +had ventured to solicit the good services of Isaiah as his intercessor, +or to plead the merits of St. Ezekiel as the make-weight for his sins?</p> + +<p>It was just this, and reasonably to have been expected; for when the Jew +brought in his religion, he demolished every false god, broke their +images, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, when +a worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned their +banners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in their +portly representatives,) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustling +with seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likely +to have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which, +newly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, keeps yet St. Bacchus +and St. Venus, St. Mars and St. Apollo, perched in sobered robes upon +the so-called Christian altar; which yet pays divine honours to an +ancyle or a rusty nail; to the black stones at Delphi, or the +gold-shrined bones at Aix; which yet sanctifies the chickens of the +capitol, or the cock that startled Peter; which yet lets a wealthy +sinner, by his gold, bribe the winking Pythoness, or buy dispensing +clauses from "the Lord our God, the Pope."</p> + +<p>There is yet a swarm of other notions pressing on the mind, which tend +to prove that Popery might have been anticipated. Take this view. The +religion of Christ is holy, self-denying; not of this world's praise, +and ending with the terrible sanction of eternity for good or evil: it +sets up God alone supreme, and cuts down creature-merit to a point +perpetually diminishing; for the longer he does well, the more he owes +to the grace which enabled him to do it.</p> + +<p>Now, man's nature is, as we know, diametrically opposite to all this: +and unable to escape from the conviction of Christian truth in some +sense, he would bend his shrewd invention to the attempt of warping +<a name="Page_515" id="Page_515"></a>that stern truth to shapes more consistent with his idiosyncrasies. A +religious plan might be expected, which, in lieu of a difficult, holy +spirituality, should exact easy, mere observances; to say a thousand +Paters with the tongue, instead of one "Our Father," from the heart; to +exact genuflections by the score, but not a single prostration of the +spirit; to write the cross in water on the forehead often-times, but +never once to bear its mystic weight upon the shoulder. In spite of +self-denial, cleverly kept in sight by means of eggs, and pulse, and +hair-cloth, to pamper the deluded flesh with many a carnal holiday; in +contravention of a kingdom not of this world, boldly to usurp the +temporal dominion of it all: instead of the overwhelming +incomprehensibility of an eternal doom, to comfort the worst with false +assurance of a purgatory longer or shorter; that after all, vice may be +burnt out; and who knows but that gold, buying up the prayers and +superfluous righteousness of others, may not make the fiery ordeal an +easy one? In lieu of a God brought near to his creatures, infinite +purity in contact with the grossest sin, as the good Physician loveth; +how sage it seemed to stock the immeasurable distance with intermediate +numia, cycle on epicycle, arc on arc, priest and bishop and pope, and +martyr, and virgin, and saint, and angel, all in their stations, at due +interval soliciting God to be (as if His blessed Majesty were not so of +Himself!) the sinner's friend. How comfortable this to man's sweet +estimation of his own petty penances; how glorifying to those "filthy +rags," his so-called righteousness: how apt to build up the hierarchist +power; how seemingly analogous with man's experience here, where clerks +lay the case before commissioners, and commissioners before the +government, and the government before the sovereign.</p> + +<p>All this was entirely expectable: and I can conceive that a deep +Reasoner among the first apostles, even without such supernal light as +"the Spirit speaking expressly," might have so calculated on the +probabilities to come, as to have written, long ago, words akin to +these: "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving +heed to seductive doctrines, and fanciful notions about intermediate +deities, (δαιμονἱων,) perverting truth by hypocritical +departures from it, searing conscience against its own cravings after +spiritual holiness, forbidding marriage, (to invent another virtue,) and +commanding abstinence from God's good gifts, as a means of building up a +creature-merit by voluntary humiliation." At the likelihood that such +"profane and old wives' fables" should thereafter have arisen, might +Paul without a miracle have possibly arrived.</p> + +<p><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516"></a>Yet again: take another view. The Religion of Christ, though intended +to be universal in some better era of this groaning earth, was, until +that era cometh, meant and contrived for any thing rather than a +Catholicity. True, the Church is so far Catholic that it numbers of its +blessed company men of every clime and every age, from righteous Abel +down to the last dear babe christened yester-morning; true, the +commission is "to all nations, teaching them:" but, what mean the +simultaneous and easily reconciled expressions—come out from among +them, little flock, gathered out of the Gentiles, a peculiar people, a +church militant, and not triumphant, here on earth? Thus shortly of a +word much misinterpreted: let us now see what the Romanist does, what, +(on human principles,) he would be probable to do, with this +discriminating religion. He, chiefly for temporal gains, would make it +as expansive as possible: there should be room at that table for every +guest, whether wedding-garmented or not; there would be sauces in that +poisonous feast, fitted to every palate. For the cold, ascetical mind, a +cell and a scourge, and a record kept of starving fancies as calling +them ecstatic visions vouchsafed by some old Stylite to bless his +favoured worshipper; for the painted demirep of fashionable life, there +would be a pretty pocket-idol, and the snug confessional well tenanted +by a not unsympathizing father; for the pure girl, blighted in her +heart's first love, the papist would afford that seemingly merciful +refuge, that calm and musical and gentle place, the irrevocable nunnery; +a place, for all its calmness, and its music, and its gentle +reputations, soon to be abhorred of that poor child as a living tomb, +the extinguisher of all life's aims, all its duties, uses and delights: +for the bandit, a tythe of the traveller's gold would avail to pay away +the murder, and earn for him a heap of merits kept within the cash-box: +the educated, high-born and finely-moulded mind might be well amused +with architecture, painting, carving, sweet odours, and the most +wondrous music that has ever cheated man, even while he offers up his +easy adorations, and departs, equally complacent at the choral remedies +as at the priestly absolution; while, for those good few, the truly +pious and enlightened children of Rome, who mourn the corruptions of +their church, and explain away, with trembling tongue, her obvious +errors and idolatries, for these the wily scheme, so probable, devised +an undoubted mass of truth to be left among the rubbish. True doctrines, +justly held by true martyrs and true saints, holy men of God who have +died in that communion; ordinances and an existence which creep up, +(heedless of corruption though,) step by <a name="Page_517" id="Page_517"></a>step, through past antiquity, +to the very feet of the Founder; keen casuists, competent to prove any +point of conscience or objection, and that indisputably, for they climax +all by the high authority of Popes and councils that cannot be deceived: +pious treatises and manuals, verily of flaming heat, for they mingle the +yearnings of a constrained celibacy with the fervencies of worship and +the cravings after God. Yes, there is meat here for every human mouth; +only that, alas for men! the meat is that which perisheth, and not +endureth unto everlasting life. Rome, thou wert sagely schemed; and if +Lucifer devised thee not for the various appetencies of poor, +deceivable, Catholic Man, verily it were pity, for thou art worthy of +his handiwork. All things to all men, in any sense but the right, +signifies nothing to anybody: in the sense of falsehoods, take the +former for thy motto; in that of single truth, in its intensity, the +latter.</p> + +<p>Let not then the accident—the probable accident—of the Italian +superstition place any hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all at +sea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world +else to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is +but in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, +stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful +strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of +the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her +friends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard that +any writer, from Julian to Hobbes, ever disputed his human truth or +wisdom) "Needs must that offences come; but wo be to that man by whom +the offence cometh. If they come, be not shaken in faith: lo, I have +told you before. And if others fall away, or do ought else than my +bidding, what is that to thee? follow thou ME."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="THE_BIBLE" id="THE_BIBLE"></a>THE BIBLE.</h3> + + +<p>Whilst I attempt to show, as now I desire to do, that the Bible should +be just the book it is, from considerations of anterior probability, I +must expand the subject a little; dividing it, first, into the +likelihood of a revelation at all; and secondly, into that of its +expectable form and character.</p> + +<p>The first likelihood has its birth in the just Benevolence of our +heavenly Father, who without dispute never leaves his rational creatures +<a name="Page_518" id="Page_518"></a>unaided by some sort of guiding light, some manifestation of himself so +needful to their happiness, some sure word of consolation in sorrow, or +of brighter hope in persecution. That it must have been thus an <i>à +priori</i> probability, has been all along proved by the innumerable +pretences of the kind so constant up and down the world: no nation ever +existed in any age or country, whose seers and wise men of whatever name +have not been believed to hold commerce with the Godhead. We may judge +from this, how probable it must ever have been held. The Sages of old +Greece were sure of it from reason: and not less sure from accepted +superstition those who reverenced the Brahmin, or the priest of +Heliopolis, or the medicine-man among the Rocky Mountains, or the Llama +of old Mexico. I know that our ignorance of some among the most +brutalized species of mankind, as the Bushmen in Caffraria, and the +tribes of New South Wales, has failed to find among their rites any +thing akin to religion: but what may we not yet have to learn of good +even about such poor outcasts? how shall we prove this negative? For +aught we know, their superstitions at the heart may be as deep and as +deceitful as in others; and, even on the contrary side, the exception +proves the rule: the rule that every people concluded a revelation so +likely, that they have one and all contrived it for themselves.</p> + +<p>Thus shortly of the first: and now, secondly, how should God reveal +himself to men? In such times as those when the world was yet young, and +the Church concentrated in a family or an individual, it would probably +be by an immediate oral teaching; the Lord would speak with Adam; He +would walk with Enoch; He would, in some pure ethereal garb, talk with +Abraham, as friend to friend. And thereafter, as men grew, and +worshippers were multiplied, He would give some favoured servant a +commission to be His ambassador: He would say to an Ezekiel, "Go unto +the house of Israel, and speak my words to them:" He would bid a +Jeremiah "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words +that I have spoken to thee:" He would give Daniel a deep vision, not to +be interpreted for ages, "Shut up the words, and seal the book even to +the time of the end:" He would make Moses grave His precepts in the +rock, and Job record his trials with a pen of iron. For a family, the +Beatic Vision was enough: for a congregated nation, as once at Sinai, +oral proclamations: for one generation or two around the world, the zeal +and eloquence of some great "multitude of preachers:" but, indubitably, +if God willed to bless the universal race, and drop the honey of his +words distilling down the hour-glass of Time from generation to +<a name="Page_519" id="Page_519"></a>generation even to the latter days, there was no plan more probable, +none more feasible, than the pen of a ready writer.</p> + +<p>Further: and which concerns our argument: what were likely to be the +characteristic marks of such a revelation? Exclusively of a pervading +holiness, and wisdom, and sublimity, which could not be dispensed with, +and in some sort should be worthy of the God; there would be, it was +probable, frequent evidences of man's infirmity, corrupting all he +toucheth. The Almighty works no miracles for little cause: one miracle +alone need be current throughout Scripture: to wit, that which preserves +it clean and safe from every perilous error. But, in the succession of a +thousand scribes each copying from the other, needs must that the tired +hand and misty eye would occasionally misplace a letter: this was no +nodus worthy of a God's descent to dissipate by miracle.</p> + +<p>Again: the original prophets themselves were men of various characters +and times and tribes. God addresses men through their reason; he bound +not down a seer "with bit and bridle, like the horse that has no +understanding"—but spoke as to a rational being—"What seest thou?" +"Hear my words;"—"Give ear unto my speech." Was it not then likely that +the previous mode of thought and providential education in each holy man +of God should mingle irresistibly with his inspired teaching? Should not +the herdsman of Tehoa plead in pastoral phrase, and the royal son of +Amoz denounce with strong authority? Should not David whilst a shepherd +praise God among his flocks, and when a king, cry "Give the King thy +judgments?" The Bible is full of this human individuality; and nothing +could be thought as humanly more probable: but we must, with this +diversity, connect the other probability also, that which should show +the work to be divine; which would prove (as is literally the case) +that, in spite of all such natural variety, all such unbiassed freedom +both of thought and speech, there pervades the whole mass a oneness, a +marvellous consistency, which would be likely to have been designed by +God, though little to have been dreamt by man.</p> + +<p>Once more on this full topic. Difficulties in Scripture were expectable +for many reasons; I can only touch a few. Man is rational as he is +responsible: God speaks to his mind and moral powers: and the mind +rejoices, and moralities grow strong in conquest of the difficult and +search for the mysterious. The muscles of the spiritual athlete pant for +such exertion; and without it, they would dwindle into trepid +imbecility. Curious man, courageous man, enterprising, shrewd, and +vigourous <a name="Page_520" id="Page_520"></a>man, yet has a constant enemy to dread in his own indolence: +now, a lion in the path will wake up Sloth himself: and the very +difficulties of religion engender perseverance.</p> + +<p>Additionally: I think there is somewhat in the consideration, that, if +all revealed truth had been utterly simple and easy, it would have +needed no human interpreter; no enlightened class of men, who, according +to the spirit of their times, and the occasions of their teaching, might +"in season and out of season preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort, +with all long-suffering and doctrine." I think there existed an anterior +probability that Scripture should be as it is, often-times difficult, +obscure, and requiring the aid of many wise to its elucidation; because, +without such characteristic, those many wise and good would never have +been called for. Suppose all truth revealed as clearly and indisputably +to the meanest intellect as a sum in addition is, where were the need or +use of that noble Christian company who are every where man's almoners +for charity, and God's ambassadors for peace?</p> + +<p>A word or two more, and I have done. The Bible would, as it seems to me +probable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for the +wicked: to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generous +dispositions: to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evil +inclinations. In these two senses, it would address the whole family +man: and every one should find in it something to his liking. Purity +should there perceive green pastures and still waters, and a tender +Shepherd for its innocent steps: and carnal appetite should here and +there discover some darker spot, which the honesty of heaven had filled +with memories of its chiefest servants' sins; some record of adultery or +murder wherewith to feast his maw for condemnation. While the good man +should find in it meat divine for every earthly need, the sneerer should +proclaim it the very easiest manual for his jests and lewd profanities. +The unlettered should not lack humble, nay vulgar, images and words, to +keep himself in countenance: neither should the learned look in vain for +reasonings; the poet for sublimities; the curious mind for mystery; nor +the sorrowing heart for prayer. I do discern, in that great book, a +wondrous adaptability to minds of every calibre: and it is just what +might antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men at +many different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of a +volume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, and +people; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man's +heart with deep conviction, and cuts down "the hoary head of him who +goeth on still in his wickedness."</p> + +<p><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521"></a>On the whole, respecting faults, or incongruities, or objectionable +parts in Scripture, however to have been expected, we must recollect +that the more they are viewed, the more the blemishes fade, and are +altered into beauties.</p> + +<p>A little child had picked up an old stone, defaced with time-stains: the +child said the stone was dirty, covered with blotches and all colours: +but his father brings a microscope, and shows to his astonished glance +that what the child thought dirt, is a forest of beautiful lichens, +fruited mosses, and strange lilliputian plants with shapely animalcules +hiding in the leaves, and rejoicing in their tiny shadow. Every blemish, +justly seen, had turned to be a beauty: and Nature's works are +vindicated good, even as the Word of Grace is wise.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="HEAVEN_AND_HELL" id="HEAVEN_AND_HELL"></a>HEAVEN AND HELL.</h3> + + +<p>Probably enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this important +subject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous, +and absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to the +objection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written. +Nevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reach +something more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere of +common apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts, +fancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localities +and other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, I +wish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching to +distinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for, +more especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, and +our risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when +"the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven;" and +when "<span class="smcap">He</span> was taken up, and a cloud received him?" Those happy +mortals did not waste away to intangible spiritualities, as they rose +above the world; their bodies were not melted as they broke the bonds of +gravitation, and pierced earth's swathing atmosphere: they went up +somewhither; the question is where they went to. It is a question of +great interest to us; however, among those matters which are rather +curious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that are +redeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, "in +the clouds, to <a name="Page_522" id="Page_522"></a>meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to be +ever with the Lord." I wish to show this to be expected as in our case, +and expectable previously to it.</p> + +<p>We have, in the book of Job, a peep at some place of congregation: some +one, as it is likely, of the mighty globes in space, set apart as God's +especial temple. Why not? they all are worlds; and the likelihood being +in favour of overbalancing good, rather than of preponderating evil from +considerations that affect God's attributes and the happiness of his +creatures, it is probable that the great majority of these worlds are +unfallen mansions of the blessed. Perhaps each will be a kingdom for one +of earth's redeemed, and if so, there will at last be found fulfilled +that prevailing superstition of our race, that each man has his star: +without insisting upon this, we may reflect that there is no one +universal opinion which has not its foundation in truth. Tradition may +well have dropped the thought from Adam downwards, that the stars may +some day be our thrones. We know their several vastness, and can guess +their glory: verily a mighty meed for miserable services on earth, to +find a just ambition gladdened with the rule of spheres, to which Terra +is a point; while that same ambition is sanctified and legalized by +ruling as vicegerent of Jehovah.</p> + +<p>Is this unlikely, or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, and +nearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let a +man muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; let +him see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will, +unexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worlds +unknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let every +grain of sand on every shore be gathered, and more innumerable yet +appear that galaxy of spheres. Let us think that night looks down upon +us here, with the million eyes of heaven. And for some focus of them +all, some spot where God himself enthroned receives the homage of all +crowns, and the worship of all creature service, what is there +unreasonable in suggesting for a place some such an one as is instanced +below?</p> + +<p>I have just cut the following paragraph out of a newspaper: Is this the +ridiculous tripping up the sublime? I think otherwise: it is honest to +use plain terms. I speak as unto wise men—judge ye what I say. With +respect to the fact of information, it may or it may not be true; but +even if untrue, the idea is substantially the same, and I cannot help +supposing that with angels and archangels and the whole company <a name="Page_523" id="Page_523"></a>of +heaven, such bodily saints as Enoch is, (and similar to him all risen, +holy men will be,) meet for happy sabbaths in some glorious orb akin or +superior to the following:</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">A central Sun.</span>—Dr. Madier, the Professor of Astronomy at +Dorpat, has published the results of the researches pursued by him +uninterruptedly during the last sixty years, upon the movements of the +so-called fixed stars. These more particularly relate to the star +Alcyone, (discovered by him,) the brightest of the seven bright stars of +the group of the Pleiades. This star he states to be the central sun of +all the systems of stars known to us. He gives its distance from the +boundaries of our system at thirty-four million times the distance of +the sun from our earth, a distance which it takes five hundred and +thirty-seven years for light to traverse. Our sun takes one hundred and +eighty-two million years to accomplish its course round this central +body, whose mass is one hundred and seventeen million times larger than +the sun."</p> + +<p>One hundred and seventeen million times larger than the Sun! itself, for +all its vastness, not more than half one million times bigger than this +earth. To some such globe we may let our fancies float, and anchor there +our yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such as +imagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself to +reason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus of +its brightness, and the fountain of its peace.</p> + +<p>A topic far less pleasant, but alike of interest to us poor men, is the +probable home of evil; and here I may be laughed at—laugh, but listen, +and if, listening, some reason meets thine ear, laugh at least no +longer.</p> + +<p>We know that, for spirit's misery as for spirit's happiness, there is no +need of place: "no matter where, for I am still the same," said one most +miserable being. More—in the case of mere spirits, there is no need for +any apparatus of torments, or fires, or other fearful things. But, when +spirit is married to matter, the case is altered; needs must a place to +prison the matter, and a corporal punishment to vex it.</p> + +<p>Nothing is unlikely here; excepting—will a man urge?—the dread +duration of such hell. This is a parenthesis; but it shall not be +avoided, for the import of that question is deep, and should be answered +clearly. A man, a body and soul inmixt, body risen incorruptible, and +soul rested from its deeds, must exist for ever. I touch not here the +proofs—assume it. Now, if he lives for ever, and deliberately chooses +evil, his will consenting as well as his infirmity, and conscience +seared by persisted disobedience, what course can such a wilful, +rational, responsible being <a name="Page_524" id="Page_524"></a>pursue than one perpetually erratic? How +should it not be that he gets worse and worse in morals, and more and +more miserable in fact? and when to this we add, that such wretched +creatures are to herd together, continually flying further away from the +only source of Happiness and Good; and to this, that they have earned by +sin, remorses and regrets, and positive inflictions; how probable seems +a hell, the sinner's doom eternal. The apt mathematical analogy of lines +thrown out of parallel, helps this for illustration: for ever and for +ever they are stretching more remote, and infinity itself cannot rëunite +their travel.</p> + +<p>This, then, as a passing word; a sad one. Honest thinker, do not scorn +it, for thine own soul's sake. "Now is the time of grace, now is the day +of salvation." To return. A place of punishment exists; to what quarter +shall we look for its anterior probability? I think there is a +likelihood very near us. There may be one, possibly, beneath us, in the +bowels of this fiery-bursting earth; whither went Korah and his company? +This idea is not without its arguments, just analogies, and scriptural +hints. But my judgment inclines towards another. This trial-world, we +know, is to be purified and restored, and made a new earth: it was even +to be expected that Redemption should do this, and I like not to imagine +it the crust and case of hell, but rather, as thus: At the birth of this +same world, there was struck off from its burning mass at a tangent, a +mournful satellite, to be the home of its immortal evil; the convict +shore for exiled sin and misery; a satellite of strange differences, as +guessed by Virgil in his musings upon Tartarus, where half the orb is, +from natural necessities, blistered up by constant heats, the other half +frozen by perennial cold. A land of caverns, and volcanoes, miles deep, +miles high; with no water, no perceptible air: imagine such a dreadful +world, with neither air nor water! incapable of feeding life like ours, +but competent to be a place where undying wretchedness may struggle for +ever. A melancholy orb, the queen of night, chief nucleus of all the +dark idolatries of earth; the Moon, Isis, Hecate, Ashtaroth, Diana of +the Ephesians!</p> + +<p>This expression of a thought by no means improbable, gives an easy +chance to shallow punsters; but ridicule is no weapon against reason. +Why should not the case be so? Why should not Earth's own satellite, +void, as yet, be on the resurrection of all flesh, the raft whereon to +float away Earth's evil? Read of it astronomically; think of it as +connected with idols; regard it as the ruler of earth's night; consider +that the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere; and what is there in my +fancy <a name="Page_525" id="Page_525"></a>quite improbable? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so, but +only suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hitherto +suggested. Think how that awful, melancholy eye looks down on deeds of +darkness how many midnight crimes, murders, thefts, adulteries, and +witchcrafts, that would have shrunk into nonentity from open, honest +day, have paled the conscious Moon! Add to all this, it is the only +world, besides our own, whereof astronomers can tell us, It is fallen.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="AN_OFFER" id="AN_OFFER"></a>AN OFFER.</h3> + + +<p>Nothing were easier than to have made this book a long one; but that was +not the writer's object: as well because of the musty Greek proverb +about long books; which in every time and country are sure never to be +read through by one in a thousand; as because it is always wiser to +suggest than to exhaust a topic; which may be as "a fruit-tree yielding +fruit after its kind whose seed is in itself." The writer then intended +only to touch upon a few salient points, and not to discuss every +question, however they might crowd upon his mind: time and space alike +with mental capabilities forbade an effort so gigantic: added to which, +such a course seemed to be unnecessary, as the rule of probability, thus +illustrated, might be applied by others in every similar instance. +Still, as the errand of this book is usefulness, and its author's hope +is, under Heaven, to do good, one personal hint shall here be thrown +upon the highway. Without arrogating to myself the wisdom or the +knowledge to solve one in twenty of the doubts possible to be +propounded; without also designing even to attempt such solutions, +unless well assured of the genuine anxiety of the doubter; and +preliminarizing the consideration, that a fitting diffidence in the +advocate's own powers is no reason why he should not make wide efforts +in his holy cause; that, such reasonable essays to do good have no sort +of brotherhood with a fanatical Spiritual Quixotism; and that, to my own +apprehensions, the doubts of a rationalizing mind are in the nature of +honourable foes, to be treated with delicacy, reverence, and kindness, +rather than with a cold distance and an ill-concealed contempt; +preliminarizing, lastly, the thought—"Who is sufficient for these +things?"—I nevertheless thus offer, according to the grace and power +given to me, my best but humble efforts so far to dissipate the doubts +of some respecting any scriptural <a name="Page_526" id="Page_526"></a>fact, as may lie within the province +of showing or attempting to show its previous credibility. This is not a +challenge to the curious casuist or the sneering infidel; but an +invitation to the honest mind harassed by unanswered queries: no +gauntlet thrown down, but a brother's hand stretched out. Such +questions, if put to the writer, through his publisher by letter, may +find their reply in a future edition: supposing, that is to say, that +they deserve an answer, whether as regards their own merits or the +temper of the mind who doubts; and supposing also that the writer has +the power and means to answer them discreetly. It is only a fair rule of +philanthropy (and that without arrogating any unusual "strength") to +"bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves:" and +nothing would to me give greater happiness than to be able, as I am +willing, to remove any difficulties lying in the track of Faith before a +generous mind. I hang out no glistening holly-bush a-flame with its +ostentatious berries as promising good wine; but rather over my portal +is the humbler and hospitable mistletoe, assuring every wearied pilgrim +in the way, that though scanty be the fare, he shall find a hearty +welcome.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION.</h3> + + +<p>I have thus endeavoured (with solicited help of Heaven) to place before +the world anew a few old truths: truths inestimably precious. Remember, +they cannot have lost by any such advocacy as is contained in the idea +of their being shown antecedently probable; for this idea affects not at +all the fact of their existence; the thing is; whether probable or not; +there is, in esse, an ornithorhyncus; its posse is drowned in esse: +there exists no doubt of it: evidence, whether of senses physical, or of +considerations moral, puts the circumstance beyond the sphere of +disputation. But such truths as we have spoken of do, nevertheless, gain +something as to—not their merits, these are all their own +substantially; nor their positive proofs, these are adjectives properly +attendant on them, but as to—their acceptability among the incredulous +of men; they gain, I say, even by such poor pleading as mine, from being +shown anteriorly probable. Take an illustration in the case of that +strange and anomalous creature mentioned just above. Its habitat is in a +land where plums grow with the stones outside, where aboriginal dogs +have <a name="Page_527" id="Page_527"></a>never been heard to bark, where birds are found covered with hair, +and where mammals jump about like frogs! If these are shown to be +literal facts, the mind is thereby well prepared for any animal +monstrosity: and it staggers not in unbelief (on evidence of honest +travellers) even when informed of a creature with a duck's bill and a +beaver's body: it really amounted in Australia to an antecedent +probability.</p> + +<p>Carry this out to matters not a quarter so incredible, ye thinkers, ye +free-thinkers; neither be abashed at being named as thinking freely: +were not those Bereans more noble in that they searched to see? For my +humble part, I do commend you for it: treacherous is the hand that roots +up the inalienable right of private judgment; the foundation-stone of +Protestantism, the great prerogative of reason, the key-note of +conscience, the sole vindex of a man's responsibility: evil and false is +the so-called reverential wisdom which lays down in place of the truth +that each man's conscience is a law unto himself, the tyranny of other +men's authority. Cheap and easy and perilled is the faith, which clings +to the skirt of others; which leans upon the broken staff of +priestcraft, until those poisoned splinters pierce the hand.</p> + +<p>Prove all things; holding fast that which is good: good to thine own +reasonable conscience, if unwarped by casuistries, and unblinded by +licentiousness. Prove all things, if you can, "from the egg to the +apple:" he is a poor builder of his creed, who takes one brick on +credit. Be able, as you can be, (if only you are willing so far to be +wisely inconsistent, as to bend the stubborn knee betimes, and though +with feeble glance to look to heaven, and though with stammering tongue +to pray for aid,) be able, as it is thy right, O man of God—to give a +Reason for the faith that is in thee.</p> + + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete Prose Works of Martin +Farquhar Tupper, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE WORKS OF TUPPER *** + +***** This file should be named 20610-h.htm or 20610-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/1/20610/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Author: Martin Farquhar Tupper + +Editor: W. C. Armstrong + +Release Date: February 16, 2007 [EBook #20610] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE WORKS OF TUPPER *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE + +COMPLETE PROSE WORKS + +OF + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, ESQ. + +COMPRISING + + THE CROCK OF GOLD, + + THE TWINS, + + AN AUTHOR'S MIND, + + HEART, + + PROBABILITIES, ETC. + + +REVISED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS EDITION BY W. C. ARMSTRONG. + +HARTFORD: +PUBLISHED BY SILAS ANDRUS & SON +1851. + + ++-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected. This | +|omnibus edition consists of four separately published works which | +|contain many inconsistencies. These are as in the originals. | ++-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ + + +PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. + + +Mr. Tupper has achieved a popularity for his works, which +has rarely been enjoyed by any one at so early a period of life; +he being now only between thirty-five and forty years of age. +Where all are so intrinsically valuable, it is difficult to determine +which particular work has contributed most to his rapid and +enviable advancement; yet, were an award indispensable, we +should feel constrained to make it in favour of his '_Proverbial +Philosophy_.' It is one of those unique productions which commends +itself to all classes of readers, and from the perusal of +which _all_ cannot but derive substantial means of improvement. +Familiar truths are so cogently treated therein, as to leave an +indelible impression upon the mind, which could not, perhaps, +have been so thoroughly made in any other manner; and the +"thoughts and arguments" may be perused and reperused with +an advantage but few other writings are capable of yielding. + +The rapid and extensive sale of several editions, issued in +other places--some of them of rather an indifferent character, as +regards mechanical execution--and the increasing demand still +manifested for them, has induced the present publishers to collect +the entire works of Mr. Tupper, and to stereotype them in a +style worthy of their excellence. Each work has been thoroughly +revised, and the errors which disfigure some other editions have +been carefully corrected--an advantage readily appreciable by +those who discriminate in their selections for the library or the +centre-table. + + + * * * * * + + +THE + +CROCK OF GOLD; + +A RURAL NOVEL. + +BY + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, ESQ., M.A., + + +AUTHOR OF + +"PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY." + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAP. PAGE. + +1. The Labourer; and his Dawning Discontent 11 + +2. The Family; the Home; and more Repinings 14 + +3. The Contract 17 + +4. The Lost Theft 21 + +5. The Inquest 23 + +6. The Bailiff; and a Bitter Trial 27 + +7. Wrongs and Ruin 32 + +8. The Covetous Dream 35 + +9. The Poacher 38 + +10. Ben Burke's Strange Adventure 41 + +11. Sleep 45 + +12. Love 48 + +13. The Discovery 52 + +14. Jonathan's Store 56 + +15. Another Discovery, and the Earnest of Good Things 58 + +16. How the Home was blessed thereby 62 + +17. Care 65 + +18. Investment 68 + +19. Calumny 72 + +20. The Bailiff's Visit 74 + +21. The Capture 77 + +22. The Aunt and her Nephew 80 + +23. Schemes 83 + +24. The Devil's Counsel 87 + +25. The Ambuscade 89 + +26. Preliminaries 92 + +27. Robbery 95 + +28. Murder 96 + +29. The Reward 97 + +30. Second Thoughts 100 + +31. Mammon; and Contentment 102 + +32. Next Morning 104 + +33. The Alarm 106 + +34. Doubts 108 + +35. Fears 109 + +36. Prison Comforts 111 + +37. Good Counsel 113 + +38. Experience 114 + +39. Jonathan's Troth 115 + +40. Suspicions 118 + +41. Grace's Alternative 119 + +42. The Dismissal 122 + +43. Simon alone 124 + +44. The Trial 127 + +45. Roger's Defence 129 + +46. The Witness 130 + +47. Mr. Sharp's Advocacy 133 + +48. Sentence and Death 140 + +49. Righteous Mammon 143 + +50. The Crock a Blessing 144 + +51. Popularity 147 + +52. Roger at the Swan 149 + +53. Roger's Triumph 151 + +54. Sir John's Parting Speech 152 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE LABOURER; AND HIS DAWNING DISCONTENT. + + +Roger Acton woke at five. It was a raw March morning, still +dark, and bitterly cold, while at gusty intervals the rain beat in +against the crazy cottage-window. Nevertheless, from his poor pallet he +must up and rouse himself, for it will be open weather by sunrise, and +his work lies two miles off; Master Jennings is not the man to show him +favour if he be late, and Roger cannot afford to lose an hour: so he +shook off the luxury of sleep, and rose again to toil with weary effort. + +"Honest Roger," as the neighbours called him, was a fair specimen of a +class which has been Britain's boast for ages, and may be still again, +in measure, but at present that glory appears to be departing: a class +much neglected, much enduring; thoroughly English--just, industrious, +and patient; true to the altar, and loyal to the throne; though haply +shaken somewhat now from both those noble faiths--warped in their +principles, and blunted in their feelings, by lying doctrines and harsh +economies; a class--I hate the cold cant term--a race of honourable men, +full of cares, pains, privations--but of pleasures next to none; whose +life at its most prosperous estate is labour, and in death we count him +happy who did not die a pauper. Through them, serfs of the soil, the +earth yields indeed her increase, but it is for others; from the fields +of plenty they glean a scanty pittance, and fill the barns to bursting, +while their children cry for bread. Not that Roger for his part often +wanted work; he was the best hand in the parish, and had earned of his +employers long ago the name of Steady Acton; but the fair wages for a +fair day's labour were quite another thing, and the times went very hard +for him and his. A man himself may starve, while his industry makes +others fat: and a liberal landlord all the winter through may keep his +labourers in work, while a crafty, overbearing bailiff mulcts them in +their wages. + +For the outward man, Acton stood about five feet ten, a gaunt, spare, +and sinewy figure, slightly bent; his head sprinkled with gray; his face +marked with those rigid lines, which tell, if not of positive famine, at +least of too much toil on far too little food; in his eye, patience and +good temper; in his carriage, a mixture of the sturdy bearing, necessary +to the habitual exercise of great muscular strength, together with that +gait of humility--almost humiliation--which is the seal of oppression +upon poverty. He might be about forty, or from that to fifty, for +hunger, toil, and weather had used him the roughest; while, for all +beside, the patched and well-worn smock, the heavily-clouted high-laced +boots, a dingy worsted neck-tie, and an old felt hat, complete the +picture of externals. + +But, for the matter of character within, Roger is quite another man. If +his rank in this world is the lowest, many potentates may envy him his +state elsewhere. His heart is as soft, as his hand is horny; with the +wandering gipsy or the tramping beggar, thrust aside, perhaps +deservedly, as impudent impostors from the rich man's gate, has he +often-times shared his noon-day morsel: upright and sincere himself, he +thinks as well of others: he scarcely ever heard the Gospels read in +church, specially about Eastertide, but the tears would trickle down his +weather-beaten face: he loves children--his neighbour's little ones as +well as his own: he will serve any one for goodness' sake without reward +or thanks, and is kind to the poor dumb cattle: he takes quite a pride +in his little rod or two of garden, and is early and late at it, both +before and after the daily sum of labour: he picks up a bit of knowledge +here and there, and somehow has contrived to amass a fund of information +for which few would give him credit from his common looks; and he joins +to that stock of facts a natural shrewdness to use his knowledge wisely. +Though with little of what is called sentiment, or poetry, or fancy in +his mind (for harsh was the teaching of his childhood, and meagre the +occasions of self-culture ever since), the beauty of creation is by no +means lost upon him, and he notices at times its wisdom too. With a +fixed habit of manly piety ever on his lips and ever in his heart, he +recognises Providence in all things, just, and wise, and good. More than +so; simply as a little child who endures the school-hour for the +prospect of his play-time, Roger Acton bears up with noble meekness +against present suffering, knowing that his work and trials and +troubles are only for a little while, but his rest and his reward remain +a long hereafter. He never questioned this; he knew right well Who had +earned it for him; and he lived grateful and obedient, filling up the +duties of his humble station. This was his faith, and his works followed +it. He believed that God had placed him in his lot, to be a labourer, +and till God's earth, and, when his work is done, to be sent on better +service in some happier sphere: the where, or the how, did not puzzle +him, any more than divers other enigmatical whys and wherefores of his +present state; he only knew this, that it would all come right at last: +and, barring sin (which he didn't comprehend), somehow all was right at +present. What if poverty pinched him? he was a great heir still; what if +oppression bruised him? it would soon be over. He trusted to his Pilot, +like the landsman in a storm; to his Father, as an infant in the dark. +For guilt, he had a Saviour, and he thought of him in penitence; for +trouble, a Guardian, and he looked to him in peace; and as for toil, +back-breaking toil, there was another Master whom he served with spade, +and mattock, and a thankful heart, while he only seemed to be working +for the landlord or his bailiff. + +Such a man then had been Roger Acton from his youth up till now, or, if +sadness must be told, nearly until now; for, to speak truth, his heart +at times would fail him, and of late he had been bitter in repinings and +complaint. For a day or two, in particular, he had murmured loudly. It +was hard, very hard, that an honest, industrious man, as he was, should +so scantily pick a living out of this rich earth: after all said, let +the parson preach as he will, it's a fine thing to have money, and that +his reverence knows right well, or he wouldn't look so closely for his +dues. [N.B. Poor Mr. Evans was struggling as well as he could to bring +up six children, on a hundred and twenty pounds per annum.] Roger, too, +was getting on in years, with a blacker prospect for the future than +when he first stood behind a plough-tail. Then there were many wants +unsatisfied, which a bit of gold might buy; and his wife teased him to +be doing something better. Thus was it come at length to pass, that, +although he had endured so many years, he now got discontented at his +penury;--what human heart can blame him?--and with murmurings came +doubt; with doubt of Providence, desire of lucre; so the sunshine of +religion faded from his path;--what mortal mind can wonder? + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE FAMILY; THE HOME; AND MORE REPININGS. + + +Now, if Malthus and Martineau be verily the pundits that men +think them, Roger had twice in his life done a very foolish thing: he +had sinned against society, statistics, and common sense, by a two-fold +marriage. The wife of his youth (I am afraid he married early) had once +been kitchen-maid at the Hall; but the sudden change from living +luxuriously in a great house, to the griping poverty of a cotter's +hovel, had changed, in three short years, the buxom country girl into an +emaciated shadow of her former self, and the sorrowing husband buried +her in her second child-bed. The powers of the parish clapped their +hands; political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a +coarse-featured farmer (he meant no ill), who occasionally had given +Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the +fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Ay, and Heaven take the babies +also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken! +scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as +before, was more mechanical, less high-motived: and many a year of +dreary widowhood he mourned a loss all the greater, though any thing but +bitterer, for the infants so left motherless. To these, now grown into a +strapping youth and a bright-eyed graceful girl, had he been the +tenderest of nurses, and well supplied the place of her whom they had +lost. Neighbours would have helped him gladly--sometimes did; and many +was the hinted offer (disinterested enough, too, for in that match +penury must have been the settlement, and starvation the dower), of +giving them a mother's kindly care; but Roger could not quite so soon +forget the dead: so he would carry his darlings with him to his work, +and feed them with his own hard hands; the farmers winked at it, and +never said a word against the tiny trespassers; their wives and +daughters loved the little dears, bringing them milk and possets; and +holy angels from on high may have oft-times hovered about this rude +nurse, tending his soft innocents a-field, and have wept over the poor +widower and his orphans, tears of happy sorrow and benevolent affection. +Yea, many a good angel has shed blessings on their heads! + +Within the last three years, and sixteen from the date of his first +great grief, Roger had again got married. His daughter was growing into +early womanhood, and his son gave him trouble at times, and the cottage +wanted a ruling hand over it when he was absent, and rheumatism now and +then bade him look out for a nurse before old age, and Mary Alder was a +notable middle-aged careful sort of soul, and so she became Mary Acton. +All went on pretty well, until Mrs. Acton began to have certain little +ones of her own; and then the step-mother would break out (a contingency +poor Roger hadn't thought of), separate interests crept in, and her own +children fared before the others; so it came to pass that, however truly +there was a ruling hand at home, and however well the rheumatism got +nursed (for Mary was a good wife in the main), the grown-up son and +daughter felt themselves a little jostled out. Grace, gentle and +submissive, found all her comforts shrunk within the space of her father +and her Bible; Thomas, self-willed and open-hearted, sought his pleasure +any where but at home, and was like to be taking to wrong courses +through domestic bickering: Grace had the dangerous portion, beauty, +added to her lowly lot, and attracted more admiration than her father +wished, or she could understand; while the frank and bold spirit of +Thomas Acton exposed him to the perilous friendship of Ben Burke the +poacher, and divers other questionable characters. + +Of these elements, then, are our labourer and his family composed; and +before Roger Acton goes abroad at earliest streak of dawn, we will take +a casual peep within his dwelling. It consists of four bare rubble +walls, enclosing a grouted floor, worn unevenly, and here and there in +holes, and puddly. There were but two rooms in the tenement, one on the +ground, and one over-head; which latter is with no small difficulty got +at by scaling a ladder-like stair-case that fronts the cottage-door. +This upper chamber, the common dormitory, for all but Thomas, who sleeps +down stairs, has a thin partition at one end of it, to screen off the +humble truckle-bed where Grace Acton forgets by night the troubles of +the day; and the remainder of the little apartment, sordid enough, and +overhung with the rough thatch, black with cobweb, serves for the father +and mother with their recent nursery. Each room has its shattery +casement, to let in through linchened panes, the doubtful light of +summer, and the much more indubitable wind, and rain, and frost of +wintry nights. A few articles of crockery and some burnished tins +decorate the shelves of the lower apartment; which used to be much +tidier before the children came, and trimmer still when Grace was sole +manager: in a doorless cupboard are apparent sundry coarse edibles, as +the half of a huge unshapely home-made loaf, some white country cheese, +a mass of lumpy pudding, and so forth; beside it, on the window-sill, is +better bread, a well-thumbed Bible, some tracts, and a few odd volumes +picked up cheap at fairs; an old musket (occasionally Ben's companion, +sometimes Tom's) is hooked to the rafters near a double rope of onions; +divers gaudy little prints, tempting spoil of pedlars, in honour of +George Barnwell, the Prodigal Son, the Sailor's Return, and the Death of +Nelson, decorate the walls, and an illuminated Christmas carol is pasted +over the mantel-piece: which, among other chattels and possessions, +conspicuously bears its own burden of Albert and Victoria--two plaster +heads, resplendently coloured, highly varnished, looking with arched +eye-brows of astonishment on their uninviting palace, and royally +contrasting with the sombre hue of poverty on all things else. The +pictures had belonged to Mary, no small portion of her virgin wealth; +and as for the statuary, those two busts had cost loyal Roger far more +in comparison than any corporation has given to P.R.A., for majesty and +consortship in full. There is, moreover, in the room, by way of +household furniture, a ricketty, triangular, and tri-legged table, a +bench, two old chairs with rush-bottoms, and a yard or two of matting +that the sexton gave when the chancel was new laid. I don't know that +there is any thing else to mention, unless it be a gaunt lurcher +belonging to Ben Burke, and with all a dog's resemblance to his master, +who lies stretched before the hearth where the peaty embers never quite +die out, but smoulder away to a heap of white ashes; over these is +hanging a black boiler, the cook of the family; and beside them, on a +substratum of dry heather, and wrapped about with an old blanket, nearly +companioned by his friend, the dog, snores Thomas Acton, still fast +asleep, after his usual extemporaneous fashion. + +As to the up-stairs apartment, it contained little or nothing but its +living inmates, their bedsteads and tattered coverlids, and had an air +of even more penury and discomfort than the room below; so that, what +with squalling children, a scolding wife, and empty stomach, and that +cold and wet March morning, it is little wonder maybe (though no small +blame), that Roger Acton had not enough of religion or philosophy to +rise and thank his Maker for the blessings of existence. + +He had just been dreaming of great good luck. Poor people often do so; +just as Ugolino dreamt of imperial feasts, and Bruce, in his delirious +thirst on the Sahara, could not banish from his mind the cool fountains +of Shiraz, and the luxurious waters of old Nile. Roger had unfortunately +dreamt of having found a crock of gold--I dare say he will tell us his +dream anon--and just as he was counting out his treasure, that blessed +beautiful heap of shining money--cruel habit roused him up before the +dawn, and his wealth faded from his fancy. So he awoke at five, anything +but cheerfully. + +It was Grace's habit, good girl, to read to her father in the morning a +few verses from the volume she best loved: she always woke betimes when +she heard him getting up, and he could hear her easily from her little +flock-bed behind the lath partition; and many a time had her dear +religious tongue, uttering the words of peace, soothed her father's +mind, and strengthened him to meet the day's affliction; many times it +raised his thoughts from the heavy cares of life to the buoyant hopes of +immortality. Hitherto, Roger had owed half his meek contentedness to +those sweet lessons from a daughter's lips, and knew that he was +reaping, as he heard, the harvest of his own paternal care, and +heaven-blest instructions. However, upon this dark morning, he was full +of other thoughts, murmurings, and doubts, and poverty, and riches. So, +when Grace, after her usual affectionate salutations, gently began to +read, + +"The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with +the glory--" + +Her father strangely stopped her on a sudden with-- + +"Enough, enough, my girl! God wot, the sufferings are grievous, and the +glory long a-coming." + +Then he heavily went down stairs, and left Grace crying. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE CONTRAST. + + +Thus, full of carking care, while he pushed aside the proffered +consolation, Roger Acton walked abroad. There was yet but a glimmer of +faint light, and the twittering of birds told more assuringly of morning +than any cheerful symptom on the sky: however, it had pretty well ceased +raining, that was one comfort, and, as Roger, shouldering his spade, and +with the day's provision in a handkerchief, trudged out upon his daily +duty, those good old thoughts of thankfulness came upon his mind, and he +forgot awhile the dream that had unstrung him. Turning for a moment to +look upon his hovel, and bless its inmates with a prayer, he half +resolved to run back, and hear a few more words, if only not to vex his +darling child: but there was now no time to spare; and then, as he gazed +upon her desolate abode--so foul a casket for so fair a jewel--his +bitter thoughts returned to him again, and he strode away, repining. + +Acton's cottage was one of those doubtful domiciles, whose only +recommendation it is, that they are picturesque in summer. At present we +behold a reeking rotting mass of black thatch in a cheerless swamp; but, +as the year wears on, those time-stained walls, though still both damp +and mouldy, will be luxuriantly overspread with creeping +plants--honeysuckle, woodbine, jessamine, and the everblowing monthly +rose. Many was the touring artist it had charmed, and Suffolk-street had +seen it often: spectators looked upon the scene as on an old familiar +friend, whose face they knew full well, but whose name they had +forgotten for the minute. Many were the fair hands that had immortalized +its beauties in their albums, and frequent the notes of admiration +uttered by attending swains: particularly if there chanced to be taken +into the view a feathery elm that now creaked overhead, and dripped on +the thatch like the dropping-well at Knaresborough, and (in the near +distance) a large pond, or rather lake, upon whose sedgy banks, gay--not +now, but soon about to be--with flowering reeds and bright green +willows, the pretty cottage stood. In truth, if man were but an +hibernating animal, invisible as dormice in the winter, and only to be +seen with summer swallows, Acton's cottage at Hurstley might have been a +cantle cut from the Elysian-fields. But there are certain other seasons +in the year, and human nature cannot long exist on the merely +"picturesque in summer." + +Some fifty yards, or so, from the hither shore, we discern a roughly +wooded ait, Pike Island to wit, a famous place for fish, and the grand +rendezvous for woodcocks; which, among other useful and ornamental +purposes, serves to screen out the labourer's hovel, at this the +narrowest part of the lake, from a view of that fine old mansion on the +opposite shore, the seat of Sir John Vincent, a baronet just of age, and +the great landlord of the neighbourhood. Toward this mansion, scarcely +yet revealed in the clear gray eye of morning, our humble hero, having +made the long round of the lake, is now fast trudging; and it may merit +a word or two of plain description, to fill up time and scene, till he +gets nearer. + +A smooth grassy eminence, richly studded with park-like clumps of trees, +slopes up from the water's very edge to--Hurstley Hall; yonder goodly, +if not grand, Elizabethan structure, full of mullioned windows, carved +oak panels, stone-cut coats of arms, pinnacles, and traceries, and +lozenges, and drops; and all this glory crowned by a many-gabled, +high-peaked roof. A grove of evergreens and American shrubs hides the +lower windows from vulgarian gaze--for, in the neighbourly feeling of +our ancestors, a public way leads close along the front; while, behind +the house, and inaccessible to eyes profane, are drawn terraced gardens, +beautifully kept, and blooming with a perpetual succession of the +choicest flowers. The woods and shrubberies around, attempted some half +a century back to be spoilt by the meddlesome bad taste of Capability +Brown, have been somewhat too resolutely robbed of the formal avenues, +clipped hedges, and other topiarian adjuncts which comport so well with +the starch prudery of things Elizabethan; but they are still replete +with grotto, fountain, labyrinth, and alcove--a very paradise for the +more court-bred rank of sylphs, and the gentler elves of Queen Titania. + +However, we have less to do with the gardens than, probably, the elves +have; and as Roger now, just at breaking day, is approaching the windows +somewhat too curiously for a poor man's manners, it may not be amiss if +we bear him company. He had pretty well recovered of his fit of +discontent, for morning air and exercise can soon chase gloom away; so +he cheerily tramped along, thinking as he went, how that, after all, it +is a middling happy world, and how that the raindrops, now that it had +cleared up, hung like diamonds on the laurels, when of a sudden, as he +turned a corner near the house, there broke upon his ear, at that quiet +hour, such a storm of boisterous sounds--voices so loud with oaths and +altercation--such a calling, clattering, and quarrelling, as he had +never heard the like before. So no wonder that he stepped aside to see +it. + +The noise proceeded from a ground-floor window, or rather from three +windows, lighted up, and hung with draperies of crimson and gold: one of +the casements, flaring meretriciously in the modest eye of morn, stood +wide open down to the floor, probably to cool a heated atmosphere; and +when Roger Acton, with a natural curiosity, went on tiptoe, looked in, +and just put aside the curtain for a peep, to know what on earth could +be the matter, he saw a vision of waste and wealth, at which he stood +like one amazed, for a poor man's mind could never have conceived its +equal. + +Evidently, he had intruded on the latter end of a long and luxurious +revel. Wax-lights, guttering down in gilded chandeliers, poured their +mellow radiance round in multiplied profusion--for mirrors made them +infinite; crimson and gold were the rich prevailing tints in that wide +and warm banqueting-room; gayly-coloured pictures, set in frames that +Roger fancied massive gold, hung upon the walls at intervals; a +wagon-load of silver was piled upon the sideboard; there blazed in the +burnished grate such a fire as poverty might imagine on a frozen +winter's night, but never can have thawed its blood beside: fruits, and +wines, and costly glass were scattered in prodigal disorder on the +board--just now deserted of its noisy guests, who had crowded round a +certain green table, where cards and heaps of sovereigns appeared to be +mingled in a mass. Roger had never so much as conceived it possible that +there could be wealth like this: it was a fairy-land of Mammon in his +eyes: he stood gasping like a man enchanted; and in the contemplation of +these little hills of gold--in their covetous longing contemplation, he +forgot the noisy quarrel he had turned aside to see, and thirsted for +that rich store earnestly. + +In an instant, as he looked (after the comparative lull that must +obviously have succeeded to the clamours he had first heard), the roar +and riot broke out worse than ever. There were the stormy revellers, as +the rabble rout of Comus and his crew, filling that luxurious room with +the sounds of noisy execration and half-drunken strife. Young Sir John, +a free and generous fellow, by far the best among them all, has +collected about him those whom he thought friends, to celebrate his +wished majority; they had now kept it up, night after night, hard upon a +week; and, as well became such friends--the gambler, the duellist, the +man of pleasure, and the fool of Fashion--they never yet had separated +for their day-light beds, without a climax to their orgie, something +like the present scene. + +Henry Mynton, high in oath, and dashing down his cards, has charged Sir +Richard Hunt with cheating (it was _sauter la coupe_ or _couper la +saut_, or some such mystery of iniquity, I really cannot tell which): +Sir Richard, a stout dark man, the patriarch of the party, glossily +wigged upon his head, and imperially tufted on his chin, retorts with a +pungent sarcasm, calmly and coolly uttered; that hot-headed fool +Silliphant, clearly quite intoxicated, backs his cousin Mynton's view of +the case by the cogent argument of a dice-box at Sir Richard's head--and +at once all is struggle, strife, and uproar. The other guests, young +fellows of high fashion, now too much warmed with wine to remember their +accustomed Mohican cold-bloodedness--those happy debtors to the prowess +of a Stultz, and walking advertisers of Nugee--take eager part with the +opposed belligerents: more than one decanter is sent hissing through +the air; more than one bloody coxcomb witnesses to the weight of a +candle-stick and its hurler's clever aim: uplifted chairs are made the +weapons of the chivalric combatants; and along with divers other less +distinguished victims in the melee, poor Sir John Vincent, rushing into +the midst, as a well-intentioned host, to quell the drunken brawl, gets +knocked down among them all; the tables are upset, the bright gold runs +about the room in all directions--ha! no one heeds it--no one owns +it--one little piece rolled right up to the window-sill where Roger +still looked on with all his eyes; it is but to put his hand in--the +window is open to the floor--nay a finger is enough: greedily, one +undecided moment, did he gaze upon the gold; he saw the hideous contrast +of his own dim hovel and that radiant chamber--he remembered the pining +faces of his babes, and gentle Grace with all her hardships--he thought +upon his poverty and well deserts--he looked upon wastefulness of wealth +and wantonness of living--these reflections struck him in a moment; no +one saw him, no one cared about the gold; that little blessed morsel, +that could do him so much good; all was confusion, all was opportunity, +and who can wonder that his fingers closed upon the sovereign, and that +he picked it up? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE LOST THEFT. + + +Stealthily and quickly "honest Roger" crept away, for his +conscience smote him on the instant: he felt he had done wrong; at any +rate, the sovereign was not his--and once the thought arose in him to +run back, and put it where he found it: but it was now become too +precious in his sight, that little bit of gold--and they, the rioters +there, could not want it, might not even miss it; and then its righteous +uses--it should be well spent, even if ill-got: and thus, so many +mitigations crowded in to excuse, if not to applaud the action, that +within a little while his warped mind had come to call the theft a +god-send. + +O Roger, Roger! alas for this false thought of that wrong deed! the +poisonous gold has touched thy heart, and left on it a spot of cancer: +the asp has bitten thee already, simple soul. This little seed will grow +into a huge black pine, that shall darken for a while thy heaven, and +dig its evil roots around thy happiness. Put it away, Roger, put it +away: covet not unhallowed gold. + +But Roger felt far otherwise; and this sudden qualm of conscience once +quelled (I will say there seemed much of palliation in the matter), a +kind of inebriate feeling of delight filled his mind, and Steady Acton +plodded on to the meadow yonder, half a mile a-head, in a species of +delirious complacency. Here was luck indeed, filling up the promise of +his dreams. His head was full of thoughts, pleasant holiday thoughts, of +the many little useful things, the many small indulgences, that bit of +gold should buy him. He would change it on the sly, and gradually bring +the shillings home as extra pay for extra work; for, however much his +wife might glory in the chance, and keep his secret, well he knew that +Grace would have a world of things to say about it, and he feared to +tell his daughter of the deed. However, she should have a ribbon, so she +should, good girl, and the pedlar shouldn't pass the door unbidden; +Mary, too, might have a cotton kerchief, and the babes a doll and a +rattle, and poor Thomas a shilling to spend as he liked; and so, in +happy revery, the kind father distributed his ill-got sovereign. + +For a while he held it in his hand, as loth to part from the tangible +possession of his treasure; but manual contact could not last all day, +and, as he neared his scene of labour--he came late after all, by the +by, and lost the quarter-day, but it mattered little now--he began to +cogitate a place of safety; and carefully put it in his fob. Poor +fellow--he had never had enough to stow so well away before: his pockets +had been thought quite trust-worthy enough for any treasures hitherto: +never had he used that fob for watch, or note, or gold--and his +predecessor in the cast-off garment had probably been quite aware how +little that false fob was worthy of the name of savings' bank; it was in +the situation of the Irishman's illimitable rope, with the end cut off. +So while Roger was brewing up vast schemes of nascent wealth, and +prosperous days at last, the filched sovereign, attracted by centripetal +gravity, had found a passage downwards, and had straightway rolled into +a crevice of mother-earth, long before its "brief lord" had commenced +his day's labour. Yes, it had been lost a good hour ere he found it out, +for he had fancied that he had felt it there, and often did he feel, but +his fancy was a button; and when he made the dread discovery, what a +sting of momentary anguish, what a sickening fear, what an eager search! +and, as the grim truth became more evident, that, indeed, beyond all +remedy, his new-got, ill-got, egg of coming wealth was all clean +gone--oh! this was worm-wood, this was bitter as gall, and the strong +man well-nigh fainted. It was something sad to have done the ill--but +misery to have done it all for nothing: the sin was not altogether +pleasant to his taste, but it was aloe itself to lose the reward. And +when, pale and sick, leaning on his spade, he came to his old strength +again, what was the reaction? Compunction at incipient crime, and +gratitude to find its punishment so mercifully speedy, so lenient, so +discriminative? I fear that if ever he had these thoughts at all, he +chased them wilfully away: his disappointment, far from being softened +into patience, was sharpened to a feeling of revenge at fate; and all +his hope now was--such another chance, gold, more gold, never mind how; +more gold, he burnt for gold, he lusted after gold! + +We must leave him for a time to his toil and his reflections, and touch +another topic of our theme. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE INQUEST. + + +Just a week before the baronet came of age, and a fortnight +from the present time, an awful and mysterious event had happened at the +Hall: the old house-keeper, Mrs. Quarles, had been found dead in her +bed, under circumstances, to say the very least, of a black and +suspicious appearance. The county coroner had got a jury of the +neighbours impanelled together; who, after sitting patiently on the +inquest, and hearing, as well as seeing, the following evidence, could +arrive at no verdict more specific than the obvious fact, that the poor +old creature had been "found dead." The great question lay between +apoplexy and murder; and the evidence tended to a well-matched conflict +of opinions. + +First, there lay the body, quietly in bed, tucked in tidily and +undisturbed, with no marks of struggling, none whatever--the clothes lay +smooth, and the chamber orderly: yet the corpse's face was of a purple +hue, the tongue swollen, the eyes starting from their sockets: it might, +indeed, possibly have been an apoplectic seizure, which took her in her +sleep, and killed her as she lay; _but_ that the gripe of clutching +fingers had left their livid seals upon the throat, and countenanced +the dreadful thought of strangulation! + +Secondly, a surgeon (one Mr. Eager, the Union doctor, a very young +personage, wrong withal and radical) maintained that this actual +strangulation might have been effected by the hands of the deceased +herself, in the paroxysm of a rush of blood to the brain; and he +fortified his wise position by the instance of a late statesman, who, he +averred, cut his throat with a pen-knife, to relieve himself of pressure +on the temples: while another surgeon--Stephen Cramp, he was farrier as +well, and had been, until lately, time out of mind, the village +AEsculapius, who looked with scorn on his pert rival, and opposed him +tooth and nail on all occasions--insisted that it was not only +physically impossible for poor Mrs. Quarles so to have strangled +herself, but more particularly that, if she had done so, she certainly +could not have laid herself out so decently afterwards; therefore, that +as some one else had kindly done the latter office for her, why not the +former too? + +Thirdly, Sarah Stack, the still-room maid, deposed, that Mrs. Quarles +always locked her door before she went to bed, but that when she +(deponent) went to call her as usual on the fatal morning, the door was +just ajar; and so she found her dead: while parallel with this, tending +to implicate some domestic criminal, was to be placed the equally +uncommon fact, that the other door of Mrs. Quarles's room, leading to +the lawn, was open too:--be it known that Mrs. Quarles was a stout +woman, who could'nt abide to sleep up-stairs, for fear of fire; +moreover, that she was a nervous woman, who took extraordinary +precautions for her safety, in case of thieves. Thus, unaccountably +enough, the murderer, if there was any, was as likely to have come from +the outside, as from the in. + +Fourthly, the murderer in this way is commonly a thief, and does the +deed for mammon-sake; but the new house-keeper, lately installed, made +her deposition, that, by inventories duly kept and entered--for her +honoured predecessor, rest her soul! had been a pattern of +regularity--all Mrs. Quarles's goods and personal chattels were found to +be safe and right in her room--some silver spoons among them too--ay, +and a silver tea-pot; while, as to other property in the house, with +every room full of valuables, nothing whatever was missing from the +lists, except, indeed, what was scarce worth mention (unless one must be +very exact), sundry crocks and gallipots of honey, not forthcoming; +these, however, it appeared probable that Mrs. Quarles had herself +consumed in a certain mixture she nightly was accustomed too, of rum, +horehound, and other matters sweetened up with honey, for her +hoarseness. It seemed therefore clear she was not murdered for her +property, nor by any one intending to have robbed the house. + +Against this it was contended, and really with some show of reason, that +as Mrs. Quarles was thought to have a hoard, always set her face against +banks, railway shares, speculations, and investments, and seemed to have +left nothing behind her but her clothes and so forth, it was still +possible that the murderer who took the life, might have also been the +thief to take the money. + +Fifthly, Simon Jennings--butler in doors, bailiff out of doors, and +general factotum every where to the Vincent interest--for he had managed +to monopolize every place worth having, from the agent's book to the +cellar-man's key--the said Simon deposed, that on the night in question, +he heard the house-dog barking furiously, and went out to quiet him; but +found no thieves, nor knew any reason why the dog should have barked so +much. + +Now, the awkward matter in this deposition (if Mr. Jennings had not been +entirely above suspicion--the idea was quite absurd--not to mention that +he was nephew to the deceased, a great favourite with her, and a man +altogether of the very strictest character), the awkward matters were +these: the nearest way out to the dog, indeed the only way but casement +windows on that side of the house, was through Mrs. Quarles's room: she +had had the dog placed there for her special safety, as she slept on the +ground floor; and it was not to be thought that Mr. Jennings could do so +incorrect a thing as to pass through her room after bed-time, locked or +unlocked--indeed, when the question was delicately hinted to him, he was +quite shocked at it--quite shocked. But if he did not go that way, which +way did he go? He deposed, indeed, and his testimony was no ways to be +doubted, that he went through the front door, and so round; which, under +the circumstances, was at once a very brave and a very foolish thing to +do; for it is, first, little wisdom to go round two sides of a square to +quiet a dog, when one might have easily called to him from the +men-servants' window; and secondly, albeit Mr. Jennings was a strict +man, an upright man, shrewd withal, and calculating, no one had ever +thought him capable of that Roman virtue, courage. Still, he had +reluctantly confessed to this one heroic act, and it was a bold one, so +let him take the credit of it--mainly because-- + +Sixthly, Jonathan Floyd, footman, after having heard the dog bark at +intervals, surely for more than a couple of hours, thought he might as +well turn out of his snug berth for a minute, just to see what ailed +the dog, or how many thieves were really breaking in. Well, as he +looked, he fancied he saw a boat moving on the lake, but as there was no +moon, he might have been mistaken. + +_By a Juryman._ It might be a punt. + +_By another._ He did'nt know how many boats there were on the +lake-side: they had a boat-house at the Hall, by the water's edge, and +therefore he concluded something in it; really did'nt know; might be a +boat, might be a punt, might be both--or neither. + +_By the Coroner._ Could not swear which way it was moving; and, really, +if put upon his Bible oath, wouldn't be positive about a boat at all, it +was so dark, and he was so sleepy. + +Not long afterwards, as the dog got still more violent, he turned his +eyes from straining after shadows on the lake, to look at home, and then +all at once noticed Mr. Jennings trying to quiet the noisy animal with +the usual blandishments of "Good dog, good dog--quiet, Don, quiet--down, +good dog--down, Don, down!" + +_By a Juryman._ He would swear to the words. + +But Don would not hear of being quiet. After that, knowing all must be +right if Mr. Jennings was about, he (deponent) turned in again, went to +sleep, and thought no more of it till he heard of Mrs. Quarles's death +in the morning. If he may be so bold as to speak his mind, he thinks the +house-keeper, being fat, died o' the 'plexy in a nateral way, and that +the dog barking so, just as she was a-going off, is proof positive of +it. He'd often heard of dogs doing so; they saw the sperit gliding away, +and barked at it; his (deponent's) own grandmother-- + +At this juncture--for the court was getting fidgetty--the coroner cut +short the opinions of Jonathan Floyd: and when Mr. Crown, summing up, +presented in one focus all this evidence to the misty minds of the +assembled jurymen, it puzzled them entirely; they could not see their +way, fairly addled, did not know at all what to make of it. On the +threshold, there was no proof it was a murder--the Union doctor was loud +and staunch on this; and next, there seemed to be no motive for the +deed, and no one to suspect of it: so they left the matter open, found +her simply "Dead," and troubled their heads no more about the business. + +Good Mr. Evans, the vicar, preached her funeral sermon, only as last +Sunday, amplifying the idea that she "was cut off in the midst of her +days:" and thereby encouraging many of the simpler folks, who knew that +Mrs. Quarles had long passed seventy, in the luminous notion that +house-keepers in great establishments are privileged, among other +undoubted perquisites, to live to a hundred and forty, unless cut off by +apoplexy or murder. + +Mr. Simon Jennings, as nephew and next of kin, followed the body to its +last home in the capacity of chief mourner; to do him justice, he was a +real mourner, bewailed her loudly, and had never been the same man +since. Moreover, although aforetime not much given to indiscriminate +charity, he had now gained no small credit by distributing his aunt's +wardrobe among the poorer families at Hurstley. It was really very kind +of him, and the more so, as being altogether unexpected: he got great +praise for this, did Mr. Jennings; specially, too, because he had gained +nothing whatever from his aunt's death, though her heir and probable +legatee, and clearly was a disappointed man. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE BAILIFF; AND A BITTER TRIAL. + + +Jennings--Mr. Simon Jennings--for he prided himself much both +on the Mr. and the Simon, was an upright man, a very upright man indeed, +literally so as well as metaphorically. He was not tall certainly, but +what there was of him stood bolt upright. Many fancied that his neck was +possessed of some natural infirmity, or rather firmity, of +unbendableness, some little-to-be-envied property of being a perpetual +stiff-neck; and they were the more countenanced in this theory, from the +fact that, within a few days past, Mr. Jennings had contracted an ugly +knack of carrying his erect head in the comfortless position of peeping +over his left shoulder; not always so, indeed, but often enough to be +remarkable; and then he would occasionally start it straight again, eyes +right, with a nervous twitch, any thing but pleasant to the marvelling +spectator. It was as if he was momentarily expecting to look upon some +vague object that affrighted him, and sometimes really did see it. Mr. +Jennings had consulted high medical authority (as Hurstley judged), to +wit, the Union doctor of last scene, an enterprising practitioner, glib +in theory, and bold in practice--and it had been mutually agreed between +them that "stomach" was the cause of these unhandsome symptoms; acridity +of the gastric juice, consequent indigestion and spasm, and generally a +hypochondriacal habit of body. Mr. Jennings must take certain draughts +thrice a day, be very careful of his diet, and keep his mind at ease. As +to Simon himself, he was, poor man, much to be pitied in this ideal +visitation; for, though his looks confessed that he saw, or fancied he +saw, a something, he declared himself wholly at a loss to explain what +that something was: moreover, contrary to former habits of an +ostentatious boldness, he seemed meekly to shrink from observation: and, +as he piously acquiesced in the annoyance, would observe that his +unpleasant jerking was "a little matter after all, and that, no doubt, +the will of Providence." + +Independently of these new grimaces, Simon's appearance was little in +his favour: not that his small dimensions signified--Caesar, and +Buonaparte, and Wellington, and Nelson, all were little men--not that +his dress was other than respectable--black coat and waistcoat, white +stiff cravat, gray trowsers somewhat shrunk in longitude, good +serviceable shoe-leather (of the shape, if not also of the size, of +river barges), and plenty of unbleached cotton stocking about the +gnarled region of his ankles. All this was well enough; nature was +beholden to that charity of art which hides a multitude of failings; but +the face, where native man looks forth in all his unadornment, that it +was which so seldom pre-possessed the many who had never heard of +Jenning's strict character and stern integrity. The face was a sallow +face, peaked towards the nose, with head and chin receding; lit withal +by small protrusive eyes, so constructed, that the whites all round were +generally visible, giving them a strange and staring look; elevated +eye-brows; not an inch of whisker, but all shaved sore right up to the +large and prominent ear; and lank black, hair, not much of it, scantily +thatching all smooth. Then his arms, oscillating as he walked (as if the +pendulum by which that rigid man was made to go his regular routine), +were much too long for symmetry: and altogether, to casual view, Mr. +Jennings must acknowledge to a supercilious, yet sneaking air--which +charity has ere now been kind enough to think a conscious rectitude +towards man, and a soft-going humility with God. + +When the bailiff takes his round about the property, as we see him now, +he is mounted--to say he rides would convey far too equestrian a +notion--he is mounted on a rough-coated, quiet, old, white +shooting-pony; the saddle strangely girded on with many bands about the +belly, the stirrups astonishingly short, and straps never called upon to +diminish that long whity-brown interval between shoe and trowser: Mr. +Jennings sits his steed with nose aloft, and a high perch in the +general, somewhat loosely, and, had the pony been a Bucephalus rather +than a Rozinante, not a little perilously. Simon is jogging hitherwards +toward Roger Acton, as he digs the land-drain across this marshy meadow: +let us see how it fares now with our poor hero. + +Occupation--yes, duteous occupation--has exerted its wholsesome +influences, and, thank God! Roger is himself again. He has been very +sorry half the day, both for the wicked feelings of the morning, and +that still more wicked theft--a bad business altogether, he cannot bear +to think of it; the gold was none of his, whosesoever it might be--he +ought not to have touched it--vexed he did, but cannot help it now; it +is well he lost it too, for ill-got money never came to any good: +though, to be sure, if he could only get it honestly, money would make a +man of him. + +I am not sure of that, Roger, it may be so sometimes; but, in my +judgment, money has unmade more men than made them. + +"How now, Acton, is not this drain dug yet! You have been about it much +too long, sir; I shall fine you for this." + +"Please you, Muster Jennings, I've stuck to it pretty tightly too, +barring that I make to-day three-quarters, being late: but it's heavy +clay, you see, Mr. Simon--wet above and iron-hard below: it shall all be +ready by to-morrow, Mr. Simon." + +Whether the "Mr. Simon" had its softening influence, or any other +considerations lent their soothing aid, we shall see presently; for the +bailiff added, in a tone unusually indulgent, + +"Well, Roger, see it is done, and well done; and now I have just another +word to say to you: his honour is coming round this way, and if he asks +you any questions, remember to be sure and tell him this--you have got a +comfortable cottage, very comfortable, just repaired, you want for +nothing, and are earning twelve shillings a week." + +"God help me, Muster Jennings: why my wages are but eight, and my hovel +scarcely better than a pig-pound." + +"Look you, Acton; tell Sir John what you have told me, and you are a +ruined man. Make it twelve to his honour, as others shall do: who +knows," he added, half-coaxing, half-soliloquizing, "perhaps his honour +may really make it twelve, instead of eight." + +"Oh, Muster Jennings! and who gets the odd four?" + +"What, man! do you dare to ask me that? Remember, sir, at your peril, +that you, and all the rest, _have had_ twelve shillings a-week wages +whenever you have worked on this estate--not a word!--and that, if you +dare speak or even think to the contrary, you never earn a penny here +again. But here comes John Vincent, my master, as I, Simon Jennings, am +yours: be careful what you say to him." + +Sir John Devereux Vincent, after a long minority, had at length shaken +off his guardians, and become master of his own doings, and of Hurstley +Hall. The property was in pretty decent order, and funds had accumulated +vastly: all this notwithstanding a thousand peculations, and the +suspicious incident that one of the guardians was a "highly respectable" +solicitor. Sir John, like most new brooms, had with the best intentions +resolved upon sweeping measures of great good; especially also upon +doing a great deal with his own eyes and ears; but, like as aforesaid, +he was permitted neither to hear nor see any truths at all. Just now, +the usual night's work took him a little off the hooks, and we must make +allowances; really, too, he was by far the soberest of all those choice +spirits, and drank and played as little as he could; and even, under +existing disadvantages, he managed by four o'clock post meridiem to +inspect a certain portion of the estate duly every day, under the +prudential guidance of his bailiff Jennings. There, that good-looking, +tall young fellow on the blood mare just cantering up to us is Sir John; +the other two are a couple of the gallant youths now feasting at the +Hall: ay, two of the fiercest foes in last night's broil. Those heated +little matters are easily got over. + +"Hollo, Jennings! what the devil made you give that start? you couldn't +look more horrified if ghosts were at your elbow: why, your face is the +picture of death; look another way, man, do, or my mare will bolt." + +"I beg your pardon, Sir John, but the spasm took me: it is my infirmity; +forgive it. This meadow, you perceive, Sir John, requires drainage, and +afterwards I propose to dress it with free chalk to sweeten the grass. +Next field, you will take notice, the guano--" + +"Well, well--Jennings--and that poor fellow there up to his knees in +mud, is he pretty tolerably off now?" + +"Oh, your honour," said the bailiff, with a knowing look, "I only wish +that half the little farmers hereabouts were as well to do as he is: a +pretty cottage, Sir John, half an acre of garden, and twelve shillings a +week, is pretty middling for a single man." + +"Aha--is it?--well; but the poor devil looks wretched enough too--I will +just ask him if he wants any thing now." + +"Don't, Sir John, pray don't; pray permit me to advise your honour: +these men are always wanting. 'Acton's cottage' is a proverb; and Roger +there can want for nothing honestly; nevertheless, as I know your +honour's good heart, and wish to make all happy, if you will suffer me +to see to it myself--" + +"Certainly, Jennings, do, do by all means, and thank you: here, just to +make a beginning, as we're all so jolly at the Hall, and that poor +fellow's up to his neck in mud, give him this from me to drink my health +with." + +Acton, who had dutifully held aloof, and kept on digging steadily, was +still quite near enough to hear all this; at the magical word "give," he +looked up hurriedly, and saw Sir John Vincent toss a piece of gold--yes, +on his dying oath, a bright new sovereign--to Simon Jennings. O blessed +vision, and gold was to be his at last! + +"Come along, Mynton; Hunt, now mind you try and lame that big beast of a +raw-boned charger among these gutters, will you? I'm off, Jennings; meet +me, do you hear, at the Croft to-mor--" + +So the three friends galloped away; and John Vincent really felt more +light-hearted and happy than at any time the week past, for having so +properly got rid of a welcome bit of gold. + +"Roger Acton! come up here, sir, out of that ditch: his honour has been +liberal enough to give you a shilling to drink his health with." + +"A shilling, Muster Jennings?" said the poor astonished man; "why I'll +make oath it was a pound; I saw it myself. Come, Muster Jennings, don't +break jokes upon a poor man's back." + +"Jokes, Acton? sticks, sir, if you say another word: take John Vincent's +shilling." + +"Oh, sir!" cried Roger, quite unmanned at this most cruel +disappointment; "be merciful--be generous--give me my gold, my own bit +of gold! I'll swear his honour gave it for me: blessings on his head! +You know he did, Mr. Simon; don't play upon me!" + +"Play upon you?--generous--your gold--what is it you mean, man? We'll +have no madmen about us, I can tell you; take the shilling, or else--" + +"'Rob not the poor, because he is poor, for the Lord shall plead his +cause,'" was the solemn answer. + +"Roger Acton!"--the bailiff gave a scared start, as usual, and, +recovering himself, looked both white and stern: "you have dared to +quote the Bible against me: deeply shall you rue it. Begone, man! your +work on this estate is at an end." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +WRONGS AND RUIN. + + +A very miserable man was Roger Acton now, for this last trial +was the worst of all. The vapours of his discontent had almost passed +away--that bright pernicious dream was being rapidly forgotten--the +morning's ill-got coin, "thank the Lord, it was lost as soon as found," +and penitence had washed away that blot upon his soul; but here, an +honest pound, liberally bestowed by his hereditary landlord--his own +bright bit of gold--the only bit but one he ever had (and how different +in innocence from that one!)--a seeming sugar-drop of kindness, shed by +the rich heavens on his cup of poverty--to have this meanly filched away +by a grasping, grinding task-master--oh, was it not a bitter trial? What +affliction as to this world's wealth can a man meet worse than this? + +Acton's first impulse was to run to the Hall, and ask to see Sir +John:--"Out; won't be back till seven, and then can see nobody; the +baronet will be dressing for dinner, and musn't be disturbed." Then he +made a vain effort to speak with Mr. Jennings, and plead with him: yes, +even on his knees, if must be. Mr. Simon could not be so bad; perhaps it +was a long joke after all--the bailiff always had a queer way with him. +Or, if indeed the man meant robbery, loudly to threaten him, that all +might hear, to bring the house about his ears, and force justice, if he +could not fawn it. But both these conflicting expedients were vetoed. +Jonathan Floyd, who took in Acton's meek message of "humbly craved leave +to speak with Master Jennings," came back with the inexplicable mandate, +"Warn Roger Acton from the premises." So, he must needs bide till +to-morrow morning, when, come what might, he resolved to see his honour, +and set some truths before him. + +Acton was not the only man on the estate who knew that he had a +landlord, generous, not to say prodigal--a warm-hearted, +well-intentioned master, whose mere youth a career of sensuality had not +yet hardened, nor a course of dissipation been prolonged enough to +distort his feelings from the right. And Acton, moreover, was not the +only man who wondered how, with such a landlord (ay, and the guardians +before him were always well-spoken gentle-folks, kindly in their +manners, and liberal in their looks), wages could be kept so low, and +rents so high, and indulgences so few, and penalties so many. There +were fines for every thing, and no allowances of hedgebote, or +housebote, or any other time-honoured right; the very peat on the common +must be paid for, and if a child picked a bit of fagot the father was +mulcted in a shilling. Mr. Jennings did all this, and always pleaded his +employers' orders; nay, if any grumbled, as men would now and then, he +would affect to think it strange that the gentlemen guardians, with the +landlord at their head, could be so hard upon the poor: he would not be +so, credit him, if he had been born a gentleman; but the bailiff, men, +must obey orders, like the rest of you; these are hard times for +Hurstley, he would say, and we must all rub over them as best we can. +According to Simon, it was as much as his own place was worth to remit +one single penny of a fine, or make the least indulgence for calamity; +while, as to lowering a cotter's rent, or raising a ditcher's wages, he +dared not do it for his life; folks must not blame him, but look to the +landlord. + +Now, all this, in the long absence of any definite resident master at +the Hall, sounded reasonable, if true; and Mr. Jennings punctually paid, +however bad the terms; so the poor men bode their time, and looked for +better days. And the days long-looked-for now were come; but were they +any better? The baronet, indeed, seemed bent upon inquiry, reform, +redress; but, as he never went without the right-hand man, his +endeavours were always unsuccessful. At first it would appear that the +bailiff had gone upon his old plan, shrugging up his shoulders to the +men at the master's meanness, while he praised to the landlord the +condition of his tenants; but this could not long deceive, so he turned +instanter on another tack; he assumed the despot, issuing authoritative +edicts, which no one dared to disobey; he made the labourer hide his +needs, and intercepted at its source the lord's benevolence; he began to +be found out, so the bolder spirits said, in filching with both hands +from man and master; and, to the mind of more than one shrewd observer, +was playing the unjust steward to admiration. + +But stop: let us hear the other side; it is possible we may have been +mistaken. Bailiffs are never popular, particularly if they are too +honest, and this one is a stern man with a repulsive manner. Who knows +whether his advice to Acton may not have been wise and kind, and would +not have conduced to a general rise of wages? Who can prove, nay, +venture to insinuate, any such systematic roguery against a man hitherto +so strict, so punctual, so sanctimonious? Even in the case of Sir John's +golden gift, Jennings may be right after all; it is quite possible that +Roger was mistaken, and had gilt a piece of silver with his longings; +and the upright man might well take umbrage at so vile an imputation as +that hot and silly speech; it was foolish, very foolish, to have quoted +text against him, and no wonder that the labourer got dismissed for it. +Then again to return to wages--who knows? it might be, all things +considered, the only way of managing a rise; the bailiff must know his +master's mind best, and Acton had been wise to have done as he bade him; +perhaps it really was well-meant, and might have got him twelve +shillings a-week, instead of eight as hitherto; perhaps Simon was a +shrewd man, and arranged it cleverly; perhaps Roger was an honest man, +and couldn't but think others so. + +Any how, though, all was lost now, and he blamed his own rash tongue, +poor fellow, for what he could not help fearing was the ruin of himself +and all he loved. With a melancholy heart, he shouldered his spade, and +slowly plodded homewards. How long should he have a home? How was he to +get bread, to get work, if the bailiff was his enemy? How could he face +his wife, and tell her all the foolish past and dreadful future? How +could he bear to look on Grace, too beautiful Grace, and torture his +heart by fancying her fate? Thomas, too, his own brave boy, whom utter +poverty might drive to desperation? And the poor babes, his little +playful pets, what on earth would become of them? There was the Union +workhouse to be sure, but Acton shuddered at the thought; to be +separated from every thing he loved, to give up his little all, and be +made both a prisoner and a slave, all for the sake of what?--daily +water-gruel, and a pauper's branded livery. Or they might perchance go +beyond the seas, if some Prince Edward's Company would help him and his +to emigrate; ay, thought he, and run new risks, encounter fresh dangers, +lose every thing, get nothing, and all the trouble taken merely to +starve three thousand miles from home. No, no; at his time of life, he +could not be leaving for ever old friends, old habits, old fields, old +home, old neighbourhood--where he had seen the saplings grow up trees, +and the quick toppings change into a ten-foot hedge; where the very +cattle knew his step, and the clods broke kindly to his ploughshare; and +more than all, the dear old church, where his forefathers had worshipped +from the Conquest, and the old mounds where they slept, +and--and--and--that one precious grave of his dear lost Annie--could he +leave it? Oh God, no! he had done no ill, he had committed no crime--why +should he prefer the convict's doom, and seek to be transported for +life? + +A miserable walk home was that, and full of wretched thoughts. Poor +Roger Acton, tossed by much trouble, vexed with sore oppression, I wish +that you had prayed in your distress; stop, he did pray, and that +vehemently; but it was not for help, or guidance, or patience, or +consolation--he only prayed for gold. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE COVETOUS DREAM. + + +Once at home, the sad truth soon was told. Roger's look alone +spoke of some calamity, and he had but little heart or hope to keep the +matter secret. True, he said not a word about the early morning's sin; +why should he? he had been punished for it, and he had repented; let him +be humbled before God, but not confess to man. However, all about the +bailiff, and the landlord, and the thieved gift, and the sudden +dismissal, the sure ruin, the dismal wayside plans, and fears, and dark +alternatives, without one hope in any--these did poor Acton fluently +pour forth with broken-hearted eloquence; to these Grace listened +sorrowfully, with a face full of gentle trust in God's blessing on the +morrow's interview; these Mary, the wife, heard to an end, with--no +storm of execration on ill-fortune, no ebullition of unjust rage against +a fool of a husband, no vexing sneers, no selfish apprehensions. Far +from it; there really was one unlooked-for blessing come already to +console poor Roger; and no little compensation for his trouble was the +way his wife received the news. He, unlucky man, had expected something +little short of a virago's talons, and a beldame's curse; he had +experienced on less occasions something of the sort before; but now that +real affliction stood upon the hearth, Mary Acton's character rose with +the emergency, and she greeted her ruined husband with a kindness +towards him, a solemn indignation against those who grind the poor, and +a sober courage to confront evil, which he little had imagined. + +"Bear up, Roger; here, goodman, take the child, and don't look quite so +downcast; come what may, I'll share your cares, and you shall halve my +pleasures; we will fight it out together." + +Moreover, cross, and fidgetty, and scolding, as Mary had been ever +heretofore, to her meek step-daughter Grace, all at once, as if just to +disappoint any preconcerted theory, now that actual calamity was come, +she turned to be a kind good mother to her. Roger and his daughter could +scarcely believe their ears. + +"Grace, dear, I know you're a sensible good girl, try and cheer your +father." And then the step-dame added, + +"There now, just run up, fetch your prayer-book down, and read a little +to us all to do us good."--The fair, affectionate girl, unused to the +accents of kindness, could not forbear flinging her arms round Mary +Acton's neck, and loving her, as Ruth loved Naomi. + +Then with a heavenly smile upon her face, and a happy heart within her +to keep the smile alight, her gentle voice read these words--it will do +us good to read them too: + + "Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. + O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. + If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, + O Lord, who may abide it? + Because there is mercy with thee; therefore shall thou be feared. + I look for the Lord, my soul doth wait for him: in his word is my trust. + My soul fleeth unto the Lord, before the morning watch, + before the morning watch. + O Israel, trust in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy: + and with him is plenteous redemption. + And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins." + +"Isn't the last word 'troubles,' child? look again; I think it's +'troubles' either there, or leastways in the Bible-psalm." + +"No, father, sins, 'from all his sins;' and 'iniquities' in the +Bible-version--look, father." + +"Well, girl, well; I wish it had been 'troubles;' 'from all his +troubles' is a better thought to my mind: God wot, I have plenty on 'em, +and a little lot of gold would save us from them all." + +"Gold, father? no, my father--God." + +"I tell you, child," said Roger, ever vacillating in his strong +temptation between habitual religion and the new-caught lust of money, +"if only on a sudden I could get gold by hook or by crook, all my cares +and all your troubles would be over on the instant." + +"Oh, dear father, do not hope so; and do not think of troubles more than +sins; there is no deliverance in Mammon; riches profit not in the day of +evil, and ill-got wealth tends to worse than poverty." + +"Well, any how, I only wish that dream of mine came true." + +"Dream, goodman--what dream?" said his wife. + +"Why, Poll, I dreamt I was a-working in my garden, hard by the celery +trenches in the sedge; and I was moaning at my lot, as well I may: and a +sort of angel came to me, only he looked dark and sorrowful, and kindly +said, 'What would you have, Roger?' I, nothing fearful in my dream, for +all the strangeness of his winged presence, answered boldly, 'Money;' he +pointed with his finger, laughed aloud, and vanished away: and, as for +me, I thought a minute wonderingly, turned to look where he had pointed, +and, O the blessing! found a crock of gold!" + +"Hush, father! that dark angel was the devil; he has dropt ill thoughts +upon your heart: I would I could see you as you used to be, dear father, +till within these two days." + +"Whoever he were, if he brought me gold, he would bring me blessing. +There's meat and drink, and warmth and shelter, in the yellow gold--ay, +and rest from labour, child, and a power of rare good gifts." + +"If God had made them good, and the gold were honest gains, still, +father, even so, you forget righteousness, and happiness, and wisdom. +Money gives us none of these, but it might take them all away: dear +father, let your loving Grace ask you, have you been better, happier, +wiser, even from the wishing it so much?" + +"Daughter, daughter, I tell you plainly, he that gives me gold, gives me +all things: I wish I found the crock the de--the angel, I mean, brought +me." + +"O father," murmured Grace, "do not breathe the wicked wish; even if you +found it without any evil angel's help, would the gold be rightfully +your own?" + +"Tush, girl!" said her mother; "get the gold, feed the children, and +then to think about the right." + +"Ay, Grace, first drive away the toils and troubles of this life," added +Roger, "and then one may try with a free mind to discover the comforts +of religion." + +Poor Grace only looked up mournfully, and answered nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE POACHER. + + +A sudden knock at the door here startled the whole party, and +Mary Acton, bustling up, drew the bolt to let in--first, a lurcher, one +Rover to wit, our gaunt ember-loving friend of Chapter II.; secondly, +Thomas Acton, full flush, who carried the old musket on his shoulder, +and seemed to have something else under his smock; and thirdly, Ben +Burke, a personage of no small consequence to us, and who therefore +deserves some specific introduction. + +Big Ben, otherwise Black Burke, according to the friendship or the +enmity of those who named him, was a huge, rough, loud, good-humoured, +dare-devil sort of an individual, who lived upon what he considered +common rights. His dress was of the mongrel character, a well-imagined +cross between a ploughman's and a sailor's; the bottle-green frock of +the former, pattern-stitched about the neck as ingeniously as if a tribe +of Wisconsin squaws had tailored it--and mighty fishing boots, vast as +any French postillion's, acting as a triton's tail to symbolize the +latter: a red cotton handkerchief (dirty-red of course, as all things +else were dirty, for cleanliness had little part in Ben), occupied just +now the more native region of a halter; and a rusty fur cap crowned the +poacher; I repeat it--crowned the poacher; for in his own estimation, +and that of many others too, Ben was, if not quite an emperor, at least +an Agamemnon, a king of men, a natural human monarch; in truth, he felt +as much pride in the title Burke the Poacher (and with as great justice +too, for aught I know), as Ali-Hamet-Ghee-the-Thug eastwards, or +William-of-Normandy-the-Conqueror westwards, may be thought respectively +to have cherished, on the score of their murderous and thievish +surnames. + +There was no small good, after all, in poor Ben; and a mountain of +allowance must be flung into the scales to counterbalance his +deficiencies. However coarse, and even profane, in his talk (I hope the +gentle reader will excuse me alike for eliding a few elegant extracts +from his common conversation, and also for reminding him +characteristically, now and then, that Ben's language is not entirely +Addisonian), however rough of tongue and dissonant in voice, Ben's heart +will be found much about in the right place; nay, I verily believe it +has more of natural justice, human kindness, and right sympathies in +it, than are to be found in many of those hard and hollow cones that +beat beneath the twenty-guinea waistcoats of a Burghardt or a +Buckmaster. Ay, give me the fluttering inhabitant of Ben Burke's cowskin +vest; it is worth a thousand of those stuffed and artificial denizens, +whose usual nest is figured satin and cut velvet. + +Ben stole--true--he did not deny it; but he stole naught but what he +fancied was wrongfully withheld him: and, if he took from the rich, who +scarcely knew he robbed them, he shared his savoury booty with the poor, +and fed them by his daring. Like Robin Hood of old, he avenged himself +on wanton wealth, and frequently redressed by it the wrongs of penury. +Not that I intend to break a lance for either of them, nor to go any +lengths in excusing; slight extenuation is the limit for prudent +advocacy in these cases. Robin Hood and Benjamin Burke were both of them +thieves; bold men--bad men, if any will insist upon the bad; they sinned +against law, and order, and Providence; they dug rudely at the roots of +social institutions; they spoke and acted in a dangerous fashion about +rights of men and community of things. But set aside the statutes of +Foresting and Venery, disfranchise pheasants, let it be a cogent thing +that poverty and riches approach the golden mean somewhat less +unequally, and we shall not find much of criminality, either in Ben or +Robin. + +For a general idea, then, of our poaching friend:--he is a gigantic, +black-whiskered, humorous, ruddy mortal, full of strange oaths, which we +really must not print, and bearded like the pard, and he tumbles in +amongst our humble family party, with-- + +"Bless your honest heart, Roger! what makes you look so sodden? I'm a +lord, if your eyes a'n't as red as a hedge-hog's; and all the rest o' +you, too; why, you seem to be pretty well merry as mutes. Ha! I see what +it is," added Ben, pouring forth a benediction on their frugal supper; +"it's that precious belly-ache porridge that's a-giving you all the +'flensy. Tip it down the sink, dame, will you now? and trust to me for +better. Your Tom here, Roger, 's a lad o' mettle, that he is; ay, and +that old iron o' yours as true as a compass; and the pheasants would +come to it, all the same as if they'd been loadstoned. Here, dame, pluck +the fowl, will you: drop 'em, Tom."--And Thomas Acton flung upon the +table a couple of fine cock-pheasants. + +Roger, Mary, and Grace, who were well accustomed to Ben Burke's eloquent +tirades, heard the end of this one with anxiety and silence; for Tom +had never done the like before. Grace was first to expostulate, but was +at once cut short by an oath from her brother, whose evident state of +high excitement could not brook the semblance of reproof. Mary Acton's +marketing glance was abstractedly fixed upon the actual _corpus +delicti_; each fine plump bird, full-plumaged, young-spurred; yes, they +were still warm, and would eat tender, so she mechanically began to +pluck them; while, as for poor downcast Roger, he remembered, with a +conscience-sting that almost made him start, his stolen bit of money in +the morning--so, how could he condemn? He only looked pityingly on +Thomas, and sighed from the bottom of his heart. + +"Why, what's the matter now?" roared Ben; "one 'ud think we was bailiffs +come to raise the rent, 'stead of son Tom and friendly Ben; hang it, +mun, we aint here to cheat you out o' summut--no, not out o' peace o' +mind neither; so, if you don't like luck, burn the fowls, or bury 'em, +and let brave Tom risk limbo for nothing." + +"Oh, Ben!" murmured Grace, "why will you lead him astray? Oh, brother! +brother! what have you done?" she said, sorrowfully. + +"Miss Grace,"--her beauty always awed the poacher, and his rugged +Caliban spirit bowed in reverence before her Ariel soul--"I wish I was +as good as you, but can't be: don't condemn us, Grace; leastways, first +hear me, and then say where's the harm or sin on it. Twelve hundred head +o' game--I heard John Gorse, the keeper, tell it at the Jerry--twelve +hundred head were shot at t'other day's battew: Sir John--no blame to +him for it--killed a couple o' hundred to his own gun: and though they +sent away a coachful, and gave to all who asked, and feasted themselves +chuckfull, and fed the cats, and all, still a mound, like a haycock, o' +them fine fat fowl, rotted in a mass, and were flung upon the dungpit. +Now, Miss Grace, that ere salt pea-porridge a'n't nice, a'n't wholesome; +and, bless your pretty mouth, it ought to feed more sweetly. Look at +Acton, isn't he half-starved. Is Tom, brave boy, full o' the fat o' the +land? Who made fowl, I should like to know, and us to eat 'em? And +where's the harm or sin in bringing down a bird? No, Miss, them ere +beaks, dammem (beg humble pardon, Miss, indeed I won't again) them ere +justices, as they call themselves, makes hard laws to hedge about their +own pleasures; and if the poor man starves, he starves; but if he stays +his hunger with the free, wild birds of heaven, they prison him and +punish him, and call him poacher." + +"Ben, those who make the laws, do so under God's permission; and they +who break man's law, break His law." + +"Nonsense, child,"--suddenly said Roger; "hold your silly tongue. Do +you mean to tell us, God's law and man's law are the same thing! No, +Grace, I can't stomach that; God makes right, and man makes +might--riches go one way, and poor men's wrong's another. Money, money's +the great law-maker, and a full purse frees him that has it, while it +turns the jailor's key on the wretch that has it not: one of those +wretches is the hopeless Roger Acton. Well, well," he added, after a +despondent sigh, "say no more about it all; that's right, +good-wife--why, they do look plump. And if I can't stomach Grace's +text-talk there, I'm sure I can the birds; for I know what keeps crying +cupboard lustily." + +It was a faint effort to be gay, and it only showed his gloom the +denser. Truly, he has quite enough to make him sad; but this is an +unhealthy sadness: the mists of mammon-worship, rising up, meet in the +mid aether of his mind, these lowering clouds of discontent: and the +seeming calamity, that should be but a trial to his faith, looks too +likely to wreck it. + +So, then, the embers were raked up, the trivet stuck a-top, the savoury +broil made ready; and (all but Grace, who would not taste a morsel, but +went up straight to bed) never had the Actons yet sate down before so +rich a supper. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +BEN BURKE'S STRANGE ADVENTURE. + + +"Take a pull, Roger, and pass the flask," was the cordial +prescription of Ben Burke, intended to cure a dead silence, generated +equally of eager appetites and self-accusing consciences; so saying, he +produced a quart wicker-bottle, which enshrined, according to his +testimony, "summut short, the right stuff, stinging strong, that had +never seen the face of a wishy-washy 'ciseman." But Roger touched it +sparingly, for the vaunted nectar positively burnt his swallow: till +Ben, pulling at it heartily himself, by way of giving moral precept the +full benefit of a good example, taught Roger not to be afraid of it, and +so the flask was drained. + +Under such communicative influence, Acton's tale of sorrows and +oppressions, we may readily believe, was soon made known; and as +readily, that it moved Ben's indignant and gigantic sympathies to an +extent of imprecation on the eyes, timbers, and psychological existence +of Mr. Jennings, very little edifying. One thing, however, made amends +for the license of his tongue; the evident sincerity and warmth with +which his coarse but kindly nature proffered instant aid, both offensive +and defensive. + +"It's a black and burning shame, Honest Roger, and right shall have his +own, somehow, while Big Ben has a heart in the old place, and a hand to +help his friend." And the poacher having dealt his own broad breast a +blow that would have knocked a tailor down, stretched out to Acton the +huge hand that had inflicted it. + +"More than that, Roger--hark to this, man!" and, as he slapped his +breeches pocket, there was the chink as of a mine of money shaken to its +foundations: "hark to this, man! and more than hark, have! Here, good +wife, hold your apron!" And he flung into her lap a handful of silver. + +Roger gave a sudden shout of wonder, joy, and avarice: and then as +instantaneously turning very pale, he slowly muttered, "Hush, Ben! is it +bloody money?" and almost shrieked as he added, "and my poor boy Tom, +too, with you! God-a-mercy, mun! how came ye by it?" + +"Honestly, neighbour, leastways, middling honest: don't damp a good +fellow's heart, when he means to serve you." + +"Tell me only that my boy is innocent!--and the money--yes, yes, I'll +keep the money;" for his wife seemed to be pushing it from her at the +thought. + +"I innocent, father! I never know'd till this minute that Ben had any +blunt at all--did I, Ben?--and I only brought him and Rover here to sup, +because I thought it neighbourly and kind-like." + +Poor Tom had till now been very silent: some how the pheasants lay heavy +on his stomach. + +"Is it true, Ben, is it true? the lad isn't a thief, the lad isn't a +murderer? Oh, God! Burke, tell me the truth! + +"Blockhead!" was the courteous reply, "what, not believe your own son? +Why, neighbour Acton, look at the boy: would that frank-faced, +open-hearted fellow do worse, think you, than Black Burke? And would I, +bad as I be, turn the bloody villain to take a man's life? No, +neighbour; Ben kills game, not keepers: he sets his wire for a hare, but +wouldn't go to pick a dead man's pocket. All that's wrong in me, mun, +the game-laws put there; but I'm neither burglar, murderer, +highwayman--no, nor a mean, sneaking thief; however the quality may +think so, and even wish to drive me to it. Neither, being as I be no +rogue, could I bear to live a fool; but I should be one, neighbour, and +dub myself one too, if I didn't stoop to pick up money that a madman +flings away." + +"Madman? pick up money? tell us how it was, Ben," interposed female +curiosity. + +"Well, neighbours, listen: I was a-setting my night-lines round Pike +Island yonder, more nor a fortnight back; it was a dark night and a +mizzling, or morning rather, 'twixt three and four; by the same token, +I'd caught a power of eels. All at once, while I was fixing a trimmer, a +punt came quietly up: as for me, Roger, you know I always wades it +through the muddy shallow: well, I listens, and a chap creeps ashore--a +mad chap, with never a tile to his head, nor a sole to his feet--and +when I sings out to ax him his business, the lunatic sprung at me like a +tiger: I didn't wish to hurt a little weak wretch like him, specially +being past all sense, poor nat'ral! so I shook him off at once, and held +him straight out in this here wice." [Ben's grasp could have cracked any +cocoa-nut.] "He trembled like a wicked thing; and when I peered close +into his face, blow me but I thought I'd hooked a white devil--no one +ever see such a face: it was horrible too look at. 'What are you arter, +mun?' says I; 'burying a dead babby?' says I. 'Give us hold here--I'm +bless'd if I don't see though what you've got buckled up there.' With +that, the little white fool--it's sartin he was mad--all on a sudden +flings at my head a precious hard bundle, gives a horrid howl, jumps +into the punt, and off again, afore I could wink twice. My head a'n't a +soft un, I suppose; but when a lunatic chap hurls at it with all his +might a barrow-load of crockery at once, it's little wonder that my +right eye flinched a minute, and that my right hand rubbed my right eye; +and so he freed himself, and got clear off. Rum start this, thinks I: +but any how he's flung away a summut, and means to give it me: what can +it be? thinks I. Well, neighbours, if I didn't know the chap was mad +afore, I was sartain of it now; what do you think of a grown man--little +enough, truly, but out of long coats too--sneaking by night to Pike +Island, to count out a little lot of silver, and to guzzle twelve +gallipots o' honey? There it was, all hashed up in an old shawl, a slimy +mesh like birdlime: no wonder my eye was a leetle blackish, when +half-a-dozen earthern crocks were broken against it. I was angered +enough, I tell you, to think any man could be such a fool as to bring +honey there to eat or to hide--when at once I spied summut red among +the mess; and what should it be but a pretty little China house, +red-brick-like, with a split in the roof for droppings, and ticketed +'Savings-bank:' the chink o' that bank you hears now: and the bank +itself is in the pond, now I've cleaned the till out." + +"Wonderful sure! But what did you do with the honey, Ben?--some of the +pots wasn't broke," urged notable Mrs. Acton. + +"Oh, burn the slimy stuff, I warn't going to put my mouth out o' taste +o' bacca, for a whole jawful of tooth-aches: I'll tell you, dame, what I +did with them ere crocks, wholes, and parts. There's never a stone on +Pike Island, it's too swampy, and I'd forgot to bring my pocketful, as +usual. The heaviest fish, look you, always lie among the sedge, +hereabouts and thereabouts, and needs stirring, as your Tom knows well; +so I chucked the gallipots fur from me, right and left, into the +shallows, and thereby druv the pike upon my hooks. A good night's work I +made of it too, say nothing of the Savings-bank; forty pound o' pike and +twelve of eel warn't bad pickings." + +"Dear, it was a pity though to fling away the honey; but what became of +the shawl, Ben?" Perhaps Mrs. Acton thought of looking for it. + +"Oh, as for that, I was minded to have sunk it, with its mess of +sweet-meats and potsherds; but a thought took me, dame, to be +'conomical for once: and I was half sorry too that I'd flung away the +jars, for I began to fancy your little uns might ha' liked the stuff; so +I dipped the clout like any washerwoman, rinshed, and squeezed, and +washed the mess away, and have worn it round my waist ever since; here, +dame, I haven't been this way for a while afore to-night; but I meant to +ask you if you'd like to have it; may be 'tan't the fashion though." + +"Good gracious, Ben! why that's Mrs. Quarles's shawl, I'd swear to it +among a hundred; Sarah Stack, at the Hall, once took and wore it, when +Mrs. Quarles was ill a-bed, and she and our Thomas walked to church +together. Yes--green, edged with red, and--I thought so--a yellow circle +in the middle; here's B.Q., for Bridget Quarles, in black cotton at the +corner. Lackapity! if they'd heard of all this at the Inquest! I tell +you what, Big Ben, it's kindly meant of you, and so thank you heartily, +but that shawl would bring us into trouble; so please take it yourself +to the Hall, and tell 'em fairly how you came by it." + +"I don't know about that Poll Acton; perhaps they might ask me for the +Saving-bank, too--eh, Roger!" + +"No, no, wife; no, it'll never do to lose the money! let a bygone be a +bygone, and don't disturb the old woman in her grave. As to the shawl, +if it's like to be a tell-tale, in my mind, this hearth's the safest +place for it." + +So he flung it on the fire; there was a shrivelling, smouldering, guilty +sort of blaze, and the shawl was burnt. + +Roger Acton, you are falling quickly as a shooting star; already is your +conscience warped to connive, for lucre's sake, at some one's secret +crimes. You had better, for the moral of the matter, have burnt your +right hand, as Scaevola did, than that shawl. Beware! your sin will bring +its punishment. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +SLEEP. + + +Grace, in her humble truckle-bed, lay praying for her father; +not about his trouble, though that was much, but for the spots of sin +she could discern upon his soul. + +Alas! an altered man was Roger Acton; almost since morning light, the +leprosy had changed his very nature. The simple-minded Christian, +toiling in contentment for his daily bread, cheerful for the passing +day, and trustful for the coming morrow, this fair state was well-nigh +faded away; while a bitterness of feeling against (in one word) +GOD--against unequal partialities in providence, against things as they +exist; and this world's inexplicable government--was gnawing at his very +heart-strings, and cankering their roots by unbelief. It is a speedy +process--throw away faith with its trust for the past, love for the +present, hope for the future--and you throw away all that makes sorrow +bearable, or joy lovely; the best of us, if God withheld his help, would +apostatize like Peter, ere the cock crew thrice; and, at times, that +help has wisely been withheld, to check presumptuous thoughts, and teach +how true it is that the creature depends on the Creator. Just so we +suffer a wilful little child, who is tottering about in leading-strings, +to go alone for a minute, and have a gentle fall. And just so Roger +here, deserted for a time of those angelic ministrations whose +efficiency is proved by godliness and meekness, by patience and content, +is harassed in his spirit as by harpies, by selfishness and pride, and +fretful doublings; by a grudging hate of labour, and a fiery lust of +gold. Temptation comes to teach a weak man that he was fitted for his +station, and his station made for him; that fulfilment of his ignorant +desires will only make his case the worse, and that + + Providence alike is wise + In what he gives and what denies. + +Meanwhile, gentle Grace, on her humble truckle-bed, is full of prayers +and tears, uneasily listening to the indistinct and noisy talk, and +hearing, now and then, some louder oath of Ben's that made her shudder. +Yes, she heard, too, the smashing sound, when the poacher flung the +money down, and she feared it was a mug or a plate--no slight domestic +loss; and she heard her father's strange cry, when he gave that +wondering shout of joyous avarice, and she did not know what to fear. +Was he ill? or crazed! or worse--fallen into bad excesses? How she +prayed for him! + +Poor Ben, too, honest-hearted Ben; she thought of him in charity, and +pleaded for his good before the Throne of Mercy. Who knows but Heaven +heard that saintly virgin prayer? There is love in Heaven yet for poor +Ben Burke. + +And if she prayed for Ben, with what an agony of deep-felt intercession +did she plead for Thomas Acton, that own only brother of hers, just a +year the younger to endear him all the more, her playmate, care, and +charge, her friend and boisterous protector. The many sorrowing hours +she had spent for his sake, and the thousand generous actions he had +done for hers! Could she forget how the stripling fought for her that +day, when rude Joseph Green would help her over the style? Could she but +remember how slily he had put aside, for more than half a year, a little +heap of copper earnings--weeding-money, and errand-money, and +harvest-money--and then bounteously spent it all at once in giving her a +Bible on her birth-day? And when, coming across the fields with him +after leasing, years ago now, that fierce black bull of Squire Ryle's +was rushing down upon us both, how bravely did the noble boy attack him +with a stake, as he came up bellowing, and make the dreadful monster +turn away! Ah! I looked death in the face then, but for thee, my +brother! Remember him, my God, for good! + +"Poor father! poor father! Well, I am resolved upon one thing: I'll go, +with Heaven's blessing, to the Hall myself, and see Sir John, to-morrow; +he shall hear the truth, for"--And so Grace fell asleep. + +Roger, when he went to bed, came to similar conclusions. He would speak +up boldly, that he would, without fear or favour. Ben's most seasonable +bounty, however to be questioned on the point of right, made him feel +entirely independent, both of bailiffs and squires, and he had now no +anxieties, but rather hopes, about to-morrow. He was as good as they, +with money in his pocket; so he'd down to the Hall, and face the baronet +himself, and blow his bailiff out o' water: that should be his business +by noon. Another odd idea, too, possessed him, and he could not sleep at +night for thinking of it: it was a foolish fancy, but the dream might +have put it in his head: what if one or other of those honey-jars, so +flung here and there among the rushes, were in fact another sort of +"Savings-bank"--a crock of gold? It was a thrilling thought--his very +dream, too; and the lot of shillings, and the shawl--ay, and the +inquest, and the rumours how that Mrs. Quarles had come to her end +unfairly, and no hoards found--and--and the honey-pots missing. Ha! at +any rate he'd have a search to-morrow. No bugbear now should hinder him; +money's money; he'd ask no questions how it got there. His own bit of +garden lay the nearest to Pike Island, and who knows but Ben might have +slung a crock this way? It wouldn't do to ask him, though--for Burke +might look himself, and get the crock--was Roger's last and selfish +thought, before he fell asleep. + +As to Mrs. Acton, she, poor woman, had her own thoughts, fearful ones, +about that shawl, and Ben's mysterious adventure. No cloudy love of +mammon had overspread her mind, to hide from it the hideousness of +murder; in her eyes, blood was terrible, and not the less so that it +covered gold. She remembered at the inquest--be sure she was there among +the gossips--the facts, so little taken notice of till now, the keys in +the cupboard, where the honey-pots were not, and how Jonathan Floyd had +seen something on the lake, and the marks of a man's hand on the throat; +and, God forgive her for saying so, but Mr. Jennings was a little, +white-faced man. How wrong was it of Roger to have burnt that shawl! how +dull of Ben not to have suspected something! but then the good fellow +suspects nobody, and, I dare say, now doesn't know my thoughts. But +Roger does, more shame for him; or why burn the shawl? Ah! thought she, +with all the gossip rampart in her breast, if I could only have taken it +to the Hall myself, what a stir I should have caused! Yes, she would +have reaped a mighty field of glory by originating such a whirlwind of +inquiries and surmises. Even now, so attractive was the mare's nest, she +would go to the Hall by morning, and tell Sir John himself all about +the burnt shawl, and Pike Island, and the galli--And so she fell fast +asleep. + +With respect to Ben, Tom, and Rover, a well-matched triad, as any Isis, +Horus, and Nepthys, they all flung themselves promiscuously on the hard +floor beside the hearth, "basked at the fire their hairy strength," and +soon were snoring away beautifully in concert, base, tenor, and treble, +like a leash of glee-singers. No thoughts troubled them, either of +mammon or murder: so long before the meditative trio up-stairs, they had +set a good example, and fallen asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +LOVE. + + +With the earliest peep of day arose sweet Grace, full of +cheerful hope, and prayer, and happy resignation. She had a great deal +to do that morning; for, innocent girl, she had no notion that it was +quite possible to be too early at the Hall; her only fear was being too +late. Then there were all the household cares to see to, and the dear +babes to dress, and the place to tidy up, and breakfast to get ready, +and, any how, she could not be abroad till half-past eight: so, to her +dismay, it must be past nine before ever she can see Sir John. Let us +follow her a little: for on this important day we shall have to take the +adventures of our labourer's family one at a time. + +By twenty minutes to nine, Grace had contrived to bustle on her things, +give the rest the slip, and be tripping to the Hall. It is nearly two +miles off, as we already know; and Grace is such a pretty creature that +we can clearly do no better than employ our time thitherward by taking a +peep at her. + +Sweet Grace Acton, we will not vex thy blushing maiden modesty by +elaborate details of form, and face, and feature. Perfect womanhood at +fair eighteen: let that fill all the picture up with soft and swelling +charms; no wadding, or padding, or jigot, or jupe--but all those +graceful undulations are herself: no pearl-powder, no carmine, no +borrowed locks, no musk, or ambergris--but all those feeble helps of +meretricious art excelled and superseded by their just originals in +nature. It will not do to talk, as a romancer may, of velvet cheeks and +silken tresses; or invoke, to the aid of our inadequate description, +roses, and swans, and peaches, and lilies. Take the simple village +beauty as she is. Did you ever look on prettier lips or sweeter +eyes--more glossy natural curls upon a whiter neck? And how that little +red-riding-hood cloak, and the simple cottage hat tied down upon her +cheeks, and the homely russet gown, all too short for modern fashions, +and the white, well-turned ankle, and the tidy little leather shoe, and +the bunch of snow drops in her tucker, and the neat mittens contrasting +darkly with her fair, bare arms--pretty Grace, how well all these become +thee! There, trip along, with health upon thy cheek, and hope within thy +heart; who can resist so eloquent a pleader? Haste on, haste on: save +thy father in his trouble, as thou hast blest him in his sin--this +rustic lane is to thee the path of duty--Heaven speed thee on it! + +More slowly now, and with more anxious thoughts, more heart-weakness, +more misgiving--Grace approacheth the stately mansion: and when she +timidly touched the "Servants'" bell, for she felt too lowly for the +"Visiters',"--and when she heard how terribly loud it was, how +long it rung, and what might be the issue of her--wasn't it +ill-considered?--errand--the poor girl almost fainted at the sound. + +As she leaned unconsciously for strength against the door, it opened on +a sudden, and Jonathan Floyd, in mute amazement, caught her in his arms. + +"Why, Grace Acton! what's the matter with you?" Jonathan knew Grace +well; they had been at dame's-school together, and in after years +attended the same Sunday class at church. There had been some talk among +the gossips about Jonathan and Grace, and ere now folks had been kind +enough to say they would make a pretty couple. And folks were right, +too, as well as kind: for a fine young fellow was Jonathan Floyd, as any +duchess's footman; tall, well built, and twenty-five; Antinous in a +livery. Well to do, withal, though his wages don't come straight to him; +for, independently of his place--and the baronet likes him for his good +looks and proper manners--he is Farmer Floyd's only son, on the hill +yonder, as thriving a small tenant as any round abouts; and he is proud +of his master, of his blue and silver uniform, of old Hurstley, and of +all things in general, except himself. + +"But what on earth's the matter, Grace?" he was obliged to repeat, for +the dear girl's agitation was extreme. + +"Jonathan, can I see the baronet?" + +"What, at nine in the morning, Grace Acton! Call again at two, and you +may find him getting up. He hasn't been three hours a-bed yet, and +there's nobody about but Sarah Stack and me. I wish those Lunnun sparks +would but leave the place: they do his honour no good, I'm thinking." + +"Not till two!" was the slow and mournful ejaculation. What a damper to +her buoyant hopes: and Providence had seen fit to give her ill-success. +Is it so? Prosperity may come in other shapes. + +"Why, Grace," suddenly said Floyd, in a very nervous way, "what makes +you call upon my master in this tidy trim?" + +"To save my father," answered Innocence. + +"How? why? Oh don't, Grace, don't! I'll save him--I will indeed--what is +it? Oh, don't, don't!" + +For the poor affectionate fellow conjured on the spot the black vision +of a father saved by a daughter's degradation. + +"Don't, Jonathan?--it's my duty, and God will bless me in it. That cruel +Mr. Jennings has resolved upon our ruin, and I wished to tell Sir John +the truth of it." + +At this hearing, Jonathan brightened up, and glibly said, "Ah, indeed, +Jennings is a trouble to us all: a sad life I've led of it this year +past; and I've paid him pretty handsomely too, to let me keep the place: +while, as for John Page and the grooms, and Mr. Coachman and the +helpers, they don't touch much o' their wages on quarter-day, I know." + +"Oh, but we--we are ruined! ruined! Father is forbidden now to labour +for our bread." And then with many tears she told her tale. + +"Stop, Miss Grace," suddenly said Jonathan, for her beauty and eloquence +transformed the cottager into a lady in his eyes, and no wonder; "pray, +stop a minute, Miss--please to take a seat; I sha'n't be gone an +instant." + +And the good-hearted fellow, whose eyes had long been very red, broke +away at a gallop; but he was back again almost as soon as gone, panting +like a post-horse. "Oh, Grace! don't be angry! do forgive me what I am +going to do." + +"Do, Jonathan?" and the beauty involuntarily started--"I hope it's +nothing wrong," she added, solemnly. + +"Whether right or wrong, Grace, take it kindly; you have often bade me +read my Bible, and I do so many times both for the sake of it and you; +ay, and meet with many pretty sayings in it: forgive me if I act on +one--'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'" With that, he +thrust into her hand a brass-topped, red-leather purse, stuffed with +money. Generous fellow! all the little savings, that had heretofore +escaped the prying eye and filching grasp of Simon Jennings. There was +some little gold in it, more silver, and a lot of bulky copper. + +"Dear Jonathan!" exclaimed Grace, quite thrown off her guard of maidenly +reserve, "this is too kind, too good, too much; indeed, indeed it is: I +cannot take the purse." And her bright eyes overflowed again. + +"Well, girl," said Jonathan, gulping down an apple in his throat, "I--I +won't have the money, that's all. Oh, Grace, Grace!" he burst out +earnestly, "let me be the blessed means of helping you in trouble--I +would die to do it, Grace; indeed I would!" + +The dear girl fell upon his neck, and they wept together like two loving +little sisters. + +"Jonathan"--her duteous spirit was the first to speak--"forgive this +weakness of a foolish woman's heart: I will not put away the help which +God provides us at your friendly hands: only this, kind brother--let me +call you brother--keep the purse; if my father pines for want of work, +and the babes at home lack food, pardon my boldness if I take the help +you offer. Meanwhile, God in heaven bless you, Jonathan, as He will!" + +And she turned to go away. + +"Won't you take a keepsake, Grace--one little token? I wish I had any +thing here but money to give you for my sake." + +"It would even be ungenerous in me to refuse you, brother; one little +piece will do." + +Jonathan fumbled up something in a crumpled piece of paper, and said +sobbingly--"Let it be this new half-crown, Grace: I won't say, keep it +always; only when you want to use that and more, I humbly ask you'll +please come to me." + +Now a more delicate, a more unselfish act, was never done by man: along +with the half-crown he had packed up two sovereigns! and thereby not +only escaped thanks, concealed his own beneficence, and robbed his purse +of half its little store; but actually he was, by doing so, depriving +himself for a month, or maybe more, of a visit from Grace Acton. Had it +been only half-a-crown, and want had pinched the family (neither Grace +nor Jonathan could guess of Ben Burke's bounty, and for all they knew +Roger had not enough for the morrow's meals)--had poverty come in like +an armed man, and stood upon their threshold a grim sentinel--doubtless +she must have run to him within a day or two. How sweet would it have +been to have kept her coming day by day, and to a commoner affection how +excusable! but still how selfish, how unlike the liberal and honourable +feeling that filled the manly heart of Jonathan Floyd! It was a noble +act, and worthy of a long parenthesis. + +If Grace Acton had looked back as she hurried down the avenue, she would +have seen poor Jonathan still watching her with all his eyes till she +was out of sight. Perhaps, though, she might have guessed it--there is a +sympathy in these things, the true animal magnetism--and I dare say that +was the very reason why she did not once turn her head. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +THE DISCOVERY. + + +Roger Acton had not slept well; had not slept at all till +nearly break of day, except in the feverish fashion of half dream half +revery. There were thick-coming fancies all night long about what Ben +had said and done: and more than once Roger had thought of the +expediency of getting up, to seek without delay the realization of that +one idea which now possessed him--a crock of gold. When he put together +one thing and another, he considered it almost certain that Ben had +flung away among the lot no mere honey-pot, but perhaps indeed a +money-pot: Burke hadn't half the cunning of a child; more fool he, and +maybe so much the better for me, thought money-bitten, selfish Roger. +Thus, in the night's hot imaginations, he resolved to find the spoil; to +will, was then to do: to do, was then to conquer. However, Nature's +sweet restorer came at last, and, when he woke, the idea had sobered +down--last night's fancies were preposterous. So, it was with a heavy +heart he got up later than his wont--no work before him, nothing to do +till the afternoon, when he might see Sir John, except it be to dig a +bit in his little marshy garden. When Grace ran to the Hall, Roger was +going forth to dig. + +Now, I know quite well that the reader is as fully aware as I am, what +is about to happen; but it is impossible to help the matter. If the +heading of this chapter tells the truth, a "discovery" of some sort is +inevitable. Let us preliminarize a thought or two, if thereby we can +hang some shadowy veil of excuse over a too naked mystery. First and +foremost, truth is strange, stranger, _et-cetera_; and this +_et-cetera_, pregnant as one of Lyttleton's, intends to add the +superlative strangest, to the comparative stranger of that seldom-quoted +sentiment. To every one of us, in the course of our lives, something +quite as extraordinary has befallen more than once. What shall we say of +omens, warnings, forebodings? What of the most curious runs of luck; the +most whimsical freaks of fortune; the unaccountable things that happen +round us daily, and no one marvels at them, till he reads of them in +print? Even as Macpherson, ingenious, if not ingenuous, gathered Ossian +from the lips of Highland hussifs, and made the world with modern Attila +to back it, wonder at the stores that are hived on old wives' tongues; +even so might any other literary, black-smith hammer from the ore of +common gossip a regular Vulcan's net of superstitious "facts." Never yet +was uttered ghost story, that did not breed four others; every one at +table is eager to record his, or his aunt's, experience in that line; +and the mass of queer coincidences, inexplicable incidents, indubitable +seeings, hearings, doings, and sufferings; which you and I have heard of +in this popular vein of talk, would amply excuse the wildest fictionist +for the most extravagant adventure--the more improbable, the nearer +truth. Talk of the devil, said our ancestors--let "&c." save us from the +consequence. Think of any thing vehemently, and it is an even chance it +happens: be confident, you conquer; be obstinate in willing, and events +shall bend humbly to their lord: nay, dream a dream, and if you +recollect it in the morning, and it bother you next day, and you cannot +get it out of your head for a week, and the matter positively haunt you, +ten to one but it finds itself or makes itself fulfilled, some odd day +or other. Just so, doubtless, will it prove to be with Roger's dream: I +really cannot help the matter. + +Again, it is more than likely that the reader is clever, very clever, +and that any attempts at concealment would be merely futile. From the +first page he has discovered who is the villain, and who the victim: the +title alone tells him of the golden hinge on which the story turns: he +can look through stone walls, if need be, or mesmerically see, without +making use of eyes: no peep-holes for him, as for Pyramus and Thisbe: no +initiation requisite for any hidden mysteries; all arcana are revealed +to him, every sanctum is a highway. No art of mortal pen can defeat this +mischief of acuteness: character is character; oaks grow of acorns, and +the plan of a life may be detected in a microscopic speech. The career +of Mr. Jennings is as much predestined by us to iniquity, from the first +intimation that he never makes excuse, as honest Roger is to trouble +and temptation from the weary effort wherewithal he woke. And, even now, +pretty Grace and young Sir John, the reader thinks that he can guess at +nature's consequence; while, with respect to Roger's going forth to dig +this morning, he sees it straight before him, need not ask for the +result. Well, if the shrewd reader has the eye of Lieuenhoeeck, and can +discern, cradled in the small triangular beech-mast, a noble +forest-tree, with silvery trunk, branching arms, and dark-green foliage, +he deserves to be complimented indeed, for his own keen skill; but, at +the same time, Nature will not hurry herself for him, but will quietly +educe results which he foreknew--or thought he did--a century ago. And +is there not the highest Art in this unveiled simplicity: to lead the +reader onwards by a straight road, with the setting sun a-blaze at the +end of it, knowing his path, knowing its object, yet still borne on with +spirits unexhausted and unflagging foot? Trust me, there is better +praise in this, than in dazzling the distracted glance with a perpetual +succession of luminous fire-flies, and dragging your fair novel-reader, +harried and excited, through the mazes of a thousand incidents. + +Thirdly, and lastly, in this prefatorial say, there is to be considered +that inevitable defeator of all printed secrets--impatience. Nothing is +easier, nothing commoner (most wise people do it, whose fate is, that +they must keep up with the race of current publication, and therefore +must keep down the still-increasing crowd of authorial creations), +nothing is more venial, more laudable, than to read the last chapter +first; and so, finding out all mysteries at once, to save one's self a +vast deal of unnecessary trouble. And, for mere tale-telling, this may +be sufficient. What need to burden memory with imaginary statements, or +to weary out one's sympathies on trite fictitious woes?--come to the +catastrophe at once: the uncle hanged; the heir righted; the heroine, an +orange-flowered bride; and the white-headed grandmother, after all her +wrongs, winding up the story with a prudent moral. Now, this may all be +very well with histories that merely carry a sting in the tail, whose +moral is the warning of the rattlesnake, and whose hot-exciting interest +is posted with the scorpion's venom. They are the Dragon of Wantley, +with one caudal point--a barbed termination: we, like Moore of Moore +Hall, all point, covered with spikes: every where we boast ourselves an +ethical hedge-hog, all-over-armed with keen morals--a Rumour painted +full of tongues, echoing all around with revealing of secrets. The +feelings of our humble hero, altered Roger Acton, are worthy to be +studied by the great, to be sifted by the rich; and Grace's simple +tongue may teach the sage, for its wisdom cometh from above; and +Jonathan, for all his shoulder-knot and smart cockade, is worthy to give +lessons to his master: that master, also, is far better than you think +him; and poor Burke too, for true humanity's sake: so we get a mint of +morals, set aside the story. It is not raw material, but the +workmanship, that gives its value to the flowered damask; our +grand-dames' sumptuous taffeties and stand-alone brocades are but spun +silk-worms' interiors; the fairest statue is intrinsically but a mass of +clumsy stone, until, indeed, the sculptor has rough-hewn it, and shaped +it, and chiselled it, and finished all the touches with sand-paper. This +story of '_The Crock of Gold_' purports to be a Dutch picture, as +becometh boors, their huts, their short and simple annals; so that, +after its moralities, the mass of minute detail is the only thing that +gives it any value. + +Now, whilst all of you have been yawning through these egotistic +phrases, Roger has been digging in his garden; there he is, pecking away +at what once was the celery-bed, but now are fallow trenches; celery, as +we all know, is a water-loving plant, doing best in marshy-land, so no +wonder the trenches open on the sedge, and the muddy shallow opposite +Pike Island puddles up to them. There needs be no suspense, no mystery +at all; Roger's dream had clearly sent him thither, for he should not +have levelled those trenches yet awhile, it was a little too soon--bad +husbandry; and, barring the appearance of a devil, Roger's dream came +true. Yes, under the roots of a clump of bullrush, he lifted out with +his spade--a pot of Narbonne honey! + +When first he spied the pot, his heart was in his mouth--it must be +gold, and with tottering knees he raised the precious burden. But, woful +disappointment! the word "Honey," with plenty of French and Fortnum on +another pasted label, stared him in the face; it was sweet and slimy too +about the neck; there was no sort of jingle when he shook the crock; +what though it be heavy?--honey's heavy; and it was tied over quite in a +common way with pig's bladder, and his clumsy trembling fingers could +not undo that knot; and thus, with a miserable sense of cheated poverty, +he threw it down beside the path, and would, perhaps, have flung it +right away in sheer disgust, but for the reflection that the little ones +might like it. Once, indeed, the glorious doubt of maybe gold came back +upon his mind, and he lifted up the spade to smash the baffling pot, and +so make sure of what it might contain;--make sure, eh? why, you would +only lose the honey, whispered domestic economy. So he left the jar to +be opened by his wife when he should go in. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +JONATHAN'S STORE. + + +And where has Mrs. Acton been all this morning? Off to the +Hall, very soon after Grace had got away; and she rung at the side +entrance, hard by the kitchen, most fortunately caught Sarah Stack +about, and had a good long gossip with her; telling her, open-mouthed, +all about Ben Burke having found a shawl of Mrs. Quarles's on the +island; and how, it being very rotten, yes, and smelling foul, Ben had +been fool enough to burn it; what a pity! how could the shawl have got +there? if it only could ha' spoken what it knew! And the bereaved +gossips mourned together over secrets undivulged, and their evidence +destroyed. As to the crockery, for a miraculous once in life, Mrs. Acton +held her tongue about a thing she knew, and said not a syllable +concerning it. Roger would be mad to lose the money. Just at parting +with her friend Mary Acton was going out by the wrong door, through the +hall, but luckily did no more than turn the handle; or she never could +have escaped bouncing in upon the lovers' interview, and thereby +occasioning a chaos of confusion. For, be it whispered, the step-dame +was not a little jealous of her ready-made daughter's beauty, persisted +in calling her a child, and treated her any thing but kindly and +sisterly, as her full-formed woman's loveliness might properly have +looked for. Only imagine, if the Hecate had but seen Jonathan's lit-up +looks, or Grace's down-cast blushes; for it really slipped my +observation to record that there were blushes, and probably some cause +for them when the keep-sake was given and accepted; only conceive if +the step-mother had heard Jonathan's afterward soliloquy, when he was +watching pretty Grace as she tripped away--and how much he seemed to +think of her eyes and eye-lashes! I am reasonably fearful, had she heard +and seen all this--Poll Acton's nails might have possibly drawn blood +from the cheeks of Jonathan Floyd. As it was, the little god of love +kindly warded from his votaries the coming of so crabbed an antagonist. + +Grace has now reached home again, blessing her overruling stars to have +escaped notice so entirely both in going and returning; for the mother +was hard at washing near the well, having got in half an hour before, +and father has not yet left off digging in his garden. So she crept up +stairs quietly, put away her Sunday best, and is just dropping on her +knees beside her truckle-bed, to speak of all her sorrows to her +Heavenly friend, and to thank him for the kindness He had raised her in +an earthly one. She then, with no small trepidation, took out of her +tucker, just below those withered snow-drops, the crumpled bit of paper +that held Jonathan's parting gift. It was surprising how her tucker +heaved; she could hardly get at the parcel. She wanted to look at that +half-crown; not that she feared it was a bad one, or was curious about +coins, or felt any pleasure in possessing such a sum: but there was such +a don't-know-what connected with that new half-crown, which made her +long to look at it; so she opened the paper--and found its golden +fellows! O noble heart! O kind, generous, unselfish--yes, beloved +Jonathan! But what is she to do with the sovereigns? Keep them? No, she +cannot keep them, however precious in her sight as proofs of deep +affection; but she will call as soon as possible, and give them back, +and insist upon his taking them, and keeping them too--for her, if no +otherwise. And the dear innocent girl was little aware herself how glad +she felt of the excuse to call so soon again at Hurstley. + +Meantime, for safety, she put the money in her Bible. + +What hallowed gold was that? Gained by honest industry, saved by +youthful prudence, given liberally and unasked, to those who needed, and +could not pay again; with a delicate consideration, an heroic essay at +concealment, a voluntary sacrifice of self, of present pleasure, +passion, and affection. And there it lies, the little store, hidden up +in Grace's Bible. She has prayed over it, thanked over it, interceded +over it, for herself, for it, for others. How different, indeed, from +ordinary gold, from common sin-bought mammon; how different from that +unblest store, which Roger Acton covets; how purified from meannesses, +and separate from harms! This is of that money, the scarcest coins of +all the world, endued with all good properties in heaven and in earth, +whereof it had been written, "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, +saith the Lord of hosts." + +Such alone are truly riches--well-earned, well-saved, well-sanctified, +well-spent. The wealthiest of European capitalists--the Croesus of +modern civilization--may be but a pauper in that better currency, +whereof a sample has been shown in the store of Jonathan Floyd. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ANOTHER DISCOVERY, AND THE EARNEST OF GOOD THINGS. + + +"Dame, here's one o' Ben's gallipots he flung away: it's naught +but honey, dame--marked so--no crock of gold; don't expect it; no such +thing; luck like that isn't for such as me: though, being as it is, the +babes may like it, with their dry bread: open it, good-wife: I hope the +water mayn't ha' spoilt it." + +The notable Mary Acton produced certain scissors, hanging from her +pocket by a tape, and cut a knot, which to Roger had been Gordian's. + +"Why, it's bran, Acton, not honey; look here, will you." She tilted it +up, and, along with a cloud of saw-dust, dropped out a heavy hail-storm +of--little bits of leather! + +"Hallo? what's that?" said Roger, eagerly: "it's gold, gold, I'll be +sworn!" It was so. + +Every separate bit of money, whatever kind of coins they were, had been +tidily sewn up in a shred of leather; remnants of old gloves of all +colours; and the Narbonne jar contained six hundred and eighty-seven of +them. These, of course, were hastily picked up from the path whereon +they had first fallen, were counted out at home, and the glittering +contents of most of those little leather bags ripped up were immediately +discovered. Oh dear! oh dear! such a sight! Guineas and half-guineas, +sovereigns and half-sovereigns, quite a little hill of bright, clean, +prettily-figured gold. + +"Hip, hip, hooray!" shouted Roger, in an ecstacy; "Hurrah, hurrah, +hurrah!" and in the madness of his joy, he executed an extravagant pas +seul; up went his hat, round went his heels, and he capered awkwardly +like a lunatic giraffe. + +"Here's an end to all our troubles, Poll: we're as good as gentle-folks +now; catch me a-calling at the Hall, to bother about Jennings and Sir +John: a fig for bailiffs, and baronets, parsons, and prisons, and all," +and again he roared Hooray! "I tell you what though, old 'ooman, we must +just try the taste of our glorious golden luck, before we do any thing +else. Bide a bit, wench, and hide the hoard till I return. I'm off to +the Bacchus's Arms, and I'll bring you some stingo in a minute, old +gal." So off he ran hot-foot, to get an earnest of the blessing of his +crock of gold. + +The minute that was promised to produce the stingo, proved to be rather +of a lengthened character; it might, indeed, have been a minute, or the +fraction of one, in the planet Herschel, whose year is as long as +eighty-five of our Terra's, but according to Greenwich calculation, it +was nearer like two hours. + +The little Tom and Jerry shop, that rejoiced in the classical heraldry +of Bacchus's Arms, had been startled from all conventionalities by the +unwonted event of the demand, "change for a sovereign?" and when it was +made known to the assembled conclave that Roger Acton was the fortunate +possessor, that even assumed an appearance positively miraculous. + +"Why, honest Roger, how in the world could you ha' come by that?" was +the troublesome inquiry of Dick the Tanner. + +"Well, Acton, you're sharper than I took you for, if you can squeeze +gold out of bailiff Jennings," added Solomon Snip; and Roger knew no +better way of silencing their tongues, than by profusely drenching them +in liquor. So he stood treat all round, and was forced to hobanob with +each; and when that was gone, he called for more to keep their curiosity +employed. Now, all this caused delay; and if Mary had been waiting for +the "stingo," she would doubtless have had reasonable cause for anger +and impatience: however, she, for her part, was so pleasantly occupied, +like Prince Arthur's Queen, in counting out the money, that, to say the +truth, both lord and liquor were entirely forgotten. + +But another cause that lengthened out the minute, was the embarrassing +business of where to find the change. Bacchus's didn't chalk up trust, +where hard money was flung upon the counter; but all the accumulated +wealth of Bacchus's high-priest, Tom Swipey, and of the seven +worshippers now drinking in his honour, could not suffice to make up +enough of change: therefore, after two gallons left behind him in +libations as aforesaid, and two more bottled up for a drink-offering at +home, Roger was contented to be owed seven and fourpence; a debt never +likely to be liquidated. Much speculation this afforded to the gossips; +and when the treater's back was turned, they touched their foreheads, +for the man was clearly crazed, and they winked to each other with a +gesture of significance. + +Grace, while musing on her new half-crown--it was strange how long she +looked at it--had heard with real amazement that uproarious huzzaing! +and, just as her father had levanted for the beer, glided down from her +closet, and received the wondrous tidings from her step-mother. She +heard in silence, if not in sadness: intuitive good sense proclaimed to +her that this sudden gush of wealth was a temptation, even if she felt +no secret fears on the score of--shall we call it superstition?--that +dream, this crock, that dark angel--and this so changed spirit of her +once religious father: what could she think? she meekly looked to Heaven +to avert all ill. + +Mary Acton also was less elated and more alarmed than she cared to +confess: not that she, any more than Grace, knew or thought about lords +of manors, or physical troubles on the score of finding the crock: but +Mrs. Quarles's shawl, and sundry fearful fancies tinged with blood, +these worried her exceedingly, and made her look upon the gold with an +uneasy feeling, as if it were an unclean thing, a sort of Achan's wedge. + +At last, here comes Roger back, somewhat unsteadily I fear, with a stone +two-gallon jar of what he was pleased to avouch to be "the down-right +stingo." "Hooray, Poll!" (he had not ceased shouting all the way from +Bacchus's,) "Hooray--here I be again, a gentle-folk, a lord, a king, +Poll: why daughter Grace, what's come to you? I won't have no dull looks +about to-day, girl. Isn't this enough to make a poor man merry? No more +troubles, no more toil, no more 'humble sarvent,' no more a ragged, +plodding ploughman: but a lord, daughter Grace--a great, rich, luxurious +lord--isn't this enough to make a man sing out hooray?--Thank the crock +of gold for this--Oh, blessed crock!" + +"Hush, father, hush! that gold will be no blessing to you; Heaven send +it do not bring a curse. It will be a sore temptation, even if the +rights of it are not in some one else: we know not whom it may belong +to, but at any rate it cannot well be ours." + +"Not ours, child? whose in life is it then?" + +Mary Acton, made quite meek by a superstitious dread of having money of +the murdered, stepped in to Grace's help, whom her father's fierce +manner had appalled, with "Roger, it belonged to Mrs. Quarles, I'm +morally sure on it--and must now be Simon Jennings's, her heir." + +"What?" he almost frantically shrieked, "shall that white hell-hound rob +me yet again? No, dame--I'll hang first! the crock I found, the crock +I'll keep: the money's mine, whoever did the murder." Then, changing his +mad tone into one of reckless inebriate gayety--for he was more than +half-seas over even then from the pot-house toastings and excitement--he +added, "But come, wenches, down with your mugs, and help me to get +through the jar: I never felt so dry in all my life. Here's blessings on +the crock, on him as sent it, him as has it, and on all the joy and +comfort it's to bring us! Come, drink, drink--we must all drink +that--but where's Tom?" + +If Roger had been quite himself, he never would have asked so +superfluous a question: for Tom was always in one and the same company, +albeit never in one and the same place: he and his Pan-like Mentor were +continually together, studying wood-craft, water-craft, and all manner +of other craft connected with the antique trade of picking and stealing. + +"Where's Tom?" + +Grace, glad to have to answer any reasonable question, mildly answered, +"Gone away with Ben, father." + +Alas! that little word, Ben, gave occasion to reveal a depth in Roger's +fall, which few could have expected to behold so soon. To think that the +liberal friend, who only last night had frankly shared his all with him, +whose honest glowing heart would freely shed its blood for him, that he +in recollection should be greeted with a loathing! Ben would come, and +claim some portion of his treasure--he would cry halves--or, who knows? +might want all--all: and take it by strong arm, or by threat to 'peach +against him:--curse that Burke! he hated him. + +Oh, Steady Acton! what has made thee drink and swear? Oh, Honest Roger! +what has planted guile, and suspicion, and malice in thy heart? Are +these the mere first-fruits of coveting and having? Is this the earliest +blessing of that luck which many long for--the finding of a crock of +gold? + +We would not enlarge upon the scene; a painful one at all times, when +man forgets his high prerogative, and drowns his reason in the tankard: +but, in a Roger Acton's case, lately so wise, temperate, and patient, +peculiarly distressing. Its chief features were these. Grace tasted +nothing, but mournfully looked on: once only she attempted to +expostulate, but was met--not with fierce oaths, nor coarse chidings, +nor even with idiotic drivelling--oh no! worse than that she felt: he +replied to her with the maudlin drunken promise, "If she'd only be a +good girl, and let him bide, he'd give her a big Church-bible, bound in +solid gold--that 'ud make the book o' some real value, Grace." Poor +broken-hearted daughter--she rushed to her closet in a torrent of tears. + +As for Mary Acton, she was miraculously meek and dumb; all the scold was +quelled within her; the word "blood" was the Petruchio that tamed that +shrew; she could see a plenty of those crimson spots, which might + + "The multitudinous seas incarnadine, + Making the green, one red," + +dancing in the sun-beams, dotted on the cottage walls, sprinkled as +unholy water, over that foul crock. Would not the money be a curse to +them any how, say nothing of the danger? If things went on as they +began, Mary might indeed have cause for fear: actually, she could not +a-bear to look upon the crock; she quite dreaded it, as if it had +contained a "bottled devil." So there she sat ever so long--silent, +thoughtful, and any thing but comfortable. + +What became of Roger until next day at noon, neither he nor I can tell: +true, his carcase lay upon the floor, and the two-gallon jar was empty. +But, for the real man, who could answer to the name of Roger Acton, the +sensitive and conscious soul--that was some where galloping away for +fifteen hours in the Paradise of fools: the Paradise? no--the Maelstrom; +tossed about giddily and painfully in one whirl of tumultuous +drunkenness. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +HOW THE HOME WAS BLEST THEREBY. + + +It will surprise no one to be told that, however truly such an +excess may have been the first, it was by no means the last exploit of +our altered labourer in the same vein of heroism. Bacchus's was quite +close, and he needs must call for his change; he had to call often; +drank all quits; changed another sovereign, and was owed again; but, +trust him, he wasn't going to be cheated out of that: take care of the +pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves. But still it was +ditto repeated; changing, being owed, grudging, grumbling: at last he +found out the famous new plan of owing himself; and as Bacchus's did not +see fit to reject such wealthy customers, Roger soon chalked up a +yard-long score, and grew so niggardly that they could not get a penny +from him. + +It is astonishing how immediately wealth brings in, as its companion, +meanness: they walk together, and stand together, and kneel together, as +the hectoring, prodigal Faulconbridge, the Bastard Plantagenet in _King +John_, does with his white-livered, puny brother, Robert. Wherefore, no +sooner was Roger blest with gold, than he resolved not to be such a fool +as to lose liberally, or to give away one farthing. To give, I say, for +extravagant indulgence is another thing; and it was a fine, proud +pleasure to feast a lot of fellows at his sole expense. If meanness is +brother to wealth, it is at any rate first cousin to extravagance. + +When the dowager collects "her dear five hundred friends" to parade +before the fresh young heirs her wax-light lovely daughters--when all is +glory, gallopade, and Gunter--when Rubini warbles smallest, and +Lablanche is heard as thunder on the stairs--speak, tradesmen, ye who +best can tell, the closeness that has catered for that feast; tell it +out, ye famished milliners, ground down to sixpence on a ball-dress +bill; whisper it, ye footmen, with your wages ever due; let Gath, let +Askelon re-echo with the truth, that extortion is the parent of +extravagance! + +Now, that episode should have been in a foot note; but no one takes the +trouble to read notes; and with justice too; for if a man has any thing +to say, let him put it in his text, as orderly as may be. And, if order +be sometimes out of the question, as seems but clearly suitable at +present to our hero's manner of life, it is wise to go boldly on, +without so prim an usher; to introduce our thoughts as they reveal +themselves, ignorant of "their own degrees," not "standing on the order +of their coming," but, as a pit crowd on a benefit-night, bustling over +one another, helter-skelter, "in most admired disorder." This will well +comport with Roger's daily life: for, notwithstanding the frequent +interference of an Amazon wife--regardless of poor, dear Grace's gentle +voice and melancholy eyes--in spite of a conscience pricking in his +breast, with the spines of a horse-chestnut, that evil crock +appeared from the beginning to have been found for but one sole +purpose--_videlicet_, that of keeping alight in Roger's brain the fire +of mad intoxication. Yes, there were sundry other purposes, too, which +may as well be told directly. + +The utter dislocation of all home comforts occupied the foremost rank. +True--in comparison with the homes of affluence and halls of +luxury--those comforts may have formerly seemed few and far between; yet +still the angel of domestic peace not seldom found a rest within the +cottage. Not seldom? always: if sweet-eyed Grace be such an angel, that +ever-abiding guest, full of love, duty, piety, and cheerfulness. But +now, after long-enduring anguish, vexed in her righteous soul by the +shocking sights and sounds of the drunkard and his parasites (for all +the idle vagabonds about soon flocked around rich Acton, and were freely +welcome to his reckless prodigality), Grace had been forced to steal +away, and seek refuge with a neighbour. Here was one blessing the less. + +Another wretched change was in the wife. Granted, Mary Acton had not +ever been the pink of politeness, the violet of meekness, nor the rose +of entire amiability: but if she were a scold, that scolding was well +meant; and her irate energies were incessantly directed towards +cleanliness, economy, quiet, and other _notabilia_ of a busy house-wife. +She did her best to keep the hovel tidy, to make the bravest show with +their scanty chattels, to administer discreetly the stores of their +frugal larder, and to recompense the good-man returning from his hard +day's work, with much of rude joy and bustling kindness. But now, after +the first stupor of amazement into which the crock and its consequences +threw her, Poll Acton grew to be a fury: she raged and stormed, and well +she might, at filth and discomfort in her home, at nauseous dregs and +noisome fumes, at the orgie still kept up, day by day, and night by +night, through the length of that first foul week, which succeeded the +fortunate discovery. And not in vain she raged and stormed--and fought +too; for she did fight--ay, and conquered: and miserable Roger, now in +full possession of those joys which he had longed for at the casement of +Hurstley Hall, was glad to betake himself to the bench at Bacchus's, +whither he withdrew his ragged regiment. Thus, that crock had spoilt all +there was to spoil in the temper and conduct of the wife. + +Look also at the pretty prattling babes, twin boys of two years old, +whom Roger used to hasten home to see; who had to say their simple +prayers; to be kissed, and comforted, and put to bed; to be made happier +by a wild flower picked up on his path, than if the gift had been a +coral with gold bells: where were they now? neglected, dirty, fretting +in a corner, their red eyes full of wonder at father's altered ways, and +their quick minds watching, with astonished looks, the progress of +domestic discord. How the crock of gold has nipped those early blossoms +as a killing frost! + +Again, there used to be, till this sad week of wealth and riotous +hilarity, that constantly recurring blessing of the morn and evening +prayer which Roger read aloud, and Grace's psalm or chapter; and +afterwards the frugal meal--too scanty, perhaps, and coarse--but still +refreshing, thank the Lord, and seasoned well with health and appetite; +and the heart-felt sense of satisfaction that all around was earned by +honest labour; and there was content, and hope of better times, and +God's good blessing over every thing. + +Now, all these pleasures had departed; gold, unhallowed gold, gotten +hastily in the beginning, broadcast on the rank strong soil of a heart +that coveted it earnestly, had sprung up as a crop of poisonous tares, +and choked the patch of wheat; gold, unhallowed gold, light come, light +gone, had scared or killed the flock of unfledged loves that used to +nestle in the cotter's thatch, as surely as if the cash were stones, +flung wantonly by truants at a dove-cot; and forth from the crock, that +egg of wo, had been hatched a red-eyed vulture, to tyrannize in this sad +home, where but lately the pelican had dwelt, had spread her fostering +wing, and poured out the wealth of her affections. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +CARE. + + +But other happy consequences soon became apparent. If Acton in +his tipsy state was mad, in his intervals of soberness he was thoroughly +miserable. And this, not merely on the score of sickness, exhaustion, +prostrated spirits, blue-devils, or other the long catalogue of a +drunkard's joys; not merely from a raging wife, and a wretched home; not +merely from the stings, however sharp, however barbed, of a conscience +ill at ease, that would rise up fiercely like a hissing snake, and +strike the black apostate to the earth: these all, doubtless, had their +pleasant influences, adding to the lucky finder's bliss: but there was +another root of misery most unlooked for, and to the poor who dream of +gold, entirely paradoxical. + +The possession of that crock was the heaviest of cares. Where on earth +was he to hide it? how to keep it safely, secretly? What if he were +robbed of it in some sly way! O, thought of utter wo! it made the +fortunate possessor quiver like an aspen. Or what, if some one or more +of those blustering boon companions were to come by night with a +bludgeon and a knife, and--and cut his throat, and find the treasure? +or, worse still, were to torture him, set him on the fire like a +saucepan (he had heard of Turpin having done so with a rich old woman), +and make him tell them "where" in his extremity of pains, and give up +all, and then--and then murder him at last, outright, and afterwards +burn the hovel over his head, babes and all, that none might live to +tell the tale? These fears set him on the rack, and furnished one +inciting cause to that uninterrupted orgie; he must be either mad or +miserable, this lucky finder. + +Also, even in his tipsy state, he could not cast off care: he might in +his cups reveal the dangerous secret of having found a crock of gold. A +secret still it was: Grace, his wife, and himself, were the only souls +who knew it. Dear Grace feared to say a word about the business: not in +apprehension of the law, for she never thought of that too probable +intrusion on the finder: but simply because her unsophisticated piety +believed that God, for some wise end, had allowed the Evil One to tempt +her father; she, indeed, did not know the epigram, + + The devil now is wiser than of yore: + He tempts by making rich--not making poor: + +but she did not conceive that notion in her mind; she contrasted the +wealthy patriarch Job, tried by poverty and pain, but just and patient +in adversity--with the poor labourer Acton, tried by luxury and wealth, +and proved to be apostate in prosperity: so she held her tongue, and +hitherto had been silent on a matter of so much local wonder as her +father's sudden wealth, in the midst of urgent curiosity and +extraordinary rumours. + +Mary was kept quiet as we know, by superstition of a lower grade, the +dread of having money of the murdered, a thought she never breathed to +any but her husband; and to poor uninitiated Grace (who had not heard a +word of Ben's adventure), her answer about Mrs. Quarles and Mr. Jennings +in the dawn of the crock's first blessing, had been entirely +unintelligible: Mary, then, said never a word, but looked on dreadingly +to see the end. + +As for Roger himself, he was too much in apprehension of a landlord's +claims, and of a task-master's extortions, to breath a syllable about +the business. So he hid his crock as best he could--we shall soon hear +how and where--took out sovereign after sovereign day by day, and made +his flush of instant wealth a mystery, a miracle, a legacy, good luck, +any thing, every thing but the truth: and he would turn fiercely round +to the frequent questioner with a "What's that to you?--Nobody's +business but mine:" and then would coaxingly add the implied bribe to +secresy, in his accustomed invitation--"And now, what'll you take?"--a +magical phrase, which could suffice to quell murmurs for the time, and +postponed curiosity to appetite. Thus the fact was still unknown, and +weighed on Roger's mind as a guilty concealment, an oppressive secret. +What if any found it out? + +For immediate safety--the evening after his memorable first fifteen +hours of joy--he buried the crock deeply in a hole in his garden, +filling all up hard with stones and brick-bats; and when he had +smoothed it straight and workmanlike, remembered that he surely hadn't +kept out enough to last him; so up it had to come again--five more taken +out, and the crock was restored to its unquiet grave. + +Scarcely had he done this, than it became dark, and he began to fancy +some one might have seen him hide it; those low mean tramps (never +before had he refused the wretched wayfarers his sympathy) were always +sneaking about, and would come and dig it up in the night: so he went +out in the dark and the rain, got at it with infinite trouble and a +broken pickaxe, and exultingly brought the crock in-doors; where he +buried it a third time, more securely, underneath the grouted floor, +close beside the fire in the chimney-corner: it was now nearly midnight, +and he went to bed. + +Hardly had he tumbled in, after pulling on a nightcap of the flagon, +than the dread idea overtook him that his treasure might be melted! Was +there ever such a fool as he? Well, well, to think he could fling his +purse on the fire! What a horrid thought! Metallurgy was a science quite +unknown to Roger; he only considered gold as heavy as lead, and +therefore probably as fusible: so down he bustled, made another hole, a +deeper one too this time, in the floor under the dresser, where, +exhausted with his toil and care, he deposited the crock by four in the +morning--and so retired once more. + +All in vain--nobody ever knew when Black Burke might be returning from +his sporting expeditions--and that beast of a lurcher would be sure to +be creeping in this morning, and would scratch it up, and his brute of a +master would get it all! This fancy was the worst possible: and Roger +rose again, quite sick at heart, pale, worn, and trembling with a +miser's haggard joys. Where should he hide that crock--the epithet +"cursed" crock escaped him this time in his vexed impatience. In the +house and in the garden, it was equally unsafe. + +Ha! a bright thought indeed: the hollow in the elm-tree, creaking +overhead, just above the second arm: so the poor, shivering wretch, +almost unclad, swarmed up that slimy elm, and dropped his treasure in +the hollow. Confusion! how deep it was: he never thought of that; here +was indeed something too much of safety: and then those boys of +neighbour Goode's were birds'-nesting continually, specially round the +lake this spring. What an idiot he was not to have remembered this! And +up he climbed again, thrust in his arm to the shoulder, and managed to +repossess himself a fifth time of that blessed crock. + +Would that the elm had been hollow to its root, and beneath the root a +chasm bottomless, and that Plutus in that Narbonne jar had served as a +supper to Pluto in the shades! Better had it been for thee, my Roger. + +But he had not hid it yet; so, that night--or rather that cold morning +about six, the drenched, half-frozen Fortunatus carried it to bed with +him: and a precious warming-pan it made: for nothing would satisfy the +finder of its presence but perpetual bodily contact:--accordingly, he +placed it in his bosom, and it chilled him to the back-bone. + +Yes; that was undoubtedly the safest way; to carry the spoil about with +him; so, next noon--how could he get up till noon after such a woful +night?--next noon he emptied the jar, and tying up its contents in a +handkerchief, proceeded to wear it as a girdle; for an hour he clattered +about the premises, making as much jingle as a wagoner's team of bells; +laden heavily with gold, like the [Greek: ibebusto] genius in Herodotus: +but he soon found out this would not do at all; for, independently of +all concealment at an end, so long as his secret store was rattling as +he walked, louder than military spurs or sabre-tackle, he soberly +reflected that he might--possibly, possibly, though not probably--get a +glass too much again, by some mere accident or other; and then to be +robbed of his golden girdle, this cincture of all joy! O, terrible +thought! as well [this is my fancy, not Rogers's] deprive Venus of her +zone, and see how the beggared Queen of Beauty could exist without her +treasury, the Cestus. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +INVESTMENT. + + +Next day, the wealthy Roger had higher aspirations. Why should +not he get interest for his money, like lords and gentlefolk? His gold +had been lying idle too long; more fool he: it ought to breed money +somehow, he knew that; for, like most poor men whose sole experience of +investment is connected with the Lombard's golden balls, he took exalted +views of usury. Was he to be "hiding up his talent in a napkin--?" + +Ah!--he remembered and applied the holy parable, but it smote across his +heart like a flash of frost, a chilling recollection of good things past +and gone. What had he been doing with his talents--for he once +possessed the ten? had he not squandered piety, purity, and patience? +where were now his gratitude to God, his benevolence to man? the +father's duteous care, the husband's industry and kindness, the +labourer's faith, the Christian's hope--who had spent all these?--Till +money's love came in, and money-store to feed it, the poor man had been +rich: but now, rotten to the core, by lust of gold, the rich is poor +indeed. + +However, such considerations did not long afflict him--for we know that +lookers-on see more than players--and if Roger had encouraged half our +wise and sober thoughts, he might have been a better man: but Roger +quelled the thoughts, and silenced them; and thoughts are tender +intonations, shy little buzzing sounds, soon scared by coarser noise: +Roger had no mind to cherish those small fowls; so they flew back again +to Heaven's gate, homeless and uncomforted as weeping peri's. + +The bank--the county bank--Shark, Breakem, and Company--this was the +specious Eldorado, the genuine gold-increaser, the hive where he would +store his wealth (as honey left for the bees in winter), and was to have +it soon returned fourfold. It was indeed a thought to make the rich man +glad, that all his shining heap was just like a sample of seed-corn, and +the pocket-full should next year fill a sack. How grudgingly he now +began to mourn over past extravagance, five pieces gone within the week! +how close and careful he resolved to be in future! how he would scrape +and economize to get and save but one more of those sweet little seeds, +that yield more gold--more gold! And if Roger had been privileged in +youth to have fed upon the wisdom of the Eton Latin grammar, he could +have now quoted with some experimental unction the "_Crescit Amor_" +line, which every body well knows how to finish. Truly, it was growing +with his growth, and rioting in strength above his weakness. + +Swollen with this expanding love, he packed up his money in what were, +though he knew it not, _rouleaux_, but to his plebeian eyes looked more +like golden sausages: and he would take it to the bank, and they should +bow to him, and Sir him, and give him forthwith more than he had +brought; and if those summary gains were middling great--say twice as +much, to be moderate--he thought he might afford himself a chaise coming +back, and return to Hurstley Common like a nabob. Thus, full of wealthy +fancies, after one glass more, off set Roger to the county town, with +his treasure in a bundle. + +Half-way to it, as hospitality has ordained to be the case wherever +there be half-ways, occurred a public-house: and really, +notwithstanding all our monied neophyte's economical resolutions, his +throat was so "uncommon dry," that he needs must stop there to refresh +the muscles of his larynx: so, putting down his bundle on the settle, he +called for a foaming tankard, and thanking the crock, as his evil wont +now was, sat down to drink and think. Here was prosperity indeed, a +flood of astonishing good fortune: that he, but a little week agone, a +dirty ditcher--so was he pleased to designate his former self--a ragged +wretch, little better than a tramp, should be now progressing like a +monarch, with a mighty bag of gold to enrich his county town. To enrich, +and be thereby the richer; for Roger's actions of finance were so +simple, as to run the risk of being called sublimely indistinct: he took +it as an axiom that "money bred money," but in what way to draw forth +its generative properties, whether or not by some new-fangled manure, he +was entirely ignorant; and it clearly was his wisdom to leave all that +mystery of money-making solely to the banker. All he cared about was +this: to come back richer than he came--and, lo! how rich he was +already. Lolling at high noon, on a Wednesday too, in the extremest mode +of rustic beauism, with a bag of gold by his side, and a pot of porter +in his hand--here was an accumulation of magnificence--all the +prepositions pressed into his service. His wildest hopes exceeded, and +almost nothing left to wish. Blown up with the pride and importance of +the moment, and some little oblivious from the potent porter--he had +paid and sallied forth, and marched a mile upon his way, full of golden +fancies, a rich luxurious lord as he was--when all on a sudden the +hallucination crossed his dull pellucid mind, that he had left the store +behind him! O, pungent terror!--O, most exquisite torture! was it clean +gone, stolen, lost, lost, lost for ever? Rushing back in an agony of +fear, that made the ruddy hostess think him crazed, with his hair on +end, and a face as if it had been white-washed, he flew to the tap-room, +and--almost fainted for ecstasy of joy when he found it, where he had +laid it, on the settle! + +Better had you lost it, Roger; better had your ecstasy been sorrow: +there is more trouble yet for you, from that bad crock of gold. But if +your lesson is not learnt, and you still think otherwise, go on a little +while exultingly as now I see you, and hug the treasure to your +heart--the treasure that will bring you yet more misery. + +And now the town is gained, the bank approached. What! that big barred, +guarded place, looking like a mighty mouse-trap? he didn't half like to +venture in. At last he pushed the door ajar, and took a peep; there +were muskets over the mantel-piece, ostentatiously ticketed as "Loaded! +Beware!" there were leather buckets ranged around the walls: he did not +in any degree like it: was he to expose his treasure in this idiot +fashion to all the avowed danger of fire and thieves? However, since he +had come so far, he would get some interest for his money, that he +would--so he'd just make bold to step to the counter and ask a very +obsequious bald-headed gentleman, who sired him quite affably, + +"How much, Master, will you be pleased to give me for my gold?" + +The gentleman looked queerish, as if he did not comprehend the question, +and answered, "Oh! certainly, sir--certainly--we do not object to give +you our notes for it," at the same time producing an extremely dirty +bundle of worn-out bits of paper. + +Roger stroked his chin. + +"But, Master, my meaning is, not how many o' them brown bits o' paper +you'll sell me for my gold here," and he exhibited a greater store than +Mr. Breakem had seen at once upon his counter for a year, "but how much +more gold you'll send me back with than what I've brought? by way of +interest, you know, or some such law: for I don't know much about the +Funds, Master." + +"Indeed, sir," replied the civil banker, who wished by any means to +catch the clodpole's spoil--"you are very obliging; we shall be glad to +allow you two-and-a-half per centum per annum for the deposit you are +good enough to leave in our keeping." + +"Leave in your keeping, Master! no, I didn't say that! by your leave, +I'll keep it myself!" + +"In that case, sir, I really do not see how I can do business with you." + +True enough; and Roger would never have been such a monetary blockhead, +had he not been now so generally tipsy; the fumes of beer had mingled +with his plan, and all his usual shrewdness had been blunted into folly +by greediness of lucre on the one side, and potent liquors on the other. +The moment that the banker's parting speech had reached his ear, the +absurdity of Roger's scheme was evident even to himself, and with a bare +"Good day, Master," he hurriedly took his bundle from the counter, and +scuttled out as quick as he could. + +His feelings, walking homeward, were any thing but pleasant; the bubble +of his ardent hope was burst: he never could have more than the paltry +little sum he carried in that bundle: what a miser he would be of it: +how mean it now seemed in his eyes--a mere sample-bag of seed, instead +of the wide-waving harvest! Ah, well; he would save and scrape--ay, and +go back to toil again--do any thing rather than spend. + +Got home, the difficulty now recurred, where was he to hide it? The +store was a greater care than ever, now those rascally bankers knew of +it. He racked his brain to find a hiding-place, and, at length, really +hit upon a good one. He concealed the crock, now replenished with its +contents, in the thatch just over his bed's head: it was a rescued +darling: so he tore a deep hole, and nested it quite snugly. + +Perhaps it did not matter much, but the rain leaked in by that hole all +night, and fortunate Roger woke in the morning drenched with wet, and +racked by rheumatism. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +CALUMNY. + + +More blessings issue from the crock; Pandora's box is set wide +open, and all the sweet inhabitants come forth. If apprehensions for its +safety made the finder full of care, the increased whisperings of the +neighbourhood gave him even deeper reason for anxiety. In vain he told +lie upon lie about a legacy of some old uncle in the clouds; in vain he +stuck to the foolish and transparent falsehood, with a dogged +pertinacity that appealed, not to reason, but to blows; in vain he made +affirmation weaker by his oath, and oaths quite unconvincing by his +cudgel: no one believed him: and the mystery was rendered more +inexplicable from his evidently nervous state and uneasy terror of +discovery. + +He had resolved at the outset, cunningly as he fancied, to change no +more than one piece of gold in the same place; though Bacchus's +undoubtedly proved the rule by furnishing an exception: and the +consequence came to be, that there was not a single shop in the whole +county town, nor a farm-house in all the neighbourhood round, where +Roger Acton had not called to change a sovereign. True, the silver had +seldom been forthcoming; still, he had asked for it; and where in life +could he have got the gold? Many was the rude questioner, whose +curiosity had been quenched in drink; many the insufferable pryer, whom +club-law had been called upon to silence. Meanwhile, Roger steadily kept +on, accumulating silver where he could: for his covetous mind delighted +in the mere semblance of an increase to his store, and took some +untutored numismatic interest in those pretty variations of his +idol--money. + +But if Roger's heap increased, so did the whispers and suspicions of the +country round; they daily grew louder, and more clamorous; and soon the +charitable nature of chagrined wonder assumed a shape more heart-rending +to the wretched finder of that golden hoard, than any other care, or +fear, or sin, that had hitherto torn him. It only was a miracle that the +neighbours had not thought of it before; seldom is the world so +unsuspicious; but then honest Roger's forty years of character were +something--they could scarcely think the man so base; and, above all, +gentle Grace was such a favourite with all, was such a pattern of +purity, and kindliness, and female conduct, that the tongue would have +blistered to its roots, that had uttered scorn of her till now. As +things were, though, could any thing be clearer? Was charity herself to +blame in putting one and one together? Sir John was rich, was young, +gay, and handsome; but Grace was poor--but indisputably beautiful, and +probably had once been innocent: some had seen her going to the Hall at +strange times and seasons--for in truth, she often did go there; +Jonathan and Sarah Stack, of course, were her dearest friends on earth: +and so it came to pass, that, through the blessing of the crock, honest +Roger was believed to live on the golden wages of his daughter's shame! +Oh, coarse and heartless imputation! Oh, bitter price to pay for secresy +and wonderful good fortune! In vain the wretched father stormed, and +swore, and knocked down more than one foul-spoken fellow that had +breathed against dear Grace. None but credited the lie, and many envious +wretches actually gloried in the scandal; I grieve to say that +women--divers venerable virgins--rejoiced that this pert hussey was at +last found out; she was too pretty to be good, too pious to be pure; now +at length they were revenged upon her beauty; now they had their triumph +over one that was righteous over-much. For other people, they would urge +the reasonable question, how else came Roger by the cash? and getting no +answer, or worse than none--a prevaricating, mystifying mere +put-off--they had hardly an alternative in common exercise of judgment: +therefore, "Shame on her," said the neighbours, "and the bitterest shame +on him:" and the gaffers and grand-dames shook their heads virtuously. + +Yet worse: there was another suggestion, by no means contradictory, +though simultaneous: what had become of Tom? ay--that bold young +fellow--Thomas Acton, Ben Burke's friend: why was he away so long, +hiding out of the country? they wondered. + +The suspected Damon and Pythias had gone a county off to certain fens, +and were, during this important week, engaged in a long process of +ensnaring ducks. + +Old Gaffer White had muttered something to Gossip Heartley, which Dick +the Tanner overheard, wherein Tom Acton and a gun, and Burke, and +burglary, and throats cut, and bags of gold, were conspicuous +ingredients: so that Roger Acton's own dear Tom, that eagle-eyed and +handsome better image of himself, stood accused, before his quailing +father's face, of robbery and murder. + +Both--both darlings, dead Annie's little orphaned pets, thus stricken by +one stone to infamy! Grace, scouted as a hussey, an outcast, a bad girl, +a wanton--blessed angel! Thomas--generous boy--keenly looked for, in his +near return, to be seized by rude hands, manacled, and dragged away, and +tried on suspicion as a felon--for what? that crock of gold. Yet Roger +heard it all, knew it all, writhed at it all, as if scorpions were +lashing him; but still he held on grimly, keeping that bad secret. +Should he blab it out, and so be poor again, and lose the crock? + +That our labourer's changed estate influenced his bodily health, under +this accumulated misery and desperate excitement, began to be made +manifest to all. The sturdy husbandman was transformed into a tremulous +drunkard; the contented cottager, into a querulous hypochondriac; the +calm, religious, patient Christian, into a tumultuous blasphemer. Could +all this be, and even Roger's iron frame stand up against the battle! +No, the strength of Samson has been shorn. The crock has poured a +blessing on its finder's very skin, as when the devil covered Job with +boils. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THE BAILIFF'S VISIT. + + +One day at noon, ere the first week well was over since the +fortunate discovery of gold, as Roger lay upon his bed, recovering from +an overnight's excess, tossed with fever, vexation, and anxiety, he was +at once surprised and frightened by a visit from no less a personage +than Mr. Simon Jennings. And this was the occasion of his presence: + +Directly the gathering storm of rumours had collected to that focus of +all calumny, the destruction of female character and murder charged upon +the innocent, Grace Acton had resolved upon her course; secresy could be +kept no longer; her duty now appeared to be, to publish the story of her +father's lucky find. + +Grace, we may observe, had never been bound to silence, but only imposed +it on herself from motives of tenderness to one, whom she believed to be +taken in the toils of a temptation. She, simple soul, knew nothing of +manorial rights, nor wotted she that any could despoil her father of his +money; but even if such thoughts had ever crossed her mind, she loathed +the gold that had brought so much trouble on them all, and cared not how +soon it was got rid of. Her father's health, honour, happiness, were +obviously at stake; perhaps, also, her brother's very life: and, as for +herself, the martyr of calumny looked piously to heaven, offered up her +outraged heart, and resolved to stem this torrent of misfortune. +Accordingly, with a noble indignation worthy of her, she had gone +straightway to the Hall, to see the baronet, to tell the truth, fling +aside a charge which she could scarcely comprehend, and openly vindicate +her offended honour. She failed--many imagine happily for her own peace, +if Sir John had not been better than his friends--in gaining access to +the Lord of Hurstley; but she did see Mr. Jennings, who serenely +interposed, and listened to all she came to say--"her father had been +unfortunate enough to find a crock of money on the lake side near his +garden." + +When Jennings heard the tale, he started as if stung by a wasp: and +urging Grace to tell it no one else (though the poor girl "must," she +said, "for honour's sake"), he took up his hat, and ran off breathlessly +to Acton's cottage. Roger was at home, in bed, and sick; there was no +escape; and Simon chuckled at the lucky chance. So he crept in, +carefully shut the door, put his finger on his lips to hush Roger's note +of admiration at so little wished a vision; and then, with one of his +accustomed scared and fearful looks behind him, muttered under his +breath, + +"Man, that gold is mine: I have paid its price to the uttermost; give me +the honey-pot." + +Roger's first answer was a vulgar oath; but his tipsy courage faded soon +away before old habits of subserviency, and he faltered out, +"I--I--Muster Jennings! I've got no pot of gold!" + +"Man, you lie! you have got the money! give it me at once--and--" he +added in a low, hoarse voice, "we will not say a word about the murder." + +"Murder!" echoed the astonished man. + +"Ay, murder, Acton:--off! off, I say!" he muttered parenthetically, then +wrestled for a minute violently, as with something in the air; and +recovering as from a spasm, calmly added, + +"Ay, murder for the money." + +"I--I!" gasped Roger; "I did no murder, Muster Jennings!" + +A new light seemed to break upon the bailiff, and he answered with a +tone of fixed determination, + +"Acton, you are the murderer of Bridget Quarles." + +Roger's jaw dropped, dismay was painted on his features, and certainly +he did look guilty enough. But Simon proceeded in a tenderer tone; + +"Notwithstanding, give me the gold, Acton, and none shall know a word +about the murder. We will keep all quiet, Roger Acton, all nice and +quiet, you know;" and he added, coaxingly, "come, Roger, give me up this +crock of gold." + +"Never!" with a fierce anathema, answered our hero, now himself again: +the horrid accusation had entranced him for a while, but this coaxing +strain roused up all the man in him: "Never!" and another oath confirmed +it. + +"Acton, give it up, I say!" was shouted in rejoinder, and Jennings +glared over him with his round and staring eyes as he lay faint upon his +bed--"Give up the crock, or else--" + +"Else what? you whitened villain." + +The bailiff flung himself at Roger's neck, and almost shrieked, "I'll +serve you as I--" + +There was a tremendous struggle; attacked at unawares, for the moment he +was nearly mastered; but Acton's tall and wiry frame soon overpowered +the excited Jennings, and long before you have read what I have +written--he has leaped out of bed--seized--doubled up--and flung the +battered bailiff headlong down the narrow stair-case to the bottom. This +done, Roger, looking like Don Quixote de la Mancha in his penitential +shirt, mounted into bed again, and quietly lay down; wondering, +half-sober, at the strange and sudden squall. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +THE CAPTURE. + + +He had not long to wonder. Jennings got up instantly, despite +of bruises, posted to the Hall, took a search-warrant from Sir John's +study, (they were always ready signed, and Jennings filled one up,) and +returned with a brace of constables to search the cottage. + +Then Roger, as he lay musing, fancied he heard men's voices below, and +his wife, who had just come in, talking to them; what could they want? +tramps, perhaps: or Ben? he shuddered at the possibility; with Tom too; +and he felt ashamed to meet his son. So he turned his face to the wall, +and lay musing on--he hadn't been drinking too much over-night--Oh, no! +it was sickness, and rheumatics, and care about the crock; Tom should be +told that he was very ill, poor father! Just as he had planned this, and +resolved to keep his secret from that poaching ruffian Burke, some one +came creeping up the stairs, slided in at the door, and said to him in a +deep whisper from the further end of the room, + +"Acton, give me the gold, and the men shall go away; it is not yet too +late; tell me where to find the crock of gold." + +An oath was the reply; and, at a sign from Jennings, up came the other +two. + +"We have searched every where, Mr. Simon Jennings, both cot and garden; +ground disturbed in two or three places, but nothing under it; in-doors +too, the floor is broken by the hearth and by the dresser, but no signs +of any thing there: now, Master Acton, tell us where it is, man, and +save us all the trouble." + +Roger's newly-learnt vocabulary of oaths was drawn upon again. + +"Did you look in the ash-pit?" asked Jennings. + +"No, sir." + +"Well, while you two search this chamber, I will examine it myself." + +Mr. Jennings apparently entertained a wholesome fear of Acton's powers +of wrestling. + +Up came Simon in a hurry back again, with a lot of little empty leather +bags he had raked out, and--the fragment of a shawl! the edges burnt, it +was a corner bit, and marked B.Q. + +"What do you call this, sir?" asked the exulting bailiff. + +"Curse that Burke!"--thought Roger; but he said nothing. + +And the two men up stairs had searched, and pried, and hunted every +where in vain; the knotty mattress had been ripped up, the chimney +scrutinized, the floor examined, the bed-clothes overhauled, and as for +the thatch, if it hadn't been for Roger Acton's constant glance upwards +at his treasure in the roof, I am sure they never would have found it. +But they did at last: there it was, the crock of gold, full proof of +robbery and murder! + +"Aha!" said Simon, in a complacent triumph, "Mrs. Quarles's identical +honey-pot, full of her clean bright gold, and many pieces still encased +in those tidy leather bags;" and his round eyes glistened again; but all +at once, with a hurried look over his left shoulder, he exclaimed, +involuntarily, in a very different tone, "Ha! away, I say!--" Then he +snatched the crock up eagerly, and nursed it like a child. + +"Come along with us, Master Acton, you're wanted somewhere else; up, +man, look alive, will you?" + +And Roger dressed himself mechanically. It was no manner of use, not in +the least worth while resisting, innocent though he was; his treasure +had been found, and taken from him; he had nothing more to live for; his +gold was gone--his god; where was the wisdom of fighting for any thing +else; let them take him to prison if they would, to the jail, to the +gallows, to any-whither, now his gold was gone. So he put on his +clothes without a murmur, and went with them as quiet as a lamb. + +Never was there a clearer case; the housekeeper's hoard had been found +in his possession, with a fragment of her shawl; and Sir John Vincent +was very well aware of the mystery attending the old woman's death; +besides, he was in a great hurry to be off; for Pointer, and Silliphant, +and Lord George Pypp, were to have a hurdle race with him that day, for +a heavy bet; so he really had not time to go deep into the matter; and +the result of five minutes' talk before the magisterial chairs (Squire +Ryle having been summoned to assist) was, that, on the accusation of +Simon Jennings, Roger Acton was fully committed to the county jail, to +be tried at next assizes, for Bridget Quarles's murder. + +Thank God! poor Roger, it has come to this. What other way than this was +there to save thee from thy sin--to raise thee from thy fall? Where +else, but in a prison, could you get the silent, solitary hours leading +you again to wholesome thought and deep repentance? Where else could you +escape the companionship of all those loose and low associates, sottish +brawlers, ignorant and sensual unbelievers, vagabond radicals, and +other lewd fellows of the baser sort, that had drank themselves drunk at +your expense, and sworn to you as captain! The place, the time, the +means for penitence are here. The crisis of thy destiny is come. + +Honest Roger, Steady Acton, did I not see thy guardian angel--after all +his many tears, aggrieved and broken spirit!--did I not see him lift his +swollen eyes in gratitude to Heaven, and benevolence to thee, and smile +a smile of hopeful joy when that damned crock was found? + +Gladly could he thank his Lord, to behold the temptation at an end. + +Did I not see the devil slink away from thee abashed, issuing like an +adder from thy heart, and then, with a sudden Protean change, driven +from thy hovel as a thunder-cloud dispersing, when Simon Jennings seized +the jar, hugged it as his household-god--and took it home with him--and +counted out the gold--and locked the bloody treasure in his iron-chest? + +Fitly did the murderer lock up curses with his spoil. + +And when God smote thine idol, dashing Dagon to the ground, and thy +heart was sore with disappointment, and tender as a peeled fig--when +hope was dead for earth, and conscience dared not look beyond it--ah! +Roger, did I judge amiss when I saw, or thought I saw, those eyes full +of humble shame, those lips quivering with remorseful sorrow? + +We will leave thee in the cold stone cell--with thy well-named angel +Grace to comfort thee, and pray with thee, and help thee back to God +again, and so repay the debt that a daughter owes her father. + +Happy prison! where the air is sweetened by the frankincense of piety, +and the pavement gemmed with the flowers of hope, and the ceiling arched +with Heaven's bow of mercy, and the walls hung around with the dewy +drapery of penitence! + +Happy prison! where the talents that were lost are being found again, +gathered in humility from this stone floor; where poor-making riches are +banished from the postern, and rich-making poverty streameth in as light +from the grated window; where care vexeth not now the labourer emptied +of his gold, and calumny's black tooth no longer gnaws the heart-strings +of the innocent. + +Hark! it is the turnkey, coming round to leave the pittance for the day: +he is bringing in something in an earthern jar. Speak, Roger Acton, +which will you choose, man--a prisoner's mess of pottage--or a crock of +gold? + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THE AUNT AND HER NEPHEW. + + +While we leave Roger Acton in the jail, waiting for the very +near assizes, and wearing every hour away in penitence and prayer, it +will be needful to our story that we take a retrospective glance at +certain events, of no slight importance. + +I must now speak of things, of which there is no human witness; +recording words, and deeds, whereof Heaven alone is cognizant, Heaven +alone--and Hell! For there are secret matters, which the murdered cannot +tell us, and the murderer dare not--let him confess as fully as he will. +Therefore, with some omnipresent sense, some invisible ubiquity, I must +note down scenes as they occurred, whether mortal eye has witnessed them +or not; I must lay bare secret thoughts, unlatch the hidden chambers of +the heart, and duly set out, as they successively arose, the idea which +tongue had not embodied, the feeling which no action had expressed. + +Hitherto, we have pretty well preserved inviolate the three grand +unities--time, place, circumstance; and even now we do not sin against +the first and chiefest, however we may seem so to sin; for, had it +suited my purpose to have begun with the beginning, and to have placed +the present revelations foremost, the strictest stickler for the unities +would have only had to praise my orthodox adherence to them. As it is, I +have chosen, for interest sake, to shuffle my cards a little; and two +knaves happen to have turned up together just at this time and place. +The time is just three weeks ago--a week before the baronet came of age, +and a fortnight antecedent to the finding of the crock; which, as we +know, after blessing Roger for a se'nnight, has at last left him in +jail. The place is the cozy house-keepers room at Hurstley: and the +brace of thorough knaves, to enact then and there as _dramatis personae_, +includes Mistress Bridget Quarles, a fat, sturdy, bluffy, old woman, of +a jolly laugh withal, and a noisy tongue--and our esteemed acquaintance +Mister Simon Jennings. The aunt, house-keeper, had invited the nephew, +butler, to take a dish of tea with her, and rum-punch had now succeeded +the souchong. + +"Well, Aunt Quarles, is it your meaning to undertake a new master?" + +"Don't know, nephy--can't say yet what he'll be like: if he'll leave us +as we are, won't say wont." + +"Ay, as we are, indeed; comfortable quarters, and some little to put by, +too: a pretty penny you will have laid up all this while, I'll be bound: +I wager you now it is a good five hundred, aunt--come, done for a +shilling." + +"Get along, foolish boy; a'n't you o' the tribe o' wisdom too--ha, ha, +ha!" + +"I will not say," smirked Simon, "that my nest has not a feather." + +"It's easy work for us, Nep; we hunt in couples: you the men, and I the +maids--ha, ha!" + +"Tush, Aunt Bridget! that speech is not quite gallant, I fear." And the +worshipful extortioners giggled jovially. + +"But it's true enough for all that, Simon: how d'ye manage it, eh, boy? +much like me, I s'pose; wages every quarter from the maids, dues from +tradesmen Christmas-tide and Easter, regular as Parson Evans's; pretty +little bits tacked on weekly to the bills, beside presents from every +body; and so, boy, my poor forty pounds a-year soon mounts up to a +hundred." + +"Ay, ay, Aunt Bridget--but I get the start of you, though you probably +were born a week before-hand: talk of parsons, look at me, a regular +grand pluralist monopolist, as any bishop can be; butler in doors, +bailiff out of doors, land-steward, house-steward, cellar-man, and +pay-master. I am not all this for naught, Aunt Quarles: if so much goes +through my fingers, it is but fair that something stick." + +"True, Simon--O certainly; but if you come to boasting, my boy, I don't +carry this big bunch o' keys for nothing neither. Lord love you! why +merely for cribbings in the linen-line for one month, John Draper +swapped me that there shawl: none o' my clothes ever cost me a penny, +and I a'n't quite as bare as a new-born baby neither. Look at them +trunks, bless you!" + +"Ay, ay, aunt, I'll be bound the printer of your prayer-book has left +out a 'not,' before the 'steal,' eh?--ha! ha!" + +"Fie, naughty Simon, fie! them's not stealings, them's parquisites. +Where's the good o' living in a great house else? But come, Si, haven't +you struck out the 'not,' for yourself, though the printer did his duty, +eh, Nep?" + +"Not a bit, aunt--not a bit: all sheer honesty and industry. Look at my +pretty little truck-shop down the village. Wo betide the labourer that +leaves off dealing there! not one that works at Hurstley, but eats my +bread and bacon; besides the 'tea, coffee, tobacco, and snuff.'" + +"Pretty fairish articles, eh? I never dealt with you, Si: no, Nep, +no--you never saw the colour o' my money." + +Jennings gave a start, as if a thought had pricked him; but gayly +recovering himself, said, + +"Oh, as to pretty fairish, I know there is one thing about the bacon +good enough; ay, and the bread too--the very best of prices; ha! ha! is +not that good? And for the other genuine articles, I don't know that +much of the tea comes from China--and the coffee is sold ground, because +it is burnt maize--and there's a plenty of wholesome cabbage leaf cut up +in the tobacco--while as for snuff, I give them a dry, peppery, choky, +sneezy dust, and I dare say that it does its duty." + +It was astonishing how innocently the worthy couple laughed together. + +"My only trouble, Aunt Quarles, is where to keep my gains--what to do +with them. I am quite driven to the strong-box system, interest is so +bad; and as to speculations, they are nervous things, and sicken one. I +invest in the Great Western one day--a tunnel falls in, so I sell my +shares the next, and send the proceeds to Australia; then, looking at +the map, I see the island isn't clean chalked out all round, and +beginning to fear that the sea will get in where it a'n't made +water-tight by the Admiralty, I call the money home again. You see I +don't know what to do with gold when I get it. Where do you keep yours +now, aunt, I wonder?" + +"O, Nep, never mind me; you rattle on so I can't get in never a word. +I'll only tell you where I don't keep it. Not at Breakem's bank, for +they're brewers, and hosiers, and chandlers, and horse-dealers--ay, and +swindlers too, the whole 'company' on 'em; not in mortgages, for I hate +the very smell of a lawyer, with all his pounce and parchment; not in +Gover'me't 'nuities, for I'm an old 'ooman, boy; and not in the Three +per Cents, nor any other per cents, for I've sense enough to know that +my highest interest lies in counting out, as my first principle is +dropping in." And the fat female laughed herself purple at the venerable +joke. + +Simon was a courtier, and laughed too, as immoderately as possible. + +"Ah! I dare say now you have got a Chubb's patent somewhere full of +gold?" he asked somewhat anxiously; "take your punch, aunt, wont you? I +do not see you drink." + +"Simon, mark me; fools who want to be robbed put their money into an +iron chest, that thieves may know exactly where to find it; they might +as well ticket it 'cash,' and advertise to Newgate--come and steal. I +know a little better than to be such a fool." + +"Yes, certainly--I dare say now you keep it in your work-box, or sew it +up in your stays, or hide it in the mattress, or in an old tea-pot, +maybe." And Jennings eyed her narrowly. + +"Nephew, what rhymes to money?" + +"Money?--Well I can't say I am a poet--stony, perhaps. At least," added +the benevolent individual, "when I have raised a wretch's rent to gain a +little more by him, stony is not a bad shield to lift against prayers, +and tears, and orphans, and widows, and starvation, and all such +nonsense." + +"Not bad, neither, Nep: but there's a better rhyme than that." + +"You cannot mean honey, aunt? when I guessed stony, I thought you might +have some snug little cash cellar under the flags. But honey? are you +such a thorough Mrs. Rundle as to pickle and preserve your very guineas, +the same as you do strawberries or apricots in syrup?" + +"Oh, you clever little fool! how prettily you do talk on: your tongue's +as tidy as your cash-book: when you've any money to put by, come to Aunt +Bridget for a crock to hide it in: mayn't one use a honey-pot, as Teddy +Rourke would say, barring the honey?" + +"Ha! and so you hide the hoard up there, aunt, eh? along with the +preserves in a honey-pot, do you?" + +"We'll see--we'll see, some o' these long days; not that the money's to +be yours, Nep--you're rich enough, and don't want it; there's your poor +sister Scott with her fourteen children, and Aunt Bridget must give her +a lift in life: she was a good niece to me, Simon, and never left my +side before she married: maybe she'll have cause to bless the dead." + +Jennings hardly spoke a word more; but drained his glass in silence, got +up a sudden stomach-ache, and wished his aunt good-night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +SCHEMES. + + +We must follow Simon Jennings to his room. He felt keenly +disappointed. Money was the idol of his heart, as it is of many million +others. He had robbed, lied, extorted, tyrannized; he had earned scorn, +ill-report, and hatred; nay, he had even diligently gone to work, and +lost his own self-love and self-respect in the service of his darling +idol. He was at once, for lucre's sake, the mean, cringing fawner, and +the pitiless, iron despot; to the rich he could play supple parasite, +while the poor man only knew him as an unrelenting persecutor; with the +good, and they were chiefly of the fairer, softer sex, he walked in +meekness, the spiritual hypocrite; the while, it was his boast to +over-reach the worst in low duplicity and crooked dealing. All this he +was for gold. When the eye of the world was on him, and intuition warned +him of the times, he was ever the serene, the correct, with a smooth +tongue and an oily smile; but in the privacy of some poor hovel, where +his debtor sued for indulgence, or some victim of his passions (he had +more depravities than one) threw her wretched self upon his pity, then +could Simon Jennings lash sternness into rage, and heat his brazen heart +with the embers of inveterate malice. It was as if the serpent, that +voluble, insinuating reptile, which had power to fascinate poor Eve, +turned to rend her when she had fallen, erect, with flashing eyes, and +bristling crest, with venomed fangs, and hissing. Behold, +snake-worshippers of Mexico, the prototype of your grim idol, in +Mammon's model slave and specimen disciple! + +Such a man was Simon Jennings, a soul given up to gold--exclusively to +gold; for although, as we have hinted, and as hereafter may appear, he +could sell himself at times to other sins, still these were but as stars +in his evil firmament, while covetousness ruled it like the sun; or, if +the beauteous stars and blessed sun be an image too hallowed for his +wickedness, we may find a fitter in some stagnant pool, where the +pestilential vapour over all is Mammonism, and the dull, fat weeds that +rot beneath, are pride, craftiness, and lechery. In fact, to speak of +passions in a heart such as his, were a palpable misnomer; all was +reduced to calculation; his rage was fostered to intimidate, and where +the wretch seemed kinder, his kindnesses were aimed at power, as an +object, rather than at pleasure--the power to obtain more gold. + +For it is a dreadful truth (which I would not dare to utter if such +crimes had never been), that a reprobate of the bailiff Jennings's stamp +may, by debts, or fines, or kind usurious loans, entrap a beggared +creature in his toils; and then lyingly propose remission at the secret +sacrifice of honour, in some one, over whom that dastard beggar has +control; and having this point gained, the seducer is quite capable of +using, for still more extortion, the power which a threatening of +exposure gives, when the criminally weak has stooped to sin, on promises +of silence and delivery from ruin. I wish there may be no poor yeoman +in this broad land, of honourable name withal, he and his progenitors +for ages, who can tell the tale of his own base fears, a creditor's +exactions, and some dependant victim's degradation: some orphaned niece, +some friendless ward, immolated in her earliest youth at the shrine of +black-hearted Mammon; I wish there may be no sleek middle-man guilty of +the crimes here charged upon Simon Jennings. + +This worthy, then, had been introduced at Hurstley by his aunt, Mrs. +Quarles, on the occurrence of a death vacancy in the lad-of-all-work +department, during the long ungoverned space of young Sir John's +minority. As the precious "lad" grew older, and divers in-door +potentates died off, the house-keeper had power to push her nephew on to +pageship, footmanship, and divers other similar crafts, even to the +final post of butler; while his own endeavours, backed by his aunt's +interest, managed to secure for him the rule out of doors no less than +in, and the closest possible access to guardians and landlords, to the +tenants--and their rent. + +Now, the amiable Mrs. Quarles had contrived the elevation of her nephew, +and connived at his monopolies, mainly to fit in cleverly with her own +worldly weal; for it would never have done to have risked the loss of +innumerable perquisites, and other peculations, by the possible advent +of an honest butler. But, while the worshipful Simon, to do him only +justice, fully answered Mrs. Bridget's purpose, and even added much to +her emoluments; still he was no mere derivative scion, but an +independent plant, and entertained views of his own. He had his own +designs, and laid himself out to entrap his aunt's affections; or +rather, for I cannot say he greatly valued these, to secure her good +graces, and worm himself within the gilded clauses of her will; she was +an old woman, rolling in gold, no doubt had a will; and as for himself, +he was younger by five-and-thirty years, so he could afford to wait a +little, before trying on her shoes. The petty schemes of thievery and +cheating, which he in his Quotem capacities had practised, were to his +eyes but as driblets of wealth in comparison with the mighty stream of +his old aunt's savings. Not that he had done amiss, trust him! but then +he knew the amount of his own hoard to a farthing, while of hers he was +entirely ignorant; so, on the principle of '_omne ignotum pro +mirifico_,' he pondered on its vastness with indefinite amazement, +although probably it might not reach the quarter of his own. For it +should in common charity be stated, that, with all her hiding and hiving +propensities, Mrs. Quarles, however usually a screw, was by fits and +starts an extravagant woman, and besides spending on herself, had +occasionally helped her own kith and kin; poor niece Scott, in +particular, had unconsciously come in for many pleasant pilferings, and +had to thank her good aunt for innumerable filched groceries, and +hosieries, and other largesses, which (the latter in especial) really +had contributed, with sundry other more self indulgent expenses, to make +no small havoc of the store. + +Still, this store was Simon's one main chance, the chief prize in his +hope's lottery; and it was with a pang, indeed, that he found all his +endeavours to compass its possession had been vain. Was that endless +cribbage nothing, and the weary Bible-lessons on a Sunday, and the +constant fetchings and carryings, and the forced smiles, sham +congratulations, and other hypocritical affections--fearing for his dear +aunt's dropsy, and inquiring so much about her bunions--was all this +dull servitude to meet with no reward? With none? worse than none! Fool +that he was! had he schemed, and plotted, and flattered, and +cozened--ay, and given away many pretty little presents, lost decoys, +that had cost hard money, all for nothing--less than nothing--to be +laughed at and postponed to his Methodist sister Scott? The impudence of +deliberately telling him he "didn't want it, and was rich enough!" as if +"enough" could ever be good grammar after such a monosyllable as "rich;" +and "want it" indeed! of course he wanted it; if not, why had he slaved +so many years? want it, indeed! if to hope by day, and to dream by +night--if to leave no means untried of delicately showing how he longed +for it--if to grow sick with care, and thin with coveting--if this were +to want the gold, good sooth, he wanted it. Don't tell him of starving +brats, his own very bowels pined for it; don't thrust in his face the +necessities of others--the necessity is his; he must have it--he will +have it--talk of necessity! + +Wait a bit: is there no way of managing some better end to all this? no +mode of giving the right turn to that wheel of fortune, round which his +cares and calculations have been hovering so long? Is there no +conceivable method of possessing that vast hoard? + +Bless me! how huge it must be! and Simon turned whiter at the thought: +only add up Mother Quarles's income for fifty-five years: she is +seventy-five at least, and came here a girl of twenty. Simon's hair +stood on end, and his heart went like a mill-clapper, as he mentally +figured out the sum. + +Is there no possibility of contriving matters so that I may be the +architect of my own good luck, and no thanks at all to the old witch +there? Dear--what a glorious fancy--let me think a little. Cannot I get +at the huge hoard some how? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +THE DEVIL'S COUNSEL. + + +"Steal it," said the Devil. + +Simon was all of a twitter; for though he fancied his own heart said it, +still his ear-drum rattled, as if somebody had spoken. + +Simon--that ear-drum was to put you off your guard: the deaf can hear +the devil: he needs no tympanum to commune with the spirit: listen +again, Simon; your own thoughts echo every word. + +"Steal it: hide in her room; you know she has a shower-bath there, which +nobody has used for years, standing in a corner; two or three cloaks in +it, nothing else: it locks inside, how lucky! ensconce yourself there, +watch the old woman to sleep--what a fat heavy sleeper she is!--quietly +take her keys, and steal the store: remember, it is a honey-pot. +Nothing's easier--or safer. Who'd suspect you?" + +"Splendid! and as good as done," triumphantly exclaimed the nephew, +snapping his fingers, and prancing with glee;--"a glorious fancy! bless +my lucky star!" + +If there be a planet Lucifer, that was Simon's lucky star. + +And so, Mrs Quarles the biter is going to be bit, eh? It generally is so +in this world's government. You, who brought in your estimable nephew to +aid and abet in your own dishonest ways, are, it seems, going to be +robbed of all your knavish gains by him. This is taking the wise in +their own craftiness, I reckon: and richly you deserve to lose all your +ill-got hoard. At the same time, Mrs. Quarles--I will be just--there are +worse people in the world than you are: in comparison with your nephew, +I consider you a grosser kind of angel; and I really hope no harm may +befall your old bones beyond the loss of your money. However, if you are +to lose this, it is my wish that poor Mrs. Scott, or some other honest +body, may get it, and not Simon; or rather, I should not object that he +may get it first, and get hung for getting it, too, before the sister +has the hoard. + +Our friend, Simon Jennings, could not sleep that night; his reveries and +scheming lasted from the rum-punch's final drop, at ten P.M., to +circiter two A.M., and then, or thenabouts, the devil hinted "steal it;" +and so, not till nearly four, he began to shut his eyes, and dream +again, as his usual fashion was, of adding up receipts in five figures, +and of counting out old Bridget's hoarded gold. + +Next day, notwithstanding nocturnal semi-sleeplessness, he awoke as +brisk as a bee, got up in as exhilarated a state as any gas-balloon, and +was thought to be either surprisingly in spirits, or spirits +surprisingly in him; none knew which, "where each seemed either." That +whole day long, he did the awkwardest things, and acted in the most +absent manner possible; Jonathan thought Mr. Simon was beside himself; +Sarah Stack, foolish thing! said he was in love, and was observed to +look in the glass several times herself; other people did not know what +to think--it was quite a mystery. To recount only a few of his +unprecedented exploits on that day of anticipative bliss: + +First, he asked the porter how his gout was, and gave him a thimble-full +of whiskey from his private store. + +Secondly, he paid Widow Soper one whole week's washing in full, without +the smallest deduction or per centage. + +Thirdly, he ordered of Richard Buckle, commonly called Dick the Tanner, +a lot of cart harness, without haggling for price, or even asking it. + +And, fourthly, he presented old George White, who was coming round with +a subscription paper for a dead pig--actually, he presented old Gaffer +White with the sum of two-pence out of his own pocket! never was such +careless prodigality. + +But the little world of Hurstley did not know what we know. They +possessed no clue to the secret happiness wherewithal Simon Jennings +hugged himself; they had no inkling of the crock of gold; they thought +not he was going to be suddenly so rich; they saw no cause, as we do, +why he should feel to be like a great heir on the eve of his majority; +they wotted not that Sir John Devereux Vincent, Baronet, had scarcely +more agreeable or triumphant feelings when his clock struck twenty-one, +than Simon Jennings, butler, as the hour of his hope drew nigh. + +If a destiny like this man's can ever have a crisis, the hour of his +hope is that; but downward still, into a lower gulf, has been +continually his bad career; there is (unless a miracle intervene) no +stopping in the slope on which he glides, albeit there may be +precipices. He that rushes in his sledge down the artificial ice-hills +of St. Petersburgh, skims along not more swiftly than Jennings, from the +altitude of infant innocence, had sheered into the depths of full-grown +depravity; but even he can fall, and reach, with startling suddenness, a +lower deep. + +As if that Russian mountain, hewn asunder midway, were fitted flush to +a Norwegian cliff, beetling precipitately over the whirlpool; then tilt +the sledge with its furred inmate over the slope, let it skim with +quicker impetus the smoking ice, let it touch that beetling edge, and, +leaping from the tangent, let it dart through the air, let it strike the +eddying waters, be sucked hurriedly down that hoarse black throat, wind +among the roots of the everlasting hills, and split upon the loadstone +of the centre. + +Even such a fate, "down, down to hell," will come to Simon Jennings; +wrapped in the furs of complacency, seated in the sledge of +covetousness, a-down the slippery launch of well-worn evil habit--over +the precipice of crime--into the billows of impenitent remorse--to be +swallowed by the vortex of Gehenna! + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE AMBUSCADE. + + +Night came, and with it all black thoughts. Not that they were +black at once, any more than darkness leaps upon the back of noon, +without the intervening cloak of twilight. Oh dear, no! Simon's thoughts +accommodated themselves fitly to the time of day. They had been, for +him, at early morning, pretty middling white, that is whity-brown; +thence they passed, with the passing hour kindly, through the shades of +burnt sienna, raw umber, and bistre; until, just as we may notice in the +case of marking-ink; that which, five minutes ago, was as water only +delicately dirtied, has become a fixed and indelible black. + +Simon was resolved upon the spoil, come what might; although his waking +sensations of buoyancy, his noon-day cogitations of a calmer kind, and +his even-tide determined scheming, had now given way to a nervous and +unpleasant trepidation. So he poured spirits down to keep his spirits +up. Very early after dark, he had watched his opportunity while Mrs. +Quarles was scolding in the kitchen, had slipped shoeless and +unperceived, from his pantry into the housekeeper's room, and locked +himself securely in the shower bath. Hapless wight! it was very little +after six yet, and there he must stand till twelve or so: his foresight +had not calculated this, and the devil had already begun to cheat him. +But he would go through with it now; no flinching, though his rabbit +back is breaking with fatigue, and his knocked knees totter with +exhaustion, and his haggard eyes swim dizzily, and his bad heart is +failing him for fear. + +Yes, fear, and with good reason too for fear; "nothing easier, nothing +safer," said his black adviser; how easily for bodily pains, how safely +for chances of detection, was he getting at the promised crock of gold! + +"Mr. Jennings! Mr. Simon! where in the world was Mr. Jennings?" nobody +knew; he must have gone out somewhere. Strange, too--and left his hat +and great-coat. + +Here's a general for an ambuscade; Oh, Simon, Simon! you have had the +whole day to think of it--how is it that both you and your dark friend +overlooked in your calculations the certainty of search, and the chance +of a discovery? The veriest school-boy, when he hid himself, would hide +his hat. I am half afraid that you are in that demented state, which +befits the wretch ordained to perish. + +But where is Mr. Jennings? that was the continued cry for four agonizing +hours of dread and difficulty. Sarah, the still-room maid, was sitting +at her work, unluckily in Mrs. Quarles's room; she had come in shortly +after Simon's secret entry; there she sat, and he dared not stir. And +they looked every where--except in the right place; to do the devil +justice, it was a capital hiding-corner that; rooms, closets, passages, +cellars, out-houses, gardens, lofts, tenements, and all the "general +words," in a voluminous conveyance, were searched and searched in vain; +more than one groom expected (hoped is a truer word) to find Mr. +Jennings hanging by a halter from the stable-lamp; more than one +exhilarated labourer, hastily summoned for the search, was sounding the +waters with a rake and rope, in no slight excitement at the thought of +fishing up a deceased bailiff. + +It was a terrible time for the ensconced one: sometimes he thought of +coming out, and treating the affair as a bit of pleasantry: but then the +devil had taken off his shoes--as a Glascow captain deals with his cargo +of refractory Irishers; how could he explain that? his abominable old +aunt was shrewd, and he knew how clearly she would guess at the truth; +if he desired to make sure of losing every chance, he could come out +now, and reveal himself; but if he nourished still the hope of counting +out that crock of gold, he'll bide where he is, and trust to--to--to +fate. The wretch had "Providence" on his blistered tongue. + +If, under the circumstances, any thing could be added to Simon's +gratification, such pleasing addition was afforded in overhearing, as +Lord Brougham did, the effect which his rumoured death produced on the +minds of those who best had known him. It so happened, Sarah was sick, +and did not join the universal hunt; accordingly, being the only +audience, divers ambassadors came to tell her constantly the same most +welcome news, that Jennings had not yet been found. + +"Lawk, Sally," said a helper, "what a blessing it'll be, if that mean +old thief's dead; I'll go to town, if 'tis so, get a dozen Guy's-day +rockets, tie 'em round with crape, and spin 'em over the larches: +that'll be funeral fun won't it? and it'll sarve to tell the neighbours +of our luck in getting rid on him." + +"I doan't like your thought, Tom," said another staider youth: "it's +ill-mirth playing leap-frog over tomb-stones, and poor bravery insulting +the dead. Besides, I'm thinking the bad man that's taken from us an't a +going up'ards, so it's no use lending him a light. I wish we may all lie +in a cooler grave than he does, and not have to go quite so deep +down'ard." + +"Gee up for Lady-day!" exclaimed the emancipated coachman; "why, Sall, I +shall touch my whole lump of wages free for the fust time: and I only +wish the gals had our luck." + +"Here, Sarah," interposed a kind and ruddy stable youth, "as we're all +making free with Mr. Simon's own special ale, I've thought to bring you +a nogging on't: come, you're not so sick as you can't drink with all the +rest on us--The bailiff, and may none on us never see his face no more!" + +These, and similar testimonials to the estimation in which Simon's +character was held, must have gratified not a little the hearer of his +own laudations: now and then, he winced so that Sarah might have heard +him move: but her ear was alive to nothing but the news-bringers, and +her eyes appeared to be fixed upon the linen she was darning. That +Jennings vowed vengeance, and wreaked it afterwards too, on the youths +that so had shown their love, was his solitary pleasure in the +shower-bath. But his critics were too numerous for him to punish all: +they numbered every soul in the house, besides the summoned aiders--only +excepting three: Sarah, who really had a head-ache, and made but little +answers to the numerous glad envoys; Jonathan Floyd, whose charity did +not altogether hate the man, and who really felt alarmed at his absence; +and chiefest, Mrs. Quarles, who evinced more affection for her nephew +than any thought him worthy of exciting--she wrung her hands, wept, +offered rewards, bustled about every where, and kept calling +blubberingly for "Simon--poor dear Simon." + +At length, that fearful hue and cry began to subside--the hubbub came +to be quieter: neighbour-folks went home, and inmates went to bed. Sarah +Stack put aside her work, and left the room. + +What a relief to that hidden caitiff! his feet, standing on the cold, +damp iron so many hours, bare of brogues, were mere ice--only that they +ached intolerably: he had not dared to move, to breathe, and was all +over in one cramp: he did not bring the brandy-bottle with him, as he +once had planned; for calculation whispered--"Don't, your head will be +the clearer; you must not muddle your brains;" and so his caution +over-reached itself, as usual; his head was in a fog, and his brains in +a whirlwind, for lack of other stimulants than fear and pain. + +O Simon, how your prudence cheats you! five mortal hours of anguish and +anxiety in one unalterable posture, without a single drop of +creature-comfort; and all this preconcerted too! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +PRELIMINARIES. + + +At last, just as the nephew was positively fainting from +exhaustion, in came his kind old aunt to bed. She talked a good deal to +herself, did Mrs. Quarles, and Simon heard her say, + +"Poor fellow--poor, dear Simon, he was taken bad last night, and has +seemed queerish in the head all day: pray God nothing's amiss with the +boy!" + +The boy's heart (he was forty) smote him as he heard: yes, even he was +vexed that Aunt Bridget could be so foolishly fond of him. But he would +go on now, and not have all his toil for nothing. "I'm in for it," said +he, "and there's an end." + +Ay, Simon, you are, indeed, in for it; the devil has locked you in--but +as to the end, we shall see, we shall see. + +"I shouldn't wonder now," the good old soul went on to say, "if +Simon's wentured out without his hat to cool a head-ache: his +grand-father--peace be with him! died, poor man, in a Lunacy 'Sylum: +alack, Si, I wish you mayn't be going the same road. No, no, I hope +not--he's always so prudent-like, and wise, and good; so kind, too, to a +poor old fool like me:" and the poor old fool began to cry again. + +"Silly boy--but he'll take cold at any rate: Sarah!" (here Mrs. Quarles +rung her bell, and the still-maid answered it.) "Sarah Stack, sit up +awhile for Mr. Jennings, and when he comes in, send him here to me. Poor +boy," she went on soliloquizing, "he shall have a drop or two to comfort +his stomach, and keep the chill out." + +The poor boy, lying _perdu_, shuddered at the word chill, and really +wished his aunt would hold her tongue. But she didn't. + +"Maybe now," the affectionate old creature proceeded, "maybe Simon was +vexed at what I let drop last night about the money. I know he loves his +sister Scott, as I do: but it'll seem hard, too, to leave him nothing. I +must make my will some day, I 'spose; but don't half like the job: it's +always so nigh death. Yes--yes, dear Si shall have a snug little +corner." + +The real Simon Pure, in his own snug little corner, writhed again. Mrs. +Quarles started at the noise, looked up the chimney, under the bed, +tried the doors and windows, and actually went so near the mark as to +turn the handle of the shower-bath; "Drat it," said she, "Sarah must ha' +took away the key: well, there can't be nothing there but cloaks, that's +one comfort." + +Last of all, a thought struck her--it must have been a mouse at the +preserves. And Mrs. Quarles forthwith opened the important cupboard, +where Jennings now well knew the idol of his heart was shrined. Then +another thought struck Mrs. Quarles, though probably no unusual one, and +she seemed to have mounted on a chair, and to be bringing down some +elevated piece of crockery. Simon could see nothing with his eyes, but +his ears made up for them: if ever Dr. Elliotson produced clairvoyance +in the sisters Okey, the same sharpened apprehensions ministered to the +inner man of Simon Jennings through the instrumental magnet of his +inordinately covetous desires. Therefore, though his retina bore no +picture of the scene, the feelers of his mind went forth, informing him +of every thing that happened. + +Down came a Narbonne honey-pot--Simon saw that first, and it was as the +lamp of Aladdin in his eyes: then the bladder was whipped off, and the +crock set open on the table. Jennings, mad as Darius's horse at the +sight of the object he so longed for, once thought of rushing from his +hiding-place, taking the hoard by a _coup de main_, and running off +straightway to America: but--deary me--that'll never do; I mustn't leave +my own strong-box behind me, say nothing of hat and shoes: and if I stop +for any thing, she'd raise the house. + +While this was passing through the immaculate mind of Simon Jennings, +Bridget had been cutting up an old glove, and had made one of its +fingers into a very tidy little leather sacklet; into this she deposited +a bright half sovereign, spoil of the day, being the douceur of a needy +brush-maker, who wished to keep custom, and, of course, charged all +these vails on the current bill for mops and stable-sponges. + +"Ha!" muttered she, "it's your last bill here, Mr. Scrubb, I can tell +you; so, you were going to put me off with a crown-piece, were you? and +actually that bit of gold might as well have been a drop of blood wrung +from you: yes--yes, Mr. Scrubb, I could see that plainly; and so you've +done for yourself." + +Then, having sewed up the clever little bag, she dropped it into the +crock: there was no jingle, all dumby: prudent that, in his aunt--for +the dear morsels of gold were worth such tender keeping, and leather +would hinder them from wear and tear, set aside the clink being +silenced. So, the nephew secretly thanked Bridget for the wrinkle, and +thought how pleasant it would be to stuff old gloves with his own yellow +store. Ah, yes, he would do that--to-morrow morning. + +Meanwhile, the pig-skin is put on again, and the honey-pot stored away: +and Simon instinctively stood a tip-toe to peep ideally into that +wealthy corner cupboard. His mind's eye seemed to see more honey-pots! +Mammon help us! can they all be full of gold? why, any one of them would +hold a thousand pounds. And Simon scratched the palms of his hands, and +licked his lips at the thought of so much honey. + +But see, Mrs. Quarles has, in her peculiar fashion, undressed herself: +that is to say, she has taken off her outer gown, her cap and wig--and +then has _added_ to the volume of her under garments, divers night +habiliments, flannelled and frilled: while wrappers, manifold as a +turbaned Turk's, protect ear-ache, tooth-ache, head-ache, and face-ache, +from the elves of the night. + +And now, that the bedstead creaks beneath her weight, (as well it may, +for Bridget is a burden like Behemoth,) Simon's heart goes thump so +loud, that it was a wonder the poor woman never heard it. That heart in +its hard pulsations sounded to me like the carpenter hammering on her +coffin-lid: I marvel that she did not take it for a death-watch tapping +to warn her of her end. But no: Simon held his hand against his heart to +keep it quiet: he was so very fearful the pitapating would betray him. +Never mind, Simon; don't be afraid; she is fast asleep already; and her +snore is to thee as it were the challenge of a trumpeter calling to the +conflict. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +ROBBERY. + + +Hush--hush--hush! + +Stealthily on tiptoe, with finger on his lips, that fore-doomed man +crept out. + +"The key is in the cupboard still--ha! how lucky: saves time that, and +trouble, and--and--risk! Oh, no--there can be no risk now," and the +wretch added, "thank God!" + +The devil loves such piety as this. + +So Simon quietly turned the key, and set the cupboard open: it was to +him a Bluebeard's chamber, a cave of the Forty Thieves, a garden of the +Genius in Aladdin, a mysterious secret treasure-house of wealth +uncounted and unseen. + +What a galaxy of pickle-pots! tier behind tier of undoubted +currant-jelly, ranged like the houses in Algiers! vasty jars of +gooseberry! delicate little cupping-glasses full of syruped fruits! Yet +all these candied joys, which probably enhance a Mrs. Rundle's heaven, +were as nothing in the eyes of Simon--sweet trash, for all he cared +they might be vulgar treacle. His ken saw nothing but the +honey-pots--embarrassing array--a round dozen of them! All alike, all +posted in a brown line, like stout Dutch sentinels with their hands in +their breeches pockets, and set aloft on that same high-reached shelf. +Must he really take them all? impracticable: a positive sack full. +What's to be done?--which is he to leave behind? that old witch +contrived this identity and multitude for safety's sake. But what if he +left the wrong one, and got clear off with the valuable booty of two +dozen pounds of honey? Confusion! that'll never do: he must take them +all, or none; all, all's the word; and forthwith, as tenderly as +possible, the puzzled thief took down eleven pots of honey to his one of +gold--all pig-bladdered, all Fortnumed--all slimy at the string; +"Confound that cunning old aunt of mine," said Simon, aloud; and took no +notice that the snores surceased. + +Then did he spread upon the table a certain shawl, and set the crocks in +order on it: and it was quite impossible to leave behind that pretty +ostentatious "Savings' Bank," which the shrewd hoarder kept as a feint +to lure thieves from her hidden gold, by an open exhibition of her +silver: unluckily, though, the shillings, not being leathered up nor +branned, rattled like a Mandarin toy, as the trembling hand of Jennings +deposited the bank beside the crockeries--and, at the well-known sound, +I observed (though Simon did not, as he was in a trance of addled +triumph) or fancied I observed Mrs. Quarles's head move: but as she said +nothing, perhaps I was mistaken. Thus stood Simon at the table, +surveying his extraordinary spoils. + +And while he looked, the Mercy of God, which never yet hath seen the +soul too guilty for salvation, spake to him kindly, and whispered in his +ear, "Poor, deluded man--there is yet a moment for escape--flee from +this temptation--put all back again--hasten to thy room, to thy prayers, +repent, repent: even thou shalt be forgiven, and none but God, who will +forgive thee, shall know of this bad crime. Turn now from all thy sins; +the gate of bliss is open, if thou wilt but lift the latch." + +It was one moment of irresolute delay; on that hinge hung Eternity. The +gate swung upon its pivot, that should shut out hell, or heaven! + +Simon knit his brow--bit his nails--and answered quite out loud, "What! +and after all to lose the crock of gold?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +MURDER. + + +He had waked her! + +In an instant the angel form of Mercy melted away--and there stood the +devil with his arms folded. + +"Murder!--fire!--rape!--thieves!--what, Nephew Jennings, is that you, +with all my honey pots? Help! help! help!" + +"Phew-w-w!" whistled the devil: "I tell you what, Master Simon, you must +quiet the old woman, she bellows like a bull, the house'll be about your +ears in a twinkling--she'll hang you for this!" + +Yes--he must quiet her--the game was up; he threatened, he implored, but +she would shriek on; she slept alone on the ground-floor, and knew she +must roar loudly to be heard above the drawing-rooms; she would not be +quieted--she would shriek--and she did. What must he do? she'll raise +the house!--Stop her mouth, stop her mouth, I say, can't you?--No, she's +a powerful, stout, heavy woman, and he cannot hold her: ha! she has +bitten his finger to the bone, like a very tigress! look at the blood! + +"Why can't you touch her throat; no teeth there, bless you! that's the +way the wind comes: bravo! grasp it--tighter! tighter! tighter!" + +She struggled, and writhed, and wrestled, and fought--but all was +strangling silence; they rolled about the floor together, tumbled on the +bed, scuffled round the room, but all in horrid silence; neither uttered +a sound, neither had a shoe on--but all was earnest, wicked, +death-dealing silence. + +Ha! the desperate victim has the best of it; gripe harder, Jennings; she +has twisted her fingers in your neckcloth, and you yourself are choking: +fool! squeeze the swallow, can't you? try to make your fingers meet in +the middle--lower down, lower down, grasp the gullet, not the ears, +man--that's right; I told you so: tighter, tighter, tighter! again; ha, +ha, ha, bravo! bravo!--tighter, tighter, tighter! + +At length the hideous fight was coming to an end--though a hungry +constrictor, battling with the huge rhinoceros, and crushing his mailed +ribs beneath its folds, could not have been so fierce or fearful; fewer +now, and fainter are her struggles; that face is livid blue--the eyes +have started out, and goggle horribly; the tongue protrudes, swollen and +black. Aha! there is another convulsive effort--how strong she is still! +can you hold her, Simon?--can he?--All the fiend possessed him now with +savage exultation: can he?--only look! gripe, gripe still, you are +conquering, strong man! she is getting weaker, weaker; here is your +reward, gold! gold! a mighty store uncounted; one more grasp, and it is +all your own--relent now, she hangs you. Come, make short work of it, +break her neck--gripe harder--back with her, back with here against the +bedstead: keep her down, down I say--she must not rise again. Crack! +went a little something in her neck--did you hear it? There's the +death-rattle, the last smothery complicated gasp--what, didn't you hear +that? + +And the devil congratulated Simon on his victory. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE REWARD. + + +Till the wretch had done the deed, he scarcely knew that it was +doing. It was a horrid, mad excitement, where the soul had spread its +wings upon the whirlwind, and heeded not whither it was hurried. A +terrible necessity had seemed to spur him onwards all the while, and +one thing so succeeded to another, that he scarce could stop at any but +the first. From the moment he had hidden in the shower-bath (but for +God's interposing mercy), his doom appeared to have been +sealed--robbery, murder, false witness, and--damnation! + +Crime is the rushing rapid, which, but for some kind miracle, inevitably +carries on through circling eddies, and a foamy swinging tide, to the +cataract of death and wo: haste, poor fisherman of Erie, paddle hard +back, stem the torrent, cling to the shore, hold on tight by this +friendly bough; know you not whither the headlong current drives? hear +you not the roar of many waters, the maddening rush as of an ocean +disenthralled? feel you not the earth trembling at the thunder--see you +not the heaven clouded o'er with spray? Helpless wretch--thy frail canoe +has leapt that dizzy water-cliff, Niagara! + +But if, in doing that fell deed, madness raged upon the minutes, now +that it was done--all still, all calm, all quiet, Terror held the +hour-glass of Time. There lay the corpse, motionless, though coiled and +cramped in the attitude of struggling agony; and the murderer gazed upon +his victim with a horror most intense. Fly! fly!--he dared not stop to +think: fly! fly! any whither--as you are--wait for nothing; fly! thou +caitiff, for thy life! So he caught up the blood-bought spoils, and was +fumbling with shaky fingers at the handle of the garden-door, when the +unseen tempter whispered in his ear, + +"I say, Simon, did not your aunt die of apoplexy?" + +O, kind and wise suggestion! O, lightsome, tranquillizing thought! +Thanks! thanks! thanks!--And if the arch fiend had revealed himself in +person at the moment, Simon would have worshipped at his feet. + +"But," and as he communed with his own black heart, there needed now no +devil for his prompter--"if this matter is to be believed, I must +contrive a little that it may look likelier. Let me see:--yes, we must +lay all tidy, and the old witch shall have died in her sleep; apoplexy! +capital indeed; no tell-tales either. Well, I must set to work." + +Can mortal mind conceive that sickening office?--To face the strangled +corpse, yet warm; to lift the fearful burden in his arms, and order out +the heavily-yielding limbs in the ease of an innocent sleep? To arrange +the bed, smooth down the tumbled coverlid, set every thing straight +about the room, and erase all tokens of that dread encounter? It needed +nerves of iron, a heart all stone, a cool, clear head, a strong arm, a +mindful, self-protecting spirit; but all these requisites came to +Simon's aid upon the instant; frozen up with fear, his heart-strings +worked that puppet-man rigidly as wires; guilt supplied a reckless +energy, a wild physical power, which actuates no human frame but one +saturate with crime, or madness; and in the midst of those terrific +details, the murderer's judgment was so calm and so collected, that +nothing was forgotten, nothing unconsidered--unless, indeed, it were +that he out-generalled himself by making all too tidy to be natural. +Hence, suspicion at the inquest; for the "apoplexy" thought was really +such a good one, that, but for so exact a laying out, the fat old corpse +might have easily been buried without one surmise of the way she met her +end. Again and again, in the history of crimes, it is seen that a "Judas +hangs himself;" and albeit, as we know, the murderer has hitherto +escaped detection, still his own dark hour shall arrive in its due +place. + +The dreadful office done, he asked himself again, or maybe took counsel +of the devil (for that evil master always cheats his servants), "What +shall I do with my reward, this crock--these crocks of gold? It might be +easy to hide one of them, but not all; and as to leaving any behind, +that I won't do. About opening them to see which is which--" + +"I tell you what," said the tempter, as the clock struck three, +"whatever you do, make haste; by morning's dawn the house and garden +will be searched, no doubt, and the crocks found in your possession. +Listen to me--I'm your friend, bless you! remember the apoplexy. Pike +Island yonder is an unfrequented place; take the punt, hide all there +now, and go at your best leisure to examine afterwards; but whatever you +do, make haste, my man." + +Then Jennings crept out by the lawn-door, thereby rousing the house-dog; +but he skirted the laurels in their shadow, and it was dark and +mizzling, so he reached the punt both quickly and easily. + +The quiet, and the gloom, and the dropping rain, strangely affected him +now, as he plied his punt-pole; once he could have wept in his remorse, +and another time he almost shrieked in fear. How lonesome it seemed! how +dreadful! and that death-dyed face behind him--ha! woman, away I say! +But he neared the island, and, all shoeless as he was, crept up its +muddy bank. + +"Hallo! nybor, who be you a-poaching on my manor, eh? that bean't good +manners, any how." + +Ben Burke has told us all the rest. + +But, when Burke had got his spoils--when the biter had been bitten--the +robber robbed--the murderer stripped of his murdered victim's +money--when the bereaved miscreant, sullenly returning in the dark, +damp night, tracked again the way he came upon that lonely lake--no one +yet has told us, none can rightly tell, the feelings which oppressed +that God-forsaken man. He seemed to feel himself even a sponge which, +the evil one had bloated with his breath, had soaked it then in blood, +had squeezed it dry again, and flung away! He was Satan's broken tool--a +weed pulled up by the roots, and tossed upon the fire; alone--alone in +all the universe, without countenance or sympathy from God, or man, or +devil; he yearned to find, were it but a fiend to back him, but in vain; +they held aloof, he could see them vaguely through the gloom--he could +hear them mocking him aloud among the patter of the rain-drops--ha! ha! +ha--the pilfered fool! + +Bitterly did he rue his crime--fearfully he thought upon its near +discovery--madly did he beat his miserable breast, to find that he had +been baulked of his reward, yet spent his soul to earn it. + +Oh--when the house-dog bayed at him returning, how he wished he was that +dog! he went to him, speaking kindly to him, for he envied that +dog--"Good dog--good dog!" + +But more than envy kept him lingering there: the wretched man did it for +delay--yes, though morn was breaking on the hills--one more--one more +moment of most precious time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +SECOND THOUGHTS. + + +For--again he must go through that room! + +No other entrance is open--not a window, not a door: all close as a +prison: and only by the way he went, by the same must he return. + +He trembled all over, as a palsied man, when he touched the lock: with +stiffening hair, and staring eyes, he peeped in at that well-remembered +chamber: he entered--and crept close up to the corpse, stealthily and +dreadingly--horror! what if she be alive still? + +SHE WAS. + +Not quite dead--not quite dead yet! a gurgling in the bruised throat--a +shadowy gleam of light and life in those protruded eyes--an irregular +convulsive heaving at the chest: she might recover! what a fearful +hope: and, if she did, would hang him--ha! he went nearer; she was +muttering something in a moanful way--it was, "Simon did it--Simon did +it--Simon did it--Si--Si--Simon did--" he should be found out! + +Yet once again, for the last time, the long-suffering Mercy of the Lord +stood like Balaam's angel in the way, pleading with that miserable man +at the bed-side of her whom he had strangled. And even then, that +Guardian Spirit came not with chiding on his tongue, but He uttered +words of hope, while his eyes were streaming with sorrow and with pity. + +"Most wretched of the sinful sons of men, even now there may be mercy +for thee, even now plenteous forgiveness. True, thou must die, and pay +the earthly penalty of crimes like thine: but do my righteous bidding, +and thy soul shall live. Go to that poor, suffocating creature--cherish +the spark of life--bind up the wounds which thou hast rent, pouring in +oil and wine: rouse the house--seek assistance--save her life--confess +thy sin--repent--and though thou diest for this before the tribunal of +thy fellows, God will yet be gracious--he will raise again her whom thou +hadst slain--and will cleanse thy blood-stained soul." + +Thus in Simon's ear spake that better conscience. + +But the reprobate had cast off Faith; he could not pledge the Present +for the Future; he shuddered at the sword of Justice, and would not +touch the ivory sceptre of Forgiveness. No: he meditated horrid +iteration--and again the fiend possessed him! What! not only lose the +crock of gold, but all his own bright store? and give up every thing of +this world's good for some imaginary other, and meekly confess, and +meanly repent--and--and all this to resuscitate that hated old aunt of +his, who would hang him, and divorce him from his gold? + +No! he must do the deed again--see, she is moving--she will recover! her +chest heaves visibly--she breathes--she speaks--she knows me--ha! +down--down, I say! + +Then, with deliberate and damning resolution--to screen off temporal +danger, and count his golden hoards a little longer--that awful criminal +touched the throat again: and he turned his head away not to see that +horrid face, clutched the swollen gullet with his icy hands, and +strangled her once more! + +"This time all is safe," said Simon. And having set all smooth as +before, he stole up to his own chamber. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MAMMON, AND CONTENTMENT. + + +Ay, safe enough: and the murderer went to bed. To bed? No. + +He tumbled about the clothes, to make it seem that he had lain there: +but he dared neither lie down, nor shut his eyes. Then, the darkness +terrified him: the out-door darkness he could have borne, and Mrs. +Quarles's chamber always had a night-lamp burning: but the darkness of +his own room, of his own thoughts, pressed him all around, as with a +thick, murky, suffocating vapour. So, he stood close by the window, +watching the day-break. + +As for sleep, never more did wholesome sleep revisit that atrocious +mind: laudanum, an ever-increasing dose of merciless laudanum, that was +the only power which ever seemed to soothe him. For a horrid vision +always accompanied him now: go where he might, do what he would, from +that black morning to eternity, he went a haunted man--a scared, +sleepless, horror-stricken wretch. That livid face with goggling eyes, +stuck to him like a shadow; he always felt its presence, and sometimes, +also, could perceive it as if bodily peeping over his shoulder, next his +cheek; it dogged him by day, and was his incubus by night; and often he +would start and wrestle, for the desperate grasp of the dying appeared +to be clutching at his throat: so, in his ghostly fears, and bloody +conscience, he had girded round his neck a piece of thin sheet-iron in +his cravat, which he wore continually as armour against those clammy +fingers: no wonder that he held his head so stiff. + +O Gold--accursed Mammon! is this the state of those who love thee +deepest? is this their joy, who desire thee with all their heart and +soul--who serve thee with all their might--who toil for thee--plot for +thee--live for thee--dare for thee--die for thee? Hast thou no better +bliss to give thy martyrs--no choicer comfort for thy most consistent +worshippers, no fairer fate for those, whose waking thoughts, and +dreaming hopes, and intricate schemes, and desperate deeds, were only +aimed at gold, more gold? God of this world, if such be thy rewards, let +me ever escape them! idol of the knave, false deity of the fool, if this +be thy blessing on thy votaries--come, curse me, Mammon, curse thou me! + +For, "The love of money is the root of all evil." It groweth up a +little plant of coveting; presently the leaves get rank, the branches +spread, and feed on petty thefts; then in their early season come the +blossoms, black designs, plots, involved and undeveloped yet, of foul +conspiracies, extortions on the weak, rich robbings of the wealthy, the +threatened slander, the rewarded lie, malice, perjury, sacrilege; then +speedily cometh on the climax, the consummate flower, dark-red murder: +and the fruit bearing in itself the seeds that never die, is righteous, +wrathful condemnation. + +Dyed with all manner of iniquity, tinged with many colours like the +Mohawk in his woods, goeth forth in a morning the covetous soul. His +cheek is white with envy, his brow black with jealous rage, his livid +lips are full of lust, his thievish hands spotted over with the crimson +drops of murder. "The poison of asps is under his lips; and his feet are +swift to shed blood: destruction and misery are in his ways; and there +is no fear of God before his eyes." + +O, ye thousands--the covetous of this world's good--behold at what a +fire ye do warm yourselves! dread it: even now, ye have imagined many +deaths, whereby your gains may be the greater; ye have caught, in +wishful fancy, many a parting sigh; ye have closed, in a heartless +revery, many a glazing eye--yea, of those your very nearest, whom your +hopes have done to death: and are ye guiltless? God and conscience be +your judges! + +Even now ye have compassed many frauds, connived at many meannesses, +trodden down the good, and set the bad on high--all for gold--hard gold; +and are ye the honest--the upright? Speak out manfully your excuse, if +you can find one, ye respectables of merchandise, ye traders, bartering +all for cash, ye Scribes, ye Pharisees, hypocrites, all honourable men. + +Even now, your dreams are full of money-bags; your cares are how to add +superfluity to wealth; ye fawn upon the rich, ye scorn the poor, ye pine +and toil both night and day for gold, more gold; and are ye happy? +Answer me, ye covetous ones. + +Yet are there righteous gains, God's blessing upon labour: yet is there +rightful hope to get those righteous gains. Who can condemn the poor +man's care, though Faith should make his load the lighter? And who will +extenuate the rich man's coveting, whose appetite grows with what it +feeds on? "Having food and raiment, be therewith content;" that is the +golden mean; to that is limited the philosophy of worldliness: the man +must live, by labour and its earnings; but having wherewithal for him +and his temperately, let him tie the mill-stone of anxiety to the wing +of Faith, and speed that burden to his God. + +If Wealth come, beware of him, the smooth false friend: there is +treachery in his proffered hand, his tongue is eloquent to tempt, lust +of many harms is lurking in his eye, he hath a hollow heart; use him +cautiously. + +If Penury assail, fight against him stoutly, the gaunt grim foe: the +curse of Cain is on his brow, toiling vainly; he creepeth with the worm +by day, to raven with the wolf by night: diseases battle by his side, +and crime followeth his footsteps. Therefore fight against him boldly, +and be of a good courage, for there are many with thee; not alone the +doled alms, the casual aids dropped from compassion, or wrung out by +importunity; these be only temporary helps, and indulgence in them +pampers the improvident; but look thou to a better host of strong +allies, of resolute defenders; turn again to meet thy duties, needy one: +no man ever starved, who even faintly tried to do them. Look to thy God, +O sinner! use reason wisely; cherish honour; shrink not from toil, +though somewhile unrewarded; preserve frank bearing with thy fellows; +and in spite of all thy sins--forgiven; all thy follies--flung away; all +the trickeries of this world--scorned; all competitions--disregarded; +all suspicions--trodden under foot; thou neediest and raggedest of +labourers' labourers--Enough shall be thy portion, ere a week hath +passed away. + +Well did Agur-the-Wise counsel Ithiel and Ucal his disciples, when he +uttered in their ears before his God, this prayerful admonition, "Two +things have I required of Thee; deny me them not before I die: remove +far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches: feed me +with food convenient for me. Lest I be full, and deny Thee, saying, Who +is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and dishonour the name of the +Lord my God." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +NEXT MORNING. + + +Day dawned apace; and a glorious cavalcade of flaming clouds +heralded the Sun their captain. From far away, round half the wide +horizon, their glittering spears advanced. Heaven's highway rang with +the trampling of their horse-hoofs, and the dust went up from its +jewelled pavement as spray from the bottom of a cataract. Anon, he +came, the chieftain of that on-spurring host! his banner blazed upon the +sky; his golden crest was seen beneath, nodding with its ruddy plumes; +over the south-eastern hills he arose in radiant armour. Fair Nature, +waking at her bridegroom's voice, arrived so early from a distant clime, +smiled upon him sleepily, gladdening him in beauty with her sweet +half-opened eyelids, and kissing him in faithfulness with +dew-besprinkled lips. + +And he looked forth upon the world from his high chariot, holding back +the coursers that must mount the steep of noon: and he heard the morning +hymn of thankfulness to Heaven from the mountains, and the valleys, and +the islands of the sea; the prayer of man and woman, the praise of +lisping tongues, the hum of insect joy upon the air, the sheep-bell +tinkling in the distance, the wild bird's carol, and the lowing kine, +the mute minstrelsy of rising dews, and that stilly scarce-heard +universal melody of wakeful plants and trees, hastening to turn their +spring-buds to the light--this was the anthem he, the Lord of Day, now +listened to--this was the song his influences had raised to bless the +God who made him. + +And he saw, from his bright throne of wide derivative glory, Hope flying +forth upon her morning missions, visiting the lonesome, comforting the +sorrowful, speaking cheerfully to Care, and singing in the ear of +Labour: and he watched that ever-welcome friend, flitting with the +gleams of light to every home, to every heart; none but gladly let her +in; her tapping finger opened the very prison doors; the heavy head of +Sloth rejoiced to hear her call; and every common Folly, every common +Sin--ay, every common Crime--warmed his unconscious soul before her +winning beauty. + +Yet, yet was there one, who cursed that angel's coming; and the holy Eye +of day wept pityingly to see an awful child of man who dared not look on +Hope. + +The murderer stood beside his casement, watching that tranquil scene: +with bloodshot eyes and haggard stare, he gazed upon the waking world; +for one strange minute he forgot, entranced by innocence and beauty; but +when the stunning tide of memory, that had ebbed that one strange +minute, rolled back its mighty flood upon his mind, the murderer swooned +away. + +And he came to himself again all too soon; for when he arose, building +up his weak, weak limbs, as if he were a column of sand, the cruel +giant, Guilt, lifted up his club, and felled the wretch once more. + +How long he lay fainting, he knew not then; if any one had vowed it was +a century, Simon, as he gradually woke, could not have gainsaid the man; +but he only lay four seconds in that white oblivious trance--for Fear, +Fear knocked at his heart:--Up, man, up!--you need have all your wits +about you now;--see, it is broad day--the house will be roused before +you know where you are, and then will be shouted out that awful +name--Simon Jennings! Simon Jennings! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +THE ALARM. + + +He arose, held up on either hand that day as if fighting +against Amalek;--despair buttressed him on one side, and secresy shored +him on the other: behind that wall of stone his heart had strength to +beat. + +He arose; and listened at the key-hole anxiously: all silent, quiet, +quiet still; the whole house asleep: nothing found out yet. And he bit +his nails to the quick, that they bled again: but he never felt the +pain. + +Hush!--yes, somebody's about: it is Jonathan's step; and hark, he is +humming merrily, "Hail, smiling morn, that opes the gates of day?" Wo, +wo--what a dismal gulph between Jonathan and me! And he beat his breast +miserably. But, Jonathan cannot find it out--he never goes to Mrs. +Quarles's room. Oh! this suspense is horrible: haste, haste, some kind +soul, to make the dread discovery! And he tore his hair away by +handfulls. + +"Hark!--somebody else--unlatching shutters; it will be Sarah--ha! she is +tapping at the housekeeper's room--yes, yes, and she will make it known, +O terrible joy!--A scream! it is Sarah's voice--she has seen her dead, +dead, dead;--but is she indeed dead?" + +The miscreant quivered with new fears; she might still mutter "Simon did +it!" + +And now the house is thoroughly astir; running about in all directions; +and shouting for help; and many knocking loudly at the murderer's own +door--"Mr. Jennings! Mr. Jennings!--quick--get up--come down--quick, +quick--your aunt's found dead in her bed!" + +What a relief to the trembling wretch!--she _was_ dead. He could have +blessed the voice that told him his dread secret was so safe. But his +parched tongue may never bless again: curses, curses are all its +blessings now. + +And Jennings came out calmly from his chamber, a white, stern, +sanctimonious man, lulling the storm with his wise presence:--"God's +will be done," said he; "what can poor weak mortals answer Him?" And he +played cleverly the pious elder, the dignified official, the +affectionate nephew: "Ah, well, my humble friends, behold what life is: +the best of us must come to this; my poor, dear aunt, the late +house-keeper, rest her soul--I feared it might be this way some night or +other: she was a stout woman, was our dear, deceased Bridget--and, +though a good kind soul, lived much on meat and beer: ah well, ah well!" +And he concealed his sentimental hypocrisy in a cotton pocket-handkerchief. + +"Alas, and well-a-day! that it should have come to this. Apoplexy--you +see, apoplexy caught her as she slept: we may as well get her buried at +once: it is unfortunately too clear a case for any necessity to open the +body; and our young master is coming down on Tuesday, and I could not +allow my aunt's corpse to be so disrespectful as to stop till it became +offensive. I will go to the vicar myself immediately." + +"Begging pardon, Mr. Jennings," urged Jonathan Floyd, "there's a strange +mark here about the throat, poor old 'ooman." + +"Ay," added Sarah, "and now I come to think of it, Mrs. Quarles's +room-door was ajar; and bless me, the lawn-door's not locked neither! +Who could have murdered her?" + +"Murdered? there's no murder here, silly wench," said Jennings, with a +nervous sneer. + +"I don't know that, Mr. Simon," gruffly interposed the coachman; "it's a +case for a coroner, I'll be bail; so here I goes to bring him: let all +bide as it is, fellow-sarvents; murder will out, they say." + +And off he set directly--not without a shrewd remark from Mr. Jennings, +about letting him escape that way; which seemed all very sage and +likely, till the honest man came back within the hour, and a _posse +comitatus_ at his heels. + +We all know the issue of that inquest. + +Now, if any one requests to be informed how Jennings came to be looked +for as usual in his room, after that unavailing search last night, I +reply, this newer, stronger excitement for the minute made the house +oblivious of that mystery; and if people further will persist to know, +how that mystery of his absence was afterwards explained (though I for +my part would gladly have said nothing of the bailiff's own excuse), let +it be enough to hint, that Jennings winked with a knowing and gallant +expression of face; alluded to his private key, and a secret return at +two in the morning from some disreputable society in the neighbourhood; +made the men laugh, and the women blush; and, altogether, as he might +well have other hats and coats, the delicate affair was not unlikely. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +DOUBTS. + + +And so, this crock of gold--gained through extortion, by the +frauds of every day, the meannesses of every hour--this concrete +oppression to the hireling in his wages--this mass of petty pilferings +from poverty--this continuous obstruction to the charities of +wealth--this cockatrice's egg--this offspring of iniquity--had already +been baptized in blood before poor Acton found it, and slain its earthly +victim ere it wrecked his faith; already had it been perfected by crime, +and destroyed the murderer's soul, before it had endangered the life of +slandered innocence. + +Is there yet more blessing in the crock? more fearful interest still, to +carry on its story to an end? Must another sacrifice bleed before the +shrine of Mammon, and another head lie crushed beneath the heel of that +monster--his disciple? + +Come on with me, and see the end; push further still, there is a +labyrinth ahead to attract and to excite; from mind to mind crackles the +electric spark: and when the heart thrillingly conceives, its +children-thoughts are as arrows from the hand of the giant, flying +through that mental world--the hearts of other men. Fervent still from +its hot internal source, this fountain gushes up; no sluggish +Lethe-stream is here, dull, forgetful, and forgotten; but liker to the +burning waves of Phlegethon, mingling at times (though its fire is still +unquenched), with the pastoral rills of Tempe, and the River from the +Mount of God. + +Lower the sail--let it flap idly on the wind--helm a-port--and so to +smoother waters: return to common life and humbler thoughts. + +It may yet go hard with Roger Acton. Jennings is a man of character, +especially the farther from his home; the county round take him for a +model of propriety, a sample of the strictest conduct. We know the bad +man better; but who dare breathe against the bailiff in his +power--against the caitiff in his sleek hypocrisy--that, while he makes +a show of both humilities, he fears not God nor man? What shall hinder, +that the perjured wretch offer up to the manes of the murdered the +life-blood of the false-accused? May he not live yet many years, heaping +up gold and crime? And may not sweet Grace Acton--her now repentant +father--the kindly Jonathan--his generous master, and if there be any +other of the Hurstley folk we love, may they not all meet destruction at +his hands, as a handful of corn before the reaper's sickle? I say not +that they shall, but that they might. Acton's criminal state of mind, +and his hunger after gold--gold any how--have earned some righteous +retribution, unless Providence in mercy interpose; and young Sir John, +in nowise unblameable himself, with wealth to tempt the spoiler, lives +in the spoiler's very den; and as to Jonathan and Grace, this world has +many martyrs. If Heaven in its wisdom use the wicked as a sword, Heaven +is but just; but if in its vengeance that sword of the wicked is turned +against himself, Heaven showeth mercy all unmerited. To a criminal like +Jennings, let loose upon the world, without the clog of conscience to +retard him, and with the spur of covetousness ever urging on, any thing +in crime is possible--is probable: none can sound those depths: and when +we raise our eyes on high to the Mighty Moral Governor, and note the +clouds of mystery that thunder round his Throne--He may permit, or he +may control; who shall reach those heights? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +FEARS. + + +Moreover, innocent of blood, as we know Roger Acton to be, +appearances are strongly against him: and in such a deed as secret, +midnight murder, which none but God can witness, multiplied appearances +justify the world in condemning one who seems so guilty. + +The first impression against Roger is a bad one, for all the neighbours +know how strangely his character had been changing for the worse of +late: he is not like the same man; sullen and insubordinate, he was +turned away from work for his bold and free demeanor; as to church, +though he had worn that little path these forty years, all at once he +seems to have entirely forgotten the way hither. + +He lives, nobody knows how--on bright, clean gold, nobody knows whence: +his daughter says, indeed, that her father found a crock of gold in his +garden--but she needs not have held her tongue so long, and borne so +many insults, if that were all the truth; and, mark this! even though +she says it, and declares it on her Bible-oath, Acton himself most +strenuously denied all such findings--but went about with impudent tales +of legacy, luck, nobody knows what; the man prevaricated continually, +and got angry when asked about it--cudgelling folks, and swearing +like--like any one but old-time "honest Roger." + +Only look, too, where he lives: in a lone cottage opposite Pike Island, +on the other side of which is Hurstley Hall, the scene of robbery and +murder: was not a boat seen that night upon the lake? and was not the +lawn-door open? How strangely stupid in the coroner and jury not to have +imagined this before! how dull it was of every body round not to have +suspected murder rather more strongly, with those finger-marks about the +throat, and not to have opened their eyes a little wider, when the +murderer's cottage was within five hundred yards of that open lawn-door! + +Then again--when Mr. Jennings, in his strict and searching way, accused +the culprit, he never saw a man so confused in all his life! and on +repeating the charge before those two constables, they all witnessed his +guilty consternation: experienced men, too, they were, and never saw a +felon if Acton wasn't one; the dogged manner in which he went with them +so quietly was quite sufficient; innocent men don't go to jail in that +sort of way, as if they well deserved it. + +But, strongest of all, if any shadow of a doubt remained, the most +fearful proof of Roger's guilt lay in the scrap of shawl--the little +leather bags--and the very identical crock of gold! There it was, +nestled in the thatch within a yard of his head, as he lay in bed at +noon-day guarding it. + +One proof, weaker than the weakest of all these banded together, has ere +now sufficed to hang the guilty; and many, many fears have I that this +multitude of seeming facts, conspiring in a focus against Roger Acton, +will be quite enough to overwhelm the innocent. "Nothing lies like a +fact," said Dr. Johnson: and statistics prove it, at least as well as +circumstantial evidence. + +The matter was as clear as day-light, and long before the trial came +about, our poor labourer had been hanged outright in the just judgment +of Hurstley-cum-Piggesworth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +PRISON COMFORTS. + + +Many blessings, more than he had skill to count, had visited +poor Acton in his cell. His gentle daughter Grace, sweet minister of +good thoughts--she, like a loving angel, had been God's instrument of +penitence and peace to him. He had come to himself again, in solitude, +by nights, as a man awakened from a feverish dream; and the hallowing +ministrations of her company by day had blest reflective solitude with +sympathy and counsel. + +Good-wife Mary, too, had been his comforting and cheering friend. +Immediately the crock of gold had been taken from its ambush in the +thatch, it seemed as if the chill which had frozen up her heart had been +melted by a sudden thaw. Roger Acton was no longer the selfish prodigal, +but the guiltless, persecuted penitent; her care was now to soothe his +griefs, not to scold him for excesses; and indignation at the false and +bloody charge made him appear a martyr in her eyes. As to his accuser, +Jennings, Mary had indeed her own vague fancies and suspicions, but +there being no evidence, nor even likelihood to support them, she did +not dare to breathe a word; she might herself accuse him falsely. Ben, +who alone could have thrown a light upon the matter, had always been +comparatively a stranger at Hurstley; he was no native of the place, and +had no ties there beyond wire and whip-cord: he would appear in that +locality now and then in his eccentric orbit, like a comet, and, soon +departing thence, would take away Tom as his tail; but even when there, +he was mainly a night-prowler, seldom seen by day, and so little versed +in village lore, so rarely mingling with its natives, that neither +Jennings nor Burke knew one another by sight. His fame indeed was known, +but not his person. At present, he and Tom were still fowling in some +distant fens, nobody could tell where; so that Roger's only witness, who +might have accounted for the crock and its finding, was as good as dead +to him; to make Ben's absence more unusually prolonged, and his +reappearance quite incalculable, he had talked of going with his cargo +of wild ducks "either to London or to Liverpool, he didn't rightly know +which." + +Nevertheless, Mary comforted her husband, and more especially herself, +by the hope of his return as a saving witness; though it was always +doubtful how far Burke's numerous peccadilloes against property would +either find him at large, or authorize the poacher in walking straight +before the judges. Still Ben's possible interposition was one source of +hope and cheerful expectation. Then the good wife would leave her babes +at home, safely in a neighbour's charge, and stay and sit many long +hours with poor Roger, taking turns with Grace in talking to him +tenderly, making little of home-troubles past, encouraging him to wear a +stout heart, and filling him with gratitude for all her kindly care. +Thus did she bless, and thus was made a blessing, through the loss and +absence of that crock of gold. + +For Roger himself, he had repented; bitterly and deeply, as became his +headlong fall: no sweet luxuries of grief, no soothing sorrow, no +chastened meditative melancholy--such mild penitence as this, he +thought, could be but a soberer sort of joy for virgins, saints, and +martyrs: no--he, bad man, was unworthy of those melting pleasures, and +in sturdy self-revenge he flung them from him, choosing rather to feel +overwhelmed with shame, contrition, and reproaches. A humbled man with a +broken heart within him--such was our labourer, penitent in prison; and +when he contrasted his peaceful, pure, and Christian course those forty +years of poverty, with his blasphemous and infidel career for the one +bad week of wealth, he had no patience with himself--only felt his fall +the greater; and his judgment of his own guilt, with a natural +exaggeration, went the length of saying--I am scarcely less guilty +before God and man, than if, indeed, my hands were red with murder, and +my casual finding had been robbery. He would make no strong appeals to +the bar of justice, as an innocent condemned; not he--not he: innocent, +indeed? his wicked, wicked courses--(an old man, too--gray-headed, with +no young blood in him to excuse, no inexperience to extenuate), these +deserved--did he say hanging? it was a harsher syllable--hell: and the +contrite sinner gladly would have welcomed all the terrors of the +gibbet, in hope to take full vengeance on himself for his wicked thirst +for gold and all its bitter consequences. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +GOOD COUNSEL. + + +But Grace advised him better. "Be humbled as you may before +God, my father, but stand up boldly before man: for in his sight, and by +his law, you are little short of blameless. I would not, dearest father, +speak to you of sins, except for consolation under them; for it ill +becomes a child to see the failings of a parent. But when I know at once +how innocent you are in one sense, and how not quite guiltless in +another, I wish my words may comfort you, if you will hear them, father. +Covetousness, not robbery--excess, not murder--these were your only +sins; and concealment was not wise, neither was a false report +befitting. Money, the idol of millions, was your temptation: its earnest +love, your fault; its possession, your misfortune. Forgive me, father, +if I speak too freely. Good Mr. Evans, who has been so kind to us for +years, (never kinder than since you were in prison,) can speak better +than I may, of sins forgiven, and a Friend to raise the fallen: it is +not for poor Grace to school her dear and honoured father. If you feel +yourself guilty of much evil in the sight of Him before whom the angels +bow in meekness--I need not tell you that your sorrow is most wise, and +well-becoming. But this must not harm your cause with men: though tired +of life, though hopeless in one's self, though bad, and weak, and like +to fall again, we are still God's servants upon earth, bound to guard +the life he gives us. Neither must you lightly allow the guilt of +unrighteous condemnation to fall upon the judge who tries you; nor let +your innocent blood cry to God for vengeance on your native land. +Manfully confront the false accuser, tell openly the truth, plead your +own cause firmly, warmly, wisely:--so, God defend the right!" + +And as Grace Acton said these words, in all the fervour of a daughter's +love, with a flushed cheek, parted lips, and her right hand raised to +Him whom she invoked, she looked like an inspired prophetess, or the +fair maid of Orleans leading on to battle. + +In an instant afterwards, she humbly added, + +"Forgive me any thing I may have said, that seems to chide my father." + +"Bless you, bless you, dearest one!" was Roger's sobbing prayer, who +had listened to her wisdom breathlessly. "Ah, daughter," then exclaimed +the humbled, happy man, "I'll try to do all you ask me, Grace; but it is +a hard thing to feel myself so wicked, and to have to speak up boldly +like a Christian man." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +EXPERIENCE. + + +Then, with disjointed sentences, suited to the turmoil of his +thoughts, half in a soliloquy, half as talking to his daughter, Roger +Acton gave his hostile testimony to the worth of wealth. + +"Oh, fool, fool that I have been, to set so high a price on gold! To +have hungered and thirsted for it--to have coveted earnestly so bad a +gift--to have longed for Mammon's friendship, which is enmity with God! +What has not money cost me? Happiness:--ay, wasn't it to have given me +happiness? and the little that I had (it was much, Grace, not little, +very much--too much--God be praised for it!) all, all the happiness I +had, gold took away. Look at our dear old home--shattered and scattered, +as now I wish that crock had been. Health, too; were it not for gold, +and all gold gave, I had been sturdy still, and capable; but my nights +maddened with anxieties, my days worried with care, my head feverish +with drink, my heart rent by conscience--ah, my girl, my girl, when I +thought much of poverty and its hardships, of toil, and hunger, and +rheumatics, I little imagined that wealth had heavier cares and pains: I +envied them their wanton life of pleasure at the Hall, and little knew +how hard it was: well are they called hard-livers who drink, and game, +and have nothing to do, except to do wickedness continually. +Religion--can it bide with money, child? I never knew my wicked heart, +till fortune made me rich; not until then did I guess how base, lying, +false, and bad was "honest Roger;" how sensual, coarse, and brutal, was +that hypocrite "steady Acton". Money is a devil, child, or pretty near +akin. Then I complained of toil, too, didn't I?--Ah, what are all the +aches I ever felt--labouring with spade and spud in cold and rain, +hungry belike, and faint withal--what are they all at their worst (and +the worst was very seldom after all), to the gnawing cares, the hideous +fears, the sins--the sins, my girl, that tore your poor old father? +Wasn't it to be an end of troubles, too, this precious crock of gold? +Wo's me, I never knew real trouble till I had it! Look at me, and judge; +what has made me live like a beast, sin like a heathen, and lie down +here like a felon? what has made me curse Ben Burke--kind, hearty, +friendly Ben?--and given my poor good boy an ill-report as having stolen +and slain? all this crock of gold. But O, my Grace, to think that the +crock's curses touched thee, too! didn't it madden me to hear them? +Dear, pure, patient child, my darling, injured daughter, here upon my +knees I pray, forgive that wrong!" And he fell at her feet beseechingly. + +"My father," said the noble girl, lifting up his head, and passionately +kissing it; "when they whispered so against me, and Jonathan heard the +wicked things men said, I would have borne it all, all in silence, and +let them all believe me bad, father, if I could have guessed that by +uttering the truth, I should have seen thee here, in a dungeon, treated +as a--murderer! How was I to tell that men could be so base, as to +charge such crimes upon the innocent, when his only fault, or his +misfortune, was to find a crock of gold? Oh! forgive me, too, this +wrong, my father!" + +And they wept in each other's arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +JONATHAN'S TROTH. + + +Grace had been all but an inmate of the prison, ever since her +father had been placed there on suspicion. Early and late, and often in +the day, was the duteous daughter at his cell, for the governor and the +turn-keys favoured her. Who could resist such beauty and affection, +entreating to stay with a father about to stand on trial for his life, +and making every effort to be allowed only to pray with him? Thus did +Grace spend all the week before those dread assizes. + +As to her daily maintenance, ever since that bitter morning when the +crock was found, her spiritual fears had obliged her to abstain from +touching so much as one penny of that unblest store; and, seeing that +honest pride would not let her be supported by grudged and common +charity, she had thankfully suffered the wages of her now betrothed +Jonathan to serve as means whereon she lived, and (what cost more than +all her humble wants) whereby she could administer many little comforts +to her father in his prison. When she was not in the cell, Grace was +generally at the Hall, to the scandal of more than one Hurstleyan +gossip; but perhaps they did not know how usually kind Sarah Stack was +of the company, to welcome her with Jonathan, and play propriety. Sarah +was a true friend, one for adversity, and though young herself, and not +ill-looking, did not envy Grace her handsome lover; on the contrary, she +did all to make them happy, and had gone the friendly length of +insisting to find Grace and her family in tea and sugar, while all this +lasted. I like that much in Sarah Stack. + +However, the remainder of the virtuous world were not so considerate, +nor so charitable. Many neighbours shunned the poor girl, as if +contaminated by the crimes which Roger had undoubtedly committed: the +more elderly unmarried sisterhood, as we have chronicled already, were +overjoyed at the precious opportunity:--"Here was the pert vixen, whom +all the young fellows so shamelessly followed, turned out, after all, a +murderer's daughter;--they wished her joy of her eyes, and lips, and +curls, and pretty speeches: no good ever came of such naughty ways, that +the men liked so." + +Nay, even the tipsy crew at Bacchus's affected to treat her name with +scorn:--"The girl had made much noise about being called a trull, as if +many a better than she wasn't one; and, after all, what was the prudish +wench? a sort of she-butcher; they had no patience with her proud +looks." + +As to farmer Floyd, he made a great stir about his boy being about to +marry a felon's daughter; and the affectionate mother, with many +elaborate protestations, had "vowed to Master Jonathan, that she would +rather lay him out with her own hands, and a penny on each eye, than see +a Floyd disgrace himself in that 'ere manner." + +And uncles, aunts, and cousins, most disinterestedly exhorted that the +obstinate youth be disinherited--"Ay, Mr. Floyd, I wish your son was a +high-minded man like his father; but there's a difference, Mr. Floyd; I +wish he had your true blue yeoman's honour, and the spirit that becomes +his father's son: if the lad was mine, I'd cut him off with a shilling, +to buy a halter for his drab of a wife. Dang it, Mrs. Floyd, it'll never +do to see so queer a Mrs. Jonathan Junior, a standing in your tidy shoes +beside this kitchen dresser." + +These estimable counsels were, I grieve to say, of too flattering a +nature to displease, and of too lucrative a quality not to be +continually repeated; until, really, Jonathan was threatened with +beggary and the paternal malediction, if he would persist in his +disreputable attachment. + +Nevertheless, Jonathan clung to the right like a hero. + +"Granting poor Acton is the wretch you think--but I do not believe one +word of it--does his crime make his daughter wicked too? No; she is an +angel, a pure and blessed creature, far too good for such a one as I. +And happy is the man that has gained her love; he should not give her up +were she thrice a felon's daughter. My father and mother," Jonathan went +on to say, "never found a fault in her till now. Who was more welcome on +the hill than pretty Grace? who would oftenest come to nurse some sickly +lamb, but gentle Grace? who was wont, from her childhood up, to run home +with me so constantly, when school was over, and pleased my kinsfolk so +entirely with her nice manners and kind ways? Hadn't he fought for her +more than once, and though he came home with bruises on his face, his +mother praised him for it?" Then, with a natural divergence from the +strict subject-matter of objection, vicarious felony, Jonathan went on +to argue about other temporal disadvantages. "Hadn't he heard his father +say, that, if she had but money, she was fit to be a countess? and was +money, then, the only thing, whereof the having, or the not having, +could make her good or bad?--money, the only wealth for soul, and mind, +and body? Are affections nothing, are truth and honour nothing, religion +nothing, good sense nothing, health nothing, beauty nothing--unless +money gild them all? Nonsense!" said Jonathan, indignantly, warmed by +his amatory eloquence; "come weal, come wo, Grace and I go down to the +grave together; for better, if she can be better--for worse, if she +could sin--Grace Acton is my wealth, my treasure, and possession; and +let man do his worst, God himself will bless us!" + +So, all this knit their loves: she knew, and he felt, that he was going +in the road of nobleness and honour; and the fiery ordeal which he had +to struggle through, raised that hearty earthly lover more nearly to a +level with his heavenly-minded mistress. Through misfortune and +mistrust, and evil rumours all around, in spite of opposition from false +friends, and the scorn of slanderous foes, he stood by her more +constantly, perchance more faithfully, than if the course of true-love +had been smoother: he was her escort morning and evening to and from the +prison; his strong arm was the dread of babbling fools that spoke a word +of disrespect against the Actons; and his brave tongue was now making +itself heard, in open vindication of the innocent. + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +SUSPICIONS. + + +Yes--Jonathan Floyd was beginning to speak out boldly certain +strange suspicions he had entertained of Jennings. It was a courageous, +a rash, a dangerous thing to do: he did not know but what it might have +jeoparded his life, say nothing of his livelihood: but Floyd did it. + +Ever since that inquest, contrived to be so quickly and so quietly got +over, he had noticed Simon's hurried starts, his horrid looks, his +altered mien in all he did and said, his new nervous ways at +nightfall--John Page to sleep in Mr. Jennings's chamber, and a +rush-light perpetually--his shudder whenever he had occasion to call at +the housekeeper's room, and his evident shrinking from the frequent +phrase "Mrs. Quarles's murder." + +Then again, Jonathan would often lie awake at nights, thinking over +divers matters connected with his own evidence before the coroner, which +he began to see might be of great importance. Jennings said, he had gone +out to still the dog by the front door--didn't he?--"How then, Mr. +Jennings, did you contrive to push back the top bolt? The Hall chairs +had not come then, and you are a little fellow, and you know that nobody +in the house could reach, without a lift, that bolt but me. Besides, +before Sir John came down, the hinges of that door creaked, like a +litter o' kittens screaming, and the lock went so hard for want of use +and oil, that I'll be sworn your gouty chalkstone fingers could never +have turned it: now, I lay half awake for two hours, and heard no creak, +no key turned; but I tell you what I did hear though, and I wish now I +had said it at that scanty, hurried inquest; I heard what I now believe +were distant screams (but I was so sleepy), and a kind of muffled +scuffling ever so long: but I fancied it might be a horse in the stable +kicking among the straw in a hunter's loose box. I can guess what it was +now--cannot you, Mr. Simon?--I say, butler, you must have gone out to +quiet Don--who by the way can't abear the sight of you--through Mrs. +Quarles's room: and, for all your threats, I'm not afeard to tell you +what I think. First answer me this, Mr. Simon Jennings:--where were you +all that night, when we were looking for you?--Oh! you choose to forget, +do you? I can help your memory, Mr. Butler; what do you think of the +shower-bath in Mother Quarles's room?" + +As Jonathan, one day at dinner in the servants' hall, took occasion to +direct these queries to the presiding Simon, the man gave such a horrid +start, and exclaimed, "Away, I say!" so strangely, that Jonathan could +doubt no longer--nor, in fact, any other of the household: Jennings gave +them all round a vindictive scowl, left the table, hastened to his own +room, and was seen no more that day. + +Speculation now seemed at an end, it had ripened into probability;--but +what evidence was there to support so grave a charge against this rigid +man? Suspicions are not half enough to go upon--especially since Roger +Acton seemed to have had the money. Therefore, though the folks at +Hurstley, Sir John, his guests, and all the house, could not but think +that Mr. Jennings acted very oddly--still, he had always been a strange +creature, an unpopular bailiff; nobody understood him. So, Floyd, to his +own no small danger, stood alone in accusing the man openly. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +GRACE'S ALTERNATIVE. + + +Very shortly after that remarkable speech in the servants' +hall, Jonathan found another reason for believing that Mr. Simon +Jennings was equal to any imaginable amount of human wickedness. That +reason will shortly now appear; but we must first of all dig at its +roots somewhat deeper than Jonathan's mental husbandry could manage. + +If any trait of character were wanting to complete the desperate infamy +of Jennings--(really I sometimes hope that his grandfather's madness had +a kind of reawakening in this accursed man)--it was furnished by a new +and shrewd scheme for feeding to the full his lust of gold. The bailiff +had more than once, as we have hinted, found means to increase his evil +hoard, by having secretly gained power over female innocence and honest +reputation: similarly he now devised a deep-laid plot, nothing short of +diabolical. His plot was this: and I choose to hurry over such foul +treason. Let a touch or two hint its outlines: those who will, may paint +up the picture for themselves. Simon looked at Sir John--young, gay, +wealthy; he coveted his purse, and fancied that the surest bait to catch +that fish was fair Grace Acton: if he could entrap her for his master +(to whom he gave full credit for delighting in the plan), he counted +surely on magnificent rewards. How then to entrap her? Thus:--he, +representing himself as prosecutor of Roger, the accused, held for him, +he averred, the keys of life and death: he would set this idea (whether +true or not little mattered, if it served his purpose) before an +affectionate daughter, who should have it in her power to save her +parent, if, and only if, she would yield herself to Jennings: and he +well knew that, granting she gave herself secretly to him first, on such +a bribe as her father's liberation, he would have no difficulty whatever +in selling her second-hand beauty on his own terms to his master. It was +a foul scheme, and shall not be enlarged upon: but (as will appear) thus +slightly to allude to it was needful to our tale, as well as to the +development of character in Mammon's pattern-slave, and to the fullness +of his due retribution in this world. I may add, that if any thing could +make the plan more heinous--if any shade than blackest can be +blacker--this extra turpitude is seen in the true consideration, that +the promise to Grace of her father's safety would be entirely futile--as +Jennings knew full well; the crown was prosecutor, not he: and +circumstantial evidence alone would be sufficient to condemn. Again, it +really is nothing but bare justice to remark, with reference to Sir +John, that the deep-dyed villain reckoned quite without his host; for +however truly the baronet had oft-times been much less a self-denying +Scipio than a wanton Alcibiades, still the fine young fellow would have +flung Simon piecemeal to his hounds, if ever he had breathed so +atrocious a temptation: the maid was pledged, and Vincent knew it. + +Now, it so happened that one evening at dusk, when Grace as usual was +obliged to leave the prison, there was no Jonathan in waiting to +accompany her all the dreary long way home: this was strange, as his +good-hearted master, privately informed of his noble attachment, never +refused the man permission, but winked, for the time, at his frequent +evening absence. Nevertheless, on this occasion, as would happen now and +then, Floyd could not escape from the dining-room; probably because--Mr. +Jennings had secretly gone forth to escort the girl himself. +Accordingly, instead of loved Jonathan, sidled up to her the loathsome +Simon. + +Let me not soil these pages by recording, in however guarded phrase, the +grossness of this wretch's propositions; it was a long way to Hurstley, +and the reptile never ceased tormenting her every step of it, till the +village was in sight: twice she ran, and he ran too, keeping up with +her, and pouring into her ear a father's cruel fate and his own +detestable alternative. She never once spoke to him, but kept on praying +in her own pure mind for a just acquittal; not for one moment would she +entertain the wicked thought of "doing evil that good might come;" and +so, with flushed cheek, tingling ears, the mien of an insulted empress, +and the dauntless resolution of a heroine, she hastened on to Hurstley. + +Look here! by great good fortune comes Jonathan Floyd to meet her. + +"Save me, Jonathan, save me!" and she fainted in his arms. + +Now, truth to say, though Sir John knew it, Simon did not, that Grace +was Jonathan's beloved and betrothed; and the cause lay simply in this, +that Jonathan had frankly told his master of it, when he found the +dreadful turn things had taken with poor Roger; but as to Simon, no +mortal in the neighbourhood ever communicated with him, further than as +urged by fell necessity. Of course, the lovers' meetings were as private +as all such matters generally are; and Sarah's aid managed them +admirably. Therefore it now came to pass that Simon and Jonathan looked +on each other in mutual astonishment, and needs must wait until Grace +Acton could explain the "save me." Not but that Jennings seemed much as +if he wished to run away; but he did not know how to manage it. + +"Dear Jonathan," she whispered feebly, "save me from Simon Jennings." + +In an instant, Jonathan's grasp was tightly involved in the bailiff's +stiff white neckcloth. And Grace, with much maidenly reserve, told her +lover all she dared to utter of that base bartering for her father's +life. + +"Come straight along with me, you villain, straight to the master!" And +the sturdy Jonathan, administering all the remainder of the way (a +quarter of a mile of avenue made part of it) innumerable kickings and +cuffings, hauled the half-mummied bailiff into the servants' hall. + +"Now then, straight before the master! John Page, be so good as to knock +at the dining-room door, and ask master very respectfully if his honour +will be good enough to suffer me to speak to him." + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE DISMISSAL. + + +It was after dinner. Sir John and his friends had somehow been +less jovial than usual; they were absolutely dull enough to be talking +politics. So, when the boy of many buttons tapped at the door, and +meekly brought in Jonathan's message, recounting also how he had got Mr. +Jennings in tow for some inexplicable crime, the strangeness of the +affair was a very welcome incident: both host and guests hailed it an +adventure. + +"By all means, let Jonathan come in." + +The trio were just outside; and when the blue and silver footman, +hauling in by his unrelinquished throat that scared bailiff, and +followed by the blushing village beauty, stood within the room, Sir John +and his half-dozen friends greeted the _tableau_ with united +acclamations. + +"I say, Pypp, that's a devilish fine creature," metaphorically remarked +the Honorable Lionel Poynter. + +"Yaas." Lord George was a long, sallow, slim young man, with a goatish +beard, like the Duc d'Aumale's; he affected extreme fashion and infinite +_sangfroid_. + +"Well, Jonathan, what is it?" asked the baronet. + +"Why, in one word, my honoured master, this scoundrel here has been +wickedly insulting my own poor dear Grace, by promising to save her +father from the gallows if--if--" + +"If what, man? speak out," said Mr. Poynter. + +"You don't mean to say, Jennings, that you are brute enough to be +seducing that poor man Roger's daughter, just as he's going to be tried +for his life?" asked Sir John. + +Simon uttered nothing in reply; but Grace burst into tears. + +"A fair idea that, 'pon my honour," drawled the chivalrous Pypp, +proceeding to direct his delicate attentions towards the weeping damsel. + +"Simon Jennings," said Sir John, after pausing in vain for his reply, "I +have long wished to get rid of you, sir. Silence! I know you, and have +been finding out your rascally proceedings these ten days past. I have +learnt much, more than you may fancy: and now this crowning villany +[what if he had known of the ulterior designs?] gives me fair occasion +to say once and for ever, begone!" + +Jennings drew himself up with an air of insufferable impudence, and +quietly answered, + +"John Vincent, I am proud to leave your service. I trust I can afford to +live without your help." + +There was a general outcry at this speech, and Jonathan collared him +again; but the baronet calmly set all straight by saying, + +"Perhaps, sir, you may not be aware that your systematic thievings and +extortions have amply justified me in detaining your iron chest and +other valuables, until I find out how you may have come by them." + +This was the _coup de grace_ to Jennings, who looked scared and +terrified:--what! all gone--all, his own beloved hoard, and that +dear-bought crock of gold? Then Sir John added, after one minute of +dignified and indignant silence, + +"Begone!--Jonathan put him out; and if you will kick him out of the +hall-door on your private account, I'll forgive you for it." + +With that, the liveried Antinous raised the little monster by the small +of the back, drew him struggling from the presence, and lifting him up +like a football, inflicted one enormous kick that sent him spinning down +the whole flight of fifteen marble stairs. This exploit accomplished to +the satisfaction of all parties, Jonathan naturally enough returned to +look for Grace; and his master, with a couple of friends who had run to +the door to witness the catastrophe, returned immediately before him. + +"Lord George Pypp, you will oblige me by leaving the young woman alone;" +was Sir John's first angry reproof when he perceived the rustic beauty +radiant with indignation at some mean offence. + +"The worthy baronet wa-ants her for himself," drawled Pypp. + +"Say that again, my lord, and you shall follow Jennings." + +Whilst the noble youth was slowly elaborating a proper answer, +Jonathan's voice was heard once more: he had long looked very white, +kept both hands clenched, and seemed as if, saving his master's +presence, he could, and would have vanquished the whole room of them. + +"Master, have I your honour's permission to speak?" + +"No, Jonathan, I'll speak for you; if, that is to say, Lord George +will--" + +"Paardon me, Sir John Devereux Vincent, your feyllow--and his master, +are not fit company for Lord George Pypp;"--and he leisurely proceeded +to withdraw. + +"Stop a minute, Pypp, I've just one remark to make," hurriedly exclaimed +Mr. Lionel Poynter, "if Sir John will suffer me; Vincent, my good +friend, we are wrong--Pypp's wrong, and so am I. First then, let me beg +pardon of a very pretty girl, for making her look prettier by blushes; +next, as the maid really is engaged to you, my fine fellow, it is not +beneath a gentleman to say, I hope that you'll forgive me for too warmly +admiring your taste; as for George's imputation, Vincent--" + +"I beyg to observe," enunciated the noble scion, "I'm awf, Poynter." + +He gradually drew himself away, and the baronet never saw him more. + +"For shame, Pypp!" shouted after him the warm-hearted Siliphant; "I tell +you what it is, Vincent, you must let me give a toast:--'Grace and her +lover!' here, my man, your master allows you to take a glass of wine +with us; help your beauty too." + +The toast was drank with high applause: and before Jonathan humbly led +away his pleased and blushing Grace, he took an opportunity of saying, + +"If I may be bold enough to speak, kind gentlemen, I wish to thank you: +I oughtn't to be long, for I am nothing but your servant; let it be +enough to say my heart is full. And I'm in hopes it wouldn't be very +wrong in me, kind gentlemen, to propose;--'My noble master--honour and +happiness to him!'" + +"Bravo! Jonathan, bravo-o-o-o!" there was a clatter of glasses;--and the +humble pair of lovers retreated under cover of the toast. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII. + +SIMON ALONE. + + +Jennings gathered himself up, from that Jew-of-Malta tumble +down the steps, less damaged by the fall than could have been imagined +possible; the fact being that his cat-like nature had stood him in good +stead--he had lighted on his feet; and nothing but a mighty dorsal +bruise bore witness to the prowess of a Jonathan. + +But, if his body was comparatively sound, the inner man was bruised all +over: he crept back, and retreated to his room, in as broken and +despondent a frame of mind, as any could have wished to bless him +wherewithal. However, he still had one thing left to live for: his +hoard--that precious hoard within his iron box, and then--the crock of +gold. He took Sir John's threat about detaining, and so forth, as +merely future, and calculated on rendering it nugatory, by decamping +forthwith, chattels and all; but he little expected to find that the +idea had already been acted upon! + +On that identical afternoon, when Simon had gone forth to insult Grace +Acton with his villanous proposals, Sir John, on returning from a ride, +had commanded his own seal to be placed on all Mr. Jennings's effects, +and the boxes to be forthwith removed to a place of safety: induced +thereto by innumerable proofs from every quarter that the bailiff had +been cheating him on a most liberal scale, and plundering his tenants +systematically. Therefore, when Jennings hastened to his chamber to +console himself for all things by looking at his gold, and counting out +a bag or two--it was gone, gone, irrevocably gone! safely stored away +for rigid scrutiny in the grated muniment-room of Hurstley. Oh, what a +howl the caitiff gave, when he saw that his treasure had been taken! he +was a wild bull in a net; a crocodile caught upon the hooks; a hyena at +bay. What could he do? which way should he turn? how help himself, or +get his gold again? Unluckily--Oh, confusion, confusion!--his +account-books were along with all his hoard, those tell-tale legers, +wherein he had duly noted down, for his own private and triumphant +glance, the curious difference between his lawful and unlawful gains; +there, was every overcharge recorded, every matter of extortion +systematically ranged, that he might take all the tenants in their turn; +there, were filed the receipts of many honest men, whom the guardians +and Sir John had long believed to be greatly in arrear; there, was +recorded at length the catalogue of dues from tradesmen; there, the list +of bribes for the custom of the Hall. It would amply authorize Sir John +in appropriating the whole store; and Jennings thought of this with +terror. Every thing was now obviously lost, lost! Oh, sickening little +word, all lost! all he had ever lived for--all which had made him live +the life he did--all which made him fear to die. "Fear to die--ha! who +said that? I will not fear to die; yes, there is one escape left, I will +hazard the blind leap; this misery shall have an end--this sleepless, +haunted, cheated, hated wretch shall live no longer--ha! ha! ha! ha! +I'll do it! I'll do it!" + +Then did that wretched man strive in vain to kill himself, for his hour +was not yet come. His first idea was laudanum--that only mean of any +thing like rest to him for many weeks; and pouring out all he had, a +little phial, nearly half a wine-glass full, he quickly drank it off: no +use--no use; the agitation of his mind was too intense, and the habit +of a continually increasing dose had made him proof against the poison; +it would not even lull him, but seemed to stretch and rack his nerves, +exciting him to deeds of bloody daring. Should he rush out, like a Malay +running a muck, with a carving-knife in each hand, and kill right and +left:--vengeance! vengeance! on Jonathan Floyd, and John Vincent? No, +no; for some of them at last would overcome him, think him mad, and, O +terror!--his doom for life, without the means of death, would be +solitary confinement. "Stay! with this knife in my hand--means of +death--yes, it shall be so." And he hurriedly drew the knife across his +throat; no use, nothing done; his cowardly skin shrank away from +cutting--he dared not cut again; a little bloody scratch was all. + +But the heart, the heart--that should be easier! And the miscreant, not +quite a Cato, gave a feeble stab, that made a little puncture. Not yet, +Simon Jennings; no, not yet; you shall not cheat the gallows. "Ha! +hanging, hanging! why had I not thought of that before?" + +He mounted on a chair with a gimlet in his hand, and screwed it tightly +into the wainscotting as high as he could reach; then he took a cord +from the sacking of his bed, secured it to the gimlet, made a noose, put +his head in, kicked the chair away--and swung by his wounded neck; in +vain, all in vain; as he struggled in the agonies of self-protecting +nature, the handle of the gimlet came away, and he fell heavily to the +ground. + +"Bless us!" said Sarah to one of the house-maids, as they were arranging +their curl-papers to go to bed: "what can that noise be in Mr. +Jennings's room? his tall chest of drawers has fallen, I shouldn't +wonder: it was always unsafe to my mind. Listen, Jenny, will you?" + +Jenny crept out, and, as laudable females sometimes do, listened at +Simon's key-hole. + +"Lack-a-daisy, Sall, such a groaning and moaning; p'raps he's a-dying: +put on your cap again, and tell Jonathan to go and see." + +Sarah did as she was bid, and Jonathan did as he was bid; and there was +Mr. Jennings on the floor, blue in the face, with a halter round his +neck. + +The house was soon informed of the interesting event, and the bailiff +was nursed as tenderly as if he had been a sucking babe; fomentations, +applications, hot potations: but he soon came to again, without any hope +or wish to repeat the dread attempt: he was kept in bed, closely +watched, and Stephen Cramp, together with his rival, Eager, remained +continually in alternate attendance: until a day or two recovered him as +strong as ever. I told you, Simon Jennings, that your time was not yet +come. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV. + +THE TRIAL. + + +The trial now came on, and Roger Acton stood arraigned of +robbery and murder. I must hasten over lengthy legal technicalities, +which would only serve to swell this volume, without adding one iota to +its interest or usefulness. Nothing could be easier, nothing more worth +while, as a matter of mere book-making, than to tear a few pages out of +some musty record of Criminal Court Practice or other Newgate +Calendar-piece of authorship, and wade wearily through the length and +breadth of indictments, speeches, examinations, and all the other +learned clatter of six hours in the judgment-halls of law. If the reader +wishes for all this, let him pore over those unhealthy-looking books, +whose exterior is dove-coloured as the kirtle of innocence, but their +inwards black as the conscience of guilt; whitened sepulchres, all +spotless without; but within them are enshrined the quibbling knavery, +the distorted ingenuity, the mystifying learnedness, the warped and +warping views of truth, the lying, slandering, bad-excusing, +good-condemning principles and practices of those who cater for their +custom at the guiltiest felon's cell, and would glory in defending +Lucifer himself. + +In the case of sheer innocence, indeed, as Roger's was--or in one of +much doubt and secresy, where the client denies all guilt, and the +counsel sees reason to believe him--let the advocate manfully battle out +his cause: but where crime has poured out his confessions in a +counsellor's ear--is not this man bought by gold to be a partaker and +abettor in his sins, when he strives with all his might to clear the +guilty, and not seldom throws the hideous charge on innocence? If the +advocate has no wish to entrap his own conscience, nor to damage the +tissue of his honour, let him reject the client criminal who confesses, +and only plead for those from whom he has had no assurance of their +guilt; or, better far, whose innocence he heartily believes in. + +Such an advocate was Mr. Grantly, a barrister of talents and experience, +who, from motives of the purest benevolence, did all that in him lay for +Roger Acton. In one thing, however, and that of no small import, the +kindly cautious man of law had contrived to do more harm than good: for, +after having secretly made every effort, but in vain, to find Ben Burke +as a witness--and after having heard that the aforesaid Ben was a +notorious poacher, and only intimate at Hurstley with Acton and his +family--he strongly recommended Roger to say nothing about the man or +his adventure, as the acknowledgment of such an intimacy would only +damage his cause: all that need appear was, that he found the crock in +his garden, never mind how he "thought" it got there: poachers are not +much in the habit of flinging away pots of gold, and no jury would +believe but that the ill-reputed personage in question was an accomplice +in the murder, and had shared the spoil with his friend Roger Acton. All +this was very shrewd; and well meant; but was not so wise, for all that, +as simple truth would have been: nevertheless, Roger acquiesced in it, +for a better reason than Mr. Grantly's--namely, this: his feelings +toward poor Ben had undergone an amiable revulsion, and, well aware how +the whole neigbourhood were prejudiced against him for his freebooting +propensities, he feared to get his good rough friend into trouble if he +mentioned his nocturnal fishing at Pike island; especially when he +considered that little red Savings' Bank, which, though innocent as to +the getting, was questionable as to the rights of spending, and that, +really, if he involved the professed poacher in this mysterious affair, +he might put his liberty or life into very serious jeopardy. On this +account, then, which Grace could not entirely find fault with (though +she liked nothing that savoured of concealment), Roger Acton agreed to +abide by Mr. Grantly's advice; and thus he never alluded to his +connexion with the poacher. + +Enlightened as we are, and intimate with all the hidden secrets of the +story, we may be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding all Mr. +Grantly's ingenuity, and all the siftings of cross-questioners, the case +was clear as light against poor Acton. No _alibi_, he lived upon the +spot. No witnesses to character; for Roger's late excesses had wiped +away all former good report: kind Mr. Evans himself, with tears in his +eyes, acknowledged sadly that Acton had once been a regular church-goer, +a frequent communicant: but had fallen off of late, poor fellow! And +then, in spite of protestations to the contrary, behold! the _corpus +delicti_--that unlucky crock of gold, actually in the man's possession, +and the fragment of shawl--was not that sufficient? + +Jonathan Floyd in open court had been base enough to accuse Mr. Jennings +of the murder. Mr. Jennings indeed! a strict man of high character, +lately dismissed, after twenty years' service, in the most arbitrary +manner by young Sir John, who had taken a great liking to the Actons. +People could guess why, when they looked on Grace: and Grace, too, was +sufficient reason to account for Jonathan's wicked suspicions; of +course, it was the lover's interest to throw the charge on other people. +As to Mr. Jennings himself, just recovered from a fit of illness, it was +astonishing how liberally and indulgently he prayed the court to show +the prisoner mercy: his white and placid face looked quite benevolently +at him--and this respectable person was a murderer, eh, Mr. Jonathan? + +So, when the judge summed up, and clearly could neither find nor make a +loop-hole for the prisoner, the matter seemed accomplished; all knew +what the verdict must be--poor Roger Acton had not the shadow of a +chance. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV. + +ROGER'S DEFENCE. + + +Then, while the jury were consulting--they would not leave the +box, it seemed so clear--Roger broke the death-like silence; and he +said: + +"Judge, I crave your worship's leave to speak: and hearken to me, +countrymen. Many evil things have I done in my time, both against God +and my neighbour: I am ashamed, as well I may be, when I think on 'em: I +have sworn, and drunk, and lied; I have murmured loudly--coveted +wickedly--ay, and once I stole. It was a little theft, I lost it on the +spot, and never stole again: pray God, I never may. Nevertheless, +countrymen, and sinful though I be in the sight of Him who made us, +according to man's judgment and man's innocency, I had lived among you +all blameless, until I found that crock of gold. I did find it, +countrymen, as God is my witness, and, therefore, though a sinner, I +appeal to Him: He knoweth that I found it in the sedge that skirts my +garden, at the end of my own celery trench. I did wickedly and foolishly +to hide my find, worse to deny it, and worst of all to spend it in the +low lewd way I did. But of robbery I am guiltless as you are. And as to +this black charge of murder, till Simon Jennings spoke the word, I never +knew it had been done. Folk of Hurstley, friends and neighbours, you all +know Roger Acton--the old-time honest Roger of these forty years, +before the devil made him mad by giving him much gold--did he ever +maliciously do harm to man or woman, to child or poor dumb brute?--No, +countrymen, I am no murderer. That the seemings are against me, I wot +well; they may excuse your judgment in condemning me to death--and I and +the good gentleman there who took my part (Heaven bless you, sir!) +cannot go against the facts: but they speak falsely, and I truly; Roger +Acton is an innocent man: may God defend the right!" + +"Amen!" earnestly whispered a tremulous female voice, "and God will save +you, father." + +The court was still as death, except for sobbing; the jury were doubting +and confounded; in vain Mr. Jennings, looking at the foreman, shook his +head and stroked his chin in an incredulous and knowing manner; clearly +they must retire, not at all agreed; and the judge himself, that masqued +man in flowing wig and ermine, but still warmed by human sympathies, +struck a tear from his wrinkled cheek; and all seemed to be +involuntarily waiting (for the jury, though unable to decide, had not +yet left their box), to see whether any sudden miracle would happen to +save a man whom evidence made so guilty, and yet he bore upon his open +brow the genuine signature of Innocence. + +"Silence, there, silence! you can't get in; there's no room for'ards!" +But a couple of javelin-men at the door were knocked down right and +left, and through the dense and suffocating crowd, a black-whiskered +fellow, elbowing his way against their faces, spite of all obstruction, +struggled to the front behind the bar. Then, breathless with gigantic +exertion (it was like a mammoth treading down the cedars), he roared +out, + +"Judge, swear me, I'm a witness; huzza! it's not too late." + +And the irreverent gentleman tossed a fur cap right up to the skylight. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVI. + +THE WITNESS. + + +Mr. Grantly brightened up at once, Grace looked happily to +Heaven, and Roger Acton shouted out, + +"Thank God! thank God!--there's Ben Burke!" + +Yes, he had heard miles away of his friend's danger about an old shawl +and a honey-pot full of gold, and he had made all speed, with Tom in his +train, to come and bear witness to the innocence of Roger. The sensation +in court, as may be well conceived, was thrilling; but a vociferous +crier, and the deep anxiety to hear this sturdy witness, soon reduced +all again to silence. + +Then did they swear Benjamin Burke, who, to the scandal of his cause, +would insist upon stating his profession to be "poacher;" and at first, +poor simple fellow, seemed to have a notion that a sworn witness meant +one who swore continually; but he was soon convinced otherwise, and his +whole demeanour gradually became as polite and deferent as his coarse +nature would allow. And Ben told his adventure on Pike island, as we +have heard him tell it, pretty much in the same words, for the judge and +Mr. Grantly let him take his own courses; and then he added (with a +characteristic expletive, which we may as well omit, seeing it +occasioned a cry of "order" in the court), "There, if that there +white-livered little villain warn't the chap that brought the crocks, my +name an't Ben Burke." + +"Good Heavens! Mr. Jennings, what's the matter?" said a briefless one, +starting up: this was Mr. Sharp, a personage on former occasions +distinguished highly as a thieves' advocate, but now, unfortunately, out +of work. "Loosen his cravat, some one there; the gentleman is in fits." + +"Oh, Aunt--Aunt Quarles, don't throttle me; I'll tell all--all; let go, +let go!" and the wretched man slowly recovered, as Ben Burke said, + +"Ay, my lord, ask him yourself, the little wretch can tell you all about +it." + +"I submit, my lurd," interposed the briefless one, "that this +respectable gentleman is taken ill, and that his presence may now be +dispensed with, as a witness in the cause." + +"No, sir, no;" deliberately answered Jennings; "I must stay: the time I +find is come; I have not slept for weeks; I am exhausted utterly; I have +lost my gold; I am haunted by her ghost; I can go no where but that face +follows me--I can do nothing but her fingers clutch my throat. It is +time to end this misery. In hope to lay her spirit, I would have offered +up a victim: but--but she will not have him. Mine was the hand that--" + +"Pardon me," upstarted Mr. Sharp, "this poor gentleman is a mono-maniac; +pray, my lurd, let him be removed while the trial is proceeding." + +"You horse-hair hypocrite, you!" roared Ben, "would you hang the +innocent, and save the guilty?" + +Would he? would Mr. Philip Sharp? Ay, that he would; and glad of such a +famous opportunity. What! would not Newgate rejoice, and Horsemonger be +glad? Would not his bag be filled with briefs from the community of +burglars, and his purse be rich in gold subscribed by the brotherhood of +thieves? Great at once would be his name among the purlieus of iniquity: +and every rogue in London would retain but Philip Sharp. Would he? ask +him again. + +But Jennings quietly proceeded like a speaking statue. + +"I am not mad, most noble--" [the Bible-read villain was from habit +quoting Paul]--"my lord, I mean. My hand did the deed: I throttled her" +(here he gave a scared look over his shoulder): "yes--I did it once and +again: I took the crock of gold. You may hang me now, Aunt Quarles." + +"My lurd, my lurd, this is a most irregular proceeding," urged Mr. +Sharp; "on the part of the prisoner--I, I crave pardon--on behalf of +this most respectable and deluded gentleman, Mr. Simon Jennings, I +contend that no one may criminate himself in this way, without the +shadow of evidence to support such suicidal testimony. Really, my +lurd--" + +"Oh, sir, but my father may go free?" earnestly asked Grace. But Ben +Burke's voice--I had almost written woice--overwhelmed them all: + +"Let me speak, judge, an't it please your honour, and take you notice, +Master Horsehair. You wan't ewidence, do you, beyond the man's +confession: here, I'll give it you. Look at this here wice:" and he +stretched forth his well-known huge and horny hand: + +"When I caught that dridful little reptil by the arm, he wriggled like a +sniggled eel, so I was forced you see, to grasp him something tighter, +and could feel his little arm-bones crack like any chicken's: now then, +if his left elbow an't black and blue, though it's a month a-gone and +more, I'll eat it. Strip him and see." + +No need to struggle with the man, or tear his coat off. Jennings +appeared only too glad to find that there was other evidence than his +own foul tongue, and that he might be hung at last without sacking-rope +or gimlet; so, he quietly bared his arm, and the elbow looked all manner +of colours--a mass of old bruises. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVII. + +MR. SHARP'S ADVOCACY. + + +The whole court trembled with excitement: it was deep, still +silence; and the judge said, + +"Prisoner at the bar, there is now no evidence against you: gentlemen of +the jury, of course you will acquit him." + +The foreman: "All agreed, my lord, not guilty." + +"Roger Acton," said the judge, "to God alone you owe this marvellous, +almost miraculous, interposition: you have had many wrongs innocently to +endure, and I trust that the right feelings of society will requite you +for them in this world, as, if you serve Him, God will in the next. You +are honourably acquitted, and may leave this bar." + +In vain the crier shouted, in vain the javelin-men helped the crier, the +court was in a tumult of joy; Grace sprang to her father's neck, and Sir +John Vincent, who had been in attendance sitting near the judge all the +trial through, came down to him, and shook his hand warmly. + +Roger's eyes ran over, and he could only utter, + +"Thank God! thank God! He does better for me than I deserved." But the +court was hushed at last: the jury resworn; certain legal forms and +technicalities speedily attended to, as counts of indictment, and so +forth: and the judge then quietly said, + +"Simon Jennings, stand at that bar." + +He stood there like an image. + +"My lurd, I claim to be prisoner's counsel." + +"Mr. Sharp--the prisoner shall have proper assistance by all means; but +I do not see how it will help your case, if you cannot get your client +to plead not guilty." + +While Mr. Philip Sharp converses earnestly with the criminal in +confidential whispers, I will entertain the sagacious reader with a few +admirable lines I have just cut out of a newspaper: they are headed + + "SUPPRESSION OF TRUTH AND EXCLUSION OF EVIDENCE. + +"Lawyers abhor any short cut to the truth. The pursuit is the thing for +their pleasure and profit, and all their rules are framed for making the +most of it. + +"Crime is to them precisely what the fox is to the sportsman: and the +object is not to pounce on it, and capture it at once, but to have a +good run for it, and to exhibit skill and address in the chase. Whether +the culprit or the fox escape or not, is a matter of indifference, the +run being the main thing. + +"The punishment of crime is as foreign to the object of lawyers, as the +extirpation of the fox is to that of sportsmen. The sportsman, because +he hunts the fox, sees in the summary destruction of the fox by the hand +of a clown, an offence foul, strange, and unnatural, little short of +murder. The lawyer treats crime in the same way: his business is the +chase of it; but, that it may exist for the chase, he lays down rules +protecting it against surprises and capture by any methods but those of +the forensic field. + +"One good turn deserves another, and as the lawyer owes his business to +crime, he naturally makes it his business to favour and spare it as much +as possible. To seize and destroy it wherever it can be got at, seems to +him as barbarous as shooting a bird sitting, or a hare in her form, does +to the sportsman. The phrase, to give _law_, for the allowance of a +start, or any chance of escape, expresses the methods of lawyers in the +pursuit of crime, and has doubtless been derived from their practice. + +"Confession is the thing most hateful to law, for this stops its sport +at the outset. It is the surrender of the fox to the hounds. 'We don't +want your stinking body,' says the lawyer; 'we want the run after the +scent. Away with you, be off; retract your admission, take the benefit +of telling a lie, give us employment, and let us take our chance of +hunting out, in our roundabout ways, the truth, which we will not take +when it lies before us.'" + + * * * * * + +As I perceive that Mr. Sharp has not yet made much impression upon the +desponding prisoner, suffer me to recommend to your notice another +sensible leader: the abuse which it would combat calls loudly for +amendment. There is plenty of time to spare, for some preliminaries of +trial have yet to be arranged, and the judge has just stepped out to get +a sandwich, and every body stands at ease; moreover, gentle reader, the +paragraphs following are well worthy of your attention. Let us name +them, + + "MORBID SYMPATHIES. + +"We have often thought that the tenderness shown by our law to presumed +criminals is as injurious as it is inconsistent and excessive. A +miserable beggar, a petty rioter, the wretch who steals a loaf to +satisfy the gnawings of his hunger, is roughly seized, closely examined, +and severely punished; meanwhile, the plain common sense of our mobs, if +not of our magistracy, has pitied the offender, and perhaps acquitted +him. But let some apparent murderer be caught, almost in the flagrant +deed of his atrocity; let him, to the best of all human belief, have +killed, disembowelled, and dismembered; let him have united the coolness +of consummate craft to the boldest daring of iniquity, and straightway +(though the generous crowd may hoot and hunt the wretch with yelling +execration) he finds in law and lawyers, refuge, defenders, and +apologists. Tenderly and considerately is he cautioned on no account to +criminate himself: he is exhorted, even by judges, to withdraw the +honest and truthful plea of 'guilty,' now the only amends which such a +one can make to the outraged laws of God and man: he is defended, even +to the desperate length of malignant accusation of the innocent, by +learned men, whose aim it is to pervert justice and screen the guilty! +he is lodged and tended with more circumstances of outward comfort and +consideration than he probably has ever experienced in all his life +before; and if, notwithstanding the ingenuity of his advocates, and the +merciful glosses of his judge, a simple-minded British jury capitally +convict him, and he is handed over to the executioner, he still finds +pious gentlemen ready to weep over him in his cell, and titled dames to +send him white camellias, to wear upon his heart when he is hanging.[A] + +"Now what is the necessary consequence of this, but a mighty, a +fearfully influential premium on crime? And what is its radical cause, +but the absurd indulgence wherewith our law greets the favoured, +_because_ the atrocious criminal? Upon what principle of propriety, or +of natural justice, should a seeming murderer not be--we will not say +sternly, but even kindly--catechised, and for his very soul's sake +counselled to confess his guilt? Why should the _morale_ of evidence be +so thoroughly lost sight of, and a malefactor, who is ready to +acknowledge crime, or unable, when questioned, to conceal it, on no +account be listened to, lest he may do his precious life irreparable +harm? It is not agonized repentance, or incidental disclosure, that +makes the culprit his own executioner, but his crime that has preceded; +it is not the weak, avowing tongue, but the bold and bloody hand. + +"We are unwilling to allude specifically to the name of any recent +malefactor in connexion with these plain remarks; for, in the absence +alike of hindered voluntary confession and of incomplete legal evidence, +we would not prejudge, that is, prejudice a case. But we do desire to +exclaim against any further exhibition of that morbid tenderness +wherewith all persons are sure to be treated, if only they are accused +of enormities more than usually disgusting; and we specially protest +against that foolish, however ancient, rule in our criminal law, which +discourages and rejects the slenderest approach to a confession, while +it has sacrificed many an innocent victim to the uncertainty of +evidence, supported by nothing more safe than outward circumstantials." + +At length, and after much gesticulation and protestation, Mr. Sharp has +succeeded; he had apparently innoculated the miserable man with hopes; +for the miscreant now said firmly, "I plead not guilty." + + * * * * * + +The briefless one looked happy--nay, triumphant: Jennings was a wealthy +man, all knew; and, any how, he should bag a bouncing fee. How far such +money was likely to do him any good, he never stopped to ask. "Money is +money," said Philip Sharp and the Emperor Vespasian. + +We need not trouble ourselves to print Mr. Sharp's very flashy, flippant +speech. Suffice it to say, that, not content with asserting vehemently +on his conscience as a Christian, on his honour as a man, that Simon +Jennings was an innocent, maligned, persecuted individual; labouring, +perhaps, under mono-mania, but pure and gentle as the babe new-born--not +satisfied with traducing honest Ben Burke as a most suspicious witness, +probably a murderer--ay, _the_ murderer himself, a mere riotous ruffian +[Ben here chucked his cap at him, and thereby countenanced the charge], +a mere scoundrel, not to say scamp, whom no one should believe upon his +oath; he again, with all the semblance of sincerity, accused, however +vainly, Roger Acton: and lastly, to the disgust and astonishment of the +whole court, added, with all acted appearances of fervent zeal for +justice, "And I charge his pious daughter, too, that far too pretty +piece of goods, Grace Acton, with being accessory to this atrocious +crime after the fact!" + +There was a storm of shames and hisses; but the judge allayed it, +quietly saying, + +"Mr. Sharp, be so good as to confine your attention to your client; he +appears to be quite worthy of you." + +Then Mr. Sharp, like the firm just man immortalized by Flaccus, stood +stout against the visage of the judge, sneered at the wrath of citizens +commanding things unjust, turned to Ben Burke minaciously, calling him +"_Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae_" [as Burke had heard this quotation, he +thought it was about the "ducks" he had been decoying], and altogether +seemed not about to be put down, though the huge globe crack about his +ears. After this, he calmly worded on, seeming to regard the judge's +stinging observation with the same sort of indifference as the lion +would a dew-drop on his mane; and having poured out all manner of +voluminous bombast, he gradually ran down, and came to a conclusion; +then, jumping up refreshed, like the bounding of a tennis-ball, he +proceeded to call witnesses; and, judging from what happened at the +inquest, as well as because he wished to overwhelm a suspected and +suspecting witness, he pounced, somewhat infelicitously, on Jonathan +Floyd. + +"So, my fine young fellow, you are a footman, eh, at Hurstley?" + +"Yes, sir, an' it please you--or rather, an' it please my master." + +"You remember what happened on the night of the late Mrs. Quarles's +decease?" + +"Oh, many things happened; Mr. Jennings was lost, he wasn't to be found, +he was hid somewhere, nobody saw him till next morning." + +"Stop, sirrah! not quite so quick, if you please; you are on your oath, +be careful what you say. I have it in evidence, sirrah, before the +coroner;" and he looked triumphantly about him at this clencher to all +Jonathan's testimony; "that you saw him yourself that night speaking to +the dog; what do you mean by swearing that nobody saw him till next +morning?" + +"Well, mister, I mean this; whether or no poor old Mrs. Quarles saw her +affectionate nephew that night before the clock struck twelve, there's +none alive to tell; but no one else did--for Sarah and I sat up for him +till past midnight. He was hidden away somewhere, snug enough; and as I +verily believe, in the poor old 'ooman's own--" + +"Silence, silence! sir, I say; we want none of your impertinent guesses +here, if you please: to the point, sirrah, to the point; you swore +before the coroner, that you had seen Mr. Jennings, in his courage and +his kindness, quieting the dog that very night, and now--" + +"Oh," interrupted Jonathan in his turn, "for the matter of that, when I +saw him with the dog, it was hard upon five in the morning. And here, +gentlemen," added Floyd, with a promiscuous and comprehensive bow all +round, "if I may speak my mind about the business--" + +"Go down, sir!" said Mr. Sharp, who began to be afraid of truths. + +"Pardon me, this may be of importance," remarked Roger Acton's friend; +"say what you have to say, young man." + +"Well, then, gentlemen and my lord, I mean to say thus much. Jennings +there, the prisoner (and I'm glad to see him standing at the bar), swore +at the inquest that he went to quiet Don, going round through the front +door; now, none could get through that door without my hearing of him; +and certainly a little puny Simon like him could never do so without I +came to help him; for the lock was stiff with rust, and the bolt out of +his reach." + +"Stop, young man; my respected client, Mr. Jennings, got upon a chair." + +"Indeed, sir? then he must ha' created the chair for that special +purpose: there wasn't one in the hall then; no, nor for two days after, +when they came down bran-new from Dowbiggins in London, with the rest o' +the added furnitur' just before my honoured master." + +This was conclusive, certainly; and Floyd proceeded. + +"Now, gentlemen and my lord, if Jennings did not go that way, nor the +kitchen-way neither--for he always was too proud for scullery-door and +kitchen--and if he did not give himself the trouble to unfasten the +dining-room or study windows, or to unscrew the iron bars of his own +pantry, none of which is likely, gentlemen--there was but one other way +out, and that way was through Bridget Quarles's own room. Now--" + +"Ah--that room, that bed, that corpse, that crock!--It is no use, no +use," the wretched miscreant added slowly, after his first hurried +exclamations; "I did the deed, I did it! guilty, guilty." And, +notwithstanding all Mr. Sharp's benevolent interferences, and appeals to +judge and jury on the score of mono-mania, and shruggings-up of +shoulders at his client's folly, and virtuous indignation at the evident +leaning of the court--the murderer detailed what he had done. He spoke +quietly and firmly, in his usually stern and tyrannical style, as if +severe upon himself, for being what?--a man of blood, a thief, a +perjured false accuser? No, no; lower in the scale of Mammon's judgment, +worse in the estimate of him whose god is gold; he was now a pauper, a +mere moneyless forked animal; a beggared, emptied, worthless, penniless +creature: therefore was he stern against his ill-starred soul, and took +vengeance on himself for being poor. + +It was a consistent feeling, and common with the mercantile of this +world; to whom the accidents of fortune are every thing, and the +qualities of mind nothing; whose affections ebb and flow towards +friends, relations--yea, their own flesh and blood, with the varying +tide of wealth: whom a luckless speculation in cotton makes an enemy, +and gambling gains in corn restore a friend; men who fall down mentally +before the golden calf, and offer up their souls to Nebuchadnezzar's +idol: men who never saw harm nor shame in the craftiest usurer or +meanest pimp, provided he has thousands in the three per cents.; and +whose indulgent notions of iniquity reach their climax in the +phrase--the man is poor. + +So then, with unhallowed self-revenge, Simon rigidly detailed his +crimes: he led the whole court step by step, as I have led the reader, +through the length and breadth of that terrible night: of the facts he +concealed nothing, and the crowded hall of judgment shuddered as one +man, when he came to his awful disclosure, hitherto unsuspected, +unimagined, of that second strangulation: as to feelings, he might as +well have been a galvanized mummy, an automaton lay-figure enunciating +all with bellows and clapper, for any sense he seemed to have of shame, +or fear, or pity; he admitted his lie about the door, complimented Burke +on the accuracy of his evidence, and declared Roger Acton not merely +innocent, but ignorant of the murder. + +This done, without any start or trepidation in his manner as formerly, +he turned his head over his left shoulder, and said, in a deep whisper, +heard all over the court, "And now, Aunt Quarles, I am coming; look out, +woman, I will have my revenge for all your hauntings: again shall we +wrestle, again shall we battle, again shall I throttle you, again, +again!" + +O, most fearful thought! who knoweth but it may be true? that spirits of +wickedness and enmity may execute each other's punishment, as those of +righteousness and love minister each other's happiness! that--damned +among the damned--the spirit of a Nero may still delight in torturing, +and that those who in this world were mutual workers of iniquity, may +find themselves in the next, sworn retributors of wrath? No idle threat +was that of the demoniac Simon, and possibly with no vain fears did the +ghost of the murdered speed away. + +When the sensation of horror, which for a minute delayed the +court-business, and has given us occasion to think that fearful thought, +when this had gradually subsided, the foreman of the jury, turning to +the judge, said, + +"My lord, we will not trouble your lordship to sum up; we are all +agreed--Guilty." + +One word about Mr. Sharp: he was entirely chagrined; his fortunes were +at stake; he questioned whether any one in Newgate would think of him +again. To make matters worse, when he whispered for a fee to Mr. +Jennings (for he did whisper, however contrary to professional +etiquette), that worthy gentleman replied by a significant sneer, to the +effect that he had not a penny to give him, and would not if he had: +whereupon Mr. Sharp began to coincide with the rest of the world in +regarding so impoverished a murderer as an atrocious criminal; then, +turning from his client with contempt, he went to the length of +congratulating Roger on his escape, and actually offered his hand to Ben +Burke. The poacher's reply was characteristic: "As you means it kindly, +Master Horsehair, I won't take it for an insult: howsomdever, either +your hand or mine, I won't say which, is too dirty for shaking. Let me +do you a good turn, Master: there's a blue-bottle on your wig; I think +as it's Beelzebub a-whispering in your ear: allow me to drive him away." +And the poacher dealt him such a cuff that this barrister reeled again; +and instantly afterwards took advantage of the cloud of hair-powder to +leave the court unseen. + +[A] It has been stated as a fact, that a certain Lady L---- +S----, in her last interview with a young man, condemned to death for +the brutal murder of his sweetheart, presented him with a white +camellia, as a token of eternal peace, which the gallant gentleman +actually wore at the gallows in his button-hole. + + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. + +SENTENCE AND DEATH. + + +Silence, silence! shouted the indignant crier, and the +episodical cause of Burke, _v._ Sharp, was speedily hushed. + +The eyes of all now concentred on the miserable criminal; for the time, +every thing else seemed forgotten. Roger, Grace, and Ben, grouped +together in the midst of many friends, who had crowded round them to +congratulate, leaned forward like the rest of that dense hall, as simply +thralled spectators. Mr. Grantly lifted up a pair of very moistened eyes +behind his spectacles, and looked earnestly on, with his wig, from +agitation, wriggled tails in front. The judge (it was good old Baron +Parker) put on the black cap to pronounce sentence. There was a pause. + +But we have forgotten Simon Jennings--what was he about? did that +"cynosure of neighbouring eyes" appear alarmed at his position, anxious +at his fate, or even attentive to what was going on? No: he not only +appeared, but was, the most unconcerned individual in the whole court: +he even tried to elude utter vacancy of thought by amusing himself with +external things about him: and, on Wordsworth's principle of inducing +sleep by counting + + "A flock of sheep, that leisurely pass by, + One after one," + +he was trying to reckon, for pleasant peace of mind's sake, how many +folks were looking at him. Only see--he is turning his white stareful +face in every direction, and his lips are going a thousand and +forty-one, a thousand and forty-two, a thousand and forty-three; he will +not hurry it over, by leaving out the "thousand:" alas! this holiday of +idiotic occupation is all the respite now his soul can know. + +And the judge broke that awful silence, saying, + +"Prisoner at the bar, you are convicted on your own confession, as well +as upon other evidence, of crimes too horrible to speak of. The +deliberate repetition of that fearful murder, classes you among the +worst of wretches whom it has been my duty to condemn: and when to this +is added your perjured accusation of an innocent man, whom nothing but a +miracle has rescued, your guilt becomes appalling--too hideous for human +contemplation. Miserable man, prepare for death, and after that the +judgment; yet, even for you, if you repent, there may be pardon; it is +my privilege to tell even you, that life and hope are never to be +separated, so long as God is merciful, or man may be contrite. The +Sacrifice of Him who died for us all, for you, poor fellow-creature +[here the good judge wept for a minute like a child]--for you, no less +than for me, is available even to the chief of sinners. It is my duty +and my comfort to direct your blood-stained, but immortal soul, eagerly +to fly to that only refuge from eternal misery. As to this world, your +career of wickedness is at an end: covetousness has conceived and +generated murder; and murder has even over-stept its common bounds, to +repeat the terrible crime, and then to throw its guilt upon the +innocent. Entertain no hope whatever of a respite; mercy in your case +would be sin. + +"The sentence of the court is, that you, Simon Jennings, be taken from +that bar to the county jail, and thence on this day fortnight to be +conveyed to the place of execution within the prison, and there by the +hands of the common hangman be hanged by the neck--" + +At the word "neck," in the slow and solemn enunciation of the judge, +issued a terrific scream from the mouth of Simon Jennings: was he mad +after all--mad indeed? or was he being strangled by some unseen +executioner? Look at him, convulsively doing battle with an invisible +foe! his eyes start; his face gets bluer and bluer; his hands, fixed +like griffin's talons, clutch at vacancy--he wrestles--struggles--falls. + +All was now confusion: even the grave judge, who had necessarily stopped +at that frightful interruption, leaned eagerly over his desk, while +barristers and serjeants learned in the law crowded round the prisoner: +"He is dying! air, there--air! a glass of water, some one!" + +About a thimbleful of water, after fifty spillings, arrived safely in a +tumbler; but as for air, no one in that court had breathed any thing but +nitrogen for four hours. + +He was dying: and three several doctors, hoisted over the heads of an +admiring multitude, rushed to his relief with thirsty lancets: +apoplexy--oh, of course, apoplexy: and they nodded to each other +confidentially. + +Yes, he was dying: they might not move him now: he must die in his sins, +at that dread season, upon that dread spot. Perjury, robbery, and +murder--all had fastened on his soul, and were feeding there like +harpies at a Strophadian feast, or vultures ravening on the liver of +Prometheus. Guilt, vengeance, death had got hold of him, and rent him, +as wild horses tearing him asunder different ways; he lay there +gurgling, strangling, gasping, panting: none could help him, none could +give him ease; he was going on the dark, dull path in the bottom of that +awful valley, where Death's cold shadow overclouds it like a canopy; he +was sinking in that deep black water, that must some day drown us +all--pray Heaven, with hope to cheer us then, and comfort in the fierce +extremity! His eye filmed, his lower jaw relaxed, his head dropped +back--he was dying--dying--dying-- + +On a sudden, he rallied! his blood had rushed back again from head to +heart, and all the doctors were deceived--again he battled, and fought, +and wrestled, and flung them from him; again he howled, and his eyes +glared lightning--mad? Yes, mad--stark mad! quick--quick--we cannot hold +him: save yourselves there! + +But he only broke away from them to stand up free--then he gave one +scream, leaped high into the air, and fell down dead in the dock, with a +crimson stream of blood issuing from his mouth. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX. + +RIGHTEOUS MAMMON. + + +Thus the crock of gold had gained another victim. Is the curse of its +accumulation still unsatisfied? Must more misery be born of that +unhallowed store? Shall the poor man's wrongs, and his little ones' cry +for bread, and the widows' vain appeal for indulgence in necessity, and +the debtor's useless hope for time--more time--and the master's misused +bounty, and the murmuring dependants' ever-extorted dues--must the +frauds, falsehoods, meannesses, and hardnesses of half a century long, +concentrate in that small crock--must these plead still for bloody +judgments from on high against all who touch that gold? + +No! the miasma is dispelled: the curse is gone: the crimes are expiated. +The devil in that jar is dispossessed, and with Simon's last gasp has +returned unto his own place. The murderer is dead, and has thereby laid +the ghost of his mate in sin, the murdered victim; while that victim has +long ago paid by blood for her many years of mean domestic pilfering. + +And now I see a better angel hovering round the crock: it is purified, +sanctified, accepted. It is become a talent from the Lord, instead of a +temptation from the devil; and the same coin, which once has been but +dull, unrighteous mammon, through justice, thankfulness, and piety, +shineth as the shekel of the temple. Gratefully, as from God, the +rightful owner now may take the gift. + +For, gold is a creature of God, representing many excellencies: the +sweat of honest Industry distils to gold; the hot-spring of Genius +congeals to gold; the blessing upon Faithfulness is often showered in +gold; and Charities not seldom are guerdoned back with gold. Let no man +affect to despise what Providence hath set so high in power. None do so +but the man who has it not, and who knows that he covets it in vain. +Sour grapes--sour grapes--for he may not touch the vintage. This is not +the verdict of the wise; the temptation he may fear, the cares he may +confess, the misuse he may condemn: yet will he acknowledge that, +received at God's hand, and spent in his service, there is scarce a +creature in this nether world of higher name than Money. + +Beauty fadeth; Health dieth; Talents--yea, and Graces--go to bloom in +other spheres--but when Benevolence would bless, and bless for ages, +his blessing is vain, but for money--when Wisdom would teach, and teach +for ages, the teacher must be fed, and the school built, and the scholar +helped upon his way by money--righteous money. There is a righteous +money as there is unrighteous mammon; but both have their ministrations +here limited to earth and time; the one, a fruit of heaven--the other, a +fungus from below: yet the fruit will bring no blessing, if the Grower +be forgotten; neither shall the fungus yield a poison, if warmed awhile +beneath the better sun. Like all other gifts, given to us sweet, but +spoilt in the using, gold may turn to good or ill: Health may kick, like +fat Jeshurun in his wantonness; Power may change from beneficence to +tyranny; Learning may grow critical in motes until it overlooks the +sunbeam; Love may be degraded to an instinct; Zaccheus may turn +Pharisee; Religion may cant into the hypocrite, or dogmatize to +theologic hate. Even so it is with money: its power of doing good has no +other equivalent in this world than its power of doing evil: it is like +fire--used for hospitable warmth, or wide-wasting ravages; like air--the +gentle zephyr, or the destroying hurricane. Nevertheless, all is for +this world--this world only; a matter extraneous to the spirit, always +foreign, often-times adversary: let a man beware of lading himself with +that thick clay. + +I see a cygnet on the broad Pactolus, stemming the waters with its downy +breast; and anon, it would rise upon the wing, and soar to other skies; +so, taking down that snow-white sail, it seeks for a moment to rest its +foot on shore, and thence take flight: alas, poor bird! thou art sinking +in those golden sands, the heavy morsels clog thy flapping wing--in +vain--in vain thou triest to rise--Pactolus chains thee down. + +Even such is wealth unto the wisest; wealth at its purest source, +exponent of labour and of mind. But, to the frequent fool, heaped with +foulest dross--for the cygnet of Pactolus and those golden sands, +read--the hippopotamus wallowing in the Niger, and smothered in a bay of +mud. + + + + +CHAPTER L. + +THE CROCK A BLESSING. + + +There was no will found: it is likely Mrs. Quarles had never made one; +she feared death too much, and all that put her in mind of it. So the +next of kin, the only one to have the crock of gold, was Susan Scott, a +good, honest, hard-working woman, whom Jennings, by many arts, had kept +away from Hurstley: her husband, a poor thatcher, sadly out of work +except in ricking time, and crippled in both legs by having fallen from +a hay-stack: and as to the family, it was already as long a flight of +steps as would reach to an ordinary first floor, with a prospect (so the +gossips said) of more in the distance. Susan was a Wesleyan +Methodist--many may think, more the pity: but she neither disliked +church, nor called it steeple-house: only, forasmuch as Hagglesfield was +blessed with a sporting parson, the chief reminders of whose presence in +the parish were strifes perpetual about dues and tithes, it is little +blame or wonder, if the starving sheep went anywhither else for +pasturage and water. So, then, Susan was a good mother, a kind +neighbour, a religious, humble-minded Christian: is it not a comfort now +to know that the gold was poured into her lap, and that she hallowed her +good luck by prayers and praises? + +I judge it worth while stepping over to Hagglesfield for a couple of +minutes, to find out how she used that gold, and made the crock a +blessing. Susan first thought of her debts: so, to every village shop +around, I fear they were not a few, which had kindly given her credit, +some for weeks, some for months, and more than one for a year, the happy +house-wife went to pay in full; and not this only, but with many +thanks, to press a little present upon each, for well-timed help in her +adversity. + +The next thought was near akin to it: to take out of pawn divers valued +articles, two or three of which had been her mother's; for Reuben's +lameness, poor man, kept him much out of work, and the childer came so +quick, and ate so fast, and wore out such a sight of shoes, that, but +for an occasional appeal to Mrs. Quarles--it was her one fair feature +this--they must long ago have been upon the parish: now, however, all +the ancestral articles were redeemed, and honour no doubt with them. + +Thirdly, Susan went to her minister in best bib and tucker, and humbly +begged leave to give a guinea to the school; and she hoped his reverence +wouldn't be above accepting a turkey and chine, as a small token of her +gratitude to him for many consolations: it pleased me much to hear that +the good man had insisted upon Susan and her husband coming to eat it +with him the next day at noon. + +Fourthly, Susan prudently set to work, and rigged out the whole family +in tidy clothes, with a touch of mourning upon each for poor Aunt +Bridget, and unhappy brother Simon; while the fifthly, sixthly, and to +conclude, were concerned in a world of notable and useful schemes, with +a strong resolution to save as much as possible for schooling and +getting out the children. + +It was wonderful to see how much good was in that gold, how large a fund +of blessing was hidden in that crock: Reuben Scott gained health, the +family were fed, clad, taught; Susan grew in happiness at least as truly +as in girth; and Hagglesfield beheld the goodness of that store, whose +curse had startled all Hurstley-cum-Piggesworth. + +But also at Hurstley now are found its consequential blessings. + +We must take another peep at Roger and sweet Grace; they, and Ben too, +and Jonathan, and Jonathan's master, may all have cause to thank an +overruling Providence, for blessing on the score of Bridget's crock. +Only before I come to that, I wish to be dull a little hereabouts, and +moralize: the reader may skip it, if he will--but I do not recommend him +so to do. + +For, evermore in the government of God, good groweth out of evil: and, +whether man note the fact or not, Providence, with secret care, doth +vindicate itself. There is justice done continually, even on this stage +of trial, though many pine and murmur: substantial retribution, even in +this poor dislocated world of wrong, not seldom overtakes the sinner, +not seldom encourages the saint. Encourages? yea, and punishes: blessing +him with kind severity; teaching him to know himself a mere bad root, if +he be not grafted on his God; proving that the laws which govern life +are just, and wise, and kind; showing him that a man's own heart's +desire, if fulfilled, would probably tend to nothing short of sin, +sorrow, and calamity; that many seeming goods are withheld, because they +are evils in disguise; and many seeming ills allowed, because they are +masqueraded blessings; and demonstrating, as in this strange tale, that +the unrighteous Mammon is a cruel master, a foul tempter, a pestilent +destroyer of all peace, and a teeming source of both world's misery. + +Listen to the sayings of the Wisest King of men: + +"As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more: but the righteous +is an everlasting foundation." + +"The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his +stead." + +"He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall +flourish as a branch." + +"Better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues without +right." + +"The wicked shall be a ransom for the righteous, and the transgressor +for the upright." + +"A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the +wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just." + + + + +CHAPTER LI. + +POPULARITY. + + +The storm is lulled: the billows of temptation have ebbed away +from shore, and the clouds of adversity have flown to other skies. + +"The winter is past; the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear upon +the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of +the turtle is heard in our land: the fig-tree putteth forth his green +figs, and the blossoms of the vine smell sweetly. Arise, and come away." + +Yesterday's trial, and its unlooked-for issue, have raised Roger Acton +to the rank of hero. The town's excitement is intense: and the little +inn, where he and Grace had spent the night in gratitude and prayerful +praise, is besieged by carriages full of lords and gentlemen, eager to +see and speak with Roger. + +Humbly and reverently, yet preserving an air of quiet self-possession, +the labourer received their courteous kindnesses; and acquitted himself +of what may well be called the honours of that levee, with a dignity +native to the true-born Briton, from the time of Caractacus at Rome to +our own. + +But if Roger was a demi-god, Grace was at the least a goddess; she +charmed all hearts with her modest beauty. Back with the shades of +night, and the prison-funeral of Jennings, fled envy, hatred, malice, +and all uncharitableness; the elderly sisterhood of Hurstley, not to be +out of a fashion set by titled dames, hastened to acknowledge her +perfections; Calumny was shamed, and hid his face; the uncles, aunts, +and cousins of the hill-top yonder, were glad to hold their tongues, and +bite their nails in peace: Farmer Floyd and his Mrs. positively came +with peace-offerings--some sausage-meat, elder-wine, jam, and other +dainties, which were to them the choicest sweets of life: and as for +Jonathan, he never felt so proud of Grace in all his life before; the +handsome fellow stood at least a couple of inches taller. + +Honest Ben Burke, too, that most important witness--whose coming was as +Blucher's at Waterloo, and secured the well-earned conquest of the +day--though it must be confessed that his appearance was something of +the satyr, still had he been Phoebus Apollo in person, he would +scarcely have excited sincerer admiration. More than one fair creature +sketched his unkempt head, and loudly wished that its owner was a +bandit; more than one bright eye discovered beauty in his open +countenance--though a little soap and water might have made it more +distinguishable. Well--well--honest Ben--they looked, and wisely looked, +at the frank and friendly mind hidden under that rough carcase, and +little wonder that they loved it. + +Now, to all this stream of hearty English sympathy, the kind and proper +feeling of young Sir John resolved to give a right direction. His +fashionable friends were gone, except Silliphant and Poynter, both good +fellows in the main, and all the better for the absence (among others) +of that padded old debauchee, Sir Richard Hunt, knight of the order of +St. Sapphira--that frivolous inanity, Lord George Pypp--and that +professed gentleman of gallantry, Mr. Harry Mynton. The follies and the +vices had decamped--had scummed off, so to speak--leaving the more +rectified spirits behind them, to recover at leisure, as best they +might, from all that ferment of dissipation. So, then, there was now +neither ridicule, nor interest, to stand in the way of a young and +wealthy heir's well-timed schemes of generosity. + +Well-timed they were, and Sir John knew it, though calculation seldom +had a footing in his warm and heedless heart; but he could not shut his +eyes to the fact, that the state of feeling among his hereditary +labourers was any thing but pleasant. In truth, owing to the desperate +malpractices of Quarles and Jennings, perhaps no property in the kingdom +had got so ill a name as Hurstley: discontent reigned paramount; +incendiary fires had more than once occurred; threatening notices, very +ill-spelt, and signed by one _soi-disant_ Captain Blood, had been +dropped, in dead of winter, at the door-sills of the principal farmers; +and all the other fruits of long-continued penury, extortion, and +mis-government, were hanging ripe upon the bough--a foul and fatal +harvest. + +Therefore, did the kind young landlord, who had come to live among his +own peasantry, resolve, not more nobly than wisely, to seize an +opportunity so good as this, for restoring, by a stroke of generous +policy, peace and content on his domain. No doubt, the baronet rejoiced, +as well he might, at the honourable acquittal of innocence, and the +mysteries of murder now cleared up; he made small secret of his +satisfaction at the doom of Jennings; and, as for Bridget Quarles, by +all he could learn of her from tenants' wives, and other female +dependants, he had no mind to wish her back again, or to think her fate +ill-timed: nevertheless, he was even more glad of an occasion to +vindicate his own good feelings; and prove to the world that bailiff +Simon Jennings was a very opposite character to landlord Sir John +Devereux Vincent. + +To carry out his plan, he determined to redress all wrongs within one +day, and to commence by bringing "honest Roger" in triumph home again to +Hurstley; following the suggestion of Baron Parker, to make some social +compensation for his wrongs. With this view, Sir John took counsel of +the county-town authorities, and it was agreed unanimously, excepting +only one dissenting vote--a rich and radical Quaker, one Isaac Sneak, +grocer, and of the body corporate, who refused to lose one day's service +of his shopmen, and thereby (I rejoice to add) succeeded in getting rid +of fifteen good annual customers--it was agreed, then, and arranged that +the morrow should be a public holiday. All Sir John's own tenantry, as +well as Squire Ryle's, and some of other neighbouring magnates, were to +have a day's wages without work, on the easy conditions of attending the +procession in their smartest trim, and of banqueting at Hurstley +afterwards. So, then, the town-band was ordered to be in attendance next +morning by eleven at the Swan, a lot of old election colours were shaken +from their dust and cobwebs, the bell-ringers engaged, vasty +preparations of ale and beef made at Hurstley Hall--an ox to be roasted +whole upon the terrace, and a plum-pudding already in the cauldron of +two good yards in circumference--and all that every body hoped for that +night, was a fine May-day to-morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER LII. + +ROGER AT THE SWAN. + + +Meanwhile, eventide came on: the crowd of kindly gentle-folks +had gone their several ways; and Roger Acton found himself (through Sir +John's largess) at free quarters in the parlour of the Swan, with Grace +by his side, and many of his mates in toil and station round him. + +"Grace," said her father on a sudden, "Grace--my dear child--come +hither." She stood in all her loveliness before him. Then he took her +hand, looked up at her affectionately, and leaned back in the old oak +chair. + +"Hear me, mates and neighbours; to my own girl, Grace, under God, I owe +my poor soul's welfare. I have nothing, would I had, to give her in +return:" and the old man (he looked ten years older for his six weeks, +luck, and care, and trouble)--the old man could not get on at all with +what he had to say--something stuck in his throat--but he recovered, and +added cheerily, with an abrupt and rustic archness, "I don't know, +mates, whether after all I can't give the good girl something: I can +give her--away! Come hither, Jonathan Floyd; you are a noble fellow, +that stood by us in adversity, and are almost worthy of my angel Grace." +And he joined their hands. + +"Give us thy blessing too, dear father!" + +They kneeled at his feet on the sanded floor, in the midst of their +kinsfolk and acquaintance, and he, stretching forth his hands like a +patriarch, looked piously up to heaven, and blessed them there. + +"Grace," he added, "and Jonathan my son, I need not part with you--I +could not. I have heard great tidings. To-morrow you shall know how kind +and good Sir John is: God bless him! and send poor England's children of +the soil many masters like him. + +"And now, mates, one last word from Roger Acton; a short word, and a +simple, that you may not forget it. My sin was love of money: my +punishment, its possession. Mates, remember Him who sent you to be +labourers, and love the lot He gives you. Be thankful if His blessing on +your industry keeps you in regular work and fair wages: ask no more from +God of this world's good. Believe things kindly of the gentle-folks, for +many sins are heaped upon their heads, whereof their hearts are +innocent. Never listen to the counsels of a servant, who takes away his +master's character: for of such are the poor man's worst oppressors. Be +satisfied with all your lowliness on earth, and keep your just ambitions +for another world. Flee strong liquors and ill company. Nurse no heated +hopes, no will-o'-the-wisp bright wishes: rather let your warmest hopes +be temperately these--health, work, wages: and as for wishing, mates, +wish any thing you will--sooner than to find a crock of gold." + + + + +CHAPTER LIII. + +ROGER'S TRIUMPH. + + +The steeples rang out merrily, full chime; High street was gay with +streamers; the town-band busily assembling; a host of happy urchins from +emancipated schools, were shouting in all manner of keys all manner of +gleeful noises: every body seemed a-stir. + +A proud man that day was Roger Acton; not of his deserts--they were +worse than none, he knew it; not of the procession--no silly child was +he, to be caught with toy and tinsel; God wot, he was meek enough in +self--and as for other pride, he knew from old electioneerings, what a +humbling thing is triumph. + +But when he saw from the windows of the Swan, those crowds of new-made +friends trooping up in holiday suits with flags, and wands, and +corporation badges--when the band for a commencement struck up the +heart-stirring hymn 'God save the Queen,'--when the horsemen, and +carriages, and gigs, and carts assembled--when the baronet's own +barouche and four, dashing up to the door, had come from Hurstley Hall +for _him_--when Sir John, the happiest of the happy, alighting with his +two friends, had displaced them for Roger and Grace, while the kind +gentlemen took horse, and headed the procession--when Ben Burke (as +clean as soap could get him, and bedecked in new attire) was ordered to +sit beside Jonathan in the rumble-tumble--when the cheering, and the +merry-going bells, and the quick-march 'British Grenadiers,' rapidly +succeeding the national anthem--when all these tokens of a generous +sympathy smote upon his ears, his eyes, his heart, Roger Acton wept +aloud--he wept for very pride and joy: proud and glad was he that day of +his country, of his countrymen, of his generous landlord, of his gentle +Grace, of his vindicated innocence, and of God, "who had done so great +things for him." + +So, the happy cavalcade moved on, horse and foot, and carts and +carriages, through the noisy town, along the thronged high road, down +the quiet lanes that lead to Hurstley; welcomed at every cottage-door +with boisterous huzzas, and adding to its ranks at every corner. And so +they reached the village, where the band struck up, + + "See the conquering hero comes, + Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!" + +Is not this returning like a nabob, Roger? Hath not God blest thee +through the crock of gold at last, in spite of sin? + +There, at the entrance by the mile-stone, stood Mary and the babes, with +a knot of friends around her, bright with happiness; on the top of it +was perched son Tom, waving the blue and silver flag of Hurstley, and +acting as fugleman to a crowd of uproarious cheerers; and beside it, on +the bank, sat Sarah Stack, overcome with joy, and sobbing like a +gladsome Niobe. + +And the village bells went merrily; every cottage was gay with spring +garlands, and each familiar face lit up with looks of kindness; Hark! +hark!--"Welcome, honest Roger, welcome home again!" they shout: and the +patereroes on the lawn thunder a salute; "welcome, honest +neighbour;"--and up went, at bright noon, Tom Stableboy's dozen of +rockets wrapped around with streamers of glazed calico--"welcome, +welcome!" + +Good Mr. Evans stood at the door of fine old Hurstley, in wig, and band, +and cassock, to receive back his wandering sheep that had been lost: and +the school-children, ranged upon the steps, thrillingly sang out the +beautiful chant, "I will arise, and go to my Father, and will say unto +Him, 'Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no +more worthy to be called thy son!'" + +Every head was uncovered, and every cheek ran down with tears. + + + + +CHAPTER LIV. + +SIR JOHN'S PARTING SPEECH. + + +Then Sir John, standing up in the barouche at his own +hall-door, addressed the assembled multitude: + +"Friends, we are gathered here to-day, in the cause of common justice +and brotherly kindness. There are many of you whom I see around me, my +tenants, neighbours, or dependants, who have met with wrongs and +extortions heretofore, but you all shall be righted in your turn; trust +me, men, the old hard times are gone, your landlord lives among you, and +his first care shall be to redress your many grievances, paying back the +gains of your oppressor." + +"God bless you, sir, God bless you!" was the echo from many a gladdened +heart. + +"But before I hear your several claims in turn, which shall be done +to-morrow, our chief duty this day is to recompense an honest man for +all that he has innocently suffered. It is five-and-thirty years, as I +find by my books, on this very first of May, since Roger Acton first +began to work at Hurstley; till within this now past evil month, he has +always been the honest steady fellow that you knew him from his youth: +what say you, men, to having as a bailiff one of yourselves; a kind and +humble man, a good man, the best hand in the parish in all the works of +your vocation--a steady mind, an honest heart--what say ye all to Roger +Acton?" + +There was a whirlwind of tumultuous applause. + +"Moreover, men, though you all, each according to his measure and my +means, shall meet with liberal justice for your lesser ills, yet we must +all remember that Bailiff Acton here had nearly died a felon's death, +through that bad man Jennings and the unlucky crock of gold; in +addition, extortion has gone greater lengths with him, than with any +other on the property; I find that for the last twenty years, Roger +Acton has regularly paid to that monster of oppression who is now dead, +a double rent--four guineas instead of forty shillings. I desire, as a +good master, to make amends for the crimes of my wicked servant; +therefore in this bag, Bailiff Acton, is returned to you all the rent +you ever paid;" [Roger could not speak for tears;]--"and your cottage +repaired and fitted, with an acre round it, is yours and your +children's, rent-free for ever." + +"Huzzah, huzzah!" roared Ben from the dickey, in a gush of disinterested +joy; and then, like an experienced toast-master, he marshalled in due +hip, hip, hip order, the shouts of acclamation that rent the air. In an +interval of silence, Sir John added, + +"As for you, good-hearted fellow, if you will only mend your speech, +I'll make you one of my keepers; you shall call yourself licensed +poacher, if you choose." + +"Blessings on your honour! you've made an honest man o' me." + +"And now, Jonathan Floyd, I have one word to say to you, sir. I hear you +are to marry our Roger's pretty Grace." Jonathan appeared like a sheep +in livery. + +"You must quit my service." Jonathan was quite alarmed. "Do you suppose, +Master Jonathan, that I can house at Hurstley, before a Lady Vincent +comes amongst us to keep the gossips quiet, such a charming little wife +as that, and all her ruddy children?" + +It was Grace's turn to feel confused, so she "looked like a rose in +June," and blushed all over, as Charles Lamb's Astraea did, down to the +ankle. + +"Yes, Jonathan, you and I must part, but we part good friends: you have +been a noble lover: may you make the girl a good and happy husband! +Jennings has been robbing me and those about me for years: it is +impossible to separate specially my rights from his extortions: but all, +as I have said, shall be satisfied: meanwhile, his hoards are mine. I +appropriate one half of them for other claimants; the remaining half I +give to Grace Floyd as dower. Don't be a fool, Jonathan, and blubber; +look to your Grace there, she's fainting--you can set up landlord for +yourself, do you hear?--for I make yours honestly, as much as Roger +found in his now lucky Crock of Gold." + +Poor Roger, quite unmanned, could only wave his hat, and--the curtain +falls amid thunders of applause. + + +END OF THE CROCK OF GOLD. + + + * * * * * + + +THE TWINS; + +A DOMESTIC NOVEL. + + +BY + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S. + +AUTHOR OF + +PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAP. PAGE. + +1. Place; Time; Circumstance 157 + +2. The Heroes 161 + +3. The Arrival 166 + +4. The General and his Ward 168 + +5. Jealousy 172 + +6. The Confidante 174 + +7. The Course of True Love 177 + +8. The Mystery 180 + +9. How to clear it up 182 + +10. Aunt Green's Legacy 184 + +11. Preparations, and Departure 188 + +12. The Escape 192 + +13. News of Charles 196 + +14. The Tete-a-Tete 199 + +15. Satisfaction 202 + +16. How Charles Fared 204 + +17. The General's Return 207 + +18. Intercalary 211 + +19. Julian's Departure 213 + +20. Enlightenment 215 + +21. Charles at Madras 216 + +22. Revelations 219 + +23. Convalescence 222 + +24. Charles Delayed 224 + +25. Trials 229 + +26. Julian 231 + +27. Charles's Return, &c. 233 + +28. Julian turns up, &c. 237 + +29. The old Scotch Nurse goes home 238 + +30. Final 241 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +PLACE: TIME: CIRCUMSTANCE. + + +Burleigh-Singleton is a pleasant little watering-place on the southern +coast of England, entirely suitable for those who have small incomes and +good consciences. The latter, to residents especially, are at least as +indispensable as the former: seeing that, however just the reputation of +their growing little town for superior cheapness in matters of meat and +drink, its character in things regarding men and manners is quite as +undeniable for preeminent dullness. + +Not but that it has its varieties of scene, and more or less of +circumstances too: there are, on one flank, the breezy Heights, with +flag-staff and panorama; on the other, broad and level water-meadows, +skirted by the dark-flowing Mullet, running to the sea between its +tortuous banks: for neighbourhood, Pacton Park is one great +attraction--the pretty market-town of Eyemouth another--the everlasting, +never-tiring sea a third; and, at high-summer, when the Devonshire lanes +are not knee-deep in mire, the nevertheless immeasurably filthy, though +picturesque, mud-built village of Oxton. + +Then again (and really as I enumerate these multitudinous advantages, I +begin to relent for having called it dull), you may pick up curious +agate pebbles on the beach, as well as corallines and scarce sea-weeds, +good for gumming on front-parlour windows; you may fish _for_ whitings +in the bay, and occasionally catch them; you may wade in huge caoutchouc +boots among the muddy shallows of the Mullet, and shoot _at_ cormorants +and curlews; you may walk to satiety between high-banked and rather +dirty cross-roads; and, if you will scramble up the hedge-row, may get +now and then peeps of undulated country landscape. + +Moreover, you have free liberty to drop in any where to +"tiffin"--Burleigh being very Indianized, and a guest always welcome; +indeed, so Indianized is it, so populous in jaundiced cheek and ailing +livers, that you may openly assert, without fear of being misunderstood +(if you wish to vary your common phrase of loyalty), that Victoria sits +upon the "musnud" of Great Britain; you may order curry in the smallest +pot-house, and still be sure to get the rice well-cooked; you may call +your house-maid "ayah," without risk of warning for impertinence; you +may vent your wrath against indolent waiters in eloquence of "jaa, +soostee;" and, finally, you may go to the library, and besides the +advantage of the day-before-yesterday's Times, you may behold in bilious +presence an affable, but authoritative, old gentleman, who introduces +himself, "Sir, you see in me the hero of Puttymuddyfudgepoor." + +You may even now see such an one, I say, and hear him too, if you will +but go to Burleigh; seeing he has by this time over-lived the year or so +whereof our tale discourses. He has, by dint of service, attained to the +dignity of General H.E.I.C.S., and--which he was still longer coming +to--the wisdom of being a communicative creature; though possibly, by a +natural reaction, at present he carries anti-secresy a little too far, +and verges on the gossiping extreme. But, at the time to which we must +look back to commence this right-instructive story, General Tracy was +still drinking "Hodgson's Pale" in India, was so taciturn as to be +considered almost dumb, and had not yet lifted up his yellow visage upon +Albion's white cliffs, nor taken up head-quarters in his final rest of +Burleigh-Singleton. + +Nevertheless, with reference to quartering at Burleigh, a certain +long-neglected wife of his, Mrs. Tracy, had; and that for the period of +at least the twenty-one years preceding: how and wherefore I proceed to +tell. + +A common case and common fate was that of Mrs. Tracy. She had married, +both early and hastily, a gallant lieutenant, John George Julian Tracy, +to wit, the military germ of our future general; their courtship and +acquaintance previous to matrimony extended over the not inconsiderable +space of three whole weeks--commencing with a country ball; and after +marriage, honey-moon inclusive, they lived the life of cooing doves for +three whole months. + +And now came the furlough's end: Mr. Tracy, in his then habitual reserve +(a quiet man was he), had concealed its existence altogether: and, for +aught Jane knew, the hearty invalid was to remain at home for ever: but +months soon slip away; and so it came to pass, that on a certain next +Wednesday he must be on his way back to the Presidency of Madras, +and--if she will not follow him--he must leave her. + +However, there was a certain old relative, one Mrs. Green, a childless +widow--rich, capricious, and infirm--whom Jane Tracy did not wish to +lose sight of: her money was well worth both watching and waiting for; +and the captain, whom a lucky chance had now lifted out of the +lieutenancy, was easily persuaded to forego the pleasure of his wife's +company till the somewhat indefinite period of her old aunt's death. + +How far sundry discoveries made in the unknown regions of each other's +temper reconciled him to this retrograding bachelorship, and her to her +widowhood-bewitched, I will not undertake to say: but I will hazard the +remark, anti-poor-law though it seemeth, that the separation of man and +wife, however convenient, lucrative, or even mutually pleasant, is a +dereliction of duty, which always deserves, and generally meets, its +proper and discriminative punishment. Had the young wife faithfully +performed her Maker's bidding, and left all other ties unstrung to +cleave unto her lord; had she considered a husband's true affections +before all other wealth, and resolved to share his dangers, to solace +his cares, to be his blessing through life, and his partner even unto +death, rather than selfishly to seek her own comfort, and consult her +own interest--the tale of crime and sadness, which it is my lot to tell, +would never have had truth for its foundation. + +Ill-matched for happiness though they were, however well-matched as to +mutual merit, the common man of pleasure and the frivolous woman of +fashion, still the wisest way to fuse their minds to union, the +likeliest receipt for moral good and social comfort, would have been +this course of foreign scenes, of new faces, sprinkled with a seasoning +of adventure, hardship, danger, in a distant land. Gradually would they +have learned to bear and forbear; the petty quarrel would have been +forgotten in the frequent kindness; the rougher edges of temper and +opinion would insensibly have smoothed away; new circumstances would +have brought out better feelings under happier skies; old acquaintances, +false friends forgotten, would have neutralized old feuds: and, by +long-living together, though it were perhaps amid various worries and +many cares, they might still have come to a good old age with more than +average happiness, and more than the common run of love. Patience in +dutiful enduring brings a sure reward: and marriage, however irksome a +constraint to the foolish and the gay, is still so wise an ordinance, +that the most ill-assorted couple imaginable will unconsciously grow +happy, if they only remain true to one another, and will learn the +wisdom always to hope and often to forgive. + +The Tracys, however, overlooked all this, and mutual friends (those +invariable foes to all that is generous and unworldly) smiled upon the +prudence of their temporary separation. The captain was to come home +again on furlough in five years at furthest, even if the aunt held out +so long; and this availed to keep his wife in the rear-guard; therefore, +Mrs. Tracy wiped her eyes, bade adieu to her retreating lord in Plymouth +Sound, and determined to abide, with other expectant dames and Asiatic +invalided heroes, at Burleigh-Singleton, until she might go to him, or +he return to her: for pleasant little Burleigh, besides its contiguity +to arriving Indiamen, was advantageous as being the dwelling-place of +aforesaid Mrs. Green;--that wealthy, widowed aunt, devoutly wished in +heaven: and the considerate old soul had offered her designing niece a +home with her till Tracy could come back. + +During the first year of absence, ship-letters and India-letters arrived +duteously in consecutive succession: but somehow or other, the regular +post, in no long time afterwards, became unfaithful to its trust; and if +Mrs. Jane heard quarterly, which at any rate she did through the agent, +when he remitted her allowance, she consoled herself as to the captain's +well-being: in due course of things, even this became irregular; he was +far up the country, hunting, fighting, surveying, and what not; and no +wonder that letters, if written at all, which I rather doubt, got lost. +Then there came a long period of positive and protracted silence--months +of it--years of it; barring that her checks for cash were honoured still +at Hancock's, though they could tell her nothing of her lord; so that +Mrs. Tracy was at length seriously recommended by her friends to become +a widow; she tried on the cap, and looked into many mirrors; but, after +long inspection, decided upon still remaining a wife, because the weeds +were so clearly unbecoming. Habit, meanwhile, and that still-existing +old aunt, who seemed resolved to live to a hundred, kept her as before +at Burleigh: and, seeing that a few months after the captain's departure +she had presented the world, not to say her truant lord, with twins, she +had always found something to do in the way of, what she considered, +education, and other juvenile amusement: that is to say, when the +gayeties of a circle of fifteen miles in radius left her any time to +spare in such a process. The twins--a brace of boys--were born and bred +at Burleigh, and had attained severally to twenty years of age, just +before their father came home again as brevet-major-general. But both +they, and that arrival, deserve special detail, each in its own chapter. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE HEROES. + + +Mrs. Tracy's sons were as unlike each other as it is well possible for +two human beings to be, both in person and character. Julian, whose +forward and bold spirit gained him from the very cradle every +prerogative of eldership (and he did struggle first into life, too, so +he was the first-born), had grown to be a swarthy, strong, big-boned +man, of the Roman-nosed, or, more physiognomically, the Jewish cast of +countenance; with melo-dramatic elf-locks, large whiskers, and +ungovernable passions; loud, fierce, impetuous; cunning, too, for all +his overbearing clamour; and an embodied personification of those choice +essentials to criminal happiness--a hard heart and a good digestion. +Charles, on the contrary (or, as logicians would say, on the +contradictory), was fair-haired, blue-eyed, of Grecian features; slim, +though well enough for inches, and had hitherto (as the commonalty have +it) "enjoyed" weak health: he was gentle and affectionate in heart, pure +and religious in mind, studious and unobtrusive in habits. It was a +wonder to see the strange diversity between those own twin-brothers, +born within the same hour, and, it is superfluous to add, of the same +parents; brought up in all outward things alike, and who had shared +equally in all that might be called advantage or disadvantage, of +circumstance or education. + +Certain is it that minds are different at birth, and require as +different a treatment as Iceland moss from cactuses, or bull-dogs from +bull-finches: certain is it, too, that Julian, early submitted and +resolutely broken in, would have made as great a man, as Charles, +naturally meek, did make a good one; but for the matter of educating her +boys, poor Mrs. Tracy had no more notion of the feat, than of squaring +the circle, or determining the longitude. She kept them both at home, +till the peevish aunt could suffer Julian's noise no longer: the house +was a Pandemonium, and the giant grown too big for that castle of +Otranto; so he must go at any rate; and (as no difference in the +treatment of different characters ever occurred to any body) of course +Charles must go along with him. Away they went to an expensive school, +which Julian's insubordination on the instant could not brook--and, +accordingly, he ran away; without doubt, Charles must be taken away too. +Another school was tried, Julian got expelled this time; and Charles, +in spite of prizes, must, on system, be removed with him: so forth, with +like wisdom, all through the years of adolescence and instruction, those +ill-matched brothers were driven as a pair. Then again, for fashion's +sake, and Aunt Green's whims, the circumspective mother, notwithstanding +all her inconsistencies, gave each of them prettily bound hand-books of +devotion; which the one used upon his knees, and the other lit cigars +withal; both extremes having exceeded her intention: and she proved +similarly overreached when she persisted in treating both exactly alike, +as to liberal allowances, and liberty of will; the result being, that +one of her sons "foolishly" spent his money in a multitude of charitable +hobbies; and that the other was constantly supplied with means for (the +mother was sorry to say it, vulgar) dissipation. By consequence, Charles +did more good, and Julian more evil, than I have time to stop and tell +off. + +If any thing in this life must be personal, peculiar, and specific, it +is education: we take upon ourselves to speak thus dogmatically, not of +mere school-teaching only, _musa_, _musae_, and so forth; nor yet of +lectures, on relative qualities of carbon and nitrogen in vegetables; +no, nor even of schemes of theology, or codes of morals; but we do speak +of the daily and hourly reining-in, or letting-out, of discouragement in +one appetite, and encouragement in another; of habitual formation of +characters in their diversity; and of shaping their bear's-cub, or that +child-angel, the natural human mind, to its destined ends; that it may +turn out, for good, according to its several natures, to be either the +strong-armed, bold-eyed, rough-hewer of God's grand designs, or the +delicate-fingered polisher of His rarest sculptures. Julian, +well-trained, might have grown to be a Luther; and many a gentle soul +like Charles, has turned out a coxcomb and a sensualist. + +The boys were born, as I have said, in the regulation order of things, a +few months after Captain Tracy sailed away for India some full score of +years, and more, from this present hour, when we have seen him seated as +a general in the library at Burleigh; and, until the last year, they had +never seen their father--scarcely ever heard of him. + +The incidents of their lives had been few and common-place: it would be +easy, but wearisome, to specify the orchards and the bee-hives which +Julian had robbed as a school-boy; the rebellions he had headed; the +monkey tricks he had played upon old fish-women; and the cruel havoc he +made of cats, rats, and other poor tormented creatures, who had +ministered to his wanton and brutalizing joys. In like manner, wearily, +but easily, might I relate how Charles grew up the nurse's darling, +though little of his flaunting mother's; the curly-pated young +book-worm; the sympathizing, innoffensive, gentle heart, whose effort +still it was to countervail his brother's evil: how often, at the risk +of blows, had he interposed to save some drowning puppy: how often paid +the bribe for Julian's impunity, when mulcted for some damage done in +the way of broken windows, upset apple-stalls, and the like: how often +had he screened his bad twin-brother from the flagellatory consequences +of sheer idleness, by doing for him all his school-tasks: how often +striven to guide his insensate conscience to truth, and good, and +wisdom: how often, and how vainly! + +And when the youths grew up, and their good and evil grew up with them, +it were possible to tell you a heart-rending tale of Julian's treachery +to more than one poor village beauty; and many a pleasing trait of +Charles's pure benevolence, and wise zeal to remedy his brother's +mischiefs. The one went about doing ill, and the other doing good: +Julian, on account of obligations, more truly than in spite of them, +hated Charles; and yet one great aim of all Charles's amiabilities +tended continually to Julian's good, and he strove to please him, too, +while he wished to bless him. The one had grown to manhood, full of +unrepented sins, and ripe for darker crime: the other had attained a +like age of what is somewhat satirically called discretion, having +amassed, with Solon of old, "knowledge day by day," having lived a life +of piety and purity, and blest with a cheerful disposition, that teemed +with happy thoughts. + +They had, of course, in the progress of human life, been both laid upon +the bed of sickness, where, with similar contrast, the one lay muttering +discontent, and the other smiling patiently: they had both been in +dangers by land and by sea, where Julian, though not a little lacking to +himself at the moment of peril, was still loudly minacious till it came +too near; while Charles, with all his caution, was more actually +courageous, and in spite of all his gentleness, stood against the worst +undaunted: they had both, with opposite motives and dissimilar modes of +life, passed through various vicissitudes of feeling, scene, society; +and the influence of circumstance on their different characters, +heightened or diminished, bettered or depraved, by the good or evil +principle in each, had produced their different and probable results. + +Thus, strangely dissimilar, the twin-brothers together stand before us: +Julian the strong impersonation of the animal man, as Charles of the +intellectual; Julian, matter; Charles, spirit; Julian, the creature of +this world, tending to a lower and a worse: Charles, though in the +world, not of the world, and reaching to a higher and a better. + +Mrs. Tracy, the mother of this various progeny, had been somewhat of a +beauty in her day, albeit much too large and masculine for the taste of +ordinary mortals; and though now very considerably past forty, the vain +vast female was still ambitious of compliment, and greedy of admiration. +That Julian should be such a woman's favourite will surprise none: she +had, she could have, no sympathies with mild and thoughtful Charles; but +rather dreaded to set her flaunting folly in the light of his wise +glance, and sought to hide her humbled vanity from his pure and keen +perceptions. His very presence was a tacit rebuke to her social +dissipation, and she could not endure the mild radiance of his virtues. +He never fawned and flattered her, as Julian would; but had even +suffered filial presumption (it could not be affection--O dear, no!) to +go so far as gently to expostulate at what he fancied wrong; he never +gave her reason to contrast, with happy self-complacence, her own soul's +state with Charles's, however she could with Julian's: and then, too, +she would indulgently allow her foolish mind--a woman's, though a +parent's--to admire that tall, black, bandit-looking son, above the +slight build, the delicate features, and almost feminine elegance of his +brother: she found Julian always ready to countenance and pamper her +gayest wishes, and was glad to make him her escort every where--at +balls, and fetes, and races, and archery parties; while as to Charles, +he would be the stay-at-home, the milk-sop, the learned pundit, the +pious prayer-monger, any thing but the ladies' man. Yes: it is little +wonder that Mrs. Tracy's heart clave to Julian, the masculine image of +herself; while it barely tolerated Charles, who was a rarefied and +idealized likeness of the absent and forgotten Tracy. + +But the mother--and there are many silly mothers, almost as many as +silly men and silly maids--in her admiration of the outward form of +manliness, overlooked the true strength, and chivalry, and nobleness of +mind which shone supreme in Charles. How would Julian have acted in such +a case as this?--a sheep had wandered down the cliff's face to a narrow +ledge of rock, whence it could not come back again, for there was no +room to turn: Julian would have pelted it, and set his bull-dog at it, +and rejoiced to have seen the poor animal's frantic leaps from shingly +shelf to shelf, till it would be dashed to pieces. But how did Charles +act? With the utmost courage, and caution, and presence of mind, he +crept down, and, at the risk of his life, dragged the bleating, +unreluctant creature up again; it really seemed as if the ungrateful +poor dumb brute recognised its humane friend, and suffered him to rescue +it without a struggle or a motion that might have endangered both. + +Again: a burly costermonger was belabouring his donkey, and the wretched +beast fell beneath his cudgel: strange to say, Julian and Charles were +walking together that time; and the same sight affected each so +differently, that the one sided with the cruel man, and the other with +his suffering victim: Charles, in momentary indignation, rushed up to +the fellow, wrested the cudgel from his hand, and flung it over the +cliff; while Julian was so base, so cowardly, as to reward such generous +interference, by holding his weaker brother's arms, and inviting the +wrathful costermonger to expend the remainder of his phrensy on unlucky +Charles. Yes, and when at home Mrs. Tracy heard all this, she was silly +enough, wicked enough, to receive her truly noble son with ridicule, and +her other one, the child of her disgrace, with approval. + +"It will teach you, Master Charles, not to meddle with common people and +their donkeys; and you may thank your brother Julian for giving you a +lesson how a gentleman should behave." + +Poor Charles! but poorer Julian, and poorest Mrs. Tracy! + +It would be easy, if need were, to enumerate multiplied examples tending +towards the same end--a large, masculine-featured mother's foolish +preference of the loud, bold, worldly animal, before the meek, kind, +noble, spiritual. And the results of all these many matters were, that +now, at twenty years of age, Charles found himself, as it were, alone in +a strange land, with many common friends indeed abroad, but at home no +nearer, dearer ties to string his heart's dank lyre withal; neither +mother nor brother, nor any other kind familiar face, to look upon his +gentleness in love, or to sympathize with his affections, unapprehended, +unappreciated: so--while Mrs. Tracy was the showy, gay, and vapid thing +she ever had been, and Julian the same impetuous mother's son which his +very nurse could say she knew him--Charles grew up a shy and silent +youth, necessarily reserved, for lack of some one to understand him; +necessarily chilled, for want of somebody to love him. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE ARRIVAL. + + +The young men were thus situated as regards both the world and one +another, and Mrs. Tracy had almost entirely forgotten the fact, that she +possessed a piece of goods so supererogatory as her husband (a property +too which her children had never quite realized), when all on a sudden, +one ordinary morning, the postman's-knock brought to her breakfast-table +at Burleigh-Singleton the following epistle: + + "British Channel, Thursday, March 11th, 1842. + "The Sir William Elphinston, E.I.M. + +"DEAR JANE: You will be surprised to find that you are to see me so +soon, I dare say, especially as it is now some years since you will have +heard from me. The reason is, I have been long in an out-of-the-way part +of India, where there is little communication with Europe, and so you +will excuse my not writing. We hope to find ourselves to-night in +Plymouth roads, where I shall get into a pilot-boat, and so shall see +you to-morrow. You may, therefore, now expect your affectionate husband, + + "J.G.J. TRACY, General H.E.I.C.S. + +"P.S.1.--Remember me to our boy, or boys--which is it? + +"P.S.2.--I bring with me the daughter of a friend in India, who is come +over for a year or two's polish at a first-rate school. Of course you +will be glad to receive her as our guest. + + "J.G.J.T." + +This loving letter was the most startling event that had ever attempted +to unnerve Mrs. Tracy; and she accordingly managed, for effect and +propriety's sake, to grow very faint upon the spot, whether for joy, or +sorrow, or fear of lost liberty, or hope of a restored lord, doth not +appear; she had so long been satisfied with receiving quarterly pay from +the India agents, that she forgot it was an evidence of her husband's +existence; and, lo! here he was returning a general, doubtlessly a +magnificent moustachioed individual, and she was to be Mrs. General! so +that when she came completely to herself, after that feint of a faint, +she was thinking of nothing but court-plumes, oriental pearls, and her +gallant Tracy's uniform. + +The postscripts also had their influence: Charles, naturally +affectionate, and willing to love a hitherto unseen father, felt hurt, +as well he might, at the "boy, or boys;" while Julian, who ridiculed his +brother's sentimentality, was already fancying that the "daughter of a +friend" might be a pleasant addition to the dullness of +Burleigh-Singleton. + +Preparations vast were made at once for the general's reception; from +attic to kitchen was sounded the tocsin of his coming. Julian was all +bustle and excitement, to his mother's joy and pride; while Charles +merited her wrath by too much of his habitual and paternal quietude, +particularly when he withdrew his forces altogether from the loud +domestic fray, by retreating up-stairs to cogitate and muse, perhaps to +make a calming prayer or two about all these matters of importance. As +for Mrs. Tracy herself, she was even now, within the first hour of that +news, busily engaged in collecting cosmetics, trinkets, blonde lace, and +other female finery, resolved to trick herself out like Jezebel, and win +her lord once more; whilst the pernicious old aunt, who still lived on, +notwithstanding all those twenty years of patience, as vivacious as +before, grumbled and scolded so much at this upsetting of her house, +that there was really some risk of her altering the will at last, and +cutting out Jane Tracy after all. + +And the morrow morning came, as if it were no more than an ordinary +Friday, and with it came expectancy; and noon succeeded, and with it +spirits alternately elated and depressed; and evening drew in, with +heart-sickness and chagrin at hopes or prophecies deferred; and night, +and next morning, and still the general came not. So, much weeping at +that vexing disappointment, after so many pains to please, Mrs. Tracy +put aside her numerous aids and appliances, and lay slatternly a-bed, to +nurse a head-ache until noon; and all had well nigh forgotten the +probable arrival, when, to every body's dismay, a dusty chaise and four +suddenly rattled up the terrace, and stopped at our identical number +seven. + +Then was there scuffling up, and getting down, and making preparation in +hot haste; and a stout gentleman with a gamboge face descended from the +chaise, exploding wrath like a bomb-shell, that so important an approach +had made such slight appearance of expectancy: it was disrespectful to +his rank, and he took care to prove he was somebody, by blowing up the +very innocent post-boys. This accomplished, he gallantly handed out +after him a pretty-looking miss in her teens. Poor Mrs. Tracy, _en +papillotes_, looked out at the casement like any one but Jezebel attired +for bewitching, and could have cried for vexation; in fact, she did, +and passed it off for feeling. Aunt Green, whom the general at first +lovingly saluted as his wife (for the poor man had entirely forgotten +the uxorial appearance), was all in a pucker for deafness, blindness, +and evident misapprehension of all things in general, though clearly +pleased, and flattered at her gallant nephew's salutation. Julian, with +what grace of manner he could muster, was already playing the agreeable +to that pretty ward, after having, to the general's great surprise, +introduced himself to him as his son; while Charles, who had rushed into +the room, warm-heartedly to fling himself into his father's arms, was +repelled on the spot for his affection: General Tracy, with a military +air, excused himself from the embrace, extending a finger to the unknown +gentleman, with somewhat of offended dignity. + +At last, down came the wife: our general at once perceived himself +mistaken in the matter of Mrs. Green; and, coldly bowing to the +bedizened dame, acknowledged her pretensions with a courteous-- + +"Mrs. General Tracy, allow me to introduce to you Miss Emily Warren, the +daughter of a very particular friend of mine:--Miss Warren, Mrs. Tracy." + +For other welcomings, mutual astonishment at each other's fat, some +little sorrowful talk of the twenty years ago, and some dull paternal +jest about this dozen feet of sons, made up the chilly meeting: and the +slender thread of sentimentals, which might possibly survive it, was +soon snapt by paying post-boys, orders after luggage, and devouring +tiffin. + +The only persons who felt any thing at all, were Mrs. Tracy, vexed at +her dishabille, and mortified at so cool a reception of, what she hoped, +her still unsullied beauties; and Charles, poor fellow, who ran up to +his studious retreat, and soothed his grief, as best he might, with +philosophic fancies: it was so cold, so heartless, so unkind a greeting. +Romantic youth! how should the father have known him for a son? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +THE GENERAL AND HIS WARD. + + +It is surprising what a change twenty years of a tropical sun can make +in the human constitution. The captain went forth a good-looking, +good-tempered man, destitute neither of kind feelings nor masculine +beauty: the general returned bloated, bilious, irascible, entirely +selfish, and decidedly ill-favoured. Such affections as he ever had +seemed to have been left behind in India--that new world, around which +now all his associations and remembrances revolved; and the reserve +(clearly reproduced in Charles), the habit of silence whereof we took +due notice in the spring-tide of his life, had now grown, perhaps from +some oppressive secret, into a settled, moody, continuous taciturnity, +which made his curious wife more vexed at him than ever; for, +notwithstanding all the news he must have had to tell her, the company +of John George Julian Tracy proved to his long-expectant Jane any thing +but cheering or instructive. His past life, and present feelings, to say +nothing of his future prospects, might all be but a blank, for any thing +the general seemed to care: brandy and tobacco, an easy chair, and an +ordnance map of India, with Emily beside him to talk about old times, +these were all for which he lived: and even the female curiosity of a +wife, duly authorized to ask questions, could extract from him +astonishingly little of his Indian experiences. As to his wealth, +indeed, Mrs. Tracy boldly made direct inquiry; for Julian set her on to +beg for a commission, and Charles also was anxious for a year or two at +college; but the general divulged not much: albeit he vouchsafed to both +his sons a liberally increased allowance. It was only when his wife, +piqued at such reserve, pettishly remarked, + +"At any rate, sir, I may be permitted to hope, that Miss Warren's +friends are kind enough to pay her expenses;" + +That the veteran, in high dudgeon at any imputation on his Indian +acquaintances, sternly answered, + +"You need not be apprehensive, madam; Emily Warren is amply provided +for." Words which sank deep into the prudent mother's mind. + +But we must not too long let dock-leaves hide a violet; it is high time, +and barely courteous now, to introduce that beautiful exotic, Emily +Warren. Her own history, as she will tell it to Charles hereafter, was +so obscure, that she knew little of it certainly herself, and could +barely gather probabilities from scattered fragments. At present, we +have only to survey results in a superficial manner: in their due +season, we will dig up all the roots. + +No heroine can probably engage our interest or sympathy who possesses +the infirmity of ugliness: it is not in human nature to admire her, and +human nature is a thing very much to be consulted. Moreover, no one ever +yet saw an amiable personage, who was not so far pleasing, or, in other +parlance, so far pretty. I cannot help the common course of things; and +however hackneyed be the thought, however common-place the phrase, it is +true, nevertheless, that beauty, singular beauty, would be the first +idea of any rational creature, who caught but a glimpse of Emily Warren; +and I should account it little wonder if, upon a calmer gaze, that +beauty were found to have its deepest, clearest fountain in those large +dark eyes of heir's. + +Aware as I may be, that "large dark eyes" are no novelty in tales like +this; and famous for rare originality as my pen (not to say genius) +would become, if an attempt were herein made to interest the world in a +pink-eyed heroine, still I prefer plodding on in the well-worn path of +pleasant beauty; and so long as Nature's bounty continues to supply so +well the world we live in with large dark eyes, and other feminine +perfections, our Emily, at any rate, remains in fashion; and if she has +many pretty peers, let us at least not peevishly complain of them. A +graceful shape is, luckily, almost the common prerogative of female +youthfulness; a dimpled smile, a cheerful, winning manner, regular +features, and a mass of luxuriant brown hair--these all heroines +have--and so has our's. + +But no heroine ever had yet Emily Warren's eyes; not identically only, +which few can well deny; but similarly also, which the many must be good +enough to grant: and very few heroes, indeed, ever saw their equal; +though, if any hereabouts object, I will not be so cruel or unreasonable +as to hope they will admit it. At first, full of soft light, gentle and +alluring, they brighten up to blaze upon you lustrously, and fascinate +the gazer's dazzled glance: there are depths in them that tell of the +unfathomable soul, heights in them that speak of the spirit's +aspirations. It is gentleness and purity, no less than sensibility and +passion, that look forth in such strange power from those windows of the +mind: it is not the mere beautiful machine, fair form, and pleasing +colours, but the heaven-born light of tenderness and truth, streaming +through the lens, that takes the fond heart captive. Charles, for one, +could not help looking long and keenly into Emily Warren's eyes; they +magnetized him, so that he might not turn away from them: entranced him, +that he would not break their charm, had he been able: and then the long +tufted eyelashes droop so softly over those blazing suns--that I do not +in the least wonder at Charles's impolite, perhaps, but still natural +involuntary stare, and his mute abstracted admiration: the poor youth is +caught at once, a most willing captive--the moth has burnt its wings, +and flutters still happily around that pleasant warming radiance. How +his heart yearned for something to love, some being worthy of his own +most pure affections: and lo! these beauteous eyes, true witnesses of +this sweet mind, have filled him for ever and a day with love at first +sight. + +But gentle Charles was not the only conquest: the fiery Julian, too, +acknowledged her supremacy, bowed his stubborn neck, and yoked himself +at once, another and more rugged captive, to the chariot of her charms. +It was Caliban, as well as Ferdinand, courting fair Miranda. In his +lower grade, he loved--fiercely, coarsely: and the same passion, which +filled his brother's heart with happiest aspirations, and pure unselfish +tenderness towards the beauteous stranger, burnt him up as an inward and +consuming fire: Charles sunned himself in heaven's genial beams, while +Julian was hot with the lava-current of his own bad heart's volcano. + +It will save much trouble, and do away with no little useless mystery, +to declare, at the outset, which of these opposite twin-brothers our +dark-eyed Emily preferred. She was only seventeen in years; but an +Indian sky had ripened her to full maturity, both of form and feelings: +and having never had any one whom she cared to think upon, and let her +heart delight in, till Charles looked first upon her beauty wonderingly, +it is no marvel if she unconsciously reciprocated his young heart's +thought--before ever he had breathed it to himself. Julian's admiration +she entirely overlooked; she never thought him more than civil--barely +that, perhaps--however he might flatter himself: but her heart and eyes +were full of his fair contrast, the light seen brighter against +darkness; Charles all the dearer for a Julian. Intensely did she love +him, as only tropic blood can love; intently did she gaze on him, when +any while he could not see her face, as only those dark eyes could gaze: +and her mind, all too ignorant but greedy of instruction, no less than +her heart, rich in sympathies and covetous of love, went forth, and fed +deliciously on the intellectual brow, and delicate flushing cheek of her +noble-minded Charles. Not all in a day, nor a week, nor a month, did +their loves thus ripen together. Emily was a simple child of nature, who +had every thing to learn; she scarcely knew her Maker's name, till +Charles instructed her in God's great love: the stars were to her only +shining studs of gold, and the world one mighty plain, and men and women +soulless creatures of a day, and the wisdom of creation unconsidered, +and the book of natural knowledge close sealed up, till Charles set out +before his eager student the mysteries of earth and heaven. Oh, those +blessed hours of sweet teaching! when he led her quick delighted steps +up the many avenues of science to the central throne of God! Oh, those +happy moments, never to return, when her eyes in gentle thankfulness for +some new truth laid open to them, flashed upon her youthful Mentor, love +and intelligence, and pleased admiring wonder! Sweet spring-tide of +their loves, who scarcely knew they loved, yet thought of nothing but +each other; who walked hand in hand, as brother and sister, in the +flowery ways of mutual blessing, mutual dependence: alas, alas! how +brief a space can love, that guest from heaven, dwell on earth +unsullied! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +JEALOUSY. + + +For Julian soon perceived that Charles was no despicable rival. At +first, self-flattery, and the habitual contempt wherewith he regarded his +brother, blinded him to Emily's attachment: moreover, in the scenes of +gayety and the common social circle, she never gave him cause to complain +of undue preferences; readily she leant upon his arm, cheerfully +accompanied him in morning-visits, noon-day walks, and evening parties; +and if pale Charles (in addition to the more regular masters, dancing +and music, and other pieces of accomplishment) thought proper to bore +her with his books for sundry hours every day, Julian found no fault +with that;--the girl was getting more a woman of the world, and all +for him: she would like her play-time all the better for such schoolings, +and him to be the truant at her side. + +But when, from ordinary civilities, the coarse loud lover proceeded to +particular attentions; when he affected to press her delicate hand, and +ventured to look what he called love into her eyes, and to breathe silly +nothings in her ear--he could deceive himself no longer, notwithstanding +all his vanity; as legibly as looks could write it, he read disgust +upon her face, and from that day forth she shunned him with undisguised +abhorrence. Poor innocent maid! she little knew the man's black mind, +who thus dared to reach up to the height of her affections; but she saw +enough of character in his swart scowling face, and loud assuming manners, +to make her dread his very presence, as a thunder-cloud across +her summer sky. + +Then did the baffled Julian begin to look around him, and took notice +of her deepening love of Charles; nay, even purposely, she seemed now +to make a difference between them, as if to check presumption and +encourage merit. And he watched their stolen glances, how tremblingly +they met each other's gaze; and he would often-times roughly break in +upon their studies, to look on their confused disquietude with the pallid +frowns of envy: he would insult poor Charles before her, in hope to +humble him in her esteem; but mild and Christian patience made her +see him as a martyr: he would even cast rude slights on her whom he +professed to love, with the view of raising his brother's chastened wrath, +but was forced to quail and sneak away beneath her quick indignant +glance, ere her more philosophical lover had time to expostulate with +the cowardly savage. + +Meanwhile, what were the parents about? The general had given out, +indeed, that he had brought Emily over for schooling; but he seemed so +fond of her (in fact, she was the only thing to prove he wore a heart), +that he never could resolve upon sending her away from, what she now +might well call, home. Often, in some strange dialect of Hindostan, did +they converse together, of old times and distant shores; none but Emily +might read him to sleep--none but Emily wake him in the morning with +a kiss--none but Emily dare approach him in his gouty torments--none +but Emily had any thing like intimate acquaintance with that moody +iron-hearted man. + +As to his sons, or the two young men he might presume to be his sons, he +neither knew them, nor cared to know. Bare civilities, as between man +and man, constituted all which their intercourse amounted to: what were +those young fellows, stout or slim, to him? mere accidents of a +soldier's gallantries and of an ill-assorted marriage. He neither had, +nor wished to have, any sympathies with them: Julian might be as bad as +he pleased, and Charles as good, for any thing the general seemed to +heed: they could not dive with him into the past, and the sports of +Hindostan: they reminded him, simply, of his wife, for pleasures of +Memory; of the grave, for pleasures of Hope: he was older when he looked +at them: and they seemed to him only living witnesses of his folly as +lieutenant, in the choice of Mrs. Tracy. I will not take upon myself to +say, that he had any occasion to congratulate himself on the latter +reminiscence. + +So he quickly acquiesced in Julian's wish for a commission, and +entirely approved of Charles's college schemes. After next September, +the funds should be forthcoming: not but that he was rich enough, and +to spare, any month in the year: but he would be vastly richer then, +from prize-money, or some such luck. It was more prudent to delay +until September. + +With reference to Emily--no, no--I could see at once that General +Tracy never had any serious intention to part with Emily; but she had +all manner of masters at home, and soon made extraordinary progress. +As for the matter of his sons falling in love with her, attractive in all +beauty though she were, he never once had given it a thought: for, first, +he was too much a man of the world to believe in such ideal trash as +love: and next, he totally forgot that his "boy, or boys," had human +feelings. So, when his wife one day gave him a gentle and triumphant +hint of the state of affairs, it came upon him overwhelmingly, like an +avalanche: his yellow face turned flake-white, he trembled as he stood, +and really seemed to take so natural a probability to heart as the most +serious of evils. + +"My son Julian in love with Emily! and if not he, at any rate Charles! +What the devil, madam, can you mean by this dreadful piece of +intelligence?--It's impossible, ma'am; nonsense! it can't be true; it +shan't, ma'am." + +And the general, having issued his military mandates, wrapped himself +in secresy once more; satisfied that both of those troublesome sons +were to leave home after the next quarter, and the prize-money at +Hancock's. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE CONFIDANTE. + + +But Mrs. Tracy had the best reason for believing her intelligence was +true, and she could see very little cause for regarding it as dreadful. +True, one son would have been enough for this wealthy Indian +heiress--but still it was no harm to have two strings to her bow. Julian +was her favourite, and should have the girl if she could manage it; but +if Emily Warren would not hear of such a husband, why Charles Tracy may +far better get her money than any body else. + +That she possessed great wealth was evident: such jewellery, such +Trinchinopoli chains, such a blaze of diamonds _en suite_, such a +multitude of armlets, and circlets, and ear-rings, and other oriental +finery, had never shone on Devonshire before: at the Eyemouth ball, men +worshipped her, radiant in beauty, and gorgeously apparelled. Moreover, +money overflowed her purse, her work-box, and her jewel-case: Charles's +village school, and many other well-considered charities, rejoiced in +the streams of her munificence. The general had given her a banker's +book of signed blank checks, and she filled up sums at pleasure: such +unbounded confidence had he in her own prudence and her far-off father's +liberality. The few hints her husband deigned to give, encouraged Mrs. +Tracy to conclude, that she would be a catch for either of her sons; +and, as for the girl herself, she had clearly been brought up to order +about a multitude of servants, to command the use of splendid equipages, +and to spend money with unsparing hand. + +Accordingly, one day when Julian was alone with his mother, their +conversation ran as follows: + +"Well, Julian dear, and what do you think of Emily Warren?" + +"Think, mother? why--that she's deuced pretty, and dresses like an +empress: but where did the general pick her up, eh?--who is she?" + +"Why, as to who she is--I know no more than you; she is Emily Warren: +but as to the great question of what she is, I know that she is rolling +in riches, and would make one of my boys a very good wife." + +"Oh, as to wife, mother, one isn't going to be fool enough to marry for +love now-a-days: things are easier managed hereabouts, than that: but +money makes it quite another thing. So, this pretty minx is rich, is +she?" + +"A great heiress, I assure you, Julian." + +"Bravo, bravo-o! but how to make the girl look sweet upon me, mother? +There's that white-livered fellow, Charles--" + +"Never mind him, boy; do you suppose he would have the heart to make +love to such a splendid creature as Miss Warren: fy, Julian, for a faint +heart: Charles is well enough as a Sabbath-school teacher, but I hope he +will not bear away the palm of a ladye-love from my fine high-spirited +Julian." Poor Mrs. Tracy was as flighty and romantic at forty-five as +she had been at fifteen. + +The fine high-spirited Julian answered not a word, but looked +excessively cross; for he knew full well that Charles's chance was to +his in the ratio of a million to nothing. + +"What, boy," went on the prudent mother, "still silent! I am afraid +Emily's good looks have been thrown away upon you, and that your heart +has not found out how to love her." + +"Love her, mother? Curses! would you drive me mad? I think and dream of +nothing but that girl: morning, noon, and night, her eyes persecute me: +go where I will, and do what I will, her image haunts me: d----n it, +mother' don't I love the girl?" + +[Oh love, love! thou much-slandered monosyllable, how desperately do bad +men malign thee!] + +"Hush, Julian; pray be more guarded in your language; I am glad to see +though that your heart is in the right place: suppose now that I aid +your suit a little? I dare say I could do a great deal for you, my son; +and nothing could be more delightful to your mother than to try and make +her Julian happy." + +True, Mrs. Tracy; you were always theatrically given, and played the +coquette in youth; so in age the character of go-between befits you +still: dearly do you love to dabble in, what you are pleased to call, +"_une affaire du coeur_." + +"Mother," after a pause, replied her hopeful progeny, "if the girl had +been only pretty, I shouldn't have asked any body's help; for marriage +was never to my liking, and folks may have their will of prouder +beauties than this Emily, without going to church for it; but money +makes it quite another matter: and I may as well have the benefit of +your assistance in this matter o' money, eh mother? matrimony, you know: +an heiress and a beauty may be worth the wedding-ring; besides, when my +commission comes, I can follow the good example that my parents set me, +you know; and, after a three months' honey-mooning, can turn bachelor +again for twenty years or so, as our governor-general did, and so leave +wifey at home, till she becomes a Mrs. General like you." + +Now, strange to say, this heartless bit of villany was any thing but +unpleasing to the foolish, flattered heart of Mrs. Tracy; he was a chip +of the old block, no better than his father: so she thanked "dear +Julian" for his confidence, with admiration and emotion; and looking +upwards, after the fashion of a Covent Garden martyr, blessed him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE, ETC. + + +"Emily, my dear, take Julian's arm: here, Charles, come and change with +me; I should like a walk with you to Oxton, to see how your little +scholars get on." So spake the intriguing mother. + +"Why, that is just what I was going to do with Charles," said Emily, +"and if Julian will excuse me--" + +"Oh, never mind me, Miss Warren, pray; come along with me, will you, +mother?" + +So they paired off in more well-matched couples (for Julian luckily took +huff), and went their different ways: with those went hatred, envy, +worldly scheming, and that lowest sort of love that ill deserves the +name; with these remain all things pure, affectionate, benevolent. + +"Charles, dear," (they were just like brother and sister, innocent and +loving), "how kind it is of you to take me with you; if you only knew +how I dreaded Julian!" + +"Why, Emmy? can he have offended you in any way?" + +"Oh, Charles, he is so rude, and says such silly things, and--I am quite +afraid to be alone with him." + +"What--what--what does he say to you, Emily?" hurriedly urged her +half-avowed lover. + +"Oh, don't ask me, Charles--pray drop the subject;" and, as she blushed, +tears stood in her eyes. + +Charles bit his lip and clenched his fist involuntarily; but an instant +word of prayer drove away the spirit of hatred, and set up love +triumphant in its place. + +"My Emily--oh, what have I said? may I--may I call you my Emily? +dearest, dearest girl!" escaped his lips, and he trembled at his own +presumption. It was a presumptuous speech indeed; but it burst from the +well of his affections, and he could not help it. + +Her answer was not in words, and yet his heart-strings thrilled beneath +the melody; for her eyes shed on him a blaze of love that made him +almost faint before them. In an instant, they understood, without a +word, the happy truth, that each one loved the other. + +"Precious, precious Emily!" They were now far away from Burleigh, in the +fields; and he seized her hand, and covered it with kisses. + +What more they said I was not by to hear, and if I had been would not +have divulged it. There are holy secrets of affection, which those who +can remember their first love--and first love is the only love worth +mentioning--may think of for themselves. Well, far better than my feeble +pencilling can picture, will they fill up this slight sketch. That walk +to Oxton, that visit to the village school, was full of generous +affections unrepressed, the out-pourings of two deep-welled hearts, +flowing forth in sympathetic ecstasy. The trees, and fields, and +cottages were bathed in heavenly light, and the lovers, happy in each +other's trust, called upon the all-seeing God to bless the best +affections of His children. + +And what a change these mutual confessions made in both their minds! +Doubt was gone; they _were_ beloved; oh, richest treasure of joy! Fear +was gone; they dared declare their love; oh, purest river of all +sublunary pleasures! No longer pale, anxious, thoughtful, worn by the +corroding care of "Does she--does she love?"--Charles was, from that +moment, a buoyant, cheerful, exhilarated being--a new character; he put +on manliness, and fortitude, and somewhat of involuntary pride; whilst +Emily felt, that enriched by the affections of him whom she regarded as +her wisest, kindest earthly friend, by the acquisition of his love, who +had led her heart to higher good than this world at its best can give +her, she was elevated and ennobled from the simple Indian child, into +the loved and honoured Christian woman. They went on that important walk +to Oxton feeble, divided, unsatisfied in heart: they returned as two +united spirits, one in faith, one in hope, one in love; both heavenly +and earthly. + +But the happy hour is past too soon; and, home again, they mixed once +more with those conflicting elements of hatred and contention. + +"Emily," asked the general, in a very unusual stretch of curiosity, +"where have you been to with Charles Tracy? You look flushed, my dear; +what's the matter?" + +Of course "nothing" was the matter: and the general was answered wisely, +for love was nothing in his average estimate of men and women. + +"Charles, what can have come to you? I never saw you look so happy in my +life," was the mother's troublesome inquiry; "why, our staid youth +positively looks cheerful." + +Charles's walk had refreshed him, taken away his head-ache, put him in +spirits, and all manner of glib reasons for rejoicing. + +"You were right, Julian," whispered Mrs. Tracy, "and we'll soon put the +stopper on all this sort of thing." + +So, then, the moment our guiltless pair of lovers had severally stolen +away to their own rooms, there to feast on well-remembered looks, and +words, and hopes--there to lay before that heavenly Friend, whom both +had learned to trust, all their present joys, as aforetime all their +cares--Mrs. Tracy looked significantly at Julian, and thus addressed her +ever stern-eyed lord: + +"So, general, the old song's coming true to us, I find, as to other +folks, who once were young together: + + "'And when with envy Time, transported, seeks to rob us of our joys, + You'll in your girls again be courted, and I'll go wooing in my boys.'" + +So said or sung the flighty Mrs. Tracy. It was as simple and innocent a +quotation as could possibly be made; I suppose most couples, who ever +heard the stanza, and have grown-up children, have thought upon its dear +domestic beauty: but it strangely affected the irascible old general. He +fumed and frowned, and looked the picture of horror; then, with a fierce +oath at his wife and sons, he firmly said-- + +"Woman, hold your fool's tongue: begone, and send Emily to me this +minute: stop, Mr. Julian--no--run up for your brother Charles, and come +you all to me in the study. Instantly, sir! do as I bid you, without a +word." + +Julian would gladly have fought it out with his imperative father; but, +nevertheless, it was a comfort to have to fetch pale Charles for a +jobation; so he went at once. And the three young people, two of them +trembling with affections overstrained, and the third indurated in +effrontery, stood before that stern old man. + +"Emily, child,"--and he added something in Hindostanee, "have I been +kind to you--and do you owe me any love?" + +"Dear, dear sir, how can you ask me that?" said the warm-affectioned +girl, falling on her knees in tears. + +"Get up, sweet child, and hear me: you see those boys; as you love me, +and yourself, and happiness, and honour--dare not to think of either, +one moment, as your husband." + +Emily fainted; Charles staggered to assist her, though he well-nigh +swooned himself; and Julian folded his arms with a resolute air, as +waiting to hear what next. + +But the general disappointed him: he had said his say: and, as volatile +salts, a lady's maid, and all that sort of reinvigoration, seemed +essential to Emily's recovery, he rang the bell forthwith: so the +pleasant family party broke up without another word. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE MYSTERY. + + +Our lovers would not have been praiseworthy, perhaps not human, had they +not met in secret once and again. True, their regularly concerted +studies were forbidden, and they never now might openly walk out +unaccompanied: but love (who has not found this out?) is both daring and +ingenious; and notwithstanding all that Emily purposed about doing as +the general so strangely bade her, they had many happy meetings, rich +with many happy words: all the happier no doubt for their stolen +sweetness. + +There was one great and engrossing subject which often had employed +their curiosity; who and what was Emily Warren? for the poor girl did +not know herself. All she could guess, she told Charles, as he zealously +cross-questioned her from time to time: and the result of his inquiries +would appear to be as follows: + +Emily's earliest recollections were of great barbaric pomp; huge +elephants richly caparisoned, mighty fans of peacock's tails, lines of +matchlock men, tribes of jewelled servants, a gilded palace, with its +gardens and fountains: plenty of rare gems to play with, and a splendid +queenly woman, whom she called by the Hindoo name for mother. The +general, too, was there among her first associations, as the gallant +Captain Tracy, with his company of native troops. + +Then an era happened in her life; a tearful leave-taking with that proud +princess, who scarcely would part with her for sorrow; but the captain +swore it should be so: and an old Scotch-woman, her nurse, she could +remember, who told her as a child, but whether religiously or not she +could not tell, "Darling, come to me when you wish to know who made +you;" and then Mrs. Mackie went and spoke to the princess, and soothed +her, that she let the child depart peacefully. Most of her gorgeous +jewellery dated from that earliest time of inexplicable oriental +splendour. + +After those infantine seven years, the captain took her with him to his +station up the country, where she lived she knew not how long, in a +strong hill-fort, one Puttymuddyfudgepoor, where there was a great deal +of fighting, and besieging, and storming, and cannonading; but it ceased +at last, and the captain, who then soon successively became both major +and colonel, always kept her in his own quarters, making her his little +pet; and, after the fighting was all over, his brother-officers would +take her out hunting in their howdahs, and she had plenty of +palanquin-bearers, sepoys, and servants at command; and, what was more, +good nurse Mackie was her constant friend and attendant. + +Time wore on, and many little incidents of Indian life occurred, which +varied every day indeed, but still left nothing consequential behind +them: there were tiger-hunts, and incursions of Scindian tribes, and +Pindarree chieftains taken captive, and wounded soldiers brought into +the hospital; and often had she and good nurse Mackie tended at the sick +bed-side. And the colonel had the jungle fever, and would not let her go +from his sight; so she caught the fever too, and through Heaven's mercy +was recovered. And the colonel was fonder of her now than ever, calling +her his darling little child, and was proud to display her early budding +beauty to his military friends--pleasant sort of gentlemen, who gave her +pretty presents. + +Then she grew up into womanhood, and saw more than one fine uniform at +her feet, but she did not comprehend those kindnesses: and the general +(he was general now) got into great passions with them, and stormed, and +swore, and drove them all away. Nurse Mackie grew to be old, and +sometimes asked her, "Can you keep a secret, child?--no, no, I dare not +trust you yet: wait a wee, wait a wee, my bonnie, bonnie bairn." + +And now speedily came the end. The general resolved on returning to his +own old shores: chiefly, as it seemed, to avoid the troublesome +pertinacity of sundry suitors, who sought of him the hand of Emily +Warren for, by this name she was beginning to be called: in her earliest +recollection she was Amina; then at the hill-fort, Emily--Emily--nothing +for years but Emily: and as she grew to womanhood, the general bade her +sign her name to notes, and leave her card at houses, as Emily Warren: +why, or by what right, she never thought of asking. But nurse Mackie had +hinted she might have had "a better name and a truer;" and therefore, +she herself had asked the general what this hint might mean; and he was +so angry that he discharged nurse Mackie at Madras, directly he arrived +there to take ship for England. + +Then, just before embarking, poor nurse Mackie came to her secretly, and +said, "Child, I will trust you with a word; you are not what he thinks +you." And she cried a great deal, and longed to come to England; but +the general would not hear of it; so he pensioned her off, and left her +at Madras, giving somebody strict orders not to let her follow him. + +Nevertheless, just as they were getting into the boat to cross the surf, +the affectionate old soul ran out upon the strand, and called to her +"Amy Stuart! Amy Stuart!" to the general's great amazement as clearly as +her own; and she held up a packet in her hand as they were pushing off, +and shouted after her, "Child--child! if you would have your rights, +remember Jeanie Mackie!" + +After that, succeeded the monotony of a long sea voyage. The general at +first seemed vexed about Mrs. Mackie, and often wished that he had asked +her what she meant; however, his brow soon cleared, for he reflected +that a discarded servant always tells falsehoods, if only to make her +master mischief. + +"The voyage over, Charles, with all its cards, quadrilles, doubling the +cape, crossing the line, and the wearisome routine of sky and sea, the +quarter-deck and cabin, we found ourselves at length in Plymouth Sound; +left the Indiaman to go up the channel; and I suppose the post-chaise +may be consigned to your imagination." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +HOW TO CLEAR IT UP. + + +In all this there was mystery enough for a dozen lovers to have crazed +their brains about. Emily might be a queen of the East, defrauded of +hereditary glories, and at any rate deserved such rank, if Charles was +to be judge; but what was more important, if the general had any reason +at all for his arbitrary mandate prohibiting their love, it was very +possible that reason was a false one. + +Meantime, Charles had little now to live for, except his dear forbidden +Emily, any more than she for him. And to peace of mind in both, the +elucidation of that mystery which hung about her birth, grew more +needful day by day. At last, one summer evening, when they had managed a +quiet walk upon the sands under the Beacon cliff, Charles said abruptly, +after some moments of abstraction, "Dearest, I am resolved." + +"Resolved, Charles! what about?" and she felt quite alarmed; for her +lover looked so stern, that she could not tell what was going to happen +next. + +"I'll clear it up, that I will; I only wish I had the money." + +"Why, Charles, what in the world are you dreaming about? you frighten +me, dearest; are you ill? don't look so serious, pray." + +"Yes, Emily, I will; at once too. I'm off to Madras by next packet; or, +that is to say, would, if I could get my passage free." + +"My noble Charles, if that were the only objection, I would get you all +the means; for the kind--kind general suffers me to have whatever sums I +choose to ask for. Only, Charles, indeed I cannot spare you; do not--do +not go away and leave me; there's Julian, too--don't leave me--and you +might never come back, and--and--" all the remainder was lost in +sobbing. + +"No, my Emmy, we must not use the general's gold in doing what he might +not wish; it would be ungenerous. I will try to get somebody to lend me +what I want--say Mrs. Sainsbury, or the Tamworths. And as for leaving +you, my love, have no fears for me or for yourself; situated as we are, +I take it as a duty to go, and make you happier, setting you in rights, +whatever these may be; and for the rest, I leave you in His holy keeping +who can preserve you alike in body, as in soul, from all things that +would hurt you, and whose mercy will protect me in all perils, and bring +me back to you in safety. This is my trust, Emmy." + +"Dear Charles, you are always wiser and better than I am: let it be so +then, my best of friends. Seek out good nurse Mackie, I can give you +many clues, hear what she has to say; and may the God of your own poor +fatherless Emily speed your holy mission! Yet there is one thing, +Charles; ought you not to ask your parents for their leave to go? You +are better skilled to judge than I can be, though." + +"Emmy, whom have I to ask? my father? he cares not whither I go nor what +becomes of me; I hardly know him, and for twenty years of my short life +of twenty-one, scarcely believed in his existence; or should I ask my +mother? alas--love! I wish I could persuade myself that she would wish +me back again if I were gone; moreover, how can I respect her judgment, +or be guided by her counsel, whose constant aim has been to thwart my +feeble efforts after truth and wisdom, and to pamper all ill growths in +my unhappy brother Julian? No, Emily; I am a man now, and take my own +advice. If a parent forbade me, indeed, and reasonably, it would be fit +to acquiesce; but knowing, as I have sad cause to know, that none but +you, my love, will be sorry for my absence, as for your sake alone that +absence is designed, I need take counsel only of us who are here +present--your own sweet eyes, myself, and God who seeth us." + +"True--most true, dear Charles; I knew that you judged rightly." + +"Moreover, Emmy, secresy is needful for the due fulfilment of my +purpose." (Charles little thought how congenial to his nature was that +same secresy.) "None but you must know where I am, or whither I am gone. +For if there really is any mystery which the general would conceal from +us, be assured he both could and would frustrate all my efforts if he +knew of my design. The same ship that carried me out would convey an +emissary from him, and nurse Mackie never could be found by me. I must +go then secretly, and, for our peace sake, soon; how dear to me that +embassy will be, entirely undertaken in my darling Emmy's cause!" + +"But--but, Charles, what if Julian, in your absence--" + +"Hark, my own betrothed! while I am near you--and I say it not of +threat, but as in the sight of One who has privileged me to be your +protector--you are safe from any serious vexation; and the moment I am +gone, fly to my father, tell him openly your fears, and he will scatter +Julian's insolence to the winds of heaven." + +"Thank you--thank you, wise dear Charles; you have lifted a load from my +poor, weak, woman's heart, that had weighed it down too heavily. I will +trust in God more, and dread Julian less. Oh! how I will pray for you +when far away." + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AUNT GREEN'S LEGACY. + + +At last--at last, Mrs. Green fell ill, and, hard upon the over-ripe age +of eighty-seven, seemed likely to drop into the grave--to the +unspeakable delight of her expectant relatives. Sooth to say, niece +Jane, the soured and long-waiting legatee, had now for years been +treating the poor old woman very scurvily: she had lived too long, and +had grown to be a burden; notwithstanding that her ample income still +kept on the house, and enabled the general to nurse his own East India +Bonds right comfortably. But still the old aunt would not die, and as +they sought not her, nor heir's (quite contrary to St. Paul's +disinterestedness), she was looked upon in the light of an incumbrance, +on her own property and in her own house. Mrs. Tracy longed to throw off +the yoke of dependance, and made small secret of the hatred of the +fetter: for the old woman grew so deaf and blind, that there could be no +risk at all, either in speaking one's mind, or in thoroughly neglecting +her. + +However, now that the harvest of hope appeared so near, the legatee +renewed her old attentions: Death was a guest so very welcome to the +house, that it is no wonder that his arrival was hourly expected with +buoyant cheerfulness, and a something in the mask of kindliness: but I +suspect that lamb-skin concealed a very wolf. So, Mrs. Tracy tenderly +inquired of the doctor, and the doctor shook his head; and other doctors +came to help, and shook their heads together. The patient still grew +worse--O, brightening prospect!--though, now and then, a cordial draught +seemed to revive her so alarmingly, that Mrs. Tracy affectionately +urging that the stimulants would be too exciting for the poor dear +sufferer's nerves, induced Dr. Graves to discontinue them. Then those +fearful scintillations in her lamp of life grew fortunately duller, and +the nurse was by her bed-side night and day; and the old aunt became +more and more peevish, and was more and more spoken of by the Tracy +family--in her possible hearing, as "that dear old soul"--out of it, +"that vile old witch." + +Charles, to be sure, was an exception in all this, as he ever was: for +he took on him the Christian office of reading many prayers to the poor +decaying creature, and (only that his father would not hear of such a +thing) desired to have the vicar to assist him. Emily also, full of +sympathy, and disinterested care, would watch the fretful patient, hour +after hour, in those long, dull nights of pain; and the poor, old, +perishing sinner loved her coming, for she spoke to her the words of +hope and resignation. Whether that sweet missionary, scarcely yet a +convert from her own dark creed--(Alas! the Amina had offered unto +Juggernaut, and Emily of the strong hill-fort had scarcely heard of any +truer God; and the fair girl was a woman-grown before, in her first +earthly love, she also came to know the mercies Heaven has in store for +us)--whether unto any lasting use she prayed and reasoned with that +hard, dried heart, none but the Omniscient can tell. Let us hope: let us +hope; for the fretful voice was stilled, and the cloudy forehead +brightened, and the haggard eyes looked cheerfully to meet the +inevitable stroke of death. Thus in wisdom and in charity, in patience +and in faith, that gentle pair of lovers comforted the dying soul. + +However, days rolled away, and Aunt Green lingered on still, tenaciously +clinging unto life: until one morning early, she felt so much better, +that she insisted on being propped up by pillows, and seeing all the +household round her bed to speak to them. So up came every one, in no +small hope of legacies, and what the lawyers call "_donationes mortis +causa_." + +The general was at her bed's-head, with, I am ashamed to say, perhaps +unconsciously, a countenance more ridiculous than lugubrious; though he +tried to subdue the buoyancy of hope and to put on looks of decent +mourning; on the other side, the long-expectant legatee, Niece Jane, +prudently concealed her questionable grief behind a scented +pocket-handkerchief. Julian held somewhat aloof, for the scene was too +depressing for his taste: so he affected to read a prayer-book, wrong +way up, with his tongue in his cheek: Charles, deeply solemnized at the +near approach of death, knelt at the poor invalid's bedside; and Emily +stood by, leaning over her, suffused in tears. At the further corners of +the bed, might be seen an old servant or two; and Mrs. Green's butler +and coachman, each a forty years' fixture, presented their gray heads at +the bottom of the room, and really looked exceedingly concerned. + +Mrs. Green addressed them first, in her feeble broken manner: +"Grant--and John--good and faithful--thank you--thank you both; and you +too, kind Mrs. Lloyd, and Sally, and nurse--what's-your-name: give them +the packets, nurse--all marked--first drawer, desk: there--there--God +bless you--good--faithful." + +The old servants, full of sorrow at her approaching loss, were comforted +too: for a kind word, and a hundred pound note a-piece, made amends for +much bereavement: the sick-nurse found her gift was just a tithe of +their's, and recognised the difference both just and kind. + +"Niece Jane--you've waited--long--for--this day: my will--rewards you." + +"O dear--dear aunt, pray don't talk so; you'll recover yet, pray--pray +don't:" she pretended to drown the rest in sorrow, but winked at her +husband over the handkerchief. + +"Julian!" (the precious youth attempted to look miserable, and came as +called,) "you will find--I have remembered--you, Julian." So he winked, +too, at his mother, and tried to blubber a "thank you." + +"Charles--where's Charles? give me your hand, Charles dear--let me feel +your face: here, Charles--a little pocket-book--good lad--good lad. +There's Emily, too--dear child, she came--too late--I forgot her--I +forgot her! general give her half--half--if you love--love--Emi--" + +All at once her jaw dropped; her eyes, which had till now been +preternaturally bright, filmed over; her head fell back upon the pillow; +and the rich old aunt was dead. + +Julian gave a shout that might have scared the parting spirit! + +Really, the general was shocked, and Mrs. Tracy too; and the servants +murmured "shame--shame!" poor Charles hid his face; Emily looked up +indignantly; but Julian asked, with an oath, "Where's the good of being +hypocrites?" and then added, "now, mother, let us find the will." + +Then the nurse went to close the dim glazed eyes; and the other +sorrowing domestics slunk away; and Charles led Emily out of the chamber +of death, saddened and shocked at such indecent haste. + +Meanwhile, the hopeful trio rummaged every drawer--tumbled out the +mingled contents of boxes, desk, and escritoire--still, no will--no +will: and at last the nurse, who more than once had muttered, "Shame on +you all," beneath her breath, said, + +"If you want the will, it's under her pillow: but don't disturb her yet, +poor thing!" + +Julian's rude hand had already thrust aside the lifeless, yielding head, +and clutched the will: the father and mother--though humbled and +wonder-stricken at his daring--gathered round him; and he read aloud, +boldly and steadily to the end, though with scowling brow, and many +curses interjectional: + +"In the name of God, Amen. I, Constance Green, make this my last will +and testament. Forasmuch as my niece, Jane Tracy, has watched and waited +for my death these two-and-twenty years, I leave her all the shoes, +slippers, and goloshes, whereof I may happen to die possessed: item, I +leave Julian, her son, my '_Whole Duty of Man_,' convinced that he is +deficient in it all: item, I confirm all the gifts which I intend to +make upon my death-bed: item, forasmuch as General Tracy, my niece's +husband, on his return from abroad, greeted me with much affection, I +bequeath and give to him five thousand pounds' worth of Exchequer bills, +now in my banker's hands; and appoint him my sole executor. As to my +landed property, it will all go, in course of law, to my heir, Samuel +Hayley, and may he and his long enjoy it. And as to the remainder of my +personal effects, including nine thousand pounds bank stock, my Dutch +fives, and other matters, whereof I may die possessed (seeing that my +relatives are rich enough without my help), I give and bequeath the +same, subject as hereinbefore stated, to the trustees, for the time +being, of the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, in trust, for the purposes +of that charitable institution. In witness whereof, I have hereunto set +my hand and seal this 13th day of May, 1840. + + "CONSTANCE GREEN." + +"Duly signed, sealed, and delivered! d----nation!" was Julian's brief +epilogue--"General, let's burn it." + +"You can if you please, Mr. Julian," interposed the nurse, who had +secretly enjoyed all this, "and if you like to take the consequences; +but, as each of the three witnesses has the will sealed up in copy, and +the poor deceased there took pains to sign them all, perhaps--" + +This settled the affair: and the discomfited expectants made a +precipitate retreat. As the general, however, got vastly more than he +expected, for his individual merits; and seeing that he loved Emily as +much as he hated both Julian and his wife, he really felt well-pleased +upon the whole, and took on him the duties of executor with +cheerfulness. So they buried Aunt Green as soon as might be. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +PREPARATIONS AND DEPARTURE. + + +Charles's pocket-book was full of clean bank notes, fifteen hundred +pounds' worth: it contained also a diamond ring, and a lock of silvery +hair; the latter a proof of affectionate sentiment in the kind old soul, +that touched him at the heart. + +"And now, my Emmy, the way is clear to us; Providence has sent me this, +that I may right you, dearest: and it will be wise in us to say nothing +of our plans. Avoid inquiries--for I did not say conceal or falsify +facts: but, while none but you, love, heed of my departure, and while I +go for our sakes alone, we need not invite disappointment by +open-mouthed publicity. To those who love me, Emmy, I am frank and +free; but with those who love us not, there is a wisdom and a justice in +concealment. They do not deserve confidence, who will not extend to us +their sympathy. None but yourself must know whither I am bound; and, +after some little search for curiosity's sake, when a week is past and +gone, no soul will care for me of those at home. With you, I will manage +to communicate by post, directing my letters to Mrs. Sainsbury, at +Oxton: I will prepare her for it. She knows my love for you, and how +they try to thwart us; but even she, however trustworthy, need not be +told my destination yet awhile, until 'India' appears upon the +post-mark. How glad will you be, dearest one, how happy in our +secret--to read my heart's own thoughts, when I am far away--far away, +clearing up mine Emmy's cares, and telling her how blessed I feel in +ministering to her happiness!" + +Such was the substance of their talk, while counting out the +pocket-book. + +Charles's remaining preparations were simple enough, now his purse was +flush of money: he resolved upon taking from his home no luggage +whatever: preferring to order down, from an outfitting house in London, +a regular kit of cadet's necessaries, to wait for him at the Europe +Hotel, Plymouth, on a certain day in the ensuing week. So that, burdened +only with his Emmy's miniature, and his pocket-book of bank notes, he +might depart quietly some evening, get to Plymouth in a preconcerted +way, by chaise or coach, before the morrow morning; thence, a boat to +meet the ship off-shore, and then--hey, for the Indies! + +It was as well-devised a scheme as could possibly be planned; though its +secresy, especially with a mother in the case, may be a moot point as to +the abstract moral thereof: nevertheless, concretely, the only heart his +so mysterious absence would have pained, was made aware of all: then, +again, secresy had been the atmosphere of his daily life, the breath of +his education; and he too sorely knew his mother would rejoice at the +departure, and Julian, too--all the more certainly, as both brothers +were now rivals professed for the hand of Emily Warren: as to the +general, he might, or he might not, smoke an extra cheroot in the +excitement of his wonder; and if he cared about it anyways more +tragically than tobacco might betray, Emily knew how to comfort him. + +With respect to other arrangements, Emmy furnished Charles with letters +to certain useful people at Madras, and in particular to the "somebody" +who looked after Mrs. Mackie: so, the mystery was easy of access, and he +doubted not of overcoming, on the spot, every unseen difficulty. The +plan of leaving all luggage behind, a capital idea, would enable him to +go forth freely and unshackled, with an ordinary air, in hat and +great-coat, as for an evening's walk; and was quite in keeping with the +natural reserve of his whole character--a bad habit of secresy, which he +probably inherited from his father, the lieutenant of old times. And +yet, for all the wisdom, and mystery, and shrewd settling of the plan, +its accomplishment was as nearly as possible most fatally defeated. + +The important evening arrived; for the Indiaman--it was our old friend +Sir William Elphinston--would be off Plymouth, next morning: the goods +had been, for a day or two, safely deposited at the Europe, as per +invoice, all paid: the lovers, in this last, this happiest, yet by far +the saddest of their stolen interviews, had exchanged vows and kisses, +and upon the beach, beneath those friendly cliffs, had commended one +another to their Father in heaven. They had returned to the unsocial +circle of home; all was fixed; the clock struck nine: and Charles, +accidentally squeezing Emily's hand, rose to leave the tea-table. + +"Where are you going, Mr. Charles?" + +"I am going out, Julian." + +"Thank you, sir! I knew that, but whither? General, I say, here's +Charles going to serenade somebody by moonlight." + +The brandy-sodden parent, scarcely conscious, said something about his +infernal majesty; and, "What then?--let him go, can't you?" + +"Well, Julian dear, perhaps your brother will not mind your going with +him; particularly as Emily stays at home with me." + +This Mrs. Tracy spoke archly, intended as a hint to induce Julian to +remain: but he had other thoughts--and simply said, in an ill-tempered +tone of voice, "Done, Charles." + +It was a dilemma for our escaping hero; but glancing a last look at +Emily, he departed, and walked on some way as quietly as might be with +Julian by his side: thinking, perhaps, he would soon be tired; and +suffering him to fancy, if he would, that Charles was bound either on +some amorous pilgrimage, or some charitable mission. But they left +Burleigh behind them--and got upon the common--and passed it by, far out +of sight and out of hearing--and were skirting the high banks of the +darkly-flowing Mullet--and still there was Julian sullenly beside him. +In vain Charles had tried, by many gentle words, to draw him into common +conversation: Julian would not speak, or only gave utterance to some +hinted phrase of insult: his brow was even darker than usual, and night +was coming on apace, and he still tramped steadily along beside his +brother, digging his sturdy stick into the clay, for very spite's sake. +At length, as they yet walked along the river's side in that +unfrequented place, Julian said, on a sudden, in a low strange tone, as +if keeping down some rising rage within him, + +"Mr. Charles, you love Emily Warren." + +"Well, Julian, and who can help loving her?" + +It was innocently said; but still a maddening answer, for he loved her +too. + +"And, sirrah," the brother hoarsely added, "she--she does not--does +not--hate you, sir, as I do." + +"My good Julian, pray do not be so violent; I cannot help it if the dear +girl loves me." + +"But I can, though!" roared Julian, with an oath, and lifted up his +stick--it was nearer like a club--to strike his brother. + +"Julian, Julian, what are you about? Good Heavens! you would not--you +dare not--give over--unhand me, brother; what have I done, that you +should strike me? Oh! leave me--leave me--pray." + +"Leave you? I will leave you!" the villain almost shouted, and smote him +to the ground with his lead-loaded stick. It was a blow that must have +killed him, but for the interposing hat, now battered down upon his +bleeding head. Charles, at length thoroughly aroused, though his foe +must be a brother, struggled with unusual strength in self-preserving +instinct, wrested the club from Julian's hand, and stood on the +defensive. + +Julian was staggered: and, after a moment's irresolution, drawing a +pistol from his pocket, said, in a terribly calm voice, + +"Now, sir! I have looked for such a meeting many days--alone, by night, +with you! I would not willingly draw trigger, for the noise might bring +down other folks upon us, out of Oxton yonder: but, drop that stick, or +I fire." + +Charles was noble enough, without another word, to fling the club into +the river: it was not fear of harm, but fear of sin, that made him trust +himself defenceless to a brother, a twin-brother, in the dark: he could +not be so base, a murderer, a fratricide! Oh! most unhallowed thought! +Save him from this crime, good God! Then, instantaneously reflecting, +and believing he decided for the best, when he saw the ruffian glaring +on him with exulting looks, as upon an unarmed rival at his mercy, with +no man near to stay the deed, and none but God to see it, Charles +resolved to seek safety from so terrible a death in flight. + +Oxton was within one mile; and, clearly, this was not like flying from +danger as a coward, but fleeing from attempted crime, as a brother and +a Christian. Julian snatched at him to catch him as he passed: and, +failing in this, rushed after him. It was a race for life! and they went +like the wind, for two hundred yards, along that muddy high-banked walk. + +Suddenly, Charles slipped upon the clay, that he fell; and Julian, with +a savage howl, leapt upon him heavily. + +Poor youth, he knew that death was nigh, and only uttered, "God forgive +you, brother! oh, spare me--or, if not me, spare yourself--Julian, +Julian!" + +But the monster was determined. Exerting the whole force of his +herculean frame, he seized his scarce-resisting victim as he lay, and, +lifting him up like a child, flung his own twin-brother head foremost +into that darkly-flowing current! + +There was one piercing cry--a splash--a struggle; and again nothing +broke upon the silent night, but the murmur of that swingeing tide, as +the Mullet hurried eddying to the sea. + +Julian listened a minute or two, flung some stones at random into the +river, and then hastily ran back to Burleigh, feeling like a Cain. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +THE ESCAPE. + + +But the overruling hand of Him whose aid that victim had invoked, was +now stretched forth to save! and the strong-flowing tide, that ran too +rapidly for Charles to sink in it, was commissioned from on High to +carry him into an angle of that tortuous stream, where he clung by +instinct to the bushes. Silence was his wisdom, while the murderer was +near: and so long as Julian's footsteps echoed on the banks, Charles +stirred not, spoke not, but only silently thanked God for his wonderful +deliverance. However, the footsteps quickly died away, though heard far +off clattering amid the still and listening night; and Charles, +thankfully, no less than cautiously, drew himself out of the stream, +very little harmed beyond a drenching: for the waters had recovered him +at once from the effects of that desperate blow. + +It was with a sense of exultation, freedom, independence, that he now +hastened scatheless on his way; dripping garments mattered nothing, nor +mud, nor the loss of his demolished hat: the pocket-book was safe, and +Emmy's portrait, (how he kissed it, then!) and luckily a travelling cap +was in his great-coat pocket: so with a most buoyant feeling of animal +delight, as well as of religious gratitude, he sped merrily once more +upon his secret expedition. Thank Heaven! Emmy could not know the peril +he had past: and wretched Julian would now have dreadful reason of his +own for this mysterious absence: and it was a pleasant thing to trudge +along so freely in the starlight, on the private embassy of love. Happy +Charles! I know not if ever more exhilarated feelings blessed the youth; +they made him trip along the silent road, in a gush of joyfulness, at +the rate of some six miles an hour; I know not if ever such delicious +thoughts of Emily's attachment, and those gorgeous mysteries in India, +of adventure, enterprise, escape, had heretofore caused his heart to +bound so lightsomely within him, like some elastic spring. I know not if +ever strong reliance upon Providential care, more earnest prayers, +praises, intercessions (for poor Julian, too,) were offered on the altar +of his soul. Happy Charles! + +So he went on and on--long past Oxton, and Eyemouth, and Surbiton, and +over the ferry, and through the sleeping turnpikes, and past the bridge, +and along the broad high-road, until gray of morning's dawn revealed the +suburbs of Plymouth. + +Of course he missed the mail by which he intended to have gone--for +Julian's dread act delayed him. + +Long before his journey's end, his clothes were thoroughly dried, and +violent exercise had shaken off all possible rheumatic consequence of +that fearful plunge beneath the waters: five-and-twenty miles in four +hours and three-quarters, is a tolerable recipe for those who have +tumbled into rivers. We must recollect that he had gone as quick as he +could, for fear of being late, now the coach had passed. At a little +country inn, he brushed, and washed, and made toilet as well as he was +able, took a glass of good Cognac, both hot and strong; and felt more of +a man than ever. + +Then, having loitered awhile, and well-remembered Emily in his prayers, +at about eight in the morning he presented himself among his luggage at +the Europe in gentlemanly trim, and soon got all on board the pilot +boat, to meet the Indiaman just outside the breakwater. We may safely +leave him there, happy, hopeful Charles! Sanguine for the future, +exulting in the present, and thankful for the past: already has he +poured out all his joys before that Friend who loves her too, and +invoked His blessing on a scheme so well designed, so providentially +accomplished. + +I had almost forgotten Julian: wretched, hardened man, and how fared he? +The moment he had flung his brother into that dark stream, and the +waters closed above him greedily that he was gone--gone for ever, he +first threw in stones to make a noise like life upon the stream, but +that cheatery was only for an instant: he was alone--a murderer, alone! +the horrors of silence, solitude, and guilt, seized upon him like three +furies: so his quick retreating walk became a running; and the running +soon was wild and swift for fear; and ever as he ran, that piercing +scream came upon the wind behind, and hooted him: his head swam, his +eyes saw terrible sights, his ears heard terrible sounds--and he scoured +into quiet, sleeping Burleigh like a madman. However, by some strange +good luck, not even did the slumbering watchman see him: so he got +in-doors as usual with the latch-key (it was not the first time he had +been out at night), crept up quietly, and hid himself in his own +chamber. + +And how did he spend those hours of guilty solitude? in terrors? in +remorse? in misery? Not he: Julian was too wise to sit and think, and in +the dark too; but he lit both reading lamps to keep away the gloom, and +smoked and drank till morning's dawn to stupify his conscience. + +Then, to make it seem all right, he went down to breakfast as usual, +though any thing but sober, and met unflinchingly his mother's natural +question-- + +"Good morning, Julian--where's Charles?" + +"How should I know, mother; isn't he up yet?" + +"No, my dear; and what is more, I doubt if he came home last night." + +"Hollo, Master Charles! pretty doings these, Mr. Sabbath-teacher! so he +slept out, eh, mother?" + +"I don't know--but where did you leave him, Julian?" + +"Who! I? did I go out with him? Oh! yes, now I recollect: let's see, we +strolled together midway to Oxton, and, as he was going somewhat +further, there I left him?" + +How true the words, and yet how terribly false their meaning! + +"Dear me, that's very odd--isn't it, general?" + +"Not at all, ma'am--not at all; leave the lad alone, he'll be back by +dinner-time: I didn't think the boy had so much spirit." + +Emily, to whom the general's hint was Greek, looked up cheerfully and in +her own glad mind chuckled at her Charles's bold adventure. + +But the day passed, off, and they sent out men to seek for him: and +another--and all Burleigh was a-stir: and another--and the coast-guards +from Lyme to Plymouth Sound searched every hole and corner: and +another--when his mother wept five minutes: and another--when the wonder +was forgotten. + +However, they did not put on mourning for the truant: he might turn up +yet: perhaps he was at Oxford. + +Emily had not much to do in comforting the general for his dear son's +loss; it clearly was a gain to him, and he felt far freer than when +wisdom's eye was on him. Charles had been too keen for father, mother, +and brother; too good, too amiable: he saw their ill, condemned it by +his life, and showed their dark too black against his brightness. The +unnatural deficiency of mother's love had not been overrated: Julian had +all her heart; and she felt only obliged to the decamping Charles for +leaving Emily so free and clear to his delightful brother. She never +thought him dead: death was a repulsive notion at all times to her: no +doubt he would turn up again some day. And Julian joked with her about +that musty proverb "a bad penny." + +As to our dear heroine, she never felt so happy in all her life before +as now, even when her Charles had been beside her; for within a day of +his departure he had written her a note full of affection, hope, and +gladness; assuring her of his health, and wealth, and safe arrival on +board the Indiaman. The noble-hearted youth never said one single word +about his brother's crime: but he did warn his Emmy to keep close beside +the general. This note she got through Mrs. Sainsbury; that invalid lady +at Oxton, who never troubled herself to ask or hear one word beyond her +own little world--a certain physic-corner cupboard. + +And thou--poor miserable man--thou fratricide in mind--and to thy best +belief in act, how drags on now the burden of thy life? For a day or +two, spirits and segars muddled his brain, and so kept thoughts away: +but within a while they came on him too piercingly, and Julian writhed +beneath those scorpion stings of hot and keen remorse: and when the +coast-guards dragged the Mullet, how that caitiff trembled! and when +nothing could be found, how he wondered fearingly! The only thing the +wretched man could do, was to loiter, day after day, and all day long, +upon the same high path which skirts the tortuous stream. Fascinated +there by hideous recollections, he could not leave the spot for hours: +and his soft-headed, romantic mother, noticing these deep abstractions, +blessed him--for her Julian was now in love with Emily. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +NEWS OF CHARLES. + + +Ay--in love with Emily! Fiercely now did Julian pour his thoughts that +way; if only hoping to forget murder in another strong excitement. +Julian listened to his mother's counsels; and that silly, cheated woman +playfully would lean upon his arm, like a huge, coy confidante, and fill +his greedy ears (that heard her gladly for very holiday's sake from +fearful apprehensions), with lover's hopes, lover's themes, his Emily's +perfection. Delighted mother--how proud and pleased was she! quite in +her own element, fanning dear Julian's most sentimental flame, and +scheming for him interviews with Emily. + +It required all her skill--for the girl clung closely to her guardian: +he, unconscious Argus, never tired of her company; and she, remembering +dear Charles's hint, and dreading to be left alone with Julian, would +persist to sit day after day at her books, music, or needle-work in the +study, charming General Tracy by her pretty Hindoo songs. With him she +walked out, and with him she came in; she would read to him for hours, +whether he snored or listened; and, really, both mother and son were +several long weeks before their scheming could come to any thing. A +_tete-a-tete_ between Julian and Emily appeared as impossible to manage, +as collision between Jupiter and Vesta. + +However, after some six weeks of this sort of mining and counter-mining +(for Emily divined their wishes), all on a sudden one morning the +general received a letter that demanded his immediate presence for a day +or two in town; something about prize-money at Puttymuddyfudgepoor. +Emily was too high-spirited, too delicate in mind, to tell her guardian +of fears which never might be realized; and so, with some forebodings, +but a cheerful trust, too, in a Providence above her, she saw the +general off without a word, though not without a tear; he too, that +stern, close man, was moved: it was strange to see them love each other +so. + +The moment he was gone, she discreetly kept her chamber for the day, on +plea of sickness; she had cried very heartily to see him leave her--he +had never yet left her once since she could recollect--and thus she +really had a head-ache, and a bad one. + +Julian Tracy gave such a start, that he knocked off a cheffonier of +rare china and glass standing at his elbow; and the smash of mandarins +and porcelain gods would have been enough, at any other time, to have +driven his mother crazy. + +"Charles alive?" shouted he. + +"Yes, Julian--why not? You saw him off, you know: cannot you remember?" + +Now to that guilty wretch's mind the fearful notion instantaneously +occurred, that Emily Warren was in some strange, wild way bantering him; +she knew his dreadful secret--"he _had_ seen him off." He trembled like +an aspen as she looked on him. + +"Oh yes, he remembered, certainly; but--but where was her letter?" + +"Never mind that, Julian; you surely would not read another person's +letters, Monsieur le Chevalier Bayard?" + +Emily was as gay at heart that morning as a sky-lark, and her innocent +pleasantry proved her strongest shield. Julian dared not ask to see the +letter--scarcely dared to hope she had one, and yet did not know what to +think. As to any love scene now, it was quite out of the question, +notwithstanding all his mother's hints and management; a new exciting +thought entirely filled him: was he a Cain, a fratricide, or not? was +Charles alive after all? And, for once in his life, Julian had some +repentant feelings; for thrilling hope was nigh to cheer his gloom. + +It really seemed as if Emily, sweet innocent, could read his inmost +thoughts. "At any rate," observed she, playfully, "Bayard may take the +postman's privilege, and see the outside." + +With that, she produced the ship-letter that had put her in such +spirits, legibly dated some twenty-two days ago. Yes, Charles's hand, +sure enough! Julian could swear to it among a thousand. And he fainted +dead away. + +What an astonishing event! how Mrs. Tracy praised her noble-spirited +boy! How the bells rang! and hot water, and cold water, and salts, and +rubbings, and _eau de Cologne_, and all manner of delicate attentions, +long sustained, at length contributed to Julian's restoration. Moreover, +even Emily was agreeably surprised; she had never seen him in so amiable +a light before; this was all feeling, all affection for his brother--her +dear--dear Charles. And when Mrs. Tracy heard what Emily said of +Julian's feeling heart, she became positively triumphant; not half so +much at Charles's safety, and all that, as at Julian's burst of feeling. +She was quite right, after all; he was worthy to be her favourite, and +she felt both flattered and obliged to him for fainting dead away. +"Yes--yes, my dear Miss Warren, depend upon it Julian has fine feelings, +and a good heart." And Emily began to condemn both Charles and herself +for lack of charity, and to think so too. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE TETE-A-TETE. + + +No sooner had "dear Julian" recovered, which he really had not quite +accomplished until the day had begun to wear away (so great a shock had +that intelligence of Charles been to his guilty mind), than the +gratified and prudent mother fancied this a famous opportunity to leave +the young couple to themselves. It was after dinner, when they had +retired to the drawing-room; and I will say that Emily had never seemed +so favourably disposed towards that rough, but generous, heart before. +So then, on some significant pretence, well satisfied her favourite was +himself again, as bold, and black, and boisterous as ever, the masculine +mother kissed her hand to them, as a fat fairy might be supposed to do, +and operatically tripped away, coyly bidding Emily "take care of Julian +till she should come back again." + +The momentary gleam of good which glanced across that bad man's heart +has faded away hours ago; his repentant thoughts had been occasioned +more from the sudden relief he experienced at running now no risks for +having murdered, than for any better feeling towards his brother, or any +humbler notions of himself. Nay, a strong reaction occurred in his ideas +the moment he had seen his brother's writing; and when he fainted, he +fainted from the struggle in his mind of manifold exciting causes, such +as these:--hatred, jealousy, what he called love, though a lower name +befitted it, and vexation that his brother was--not dead. Oh mother, +mother! if your poor weak head had but been wise enough to read that +heart, would you still have loved it as you do? Alas--it is a deep +lesson in human nature this--she would! for Mrs. General Tracy was one +of those obstinate, yet superficial characters, whom no reason can +convince that they are wrong, no power can oblige to confess themselves +mistaken. She rejoiced to hear him called "her very image;" and +predominant vanity in the large coquette extended to herself at +second-hand; self was her idol substance, and its delightful shadow was +this mother's son. + +The moment Mrs. Tracy left the room, Julian perceived his opportunity: +Charles, detested rival, far away at sea; the guardian gone to London; +Emily in an unusual flow of affability and kindness, and he--alone with +her. Rashly did he bask his soul in her delicious beauty, deliberately +drinking deep of that intoxicating draught. Giving the rein to passion, +he suffered that tumultuous steed to hurry him whither it would, in mad +unbridled course. He sat so long silently gazing at her with the +lack-lustre eyes of low and dull desire, that Emily, quite thrown off +her guard by that amiable fainting for his brother, addressed him in her +innocent kind-heartedness, + +"Are you not recovered yet, dear Julian?" + +The effect was instantaneous: scarcely crediting his ears that heard her +call him "dear," his eyes, that saw her winning smile upon him, he +started from his chair, and trembling with agitation, flung himself at +her feet, to Emily's unqualified astonishment. + +"Why, Julian, what's the matter?--unhand me, sir! let go!" (for he had +got hold of her wrist.) + +The passionate youth seized her hand--that one with Charles's ring upon +it--and would have kissed it wildly with polluting lips, had she not +shrieked suddenly "Help! help!" + +Instantly his other hand was roughly dashed upon her mouth--so roughly +that it almost knocked her backwards--and the blood flowed from her +wounded lip; but by a preternatural effort, the indignant Indian queen +hurled the ruffian from her, flew to the bell, and kept on ringing +violently. + +In less than half a minute all the household was around her, headed by +the startled Mrs. Tracy, who had all the while been listening in the +other drawing-room: butler, footmen, house-maids, ladies'-maids, cook, +scullions, and all rushed in, thinking the house was on fire. + +No need to explain by a word. Emily, radiant in imperial charms, stood, +like inspired Cassandra, flashing indignation from her eyes at the +cowering caitiff on the floor. The mother, turning all manner of +colours, dropped on her knees to "poor Julian's" assistance, affecting +to believe him taken ill. But Emily Warren, whose insulted pride +vouchsafed not a word to that guilty couple, soon undeceived all +parties, by addressing the butler in a voice tremulous and broken-- + +"Mr. Saunders--be so good--as to go--to Sir Abraham Tamworth's--in the +square--and request of him--a night's--protection--for a +poor--defenceless, insulted woman!" + +She could hardly utter the last words for choking tears: but immediately +battling down her feelings, added, with the calmness of a heroine-- + +"You are a father, Mr. Saunders--set all this before Sir Abraham +strongly, but delicately. + +"Footmen! so long as that wretch is in the room, protect me, as you are +men." + +And the stately beauty placed herself between the two liveried lacqueys, +as Zenobia in the middle of her guards. + +"Marguerite!"--the pretty little Francaise tripped up to her--"wipe this +blood from my face." + +Beautiful, insulted creature! I thought that I looked upon some wounded +Boadicea, with her daughters extracting the arrow from her cheek. + +"And now, kind Charlotte, fetch my cloak; and follow me to Prospect +House, with what I may require for the night. Till the general's return, +I stay not here one minute." + +Then, without a syllable, or a look of leave-taking, the wise and noble +girl--doubtless unconsciously remembering her early Hindoo braveries, +the lines of matchlock men, the bowing slaves, the processions, and her +jewelled state of old--marched away in magnificent beauty, accompanied +in silence by the whole astonished household. + +Mrs. Tracy and her son were left alone: the silly, silly mother thought +him "hardly used." Julian, whose natural effrontery had entirely +deserted him, looked like what he was--a guilty coward: and the mother, +who had pampered up her "fine high-spirited son" to his full-grown +criminality by a foolish education, really--when she had time to think +of any thing but him--was excessively frightened. The general would be +back to-morrow, and then--and then!--she dreaded to picture that +explosion of his wrath. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +SATISFACTION. + + +Sir Abraham Tamworth, G.C.B.--a fine old Admiral of the White, who +somewhat looked down upon the rank of General, H.E.I.C.S.--was +astonished, as well he might be, at Mr. Saunders, and his message: and, +of course, most gladly acquiesced in acting as poor Emily's protector. +Accordingly, however jealous Lady Tamworth and her daughters might +heretofore have felt of that bright beauty at the balls, they were now +all genuine sympathy, indignation, and affection. Emily, I need hardly +say, went straight up stairs to have her cry out. + +"Whom are you writing to, George, in such a hurry?" asked the admiral, +of a fine moustachioed son, George St. Vincent Tamworth, of the Royal +Horse Guards, who had just got six months' leave of absence for the sake +of marriage with his cousin. + +The gallant soldier tossed a billet to his father, who mounted his +spectacles, and quietly read it at the lamp. + +"Captain Tamworth desires Mr. Julian Tracy's company to-morrow morning, +at seven o'clock, in the third meadow on the Oxton road. The captain +brings a friend with him; also pistols and a surgeon; and he desires Mr. +Tracy to do the like: Prospect House, Thursday evening." + +"So, George, you consider him a gentleman, do you? I am afraid it's a +poor compliment to our fair young friend." And he quietly crumpled up +the challenge in his iron hand. + +"Really, sir!--you surprise me;--pardon me, but I will send that note: +mustn't I chastise the fellow for this insufferable outrage?" + +"No doubt, George, no doubt of it at all: when a lady is insulted, and a +man (not to say a queen's officer) stands by without taking notice of +it, he deserves whipping at the cart's-tail, and Coventry for life. I've +no patience, boy, with such mean meekness, as putting up with bullying +insolence when a woman's in the case. Let a man show moral courage, if +he can and will, in his own affront; I honour him who turns on his heel +from common personal insult, and only wish my own old blood was cool +enough to do so: but the mother, wife, and sister, ay, George, and the +poor defenceless one, be she lady, peasant, or menial, who comes to us +for safety in a woman's dress, we must take up their quarrel, or we are +not men!--" + +"Don't interrupt him, George," uxoriously suggested Lady Tamworth, +"your father hasn't done talking yet." For George was getting terribly +impatient; he knew, from sad experience, how much the admiral was given +to prosing. However, the oration soon proceeded to our captain's entire +satisfaction, after his progenitor had paused awhile for breath's sake +in his eloquence. + +"--Take up their quarrel, or we are not men. Nevertheless, boy, I cannot +see the need of pistols. The only conceivable case for violent redress, +is woman's wrong: and he who wrongs a woman, cannot be a gentleman; +therefore, ought not to be met on equal terms. For other causes of +duello, as hot-headed speeches, rudenesses, or slights, forgive, forbear +to fan the flame, and never be above apologizing: but in an outrage such +as this, let a fine-built fellow, such as you are, George (and the women +should show wisdom in their choice of champions), let a man, and a +queen's officer as you are, treat this brute, Julian Tracy, as a +martinet huntsman would a hound thrown out. As for me, boy, I'm going to +call on Mrs. Tracy at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning--and, without +presuming to advise a six foot two of a son, I think--I think, if I were +you, I would be dutiful enough to say--'Father, I will accompany +you--and take a horsewhip with me.'" + +"Agreed, agreed, sir!" replied the well-pleased son, and her ladyship +too vouchsafed her approbation. + +Emily had gone to bed long ago, or rather to her chamber; where the +three Misses Tamworth had been all kindness, curiosity, and consolation. +So, Sir Abraham and his lady, now the speech was finished, followed +their example of retirement: and the captain newly blood-knotted his +hunting-whip, _con amore_, not to say _con spirito_, overnight. + +Nobody will wonder to hear, that when the gallant representatives of +army and navy called next morning at number seven, Mrs. Tracy and her +son were "not at home:" and of course it would be far too Julian-like a +proceeding, for true gentleman to think of forcing their company on the +probably ensconced in-dwellers. Accordingly, they marched away, without +having deigned to leave a card; the captain taking on himself the duty +of perambulating sentinel, while his father proceeded to the library as +usual. Judge of the glad surprise, when, within ten minutes, our +vindictive George perceived the admiral coming back again, full-sail, +with the mother and son in tow, creeping amicably enough up the terrace. +Sir Abraham had given her his arm, and precious Mr. Julian was a little +in the rear: for the old folks were talking confidentially. + +George St. Vincent, placing his whip in the well-known position of +"Cane, a mystery," advanced to meet them; and, just after passing his +father, with whom he exchanged a very comfortable glance, discovered +that the heroic Julian, who had caught a glimpse of the ill-concealed +weapon, was slinking quickly round a corner to avoid him. It was +certainly undignified to run, but the gallant captain did run, +nevertheless and soon caught the coward by the collar. + +Then, at arm's length, was the hunting-whip applied, full-swing; up the +terrace, and down the parade, and through High-street, and Smith-street, +and Oxton-road, and aristocratical Pacton-square, and the well-thronged +plebeian market-place; lash, lash, lash, in furious and fast succession +on the writhing roaring culprit; to the universal excoriation of Mr. +Julian Tracy, and the amazement of an admiring and soon-collected +crowd--the rank, beauty, and fashion--of Burleigh Singleton. Julian was +strong indeed, and a coal-heaver in build, but conscience had unnerved +him; and the coarse noisy bully always is a coward: therefore, it was a +pleasant thing to see how easy came the captain's work to him--he had +nothing to do but to lash, lash, lash, double-thonged, like a +slave-driver: and, except that he made the caitiff move along, to be a +spectacle to man and woman, up and down the town, he might as well, for +any difficulty in the deed, have been employed in scarifying a +gate-post. + +At last, thoroughly exhausted with having inflicted as much punishment +as any three drummers at a soldier's whipping-match, and spying out his +"tiger" in the throng, our gallant Avenging Childe tossed the heavy whip +to the trim cockaded little man, that he might carry home that +instrument of vengeance, deliberately wiped his wet mustachios, and +giving Julian one last kick, let the fellow part in peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +HOW CHARLES FARED. + + +Having thus found protectors for poor Emily, and disposed of her +assailant to the entire satisfaction of all mankind, let us turn +seawards, and take a look at Charles. + +Now, "no earthly power,"--as a certain ex-chancellor protested--shall +induce me to do so mean a thing as to open Charles's letters, and spread +them forth before the public gaze. Doubtless, they were all things +tender, warm, and eloquent; doubtless, they were tinted rosy hue, with +love's own blushes, and made glorious with the golden light of +unaffected piety. I only read them myself in a reflected way, by looking +into Emily's eyes; and I saw, from their ever-changing radiance, how +feelingly he told of his affections; how fervently he poured out all his +heart upon the page; how evidently tears and kisses had made many words +illegible; how wise, sanguine, happy, and religious, was her own devoted +Charles. + +Of the trivial incidents of voyaging, his letters said not much: though +cheerful and agreeable in his floating prison, with the various exported +marrying-maidens and transported civil officers, who constitute the +average bulk of Indian cargoes outward bound, Charles mixed but little +in their society, seldom danced, seldom smoked, seldom took a hand at +whist, or engaged in the conflicts of backgammon. Sharks, storms, +water-spouts; the meeting divers vessels, and exchanging post-bags; +tar-barrelled Neptune of the line, Cape Town with its mountain and the +Table-cloth, long-rolling seas; and similar common-places, Charles did +not think proper to enlarge upon: no more do I. Life is far too short +for all such petty details: and, more pointedly, a wire-drawn book is +the just abhorrence of a generous public. + +The letters came frequently: for Charles did little else all day but +write to Emmy, so as always to be ready with a budget for the next piece +of luck--a home-bound ship. He had many things to teach her yet, sweet +student; and it was a beautiful sight to see how her mind expanded as an +opening flower before the sun of tenderness and wisdom. Each letter, +both in writing and in reading, was the child of many prayers: and even +the loveliness of Emily grew more soft, more elevated, "as it had been +the face of an angel," when feeding in solitary joy on those effusions +of her lover's heart. + +Of course, he could not hear from her, until the overland mail might +haply bring him letters at Madras: so that, as our Irish friends would +say, with all her will to tell him of her love, "the reciprocity must +needs be all on one side." But Emily did write too; earnestly, happily: +and poured her very heart out in those eloquent burning words. I dare +say Charles will get the letter now within a day or two: for the roaring +surf of Madras is on the horizon, almost within sight. + +Nevertheless, before he gets there, and can read those +letters--precious, precious manuscripts--it will be my painful duty, as +a chronicler of (what might well be) truth, to put the reader in +possession of one little hint, which seemed likeliest to wreck the +happiness of these two children of affection. + +I am Emily's invisible friend: and as the dear girl ran to me one +morning, with tears in her eyes, to ask me what I thought of a certain +mysterious paragraph, I need not scruple to lay it straight before the +reader. + +At the end of a voluminous love-letter, which I really did not think of +prying into, occurred the following postscript, evidently written at the +last moment of haste. + +"Oh! my precious Emmy, I have just heard the most fearful rumour of ill +that could possibly befall us: the captain of our ship--you will +remember Captain Forbes, he knew you and the general well, he said--has +just assured me that--that--! I dare not, cannot write the awful words. +Oh! my own Emmy--Heaven grant you be my own!--pray, pray, as I will +night and day, that rumour be not true: for if it be, my love, both God +and man forbid us ever to meet again! How I wish I could explain it all, +or that I had never heard so much, or never written it here, and told it +you, though thus obscurely: for I can't destroy this letter now, the +ships are just parting company, and there is no time to write another. +Yet will I hope, love, against hope. Who knows? through God's good +mercy, it may all be cleared up still. If not--if not--strive to forget +for ever, your unhappy "CHARLES. + +"Perhaps--O, glorious thought!--Nurse Mackie may know better than the +captain, after all; and yet, he seems so positive: if he is right, there +is nothing for us both but Wo! Wo! Wo!" + +Now, to say plain truth, when Emily showed me this, I looked very blank +upon it. That Charles had heard some meddlesome report, which (if true) +was to be an insuperable barrier to their future union, struck me at a +glimpse. But I had not the heart to hint it to her; and only encouraged +hope--hope, in God's help, through the means of Mrs. Mackie and her +papers. + +As for the poor girl herself, she asked me, in much humility, and with +many sobs, if I did not fear that her Hindoo mystery was this:--she was +the vilest of the vile, a Pariah, an outcast, whose very presence is +contamination! + +Beautiful, loving, heavenly-hearted creature! so humble in the midst of +her majestic loveliness! how touching was the thought, that she thus +readily acquiesced in any the deepest humiliation holy Providence had +seen fit to send her; and though the sentence would have crushed her +happiness for ever, till the day of death, that she could still look up +and say, "Be it to thine handmaid even as thou wilt." + +As I had no better method of explaining the matter, and as her infantine +reminiscences and prejudices about caste were strong, I even let her +think so, if she would: it was a far better alternative than my own sad +thoughts about the business: and, however painful was the process, it +was something consolatory to observe, that this voluntary humiliation +mellowed and chastened her own character, subduing tropical fires, and +tempering the virgin gold by meekness. + +Oh! Charles, Charles, my poor fellow, "who have cast your all upon a +die, and must abide the issue of the throw," I most fervently hope that +gossiping Captain Forbes spoke falsely: it is a comfort to reflect that +the world is often very liberal in attributing the honours of paternity +to some who really do not deserve them. And if a rich old bachelor looks +kindly on a foundling, is it not pure malice on that sole account of +charity to hail him father? Besides--there's Nurse Mackie.--Speed to +Madras, poor youth, and keep your courage up. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE GENERAL'S RETURN. + + +In a most unwonted flow of animal spirits, and an entire affability +which restored him at once to the rank of a communicative creature, +General Tracy came back on Friday night. He had met with marvellous +prosperity; for Hancock's had been paying off the prize-money; and his +own lion's share, as general, in the easy process of dethroning half a +dozen diamond-hilted rajahs and nabobs, amounted to something like four +lacs of rupees, nearly half a crore! Such a flush of wealth, and he was +rich already without it, exhilarated the bilious old gentleman so +strangely, that positive peonies were blooming in his cheeks; and, as if +this was not miracle enough, he had brought his wife as a present +Maurice's '_Antiquities of India_,' gloriously bound, and had even been +so superfluous as to purchase a new pair of double-barrelled pistols for +Julian: the lad was a fine young fellow after all, and ought to be +encouraged in snuffing out a candle; as for Emily's _petit cadeau_, it +was a fifty guinea set of cameos, the choicest in their way that Howell +and James's had to show him. Moreover, he had sent a Bow-street officer +to Oxford, to make inquiries after Charles: actually, good fortune had +made him at once humanized and happy. + +So the chaise rattled up, and the general bounded out, and flew into the +arms of his wondering wife, as Paris might have flown to Helen, or +Leander to his heroine--the only feminine Hero, whom grammar recognises. +It was past eleven at night: therefore he did not think to ask for +Julian; no doubt the boy was gone to bed. + +Indeed, he had; and was tossing his wealed body, full of pains, and +aches, and bruises, as softly as he could upon the feather-bed: he had +need of poultices all over, and a quart of Friar's Balsam would have +done him little good: after his well-merited thrashing, the flogged +hound had slunk to his kennel, and locked himself sullenly in, without +even speaking to his mother. Tobacco-fumes exuded from the key-hole, and +I doubt not other creature-comforts lent the muddled man their aid. + +However, after the first rush of news to Mrs. Tracy, her lord, who had +every moment been expecting the door to fly open, and Emily to fall into +his arms--for strangely did they love each other--suddenly asked, + +"But, where's Emmy all this time! she knows I'm here?--not got to bed, +is she?--knew I was coming?--" + +"Oh! general, I'll tell you all about it to-morrow morning." + +"About what, madam? Great God! has any harm befallen the child? +Speak--speak, woman!" + +"Dear--dear--Oh! what shall I say?" sobbed the silly mother. +"Emily--Emily, poor dear Julian--" + +"What the devil, ma'am, of Julian?" The general turned white as a sheet, +and rang the bell, in singular calmness; probably for a dram of brandy. +Saunders answered it so instantly, that I rather suspect he was waiting +just outside. + +The moment Mrs. Tracy saw the gray-headed butler, anticipating all that +he might say, she brushed past him, and hurriedly ran up-stairs. + +"What's all this, Mr. Saunders? where's Miss Warren?" And the poor old +guardian seemed ready to faint at his reply: but he heard it out +patiently. + +"I am very sorry to say, general, that Miss Emily has been forced to +take refuge at Sir Abraham Tamworth's: but she's well, sir, and safe, +sir; quite well and safe," the good man hastened to say, "only I'm +afraid that Mr. Julian had been taking liberties with--" + +I dare not write the general's imprecation: then, as he clenched the +arms of his easy-chair, as with the grasp of the dying, he asked, in a +quick wild way-- + +"But what was it?--what happened?" + +"Nothing to fear, sir--nothing at all, general;--I am thankful to say, +that all I saw, and all we all saw, was Miss Emily pulling at the +bell-rope with blood upon her face, and Mr. Julian on the floor: but I +took the young lady to Sir Abraham's immediately, general, at her own +desire." + +The father arose sternly; his first feeling was to kill Julian; but the +second, a far better one, predominated--he must go and see Emily at +once. + +So, faintly leaning on the butler's arm, the poor old man (whom a moiety +of ten minutes, with its crowding fears, had made to look some ten years +older,) proceeded to the square, and knocked up Sir Abraham at midnight, +and the admiral came down, half asleep, in dressing-gown and slippers, +vexed at having been knocked up from his warm berth so uncomfortably: it +put him sorely in remembrance of his hardships as a middy. + +"Kind neighbour, thank you, thank you; where's Emmy? take me to my +Emmy;" and the iron-hearted veteran wept like a driveller. + +Sir Abraham looked at him queerly: and then, in a cheerful, friendly +way, replied-- + +"Dear general, do not be so moved: the girl's quite safe with us; you'll +see her to-morrow morning. All's right; she was only frightened, and +George has given the fellow a proper good licking: and the girl's a-bed, +you know; and, eh? what?"-- + +For the poor old man, like one bereaved, said, supplicatingly-- + +"In mercy take me to her--precious child!" + +"My dear sir--pray consider--it's impossible; fine girl, you know;--Lady +Tamworth, too--can't be, can't be, you know, general." + +And the mystified Sir Abraham looked to Saunders for an explanation-- + +"Was his master drunk?" + +"I must speak to her, neighbour; I must, must, and will--dear, dear +child: come up with me, sir, come; do not trifle with a breaking heart, +neighbour!" + +There was a heart still in that hard-baked old East Indian. + +It was impossible to resist such an appeal: so the two elders crept up +stairs, and knocked softly at her chamber-door. Clearly, the girl was +asleep: she had sobbed herself to sleep; the general had been looked for +all day long, and she was worn with watching; he could hardly come at +midnight; so the dear affectionate child had sobbed herself to sleep. + +"Allow me, Sir Abraham." And General Tracy whispered something at the +key-hole in a strange tongue. + +Not Aladdin's "open Sesame" could have been more magical. In a moment, +roused up suddenly from sleep, and forgetting every thing but those +tender recollections of gentle care in infancy, and kindness all through +life, the child of nature startled out of bed, drew the bolt, and in +beauteous disarray, fell into that old man's arms! + +It was enough; he had seen her eye to eye--she lived: and the +white-haired veteran, suffered himself to be led away directly from the +landing, like a child, by his sympathizing neighbour. + +"My heart is lighter now, Sir Abraham: but I am a poor weak old man, and +owe you an explanation for this outburst; some day--some day, not now. +O, if you could guess how I have nursed that pretty babe when alone in +distant lands; how I have doated on her little winning ways, and been +gladdened by the music of her prattle; how I have exulted to behold her +loveliness gradually expanding, as she was ever at my side, in peril as +in peace, in camp as in quarters, in sickness as in health, +still--still, the blessed angel of a bad man's life--a wicked, hard old +man, kind neighbour--if you knew more--more, than for her sake I dare +tell you--and if you could conceive the love my Emmy bears for me, you +would not think it strange--think it strange--" He could not say a +syllable more; and the admiral, with Mr. Saunders, too, who joined them +in the study, looked very little able to console that poor old man. For +they all had hearts, and trickling eyes to tell them. + +Then having arranged a shake-down for his master in Sir Abraham's +study--for the guardian would not leave his dear one ever +again--Saunders went home, purposing to attend with razors in the +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +INTERCALARY. + + +The Tamworths did not altogether live at Burleigh Singleton--it was far +too petty a place for them; dullness all the year round (however +pleasant for a month or so, as a holiday from toilsome pleasures) would +never have done for Lady Tamworth and her daughters: but they regularly +took Prospect House for six weeks in the summer season, when tired of +Portland Place, and Huntover, their fine estate in Cheshire: and so, +from constant annual immigration, came as much to be regarded +Burleighites, as swifts and swallows to be ranked as British birds. I +only hint at this piece of information, for fear any should think it +unlikely, that grandees of Sir Abraham's condition could exist for ever +in a place where the day-before-yesterday's '_Times_' is first +intelligence. + +Moreover, as another interjectional touch, it is only due to my +life-likenesses to record, that Mrs. Green's, although a terrace-house, +and ranked as humble number seven, was, nevertheless, a tolerably +spacious mansion, well suited for the dignity of a butler to repose in: +for Mrs. Green had added an entire dwelling on the inland side, as, like +most maritime inhabitants, she was thoroughly sick of the sea, and never +cared to look at it, though living there still, from mere disinclination +to stir: so, then, it was quite a double house, both spacious and +convenient. As for the inglorious incident of Julian's latch-key, I +should not wonder if many wide street-doors to many marble halls are +conscious of similar convenient fastenings, if gentlemen of Julian's +nocturnal tastes happen to be therein dwelling. Another little matter is +worth one word. The house had been Mrs. Green's, a freehold, and was, +therefore, now her heir's; but the general, as an executor, remained +there still, until his business was finished; in fact, he took his +year's liberty. + +He had returned from India rolling in gold; for some great princess or +other--I think they called her a Begum or a Glumdrum, or other such like +Gulliverian appellative--had been singularly fond of him, and had loaded +him in early life with favours--not only kisses, and so forth, but +jewellery and gold pagodas. And lately, as we know, Puttymuddyfudgepoor, +with its radiating rajahs and nabobs, had proved a mine of wealth: for a +crore is ten lacs, and a lac of rupees is any thing but a lack of +money--although rupees be money, and the "middle is distributed;" in +spite of logic, then, a lack means about twelve thousand pounds: and +four of them, according to Cocker, some fifty thousand. It would appear +then, that with the produce of the Begum's diamonds, converted into +money long ago, and some of them as big as linnet's eggs--and not to +take account of Mrs. Green's trifling pinch of the five Exchequer bills, +all handed over at once to Emily--the General's present fortune was +exactly one hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds. + +Of course, _he_ wasn't going to bury himself at Burleigh Singleton much +longer; and yet, for all that stout intention of houses and lands, and +carriages and horses, in almost any other county or country, it is as +true as any thing in this book, that he was a resident still, a +lease-holder of Aunt Green's house, long after the _denouement_ of this +story; in many things an altered man, but still identical in one; the +unchangeable resolve (though never to be executed) of leaving Burleigh +at farthest by next Michaelmas. Most folks who talk much, do little; and +taciturn as the general now is, and has been ever throughout life, it +will surprise nobody who has learned from hard experience how silly and +harmful a thing is secresy (exceptionables excepted), to find that he +grew to be a garrulous old man, gossipping for ever of past, present, +future, and, not least, about his deeds at Puttymuddyfudgepoor. + +General Tracy is by this time awake again; if ever indeed he slept on +that uncomfortable shakedown; and, after Mr. Saunders and the +razor-strop, has greeted brightly-beaming Emily with more than usual +tenderness. Her account of the transaction made his very blood boil; +especially as her pretty pouting lips were lacerated cruelly inside: +that rude blow on the mouth had almost driven the teeth through them. +How confidingly she told her artless tale; how gently did her fond +protector kiss that poor pale cheek; and how sternly did he vow full +vengeance on the caitiff! Not even Emily's intercession could avail to +turn his wrath aside. He could hardly help flying off at once to do +something dreadful; but common courtesy to all the Tamworth family +obliged him to defer for an hour all the terrible things he meant to do. +So he began to bolt his breakfast fiercely as a cannibal, and saluted +Lady Tamworth and her daughters with such savage looks, that the captain +considerately suggested: + +"Here, general," (handing him a most formidable carving-knife,) "charge +that boar's head, grinning defiance at us on the side-board; it will do +you good to hew his brawny neck. My mother, I am sure, for one, will +thank you to do the honours there instead of me. Isn't it a comfort now, +to know that I broke the handle of my hunting-whip across the fellow's +back, and wore all the whip-cord into skeins. Come, I say, general, +don't eat us all round; and pray have mercy on that poor, flogged, +miserable sinner." + +This banter did him good, especially as he saw Emily smiling; so he +relaxed his knit brow, condescended to look less like Giant Blunderbore, +soon became marvellous chatty, and ate up two French rolls, an egg, some +anchovies, a round of toast, and a mighty slice of brawn; these, washed +down with a couple of cups of tea, soothed him into something like +complacency. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +JULIAN'S DEPARTURE. + + +Long before the general got home, still in exalted dudgeon (indeed soon +after the general had left home over night), the bird had flown; for the +better part of valour suggested to our evil hero, that it would be +discreet to render himself a scarce commodity for a season; and as soon +as ever his mother had run up to his room-door to tell him of his +danger, when her lord was cross-questioning the butler, he resolved upon +instant flight. Accordingly, though sore and stiff, he hurried up, +dressed again, watched his father out, and tumbling over Mrs. Tracy, who +was sobbing on the stairs, ran for one moment to the general's room; +there he seized a well-remembered cash-box, and instinctively possessed +himself of those new, neat, double-barrelled pistols: a bully never goes +unarmed. These brief arrangements made, off he set, before his father +could have time to return from Pacton Square. + +Therefore, when the general called, we need not marvel that he found him +not; no one but the foolish mother (so neglected of her son, yet still +excusing him) stood by to meet his wrath. He would not waste it on her; +so long as Julian was gone, his errand seemed accomplished; for all he +came to do was to expel him from the house. So, as far as regarded Mrs. +Tracy, her husband, wotting well how much she was to blame, merely +commanded her to change her sleeping-room, and occupy Mr. Julian's in +future. + +The silly woman was even glad to do it; and comforted herself from time +to time with prying into her own boy's exemplary manuscripts, memoranda +of moralities, and so forth; with weeping, like Lady Constance, over his +empty "unpuffed" clothes; with reading ever and anon his choice +collection of standard works, among which '_Don Juan_' and Mr. Thomas +Paine were by far the most presentable; and with tasting, till it grew +to be a habit, his private store of spirituous liquors. Thus did she +mourn many days for long-lost Julian. + +I am quite aware what became of him. The wretched youth, mad for Emily's +love, and tortured by the tyranny of passion, had nothing else to live +for or to die for. He accordingly took refuge in the hovel of a +smuggler, an old friend of his, not many miles away, disguised himself +in fisherman's costume, and bode his opportunity. + +Beauteous girl! how often have I watched thee with straining eyes and +aching heart, as thou wentest on thy summer's walk so oftentimes to +Oxton, there to exercise thy bountiful benevolence in comforting the +sick, gladdening the wretched, and lingering, with love's own look, in +Charles's village school; how often have I prayed, that guardian angels +might be about thy path as about thy bed! For the prowling tiger was on +thy track, poor innocent one, and many, many times nothing but one of +God's seeming accidents hath saved thee. Who was that strange man so +often in the way? At one time a wounded Spanish legionist, with head +bound up; at another, an old beggar upon crutches; at another, a floury +miller with a donkey and a sack; at another, a black looking man, in +slouching sailor's hat and fishing-boots? + +Fair, pure creature! thou hast often dropped a shilling in that beggar's +hand, and pitied that poor maimed soldier; once, too, a huge gipsy woman +would have had thee step aside, and hear thy fortunes. Heaven guarded +thee then, sweet Emily; for both girl and lover though thou art, thou +would'st not listen to the serpent's voice, however fair might be the +promises. And Heaven guarded thee ever, bidding some one pass along the +path just as the ruffian might have gagged thy smiling mouth, and +hurried thee away amongst his fellows; and more than once, especially, +those school children, bursting out of Charles's school at dusk, have +unconsciously escorted thee in safety from the perils of that tiger on +thy track. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +ENLIGHTENMENT. + + +The general could not now be kept in ignorance of Charles's expedition; +in fact, he had found his heart, and began resolutely to use it. So, the +very day on which he had lost Julian, he intended very eagerly to seek +out Charles; for the Oxford search had failed, and no wonder. Now, +though Emily had told, as we well know, to both mother and son her +secret, the father was not likely to be any the wiser; for he now never +spoke to his wife, and could not well speak to his son. However, one +day, an hour after an overland letter, a very exhilarating one, dated +Madras, whereof we shall hear anon, fair Emily, in the fullness of her +heart, could not help saying, + +"Dearest sir, you are often thinking of poor lost Charles, I know; and +you are very anxious about him too, though nobody but myself, who am +always with you, can perceive it: what if you heard he was safe and +well?" + +"Have you heard any tidings of my poor boy, Emmy?" + +She looked up archly, and said, "Why not?" her beautiful eyes adding, as +plainly as eyes could speak, "I love him, and you know it; of course I +have heard frequently from dear, dear Charles." + +But the guardian met her looks with a keen and chilling answer: "Why +not! why not! Does he dare to write to you, and you to love him? Oh, +that I had told them both a year ago! But where is he now, child? Don't +cry, I will not speak so angrily again, my Emmy." + +"I hardly dare to tell you, dearest sir: you have always been as a +father to me, and I never knew any other; but there are things I cannot +explain to myself, and I was very wretched; and so, kind guardian, +Charles--Charles was so good--" + +"What has he done?--where has he gone?" hastily asked his father. + +"Oh, don't, don't be angry with us; in a word, he is gone to Madras, to +find out Nurse Mackie, and to tell me who I am." + +The poor old man, who had treasured up so long some mystery, probably a +very diaphanous one, for Emily's own dear sake in the world's esteem, +and from the long bad habit of reserve, fell back into his chair as if +he had been shot; but he did not faint, nor gasp, nor utter a sound; he +only looked at her so long and sorrowfully, that she ran to him, and +covered his pale face with her own brown curls, kissing him, and wiping +from his cheek her starting tears. + +"Emmy, dear--I can tell you--and I--no, no, not now, not now; if he +comes back--then--then; poor children! Oh, the sin of secresy!" + +"But, dearest sir, do not be so sad; Charles has happy news, he says." + +"Happy, child? Good Heaven! would it could be so!" + +"Indeed, indeed, a week ago he was as miserable as any could be, and so +was I; for he heard something terrible about me--I don't know what--but +I feared I was a--Pariah! However, now he is all joy, and coming home +again as soon as possible." + +The general shook, his head mournfully, as physicians do when hope is +gone; but still he looked perplexed and thoughtful. + +"You will show me the letters, dear, I dare say: but I do not command +you, Emmy; do as you like." + +"Certainly, my own kindest guardian--all, all, and instantly." + +And flying up to her room, she returned with as much closely-written +manuscript as would have taken any but a lover's eye a full week to +decipher. The general, not much given to literary matters, looked quite +scared at such a prospect. + +"Wait, Emmy; not all, not all; show me the last." + +I dare say Emily will forgive me if I get it set up legibly in print. +May I, dear? + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +CHARLES AT MADRAS. + + +Luckily enough for all mankind in general, and our lovers in particular, +Charles's last letter was very unlike some that had preceded it; for +instead of the usual "Oh, my love"'s, "sweet, sweet eyes," "darling"'s, +and all manner of such chicken-hearted nonsense, it was positively +sensible, rational, not to say utilitarian: though I must acknowledge +that here and there it degenerates into the affectionate, or +Stromboli-vein of letter-writing, at opening especially; and really now +and then I shall take leave to indicate omitted inflammations by a *. + +"DEAREST, DEAREST EMMY, + + * * * * * + +[and so forth, a very galaxy of stars to the bottom of this page; enough +to put the compositor out of his terrestrial senses.] + +"You see I have recovered my spirits, dearest, and am not now afraid to +tell you how I love you. Oh, that detestable Captain Forbes! let him not +cross my path, gossiping blockhead! on pain of carrying about 'til +deth,' in the middle of his face, a nose two inches longer. I heartily +wish I had never listened for an instant to such vile insinuations; and +when I look at this red right hand of mine, that dared to pen the trash +in that black postscript, I look at it as Cranmer did, and (but that it +is yours, Emmy, not mine), could wish it burnt. But no fears now, my +girl, huzza, huzza! I believe every one about me thinks me daft; and so +I am for very joyfulness; notwithstanding, let me be didactic, or you +will say so too. I really will endeavour to rein in, and go along in the +regular hackney trot, that you may partly comprehend me. Well, then, +here goes; try your paces, Dobbin. + +"On the morning of Sunday, April 11th, 1842, the good ship +Elphinston--(that's the way to begin, I suppose, as per ledger, +log-book, and midshipman's epistles to mamma)--in fact, dear, we cast +anchor just outside a furious wall of surf, which makes Madras a very +formidable place for landing; and every one who dares to do so certain +of a watering. There lay the city, most invitingly to storm-tost tars, +with its white palaces, green groves, and yellow belt of sand, blue +hills in the distance, and all else _coleur de rose_. But--but, Emmy, +there was no getting at this paradise, except by struggling through a +couple of miles of raging foam, that would have made mince-meat of the +Spanish Armada, and have smashed Sir William Elphinston to pieces. How, +then, did we manage to survive it? for, thank God always, here I am to +tell the tale. Listen, Emmy dear, and I will try not to be tedious. + +"We were bundled out of the rolling ship into some huge flat-bottomed +boats, like coal-barges, and even so, were grated and ground several +times by the churning waves on the ragged reefs beneath us: and, just as +I was enjoying the see-saw, and trying to comfort two poor drenched +women-kind who were terribly afraid of sharks, a huge, cream-coloured +breaker came bustling alongside of us, and roaring out 'Charles Tracy,' +gobbled me up bodily. Well, dearest, it wasn't the first time I had +floundered in the waters [noble Charles! noble Charles! he had long +forgiven Julian]; so I was battling on as well as I could, with a stout +heart and a steady arm, when--don't be afraid--a _Catamaran_ caught me! +If you haven't fainted (bless those pretty eyes of your's, my Emmy!) +read on; and you will find that this alarming sort of animal is neither +an albatross nor an alligator, but simply--a life-boat with a Triton in +the stern. Yes, God's messenger of life to me and happiness to you, my +girl, came in the shape of a kindly, chattering, blue-skinned, human +creature, who dragged me out of the surf, landed me safely, and, I need +not say, got paid with more than hearty thanks. So, I scuffled to the +custom-house to look after my traps and fellow-passengers, like a +dripping merman. + +"'Who is that miserable old woman, bothering every body?' asked I of a +very civil searcher, profuse in his salaams. + +"'Oh, Sahib, you will know for yourself, presently: she's always hanging +about here, to get news of somebody in England, I believe--and to try to +find a charitable captain who will take her all the way for nothing: +rather too much of a good thing, you know, Sahib.' + +[We really cannot undertake to scribble broken English: so we will +translate any thing that may mysteriously have been chatted by +havildars, and coolies; and all manner of strange names.] + +"'Poor old soul--she looks very wretched: what's her name?' asked I, +carelessly. + +"'Oh, I never troubled to inquire, Sahib: I believe she was an old +servant left behind as lumber, and she pesters every one, day by day, +about some 'bonnie bonnie bairn.'" + +"In a moment, Emmy, I had seized on dear nurse Mackie! + +"Very old, very deaf, very infirm--she fancied I was driving her away, +as many others might have done; and, with a truly piteous face, +pleaded-- + +"'Gude sir, have mercy on a puir auld soul--and let her ask for her +sweet young mistress, only once, sir--only once more.' + +"'Emily Warren?' said I. + +Her wrinkled face brightened over as with glory--and she answered-- + +"'Bless the mouth that spake it, and these ears that hear her name! +yes--yes--yes--they call her so; where is she? how is she? have you seen +her? is she yet alive?' + +"Leading away the affectionate old soul from the crowd that was +collecting round us, I left orders about luggage as a traveller should, +and then told her all I knew: and I know you pretty well, I think, my +Emmy. + +"Her joy was like a mad woman's: the dear old Hecate pranced, and +danced, and sung, and shouted like nothing but a mother when she finds +her long-lost child: not that she's your mother, Emmy dear. +No--no--matters are better than that: all she vouchsafes, though, to +tell me is, that you are a lady born and bred, and--for I cannot find +the words to inform your pure mind clearer--that 'you are not what he +thinks you.'" + +[Here followeth another twinkling universe of stars; + + * * * * * * * + +and thereafter our cavalier condescendeth again to matters of fact.] + +"Nurse Mackie of course comes back with me next packet; this letter goes +by the overland mail more quickly than we can; gladly would I go too, +but the old woman, whose life is essential to your rights, would die of +fatigue by the way; as it is, I am obliged to coddle her, and feed her, +and ptisan her, like a sick baby, bless her dear old heart that loves my +darling Emmy! She has a pack of papers with her, which she will not +open, till the general is by her side: if she unfortunately dies before +we can return, I am to have them, and all will be right. But the old +soul is so afraid of being left behind (as you throw away the +orange-peel after you have squeezed it), that she will not tell me a +word about them yet; so, I only gather what I can from her cautious +garrulity, hints about a Begum and a captain, and the Stuarts, and a +Putty-what-d'ye-call-it. And it is all in document, as well as +_viva-voce_ (this means 'gossip,' dear). So now you may be expecting us, +as soon as ever we can get to you. Tell the general all this, and give +him my best love, next after your's Emmy; for he is my father still, and +my very heart yearns after him: O, that he were kinder with me as I see +he is with you, dear, and more open with us all! Also, kiss, if she will +let you, my mother for me, and I hope you will have hinted to her long +ago, that I am only playing truant. How is poor--poor Julian? he will +understand me, if you tell him I forgive him, and will never say one +word about our little tiff. And now dearest Emmy--" + +[The remainder of this letter must, believe me, be as starry as before.] + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +REVELATIONS. + + +General Tracy gave a long-drawn sigh: and tears--tears of true +affection--stood in those most fish-like eyes, as he mournfully said, +"Bless him, bless dear Charles, almost as much as you, my own sweet +Emmy. Heaven send it be true--for Heaven can work miracles. But without +a miracle, Emily, in sober sadness I declare it, you must forget--_your +brother Charles, my daughter_!" + +Emily fell flat upon her face, so cold, so white, that he believed her +dead. + +Oh! that he had never--never said that word: or better still, poor +father, that you had never kept the dreadful secret from them. The +adultery, indeed, was sin; but years of ill-concealings have multiplied +its punishment. Wretched father--wretched children! that must bear an +erring father's curse. + +Oh! that Jeanie Mackie may have reasons, proofs; and be not an impostor +after all, dressing up a tale that over-sanguine Charles may bring her +back again to Scotland. Well--well! I am full of sadness and +perplexities: but we shall hear it out anon. Heaven help them! + +Emily was taken very ill, and had a long fit of sickness. Day and +night--night and day, did her poor wasting anxious father watch by her +bed-side, gentle as the gentlest nurse--tender as the tenderest of +mothers. And, indeed, the Lord of Life and Wisdom was gracious to them +both; raising up the poor weak child again; and teaching that old man, +through this daughter of his shame and sin in youth, that religion is a +cure for all things. Ay, "the blessed angel of a bad man's life," +indeed--indeed was she; and he humbly knelt, as little children kneel, +that hard and dried old man; and his eyes caught the ray of Heaven's +mercy, looking up in joy to read forgiveness; and his heart was bathed +in penitence--the rock flowed out amain; and his mind was quickened into +faith--he lived, he breathed "a new-born babe," that poor and bad old +man, given to the prayers of his own daughter! + +All this while, Mrs. Tracy, thrown upon her own resources, has been +continually tasting dear Julian's store, and finding out excuses for his +trivial peccadilloes. And when, from the recesses of his desk, she had +routed out (in company with sundry more, rather contrasting with a +mother's pure advice) a few of her own letters, which had not yet been +destroyed, she would doat by the hour on these proofs of his affection. +And then, her spirits were so low; and his choice smuggled Hollands so +requisite to screw them up to par again; and no sooner had they rallied, +than they would once more begin to droop; so she cried a good deal, and +kept her bed; and very often did not remember exactly, whether she was +lying down there, or figuring on the Esplanade with Julian, and--all +that sort of thing: accordingly, it is not to be wondered at if, in +Aunt Green's double-house, the general and Emily saw very little of her, +and during all this illness, had almost forgotten her existence. +Nevertheless, she was alive still, and as vast as ever--though a course +of strong waters had shattered her nerves considerably; even more so, +than her real mother's grief at Julian's protracted absence. + +Never had he been heard of since he left, hard heart; though he might +have guessed a mother's sorrow, and was not far away, and often lingered +near the house in strange disguises. It would have been easy for him, in +some clever way or other, latch-key and all, to have gained access to +her, and comforted her, and given her some real proof, that all the love +she had shed on him had not been utterly thrown away; but he didn't--he +didn't; and I know not of a darker trait in Julian's whole career; he +was insensible to love--a mother's love. + +For love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man; +when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; Fear he answers blow to +blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but Love, that sun +against whose melting beams the Winter cannot stand, that soft-subduing +slumber which wrestles down the giant, there is not one human creature +in a million--not a thousand men in all earth's huge quintillion, whose +clay-heart is hardened against love. + +Yet was Julian one of those select ones; an awful instance of that +possible, that actual, though happily that scarcest of all characters, a +man, + + "Black, with _no_ virtue, and a thousand crimes." + +The amiable villain--one whose generosity redeems his guilt, whose +kindliness outweighs his folly, or whose beauty charms the eye to +overlook his baseness--this too common hero is an object, an example +fraught with perilous interest. Charles Duval, the polite; Paul +Clifford, the handsome; Richard Turpin, brave and true; Jack Sheppard, +no ignoble mind and loving still his mother; these, and such as these, +with Schiller's '_Robbers_' and the like, are dangerous to gaze on, as +Germany, if not England too, remembers well. But, not more true to life, +though far less common to be met with, is Julian's incorrigible mind: +one, in whose life are no white days; one, on whose heart are no bright +spots; when Heaven's pity spoke to him, he ridiculed; as, when His +threatenings thundered, he defied. Of this world only, and tending to a +worse appetite was all he lived for: and the core of appetite is iron +selfishness. + +The filched cash-box proved to be too well-filled for him to trouble +himself with thinking of his mother yet awhile: and his smuggling +acquaintances, a rough-featured, blasphemous crew, set him as their +chief, so long as he swore loudest, drank deepest, and had money at +command. He hid the money, that they should not secretly steal from him +that to which he owed his bad supremacy; and his double-barrels, shotted +to the muzzle, were far too formidable for any hope of getting at it by +open brute force. Nevertheless, they were "fine high-spirited" fellows +those, bold, dark men, of Julian's own kidney; who toasted in their cups +each other's crimes, and the ghost or two that ought to have been +haunting them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +CONVALESCENCE. + + +Very slowly did Emily recover, for the blow had been more than she could +bear: nothing but religion gave her any chance at all: and the phials, +blisterings, bleedings, would have been in vain, in vain--she must have +died long ago--had it not been for the remembrance of God's love, +resignation to His will, and trust in the wisdom of his Providence. But +these specific remedies gradually brought her round, while the kind-eyed +doctors praised their own prescriptions: and after many rallyings and +relapses, delirious ramblings, and intervals of hallowed Christian +peace, the eye of Love's meek martyr brightened up once more, and health +flushed again upon her cheek. + +She recovered, God be praised! for her death would have been poor +Charles's too; and the same grave that yawned for her and him would have +closed upon their father also. Even as it was, when she arose from off +the weary bed of sickness, it was to be a nurse herself, and watch +beside that patient, weak old man. He could not bear her out of his +sight all the fever through; but eagerly would listen to her hymns and +prayers, joining in them faintly like a dying saint. With the saddening +secret, which had so long pressed upon his mind, he seemed to have +thrown off his old nature, as a cast skin: and now he was all frankness +for reserve, all piety for profaneness, all peacefulness for blusterings +and wrath. + +He remembered then poor Julian and his mother: taking blame to himself, +justly, deeply, for neglected duties, chilling lack of sympathy, and +that dull domestic sin, that still continued evil of unnatural +omissions--stern reserve. And he would gladly have seen Julian by his +bedside, to have freely forgiven the lad, and welcomed him home again, +and begun once more, in openness and charity, all things fair and new: +but Julian was not to be found, though rewards were offered, and +placards posted up, and emissaries from the Detective Police-force +sought him far and wide. Alas! the bold bad man had heard with scorn of +his father's penitence, and knew that he would gladly have received +him;--but what cared he for kindnesses or pardons? He only lived to +waylay Emily. + +As for Mrs. Tracy, she was seldom in a state to appear; but one day she +managed to refrain a little, and came to see her husband, almost sober. +I was, authorially speaking, behind the door, and saw and heard as +follows: + +The old man, worn and emaciate, was weakly sitting up in bed, and Emma +by his side, with the Bible in her lap: she casually shut it as the +mother entered. + +"Well, Miss Warren, there's a time for all things; but this is neither +morning, noon, nor night: nor Sunday either, nor holiday, that I know +of; it's eleven o'clock on Tuesday, Miss--and I think you might as well +leave the general at peace, without troubling him for ever with your +prayer-books and your Bibles." + +"Jane, my dear, I requested it of Emily; come and sit by me, and take my +hand, wife." + +"Thank you, sir, you are very obliging: not while that young woman is in +the room.--You ought to be ashamed of yourself, General Tracy." + +Poor Emmy ran away to weep. It seems that, in her delirium, she had +spoken many things, and the servants blabbed them out to Mrs. Tracy. + +"Ah, my poor wife, indeed I am: both ashamed and sorry--heartily sorry. +But God forgives me, Jenny, and I hope that you will too." + +"Upon, my word, general, you carry it off with a high hand: and, not +content, sir, with insulting me in my own home by bringing here your +other women's children, you have expelled poor dear, dear Julian." + +"Jane, if you will remember, he ran away himself; and you know that now +I gladly would receive him: we are all prodigal sons together, and if +God can bear with us, Jane, we ought to look kindly on each other." + +"Ha! that's always the way with old sinners like you--canting +hypocrites! Be a man, General Tracy, if you can, and talk sense. I never +did any harm or sin in all my life yet, and don't intend to: and my +poor boy Julian's well enough, if they'd only let him alone; but nobody +understands his heart but me. Good boy, I'm sure there's virtue enough +left in him, if he loves his mother."--_If_ he loves his mother. + +"Jane, dear, I sent for you to kiss you; for I could not die in peace, +nor live in peace (whichever God may please), without your pardon, Jane, +for a thousand unkindnesses--but, especially for the sin that gave me +Emily. Forgive me this, my wife." + +"Never, sir!" rejoined that miserable mind; and fancied that she was +acting virtuously. She thrust aside the kindly proffered hand; scowled +at him with darkened brow; drew up her commanding height; and, calling +Mrs. Siddons to remembrance, brushed away in the indignant attitude of a +tragedy queen. + +Emmy ran again to her father, and the vain bad mother to her bottle; we +must leave them to their various avocations. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +CHARLES DELAYED. + + +Few things could well be more unlikely than that Emily should hear of +Charles again before she saw him: for, having left Madras as speedily as +might be, now that his mission was so easily, yet so naturally, +accomplished--having posted, as we know, his overland letter--and having +got on board the fast-sailing ship Samarang, Captain Trueman, Charles, +in the probable course of things, if he wrote at all, must have been his +own postman. But the Fates--(our Christianity can afford to wink now and +then at Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos; for, at any rate, they are as +reasonable creatures as Chance, Luck, and Accident,)--the Fates willed +it otherwise: and, accordingly, it is in my power to lay before the +reader another genuine lucubration of Charles Tracy. + +A change had come over the spirit of their dream, those youthful lovers: +and agonizing doubt must rack their hearts, threatening to rend them +both asunder. It is evident to me that Charles's letter (which Emily +showed to me with a melancholy face) was on principle less warm, less +dottable with stars, and more conversant with things of this world; +high, firm, honourable principle; intending very gently, very gradually, +to wean her from him, if he could; for his faith in Jeanie Mackie had +been shaken, and--but let us hear him tell us of it all himself. + + "I.E.M. Samarang. St. Helena. + +"You will wonder, my dear Emily, to hear again before you see me: but I +am glad of this providential opportunity, as it may serve to prepare us +both. Naturally enough you will ask, why Charles cannot accompany this +letter? I will tell you, dear, in one word--Mrs. Mackie is now lying +very ill on shore; and, as far as our poor ship is concerned, you shall +hear about it all anon. Several of the passengers, who were in a hurry +to get home, have left us, and gone in the packet-boat that takes you +this letter: gladly, as you know, would I have accompanied them, for I +long to see you, poor dear girl; but it was impossible to leave the old +woman, upon whom alone, under God, our hopes of earthly happiness +depend: if, alas! we still can dream about such hopes. + +"Oh, Emily--I heartily wish that, having finished my embassage by that +instantaneous finding of the old Scotch nurse, I had never been so +superfluous as to have left those letters of introduction, wherewith you +kindly supplied me, in an innocent wish to help our cause. But I felt +solitary too, waiting at Madras for the next ship to England; and in my +folly, forgetful of the single aim with which I had come, Jeanie Mackie, +to wit, I thought I might as well use my present opportunities, and see +what I could of the place and its inhabitants. + +"With that view, I left my letters at Government House, at Mr. +Clarkson's, Colonel Bunting's, Mrs. Castleton's, and elsewhere, +according to direction; and immediately found answer in a crowd of +invitations. I need not vex you nor myself, Emmy, writing as I do with a +heavy, heavy heart, by describing gayeties in which I felt no pleasure, +even when amongst them, for my Emmy was not there: splendour, +prodigality, and red-hot rooms, only made endurable by perpetually +fanning punkahs: pompous counsellors, authorities, and other men in +office, and a glut of military uniforms: vulgar wealth, transparent +match-making, and predominating dullness: along with some few of the +charities and kindnesses of life (Mrs. Bunting, in particular, is an +amiable, motherly, good-hearted woman), all these you will readily fancy +for yourself. + +"My trouble is deeper than any thing so slight as the common satiations +of _ennui_: for I have heard in these circles in which your--my--the +general, I mean, chiefly mixed, so much of that ill-rumour that it +cannot all be false: they knew it all, and were certain of it all, too +well, Emily, dear. And I have been pestering Nurse Mackie night and day; +but the old woman is so afraid of being left behind any where, or thrown +overboard, or dropped, upon some desert rock, that she is quite cross, +and won't say a single word in answer, even when I tell her all these +terrible tales. Her resolution is, not to reveal one syllable more, +until she sets foot on England; and several people at Madras annoyed me +exceedingly by saying, that this kind of thing is an old trick with +people who wish to be sent home again. She has hidden away her papers +somewhere; not that I was going to steal them: but it shows how little +trust she puts in any thing, or any one, except the keeping of her own +secret. However, she does adhere obstinately, and hopefully for us, to +her original hint, 'you are not what he thinks you;' although she will +not condescend to any single proof, or explanation, against the mighty +mass of evidence, which probabilities, and common rumour, and the +general's own belief, have heaped together. When I call you Emmy, +too--the old soul, in her broad Scotch way, always corrects me, and +invokes a blessing upon 'A-amy:' so there is a mystery somewhere: at +least, I fervently hope there is: and, if the old woman has been playing +us false, let us resign ourselves to God, my girl; for our fate will be +that matters are as people say they are--and then my old black +postscript ends too truly with a wo, wo, wo--! + +"But I must shake off all this lethargy of gloom, dearest, dearest +girl--how can I dare to call you so? Let me, therefore, rush for comfort +into other thoughts; and tell you at once of the fearful dangers we have +now mercifully escaped; for the Samarang lies like a log in this +friendly port, dismasted, and next to a wreck. + +"I proceed to show you about it; perhaps I shall be tedious--but I do it +as a little rest, my own soul's love, from anxious, earnest, +heart-distracting prayers continually, continually, that the sorrow +which I spoke of be not true. Sometimes, a light breaks in, and I +rejoice in the most sanguine hope: at others, gloom-- + +"But a truce to all this, I say. Here shall follow didactically the +cause why the good ship Samarang is not by this time in the Docks. + +"We were lying somewhere about the tropical belt, Capricorn you know, +(O, those tender lessons in geography, my Emmy!) quite becalmed; the sea +like glass, and the sky like brass, and the air in a most stagnant heat: +our good ship motionless, dead in a dead blue sea it was + +'Idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.' + +"The sails were hanging loosely in the shrouds: every one set, from +sky-scraper to stud-sail, in hopes to catch a breath of wind. My +fellow-passengers and the crew, almost melted, were lying about, as weak +as parboiled eels: it was high-noon, all things silent and subdued by +that intolerable blaze; for the vertical sun, over our multiplied +awnings and umbrellas, burnt us up, fierce as a furnace. + +"I was leaning over the gangway, looking wistfully at the cool, clear, +deep sea, wherefrom the sailors were trying to persuade a shark to come +on board us, when, all at once, in the south-east quarter, I noticed a +little round black cloud, thrown up from the horizon like a +cricket-ball. As any thing is attractive in such sameness as perpetual +sea and sky, my discovery was soon made known, and among the first to +our captain. + +"Calling for his Dolland, and bidding his second lieutenant run quick to +the cabin and look at the barometer, he viewed the little cloud in +evident anxiety, and shook his head with a solemn air: more than one +light-hearted woman thinking he was quizzing them. + +"Up came Lieutenant Joyce, looking as if he had seen a ghost in the +cabin. + +"'The mercury, sir, is falling just as rapidly as it would rise if you +plunged it into boiling water: an inch a minute or so!" + +"Our captain saw the danger instantly, and, brave as Trueman is, I never +saw a man look paler. + +"To drive all the passengers below, and pen them in with closed hatches +and storm-shutters, (so hot, Emmy, that the black-hole of Calcutta must +have been an ice-house to it: how the foolish people abused our wise +skipper, and more than one pompous old Indian threatened him with an +action for false imprisonment!) this huddling away was the first effort; +and simultaneously with it, the crew were all over the rigging, furling +sails, hurriedly, hurriedly. + +"Meanwhile (for I was last on deck), that little cloud seemed whirling +within itself, and many others gathered round it, all dancing about on +the horizon, as if sheaves of mischief tossed about by devils: I don't +wish to be poetical, Emmy, for my heart is very, very sad; but if ever +the powers of the air sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, they were +gathering in their harvest at that door. Underneath the skipping clouds, +which came on quickly, leaping over each other, as when the wain is +loaded by a score of hands, I noticed a sea approaching, such as Pharaoh +must have seen, when the wall of waters fell upon him; and premonitory +winds came whistling by, and two or three sails were flapping in them +still, and I was hurried down stairs after all the rest of us. + +"Then, on a sudden, it appeared not winds, nor waves, nor thunder, but +as if the squadroned cavalry of heaven had charged across the seas, and +crushed our battered ship beneath their horse-hoofs! We were flung down +flat on our beam ends; and the two or three unfurled sails, bursting +with the noise of a cannon, were scattered miles away to lee-ward as if +they had been paper. As for the poor fellows in the rigging, the spirit +of the storm had already made them his: twenty of our men were swept +away by that tornado. + +"Then there was hewing and cleaving on deck, the clatter of many axes +and hatchets: for we were in imminent danger of being capsized, keel +uppermost, and our only chance was to cut away the masts. + +"The muscles of courage were tried then, my Emmy, and the strength which +religion gives a man. I felt sensibly held up by the Everlasting Arms: I +could listen to the still small Voice in the midst of a crash which +might have been the end of all things: though in darkness, God had given +me light; though in uttermost peril, my peace was never calmer in our +little village school. + +"And the billows were knocking at the poor ship's side like sledge +hammers; and the lightnings fell around us scorchingly, with forked +bolts, as arrows from the hand of a giant; the thunders overhead, close +overhead, crashing from a concave cloud that hung about us heavily--a +dense, black, suffocating curtain--roared and raved as nothing earthly +can, but thunder in the tropics; the rain was as a cataract, literally +rushing in a mass: the winds appeared not winds, nor whirlwinds, but +legions of emancipated demons shrieking horribly, and flapping their +wide wings; a flock of night-birds flying from the dawn; and all else +was darkness, confusion, rolling and rocking about, the screams of +women, the shouts of men, curses and prayers, agony, despair, +and--peace, deep peace. + +"On a sudden, to our great astonishment, all was silent again, +oppressively silent; and, but for the swell upon the seas, all still. +The tornado had rushed by: that troop of Tartar horse, having sacked the +village, are departed, now in full retreat: the blackness and the fury +are beheld on our lee, hastening across the broad Atlantic to Cuba or +Jamaica: and behold, a tranquil temperate sky, a kindly rolling sea, a +favouring breeze, and--not a sail, but some slight jury-rig, to catch +it. + +"Many days we drifted like a log upon the wave; provisions running +short, and water--water under tropical suns--scantily dealt out in +tea-cups. Then, poor old Mackie's health gave way; and I dreaded for her +death: one living witness is worth a cart-load of cold documents. So I +nursed and watched her constantly: till the foolish folks on board began +to say I was her son: ah! me, for your sake I wish it had been so. + +"And at length, just as some among the sailors were hinting at a mutiny +for spirits, and our last case of Gamble's meat was opened for the sick, +our look-out on the jury-mast gave the welcome note of 'Land!' and soon, +to us on deck, the heights of St. Helena rose above the sea. Towed in by +friendly aid, here we are, then, precious Emily, refitting: and, as it +must be a week yet before we can be ready, I have taken my old woman to +a lodging upon land, and rejoice (what have I to do with joy?) to see +her speedily recovering." + +The remainder of Charles's long letter is so stupid, so gloomy, so +loving, and so little to the purpose, that I take an editor's privilege, +and omit it altogether. Of course he was coming home again, as soon as +the Samarang and Jeanie Mackie would permit. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +TRIALS. + + +The general recovered; as slowly, indeed, as Emily had, but it is +gratifying to add, as surely. And now that loving couple might be seen, +weakly creeping out together, when the day was finest: tottering white +December leaning on a sickly fragile May. There were no concealments now +between them, no reservings, and heart-stricken Emily heard from her +repentant father's lips the story of her birth: she was, he said, his +own daughter by a native princess, the Begum Dowlia Burruckjutli. + +A bitter--bitter truth was that: the destruction of all her hopes, +pleasures, and affections. It had now become to her a sin to love that +dearest one of all things lovely on this earth: duty, paramount and +stern, commanded her, without a shadow of reprieve, to execute on +herself immediately the terrible sentence of banishing her own +betrothed: nay, more, she must forget him, erase his precious image from +her heart, and never, never see that brother more. And Charles must feel +the same, and do the like; oh! sorrow, passing words! and their two +commingled souls must be violently wrenched apart; for such love in them +were crime. + +Dear children of affection--it is a dreadful lesson this for both of +you; but most wise, most needful--or the hand that guideth all things, +never would have sent it. Know ye not for comfort, that ye are of those +to whom all things work together for good? Know ye not for counsel, that +the excess of love is an idolatry that must be blighted? It is well, +children, it is well, that ye should thus carry your wounded hearts for +balm to the altar of God; it is well that ye should bow in meekness to +His will, in readiness to His wisdom. Ye are learning the lesson +speedily, as docile children should; and be assured of high reward from +the Teacher who hath set it you. Poor Charles! white and wan, thy cheek +is grown transparent with anxiety, and thy blue eye dim with hope +deferred: poor Emmy, sick and weak, thou weariest Heaven with thy +prayers, and waterest thy couch with thy tears. Yet, a little while; +this discipline is good: storm and wind, frost and rushing rains, are as +needful to the forest-tree as sun and gentle shower; the root is +strengthening, and its fibres spreading out: and loving still each other +with the best of human love, ye justly now have found out how to anchor +all your strongest hopes, and deepest thoughts, on Him who made you for +himself. Who knoweth? wisely acquiescing in His will, humbly trusting to +His mercy, and bringing the holocaust of your inflamed affections as an +offering of duty to your God--who knoweth? Cannot He interpose? will He +not befriend you? For His arm is power, and His heart is love. + +Days rolled on in dull monotony, and grew to weeks more slowly than +before; earthly hopes had been levelled with the dust; life had +forgotten to be joyous: there was, indeed, the calm, the peace, the +resignation, the heavenly ante-past, and the soul-entrancing prayer; but +human life to Emily was flat, wearisome, and void; she felt like a nun, +immolated as to this world: even as Charles, too, had resolved to be an +anchorite, a stern, hard, mortified man, who once had feelings and +affections. The reaction in both those fond young hearts had even +overstept the golden mean: and Mercy interposed to make all right, and +to bless them in each other once again. + +Only look at this _billet-doux_ from Charles, just come in, and dated +Plymouth: + +"Huzzah--for Emily and England: huzzah for the land of freedom! no +secrets now--dear, dear old Jeanie Mackie has given me proofs positive: +all I have to wish is that she could move: but she is very ill; so, as +we touched here on the voyage up channel, I landed her and myself, +thinking to kiss, within a day, my darling Emmy. But I cannot get her +out of bed this morning, and dare not leave her: though an hour's delay +seems almost insupportable. If I possibly can manage it, I will bring +the dear old faithful creature, wrapped in blankets, by chaise +to-morrow. Tell my father all this: and say to him--he will understand, +perhaps, though you may not, my blessed girl--say to him, that 'he is +mistaken, and all are mistaken--you are not what they think you.' A +thousand kisses. Expect, then, on bright to-morrow to see your happy, +happy + "CHARLES." + +"P.S. Hip! hip! hip!--huzzah!" + +Dearest Emily had taken up the note with fears and trembling: she laid +it down, as they that reap in joy; and I never in my life saw any thing +so beautiful as her eyes at that glad minute; the smile through the +tear, the light through the gloom, the verdure of high summer springing +through the Alpine snows, the mild and lustrous moon emerging from a +baffled thunder-cloud. + +And, although the general mournfully shook his head, distrustfully and +despondingly; though he only uttered, "Poor children--dear +children--would to Heaven that it could be so;"--and he, for one, was +evidently innoculated, as before, with all the old thoughts of gloom, +sadness, and anxiety;--still Emily hoped-for Charles hoped--and Jeanie +Mackie was so certain. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +JULIAN. + + +Next day, a fine summer afternoon, when our feeble convalescents had +gone out together, they found the fresh air so invigorating, and +themselves so much stronger, that they prolonged their walk half-way to +Oxton. The pasture-meadows, rich and rank, were alive with flocks and +herds; the blue sea lazily beat time, as, ticking out the seconds, it +melodiously broke upon the sleeping shore; the darkly-flowing Mullet +swept sounding to the sea between its tortuous banks; and upon that old +high foot-path skirting the stream, now shady with hazels, and now +flowery with meadow-sweet, crept our chastened pair. + +Just as they were nearing a short angle in the river, the spot where +Charles had been preserved, they noticed for the first time a +rough-looking fisherman, who, unseen, had tracked their steps some +hundred yards; he had a tarpaulin over his shoulder, very unnecessarily, +as it would seem, on so fine and warm a day; and a slouching +sou'-wester, worn askew, flapped across the strange man's face. + +He came on quickly, though cautiously, looking right and left; and Emily +trembled on her guardian's feeble arm. Yes--she is right; the fisherman +approaches--she detects him through it all: and now he scorns disguise; +flinging off his cap and the tarpaulin, stands before them--Julian! + +"So, sir--you tremble now, do you, gallant general: give me the girl." +And he levelled at his father one of those double-barrelled pistols, +full-cock. + +"Julian, my son, I forgive you, Julian; take my hand, boy." + +"What--coward? now you can cringe, and fawn, eh? back with you!--the +girl, I say." For poor Emily, wild with fear, was clinging to that weak +old man. + +Julian levelled again; indeed, indeed it was only as a threat; +but his hand shook with passion--the weapon was full-cock, +hair-triggered--shotted heavily as always--hark, hark!--And his father +fell upon the turf, covered with blood! + +When a wicked man tampers with unintended crime, even accident falls out +against him. Many a one has richly merited death for many other sins, +than that isolated, haply accidental one which he has hanged for. + +Julian, horror-stricken, pale and trembling, flew instinctively to help +his father: but Emily has circled him already with her arms; and listen, +Julian--your dying father speaks to you. + +"Boy, I forgive--I forgive: but--Emily, no, no, cannot, cannot +be--Julian--she--she is your _sister_!" and the old man swooned away, +from loss of blood and the excitement of that awful scene. + +Not a word in reply said that poor sinner, maddened with his life-long +crimes, the fratricide in will, the parricide in deed, and all for--a +sister. But growing whiter as he stood, a marble man with bristling +hair, he slowly drew the other pistol from his pocket, put the muzzle to +his mouth, and, firing as he fell, leapt into the darkly-flowing Mullet! + +The current, all too violent to sink in, and uncommissioned now to +save, hurried its black burden to the sea; and a crimson streak of gore +marked the track of the suicide. + +The old man was not dead; but a brace of bullets taking effect upon his +feeble frame--one through the shoulder, and another which had grazed his +head--had been quite enough to make him seem so. Forgetful of all but +that dear sufferer, and totally ignorant of Julian's fate--for she +neither saw nor heard any thing, nor feared even for her own imminent +peril, while her father lay dying on the grass--Emily had torn off her +scarf, and bound up, as well as she could, the ghastly scored head and +broken shoulder. She succeeded in staunching the blood--for no great +vessel had been severed--and so simple an application as grass dipped in +water, proved to be a good specific. Then, to her exceeding joy, those +eyes opened again, and that dear tongue faintly whispered--"Bless you." + +Oh, that blessing! for it fell upon her heart: and fervently she knelt +down there, and thanked the Great Preserver. + +And now, for friendly help; there is no one near: and it is growing +dusk; and she dared not leave him there alone one minute--for +Julian--dreaded Julian, may return, and kill him. What shall she do? How +to get him home? Alas, alas! he may die where he is lying. + +Hark, Emmy, hark! The shouts of happy children bursting out of school! +See, dearest--see: here they come homewards merrily from Oxton. + +Thus, rewarded through the instrumentality of her own benevolence, help +was speedily obtained; and Mrs. Sainsbury's invalid-chair, hurried to +the spot by an escort of indignant rustics, soon conveyed the recovering +patient to the comforts of his own home, and the appliances of medical +assistance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +CHARLES'S RETURN; AND MRS. MACKIE'S EXPLANATION. + + +And now the happy day was come at length; that day formerly so +hoped-for, latterly so feared, but last of all, hailed with the joy that +trembles at its own intensity. The very morning after the sad occurrence +it has just been my lot to chronicle--while the general was having his +wounds dressed, slight ones, happily, but still he was not safe, as +inflammation might ensue--while Mrs. Tracy was indulging in her third +tumbler, mixed to whet her appetite for shrimps--and while Emily was +deciphering, for the forty thousandth time, Charles's sanguine +_billet-doux_--lo! a dusty chaise and smoking posters, and a sun-burnt +young fellow springing out, and just upon the stairs--they were locked +in each other's arms! + +Oh, the rapture of that instant! it can but happen once within a life. +Ye that have loved, remember such a meeting; and ye that never loved, +conceive it if you can; for my pen hath little skill to paint so bright +a pleasure. It is to be all heart, all pulse, all sympathy, all +spirit--but the warm soft kiss, that rarified bloom of the Material. + +How the sick old nurse got out, cased in many blankets; how she was +bundled up stairs, and deposited safely on a sofa, no poet is alive to +sing: to those who would record the payment of postillions, let me leave +so sweet a theme. + +The first fond greeting over, and those tumults of affection sobered +down, Charles rejoiced to find how lovingly the general met him; the +kind and good old man fell upon his neck, as the father in the parable. +Many things were then to be made known: and many questions answered, as +best might be, about a mother and a brother; but well aware of all +things ourselves, let us be satisfied that Charles heard in due time all +they had to tell him; though neither Emily nor the general could explain +what had become of Julian after that terrible encounter. In their +belief, he had fled for very life, thinking he had killed his father. +Poor wretched man, thought Charles--on that same spot, too, where he +would have murdered me! And for his mother--why came she not down +eagerly and happily, as mothers ever do, to greet her long-lost son? Do +not ask, Charles; do not press the question. Think her ill, dying, +dead--any thing but--drunken. He ran to her room-door; but it was +locked--luckily. + +Now, Charles--now speedily to business; happy business that, if I may +trust the lover's flushing cheek, and Emily's radiant eyes; but a +mournful one too, and a fearful, if I turn my glance to that poor old +man, wounded in body and stricken in mind--who waits to hear, in more +despondency than hope, what he knows to be the bitter truth--the truth +that must be told, to the misery of those dear children. + +Faint and weak though she appeared, Jeanie Mackie's waning life +spirited up for the occasion; her dim eye kindled; her feeble frame was +straight and strong; energy nerved her as she spoke; this hour is the +errand of her being. + +Long she spoke, and loudly, in her broad Scotch way; and the general +objected many things, but was answered to them all; and there was close +cross-questioning, slow-caution, keen examination of documents and +letters: catechisms, solecisms, Scottisms; reminiscences rubbed up, +mistakes corrected; and the grand result of all, Emily a Stuart, and the +general not her father! I am only enabled to give a brief account of +that important colloquy. + +It appears, that when Captain Tracy's company was quartered to the west +of the Gwalior, sent thither to guard the Begum Dowlia against sundry of +her disaffected subjects, a certain Lieutenant James Stuart was one +among those welcome brave allies. That our gallant Tracy was the +beautiful Begum's favourite soon became notorious to all; and not less +so, that the Begum herself was precisely in the same interesting +situation as Mrs. James Stuart. The two ladies, Pagan and Christian, +were, technically speaking, running a race together. Well, just as times +drew nigh, poor Lieutenant Stuart was unfortunately killed in an +insurrection headed by some fanatics, who disapproved of foreign +friends, and perhaps of their princess's situation. His death proved +fatal also to that kind and faithful wife of his--a dark Italian lady of +high family, whose love for James had led her to follow him even into +Central Hindoostan: she died in giving birth to a babe; and Jeanie +Mackie, the lieutenant's own foster-mother, who waited on his wife +through all their travels, assisted the poor orphan into this bleak +world, and loved it as her own. + +Two days after all this, the Begum herself had need of Mrs. Mackie: for +it was prudent to conceal some things, if she could, from certain +Brahmins, who were to her what John Knox had erstwhile been to Mary: and +Jeanie Mackie, burdened with her little Amy Stuart, aided in the birth +of a female Tracy-Begum. So, the nurse tended both babes; and more than +once had marvelled at their general resemblance; Amy's mother looked out +again from those dark eyes; there was not a shade between the children. + +Now, Mrs. Mackie perceived, in a very little while, how fond both +Christian and Pagan appeared of their own child; and how little notice +was taken by any body of the poor Scotch gentleman's orphan. +Accordingly, with a view to give her favourite all worldly advantages, +she adroitly changed the children; and, while she was still kind and +motherly to the little Tracy-Begum, she had the satisfaction to see her +pet supposititiously brought up in all the splendours of an Eastern +court. + +Years wore away, for Captain Tracy was quite happy, the Begum being a +fine showy woman, and the pretty child his playmate and pastime: so he +never cared to stir from his rich quarters, till the company's orders +forced him: and then Puttymuddyfudgepoor hailed him accumulatively both +major and colonel. + +When he found that he must go, he insisted on carrying off the child; +and the Begum was as resolute against it. Then Mrs. Mackie, eager to +expedite little Stuart in her escape, went to the princess, told her how +that, in anticipation of this day, she had changed the children, and got +great rewards for thus restoring to the mother her own offspring. + +The remainder of that old Scotch nurse's very prosy tale may be left to +be imagined: for all that was essential has been stated: and the +documents in proof of all were these-- + +First: The marriage certificates of James Stuart and Ami di Romagna, +duly attested, both in the Protestant and Romanist forms. + +Secondly: Divers letters to Lieutenant Stewart from his friends at +Glenmuir; others to Mrs. Stuart, from her father, the old Marquis di +Romagna, at Naples: several trinkets, locks of hair, the wedding-ring, +&c. + +Thirdly: A grant written in the Hindoostanee character, from the Begum +Dowlia, promising the pension of thirty rupees a month to Jeanie Mackie, +for having so cleverly preserved to her the child: together with a +regular judicial acknowledgement, both from several of Tracy's own +sepoys, and from the Begum herself, that the girl, whom Captain Tracy +was so fond of, was, to the best of their belief, Amy Stuart. + +Fourthly: A miniature of Mrs. James Stuart, exactly portraying the +features of her daughter--this bright, beautiful, dark-eyed face--our +own beloved Emily Warren. + +And to all that accumulated evidence, Jeanie Mackie bore her living +testimony; clearly, unhesitatingly, and well assured, in the face of God +and man. + +Doubt was at an end; fear was at an end; hope was come, and joy. Happy +were the lovers, happy Jeanie Mackie, but happiest of all appeared the +general himself. For now she might be his daughter indeed, sweet Emmy +Tracy still, dear Charles's loving wife. And he blessed them as they +knelt, and gave them to each other; well-rewarded children of affection, +who had prayed in their distress! + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +JULIAN TURNS UP: AND THERE'S AN END OF MRS. TRACY. + + +There is a muddy sort of sand-bank, acting as a delta to the Mullet, +just where it spreads from deep to shallow, and falls into the sea. +Strange wild fowl abound there, coming from the upper clouds in flocks; +and at high water, very little else but rushes can be seen, to testify +its sub-marine existence. + +A knot of fishermen, idling on the beach, have noticed an uncommon +flight of Royston crows gathered at the island, with the object, as it +would appear, of battening on a dead porpoise, or some such body, just +discernible among the rushes. Stop--that black heap may be kegs of +whiskey;--where's the glass? + +Every one looked: it warn't barrels--and it warn't a porpoise: what was +it, then? they had universally nothing on earth to do, so they pushed +off in company to see. + +I watched the party off, and they poked among the rushes, and heaved out +what seemed to me a seal: so I ran down to the beach to look at the +strange creature they had captured. Something wrapped in a sail; no +doubt for exhibition at per head. + +But they brought out that black burden solemnly, laying it on the beach +at Burleigh: a crowd quickly collected round them, that I could not see +the creature: and some ran for a magistrate, and some for a parson. Then +men in office came--made a way through the crowd, and I got near: so +near, that my foolish curiosity lifted up the sail, and I beheld--what +had been Julian. + +O, sickening sight: for all which the pistol had spared of that swart +and hairy face, had been preyed upon by birds and fishes! + +There was a hurried inquest: the poor general and Emily deposed to what +they knew, and the rustics, who escorted him from Oxton. The verdict +could be only one--self-murder. + +So, by night, on that same swampy island, when the tide was low, they +buried him, deeply staked into the soil, lest the waves should disinter +him, without a parting prayer. Such is the end of the wicked. + +In a day or two, I noticed that a rude wooden cross had been set over +the spot: and it gratified me much to hear that a rough-looking crew of +smugglers had boldly come and fixed it there, to hallow, if they could, +a comrade's grave. + +However, these poor fellows had been cheated hours before: Charles's +brotherly care had secured the poor remains, and the vicar winked a +blind permission: so Charles buried them by night in the church-yard +corner, under the yew, reading many prayers above them. + +Two fierce-looking strange men went to that burial with reverent looks, +as it were chief mourners; and when all the rites were done, I heard +them gruffly say to Charles, "God bless you, sir, for this!" + +When the mother heard those tidings of her son, she was sobered on the +instant, and ran about the house with all a mother's grief, shrieking +like a mad woman. But all her shrieks and tears could not bring back +poor Julian; deep, deep in the silent grave, she cannot wake him--cannot +kiss him now. Ah well! ah well! + +Then did she return to his dear room, desperate for him--and Hollands +once, twice, thrice, she poured out a full tumbler of the burning fluid, +and drank it off like water; and it maddened her brain: her mind was in +a phrensy of delirium, while her body shook as with a palsy. + +Let us draw the curtain; for she died that night. + +They buried her in Aunt Green's grave: what a meeting theirs will be at +the day of resurrection! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE OLD SCOTCH NURSE GOES HOME. + + +Six months at least--this is clearly not a story of the unities--six +months' interval must now elapse before the wedding-day. Charles and +Emmy--for he called her Emmy still, though Jeanie Mackie would persist +in mouthing it to "Aamy,"--wished to have it delayed a year, in respect +for the memory of those who, with all their crime and folly, were not +the less a mother and a brother: but the general would not hear of such +a thing; he was growing very old, he said; although actually he seemed +to have taken out a new lease of life, so young again and buoyant was +the new-found heart within him; and thus growing old, he was full of +fatherly fear that he should not live to see his children's happiness. +It was only reasonable and proper that our pair of cooing doves should +acquiesce in his desire. + +Meanwhile, I am truly sorry to say it, Jeanie Mackie died; for it would +have been a good novel-like incident to have suffered the faithful old +creature to have witnessed her favourite's wedding, and then to have +been forthwith killed out of the way, by--perishing in the vestry. +However, things were ordered otherwise, and Jeanie Mackie did not live +to see the wedding: if you wish to know how and where she died, let me +tell you at once. + +Scotland--Argyleshire--Glenmuir; this was the focus of her hopes and +thoughts--that poor old Indian exile! She had left it, as a buxom +bright-haired lassie: but oaks had now grown old that she had planted +acorns; and grandmothers had died palsied, whom she remembered born; +still, around the mountains and the lakes, those changeless features of +her girlhood's rugged home, the old woman's memory wandered; they were +pictured in her mind's eye hard, and clear, and definite as if she +looked upon them now. And her soul's deep hope was to see them once +again. + +There was yet another object which made her yearn for Scotland. +Lieutenant Stuart had been the younger of two brothers, the eldest born +of whom became, upon his father's, the old laird's, death, Glenmuir and +Glenmurdock. Now, though twice married, this elder brother, the new +laird, never had a child; and the clear consequence was, that Amy Stuart +was likely to become sole heiress of her ancestor's possessions. The +lieutenant's marriage with an Italian and a Romanist had been, +doubtless, any thing but pleasant to his friends; the strict old +Presbyterians, and the proud unsullied family of Stuart, could not +palate it at all. Nevertheless, he did marry the girl, according to the +rites of both churches, and there was an end of it; so, innumerable +proverbs coming to their aid about "curing and enduring" and "must +be's," and the place where "marriages are made," &c., the several aunts +and cousins were persuaded at length to wink at the iniquity, and to +correspond both with Mrs. James and her backsliding lieutenant. Of the +offspring of that marriage, and her orphaned state, and of Mrs. Mackie's +care, and the indefinite detention in central Hindostan, they had heard +often-times; for, as there is no corner of the world where a Scot may +not be met with, so, with laudable nationality, they all hang together; +and Glenmuir was written to frequently, all about the child, through +Jeanie Mackie, "her mark," and a scholarly sergeant, Duncan Blair. + +Amy's rights--or Emmy let us call her still, as Charles did--were now, +therefore, the next object of Mrs. Mackie's zeal; and all parties +interested willingly listened to the plan of spending one or two of +those weary weeks in rubbing up relationships in Scotland; the general +also was not a little anxious about heritage and acres. Accordingly, off +they set in the new travelling-carriage, with due notice of approach, +heartily welcomed, to Dunstowr Castle, the fine old feudal stronghold of +Robert Stuart, Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock. + +The journey, the arrival, and the hearty hospitality; and how the gray +old chieftain kissed his pretty niece; and how welcome her betrothed +Charles and her kind life-long guardian, and her faithful nurse were +made; and how the beacons blazed upon the hill-tops, and the mustering +clan gathered round about old Dunstowr; and how the laird presented to +them all their beautiful future mistress, and how Jeanie Mackie and her +documents travelled up to Edinburgh, where writers to the signet +pestered her heart-sick with over-caution; and how the case was all +cleared up, and the distant disappointed cousin, who had irrationally +hoped to be the heir, was gladdened, if not satisfied, with a pension +and a cantle of Glenmuir; and how all was joyfulness and feasting, when +Amy Stuart was acknowledged in her rights--the bagpipes and the wassail, +salmon, and deer, and black-cock, with a river of mountain dew: let +others tell who know Dunstowr; for as I never was there, of course I +cannot faithfully describe it. Should such an historian as I condescend +to sheer inventions? + +With respect to Jeanie Mackie, I could learn no more than this: she was +sprightly and lively, and strong as ever, though in her ninetieth year, +till her foster-child was righted, and the lawyers had allowed her her +claim. But then there seemed nothing else to live for; so her life +gradually faded from her eye, as an expiring candle; and she would doze +by the hour, sitting on a settle in the sun, basking her old heart in +the smile of those old mountains. None knew when she died, to a minute; +for she died sitting in the sun, in the smile of those old mountains. + +They buried her, with much of rustic pomp, in the hill-church of +Glenmuir, where all her fathers slept around her; and Emily and Charles, +hand-in-hand, walked behind her coffin mournfully. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +FINAL. + + +Gladly would the laird have had marriage at Dunstower, and have given +away the beauteous bride himself: but there must still be two months +more of decent mourning, and the general had long learned to sigh for +the maligned delights of Burleigh Singleton. So, Glenmuir could only get +a promise of reappearance some fine summer or other: and, after another +day's deer-stalking, which made the general repudiate telescopes from +that day forth (the poor man's eyes had actually grown lobster-like with +straining after antlers)--the travelling-carriage, and four lean kine +from Inverary, whisked away the trio towards the South. + +And now, in due time, were the Tamworths full of joy--congratulating, +sympathizing, merrymaking; and the three young ladies behaved admirably +in the capacity of pink and silver bridesmaids; while George proved +equally kind in attending (as he called it) Charles's "execution," +wherein he was "turned off;" and the admiral, G.C.B. was so +hand-in-glove with the general, H.E.I.C.S., that I have reason to +believe they must have sworn eternal friendship, after the manner of the +modern Germans. + +How beautiful our Emmy looked--I hate the broad Scotch Aamy--how bright +her flashing eyes, and how fragrantly the orange-blossoms clustered in +her rich brown hair; let him speak lengthily, whose province it may be +to spin three volumes out of one: for me, I always wish to recollect +that readers possess, on the average, at least as much imagination as +writers. And why should you not exercise it now? Is not Emmy in her +bridal-dress a theme well worth a revery? + +For a similar reason, I must clearly disappoint feminine expectation, by +forbearing to descant upon Charles's slight but manly form, and his +Grecian beauty, &c., all the better for the tropics, and the trials and +the troubles he had passed. + +When Captain Forbes, just sitting down to his soup in the Jamaica +Coffee-house, read in the _Morning Post_, the marriage of Charles Tracy +with Amy Stuart, he delivered himself mentally as follows: + +"There now! Poets talk of 'love,' and I stick to 'human nature.' When +that fine young fellow sailed with me, hardly a year ago, in the Sir +William Elphinston, he was over head and heels in love with old Jack +Tracy's pretty girl, Emily Warren: but I knew it wouldn't last long: I +don't believe in constancy for longer than a week. It does one's heart +good to see how right one is; here's what I call proof. My sentimental +spark kisses Emily Warren, and marries Amy Stuart." The captain, happier +than before, called complacently for Cayenne pepper, and relished his +mock-turtle with a higher gusto. + +It is worth recording, that the same change of name mystified slanderous +friends in the Presidency of Madras. + +And now, kind-eyed reader, this story of '_The Twins_' must leave off +abruptly at the wedding. As in its companion-tale, '_The Crock of +Gold_,' one grand thesis for our thoughts was that holy wise command, +"Thou shall not covet," and as its other comrade '_Heart_' is founded on +"Thou shalt not bear false witness," so in this, the seed-corn of the +crop, were five pure words, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Other +morals doubtless grew up round us, for all virtue hangs together in a +bunch: the harms of secresy, false witness, inordinate affections, and +red murder: but in chief, as we have said. + +Moreover, I wish distinctly to make known, for dear "domestic" sake, +that so far from our lovers' happiness having been consummated (that is, +finished) in the honey-moon--it was only then begun. How long they are +to live thus happily together, Heaven, who wills all things good, alone +can tell; I wish them three score years. Little ones, I hear, arrive +annually--to the unqualified joy, not merely of papa and mamma, but also +of our communicative old general, his friend the G.C.B., and (all but +most of any) the Laird of Glenmuir and Glenmurdock, whose heart has been +entirely rejoiced by Charles Tracy having added to his name, and to his +children's names, that of Stuart. + +Mr. and Mrs. Tracy Stuart are often at Glenmuir; but oftener at +Burleigh, where the general, I fancy, still resides. He protests that he +never will keep a secret again: long may he live to say so! + + +END OF THE TWINS. + + + * * * * * + + +HEART; + +A SOCIAL NOVEL. + +BY + +MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, A.M., F.R.S. + +AUTHOR OF + +PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY. + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAP. PAGE. + +1. Wherein two Anxious Parents hold a Colloquy 245 + +2. How the Daughter has a Heart; and, what is commoner, a Lover 249 + +3. Paternal Amiabilities 252 + +4. Excusatory 257 + +5. Wherein a well-meaning Mother acts very foolishly 260 + +6. Pleasant Brother John 263 + +7. Providence sees fit to help Villany 268 + +8. The Rogue's Triumph 273 + +9. False-Witness Kills a Mother, and would willingly Starve a Sister 278 + +10. How to Help one's self 283 + +11. Fraud cuts his fingers with his own Edged Tools 289 + +12. Heart's-Core 293 + +13. Hope's Birth to Innocence, and Hope's Death to Fraud 296 + +14. Probable Reconciliation 298 + +15. The Father finds his Heart for ever 302 + +16. A Word about Originality, and Mourning 306 + +17. The House of Feasting 308 + +18. The End of the Heartless 312 + +19. Wherein matters are concluded 320 + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +WHEREIN TWO ANXIOUS PARENTS HOLD A COLLOQUY. + + +"Is he rich, ma'am? is he rich? ey? what--what? is he rich?" + +Sir Thomas was a rapid little man, and quite an epicure in the use of +that luscious monosyllable. + +"Is he rich, Lady Dillaway? ey? what?" + +"Really, Thomas, you never give me time to answer," replied the +quintescence of quietude, her ladyship; "and then it is perpetually the +same question, and--" + +"Well, ma'am, can there be a more important question asked? I repeat it, +is he rich? ey? what? + +"You know, Sir Thomas, we never are agreed about the meaning of that +word; but I should say, very." + +As Lady Dillaway always spoke quite softly in a whisper, she had failed +to enlighten the knight; but he seemed, notwithstanding, to have caught +her intention instinctively; for he added, in his impetuous, imperious +way, + +"No nonsense now, about talents and virtues, and all such trash; but +quick, ma'am, quick--is the man rich?" + +"In talents, as you mention the word, certainly, very rich; a more +clever or accomplished--" + +"Cut it short, ma'am--cut it short, I say--I'll have no adventurers, who +live by their wits, making up to my daughter--pedantic puppies, good for +ushers, nothing else. What do they mean by knowing so much? ey? what?" + +"And then, Sir Thomas, if you will only let me speak, a man of purer +morals, finer feelings, higher Christian--" + +"Bah! well enough for curates: go on, ma'am--go on, and make haste to +the point of all points--is he rich?" + +"You know I never will make haste, Thomas, for I never can have +patience, and you shall hear; I am little in the habit of judging people +entirely by their purses, not even a son-in-law, provided there is a +sufficiency on the one side or the other for--" + +"Quick, mum--quick--rich--rich? will the woman drive me mad?" and Sir +Thomas Dillaway, Knight, rattled loose cash in both pockets more +vindictively than ever. But the spouse, nothing hurried, still crept on +in her _sotto voce adantino_ style, + +"Mr. Clements owes nothing, has something, and above and beside all his +good heart, good mind, good fame, good looks, good family, possesses a +contented--" + +"Pish! contented, bah!" our hasty knight's nose actually curled upwards +in utter scorn as he added, "Now, that's enough--quite enough. I'll bet +a plum the man's poor. Contented indeed! did you ever know a rich man +yet who was contented--ey? mum--ey? or a poor one that wasn't--ey? what? +I've no patience with those contented fellows: it's my belief they +steal away the happiness of monied men. If this Mr. Clements was +rich--rich, one wouldn't mind so much about talents, virtues, and +contentment--work-house blessings; but the man's poor, I know +it--poo-o-or!" + +Sir Thomas had a method quite his own of pronouncing those contradictory +monosyllables, rich and poor: the former he gave out with an unctuous, +fish-saucy gusto, and the word seemed to linger on his palate as a +delicious morsel in the progress of delightful deglutition; but when he +uttered the word poor, it was with that "mewling and puking" miserable +face, appropriated from time immemorial to the gulping of a black +draught. + +"No, Lady Dillaway, right about's the next word I shall say to that +smooth-looking pauper, Mr. Henry Clements--to think of his impudence, +making up to my daughter, indeed! a poo-o-o-r man, too." + +"I did not tell you he was poor, Sir Thomas: you have run away with that +idea on your own account: the young man has enough for the present, owes +nothing for the past, and reasonable expectations for the-- + +"Future, I suppose, ey? what? I hate futures, all the lot of 'em: cash +down, ready money, bird in the hand, that's my ticket, mum: +expectations, indeed! Well, go on--go on; I'm as patient as a--as a +mule, you see; go on, will you; I may as well hear it all out, Lady +Dillaway." + +"Well, Sir Thomas, since you think so little of the future, I will not +insist on expectations; though I really can only excuse your methods of +judging by the fancy that you are far too prudent in fearing for the +future: however, if you will not admit this, let me take you on your own +ground, the present; perhaps Mr. Clements may not possess quite as much +as I could wish him, but then surely, dear Thomas, our daughter must +have more than--" + +I object to seeing oaths in print; unless it must be once in a way, as a +needful point of character: probably the reader's sagacity will supply +many omissions of mine in the eloquence of Sir Thomas Dillaway and +others. But his calm spouse, nothing daunted, quietly whispered on--"You +know, Thomas, you have boasted to me that your capital is doubling every +year; penny-postage has made the stationery business most prosperous; +and if you were wealthy when the old king knighted you as lord mayor, +surely you can spare something handsome now for an only daughter, who--" + +"Ma'am!" almost barked the affectionate father, "if Maria marries money, +she shall have money, and plenty of it, good girl; but if she will +persist in wedding a beggar, she may starve, mum, starve, and all her +poverty-stricken brats too, for any pickings they shall get out of my +pocket. Ey? what? you pretend to read your Bible, mum--don't you know +we're commanded to 'give to him that hath, and to take away from him +that--'" + +"For shame, Sir Thomas Dillaway!" interrupted the wife, as well she +might, for all her quietude: she was a good sort of woman, and her +better nature aroused its wrath at this vicious application of a truth +so just when applied to morals and graces, so bitterly iniquitous in the +case of this world's wealth. I wish that our ex-lord mayor's distorted +text may not be one of real and common usage. So, silencing her lord, +whose character it was to be overbearing to the meek, but cringing to +any thing like rebuke or opposition, she forthwith pushed her +advantages, adding-- + +"Your income is now four thousand a-year, as you have told me, Thomas, +every hour of every day, since your last lucky hit in the government +contract for blue-elephants and whitey-browns. We have only John and +Maria; and John gets enough out of his own stock-brokering business to +keep his curricle and belong to clubs--and--alas! my fears are many for +my poor dear boy--I often wish, Thomas, that our John was not so well +supplied with money: whereas, poor Maria--" + +"Tush, ma'am, you're a fool, and have no respect at all for monied men. +Jack's a rich man, mum--knows a trick or two, sticks at nothing on +'Change, shrewd fellow, and therefore, of course I don't stint him: ha! +he's a regular Witney comforter, that boy--makes money--ay, for all his +seeming extravagance, the clever little rogue knows how to keep it, too. +If you only knew, ma'am, if you only knew--but we don't blab to fools." + +I dare say "fools" will hear the wise man's secret some day. + +"Well, Thomas, I am sure I have no wish to pry into business +transactions; all my present hope is to help the cause of our poor dear +Maria." + +"Don't call the girl 'poor,' Lady Dillaway; it's no recommendation, I +can tell you, though it may be true enough. Girls are a bad spec, unless +they marry money. If our girl does this, well; she will indeed be to me +a dear Maria, though not a poo-o-o-r one; if she doesn't, let her bide, +and be an old maid; for as to marrying this fellow Clement's, I'll cut +him adrift to-morrow." + +"If you do, Sir Thomas, you will break our dear child's heart." + +"Heart, ma'am! what business has my daughter with a heart?" [what, +indeed?] "I hate hearts; they were sent, I believe, purposely to make +those who are plagued with 'em poo-o-o-r. Heart, indeed! When did heart +ever gain money? ey? what? It'll give, O yes, plenty--plenty, to +charities, and churches, and orphans, and beggars, and any thing else, +by way of getting rid of gold; but as to gaining--bah! heart +indeed--pauperizing bit of muscle! save me from wearing under my +waistcoat what you're pleased to call a heart. No, mum, no; if the girl +has got a heart to break, I've done with her. Heart indeed! she either +marries money and my blessing, or marries beggary and my curse. But I +should like to know who wants her to marry at all? Let her die an old +maid." + +Probably this dialogue need go no farther: in the coming chapter we will +try to be didactic. Meantime, to apostrophize ten words upon that last +heartless sentence: + +"Let her die an old maid." An old maid! how many unrecorded sorrows, how +much of cruel disappointment and heart-cankering delay, how often-times +unwritten tragedies are hidden in that thoughtless little phrase! O, the +mass of blighted hopes, of slighted affections, of cold neglect, and +foolish contumely, wrapped up in those three syllables! Kind heart, kind +heart, never use them; neither lightly as in scorn, nor sadly as in +pity: spare that ungenerous reproach. What! canst thou think that from a +feminine breast the lover, the wife, the mother, can be utterly sponged +away without long years of bitterness? Can Nature's wounds be +cicatrized, or her soft feelings seared, without a thousand secret +pangs? Hath it been no trial to see youthful bloom departing, and middle +age creep on, without some intimate one to share the solitude of life? +Ay, and the coming prospect too--hath it greater consolations than the +retrospect? How faintly common friends can fill that hollow of the +heart! How feebly can their kindness, at the warmest, imitate the +sympathies and love of married life! And in the days of sickness, or the +hour of death--to be lonely, childless, husbandless, to be lightly cared +for, little missed--who can wonder that all those bruised and broken +yearnings should ferment within the solitary mind, and some, times sour +up the milk of human kindness? Be more considerate, more just, more +loving to that injured heart of woman; it hath loved deeply in its day; +but imperative duty or untoward circumstances nipped those early +blossoms, and often generosity towards others, or the constancy of +youthful blighted love, has made it thus alone. There was an age in this +world's history, and may be yet again (if Heart is ever to be monarch of +this social sphere), when those who lived and died as Jephthah's +daughter, were reckoned worthily with saints and martyrs; Heed thou, +thus, of many such, for they have offered up their hundred warm +yearnings, a hecatomb of human love, to God, the betrothed of their +affections; and they move up and down among this inconsiderate world, +doing good, Sisters of Charity, full of pure benevolence, and beneficent +beyond the widow's mite. Heed kinder then, and blush for very shame, O +man and woman! looking on this noble band of ill-requited virgins; +remember all their trials, and imitate their deeds; for among the legion +of that unreguarded sisterhood whom you coldly call old maids, are often +seen the world's chief almoners of warm unselfish sympathy, generous in +mind, if not in means, and blooming with the immortal youth of charity +and kindliness. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +HOW THE DAUGHTER HAS A HEART; AND, WHAT IS COMMONER, A LOVER. + + +Yes, Maria Dillaway, though Sir Thomas's own daughter, had a heart, a +warm and good one: it was her only beauty, but assuredly at once the +best adornment and cosmetic in the world. The mixture of two such +conflicting characters as her father and mother might (with common +Providence to bless the pair) unitedly produce heart; although their +plebeian countenances could hardly be expected without a direct miracle +to generate beauty. Maria inherited from her father at once his +impetuosity and his little button-nose: although the latter was neither +purple nor pimply, and the former was more generous and better directed: +from her mother she derived what looked to any one at first sight very +like red hair, along with great natural sweetness of disposition: albeit +her locks had less of fire, and her sweetness more of it: sympathy was +added to gentleness, zeal to patience, and universal tenderness to a +general peace with all the world; for that extreme quietude, almost +apathy, alluded to before, having been superseded by paternal +impetuosity, the result of all was Heart. She doated on her mother; and +(how she contrived this, it is not quite so easy to comprehend) she +found a great deal loveable even in her father. But in fact she loved +every body. Charity was the natural atmosphere of her kind and feeling +soul--always excusing, assisting, comforting, blessing; charity lent +music to her tongue, and added beauty to her eyes--charity gave grace to +an otherwise ordinary figure, and lit her freckled cheek with the spirit +of loveliness. Let us be just--nay, more: let us be partial, to the good +looks of poor dear Maria. Notwithstanding the snub nose (it is not +snub; who says it is snub?--it is _mignon_, personified good +nature)--notwithstanding the carroty hair (I declare, it was nothing but +a fine pale auburn after all)--notwithstanding the peppered face (oh, +how sweetly rayed with smiles!) and the common figure (gentle, +unobtrusive, full of delicate attentions)--yes, notwithstanding all +these unheroinals, no one who had a heart himself could look upon Maria +without pleasure and approval. She was the very incarnation of +cheerfulness, kindness, and love: you forgot the greenish colour of +those eyes which looked so tenderly at you, and so often-times were +dimmed with tears of unaffected pity; her smile, at any rate, was most +enchanting, the very sunshine of an amiable mind; her lips dropped +blessings; her brow was an open plain of frankness and candour; +sincerity, warmth, disinterested sweet affections threw such a lustre of +loveliness over her form, as well might fascinate the mind alive to +spiritual beauty: and altogether, in spite of natural defects and +disadvantages--_nez retrousse_, Cleopatra locks, and all--no one but +those constituted like her materialized father and his kind, ever looked +upon Maria without unconsciously admiring her, he scarcely knew for +what. Though there appeared little to praise, there certainly was every +thing to please; and faulty as in all pictorial probability was each +lineament of face and line of form, taken separately and by detail, the +veil of universal charity softened and united them into one harmonious +whole, making of Maria Dillaway a most pleasant, comfortable, wife-like +little personage. + +At least, so thought Henry Clements. Neither was it any sudden +fortnight's fancy, but the calm consideration of two full years. Maria's +was a character which grew upon your admiration gradually--a character +to like at first just a little; then to be led onwards imperceptibly +from liking to loving; and thence from fervid summer probably to fever +heat. She dawned upon young Henry like the blush of earliest morn, still +shining brighter and fairer till glorious day was come. + +He had casually made her acquaintance in the common social circle, and +even on first introduction had been much pleased, not to say captivated, +with her cordial address, frank unsophisticated manners, and winsome +looks; he contrasted her to much advantage with the affected coquette, +the cold formal prude, the flippant woman of fashion, the empty heads +and hollow hearts wherewithal society is peopled. He had long been +wearied out with shallow courtesies, frigid compliments, and other +conventional hypocrisies, up and down the world; and wanted something +better to love than mere surface beauty, mere elegant accomplishment--in +a word, he yearned for Heart, and found the object of his longings in +affectionate Maria. + +This first casual acquaintance he had of course taken every opportunity +to improve as best he might, and happily found himself more and more +charmed on every fresh occasion. How heartily glad she was to see him! +how unaffectedly sincere in her amiable joy! how like a kind sister, a +sympathizing friend, a very true-love--a dear, cheerful, warm-hearted +girl, who would make the very model for a wife! + +It is little wonder that, with all external drawbacks, now well-nigh +forgotten, the handsome Henry Clements found her so attractive; nor +that, following diligently his points of advantage, he progressed from +acquaintanceship to intimacy, and intimacy to avowed admiration; and +thence (between ourselves) to the resolute measure of engagement. + +I say between ourselves, because nobody else in the world knew it but +the billing pair of lovers; and even they have got the start of us only +by a few hours. As for Henry Clements, he was a free man in all senses, +with nobody to bias his will or control his affections--an orphan, +unclogged by so much as an uncle or aunt to take him to task on the +score of his attachment, or to plague him with impertinent advice. His +father, Captain Clements of the seventieth, had fallen "gloriously" on +the bloody field of Waterloo, and the pensioned widow had survived her +gallant hero barely nine winters; leaving little Henry thrown upon the +wide world at ten years of age, under the nominal guardianship of some +very distant Ulster cousin of her own, a Mackintosh, Mackenzie, or +Macfarlane--it is not yet material which; and as for the lad's little +property, his poor patrimony of two hundred a-year had hitherto amply +sufficed for Harrow and for Cambridge (where he had distinguished +himself highly), for his chambers in the Temple, and his quiet +bachelor-mode of life as a man of six-and-twenty. + +Accordingly, our lover took counsel of nobody but Maria's beaming eyes, +when he almost unconsciously determined to lay siege to her: he really +could not make up his mind to the preliminary formal process of storming +Sir Thomas in his counting-house, at the least until he had made sure +that Maria's kind looks were any thing more particular than universal +charity; and as to Lady Dillaway, it was impossible to broach so +delicate a business to her till the daughter had looked favourably as +aforesaid, set aside her ladyship's formidable state of quiescence, and +apparent (though only apparent) lack of sympathy. So the lover still +went on sunning his soul from time to time in Maria's kindly smiles, +until one day, that is, yesterday, they mutually found out by some happy +accident how very dear they were to each other; and mutually vowed ever +to continue so. It was quite a surprise this, even to both of them--an +extemporary unrehearsed outburst of the heart; and Maria discovered +herself pledged before she had made direct application to mamma about +the business. However, once done, she hastened to confide the secret to +her mother's ear, earnestly requesting her to break it to papa. With how +little of success, we have learnt already. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +PATERNAL AMIABILITIES. + + +Maria, as we know, loved her father, for she loved every thing that +breathes; but she would not have been human had she not also feared him. +In fact, he was to her a very formidable personage, and one would have +thought any thing but an amiable one. Over Maria's gentle kindness he +could domineer as loftily as he would cringe in cowardly humiliation to +the boisterous effrontery of that unscrupulous and wily stock-jobber, +"my son Jack." With the tyranny proper to a little mind, he would +trample on the neck of a poor meek daughter's filial duty, desiring to +honour its parent by submission; and then, with consistent meanness, +would lick the dust like a slave before an undutiful only son, who had +amply redeemed all possible criminalities by successful (I did not say +honest) gambling in the funds, and otherwise. + +Yes! John Dillaway was rich; and, climax to his praise, rich by his own +keen skill, independent of his father, though he condescended still to +bleed him. In this "money century," as Kohl, the graphic traveller, has +called it, riches "cover the multitude of sins;" leaving poor Maria's +charity to cover its own naked virtues, if it can. So John was the +father's darling, notwithstanding the very heartless and unbecoming +conduct he had exhibited daily for these thirty years, and the marked +scorn wherewithal he treated that pudgy city knight, his dear +progenitor; but then, let us repeat it as Sir Thomas did--Jack was +rich--rich, and such a comfort to his father; whereas Maria, poor fool, +with all her cheap unmarketable love and duty, never had earned a +penny--never could, but was born to be a drain upon him. Therefore did +he scorn her, and put aside her kindnesses, because she could not "make +money." + +For what end on earth should a man make money! It is reasonable to +reply, for the happiness' sake of others and himself; but, in the +frequent case of a rich and cold Sir Thomas, what can be the object in +such? Not to purchase happiness therewith himself, nor yet to distribute +it to others; a very dog in the manger, he snarls above the hay he +cannot eat, and is full of any thoughts rather than of giving: whilst, +as for his own pleasure, he manifestly will not stop a minute to enjoy a +taste of happiness, even if he finds it in his home; nay, more, if it +meets him by the way, and wishes to cling about his heart, he will be +found often to fling it off with scorn, as a reaper would the wild sweet +corn-flower in some handful of wheat he is cutting. O, Sir Thomas! is +not poor Maria's love worth more than all your rich rude Jack's sudden +flush of money? is it not a deeper, higher, purer, wiser, more abundant +source of pleasure? You have yet to learn the wealth of her affections, +and his poverty of soul. + +It was not without heart-sickness, believe me, sore days and weeping +nights, that affectionate Maria saw her father growing more and more +estranged from her. True, he had never met her love so warmly that it +was not somewhat checked and chilled; true, his nature had reversed the +law of reason, by having systematically treated her with less and less +of kindness ever since the nursery; she did seem able to remember +something like affection in him while she was a prattling infant; but as +the mental daylight dawned apace, and she grew (one would fancy) +worthier of a rational creature's love, it strangely had diminished year +by year; moreover, she could scarcely look back upon one solitary +occasion, whereon her father's voice had instructed her in knowledge, +spoken to her in sympathy, or guided her footsteps to religion. Still, +habituated as she long had now become to this daily martyrdom of heart, +and sorely bruised by coarse and common worldliness as had been every +fibre of her feelings, she could not help perceiving that things got +worse and worse, as the knight grew richer and richer; and often-times +her eyes ran over bitterly for coldness and neglect. There was, indeed, +her mother to fly to; but she never had been otherwise than a very quiet +creature, who made but little show of what feeling she possessed; and +then the daughter's loving heart was affectionately jealous of her +father too. + +"Why should he be so cold, with all his impetuosity? so formal, in spite +of his rapidity? so little generous of spirit, notwithstanding all his +wonderful prosperity?" + +Ah, Maria, if you had not been quite so unsophisticated, you would have +left out the latter "notwithstanding." Nothing hardens the heart, dear +child, like prosperity; and nothing dries up the affections more +effectually than this hot pursuit of wealth. The deeper a man digs into +the gold mine, the less able--ay, less willing--is he to breathe the +sweet air of upper earth, or to bask in the daylight of heaven: +downward, downward still, he casts the anchor of his grovelling +affections, and neither can nor will have a heart for any thing but +gold. + +Moreover, have you wondered, dear Maria, at the common fact (one sees it +in every street, in every village), that parental love is oftenest at +its zenith in the nursery, and then falls lower and lower on the +firmament of human life, as the child gets older and older? Look at all +dumb brutes, the lower animals of this our earth; is it not thus by +nature's law with them? The lioness will perish to preserve that very +whelp, whom she will rend a year or two hence, meeting the young lion in +the forest; the hen, so careful of her callow brood, will peck at them, +and buffet them away, directly they are fully fledged; the cow forgets +how much she once loved yonder well-grown heifer; and the terrier-bitch +fights for a bit of gristle with her own two-year-old, whom she used to +nurse so tenderly, and famished her own bowels to feed. And can you +expect that men, who make as little use as possible of Heart, that +unlucrative commodity--who only exercise Reason for shrewd purposes of +gain, not wise purposes of good, and who might as well belong to +Cunningham's "City of O," for any souls they seem to carry about with +them--can you expect that such unaffectioned, unintelligent, +unspiritualized animals, can rise far above the brute in feeling for +their offspring? No, Maria; the nursery plaything grows into the exiled +school-boy; and the poor child, weaned from all he ought to love, soon +comes to be regarded in the light of an expensive youth; he is kept at +arm's length, unblest, uncaressed, unloved, unknown; then he grows up +apace, and tops his father's inches; he is a man now, and may well be +turned adrift; if he can manage to make money, they are friends; but if +he can only contrive to spend it, enemies. Then the complacent father +moans about ingratitude, for he did his duty by the boy in sending him +to school. + +O, faults and follies of the by-gone times, which lingered even to a +generation now speedily passing away!--ye are waning with it, and a +better dawn has broken on the world. Happily for man, the multiplication +of his kind, and pervading competition in all manner, of things +mercantile, are breaking down monopolies, and hindering unjust +accumulation, with its necessary love of gain. "Satisfied with little" +is young England's cry; a better motto than the "Craving after much" of +their fathers. No longer immersed, single-handed, in a worldly business, +which seven competitors now relieve him of; no longer engrossed with the +mint of gold gains, which a dozen honest rivals now are sharing with him +eagerly, the parent has leisure to instruct his children's minds, to +take an interest in their pursuits, and to cultivate their best +affections. Home is no longer the place perpetually to be driven from; +the voices of paternal duty and domestic love are thrillingly raised to +lead the tuneful chorus of society; and fathers, as well as mothers, are +beginning to desire that their children may be able to remember them +hereafter as the ever-sympathizing friend, the wisely indulgent teacher, +the guide of their religion, and the guardian of their love; quite as +much as the payer of their bills and the filler of their purses. + +The misfortune of a past and passing generation has been, too much money +in too few hands; its faults, neglect of duty; its folly, to expect +therefrom the too-high meed of well-earned gratitude; and from this +triple root has grown up social selfishness, a general lack of Heart. No +parent ever yet, since the world was, did his duty properly, as God +intended him to do it, by the affections of the mind and the yearnings +of the heart, as well as by the welfare of the body with its means, and +lived to complain of an ungrateful child. He may think he did his duty; +oh yes, good easy man! and say so too, very, very bitterly; and the +world may echo his most partial verdict, crying shame on the unnatural +Goneril and Regan, bad daughters who despise the Lear in old age, or on +the dissolute and graceless youth, whose education cost so much, and +yields so very little. But money cannot compensate that maiden or that +youth for early and habitual injustice done to their budding minds, +their sensitive hearts, their craving souls, in higher, deeper, holier +things than even cash could buy. "Home affections"--this was the magic +phrase inscribed upon the talisman they stole from that graceless youth; +and the loss of home affections is scantily counterbalanced at the best +by a critical acquaintance with '_Dawes's Canons_,' and '_Bos on +Ellipses_,' in his ardent spring of life, and by a little more of the +paternal earnings which the legacy-office gives him in his manhood. + +But let us not condemn generations past and passing, and wink at our +own-time sins; we have many motes yet in our eyes, not to call them very +beams. The infant school, the factory, the Union, and other wholesale +centralizations, ruin the affections of our poor. O, for the +spinning-wheel again within the homely cottage, and those difficult +spellings by the grand-dame's knee! There is wisdom and stability in a +land thick-set with such early local anchorages; but the other is all +false, republican, and unaffectioned. So, too, the luxurious city club +has cheated many a young pair of their just domestic happiness, for the +husband grew dissatisfied with home and all its poor humilities; whilst +a bad political philosophy, discouraging marriage and denouncing +offspring, has insidiously crept into the very core of private families, +setting children against parents and parents against children, because a +cold expediency winks at the decay of morals, and all united social +influences strike at the sacrifice of Heart. + +We are forgetting you, poor affectionate Maria, and yet will it comfort +your charity to listen. For the time is coming--yea, now is--when a more +generous, though poorer age will condemn the Mammon phrensy of that +which has preceded it. Boldly do we push our standards in advance, +pressing on the flying foe, certain that a gallant band will follow. +Fearlessly, here and there, is heard the voice of some solitary zealot, +some isolated missionary for love, and truth, and philanthropic good, +some dauntless apostle in the cause of Heart, denouncing selfish wealth +as the canker of society: and, hark! that voice is not alone; there is a +murmur on the breeze as the sound of many waters; it comes, it comes! +and the young have caught it up; and manhood hears the thrilling strain +that sinks into his soul; and old age, feebly listening, wonders (never +too late) that he had not hitherto been wiser; and the whole social +universe electrically touched from man to man, I hear them in their +new-born generosities, penitently shouting "God and Heart!" even louder +than they execrate the memory of Dagon. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +EXCUSATORY. + + +It really may be numbered among doubts whether it is possible to +exaggerate the dangers into which a fictionist may fall. My marvel is, +that any go unstabbed. How on earth did Cervantes continue to grow old, +after having pointed the finger of derision at all grave Spain? There is +Boccaccio, too; he lived to turn threescore, in spite of the thousand +husbands and wives, who might pretty well imagine that he spoke of them. +Only consider how many villains, drawn to the life, Walter Scott +created. What! were there no heads found to fit his many caps, hats, +helmets, and other capillary properties? What! are we so blind, so few +of friends, that we cannot each pick out of our social circles Mrs. +Gore's Dowager, Mrs. Grey's Flirt, Mrs. Trollope's Widow, and Boz's Mrs. +Nickleby? Who can help thinking of his lawyer, when he makes +acquaintance with those immortal firms Dodson and Fogg, or Quirk, Snap, +and Gammon? Is not Wrexhill libellous, and Dr. Hookwell personal? Arise! +avenge them both, ye zealous congregations! Why slumber pistols that, +should damage Bulwer? Why are the clasp-knives sheathed, which should +have drunk the blood of James? Hath every "[dash] good-natured friend" +forgotten to be officious, and neglected to demonstrate to relations and +acquaintances that this white villain is Mr. A., and that old virgin +poor Miss B.? Speak, Plumer Ward, courageous veteran, Have the critics +yet forgiven Mr. John Paragraph--forgotten, is impossible? and how is +it no house-keeper has arsenicked my soup, O rash recruit, for the +mysteries of perquisite divulged in Mrs. Quarles? + +A dangerous craft is the tale-wright's, and difficult as dangerous. +Human nature goes in casts, as garden-pots do. Lo, you! the crowd of +thumb-pots; mean little tiny minds in multitudes, as near alike as +possible. Then there are the frequent thirty-twos, average "clever +creatures" in this mental age, wherein no one can make an ordinary +how-d'ye-do acquaintance without being advertised of his or her +surprising talents: and to pass by all intermediate sizes, here and +there standing by himself, in all the prickly pride of an immortal aloe, +some one big pot monopolizes all the cast of earth, domineering over the +conservatory as Brutus's colossal Caesar, or his metempsychosis in a +Wellington. + +Again: no painter ever yet drew life-likeness, who had not the living +models at least in his mind's eye: but no good painter ever yet betrayed +the model in his figure; unless (though these instances are rarish too) +we except, _pace_ Lawrence, the mystery of portraiture. He takes indeed +a line here and a colour there; but he softens this and heightens that; +so that none but he can well discover any trace of Homer's noble head in +yonder sightless beggar, or Juno's queenly form in the Welsh woman +trudging with her strawberry load to Covent Garden market. + +Flatter not thyself, fair Helen, I have not pictured thee in gentle +Grace: tremble not, my little white friend Clatter, thou art by no means +Simon Jennings. Dark Caroline Blunt, it is true thou hast fine eyes; +nevertheless, in nothing else (I am sorry to assure thee) art thou at +all like Emily Warren. Flaunting Lady Busbury, be calm; if you had not +been so wrathful, I never should have thought of you--undoubtedly you +are not the type of Mrs. Tracy. + +Why will all these people don my imaginary characters? Truly, it may +seem to be a compliment, as proving that they speak from heart to heart, +of universal human nature, not unaptly; still is their inventor or +creator embarrassed terribly by such unwelcome honours; your precious +balms oppress him, gentle friends; lift off your palm branches; indeed, +he is unworthy of these petty triumphs; and, to be serious, he detests +them. + +No: once and for all, let a plain first person say it, I abjure +personalities; my arrows are shot at a venture; and if they hit any one +at all, it is only that he stands in my shaft's way, and the harness of +his conscience is unbuckled. The target of my feeble aim is general--to +pierce the heart of evil, evil in the form of social heartlessness: it +is no fault of mine, if some alarmed particulars will crowd about the +mark. Ideal characters, ideal incidents, ideal scenes--to these I +honestly pledge myself: but as most men have two eyes, being neither +naturally monocular nor triocular, so most men of their own special cast +have similar distinguishable sympathies. + +The overweening love of money is a seed, a soil, and a sun that +generates a certain crop: the aim of my poor husbandry is only to reap +this; but my sickle does not wish to wound the growers: let them stand +aside; or, better far, let them help me cut those rank and clogging +tares, and bind them up in bundles to be burned. Heart is a +sweet-smelling shrub, ill to stand against the chilling breath of +worldliness: my small care desires to cherish this; gather round it, +friends! shelter it beside me. How many fragrant flowers now are +bursting into beauty! how cheering is their scent! how healthful the +aroma of their bloom! Pluck them with me; they are sweet, delicate, and +lustrous to look upon, even as the night-blowing cereus. + +Henceforth then, social circle, feel at peace with such as I am, whose +public parable would teach, without any thought of personality, entirely +disclaiming private interpretations: there are other people stout +besides one's uncle, other people deaf besides one's aunt. Sir Thomas +Dillaway is not Alderman Bunce, nor any other friend or foe I wot of; a +mere creature of the counting-house, he is a human ledger-mushroom: rub +away the mildew from your hearts, if any seem to see yourselves in him: +neither have I ventured to transplant Miss Cassiopeia Curtis's red hair +to dear Maria's head: imitate her graces, if you will, maiden; but +charge me not with copying your locks. Though "my son Jack" be a +boisterous big rogue, on 'Change, and off it--let not mine own honest +stock-broker put that hat upon his head, in the mono-mania that it fits +him, because he may heretofore have been both bull and bear; and as for +any other heroes yet to come upon this scene, to enact the tragedy or +comedy of Heart--"Know all men by these presents,"--your humble +servant's will is to smite bad principles, not offending persons; to +crusade against evil manners, not his guilty fellow-men. + +Wo is me! who am I, that I should satirize my brethren?--Yet, wo is +me--if I silently hide the sin I see. Make me not an offender for a +word, seeing that my purposes are good. Be not hypercritical, for +Heart's sake, against a man whose aim it is to help the cause of Heart. +Neither count it sufficient to answer me with an inconclusive "_tu +quoque_:" I know it, I feel it, I confess it, I would away with it. +Heaven send to him that writes, as liberally as to those who read (yea, +more, according to his deeper needs and failings) the grace to +counteract all mammonizing blights, and to cultivate this garden of the +Heart. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +WHEREIN A WELL-MEANING MOTHER ACTS VERY FOOLISHLY. + + +Returned from her unsuccessful embassage, Lady Dillaway +determined--kind, calm soul--to hide the bitter truth from poor Maria, +that her father was inexorably adverse. A scene was of all things that +indentical article least liked by the quiescent mother; and that her +warm-hearted daughter would enact one, if she heard those echoes of +paternal love, was clearly a problem requiring no demonstration. + +Accordingly, with well-intentioned kindliness, but shallowish wisdom, +and most questionable propriety, Maria was persuaded to believe that her +father had hem'd and haw'd a little, had objected no doubt to Henry's +lack of money, but would certainly, on second thoughts, consider the +affair more favourably: + +"You know your father's way, my love; leave him to himself, and I am +sure his better feeling will not fail to plead your cause: it will be +prudent, however, just for quiet's sake, to see less of Henry Clements +for a day or two, till the novelty of my intelligence blows over. +Meantime, do not cry, dear child; take courage, all will be well; and I +will give you my free leave to console your Henry too." + +"Dearest, dearest mamma, how can I thank you sufficiently for all this? +But why may I not now at once fly to papa, tell him all I feel and wish +cordially and openly, and touch his dear kind heart? I am sure he would +give us both his sanction and his blessing, if he only knew how much I +love him, and my own dear Henry." + +"Sweet child," sighed out mamma, "I wish he would, I trust he would, I +believe indeed he will some day: but be advised by me, Maria, I know +your father better than you do; only keep quiet, and all will come round +well. Do not broach the subject to him--be still, quite still; and, +above all, be careful that your father does not yet awhile meet Mr. +Clements." + +"But, dearest mamma, how can I be so silent when my heart is full? and +then I hate that gloomy sort of secresy. Do let me ask papa, and tell +him all myself. Perhaps he himself will kindly break the ice for me, now +that your dear mouth has told him all, mamma. How I wish he would!" + +"Alas, Maria, you always are so sanguine: your father is not very much +given, I fear, to that sort of sociality. No, my love; if you only will +be ruled by me, and will do as I do, managing to hold your tongue, I +think you need not apprehend many conversational advances on your +father's part." + +Poor Maria had more than one reason to fear all this was true, too true; +so her lip only quivered, and her eyes overflowed as usual. + +Thereafter, Lady Dillaway had all the talk to herself, and she smoothly +whispered on without let or hindrance; and what between really hoping +things kindly of her husband's better feelings, and desiring to lighten +the anxieties of dear Maria's heart, she placed the whole affair in such +a calm, warm, and glowing Claude-light, as apparently to supply an +emendation (no doubt the right reading) to the well known aphorism-- + + "The course of true love never did run smooth-_er_." + +In fine, our warm and confiding Maria ran up to her own room quite +elated after that interview; and she heartily thanked God that those +dreaded obstacles to her affection were so easily got over, and that her +dear, dear father had proved so kind. + +It is quite a work of supererogation to report how speedily the welcome +news were made known, by _billet-doux_, to Henry Clements; but they +rather smote his conscience, too, when he reflected that he had not yet +made formal petition to the powers on his own account. To be sure, they +(the lovers, to wit) were engaged only yesterday, quite in an +unintended, though delightful, way: and, previously to that important +_tete-a-tete_, however much he may have thought of only dear +Maria--however frequently he found himself beside her in the circle of +their many mutual friends--however happily he hoped for her +love--however foolishly he reveried about her kindness in the solitude +of his Temple garret--still he never yet had seen occasion to screw his +courage to the sticking point, and boldly place his bliss at hard Sir +Thomas's disposal. Some day--not yet--perhaps next week, at any rate not +exactly to-day--these were his natural excuses; and they availed him +even to the other side of that social Rubicon, engagement. Nevertheless, +now at length something must decidedly be done; and, within half an +hour, Finsbury's deserted square echoed to the heroic knock of Mr. Henry +Clements, fully determined upon claiming his Maria at her father's +hands. + +The knight was out; probably, or rather certainly, not yet returned from +his counting-house in St. Benet's Sherehog. So, perforce, our hero could +only have an audience with his lady. + +The same glossing over of unpalatable truths--the same quiet-breathing +counsel--the same tranquil sort of hopefulness--fully satisfied the +lover that his cause was gained. How could he think otherwise? In the +father's absence, he had broached that mighty topic to the mother, who +even now hailed him as her son, and promised him his father's favour. +What could be more delicious than all this? and what more honourable, +while prudent, too, and filial, than to acquiesce in Lady Dillaway's +fears about her husband's nervousness at the sight of one who was to +take from him an only and beloved daughter? It was delicacy +itself--charming; and Henry determined to make his presence, for the +first few days, as scarce as possible in the sight of that affectionate +father. + +And thus it came to pass that two open and most honourable minds, +pledged to heartiest love, could not find one speck of sin in loving on +clandestinely. Nay, was it clandestine at all? Is it, then, merely a +legal fiction, and not a religious truth, that husband and wife are one? +and is it not quite as much a matrimonial as a moral one that father and +mother are so too? Was it not decidedly enough to have spoken to the +latter, especially when she undertook to answer for the former? Sir +Thomas was a man engrossed in business; and, doubtless, left such +affairs of the Heart to the kinder keeping of Lady Dillaway. No; there +was nothing secret nor clandestine in the matter; and I entirely absolve +both Henry and Maria. They could not well have acted otherwise if any +harm should come to it, the mother is to blame. + +Lady Dillaway, without doubt, should have known her husband better; but +her tranquil love of our dear Maria seemed to have infatuated her into +simply believing--what she so much wished--her happiness secure. She +heeded not how little sympathy Sir Thomas felt with lovers; and only +encouraged her innocent child to play the dangerous game of unconscious +disobedience. Accordingly, consistent with that same quiet kindness of +character which had smoothed away all difficulties hitherto, the +indulgent mother now allowed the loving pair to meet alone, for the +first time permissively, to tell each other all their happiness. Lady +Dillaway left the drawing-room, and sent Maria to the heart that beat +with hers. + +Who shall describe the beauty of that interview--the gush of first +affections bursting up unchecked, unchidden, as hot springs round the +Hecla of this icy world! They loved and were beloved--openly, devotedly, +sincerely, disinterestedly. Henry had never calculated even once how +much the city knight could give his daughter; and as for Maria, if she +had not naturally been a girl all heart, the home wherein she was +brought up had so disgusted her of still-repeated riches, that (it is +easy of belief) the very name of poverty would be music to her ears. +Accordingly, how they flew into each other's arms, and shed many happy +tears, and kissed many kindest kisses, and looked many tenderest things, +and said many loving words, "let Petrarch's spirit in heroics sing:" as +for our present prosaical Muse, she delights in such affections too +naturally and simply to wish to cripple them with rhymes, or confine +them in sonnets; she despises decoration of simple and beautiful +Nature--gilding gold, and painting lilies; and she loves to throw a veil +of secret sanctity over all such heaven-blest attachments. "Hence! ye +profane,"--these are no common lovers: I believe their spirits, still +united in affections that increase with time, will go down to the valley +of death unchangeably together; and will thence emerge to brighter bliss +hand in hand throughout eternity--a double Heart with one pulse, loving +God, and good, and one another! + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +PLEASANT BROTHER JOHN. + + +"Ho, ho! I suspected as much; so this fellow Clements has been hanging +about us at parties, and dropping in here so often, for the sake of Miss +Maria, ey?"--For the door had noisily burst open to let in Mr. John +Dillaway, who under grumbled as above. + +"Dear John, I am so rejoiced to see you; I am sure it will make you as +happy as myself, brother, to hear the good news: papa and mamma are so +kind, and---- I need not introduce to you my ---- you have often met him +here, John--Mr. Henry Clements." + +"Sir, your most obedient." The vulgar little purse-proud citizen made an +impudent sort of distant bow, and looked for all the world like a coated +Caliban sarcastically cringing to a well-bred Ferdinand. + +Poor Henry felt quite taken aback at such frigid formality; and dear +Maria's very heart was in her mouth: but the brother tartly added, "If +Mr. Clements wishes to see Sir Thomas--that's his knock: he was +following me close behind: I saw him; but, as I make it a point never +to walk with the governor, perhaps it's as well for you two I dropped +in first by way of notice, ey?" + +It was a dilemma, certainly--after all that Lady Dillaway had said and +recommended: fortunately, however, her lord the knight, when the street +door was opened to him, hastened straightway to his own "study," where +he had to consult some treatise upon tare and tret, and a recent +pamphlet upon the undoubted social duty, '_Run for Gold_;' so that +awkward rencounter was avoided; and Mr. Clements, taking up his hat, was +enabled to accomplish a dignified retreat. + +"Dear John, your manner grieves me; I wish you had been kinder to my--to +Henry Clements." + +"Oh, you do, do you? does the governor know of all this? the fellow's a +beggar." + +"For shame, John! you shall not call my noble Henry such names: of +course papa has heard all." + +"And approves of all this spooneying, ey, miss?" + +"Brother, brother, do be gentler with me: mamma's great kindness has +smoothed away all objections, and surely you will be glad, John, to have +at last a brother of your own to love you as I do." + +"Ey? what? another thief to go shares with me when the governor cuts up? +Thank you, miss, I'd rather be excused. You are quite enough, I can tell +you, for you make my whole a half; nobody wants a third: much obliged to +you, though." [Interjections may as well be understood.] + +"O, dear brother, you hurt me, indeed you do: I am sure (if it were +right to say so) I would not wish to live a minute, if poor Maria's +death could--could make you any happier;--O John, my heart will----" +[Her tears can as readily be understood as his interjections.] + +If a domestic railroad could have been cleverly constructed to Maria's +chamber from every room in that great house, it would have stood her in +good stead; for every day, from some room or other, this poor girl of +feeling had to rush up stairs in a torrent of grief. Yearning after +sympathy and love, neither felt nor understood by the minds with whom +she herded, a trio of worldliness, apathy, and coarse brutality, her +bosom ached as an empty void: treated with habitual neglect and cold +indifference, made various (as occasion might present) by stern rebuke +or bitter sarcasm, her heart was sore within its cell, and the poor dear +child lived a life of daily martyrdom, her feelings smitten upon the +desecrated altar of home by the "foes of her own household." + +And not least hostile in the band of those home-foes was this only +brother, John. Look at him as he stands alone there, muttering after her +as she ran up stairs, "Plague take the girl!" and let me tell you what I +know of him. + +That thick-set form, with its pock-marked face, imprisons as base a +spirit as Baal's. He was a chip of the old block, and something more. If +the father had a heart with "gold" written on it, the son had no heart +at all, but gold was in its place. Thoroughly unscrupulous as to ways +and means, and simply acting on the phrase "_quocunque modo rem_," he +seemed to have neither conscience of evil, nor dread of danger. In two +words, he was a "bold bad" man, divested equally of fear and feeling. +The memoirs of his past life hitherto, without controversy very little +edifying, may be guessed with quite sufficient accuracy for all +characteristic purposes from the coarse, sensual, worldly, and +iniquitous result now standing for his portraiture before us. We will +waste on such a type of heartlessness as few words as possible: let his +conduct show the man. + +Just now, this worthy had risen into high favour with his father: we +already know why; he had suddenly got rich on his own account, and for +that very sufficient reason drew any additional sums he pleased on "the +governor's." The trick or two, whereat Sir Thomas hinted, and which so +wise a man would not have blabbed to fools, are worthy of record; not +merely as illustrative of character, but (in one case at least, as we +may find hereafter) for the sake of ulterior consequences. + +John Dillaway's first exploit in the money-making line was a clever one. +He managed to possess himself of a carrier-pigeon of the Antwerp breed, +one among a flock kept for stock-jobbing purposes, by a certain great +capitalist; and he contrived that this trained bird should wheel down +among the merchants just at noon one fine day in the Royal Exchange. The +billet under its wing contained certain cabalistic characters, and the +plain-spoken intelligence, "_Louis Philippe est mort!_" In a minute +after these most revolutionizing news, French funds, then at one hundred +and twelve, were toppling down below ninety, and our prudent John was +buying stock in all directions: nay, he even made some considerable +bargains at eighty-seven. There was a complete panic in the market, and +wretched was the man who possessed French fives. The afternoon's work so +beautifully finished, John spent that night as true-born Britons are +reported to have done before the battle of Hastings, rioting in drunken +bliss, and panting for the morrow; and when the morrow came, and the +Paris post with it, I must leave it to be understood with what +complacency of triumph our enterprising stock-jobber hastened to sell +again at one hundred and fourteen, pocketing, in the aggregate, a +difference of several thousand pounds. It was a feat altogether to +ravish a delighted father's heart, and no wonder that he counted John so +great a comfort. + +Trick number two had been at once even more lucrative and more +dangerous. As a stock-broker, this enterprising Mr. Dillaway had +peculiar opportunities of investigating closely certain records in the +office for unclaimed dividends: he had an object in such close +inspection, and discovered soon that one Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of +Ballyriggan, near Belfast, was a considerable proprietor, and had made +no claim for years. Why should so much money lie idle? Was the woman +dead? Probably not; for in that case executors or administrators would +have touched it. Legatees and next of kin are little apt to forget such +matters. Well, then, if this Mrs. Jane Mackenzie is alive, she must be a +careless old fool, and we'll try if we can't kill her on paper, and so +come in for spoils instead of kith and kin. "Shrewd Jack," as they +called him in the Alley, chuckled within himself at so feasible a plot. + +Accordingly, in an artful and well-concocted way, which we may readily +conceive, but it were weary to detail, John Dillaway managed to forge a +will of Jane Mackenzie aforesaid; and inducing some dressed-up "ladies" +of his acquaintance to personate the weeping nieces of deceased +(doubtless with no lack of Irish witnesses beside, competent to swear to +any thing), he contrived to pass probate at Doctors' Commons, and get +twelve thousand two hundred and forty-three pounds, bank annuities +transferred, as per will, to the two ladies legatees. As the munificent +_douceur_ of a thousand pounds a-piece had (for the present) stopped the +mouths of those supposititious nieces, who stipulated for not a farthing +more nor less, clever John Dillaway a second time had the filial +opportunity of rejoicing his father's heart by this wholesale +money-making. Ten thousand pounds bank stock was manifestly another good +day's work; and seeing our John had not appeared at all in the +transaction, even as the ladies' stock-broker, things were made so safe, +that the chuckling knight, when he heard all this (albeit he did +tenderly fy, fy a little at first), was soon induced to think "my son +Jack" the very best boy and the very cleverest dog in Christendom: at +once a parent's pride and joy. Yes, Lady Dillaway--such a comfort! And +the worshipful stationer apostrophized "rich Jack" with lips that seemed +to smack of Creasy's Brighton sauce, whilst his calm spouse appeared to +acquiesce in her amiable John's good fortune. The mystified mother +little guessed that it was felony. + +This good son's new-born wealth, besides the now liberal paternal +largess (for his allowance grew larger in proportion as he might seem to +need it less), of course availed to introduce him to some fashionable +and estimable circles of society, whither it might not at all times be +discreet in us to follow him; amongst other places, whether or not the +Pandemonium in Jermyn street proved to him another gold mine, we have +not yet heard; but John Dillaway was often there, the intimate friend of +many splendid cavaliers who lived upon their industry, familiar with a +whole rookery of blacklegs, patron of two or three pigeonable city +sparks, and, on the whole, flusher of money than ever. His quiet mother, +if she cared about her son at all, and probably she did care when her +health permitted, might well be apprehensive on the score of that +increasing wealth which made the father's joy. + +However, with all his prosperity Mr. John as yet professed himself by no +means satisfied; he was far too greedy of gain, and ever since he had +come to man's estate, had amiably longed to be an only child. Not that +he heeded a monopoly of the parental feelings and affections, nor even +that he meditated murdering Maria--oh dear, no: rather too troublesome +that, and quite unnecessary; it would be entirely sufficient if he could +manage so to influence his father as to cut that superfluous sister +Maria very short indeed in the matter of cash. With this generous and +amiable view, he now for a course of sundry years had whispered, +back-bitten, and lied; he had, as occasion offered, taken mean +advantages of Maria's outspeaking honesty, had set her warm-hearted +sayings and charitable doings in the falsest lights, and had entirely +"mildewed the ear" of her listening papa. The knight in truth listened +unreluctantly; it was consolation, if not happiness to him, if he could +make or find excuses for harshness to a being who would not worship +wealth; it would be joy and pride, and an honour to his idol, if he +should keep Maria pretty short of cash, and so make her own its +preciousness; triumphant would he feel, as a merely-moneyed man, to see +troublesome, obtrusive Heart, with all its win-ways, and whimperings, +and incomprehensible spirituality, with its sermons and its prayers, +bending before him "for a bit of bread." Yes, poor loving disinterested +Maria ran every chance of being disinherited, from the false witness of +her brother, simply because she gave him antecedent opportunities, by +her honest likings and dislikings, by her bold rebuke of wrong and open +zeal for right, by her scorn of hypocrisies as to what she did feel, or +did not feel, and by the unpopular fact that she wore a heart, and +refused to be the galley-slave of gold. + +"Oh, ho, then!" said our crafty John, "we shall soon set this all right +with our governor; thank you for the chance, Miss Maria. If father +doesn't kick out this Clements, and cut you off with a shilling, he is +not Sir Thomas, and I am not his son." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +PROVIDENCE SEES FIT TO HELP VILLANY. + + +"Now that's what I call bones." + +It was a currish image, suggestive of the choicest satisfaction. Let us +try to discover what good news such an idiosyncrasy as that of John +Dillaway would be pleased to designate as "bones." He had forthwith gone +to his father's room as merry at the chance of ousting poor Maria, as +the heartlessness of avarice could make him; and omnipresent authorship +jotted down the dialogue that follows: + +"So, governor, there's to be a wedding here, I find; when does it come +off?" + +"Ey? what? a wedding? whose?" + +"Oh, ho! you don't know, ey? I guessed as much: what do you think now of +our laughing, and crying, and kissing, and praying Miss Maria with-- + +"Not that beggar Clements? Ey? what? d----" &c., &c. + +"Ha, ha, ha, ha! I thought so; why not, governor? Are you an old mole, +that you haven't seen it these six weeks? Are you stone deaf, that all +their pretty speeches have been wasted on you? All I can say is, that if +Mr. and Mrs. Clements an't spliced, it's pretty well time they should +be, and-- + +"Sir Thomas Dillaway rattled out so terrible an oath about Maria's +disinheritance if she ventured upon a marriage, that even John was +staggered at such a dreadful curse; nevertheless, an instantaneous +reflection soon caused that curse to be viewed metaphorically as a +"bone;" and the generous brother cautiously proceeded-- + +"Why, governor, all this is very odd, must say; when I caught 'em +kissing up there ten minutes ago, they were sharp enough to swear that +you knew all about it, and that you were so 'very, very kind.'" + +How is it possible, intelligent reader, to avoid perpetual allusion to +an oath? We must not pare the lion's claws, and give bad men soft +speeches: pr'ythee, supply an occasional interjection, and believe that +in this place Sir Thomas swore most awfully; then, in a complete +phrensy, he vowed that he "would turn Maria out of house and home this +minute." This was another "bone," clearly. + +But it was now becoming politic to calm him. Shrewd Jack was well aware +that Maria would relinquish all, and sacrifice, not merely her own +heart, but her Henry's too, rather than be guilty of filial +disobedience. All this storming, hopeful as it looked, might still be +premature, and do no substantial good; nay, if this wrath broke out too +soon, Maria would at once give way, become more dutiful than ever, and +his golden chance was gone. No: they were not married yet. Let the +wedding somehow first take place, and then--! and then!--for now he knew +which way the wind blew; so the scheming youth calmed his rising +triumphs, and counselled his progenitor as follows: + +"Well, governor, I never saw so green a blade in all my born days. Can't +you see, now, that it's all cram this, just to put you in spirits, old +boy, in case of such things happening? It was wicked too of me to tease +you so--but I'm so jolly, governor; such luck in Jermyn street--I knew +you'd like a joke served up with such rich sauce as this is, ey? only +look!" It was half a hatful of bank notes raked up at the hazard table. + +Sir Thomas's gray eyes darted swiftly at the spoil; often as he had +warned and scolded Jack about the matter of Jermyn street (for Jack was +bold enough never to conceal one of his little foibles), the father had +now nothing to object; for, in his philosophy, the end justified the +means. With most of this wise world, he looked upon success as in the +nature of virtue, and failure as the surest sign of vice; accordingly +his ire was diverted on the moment, and blazed in admiration of son +Jack: and that estimable creature immediately determined it was wise to +speak in tones of unwonted affection respecting his sister. + +"Now, governor, I put it to you plump, isn't this hatful enough to make +a man beside himself, so as not to stick at a white lie or two? Dear +Maria there is no more going to become a Mrs. Clements than you are; she +cut the fellow dead long ago: so mind, that's a tough old bird, you +don't say one word to her about him; it would be just raking up the +cinders again, you know, and you might be fool enough to raise a flame. +No, governor, if it's any consolation to you, that pauper connection has +been all at an end this month; not but what the beggar's got my mother's +ear still, I fancy; but as to Maria, she detests him. So take my advice, +and don't tease the poor girl about the business. Now, then, that this +is all settled, and now that you 're the merrier for that silly bit of +storming at nothing, just listen: the wedding's my own! isn't Jack +Dillaway a clever fellow now, to have caught a Right Honourable +Ladyship, with a park in Yorkshire, a palace in Wales, and a mansion in +Grosvenor square?" + +At this _extempore_ invention, the delighted parent rained so many +blessings on his progeny, that John knew the tide was turned at once. +Our ex-lord mayor had high ambitions, dating from the year of glory +onwards; so that nothing could be more prudent or well-timed that this +ideal aristocratic connection. Jack was a good fellow, a dear boy; and +he added to his apparent amiabilities now by reiterating counsels of +kindness and silence towards "poor dear sister Maria, whom he had been +making the scape-goat all this time;" after which done, our stock-jobber +feigned a pressing engagement with some fashionable friends, and left +his father to ruminate upon his worth in lonely admiration. + +Well; if that clever and gratuitous lie was not another "bone," I am at +a loss to know what could be a "bone" to such a hound: therefore it +appears that Dillaway had three of them at least to gladden him in +solitude; and he went on revealing to wonder-stricken angels, and to us, +the secrets of his crafty soul, as he thus soliloquized: + +"Yes, marry the fools first, and then for spoils at leisure; it won't be +easy though, she's so consummate filial, and he so bloated up with +honour. They'll never wed, I'm clear, unless the governor's by to bless +'em; and as to managing that, and the cutting-adrift scheme too, one +kills the other. How the deuce to do it? Eh--do I see a light?" + +He did. A light lurid sulphurous gleam upon the midnight of his mind +seemed to show the way before him, as wisp-fire in a marsh. He did see a +light, and its character was this: + +Quite aware of his mother's tranquil hopefulness, and that his kind good +sister was ingenuous as the day, he soon apprehended the state of +affairs; and, resolving to increase those misunderstandings on all +sides, he quickly perceived that he could triumph in the keen +Machiavellian policy, "_divide et impera_." The plan became more obvious +as he calmly thought it out. Evidently his first step must be to +ingratiate himself with both Henry and Maria, as the sympathizing +brother, a very easy task among such charitable fools: number two should +be to persuade them, as the mother did, that Sir Thomas, generally a +reserved unsocial man at home (and that in especial to Maria), was very +nervous at the thought of losing his dear daughter, and (while he +acquiesced in the common fate of parents and the usual way of the world) +begged that his coming bereavement might be obtruded on him as little as +possible--Mr. Clements always to avoid him, and Maria to hold her +tongue: number three, to amuse his father all the while by the prospect +of his own high alliance, so as effectually to hoodwink him from what +was going on: and, number four, to send him up to Yorkshire a week hence +(on some fool's errand to inquire after the imaginary countess's +imaginary mortgages), leaving behind him an autograph epistle (which our +John well knew how to write), recommending "that the ceremony be +performed immediately and in his absence, to spare his feelings on the +spot," mentioning "son John as his worthy substitute to give dear Maria +away," and enclosing them at once his "blessing and a hundred pound note +to help them on their honey-moon." + +"John Dillaway, if craft be a virtue, thou art an archangel: but if +Heaven's chief requirement is the heart, thou art very like a +devil--very. If selfishness deserves the meed of praise, who more +honourable than thou art? But if a heartless man can never reach to +happiness, I know who will live to curse the hour of his birth, and is +doomed to perish miserably." + +It was a clever scheme, and had unscrupulous hands to work it. Mystified +by quiet Lady Dillaway as our lovers had been from the first, entirely +unsuspicious of all guile, and rejoicing in their brother's marvellous +amiability, never surely were such happy days; always together while the +knight was at his counting-house, they gladly acquiesced in his +beautifully paternal nervousness; it was a delightful trait of character +in the dear old man; and a very respectable proof that love is keen-eyed +enough to believe what it wishes, but is stone-blind to any thing that +might possibly counteract its hopes. Then again, the mother was a close +ally; for having set her quiet heart upon the match, Lady Dillaway at +once encouraged all John's sympathetic scheme, on the prudent principle +of getting the young couple inextricably married first, and then +obliging her lord to be reconciled afterwards to what he could not help. +Sir Thomas himself, poor blinkered creature, was full of the most +aristocratical and wealthy fancies, and only yearned to inspect the +acres of his future honourable grand-children. He was, from these +fanciful causes, unusually affable and indulgent to Maria; spoke so +kindly always that she was all but dissolving thrice a-day; and, from +his constant reveries about the countess, appeared perpetually to be +brooding over dear Maria's soon approaching loss. Poor girl! more than +once she had determined to give it all up, and make her father happy by +serving him still in single blessedness: but then, how could she break +dear Henry's heart, as well as her own? No, no: they should live very +near to Finsbury square, and be in and out constantly, and papa should +never miss her: how delightful was all this! + +As for John himself, (our heartless model-man, strange contrast to +Maria's perfect charity!) he chuckled hugely as his scheme now ripened +fast. He had long been putting all things in train for the wedding +to-morrow. Every body knew it except Sir Thomas who--what between Jack's +prudent watchfulness, his habitual counting-house hours, his usually +unsocial silence, and his now asserted wish for "not one word upon the +subject,"--was at once kept in total ignorance of all; and yet, as +ambassadorial John constantly gave out to Clements and Maria, in an +amiable nervous state of natural acquiescence. Next day, then, the +besotted father was about to be packed post for Yorkshire; the important +letter, with its enclosed bank note, was already written and sealed, as +like the governor's hand as possible; a license had been long ago +provided, and the clergyman bespoke, by the brotherly officiousness of +John; neither Henry Clements, who was too delicate, too unsuspecting for +prudent business-papers, nor Maria, whose heart was never likely to have +conceived the thought, had even once alluded to a settlement; Lady +Dillaway was lying, as her wont was, on her habitual sofa, in tranquil +ecstasy, at to-morrow morning's wedding: and Holy Providence, for wise +purposes no doubt, had seen fit to aid a villain in his deep-laid +treacherous designs. + +The Wednesday dawned: Sir Thomas was to be off early, poor man, all agog +for right honourable acres; and Maria could no longer restrain the +expression of her glad and grateful feelings. Up she got by six, threw +herself in her kind dear father's way; and though, to spare his +feelings, she said not a word about the marriage, prayed him on her +knees for a blessing. The startled parent, believing all this frantic +show of feeling was sufficiently to be accounted for by his own long and +no doubt dangerous journey, blessed her as devoutly as ever he could; +and when the carriage drove away, left her in his study, overcome with +joy, affection, and admiration of his fine heart, exquisite +sensibilities, and generous feelings. Then, as a crowning-stone to all +the bliss, if any lingering doubt existed in the mind of Clements, who +had more than once expressed dislike at Sir Thomas's silent and +unsatisfying sympathy--the letter--the letter, whereof kind brother +John, secretly initiated, had some days forewarned them of its +probability--that letter, which explained at once all a father's kind +anxieties, and made up for all his cold reserve, was found on Sir +Thomas's own table! How amiable, how beautifully sensitive, how liberal +too! Lady Dillaway plumed herself in a whispering transport upon her +just appreciation of the father's better feelings; a kinder heart +manifestly never existed than her husband's, though he did take strange +methods of proving it: the bridesmaids, two daughters of a friend and +neighbour, privy to the coming mystery three days, approved highly of so +unobtrusive an old gentleman: Maria was all pantings, blushings, +weepings, and rejoicings; Henry Clements, handsome, pale, and agitated; +perhaps, misgiving too, and a little displeased at the father's absence; +however, Mr. John Dillaway gave away the bride with a most paternal air; +and, just as Sir Thomas was changing horses at Huntingdon, our innocent +lovers were indissolubly married. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE ROGUE'S TRIUMPH. + + +Never was there such a happy couple; nor a more auspicious day. Away +they went, in deep delight, too joyful to be merry, in a holy transport +of affection, and its dearest hope fulfilled. They seemed to be in love +with all the world, for every thing around them wore a lustre of +deliciousness: and when the smoking posters left them at Salt hill, and +that well-matched husband and wife sat down to their first boiled fowl, +it would probably be a bathos to allude to angelic bliss; but they +nevertheless were, and knew they were, the happiest of mortals. If any +thing could add to Henry's self-complacency at that moment, it was the +recollection of his own truly disinterested conduct; for only yesterday +he had transferred all his little property to that kind and brotherly +fellow John Dillaway, in trust for Maria Clements, should any possible +reverse of fortune affect her father's or his own prosperity. Yes; and +John had been so wise as to make the two hundred a-year already a third +more, by investing (as he said) what had been a few thousands of three +per cents. in some capital "independent" bank shares of +Australasia--safe as a mountain, and productive as a valley. + +All this appeared very prosperous and pleasant: but we of the initiated +into the secrets of character, may reasonably apprehend that Henry's +little all would have been safer any where than in Dillaway's +possession: and "possession," I am sorry to declare, is a word used +advisedly; for Mr. John required a largish floating capital to enable +him to go to the desperate lengths he did at hazard and _rouge-et-noir_; +and I am afraid that if Mr. or Mrs. Clements were to receive any of +those so-called Austral dividends, they would only have been taking +three hundred pounds a-year out of their principal moneys in John's +immaculate keeping. + +Leaving then those wedded lovers to their honey-moon of joy, and shrewd +Jack gloating not merely over the full success of his nefarious plan, +but also over this unexpected acquisition of poor Clement's few +thousands, let us return to Sir Thomas--or, to be quite accurate, let us +return with him. + +In high dudgeon, full of fire and fury, back rushed the knight, sore +under the sense of having been made an April-fool of in July; for no one +in the place whereto he went, had ever heard of a widow'd Countess of +Lancing; and her ladyship's acres, if any where at all, were undoubtedly +not in the North Riding. But clever son John, meeting his indignant +father on the threshold, soon made all that right by a word. + +"Well, if ever! why, stupid, I said Diddlington, not Darlington." + +Into the accuracy of this distinction it is needless to inquire: and +then the ingenuous youth went on to observe-- + +"But all's right as it is now; you may as well not have seen the +property, and better, too, as things have turned out roughly, governor: +the match is off, and you may well congratulate me. Such an escape--I +just discovered it, and was barely in time: you hadn't been gone two +hours when I found it all out, through a clever devil of a lawyer, who +was hired by my father's son to look into incumbrances, and keep a sharp +look-out for a mutual settlement; that old harridan of a ladyship is +over head and ears in debt; and, it seems, I was to have paid all +straight, or _i. e._ you, governor, ey? As to the Yorkshire acres, the +old woman had but a life interest in the mere bit that wasn't deeply +mortgaged--and not a very long life either, seeing she is seventy. So, +bless your clever boy again, old governor, he's free." + +The knight had nothing to object: Jack's ready lie had plenty of reasons +in it: and so he blessed his clever boy again. + +"But I say, governor, I rather think that you've astonished us all: what +on earth made you turn so soft of a sudden, and write that letter?" + +"What letter? ey? what?"--Sir Thomas might well inquire. + +"That's a good joke, governor--you keep it up to the last, I see; what a +close old file it is! What letter? why, the letter you wrote to Maria +and her lord, telling them to marry." + +"Marry? ey? what, Maria? what--what is it all?" The poor old man was +thoroughly bewildered. + +"Well done, governor--bravo! you can carry it off as cleverly as if you +were an actor; do you mean to say now you didn't leave a letter behind +you here upon your table, bidding Maria marry in your absence to spare +your paternal feelings (kind old boy, it is, too!) and enclosing them +one hundred pounds for the honey-moon?" + +The mystified father made some inarticulate expression of ignorant +amazement, and our stock-jobber went on: + +"So of course they're married and off--Mr. and Mrs. Cle----" + +A whirlwind of disastrous imprecations cut all short; and then in a +voice choked with passion he gasped out-- + +"But--but are they married--are they married? how do you know it? can't +we catch 'em first, ey? what!" + +"How do I know it? that's a good un now, father, when I had it under +your hand to give the girl away myself instead of you. Do you mean to +say you didn't write that letter?" + +"Boy, I tell you, I've written nothing--I know nothing; you speak in +riddles." + +"Well then, governor, if I do, I'll to guess 'em: I begin to see how it +was all brought about--but they did it cleverly too, and were quite too +many for me. Only listen: that fellow Clements, ay, and Miss Maria too +(artful minx, I know her), must have forged a letter as if from you to +get poor fools, me and my mother, to see 'em spliced, while you were +tooling to Yorkshire." + +"Impossible--ey? what? I'll--I'll--I'll--" + +"Now, governor, don't stand there doing nothing but denying all I say; +only you go yourself, and ask my mother if she didn't see the letter--if +they didn't marry upon it, and if that precious sister of mine doesn't +richly deserve every thing she'll some day get from her affectionate, +her excellent, her ill-used father?" + +Iago's self, or his master, smooth-tongued Belial, could not have +managed matters better. + +The incredulous knight, scarcely able to discover how far it might not +still be all a joke, especially after his Yorkshire expedition, rushed +up to Lady Dillaway; on her usual sofa, quietly knitting, and thinking +of her Maria's second day of happiness. + +"So, ma'am--ey? what? is it true? are they married? is it true? +married--ey? what?" + +"Certainly, Thomas, they were only too glad, and I will add, so was I, +to get your kind--" + +"Mine? I give leave? ey? what? Madam, we're cheated, fooled--I never +wrote any letter." + +"Most astonishing; I saw it myself, Thomas, your own hand; and our dear +John too." + +"Ay, ay--he sees through it all, and so do I now--ey? what? that +precious pair of rogues forged it! Now, ma'am, what don't they deserve, +I should like to know?" + +It was quite a blow, and a very hard one, to the poor tranquil mother. +Could her dear Maria really have been so base, and that noble-looking +Henry too? how dreadfully deceived in them, if this proved true! And how +could she think it false? A letter contrived to expedite their marriage +in the father's casual absence, which no one could have thought of +writing but Sir Thomas himself, or the impatient lovers. So poor Lady +Dillaway could only fall a-crying very miserably; whereupon her husband +more than half suspected her of being an accomplice in the despicable +plot. + +"Now then, ma'am, I'm determined: as they are married, the thing's at an +end; we can't untie that knot--but, once tied, I've done with the girl; +they may starve, for any help they'll get of me: and as for you, mum, +give 'em money at your peril; stay, to make sure of it, Lady Dillaway, I +shall stint you to whatever you choose to ask me for out of my own +pocket; never draw another cheque on Jones's, do you hear? ey? what? for +your cheques shall not be honoured, ma'am. And now, from this hour, you +and I have only one child, John." + +"Oh, Thomas--Thomas! be merciful to poor Maria! indeed, she was +deceived; she believed it all--poor Maria!" + +"Ma'am, never mention that woman again--ey? what? deceived? Yes, she +deceived you and me, and John, and all. Wicked wretch! and all to marry +a beggar! Well, ma'am, there's one comfort left; the fellow married her +for money, and he's caught in his own trap; never a penny of mine shall +either of them see. Henceforth, Lady Dillaway, we have no daughter; dear +John is the only child left us for old age." + +In spite of himself, of wrath, and disappointment, the father spoke in a +moved and broken manner; and his weeping wife attempted to explain, +console, and soothe him; but all in vain--he was inexorable and +inveterate against those mean deceivers. To say truth, the poor mother +was staggered too, especially when her managing son set all the matter +in what he stated to be the right light; for he had, the whole business +through, whispered so separately to each, and had seemed to say so +little openly (making his mother believe that his sister told him of the +coming letter, and a choice variety of other embellishments), that he +was now looked upon as the very martyr to roguish plotting, in having +been induced to give away his sister. Excellent, mistaken John! + +And forthwith John became installed sole heir, proving the most dutiful +of sons: how glibly would he tell them any sort of welcome news, +original or selected; how many anecdotes could he invent to prove his +own merits and certain other folks' deficiencies; how amiably would he +fetch and carry slippers and smelling-bottles, and write notes, and read +newspapers, and make himself every thing by turns (he devoutly hoped it +would be nothing long) to his poor dear parents, as became an only +child! It was quite affecting--and both father and mother, softened in +spite of themselves at the loss of that Maria, often would talk over the +new-found virtues of their most exemplary son. His character came out +now with five-fold lustre when contrasted with his former usual +ruggedness: no widow ever had a one sick child more tender, more +considerate, more dutiful, than rude Jack Dillaway. + +He gained his end; saw the new will signed; earwigged the lawyer; and +kept a copy of it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +FALSE-WITNESS KILLS A MOTHER, AND WOULD WILLINGLY STARVE A SISTER. + + +Day by day, letters, doubtless full of happiness and Heart, were left by +the promiscuous and undiscerning postman at the house in Finsbury +square, from our excellent calumniated couple; but, seeing that there +were always two sieves waiting ready to sift it before it came to Lady +Dillaway's turn--to wit, John in the hall, and Sir Thomas in his study, +it came to pass that every letter with those malefactors' hand and seal +on it got burnt instanter, and unopened. + +How many troubles might mankind be spared if they would only stop to +hear each other's explanations! How many ailments, both of body and +soul, if explanations only came more frequently and freely! Melancholy +from that dreadful doubt, and all these cold delays, viewing her +daughter as a criminal, the husband as a swindler, and all this long +course of silence as very, very heartless and seemingly conclusive of +their guilt, the poor mother sickened fast upon her couch: she had for +years always been an invalid, wan and wo-begone, living upon ether, gum, +and chicken-broth; but her white skin now grew whiter, her faint voice +fainter, the energies of life in her debilitated frame weaker than ever; +it was no mere hypochondria, or other fanciful malady: her calm heart +seemed to be dying down within her, as a plant that has earth-grubs +gnawing at its root--she grew very ill. Days, weeks of silence--her +heart was sick with hope deferred. How could Maria, with all her seeming +warmth, treat her with such utter negligence? But now the honey-moon was +coming to an end: they must call and see her some day again, surely; how +strangely unkind not to answer those motherly and anxious letters, sent +to their first known stage, Salt hill, and thereafter to be forwarded. + +O, cold continued crime! Bad man, bad man, thy mother's own hand-writing +shall plead against thee at the last dread day. For those coveted +letters of affection, often sent on both those loving parts, had been +regularly and ruthlessly intercepted, opened, mocked, and burnt! How +could the man have stood case-proof against those letters--his mother's +anxious outbursts of affection towards a lost, an innocent, a +calumniated sister? For selfishness had dried up in that hard and wily +man all the milk of human kindness. + +And our loving pair, upon their travels, were as much hurt and surprised +at this long silence as poor Lady Dillaway herself: it was most +mysterious, inexplicable. The only letter they had received ever since +they had left home was one--only one, from John, which had frightened +them exceedingly. Some practical joker (the bridesmaid's brother was +suspected), by way of giving Maria a present on her approaching wedding, +as it would seem, had cleverly imitated her father's hand-writing, +and--that letter was a forgery! to every body's great amazement. Nobody +could, according to his own account, be kinder than John, who had done +more than mortal things to appease his father; but the old man remained +implacable. It was a meanly-contrived clandestine match, he said; and he +never intended to set eyes on them again! As for John, he in that letter +had strongly counselled them to keep away, and trust to him for bringing +his father round. In the midst of their terrible dilemma, kind brother +John seemed as an angel sent by Heaven to assist them. + +Dear children of affection and calamity! how innocently did they walk +into the snare; and how closely doth the wicked man draw his toils +around them. Who can accuse them of any wrong (the hopefulness of love +considered) in point either of honour or duty? And shall they not be +righted at the last? It may be so--it shall be so: but Holy Providence +hath purposes of good in plunging those twin wedded hearts deep beneath +the billows of earthly destitution. The wicked must prosper for a while, +in this as in a million other cases, and the good for their season +struggle with adversity; that the one may be destroyed for ever, and the +others may add to this world's wealth the incalculable riches of +another. + +They had spent the few first weeks of marriage among the pleasant lakes +and hills of Westmoreland and Cumberland, wandering together, in +delightful interchange of thought, from glen to glen, from tairn to +tairn, all about Ambleside, Helvellyn, and Lodore, Ullswater, +Saddleback, and Schiddaw. Maria's ever-flickering smile seemed to throw +a sun-beam over the darkest moor, even in those darkest hours of doubt, +heart-sickening anxiety, and grief at the neglect which they +experienced; while Henry's well-informed good sense not only availed to +cheer the sad Maria, but made every rock a point of interest, and showed +every little flower a miracle of wisdom. There were hundreds of +extemporaneous "lover's seats," where they had "rested, to be thankful" +for the past, joyful for the present, and hopeful for the future; and +every ramble that they took might deservedly take the name, style, and +title of a "lover's walk!" Happy times--happy times! but still there +might be happier; yes, and happiest, too, they seemed to whisper, if +ever they should have a merry little nursery of prattling boys and +girls! But I am not so entirely in the confidence of those young folks +as to be certain about what they seemed to whisper: in that pretty +prattling sentence were they not getting a little beyond the honey-moon? +Yes--yes, young Hymen is too full of new-found pleasure to heed those +holier joys of calm old marriage; for wedded love is as a coil of line, +lengthening with the lapse of years, fitted and intended, day after day, +to be continually sounding a lower and a lower deep in the ocean of +happiness. + +Returned to town, it was the immediate care of our fond, confused, and +unfortunate young couple to call at the old house in Finsbury square; +where, to their great dismay and misery, they encountered a formal +standing order for their non-admission. The domestics were new, had been +strictly warned against the name of Clements, and, in effect, were +creatures of the worthy John. It was a deplorable business; they did not +know what to think, nor how to act. Letters left at the door, couched in +whatever terms of humility, kindliness, and just excuse, were equally +unavailing; for the Cerberus there was too well sopped by pleasant +brother John ever to deliver them to any one but him. It was entirely +hopeless--extraordinary--a most wretched state of things. What were they +to do? The only practicable mode of getting at Sir Thomas, and, +therefore, at some explanation of these mysteries, was obviously to +watch for him, and meet him in the street. As for Lady Dillaway, she was +very ill, and kept her chamber, which was as resolutely guarded from +incursion or excursion as Danae's herself--yea, more so, for gold was +added to her guards: Sir Thomas, going to and from his counting-house, +appeared to be the only weak point in the enemy's fortifications. + +Poor old man! he was, or thought he was, harder, colder, more inveterate +than ever: and his duteous son John rarely let him venture out alone, +for fear of some such meeting, casual or intended. Accordingly, one day +when the Clements and the Dillaways mutually spied each other afar off, +and a junction seemed inevitable, John's promptitude bade his father +(generously as it looked, for paternal peace of mind's sake) return a +few paces, get into a cab, and so slip home, the while he valiantly +stepped forward to meet the enemy. + +"Mr. Clements! my father (I grieve to say) will hear no reason, nor any +excuse whatever; he totally refuses to see you or Mrs. Clements." + +"O, dearest John! what have I done--what has Henry done, that papa, and +you, and dear mamma, should all be so unkind to us?" + +"You have married, Mrs. Clements, contrary to your father's wish and +knowledge: and he has cast you off--I must say--deservedly." + +"Brother, brother! you know I was deceived, and Henry too. This is +cruel, most cruel: let me see my beloved father but one moment!" + +"His commands are to the contrary, madam; and I at least obey them. +Henceforth you are a stranger to us all." + +The poor broken-hearted girl fell into her husband's arms, stone-white: +but her hard brother, making no account whatever of all that show of +feeling, only took the trouble quietly to address Henry Clements. +"Misfortunes never come single, they say; it is no fault of mine if the +proverb hits Mr. Henry Clements. I am sorry to have to tell you, sir, +that the Austral Independent bank has stopped payment, and is not +expected to refund to its depositors or shareholders one penny in the +pound." + +"Impossible, Mr. Dillaway! You answered for its stability yourself: and +the proposition came originally from you. I hope surely, surely, you may +have been misinformed of these bad news." + +"It is true, sir--too true for you: the wisest man on 'change is often +out of reckoning. I have nothing now of yours in my hands, sir: you are +aware that no writings passed between us." + +"Great Heaven! be just and merciful! Are we, then, to be utterly +ruined?" + +"Really, sir, you know your own affairs better than I can.--Your +servant, Mr. Clements." + +O, hard and wicked heart!--what will not such a miscreant do for money? +Nothing, I am clear, but the cowardly fear of discovery prevents John +Dillaway from becoming a positive parricide by very arsenic or razor, so +as to grasp his cheated father's will and wealth. And this assertion +will appear not in the least uncharitable, when the reader is in this +place reminded that Henry Clements's own little property had never been +Australized at all, but was still safe and snug in the coffers of crafty +John. Jermyn street--or the sharpers congregated there--had drained him +very considerably; all his own ill-got gains had been gradually raked +away by the croupier at the gaming-table; and unsuspecting Henry's +little trust-fund was to be the next bank on which the brother played. + +Poor Henry and Maria! What will they do? where will they go? how will +they live? Hard questions all, not to be answered in a hurry. We shall +see. There was one comfort, though, amidst all their misery;--they did +not find the adage a true one, which alludes to poverty coming in at the +door, and love flying out of the window; for they never loved each other +more deeply--more devotedly--than when daily bread was growing a +scarcity, and daily life almost a burden. But we are anticipating. + +And how fared the parents all this while? was the erring daughter +entirely forgotten? No, no. Son John, indeed, took good care to hinder +any amicable feelings of relapse to intrude upon his father's +resolution. But the old man was not easy, nevertheless; often thought of +poor Maria; and could not clearly make out who had forged the letter. +Had it not been for that wicked brother John, a meeting--an +explanation--a reconciliation--would undoubtedly have taken place: but +he was shrewd enough to keep them asunder, and did not take much to +heart his father's altered spirits and breaking state of health: his +will and wealth were seemingly all the nearer. + +And what of that poor stricken mother? Wasted to a shadow, feverish and +weak, she lay for weeks, counting the dreary hours, till she heard of +dear, though unnatural, Maria. Oh! the heartless caitiff, John! will he +thus watch his mother die by inches, when one true word from his lips +could restore her to tranquillity and health? Yes, he would--he did--the +wretch! She gradually pined--waned--wasted; the candle of her life burnt +down into the hollow socket--glimmering awhile--flared and reeled, and +then--one night, quietly and suddenly--went out! She entered on the +world of spirits, where all secrets show revealed; and there she read, +almost before she died--whilst yet the black curtain of eternity was +gradually rising to receive her--the innocence of good Maria, and the +deep-stained villany of John. Her last words--uttered supernaturally +from her quiescence, with the fervour of a visionary whose ken is more +than mortal--were "Look, look, Thomas!--beware of John. O poor, poor +innocent outcast!--O rich, rich heart of love--Maria! my Mari--a--!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +HOW TO HELP ONE'S SELF. + + +Where then did they live, and how--that noble and calumniated couple? +They had done no wrong, nor even, as it seems to us, the semblance of +wrong, unless it be by having acquiesced in the foolishness of secresy, +and thus aided the contrivance of false witness; for aught else, their +only social error had been lack of business caution among business men. +Feeling generously themselves, they gave others credit for the like good +feeling; acting upon honourable impulse, they believed that other men +would act so too. Heart was the hindrance in their way;--too much +sensitiveness towards all about them; too swift a surrender of the +judgment to the affections: too imprudent a reliance upon other men of +the world; though, when they trusted to a father's love, and a brother's +honesty, prudence herself might have almost been dispensed with. +Machinations of the wicked and the shrewd hemmed them in to their +un-doing: and really, they, children more or less of affluent homes, +born and bred in plenty, who had moved all their lives long in circles +of comparative wealth and wastefulness, now seemed likely to come to the +galling want of necessary sustenance. Was it not to teach them deeper +feeling for the poor, if ever God again should give them riches? Was it +not, by poverty, to try those hearts which had passed so blamelessly +through all the ordeals and temptations of wealth, in order that they +worthily might wear the double crown given only to such as remain +unhardened by prosperity, unembittered by adversity? Was it not to +discipline our warm Maria's love, and to chasten her Henry's very +gentlemanly pride into the due Christian proportions--self-respect with +self-humiliation? Was it not, chiefest and best, to school their hearts +for heaven, and, by feeding them on miseries and wrongs a little while, +to fix their affections on things above rather than on things of this +world? Yes: Providence has many ends in view, and they all tend +consistently to one great focus--the ultimate advantage of the good by +means of the confusion of the wicked. + +Meanwhile came trouble on apace. Henry Clements justly felt aggrieved, +insulted; and the sentiment of pride, improper only from excess, +determined him to make no more advances: all that man could do, that +is, which a gentleman ought to do, he had done; but letters and visits +proved equally unavailing. He had come to the resolution that he would +make no more efforts himself, nor scarcely let Maria make any. As for +her, poor soul! she was now in grievous tribulation, with sad, +sufficient reason for it too; seeing that, in addition to her father's +anger, still protracted--in addition to that vile forgery imputed to her +craft, and whereof she had been made the guilty victim--in addition to +their own soon pressing money-wants, and that heartless fraud of John's +against her husband's little all (though she counted of it only as a +luckless speculation)--she had just become acquainted, through the +public prints, of her dear good mother's death, even before she had +heard of any illness. What bitter pangs were there for her, poor child! +That she should have lost that mother just then, without forgiveness, +without blessing--whilst all was unexplained, and their whole conduct of +affections without guile, wore the hideous mask of base, undutiful +contrivance! Cheer up, Maria; cheer up! only in this bad world can +innocence be sullied with a doubt: cheer up! the spirit of that mother +whom you loved on earth knows it well already; learned it while yet she +was leaving the body of her death: cheer up! she is still near you +both--dear children of affliction and affection! and God has +commissioned her for good to be your ministering angel. + +With reference to means of living, they appeared limited at once to a +little ready money, and a few personal chattels and trinkets; without so +much as one pound of capital to back the young house-keepers, or a +shilling's-worth of interest or dividend or earnings coming in for +weekly bills. Clements had been utterly confounded in all his economical +arrangements by that sudden bitter breach of trust; and, albeit (as we +have hinted), his aim in marriage was not money; still, without much of +worldly calculation, he might prudently have looked for some provision +on Maria's part at least equal to his own: in fact, the fond young +couple had reasonably set their hearts upon that golden mean--four +hundred a-year to begin with. Now, however, by two fell swoops--brother +John's dishonesty and Sir Thomas's resolve of disinheritance--all this +rational and moderate expectation had been dashed to atoms; and the +cottage of contented competence appeared but as a castle in the +clouds--a mere airy matter of undiluted moonshine. Thus, when that +happiest of honeymoons had dwindled down the hundred-pound bank-note +(shrewd John's well-expended bait) to the fractional part of a ten, and +our newly-married pair came to put together their united resources, +wherewithal to travel through the world, they could muster but very +little:--considering, too, the future, and the promise of an early +increase to provide for, forty-seven pounds was not quite a fortune; and +a few articles of jewellery did not much increase it. + +We need not imagine that Henry calmly acquiesced without a struggle in +the roguish fraud which had impoverished him; but, notwithstanding all +his best endeavours, he found, to his dismay, that the case was +irremediable: the transfer-books, indeed, were evidence; and equity +would give credit for the trust: but that the "Independent bank" had +failed was a simple fact; and so long as John stood ready to swear he +had invested in it, there was an end to the business. Be sure, shrewd +Jack was not likely to leave any thing dubious or unsatisfactory in the +affair. Austral papers were easily got at now, cheap as whitey-brown; +and for any help the law could give him, poor Henry Clements might as +well engage the wind-raising services of a Lapland witch. + +He must put his shoulder to the wheel without delay; manifestly, his +profession of the law, however unlucrative till now, must be the mighty +lever that should raise him quickly to the summit of opulence and fame: +and he vigorously set to work, as the briefless are forced to do, +inditing a new law-book, which should lift him high in honour with those +magnates on the bench; being, as he was, a court-counsel, not a chamber +one, an eloquent pleader too (if the world would only give him a +hearing), he unluckily took for his thesis the questionable '_Doctrine +of Defence_;' combating magnanimously on the loftiest moral grounds all +manner of received opinions, time-honoured fictions, legitimated +quibbles, and other things which (as he was pleased to put it) "render +the majesty of the law ridiculous to the ears of common sense, and +iniquitous in the sight of Christian judgment." Rash youth! forensic +Quixote! better had you plodded on, without this extra industry and +skill, in the hopeless idleness and solitude of your Temple +garret--better had you burnt your wig and gown outright, with all the +airy briefs to come that fluttered round them, than have owned yourself +the author of that heretical piece of moral mawkishness--'_The Doctrine +of Defence_, by Henry Clements.' + +He had with difficulty found a publisher--a chilling incident enough in +itself, considering an author's feelings for his book-child; and when +found, the scarcely satisfactory arrangement was insisted on, of mutual +participation in profit and loss: in other parlance, the bookseller +pocketing the first, and the author unpocketing the second. Thus it came +to pass, that after three months' toil and enormous collation of +cases--after extravagant indulgence of the most ardent hopes--glory, +good, and gold, consequent instantaneously on this happy +publication--after reasonably expecting that judges would quote it in +their ermine, and sergeants consult it in their silk--that London would +be startled by the event from the humdrum of its ordinary routine--and +the wondering world applaud the name of Henry Clements--O, +heart-sickening reality! what was the result of his exertions? + +"So, that puppy Clements has taken upon himself to put us all to school +about whom we may defend, and how, I see---- Hang the fellow's +impudence!" grunted a fat Old Bailey counsel to his peers, well aware +that the luckless author sat nervously within ear-shot. + +"I know whose junior that modest swain shall never be;" simpered +Sergeant Tiffin. + +"The fellow's done for himself," was the simultaneous verdict of a +well-wigged band of brothers. And what else they might have added in +their charity poor Clements never knew, for he crept away to his garret, +stricken with disappointment. There he must encounter other trials of +the heart: two or three reviews and newspapers lay upon his table, just +sent in by the bookseller, as per order; for they contained, in +spirit-stirring print, notices of '_Clements on Defence_.' Unluckily for +his present peace of mind, poor fellow, the periodicals in question were +none of the humaner sort; no kindly encouraging '_Literary Register_,' +no soft-spoken '_Courtier_,' no patient '_Investigator_,' no +generously-indulgent '_Critical Gazette_:' these more amiable journals +would be slower in the field--some six weeks hence, perhaps, creeping on +with philanthropic sloth: but fiercer prints, which dart hebdomadal +wrath at every trembling seeker of their parsimonious praise, had whipt +up their malice to deliver the first swift blow against our hapless +neophyte in print. Thus, when, with nervous preboding, Henry took up the +'_Watchman_,' in eager hope for favour to his poor dear book, he turned +quite sick at heart to find the lying verdict run as follows, though the +small type in which it spake was a comfort too: + +"A careless compilation of insignificant cases, clumsily thrown +together, and calculated to set its author high indeed upon the rolls of +fame; proving to the world that a Mr. Henry Clements can reason very +feebly; that his premises are habitually false; and that presumptuous +preaching is the natural accompaniment of extreme ignorance." + +By all that worries man, but this was too bad: "careless?"--every word +had been a care to him: "clumsy?"--in composition it was Addison's own +self: "feeble?"--if he was good for any thing, he was good for logic: +"false?"--not one premise but stood on adamant, not one conclusion but +it was fixed as fate: "presumptuous?"--it was bold and masculine, +certainly, but humble too; here and there almost deferential: +"ignorant?"--ye powers that live in looks, testify by thousands how +Clements had been studying!--And yet this most lying sentence, a +congeries or sorites of untruths, hastily penned by some dyspeptic +scribe, who perhaps had barely dipped into the book, was at the moment +circulating in every library of the kingdom, proclaiming our poor +barrister a fool! + +O, thou watchful scribe, forbear! for it is cowardly--they cannot smite +again: forbear! for it is cruel--the hearts of wife and mother and lover +ache upon your idle words: forbear! it is unreasonable--for often-times +a word would prove that Rhadamanthus' self is wrong: forbear, calumnious +scribe! and heed the harms you do, when you rob some poor struggler of +his character for sense, and make the bread of the hungry to fail. + +'_The Corinthian_,' another snarling watch-dog in the courts of the +temple of Fame, followed instinctively the same injurious wake: it was a +leisurely sarcastic anatomization, quite enough to blight any young +candidate's prospects, supposing that mankind respected such a verdict; +if not to make him cut his throat, granting that the victim should be +sensitive as Keats. The generous review in question may be judged of by +its first line and last sentence; as Hercules from his advancing foot, +or Cuvier's Megatherium from the relics of its great toe. Thus it +commenced: + +"When a disappointed man, intolerant of fortune," &c., &c., and it wound +up many stinging observations with this grateful climax following: + + "We trust we have now said enough to prove that if a man will be + bold enough to 'depreciate censure,'--will attack what he is + pleased to consider abuses, however countenanced by high + authority--and will obtrude his literary eloquence into our solemn + courts of law, he deserves--what does he not deserve?--to be + addressed henceforth by a name suggestive at once of ignorance, + presumption, and conceit, as Mr. Henry Clements." + +Now, will it be believed that a trivial error of the press mainly +conduced to occasion this hostility? Our poor author had been weak +enough to "deprecate censure" in his penny-wise humility, and the +printer had negatived his meaning as above: "_hinc illae lachrymae_." Oh, +but how the ragged tooth of calumny gnawed his very heart! + +'_The Legal Recorder_' was another of those early unfavourables; being +as a matter of course adverse too, and not very disinterestedly either: +for it played the exalted part of pet puffer to a rival publisher, who +wanted no other reason for condemning this book of Mr. Clements than +that it came from the legal officina of an opponent in his trade. There +was another paper or two, but Clements felt so utterly disheartened that +he did not dare to look at them. I wish he had; they would have +comforted him, pouring balm upon his wounded pride by their kind and +cordial praises: but ill-luck ruled the hour, so he burnt them +forthwith, and lost much literary comforting. + +To sauce up all this pleasantry with a smack of concreted pleasure +itself, the last and only remaining document upon the table was a civil +note from Mr. Wormwood, publisher and bookseller, enclosing the +following items with his compliments: + + To 500 copies '_Doctrine of Defence_,' L124 3 + To advertising ditto, 25 0 + To 10 per cent. on sales, &c. + Supplied to author, 12 copies, &c. + Given to periodicals for review, 15 copies, &c. + +Against all which was the solitary offset of "three copies sold;" +leaving as our Henry's _share_ of now certain loss a matter of eighty +pounds: which, between ourselves, was only a very little more than the +whole cost of that untoward publication. Mr. Wormwood hoped to hear from +Mr. Clements at his earliest convenience, as a certain sum was to be +made up on a certain day, and the book-trade never had been at a lower +ebb, and prompt payment would be esteemed a great accommodation, +and--all that stereotyped sort of thing. + +Poor Clements--reviled author, ruined lawyer, almost reckless +wight--here was an extinguisher indeed to the morning's brilliant hopes! +What an overwhelming debt to that ill-used couple in their altered +circumstances! How entirely by his own strong effort had he swamped his +legal expectations! Just as a man who cannot swim splashes himself into +certain suffocation; whereas, if he would but lie quite still, he was +certain to have floated on as safe as cork. + +Well: to cut a long story short, our unlucky author found that he must +pay, and pay forthwith, or incur a lawyer's bill for his debt to Mr. +Wormwood: so he gave up his Temple garret, sold his books, nicknacks, +and superfluous habiliments, added to the proceeds their forty pounds of +capital, and a neck-chain of Maria's; and, at tremendous sacrifices, +found himself once more out of danger, because out of debt. But it was a +bad prospect truly for the future--ay, and for the present too; a few +pounds left would soon be gone--and then dear Maria's confinement was +approaching, and a hundred wants and needs, little and great: +accordingly, they made all haste to get rid of their suburban dwelling +in the City Road, collected their few valuables remaining, and retreated +with all economical speed to a humble lodging in a cheap back street at +Islington. + +That little parlor was a palace of love: in the midst of her deep +sorrow, sweet Maria never failed of her amiable charities--nay, she was +even cheerful, hopeful--happy, and rendering happy: a thousand times a +day had Henry cause to bless his "wedded angel." And, showing his love +by more than words, he resolutely set about another literary enterprise, +anonymous this time for very fear's sake; but Providence saw fit to +bless his efforts with success. He wrote a tragedy, a clever and a good +one too; though '_The Watchman_' did sneer about "modern Shakspeares," +and '_The Corinthian_,' pouncing on some trifling fault, pounded it with +would-be giant force: nevertheless, for it was a famous English theme, +he luckily got them to accept it at the Haymarket, and '_Boadicea_' drew +full houses; so the author had his due ninth night, and pocketed, +instead of fame (for he grimly kept his secret) enough to enable him to +print his tragedy for private satisfaction; and that piece of vanity +accomplished, he still found himself seven pounds before-hand with the +world. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +FRAUD CUTS HIS FINGERS WITH HIS OWN EDGED TOOLS. + + +Unpleasant as it is to feel obliged to be the usher of ill company, I +must now introduce to the fastidious public a brace of characters any +thing but reputable. It were possible indeed to slur them over with a +word; but I have deeper ends in view for a glance so superficial: we may +learn a lesson in charity, we may gain some schooling of the heart, even +from those "ladies-legatees." + +Do you remember them, the supposititious nieces, aiders and abetters in +our stock-jobber's forged will? Two flashy, showy women, _not_ of easy +virtue, but of none at all--special intimates of John Dillaway, and the +genus of his like, and habitual frequenters of divers choice and +pleasant places of resort. + +The reason of their introduction here is two-fold: first, they have to +play a part in our tale--a part of righteous retribution; and, secondly, +they have to instruct us incidentally in this lesson of true morals and +human charity--dread, denounce, and hate the sin, but feel a just +compassion for the sinner. Let us take the latter object first, and bear +with the brief epitome of facts which have blighted those unfortunates +to what they are. + +Look at these two women, impudent brawlers, foul with vice: can there be +any excuses made for them, considered as distinct from their condition? +God knoweth: listen to their histories; and fear not that thy virtuous +glance will be harmed or misdirected, or a minute of thy precious time +ill-spent. + +Anna Bates and Julia Manners (their latest _noms de guerre_ will serve +all nominative purposes as well as any other) had arrived at the same +lowest level of female degradation by very different downward roads. +Anna's father had been a country curate, unfortunate through life, +because utterly imprudent, and neither too wise a man nor too good a +one, or depend upon it his orphan could not have come to this: "Never +saw I the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." But the +father died carelessly as he had lived--in debt, with all his little +affairs at sixes and sevens; and his widow with her budding daughter, +saving almost nothing from the wreck, set up for milliners at Hull. Then +did the mother pique herself upon playing her cards cleverly; for +gallant Captain Croker was quite smitten with the girl. Poor child--she +loved, listened, and was lost; a more systematic traitor of affection +never breathed than that fine man; so she left by night her soft +intriguing broken-spirited mother, followed her Lothario from barrack to +barrack, and at last--he flung her away! Who can wonder at the reckless +and dissolute result? Whom had she to care for her--whom had she to +love? She must live thus, or starve. Without credit, character, or hope, +or help, the friendless unprotected wretch was thrown upon the town. +When the last accounts are opened, oblivious General Croker will find an +ell-long score of crimes laid to his charge, whereof he little reckons +in his sear and yellow leaf. The trusting victim of seduction has a +legion of excuses for the wretched one she is. + +Again; for another case whereon the better-favoured heart may ruminate +in charity. Miss Julia Manners had a totally different experience but +man can little judge how mainly the iron hand of circumstance confined +that life-long sinner to the ways and works of guilt. In the nervous +language of the Bible--(hear it, men and women, without shrinking from +the words)--that poor girl was "the seed of the adulterer and the +whore:" born in a brothel, amongst outcasts from a better mass of +life--brought up from the very cradle amid sounds and scenes of utter +vice (whereof we dare not think or speak one moment of the many years +she dwelt continuously among them)--educated solely as a profligate, and +ignorant alike of sin, righteousness, and a judgment to come--had she +then a chance of good, or one hopeful thought of being better than she +was? The water of holy baptism never bedewed that brow; the voice of +motherly counsel never touched those ears; her eyes were unskilled to +read the records of wisdom; her feet untutored to follow after holiness; +her heart unconscious of those evils which she never knew condemned; her +soul--she never heard or thought of one! Oh, ye well-born, well-bred, ye +kindly, carefully, prayerfully instructed daughters of innocence and +purity, pause, pause, ere your charity condemns: hate the sin, but love +the sinner: think it out further, for yourselves, in all those details +which I have not time to touch, skill to describe, nor courage to +encounter; think out as kindly as ye may this episode of just +indulgence; there is wisdom in this lesson of benevolence, and +after-sweetness too, though the earliest taste of it be bitter; think it +out; be humbler of your virtue, scarcely competent to err; be more +grateful to that Providence which hath filled your lot with good; and be +gentler-hearted, more generous-handed unto those whose daily life +is--all temptation. + +Now, these two ladies (who extenuates their guilt, caviller? who +breathes one iota of excuse for their wicked manner of life? who does +not utterly denounce the foul and flagrant sin, whilst he leaves to a +secret-searching God the judgment of the sinner?)--these two ladies, I +say, had of late become very sore plagues to Mr. John Dillaway. They had +flared out their hush-money like duchesses, till the whole town rang +about their equipage and style; and now, that all was spent, they +pestered our stock-jobber for more. They came at an unlucky season, a +season of "ill luck!" such a miraculous run of it, as nothing could +explain to any rational mind but loaded dice, packed cards, contrivance +and conspiracy. Nevertheless, our worthy John went on staking, and +betting, and playing, resolute to break the bank, until it was no +wonder at all to any but his own shrewd genius, that he found himself +one feverish morning well nigh penniless. At such a moment then, called +our ladies-legatees, clamorous for hush-money. + +As a matter most imperatively of course, not a farthing more should be +forthcoming, and many oaths avouched that stern determination. They +ought to be ashamed of themselves, after such an enormous bribe to +each--as if shame of any kind had part or lot in those feminine +accomplices: it was a sanguine thought of Mr. John Dillaway. But the +ladies were not ashamed, nor silenced, nor any thing like satisfied. So, +having thoroughly fatigued themselves with out-swearing and +out-threatening, our sneerful stock-jobber, they resolved upon exposing +him, come what might. For their own guilty part in that transaction of +Mrs. Jane Mackenzie's pseudo-will, good sooth, the wretched women had no +characters to lose, nor scarcely aught else on which one could set a +value. Danger and the trial would be an excitement to their pallid +spirits, possible transportation even seemed a ray of hope, since any +thing was better than the town; and in their sinful recklessness, +liberty or life itself was little higher looked on than a dice's stake. +Moreover, as to all manner of personal pains and penalties, there was +every chance of getting off scot-free, provided they lost no time, went +not one before the other, but doubly turned queen's evidence at once +against their worthy coadjutor and employer. In the hope, then, of +ruining him, if not of getting scathelessly off themselves, these +ladies-legatees mustered once more from the mazes of St. Giles's the +pack of competent Irish witnesses, collected whatever documentary or +other evidence looked likeliest to help their ends, and then one early +day presented themselves before the lord-mayor, eager to destroy at a +blow that pleasant Mr. Dillaway. + +The proceedings were long, cautious, tedious, and secret: emissaries to +Belfast, Doctors' Commons, and the bank: the stamp office was stirred to +its foundations; and Canterbury staggered at the fraud. Thus within a +week the proper officials were in a condition to prosecute, and the +issue of immense examinations tended to that point of satisfaction, the +haling Mr. Dillaway to prison on the charge of having forged a will. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +HEART'S CORE. + + +They were come into great want, poor Henry and Maria: they had not +wherewithal for daily sustenance. The few remaining trinkets, books, +clothes, and other available moveables had been gradually pledged away, +and to their full amount--at least, the pawnbroker said so. That unlucky +publication of the law book, so speedily condemned and heartlessly +ridiculed, had wrecked all Henry's possible prospects in the courts; and +as for help from friends--the casual friends of common life--he was too +proud to beg for that--too sensitive, too self-respectful. Relations he +had none, or next to none--that distant cousin of his mother's, the +Mac-something, whom he had never even seen, but who, nevertheless, had +acted as his guardian. + +Much as he suspected Dillaway in the matter of that bitter breach of +trust, he had neither ready money to proceed against him, (nor, when he +came to think it over) any legal grounds at all to go upon; for, as we +have said before, even granting there should be evidence adduced of the +transfer of stock from the name of Clements to that of Dillaway, still +it was a notorious fact that the "Independent bank" had failed, whereto +the stock-broker could swear he had intrusted it. In short, shrewd Jack +had managed all that affair to admiration; and poor Clements was ruined +without hope, and defrauded without remedy. + +Then, again, we already know how that Lady Dillaway was dead, so help +from her was simply impossible; and the miserable father Sir Thomas was +kept too closely up to the mark of resolute anger by slanderous John, to +give them any aid, if they applied to him; but, in truth, as to personal +application, Henry would not for pride, and Maria now could not, for her +near-at-hand motherly condition. Her frequent letters, as we may be +sure, were intercepted; and, even if Sir Thomas now and then yearned +after his lost child, it had become a matter of physical impossibility +to find out where she lived. Thus were they hopelessly sinking, day by +day, into all the bitter waves of want. Not but that Henry strived, as +we have seen, and shall yet see: still his endeavours had been very +nearly fruitless--and, perchance, till all available moveables had been +pawned outright, very feeble too. Now, however, that Maria, in her +sorrow and her need, must soon become a mother, the state of things grew +terrible indeed; their horizon was all over black with clouds. + +No: not all over. There is light under the darkness, a growing light +that shall dispel the darkness; a precious light upon their souls, the +early dawn of Heaven's eternal day; God's final end in all their +troubles, the reaping-time of joy for their sowing-time of tears. + +Without cant, affectation, or hypocrisy, there is but one panacea for +the bruised or broken heart, available alike in all times, all places, +and all circumstances: and he who knows not what that is, has more to +learn than I can teach him. That pure substantial comfort is born of +Heaven's hope, and faith in Heaven's wisdom; it is a solid confidence in +God's great love, but faintly shadowed out by all the charities of +earth. Human affections in their manifold varieties are little other +than an echo of that Voice, "Come unto me; Comfort ye, comfort ye; I +will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters; thy +Maker is thy Husband; he hath loved thee with an everlasting love; when +thou goest through the fire, I will be with thee, through the waters, +they shall not overflow thee; eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither +hath it entered into the mind of man to conceive the blessings which His +love hath laid in store for _thee_." + +Heart's-ease in heart's-affliction--this they found in God; turning to +Him with all their hearts, and pouring out their hearts before Him, they +trusted in Him heartily for both worlds' good. Therefore did He give +them their heart's desire, satisfying all their mind: wherefore did they +love each other now with a newly-added plenitude of love, mutually in +reference to Him who loved them, and gave Himself for them: therefore +did they feel in their distresses more gladness at their hearts, than in +the days of luxury and affluence, the increase of their oil and their +wine. + +For this is the great end of all calamities. God doth not willingly +afflict: trouble never cometh without an urgent cause; and though man in +his perverseness often misses all the prize of purity, whilst he pays +all the penalty of pain; still the motive that sent sorrow was the +same--O, that there were a better heart in them! + +In many modes the heart of man is tried, as gold must be refined, by +many methods; and happiest is the heart, that, being tried by many, +comes purest out of all. If prosperity melts it as a flux, well; but +better too than well, if the acid of affliction afterwards eats away all +unseen impurities; whereas, to those with whom the world is in their +hearts, affluence only hardens, and penury embitters, and thus, though +burnt in many fires, their hearts are dross in all. Like those sullen +children in the market-place, they feel no sympathies with heaven or +with earth: unthankful in prosperity, unsoftened by adversity, well may +it be said of them, Hearts of stone, hearts of stone! + +Not of such were Henry and Maria: naturally warm in affections and +generous in sympathies, it needed but the pilot's hand to steer their +hearts aright: the energies of life were there, both fresh and full, +lacking but direction heavenwards; and chastisement wisely interposed to +wean those yearning spirits from the brief and feverish pursuits of +unsatisfying life, to the rest and the rewards of an eternity. Then were +they wedded indeed, heart answering to heart; then were they strong +against all the ills of life, those hearts that were established by +grace; then spake they often one to another out of the abundance of +their hearts; and in spite of all their sorrows, they were happy, for +their hearts were right with God. + +Let the grand idea suffice, unencumbered by the multitude of details. +Whatsoever things are true, honest and just; whatsoever things are pure, +lovely, or of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any +praise--believe of those twin hearts that God had given them all. +Patience, hope, humility; faith, tenderness, and charity; prayer, trust, +benevolence, and joy: this was the lot of the afflicted! It was good for +them that they had been in trouble; for they had gained from it a wealth +that is above the preciousness of rubies, deservedly dearer to their +hearts than the thousands of gold and silver. + +What a contrast then was shown between God's kindness and man's +coldness! No one of their fellows seemed to give them any heed: but He +cared for them, and on Him they cast their cares. Former friends +appeared to stand aloof, self-dependent and unsympathizing; but God was +ever near, kindly bringing help in every extremity, which always seemed +at hand, yet ever kept away: smoothing the pillow of sickness, +comforting the troubled spirit, and treading down calamity and calumny +and care; as a conqueror conquering for them. So, they learned the +priceless wisdom which adversity would teach to all on whom she +frowneth; when earthly hopes are wrecked, to anchor fast on God; and if +affluence should ever come again, to aid the poor afflicted with +heartiness, beneficence, and home-taught sympathy. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +HOPE'S BIRTH TO INNOCENCE, AND HOPE'S DEATH TO FRAUD. + + +John Dillaway's sudden loss of property, his character exploded as a +monied man, and the strong probability of his turning out a felon, had a +great effect on the spirits of Sir Thomas. He had called upon his +promising son in prison, had found him very sulky, disinclined for +social intercourse, and any thing but filial; all he condescended to +growl, with a characteristic d---- or two interlarding his eloquence, +was this taunting speech: + +"Well, governor, I may thank you and your counsels for this. Here's a +precious end to all my clever tricks of trade! I wish you joy of your +son, and of your daughter too, old man. Who wrote that letter? What, not +found out yet? and does she still starve for it? Who gained money as you +bade him--never mind how? And is now going to do honour to the family +all round the world, ey?--Ha, ha, ha!" + +The poor unhappy father tottered away as quickly as he could, while yet +the brutal laughter of that unnatural son rang upon his ears. He was +quite miserable, let him turn which way he would. On 'Change the name +had been disgraced--posted up for scorn on the board of degradation: at +home, there was no pliant son and heir, to testify against Maria, and to +close the many portals of a wretched father's heart. He grew very +wretched--very mopy; determined upon cutting adrift shrewd Jack himself, +as a stigma on the name which had once held the mace of mayoralty; made +his will petulantly, for good and all, in favour of Stationer's hall, +and felt very like a man who had lived in vain. "Cut it down; why +cumbereth it the earth?" + +Meanwhile, in those two opposite quarters of the world of London, +Newgate and Islington, Sir Thomas's two discarded children were bearing +in a different way their different privations. Poor Maria's hour of +peril had arrived; and amidst all those pains, dangers, and necessities, +a soft and smiling babe was born into the world; gladness filled their +hearts, and praise was on their tongues, when the happy father and +mother kissed that first-born son. It was a splendid boy, they said, and +should redeem his father's fortunes: there was hope in the future, let +the past be what it may; and this new bond of union to that happy +wedded pair made the present--one unclouded scene of gratitude and love. +Who shall sing of the humble ale-caudle, and those cheerful givings to +surrounding poor, scarcely poorer than themselves? Who shall record how +kind was Henry, how useful was the nurse, how liberal the doctor, how +sympathizing all? Who shall tell how tenderly did Providence step in +with another author's night of that same tragedy, and how other avenues +to literary gain stood wide open to industry and genius? It was +happiness all, happiness, and triumph: they were weathering the storm +famously, and had safely passed the breakers of False witness. + +Amidst the other part of London sate a sullen fellow, quite alone, in +Newgate, looking for his trial on the morrow, and prophesying accurately +enough how some two days hence, he, John Dillaway, of Broker's alley, +son and heir of the richest stationer in Europe, was to appear in the +character of a convicted felon, and be probably condemned to +transportation for life. A pleasant retrospect was his, a pleasanter +aspect, and a pleasanter prospect; all was pleasure assuredly. + +And the morrow duly came; with those implacable approvers, those +accurate Irish witnesses, those tell-tale documents, that prosecuting +crown and bank, that dogged jury, and that sentencing recorder: so then, +by a little after noon, to the scandal of Finsbury square, John Dillaway +discovered that the "wise man's trick or two in the money market" was +about to be rewarded with twenty-one years of transportation. + +Of this interesting fact Henry Clements became acquainted by an +occasional peep into the public prints; and he perceived to his +astonishment, that the defrauded Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, of Ballyriggan, +near Belfast, could surely be none other than his mother's Ulster +cousin, the nominal guardian of his boyhood! To be sure, it mattered +little enough to him, for the old lady had never been much better than a +stranger to him, and at present appeared only in that useless character +to an expectant, a person despoiled of her money; nevertheless, of that +identical money, certain sanguine friends had heretofore given him +expectations in the event of her death, seeing that she had nobody to +leave it to, except himself and the public charities of the United +Kingdom: clearly, this cousin must have been the defrauded bank +annuitant, and he could not help feeling more desolate than ever; for +John Dillaway's evil influences had robbed him now of name, fame, +fortune, and what hope regards as much as any--expectations. Yet--must +not the bank of England bear the brunt of all this forgery, and account +for its stock to that innocent depositor? Old Mrs. Jane was sinking +into dotage, probably had plenty of other money, and scarcely seemed to +stir about the business; therefore, legitimately interested as Henry +indubitably was, he took upon him to write to his antiquated relative, +and in so doing managed to please her mightily: renewed whatever +interest she ever might have felt in him, enabled her to enforce her +just claim, and really stood a likelier chance than ever of coming in +for competency some day. However, for the present, all was penury still. +Clements had been too delicate for even a hint at his deplorable +condition: and his distant relative's good feeling, so providentially +renewed, served indeed to gild the future, but did not avail to +gingerbread the present. So they struggled on as well as they could: +both very thankful for the chance which had caused a coalition between +sensitiveness and interest; and Maria at least more anxious than ever +for a reconciliation with her father, now that all his ardent hopes had +been exploded in son John. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +PROBABLE RECONCILIATION. + + +It was no use--none at all. Nature was too strong for him; and a higher +force than even potent Nature. In vain Sir Thomas pish'd, and tush'd, +and bah'd; in vain he buried himself chin-deep amongst the century of +ledgers that testified of gainful years gone by, and were now mustily +rotting away in the stagnant air of St. Benet's Sherehog: interest had +lost its interest for him, profits profited not, speculation's self had +dull, lack-lustre eyes, and all the hard realities of utilitarian life +were become weary, flat, and stale. Sir Thomas was a miserable man--a +bereaved old man--who nevertheless clung to what was left, and struggled +not to grieve for what was lost: there was a terrible strife going on +secretly within him, dragging him this way and that: a little, lightning +flash of good had been darted by Omnipotence right through the +stone-built caverns of his heart, and was smouldering a concentred flame +within its innermost hollow; a small soft-skinned seed had been dropped +by the Father of Spirits into that iron-bound soil, and it was swelling +day by day under the case-hardened surface, gradually with gentle +violence, despite of all the locks and gates, and bolts and bars, a +silent enemy had somehow crept within the fortress of his feelings, +ready at any unguarded moment to fling the portals open. The rock had a +sealed fountain leaping within it, as an infant in the womb. The poor +old man, the worldly cold old man, was giving way. + +Happy misery! for his breaking heart revealed a glorious jewel at the +core. Oh, sorrow beyond price! for natural affections, bursting up amid +these unsunned snows, were a hot-spring to that Iceland soul. Oh, +bitter, bitter penitence most blest! which broke down the money-proud +man, which bruised and kneaded him, humbled, smote, and softened him, +and made him come again a little child--a loving, yearning, little +child--a child with pity in its eyes, with prayer upon its tongue, with +generous affection in its heart. "Oh, Maria! precious, cast-off child, +where art thou, where art thou, where art thou--starving? And canst +thou, blessed God, forgive? And will not thy great mercy bring her to me +yet again? Oh, what a treasury of love have I mis-spent; what riches of +the Heart, what only truest wealth, have I, poor prodigal, been +squandering! Unhappy son--unhappy father of the perjured, heartless, +miserable John! Wo is me! Where art thou, dear child, my pure and best +Maria?" + +We may well guess, far too well, how it was that dear Maria came not +near him. She had been, prior to confinement, very, very ill: nigh to +death: the pangs of travail threatened to have seized upon her all too +soon, when wasted with sorrow, and weakened by want. She lay, long +weeks, battling for life, in her little back parlour, at Islington, +tended night and day by her kind, good husband. + +But did she not often (you will say) urge him, earnestly as the dying +ask, to seek out her father or brother (she had not been told of his +conviction), and to let them know this need? Why, then, did he so often +put her off with faint excuses, and calm her with coming hopes, and do +any thing, say any thing, suffer any thing, rather than execute the +fervent wish of the affectionate Maria? It is easily understood. With, +and notwithstanding, all the high sentiments, strong sense, and warm +feelings of Henry Clements, he was too proud to seek any succour of the +Dillaways. Sooner than give that hard old man, or, beforetime, that keen +malicious young one, any occasion to triumph over his necessitous +condition, he himself would starve: ay, and trust to Heaven his darling +wife and child; but not trust these to them. Never, never--if the +heart-divorcing work-house were their doom--should that father or that +brother hear from him a word of supplication, or one murmur of +complaint. Nay; he took pains to hinder their knowledge of this trouble: +all the world, rather than those two men. Let penury, disease, the very +parish-beadle triumph over him, but not those two. It was a natural +feeling for a sensitive mind like his--but in many respects a wrong one. +It was to put away, deliberately, the helping hand of Providence, +because it bade him kiss the rod. It was a direct preference of honour +to humility. It was an unconsciously unkind consideration of himself +before those whom he nevertheless believed and called more dear to him +than life--but not than honour. Therefore it was that the hand-bills he +had so often seen pasted upon walls were disregarded, that the numerous +newspaper advertisements remained unanswered, and that all the efforts +of an almost frantic father to find his long-lost daughter were in vain. + +Meanwhile, to be just upon poor Clements, who really fancied he was +doing right in this, he left no stone unturned to obtain a provision for +his beloved wife and child. Frequently, by letters (as little urgent as +affection and necessity would suffer him), he had pressed upon some +powerful friends for that vague phantom of a gentlemanly +livelihood--"something under government;" a hope improbable of +accomplishment, indefinite as to view, but still a hope: especially, +since very civil answers came to his request, couched in terms of +official guardedness. He had called anxiously upon "old friends," in +pretty much of his usual elegant dress (for he was wise enough, or proud +enough, never to let his poverty be seen in his attire), and they made +many polite inquiries after "Mrs. Clements," and "Where are you living?" +and "How is it you never come our way?" and "Clements has cut us all +dead," and so forth. It was really entirely his own fault, but he never +could contrive to tell the truth: and when one day, in a careless tone +of voice, he threw out something about "Do you happen to have ten pounds +about you?" to a dashing young blood of his acquaintance--the dashing +young blood affected to treat it as a joke--"You married men, lucky +dogs, with your regular establishments, are too hard upon us poor +bachelors, who have nothing but clubs to go to. I give you my honour, +Clements, ten pounds would dine me for a fortnight:--spare me this time, +there's a fine fellow: take the trouble to write a cheque on your +bankers--here's paper--and my tiger shall get it cashed for you while +you wait: we poor bachelors are never flush." But Clements had already +owned it was a mere "_obiter dictum_,"--nothing but a joke of prudent +marriage against extravagant bachelorship. + +Ah, what a bitter joke was that! On the verge of that yes or no, to be +uttered by his frank young friend, trembled reluctant honour; +home-affections were imploring in that careless tone of voice; hunger +put that off-hand question. It was vain; a cruel killing effort for his +pride: so Henry Clements never asked again; withdrew himself from +friends; grew hopeless, all but reckless; and his only means of living +were picked up scantily from the by-ways of literature. An occasional +guinea from a magazine, a copy of that luckily anonymous tragedy now and +then sold by him from house to house (he always disguised himself at +such times), a little indexing to be done for publishers, and a little +correcting of the press for printers--these formed the trifling and +uncertain pittance upon which the pale family existed. Poor Henry +Clements, proud Henry Clements, you had, indeed, a dose of physic for +your pride: bitter draughts, bitter draughts, day after day; but, for +all that weak and wasted wife, dearly, devotedly beloved; for all the +pining infant, with its angel face and beautiful smiles: for all the +strong pleadings of affection, yea, and gnawing hunger too, the strong +man's pride was stronger. And had not God's good providence proved +mercifully strongest of them all, that family of love would have starved +outright for pride. + +But Heaven's favour willed it otherwise. By something little short of +miracle, where food was scant and medicine scarce, the poor emaciated +mother gradually gained strength--that long, low fever left her, health +came again upon her cheek, her travail passed over prosperously, the +baby too thrived, (oh, more than health to mothers!) and Maria Clements +found herself one morning strong enough to execute a purpose she had +long most anxiously designed. "Henry was wrong to think so harshly of +her father. She knew he would not spurn her away: he must be kind, for +she loved him dearly still. Wicked as it doubtless was of her [dear +innocent girl] to have done any thing contrary to his wishes, she was +sure he would relieve her in her utmost need. He could not, could not be +so hard as poor dear Henry made him." So, taking advantage of her +husband's absence during one of his literary pilgrimages, she took her +long-forgotten bonnet and shawl, and, with the baby in her arms, flew on +the wings of love, duty, penitence, and affection to her dear old home +in Finsbury square. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +THE FATHER FINDS HIS HEART FOR EVER. + + +He had been at death's door, sinking out of life, because he had nothing +now to live for. He still was very weak in bed, faint, and worn, and +white, propped up with pillows--that poor, bereaved old man. Ever since +Lady Dillaway's most quiet death he had felt alone in the world. True, +while she lived she had seemed to him a mere tranquil trouble, a useless +complacent piece of furniture, often in his way; but now that she was +dead, what a void was left where she had been--mere empty space, cold +and death-like. She had left him quite alone. + +Then again--of John, poor John, he would think, and think +continually--not about the little vulgar pock-marked man of 'change, the +broker, the rogue, the coward--but of a happy curly child, with +sparkling eyes--a merry-hearted, ruddy little fellow, romping with his +sister--ay, in this very room; here is the identical China vase he +broke, all riveted up; there is the corner where he would persist to +nestle his dormice. Ah, dear child! precious child! where is he +now?--Where and what indeed! Alas, poor father! had you known what I do, +and shall soon inform the world, of that bad man's awful end, one more, +one fiercest pang would have tormented you: but Heaven spared that pang. +Nevertheless, the bitter contrast of the child and of the man had made +him very wretched--and to the widower's solitude added the father's +sadness. + +And worst of all--Maria's utter loss--that dear, warm-hearted, innocent, +ill-used, and yet beloved daughter. Why did he spurn her away? and keep +her away so long?--oh, hard heart, hard heart! Was she not innocent, +after all? and John, bad John, too probably the forger of that letter, +as the forger of this will? And now that he should give his life to see +her, and kiss her, and--no, no, not forgive her, but pray to be forgiven +by her--"Where is she? why doesn't she come to hold up my poor weak +head--to see how fervently my dead old heart has at last learnt to +love--to help a bad, and hard, a pardoned and penitent old man to die in +perfect peace--to pray with me, for me, to God, our God, my daughter! +Where is she--how can I find her out--why will she not come to me all +this sorrowful year? Oh come, come, dear child--our Father send thee to +me--come and bless me ere I die--come, my Maria!" + +Magical, or contrived, as it may seem to us, the poor old man was +actually bemoaning himself thus, when our dear heroine of the Heart +faintly knocked at her old home door. It opened; a faded-looking woman, +with a baby in her arms, rushed past the astonished butler: and, just as +her father was praying out aloud for Heaven to speed her to him, that +daughter's step was at the bed-room door. + +Before she turned the handle (some house-maid had recognised her on the +stairs, and told her, with an impudent air, that "Sir Thomas was ill +a-bed"), she stopped one calming instant to gain strength of God for +that dreaded interview, and to check herself from bursting in upon the +chamber of sickness, so as to disquiet that dear weak patient. So, she +prayed, gently turned the handle, and heard those thrilling +words--"Come, my Maria!" + +It was enough; their hearts burst out together like twin fountains, +rolling their joyful sorrows together towards the sea of endless love, +as a swollen river that has broken through some envious and constraining +dam! It was enough; they wept together, rejoiced together, kissed and +clasped each other in the fervour of full love: the babe lay smiling and +playing on the bed: Maria, in a torrent of happiest tears, fondled that +poor old man, who was crying and laughing by turns, as little children +do--was praising God out loud like a saint, and calling down blessings +on his daughter's head in all the transports of a new-found Heart. What +a world of things they had to tell of--how much to explain, excuse, +forgive, and be forgiven, especially about that wicked letter--how +fervently to make up now for love that long lay dormant--how heartily to +bless each other, and to bless again! Who can record it all? Who can +even sketch aright the heavenly hues that shone about that scene of the +affections? Alas, my pen is powerless--yea, no mortal hand can trace +those heavenly hues. Angels that are round the penitent's, the good +man's bed--ye alone who witness it, can utter what ye see: ye alone, +rejoicingly with those rejoicing, gladly speed aloft frequent +ambassadors to Him, the Lord of Love, with some new beauteous trait, +some rare ecstatic thought, some pure delighted look, some more burning +prayer, some gem of Heaven's jewellery more brilliant than the rest, +which raises happy envy of your bright compeers. I see your shining +bands crowding enamoured round that scene of human tenderness; while now +and then some peri-like seraph of your thronging spiritual forms will +gladly wing away to find favour of his God for a tear, or a prayer, or a +holy thought dropped by his ministering hands into the treasury of +Heaven. + +But the cup of joy is large and deep: it is an ocean in capacity: and +mantling though it seemeth to the brim, God's bounty poureth on. + +Another step is on the stairs! You have guessed it, Henry Clements. +Returning home wearily, after a disheartening expedition, and finding +his wife, to his great surprise, gone out, sick and weak, as still he +thought her, he had calculated justly on the direction whereunto her +heart had carried her; he had followed her speedily, and, with many +self-compunctions, he had determined to be proud no more, and to help, +with all his heart, in that holy reconciliation. See! at the bed-side, +folding Maria with one arm, and with his other hand tightly clasped in +both of that kind and changed old man's, stands Henry Clements. + +Ay, changed indeed! Who could have discovered in that joy-illumined +brow, in those blessing-dropping lips, in those eyes full of penitence, +and pity, and peace, and praise, and prayer, the harsh old usurer--the +crafty money-cankered knave of dim St. Benet's Sherehog--the cold +husband--the cruel father--the man without a heart? Ay, changed--changed +for ever now, an ever of increasing happiness and love. Who or what had +caused this deep and mighty change? Natural affection was the sword, and +God's the arm that wielded it. None but he could smite so deeply; and +when he smote, pour balm into the wound: none but He could kill death, +that dead dried heart, and quicken life within its mummied caverns: none +but the Voice, which said "Let there be light," could work this common +miracle of "Let there be love." + +He grew feebler--feebler, that dying kind old man: it had been too much +for him, doubtlessly; he had long been ill, and should long ago have +died; but that he had lived for this; and now the end seemed near. They +never left his bed-side then for days and nights, that new-found son and +daughter: physicians came, and recommended that the knight be quite +alone, quite undisturbed: but Sir Thomas would not, could not--it were +cruelty to force it; so he lay feebly on his back, holding on either +side the hands of Henry and Maria. + +It was not so very long: they had come almost in the nick of time: a few +days and hours at the most, and all will then be over. So did they watch +and pray. + +And the old man faintly whispered: + +"Henry--son Henry: poor John, forgive him, as you and our God have now +forgiven me; poor John--when he comes back again from those long years +of slavery, give him a home, son--give him a home, and enough to keep +him honest; tell him I love him, and forgive him; and remind him that I +died, praying Heaven for my poor boy's soul. + +"Henry and Maria--I had, since my great distresses, well nigh forgotten +this world's wealth; but now, thank God, I have thought of it all for +your sakes: in my worst estate of mind I made a wicked will. It is in +that drawer--quick, give it me. + +"Thanks--thanks--there is time to tear it; and these good friends, Dr. +Jones and Mr. Blair, take witness--I destroy this wicked will; and my +only child, Maria, has my wealth in course of law. Wealth, yes--if well +used, let us call it wealth; for riches may indeed be made a mine of +good, and joy, and righteousness. I am unworthy to use any of it well, +unworthy of the work, unworthy of the reward: use it well, my holier +children, wisely, liberally, kindly: God give you to do great good with +it; God give you to feel great happiness in all your doing good. My +hands that saved and scraped it all, also often-times by evil hardness, +now penitently washed in the Fountain of Salvation, heartily renounce +that evil. Be ye my stewards; give liberally to many needy. Oh me, my +sin! children, to my misery you know what need is: I can say no more; +poor sinful man, how dare I preach to others? Children, dearest ones, I +am a father still; and I would bless you--bless you! + +"I grow weak, but my heart seems within me to grow stronger--I go--I go, +to the Home of Heart, where He that sits upon the throne is Love, and +where all the pulses of all the beings there thrill in unison with him, +the Great Heart of Heaven! I, even I, am one of the redeemed--my heart +is fixed, I will sing and give praise; I, even I, the hardest and the +worst, forgiven, accepted! Who are ye, bright messengers about my bed, +heralds of glory? I go--I go--one--one more, Maria--one last kiss; we +meet--again--in Heaven!" + +Had he fainted? yes--his countenance looked lustrous, yet diminishing in +glory, even as a setting sun; the living smile faded gradually away, and +a tranquil cold calm crept over his cheeks: the angelic light which made +his eyes so beautiful to look at, was going out--going out: all was +peace--peace--deep peace. + +O death, where is thy victory? O grave, where is thy sting? + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +A WORD ABOUT ORIGINALITY AND MOURNING. + + +When a purely inventive genius concocts a fabulous tale, it is clearly +competent to him so to order matters, that characters shall not die off +till his book is shortly coming to an end: and had your obedient servant +now been engaged in the architecture of a duly conventional story, +arranged in pattern style, with climax in the middle and a brace of ups +and downs to play supporters, doubtless he might easy have kept alive +both father and mother to witness the triumph of innocence, and have +produced their deaths at the last as a kind of "sweet sorrow," or honied +sting, wherewithal to point his moral. Such, however, was not my +authorship's intention; and, seeing that a wilful pen must have its way, +I have chosen to construct my own veracious tale, respecting the +incidents of life and death, much as such events not unfrequently occur, +that is, at an inconvenient season: for though such accessories to the +fact of dying, as triumphant conversion, or a tranquil going out, may +appear to be a little out of the common way, still the circumstance of +death itself often in real life seems to come as out of time, as your +wisdom thinks in the present book of Heart. People will die untowardly, +and people will live provokingly, notwithstanding all that novelists +have said and poets sung to the contrary: and if two characters out of +our principal five have already left the mimic scene, it will now be my +duty only to show, as nature and society do, how, of those three +surviving chief _dramatis personae_, two of them--to wit, our hero and +heroine of Heart--gathered many friends about their happy homestead, did +a world of good, and, in fine, furnish our volume with a suitable +counterpoise to the mass of selfish sin, which (at its height in the +only remaining character) it has been my fortune to record and to +condemn as the opposite topic of heartlessness. + +If writers will be bound by classic rules, and walk on certain roads +because other folks have gone that way before them, needs must that +ill-starred originality perish from this world's surface, and find +refuge (if it can) in the gentle moon or Sirius. Therefore, let us +boldly trespass from the trodden paths, let us rather shake off the +shackles of custom than hug them as an ornament approved: and, +notwithstanding both parental deaths, seemingly ill-timed for the +happiness of innocence, let us acquiesce in the facts, as plain matters +of history, not dubious thoughts of fiction; and let us gather to the +end any good we can, either from the miserable solitude of a selfish +Dillaway, or from the hearty social circle of our happy married pair. + +Need I, sons and daughters, need I record at any length how Maria +mourned for her father? If you now have parents worthy of your love, if +you now have hearts to love them, I may safely leave that theme to your +affections: "now" is for all things "the accepted time," now is the day +for reconciliations: our life is a perpetual now. However unfilial you +may have been, however stern or negligent they, if there is now the will +to bless, and now the heart to love, all is well--well at the last, well +now for evermore--thank Heaven for so glad a consummation. Oh, that my +pen had power to make many fathers kind, many children trustful! Oh, +that by some burning word I could thaw the cold, shame sarcasms, and +arouse the apathetic! Oh that, invoking upon every hearth, whereto this +book may come, the full free blaze of home affections, my labour of love +be any thing but vain, when God shall have blessed what I am writing! + +Yes, children, dear Maria did mourn for her father, but she mourned as +those who hope; his life had been forgiven, and his death was as a +saints's: as for her, rich rewarded daughter at the last, one word of +warm acknowledgement, one look of true affection, one tear of deep +contrition, would have been superabundant to clear away all the many +clouds, the many storms of her past home-life: and as for our Maker, +with his pure and spotless justice, faith in the sacrifice had passed +all sin to him, and love of the Redeemer had proved that faith the true +one. How should a daughter mourn for such a soul? With tears of joy; +with sighs--of kindred hopefulness; with happiest resolve to live as he +had died; with instant prayer that her last end be like his. + +There is a plain tablet in St. Benet's church, just within the +altar-rail, bearing--no inscription about Lord Mayoralty, Knighthood, or +the Worshipful Company of Stationers--but full of facts more glorious +than every honour under heaven; for the words run thus: + + SORROWFUL, YET REJOICING, + A DAUGHTER'S LOVE HAS PLACED THIS TABLET + TO THE MEMORY OF + T H O M A S D I L L A W A Y; + A MAN WHO DIED IN THE FAITH OF CHRIST, + IN THE LOVE OF GOD, AND IN THE HOPE OF HEAVEN. + +Noble epitaph! Let us so live, that the like of this may be truth on our +tomb-stones. Seek it, rather than wealth, before honour, instead of +pleasure; for, indeed, those words involve within their vast +significancy riches unsearchable, glory indestructible, and pleasure for +evermore! Hide them, as a string of precious pearls, within the casket +of your hearts. + +I had almost forgotten, though Maria never could, another neighbouring +tablet to record the peaceful exit of her mother; however, as this had +been erected by Sir Thomas in his life-time, and was plastered thick +with civic glories and heathen virtues, possibly the transcript may be +spared: there was only one sentence that looked true about the epitaph, +though I wished it had been so in every sense; but, to common eyes, it +had seemed quite suitable to the physical quietude of living Lady +Dillaway, to say, "Her end was peace;" although, perhaps, the husband +little thought how sore that mother's heart was for dear Maria's loss, +how full of anxious doubts her mind about Maria's sin. Poor soul, +however peaceful now that spirit has read the truth, in the hour of her +departure it had been with her far otherwise: her dying bed was as a +troubled sea, for she died of a broken heart. + +Yearly, on the anniversaries of their respective deaths, the growing +clan of Clements make a solemn pilgrimage to their grand paternal +shrine, attending service on those days (or the holiday nearest to +them), at St. Benet's Sherehog; and Maria's eyes are very moist on such +occasions; though hope sings gladly too within her wise and cheerful +heart. She does not seem to have lost those friends; they are only gone +before. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +THE HOUSE OF FEASTING. + + +But in fact, with our happy married folks an anniversary of some sort is +perpetually recurring: wedding-days, birth-days, and all manner of +festival occasions, worthy (as the old Romans would have said) to be +noted up with chalk, happened in that family of love weekly--almost +daily. They cultivated well the grateful soil of Heart, by a thousand +little dressings and diggings; courting to it the warm sunshine of the +skies, the zephyrs of pleasant recollections, and the genial dews of +sympathy. And very wise were all those labours of delight; for their +sons and their daughters grew up as the polished corners in the temple; +moulded with delicate affections, their moral essence sharp, and clearly +edged with sensitive feelings, as if they had sprung fresh from the +hands of God, their sculptor, and the world had not rubbed off the +master-touches of His chisel. For, in this dull world, we cheat +ourselves and one another of innocent pleasures by the score, through +very carelessness and apathy: courted day after day by happy memories, +we rudely brush them off with this indiscriminating bosom, the stern +material present: invited to help in rendering joyful many a patient +heart, we neglect the little word that might have done it, and +continually defraud creation of its share of kindliness from us. The +child made merrier by your interest in his toy; the old domestic +flattered by your seeing him look so well; the poor, better helped by +your blessing than your penny (though give the penny too); the labourer, +cheered upon his toil by a timely word of praise; the humble friend +encouraged by your frankness; equals made to love you by the expression +of your love; and superiors gratified by attention and respect, and +looking out to benefit the kindly--how many pleasures here for any hand +to gather; how many blessings here for any heart to give! Instead of +these, what have we rife about the world? Frigid compliment--for warmth +is vulgar; reserve of tongue--for it is folly to be talkative; +composure, never at fault--for feelings are dangerous things; +gravity--for that looks wise; coldness--for other men are cold; +selfishness--for every one is struggling for his own. This is all false, +all bad; the slavery chain of custom riveted by the foolishness of +fashion; because there ever is a band of men and women, who have nothing +to recommend them but externals--their looks or their dresses, their +rank or their wealth--and in order to exalt the honour of these, they +agree to set a compact seal of silence on the heart and on the mind; +lest the flood of humbler men's affections, or of wiser men's +intelligence, should pale their tinsel-praise; and the warm and the wise +too softly acquiesce in this injury done to heartiness shamed by the +effrontery of cold calm fools, and the shallow dignity of an empty +presence. Turn the tables on them, ye truer gentry, truer nobility, +truer royalty of the heart and of the mind; speak freely, love warmly, +laugh cheerfully, explain frankly, exhort zealously, admire liberally, +advise earnestly--be not ashamed to show you have a heart: and if some +cold-blooded simpleton greet your social effort with a sneer, repay +him--for you can well afford a richer gift than his whole treasury +possesses--repay him with a kind good-humoured smile: it would have +shamed Jack Dillaway himself. If a man persists to be silent in a crowd +for vanity's sake, instead of sociable, as good company expects, count +him simply for a fool; you will not be far wrong; he remembers the +copy-book at school, no doubt, with its large-text aphorism, "Silence is +wisdom;" and thinking in an easy obedience to gain credit from mankind +by acting on that questionable sentence, the result is what you +perpetually see--a self-contained, self-satisfied, selfish, and reserved +young puppy. Hint to such an incommunicative comrade, that the fashion +now is coming about, to talk and show your wisdom; not to sit in shallow +silence, hiding hard your folly; soon shall you loosen the flood-gates +of his speech; and society will even thank you for it; for, bore as the +chatterer may oft-times be, still he does the frank companion's duty; +and at any rate is vastly preferable to the dull, unwarmed, +unsympathetic watcher at the festal board, who sits there to exhibit his +painted waistcoat instead of the heart that should be in it, and +patiently waits, with a snakish eye and a bitter tongue, to aid +conversation with a sarcasm. + +Henry and Maria had many hearty friends to keep their many +anniversaries. They were well enough for wealth, as we may guess without +much trouble; for the knight had left three thousand a-year behind him, +and Maria, as sole heiress, had no difficulty in establishing her claim +to it; but it may be well to put mankind in memory how hospitably, how +charitably, how wisely, and how heartily they stewarded it. I need not +stop to tell of local charities assisted, good societies supported, and +of philanthropic good done by means of their money, both at home and +abroad: nor detail their many dinners, and other festal opportunities, +rivets in the lengthening chain of ordinary friendship: but I do wish to +make honourable mention of one happiest anniversary, which, while it +commemorated fine young Master Harry's birth, rejoiced the many poor of +Lower-Sack street, Islington. + +The birth-day itself was kept at home with all the honours, in their old +house at Finsbury square; Maria would not leave that house, for old +acquaintance sake. Master Harry, a frank-faced, open-hearted, +curly-headed boy of ten (at least when I dined there, for he has +probably grown older since), was of course the happy hero of the feast, +ably supported by divers joyful brothers and sisters, who had all +contributed to their elder brother's triumph on that day, by the +contribution of their various presents--one a little scent bag, another +a rude drawing, another a book-marker, and so forth, all probably +worthless in the view of selfish calculation, but inestimable according +to the currency of Heart. Half-a-dozen choice old friends closed the +list of company; and a noisy rout of boys and girls were added in the +early evening, full of negus, and sponge-cake, snap-dragon, and +blindman's-buff, with merry music, and a golden-flood of dances and +delight. + +We dined early; and, to be very confidential with you, I thought (until +I found out reasons why), that the bill-of-fare upon the table was +inordinately large, not to say vulgar; for the board was overloaded with +solid sweets and savouries: so, in my uncharitable mind, I set all that +down to the uncivilized hospitality asserted of a citizen's feast, and +(for aught I know) still rife in St. Mary Axe and Finsbury square. + +Never mind how the dinner passed off, nor how jovially the children kept +it up till near eleven: for I learnt, in an incidental way, what was +regularly done upon the morrow; and I am sure it will gratify my readers +to learn it too, as a trait of considerate kindness which will gladden +man and woman's heart. + +On the seventh of April in every year (Harry's birth-day was the sixth), +Henry and Maria used to go on an humble pilgrimage to Lower Sack street, +Islington. Not to shame the poor by fine clothes or their usual +equipage, they sedulously donned on that occasion the same now faded +suits they had worn in their adversity, and made their progress in a +hackney-coach. They would have walked for humility's sake and sympathy, +but that the coach in question was crammed full of eatables and +drinkables, nicely packed up in well-considered parcels, consisting of +the vast _debris_ of yesterday's overwhelming feast, with a sackful of +tea and sugar added. Their pockets also, as I took the liberty of +inquiring at Sack street afterwards, must have been well stored, for +their largess was munificent. Then would they go to that identical +lodgings of years gone by, where they had so struggled with adversity, +now in the happy contrast of wealth and peace and thankfulness to +Heaven, and of joy at doing good. That parlour was right liberally hired +for the day, and all the poor in Sack street were privileged to call, +where Mrs. Clements held her levee. They came in an orderly stream, +clean for the occasion, and full of gratitude and blessings; and, to be +just upon the poor, no impostor had ever been known to intrude upon the +privilege of Sack street. As for dear Maria, she regularly broke down +just as the proceedings commenced, and Henry's manlier hand had to give +away the spoil; whilst Maria sobbed beside him, as if her heart would +break. Then did the good old nurse come in for a cold round of beef, +with tea, sugar, and a sovereign; and the bed-ridden neighbour up-stairs +for jellied soup, and other condiments, with a similar royal climax; and +the cobbler over the way carried off ham and chickens, with apple-puffs +and a bottle of wine: and so some thirty or forty families were +gladdened for the hour, and made wealthy for a week. Altogether they +divided amongst them a coachful of comestibles, and a pocketful of coin. + +It would be impertinent in us to intrude so far on privacy, as to record +how Henry and Maria passed much time in prayer and praise on that +interesting anniversary; it is unnecessary too, for in fact they did not +stop for anniversaries to do that sort of thing. Be sure that good +thoughts and good words are ever found preceding good and grateful +deeds. It is quite enough to know that they did God service in doing +good to man. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +THE END OF THE HEARTLESS. + + +There is plenty of contrast in this poor book, if that be any virtue. +Let us turn our eyes away from those scenes of love and cheerfulness, of +benevolence and peace. Let us leave Maria in her nursery, hearing the +little ones their lessons; and Henry cutting the leaves of a nice new +book, fresh from the press, while his home-taught son and heir is +playing at pot-hooks and hangers in a copy-book beside him. Let us +recollect their purity of mind, their holiness of motive, and their +happiness of life; these are the victims of false-witness. And how fares +the wretch that would have starved them? + +The fate of John Dillaway is at once so tragical, so interesting, and so +instructive, that it will be well for us to be transported for awhile, +and give this rogue the benefit of honest company. + +For many months I had seen a sullen lowering fellow, with cropped head, +ironed-legs, and the motley garments of disgrace, driven forth at early +morning with his gang of bad compeers; a slave, toiling till night-fall +in piling cannon-balls, and chipping off the rust with heavy hammers; a +sentinel stood near with a loaded musket; they might not speak to each +other, that miserable gang; hope was dead among them; life had no +delights; they wreaked their silent hatred on those hammered +cannon-balls. The man who struck the fiercest, that sullen convict with +the lowering brow, was our stock-jobber, John Dillaway. + +Soon after that foretaste of slavery at Woolwich, the ship sailed, +freighted with incarnate crime; her captain was a ruffian; (could he +help it with such cargoes?) her crew, the offscouring of all nations; +and the Chesapeake herself was an old rotten hull, condemned, after one +more voyage, to be broken up; a creaking, foul, unsafe vessel, full of +rats, cockroaches, and other vermin. + +The sun glared ungenially at that blot upon the waters, breeding +infectious disease; the waves flung the hated burden from one to the +other, disdainful of her freight of sin; the winds had no commission for +fair sailing, but whistled through the rigging crossways, howling in the +ears of many in that ship, as if they carried ghosts along with them: +the very rocks and reefs butted her off the creamy line of breakers, as +sea-unicorns distorting; no affectionate farewell blessed her departure; +no hearty welcomes await her at the port. + +And they sailed many days as in a floating hell, hot, miserable, and +cursing; the scanty meal was flung to them like dog's-meat, and they +lapped the putrid water from a pail; gang by gang for an hour they might +pace the smoking deck, and then and thence were driven down to fester in +the hold for three-and-twenty more. O, those closed hatches by night! +what torments were the kernel of that ship! Suffocated by the heat and +noxious smells; bruised against each other, and by each other's blows, +as the black unwieldy vessel staggered about among the billows, the +wretched mass of human misery wore away those tropical nights in horrid +imprecation; worse than crowded slaves upon the Spanish Main, from the +blister of crime upon their souls, and their utter lack of hopefulness +for ever. + +And now, after all the shattering storms, and haggard sufferings, and +degrading terrors of that voyage, they neared the metropolis of sin; +some town on Botany Bay, a blighted shore--where each man, looking at +his neighbour, sees in him an outcast from heaven. They landed in +droves, that ironed flock of men; and the sullenest-looking scoundrel of +them all was John Dillaway. + +There were murderers among his gang; but human passions, which had +hurried them to crime, now had left them as if wrecked upon a lee +shore--humbled and remorseful, and heaven's happier sun shed some light +upon their faces: there were burglars; but the courage which could dare +those deeds, now lending strength to bear the stroke of punishment, +enabled them to walk forth even cheerily to meet their doom of labour: +there was rape; but he hid himself, ashamed, vowing better things: fiery +arson, too, was there, sorry for his rash revenge: also, conspiracy and +rebellion, confessing that ambition such as theirs had been wickedness +and folly; and common frauds, and crimes, and social sins; bad enough, +God wot, yet hopeful; but the mean, heartless, devilish criminality of +our young Dagon beat them all. If to be hard-hearted were a virtue, the +best man there was Dillaway. + +And now they were to be billeted off among the sturdy colonists as +farm-servants, near a-kin to slaves; tools in the rough hands of men who +pioneer civilization, with all the vices of the social, and all the +passions of the savage. And on the strand, where those task-masters +congregated to inspect the new-come droves, each man selected according +to his mind: the rougher took the roughest, and the gentler, the +gentlest; the merry-looking field farmer sought out the cheerful, and +the sullen backwoods settler chose the sullen. Dillaway's master was a +swarthy, beetled-browed caitiff, who had worn out his own seven years of +penalty, and had now set up tyrant for himself. + +As a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, in a stagnant little clearing +of the forest, our convict toiled continually--continually--like +Caliban: all days alike; hewing at the mighty trunk and hacking up the +straggling branches; no hope--no help--no respite; and the iron of +servile tyranny entered into his very soul. Ay--ay; the culprit +convicted, when he hears in open court, with an impudent assurance, the +punishment that awaits him on those penal shores, little knows the +terrors of that sentence. Months and years--yea, haply to gray hairs and +death, slavery unmitigated--uncomforted; toil and pain; toil and sorrow; +toil, and nothing to cheer; even to the end, vain tasked toil. Old +hopes, old recollections, old feelings, violently torn up by the roots. +No familiar face in sickness, no patient nurse beside the dying bed: no +hope for earth, and no prospect of heaven: but, in its varying phases, +one gloomy glaring orb of ever-present hell. + +It grew intolerable--intolerable; he was beaten, mocked, and almost a +maniac. Escape--escape! Oh, blessed thought! into the wild free woods! +there, with the birds and flowers, hill and dale, fresh air and liberty! +Oh, glad hope--mad hope! His habitual cunning came to his aid; he +schemed, he contrived, he accomplished. The jutting heads of the rivets +having been diligently rubbed away from his galling fetter by a big +stone--a toil of weeks--he one day stood unshackled, having watched his +time to be alone. An axe was in his hand, and the saved single dinner of +pea-bread. That beetled-browed task-master slumbered in the hut; that +brother convict--(why need he care for him, too? every one for himself +in this world)--that kinder, humbler, better man was digging in the +open; if he wants to escape, let him think of himself: John Dillaway has +enough to take care for. Now, then; now, unobserved, unsuspected; now is +the chance! Joy, life, and liberty! Oh, glorious prospect--for this +inland world is unexplored. + +He stole away, with panting heart, and fearfully exulting eye; he +ran--ran--ran, for miles--it may have been scores of them--till +night-fall, on the soft and pleasant greensward under those high echoing +woods. None pursued; safe--safe; and deliciously he slept that night +beneath a spreading wattle-tree, after the first sweet meal of freedom. + +Next morning, waked up like the starting kangaroos around him (for John +Dillaway had not bent the knee in prayer since childhood), off he set +triumphant and refreshed: his arm was strong, and he trusted in it, his +axe was sharp, and he looked to that for help; he knew no other God. Off +he set for miles--miles--miles: still that continuous high acacia wood, +though less naturally park-like, often-times choked with briars, and +here and there impervious a-head. Was it all this same starving forest +to the wide world's end? He dug for roots, and found some acrid bulbs +and tubers, which blistered up his mouth; but he was hungry, and ate +them; and dreaded as he ate. Were they poisonous? Next to it, Dillaway; +so he hurried eagerly to dilute their griping juices with the mountain +streams near which he slept: the water was at least kindly cooling to +his hot throat; he drank huge draughts, and stayed his stomach. + +Next morning, off again: why could he not catch and eat some of those +half-tame antelopes? Ha! He lay in wait hours--hours, near the torrent +to which they came betimes to slake their thirst: but their beautiful +keen eyes saw him askance--and when he rashly hoped to hunt one down +afoot, they went like the wind for a minute--then turned to look at him +afar off, mockingly--poor, panting, baffled creeper. + +No; give it up--this savoury hope of venison; he must go despondently on +and on; and he filled his belly with grass. Must he really starve in +this interminable wood! He dreamt that night of luxurious city feasts, +the turtle, turbot, venison, and champagne; and then how miserably weak +he woke. But he must on wearily and lamely, for ever through this +wood--objectless, except for life and liberty. Oh, that he could meet +some savage, and do him battle for the food he carried; or that a dead +bird, or beast, or snake lay upon his path; or that one of those +skipping kangaroos would but come within the reach of his oft-aimed +hatchet! No: for all the birds and flowers, and the free wild woods, and +hill, and dale, and liberty, he was starving--starving; so he browsed +the grass as Nebuchadnezzar in his lunacy. And the famished wretch would +have gladly been a slave again. + +Next morning, he must lie and perish where he slept, or move on: he +turned to the left, not to go on for ever; probably, ay, too probably, +he had been creeping round a belt. Oh, precious thought of change! for +within three hours there was light a-head, light beneath the tangled +underwood: he struggled through the last cluster of thick bushes, +longing for a sight of fertile plain, and open country. Who knows? are +there not men dwelling there with flocks and herds, and food and plenty? +Yes--yes, and Dillaway will do among them yet. You envious boughs, delay +me not! He tore aside the last that hid his view, and found that he was +standing on the edge of an ocean of sand--hot yellow sand to the +horizon! + +He fainted--he had like to have died; but as for prayer--he only +muttered curses on this bitter, famishing disappointment. He dared not +strike into the wood again--he dared not advance upon that yellow sea +exhausted and unprovisioned: it was his wisdom to skirt the wood; and so +he trampled along weakly--weakly. This liberty to starve is horrible! + +Is it, John Dillaway? What, have you no compunctions at that word +starve? no bitter, dreadful recollections? Remember poor Maria, that own +most loving sister, wanting bread through you. Remember Henry Clements, +and their pining babe; remember your own sensual feastings and +fraudulent exultation, and how you would utterly have starved the good, +the kind, the honest! This same bitter cup is filled for your own lips, +and you must drink it to the dregs. Have you no compunctions, man? +nothing tapping at your heart? for you must _starve_! + +No! not yet--not yet! for chance (what Dillaway lyingly called +chance)--in his moments of remorse at these reflections, when God had +hoped him penitent at last, and, if he still continued so, might save +him--sent help in the desert! For, as he reelingly trampled along on the +rank herbage between this forest and that sea of sand, just as he was +dying of exhaustion, his faint foot trod upon a store of life and +health! It was an Emeu's ill-protected nest; and he crushed, where he +had trodden, one of those invigorating eggs. Oh, joy--joy--no +thanks--but sensual joy! There were three of them, and each one meat for +a day; ash-coloured without, but the within--the within--full of sweet +and precious yolk! Oh, rich feast, luscious and refreshing: cheer +up--cheer up: keep one to cross the desert with: ay--ay, luck will come +at last to clever Jack! how shrewd it was of me to find those eggs! + +Thus do the wicked forget thee, blessed God! thou hast watched this bad +man day by day, and all the dark nights through, in tender expectation +of some good: Thou hast been with him hourly in that famishing forest, +tempting him by starvation to--repentance; and how gladly did Thine +eager mercy seize this first opportunity of half-formed penitence to +bless and help him--even him, liberally and unasked! Thanks to +Thee--thanks to Thee! Why did not that man thank Thee? Who more grieved +at his thanklessness than Thou art? Who more sorry for the righteous and +necessary doom which the impenitence of heartlessness drags down upon +itself? + +And Providence was yet more kind, and man yet more ungrateful; mercy +abounding over the abundant sin. For the famished vagrant diligently +sought about for more rich prizes; and, as the manner is of those +unnatural birds to leave their eggs carelessly to the hatching of the +sunshine, he soon stumbled on another nest. "Ha--ha!" said he, "clever +Jack Dillaway of Broker's alley isn't done up yet: no--no, trust him for +taking care of number one; now then for the desert; with these four huge +eggs and my trusty hatchet, deuce take it, but I'll manage somehow!" + +Thus, deriving comfort from his bold hard heart, he launched +unhesitatingly upon that sea of sand: with aching toil through +the loose hot soil he ploughed his weary way, footsore, for +leagues--leagues--lengthened leagues; yellow sand all round, before, and +on either hand, as far as eye can stretch, and behind and already in the +distance that terrible forest of starvation. But what, then, is the name +of this burnt plain, unwatered by one liquid drop, unvisited even by +dews in the cold dry night? Have you not yet found a heart, man, to +thank Heaven for that kind supply of recreative nourishment, sweet as +infant's food, the rich delicious yolk, which bears up still your +halting steps across this world of sand? No heart--no heart of +flesh--but a stone--a cold stone, and hard as yonder rocky hillock. + +He climbed it for a view--and what a view! a panorama of perfect +desolation, a continent of vegetable death. His spirit almost failed +within him; but he must on--on, or perish where he stood. Taking no +count of time, and heedless as to whither he might wander, so it be not +back again along that awful track of liberty he longed for, he crept on +by little and little, often resting, often dropping for fatigue, night +and day--day and night: he had made his last meal; he laid him down to +die--and already the premonitory falcon flapped him with its heavy wing. +Ha! what are all those carrion fowls congregated there for? Are they +battening on some dead carcase? O, hope--hope! there is the smell of +food upon the wind: up, man, up--battle with those birds, drive them +away, hew down that fierce white eagle with your axe; what right have +they to precious food, when man, their monarch, starves? So, the poor +emaciated culprit seized their putrid prey, and the scared fowls hovered +but a little space above, waiting instinctively for this new victim: +they had not left him much--it was a feast of remnants--pickings from +the skeleton of some small creature that had perished in the desert--a +wombat, probably, starved upon its travels; but a royal feast it was to +that famishing wretch: and, gathering up the remainder of those +priceless morsels, which he saved for some more fearful future, again he +crept upon his way. Still the same, night and day--day and night--for he +could only travel a league a-day: and at length, a shadowy line between +the sand and sky--far, far off, but circling the horizon as a bow of +hope. Shall it be a land of plenty, green, well-watered meadows, the +pleasant homes of man, though savage, not unfriendly? O hope, +unutterable! or is it (O despair!) another of those dreadful woods, +starving solitude under the high-arched gum-trees. + +Onward he crept; and the line on the horizon grew broader and darker: +onward, still; he was exulting, he had conquered, he was bold and hard +as ever. He got nearer, now within some dozen miles; it was an +indistinct distance, but green at any rate; huzza--never mind +night-fall; he cannot wait, nor rest, with this Elysium before him: so +he toiled along through all the black night, and a friendly storm of +rain refreshed him, as his thirsty pores drank in the cooling stream. +Aha! by morning's dawn he should be standing on the edge of that green +paradise, fresh as a young lion, and no thanks to any one but his own +shrewd indomitable self. + +Morning dawned--and through the vague twilight loomed some high and +tangled wall of green foliage, stretching seemingly across the very +world. Most sickening sight! a matted, thorny jungle, one of those +primeval woods again, but closer, thicker, darker than the park-like +one before; rank and prickly herbage in a rotting swamp, crowding up +about the stately trees. Must he battle his way through? Well, then, if +it must be so, he must and will; any thing rather than this hot and +blistering sand. If he is doomed by fate to starve, be it in the shade, +not in that fierce sun. So, he weakly plied his hatchet, flinging +himself with boldness on that league-thick hedge of thorns; his way was +choked with thorns; he struggled under tearing spines, and through +prickly underwood, and over tangled masses of briery plants, clinging to +him every where around, as with a thousand taloned claws; he is +exhausted, extrication is impossible; he beats the tough creepers with +his dulled hatchet, as a wounded man vainly; ha! one effort more--a +dying effort--must he be impaled upon these sharp aloes, and +strange-leafed prickly shrubs; they have caught him there, those thirsty +poisoned hooks, innumerable as his sins; his way, whichever way he +looks, is hedged up high with thorns--thick-set thorns--sturdy, tearing +thorns, that he cannot battle through them. Emaciated, bleeding, rent, +fainting, famished, he must perish in the merciless thicket into which +hard-heartedness had flung him! + +Before he was well dead, those flapping carrion fowls had found him out; +they were famishing too, and half forgot their natural distaste for +living meat. He fought them vainly, as the dying fight; soon there were +other screams in that echoing solitude, besides the screeching falcons! +and when they reached his heart (if its matter aptly typified its +spirit), that heart should have been a very stone for hardness. + +So let the selfish die! alone, in the waste howling wilderness; so let +him starve uncared-for, whose boast it was that he had never felt for +other than himself--who mocked God, and scorned man--whose motto +throughout life, one sensual, unsympathizing, harsh routine, was this: +"Take care of the belly, and the heart will take care of itself!"--who +never had a wish for other's good, a care for other's evil, a thought +beyond his own base carcase; who was a man--no man--a wretch, without a +heart. So let him perish miserably; and the white eagles pick his +skeleton clean in yonder tangled jungle! + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +WHEREIN MATTERS ARE CONCLUDED. + + +Certain folks at Ballyriggan, near Belfast, observe to me, with not a +little Irish truth, that it is by no means easy to conclude a history +never intended to be finished. It so happens that my good friends the +clan Clements are still enjoying life and all it sweets, beneficent in +their generation; and as for their hearts' affections, that story +without an end will still be heard, ringing on its happy changes, in the +presence of God and of his immortal train, when every reader of these +records shall have been to this world dead. Out of the heart are the +issues of life, and within, it is life's well-spring. Death is but a +little narrow gate, in a dark rough pass among the mountains, where each +must go alone, one by one, in solemn silence, for the avalanches hanging +overhead; one by one, in breathless caution, for there is but barely a +footing; one by one, for none can help his brother on the track: the +steady eye of faith, the firm foot of righteousness, the staff of hope +to comfort and support--these be the only helps. And each one carries +with him, as his sole possession on that lonely journey, no heaps of +wealth--no trappings of honour; these burdens of the camel must all be +lifted off, ere he can struggle through that gully in the rocks--"The +Needle's Eye;" but the sole possession which every wayfarer must take +with him into those broad plains where only Spirit can be seen, and Sin +no longer can be hid, is the shrine of his affections, the casket of his +precious pearls in life--his Heart, unmantled and unmasked. And if in +time it had been a well of love, flowing towards God in penitence, and +irrigating this world's garden with charities and blessed works, that +little sparkling stream shall then burst forth from this rocky portal of +the grave, a river of joy and peace, to gladden even more the sunny +provinces of heaven. For the heart with its affections, never dieth: +they may, indeed, flow inward, and corrupt to selfishness; becoming +then, in lieu of fountains of waters, gushing forth to everlasting life, +a bottomless volcano of hot lava, tempestuous and involved, setting up +the creature as his own foul god, and living the perpetual death-bed of +the damned; or they may nobly burst the banks of self, and, rising +momentarily higher and higher, till every Nilometer is drowned, will +seek for ever, with expanding strength, to reach the unapproachable +level of that source in the Most Highest whence they originally sprung. +For this cause, the kindest fatherly word which ever reached man's ear, +the surest scheme for happiness that ever touched his reason, was one +from God's own heart--"My son, give me thy heart." + +They lived upon the blessing of that Word, our noble, kindly pair. To +enlarge upon the thought as respects a better world is well for those +who will: for if He that made the eye and framed the ear, by the +stronger argument Himself must see and hear, so he that fashioned +loveliness and moulded the affections, how well-deserving must that +Beautiful Spirit be of his rational creature's heart! Away with mawkish +cant and stale sentimentalities! let us think, and speak, and feel as +men, framed by nature's urgent law to the lovely and to hate the vile. +Oh, that the advocates for Him, the Good One, would oftener plead His +cause by the human affections--by generosity, by sympathy, by gentleness +and patience, by self-denying love, and soul absolving beauty; for these +are of the essence of God, and their spiritual influence on reason. A +child writes upon his heart that warmer code of morals, which the iron +tool of threatening availeth not to grave upon the rock, while the voice +of love can change that rock into a spring of water. + +But we must descend from our altitudes, and speak of lower things; for +the time and space forbid much longer intrusion on your courtesy. A few +ravelling threads of this our desultory tale have yet to be gathered up, +as tidily as may be. Suffer, then, such mingling of my thoughts: the web +I weave has many threads, woven with divers colours. Human nature is +nothing if not inconsistent; and I have no more notion of irreverence in +turning from a high topic to a low one, than a bee may be fancied to +have of irrelevant idleness in flitting from the sweet violet to the +scented dahlia. We may gather honey out of every flower. Have you not +often noticed, that riches generally come to a man, when he least stands +in need of them? Directly a middle-aged heir succeeds to his +long-expected heritage, half-a-dozen aunts and second cousins are sure +to die off and leave him super-abounding legacies, any one of which +would have helped his poverty stricken youth, and made him of +independent mind throughout his servile manhood. The other day (the idea +remains the same, though the fact is to be questioned) the richest lord +in Europe dug up a chest of hoarded coins, many thousand pound's worth, +simply because he didn't want it: and, if such particularization were +not improper or invidious, you or I might name a brace of friends +a-piece, who, having once lacked bread in the career of life, suddenly +have found themselves monopolizing two or three great fortunes. As too +few things are certain, novel writers less like truth in their +descriptions, than where ample wealth falls upon the hero just in the +nick of time. Providence intends to teach by penury: yes, and by +prosperity too: and we almost never see the reward given, or the no less +reward withheld, just as the scholar has begun to spell his lesson, and +before he has had the chance of getting it by heart. + +That another death should occur, in the progress of this tale, must be +counted for no fault of mine; especially as I am not about to introduce +another death-bed. One need not have the mummy always at our feasts. +Surely, too, these deaths have ever been on fit occasion: one broken +heart; one bereaved, yet comforted; and one which perished in its sin of +uttermost hard-heartedness. And here, if any insurance clerk, or other +interested person, will show cause why Mrs. Jane Mackenzie should not +die at the age of ninety-two, I would keep her alive if I could; but the +fact is, I cannot: she died. Henry Clements never saw her, any more that +I, nor dear Maria. But that was no earthly reason wherefore-- + +_First_, Maria should not bewail the dear old relative's loss with all +her heart and eyes, and children and household in mourning. + +Nor, _secondly_, wherefore Mrs. Jane Mackenzie, aforesaid, of +Ballyriggan, province of Ulster, should not leave her estate of +Ballyriggan, aforesaid, and a vast heap of other property, to the only +surviving though distant scion of her family, Henry Clements. + +Nor, _thirdly_, wherefore I should not record the fact, as duly bound in +my capacity of honest historian. + +This accession of property was large, almost overwhelming, when added to +Maria's patrimony of three thousand a-year, the produce of St. Benet's +Sherehog: for besides and beyond a considerable breadth of Irish acres, +sundry houses in Belfast, and an accumulation of half-forgotten funds, +the Bank of England found itself necessitated (from particular +circumstances of ill-caution in its servants) to refund the whole of +that twelve thousand forty-three pounds bank annuities, which Jack +Dillaway and his ladies had already made away with. + +Rich, however, as Clements had become, he felt himself only as a great +lord's steward to help a needy world; and I never heard that he spent a +sixpence more upon himself, his equipage, or his family, from being some +thousands a-year richer: though I certainly did hear that, owing to this +legacy, every tenant upon Ballyriggan, and a vast number of struggling +families in Spitalfields and round about St. Benet's, had ample cause +to bless Heaven and the good man of Finsbury square. As for dear Maria, +it rejoiced her generous heart to find that Henry (whose gentlemanly +pride had all along been reproaching him for pauperism) was now become +pretty well her equal in wealth; even as her humility long had known him +her superior in mind, good looks, and good family. + +Another thread in my discourse, hanging loosely on the world, concerns +our lady-legatees. What became of Miss Julia, after the safe and +successful issue of that vengeful trial, I never heard: and, perhaps, it +may be wise not to inquire: if she changed her name, she did not change +her nature: and is probably still to be numbered among the sect of +Strand peripatetics. + +But of Anna Bates I have pleasanter news to tell. With respect to +repentance, let us be charitable, and hope, even if we cannot be so +sanguine as firmly to believe; but at any rate we may rest assured of an +outward reformation, and an honest manner of life. The miracle happened +thus: After the trial and condemnation of Dillaway, poor Anna Bates felt +entirely disappointed that she had not the chance of better things +presented to her mind by transportation; the two approvers, to her +dismay--poor thing!--were graciously pardoned for their evidence; and, +whereas, the one of them returned to her old courses more devotedly than +ever, the other resolved to make one strong effort to extricate her +loathing self from the gulf in which she lay. Fortunately for her, our +Maria had the heart to pity and to help a frail and fallen sister; and +when the poor disconsolate woman, finding her to be the sister of that +evil paramour, came to Mrs. Clements in distress, revealing all her past +sins and sorrows, and pleading for some generous hand to lift her out of +that miserable state, she did not plead in vain. Maria spurned her not +away, nor coldly disbelieved her promise of amendment; but, taking +counsel of her husband, she gave the poor woman sufficient means of +setting up a milliner's shop at Hull, where, under her paternal name of +Stellingburne, our Fleet street lady-legatee still survives, earning a +decent livelihood, and little suspected amongst her kindly neighbours of +ever having been much worse than a strictly honest woman. + +For another thread, if the reader, in his ample curiosity, wishes to be +informed how it became possible for me to learn the fate of Dillaway, +let him know, that up to the hour of escape, I derived it easily from +living witnesses; and thereafter, that certain settlers, having set out +to explore the country, found a human skeleton stretched upon a thicket +which, from the _debris_ of convicts' clothes, and the hatchet stamped +with his initials, was easily decided to be that bad man's. It always +had struck me, as a remarkable piece of retribution, that whereas John +made Austral shares a plea for ruining Henry Clements, a howling Austral +wilderness was made the means of starving him. Maria never heard what +became of her brother; but still looks for his return some day with +affectionate and earnest expectation. + +Another little matter to be mentioned is the fact, that Henry Clements, +in his leisure from business, and freedom from care, resolved to attain +some literary glories; and first, he published his now-renowned tragedy +of '_Boadicea_,' with his name at length, giving a mint of proceeds to +that very proper charity the Theatrical Fund. Secondly, he followed up +his tragic triumph by a splendid '_Caractacus_,' by way of a companion +picture. Thirdly, he turned to his maligned law-treatise on _Defence_, +and boldly published a capital vindication thereof, flinging down his +gauntlet to the judges both of law and literature. It was strange, by +the way, and instructive also, to find with what a deferential air the +wealthy writer now was listened to; and how meekly both '_Watchman_' and +'_Corinthian_' kissed the smiling hand of the literary genius, who--gave +such sumptuous dinners; for Henry, of his mere kindness, (not +bribery--don't imagine him so weak,) now that he was known as a Maecenas +amongst authors, made no invidious distinctions between literary +magnates, but effectually overcame evil with good by his hearty +hospitality to '_Corinthian_' and '_Watchman_' editors, as well as to +other potent wielders of the pen of fame, who had erstwhile favoured +the productions of his genius. + +The last dinner he gave, I, an old friend of the family, was present; +and when the ladies went up-stairs, I had, as usual, the honour of +enacting vice. It was according to Finsbury taste and custom, to produce +toasts and speeches; whether cold high-breeding would have sanctioned +this or not, little matters: it was warm and cordial, and we all liked +it; moreover, finding ourselves at Rome, we unanimously did as other +Romans do: and this I take to be politeness. Among the speeches, that +which proposed the health of the host and hostess caused the chiefest +roar of clamorous joy: it was a happy-looking friend who spoke, and what +he said was much as follows: + +"Clements, my dear fellow, you are the happiest man I know--except +myself; at least, in one thing I am happier--for I can call you friend, +whereas you can only return the compliment with such a sorry substitute +as I am." + +[This ingenious flattery was much ridiculed afterwards; but I pledge my +word the man intended what he said; moreover, he went on, utterly +regardless of surrounding critics, in all the seeming egotism of a warm +and open heart.] + +"Clements--I cannot help telling you how heartily I love you;" (Hear, +hear!) "and I wish I had known you thirty years instead of three, to +have said so with the unction of my earliest recollections: but we +cannot help antiquity, you know. Let us all the rather make up now by +heartiness for all lost time. I think, nay, am sure, that I speak the +language of all present in telling you I love you:" (an enormous +hear-hearing, which rose above the drawing-room floor; Harry Clements +singularly distinguished himself, in proving how he loved his father; a +fine young fellow he grows too, and I wish, between ourselves, to catch +him for a son-in-law some day;)--"Yes, Clements, I do love you, and your +children, and your wife, for there is the charm of heart about you all: +in yourself, in your Maria, in that fine frank youth, and those dear +warm girls up stairs" (every word was bravoed to the echo), "in every +one of you, all the charities and amenities, all the kindnesses and the +cheerfulness of life appear to be embodied; you love both God and man; +the rich and the poor alike may bless you, Clements, and your admirable +Maria; whilst, as for yourselves, you may both well thank God, whose +mercy made you what you are." + +Clements hid his face, and Harry sobbed with joyfulness. + +"Friends! a toast and sentiment, with all the honours: 'This happy +family! and may all who know them now, or come to hear of them in +future, cultivate as they do all the home affections, and acknowledge +that there is no wealth of man's, which may compare with riches of the +heart.'" + + +THE END OF HEART. + + + * * * * * + + +AN AUTHOR'S MIND; + +THE BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES: + + +"A BOOKFUL OF BOOKS," OR "THIRTY BOOKS IN ONE." + + +EDITED BY + +M.F. TUPPER, ESQ., M. A. + + +"En un mot, mes amis, je n'ai entrepris de vous contenter tous en +general; ainsi, une et autres en particulier; et par special, +moymeme."--PASQUIER. + + + * * * * * + + +SUBJECTS. + PAGE. + +The Author's Mind; a ramble 331 + +Nero, a tragedy 353 + +Opium, a history 361 + +Charlotte Clopton, a novel 364 + +The Marvellous, a hand-book 371 + +Psychotherion, an argument 376 + +The Confessional, a tale 377 + +The Prior of Marrick, an autobiography 379 + +The Seven Churches, a dissertation 384 + +Revision, an essay 386 + +Homely Expositions, a compilation 386 + +Lay Sermons, a contribution 386 + +Scriptural Physics, a treatise 387 + +Heathenism, an apology 387 + +Biblical Similes, an investigation 389 + +Home, an epic 390 + +Grecian Sayings, a series 398 + +Heptalogia, a collection 400 + +Alfred, an oratorio 403 + +Alfred's Life, a translation 406 + +National Memorials, a proposal 408 + +Politics, a manual 411 + +Woman, a subject 414 + +False Steps, a pamphlet 415 + +King's Evidence, a satire 417 + +Poetics, a melange 422 + +Humoristics, a medley 423 + +Journals, a decade 426 + +Lay Hints, an appeal 427 + +Anti-Xurion, a crusade 431 + +The Squire, a portraiture 434 + +The Author's Tribunal, an oration 437 + +Zoilomastrix, a title 443 + +Epilogue, a conclusion 443 + +Appendix, an after-thought 445 + + + + +ANNOUNCEMENT. + +BY THE EDITOR. + + +The writer of this strange book (a particular friend of mine) came to me +a few mornings ago with a very happy face and a very blotty manuscript. +"Congratulate me," he began, "on having dispersed an armada of +head-aches hitherto invincible, on having exorcised my brain of its +legionary spectres, and brushed away the swarming thoughts that used to +persecute my solitude; I can now lie down as calmly as the lamb, and +rise as gayly as the lark; instead of a writhing Laocoon, my just-found +Harlequin's wand has changed me into infant Hercules brandishing his +strangled snakes; I have mowed, for the nonce, the docks, mallows, +hogweed, and wild-parsley of my rank field, and its smooth green carpet +looks like a rich meadow; I am free, happy, well at ease: argal, an thou +lovest me, congratulate." + +Wider and wider still stared out my wonder, to hear my usually sober +friend so voluble in words and so profuse of images: I saw at once it +was a set speech, prepared for an impromptu occasion; nevertheless, as +he was clearly in an enviable state of disenthraldom from +thoughtfulness, I graciously accorded him a sympathetic smile. And then +this more than Gregorian cure for the head-ache! here was an anodyne +infinitely precious to one so brain-feverish as I: had all this pleasure +and comfort arisen from such common-place remedials as a dear young +lover's courtesy or a deceased old miser's codicil, I should long ago +have heard all about it; for, between ourselves, my friend was never +known to keep a secret. There was evidently more than this in the +discovery; and when my curiosity, provoked by his laughing silence, was +naturally enough exhibiting itself in a "What on earth----?" he broke +out with the abruptness of an Abernethy, "Read my book." + +Well, I did read it; and, in candid disparagement, as amicably bound, +can readily believe what I was told afterwards, that, to except a very +small portion of older material, it had been at chance intervals rapidly +thrown off in a couple of months, (the old current-quill style,) chiefly +with the view of relieving a too prolific brain: it appeared to me a +mere idle overflowing of the brimful mind; an honest, indeed, but often +useless exposure of multifarious fancies--some good, some bad, and not a +few indifferent; an incautious uncalled-for confession of a thousand +thoughts, little worth the printing, if the very writing were not indeed +superfluous. Nevertheless, with all its faults, I thought the book a +novelty, and liked it not the less for its off-hand fashion; it had +something of the free, fresh, frank air of an old-school squire at +Christmas-tide, suggestive as his misletoe, cheerful as his face, and +careless as his hospitality. Knowing then that my friend had been more +than once an author--indeed, he tells us so himself--and perceiving, +from innumerable symptoms, that he meditated putting also this before +the world, I thought kindly to anticipate his wishes by proposing its +publication: but I was rather curtly answered with a "Did I suppose +these gnats were intended to be shrined in amber? these mere minnows to +be treated with the high consideration due only to potted char and white +bait? these fleeting thoughts fixed in stone before that Gorgon-head, +the public? these ephemeral fancies dropped into the true elixir of +immortality, printer's-ink? these----" I stopped him, for this other +mighty mouthful of images betrayed the hypocrite--"Yes, I did." An +involuntary smile assured me he did too, and the cause proceeded thus: +first, a promise not to burn the book; then a Bentley to the rescue, +with accessory considerations; and then, the due administration of a +little wholesome flattery: by this time we had obtained permission, +after modest reluctance pretty well enacted, to transform the deformity +of manuscript into the well-proportioned elegance of print. But, this +much gained, our author would not yield to any argument we could urge +upon the next point, viz: leave to produce the volume, duly fathered +with his name. "Not he indeed; he loved quiet too well; he might, it was +true, secretly like the bantling, but cared not to acknowledge it before +a populous reading-world, every individual whereof esteems himself and +herself competent to criticize!" Mr. Publisher, deeply disinterested, of +course, bristled up at the notion of any thing anonymous; and the only +alternative remaining was the stale expedient of an editor; that editor, +in brief, to be none other than myself, a very palpable-obscure: and let +this excuse my name upon the title-page. + +Now, as editor, I have had to do--what seems, by the way, to be regarded +by collective wisdom as the best thing possible--nothing: my author +would not suffer the change of a syllable, for all his seeming +carelessness about the THING, as he called it; so, I had no +more for my part than humbly to act the Helot, and try to set decently +upon the public tables a genuine mess of Spartan porridge. + +M. F. T. + +_Albury, Guildford_. + + + + +AN AUTHOR'S MIND: + +THE + +BOOK OF TITLE-PAGES. + + + + +A RAMBLE. + + +In these days of universal knowledge, schoolmaster and scholars all +abroad together, quotation is voted pedantry, and to interpret is +accounted an impertinence; yet will I boldly proclaim, as a mere fact, +clear to the perceptions of all it may concern, "This book deserves +richly of the Sosii." And that for the best of reasons: it is not only a +book, but a book full of books; not merely a new book, but a +little-library of new books; thirty books in one, a very harvest of +epitomized authorship, the cream of a whole fairy dairy of quiescent +post-octavos. It is not--O, mark ye this, my Sosii, (and by the way, +gentle ladies, these were worshipful booksellers of old, the Murrays and +the Bentleys of imperial Rome,)--it is not the dull concreted elongation +of one isolated hackneyed idea--supposing in every work there _be one_, +a charitable hypothesis--wire-drawn, and coaxed, and hammered through +three regulation volumes; but the scarcely-more-than-hinted abstractions +of some forty thousand flitting notions--hasty, yet meditative Hamlets; +none of those lengthy, drawling emblems of Laertes--driven in flocks to +the net of the fowler, and penned with difficult compression within +these modest limits. So "goe forth, littel boke," and make thyself a +friend among those good husbandmen, who tend the trees of knowledge, and +bring their fruit to the world's market. + +Now, reader, one little preliminary parley with you about myself: here +beginneth the trouble of authorship, but it is a trouble causing ease; +ease from thoughts--thoughts--thoughts, which never cease to make one's +head ache till they are fixed on paper; ease from dreams by night and +reveries by day, (thronging up in crowds behind, like Deucalion's +children, or a serried host in front, like Jason's instant army,) +harassing the brain, and struggling for birth, a separate existence, a +definite life; ease, in a cessation of that continuous internal hum of +aerial forget-me-nots, clamouring to be recorded. O, happy unimaginable +vacancy of mind, to whistle as you walk for want of thought! O, mental +holiday, now as impossible to me, as to take a true school-boy's +interest in rounders and prisoner's base! An author's mind--and remember +always, friend, I write in character, so judge not as egotistic vanity +merely the well playing of my _role_--such a mind is not a sheet of +smooth wax, but a magic stone indented with fluttering inscriptions; no +empty tenement, but a barn stored to bursting: it is a painful pressure, +constraining to write for comfort's sake; an appetite craving to be +satisfied, as well as a power to be exerted; an impetus that longs to +get away, rather than a dormant dynamic: thrice have I (let me confess +it) poured forth the alleviating volume as an author, a real +author--real, because for very peace of mind, involuntarily; but still +the vessel fills; still the indigenous crop springs up, choking a better +harvest, seeds of foreign growth; still those Lernaean necks sprout +again, claiming with many mouths to explain, amuse, suggest, and +controvert--to publish invention, and proscribe error. Truly, it were +enviable to be less apprehensive, less retentive; to be fitted with a +colander-mind, like that penal cask which forty-nine Danaides might not +keep from leaking; to be, sometimes at least, suffered for a holiday to +ramble brainless in the paradise of fools. Memory, imagination, zeal, +perceptions of men and things, equally with rank and riches, have often +cost their full price, as many mad have known; they take too much out of +a man--fret, wear, worry him; to be irritable, is the conditional tax +laid of old upon an author's intellect; the crowd of internal imagery +makes him hasty, quick, nervous as a haunted hunted man: minds of +coarser web heed not how small a thorn rends one of so delicate a +texture; they cannot estimate the wish that a duller sword were in a +tougher scabbard; the river, not content with channel and restraining +banks, overflows perpetually; the extortionate exacting armies of the +Ideal and the Causal persecute MY spirit, and I would make a +patriot stand at once to vanquish the invaders of my peace: I write +these things only to be quit of them, and not to let the crowd increase; +I have conceived a plan to destroy them all, as Jehu and Elijah with the +priests of Baal; I feel Malthusian among my mental nurselings; a dire +resolve has filled me to effect a premature destruction of the literary +populace superfoetating in my brain--plays, novels, essays, tales, +homilies, and rhythmicals; for ethics and poetics, politics and +rhetorics, will I display no more mercy than sundry commentators of +maltreated Aristotle: I will exhibit them in their state chaotic; I will +addle the eggs, and the chicken shall not chirp; I will reveal, and +secrets shall not waste me; I will write, and thoughts shall not batten +on me. + +The world is too full of books, and I yearn not causelessly to add more +than this involuntary unit: bottles, bottles--invariable bottles--was +the one idea of a most clever Head at Nieder-Selters; books, +books--accumulating books--press upon my conscience in this literary +London: despairing auctioneers hate the sound, ruined publishers dread +it, surfeited readers grumble at it, and the very cheese-monger begins +to be an epicure as to which grand work is next to be demolished. +Friendships and loves tremble at the daily recurrence of "Have you read +this?" and "Mind you buy that;" wise men shun a blue-belle, sure that +she will recommend a book; and the yet wiser treat themselves to +solitary confinement, that they may not have to meet the last new batch +of authors, and be obliged to purchase, if not to peruse, their +never-ending books. I fear to increase the plague, to be convicted an +abettor of great evils, though by the measure of a little one. I am +infected, and I know it: but for science-sake I break the quarantine, +and in my magnanimity would be victimized unknown, consigning to a +speedy grave this useless offspring, together with its too productive +parent, and saving of a race so hopeless little else than their +predetermined names--in fact, their title-pages. + +But is that indeed little? Speak, authors with piles of ready-written +copy, is not the theme (so often carried out beyond, or beside, or even +against its original purpose) less perplexing than the after-thought +thesis? Bear witness, readers, bit by a mysterious advertisement in the +'_Morning Post_,' are names, indeed, not matters of much weight? Press +forward, Sosii aforesaid, and answer me truly, is not a title-page the +better part of many books? Cheap promises of stale pleasure, false hopes +of dull interest, imprimaturs of deceived fancy, lying visions of the +future unfulfilled, title-pages still do good service to the cause +of--bookselling. + +And, to commence, let me elucidate mine own--I mean the first, the head +and front of this offending phalanx--mine own, _par excellence_, '_An +Authors Mind_:' such in sooth it shall be found, for richer or poorer, +for better or for worse; not of selfish, but of common application; not +so much individually of mine own, as generically of authors; a medley +of crudities; an undigested mass, as any in the maw of Polypheme; a +fermenting hotchpotch of half-formed things, illustrative, among other +matters, of the Lucretian theory, those close-cohering atoms; a farrago +of thoughts, and systems of thoughts, in most admired disorder, which +would symbolize the Copernican astronomy, with its necessary clash of +whirling orbs, about as well as the intangible chaos of Berkeleyan +metaphysics. + +So much then on the moment for the monosyllable "Mind;"--whereof +followeth, indeed, all the more hereafter; but--"An author's?"--what +author's? You would see my patent of such rank, my commission to wear +such honourable uniform. Pr'ythee be content with simple assurance that +it is so; consider the charm of unsatisfied curiosity, and pry not; let +me sit unseen, a spectator; for this once I would go _in domino_. +Heretofore, "credit me, fair Discretion, your Affability" hath achieved +glory, and might Solomonize on its vanity at least as well as poor +discomfited, discovered Sir Piercie Shafton: heretofore, I have stood +forth in good causes, with helm unbarred, and due proclamation of name, +style, and title, an avowed author; and might sermonize thus upon +success, that a little censure loseth more friends than much praise +winneth enemies. So now, with visor down, and a white shield, as a young +knight-candidate unknown, it pleases my leisure to take my pastime in +the tourney: and so long as in truthful prowess I bear me gallantly and +gently, who is he that hath a right to unlatch my helmet, or where is +the herald that may challenge my rank? Nevertheless, inquisitive, +consider the mysteries that lie in the Turkish-looking _sobriquet_ of +"Mufti;" its vowels and its consonants are full of strict intention I +never saw cause why the most charming of essayists hid himself in +"Elia," but he may for all that have had pregnant reasons; even so, (but +that slender wit could read my riddle,) you shall perhaps find fault +with my Mussulman agnomen; still you and I equally participate in this +shallow secret, and within so brief a word is concealed the key to +unlock the casket that tempts your curiosity: however, the less said of +so diaphanous a mystery, the better. + +And let me remark this of the mode anonymous; a mode, indeed, to +purposes of shame, and slander, and falsity of all kinds too often +prostituted for the present, bear with it; sometimes it is well to go +disguised, and the voice of one unseen lacks not eager listeners; we +address your judgment, unbiased by the prejudice or sanction of a name: +we put forth, lightly and negligently, those lesser matters which +opportunity hath not yet matured; we escape the nervous pains, the +literary perils of the hardier acknowledged. Only of this one thing be +sure; we--(no, I; why should unregal, unhierarchal I affect +pluralities?)--I hope to keep inviolate, as much when masked as when +avowed, the laws of truth, charity, sincerity, and honour; and, +although, among my many booklets, the grave and the gay will be found in +near approximation, I trust--will it offend any to tell them that I +pray?--to do no ill service at any time to the cause of that true +religion which resents not the neighbourhood of innocent cheerfulness. I +show you, friend, my honest mind. + +I by itself, I; odious mono-literal; thinnest, feeblest, most +insignificant of letters, I dread your egotistic influence as my bane; +they will not suffer you, nor bear with a book so speckled with your +presence. Still, world, hear me; mercifully spare a poor grammarian the +penance of perpetual third persons; let an individual tender conscience +escape censure for using the true singular in preference to that +imposing lie, the plural. Suffer a humble unit to speak of himself as I, +and, once for all, let me permissively disclaim intentional self-conceit +in the needful usage of isolated I-ship. + +These few preliminaries being settled, though I fear little to the +satisfaction of either party concerned, let us proceed--further to +preliminarize; for you will find, even to the end, as you may have found +out already from the beginning, that your white knight is mounted rather +on an ambling preambling palfrey, than on any determinate charger; +curveting and prancing, and rambling and scrambling at his own unmanaged +will: scorning the bit and bridle, too hot to bear the spur, careless of +listing laws, and wishing rather playfully to show his paces, than to +tilt against a foe. + +An author's mind, _qua_ author, is essentially a gossip; an oral, +ocular, imaginative, common-place book: a _pot pourri_ mixed from the +_hortus siccus_ of education, and the greener garden of internal thought +that springs in fresh verdure about the heart's own fountain; a compound +of many metals flowing from the mental crucible as one--perchance a base +alloy, perchance new, and precious, and beautiful as the fine brass of +Corinth; an accidental meeting in the same small chamber of many +spiritual essences that combine, as by magnetism into some strange and +novel substance; a mixture of appropriations, made lawfully a man's own +by labour spent upon the raw material; corn-clad Egypt rescued from a +burnt Africa by the richness of a swelling Nile--the black forest of +pines changed into a laughing vineyard by skill, enterprise, and +culture--the mechanism of Frankenstein's man of clay, energized at +length by the spark Promethean. + +And now, reader, do you begin to comprehend me, and my title? '_An +Author's Mind_' is first in the field, and, as with root and fruit, must +take precedence of its booklets; bear then, if you will, with this +desultory anatomization of itself yet a little longer, and then in good +time and moderate space you will come to the rudiments--bones, so to +speak--of its many members, the frame-work on which its nerves and +muscles hang, the names of its unborn children, the title-pages of its +own unprinted books. + +Philosophers and fools, separately or together, as the case may be--for +folly and philosophy not seldom form one Janus-head, and Minerva's bird +seems sometimes not ill-fitted with the face of Momus--these and their +thousand intermediates have tried in all ages to define that quaint +enigma, Man: and I wot not that any pundit of literature hath better +succeeded than the nameless, fameless man--or woman, was it?--or haply +some innocent shrewd child--who whilom did enunciate that MAN IS A +WRITING ANIMAL: true as arithmetic, clear as the sunbeam, rational +as Euclid, a discerning, just, exclusive definition. That he is "capable +of laughter," is well enough even for thy deathless fame, O Stagyrite! +but equally (so Buffon testifies) are apes and monkeys, horses and +hyenas; whether perforce of tickling or sympathy, or native notions of +the humorous, we will not stop to contend. That he actually is "an +animal whose best wisdom is laughter," hath but little reason in it, +Democrite, seeing there are such obvious anomalies among men as suicidal +jesters and cachinating idiots; nevertheless, my punster of Abdera, thy +whimsical fancy, surviving the wreck of dynasties, and too light to sink +in the billows of oblivion, is now become the popular thought, the +fashionable dress of heretofore moping wisdom: crow, an thou wilt, jolly +old chanticleer, but remember thee thou crowest on a dunghill; man is +not a mere merry-andrew. Neither is he exclusively "a weeping animal," +lugubrious Heraclite, no better definer than thy laughter-loving foe: +that man weeps, or ought to weep, the world within him and the world +without him indeed bear testimony: but is he the only mourner in this +valley of grief, this travailing creation? No, no; they walk lengthily +in black procession: yet is this present writing not the fit season for +enlarging upon sorrows; we must not now mourn and be desolate as a poor +bird grieving for its pilfered young--is Macduff's lamentable cry for +his lost little ones, "All--what, all?" more piteous?--we must now +indulge in despondent fears, like yonder hard-run stag, with terror in +his eye, and true tears coursing down his melancholy face: we must not +now mourn over cruelty and ingratitude, like that poor old worn-out +horse, crying--positively crying, and looking imploringly for merciful +rest into man's iron face; we must not scream like the wounded hare, nor +beat against our cage like the wild bird prisoned from its freedom. +Moreover, Heraclite, even in thine own day thou mightest well have heard +of the classic wailings of Philomel for Atys, or of consumptive Canens, +that shadow of a voice, for her metamorphosed Pie, and have known that +very crocodiles have tears: pass on, thy desolate definition hath not +served for man. + +With flippant tongue a mercantile cosmopolite, stable in statistics and +learned in the leger, here interposes an erudite suggestion: "Man is a +calculating animal." Surely, so he is, unless he be a spendthrift; but +he still shares his quality with others; for the squirrel hoards his +nuts, the aunt lays in her barley-corns, the moon knoweth her seasons, +and the sun his going down: moreover, Chinese slates, multiplying +rulers, and, as their aggregated wisdom, Babbage's machine, will stoutly +contest so mechanical a fancy. Savoury steams, and those too smelling +strongly of truth, assault the nostrils, as a Vitellite--what a name of +hungry omen for the imperial devourer!--plausibly insinuates man to be +"a cooking animal." Who can gainsay it? and wherewithal, but with +domesticated monkeys, does he share this happy attribute? It is true, +the butcher-bird spits his prey on a thorn, the slow epicurean boa +glazes his mashed antelope, the king of vultures quietly waits for a +gamey taste and the rapid roasting of the tropics: but all this care, +all this caloric, cannot be accounted culinary, and without a question, +the kitchen _is_ a sphere where the lord of creation reigns supreme: +still, thou best of practical philosophers, caterer for daily +dinners--man--MAN, I say, is not altogether a compact of edible +commons, a Falstaff pudding-bag robbed of his seasoning wit, a mere +congeries of food and pickles; moreover, honest Gingel of "fair" fame +hath (or used to have, "in my warm youth, when George the Third was +king,") automatons, [pray, observe, Sosii, I am not pedant or wiseacre +enough to indite _automata_; we conquering Britons stole that word among +many others from poor dead Greece, who couldn't want it; having made it +ours in the singular, why be bashful about the plural! So also of +memorandums, omnibuses, [you remember Farren's _omni_BI!] +necropolises, gymnasiums, eukeirogeneions, and other unlegacied +property of dear departed Rome and Greece. All this, as you see, +is clearly parenthetical;] well, then, Gingel has automatons, that will +serve you up all kinds of delicate viands, pleasant meats, and +choice cates by clock-work, to say nothing of Jones' patent +all-in-a-moment-any-thing-whatsoever cooking apparatus: no mine +Apiciite, Heliogabalite, Sardanapalite, Seftonite, Udite, thou of +extravagant ancestry and indifferent digestion; little, indeed, as you +may credit me, man is not all stomach, nor altogether formed alone for +feeding. Remember AEsop's parable, the belly and the members; and, above +them all, do not overlook the head. + +What think you then of "a featherless biped?" gravely suggests a rusty +Plinyite. Absolute sir, and most obsolete Roman, doubtless you never had +the luck to set eyes upon a turkey at Christmas; the poor bare _bipes +implumis_, a forked creature, waiting to be forked supererogatively; ay, +and _risibilis_ to boot, if ever all concomitants of the hearty old +festival were properly provocative of decent mirth. Thus then return we +to our muttons, and time enough, quotha: literary pundit, (whose is the +notable saying?) thy definition is bomb-proof, thy fancy unscaleable, +thy thought too deep for undermining; that notion is at the head of the +poll, a candidate approved of Truth's most open borough; for, in spite +of secretary-birds with pens stuck clerk-like behind their ears (as +useless an emblem of sinecure office as gold keys, silver, and +coronation armour)--in spite of whole flights of geese, capable enough +of saving capitols, but impotent to wield one of their own +all-conquering quills--in spite, also, (keen-eyed categorists, be to my +faults in ratiocination a little blind, for very cheerfulness,) in +spite, I say, of copying presses, manifold inditers, and automaton +artists, MAN IS A WRITING ANIMAL. + +Wearily enough, you will think, have we disposed of this one definition: +but recollect, and take me for a son of leisure, an amateur tourist of +Parnassus, an idling gatherer of way-side flowers in the vale of +Thessaly, a careless, unbusied, "contemplative man," recreating himself +by gentle craft on the banks of much-poached Helicon; and if you, my +casual friend, be neither like-minded in fancy nor like-fitted in +leisure, courteously consider that we may not travel well together: at +this station let us stop, freely forgiving each other for mutual +misliking; to your books, to your business, to your fowling, to your +feasting, to your mummery, to your nunnery--go: my track lays away from +the highroad, in and out between yonder hills, among thickets, mossy +rocks, green hollows, high fern, and the tangled hair of hiding +river-gods; I meet not pedlers and bagsmen, but stumble upon fawns just +dropped, and do not scare their doting mothers; I quench not my noonday +thirst with fiery drams from a brazen tap, but, lying over the cold +brook, drink to its musical Naiades; I walk no dusty roads of a +working-day world, but flit upon the pleasant places of one made up of +holidays. + +A truce to this truancy, and method be my maxim: let us for a moment +link our reasonings, and solder one stray rivet; man being a writing +animal, there still remains the question, what is writing? Ah, there's +the rub: a very comfortable definition would it be, if every pen-holder +and pen-wiper could truly claim that kingship of the universe--that +imagery of his Maker--that mystical, marvellous, immortal, intellectual, +abstraction, manhood: but, what then is WRITING? Ye tons of +invoices, groaning shelves of incalculable legers, parchment abhorrences +of rare Charles Lamb, we think not now of you; dreary piles of +unhealthy-looking law-books, hypochondriacal heaps of medical +experiences, plodding folios of industrious polemics, slow elaborations +of learned dullness, we spare your native dust; letters unnumbered, in +all stages of cacography, both physical and metaphysical, alack! most of +you must slip through the meshes of our definition yet unwove; poor +deciduous leaves of the forest, that, at your best, serve only--it is +yet a good purpose--to dress the common soil of human kindness, without +attaining to the praise of wreaths and chaplets ever hanging in the +Muses' temple; flowers withered on the stalk, whose blooming beauty no +lover's hand has dropped upon the sacred waters of Siloa, like the +Hindoo's garland on her Ganges; prolix, vain, ephemeral letters +(especially enveloped penny-posters)--and sparing only some few redolent +of truth, wisdom, and affection--your bulky majority of flippant trash, +staid advices, dunnings, hoaxings, lyings, and slanderings, degrade you +to a lower rank than that we take on us to designate as "writing." + +And what, O what--"how poor is he that hath not patience!"--shall we +predicate of the average viscera of circulating libraries?--abominable +viscera!--isn't that the word, my young Hippocrates?--A parley--a +parley! and the terms of truce are these: If this present pastime of +mine (for pastime it is, so spurn not at its logic,) be mercifully +looked on by you, lady novelists and male dittoes--yet truly there are +giants in your ranks, as Scott, and Ward, and Hugo, and Le Sage, +towering above ten thousand pigmies--if I be spared your censures +well-deserved, interchangeably as toward your authorships will I +exercise the charitable wisdom of silence: a white flag or a white +feather is my best alternative in soothing or avoiding so terrible a +host; and verily, to speak kinder of those whose wit, and genius, and +graphic powers have so smoothed this old world's wrinkled face of care, +many brilliant, many clever, many well-intended caterers to public +amusement, throng your ill-ordered ranks: still, there are numbered to +your shame as followers of the fool's-cap standard, the huge corrupting +mass of depraved moralists, meagre trash-inditers, treacherous +scandal-mongers, men about town who immortalize their shame, and the +dull, pernicious school of feather-brained Romancists: and take this +sentence for a true one, a _verum-dictum_. But enough, there are others, +and those not few, even far less veniable; ye priers into family +secrets--fawning, false guests at the great man's open house, eagerly +jotting down with paricidal pen the unguarded conversation of the +hospitable board--shame on your treason, on its wages, and its fame! ye +countless gatherers and disposers of other men's stuff; chiels amang us +takin' notes, an' faith, to prent 'em too, perpetually, without +mitigation or remorse; ye men of paste and scissors, who so often +falsely, feebly, faithlessly, and tastelessly are patching into a +Harlequin whole the _disjecta membra_ of some great hacked-up +reputation; can such as ye are tell me what it is to write? Writing is +the concreted fruit of thinking, the original expression of new +combinations of idea, the fresh chemical product of educational +compounds long simmering in the mind, the possession of a sixth sense, +distinguishing intelligence, and proclaiming it to the four winds; +writing is not labour, but ease; not care, but happiness; not the petty +pilferings of poverty, but the large overflowings of mental affluence; +it begs not on the highway, but gives great largess, like a king; it +preys not on a neighbour's wealth, but enriches him; it may light, +indeed, a lamp, at another's candle, but pays him back with brilliancy; +it may borrow fire from the common stock, but uses it for genial warmth +and noble hospitality. + +Remember well, good critic, (for verily bad there be,) my purposes in +this odd volume--this queer, unsophisticate, uncultivated book: to empty +my mind, to clear my brain of cobwebs, to lift off my head a porters's +load of fancy articles; and as in a bottle of bad champaign, the first +glass, leaping out hurryskurry, at a railroad pace boiling a gallop, +carries off with it bits of cork and morsels of rosin, even such is the +first ebullition of my thoughts: take them for what they are worth, and +blame no one but your discontented self that they are no better. Do you +suppose, keen sir, that I am not quite self-conscious of their +shallowness, utter contempt of subordination and selection, their empty +reasoning and pellucid vanity?--There I have saved you the labour of a +sentence, and present you with a killing verdict for myself. After a +little, perhaps, your patience may find me otherwise; of clearer flow, +but flatter flavour: these desultorinesses must first of all be +immolated, for in their Ariel state they vex me, but I bind them down +like slaving Calibans, by the magic of a pen; and glad shall I be to +victimize my monsters, eager to dissipate my musquito-like tormentors; +yea, I would "take up arms against a sea"--["Arms against a sea?" +dearest Shakspeare, would that Theobald, or Johnson's stock-butt, "the +Oxford Editor," had indeed interpolated that unconscionable image! It +has been sapiently remarked by some hornet of criticism, that +"Shakspeare was a clever man;" but cleverer far must that champion +stand forth who wars with any prospect of success upon seas; perhaps +Xerxes might have thought of it--or your Astley's brigand, who +rushes sword in hand on an ocean of green baize. Who shall cure me of +parentheses?]--well, "a sea of troubles, [thoughts trouble us more than +things--I sin again; close it;] and by opposing, end them;" that is, by +setting forth these troublous thoughts opposite, in stately black and +white, I clip their wings, and make them peck among my poultry, and not +swarm about my heaven. But soon must I be more continuous; turn over to +my future title-pages, and spare your objurgation; a little more of this +medley while the fit lasts, and afterward a staid course of better +accustomed messes; a few further variations on this lawless theme of +authorship, and then to try simpler tunes; briefly, and yet to be +grandiloquent, as a last round of this giddy climax, after noisy +clashing Chaos there shall roll out, "perfect, smooth, and round," green +young worldlets, moving in quiet harmony, and moulded with systematic +skill. + +As an author, meanwhile, let man be most specifically characterized: a +real author, voluntary in his motives, but involuntary as regards his +acts authorial; full of matter, prolific of images and arguments, +teeming, bursting, with something, much, too much, to say, and well +witting how to say it: none of your poor devils compulsory from +poverty--Plutus help them!--whose penury of pocket is (pardon me) too +often equitably balanced by their emptiness of head; and far less one of +the lady's-maid school, who will glory in describing a dish of cutlets +at Calais, or an ill-trimmed bonnet, or the contents of an old maid's +reticule, or of a young gentleman's portmanteau, or those rare occasions +for sentimentality, moonlight, twilight, arbours, and cascades, in the +moderate space of an hour by Shrewsbury clock: but a man who has it +weightily upon his mind to explain himself and others, to insist, +refute, enjoin: a man--frown not, fair helpmates; the controversial pen, +as the controversial sword, be ours; we will leave your flower-beds and +sweeter human nurseries, despotism over cooks and Penelobean penance +upon carpet-work; nay, a trip to Margate prettily described, easy +lessons and gentle hymns in behalf of those dear prattlers, and for the +more coerulean sort, "lyrics to the Lost one," or stanzas on a sickly +geranium, miserably perishing in the mephitic atmosphere of routs--these +we masculine tyrants, we Dionysii of literature, ill-naturedly have +accounted your prerogatives of authorship. But who then are Sevigne and +Somerville, Edgeworth and De Stael, Barbauld and Benger, and Aikin, and +Jameson, Hemans, Landon, and a thousand more, not less learned, less +accomplished, nor less useful? Forgive, great names, my half-repeated +slander: riding with the self-conceited _cortege_ of male critics, my +boasted loyalty was well-nigh guilty of _leze majeste_: but I repudiate +the thought; my verdict shall have no reproach in it, as my championship +no fear: how much has man to learn from woman! teach us still to look on +humanity in love, on nature in thankfulness, on death without fear, on +heaven without presumption; fairest, forgive those foolish and ungallant +calumnies of my ruder sex, who boast themselves your teachers--making +yet this wise use of the slander: never be so bold in authorship, as to +hazard the loss of your sweet, retiring, modest, amiable, natural +dependence: never stand out as champions on the arena of strife, but if +you will, strew it with posies for the king of the tournament; it ill +becomes you to be wrestlers, though a Lycurgus allowed it, and Atalanta, +another Eve, was tripped up by an apple in the foot-race. So digressing, +return we to our author; to wit, a man, _homo_--a human, as they say in +the west--with news of actual value to communicate, and powers of pen +competent to do so graphically, honestly, kindly, boldly. + +Much as we may emulate Homer's wordy braggadocios in boasting ourselves +far better than our fathers, still, great was the wisdom of our +ancestors: and that time-tried wisdom has given us three things that +make a man; he must build a house, have a child, write a book: and of +this triad of needfuls, who perceives not the superior and innate +majesty of the last requisite?--"Build a house?" I humbly conceive, and +steal my notion from the same ancestral source, that, in nine cases out +of ten, fools build houses for wise men to live in; besides, if houses +be made a test of supreme manhood, your modern wholesale runner-up of +lath and plaster tenements, warranted to stand seven years--provided +quadrilles be excluded, and no larger flock of guests _than six_ be +permitted to settle on one spot--such a jackal for surgeons, such a +reprobate provider for accident-wards as this, would be among our +heroes, a prize-man, the flower of the species. "Children" too?--very +happy, beautiful, heart-gladdening creations--God bless them all, and +scatter those who love them not!--but still for a proof of more than +average humanity, somewhat common, somewhat overwhelming: rabbits beat +us here, with all our fecundity, so offensive to Martineau and Malthus. +But as to "books"--common enough, too, smirks gentle reader: pardon, +courteous sir, most rare--at least in my sense; I speak not of flat +current shillings, but the bold medallions of ancient Syracuse; I heed +not the dull thousands of minted gold and silver, but the choice +coin-sculptures of Larissa and Tarentum. There do indeed flow hourly, +from an ever-welling press, rivers of words; there are indeed shoaling +us up on all sides a throng of well-bound volumes--novels, histories, +poems, plays, memoirs, and so forth--to all appearance, books: but if by +"books" be intended originality of matter, independent arguments, water +turned wine, by the miracle of right-thinking, and not a mere +re-decantering of dregs from other vessels--these many masqueraded +forms, these multiplied images of little-varied likenesses, these +Protean herds, will not stay to be counted, nor abide judgment, nor +brook scrutiny, but will merge and melt by thousands into the one, or +the two, real, original, sterling books. We live in a monopolylogue of +authorship: an idea goes forth to the world's market-place well dressed +from the wardrobe of some master-mind; it greets the public with a +captivating air, and straightway becomes the rage; it seems epidemical; +it comes out simultaneously as a piece of political economy, a +cookery-book, a tragedy, a farce, a novel, a religious experience, an +abstract _ism_, or a concrete _ology_; till the poor worn-out, +dissipated shadow of a thought looks so feeble, thin, fashionably +affected and fashionably infected, that its honest, bluff old father, +for very shame, disowns it. Thus has it come to pass, that one or two +minds, in this golden age of scribbling, have, to speak radically, been +the true originators of a million volumes, which haply shall have sprung +from the seed of some singular book, or of books counted in the dual. + +Indignant authors, be not merciless on my candour: I confess too much +whereof I hold you guilty; I am one of yourselves, and I question not +that few of you can beat me in a certain sort of--I will say, +unintended, plagiarism; you are thieves--patience--I thieve from +thieves; Diogenes cannot see me any more than you; you copy phrases, I +am perpetually and unconsciously filching thoughts; my entomological +netted-scissors, wherewith I catch those small fowl on the wing, are +always within reach; you will never find me without well-tenanted +pill-boxes in my pocket, and perhaps a buzzing captive or two stuck in +spinning thraldom on my castor; you are petty larceners, I profess the +like _metier_ of intellectual abstractor; you pilfer among a crowd of +volumes, manuscripts, rare editions, conflicting commentators, and your +success depends upon reusage of the old materials; whereas I sit alone +and bookless in my dining-parlour, thinking over bygone fancies, +reconsidering exploded notions, appropriating all I find of lumber in +the warehouse of my memory, and, if need be, without scruple, quietly +digesting, as my special provender, the thoughts of others, originated +ages ago. + +Is it necessary to remind you--dropping this lightsome vein for a +precious moment--that I am penning away my "crudites," off-hand, at the +top of my speed? that my set intention is, if possible, to jot down +instanter my heavy brainful, and feel for once light headed?--I stick to +my title, '_An Author's Mind_,' and that with a laudable scorn of +concealment, and an honest purpose not to pretend it better or wiser +than it is; then let no one blame me on the score of my fashion of +speech, or my sarcasms mingled with charity; for consistency with me +were inconsistent. + +Neither let me, poor innocent, be accused of giving license to what a +palled public and dyspeptical reviewers will call for the thousandth +time a _cacoethes_; word of cabalistic look, unknown to Dr. Dilworth. +Truly, my masters, though disciple I be of venerable Martinus the +Scribbler; though, for aught I know, himself in progress of +transmigration; still, I submit, my cornucopia is not crammed with +leaves and chopped straw; and if, in utter carelessness, the fruit is +poured out pell-mell after this desultory fashion, yet, I wot, it _is_ +fruit, though whether ripe or crude, or rotten, my husbandry takes +little thought: the mixture serves for my cider-press, and, fermentation +over, the product will be clarified. Judge me too, am I not consecutive? +I've shown man to be a writing animal; and writing, what it is and is +not; and meanwhile have been routing recreatively at pen's point whims, +and fancies, and ideas, and images, pulled in manfully by head and +shoulders: and now--after an episode, quite relevant and quite +Herodotean, concerning the consequences of a bit of successful +authorship on a man's scheme of life, to illustrate yet more the +"author's mind"--I shall proceed to tell all men how many books I might, +could, should, or would have written, but for reiterated and legitimated +_buts_, and how near of kin I must esteem myself to the illustrious J. +of nursery rhymes, being, as he is or was, "Mister Joe Jenkins, who +played on the fiddle, and began twenty tunes, but left off in the +middle." Moreover, no one can be ignorant of the close consanguinity +recognised in every age and every dictionary between I and J. But now +for the episode: + +If ever a toy were symbolical of life, that toy was a kaleidoscope: the +showy bits of tinsel, coloured glass, silk, beads, and feathers, with +here and there perchance a stray piece of iridescent ore or a pin, each, +in its turn of ideal multiplication, filling successively the field of +vision; the trifling touch that will disenchant the fairest patterns; +the slightest change, as in chemical arithmetic, that will make the +whole mixture a poison or a cordial. A man is vexed, the nerve of his +equanimity thrillingly touched at the tender elbow, and forthwith his +whole wholesome body writhes in pain; while, to speak morally, those +useful reminders of life's frailty, the habitual side-thorns--spurs of +diligence, incentives to better things--are exaggerated into sixfold +spears, and terribly stop the way, like long-lanced Achaeans: a careless +fit succeeds to one of spleen, and vanity well spangled, pretty baubles, +stars and trinkets and trifles, fill their cycle, to magnetize with +folly that rolling world the brain: another twist, and love is lord +paramount, a paltry bit of glass, casually rose-coloured, shedding its +warm blush over all the reflective powers: suddenly an overcast, for +that marplot, Disappointment, has obtruded a most vexatiously reiterated +morsel of lamp-black: again Hope's little bit of blue paint makes azure +rainbows all about the firmament of man's own inner world; and at last +an atom of gold-dust specks all the glasses with its lurid yellow, and +haply leaves the old miser to his master-passion. So, ever changing day +by day, every man's life is but a kaleidoscope. Stay; this simile is +somewhat of the longest, but the whim is upon me, and I must have my +way; the fit possesses me to try a sonnet, and I shall look far for a +fairer thesis; he that hates verse--and the Muses now-a-days are too +old-maidish to look many lovers--may skip it, and no harm done; but one +or two may like this stave on + + +LIFE. + + + I saw a child with a kaleidoscope, + Turning at will the tesselated field; + And straight my mental eye became unseal'd, + I learnt of life, and read its horoscope: + Behold, how fitfully the patterns change! + The scene is azure now with hues of Hope; + Now sobered gray by Disappointment strange; + With Love's own roses blushing, warm and bright; + Black with Hate's heat, or white with Envy's cold; + Made glorious by Religion's purple light; + Or sicklied o'er with yellow lust of Gold; + So, good or evil coming, peace or strife, + Zeal when in youth, and Avarice when old, + In changeful, chanceful phases passeth life. + +It is well I was not stopped before my lawful fourteenth rhyme by yonder +prosaic gentleman, humbly listening in front, who asks, with somewhat of +malicious triumph, whereto does all this lead?--Categorically, sir, +[there is no argument in the world equal to a word of six syllables,] +categorically, sir, to this: of all life's turns and twists, few things +produce more change to the daring _debutant_ than successful authorship; +it is as if, applying our simile, a fragment of printed bookishness +among those kaleidoscopic morsels, having worked its way into the field +of vision, had there got stereotyped by a photogenic process: in fact, +it fixes on it a predestinated "author's mind." + +An author's mind! what a subject for the lights and shadows of +metaphysical portraiture! what a panorama of images! what a whirling +scene of ever-changing incidents! what a store-house for thoughts! what +a land of marvels! what untrodden heights, what unexplored depths of an +ever-undiscovered country! That strange world hath a structure and a +furniture all its own; its chalcedonic rocks are painted with rare +creatures floating in their liquid-seeming hardness; forms of other +spheres lie buried in its lias cliffs; seeds of unknown plants, relics +of unlimned reptiles, fragments of an old creation, the ruins of a +fanciful cosmogony, lie hid until the day of their requiral beneath its +fertile soil: and then its lawless botany; flowers of glorious hue hung +upon the trees of its forests; luscious fruits flung liberally among the +mosses of its banks; air-plants sailing in its atmosphere; unanchored +water-lilies dancing in its bright cascades; and this, too, a world, an +inner secret world, peopled with unthought images, specimens of a +peculiar creation; outlandish forms are started from its thickets, the +dragon and the cherub are numbered with its winged inhabitants, and +herds of uncouth shape pasture on its meadows. Who can sound its seas, +deep calling unto deep? who can stand upon the hill-tops, height +beckoning unto height? who can track its labyrinths? who can map its +caverns? A limitless essence, an unfailing spring, an evergreen +fruit-tree, a riddle unsolved, a quaint museum, a hot-bed of inventions, +an over-mantling tankard, a whimsical motley, a bursting volcano, a +full, independent, generous--a poor, fettered, jealous, Anomaly, +such--bear witness--is an author's mind. O, theme of many topics! chaos +of ill-sorted fancies! Let us come now to the jealousies, the real or +imaginary wrongs of authorship: hereafter treat we this at lengthier; +"for the time present"--I quote the facetious Lord Coke, when writing on +that highly exhilerating topic, the common-law--"hereof let this little +taste suffice." Is it not a wrong to be taken for a mere book-merchant, +a mercenary purveyor of learning and invention, of religion and +philosophy, of instruction, or even of amusements, for the sole +consideration of value received, as one would use a stalking-horse for +getting near a stag? this, too, when ten to one some cormorant on the +tree of knowledge, some staid-looking publisher in decent mourning, is +complacently pocketing the profits, and modestly charging you with loss? +and this, moreover and more poignantly, when the flame of responsibility +on some high subject is blazing at your heart, and the young Elihu, even +if he would, cannot keep silence? Is it not a wrong to find pearls +unprized, because many a modern, like his Celtic progenitors, (for I +must not say like swine,) would sooner crush an acorn? to know your +estimation among men ebbs and flows according to the accident of +success, rather than the quality of merit? to be despised as an animal +who must necessarily be living on his wits in some purlieu, answering to +that antiquated reproach, a Grub-street attic; or suspected among +gentler company in this most mercantile age for a pickpocket, a pauper, +a _chevalier d'industrie_? And then those hounds upon the bleeding +flanks of many a hunted author, those open-mouthed inexorable critics, +(I allude to the Pariah class, not to the higher caste brethren,) how +suddenly they rend one, and fear not! Only for others do I speak, and in +no degree on account of having felt their fangs, as many have done, my +betters; gentle and kind, as domesticated spaniels, have reviewers in +general been to your humble confessor, and for such courtesies is he +their debtor. But who can be ignorant how frequently some hapless writer +is impaled alive on the stake of ridicule, that a flagging magazine may +be served up with _sauce piquante_, and pander to the world for its +waning popularity by the malice of a pungent article? who, while as a +rule he may honour the bench of critics for patience, talent, and +impartiality, is not conusant of those exceptions, not seldom of +occurence, where obvious rancour has caused the unkindly condemnation; +where personal inveteracy aims from behind the Ajax shield of anonymous +reviewing, and shoots, like a cowardly Teucer, the foe fair-exposed +whom he dares not fight with?--But, as will be seen hereafter, I +trespass on a title-page, and here will add no more than this: Is it not +a wrong of double edge, that while the world makes no excuse for the +writhing writer, on the reasonable ground that after all he may be +innocent of what his critics blame him for, the same good-natured world, +on almost every occasion of magazine applause, believes either that the +author has written for himself the favourable notice, or that pecuniary +bribes have made the honest editor his tool? Verily, my public, thou art +not generous here; ay, and thou art grievously deceived, as well as +sordid: for by careless praise, causeless censure, credit given for +corrupt bribery, and no allowance made for unamiable criticisms, poor +maltreated authors speak to many wrongs: and of them more anon. + +What moreover shall we say of chilling friendships, near estrangements, +heartless lovers loitering behind, shy acquaintance dropping off? +Verily, there is a mighty sifting: you have dared to stand alone, have +expounded your mind in imperishable print, have manifested wit enough to +outface folly, sufficient moral courage to condemn vice, and more than +is needful of good wisdom to shame the oracles of worldliness: and so +some dread you, some hate, and many shun: the little selfish asterisks +in that small sky fly from your constellatory glories: you are +independent, a satellite of none: you have dared to think, write, print, +in all ways contrary to many; and if wise men and good be loud in their +applause, you arrive at the dignity of manifold hatreds; but if those +and their inferiors condemn, you sink into the bathos of multiplied +contempts. Of other wrongs somewhen and where, hereafter; meanwhile, a +better prospect glows on the kaleidoscopic field--a flattering accession +of new and ardent friends: "Sir," said an old priest to a young author, +"you have made a soft pillow for your head when it comes to be as white +as mine is;" a pretty saying of sweet charity, and such sink deep: as +for the younger and the warmer, being mostly of the softer sex, some +will profess admiring sensations that border not a little on idolatries; +others, gayer, will appear in the dress of careless, unskillful +admiration; not a few, both men and women, go indeed weakly along with +the current stream of popularity, but, to say truth, look happiest when +they find some stinging notice that may mortify the new bold candidate +for glory; while, last and best, a fewer, a very much fewer, do +handsomely the liberal part of friends, commending where they can, +objecting where they must, sincere in sorrow for a fault, rejoicing +without envy for a virtue. + +Many like phenomena has authorship: a certain class of otherwise +humanized and well-intentioned people begin to regard your scribe as a +monster--not a so-called "lion" to be sought, but some strange creature +to be dreaded: Perdition! what if he should be cogitating a novel or a +play, and means to make free with our characters? what if that libellous +coepartnership of Saunders and Ottley is permitted to display our faults +and foibles, flimsily disguised, before a mocking world? Disappointed +maidens that hover on the verge of forty, and can sympathize with +Jephtha's daughter in her lonely mournings, causelessly begin to fear +that a mischievous author may appropriate their portraits; venerable +bachelors, who have striven to earn some little local notoriety by the +diligent use of an odd phrase, a quaint garment, or an eccentric fling +in the peripatetic, dread a satirist's powers of retributive burlesque; +table orators suddenly grow dumb, for they suspect such a caitiff +intends cold-blooded plagiarisms from their eloquence; the twinkling +stars of humble village spheres shun him for an ominous comet, whose +very trail robs them of light, or as paling glow-worms hide away before +some prying lantern; and all who have in one way or another prided +themselves on some harmless peculiarity, avoid his penetrating glance as +the eye of a basilisk. Then, again, those casual encounters of witlings +in the world authorial, so anticipated by a hostess, so +looked-forward-to by guests! In most cases, how forlorn they be! how +dull; constrained, suspicious! like rival traders, with pockets +instinctively buttoned up, and glaring each upon the other with most +uncommunicative aspects; not brothers at a banquet, but combatants and +wrestlers, watching for solecisms in the other's talk, or toiling to +drag in some laboured witticism of their own, after the classical +precedent of Hercules and Cerberus: those feasts of reason, how vapid! +those flows of soul, how icily congealing! those Attic nights, how dim +and dismal! Once more; and, remember me, I speak in a personated +character of the general, and not experimentally; so, flinging self +aside, let me speak what I have seen: grant that the world-without crown +a man with bays, and lead him to his Theban home with tokens of +rejoicing; is the victor there set on high, chapleted, and honoured as +Nemean heroes should be or does he not rather droop instantly again into +the obscure unit among a level mass, only the less welcome for having +stood up, a Saul or a Musaeus, with his head above his fellows? Verily, +no man is a proph--Enough, enough! for ours is a prerogative, a glorious +calling, and the crown of barren leaves is costlier than his of Rabbah; +enough, enough! sing we the praises, count we well the pleasures of +fervent, overflowing authorship. There, in perfect shape before the +eyes--there, well born in beauty--there perpetually (so your fondness +hopes) to live--slumbers in her best white robe the mind's own fairest +daughter; the Minerva has sprung in panoply from that parental aching +head, and stands in her immortal independence; an Eve, his own heart's +fruit, welcomes delighted Adam. You have made something, some good work, +bodily; your communion has commenced with those of times to come; your +mind has produced a witness to its individuality; there is a tablet +sacred to its memory standing among men for ever. + +A thinker is seldom great in conversation, and the glib talkers who have +silenced such a one frequently in clamorous argument, founder in his +deep thoughts, blundering, like Stephanos and Trinculos--(let Caliban be +swamped;) such generous revenge is sweet: a writer often unexplained, +because speaking little, and that little foolishly mayhap, and lightly +for the holiday's sake of an unthoughful rest, finds his opportunities +in printing, and gives the self-expounding that he needs; such +heart-emptyings yield heart-ease: an author, who has done his good work +well--for such a one alone we speak--while, privately, he scarce could +have refreshed mankind by petty driblets--in the perpetuity, publicity, +and universal acceptation of his high and honourable calling, does good +by wholesale, irrigates countries, and gladdens largely the large heart +of human society. And are not these unbounded pleasures, spreading over +life, and comforting the struggles of a death-bed? Yes: rising as +Ezekiel's river from ankle to knee, from knee to girdle, from girdle to +the overflowing flood--far beyond those lowest joys, which many wise +have trampled under foot, of praise, and triumph, and profit--the +authorship of good, that has made men better; that has consoled sorrow, +advanced knowledge, humbled arrogance, and blest humanity; that has sent +the guilty to his prayers, and has gladdened the Christian in his +praises--the authorship of good, that has shown God in his loveliness, +and man in his dependence; that has aided the cause of charity, and +shamed the face of sin--this high beneficence, this boundless +good-doing, hath indeed a rich recompense, a glorious reward! + +But we must speed on, and sear these hydra-necks, or we shall have as +many heads to our discourse, and as puzzling, as any treatise of the +Puritan divinity. Let us hasten to be practical; let us not so long +forget the promised title-pages; let it at length satisfy to show, more +than theoretically, how authorship stirs up the mind to daily-teeming +projects, and then casts out its half-made progeny; how scraps of paper +come to be covered with the cabala of half-written thoughts, +thenceforward doomed to suffer the dispersion-fate of Sibylline leaves; +how stores of mingled information gravitate into something of order, +each seed herding with its fellows; and how every atom of mixed metal, +educationally held in solution by the mind, is sought out by a keen +precipitating test, gregariously building up in time its own true +crystal. + +Hereabouts, therefore, and hereafter, in as frank a fashion as +heretofore, artlessly, too, and, but for crowding fancies, briefly shall +follow a full and free confession of the embryo circulating library now +in the book-case of my brain; only premising, for the last of all last +times, that while I know it to be morally impossible that all should be +pleased herewith, I feel it to be intellectually improbable that any one +mind should equally be satisfied with each of the many parts of a +performance so various, inconsistent, and unusual; premising, also, that +wherein I may have stumbled upon other people's titles, it is +unwittingly and unwillingly; for the age breeds books so quickly, that a +man must read harder than I do to peruse their very names; and premising +this much farther, that I profess to be a sort of dog in the manger, +neither using up my materials myself, nor letting any one else do so; +and that, whether I shall happen or not, at any time future to amplify +and perfect any of these matters, I still proclaim to all bookmakers and +booksellers, STEAL NOT; for so surely as I catch any one thus +behaving--and truly, my masters, the temptation is but small--I will +stick a "_Sic vos, non vobis,_" on his brazen forehead. + +Wait! there remaineth yet a moment in which to say out the remnant of my +mind, "an author's mind," its last parting speech, its dying utterances +before extreme unction. I owe all the world apologies; I would pray a +catholic forgiveness. Authors and reviewers, critics, and the +undiscriminating many, fair women, honest men, I cry your pardons +universally! I do confess the learning of my mind to lie, strangely and +Pisa-like, inveterately as at Welsh Caerphilli, out of the perpendicular +of truth; it is my disposition to make the most of all things, for good +or for evil; I write, speak, and think, as if I were but an unhallowed +special pleader; I colour highly, and my outlines are too strong; I am +guilty on all sides of unintentional misstatements, consequent on the +powerful gusts of feeling that burst upon my irritable breast; my heart +is no smooth Dead Sea, but the still vexed Bermoothes: therefore I would +print my penitence; I would publish my confessions; I would not hide my +humbleness; and it pleases me to pour out in sonnet-form my +unconventional + + +APOLOGY TO ALL. + + + --For I have sinn'd; oh! grievously and often; + Exaggerated ill, and good denied; + Blacken'd the shadows only born to soften; + And Truth's own light unkindly misapplied: + Alas! for charities unloved, uncherish'd, + When some stern judgment, haply erring wide, + Hath sent my fancy forth, to dream and tell + Other men's deeds all evil! Oh, my heart! + Renew once more thy generous youth, half perish'd; + Be wiser, kindlier, better than thou art! + And first, in fitting meekness, offer well + All earnest, candid prayers, to be forgiven + For worldly, harsh, unjust, unlovable + Thoughts and suspicions against man and Heaven! + +Friends all, let this be my best amendment: bear with the candour, +homely though it may be, of your author's mind; and suffer its further +revelations of unborn manuscript with charitable listening; for they +would come forth in real order of time, the first having priority, and +not the best, ungarnished, unweeded, uncared-for, humbly, and without +any further flourish of trumpets. + + * * * * * + +Serjeant Ion--I beg his pardon, Talfourd--somewhere gives it as his +opinion, that most people, in any way troubled with a mind, have at some +time or other meditated a tragedy. Truly, too, it _is_ a fine vehicle +for poetical solemnities, a stout-built vessel for an author's graver +thoughts; and the bare possibility of seeing one's own heart-stirring +creation visually set before a crowded theatre, the preclusive echoes +of anticipated thundering applause, the expected grilling silence +attendant on a pet scene or sentiment, all the tangible, accessories of +painting and music, clever acting and effective situation, and beyond +and beside these the certain glories of the property-wardrobe, make most +young minds press forward to the little-likely prize of successful +tragedy. That at one weak period I was bitten, my honesty would scorn to +deny; but fortunately for my peace of mind, "Melpomene looked upon me +with an aspect of little favour," and sturdy truth-telling Tacitus made +me at last but lightly regardful of my subject. Moreover, my Pegasus was +visited with a very abrupt pull-up from other causes; it has been my +fatality more than once or twice, as you will ere long see, to drop upon +other people's topics--for who can find any thing new under the +sun?--and I had already been mentally delivered of divers fag-ends of +speeches, stinging dialogues, and choice tit-bits of scenes, (all of +which I will mercifully spare you,) when a chance peep into Johnson's +'_Lives of the Poets_' showed me mine own fine subject as the work of +some long-forgotten bard! This moral earthquake demolished in a moment +my goodly aerial fabric; the fair plot burst like a meteor; and an +after-recollection of a certain French tragedy-queen, Agrippina, showed +me that the ground was still further preoccupied. But it is high time to +tell the destined name of my abortive play; in four letters, then, + + + + +NERO; + +A CLASSICAL TRAGEDY: + +IN SEVEN SCENES. + + +And now, in pity to an afflicted parent, hear for a while his +offspring's Roscian capabilities. First of all, however, (and you know +how I rejoice in all things preliminary,) let me clear my road by +explanations: we must pioneer away a titular objection, "in seven +scenes," and an assumed merit, in the term "classical." I abhor +scene-shifters; at least, their province lies more among pantomimes, +farces, and comedies, than in the region of the solemn tragic muse; her +incidents should rather partake of the sculpture-like dignity of +_tableaux_. My unfashionable taste approves not of a serious story being +cut up into a vast number of separate and shuffled sections; and the +whistle and sliding panels detract still more from the completeness of +illusion: I incline as much as is possible to the Classic unities of +time, place, and circumstances, wishing, moreover, every act to be a +scene, and every scene an act; with a comfortable green curtain, that +cool resting-place for the haggard eye, to be the grass-like drop, +mildly alternating with splendid crime and miserable innocence: away +with those gaudy intermediates, and, still worse, some intruded ballet; +bring back Garrick's baize, and crush the dynasty of head-aches. + +But onward: let me further extenuate the term, seven scenes; the +utterance seven "acts" would sound horrific, full of extremities of +weariness; but my meaning actually is none other than seven acts of one +scene each: for the number seven, there always have been decent reasons, +and ours may best appear as we proceed, less than a brief seven seeming +insufficient, and more, superfluous; again, so mystical a number has a +staid propriety, and a due double climax of rise and fall. Now, as to +our adjective "classical:" Why not, in heroic drama, have something +a-kin to the old Greek chorus, with its running comment upon motives and +moralities, somewhat as the mighty-master has set forth in his truly +patriotic '_Henry the Fifth?_'--However, taking other grounds, the +epithet is justified, both by the subject and the proposed unmodern +method of its treatment: but of all this enough, for, on second +thoughts, perhaps we may do without the chorus. + +It is obvious that no historical play can strictly preserve the true +unity of time; cause and effect move slower in the actual machinery of +life, than the space of some three hours can allow for: we must +unavoidably clump them closer; and so long as a circumstance might as +well have happened at one time as at another, I consider that the poet +is justified in crowding prior events as near as he may please towards +the goal of their catastrophe. If then any slight inaccuracy as to dates +arrests your critical ken, believe that it is not ignorantly careless, +but learnedly needful. One other objection, and I have done. No man is +an utter inexcusable, irremediable villain; there is a spot of light, +however hidden, somewhere; and, notwithstanding the historian's picture, +it may charitably be doubted whether we have made due allowance for his +most reasonable prejudice even in Nero's case. Human nature has produced +many monsters; but, amongst a thousand crimes, there has proverbially +lingered in each some one seedling of a virtue; and when we consider the +corruption of manners in old Rome, the idolatrous flatteries hemming in +the prince, the universal lie that hid all things from his better +perceptions, we can fancy some slight extenuation for his mad career. +Not that it ever was my aim, in modern fashion, to excuse villany, or to +gild the brass brow of vice; and verily, I have not spared my odious +hero; nevertheless, in selecting so unamiable a subject, (or rather +emperor,) I wished not to conceal that even in the worst of men there is +a soil for hope and charity; and that if despotism has high +prerogatives, its wealth and state are desperate temptations, whose +dangers mightily predominate, and whose necessary influences, if quite +unbiased, tend to utter misery. + +Now to introduce our _dramatis personae_, with their "cast,"--for better +effect--rather unreasonably presumed. _Nero_--(Macready, who would +impersonate him grandly, and who, moreover, whether complimented or not +by the likeness, wears a head the very counterpart of Nero's, as every +Numismatist will vouch,)--a naturally noble spirit, warped by sensuality +and pride into a very tyrant; liberal in gifts, yet selfish in passion; +not incapable of a higher sort of love, yet liable to sudden changes, +and at times tempestuously cruel. _Nattalis_--(say Vandenhoff,)--his +favourite and evil genius, originally a Persian slave, and still wearing +the Eastern costume: a sort of Iago, spiriting up the willing Nero to +all varieties of wickedness, getting him deified, and otherwise +mystifying the poor besotted prince with all kinds of pleasure and +glory, to subserve certain selfish ends of rapine, power, and +licentiousness, and to avenge, perhaps, the misfortunes of his own +country on the chief of her destroyers. _Marcus Manlius_--(who better +than Charles Kean?--supposing these artistic combinations not to be +quite impossible,)--a fine young soldier, of course loving the heroine, +captain of Nero's body-guard, chivalrous, honourable, noble, and +faithful to his bad master amid conflicting trials. _Publius +Dentatus_--(any _bould_ speaker; besides, it would be rather too much to +engage all the actors yet awhile;)--a worthy old Roman, father of the +heroine. _Galba_, the chief mover in the catastrophe, as also the opener +of its causes, an intriguing and fierce, but well-intentioned patriot, +who ultimately becomes the next emperor. With _Curtius_ a tribune, +senators, conspirators, soldiers, priests, flamens, &c. And so, after +the ungallant fashion of theatrical play-wrights, as to a class inferior +to the very &c. of masculines--(of less intention withal than one of +those &cs. of crabbed Littleton, like an old shoe fricasseed into +savourings of all things by its inimitable Coke,)--come we to the +women-kind. _Agrippina_, (one of the school of Siddons,) empress-mother, +a strong-minded, Lady-Macbeth sort of woman, and the only person in the +world who can awe her amiable son. _Lucia,_ (_you_ cannot be spared +here, clever Helen Faucit)--the heroine, secretly a Christian affianced +to Manlius; a character of martyr's daring and woman's love. _Rufa_, a +haggard old sibyl, with both private and public reasons for detesting +Nero and Nattalis: and all the fitting female attendants to conclude the +list. + +Each scene, in which each act will be included, should be pictorially, +so to speak, a _tableau_ in the commencement, and a _tableau_ of +situation in the end. Let us draw up upon scene _the first_. +Back-ground, Rome burning; in front, ruins of fine Tuscan villa, still +smoking; and a terminal altar in the garden. Plebs. running to and fro, +full of conventional little speeches, with goods, parents, penates, and +other lumber, rescued from the flames; till a tribune, (hight Curtius,) +in a somewhat incendiary oration concerning poor men's calamities, and +against the powers that be, sends them to the capital with a procession +of flamines Diales and vestals, dirging solemnly a Roman hymn [some "_Ad +Capitolium, Ad Jovis solium_," and so forth] to good music. At the +end of the train come in Publius and Lucia, to whom from opposite +hurriedly walks Galba, full of talk of omens, direful doings, patriotism, +and old Rome's ruin. To these let there be added--to speak +mathematically--open-hearted Manlius; and let there follow certain +disceptatious converse about Nero, Manlius excusing him, extenuating his +vices by his temptations, giving military anecdotes of his earlier +virtues, and in fact striving to make the most of him, a very gentle +monster: Galba throwing in, sarcastically, blacker shadows. After +disputation, the father and lovers walk off, leaving Galba alone for a +moment's soliloquy; and, from behind the terminal altar, unseen Sibyl +hails him Caesar; he, astonished at the airy voice so coincident with his +own feelings, thinks it ideal, chides his babbling thoughts, and so +forth: then enter to him suddenly chance-met noble citizens, burnt out +of house and home, who declaim furiously against Nero. Sibyl, still +unseen from behind the altar, again hails Galba as future Caesar; who, no +longer doubting his ears, and all present taking the omen, they conspire +at the altar with drawn swords, and as the Sibyl suddenly +presides--_tableau_--and down drops the soft green baize. This first +act, you perceive, is stirring, introductory of many characters; and the +picture of the seven-hilled city, seen in a transparent blaze, might +give the followers of Stanfield a triumph. + +_Second_: The senate scene, producing another monstrous crime of Nero's, +also inaccurately dated. In the full august assembly, Nero discovered +enthroned, not unmajestic in deportment, yet effeminately chapleted, and +holding a lyre: suppose him just returned from Elis, a pancratist, the +world's acknowledged champion. Nattalis, ever foremost in flatteries, +after praising the prince's exploits in Greece, avows that, like Paris +in Troy, and Alexander at Persepolis, Nero _had_ gloriously fired Rome; +he found it wood, and wished to leave it marble; (so, the catafalque at +the Invalides of the twice-buried Corsican;) in destroying, as well as +blessing, he had asserted his divinity; any after due allusions to +Phoenixes, and fire-kingships, and _coups-de-soliel_ falling from the +same Apollo so great upon the guitar, Nattalis moves that Nero should be +worshipped, and calls on the priest of Jupiter to set a good example. +None dare refuse, and the senate bend before him; whereupon enter, in +clerical procession, augurs, and diviners, men at arms with pole-axes, +and coronaled white bulls, paraded before sacrifice: all this pandering +to present love of splendour and picturesque effect. In the midst of +these classical preparations, enters, with a bevy of attendants, the +haughty queen-like Agrippina, whom Nero, having sent for to complete his +triumph, commands to bend too; but she stoutly refusing, and taking him +fiercely to task, objurgating likewise Rome's degenerate +gray-beards--great bustle--senate broken up hurriedly--and she, with a +"_feri ventrem_," dragged off to be killed by her son's order. Nero +alone with Nattalis by imperial command; his momentary compunction +nullified by the wily Iago, who turns off the subject smoothly to a new +object of desire: Publius was the only senator not in his place, and +Publius has a daughter, the fairest in Rome, Lucia--had not the emperor +noticed her among Agrippina's women? Nero, charmed with any scheme of +novelty that may change remorseful thoughts, is induced, nothing loth, +to attempt the subtle abduction of the heroine; a body-guard, headed as +always by Manlius, ready in the vestibule to escort him, and exit. +Nattalis, alone for a minute, betrays his own selfish schemes concerning +Lucia, who had refused him before, and alludes to his secret reasons for +urging on the maddened Nero to the worst excesses. + +_Third scene_ (or part, or _act_, if it must be so), expounds, in +fitting contrast to the foregoing, the tender loves of Lucia and +Manlius; a gentle home-scene, a villa and its terraced gardens: also, as +Lucia is a Christian, we have, poetically, and not puritanically, an +insight into her scruples of conscience as to the heathenism of her +lover: and also into _his_ consistent nobility of character, not willing +to surrender the religion of his fathers unconvinced. To them rushes in +Publius, who has been warned by friend Galba of the near approach of +Nattalis and a guard, to seize Lucia for disreputable Nero: no possible +escape, and all urge Lucia to imitate Virginia, Lucretia, and others of +like Dian fame, by cowardly self-murder; she is high-principled, and +won't: then they--the father and lover--request leave to kill her; +conflicting passions and considerable stage effect; Lucia, who with calm +courage derides the dastard sacrifice, standing unharmed between those +loving thirsty swords: in a grand speech, she makes her quiet departure +a test of Manlius' love, and her ultimate deliverance to be a proof to +him that her God is the true God, the God who guards the innocent. +Manlius, struck with her martyr-like constancy, professes that if indeed +she is saved out of this great trouble, he will embrace her faith, +renounce his own, and so break down the of wealth and rank, are alike +thrown away upon Publius; at last, the prince promises; and when +Publius, after a burst of earnest eloquence, proclaims the new pleasure +to consist in _showing mercy_, Nero's utter wrath, his hurricane of +hate, revoking that hasty promise, and hurrying away old Publius to die +at the same stake with his daughter. + +_Seventh_: the catastrophe scene lies in the Coliseum amphitheatre; (I +mean the older one, anterior to Vespasian's:) bloody games pictured +behind, and those "human torches" at fiery intervals. Nero, enthroned in +side front, surrounded by a brilliant court, amongst whom are some of +the conspirators: at other side Publius and Lucia, tied at one stake in +white robes, back to back, to die before Nero's eyes, Manlius and +soldiers guarding them: he, Manlius, having nobly resolved to test +miraculous assistance to the last, but now tremblingly believing the +chance of a Providence interfering, since Lucia's escape from Nero at +the golden house. Just as the emperor, after a sarcastic speech, +characteristically interlarded with courtier conversation, is commanding +the fagot to be lighted, and Lucia's constant faith has bade Manlius _do +it_--a rush of Nattalis with attendant conspirators and Rufa the Sibyl, +up to Nero; Nattalis strikes him, but the sword breaks short off on the +hidden armour; Nero's majestic rising for a moment, asserting himself +Caesar still, the inviolable majesty;--suddenly stopped by a centripetal +rush of the conspirators; who kill him, (after he has vainly attempted +in despair to kill himself,) and Galba sits on the throne, while Nero, +unpitied and unhelped, gasps out in the middle his dying speech. +Meanwhile, at the other side, Manlius has killed Nattalis for his +treachery, cut the bonds of Publius and Lucia, and all ends in moral +justice for the triumph of good, and the defeat of evil; Manlius and +Lucia, hand in hand, Publius with white head and upraised hands blessing +them, Nero, a mangled corpse, Nattalis in his dying agonies persecuted +by the vindictive Rufa, and Galba hailed as Caesar by the assembled +Romans. So, upon a magnificent _tableau_, slowly falls the lawny +curtain. + +Patient reader, what think you of my long-winded tragedy? No quibbling +about Nero having really died in a drain, four years after the murder of +Aggrippina; no learned disquisitions, if you please, as to his innocence +of Rome's fire, a counterpart to our slander on the Papacy in the matter +of London's; spare me, I pray you, learned pundit, your suspicions about +Galba's too probable _alibi_ in Spain. Tell me rather this: do I falsify +history in any thing more important than mere accidental anachronisms +and anatopisms? do I make an untrue delineation of character, blackening +the good, or white-washing the wicked? Do I not, by introducing Nero's +three greatest crimes so near upon his assassination, merely accelerate +the interval between causes and effect? And is not tragic dignity +justified in varnishing, with other compost than the dregs of Rome, the +exit of the last true Caesar of the Augustan family? For all the rest, +good manager, provide me actors, and I am even now uncertain--such is my +weakness--whether this skeleton might not at some time be clad with +flesh and skin, and a decent Roman toga. I fear it will yet haunt me as +a '_Midsummer Night's Dream_,' destroying my quiet with involuntary +shreds and patches of long-metred blank; the notion is still vivacious, +albeit scotched: Alexandrine though the synopsis appear, it must not be +thrown on the highroad as a dead snake; nay, let me cherish it yet on my +hearth, and not hurl it away like a _bonum waviatum_; a little more +boiling up of Roman messes in my brain, and my tragedy might flow forth +spontaneously as lava. What if this book be, after all, a sort of +pilot-balloon, to show my huge Nassau the way the wind blows--a feeler +as to which and which may please? Whether or not this be so, I will +still confess on, emptying my brain of booklets, and, if by happy +possibility I can keep my secret, shall hear unsuspected, friend, _your_ +verdict. + + * * * * * + +I must rather hope, than expect, that my next bit of possible authorship +is not like the last, a subject forestalled. Scribbling as I find myself +for very listlessness in a dull country-house, there's not a publisher's +index within thirty miles; so, for lack of evidence to the contrary, I +may legitimately, for at least a brief period of self-delusion, imagine +the intoxicating field my own. And yet so fertile, important, +interesting a subject, cannot have been quite overlooked by the corps of +professed literary labourer's: the very title-page would insure five +thousand readers (especially with a Brunswicker death's-head and +marrow-bones added underneath). + + + + +OPIUM; + +A HISTORY; + + +standing alone in single blackiness: Opium, a magnificent theme, +warranted to fill a huge octavo: and certain, from sheer variety of +information, to lead into the captivity of admiring criticism minds of +every calibre. Its natural history, with due details of all manner of +poppies, their indigenous habitats, botanical characters, ratios of +increase, and the like; its human history, discovery as a drug; how, +when, where, and by whom cultivated; dissertations as to the possibility +of Chaldean, Pharaonic, Grecian, or Roman opium eating, with most +erudite extracts out of all sorts of scribes, from Sanchoniathon down to +Juvenal, on these topics; its medicinal uses, properties, accidents, and +abuses; as to whether it might not be used homoeopathically or in +infinitesimal doses, to infuse a love of the pleasures of imagination +into clodpoles, lawyers' clerks, and country cousins; its intellectual +possibilities of usefulness, stimulating the brain; its moral ditto, +allaying irritability; together with a dreadful detail of its evils in +excess, idiotizing, immoralizing, ruining soul and body. Plenty of stout +unquestionable statistics, from all crannies of the globe, to +corroborate all the above to the extreme satisfaction of practical men, +with causes and consequences of its insane local popularity. All this, +moreover, at present, with especial reference to China and the East; +added to the moral bearings of the Opium-war, and our national +responsibilities relative to that unlucky traffic. The metaphysical +question stated and answered, whether or not prohibition of any thing +does not lead to its desire; showing the increasing appetency of those +sottish Serics for the forbidden vice, and illustrating Gay's fable of +the foolish young cock, who ne'er had been in that condition, but for +his mother's prohibition: moreover, how is it, that so captivating a +form of intoxication is so little rife among our drunken journeymen? +queries, however, as to this; and whether or not the humbug of +teetotalism (a modern speculation, got up by and for the benefit of +grocers and sugar-planters on the one side, schismatics and conspiring +demagogues on the other,) has already substituted opium-eating, +drinking, or smoking, for the wholesomer toddies, among factory folk and +the finest pisantry. Millions of anecdotes regarding Eastern Rajahs, +Western Locofocos, Southern Moors, and North-country Muscovites, as to +the drug in its abuses: strange cures (if any) of strange ailments of +mind or body by its prudent use: how to wean men and nations from those +deleterious chewings and smokings; with true and particular accounts of +such splendid self-conquests as Coleridge and De Quincey, and--shall I +add another, a living name?--have attained to. Then, again, what a field +for poetical vagaries, and madnesses of imagination, would be afforded +by the subject of opium-dreams! Now, strictly speaking, in order to +hallucinate honestly, your opium-writer ought to have had some +practical knowledge of opium-eating: then could he descant with the +authority of experience--yea, though he write himself thereby down an +ass--on its effects upon mind and body; then could he tell of luxuries +and torments in true Frenchified detail; then could he expound its pains +and pleasures with all the eloquence of personal conviction. But, as to +such real risk of poisoning myself, and of making I wot not how actual a +mooncalf, of my present sound mind and body, I herein would reasonably +demur: and, if I wanted dreams, would tax my fancy, and not my +apothecary's bill. Dreams? I need not whiff opium, nor toss off laudanum +negus, to imagine myself--a young Titan, sucking fiery milk from the +paps of a volcano; a despot so limitless and magnificent, as to spurn +such a petty realm as the Solar System, with Cassiopeia, Booetes, and his +dog, to boot; an intellect, so ravished, that it feels all flame, or a +mass of matter so inert, that it lies for ages in the silent depths of +ocean, a lump of primeval metal: Madness, with the red-hot iron hissing +in his brain: Murder, with the blood-hound ghost, over land, over sea, +through crowds, deserts, woods, and happy fields, ever tracking silently +in horrid calmness; the oppression of indefinite Guilt, with that Holy +Eye still watching; the consciousness of instant danger, the sense of +excruciating pain, the intolerable tyranny of vague wild fear, without +will or power to escape: spurring for very life on a horse of marble: +flying upward to meet the quick-falling skies--O, that universal +crash!--greeted in a new-entered world with the execrations of the +assembled dead--that hollow, far-echoing, malicious laughter--that +hurricane-sound of clattering skulls; to be pent up, stifling like a +toad, in a limestone rock for centuries; to be haunted, hunted, hooted; +to eat off one's own head with its cruel madly crunching under-jaw; +to--but enough of horrors: and as to delights, all that Delacroix +suggests of perfume, and Mahomet of Houris, and Gunter of cookery, and +the German opera of music: all Camilla-like running unexertive, all that +sea unicorns can effect in swift swimming, or storm-caught condors in +things aerial; all the rapid travellings of Puck from star to star, +system to system, all things beauteous, exhilarating, ecstatic--ages of +all these things, warranted to last. Now, multiply all these several +alls by forty-nine, and the product will serve for as exaggerated a +statement as possible of opium pandering to pleasure; yes, by +forty-nine, by seven times seven at the least, that we be not accused of +extenuating so fatal an excitement; for it is competent to conceive +one's self expanded into any unlimited number of bodies, seven sevens +being the algebraic _n_, and if so, into their huge undefined +aggregate; a giant's pains are throes indeed, a giant's pleasures indeed +flood over. But, we may do harm to morality and truth, by falsely making +much of a faint, fleeting, paltry, excitation. The brain waltzing +intoxicated, the heart panting as in youth's earliest affection, the +mind broad, and deep, and calm, a Pacific in the sunshine, the body +lapped in downy rest, with every nerve ministering to its comfort; what +more can one, merely and professedly of this world of sensualism--an +opium-eater for instance--conceive of bliss? Such imaginative flights as +these, with its pungent final interrogatory, suggestive to man's +selfishness of joys as yet untried, might tempt to tamper with the dear +delight; whereas the plain statement of the most that opium could +minister to happiness, as contrasted with those false vain views of it, +remind me of Tennyson's poetical '_Timbuctoo_,' gorgeous as a new +Jerusalem in Apocalyptic glories, and the mean filth-obstructed kraals +dotted on an arid plain, to which, for very truthfulness, his soaring +fancy drops plumbdown, as the shot eagle in '_Der Freischutz_.' + +Let this then serve as a meagre sketch of my defunct treatise on opium: +think not that I love the subject, curious and fertile though it be; +perhaps, philosophically regarded, it is not a better one than _gin_; +but ears polite endure not the plebeian monosyllable, unless indeed with +a reduplicated _n_, as Mr. Lane _will_ have it our whilom genie should +be spelt: accordingly, I magnanimously give up the whole idea, and am +liberal enough, in this my dying determination, to sign a codicil, +bequeathing opium to my executors. + + * * * * * + + +Novelism is a field so filled with copy-holders, so populously tenanted +in common, that it requires no light investigation to find a site +unoccupied, and a hero or heroine waiting to be hired. Nevertheless, I +seem to myself to have lighted on a rich and little-cultivated corner; +imagining that the subject is a good one, because still untouched, +founded on facts, and with amplifiable variations that border on the +probable. He that lionizes Stratford-on-Avon, will remember in one of +the Shakspearian museums of that classic town, the pictured trance of +hapless + + + + +CHARLOTTE CLOPTON, + + +as it was limned in death-seeming life. He will be shown the tombs of +her ancient family in Stratford church, and the door of that fatal +vault; he will hear something of her noble birth--her fine +character--her fascinating beauty--her short, innocent, eventful +life--her horrible death. Consider, too, the age and locality in which +she lived, Elizabethan, Shakspeare's; the great contemporary characters +that might be casually introduced; the mysterious suicide, in that dim +dreadful pool at the end of the terraced walk among the cropped yews, of +her poor only sister, Margaret; equalled only in the miserable interest +by that of Charlotte herself. And then for a plot: some darkly hinted +parricide of years agone, in the generation but one preceding, has dropt +its curse upon the now guiltless, but, by the law of Providence, +still-not-acquitted family; a parricide consequent on passionate love, +differing religions, and the Montague-and-Capulet-school of hating +feudal fathers--Theodore Clopton having been a Catholic, Alice Beauvoir +a Protestant; an introductory recountal of old Beauvoir's withering +curse on the Clopton family for Theodore's abduction of his daughter, +followed by the tragic event of the father and son, Cloptons', mutual +hatred, and the former found in his own park with the broken point of +his son's sword in him, the latter flying the realm: the curse has slept +for a generation; and now two fair daughters are all that remain to the +high-bred Sir Clement and his desponding lady, on whom the Beauvoir +descendant, a bitterest enemy, takes care to remind them the hovering +curse must burst. This Rowland Beauvoir is the villain of the story, +whose sole aim it is, after the fulfilment of his own libertine wishes, +to see the curse accomplished: and Charlotte's love for a certain young +Saville, whom Beauvoir hates as his handsome rival in court patronage, +as well as her pointed refusal of himself, gives new and present life to +his ancestral grudge. The lovers are espoused, and to make Sir Clement's +joy the greater, Saville has interest sufficient to meet the old +knight's humour of keeping up the ancient family name, by getting it +added to his own; so that the Beauvoir hatred and parricidal curse seem +likely to be frustrated. But--the first hindrance to their union is poor +sister Margaret's secret and infatuated love for that scheming villain +Rowland, her then too probable seduction, melancholic madness, and +suicide: successively upon this follow the last illnesses and deaths of +the heart-broken old people, whom Rowland's dreadful ubiquity terrifies +in their very chamber of disease; and as the too likely consequence of +such accumulated sorrows on a creature of exquisite sensibility, +Charlotte, the only remaining heiress of that ancient lineage, +gradually, and with all the semblance of death, falls into her terrible +trance. Rowland, who, through his intimacy with Margaret, knows all the +secret passages and sliding panels of the old mansion, and who thereby +gets mysterious admission whenever he pleases, comes into that silent +chamber, and finds Saville mourning over his dead-seeming bride: she, +all the while, though unable to move, in an agony of self-consciousness; +and at last, when Rowland in fiendish triumph pronounces the curse +complete, to the extreme horror of both, by an effort of tortured mind +over apparently inanimate matter, rolls her glazed eyes, and gives an +involuntary groan: having thus to all appearance confirmed the curse, +she lies more marble-white, more corpse-like, more entranced than ever. +Then, after long lingering, draws on the horrible catastrophe: a +catastrophe, alas! as far at least as regards the heroine, _quite true_. +Fully aware of all that is going on--the preparations for burial, the +misery of her lover, the gratified malice of her foe--she is placed in +the coffin: the rites proceed, her heart-stricken espoused takes his +last long leave, she is carried to the grave, locked in the family vault +under Stratford church, and there left alone, fearfully buried alive! +And then, after a day or two, how shrieks and groans are heard in the +church-yard by truant school-boys, and are placed to the account of the +curse: how, at last, her despairing lover demands to have the vault +opened; and the wretch Rowland--partly from curiosity, partly from +malice--determined to be there to see. As they and some church-followers +come near the door of the vault, they hear knockings, and desperate +plunges within; Saville swoons away, the crowd falls back in terror, and +the hardened Rowland alone dares unlock the door. Instantly, in her +shroud, mad, starved, with the flesh gnawed from her own fair shoulders, +rushes out the maniac Charlotte: in phrensied half-reason she has seized +Rowland by the throat, with the strength of insanity has strangled him, +and then falls dead upon the steps of the vault! Of Saville--who, as +having swooned, is spared all this scene of horror, and who leaves the +country for ever--little or nothing is more said: and Clopton Hall +remains a ruin, tenanted by ghosts and bats. + +P.S. If thought fit, after the fashion of Parisian charcoal-burners in +ill-ventilated bed-rooms, Charlotte may have recorded her experiences in +the vault, by writing with a rusty nail on the coffin-plates. + +Now, the gist of this Victor-Hugo tale of terror is its general truth: a +true end of a truly-named family, in its own neighbourhood, and long +since extinct: the house, now rebuilt and restyled--the vault--the +picture of that poor unfortunate, (how unsearchable in real life often +are the ways of Providence! how frequently the innocent suffer for the +guilty!)--the gloomy well--and something extant of the story--remains +still, and are known to some at Stratford. To do the thing graphically, +one should go there, and gain materials on the spot: and nothing could +be easier than to mix with them fifteenth-and-sixteenth-century +costumes, modes of thought, and historical allusions; accessories of the +humorous, if the age demands it, might relieve the pathetic; Charlotte's +own innocence and piety might be made to soften her hard fate, with the +assurance of a better life; Saville might become a wisely-resigned +recluse; and while the sins of the fathers are not gently, though +justly, visited on the children, the villain of the story meets his full +reward. + +Behold, then, hungry novel-monger, what grist is here for the mill! +Behold, Sosii, what capabilities of orders from every library in the +kingdom!--As doomed ones, and denounced ones, and undying ones, and +unseen ones, seem to be such taking titles, what think you of the +_Buried-alive-one_!--is it not new, thrilling, terrible? Who is he that +would pander to the popular taste for details of dreadful, cruel, +criminal, and useless abominations? "Should such a one as I?" In +emptying my head of the notion, I have ministered too much already: but +the sample of henbane is poured out, an offering to the infernal manes, +and poisons no longer the current of my thoughts. Thy ghost, poor +beautiful Charlotte! shall not be disturbed by me; thy misfortunes sleep +with thee. Nevertheless, this tale about a more amiable Charlotte than +Werter's, so naturally also falling into the orthodox three-volume +measure, is capable of being fabricated into something of deep, +romantic, tragical interest; such a character, in such circumstances, in +such an age, and such a place: I commend it to those of the Anglo-Gallic +school, who love the domestically horrible, and delight in unsunned +sorrows: but, I throw not any one topic away as a waif, for the casual +passer-by to pick up on the highway. Shadows, indeed, are flung upon the +waters, but Phulax still holds the substance with tenacious teeth. + +Stop awhile, my dog and shadow, and generously drop the world a morsel; +be not quite so bold when no one thinks of robbing you, and spare your +gasconade: the expediency of a sample has been cleverly suggested, and +WE _ego et canis meus_, royal in munificence, do graciously +accede. Will this serve the purpose, my ever-pensive public? At any +rate, with some aid of intellect in readers, it is happily an extract +which explains itself--the death of poor infatuated Margaret: we will +suppose preliminaries, and hazard the abrupt. + + * * * * * + +"That bitter speech shot home; it had sped like an arrow to her brain: +it had flown to her heart like the breath of pestilence: for Rowland to +be rough, uncourteous, unkind, might cause indeed many a pang; but such +conduct had long become a habit, and woman's charitable soul excused +moroseness in him, whom she loved more than life itself, more than +honour. But now, when the dread laugh of a seemingly more righteous +world was daily, hourly, to be feared against her--when the cold finger +of scorn was preparing to be pointed at her fading beauty, and her +altered form--now, when indulgence is most due, and cruelty has a sting +more scorpion than ever--to be taunted with that once-kind tongue with +having rightfully inherited _a curse_--to be told, in a sort of fiendish +triumph, that some ancient family grudge, forsooth, against her father's +fame, certainly as much as the selfish motives of a libertine professed, +had warped the will of Rowland to her ruin--to know, to hear, yea, from +his own lips, that the oft-repented crime of her warm and credulous +youth--of her too free, unsuspicious affection--had calmly been +contrived by the heart she clung to for her first, her only love--here +was misery, here was madness! + +"Rowland, at the approach of footsteps, had hastily slunk away behind +the accustomed panel, and alone in the chamber was left poor Margaret: +his last sneering speech, the mockery of his sarcastic pity, were still +haunting her ear with echoes full of wretchedness; and she had uttered +one faint cry, and sunk swooning on a couch, when her sister entered. + +"Charlotte, gentle Charlotte, had nothing of the hardness of a heroine; +her mind, as her most fair body, was delicate, nervous, spiritualized; +but the instinct of imperious duty ever gave her strength in the day of +trial. Long with an elder sister's eye had she watched and feared for +Margaret; she had palliated natural levity by evident warmth of +disposition, and excused follies of the judgment by kindness of the +heart. Charlotte was no child; in any other case, she had been keener of +perception; but in that of a young, generous, and most loving sister, +suspicion had been felt as a wickedness, and had long been lulled +asleep: now, however, it awaked in all its terrors; and, as Margaret lay +fainting, the sorrowful condition of one soon to be a mother who never +was a wife, was only too apparent. She touched her, sprinkled water on +her pale face, and, as the fixed eyes opened suddenly, Charlotte started +at their strange wild glare: they glittered with a freezing brilliancy, +and stared around with the vacuity of an image. Could Margaret be mad? +She bit her tender lips with sullen rage, and a gnashing desperation; +her cheek was cold, white, and clammy as the cheek of a corpse; her +hair, still woven with the strings of pearl she often wore, hung down +loose and dishevelled, except that on her flushing brow the crisp curls +stood on end, as a nest of snakes. And now a sudden thought seemed to +strike the brain; her eyes were set in a steady horror; slowly, with +dread determination, as if inspired by some fearful being, other than +herself, uprose Margaret; and, while her frightened sister, shuddering, +fell back, she glided, still gazing on vacancy, to the door: so, like a +ghost through the dark corridor, down those old familiar stairs, and +away through the Armory-hall; Charlotte now more calmly following, for +her father's library, where his use was to study late, opened out of it, +and surely the conscience-stricken Margaret was going in her penitence +to him. But, see! she has silently passed by; her hand is on the lock of +the hall-door; with one last look of despairing recklessness behind her, +as taking an eternal leave of that awe-struck sister, the door turns +upon its hinge, and she, still with slow solemnity, goes out. Whither, +oh God!--whither? The night is black as pitch, rainy, tempestuous; the +old knight's guests at Clopton Hall have gladly and right wisely +preferred even such questionable accommodation as the blue chamber, the +dreary white apartment looking on the moat--nay, the haunted room of the +parricide himself--to encountering the dangers and darkness of a +night-return so desperate; but Margaret, in her gayest evening attire, +near upon so foul a midnight in November, stalks like a spectre down the +splashy steps. Charlotte follows, calls, runs to her--but cannot rescue +from some settled purpose, horribly suggested, that gentle fearful +creature, now so changed. Suddenly in the dark she has lost her. Which +way did the maniac turn?--whither in that desolate gloom shall Charlotte +fly to find her? Guided by the taper still twinkling in her father's +study, she rushes back in terror to the hall; and then--Help, +help!--torches, torches! The household is roused, dull lanterns glance +among the shrubberies; pine-lights, ill-shielded from wind and rain by +cap or cloak, are seen dotting the park in every direction, and dance +about through the darkness, like sportive wild-fires: Sir Clement in +moody calmness looks prepared for any thing the worst, like a man who +anticipates evil long-deserved; the broken-hearted mother is on her +knees at the cold door-steps, striving to pierce the gloom with her +eyes, and ejaculating distracted prayers: and so the live-long +night--that night of doubt, and dread, and dreariness--through bitter +hours of confusion and dismay, they sought poor Margaret--and found her +not! + +"But, with morning's light came the awful certainty. At the end of a +terraced walk, mournfully shaded by high-cropped yews, stood an arbour, +and behind it, half-hidden among rank weeds, was an old half-forgotten +fountain; there, on many a sultry summer night, had Rowland met with +Margaret, and there had she resolved in terrible remorse to perish. With +the seeming fore-thought of reason, and the resolution of a phrensied +fortitude, she had bound a quantity of matted weeds about her face, and +twisted her hands in her fettering garments, that the shallow pool might +not in cruel kindness fail to drown her; she lay scarcely half immersed +in those waters of death; a few lazy tench floating sluggishly about, +appeared to be curiously inspecting their ghastly, uninvited guest; and +the fragments of an enamelled miniature, with some torn letters in the +hand-writing of Rowland Beauvoir, were found scattered on the +overflowing margin of the pool." + + * * * * * + +Well, unkindly whelp, if your bone has no pickings better than this, not +a cur shall envy you the sorry banquet. Yet, had my genius been better +educated in the science of French cookery, this might have been served +up with higher seasoning as a savoury _ragout_: but you get it in +simplicity, scarce grilled; and in sooth, good world, it is easier to +sneer at a novel than to imagine one; and far more self-complacency may +be gained by manfully affecting to despise the novelist, than by adding +to his honours in the compliment of humble imitation. + + * * * * * + +Things supernatural have every where and every when exercised mortal +curiosity. Fear and credulity support the arms of superstition, fierce +as city griffins, rampant as the lion and the unicorn; and forasmuch as +no creature, Nelson not excepted, can truly boast of having never known +fear, and no man also--from polite Voltaire, shrewd Hume, Leviathan +Hobbes, and erudite Gibbon, down to the most stultified +Van-Diemanite--can honestly swear himself free from the influence of +some sort of faith, for thus much the marvellous and the terrible meet +with universal popularity. Now, one or two curious matters connected +with those "more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of +in your philosophy," which have even occurred to mine own self, +(whereof, to gratify you, shall be a little more anon), have heretofore +induced me to touch upon sundry interesting points, which, like pikemen +round their chief, throng about the topic of + + + + +THE MARVELLOUS. + + +A book, so simply titled, with haply underneath a gigantic note of +admiration between two humble queries ?!? would positively, my worthy +publisher, make your worship's fortune. For it should concern ghosts, +dreams, omens, coincidences, good-and-bad luck, warnings, and true +vaticinations: no childish collection, however, of unsupported trumpery, +but authenticated cases staidly evidenced, and circumstantially +detailed; no Mother Goose-cap's tales, no Dick the Ploughman's dreams, +no stories from the '_Terrific Register_,' nor fancies of hysterical +females in Adult asylums; even Merlin witch-finders, and Taliesins +should be excluded: and, in lieu of all such common-places, I should +propose an anecdotic treatise in the manner scientifical. Macnish's +'_Philosophy of Sleep_,' Scott's '_Demonology_,' treatises on +Apparitions, and many a rare black-letter alchemical pamphlet, might +lend us here their aid; the British Museum is full of well-attested +ghost-stories, and there are very few old ladies unable to add to the +supply: then, this ghost department might be climaxed by the author's +own experience; forasmuch as he is ready to avouch that a person's fetch +was heard by many, and seen by some, in an old country-house, a hundred +miles away from the place of death, at the instant of its happening. + +As to omens, aforesaid witness deposes that the sceptre, ball, and cross +were struck by lightning out of King John's hand, in the Schools +quadrangle at Oxford, immediately on the accession of William the +Reformer; and all the world is cognusant that York Minster, the Royal +Exchange, and the Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire near about +the commencement of open hostility, among ruling powers, to our church, +commerce, and constitution; and I myself can tell a tale of no less than +eight remarkable warnings happening one day to a poor friend, who died +on the next, which none could be expected to believe unless I delivered +it on oath as having been an eye-witness to the facts. Dreams +also--strange, vague, mysterious word; there is a gloomy look in it, a +dreary intonation that makes the very flesh creep: the records of public +justice will show many a murder revealed by them, as instance the Red +Barn; more than one poor client, in the clutch of a "respectable" +attorney, has been helped to his rights by their influence; from +Agamemnon and Pilate, down to Napoleon, the oppressors of mankind have +in those had kindly warning. Dreams--how many millions false and +foolish, for the one proving to be true!--but that one, how clear, +determinate, and lasting, as ministered by far other agency than +imagination taking its sport while reason slumbers! Who has not tales to +tell of dreams? A warning not to go on board such and such a ship--which +founders; a strange unlikely scene fixed upon the mind, concerning +friends and circumstances miles away, exactly in the manner and at the +time of its occurrence; the fore-shown coming of an unexpected guest; +the pourtrayed visage of a secret enemy: these, and others like these, +many can attest, and I not least. And of other marvels, though here left +unconsidered, yet might much be said: truths so strange, that the pages +of romance would not trench on such extravagance; combinations so +unlikely, that thrice twelve cast successively by proper dice, were but +probability to those. Thus, in authorial fashion, has the marvellous +dwelt upon my mind; and thus would I suggest a hand-book thereof to +catering booksellers and the insatiable public. + + * * * * * + +Against bears in a stage-coach, pointers in a drawing-room, lap dogs in +a _vis-a-vis_, and monkeys in a lady's boudoir, my love of comfort and +propriety enters strong protest; an emancipated parrot attracts my +sympathy far less than bright-eyed children feeding their testy pet, for +I dread the cannibal temptation of those soft fair fingers, when brought +into collision with Polly's hook and eye; gigantic Newfoundlanders +dragging their perpetual chains, larks and linnets trilling the faint +song of liberty behind their prison bars, cold green snakes stewing in a +school-boy's pocket, and dormice nestling in a lady's glove, summon my +antipathies; a cargo of five hundred pigs, with whom I had once the +honour of sailing from Cork to London, were far from pleasant as +_compagnons de voyage_; neither can I sleep with kittens in the room. +Nevertheless, no one can profess truer compassion, truer friendship (if +you will) for the animal creation: often have I walked on in weariness, +rather than increase the strain upon the Rosinantes of an omnibus; and +my greatest school scrape was occasioned by thrashing the favoured scion +of a noble house for cruelty to a cat. Such and such-like--for we learn +from AEsop (Fable eighty-eight, to wit) that trumpeters deserve to be +unpopular--is my physical zeal in the cause of poor dumb brutes: nor is +my regard for them the less in matters metaphysical. Bishop Butler, we +may all of us remember, in 'THE _Analogy_' argues that the +objector against a man's immortality must show good cause why that +which exists, should ever cease to exist; and, until that good cause be +shown, the weight of probability is in favour of continual being. Now, +for my part, I wish to be informed why this probability should not be +extended to that innocent maltreated class, whom God's mercy made with +equal skill, and sustains with equal care, as in the case of man, +and--dare we add?--of angels. Doth He not feed the ravens? Do the young +lions not gather what He giveth? Doth a sparrow fall to the ground +without Our Father? and is not the unsinning multitude of Nineveh's +young children climaxed with "much cattle?" It is true, there may be +mighty difference between "the spirit of a man that goeth upward, and +the spirit of a beast that goeth downward in the earth:" but mark this, +there _is_ a spirit in the beast; and as man's eternal heaven may lie in +some superior sphere, so that temporarily designed for the lower animals +may be seen in the renovated earth. It is also true, that St. Paul, +arguing for the temporal livelihood of Christian ministers from the type +of "not muzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn," asks, "Doth God +care for oxen?"--or, in effect, doth He legislate (I speak soberly, +though the sublime treads on the ridiculous,) for a stable?--and the +implication is, "To thy dutiful husbandry, O man! such lesser cares are +left." Sorry, righteously sorry, would it make any good man's heart to +think that the Creator had ceased to care for the meanest of his +creatures: in a certain sense + + "He sees with equal eye, as God of all, + A hero perish, or a sparrow fall;" + +and, assured that carelessness in a just Creator of his poor dependent +creatures must be impossible, I submit that, critically speaking, some +laudable variation might be made in that text by the simple +consideration that [Greek: melei] is not so strictly rendered "care for" +as [Greek: kedetai]. Scripture, then, so far from militating against the +possible truth, that animals have souls, would seem, by a side-long +glance, to countenance the doctrine: and now let us for a passing moment +turn and see what aid is given to us by moral philosophy. + +No case can be conceived more hard or more unjust than that of a +sentient creature (on the hypothesis of its having no soul, no +conscience, necessarily quite innocent), thrown into a world of cruelty +and tyranny, without the chance of compensation for sufferings +undeserved. Neither can any good government be so partial, as (limiting +the whole existence of animals to an hour, a day, a year,) to allow one +of a litter to be pampered with continual luxuries, and another to be +tortured for all its little life by blows, famine, disease--and in its +lingering death by the scientific scalpels of a critical Majendie or a +cold-blooded Spallanzani. Remember, that in the so-called parallel case +of partialities among men--the this-world's choice of a Jacob, the +this-world's rejection of an Esau--the answer is obvious: there are two +scales to the balance, there is yet another world. Far be it from us to +think that all things are not then to be cleared up; that the innocent +little ones of Kedar and the exterminated Canaanites will not then be +heard one by one, and no longer be mingled up indiscriminately in an +overwhelming national judgment; that the pleas of evil education and +example, of hereditary taint and common usage, will be then thrown aside +as vain excuse; and that eventual justice will not with facility explain +every riddle in the moral government of God. But in the case of soulless +extinguished animals, there is, there can be no compensation, no +explanation; whether in pain or pleasure, they have lived and they have +died forgotten by their Maker, and left to the casual kindness or +cruelty of, towards them at least, irresponsible masters. How different +the view opened to us by the possibility of soul being apportioned in +various measure among the lower animals: there is a clue given "to +justify the ways of God to"--brutes: we need not then consider, with a +certain French abbe, that they are fallen angels, doing penance for +their sins; we need not, with old Pythagoras and latter Brahmins, +account them stationed lodges, homes of transmigration for the spirits +of men in process of being purged from their offences: we need not +regard them as Avatars of Vishnu, or incarnations of Apis, visible +deities craving the idolatries of India and Egypt. The truth commends +itself by mere simplicity: nakedness betrays its Eve-like innocence of +guile or error: those living creatures whom we call brutes and beasts, +have, in their degree, the breath of God within them, as well as His +handiwork upon them. And, candid theologian, tell me why--in that +Millenium so long looked-for, when, after a fiery purgation, this earth +shall have its sabbath, and when those who for a time were "caught up +into the air," descending again with their Lord and his ten thousand +saints, shall bodily dwell with others risen in the flesh for that happy +season on this renovated globe--tell me why there should not be some +tithe of the animal creation made to rise again to minister in pleasure, +as they once ministered in pain? And for the rest, the other nine, what +hinders them from tenanting a thousand happy fields in other of the +large domains of space? What hinders those poor dumb slaves from +enjoying some emancipate existence--we need not perhaps accord them +more of immortality than justice, demands for compensation--for a +definite time, a millennium let us think, in scores of those million +orbs that twinkle in the galaxy? + + Space stretches wide enough for every grain + Of the broad sands that curb our swelling seas, + Each separate in its sphere, to stand apart + As far as sun from sun. + +Shall I then say what hinders?--the littleness of man's mind, refusing +possibility of room for those countless quadrillions; and the +selfishness of his pride, scorning the more generous savage, whose +doctrine (certainly too lax in liberality) raises the beast to a level +with mankind, and + + "Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky, + His faithful dog shall bear him company." + +Truly, the Creator's justice, and mercy, and the majesty of his kingdom, +give hope of after-life to all creation: Saint Antony of Padua did waste +time in homilizing birds, beasts, and fishes; but may they not find +blessings, though ignorant of priests?--And now, suffer me, in my +current fashion, to glance at a few other considerations affecting this +topic. It will be admitted, I suppose, that the lower animals possess, +in their degree, similar cerebral or at least nervous mechanism with +ourselves; in their degree, I say; for a zooephyte and a caterpillar have +brains, though not in the head; and to this day Waterton does not know +whether he shot a man or a monkey, so closely is his nondescript linked +with either hand to the grovelling Australian and the erect orang +outang. Brutes are nerved as we are, and uncivilized man possesses +instincts like them: all we can with any show of reason deny them is +moral sense, and in our arbitrary refusal of this, and our summary +disposal of what we are pleased to term instinct, we take credit to +ourselves for exclusive participation in that immaterial essence which +is called Soul. But is it, in candour, true that brutes have no moral +sense? Obviously, since moral sense is a growing thing, and ascending in +the scale of being, and since man is its chief receptacle on earth, we +ought to be able to take the best instances of animal morals from those +creatures which have come most within the influence of human example; as +pets of every kind, but mainly dogs. Does not a puppy, that has stolen a +sweet morsel from some butcher's stall, fly, though none pursue him? Is +a fox-hound not conscience-stricken for his harry of the sheep-fold? and +who will deny some sense of duty, and no little strength of affection, +in a shepherd's dog? Have not Cowper's now historic hares displayed an +educated and unnatural confidence; and many a gray parrot, though +limited in speech, said many a witty thing?--Again, read some common +collection of canine anecdotes: What essential difference is there +between the affectionate watch kept by man over his brother's bed of +sickness, and that which has been known of more than one poor cur, whose +solicitude has extended even to dying on his master's grave? The +soldier's faithful poodle licks his wounds upon the stormy battle-field; +and Landseer's colley-dog tears up the turf, and howls the shepherd's +requiem. What real distinction can we make between a high sense of duty +in the captain who is the last to leave his sinking ship, and that in +the watchful terrier, whom neither tempting morsels nor menaced blows +can induce to desert the ploughman's smock committed to his care? Once +more: Who does not recognise individuality of character in animals? A +dog, or a horse, or a tame deer, or, in fact, any domesticated creature, +will act throughout life, in a certain course of disposition, at least +as consistently as most masters: it will also have its whims and ways, +likings and dislikings, habits, fears, joys, and sorrows; and, verily, +in patience, courage, gratitude, and obedience, will put its monarch to +the blush. + +But upon this theme--meagre as the sketch may be, fanciful, +illogical--my cursory notions have too long detained you. I had intended +barely to have introduced a black-looking Greek composite, serving for +name to an unwritten essay which we will imagine in existence as + + + + +PSYCHOTHERION, + +AN INCONCLUSIVE ARGUMENT ON THE SOULS OF BRUTES; + + +And my thoughts have run on thus far so little conclusively (I humbly +admit to you), that we will, to save trouble, leave the riddle as +unsolved as ever, and gain no better advantage than thus having loosely +adverted to another fancy of your author's mind. + + * * * * * + +Not yet is my mind a simple freeman, a private, unincumbered, individual +self-possessor: its slaves are not yet all manumitted; I lack not +subjects; I am no lord of depopulated regions; albeit my aim is indeed +akin to that of old Rufus, and Goldsmith's tyrannical Squire of Auburn; +I wish to clear my hunting-grounds, to make a solitude, and call it +peace. Slowly, but still surely, am I working out that will. Meanwhile, +however, there is no need to advertise for heroes; they are only too +rife, clinging like bats to the curtains of my chambers of imagery, or +with attendant satellites hanging in bunches, as swarming bees about +their monarch, to the rafters of my brain. Selection is the hardest +difficulty; here is the labour, here the toil; because for just +selection there should be good reasons. Now, amongst other my +multitudinous authorial projects, this perhaps is not the worst; namely, +by a series of dissimilar novels, psychological rather than religious, +and for interest's sake laid in diverse ages and countries, to +illustrate separately the most rampant errors of the Papacy. For +example, say that Lewis's '_Monk_' is a strong delineation of the evils +consequent on constrained and unchosen celibacy; though its colouring be +meretricious, though its details offend the moralities of nature, still +it is a book replete to thoughtful minds with terrible teaching--be not +high-minded, but fear. In like manner, guilty thoughts dropped upon +innocent young hearts in that foul corner, + + + + +THE CONFESSIONAL, + + +might make a stirring tale, or haply a series of them: the cowled +hypocrite suggesting crime to those whose answer is all innocence; his +schemes of ambition, or avarice, or lust, slowly elaborated by the +fiend-like purposes to which he puts his ill-used knowledge of the human +heart; his sacrilegious violation of the holy grievings made by mistaken +penitence. History should bring its collateral assistance: the Medicean +Queens, Venice, bloody Spain, hard-visaged monks calmly directing the +engines of torture, the poison of anonymous calumny, and dread secrets +more dreadfully betrayed, could furnish much of truthful precedent. The +bad obstructions placed between the sinner and his God by selfish +priestcraft; the souls that would return again, like Noah's weary dove, +enticed by ravens to forsake the ark, mate with them, and feed on their +banquet of corruption; the social, religious, philosophic, and eternal +harms brought out in full detail; the progress of this world's misery in +the lives of the confessing, and of studious crime in the heart of the +absolver: a scene laid among the high Alps, and the sunny plains they +topple over; the time, that of some murderous Simon de Montfort; the +actors, Waldensian saints, and demon inquisitors; the prominent +characters, a plausible intriguing friar, (as of old a monk of Cluni,) +whose ambition is the popedom, and whose conscience has no scruple +about means, bloody, bad, vindictive, atheistic; and then his victims, a +youth that he trains from infancy to the sole end of poisoning, subtly +and slowly, all who stand in his path; a girl who loves this youth, and +who, flying from the foul friar in the day of temptation, betakes her to +the mountains, and ultimately saves her lover from his terrible +destination in guilt, by hiding him in her own haven of refuge, the +persecuted little church; and with these materials to work upon, I need +hardly detail to you an intricate plot and an obvious _denouement_. + +This class of theme, it is probable, has exercised the talents of many; +but as the evils of confessing to deceitful man, and of blind trust in +his deleterious advice, have not specifically met my eye, the subject is +new to me, and may be so to others. Still, I stay not now further to +enlarge upon it; I must press on; and will not cruelly encourage the +birth of thoughts brought forth only to be destroyed, like father +Saturn's babes--the anthropophagite. + +A good reason for selection at last presents itself. Sundry collateral +ancestors of mine [every body from Cain downwards must have had +ancestors; so no quibbling, please, nor quarrelling about so exploded an +absurdity as family-pride,] were lucky enough in days lang syne to +appropriate to themselves, amongst other matters, a respectable +allowance of forfeited monastic territory; and I know it by this token: +that in yonder venerable chest of archives and muniments, rest in their +own dust of ages, duly and clearly assorted, all those abbey deeds from +the times of Henry Beauclerc. Here's a fine unlooked-for opportunity of +making dull ancestral spots classic ground, famous among men; here's a +chance of immortalizing the crumbling ruins of an obscure, but +interesting, abbey-church; here's a fair field for dragging in all that +one knows or does not know, all that parchments can prove, or fancy can +invent, of redoubtable or reprobate progenitors, and investing the place +of their possessions with a glory beyond heraldry. Much is on my mind of +the desperate evils consequent on the Romish rule of idol-worship: and +why not lay my scene on the wild banks of the Swale, among the bleak, +rough moors that stand round Richmond, and the gullies that run between +the Yorkshire hills? Why not talk about those names of gentle blood, +familiar to the ear as household words, Uvedale and Scrope, Vavasour and +Ratcliffe? Why not press into the service of instructive novelism truths +stranger than fiction, among characters more marked, and names of higher +note, than the whole hot-pressed family of the Fitzes? + +All this might be accomplished, were it worth the worry, in + + + + +THE PRIOR OF MARRICK. + + +And now for a story of idolatry. It seems an absurdity, an insanity; it +is one--both. But think it out. Is it quite impossible, quite +incredible? Let me sketch the outline of so strange infatuation. Our +prior was once a good man--an easy, kind, and amiable: he takes the cowl +in early youth, partly because he is the younger son of an unfighting +family, and must, partly because he is melancholy, and will. And +wherefore melancholy? There was brought up with him, from the very +nursery, a fair girl, the weeping orphan of a neighbouring squire, who +had buckled on his harness, and fallen in the wars: they loved, of +course, and the deeper, because secretly and without permission: they +were too young to marry, and indeed had thought little of the matter; +still, substance and shadow, body and soul, were scarcely more needful +to each other, or more united. But--a hacking cough--a hectic cheek--a +wasting frame, were to blue-eyed Mary the remorseless harbingers of +death, and Eustace, standing on her early grave, was in heart a widower: +henceforth he had no aim in life; the cloister was--so thought he, as +many do--his best refuge, to dream upon the past, to soothe his present +sorrows, and earn for a future world the pleasures lost in this. Time, +the best anodyne short of what Eustace could not buy at +Rome--true-healing godliness--alleviates his grief, and makes him less +sad, but not wiser; years pass, the desire of preeminence in his own +small world has hitherto furnished incentives to existence, and he find +himself a prior too soon; for he has nothing more to live for. Yes: +there is an object; the turmoil of small ambition with its petty cares +is past, and the now motiveless man lingers in yearning thought on the +only white spot in his gloomy journey, the green oasis of his desert +life, that dream of early love. He has long loved the fair, quiet image +of our Lady of Marrick, unwittingly, for another Mary's sake; +half-oblivious of the past in scheming for the present, he has knelt at +midnight before that figure of the Virgin-mother, and knew not why he +trembled; he thought it the ecstacy of devotion, the warm-gushing flood +of calmness, which prayer confers upon care confessed. But now, he sees +it, he knows it; there is, indeed, good cause: how miraculously the +white marble face grows into resemblance with _hers!_ the same sainted +look of delicate unearthly beauty, the same white cheek, so still and +unruffled even by a smile, the same turn of heavenly triumph on the lip, +the same wild compassion in the eye! Great God--he loves again!--that +staid, grave, melancholy man, loves with more than youthful fondness; +the image is now dearer than the most sacred; there is a halo round it, +like light from heaven: he adores its placid, eternal, changeless +aspect; if it could move, the charm would half dissolve; he loves it--as +an image! And then how rapturously joins he with the wondering choir of +more stagnant worshippers, while they yield to this substantial form, +this stone-transmigration of his love, this tangible, unpassionate, +abiding, present deity, the holy hymns of praise, due only to the unseen +God! How gladly he sings her titles, ascribing all excellence to her! +How tenderly falls he at her feet, with eyes lighted as in youth! How +earnestly he prays to his fixed image--_to_ it, not _through_ it, for +his heart is _there_! How zealously he longs for her honour, her worship +among men--hers, the presiding idol of that Gothic pile, the hallowed +Lady, the goddess-queen of Marrick! Stop--can he do nothing for her, can +he venture nothing in her service? Other shrines are rich, other images +decked in gold and jewels; there is yet an object for his useless life, +there are yet ends to be attained, ends--that can justify the means. He +longs for wealth, he plots for it, he dares for it: he plans lying +miracles, and thousands flock to the shrine; he waylays dying men, and, +by threatened dread of torments of the damned, extortionizes conscience +into unjust riches for himself; he accuses the innocent, and reaps the +fine; he connives at the guilty, and fingers the bribe. So wealth flows +in, and the altar of his idol is hung with cloth of gold, her diadem is +alight with gems, costly offerings deck her temple, bending crowds kneel +to her divinity. Is he not happy? Is he not content? Oh, no: an +insatiate demon has possessed him; with more than Pygmalion's insanity, +he loves that image; he dreams, he thinks of that one unchanging form. +The marvelling brotherhood, credulous witnesses of such deep devotion, +hold him for a saint; and Rome, at the wish of the world, sends him, as +to a living St. Eustatius, the patent of canonization: they praise him, +honour him, pray to him; but he contemptuously (and they take it for +humility) spurns a gift which speaks of any other heaven than the +presence of that one fair, beautiful, beloved statue. A thought fills +him, and that with joy: he has heard of sacrifices in old time, +immolations, offerings up of self, as the highest act of a devout +worshipper; he cares not for earth nor for heaven; and one night, in his +enthusiastic vigils, the phrensy of idolatry arms that old man's own +weak hand against himself, and he falls at the statue's feet, +self-murdered, _its_ martyr. + +Here were scope for psychology; here were subtle unwindings of motive, +trackings of reason, intricate anatomizations of the heart. All ages, +before these last in which we live, have been worshippers, even to +excess, of "unknown gods," "too superstitious:" we, upon whom the ends +of the world are fallen, may be thought to be beyond a danger into which +the wisest of old time were entrapped: we scarcely allow that the +Brahmin may, notwithstanding, be a learned man and a shrewd, when we see +him fall before his monster; we have not wits to understand how the +Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman dynasties could be so besotted. +For this superior illumination of mind, let us thank not ourselves, but +the Light of the world; and, warned by the history of ages, let us +beware how we place created things to mediate between us and the most +High; let us be shy of symbolic emblems--of pictures, images, +observances--lest they grow into forms that engross the mind, and fill +it with a swarm of substantial idols. + +Now, this tale of the '_Prior of Marrick_' would, but for the present +premature abortion, have seen daylight in the form of an +auto-biography--the catastrophe, of course, being added by some +brother-monk, who winds up all with his moral: and to get at this +auto-biographical sketch--a thing of fragments and wild soliloquies, +incidentally laying bare the heart's disease, and the poisonous +breathings of idolatrous influence--I could easily, and after the true +novelist fashion, fabricate a scheme, somewhat as follows: Let me go +gayly to the Moors by rail, coach, or cart, say for a sportsman's +pastime, a truant vicar's week, or an audit-clerk's holiday: I drop upon +the ruined abbey, now indeed with scarcely a vestige of its former +beauty remaining, but still used as a burial-place; being a bit of an +antiquary, I rout up the sexton, (sexton, cobbler, and general +huckster,) resolved to lionize the old desecrated precinct: I find the +sexton a character, a humourist; he, cobbler-like, looks inquisitively +at my caoutchouc shooting-shoes, and hints that he too is an artist in +the water-proof line; then follows question as how, and rejoinder as +thus. Our sexton has got a name among his neighbours for his capital +double-leather brogues, warranted to carry you dry-shod through a river; +and, warmed by my brandy-flask and _bonhomie_, considering me moreover +little likely to set up a rival shop, cunningly communicates his secret: +he puts parchment between the leathers--Parchment, my good man? where +can you get your parchment hereabouts? I spoke innocently, for I thought +only of ticketing some grouse for my friends southward: but the question +staggered my sexton so sensibly, that I came to the uncharitable +conclusion--he had stolen it. And then follows confession: how, among +the rubbish in a vault, he had found a small oak chest--broke it +open--no coins, no trinkets, "no nothing,"--except parchment; a lot of +leaves tidily written, and--warranted to keep out the wet. A few +shillings and a tankard make the treasure mine, I promising as extra to +send a huge bundle of ancient indentures in place of the precious +manuscript. Thus, in the way of Mackenzie's '_Man of Feeling_,' we +become fragmentary where we fear to be tedious; and so, in a good +historic epoch, among the wars of the Roses, surrounded by friars and +nuns, outlaws and border-riders, chivalrous knights and sturdy bowyers, +consign I to the oblivescent firm of Capulet and Co. my happily +destroyed '_Prior of Marrick_.' + + * * * * * + +A crank boat needs ballast; and of happy fortune is it for a disposition +towards natural levity, when educational gravity has helped to steady +it. Upon the vivacious, let the reflective supervene: to the gay, suffer +in its season the addition of the serious. Amongst other wholesome +topics of meditation--for wholesome it is to the healthy spirit, +although of some little danger to the presumptuous and inflated--the +study of the sure word of Prophecy has more than once excited the +writing propensity of your author's mind. On most matters it has been my +fate, rather from habits of incurable revery than from any want of +opportunities, to think more than to read; and therefore it is, with +very due diffidence, that as far as others and their judgments are +concerned, I can ever hope to claim originality or novelty. To my own +conscience, however, these things are reversed; for contemplation has +produced that as new to my own mind, which may be old to others deeper +read, and has thought those ideas original, which are only so to its own +fancy. Very little, then, must such as I reasonably hope to add on +Prophetical Interpretation; the Universal Wisdom of two millenaries +cannot be expected to gain any thing from the passing thought of a +hodiernal unit: if any fancies in my brain are really new, and hitherto +unbroached upon the subject, it can scarcely be doubted but that they +are false; so very little reliance do principles of catholicity allow to +be placed upon "private interpretations." + +With thus much of apology to those alike who will find, and those who +will not find, any thing of novelty in my notions, I still do not +withhold them. By here a little and there a little, is the general mind +instructed: it would be better for the world if every mighty tome really +contributed its grain. + +The prophecies of Holy Writ appear to me to have one great peculiarity, +distinguishing them from all other prophecies, if any, real or +pretended; and that peculiarity I deferentially conceive to be this: +that, whereas all human prophecies profess to have but one fulfilment, +the divine have avowedly many true fulfilments. The former may indeed +light upon some one coincidence, and may exult in the accident as a +proof of truth; the latter bounds as it were (like George Herbert's +sabbaths) from one to another, and another, through some forty +centuries, equally fulfilled in each case, but still looking forward +with hope to some grander catastrophe: it is not that they are loosely +suited, like the Delphic oracles, to whatever may turn up, but that +they, by a felicitous adaptation, sit closely into each era which the +Architect of Ages has arranged. Pythonic divination may be likened to a +loose bag, which would hold and involve with equal ease almost any +circumstance; biblical prophecy to an exact mould, into which alone, +though not all similar in perfection, its own true casts will fit: or +again, in another view of the matter, accept this similitude: let the +All-seeing Eye be the centre of many concentric circles, beholding +equally in perspective the circumference of each, and for accordance +with human periods of time measuring off segments by converging radii: +separately marked on each segment of the wheel within wheel, in the way +of actual fulfilment, as well as type and antitype, will appear its +satisfied word of prophecy, shining onward yet as it becomes more and +more final, until time is melted in eternity. Thus, it is perhaps not +impossible that every interpretation of wise and pious men may alike be +right, and hold together; for different minds travel on the different +peripheries. So our Lord (to take a familiar instance) speaks of his +second advent in terms equally applicable to the destruction of one +city, of the accumulated hosts at Armageddon, and of this material +earth: Antiochus and Antichrist occur prospectively within the same pair +of radii at differing distances; and, in like manner and varying +degrees, may, for aught we can tell, such incarnations of the evil +principle as papal Rome, or revolutionary Europe, or infidel +Cosmopolitism; or, again, such heads of parties, such indexes of the +general mind, as a Caesar, an Attila, a Cromwell, a Napoleon, a--whoever +be the next. So also of hours, days, years, eras; all may and do coeexist +in harmonious and mutual relations. Good men, those who combine prayer +with study, need not fear necessary difference of result, from holding +different views; the grand error is too loosely generalizing; a little +circle suits our finite ken; we cannot, as yet, mentally span the +universe. These crude and cursory remarks may serve to introduce a +likely-looking idea to which my thoughts have given entertainment, and +which, with others of a similar sort, were once to have come forth in an +essay-form, headed + + + + +THE SEVEN CHURCHES; + + +moreover, for aught that has come across my reading, to be additionally +styled '_A New Interpretation, for these Latter Days_.' Without desiring +to do other than quite confirm the literal view, as having related +primarily to those local churches of old times, geographically in Asia +Minor; without attempting to dispute that they may have an individual +reference to varieties of personal character, and probably of different +Christian sects; I imagine that we may discover, in the Apocalyptic +prospect of these seven churches, an historical view of Christianity, +from the earliest ages to the last: beginning as it did, purely, warmly, +and laboriously, with the apostolic emblematic Ephesus, and to end with +the "shall He find faith on earth" of lukewarm Laodicea: thus Smyrna +would symbolize the state of the church under Diocletian, the +"tribulation ten days:" Pergamus, perhaps the Byzantine age, "where +Satan's seat is" the Balaam and Balak of empire and priesthood; +Thyatira, the avowed commencement of the Papacy, "Jezebel," &c.; Sardis, +the dreary void of the dark ages, the "ready to die;" Philadelphia, the +rise of Protestantism, "an open door, a little strength;" and Laodicea, +(the riches of civilization choking the plant of Christianity,) its +decline, and, but for the Founder's second coming, its fall; if, indeed, +this were possible. + +The elucidation of these several hints might show some striking +confirmations of the notion; which, as every thing else in this book, +would humbly claim your indulgence, reader, for my sketches must be +rapid, and their descriptions brief. Concurrently, however, with this, +(which I know not whether any prophetic scholiasts have mentioned or +not,) there may be deduced a still further interpretation, equally, as +far as I am concerned, underived from the lucubrations of others. This +other interpretation involves a typical view of the general +characteristics of Christendom's seven true churches, as they are to be +found standing at the coming of their Lord; the Asiatic seven may be +assimilated, in their religious peculiarities, with the national +Protestant churches of modern Europe: what order should be preserved in +this assimilation, unless indeed it be that of eldership, it might be +difficult to decide; but, excluding those communities which idol-worship +has unchurched, and leaving out of view such anomalies as America +presents, having no national religion, we shall find seven true churches +now existing, between which and the Asiatics many curious parallels +might be run: the seven are, those of England, Scotland, Holland, +Prussia, perhaps Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany. Without professing to +be quite confident as to the list, the idea remains the same: it is but +a light hint on a weighty subject, demanding more investigation than my +slender powers can at present compass. It is merely thrown out as +undigested matter; a crude notion let it rest: if ever I aspire to the +dignity and dogmatism of a theological teacher, it must be after more +and deeper inquiry of the Newtons, Faber, Frere, Croly, Keith, and other +learned interpreters, than it is possible or proper to make in a hurry: +volumes have been, and volumes might be again, written for and against +any prophecy unfulfilled; it is dangerous to teach speculations; for, if +found false, they tend to bring holy truths into disrepute. Let me then +put upon the shelf, as a humble layman should, my hitherto +unaccomplished prophetical treatise; and receive its mention for little +more than my true revelation of another phase of authorship. + + * * * * * + +And many like attempts have been hazarded by me in the mode theological; +though, from some cause or other, they have mostly fallen abortive. Were +mention here made of the more completed efforts of your author's mind, +in this walk of literature, or of others, it might too evidently lay +bare the mystery of my mask; a piece of secret information intended not +as yet to be bestowed. But this book--purporting to be the medley of my +mind, the _bona fide_ emptying of its multifarious fancies--must of +necessity, if honest, pourtray all the wanings and waxings of an +ever-changing lunar disposition: so, haply you shall turn from a play to +a sermon, from a novel to a moral treatise, from a satire or an epigram +to a religious essay. Such and so inconsistent is authorial man. Here +then, in somewhat of order, should have followed lengthily various other +writings of serious import, half-fashioned, and from conflicting reasons +left--perhaps for ever--half-finished. But considering the crude and +apparently careless nature of this present book, and taking into account +the solemn and responsible manner in which such high topics ought +invariably to be treated, I have struck out, without remorse or mercy, +all except a mere mention of the subjects alluded to. The contiguity of +lighter matter demands this sacrifice; not that I am one of those who +deem a cheerful face and a prayerful heart incongruous: there is danger +in a man, however religious, when his brow lowers, and his cheek is +stern; so did Cromwell murder Charles; so did Mary (though bigoted, +sincere,) consign Cranmer to the flames and Jane to the scaffold: +innocence and mirth are near of kin, and the tear of penitence is no +stranger to the laughter-loving eye. But I ramble as usual. Let it +suffice to say, that in accordance with common prejudices, I suffer my +mind to be shorn of its consecrated rays; for albeit my moral censor has +spared the prophetical ideas, and one or two other serious sobrieties, +on the ground that, although they are mere hints, they are at all events +hints of good, still more experimental and more hazardous pieces of +biblical criticism have been not unwisely immolated. The full cause of +this will appear in the mere title of the first of these half-attempted +essays, viz: + + + + +THE WISDOM OF REVISION; + + +whereof my predication shall be simply and strictly _nil_. + +The next piece of serious study, as yet little more than a root in my +mind, was to have fructified in the form of + + + + +HOMELY EXPOSITIONS, + + +or domestic readings in Scripture for daily use in family worship, with +an easy, sensible, useful sort of commentary; a book calculated +expressly for the understandings, wants, vices, temptations, and +peculiarities of household servants, and quite opposed to the usual +plans of injuriously raising doubts to lay them, of insisting upon +obsolete Judaisms, of strict theological controversy, of enlarging to +satiety on the meaning of passages too obvious to require explanation, +and ingeniously slurring over those which really need it; indeed, of +pursuing the courses generally adopted by the mass of commentators. + +A further notion extended to + + + + +LAY SERMONS, + + +whereof are many written: their principal peculiarities consist in being +each of a quarter-hour length, as little as possible regarding Jews and +their didactic histories, and, as much as might be, crowding ideas, and +images, and out-of-the-way knowledge of all sorts, into the good service +of illustrating Gospel truths. + +Another religious essay has been relinquished, although to a great +degree effected, from the apprehension that it may suggest matter +fanciful or false: also, in part, from the material being perhaps of too +slender a character to insist upon. Its name stood thus, + + + + +SCRIPTURAL PHYSICS; + + +being an attempt to vindicate the wisdom of Holy Writ in matters of +natural science; for example, cosmogony, geology, the probable centre of +the earth, the vitality and circulation of the blood, hints of magnetism +and electricity, a solar system, a plurality of worlds, the earth's +shape, inclined axis, situation in space, and connection with other +spheres, the separate existence of disembodied life, the laws of optics, +much of recondite natural history:--all these can be easily proved to be +alluded to in detached, or ingeniously compared, passages of the Hebrew +Scriptures. It is very likely, however, that Huntington has anticipated +some of this, although I have never met with his writings; and a great +deal more of it is mentioned in notes and sermons which many have read +or heard. Until, therefore, I become surer of neither invading the +provinces of others, nor of detracting from their wisdom, let those +ill-written fancies still lie dormant in my desk. + +A fifth tractate on things theological, still in the egg state, was to +have been indued with the rather startling appellation of + + + + +AN APOLOGY FOR HEATHENISM; + + +especially as contrasted with practical atheism, which, truth to tell, +is the contradictory sort of religion most universally professed among +the moderns: working out the idea, that any-how it is better to have +many objects of veneration than none, and that, although idol-worship is +a dreadful sin, still it is not so utterly hopeless as actual +ungodliness. That, among the heathens, temporal judgment ever vindicated +the true Divinity; whereas the consummation of the more modern +unworshiping world will be an eternal one: so, by the difference in +punishments comparing that of their criminalities. Showing also that, +however corrupted afterwards by impure rites and fatuous iniquities, +heathenism was, in its most ancient form, little more than the +hieroglyphic dress of truth: this exemplified by Moses and the brazen +serpent, by interpretations of Grecian mythology, shown, after the +manner of perhaps too ingenious Lord Bacon, to be consistent with +philosophy and religion; by the way, in which Egyptian priests satisfied +so good and shrewd, though credulous, a mind as that of Herodotus; by +Hesiod's '_Theogony_;' by the practical testimony of the whole educated +world in earliest times to the deep meaning involved in idolatrous +rites; by the mysteries of Eleusis in particular; by the characters of +all most enlightened heathens--as Cicero, Socrates, and +Plato--(half-convinced of the Godhead's unity, and still afraid to +disavow His plurality,) contrasted with those of the school of Pyrrho, +and Lucretius, and the later Epicureans. The possibility of early +allusions to the Trinity, as "Let us make man," _etc._, having led to +the idea of more than one God; and if so, in some sort, its veniality. + +All the above might be applied with some force, and, if so, with no +little value, to modern false semblances of religion, and non-religion; +to Roman Catholicism, with its images, its services in an unknown +tongue, its symbols, its adoption of heathen festivals, its actual +placing of many Gods in the throne of One; to Mammonism, as practically +a religion as if the golden calf of Babylon were standard at Cornhill; +to Voluptatism--if I may fabricate a name for pleasure-hunters, +following still, with Corybantic fury, the orgic revels of Osiris or +Astarte: in brief, to all the shades of human heresy, on this side or on +that of the golden mean, the worship of one true God, as revealed to us +in His three mysterious characters. + +But, query? Has not all this, and the very title, for any thing I know, +been done already by another, by a wiser? and, if so, by whom?--Speak, +some friend: it is the misfortune of mere thinkers (and this present +amygdaloid mass, this breccia book, exemplifies it well) to stumble +frequently upon fancies too good not to have been long ago appropriated +by others like-minded. A read, or heard, hint may be the unerring clue, +and we vainly imagine some old labyrinth to be our new discovery: +education renders up the master-key, and we come to regard ancient +treasuries as wealth of our own amassing, from which we deem it our +right to filch as recklessly as he from the mint of Croesus, who so +filled his pockets--ay, his mouth--that we read he [Greek: hebebusto]. +Who, in this age of literature, can be fully condemned, or heartily +acquitted of plagiarism? An age--and none so little in advance or in +arrear of it as I--of easy writing and discursive reading, of ideas +unpatented, and books that have outlived copy-right. But this has +detained us long enough: for the present, my brain is quit of its +heathenish exculpations: let us pass on; many regiments are yet to be +reviewed; their uniforms [_Hibernice_] are various, but their flag is +one. + +A last serious subject--(they grow tedious)--is a fair field for +ingenious explanation and Oriental poetry, + + + + +THE SIMILES OF SCRIPTURE: + + +(of course "similes" is an English word: the author of a recent '_Essay +on Magna Charta_' has been _learned_ enough to write it "similae," for +which original piece of Latinity let him be congratulated; I safely +follow Johnson, who would have roared like a lion at "similia;" and, +though Shakspeare does write it "similies," it may stoutly be contended +that this is of mixed metal, and that Matthew Prior's "similes" is the +purer sample: all the above being a praiseworthy parenthesis.) + +The similes of Scripture, then, were to have been demonstrated apt and +happy: for there is indeed both majesty, and loveliness, and propriety, +and strict resemblance in them. "As a rolling thing before the +whirlwind,"--"as when a standard-bearer fainteth"--"as the rushing of +mighty waters,"--"as gleaning grapes when the vintage is done,"--"as a +dream,"--"as the morning dew,"--"as"--but the whole book is a garden of +similitudes; they are "like the sand upon the sea-shore for multitude." +It is, however, too true, that often-times the baldness of translation +deprives poetry, Eastern especially, of its fervour, its glow, its gush, +and blush of beauty: to quote Aristotle's example, it too frequently +converts the rosy-fingered Morn into the red-fisted; and so the poetry +of dawning-day, with its dew-dropped flowers, its healthy refreshment, +its "rosy-fingers" drawing aside the star-spangled curtain of night, +falls at once into the low notion of a foggy morning, and is suggestive +only of red-fisted Abigails struggling continuously with the deposits of +a London atmosphere. In like manner, (for all this has not been an +episode beside the purpose,) many a roughly rendered similitude of +Scripture might be advantageously vindicated; local diversities and +Orientalisms might be explained in such a treatise: for example, in the +'_Canticles_,' the "beloved among the sons," is compared with an +apple-tree among the trees of the wood: now, amongst us, an apple-tree +is stunted and unsightly, and always degenerates in a wood; whereas the +Eastern apple-tree, probably one of the citron class, (to be more +correct,) may be a magnificent monarch of the forest. "Camphire," to a +Western mind, is not suggestive of the sweetest perfume, and perhaps +the word may be amended into the marginal "cypress," or cedar, or some +other: as "a bottle in the smoke," loses its propriety for an image, +until shown to be a wine-skin. "Who is this that cometh out of the +wilderness, like pillars of smoke?"--probably intending the +swiftly-rushing columns of _sand_ flying on the wings of the whirlwind. +"Thine eyes are like the fish-pools in Heshbon," might well be softened +into fountains--tearful, calm, resplendent, and rejoicing; and in +showing the poetic fitness of comparing the bride to a landscape, it +might clearly be set out how emblematic of Jewish millennial prosperity +and of Christian universality, that bride was; while comparisons of a +like un-European imagery might be taken from other Eastern poets, who +will not scruple to compare that rare beauty, a straight Grecian nose, +with a tower, and admire above all things the Cleopatra-coloured hair +which they call purple, and we auburn. Very much might be done in this +vein of literature, but it must be by a man at once an Oriental scholar +and a natural poet: the idioms of ancient and modern times should be +more considered, and something of apologetic explanation offered to an +English ear for phrases such as "the mountains skipping like rams," "the +horse swallowing the ground with fierceness," and represented as being +afraid as a grasshopper. A thousand like instances could be displayed +with little searching; let the above be taken as they are meant, for +good, and as of zeal for showing the best of books to the best +advantage: but it will appear that this essay trenches on the former one +so slenderly hinted at, as '_The Wisdom of Revision_,' therefore has +been stated too much at length already. Let it then rest on the shelf +till a better season. For this time, good reader, I, following up the +object of self-relieving, thank you for your patience, and will turn to +other themes of a more sublunary aspect. + + * * * * * + +One of the most natural and indigenous productions of a true author's +mind, is, by common consent, an epic poem: verily, a wearisome, +unnecessary, unfashionable bit of writing. Nevertheless, let my candour +humbly acknowledge that, for the larger canticle of two mortal days, I +was brooding over, and diligently brewing up, a right happy, capital, +and noble-minded thesis, no other than + + + + +HOME. + + +Alas, for the epidemy to which, few can doubt, ideas are subject! Alas, +for the conflict of prolific geniuses, wherewith the world's quiet is +disturbed! not impossibly, this very book now in progress of inditing +will come to be classed as a "Patch-work," an "Olla Podrida," a "Book +without a name," or some other such like _rechauffee_ publication; +whereas I protest its idea to be exclusively mine own, and conceived +long before its seeming congeners saw the light in definite +advertisements--at least to my beholding. And similarly went it with my +poor epic: scarcely had a general plan suggested itself to my musings, +and divers particular morsels thereof assumed "their unpremeditative +lay;" scarcely had I jotted down a staid synopsis, and a goodly array of +metrical specimens; when some intrusive newspaper displayed to me in +black and white a good-natured notice of somebody else's '_Home, an +Epic_.' So, as in the case of '_Nero_,' and haply of other subjects, had +it come to pass, that my high-mettled racer had made another false +start; that my just-discovered island, so gladly to have been +self-appropriated, was found to have, sticking on one corner of it, the +flag of another king; that the havoc of my brain, subsiding calmly into +the pendulum regularities of metre, was much ado about nothing; and all +those pretty fancies were the catalogued property of another. Such a +subject, too! intrinsically worthy of a niche in the temple of Fame, +besides Hope, Memory, and Imagination, _if_ only one could manage it +well enough to be named in the same breath with Campbell, Rogers, and +Akenside. Well, it was a mental mortification; for I am full of moral +land-marks, and would not (poetically speaking) for the world move +rooted termini into other people's grounds. Whether the field has been +well or ill preoccupied I wot not, having neither seen the poem nor +heard its maker's name: therefore shall my charity hope well of it, and +mourn over the unmerited oblivion which generally greets modern +poetry--yea, upon its very natal-day. Nevertheless, as an upright man +will never wish barefacedly to steal from others, so does he determine +at all times to claim independently his own: to be robbed, and not +resent it (I speak foolishly), is the next mean thing after pilfering +itself; and rash will be thy daring, O literary larcener! (can such +things be?) if thou art found unpermissively appropriating even such +sorry spoil as these poor seedlings of still possible volumes. + +Prose and verse are allowed to have some disguising differences, at +least in termination; and as we must not--so hints the public +taste--spoil honest prose, bad as it may be, with too much intermixture +of worse verse, it will be prudent in me to be sparing of my specimens. +Yet, who will endure so _staccato_ a page of jerking sentences as a +confirmed synopsis?--"Well, any thing rather than poetry," says the +world; so, for better or worse, I will jot down prosaically a few of my +all but impromptu imaginings on Home. + +After some general propositions, it would be proper to indulge the +orthodoxy of invocation; not to Muses, however, but to the subject +itself; for now-a-days, in lieu of definite deities, our worship has +regard to theories, doctrines, and other abstract idolisms: and +thereafter should follow at length an historical retrospect of domestic +life, from the savage to the transition states of hunters and warriors; +Nimrods and New Zealanders; Actaeons and Avanese, Attilas, Roderics, and +all the Ercles' vein or that of mad Cambyses, Hindoos and Fuegians, +Greece, Egypt, Etruria, and Troy, in those old days when funds and taxes +were not invented, but people had to fight for their dinner, and be +their own police: so in a due course of circumconsideration to more +modern conditions, from ourselves as central civilization, to Cochin +China, and extreme Mexico, to Archangel and Polynesia. + +Divers national peculiarities of the _physique_ of homes; as, Tartars' +tents, Esquimaux snow-pits, Caffre kraals, Steppe huts, South-sea +palm-thatch, tree-villages, caves, log-cabins, and so forth. Then, a +wide view of the homes of higher society, first Continental, afterwards +British through all the different phases of comfort to be found in +heath-hovels, cottages, ornees, villas, parsonage-houses, squirealities, +seats, town mansions, and royal palaces. Thus, with a contrastive peep +or two about the feverish neighbourhood of a factory, up this musty +alley, and down that winding lane, we should have considered briefly all +the external accidents of home. The miserable condition of the homeless, +whether rich or poor; an oak with its tap-root broken, a house on +wheels, a boat without a compass, and all that sort of thing: together +with due declamation about soldiers spending twenty years in India, +shipwrecked Robinson Crusoes far from native Hull, cadets going out +hopelessly forever, emigrants, convicts, missionaries, and all other +absentees, voluntary or involuntary. Tirades upon abject poverty, wanton +affluence, poor laws, mendicancy, and Ireland; not omitting some +thrilling cases of barbaric destitution. + +Now come we lawfully to descant upon matters more mental and +sentimental--the _metaphysique_ of the subject--the pleasures and pains +of Home. As thus, most cursorily: the nursery, with its dear innocent +joys; the school-boy, holiday feelings and scholastic cruelties; the +desk-abhorring clerk; the over-worked milliner; the starving family of +factory children, and of agricultural labourers, and of workers in coal +mines and iron furnaces, with earnest exhortations to the rich to pour +their horns of plenty on the poor. England, once a safer and a happier +land, under the law of charity: now fast verging into a despotic +centralized system, kept together by bayonets and constables' staves. +Home a refuge for all; for queens and princes from their cumbrous state, +as well as for clowns from their hedging and ditching. The home of love, +and its thousand blessings, founded on mutual confidence, religion, +open-heartedness, communion of interest, absence of selfishness, and so +on: the honoured father, due subordination, and results; the loving +wife, obedient children, and cheerful servants. Absolute, though most +kind, monarchy the best government for a home; with digressions about +Austria and China, and such laudable paternal rule; and _contra_, bitter +castigation of republican misrule, its evils and their results, for +which see Old Athens and New York, and certain spots half-way between +them. + +The pains of home: most various indeed, caused by all sorts of opposite +harms--too much constraint or too little, open bad example or impossible +good example, omissions and commissions, duty relaxed by indulgence, and +duty tightened into tyranny; but mainly and generally attributable to +the non-assertion or other abuse of parental authority. The spoiled +child, and his progress of indulgence, unchecked passions, dissipation, +crime, and ruin. Interested interlopers, as former friends, relatives, +flatterers, and busy parasites, undermining that bond of confidence +without which home falls to pieces; the gloomy spirit of reserve, +discouraging every thing like generous open-heartedness; menial +influences lowering their subject to their own base level; discords, +religious, political, and social; the harmful consequence of +over-expenditure to ape the hobbies or grandeur of the wealthier; +foolish education beyond one's sphere, as the baker's daughter taking +lessons in Italian, and opera-stricken butcher's-boys strumming the +guitar; immoral tendencies, gambling, drinking, and other dissipations; +and the aggregate of discomforts, of every sort and kind; with cures for +all these evils; and to end finally by a grand climax of supplication, +invocation, imprecation, resignation, and beatification, in the regular +crash of a stout-expiring overture. + +It's all very well, objects reader, and very easy to consider this done; +but the difficulty is--not so much to do it, answers writer, as to +escape the bother of prolixity by proving how much has been done, and +how speedily all might be even completed, had poor poesy in these +ticketing times only a fair field and no disfavour; for there is at hand +good grist, ready ground, baked and caked, and waiting for its eaters. +But in this age of prose-devouring and verse-despising, hardy indeed +should I be, if I adventured to bore the poor, much-abused, +uncomplaining public with hundreds of lines out of a dormant epic; the +very phrase is a lullaby; it's as catching as a yawn; well will it be +for me if my thread-bare domino conceals me, for whose better fame could +brook the scandal of having fathered or fostered so slumbering an +embryo?--Let then a few shreds and patches suffice--a brick or two for +the house: and verily I know they will, be they never so scanty; for +what man of education does not now entertain a just abhorrence of the +Muses, the nine antiquated maiden aunts destined for ever to be +pensioned on that money-making nice young man, Mammon's great +heir-at-law, Prose Prose, Esq.? + +With humblest fear, then, and infinite apology, behold, in all sober +seriousness, what the labour of such a file as I am might betimes work +into a respectable commencement; I don't pretend it _is_ one; but +_valeat quantum_, take it as it stands, unweeded, unpruned, uncared-for, +unaltered, + + Home, happy word, dear England's ancient boast, + Thou strongest castle on her sea-girt coast, + Thou full fair name for comfort, love, and rest, + Haven of refuge found and peace possest, + Oasis in the desert, star of light + Spangling the dreary dark of this world's night, + All-hallowed spot of angel-trodden ground + Where Jacob's ladder plants its lowest round, + Imperial realm amid the slavish world, + Where Freedom's banner ever floats unfurl'd, + Fair island of the blest, earth's richest wealth, + Her plague-struck body's little all of health, + Home, gentle name, I woo thee to my song, + To thee my praise, to thee my prayers belong: + Inspire me with thy beauty, bid me teem + With gracious musings worthy of my theme: + Spirit of Love, the soul of Home thou art, + Fan with divinest thoughts my kindling heart; + Spirit of Power, in pray'rs thine aid I ask, + Uphold me, bless me to my holy task; + Spirit of Truth, guide thou my wayward wing; + Love, Power, and Truth, be with me while I sing. + +_V'la_: my consolation is that somewhere may be read, in hot-pressed +print, too, many worse poeticals than these, which, however, nine +readers out of ten will have had the worldly wisdom to skip; and the +tenth is soon satiated: yet a tithe is something, at least so think the +modern Levites; so, then, on second thoughts, a victim who is so good a +listener must not be let off quite so cheaply. However, to vary a little +this melancholy musing, and to gild the compulsory pill, Reserve shall +be served up sonnet-wise. (P. S. I love the sonnet, maligned as it is +both by ill-attempting friend and semi-sneering foe: of course, in our +epic, Reserve ambles not about in this uncertain rhyme, but duly stalks +abroad in the uniform dress; iambically still, though extricated from +those involutions, time out of mind the requisite of sonnets.) Stand +forth to be chastised, unpopular + + +RESERVE. + + + Thou chilling, freezing fiend, Love's mortal bane, + Lethargic poison of the moral sense, + Killing those high-soul'd children of the brain, + Warm Enterprise and noble Confidence, + Fly from the threshold, traitor--get thee hence! + Without thee, we are open, cheerful, kind; + Mistrusting none but self, injurious self, + Of and to others wishing only good; + With thee, suspicions crowd the gloomy mind, + Suggesting all the world a viperous brood + That acts a base bad part in hope of pelf: + Virtue stands shamed, Truth mute misunderstood, + Honour unhonoured, Courage lacking nerve, + Beneath thy dull domestic curse, Reserve. + +Without professing much tendency to the uxorious, all may blamelessly +confess that they see exceeding beauty in a good wife; and we need never +apologize for the unexpected company of ladies: at off-hand then let +this one sit for her portrait. Enduring listener, will the following +serve our purpose in striving worthily to apostrophize + + +THE WIFE. + + Behold, how fair of eye, and mild of mien, + Walks forth of marriage yonder gentle queen: + What chaste sobriety whene'er she speaks, + What glad content sits smiling on her cheeks, + What plans of goodness in that bosom glow, + What prudent care is throned upon her brow, + What tender truth in all she does or says, + What pleasantness and peace in all her ways! + For ever blooming on that cheerful face + Home's best affections grow divine in grace; + Her eyes are ray'd with love, serene and bright; + Charity wreathes her lips with smiles of light; + Her kindly voice hath music in its notes; + And heav'n's own atmosphere around her floats! + +Thus, wife-like, for better or worse, is the above _portrait charmant_ +consigned to the dingy digits of an unidistinguishing printer's-devil; +so doth Caesar's dust come to stop a bung-hole. One morsel more, about +children, blessed children, and for this bout I shall have tilted +sufficiently in the Muses' court; or, if it must be so said, unhandsome +critic, stilted to satiety in false heroics: stay--not false; judge me, +my heart. Suppose then an imaginary parent thus to speak about his + + +INFANT DAUGHTERS. + + Oh ye, my beauteous nest of snow-white doves, + What wealth could price for me your guileless loves? + My earthly cherubim, my precious pearls, + My pretty flock of loving little girls, + My stores of happiness with least alloy, + My treasuries of hope and trembling joy! + Yon toothless darling, nestled soft and warm + On a young yearning mother's cradling arm; + The soft angelic smiles of natural grace + Tinting with love that other little face; + And the sweet budding of this sinless mind + In winning ways, that round my heart-strings wind, + Dear winning ways--dear nameless winning ways, + That send me joyous to my God in praise. + +Enough! not heartlessly, but to shame the heartlessness of YOUR +_ennui_, let me veil those holiest affections; yes, even at the risk of +leaving nominatives widowed of their faithful verbs, will I, until +required, epicise no more. Let these mauled bits be intimations of what +a little care might have made a little better. Gladly will I keep all +the remainder in a state quiescent, even to doubling Horace's wholesome +prescription of nine years: for it is impossible but that your fervent +poet, in the heat of inspiration, (credit me, lack-wits, there is such a +thing,) should blurt out many an unpalatable bit of advice, rebuke, or +virtuous indignation against homes in general, for the which sundry +conscience-stricken particulars might uncharitably arraign him. But +divers other notions are crowding into the retina of my mind's-eye: I +must leave my epic as you see it, and bid farewell, a long farewell, to +'_Home_.' Still shall my egotism have to appear for many weary pages a +most impartial and universal friend to the world of bibliopolists; I +cater multifariously for all varieties of the literary profession: +booksellers at least must own me as their friend, though the lucky purse +of Fortunatus saves me from being impaled upon the point of poor +Goldsmith's epigram, and I leave to [----] the questionable praise of +being their hack. For Bentley and Hatchard, alike with Rivington and +Frazer, for Colburn and Nisbet, as well as Knight, Tilt, Tyas, Moxon, +and Murray, I seem to be gratuitously pouring out in equal measure my +versatile meditations; at this sign all customers may be suited; only, +shop-lifters will be visited with the utmost rigour of that obnoxious +monosyllable.--Well, poor Epic, good night to you, and my benison on +those who love you. + + * * * * * + +To any one, much in the habit of thoughtful revery, how very +unsatisfactory those notions look in writing. He can't half unravel the +chaotic cobwebs of his mind; as he plods along penning it, a thousand +fancies flit about him too intangibly for fixed words, and his +ever-teeming hot imagination cannot away with the slow process of +concreted composition. For me, I must write impromptu, or not at all; +none of your conventional impromptus, toils of half-a-day, as little +instantaneous as sundry patent lights; no working-up of laborious +epigrams, sedulously sharpened antitheses, or scintillative trifles, +diligently filed and polished; but the positive impromptu of longing to +be an adept at shorthand-writing, by way of catching as they fly those +swift-winged thoughts; not quick enough by half; most of those bright +colours unfixed; most of those fair semi-notions unrecorded. To say +nothing of reasons of time, there being other things to do, and reasons +of space, there being other things to write. And thus, good friend, +affectionately believe the best of these crude intimations of things +intellectual, which the husbandry of good diligence, and the golden +shower of Danae's enamoured, and the smiles of the Sun of encouragement +might heretofore have ripened into authorship; nay, more, perhaps may +still: believe, generously, that if I could coil off quietly, like +unwrapped cocoons, all these epics, tragics, theologies, pathetics, +analytics, and didactics, they would show in fairer forms, and +better-defined proportions: believe, also, truly, that I could, if I +would, and that I would, if the game were worth its candle. + +But, sooth to say, the over-gorged public may well regard that +small-tomed author with most favourable eye, who condenses himself +within the narrowest limits; a _diable boiteux_, not the huge spirit of +the Hartz; concentrated meat-lozenges, not _soup maigre_; pocket-pistols +of literature, not lumbering parks of its artillery. Verily, there is a +mightier mass of typography than of readers; and the reading world, from +very brevity of life, must rush, at a Bedouin pace, over the illimitable +plains of newspaper publication, while the pyramids of dusty folio are +left to stand in solitary proud neglect. The cursory railroad spirit is +abroad: we abhor that old painful ploughing through axle-deep ruts: the +friend who will skate with us, is welcomer than he who holds us freezing +by the button; and the teacher, who suggestively bounds in his balloon +on the tops of a chain of arguments, is more popular in lecturing than +he of the old school, who must duteously and laboriously struggle up and +down those airy promontories. + +I love an avenue, though, like Lord Ashburton's magnificent mile of +yew-trees, it may lead to nothing, and therefore have not expunged this +unnecessary preface: rather, will I bluntly come upon a next subject, +another work in my unseen circulating library, + + + + +THE SEVEN SAYINGS OF GRECIAN WISDOM, + +ILLUSTRATED IN SEVEN TALES. + + +Cordially may this theme be commended to the more illuminating +booksellers: well would it be greeted by the picture-loving public. It +might come out from time to time as a periodical, in a classical +wrapper: might be decorated with the sages' physiognomies, copied from +antique gems, with the fancied passage in each one's life that provoked +the saying, and with specific illustrations of the exemplifying story. +There should be a brilliant preface, introducing the seven sages to each +other and the reader, after the ensample of Plutarch, and exhausting all +the antiquarianism, all the memoirism, and all the varia-lectionism of +the subject. The different tales should be of different countries and +ages of the world, to insure variety, and give an easier exit to +_ennui_. As thus: Solon's "Know thyself" might be fitted to an Eastern +favourite raised suddenly to power, or a poor and honest Glasgow weaver +all upon a day served as heir to a Scotch barony, when he forthwith +falls into fashionable vices. Chilo's "Note the end of life" might +concern the merriment of the drunkard's career, and its end--delirium +tremens, or spontaneous combustion: better, perhaps, as less vulgarian, +the grandeur and assassination of some Milanese ducal tyrant. The +"Watch your opportunity" of Pittacus could be shown in the fortunes of +some Whittington of trade, some Washington of peace, or some Napoleon of +war. Bias's uncharitable bias, believing the worst of the world, might +seem to some a truism, to others a falsehood, according as their fellows +have served them well or ill; but a brief history of some hypocrite's +life, some misanthrope's experience, or some Arabian Stylobatist's +resolve to be perched above this black earth on a column like a stork, +might help to prove that "the majority are wicked." As for Periander's +aphorism, that "to industry all things are possible," pyramid-building +old Egypt, or the Druids of Stonehenge, or Scottish proverbial +perseverance in Australian sheep rearing and Canadian timber clearing, +will carry the point by acclamation. Cleobulus, praising "moderation in +all things," would glorify a moral warning of universal application, as +to pleasures, riches, and rank; or especially perhaps as preferring true +temperance before its modern tee-total false pretences; or lauding some +Richard Cromwell's choice of a quiet country life, before the turbulent +honours of a proffered Protectorate; while Thales, with his all but old +English proverb of "more haste, less speed," would apply admirably to +Sultan Mahmoud's ruinous reforms; or to the actual injury gulled Britain +has done to the condition of negroes in general by a vastly too +precipitate abolition of the slave-trade: a vile evil, indeed, but a +cancer of too long creeping to be cured in a day, a rottenness too +deeply seated in the frame-work of the world to be extirpated by such +caustic surgery as fire and sword; or to be quacked into health by +patent gold-salve. + +Seven such tales, shrewdly setting out their several aims, and +illustrative of good moral maxims which wise heathens live by, would (I +trow and trust) be somewhat better, more original--ay, and more +entertaining, too--than the common run of magazine adventures. It may +not here be fair to particularize further than in the way of avowing my +unmitigated contempt for the exploits of highwaymen, swindlers, men +about town, and ladies of the _pave_. I protest against gilding crimes, +and palliating follies. Serve the public tables with better food, good +Pandarus. Those commentators on the Newgate calendar, those +bringers-into-fashion of the mysteries of vice, must not be quite +acquitted of the evils they have caused: brilliancy of dialogue, and +graphic power of delineation, are only weapons in a madman's hand, if +the moral be corrupting and profane. To cheerful, hearty, +care-dispelling humour, to such merry faces as Pickwick and +Co.--inimitable Pickwick--hail, all hail! but triumphs of burglary, and +escapes of murderers, aroint ye! + +Why then should I throw this cargo overboard?--Friend, my ship is too +full; _if_ I could only do one thing at a time, and could finish it +within the limits of its originating fit, these things all might be less +abortive. But I doubt if my glorification of Greek aphorisms ever +reaches any higher apotheosis than the airy castles sketchily built +above. + + * * * * * + +Similar in idea with these last tales, but essentially more sacred as to +character, would be an illustrative elucidation of the seven last +sayings of our Blessed Lord, when dying in the crucifixion. The Romish +Church, in some of her imposing ceremonies, has caused the sayings to be +exhibited on seven banners, which are occasionally carried before the +holy cross: from this I probably derived the idea of detaching these +sentences from the frame-work of their contexts, and regarding them in +some sort as aphorisms. For a name, not to be tautologous, should be +proposed a Graeco-Anglicism, + + + + +THE HEPTALOGIA; + +OUR SAVIOUR'S SEVEN LAST SAYINGS. + + +The addition of "hagia" might be rather too Attic for English ears; and +I know not whether "the Sacred Heptalogia" would not also be too +mystical. This series of tales is capable of like illustration with the +last, except in the matter of portraits, unless indeed some eminent +fathers of the church, or some authenticated enamels, gems, or coins, +(if any,) displaying our Lord's likeness, served the purpose; and of +course the character of the stories should not be much in dissonance +with the sacredness of the text. The first might well enforce +forgiveness of enemies, especially if their hatred springs from +misapprehension. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do:" +many a true story of religious persecution, as of Inquisitorial +torture, exacted by sincere bigotry, and endured by equally sincere +conviction, would illustrate the prayer, and the scene might be laid +among Waldensian saints and the friars of Madrid. The second tale might +enlarge upon a promised Paradise, the assurance of pardon, and the +efficacy of repentance: the certainty of hope and life being +co-extensive, so that it might still be said of the seeming worst, the +brigand and the blasphemer, "To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise;" +a story to check presumption, while it encourages the humility of +pentitent hope; the details of a prodigal's career and his return, say +a falsely philosophizing German student, or the excesses of some not +ungenerous outburst of youthful wantonness; haply, a fair and passionate +Neapolitan. The third might well regard filial piety: "Behold thy +son--behold thy mother:" illustrated perhaps by a slave scene in +Morocco, or the last adieus between a Maccabaean mother, and her noble +children rushing on duteous death; or the dangers of a son, during the +Reign of Terror, protecting his proscribed parents; or allusive to the +case of many razed and fired homes in the Irish rebellion. The fourth, +necessarily a tale of overwhelming calamity ultimately triumphant, "My +God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"--the confidence of _my_ God +still, even in His recognised judgments trusted in as merciful: the +history of many an unrecorded Job; a parent bereaved of his fair dear +children; an aged merchant beggared by the roguery of others, and his +very name blamelessly dishonoured; the extremity of a martyr's +sufferings; or some hunted soul's temptation. The fifth, "I thirst;" +which might be commented on, either morally only, as referring to a +thirst after religion, virtue, and knowledge--or physically also, in +some story of well-endured miseries at sea on a wrecking craft; or of +Christian resignation even to the horrible death of drought among the +torrid sands of Africa; or some noble act, like that of Sir Philip +Sidney on the battle-field, or David's libation of that desired draught +from the well of Bethlehem. I need not remark that all these sayings +might primarily be applied to their Good Utterer, if it seemed more +advisable to shape the publication into seven sermons: but this, it will +at once be perceived, is not the present object; the word "sermons" has +to most men a repulsive sound, and a tale, similar in disguised motive, +may win, where an orderly discourse might unhappily repel: a teacher's +best influences are the indirect: like the conquering troops at +Culloden, his charge will be oblique; his weapon will strike the +unguarded flank, and not the opposing target. The sixth, "It is +finished;" perhaps, not only as a fact on the true, the necessary value +of the Christian scheme of redemption being so completed; but, more +generally, to display the evils and dangers of leaving mental, +spiritual, or even worldly good designs unfinished: a tale of natural +procrastination conquered, difficulties overcome, prejudices broken +down, and gigantic good effected: a Russian Peter, a literary Johnson, a +missionary Neff, a Wesley, or a Henry Martyn. The seventh, descanting +upon noble patience, and agonies vanquished by faith, the death and +glorious expectance of a martyr, the end of one of Fox's heroes; +"Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Of necessity in these +Christian tales there would be more of sameness than in those heathen; +because it would be improper and impolitic, with such theses, to enter +much into the lower human passions and the common events of life. But my +intentions of further proceeding in this matter have, as at present, +very sensibly subsided; for many wise and many good might reasonably +object to making those holy last dying words mere pegs to hang moral +tales upon. The idea might please one little sect, and anger half the +world; I care not to behold it accomplished, and question my own +capabilities; only, as it has been an authorial project heretofore +conceived by me, suffer it to boast this brief existence. + + * * * * * + +It is scandalously reported of some folks that they are not musical, a +calumny that has been whispered of myself: and, though against my own +convictions, (who will confess he "has not music in his soul?") I partly +acquiesce; that is to say--for, of such a charge, self-defence claims to +explain a little--although I _am_ charmed with all manner of music, +still for choice I prefer a German chorus to an Italian solo, and an +English glee to a French jig. Accordingly the operatic world have every +reason to despise my taste: especially if I add that Welsh songs, and +Scotch and Irish national melodies--[where are our English +gone?]--rejoice my heart beyond Mozart and Rossini. And now this next +little notion is scarcely of substance sufficient to assume the garb of +authorship: it is little more than a passing whim, but I choose for the +very notion's sake to make it better known. Except in a very few +instances--as Haydn's '_Seasons_,' e.g.--Oratorios, from some +conventional idea of Lent, we may suppose, seem obligated to concern +matters sacred. Of course, every body is aware of the prayerful meaning +of the name; but we know also that a madrigal has long ago put off its +monkish robe of a hymn to the Virgin, and worn the more laic habit of a +love song. Now, it is a fact, that very many good men who delight in +Handel's melody, and of course cannot object to psalms and anthems, +entertain conscientious objections to hearing the Bible set to music in +a concert-room; and sure may we all be, that, unless the whole thing be +regarded as a religious service, (in a mixed gay company who think of +sound more than sense, not very easy,) the warbling of sacred phrases, +and variations on the summoning trumpet, and imitated angelic praise, +and the unfelt expressions of musical repentance, and unfearing +despondency of guilt in recitative, are any thing but congenial to a +mind properly attuned. I hope I am neither prudish, nor squeamish, nor +splenetic, but speak only what many feel, and few care to express. Now, +the cure in future for all this would be very simple: Why not have some +lay oratorios? Protestants have appropriated the madrigal, and listen, +delighted with its melody, without the needless offence of seeming to +countenance idolatry; why should they not have solemn music, new or +ancient as may be adapted, administering to their patriotism, or their +tragic interests, or historic recollections, without grating against +their feelings of religious veneration?--To be specific, let me suggest +a subject, and show, for the benefit of any Pindar of this day, its +musical capabilities: we are, or ought to be as Englishmen, all stirred +at the name of + + + + +ALFRED; + + +and he would minister as well to the harmonies of an oratorio as Abel, +or Jephtha, Moses, or St. Paul--nay, as the Messiah, or the last dread +Judgment. Remember, our Alfred was a proficient himself, and spied the +Danish forces in the character of a harper. What scope were here for +gentle airs, and stirring Saxon songs! He harangues his patriot band, +and a manly Phillips would personify with admirable taste the truly +royal bard: he leaves Athel-switha his wife, and a fair flock of +children in sanctuary, while he rushes to the battle-field: the +churchmen might receive their queenly charge with music: the Danes riot +in their unguarded camp with drinking-snatches, and old-country-staves: +a storm might occur, with elemental crash: the succeeding silence of +nature, and distant coming on of the patriot troops at midnight; their +war-songs and marches nearer and nearer; the invaders surprised in their +camp and in their cups; the hurlyburly of the fight--a hail-stone chorus +of arrows, a clash of thousand swords, trumpets, drums, and clattering +horse-hoofs; a silent interval, to introduce a single combat between +Alfred and Hubba the Dane, with Homeric challenges, tenor and bass; the +routed foe, in clamorous and discordant staccato; the conquerors +pressing on in steady overwhelming concord; how are the mighty +fallen--and praise to the God of battles! + +Most briefly, then, thus: there is religion enough to keep it solemn, +without being so experimental as to intrude upon personal prejudice. The +notion is too slight, and too slenderly worked out, even for admission +here, if I were not still, my shrewd and mindful reader, sedulously +endeavouring to get rid of all my brain-oppressing fancies: and this, +happening to come uppermost as I write, finds itself caught, to my +comfort. It is commended, if worth any thing, to the musical proficient: +for I might as well think of adding a note to the gamut as of trying to +compose an oratorio. + + * * * * * + +The authorial mind is infinitely versatile: books and book-making are +indeed its special privilege, forte, and distinguishing peculiarity; but +still its thoughts and regards are ever cast towards originality of +idea, though unwritten and unprinted, in all the multitudinous +departments of science and of art. Thus, mechanical invention, chemical +discovery, music as above, painting as elsewhere, sculpture as below, +give it exercise continually. The authorial mind never is at rest, but +always to be seen mounted and careering on one hobby-horse or other out +of its untiring stud. If the coin of some rude Parthian, or the +fragments of some old Ephesian frieze, serve not as a scope for its +present ingenuities, it will break out in a new method of grafting +raspberries on a rosebush, in the comfortable cut of a pilot-coat, or +the safest machinery for a steamer. _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_ is a rule +of moderation it repudiates; incessant energy provokes unabated +meddling, and its intuitive qualities of penetration, adaptation, and +concentration, are only hindered by the accidents of life from carrying +any one thing out to the point at least of respectable attainment. Look +at Michael Angelo; poet, painter, sculptor, architect, and author: and +if indeed we are not told of Milton having modeled, or Horace having +built up other monuments than his own imperishable fame, still nothing +but manual habit and the world's encouragement were wanting to perfect, +in the concrete, the conceptions of those plastic minds. Who will deny +that Hogarth was a novelist and play-wright, if not indeed a +heart-rending tragedian? Who will refuse to those nameless monastic +architects who planned and fashioned the fretted towers of Gloucester, +the stern solidity of Durham, the fairy steeple of Strasburg, or the +delicate pinnacles of Milan, the praise due to them of being genuine +poets of the immortal Epic? Phidas and Praxiteles, Canova and +Thorswaldsen, are in this view real authors, as undoubtedly as Homer or +Dante, Sallust or Racine; and to rise highest in this argument, the +heavens and the earth are but mighty scrolls of an Omniscient Author, +fairly written in a universal tongue of grandeur and beauty, of skill, +poetry, philosophy, and love. + +But let me not seem to prove too much, and so leap over my horse instead +of vaulting into the saddle: though authorship may claim thus +extensively every master-mind, from the Adorable Former of all things +down to the humblest potter at his wheel fashioning the difficult +ellipse; still, in human parlance, must we limit it to common +acceptations, and think of little more than scribe, in the name of +author. Nevertheless, let such seeds of thought as here are carelessly +flung out, nurtured in the good soil of charity, and not unkindly forced +into foolish accusations of my own conceit, whereas their meaning is +general, (as if forsooth selfishly dibbled in with vain particularity, +and not liberally broadcast that he may run that reads,)--let such crude +considerations excuse my own weak and uninjurious invasion of the +provinces of other men. The wisdom for social purposes of infinitesimal +division of labour, may be proved good by working well; but its lowering +influences on the individual mind cannot be doubted: that an intelligent +man should for a life-time be doomed to watch a valve, or twist +pin-heads, or wind cotton, or lacquer coffin-nails, cannot be improving; +and while I grant great evil in my desultory excesses, still I may make +some use of that argument in the converse, and plead that it is good to +exercise the mind on all things. Thus, in my assumed metier of +authorship, let notions be extenuated that popularly concern it little, +and yield admittance to any thought that may lead to that Athenian +desideratum, "some new thing." + +While the echoes of the name of Alfred still linger on the mind, and our +patriotism looks back with gratitude on his thousand virtues unsullied +by a fault, (at least that History, seldom so indulgent, has +recorded,)--while we reflect that in him were combined the wise king, +the victorious general, the enlightened scholar, the humble Christian, +the learned author, the excellent father, the admirable MAN in +all public and private relations, in domestic alike with social duties, +I cannot help wishing that forgetful England had raised some +architectural trophy, as a worthy testimonial of Alfred the noble and +the good. Whether Oxford, his pet child--or Westminster Hall, as mindful +of the code he gave us--or Greenwich, as the evening resting-place of +those sons of thunder whom the genius of Alfred first raised up to man +our wooden walls--should be the site of some great national memorial, +might admit of question; but there can be none that something of the +kind has been owing now near upon a thousand years, and that it will +well become us to claim boastingly for England so true, so glorious a +hero. With a view to expedite this object, and strictly to bear upon the +topic in author-fashion, it has come into my thought how much we want a + + + + +LIFE OF ALFRED: + + +my little reading knows of none, beyond what dictionaries have gathered +from popular history and vague tradition, rather than manuscripts of old +time, and Asser, the original biographer. Of this last work, written +originally in Saxon, and since translated into Latin, I submit that a +popular English version is imperatively called for; a translation from a +translation being never advisable, (compare Smollett's Anglo-Gallified +dilution of '_Don Quixote_,') the primary source should be again +consulted; and seeing that profound ignorance of the ancient Saxon +coupled with, as now, total indifference about its acquisition, place me +in the list of incapables, I leave the good suggestion to be used by +pundits of the Camden or Roxburghe or other book-learned society. If it +may have been already done by some neglected scribe, bring it to the +light, and let us see the bright example set to all future ages by that +early Crichton; if never yet accomplished, my zeal is over-paid should +the hint be ever acted on; and if, which is still possible, an English +version of the life of Alfred should be positively rife and common among +the reading public, your humble ignoramus has nothing for it but to pray +pardon of its author for not having known him, and to walk softly with +the world for writing so much before he reads. + +But this is an accessory--an episode; I plead for a statue to King +Alfred: and--(now for another episode; is there _no_ cure for these +desperate parentheses?)--_apropos_ of statues, let me, in the simple +untaught light of nature, suggest a word or two with regard to some +recent under-takings. Notwithstanding classical precedents, whereof more +presently, it does seem ridiculous to common sense, to set a man like a +scavenger-bird at Calcutta, or a stork at Athens, or a sonorous Muezzin, +or a sun-dried Simeon Stylites, on the top of a column a hundred feet +high: sculpture imitates life, and who would not shudder at such an +unguarded elevation? sculpture imitates life, and who can recognise a +countenance so much among the clouds? Again for the precedents: I +presume that Pompey's pillar, (which, indeed, perhaps never had any +thing on its summit except some Egyptian emblem, as the cap and throne +of higher and lower Egypt, or a key of the Nile as likely as any thing,) +is the most notable, if not the first, of solitary columns: now, +Pompey, or, as some prefer, Diocletian, and others Alexander Severus, +had that fine pillar ferried over from the quarries of Lycian Xanthus; +at least, this is a good idea, seeing that near that place still lie +three or four other columns of like gigantic dimensions, unfinished, and +believed to have been intended to support the triglyph of some new +temple. Pompey's idea was to fix the pillar up as a sea-mark, for either +entering the harbour of Alexandria, or to denote shallows, anchorage, or +the like; but apart from this actual utility, and apart also from its +acknowledged ornament as a sentinel on that flat strand, I take it to be +an architectural absurdity to erect a regular-made column with little or +nothing to support: an obelisk now, or a naval trophy, or a tower +decorated with shields, or a huge stele or cippus, or a globe, or a +pyramid, or a Waltham-cross sort of edifice, (of course all these +supporting nothing on their apices,) in fact, _any thing but_ a +Corinthian or Tuscan, or other regular pillar, seems to be permissable; +but for base, shaft, and capital to have nothing to do but lift a +telescopic man from earth's maternal surface, does look not a little +unreasonable; and therefore as much out of taste, as for the marble arch +at Buckingham Palace to spend its energies in supporting a flag-staff. + +The magnificent column of Trajan is exempted from this hasty bit of +criticism, (as also of course is its modern counterpart, Napoleon's,) +because it is, both from decoration and proportions, out of the +recognised orders of architecture; it partakes rather of the character +of a triumphal tower, than of one among many pillars separated chiefly +from the rest; the man is a superlative accessory, a climax to his +positive exploits; he does not stand a-top, as if dropt from a balloon, +but like a gallant climber treading on his conquests: and, as to +Phocas's column at Rome, I shall only say, that it illustrates my +meaning, except in so far as an immense base to the super-imposed +statuere deems it from the jockey imputation of carrying too light a +weight. Now, with respect to the Nelson memorial, your meddlesome scribe +had an unexhibited notion of his own. Mehemet Ali is understood to have +given certain two obelisks respectively to the French and English +nations: the Parisians appropriated theirs, and have set it up, +thorn-like, in their midst, perhaps as an emblem of what African +conquest has been in the heartside of France; but we English, less +imaginative, and therefore less antiquarian, have permitted our _petit +cadeau_ to lie among its ruins of Luxor or Karnac, unclaimed and +unconsidered. + +Nelson of the Nile might have had this consecrated to his honour: and +if, as is probable, it be of insufficient elevation, I should have +proposed a high flight of steps and a base, screened all round by +shallow Egyptian entrances, with an Etruscan sarcophagus just within the +principal one, (Egypt and Etruria were cousins germane,) and an +alto-relievo of Nelson dying, but victorious, recumbent on the lid: the +globe and wings, emblems alike of Nelson's rapidity, his universal fame, +and his now-emaciated spirit, might be sculptured over each entrance; a +sphinx, or a Prudhoe lion, being allusive to England as well as Egypt, +should sit guardiant at each corner of the steps; and the three +remaining doorways would be represented closed, and carved externally +with some allegorical personations of Nelson's career, of the Nile, +Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. This, then, had it been strictly in my +metier, (a happy metier mine of literary leisure,) should have been my +limned outline for the Nelson testimonial: the real interesting antique +needle, rising from the midst of its solid Egyptian architecture, and +pointing to the skies; not a steeple, however, but merely the obelisk +raised upon a heavy base, only hollowed far enough to admit of an +interior alto-relievo. + +It is probable that the exhibition of designs, which an _alibi_ +prevented me from seeing, included several obelisks; but the +peculiarities I should have insisted on, would have been first to make +good use of the real thing, the rarely carved old Egypt's porphyry; and, +next, to have had our hero's likeness within reasonable distance of the +eye. + +But to return from this other desperate digression: Alfred, the great +and wise, deserves his Saxon cross; or let him lie enshrined in a grove +of florid Gothic pinnacles, a fretted roof on clustered columns +reverently keeping off the rain; or, best of all, let him stand majestic +in his own-time costume, colossal bronze on a cube of granite, and so +put to shame the elegancies of a Windsor uniform, and the absurdity of +sticking heroes, as at St. George's, Bloomsbury, and elsewhere, on the +summit of a steeple. So, friend, let all this tirade serve to introduce +a most unlikely and chaotic treatise on + + + + +NATIONAL MEMORIALS. + + +Politics are a sore temptation to any writer, and of dalliance with a +Delilah so seductive it is futile to declare that I am innocent. My +principles positively are known to myself; which is a measure of +self-knowledge, in these any-thing-arian days, of that cabinet +coin-climax the "8th degree of rarity;" and that those choice +principles may not be concealed from so kind an eye as yours, friend +reader, hear me profess myself honestly--if you approve, or +shamelessly--if you _will_ so think it--"a rabid Tory!" At least, by +such a nomenclature sundry veracious journals, daily leaders of the +public opinion, would call me, were such a groundling as I prominent +enough to attract their indignation; and, from all that can be gathered +from their condemnatory clauses against others like minded, I have no +little reason to be proud of the title. For, on collation of such +clauses with their causes, I find, and therefore take (under correction +always) the rabid Tory to be--a temperate lover of order, whom his +mother has taught to "fear God," his father to "honour the king," and +his pastor to "meddle not with them who are given to change." A rabid +Tory, in matters of national expenditure, remembers to have heard an old +unexploded proverb, "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth, and +there is that withholdeth what is due, but it tendeth to poverty;" and +he is by no means sure that a certain mismanaged nation is not +immolating her prosperity to what actuaries would call economical +principles. A rabid Tory is bigoted enough to entertain a ridiculous +fear of that generation abstraction, Catholic Rome, whom further he is +sufficiently vulgar-minded to consider as a lady of easy virtue arrayed +in the colours of a cardinal: he thinks one Luther to be somewhat more +than a renegade monk; and is childish enough to venerate, when a man, +the same Liturgy which his grandmother had taught him when a boy. For +other matters, the higher born, the better bred, the more classically +educated, and the more extensively possessed of moneys and lands our +honest-spoken Tory may be, ten to one the more is he afflicted with this +rabbies: and his mad propensities become positively criminal, when, as a +magistrate or a captain of dragoons, he thinks himself bound in +honourable duty to quell the enthusiasm of some disinterested patriots, +whose innocent wishes rise no higher than to subvert the existing order +of things, to secure for themselves a reasonable share of parks, +palaces, and pocket-money, and (as the very justifiable means for so +happy an end) manfully to sacrifice in the temple of Freedom the rogues +who would object to being robbed, and the tyrants who would be bloody +enough to fight for life and liberty. + +A rabid Tory--you see it is a pet name of mine--feels no little contempt +for a squeezable character; and he is well assured, from history as well +as on his own conviction, that the noble army of martyrs lived and died +upon his principles: whereas the retrograde regiment of cowards, whom +the wisdom of providing for personal safety has in battle induced to run +away, _relictis non bene parmulis_--the clamorous cohort of bullies, +whom the necessities of impending castigation have sensibly induced to +eat their words--the volunteer company of light-heeled swindlers, whom +nature instructs that they must live, and honesty has neglected to +inform how--every one, in short, whose grand maxim (_quocunque modo +rem_) is temporizing expediency, and with whom the cogent argument "you +shall" has more force than the silly conscience-whisper of "you +ought,"--contributes to swell the band which the professor of Toryism, +the abstracted follower of principles and not of men, has the honour of +beholding in the angle of his diagram, inscribed "contradictory." Not +that your true Tory believes so ill of _all_ his adversaries; there are +some few geese among the cranes; an Abdiel here and there, who has long +felt irksome in the host, but for false shame is there still; sundry +men, having ambitious or illuminated wives, and too amiable, or too +prudent, to attempt a breach of peace at home; some thronging the +opposite benches, because their fathers and grandfathers topographically +occupied those same seats--a decent reason, supposing similarity of +places and names, to insure similarity of principles and practice; and +some--I dislike them not for honesty--confessing and upholding the +republican extremes, upon a belief that all short of these are but an +unsatisfactory part of a great and glorious experiment. Now, the rabid +Tory prefers an open foe to a false friend; but your go-between, your +midway sneak, your shuttlecock, your perjured miser who will swear to +any thing for an extra per centage--all these are his detestation: and +although he will readily acknowledge some good and some wise in the +adversary's ranks, still he recognises that tri-coloured banner as the +one under which all naturally fight, who are poor in both worlds--with +neither money nor religion. Thus much of my reasonable rabies. + +One may hate principles without hating men; and for this sentiment we +have the Highest Example. Things are either right or wrong; if right, +do; if wrong, forbear: nothing can be absolutely indifferent, and to do +a little actual evil in order to compass great hypothetical good, is +false morality, and, therefore bad government. Why should not honesty +and plain-dealing be as inviolable publicly as privately? Why be guilty +of such mean self-stultification as to say one thing and do another? It +is criminal in rulers to give a helping hand to the evil which they deem +unavoidable; let them, in preference, cease to rule, and imitate the +noble threat of that king for half a century whose conscience bade him +abdicate rather than do wrong. + +But to come abruptly on a title-page: often-times, in reading +deleterious leading articles in wrong-sided newspapers, have I longed to +set before the world of faction + + + + +A MANUAL OF GOOD POLITICS, + + +which indeed has already been half-done, if decently begun be +synonymous. With this view has my author's mind heretofore thought over +many scriptural texts, characters, doctrines, and usages; yet, let me +freely confess the upshot of those efforts to be little satisfactory: +for I fear much, that though there be grounds enough to go upon for one +who is already fixed in right political principle, [orthodoxy being, as +is common among arguers, _my_ doxy,] there may not be sufficient so to +reason from as to convince the thousands, ready and willing to gainsay +them: and Locke's utter annihilation of poor ridiculous well-intentioned +Filmer, makes one wary, of taking up and defending a position so little +tenable, as, for instance, Adam's primary grant for the foundation of +absolute monarchy, or of attempting to nullify natural freedom by the +dubious succession of patriarchal power. At the same time, (competency +for so great a task being conceded--no small supposition, by the way,) +much remains to be done in this field of discourse; as, the fearful +example made of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, for conduct very analogous +with numberless instances of modern Liberalism; the rights of rulers, as +well as of the governed; of kings, as well as people; the connexion +subsisting now, as through all former ages, between church and +state--well indeed and deeply argued out already by such great minds as +Coleridge and Gladstone, but perhaps, for general usefulness, requiring +a more brief and popular discourse; the question of passive obedience; +the true though unfashionable doctrine of man's general depravity +invalidating the consignment of power to the masses; and so forth. There +are, however, if Scripture is to be held a constitutional guide, some +examples to a certain extent contrary to the argument: as, elective +monarchy in the case of Saul; non-legitimate succession in families even +where election is omitted, as in the case of Solomon; and, honestly to +say it, many other difficulties of a like nature. In fact, upon the +whole, this distinction might be drawn; that although the Bible at large +favours what we may, for shortness' sake, term Conservative politics, +still it would not be easy to deduce from its page as code of rules, so +necessarily of a social, temporary, and accidental nature: The principle +is given, but little of the practice; the seed of true and undefiled +religion produces among other good fruit what we will call Conservatism, +but we must be very microscopic to detect that fruit in the seed: of +this admission let my _Liberal_ adversary make--as indeed he will--the +most; but let him remember that truth has always been most economically +distributed. It is a material too costly to be broadcast before swine; +and in slender evidence lurks more of moral test, than in stout +arguments and open miracles. At any rate, as unfitted for the task, I +leave it. For any thing mine un-book-learned ignorance can tell, the +very title may be as old as Christianity itself; it is a good name, and +a fair field. + +This manual was commenced in the form of familiar letters to a radical +acquaintance, whom I had resolved to convert triumphantly; but John +Locke disarmed me, without, however, having gained a convert: he made me +drop my weapon as Prospero with Ferdinand; but the fault lay with +Ferdinand, for want of equal power in the magic art. + + * * * * * + +"MEASURES, NOT MEN" is, as we have hinted already, the +ground-work of a true Tory's political creed; and measures themselves +only in so far as they expound and are consistent with principles. A man +may fail; the stoutest partisan become a renegado; and the pet measure +of a doughtiest champion may after all prove traitorous, unwise, +unworthy: but principle is eternally an unerring guide, a master to +whose words it is safe to swear, a leader whose flag is never lowered in +compromise, nor sullied by defeat. Defalcations of the generally +upright, derelictions of duty by the usually noble-minded, shake not +that man's faith which is founded on principle: for the cowardice, or +rashness, or dishonesty of some individual captain, he may feel shame, +but never for the _cause_ in which such hold commissions; he may often +find much fault with _soi-disant_ Tories, but never with the 'ism they +profess. We over-step their follies; we disclaim their corruptions; we +date above their faults; we wash our hands of their abuses. An +abstracted student in his chamber, building up his faith from the +foundations, and trying every stone of the edifice, takes little heed of +who is for him, and who against him, so Conscience is the architect, and +the Master of the house looks on approving. A man's mind is but one +whole; be it palace or hovel, feudal stronghold or Italian villa, it is +all of a piece: a duly subordinated spirit bears no superstructure of +the Radical, and the friable soil of discontented Liberalism, is too +sandy a foundation for ponderous fanes of the religious. + +I rejoice in being accounted one of those unheroic, and therefore more +useful, members of society, who profess to be by no means ambitious of +reigning. A plain country gentleman, with a mind (thank Heaven!) well at +ease, and things generally, both external and internal, being in his +case consentaneous with happiness, would appear to have reached the acme +of human felicity; and no one but a fool cares, in any world, to +exemplify the dog's preference for the shadow. Unenvious, therefore, of +royalty, and fully crediting that _never-quoted_ sentiment of +Shakspeare's "Uneasy," &c., my motto, within the legitimate limits of +right reason, and in common with that of some ridiculed philosopher of +Roundhead times, is the prudent saying, "Whoever's king, I'll be +subject!"--ay, and for the masculine I place the epicene. While, +however, in sober practice of right subordination, and under existing +circumstances of just rule, we gladly would amplify the maxim, (as in +courtesy, gallantry, loyalty, and honest kind feeling strongly bound,) +still in mere speculation, and irrespectively of things as they are, our +abstract musings tended to approve the original word in its unextended +gender. Every one of Edmund Burke's school would honour the ensign of +Divine vice-regency wherever he found it; but, apart from this +uninquisitive respect, he will claim to be reasonably patriotic, +patriotically rational; habit encourages to practice one thing, but +theory may induce to think another. Now, little credence as so +unenlightened so illiberal an integer as I give to an equalization in +the rights of man, certainly on many accounts my blindness gives less to +the rights of women with man, and very far less to those rights over +man: it might be inconvenient to be specific as to reason; but the +working of an ultra-republican scheme, in which females should ballot as +well as males, would briefly illustrate my meaning. Barbarism makes +gentle woman our slave; right civilization raises her into a loving +helpmate; but what kind of wisdom exalts her into mastery? + +Readily, however, shall sleep in dull suppression sundry comments on a +certain Rhenish law, whereof my author's mind had at one time studiously +cogitated a grave and wholesome homily. For our censor of the press, one +strait-laced Mr. Better Judgment, has, "with his abhorred shears," +clipped off the more eloquent and spirited portion of a trenchant +argument concerning--the revealed doctrine of a superior sex, the social +evils of female domination, church-headships considered as to type and +antitype, improper influences, necessary hindrances, anomalous example, +feminine infirmities, and an infinitude more such various objections +springing out of this fertile subject. Thereafter might have come the +historical view, evils and perils, for the majority of instances, +following in the wake of such mastery. However, to leave these +questionable matters quiescent, the principles of passive obedience +mildly interpose, forbidding to stir the waters of commotion, although +with healing objects, for the sake of an abstract theory; there is +ill-meant change enough afloat, without any call for well-intentioned +meddlers to launch more. So, judicious after-thought resolves rather to +strengthen too-much-weakened authority, in these ungovernable times, +than attempt to prove its weaknesses inherent; to look obstinately at +the golden side only of the double-wielded shield: instead of picking +away at a soft stone in constitutional foundations, our feeble wish +magnanimously prefers to prop it and plaster it, flinging away that +injurious pick-axe. The title of this once-considered lucubration is far +too suggestive to carping minds of more than the much that it means, to +be without objection: nevertheless, I did begin, and therefore, always +under shelter of a domino, and protesting against any who would move my +mask, I confess to + + + + +WOMAN, A SUBJECT: + + +it was a mere speculative argument; a flock of fancies now roaming +unregarded in some cloudy limbo. Let them fly into oblivion--"black, +white, and gray, with all their trumpery." + + * * * * * + +Notwithstanding these present hostile argumentations, politics are to me +what they doubtless are to many others, subjects and disquisitions +little short of hateful; perpetual mulligatawney; curried capsicums; a +very heating, unsatisfactory, unwholesome sort of food. How many +pleasant dinner-parties have been abruptly broken up by the introduction +of this dish! How many white waistcoats unblanched by projectile +wine-glasses on account of this impetuous theme! How many little-civil +wars produced from the pips of this apple of contention! Yes, I hate it; +and for this cause, good readers, (who may chance to have been used +scurvily, some six pages back, in respect of your opinions, honest as +my own, though fixed in full hostility--and so, courteously be entreated +for your pardons,) for this cause of hate, I beseech you to regard me as +sacrificing my present inclination to my future quiet. We have heard of +women marrying men they may detest, in order to get rid of them: even +with such an object is here indited the last I ever intend to say about +politics. The shadows of notions fixed upon this page will cease to +haunt my brain; and let no one doubt but that after relief from these +pent-up humours, I shall walk forth less intolerant, less unamiable, +less indignant than as heretofore. But, meanwhile, suffer with all +brevity that I say out this small say, and deliver my patriotic +conscience; for many a head-ache has obfuscated your author's mind in +consequence of other abortive bits of political common-place. Every +successive measure of small triumphant Whiggery, every piece of what my +view of the case would designate non-government or mis-government, has +pinched, vexed, bruised, and stung my fervent country's love day by day, +session after session. Like thousands of others, I have been a greyhound +in the leash, a bolt in the bow, longing to take my turn on the arena: +eager as any Shrovetide 'prentice for a fling at negligence, peculation +and injustice, and other the long black catalogue of British injuries. +Socialism, Chartism, Ribandism; Spain, Canada, China; freed criminals, +and imprisoned poverty; penny wisdom, and pound folly; the universal +centralizing system, corrupting all generous individualities: patriotism +ridiculed, and questionable loyalty patted on the back; vice in full +patronage, and virtue out of countenance; Protestantism discouraged, +Popery taken by the hand; Dissent of _any_ kind preferred to sober +Orthodoxy; and, fitting climax, all this done under pretences of perfect +wisdom, and most exquisite devotion to the crown and the +constitution:--these things have made me too often sympathize in Colonel +Crockett's humour, tiger-like, with a dash of the alligator. Accordingly +let me not deny having once attempted a bitter diatribe, in petto, +surnamed + + + + +FALSE STEPS; + +BRITAIN'S HIGHROAD TO RUIN; + + +a production of the pamphlet class, and, like its confraternity, +destined at longest to the life ephemeral. But, to say truth, I found +all that sort of thing done so much better, spicier, cleverer, in +numberless newspaper articles, than my lack of the particular knowledge +requisite, and my little practice in controversy, could have managed, +that I wisely drew in my horns, sheathed my toasting-iron, and decided +upon not proceeding political pamphleteer, till, on awaking some fine +morning, I find myself returned to parliament for an immaculate +constituency. + +Patient reader, of whatever creed, do not hate me for my politics, nor +despise the foolish candour of confession. Henceforth, I will not +trouble you, but abjure the subject; except, indeed, my sturdy friend +"the Squire," soon to be introduced to you, insists upon his +after-dinner topic: but we will cut him short; for, in fact, nothing can +be more provoking, tedious, useless, and causative of ill-blood, than +this perpetual intermeddling of private ignoramuses, like him and me, +with matters they do not understand, nor can possibly ameliorate. + + * * * * * + +A poet is born a poet, as all the world is well aware; and your +thorough-paced lawyer is not less born a lawyer; while the junction of +these two most militant incompatibles clearly bears out the hackneyed +quotation as above, with the final misfit, that is, "_non fit_." Your +poetaster at the bar is that grotesque ideal, which Flaccus thought so +funny that his friends _must_ laugh; (although really, Romans, it _is_ +possible to contemplate a sort of sphinx figure, "a human head to a +horse's neck," and so on, varied plumes and all, without much chance of +a guffaw;) and yonder sickly-looking clerk, perched upon his high stool, +penning "stanzas while he should engross," is the lugubrious caricature +of Apollo on his Pegassus, with Helicon for inkstand. + +It may be nothing extraordinary that, jostled in so wide a theatre as +ours of the world, chance-comers should not, at once or at all, +comfortably find their proper places; but that wise-looking chaperons, +having with prospective caution duly taken a box, should by malice +prepense thrust all the big people in front, and all the little folks +behind, is rather hard upon the latter, and not a little foolish in +itself. Even so in life: who does not wish a thousand times he could +help some people to change places? Look at this long fellow, fit for +Frederick of Prussia's regiment of giants: his parents and guardians +have bent him double, broken his spirit, and spoiled his paces, by +cramming him, a giraffe in the stable, between that frigate's gun-decks +as a middy: while yonder martial little bantam, by dint of exaggerated +heels, and exalted bear-skin, peeps about among his grenadiers, much as +Brutus and Cassius did with their collossal Caesar. So also of minds: +look at brilliant Burns, the exciseman; and quaintly versatile Lamb, the +common city clerk: Look at--had you only patience, you should have +examples by the gross; but, to make a shorter tale of it, (I presume +this shows the etymology of cur-tail,) just think over the pack of your +acquaintance, and see if you could not shuffle those kings, queens--yes, +and knaves too--more to your satisfaction, and their own advantage: at +least, so most folks imagine, silly meddlers as they are; for, after +all, what with human versatility, and the fact of a probationary state, +and the influence of habit, and the drudging example set by others, +things work so kindly as they are, that, notwithstanding misfits, the +wiser few must be of Pope's mind, "whatever is, is right;"--ay, that it +is. + +A year or two ago--if your author is little better than one of the +foolish now, what in charity must he have been then?--I took it upon me +to indite an innocent, stingless satire, whereof for samples take the +following. Skip them one and all; you will, if you are wise, for they +bear the ban of rhyme, are peevish, dull, ill-reasoned; but if you are +not wise, (and, strange to say, malicious people tell me there are many +such,) you may wish to see in print a metred inconclusive grumble. Take +it, then, if you will, as I do, merely for a change; at any rate, your +manciple has furnished this buttery of yours with ample choice of +viands; and omnivoracious as man may be--gormandizing, with gusto, fat +moths in Australia, cockchafers at Florence, frogs in France, and snails +in Switzerland, equally as all less objectionable meats, drinks, fruits, +roots, composites, and simples--still, in reason, no one can be expected +or expect himself to like every thing: have charity, for what suits not +one man's taste may please the palate of another; so hear me +complacently turn + + + + +"KING'S EVIDENCE," + + +and give heed to certain confessions, extorted under the _peine forte et +dure_ of a whilom state legal. Yet, when I come to consider of this, +(_mihi cogitanti_, as school themes invariably commenced,) it strikes my +memory that all confessions, short of the last dying one, are weak and +foolish impertinence; whether Jean Jacques or Mr. Adams thought so, or +caused others to think so, are separate topics beside the question: for +myself, I will spare you a satire dotted with as many I's as an Argus +pheasant; and, without exacting upon good-nature by troublesome +contributions, will hazard a few couplets concerning Blackstone's +cast-off mistress, the Law. One word more though: undoubting of thine +amiability, friend that hast walked with me hitherto in peace, I will be +tame as a purring cat, and sheathe my talons; therefore are you still +unteased by divers sly speeches and sarcastic hints, of and concerning +innumerable black sheep that crowd about a woolsack; especially of +certain "highly respectables," whom the omnipotence of parliament (no +less power presumably being competent) commands to be accounted +"gentlemen." Should then my meagre sketches seem but little spiteful, +accord me credit for tolerance at the expense of wit, (yea, in mine own +garbled satire, hear it Juvenal!) and view them kindly in the same light +as you would sundry emasculated extracts from a discreet Family +Shakspeare. Indignation ever speaks in short sharp queries; and it is +well for the printer's pocket that the self-experience hereof was +considered inadmissible, for a new fount of notes of interrogation must +have been procured: as it is, we are sailing quietly on the Didactic +Ocean, and have, I fear, been engaged some time upon topics actionable +on a charge of _scandalum magnatum_. Hereof then just a little sample: +let us call it '_A Judgment in the Rolls Court_;' or in any other; I +care not. + + Precedent's slave, this mountebank decides + As great Authority, not Reason, guides. + "'Tis not for him, degenerate wight, to say + Faults can be mended at this time of day, + For Coke himself declared--no matter what-- + Can Justice suffer what Lord Coke would not? + And if 1 Siderfin, p. 10, you scan, + Lord Hoax has fixed the rule, that learned man: + I cannot, dare not, if I would, be just, + My hands are tied, and follow Hoax I must; + That _very_ learned Lord could not be wrong. + Besides, in fact, it has been settled long, + For the great case of Hitchcock versus Bundy + Decided--(Cro. Eliz. per Justice Grundy), + That [black was white];--and so, what can I say? + Landmarks are things must not be moved away: + I cannot put the clock of Wisdom back, + And solemnly pronounce that black _is_ black. + Though plaintiff has the right, I grant it clear, + I must be ruled by Hoax and Hitchcock here: + Equity follows, does not mend the laws: + Therefore declare, defendant gains the cause." + +Then, as virtuously bound, Indignation interrogates sundry +ejaculations; or, if you like it better, ejaculates sundry +interrogations: as thus, take a brace: + + If right and reason both combine in one, + Why, in God's name, should justice not be done? + If law be not a lie, and judgments jokes, + Why not _be just_, and cut adrift Lord Hoax? + +After a vast deal more in this vein of literature--for you perceive my +present purpose is dissection in part of this ancient rhyme--we arrive +at a magnanimous-- + + No! Right shall have his own, put off no longer + By rule of Former, or by whim of Stronger; + Nor, because Jack goes tumbling down the hill, + Shall precedent create a tumbling Jill. + Public opinion soon shall change the scene, + And wash the Law's Augaean stable clean; + Sweep out the Temple, drive the sellers thence, + And lead, in novel triumph, Common Sense. + +Verily, this is of the dullest, but it is brief: endure it, and pray you +consider the deadliness of the topic, and the barbarous cruelty +wherewith courtesy has clipped the wings of my poor spite. Let us turn +to other title-pages; assuring all the world that no specific mountebank +has been here intended, and that nothing more is meant than a nerveless +blow against legal cant, quainter than Quarles's, and against that +well-known species of Equity, which must have been so titled from like +antiquated reasons with those that induced Numa and his company to call +a dark grove, lucus. + + * * * * * + +How many foes, in this utilitarian era, has that very unwarrantable +vice, called Poetry! All who despise love and love-making, all who +prefer billiards to meditation, all who value hard cash above mental +riches, feel privileged to hate it; while really, typographers, the +illegible diamond print in which you generally set it up, whether in +book, or newspaper, or handbill, or magazine, induces many an +indifferent peruser to skip the poem for the sake of his eye-sight. I +presume that the monosyllable, rhyme, comprehends pretty nearly all that +the world at large intends by poetry; and, in the same manner as certain +critics have sneered at Livy--no, it was Tacitus--for commencing his +work with a bad hexameter, so many a reader will now-a-days condemn a +whole book, because it is somewhere found guilty of harbouring a +distich. But poetry, friend World, means far other than rhyme; its +etymology would yield "creation," or "fabrication," of sense as well as +sound, and of melody for the eye as well as melody for the ear. So did +[_epoiese_] Milton; and so did not---- Well, I myself, if you will. Yet, +in fact, there are fifty other kinds of poetries, beside the poetry of +words: as the poetry of life--affection, honour, and hope, and +generosity; the poetry of beauty--never mind what features decorate the +Dulcinea, for this species of poetry is felt and seen almost only in +first love; the poetry of motion, as first-rates majestically sailing, +furiously scudding waves, bending corn-fields, and, briefly, all things +moveable but railway-trains; the poetry of rest, as pyramids, a tropical +calm, an arctic winter, and generally all things quiescent but a +slumbering alderman; the poetry of music, heard oftener in a country +milkmaid's evening song, than in many a concert-room; the poetry of +elegance, more natural to weeping willows, unbroken colts, flames, +swans, ivy-clad arches, greyhounds, yea, to young donkeys, than to those +_pirouette_-ing and _very_ active _danseuses_ of the opera; the poetry +of nature, as mountains, waterfalls, storms, summer evenings, and all +manner of landscapes, except Holland and Siberia; the poetry of art, +acqueducts, minarets, Raphael's colouring, and Poussin's intricate +designs; the poetry of ugliness, well seen in monkeys and Skye terriers; +and the poetry of awkwardness, whereof the brightest example is Mr. +trans-Atlantic Rice. And, verily, many other poetries there be, as of +impudence (for which consult the experience of swindlers); of prose, +(for which see Addison); of energy, of sleep, of battle and of peace: +for it is an easy-seeming artfulness, the most fascinating manner of +doing as of saying, complication simplified, and every thing effected to +its bravest advantage. Poetry wants a champion in these days, who will +save her from her friends: O, namby-pamby "lovers of the Nine!" your +innumerous dull lyrics--ay, and mine--your unnatural heroics--I too have +sinned thus--your up-hill sonnets--that labour of folly have I known as +well--in brief, your misnamed poetry, hath done grievous damage to the +cause you toil for. Yet I would avow thus much, for I believe it: as an +average, we have beaten our ancestors; seldom can we take up a paper or +a periodical which does not show us verses worthy of great names; the +age is full of highly respectable, if not superlative poetry; and truly +may we consider that the very abundance of good versification has +lowered the price of poets, and therefore, in this marketing world, has +robbed them of proper estimation. Doubtless, there have been mighty men +of song higher in rank, as earlier in time, than any now who dare to try +a chirrup: but there are also many of our anonymous minstrels, with whom +the greater number of the so-called old English poets could not with +advantage to the ancients justly be compared. Look at '_Johnson's +Lives_.' Who can read the book, and the specimens it glorifies, without +rejoicing in his prose, and thoroughly despising their poetry?--With a +few brilliant exceptions, of course, (for ill-used Milton, Pope--and +shall we in the same sentence put Dryden?--are there,) a more wretched +set of halfpenny-a-liners never stormed mob-trodden Parnassus. The +poetry of Queen Anne's time and thereabouts, I judge to have been at the +lowest bathos of badness; all satyrs, and swains, fulsome flattery of +titles, and foolish adoration of painted shepherdesses: poor weak +hobbling lines, eked out by 'eds and expletives, often terminated by +false rhymes, and made lamer by triplets and dreary Alexandrines; +ill-selected subjects, laboured, indelicate, or impossible similes, +passions frigid as Diana, wit's weapons dull as lead. Yet these (many +exceptions doubtless there were, and many redeeming _morceaux_ even in +the worst, charitable reader, but as of the rule we speak not falsely), +these are the poets of England, the men our great grandfathers delighted +to honour, the feared, the praised, the pensioned, and those whom we +their children still denominate--the poets! Praise, praise your stars, +ye lucky imps of Fame! who could tolerate you now-a-days?--You lived in +golden times, when Dorset, Harley, Bolingbroke, Halifax, and Company, +gave away places of a thousand a-year, as but justly due to any man who +could pen a roaring song, fabricate a fulsome sonnet, or bewail in +meagre elegiacs the still-resisting virtue of some persecuted Stella! +Happy fellows, easy conquisitors of wealth and fame, autocrats of +coffee-houses, feted and favoured by town-bred dames! In those good old +times for the fashionable Nine, an epic was sure to lead to a +Ministry-of-State, and even an epigram produced its pension: to be a +poet, or reputed so, was to be--eligible for all things; and the +fortunate possessor of a rhyming dictionary might have governed Europe +with his metrical protocols. But these halcyon times are of the +past--and so, verily, are their heroes. Farewell, a long farewell, +children of oblivion! farewell, Spratt, Smith, Duke, Hughes, King, +Pomfret, Phillips, and Blackmore: ye who, in that day of very small +things, just rose, as your Leviathan biographer so often testifies, "to +a degree of merit above mediocrity:" ye who--but (Candor and good +Charity, I thank you for the hint,) limited indeed is my knowledge of +your writings, ye long-departed poets, whom I thus am base enough to +pilfer of your bays; and therefore, if any man among you penned aught of +equal praise with "_My Mind to me a Kingdom is_," or "_No Glory I covet, +no Riches I want_," humbly do I cry that good man's pardon. Believe that +I have only seen the chateau of your fame, but never the rock on which +it rested; and therefore candidly consider, if I might not with reason +have accounted it a castle in the air? + +Now, after this wholesale species of poetical massacre, this rifling of +old Etruscan tombs of their honourable spoil, a very pleasant ninny +would that poetaster stand forth, whose inanely conceited daring +exhibited specimens from his own mint, as medals in fit contrast with +those slandered "things of base alloy." No, as with politics, so with +poetry; in public I abjure and do renounce the minx: and although +privately my author's mind is so silly as to doat right lovingly on such +an ancient mistress, and has wasted much time and paper in her praise or +service, still that mind is sufficiently self-possessed in worldly +prudence, as to set seemingly little store on the worth of an +acquaintance so little in the fashion. Therefore I disown and disclaim + + + + +A VOLUME OF POETICS, + + +ill-fated offspring of a foolish father; miscellaneous collection of +occasionals and fugitives, longer or shorter, as the army of Bombastes. +Poetical as in verity I must confess to have been, (using the word +"poetical" as most men use it, and the words "have been" in the sense of +Troy's existence,) there must have lingered in me, even at that +hallucinating period, some little remnant of prosaic wisdom; for it is +now long since that I consigned to the most voracious of elements all +the more love-sick rhythmicals, and all the more hateful satiricals. +Now, I will maintain that act of incremation to be one of true heroism, +nearly equal to the judgment of Brutus; nor less is it matter of +righteous boasting to have immolated (warned by Charles Lamb's ghost) +divers albuminous preparations, which to have to do, were, Clio knows, +little pleasure, and to have done, we all know, as little praise. Such +light follies are like skeins of cotton, or adjectives, or babies, unfit +to stand alone; haply, well enough, times and things considered, but +totally unworthy to be dragged out of their contexts into the +imperishability of print; it is to take flies out of treacle, and embalm +them in clear amber. As to sonnets, what real author's mind will not, +if honest, confess to the almost daily recurrence of that symptom of his +disease? With mine, at least, they have increased, and are increasing; +yea, more--as a certain statesman suggested of Ireland's multitudinous +_pisantry_, or as tavern patriots declare of the power of the +crown--they ought to be diminished. Nevertheless, resolutely do I hope +that some of these at least are little worthy of the days of good Queen +Anne. + +In matters of the sacred muse, lengthily as others have I trespassed +heretofore; the most protracted _fytte_, however, made a respectable +inroad on a new metrical version of the '_Psalms_,' attempting at any +rate closer accuracy from the Hebrew than Brady's, and juster rhymes +than Sternhold's: but this has since been better done by another bard. +On the whole budget of exploded poeticals is now legibly inscribed "to +be kept till called for," a period rather more indefinite than the +promise of a spendthrift's payment. Let them rest in peace, those +unfortunate poetics! + +There are also in the bundle, if I rightly do remember me, sundry +metricals of the humorous sort, which may be considered as really +_waste-failures_ as any tainted hams that ever were yclept Westphalias. +For of all dreary and lugubrious perpetrations in print, nothing can be +more desolate than laboured witticism. A pun is a momentary spark dropt +upon the tinder-box of social intercourse; and to detach such a sentence +from its producing circumstances, is about as efficacious a method of +producing laughter, as the scintillatory flint and steel struck upon wet +grass would be of generating light. Few things are less digestible than +abortive efforts at the humorous; the stream of conversation instantly +freezes up; the disconcerted punster wears the look of his well-known +kinsman, the detected pickpocket; and a scribe, so mercilessly suicidal +as regards his better fame, deserves, when a plain blunt jury comes to +sit upon the body, to be found in mystical Latin, _felo de se_, or in +plain English "a fellow deceased." + +"There shall come in the last days, scoffers;" those same last days in +which "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." It +is true that these phrases (quoted with the deepest reverence, though +found in lighter company) are forcibly taken from their context; but +still, the judgment of many wise among us will agree that they present a +remarkable coincidence: in this view of the case, and it is a most +serious one, the concurrent notoriety of humour having just arisen like +a phoenix from its ashes, of railroads and steamboats having partially +annihilated space, and of the strides which education, if not intellect, +has made upon the highroad of human improvement, assumes an importance +greater than the things themselves deserve. To a truly philosophic ken, +there is no such thing as a trifle; the ridiculous is but skin-deep, +papillae on the surface of society; cut a little deeper, you will find +the veins and arteries of wisdom. Therefore will a sober man not deride +the notion that comic almanacs, comic Latin grammars, comic hand-books +of sciences and arts, and the great prevalence of comicality in popular +views taken of life and of death, of incident and of character, of evil +and of good, are, in reality, signs of the times. These straws, so thick +upon the wind, and so injuriously mote-like to the visual organs, are +flying forward before a storm. As symptoms of changing nationality, and +of a disposition to make fun of all things ancient and honourable, and +wise, and mighty, and religious, they serve to evidence a state of the +universal mind degenerated and diseased. Still, let us not be too +severe; and, as to individual confessions, let not me play the +hypocrite. Like every thing else, good in its good use, and evil only in +abuse of its excesses, humour is capable of filling, and has filled, no +lightly-estimable part in the comedy of temporal happiness. What a good +thing it is to raise an innocent and cheerful laugh; to inoculate +moroseness with hearty merriment; to hunt away misbelieving care, if not +with better prayers, at the lowest with a pack of yelping cachinations; +to make pain forget his head-ache by the anodyne of mirth! Truly, humour +has its laudable and kindly uses: it is the mind's play-time after +office-drudgery--an easy recreation from thought, anxiety, or study. +Only when it usurps, or foolishly attempts to usurp, the office of more +than a temporary alleviation; when it affects to set up as an atheistic +panacea; when it professes to walk as an abiding companion, lighting you +on your way with injurious gleams (as that dreadful figure in Dante, who +lanterns his path by the glaring eyes of his own truncated head); and +when it ceases to become merely the casual scintillation, the flitting +_ignus fatuus_ of a summer evening--then only is wit to be condemned. +Often, for mine own poor part in this most mirthful age, have I had + + + + +HEARTY LAUGHS, + +IN PROSE AND VERSE; + + +but take no thought of preserving their echoes, or of shrining them in +the eternal basalt of print, like to the oft-repeated cries of Lurley's +hunted in-dweller. The humorous infection caught also me, as a thing +inevitable; but the case, I wot, proved an unfavourable one: and who +dare enter the arena of contention with these mighty men of Momus, these +acknowledged sages of laughter, (pardon me for omitting some fifty +more,) so familiar to the tickled ear, as Boz, and Sam Slick, Ingoldsby, +and Peter Plymley, Titmarsh, Hood, Hook; not to mention--(but that +artists are authors)--laughter-loving Leech, Pickwickian Phiz, and +inimitable Cruikshank? Nevertheless, let a tender conscience penitently +ask, is it quite an innocent matter to lend a hand in rendering the age +more careless than perchance, but for such ministrations, it would cease +to be? Is it quite wise in a writer, by following in that wake, to be +reputed at once to help in doing harm, and help to do harm to his own +reputation? There are professors enough in this quadrangle of the +college of amusement, popular and extant in flourishing obesity, without +so dull a volunteer as Mr. Self intruding his humours on the world: and +surely the far-echoing voices of a couple of cannons, thundering their +mirth throughout Europe from the jolly quarters of St. Paul's, may well +frighten into silence a poor solitary pop-gun, which, as the frog with +the bull, might burst in an attempt at competition, or, like Bottom's +Numidian lion, could imitate the mighty roar only as gently as your +sucking-dove. + + * * * * * + +Grapho-mania, or the love of scribbling, is clearly the great +distinguishing characteristic of an author's mind; pen and ink are to +it, what bread and butter are to its lodging-house the body: observe, we +do not hazard a remark so false as that the one produces the +other--their relations are far from being mutual; but we only suggest +that the mind, as well as the body, hobbles like a three-legged +OEdipus, resting on its proper staff of life. And what can be more +provocative of scribbling than travel? How eagerly we hasten to describe +unheard-of adventures, how anxiously record exaggerated marvels! to +prove some printed hand-book _quite wrong_ in the number of steps up a +round-tower: or to crush, as a wicked vender of execrable wines, the +once fair fame of some over-charging inn-keeper! Then, again, how +pleasant to immortalize the holiday, and read in after-years the story +of that happy trip langsyne; how pleasant to gladden the kind eyes of +friends, that must stay at home, with those wonder-telling journals, and +to taste the dulcet joys of those first essays at authorship. A great +charm is there in jotting down the day's tour, and in describing the +mountains and museums, the lakes and lazzaroni, the dishes and disasters +that have made it memorable: moreover, for fixing scenery on the mental +retina, as well as for comparison of notes as to an _alibi_, for duly +remembering things heard and seen, as well as for being humbled in +having (as a matter inevitable) left unseen just the best lion of the +whole tour, journals are a most praiseworthy pastime, and usually rank +among the earliest efforts of an embryo author's mind. + +It is a thing of commonest course, that, in this age of inveterate +locomotion, your present humble friend, now talking in this candid +fashion with your readership, has been every where, seen every thing, +and done his touristic devoirs like every body else about him: also, as +a like circumstance of etymological triviality, that he has severally, +and from time to time, recorded for self-amusement and the edification +of others all such matters as holiday-making school-boys and +boarding-misses, and government-clerks in their swift-speeding vacation, +and elderly gentlemen vainly striving to enjoy their first fretful +continental trip, usually think proper to descant upon. Of such +manuscripts the world is clearly full; no catacomb of mummies more +fertile of papyri; no traveller so poor but he has by him a packet of +precious notes, whereon he sets much store: every tourist thinks he can +reasonably emulate clever Basil Hall, in his eloquent fragments of +voyages and travels; and I, for my part, a truth-teller to my own +detriment, am ashamed to confess the existence of + + + + +A DECADE OF JOURNALS; + + +which of olden time my _cacoethes_ produced as regularly as recurred the +summer solstice. Unlike that of Livy's, I am satisfied that this poor +Decade be irrevocably lost; but, for dear recollection's sake of days +gone by, intend it at least to be spared from malicious incremation. +Records of roamings in romantic youth, witnesses of wayward way-side +wanderings, gayly with alliterative titles might your contents, _a la +Roscoe_, be set forth. But--what conceivable news can be told at this +time of day about the trampled Continent, and the crowded British isles? +Had my luck led me to Lapland or Formosa, to Mexico or Timbuctoo, to the +top of Egyptian pyramids or the bottom of Polish salt-mines, my +authorship would long since have publicly declared, in common with many +a monkey, that it had "seen the world." As things are, to Bruce, +Buckingham, Belzoni, and that glorious anomaly, the blind brave Holman, +let us leave the harvest of praise, worthy to be reaped as their own by +modern travellers. + + * * * * * + +More, yet more, most exemplary of listeners; and a web or webs of very +various texture. Let any man tell truths of himself, and seem to be +consistent, if he can. From grave to gay, from simple to severe, is the +line most expressive of such foolish versatility as mine; _varium et +mutabile semper_, to one thing constant never. I have heard, or read, +among the experiences of a popular preacher, that one of his most +vexatious petty temptations, was the rise of humorous notions in his +mind the moment he stepped into the pulpit; and it is well known that +many a comic actor has been afflicted with the blackest melancholy while +supporting right facetiously his best, because most ludicrous character. +Let such thoughts then as these, of the frailties incident to man, serve +to excuse the present juxtaposition of fancies in themselves +diametrically opposite. + +It is proper to preamble somewhat of apology before announcing the next +presumptuous tractate; presumptuous, because affecting to advise some +thousands of men whose office alike and average character are sacred, +and just, and excellent. Why then intrude such unrequired counsel? Read +the next five pages, and take your answer. Zealously inflamed for the +cause of truth, if not also charitably wroth against sundry lukewarm +cumber-earth incumbents, and certainly more in love with the +Church-of-England prayer-book than with her no-ways-extenuated evils of +omission or commission, I wrote, not long since, [and truly, not long +since, for few things in this book can boast of higher antiquity than a +most modern existence, some things being the birth of an hour, some of a +day, a week, or a month; and not more than one or two above a twelve +month's age.--Alas, for Horace's forgotten counsels!--alas, for Pope's +and Boileau's reiterated prescription of revisal for--_morbleu et +parbleu_--nine years!] I wrote then a good cantle of an essay addressed +to the clergy on some matters of judicious amelioration, which we will +call, if you please--and if the word hints be not objectionable-- + + + + +LAY HINTS. + + +Now, as to the unclerical authorship of this, it is wise that it be done +out of metier. Laymen are more likely to gain attention in these +matters, from the very fact of their influence being an indirect one, +speaking as they do rather from the social arm-chair, the high-stool of +the counting-house, or the benches of whilom St. Stephen's, than _ex +cathedra_ as of office and of duty. + +It would be a fair exemplification of the stolid prowess of a Quixote +tilting against, yea, stouter foes than wind-mills, were I to have +commenced with an attack upon external church architecture: this topic +let us leave to the fraternity of builders; only asking by what rule of +taste an obelisk-like spire, is so often stuck upon the roof of a +Grecian temple, and by what rule of convenience gigantic columns so +commonly and resolutely sentinel the narrowest of exits and entrances. +Let us be more commonly contented, as well we may, with our grand, +appropriate, and impressive indigenous kind of architecture--Gothic, +Norman, and Saxon: the temple of Ephesus was not suitable to be fitted +up with galleries, nor was the Parthenon meant to be surmounted by a +steeple. But all this is useless gossip. + +Similarly Quixotic would be any tirade against pews, those pet +strongholds of snug exclusive selfishness; bad in principle, as +perpetually separating within wooden walls members of the same +communion; unwholesome in practice, confining in those antre-like +parallelograms the close-pent air; unsightly in appearance, as any one +will testify, whose soul is exalted above the iron beauties of a plain +conventicle; expensive in their original formation, their fittings and +repairs; and, when finished, occupying perhaps one-fourth of the area of +a church already ten times too small for its neighbouring population. +Fixed benches, or a strong muster of chairs, or such modes of +congregational accommodation as public meeting-rooms and ordinary +lecture-rooms present, seems to me more consistent and more convenient. +But all this again is vain talking--a very empty expenditure of words; +we must be satisfied with churches as they are; and, after all, let me +readily admit that steeples are imposing in the distance, and of use as +belfries; (probably of like intent were the strange columnar towers of +Ireland;) and with regard to pews, let me confess that practice finds +perfect what theory condemns as wrong, so--let these things pass. + +Nevertheless, let me begin upon the threshold with the extortionate and +abominable race of pew-women, beadles, clerks, vergers, bell-ringers, +and other fee-hungry ravens hovering around and about almost every +hallowed precinct: pray you, reform all that, and copy railroad +companies in forbidding those begrudged gratuities to mendicant and +ever-grumbling menials. Next, give more sublunary heed, we beseech you, +to the comforts or discomforts incidental to doors, windows, stoves, +paint, dust, dirt, and general ventilation; consider the cold, fevers, +lumbagos, rheums, life-long aches, and fatal pains too often caught +helplessly and needlessly by the devout worshipper in a town or country +church. Look to your organist, that he wot something of the value of +time and the mysteries of tune; or, if a country parson, drill cleverly +that insubordinate phalanx of _soi-disant_ musicians, a rustic +orchestra; and exclude from the latter, at all mortal hazards, the +huntsman's horn, the volunteer fiddle, and the shrill squeaking of the +wry-necked pipe. Much is being now done for congregational psalmody; but +when will country folks give up their murderous execution of the +fugue-full anthem, and when will London congregations understand that +the singing-psalms are not set apart exclusively for charity-children? +When shall Bishop Kenn's '_Awake my soul_,' cease to be our noonday +exhortation; and a literal invocation for sweet sleep to close our +eye-lids no longer be the ill-considered prelude to an afternoon +discourse? Take some trouble to improve and educate, or get rid of, if +possible, your generally vulgar, illiterate, ill-conditioned clerk; +insist upon his v's and h's: let him shut up his shoe-stall; and raise +in the scale of society one of the leaders of its worship: as, at +present, these stagnant, recreant, ignorant clerks are sad +stumbling-blocks; no help to the congregation, and a nuisance to its +minister. In reading--suffer this foolishness, my masters--fight against +the too frequent style of dogged, dormant, dull formality; we take you +for earnest living guides to our devotion, not mere dead organs of an +oft-repeated service; quicken us by your manner; a psalm so spoken is +better than the sermon. In more fitting places has your author long ago +delivered his mind concerning matters of a character more directly +sacred than shall here find room; as, the sacrament with its holy +mysteries, and the many things amendable in ordinary preachments; but +for these my unseasonable Wisdom shrouds itself in Silence: therefore, +to do away with details, and apply a general rule, above all things, and +in all things, strive by judicious acquiescence with human wants, and +likings, and failings too, if conscientiously you can, as well as by +spirited and true devotion, to break down the sluggish mounds of needful +uniformity, and to build up round the church a rampart of good sense: +and so, Heaven bless your labours! A word more: if it be possible, take +no fees at a baptism, and let it not be thought, by either rich or poor, +that an entrance into Christ's fold must be paid for; no, nor at a +burial; but let the service for the Christian dead be accorded freely, +without money and without price. To a wedding, the same ideas are not +perhaps so closely applicable; therefore we will generously suffer that +you keep your customs there; but on the introduction of a little one to +the bosom of the church, or restoring the body of a saint to Him who +made it of the dust, nothing can be more repulsive to right religious +feelings than to be bothered by a fee-seeking clerk, thrusting in your +face an itching palm: to the poor, these things are more than a mere +annoyance; they amount to a hardship and a hindrance; for such demands +at such seasons are often nothing less than a bitter extortion upon the +self-denial of conscientious duty. + +More might be added; but enough, too much has been alluded to. Nothing +would strengthen the bulwarks of our Zion more than such easy reforms as +these: recent happy revivals in our church would thus be more +solidified; and where, as now, many have been lulled to slumber, many +grieved, many become disgusted or Dissenters, our sons and our daughters +would grow up as the polished corners of the temple, and crowds would +throng the courts of our holy and beautiful House. + +Suffer thus far, clerical and lay, these crude hints: in all things have +I studied brevity, throughout this little bookful; therefore are you +spared a perusal of my reasons, and so be indulgent for their absence. I +"touch your ears" but lightly; be you for charity, as in old Rome, my +favourable witnesses. + + * * * * * + +My before-mentioned Censor of the press had a very considerable mind to +dock all mention of the following intended _brochure_. But I answered, +Really, Mr. Judgment, (better or worse, as occasion may register your +Agnomen,) you must not weigh trifles in gold-assaying scales; be not so +particular as to the polish of a thumb-nail; endure a little incoherent +pastime; count not the several stems of hay, straw, stubble--but suffer +them to be pitch-forked _en masse_, and unconsidered: it is their +privilege, in common with that of certain others--lightnesses that froth +upon the surface of society. Moreover, let me remind your worship's +classicality that no one of mortals is sapient at all times. Item, that +if friend Flaccus be not a calumniator, even the rigid virtue of the +antiquer Cato delighted in so stimulant a vanity as wine hot. So give +the colt his head, and let it go: remembering always that this same +colt, as straying without a responsible rider, is indeed liable to be +impounded by any who can catch him; but still, if he be found to have +done great damage to his master's character, or to a neighbour's fences, +the estray shall rather be abandoned than acknowledged. Let then this +unequal work, this ill-assorted bundle of dry book-plants, this +undirected parcel of literary stuff, be accounted much in the same +situation as that of the wanton caitiff-colt, so likely to bait a-pound, +and afterwards to be sold for payment of expenses, in true bailiff-sense +of justice. And let thus much serve as discursive prolegomena to a +notion, scarcely worth recording, but for the wonder, that no professed +writer (at least to my small knowledge) has entered on so common-sense a +field. Paris, I remember, some years ago was inundated with copies of a +treatise on the important art of tying the cravat; every shop-window +displayed the mystic diagrams, and every stiff neck proclaimed its +popularity. This was my yesterday's-conceived precedent for entertaining +the bright hope of illuminating London on the subject of shaving: + + + + +ANTI-XURION; + +A CRUSADE AGAINST RAZORS, + + +should have been my taking title; and perchance the learned treatise +might have been characteristically illustrated with steel cuts. Shaving +is a wider topic than most people think for; it is a species of insanity +that has afflicted man in all ages, deprived him of nature's best +adornment in every country under heaven. So contradictorily too; as +thus: the Spanish friar shaves all but a rim round his head, which rim +alone sundry North American aborigines determine to extirpate; John +Chinaman nourishes exclusively a long cue, just on that same inch of +crown-land which the P.P. sedulously keeps as bare as his palm: all the +Orientals shave the head, and cherish the beard; all the Occidentals +immolate the beard, and leave the honours of the head untouched. Then, +again, the strange successive fashions in this same unnatural, unneedful +depilation; look at the vagaries of young France: not to descend also to +savage men, and their clumsy shell-scrapings; and to devote but little +time to the voluminous topic of wigs, male and female, cavalier and +caxon, Marlborough and monstrous maccaroni--from the plaited +Absalom-looking periwig of a Pharaoh in the British Museum, to +Truefitt's last patent self-adjuster. Of all these follies, and their +root a razor, might we show the manifest absurdity: we might argue upon +Eastern stupidity as caused by thickness of the skull, such thickness +being the substitute for thatchy hair suggested by kind ill-used Nature +as the hot brain's best protection: we might reason upon the average +sheepishness of this peaceful West, as due to having shorn the lion of +his mane, Phoebus of his glory, man of his majestic beard. Then the +martyrdom it is to many! who stoically, day after day, persist in +scratching to the quick their irritable chins, and after all to little +better end than the diligent earning of tooth-aches, ear-aches, colds, +sore throats, and unbecoming blank faces. Habit, it is true, makes us +deem that a comfort, and our better halves (or those we would fain have +so) think that a beauty, which our forerunners of old time would have +held a plague, a disgrace, a deformity, a mortification: prisoned +paupers in the Union think it an insufferable hardship to go bearded, +and King David's ambassadors would have given their right eyes _not_ to +have been shaved; so much are we the slaves of custom: Sheffield also, +it is equally true, is a town that humane men would not wish to ruin; by +razors they of Sheffield live, and shaving is their substance. But, as +in the case of the smoother and softer sex, we are convinced that the +wand of fashion would presently convert their heterodox anti-barbal +prejudices: so, in the case of harder-ware Sheffield, while we hope to +live to see razors regarded as antiquarian rarities, (even as a +watchman's rattle, or the many-caped coats of the semi-extinct class +_Welleria coachmanensis_ are now some time become,) still we desire all +possible multiplication to the tribe of trimming scissors. Like Ireland, +we shout for long-denied justice; give us our beards. That reasonable +indulgence shall never be abused; our Catholic emancipation of moustache +and imperial, whisker and the rest, shall not be a pretence for lion's +manes, or the fringe of goats and monkeys: we would not so far follow +unsophisticated nature as to relapse into barbarous wild men; but +diligently squaring, pointing, combing, and perfuming those natural +manly decorations, after the most approved modes of Raleigh, Walsingham, +and Shakspeare, and heroical Edward the Black Prince, and venerable +apostolic Bede, we will encroach little further than to discard our +comfortless starched collars and strangling stocks, to adopt once more +in lieu thereof open necks and vandyke borders. + +Of course, (here, priest-like, we take our ell,) there must follow upon +this a grand and glorious revolution in male attire. This present +close-fitting, undignified set of habiliments, which no chisel dare +imitate--this cumbersome, unbecoming garb--might, should, ought to be, +and would be, superseded by slashed gay jerkins, and picturesque nether +garments: cap and feather throwing into shade the modern hat, ugliest +of all imaginable head-dresses; and in lieu of the smock-frock +Macintosh, or coarse-featured bear-skin, Ciceronian mantles flowing from +the shoulders, or lighter capes of the elegant olden-time Venitian. By +way of distinguishing the now confused classes of society, my radical +reform in dress would go to recommend that nobles and gentry wear their +own heraldic colours and livery buttons; and humbler domesticated +creatures walk, as modest gentlefolks do now, in what sundry have +presumed to call "Mufti." To be briefer; in dress, if nothing more, let +us sensibly retrograde to the days of good Queen Bess: I will not say, +copy a Sir Piercie Shafton, who boasts of having "danced the salvage man +at the mummery of Clerkenwell, in a suit of flesh-coloured silk, trimmed +with fur;" neither, under these dingy skies, would I care to walk abroad +with Sir Philip Sidney in satin boots, or with Oliver Goldsmith in a +peach-coloured doublet: but still, for very comfort's sake, let us break +our bonds of cloth and buckram, and, in so far as adornment is +concerned, let us exchange this staid funeral monotony for the gallant +garb of our ancestors, the brave costumes of our Edwards and the bluff +King Hal. + +Behold, too scornful friend, how my Tory rabies reaches to the wardrobe. +The modern dress of illuminated Europe has, in my humble opinion, gone +far to weaken the old empire of the Porte, to denationalize Egypt, to +degenerate the Jews, to mammonize once generous Greece, and carry +republican equality into the great prairies of America: it is the +undistinguishing, humiliating, unchivalrous livery of our cold +cosmopolites. But enough of this: pews and spires are to my Quixotism +not more unextinguishable foes, than coats, cravats, waistcoats, and +unnameables. + +And now an honest word at parting, about such trivialities of +authorship. Why should a poor shepherd of the Landes for ever wear his +stilts? Or a tragic actor, like some mortified La Trapist, never be +allowed to laugh? Or Mr. Green be denied any other carriage than the +wicker car of his balloon? Even so, dear reader, pr'ythee suffer a +serious sort of author sometimes to take off his wig and spectacles, and +condescend to think of such minor matters as the toilet and its +still-recurring duties. And, if you _should_ find out the veritable name +of your weak confessing scribe, think not the less kindly of his graver +volumes; this one is his pastime, his holiday laugh, his purposely +truant, lawless, desultory recreance: impute not folly to the face of +cheerfulness; be charitable to such mixtures of alternate gayety and +soberness as in thine own mind, if thou searchest, thou shall find; let +me laugh with those that laugh, as well as sympathize with weepers; and +cavil not at those inconsistencies, which of a verity are man's right +attributes. + + * * * * * + +Ideas lie round about us, thick as daisies in a summer meadow. For my +own part, I know not what a walk, or a talk, or a peep into a book may +lead me to. Brunel hit upon the notion of a tunnel-shield, from the +casual sight of a certain water-beetle, to whom the God of Nature had +given a protecting buckler for its head. Newton found out gravitation, +by reasoning on the fall of an apple from the tree. Almost every +invention has been the suggestion of an accident. Even so, to descend +from great things to small, did a solitary stroll in most-English +Devonshire hint to me the next fair topic. It was while wandering about +the Pyrenean neighbourhood of Linton and Ly'mouth not many months ago, +that my reveries became concentrated for divers hallucinating hours on a +very pretty book, with a very pretty title. And here let me remark +episodically, that I pride myself on titles; what compositors call +"monkeyfying the title-page" is known to be a talent of itself, and one +moreover to which in these days of advertisements and superficialities +many a meagre book has owed its popular acceptance. The titles of +generations back seemed not to have been regarded honest, if they did +not exhibit on their face a true and particular table of contents; +whereas in these sad times, (with many, not with me,) mystery is a good +rule, but falsehood is a better. Again, those honest-speaking authors of +the past scrupled not to designate their writings as '_A Most Erudite +Treatise_' on so-and-so, or a '_A Right Ingenious Handling of the +Mysteries_' of such-and-such, whereas modern hypocrisy aims at +under-rating its own pet work; and more than one book has been ruined in +the market, for having been carelessly titled by the definite THE; as +if, forsooth, it were the world's arbiter of that one topic, +self-constituted pundit of, e.g., title-pages. And this word brings me +back: consider the truly English music of this one: + + + + +THE SQUIRE, + +AND HIS BEAUTIFUL HOME, + + +a fine old country gentleman, pleasantly located, affluent, +noble-minded, wise, and patriotic. This was to have been shown forth, in +wish at least, as somewhat akin to, or congenerous with '_The Doctor_, +&c.,'--that rambling wonder of strange and multifarious reading: or +'_The Rectory of Valehead_,' or '_Vicar of Wakefield_,' or '_The Family +Robinson Crusoe_,' still unwrecked; or many another hearty, cheerful or +pathetic tale of home, sweet home: and yet as to design and execution +strictly original and unplagiaristic. The first chapters (simple healthy +writing, redolent of green pastures, and linchened rocks, and dew-dropt +mountains,) might introduce localities; the beautiful home itself, an +Elizabethan mansion, with its park, lake, hill and valley scenery; a +peep at the blue mile-off sea, brawling brooks, oak-woods, +conservatories, rookery, and all such pleasant adjuncts of that most +fortunate of pleasure-hunters, a country squire, with a princely +rent-roll. Then should be detailed, circumstantially, the lord of the +beautiful home, a picture of the hospitable virtues; the wife of the +beautiful home, a portraiture of happy domesticity, admirable also as a +mother, a nurse, a neighbour, and the poor's best friend: children must +abound, of course, or the home is a heaven uninhabited; and shrewd hints +might hereabouts be dropped as to the judicious or injudicious in +matters educational: servants, too, both old and young, with discussions +on their modern treatment, and on that better class of bygones, whom +kindness made not familiar, and the right assertion of authority +provoked not into insolence; whose interest for the dear old family was +never merged in their own, and whose honesty was as unsuspected as that +of young master himself, or sweet little mistress Alice. + +After all this, might we descant upon the squire's characteristics. Take +him as a politician: liberal, that is to say, (for his frown is on me at +a phrase so doubtful,) generous, tolerant, kind, and manly; but none of +your low-bred slanderers of that noble name, so generally tyrants at +home and cowardly abroad--mean agitating fellows, the scum of disgorging +society, raised by turbulence and recklessness from the bottom to the +surface: oh no, none of these; but, for all his just liberality, an +honest, honourable, loyal, church-going, uncompromising Tory: with a +detail of his reasons, notions, and practices thereabouts, inclusive of +his conduct at elections, his wholesome influence over an otherwise +unguided or ill-guided tenantry, and as concerning other miscalled +corruptions: his open argumentation of the representative doctrine, that +it ought to stop short as soon as ever the religion, the learning, and +the wealth of a country are fairly represented; that in fact the poor +man thinks little of his vote, unless indeed in worse cases looking for +a bribe; and that the principle is pushed into ruinous absurdities when +the destitution, the crime, and the ignorance of a nation demand their +proper representatives; that, almost as a consequence of human average +depravity, the greater the franchise's extension, the worse in all ways +become those who impersonate the enfranchised; and so, after due +condemnation of Whiggery, to stultify Chartism, and that demoralizing +lie, the ballot. Then as to the squire's religion; and certain +confabulations with his parson, his household, his harvest-home +tenantry, and local preachers of dissent and schism; his creed, +practice, and favourable samples of daily life. Moreover, our squire +should have somewhat to tell of personal history and adventures; a youth +of poor dependence on a miser uncle; a storm-tost early manhood, +consequent on his high uncompromising principles; then the miser's +death, without the base injustice of that cruel will, which an +eleventh-hour penitence destroyed: the squire comes to his property, +marries his one old flame, effects reformations, attains popularity, +happiness, and other due prosperities. Anecdotes of particular passages, +as in affliction or in joy; his son lamed for life, or his house half +burnt down, his attack by highwaymen, or election for parliament. The +squire's general confidence in man, sympathy with frailties, and success +in regenerating long-lost characters. His discourse on field sports, +displaying the amiable intellectuality of a Gilbert White as opposed to +the blood-thirsty Nimrodism and Ramrodism of a mad Mytton. A marriage; a +funeral; a disputed legacy of some eccentric relative; with its +agreeable concomitants of heartless selfish strife, rebuked by the +squire's noble example: the conventicle gently put down by dint of +gradual desertions, and church-going as tenderly extended; vestry +demagogues and parochial incendiaries chastised by our squire; and +divers other adventures, conversations, situations, and conditions, +illustrative of that grand character, a fine old English gentleman, all +of the olden time. + +Altogether, if well managed, a book like this would be calculated to do +substantial good in these days of no principle or bad principle. A +captivating example well applied--witness the uses of biography--is +infectious among the well-inclined and well-informed. But--but--but--I +fancy there may exist, and do exist already, admirable books of just +this character. I have heard of, but not seen, '_The Portrait of a +Christian Gentleman_,' and another '_of a Churchman_:' doubtless, these, +combined with a sort of Mr. Dovedale in that clever impossible +'_Floreston_,' or an equally unnatural and charming Sir Charles +Grandison, with a dash of scenery and a sprinkle of anecdote, would +make up, far better than I could fabricate, the fair fine character that +once I thought to sketch. Moreover, to a plain gentleman, living in the +country, of perfectly identical ideas with those of the squire on all +imaginable topics, gifted too (we will not say with quite his princely +rent-roll, but at any rate) with sundry like advantages in the way of +decent affluence, pleasant scenery, an old house, a good wife, and fair +children--with plenty of similar adventures and circumstantials--and the +necessary proportion of highwaymen, radicals, rascals, and schismatics +dotted all about his neighbourhood, the idea would seem, to say the +least, somewhat egotistic. But why may not humble individualities be +generalized in grander shapes? why not glorify the picture of a cottage +with colouring of Turner's most imaginative palette? An author, like an +artist, seldom does his work well unless he has nature before him: +exalted and idealized, the Roman beggar goes forth a Jupiter, and +country wenches help a Howard to his Naiads. Nevertheless, let the +Squire and his train pass us by, indefinite as Banquo's progeny: let his +beautiful home be sublimely indistinct; even such are Martin's aetherial +cities: the thought shall rest unfructified at present--a mummied, vital +seed. The review is over, and the Squire's troop of yeomanry not +required: so let them wait till next year's muster. + + * * * * * + +Few novelties are more called for, in this halcyon age of authorship, +this summer season for the Sosii, this every-day-a-birth-day for some +five-and-twenty books, than the establishment of a recognised literary +tribunal, some judgment-hall of master spirits, from whose calm, +unhurried, unbiased verdict, there should be no appeal. Far, very far be +it from me to arraign modern reviewers either of partialities or +incapacity; indeed, it is probable that few men of high talent, +character, and station, have not, at some time or other, temporarily at +least contributed to swell their ranks: moreover, from one they have +treated so magnanimously, they shall not get the wages of ingratitude; +they have been kind to my dear book-children, and I--_don't be so +curious_--thank them for their courtesy with all a father's feeling +toward the liberal friends of his sons and daughters. Speaking +generally, (for, not to flatter any class of men, truly there are rogues +in all,) I am bold to call them candid, honest, clever men; quite +superior, as a body, to every thing like bribery and corruption, and, +with human limitations, little influenced by motives, either of +prejudice or favour. For indefatigable industry, unexampled patience, +and powers of mind very far above what are commonly attributed to them, +I, for my humble judgment, would give our periodical journalists their +honourable due: I am playing no Aberdeenshire game of mutual scratching; +I am too hardened now in the ways of print to be much more than +indifferent as to common praise or censure; that honey-moon is over with +me, when a laudatory article in some kindly magazine sent a thrill from +eye to heart, from heart to shoe-sole understanding: I no longer feel +rancorous with inveterate wrath against a poor editor whose faint +praise, impotent to d----, has yet abundant force to induce a hearty +return of the compliment: like some case-hardened rock, so little while +ago but soft young coral, the surges may lash me, but leave no mark; the +sun may shine, but cannot melt me. Argal, as the clown says, is my +verdict honest: and further now to prove it so, shall come the +limitations. + +With all my gratitude and right good feeling to our diurnal and +hebdomadal amusers and instructors, I cannot but consider that gazette +and newspaper reviewers are insufficient and unsatisfactory judges of +literature, if not indeed sometimes erring guides to the public taste; +the main cause of this consisting in the essential rapidity of their +composition. There is not--from the multiplicity of business to be got +through, there cannot be--adequate time allowed for any thing like +justice to the claims of each author. Periodicals that appear at longer +intervals are in all reason more or less excepted from this objection; +but by the daily and weekly majority, the labours of a life-time are +cursorily glanced at, hastily judged from some isolated passage, +summarily found laudable or guilty; and this weak opinion, strongly +enough expressed as some compensation in solid superstructure for the +sandiness of its foundations, is circulated by thousands over all +corners of the habitable world. To say that the public (those so-called +reviewers of reviews, but wiser to be looked on only as perusers,) +balance all such false verdicts, might indeed be true in the long run, +but unfortunately it is not: for first, no run at all, far less a long +one, is permitted to the persecuted production; and next, it is +notorious, that people think very much as they are told to think. Now, I +have already stated at too much length that I have no personalities to +complain of, no self-interests to serve: for the past I have been well +entreated; and for the future, supposing such an unlikelihood as more +hypothetical books, I am hard, bold, sanguine, stoical; while, as for +the present, though I refuse not my gauntlet to any man, my visor shall +be raised by none. But I enter the list for others, my kinsmen in +composing. Authors, to speak it generally, are an ill-used race, because +judged hastily, often superciliously, for evil or for good. It is +impossible for the poor public, (who, besides having to earn daily +bread, have to wade through all the daily papers,) from mere lack of +hours in the day, to entertain any opinions of their own about a book or +books: the money to buy them is one objection, the time to read them +another; to say less of the capacity, the patience, and the will. +Without question, they are guided by their teachers; and the grand fault +of these is, their everlasting hurry. + +At another necessary failing of reviewers I would only delicately hint. +The royal We is very imposing; for example, the king of magazines, No. +134, (need I name it?) informs us, p. 373, "We happen to have now in +wear a good long coat of imperial gray," &c.; and some fifteen lines +lower down, "We are now mending our pen with a small knife," and so +forth: now all this grandiloquence serves to conceal the individual; and +to reduce my other great objection to a single letter, let us only +recollect that this powerful, this despotic We, is, being interpreted, +nothing but an I by itself, a simple scribe, a single and plebeian +number one. A mere unit, an anonymous, irresponsible unit, dissects in a +quarter of an hour the grand result of some ten years; and this +momentary influence on one man's mind, (perhaps wearied, or piqued, or +biased, or haply unskilled in the point at issue, but at all events +inevitably in a hurry to jump at a conclusion,) this light accidental +impression is sounded forth to the ends of the earth, and leads public +opinion in a verdict of thunder. And as for yon impertinent +parenthesis--or pertinent, as some will say--give me grace thus blandly +to suggest a possibility. The mighty editorial We, upon whose +authoritative tones the world's opinion will probably be pivoted--whose +pen by casual ridicule or as casual admiration makes or mars the fortune +of some pains-taking literary labourer--whose dictum carelessly +dispenses local honour or disgrace, and has before now by sharp +sarcasms, speaking daggers though using none, even killed more than one +over-sensitive Keats--this monarchic We is but a frail mortal, liable at +least to "some of the imperfections of our common nature, gentlemen," +as, for example, to be morose, impatient, splenetic, and the more if +over-worked. Neither should I waive in this place, in this my rostrum of +blunt, plain speech, the many censurable cases, unhappily too well +authenticated, where personal enmity has envenomed the reviewing pen +against a writer, and stabs in the dark have wounded good men's fame. +Neither, again, those other instances where reviewers, not being +omniscient, (yet is their knowledge most various and brilliant,) having +been from want of specific information incompetent to judge of the +matters in question, have striven to shroud their ignorance of the +greater topic in clamorous attacks of its minor incidents; burrowing +into a mound if they cannot force a breach through the rampart; and +mystifying things so cleverly with doubts, that we cannot see the +blessed sun himself for very fog. + +Now really, good folk, all this should be amended: would that the +WE were actually plural; would that we had a well-selected +bench of literary judges; would that some higher sort of Stationers' +Hall or Athenaeum were erected into an acknowledged tribunal of an +author's merits or demerits; would that, to wish the very least, the +wholesome practice of a well-considered imprimatur were revived! Let +famous men, whose reputation is firm-fixed--our Wordsworths, Hallams, +Campbells, Crolys, Wilsons, Bulwers, and the like--decide in the case of +at least all who desire such decision. I suppose, as no one in these +selfish times will take trouble without pay, that either the judges +should be numbered among state pensioners, or that each work so +calmly examined must produce its regular fee: but these are +after-considerations; and be sure no writer will grudge a guinea for +calm, unbought, unsuspected justice bestowed upon his brain-child. Let +all those members of the tribunal, deciding by ballot, (here in an +assembly where all are good, great, and honest, I shrink not from that +word of evil omen,) judge, as far as possible, together and not +separately, of all kinds of literature: I would not have poets +sentencing all the poetry, historians all the history, novelists all the +novels, and theologists all the works upon religion; for humanity is at +the best infirm, and motives little searchable; but let all judge +equally in a sort of open court. The machinery might be difficult, and I +cannot show its workings in so slight an essay; but surely it is a +strange thing in civilization, and a stranger when we consider what +literature does for us, blessing our world or banning it--it is a wonder +and a shame that books of whatever tendency are so cast forth upon the +waters to sink or swim at hazard. I acknowledge, friend, your present +muttering, Utopian! Arcadian! Formosan! to be not ill-founded: the +sketch is a hasty one; but though it may have somewhat in common with +the vagaries of Sir Thomas More, Sir Philip Sidney, and that king in +impudence, George Psalmanazar, still I stand upon this ground, that many +an ill-used author wants protection, and that society, for its own sake +as well as his, ought to supply a court for literary reputation. Some +poor man the other day, and in a reputable journal too, had five +new-born tragedies strangled and mangled in as many lines: we need not +suppose him a Shakspeare, but he might have been one for aught of +evidence given to the contrary; at any rate, five at once, five mortal +tragedies, (so puppy-fashion born and drowned,) must, however carelessly +executed, have been the offspring of no common mind. Again, how often is +not a laborious historiographer, particularly if of contrary politics, +dismissed with immediate contempt, because, perchance, in his three full +volumes, he has admitted two false dates, or haply mistakes the +christened name of some Spanish admiral! Once more, how continually are +not critical judgments falsified by the very extracts on which they +rest! how often the pet passage of one review is the stock butt of +another! Here you will say is cure and malady together, like viper's fat +and fang: I trow not; mainly because not one man in a thousand takes the +trouble to judge for himself. But it is needless to enumerate such +instances; every man's conscience or his memory will supply examples +wholesale: therefore, maltreated authors, bear witness to your own +wrongs: jealously regarded by a struggling brotherhood, cruelly baited +by self-constituted critics, the rejected of publishers, the victimized +by booksellers, the garbled in statement, misinterpreted in meaning, +suspected of friends, persecuted by foes--"O that mine enemy would write +a book!" It is to put a neck into a noose, to lie quietly in the grove +of Dr. Guillot's humane prescription: or, if not quite so tragical as +this, it is at least to sit voluntarily in the stocks with Sir Hudibras, +and dare the world's contempt; while fashionable--or unfashionable +idiots, who are scarcely capable of a grammatical answer to a dinner +invitation, (those formidably confounded he's and him's!)--think +themselves privileged to join some inane laugh against a clever, but not +yet famous, author, because, forsooth, one character in his novel may be +an old acquaintance, or one epithet in a long poem may be weak, +indelicate, tasteless, or foolish, or one philosophical fact in an essay +is misstated, or one statistical conclusion seems to be exaggerated. It +is perfectly paltry to behold stupid fellows, whose intellects against +your most ordinary scribe vary from a rush-light to a "long four," as +compared with a roasting, roaring kitchen-fire, affecting contemptuously +to look down upon some unjustly neglected or mercilessly castigated +labourer in the brick-fields of literature, for not being--can he help +it?--a first-rate author, or because one reviewer in seven thinks he +might have done his subject better justice. Take my word for it--if +indeed I can be a fair witness--the man who has written a book, is above +the unwriting average, and, as such, should be ranked mentally above +them: no light research, and tact, and industry, and head-and-hand +labour, are sufficient for a volume; even certain stolid performances in +print do not shake my judgment; for arrant blockheads as sundry authors +undoubtedly are, the average (mark, not all men, but the average) +unwriting man is an author's intellectual inferior. All men, however +well capable, have not perchance the appetite, nor the industry, nor the +opportunity to fabricate a volume; nor, supposing these requisites, the +moral courage (for moral courage, if not physical, must form part of an +author's mind,) to publish the lucubration: but "I magnify mine office" +above the unnumbered host of unwriting, uninformed, loose, unlettered +gentry, who (as full of leisure as a cabbage, and as overflowing with +redundant impudence as any Radical mob,) mainly tend to form by their +masses the average penless animal-man, who could not hold a candle to +any the most mediocre of the Marsyas-used authors of haply this week's +journals. Spare them, victorious Apollos, spare! if libels that diminish +wealth be punishable, is there no moral guilt in those legalized libels +that do their utmost to destroy a character for wisdom, wit, learning, +industry, and invention?--Critical flayer, try thou to write a book; +learn experimentally how difficult, yet relieving; how nervous, yet +gladdening; how ungracious, yet very sweet; how worldly-foolish, yet +most wise; how conversant with scorn, yet how noble and ennobling an +attribute of man, is--authorship. + +All this rhetoric, impatient friend--and be a friend still, whether +writer, reviewer, or unauthorial--serves at my most expeditious pace, +opposing notions considered, to introduce what is (till to-morrow, or +perhaps the next coming minute, but at any rate for this flitting +instant of time,) my last notion of possible, but not probable, +authorship: a rhodomontade oration, rather than an essay, after my own +desultory and yet determinate fashion, to have been entituled--so is it +spelled by act of parliament, and therefore let us in charity hope +rightly--to have been entituled then, + + + + +THE AUTHOR'S TRIBUNAL; + +A COURT OF APPEAL AGAINST AMATEUR AND CONNOISSEUR CRITICISMS: + + +and (the present being the next minute whereof I spake above) there has +just hopped into my mind another taking title, which I generously +present to any smarting scribe who may meditate a prose version of +'_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_'--_videlicet_, + + + + +ZOILOMASTRIX. + + +At length then have I liberty to yawn--a freedom whereof doubtless my +readers have long been liverymen: I have written myself and my inkstand +dry as Rosamond's pond; my brain is relieved, recreated, emptied; I go +no longer heavily, as one that mourneth; and with gleeful face can I +assure you that your author's mind is once again as light as his heart: +but when crowding fancies come thick upon it, they bow it, and break it, +and weary it, as clouds of pigeons settling gregariously on a +trans-Atlantic forest; and when those thronging thoughts are comfortably +fixed on paper, one feels, as an apple-tree may be supposed to feel, all +the difference between the heavy down-dragging crop of autumn and the +winged aerial blossom of sweet spring-tide. An involuntary author, just +eased for the time of ever-exacting and accumulating notions, can +sympathize with holiday-making Atlas, chuckling over a chance so lucky +as the transfer of his pack to Hercules; and can comprehend the relief +it must have been to that foolish sage in Rasselas, when assured that he +no longer was afflicted with the care of governing a galaxy of worlds. + +Some people are born to talk, with an incessant tongue illustrating +perpetuity of motion in the much-abused mouth; some to indite solid +continuous prose, with a labour-loving pen ever tenanting the hand; but +I clearly was born a zooelogical anomaly, _with a pen in my mouth_, a +sort of serpent-tongue. Heaven give it wisdom, and put away its poison! + +Such being my character from birth, a paper-gossip, a writer from the +cradle, I ought not demurely to apologize for nature's handicraft, nor +excuse this light affliction of chattering in print.--Who asks you to +read it?--Neither let me cast reflections on your temper or your +intellect by too humble exculpation of this book of many themes; or must +I then regard you as those sullen children in the market-place, whom +piping cannot please, and sorrow cannot soften? + +And now, friend, I've done. Require not, however shrewd your guess, my +acknowledgment of this brain-child; forgive all unintended harms; supply +what is lacking in my charities; politically, socially, authorially, +think that I bigotize in theoretic fun, but am incarnate Tolerance for +practical earnest. And so, giving your character fairer credit than if I +feared you as one of those captious cautious people who make a man +offender for an ill-considered word; commending to the cordial warmth of +Humanity my unhatched score and more of book-eggs, to perfect which I +need an Eccaleobion of literature; and scorning, as heartily as any +Sioux chief, to prolong palaver, when I have nothing more to say; suffer +me thus courteously to take of you my leave. And forasmuch as Lord +Chesterfield recommends an exit to be heralded by a pungent speech, let +me steal from quaint old Norris the last word wherewith I trouble you: +"These are my thoughts; I might have spun them out into a greater +length, but that I think a little plot of ground, thick-sown, is better +than a great field, which for the most part of it lieth fallow." + + + + +APPENDIX. + +AN AFTER-THOUGHT. + + +It will be quite in keeping with your author's mind, and consistently +characteristic of his desultory indoles--(not indolence, pray you, good +Anglican, albeit thereunto akin,)--if after having thus formally taken +his _conge_ with the help of a Petronius so redoubtable as Chesterfield, +he just steps back again to induce you to have another last ramble. Now, +the wherefore of this might sentimentally be veiled, were I but little +honest, in professed attachment for my amiable reader, as though with +Romeo I cried, "Parting in such sweet sorrow, that I could say farewell +till it be morrow;" or it might be extenuated cacoethically, as though a +new crop of fancies were sprung up already, an after-math rank and wild, +before the gladdening shower of commendation has yet freshened-up my +brown hay-field: or it might be disguised falsely, as if a parcel of +precious MSS. had been lost by penny-postage, or stolen in the purlieus +of Shoe-lane; but, instead of all these unworthy subterfuges, the truth +shall be told plainly; we are yet too short by a sheet (so hints our +publishing Procrustes) of the marketable volume. Accordingly, whether or +not in this booklet your readership has already found seed sufficient +for cyclopaedias, I am free to admit that the expectant butter-man at +least has not his legitimate post-octavo allowance of three hundred +pages; and to fill this aching void as cleverly and quickly as I can, is +my first object in so rapid a return. That honesty is the best policy, +deny who dare? + +Still it is competent for me to confess worthier objects, (although, in +point of their arising, they were secondary,) as further illustrative of +my '_Author's Mind_' shown in other specimens; for example, a +linsey-woolsey tapestry of many colours shall be hung upon the end of +this arcade; the last few trees in this poor avenue shall bear the +flowers of poetry as well as the fruit of prose; my swan (O, dub it not +a goose!) would, like a _prima-donna_, go off this theatre of fancy, +singing. And again, suffer me, good friend, to think your charity still +willing to be pleased: many weary pages back, I offered you to part with +me in peace, if you felt small sympathies with a rambler so whimsical +and lawless; surely, having walked together kindly until now, we shall +not quarrel at the last. + +Empty, however--empty, and rejoicing in its unthoughtful emptiness--have +I boasted this my head but a page or two ago; and that boast, for all +the critic's sneer, that no one will deny it, shall not be taken from me +by renewal of determined meditations; now that my house is swept and +garnished, I would not beckon back those old inhabitants. Neither let me +heed so lightly of your intellect, as to hope to satisfy its reading +with the scanty harvest of a _soil effete_; this license of writing up +to measure shall not show me sterile, any more than that emancipation +shall, by indulgence of thought, be disenchanted. And now to solve the +problem: not to think, for my mind is in a regimen of truancy; not to +fail in pleasing, if it be possible, the great world's implacable +palate, therefore to eschew dilution of good liquor; and yet to render +up in fair array the fitting tale of pages: well, if I may not +metaphysically draw upon internal resources, I can at least externally +and physically resort to yonder--desk; (drawer would have savoured of +the Punic, which Scipio and I blot out with equal hate;) for therein lie +_perdus_ divers poeticals I fain would see in print; yea, start not at +"poeticals," carp not at the threatening sound, for verily, even as +carp--so called from _carpere_, to catch if you can, and the Saxon capp, +to cavil, because when caught they don't pay for mastication--even as +carp, a muddy fish, difficult to hook, and provocate of hostile +criticism, conceals its lack of savour in the flavour of port-wine--even +so shall strong prose-sauce be served up with my poor dozen of sonnets: +and ye who would uncharitably breathe that they taste stronger of +Lethe's mud than of Helicon's sweet water, treat me to a better dish, or +carp not at my fishing. + +Imagination, as I need not tell psychologists by this time, is my +tyrant; I cannot sleep, nor sit out a sermon, nor remember yesterday, +nor read in peace, (how calm in blessed quiet people seem to read!) +without the distraction of a thousand fancies: I hold this an infirmity, +not an accomplishment; a thing to be conquered, not to be coveted: and +still I love it, suffering those chains of gossamer to wind about me, +that seductive honey-jar yet again to trap me, like some poor insect; +thus then my foolish idolatry heretofore hath hailed + + +IMAGINATION. + + My fond first love, sweet mistress of my mind, + Thy beautiful sublimity hath long + Charm'd mine affections, and entranced my song, + Thou spirit-queen, that sit'st enthroned, enshrined + Within this suppliant heart; by day and night + My brain is full of thee: ages of dreams, + Thoughts of a thousand worlds in visions bright, + Fear's dim terrific train, Guilt's midnight schemes, + Strange peeping eyes, soft smiling fairy faces, + Dark consciousness of fallen angels nigh, + Sad converse with the dead, or headlong races + Down the straight cliffs, or clinging on a shelf + Of brittle shale, or hunted thro' the sky!-- + O, God of mind, I shudder at myself! + +Now, friend reader, you have accustomed yourself to think that every +thing in rhyme, _i. e._, poetry, as you somewhat scornfully call it, +must be false: and I am sorry to be obliged to grant you that a leaning +towards plain matter-of-fact, is no wise characteristic of metrical +enthusiasts. But believe me for a truth-teller; that sonnet (did you +read it?) hints at some fearful verities; and that you may further +apprehend this sweet ideal mistress of your author's mind, suffer me to +introduce to your acquaintance + + +IMAGINATION PERSONIFIED. + + Dread Monarch-maid, I see thee now before me, + Searching my soul with those mysterious eyes, + Spell-bound I stand, thy presence stealing o'er me, + While all unnerved my trembling spirit dies: + Oh, what a world of untold wonder lies + Within thy silent lips! how rare a light + Of conquer'd joys and ecstasies repress'd + Beneath thy dimpled cheek shines half-confess'd! + In what luxuriant masses, glossy bright, + Those raven locks fall shadowing thy fair breast! + And, lo! that bursting brow, with gorgeous wings, + And vague young forms of beauty coyly hiding + In thy crisp curls, like cherubs there abiding-- + Charmer, to thee my heart enamour'd springs. + +Such, then, and of me so well beloved, is that abstracted Platonism. But +verily the fear of imagination would far outbalance any love of it, if +crime had peopled for a man that viewless world with spectres, and the +Medusa-head of Justice were shaking her snakes in his face. And, by way +of a parergon observation, how terrible, most terrible, to the guilty +soul must be the solitary silent system now so popular among those cold +legislative schemers, who have ground the poor man to starvation, and +would hunt the criminal to madness! How false is that political +philosophy which seeks to reform character by leaving conscience caged +up in loneliness for months, to gnaw into its diseased self, rather than +surrounding it with the wholesome counsels of better living minds. It is +not often good for man to be alone: and yet in its true season, +(parsimoniously used, not prodigally abused,) solitude does fair +service, rendering also to the comparatively innocent mind precious +pleasures: religion presupposed, and a judgment strong enough of muscle +to rein-in the coursers of Imagination's car, I judge it good advice to +prescribe for most men an occasional course of + + +SOLITUDE. + + Therefore delight thy soul in solitude, + Feeding on peace; if solitude it be + To feel that million creatures, fair and good, + With gracious influences circle thee; + To hear the mind's own music; and to see + God's glorious world with eyes of gratitude, + Unwatch'd by vain intruders. Let me shrink + From crowds, and prying faces, and the noise + Of men and merchandise; far nobler joys + Than chill Society's false hand hath given, + Attend me when I'm left alone to think. + To think--alone?--Ah, no, not quite alone; + Save me from that--cast out from earth and heaven, + A friendless, Godless, isolated ONE! + +But of these higher metaphysicals, these fancy-bred extravagations, +perhaps somewhat too much: you will dub me dreamer, if not proser--or +rather, poet, as the more modern reproach. Let us then, by way of +clearing our mind at once of these hallucinations, go forth quickly into +the fresh green fields, and expatiate with glad hearts on these +full-blown glories of + + +SUMMER. + + Warm summer! Yes, the very word is warm; + The hum of bees is in it, and the sight + Of sunny fountains glancing silver light, + And the rejoicing world, and every charm + Of happy nature in her hour of love, + Fruits, flowers, and flies, in rainbow-glory bright: + The smile of God glows graciously above, + And genial earth is grateful; day by day + Old faces come again with blossoms gay, + Gemming in gladness meadow, garden, grove: + Haste with thy harvest, then, my softened heart, + Awake thy better hopes of better days, + Bring in thy fruits and flowers of thanks and praise, + And in creation's paean take thy part. + +How different in sterner beauty was the landscape not long since! The +energies of universal life prisoned up in temporary obstruction; every +black hedge-row tufted with woolly snow, like some Egyptian mother +mourning for her children; shrubs and plants fettered up in glittering +chains, motionless as those stone-struck feasters before the head of +Gorgon; and the dark-green fir-trees swathed in heavy curtains of +iridescent whiteness. Contrast is ever pleasurable; therefore we need +scarcely apologize for an ice in the dog-days--I mean for this present +unseasonable introduction of dead + + +WINTER. + + As some fair statue, white and hard and cold, + Smiling in marble, rigid, yet at rest, + Or like some gentle child of beauteous mould, + Whose placid face and softly swelling breast + Are fixed in death, and on them bear imprest + His magic seal of peace--so, frozen, lies + The loveliness of nature: every tree + Stands hung with lace against the clear blue skies; + The hills are giant waves of glistering snow; + Rare and northern fowl, now strangely tame to see, + With ruffling plumage cluster on the bough, + And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like, the wren + Hides in the new-cut hedge; and all things now + Fear starving Winter more than cruel men. + +Ay, "cruel men:" that truest epithet for monarch-man must be the tangent +from which my Pegasus shall strike his hoof for the next flight. Who +does not writhe while reading details of cruelty, and who would not +rejoice to find even there somewhat of + + +CONSOLATION? + + Scholar of Reason, Grace, and Providence, + Restrain thy bursting and indignant tears; + With tenderest might unerring Wisdom steers + Through those mad seas the bark of Innocence. + Doth thy heart burn for vengeance on the deed-- + Some barbarous deed wrought out by cruelty + On woman, or on famish'd childhood's need, + Yea, on these fond dumb dogs--doth thy heart bleed + For pity, child of sensibility? + Those tears are gracious, and thy wrath most right + Yet patience, patience; there is comfort still; + The Judge is just; a world of love and light + Remains to counterpoise the load of ill, + And the poor victim's cup with angel's food to fill. + +For, as my Psycotherion has long ago informed you, I hope there is some +sort of heaven yet in reserve for the brute creation: if otherwise, in +respect of costermongers' donkeys, Kamskatdales' gaunt starved dogs, the +Guacho's horse, spurred deep with three-inch rowels, the angler's worm, +Strasburgh geese, and poor footsore curs harnessed to ill-balanced +trucks--for all these and many more I, for one, sadly stand in need of +consolation. Meanwhile, let us change the subject. After a dose of cruel +cogitations, and this corrupting converse with Phalaris and Domitian, +what better sweetener of thoughts than an "olive-branch" in the waters +of Marah? Spend a moment in the nursery; it is happily fashionable now, +as well as pleasurable, to sport awhile with Nature's prettiest +playthings; the praises of children are always at the tip of my--pen, +that is, tongue, you remember, and often have I told the world, in all +the pride of print, of my fond infantile predilections: then let this +little Chanson be added to the rest; we will call it + + +MARGARET. + + A song of gratitude and cheerful prayer + Still shall go forth my pretty babes to greet, + As on life's firmament, serenely fair, + Their little stars arise, with aspects sweet + Of mild successive radiance: that small pair, + Ellen and Mary, having gone before + In this affection's welcome, the dear debt + Here shall be paid to gentle Margaret: + Be thou indeed a pearl--in pureness, more + Than beauty, praise, or price; full be thy cup, + Mantling with grace, and truth with mercy met, + With warm and generous charities flowing o'er; + And when the Great King makes his jewels up, + Shine forth, child-angel, in His coronet! + +And while hovering about this fairy-land of sweet-home scenery, and +confessing thankfully to these domestic affections, your author knows +one heart at least that will be gladdened, one face that will be +brightened by the following + + +BIRTH-DAY PRAYER. + + Mother, dear mother, no unmeaning rhyme, + No mere ingenious compliment of words, + My heart pours forth at this auspicious time: + I know a simple honest prayer affords + More music on affection's thrilling cords, + More joy, than can be measured or express'd + In song most sweet, or eloquence sublime. + Mother, I bless thee! God doth bless thee too! + In these thy children's children thou _art_ blest, + With dear old pleasures springing up anew: + And blessings wait upon thee still, my mother! + Blessings to come, this many a happy year; + For, losing thee, where could we find another + So kind, so true, so tender, and--so dear? + +Is it an impertinence--I speak etymologically--to have dropped that +sonnet here?--Be it as you will, my Zoilus; let me stand convicted of +honesty and love: I ask no higher praise in this than to have pleased my +mother. + + * * * * * + +Penman as I am, have been, and shall be, innumerable letters have grown +beneath my goose-quill. Who cannot say the same indeed? For in these +patriotic days, for mere country's love and post-office prosperity, +every body writes to every body about every thing, or, as oftener +happens, about nothing. Nevertheless, I wish some kind pundit would +invent a corrosive ink, warranted to consume a letter within a week +after it had been read and answered: then should we have fewer of those +ephemeral documents treasured up in pigeon-holes, and docketed +correspondence for possible publication. Not Byron, nor Lamb, nor West, +nor Gray, with all their epistolary charms, avail to persuade my +prejudice that it is honest to publish a private letter: if written with +that view, the author is a hypocrite in his friendships; if not so, the +decent veil of privacy is torn from social life, confidence is rebuked, +betrayed, destroyed; and the suspicion of eaves-droppings and casual +scribblings to be posthumously printed, makes silence truly wisdom, and +grim reserve a virtue. This public appetite for secret information, and, +if possible, for hinted scandal--this unhallowed spirit of outward +curiosity trespassing upon the sacred precincts of a man's own +circle--is to the real author's mind a thing to be feared, if he is +weak--to be circumspectly watched, if he is wise. Such is the present +hunger for this kind of reading, that it would be diffidence, not +presumption, in the merest school-boy to dread the future publication of +his holiday letters; who knows--I may jump scathless from the Monument, +or in these Popish times become excommunicated by special bull, or fly +round the world in a balloon, or attain to the authorship of forty +volumes, or be half-smothered by a valet-de-place, or get indicted for +inveterate Toryism, or any how, I may--notwithstanding all present +obscurities that intervene--wake one of these fine mornings, and find +myself famous: and what then? The odds at Tattersall's would be twelve +to one that sundry busy-bodies, booksellers or otherwise, would scrape +together with malice prepense, and keep _cachet_ for future print, a +multitude of careless scrawls that should have been burnt within an hour +of the reading. Now, is not this a thing to be exclaimed against? And, +utterly improbable on the ground of any merit in themselves as I should +judge their publication (but for certain stolidities of the same sort, +that often-times have wearied me in print), I choose to let my author's +mind here enter its eternal protest against any such treachery regarding +private + + +LETTERS. + + Tear, scatter, burn, destroy--but keep them not; + I hate, I dread those living witnesses + Of varying self, of good or ill forgot, + Of altered hopes, and withered kindnesses. + Oh! call not up those shadows of the dead, + Those visions of the past, that idly blot + The present with regret for blessings fled: + This hand that wrote, this ever-teeming head, + This flickering heart is full of chance and change; + I would not have you watch my weaknesses, + Nor how my foolish likings roam and range, + Nor how the mushroom friendships of a day + Hastened in hot-bed ripeness to decay, + Nor how to mine own self I grow so strange. + +So anathema to editors, maranatha to publishers of all such hypothetical +post-obits! + + * * * * * + +Every one can comprehend something of an author's ease, when he sees his +manuscript in print: it is safe; no longer a treasure uninsurable, no +longer a locked-up care: it is emancipated, glorified, incapable of real +extermination; it has reached a changeless condition; the chrysalis of +illegible cacography has burst its bonds, and flies living through the +world on the wings of those true Daedali, Faust, and Gutenberg: the +transition-state is passed: henceforth for his brain-child set free from +that nervous slumber, its parent calmly can expect the oblivion of no +more than a death-like sleep, if he be not indeed buoyed up with certain +hope of immortality. "'Tis pleasant sure to see one's self in print," is +the adequate cause for ninety books out of a hundred; and, though zeal +might be the ostentatious stalking-horse, my candour shall give no +better excuse for the fourteen lines that follow; they require but this +preface: a most venerable chapel of old time, picturesque and full of +interest, is dropping to decay, within a mile of me; where it is, and +whose the fault, are askings improper to be answered: nevertheless, I +cast upon the waters this meagre morsel of + + +APPEAL. + + Shame on thee, Christian, cold and covetous one! + The laws (I praise them not for this) declare + That ancient, loved, deserted house of prayer + As money's worth a layman landlord's own. + Then use it as thine own; thy mansion there + Beneath the shadow of this ruinous church + Stands new and decorate; thine every shed + And barn is neat and proper; I might search + Thy comfortable farms, and well despair + Of finding dangerous ruin overhead, + And damp unwholesome mildew on the walls: + Arouse thy better self: restore it; see, + Through thy neglect the holy fabric falls! + Fear, lest that crushing guilt should fall on thee. + +I fear much, poor book, this finale of jingling singing will jar upon +the public ear; all men must shrink from a lengthy snake with a rattle +in its tail: and this ballast a-stern of over-ponderous poetry may +chance to swamp so frail a skiff. But I have promised a dozen sonnets in +this after-thought Appendix; yea, and I will keep that promise at all +mortal hazards, even to the superadded unit proverbial of dispensing +Fornarinas. Ten have been told off fairly, and now we come upon the gay +court-cards. After so much of villanous political ferment, society +returns at length to its every-day routine, heedful of other oratory +than harangues from the hustings, and glad of other reading than +figurative party-speeches. Yet am I bold to recur, just for a thought or +two, to my whilom patriotic hopes and fears: fears indeed came first +upon me, but hopes finally out-voted them: briefly, then, begin upon the +worst, and endure, with what patience you possess, this creaky stave of +bitter + + +POLITICS. + + Chill'd is the patriot's hope, the poet's prayer: + Alas for England, and her tarnish'd crown, + Her sun of ancient glory going down, + Her foes triumphant in her friends' despair: + What wonder should the billows overwhelm + A bark so mann'd by Comus and his crew, + "Youth at the prow, and pleasure at the helm?" + Yet, no!--we will not fear; the loathing realm + At length has burst its chains; a motley few, + The pseudo-saint, the boasting infidel, + The demagogue, and courtier, hand in hand + No more besiege our Zion's citadel: + But high in hope comes on this nobler band + For God, the sovereign, and our father-land. + +That last card, you may remember, must reckon as the knave; and +therefore is consistently regarding an ominous trisyllable, which rhymes +to "knavish tricks" in the national anthem; our suit now leads us in +regular succession to the queen, a topic (it were Milesian to say a +subject) whereon now, as heretofore, my loyalty shall never be found +lacking. In old Rome's better antiquity, a slave was commissioned to +whisper counsel in the ear of triumphant generals or emperors; and, in +old England's less enlightened youth, a baubled fool was privileged to +blurt out verities, which bearded wisdom dared not hint at. Now, I boast +myself free, a citizen of no mean city--my commission signed by duty--my +counsel guarantied by truth: and if, O still intruding Zoilus, the +liberality of your nature provokes you to class me truly in the family +of fools, let your antiquarian ignorance of those licensed Gothamites +blush at its abortive malice; the arrow of your sarcasm bounds from my +target blunted; pick up again the harmless reed: for, not to insist upon +the prevalence of knaves, and their moral postponement to mere +lack-wits, let me tell you that wise men, and good men, and shrewd men, +were those ancient baubled fools: therefore would I gladly be thought of +their fraternity. + +But our twelfth sonnet is waiting, save the mark! Stay: there ought to +intervene a solemn pause; for your author's mind, on the spur of the +occasion, pours forth an unpremeditated song of free-spoken, +uncompromising, patriotic counsel; let its fervency atone for its +presumption + + Bold in my freedom, yet with homage meek, + As duty prompts and loyalty commands, + To thee, O, queen of empires! would I speak. + Behold, the most high God hath giv'n to thee + Kingdoms and glories, might and majesty, + Setting thee ruler over many lands; + Him first to serve, O monarch, wisely seek: + And many people, nations, languages, + Have laid their welfare in thy sovereign hands; + Them next to bless, to prosper and to please, + Nobly forget thyself, and thine own ease: + Rebuke ill-counsel; rally round thy state + The scattered good, and true, and wise, and great: + So Heav'n upon thee shed sweet influences! + +And now for my Raffaellesque disguise of a vulgar baker's twelve, the +largess muffin of Mistress Fornarina: thirteen cards to a suit, and +thirteen to the dozen, are proverbially the correct thing; but, as in +regular succession I have come upon the king card, I am free to +confess--(pen, why will you repeat again such a foolish, stale +Joe-Millerism?)--the subject a dilemma. Natheless, my good nature shall +give a royal chance to criticism most malign: whether candour +acknowledge it or not, doubtless the author's mind reigns dominant in +the author's book; and, notwithstanding the self-silence of blind +Maeonides, (a right notable exception,) it holds good as a rule that the +majority of original writings, directly or indirectly, concern a man's +own self; his whims and his crotchets, his knowledge and his ignorance, +wisdom and folly, experiences and suspicions, therein find a place +prepared for them. Scott's life naturally produced his earlier novels; +in the '_Corsair_,' the '_Childe_,' and the '_Don_,' no one can mistake +the hero-author; Southey's works, Shelley's, and Wordsworth's, are full +of adventure, feeling, and fancy, personal to the writers, at least +equally with the sonnets of Petrarch or of Shakspeare. And as with +instances illustrious as those, so with all humbler followers, the +skiffs, pinnaces, and heavy barges in the wake of those gallant ships: +an author's library, and his friends, his hobbies and amusements, +business and pleasure, fears and wishes, accidents of life, and +qualities of soul, all mingle in his writings with a harmonizing +individuality; nay, the very countenance and hand-writing, alike with +choice of subject and style and method of their treatment, illustrate, +in one word, the author's mind. These things being so, what hinders it +from occupying, as in honesty it does, the king's place in this pack of +sonnets? Nevertheless, forasmuch as by such occupancy an ill-tempered +sarcasm might charge it with conceit; know then that my humbler meaning +here is to put it lowest and last, even in the place of wooden-spoon; +for this also (being mindful of the twelve apostle-spoons from old time +antecedent) is a legitimate thirteener: and so, while in extricating my +muse from the folly of serenading a non-existent king, I have candidly +avowed the general selfishness of printing, believe that, in this +avowal, I take the lowest seat, so well befitting one of whom it may +ungraciously be asked, Where do fools buy their logic? + +List, then, oh list! while generically, not individually I claim for +authorship + + +THE CATHEDRAL MIND. + + Temple of truths most eloquently spoken, + Shrine of sweet thoughts veiled round with words of power, + The '_Author's Mind_,' in all its hallowed riches, + Stands a cathedral: full of precious things; + Tastefully built in harmonies unbroken, + Cloister, and aisle, dark crypt, and aery tower: + Long-treasured relics in the fretted niches, + And secret stores, and heap'd-up offerings, + Art's noblest gems, with every fruit and flower, + Paintings and sculpture, choice imaginings, + Its plenitude of wealth and praise betoken: + An ever-burning lamp portrays the soul; + Deep music all around enchantment flings; + And God's great Presence consecrates the whole. + +Now at length, in all verity, I have said out my say: nor publisher nor +printer shall get more copy from me: neither, indeed, would it before +have been the case, for all that Damastic argument, were it not that +many beginnings--and you remember my proverbial preliminarizing--should, +for mere antithesis' sake, be endowed with a counterpoise of many +endings. So, in this second parting, let me humbly suggest to gentle +reader these: that nothing is at once more plebeian and unphilosophical +than--censure, in a world where nothing can be perfect, and where apathy +is held to be good-breeding; _item_, (I am quoting Scott,) that "it is +much more easy to destroy than to build, to criticise than to compose;" +_item_, (Sir Walter again, _ipsissima verba_, in a letter to Miss +Seward,) that there are certain literary "gentlemen who appear to be a +sort of tinkers, who, unable to _make_ pots and pans, set up for +_menders_ of them, and often make two holes in patching one;" _item_, +that in such possible cases as "exercise" for "exorcise," "repeat" for +"repent," "depreciate" for "deprecate," and the like, an indifferent +scribe is always at the mercy of compositors; and lastly, that if it is, +by very far, easier to read a book than to write one, it is also, by at +least as much, worthier of a noble mind to give credit for good +intentions, rather than for bad, or indifferent, or none at all, even +where hyper-criticism may appear to prove that the effort itself has +been a failure. + + + * * * * * + + +PROBABILITIES; + +AN AID TO FAITH. + +BY + +Martin Farquhar Tupper, A.M., F.R.S. + +THE AUTHOR OF + +"PROVERBIAL PHILOSOPHY +ALMOST THOU PERSUADEST ME TO BE A CHRISTIAN." + + + * * * * * + + +CONTENTS + + +SUBJECTS. PAGE. + +An Aid to Faith 459 + +God and his Attributes 466 + +The Triunity 472 + +The Godhead Visible 476 + +The Origin of Evil 480 + +Cosmogony 485 + +Adam 488 + +The Fall 490 + +The Flood 493 + +Noah 495 + +Babel 497 + +Job 499 + +Joshua 504 + +The Incarnation 506 + +Mahometanism 509 + +Romanism 511 + +The Bible 517 + +Heaven and Hell 521 + +An Offer 525 + +Conclusion 526 + + + + +AN AID TO FAITH. + + +The certainty of those things which most surely are believed among us, +is a matter quite distinct from their antecedent probability or +improbability. We know, and take for facts, that Cromwell and Napoleon +existed, and are persuaded that their characters and lives were such as +history reports them: but it is another thing, and one eminently +calculated to disturb any disbeliever of such history, if a man were +enabled to show, that, from the condition of social anarchy, there was +an antecedent likelihood for the use of military despots; that, from the +condition of a popular puritanism, or a popular infidelity, it was +previously to have been expected that such leaders should have the +several characteristics of a bigoted zeal for religion, or a craving +appetite for worldly glory; that, from the condition liable to +revolutions, it was probable to find such despots arising out of the +middle class; and that, from the condition of reaction incidental to all +human violences, there was a clear expectability that the power of such +military monarchs should not be continued to their natural heirs. + +Such a line of argument, although in no measure required for the +corroboration of facts, might have considerable power to persuade _a +priori_ the man, who had not hitherto seen reason to credit such facts +from posterior evidence. It would have rolled away a great stone, which +to such a mind might otherwise have stood as a stumbling-block on the +very threshold of truth. It would have cleared off a heavy mist, which +might prevent him from discerning the real nature of the scene in which +he stood. It would have shown him that, what others know to be fact, is, +even to him who does not know it, become antecedently probable; and that +Reason is not only no enemy to Faith, but is ready and willing to +acknowledge its alliance. + +Take a second illustration, by way of preliminary. A woodman, cleaving +an oak, finds an iron ball in its centre; he sees the fact, and of +course believes; some others believing on his testimony. But a certain +village-pundit, habitually sceptical of all marvels, is persuaded that +the wonder has been fabricated by our honest woodman; until the parson, +a good historian, coming round that way, proclaims it a most interesting +circumstance, because it was one naturally to have been expected; for +that, here was the spot where, two hundred years ago, a great battle had +been fought: and it was no improbability at all that a carbine-bullet +should have penetrated a sapling, nor that the tree should thereafter +have grown old with the iron at its heart. How unreasonable then would +appear the pundit's incredulity, if persisted in: how suddenly +enlightened the rational faith of the rustic: how seasonable would be +felt the useful learning of him, whose knowledge well applied can thus +unfetter truth from the bandages of ignorance. + +Illustrations, if apt, are so well adapted to persuade towards a +particular line of argument, that, at the risk of diffuseness, and +because minds being various are variously touched, one by one thought +and one by another, I think fit to add yet more of a similar tendency: +in the hope that, by a natural induction, such instances may smoothe our +way. + +When an eminent living geologist was prosecuting his researches at +Kirkdale cave, Yorkshire, he had calculated so nicely on the antecedent +probabilities, that his commands to the labourers were substantially +these: "Take your mattocks, and pick up that stone flooring; then take +your basket, and fill it--with the bones of hyaenas and other creatures +which you will find there." We may fancy the ridicule wherewith +ignorance might have greeted science: but lo, the triumph of philosophy, +when its mandate soon assumed a bodily shape in--bushels of bones gnawed +as by wild beasts, and here and there a grinning skull that looked like +a hyaena's! Do we not see how this bears on our coming argument? Such a +deposit was very unlikely to be found there in the eyes of the +unenlightened: but very likely to the wise man's ken. The real +probabilities were in favour of a strange fact, though the seeming +probabilities were against it. + +Take another. We are all now convinced of the existence of America; and +so, some three or four hundred years back, was Christopher Columbus--but +nobody else. Alone, he proved that mighty continent so probable, from +geometrical measurements, and the balance of the world, and tides, and +trade-winds, and casual floatsams driven from some land beneath the +setting sun, that he was antecedently convinced of the fact: and it +would have been a shock to his reason, as well as to his faith, had he +found himself able to sail due west from Lisbon to China, without having +struck against his huge probability. I purposely abstain from applying +every illustration, or showing its specific difference regarding our +theme. It is better to lead a mind to think for itself than to endeavour +to forestall every notion. + +Another. A Kissoor merchant in Timbuctoo is told of the existence of +water hard and cold as marble. All the experience of his nation is +against it. He disbelieves. However, after no long time, the testimony +of two native princes who have been _feted_ in England, and have seen +ice, shakes his once not unreasonable incredulity: and the additional +idea brought soon to his remembrance, that, as lead cools down from hot +fluidity to a solid lump, so, in the absence of solar heat, in all +probability would water--corroborates and makes acceptable by analogous +likelihood the doctrine simultaneously evidenced by credible witnesses. + +Yet one more illustration for the last. Few things in nature appear more +unlikely to the illiterate, than that a living toad should be found +prisoned in a block of limestone; nevertheless, evidence goes to prove +that such cases are not uncommon. Now, if, instead of limestone, which +is a water-product, the creature had been found embedded in granite, +which is a fire-product; although the fact might have been from +eye-sight equally unimpeachable, how much more unlikely such a +circumstance would have appeared in the judgment of science. To the +rustic, the limestone case is as stout a puzzle as the granite one; but +_a priori_, the philosopher--taking into account the aqueous fluidity of +such a matrix at a period when reptiles were abundant, the torpid +qualities of the toad itself, and the fact that time is scarcely an +element in the absence of air--arrives at an antecedent probability, +which comforts his acceptance of the fact. The granite would have +staggered his reason, even though his own experience or the testimony of +others were sufficient, nay, imperative, to assure his faith: but in the +case of limestone, Reason even helps Faith; nay, anticipates and leads +it in, by suggesting the wonder to be previously probable. How truly, +and how strongly this bears upon our theme, let any such philosophizing +mind consider. + +But enough of illustrations: although these, multipliable to any amount, +might bring, each in its own case, some specific tendency to throw light +upon the path we mean to tread: it is wiser perhaps, as implying more +confidence in the reader's intellectual powers, to leave other analogous +cases to the suggestion of his own mind; also, not to vex him in every +instance with the intrusive finger of an obvious application. +Meanwhile, it is a just opportunity to clear the way at once of some +obstructions, by disposing of a few matters personal to the writer; and +by touching upon sundry other preliminary considerations. + +1. The line of thought proposed is intended to show it probable that any +thing which has been or is, might, viewed antecedently to its existence, +by an exercise of pure reason, have by possibility been guessed: and on +the hypothesis of sufficient keenness and experience, that this idea may +be carried even to the future. Any thing, meaning every thing, is a word +not used unadvisedly; for this is merely a suggestive treatise, starting +a rule capable of infinite application: and, notwithstanding that we +have here and now confined its elucidation to some matters of religious +moment only, as occupying a priority of importance, and at all times +deserving the lead; still, if knowledge availed, and time and space +permitted, I scarcely doubt that a vigorous and illuminated intellect +might so far enlarge on the idea, as to show the antecedent probability +of every event which has happened in the kingdoms of nature, providence, +and grace: nay, of directing his guess at coming matters with no +uncertain aim into the realms of the immediate future. The perception of +cause in operation enables him to calculate the consequence, even +perhaps better than the prophecy of cause could in the prior case enable +him to suspect the consequence. But, in this brief life, and under its +disturbing circumstances, there is little likelihood of accomplishing in +practice all that the swift mind sees it easy to dream in theory: and if +other and wiser pens are at all helped in the good aim to justify the +ways of God with man, and to clear the course of truth, by some of the +notions broadcast in this treatise, its errand will be well fulfilled. + +2. Whether or not the leading idea, so propounded, is new, or is new in +its application as an auxiliary to Christian evidences, the writer is +unaware: to his own mind it has occurred quite spontaneously and on a +sudden; neither has he scrupled to place it before others with whatever +ill advantage of celerity, because it seemed to his own musings to shed +a flood of light upon deep truths, which may not prove unwelcome nor +unuseful to the doubting minds of many. It is true that in this, as in +most other human efforts, the realization of idea in concrete falls far +short of its abstract conception in the mind: there, all was clear, +quick, and easy; here, the necessity of words, and the constraints of an +unwilling perseverance, clog alike the wings of fancy and the feet of +sober argument: insomuch that the difference is felt to be quite +humiliating between the thoughts as they were thought, and the thoughts +as they are written. Minerva, springing from the head of Jove, is not +more unlike the heavily-treading Vulcan. + +3. Necessarily, that the argument be (so to speak) complete, and on the +wise principle that no fortresses be left untaken in the rear, it must +be the writer's fate to attempt a demonstration of the anterior +probability of truths, which a child of reason can not only now never +doubt as fact, but never could have thought improbable. Instance the +first effort, showing it to have been expectable that there should, in +any conceived beginning, have existed a Something, a Great Spirit, whom +we call God. To have to argue of the mighty Maker, that HE was an +antecedent probability, would appear a most needless attempt; if it did +not occur as the first link in a chain of arguments less open to +objection by the thoughtless. With our little light to try to prove _a +priori_ the dazzling mystery of a Divine Tri-unity, might (unreasonably +viewed) be assailed as a presumptuous and harmful thing; but it is our +wise prerogative, if and when we can, to "Prove all things." Moreover, +we live in a world wherein Truth's greatest enemy is the man who shrinks +from endeavouring at least to clear away the mists and clouds that veil +her precious aspect; and at a time when it behooves the reverent +Christian to put on his panoply of faith and prayer, and meet in +argument, according to the grace and power given to him--not indeed the +blaspheming infidel, for such a foe is unreasonable and unworthy of an +answer, but--the often candid, anxious, and involuntary doubter; the +mind, which, righteously vexed with the thousand corruptions of truth, +and sorely disappointed at the conduct of its herd of false disciples, +from a generous misconception is embracing error: the mind, never enough +tenderly treated, but commonly taunted as a sceptic which yet with a +natural manliness asserts the just prerogative of thinking for itself: +fairly enough requiring, though rarely finding, evidence either to prop +the weakness of a merely educational faith, or to argue away the +objections to Christianity so rife in the clashing doctrines and unholy +lives of its pseudo-sectaries. One of our poets hath said, "He has no +hope who never had a fear:" it is quite as true (and take this saying +for thy comfort, any harassed misbelieving mind), He has no faith, who +never had a doubt. There is hope of a mind which doubts, because it +thinks; because it troubles itself to think about what the mass of +nominal Christians live threescore years and die of very mammonism, +without having had one earnest thought about one difficulty, or one +misgiving: there is hope of a man, who, not licentious nor scornful, +from simple misconception, misbelieves; there is just and reasonable +hope that (the misconception once removed) his faith will shine forth +all the warmer for a temporary state of winter. To such do I address +myself: not presumptuously imagining that I can satisfy by my poor +thoughts all the doubts, cavils and objections of minds so keen and +curious; not affecting to sail well among the shoals of metaphysics, nor +to plumb unerringly the deeper gulphs of reason; but asking them for +awhile to bear with me and hear me to the end patiently; with me, +convinced of what ([Greek: kat' exochen]) is Truth, by far surer and +stronger arguments than any of the less considerations here expounded as +auxiliary thereto; to bear with me, and prove for themselves at this +penning of my thoughts (if haply I am helped in such high enterprise), +whether indeed those doctrines and histories which the Christian world +admit, were antecedently improbable, that is, unreasonable: whether, on +the contrary, there did not exist, prior to any manifestation of such +facts and doctrines, an exceeding likelihood that they would be so and +so developed: and whether on the whole, led by reason to the threshold +of faith, it may be worth while to encounter other arguments, which have +rendered probabilities now certain. + +4. It is very material to keep in memory the only scope and object of +this essay. We do not pretend to add one jot of evidence, but only to +prepare the mind to receive evidence: we do not attempt to prove facts, +but only to accelerate their admission by the removal of prejudice. If a +bed-ridden meteorologist is told that it rains, he may or he may not +receive the fact from the force of testimony; but he will certainly be +more predisposed to receive it, if he finds that his weatherglass is +falling rather than rising. The fact remains the same, it rains; but the +mind--precluded by circumstances from positive personal assurance of +such fact, and able only to arrive at truth from exterior evidence--is +in a fitter state for belief of the fact from being already made aware +that it was probable. Let it not then be inferred, somewhat perversely, +that because antecedent probabilities are the staple of our present +argument, the theme itself, Religion, rests upon hypotheses so slender: +it rests not at all upon such straws as probabilities, but on posterior +evidence far more firm. What we now attempt is not to prop the ark, but +favourably to predispose the mind of any reckless Uzzah, who might +otherwise assail it; not to strengthen the weak places of religion, but +to annul such disinclination to receive Truth, as consists in prejudice +and misconception of its likelihood. The goodly ship is built upon the +stocks, the platforms are reared, and the cradle is ready; but mistaken +preconceptions may scatter the incline with gravel-stones rather than +with grease, and thus put a needless hindrance to the launching: whereas +a clear idea that the probabilities are in favour, rather than the +reverse, will make all smooth, lubricate, and easy. If, then, we fail in +this attempt, no disservice whatever is done to Truth itself; no breach +is made in the walls, no mine sprung, no battlement dismantled; all the +evidences remain as they were; we have taken nothing away. Even granting +matters seemed anteriorily improbable, still, if evidence proved them +true, such anterior unlikelihood would entirely be merged in the stoutly +proven facts. Moreover, if we be adjudged to have succeeded, we have +added nothing to Truth itself; no, nor to its outworks. That sacred +temple stands complete, firm and glorious from corner-stone to +top-stone. We do but sweep away the rubbish at its base; the drifting +desert sands that choke its portals. We only serve that cause (a most +high privilege), by enlisting a prejudgment in its favour. We propose +herein an auxiliary to evidence, not evidence itself; a finger-post to +point the way to faith; a little light of reason on its path. The risk +is really nothing; but the advantage, under favour, may be much. + +5. It is impossible to elude the discussion of topics, which in their +direct tendencies, or remoter inferences, may, to the author at least, +prove dangerous or disputable ground. If a "great door and effectual" is +opened to him, doubtless he will raise or meet with many adversaries. +Besides mere haters of his creed, despisers of his arguments, and +protestors, loud and fierce against his errors; he may possibly fall +foul of divers unintended heresies; he may stumble unwittingly on the +relics of exploded schisms; he may exhume controversies in metaphysical +or scholastical polemics, long and worthily extinct. If this be so, he +can only plead, _Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_. But it is +open to him also to protest against the common critical folly of making +an offender for a word: of driving analogies on all four feet, and +straining thoughts beyond their due proportions. Above all, never let a +reader stir one inch beyond, far less against, his own judgment: if +there seem to be sufficient reasons, well: if otherwise, let me walk +uncompanied. The first step especially is felt to be a very difficult +one; perhaps very debatable: for aught I know, it may be merely a vain +insect caught in the cobweb of metaphysics, soon to be destroyed, and +easily to be discussed at leisure by some Aranean logician. However, it +seemed to my midnight musings a probable mode of arriving at truth, +though somewhat unsatisfactorily told from poverty of thought and +language. Moreover, it would have been, in such _a priori_ argument, +ridiculous to have commenced by announcing a posterior conclusion: for +this cause did I do my humble best to work it out anew: and however +supererogatory it may seem at first sight to the majority of readers, +those keener minds whom I mainly address, and whose interests I wish to +serve, will recognise the attempt as at least consistent: and will be +ready to admit that if the arduous effort prove anteriorly a First Great +Cause, and His attributes, be futile (which, however, I do not admit), +it was an attempt unneeded on the score of its own merits; albeit, with +an obvious somewhat of justice, pure reason may desire to begin at the +beginning. No one, who thinks at all upon religion, however +misbelieving, can entertain any mental prejudice against the existence +of a Deity, or against the received character of His attributes. Such a +man would be merely in a savage state, irrational: whilst his own mind, +so speculating, would stand itself proof positive of an Intellectual +Father; either immediately, as in the first man's case, or mediately, as +in our own, it must have sprung out of that Being, who is emphatically +the Good One--God. But if, as is possible, a mind, capable of thinking, +and keen to think on other themes, from any cause, educational or moral, +has neglected this great track of mediation, has "forgotten God," and +"had him _not_ in all his thoughts," such an one I invite to walk with +me; and, in spite of all incompleteness and insufficiency, uncaptious of +much that may haply be fanciful or false, briefly and in outline to test +with me sundry probabilities of the Christian scheme, considered +antecedently to its elucidation. + + + + +A GOD: AND HIS ATTRIBUTES. + + +I will commence with a noble, and, as I believe, an inspired sentence: +than which no truth uttered by philosophers ever was more clearly or +more sublimely expressed. "In the beginning was the Word: and the Word +was with God; and the Word was God." In its due course, we will consider +especially the difference between the Word and God; likewise the seeming +contradiction, but true concord, of being simultaneously God, and with +God. At present, and previously to the true commencement of our _a +priori_ thoughts, let us, by a word or two, paraphrase that brief but +comprehensive sentence, "In the beginning was the Word." Eternity has no +beginning, as it has no end: the clock of Time is futile there: it +might as well attempt to go in vacuo. Nevertheless, in respect to +finite intelligences like ourselves, seeing that eternity is an idea +totally inconceivable, it is wise, nay it is only possible, to be +presented to the mind piecemeal. Even our deepest mathematicians do not +scruple to speak of points "infinitely remote;" as if in that phrase +there existed no contradiction of terms. So, also, we pretend in our +emptiness to talk of eternity past, time present, and eternity to come; +the fact being that, muse as a man may, he can entertain no idea of an +existence which is not measurable by time: any more than he can conceive +of a colour unconnected with the rainbow, or of a musical note beyond +the seven sounds. The plain intention of the words is this: place the +starting-post of human thought as far back into eternity as you will, be +it what man counts a thousand ages, or ten thousand times ten thousand, +or be these myriads multiplied again by millions, still, in any such +Beginning, and in the beginning of all beginnings (for so must creatures +talk)--then was God. He Was: the scholar knows full well the force of +the original term, the philological distinctions between [Greek: eimi] +and [Greek: gignomai]: well pleased, he reads as of the Divinity [Greek: +en], He self-existed; and equally well pleased he reads of the humanity +[Greek: egennethe], he was born. The thought and phrase [Greek: en] +sympathizes, if it has not an identity, with the Hebrew's unutterable +Name. HE then, whose title, amongst all others likewise denoting +excellence supreme and glory underivative, is essentially "I am;" HE +who, relatively to us as to all creation else, has a new name wisely +chosen in "the Word,"--the great expression of the idea of God; this +mighty Intelligence is found in any such beginning self-existent. That +teaching is a mere fact, known posteriorly from the proof of all things +created, as well as by many wonderful signs, and the clear voice of +revelation. We do not attempt to prove it; that were easy and obvious: +but our more difficult endeavour at present is to show how antecedently +probable it was that God should be: and that so being, He should be +invested with the reasonable attributes, wherewithal we know His +glorious Nature to be clothed. + +Take then our beginning where we will, there must have existed in that +"originally" either Something, or Nothing. It is a clear matter to +prove, _a posteriori_, that Something did exist; because something +exists now: every matter and every derived spirit must have had a +Father; _ex nihilo nihil fit_, is not more a truth, than that creation +must have had a Creator. However, leaving this plain path (which I only +point at by the way for obvious mental uses), let us now try to get at +the great antecedent probability that in the beginning Something should +have been, rather than Nothing. + +The term, Nothing, is a fallacious one: it does not denote an existence, +as Something does, but the end of an existence. It is in fact a +negation, which must presuppose a matter once in being and possible to +be denied; it is an abstraction, which cannot happen unless there be +somewhat to be taken away; the idea of vacuity must be posterior to that +of fullness; the idea of no tree is incompetent to be conceived without +the previous idea of _a_ tree; the idea of nonentity suggests, _ex vi +termini_, a pre-existent entity; the idea of Nothing, of necessity, +presupposes Something. And a Something once having been, it would still +and for ever continue to be, unless sufficient cause be found for its +removal; that cause itself, you will observe, being a Something. The +chances are forcibly in favour of continuance, that is of perpetuity; +and the likelihoods proclaim loudly that there should be an Existence. +It was thus, then, antecedently more probable, than in any imaginable +beginning from which reason can start, Something should be found +existent, rather than Nothing. This is the first probability. + +Next; of what nature and extent is this Something, this Being, likely to +be?--There will be either one such being, or many: if many, the many +either sprang from the one, or the mass are all self-existent; in the +former case, there would be a creation and a God: in the latter, there +would be many Gods. Is the latter antecedently more probable?--let us +see. First, it is evident that if many are probable, few are more +probable, and one most probable of all. The more possible gods you take +away, the more do impediments diminish; until, that is to say, you +arrive at that One Being, whom we have already proved probable. +Moreover, many must be absolutely united as one; in which case the many +is a gratuitous difficulty, because they may as well be regarded for all +purposes of worship or argument as one God: or the many must have been +in essence more or less disunited; in which case, as a state of any +thing short of pure concord carries in itself the seeds of dissolution, +needs must that one or other of the many (long before any possible +beginnings, as we count beginnings, looking down the past vista of +eternity), would have taken opportunity by such disturbing causes to +become absolute monarch: whether by peaceful persuasion, or hostile +compulsion, or other mode of absorbing disunions, would be indifferent; +if they were not all improbable, as unworthy of the God. Perpetuity of +discord is a thing impossible; every thing short of unity tends to +decomposition. Any how then, given the element of eternity to work in, +a one great Supreme Being was, in the created beginning, an _a priori_ +probability. That all other assumptions than that of His true and +eternal Oneness are as false in themselves as they are derogatory to the +rational views of deity, we all now see and believe; but the direct +proofs of this are more strictly matters of revelation than of reason: +albeit reason too can discern their probabilities. Wise heathens, such +as Socrates and Cicero, who had not our light, arrived nevertheless at +some of this perception; and thus, through conscience and intelligence, +became a law unto themselves: because that, to them, as now to any one +of us who may not yet have seen the light, the anterior likelihood +existed for only one God, rather than more; a likelihood which prepares +the mind to take as a fundamental truth, "The Lord our God is one +Jehovah." + +Next; Self-existence combined with unity must include the probable +attribute, or character, Ubiquity; as I now proceed to show. On the same +principle as that by which we have seen Something to be likelier than +Nothing, we conclude that the same Something is more probable to be +every where, than the same Nothing (if the phrase were not absurd), to +be any where: we may, so to speak, divide infinity into spaces, and +prove the position in each instance: moreover, as that Something is +essentially--not a unit as of many, but--unity involving all, it follows +as most probable that this Whole Being should be ubiquitous; in other +parlance, that the one God should be every where at once: also, there +being no limit to what we call Space, nor any imaginable hostile power +to place a constraint upon the One Great Being, this Whole Being must be +ubiquitous to a degree strictly infinite: "HE is in every place, +beholding the evil and the good." + +Such a consideration (and it is a perfectly true one) renders necessary +the next point, to wit, that God is a Spirit. No possible substance can +be every where at once: essence may, but not substance. Corporeity in +any shape must be local; local is finite; and we have just proved the +anterior probability of a One great Existence being (notwithstanding +unity of essence) infinite. Illocal and infinite are convertible terms: +spirit is illocal; and, as God is infinite--that is, illocal--it is +clear that "God is a Spirit." + +We have thus (not attempting to build up faith by such slight tools, but +only using them to cut away prejudice) arrived at the high probability +of a God invested with His natural qualities or attributes; +Self-existence, Unity, the faculty of being every where at once and that +every where Infinitude; and essentially of a Spiritual nature, not +material. His moral, or accidental attributes (so to speak), were, +antecedently to their expression, equally easy of being proved +probable. First, with respect to Power: given no disturbing cause--(we +shall soon consider the question of permitted evil, and its origin; but +this, however disturbing to creatures, will be found not only none to +God, but, as it were, only a ray of His glory suffered to be broken for +prismatic beauty's sake, a flash of the direction of His energies +suffered to be diverted for the superior triumph of good in that day +when it shall be shown that "God hath made all things for himself, yea, +even the wicked for the time of visitation")--with the _datum_ then of +no disturbing cause obstructing or opposing, an infinite being must be +able to do all things within the sphere of such infinity: in other +phrase, He must be all-powerful. Just so, an impetus in vacuity suffers +no check, but ever sails along among the fleet of worlds; and the innate +Impulse of the Deity must expand and energize throughout that +infinitude, Himself. For a like reason of ubiquity, God must know all +things: it is impossible to escape from the strong likelihood that any +intelligent being must be conversant of what is going on under his very +eye. Again; in the case both of Power and Knowledge, alike with the +coming attributes of Goodness and Wisdom--(wisdom considered as morally +distinct from mere knowledge or awaredness; it being quite possible to +conceive a cold eye seeing all things heedlessly, and a clear mind +knowing all things heartlessly)--in the case, I say, of all these +accidental attributes, there recurs for argument, one analogous to that +by which we showed the anterior probability of a self-existence. Things +positive must precede things negative. Sight must have been, before +blindness is possible; and before we can arrive at a just idea of no +sight. Power must be precursor to an abstraction from power, or +weakness. The minor-existence of ignorance is an impossibility, unless +you preallow the major-existence of wisdom; for it amounts to a debasing +or a diminution of wisdom. Sin is well defined to be, the transgression +of law; for without law, there can be no sin. So, also, without wisdom, +there can be no ignorance; without power, there can be no weakness; +without goodness, there can be no evil. + +Furthermore. An affirmative--such as wisdom, power, goodness--can exist +absolutely; it is in the nature of a Something: but a negative--such as +ignorance, weakness, evil--can only exist relatively; and it would, +indeed, be a Nothing, were it not for the previous and now simultaneous +existence of its wiser, stronger, and better origin. Abstract evil is as +demonstrably an impossibility as abstract ignorance, or abstract +weakness. If evil could have self-existed, it would in the moment of its +eternal birth have demolished itself. Virtue's intrinsic concord tends +to perpetual being: vice's innate discord struggles always with a force +towards dissolution. Goodness, wisdom, power have existences, and have +had existences from all eternity, though gulphed within the Godhead; and +that, whether evidenced in act or not: but their corruptions have had no +such original existence, but are only the same entities perverted. Love +would be love still, though there were no existent object for its +exercise: Beauty would be beauty still, though there were no created +thing to illustrate its fairness: Power would be power still, though +there be no foe to combat, no difficulty to be overcome. Hatred, +ill-favour, weakness, are only perversions or diminutions of these. +Power exists independently of muscles or swords or screws or levers; +love, independently of kind thoughts, words, and actions; beauty, +independently of colours, shapes, and adaptations. Just so is Wisdom +philosophically spoken of by a truly royal and noble author: + +"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and find out the knowledge of clever +inventions. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding; I +have strength. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before +his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or +ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; +before the mountains were fixed, or the hills were made. When He +prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face +of the depth; when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened +the foundations of the deep: Then was I by him, as one brought up with +him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing +in the habitable parts of his earth; and my delights were with the sons +of men." + +King Solomon well knew of Whom he wrote thus nobly. Eternal wisdom, +power, and goodness, all prospectively thus yearning upon man, and +incorporate in One, whose name, among his many names, is Wisdom. Wisdom, +as a quality, existed with God; and, constituting full pervasion of his +essence, was God. + +But to return, and bind to a conclusion our ravelled thoughts. As, +originally, the self-existent being, unbounded, all-knowing, might take +up, so to speak, if He willed, these eternal affirmative excellences of +wisdom, power, and goodness; and as these, to every rational +apprehension, are highly worthy of his choice, whereas their derivative +and inferior corruptions would have been most derogatory to any +reasonable estimate of His character; how much more likely was it that +He should prefer the higher rather than the lower, should take the +affirmative before the negative, should "choose the good, and refuse the +evil,"--than endure to be endowed with such garbled, demoralizing, +finite attributes as those wherewith the heathen painted the Pantheon. +What high antecedent probability was there, that if a God should be (and +this we have proved highly probable too)--He should be One, ubiquitous, +self-existent, spiritual: that He should be all-mighty, all-wise, and +all-good? + + + + +THE TRIUNITY. + + +Another deep and inscrutable topic is now to engage our thoughts--the +mystery of a probable Triunity. While we touch on such high themes, the +Christian's presumption ever is, that he himself approaches them with +reverence and prayer; and that, in the case of an unbeliever, any such +mind will be courteous enough to his friendly opponent, and wise enough +respecting his own interest and safety lest these things be true, to +enter upon all such subjects with the seriousness befitting their +importance, and with the restraining thought that in fact they may be +sacred. + +Let us then consider, antecedently to all experience, with what sort of +deity pure reason would have been satisfied. It has already arrived at +Unity, and the foregoing attributes. But what kind of Unity is probable? +Unity of Person, or unity of Essence? A sterile solitariness, easily +understandable, and presumably incommunicative? or an absolute oneness, +which yet relatively involves several mysterious phases of its own +expansive love? Will you think it a foregone conclusion, if I assert the +superior likelihoods of the latter, and not of the former? Let us come +then to a few of many reasons. First: it was by no means probable to be +supposed anteriorly, that the God should be clearly comprehensible: yet +he must be one: and oneness is the idea most easily apprehended of all +possible ideas. The meanest of intellectual creatures could comprehend +his Maker, and in so far top his heights, if God, being truly one in one +view, were yet only one in every view: if, that is to say, there existed +no mystery incidental to his nature: nay, if that mystery did not +amount to the difficulty of a seeming contradiction. I judge it likely, +and with confidence, that Reason would prerequire for his God, a Being, +at once infinitely easy to be apprehended by the lowest of His spiritual +children, and infinitely difficult to be comprehended by the highest of +His seraphim. Now, there can be guessed only two ways of compassing such +a prerequirement: one, a moral way; such as inventing a deity who could +be at once just and unjust, every where and no where, good and evil, +powerful and weak; this is the heathen phase of Numen's character, and +is obviously most objectionable in every point of view: the other would +be a physical way; such as requiring a God who should be at once +material and immaterial, abstraction and concretion; or, for a still +more confounding paradox to Reason (considered as antagonist to Faith, +in lieu of being strictly its ally), an arithmetical contradiction, an +algebraic mystery, such as would be included in the idea of Composite +Unity; one involving many, and many collapsed into one. Some such enigma +was probable in Reason's guess at the nature of his God. It is the +Christian way; and one entirely unobjectionable: because it is the only +insuperable difficulty as to His Nature which does not debase the notion +of Divinity. But there are also other considerations. + +For, secondly. The self-existent One is endowed, as we found probable, +with abundant loving-kindness, goodness overflowing and perpetual. Is it +reasonable to conceive that such a character could for a moment be +satisfied with absolute solitariness? that infinite benevolence should, +in any possible beginning, be discovered existent in a sort of selfish +only-oneness? Such a supposition is, to the eye of even unenlightened +Reason, so clearly a _reductio ad absurdum_, that men in all countries +and ages have been driven to invent a plurality of Gods, for very +society sake: and I know not but that they are anteriorly wiser and more +rational than the man who believes in a Benevolent Existence eternally +one, and no otherwise than one. Let me not be mistaken to imply that +there was any likelihood of many coeexistent gods: that was a reasonable +improbability, as we have already seen, perhaps a spiritual +impossibility: but the anterior likelihood of which I speak goes to +show, that in One God there should be more than one coeexistence: each, +by arithmetical mystery, but not absurdity, pervading all, coeequals, +each being God, and yet not three Gods, but one God. That there should +be a rational difficulty here--or, rather, an irrational one--I have +shown to be Reason's prerequirement: and if such a one as I, or any +other creature, could now and here (ay, or any when or any where, in +the heights of highest heaven, and the far-stretching distance of +eternity) solve such intrinsic difficulty, it would demonstrably be one +not worthy of its source, the wise design of God: it would prove that +riddle read, which uncreate omniscience propounded for the baffling of +the creature mind. No. It is far more reasonable, as well as far more +reverent, to acquiesce in Mystery, as another attribute inseparable from +the nature of the Godhead; than to quibble about numerical puzzles, and +indulge unwisely in objections which it is the happy state of nobler +intelligences than man on earth is, to look into with desire, and to +exercise withal their keen and lofty minds. + +But we have not yet done. Some further thoughts remain to be thrown out +in the third place, as to the preconceivable fitness or propriety of +that Holy Union, which we call the trinity of Persons who constitute the +Self-existent One. If God, being one in one sense, is yet likely to +appear, humanly speaking, more than one in another sense; we have to +inquire anteriorly of the probable nature of such other intimate Being +or Beings: as also, whether such addition to essential oneness is likely +itself to be more than one or only one. As to the former of these +questions: if, according to the presumption of reason (and according +also to what we have since learned from revelation; but there may be +good policy in not dotting this book with chapter and verse)--if the +Deity thus loved to multiply Himself; then He, to whom there can exist +no beginning, must have so loved, so determined, and so done from all +eternity. Now, any conceivable creation, however originated, must have +had a beginning, place it as far back as you will. In any succession of +numbers, however infinitely they may stretch, the commencement at least +is a fixed point, one. But, this multiplication of + +Deity, this complex simplicity, this intricate easiness, this obvious +paradox, this sub-division and con-addition of a One, must have taken +place, so soon as ever eternal benevolence found itself alone; that is, +in eternity, and not in any imaginable time. So then, the Being or +Beings would probably not have been creative, but of the essence of +Deity. Take also for an additional argument, that it is an idea which +detracts from every just estimate of the infinite and all-wise God to +suppose He should take creatures into his eternal counsels, or consort, +so to speak, familiarly with other than the united sub-divisions, +persons, and coeequals of Himself. It was reasonable to prejudge that the +everlasting companions of Benevolent God, should also be God. And thus, +it appears antecedently probable that (what from the poverty of +language we must call) the multiplication of the one God should not have +been created beings; that is, should have been divine; a term, which +includes, as of right, the attribution to each such Holy Person, of all +the wondrous characteristics of the Godhead. + +Again: as to the latter question; was it probable that such so-called +sub-divisions should be two, or three, or how many? I do not think it +will be wise to insist upon any such arithmetical curiosity as a perfect +number; nor on such a toy as an equilateral triangle and its properties; +nor on the peculiar aptitude for sub-division in every thing, to be +discerned in a beginning, a middle, and an end; nor in the consideration +that every fact had a cause, is a constancy, and produces a consequence: +neither, to draw any inferences from the social maxim that for counsel, +companionship, and conversation, the number three has some special +fitness. Some other similar fancies, not altogether valueless, might be +alluded to. It seems preferable, however, on so grand a theme, to +attempt a deeper dive, and a higher flight. We would then, reverently as +always, albeit equally as always with the free-born boldness of God's +intellectual children, attempt to prejudge how many, and with what +distinctive marks, the holy beings into whom (Greek: ost epos eipein) +God, for very Benevolence sake, pours out Essential Unity, were likely +to be. + +Let us consider what principles, as in the case of a forthcoming +creation, would probably be found in action, to influence such +creation's Author. + +First of all, there would be Will, a will energized by love, disposing +to create: a phase of Deity aptly and comprehensively typified to all +minds by the name of a universal Father: this would be the primary +impersonation of God. And is it not so? + +Secondly: there would be (with especial reference to that idea of +creation which doubtless at most remote beginnings occupied the Good +One's contemplation), there would be next, I repeat, in remarkable +adaptation to all such benevolent views, the great idea of principle, +Obedience; conforming to a Father's righteous laws, acquiescing in his +just will, and returning love for love: such a phase could not be better +shadowed out to creatures than by an Eternal Son; the dutiful yet +supreme, the subordinate yet coeequal, the amiable yet exalted Avatar of +our God. This was probable to have been the second impersonation of +Deity. And is it not so? + +Thirdly: Springing from the conjoint ideas of the Father and the Son, +and with similar prospection to such instantly creative universe, there +would occur the grand idea of Generation; the mighty coeequal, pure, and +quickening Impulse: aptly announced to men and angels as the Holy +Spirit. This was to have been the third impersonation of Divinity. And +is it not so? + +Of all these--under illumination of the fore-known fact, I speak, in +their aspect of anterior probability. With respect to more possible +Persons, I at least cannot invent one. There is, to my reflection, +neither need nor fitness for a fourth, or any further Principle. If +another can, let him look well that he be not irrationally demolishing +an attribute and setting it up as a principle. Obedience is not an +attribute; nor Generation; nor Will: whilst the attribute of Love, +pervading all, sets these only possible three Principles going together +as One in a mysterious harmony. I would not be misunderstood; persons +are not principles; but principles may be illustrated and incorporative +in persons. Essential Love, working distinctively throughout the Three, +unites them instinctively as One: even as the attribute Wisdom designs, +and the attribute Power arranges all the scheme of Godhead. + +And now I ask Reason, whether, presupposing keenness, he might not have +arrived by calculation of probabilities at the likelihood of these great +doctrines: that the nature of God would be an apparent contradiction: +that such contradiction should not be moral, but physical; or rather +verging towards the metaphysical, as immaterial and more profound: that +God, being One, should yet, in his great Love, marvellously have been +companioned from eternity by Himself: and that such Holy and United +Confraternity should be so wisely contrived as to serve for the bright +unapproachable exemplar of love, obedience, and generation to all the +future universe, such Triunity Itself existing uncreated. + + + + +THE GODHEAD VISIBLE. + + +We have hitherto mused on the Divinity, as on Spirit invested with +attributes: and this idea of His nature was enough for all requirements +antecedently to a creation. At whatever beginning we may suppose such +creation to have commenced, whether countless ages before our present +[Greek: kosmos], or only a sufficient time to have prepared the crust of +earth; and to whatever extent we may imagine creation to have spread, +whether in those remote periods originally to our system alone and at +after eras to its accompanying stars and galaxies and firmaments; or at +one and the same moment to have poured material existence over space to +which our heavens are as nothing: whatever, and whenever, and wherever +creation took place, it would appear to be probable that some one person +of the Deity should, in a sort, become more or less concretely +manifested; that is, in a greater or a minor degree to such created +minds and senses visible. Moreover, for purposes at least of a +concentrated worship of such creatures, that He should occasionally, or +perhaps habitually, appear local. I mean, that the King of all spiritual +potentates and the subordinate Excellencies of brighter worlds than +ours, the Sovereign of those whom we call angels, should will to be +better known to and more aptly conceived by such His admiring creatures, +in some usual glorious form, and some wonted sacred place. Not that any +should see God, as purely God; but, as God relatively to them, in the +capacity of King, Creator, and the Object of all reasonable worship. It +seems anteriorly probable that one at least of the Persons in the +Godhead should for this purpose assume a visibility; and should hold His +court of adoration in some central world, such as now we call +indefinitely Heaven. That such probability did exist in the human +forecast, as concerns a heaven and the form of God, let the testimony of +all nations now be admitted to corroborate. Every shape from a cloud to +a crocodile, and every place from AEther to Tartarus, have been peopled +by man's not quite irrational device with their so-called gods. But we +must not lapse into the after-argument: previous likelihood is our +harder theme. Neither, in this section, will we attempt the +probabilities of the place of heaven: that will be found at a more +distant page. We have here to speak of the antecedent credibility that +there should be some visible phase of God; and of the shape wherein he +would be most likely, as soon as a creation was, to appear to such his +creatures. With respect, then, to the former. Creatures, being finite, +can only comprehend the infinite in his attribute of unity: the other +attributes being apprehended (or comprehended partially) in finite +phases. But, unity being a purely intellectual thought, one high and dry +beyond the moral feelings, involves none of the requisites of a +spiritual, that is an affectionate, worship; such worship as it was +likely that a beneficent Being would, for his creatures' own elevation +in happiness, command and inspire towards Himself. In order, therefore, +to such worship and such inspiration acting through reason, it would +appear fitting that the Deity should manifest Himself especially with +reference to that heavenly Exemplar, the Three Divine Persons of the +One Supreme Essence already shown to have been probable. And it seems +likeliest and discreetest to my thinking, that, with this view, the +secondary phase, loving Obedience, under the dictate of the primary +phase, a loving Will, and energized by the tertiary or conjoining phase +a loving Quickening Entity, should assume the visible type of Godhead, +and thus concentrate unto Himself the worship of all worlds. I can +conceive no scheme more simply profound, more admirably suited to its +complex purposes, than that He, in whom dwelt the fullness of the +Godhead, bodily, should take the form of God, in order that unto Him +every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and +things in regions under the earth. Was not all this reasonably to have +been looked for? and tested afterwards by Scripture, in its frequent +allusions to some visible phase of Deity, when the Lord God walked with +Adam, and Enoch, and Abraham, and Peter, and James, and John--I ask, is +it not the case? + +The latter point remaining to be thus briefly touched upon, respects the +probable shape to be assumed and worn, familiarly enough to be +recognised as His, by Deity thus vouchsafing Himself visible. And here +we must look down the forward stream of Time, and search among the +creatures whom thereafter God should make, to arrive at some good reason +for, some antecedent probability of, the form which he should thus +frequently inhabit. Fire, for example, a pure and spirit-like nature, +would not have been a guess unworthy of reason: but this, besides its +humbler economic uses, would endanger an idolatry of the natural emblem. +So also would light be no irrational thought. And it is true that God +might, and probably would, invest Himself in one or both of these pure +essences, so seemingly congenial to a nature higher than ours: but then +there would be some nucleus to the brilliancy and the burning; these +would be as a veil to the Divinity; we should have need, before He were +truly visible, that the veil were laid aside: we should have to shred +away to the nucleus, which (and not the fire or light) would be the form +of God. Similar objections, in themselves or in their idolatrizing +tendencies, would lie against any such shape as a cloud, or a rainbow, +or an angel (whatever such a being may resemble), or in fact any other +conceivable creature, whether good as the angelic case or indifferent as +that of the cloud, which the Deity, though assuming often, would +nevertheless in every instance assume in conjunction with such his +ordinary creature, and could not entirely monopolize. I mean; if God had +the shape of a cloud, or of a rainbow, common clouds and rainbows would +come to be thought gods too. Reason would anticipate this objection to +such created and too-favoured shapes: more; in every case, but one, he +would be quite at a loss to look for some type, clearly apt and +probable. That one case he might discern to be this. Known unto God are +all things from the beginning to the end: and, in His fore-knowledge, +Reason might have been enlightened to prophesy (as we shall hereafter +see) that for certain wise and good ends one great family out of the +myriads who rejoice in being called God's children, would in a most +marked manner fall away from Him through disobedience; and should +thereby earn, if not the annihilation of their being, at least its +endless separation from the Blessed. Manifestly, the wisdom and +benevolence of God would be eager and swift to devise a plan for the +redemption of so lost a race. Why He should permit their fall at all +will be reverentially descanted on in its proper section; meanwhile, how +is it probable that God, first, by any theory consistently with truth +and justice, could, and next by power and contrivance actually would, +lift up again this sinful family from the pit of condemnation? Reason is +to search the question well: and after much thought, you will arrive at +the truth that there was but one way probable. Rebellion against the +Great and Self-existent Author of all things, must needfully involve +infinite punishment; if only because He is infinite, and his laws of an +eternal sanction. The problem then was, how to inflict the unbounded +punishment thus claimed by justice for a transgressional condition, and +yet at love's demand to set the prisoner free: how to be just, and +simultaneously justifier of the guilty. That was a question +magnificently solved by God alone: magnificently about to be solved, as +according to our argument seemed probable, by God Triune, in wondrous +self-involving council. The solution would be rationally this. Himself, +in his character of filial obedience, should pay the utter penalty to +Himself in his character of paternal authority, whilst Himself in the +character of quickening spirit, should restore the ransomed family from +death to life, from the power of evil unto good. Was not this a most +probable, a most reasonably probable scheme? was it not altogether wise +and philosophical, as well as entirely generous and kind to wretched +men? + +And (returning to our present topic), was it not antecedently to have +been expected that God the Son (so to put it) should, in the shape He +was thereafter to assume upon earth, appear upon the eternal throne of +heaven? In a shape, however glorified and etherealized, with glistening +countenance and raiment bright as the light, nevertheless resembling +that more humble form, the Son of Man, who was afterwards thus by a +circle of probabilities to be made in the form of God; in a shape, not +liable, from its very sinfulness, to the deification either of other +worlds or of this [hero-worship is another and a lower thing altogether; +we speak here of true idolatries:]--was it unlikely, I say, that in such +a shape Deity should have deigned to become visible, and have blazed +Manifested God, the central Sun of Heaven?--This probability, prior to +our forth-flowing thoughts on the Incarnation, though in some measure +anticipating them, will receive further light from the views soon to be +set forth. I know not but that something is additionally due to the +suggestion following; namely: that, raise our swift imagination to what +height we may, and stretch our searching reason to the uttermost, we +cannot, despite of all inventive energies and powers of mind, conceive +any shape more beautiful, more noble, more worthy for a rational +intelligence to dwell in, more in one Homeric word [Greek: theoeides], +than the glorified and etherealized human form divine. Let this serve as +Reason's short reply to any charge of anthropomorphism in the doctrines +of his creed: it was probable that God should be revealed to His +creation; and as to the form of any such revealed essence in any such +infinite beginnings of His work, the most likely of all would appear to +be that one, wherein He, in the ages then to come, was well resolved to +earn the most glorious of all triumphs, the merciful reconciliation of +everlasting justice with everlasting love, the wise and wondrous scheme +of God forgiving sinners. + + + + +THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. + + +It will now be opportune to attempt elucidation of one of the darkest +and deepest riddles ever propounded to the finite understanding; the _a +priori_ likelihood of evil: not, mind, its eternal existence, which is a +false doctrine; but its probable procession from the earliest created +beings, which is a true one. + +At first sight, nothing could appear more improbable: nothing more +inconsistent with the recognised attributes of God, than that error, +pain, and sorrow should be mingled in His works. These, the spontaneous +offspring of His love, one might (not all wisely) argue, must always be +good and happy--because perfect as Himself. Because perfect?-- Therein +lies the fallacy, which reason will at once lay bare. Perfection is +attributable to no possible creature: perfection argues infinity, and +infinity is one of the prerogatives of God. However good, "very good," a +creation may be found, still it must, from essential finitude, fall +short of that Best, which is in effect the only state purely +unexceptionable. For instance, no creature can be imagined of a wisdom +undiminished from the single true standard, God's wisdom: in other +phrase, every creature must be more or less departed from wisdom, that +is, verging towards folly. Again; no creature can be presumed of a +purity so spotless as to rank in an equality with that of the Almighty: +in other words, neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature, can +exist who is not more or less--I will not say impure, positively, +but--unpure negatively. Thus, the birth-mark of creation must have been +an inclination towards folly, and from purity. The mere idea of +creatures would involve, as its great need-be, the qualifying clause +that these emanations from perfection be imperfect; and that these +children of purity be liable to grow unpure. They must either be thus +natured, or exist of the essence of God, that is, be other persons and +phases of the Deity: such a case was possible certainly; but, as we have +already shown, not probable. And it were possible, that, in consequence +of some redemption such as we have spoken of, creatures might by +ingraftation into God become so entirely part of Him--bone of bone, and +flesh of flesh, and spirit of spirit--that an exhortation to such blest +beings should reasonably run, "Be ye perfect." But this infinite +munificence of the Godhead in redemption was not to be found among His +bounties as Creator. It might indeed arise afterwards, as setting up +again the fallen creature in some safe niche of Deity: and we now know +it has arisen: "we are complete in Him." + +But this, though relevant, is a digression. Returning, and to produce +some further argument against all creature perfectness; let us consider +how rational it seems to presuppose that the mighty Maker in his +boundless love should have willed to form a long chain of classes of +existence more and more subordinated each to the other, each good of its +kind and happy in its way, but yet all needfully more or less removed +from the high standard of uncreate Perfection. These descending links, +these graduations downwards, must involve a nearer or remoter approach +to evil. Now, we must bear in mind that Evil is not a principle, but a +perversion: it amounts merely to a denial, a limitation, a corruption of +good, not to the dignity of its abstract antagonism. Familiarly, but +fallaciously, we talk of the evil principle, the contradictory to good: +we might as well talk of the nosologic principle, the contradictory to +health; or the darkness principle, the contradictory to light. They are +contraries, but not contradictories: they have no positive, but only a +relative existence. Good and evil are verily foes, but originally there +was one cemented friendship: slender beginnings consequent on a +creation, began to cause the breach: the civil war arose out of a state +of primitive peace: images betray us into errors, or I might add with a +protest against the risk of being misinterpreted, that like brothers +turned to a deadly hate, they nevertheless sprang not originally out of +two hostile and opposite hemispheres, but from one paternal hearth. Not, +however, in any sense that God is the author of evil; but that God's +workmanship, the finite creature, needfully perverted good. + +The origin of evil--that is, its birth--is a term true and clear: +original evil--that is, giving it no birth but an antedate to all +created things, suffering it to run parallel with God and good from all +eternity--this is a term false and misty. The probability that good +would be warped, and grow deteriorate; that wisdom would be dwindled +down into less and less wisdom, or foolishness; and power degenerated +more and more towards imbecility; must arise, directly a creature should +spring out of the Creator; and that, let astronomy or geology name any +date they will: Adam is a definite date; perhaps also the first +day's--or period's--work: but the Beginning of Creation is undated. It +would then, under this impression of the necessary defalcation of the +creature from the strict straight line, be rational to look for +deviations: it would be rational to presuppose that God--just, and good, +and pure, and wise--should righteously be able to "charge his angels +with folly," should verily declare that "the heavens are not pure in his +sight." + +Further; it would be a possible chance (which considerations soon +succeeding would render even probable) that for a wise humiliation of +the reasoning creature, and a just exaltation of the only Source of life +and light and all things, one or more of such first created beings, or +angels, should be suffered to fall, possibly from the vastest height, +and at first by the slenderest beginnings, lower and lower into folly, +impurity, and all other derelictions from the excellence of God. The +lines, once unparalleled, would, without a check, go further apart for +all eternity; albeit, the primal deviation arose in time. The aerolite, +dropping slowly at first, increases in swiftness as it multiplies the +fathoms of descent: and if the abyss be really bottomless, how +impossible a check or a return. + +Some such terrible example would amount to a reasonable likelihood, if +only for a lesson and a warning: to all intelligent hierarchs, be not +high-minded, but fear; to all responsible beings, keep righteousness and +reverence, and tempt not God; to all the Virtues, Dominations, +Obediences, and due Subordinations of unknown glorious worlds, a loud +and living exhortation to exercise, and not to let grow dim their +spiritual energies, in efforts after goodness, wisdom, and purity. A +creature state, to be happy, must be a progressive state: the capability +of progression argues lack, or a tendency from good: and progression +itself needs a spur, lest indolence relapse towards evil. + +Additionally: we must remember that a creature's excellence before God +is the reasonable service which he freely renders: freedom, dangerous +prerogative, involves choice: and choice necessitates the possibility of +error. The command to a rational intelligence would be, do this, and +live; do it not, and die: if thou doest, it is well done, good and +faithful servant; thou hast mounted by thine own heaven-blest exertions +to a higher approach towards infinite perfection; enter thou into the +joy, not merely of a creature, but of thy Lord. But, if thou doest not, +it is wo to thee, unworthy hireling; thou hast broken the tie that bound +thee to thy Maker--obedience, the root of happiness; thou livest on +indeed, because the Former of all things cancelleth not nor endeth his +beginning; but henceforth thine existence is, as a river which +earthquakes have divorced from its bed, and instead of flowing on for +ever through the fair pastures of peace and among the mountain roots of +everlasting righteousness, thy downward course is shattery, headlong, +turbulent, and destructive; black-throated whirlpools here, miasmatic +marshes there, a cataract, a shoal, a rapid; until the remorseless +stream, lashing among rocks which its own riot rendered sterile, pours +its unresting waters into the thirsty sands of the Sahara. + +It was indeed probable (as since we know it to be true) that the +generous Giver of all things would in the vast majority of cases +minister such secret help to His weaker spiritual children, that, far +from failing of continuous obedience, they should find it so unceasingly +easier and happier that their very natures would soon come to be imbued +with that pervading habit: and that thus, the longer any creature stood +upright, the stronger should he rest in righteousness; until, at no very +distant period, it should become morally impossible for him to fall. +Such would soon be the condition of myriads, perhaps almost the whole, +of heaven's innumerable host: and with respect to any darker Unit in +that multitude, for the good of all permitted to make early shipwreck +of himself, simply by leaving his intelligence to plume its wings into +presumptuous flight, and by allowing his pristine goodness or wisdom to +grow rusty from non-usage until that sacred panoply were eaten into +holes; with respect to any such unhappy one, and all others (if others +be) who should listen to his glozing, and make a common cause in his +rebellion, where, I ask, is any injustice, or even unkindness done to +him by Deity? Where is any moral improbability that such a traitor +should be; or any just inconsistency chargeable on the attributes of God +in consequence of such his being? Whom can he in reason accuse but +himself for what he is? And what misery can such a one complain of, +which is not the work of his own hands? And lest the Great Offender +should urge against his God, why didst thou make me thus?--Is not the +answer obvious, I made thee, but not thus. And on the rejoinder, Why +didst thou not keep me as thou madest me? Is not the reply just, I made +thee reasonable, I led thee to the starting place, I taught thee and set +thee going well in the beginning; thou art intelligent and free, and +hast capacities of Mine own giving: wherefore didst thou throw aside My +grace, and fly in the face of thy Creator? + +On the whole; consider that I speak only of probabilities. There is a +depth in this abyss of thought, which no human plummet is long enough to +sound; there is a maze in this labyrinth to be tracked by no mortal +clue. It involves the truth, How unsearchable are his judgments: Thou +hidest thy ways in the sea, and thy paths in the deep waters, and thy +footsteps are not known. The weak point of man's argument lies in the +suggested recollection, that doubtless the Deity could, if He would, +have upheld all the universe from falling by his gracious power; and +that the attribute of love concludes that so He would. However, these +three brief considerations further will go some way to solve the +difficulty, and to strengthen the weak point; first, there are other +attributes besides love to run concurrently with it, as truth, justice, +and unchangeableness:--Secondly, that grace is not grace, if manifested +indiscriminately to all: and thirdly, that to our understanding at least +there was no possible method of illustrating the amiabilities of +Goodness, and the contrivances of Wisdom, but by the infused permission +of some physical and moral evils: Mercy, benevolence, design, would in a +universe of best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow +stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the principal record of God's +excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is not +then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was +not such existence an antecedent probability? + +Of these matters, thus curtly: it is time, in a short recapitulation, to +reflect, that, from foregoing causes, mysteries were probable around the +throne of heaven: and, as I have attempted to show, the mystery of +imperfection, a concrete not an abstract, was likely to have sprung out +of any creature universe. Reason perceives that a Gordion knot was +likely to have become entangled; in the intricate complexities of +abounding good to be mingled needfully with its own deficiencies, +corruptions, and perversions: and this having been shown by Reason as +anteriorly probable, its difficult involvements are now since cut by the +sword of conquering Faith. + + + + +COSMOGONY. + + +These deep themes having been descanted on, however from their nature +unsatisfactorily and with whatever human weakness, let us now endeavour +mentally to transport ourselves to a period immediately antecedent to +our own world's birth. We should then have been made aware that a great +event was about to take place; whereat, from its foreseen consequences, +the hierarchies of heaven would be prompt to shout for joy, and the holy +ones of God to sing for gratitude. It was no common case of a creation; +no merely onemore orb, of third-rate unimportance, amongst the million +others of higher and more glorious praise: but it was a globe and a race +about to be unique in character and fate, and in the far-spread results +of their existence. On it and of its family was to be contrived the +scene, wherein, to the admiration of the universe, God himself in Person +was going visibly to make head against corruption in creation, and for +ever thus to quench that possibility again: wherein He was marvellously +to invent and demonstrate how Mercy and Truth should meet together, how +Righteousness and Peace should kiss each other. There, was going to be +set forth the wonderfully complicated battle-plan, by which, force +countervailing force, and design converging all things upon one fixed +point, Good, concrete in the creature, should overwhelm not without +strife and wounds Evil concrete in the creature, and all things, "even +the wicked," should be seen harmoniously blending in the glory of the +attributes of God. The mythologic Pan, [Greek: to pan] the great +Universal All, was deeply interested in the struggle: for the seed of +the woman was to bruise the serpent's head; not merely as respected the +small orb about to be, but concerning heaven itself, the unbounded +"haysh hamaim," wherefrom dread Lucifer was thus to be ejected. On the +earth, a mere planet of humble lustre, which the prouder suns around +might well despise, was to be exhibited this noble and analogous result; +the triumph of a lower intelligence, such as man, over a higher +intelligence, such as angel: because, the former race, however frail, +however weak, were to find their nature taken into God, and should have +for their grand exemplar, leader and brother, the Very Lord of all +arrayed in human guise; while the latter, the angelic fallen mass, in +spite of all their pristine wisdom and excellency, were to set up as +their captain him, who may well and philosophically be termed their +Adversary. + +This dark being, probably the mightiest of all mere creatures as the +embodiment of corrupted good and perversion of an archangelic wisdom, +was about to be suffered to fall victim to his own overtopping +ambitions, and to drag with him a third part of the heavenly host--some +tributary monarchs of the stars: thus he, and those his colleagues, +should become a spectacle and a warning to all creatures else; to stand +for spirits' reading in letters of fire a deeply burnt-in record how +vast a gulf there is between the Maker and the made; how impassable a +barrier between the derived intelligence and its infinite Creator. Such +an unholy leader in rebellion against good--let us call him _A_ or _B_, +or why not for very euphony's sake Lucifer and Satanas?--such a +corrupted excellence of heaven was to meet his final and inevitable +disgrace to all eternity on the forthcoming battle-field of earth. Would +it not be probable then that our world, soon to be fashioned and stocked +with its teeming reasonable millions, should concentrate to itself the +gaze of the universe, and, from the deeds to be done in it, should +arrogate towards man a deep and fixed attention: that "the morning stars +should sing together, and all the sons of God should shout for joy." Let +us too, according to the power given to us, partake of such attention +antecedently in some detail: albeit, as always, very little can be +tracked of the length and breadth of our theme. + +What would probably be the nature of such world and of such creatures, +in a physical point of view? and what, in a moral point of view? It is +not necessary to divide these questions: for the one so bears upon the +other, or rather the latter so directs and pervades the former, that we +may briefly treat of both as one. + +The first probability would be, that, as the creature Man so to be +abased and so to be exalted must be a responsible and reasonable being, +every thing--with miraculous exceptions just enough to prove the +rule--every thing around him should also be responsible and reasonable. +In other words, that, with such exceptions as before alluded to, the +whole texture of this world should bear to an inquisitive intellect the +stamp of cause and effect: whilst for the mass, such cause and effect +should be so little intrusive, that their easier religion might +recognise God in all things immediately, rather than mediately. For +instance: take the cases of stone, and of coal; the one so needful for +man's architecture, the other for his culinary warmth. Now, however +simple piety might well thank the Maker for having so stored earth with +these for necessary uses; they ought, to a more learned, though not less +pious ken, to seem not to have been created by an effort of the Great +Father _qua stone_, or _qua coal_. Such a view might satisfy the +ordinary mind: but thinkers would see no occasion for a miracle; when +Christ raises Lazarus from the dead, it would have been a philosophical +fault to have found the grave-clothes and swathing bandages ready +loosened also. Unassisted man can do that: and unhelped common causes +can generate stone and coal. The deposits of undated floods, the +periodical currents of lava, the still and stagnant lake, and the +furious up-bursting earthquake; all these would be called into play, and +not the unrequired, I had almost said unreasonable, energies, which we +call miracle. An agglutination of shells, once peopled with life; a +crystallized lump of segregate minerals, once in a molten state; a mass +of carbonated foliage and trunks of tropical trees, buried by long +changes under the soil, whereover they had once waved greenly luxuriant; +these, and no other, should have been man's stone and coal. This +instance affects the reasonableness of such material creation. Take +another, bearing upon its analogous responsibilities. As there was to be +warred in this world the contest between good and evil, it would be +expectable that the crust of man's earth, anteriorly to man's existence +on it, should be marked with some traces that the evil, though newly +born so far as might regard man's own disobedience, nevertheless had +existed antecedently. In other words: it was probable that there should +exist geological evidences of suffering and death: that the gigantic +ichthyosaurus should be found fixed in rock with his cruel jaws closed +upon his prey: that the fearful iguanodon should leave the tracks of +having desolated a whole region of its reptile tribes: that volcanoes +should have ravaged fair continents prolific of animal and vegetable +life: that, in fine, though man's death came by man's sin, yet that +death and sin were none of man's creating: he was only to draw down upon +his head a preexistent wo, an ante-toppling rock. Observe then, that +these geological phenomena are only illustrations of my meaning: and +whether such parables be true or false, the argument remains the same: +we never build upon the sand of simile, but only use it here and there +for strewing on the floor. Still, I will acknowledge that the +introduction of such fossil instances appears to me wisely thrown in as +affects their antecedent probability, because ignorant comments upon +scriptural cosmogony have raised the absurdest objections against the +truth of scriptural science. There is not a tittle of known geological +fact, which is not absolutely reconcilable with Genesis and Job. But +this is a word by the way: although aimed not without design against one +of the poor and paltry weak-holds of the infidel. + + + + +ADAM. + + +Remembering, then, that these are probabilities, and that the whole +treatise purports to be nothing but a sketch, and not a finished +picture, we have suggestively thus thrown out that the material world, +man's home as man, was likely to have been prepared, as we posteriorly +know it to be. Now, what of man's own person, circumstances, and +individuality? Was it likely that the world should be stocked at once +with many several races, or with one prolific seed? with a specimen of +every variety of the genus man, or with the one generic type capable of +forming those varieties?--Answer. One is by far the likelier in itself, +because one thing must needs be more probable than many things: +additionally; Wisdom and Power are always economical, and where one will +suit the purpose, superfluities are rejected. That this one seed, +covering with its product a various globe under all imaginable +differences of circumstance and climate, should, in the lapse of ages, +generate many species of the genus Man, was antecedently probable. For +example, morality, peace and obedience would exercise transforming +powers: their opposites the like in an opposite way. We can well fancy a +mild and gentle race, as the Hindoo, to spring from the former +educationals: and a family with flashing eyes and strongly-visaged +natures, as the Malay, from a state of hatred, war, and license. We can +well conceive that a tropical sun should carbonize some of that tender +fabric the skin, adding also swift blood and fierce passions: while an +arctic climate would induce a sluggish, stunted race. And, when to these +considerations we add that of promiscuous unions, we arrive at the just +likelihood that the whole family of man, though springing from one root, +should, in the course of generations, be what now we see it. + +Further. How should this prolific original, the first man, be created? +and for a name let us call him Adam; a justly-chosen name enough, as +alluding to his medium colour, ruddiness. Should he have been cast upon +the ground an infant, utterly helpless, requiring miraculous aid and +guidance at every turn? Should he be originated in boyhood, that hot and +tumultuous time, when the creature is most rash, and least qualified for +self-government? or should he be first discerned as an adult, in his +prime, equal alike to obedience and rule, to moral control and moral +energy? + +Add also here; is it probable there would be any needless interval +placed to proecreations? or rather, should not such original seed be able +immediately to fulfil the blank world call upon him, and as the +greatly-teeming human father be found fitted from his birth to propagate +his kind? The questions answer themselves. + +Again. Should this first man have been discovered originally surrounded +with all the appliances of an after-civilization, clad, and housed, and +rendered artificial? nor rather, in a noble and naturally royal aspect +appear on the stage of life as king of the natural creation, sole warder +of a garden of fruits, with all his food thus readily concocted, and an +eastern climate tempered to his nakedness? + +Now, as to the solitariness of this one seed. From what we have already +mused respecting God's benevolence, it would seem probable that the +Maker might not see it good that man should be alone. The seed, +originally one, proved (as was likely) to resemble its great parent, +God, and to be partitionable, or reducible into persons; though with +reasonable differences as between creature and Creator. Woman--Eve, the +living or life-giving--was likely to have sprung out of the composite +seed, Man, in order to companionship and fit society. Moreover, it were +expectable that in the pattern creature, composite man, there should be +involved some apt, mysterious typification of the same creature, after a +fore-known fall restored, as in its perfect state of reunion with its +Maker. _A posteriori_, the figurative notion is, that the Redeemed +family, or mystical spouse, is incorporated in her husband, the +Redeemer: not so much in the idea of marriage, as (taking election into +view) of a coecreation; as it were rib of rib, and life woven into life, +not copulated or conjoined, but immingled in the being. This is a +mystery most worthy of deep searching; a mystery deserving philosophic +care, not less than the more unilluminate enjoyment of humble and +believing Christians. I speak concerning Christ and his church. + + + + +THE FALL. + + +There is a special fitness in the fact, long since known and now to be +perceived probable, that if mankind should fail in disobedience, it +should rather be through the woman than through the man. Because, the +man, _qua man_, and the deputed head of all inferior creatures, was +nearer to his Creator, than the woman; who, _qua woman_, proceeded out +of man. She was, so to speak, one step further from God, _ab origine_, +than man was; therefore, more liable to err and fall away. To my own +mind, I confess, it appears that nothing is more anteriorly probable +than the plain, scriptural story of Adam and Eve: so simple that the +child delights in it; so deep that the philosopher lingers there with an +equal, but more reasonable joy. + +For, let us now come to the probabilities of a temptation; and a fall; +and what temptation; and how ordered. + +The heavenly intelligences beheld the model-man and model-woman, +rational beings, and in all points "very good." The Adversary panted for +the fray, demanding some test of the obedience of this new, favourite +race. And the Lord God was willing that the great controversy, which he +fore-knew, and for wise purposes allowed, should immediately commence. +Where was the use of a delay? If you will reply, To give time to +strengthen Adam's moral powers: I rejoin, he was made with more than +enough of strength infused against any temptation not entering by the +portal of his will: and against the open door of will neither time nor +habits can avail. Moreover, the trial was to be exceedingly simple; no +difficult abstinence, for man might freely eat of every thing but one; +no natural passion tempted; no exertion of intelligence requisite. Adam +lived in a garden; and his Maker, for proof of reasonable obedience, +provides the most easy and obvious test of it--do not eat that apple. +Was it, in reality, an improbable test; an unsuitable one? Was it not, +rather, the likeliest in itself, and the fittest as addressed to the +new-born, rational animal, which imagination could invent, or an amiable +fore-knowledge of all things could desire? Had it been to climb some +arduous height without looking back, or on no account to gaze upon the +sun, how much less apt and easy of obedience! Thus much for the test. + +Now, as to the temptation and its ordering. A creature, to be tempted +fairly, must be tempted by another equal or lower creature; and through +the senses. If mere spirit strives with spirit, plus matter, the strife +is unequal: the latter is clogged; he has to fight in the net of +Retiarius. But if both are netted, if both are spirit plus matter, (that +is, material creatures,) there is no unfairness. Therefore, it would +seem reasonable that the Adversary in person should descend from his +mere spirituality into some tangible and humbled form. This could not +well be man's, nor the semblance of man's: for the first pair would well +know that they were all mankind: and, if the Lord God himself was +accustomed to be seen of them as in a glorified humanity, it would be +manifestly a moral incongruity to invest the devil in a similar form. It +must, then, be the shape of some other creature; as a lion, or a lamb, +or--why not a serpent? Is there any improbability here? and not rather +as apt an avatar of the sinuous and wily rebel, the dangerous, +fascinating foe, as poetry at least, nay, as any sterner contrivance +could invent? The plain fact is, that Reason--given keenness--might have +guessed this also antecedently a likelihood. + +A few words more on other details probable to the temptation. Wonderful +as it may seem to us with our present experience, in the case of the +first woman it would scarcely excite her astonishment to be accosted in +human phrase by one of the lower creatures; and in no other way could +the tempter reach her mind. Much as Milton puts it, Eve sees a beautiful +snake, eating, not improbably, of the forbidden apple. Attracted by a +natural curiosity, she would draw near, and in a soft sweet voice the +serpent, _i.e._ Lucifer in his guise, would whisper temptation. It was +likely to have been keenly managed. Is it possible, O fair and favoured +mistress of this beautiful garden, that your Maker has debarred you from +its very choicest fruit? Only see its potencies for good: I, a poor +reptile, am instantly thereby endued with knowledge and the privilege of +speech. Am I dead for the eating?--ye shall not surely die; but shall +become as gods yourselves; and this your Maker knoweth. + +The marvellous fruit, invested thus with mystery, and tinctured with +the secret charm of a thing unreasonably, nay, harmfully, forbidden, +would then be allowed silently to plead its own merits. It was good for +food: a young creature's first thought. It was pleasant to the eyes: +addressing a higher sense than mere bodily appetite, than mental +predilection for form and colour which marks fine breeding among men. It +was also to be desired to make one wise; here was the climax, the great +moral inducement which an innocent being might well be taken with; +irrespectively of the one qualification that this wisdom was to be +plucked in spite of God. Doubtless, it were probable, that had man not +fallen, the knowledge of good would never have been long withheld: but +he chose to reap the crop too soon, and reaped it mixed with tares, +good, and evil. + +I need not enlarge, in sermon form, upon the theme. It was probable that +the weaker creature, Woman, once entrapped, she would have charms enough +to snare her husband likewise: and the results thus perceived to have +been likely, we have long since known for fact. That a depraved +knowledge should immediately occasion some sort of clothing to be +instituted by the great moral Governor, was likely: and there would be +nothing near at hand, in fact nothing else suitable, but the skins of +beasts. There is also a high probability that some sort of slaying +should take place instantly on the fall, by way of reference to the +coming sacrifice for sin; and for a type of some imputed righteousness. +God covered Man's evil nakedness with the skins of innocent slain +animals: even so, Blessed is he whose unrighteousness is forgiven, and +whose sin is covered. + +With respect to restoration from any such fall. There seems a remarkable +prior probability for it, if we take into account the empty places in +heaven, the vacant starry thrones which sin had caused to be untenanted. +Just as, in after years, Israel entered into the cities and the gardens +of the Canaanite and other seven nations, so it was anteriorly likely, +would the ransomed race of Men come to be inheritors of the mansions +among heavenly places, which had been left unoccupied by the fallen host +of Lucifer. There was a gap to be filled: and probably there would be +some better race to fill it. + + + + +THE FLOOD. + + +Themes like those past and others still to come, are so immense, that +each might fairly ask a volume for its separate elucidation. A few +seeds, pregnant with thought, are all that we have here space, or time, +or power to drop beside the world's highway. The grand outlines of our +race command our first attention: we cannot stop to think and speak of +every less detail. Therefore, now would I carry my companion across the +patriarchal times at once to the era of the Deluge. Let us speculate, as +hitherto, antecedently, throwing our minds as it were into some angelic +prior state. + +If, as we have seen probable, evil (a concretion always, not an +abstraction) made some perceptible ravages even in the unbounded sphere +of a heavenly creation, how much more rapid and overwhelming would its +avalanche (once ill-commenced) be seen, when the site of its infliction +was a poor band of men and women prisoned on a speck of earth. How +likely was it that, in the lapse of no long time, the whole world should +have been "corrupt before God, and filled with wickedness." How +probable, that taking into account the great duration of pristine human +life, the wicked family of man should speedily have festered up into an +intolerable guiltiness. And was this dread result of the primal curse +and disobedience to be regarded as the Adversary's triumph? Had this +Accuser--the Saxon word is Devil--had this Slanderer of God's attribute +then really beaten Good? or was not rather all this swarming sin an +awful vindication to the universe of the great need-be that God +unceasingly must hold his creature up lest he fall, and that out of Him +is neither strength nor wisdom? Was Deity, either in Adam's case or +this, baffled--nor rather justified? Was it an experiment which had +really failed; nor rather one which, by its very seeming failure, proved +the point in question, the misery of creatures when separate from God? +Yea, the evil one was being beaten down beneath his very trophies in sad +Tarpeian triumph: through conquest and his children's sins heightening +his own misery. + +Let us now advert to a few of the anterior probabilities affecting this +evil earth's catastrophe. It is not competent to us to trench upon such +ulterior views as are contained in the idea of types relatively to +anti-types. Neither will we take the fanciful or poetical aspect of +coming calamity, that earth, befouled with guilt, was likely to be +washed clean by water. It is better to ask, as more relevant, in what +other way more benevolent than drowning could, short of miracle, the +race be made extinct? They were all to die in their sins, and swell in +another sphere the miserable hosts of Satan. There was no hope for them, +for there was no repentance. It was infinitely probable that God's +long-suffering had worn out every reasonable effort for their +restoration. They were then to die; but how?--in the least painful +manner possible. Intestine wars, fevers, famines, a general burning-up +of earth and all its millions, were any of these preferable sorts of +death to that caused by the gradual rise of water, with hope of life +accorded still even to the last gurgle? Assuredly, if "the tender +mercies of the wicked are cruel," the judgments of the Good one are +tempered well with mercy. + +Moreover, in the midst of this universal slaughter there was one good +seed to be preserved: and, as Heaven never works a miracle where common +cause will suit the present purpose, it would have been inconsistent to +have extirpated the wicked by any such means as must demonstrate the +good to have been saved only by super-human agency. + +The considerations of humanity, and of the divine less-intervention, add +that of the natural and easy agency of a long-commissioned comet. No +"_Deus e machina_" was needed for this effort: one of His ministers of +flaming fire was charged to call forth the services of water. This was +an easy and majestic interference. Ever since man fell--yea, ages before +it--the omniscient eye of God had foreseen all things that should +happen: and his ubiquity had, possibly from The Beginning, sped a comet +on its errant way, which at a calculated period was to serve to wash the +globe clean of its corruptions: was to strike the orbit of earth just in +the moment of its passage, and disturbing by attraction the fountains of +the great deep, was temporarily to raise their level. Was not this a +just, a sublime, and a likely plan? Was it not a merciful, a perfect, +and a worthy way? Who should else have buried the carcases on those +fierce battle-fields, or the mouldering heaps of pestilence and +famine?--But, when at Jehovah's summons, heaving to the comet's mass, +the pure and mighty sea rises indignant from its bed, by drowning to +cleanse the foul and mighty land--how easy an engulfing of the corpses; +how awful that universal burial; how apt their monumental epitaph +written in water, "The wicked are like the troubled sea that cannot +rest;" how dread the everlasting requiem chanted for the whelmed race by +the waves roaring above them: yea, roaring above them still! for in +that chaotic hour it seems probable to reason that the land changed +place with ocean; thus giving the new family of man a fresh young world +to live upon. + + + + +NOAH. + + +When the world, about to grow so wicked, was likely thus to have been +cleansed, and so renewed, the great experiment of man's possible +righteousness was probable to be repeated in another form. We may fancy +some high angelic mind to have gone through some such line of thought as +this, respecting the battle and combatants. Were those champions, +Lucifer and Adam, really fit to be matched together? Was the tourney +just; were the weapons equal; was it, after all, a fair fight?--on one +side, the fallen spirit, mighty still, though fallen, subtlest, most +unscrupulous, most malicious, exerting every energy to rear a rebel +kingdom against God; on the other, a new-born, inexperienced, innocent, +and trustful creature, a poor man vexed with appetites, and as naked for +absolute knowledge in his mind as for garments on his body. Was it, in +this view of the case, an equal contest? were the weapons of that +warfare matched and measured fairly? + +Some such objection, we may suppose, might seem to have been admissible, +as having a show at least of reason: and, after the world was to have +been cleansed of all its creatures in the manner I have mentioned, a new +champion is armed for the conflict, totally different in every respect; +and to reason's view vastly superior. + +This time, the Adam of renewed earth is to be the best and wisest, nay, +the only good and wise one of the whole lost family: a man, with the +experience of full six hundred years upon his hoary brow, with the +unspeakable advantage of having walked with God all those long-drawn +centuries, a patriarch of twenty generations, recognised as the one +great and faithful witness, the only worshipper and friend of his +Creator. Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only spark +of spiritual "consolation" in the midst of earth's dark death? and was +not he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of the +devil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renew +the fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah. + +Before we touch upon the immediate fall of this new Adam also, at a time +when God and reason had deserted him, it will be more orderly to allude +to the circumstances of his preservation in the flood. How, in such a +hurlyburly of the elements, should the chosen seed survive? No house, +nor hill-top, no ordinary ship would serve the purpose: still less the +unreasonable plan of any cavern hermetically sealed, or any aerial +chariot miraculously lifted up above the lower firmament. To use plain +and simple words, I can fancy no wiser method than a something between a +house and a diving-bell; a vessel, entirely storm-tight and water-tight, +which nevertheless for necessary air should have an open window at the +top: say, one a cubit square. This, properly hooded against deluging +rain, and supplied with such helps to ventilation as leathern pipes, air +tunnels and similar appliances, would not be an impracticable method. +However, instead of being under water as a diving-bell, the vessel would +be better made to float upon the rising flood, and thus continually +keeping its level, would be ready to strike land as the waters assuaged. + +Now, as to the size of this ark, this floating caravan, it must needs be +very large; and also take a great time in building. For, suffering cause +and effect to go on without a new creation, it was reasonable to suppose +that the man, so launching as for another world on the ocean of +existence, would take with him (especially if God's benevolence so +ordered it) all the known appliances of civilized life; as well as a +pair or two of every creature he could collect, to stock withal the +renewed earth according to their various excellences in their kinds. The +lengthy, arduous, and expensive preparation of this mighty ark--a vessel +which must include forests of timber and consume generations in +building; besides the world-be-known collection of all manner of strange +animals for the stranger fancy of a fanatical old man; not to mention +also the hoary Preacher's own century of exortations: with how great +moral force all this living warning would be calculated to act upon the +world of wickedness and doom! Here was the great ante-diluvian +potentate, Noah, a patriarch of ages, wealthy beyond our +calculations--(for how else without a needless succession of miracles +could he have built and stocked the ark?)--a man of enormous substance, +good report, and exalted station, here was he for a hundred and twenty +years engaged among crowds of unbelieving workmen, in constructing a +most extravagant ship, which, forsooth, filled with samples of all this +world's stores, was to sail with our only good family in search of a +better. Moreover, Noah here declares that our dear old mother-earth is +to be destroyed for her iniquities by rain and sea: and he exhorts us by +a solid evidence of his own faith at least, if by nothing else, to +repent, and turn to him, whom Abel, Seth, and Enoch, as well as this +good Noah, represent as our Maker. Would not such sneers and taunts be +probable: would they not amply vindicate the coming judgment? Was not +the "long-suffering of God" likely to have thus been tried "while the +ark was preparing?" and when the catastrophe should come, had not that +evil generation been duly warned against it? On the whole, it would have +been Reason's guess that Noah should be saved as he was; that the ark +should have been as we read of it in Genesis; and that the very +immensity of its construction should have served for a preaching to +mankind. As to any idea that the ark is an unreasonable (some have even +said ridiculous) incident to the deluge, it seems to me to have +furnished a clear case of antecedent probability. + +Lastly: Noah's fall was very likely to have happened: not merely in the +theological view of the matter, as an illustration of the truth that no +human being can stand fast in righteousness: but from the just +consideration that he imported with him the seeds of an impure state of +society, the remembered luxuries of that old world. For instance, among +the plants of earth which Noah would have preserved for future insertion +in the soil, he could not have well forgotten the generous, treacherous +Vine. That to a righteous man, little used to all unhallowed sources of +exhilaration, this should have been a stepping-stone to a defalcation +from God, was likely. It was probable in itself, and shows the honesty +as well as the verisimilitude of Scripture to read, that "Noah began to +be a husbandman, and planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine, and +was drunken." There was nothing here but what, taking all things into +consideration, Reason might have previously guessed. Why then withhold +the easier matter of an afterward belief? + + + + +BABEL. + + +This book ought to be read, as mentally it is written, with at the end +of every sentence one of those _et ceteras_, which the genius of a Coke +interpreted so keenly of the genius of a Littleton: for, far more +remains on each subject to be said, than in any one has been attempted. + +Let us pass on to the story of Babel: I can conceive nothing more _a +priori_ probable than the account we read in Scripture. Briefly consider +the matter. A multitude of men, possibly the then whole human family, +once more a fallen race, emigrate towards the East, and come to a vast +plain in the region of Shinar, afterwards Chaldaea. Fertile, +well-watered, apt for every mundane purpose, it yet wanted one great +requisite. The degenerate race "put not their trust in God:" they did +not believe but that the world might some day be again destroyed by +water: and they required a point of refuge in the possible event of a +second deluge from the broken bounds of ocean and the windows of the +skies. They had come from the West; more strictly the North-west, a land +of mountains, as they deemed them, ready-made refuges: and their scheme, +a probable one enough, was to construct some such mountain artificially, +so that its top might reach the clouds, as did the summit of Ararat. +This would serve the twofold purpose of outwitting any further attempt +to drown them, and of making for themselves a proud name upon the earth. +So, the Lord God, in his etherealized human form (having taken counsel +with His own divine compeers), coming in the guise wherein He was wont +to walk with Adam and with Enoch and his other saints of men, "came down +and saw the tower:" truly, He needed not have come, for ubiquity was +his, and omniscience; but in the days when God and man were (so to +speak) less chronologically divided than as now, and while yet the +trial-family was young, it does not seem unlikely that He should. God +then, in his aspect of the Head of all mankind, took notice of that +dangerous and unholy combination: and He made within His Triune Mind the +wise resolve to break their bond of union. Omniscience had herein a view +to ulterior consequences benevolent to man, and He knew that it would be +a wise thing for the future world, as well as a discriminative check +upon the race then living, to confuse the universal language into many +discordant dialects. Was this in any sense an improbable or improper +method of making "the devices of the wicked to be of none effect, and of +laughing to scorn the counsels of the mighty?" Was it not to have been +expected that a fallen race should be disallowed the combinative force +necessary to a common language, but that such force should be dissipated +and diverted for moral usages into many tongues?--There they were, all +the chiefs of men congregated to accomplish a vast, ungodly scheme: and +interposing Heaven to crush such insane presumption--and withal +thereafter designing to bless by arranging through such means the future +interchange of commerce and the enterprise of nationalities--He, in his +Trinity, was not unlikely to have said, "Let us go down, and confound +their language." What better mode could have been devised to scatter +mankind, and so to people the extremities of earth? In order that the +various dialects should crystallize apart, each in its discriminative +lump, the nucleus of a nation; that thereafter the world might be able +no longer to unite as one man against its Lord, but by conflicting +interests, the product of conflicting languages, might give to good a +better chance of not being altogether overwhelmed; that, though many "a +multitude might go to do evil," it should not thenceforward be the whole +consenting family of man; but that, here by one and there by one, the +remembrance of God should be kept extant, and evil no longer acquire an +accumulated force, by having all the world one nation. + + + + +JOB. + + +Every scriptural incident and every scriptural worthy deserves its own +particular discussion: and might easily obtain it. For example; the +anterior probability that human life in patriarchal times should have +been very much prolonged, was obvious; from consideration of--1, the +benevolence of God; 2, the inexperience of man; and 3, the claim so +young a world would hold upon each of its inhabitants: whilst Holy Writ +itself has prepared an answer to the probable objection, that the years +were lunar years, or months; by recording that Arphaxad and Salah and +Eber and Peleg and Reu and Serug and Nahor, descendants of Shem, each +had children at the average age of two-and-thirty, and yet the lives of +all varied in duration from a hundred and fifty years to five hundred. +And many similar credibilities might be alluded to: what shall I say of +Abraham's sacrifice, of Moses and the burning bush, of Jonah also, and +Elisha, and of the prophets? for the time would fail me to tell how +probable and simple in each instance is its deep and marvellous history. +There is food for philosophic thought in every page of ancient Jewish +Scripture scarcely less than in those of primitive Christianity: here, +after our fashion, we have only touched upon a sample. + +The opening scene to the book of Job has vexed the faith of many very +needlessly: to my mind, nothing was more likely to have literally and +really happened. It is one of those few places where we get an insight +into what is going on elsewhere: it is a lifting off the curtain of +eternity for once, revealing the magnificent simplicities constantly +presented in the halls of heaven. And I am moved to speak about it +here, because I think a plain statement of its sublime probabilities +will be acceptable to many: especially if they have been harassed by the +doubts of learned men respecting the authorship of that rare history. It +signifies nothing who recorded the circumstances and conversations, so +long as they were true, and really happened: given power, opportunity, +and honesty, a life of Dr. Johnson would be just as fair in fact, if +written by Smollett, as by Boswell, or himself. Whether then Job, the +wealthy prince of Uz, or Abraham, or Moses, or Elisha, or Eliphaz, or +whoever else, have placed the words on record, there they stand, true; +and the whole book in all its points was anteriorly likely to have been +decreed a component part of revelation. Without it, there would have +been wanting some evidence of a godly worship among men through the long +and dreary interval of several hundred years: there would never have +been given for man's help the example of a fortitude, and patience, and +trust in God most brilliant; of a faith in the resurrection and +redeemer, signal and definite beyond all other texts in Jewish +Scripture: as well as of a human knowledge of God in his works beyond +all modern instance. However, the excellences of that narrative are +scarcely our theme: we return to the starting-post of its probability, +especially with reference to its supernatural commencement. What we have +shown credible, many pages back, respecting good and evil and the +denizens of heaven, finds a remarkable after-proof in the two first +chapters of Job; and for some such reason, by reference, these two +chapters were themselves anteriorly to have been expected. + +Let us see what happened: + +"There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before +the Lord, and Satan came also among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, +whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going +to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. And the +Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is +none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that +feareth God and escheweth evil? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, +Doth Job fear God for naught? Hast thou not made a hedge about him, and +about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? Thou hast +blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the +land. But put forth thine hand now, and touch all he hath, and he will +curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that +he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So +Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord."--[Job 1. 6-13.] + +It is a most stately drama: any paraphrase would spoil its dignity, its +quiet truth, its unpretending, yet gigantic lineaments. Note: in +allusion to our views of evil, that Satan also comes among the sons of +God: note, the generous dependence placed by a generous Master on his +servant well-upheld by that Master's own free grace: note, Satan's +constant imputation against piety when blessed of God with worldly +wealth, Doth he serve for naught? I can discern no cause wherefore all +this scene should not have truly happened; not as in vision of some holy +man, but as in fact. Let us read on, before further comment: + +"Again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves +before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself +before the Lord. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? And +Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, +and from walking up and down in it. And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast +thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the +earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth +evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me +against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, +and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his +life. But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, +and he will curse thee to thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, +Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life. So Satan went forth from +the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils, from the sole +of his foot unto his crown." + +Some such scene, displaying the devil's malice, slandering sneers, and +permitted power, recommends itself to my mind as antecedently to have +been looked for: in order that we might know from what quarter many of +life's evils come; with what aims and ends they are directed; what +limits are opposed to our foe; and Who is on our side. We needed some +such insight into the heavenly places; some such hint of what is +continually going on before the Lord's tribunal; we wanted this plain +and simple setting forth of good and evil in personal encounter, of +innocence awhile given up to malice for its chastening and its triumph. +Lo, all this so probable scene is here laid open to us, and many, +against reason, disbelieve it! + +Note, in allusion to our after-theme, the _locus_ of heaven, that there +is some such usual place of periodical gathering. Note, the open +unchiding loveliness dwelling in the Good One's words, as contrasted +with the subtle, slanderous hatred of the Evil. And then the vulgar +proverb, Skin for skin: this pious Job is so intensely selfish, that let +him lose what he may, he heeds it not; he cares for nothing out of his +own skin. And there are many more such notabilities. + +Why did I produce these passages at length? For their Doric simplicity; +for their plain and masculine features; for their obvious truthfulness; +for their manifest probability as to fact, and expectability previously +to it. Why on earth should they be doubted in their literal sense? and +were they not more likely to have happened than to have been invented? +We have no such geniuses now as this writer must have been, who by the +pure force of imagination could have created that tableau. Milton had +Job to go to. Simplicity is proof presumptive in favour of the plain +inspiration of such passages: for the plastic mind which could conceive +so just a sketch, would never have rested satisfied, without having +painted and adorned it picturesquely. Such rare flights of fancy are +always made the most of. + +One or two thoughts respecting Job's trial. That he should at last give +way, was only probable: he was, in short, another Adam, and had another +fall; albeit he wrestled nobly. Worthy was he to be named among God's +chosen three, "Noah, Daniel, and Job:" and worthy that the Lord should +bless his latter end. This word brings me to the point I wish to touch +on; the great compensation which God gave to Job. + +Children can never be regarded as other than individualities: and +notwithstanding Eastern feelings about increase in quantity, its quality +is, after all, the question for the heart. I mean that many children to +be born, is but an inadequate return for many children dying. If a +father loses a well-beloved son, it is small recompense of that aching +void that he gets another. For this reason of the affections, and +because I suppose that thinkers have sympathized with me in the +difficulty, I wish to say a word about Job's children, lost and found. +It will clear away what is to some minds a moral and affectionate +objection. Now, this is the state of the case. + +The patriarch is introduced to us as possessing so many camels, and +oxen, and so forth; and ten children. All these are represented to him +by witnesses, to all appearance credible, as dead; and he mourns for his +great loss accordingly. Would not a merchant feel to all intents and +purposes a ruined man, if he received a clear intelligence from +different parts of the world at once that all his ships and warehouses +had been destroyed by hurricanes and fire? Faith given, patience +follows: and the trial is morally the same, whether the news be true or +false. Remarkably enough, after the calamitous time is past, when the +good man of Uz is discerned as rewarded by heaven for his patience by +the double of every thing once lost--his children remain the same in +number, ten. It seems to me quite possible that neither camels, &c., nor +children, really had been killed. Satan might have meant it so, and +schemed it; and the singly-coming messengers believed it all, as also +did the well-enduring Job. But the scriptural word does not go to say +that these things happened; but that certain emissaries said they +happened. I think the devil missed his mark: that the messengers were +scared by some abortive diabolic efforts; and that, (with a natural +increase of camels, &c., meanwhile,) the patriarch's paternal heart was +more than compensated at the last, by the restoration of his own dear +children. They were dead, and are alive again; they were lost, and are +found. Like Abraham returning from Mount Calvary with Isaac, it was the +Resurrection in a figure. + +If to this view objection is made, that, because the boils of Job were +real, therefore, similarly real must be all his other evils; I reply, +that in the one temptation, the suffering was to be mental; in the +other, bodily. In the latter case, positive, personal pain, was the gist +of the matter: in the former, the heart might be pierced, and the mind +be overwhelmed, without the necessity of any such incurable affliction +as children's deaths amount to. God's mercy may well have allowed the +evil one to overreach himself; and when the restoration came, how double +was the joy of Job over those ten dear children. + +Again, if any one will urge that, in the common view of the case, Job at +the last really has twice as many children as before, for that he has +ten old ones in heaven, and ten new ones on earth: I must, in answer, +think that explanation as unsatisfactory to us, as the verity of it +would have been to Job. Affection, human affection, is not so +numerically nor vicariously consoled: and it is, perhaps, worth while +here to have thrown out (what I suppose to be) a new view of the case, +if only to rescue such wealth as children from the infidel's sneer of +being confounded with such wealth as camels. Moreover, such a paternal +reward was anteriorly more probable. + + + + +JOSHUA. + + +How many of our superficial thinkers have been staggered at the great +miracle recorded of Joshua; and how few, even of the deeper sort, +comparatively, may have discerned its aptness, its science, and its +anterior likelihood: "Sun! stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, moon, +in the valley of Ajalon." Now, consider, for we hope to vindicate even +this stupendous event from the charge of improbability. + +Baal and Ashtaroth, chief idols of the Canaanites, were names for sun +and moon. It would manifestly be the object of God and His ambassador to +cast utter scorn on such idolatry. And what could be more apt than that +Joshua, commissioned to extirpate the corrupted race, should +miraculously be enabled, as it were, to bind their own gods to aid in +the destruction of such votaries? + +Again: what should Joshua want with the moon for daylight, to help him +to rout the foes of God more fiercely? Why not, according to the +astronomical ignorance of those days, let her sail away, unconsorted by +the sun, far beyond the valley of Ajalon? There was a reason, here, of +secret, unobtruded science: if the sun stopped, the moon must stop too; +that is to say, both apparently: the fact being that the earth must, for +the while, rest on its axis. This, I say, is a latent, scientific hint; +and so, likewise, is the accompanying mention as a fact, that the Lord +immediately "rained great stones out of heaven" upon the flying host. +For would it not be the case that, if the diurnal rotation of earth were +suddenly to stop, the impetus of motion would avail to raise high into +the air by centrifugal force, and fling down again by gravity, such +unanchored things as fragments of rock? + +Once more: our objector will here perhaps inquire, Why not then command +the earth to stop--and not the sun and moon? if thus probably Joshua or +his Inspirer knew better? Answer. Only let a reasonable man consider +what would have been the moral lesson both to Israelite and to +Canaanite, if the great successor of Moses had called out, +incomprehensibly to all, "Earth, stand thou still on thine axis;"--and +lo! as if in utter defiance of such presumption, and to vindicate openly +the heathen gods against the Jewish, the very sun and moon in heaven +stopped, and glared on the offender. I question whether such a noon-day +miracle might not have perverted to idolatry the whole believing host: +and almost reasonably too. The strictly philosophical terms would have +entirely nullified the whole moral influence. God in his word never +suffers science to hinder the progress of truth: a worldly philosophy +does this almost in every instance, darkening knowledge with a cloud of +words: but the science of the Bible is usually concealed in some +neighbouring hint quite handy to the record of the phenomena expressed +in ordinary language. In fact, for all common purposes, no astronomer +finds fault with such phrases as the moon rising, or the sun setting: he +speaks according to the appearance, though he knows perfectly well that +the earth is the cause of it, and not the sun or moon. Carry this out in +Joshua's case. + +On the whole, the miracle was very plain, very comprehensible, and very +probable. It had good cause: for Canaan felt more confidence in the +protection of his great and glorious Baal, than stiff-necked Judah in +his barely-seen divinity: and surely it was wise to vindicate the true +but invisible God by the humiliation of the false and far-seen idol. +This would constitute to all nations the quickly-rumoured proof that +Jehovah of the Israelites was God in heaven above as well as on the +earth beneath. And, considering the peculiar idolatries of Canaan, it +seems to me that no miracle could have been better placed and better +timed--in other words, anteriorly more probable--than the command of +obedience to the sun and to the moon. I suppose that few persons who +read this book will be unaware, that the circumstance is alluded to as +well in that honest heathen, old Herodotus, as in the learned Jew +Josephus. The volumes are not near me for reference to quotations: but +such is fact: it will be found in Herodotus, about the middle of +Euterpe, connected with an allusion to the analogous case of Hezekiah. + +No miracles, on the whole (to take one after-view of the matter), could +have been better tested: for two armies (not to mention all surrounding +countries) must have seen it plainly and clearly: if then it had never +occurred, what a very needless exposure of the falsity of the Jewish +Scriptures! These were open, published writings, accessible to all: +Cyrus and Darius and Alexander read them, and Ethiopian eunuchs; +Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, with all other nations of the earth, had +free access to those records. Only imagine if some recent history of +England, Adolphus's, or Stebbing's, contained an account of a certain +day in George the Fourth's reign having had twenty-four hour's daylight +instead of the usual admixture; could the intolerable falsehood last a +minute? Such a placard would be torn away from the records of the land +the moment a rash hand had fixed it there. But, if the matter were +fact, how could any historian neglect it?--In one sense, the very +improbability of such a marvel being recorded, argues the probability of +it having actually occurred. + +Much more might here be added: but our errand is accomplished, if any +stumbling-block had been thus easily removed from some erring thinker's +path. Surely, we have given him some reason for faith's due acceptance +of Joshua's miracle. + + + + +THE INCARNATION. + + +In touching some of the probabilities of our blessed Lord's career, it +would be difficult to introduce and illustrate the subject better, than +by the following anecdote. Whence it is derived, has escaped my memory; +but I have a floating notion that it is told of Socrates in Xenophon or +Plato. At any rate, by way of giving fixity thereto and picturesqueness, +let us here report the story as of the Athenian Solomon: + +Surrounded by his pupils, the great heathen Reasoner was being +questioned and answering questions: in particular respecting the +probability that the universal God would be revealed to his creatures. +"What a glorious King would he appear!" said one, possibly the brilliant +Alcibiades: "What a form of surpassing beauty!" said another, not +unlikely the softer Crito. "Not so, my children," answered Socrates. +"Kings and the beautiful are few, and the God, if he came on earth as an +exemplar, would in shape and station be like the greater number." +"Indeed, Master? then how should he fail of being made a King of men, +for his goodness, and his majesty, and wisdom?" "Alas! my children," was +pure Reason's just rejoinder, "[Greek: oi pleiones kakoi], most men are +so wicked that they would hate his purity, despise his wisdom, and as +for his majesty, they could not truly see it. They might indeed admire +for a time, but thereafter (if the God allowed it), they would even hunt +and persecute and kill him." "Kill him!" exclaimed the eager group of +listeners; "kill Him? how should they, how could they, how dare they +kill God?" "I did not say, kill God," would have been wise Socrates's +reply, "for God existeth ever: but men in enmity and envy might even be +allowed to kill that human form wherein God walked for an ensample. That +they could, were God's humility: that they should, were their own +malice: that they dared, were their own grievous sin and peril of +destruction. Yea," went on the keen-eyed sage, "men would slay him by +some disgraceful death, some lingering, open, and cruel death, even such +as the death of slaves!"--Now slaves, when convicted of capital crime, +were always crucified. + +Whatever be thought of the genuineness of the anecdote, its uses are the +same to us. Reason might have arrived at the salient points of Christ's +career, and at His crucifixion! + +I will add another topic: How should the God on earth arrive there? We +have shown that His form would probably be such as man's; but was he to +descend bodily from the atmosphere at the age of full-grown perfection, +or to rise up out of the ground with earthquakes and fire, or to appear +on a sudden in the midst of the market-place, or to come with legions of +his heavenly host to visit his Temple? There was a wiser way than these, +more reasonable, probable, and useful. Man required an exemplar for +every stage of his existence up to the perfection of his frame. The +infant, and the child, and the youth, would all desire the human-God to +understand their eras; they would all, if generous and such as he would +love, long to feel that He has sympathy with them in every early trial, +as in every later grief. Moreover, the God coming down with supernatural +glories or terrors would be a needless expense of ostentatious power. +He, whose advent is intended for the encouragement of men to exercise +their reason and their conscience; whose exhortation is "he that hath +ears to hear, let him hear;" that pure Being, who is the chief preacher +of Humility, and the great teacher of man's responsible +condition--surely, he would hardly come in any way astoundingly +miraculous, addressing his advent not to faith, but to sight, and +challenging the impossibility of unbelief by a galaxy of spiritual +wonders. Yet, if He is to come at all--and a word or two of this +hereafter--it must be either in some such strange way; or in the usual +human way; or in a just admixture of both. As the first is needlessly +overwhelming to the responsible state of man, so the second is +needlessly derogatory to the pure essence of God; and the third idea +would seem to be most probable. Let us guess it out. Why should not this +highest Object of faith and this lowest Subject of obedience be born, +seemingly by human means, but really by divine? Why should there not be +found some unspotted holy virgin, betrothed to a just man and soon to be +his wife, who, by the creative power of Divinity, should miraculously +conceive the shape divine, which God himself resolved to dwell in? Why +should she not come of a lineage and family which for centuries before +had held such expectation? Why should not the just man, her affianced, +who had never known her yet, being warned of God in a dream of this +strange, immaculate conception, "fear not to take unto him Mary his +wife," lest the unbelieving world should breathe slander on her purity, +albeit he should really know her not until after the Holy Birth. There +is nothing unreasonable here; every step is previously credible: and +invention's self would be puzzled to devise a better scheme. The +Virgin-born would thus be a link between God and man, the great +Mediator: his natures would fulfil every condition required of their +double and their intimate conjunction. He would have arrived at humanity +without its gross beginnings, and have veiled his Godhead for a while in +a pure though mortal tenement. He would have participated in all the +tenderness of woman's nature, and thus have reached the keenest +sensibilities of men. + +Themes such as these are inexhaustible: and I am perpetually conscious +of so much left unsaid, that at every section I seem to have said next +to nothing. Nevertheless, let it go; the good seed yet shall germinate. +"Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou shall find it after many +days." + +It may to some minds be a desideratum, to allude to the anterior +probability that God should come in the flesh. Much of this has been +anticipated under the head of Visible Deity and elsewhere; as this +treatise is so short, one may reasonably expect every reader to take it +in regular course. For additional considerations: the Benevolent Maker +would hardly leave his creatures to perish, without one word of warning +or one gleam of knowledge. The question of the Bible is considered +further on: but exclusively of written rules and dogmas, it was likely +that Our Father should commission chosen servants of his own, orally to +teach and admonish; because it would be in accordance with man's +reasonable nature, that he should best and easiest learn from the +teaching his brethren. So then, after all lesser ambassadors had failed, +it was to be expected that He should send the highest one of all, +saying, "They will reverence my Son." We know that this really did occur +by innumerable proofs, and wonderful signs posterior: and now, after the +event, we discern it to have been anteriorly probable. + +It was also probable in another light. This world is a world of +incarnations; nothing has a real and potential existence, which is not +embodied in some form. A theory is nothing; if no personal philosopher, +no sect, or school of learners, takes it up. An opinion is mere air; +without the multitude to give it all the force of a mighty wind. An +idea is mere spiritual light; if unclad in deeds, or in words written or +spoken. So, also, of the Godhead: He would be like all these. He would +pervade words spoken, as by prophets or preachers: He would include +words written, as in the Bible: He would influence crowds with +spirit-stirring sentiments: He would embody the theory of all things in +one simple, philosophic form. As this material world is constituted, God +could not reveal himself at all, excepting by the aid of matter. I mean; +even granting that He spiritually inspired a prophet, still the man was +necessary: he becomes an inspired man; not mere inspiration. So, also, +of a book; which is the written labour of inspired men. There is no +doing without the Humanity of God, so far as this world is concerned, +any more than His Deity can be dispensed with, regarding the worlds +beyond worlds, and the ages of ages, and the dread for ever and ever. + + + + +MAHOMETANISM. + + +It seems expedient that, in one or two instances, I should attempt the +illustration of this rule of probability in matters beyond the Bible. As +very fair ones, take Mahometanism and Romanism. And first of the former. + +At the commencement of the seventh century, or a little previously to +that era, we know that a fierce religion sprang up, promulgated by a +false prophet. I wish briefly to show that this was antecedently to have +been expected. + +In a moral point of view, the Christian world, torn by all manner of +schisms, and polluted by all sorts of heresies, had earned for the human +race, whether accepting the gospel or refusing it, some signal and +extensive punishment at the hands of Him, who is the Great Retributor as +well as the Munificent Rewarder. In a physical point of view, the +civilized kingdoms of the earth had become stagnant, arguing that +corrupt and poisonous calm which is the herald of a coming tempest. The +heat of a true religion had cooled down into lukewarm disputations about +nothings, scholastical and casuistic figments; whilst at the same time +the prevalence of peaceful doctrines had amalgamated all classes into a +luxurious indolence. Passionate Man is not to be so satisfied; and the +time was fully come for the rise of some fierce spirit, who should +change the tinsel theology of the crucifix for the iron religion of the +sword: who should blow in the ears of the slumbering West the shrill +war-blast of Eastern fervencies; who should exchange the dull rewards of +canonization due to penance, or an after-life voluntary humiliation +under pseudo-saints and angels, for the human and comprehensible joys of +animal appetite and military glory: who should enlist under his banner +all the frantic zeal, all the pent-up licentiousness, all the +heart-burning hatreds of mankind, stifled either by a positive +barbarism, or the incense-laden cloud of a scarcely-masked idolatry. + +Thus, and then, was likely to arise a bold and self-confiding hero, +leaning on his own sword: a man of dark sentences, who, by judiciously +pilfering from this quarter and from that shreds of truth to jewel his +black vestments of error, and by openly proclaiming that Oneness of the +object of all worship which besotted Christendom had then, from undue +reverence to saints and martyrs, virgins and archangels, well nigh +forgotten; a man who, by pandering to human passions and setting wide as +virtue's avenue the flower-tricked gates of vice; should thus, like +Lucifer before him, in a comet-like career of victory, sweep the +startled firmament of earth, and drag to his erratic orbit the stars of +heaven from their courses. + +Mahomet; his humble beginnings; his iron perseverance under early +probable checks; his blind, yet not all unsublime, dependence on +fatality; his ruthless, yet not all undeserved, infliction of fire and +sword upon the cowering coward race that filled the western +world;--these, and all whatever else besides attended his train of +triumphs, and all whatever besides has lasted among Moors, and Arabs, +and Turks, and Asiatics, even to this our day--constitute to a thinking +mind (and it seems not without cause) another antecedent probability. +Let the scoffer about Mahomet's success, and the admirer of his hotchpot +Koran; let him to whom it is a stumbling-block that error (if indeed, +quoth he, it be more erroneous than what Christendom counts truth) +should have had such free course and been glorified, while so-called +Truth, _pede claudo_, has limped on even as now cautiously and +ingloriously through the well-suspicious world; let him who thinks he +sees in Mahomet's success an answer to the foolish argument of some, who +test the truth of Christianity by its Gentile triumphs; let him ponder +these things. Reason, the God of his idolatry, might, with an +archangel's ken, have prophesied some Mahomet's career: and, so far from +such being in the nature of any objection to Faith, the idea thus thrown +out, well-mused upon, will be seen to lend Faith an aid in the way of +previous likelihood. + +"There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet!" How admirably calculated +such a war-cry would be for the circumstances of the seventh century. +The simple sublimity of Oneness, as opposed to school-theology and +catholic demons: the glitter of barbaric pomp, instead of tame +observances: the flashing scimetar of ambition to supersede the cross: a +turban aigretted with jewels for the twisted wreath of thorns. As human +nature is, and especially in that time was, nothing was more expectable +(even if prophetic records had not taught it), than the rise and +progress of that great False Prophet, whose waving crescent even now +blights the third part of earth. + + + + +ROMANISM. + + +We all know how easy it is to prophesy after the event: but it would be +uncandid and untrue to confound this remark with another, cousin-germane +to it; to wit: how easy it is to discern of any event, after it has +happened, whether or not it were antecedently likely. When the race is +over, and the best horse has won (or by clever jockey-management, the +worst), how obviously could any gentleman on the turf, now in possession +of particulars, have seen the event to have been so probable, that he +would have staked all upon its issue. + +Carry out this familiar idea; which, as human nature goes, is none the +weaker as to illustration, because it is built upon the rule "_parvis +componere magna_." Let us sketch a line or two of that great +fore-shadowing cartoon, the probabilities of Romanism. + +That our blessed Master, even in His state as man, beheld its evil +characteristics looming on the future, seems likely not alone from both +His human keenness and His divine omniscience, but from here and there a +hint dropped in his biography. Why should He, on several occasions, have +seemed, I will say with some apparent sharpness, to have rebuked His +virgin mother.--"Woman, what have I to do with thee?"--"Who are my +mother and my brethren?"--"Yea--More blessed than the womb which bare +me, and the paps that I have sucked, is the humblest of my true +disciples." Let no one misunderstand me: full well I know the just +explanations which palliate such passages; and the love stronger than +death which beat in that Filial heart. But, take the phrases as they +stand; and do they not in reason constitute some warning and some +prophecy that men should idolize the mother? Nothing, in fact, was more +likely than that a just human reverence to the most favoured among women +should have increased into her admiring worship: until the humble and +holy Mary, with the sword of human anguish at her heart, should become +exaggerated and idealized into Mother of God--instead of Jesus's human +matrix, Queen of heaven, instead of a ransomed soul herself, the joy of +angels--in lieu of their lowly fellow-worshipper, and the Rapture of the +blessed--thus dethroning the Almighty. + +Take a second instance: why should Peter, the most loving, most +generous, most devoted of them all, have been singled out from among the +twelve--with a "Get thee behind me, Satan?"--it really had a harsh +appearance; if it were not that, prophetically speaking, and not +personally, he was set in the same category with Judas, the "one who was +a devil." I know the glosses, and the contexts, and the whole amount of +it. Folios have been written, and may be written again, to disprove the +text; but the more words, the less sense: it stands, a record graven in +the Rock; that same Petra, whereon, as firm and faithful found, our Lord +Jesus built his early Church: it stands, a mark indelibly burnt into +that hand, to whom were intrusted, not more specially than to any other +of the saintly sent, the keys of the kingdom of heaven: it stands, along +with the same Peter's deep and terrible apostacy, a living witness +against some future Church, who should set up this same Peter as the +Jupiter of their Pantheon: who should positively be idolizing now an +image christened Peter, which did duty two thousand years ago as a +statue of Libyan Jove! But even this glaring compromise was a matter +probable, with the data of human ambitions, and a rotten Christianity. + +Examples such as these might well be multiplied: bear with a word or two +more, remembering always that the half is not said which might be said +in proof; nor in answering the heap of frivolous objections. + +Why, unless relics and pseudo-sacred clothes were to be prophetically +humbled into their own mere dust and nothing-worthiness, why should the +rude Roman soldiery have been suffered to cast lots for that vestment, +which, if ever spiritual holiness could have been infused into mere +matter, must indeed have remained a relic worthy of undoubted worship? +It was warm with the Animal heat of the Man inhabited by God: it was +half worn out in the service of His humble travels, and had even, on +many occasions, been the road by which virtue had gone out; not of it, +but of Him. What! was this wonderful robe to work no miracles? was it +not to be regarded as a sort of outpost of the being who was Human-God? +Had it no essential sacredness, no _noli-me-tangere_ quality of shining +away the gambler's covetous glance, of withering his rude and venturous +hand, or of poisoning, like some Nessus' shirt, the lewd ruffian who +might soon thereafter wear it? Not in the least. This woven web, to +which a corrupted state of feeling on religion would have raised +cathedrals as its palaces, with singing men and singing women, and +singing eunuchs too, to celebrate its virtues; this coarse cloth of some +poor weaver's, working down by the sea of Galilee or in some lane of +Zion, was still to remain, and be a mere unglorified, economical, useful +garment. Far from testifying to its own internal mightiness, it probably +was soon sold by the fortunate Roman die-thrower to a second-hand shop +of the Jewish metropolis; and so descended from beggar to beggar till it +was clean worn out. We never hear that, however easy of access so +inestimable relic might then have been considered, any one of the +numerous disciples, in the fervour of their earliest zeal, threw away +one thought for its redemption. Is it not strange that no St. Helena was +at hand to conserve such a desirable invention? Why is there no St. +Vestment to keep in countenance a St. Sepulchre and a St. Cross? The +poor cloth, in primitive times, really was despised. We know well enough +what happened afterwards about handkerchiefs imbued with miraculous +properties from holy Paul's body for the nonce: but this is an inferior +question, and the matter was temporary; the superior case is proved, and +besides the rule _omne majus continet in se minus_ there are differences +quite intelligible between the cases, whereabout our time would be less +profitably employed than in passing on and leaving them unquestioned. +Suffice it to say, that "God worked those special miracles," and not the +unconscious "handkerchiefs or aprons." "Te Deum laudamus!" is +Protestantism's cry; "Sudaria laudemus!" would swell the Papal choirs. + +Let such considerations as these then are in sample serve to show how +evidently one might prove from anterior circumstances, (and the canon of +Scripture is an anterior circumstance,) the probability of the rise and +progress of the Roman heresies. And if any one should ask, how was such +a system more likely to arise under a Gentile rather than a Jewish +theocracy? why was a St. Paul, or a St. Peter, or a St. Dunstan, or a +St. Gengulphus, more previously expectable than a St. Abraham, a St. +David, a St. Elisha, or a St. Gehazi? I answer, from the idea of +idolatry, so adapted to the Gentile mind, and so abhorrent from the +Jewish. Martyred Abel, however well respected, has never reached the +honours of a niche beside the altar. Jephtha's daughter, for all her +mourned virginity, was never paraded, (that I wot of,) for any other +than a much-to-be-lamented damsel. Who ever asked, in those old times, +the mediation of St. Enoch? Where were the offerings, in jewels or in +gold, to propitiate that undoubted man of God and denizen of heaven, St. +Moses? what prows, in wax, of vessels saved from shipwreck, hung about +the dripping fane of Jonah? and where was, in the olden time, that +wretched and insensate being, calling himself rational and godly, who +had ventured to solicit the good services of Isaiah as his intercessor, +or to plead the merits of St. Ezekiel as the make-weight for his sins? + +It was just this, and reasonably to have been expected; for when the Jew +brought in his religion, he demolished every false god, broke their +images, slew their priests, and burnt their groves with fire. But, when +a worldly Christianity came to be in vogue, when emperors adorned their +banners with the cross, and the poor fishermen of Galilee, (in their +portly representatives,) came to be encrusted with gems, and rustling +with seric silk; then was made that fatal compromise; then it was likely +to have been made, which has lasted even until now: a compromise which, +newly baptizing the damned idols of the heathen, keeps yet St. Bacchus +and St. Venus, St. Mars and St. Apollo, perched in sobered robes upon +the so-called Christian altar; which yet pays divine honours to an +ancyle or a rusty nail; to the black stones at Delphi, or the +gold-shrined bones at Aix; which yet sanctifies the chickens of the +capitol, or the cock that startled Peter; which yet lets a wealthy +sinner, by his gold, bribe the winking Pythoness, or buy dispensing +clauses from "the Lord our God, the Pope." + +There is yet a swarm of other notions pressing on the mind, which tend +to prove that Popery might have been anticipated. Take this view. The +religion of Christ is holy, self-denying; not of this world's praise, +and ending with the terrible sanction of eternity for good or evil: it +sets up God alone supreme, and cuts down creature-merit to a point +perpetually diminishing; for the longer he does well, the more he owes +to the grace which enabled him to do it. + +Now, man's nature is, as we know, diametrically opposite to all this: +and unable to escape from the conviction of Christian truth in some +sense, he would bend his shrewd invention to the attempt of warping +that stern truth to shapes more consistent with his idiosyncrasies. A +religious plan might be expected, which, in lieu of a difficult, holy +spirituality, should exact easy, mere observances; to say a thousand +Paters with the tongue, instead of one "Our Father," from the heart; to +exact genuflections by the score, but not a single prostration of the +spirit; to write the cross in water on the forehead often-times, but +never once to bear its mystic weight upon the shoulder. In spite of +self-denial, cleverly kept in sight by means of eggs, and pulse, and +hair-cloth, to pamper the deluded flesh with many a carnal holiday; in +contravention of a kingdom not of this world, boldly to usurp the +temporal dominion of it all: instead of the overwhelming +incomprehensibility of an eternal doom, to comfort the worst with false +assurance of a purgatory longer or shorter; that after all, vice may be +burnt out; and who knows but that gold, buying up the prayers and +superfluous righteousness of others, may not make the fiery ordeal an +easy one? In lieu of a God brought near to his creatures, infinite +purity in contact with the grossest sin, as the good Physician loveth; +how sage it seemed to stock the immeasurable distance with intermediate +numia, cycle on epicycle, arc on arc, priest and bishop and pope, and +martyr, and virgin, and saint, and angel, all in their stations, at due +interval soliciting God to be (as if His blessed Majesty were not so of +Himself!) the sinner's friend. How comfortable this to man's sweet +estimation of his own petty penances; how glorifying to those "filthy +rags," his so-called righteousness: how apt to build up the hierarchist +power; how seemingly analogous with man's experience here, where clerks +lay the case before commissioners, and commissioners before the +government, and the government before the sovereign. + +All this was entirely expectable: and I can conceive that a deep +Reasoner among the first apostles, even without such supernal light as +"the Spirit speaking expressly," might have so calculated on the +probabilities to come, as to have written, long ago, words akin to +these: "In the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving +heed to seductive doctrines, and fanciful notions about intermediate +deities, ([Greek: daimonion],) perverting truth by hypocritical +departures from it, searing conscience against its own cravings after +spiritual holiness, forbidding marriage, (to invent another virtue,) and +commanding abstinence from God's good gifts, as a means of building up a +creature-merit by voluntary humiliation." At the likelihood that such +"profane and old wives' fables" should thereafter have arisen, might +Paul without a miracle have possibly arrived. + +Yet again: take another view. The Religion of Christ, though intended +to be universal in some better era of this groaning earth, was, until +that era cometh, meant and contrived for any thing rather than a +Catholicity. True, the Church is so far Catholic that it numbers of its +blessed company men of every clime and every age, from righteous Abel +down to the last dear babe christened yester-morning; true, the +commission is "to all nations, teaching them:" but, what mean the +simultaneous and easily reconciled expressions--come out from among +them, little flock, gathered out of the Gentiles, a peculiar people, a +church militant, and not triumphant, here on earth? Thus shortly of a +word much misinterpreted: let us now see what the Romanist does, what, +(on human principles,) he would be probable to do, with this +discriminating religion. He, chiefly for temporal gains, would make it +as expansive as possible: there should be room at that table for every +guest, whether wedding-garmented or not; there would be sauces in that +poisonous feast, fitted to every palate. For the cold, ascetical mind, a +cell and a scourge, and a record kept of starving fancies as calling +them ecstatic visions vouchsafed by some old Stylite to bless his +favoured worshipper; for the painted demirep of fashionable life, there +would be a pretty pocket-idol, and the snug confessional well tenanted +by a not unsympathizing father; for the pure girl, blighted in her +heart's first love, the papist would afford that seemingly merciful +refuge, that calm and musical and gentle place, the irrevocable nunnery; +a place, for all its calmness, and its music, and its gentle +reputations, soon to be abhorred of that poor child as a living tomb, +the extinguisher of all life's aims, all its duties, uses and delights: +for the bandit, a tythe of the traveller's gold would avail to pay away +the murder, and earn for him a heap of merits kept within the cash-box: +the educated, high-born and finely-moulded mind might be well amused +with architecture, painting, carving, sweet odours, and the most +wondrous music that has ever cheated man, even while he offers up his +easy adorations, and departs, equally complacent at the choral remedies +as at the priestly absolution; while, for those good few, the truly +pious and enlightened children of Rome, who mourn the corruptions of +their church, and explain away, with trembling tongue, her obvious +errors and idolatries, for these the wily scheme, so probable, devised +an undoubted mass of truth to be left among the rubbish. True doctrines, +justly held by true martyrs and true saints, holy men of God who have +died in that communion; ordinances and an existence which creep up, +(heedless of corruption though,) step by step, through past antiquity, +to the very feet of the Founder; keen casuists, competent to prove any +point of conscience or objection, and that indisputably, for they climax +all by the high authority of Popes and councils that cannot be deceived: +pious treatises and manuals, verily of flaming heat, for they mingle the +yearnings of a constrained celibacy with the fervencies of worship and +the cravings after God. Yes, there is meat here for every human mouth; +only that, alas for men! the meat is that which perisheth, and not +endureth unto everlasting life. Rome, thou wert sagely schemed; and if +Lucifer devised thee not for the various appetencies of poor, +deceivable, Catholic Man, verily it were pity, for thou art worthy of +his handiwork. All things to all men, in any sense but the right, +signifies nothing to anybody: in the sense of falsehoods, take the +former for thy motto; in that of single truth, in its intensity, the +latter. + +Let not then the accident--the probable accident--of the Italian +superstition place any hindrance in the way of one whose mind is all at +sea because of its existence. What, O man with a soul, is all the world +else to thee? Christianity, whatever be its broad way of pretences, is +but in reality a narrow path: be satisfied with the day of small things, +stagger not at the inconsistencies, conflicting words, and hateful +strifes of those who say they are Christians, but "are not, but are of +the synagogue of Satan." Judge truth, neither by her foes nor by her +friends but by herself. There was one who said (and I never heard that +any writer, from Julian to Hobbes, ever disputed his human truth or +wisdom) "Needs must that offences come; but wo be to that man by whom +the offence cometh. If they come, be not shaken in faith: lo, I have +told you before. And if others fall away, or do ought else than my +bidding, what is that to thee? follow thou ME." + + + + +THE BIBLE. + + +Whilst I attempt to show, as now I desire to do, that the Bible should +be just the book it is, from considerations of anterior probability, I +must expand the subject a little; dividing it, first, into the +likelihood of a revelation at all; and secondly, into that of its +expectable form and character. + +The first likelihood has its birth in the just Benevolence of our +heavenly Father, who without dispute never leaves his rational creatures +unaided by some sort of guiding light, some manifestation of himself so +needful to their happiness, some sure word of consolation in sorrow, or +of brighter hope in persecution. That it must have been thus an _a +priori_ probability, has been all along proved by the innumerable +pretences of the kind so constant up and down the world: no nation ever +existed in any age or country, whose seers and wise men of whatever name +have not been believed to hold commerce with the Godhead. We may judge +from this, how probable it must ever have been held. The Sages of old +Greece were sure of it from reason: and not less sure from accepted +superstition those who reverenced the Brahmin, or the priest of +Heliopolis, or the medicine-man among the Rocky Mountains, or the Llama +of old Mexico. I know that our ignorance of some among the most +brutalized species of mankind, as the Bushmen in Caffraria, and the +tribes of New South Wales, has failed to find among their rites any +thing akin to religion: but what may we not yet have to learn of good +even about such poor outcasts? how shall we prove this negative? For +aught we know, their superstitions at the heart may be as deep and as +deceitful as in others; and, even on the contrary side, the exception +proves the rule: the rule that every people concluded a revelation so +likely, that they have one and all contrived it for themselves. + +Thus shortly of the first: and now, secondly, how should God reveal +himself to men? In such times as those when the world was yet young, and +the Church concentrated in a family or an individual, it would probably +be by an immediate oral teaching; the Lord would speak with Adam; He +would walk with Enoch; He would, in some pure ethereal garb, talk with +Abraham, as friend to friend. And thereafter, as men grew, and +worshippers were multiplied, He would give some favoured servant a +commission to be His ambassador: He would say to an Ezekiel, "Go unto +the house of Israel, and speak my words to them:" He would bid a +Jeremiah "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words +that I have spoken to thee:" He would give Daniel a deep vision, not to +be interpreted for ages, "Shut up the words, and seal the book even to +the time of the end:" He would make Moses grave His precepts in the +rock, and Job record his trials with a pen of iron. For a family, the +Beatic Vision was enough: for a congregated nation, as once at Sinai, +oral proclamations: for one generation or two around the world, the zeal +and eloquence of some great "multitude of preachers:" but, indubitably, +if God willed to bless the universal race, and drop the honey of his +words distilling down the hour-glass of Time from generation to +generation even to the latter days, there was no plan more probable, +none more feasible, than the pen of a ready writer. + +Further: and which concerns our argument: what were likely to be the +characteristic marks of such a revelation? Exclusively of a pervading +holiness, and wisdom, and sublimity, which could not be dispensed with, +and in some sort should be worthy of the God; there would be, it was +probable, frequent evidences of man's infirmity, corrupting all he +toucheth. The Almighty works no miracles for little cause: one miracle +alone need be current throughout Scripture: to wit, that which preserves +it clean and safe from every perilous error. But, in the succession of a +thousand scribes each copying from the other, needs must that the tired +hand and misty eye would occasionally misplace a letter: this was no +nodus worthy of a God's descent to dissipate by miracle. + +Again: the original prophets themselves were men of various characters +and times and tribes. God addresses men through their reason; he bound +not down a seer "with bit and bridle, like the horse that has no +understanding"--but spoke as to a rational being--"What seest thou?" +"Hear my words;"--"Give ear unto my speech." Was it not then likely that +the previous mode of thought and providential education in each holy man +of God should mingle irresistibly with his inspired teaching? Should not +the herdsman of Tehoa plead in pastoral phrase, and the royal son of +Amoz denounce with strong authority? Should not David whilst a shepherd +praise God among his flocks, and when a king, cry "Give the King thy +judgments?" The Bible is full of this human individuality; and nothing +could be thought as humanly more probable: but we must, with this +diversity, connect the other probability also, that which should show +the work to be divine; which would prove (as is literally the case) +that, in spite of all such natural variety, all such unbiassed freedom +both of thought and speech, there pervades the whole mass a oneness, a +marvellous consistency, which would be likely to have been designed by +God, though little to have been dreamt by man. + +Once more on this full topic. Difficulties in Scripture were expectable +for many reasons; I can only touch a few. Man is rational as he is +responsible: God speaks to his mind and moral powers: and the mind +rejoices, and moralities grow strong in conquest of the difficult and +search for the mysterious. The muscles of the spiritual athlete pant for +such exertion; and without it, they would dwindle into trepid +imbecility. Curious man, courageous man, enterprising, shrewd, and +vigourous man, yet has a constant enemy to dread in his own indolence: +now, a lion in the path will wake up Sloth himself: and the very +difficulties of religion engender perseverance. + +Additionally: I think there is somewhat in the consideration, that, if +all revealed truth had been utterly simple and easy, it would have +needed no human interpreter; no enlightened class of men, who, according +to the spirit of their times, and the occasions of their teaching, might +"in season and out of season preach the word, reprove, rebuke, exhort, +with all long-suffering and doctrine." I think there existed an anterior +probability that Scripture should be as it is, often-times difficult, +obscure, and requiring the aid of many wise to its elucidation; because, +without such characteristic, those many wise and good would never have +been called for. Suppose all truth revealed as clearly and indisputably +to the meanest intellect as a sum in addition is, where were the need or +use of that noble Christian company who are every where man's almoners +for charity, and God's ambassadors for peace? + +A word or two more, and I have done. The Bible would, as it seems to me +probable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for the +wicked: to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generous +dispositions: to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evil +inclinations. In these two senses, it would address the whole family +man: and every one should find in it something to his liking. Purity +should there perceive green pastures and still waters, and a tender +Shepherd for its innocent steps: and carnal appetite should here and +there discover some darker spot, which the honesty of heaven had filled +with memories of its chiefest servants' sins; some record of adultery or +murder wherewith to feast his maw for condemnation. While the good man +should find in it meat divine for every earthly need, the sneerer should +proclaim it the very easiest manual for his jests and lewd profanities. +The unlettered should not lack humble, nay vulgar, images and words, to +keep himself in countenance: neither should the learned look in vain for +reasonings; the poet for sublimities; the curious mind for mystery; nor +the sorrowing heart for prayer. I do discern, in that great book, a +wondrous adaptability to minds of every calibre: and it is just what +might antecedently have been expected of a volume writ by many men at +many different eras, yet all superintended by one master mind; of a +volume meant for every age, and nation, and country, and tongue, and +people; of a volume which, as a two-edged sword, wounds the good man's +heart with deep conviction, and cuts down "the hoary head of him who +goeth on still in his wickedness." + +On the whole, respecting faults, or incongruities, or objectionable +parts in Scripture, however to have been expected, we must recollect +that the more they are viewed, the more the blemishes fade, and are +altered into beauties. + +A little child had picked up an old stone, defaced with time-stains: the +child said the stone was dirty, covered with blotches and all colours: +but his father brings a microscope, and shows to his astonished glance +that what the child thought dirt, is a forest of beautiful lichens, +fruited mosses, and strange lilliputian plants with shapely animalcules +hiding in the leaves, and rejoicing in their tiny shadow. Every blemish, +justly seen, had turned to be a beauty: and Nature's works are +vindicated good, even as the Word of Grace is wise. + + + + +HEAVEN AND HELL. + + +Probably enough, the light which I expect to throw upon this important +subject will, upon a cursory criticism, be judged fanciful, erroneous, +and absurd; in parts, quite open to ridicule, and in all liable to the +objection of being wise, or foolish, beyond what is written. +Nevertheless, and as it seems to me of no small consequence to reach +something more definite on the subject than the Anywhere or Nowhere of +common apprehensions, I judge it not amiss to put out a few thoughts, +fancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localities +and other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, I +wish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching to +distinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for, +more especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, and +our risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when +"the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind into heaven;" and +when "HE was taken up, and a cloud received him?" Those happy mortals +did not waste away to intangible spiritualities, as they rose above the +world; their bodies were not melted as they broke the bonds of +gravitation, and pierced earth's swathing atmosphere: they went up +somewhither; the question is where they went to. It is a question of +great interest to us; however, among those matters which are rather +curious than consequential; for in our own case, as we know, we that are +redeemed are to be caught up, together with other blessed creatures, "in +the clouds, to meet our coming Saviour in the air, and thereafter to be +ever with the Lord." I wish to show this to be expected as in our case, +and expectable previously to it. + +We have, in the book of Job, a peep at some place of congregation: some +one, as it is likely, of the mighty globes in space, set apart as God's +especial temple. Why not? they all are worlds; and the likelihood being +in favour of overbalancing good, rather than of preponderating evil from +considerations that affect God's attributes and the happiness of his +creatures, it is probable that the great majority of these worlds are +unfallen mansions of the blessed. Perhaps each will be a kingdom for one +of earth's redeemed, and if so, there will at last be found fulfilled +that prevailing superstition of our race, that each man has his star: +without insisting upon this, we may reflect that there is no one +universal opinion which has not its foundation in truth. Tradition may +well have dropped the thought from Adam downwards, that the stars may +some day be our thrones. We know their several vastness, and can guess +their glory: verily a mighty meed for miserable services on earth, to +find a just ambition gladdened with the rule of spheres, to which Terra +is a point; while that same ambition is sanctified and legalized by +ruling as vicegerent of Jehovah. + +Is this unlikely, or unworthy of our high vocation, our immortality, and +nearness unto, nay communion with God? The idea is only suggested: let a +man muse at midnight, and look up at the heavens hanging over all; let +him see, with Rosse and Herschell, that, multiply power as you will, +unexhausted still and inexhaustible appear the myriads of worlds +unknown. Yea, there is space enow for infinite reward; yea, let every +grain of sand on every shore be gathered, and more innumerable yet +appear that galaxy of spheres. Let us think that night looks down upon +us here, with the million eyes of heaven. And for some focus of them +all, some spot where God himself enthroned receives the homage of all +crowns, and the worship of all creature service, what is there +unreasonable in suggesting for a place some such an one as is instanced +below? + +I have just cut the following paragraph out of a newspaper: Is this the +ridiculous tripping up the sublime? I think otherwise: it is honest to +use plain terms. I speak as unto wise men--judge ye what I say. With +respect to the fact of information, it may or it may not be true; but +even if untrue, the idea is substantially the same, and I cannot help +supposing that with angels and archangels and the whole company of +heaven, such bodily saints as Enoch is, (and similar to him all risen, +holy men will be,) meet for happy sabbaths in some glorious orb akin or +superior to the following: + +"A central Sun.--Dr. Madier, the Professor of Astronomy at Dorpat, has +published the results of the researches pursued by him uninterruptedly +during the last sixty years, upon the movements of the so-called fixed +stars. These more particularly relate to the star Alcyone, (discovered +by him,) the brightest of the seven bright stars of the group of the +Pleiades. This star he states to be the central sun of all the systems +of stars known to us. He gives its distance from the boundaries of our +system at thirty-four million times the distance of the sun from our +earth, a distance which it takes five hundred and thirty-seven years for +light to traverse. Our sun takes one hundred and eighty-two million +years to accomplish its course round this central body, whose mass is +one hundred and seventeen million times larger than the sun." + +One hundred and seventeen million times larger than the Sun! itself, for +all its vastness, not more than half one million times bigger than this +earth. To some such globe we may let our fancies float, and anchor there +our yearnings after heaven. It is a glorious thought, such as +imagination loves; and a probable thought, that commends itself to +reason. Behold the great eye of all our guessed creation, the focus of +its brightness, and the fountain of its peace. + +A topic far less pleasant, but alike of interest to us poor men, is the +probable home of evil; and here I may be laughed at--laugh, but listen, +and if, listening, some reason meets thine ear, laugh at least no +longer. + +We know that, for spirit's misery as for spirit's happiness, there is no +need of place: "no matter where, for I am still the same," said one most +miserable being. More--in the case of mere spirits, there is no need for +any apparatus of torments, or fires, or other fearful things. But, when +spirit is married to matter, the case is altered; needs must a place to +prison the matter, and a corporal punishment to vex it. + +Nothing is unlikely here; excepting--will a man urge?--the dread +duration of such hell. This is a parenthesis; but it shall not be +avoided, for the import of that question is deep, and should be answered +clearly. A man, a body and soul inmixt, body risen incorruptible, and +soul rested from its deeds, must exist for ever. I touch not here the +proofs--assume it. Now, if he lives for ever, and deliberately chooses +evil, his will consenting as well as his infirmity, and conscience +seared by persisted disobedience, what course can such a wilful, +rational, responsible being pursue than one perpetually erratic? How +should it not be that he gets worse and worse in morals, and more and +more miserable in fact? and when to this we add, that such wretched +creatures are to herd together, continually flying further away from the +only source of Happiness and Good; and to this, that they have earned by +sin, remorses and regrets, and positive inflictions; how probable seems +a hell, the sinner's doom eternal. The apt mathematical analogy of lines +thrown out of parallel, helps this for illustration: for ever and for +ever they are stretching more remote, and infinity itself cannot reunite +their travel. + +This, then, as a passing word; a sad one. Honest thinker, do not scorn +it, for thine own soul's sake. "Now is the time of grace, now is the day +of salvation." To return. A place of punishment exists; to what quarter +shall we look for its anterior probability? I think there is a +likelihood very near us. There may be one, possibly, beneath us, in the +bowels of this fiery-bursting earth; whither went Korah and his company? +This idea is not without its arguments, just analogies, and scriptural +hints. But my judgment inclines towards another. This trial-world, we +know, is to be purified and restored, and made a new earth: it was even +to be expected that Redemption should do this, and I like not to imagine +it the crust and case of hell, but rather, as thus: At the birth of this +same world, there was struck off from its burning mass at a tangent, a +mournful satellite, to be the home of its immortal evil; the convict +shore for exiled sin and misery; a satellite of strange differences, as +guessed by Virgil in his musings upon Tartarus, where half the orb is, +from natural necessities, blistered up by constant heats, the other half +frozen by perennial cold. A land of caverns, and volcanoes, miles deep, +miles high; with no water, no perceptible air: imagine such a dreadful +world, with neither air nor water! incapable of feeding life like ours, +but competent to be a place where undying wretchedness may struggle for +ever. A melancholy orb, the queen of night, chief nucleus of all the +dark idolatries of earth; the Moon, Isis, Hecate, Ashtaroth, Diana of +the Ephesians! + +This expression of a thought by no means improbable, gives an easy +chance to shallow punsters; but ridicule is no weapon against reason. +Why should not the case be so? Why should not Earth's own satellite, +void, as yet, be on the resurrection of all flesh, the raft whereon to +float away Earth's evil? Read of it astronomically; think of it as +connected with idols; regard it as the ruler of earth's night; consider +that the place of a Gehenna must be somewhere; and what is there in my +fancy quite improbable? I do not dogmatize as that the fact is so, but +only suggest a definite place at least as likely as any other hitherto +suggested. Think how that awful, melancholy eye looks down on deeds of +darkness how many midnight crimes, murders, thefts, adulteries, and +witchcrafts, that would have shrunk into nonentity from open, honest +day, have paled the conscious Moon! Add to all this, it is the only +world, besides our own, whereof astronomers can tell us, It is fallen. + + + + +AN OFFER. + + +Nothing were easier than to have made this book a long one; but that was +not the writer's object: as well because of the musty Greek proverb +about long books; which in every time and country are sure never to be +read through by one in a thousand; as because it is always wiser to +suggest than to exhaust a topic; which may be as "a fruit-tree yielding +fruit after its kind whose seed is in itself." The writer then intended +only to touch upon a few salient points, and not to discuss every +question, however they might crowd upon his mind: time and space alike +with mental capabilities forbade an effort so gigantic: added to which, +such a course seemed to be unnecessary, as the rule of probability, thus +illustrated, might be applied by others in every similar instance. +Still, as the errand of this book is usefulness, and its author's hope +is, under Heaven, to do good, one personal hint shall here be thrown +upon the highway. Without arrogating to myself the wisdom or the +knowledge to solve one in twenty of the doubts possible to be +propounded; without also designing even to attempt such solutions, +unless well assured of the genuine anxiety of the doubter; and +preliminarizing the consideration, that a fitting diffidence in the +advocate's own powers is no reason why he should not make wide efforts +in his holy cause; that, such reasonable essays to do good have no sort +of brotherhood with a fanatical Spiritual Quixotism; and that, to my own +apprehensions, the doubts of a rationalizing mind are in the nature of +honourable foes, to be treated with delicacy, reverence, and kindness, +rather than with a cold distance and an ill-concealed contempt; +preliminarizing, lastly, the thought--"Who is sufficient for these +things?"--I nevertheless thus offer, according to the grace and power +given to me, my best but humble efforts so far to dissipate the doubts +of some respecting any scriptural fact, as may lie within the province +of showing or attempting to show its previous credibility. This is not a +challenge to the curious casuist or the sneering infidel; but an +invitation to the honest mind harassed by unanswered queries: no +gauntlet thrown down, but a brother's hand stretched out. Such +questions, if put to the writer, through his publisher by letter, may +find their reply in a future edition: supposing, that is to say, that +they deserve an answer, whether as regards their own merits or the +temper of the mind who doubts; and supposing also that the writer has +the power and means to answer them discreetly. It is only a fair rule of +philanthropy (and that without arrogating any unusual "strength") to +"bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves:" and +nothing would to me give greater happiness than to be able, as I am +willing, to remove any difficulties lying in the track of Faith before a +generous mind. I hang out no glistening holly-bush a-flame with its +ostentatious berries as promising good wine; but rather over my portal +is the humbler and hospitable mistletoe, assuring every wearied pilgrim +in the way, that though scanty be the fare, he shall find a hearty +welcome. + + + + +CONCLUSION. + + +I have thus endeavoured (with solicited help of Heaven) to place before +the world anew a few old truths: truths inestimably precious. Remember, +they cannot have lost by any such advocacy as is contained in the idea +of their being shown antecedently probable; for this idea affects not at +all the fact of their existence; the thing is; whether probable or not; +there is, in esse, an ornithorhyncus; its posse is drowned in esse: +there exists no doubt of it: evidence, whether of senses physical, or of +considerations moral, puts the circumstance beyond the sphere of +disputation. But such truths as we have spoken of do, nevertheless, gain +something as to--not their merits, these are all their own +substantially; nor their positive proofs, these are adjectives properly +attendant on them, but as to--their acceptability among the incredulous +of men; they gain, I say, even by such poor pleading as mine, from being +shown anteriorly probable. Take an illustration in the case of that +strange and anomalous creature mentioned just above. Its habitat is in a +land where plums grow with the stones outside, where aboriginal dogs +have never been heard to bark, where birds are found covered with hair, +and where mammals jump about like frogs! If these are shown to be +literal facts, the mind is thereby well prepared for any animal +monstrosity: and it staggers not in unbelief (on evidence of honest +travellers) even when informed of a creature with a duck's bill and a +beaver's body: it really amounted in Australia to an antecedent +probability. + +Carry this out to matters not a quarter so incredible, ye thinkers, ye +free-thinkers; neither be abashed at being named as thinking freely: +were not those Bereans more noble in that they searched to see? For my +humble part, I do commend you for it: treacherous is the hand that roots +up the inalienable right of private judgment; the foundation-stone of +Protestantism, the great prerogative of reason, the key-note of +conscience, the sole vindex of a man's responsibility: evil and false is +the so-called reverential wisdom which lays down in place of the truth +that each man's conscience is a law unto himself, the tyranny of other +men's authority. Cheap and easy and perilled is the faith, which clings +to the skirt of others; which leans upon the broken staff of +priestcraft, until those poisoned splinters pierce the hand. + +Prove all things; holding fast that which is good: good to thine own +reasonable conscience, if unwarped by casuistries, and unblinded by +licentiousness. Prove all things, if you can, "from the egg to the +apple:" he is a poor builder of his creed, who takes one brick on +credit. Be able, as you can be, (if only you are willing so far to be +wisely inconsistent, as to bend the stubborn knee betimes, and though +with feeble glance to look to heaven, and though with stammering tongue +to pray for aid,) be able, as it is thy right, O man of God--to give a +Reason for the faith that is in thee. + + + THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Complete Prose Works of Martin +Farquhar Tupper, by Martin Farquhar Tupper + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROSE WORKS OF TUPPER *** + +***** This file should be named 20610.txt or 20610.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/6/1/20610/ + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Janet Blenkinship and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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