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+Project Gutenberg's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith
+
+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 Ordeal of Richard Feverel
+       A History of a Father and Son
+
+Author: George Meredith
+
+Editor: Frank W. Chandler
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2011 [EBook #34858]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Dianne Nolan, Louise Setzer and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE MODERN
+  STUDENT'S LIBRARY
+
+  EACH VOLUME EDITED BY A LEADING
+  AMERICAN AUTHORITY
+
+  This series is composed of such works as are conspicuous in the
+  province of literature for their enduring influence. Every volume
+  is recognized as essential to a liberal education and will tend to
+  infuse a love for true literature and an appreciation of the
+  qualities which cause it to endure.
+
+  _A descriptive list of the volumes published in this series appears
+  in the last pages of this volume_
+
+  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+
+
+  _THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY_
+
+  THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL
+
+
+
+
+    THE ORDEAL
+    OF
+    RICHARD FEVEREL
+
+    A HISTORY OF A FATHER AND SON
+
+    BY
+    GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+    EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION
+    BY
+
+    FRANK W. CHANDLER
+
+    PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND DEAN OF THE
+    COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
+
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+    NEW YORK   CHICAGO   BOSTON   ATLANTA
+
+    SAN FRANCISCO       DALLAS
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1896, 1917, BY
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+    Printed in the United States of America
+
+    _All rights reserved. No part of this book
+    may be reproduced in any form without
+    the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                            PAGE
+
+       I.--THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY                              1
+
+      II.--SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY
+              TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM                      9
+
+     III.--THE MAGIAN CONFLICT                                      16
+
+      IV.--ARSON                                                    21
+
+       V.--ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK                                    30
+
+      VI.--JUVENILE STRATAGEMS                                      35
+
+     VII.--DAPHNE'S BOWER                                           42
+
+    VIII.--THE BITTER CUP                                           47
+
+      IX.--A FINE DISTINCTION                                       55
+
+       X.--RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS
+              THE OCCASION OF AN APHORISM                           60
+
+      XI.--IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED
+              IN A LETTER                                           67
+
+     XII.--THE BLOSSOMING SEASON                                    72
+
+    XIII.--THE MAGNETIC AGE                                         83
+
+     XIV.--AN ATTRACTION                                            92
+
+      XV.--FERDINAND AND MIRANDA                                    97
+
+     XVI.--UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON                     106
+
+    XVII.--GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD                                115
+
+   XVIII.--THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS SPECIAL PLEA        120
+
+     XIX.--A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY WHISTLE                   124
+
+      XX.--CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON
+              BY THE HERO                                          127
+
+     XXI.--RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON            145
+
+    XXII.--INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER                       153
+
+   XXIII.--CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE                             163
+
+    XXIV.--OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL                 175
+
+     XXV.--IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP                          180
+
+    XXVI.--RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO               199
+
+   XXVII.--CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE                213
+
+  XXVIII.--RELATES HOW PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE CONDUCTED
+              UNDER THE APRIL OF LOVERS                            216
+
+    XXIX.--IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE
+              OF THE FIRST                                         233
+
+     XXX.--CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST                                246
+
+    XXXI.--THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON                       255
+
+   XXXII.--PROCESSION OF THE CAKE                                  262
+
+  XXXIII.--NURSING THE DEVIL                                       279
+
+   XXXIV.--CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE                                  290
+
+    XXXV.--CLARE'S MARRIAGE                                        310
+
+   XXXVI.--A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND                              325
+
+  XXXVII.--MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY                                 341
+
+ XXXVIII.--AN ENCHANTRESS                                          352
+
+   XXXIX.--THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON: A BERRY TO THE
+              RESCUE!                                              376
+
+      XL.--CLARE'S DIARY                                           392
+
+     XLI.--AUSTIN RETURNS                                          409
+
+    XLII.--NATURE SPEAKS                                           420
+
+   XLIII.--AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT                               429
+
+    XLIV.--THE LAST SCENE                                          437
+
+     XLV.--LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH                       454
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I
+
+Among the Victorian novelists, George Meredith occupies a place apart.
+Unlike Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot, he appeals to a select few. Those
+who appreciate him are folk of his own temper--cultivated, intellectual,
+urbane. They are persons of taste and discernment. They are generally
+the middle-aged rather than the young. They are those who, aloof and
+contemplative, relish the comedy of life, rather than those who throw
+themselves whole-heartedly into the game. It is not to be marvelled at,
+therefore, that Meredith should have won his way slowly, or that
+recognition, when it came, should have rendered his position unique
+and secure.
+
+Meredith's career as a writer of prose was opened, in 1856, with
+_The Shaving of Shagpat_, an experiment in fantastic Oriental
+romance. In the following year, he exploited German romance less
+successfully in _Farina, a Legend of Cologne_. Having thus trained
+his 'prentice hand, he passed to mastery of his craft in _The Ordeal
+of Richard Feverel_, published in 1859. This was his first modern
+novel, and probably his best. It showed him, not only expert in the
+use of language and original in literary technic, but distinguished,
+also, as an observer of the world and an analyst of character. The
+psychological novel of George Eliot, just emerging, found here a
+rival even more subtle. _Adam Bede_, a twin-birth with _Feverel_,
+although detailed in its exploration of motive and feeling, demanded
+less mental effort on the part of its readers; it accordingly
+attracted much greater attention. Whereas it was often reprinted, no
+second edition of _Feverel_ came from the press for nearly two
+decades.
+
+In the meantime, Meredith had continued his course undeterred by
+lack of popular approval, writing six other novels before the
+appearance, in 1879, of _The Egoist_--most characteristic of all.
+Two novels in particular reflected his experience of Italy, gained
+while acting there as war correspondent in 1866. The first was
+_Emilia in England_ (1864), later rechristened _Sandra Belloni_. The
+second was its sequel _Vittoria_ (1867). The other works of the
+period comprise the semi-farcical _Evan Harrington_ (1861); the
+serious _Rhoda Fleming_ (1865); the clever _Harry Richmond_
+(1870-71); and Meredith's favorite--_Beauchamp's Career_ (1874-75).
+It is _The Egoist_, however, that most completely illustrates its
+author's conception of the novel of types. In this work, with rare
+skill and comic _élan_, if with a persistency a little wearisome,
+he lays bare the secrets of a heart and intellect thoroughly
+self-centered, proceeding so obviously from the desire to make
+out a case that he is likely to displease those who value story, yet
+satisfying those who enjoy brilliant comment on character and a
+study of its intricacies.
+
+In his later novels, Meredith never forgot the typical in attending
+to the particular, even though _The Tragic Comedians_ (1880)
+reflected incidents in the life of the socialist leader Lassalle,
+and _Diana of the Crossways_ (1885) certain traits of Sheridan's
+granddaughter, Mrs. Norton. _One of Our Conquerors_ (1891), _Lord
+Ormont and his Aminta_ (1894), and _The Amazing Marriage_ (1895)
+bring to a close the catalogue of Meredith's fiction, except for the
+unfinished _Celt and Saxon_ published after his death.
+
+Of Meredith as a poet this is not the place to speak. Suffice it to
+say that he did his first writing in verse, issuing a volume when
+twenty-three, and several others later in life, the best known being
+his sequence of irregular sonnets entitled _Modern Love_ (1867).
+His poetry, like his prose, is rich in content but difficult at
+times by reason of its crabbed and meticulous expression--a trait
+due to no obscurity of thought or lack of feeling, but rather to the
+desire to compress much meaning within a cryptic phrase. As a
+playwright, Meredith attempted comedy in The _Sentimentalists_,
+which was acted posthumously. As an essayist, he fathered a
+memorable discussion of the comic spirit and its uses, made concrete
+in his novels.
+
+Meredith's life was comparatively uneventful. He was born in 1828 at
+Portsmouth, the son of a naval outfitter. Early left an orphan, he
+was educated in Germany, and, returning to England, studied law,
+experimented in journalism, and fell in with a group of intellectuals
+led by Frederic Harrison and John Morley. He became literary
+adviser to the publishers Chapman and Hall; he edited for a
+short period _The Fortnightly Review_, and served abroad as
+correspondent for _The Morning Post_. But most of his maturity was
+passed in rural retirement in Surrey. He was twice married, at first
+unhappily to a daughter of the novelist, Thomas Love Peacock, and
+then more fortunately to a Miss Vulliamy, who bore him two children.
+His fame grew very slowly. Not until the age of sixty was he
+recognized as among the chief English novelists. But at the time of
+his death, in 1909, he was admittedly the foremost man of letters in
+Great Britain.
+
+
+II
+
+Meredith is first and last an intellectualist. Hence his preference
+for the psychological novel, for the novel of types, for the novel
+that is half essay, for the novel of distinctive style. Hence, also,
+his conception of the importance for the novelist of comedy and the
+comic spirit. Comedy, according to Meredith, is embodied mind, and
+its function is to expose violations of rational law. It is common
+sense chastising with the laughter of reason aberrations from the
+sensible. Comedy measures individual shortcomings by the social
+norm. It results from "the broad Alpine survey of the spirit born of
+our united social intelligence." It is "a game played to throw
+reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the
+drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of
+the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the
+correctness of the representation convincing." Comedy is thus
+refined rather than Rabelaisian; it is impartial rather than
+sentimental. It relies upon creating ideal figures that epitomize
+mankind in certain follies. It is typical and general in character,
+whereas tragedy is concerned primarily with the individual.
+
+"The comic spirit conceives a definite situation for a number of
+characters, and rejects all accessories in the exclusive pursuit of
+them and their speech." On the stage, the great master of such
+comedy is Molière, and in the novel, we might add, Meredith.
+Meredith's confession of faith in the efficacy of the comic spirit
+is given in the prelude to _The Egoist_, and in these words of his
+famous _Essay_: "If you believe that our civilization is founded in
+common-sense, you will, when contemplating men, discern a Spirit
+overhead.... It has the sage's brows, and the sunny malice of a faun
+lurks at the corners of the half-closed lips.... Its common aspect
+is one of unsolicitous observation.... Men's future upon earth does
+not attract it; their honesty and shapeliness in the present does;
+and whenever they wax out of proportion, overblown...; whenever they
+offend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or mined
+with conceit,... the Spirit overhead will look humanly malign and
+cast an oblique light on them, followed by volleys of silvery
+laughter. That is the Comic Spirit."
+
+Unquestionably it is by the aid of this spirit that Meredith writes
+his novels, even including such a tragedy from the victim's point of
+view as _Richard Feverel_. For Meredith is theoretic or nothing.
+Conceiving of a folly to be displayed and made ridiculous, he
+invents persons and situations best to accomplish his purpose. He
+is, therefore, no mere realist examining the confused detail of
+actual life "by the watchmaker's eye in luminous rings eruptive of
+the infinitesimal." He is rather an idealist, who holds it to be the
+business of art to render life in quintessence. The artist must both
+simplify and elaborate. First, he must simplify experience into
+typical deeds and persons, eliminating from his scheme the merely
+accidental and particular. Second, he must elaborate his
+simplification, presenting it through representative concrete
+instances that it may lose the aspect of an abstract formula and
+acquire emotional significance. Meredith is thus an intellectualist
+engaged in playing a game of literary chess. He has made the pattern
+on his board and designed the pieces, and he moves them according to
+a pre-arranged plan. Just as his Sir Austin seeks to enact the rôle
+of Providence in determining the career of Richard Feverel, so
+Meredith plays Providence to his personages, and, more than most
+novelists, he visibly controls their fate.
+
+Since Meredith's folk are etherealized specimens of humanity set and
+kept in motion by their creator, it is his attitude toward them that
+interests us quite as much as their actions. Meredith's attitude is
+determined by his comic outlook upon life. Unswayed by the petty
+prejudices of his people, he surveys them with Olympian serenity,
+aware of a hundred impulses and errors in their conduct that will
+lead to conclusions undreamt of by themselves but clearly foreseen
+by the novelist and his readers. From a rarer atmosphere than that
+in which his people move, Meredith looks down upon their whimsies
+and their deeds with a smile of calm omniscience.
+
+Moreover, he separates himself from them by a wall of clever
+comment, sometimes sparkling and ironical, sometimes soberly
+extended to the proportions of an essay. Indeed, his novels are
+sometimes one-third narrative and two-thirds essay, with the
+dissertational manner infecting the narrative parts incurably. No
+one, I suppose, would continue reading _The Egoist_ merely from
+interest in its plot. To enjoy it one must relish inspecting at
+leisure the artificial attitudes of artificial people and listening,
+not merely to their smart chatter, but to the smarter discourse of
+the master of the puppets, who, while making them dance, lectures
+for the edification of the elect. Thus Meredith, having shown his
+hero touched by jealousy, lapses into a little essay on the theme.
+"Remember the poets upon Jealousy," he writes. "It is to be haunted
+in the heaven of two by a Third; preceded or succeeded, therefore
+surrounded, embraced, hugged by this infernal Third; it is love's
+bed of burning marl; to see and taste the withering Third in the
+bosom of sweetness; to be dragged through the past and find the fair
+Eden of it sulphurous; to be dragged to the gates of the future and
+glory to behold them blood; to adore the bitter creature trebly and
+with treble power to clutch her by the windpipe; it is to be
+cheated, derided, shamed, and abject and supplicating, and
+consciously demoniacal in treacherousness, and victoriously
+self-justified in revenge." Needless to say, generalizations of this
+sort, intruding upon the narrative at every turn, choke its progress
+and prove distracting.
+
+Almost equally distracting is Meredith's predilection for resorting
+to the methods of comedy while writing fiction. As W. C. Brownell
+has put it; "The necessities of comedy, the irruption of new
+characters, their disappearance after they have done their turn,
+expectation balked by shifting situations, the frequent postponement
+of the dénouement when it particularly impends, and the alleviation
+of impatience by a succession of subordinate climaxes--all the
+machinery of the stage, in fact--impair the narrative."
+
+
+III
+
+But if the tricks of the essayist and the playwright are freely
+borrowed by Meredith, sometimes to his disadvantage and to ours,
+they are nevertheless in a measure appropriate to the kind of
+fiction he affects. For Meredith is a psychological novelist. He is
+bent upon displaying the inward process of the mind. As Richard Le
+Galliene has said of him: "The passion of his genius is ... the
+tracing of the elemental in the complex; the registration of the
+infinitesimal vibrations of first causes, the tracking in human life
+of the shadowiest trail of primal instinct, the hairbreadth
+measurement of subtle psychological tangents: and the embodiment of
+these results in artistic form." Meredith, in _Richard Feverel_,
+declares that for the novel "An audience will come to whom it will
+be given to see the elementary machinery at work.... To them nothing
+will be trivial.... They will see the links of things as they pass,
+and wonder not, as foolish people now do, that this great matter
+came out of that small one." Certainly Meredith's efforts have
+tended to realize that time. But the psychology of his characters is
+general rather than individual. You are conscious that these minds
+are typical, or even symbolic. They belong to an imaginary and
+rational world treated as though it were real.
+
+An incidental passage in _Beauchamp's Career_ shows that Meredith
+has understood both his limitations and his peculiar ability. "My
+way," he writes, "is like a Rhone island in the summer drought,
+stony, unattractive, and difficult between the two forceful streams
+of the unreal and the over-real which delight mankind--honour to the
+conjurors! My people conquer nothing, win none! they are actual yet
+uncommon. It is the clockwork of the brain that they are directed to
+set in motion, and--poor troop of actors to vacant benches!--the
+conscience residing in thoughtfulness which they would appeal to;
+and if you are there impervious to them we are lost."
+
+In Meredith's novels, which indeed reveal in operation "the
+clockwork of the brain," the author has taken care still further to
+intellectualize his appeal by means of his style. His technic holds
+attention; he is an artificer of style, and, as such, he writes a
+style of artifice. He seeks to express himself with novelty and
+distinction. If a boy runs, Meredith speaks of him as being seen to
+bound "and taking a lift of arms, fly aloft, clapping heels." If a
+woman runs, Meredith writes: "She was fleet; she ran as though a
+hundred little feet were bearing her onward smooth as water over the
+lawn and the sweeps of grass of the park, so swiftly did the hidden
+pair multiply one another to speed her.... Suddenly her flight wound
+to an end in a dozen twittering steps, and she sank." If a heroine
+of eighteen would take leave of her admirer, she says: "We have met.
+It is more than I have merited. We part. In mercy let it be forever.
+Oh, terrible word! Coined by the passions of our youth, it comes to
+us for our sole riches when we are bankrupt of earthly treasures,
+and is the passport given by Abnegation unto Woe that prays to quit
+this probationary sphere."
+
+Fancy any human being--least of all a girl--discoursing thus! But,
+no matter how simple a thought or action, Meredith sends it forth
+arrayed in finer gear than Solomon in all his glory. It is
+beribboned with metaphor and personification; it is beflounced with
+epigram and allegory. It is truth rendered more precious, as the
+medieval critics advised, by being wrapped in sayings not to be
+lightly understood by the vulgar. So, when a lover admires the
+chasteness of his lady, Meredith remarks: "He saw the Goddess
+Modesty guarding Purity; and one would be bold to say that he did
+not hear the precepts, Purity's aged grannams maternal and paternal,
+cawing approval of her over their munching gums."
+
+But Meredith's gift of phrase and his knack of knocking out
+epigrams, and his mastery over metaphor and lyrical description
+cannot be too highly commended. Diana is "wind-blown but ascending."
+When Redworth sees her kindling a fire, "a little mouse of a thought
+scampered out of one of the chambers of his head and darted along
+the passages, fetching a sweat to his brows." After Sandra's
+singing, the stillness settled back again "like one folding up a
+precious jewel." A dull professor "pores over a little inexactitude
+in phrases and pecks at it like a domestic fowl." Of one who has
+ceased to love we hear that "the passion in her was like a place of
+waves evaporated to a crust of salt." Of a lady's letter we learn
+that it "flourished with light strokes all over, like a field of the
+bearded barley." Of a heroine we are told that: "She was not of the
+creatures who are excited by an atmosphere of excitement; she took
+it as the nymph of the stream her native wave, and swam on the flood
+with expansive languor, happy to have the master passions about her;
+one or two of which her dainty hand caressed fearless of a sting;
+the lady patted them as her swans." There is brilliant illumination
+in such comparisons, a light shed instantaneously upon traits and
+mental experiences otherwise not to be revealed. When the Egoist
+would affectionately approach his shrinking Clara, nothing could
+better deliver the situation than Meredith's simile: "The gulf of a
+caress hove in view like an enormous billow hollowing under the
+curled ridge. She stooped to a buttercup; the monster swept by."
+
+It is felicity in the use of rhetorical figure that enables Meredith
+to characterize the style of a Carlyle as, "resembling either early
+architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose and rough it seemed; a
+wind-in-the-orchard style, that tumbled down here and there an
+appreciable fruit with uncouth bluster; sentences without
+commencement running to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against
+a sea wall, learned dictionary words giving a hand to street slang,
+and accents falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving
+clouds; all the pages in a breeze, the whole book producing a kind
+of electrical agitation in the mind and the joints." It is
+Meredith's gift for phrase that enables him to paint those wonderful
+backgrounds for action which are the despair of common writers.
+Sometimes the scenes are sketched in with but a touch or two of
+suggestion. So, when Richard Feverel and Lucy spend an evening
+afloat, Meredith writes: "Hanging between two heavens on the lake:
+floating to her voice: the moon stepping over and through white
+shoals of soft high clouds above and below: floating to her
+voice--no other breath abroad! His soul went out of his body as he
+listened." Or, when Richard, in gay company, passes a night at
+Richmond, Meredith says simply: "Silver was seen far out on Thames.
+The wine ebbed, and the laughter. Sentiment and cigars took up the
+wondrous tale."
+
+Sometimes the description is long and minute, but always it is
+beautifully fresh. Thus the coming of dawn is pictured in _The
+Amazing Marriage_: "The smell of rock-waters and roots of herb and
+moss grew keen; air became a wine that raised the breast high to
+drink it; an uplifting coolness pervaded the heights.... The plumes
+of cloud now slowly entered into the lofty arch of dawn and melted
+from brown to purple black.... The armies of the young sunrise in
+mountain-lands neighbouring the plains, vast shadows, were marching
+over woods and meads, black against the edge of golden; and great
+heights were cut with them, and bounding waters took the leap in a
+silvery radiance to gloom; the bright and dark-banded valleys were
+like night and morning taking hands down the sweep of their
+rivers."
+
+
+IV
+
+Meredith's style receives its final and distinctive flavor, however,
+from the liberal dash of aphorism with which his books are
+sprinkled. Often an epigram will turn upon some metaphor. Such is
+the statement that: "A bone in a boy's mind for him to gnaw and
+worry corrects the vagrancies and promotes the healthy activities,
+whether there be marrow in it or not," or the exclamation: "Who are
+not fools to be set spinning, if we choose to whip them with their
+vanity! It is the consolation of the great to watch them spin."
+Such, too, is the reflection that: "Most of the people one has at
+table are drums. A rub-a-dub-dub on them is the only way to get a
+sound. When they can be persuaded to do it upon one another, they
+call it conversation." More frequently, the epigram is a neat
+generalization left abstract, as for example: "Who rises from prayer
+a better man, his prayer is answered"; "Cynics are only happy in
+making the world as barren to others as they have made it for
+themselves"; "Fools run jabbering of the irony of fate to escape the
+annoyance of tracing the causes"; "Expediency is man's wisdom; doing
+right is God's"; "Women cannot repose on a man who is not positive;
+nor have they much gratification in confounding him"; "Convictions
+are generally first impressions sealed with later prejudices"; "The
+hero of two women must die and be wept over in common before they
+can appreciate one another."
+
+A thousand such jewels glitter in the richly wrought tapestry of
+Meredith's style. That he painstakingly inserted them and wove this
+fabric to attract attention by its singularity and beauty, he
+cheerfully admits in a passage of _Emilia in England_. "The point to
+be considered," he there remarks, "is whether fiction demands a
+perfectly smooth surface. Undoubtedly a scientific work does, and a
+philosophical work should. When we ask for facts simply we feel the
+intrusion of style. Of fiction it is a part. In the one case the
+classical robe, in the other any medieval phantasy of clothing."
+
+The difficulty with a style so artificial and intellectualized is
+obvious. Meredith, according to Brownell, "flatters one's cleverness
+at first, but in the end he fatigues it." The perpetual crackle of
+aphorism and metaphor surprises, gratifies, and then wearies; for a
+writer who will never say a plain thing plainly, not only keeps his
+readers under strain, but soon seems himself to be straining.
+Nowhere is this more evident than in Meredith's predilection for
+repeating a single happy phrase such as the epithet "rogue in
+porcelain" applied to a heroine. Since the phrase tickles his fancy,
+he plays with it, drops it, picks it up, mumbles it over and over as
+a dog might a bone, and through chapter after chapter is ready at
+any pretext to run round and round with it barking. Despite his
+assiduous striving for novelty, therefore, Meredith is often
+tedious, an effect induced, not merely by his style (whether
+repetitious or gasping after eccentricity), but also by his method.
+He is so intent upon weaving his commentary upon every speech and
+action that the occasion of the commentary is smothered. A phrase
+becomes the text of a sermon, a gesture the excuse for paragraphs of
+oblique reflection. Thus he forfeits the advantage of downright
+sincerity and of forthright progress, and teases interest out of all
+patience.
+
+
+V
+
+Since Meredith is an intellectualist, we naturally ask what may be
+his philosophy. Unlike Ibsen or Browning, he preaches no doctrine.
+He offers no explicit theory of life. Nor does he, like Dickens or
+Reade or Brieux, advocate any special reform. He is never a
+propagandist. Some have lamented this fact; more have seen in it an
+argument for his universality and permanence. Though he fight no
+battles for specific causes, his influence is arrayed in general
+against certain tendencies that he disapproves and would laugh to
+defeat. Egoism, sentimentalism, hypocrisy, are fair game for his
+comedy. As an intellectualist he dislikes and distrusts excess of
+emotion--feeling indulged for its own sake. "Sentimentalists," he
+declares, "are they who seek to enjoy without incurring the immense
+debtorship for a thing done."
+
+Well might Mrs. Carlyle complain that Meredith's work lacked tears.
+That it does so he would be the first to admit, for he questions the
+worth of pathos for any true captain of his soul. "Pathos is a tide;
+often it carries the awakener of it off his feet," Meredith writes.
+"We cannot quite preserve our dignity when we stoop to the work of
+calling forth tears. Moses had probably to take a nimble jump away
+from the rock after that venerable lawgiver had knocked the water
+out of it." So Meredith sacrifices passion to analysis. His heroes
+and heroines rarely love so simply and so ardently as do Richard and
+Lucy; but the affection of even this delectable pair is modified in
+presentation by the playful cynicism of the narrator of their story.
+On the other hand, it is futile to cavil at Meredith or any other
+artist for lacking such qualities as are incompatible with those he
+most notably possesses. You cannot expect abandon of passion in the
+characters of a novelist whose forte is detachment and sublimated
+common sense. Your intellectualist is not to be blamed if he fails
+to write as a sentimentalist.
+
+Meredith's positive philosophy has been formulated by Elmer J.
+Bailey in terms that may be briefly paraphrased: Meredith thinks of
+man as torn between Nature and Circumstance. By Nature is meant the
+world of instinct, of healthy normal impulse. By Circumstance is
+meant the world of artificial laws erected by society as the
+machinery for its conduct and control. Nature is spontaneous;
+Circumstance is traditional. Man may err by allowing to either undue
+dominance. His only safety lies in the use of his reason which will
+enable him to keep both Nature and Circumstance in proper equipoise.
+And the most serviceable instrument of reason for detecting the
+follies of convention or of feeling is the comic spirit. Without
+this spirit we are not truly intellectual, for, as Meredith has
+said: "Not to have a sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a
+mind." Let us possess mind, he seems to urge, and through mind
+cultivate the soul. In _The Tragic Comedians_ he remarks: "It is the
+soul which does things in life--the rest is vapor.... Action means
+life to the soul as to the body.... Compromise is virtual death; it
+is the pact between cowardice and comfort, under the title of
+expediency. So do we gather dead matter about us. So are we
+gradually self-stifled, corrupt. The war with evil in every form
+must be incessant; we cannot have peace." The serious note here
+sounded may be heard again in his letter to a friend, Mrs. Gilman.
+There Meredith says: "I have written always with the perception that
+there is no life but of the spirit; that the concrete is the
+shadowy; yet that the way to spiritual life lies in the complete
+unfolding of the creature, not in the nipping of his passions. An
+outrage to nature helps to extinguish his light."
+
+
+VI
+
+Just such an outrage to nature perpetrated with the best intentions,
+but in blind folly, is the subject of Meredith's novel, _The Ordeal
+of Richard Feverel_. A dogmatic and conventional father endeavors to
+determine his son's life according to an infallible system of
+parental dictation. Instead of allowing the boy to develop naturally
+from within, Sir Austin seeks to mould him absolutely from without.
+The failure of this experiment makes the story. The first eleven
+chapters are in a sense introductory. They present to the reader the
+members of the Feverel family and describe with gusto a poaching
+escapade of Richard's youth. From this first ordeal he emerges
+triumphant by obeying the impulse of his heart to make frank
+confession, despite his father's endeavor to patch up the matter by
+plotting. Then, in the next twenty chapters, follows the account of
+Richard's passion for the lovely Lucy and of the machinations of
+those who would nip it in the bud. All these checks are for the
+moment overcome when Richard, after having suffered separation from
+Lucy, is again thrown with her by chance and impulsively marries
+her.
+
+In the chapters next ensuing Sir Austin, instead of gracefully
+accepting defeat, masks and crushes his emotions and permits his
+Mephistophelian nephew, the cynical Adrian, to scheme for Richard's
+alienation from his bride. Richard is lured away and succumbs to the
+spell of a wicked enchantress whom at first he has thought to
+reform; and then, shamed and distraught, he wanders abroad, seeking
+a purge for his sin. Meanwhile, the deserted wife, at Adrian's
+instigation, has been assailed by a villain, the husband of
+Richard's enchantress. Issuing unscathed from her ordeal, Lucy is
+tardily accepted by the complacent Sir Austin and received, with her
+child, at his house. Since Richard has at length achieved
+self-mastery and has resolved to return and confess to his wife, and
+plead for her grace, a general reconciliation seems imminent. But
+the novelist will not allow his tale to end happily lest its moral
+be frustrate. Accordingly, although Richard returns for an hour to
+be freely forgiven by Lucy, he dashes away forthwith, despite her
+entreaties, to duel with her persecutor. Joy, even yet, might emerge
+from disaster, since Richard escapes from the duel with only a
+wound, but the author continues implacable. His heroine, in nursing
+her husband, succumbs to a strain long protracted, and Richard,
+though recovered in body, is left but a wreck of his former self.
+Such is the desolating outcome of attempting to regulate healthy
+human loves by a worldly system.
+
+What is tragic for hero and heroine is gravely comic to the eye of
+the intellectualist surveying the folly of men from a height far
+above the troubled waves of their passion. For Meredith, Sir Austin
+incarnates a comic error. His story is the comedy of one who
+theorizes at length upon life, but utterly fails to deal with it
+practically. Of course Sir Austin takes no blame to himself. It is
+useless, he reflects, "to base any system on a human being," even
+though this is precisely what he has done. And when Richard is to
+return to his wife, and Sir Austin has at last grown kind to her, we
+hear that: "He could now admit that instinct had so far beaten
+science; for, as Richard was coming, as all were to be happy, his
+wisdom embraced them all paternally as the author of their
+happiness." Of Sir Austin, Meredith remarks: "He had experimented on
+humanity in the person of the son he loved as his life, and at once,
+when the experiment appeared to have failed, all humanity's failings
+fell on the shoulders of his son." The reader's inevitable reaction
+to the novel is expressed by Lady Blandish: "Oh! how sick I am of
+theories and systems and the pretensions of men!... I shall hate the
+name of science till the day I die. Give me nothing but commonplace,
+unpretending people!"
+
+That the plot of _Richard Feverel_ unduly tantalizes goes without
+saying. The author keeps his hero and heroine apart by main force.
+Granting that Richard is the victim of rascals, as well as of a
+ridiculous system, his easy desertion of the wife whom he loves and
+his continued separation from her seem to lie in Meredith's will
+rather than in that of his hero. Richard's yielding to Mrs. Mount,
+described with remarkable power, is more natural, but his mooning
+about Germany while Lucy is left to struggle alone is as
+exasperating as her failure to apprise him of the fact that she is
+to bear him a child. Splendid as is the last meeting of Richard and
+Lucy, declared by Stevenson to be "the strongest scene since
+Shakespeare in the English tongue," it forfeits something of
+greatness because of perversity. More natural is the faint sub-plot
+intended to echo the central theme of the book in its story of
+Clare's hopeless love for Richard, at first reciprocated, and then
+blocked by Sir Austin and the girl's mother.
+
+
+VII
+
+In characterization, this novel excels. Its folk are persons and not
+alone types. Chief of the Feverel clan is Richard's father, Sir
+Austin, wounded by the infidelity of his wife and his friend, yet an
+intellectual egoist, proud of his plans for ruling the family and
+equally proud of his epigrams. Given less fully are Richard's aunt,
+the worldly mother of Clare, and his uncles--the guardsman Algernon,
+who has lost a leg at cricket, and crochety Hippias, "the dyspepsy."
+Of Richard's cousins one is sympathetic, and the other is Satanic.
+The first, Austin Wentworth, lives in disgrace for having repaired a
+youthful indiscretion by marrying a housemaid. As for the second,
+Adrian Harley, "the Wise Youth," he is Richard's tutor, whose heart
+has dropped to his stomach, a clever worldling and the contemner of
+honest passion, one of the most accomplished cynics of all
+literature. There are minor characters, too, but equally vital, from
+blunt Farmer Blaize and his son, and the disgruntled farm-hand Tom
+Bakewell, to Sir Austin's sentimental companion Lady Blandish, and
+Ripton, the faithful old dog.
+
+Of the women three stand to the fore--Lucy, Mrs. Mount, and Mrs.
+Berry. The adorable Lucy is a northern Juliet brought to sudden
+maturity by her passion for Richard. Beneath him in birth, she is
+more than his equal in manner and mind and spirit. Though shown only
+in glimpses, she is never less than entrancing. Mrs. Mount is the
+dashing temptress, a little worn and half-hearted until piqued by
+Richard's indifference into playing her game more earnestly, and
+then exerting all the fascinations of the wicked. Most original of
+the three is Lucy's vulgar befriender, Mrs. Berry, a lovable
+"old-black-satin bunch," as Meredith tags her, wise but irrelevant,
+aware of the sensual springs beneath our polite pretenses, a
+Juliet's nurse grown mellow. It is to be noted, however, that none
+of these characters is really dynamic, unless it be Mrs. Doria
+Forey, who suffers a change of heart after sacrificing that of her
+daughter, and Richard who somewhat alters under the stress of his
+ordeal.
+
+Subordinate to character, plot, and central idea, yet scarcely less
+effective in producing the total effect of the novel, are its
+setting, its style, and its author's point of view. Already
+Meredith's point of view has been defined as that of the writer of
+comedy. In the dinner scene at Richmond, for example, you are
+conscious of the author smiling apart upon callow Richard and Ripton
+caught in the snares of the demi-monde. It is Thackeray over again,
+letting us see the self-deception of Pendennis in his admiration of
+the Fotheringay. Sometimes, in this novel, Meredith apostrophizes
+his people, emitting lyrical exclamations of admiration or disgust
+at their conduct. More often, he remains aloof, though none the less
+present in spirit. Rarely does he here conform to Brownell's
+statement, more applicable to his later fictions, that: "He is not
+merely detached, he is obliterated. All he shows us of himself is
+his talent; his standpoint is to be divined."
+
+That which especially reveals the author's standpoint is what
+Professor Saintsbury, in referring to this novel, has termed its
+"style saturated with epigrammatic quality; and of strange ironic
+persiflage permeating thought, picture, and expression." The
+persiflage appears, above all, in the speeches of the saturnine
+Adrian. As for the epigrams, their number is justified in part by
+supposing them to come from Sir Austin's collection entitled "The
+Pilgrim's Scrip." They abound, however, in the speech of others and
+in the narrative proper. Typical spicings of style are the
+following: "To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half
+traversed the world is youth's foolishness"; "It is difficult for
+those who think very earnestly for their children to know when their
+children are thinking on their own account"; "If immeasurable love
+were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost impersonate
+Providence to another"; "The ways of women, which are involution,
+and their practices, which are opposition, are generally best hit
+upon by guesswork and a bold word"; "The God of this world is in the
+machine, not out of it"; "Sentimentalism is a happy pastime and an
+important science to the timid, the idle, and the heartless; but a
+damning one to them who have anything to forfeit"; "The task of
+reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women. Dear to
+their tender hearts as old china is a bad man they are mending."
+Even illiterate Mrs. Berry talks in epigram, now on checked
+matrimony, which she holds to be as injurious as checked
+perspiration, and now on the wickedness of old people, which, she
+affirms, is the excuse for the wildness of young ones. "I think it's
+always the plan in a 'dielemmer,'" she says, "to pray God and walk
+forward." To Lucy, the bride, she gives this advice: "When the
+parlour fire gets low, put coals on the kitchen fire.... Don't
+neglect your cookery. Kissing don't last; cookery do."
+
+Aside from its aphorisms, the style of _Feverel_ is essentially
+clever, but by no means so artificial as that of Meredith's later
+novels. If a stage direction seem occasionally over-elaborate, as:
+"Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced withdrawal," others are
+felicitous, as: "At last Hippias perspired in conviction," or: "He
+set his sight hard at the blue ridges of the hills," or, of Ripton
+draining a bumper at a gulp: "The farthing rushlight of his reason
+leapt and expired. He tumbled to the sofa and there stretched."
+There are fine passages, too, of description, like those concerned
+with the boyish adventures of Richard and Ripton, the Ferdinand and
+Miranda meeting of hero and heroine, the temptation episode, and the
+storm in the German forest by night. "Up started the whole forest in
+violet fire. He saw the country at the foot of the hills to the
+bounding Rhine gleam, quiver, extinguished.... Lower down the
+abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash; then white thrusts of
+light were darted from the sky, and great curving ferns, seen
+steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally agitated and
+vanished. Then a shrilling song roused in the leaves and the
+herbage. Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier the
+deluge pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire of the
+earth." Admirable, also, are the mere hints of background given in a
+flashing phrase that conjures up the scene: "Look at those old elm
+branches! How they seem to mix among the stars!--glittering prints
+of winter."
+
+Taken all in all, _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ may be reckoned as
+Meredith's masterpiece. "My old conviction grows stronger," writes Le
+Galliene, "that it will be _Richard Feverel_ and perhaps no other of
+his novels ... that will keep his name alive in English literature."
+Certainly, Meredith has here allowed to his characters a charm of
+personality that later he tends to sacrifice in stressing their purely
+typical traits. He shows here a fire of sincerity rarely afterwards
+burning so brightly. He is less the mere essayist and more the lyric
+and dramatic tale-teller. He has set forth with skill the elements of
+a large problem, confirming the truth of Chesterton's remark that he
+combines subtlety with primal energy, and criticizes life without losing
+his appetite for it.
+
+                                            FRANK WADLEIGH CHANDLER.
+  UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.
+
+
+
+
+THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY
+
+
+Some years ago a book was published under the title of "The
+Pilgrim's Scrip." It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms
+by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manner gave a bruised
+heart to the world.
+
+He made no pretension to novelty. "Our new thoughts have thrilled
+dead bosoms," he wrote; by which avowal it may be seen that youth
+had manifestly gone from him, since he had ceased to be jealous of
+the ancients. There was a half-sigh floating through his pages for
+those days of intellectual coxcombry, when ideas come to us
+affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear to us they are ours
+alone, and no one else have they ever visited: and we believe them.
+
+For an example of his ideas of the sex he said:
+
+"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man."
+
+Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies by so monstrous
+a scorn of them.
+
+One adventurous person betook herself to the Heralds' College, and
+there ascertained that a Griffin between two Wheatsheaves, which
+stood on the title-page of the book, formed the crest of Sir Austin
+Absworthy Bearne Feverel, Baronet, of Raynham Abbey, in a certain
+Western county folding Thames: a man of wealth and honour, and a
+somewhat lamentable history.
+
+The outline of the baronet's story was by no means new. He had a
+wife, and he had a friend. His marriage was for love; his wife was
+a beauty; his friend was a sort of poet. His wife had his whole
+heart, and his friend all his confidence. When he selected Denzil
+Somers from among his college chums, it was not on account of any
+similarity of disposition between them, but from his intense worship
+of genius, which made him overlook the absence of principle in his
+associate for the sake of such brilliant promise. Denzil had a small
+patrimony to lead off with, and that he dissipated before he left
+college; henceforth he was dependent upon his admirer, with whom he
+lived, filling a nominal post of bailiff to the estates, and
+launching forth verse of some satiric and sentimental quality; for
+being inclined to vice, and occasionally, and in a quiet way,
+practising it, he was of course a sentimentalist and a satirist,
+entitled to lash the Age and complain of human nature. His earlier
+poems, published under the pseudonym of Diaper Sandoe, were so pure
+and bloodless in their love passages, and at the same time so biting
+in their moral tone, that his reputation was great among the
+virtuous, who form the larger portion of the English book-buying
+public. Election-seasons called him to ballad-poetry on behalf of
+the Tory party. Diaper possessed undoubted fluency, but did little,
+though Sir Austin was ever expecting much of him.
+
+A languishing, inexperienced woman, whose husband in mental and in
+moral stature is more than the ordinary height above her, and who,
+now that her first romantic admiration of his lofty bearing has worn
+off; and her fretful little refinements of taste and sentiment are
+not instinctively responded to, is thrown into no wholesome
+household collision with a fluent man, fluent in prose and rhyme.
+Lady Feverel, when she first entered on her duties at Raynham, was
+jealous of her husband's friend. By degrees she tolerated him. In
+time he touched his guitar in her chamber, and they played Rizzio
+and Mary together.
+
+    "For I am not the first who found
+    The name of Mary fatal!"
+
+says a subsequent sentimental alliterative love-poem of Diaper's.
+
+Such was the outline of the story. But the baronet could fill it
+up. He had opened his soul to these two. He had been noble Love to
+the one, and to the other perfect Friendship. He had bid them be
+brother and sister whom he loved, and live a Golden Age with him at
+Raynham. In fact, he had been prodigal of the excellences of his
+nature, which it is not good to be, and, like Timon, he became
+bankrupt, and fell upon bitterness.
+
+The faithless lady was of no particular family; an orphan daughter
+of an admiral who educated her on his half-pay, and her conduct
+struck but at the man whose name she bore.
+
+After five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship, Sir Austin
+was left to his loneliness with nothing to ease his heart of love
+upon save a little baby boy in a cradle. He forgave the man: he put
+him aside as poor for his wrath. The woman he could not forgive; she
+had sinned every way. Simple ingratitude to a benefactor was a
+pardonable transgression, for he was not one to recount and crush
+the culprit under the heap of his good deeds. But her he had raised
+to be his equal, and he judged her as his equal. She had blackened
+the world's fair aspect for him.
+
+In the presence of that world, so different to him now, he preserved
+his wonted demeanour, and made his features a flexible mask. Mrs.
+Doria Forey, his widowed sister, said that Austin might have retired
+from his Parliamentary career for a time, and given up gaieties and
+that kind of thing; her opinion, founded on observation of him in
+public and private, was, that the light thing who had taken flight
+was but a feather on her brother's Feverel-heart, and his ordinary
+course of life would be resumed. There are times when common men
+cannot bear the weight of just so much. Hippias Feverel, one of his
+brothers, thought him immensely improved by his misfortune, if the
+loss of such a person could be so designated; and seeing that
+Hippias received in consequence free quarters at Raynham, and
+possession of the wing of the Abbey she had inhabited, it is
+profitable to know his thoughts. If the baronet had given two or
+three blazing dinners in the great hall he would have deceived
+people generally, as he did his relatives and intimates. He was too
+sick for that: fit only for passive acting.
+
+The nurse-maid waking in the night beheld a solitary figure
+darkening a lamp above her little sleeping charge, and became so
+used to the sight as never to wake with a start. One night she was
+strangely aroused by a sound of sobbing. The baronet stood beside
+the cot in his long black cloak and travelling cap. His fingers
+shaded a lamp, and reddened against the fitful darkness that ever
+and anon went leaping up the wall. She could hardly believe her
+senses to see the austere gentleman, dead silent, dropping tear upon
+tear before her eyes. She lay stone-still in a trance of terror and
+mournfulness, mechanically counting the tears as they fell, one by
+one. The hidden face, the fall and flash of those heavy drops in the
+light of the lamp he held, the upright, awful figure, agitated at
+regular intervals like a piece of clockwork by the low murderous
+catch of his breath: it was so piteous to her poor human nature that
+her heart began wildly palpitating. Involuntarily the poor girl
+cried out to him, "Oh, sir!" and fell a-weeping. Sir Austin turned
+the lamp on her pillow, and harshly bade her go to sleep, striding
+from the room forthwith. He dismissed her with a purse the next day.
+
+Once, when he was seven years old, the little fellow woke up at
+night to see a lady bending over him. He talked of this the next
+day, but it was treated as a dream; until in the course of the day
+his uncle Algernon was driven home from Lobourne cricket-ground with
+a broken leg. Then it was recollected that there was a family ghost;
+and, though no member of the family believed in the ghost, none
+would have given up a circumstance that testified to its existence;
+for to possess a ghost is a distinction above titles.
+
+Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman in the
+Guards. Of the other uncles of young Richard, Cuthbert, the sailor,
+perished in a spirited boat expedition against a slaving negro chief
+up the Niger. Some of the gallant lieutenant's trophies of war
+decorated the little boy's play-shed at Raynham, and he bequeathed
+his sword to Richard, whose hero he was. The diplomatist and beau,
+Vivian, ended his flutterings from flower to flower by making an
+improper marriage, as is the fate of many a beau, and was struck out
+of the list of visitors. Algernon generally occupied the baronet's
+disused town-house, a wretched being, dividing his time between
+horse and card exercise: possessed, it was said, of the absurd
+notion that a man who has lost his balance by losing his leg may
+regain it by sticking to the bottle. At least, whenever he and his
+brother Hippias got together, they never failed to try whether one
+leg, or two, stood the bottle best. Much of a puritan as Sir Austin
+was in his habits, he was too good a host, and too thorough a
+gentleman, to impose them upon his guests. The brothers, and other
+relatives, might do as they would while they did not disgrace the
+name, and then it was final: they must depart to behold his
+countenance no more.
+
+Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent to his
+misfortune, as he had perhaps dimly fancied it before, that his
+career lay in his legs, and was now irrevocably cut short. He taught
+the boy boxing, and shooting, and the arts of fence, and
+superintended the direction of his animal vigour with a melancholy
+vivacity. The remaining energies of Algernon's mind were devoted to
+animadversions on swift bowling. He preached it over the county,
+struggling through laborious literary compositions, addressed to
+sporting newspapers, on the Decline of Cricket. It was Algernon who
+witnessed and chronicled young Richard's first fight, which was with
+young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three years the boy's senior.
+
+Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the family. It
+was his ill luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach; and,
+as one is not altogether fit for the battle of life who is engaged
+in a perpetual contention with his dinner, Hippias forsook his
+prospects at the Bar, and, in the embraces of dyspepsia, compiled
+his ponderous work on the Fairy Mythology of Europe. He had little
+to do with the Hope of Raynham beyond what he endured from his
+juvenile tricks.
+
+A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who had money to
+bequeath to the heir, occupied with Hippias the background of the
+house and shared her caudles with him. These two were seldom seen
+till the dinner-hour, for which they were all day preparing; and
+probably all night remembering, for the Eighteenth Century was an
+admirable trencherman, and cast age aside while there was a dish on
+the table.
+
+Mrs. Doria Forey was the eldest of the three sisters of the baronet,
+a florid affable woman, with fine teeth, exceedingly fine light wavy
+hair, a Norman nose, and a reputation for understanding men; and
+that, with these practical creatures, always means the art of
+managing them. She had married an expectant younger son of a good
+family, who deceased before the fulfilment of his prospects; and,
+casting about in her mind the future chances of her little daughter
+and sole child, Clare, she marked down a probability. The far sight,
+the deep determination, the resolute perseverance of her sex, where
+a daughter is to be provided for and a man to be overthrown,
+instigated her to invite herself to Raynham, where, with that
+daughter, she fixed herself.
+
+The other two Feverel ladies were the wife of Colonel Wentworth and
+the widow of Mr. Justice Harley: and the only thing remarkable about
+them was that they were mothers of sons of some distinction.
+
+Austin Wentworth's story was of that wretched character which to be
+comprehended, that justice should be dealt him, must be told out and
+openly; which no one dares now do.
+
+For a fault in early youth, redeemed by him nobly, according to his
+light, he was condemned to undergo the world's harsh judgment: not
+for the fault--for its atonement.
+
+"--Married his mother's housemaid," whispered Mrs. Doria, with a
+ghastly look, and a shudder at young men of republican sentiments,
+which he was reputed to entertain.
+
+"The compensation for Injustice," says the "Pilgrim's Scrip," "is,
+that in that dark Ordeal we gather the worthiest around us."
+
+And the baronet's fair friend, Lady Blandish, and some few true men
+and women, held Austin Wentworth high.
+
+He did not live with his wife; and Sir Austin, whose mind was bent
+on the future of our species, reproached him with being barren to
+posterity, while knaves were propagating.
+
+The principal characteristic of the second nephew, Adrian Harley,
+was his sagacity. He was essentially the wise youth, both in counsel
+and in action.
+
+"In action," the "Pilgrim's Scrip" observes, "Wisdom goes by
+majorities."
+
+Adrian had an instinct for the majority, and, as the world
+invariably found him enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of wise
+youth was acquiesced in without irony.
+
+The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no friends. Nor
+did he wish for those troublesome appendages of success. He caused
+himself to be required by people who could serve him; feared by such
+as could injure. Not that he went out of the way to secure his end,
+or risked the expense of a plot. He did the work as easily as he ate
+his daily bread. Adrian was an epicurean; one whom Epicurus would
+have scourged out of his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our
+modern notions. To satisfy his appetites without rashly staking his
+character, was the wise youth's problem for life. He had no
+intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the society of these fine
+aristocrats of literature helped him to accept humanity as it had
+been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, with laughter of Gods in
+the background. Why not laughter of mortals also? Adrian had his
+laugh in his comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar attributes of
+a heathen God. He was a disposer of men: he was polished, luxurious,
+and happy--at their cost. He lived in eminent self-content, as one
+lying on soft cloud, lapt in sunshine. Nor Jove, nor Apollo, cast
+eye upon the maids of earth with cooler fire of selection, or
+pursued them in the covert with more sacred impunity. And he enjoyed
+his reputation for virtue as something additional. Stolen fruits are
+said to be sweet; undeserved rewards are exquisite.
+
+The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He did not
+solicit the favourable judgment of the world. Nature and he
+attempted no other concealment than the ordinary mask men wear. And
+yet the world would proclaim him moral, as well as wise, and the
+pleasing converse every way of his disgraced cousin Austin.
+
+In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy at the early
+age of one-and-twenty. Many would be glad to say the same at that
+age twice-told: they carry in their breasts a burden with which
+Adrian's was not loaded. Mrs. Doria was nearly right about his
+heart. A singular mishap (at his birth, possibly, or before it) had
+unseated that organ, and shaken it down to his stomach, where it was
+a much lighter, nay, an inspiring weight, and encouraged him merrily
+onward. Throned there it looked on little that did not arrive to
+gratify it. Already that region was a trifle prominent in the person
+of the wise youth, and carried, as it were, the flag of his
+philosophical tenets in front of him. He was charming after dinner,
+with men or with women: delightfully sarcastic: perhaps a little too
+unscrupulous in his moral tone, but that his moral reputation belied
+him, and it must be set down to generosity of disposition.
+
+Such was Adrian Harley, another of Sir Austin's intellectual
+favourites, chosen from mankind to superintend the education of his
+son at Raynham. Adrian had been destined for the Church. He did not
+enter into Orders. He and the baronet had a conference together one
+day, and from that time Adrian became a fixture in the Abbey. His
+father died in his promising son's college term, bequeathing him
+nothing but his legal complexion, and Adrian became stipendiary
+officer in his uncle's household.
+
+A playfellow of Richard's occasionally, and the only comrade of his
+age that he ever saw, was Master Ripton Thompson, the son of Sir
+Austin's solicitor, a boy without a character.
+
+A comrade of some description was necessary, for Richard was neither
+to go to school nor to college. Sir Austin considered that the
+schools were corrupt, and maintained that young lads might by
+parental vigilance be kept pretty secure from the Serpent until Eve
+sided with him: a period that might be deferred, he said. He had a
+system of education for his son. How it worked we shall see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO TRY THE
+STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM
+
+
+October shone royally on Richard's fourteenth birthday. The brown
+beechwoods and golden birches glowed to a brilliant sun. Banks of
+moveless cloud hung about the horizon, mounded to the west, where
+slept the wind. Promise of a great day for Raynham, as it proved to
+be, though not in the manner marked out.
+
+Already archery-booths and cricketing-tents were rising on the lower
+grounds towards the river, whither the lads of Bursley and Lobourne,
+in boats and in carts, shouting for a day of ale and honour, jogged
+merrily to match themselves anew, and pluck at the living laurel
+from each other's brows, like manly Britons. The whole park was
+beginning to be astir and resound with holiday cries. Sir Austin
+Feverel, a thorough good Tory, was no game-preserver, and could be
+popular whenever he chose, which Sir Miles Papworth, on the other
+side of the river, a fast-handed Whig and terror to poachers, never
+could be. Half the village of Lobourne was seen trooping through the
+avenues of the park. Fiddlers and gipsies clamoured at the gates for
+admission; white smocks, and slate, surmounted by hats of serious
+brim, and now and then a scarlet cloak, smacking of the old country,
+dotted the grassy sweeps to the levels.
+
+And all the time the star of these festivities was receding further
+and further, and eclipsing himself with his reluctant serf Ripton,
+who kept asking what they were to do and where they were going, and
+how late it was in the day, and suggesting that the lads of Lobourne
+would be calling out for them, and Sir Austin requiring their
+presence, without getting any attention paid to his misery or
+remonstrances. For Richard had been requested by his father to
+submit to medical examination like a boor enlisting for a soldier,
+and he was in great wrath.
+
+He was flying as though he would have flown from the shameful
+thought of what had been asked of him. By-and-by he communicated his
+sentiments to Ripton, who said they were those of a girl: an
+offensive remark, remembering which, Richard, after they had
+borrowed a couple of guns at the bailiff's farm, and Ripton had
+fired badly, called his friend a fool.
+
+Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonderfully like
+one, Ripton lifted his head and retorted defiantly, "I'm not!"
+
+This angry contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed Richard, who
+was still smarting at the loss of the birds, owing to Ripton's bad
+shot, and was really the injured party. He therefore bestowed the
+abusive epithet on Ripton anew, and with increase of emphasis.
+
+"You shan't call me so, then, whether I am or not," says Ripton, and
+sucks his lips.
+
+This was becoming personal. Richard sent up his brows, and stared at
+his defier an instant. He then informed him that he certainly should
+call him so, and would not object to call him so twenty times.
+
+"Do it, and see!" returns Ripton, rocking on his feet, and breathing
+quick.
+
+With a gravity of which only boys and other barbarians are capable,
+Richard went through the entire number, stressing the epithet to
+increase the defiance and avoid monotony, as he progressed, while
+Ripton bobbed his head every time in assent, as it were, to his
+comrade's accuracy, and as a record for his profound humiliation.
+The dog they had with them gazed at the extraordinary performance
+with interrogating wags of the tail.
+
+Twenty times, duly and deliberately, Richard repeated the obnoxious
+word.
+
+At the twentieth solemn iteration of Ripton's capital shortcoming,
+Ripton delivered a smart back-hander on Richard's mouth, and squared
+precipitately; perhaps sorry when the deed was done, for he was a
+kind-hearted lad, and as Richard simply bowed in acknowledgment of
+the blow he thought he had gone too far. He did not know the young
+gentleman he was dealing with. Richard was extremely cool.
+
+"Shall we fight here?" he said.
+
+"Anywhere you like," replied Ripton.
+
+"A little more into the wood, I think. We may be interrupted." And
+Richard led the way with a courteous reserve that somewhat chilled
+Ripton's ardour for the contest. On the skirts of the wood, Richard
+threw off his jacket and waistcoat, and, quite collected, waited for
+Ripton to do the same. The latter boy was flushed and restless;
+older and broader, but not so tight-limbed and well-set. The Gods,
+sole witnesses of their battle, betted dead against him. Richard had
+mounted the white cockade of the Feverels, and there was a look in
+him that asked for tough work to extinguish. His brows, slightly
+lined upward at the temples, converging to a knot about the well-set
+straight nose; his full grey eyes, open nostrils, and planted feet,
+and a gentlemanly air of calm and alertness, formed a spirited
+picture of a young combatant. As for Ripton, he was all abroad, and
+fought in schoolboy style--that is, he rushed at the foe head
+foremost, and struck like a windmill. He was a lumpy boy. When he
+did hit, he made himself felt; but he was at the mercy of science.
+To see him come dashing in, blinking and puffing and whirling his
+arms abroad while the felling blow went straight between them, you
+perceived that he was fighting a fight of desperation, and knew it.
+For the dreaded alternative glared him in the face that, if he
+yielded, he must look like what he had been twenty times
+calumniously called; and he would die rather than yield, and swing
+his windmill till he dropped. Poor boy! he dropped frequently. The
+gallant fellow fought for appearances, and down he went. The Gods
+favour one of two parties. Prince Turnus was a noble youth; but he
+had not Pallas at his elbow. Ripton was a capital boy; he had no
+science. He could not prove he was not a fool! When one comes to
+think of it, Ripton did choose the only possible way, and we should
+all of us have considerable difficulty in proving the negative by
+any other. Ripton came on the unerring fist again and again; and if
+it was true, as he said in short colloquial gasps, that he required
+as much beating as an egg to be beaten thoroughly, a fortunate
+interruption alone saved our friend from resembling that substance.
+The boys heard summoning voices, and beheld Mr. Morton of Poer Hall
+and Austin Wentworth stepping towards them.
+
+A truce was sounded, jackets were caught up, guns shouldered, and
+off they trotted in concert through the depths of the wood, not
+stopping till that and half-a-dozen fields and a larch plantation
+were well behind them.
+
+When they halted to take breath, there was a mutual study of faces.
+Ripton's was much discoloured, and looked fiercer with its natural
+war-paint than the boy felt. Nevertheless, he squared up dauntlessly
+on the new ground, and Richard, whose wrath was appeased, could not
+refrain from asking him whether he had not really had enough.
+
+"Never!" shouts the noble enemy.
+
+"Well, look here," said Richard, appealing to common sense, "I'm
+tired of knocking you down. I'll say you're not a fool, if you'll
+give me your hand."
+
+Ripton demurred an instant to consult with honour, who bade him
+catch at his chance.
+
+He held out his hand. "There!" and the boys grasped hands and were
+fast friends. Ripton had gained his point, and Richard decidedly had
+the best of it. So they were on equal ground. Both could claim a
+victory, which was all the better for their friendship.
+
+Ripton washed his face and comforted his nose at a brook, and was
+now ready to follow his friend wherever he chose to lead. They
+continued to beat about for birds. The birds on the Raynham estates
+were found singularly cunning, and repeatedly eluded the aim of
+these prime shots, so they pushed their expedition into the lands of
+their neighbours, in search of a stupider race, happily oblivious of
+the laws and conditions of trespass; unconscious, too, that they
+were poaching on the demesne of the notorious Farmer Blaize, the
+free-trade farmer under the shield of the Papworths, no worshipper
+of the Griffin between two Wheatsheaves; destined to be much allied
+with Richard's fortunes from beginning to end. Farmer Blaize hated
+poachers, and especially young chaps poaching, who did it mostly
+from impudence. He heard the audacious shots popping right and left,
+and going forth to have a glimpse at the intruders, and observing
+their size, swore he would teach my gentlemen a thing, lords or no
+lords.
+
+Richard had brought down a beautiful cock-pheasant, and was
+exulting over it, when the farmer's portentous figure burst upon
+them, cracking an avenging horsewhip. His salute was ironical.
+
+"Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?"
+
+"Just bagged a splendid bird!" radiant Richard informed him.
+
+"Oh!" Farmer Blaize gave an admonitory flick of the whip.
+
+"Just let me clap eye on't, then."
+
+"Say, please," interposed Ripton, who was not blind to doubtful
+aspects.
+
+Farmer Blaize threw up his chin, and grinned grimly.
+
+"Please to you, sir? Why, my chap, you looks as if ye didn't much
+mind what come t'yer nose, I reckon. You looks an old poacher, you
+do. Tall ye what 'tis!" He changed his banter to business, "That
+bird's mine! Now you jest hand him over, and sheer off, you dam
+young scoundrels! I know ye!" And he became exceedingly opprobrious,
+and uttered contempt of the name of Feverel.
+
+Richard opened his eyes.
+
+"If you wants to be horsewhipped, you'll stay where y'are!"
+continued the farmer. "Giles Blaize never stands nonsense!"
+
+"Then we'll stay," quoth Richard.
+
+"Good! so be't! If you will have't, have't, my men!"
+
+As a preparatory measure, Farmer Blaize seized a wing of the bird,
+on which both boys flung themselves desperately, and secured it
+minus the pinion.
+
+"That's your game," cried the farmer. "Here's a taste of horsewhip
+for ye. I never stands nonsense!" and sweetch went the mighty whip,
+well swayed. The boys tried to close with him. He kept his distance
+and lashed without mercy. Black blood was made by Farmer Blaize that
+day! The boys wriggled, in spite of themselves. It was like a
+relentless serpent coiling, and biting, and stinging their young
+veins to madness. Probably they felt the disgrace of the contortions
+they were made to go through more than the pain, but the pain was
+fierce, for the farmer laid about from a practised arm, and did not
+consider that he had done enough till he was well breathed and his
+ruddy jowl inflamed. He paused, to receive the remainder of the
+cock-pheasant in his face.
+
+"Take your beastly bird," cried Richard.
+
+"Money, my lads, and interest," roared the farmer, lashing out
+again.
+
+Shameful as it was to retreat, there was but that course open to
+them. They decided to surrender the field.
+
+"Look! you big brute," Richard shook his gun, hoarse with passion,
+"I'd have shot you, if I'd been loaded. Mind! if I come across you
+when I'm loaded, you coward, I'll fire!"
+
+The un-English nature of this threat exasperated Farmer Blaize, and
+he pressed the pursuit in time to bestow a few farewell stripes as
+they were escaping tight-breeched into neutral territory. At the
+hedge they parleyed a minute, the farmer to inquire if they had had
+a mortal good tanning and were satisfied, for when they wanted a
+further instalment of the same they were to come for it to Belthorpe
+Farm, and there it was in pickle: The boys meantime exploding in
+menaces and threats of vengeance, on which the farmer contemptuously
+turned his back. Ripton had already stocked an armful of flints for
+the enjoyment of a little skirmishing. Richard, however, knocked
+them all out, saying, "No! Gentlemen don't fling stones; leave that
+to the blackguards."
+
+"Just one shy at him!" pleaded Ripton, with his eye on Farmer
+Blaize's broad mark, and his whole mind drunken with a sudden
+revelation of the advantages of light troops in opposition to
+heavies.
+
+"No," said Richard, imperatively, "no stones," and marched briskly
+away. Ripton followed with a sigh. His leader's magnanimity was
+wholly beyond him. A good spanking mark at the farmer would have
+relieved Master Ripton; it would have done nothing to console
+Richard Feverel for the ignominy he had been compelled to submit to.
+Ripton was familiar with the rod, a monster much despoiled of his
+terrors by intimacy. Birch-fever was past with this boy. The
+horrible sense of shame, self-loathing, universal hatred, impotent
+vengeance, as if the spirit were steeped in abysmal blackness, which
+comes upon a courageous and sensitive youth condemned for the first
+time to taste this piece of fleshly bitterness, and suffer what he
+feels is a defilement, Ripton had weathered and forgotten. He was
+seasoned wood, and took the world pretty wisely; not reckless of
+castigation, as some boys become, nor oversensitive as to dishonour,
+as his friend and comrade beside him was.
+
+Richard's blood was poisoned. He had the fever on him severely. He
+would not allow stone-flinging, because it was a habit of his to
+discountenance it. Mere gentlemanly considerations had scarce
+shielded Farmer Blaize, and certain very ungentlemanly schemes were
+coming to ghastly heads in the tumult of his brain; rejected solely
+from their glaring impracticability even to his young intelligence.
+A sweeping and consummate vengeance for the indignity alone should
+satisfy him. Something tremendous must be done, and done without
+delay. At one moment he thought of killing all the farmer's cattle;
+next of killing him; challenging him to single combat with the arms,
+and according to the fashion of gentlemen. But the farmer was a
+coward; he would refuse. Then he, Richard Feverel, would stand by
+the farmer's bedside, and rouse him; rouse him to fight with powder
+and ball in his own chamber, in the cowardly midnight, where he
+might tremble, but dare not refuse.
+
+"Lord!" cried simple Ripton, while these hopeful plots were raging
+in his comrade's brain, now sparkling for immediate execution, and
+anon lapsing disdainfully dark in their chances of fulfilment, "how
+I wish you'd have let me notch him, Ricky! I'm a safe shot. I never
+miss. I should feel quite jolly if I'd spanked him once. We should
+have had the best of him at that game. I say!" and a sharp thought
+drew Ripton's ideas nearer home, "I wonder whether my nose is as bad
+as he says! Where can I see myself?"
+
+To these exclamations Richard was deaf, and he trudged steadily
+forward, facing but one object.
+
+After tearing through innumerable hedges, leaping fences, jumping
+dykes, penetrating brambly copses, and getting dirty, ragged, and
+tired, Ripton awoke from his dream of Farmer Blaize and a blue nose
+to the vivid consciousness of hunger; and this grew with the
+rapidity of light upon him, till in the course of another minute he
+was enduring the extremes of famine, and ventured to question his
+leader whither he was being conducted. Raynham was out of sight.
+They were a long way down the valley, miles from Lobourne, in a
+country of sour pools, yellow brooks, rank pasturage, desolate
+heath. Solitary cows were seen; the smoke of a mud cottage; a cart
+piled with peat; a donkey grazing at leisure, oblivious of an unkind
+world; geese by a horse-pond, gabbling as in the first loneliness of
+creation; uncooked things that a famishing boy cannot possibly care
+for, and must despise. Ripton was in despair.
+
+"Where _are_ you going to?" he inquired with a voice of the last
+time of asking, and halted resolutely.
+
+Richard now broke his silence to reply, "Anywhere."
+
+"Anywhere!" Ripton took up the moody word. "But ain't you awfully
+hungry?" he gasped vehemently, in a way that showed the total
+emptiness of his stomach.
+
+"No," was Richard's brief response.
+
+"Not hungry!" Ripton's amazement lent him increased vehemence. "Why,
+you haven't had anything to eat since breakfast! Not hungry? I
+declare I'm starving. I feel such a gnawing I could eat dry bread
+and cheese!"
+
+Richard sneered: not for reasons that would have actuated a similar
+demonstration of the philosopher.
+
+"Come," cried Ripton, "at all events, tell us where you're going to
+stop."
+
+Richard faced about to make a querulous retort. The injured and
+hapless visage that met his eye disarmed him. The lad's nose, though
+not exactly of the dreaded hue, was really becoming discoloured. To
+upbraid him would be cruel. Richard lifted his head, surveyed the
+position, and exclaiming "Here!" dropped down on a withered bank,
+leaving Ripton to contemplate him as a puzzle whose every new move
+was a worse perplexity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE MAGIAN CONFLICT
+
+
+Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not
+written or formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and
+invariably acted upon by the loyal and the true. The race is not
+nearly civilized, we must remember. Thus, not to follow your leader
+whithersoever he may think proper to lead; to back out of an
+expedition because the end of it frowns dubious, and the present
+fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the road, and return
+home without him: these are tricks which no boy of spirit would be
+guilty of, let him come to any description of mortal grief in
+consequence. Better so than have his own conscience denouncing him
+sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are not troubled by this
+conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their fellows have to
+supply the deficiency. They do it with just as haunting, and even
+more horrible pertinacity, than the inner voice, and the result, if
+the probation be not very severe and searching, is the same. The
+leader can rely on the faithfulness of his host: the comrade is
+sworn to serve. Master Ripton Thompson was naturally loyal. The idea
+of turning off and forsaking his friend never once crossed his mind,
+though his condition was desperate, and his friend's behaviour that
+of a Bedlamite. He announced several times impatiently that they
+would be too late for dinner. His friend did not budge. Dinner
+seemed nothing to him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the
+old dog's nose, as if incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger
+was. Ripton took half-a-dozen turns up and down, and at last flung
+himself down beside the taciturn boy, accepting his fate.
+
+Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a smart shower
+from the sinking sun, and the wet sent two strangers for shelter in
+the lane behind the hedge where the boys reclined. One was a
+travelling tinker, who lit a pipe and spread a tawny umbrella. The
+other was a burly young countryman, pipeless and tentless. They
+saluted with a nod, and began recounting for each other's benefit
+the day-long doings of the weather, as it had affected their
+individual experience and followed their prophecies. Both had
+anticipated and foretold a bit of rain before night, and therefore
+both welcomed the wet with satisfaction. A monotonous betweenwhiles
+kind of talk they kept droning, in harmony with the still hum of the
+air. From the weather theme they fell upon the blessings of tobacco;
+how it was the poor man's friend, his company, his consolation, his
+comfort, his refuge at night, his first thought in the morning.
+
+"Better than a wife!" chuckled the tinker. "No curtain-lecturin'
+with a pipe. Your pipe an't a shrew."
+
+"That be it!" the other chimed in. "Your pipe doan't mak' ye out wi'
+all the cash Saturday evenin'."
+
+"Take one," said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the moment,
+handing a grimy short clay. Speed-the-Plough filled from the
+tinker's pouch, and continued his praises.
+
+"Penny a day, and there y'are, primed! Better than a wife? Ha, ha!"
+
+"And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants,"
+added tinker.
+
+"So ye can!" Speed-the-Plough took him up. "And ye doan't want for
+to. Leastways, t'other case. I means pipe."
+
+"And," continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, "it don't
+bring repentance after it."
+
+"Not nohow, master, it doan't! And"--Speed-the-Plough cocked his
+eye--"it doan't eat up half the victuals, your pipe doan't."
+
+Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of a clincher,
+which the tinker acknowledged; and having, so to speak, sealed up
+the subject by saying the best thing that could be said, the two
+smoked for some time in silence to the drip and patter of the
+shower.
+
+Ripton solaced his wretchedness by watching them through the briar
+hedge. He saw the tinker stroking a white cat, and appealing to her,
+every now and then, as his missus, for an opinion or a confirmation;
+and he thought that a curious sight. Speed-the-Plough was stretched
+at full length, with his boots in the rain, and his head amidst the
+tinker's pots, smoking, profoundly contemplative. The minutes seemed
+to be taken up alternately by the grey puffs from their mouths.
+
+It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, "Times is bad!"
+
+His companion assented, "Sure-ly!"
+
+"But it somehow comes round right," resumed the tinker. "Why, look
+here. Where's the good o' moping? I sees it all come round right and
+tight. Now I travels about. I've got my beat. 'Casion calls me
+t'other day to Newcastle!--Eh?"
+
+"Coals!" ejaculated Speed-the-Plough sonorously.
+
+"Coals!" echoed the tinker. "You ask what I goes there for, mayhap?
+Never you mind. One sees a mort o' life in my trade. Not for coals
+it isn't. And I don't carry 'em there, neither. Anyhow, I comes
+back. London's my mark. Says I, I'll see a bit o' the sea, and steps
+aboard a collier. We were as nigh wrecked as the prophet Paul."
+
+"--A--who's him?" the other wished to know.
+
+"Read your Bible," said the tinker. "We pitched and tossed--'tain't
+that game at sea 'tis on land, I can tell ye! I thinks, down we're
+a-going--say your prayers, Bob Tiles! That was a night, to be sure!
+But God's above the devil, and here I am, ye see."
+
+Speed-the-Plough lurched round on his elbow and regarded him
+indifferently. "D'ye call that doctrin'? He bean't al'ays, or I
+shoo'n't be scrapin' my heels wi' nothin' to do, and, what's warse,
+nothin' to eat. Why, look heer. Luck's luck, and bad luck's the
+contrary. Varmer Bollop, t'other day, has's rick burnt down. Next
+night his gran'ry's burnt. What do he tak' and go and do? He takes
+and goes and hangs unsel', and turns us out of his employ. God
+warn't above the devil then, I thinks, or I can't make out the
+reckonin'."
+
+The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case.
+
+"And a darn'd bad case. I'll tak' my oath on't!" cried
+Speed-the-Plough. "Well, look heer! Heer's another darn'd bad case.
+I threshed for Varmer Blaize--Blaize o' Beltharpe--afore I goes to
+Varmer Bollop. Varmer Blaize misses pilkins. He swears our chaps
+steals pilkins. 'Twarn't me steals 'em. What do _he_ tak' and go and
+do? He takes and tarns us off, me and another, neck and crop, to
+scuffle about and starve, for all _he_ keers. God warn't above the
+devil then, I thinks. Not nohow, as I can see!"
+
+The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case also.
+
+"And you can't mend it," added Speed-the-Plough. "It's bad, and
+there it be. But I'll tell ye what, master. Bad wants payin' for."
+He nodded and winked mysteriously. "Bad has its wages as well's
+honest work, I'm thinkin'. Varmer Bollop I don't owe no grudge to:
+Varmer Blaize I do. And I shud like to stick a Lucifer in his rick
+some dry windy night." Speed-the-Plough screwed up an eye
+villainously. "He wants hittin' in the wind,--jest where the pocket
+is, master, do Varmer Blaize, and he'll cry out 'O Lor'!' Varmer
+Blaize will. You won't get the better o' Varmer Blaize by no means,
+as I makes out, if ye doan't hit into him jest there."
+
+The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from his mouth,
+and said that would be taking the devil's side of a bad case.
+Speed-the-Plough observed energetically that, if Farmer Blaize was
+on the other, he should be on that side.
+
+There was a young gentleman close by, who thought with him. The hope
+of Raynham had lent a careless half-compelled attention to the
+foregoing dialogue, wherein a common labourer and a travelling
+tinker had propounded and discussed one of the most ancient theories
+of transmundane dominion and influence on mundane affairs. He now
+started to his feet, and came tearing through the briar hedge,
+calling out for one of them to direct them the nearest road to
+Bursley. The tinker was kindling preparations for his tea, under the
+tawny umbrella. A loaf was set forth, on which Ripton's eyes, stuck
+in the hedge, fastened ravenously. Speed-the-Plough volunteered
+information that Bursley was a good three mile from where they
+stood, and a good eight mile from Lobourne.
+
+"I'll give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow," said
+Richard to the tinker.
+
+"It's a bargain," quoth the tinker, "eh, missus?"
+
+His cat replied by humping her back at the dog.
+
+The half-crown was tossed down, and Ripton, who had just succeeded
+in freeing his limbs from the briar, prickly as a hedgehog, collared
+the loaf.
+
+"Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake," said the tinker
+to his companion. "Come! we'll to Bursley after 'em, and talk it out
+over a pot o' beer." Speed-the-Plough was nothing loath, and in a
+short time they were following the two lads on the road to Bursley,
+while a horizontal blaze shot across the autumn land from the
+Western edge of the rain-cloud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ARSON
+
+
+Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham,
+and Sir Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save
+Austin Wentworth and Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their
+account of the flight of the lads when they were hailed, and
+resolved it into an act of rebellion on the part of his son. At
+dinner he drank the young heir's health in ominous silence. Adrian
+Harley stood up in his place to propose the health. His speech was a
+fine piece of rhetoric. He warmed in it till, after the Ciceronic
+model, inanimate objects were personified, and Richard's
+table-napkin and vacant chair were invoked to follow the steps of a
+peerless father, and uphold with his dignity the honour of the
+Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier's death compelled to take
+his father's place in support of the toast, was tame after such
+magniloquence. But the reply, the thanks which young Richard should
+have delivered in person were not forthcoming. Adrian's oratory had
+given but a momentary life to napkin and chair. The company of
+honoured friends, and aunts, and uncles, and remotest cousins, were
+glad to disperse and seek amusement in music and tea. Sir Austin did
+his utmost to be hospitably cheerful, and requested them to dance.
+If he had desired them to laugh he would have been obeyed, and in as
+hearty a manner.
+
+"How triste!" said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's curate, as that
+most enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with
+professional stiffness.
+
+"One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate answered,
+basking in her beams.
+
+"Ah, you are good!" exclaimed the lady. "Look at my Clare. She will
+not dance on her cousin's birthday with any one but him. What are we
+to do to enliven these people?"
+
+"Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for one," the
+curate sighed, and wherever she wandered in discourse, drew her back
+with silken strings to gaze on his enamoured soul.
+
+He was the only gratified stranger present. The others had designs
+on the young heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford House had brought her
+highly-polished specimen of marketware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a
+first introduction to him, thinking he had arrived at an age to
+estimate and pine for her black eyes and pretty pert mouth. The Lady
+Juliana had to pair off with a dapper Papworth, and her mama was
+subjected to the gallantries of Sir Miles, who talked land and
+steam-engines to her till she was sick, and had to be impertinent in
+self-defence. Lady Blandish, the delightful widow, sat apart with
+Adrian, and enjoyed his sarcasms on the company. By ten at night the
+poor show ended, and the rooms were dark, dark as the prognostics
+multitudinously hinted by the disappointed and chilled guests
+concerning the probable future of the hope of Raynham. Little Clare
+kissed her mama, curtsied to the lingering curate, and went to bed
+like a very good girl. Immediately the maid had departed, little
+Clare deliberately exchanged night attire for that of day. She was
+noted as an obedient child. Her light was always allowed to burn in
+her room for half-an-hour, to counteract her fears of the dark. She
+took the light, and stole on tiptoe to Richard's room. No Richard
+was there. She peeped in further and further. A trifling agitation
+of the curtains shot her back through the door and along the passage
+to her own bedchamber with extreme expedition. She was not much
+alarmed, but feeling guilty she was on her guard. In a short time
+she was prowling about the passages again. Richard had slighted and
+offended the little lady, and was to be asked whether he did not
+repent such conduct toward his cousin; not to be asked whether he
+had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss from her; for, if he did
+not choose to remember that, Miss Clare would never remind him of
+it, and to-night should be his last chance of a reconciliation. Thus
+she meditated, sitting on a stair, and presently heard Richard's
+voice below in the hall, shouting for supper.
+
+"Master Richard has returned," old Benson the butler tolled out
+intelligence to Sir Austin.
+
+"Well?" said the baronet.
+
+"He complains of being hungry," the butler hesitated, with a look of
+solemn disgust.
+
+"Let him eat."
+
+Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced that the boy had
+called for wine. It was an unprecedented thing. Sir Austin's brows
+were portending an arch, but Adrian suggested that he wanted
+possibly to drink his birthday, and claret was conceded.
+
+The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when Adrian strolled
+in to them. They had now changed characters. Richard was uproarious.
+He drank a health with every glass; his cheeks were flushed and his
+eyes brilliant. Ripton looked very much like a rogue on the tremble
+of detection, but his honest hunger and the partridge-pie shielded
+him awhile from Adrian's scrutinizing glance. Adrian saw there was
+matter for study, if it were only on Master Ripton's betraying nose,
+and sat down to hear and mark.
+
+"Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?" he began his quiet banter,
+and provoked a loud peal of laughter from Richard.
+
+"Ha, ha! I say, Rip: 'Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?' You
+remember the farmer! Your health, parson! We haven't had our sport
+yet. We're going to have some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we haven't
+much show of birds. We shot for pleasure, and returned them to the
+proprietors. You're fond of game, parson! Ripton is a dead shot in
+what Cousin Austin calls the Kingdom of 'would-have-done' and
+'might-have-been.' Up went the birds, and cries Rip, 'I've forgotten
+to load!' Oh, ho!--Rip! some more claret--Do just leave that nose of
+yours alone.--Your health, Ripton Thompson! The birds hadn't the
+decency to wait for him, and so, parson, it's their fault, and not
+Rip's, you haven't a dozen brace at your feet. What have you been
+doing at home, Cousin Rady?"
+
+"Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark. The day
+without you, my dear boy, must be dull, you know."
+
+    "'He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere?
+    There's an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.'
+
+Sandoe's poems! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. Why shouldn't I
+quote Sandoe? You know you like him, Rady. But, if you've missed me,
+I'm sorry. Rip and I have had a beautiful day. We've made new
+acquaintances. We've seen the world. I'm the monkey that has seen
+the world, and I'm going to tell you all about it. First, there's a
+gentleman who takes a rifle for a fowling-piece. Next, there's a
+farmer who warns everybody, gentleman and beggar, off his premises.
+Next, there's a tinker and a ploughman, who think that God is always
+fighting with the devil which shall command the kingdoms of the
+earth. The tinker's for God, and the ploughman"----
+
+"I'll drink your health, Ricky," said Adrian, interrupting.
+
+"Oh, I forgot, parson;--I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm only telling
+what I've heard."
+
+"No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. "I'm perfectly aware that
+Zoroaster is not dead. You have been listening to a common creed.
+Drink the Fire-worshippers, if you will."
+
+"Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say, Rippy! we'll
+drink the Fire-worshippers to-night, won't we?"
+
+A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced Guido
+Fawkes, was darted back from the plastic features of Master Ripton.
+
+Richard gave his lungs loud play.
+
+"Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn't you say it was
+fun?"
+
+Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton's answer. Adrian
+watched the innocent youths, and knew that there was talking under
+the table. "See," thought he, "this boy has tasted his first scraggy
+morsel of life to-day, and already he talks like an old stager, and
+has, if I mistake not, been acting too. My respected chief," he
+apostrophized Sir Austin, "combustibles are only the more dangerous
+for compression. This boy will be ravenous for Earth when he is let
+loose, and very soon make his share of it look as foolish as yonder
+game-pie!"--a prophecy Adrian kept to himself.
+
+Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before the supper was
+finished, and his more genial presence brought out a little of the
+plot.
+
+"Look here, uncle!" said Richard. "Would you let a churlish old
+brute of a farmer strike you without making him suffer for it?"
+
+"I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad," replied his uncle.
+
+"Of course you would! So would I. And he shall suffer for it." The
+boy looked savage, and his uncle patted him down.
+
+"I've boxed his son; I'll box him," said Richard, shouting for more
+wine.
+
+"What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up?"
+
+"Never mind, uncle!" The boy nodded mysteriously.
+
+Look there! Adrian read on Ripton's face, he says "never mind," and
+lets it out!
+
+"Did we beat to-day, uncle?"
+
+"Yes, boy; and we'd beat them any day they bowl fair. I'd beat them
+on one leg. There's only Natkins and Featherdene among them worth a
+farthing."
+
+"We beat!" cries Richard. "Then we'll have some more wine, and drink
+their healths."
+
+The bell was rung; wine ordered. Presently comes in heavy Benson, to
+say supplies are cut off. One bottle, and no more. The Captain
+whistled; Adrian shrugged.
+
+The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. He liked
+studying intoxicated urchins.
+
+One subject was at Richard's heart, about which he was reserved in
+the midst of his riot. Too proud to inquire how his father had taken
+his absence, he burned to hear whether he was in disgrace. He led to
+it repeatedly, and it was constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian.
+At last, when the boy declared a desire to wish his father
+good-night, Adrian had to tell him that he was to go straight to bed
+from the supper-table. Young Richard's face fell at that, and his
+gaiety forsook him. He marched to his room without another word.
+
+Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son's behaviour and
+adventures; dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity when he heard of
+his father's resolution not to see him. The wise youth saw that his
+chief was mollified behind his moveless mask, and went to bed, and
+Horace, leaving Sir Austin in his study. Long hours the baronet sat
+alone. The house had not its usual influx of Feverels that day.
+Austin Wentworth was staying at Poer Hall, and had only come over
+for an hour. At midnight the house breathed sleep. Sir Austin put on
+his cloak and cap, and took the lamp to make his rounds. He
+apprehended nothing special, but with a mind never at rest he
+constituted himself the sentinel of Raynham. He passed the chamber
+where the Great-Aunt Grantley lay, who was to swell Richard's
+fortune, and so perform her chief business on earth. By her door he
+murmured, "Good creature! you sleep with a sense of duty done," and
+paced on, reflecting, "She has not made money a demon of discord,"
+and blessed her. He had his thoughts at Hippias's somnolent door,
+and to them the world might have subscribed.
+
+A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber! thinks
+Adrian Harley, as he hears Sir Austin's footfall, and truly that was
+a strange object to see.--Where is the fortress that has not one
+weak gate? where the man who is sound at each particular angle? Ay,
+meditates the recumbent cynic, more or less mad is not every
+mother's son? Favourable circumstances--good air, good company, two
+or three good rules rigidly adhered to--keep the world out of
+Bedlam. But, let the world fly into a passion, and is not Bedlam the
+safest abode for it?
+
+Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely toward
+the chamber where his son was lying in the left wing of the Abbey.
+At the end of the gallery which led to it he discovered a dim light.
+Doubting it an illusion, Sir Austin accelerated his pace. This wing
+had aforetime a bad character. Notwithstanding what years had done
+to polish it into fair repute, the Raynham kitchen stuck to
+tradition, and preserved certain stories of ghosts seen there, that
+effectually blackened it in the susceptible minds of new housemaids
+and under-cooks, whose fears would not allow the sinner to wash his
+sins. Sir Austin had heard of the tales circulated by his domestics
+underground. He cherished his own belief, but discouraged theirs,
+and it was treason at Raynham to be caught traducing the left wing.
+As the baronet advanced, the fact of a light burning was clear to
+him. A slight descent brought him into the passage, and he beheld a
+poor human candle standing outside his son's chamber. At the same
+moment a door closed hastily. He entered Richard's room. The boy was
+absent. The bed was unpressed: no clothes about: nothing to show
+that he had been there that night. Sir Austin felt vaguely
+apprehensive. Has he gone to my room to await me? thought the
+father's heart. Something like a tear quivered in his arid eyes as
+he meditated and hoped this might be so. His own sleeping-room faced
+that of his son. He strode to it with a quick heart. It was empty.
+Alarm dislodged anger from his jealous heart, and dread of evil put
+a thousand questions to him that were answered in air. After pacing
+up and down his room he determined to go and ask the boy Thompson,
+as he called Ripton, what was known to him.
+
+The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was at the northern
+extremity of the passage, and overlooked Lobourne and the valley to
+the West. The bed stood between the window and the door. Sir Austin
+found the door ajar, and the interior dark. To his surprise, the boy
+Thompson's couch, as revealed by the rays of his lamp, was likewise
+vacant. He was turning back when he fancied he heard the sibilation
+of a whispering in the room. Sir Austin cloaked the lamp and trod
+silently toward the window. The heads of his son Richard and the boy
+Thompson were seen crouched against the glass, holding excited
+converse together. Sir Austin listened, but he listened to a
+language of which he possessed not the key. Their talk was of fire,
+and of delay: of expected agrarian astonishment: of a farmer's huge
+wrath: of violence exercised upon gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk
+that the boys jerked out by fits, and that came as broken links of a
+chain impossible to connect. But they awoke curiosity. The baronet
+condescended to play the spy upon his son.
+
+Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable stars.
+
+"How jolly I feel!" exclaimed Ripton, inspired by claret; and then,
+after a luxurious pause--"I think that fellow has pocketed his
+guinea, and cut his lucky."
+
+Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the baronet
+waited anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing it when he heard
+its altered tones.
+
+"If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself."
+
+"You would?" returned Master Ripton. "Well, I'm hanged!--I say, if
+you went to school, wouldn't you get into rows! Perhaps he hasn't
+found the place where the box was stuck in. I think he funks it. I
+almost wish you hadn't done it, upon my honour--eh? Look there! what
+was that? That looked like something.--I say! do you think we shall
+ever be found out?"
+
+Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation very seriously.
+
+"I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties bent on
+signs from Lobourne.
+
+"Well, but," Ripton persisted, "suppose we are found out?"
+
+"If we are, I must pay for it."
+
+Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was beginning to
+gather a clue to the dialogue. His son was engaged in a plot, and
+was, moreover, the leader of the plot. He listened for further
+enlightenment.
+
+"What was the fellow's name?" inquired Ripton.
+
+His companion answered, "Tom Bakewell."
+
+"I'll tell you what," continued Ripton. "You let it all clean out to
+your cousin and uncle at supper. How capital claret is with
+partridge-pie! What a lot I ate!--Didn't you see me frown?"
+
+The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late
+refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard
+answered him--
+
+"Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's safe, and uncle
+never blabs."
+
+"Well, my plan is to keep it close. You're never safe if you
+don't.--I never drank much claret before," Ripton was off again.
+"Won't I now, though! claret's my wine. You know, it may come out
+any day, and then we're done for," he rather incongruously appended.
+
+Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's rambling
+chatter, and answered--
+
+"You've got nothing to do with it, if we are."
+
+"Haven't I, though! I didn't stick in the box, but I'm an
+accomplice, that's clear. Besides," added Ripton, "do you think I
+should leave you to bear it all on your shoulders? I ain't that sort
+of chap, Ricky, I can tell you."
+
+Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. Still it looked
+a detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed
+him strangely. He was not the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it
+seemed as if a gulf had suddenly opened between them. The boy had
+embarked, and was on the waters of life in his own vessel. It was as
+vain to call him back as to attempt to erase what Time has written
+with the Judgment Blood! This child, for whom he had prayed nightly
+in such a fervour and humbleness to God, the dangers were about him,
+the temptations thick on him, and the devil on board piloting. If a
+day had done so much, what would years do? Were prayers and all the
+watchfulness he had expended of no avail?
+
+A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman--a
+thought that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy.
+
+He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the spot, and
+make them confess, and absolve themselves; but it seemed to him
+better to keep an unseen eye over his son: Sir Austin's old system
+prevailed.
+
+Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin
+wished to be Providence to his son.
+
+If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might
+almost impersonate Providence to another. Alas! love, divine as it
+is, can do no more than lighten the house it inhabits--must take its
+shape, sometimes intensify its narrowness--can spiritualize, but not
+expel, the old life-long lodgers above-stairs and below.
+
+Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent.
+
+The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal stars, and the
+exclamations of the boys were becoming fevered and impatient.
+By-and-by one insisted that he had seen a twinkle. The direction he
+gave was out of their anticipations. Again the twinkle was
+announced. Both boys started to their feet. It was a twinkle in the
+right direction now.
+
+"He's done it!" cried Richard, in great heat. "Now you may say old
+Blaize'll soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope he's asleep."
+
+"I'm sure he's snoring!--Look there! He's alight fast enough. He's
+dry. He'll burn.--I say," Ripton re-assumed the serious intonation,
+"do you think they'll ever suspect us?"
+
+"What if they do? We must brunt it."
+
+"Of course we will. But, I say! I wish you hadn't given them the
+scent, though. I like to look innocent. I can't when I know people
+suspect me. Lord! look there! Isn't it just beginning to flare up!"
+
+The farmer's grounds were indeed gradually standing out in sombre
+shadows.
+
+"I'll fetch my telescope," said Richard. Ripton, somehow not liking
+to be left alone, caught hold of him.
+
+"No; don't go and lose the best of it. Here, I'll throw open the
+window, and we can see."
+
+The window was flung open, and the boys instantly stretched half
+their bodies out of it; Ripton appearing to devour the rising flames
+with his mouth: Richard with his eyes.
+
+Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet behind them.
+The wind was low. Dense masses of smoke hung amid the darting snakes
+of fire, and a red malign light was on the neighbouring leafage. No
+figures could be seen. Apparently the flames had nothing to contend
+against, for they were making terrible strides into the darkness.
+
+"Oh!" shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, "if I had my
+telescope! We must have it! Let me go and fetch it! I will!"
+
+The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped back. As he did
+so, a cry was heard in the passage. He hurried out, closed the
+chamber, and came upon little Clare lying senseless along the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK
+
+
+In the morning that followed this night, great gossip was
+interchanged between Raynham and Lobourne. The village told how
+Farmer Blaize, of Belthorpe Farm, had his rick feloniously set fire
+to; his stables had caught fire, himself had been all but roasted
+alive in the attempt to rescue his cattle, of which numbers had
+perished in the flames. Raynham counterbalanced arson with an
+authentic ghost seen by Miss Clare in the left wing of the
+Abbey--the ghost of a lady, dressed in deep mourning, a scar on her
+forehead, and a bloody handkerchief at her breast, frightful to
+behold! and no wonder the child was frightened out of her wits, and
+lay in a desperate State awaiting the arrival of the London doctors.
+It was added that the servants had all threatened to leave in a
+body, and that Sir Austin to appease them had promised to pull down
+the entire left wing, like a gentleman; for no decent creature, said
+Lobourne, could consent to live in a haunted house.
+
+Rumour for the nonce had a stronger spice of truth than usual. Poor
+little Clare lay ill, and the calamity that had befallen Farmer
+Blaize, as regards his rick, was not much exaggerated. Sir Austin
+caused an account of it to be given him at breakfast, and appeared
+so scrupulously anxious to hear the exact extent of injury sustained
+by the farmer that heavy Benson went down to inspect the scene. Mr.
+Benson returned, and, acting under Adrian's malicious advice, framed
+a formal report of the catastrophe, in which the farmer's breeches
+figured, and certain cooling applications to a part of the farmer's
+person. Sir Austin perused it without a smile. He took occasion to
+have it read out before the two boys, who listened very demurely, as
+to an ordinary newspaper incident; only when the report
+particularized the garments damaged, and the unwonted distressing
+position Farmer Blaize was reduced to in his bed, an indecorous fit
+of sneezing laid hold of Master Ripton Thompson, and Richard bit his
+lip and burst into loud laughter, Ripton joining him, lost to
+consequences.
+
+"I trust you feel for this poor man," said Sir Austin to his son,
+somewhat sternly. He saw no sign of feeling.
+
+It was a difficult task for Sir Austin to keep his old countenance
+toward the hope of Raynham, knowing him the accomplice-incendiary,
+and believing the deed to have been unprovoked and wanton. But he
+must do so, he knew, to let the boy have a fair trial against
+himself. Be it said, moreover, that the baronet's possession of his
+son's secret flattered him. It allowed him to act, and in a measure
+to feel, like Providence; enabled him to observe and provide for the
+movements of creatures in the dark. He therefore treated the boy as
+he commonly did, and Richard saw no change in his father to make him
+think he was suspected.
+
+The youngster's game was not so easy against Adrian. Adrian did not
+shoot or fish. Voluntarily he did nothing to work off the
+destructive nervous fluid, or whatever it may be, which is in man's
+nature; so that two culprit boys once in his power were not likely
+to taste the gentle hand of mercy, and Richard and Ripton paid for
+many a trout and partridge spared. At every minute of the day Ripton
+was thrown into sweats of suspicion that discovery was imminent, by
+some stray remark or message from Adrian. He was as a fish with the
+hook in his gills, mysteriously caught without having nibbled; and
+dive into what depths he would he was sensible of a summoning force
+that compelled him perpetually towards the gasping surface, which he
+seemed inevitably approaching when the dinner-bell sounded. There
+the talk was all of Farmer Blaize. If it dropped, Adrian revived it,
+and his caressing way with Ripton was just such as a keen sportsman
+feels toward the creature that has owned his skill, and is making
+its appearance for the world to acknowledge the same. Sir Austin saw
+the manoeuvres, and admired Adrian's shrewdness. But he had to
+check the young natural lawyer, for the effect of so much masked
+examination upon Richard was growing baneful. This fish also felt
+the hook in his gills, but this fish was more of a pike, and lay in
+different waters, where there were old stumps and black roots to
+wind about, and defy alike strong pulling and delicate handling. In
+other words, Richard showed symptoms of a disposition to take refuge
+in lies.
+
+"You know the grounds, my dear boy," Adrian observed to him. "Tell
+me; do you think it easy to get to the rick unperceived? I hear they
+suspect one of the farmer's turned-off hands."
+
+"I tell you I don't know the grounds," Richard sullenly replied.
+
+"Not?" Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment. "I thought Mr.
+Thompson said you were over there yesterday?"
+
+Ripton, glad to speak a truth, hurriedly assured Adrian that it was
+not he had said so.
+
+"Not? You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" mumbled the wretched victims, reddening as they
+remembered, in Adrian's slightly drawled rusticity of tone, Farmer
+Blaize's first address to them.
+
+"I suppose you were among the Fire-worshippers last night, too?"
+persisted Adrian. "In some countries, I hear, they manage their best
+sport at night-time, and beat up for game with torches. It must be a
+fine sight. After all, the country would be dull if we hadn't a rip
+here and there to treat us to a little conflagration."
+
+"A rip!" laughed Richard, to his friend's disgust and alarm at his
+daring. "You don't mean this Rip, do you?"
+
+"Mr. Thompson fire a rick? I should as soon suspect you, my dear
+boy.--You are aware, young gentlemen, that it is rather a serious
+thing--eh? In this country, you know, the landlord has always been
+the pet of the Laws. By the way," Adrian continued, as if diverging
+to another topic, "you met two gentlemen of the road in your
+explorations yesterday, Magians. Now, if I were a magistrate of the
+county, like Sir Miles Papworth, my suspicions would light upon
+those gentlemen. A tinker and a ploughman, I think you said, Mr.
+Thompson. Not? Well, say two ploughmen."
+
+"More likely two tinkers," said Richard.
+
+"Oh! if you wish to exclude the ploughman--was he out of employ?"
+
+Ripton, with Adrian's eyes inveterately fixed on him, stammered an
+affirmative.
+
+"The tinker, or the ploughman?"
+
+"The ploughm--" Ingenuous Ripton looking about, as if to aid himself
+whenever he was able to speak the truth, beheld Richard's face
+blackening at him, and swallowed back half the word.
+
+"The ploughman!" Adrian took him up cheerily. "Then we have here a
+ploughman out of employ. Given a ploughman out of employ, and a rick
+burnt. The burning of a rick is an act of vengeance, and a ploughman
+out of employ is a vengeful animal. The rick and the ploughman are
+advancing to a juxtaposition. Motive being established, we have only
+to prove their proximity at a certain hour, and our ploughman
+voyages beyond seas."
+
+"Is it transportation for rick-burning?" inquired Ripton aghast.
+
+Adrian spoke solemnly: "They shave your head. You are manacled. Your
+diet is sour bread and cheese-parings. You work in strings of
+twenties and thirties. ARSON is branded on your backs in an enormous
+A. Theological works are the sole literary recreation of the
+well-conducted and deserving. Consider the fate of this poor fellow,
+and what an act of vengeance brings him to! Do you know his name?"
+
+"How should I know his name?" said Richard, with an assumption of
+innocence painful to see.
+
+Sir Austin remarked that no doubt it would soon be known, and Adrian
+perceived that he was to quiet his line, marvelling a little at the
+baronet's blindness to what was so clear. He would not tell, for
+that would ruin his future influence with Richard; still he wanted
+some present credit for his discernment and devotion. The boys got
+away from dinner, and, after deep consultation, agreed upon a course
+of conduct, which was to commiserate Farmer Blaize loudly, and make
+themselves look as much like the public as it was possible for two
+young malefactors to look, one of whom already felt Adrian's
+enormous A devouring his back with the fierceness of the Promethean
+eagle, and isolating him for ever from mankind. Adrian relished
+their novel tactics sharply, and led them to lengths of lamentation
+for Farmer Blaize. Do what they might, the hook was in their gills.
+The farmer's whip had reduced them to bodily contortions: these were
+decorous compared with the spiritual writhings they had to perform
+under Adrian's manipulation. Ripton was fast becoming a coward, and
+Richard a liar, when next morning Austin Wentworth came over from
+Poer Hall bringing news that one Mr. Thomas Bakewell, yeoman, had
+been arrested on suspicion of the crime of Arson and lodged in jail,
+awaiting the magisterial pleasure of Sir Miles Papworth. Austin's
+eye rested on Richard as he spoke these terrible tidings. The hope
+of Raynham returned his look, perfectly calm, and had, moreover,
+the presence of mind not to look at Ripton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+JUVENILE STRATAGEMS
+
+
+As soon as they could escape, the boys got away together into an
+obscure corner of the park, and there took counsel of their
+extremity.
+
+"Whatever shall we do now?" asked Ripton of his leader.
+
+Scorpion girt with fire was never in a more terrible prison-house
+than poor Ripton, around whom the raging element he had assisted to
+create seemed to be drawing momentary narrower circles.
+
+"There's only one chance," said Richard, coming to a dead halt, and
+folding his arms resolutely.
+
+His comrade inquired with the utmost eagerness what that chance
+might be.
+
+Richard fixed his eyes on a flint, and replied: "We must rescue that
+fellow from jail."
+
+Ripton gazed at his leader, and fell back with astonishment. "My
+dear Ricky! but how are we to do it?"
+
+Richard, still perusing his flint, replied: "We must manage to get a
+file in to him and a rope. It can be done, I tell you. I don't care
+what I pay. I don't care what I do. He must be got out."
+
+"Bother that old Blaize!" exclaimed Ripton, taking off his cap to
+wipe his frenzied forehead, and brought down his friend's reproof.
+
+"Never mind old Blaize now. Talk about letting it out! Look at you.
+I'm ashamed of you. You talk about Robin Hood and King Richard! Why,
+you haven't an atom of courage. Why, you let it out every second of
+the day. Whenever Rady begins speaking you start; I can see the
+perspiration rolling down you. Are you afraid?--And then you
+contradict yourself. You never keep to one story. Now, follow me. We
+must risk everything to get him out. Mind that! And keep out of
+Adrian's way as much as you can. And keep to one story."
+
+With these sage directions the young leader marched his
+companion-culprit down to inspect the jail where Tom Bakewell lay
+groaning over the results of the super-mundane conflict, and the
+victim of it that he was.
+
+In Lobourne Austin Wentworth had the reputation of the poor man's
+friend; a title he earned more largely ere he went to the reward God
+alone can give to that supreme virtue. Dame Bakewell, the mother of
+Tom, on hearing of her son's arrest, had run to comfort him and
+render him what help she could; but this was only sighs and tears,
+and, oh deary me! which only perplexed poor Tom, who bade her leave
+an unlucky chap to his fate, and not make himself a thundering
+villain. Whereat the dame begged him to take heart, and he should
+have a true comforter. "And though it's a gentleman that's coming to
+you, Tom--for he never refuses a poor body," said Mrs. Bakewell,
+"it's a true Christian, Tom! and the Lord knows if the sight of him
+mayn't be the saving of you, for he's light to look on, and a sermon
+to listen to, he is!"
+
+Tom was not prepossessed by the prospect of a sermon, and looked a
+sullen dog enough when Austin entered his cell. He was surprised at
+the end of half-an-hour to find himself engaged in man-to-man
+conversation with a gentleman and a Christian. When Austin rose to
+go, Tom begged permission to shake his hand.
+
+"Take and tell young master up at the Abbey that I an't the chap to
+peach. He'll know. He's a young gentleman as'll make any man do as
+he wants 'em! He's a mortal wild young gentleman! And I'm a Ass!
+That's where 'tis. But I an't a blackguard. Tell him that, sir!"
+
+This was how it came that Austin eyed young Richard seriously while
+he told the news at Raynham. The boy was shy of Austin more than of
+Adrian. Why, he did not know; but he made it a hard task for Austin
+to catch him alone, and turned sulky that instant. Austin was not
+clever like Adrian: he seldom divined other people's ideas, and
+always went the direct road to his object; so instead of beating
+about and setting the boy on the alert at all points, crammed to the
+muzzle with lies, he just said, "Tom Bakewell told me to let you
+know he does not intend to peach on you," and left him.
+
+Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried aloud that
+Tom was a brick.
+
+"He shan't suffer for it," said Richard, and pondered on a thicker
+rope and sharper file.
+
+"But will your cousin tell?" was Ripton's reflection.
+
+"He!" Richard's lip expressed contempt. "A ploughman refuses to
+peach, and you ask if one of our family will?"
+
+Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproved on this point.
+
+The boys had examined the outer walls of the jail, and arrived at
+the conclusion that Tom's escape might be managed if Tom had spirit,
+and the rope and file could be anyway reached to him. But to do
+this, somebody must gain admittance to his cell, and who was to be
+taken into their confidence?
+
+"Try your cousin," Ripton suggested, after much debate.
+
+Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian.
+
+"No, no!" Ripton hurriedly reassured him. "Austin."
+
+The same idea was knocking at Richard's head.
+
+"Let's get the rope and file first," said he, and to Bursley they
+went for those implements to defeat the law, Ripton procuring the
+file at one shop and Richard the rope at another, with such masterly
+cunning did they lay their measures for the avoidance of every
+possible chance of detection. And better to assure this, in a wood
+outside Bursley Richard stripped to his shirt and wound the rope
+round his body, tasting the tortures of anchorites and penitential
+friars, that nothing should be risked to make Tom's escape a
+certainty. Sir Austin saw the marks at night as his son lay asleep,
+through the half-opened folds of his bed-gown.
+
+It was a severe stroke when, after all their stratagems and trouble,
+Austin Wentworth refused the office the boys had zealously designed
+for him. Time pressed. In a few days poor Tom would have to face the
+redoubtable Sir Miles, and get committed, for rumours of
+overwhelming evidence to convict him were rife about Lobourne, and
+Farmer Blaize's wrath was unappeasable. Again and again young
+Richard begged his cousin not to see him disgraced, and to help him
+in this extremity. Austin smiled on him.
+
+"My dear Ricky," said he, "there are two ways of getting out of a
+scrape: a long way and a short way. When you've tried the roundabout
+method, and failed, come to me, and I'll show you the straight
+route."
+
+Richard was too entirely bent upon the roundabout method to consider
+this advice more than empty words, and only ground his teeth at
+Austin's unkind refusal.
+
+He imparted to Ripton, at the eleventh hour, that they must do it
+themselves, to which Ripton heavily assented.
+
+On the day preceding poor Tom's doomed appearance before the
+magistrate, Dame Bakewell had an interview with Austin, who went to
+Raynham immediately, and sought Adrian's counsel upon what was to be
+done. Homeric laughter and nothing else could be got out of Adrian
+when he heard of the doings of these desperate boys: how they had
+entered Dame Bakewell's smallest of retail shops, and purchased tea,
+sugar, candles, and comfits of every description, till the shop was
+clear of customers: how they had then hurried her into her little
+back-parlour, where Richard had torn open his shirt and revealed the
+coils of rope, and Ripton displayed the point of a file from a
+serpentine recess in his jacket: how they had then told the
+astonished woman that the rope she saw and the file she saw were
+instruments for the liberation of her son; that there existed no
+other means on earth to save him, they, the boys, having
+unsuccessfully attempted all: how upon that Richard had tried with
+the utmost earnestness to persuade her to disrobe and wind the rope
+round her own person: and Ripton had aired his eloquence to induce
+her to secrete the file: how, when she resolutely objected to the
+rope, both boys began backing the file, and in an evil hour, she
+feared, said Dame Bakewell, she had rewarded the gracious permission
+given her by Sir Miles Papworth to visit her son, by tempting Tom to
+file the Law. Though, thanks be to the Lord! Dame Bakewell added,
+Tom had turned up his nose at the file, and so she had told young
+Master Richard, who swore very bad for a young gentleman.
+
+"Boys are like monkeys," remarked Adrian, at the close of his
+explosions, "the gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world
+possesses. May I never be where there are no boys! A couple of boys
+left to themselves will furnish richer fun than any troop of trained
+comedians. No: no Art arrives at the artlessness of nature in
+matters of comedy. You can't simulate the ape. Your antics are dull.
+They haven't the charming inconsequence of the natural animal. Look
+at these two! Think of the shifts they are put to all day long! They
+know I know all about it, and yet their serenity of innocence is all
+but unruffled in my presence. You're sorry to think about the end of
+the business, Austin? So am I! I dread the idea of the curtain going
+down. Besides, it will do Ricky a world of good. A practical lesson
+is the best lesson."
+
+"Sinks deepest," said Austin, "but whether he learns good or evil
+from it is the question at stake."
+
+Adrian stretched his length at ease.
+
+"This will be his first nibble at experience, old Time's fruit, hateful
+to the palate of youth! for which season only hath it any nourishment!
+Experience! You know Coleridge's capital simile?--Mournful you call
+it? Well! all wisdom is mournful. 'Tis therefore, coz, that the wise do
+love the Comic Muse. Their own high food would kill them. You shall
+find great poets, rare philosophers, night after night on the broad
+grin before a row of yellow lights and mouthing masks. Why? Because
+all's dark at home. The stage is the pastime of great minds. That's
+how it comes that the stage is now down. An age of rampant little
+minds, my dear Austin! How I hate that cant of yours about an Age of
+Work--you, and your Mortons, and your parsons Brawnley, rank radicals
+all of you, base materialists! What does Diaper Sandoe sing of your
+Age of Work? Listen!
+
+         'An Age of petty tit for tat,
+           An Age of busy gabble:
+         An age that's like a brewer's vat,
+           Fermenting for the rabble!
+
+         'An Age that's chaste in Love, but lax
+           To virtuous abuses:
+         Whose gentlemen and ladies wax
+           Too dainty for their uses.
+
+         'An Age that drives an Iron Horse,
+           Of Time and Space defiant;
+         Exulting in a Giant's Force,
+           And trembling at the Giant.
+
+         'An Age of Quaker hue and cut,
+           By Mammon misbegotten;
+         See the mad Hamlet mouth and strut!
+           And mark the Kings of Cotton!
+
+         'From this unrest, lo, early wreck'd,
+           A Future staggers crazy,
+         Ophelia of the Ages, deck'd
+           With woeful weed and daisy!'"
+
+Murmuring, "Get your parson Brawnley to answer that!" Adrian changed
+the resting-place of a leg, and smiled. The AGE was an old
+battle-field between him and Austin.
+
+"My parson Brawnley, as you call him, has answered it," said Austin,
+"not by hoping his best, which would probably leave the Age to go
+mad to your satisfaction, but by doing it. And he has and will
+answer your Diaper Sandoe in better verse, as he confutes him in a
+better life."
+
+"You don't see Sandoe's depth," Adrian replied. "Consider that
+phrase, 'Ophelia of the Ages'! Is not Brawnley, like a dozen other
+leading spirits--I think that's your term--just the metaphysical
+Hamlet to drive her mad? She, poor maid! asks for marriage and
+smiling babes, while my lord lover stands questioning the Infinite,
+and rants to the Impalpable."
+
+Austin laughed. "Marriage and smiling babes she would have in
+abundance, if Brawnley legislated. Wait till you know him. He will
+be over at Poer Hall shortly, and you will see what a Man of the Age
+means. But now, pray, consult with me about these boys."
+
+"Oh, those boys!" Adrian tossed a hand. "Are there boys of the Age
+as well as men? Not? Then boys are better than men: boys are for all
+Ages. What do you think, Austin? They've been studying Latude's
+Escape. I found the book open in Ricky's room, on the top of
+Jonathan Wild. Jonathan preserved the secrets of his profession, and
+taught them nothing. So they're going to make a Latude of Mr. Tom
+Bakewell. He's to be Bastille Bakewell, whether he will or no. Let
+them. Let the wild colt run free! We can't help them. We can only
+look on. We should spoil the play."
+
+Adrian always made a point of feeding the fretful beast Impatience
+with pleasantries--a not congenial diet; and Austin, the most
+patient of human beings, began to lose his self-control.
+
+"You talk as if Time belonged to you, Adrian. We have but a few
+hours left us. Work first, and joke afterwards. The boy's fate is
+being decided now."
+
+"So is everybody's, my dear Austin!" yawned the epicurean.
+
+"Yes, but this boy is at present under our guardianship--under yours
+especially."
+
+"Not yet! not yet!" Adrian interjected languidly. "No getting into
+scrapes when I have him. The leash, young hound! the collar, young
+colt! I'm perfectly irresponsible at present."
+
+"You may have something different to deal with when you are
+responsible, if you think that."
+
+"I take my young prince as I find him, coz: a Julian, or a
+Caracalla: a Constantine, or a Nero. Then, if he will play the
+fiddle to a conflagration, he shall play it well: if he must be a
+disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall understand logic and
+men, and have the habit of saying his prayers."
+
+"Then you leave me to act alone?" said Austin, rising.
+
+"Without a single curb!" Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced
+withdrawal. "I'm sure you would not, still more certain you cannot,
+do harm. And be mindful of my prophetic words: Whatever's done, old
+Blaize will have to be bought off. There's the affair settled at
+once. I suppose I must go to the chief to-night and settle it
+myself. We can't see this poor devil condemned, though it's nonsense
+to talk of a boy being the prime instigator."
+
+Austin cast an eye at the complacent languor of the wise youth, his
+cousin, and the little that he knew of his fellows told him he might
+talk for ever here, and not be comprehended. The wise youth's two
+ears were stuffed with his own wisdom. One evil only Adrian dreaded,
+it was clear--the action of the law.
+
+As he was moving away, Adrian called out to him, "Stop, Austin!
+There! don't be anxious! You invariably take the glum side. I've
+done something. Never mind what. If you go down to Belthorpe, be
+civil, but not obsequious. You remember the tactics of Scipio
+Africanus against the Punic elephants? Well, don't say a word--in
+thine ear, coz: I've turned Master Blaize's elephants. If they
+charge, 'twill be a feint, and back to the destruction of his
+serried ranks! You understand. Not? Well, 'tis as well. Only, let
+none say that I sleep. If I must see him to-night, I go down knowing
+he has not got us in his power." The wise youth yawned, and
+stretched out a hand for any book that might be within his reach.
+Austin left him to look about the grounds for Richard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DAPHNE'S BOWER
+
+
+A little laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked out on the
+river from a knoll bordering the Raynham beechwoods, and was dubbed
+by Adrian Daphne's Bower. To this spot Richard had retired, and
+there Austin found him with his head buried in his hands, a picture
+of desperation, whose last shift has been defeated. He allowed
+Austin to greet him and sit by him without lifting his head. Perhaps
+his eyes were not presentable.
+
+"Where's your friend?" Austin began.
+
+"Gone!" was the answer, sounding cavernous from behind hair and
+fingers. An explanation presently followed, that a summons had come
+for him in the morning from Mr. Thompson; and that Mr. Ripton had
+departed against his will.
+
+In fact, Ripton had protested that he would defy his parent and
+remain by his friend in the hour of adversity and at the post of
+danger. Sir Austin signified his opinion that a boy should obey his
+parent, by giving orders to Benson for Ripton's box to be packed and
+ready before noon; and Ripton's alacrity in taking the baronet's
+view of filial duty was as little feigned as his offer to Richard
+to throw filial duty to the winds. He rejoiced that the Fates had
+agreed to remove him from the very hot neighbourhood of Lobourne,
+while he grieved, like an honest lad, to see his comrade left to
+face calamity alone. The boys parted amicably, as they could hardly
+fail to do, when Ripton had sworn fealty to the Feverels with a
+warmth that made him declare himself bond, and due to appear at any
+stated hour and at any stated place to fight all the farmers in
+England, on a mandate from the heir of the house.
+
+"So you're left alone," said Austin, contemplating the boy's shapely
+head. "I'm glad of it. We never know what's in us till we stand by
+ourselves."
+
+There appeared to be no answer forthcoming. Vanity, however, replied
+at last, "He wasn't much support."
+
+"Remember his good points now he's gone, Ricky."
+
+"Oh! he was staunch," the boy grumbled.
+
+"And a staunch friend is not always to be found. Now, have you tried
+your own way of rectifying this business, Ricky?"
+
+"I have done everything."
+
+"And failed!"
+
+There was a pause, and then the deep-toned evasion--
+
+"Tom Bakewell's a coward!"
+
+"I suppose, poor fellow," said Austin, in his kind way, "he doesn't
+want to get into a deeper mess. I don't think he's a coward."
+
+"He is a coward," cried Richard. "Do you think if I had a file I
+would stay in prison? I'd be out the first night! And he might have
+had the rope, too--a rope thick enough for a couple of men his size
+and weight. Ripton and I and Ned Markham swung on it for an hour,
+and it didn't give way. He's a coward, and deserves his fate. I've
+no compassion for a coward."
+
+"Nor I much," said Austin.
+
+Richard had raised his head in the heat of his denunciation of poor
+Tom. He would have hidden it had he known the thought in Austin's
+clear eyes while he faced them.
+
+"I never met a coward myself," Austin continued. "I have heard of
+one or two. One let an innocent man die for him."
+
+"How base!" exclaimed the boy.
+
+"Yes, it was bad," Austin acquiesced.
+
+"Bad!" Richard scorned the poor contempt. "How I would have spurned
+him! He was a coward!"
+
+"I believe he pleaded the feelings of his family in his excuse, and
+tried every means to get the man off. I have read also in the
+confessions of a celebrated philosopher, that in his youth he
+committed some act of pilfering, and accused a young servant-girl of
+his own theft, who was condemned and dismissed for it, pardoning her
+guilty accuser."
+
+"What a coward!" shouted Richard. "And he confessed it publicly?"
+
+"You may read it yourself."
+
+"He actually wrote it down, and printed it?"
+
+"You have the book in your father's library. Would you have done so
+much?"
+
+Richard faltered. No! he admitted that he never could have told
+people.
+
+"Then who is to call that man a coward?" said Austin. "He expiated
+his cowardice as all who give way in moments of weakness, and are
+not cowards, must do. The coward chooses to think 'God does not see.
+I shall escape.' He who is not a coward, and has succumbed, knows
+that God has seen all, and it is not so hard a task for him to make
+his heart bare to the world. Worse, I should fancy it, to know
+myself an impostor when men praised me."
+
+Young Richard's eyes were wandering on Austin's gravely cheerful
+face. A keen intentness suddenly fixed them, and he dropped his
+head.
+
+"So I think you're wrong, Ricky, in calling this poor Tom a coward
+because he refuses to try your means of escape," Austin resumed. "A
+coward hardly objects to drag in his accomplice. And, where the
+person involved belongs to a great family, it seems to me that for a
+poor plough-lad to volunteer not to do so speaks him anything but a
+coward."
+
+Richard was dumb. Altogether to surrender his rope and file was a
+fearful sacrifice, after all the time, trepidation, and study he had
+spent on those two saving instruments. If he avowed Tom's manly
+behaviour, Richard Feverel was in a totally new position. Whereas,
+by keeping Tom a coward, Richard Feverel was the injured one, and
+to seem injured is always a luxury; sometimes a necessity, whether
+among boys or men.
+
+In Austin the Magian conflict would not have lasted long. He had but
+a blind notion of the fierceness with which it raged in young
+Richard. Happily for the boy, Austin was not a preacher. A single
+instance, a cant phrase, a fatherly manner, might have wrecked him,
+by arousing ancient or latent opposition. The born preacher we feel
+instinctively to be our foe. He may do some good to the wretches
+that have been struck down and lie gasping on the battlefield: he
+rouses antagonism in the strong. Richard's nature, left to itself,
+wanted little more than an indication of the proper track, and when
+he said, "Tell me what I can do, Austin?" he had fought the best
+half of the battle. His voice was subdued. Austin put his hand on
+the boy's shoulder.
+
+"You must go down to Farmer Blaize."
+
+"Well!" said Richard, sullenly divining the deed of penance.
+
+"You'll know what to say to him when you're there."
+
+The boy bit his lip and frowned. "Ask a favour of that big brute,
+Austin? I can't!"
+
+"Just tell him the whole case, and that you don't intend to stand by
+and let the poor fellow suffer without a friend to help him out of
+his scrape."
+
+"But, Austin," the boy pleaded, "I shall have to ask him to help off
+Tom Bakewell! How can I ask him, when I hate him?"
+
+Austin bade him go, and think nothing of the consequences till he
+got there.
+
+Richard groaned in soul.
+
+"You've no pride, Austin."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"You don't know what it is to ask a favour of a brute you hate."
+
+Richard stuck to that view of the case, and stuck to it the faster
+the more imperatively the urgency of a movement dawned upon him.
+
+"Why," continued the boy, "I shall hardly be able to keep my fists
+off him!"
+
+"Surely you've punished him enough, boy!" said Austin.
+
+"He struck me!" Richard's lip quivered. "He dared not come at me
+with his hands. He struck me with a whip. He'll be telling everybody
+that he horsewhipped me, and that I went down and begged his pardon.
+Begged his pardon! A Feverel beg his pardon! Oh, if I had my will!"
+
+"The man earns his bread, Ricky. You poached on his grounds. He
+turned you off, and you fired his rick."
+
+"And I'll pay him for his loss. And I won't do any more."
+
+"Because you won't ask a favour of him?"
+
+"No! I will not ask a favour of him."
+
+Austin looked at the boy steadily. "You prefer to receive a favour
+from poor Tom Bakewell?"
+
+At Austin's enunciation of this obverse view of the matter Richard
+raised his brow. Dimly a new light broke in upon him. "Favour from
+Tom Bakewell, the ploughman? How do you mean, Austin?"
+
+"To save yourself an unpleasantness you permit a country lad to
+sacrifice himself for you? I confess I should not have so much
+pride."
+
+"Pride!" shouted Richard, stung by the taunt, and set his sight hard
+at the blue ridges of the hills.
+
+Not knowing for the moment what else to do, Austin drew a picture of
+Tom in prison, and repeated Tom's volunteer statement. The picture,
+though his intentions were far from designing it so, had to Richard,
+whose perception of humour was infinitely keener, a horrible
+chaw-bacon smack about it. Visions of a grinning lout, open from ear
+to ear, unkempt, coarse, splay-footed, rose before him and afflicted
+him with the strangest sensations of disgust and comicality, mixed
+up with pity and remorse--a sort of twisted pathos. There lay Tom;
+hob-nail Tom! a bacon-munching, reckless, beer-swilling animal! and
+yet a man; a dear brave human heart notwithstanding; capable of
+devotion and unselfishness. The boy's better spirit was touched, and
+it kindled his imagination to realize the abject figure of poor
+clodpole Tom, and surround it with a halo of mournful light. His
+soul was alive. Feelings he had never known streamed in upon him as
+from an ethereal casement, an unwonted tenderness, an embracing
+humour, a consciousness of some ineffable glory, an irradiation of
+the features of humanity. All this was in the bosom of the boy, and
+through it all the vision of an actual hob-nail Tom, coarse,
+unkempt, open from ear to ear; whose presence was a finger of shame
+to him and an oppression of clodpole; yet toward whom he felt just
+then a loving-kindness beyond what he felt for any living creature.
+He laughed at him, and wept over him. He prized him, while he shrank
+from him. It was a genial strife of the angel in him with
+constituents less divine; but the angel was uppermost and led the
+van--extinguished loathing, humanized laughter, transfigured
+pride--pride that would persistently contemplate the corduroys of
+gaping Tom, and cry to Richard, in the very tone of Adrian's ironic
+voice, "Behold your benefactor!"
+
+Austin sat by the boy, unaware of the sublimer tumult he had
+stirred. Little of it was perceptible in Richard's countenance. The
+lines of his mouth were slightly drawn; his eyes hard set into the
+distance. He remained thus many minutes. Finally he jumped to his
+legs, saying, "I'll go at once to old Blaize and tell him."
+
+Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out of Daphne's
+Bower, in the direction of Lobourne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE BITTER CUP
+
+
+Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel
+as that young gentleman expected him to be. The farmer, seated in
+his easy-chair in the little low-roofed parlour of an old-fashioned
+farm-house, with a long clay pipe on the table at his elbow, and a
+veteran pointer at his feet, had already given audience to three
+distinguished members of the Feverel blood, who had come separately,
+according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one object. In
+the morning it was Sir Austin himself. Shortly after his departure,
+arrived Austin Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about
+Lobourne as the Captain, popular wherever he was known. Farmer
+Blaize reclined in considerable elation. He had brought these great
+people to a pretty low pitch. He had welcomed them hospitably, as a
+British yeoman should; but not budged a foot in his demands: not to
+the baronet: not to the Captain: not to good young Mr. Wentworth.
+For Farmer Blaize was a solid Englishman; and, on hearing from the
+baronet a frank confession of the hold he had on the family, he
+determined to tighten his hold, and only relax it in exchange for
+tangible advantages--compensation to his pocket, his wounded person,
+and his still more wounded sentiments: the total indemnity being, in
+round figures, three hundred pounds, and a spoken apology from the
+prime offender, young Mister Richard. Even then there was a
+reservation. Provided, the farmer said, nobody had been tampering
+with any of his witnesses. In that case Farmer Blaize declared the
+money might go, and he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had sworn
+he would. And it goes hard, too, with an accomplice, by law, added
+the farmer, knocking the ashes leisurely out of his pipe. He had no
+wish to bring any disgrace anywhere; he respected the inmates of
+Raynham Abbey, as in duty bound; he should be sorry to see them in
+trouble. Only no tampering with his witnesses. He was a man for Law.
+Rank was much: money was much: but Law was more. In this country Law
+was above the sovereign. To tamper with the Law was treason to the
+realm.
+
+"I come to you direct," the baronet explained. "I tell you candidly
+in what way I discovered my son to be mixed up in this miserable
+affair. I promise you indemnity for your loss, and an apology that
+shall, I trust, satisfy your feelings, assuring you that to tamper
+with witnesses is not the province of a Feverel. All I ask of you in
+return is, not to press the prosecution. At present it rests with
+you. I am bound to do all that lies in my power for this imprisoned
+man. How and wherefore my son was prompted to suggest, or assist in,
+such an act, I cannot explain, for I do not know."
+
+"Hum!" said the farmer. "I think I do."
+
+"You know the cause?" Sir Austin stared. "I beg you to confide it to
+me."
+
+"'Least, I can pretty nigh neighbour it with a guess," said the
+farmer. "We an't good friends, Sir Austin, me and your son, just
+now--not to say cordial. I, ye see, Sir Austin, I'm a man as don't
+like young gentlemen a-poachin' on his grounds without his
+permission,--in special when birds is plentiful on their own. It
+appear he do like it. Consequently I has to flick this whip--as them
+fellers at the races: All in this 'ere Ring's mine! as much as to
+say; and who's been hit, he's had fair warnin'. I'm sorry for't, but
+that's just the case."
+
+Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when he should find
+him.
+
+Algernon's interview passed off in ale and promises. He also assured
+Farmer Blaize that no Feverel could be affected by his proviso.
+
+No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was satisfied.
+
+"Money's safe, I know," said he; "now for the 'pology!" and Farmer
+Blaize thrust his legs further out, and his head further back.
+
+The farmer naturally reflected that the three separate visits had
+been conspired together. Still the baronet's frankness, and the
+baronet's not having reserved himself for the third and final
+charge, puzzled him. He was considering whether they were a deep, or
+a shallow lot, when young Richard was announced.
+
+A pretty little girl with the roses of thirteen springs in her
+cheeks, and abundant beautiful bright tresses, tripped before the
+boy, and loitered shyly by the farmer's armchair to steal a look at
+the handsome new-comer. She was introduced to Richard as the
+farmer's niece, Lucy Desborough, the daughter of a lieutenant in the
+Royal Navy, and, what was better, though the farmer did not
+pronounce it so loudly, a real good girl.
+
+Neither the excellence of her character, nor her rank in life,
+tempted Richard to inspect the little lady. He made an awkward bow,
+and sat down.
+
+The farmer's eyes twinkled. "Her father," he continued, "fought and
+fell for his coontry. A man as fights for's coontry's a right to
+hould up his head--ay! with any in the land. Desb'roughs o' Dorset!
+d'ye know that family, Master Feverel?"
+
+Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not desire to become
+acquainted with any offshoot of that family.
+
+"She can make puddens and pies," the farmer went on, regardless of
+his auditor's gloom. "She's a lady, as good as the best of 'em. I
+don't care about their being Catholics--the Desb'roughs o' Dorset
+are gentlemen. And she's good for the pianer, too! She strums to me
+of evenin's. I'm for the old tunes: she's for the new. Gal-like!
+While she's with me she shall be taught things use'l. She can
+parley-voo a good 'un and foot it, as it goes; been in France a
+couple of year. I prefer the singin' of 't to the talkin' of 't.
+Come, Luce! toon up--eh?--Ye wun't? That song about the
+Viffendeer--a female"--Farmer Blaize volunteered the translation of
+the title--"who wears the--you guess what! and marches along with
+the French sojers: a pretty brazen bit o' goods, I sh'd fancy."
+
+Mademoiselle Lucy corrected her uncle's French, but objected to do
+more. The handsome cross boy had almost taken away her voice for
+speech, as it was, and sing in his company she could not; so she
+stood, a hand on her uncle's chair to stay herself from falling,
+while she wriggled a dozen various shapes of refusal, and shook her
+head at the farmer with fixed eyes.
+
+"Aha!" laughed the farmer, dismissing her, "they soon learn the
+difference 'twixt the young 'un and the old 'un. Go along, Luce! and
+learn yer lessons for to-morrow."
+
+Reluctantly the daughter of the Royal Navy glided away. Her uncle's
+head followed her to the door, where she dallied to catch a last
+impression of the young stranger's lowering face, and darted
+through.
+
+Farmer Blaize laughed and chuckled. "She an't so fond of her uncle
+as that, every day! Not that she an't a good nurse--the kindest
+little soul you'd meet of a winter's walk! She'll read t' ye, and
+make drinks, and sing, too, if ye likes it, and she won't be tired.
+A obstinate good 'un, she be! Bless her!"
+
+The farmer may have designed, by these eulogies of his niece, to
+give his visitor time to recover his composure, and establish a
+common topic. His diversion only irritated and confused our
+shame-eaten youth. Richard's intention had been to come to the
+farmer's threshold: to summon the farmer thither, and in a loud and
+haughty tone then and there to take upon himself the whole burden
+of the charge against Tom Bakewell. He had strayed, during his
+passage to Belthorpe, somewhat back to his old nature; and his being
+compelled to enter the house of his enemy, sit in his chair, and
+endure an introduction to his family, was more than he bargained
+for. He commenced blinking hard in preparation for the horrible dose
+to which delay and the farmer's cordiality added inconceivable
+bitters. Farmer Blaize was quite at his ease; nowise in a hurry. He
+spoke of the weather and the harvest: of recent doings up at the
+Abbey: glanced over that year's cricketing; hoped that no future
+Feverel would lose a leg to the game. Richard saw and heard Arson in
+it all. He blinked harder as he neared the cup. In a moment of
+silence, he seized it with a gasp.
+
+"Mr. Blaize! I have come to tell you that I am the person who set
+fire to your rick the other night."
+
+An odd contraction formed about the farmer's mouth. He changed his
+posture, and said, "Ay? that's what ye're come to tell me, sir?"
+
+"Yes!" said Richard, firmly.
+
+"And that be all?"
+
+"Yes!" Richard reiterated.
+
+The farmer again changed his posture. "Then, my lad, ye've come to
+tell me a lie!"
+
+Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed by the dark
+flush of ire he had kindled.
+
+"You dare to call me a liar!" cried Richard, starting up.
+
+"I say," the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and smacked his
+thigh thereto, "that's a lie!"
+
+Richard held out his clenched fist. "You have twice insulted me. You
+have struck me: you have dared to call me a liar. I would have
+apologized--I would have asked your pardon, to have got off that
+fellow in prison. Yes! I would have degraded myself that another man
+should not suffer for my deed"----
+
+"Quite proper!" interposed the farmer.
+
+"And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh. You're a
+coward, sir! nobody but a coward would have insulted me in his own
+house."
+
+"Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master," said the farmer,
+indicating the chair and cooling the outburst with his hand. "Sit
+ye down. Don't ye be hasty. If ye hadn't been hasty t'other day, we
+sh'd a been friends yet. Sit ye down, sir. I sh'd be sorry to reckon
+you out a liar, Mr. Feverel, or anybody o' your name. I respects yer
+father though we're opp'site politics. I'm willin' to think well o'
+you. What I say is, that as you say an't the trewth. Mind! I don't
+like you none the worse for't. But it an't what is. That's all! You
+knows it as well's I!"
+
+Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily
+reseated himself. The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, after his
+late interview with Austin, had become capable of perceiving vaguely
+that a towering passion is hardly the justification for a wrong
+course of conduct.
+
+"Come," continued the farmer, not unkindly, "what else have you to
+say?"
+
+Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained brimming at
+Richard's lips again! Alas, poor human nature! that empties to the
+dregs a dozen of these evil drinks, to evade the single one which
+Destiny, less cruel, had insisted upon.
+
+The boy blinked and tossed it off.
+
+"I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for
+your striking me."
+
+Farmer Blaize nodded.
+
+"And now ye've done, young gentleman?"
+
+Still another cupful!
+
+"I should be very much obliged," Richard formally began, but his
+stomach was turned; he could but sip and sip, and gather a distaste
+which threatened to make the penitential act impossible. "Very much
+obliged," he repeated: "much obliged, if you would be so kind," and
+it struck him that had he spoken this at first he would have given
+it a wording more persuasive with the farmer and more worthy of his
+own pride: more honest, in fact: for a sense of the dishonesty of
+what he was saying caused him to cringe and simulate humility to
+deceive the farmer, and the more he said the less he felt his words,
+and, feeling them less, he inflated them more. "So kind," he
+stammered, "so kind" (fancy a Feverel asking this big brute to be so
+kind!) "as to do me the favour" (_me_ the favour!) "to exert
+yourself" (it's all to please Austin) "to endeavour to--hem! to"
+(there's no saying it!)----
+
+The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again.
+
+"What I came to ask is, whether you would have the kindness to try
+what you could do" (what an infamous shame to have to beg like
+this!) "do to save--do to ensure--whether you would have the
+kindness"---- It seemed out of all human power to gulp it down. The
+draught grew more and more abhorrent. To proclaim one's iniquity, to
+apologize for one's wrongdoing; thus much could be done; but to beg
+a favour of the offended party--that was beyond the self-abasement
+any Feverel could consent to. Pride, however, whose inevitable
+battle is against itself, drew aside the curtains of poor Tom's
+prison, crying a second time, "Behold your Benefactor!" and, with
+the words burning in his ears, Richard swallowed the dose:
+
+"Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,--if you don't mind--will you
+help me to get this man Bakewell off his punishment?"
+
+To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently for the boy,
+though he could not quite see why he did not take the gate at the
+first offer.
+
+"Oh!" said he, when he heard and had pondered on the request. "Hum!
+ha! we'll see about it t'morrow. But if he's innocent, you know, we
+shan't mak'n guilty."
+
+"It was I did it!" Richard declared.
+
+The farmer's half-amused expression sharpened a bit.
+
+"So, young gentleman! and you're sorry for the night's work?"
+
+"I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your losses."
+
+"Thank'ee," said the farmer drily.
+
+"And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don't care what the
+amount is."
+
+Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. "Bribery," one
+motion expressed: "Corruption," the other.
+
+"Now," said he, leaning forward, and fixing his elbows on his knees,
+while he counted the case at his fingers' ends, "excuse the liberty,
+but wishin' to know where this 'ere money's to come from, I sh'd
+like jest t'ask if so be Sir Austin know o' this?"
+
+"My father knows nothing of it," replied Richard.
+
+The farmer flung back in his chair. "Lie number Two," said his
+shoulders, soured by the British aversion to being plotted at, and
+not dealt with openly.
+
+"And ye've the money ready, young gentleman?"
+
+"I shall ask my father for it."
+
+"And he'll hand't out?"
+
+"Certainly he will!"
+
+Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting his father
+into his counsels.
+
+"A good three hundred pounds, ye know?" the farmer suggested.
+
+No consideration of the extent of damages, and the size of the sum,
+affected young Richard, who said boldly, "He will not object when I
+tell him I want that sum."
+
+It was natural Farmer Blaize should be a trifle suspicious that a
+youth's guarantee would hardly be given for his father's readiness
+to disburse such a thumping bill, unless he had previously received
+his father's sanction and authority.
+
+"Hum!" said he, "why not 'a told him before?"
+
+The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that
+caused Richard to compress his mouth and glance high.
+
+Farmer Blaize was positive 'twas a lie.
+
+"Hum! Ye still hold to't you fired the rick?" he asked.
+
+"The blame is mine!" quoth Richard, with the loftiness of a patriot
+of old Rome.
+
+"Na, na!" the straightforward Briton put him aside. "Ye did't, or ye
+didn't do't. Did ye do't, or no?"
+
+Thrust in a corner, Richard said, "I did it."
+
+Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was answered in an
+instant by little Lucy, who received orders to fetch in a dependent
+at Belthorpe going by the name of the Bantam, and made her exit as
+she had entered, with her eyes on the young stranger.
+
+"Now," said the farmer, "these be my principles. I'm a plain man,
+Mr. Feverel. Above board with me, and you'll find me handsome. Try
+to circumvent me, and I'm a ugly customer. I'll show you I've no
+animosity. Your father pays--you apologize. That's enough for me!
+Let Tom Bakewell fight't out with the Law, and I'll look on. The Law
+wasn't on the spot, I suppose? so the Law ain't much witness. But I
+am. Leastwise the Bantam is. I tell you, young gentleman, the
+Bantam saw't! It's no moral use whatever your denyin' that ev'dence.
+And where's the good, sir, I ask? What comes of 't? Whether it be
+you, or whether it be Tom Bakewell--ain't all one? If I holds back,
+ain't it sim'lar? It's the trewth I want! And here't comes," added
+the farmer, as Miss Lucy ushered in the Bantam, who presented a
+curious figure for that rare divinity to enliven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A FINE DISTINCTION
+
+
+In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a
+tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part,
+with diverse anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel
+forces, from opposing ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed
+the Bantam, on account of some forgotten sally of his youth or
+infancy, moved and looked elephantine. It sufficed that Giles was
+well fed to assure that Giles was faithful--if uncorrupted. The farm
+which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his vast capacity
+for work in willing exercise: the farmer who held the farm his
+instinct reverenced as the fountain-source of beef and bacon, to say
+nothing of beer, which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This
+Farmer Blaize well knew, and he reckoned consequently that here was
+an animal always to be relied on--a sort of human composition out of
+dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each of these quadrupeds in
+usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but on the whole worth
+the money, and therefore invaluable, as everything worth its money
+must be to a wise man. When the stealing of grain had been made
+known at Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher with Tom Bakewell,
+had shared with him the shadow of the guilt. Farmer Blaize, if he
+hesitated which to suspect, did not debate a second as to which he
+would discard; and, when the Bantam said he had seen Tom secreting
+pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, and off went
+poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that spared his appearance
+at Sessions.
+
+The Bantam's small sleepy orbits saw many things, and just at the
+right moment, it seemed. He was certainly the first to give the clue
+at Belthorpe on the night of the conflagration, and he may,
+therefore, have seen poor Tom retreating stealthily from the scene,
+as he averred he did. Lobourne had its say on the subject. Rustic
+Lobourne hinted broadly at a young woman in the case, and moreover,
+told a tale of how these fellow-threshers had, in noble rivalry, one
+day turned upon each other to see which of the two threshed the
+best; whereof the Bantam still bore marks, and malice, it was said.
+However, there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company,
+and if Truth really had concealed herself in him she must have been
+hard set to find her unlikeliest hiding-place.
+
+"Now," said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the
+confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, "tell this young
+gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!"
+
+The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung
+round, fully obscuring him from Richard.
+
+Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest
+Doric commenced his narrative. Knowing what was to come, and
+thoroughly nerved to confute the main incident, Richard barely
+listened to his barbarous locution: but when the recital arrived at
+the point where the Bantam affirmed he had seen "T'm Baak'll wi's
+owen hoies," Richard faced him, and was amazed to find himself being
+mutely addressed by a series of intensely significant grimaces,
+signs, and winks.
+
+"What do you mean? Why are you making those faces at me?" cried the
+boy indignantly.
+
+Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and
+beheld the stolidest mask ever given to man.
+
+"Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky elephant.
+
+The farmer commanded him to face about and finish.
+
+"A see T'm Baak'll," the Bantam recommenced, and again the
+contortions of a horrible wink were directed at Richard. The boy
+might well believe this churl was lying, and he did, and was
+emboldened to exclaim--
+
+"You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!"
+
+The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment.
+
+"I tell you," said Richard, "I put the lucifers there myself!"
+
+The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to telegraph to the
+young gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces
+that had been given him, and that in the right place and at the
+right time he should prove so. Why was he thus suspected? Why was he
+not understood?
+
+"A thowt I see 'un, then," muttered the Bantam, trying a middle
+course.
+
+This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, "Thought! Ye
+thought! What d'ye mean? Speak out, and don't be thinkin'. Thought?
+What the devil's that?"
+
+"How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?" Richard put in.
+
+"Thought!" the farmer bellowed louder. "Thought--Devil take ye, when
+ye took yer oath on't. Hulloa! What are ye screwin' yer eye at Mr.
+Feverel for?--I say, young gentleman, have you spoken to this chap
+before now?"
+
+"I?" replied Richard. "I have not seen him before."
+
+Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and
+glared his doubts.
+
+"Come," said he to the Bantam, "speak out, and ha' done wi't. Say
+what ye saw, and none o' yer thoughts. Damn yer thoughts! Ye saw Tom
+Bakewell fire that there rick!" The farmer pointed at some musk-pots
+in the window. "What business ha' you to be a-thinkin'? You're a
+witness? Thinkin' an't ev'dence. What'll ye say to-morrow before
+magistrate! Mind! what you say to-day, you'll stick by to-morrow."
+
+Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on earth the young
+gentleman meant he was at a loss to speculate. He could not believe
+that the young gentleman wanted to be transported, but if he had
+been paid to help that, why, he would. And considering that this
+day's evidence rather bound him down to the morrow's, he determined,
+after much ploughing and harrowing through obstinate shocks of hair,
+to be not altogether positive as to the person. It is possible that
+he became thereby more a mansion of truth than he previously had
+been; for the night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see
+your hand before your face; and though, as he expressed it, you
+might be mortal sure of a man, you could not identify him upon oath,
+and the party he had taken for Tom Bakewell, and could have sworn
+to, might have been the young gentleman present, especially as he
+was ready to swear it upon oath.
+
+So ended the Bantam.
+
+No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up from his
+chair, and made a fine effort to lift him out of the room from the
+point of his toe. He failed, and sank back groaning with the pain of
+the exertion and disappointment.
+
+"They're liars, every one!" he cried. "Liars, perj'rers, bribers,
+and c'rrupters!--Stop!" to the Bantam, who was slinking away.
+"You've done for yerself already! You swore to it!"
+
+"A din't!" said the Bantam, doggedly.
+
+"You swore to't," the farmer vociferated afresh.
+
+The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, and still
+affirmed that he did not; a double contradiction at which the farmer
+absolutely raged in his chair, and was hoarse, as he called out a
+third time that the Bantam had sworn to it.
+
+"Noa!" said the Bantam, ducking his poll. "Noa!" he repeated in a
+lower note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic
+enjoyment of his profound casuistical quibble worked at his jaw:
+
+"Not up'n o-ath!" he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and an
+angular jerk of the elbow.
+
+Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask him what he
+thought of England's peasantry after the sample they had there.
+Richard would have preferred not to laugh, but his dignity gave way
+to his sense of the ludicrous, and he let fly a shout. The farmer
+was in no laughing mood. He turned a wide eye back to the door.
+"Lucky for'm," he exclaimed, seeing the Bantam had vanished, for his
+fingers itched to break that stubborn head. He grew very puffy, and
+addressed Richard solemnly:
+
+"Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You've been a-tampering with my
+witness. It's no use denyin'! I say y' 'ave, sir! You, or some of
+ye. I don't care about no Feverel! My witness there has been bribed.
+The Bantam's been bribed," and he shivered his pipe with an
+energetic thump on the table--"bribed! I knows it! I could swear
+to't!"----
+
+"Upon oath?" Richard inquired, with a grave face.
+
+"Ay, upon oath!" said the farmer, not observing the impertinence.
+
+"I'd take my Bible oath on't! He's been corrupted, my principal
+witness! Oh, it's dam cunnin', but it won't do the trick. I'll
+transpoort Tom Bakewell, sure as a gun. He shall travel, that man
+shall. Sorry for you, Mr. Feverel--sorry you haven't seen how to
+treat me proper--you, or yours. Money won't do everything--no! it
+won't. It'll c'rrupt a witness, but it won't clear a felon. I'd ha'
+'scused you, sir! You're a boy and'll learn better. I asked no more
+than payment and a 'pology; and that I'd ha' taken content--always
+provided my witnesses weren't tampered with. Now you must stand yer
+luck, all o' ye."
+
+Richard stood up and replied, "Very well, Mr. Blaize."
+
+"And if," continued the farmer, "Tom Bakewell don't drag you into't
+after 'm, why, you're safe, as I hope ye'll be, sincere!"
+
+"It was not in consideration of my own safety that I sought this
+interview with you," said Richard, head erect.
+
+"Grant ye that," the farmer responded. "Grant ye that! Yer bold
+enough, young gentleman--comes of the blood that should be! If y'
+had only ha' spoke trewth!--I believe yer father--believe every word
+he said. I do wish I could ha' said as much for Sir Austin's son and
+heir."
+
+"What!" cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly to be feigned,
+"you have seen my father?"
+
+But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he could detect
+them where they did not exist, and mumbled gruffly,
+
+"Ay, we knows all about that!"
+
+The boy's perplexity saved him from being irritated. Who could have
+told his father? An old fear of his father came upon him, and a
+touch of an old inclination to revolt.
+
+"My father knows of this?" said he, very loudly, and staring, as he
+spoke, right through the farmer. "Who has played me false? Who would
+betray me to him? It was Austin! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and
+it was Austin who persuaded me to come here and submit to these
+indignities. Why couldn't he be open with me? I shall never trust
+him again!"----
+
+"And why not you with me, young gentleman?" said the farmer. "I sh'd
+trust you if ye had."
+
+Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and bade him good
+afternoon.
+
+Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. "'Company the young gentleman out,
+Lucy," he waved to the little damsel in the doorway. "Do the
+honours. And, Mr. Richard, ye might ha' made a friend o' me, sir,
+and it's not too late so to do. I'm not cruel, but I hate lies. I
+whipped my boy Tom, bigger than you, for not bein' above board, only
+yesterday,--ay! made 'un stand within swing o' this chair, and
+take's measure. Now, if ye'll come down to me, and speak trewth
+before the trial--if it's only five minutes before't; or if Sir
+Austin, who's a gentleman, 'll say there's been no tamperin' with
+any o' my witnesses, his word for't--well and good! I'll do my best
+to help off Tom Bakewell. And I'm glad, young gentleman, you've got
+a conscience about a poor man, though he's a villain. Good
+afternoon, sir."
+
+Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through the garden,
+never so much as deigning a glance at his wistful little guide, who
+hung at the garden gate to watch him up the lane, wondering a world
+of fancies about the handsome proud boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS THE OCCASION
+OF AN APHORISM
+
+
+To have determined upon an act something akin to heroism in its way, and
+to have fulfilled it by lying heartily, and so subverting the whole
+structure built by good resolution, seems a sad downfall if we forget
+what human nature, in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Young
+Richard had quitted his cousin Austin fully resolved to do his penance
+and drink the bitter cup; and he had drunk it; drained many cups to the
+dregs; and it was to no purpose. Still they floated before him, brimmed,
+trebly bitter. Away from Austin's influence, he was almost the same boy
+who had slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell's hand, and the lucifers
+into Farmer Blaize's rick. For good seed is long ripening; a good boy is
+not made in a minute. Enough that the seed was in him. He chafed on his
+road to Raynham at the scene he had just endured, and the figure of
+Belthorpe's fat tenant burnt like hot copper on the tablet of his brain,
+insufferably condescending, and, what was worse, in the right. Richard,
+obscured as his mind's eye was by wounded pride, saw that clearly, and
+hated his enemy for it the more.
+
+Heavy Benson's tongue was knelling dinner as Richard arrived at the
+Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress. Accident, or design, had
+laid the book of Sir Austin's aphorisms open on the dressing-table.
+Hastily combing his hair, Richard glanced down and read--
+
+"The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat his Lie."
+
+Underneath was interjected in pencil: "The Devil's mouthful!"
+
+Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had struck him
+in the face.
+
+Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son's cheek-bones. He sought
+the youth's eye, but Richard would not look, and sat conning his plate,
+an abject copy of Adrian's succulent air at that employment. How could
+he pretend to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully
+endeavouring to masticate The Devil's mouthful?
+
+Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias, usually the silent
+member, as if awakened by the unnatural stillness, became sprightly,
+like the goatsucker owl at night, and spoke much of his book, his
+digestion, and his dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and Adrian.
+One inconsequent dream he related, about fancying himself quite young
+and rich, and finding himself suddenly in a field cropping razors
+around him, when, just as he had, by steps dainty as those of a French
+dancing-master, reached the middle, he to his dismay beheld a path clear
+of the bloodthirsty steel-crop, which he might have taken at first had
+he looked narrowly; and there he was.
+
+Hippias's brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly said they wished
+he had remained there. Sir Austin, however, drew forth his note-book,
+and jotted down a reflection. A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms
+even from a razor-crop. Was not Hippias's dream the very counterpart of
+Richard's position? He, had he looked narrowly, might have taken the
+clear path: he, too, had been making dainty steps till he was surrounded
+by the grinning blades. And from that text Sir Austin preached to his
+son when they were alone. Little Clare was still too unwell to be
+permitted to attend the dessert, and father and son were soon closeted
+together.
+
+It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been separated so long.
+The father took his son's hand; they sat without a word passing between
+them. Silence said most. The boy did not understand his father: his
+father frequently thwarted him: at times he thought his father foolish:
+but that paternal pressure of his hand was eloquent to him of how warmly
+he was beloved. He tried once or twice to steal his hand away, conscious
+it was melting him. The spirit of his pride, and old rebellion,
+whispered him to be hard, unbending, resolute. Hard he had entered his
+father's study: hard he had met his father's eyes. He could not meet
+them now. His father sat beside him gently; with a manner that was
+almost meekness, so he loved this boy. The poor gentleman's lips moved.
+He was praying internally to God for him.
+
+By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy's bosom. Love is that blessed
+wand which wins the waters from the hardness of the heart. Richard
+fought against it, for the dignity of old rebellion. The tears would
+come; hot and struggling over the dams of pride. Shamefully fast they
+began to fall. He could no longer conceal them, or check the sobs. Sir
+Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till the beloved head was on his
+breast.
+
+An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, and Algernon
+Feverel were summoned to the baronet's study.
+
+Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipotence about the
+wise youth as he slung himself into a chair, and made an arch of the
+points of his fingers, through which to gaze on his blundering
+kinsmen. Careless as one may be whose sagacity has foreseen, and
+whose benevolent efforts have forestalled, the point of danger at
+the threshold, Adrian crossed his legs, and only intruded on their
+introductory remarks so far as to hum half audibly at intervals--
+
+    "Ripton and Richard were two pretty men,"
+
+in parody of the old ballad. Young Richard's red eyes, and the baronet's
+ruffled demeanour, told him that an explanation had taken place, and a
+reconciliation. That was well. The baronet would now pay cheerfully.
+Adrian summed and considered these matters, and barely listened when the
+baronet called attention to what he had to say: which was elaborately to
+inform all present, what all present very well knew, that a rick had
+been fired, that his son was implicated as an accessory to the fact,
+that the perpetrator was now imprisoned, and that Richard's family were,
+as it seemed to him, bound in honour to do their utmost to effect the
+man's release.
+
+Then the baronet stated that he had himself been down to Belthorpe, his
+son likewise: and that he had found every disposition in Blaize to meet
+his wishes.
+
+The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to illumine the
+acts of this secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays; and,
+as statement followed statement, they saw that all had known of the
+business: that all had been down to Belthorpe: all save the wise
+youth Adrian, who, with due deference and a sarcastic shrug,
+objected to the proceeding, as putting them in the hands of the man
+Blaize. His wisdom shone forth in an oration so persuasive and
+aphoristic that had it not been based on a plea against honour, it
+would have made Sir Austin waver. But its basis was expediency, and
+the baronet had a better aphorism of his own to confute him with.
+
+"Expediency is man's wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing right is God's."
+
+Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an attempt to
+counteract the just working of the law was doing right. The direct
+application of an aphorism was unpopular at Raynham.
+
+"I am to understand then," said he, "that Blaize consents not to
+press the prosecution."
+
+"Of course he won't," Algernon remarked. "Confound him! he'll have
+his money, and what does he want besides?"
+
+"These agricultural gentleman are delicate customers to deal with.
+However, if he really consents"----
+
+"I have his promise," said the baronet, fondling his son.
+
+Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to speak. He
+said nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute reply to his
+caresses, and caressed him the more. Adrian perceived a reserve in
+the boy's manner, and as he was not quite satisfied that his chief
+should suppose him to have been the only idle, and not the most
+acute and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a
+cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken with the
+tenant of Belthorpe?
+
+"I think I saw him last," murmured Richard, and relinquished his
+father's hand.
+
+Adrian fastened on his prey. "And left him with a distinct and
+satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?"
+
+"No," said Richard.
+
+"Not?" the Feverels joined in astounded chorus.
+
+Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced "No."
+
+"Was he hostile?" inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and smiling.
+
+"Yes," the boy confessed.
+
+Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, generally
+patient of results, triumphed strongly at having evoked it, and
+turned upon Austin Wentworth, reproving him for inducing the boy to
+go down to Belthorpe. Austin looked grieved. He feared that Richard
+had failed in his good resolve.
+
+"I thought it his duty to go," he observed.
+
+"It was!" said the baronet, emphatically.
+
+"And you see what comes of it, sir," Adrian struck in. "These
+agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers to deal
+with. For my part I would prefer being in the hands of a policeman.
+We are decidedly collared by Blaize. What were his words, Ricky?
+Give it in his own Doric."
+
+"He said he would transport Tom Bakewell."
+
+Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they could afford
+to defy Mr. Blaize, he informed them significantly, and made once
+more a mysterious allusion to the Punic elephant, bidding his
+relatives be at peace. They were attaching, in his opinion, too much
+importance to Richard's complicity. The man was a fool, and a very
+extraordinary arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It was a thing
+unknown in the annals of rick-burning. But one would be severer than
+law itself to say that a boy of fourteen had instigated to crime a
+full-grown man. At that rate the boy was "father of the man" with a
+vengeance, and one might hear next that "the baby was father of the
+boy." They would find common sense a more benevolent ruler than
+poetical metaphysics.
+
+When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him
+what he meant.
+
+"I confess, Adrian," said the baronet, hearing him expostulate with
+Austin's stupidity, "I for one am at a loss. I have heard that this
+man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily not to inculpate my son. Seldom
+have I heard anything that so gratified me. It is a view of innate
+nobleness in the rustic's character which many a gentleman might
+take example from. We are bound to do our utmost for the man." And,
+saying that he should pay a second visit to Belthorpe, to inquire
+into the reasons for the farmer's sudden exposition of vindictiveness,
+Sir Austin rose.
+
+Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the farmer had
+vouchsafed any reasons, and the boy then spoke of the tampering with
+the witnesses, and the Bantam's "Not upon oath!" which caused Adrian
+to choke with laughter. Even the baronet smiled at so cunning a
+distinction as that involved in swearing a thing, and not swearing
+it upon oath.
+
+"How little," he exclaimed, "does one yeoman know another! To
+elevate a distinction into a difference is the natural action of
+their minds. I will point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the
+idea is native born."
+
+Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease.
+
+"This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all," said he. "The affair
+would pass over to-morrow--Blaize has no witnesses. The old rascal
+is only standing out for more money."
+
+"No, he isn't," Richard corrected him. "It's not that. I'm sure he
+believes his witnesses have been tampered with, as he calls it."
+
+"What if they have, boy?" Adrian put it boldly. "The ground is cut
+from under his feet."
+
+"Blaize told me that if my father would give his word there had been
+nothing of the sort, he would take it. My father will give his
+word."
+
+"Then," said Adrian, "you had better stop him from going down."
+
+Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him whether he
+thought the farmer was justified in his suspicions. The wise youth
+was not to be entrapped. He had only been given to understand that
+the witnesses were tolerably unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready
+to swear lustily, but not upon the Book. How given to understand, he
+chose not to explain, but he reiterated that the chief should not be
+allowed to go down to Belthorpe.
+
+Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps
+of some one running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the
+hand that laid hold of his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son.
+
+"It's I, sir," said Richard panting. "Pardon me. You mustn't go in
+there."
+
+"Why not?" said the baronet, putting his arm about him.
+
+"Not now," continued the boy. "I will tell you all to-night. I must
+see the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I--I lied to him--the
+Liar must eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did
+it--I hope I did it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and
+speak the truth."
+
+"Go, and I will wait for you here," said his father.
+
+The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in
+the air, had a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that
+half-hour's lonely pacing up and down under the darkness, awaiting
+his boy's return. The solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a
+tongue. Through the desolation flying overhead--the wailing of the
+Mother of Plenty across the bare-swept land--he caught intelligible
+signs of the beneficent order of the universe, from a heart newly
+confirmed in its grasp of the principle of human goodness, as
+manifested in the dear child who had just left him; confirmed in its
+belief in the ultimate victory of good within us, without which
+nature has neither music nor meaning, and is rock, stone, tree, and
+nothing more.
+
+In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for
+his note-book: "There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness:
+from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this
+world is well designed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN A LETTER
+
+
+Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton
+Thompson awaited the fearful morning which was to decide Tom's fate,
+in dolefullest mood, and suffered the gravest mental terrors.
+Adrian, on parting with him, had taken casual occasion to speak of
+the position of the criminal in modern Europe, assuring him that
+International Treaty now did what Universal Empire had aforetime
+done, and that among Atlantic barbarians now, as among the Scythians
+of old, an offender would find precarious refuge and an emissary
+haunting him.
+
+In the paternal home, under the roofs of Law, and removed from the
+influence of his conscienceless young chief, the staggering nature
+of the act he had put his hand to, its awful felonious aspect,
+overwhelmed Ripton. He saw it now for the first time. "Why, it's
+next to murder!" he cried out to his amazed soul, and wandered about
+the house with a prickly skin. Thoughts of America, and commencing
+life afresh as an innocent gentleman, had crossed his disordered
+brain. He wrote to his friend Richard, proposing to collect
+disposable funds, and embark, in case of Tom's breaking his word, or
+of accidental discovery. He dared not confide the secret to his
+family, as his leader had sternly enjoined him to avoid any weakness
+of that kind; and, being by nature honest and communicative, the
+restriction was painful, and melancholy fell upon the boy. Mama
+Thompson attributed it to love. The daughters of parchment rallied
+him concerning Miss Clare Forey. His hourly letters to Raynham, and
+silence as to everything and everybody there, his nervousness, and
+unwonted propensity to sudden inflammation of the cheeks, were set
+down for sure signs of the passion. Miss Letitia Thompson, the
+pretty and least parchmenty one, destined by her Papa for the heir
+of Raynham, and perfectly aware of her brilliant future, up to which
+she had, since Ripton's departure, dressed and grimaced, and studied
+cadences (the latter with such success, though not yet fifteen, that
+she languished to her maid, and melted the small factotum
+footman)--Miss Letty, whose insatiable thirst for intimations about
+the young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented him daily in
+revenge, and once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful turn;
+for after dinner, when Mr. Thompson read the paper by the fire,
+preparatory to sleeping at his accustomed post, and Mama Thompson
+and her submissive female brood sat tasking the swift intricacies of
+the needle, and emulating them with the tongue, Miss Letty stole
+behind Ripton's chair, and introduced between him and his book the
+Latin initial letter, large and illuminated, of the theme she
+supposed to be absorbing him, as it did herself. The unexpected
+vision of this accusing Captain of the Alphabet, this resplendent
+and haunting A, fronting him bodily, threw Ripton straight back in
+his chair, while Guilt, with her ancient indecision what colours to
+assume on detection, flew from red to white, from white to red,
+across his fallen chaps. Letty laughed triumphantly. Amor, the word
+she had in mind, certainly has a connection with Arson.
+
+But the delivery of a letter into Master Ripton's hands, furnished
+her with other and likelier appearances to study. For scarce had
+Ripton plunged his head into the missive than he gave way to violent
+transports, such as the healthy-minded little damsel, for all her
+languishing cadences, deemed she really could express were a
+downright declaration to be made to her. The boy did not stop at
+table. Quickly recollecting the presence of his family, he rushed to
+his own room. And now the girl's ingenuity was taxed to gain
+possession of that letter. She succeeded, of course, she being a
+huntress with few scruples and the game unguarded. With the eyes of
+amazement she read this foreign matter:
+
+  "Dear Ripton,--If Tom had been committed I would have shot
+  old Blaize. Do you know my father was behind us that night
+  when Clare saw the ghost and heard all we said before the fire
+  burst out. It is no use trying to conceal anything from him.
+  Well as you are in an awful state I will tell you all about it.
+  After you left Ripton I had a conversation with Austin and he
+  persuaded me to go down to old Blaize and ask him to help off
+  Tom. I went, for I would have done anything for Tom after what
+  he said to Austin and I defied the old churl to do his worst.
+  Then he said if my father paid the money and nobody had tampered
+  with his witnesses he would not mind if Tom did get off and he
+  had his chief witness in called the Bantam very like his master
+  I think and the Bantam began winking at me tremendjously as you
+  say, and said he had sworn he saw Tom Bakewell but not upon
+  oath. He meant not on the Bible. He could swear to it but not
+  on the Bible. I burst out laughing and you should have seen
+  the rage old Blaize was in. It was splendid fun. Then we had a
+  consultation at home Austin Rady my father Uncle Algernon who
+  has come down to us again and your friend in prosperity and
+  adversity R. D. F. My father said he would go down to old Blaize
+  and give him the word of a gentleman we had not tampered with
+  his witnesses and when he was gone we were all talking and Rady
+  says he must not see the farmer. I am as certain as I live that
+  it was Rady bribed the Bantam. Well I ran and caught up with my
+  father and told him not to go in to old Blaize but I would and
+  eat my words and tell him the truth. He waited for me in the
+  lane. Never mind what passed between me and old Blaize. He
+  made me beg and pray of him not to press it against Tom and
+  then to complete it he brought in a little girl a niece of his and
+  says to me she's your best friend after all and told me to thank
+  her. A little girl twelve years of age. What business had she
+  to mix herself up in my matters. Depend upon it Ripton wherever
+  there is mischief there are girls I think. She had the insolence
+  to notice my face, and ask me not to be unhappy. I was polite
+  of course but I would not look at her. Well the morning came
+  and Tom was had up before Sir Miles Papworth. It was Sir Miles
+  gout gave us the time or Tom would have been had up before we
+  could do anything. Adrian did not want me to go but my father
+  said I should accompany him and held my hand all the time. I
+  shall be careful about getting into these scrapes again. When
+  you have done anything honourable you do not mind but getting
+  among policemen and magistrates makes you ashamed of yourself.
+  Sir Miles was very attentive to my father and me and dead against
+  Tom. We sat beside him and Tom was brought in. Sir Miles told
+  my father that if there was one thing that showed a low villain
+  it was rick-burning. What do you think of that. I looked him
+  straight in the face and he said to me he was doing me a service
+  in getting Tom committed and clearing the country of such fellows
+  and Rady began laughing. I hate Rady. My father said his son
+  was not in haste to inherit and have estates of his own to watch
+  and Sir Miles laughed too. I thought we were discovered at first.
+  Then they began the examination of Tom. The Tinker was the first
+  witness and he proved that Tom had spoken against old Blaize and
+  said something about burning his rick. I wished I had stood in the
+  lane to Bursley with him alone. Our country lawyer we engaged
+  for Tom cross-questioned him and then he said he was not ready
+  to swear to the exact words that had passed between him and
+  Tom. I should think not. Then came another who swore he had
+  seen Tom lurking about the farmer's grounds that night. Then
+  came the Bantam and I saw him look at Rady. I was tremendjously
+  excited and my father kept pressing my hand. Just fancy my being
+  brought to feel that a word from that fellow would make me
+  miserable for life and he must perjure himself to help me. That
+  comes of giving way to passion. My father says when we do that
+  we are calling in the devil as doctor. Well the Bantam was told
+  to state what he had seen and the moment he began Rady who was
+  close by me began to shake and he was laughing I knew though
+  his face was as grave as Sir Miles. You never heard such a
+  rigmarole but I could not laugh. He said he thought he was
+  certain he had seen somebody by the rick and it was Tom Bakewell
+  who was the only man he knew who had a grudge against Farmer
+  Blaize and if the object had been a little bigger he would not
+  mind swearing to Tom and would swear to him for he was dead
+  certain it was Tom only what he saw looked smaller and it was
+  pitch-dark at the time. He was asked what time it was he saw
+  the person steal away from the rick and then he began to scratch
+  his head and said supper-time. Then they asked what time he had
+  supper and he said nine o'clock by the clock and we proved that
+  at nine o'clock Tom was drinking in the ale-house with the
+  Tinker at Bursley and Sir Miles swore and said he was afraid
+  he could not commit Tom and when he heard that Tom looked up
+  at me and I say he is a noble fellow and no one shall sneer at Tom
+  while I live. Mind that. Well Sir Miles asked us to dine with
+  him and Tom was safe and I am to have him and educate him if I
+  like for my servant and I will. And I will give money to his
+  mother and make her rich and he shall never repent he knew me.
+  I say Rip. The Bantam must have seen _me_. It was when I went
+  to stick in the lucifers. As we were all going home from Sir
+  Miles's at night he has lots of redfaced daughters but I did not
+  dance with them though they had music and were full of fun and
+  I did not care to I was so delighted and almost let it out. When
+  we left and rode home Rady said to my father the Bantam was not
+  such a fool as he was thought and my father said one must be in
+  a state of great personal exaltation to apply that epithet to
+  any man and Rady shut his mouth and I gave my pony a clap of the
+  heel for joy. I think my father suspects what Rady did and does
+  not approve of it. And he need not have done it after all and
+  might have spoilt it. I have been obliged to order him not to
+  call me Ricky for he stops short at Rick so that everybody
+  knows what he means. My dear Austin is going to South America.
+  My pony is in capital condition. My father is the cleverest and
+  best man in the world. Clare is a little better. I am quite happy.
+  I hope we shall meet soon my dear Old Rip and we will not get
+  into any more tremendjous scrapes will we.--I remain, Your sworn
+  friend,
+
+                                            "RICHARD DORIA FEVEREL."
+
+  "_P.S._ I am to have a nice River Yacht. Good-bye, Rip. Mind you
+  learn to box. Mind you are not to show this to any of your friends
+  on pain of my displeasure.
+
+  "N.B. Lady B. was so angry when I told her that I had not come to
+  her before. She would do anything in the world for me. I like her
+  next best to my father and Austin. Good-bye old Rip."
+
+Poor little Letitia, after three perusals of this ingenuous epistle,
+where the laws of punctuation were so disregarded, resigned it to
+one of the pockets of her brother Ripton's best jacket, deeply
+smitten with the careless composer. And so ended the last act of the
+Bakewell Comedy, on which the curtain closes with Sir Austin's
+pointing out to his friends the beneficial action of the System in
+it from beginning to end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE BLOSSOMING SEASON
+
+
+Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and as the mystery of the
+apparition that had frightened little Clare was never solved on the
+stage of events at Raynham, where dread walked the Abbey, let us go
+behind the scenes a moment. Morally superstitious as the baronet
+was, the character of his mind was opposed to anything like
+spiritual agency in the affairs of men, and, when the matter was
+made clear to him, it shook off a weight of weakness and restored
+his mental balance; so that from this time he went about more like
+the man he had once been, grasping more thoroughly the great truth,
+that This World is well designed. Nay, he could laugh on hearing
+Adrian, in reminiscence of the ill luck of one of the family
+members at its first manifestation, call the uneasy spirit,
+Algernon's Leg.
+
+Mrs. Doria was outraged. She maintained that her child had seen----.
+Not to believe in it was almost to rob her of her personal property.
+After satisfactorily studying his old state of mind in her, Sir
+Austin, moved by pity, took her aside one day and showed her that
+her Ghost could write words in the flesh. It was a letter from the
+unhappy lady who had given Richard birth,--brief cold lines, simply
+telling him his house would be disturbed by her no more. Cold lines,
+but penned by what heart-broken abnegation, and underlying them with
+what anguish of soul! Like most who dealt with him, Lady Feverel
+thought her husband a man fatally stern and implacable, and she
+acted as silly creatures will act when they fancy they see a fate
+against them: she neither petitioned for her right nor claimed it:
+she tried to ease her heart's yearning by stealth, and now she
+renounced all. Mrs. Doria, not wanting in the family tenderness and
+softness, shuddered at him for accepting the sacrifice so
+composedly: but he bade her to think how distracting to this boy
+would be the sight of such relations between mother and father. A
+few years, and as man he should know, and judge, and love her. "Let
+this be her penance, not inflicted by me!" Mrs. Doria bowed to the
+System for another, not opining when it would be her turn to bow for
+herself.
+
+Further behind the scenes we observe Rizzio and Mary grown older,
+much disenchanted: she discrowned, dishevelled,--he with gouty
+fingers on a greasy guitar. The Diaper Sandoe of promise lends his
+pen for small hires. His fame has sunk; his bodily girth has
+sensibly increased. What he can do, and will do, is still his theme;
+meantime the juice of the juniper is in requisition, and it seems
+that those small hires cannot be performed without it. Returning
+from her wretched journey to her wretcheder home, the lady had to
+listen to a mild reproof from easy-going Diaper,--a reproof so mild
+that he couched it in blank verse: for, seldom writing metrically
+now, he took to talking it. With a fluent sympathetic tear, he
+explained to her that she was damaging her interests by these
+proceedings; nor did he shrink from undertaking to elucidate
+wherefore. Pluming a smile upon his succulent mouth, he told her
+that the poverty she lived in was utterly unbefitting her gentle
+nurture, and that he had reason to believe--could assure her--that
+an annuity was on the point of being granted her by her husband. And
+Diaper broke his bud of a smile into full flower as he delivered
+this information. She learnt that he had applied to her husband for
+money. It is hard to have one's prop of self-respect cut away just
+when we are suffering a martyr's agony at the stake. There was a
+five minutes tragic colloquy in the recesses behind the
+scenes,--totally tragic to Diaper, who had fondly hoped to bask in
+the warm sun of that annuity, and re-emerge from his state of grub.
+The lady then wrote the letter Sir Austin held open to his sister.
+The atmosphere behind the scenes is not wholesome, so, having laid
+the Ghost, we will return and face the curtain.
+
+That infinitesimal dose of THE WORLD which Master Ripton Thompson
+had furnished to the System with such instantaneous and surprising
+effect was considered by Sir Austin to have worked well, and to be
+for the time quite sufficient, so that Ripton did not receive a
+second invitation to Raynham, and Richard had no special intimate of
+his own age to rub his excessive vitality against, and wanted none.
+His hands were full enough with Tom Bakewell. Moreover, his father
+and he were heart in heart. The boy's mind was opening, and turned
+to his father affectionately reverent. At this period, when the
+young savage grows into higher influences, the faculty of worship is
+foremost in him. At this period Jesuits will stamp the future of
+their chargeling flocks; and all who bring up youth by a System, and
+watch it, know that it is the malleable moment. Boys possessing any
+mental or moral force to give them a tendency, then predestinate
+their careers; or, if under supervision, take the impress that is
+given them: not often to cast it off, and seldom to cast it off
+altogether.
+
+In Sir Austin's Note-book was written: "Between Simple Boyhood and
+Adolescence--The Blossoming Season--on the threshold of Puberty,
+there is one Unselfish Hour--say, Spiritual Seed-time."
+
+He took care that good seed should be planted in Richard, and that
+the most fruitful seed for a youth, namely, Example, should be of a
+kind to germinate in him the love of every form of nobleness.
+
+"I am only striving to make my son a Christian," he said, answering
+them who persisted in expostulating with the System. And to these
+instructions he gave an aim: "First be virtuous," he told his son,
+"and then serve your country with heart and soul." The youth was
+instructed to cherish an ambition for statesmanship, and he and his
+father read history and the speeches of British orators to some
+purpose; for one day Sir Austin found him leaning cross-legged, and
+with his hand to his chin, against a pedestal supporting the bust of
+Chatham, contemplating the hero of our Parliament, his eyes
+streaming with tears.
+
+People said the baronet carried the principle of Example so far that
+he only retained his boozing dyspeptic brother Hippias at Raynham in
+order to exhibit to his son the woeful retribution nature wreaked
+upon a life of indulgence; poor Hippias having now become a walking
+complaint. This was unjust, but there is no doubt he made use of
+every illustration to disgust or encourage his son that his
+neighbourhood afforded him, and did not spare his brother, for whom
+Richard entertained a contempt in proportion to his admiration of
+his father, and was for flying into penitential extremes which Sir
+Austin had to soften.
+
+The boy prayed with his father morning and night.
+
+"How is it, sir," he said one night, "I can't get Tom Bakewell to
+pray?"
+
+"Does he refuse?" Sir Austin asked.
+
+"He seems to be ashamed to," Richard replied. "He wants to know what
+is the good? and I don't know what to tell him."
+
+"I'm afraid it has gone too far with him," said Sir Austin, "and
+until he has had some deep sorrows he will not find the divine want
+of Prayer. Strive, my son, when you represent the people, to provide
+for their education. He feels everything now through a dull
+impenetrable rind. Culture is half-way to heaven. Tell him, my son,
+should he ever be brought to ask how he may know the efficacy of
+Prayer, and that his prayer will be answered, tell him (he quoted
+THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP):
+
+"'Who rises from Prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.'"
+
+"I will, sir," said Richard, and went to sleep happy.
+
+Happy in his father and in himself, the youth now lived. Conscience
+was beginning to inhabit him, and he carried some of the freightage
+known to men; though in so crude a form that it overweighed him, now
+on this side, now on that.
+
+The wise youth Adrian observed these further progressionary
+developments in his pupil, soberly cynical. He was under Sir
+Austin's interdict not to banter him, and eased his acrid humours
+inspired by the sight of a felonious young rick-burner turning
+saint, by grave affectations of sympathy and extreme accuracy in
+marking the not widely-distant dates of his various changes. The
+Bread-and-water phase lasted a fortnight: the Vegetarian (an
+imitation of his cousin Austin), a little better than a month: the
+religious, somewhat longer: the religious-propagandist (when he was
+for converting the heathen of Lobourne and Bursley, and the
+domestics of the Abbey, including Tom Bakewell), longer still, and
+hard to bear;--he tried to convert Adrian! All the while Tom was
+being exercised like a raw recruit. Richard had a drill-sergeant
+from the nearest barracks down for him, to give him a proper pride
+in himself, and marched him to and fro with immense satisfaction,
+and nearly broke his heart trying to get the round-shouldered rustic
+to take in the rudiments of letters: for the boy had unbounded hopes
+for Tom, as a hero in grain.
+
+Richard's pride also was cast aside. He affected to be, and really
+thought he was, humble. Whereupon Adrian, as by accident, imparted
+to him the fact that men were animals, and he an animal with the
+rest of them.
+
+"_I_ an animal!" cried Richard in scorn, and for weeks he was as
+troubled by this rudiment of self-knowledge as Tom by his letters.
+Sir Austin had him instructed in the wonders of anatomy, to restore
+his self-respect.
+
+SEED-TIME passed thus smoothly, and adolescence came on, and his
+cousin Clare felt what it was to be of an opposite sex to him. She
+too was growing, but nobody cared how she grew. Outwardly even her
+mother seemed absorbed in the sprouting of the green off-shoot of
+the Feverel tree, and Clare was his handmaiden, little marked by
+him.
+
+Lady Blandish honestly loved the boy. She would tell him: "If I had
+been a girl, I would have had you for my husband." And he with the
+frankness of his years would reply: "And how do you know I would
+have had you?" causing her to laugh and call him a silly boy, for
+had he not heard her say she would have had him? Terrible words, he
+knew not then the meaning of!
+
+"You don't read your father's Book," she said. Her own copy was
+bound in purple velvet, gilt-edged, as decorative ladies like to
+have holier books, and she carried it about with her, and quoted it,
+and (Adrian remarked to Mrs. Doria) hunted a noble quarry, and
+deliberately aimed at him therewith, which Mrs. Doria chose to
+believe, and regretted her brother would not be on his guard.
+
+"See here," said Lady Blandish, pressing an almondy finger-nail to
+one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how age and adversity must
+clay-enclose us ere we can effectually resist the magnetism of any
+human creature in our path. "Can you understand it, child?"
+
+Richard informed her that when she read he could.
+
+"Well, then, my squire," she touched his cheek and ran her fingers
+through his hair, "learn as quick as you can not to be all hither
+and yon with a hundred different attractions, as I was before I met
+a wise man to guide me."
+
+"Is my father very wise?" Richard asked.
+
+"I think so," the lady emphasized her individual judgment.
+
+"Do you----" Richard broke forth, and was stopped by a beating of
+his heart.
+
+"Do I--what?" she calmly queried.
+
+"I was going to say, do you--I mean, I love him so much."
+
+Lady Blandish smiled and slightly coloured.
+
+They frequently approached this theme, and always retreated from it;
+always with the same beating of heart to Richard, accompanied by the
+sense of a growing mystery, which, however, did not as yet generally
+disturb him.
+
+Life was made very pleasant to him at Raynham, as it was part of Sir
+Austin's principle of education that his boy should be thoroughly
+joyous and happy; and whenever Adrian sent in a satisfactory report
+of his pupil's advancement, which he did pretty liberally, diversions
+were planned, just as prizes are given to diligent schoolboys, and
+Richard was supposed to have all his desires gratified while he
+attended to his studies. The System flourished. Tall, strong,
+bloomingly healthy, he took the lead of his companions on land and
+water, and had more than one bondsman in his service besides Ripton
+Thompson--the boy without a Destiny! Perhaps the boy with a Destiny
+was growing up a trifle too conscious of it. His generosity to his
+occasional companions was princely, but was exercised something too
+much in the manner of a prince; and, notwithstanding his contempt for
+baseness, he would overlook that more easily than an offence to his
+pride, which demanded an utter servility when it had once been rendered
+susceptible. If Richard had his followers he had also his feuds. The
+Papworths were as subservient as Ripton, but young Ralph Morton,
+the nephew of Mr. Morton, and a match for Richard in numerous promising
+qualities, comprising the noble science of fisticuffs, this youth spoke
+his mind too openly, and moreover would not be snubbed. There was no
+middle course for Richard's comrades between high friendship or
+absolute slavery. He was deficient in those cosmopolite habits and
+feelings which enable boys and men to hold together without caring
+much for each other; and, like every insulated mortal, he attributed
+the deficiency, of which he was quite aware, to the fact of his
+possessing a superior nature. Young Ralph was a lively talker:
+therefore, argued Richard's vanity, he had no intellect. He was
+affable: therefore he was frivolous. The women liked him: therefore
+he was a butterfly. In fine, young Ralph was popular, and our superb
+prince, denied the privilege of despising, ended by detesting him.
+
+Early in the days of their contention for leadership, Richard saw
+the absurdity of affecting to scorn his rival. Ralph was an Eton
+boy, and hence, being robust, a swimmer and a cricketer. A swimmer
+and a cricketer is nowhere to be scorned in youth's republic.
+Finding that manoeuvre would not do, Richard was prompted once or
+twice to entrench himself behind his greater wealth and his
+position; but he soon abandoned that also, partly because his
+chilliness to ridicule told him he was exposing himself, and chiefly
+that his heart was too chivalrous. And so he was dragged into the
+lists by Ralph, and experienced the luck of champions. For cricket,
+and for diving, Ralph bore away the belt: Richard's middle-stump
+tottered before his ball, and he could seldom pick up more than
+three eggs under water to Ralph's half-dozen. He was beaten, too, in
+jumping and running. Why will silly mortals strive to the painful
+pinnacles of championship? Or why, once having reached them, not
+have the magnanimity and circumspection to retire into private life
+immediately? Stung by his defeats, Richard sent one of his dependent
+Papworths to Poer Hall, with a challenge to Ralph Barthrop Morton;
+matching himself to swim across the Thames and back, once, twice, or
+thrice, within a less time than he, Ralph Barthrop Morton, would
+require for the undertaking. It was accepted, and a reply returned,
+equally formal in the trumpeting of Christian names, wherein Ralph
+Barthrop Morton acknowledged the challenge of Richard Doria Feverel,
+and was his man. The match came off on a midsummer morning, under
+the direction of Captain Algernon. Sir Austin was a spectator from
+the cover of a plantation by the river-side, unknown to his son,
+and, to the scandal of her sex, Lady Blandish accompanied the
+baronet. He had invited her attendance, and she, obeying her frank
+nature, and knowing what THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP said about prudes, at
+once agreed to view the match, pleasing him mightily. For was not
+here a woman worthy the Golden Ages of the world? one who could look
+upon man as a creature divinely made, and look with a mind neither
+tempted, nor taunted, by the Serpent! Such a woman was rare. Sir
+Austin did not discompose her by uttering his praises. She was
+conscious of his approval only in an increased gentleness of manner,
+and something in his voice and communications, as if he were
+speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment from him. While the
+lads were standing ready for the signal to plunge from the steep
+decline of greensward into the shining water, Sir Austin called upon
+her to admire their beauty, and she did, and even advanced her head
+above his shoulder delicately. In so doing, and just as the start
+was given, a bonnet became visible to Richard. Young Ralph was
+heels in air before he moved, and then he dropped like lead. He was
+beaten by several lengths.
+
+The result of the match was unaccountable to all present, and
+Richard's friends unanimously pressed him to plead a false start.
+But though the youth, with full confidence in his better style and
+equal strength, had backed himself heavily against his rival, and
+had lost his little river-yacht to Ralph, he would do nothing of the
+sort. It was the Bonnet had beaten him, not Ralph. The Bonnet,
+typical of the mystery that caused his heart those violent
+palpitations, was his dear, detestable enemy.
+
+And now, as he progressed from mood to mood, his ambition turned
+towards a field where Ralph could not rival him, and where the
+Bonnet was etherealized, and reigned glorious mistress. A check to
+the pride of a boy will frequently divert him to the path where lie
+his subtlest powers. Richard gave up his companions, servile or
+antagonistic: he relinquished the material world to young Ralph, and
+retired into himself, where he was growing to be lord of kingdoms:
+where Beauty was his handmaid, and History his minister, and Time
+his ancient harper, and sweet Romance his bride; where he walked in
+a realm vaster and more gorgeous than the great Orient, peopled with
+the heroes that have been. For there is no princely wealth, and no
+loftiest heritage, to equal this early one that is made bountifully
+common to so many, when the ripening blood has put a spark to the
+imagination, and the earth is seen through rosy mists of a thousand
+fresh-awakened nameless and aimless desires; panting for bliss and
+taking it as it comes; making of any sight or sound, perforce of the
+enchantment they carry with them, a key to infinite, because
+innocent, pleasure. The passions then are gambolling cubs; not the
+ravaging gluttons they grow to. They have their teeth and their
+talons, but they neither tear nor bite. They are in counsel and
+fellowship with the quickened heart and brain. The whole sweet
+system moves to music.
+
+Something akin to the indications of a change in the spirit of his
+son, which were now seen, Sir Austin had marked down to be expected,
+as due to his plan. The blushes of the youth, his long vigils, his
+clinging to solitude, his abstraction, and downcast but not
+melancholy air, were matters for rejoicing to the prescient
+gentleman. "For it comes," said he to Dr. Clifford of Lobourne,
+after consulting him medically on the youth's behalf and being
+assured of his soundness, "it comes of a thoroughly sane condition.
+The blood is healthy, the mind virtuous: neither instigates the
+other to evil, and both are perfecting toward the flower of manhood.
+If he reach that pure--in the untainted fulness and perfection of
+his natural powers--I am indeed a happy father! But one thing he
+will owe to me: that at one period of his life he knew paradise, and
+could read God's handwriting on the earth! Now those abominations
+whom you call precocious boys--your little pet monsters,
+doctor!--and who can wonder that the world is what it is? when it is
+full of them--as they will have no divine time to look back upon in
+their own lives, how can they believe in innocence and goodness, or
+be other than sons of selfishness and the Devil? But my boy," and
+the baronet dropped his voice to a key that was touching to hear,
+"my boy, if he fall, will fall from an actual region of purity. He
+dare not be a sceptic as to that. Whatever his darkness, he will
+have the guiding light of a memory behind him. So much is secure."
+
+To talk nonsense, or poetry, or the dash between the two, in a tone
+of profound sincerity, and to enunciate solemn discordances with
+received opinion so seriously as to convey the impression of a
+spiritual insight, is the peculiar gift by which monomaniacs, having
+first persuaded themselves, to contrive to influence their
+neighbours, and through them to make conquest of a good half of the
+world, for good or for ill. Sir Austin had this gift. He spoke as if
+he saw the truth, and, persisting in it so long, he was accredited
+by those who did not understand him, and silenced them that did.
+
+"We shall see," was all the argument left to Dr. Clifford, and other
+unbelievers.
+
+So far certainly the experiment had succeeded. A comelier, braver,
+better boy was nowhere to be met. His promise was undeniable. The
+vessel, too, though it lay now in harbour and had not yet been
+proved by the buffets of the elements on the great ocean, had made a
+good trial trip, and got well through stormy weather, as the records
+of the Bakewell Comedy witnessed to at Raynham. No augury could be
+hopefuller. The Fates must indeed be hard, the Ordeal severe, the
+Destiny dark, that could destroy so bright a Spring! But, bright as
+it was, the baronet relaxed nothing of his vigilant supervision. He
+said to his intimates: "Every act, every fostered inclination,
+almost every thought in this Blossoming Season, bears its seed for
+the Future. The living Tree now requires incessant watchfulness."
+And, acting up to his light, Sir Austin did watch. The youth
+submitted to an examination every night before he sought his bed;
+professedly to give an account of his studies, but really to
+recapitulate his moral experiences of the day. He could do so, for
+he was pure. Any wildness in him that his father noted, any
+remoteness or richness of fancy in his expressions, was set down as
+incidental to the Blossoming Season. There is nothing like a theory
+for binding the wise. Sir Austin, despite his rigid watch and ward,
+knew less of his son than the servant of his household. And he was
+deaf, as well as blind. Adrian thought it his duty to tell him that
+the youth was consuming paper. Lady Blandish likewise hinted at his
+mooning propensities. Sir Austin from his lofty watch-tower of the
+System had foreseen it, he said. But when he came to hear that the
+youth was writing poetry, his wounded heart had its reasons for
+being much disturbed.
+
+"Surely," said Lady Blandish, "you knew he scribbled?"
+
+"A very different thing from writing poetry," said the baronet. "No
+Feverel has ever written poetry."
+
+"I don't think it's a sign of degeneracy," the lady remarked. "He
+rhymes very prettily to me."
+
+A London phrenologist, and a friendly Oxford Professor of poetry,
+quieted Sir Austin's fears.
+
+The phrenologist said he was totally deficient in the imitative
+faculty; and the Professor, that he was equally so in the rhythmic,
+and instanced several consoling false quantities in a few effusions
+submitted to him. Added to this, Sir Austin told Lady Blandish that
+Richard had, at his best, done what no poet had ever been known to
+be capable of doing: he had, with his own hands, and in cold blood,
+committed his virgin manuscript to the flames: which made Lady
+Blandish sigh forth, "Poor boy!"
+
+Killing one's darling child is a painful imposition. For a youth in
+his Blossoming Season, who fancies himself a poet, to be requested
+to destroy his first-born, without a reason (though to pretend a
+reason cogent enough to justify the request were a mockery), is a
+piece of abhorrent despotism, and Richard's blossoms withered under
+it. A strange man had been introduced to him, who traversed and
+bisected his skull with sagacious stiff fingers, and crushed his
+soul while, in an infallible voice, declaring him the animal he was:
+making him feel such an animal! Not only his blossoms withered, his
+being seemed to draw in its shoots and twigs. And when, coupled
+thereunto (the strange man having departed, his work done), his
+father, in his tenderest manner, stated that it would give him
+pleasure to see those same precocious, utterly valueless,
+scribblings among the cinders, the last remaining mental blossom
+spontaneously fell away. Richard's spirit stood bare. He protested
+not. Enough that it could be wished! He would not delay a minute in
+doing it. Desiring his father to follow him, he went to a drawer in
+his room, and from a clean-linen recess, never suspected by Sir
+Austin, the secretive youth drew out bundle after bundle: each
+neatly tied, named, and numbered: and pitched them into flames. And
+so Farewell my young Ambition! and with it farewell all true
+confidence between Father and Son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE MAGNETIC AGE
+
+
+It was now, as Sir Austin had written it down, The Magnetic Age: the
+Age of violent attractions, when to hear mention of love is
+dangerous, and to see it, a communication of the disease. People at
+Raynham were put on their guard by the baronet, and his reputation
+for wisdom was severely criticized in consequence of the injunctions
+he thought fit to issue through butler and housekeeper down to the
+lower household, for the preservation of his son from any visible
+symptom of the passion. A footman and two housemaids are believed
+to have been dismissed on the report of heavy Benson that they were
+in or inclining to the state; upon which an under-cook and a
+dairymaid voluntarily threw up their places, averring that "they did
+not want no young men, but to have their sex spied after by an old
+wretch like that," indicating the ponderous butler, "was a little
+too much for a Christian woman," and then they were ungenerous
+enough to glance at Benson's well-known marital calamity, hinting
+that some men met their deserts. So intolerable did heavy Benson's
+espionage become, that Raynham would have grown depopulated of its
+womankind had not Adrian interfered, who pointed out to the baronet
+what a fearful arm his butler was wielding. Sir Austin acknowledged
+it despondently. "It only shows," said he, with a fine spirit of
+justice, "how all but impossible it is to legislate where there are
+women!"
+
+"I do not object," he added; "I hope I am too just to object to the
+exercise of their natural inclinations. All I ask from them is
+discreetness."
+
+"Ay," said Adrian, whose discreetness was a marvel.
+
+"No gadding about in couples," continued the baronet, "no kissing in
+public. Such occurrences no boy should witness. Whenever people of
+both sexes are thrown together, they will be silly; and where they
+are high-fed, uneducated, and barely occupied, it must be looked for
+as a matter of course. Let it be known that I only require
+discreetness."
+
+Discreetness, therefore, was instructed to reign at the Abbey. Under
+Adrian's able tuition the fairest of its domestics acquired that
+virtue.
+
+Discreetness, too, was enjoined to the upper household. Sir Austin,
+who had not previously appeared to notice the case of Lobourne's
+hopeless curate, now desired Mrs. Doria to interdict, or at least
+discourage, his visits, for the appearance of the man was that of an
+embodied sigh and groan.
+
+"Really, Austin!" said Mrs. Doria, astonished to find her brother
+more awake than she had supposed, "I have never allowed him to
+hope."
+
+"Let him see it, then," replied the baronet; "let him see it."
+
+"The man amuses me," said Mrs. Doria. "You know, we have few
+amusements here, we inferior creatures. I confess I should like a
+barrel-organ better; that reminds one of town and the opera; and
+besides, it plays more than one tune. However, since you think my
+society bad for him, let him stop away."
+
+With the self-devotion of a woman she grew patient and sweet the
+moment her daughter Clare was spoken of, and the business of her
+life in view. Mrs. Doria's maternal heart had betrothed the two
+cousins, Richard and Clare; had already beheld them espoused and
+fruitful. For this she yielded the pleasures of town; for this she
+immured herself at Raynham; for this she bore with a thousand
+follies, exactions, inconveniences, things abhorrent to her, and
+heaven knows what forms of torture and self-denial, which are
+smilingly endured by that greatest of voluntary martyrs--a mother
+with a daughter to marry. Mrs. Doria, an amiable widow, had surely
+married but for her daughter Clare. The lady's hair no woman could
+possess without feeling it her pride. It was the daily theme of her
+lady's-maid,--a natural aureole to her head. She was gay, witty,
+still physically youthful enough to claim a destiny; and she
+sacrificed it to accomplish her daughter's! sacrificed, as with
+heroic scissors, hair, wit, gaiety--let us not attempt to enumerate
+how much! more than may be said. And she was only one of thousands;
+thousands who have no portion of the hero's reward; for he may
+reckon on applause, and condolence, and sympathy, and honour; they,
+poor slaves! must look for nothing but the opposition of their own
+sex and the sneers of ours. O, Sir Austin! had you not been so
+blinded, what an Aphorism might have sprung from this point of
+observation! Mrs. Doria was coolly told, between sister and brother,
+that during the Magnetic Age her daughter's presence at Raynham was
+undesirable. Instead of nursing offence, her sole thought was the
+mountain of prejudice she had to contend against. She bowed, and
+said, Clare wanted sea-air--she had never quite recovered the shock
+of that dreadful night. How long, Mrs. Doria wished to know, might
+the Peculiar Period be expected to last?
+
+"That," said Sir Austin, "depends. A year, perhaps, he is entering
+on it. I shall be most grieved to lose you, Helen. Clare is now--how
+old?"
+
+"Seventeen."
+
+"She is marriageable."
+
+"Marriageable, Austin! at seventeen! don't name such a thing. My
+child shall not be robbed of her youth."
+
+"Our women marry early, Helen."
+
+"My child shall not!"
+
+The baronet reflected a moment. He did not wish to lose his sister.
+
+"As you are of that opinion, Helen," said he, "perhaps we may still
+make arrangements to retain you with us. Would you think it
+advisable to send Clare--she should know discipline--to some
+establishment for a few months?"...
+
+"To an asylum, Austin?" cried Mrs. Doria, controlling her
+indignation as well as she could.
+
+"To some select superior seminary, Helen. There are such to be
+found."
+
+"Austin!" Mrs. Doria exclaimed, and had to fight with a moisture in
+her eyes. "Unjust! absurd!" she murmured. The baronet thought it a
+natural proposition that Clare should be a bride or a schoolgirl.
+
+"I cannot leave my child." Mrs. Doria trembled. "Where she goes, I
+go. I am aware that she is only one of our sex, and therefore of no
+value to the world, but she is my child. I will see, poor dear, that
+you have no cause to complain of her."
+
+"I thought," Sir Austin remarked, "that you acquiesced in my views
+with regard to my son."
+
+"Yes--generally," said Mrs. Doria, and felt culpable that she had
+not before, and could not then, tell her brother that he had set up
+an Idol in his house--an Idol of flesh! more retributive and
+abominable than wood or brass or gold. But she had bowed to the Idol
+too long--she had too entirely bound herself to gain her project by
+subserviency. She had, and she dimly perceived it, committed a
+greater fault in tactics, in teaching her daughter to bow to the
+Idol also. Love of that kind Richard took for tribute. He was
+indifferent to Clare's soft eyes. The parting kiss he gave her was
+ready and cold as his father could desire. Sir Austin now grew
+eloquent to him in laudation of manly pursuits: but Richard thought
+his eloquence barren, his attempts at companionship awkward, and all
+manly pursuits and aims, life itself, vain and worthless. To what
+end? sighed the blossomless youth, and cried aloud, as soon as he
+was relieved of his father's society, what was the good of anything?
+Whatever he did--whichever path he selected, led back to Raynham.
+And whatever he did, however wretched and wayward he showed himself,
+only confirmed Sir Austin more and more in the truth of his
+previsions. Tom Bakewell, now the youth's groom, had to give the
+baronet a report of his young master's proceedings, in common with
+Adrian, and while there was no harm to tell, Tom spoke out. "He do
+ride like fire every day to Pig's Snout," naming the highest hill in
+the neighbourhood, "and stand there and stare, never movin', like a
+mad 'un. And then hoam agin all slack as if he'd been beaten in a
+race by somebody."
+
+"There is no woman in that!" mused the baronet. "He would have
+ridden back as hard as he went," reflected this profound scientific
+humanist, "had there been a woman in it. He would shun vast
+expanses, and seek shade, concealment, solitude. The desire for
+distances betokens emptiness and undirected hunger: when the heart
+is possessed by an image we fly to wood and forest, like the
+guilty."
+
+Adrian's report accused his pupil of an extraordinary access of
+cynicism.
+
+"Exactly," said the baronet. "As I foresaw. At this period an
+insatiate appetite is accompanied by a fastidious palate. Nothing
+but the quintessences of existence, and those in exhaustless
+supplies, will satisfy this craving, which is not to be satisfied!
+Hence his bitterness. Life can furnish no food fitting for him. The
+strength and purity of his energies have reached to an almost divine
+height, and roam through the Inane. Poetry, love, and such-like, are
+the drugs earth has to offer to high natures, as she offers to low
+ones debauchery. 'Tis a sign, this sourness, that he is subject to
+none of the empiricisms that are afloat. Now to keep him clear of
+them!"
+
+The Titans had an easier task in storming Olympus. As yet, however,
+it could not be said that Sir Austin's System had failed. On the
+contrary, it had reared a youth, handsome, intelligent, well-bred,
+and, observed the ladies, with acute emphasis, innocent. Where, they
+asked, was such another young man to be found?
+
+"Oh!" said Lady Blandish to Sir Austin, "if men could give their
+hands to women unsoiled--how different would many a marriage be! She
+will be a happy girl who calls Richard husband."
+
+"Happy, indeed!" was the baronet's caustic ejaculation. "But where
+shall I meet one equal to him, and his match?"
+
+"I was innocent when I was a girl," said the lady.
+
+Sir Austin bowed a reserved opinion.
+
+"Do you think no girls innocent?"
+
+Sir Austin gallantly thought them all so.
+
+"No, that you know they are not," said the lady, stamping. "But they
+are more innocent than boys, I am sure."
+
+"Because of their education, madam. You see now what a youth can be.
+Perhaps, when my System is published, or rather--to speak more
+humbly--when it is practised, the balance may be restored, and we
+shall have virtuous young men."
+
+"It's too late for poor me to hope for a husband from one of them,"
+said the lady, pouting and laughing.
+
+"It is never too late for beauty to waken love," returned the
+baronet, and they trifled a little. They were approaching Daphne's
+Bower, which they entered, and sat there to taste the coolness of a
+descending midsummer day.
+
+The baronet seemed in a humour for dignified fooling; the lady for
+serious converse.
+
+"I shall believe again in Arthur's knights," she said. "When I was a
+girl I dreamed of one."
+
+"And he was in quest of the San Greal?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+"And showed his good taste by turning aside for the more tangible
+San Blandish?"
+
+"Of course you consider it would have been so," sighed the lady,
+ruffling.
+
+"I can only judge by our generation," said Sir Austin, with a bend
+of homage.
+
+The lady gathered her mouth. "Either we are very mighty or you are
+very weak."
+
+"Both, madam."
+
+"But whatever we are, and if we are bad, bad! we love virtue, and
+truth, and lofty souls, in men: and, when we meet those qualities in
+them, we are constant, and would die for them--die for them. Ah! you
+know men but not women."
+
+"The knights possessing such distinctions must be young, I presume?"
+said Sir Austin.
+
+"Old, or young!"
+
+"But if old, they are scarce capable of enterprise?"
+
+"They are loved for themselves, not for their deeds."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Yes--ah!" said the lady. "Intellect may subdue women--make slaves
+of them; and they worship beauty perhaps as much as you do. But they
+only love for ever and are mated when they meet a noble nature."
+
+Sir Austin looked at her wistfully.
+
+"And did you encounter the knight of your dream?"
+
+"Not then." She lowered her eyelids. It was prettily done.
+
+"And how did you bear the disappointment?"
+
+"My dream was in the nursery. The day my frock was lengthened to a
+gown I stood at the altar. I am not the only girl that has been made
+a woman in a day, and given to an ogre instead of a true knight."
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Sir Austin, "women have much to bear."
+
+Here the couple changed characters. The lady became gay as the
+baronet grew earnest.
+
+"You know it is our lot," she said. "And we are allowed many
+amusements. If we fulfil our duty in producing children, that, like
+our virtue, is its own reward. Then, as a widow, I have wonderful
+privileges."
+
+"To preserve which, you remain a widow?"
+
+"Certainly," she responded. "I have no trouble now in patching and
+piecing that rag the world calls--a character. I can sit at your
+feet every day unquestioned. To be sure, others do the same, but
+they are female eccentrics, and have cast off the rag altogether."
+
+Sir Austin drew nearer to her. "You would have made an admirable
+mother, madam."
+
+This from Sir Austin was very like positive wooing.
+
+"It is," he continued, "ten thousand pities that you are not one."
+
+"Do you think so?" She spoke with humility.
+
+"I would," he went on, "that heaven had given you a daughter."
+
+"Would you have thought her worthy of Richard?"
+
+"Our blood, madam, should have been one!"
+
+The lady tapped her toe with her parasol. "But I am a mother," she
+said. "Richard is my son. Yes! Richard is my boy," she reiterated.
+
+Sir Austin most graciously appended, "Call him ours, madam," and
+held his head as if to catch the word from her lips, which, however,
+she chose to refuse, or defer. They made the coloured West a common
+point for their eyes, and then Sir Austin said:
+
+"As you will not say 'ours,' let me. And, as you have therefore an
+equal claim on the boy, I will confide to you a project I have
+lately conceived."
+
+The announcement of a project hardly savoured of a coming proposal,
+but for Sir Austin to confide one to a woman was almost tantamount
+to a declaration. So Lady Blandish thought, and so said her soft,
+deep-eyed smile, as she perused the ground while listening to the
+project. It concerned Richard's nuptials. He was now nearly
+eighteen. He was to marry when he was five-and-twenty. Meantime a
+young lady, some years his junior, was to be sought for in the homes
+of England, who would be every way fitted by education, instincts,
+and blood--on each of which qualifications Sir Austin unreservedly
+enlarged--to espouse so perfect a youth and accept the honourable
+duty of assisting in the perpetuation of the Feverels. The baronet
+went on to say that he proposed to set forth immediately, and devote
+a couple of months, to the first essay in his Coelebite search.
+
+"I fear," said Lady Blandish, when the project had been fully
+unfolded, "you have laid down for yourself a difficult task. You
+must not be too exacting."
+
+"I know it." The baronet's shake of the head was piteous.
+
+"Even in England she will be rare. But I confine myself to no class.
+If I ask for blood it is for untainted, not what you call high
+blood. I believe many of the middle classes are frequently more
+careful--more pure-blooded--than our aristocracy. Show me among them
+a God-fearing family who educate their children--I should prefer a
+girl without brothers and sisters--as a Christian damsel should be
+educated--say; on the model of my son, and she may be penniless, I
+will pledge her to Richard Feverel."
+
+Lady Blandish bit her lip. "And what do you do with Richard while
+you are absent on this expedition?"
+
+"Oh!" said the baronet, "he accompanies his father."
+
+"Then give it up. His future bride is now pinafored and
+bread-and-buttery. She romps, she cries, she dreams of play and
+pudding. How can he care for her? He thinks more at his age of old
+women like me. He will be certain to kick against her, and destroy
+your plan, believe me, Sir Austin."
+
+"Ay? ay? do you think that?" said the baronet.
+
+Lady Blandish gave him a multitude of reasons.
+
+"Ay! true," he muttered. "Adrian said the same. He must not see her.
+How could I think of it! The child is naked woman. He would despise
+her. Naturally!"
+
+"Naturally!" echoed the lady.
+
+"Then, madam," and the baronet rose, "there is one thing for me to
+determine upon. I must, for the first time in his life, leave him."
+
+"Will you, indeed?" said the lady.
+
+"It is my duty, having thus brought him up, to see that he is
+properly mated,--not wrecked upon the quicksands of marriage, as a
+youth so delicately trained might be; more easily than another!
+Betrothed, he will be safe from a thousand snares. I may, I think,
+leave him for a term. My precautions have saved him from the
+temptations of his season."
+
+"And under whose charge will you leave him?" Lady Blandish inquired.
+
+She had emerged from the temple, and stood beside Sir Austin on the
+upper steps, under a clear summer twilight.
+
+"Madam!" he took her hand, and his voice was gallant and tender,
+"under whose but yours?"
+
+As the baronet said this, he bent above her hand, and raised it to
+his lips.
+
+Lady Blandish felt that she had been wooed and asked in wedlock. She
+did not withdraw her hand. The baronet's salute was flatteringly
+reverent. He deliberated over it, as one going through a grave
+ceremony. And he, the scorner of women, had chosen her for his
+homage! Lady Blandish forgot that she had taken some trouble to
+arrive at it. She received the exquisite compliment in all its
+unique honey-sweet: for in love we must deserve nothing or the fine
+bloom of fruition is gone.
+
+The lady's hand was still in durance, and the baronet had not
+recovered from his profound inclination, when a noise from the
+neighbouring beechwood startled the two actors in this courtly
+pantomime. They turned their heads, and beheld the hope of Raynham
+on horseback surveying the scene. The next moment he had galloped
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN ATTRACTION
+
+
+All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a rapid
+canter, and his brain bestriding it, traversing the rich untasted
+world, and the great Realm of Mystery, from which he was now
+restrained no longer. Months he had wandered about the gates of the
+Bonnet, wondering, sighing, knocking at them, and getting neither
+admittance nor answer. He had the key now. His own father had given
+it to him. His heart was a lightning steed, and bore him on and on
+over limitless regions bathed in super-human beauty and strangeness,
+where cavaliers and ladies leaned whispering upon close green
+swards, and knights and ladies cast a splendour upon savage forests,
+and tilts and tourneys were held in golden courts lit to a glorious
+day by ladies' eyes, one pair of which, dimly visioned, constantly
+distinguishable, followed him through the boskage and dwelt upon him
+in the press, beaming while he bent above a hand glittering white
+and fragrant as the frosted blossom of a May night.
+
+Awhile the heart would pause and flutter to a shock: he was in the
+act of consummating all earthly bliss by pressing his lips to the
+small white hand. Only to do that, and die! cried the Magnetic
+Youth: to fling the Jewel of Life into that one cup and drink it
+off! He was intoxicated by anticipation. For that he was born.
+There was, then, some end in existence, something to live for! to
+kiss a woman's hand, and die! He would leap from the couch, and rush
+to pen and paper to relieve his swarming sensations. Scarce was he
+seated when the pen was dashed aside, the paper sent flying with the
+exclamation, "Have I not sworn I would never write again?" Sir
+Austin had shut that safety-valve. The nonsense that was in the
+youth might have poured harmlessly out, and its urgency for
+ebullition was so great that he was repeatedly oblivious of his
+oath, and found himself seated under the lamp in the act of
+composition before pride could speak a word. Possibly the pride even
+of Richard Feverel had been swamped if the act of composition were
+easy at such a time, and a single idea could stand clearly foremost;
+but myriads were demanding the first place; chaotic hosts, like
+ranks of stormy billows, pressed impetuously for expression, and
+despair of reducing them to form, quite as much as pride, to which
+it pleased him to refer his incapacity, threw down the powerless
+pen, and sent him panting to his outstretched length and another
+headlong career through the rosy-girdled land.
+
+Toward morning the madness of the fever abated somewhat, and he went
+forth into the air. A lamp was still burning in his father's room,
+and Richard thought, as he looked up, that he saw the ever-vigilant
+head on the watch. Instantly the lamp was extinguished, the window
+stood cold against the hues of dawn.
+
+Strong pulling is an excellent medical remedy for certain classes of
+fever. Richard took to it instinctively. The clear fresh water,
+burnished with sunrise, sparkled against his arrowy prow; the soft
+deep shadows curled smiling away from his gliding keel. Overhead
+solitary morning unfolded itself, from blossom to bud, from bud to
+flower; still, delicious changes of light and colour, to whose
+influences he was heedless as he shot under willows and aspens, and
+across sheets of river-reaches, pure mirrors to the upper glory,
+himself the sole tenant of the stream. Somewhere at the founts of
+the world lay the land he was rowing toward; something of its
+shadowed lights might be discerned here and there. It was not a
+dream, now he knew. There was a secret abroad. The woods were full
+of it; the waters rolled with it, and the winds. Oh, why could not
+one in these days do some high knightly deed which should draw down
+ladies' eyes from their heaven, as in the days of Arthur! To such a
+meaning breathed the unconscious sighs of the youth, when he had
+pulled through his first feverish energy.
+
+He was off Bursley, and had lapsed a little into that musing
+quietude which follows strenuous exercise, when he heard a hail and
+his own name called. It was no lady, no fairy, but young Ralph
+Morton, an irruption of miserable masculine prose. Heartily wishing
+him abed with the rest of mankind, Richard rowed in and jumped
+ashore. Ralph immediately seized his arm, saying that he desired
+earnestly to have a talk with him, and dragged the Magnetic Youth
+from his water-dreams, up and down the wet mown grass. That he had
+to say seemed to be difficult of utterance, and Richard, though he
+barely listened, soon had enough of his old rival's gladness at
+seeing him, and exhibited signs of impatience; whereat Ralph, as one
+who branches into matter somewhat foreign to his mind, but of great
+human interest and importance, put the question to him:
+
+"I say, what woman's name do you like best?"
+
+"I don't know any," quoth Richard, indifferently. "Why are you out
+so early?"
+
+In answer to this, Ralph suggested that the name of Mary might be
+considered a pretty name.
+
+Richard agreed that it might be; the housekeeper at Raynham, half
+the women cooks, and all the housemaids enjoyed that name; the name
+of Mary was equivalent for women at home.
+
+"Yes, I know," said Ralph. "We have lots of Marys. It's so common.
+Oh! I don't like Mary best. What do you think of Lucy?"
+
+Richard thought it just like another.
+
+"Do you know," Ralph continued, throwing off the mask and plunging
+into the subject, "I'd do anything on earth for some names--one or
+two. It's not Mary, nor Lucy. Clarinda's pretty, but it's like a
+novel. Claribel, I like. Names beginning with 'Cl' I prefer. The
+'Cl's' are always gentle and lovely girls you would die for! Don't
+you think so?"
+
+Richard had never been acquainted with any of them to inspire that
+emotion. Indeed these urgent appeals to his fancy in feminine names
+at five o'clock in the morning slightly surprised him, though he was
+but half awake to the outer world. By degrees he perceived that
+Ralph was changed. Instead of the lusty boisterous boy, his rival in
+manly sciences, who spoke straightforwardly and acted up to his
+speech, here was an abashed and blush-persecuted youth, who sued
+piteously for a friendly ear wherein to pour the one idea possessing
+him. Gradually, too, Richard apprehended that Ralph likewise was on
+the frontiers of the Realm of Mystery, perhaps further toward it
+than he himself was; and then, as by a sympathetic stroke, was
+revealed to him the wonderful beauty and depth of meaning in
+feminine names. The theme appeared novel and delicious, fitted to
+the season and the hour. But the hardship was, that Richard could
+choose none from the number; all were the same to him; he loved them
+all.
+
+"Don't you really prefer the 'Cl's'?" said Ralph, persuasively.
+
+"Not better than the names ending in 'a' and 'y,'" Richard replied,
+wishing he could, for Ralph was evidently ahead of him.
+
+"Come under these trees," said Ralph. And under the trees Ralph
+unbosomed. His name was down for the army: Eton was quitted for
+ever. In a few months he would have to join his regiment, and before
+he left he must say good-bye to his friends.... Would Richard tell
+him Mrs. Forey's address? he had heard she was somewhere by the sea.
+Richard did not remember the address, but said he would willingly
+take charge of any letter and forward it.
+
+Ralph dived his hand into his pocket. "Here it is. But don't let
+anybody see it."
+
+"My aunt's name is not Clare," said Richard, perusing what was
+composed of the exterior formula. "You've addressed it to Clare
+herself."
+
+That was plain to see.
+
+"Emmeline Clementina Matilda Laura, Countess Blandish," Richard
+continued in a low tone, transferring the names, and playing on the
+musical strings they were to him. Then he said: "Names of ladies!
+How they sweeten their names!"
+
+He fixed his eyes on Ralph. If he discovered anything further he
+said nothing, but bade the good fellow good-bye, jumped into his
+boat, and pulled down the tide. The moment Ralph was hidden by an
+abutment of the banks, Richard perused the address. For the first
+time it struck him that his cousin Clare was a very charming
+creature: he remembered the look of her eyes, and especially the
+last reproachful glance she gave him at parting. What business had
+Ralph to write to her? Did she not belong to Richard Feverel? He
+read the words again and again: Clare Doria Forey. Why, Clare was
+the name he liked best--nay, he loved it. Doria, too--she shared his
+own name with him. Away went his heart, not at a canter now, at a
+gallop, as one who sights the quarry. He felt too weak to pull.
+Clare Doria Forey---oh, perfect melody! Sliding with the tide, he
+heard it fluting in the bosom of the hills.
+
+When nature has made us ripe for love, it seldom occurs that the
+Fates are behindhand in furnishing a temple for the flame.
+
+Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder
+below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the
+reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing
+bramble, and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was
+shaded by a broad straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips
+and chin in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of
+promising eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose
+curls, brown in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched them.
+She was simply dressed, befitting decency and the season. On a
+closer inspection you might see that her lips were stained. This
+blooming young person was regaling on dewberries. They grew between
+the bank and the water. Apparently she found the fruit abundant, for
+her hand was making pretty progress to her mouth. Fastidious youth,
+which revolts at woman plumping her exquisite proportions on
+bread-and-butter, and would (we must suppose) joyfully have her
+scraggy to have her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries.
+Indeed the act of eating them is dainty and induces musing. The
+dewberry is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent sister. You eat:
+mouth, eye, and hand are occupied, and the undrugged mind free to
+roam. And so it was with the damsel who knelt there. The little
+skylark went up above her, all song, to the smooth southern cloud
+lying along the blue: from a dewy copse dark over her nodding hat
+the blackbird fluted, calling to her with thrice mellow note: the
+kingfisher flashed emerald out of green osiers: a bow-winged heron
+travelled aloft, seeking solitude: a boat slipped toward her,
+containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the fruit, and ate,
+and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her territories, and
+as if she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded by
+the green shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weir-fall's
+thundering white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she
+was a bit of lovely human life in a fair setting; a terrible
+attraction. The Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his proximity to
+the weir-piles, and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller
+grew nature, as at the meeting of two electric clouds. Her posture
+was so graceful, that though he was making straight for the weir, he
+dared not dip a scull. Just then one enticing dewberry caught her
+eyes. He was floating by unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched
+low, and could not gather what it sought. A stroke from his right
+brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up dismayed, and her
+whole shape trembled over the brink. Richard sprang from his boat
+into the water. Pressing a hand beneath her foot, which she had
+thrust against the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself,
+he enabled her to recover her balance, and gain safe earth, whither
+he followed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FERDINAND AND MIRANDA
+
+
+He had landed on an island of the still-vexed Bermoothes. The world
+lay wrecked behind him: Raynham hung in mists, remote, a phantom to
+the vivid reality of this white hand which had drawn him thither
+away thousands of leagues in an eye-twinkle. Hark, how Ariel sang
+overhead! What splendour in the heavens! What marvels of beauty
+about his enchanted brows! And, O you wonder! Fair Flame! by whose
+light the glories of being are now first seen.... Radiant Miranda!
+Prince Ferdinand is at your feet.
+
+Or is it Adam, his rib taken from his side in sleep, and thus
+transformed, to make him behold his Paradise, and lose it?...
+
+The youth looked on her with as glowing an eye. It was the First
+Woman to him.
+
+And she--mankind was all Caliban to her, saving this one princely
+youth.
+
+So to each other said their changing eyes in the moment they stood
+together; he pale, and she blushing.
+
+She was indeed sweetly fair, and would have been held fair among
+rival damsels. On a magic shore, and to a youth educated by a
+System, strung like an arrow drawn to the head, he, it might be
+guessed, could fly fast and far with her. The soft rose in her
+cheeks, the clearness of her eyes, bore witness to the body's
+virtue; and health and happy blood were in her bearing. Had she
+stood before Sir Austin among rival damsels, that Scientific
+Humanist, for the consummation of his System, would have thrown her
+the handkerchief for his son. The wide summer-hat, nodding over her
+forehead to her brows, seemed to flow with the flowing heavy curls,
+and those fire-threaded mellow curls, only half-curls, waves of hair
+call them, rippling at the ends, went like a sunny red-veined
+torrent down her back almost to her waist: a glorious vision to the
+youth, who embraced it as a flower of beauty, and read not a
+feature. There were curious features of colour in her face for him
+to have read. Her brows, thick and brownish against a soft skin
+showing the action of the blood, met in the bend of a bow, extending
+to the temples long and level: you saw that she was fashioned to
+peruse the sights of earth, and by the pliability of her brows that
+the wonderful creature used her faculty, and was not going to be a
+statue to the gazer. Under the dark thick brows an arch of lashes
+shot out, giving a wealth of darkness to the full frank blue eyes, a
+mystery of meaning--more than brain was ever meant to fathom:
+richer, henceforth, than all mortal wisdom to Prince Ferdinand. For
+when nature turns artist, and produces contrasts of colour on a fair
+face, where is the Sage, or what the Oracle, shall match the depth
+of its lightest look?
+
+Prince Ferdinand was also fair. In his slim boating-attire his
+figure looked heroic. His hair, rising from the parting to the right
+of his forehead, in what his admiring Lady Blandish called his
+plume, fell away slanting silkily to the temples across the nearly
+imperceptible upward curve of his brows there--felt more than seen,
+so slight it was--and gave to his profile a bold beauty, to which
+his bashful, breathless air was a flattering charm. An arrow drawn
+to the head, capable of flying fast and far with her! He leaned a
+little forward, drinking her in with all his eyes, and young Love
+has a thousand. Then truly the System triumphed, just ere it was to
+fall; and could Sir Austin have been content to draw the arrow to
+the head, and let it fly, when it would fly, he might have pointed
+to his son again, and said to the world, "Match him!" Such keen
+bliss as the youth had in the sight of her, an innocent youth alone
+has powers of soul in him to experience.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"O Women!" says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, in one of its solitary outbursts,
+"Women, who like, and will have for hero, a rake! how soon are you not
+to learn that you have taken bankrupts to your bosoms, and that the
+putrescent gold that attracted you is the slime of the Lake of Sin!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If these two were Ferdinand and Miranda, Sir Austin was not Prospero,
+and was not present, or their fates might have been different.
+
+So they stood a moment, changing eyes, and then Miranda spoke, and
+they came down to earth, feeling no less in heaven.
+
+She spoke to thank him for his aid. She used quite common simple words;
+and used them, no doubt, to express a common simple meaning: but to him
+she was uttering magic, casting spells, and the effect they had on him
+was manifested in the incoherence of his replies, which were too foolish
+to be chronicled.
+
+The couple were again mute. Suddenly Miranda, with an exclamation of
+anguish, and innumerable lights and shadows playing over her lovely
+face, clapped her hands, crying aloud, "My book! my book!" and ran to
+the bank.
+
+Prince Ferdinand was at her side. "What have you lost?" he said.
+
+"My book!" she answered, her delicious curls swinging across her
+shoulders to the stream. Then turning to him, "Oh, no, no! let me
+entreat you not to," she said; "I do not so very much mind losing it."
+And in her eagerness to restrain him she unconsciously laid her gentle
+hand upon his arm, and took the force of motion out of him.
+
+"Indeed, I do not really care for the silly book," she continued,
+withdrawing her hand quickly, and reddening. "Pray, do not!"
+
+The young gentleman had kicked off his shoes. No sooner was the spell
+of contact broken than he jumped in. The water was still troubled and
+discoloured by his introductory adventure, and, though he ducked his
+head with the spirit of a dabchick, the book was missing. A scrap of
+paper floating from the bramble just above the water, and looking as if
+fire had caught its edges and it had flown from one adverse element to
+the other, was all he could lay hold of; and he returned to land
+disconsolately, to hear Miranda's murmured mixing of thanks and pretty
+expostulations.
+
+"Let me try again," he said.
+
+"No, indeed!" she replied, and used the awful threat: "I will run
+away if you do," which effectually restrained him.
+
+Her eye fell on the fire-stained scrap of paper, and brightened, as
+she cried, "There, there! you have what I want. It is that. I do not
+care for the book. No, please! You are not to look at it. Give it
+me."
+
+Before her playfully imperative injunction was fairly spoken,
+Richard had glanced at the document and discovered a Griffin between
+two Wheatsheaves: his crest in silver: and below--O wonderment
+immense! his own handwriting!
+
+He handed it to her. She took it, and put it in her bosom.
+
+Who would have thought, that, where all else perished, Odes, Idyls,
+Lines, Stanzas, this one Sonnet to the stars should be miraculously
+reserved for such a starry fate--passing beatitude!
+
+As they walked silently across the meadow, Richard strove to
+remember the hour and the mood of mind in which he had composed the
+notable production. The stars were invoked, as seeing and foreseeing
+all, to tell him where then his love reclined, and so forth; Hesper
+was complacent enough to do so, and described her in a couplet--
+
+    "Through sunset's amber see me shining fair,
+    As her blue eyes shine through her golden hair."
+
+And surely no words could be more prophetic. Here were two blue eyes
+and golden hair; and by some strange chance, that appeared like the
+working of a divine finger, she had become the possessor of the
+prophecy, she that was to fulfil it! The youth was too charged with
+emotion to speak. Doubtless the damsel had less to think of, or had
+some trifling burden on her conscience, for she seemed to grow
+embarrassed. At last she drew up her chin to look at her companion
+under the nodding brim of her hat (and the action gave her a
+charmingly freakish air), crying, "But where are you going to? You
+are wet through. Let me thank you again; and, pray, leave me, and go
+home and change instantly."
+
+"Wet?" replied the magnetic muser, with a voice of tender interest;
+"not more than one foot, I hope. I will leave you while you dry your
+stockings in the sun."
+
+At this she could not withhold a shy laugh.
+
+"Not I, but you. You would try to get that silly book for me, and
+you are dripping wet. Are you not very uncomfortable?"
+
+In all sincerity he assured her that he was not.
+
+"And you really do not feel that you are wet?"
+
+He really did not: and it was a fact that he spoke truth.
+
+She pursed her dewberry mouth in the most comical way, and her blue
+eyes lightened laughter out of the half-closed lids.
+
+"I cannot help it," she said, her mouth opening, and sounding
+harmonious bells of laughter in his ears. "Pardon me, won't you?"
+
+His face took the same soft smiling curves in admiration of her.
+
+"Not to feel that you have been in the water, the very moment
+after!" she musically interjected, seeing she was excused.
+
+"It's true," he said; and his own gravity then touched him to join a
+duet with her, which made them no longer feel strangers, and did the
+work of a month of intimacy. Better than sentiment, laughter opens
+the breast to love; opens the whole breast to his full quiver,
+instead of a corner here and there for a solitary arrow. Hail the
+occasion propitious, O British young! and laugh and treat love as an
+honest God, and dabble not with the sentimental rouge. These two
+laughed, and the souls of each cried out to the other, "It is I, it
+is I."
+
+They laughed and forgot the cause of their laughter, and the sun
+dried his light river clothing, and they strolled toward the
+blackbird's copse, and stood near a stile in sight of the foam of
+the weir and the many-coloured rings of eddies streaming forth from
+it.
+
+Richard's boat, meanwhile, had contrived to shoot the weir, and was
+swinging, bottom upward, broadside with the current down the rapid
+backwater.
+
+"Will you let it go?" said the damsel, eyeing it curiously.
+
+"It can't be stopped," he replied, and could have added: "What do I
+care for it now!"
+
+His old life was whirled away with it, dead, drowned. His new life
+was with her, alive, divine.
+
+She flapped low the brim of her hat. "You must really not come any
+farther," she softly said.
+
+"And will you go, and not tell me who you are?" he asked, growing
+bold as the fears of losing her came across him. "And will you not
+tell me before you go"--his face burned--"how you came by that--that
+paper?"
+
+She chose to select the easier question for answer: "You ought to
+know me; we have been introduced." Sweet was her winning off-hand
+affability.
+
+"Then who, in heaven's name, are you? Tell me! I never could have
+forgotten you."
+
+"You have, I think," she said.
+
+"Impossible that we could ever have met, and I forget you!"
+
+She looked up at him.
+
+"Do you remember Belthorpe?"
+
+"Belthorpe! Belthorpe!" quoth Richard, as if he had to touch his
+brain to recollect there was such a place. "Do you mean old Blaize's
+farm?"
+
+"Then I am old Blaize's niece." She tripped him a soft curtsey.
+
+The magnetized youth gazed at her. By what magic was it that this
+divine sweet creature could be allied with that old churl!
+
+"Then what--what is your name?" said his mouth, while his eyes
+added, "O wonderful creature! How came you to enrich the earth?"
+
+"Have you forgot the Desboroughs of Dorset, too?" she peered at him
+from a side-bend of the flapping brim.
+
+"The Desboroughs of Dorset?" A light broke in on him. "And have you
+grown to this? That little girl I saw there!"
+
+He drew close to her to read the nearest features of the vision. She
+could no more laugh off the piercing fervour of his eyes. Her
+volubility fluttered under his deeply wistful look, and now neither
+voice was high, and they were mutually constrained.
+
+"You see," she murmured, "we are old acquaintances."
+
+Richard, with his eyes still intently fixed on her, returned, "You
+are very beautiful!"
+
+The words slipped out. Perfect simplicity is unconsciously
+audacious. Her overpowering beauty struck his heart, and, like an
+instrument that is touched and answers to the touch, he spoke.
+
+Miss Desborough made an effort to trifle with this terrible
+directness; but his eyes would not be gainsaid, and checked her
+lips. She turned away from them, her bosom a little rebellious.
+Praise so passionately spoken, and by one who has been a damsel's
+first dream, dreamed of nightly many long nights, and clothed in the
+virgin silver of her thoughts in bud, praise from him is coin the
+heart cannot reject, if it would. She quickened her steps.
+
+"I have offended you!" said a mortally wounded voice across her
+shoulder.
+
+That he should think so were too dreadful.
+
+"Oh no, no! you would never offend me." She gave him her whole sweet
+face.
+
+"Then why--why do you leave me?"
+
+"Because," she hesitated, "I must go."
+
+"No. You must not go. Why must you go? Do not go."
+
+"Indeed I must," she said, pulling at the obnoxious broad brim of
+her hat; and, interpreting a pause he made for his assent to her
+rational resolve, shyly looking at him, she held her hand out, and
+said, "Good-bye," as if it were a natural thing to say.
+
+The hand was pure white--white and fragrant as the frosted blossom
+of a Maynight. It was the hand whose shadow, cast before, he had
+last night bent his head reverentially above, and kissed--resigning
+himself thereupon over to execution for payment of the penalty of
+such daring--by such bliss well rewarded.
+
+He took the hand, and held it, gazing between her eyes.
+
+"Good-bye," she said again, as frankly as she could, and at the same
+time slightly compressing her fingers on his in token of adieu. It
+was a signal for his to close firmly upon hers.
+
+"You will not go?"
+
+"Pray, let me," she pleaded, her sweet brows suing in wrinkles.
+
+"You will not go?" Mechanically he drew the white hand nearer his
+thumping heart.
+
+"I must," she faltered piteously.
+
+"You will not go?"
+
+"Oh yes! yes!"
+
+"Tell me. Do you wish to go?"
+
+The question was a subtle one. A moment or two she did not answer,
+and then forswore herself, and said, Yes.
+
+"Do you--you wish to go?" He looked with quivering eyelids under
+hers.
+
+A fainter Yes responded.
+
+"You wish--wish to leave me?" His breath went with the words.
+
+"Indeed I must."
+
+Her hand became a closer prisoner.
+
+All at once an alarming delicious shudder went through her frame.
+From him to her it coursed, and back from her to him. Forward and
+back love's electric messenger rushed from heart to heart, knocking
+at each, till it surged tumultuously against the bars of its
+prison, crying out for its mate. They stood trembling in unison, a
+lovely couple under these fair heavens of the morning.
+
+When he could get his voice it said, "Will you go?"
+
+But she had none to reply with, and could only mutely bend upward
+her gentle wrist.
+
+"Then, farewell!" he said, and, dropping his lips to the soft fair
+hand, kissed it, and hung his head, swinging away from her, ready
+for death.
+
+Strange, that now she was released she should linger by him.
+Strange, that his audacity, instead of the executioner, brought
+blushes and timid tenderness to his side, and the sweet words, "You
+are not angry with me?"
+
+"With you, O Beloved!" cried his soul. "And you forgive me, fair
+charity!"
+
+"I think it was rude of me to go without thanking you again," she
+said, and again proffered her hand.
+
+The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song above him. The gracious
+glory of heaven fell upon his soul. He touched her hand, not moving
+his eyes from her, nor speaking, and she, with a soft word of
+farewell, passed across the stile, and up the pathway through the
+dewy shades of the copse, and out of the arch of the light, away
+from his eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And away with her went the wild enchantment. He looked on barren
+air. But it was no more the world of yesterday. The marvellous
+splendours had sown seeds in him, ready to spring up and bloom at
+her gaze; and in his bosom now the vivid conjuration of her tones,
+her face, her shape, makes them leap and illumine him like fitful
+summer lightnings--ghosts of the vanished sun.
+
+There was nothing to tell him that he had been making love and
+declaring it with extraordinary rapidity; nor did he know it. Soft
+flushed cheeks! sweet mouth! strange sweet brows! eyes of softest
+fire! how could his ripe eyes behold you, and not plead to keep you?
+Nay, how could he let you go? And he seriously asked himself that
+question.
+
+To-morrow this place will have a memory--the river and the meadow,
+and the white falling weir: his heart will build a temple here; and
+the skylark will be its high-priest, and the old blackbird its
+glossy-gowned chorister, and there will be a sacred repast of
+dewberries. To-day the grass is grass: his heart is chased by
+phantoms and finds rest nowhere. Only when the most tender freshness
+of his flower comes across him does he taste a moment's calm; and no
+sooner does it come than it gives place to keen pangs for fear that
+she may not be his for ever.
+
+Erelong he learns that her name is Lucy. Erelong he meets Ralph, and
+discovers that in a day he has distanced him by a sphere. He and
+Ralph and the curate of Lobourne join in their walks, and raise
+classical discussions on ladies' hair, fingering a thousand
+delicious locks, from those of Cleopatra to the Borgia's. "Fair!
+fair! all of them fair!" sighs the melancholy curate, "as are those
+women formed for our perdition! I think we have in this country what
+will match the Italian or the Greek." His mind flutters to Mrs.
+Doria, Richard blushes before the vision of Lucy, and Ralph, whose
+heroine's hair is a dark luxuriance, dissents, and claims a noble
+share in the slaughter of men for dark-haired Wonders. They have no
+mutual confidences, but they are singularly kind to each other,
+these three children of instinct.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON
+
+
+Lady Blandish, and others who professed an interest in the fortunes
+and future of the systematized youth, had occasionally mentioned
+names of families whose alliance according to apparent calculations,
+would not degrade his blood: and over these names, secretly
+preserved on an open leaf of the note-book, Sir Austin, as he neared
+the metropolis, distantly dropped his eye. There were names historic
+and names mushroomic; names that the Conqueror might have called in
+his muster-roll; names that had been, clearly, tossed into the upper
+stratum of civilized life by a mill-wheel or a merchant-stool.
+Against them the baronet had written M., or Po. or Pr.--signifying,
+Money, Position, Principles, favouring the latter with special
+brackets. The wisdom of a worldly man, which he could now and then
+adopt, determined him, before he commenced his round of visits, to
+consult and sound his solicitor and his physician thereanent;
+lawyers and doctors being the rats who know best the merits of a
+house, and on what sort of foundation it may be standing.
+
+Sir Austin entered the great city with a sad mind. The memory of his
+misfortune came upon him vividly, as if no years had intervened, and
+it were but yesterday that he found the letter telling him that he
+had no wife and his son no mother. He wandered on foot through the
+streets the first night of his arrival, looking strangely at the
+shops and shows and bustle of the world from which he had divorced
+himself; feeling as destitute as the poorest vagrant. He had almost
+forgotten how to find his way about, and came across his old mansion
+in his efforts to regain his hotel. The windows were alight--signs
+of merry life within. He stared at it from the shadow of the
+opposite side. It seemed to him he was a ghost gazing upon his
+living past. And then the phantom which had stood there mocking
+while he felt as other men--the phantom, now flesh and blood
+reality, seized and convulsed his heart, and filled its unforgiving
+crevices with bitter ironic venom. He remembered by the time
+reflection returned to him that it was Algernon, who had the house
+at his disposal, probably giving a card-party, or something of the
+sort. In the morning, too, he remembered that he had divorced the
+world to wed a System, and must be faithful to that exacting Spouse,
+who, now alone of things on earth, could fortify and recompense him.
+
+Mr. Thompson received his client with the dignity and emotion due to
+such a rent-roll and the unexpectedness of the honour. He was a thin
+stately man of law, garbed as one who gave audience to sacred
+bishops, and carrying on his countenance the stamp of paternity to
+the parchment-skins, and of a virtuous attachment to Port wine
+sufficient to increase his respectability in the eyes of moral
+Britain. After congratulating Sir Austin on the fortunate issue of
+two or three suits, and being assured that the baronet's business in
+town had no concern therewith, Mr. Thompson ventured to hope that
+the young heir was all his father could desire him to be, and heard
+with satisfaction that he was a pattern to the youth of the Age.
+
+"A difficult time of life, Sir Austin!" said the old lawyer, shaking
+his head. "We must keep our eyes on them--keep awake! The mischief
+is done in a minute."
+
+"We must take care to have seen where we planted, and that the root
+was sound, or the mischief will do itself in spite of, or under the
+very spectacles of, supervision," said the baronet.
+
+His legal adviser murmured "Exactly," as if that were his own idea,
+adding, "It is my plan with Ripton, who has had the honour of an
+introduction to you, and a very pleasant time he spent with my young
+friend, whom he does not forget. Ripton follows the Law. He is
+articled to me, and will, I trust, succeed me worthily in your
+confidence. I bring him into town in the morning; I take him back at
+night. I think I may say that I am quite content with him."
+
+"Do you think," said Sir Austin, fixing his brows, "that you can
+trace every act of his to its motive?"
+
+The old lawyer bent forward and humbly requested that this might be
+repeated.
+
+"Do you"--Sir Austin held the same searching expression--"do you
+establish yourself in a radiating centre of intuition: do you base
+your watchfulness on so thorough an acquaintance with his character,
+so perfect a knowledge of the instrument, that all its movements--even
+the eccentric ones--are anticipated by you, and provided for?"
+
+The explanation was a little too long for the old lawyer to entreat
+another repetition. Winking with the painful deprecation of a deaf
+man, Mr. Thompson smiled urbanely, coughed conciliatingly, and said
+he was afraid he could not affirm that much, though he was happily
+enabled to say that Ripton had borne an extremely good character at
+school.
+
+"I find," Sir Austin remarked, as sardonically he relaxed his
+inspecting pose and mien, "there are fathers who are content to be
+simply obeyed. Now I require not only that my son should obey; I
+would have him guiltless of the impulse to gainsay my wishes--feeling
+me in him stronger than his undeveloped nature, up to a certain
+period, where my responsibility ends and his commences. Man is a
+self-acting machine. He cannot cease to be a machine; but, though
+self-acting, he may lose the powers of self-guidance, and in a wrong
+course his very vitalities hurry him to perdition. Young, he is an
+organism ripening to the set mechanic diurnal round, and while so he
+needs all the angels to hold watch over him that he grow straight  and
+healthy, and fit for what machinal duties he may have to perform." ...
+
+Mr. Thompson agitated his eyebrows dreadfully. He was utterly lost.
+He respected Sir Austin's estates too much to believe for a moment
+he was listening to downright folly. Yet how otherwise explain the
+fact of his excellent client being incomprehensible to him? For a
+middle-aged gentleman, and one who has been in the habit of advising
+and managing, will rarely have a notion of accusing his
+understanding; and Mr. Thompson had not the slightest notion of
+accusing his. But the baronet's condescension in coming thus to him,
+and speaking on the subject nearest his heart, might well affect
+him, and he quickly settled the case in favour of both parties,
+pronouncing mentally that his honoured client had a meaning, and so
+deep it was, so subtle, that no wonder he experienced difficulty in
+giving it fitly significant words.
+
+Sir Austin elaborated his theory of the Organism and the Mechanism,
+for his lawyer's edification. At a recurrence of the world "healthy"
+Mr. Thompson caught him up--
+
+"I apprehended you! Oh, I agree with you, Sir Austin! entirely!
+Allow me to ring for my son Ripton. I think, if you condescend to
+examine him, you will say that regular habits, and a diet of nothing
+but law-reading--for other forms of literature I strictly
+interdict--have made him all that you instance."
+
+Mr. Thompson's hand was on the bell. Sir Austin arrested him.
+
+"Permit me to see the lad at his occupation," said he.
+
+Our old friend Ripton sat in a room apart with the confidential
+clerk, Mr. Beazley, a veteran of law, now little better than a
+document, looking already signed and sealed, and shortly to be
+delivered, who enjoined nothing from his pupil and companion save
+absolute silence, and sounded his praises to his father at the close
+of days when it had been rigidly observed--not caring, or
+considering, the finished dry old document that he was, under what
+kind of spell a turbulent commonplace youth could be charmed into
+stillness for six hours of the day. Ripton was supposed to be
+devoted to the study of Blackstone. A tome of the classic legal
+commentator lay extended outside his desk, under the partially
+lifted lid of which nestled the assiduous student's head--law being
+thus brought into direct contact with his brainpan. The office-door
+opened, and he heard not; his name was called, and he remained
+equally moveless. His method of taking in Blackstone seemed
+absorbing as it was novel.
+
+"Comparing notes, I daresay," whispered Mr. Thompson to Sir Austin.
+"I call that study!"
+
+The confidential clerk rose, and bowed obsequious senility.
+
+"Is it like this every day, Beazley?" Mr. Thompson asked with
+parental pride.
+
+"Ahem!" the old clerk replied, "he is like this every day, sir. I
+could not ask more of a mouse."
+
+Sir Austin stepped forward to the desk. His proximity roused one of
+Ripton's senses, which blew a call to the others. Down went the lid
+of the desk. Dismay, and the ardours of study, flashed together in
+Ripton's face. He slouched from his perch with the air of one who
+means rather to defend his position than welcome a superior, the
+right hand in his waistcoat pocket fumbling a key, the left catching
+at his vacant stool.
+
+Sir Austin put two fingers on the youth's shoulder, and said,
+leaning his head a little on one side, in a way habitual to him, "I
+am glad to find my son's old comrade thus profitably occupied. I
+know what study is myself. But beware of prosecuting it too
+excitedly! Come! you must not be offended at our interruption; you
+will soon take up the thread again. Besides, you know, you must get
+accustomed to the visits of your client."
+
+So condescending and kindly did this speech sound to Mr. Thompson,
+that, seeing Ripton still preserve his appearance of disorder and
+sneaking defiance, he thought fit to nod and frown at the youth, and
+desired him to inform the baronet what particular part of Blackstone
+he was absorbed in mastering at that moment.
+
+Ripton hesitated an instant, and blundered out, with dubious
+articulation, "The Law of Gravelkind."
+
+"What Law?" said Sir Austin, perplexed.
+
+"Gravelkind," again rumbled Ripton's voice.
+
+Sir Austin turned to Mr. Thompson for an explanation. The old lawyer
+was shaking his law-box.
+
+"Singular!" he exclaimed. "He will make that mistake! What law,
+sir?"
+
+Ripton read his error in the sternly painful expression of his
+father's face, and corrected himself. "Gavelkind, sir."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Thompson, with a sigh of relief. "Gravelkind, indeed!
+Gavelkind! An old Kentish"----He was going to expound, but Sir
+Austin assured him he knew it, and a very absurd law it was, adding,
+"I should like to look at your son's notes, or remarks on the
+judiciousness of that family arrangement, if he has any."
+
+"You were making notes, or referring to them, as we entered," said
+Mr. Thompson to the sucking lawyer; "a very good plan, which I have
+always enjoined on you. Were you not?"
+
+Ripton stammered that he was afraid he had not any notes to show,
+worth seeing.
+
+"What were you doing then, sir?"
+
+"Making notes," muttered Ripton, looking incarnate subterfuge.
+
+"Exhibit!"
+
+Ripton glanced at his desk and then at his father; at Sir Austin,
+and at the confidential clerk. He took out his key. It would not fit
+the hole.
+
+"Exhibit!" was peremptorily called again.
+
+In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole, Ripton
+discovered that the desk was already unlocked. Mr. Thompson marched
+to it, and held the lid aloft. A book was lying open within, which
+Ripton immediately hustled among a mass of papers and tossed into a
+dark corner, not before the glimpse of a coloured frontispiece was
+caught by Sir Austin's eye.
+
+The baronet smiled, and said, "You study Heraldry, too? Are you fond
+of the science?"
+
+Ripton replied that he was very fond of it--extremely attached, and
+threw a further pile of papers into the dark corner.
+
+The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the search for
+them was tedious and vain. Papers, not legal, or the fruits of
+study, were found, that made Mr. Thompson more intimate with the
+condition of his son's exchequer; nothing in the shape of a remark
+on the Law of Gavelkind.
+
+Mr. Thompson suggested to his son that they might be among those
+scraps he had thrown carelessly into the dark corner. Ripton, though
+he consented to inspect them, was positive they were not there.
+
+"What have we here?" said Mr. Thompson, seizing a neatly folded
+paper addressed to the Editor of a law publication, as Ripton
+brought them forth, one by one. Forthwith Mr. Thompson fixed his
+spectacles and read aloud:
+
+     "_To the Editor of the 'Jurist.'_
+
+     "Sir,--In your recent observations on the great case of Crim"----
+
+Mr. Thompson hem'd! and stopped short, like a man who comes
+unexpectedly upon a snake in his path. Mr. Beazley's feet shuffled.
+Sir Austin changed the position of an arm.
+
+"It's on the other side, I think," gasped Ripton.
+
+Mr. Thompson confidently turned over, and intoned with emphasis.
+
+     "To Absalom, the son of David, the little Jew usurer of Bond
+     Court, Whitecross Gutters, for his introduction to Venus, I O U
+     Five pounds, when I can pay.
+
+                                          "Signed: RIPTON THOMPSON."
+
+Underneath this fictitious legal instrument was discreetly appended:
+
+     "(Mem. Document not binding.)"
+
+There was a pause: an awful under-breath of sanctified wonderment
+and reproach passed round the office. Sir Austin assumed an
+attitude. Mr. Thompson shed a glance of severity on his confidential
+clerk, who parried by throwing up his hands.
+
+Ripton, now fairly bewildered, stuffed another paper under his
+father's nose, hoping the outside perhaps would satisfy him: it was
+marked "Legal Considerations." Mr. Thompson had no idea of sparing
+or shielding his son. In fact, like many men whose self-love is
+wounded by their offspring, he felt vindictive, and was ready to
+sacrifice him up to a certain point, for the good of both. He
+therefore opened the paper, expecting something worse than what he
+had hitherto seen, despite its formal heading, and he was not
+disappointed.
+
+The "Legal Considerations" related to the Case regarding which
+Ripton had conceived it imperative upon him to address a letter to
+the Editor of the "Jurist," and was indeed a great case, and an
+ancient; revived apparently for the special purpose of displaying
+the forensic abilities of the Junior Counsel for the Plaintiff, Mr.
+Ripton Thompson, whose assistance the Attorney-General, in his
+opening statement, congratulated himself on securing, a rather
+unusual thing, due probably to the eminence and renown of that
+youthful gentleman at the Bar of his country. So much was seen from
+the copy of a report purporting to be extracted from a newspaper,
+and prefixed to the Junior Counsel's remarks, or Legal Considerations,
+on the conduct of the Case, the admissibility and non-admissibility
+of certain evidence, and the ultimate decision of the judges.
+
+Mr. Thompson, senior, lifted the paper high, with the spirit of one
+prepared to do execution on the criminal, and in the voice of a
+town-crier, varied by a bitter accentuation and satiric sing-song
+tone, deliberately read:
+
+     "Vulcan _v._ Mars.
+
+     "The Attorney-General, assisted by Mr. Ripton Thompson,
+     appeared on behalf of the Plaintiff. Mr. Serjeant Cupid, Q.C.,
+     and Mr. Capital Opportunity, for the Defendant."
+
+"Oh!" snapped Mr. Thompson, senior, peering venom at the unfortunate
+Ripton over his spectacles, "your notes are on that issue, sir! Thus you
+employ your time, sir!"
+
+With another side-shot at the confidential clerk, who retired
+immediately behind a strong entrenchment of shrugs, Mr. Thompson
+was pushed by the devil of his rancour to continue reading:
+
+     "This Case is too well known to require more than a partial
+     summary of particulars"....
+
+"Ahem! we will skip the particulars, however partial," said Mr.
+Thompson. "Ah!--what do you mean here, sir,--but enough! I think we
+may be excused your Legal Considerations on such a Case. This is how
+you employ your law-studies, sir! You put them to this purpose? Mr.
+Beazley! you will henceforward sit alone. I must have this young man
+under my own eye. Sir Austin! permit me to apologize to you for
+subjecting you to a scene so disagreeable. It was a father's duty
+not to spare him."
+
+Mr. Thompson wiped his forehead, as Brutus might have done after
+passing judgment on the scion of his house.
+
+"These papers," he went on, fluttering Ripton's precious
+lucubrations in a waving judicial hand, "I shall retain. The day
+will come when he will regard them with shame. And it shall be his
+penance, his punishment, to do so! Stop!" he cried, as Ripton was
+noiselessly shutting his desk, "have you more of them, sir; of a
+similar description? Rout them out! Let us know you at your worst.
+What have you there--in that corner?"
+
+Ripton was understood to say he devoted that corner to old briefs on
+important cases.
+
+Mr. Thompson thrust his trembling fingers among the old briefs, and
+turned over the volume Sir Austin had observed, but without much
+remarking it, for his suspicions had not risen to print.
+
+"A Manual of Heraldry?" the baronet politely, and it may be
+ironically, inquired, before it could well escape.
+
+"I like it very much," said Ripton, clutching the book in dreadful
+torment.
+
+"Allow me to see that you have our arms and crest correct." The
+baronet proffered a hand for the book.
+
+"A Griffin between two Wheatsheaves," cried Ripton, still clutching
+it nervously.
+
+Mr. Thompson, without any notion of what he was doing, drew the book
+from Ripton's hold; whereupon the two seniors laid their grey heads
+together over the title-page. It set forth in attractive characters
+beside a coloured frontispiece, which embodied the promise displayed
+there, the entrancing adventures of Miss Random, a strange young
+lady.
+
+Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those law regions to
+consign Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod handy to mortify
+his sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson would have used them. As it was, he
+contented himself by looking Black Holes and Iron Rods at the
+detected youth, who sat on his perch insensible to what might happen
+next, collapsed.
+
+Mr. Thompson cast the wicked creature down with a "Pah!" He,
+however, took her up again, and strode away with her. Sir Austin
+gave Ripton a forefinger, and kindly touched his head, saying,
+"Good-bye, boy! At some future date Richard will be happy to see you
+at Raynham."
+
+Undoubtedly this was a great triumph to the System!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD
+
+
+The conversation between solicitor and client was resumed.
+
+"Is it possible," quoth Mr. Thompson, the moment he had ushered his
+client into his private room, "that you will consent, Sir Austin, to
+see him and receive him again?"
+
+"Certainly," the baronet replied. "Why not? This by no means
+astonishes me. When there is no longer danger to my son he will be
+welcome as he was before. He is a schoolboy. I knew it. I expected
+it. The results of your principle, Thompson!"
+
+"One of the very worst books of that abominable class!" exclaimed
+the old lawyer, opening at the coloured frontispiece, from which
+brazen Miss Random smiled bewitchingly out, as if she had no doubt
+of captivating Time and all his veterans on a fair field. "Pah!" he
+shut her to with the energy he would have given to the office of
+publicly slapping her face; "from this day I diet him on bread and
+water--rescind his pocket-money!--How he could have got hold of such
+a book! How he--! And what ideas! Concealing them from me as he has
+done so cunningly! He trifles with vice! His mind is in a putrid
+state! I might have believed--I did believe--I might have gone on
+believing--my son Ripton to be a moral young man!" The old lawyer
+interjected on the delusion of fathers, and sat down in a lamentable
+abstraction.
+
+"The lad has come out!" said Sir Austin. "His adoption of the legal
+form is amusing. He trifles with vice, true: people newly initiated
+are as hardy as its intimates, and a young sinner's amusements will
+resemble those of a confirmed debauchee. The satiated, and the
+insatiate, appetite alike appeal to extremes. You are astonished at
+this revelation of your son's condition. I expected it; though
+assuredly, believe me, not this sudden and indisputable proof of it.
+But I knew that the seed was in him, and therefore I have not
+latterly invited him to Raynham. School, and the corruption there,
+will bear its fruits sooner or later. I could advise you, Thompson,
+what to do with him: it would be my plan."
+
+Mr. Thompson murmured, like a true courtier, that he should esteem
+it an honour to be favoured with Sir Austin Feverel's advice:
+secretly resolute, like a true Briton, to follow his own.
+
+"Let him, then," continued the baronet, "see vice in its nakedness.
+While he has yet some innocence, nauseate him! Vice, taken little by
+little, usurps gradually the whole creature. My counsel to you,
+Thompson, would be, to drag him through the sinks of town."
+
+Mr. Thompson began to blink again.
+
+"Oh, I shall punish him, Sir Austin! Do not fear me, sir. I have no
+tenderness for vice."
+
+"That is not what is wanted, Thompson. You mistake me. He should be
+dealt with gently. Heavens! do you hope to make him hate vice by
+making him a martyr for its sake? You must descend from the pedestal
+of age to become his Mentor: cause him to see how certainly and
+pitilessly vice itself punishes: accompany him into its haunts"----
+
+"Over town?" broke forth Mr. Thompson.
+
+"Over town," said the baronet.
+
+"And depend upon it," he added, "that, until fathers act thoroughly
+up to their duty, we shall see the sights we see in great cities,
+and hear the tales we hear in little villages, with death and
+calamity in our homes, and a legacy of sorrow and shame to the
+generations to come. I do aver," he exclaimed, becoming excited,
+"that, if it were not for the duty to my son, and the hope I cherish
+in him, I, seeing the accumulation of misery we are handing down to
+an innocent posterity--to whom, through our sin, the fresh breath of
+life will be foul--I--yes! I would hide my name! For whither are we
+tending? What home is pure absolutely? What cannot our doctors and
+lawyers tell us?"
+
+Mr. Thompson acquiesced significantly.
+
+"And what is to come of this?" Sir Austin continued. "When the sins
+of the fathers are multiplied by the sons, is not perdition the
+final sum of things? And is not life, the boon of heaven, growing to
+be the devil's game utterly? But for my son, I would hide my name. I
+would not bequeath it to be cursed by them that walk above my
+grave!"
+
+This was indeed a terrible view of existence. Mr. Thompson felt
+uneasy. There was a dignity in his client, an impressiveness in his
+speech, that silenced remonstrating reason and the cry of long years
+of comfortable respectability. Mr. Thompson went to church
+regularly; paid his rates and dues without overmuch, or at least
+more than common, grumbling. On the surface he was a good citizen,
+fond of his children, faithful to his wife, devoutly marching to a
+fair seat in heaven on a path paved by something better than a
+thousand a year. But here was a man sighting him from below the
+surface, and though it was an unfair, unaccustomed, not to say
+un-English, method of regarding one's fellow-man, Mr. Thompson was
+troubled by it. What though his client exaggerated? Facts were at
+the bottom of what he said. And he was acute--he had unmasked
+Ripton! Since Ripton's exposure he winced at a personal application
+in the text his client preached from. Possibly this was the secret
+source of part of his anger against that peccant youth.
+
+Mr. Thompson shook his head, and, with dolefully puckered visage and
+a pitiable contraction of his shoulders, rose slowly up from his
+chair. Apparently he was about to speak, but he straightway turned
+and went meditatively to a side-recess in the room, whereof he
+opened a door, drew forth a tray and a decanter labelled PORT,
+filled a glass for his client, deferentially invited him to partake
+of it; filled another glass for himself, and drank.
+
+That was his reply.
+
+Sir Austin never took wine before dinner. Thompson had looked as if
+he meant to speak: he waited for Thompson's words.
+
+Mr. Thompson saw that, as his client did not join him in his glass,
+the eloquence of that Porty reply was lost on his client.
+
+Having slowly ingurgitated and meditated upon this precious draught,
+and turned its flavour over and over with an aspect of potent
+Judicial wisdom (one might have thought that he was weighing mankind
+in the balance), the old lawyer heaved, and said, sharpening his
+lips over the admirable vintage, "The world is in a very sad state,
+I fear, Sir Austin!"
+
+His client gazed at him queerly.
+
+"But that," Mr. Thompson added immediately, ill-concealing by his
+gaze the glowing intestinal congratulations going on within him,
+"that is, I think you would say, Sir Austin--if I could but prevail
+upon you--a tolerably good character wine!"
+
+"There's virtue somewhere, I see, Thompson!" Sir Austin murmured,
+without disturbing his legal adviser's dimples.
+
+The old lawyer sat down to finish his glass, saying, that such a
+wine was not to be had everywhere.
+
+They were then outwardly silent for a space. Inwardly one of them
+was full of riot and jubilant uproar: as if the solemn fields of law
+were suddenly to be invaded and possessed by troops of Bacchanals:
+and to preserve a decently wretched physiognomy over it, and keep on
+terms with his companion, he had to grimace like a melancholy clown
+in a pantomime.
+
+Mr. Thompson brushed back his hair. The baronet was still expectant.
+Mr. Thompson sighed deeply, and emptied his glass. He combated the
+change that had come over him. He tried not to see Ruby. He tried to
+feel miserable, and it was not in him. He spoke, drawing what
+appropriate inspirations he could from his client's countenance, to
+show that they had views in common: "Degenerating sadly, I fear!"
+
+The baronet nodded.
+
+"According to what my wine-merchants say," continued Mr. Thompson,
+"there can be no doubt about it."
+
+Sir Austin stared.
+
+"It's the grape, or the ground, or something," Mr. Thompson went on.
+"All I can say is, our youngsters will have a bad look-out! In my
+opinion Government should be compelled to send out a Commission to
+inquire into the cause. To Englishmen it would be a public calamity.
+It surprises me--I hear men sit and talk despondently of this
+extraordinary disease of the vine, and not one of them seems to
+think it incumbent on him to act, and do his best to stop it." He
+fronted his client like a man who accuses an enormous public
+delinquency. "Nobody makes a stir! The apathy of Englishmen will
+become proverbial. Pray, try it, Sir Austin! Pray, allow me. Such a
+wine cannot disagree at any hour. Do! I am allowanced two glasses
+three hours before dinner. Stomachic. I find it agrees with me
+surprisingly: quite a new man. I suppose it will last our time. It
+must! What should we do? There's no Law possible without it. Not a
+lawyer of us could live. Ours is an occupation which dries the
+blood."
+
+The scene with Ripton had unnerved him, the wine had renovated, and
+gratitude to the wine inspired his tongue. He thought that his
+client, of the whimsical mind, though undoubtedly correct moral
+views, had need of a glass.
+
+"Now that very wine--Sir Austin--I think I do not err in saying,
+that very wine your respected father, Sir Pylcher Feverel, used to
+taste whenever he came to consult my father, when I was a boy. And I
+remember one day being called in, and Sir Pylcher himself poured me
+out a glass. I wish I could call in Ripton now, and do the same. No!
+Leniency in such a case as that!--The wine would not hurt him--I
+doubt if there be much left for him to welcome his guests with. Ha!
+ha! Now if I could persuade you, Sir Austin, as you do not take wine
+before dinner, some day to favour me with your company at my little
+country cottage--I have a wine there--the fellow to that--I think
+you would, I do think you would"--Mr. Thompson meant to say, he
+thought his client would arrive at something of a similar jocund
+contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that inspirited
+lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual promise into
+"highly approve."
+
+Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour mouth
+comically compressed.
+
+It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port, and Thompson
+after, were two different men. To indoctrinate him now was too late:
+it was perhaps the time to make the positive use of him he wanted.
+
+He pencilled on a handy slip of paper: "Two prongs of a fork; the
+World stuck between them--Port and the Palate: 'Tis one which fails
+first--Down goes World;" and again the hieroglyph--"Port-spectacles."
+He said, "I shall gladly accompany you this evening, Thompson,"
+words that transfigured the delighted lawyer, and ensigned the
+skeleton of a great Aphorism to his pocket, there to gather flesh
+and form, with numberless others in a like condition.
+
+"I came to visit my lawyer," he said to himself. "I think I have
+been dealing with The World in epitome!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS
+SPECIAL PLEA
+
+
+The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of
+Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking
+out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir. Doctor Benjamin
+Bairam was the excellent authority. Doctor Bairam had safely
+delivered Mrs. Deborah Gossip of this interesting bantling, which
+was forthwith dandled in dozens of feminine laps. Doctor Bairam
+could boast the first interview with the famous recluse. He had it
+from his own lips that the object of the baronet was to look out a
+bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir; "and," added the
+doctor, "she'll be lucky who gets him." Which was interpreted to
+mean, that he would be a catch; the doctor probably intending to
+allude to certain extraordinary difficulties in the way of a choice.
+
+A demand was made on the publisher of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP for all
+his outstanding copies. Conventionalities were defied. A
+summer-shower of cards fell on the baronet's table.
+
+He had few male friends. He shunned the Clubs as nests of scandal.
+The cards he contemplated were mostly those of the sex, with the
+husband, if there was a husband, evidently dragged in for
+propriety's sake. He perused the cards and smiled. He knew their
+purpose. What terrible light Thompson, and Bairam had thrown on some
+of them! Heavens! in what a state was the blood of this Empire.
+
+Before commencing his campaign he called on two ancient intimates,
+Lord Heddon, and his distant cousin Darley Absworthy, both Members
+of Parliament, useful men, though gouty, who had sown in their time
+a fine crop of wild oats, and advocated the advantage of doing so,
+seeing that they did not fancy themselves the worse for it. He found
+one with an imbecile son and the other with consumptive daughters.
+"So much," he wrote in the Note-book, "for the Wild Oats theory!"
+
+Darley was proud of his daughters' white and pink skins. "Beautiful
+complexions," he called them. The eldest was in the market,
+immensely admired. Sir Austin Was introduced to her. She talked
+fluently and sweetly. A youth not on his guard, a simple schoolboy
+youth, or even a man, might have fallen in love with her, she was so
+affable and fair. There was something poetic about her. And she was
+quite well, she said, the baronet frequently questioning her on that
+point. She intimated that she was robust; but towards the close of
+their conversation her hand would now and then travel to her side,
+and she breathed painfully an instant, saying, "Isn't it odd? Dora,
+Adela, and myself, we all feel the same queer sensation--about the
+heart, I think it is--after talking much."
+
+Sir Austin nodded and blinked sadly, exclaiming to his soul, "Wild
+oats! wild oats!"
+
+He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela.
+
+Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats.
+
+"It's all nonsense, Feverel," he said, "about bringing up a lad out
+of the common way. He's all the better for a little racketing when
+he's green--feels his bone and muscle--learns to know the world.
+He'll never be a man if he hasn't played at the old game one time in
+his life, and the earlier the better. I've always found the best
+fellows were wildish once. I don't care what he does when he's a
+greenhorn; besides, he's got an excuse for it then. You can't expect
+to have a man, if he doesn't take a man's food. You'll have a
+milksop. And, depend upon it, when he does break out he'll go to the
+devil, and nobody pities him. Look what those fellows, the grocers,
+do when they get hold of a young--what d'ye call 'em?--apprentice.
+They know the scoundrel was born with a sweet tooth. Well! they give
+him the run of the shop, and in a very short time he soberly deals
+out the goods, a devilish deal too wise to abstract a morsel even
+for the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary theories. You
+hold that the young grocer should have a soul above sugar. It won't
+do! Take my word for it, Feverel, it's a dangerous experiment, that
+of bringing up flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or
+he's a tame beast. And look you: take it on medical grounds. Early
+excesses the frame will recover from: late ones break the
+constitution. There's the case in a nutshell. How's your son?"
+
+"Sound and well!" replied Sir Austin. "And yours?"
+
+"Oh, Lipscombe's always the same!" Lord Heddon sighed peevishly.
+"He's quiet--that's one good thing; but there's no getting the
+country to take him, so I must give up hopes of that."
+
+Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin surveyed him,
+and was not astonished at the refusal of the country to take him.
+
+"Wild oats!" he thought, as he contemplated the headless,
+degenerate, weedy issue and result.
+
+Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the marriage of their
+offspring as a matter of course. "And if I were not a coward," Sir
+Austin confessed to himself, "I should stand forth and forbid the
+banns! This universal ignorance of the inevitable consequence of
+sin is frightful! The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have
+struck the world, and rendered it morally insensible." However, they
+silenced him. He was obliged to spare their feelings on a subject to
+him so deeply sacred. The healthful image of his noble boy rose
+before him, a triumphant living rejoinder to any hostile argument.
+
+He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought the third
+generation of wild oats would be a pretty thin crop!
+
+Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor Bairam physician
+could recollect a progenitorial blot, either on the male or female
+side, were not numerous. "Only," said the doctor, "you really must
+not be too exacting in these days, my dear Sir Austin. It is
+impossible to contest your principle, and you are doing mankind
+incalculable service in calling its attention to this the gravest of
+its duties: but as the stream of civilization progresses we must be
+a little taken in the lump, as it were. The world is, I can assure
+you--and I do not look only above the surface, you can believe--the
+world is awakening to the vital importance of the question."
+
+"Doctor," replied Sir Austin, "if you had a pure-blood Arab barb
+would you cross him with a screw?"
+
+"Decidedly not," said the doctor.
+
+"Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to match my son
+according to his merits," Sir Austin returned. "I trust the world is
+awakening, as you observe. I have been to my publisher, since my
+arrival in town, with a manuscript 'Proposal for a New System of
+Education of our British Youth,' which may come in opportunely. I
+think I am entitled to speak on that subject."
+
+"Certainly," said the doctor. "You will admit, Sir Austin, that,
+compared with continental nations--our neighbours, for instance--we
+shine to advantage, in morals, as in everything else. I hope you
+admit that?"
+
+"I find no consolation in shining by comparison with a lower
+standard," said the baronet. "If I compare the enlightenment of your
+views--for you admit my principle--with the obstinate incredulity of
+a country doctor's, who sees nothing of the world, you are hardly
+flattered, I presume?"
+
+Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a comparison,
+assuredly, he interjected.
+
+"Besides," added the baronet, "the French make no pretences, and
+thereby escape one of the main penalties of hypocrisy. Whereas
+we!--but I am not their advocate, credit me. It is better, perhaps,
+to pay our homage to virtue. At least it delays the spread of entire
+corruptness."
+
+Doctor Bairam wished the baronet success, and diligently endeavoured
+to assist his search for a mate worthy of the pure-blood barb, by
+putting several mamas, whom he visited, on the alert.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY-WHISTLE
+
+
+Away with Systems! Away with a corrupt World! Let us breathe the air
+of the Enchanted Island.
+
+Golden lie the meadows: golden run the streams; red gold is on the
+pine-stems. The sun is coming down to earth, and walks the fields
+and the waters.
+
+The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout
+to him golden shouts. He comes, and his heralds run before him, and
+touch the leaves of oaks and planes and beeches lucid green, and the
+pine-stems redder gold; leaving brightest footprints upon
+thickly-weeded banks, where the foxglove's last upper-bells incline,
+and bramble-shoots wander amid moist rich herbage. The plumes of the
+woodland are alight; and beyond them, over the open, 'tis a race
+with the long-thrown shadows; a race across the heaths and up the
+hills, till, at the farthest bourne of mounted eastern cloud, the
+heralds of the sun lay rosy fingers and rest.
+
+Sweet are the shy recesses of the woodland. The ray treads softly
+there. A film athwart the pathway quivers many-hued against purple
+shade fragrant with warm pines, deep moss-beds, feathery ferns. The
+little brown squirrel drops tail, and leaps; the inmost bird is
+startled to a chance tuneless note. From silence into silence things
+move.
+
+Peeps of the revelling splendour above and around enliven the
+conscious full heart within. The flaming West, the crimson heights,
+shower their glories through voluminous leafage. But these are
+bowers where deep bliss dwells, imperial joy, that owes no fealty to
+yonder glories, in which the young lamb gambols and the spirits of
+men are glad. Descend, great Radiance! embrace creation with
+beneficent fire, and pass from us! You and the vice-regal light that
+succeeds to you, and all heavenly pageants, are the ministers and
+the slaves of the throbbing content within.
+
+For this is the home of the enchantment. Here, secluded from vexed
+shores, the prince and princess of the island meet: here like
+darkling nightingales they sit, and into eyes and ears and hands
+pour endless ever-fresh treasures of their souls.
+
+Roll on, grinding wheels of the world: cries of ships going down in
+a calm, groans of a System which will not know its rightful hour of
+exultation, complain to the universe. You are not heard here.
+
+He calls her by her name, Lucy: and she, blushing at her great
+boldness, has called him by his, Richard. Those two names are the
+key-notes of the wonderful harmonies the angels sing aloft.
+
+"Lucy! my beloved!"
+
+"O Richard!"
+
+Out in the world there, on the skirts of the woodland, a sheep-boy
+pipes to meditative eye on a penny-whistle.
+
+Love's musical instrument is as old, and as poor: it has but two
+stops; and yet, you see, the cunning musician does thus much with
+it!
+
+Other speech they have little; light foam playing upon waves of
+feeling, and of feeling compact, that bursts only when the sweeping
+volume is too wild, and is no more than their sigh of tenderness
+spoken.
+
+Perhaps love played his tune so well because their natures had
+unblunted edges, and were keen for bliss, confiding in it as natural
+food. To gentlemen and ladies he fine-draws upon the viol,
+ravishingly; or blows into the mellow bassoon; or rouses the heroic
+ardours of the trumpet; or, it may be, commands the whole Orchestra
+for them. And they are pleased. He is still the cunning musician.
+They languish, and taste ecstasy: but it is, however sonorous, an
+earthly concert. For them the spheres move not to two notes. They
+have lost, or forfeited and never known, the first supersensual
+spring of the ripe senses into passion; when they carry the soul
+with them, and have the privileges of spirits to walk disembodied,
+boundlessly to feel. Or one has it, and the other is a dead body.
+Ambrosia let them eat, and drink the nectar: here sit a couple to
+whom Love's simple bread and water is a finer feast.
+
+Pipe, happy sheep-boy, Love! Irradiated angels, unfold your wings
+and lift your voices!
+
+They have outflown philosophy. Their instinct has shot beyond the
+ken of science. They were made for their Eden.
+
+"And this divine gift was in store for me!"
+
+So runs the internal outcry of each, clasping each: it is their
+recurring refrain to the harmonies. How it illumined the years gone
+by and suffused the living Future!
+
+"You for me: I for you!"
+
+"We are born for each other!"
+
+They believe that the angels have been busy about them from their
+cradles. The celestial hosts have worthily striven to bring them
+together. And, O Victory! O wonder! after toil and pain, and
+difficulties exceeding, the celestial hosts have succeeded!
+
+"Here we two sit who are written above as one!"
+
+Pipe, happy Love! pipe on to these dear innocents!
+
+The tide of colour has ebbed from the upper sky. In the West the sea
+of sunken fire draws back; and the stars leap forth, and tremble,
+and retire before the advancing moon, who slips the silver train of
+cloud from her shoulders, and, with her foot upon the pine-tops,
+surveys heaven.
+
+"Lucy, did you never dream of meeting me?"
+
+"O Richard! yes; for I remembered you."
+
+"Lucy! and did you pray that we might meet?"
+
+"I did!"
+
+Young as when she looked upon the lovers in Paradise, the fair
+Immortal journeys onward. Fronting her, it is not night but veiled
+day. Full half the sky is flushed. Not darkness, not day, but the
+nuptials of the two.
+
+"My own! my own for ever! You are pledged to me? Whisper!"
+
+He hears the delicious music.
+
+"And you are mine?"
+
+A soft beam travels to the fern-covert under the pine-wood where
+they sit, and for answer he has her eyes: turned to him an instant,
+timidly fluttering over the depths of his, and then downcast; for
+through her eyes her soul is naked to him.
+
+"Lucy! my bride! my life!"
+
+The night-jar spins his dark monotony on the branch of the pine. The
+soft beam travels round them, and listens to their hearts. Their
+lips are locked.
+
+Pipe no more, Love, for a time! Pipe as you will you cannot express
+their first kiss; nothing of its sweetness, and of the sacredness of
+it nothing. St. Cecilia up aloft, before the silver organ-pipes of
+Paradise, pressing fingers upon all the notes of which Love is but
+one, from her you may hear it.
+
+So Love is silent. Out in the world there, on the skirts of the
+woodland, the self-satisfied sheep-boy delivers a last complacent
+squint down the length of his penny-whistle, and, with a flourish
+correspondingly awry, he also marches into silence, hailed by
+supper. The woods are still. There is heard but the night-jar
+spinning on the pine-branch, circled by moonlight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON BY THE HERO
+
+
+Enchanted Islands have not yet rooted out their old brood of
+dragons. Wherever there is romance, these monsters come by inimical
+attraction. Because the heavens are certainly propitious to true
+lovers, the beasts of the abysses are banded to destroy them,
+stimulated by innumerable sad victories; and every love-tale is an
+Epic War of the upper and lower powers. I wish good fairies were a
+little more active. They seem to be cajoled into security by the
+happiness of their favourites; whereas the wicked are always alert,
+and circumspect. They let the little ones shut their eyes to fancy
+they are not seen, and then commence.
+
+These appointments and meetings, involving a start from the
+dinner-table at the hour of contemplative digestion and prime
+claret; the hour when the wise youth Adrian delighted to talk at his
+ease--to recline in dreamy consciousness that a work of good was
+going on inside him; these abstractions from his studies, excesses
+of gaiety, and glumness, heavings of the chest, and other odd signs,
+but mainly the disgusting behaviour of his pupil at the
+dinner-table, taught Adrian to understand, though the young
+gentleman was clever in excuses, that he had somehow learnt there
+was another half to the divided Apple of Creation, and had embarked
+upon the great voyage of discovery of the difference between the two
+halves. With his usual coolness Adrian debated whether he might be
+in the observatory or the practical stage of the voyage. For
+himself, as a man and a philosopher, Adrian had no objection to its
+being either; and he had only to consider which was temporarily most
+threatening to the ridiculous System he had to support. Richard's
+absence annoyed him. The youth was vivacious, and his enthusiasm
+good fun; and besides, when he left table, Adrian had to sit alone
+with Hippias and the Eighteenth Century, from both of whom he had
+extracted all the amusement that could be got, and he saw his
+digestion menaced by the society of two ruined stomachs, who bored
+him just when he loved himself most. Poor Hippias was now so reduced
+that he had profoundly to calculate whether a particular dish, or an
+extra glass of wine, would have a bitter effect on him and be felt
+through the remainder of his years. He was in the habit of uttering
+his calculations half aloud, wherein the prophetic doubts of
+experience, and the succulent insinuations of appetite, contended
+hotly. It was horrible to hear him, so let us pardon Adrian for
+tempting him to a decision in favour of the moment.
+
+"Happy to take wine with you," Adrian would say, and Hippias would
+regard the decanter with a pained forehead, and put up the doctor.
+
+"Drink, nephew Hippy, and think of the doctor to-morrow!" the
+Eighteenth Century cheerily ruffles her cap at him, and recommends
+her own practice.
+
+"It's this literary work!" interjects Hippias, handling his glass of
+remorse. "I don't know what else it can be. You have no idea how
+anxious I feel. I have frightful dreams. I'm perpetually anxious."
+
+"No wonder," says Adrian, who enjoys the childish simplicity to
+which an absorbed study of his sensational existence has brought
+poor Hippias. "No wonder. Ten years of Fairy Mythology! Could any
+one hope to sleep in peace after that? As to your digestion, no one
+has a digestion who is in the doctor's hands. They prescribe from
+dogmas, and don't count on the system. They have cut down from two
+bottles to two glasses. It's absurd. You can't sleep, because your
+system is crying out for what it's accustomed to."
+
+Hippias sips his Madeira with a niggardly confidence, but assures
+Adrian that he really should not like to venture on a bottle now: it
+would be rank madness to venture on a bottle now, he thinks. Last
+night only, after partaking, under protest, of that rich French
+dish, or was it the duck?--Adrian advised him to throw the blame on
+that vulgar bird.--Say the duck, then. Last night, he was no sooner
+stretched in bed, than he seemed to be of an enormous size: all his
+limbs--his nose, his mouth, his toes--were elephantine! An elephant
+was a pigmy to him. And his hugeousness seemed to increase the
+instant he shut his eyes. He turned on this side; he turned on that.
+He lay on his back; he tried putting his face to the pillow; and he
+continued to swell. He wondered the room could hold him--he thought
+he must burst it--and absolutely lit a candle, and went to the
+looking-glass to see whether he was bearable.
+
+By this time Adrian and Richard were laughing uncontrollably. He
+had, however, a genial auditor in the Eighteenth Century, who
+declared it to be a new disease, not known in her day, and deserving
+investigation. She was happy to compare sensations with him, but
+hers were not of the complex order, and a potion soon righted her.
+In fact, her system appeared to be a debatable ground for aliment
+and medicine, on which the battle was fought, and, when over, she
+was none the worse, as she joyfully told Hippias. Never looked
+ploughman on prince, or village belle on Court Beauty, with half the
+envy poor Nineteenth-century Hippias expended in his gaze on the
+Eighteenth. He was too serious to note much the laughter of the
+young men.
+
+This "Tragedy of a Cooking-Apparatus," as Adrian designated the
+malady of Hippias, was repeated regularly every evening. It was
+natural for any youth to escape as quick as he could from such a
+table of stomachs.
+
+Adrian bore with his conduct considerately, until a letter from the
+baronet, describing the house and maternal System of a Mrs. Caroline
+Grandison, and the rough grain of hopefulness in her youngest
+daughter, spurred him to think of his duties, and see what was going
+on. He gave Richard half-an-hour's start, and then put on his hat to
+follow his own keen scent, leaving Hippias and the Eighteenth
+Century to piquet.
+
+In the lane near Belthorpe he met a maid of the farm not unknown to
+him, one Molly Davenport by name, a buxom lass, who, on seeing him,
+invoked her Good Gracious, the generic maid's familiar, and was
+instructed by reminiscences vivid, if ancient, to giggle.
+
+"Are you looking for your young gentleman?" Molly presently asked.
+
+Adrian glanced about the lane like a cool brigand, to see if the
+coast was clear, and replied to her, "I am, miss. I want you to tell
+me about him."
+
+"Dear!" said the buxom lass, "was you coming for me to-night to
+know?"
+
+Adrian rebuked her: for her bad grammar, apparently.
+
+"'Cause I can't stop out long to-night," Molly explained, taking the
+rebuke to refer altogether to her bad grammar.
+
+"You may go in when you please, miss. Is that any one coming? Come
+here in the shade."
+
+"Now, get along!" said Miss Molly.
+
+Adrian spoke with resolution. "Listen to me, Molly Davenport!" He
+put a coin in her hand, which had a medical effect in calming her
+to attention. "I want to know whether you have seen him at all?"
+
+"Who? Your young gentleman? I sh'd think I did. I seen him to-night
+only. Ain't he growed handsome. He's al'ays about Beltharp now. It
+ain't to fire no more ricks. He's afire 'unself. Ain't you seen 'em
+together? He's after the missis"----
+
+Adrian requested Miss Davenport to be respectful, and confine
+herself to particulars. This buxom lass then told him that her young
+missis and Adrian's young gentleman were a pretty couple, and met
+one another every night. The girl swore for their innocence.
+
+"As for Miss Lucy, she haven't a bit of art in her, nor have he."
+
+"They're all nature, I suppose," said Adrian. "How is it I don't see
+her at church?"
+
+"She's Catholic, or somethink," said Molly. "Her feyther was, and a
+leftenant. She've a Cross in her bedroom. She don't go to church. I
+see you there last Sunday a-lookin' so solemn," and Molly stroked
+her hand down her chin to give it length.
+
+Adrian insisted on her keeping to facts. It was dark, and in the
+dark he was indifferent to the striking contrasts suggested by the
+lass, but he wanted to hear facts, and he again bribed her to impart
+nothing but facts. Upon which she told him further, that her young
+lady was an innocent artless creature who had been to school upwards
+of three years with the nuns, and had a little money of her own, and
+was beautiful enough to be a lord's lady, and had been in love with
+Master Richard ever since she was a little girl. Molly had got from
+a friend of hers up at the Abbey, Mary Garner, the housemaid who
+cleaned Master Richard's room, a bit of paper once with the young
+gentleman's handwriting, and had given it to her Miss Lucy, and Miss
+Lucy had given her a gold sovereign for it--just for his
+handwriting! Miss Lucy did not seem happy at the farm, because of
+that young Tom, who was always leering at her, and to be sure she
+was quite a lady, and could play, and sing, and dress with the best.
+
+"She looks like angels in her nightgown!" Molly wound up.
+
+The next moment she ran up close, and speaking for the first time as
+if there were a distinction of position between them, petitioned:
+"Mr. Harley! you won't go for doin' any harm to 'em 'cause of what I
+said, will you now? Do say you won't now, Mr. Harley! She is good,
+though she's a Catholic. She was kind to me when I was ill, and I
+wouldn't have her crossed--I'd rather be showed up myself, I would!"
+
+The wise youth gave no positive promise to Molly, and she had to
+read his consent in a relaxation of his austerity. The noise of a
+lumbering foot plodding down the lane caused her to be abruptly
+dismissed. Molly took to flight, the lumbering foot accelerated its
+pace, and the pastoral appeal to her flying skirts was heard--"Moll!
+yau theyre! It be I--Bantam!" But the sprightly Silvia would not
+stop to his wooing, and Adrian turned away laughing at these
+Arcadians.
+
+Adrian was a lazy dragon. All he did for the present was to hint and
+tease. "It's the Inevitable!" he said, and asked himself why he
+should seek to arrest it. He had no faith in the System. Heavy
+Benson had. Benson of the slow thick-lidded antediluvian eye and
+loose-crumpled skin; Benson, the Saurian, the woman-hater; Benson
+was wide awake. A sort of rivalry existed between the wise youth and
+heavy Benson. The fidelity of the latter dependant had moved the
+baronet to commit to him a portion of the management of the Raynham
+estate, and this Adrian did not like. No one who aspires to the
+honourable office of leading another by the nose can tolerate a
+party in his ambition. Benson's surly instinct told him he was in
+the wise youth's way, and he resolved to give his master a striking
+proof of his superior faithfulness. For some weeks the Saurian eye
+had been on the two secret creatures. Heavy Benson saw letters come
+and go in the day, and now the young gentleman was off and out every
+night, and seemed to be on wings. Benson knew whither he went, and
+the object he went for. It was a woman--that was enough. The Saurian
+eye had actually seen the sinful thing lure the hope of Raynham into
+the shades. He composed several epistles of warning to the baronet
+of the work that was going on; but before sending one he wished to
+record a little of their guilty conversation; and for this purpose
+the faithful fellow trotted over the dews to eavesdrop, and thereby
+aroused the good fairy, in the person of Tom Bakewell, the sole
+confidant of Richard's state.
+
+Tom said to his young master, "Do you know what, sir? You be
+watched!"
+
+Richard, in a fury, bade him name the wretch, and Tom hung his arms,
+and aped the respectable protrusion of the butler's head.
+
+"It's he, is it?" cried Richard. "He shall rue it, Tom. If I find
+him near me when we're together he shall never forget it."
+
+"Don't hit too hard, sir," Tom suggested. "You hit mortal hard when
+you're in earnest, you know."
+
+Richard averred he would forgive anything but that, and told Tom to
+be within hail to-morrow night--he knew where. By the hour of the
+appointment it was out of the lover's mind.
+
+Lady Blandish dined that evening at Raynham, by Adrian's pointed
+invitation. According to custom, Richard started up and off, with
+few excuses. The lady exhibited no surprise. She and Adrian likewise
+strolled forth to enjoy the air of the Summer night. They had no
+intention of spying. Still they may have thought, by meeting Richard
+and his inamorata, there was a chance of laying a foundation of
+ridicule to sap the passion. They may have thought so--they were on
+no spoken understanding.
+
+"I have seen the little girl," said Lady Blandish. "She is
+pretty--she would be telling if she were well set up. She speaks
+well. How absurd it is of that class to educate their women above
+their station! The child is really too good for a farmer. I noticed
+her before I knew of this; she has enviable hair. I suppose she
+doesn't paint her eyelids. Just the sort of person to take a young
+man. I thought there was something wrong. I received, the day before
+yesterday, an impassioned poem evidently not intended for me. My
+hair was gold. My meeting him was foretold. My eyes were homes of
+light fringed with night. I sent it back, correcting the colours."
+
+"Which was death to the rhymes," said Adrian. "I saw her this
+morning. The boy hasn't bad taste. As you say, she is too good for
+a farmer. Such a spark would explode any System. She slightly
+affected mine. The Huron is stark mad about her."
+
+"But we must positively write and tell his father," said Lady
+Blandish.
+
+The wise youth did not see why they should exaggerate a trifle. The
+lady said she would have an interview with Richard, and then write,
+as it was her duty to do. Adrian shrugged, and was for going into
+the scientific explanation of Richard's conduct, in which the lady
+had to discourage him.
+
+"Poor boy!" she sighed. "I am really sorry for him. I hope he will
+not feel it too strongly. They feel strongly, father and son."
+
+"And select wisely," Adrian added.
+
+"That's another thing," said Lady Blandish.
+
+Their talk was then of the dulness of neighbouring county people,
+about whom, it seemed, there was little or no scandal afloat: of the
+lady's loss of the season in town, which she professed not to
+regret, though she complained of her general weariness: of whether
+Mr. Morton of Poer Hall would propose to Mrs. Doria, and of the
+probable despair of the hapless curate of Lobourne; and other
+gossip, partly in French.
+
+They rounded the lake, and got upon the road through the park to
+Lobourne. The moon had risen. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant.
+
+"Quite a lover's night," said Lady Blandish.
+
+"And I, who have none to love--pity me!" The wise youth attempted a
+sigh.
+
+"And never will have," said Lady Blandish, curtly. "You _buy_ your
+loves."
+
+Adrian protested. However, he did not plead verbally against the
+impeachment, though the lady's decisive insight astonished him. He
+began to respect her, relishing her exquisite contempt, and he
+reflected that widows could be terrible creatures.
+
+He had hoped to be a little sentimental with Lady Blandish, knowing
+her romantic. This mixture of the harshest common sense and an air
+of "_I_ know you men," with romance and refined temperament, subdued
+the wise youth more than a positive accusation supported by
+witnesses would have done. He looked at the lady. Her face was
+raised to the moon. She knew nothing--she had simply spoken from the
+fulness of her human knowledge, and had forgotten her words.
+Perhaps, after all, her admiration, or whatever feeling it was, for
+the baronet, was sincere, and really the longing for a virtuous man.
+Perhaps she had tried the opposite set pretty much. Adrian shrugged.
+Whenever the wise youth encountered a mental difficulty he
+instinctively lifted his shoulders to equal altitudes, to show that
+he had no doubt there was a balance in the case--plenty to be said
+on both sides, which was the same to him as a definite solution.
+
+At their tryst in the wood, abutting on Raynham Park, wrapped in
+themselves, piped to by tireless Love, Richard and Lucy sat, toying
+with eternal moments. How they seem as if they would never end! What
+mere sparks they are when they have died out! And how in the
+distance of time they revive, and extend, and glow, and make us
+think them full the half, and the best of the fire, of our lives!
+
+With the onward flow of intimacy, the two happy lovers ceased to be
+so shy of common themes, and their speech did not reject all as
+dross that was not pure gold of emotion.
+
+Lucy was very inquisitive about everything and everybody at Raynham.
+Whoever had been about Richard since his birth, she must know the
+history of, and he for a kiss will do her bidding.
+
+Thus goes the tender duet:
+
+"You should know my cousin Austin, Lucy.--Darling! Beloved!"
+
+"My own! Richard!"
+
+"You should know my cousin Austin. You shall know him. He would take
+to you best of them all, and you to him. He is in the tropics now,
+looking out a place--it's a secret--for poor English working-men to
+emigrate to and found a colony in that part of the world:--my white
+angel!"
+
+"Dear love!"
+
+"He is such a noble fellow! Nobody here understands him but me.
+Isn't it strange? Since I met you I love him better! That's because
+I love all that's good and noble better now--Beautiful! I love--I
+love you!"
+
+"My Richard!"
+
+"What do you think I've determined, Lucy? If my father----but no! my
+father does love me.--No! he will not; and we will be happy together
+here. And I will win my way with you. And whatever I win will be
+yours; for it will be owing to you. I feel as if I had no strength
+but yours--none! and you make me--O Lucy!"
+
+His voice ebbs. Presently Lucy murmurs--
+
+"Your father, Richard."
+
+"Yes, my father?"
+
+"Dearest Richard! I feel so afraid of him."
+
+"He loves me, and will love you, Lucy."
+
+"But I am so poor and humble, Richard."
+
+"No one I have ever seen is like you, Lucy."
+
+"You think so, because you"----
+
+"What?"
+
+"Love me," comes the blushing whisper, and the duet gives place to
+dumb variations, performed equally in concert.
+
+It is resumed.
+
+"You are fond of the knights, Lucy. Austin is as brave as any of
+them.--My own bride! Oh, how I adore you! When you are gone, I could
+fall upon the grass you tread upon, and kiss it. My breast feels
+empty of my heart--Lucy! if we lived in those days, I should have
+been a knight, and have won honour and glory for you. Oh! one can do
+nothing now. My lady-love! My lady-love!--A tear?--Lucy?"
+
+"Dearest! Ah, Richard! I am not a lady."
+
+"Who dares say that? Not a lady--the angel I love!"
+
+"Think, Richard, who I am."
+
+"My beautiful! I think that God made you, and has given you to me."
+
+Her eyes fill with tears, and, as she lifts them heavenward to thank
+her God, the light of heaven strikes on them, and she is so radiant
+in her pure beauty that the limbs of the young man tremble.
+
+"Lucy! O heavenly spirit! Lucy!"
+
+Tenderly her lips part--"I do not weep for sorrow."
+
+The big bright drops lighten, and roll down, imaged in his soul.
+
+They lean together--shadows of ineffable tenderness playing on their
+thrilled cheeks and brows.
+
+He lifts her hand, and presses his mouth to it. She has seen little
+of mankind, but her soul tells her this one is different from
+others, and at the thought, in her great joy, tears must come fast,
+or her heart will break--tears of boundless thanksgiving. And he,
+gazing on those soft, ray-illumined, dark-edged eyes, and the grace
+of her loose falling tresses, feels a scarce-sufferable holy fire
+streaming through his members.
+
+It is long ere they speak in open tones.
+
+"O happy day when we met!"
+
+What says the voice of one, the soul of the other echoes.
+
+"O glorious heaven looking down on us!"
+
+Their souls are joined, are made one for evermore beneath that
+bending benediction.
+
+"O eternity of bliss!"
+
+Then the diviner mood passes, and they drop to earth.
+
+"Lucy! come with me to-night, and look at the place where you are
+some day to live. Come, and I will row you on the lake. You remember
+what you said in your letter that you dreamt?--that we were floating
+over the shadow of the Abbey to the nuns at work by torchlight
+felling the cypress, and they handed us each a sprig. Why, darling,
+it was the best omen in the world, their felling the old trees. And
+you write such lovely letters. So pure and sweet they are. I love
+the nuns for having taught you."
+
+"Ah, Richard! See! we forget! Ah!" she lifts up her face pleadingly,
+as to plead against herself, "even if your father forgives my birth,
+he will not my religion. And, dearest, though I would die for you I
+cannot change it. It would seem that I was denying God; and--oh! it
+would make me ashamed of my love."
+
+"Fear nothing!" He winds her about with his arm. "Come! He will love
+us both, and love you the more for being faithful to your father's
+creed. You don't know him, Lucy. He seems harsh and stern--he is
+full of kindness and love. He isn't at all a bigot. And besides,
+when he hears what the nuns have done for you, won't he thank them,
+as I do? And--oh! I must speak to him soon, and you must be prepared
+to see him soon, for I cannot bear your remaining at Belthorpe, like
+a jewel in a sty. Mind! I'm not saying a word against your uncle. I
+declare I love everybody and everything that sees you and touches
+you. Stay! it _is_ a wonder how you could have grown there. But you
+were not born there, and your father had good blood. Desborough!--there
+was a Colonel Desborough--never mind! Come!"
+
+She dreads to. She begs not to. She is drawn away.
+
+The woods are silent, and then--
+
+"What think you of that for a pretty pastoral?" says a very
+different voice.
+
+Adrian reclined against a pine overlooking the fern-covert. Lady
+Blandish was recumbent upon the brown pine-droppings, gazing through
+a vista of the lower greenwood which opened out upon the
+moon-lighted valley, her hands clasped round one knee, her features
+almost stern in their set hard expression.
+
+They had heard, by involuntarily overhearing about as much as may be
+heard in such positions, a luminous word or two.
+
+The lady did not answer. A movement among the ferns attracted
+Adrian, and he stepped down the decline across the pine-roots to
+behold heavy Benson below, shaking fern-seed and spidery substances
+off his crumpled skin.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Hadrian?" called Benson, starting, as he puffed,
+and exercised his handkerchief.
+
+"Is it _you_, Benson, who have had the audacity to spy upon these
+Mysteries?" Adrian called back, and coming close to him, added, "You
+look as if you had just been well thrashed."
+
+"Isn't it dreadful, sir?" snuffled Benson. "And his father in
+ignorance, Mr. Hadrian!"
+
+"He shall know, Benson! He shall know how you have endangered your
+valuable skin in his service. If Mr. Richard had found you there
+just now I wouldn't answer for the consequences."
+
+"Ha!" Benson spitefully retorted. "This won't go on, Mr. Hadrian. It
+shan't, sir. It will be put a stop to to-morrow, sir. I call it
+corruption of a young gentleman like him, and harlotry, sir, I call
+it. I'd have every jade flogged that made a young innocent gentleman
+go on like that, sir."
+
+"Then why didn't you stop it yourself, Benson? Ah, I see! you
+waited--what? This is not the first time you have been attendant on
+Apollo and Miss Dryope? You have written to headquarters?"
+
+"I did my duty, Mr. Hadrian."
+
+The wise youth returned to Lady Blandish, and informed her of
+Benson's zeal. The lady's eyes flashed. "I hope Richard will treat
+him as he deserves," she said.
+
+"Shall we home?" Adrian inquired.
+
+"Do me a favour," the lady replied. "Get my carriage sent round to
+meet me at the park-gates."
+
+"Won't you?"--
+
+"I want to be alone."
+
+Adrian bowed and left her. She was still sitting with her hands
+clasped round one knee, gazing towards the dim ray-strewn valley.
+
+"An odd creature!" muttered the wise youth. "She's as odd as any of
+them. She ought to be a Feverel. I suppose she's graduating for it.
+Hang that confounded old ass of a Benson! He has had the impudence
+to steal a march on me!"
+
+The shadow of the cypress was lessening on the lake. The moon was
+climbing high. As Richard rowed the boat, Lucy sang to him softly.
+She sang first a fresh little French song, reminding him of a day
+when she had been asked to sing to him before, and he did not care
+to hear. "Did I live?" he thinks. Then she sang to him a bit of one
+of those majestic old Gregorian chants, that, wherever you may hear
+them, seem to build up cathedral walls about you. The young man
+dropped the sculls. The strange solemn notes gave a religious tone
+to his love, and wafted him into the knightly ages and the
+reverential heart of chivalry.
+
+Hanging between two heavens on the lake: floating to her voice: the
+moon stepping over and through white shoals of soft high clouds
+above and below: floating to her voice--no other breath abroad! His
+soul went out of his body as he listened.
+
+They must part. He rows her gently shoreward.
+
+"I never was so happy as to-night," she murmurs.
+
+"Look, my Lucy. The lights of the old place are on the lake. Look
+where you are to live."
+
+"Which is your room, Richard?"
+
+He points it out to her.
+
+"O Richard! that I were one of the women who wait on you! I should
+ask nothing more. How happy she must be!"
+
+"My darling angel-love. You shall be happy; but all shall wait on
+you, and I foremost, Lucy."
+
+"Dearest! may I hope for a letter?"
+
+"By eleven to-morrow. And I?"
+
+"Oh! you will have mine, Richard."
+
+"Tom shall wait for it. A long one, mind! Did you like my last
+song?"
+
+She puts her hand quietly against her bosom, and he knows where it
+rests. O love! O heaven!
+
+They are aroused by the harsh grating of the bow of the boat against
+the shingle. He jumps out, and lifts her ashore.
+
+"See!" she says, as the blush of his embrace subsides--"See!" and
+prettily she mimics awe and feels it a little, "the cypress does
+point towards us. O Richard! it does!"
+
+And he, looking at her rather than at the cypress, delighting in her
+arch grave ways--
+
+"Why, there's hardly any shadow at all, Lucy. She mustn't dream, my
+darling! or dream only of me."
+
+"Dearest! but I do."
+
+"To-morrow, Lucy! The letter in the morning, and you at night. O
+happy to-morrow!"
+
+"You will be sure to be there, Richard?"
+
+"If I am not dead, Lucy."
+
+"O Richard! pray, pray do not speak of that. I shall not survive
+you."
+
+"Let us pray, Lucy, to die together, when we are to die. Death or
+life, with you! Who is it yonder? I see some one--is it Tom? It's
+Adrian!"
+
+"Is it Mr. Harley?" The fair girl shivered.
+
+"How dares he come here!" cried Richard.
+
+The figure of Adrian, instead of advancing, discreetly circled the
+lake. They were stealing away when he called. His call was repeated.
+Lucy entreated Richard to go to him; but the young man preferred to
+summon his attendant, Tom, from within hail, and send him to know
+what was wanted.
+
+"Will he have seen me? Will he have known me?" whispered Lucy,
+tremulously.
+
+"And if he does, love?" said Richard.
+
+"Oh! if he does, dearest--I don't know, but I feel such a
+presentiment. You have not spoken of him to-night, Richard. Is he
+good?"
+
+"Good?" Richard clutched her hand for the innocent maiden phrase.
+"He's very fond of eating; that's all I know of Adrian."
+
+Her hand was at his lips when Tom returned.
+
+"Well, Tom?"
+
+"Mr. Adrian wishes particular to speak to you, sir," said Tom.
+
+"Do go to him, dearest! Do go!" Lucy begs him.
+
+"Oh, how I hate Adrian!" The young man grinds his teeth.
+
+"Do go!" Lucy urges him. "Tom--good Tom--will see me home.
+To-morrow, dear love! To-morrow!"
+
+"You wish to part from me?"
+
+"Oh, unkind! but you must not come with me now. It may be news of
+importance, dearest. Think, Richard!"
+
+"Tom! go back!"
+
+At the imperious command the well-drilled Tom strides off a dozen
+paces, and sees nothing. Than the precious charge is confided to
+him. A heart is cut in twain.
+
+Richard made his way to Adrian. "What is it you want with me,
+Adrian?"
+
+"Are we seconds, or principals, O fiery one?" was Adrian's answer.
+"I want nothing with you, except to know whether you have seen
+Benson."
+
+"Where should I see Benson? What do I know of Benson's doings?"
+
+"Of course not--such a secret old fist as he is! I want some one to
+tell him to order Lady Blandish's carriage to be sent round to the
+park-gates. I thought he might be round your way over there--I came
+upon him accidentally just now in Abbey-wood. What's the matter,
+boy?"
+
+"You saw him _there_?"
+
+"Hunting Diana, I suppose. He thinks she's not so chaste as they
+say," continued Adrian. "Are you going to knock down that tree?"
+
+Richard had turned to the cypress, and was tugging at the tough
+wood. He left it and went to an ash.
+
+"You'll spoil that weeper," Adrian cried. "Down she comes! But
+good-night, Ricky. If you see Benson mind you tell him."
+
+Doomed Benson following his burly shadow hove in sight on the white
+road while Adrian spoke. The wise youth chuckled and strolled round
+the lake, glancing over his shoulder every now and then.
+
+It was not long before he heard a bellow for help--the roar of a
+dragon in his throes. Adrian placidly sat down on the grass, and
+fixed his eyes on the water. There, as the roar was being repeated
+amid horrid resounding echoes, the wise youth mused in this wise--
+
+"'The Fates are Jews with us when they delay a punishment,' says THE
+PILGRIM'S SCRIP, or words to that effect. The heavens evidently love
+Benson, seeing that he gets his punishment on the spot. Master Ricky
+is a peppery young man. He gets it from the apt Gruffudh. I rather
+believe in race. What a noise that old ruffian makes! He'll require
+poulticing with THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP. We shall have a message
+to-morrow, and a hubbub, and perhaps all go to town, which won't
+be bad for one who's been a prey to all the desires born of dulness.
+Benson howls: there's life in the old dog yet! He bays the moon.
+Look at her. She doesn't care. It's the same to her whether we coo
+like turtle-doves or roar like twenty lions. How complacent she looks!
+And yet she has just as much sympathy for Benson as for Cupid. She
+would smile on if both were being birched. Was that a raven or Benson?
+He howls no more. It sounds guttural: frog-like--something between
+the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven's croak. The fellow'll be
+killing him. It's time to go to the rescue. A deliverer gets more
+honour by coming in at the last gasp than if he forestalled
+catastrophe.--Ho, there, what's the matter?"
+
+So saying, the wise youth rose, and leisurely trotted to the scene
+of battle, where stood St. George puffing over the prostrate Dragon.
+
+"Holloa, Ricky! is it you?" said Adrian. "What's this? Whom have we
+here?--Benson, as I live!"
+
+"Make this beast get up," Richard returned, breathing hard, and
+shaking his great ash-branch.
+
+"He seems incapable, my dear boy. What have you been up
+to?--Benson! Benson!--I say, Ricky, this looks bad."
+
+"He's shamming!" Richard clamoured like a savage. "Spy upon me, will
+he? I tell you, he's shamming. He hasn't had half enough. Nothing's
+too bad for a spy. Let him get up!"
+
+"Insatiated youth! do throw away that enormous weapon."
+
+"He has written to my father," Richard shouted. "The miserable spy!
+Let him get up!"
+
+"Ooogh! I won't!" huskily groaned Benson. "Mr. Hadrian, you're a
+witness he's--my back!"---- Cavernous noises took up the tale of his
+maltreatment.
+
+"I daresay you love your back better than any part of your body
+now," Adrian muttered. "Come, Benson! be a man. Mr. Richard has
+thrown away the stick. Come, and get off home, and let's see the
+extent of the damage."
+
+"Ooogh! he's a devil! Mr. Hadrian, sir, he's a devil!" groaned
+Benson, turning half over in the road to ease his aches.
+
+Adrian caught hold of Benson's collar and lifted him to a sitting
+posture. He then had a glimpse of what his hopeful pupil's hand
+could do in wrath. The wretched butler's coat was slit and welted;
+his hat knocked in; his flabby spirit so broken that he started and
+trembled if his pitiless executioner stirred a foot. Richard stood
+over him, grasping his great stick; no dawn of mercy for Benson in
+any corner of his features.
+
+Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and immediately
+gasped, "I won't get up! I won't! He's ready to murder me
+again!--Mr. Hadrian! if you stand by and see it, you're liable to
+the law, sir--I won't get up while he's near." No persuasion could
+induce Benson to try his legs while his executioner stood by.
+
+Adrian took Richard aside: "You've almost killed the poor devil,
+Ricky. You must be satisfied with that. Look at his face."
+
+"The coward bobbed while I struck," said Richard. "I marked his
+back. He ducked. I told him he was getting it worse."
+
+At so civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his mouth wide.
+
+"Did you really? I admire that. You told him he was getting it
+worse?"
+
+Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll of laughter out.
+
+"Come," he said, "Excalibur has done his work. Pitch him into the
+lake. And see--here comes the Blandish. You can't be at it again
+before a woman. Go and meet her, and tell her the noise was an ox
+being slaughtered. Or say Argus."
+
+With a whirr that made all Benson's bruises moan and quiver, the
+great ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard swung off to intercept Lady
+Blandish.
+
+Adrian got Benson on his feet. The heavy butler was disposed to
+summon all the commiseration he could feel for his bruised flesh.
+Every half-step he attempted was like a dislocation. His groans and
+grunts were frightful.
+
+"How much did that hat cost, Benson?" said Adrian, as he put it on
+his head.
+
+"A five-and-twenty shilling beaver, Mr. Hadrian!" Benson caressed
+its injuries.
+
+"The cheapest policy of insurance I remember to have heard of!" said
+Adrian.
+
+Benson staggered, moaning at intervals to his cruel comforter--
+
+"He's a devil, Mr. Hadrian! He's a devil, sir, I do believe, sir.
+Ooogh! he's a devil!--I can't move, Mr. Hadrian. I must be fetched.
+And Dr. Clifford must be sent for, sir. I shall never be fit for
+work again. I haven't a sound bone in my body, Mr. Hadrian."
+
+"You see, Benson, this comes of your declaring war upon Venus. I
+hope the maids will nurse you properly. Let me see: you are friends
+with the housekeeper, aren't you? All depends upon that."
+
+"I'm only a faithful servant, Mr. Hadrian," the miserable butler
+snarled.
+
+"Then you've got no friend but your bed. Get to it as quick as
+possible, Benson."
+
+"I can't move." Benson made a resolute halt. "I must be fetched," he
+whinnied. "It's a shame to ask me to move, Mr. Hadrian."
+
+"You will admit that you are heavy, Benson," said Adrian, "so I
+can't carry you. However, I see Mr. Richard is very kindly returning
+to help me."
+
+At these words heavy Benson instantly found his legs, and shambled
+on.
+
+Lady Blandish met Richard in dismay.
+
+"I have been horribly frightened," she said. "Tell me, what was the
+meaning of those cries I heard?"
+
+"Only some one doing justice on a spy," said Richard, and the lady
+smiled, and looked on him fondly, and put her hand through his hair.
+
+"Was that all? I should have done it myself if I had been a man.
+Kiss me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON
+
+
+By twelve o'clock at noon next day the inhabitants of Raynham Abbey
+knew that Berry, the baronet's man, had arrived post-haste from
+town, with orders to conduct Mr. Richard thither, and that Mr.
+Richard had refused to go, had sworn he would not, defied his
+father, and despatched Berry to the Shades. Berry was all that
+Benson was not. Whereas Benson hated woman, Berry admired her
+warmly. Second to his own stately person, woman occupied his
+reflections, and commanded his homage. Berry was of majestic port,
+and used dictionary words. Among the maids of Raynham his conscious
+calves produced all the discord and the frenzy those adornments seem
+destined to create in tender bosoms. He had, moreover, the
+reputation of having suffered for the sex; which assisted his object
+in inducing the sex to suffer for him. What with his calves, and his
+dictionary words, and the attractive halo of the mysterious
+vindictiveness of Venus surrounding him, this Adonis of the lower
+household was a mighty man below, and he moved as one.
+
+On hearing the tumult that followed Berry's arrival, Adrian sent for
+him, and was informed of the nature of his mission, and its result.
+
+"You should come to me first," said Adrian. "I should have imagined
+you were shrewd enough for that, Berry?"
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Adrian," Berry doubled his elbow to explain. "Pardon
+me, sir. Acting recipient of special injunctions I was not a free
+agent."
+
+"Go to Mr. Richard again, Berry. There will be a little confusion if
+he holds back. Perhaps you had better throw out a hint or so of
+apoplexy. A slight hint will do. And here--Berry! when you return to
+town, you had better not mention anything--to quote Johnson--of
+Benson's spiflication."
+
+"Certainly not, sir."
+
+The wise youth's hint had the desired effect on Richard.
+
+He dashed off a hasty letter by Tom to Belthorpe, and, mounting his
+horse, galloped to the Bellingham station.
+
+Sir Austin was sitting down to a quiet early dinner at his hotel,
+when the Hope of Raynham burst into his room.
+
+The baronet was not angry with his son. On the contrary, for he was
+singularly just and self-accusing while pride was not up in arms, he
+had been thinking all day after the receipt of Benson's letter that
+he was deficient in cordiality, and did not, by reason of his
+excessive anxiety, make himself sufficiently his son's companion:
+was not enough, as he strove to be, mother and father to him;
+preceptor and friend; previsor and associate. He had not to ask his
+conscience where he had lately been to blame towards the System. He
+had slunk away from Raynham in the very crisis of the Magnetic Age,
+and this young woman of the parish (as Benson had termed sweet Lucy
+in his letter) was the consequence.
+
+Yes! pride and sensitiveness were his chief foes, and he would
+trample on them. To begin, he embraced his son: hard upon an
+Englishman at any time--doubly so to one so shamefaced at emotion in
+cool blood, as it were. It gave him a strange pleasure,
+nevertheless. And the youth seemed to answer to it; he was excited.
+Was his love, then, beginning to correspond with his father's as in
+those intimate days before the Blossoming Season?
+
+But when Richard, inarticulate at first in his haste, cried out, "My
+dear, dear father! You are safe! I feared----You are better, sir?
+Thank God!" Sir Austin stood away from him.
+
+"Safe?" he said. "What has alarmed you?"
+
+Instead of replying, Richard dropped into a chair, and seized his
+hand and kissed it.
+
+Sir Austin took a seat, and waited for his son to explain.
+
+"Those doctors are such fools!" Richard broke out. "I was sure they
+were wrong. They don't know headache from apoplexy. It's worth the
+ride, sir, to see you. You left Raynham so suddenly.--But you are
+well! It was not an attack of real apoplexy?"
+
+His father's brows contorted, and he said, No, it was not. Richard
+pursued:
+
+"If you were ill, I couldn't come too soon, though, if coroners'
+inquests sat on horses, those doctors would be found guilty of
+mare-slaughter. Cassandra'll be knocked up. I was too early for the
+train at Bellingham, and I wouldn't wait. She did the distance in
+four hours and three-quarters. Pretty good, sir, wasn't it?"
+
+"It has given you appetite for dinner, I hope," said the baronet,
+not so well pleased to find that it was not simple obedience that
+had brought the youth to him in such haste.
+
+"I'm ready," replied Richard. "I shall be in time to return by the
+last train to-night. I will leave Cassandra in your charge for a
+rest."
+
+His father quietly helped him to soup, which he commenced gobbling
+with an eagerness that might pass for appetite.
+
+"All well at Raynham?" said the baronet.
+
+"Quite, sir."
+
+"Nothing new?"
+
+"Nothing, sir."
+
+"The same as when I left?"
+
+"No change whatever!"
+
+"I shall be glad to get back to the old place," said the baronet.
+"My stay in town has certainly been profitable. I have made some
+pleasant acquaintances who may probably favour us with a visit there
+in the late autumn--people you may be pleased to know. They are very
+anxious to see Raynham."
+
+"I love the old place," cried Richard. "I never wish to leave it."
+
+"Why, boy, before I left you were constantly begging to see town."
+
+"Was I, sir? How odd! Well! I don't want to remain here. I've seen
+enough of it."
+
+"How did you find your way to me?"
+
+Richard laughed, and related his bewilderment at the miles of brick,
+and the noise, and the troops of people, concluding, "There's no
+place like home!"
+
+The baronet watched his symptomatic brilliant eyes, and favoured him
+with a double-dealing sentence--
+
+"To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half traversed the
+world, is youth's foolishness, my son. Reverence time! A better
+maxim that than your Horatian."
+
+"He knows all!" thought Richard, and instantly drew away leagues
+from his father, and threw up fortifications round his love and
+himself.
+
+Dinner over, Richard looked hurriedly at his watch, and said, with
+much briskness, "I shall just be in time, sir, if we walk. Will you
+come with me to the station?"
+
+The baronet did not answer.
+
+Richard was going to repeat the question, but found his father's
+eyes fixed on him so meaningly that he wavered, and played with his
+empty glass.
+
+"I think we will have a little more claret," said the baronet.
+
+Claret was brought, and they were left alone.
+
+The baronet then drew within arm's-reach of his son, and began:
+
+"I am not aware what you may have thought of me, Richard, during the
+years we have lived together; and indeed I have never been in a
+hurry to be known to you; and, if I had died before my work was
+done, I should not have complained at losing half my reward, in
+hearing you thank me. Perhaps, as it is, I never may. Everything,
+save selfishness, has its recompense. I shall be content if you
+prosper."
+
+He fetched a breath and continued: "You had in your infancy a great
+loss." Father and son coloured simultaneously. "To make that good to
+you I chose to isolate myself from the world, and devote myself
+entirely to your welfare; and I think it is not vanity that tells me
+now that the son I have reared is one of the most hopeful of God's
+creatures. But for that very reason you are open to be tempted the
+most, and to sink the deepest. It was the first of the angels who
+made the road to hell."
+
+He paused again. Richard fingered at his watch.
+
+"In our House, my son, there is peculiar blood. We go to wreck very
+easily. It sounds like superstition; I cannot but think we are tried
+as most men are not. I see it in us all. And you, my son, are
+compounded of two races. Your passions are violent. You have had a
+taste of revenge. You have seen, in a small way, that the pound of
+flesh draws rivers of blood. But there is now in you another power.
+You are mounting to the table-land of life, where mimic battles are
+changed to real ones. And you come upon it laden equally with force
+to create and to destroy." He deliberated to announce the
+intelligence, with deep meaning: "There are women in the world, my
+son!"
+
+The young man's heart galloped back to Raynham.
+
+"It is when you encounter them that you are thoroughly on trial. It
+is when you know them that life is either a mockery to you, or, as
+some find it, a gift of blessedness. They are our ordeal. Love of
+any human object is the soul's ordeal; and they are ours, loving
+them, or not."
+
+The young man heard the whistle of the train. He saw the
+moon-lighted wood, and the vision of his beloved. He could barely
+hold himself down and listen.
+
+"I believe," the baronet spoke with little of the cheerfulness of
+belief, "good women exist."
+
+Oh, if he knew Lucy!
+
+"But," and he gazed on Richard intently, "it is given to very few to
+meet them on the threshold--I may say, to none. We find them after
+hard buffeting, and usually, when we find the one fitted for us, our
+madness has misshaped our destiny, our lot is cast. For women are
+not the end, but the means, of life. In youth we think them the
+former, and thousands, who have not even the excuse of youth, select
+a mate--or worse--with that sole view. I believe women punish us for
+so perverting their uses. They punish Society."
+
+The baronet put his hand to his brow as his mind travelled into
+consequences.
+
+"Our most diligent pupil learns not so much as an earnest teacher,"
+says The Pilgrim's Scrip; and Sir Austin, in schooling himself to
+speak with moderation of women, was beginning to get a glimpse of
+their side of the case.
+
+Cold Blood now touched on love to Hot Blood.
+
+Cold Blood said, "It is a passion coming in the order of nature, the
+ripe fruit of our animal being."
+
+Hot Blood felt: "It is a divinity! All that is worth living for in
+the world."
+
+Cold Blood said: "It is a fever which tests our strength, and too
+often leads to perdition."
+
+Hot Blood felt: "Lead whither it will, I follow it."
+
+Cold Blood said: "It is a name men and women are much in the habit
+of employing to sanctify their appetites."
+
+Hot Blood felt: "It is worship; religion; life!"
+
+And so the two parallel lines ran on.
+
+The baronet became more personal:
+
+"You know my love for you, my son. The extent of it you cannot know;
+but you must know that it is something very deep, and--I do not wish
+to speak of it--but a father must sometimes petition for gratitude,
+since the only true expression of it is his son's moral good. If you
+care for my love, or love me in return, aid me with all your
+energies to keep you what I have made you, and guard you from the
+snares besetting you. It was in my hands once. It is ceasing to be
+so. Remember, my son, what my love is. It is different, I fear, with
+most fathers: but I am bound up in your welfare: what you do affects
+me vitally. You will take no step that is not intimate with my
+happiness, or my misery. And I have had great disappointments, my
+son."
+
+So far it was well. Richard loved his father, and even in his
+frenzied state he could not without emotion hear him thus speak.
+
+Unhappily, the baronet, who by some fatality never could see when he
+was winning the battle, thought proper in his wisdom to water the
+dryness of his sermon with a little jocoseness, on the subject of
+young men fancying themselves in love, and, when they were raw and
+green, absolutely wanting to be--that most awful thing, which, the
+wisest and strongest of men undertake in hesitation and after
+self-mortification and penance--married! He sketched the Foolish
+Young Fellow--the object of general ridicule and covert contempt. He
+sketched the Woman--the strange thing made in our image, and with
+all our faculties--passing to the rule of one who in taking her
+proved that he could not rule himself, and had no knowledge of her
+save as a choice morsel which he would burn the whole world, and
+himself in the bargain, to possess. He harped upon the Foolish Young
+Fellow, till the foolish young fellow felt his skin tingle and was
+half-suffocated with shame and rage.
+
+After this, the baronet might be as wise as he pleased: he had quite
+undone his work. He might analyze Love and anatomize Woman. He might
+accord to her her due position, and paint her fair: he might be
+shrewd, jocose, gentle, pathetic, wonderfully wise: he spoke to deaf
+ears.
+
+Closing his sermon with the question, softly uttered: "Have you
+anything to tell me, Richard?" and hoping for a confession, and a
+thorough re-establishment of confidence, the callous answer struck
+him cold: "I have not."
+
+The baronet relapsed in his chair, and made diagrams of his fingers.
+
+Richard turned his back on further dialogue by going to the window.
+In the section of sky over the street twinkled two or three stars;
+shining faintly, feeling the moon. The moon was rising: the woods
+were lifting up to her: his star of the woods would be there. A bed
+of moss set about flowers in a basket under him breathed to his
+nostril of the woodland keenly, and filled him with delirious
+longing.
+
+A succession of hard sighs brought his father's hand on his
+shoulder.
+
+"You have nothing you could say to me, my son? Tell me, Richard!
+Remember, there is no home for the soul where dwells a shadow of
+untruth!"
+
+"Nothing at all, sir," the young man replied, meeting him with the
+full orbs of his eyes.
+
+The baronet withdrew his hand, and paced the room.
+
+At last it grew impossible for Richard to control his impatience,
+and he said: "Do you intend me to stay here, sir? Am I not to return
+to Raynham at all to-night?"
+
+His father was again falsely jocular:
+
+"What? and catch the train after giving it ten minutes' start?"
+
+"Cassandra will take me," said the young man earnestly. "I needn't
+ride her hard, sir. Or perhaps you would lend me your Winkelried? I
+should be down with him in little better than three hours."
+
+"Even then, you know, the park-gates would be locked."
+
+"Well, I could stable him in the village. Dowling knows the horse,
+and would treat him properly. May I have him, sir?"
+
+The cloud cleared off Richard's face as he asked. At least, if he
+missed his love that night he would be near her, breathing the same
+air, marking what star was above her bedchamber, hearing the hushed
+night-talk of the trees about her dwelling: looking on the distances
+that were like hope half-fulfilled and a bodily presence bright as
+Hesper, since he knew her. There were two swallows under the eaves
+shadowing Lucy's chamber-windows: two swallows, mates in one nest,
+blissful birds, who twittered and cheep-cheeped to the sole-lying
+beauty in her bed. Around these birds the lover's heart revolved, he
+knew not why. He associated them with all his close-veiled dreams of
+happiness. Seldom a morning passed when he did not watch them leave
+the nest on their breakfast-flight, busy in the happy stillness of
+dawn. It seemed to him now that if he could be at Raynham to see
+them in to-morrow's dawn he would be compensated for his
+incalculable loss of to-night: he would forgive and love his father,
+London, the life, the world. Just to see those purple backs and
+white breasts flash out into the quiet morning air! He wanted no
+more.
+
+The baronet's trifling had placed this enormous boon within the
+young man's visionary grasp.
+
+He still went on trying the boy's temper.
+
+"You know there would be nobody ready for you at Raynham. It is
+unfair to disturb the maids."
+
+Richard overrode every objection.
+
+"Well, then, my son," said the baronet, preserving his half-jocular
+air, "I must tell you that it is my wish to have you in town."
+
+"Then you have not been ill at all, sir!" cried Richard, as in his
+despair he seized the whole plot.
+
+"I have been as well as you could have desired me to be," said his
+father.
+
+"Why did they lie to me?" the young man wrathfully exclaimed.
+
+"I think, Richard, you can best answer that," rejoined Sir Austin,
+kindly severe.
+
+Dread of being signalized as the Foolish Young Fellow prevented
+Richard from expostulating further. Sir Austin saw him grinding his
+passion into powder for future explosion, and thought it best to
+leave him for awhile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER
+
+
+For three weeks Richard had to remain in town and endure the
+teachings of the System in a new atmosphere. He had to sit and
+listen to men of science who came to renew their intimacy with his
+father, and whom of all men his father wished him to respect and
+study; practically scientific men being, in the baronet's
+estimation, the only minds thoroughly mated and enviable. He had to
+endure an introduction to the Grandisons, and meet the eyes of his
+kind, haunted as he was by the Foolish Young Fellow. The idea that
+he might by any chance be identified with him held the poor youth in
+silent subjection. And it was horrible. For it was a continued
+outrage on the fair image he had in his heart. The notion of the
+world laughing at him because he loved sweet Lucy stung him to
+momentary frenzies, and developed premature misanthropy in his
+spirit. Also the System desired to show him whither young women of
+the parish lead us, and he was dragged about at night-time to see
+the sons and daughters of darkness, after the fashion prescribed to
+Mr. Thompson; how they danced and ogled down the high road to
+perdition. But from this sight possibly the teacher learnt more than
+his pupil, since we find him seriously asking his meditative hours,
+in the Note-book: "Wherefore Wild Oats are only of one gender?" a
+question certainly not suggested to him at Raynham; and
+again--"Whether men might not be attaching too rigid an
+importance?" ... to a subject with a dotted tail apparently, for he
+gives it no other in the Note-book. But, as I apprehend, he had come
+to plead in behalf of women here, and had deduced something from
+positive observation. To Richard the scenes he witnessed were
+strange wild pictures, likely if anything to have increased his
+misanthropy, but for his love.
+
+Certain sweet little notes from Lucy sustained the lover during the
+first two weeks of exile. They ceased; and now Richard fell into
+such despondency that his father in alarm had to take measures to
+hasten their return to Raynham. At the close of the third week Berry
+laid a pair of letters, bearing the Raynham post-mark, on the
+breakfast-table, and, after reading one attentively, the baronet
+asked his son if he was inclined to quit the metropolis.
+
+"For Raynham, sir?" cried Richard, and relapsed, saying, "As you
+will!" aware that he had given a glimpse of the Foolish Young
+Fellow.
+
+Berry accordingly received orders to make arrangements for their
+instant return to Raynham.
+
+The letter Sir Austin lifted his head from to bespeak his son's
+wishes was a composition of the wise youth Adrian's, and ran thus:
+
+     "Benson is doggedly recovering. He requires great indemnities.
+     Happy when a faithful fool is the main sufferer in a household!
+     I quite agree with you that our faithful fool is the best
+     servant of great schemes. Benson is now a piece of history. I
+     tell him that this is indemnity enough, and that the sweet Muse
+     usually insists upon gentlemen being half-flayed before she
+     will condescend to notice them; but Benson, I regret to say,
+     rejects the comfort so fine a reflection should offer, and had
+     rather keep his skin and live opaque. Heroism seems partly a
+     matter of training. Faithful folly is Benson's nature: the rest
+     has been thrust upon him.
+
+     "The young person has resigned the neighbourhood. I had an
+     interview with the fair Papist myself, and also with the man
+     Blaize. They were both sensible, though one swore and the other
+     sighed. She is pretty. I hope she does not paint. I can affirm
+     that her legs are strong, for she walks to Bellingham twice a
+     week to take her Scarlet bath, when, having confessed and been
+     made clean by the Romish unction, she walks back the brisker,
+     of which my Protestant muscular system is yet aware. It was on
+     the road to Bellingham I engaged her. She is well in the matter
+     of hair. Madam Godiva might challenge her, it would be a fair
+     match. Has it never struck you that Woman is nearer the
+     _vegetable_ than Man?--Mr. Blaize intends her for his son--a
+     junction that every lover of fairy mythology must desire to see
+     consummated. Young Tom is heir to all the _agrémens_ of the
+     Beast. The maids of Lobourne say (I hear) that he is a very
+     Proculus among them. Possibly the envious men say it for the
+     maids. Beauty does not speak bad grammar--and altogether she is
+     better out of the way."
+
+The other letter was from Lady Blandish, a lady's letter, and said:
+
+     "I have fulfilled your commission to the best of my ability,
+     and heartily sad it has made me. She is indeed very much
+     above her station--pity that it is so! She is almost
+     beautiful--_quite_ beautiful at times, and not in _any way_
+     what you have been led to fancy. The poor child had no story to
+     tell. I have again seen her, and talked with her for an hour as
+     kindly as I could. I could gather nothing more than we know. It
+     is just a woman's history as it invariably commences. Richard
+     is the god of her idolatry. She will renounce him, and
+     sacrifice herself for his sake. Are we so bad? She asked me
+     what she was to do. She would do whatever was imposed upon
+     her--all but pretend to love another, and that she never would,
+     and, I believe, _never will_. You know I am sentimental, and I
+     confess we dropped a _few tears_ together. Her uncle has sent
+     her for the Winter to the institution where it appears she was
+     educated, and where they are very fond of her and want to keep
+     her, which it would be a good thing if they were to do. The man
+     is a good sort of man. She was entrusted to him by her father,
+     and he never interferes with her religion, and is very
+     scrupulous about all that pertains to it, though, as he says,
+     he is a Christian himself. In the Spring (but the poor child
+     does not know this) she is to come back, and be married to his
+     lout of a son. I am _determined_ to prevent that. May I not
+     reckon on your promise to aid me? When you see her, I am sure
+     you will. It would be sacrilege to look on and permit such a
+     thing. You know, they are _cousins_. She asked me, where in the
+     world there was one like Richard? What could I answer? They
+     were your own words, and spoken with a depth of conviction! I
+     hope he is really calm. I shudder to think of him when he
+     comes, and discovers what I have been doing. I hope I have been
+     really doing right! A good deed, you say, never dies; but we
+     cannot always know--I must rely on you. Yes, it is, I should
+     think, easy to suffer martyrdom when one is sure of one's
+     cause! but then one _must_ be sure of it. I have done nothing
+     lately but to repeat to myself that saying of yours, No. 54, C.
+     7, P.S.; and it has consoled me, I cannot say why, except that
+     all wisdom consoles, whether it applies directly or not:
+
+     "'_For this reason so many fall from God, who have attained to
+     Him; that they cling to Him with their Weakness, not with their
+     Strength._'
+
+     "I like to know of what you are thinking when you composed this
+     or that saying--what _suggested_ it. May not one be admitted to
+     inspect the machinery of wisdom? I feel curious to know how
+     thoughts--_real_ thoughts--are born. Not that I hope to win the
+     secret. Here is the beginning of one (but we poor women can
+     never put together even two of the three ideas which you say go
+     to form a thought): 'When a wise man makes a false step, will
+     he not go farther than a fool?' It has just flitted through me.
+
+     "I cannot get on with Gibbon, so wait your return to recommence
+     the readings. I dislike the _sneering essence_ of his writings.
+     I keep referring to his face, until the dislike seems to become
+     personal. How different it is with Wordsworth! And yet I cannot
+     escape from the thought that he is always solemnly thinking of
+     himself (but I _do_ reverence him). But this is curious; Byron
+     was a greater egoist, and yet I do not feel the same with him.
+     He reminds me of a beast of the desert, savage and beautiful;
+     and the former is what one would imagine a superior donkey
+     reclaimed from the heathen to be--a _very_ superior donkey, I
+     mean, with great power of speech and great natural complacency,
+     and whose stubbornness you must admire as part of his mission.
+     The worst is that no one will imagine anything sublime in a
+     superior donkey, so my simile is unfair and false. Is it not
+     strange? I love Wordsworth best, and yet Byron has the greater
+     power over me. How is that?"
+
+("Because," Sir Austin wrote beside the query in pencil, "women are
+cowards, and succumb to Irony and Passion, rather than yield their
+hearts to Excellence and Nature's Inspiration.")
+
+The letter pursued:
+
+     "I have finished Boiardo and have taken up Berni. The latter
+     offends me. I suppose we women do not really care for humour.
+     You are right in saying we have none ourselves, and 'cackle'
+     instead of laugh. It is true (of me, at least) that 'Falstaff
+     is only to us an incorrigible fat man.' I want to know what he
+     _illustrates_. And Don Quixote--what end can be served in
+     making a noble mind ridiculous?--I hear you say--practical! So
+     it is. We are very narrow, I know. But we like wit--practical
+     again! Or in your words (when I really _think_ they generally
+     come to my aid--perhaps it is that it is often all _your
+     thought_); we 'prefer the rapier thrust, to the broad embrace,
+     of Intelligence.'"
+
+He trifled with the letter for some time, re-reading chosen passages
+as he walked about the room, and considering he scarce knew what.
+There are ideas language is too gross for, and shape too arbitrary,
+which come to us and have a definite influence upon us, and yet we
+cannot fasten on the filmy things and make them visible and distinct
+to ourselves, much less to others. Why did he twice throw a look
+into the glass in the act of passing it? He stood for a moment with
+head erect facing it. His eyes for the nonce seemed little to peruse
+his outer features; the grey gathered brows, and the wrinkles much
+action of them had traced over the circles half up his high straight
+forehead; the iron-grey hair that rose over his forehead and fell
+away in the fashion of Richard's plume. His general appearance
+showed the tints of years; but none of their weight, and nothing of
+the dignity of his youth, was gone. It was so far satisfactory, but
+his eyes were wide, as one who looks at his essential self through
+the mask we wear. Perhaps he was speculating as he looked on the
+sort of aspect he presented to the lady's discriminative regard. Of
+her feelings he had not a suspicion. But he knew with what
+extraordinary lucidity women can, when it pleases them, and when
+their feelings are not quite boiling under the noonday sun, seize
+all the sides of a character, and put their fingers on its weak
+point. He was cognizant of the total absence of the humorous in
+himself (the want that most shut him out from his fellows), and
+perhaps the clear-thoughted, intensely self-examining gentleman
+filmily conceived, Me also, in common with the poet, she gazes on as
+one of the superior--grey beasts!
+
+He may have so conceived the case; he was capable of that
+great-mindedness, and could snatch at times very luminous glances at
+the broad reflector which the world of fact lying outside our narrow
+compass holds up for us to see ourselves in when we will. Unhappily,
+the faculty of laughter, which is due to this gift, was denied him;
+and having seen, he, like the companion of friend Balaam, could go
+no farther. For a good wind of laughter had relieved him of much of
+the blight of self-deception, and oddness, and extravagance; had
+given a healthier view of our atmosphere of life; but he had it not.
+
+Journeying back to Bellingham in the train, with the heated brain
+and brilliant eye of his son beside him, Sir Austin tried hard to
+feel infallible, as a man with a System should feel; and because he
+could not do so, after much mental conflict, he descended to
+entertain a personal antagonism to the young woman who had stepped
+in between his experiment and success. He did not think kindly of
+her. Lady Blandish's encomiums of her behaviour and her beauty
+annoyed him. Forgetful that he had in a measure forfeited his rights
+to it, he took the common ground of fathers, and demanded, "Why he
+was not justified in doing all that lay in his power to prevent his
+son from casting himself away upon the first creature with a pretty
+face he encountered?" Deliberating thus, he lost the tenderness he
+should have had for his experiment--the living, burning youth at his
+elbow, and his excessive love for him took a rigorous tone. It
+appeared to him politic, reasonable, and just, that the uncle of
+this young woman, who had so long nursed the prudent scheme of
+marrying her to his son, should not only not be thwarted in his
+object but encouraged and even assisted. At least, not thwarted. Sir
+Austin had no glass before him while these ideas hardened in his
+mind, and he had rather forgotten the letter of Lady Blandish.
+
+Father and son were alone in the railway carriage. Both were too
+preoccupied to speak. As they neared Bellingham, the dark was
+filling the hollows of the country. Over the pine-hills beyond the
+station a last rosy streak lingered across a green sky. Richard eyed
+it while they flew along. It caught him forward: it seemed full of
+the spirit of his love, and brought tears of mournful longing to his
+eyelids. The sad beauty of that one spot in the heavens seemed to
+call out to his soul to swear to his Lucy's truth to him: was like
+the sorrowful visage of his fleur-de-luce, as he called her,
+appealing to him for faith. That tremulous tender way she had of
+half-closing and catching light on the nether-lids, when sometimes
+she looked up in her lover's face--a look so mystic-sweet that it
+had grown to be the fountain of his dreams: he saw it yonder, and
+his blood thrilled.
+
+Know you those wand-like touches of I know not what, before which
+our grosser being melts, and we, much as we hope to be in the
+Awaking, stand etherealized, trembling with new joy? They come but
+rarely; rarely even in love, when we fondly think them revelations.
+Mere sensations they are, doubtless: and we rank for them no higher
+in the spiritual scale than so many translucent glorious _polypi_
+that quiver on the shores, the hues of heaven running through them.
+Yet in the harvest of our days it is something for the animal to
+have had such mere fleshly polypian experiences to look back upon,
+and they give him an horizon--pale seas of luring splendour. One who
+has had them (when they do not bound him) may find the Isles of
+Bliss sooner than another. Sensual faith in the upper glories is
+something. "Let us remember," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "that
+Nature, though heathenish, reaches at her best to the footstool of
+the Highest. She is not all dust, but a living portion of the
+spheres. In aspiration it is our error to despise her, forgetting
+that through Nature only can we _ascend_. Cherished, trained, and
+purified, she is then partly worthy the divine mate who is to make
+her wholly so. St. Simeon saw the Hog in Nature, and took Nature for
+the Hog."
+
+It was one of these strange bodily exaltations which thrilled the
+young man, he knew not how it was, for sadness and his forebodings
+vanished. The soft wand touched him. At that moment, had Sir Austin
+spoken openly, Richard might have fallen upon his heart. He could
+not. He chose to feel injured on the common ground of fathers, and
+to pursue his System by plotting. Lady Blandish had revived his
+jealousy of the creature who menaced it, and jealousy of a System is
+unreflecting and vindictive as jealousy of woman.
+
+Heath-roots and pines breathed sharp in the cool autumn evening
+about the Bellingham station. Richard stood a moment as he stepped
+from the train, and drew the country air into his lungs with large
+heaves of the chest. Leaving his father to the felicitations of the
+station-master, he went into the Lobourne road to look for his
+faithful Tom, who had received private orders through Berry to be in
+attendance with his young master's mare, Cassandra, and was lurking
+in a plantation of firs unenclosed on the borders of the road, where
+Richard, knowing his retainer's zest for conspiracy too well to seek
+him anywhere but in the part most favoured with shelter and
+concealment, found him furtively whiffing tobacco.
+
+"What news, Tom? Is there an illness?"
+
+Tom sent his undress cap on one side to scratch at dilemma, an old
+agricultural habit to which he was still a slave in moments of
+abstract thought or sudden difficulty.
+
+"No, I don't want the rake, Mr. Richard," he whinnied with a false
+grin, as he beheld his master's eye vacantly following the action.
+
+"Speak out!" he was commanded. "I haven't had a letter for a week!"
+
+Richard learnt the news. He took it with surprising outward calm,
+only getting a little closer to Cassandra's neck, and looking very
+hard at Tom without seeing a speck of him, which had the effect on
+Tom of making him sincerely wish his master would punch his head at
+once rather than fix him in that owl-like way.
+
+"Go on!" said Richard, huskily. "Yes? She's gone! Well?"
+
+Tom was brought to understand he must make the most of trifles, and
+recited how he had heard from a female domestic at Belthorpe of the
+name of Davenport, formerly known to him, that the young lady never
+slept a wink from the hour she knew she was going, but sat up in her
+bed till morning crying most pitifully, though she never complained.
+Hereat the tears unconsciously streamed down Richard's cheeks. Tom
+said he had tried to see her, but Mr. Adrian kept him at work,
+ciphering at a terrible sum--that and nothing else all day! saying,
+it was to please his young master on his return. "Likewise something
+in Lat'n," added Tom. "Nom'tive Mouser!--'nough to make ye mad,
+sir!" he exclaimed with pathos. The wretch had been put to acquire a
+Latin declension.
+
+Tom saw her on the morning she went away, he said: she was very
+sorrowful-looking, and nodded kindly to him as she passed in the fly
+along with young Tom Blaize. "She have got uncommon kind eyes, sir,"
+said Tom, "and cryin' don't spoil them." For which his hand was
+wrenched.
+
+Tom had no more to tell, save that, in rounding the road, the young
+lady had hung out her hand, and seemed to move it forward and back,
+as much as to say, Good-bye, Tom! "And though she couldn't see me,"
+said Tom, "I took off my hat. I did take it so kind of her to think
+of a chap like me." He was at high-pressure sentiment--what with his
+education for a hero and his master's love-stricken state.
+
+"You saw no more of her, Tom?"
+
+"No, sir. That was the last!"
+
+"That was the last you saw of her, Tom?"
+
+"Well, sir, I saw nothin' more."
+
+"And so she went out of sight!"
+
+"Clean gone, that she were, sir."
+
+"Why did they take her away? what have they done with her? where
+have they taken her to?"
+
+These red-hot questionings were addressed to the universal heaven
+rather than to Tom.
+
+"Why didn't she write?" they were resumed. "Why did she leave? She's
+mine. She belongs to me! Who dared take her away? Why did she leave
+without writing?----Tom!"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the well-drilled recruit, dressing himself up to
+the word of command. He expected a variation of the theme from the
+change of tone with which his name had been pronounced, but it was
+again, "Where have they taken her to?" and this was even more
+perplexing to Tom than his hard sum in arithmetic had been. He could
+only draw down the corners of his mouth hard, and glance up queerly.
+
+"She _had_ been crying--you saw that, Tom?"
+
+"No mistake about that, Mr. Richard. Cryin' all night and all day, I
+sh'd say."
+
+"And she was crying when you saw her?"
+
+"She look'd as if she'd just done for a moment, sir."
+
+"But her face was white?"
+
+"White as a sheet."
+
+Richard paused to discover whether his instinct had caught a new
+view from these facts. He was in a cage, always knocking against the
+same bars, fly as he might. Her tears were the stars in his black
+night. He clung to them as golden orbs. Inexplicable as they were,
+they were at least pledges of love.
+
+The hues of sunset had left the West. No light was there but the
+steadfast pale eye of twilight. Thither he was drawn. He mounted
+Cassandra, saying: "Tell them something, Tom. I shan't be home to
+dinner," and rode off toward the forsaken home of light over
+Belthorpe, wherein he saw the wan hand of his Lucy, waving farewell,
+receding as he advanced. His jewel was stolen,--he must gaze upon
+the empty box.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE
+
+
+Night had come on as Richard entered the old elm-shaded,
+grass-bordered lane leading down from Raynham to Belthorpe. The pale
+eye of twilight was shut. The wind had tossed up the bank of Western
+cloud, which was now flying broad and unlighted across the sky,
+broad and balmy--the charioted South-west at full charge behind his
+panting coursers. As he neared the farm his heart fluttered and
+leapt up. He was sure she must be there. She must have returned. Why
+should she have left for good without writing? He caught suspicion
+by the throat, making it voiceless, if it lived: he silenced reason.
+Her not writing was now a proof that she had returned. He listened
+to nothing but his imperious passion, and murmured sweet words for
+her, as if she were by: tender cherishing epithets of love in the
+nest. She was there--she moved somewhere about like a silver flame
+in the dear old house, doing her sweet household duties. His blood
+began to sing: O happy those within, to see her, and be about her!
+By some extraordinary process he contrived to cast a sort of glory
+round the burly person of Farmer Blaize himself. And oh! to have
+companionship with a seraph one must know a seraph's bliss, and was
+not young Tom to be envied? The smell of late clematis brought on
+the wind enwrapped him, and went to his brain, and threw a light
+over the old red-brick house, for he remembered where it grew, and
+the winter rose-tree, and the jessamine, and the passion-flower: the
+garden in front with the standard roses tended by her hands; the
+long wall to the left striped by the branches of the cherry, the
+peep of a further green garden through the wall, and then the
+orchard, and the fields beyond--the happy circle of her dwelling! it
+flashed before his eyes while he looked on the darkness. And yet it
+was the reverse of hope which kindled this light and inspired the
+momentary calm he experienced: it was despair exaggerating delusion,
+wilfully building up on a groundless basis. "For the tenacity of
+true passion is terrible," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP: "it will stand
+against the hosts of heaven, God's great array of Facts, rather than
+surrender its aim, and must be crushed before it will succumb--sent
+to the lowest pit!" He knew she was not there; she was gone. But the
+power of a will strained to madness fought at it, kept it down,
+conjured forth her ghost, and would have it as he dictated. Poor
+youth! the great array of facts was in due order of march.
+
+He had breathed her name many times, and once overloud; almost a cry
+for her escaped him. He had not noticed the opening of a door and
+the noise of a foot along the gravel walk. He was leaning over
+Cassandra's uneasy neck watching the one window intently, when a
+voice addressed him out of the darkness.
+
+"Be that you, young gentleman?--Mr. Fev'rel?"
+
+Richard's trance was broken. "Mr. Blaize!" he said, recognizing the
+farmer's voice.
+
+"Good even'n t'you, sir," returned the farmer. "I knew the mare
+though I didn't know you. Rather bluff to-night it be. Will ye step
+in, Mr. Fev'rel? it's beginnin' to spit--going to be a wildish
+night, I reckon."
+
+Richard dismounted. The farmer called one of his men to hold the
+mare, and ushered the young man in. Once there, Richard's
+conjurations ceased. There was a deadness about the rooms and
+passages that told of her absence. The walls he touched--these were
+the vacant shells of her. He had never been in the house since he
+knew her, and now what strange sweetness, and what pangs!
+
+Young Tom Blaize was in the parlour, squared over the table in
+open-mouthed examination of an ancient book of the fashions for a
+summer month which had elapsed during his mother's minority. Young
+Tom was respectfully studying the aspects of the radiant beauties of
+the polite work. He also was a thrall of woman, newly enrolled, and
+full of wonder.
+
+"What, Tom!" the farmer sang out as soon as he had opened the door;
+"there ye be! at yer Folly agin, are ye? What good'll them fashens
+do to you, I'd like t'know? Come, shut up, and go and see to Mr.
+Fev'rel's mare. He's al'ays at that ther' Folly now. I say there
+never were a better name for a book than that ther' Folly! Talk
+about attitudes!"
+
+The farmer laughed his fat sides into a chair, and motioned his
+visitor to do likewise.
+
+"It's a comfort they're most on 'em females," he pursued, sounding a
+thwack on his knee as he settled himself agreeably in his seat. "It
+don't matter much what they does, except pinchin' in--waspin' it--at
+the waist. Give me nature, I say--woman as she's made! eh, young
+gentleman?"
+
+"You seem very lonely here," said Richard, glancing round, and at
+the ceiling.
+
+"Lonely?" quoth the farmer. "Well, for the matter o' that, we
+be!--jest now, so't happens; I've got my pipe, and Tom've got his
+Folly. He's on one side the table, and I'm on t'other. He gaapes,
+and I gazes. We are a bit lonesome. But there--it's _for_ the best!"
+
+Richard resumed, "I hardly expected to see you to-night, Mr.
+Blaize."
+
+"Y'acted like a man in coming, young gentleman, and I does ye honour
+for it!" said Farmer Blaize with sudden energy and directness.
+
+The thing implied by the farmer's words caused Richard to take a
+quick breath. They looked at each other, and looked away, the farmer
+thrumming on the arm of his chair.
+
+Above the mantel-piece, surrounded by tarnished indifferent
+miniatures of high-collared, well-to-do yeomen of the anterior
+generation, trying their best not to grin, and high-waisted old
+ladies smiling an encouraging smile through plentiful cap-puckers,
+there hung a passably executed half-figure of a naval officer in
+uniform, grasping a telescope under his left arm, who stood forth
+clearly as not of their kith and kin. His eyes were blue, his hair
+light, his bearing that of a man who knows how to carry his head and
+shoulders. The artist, while giving him an epaulette to indicate his
+rank, had also recorded the juvenility which a lieutenant in the
+naval service can retain after arriving at that position, by
+painting him with smooth cheeks and fresh ruddy lips. To this
+portrait Richard's eyes were directed. Farmer Blaize observed it,
+and said--
+
+"Her father, sir!"
+
+Richard moderated his voice to praise the likeness.
+
+"Yes," said the farmer, "pretty well. Next best to havin' _her_,
+though it's a long way off that!"
+
+"An old family, Mr. Blaize--is it not?" Richard asked in as careless
+a tone as he could assume.
+
+"Gentlefolks--what's left of 'em," replied the farmer with an
+equally affected indifference.
+
+"And that's her father?" said Richard, growing bolder to speak of
+her.
+
+"That's her father, young gentleman!"
+
+"Mr. Blaize," Richard turned to face him, and burst out, "where is
+she?"
+
+"Gone, sir! packed off!--Can't have her here now." The farmer
+thrummed a step brisker, and eyed the young man's wild face
+resolutely.
+
+"Mr. Blaize," Richard leaned forward to get closer to him. He was
+stunned, and hardly aware of what he was saying or doing: "Where has
+she gone? Why did she leave?"
+
+"You needn't to ask, sir--ye know," said the farmer, with a side
+shot of his head.
+
+"But _she_ did not--it was not her wish to go?"
+
+"No! I think she likes the place. Mayhap she likes't too well!"
+
+"Why did you send her away to make her unhappy, Mr. Blaize?"
+
+The farmer bluntly denied it was he was the party who made her
+unhappy. "Nobody can't accuse _me_. Tell ye what, sir. I wunt have
+the busybodies set to work about her, and there's all the matter. So
+let you and I come to an understandin'."
+
+A blind inclination to take offence made Richard sit upright. He
+forgot it the next minute, and said humbly: "Am I the cause of her
+going?"
+
+"Well!" returned the farmer, "to speak straight--ye be!"
+
+"What can I do, Mr. Blaize, that she may come back again?" the young
+hypocrite asked.
+
+"Now," said the farmer, "you're coming to business. Glad to hear ye
+talk in that sensible way, Mr. Fev'rel. You may guess I wants her
+bad enough. The house ain't itself now she's away, and I ain't
+myself. Well, sir! This ye can do. If you gives me your promise not
+to meddle with her at all--I can't mak' out how you come to be
+acquainted; not to try to get her to be meetin' you--and if you'd a
+seen her when she left, you would--when did ye meet?--last grass,
+wasn't it?--your word as a gentleman not to be writing letters, and
+spyin' after her--I'll have her back at once. Back she shall come!"
+
+"Give her up!" cried Richard.
+
+"Ay, that's it!" said the farmer. "Give her up."
+
+The young man checked the annihilation of time that was on his
+mouth.
+
+"You sent her away to protect her from me, then?" he said savagely.
+
+"That's not quite it, but that'll do," rejoined the farmer.
+
+"Do you think I shall harm her, sir?"
+
+"People seem to think she'll harm you, young gentleman," the farmer
+said with some irony.
+
+"Harm _me_--she? What people?"
+
+"People pretty intimate with you, sir."
+
+"What people? Who spoke of us?" Richard began to scent a plot, and
+would not be balked.
+
+"Well, sir, look here," said the farmer. "It ain't no secret, and if
+it be, I don't see why I'm to keep it. It appears your education's
+peculiar!" The farmer drawled out the word as if he were describing
+the figure of a snake. "You ain't to be as other young gentlemen.
+All the better! You're a fine bold young gentleman, and your
+father's a right to be proud of ye. Well, sir--I'm sure I thank him
+for't--he comes to hear of you and Luce, and of course he don't want
+nothin' o' that--more do I. I meets him there! What's more I won't
+have nothin' of it. She be my gal. She were left to my protection.
+And she's a lady, sir. Let me tell ye, ye won't find many on 'em so
+well looked to as she be--my Luce! Well, Mr. Fev'rel, it's you, or
+it's her--one of ye must be out o' the way. So we're told. And
+Luce--I do believe she's just as anxious about yer education as yer
+father--she says she'll go, and wouldn't write, and'd break it off
+for the sake o' your education. And she've kep' her word, haven't
+she?--She's a true'n. What she says she'll do!--True blue she be, my
+Luce! So now, sir, you do the same, and I'll thank ye."
+
+Any one who has tossed a sheet of paper into the fire, and seen it
+gradually brown with heat, and strike to flame, may conceive the
+mind of the lover as he listened to this speech.
+
+His anger did not evaporate in words, but condensed and sank deep.
+"Mr. Blaize," he said, "this is very kind of the people you allude
+to, but I am of an age now to think and act for myself--I love her,
+sir!" His whole countenance changed, and the muscles of his face
+quivered.
+
+"Well!" said the farmer, appeasingly, "we all do at your
+age--somebody or other. It's natural!"
+
+"I love her!" the young man thundered afresh, too much possessed by
+his passion to have a sense of shame in the confession. "Farmer!"
+his voice fell to supplication, "will you bring her back?"
+
+Farmer Blaize made a queer face. He asked--what for? and where was
+the promise required?--But was not the lover's argument conclusive?
+He said he loved her! and he could not see why her uncle should not
+in consequence immediately send for her, that they might be
+together. All very well, quoth the farmer, but what's to come of
+it?--What was to come of it? Why, love, and more love! And a bit too
+much! the farmer added grimly.
+
+"Then you refuse me, farmer," said Richard. "I must look to you for
+keeping her away from me, not to--to--these people. You will not
+have her back, though I tell you I love her better than my life?"
+
+Farmer Blaize now had to answer him plainly, he had a reason and an
+objection of his own. And it was, that her character was at stake,
+and God knew whether she herself might not be in danger. He spoke
+with a kindly candour, not without dignity. He complimented Richard
+personally, but young people were young people; baronets' sons were
+not in the habit of marrying farmers' nieces.
+
+At first the son of a System did not comprehend him. When he did, he
+said: "Farmer! if I give you my word of honour, as I hope for
+heaven, to marry her when I am of age, will you have her back?"
+
+He was so fervid that, to quiet him, the farmer only shook his head
+doubtfully at the bars of the grate, and let his chest fall slowly.
+Richard caught what seemed to him a glimpse of encouragement in
+these signs, and observed: "It's not because you object to me, Mr.
+Blaize?"
+
+The farmer signified it was not that.
+
+"It's because my father is against me," Richard went on, and
+undertook to show that love was so sacred a matter that no father
+could entirely and for ever resist his son's inclinations. Argument
+being a cool field where the farmer could meet and match him, the
+young man got on the tramroad of his passion, and went ahead. He
+drew pictures of Lucy, of her truth, and his own. He took leaps from
+life to death, from death to life, mixing imprecations and prayers
+in a torrent. Perhaps he did move the stolid old Englishman a
+little, he was so vehement, and made so visible a sacrifice of his
+pride.
+
+Farmer Blaize tried to pacify him, but it was useless. His jewel he
+must have.
+
+The farmer stretched out his hand for the pipe that allayeth
+botheration. "May smoke heer now," he said. "Not when--somebody's
+present. Smoke in the kitchen then. Don't mind smell?"
+
+Richard nodded, and watched the operations while the farmer filled,
+and lighted, and began to puff, as if his fate hung on them.
+
+"Who'd a' thought, when you sat over there once, of its comin' to
+this?" ejaculated the farmer, drawing ease and reflection from
+tobacco. "You didn't think much of her that day, young gentleman! I
+introduced ye. Well! things comes about. Can't you wait till she
+returns in due course, now?"
+
+This suggestion, the work of the pipe, did but bring on him another
+torrent.
+
+"It's queer," said the farmer, putting the mouth of the pipe to his
+wrinkled-up temples.
+
+Richard waited for him, and then he laid down the pipe altogether,
+as no aid in perplexity, and said, after leaning his arm on the
+table and staring at Richard an instant:
+
+"Look, young gentleman! My word's gone. I've spoke it. I've given
+'em the 'surance she shan't be back till the Spring, and then I'll
+have her, and then--well! I do hope, for more reasons than one,
+ye'll both be wiser--I've got my own notions about her. But I an't
+the man to force a gal to marry 'gainst her inclines. Depend upon it
+I'm not your enemy, Mr. Fev'rel. You're jest the one to mak' a young
+gal proud. So wait,--and see. That's my 'dvice. Jest tak' and wait.
+I've no more to say."
+
+Richard's impetuosity had made him really afraid of speaking his
+notions concerning the projected felicity of young Tom, if indeed
+they were serious.
+
+The farmer repeated that he had no more to say; and Richard, with
+"Wait till the Spring! Wait till the Spring!" dinning despair in his
+ears, stood up to depart. Farmer Blaize shook his slack hand in a
+friendly way, and called out at the door for young Tom, who,
+dreading allusions to his Folly, did not appear. A maid rushed by
+Richard in the passage, and slipped something into his grasp, which
+fixed on it without further consciousness than that of touch. The
+mare was led forth by the Bantam. A light rain was falling down
+strong warm gusts, and the trees were noisy in the night. Farmer
+Blaize requested Richard at the gate to give him his hand, and say
+all was well. He liked the young man for his earnestness and honest
+outspeaking. Richard could not say all was well, but he gave his
+hand, and knitted it to the farmer's in a sharp squeeze, when he got
+upon Cassandra, and rode into the tumult.
+
+A calm, clear dawn succeeded the roaring West, and threw its glowing
+grey image on the waters of the Abbey-lake. Before sunrise Tom
+Bakewell was abroad, and met the missing youth, his master, jogging
+Cassandra leisurely along the Lobourne park-road, a sorry couple to
+look at. Cassandra's flanks were caked with mud, her head drooped:
+all that was in her had been taken out by that wild night. On what
+heaths and heavy fallows had she not spent her noble strength,
+recklessly fretting through the darkness!
+
+"Take the mare," said Richard, dismounting and patting her between
+the eyes. "She's done up, poor old girl! Look to her, Tom, and then
+come to me in my room."
+
+Tom asked no questions.
+
+Three days would bring the anniversary of Richard's birth, and
+though Tom was close, the condition of the mare, and the young
+gentleman's strange freak in riding her out all night becoming
+known, prepared everybody at Raynham for the usual bad-luck
+birthday, the prophets of which were full of sad gratification. Sir
+Austin had an unpleasant office to require of his son; no other than
+that of humbly begging Benson's pardon, and washing out the undue
+blood he had spilt in taking his Pound of Flesh. Heavy Benson was
+told to anticipate the demand for pardon, and practised in his mind
+the most melancholy Christian deportment he could assume on the
+occasion. But while his son was in this state, Sir Austin considered
+that he would hardly be brought to see the virtues of the act, and
+did not make the requisition of him, and heavy Benson remained drawn
+up solemnly expectant at doorways, and at the foot of the staircase,
+a Saurian Caryatid, wherever he could get a step in advance of the
+young man, while Richard heedlessly passed him, as he passed
+everybody else, his head bent to the ground, and his legs bearing
+him like random instruments of whose service he was unconscious. It
+was a shock to Benson's implicit belief in his patron; and he was
+not consoled by the philosophic explanation, "That Good in a strong
+many-compounded nature is of slower growth than any other mortal
+thing, and must not be forced." Damnatory doctrines best pleased
+Benson. He was ready to pardon, as a Christian should, but he did
+want his enemy before him on his knees. And now, though the Saurian
+Eye saw more than all the other eyes in the house, and saw that
+there was matter in hand between Tom and his master to breed
+exceeding discomposure to the System, Benson, as he had not received
+his indemnity, and did not wish to encounter fresh perils for
+nothing, held his peace.
+
+Sir Austin partly divined what was going on in the breast of his
+son, without conceiving the depths of distrust his son cherished or
+quite measuring the intensity of the passion that consumed him. He
+was very kind and tender with him. Like a cunning physician who has,
+nevertheless, overlooked the change in the disease super-induced by
+one false dose, he meditated his prescriptions carefully and
+confidently, sure that he knew the case, and was a match for it. He
+decreed that Richard's erratic behaviour should pass unnoticed. Two
+days before the birthday, he asked him whether he would object to
+having company? To which Richard said: "Have whom you will, sir."
+The preparation for festivity commenced accordingly.
+
+On the birthday eve he dined with the rest. Lady Blandish was there,
+and sat penitently at his right. Hippias prognosticated certain
+indigestion for himself on the morrow. The Eighteenth Century
+wondered whether she should live to see another birthday. Adrian
+drank the two-years' distant term of his tutorship, and Algernon
+went over the list of the Lobourne men who would cope with Bursley
+on the morrow. Sir Austin gave ear and a word to all, keeping his
+mental eye for his son. To please Lady Blandish also, Adrian
+ventured to make trifling jokes about London's Mrs. Grandison; jokes
+delicately not decent, but so delicately so, that it was not decent
+to perceive it.
+
+After dinner Richard left them. Nothing more than commonly peculiar
+was observed about him, beyond the excessive glitter of his eyes,
+but the baronet said, "Yes, yes! that will pass." He and Adrian, and
+Lady Blandish, took tea in the library, and sat till a late hour
+discussing casuistries relating mostly to the Apple-disease.
+Converse very amusing to the wise youth, who could suggest to the
+two chaste minds situations of the shadiest character, with the air
+of a seeker after truth, and lead them, unsuspecting, where they
+dared not look about them. The Aphorist had elated the heart of his
+constant fair worshipper with a newly rounded if not newly conceived
+sentence, when they became aware that they were four. Heavy Benson
+stood among them. He said he had knocked, but received no answer.
+There was, however, a vestige of surprise and dissatisfaction on his
+face beholding Adrian of the company, which had not quite worn away,
+and gave place, when it did vanish, to an aspect of flabby severity.
+
+"Well, Benson? well?" said the baronet.
+
+The unmoving man replied: "If you please, Sir Austin--Mr. Richard!"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"He's out!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"With Bakewell!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And a carpet-bag!"
+
+The carpet-bag might be supposed to contain that funny thing called
+a young hero's romance in the making.
+
+Out Richard was, and with a carpet-bag, which Tom Bakewell carried.
+He was on the road to Bellingham, under heavy rain, hasting like an
+escaped captive, wild with joy, while Tom shook his skin, and
+grunted at his discomforts. The mail train was to be caught at
+Bellingham. He knew where to find her now, through the intervention
+of Miss Davenport, and thither he was flying, an arrow loosed from
+the bow: thither, in spite of fathers and friends and plotters, to
+claim her, and take her, and stand with her against the world.
+
+They were both thoroughly wet when they entered Bellingham, and
+Tom's visions were of hot drinks. He hinted the necessity for inward
+consolation to his master, who could answer nothing but "Tom! Tom! I
+shall see her to-morrow!" It was bad--travelling in the wet, Tom
+hinted again, to provoke the same insane outcry, and have his arm
+seized and furiously shaken into the bargain. Passing the principal
+inn of the place, Tom spoke plainly for brandy.
+
+"No!" cried Richard, "there's not a moment to be lost!" and as he
+said it, he reeled, and fell against Tom, muttering indistinctly of
+faintness, and that there was no time to lose. Tom lifted him in his
+arms, and got admission to the inn. Brandy, the country's specific,
+was advised by host and hostess, and forced into his mouth, reviving
+him sufficiently to cry out, "Tom! the bell's ringing: we shall be
+late," after which he fell back insensible on the sofa where they
+had stretched him. Excitement of blood and brain had done its work
+upon him. The youth suffered them to undress him and put him to bed,
+and there he lay, forgetful even of love; a drowned weed borne
+onward by the tide of the hours. There his father found him.
+
+Was the Scientific Humanist remorseful? He had looked forward to
+such a crisis as that point in the disease his son was the victim
+of, when the body would fail and give the spirit calm to conquer the
+malady, knowing very well that the seeds of the evil were not of the
+spirit. Moreover, to see him and have him was a repose after the
+alarm Benson had sounded. "Mark!" he said to Lady Blandish, "when he
+recovers he will not care for her."
+
+The lady had accompanied him to the Bellingham inn on first hearing
+of Richard's seizure.
+
+"What an iron man you can be," she exclaimed, smothering her
+intuitions. She was for giving the boy his bauble; promising it him,
+at least, if he would only get well and be the bright flower of
+promise he once was.
+
+"Can you look on him," she pleaded, "can you look on him and
+persevere?"
+
+It was a hard sight for this man who loved his son so deeply. The
+youth lay in his strange bed, straight and motionless, with fever on
+his cheeks, and altered eyes.
+
+Old Dr. Clifford of Lobourne was the medical attendant, who, with
+head-shaking, and gathering of lips, and reminiscences of ancient
+arguments, guaranteed to do all that leech could do in the matter.
+The old doctor did admit that Richard's constitution was admirable,
+and answered to his prescriptions like a piano to the musician.
+"But," he said at a family consultation, for Sir Austin had told him
+how it stood with the young man, "drugs are not much in cases of
+this sort. Change! That's what's wanted, and as soon as may be.
+Distraction! He ought to see the world, and know what he is made of.
+It's no use my talking, I know," added the doctor.
+
+"On the contrary," said Sir Austin, "I am quite of your persuasion.
+And the world he shall see--now."
+
+"We have dipped him in Styx, you know, doctor," Adrian remarked.
+
+"But, doctor," said Lady Blandish, "have you known a case of this
+sort before?"
+
+"Never, my lady," said the doctor, "they're not common in these
+parts. Country people are tolerably healthy-minded."
+
+"But people--and country people--have died for love, doctor?"
+
+The doctor had not met any of them.
+
+"Men, or women?" inquired the baronet.
+
+Lady Blandish believed mostly women.
+
+"Ask the doctor whether they were healthy-minded women," said the
+baronet. "No! you are both looking at the wrong end. Between a
+highly-cultured being, and an emotionless animal, there is all the
+difference in the world. But of the two, the doctor is nearer the
+truth. The healthy nature is pretty safe. If he allowed for
+organization he would be right altogether. To feel, but not to feel
+to excess, that is the problem."
+
+    "If I can't have the one I chose,
+    To some fresh maid I will propose,"
+
+Adrian hummed a country ballad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL
+
+
+When the young Experiment again knew the hours that rolled him
+onward, he was in his own room at Raynham. Nothing had changed: only
+a strong fist had knocked him down and stunned him, and he opened
+his eyes to a grey world: he had forgotten what he lived for. He was
+weak and thin, and with a pale memory of things. His functions were
+the same, everything surrounding him was the same: he looked upon
+the old blue hills, the far-lying fallows, the river, and the woods:
+he knew them, they seemed to have lost recollection of him. Nor
+could he find in familiar human faces the secret of intimacy of
+heretofore. They were the same faces: they nodded and smiled to him.
+What was lost he could not tell. Something had been knocked out of
+him! He was sensible of his father's sweetness of manner, and he was
+grieved that he could not reply to it, for every sense of shame and
+reproach had strangely gone. He felt very useless. In place of the
+fiery love for one, he now bore about a cold charity to all.
+
+Thus in the heart of the young man died the Spring Primrose, and
+while it died another heart was pushing forth the Primrose of
+Autumn.
+
+The wonderful change in Richard, and the wisdom of her admirer, now
+positively proved, were exciting matters to Lady Blandish. She was
+rebuked for certain little rebellious fancies concerning him that
+had come across her enslaved mind from time to time. For was he not
+almost a prophet? It distressed the sentimental lady that a love
+like Richard's could pass off in mere smoke, and words such as she
+had heard him speak in Abbey-wood resolve to emptiness. Nay, it
+humiliated her personally, and the baronet's shrewd prognostication
+humiliated her. For how should he know, and dare to say, that love
+was a thing of the dust that could be trodden out under the heel of
+science? But he had said so, and he had proved himself right. She
+heard with wonderment that Richard of his own accord had spoken to
+his father of the folly he had been guilty of, and had begged his
+pardon. The baronet told her this, adding that the youth had done it
+in a cold unwavering way, without a movement of his features: had
+evidently done it to throw off the burden of the duty he had
+conceived. He had thought himself bound to acknowledge that he had
+been the Foolish Young Fellow, wishing, possibly, to abjure the fact
+by an act of penance. He had also given satisfaction to Benson, and
+was become a renovated peaceful spirit, whose main object appeared
+to be to get up his physical strength by exercise and no expenditure
+of speech.
+
+In her company he was composed and courteous; even when they were
+alone together, he did not exhibit a trace of melancholy. Sober he
+seemed, as one who has recovered from a drunkenness and has
+determined to drink no more. The idea struck her that he might be
+playing a part, but Tom Bakewell, in a private conversation they
+had, informed her that he had received an order from his young
+master, one day while boxing with him, not to mention the young
+lady's name to him as long as he lived; and Tom could only suppose
+that she had offended him. Theoretically wise Lady Blandish had
+always thought the baronet; she was unprepared to find him thus
+practically sagacious. She fell many degrees; she wanted something
+to cling to; so she clung to the man who struck her low. Love, then,
+was earthly; its depth could be probed by science! A man lived who
+could measure it from end to end; foretell its term; handle the
+young cherub as were he a shot owl! We who have flown into
+cousinship with the empyrean, and disported among immortal hosts,
+our base birth as a child of Time is made bare to us!--our wings are
+cut! Oh, then, if science is this victorious enemy of love, let us
+love science! was the logic of the lady's heart; and secretly
+cherishing the assurance that she should confute him yet, and prove
+him utterly wrong, she gave him the fruits of present success, as it
+is a habit of women to do; involuntarily partly. The fires took hold
+of her. She felt soft emotions such as a girl feels, and they
+flattered her. It was like youth coming back. Pure women have a
+second youth. The Autumn primrose flourished.
+
+We are advised by THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP that--
+
+"The ways of women, which are Involution, and their practices, which
+are Opposition, are generally best hit upon by guess work, and a
+bold word;"--it being impossible to track them and hunt them down in
+the ordinary style.
+
+So that we may not ourselves become involved and opposed, let us
+each of us venture a guess and say a bold word as to how it came
+that the lady, who trusted love to be eternal, grovelled to him that
+shattered her tender faith, and loved him.
+
+Hitherto it had been simply a sentimental dalliance, and gossips had
+maligned the lady. Just when the gossips grew tired of their
+slander, and inclined to look upon her charitably, she set about to
+deserve every word they had said of her; which may instruct us, if
+you please, that gossips have only to persist in lying to be crowned
+with verity, or that one has only to endure evil mouths for a period
+to gain impunity. She was always at the Abbey now. She was much
+closeted with the baronet. It seemed to be understood that she had
+taken Mrs. Doria's place. Benson in his misogynic soul perceived
+that she was taking Lady Feverel's: but any report circulated by
+Benson was sure to meet discredit, and drew the gossips upon
+himself; which made his meditations tragic. No sooner was one woman
+defeated than another took the field! The object of the System was
+no sooner safe than its great author was in danger!
+
+"I can't think what has come to Benson," he said to Adrian.
+
+"He seems to have received a fresh legacy of several pounds of
+lead," returned the wise youth, and imitating Dr. Clifford's manner.
+"Change is what he wants! distraction! send him to Wales for a
+month, sir, and let Richard go with him. The two victims of woman
+may do each other good."
+
+"Unfortunately I can't do without him," said the baronet.
+
+"Then we must continue to have him on our shoulders all day, and on
+our chests all night!" Adrian ejaculated.
+
+"I think while he preserves this aspect we won't have him at the
+dinner-table," said the baronet.
+
+Adrian thought that would be a relief to their digestions; and
+added: "You know, sir, what he says?"
+
+Receiving a negative, Adrian delicately explained to him that
+Benson's excessive ponderosity of demeanour was caused by anxiety
+for the safety of his master.
+
+"You must pardon a faithful fool, sir," he continued, for the
+baronet became red, and exclaimed:
+
+"His stupidity is past belief! I have absolutely to bolt my
+study-door against him."
+
+Adrian at once beheld a charming scene in the interior of the study,
+not unlike one that Benson had visually witnessed. For, like a wary
+prophet, Benson, that he might have warrant for what he foretold of
+the future, had a care to spy upon the present: warned haply by THE
+PILGRIM'S SCRIP, of which he was a diligent reader, and which says,
+rather emphatically: "Could we see Time's full face, we were wise of
+him." Now to see Time's full face, it is sometimes necessary to look
+through keyholes, the veteran having a trick of smiling peace to you
+on one cheek and grimacing confusion on the other behind the
+curtain. Decency and a sense of honour restrain most of us from
+being thus wise and miserable for ever. Benson's excuse was that he
+believed in his master, who was menaced. And moreover, notwithstanding
+his previous tribulation, to spy upon Cupid was sweet to him. So he
+peeped, and he saw a sight. He saw Time's full face; or, in other
+words, he saw the wiles of woman and the weakness of man: which is
+our history, as Benson would have written it, and a great many poets
+and philosophers have written it.
+
+Yet it was but the plucking of the Autumn primrose that Benson had
+seen: a somewhat different operation from the plucking of the Spring
+one: very innocent! Our staid elderly sister has paler blood, and
+has, or thinks she has, a reason or two about the roots. She is not
+all instinct. "For this high cause, and for that I know men, and
+know him to be the flower of men, I give myself to him!" She makes
+that lofty inward exclamation while the hand is detaching her from
+the roots. Even so strong a self-justification she requires. She has
+not that blind glory in excess which her younger sister can gild the
+longest leap with. And if, moth-like, she desires the star, she is
+nervously cautious of candles. Hence her circles about the dangerous
+human flame are wide and shy. She must be drawn nearer and nearer by
+a fresh _reason_. She loves to sentimentalize. Lady Blandish had
+been sentimentalizing for ten years. She would have preferred to
+pursue the game. The dark-eyed dame was pleased with her smooth life
+and the soft excitement that did not ruffle it. Not willingly did
+she let herself be won.
+
+"Sentimentalists," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "are they who seek to
+enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done."
+
+"It is," the writer says of Sentimentalism elsewhere, "a happy
+pastime and an important science to the timid, the idle, and the
+heartless; but a damning one to them who have anything to forfeit."
+
+However, one who could set down the dying for love, as a
+sentimentalism, can hardly be accepted as a clear authority.
+Assuredly he was not one to avoid the incurring of the immense
+debtorship in any way: but he was a bondsman still to the woman who
+had forsaken him, and a spoken word would have made it seem his duty
+to face that public scandal which was the last evil to him. What had
+so horrified the virtuous Benson, Richard had already beheld in
+Daphne's Bower; a simple kissing of the fair white hand! Doubtless
+the keyhole somehow added to Benson's horror. The two similar
+performances, so very innocent, had wondrous opposite consequences.
+The first kindled Richard to adore Woman; the second destroyed
+Benson's faith in Man. But Lady Blandish knew the difference between
+the two. She understood why the baronet did not speak; excused, and
+respected him for it. She was content, since she must love, to love
+humbly, and she had, besides, her pity for his sorrows to comfort
+her. A hundred fresh reasons for loving him arose and multiplied
+every day. He read to her the secret book in his own handwriting,
+composed for Richard's Marriage Guide: containing Advice and
+Directions to a Young Husband, full of the most tender wisdom and
+delicacy; so she thought; nay, not wanting in poetry, though neither
+rhymed nor measured. He expounded to her the distinctive character
+of the divers ages of love, giving the palm to the flower she put
+forth, over that of Spring, or the Summer rose. And while they sat
+and talked, "My wound has healed," he said. "How?" she asked. "At
+the fountain of your eyes," he replied, and drew the joy of new life
+from her blushes, without incurring further debtorship for a thing
+done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP
+
+
+Let it be some apology for the damage caused by the careering hero,
+and a consolation to the quiet wretches, dragged along with him at
+his chariot-wheels, that he is generally the last to know when he
+has made an actual start; such a mere creature is he, like the rest
+of us, albeit the head of our fates. By this you perceive the true
+hero, whether he be a prince or a pot-boy, that he does not plot;
+Fortune does all for him. He may be compared to one to whom, in an
+electric circle, it is given to carry the _battery_. We caper and
+grimace at his will; yet not his the will, not his the power. 'Tis
+all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She deals her dispensations
+through him. Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he laughs
+not. Intent upon his own business, the true hero asks little
+services of us here and there; thinks it quite natural that they
+should be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable
+contortions we must go through to fulfil them. Probably he is the
+elect of Fortune, because of that notable faculty of being intent
+upon his own business: "Which is," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "with
+men to be valued equal to that force which in water _makes a
+stream_." This prelude was necessary to the present chapter of
+Richard's history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It happened that in the turn of the year, and while old earth was
+busy with her flowers, the fresh wind blew, the little bird sang,
+and Hippias Feverel, the Dyspepsy, amazed, felt the Spring move
+within him. He communicated his delightful new sensations to the
+baronet, his brother, whose constant exclamation with regard to him,
+was: "Poor Hippias! All his machinery is bare!" and had no hope that
+he would ever be in a condition to defend it from view. Nevertheless
+Hippias had that hope, and so he told his brother, making great
+exposure of his machinery to effect the explanation. He spoke of all
+his physical experiences exultingly, and with wonder. The
+achievement of common efforts, not usually blazoned, he celebrated
+as triumphs, and, of course, had Adrian on his back very quickly.
+But he could bear him, or anything, now. It was such ineffable
+relief to find himself looking out upon the world of mortals instead
+of into the black phantasmal abysses of his own complicated
+frightful structure. "My mind doesn't so much seem to haunt itself,
+now," said Hippias, nodding shortly and peering out of intense
+puckers to convey a glimpse of what hellish sufferings his had been:
+"I feel as if I had come above-ground."
+
+A poor Dyspepsy may talk as he will, but he is the one who never
+gets sympathy, or experiences compassion: and it is he whose
+groaning petitions for charity do at last rout that Christian
+virtue. Lady Blandish, a charitable soul, could not listen to
+Hippias, though she had a heart for little mice and flies, and Sir
+Austin had also small patience with his brother's gleam of health,
+which was just enough to make his disease visible. He remembered his
+early follies and excesses, and bent his ear to him as one man does
+to another who complains of having to pay a debt legally incurred.
+
+"I think," said Adrian, seeing how the communications of Hippias
+were received, "that when our Nemesis takes lodgings in the
+stomach, it's best to act the Spartan, smile hard, and be silent."
+
+Richard alone was decently kind to Hippias; whether from opposition, or
+real affection, could not be said, as the young man was mysterious. He
+advised his uncle to take exercise, walked with him, cultivated cheerful
+impressions in him, and pointed out innocent pursuits. He made Hippias
+visit with him some of the poor old folk of the village, who bewailed
+the loss of his cousin Austin Wentworth, and did his best to waken him
+up, and give the outer world a stronger hold on him. He succeeded in
+nothing but in winning his uncle's gratitude. The season bloomed scarce
+longer than a week for Hippias, and then began to languish. The poor
+Dyspepsy's eager grasp at beatification relaxed: he went underground
+again. He announced that he felt "spongy things"--one of the more
+constant throes of his malady. His bitter face recurred: he chewed the
+cud of horrid hallucinations. He told Richard he must give up going
+about with him: people telling of their ailments made him so
+uncomfortable--the birds were so noisy, pairing--the rude bare soil
+sickened him.
+
+Richard treated him with a gravity equal to his father's. He asked
+what the doctors said.
+
+"Oh! the doctors!" cried Hippias with vehement scepticism. "No man
+of sense believes in medicine for chronic disorder. Do you happen to
+have heard of any new remedy then, Richard? No? They advertise a
+great many cures for indigestion, I assure you, my dear boy. I
+wonder whether one can rely upon the authenticity of those
+signatures? I see no reason why there should be _no_ cure for such a
+disease?--Eh? And it's just one of the things a quack, as they call
+them, would hit upon sooner than one who is in the beaten track. Do
+you know, Richard, my dear boy, I've often thought that if we could
+by any means appropriate to our use some of the extraordinary
+digestive power that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices,
+there is really no manner of reason why we should not comfortably
+dispose of as much of an ox as our stomachs will hold, and one might
+eat French dishes without the wretchedness of thinking what's to
+follow. And this makes me think that those fellows _may_, after all,
+have got some truth in them: some secret that, of course, they
+require to be paid for. We distrust each other in this world too
+much, Richard. I've felt inclined once or twice--but it's
+absurd!--If it only alleviated a few of my sufferings _I_ should be
+satisfied. I've no hesitation in saying that I should be quite
+satisfied if it only did away with one or two, and left me free to
+eat and drink as other people do. Not that I mean to try them. It's
+only a fancy--Eh? What a thing health is, my dear boy! Ah! if I were
+like you! I was in love once!"
+
+"Were you!" said Richard, coolly regarding him.
+
+"I've forgotten what I felt!" Hippias sighed. "You've very much
+improved, my dear boy."
+
+"So people say," quoth Richard.
+
+Hippias looked at him anxiously: "If I go to town and get the
+doctor's opinion, about trying a new course--Eh, Richard? will you
+come with me? I should like your company. We could see London
+together, you know. Enjoy ourselves," and Hippias rubbed his hands.
+
+Richard smiled at the feeble glimmer of enjoyment promised by his
+uncle's eyes, and said he thought it better they should stay where
+they were--an answer that might mean anything. Hippias immediately
+became possessed by the beguiling project. He went to the baronet,
+and put the matter before him, instancing doctors as the object of
+his journey, not quacks, of course; and requesting leave to take
+Richard. Sir Austin was getting uneasy about his son's manner. It
+was not natural. His heart seemed to be frozen: he had no
+confidences: he appeared to have no ambition--to have lost the
+virtues of youth with the poison that had passed out of him. He was
+disposed to try what effect a little travelling might have on him,
+and had himself once or twice hinted to Richard that it would be
+good for him to move about, the young man quietly replying that he
+did not wish to quit Raynham at all, which was too strict a
+fulfilment of his father's original views in educating him there
+entirely. On the day that Hippias made his proposal, Adrian,
+seconded by Lady Blandish, also made one. The sweet Spring season
+stirred in Adrian as well as in others: not to pastoral measures: to
+the joys of the operatic world and bravura glories. He also
+suggested that it would be advisable to carry Richard to town for a
+term, and let him know his position, and some freedom. Sir Austin
+weighed the two proposals. He was pretty certain that Richard's
+passion was consumed, and that the youth was now only under the
+burden of its ashes. He had found against his heart, at the
+Bellingham inn: a great lock of golden hair. He had taken it, and
+the lover, after feeling about for it with faint hands, never asked
+for it. This precious lock (Miss Davenport had thrust it into his
+hand at Belthorpe as Lucy's last gift), what sighs and tears it had
+weathered! The baronet laid it in Richard's sight one day, and
+beheld him take it up, turn it over, and drop it down again calmly,
+as if he were handling any common curiosity. It pacified him on that
+score. The young man's love was dead. Dr. Clifford said rightly: he
+wanted distractions. The baronet determined that Richard should go.
+Hippias and Adrian then pressed their several suits as to which
+should have him. Hippias, when he could forget himself, did not lack
+sense. He observed that Adrian was not at present a proper companion
+for Richard, and would teach him to look on life from the false
+point.
+
+"You don't understand a young philosopher," said the baronet.
+
+"A young philosopher's an old fool!" returned Hippias, not thinking
+that his growl had begotten a phrase.
+
+His brother smiled with gratification, and applauded him loudly:
+"Excellent! worthy of your best days! You're wrong, though, in
+applying it to Adrian. He has never been precocious. All he has done
+has been to bring sound common sense to bear upon what he hears and
+sees. I think, however," the baronet added, "he may want faith in
+the better qualities of men." And this reflection inclined him not
+to let his son be alone with Adrian. He gave Richard his choice, who
+saw which way his father's wishes tended, and decided so to please
+him. Naturally it annoyed Adrian extremely. He said to his chief:
+
+"I suppose you know what you are doing, sir. I don't see that we
+derive any advantage from the family name being made notorious for
+twenty years of obscene suffering, and becoming a byword for our
+constitutional tendency to stomachic distention before we
+fortunately encountered Quackem's Pill. My uncle's tortures have
+been huge, but I would rather society were not intimate with them
+under their several headings." Adrian enumerated some of the most
+abhorrent. "You know him, sir. If he conceives a duty, he will do it
+in the face of every decency--all the more obstinate because the
+conception is rare. If he feels a little brisk the morning after the
+pill, he sends the letter that makes us famous! We go down to
+posterity with heightened characteristics, to say nothing of a
+contemporary celebrity nothing less than our being turned inside-out
+to the rabble. I confess I don't desire to have my machinery made
+bare to them."
+
+Sir Austin assured the wise youth that Hippias had arranged to go to
+Dr. Bairam. He softened Adrian's chagrin by telling him that in
+about two weeks they would follow to London: hinting also at a
+prospective Summer campaign. The day was fixed for Richard to
+depart, and the day came. Madame the Eighteenth Century called him
+to her chamber and put into his hand a fifty-pound note, as her
+contribution toward his pocket-expenses. He did not want it, he
+said, but she told him he was a young man, and would soon make that
+fly when he stood on his own feet. The old lady did not at all
+approve of the System in her heart, and she gave her grand-nephew to
+understand that, should he require more, he knew where to apply, and
+secrets would be kept. His father presented him with a hundred
+pounds--which also Richard said he did not want--he did not care for
+money. "Spend it or not," said the baronet, perfectly secure in him.
+
+Hippias had few injunctions to observe. They were to take up
+quarters at the hotel, Algernon's general run of company at the
+house not being altogether wholesome. The baronet particularly
+forewarned Hippias of the imprudence of attempting to restrict the
+young man's movements, and letting him imagine he was under
+surveillance. Richard having been, as it were, pollarded by
+despotism, was now to grow up straight, and bloom again, in complete
+independence, as far as he could feel. So did the sage decree; and
+we may pause a moment to reflect how wise were his previsions, and
+how successful they must have been, had not Fortune, the great foe
+to human cleverness, turned against him, or he against himself.
+
+The departure took place on a fine March morning. The bird of
+Winter sang from the budding tree; in the blue sky sang the bird of
+Summer. Adrian rode between Richard and Hippias to the Bellingham
+station, and vented his disgust on them after his own humorous
+fashion, because it did not rain and damp their ardour. In the rear
+came Lady Blandish and the baronet, conversing on the calm summit of
+success.
+
+"You have shaped him exactly to resemble yourself," she said,
+pointing with her riding-whip to the grave, stately figure of the
+young man.
+
+"Outwardly, perhaps," he answered, and led to a discussion on Purity
+and Strength, the lady saying that she preferred Purity.
+
+"But you do not," said the baronet. "And there I admire the always true
+instinct of women, that they all worship Strength in whatever form,
+and seem to know it to be the child of heaven; whereas Purity is but a
+characteristic, a garment, and can be spotted--how soon! For there
+are questions in this life with which we must grapple or be lost,
+and when, hunted by that cold eye of intense inner-consciousness, the
+clearest soul becomes a cunning fox, if it have not courage to stand
+and do battle. Strength indicates a boundless nature--like the Maker.
+Strength is a God to you--Purity a toy. A pretty one, and you seem to
+be fond of playing with it," he added, with unaccustomed slyness.
+
+The lady listened, pleased at the sportive malice which showed that
+the constraint on his mind had left him. It was for women to fight
+their fight now; she only took part in it for amusement. This is how
+the ranks of our enemies are thinned; no sooner do poor women put up
+a champion in their midst than she betrays them.
+
+"I see," she said archly, "we are the lovelier vessels; you claim
+the more direct descent. Men are seedlings: Women--slips! Nay, you
+have said so," she cried out at his gestured protestation, laughing.
+
+"But I never printed it."
+
+"Oh! what you speak answers for print with me."
+
+Exquisite Blandish! He could not choose but love her.
+
+"Tell me what are your plans?" she asked. "May a woman know?"
+
+He replied, "I have none or you would share them. I shall study him
+in the world. This indifference must wear off. I shall mark his
+inclinations now, and he shall be what he inclines to. Occupation
+will be his prime safety. His cousin Austin's plan of life appears
+most to his taste, and he can serve the people that way as well as
+in Parliament, should he have no stronger ambition. The clear duty
+of a man of any wealth is to serve the people as he best can. He
+shall go among Austin's set, if he wishes it, though personally I
+find no pleasure in rash imaginations, and undigested schemes built
+upon the mere instinct of principles."
+
+"Look at him now," said the lady. "He seems to care for nothing; not
+even for the beauty of the day."
+
+"Or Adrian's jokes," added the baronet.
+
+Adrian could be seen to be trying zealously to torment a laugh, or a
+confession of irritation, out of his hearers, stretching out his
+chin to one, and to the other, with audible asides. Richard he
+treated as a new instrument of destruction about to be let loose on
+the slumbering metropolis; Hippias as one in an interesting
+condition; and he got so much fun out of the notion of these two
+journeying together, and the mishaps that might occur to them, that
+he esteemed it almost a personal insult for his hearers not to
+laugh. The wise youth's dull life at Raynham had afflicted him with
+many peculiarities of the professional joker.
+
+"Oh! the Spring! the Spring!" he cried, as in scorn of his sallies
+they exchanged their unmeaning remarks on the sweet weather across
+him. "You seem both to be uncommonly excited by the operations of
+turtles, rooks, and daws. Why can't you let them alone?
+
+    'Wind bloweth,
+    Cock croweth,
+      Doodle-doo;
+    Hippy verteth,
+    Ricky sterteth,
+      Sing Cuckoo!'
+
+There's an old native pastoral!--Why don't you write a Spring
+sonnet, Ricky? The asparagus-beds are full of promise, I hear, and
+eke the strawberry. Berries I fancy your Pegasus has a taste for.
+What kind of berry was that I saw some verses of yours about
+once?--amatory verses to some kind of berry--yewberry, blueberry,
+glueberry! Pretty verses, decidedly warm. Lips, eyes, bosom,
+legs--legs? I don't think you gave her any legs. No legs and no
+nose. That appears to be the poetic taste of the day. It shall be
+admitted that you create the very beauties for a chaste people.
+
+    'O might I lie where leans her lute!'
+
+and offend no moral community. That's not a bad image of yours, my
+dear boy:
+
+    'Her shape is like an antelope
+    Upon the Eastern hills.'
+
+But as a candid critic, I would ask you if the likeness can be
+considered correct when you give her no legs? You will see at the
+ballet that you are in error about women at present, Richard. That
+admirable institution which our venerable elders have imported from
+Gallia for the instruction of our gaping youth, will edify and
+astonish you. I assure you I used, from reading THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP,
+to imagine all sorts of things about them, till I was taken there,
+and learnt that they are very like us after all, and then they
+ceased to trouble me. Mystery is the great danger to youth, my son!
+Mystery is woman's redoubtable weapon, O Richard of the Ordeal! I'm
+aware that you've had your lessons in anatomy, but nothing will
+persuade you that an anatomical figure means flesh and blood. You
+can't realize the fact. Do you intend to publish when you're in
+town? It'll be better not to put your name. Having one's name to a
+volume of poems is as bad as to an advertising pill."
+
+"I will send you an early copy, Adrian, when I publish," quoth
+Richard. "Hark at that old blackbird, uncle."
+
+"Yes!" Hippias quavered, looking up from the usual subject of his
+contemplation, and trying to take an interest in him, "fine old
+fellow!"
+
+"What a chuckle he gives out before he flies! Not unlike July
+nightingales. You know that bird I told you of--the blackbird that
+had its mate shot, and used to come to sing to old Dame Bakewell's
+bird from the tree opposite. A rascal knocked it over the day
+before yesterday, and the dame says her bird hasn't sung a note
+since."
+
+"Extraordinary!" Hippias muttered abstractedly. "I remember the
+verses."
+
+"But where's your moral?" interposed the wrathful Adrian. "Where's
+constancy rewarded?
+
+    'The ouzel-cock so black of hue,
+      The orange-tawny bill;
+     The rascal with his aim so true;
+      The Poet's little quill!'
+
+Where's the moral of that? except that all's game to the poet!
+Certainly we have a noble example of the devotedness of the female,
+who for three entire days refuses to make herself heard, on account
+of a defunct male. I suppose that's what Ricky dwells on."
+
+"As you please, my dear Adrian," says Richard, and points out
+larch-buds to his uncle, as they ride by the young green wood.
+
+The wise youth was driven to extremity. Such a lapse from his
+pupil's heroics to this last verge of Arcadian coolness, Adrian
+could not believe in. "Hark at this old blackbird!" he cried, in his
+turn, and pretending to, interpret his fits of song:
+
+"Oh, what a pretty comedy!--Don't we wear the mask well, my
+Fiesco?--Genoa will be our own to-morrow!--Only wait until the train
+has started--jolly! jolly! jolly! We'll be winners yet!
+
+"Not a bad verse--eh, Ricky? my Lucius Junius!"
+
+"You do the blackbird well," said Richard, and looked at him in a
+manner mildly affable.
+
+Adrian shrugged. "You're a young man of wonderful powers," he
+emphatically observed; meaning to say that Richard quite beat him;
+for which opinion Richard gravely thanked him, and with this they
+rode into Bellingham.
+
+There was young Tom Blaize at the station, in his Sunday beaver and
+gala waistcoat and neck-cloth, coming the lord over Tom Bakewell,
+who had preceded his master in charge of the baggage. He likewise
+was bound for London. Richard, as he was dismounting, heard Adrian
+say to the baronet: "The Beast, sir, appears to be going to fetch
+Beauty;" but he paid no heed to the words. Whether young Tom heard
+them or not, Adrian's look took the lord out of him, and he shrunk
+away into obscurity, where the nearest approach to the fashions
+which the tailors of Bellingham could supply to him, sat upon him
+more easily, and he was not stiffened by the eyes of the superiors
+whom he sought to rival. The baronet, Lady Blandish, and Adrian
+remained on horseback, and received Richard's adieux across the
+palings. He shook hands with each of them in the same kindly cold
+way, eliciting from Adrian a marked encomium on his style of doing
+it. The train came up, and Richard stepped after his uncle into one
+of the carriages.
+
+Now surely there will come an age when the presentation of science
+at war with Fortune and the Fates will be deemed the true epic of
+modern life; and the aspect of a scientific humanist who, by dint of
+incessant watchfulness, has maintained a System against those active
+forces, cannot be reckoned less than sublime, even though at the
+moment he but sit upon his horse, on a fine March morning such as
+this, and smile wistfully to behold the son of his heart, his System
+incarnate, wave a serene adieu to tutelage, neither too eager nor
+morbidly unwilling to try his luck alone for a term of two weeks. At
+present, I am aware, an audience impatient for blood and glory
+scorns the stress I am putting on incidents so minute, a picture so
+little imposing. An audience will come to whom it will be given to
+see the elementary machinery at work: who, as it were, from some
+slight hint of the straws, will feel the winds of March when they do
+not blow. To them will nothing be trivial, seeing that they will
+have in their eyes the invisible conflict going on around us, whose
+features a nod, a smile, a laugh of ours perpetually changes. And
+they will perceive, moreover, that in real life all hangs together:
+the train is laid in the lifting of an eyebrow, that bursts upon the
+field of thousands. They will see the links of things as they pass,
+and wonder not, as foolish people now do, that this great matter
+came out of that small one.
+
+Such an audience, then, will participate in the baronet's
+gratification at his son's demeanour, wherein he noted the calm
+bearing of experience not gained in the usual wanton way: and will
+not be without some excited apprehension at his twinge of
+astonishment, when, just as the train went sliding into swiftness,
+he beheld the grave, cold, self-possessed young man throw himself
+back in the carriage violently laughing. Science was at a loss to
+account for that. Sir Austin checked his mind from inquiring, that
+he might keep suspicion at a distance, but he thought it odd, and
+the jarring sensation that ran along his nerves at the sight,
+remained with him as he rode home.
+
+Lady Blandish's tender womanly intuition bade her say: "You see it
+was the very thing he wanted. He has got his natural spirits
+already."
+
+"It was," Adrian put in his word, "the exact thing he wanted. His
+spirits have returned miraculously."
+
+"Something amused him," said the baronet, with an eye on the puffing
+train.
+
+"Probably something his uncle said or did," Lady Blandish suggested,
+and led off at a gallop.
+
+Her conjecture chanced to be quite correct. The cause for Richard's
+laughter was simple enough. Hippias, on finding the carriage-door
+closed on him, became all at once aware of the bright-haired hope
+which dwells in Change, for one who does not woo her too frequently;
+and to express his sudden relief from mental despondency at the
+amorous prospect, the Dyspepsy bent and gave his hands a sharp rub
+between his legs: which unlucky action brought Adrian's pastoral,
+
+    "Hippy verteth,
+       Sing cuckoo!"
+
+in such comic colours before Richard, that a demon of laughter
+seized him.
+
+    "Hippy verteth!"
+
+Every time he glanced at his uncle the song sprang up, and he
+laughed so immoderately that it looked like madness come upon him.
+
+"Why, why, why, what are you laughing at, my dear boy," said
+Hippias, and was provoked by the contagious exercise to a modest
+"ha! ha!"
+
+"Why, what are _you_ laughing at, uncle?" cried Richard.
+
+"I really don't know," Hippias chuckled.
+
+"Nor I, uncle! Sing, cuckoo!"
+
+They laughed themselves into the pleasantest mood imaginable.
+Hippias not only came above-ground, he flew about in the very skies,
+_verting_ like any blithe creature of the season. He remembered old
+legal jokes, and anecdotes of Circuit; and Richard laughed at them
+all, but more at him--he was so genial, and childishly fresh, and
+innocently joyful at his own transformation, while a lurking doubt
+in the bottom of his eyes, now and then, that it might not last, and
+that he must go underground again, lent him a look of pathos and
+humour which tickled his youthful companion irresistibly, and made
+his heart warm to him.
+
+"I tell you what, uncle," said Richard, "I think travelling's a
+capital thing."
+
+"The best thing in the world, my dear boy," Hippias returned. "It
+makes me wish I had given up that Work of mine, and tried it before,
+instead of chaining myself to a task. We're quite different beings
+in a minute. I am. Hem! what shall we have for dinner?"
+
+"Leave that to me, uncle. I shall order for you. You know, I intend
+to make you well. How gloriously we go along! I should like to ride
+on a railway every day."
+
+Hippias remarked: "They say it rather injures the digestion."
+
+"Nonsense! see how you'll digest to-night and to-morrow."
+
+"Perhaps I shall do something yet," sighed Hippias, alluding to the
+vast literary fame he had aforetime dreamed of. "I hope I shall have
+a good night to-night."
+
+"Of course you will! What! after laughing like that?"
+
+"Ugh!" Hippias grunted, "I daresay, Richard, you sleep the moment
+you get into bed!"
+
+"The instant my head's on my pillow, and up the moment I wake.
+Health's everything!"
+
+"Health's everything!" echoed Hippias, from his immense distance.
+
+"And if you'll put yourself in my hands," Richard continued, "you
+shall do just as I do. You shall be well and strong, and sing
+'Jolly!' like Adrian's blackbird. You shall, upon my honour, uncle!"
+
+He specified the hours of devotion to his uncle's recovery--no less
+than twelve a day--that he intended to expend, and his cheery
+robustness almost won his uncle to leap up recklessly and clutch
+health as his own.
+
+"Mind," quoth Hippias, with a half-seduced smile, "mind your dishes
+are not too savoury!"
+
+"Light food and claret! Regular meals and amusement! Lend your heart
+to all, but give it to none!" exclaims young Wisdom, and Hippias
+mutters, "Yes! yes!" and intimates that the origin of his malady lay
+in his not following that maxim earlier.
+
+"Love ruins us, my dear boy," he said, thinking to preach Richard a
+lesson, and Richard boisterously broke out--
+
+    "The love of Monsieur Francatelli,
+    It was the ruin of--_et cætera_."
+
+Hippias blinked, exclaiming, "Really, my dear boy! I never saw you
+so excited."
+
+"It's the railway! It's the fun, uncle!"
+
+"Ah!" Hippias wagged a melancholy head, "you've got the Golden
+Bride! Keep her if you can. That's a pretty fable of your father's.
+I gave him the idea, though. Austin filches a great many of my
+ideas!"
+
+"Here's the idea in verse, uncle--
+
+    'O sunless walkers by the tide!
+    O have you seen the Golden Bride!
+     They say that she is fair beyond
+    All women; faithful, and more fond!'
+
+You know, the young inquirer comes to a group of penitent sinners by
+the brink of a stream. They howl, and answer:
+
+     'Faithful she is, but she forsakes:
+     And fond, yet endless woe she makes:
+     And fair! but with this curse she's cross'd;
+    To know her not till she is lost!'
+
+Then the doleful party march off in single file solemnly, and the
+fabulist pursues--
+
+     'She hath a palace in the West:
+     Bright Hesper lights her to her rest:
+     And him the Morning Star awakes
+     Whom to her charmed arms she takes.
+
+    'So lives he till he sees, alas!
+    The maids of baser metal pass.'
+
+And prodigal of the happiness she lends him, he asks to share it
+with one of them. There is the Silver Maid, and the Copper, and the
+Brassy Maid, and others of them. First, you know, he tries
+Argentine, and finds her only twenty to the pound, and has a worse
+experience with Copperina, till he descends to the scullery; and the
+lower he goes, the less obscure become the features of his Bride of
+Gold, and all her radiance shines forth, my uncle!"
+
+"Verse rather blunts the point. Well, keep to her, now you've got
+her," says Hippias.
+
+"We will, uncle! Look how the farms fly past! Look at the cattle in
+the fields! And how the lines duck, and swim up!
+
+    'She claims the whole, and not the part--
+    The coin of an unusëd heart!
+    To gain his Golden Bride again,
+    He hunts with melancholy men,'
+
+--and is waked no longer by the Morning Star!"
+
+"Not if he doesn't sleep till an hour before it rises!" Hippias
+interjected. "You don't rhyme badly. But stick to prose. Poetry's a
+Base-metal maid. I'm not sure that any writing's good for the
+digestion. I'm afraid it has spoilt mine."
+
+"Fear nothing, uncle!" laughed Richard. "You shall ride in the park
+with me every day to get an appetite. You and I and the Golden
+Bride. You know that little poem of Sandoe's?
+
+         'She rides in the park on a prancing bay,
+           She and her squires together;
+         Her dark locks gleam from a bonnet of grey,
+           And toss with the tossing feather.
+
+         'Too calmly proud for a glance of pride
+           Is the beautiful face as it passes;
+         The cockneys nod to each other aside,
+           The coxcombs lift their glasses.
+
+         'And throng to her, sigh to her, you that can breach
+           The ice-wall that guards her securely;
+         You have not such bliss, though she smile on you each,
+           As the heart that can image her purely.'
+
+Wasn't Sandoe once a friend of my father's? I suppose they
+quarrelled. He understands the heart. What does he make his 'Humble
+Lover' say?
+
+        'True, Madam, you may think to part
+          Conditions by a glacier-ridge,
+         But Beauty's for the largest heart,
+          And all abysses Love can bridge!'"
+
+Hippias now laughed; grimly, as men laugh at the emptiness of words.
+
+"Largest heart!" he sneered. "What's a 'glacier-ridge'? I've never
+seen one. I can't deny it rhymes with 'bridge.' But don't go
+parading your admiration of that person, Richard. Your father will
+speak to you on the subject when he thinks fit."
+
+"I thought they had quarrelled," said Richard. "What a pity!" and he
+murmured to a pleased ear:
+
+    "Beauty's for the largest heart!"
+
+The flow of their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of
+passengers at a station. Richard examined their faces with pleasure.
+All faces pleased him. Human nature sat tributary at the feet of him
+and his Golden Bride. As he could not well talk his thoughts before
+them, he looked out at the windows, and enjoyed the changing
+landscape, projecting all sorts of delights for his old friend
+Ripton, and musing hazily on the wondrous things he was to do in the
+world; of the great service he was to be to his fellow-creatures. In
+the midst of his reveries he was landed in London. Tom Bakewell
+stood at the carriage door. A glance told Richard that his squire
+had something curious on his mind, and he gave Tom the word to
+speak out. Tom edged his master out of hearing, and began sputtering
+a laugh.
+
+"Dash'd if I can help it, sir!" he said. "That young Tom! He've come
+to town dressed that spicy! and he don't know his way about no more
+than a stag. He's come to fetch somebody from another rail, and he
+don't know how to get there, and he ain't sure about which rail
+'tis. Look at him, Mr. Richard! There he goes."
+
+Young Tom appeared to have the weight of all London on his beaver.
+
+"Who has he come for?" Richard asked.
+
+"Don't you know, sir? You don't like me to mention the name,"
+mumbled Tom, bursting to be perfectly intelligible.
+
+"Is it for her, Tom?"
+
+"Miss Lucy, sir."
+
+Richard turned away, and was seized by Hippias, who begged him to
+get out of the noise and pother, and caught hold of his slack arm to
+bear him into a conveyance; but Richard, by wheeling half to the
+right, or left, always got his face round to the point where young
+Tom was manoeuvring to appear at his ease. Even when they were
+seated in the conveyance, Hippias could not persuade him to drive
+off. He made the excuse that he did not wish to start till there was
+a clear road. At last young Tom cast anchor by a policeman, and,
+doubtless at the official's suggestion, bashfully took seat in a
+cab, and was shot into the whirlpool of London. Richard then angrily
+asked his driver what he was waiting for.
+
+"Are you ill, my boy?" said Hippias. "Where's your colour?"
+
+He laughed oddly, and made a random answer that he hoped the fellow
+would drive fast.
+
+"I hate slow motion after being in the railway," he said.
+
+Hippias assured him there was something the matter with him.
+
+"Nothing, uncle! nothing!" said Richard, looking fiercely candid.
+
+They say, that when the skill and care of men rescue a drowned
+wretch from extinction, and warm the flickering spirit into steady
+flame, such pain it is, the blood forcing its way along the dry
+channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart--the
+struggle of life and death in him--grim death relaxing his gripe;
+such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by
+inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a
+love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the old
+tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of
+forgotten sensations that settle on him; such pain it is, the old
+sweet music reviving through his frame, and the charm of his passion
+fixing him afresh. Still was fair Lucy the one woman to Richard. He
+had forbidden her name but from an instinct of self-defence. Must
+the maids of baser metal dominate him anew, it is in Lucy's shape.
+Thinking of her now so near him--his darling! all her graces, her
+sweetness, her truth; for, despite his bitter blame of her, he knew
+her true--swam in a thousand visions before his eyes; visions
+pathetic, and full of glory, that now wrung his heart, and now
+elated it. As well might a ship attempt to calm the sea, as this
+young man the violent emotion that began to rage in his breast. "I
+shall not see her!" he said to himself exultingly, and at the same
+instant thought, how black was every corner of the earth but that
+one spot where Lucy stood! how utterly cheerless the place he was
+going to! Then he determined to bear it; to live in darkness; there
+was a refuge in the idea of a voluntary martyrdom. "For if I chose I
+could see her--this day within an hour!--I could see her, and touch
+her hand, and, oh, heaven!--But I do not choose." And a great wave
+swelled through him, and was crushed down only to swell again more
+stormily.
+
+Then Tom Bakewell's words recurred to him that young Tom Blaize was
+uncertain where to go for her, and that she might be thrown on this
+Babylon alone. And flying from point to point, it struck him that
+they had known at Raynham of her return, and had sent him to town to
+be out of the way--they had been miserably plotting against him once
+more. "They shall see what right they have to fear me. I'll shame
+them!" was the first turn taken by his wrathful feelings, as he
+resolved to go, and see her safe, and calmly return to his uncle,
+whom he sincerely believed not to be one of the conspirators.
+Nevertheless, after forming that resolve, he sat still, as if there
+was something fatal in the wheels that bore him away from
+it--perhaps because he knew, as some do when passion is lord, that
+his intelligence juggled with him; though none the less keenly did
+he feel his wrongs and suspicions. His Golden Bride was waning fast.
+But when Hippias ejaculated to cheer him: "We shall soon be there!"
+the spell broke. Richard stopped the cab, saying he wanted to speak
+to Tom, and would ride with him the rest of the journey. He knew
+well enough which line of railway his Lucy must come by. He had
+studied every town and station on the line. Before his uncle could
+express more than a mute remonstrance, he jumped out and hailed Tom
+Bakewell, who came behind with the boxes and baggage in a companion
+cab, his head a yard beyond the window to make sure of his ark of
+safety, the vehicle preceding.
+
+"What an extraordinary, impetuous boy it is," said Hippias. "We're
+in the very street!"
+
+Within a minute the stalwart Berry, despatched by the baronet to
+arrange everything for their comfort, had opened the door, and made
+his bow.
+
+"Mr. Richard, sir?--evaporated?" was Berry's modulated inquiry.
+
+"Behind--among the boxes, fool!" Hippias growled, as he received
+Berry's muscular assistance to alight. "Lunch ready--eh!"
+
+"Luncheon was ordered precise at two o'clock, sir--been in
+attendance one quarter of an hour. Heah!" Berry sang out to the
+second cab, which, with its pyramid of luggage, remained stationary
+some thirty paces distant. At his voice the majestic pile
+deliberately turned its back on them, and went off in a contrary
+direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO
+
+
+On the stroke of the hour when Ripton Thompson was accustomed to
+consult his good watch for practical purposes, and sniff freedom and
+the forthcoming dinner, a burglarious foot entered the clerk's
+office where he sat, and a man of a scowling countenance, who looked
+a villain, and whom he was afraid he knew, slid a letter into his
+hands, nodding that it would be prudent for him to read, and be
+silent. Ripton obeyed in alarm. Apparently the contents of the
+letter relieved his conscience; for he reached down his hat, and
+told Mr. Beazley to inform his father that he had business of
+pressing importance in the West, and should meet him at the station.
+Mr. Beazley zealously waited upon the paternal Thompson without
+delay, and together making their observations from the window, they
+beheld a cab of many boxes, into which Ripton darted and was
+followed by one in groom's dress. It was Saturday, the day when
+Ripton gave up his law-readings, magnanimously to bestow himself
+upon his family, and Mr. Thompson liked to have his son's arm as he
+walked down to the station; but that third glass of Port which
+always stood for his second, and the groom's suggestion of
+aristocratic acquaintances, prevented Mr. Thompson from interfering:
+so Ripton was permitted to depart.
+
+In the cab Ripton made a study of the letter he held. It had the
+preciseness of an imperial mandate.
+
+     "DEAR RIPTON,--You are to get lodgings for a lady immediately.
+     Not a word to a soul. Then come along with Tom.
+
+                                                           R. D. F."
+
+
+
+"Lodgings for a lady!" Ripton meditated aloud: "What sort of
+lodgings? Where am I to get lodgings? Who's the lady?--I say!" he
+addressed the mysterious messenger. "So you're Tom Bakewell, are
+you, Tom?"
+
+Tom grinned his identity.
+
+"Do you remember the rick, Tom? Ha! ha! We got out of that neatly.
+We might all have been transported, though. I could have convicted
+you, Tom, safe! It's no use coming across a practised lawyer. Now
+tell me." Ripton having nourished his powers, commenced his
+examination: "Who's this lady?"
+
+"Better wait till you see Mr. Richard, sir," Tom resumed his scowl
+to reply.
+
+"Ah!" Ripton acquiesced. "Is she young, Tom?"
+
+Tom said she was not old.
+
+"Handsome, Tom?"
+
+"Some might think one thing, some another," Tom said.
+
+"And where does she come from now?" asked Ripton with the friendly
+cheerfulness of a baffled counsellor.
+
+"Comes from the country, sir."
+
+"A friend of the family, I suppose? a relation?"
+
+Ripton left this insinuating query to be answered by a look. Tom's
+face was a dead blank.
+
+"Ah!" Ripton took a breath, and eyed the mask opposite him. "Why,
+you're quite a scholar, Tom! Mr. Richard is well? All right at
+home?"
+
+"Come to town this mornin' with his uncle," said Tom. "All well,
+thank ye, sir."
+
+"Ha!" cried Ripton, more than ever puzzled, "now I see. You all came
+to town to-day, and these are your boxes outside. So, so! But Mr.
+Richard writes for me to get lodgings for a lady. There must be some
+mistake--he wrote in a hurry. He wants lodgings for you all--eh?"
+
+"'M sure I d'n know what he wants," said Tom. "You'd better go by
+the letter, sir."
+
+Ripton re-consulted that document. "'Lodgings for a lady, and then
+come along with Tom. Not a word to a soul.' I say! that looks
+like--but he never cared for _them_. You don't mean to say, Tom,
+he's been running away with anybody?"
+
+Tom fell back upon his first reply: "Better wait till ye see Mr.
+Richard, sir," and Ripton exclaimed: "Hanged if you ain't the
+tightest witness I ever saw! I shouldn't like to have you in a box.
+Some of you country fellows beat any number of cockneys. You do!"
+
+Tom received the compliment stubbornly on his guard, and Ripton, as
+nothing was to be got out of him, set about considering how to
+perform his friend's injunctions; deciding firstly, that a lady
+fresh from the country ought to lodge near the parks, in which
+direction he told the cabman to drive. Thus, unaware of his high
+destiny, Ripton joined the hero, and accepted his character in the
+New Comedy.
+
+It is, nevertheless, true that certain favoured people do have
+beneficent omens to prepare them for their parts when the hero is in
+full career, so that they really may be nerved to meet him; ay, and
+to check him in his course, had they that signal courage. For
+instance, Mrs. Elizabeth Berry, a ripe and wholesome landlady of
+advertised lodgings, on the borders of Kensington, noted, as she sat
+rocking her contemplative person before the parlour fire this very
+March afternoon, a supernatural tendency in that fire to burn _all
+on one side_: which signifies that a wedding approaches the house.
+Why--who shall say? Omens are as impassable as heroes. It may be
+because in these affairs the fire is thought to be all on one side.
+Enough that the omen exists, and spoke its solemn warning to the
+devout woman. Mrs. Berry, in her circle, was known as a certified
+lecturer against the snares of matrimony. Still that was no reason
+why she should not like a wedding. Expectant, therefore, she watched
+the one glowing cheek of Hymen, and with pleasing tremours beheld a
+cab of many boxes draw up by her bit of garden, and a gentleman
+emerge from it in the act of consulting an advertisement paper. The
+gentleman required lodgings for a lady. Lodgings for a lady Mrs.
+Berry could produce, and a very roseate smile for a gentleman; so
+much so that Ripton forgot to ask about the terms, which made the
+landlady in Mrs. Berry leap up to embrace him as the happy man. But
+her experienced woman's eye checked her enthusiasm. He had not the
+air of a bridegroom: he did not seem to have a weight on his chest,
+or an itch to twiddle everything with his fingers. At any rate, he
+was not the bridegroom for whom omens fly abroad. Promising to have
+all ready for the lady within an hour, Mrs. Berry fortified him with
+her card, curtsied him back to his cab, and floated him off on her
+smiles.
+
+The remarkable vehicle which had woven this thread of intrigue
+through London streets, now proceeded sedately to finish its
+operations. Ripton was landed at a hotel in Westminster. Ere he was
+half-way up the stairs, a door opened, and his old comrade in
+adventure rushed down. Richard allowed up time for salutations.
+"Have you done it?" was all he asked. For answer Ripton handed him
+Mrs. Berry's card. Richard took it, and left him standing there.
+Five minutes elapsed, and then Ripton heard the gracious rustle of
+feminine garments above. Richard came a little in advance, leading
+and half supporting a figure in a black-silk mantle and small black
+straw bonnet; young--that was certain, though she held her veil so
+close he could hardly catch the outlines of her face; girlishly
+slender, and sweet and simple in appearance. The hush that came with
+her, and her soft manner of moving, stirred the silly youth to some
+of those ardours that awaken the Knight of Dames in our bosoms. He
+felt that he would have given considerable sums for her to lift her
+veil. He could see that she was trembling--perhaps weeping. It was
+the master of her fate she clung to. They passed him without
+speaking. As she went by, her head passively bent, Ripton had a
+glimpse of noble tresses and a lovely neck; great golden curls hung
+loosely behind, pouring from under her bonnet. She looked a captive
+borne to the sacrifice. What Ripton, after a sight of those curls,
+would have given for her just to lift her veil an instant and strike
+him blind with beauty, was, fortunately for his exchequer, never
+demanded of him. And he had absolutely been composing speeches as he
+came along in the cab! gallant speeches for the lady, and sly
+congratulatory ones for his friend, to be delivered as occasion
+should serve, that both might know him a man of the world, and be at
+their ease. He forgot the smirking immoralities he had revelled in.
+This was clearly serious. Ripton did not require to be told that his
+friend was in love, and meant that life and death business called
+marriage, parents and guardians consenting or not.
+
+Presently Richard returned to him, and said hurriedly, "I want you
+now to go to my uncle at our hotel. Keep him quiet till I come. Say
+I had to see you--say anything. I shall be there by the dinner hour.
+Rip! I must talk to you alone after dinner."
+
+Ripton feebly attempted to reply that he was due at home. He was
+very curious to hear the plot of the New Comedy; and besides, there
+was Richard's face questioning him sternly and confidently for signs
+of unhesitating obedience. He finished his grimaces by asking the
+name and direction of the hotel. Richard pressed his hand. It is
+much to obtain even that recognition of our devotion from the hero.
+
+Tom Bakewell also received his priming, and, to judge by his
+chuckles and grins, rather appeared to enjoy the work cut out for
+him. In a few minutes they had driven to their separate
+destinations; Ripton was left to the unusual exercise of his fancy.
+Such is the nature of youth and its thirst for romance, that only to
+act as a subordinate is pleasant. When one unfurls the standard of
+defiance to parents and guardians, he may be sure of raising a
+lawless troop of adolescent ruffians, born rebels, to any amount.
+The beardless crew know that they have not a chance of pay; but what
+of that when the rosy prospect of thwarting their elders is in view?
+Though it is to see another eat the Forbidden Fruit, they will run
+all his risks with him. Gaily Ripton took rank as lieutenant in the
+enterprise, and the moment his heart had sworn the oaths, he was
+rewarded by an exquisite sense of the charms of existence. London
+streets wore a sly laugh to him. He walked with a dandified heel.
+The generous youth ogled aristocratic carriages, and glanced
+intimately at the ladies, overflowingly happy. The crossing-sweepers
+blessed him. He hummed lively tunes, he turned over old jokes in his
+mouth unctuously, he hugged himself, he had a mind to dance down
+Piccadilly, and all because a friend of his was running away with a
+pretty girl, and he was in the secret.
+
+It was only when he stood on the door-step of Richard's hotel, that
+his jocund mood was a little dashed by remembering that he had then
+to commence the duties of his office, and must fabricate a plausible
+story to account for what he knew nothing about--a part that the
+greatest of sages would find it difficult to perform. The young,
+however, whom sages well may envy, seldom fail in lifting their
+inventive faculties to the level of their spirits, and two minutes
+of Hippias's angry complaints against the friend he serenely
+inquired for, gave Ripton his cue.
+
+"We're in the very street--within a stone's-throw of the house, and
+he jumps like a harlequin out of my cab into another; he must be
+mad--that boy's got madness in him!--and carries off all the
+boxes--my dinner-pills, too! and keeps away the whole of the day,
+though he promised to go to the doctor, and had a dozen engagements
+with me," said Hippias, venting an enraged snarl to sum up his
+grievances.
+
+Ripton at once told him that the doctor was not at home.
+
+"Why, you don't mean to say he's been to the doctor?" Hippias cried
+out.
+
+"He has called on him twice, sir," said Ripton, expressively. "On
+leaving me he was going a third time. I shouldn't wonder that's what
+detains him--he's so determined."
+
+By fine degrees Ripton ventured to grow circumstantial, saying that
+Richard's case was urgent and required immediate medical advice; and
+that both he and his father were of opinion Richard should not lose
+an hour in obtaining it.
+
+"He's alarmed about himself," said Ripton, and tapped his chest.
+
+Hippias protested he had never heard a word from his nephew of any
+physical affliction.
+
+"He was afraid of making you anxious, I think, sir."
+
+Algernon Feverel and Richard came in while he was hammering at the
+alphabet to recollect the first letter of the doctor's name. They
+had met in the hall below, and were laughing heartily as they
+entered the room. Ripton jumped up to get the initiative.
+
+"Have you seen the doctor?" he asked, significantly plucking at
+Richard's fingers.
+
+Richard was all abroad at the question.
+
+Algernon clapped him on the back. "What the deuce do you want with
+doctor, boy?"
+
+The solid thump awakened him to see matters as they were. "Oh, ay!
+the doctor!" he said, smiling frankly at his lieutenant. "Why, he
+tells me he'd back me to do Milo's trick in a week from the present
+day.--Uncle," he came forward to Hippias, "I hope you'll excuse me
+for running off as I did. I was in a hurry. I left something at the
+railway. This stupid Rip thinks I went to the doctor about myself.
+The fact was, I wanted to fetch the doctor to see you here--so that
+you might have no trouble, you know. You can't bear the sight of his
+instruments and skeletons--I've heard you say so. You said it set
+all your marrow in revolt--'fried your marrow,' I think were the
+words, and made you see twenty thousand different ways of sliding
+down to the chambers of the Grim King. Don't you remember?"
+
+Hippias emphatically did not remember, and he did not believe the
+story. Irritation at the mad ravishment of his pill-box rendered him
+incredulous. As he had no means of confuting his nephew, all he
+could do safely to express his disbelief in him, was to utter
+petulant remarks on his powerlessness to appear at the dinner-table
+that day: upon which--Berry just then trumpeting dinner--Algernon
+seized one arm of the Dyspepsy, and Richard another, and the
+laughing couple bore him into the room where dinner was laid, Ripton
+sniggering in the rear, the really happy man of the party.
+
+They had fun at the dinner-table. Richard would have it; and his
+gaiety, his by-play, his princely superiority to truth and heroic
+promise of over-riding all our laws, his handsome face, the lord and
+possessor of beauty that he looked, as it were a star shining on his
+forehead, gained the old complete mastery over Ripton, who had been,
+mentally at least, half patronizing him till then, because he knew
+more of London and life, and was aware that his friend now depended
+upon him almost entirely.
+
+After a second circle of the claret, the hero caught his
+lieutenant's eye across the table, and said:
+
+"We must go out and talk over that law-business, Rip, before you go.
+Do you think the old lady has any chance?"
+
+"Not a bit!" said Ripton, authoritatively.
+
+"But it's worth fighting--eh, Rip?"
+
+"Oh, certainly!" was Ripton's mature opinion.
+
+Richard observed that Ripton's father seemed doubtful. Ripton cited
+his father's habitual caution. Richard made a playful remark on the
+necessity of sometimes acting in opposition to fathers. Ripton
+agreed to it--in certain cases.
+
+"Yes, yes! in certain cases," said Richard.
+
+"Pretty legal morality, gentlemen!" Algernon interjected; Hippias
+adding: "And lay, too!"
+
+The pair of uncles listened further to the fictitious dialogue, well
+kept up on both sides, and in the end desired a statement of the old
+lady's garrulous case; Hippias offering to decide what her chances
+were in law, and Algernon to give a common-sense judgment.
+
+"Rip will tell you," said Richard, deferentially signalling the
+lawyer. "I've a bad hand at these matters. Tell them how it stands,
+Rip."
+
+Ripton disguised his excessive uneasiness under endeavours to right
+his position on his chair, and, inwardly praying speed to the claret
+jug to come and strengthen his wits, began with a careless aspect:
+"Oh, nothing! She--very curious old character! She--a--wears a wig.
+She--a--very curious old character indeed! She--a--quite the old
+style. There's no doing anything with her!" and Ripton took a long
+breath to relieve himself after his elaborate fiction.
+
+"So it appears," Hippias commented, and Algernon asked: "Well? and
+about her wig? Somebody stole it?" while Richard, whose features
+were grim with suppressed laughter, bade the narrator continue.
+
+Ripton lunged for the claret jug. He had got an old lady like an
+oppressive bundle on his brain, and he was as helpless as she was.
+In the pangs of ineffectual authorship his ideas shot at her wig,
+and then at her one characteristic of extreme obstinacy, and tore
+back again at her wig, but she would not be animated. The obstinate
+old thing would remain a bundle. Law studies seemed light in
+comparison with this tremendous task of changing an old lady from a
+doll to a human creature. He flung off some claret, perspired
+freely, and, with a mental tribute to the cleverness of those author
+fellows, recommenced: "Oh, nothing! She--Richard knows her better
+than I do--an old lady--somewhere down in Suffolk. I think we had
+better advise her not to proceed. The expenses of litigation are
+enormous! She--I think we had better advise her to stop short, and
+not make any scandal."
+
+"And not make any scandal!" Algernon took him up. "Come, come!
+there's something more than a wig, then?"
+
+Ripton was commanded to proceed, whether she did or no. The luckless
+fictionist looked straight at his pitiless leader, and blurted out
+dubiously, "She--there's a daughter."
+
+"Born with effort!" ejaculated Hippias. "Must give her pause after
+that! and I'll take the opportunity to stretch my length on the
+sofa. Heigho! that's true what Austin says: 'The general prayer
+should be for a full stomach, and the individual for one that works
+well; for on that basis only are we a match for temporal matters,
+and able to contemplate eternal.' Sententious, but true. I gave him
+the idea, though! Take care of your stomachs, boys! and if ever you
+hear of a monument proposed to a scientific cook or gastronomic
+doctor, send in your subscriptions. Or say to him while he lives, Go
+forth, and be a Knight. Ha! They have a good cook at this house. He
+suits me better than ours at Raynham. I almost wish I had brought my
+manuscript to town, I feel so much better. Aha! I didn't expect to
+digest at all without my regular incentive. I think I shall give it
+up.--What do you say to the theatre to-night, boys!"
+
+Richard shouted, "Bravo, uncle!"
+
+"Let Mr. Thompson finish first," said Algernon. "I want to hear the
+conclusion of the story. The old girl has a wig and a daughter. I'll
+swear somebody runs away with one of the two! Fill your glass, Mr.
+Thompson, and forward!"
+
+"So somebody does," Ripton received his impetus. "And they're found
+in town together," he made a fresh jerk. "She--a--that is, the old
+lady--found them in company."
+
+"She finds him with her wig on in company!" said Algernon. "Capital!
+Here's matter for the lawyers!"
+
+"And you advise her not to proceed, under such circumstances of
+aggravation?" Hippias observed, humorously twinkling with his
+stomachic contentment.
+
+"It's the daughter," Ripton sighed, and surrendering to pressure,
+hurried on recklessly, "A runaway match--beautiful girl!--the only
+son of a baronet--married by special licence. A--the point is," he
+now brightened and spoke from his own element, "the point is whether
+the marriage can be annulled, as she's of the Catholic persuasion
+and he's a Protestant, and they're both married under age. That's
+the point."
+
+Having come to the point he breathed extreme relief, and saw things
+more distinctly; not a little amazed at his leader's horrified face.
+
+The two elders were making various absurd inquiries, when Richard
+sent his chair to the floor, crying, "What a muddle you're in, Rip!
+You're mixing half-a-dozen stories together. The old lady I told you
+about was old Dame Bakewell, and the dispute was concerning a
+neighbour of hers who encroached on her garden, and I said I'd pay
+the money to see her righted!"
+
+"Ah," said Ripton, humbly, "I was thinking of the other. Her garden!
+Cabbages don't interest me"----
+
+"Here, come along," Richard beckoned to him savagely. "I'll be back
+in five minutes, uncle," he nodded coolly to either.
+
+The young men left the room. In the hall-passage they met Berry,
+dressed to return to Raynham. Richard dropped a helper to the
+intelligence into his hand, and warned him not to gossip much of
+London. Berry bowed perfect discreetness.
+
+"What on earth induced you to talk about Protestants and Catholics
+marrying, Rip?" said Richard, as soon as they were in the street.
+
+"Why," Ripton answered, "I was so hard pushed for it, 'pon my
+honour, I didn't know what to say. I ain't an author, you know; I
+can't make a story. I was trying to invent a point, and I couldn't
+think of any other, and I thought that was just the point likely to
+make a jolly good dispute. Capital dinners they give at those crack
+hotels. Why did you throw it all upon me? I didn't begin on the old
+lady."
+
+The hero mused, "It's odd! It's impossible you could have known!
+I'll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try you. You fib well at long
+range, but you don't do at close quarters and single combat. You're
+good behind walls, but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what
+you're fit for. You're staunch--that I am certain of. You always
+were. Lead the way to one of the parks--down in that direction. You
+know?--where she is!"
+
+Ripton led the way. His dinner had prepared this young Englishman
+to defy the whole artillery of established morals. With the muffled
+roar of London around them, alone in a dark slope of green, the
+hero, leaning on his henchman, and speaking in a harsh clear
+undertone, delivered his explanations. Doubtless the true heroic
+insignia and point of view will be discerned, albeit in common
+private's uniform.
+
+"They've been plotting against me for a year, Rip! When you see her,
+you'll know what it was to have such a creature taken away from you.
+It nearly killed me. Never mind what she is. She's the most perfect
+and noble creature God ever made! It's not only her beauty--I don't
+care so much about that!--but when you've once seen her, she seems
+to draw music from all the nerves of your body; but she's such an
+angel. I worship her. And her mind's like her face. She's pure gold.
+There, you'll see her to-night.
+
+"Well," he pursued, after inflating Ripton with this rapturous
+prospect, "they got her away, and I recovered. It was Mister
+Adrian's work. What's my father's objection to her? Because of her
+birth? She's educated; her manners are beautiful--full of
+refinement--quick and soft! Can they show me one of their ladies
+like her?--she's the daughter of a naval lieutenant! Because she's a
+Catholic? What has religion to do with"--he pronounced "Love!" a
+little modestly--as it were a blush in his voice.
+
+"Well, when I recovered I thought I did not care for her. It shows
+how we know ourselves! And I cared for nothing. I felt as if I had
+no blood. I tried to imitate my dear Austin. I wish to God he were
+here. I love Austin. He would understand her. He's coming back this
+year, and then--but it'll be too late then.--Well, my father's
+always scheming to make me perfect--he has never spoken to me a word
+about her, but I can see her in his eyes--he wanted to give me a
+change, he said, and asked me to come to town with my uncle Hippy,
+and I consented. It was another plot to get me out of the way! As I
+live, I had no more idea of meeting her than of flying to heaven!"
+
+He lifted his face. "Look at those old elm branches! How they seem
+to mix among the stars!--glittering; fruits of Winter!"
+
+Ripton tipped his comical nose upward, and was in duty bound to say,
+Yes! though he observed no connection between them and the
+narrative.
+
+"Well," the hero went on, "I came to town. There I heard she was
+coming, too--coming home. It must have been fate, Ripton! Heaven
+forgive me! I was angry with her, and I thought I should like to see
+her once--only once--and reproach her for being false--for she never
+wrote to me. And, oh, the dear angel! what she must have
+suffered!--I gave my uncle the slip, and got to the railway she was
+coming by. There was a fellow going to meet her--a farmer's
+son--and, good God! they were going to try and make her marry him! I
+remembered it all then. A servant of the farm had told me. That
+fellow went to the wrong station, I suppose, for we saw nothing of
+him. There she was--not changed a bit!--looking lovelier than ever!
+And when she saw me, I knew in a minute that she must love me till
+death!--You don't know what it is yet, Rip!--Will you believe
+it?--Though I was as sure she loved me and had been true as steel,
+as that I shall see her to-night, I spoke bitterly to her. And she
+bore it meekly--she looked like a saint. I told her there was but
+one hope of life for me--she must prove she was true, and as I give
+up all, so must she. I don't know what I said. The thought of losing
+her made me mad. She tried to plead with me to wait--it was for my
+sake, I know. I pretended, like a miserable hypocrite, that she did
+not love me at all. I think I said shameful things. Oh what noble
+creatures women are! She hardly had strength to move. I took her to
+that place where you found us.--Rip! she went down on her knees to
+me. I never dreamed of anything in life so lovely as she looked
+then. Her eyes were thrown up, bright with a crowd of tears--her
+dark brows bent together, like Pain and Beauty meeting in one; and
+her glorious golden hair swept off her shoulders as she hung forward
+to my hands.--Could I lose such a prize?--If anything could have
+persuaded me, would not that?--I thought of Dante's Madonna--Guido's
+Magdalen.--Is there sin in it? I see none! And if there is, it's all
+mine! I swear she's spotless of a thought of sin. I see her very
+soul! Cease to love her? Who dares ask me? Cease to love her? Why, I
+live on her!--To see her little chin straining up from her throat,
+as she knelt to me!--there was one curl that fell across her
+throat"....
+
+Ripton listened for more. Richard had gone off in a muse at the
+picture.
+
+"Well?" said Ripton, "and how about that young farmer fellow?"
+
+The hero's head was again contemplating the starry branches. His
+lieutenant's question came to him after an interval.
+
+"Young Tom? Why, it's young Tom Blaize--son of our old enemy, Rip! I
+like the old man now. Oh! I saw nothing of the fellow."
+
+"Lord!" cried Ripton, "are we going to get into a mess with Blaizes
+again? I don't like that!"
+
+His commander quietly passed his likes or dislikes.
+
+"But when he goes to the train, and finds she's not there?" Ripton
+suggested.
+
+"I've provided for that. The fool went to the South-east instead of
+the South-west. All warmth, all sweetness, comes with the
+South-west!--I've provided for that, friend Rip. My trusty Tom
+awaits him there, as if by accident. He tells him he has not seen
+her, and advises him to remain in town, and go for her there
+to-morrow, and the day following. Tom has money for the work. Young
+Tom ought to see London, you know, Rip!--like you. We shall gain
+some good clear days. And when old Blaize hears of it--what then? I
+have her! she's mine!--Besides, he won't hear for a week. This Tom
+beats that Tom in cunning, I'll wager. Ha! ha!" the hero burst out
+at a recollection. "What do you think, Rip? My father has some sort
+of System with me, it appears, and when I came to town the time
+before, he took me to some people--the Grandisons--and what do you
+think? one of the daughters is a little girl--a nice little thing
+enough--very funny--and he wants me to wait for her! He hasn't said
+so, but I know it. I know what he means. Nobody understands him but
+me. I know he loves me, and is one of the best of men--but just
+consider!--a _little girl_ who just comes up to my elbow. Isn't it
+ridiculous? Did you ever hear such nonsense?"
+
+Ripton emphasized his opinion that it certainly was foolish.
+
+"No, no! The die's cast!" said Richard. "They've been plotting for a
+year up to this day, and this is what comes of it! If my father
+loves me, he will love her. And if he loves me, he'll forgive my
+acting against his wishes, and see it was the only thing to be done.
+Come! step out! what a time we've been!" and away he went,
+compelling Ripton to the sort of strides a drummer-boy has to take
+beside a column of grenadiers.
+
+Ripton began to wish himself in love, seeing that it endowed a man
+with wind so that he could breathe great sighs, while going at a
+tremendous pace, and experience no sensation of fatigue. The hero
+was communing with the elements, his familiars, and allowed him to
+pant as he pleased. Some keen-eyed Kensington urchins, noticing the
+discrepancy between the pedestrian powers of the two, aimed their
+wit at Mr. Thompson junior's expense. The pace, and nothing but the
+pace, induced Ripton to proclaim that they had gone too far, when
+they discovered that they had overshot the mark by half a mile. In
+the street over which stood love's star, the hero thundered his
+presence at a door, and evoked a flying housemaid, who knew not Mrs.
+Berry. The hero attached significance to the fact that his instincts
+should have betrayed him, for he could have sworn to that house. The
+door being shut he stood in dead silence.
+
+"Haven't you got her card?" Ripton inquired, and heard that it was
+in the custody of the cabman. Neither of them could positively bring
+to mind the number of the house.
+
+"You ought to have chalked it, like that fellow in the Forty
+Thieves," Ripton hazarded a pleasantry which met with no response.
+
+Betrayed by his instincts, the magic slaves of Love! The hero
+heavily descended the steps.
+
+Ripton murmured that they were done for. His commander turned on
+him, and said: "Take all the houses on the opposite side, one after
+another. I'll take these." With a wry face Ripton crossed the road,
+altogether subdued by Richard's native superiority to adverse
+circumstances.
+
+Then were families aroused. Then did mortals dimly guess that
+something portentous was abroad. Then were labourers all day in the
+vineyard, harshly wakened from their evening's nap. Hope and Fear
+stalked the street, as again and again the loud companion summonses
+resounded. Finally Ripton sang out cheerfully. He had Mrs. Berry
+before him, profuse of mellow curtsies.
+
+Richard ran to her and caught her hands: "She's well?--upstairs?"
+
+"Oh, quite well! only a trifle tired with her journey, and
+fluttering-like," Mrs. Berry replied to Ripton alone. The lover had
+flown aloft.
+
+The wise woman sagely ushered Ripton into her own private parlour,
+there to wait till he was wanted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE
+
+
+"In all cases where two have joined to commit an offence, punish one
+of the two lightly," is the dictum of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is possible for young heads to conceive proper plans of action,
+and occasionally, by sheer force of will, to check the wild horses
+that are ever fretting to gallop off with them. But when they have
+given the reins and the whip to another, what are they to do? They
+may go down on their knees, and beg and pray the furious charioteer
+to stop, or moderate his pace. Alas! each fresh thing they do
+redoubles his ardour. There is a power in their troubled beauty
+women learn the use of, and what wonder? They have seen it kindle
+Ilium to flames so often! But ere they grow matronly in the house of
+Menelaus, they weep, and implore, and do not, in truth, know how
+terribly two-edged is their gift of loveliness. They resign
+themselves to an incomprehensible frenzy; pleasant to them, because
+they attribute it to excessive love. And so the very sensible things
+which they can and do say, are vain.
+
+I reckon it absurd to ask them to be quite in earnest. Are not those
+their own horses in yonder team? Certainly, if they were quite in
+earnest, they might soon have my gentleman as sober as a carter. A
+hundred different ways of disenchanting him exist, and Adrian will
+point you out one or two that shall be instantly efficacious. For
+Love, the charioteer, is easily tripped, while honest jog-trot Love
+keeps his legs to the end. Granted dear women are not quite in
+earnest, still the mere words they utter should be put to their good
+account. They do mean them, though their hearts are set the wrong
+way. 'Tis a despairing, pathetic homage to the judgment of the
+majority, in whose faces they are flying. Punish Helen, very young,
+lightly. After a certain age you may select her for special
+chastisement. An innocent with Theseus, with Paris she is an
+advanced incendiary.
+
+The fair young girl was sitting as her lover had left her; trying to
+recall her stunned senses. Her bonnet was unremoved, her hands
+clasped on her knees; dry tears in her eyes. Like a dutiful slave,
+she rose to him. And first he claimed her mouth. There was a speech,
+made up of all the pretty wisdom her wild situation and true love
+could gather, awaiting him there; but his kiss scattered it to
+fragments. She dropped to her seat weeping, and hiding her shamed
+cheeks.
+
+By his silence she divined his thoughts, and took his hand and drew
+it to her lips.
+
+He bent beside her, bidding her look at him.
+
+"Keep your eyes so."
+
+She could not.
+
+"Do you fear me, Lucy?"
+
+A throbbing pressure answered him.
+
+"Do you love me, darling?"
+
+She trembled from head to foot.
+
+"Then why do you turn from me?"
+
+She wept: "O Richard, take me home! take me home!"
+
+"Look at me, Lucy!"
+
+Her head shrank timidly round.
+
+"Keep your eyes on me, darling! Now speak!"
+
+But she could not look and speak too. The lover knew his mastery
+when he had her eyes.
+
+"You wish me to take you home?"
+
+She faltered: "O Richard? it is not too late."
+
+"You regret what you have done for me?"
+
+"Dearest! it is ruin."
+
+"You weep because you have consented to be mine?"
+
+"Not for me! O Richard!"
+
+"For me you weep? Look at me! For me?"
+
+"How will it end! O Richard!"
+
+"You weep for me?"
+
+"Dearest! I would die for you!"
+
+"Would you see me indifferent to everything in the world? Would you
+have me lost? Do you think I will live another day in England
+without you? I have staked all I have on you, Lucy. You have nearly
+killed me once. A second time, and the earth will not be troubled by
+me. You ask me to wait, when they are plotting against us on all
+sides? Darling Lucy! look on me. Fix your fond eyes on me. You ask
+me to wait when here you are given to me--when you have proved my
+faith--when we know we love as none have loved. Give me your eyes!
+Let them tell me I have your heart!"
+
+Where was her wise little speech? How could she match such mighty
+eloquence? She sought to collect a few more of the scattered
+fragments.
+
+"Dearest! your father may be brought to consent by and by, and
+then--oh! if you take me home now"----
+
+The lover stood up. "He who has been arranging that fine scheme to
+disgrace and martyrize you? True, as I live! that's the reason of
+their having you back. Your old servant heard him and your uncle
+discussing it. He!--Lucy! he's a good man, but he must not step in
+between you and me. I say God has given you to me."
+
+He was down by her side again, his arms enfolding her.
+
+She had hoped to fight a better battle than in the morning, and she
+was weaker and softer.
+
+Ah! why should she doubt that his great love was the first law to
+her? Why should she not believe that she would wreck him by
+resisting? And if she suffered, oh sweet to think it was for his
+sake! Sweet to shut out wisdom; accept total blindness, and be led
+by him!
+
+The hag Wisdom annoyed them little further. She rustled her garments
+ominously, and vanished.
+
+"Oh, my own Richard!" the fair girl just breathed.
+
+He whispered, "Call me that name."
+
+She blushed deeply.
+
+"Call me that name," he repeated. "You said it once to-day."
+
+"Dearest!"
+
+"Not that."
+
+"O darling!"
+
+"Not that."
+
+"Husband!"
+
+She was won. The rosy gate from which the word had issued was closed
+with a seal.
+
+Ripton did not enjoy his introduction to the caged bird of beauty
+that night. He received a lesson in the art of pumping from the
+worthy landlady below, up to an hour when she yawned, and he
+blinked, and their common candle wore with dignity the brigand's hat
+of midnight, and cocked a drunken eye at them from under it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+RELATES HOW PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE CONDUCTED UNDER THE APRIL
+OF LOVERS
+
+
+Beauty, of course, is for the hero. Nevertheless, it is not always
+he on whom beauty works its most conquering influence. It is the
+dull commonplace man into whose slow brain she drops like a
+celestial light, and burns lastingly. The poet, for instance, is a
+connoisseur of beauty: to the artist she is a model. These gentlemen
+by much contemplation of her charms wax critical. The days when they
+had hearts being gone, they are haply divided between the blonde and
+the brunette; the aquiline nose and the Proserpine; this shaped eye
+and that. But go about among simple unprofessional fellows, boors,
+dunderheads, and here and there you shall find some barbarous
+intelligence which has had just enough to conceive, and has taken
+Beauty as its Goddess, and knows but one form to worship, in its
+poor stupid fashion, and would perish for her. Nay, more: the man
+would devote all his days to her, though he is dumb as a dog. And,
+indeed, he is Beauty's Dog. Almost every Beauty has her Dog. The
+hero possesses her; the poet proclaims her; the painter puts her
+upon canvas; and the faithful Old Dog follows her: and the end of it
+all is that the faithful Old Dog is her single attendant. Sir Hero
+is revelling in the wars, or in Armida's bowers; Mr. Poet has spied
+a wrinkle; the brush is for the rose in its season. She turns to her
+Old Dog then. She hugs him; and he, who has subsisted on a bone and
+a pat till there he squats decrepit, he turns his grateful old eyes
+up to her, and has not a notion that she is hugging sad memories in
+him: Hero, Poet, Painter, in one scrubby one! Then is she buried,
+and the village hears languid howls, and there is a paragraph in the
+newspapers concerning the extraordinary fidelity of an Old Dog.
+
+Excited by suggestive recollections of Nooredeen and the Fair
+Persian, and the change in the obscure monotony of his life by his
+having quarters in a crack hotel, and living familiarly with
+West-End people--living on the fat of the land (which forms a stout
+portion of an honest youth's romance), Ripton Thompson breakfasted
+next morning with his chief at half-past eight. The meal had been
+fixed overnight for seven, but Ripton slept a great deal more than
+the nightingale, and (to chronicle his exact state) even half-past
+eight rather afflicted his new aristocratic senses and reminded him
+too keenly of law and bondage. He had preferred to breakfast at
+Algernon's hour, who had left word for eleven. Him, however, it was
+Richard's object to avoid, so they fell to, and Ripton no longer
+envied Hippias in bed. Breakfast done, they bequeathed the consoling
+information for Algernon that they were off to hear a popular
+preacher, and departed.
+
+"How happy everybody looks!" said Richard, in the quiet Sunday
+streets.
+
+"Yes--jolly!" said Ripton.
+
+"When I'm--when this is over, I'll see that they are, too--as many
+as I can make happy," said the hero; adding softly: "Her blind was
+down at a quarter to six. I think she slept well!"
+
+"You've been there this morning?" Ripton exclaimed; and an idea of
+what love was dawned upon his dull brain.
+
+"Will she see me, Ricky?"
+
+"Yes. She'll see you to-day. She was tired last night."
+
+"Positively?"
+
+Richard assured him that the privilege would be his.
+
+"Here," he said, coming under some trees in the park, "here's where
+I talked to you last night. What a time it seems! How I hate the
+night!"
+
+On the way, that Richard might have an exalted opinion of him,
+Ripton hinted decorously at a somewhat intimate and mysterious
+acquaintance with the sex. Headings of certain random adventures he
+gave.
+
+"Well!" said his chief, "why not marry her?"
+
+Then was Ripton shocked, and cried, "Oh!" and had a taste of the
+feeling of superiority, destined that day to be crushed utterly.
+
+He was again deposited in Mrs. Berry's charge for a term that caused
+him dismal fears that the Fair Persian still refused to show her
+face, but Richard called out to him, and up Ripton went, unaware of
+the transformation he was to undergo. Hero and Beauty stood together
+to receive him. From the bottom of the stairs he had his vivaciously
+agreeable smile ready for them, and by the time he entered the room
+his cheeks were painfully stiff, and his eyes had strained beyond
+their exact meaning. Lucy, with one hand anchored to her lover,
+welcomed him kindly. He relieved her shyness by looking so extremely
+silly. They sat down, and tried to commence a conversation, but
+Ripton was as little master of his tongue as he was of his eyes.
+After an interval, the Fair Persian having done duty by showing
+herself, was glad to quit the room. Her lord and possessor then
+turned inquiringly to Ripton.
+
+"You don't wonder now, Rip?" he said.
+
+"No, Richard!" Ripton waited to reply with sufficient solemnity,
+"indeed I don't!"
+
+He spoke differently; he looked differently. He had the Old Dog's
+eyes in his head. They watched the door she had passed through; they
+listened for her, as dogs' eyes do. When she came in, bonneted for a
+walk, his agitation was dog-like. When she hung on her lover
+timidly, and went forth, he followed without an idea of envy, or
+anything save the secret raptures the sight of her gave him, which
+are the Old Dog's own. For beneficent Nature requites him. His
+sensations cannot be heroic, but they have a fulness and a wagging
+delight as good in their way. And this capacity for humble
+unaspiring worship has its peculiar guerdon. When Ripton comes to
+think of Miss Random now, what will he think of himself? Let no one
+despise the Old Dog. Through him doth Beauty vindicate her sex.
+
+It did not please Ripton that others should have the bliss of
+beholding her, and as, to his perceptions, everybody did, and
+observed her offensively, and stared, and turned their heads back,
+and interchanged comments on her, and became in a minute madly in
+love with her, he had to smother low growls. They strolled about the
+pleasant gardens of Kensington all the morning, under the young
+chestnut buds, and round the windless waters, talking, and soothing
+the wild excitement of their hearts. If Lucy spoke, Ripton pricked
+up his ears. She, too, made the remark that everybody seemed to look
+happy, and he heard it with thrills of joy. "So everybody is, where
+you are!" he would have wished to say, if he dared, but was
+restrained by fears that his burning eloquence would commit him.
+Ripton knew the people he met twice. It would have been difficult to
+persuade him they were the creatures of accident.
+
+From the Gardens, in contempt of Ripton's frowned protest, Richard
+boldly struck into the park, where solitary carriages were beginning
+to perform the circuit. Here Ripton had some justification for his
+jealous pangs. The young girl's golden locks of hair; her sweet, now
+dreamily sad, face; her gentle graceful figure in the black straight
+dress she wore; a sort of half-conventional air she had--a mark of
+something not of class, that was partly beauty's, partly maiden
+innocence growing conscious, partly remorse at her weakness and dim
+fear of the future it was sowing--did attract the eye-glasses.
+Ripton had to learn that eyes are bearable, but eye-glasses an
+abomination. They fixed a spell upon his courage; for somehow the
+youth had always ranked them as emblems of our nobility, and hearing
+two exquisite eye-glasses, who had been to front and rear several
+times, drawl in gibberish generally imputed to lords, that his
+heroine was a charming little creature, just the size, but had no
+style,--he was abashed; he did not fly at them and tear them. He
+became dejected. Beauty's dog is affected by the eye-glass in a
+manner not unlike the common animal's terror of the human eye.
+
+Richard appeared to hear nothing, or it was homage that he heard. He
+repeated to Lucy Diaper Sandoe's verses--
+
+    "The cockneys nod to each other aside,
+    The coxcombs lift their glasses,"
+
+and projected hiring a horse for her to ride every day in the park,
+and shine among the highest.
+
+They had turned to the West, against the sky glittering through the
+bare trees across the water, and the bright-edged rack. The lover,
+his imagination just then occupied in clothing earthly glories in
+celestial, felt where his senses were sharpest the hand of his
+darling falter, and instinctively looked ahead. His uncle Algernon
+was leisurely jolting towards them on his one sound leg. The
+dismembered Guardsman talked to a friend whose arm supported him,
+and speculated from time to time on the fair ladies driving by. The
+two white faces passed him unobserved. Unfortunately Ripton, coming
+behind, went plump upon the Captain's live toe--or so he pretended,
+crying, "Confound it, Mr. Thompson! you might have chosen the
+other."
+
+The horrible apparition did confound Ripton, who stammered that it
+was extraordinary.
+
+"Not at all," said Algernon. "Everybody makes up to that fellow.
+Instinct, I suppose!"
+
+He had not to ask for his nephew. Richard turned to face the matter.
+
+"Sorry I couldn't wait for you this morning, uncle," he said, with
+the coolness of relationship. "I thought you never walked so far."
+
+His voice was in perfect tone--the heroic mask admirable.
+
+Algernon examined the downcast visage at his side, and contrived to
+allude to the popular preacher. He was instantly introduced to
+Ripton's sister, Miss Thompson.
+
+The Captain bowed, smiling melancholy approval of his nephew's
+choice of a minister. After a few stray remarks, and an affable
+salute to Miss Thompson, he hobbled away, and then the three sealed
+volcanoes breathed, and Lucy's arm ceased to be squeezed quite so
+much up to the heroic pitch.
+
+This incident quickened their steps homeward to the sheltering wings
+of Mrs. Berry. All that passed between them on the subject comprised
+a stammered excuse from Ripton for his conduct, and a good-humoured
+rejoinder from Richard, that he had gained a sister by it: at which
+Ripton ventured to wish aloud Miss Desborough would only think so,
+and a faint smile twitched poor Lucy's lips to please him. She
+hardly had strength to reach her cage. She had none to eat of Mrs.
+Berry's nice little dinner. To be alone, that she might cry and ease
+her heart of its accusing weight of tears, was all she prayed for.
+Kind Mrs. Berry, slipping into her bedroom to take off her things,
+found the fair body in a fevered shudder, and finished by undressing
+her completely and putting her to bed.
+
+"Just an hour's sleep, or so," the mellifluous woman explained the
+case to the two anxious gentlemen. "A quiet sleep and a cup of warm
+tea goes for more than twenty doctors, it do--when there's the
+flutters," she pursued. "I know it by myself. And a good cry
+before-hand's better than the best of medicine."
+
+She nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and retired to her
+softer charge and sweeter babe, reflecting, "Lord! Lord! the three
+of 'em don't make fifty! I'm as old as two and a half of 'em, to say
+the least." Mrs. Berry used her apron, and by virtue of their tender
+years took them all three into her heart.
+
+Left alone, neither of the young men could swallow a morsel.
+
+"Did you see the change come over her?" Richard whispered.
+
+Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity.
+
+The lover flung down his knife and fork: "What could I do? If I had
+said nothing, we should have been suspected. I was obliged to speak.
+And she hates a lie! See! it has struck her down. God forgive me!"
+
+Ripton affected a serene mind: "It was a fright, Richard," he said.
+"That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. Those old women talk in
+that way. You heard what she said. And these old women know. I'll
+tell you what it is. It's this, Richard!--it's because you've got a
+fool for your friend!"
+
+"She regrets it," muttered the lover. "Good God! I think she fears
+me." He dropped his face in his hands.
+
+Ripton went to the window, repeating energetically for his comfort:
+"It's because you've got a fool for your friend!"
+
+Sombre grew the street they had last night aroused. The sun was
+buried alive in cloud. Ripton saw himself no more in the opposite
+window. He watched the deplorable objects passing on the pavement.
+His aristocratic visions had gone like his breakfast. Beauty had
+been struck down by his egregious folly, and there he stood--a
+wretch!
+
+Richard came to him: "Don't mumble on like that, Rip!" he said.
+"Nobody blames you."
+
+"Ah! you're very kind, Richard," interposed the wretch, moved at the
+face of misery he beheld.
+
+"Listen to me, Rip! I shall take her home to-night. Yes! If she's
+happier away from me!--do you think me a brute, Ripton? Rather than
+have her shed a tear, I'd!----I'll take her home to-night!"
+
+Ripton suggested that it was sudden; adding from his larger
+experience, people perhaps might talk.
+
+The lover could not understand what they should talk about, but he
+said: "If I give him who came for her yesterday the clue? If no one
+sees or hears of me, what can they say? O Rip! I'll give her up. I'm
+wrecked for ever! What of that? Yes--let them take her! The world in
+arms should never have torn her from me, but when she cries--Yes!
+all's over. I'll find him at once."
+
+He searched in out-of-the-way corners for the hat of resolve. Ripton
+looked on, wretcheder than ever.
+
+The idea struck him:--"Suppose, Richard, she doesn't want to go?"
+
+It was a moment when, perhaps, one who sided with parents and
+guardians and the old wise world, might have inclined them to pursue
+their righteous wretched course, and have given small Cupid a smack
+and sent him home to his naughty Mother. Alas! (it is THE PILGRIM'S
+SCRIP interjecting) women are the born accomplices of mischief! In
+bustles Mrs. Berry to clear away the refection, and find the two
+knights helmed, and sees, though 'tis dusk, that they wear doubtful
+brows, and guesses bad things for her dear God Hymen in a twinkling.
+
+"Dear! dear!" she exclaimed, "and neither of you eaten a scrap! And
+there's my dear young lady off into the prettiest sleep you ever
+see!"
+
+"Ha?" cried the lover, illuminated.
+
+"Soft as a baby!" Mrs. Berry averred. "I went to look at her this
+very moment, and there's not a bit of trouble in her breath. It come
+and it go like the sweetest regular instrument ever made. The Black
+Ox haven't trod on _her_ foot yet! Most like it was the air of
+London. But only fancy, if you had called in a doctor! Why, I
+shouldn't have let her take any of his quackery. Now, there!"
+
+Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff his hat with
+a curious caution, and peer into its recess, from which, during Mrs.
+Berry's speech, he drew forth a little glove--dropped there by some
+freak of chance.
+
+"Keep me, keep me, now you have me!" sang the little glove, and
+amused the lover with a thousand conceits.
+
+"When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry?" he asked.
+
+"Oh! we mustn't go for disturbing her," said the guileful good
+creature. "Bless ye! let her sleep it out. And if you young
+gentlemen was to take my advice, and go and take a walk for to get a
+appetite--everybody should eat! it's their sacred duty, no matter
+what their feelings be! and I say it who'm no chicken!--I'll
+frickashee this--which is a chicken--against your return. I'm a
+cook, I can assure ye!"
+
+The lover seized her two hands. "You're the best old soul in the
+world!" he cried. Mrs. Berry appeared willing to kiss him. "We won't
+disturb her. Let her sleep. Keep her in bed, Mrs. Berry. Will you?
+And we'll call to inquire after her this evening, and come and see
+her to-morrow. I'm sure you'll be kind to her. There! there!" Mrs.
+Berry was preparing to whimper. "I trust her to you, you see.
+Good-bye, you dear old soul."
+
+He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and went to dine
+with his uncles, happy and hungry.
+
+Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw Mrs. Berry
+into their confidence, telling her (with embellishments) all save
+their names, so that they might enjoy the counsel and assistance of
+that trump of a woman, and yet have nothing to fear from her. Lucy
+was to receive the name of Letitia, Ripton's youngest and
+best-looking sister. The heartless fellow proposed it in cruel
+mockery of an old weakness of hers.
+
+"Letitia!" mused Richard. "I like the name. Both begin with L.
+There's something soft--womanlike--in the L.'s."
+
+Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds on paper. The
+lover roamed through his golden groves. "Lucy Feverel! that sounds
+better! I wonder where Ralph is. I should like to help him. He's in
+love with my cousin Clare. He'll never do anything till he marries.
+No man can. I'm going to do a hundred things when it's over. We
+shall travel first. I want to see the Alps. One doesn't know what
+the earth is till one has seen the Alps. What a delight it will be
+to her! I fancy I see her eyes gazing up at them.
+
+    'And oh, your dear blue eyes, that heavenward glance
+      With kindred beauty, banished humbleness,
+       Past weeping for mortality's distress--
+    Yet from your soul a tear hangs there in trance,
+          And fills, but does not fall;
+          Softly I hear it call
+    At heaven's gate, till Sister Seraphs press
+    To look on you their old love from the skies:
+    Those are the eyes of Seraphs bright on your blue eyes!'
+
+Beautiful! These lines, Rip, were written by a man who was once a
+friend of my father's. I intend to find him and make them friends
+again. You don't care for poetry. It's no use your trying to swallow
+it, Rip!"
+
+"It sounds very nice," said Ripton, modestly shutting his mouth.
+
+"The Alps! Italy! Rome! and then I shall go to the East," the hero
+continued. "She's ready to go anywhere with me, the dear brave
+heart! Oh, the glorious golden East! I dream of the desert. I dream
+I'm chief of an Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on
+our mares, and hurry to the rescue of my darling! And we push the
+spears, and we scatter them, and I come to the tent where she
+crouches, and catch her to my saddle, and away!--Rip! what a life!"
+
+Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it.
+
+"And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin's life, with
+her to help me. First be virtuous, Rip! and then serve your country
+heart and soul. A wise man told me that. I think I shall do
+something."
+
+Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the lover. Now
+life was a narrow ring; now the distances extended, were winged,
+flew illimitably. An hour ago and food was hateful. Now he manfully
+refreshed his nature, and joined in Algernon's encomiums on Miss
+Letitia Thompson.
+
+Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer of the
+hero's band. Lucy awoke from dreams which seemed reality, to the
+reality which was a dream. She awoke calling for some friend,
+"Margaret!" and heard one say, "My name is Bessy Berry, my love! not
+Margaret." Then she asked piteously where she was, and where was
+Margaret, her dear friend, and Mrs. Berry whispered, "Sure you've
+got a dearer!"
+
+"Ah!" sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed by the
+strangeness of her state.
+
+Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted the
+bedclothes quietly.
+
+Her name was breathed.
+
+"Yes, my love?" she said.
+
+"Is he here?"
+
+"He's gone, my dear."
+
+"Gone?--Oh, where?" The young girl started up in disorder.
+
+"Gone, to be back, my love! Ah! that young gentleman!" Mrs. Berry
+chanted: "Not a morsel have he eat; not a drop have he drunk!"
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! why did you not make him?" Lucy wept for the
+famine-struck hero, who was just then feeding mightily.
+
+Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought the darling
+of his heart like to die, was a sheer impossibility for the
+cleverest of women; and on this deep truth Lucy reflected, with her
+eyes wide at the candle. She wanted one to pour her feelings out to.
+She slid her hand from under the bedclothes, and took Mrs. Berry's,
+and kissed it. The good creature required no further avowal of her
+secret, but forthwith leaned her consummate bosom to the pillow, and
+petitioned heaven to bless them both!--Then the little bride was
+alarmed, and wondered how Mrs. Berry could have guessed it.
+
+"Why," said Mrs. Berry, "your love is out of your eyes, and out of
+everything ye do." And the little bride wondered more. She thought
+she had been so very cautious not to betray it. The common woman in
+them made cheer together after their own April fashion. Following
+which Mrs. Berry probed for the sweet particulars of this beautiful
+love-match; but the little bride's lips were locked. She only said
+her lover was above her in station.
+
+"And you're a Catholic, my dear!"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"And him a Protestant."
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"Dear, dear!--And why shouldn't ye be?" she ejaculated, seeing
+sadness return to the bridal babe. "So as you was born, so shall ye
+be! But you'll have to make your arrangements about the children.
+The girls to worship with you, the boys with him. It's the same God,
+my dear! You mustn't blush at it, though you do look so pretty. If
+my young gentleman could see you now!"
+
+"Please, Mrs. Berry!" Lucy murmured.
+
+"Why, he will, you know, my dear!"
+
+"Oh, please, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"And you that can't bear the thoughts of it! Well, I do wish there
+was fathers and mothers on both sides and dockments signed, and
+bridesmaids, and a breakfast! but love is love, and ever will be, in
+spite of them."
+
+She made other and deeper dives into the little heart, but though
+she drew up pearls, they were not of the kind she searched for. The
+one fact that hung as a fruit upon her tree of Love, Lucy had given
+her; she would not, in fealty to her lover, reveal its growth and
+history, however sadly she yearned to pour out all to this dear old
+Mother Confessor.
+
+Her conduct drove Mrs. Berry from the rosy to the autumnal view of
+matrimony, generally heralded by the announcement that it is a
+lottery.
+
+"And when you see your ticket," said Mrs. Berry, "you shan't know
+whether it's a prize or a blank. And, Lord knows! some go on
+thinking it's a prize when it turns on 'em and tears 'em. I'm one of
+the blanks, my dear! I drew a blank in Berry. He was a black Berry
+to me, my dear! Smile away! he truly was, and I a-prizin' him as
+proud as you can conceive! My dear!" Mrs. Berry pressed her hands
+flat on her apron. "We hadn't been a three months man and wife, when
+that man--it wasn't the honeymoon, which some can't say--that
+man--Yes! he kicked me. His wedded wife he kicked! Ah!" she sighed
+to Lucy's large eyes, "I could have borne that. A blow don't touch
+the heart," the poor creature tapped her sensitive side. "I went on
+loving of him, for I'm a soft one. Tall as a Grenadier he is, and
+when out of service grows his moustache. I used to call him my
+body-guardsman--like a Queen! I flattered him like the fools we
+women are. For, take my word for it, my dear, there's nothing here
+below so vain as a man! That I know. But I didn't deserve it.... I'm
+a superior cook.... I did not deserve that noways." Mrs. Berry
+thumped her knee, and accentuated up her climax: "I mended his
+linen. I saw to his adornments--he called his clothes, the bad man!
+I was a servant to him, my dear! and there--it was nine months--nine
+months from the day he swear to protect and cherish and that--nine
+calendar months, and my gentleman is off with another woman! Bone of
+his bone!--pish!" exclaimed Mrs. Berry, reckoning her wrongs over
+vividly. "Here's my ring. A pretty ornament! What do it mean? I'm
+for tearin' it off my finger a dozen times in the day. It's a
+symbol? I call it a tomfoolery for the dead-alive to wear it, that's
+a widow and not a widow, and haven't got a name for what she is in
+any Dixonary. I've looked, my dear, and"--she spread out her
+arms--"Johnson haven't got a name for me!"
+
+At this impressive woe Mrs. Berry's voice quavered into sobs. Lucy
+spoke gentle words to the poor outcast from Johnson. The sorrows of
+Autumn have no warning for April. The little bride, for all her
+tender pity, felt happier when she had heard her landlady's moving
+tale of the wickedness of man, which cast in bright relief the glory
+of that one hero who was hers. Then from a short flight of
+inconceivable bliss, she fell, shot by one on her hundred Argus-eyed
+fears.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! I'm so young! Think of me--only just seventeen!"
+
+Mrs. Berry immediately dried her eyes to radiance. "Young, my dear!
+Nonsense! There's no so much harm in being young, here and there. I
+knew an Irish lady was married at fourteen. Her daughter married
+close over fourteen. She was a grandmother by thirty! When any
+strange man began, she used to ask him what pattern caps
+grandmothers wore. They'd stare! Bless you! the grandmother could
+have married over and over again. It was her daughter's fault, not
+hers, you know."
+
+"She was three years younger," mused Lucy.
+
+"She married beneath her, my dear. Ran off with her father's
+bailiff's son. 'Ah, Berry!' she'd say, 'if I hadn't been foolish, I
+should be my lady now--not Granny!' Her father never forgave
+her--left all his estates out of the family."
+
+"Did her husband always love her?" Lucy preferred to know.
+
+"In his way, my dear, he did," said Mrs. Berry, coming upon her
+matrimonial wisdom. "He couldn't help himself. If he left off, he
+began again. She was so clever, and did make him so comfortable.
+Cook! there wasn't such another cook out of a Alderman's kitchen;
+no, indeed! And she a born lady! That tells ye it's the duty of all
+women! She had her saying--'When the parlour fire gets low, put
+coals on the ketchen fire!' and a good saying it is to treasure.
+Such is man! no use in havin' their hearts if ye don't have their
+stomachs."
+
+Perceiving that she grew abstruse, Mrs. Berry added briskly: "You
+know nothing about that yet, my dear. Only mind me and mark me:
+don't neglect your cookery. Kissing don't last: cookery do!"
+
+Here, with an aphorism worthy a place in THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, she
+broke off to go posseting for her dear invalid. Lucy was quite well;
+very eager to be allowed to rise and be ready when the knock should
+come. Mrs. Berry, in her loving considerateness for the little
+bride, positively commanded her to lie down, and be quiet, and
+submit to be nursed and cherished. For Mrs. Berry well knew that ten
+minutes alone with the hero could only be had while the little bride
+was in that unattainable position.
+
+Thanks to her strategy, as she thought, her object was gained. The
+night did not pass before she learnt, from the hero's own mouth,
+that Mr. Richards, the father of the hero, and a stern lawyer, was
+averse to his union with this young lady he loved, because of a ward
+of his, heiress to an immense property, whom he desired his son to
+espouse; and because his darling Letitia was a Catholic--Letitia,
+the sole daughter of a brave naval officer deceased, and in the
+hands of a savage uncle, who wanted to sacrifice this beauty to a
+brute of a son. Mrs. Berry listened credulously to the emphatic
+narrative, and spoke to the effect that the wickedness of old people
+formed the excuse for the wildness of young ones. The ceremonious
+administration of oaths of secrecy and devotion over, she was
+enrolled in the hero's band, which now numbered three, and entered
+upon the duties with feminine energy, for there are no conspirators
+like women. Ripton's lieutenancy became a sinecure, his rank merely
+titular. He had never been married--he knew nothing about licences,
+except that they must be obtained, and were not difficult--he had
+not an idea that so many days' warning must be given to the
+clergyman of the parish where one of the parties was resident. How
+should he? All his forethought was comprised in the ring, and
+whenever the discussion of arrangements for the great event grew
+particularly hot and important, he would say, with a shrewd nod: "We
+mustn't forget the ring, you know, Mrs. Berry!" and the new member
+was only prevented by natural complacence from shouting: "Oh, drat
+ye! and your ring, too." Mrs. Berry had acted conspicuously in
+fifteen marriages, by banns, and by licence, and to have such an
+obvious requisite dinned in her ears was exasperating. They could
+not have contracted alliance with an auxiliary more invaluable, an
+authority so profound; and they acknowledged it to themselves. The
+hero marched like an automaton at her bidding; Lieutenant Thompson
+was rejoiced to perform services as errand-boy in the enterprise.
+
+"It's in hopes you'll be happier than me, I do it," said the devout
+and charitable Berry. "Marriages is made in heaven, they say; and if
+that's the case, I say they don't take much account of us below!"
+
+Her own woful experiences had been given to the hero in exchange for
+his story of cruel parents.
+
+Richard vowed to her that he would henceforth hold it a duty to hunt
+out the wanderer from wedded bonds, and bring him back bound and
+suppliant.
+
+"Oh, he'll come!" said Mrs. Berry, pursing prophetic wrinkles:
+"he'll come of his own accord. Never anywheres will he meet such a
+cook as Bessy Berry! And he know her value in his heart of hearts.
+And I do believe, when he do come, I shall be opening these arms to
+him again, and not slapping his impidence in the face--I'm that
+soft! I always was--in matrimony, Mr. Richards!"
+
+As when nations are secretly preparing for war, the docks and
+arsenals hammer night and day, and busy contractors measure time by
+inches, and the air hums around for leagues as it were myriads of
+bees, so the house and neighbourhood of the matrimonial soft one
+resounded in the heroic style, and knew little of the changes of
+light decreed by Creation. Mrs. Berry was the general of the hour.
+Down to Doctors' Commons she expedited the hero, instructing him how
+boldly to face the Law, and fib: for that the Law never could resist
+a fib and a bold face. Down the hero went, and proclaimed his
+presence. And lo! the Law danced to him its sedatest lovely
+bear's-dance. Think ye the Law less susceptible to him than flesh
+and blood? With a beautiful confidence it put the few familiar
+questions to him, and nodded to his replies: then stamped the bond,
+and took the fee. It must be an old vagabond at heart that can
+permit the irrevocable to go so cheap, even to a hero. For only mark
+him when he is petitioned by heroes and heroines to undo what he
+does so easily! That small archway of Doctors' Commons seems the eye
+of a needle, through which the lean purse has a way, somehow, of
+slipping more readily than the portly; but once through, all are
+camels alike, the lean purse an especially big camel. Dispensing
+tremendous marriage as it does, the Law can have no conscience.
+
+"I hadn't the slightest difficulty," said the exulting hero.
+
+"Of course not!" returns Mrs. Berry. "It's as easy, if ye're in
+earnest, as buying a plum bun."
+
+Likewise the ambassador of the hero went to claim the promise of the
+Church to be in attendance on a certain spot, on a certain day, and
+there hear oath of eternal fealty, and gird him about with all its
+forces: which the Church, receiving a wink from the Law,
+obsequiously engaged to do, for less than the price of a plum-cake.
+
+Meantime, while craftsmen and skilled women, directed by Mrs. Berry,
+were toiling to deck the day at hand, Raynham and Belthorpe
+slept,--the former soundly; and one day was as another to them.
+Regularly every morning a letter arrived from Richard to his father,
+containing observations on the phenomena of London; remarks (mainly
+cynical) on the speeches and acts of Parliament; and reasons for not
+having yet been able to call on the Grandisons. They were certainly
+rather monotonous and spiritless. The baronet did not complain. That
+cold dutiful tone assured him there was no internal trouble or
+distraction. "The letters of a healthful physique!" he said to Lady
+Blandish, with sure insight. Complacently he sat and smiled, little
+witting that his son's ordeal was imminent, and that his son's
+ordeal was to be his own. Hippias wrote that his nephew was killing
+him by making appointments which he never kept, and altogether
+neglecting him in the most shameless way, so that his ganglionic
+centre was in a ten times worse state than when he left Raynham. He
+wrote very bitterly, but it was hard to feel compassion for his
+offended stomach.
+
+On the other hand, young Tom Blaize was not forthcoming, and had
+despatched no tidings whatever. Farmer Blaize smoked his pipe
+evening after evening, vastly disturbed. London was a large
+place--young Tom might be lost in it, he thought; and young Tom had
+his weaknesses. A wolf at Belthorpe, he was likely to be a sheep in
+London, as yokels have proved. But what had become of Lucy? This
+consideration almost sent Farmer Blaize off to London direct, and
+he would have gone had not his pipe enlightened him. A young fellow
+might play truant and get into a scrape, but a young man and a young
+woman were sure to be heard of, _unless_ they were acting in
+complicity. Why, of course, young Tom had behaved like a man, the
+rascal! and married her outright there, while he had the chance. It
+was a long guess. Still it was the only reasonable way of accounting
+for his extraordinary silence, and therefore the farmer held to it
+that he had done the deed. He argued as modern men do who think the
+hero, the upsetter of ordinary calculations, is gone from us. So,
+after despatching a letter to a friend in town to be on the outlook
+for son Tom, he continued awhile to smoke his pipe, rather elated
+than not, and mused on the shrewd manner he should adopt when Master
+Honeymoon did appear.
+
+Toward the middle of the second week of Richard's absence, Tom
+Bakewell came to Raynham for Cassandra, and privately handed a
+letter to the Eighteenth Century, containing a request for money,
+and a round sum. The Eighteenth Century was as good as her word, and
+gave Tom a letter in return, enclosing a cheque on her bankers,
+amply providing to keep the heroic engine in motion at a moderate
+pace. Tom went back, and Raynham and Lobourne slept and dreamed not
+of the morrow. The System, wedded to Time, slept, and knew not how
+he had been outraged--anticipated by seven pregnant seasons. For
+Time had heard the hero swear to that legalizing instrument, and had
+also registered an oath. Ah me! venerable Hebrew Time! he is
+unforgiving. Half the confusion and fever of the world comes of this
+vendetta he declares against the hapless innocents who have once
+done him a wrong. They cannot escape him. They will never outlive
+it. The father of jokes, he is himself no joke; which it seems the
+business of men to discover.
+
+The days roll round. He is their servant now. Mrs. Berry has a new
+satin gown, a beautiful bonnet, a gold brooch, and sweet gloves,
+presented to her by the hero, wherein to stand by his bride at the
+altar to-morrow; and, instead of being an old wary hen, she is as
+much a chicken as any of the party, such has been the magic of these
+articles. Fathers she sees accepting the facts produced for them by
+their children; a world content to be carved out as it pleases the
+hero.
+
+At last Time brings the bridal eve, and is blest as a benefactor.
+The final arrangements are made; the bridegroom does depart; and
+Mrs. Berry lights the little bride to her bed. Lucy stops on the
+landing where there is an old clock eccentrically correct that
+night. 'Tis the palpitating pause before the gates of her
+transfiguration. Mrs. Berry sees her put her rosy finger on the ONE
+about to strike, and touch all the hours successively till she comes
+to the TWELVE that shall sound "Wife" in her ears on the morrow,
+moving her lips the while, and looking round archly solemn when she
+has done; and that sight so catches at Mrs. Berry's heart that, not
+guessing Time to be the poor child's enemy, she endangers her candle
+by folding Lucy warmly in her arms, whimpering, "Bless you for a
+darling! you innocent lamb! You shall be happy! You shall!"
+
+Old Time gazes grimly ahead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE OF THE FIRST
+
+
+Although it blew hard when Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, the passage of
+that river is commonly calm; calm as Acheron. So long as he gets his
+fare, the ferryman does not need to be told whom he carries: he
+pulls with a will, and heroes may be over in half-an-hour. Only when
+they stand on the opposite bank, do they see what a leap they have
+taken. The shores they have relinquished shrink to an infinite
+remoteness. There they have dreamed: here they must act. There lie
+youth and irresolution: here manhood and purpose. They are veritably
+in another land: a moral Acheron divides their life. Their memories
+scarce seem their own! The PHILOSOPHICAL GEOGRAPHY (about to be
+published) observes that each man has, one time or other, a little
+Rubicon--a clear or a foul water to cross. It is asked him: "Wilt
+thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind thee?" And "I will,"
+firmly pronounced, speeds him over. The above-named manuscript
+authority informs us, that by far the greater number of carcases
+rolled by this heroic flood to its sister stream below, are those of
+fellows who have repented their pledge, and have tried to swim back
+to the bank they have blotted out. For though every man of us may be
+a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day's march
+even: and who wonders that Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the
+features of the terrible Universal Fate to him? Fail before her,
+either in heart or in act, and lo, how the alluring loves in her
+visage wither and sicken to what it is modelled on! Be your Rubicon
+big or small, clear or foul, it is the same: you shall not return.
+On--or to Acheron!--I subscribe to that saying of THE PILGRIM'S
+SCRIP:
+
+"The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable: _but
+beware the little knowledge of one's self!_"
+
+Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal. Already
+the mists were stealing over the land he had left: his life was cut
+in two, and he breathed but the air that met his nostrils. His
+father, his father's love, his boyhood and ambition, were shadowy.
+His poetic dreams had taken a living attainable shape. He had a
+distincter impression of the Autumnal Berry and her household than
+of anything at Raynham. And yet the young man loved his father,
+loved his home: and I daresay Cæsar loved Rome: but whether he did
+or no, Cæsar when he killed the Republic was quite bald, and the
+hero we are dealing with is scarce beginning to feel his despotic
+moustache. Did he know what he was made of? Doubtless, nothing at
+all. But honest passion has an instinct that can be safer than
+conscious wisdom. He was an arrow drawn to the head, flying to the
+bow. His audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not strike him as
+in any way criminal; for he was perfectly sure that the winning and
+securing of Lucy would in the end be boisterously approved of, and
+in that case, were not the means justified? Not that he took trouble
+to argue thus, as older heroes and self-convicting villains are in
+the habit of doing, to deduce a clear conscience. Conscience and
+Lucy went together.
+
+It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the morning sun. One
+of those days when London embraces the prospect of summer, and
+troops forth all its babies. The pavement, the squares, the parks,
+were early alive with the cries of young Britain. Violet and
+primrose girls, and organ boys with military monkeys, and systematic
+bands very determined in tone if not in tune, filled the atmosphere,
+and crowned the blazing procession of omnibuses, freighted with
+business men, Cityward, where a column of reddish brown
+smoke,--blown aloft by the South-west, marked the scene of conflict
+to which these persistent warriors repaired. Richard had seen much
+of early London that morning. His plans were laid. He had taken care
+to ensure his personal liberty against accidents, by leaving his
+hotel and his injured uncle Hippias at sunrise. To-day or to-morrow
+his father was to arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell reported to
+him, was raging in town. Another day and she might be torn from him:
+but to-day this miracle of creation would be his, and then from
+those glittering banks yonder, let them summon him to surrender her
+who dared! The position of things looked so propitious that he
+naturally thought the powers waiting on love conspired in his
+behalf. And she, too--since she must cross this river, she had sworn
+to him to be brave, and do him honour, and wear the true gladness of
+her heart in her face. Without a suspicion of folly in his acts, or
+fear of results, Richard strolled into Kensington Gardens,
+breakfasting on the foreshadow of his great joy, now with a vision
+of his bride, now of the new life opening to him. Mountain masses of
+clouds, rounded in sunlight, swung up the blue. The flowering
+chestnut pavilions overhead rustled and hummed. A sound in his ears
+as of a banner unfolding in the joyful distance lulled him.
+
+He was to meet his bride at the church at a quarter past eleven. His
+watch said a quarter to ten. He strolled on beneath the long-stemmed
+trees toward the well dedicated to a saint obscure. Some people were
+drinking at the well. A florid lady stood by a younger one, who had
+a little silver mug half-way to her mouth, and evinced undisguised
+dislike to the liquor of the salutary saint.
+
+"Drink, child!" said the maturer lady. "That is only your second
+mug. I insist upon your drinking three full ones every morning we're
+in town. Your constitution positively requires iron!"
+
+"But, mama," the other expostulated, "it's so nasty. I shall be
+sick."
+
+"Drink!" was the harsh injunction. "Nothing to the German waters, my
+dear. Here, let me taste." She took the mug and gave it a flying
+kiss. "I declare I think it almost nice--not at all objectionable.
+Pray, taste it," she said to a gentleman standing below them to act
+as cup-bearer.
+
+An unmistakable cis-Rubicon voice replied: "Certainly, if it's good
+fellowship; though I confess I don't think mutual sickness a very
+engaging ceremony."
+
+Can one never escape from one's relatives? Richard ejaculated
+inwardly.
+
+Without a doubt those people were Mrs. Doria, Clare, and Adrian. He
+had them under his eyes.
+
+Clare, peeping up from her constitutional dose to make sure no man
+was near to see the possible consequence of it, was the first to
+perceive him. Her hand dropped.
+
+"Now, pray, drink, and do not fuss!" said Mrs. Doria.
+
+"Mama!" Clare gasped.
+
+Richard came forward and capitulated honourably, since retreat was
+out of the question. Mrs. Doria swam to meet him: "My own boy! My
+dear Richard!" profuse of exclamations. Clare shyly greeted him.
+Adrian kept in the background.
+
+"Why, we were coming for you to-day, Richard," said Mrs. Doria,
+smiling effusion; and rattled on, "We want another cavalier. This is
+delightful! My dear nephew! You have grown from a boy to a man. And
+there's down on his lip! And what brings you here at such an hour in
+the morning? Poetry, I suppose! Here, take my arm, child.--Clare!
+finish that mug and thank your cousin for sparing you the third. I
+always bring her, when we are by a chalybeate, to take the waters
+before breakfast. We have to get up at unearthly hours. Think, my
+dear boy! Mothers are sacrifices! And so you've been alone a
+fortnight with your agreeable uncle! A charming time of it you must
+have had! Poor Hippias! what may be his last nostrum?"
+
+"Nephew!" Adrian stretched his head round to the couple. "Doses of
+nephew taken morning and night fourteen days! And he guarantees that
+it shall destroy an iron constitution in a month."
+
+Richard mechanically shook Adrian's hand as he spoke.
+
+"Quite well, Ricky?"
+
+"Yes: well enough," Richard answered.
+
+"Well?" resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with him, while Clare
+and Adrian followed. "I really never saw you looking so handsome.
+There's something about your face--look at me--you needn't blush.
+You've grown to an Apollo. That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes
+you admirably--and those gloves, and that easy neck-tie. Your style
+is irreproachable, quite a style of your own! And nothing eccentric.
+You have the instinct of dress. Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as
+much as anything else. Boy!--you see, I can't forget old habits. You
+were a boy when I left, and now!--Do you see any change in him,
+Clare?" she turned half round to her daughter.
+
+"Richard is looking very well, mama," said Clare, glancing at him
+under her eyelids.
+
+"I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.--Take my arm, Richard.
+Are you afraid of your aunt? I want to get used to you. Won't it be
+pleasant, our being all in town together in the season? How fresh
+the Opera will be to you! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. You can come
+to the Forey's box when you like. We are staying with the Foreys
+close by here. I think it's a little too far out, you know; but they
+like the neighbourhood. This is what I have always said: Give him
+more liberty! Austin has seen it at last. How do you think Clare
+looking?"
+
+The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed his cousin
+hastily, and praised her looks.
+
+"Pale!" Mrs. Doria sighed.
+
+"Rather pale, aunt."
+
+"Grown very much--don't you think, Richard?"
+
+"Very tall girl indeed, aunt."
+
+"If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard! I'm sure I
+give her all the iron she can swallow, but that pallor still
+continues. I think she does not prosper away from her old
+companion. She was accustomed to look up to you, Richard"----
+
+"Did you get Ralph's letter, aunt?" Richard interrupted her.
+
+"Absurd!" Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. "The nonsense of a boy! Why
+did you undertake to forward such stuff?"
+
+"I'm certain he loves her," said Richard, in a serious way.
+
+The maternal eyes narrowed on him. "Life, my dear Richard, is a game
+of cross-purposes," she observed, dropping her fluency, and was
+rather angered to hear him laugh. He excused himself by saying that
+she spoke so like his father.
+
+"You breakfast with us," she freshened off again. "The Foreys wish
+to see you; the girls are dying to know you. Do you know, you have a
+reputation on account of that"--she crushed an intruding
+adjective--"System you were brought up on. You mustn't mind it. For
+my part, I think you look a credit to it. Don't be bashful with
+young women, mind! As much as you please with the old ones. You know
+how to behave among men. There you have your Drawing-room Guide! I'm
+sure I shall be proud of you. Am I not?"
+
+Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly.
+
+A benevolent idea struck Richard, that he might employ the minutes
+to spare, in pleading the case of poor Ralph; and, as he was drawn
+along, he pulled out his watch to note the precise number of minutes
+he could dedicate to this charitable office.
+
+"Pardon me," said Mrs. Doria. "You want manners, my dear boy. I
+think it never happened to me before that a man consulted his watch
+in my presence."
+
+Richard mildly replied that he had an engagement at a particular
+hour, up to which he was her servant.
+
+"Fiddlededee!" the vivacious lady sang. "Now I've got you, I mean to
+keep you. Oh! I've heard all about you. This ridiculous indifference
+that your father makes so much of! Why, of course, you wanted to see
+the world! A strong, healthy young man shut up all his life in a
+lonely house--no friends, no society, no amusements but those of
+rustics! Of course you were indifferent! Your intelligence and
+superior mind alone saved you from becoming a dissipated country
+boor.--Where are the others?"
+
+Clare and Adrian came up at a quick pace.
+
+"My damozel dropped something," Adrian explained.
+
+Her mother asked what it was.
+
+"Nothing, mama," said Clare, demurely, and they proceeded as before.
+
+Overborne by his aunt's fluency of tongue, and occupied in acute
+calculation of the flying minutes, Richard let many pass before he
+edged in a word for Ralph. When he did, Mrs. Doria stopped him
+immediately.
+
+"I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such rank
+idiotcy."
+
+"It's nothing of the kind, aunt."
+
+"The fancy of a boy."
+
+"He's not a boy. He's half-a-year older than I am!"
+
+"You silly child! The moment you fall in love, you all think
+yourselves men."
+
+"On my honour, aunt! I believe he loves her thoroughly."
+
+"Did he tell you so, child?"
+
+"Men don't speak openly of those things," said Richard.
+
+"Boys do," said Mrs. Doria.
+
+"But listen to me in earnest, aunt. I want you to be kind to Ralph.
+Don't drive him to--You may be sorry for it. Let him--do let him
+write to her, and see her. I believe women are as cruel as men in
+these things."
+
+"I never encourage absurdity, Richard."
+
+"What objection have you to Ralph, aunt?"
+
+"Oh, they're both good families. It's not that absurdity, Richard.
+It will be to his credit to remember that his first fancy wasn't a
+dairymaid." Mrs. Doria pitched her accent tellingly. It did not
+touch her nephew.
+
+"Don't you want Clare ever to marry?" He put the last point of
+reason to her.
+
+Mrs. Doria laughed. "I hope so, child. We must find some comfortable
+old gentleman for her."
+
+"What infamy!" mutters Richard.
+
+"And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her wedding, or eat a
+hearty breakfast--We don't dance at weddings now, and very properly.
+It's a horrid sad business, not to be treated with levity.--Is that
+his regiment?" she said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled
+gardens. "Tush, tush, child; Master Ralph will recover, as--hem!
+others have done. A little headache--you call it heartache--and up
+you rise again, looking better than ever. No doubt, to have a grain
+of sense forced into your brains, you poor dear children! must be
+painful. Girls suffer as much as boys, I assure you. More, for their
+heads are weaker, and their appetites less constant. Do I talk like
+your father now? Whatever makes the boy fidget at his watch so?"
+
+Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently.
+
+"I must go," he said.
+
+His face did not seem good for trifling. Mrs. Doria would trifle in
+spite.
+
+"Listen, Clare! Richard is going. He says he has an engagement. What
+possible engagement can a young man have at eleven o'clock in the
+morning?--unless it's to be married!" Mrs. Doria laughed at the
+ingenuity of her suggestion.
+
+"Is the church handy, Ricky?" said Adrian. "You can still give us
+half-an-hour if it is. The celibate hours strike at Twelve." And he
+also laughed in his fashion.
+
+"Won't you stay with us, Richard?" Clare asked. She blushed timidly,
+and her voice shook.
+
+Something indefinite--a sharp-edged thrill in the tones made the
+burning bridegroom speak gently to her.
+
+"Indeed, I would, Clare; I should like to please you, but I have a
+most imperative appointment--that is, I promised--I must go. I shall
+see you again"----
+
+Mrs. Doria took forcible possession of him. "Now, do come, and don't
+waste words. I insist upon your having some breakfast first, and
+then, if you really must go, you shall. Look! there's the house. At
+least you will accompany your aunt to the door."
+
+Richard conceded this. She little imagined what she required of him.
+Two of his golden minutes melted into nothingness. They were growing
+to be jewels of price, one by one more and more precious as they
+ran, and now so costly-rare--rich as his blood! not to kindest
+relations, dearest friends, could he give another. The die is cast!
+Ferryman! push off.
+
+"Good-bye!" he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as one, and fled.
+
+They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the grounds of the
+house. He looked like resolution on the march. Mrs. Doria, as usual
+with her out of her brother's hearing, began rating the System.
+
+"See what becomes of that nonsensical education! The boy really does
+not know how to behave like a common mortal. He has some paltry
+appointment, or is mad after some ridiculous idea of his own, and
+everything must be sacrificed to it! That's what Austin calls
+concentration of the faculties. I think it's more likely to lead to
+downright insanity than to greatness of any kind. And so I shall
+tell Austin. It's time he should be spoken to seriously about him."
+
+"He's an engine, my dear aunt," said Adrian. "He isn't a boy, or a
+man, but an engine. And he appears to have been at high pressure
+since he came to town--out all day and half the night."
+
+"He's mad!" Mrs. Doria interjected.
+
+"Not at all. Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and carries as open
+an eye ahead of him as the ships before Troy. He's more than a match
+for any of us. He is for me, I confess."
+
+"Then," said Mrs. Doria, "he does astonish me!"
+
+Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the right season,
+which would not be long arriving.
+
+Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the Foreys of their
+hopeful relative's ungracious behaviour. Clare had left them. When
+Mrs. Doria went to her room her daughter was there, gazing down at
+something in her hand, which she guiltily closed.
+
+In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take off her things,
+Clare said she was not hungry. Mrs. Doria lamented the obstinacy of
+a constitution that no quantity of iron could affect, and eclipsed
+the looking-glass, saying: "Take them off here, child, and learn to
+assist yourself."
+
+She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her spreading hair,
+talking of Richard, and his handsome appearance, and extraordinary
+conduct. Clare kept opening and shutting her hand, in an attitude
+half pensive, half-listless. She did not stir to undress. A joyous
+dimple hung in one pale cheek, and she drew long, even breaths.
+
+Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to show, came to
+her daughter.
+
+"Now, really," she said, "you are too helpless, my dear. You cannot
+do a thing without a dozen women at your elbow. What will become of
+you? You will have to marry a millionaire.--What's the matter with
+you, child?"
+
+Clare undid her tight-shut fingers, as if to some attraction of her
+eyes, and displayed a small gold hoop on the palm of a green glove.
+
+"A wedding-ring!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria, inspecting the curiosity
+most daintily.
+
+There on Clare's pale green glove lay a wedding-ring!
+
+Rapid questions as to where, when, how, it was found, beset Clare,
+who replied: "In the Gardens, mama. This morning. When I was walking
+behind Richard."
+
+"Are you sure he did not give it you, Clare?"
+
+"Oh no, mama! he did not give it me!"
+
+"Of course not! only he does such absurd things! I thought,
+perhaps--these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous!" Mrs. Doria had
+an idea that it might have been concerted between the two young
+gentlemen, Richard and Ralph, that the former should present this
+token of hymeneal devotion from the latter to the young lady of his
+love; but a moment's reflection, exonerated boys even from such
+preposterous behaviour.
+
+"Now, I wonder," she speculated on Clare's cold face, "I do wonder
+whether it's lucky to find a wedding-ring. What very quick eyes you
+have, my darling!" Mrs. Doria kissed her. She thought it must be
+lucky, and the circumstance made her feel tender to her child. Her
+child did not move to the kiss.
+
+"Let's see whether it fits," said Mrs. Doria, almost infantine with
+surprise and pleasure.
+
+Clare suffered her glove to be drawn off. The ring slid down her
+long thin finger, and settled comfortably.
+
+"It does!" Mrs. Doria whispered. To find a wedding-ring is open to
+any woman; but to find a wedding-ring that fits may well cause a
+superstitious emotion. Moreover, that it should be found while
+walking in the neighbourhood of the identical youth whom a mother
+has destined for her daughter, gives significance to the gentle
+perturbation of ideas consequent on such a hint from Fortune.
+
+"It really fits!" she pursued. "Now I never pay any attention to the
+nonsense of omens and that kind of thing" (had the ring been a
+horseshoe Mrs. Doria would have picked it up and dragged it
+obediently home), "but this, I must say, is odd--to find a ring that
+fits!--singular! It never happened to me. Sixpence is the most I
+ever discovered, and I have it now. Mind you keep it, Clare--this
+ring. And," she laughed, "offer it to Richard when he comes; say,
+you think he must have dropped it."
+
+The dimple in Clare's cheek quivered.
+
+Mother and daughter had never spoken explicitly of Richard. Mrs.
+Doria, by exquisite management, had contrived to be sure that on one
+side there would be no obstacle to her project of general happiness,
+without, as she thought, compromising her daughter's feelings
+unnecessarily. It could do no harm to an obedient young girl to hear
+that there was no youth in the world like a certain youth. He the
+prince of his generation, she might softly consent, when requested,
+to be his princess; and if never requested (for Mrs. Doria envisaged
+failure), she might easily transfer her softness to squires of lower
+degree. Clare had always been blindly obedient to her mother (Adrian
+called them Mrs. Doria Battledoria and the fair Shuttlecockiana),
+and her mother accepted in this blind obedience the text of her
+entire character. It is difficult for those who think very earnestly
+for their children to know when their children are thinking on their
+own account. The exercise of their volition we construe as revolt.
+Our love does not like to be invalided and deposed from its command,
+and here I think yonder old thrush on the lawn who has just kicked
+the last of her lank offspring out of the nest to go shift for
+itself, much the kinder of the two, though sentimental people do
+shrug their shoulders at these unsentimental acts of the creatures
+who never wander from nature. Now, excess of obedience is, to one
+who manages most exquisitely, as bad as insurrection. Happily Mrs.
+Doria saw nothing in her daughter's manner save a want of iron. Her
+pallor, her lassitude, the tremulous nerves in her face, exhibited
+an imperious requirement of the mineral.
+
+"The reason why men and women are mysterious to us, and prove
+disappointing," we learn from THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "is, that we will
+read them from our own book; just as we are perplexed by reading
+ourselves from theirs."
+
+Mrs. Doria read her daughter from her own book, and she was gay; she
+laughed with Adrian at the breakfast-table, and mock-seriously
+joined in his jocose assertion that Clare was positively and by all
+hymeneal auspices betrothed to the owner of that ring, be he who he
+may, and must, whenever he should choose to come and claim her, give
+her hand to him (for everybody agreed the owner must be masculine,
+as no _woman_ would drop a wedding-ring), and follow him whither he
+listed all the world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called
+Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian threw
+off the first strophe of Clare's fortune in burlesque rhymes, with
+an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt Forey warned her to have her
+dresses in readiness. Her grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at
+bridal presents being expected from grandpapas. This one smelt
+orange-flower, another spoke solemnly of an old shoe. The finding of
+a wedding-ring was celebrated through all the palpitating
+accessories and rosy ceremonies involved by that famous instrument.
+In the midst of the general hilarity, Clare showed her deplorable
+want of iron by bursting into tears.
+
+Did the poor mocked-at heart divine what might be then enacting?
+Perhaps, dimly, as we say: that is, without eyes.
+
+At an altar stand two fair young creatures, ready with their oaths.
+They are asked to fix all time to the moment, and they do so. If
+there is hesitation at the immense undertaking, it is but maidenly.
+She conceives as little mental doubt of the sanity of the act as he.
+Over them hangs a cool young curate in his raiment of office. Behind
+are two apparently lucid people, distinguished from each other by
+sex and age; the foremost a bunch of simmering black satin; under
+her shadow a cock-robin in the dress of a gentleman, big joy
+swelling out his chest, and pert satisfaction cocking his head.
+These be they who stand here in place of parents to the young
+couple. All is well. The service proceeds.
+
+Firmly the bridegroom tells forth his words. This hour of the
+complacent giant at least is his, and that he means to hold him
+bound through the eternities, men may hear. Clearly, and with brave
+modesty, speaks she: no less firmly, though her body trembles: her
+voice just vibrating while the tone travels on, like a smitten vase.
+
+Time hears sentence pronounced on him: the frail hands bind his huge
+limbs and lock the chains. He is used to it: he lets them do as they
+will.
+
+Then comes that period when they are to give their troth to each
+other. The Man with his right hand takes the Woman by her right
+hand: the Woman with her right hand takes the Man by his right
+hand.--Devils dare not laugh at whom Angels crowd to contemplate.
+
+Their hands are joined; their blood flows as one stream. Adam and
+fair Eve front the generations. Are they not lovely? Purer fountains
+of life were never in two bosoms.
+
+And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate doth bid the
+Man to put a ring on the Woman's fourth finger, counting thumb. And
+the Man thrusts his hand into one pocket, and into another, forward
+and back many times: into all his pockets. He remembers that he felt
+for it, and felt it in his waistcoat pocket, when in the Gardens.
+And his hand comes forth empty. And the Man is ghastly to look at!
+
+Yet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh! The curate
+deliberates. The black satin bunch ceases to simmer. He in her
+shadow changes from a beaming cock-robin to an inquisitive sparrow.
+Eyes multiply questions: lips have no reply. Time ominously shakes
+his chain, and in the pause a sound of mockery stings their ears.
+
+Think ye a hero is one to be defeated in his first battle? Look at
+the clock! there are but seven minutes to the stroke of the celibate
+hours: the veteran is surely lifting his two hands to deliver fire,
+and his shot will sunder them in twain so nearly united. All the
+jewellers of London speeding down with sacks full of the nuptial
+circlet cannot save them!
+
+The battle must be won on the field, and what does the hero now? It
+is an inspiration! For who else would dream of such a reserve in
+the rear? None see what he does; only that the black-satin bunch is
+remonstratingly agitated, stormily shaken, and subdued: and as
+though the menacing cloud had opened, and dropped the dear token
+from the skies at his demand, he produces the symbol of their
+consent, and the service proceeds: "With this ring I thee wed."
+
+They are prayed over and blest. For good, or for ill, this deed is
+done. The names are registered; fees fly right and left: they thank,
+and salute, the curate, whose official coolness melts into a smile
+of monastic gallantry: the beadle on the steps waves off a gaping
+world as they issue forth: bridegroom and bridesman recklessly
+scatter gold on him: carriage doors are banged to: the coachmen
+drive off, and the scene closes, everybody happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST
+
+
+And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she would dissolve to
+one of Dian's Virgin Fountains from the clasp of the Sun-God. She
+has nobly preserved the mask imposed by comedies, till the curtain
+has fallen, and now she weeps, streams with tears. Have patience, O
+impetuous young man! It is your profession to be a hero. This poor
+heart is new to it, and her duties involve such wild acts, such
+brigandage, such terrors and tasks, she is quite unnerved. She did
+you honour till now. Bear with her now. She does not cry the cry of
+ordinary maidens in like cases. While the struggle went on her
+tender face was brave; but alas! Omens are against her: she holds an
+ever-present dreadful one on that fatal fourth finger of hers, which
+has coiled itself round her dream of delight, and takes her in its
+clutch like a horrid serpent. And yet she must love it. She dares
+not part from it. She must love and hug it, and feed on its strange
+honey, and all the bliss it gives her casts all the deeper shadow on
+what is to come.
+
+Say: Is it not enough to cause feminine apprehension, for a woman to
+be married in another woman's ring?
+
+You are amazons, ladies, at Saragossa, and a thousand
+citadels--wherever there is strife, and Time is to be taken by the
+throat. Then shall few men match your sublime fury. But what if you
+see a vulture, visible only to yourselves, hovering over the house
+you are gaily led by the torch to inhabit? Will you not crouch and
+be cowards?
+
+As for the hero, in the hour of victory he pays no heed to omens. He
+does his best to win his darling to confidence by caresses. Is she
+not his? Is he not hers? And why, when the battle is won, does she
+weep? Does she regret what she has done?
+
+Oh, never! never! her soft blue eyes assure him, steadfast love seen
+swimming on clear depths of faith in them, through the shower.
+
+He is silenced by her exceeding beauty, and sits perplexed waiting
+for the shower to pass.
+
+Alone with Mrs. Berry, in her bedroom, Lucy gave tongue to her
+distress, and a second character in the comedy changed her face.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry! what has happened! what has happened!"
+
+"My darlin' child!" The bridal Berry gazed at the finger of doleful
+joy. "I'd forgot all about it! And that's what've made me feel so
+queer ever since, then! I've been seemin' as if I wasn't myself
+somehow, without my ring. Dear! dear! what a wilful young gentleman!
+We ain't a match for men in that state--Lord help us!"
+
+Mrs. Berry sat on the edge of a chair: Lucy on the edge of the bed.
+
+"What do you think of it, Mrs. Berry? Is it not terrible?"
+
+"I can't say I should'a liked it myself, my dear," Mrs. Berry
+candidly responded.
+
+"Oh! why, why, why did it happen!" the young bride bent to a flood
+of fresh tears, murmuring that she felt already old--forsaken.
+
+"Haven't you got a comfort in your religion for all accidents?" Mrs.
+Berry inquired.
+
+"None for this. I know it's wrong to cry when I am so happy. I hope
+he will forgive me."
+
+Mrs. Berry vowed her bride was the sweetest, softest, beautifulest
+thing in life.
+
+"I'll cry no more," said Lucy. "Leave me, Mrs. Berry, and come back
+when I ring."
+
+She drew forth a little silver cross, and fell upon her knees to the
+bed. Mrs. Berry left the room tiptoe.
+
+When she was called to return, Lucy was calm and tearless, and
+smiled kindly to her.
+
+"It's over now," she said.
+
+Mrs. Berry sedately looked for her ring to follow.
+
+"He does not wish me to go in to the breakfast you have prepared,
+Mrs. Berry. I begged to be excused. I cannot eat."
+
+Mrs. Berry very much deplored it, as she had laid out a superior
+nuptial breakfast, but with her mind on her ring she nodded
+assentingly.
+
+"We shall not have much packing to do, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"No, my dear. It's pretty well all done."
+
+"We are going to the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"And a very suitable spot ye've chose, my dear!"
+
+"He loves the sea. He wishes to be near it."
+
+"Don't ye cross to-night, if it's anyways rough, my dear. It isn't
+advisable." Mrs. Berry sank her voice to say, "Don't ye be soft and
+give way to him there, or you'll both be repenting it."
+
+Lucy had only been staving off the unpleasantness she had to speak.
+She saw Mrs. Berry's eyes pursuing her ring, and screwed up her
+courage at last.
+
+"Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"Mrs. Berry, you shall have another ring."
+
+"Another, my dear?" Berry did not comprehend. "One's quite enough
+for the objeck," she remarked.
+
+"I mean," Lucy touched her fourth finger, "I cannot part with this."
+She looked straight at Mrs. Berry.
+
+That bewildered creature gazed at her, and at the ring, till she had
+thoroughly exhausted the meaning of the words, and then exclaimed,
+horror-struck: "Deary me, now! you don't say that? You're to be
+married again in your own religion."
+
+The young wife repeated: "I can never part with it."
+
+"But, my dear!" the wretched Berry wrung her hands, divided between
+compassion and a sense of injury. "My dear!" she kept expostulating
+like a mute.
+
+"I know all that you would say, Mrs. Berry. I am very grieved to
+pain you. It is mine now, and must be mine. I cannot give it back."
+
+There she sat, suddenly developed to the most inflexible little
+heroine in the three Kingdoms.
+
+From her first perception of the meaning of the young bride's words,
+Mrs. Berry, a shrewd physiognomist, knew that her case was hopeless,
+unless she treated her as she herself had been treated, and seized
+the ring by force of arms; and that she had not heart for.
+
+"What!" she gasped faintly, "one's own lawful wedding-ring you
+wouldn't give back to a body?"
+
+"Because it is mine, Mrs. Berry. It was yours, but it is mine now.
+You shall have whatever you ask for but that. Pray, forgive me! It
+must be so."
+
+Mrs. Berry rocked on her chair, and sounded her hands together. It
+amazed her that this soft little creature could be thus firm. She
+tried argument.
+
+"Don't ye know, my dear, it's the fatalest thing you're inflictin'
+upon me, reelly! Don't ye know that bein' bereft of one's own lawful
+wedding-ring's the fatalest thing in life, and there's no prosperity
+after it! For what stands in place o' that, when that's gone, my
+dear? And what _could_ ye give me to compensate a body for the loss
+o' that! Don't ye know--Oh, deary me!" The little bride's face was
+so set that poor Berry wailed off in despair.
+
+"I know it," said Lucy. "I know it all. I know what I do to you.
+Dear, dear Mrs. Berry! forgive me! If I parted with my ring I know
+it would be fatal."
+
+So this fair young freebooter took possession of her argument as
+well as her ring.
+
+Berry racked her distracted wits for a further appeal.
+
+"But, my child," she counterargued, "you don't understand. It ain't
+as you think. It ain't a hurt to you now. Not a bit, it ain't. It
+makes no difference now! Any ring does while the wearer's a maid.
+And your Mr. Richard'll find the very ring he intended for ye. And,
+of course, that's the one you'll wear as his wife. It's all the same
+now, my dear. It's no shame to a maid. Now do--now do--there's a
+darlin'!"
+
+Wheedling availed as little as argument.
+
+"Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, "you know what my--he spoke: 'With this
+ring I thee wed.' It was with _this_ ring. Then how could it be with
+another?"
+
+Berry was constrained despondently to acknowledge that was logic.
+
+She hit upon an artful conjecture:
+
+"Won't it be unlucky your wearin' of the ring which served me so?
+Think o' that!"
+
+"It may! it may! it may!" cried Lucy.
+
+"And arn't you rushin' into it, my dear?"
+
+"Mrs. Berry," Lucy said again, "it was this ring. It cannot--it
+never can be another. It was this. What it brings me I must bear. I
+shall wear it till I die!"
+
+"Then what am _I_ to do?" the ill-used woman groaned. "What shall I
+tell my husband when he come back to me, and see I've got a new ring
+waitin' for him? Won't that be a welcome?"
+
+Quoth Lucy: "How can he know it is not the same, in a plain gold
+ring?"
+
+"You never see so keen a eyed man in joolry as my Berry!" returned
+his solitary spouse. "Not know, my dear? Why, any one would know
+that 've got eyes in his head. There's as much difference in
+wedding-rings as there's in wedding people! Now, do pray be
+reasonable, my own sweet!"
+
+"Pray, do not ask me," pleads Lucy.
+
+"Pray, do think better of it," urges Berry.
+
+"Pray, pray, Mrs. Berry!" pleads Lucy.
+
+"--And not leave your old Berry all forlorn just when you're so
+happy!"
+
+"Indeed I would not, you dear, kind old creature!" Lucy faltered.
+
+Mrs. Berry thought she had her.
+
+"Just when you're going to be the happiest wife on earth--all you
+want yours!" she pursued the tender strain. "A handsome young
+gentleman! Love and Fortune smilin' on ye!"----
+
+Lucy rose up.
+
+"Mrs. Berry," she said, "I think we must not lose time in getting
+ready, or he will be impatient."
+
+Poor Berry surveyed her in abject wonder from the edge of her
+chair. Dignity and resolve were in the ductile form she had hitherto
+folded under her wing. In an hour the heroine had risen to the
+measure of the hero. Without being exactly aware what creature she
+was dealing with, Berry acknowledged to herself it was not one of
+the common run, and sighed, and submitted.
+
+"It's like a divorce, that it is!" she sobbed.
+
+After putting the corners of her apron to her eyes, Berry bustled
+humbly about the packing. Then Lucy, whose heart was full to her,
+came and kissed her, and Berry bumped down and regularly cried. This
+over, she had recourse to fatalism.
+
+"I suppose it was to be, my dear! It's my punishment for meddlin'
+wi' such matters. No, I'm not sorry. Bless ye both. Who'd 'a thought
+you was so wilful?--you that any one might have taken for one of the
+silly-softs! You're a pair, my dear! indeed you are! You was made to
+meet! But we mustn't show him we've been crying.--Men don't like it
+when they're happy. Let's wash our faces and try to bear our lot."
+
+So saying the black-satin bunch careened to a renewed deluge. She
+deserved some sympathy, for if it is sad to be married in another
+person's ring, how much sadder to have one's own old accustomed
+lawful ring violently torn off one's finger and eternally severed
+from one! But where you have heroes and heroines, these terrible
+complications ensue.
+
+They had now both fought their battle of the ring, and with equal
+honour and success.
+
+In the chamber of banquet Richard was giving Ripton his last
+directions. Though it was a private wedding, Mrs. Berry had prepared
+a sumptuous breakfast. Chickens offered their breasts: pies hinted
+savoury secrets: things mystic, in a mash, with Gallic appellatives,
+jellies, creams, fruits, strewed the table: as a tower in the midst,
+the cake colossal: the priestly vesture of its nuptial white
+relieved by hymeneal splendours.
+
+Many hours, much labour and anxiety of mind, Mrs. Berry had expended
+upon this breakfast, and why? There is one who comes to all feasts
+that have their basis in Folly, whom criminals of trained instinct
+are careful to provide against: who will speak, and whose hateful
+voice must somehow be silenced while the feast is going on. This
+personage is THE PHILOSOPHER. Mrs. Berry knew him. She knew that he
+would come. She provided against him in the manner she thought most
+efficacious: that is, by cheating her eyes and intoxicating her
+conscience with the due and proper glories incident to weddings
+where fathers dilate, mothers collapse, and marriage settlements are
+flourished on high by the family lawyer: and had there been no show
+of the kind to greet her on her return from the church, she would,
+and she foresaw she would, have stared at squalor and emptiness, and
+repented her work. The Philosopher would have laid hold of her by
+the ear, and called her bad names. Entrenched behind a breakfast-table
+so legitimately adorned, Mrs. Berry defied him. In the presence of
+that cake he dared not speak above a whisper. And there were wines
+to drown him in, should he still think of protesting; fiery wines, and
+cool: claret sent purposely by the bridegroom for the delectation of
+his friend.
+
+For one good hour, therefore, the labour of many hours kept him
+dumb. Ripton was fortifying himself so as to forget him altogether,
+and the word as well, till the next morning. Ripton was excited,
+overdone with delight. He had already finished one bottle, and
+listened, pleasantly flushed, to his emphatic and more abstemious
+chief. He had nothing to do but to listen, and to drink. The hero
+would not allow him to shout Victory! or hear a word of toasts; and
+as, from the quantity of oil poured on it, his eloquence was
+becoming a natural force in his bosom, the poor fellow was afflicted
+with a sort of elephantiasis of suppressed emotion. At times he
+half-rose from his chair, and fell vacuously into it again; or he
+chuckled in the face of weighty, severely-worded instructions;
+tapped his chest, stretched his arms, yawned, and in short behaved
+so singularly that Richard observed it, and said: "On my soul, I
+don't think you know a word I'm saying."
+
+"Every word, Ricky!" Ripton spirted through the opening. "I'm going
+down to your governor, and tell him: Sir Austin! Here's your only
+chance of being a happy father--no, no!--Oh! don't you fear me,
+Ricky! I shall talk the old gentleman over."
+
+His chief said:
+
+"Look here. You had better not go down to-night. Go down the first
+thing to-morrow, by the six o'clock train. Give him my letter.
+Listen to me--give him my letter, and don't speak a word till he
+speaks. His eyebrows will go up and down, he won't say much. I know
+him. If he asks you about her, don't be a fool, but say what you
+think of her sensibly"----
+
+No cork could hold in Ripton when she was alluded to He shouted:
+"She's an angel!"
+
+Richard checked him: "Speak sensibly, I say--quietly. You can say
+how gentle and good she is--my fleur-de-luce! And say, this was not
+her doing. If any one's to blame, it's I. I made her marry me. Then
+go to Lady Blandish, if you don't find her at the house. You may say
+whatever you please to her. Give her my letter, and tell her I want
+to hear from her immediately. She has seen Lucy, and I know what she
+thinks of her. You will then go to Farmer Blaize. I told you Lucy
+happens to be his niece--she has not lived long there. She lived
+with her aunt Desborough in France while she was a child, and can
+hardly be called a relative to the farmer--there's not a point of
+likeness between them. Poor darling! she never knew her mother. Go
+to Mr. Blaize, and tell him. You will treat him just as you would
+treat any other gentleman. If you are civil, he is sure to be. And
+if he abuses me, for my sake and hers you will still treat him with
+respect. You hear? And then write me a full account of all that has
+been said and done. You will have my address the day after
+to-morrow. By the way, Tom will be here this afternoon. Write out
+for him where to call on you the day after to-morrow, in case you
+have heard anything in the morning you think I ought to know at
+once, as Tom will join me that night. Don't mention to anybody about
+my losing the ring, Ripton. I wouldn't have Adrian get hold of that
+for a thousand pounds. How on earth I came to lose it! How well she
+bore it, Rip! How beautifully she behaved!"
+
+Ripton again shouted: "An angel!" Throwing up the heels of his
+second bottle, he said:
+
+"You may trust your friend, Richard. Aha! when you pulled at old
+Mrs. Berry I didn't know what was up. I do wish you'd let me drink
+her health?"
+
+"Here's to Penelope!" said Richard, just wetting his mouth. The
+carriage was at the door: a couple of dire organs, each grinding the
+same tune, and a vulture-scented itinerant band (from which not the
+secretest veiled wedding can escape) worked harmoniously without in
+the production of discord, and the noise acting on his nervous state
+made him begin to fume and send in messages for his bride by the
+maid.
+
+By and by the lovely young bride presented herself dressed for her
+journey, and smiling from stained eyes.
+
+Mrs. Berry was requested to drink some wine, which Ripton poured out
+for her, enabling Mrs. Berry thereby to measure his condition.
+
+The bride now kissed Mrs. Berry, and Mrs. Berry kissed the
+bridegroom, on the plea of her softness. Lucy gave Ripton her hand,
+with a musical "Good-bye, Mr. Thompson," and her extreme
+graciousness made him just sensible enough to sit down before he
+murmured his fervent hopes for her happiness.
+
+"I shall take good care of him," said Mrs. Berry, focussing her eyes
+to the comprehension of the company.
+
+"Farewell, Penelope!" cried Richard. "I shall tell the police
+everywhere to look out for your lord."
+
+"Oh my dears! good-bye, and Heaven bless ye both!"
+
+Berry quavered, touched with compunction at the thoughts of
+approaching loneliness. Ripton, his mouth drawn like a bow to his
+ears, brought up the rear to the carriage, receiving a fair slap on
+the cheek from an old shoe precipitated by Mrs. Berry's enthusiastic
+female domestic.
+
+White handkerchiefs were waved, the adieux had fallen to signs: they
+were off. Then did a thought of such urgency illumine Mrs. Berry,
+that she telegraphed, hand in air, awakening Ripton's lungs, for the
+coachman to stop, and ran back to the house. Richard chafed to be
+gone, but at his bride's intercession he consented to wait.
+Presently they beheld the old black-satin bunch stream through the
+street-door, down the bit of garden, and up the astonished street,
+halting, panting, capless at the carriage door, a book in her
+hand,--a much-used, dog-leaved, steamy, greasy book, which, at the
+same time calling out in breathless jerks, "There! never ye mind
+looks! I ain't got a new one. Read it, and don't ye forget it!" she
+discharged into Lucy's lap, and retreated to the railings, a signal
+for the coachman to drive away for good.
+
+How Richard laughed at the Berry's bridal gift! Lucy, too, lost the
+omen at her heart as she glanced at the title of the volume. It was
+Dr. Kitchener on Domestic Cookery!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON
+
+
+General withdrawing of heads from street-windows, emigration of
+organs and bands, and a relaxed atmosphere in the circle of Mrs.
+Berry's abode, proved that Dan Cupid had veritably flown to suck the
+life of fresh regions. With a pensive mind she grasped Ripton's arm
+to regulate his steps, and returned to the room where her creditor
+awaited her. In the interval he had stormed her undefended fortress,
+the cake, from which altitude he shook a dolorous head at the guilty
+woman. She smoothed her excited apron, sighing. Let no one imagine
+that she regretted her complicity. She was ready to cry torrents,
+but there must be absolute castigation before this criminal shall
+conceive the sense of regret; and probably then she will cling to
+her wickedness the more--such is the born Pagan's tenacity! Mrs.
+Berry sighed, and gave him back his shake of the head. O you wanton,
+improvident creature! said he. O you very wise old gentleman! said
+she. He asked her the thing she had been doing. She enlightened him
+with the fatalist's reply. He sounded a bogey's alarm of contingent
+grave results. She retreated to the entrenched camp of the fact she
+had helped to make.
+
+"It's done!" she exclaimed. How could she regret what she felt
+comfort to know was done? Convinced that events alone could stamp a
+mark on such stubborn flesh, he determined to wait for them, and
+crouched silent on the cake, with one finger downward at Ripton's
+incision there, showing a crumbling chasm and gloomy rich recess.
+
+The eloquent indication was understood. "Dear! dear!" cried Mrs.
+Berry, "what a heap o' cake, and no one to send it to!"
+
+Ripton had resumed his seat by the table and his embrace of the
+claret. Clear ideas of satisfaction had left him and resolved to a
+boiling geysir of indistinguishable transports. He bubbled, and
+waggled, and nodded amicably to nothing, and successfully, though
+not without effort, preserved his uppermost member from the
+seductions of the nymph, Gravitation, who was on the look-out for
+his whole length shortly.
+
+"Ha! ha!" he shouted, about a minute after Mrs. Berry had spoken,
+and almost abandoned himself to the nymph on the spot. Mrs. Berry's
+words had just reached his wits.
+
+"Why do you laugh, young man?" she inquired, familiar and motherly
+on account of his condition.
+
+Ripton laughed louder, and caught his chest on the edge of the table
+and his nose on a chicken. "That's goo'!" he said, recovering, and
+rocking under Mrs. Berry's eyes. "No friend!"
+
+"I did not say, no friend," she remarked. "I said, no one; meanin',
+I know not where for to send it to."
+
+Ripton's response to this was: "You put a Griffin on that cake.
+Wheatsheaves each side."
+
+"His crest?" Mrs. Berry said sweetly.
+
+"Oldest baronetcy 'n England!" waved Ripton.
+
+"Yes?" Mrs. Berry encouraged him on.
+
+"You think he's Richards. We're oblige' be very close. And she's the
+most lovely!--If I hear man say thing 'gainst her."
+
+"You needn't for to cry over her, young man," said Mrs. Berry. "I
+wanted for to drink their right healths by their right names, and
+then go about my day's work, and I do hope you won't keep me."
+
+Ripton stood bolt upright at her words.
+
+"You do?" he said, and filling a bumper he with cheerfully vinous
+articulation and glibness of tongue proposed the health of Richard
+and Lucy Feverel, of Raynham Abbey! and that mankind should not
+require an expeditious example of the way to accept the inspiring
+toast, he drained his bumper at a gulp. It finished him. The
+farthing rushlight of his reason leapt and expired. He tumbled to
+the sofa and there stretched.
+
+Some minutes subsequent to Ripton's signalization of his devotion to
+the bridal pair, Mrs. Berry's maid entered the room to say that a
+gentleman was inquiring below after the young gentleman who had
+departed, and found her mistress with a tottering wineglass in her
+hand, exhibiting every symptom of unconsoled hysterics. Her mouth
+gaped, as if the fell creditor had her by the swallow. She
+ejaculated with horrible exultation that she had been and done it,
+as her disastrous aspect seemed to testify, and her evident, but
+inexplicable, access of misery induced the sympathetic maid to
+tender those caressing words that were all Mrs. Berry wanted to go
+off into the self-caressing fit without delay; and she had already
+given the preluding demoniac ironic outburst, when the maid called
+heaven to witness that the gentleman would hear her; upon which Mrs.
+Berry violently controlled her bosom, and ordered that he should be
+shown upstairs instantly to see her the wretch she was. She repeated
+the injunction.
+
+The maid did as she was told, and Mrs. Berry, wishing first to see
+herself as she was, mutely accosted the looking-glass, and tried to
+look a very little better. She dropped a shawl on Ripton and was
+settled, smoothing her agitation when her visitor was announced.
+
+The gentleman was Adrian Harley. An interview with Tom Bakewell had
+put him on the track, and now a momentary survey of the table, and
+its white-vestured cake, made him whistle.
+
+Mrs. Berry plaintively begged him to do her the favour to be seated.
+
+"A fine morning, ma'am," said Adrian.
+
+"It have been!" Mrs. Berry answered, glancing over her shoulder at
+the window, and gulping as if to get her heart down from her mouth.
+
+"A very fine Spring," pursued Adrian, calmly anatomizing her
+countenance.
+
+Mrs. Berry smothered an adjective to "weather" on a deep sigh. Her
+wretchedness was palpable. In proportion to it, Adrian waxed
+cheerful and brisk. He divined enough of the business to see that
+there was some strange intelligence to be fished out of the culprit
+who sat compressing hysterics before him; and as he was never more
+in his element than when he had a sinner, and a repentant prostrate
+abject sinner in hand, his affable countenance might well deceive
+poor Berry.
+
+"I presume these are Mr. Thompson's lodgings?" he remarked, with a
+look at the table.
+
+Mrs. Berry's head and the whites of her eyes informed him that they
+were not Mr. Thompson's lodgings.
+
+"No?" said Adrian, and threw a carelessly inquisitive eye about him.
+"Mr. Feverel is out, I suppose?"
+
+A convulsive start at the name, and two corroborating hands dropped
+on her knees, formed Mrs. Berry's reply.
+
+"Mr. Feverel's man," continued Adrian, "told me I should be certain
+to find him here. I thought he would be with his friend, Mr.
+Thompson. I'm too late, I perceive. Their entertainment is over. I
+fancy you have been having a party of them here, ma'am?--a
+bachelors' breakfast!"
+
+In the presence of that cake this observation seemed to mask an
+irony so shrewd that Mrs. Berry could barely contain herself. She
+felt she must speak. Making her face as deplorably propitiating as
+she could, she began:
+
+"Sir, may I beg for to know your name?"
+
+Mr. Harley accorded her request.
+
+Groaning in the clutch of a pitiless truth, she continued:
+
+"And you are Mr. Harley, that was--oh! and you've come for Mr.?"----
+
+Mr. Richard Feverel was the gentleman Mr. Harley had come for.
+
+"Oh! and it's no mistake, and he's of Raynham Abbey?" Mrs. Berry
+inquired.
+
+Adrian, very much amused, assured her that he was born and bred
+there.
+
+"His father's Sir Austin?" wailed the black-satin bunch from behind
+her handkerchief.
+
+Adrian verified Richard's descent.
+
+"Oh, then, what have I been and done!" she cried, and stared blankly
+at her visitor. "I been and married my baby! I been and married the
+bread out of my own mouth. O Mr. Harley! Mr. Harley! I knew you when
+you was a boy that big, and wore jackets; and all of you. And it's
+my softness that's my ruin, for I never can resist a man's asking.
+Look at that cake, Mr. Harley!"
+
+Adrian followed her directions quite coolly. "Wedding-cake, ma'am!"
+he said.
+
+"Bride-cake it is, Mr. Harley!"
+
+"Did you make it yourself, ma'am?"
+
+The quiet ease of the question overwhelmed Mrs. Berry, and upset
+that train of symbolic representations by which she was seeking to
+make him guess the catastrophe and spare her the furnace of
+confession.
+
+"I did not make it myself, Mr. Harley," she replied. "It's a bought
+cake, and I'm a lost woman. Little I dreamed when I had him in my
+arms a baby that I should some day be marrying him out of my own
+house! I little dreamed that! Oh, why did he come to me! Don't you
+remember his old nurse, when he was a baby in arms, that went away
+so sudden, and no fault of hers, Mr. Harley! The very mornin' after
+the night you got into Mr. Benson's cellar, and got so tipsy on his
+Madeary I remember it as clear as yesterday!--and Mr. Benson was
+that angry he threatened to use the whip to you, and I helped put
+you to bed. I'm that very woman."
+
+Adrian smiled placidly at these reminiscences of his guileless
+youthful life.
+
+"Well, ma'am! well?" he said. He would bring her to the furnace.
+
+"Won't you see it all, kind sir?" Mrs. Berry appealed to him in
+pathetic dumb show.
+
+Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was mentally
+cursing at Folly, and reckoning the immediate consequences, but he
+looked uninstructed, his peculiar dimple-smile was undisturbed, his
+comfortable full-bodied posture was the same. "Well, ma'am?" he
+spurred her on.
+
+Mrs. Berry burst forth: "It were done this mornin', Mr. Harley, in
+the church, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to, by
+licence."
+
+Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matrimony. "Oh!" he
+said, like one who is as hard as facts, and as little to be moved:
+"Somebody was married this morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr.
+Feverel?"
+
+Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl from him,
+saying: "Do he look like a new married bridegroom, Mr. Harley?"
+
+Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic gravity.
+
+"This young gentleman was at church this morning?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, quite reasonable and proper then," Mrs. Berry begged him to
+understand.
+
+"Of course, ma'am." Adrian lifted and let fall the stupid inanimate
+limbs of the gone wretch, puckering his mouth queerly. "You were all
+reasonable and proper, ma'am. The principal male performer, then, is
+my cousin, Mr. Feverel? He was married by you, this morning, by
+licence at your parish church, and came here, and ate a hearty
+breakfast, and left intoxicated."
+
+Mrs. Berry flew out. "He never drink a drop, sir. A more moderate
+young gentleman you never see. Oh! don't ye think that now, Mr.
+Harley. He was as upright and master of his mind as you be."
+
+"Ay!" the wise youth nodded thanks to her for the comparison, "I
+mean the other form of intoxication."
+
+Mrs. Berry sighed. She could say nothing on that score.
+
+Adrian desired her to sit down, and compose herself, and tell him
+circumstantially what had been done.
+
+She obeyed, in utter perplexity at his perfectly composed demeanour.
+
+Mrs. Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than that
+identical woman who once in old days had dared to behold the baronet
+behind his mask, and had ever since lived in exile from the Raynham
+world on a little pension regularly paid to her as an indemnity. She
+was that woman, and the thought of it made her almost accuse
+Providence for the betraying excess of softness it had endowed her
+with. How was she to recognize her baby grown a man? He came in a
+feigned name; not a word of the family was mentioned. He came like
+an ordinary mortal, though she felt something more than ordinary to
+him--she knew she did. He came bringing a beautiful young lady, and
+on what grounds could she turn her back on them? Why, seeing that
+all was chaste and legal, why _should_ she interfere to make them
+unhappy--so few the chances of happiness in this world! Mrs. Berry
+related the seizure of her ring.
+
+"One wrench," said the sobbing culprit, "one, and my ring was off!"
+
+She had no suspicions, and the task of writing her name in the
+vestry-book had been too enacting for a thought upon the other
+signatures.
+
+"I daresay you were exceedingly sorry for what you had done," said
+Adrian.
+
+"Indeed, sir," moaned Berry, "I were, and am."
+
+"And would do your best to rectify the mischief--eh, ma'am?"
+
+"Indeed, and indeed, sir, I would," she protested solemnly.
+
+"--As, of course, you should--knowing the family. Where may these
+lunatics have gone to spend the Moon?"
+
+Mrs. Berry swimmingly replied: "To the Isle----I don't quite know,
+sir!" she snapped the indication short, and jumped out of the pit
+she had fallen into. Repentant as she might be, those dears should
+not be pursued and cruelly balked of their young bliss! "To-morrow,
+if you please, Mr. Harley: not to-day!"
+
+"A pleasant spot," Adrian observed, smiling at his easy prey.
+
+By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom had
+brought his bride to the house on the day he had quitted Raynham,
+and this was enough to satisfy Adrian's mind that there had been
+concoction and chicanery. Chance, probably, had brought him to the
+old woman: chance certainly had not brought him to the young one.
+
+"Very well, ma'am," he said, in answer to her petitions for his
+favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her little pension
+and the bridal pair, "I will tell him you were only a blind agent in
+the affair, being naturally soft, and that you trust he will bless
+the consummation. He will be in town to-morrow morning; but one of
+you two must see him to-night. An emetic kindly administered will
+set our friend here on his legs. A bath and a clean shirt, and he
+might go. I don't see why your name should appear at all. Brush him
+up, and send him to Bellingham by the seven o'clock train. He will
+find his way to Raynham; he knows the neighbourhood best in the
+dark. Let him go and state the case. Remember, one of you must go."
+
+With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition between
+the couple of unfortunates, for them to fight and lose all their
+virtue over, Adrian said, "Good morning."
+
+Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. "You won't refuse a piece of his
+cake, Mr. Harley?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no, ma'am," Adrian turned to the cake with alacrity. "I
+shall claim a very large piece. Richard has a great many friends who
+will rejoice to eat his wedding-cake. Cut me a fair quarter, Mrs.
+Berry. Put it in paper, if you please. I shall be delighted to carry
+it to them, and apportion it equitably according to their several
+degrees of relationship."
+
+Mrs. Berry cut the cake. Somehow, as she sliced through it, the
+sweetness and hapless innocence of the bride was presented to her,
+and she launched into eulogies of Lucy, and clearly showed how
+little she regretted her conduct. She vowed that they seemed made
+for each other; that both were beautiful; both had spirit; both were
+innocent; and to part them, or make them unhappy, would be, Mrs.
+Berry wrought herself to cry aloud, oh, such a pity!
+
+Adrian listened to it as the expression of a matter-of-fact opinion.
+He took the huge quarter of cake, nodded multitudinous promises, and
+left Mrs. Berry to bless his good heart.
+
+"So dies the System!" was Adrian's comment in the street. "And now
+let prophets roar! He dies respectably in a marriage-bed, which is
+more than I should have foretold of the monster. Meantime," he gave
+the cake a dramatic tap, "I'll go sow nightmares."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+PROCESSION OF THE CAKE
+
+
+Adrian really bore the news he had heard with creditable
+disinterestedness, and admirable repression of anything beneath the
+dignity of a philosopher. When one has attained that felicitous
+point of wisdom from which one sees all mankind to be fools, the
+diminutive objects may make what new moves they please, one does not
+marvel at them: their sedateness is as comical as their frolic, and
+their frenzies more comical still. On this intellectual eminence the
+wise youth had built his castle, and he had lived in it from an
+early period. Astonishment never shook the foundations, nor did envy
+of greater heights tempt him to relinquish the security of his
+stronghold, for he saw none. Jugglers he saw running up ladders that
+overtopped him, and air-balloons scaling the empyrean; but the
+former came precipitately down again, and the latter were at the
+mercy of the winds; while he remained tranquil on his solid
+unambitious ground, fitting his morality to the laws, his conscience
+to his morality, his comfort to his conscience. Not that voluntarily
+he cut himself off from his fellows: on the contrary, his sole
+amusement was their society. Alone he was rather dull, as a man who
+beholds but one thing must naturally be. Study of the animated
+varieties of that one thing excited him sufficiently to think life a
+pleasant play; and the faculties he had forfeited to hold his
+elevated position he could serenely enjoy by contemplation of them
+in others. Thus:--wonder at Master Richard's madness: though he
+himself did not experience it, he was eager to mark the effect on
+his beloved relatives. As he carried along his vindictive hunch of
+cake, he shaped out their different attitudes of amaze,
+bewilderment, horror; passing by some personal chagrin in the
+prospect. For his patron had projected a journey, commencing with
+Paris, culminating on the Alps, and lapsing in Rome: a delightful
+journey to show Richard the highways of History and tear him from
+the risk of further ignoble fascinations, that his spirit might be
+altogether bathed in freshness and revived. This had been planned
+during Richard's absence to surprise him.
+
+Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of woman is to
+the race of young men. It supplanted that foolishness. It was his
+Romance, as we say; that buoyant anticipation on which in youth we
+ride the airs, and which, as we wax older and too heavy for our
+atmosphere, hardens to the Hobby, which, if an obstinate animal, is
+a safer horse, and conducts man at a slower pace to the sexton.
+Adrian had never travelled. He was aware that his romance was
+earthly and had discomforts only to be evaded by the one potent
+talisman possessed by his patron. His Alp would hardly be grand to
+him without an obsequious landlord in the foreground: he must
+recline on Mammon's imperial cushions in order to moralize
+becomingly on the ancient world. The search for pleasure at the
+expense of discomfort, as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to
+partake the shelter of a hut and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed
+the bitterness of beggarliness. Let his sweet mistress be given him
+in the pomp and splendour due to his superior emotions, or not at
+all. Consequently the wise youth had long nursed an ineffectual
+passion, and it argued a great nature in him, that at the moment
+when his wishes were to be crowned, he should look with such slight
+touches of spleen at the gorgeous composite fabric of Parisian
+cookery and Roman antiquities crumbling into unsubstantial mockery.
+Assuredly very few even of the philosophers would have turned away
+uncomplainingly to meaner delights the moment after.
+
+Hippias received the first portion of the cake.
+
+He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading. He had fought
+down his breakfast with more than usual success, and was looking
+forward to his dinner at the Foreys' with less than usual timidity.
+
+"Ah! glad you've come, Adrian," he said, and expanded his chest. "I
+was afraid I should have to ride down. This is kind of you. We'll
+walk down together through the park. It's absolutely dangerous to
+walk alone in these streets. My opinion is, that orange-peel lasts
+all through the year now, and will till legislation puts a stop to
+it. I give you my word I slipped on a piece of orange-peel yesterday
+afternoon in Piccadilly, and I thought I was down! I saved myself by
+a miracle."
+
+"You have an appetite, I hope?" asked Adrian.
+
+"I think I shall get one, after a bit of a walk," chirped Hippias.
+"Yes. I think I feel hungry now."
+
+"Charmed to hear it," said Adrian, and began unpinning his parcel on
+his knees. "How should you define Folly?" he checked the process to
+inquire.
+
+"Hm!" Hippias meditated; he prided himself on being oracular when
+such questions were addressed to him. "I think I should define it to
+be a slide."
+
+"Very good definition. In other words, a piece of orange-peel; once
+on it, your life and limbs are in danger, and you are saved by a
+miracle. You must present that to the PILGRIM. And the monument of
+folly, what would that be?"
+
+Hippias meditated anew. "All the human race on one another's
+shoulders." He chuckled at the sweeping sourness of the instance.
+
+"Very good," Adrian applauded, "or in default of that, some symbol
+of the thing, say; such as this of which I have here brought you a
+chip."
+
+Adrian displayed the quarter of the cake.
+
+"This is the monument made portable--eh?"
+
+"Cake!" cried Hippias, retreating to his chair to dramatize his
+intense disgust. "You're right of them that eat it. If I--if I don't
+mistake," he peered at it, "the noxious composition bedizened in
+that way is what they call wedding-cake. It's arrant poison! Who is
+it you want to kill? What are you carrying such stuff about for?"
+
+Adrian rang the bell for a knife. "To present you with your due and
+proper portion. You will have friends and relatives, and can't be
+saved from them, not even by miracle. It is a habit which exhibits,
+perhaps, the unconscious inherent cynicism of the human mind, for
+people who consider that they have reached the acme of mundane
+felicity, to distribute this token of esteem to their friends, with
+the object probably" (he took the knife from a waiter and went to
+the table to slice the cake) "of enabling those friends (these
+edifices require very delicate incision--each particular currant and
+subtle condiment hangs to its neighbour--a wedding-cake is evidently
+the most highly civilized of cakes, and partakes of the evils as
+well as the advantages of civilization!)--I was saying, they send us
+these love-tokens, no doubt (we shall have to weigh out the crumbs,
+if each is to have his fair share) that we may the better estimate
+their state of bliss by passing some hours in purgatory. This, as
+far as I can apportion it without weights and scales, is your share,
+my uncle!"
+
+He pushed the corner of the table bearing the cake towards Hippias.
+
+"Get away!" Hippias vehemently motioned, and started from his chair.
+"I'll have none of it, I tell you! It's death! It's fifty times
+worse than that beastly compound Christmas pudding! What fool has
+been doing this, then? Who dares send me cake? Me! It's an insult."
+
+"You are not compelled to eat any before dinner," said Adrian,
+pointing the corner of the table after him, "but your share you must
+take, and appear to consume. One who has done so much to bring about
+the marriage cannot in conscience refuse his allotment of the
+fruits. Maidens, I hear, first cook it under their pillows, and
+extract nuptial dreams therefrom--said to be of a lighter class,
+taken that way. It's a capital cake, and, upon my honour, you have
+helped to make it--you have indeed! So here it is."
+
+The table again went at Hippias. He ran nimbly round it, and flung
+himself on a sofa exhausted, crying: "There!... My appetite's gone
+for to-day!"
+
+"Then shall I tell Richard that you won't touch a morsel of his
+cake?" said Adrian, leaning on his two hands over the table and
+looking at his uncle.
+
+"Richard?"
+
+"Yes, your nephew: my cousin: Richard! Your companion since you've
+been in town. He's married, you know. Married this morning at
+Kensington parish church, by licence, at half-past eleven of the
+clock, or twenty to twelve. Married, and gone to spend his honeymoon
+in the Isle of Wight: a very delectable place for a month's
+residence. I have to announce to you that, thanks to your
+assistance, the experiment is launched, sir!"----
+
+"Richard married!"
+
+There was something to think and to say in objection to it, but the
+wits of poor Hippias was softened by the shock. His hand travelled
+half-way to his forehead, spread out to smooth the surface of that
+seat of reason, and then fell.
+
+"Surely you knew all about it? you were so anxious to have him in
+town under your charge."
+
+"Married?" Hippias jumped up--he had it. "Why, he's under age! he's
+an infant."
+
+"So he is. But the infant is not the less married. Fib like a man
+and pay your fee--what does it matter? Any one who is breeched can
+obtain a licence in our noble country. And the interests of morality
+demand that it should not be difficult. Is it true--can you persuade
+anybody that you have known nothing about it?"
+
+"Ha! infamous joke! I wish, sir, you would play your pranks on
+somebody else," said Hippias, sternly, as he sank back on the sofa.
+"You've done me up for the day, I can assure you."
+
+Adrian sat down to instil belief by gentle degrees, and put an
+artistic finish to the work. He had the gratification of passing his
+uncle through varied contortions, and at last Hippias perspired in
+conviction, and exclaimed, "This accounts for his conduct to me.
+That boy must have a cunning nothing short of infernal! I feel ... I
+feel it just here," he drew a hand along his midriff.
+
+"I'm not equal to this world of fools," he added faintly, and shut
+his eyes. "No, I can't dine. Eat? ha! ... no. Go without me!"
+
+Shortly after Hippias went to bed, saying to himself, as he
+undressed, "See what comes of our fine schemes! Poor Austin!" and as
+the pillow swelled over his ears, "I'm not sure that a day's fast
+won't do me good." The Dyspepsy had bought his philosophy at a heavy
+price; he had a right to use it.
+
+Adrian resumed the procession of the cake.
+
+He sighted his melancholy uncle Algernon hunting an appetite in the
+Row, and looking as if the hope ahead of him were also one-legged.
+The Captain did not pass without querying the ungainly parcel.
+
+"I hope I carry it ostentatiously enough?" said Adrian. "Enclosed is
+wherewithal to quiet the alarm of the land. Now may the maids and
+wives of Merry England sleep secure. I had half a mind to fix it on
+a pole, and engage a band to parade it. This is our dear Richard's
+wedding-cake. Married at half-past eleven this morning, by licence,
+at the Kensington parish church; his own ring being lost he employed
+the ring of his beautiful bride's lachrymose landlady, she standing
+adjacent by the altar. His farewell to you as a bachelor, and hers
+as a maid, you can claim on the spot, if you think proper, and
+digest according to your powers."
+
+Algernon let off steam in a whistle. "Thompson, the solicitor's
+daughter!" he said. "I met them the other day, somewhere about here.
+He introduced me to her. A pretty little baggage."
+
+"No." Adrian set him right. "'Tis a Miss Desborough, a Roman
+Catholic dairymaid. Reminds one of pastoral England in the time of
+the Plantagenets! He's quite equal to introducing her as Thompson's
+daughter, and himself as Beelzebub's son. However, the wild animal
+is in Hymen's chains, and the cake is cut. Will you have your
+morsel?"
+
+"Oh, by all means!--not now." Algernon had an unwonted air of
+reflection.--"Father know it?"
+
+"Not yet. He will to-night by nine o'clock."
+
+"Then I must see him by seven. Don't say you met me." He nodded, and
+pricked his horse.
+
+"Wants money!" said Adrian, putting the combustible he carried once
+more in motion.
+
+The women were the crowning joy of his contemplative mind. He had
+reserved them for his final discharge. Dear demonstrative creatures!
+Dyspepsia would not weaken their poignant outcries, or self-interest
+check their fainting fits. On the generic woman one could calculate.
+Well might THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP say of her that, "She is always at
+Nature's breast"; not intending it as a compliment. Each woman is
+Eve throughout the ages; whereas the PILGRIM would have us believe
+that the Adam in men has become warier, if not wiser; and weak as he
+is, has learnt a lesson from time. Probably the PILGRIM'S meaning
+may be taken to be, that Man grows, and Woman does not.
+
+At any rate, Adrian hoped for such natural choruses as you hear in
+the nursery when a bauble is lost. He was awake to Mrs. Doria's
+maternal predestinations, and guessed that Clare stood ready with
+the best form of filial obedience. They were only a poor couple to
+gratify his Mephistophelian humour, to be sure, but Mrs. Doria was
+equal to twenty, and they would proclaim the diverse ways with which
+maidenhood and womanhood took disappointment, while the surrounding
+Forey girls and other females of the family assembly were expected
+to develop the finer shades and tapering edges of an agitation to
+which no woman could be cold.
+
+All went well. He managed cleverly to leave the cake unchallenged in
+a conspicuous part of the drawing-room, and stepped gaily down to
+dinner. Much of the conversation adverted to Richard. Mrs. Doria
+asked him if he had seen the youth, or heard of him.
+
+"Seen him? no! Heard of him? yes!" said Adrian. "I have heard of
+him. I heard that he was sublimely happy, and had eaten such a
+breakfast that dinner was impossible; claret and cold chicken, cake
+and"----
+
+"Cake at breakfast!" they all interjected.
+
+"That seems to be his fancy just now."
+
+"What an extraordinary taste!"
+
+"You know, he is educated on a System."
+
+One fast young male Forey allied the System and the cake in a
+miserable pun. Adrian, a hater of puns, looked at him, and held the
+table silent, as if he were going to speak; but he said nothing, and
+the young gentleman vanished from the conversation in a blush,
+extinguished by his own spark.
+
+Mrs. Doria peevishly exclaimed, "Oh! fish-cake, I suppose! I wish he
+understood a little better the obligations of relationship."
+
+"Whether he understands them, I can't say," observed Adrian, "but I
+assure you he is very energetic in extending them."
+
+The wise youth talked innuendoes whenever he had an opportunity,
+that his dear relative might be rendered sufficiently inflammable by
+and by at the aspect of the cake; but he was not thought more than
+commonly mysterious and deep.
+
+"Was his appointment at the house of those Grandison people?" Mrs.
+Doria asked, with a hostile upper-lip.
+
+Adrian warmed the blindfolded parties by replying, "Do they keep a
+beadle at the door?"
+
+Mrs. Doria's animosity to Mrs. Grandison made her treat this as a
+piece of satirical ingenuousness. "I daresay they do," she said.
+
+"And a curate on hand?"
+
+"Oh, I should think a dozen!"
+
+Old Mr. Forey advised his punning grandson Clarence to give that
+house a wide berth, where he might be disposed of and dished-up at a
+moment's notice, and the scent ran off at a jest.
+
+The Foreys gave good dinners, and with the old gentleman the
+excellent old fashion remained in permanence of trooping off the
+ladies as soon as they had taken their sustenance and just exchanged
+a smile with the flowers and the dessert, when they rose to fade
+with a beautiful accord, and the gallant males breathed under easier
+waistcoats, and settled to the business of the table, sure that an
+hour for unbosoming and imbibing was their own. Adrian took a chair
+by Brandon Forey, a barrister of standing.
+
+"I want to ask you," he said, "whether an infant in law can legally
+bind himself."
+
+"If he's old enough to affix his signature to an instrument, I
+suppose he can," yawned Brandon.
+
+"Is he responsible for his acts?"
+
+"I've no doubt we could hang him."
+
+"Then what he could do for himself, you could do for him?"
+
+"Not quite so much; pretty near."
+
+"For instance, he can marry?"
+
+"That's not a criminal case, you know."
+
+"And the marriage is valid?"
+
+"You can dispute it."
+
+"Yes, and the Greeks and the Trojans can fight. It holds then?"
+
+"Both water and fire!"
+
+The patriarch of the table sang out to Adrian that he stopped the
+vigorous circulation of the claret.
+
+"Dear me, sir!" said Adrian, "I beg pardon. The circumstances must
+excuse me. The fact is, my cousin Richard got married to a dairymaid
+this morning, and I wanted to know whether it held in law."
+
+It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which the
+announcement was taken. Nothing was heard more energetic than,
+"Deuce he has!" and, "A dairymaid!"
+
+"I thought it better to let the ladies dine in peace," Adrian
+continued. "I wanted to be able to console my aunt"----
+
+"Well, but--well, but," the old gentleman, much the most excited,
+puffed--"eh, Brandon? He's a boy, this young ass! Do you mean to
+tell me a boy can go and marry when he pleases, and any trull he
+pleases, and the marriage is good? If I thought that I'd turn every
+woman off my premises. I would! from the housekeeper to the
+scullery-maid. I'd have no woman near him till--till"----
+
+"Till the young greenhorn was grey, sir?" suggested Brandon.
+
+"Till he knew what women are made of, sir!" the old gentleman
+finished his sentence vehemently. "What, d'ye think, will Feverel
+say to it, Mr. Adrian?"
+
+"He has been trying the very System you have proposed, sir--one that
+does not reckon on the powerful action of curiosity on the juvenile
+intelligence. I'm afraid it's the very worst way of solving the
+problem."
+
+"Of course it is," said Clarence. "None but a fool!"----
+
+"At your age," Adrian relieved his embarrassment, "it is natural, my
+dear Clarence, that you should consider the idea of an isolated or
+imprisoned manhood something monstrous, and we do not expect you to
+see what amount of wisdom it contains. You follow one extreme, and
+we the other. I don't say that a middle course exists. The history
+of mankind shows our painful efforts to find one, but they have
+invariably resolved themselves into asceticism, or laxity, acting
+and reacting. The moral question is, if a naughty little man, by
+reason of his naughtiness, releases himself from foolishness, does a
+foolish little man, by reason of his foolishness, save himself from
+naughtiness?"
+
+A discussion, peculiar to men of the world, succeeded the laugh at
+Mr. Clarence. Then coffee was handed round and the footman informed
+Adrian, in a low voice, that Mrs. Doria Forey particularly wished to
+speak with him. Adrian preferred not to go in alone. "Very well," he
+said, and sipped his coffee. They talked on, sounding the depths of
+law in Brandon Forey, and receiving nought but hollow echoes from
+that profound cavity. He would not affirm that the marriage was
+invalid: he would not affirm that it could not be annulled. He
+thought not: still he thought it would be worth trying. A
+consummated and a non-consummated union were two different
+things....
+
+"Dear me!" said Adrian, "does the Law recognize that? Why, that's
+almost human!"
+
+Another message was brought to Adrian that Mrs. Doria Forey _very_
+particularly wished to speak with him.
+
+"What can be the matter?" he exclaimed, pleased to have his faith in
+woman strengthened. The cake had exploded, no doubt.
+
+So it proved, when the gentlemen joined the fair society. All the
+younger ladies stood about the table, whereon the cake stood
+displayed, gaps being left for those sitting to feast their vision,
+and intrude the comments and speculations continually arising from
+fresh shocks of wonder at the unaccountable apparition. Entering
+with the half-guilty air of men who know they have come from a
+grosser atmosphere, the gallant males also ranged themselves round
+the common object of curiosity.
+
+"Here! Adrian!" Mrs. Doria cried. "Where is Adrian? Pray, come here.
+Tell me! Where did this cake come from? Whose is it? What does it do
+here? You know all about it, for you brought it. Clare saw you bring
+it into the room. What does it mean? I insist upon a direct answer.
+Now do not make me impatient, Adrian."
+
+Certainly Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty. By her concentrated
+rapidity and volcanic complexion it was evident that suspicion had
+kindled.
+
+"I was really bound to bring it," Adrian protested.
+
+"Answer me!"
+
+The wise youth bowed: "Categorically. This cake came from the house
+of a person, a female, of the name of Berry. It belongs to you
+partly, partly to me, partly to Clare, and to the rest of our
+family, on the principle of equal division: for which purpose it is
+present...."
+
+"Yes! Speak!"
+
+"It means, my dear aunt, what that kind of cake usually does mean."
+
+"This, then, is the Breakfast! And the ring! Adrian! where is
+Richard?"
+
+Mrs. Doria still clung to unbelief in the monstrous horror.
+
+But when Adrian told her that Richard had left town, her struggling
+hope sank. "The wretched boy has ruined himself!" she said, and sat
+down trembling.
+
+Oh! that System! The delicate vituperations gentle ladies use
+instead of oaths, Mrs. Doria showered on that System. She hesitated
+not to say that her brother had got what he deserved. Opinionated,
+morbid, weak, justice had overtaken him. Now he would see! but at
+what a price! at what a sacrifice!
+
+Mrs. Doria commanded Adrian to confirm her fears.
+
+Sadly the wise youth recapitulated Berry's words. "He was married
+this morning at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to twelve,
+by licence, at the Kensington parish church."
+
+"Then that was his appointment!" Mrs. Doria murmured.
+
+"That was the cake for breakfast!" breathed a second of her sex.
+
+"And it was his ring!" exclaimed a third.
+
+The men were silent, and made long faces.
+
+Clare stood cold and sedate. She and her mother avoided each other's
+eyes.
+
+"Is it that abominable country person, Adrian?"
+
+"The happy damsel is, I regret to say, the Papist dairymaid," said
+Adrian, in sorrowful but deliberate accents.
+
+Then arose a feminine hum, in the midst of which Mrs. Doria cried,
+"Brandon!" She was a woman of energy. Her thoughts resolved to
+action spontaneously.
+
+"Brandon," she drew the barrister a little aside, "can they not be
+followed, and separated? I want your advice. Cannot we separate
+them? A boy! it is really shameful if he should be allowed to fall
+into the toils of a designing creature to ruin himself irrevocably.
+Can we not, Brandon?"
+
+The worthy barrister felt inclined to laugh, but he answered her
+entreaties: "From what I hear of the young groom I should imagine
+the office perilous."
+
+"I'm speaking of law, Brandon. Can we not obtain an order from one
+of your Courts to pursue them and separate them instantly?"
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+Brandon was sorry to say she decidedly could not.
+
+"You might call on one of your Judges, Brandon."
+
+Brandon assured her that the Judges were a hard-worked race, and to
+a man slept heavily after dinner.
+
+"Will you do so to-morrow, the first thing in the morning? Will you
+promise me to do so, Brandon?--Or a magistrate! A magistrate would
+send a policeman after them. My dear Brandon! I beg--I beg you to
+assist us in this dreadful extremity. It will be the death of my
+poor brother. I believe he would forgive anything but this. You have
+no idea what his notions are of blood."
+
+Brandon tipped Adrian a significant nod to step in and aid.
+
+"What is it, aunt?" asked the wise youth. "You want them followed
+and torn asunder by wild policemen?"
+
+"To-morrow;" Brandon queerly interposed.
+
+"Won't that be--just too late?" Adrian suggested.
+
+Mrs. Doria sighed out her last spark of hope.
+
+"You see," said Adrian....
+
+"Yes! yes!" Mrs. Doria did not require any of his elucidations.
+"Pray be quiet, Adrian, and let me speak. Brandon! it cannot be!
+it's quite impossible! Can you stand there and tell me that boy is
+legally married? I never will believe it! The law cannot be so
+shamefully bad as to permit a boy--a mere child--to do such absurd
+things. Grandpapa!" she beckoned to the old gentleman. "Grandpapa!
+pray do make Brandon speak. These lawyers never will. He might stop
+it, if he would. If I were a man, do you think I would stand here?"
+
+"Well, my dear," the old gentleman toddled to compose her, "I'm
+quite of your opinion. I believe he knows no more than you or I. My
+belief is they none of them know anything till they join issue and
+go into Court. I want to see a few female lawyers."
+
+"To encourage the bankrupt perruquier, sir?" said Adrian. "They
+would have to keep a large supply of wigs on hand."
+
+"And you can jest, Adrian!" his aunt reproached him. "But I will not
+be beaten. I know--I am firmly convinced that no law would ever
+allow a boy to disgrace his family and ruin himself like that, and
+nothing shall persuade me that it is so. Now, tell me, Brandon, and
+pray do speak in answer to my questions, and please to forget you
+are dealing with a woman. _Can_ my nephew be rescued from the
+consequences of his folly? _Is_ what he has done legitimate? _Is_ he
+bound for life by what he has done while a boy?"
+
+"Well--a," Brandon breathed through his teeth. "A--hm! the matter's
+so very delicate, you see, Helen."
+
+"You're to forget that," Adrian remarked.
+
+"A--hm! well!" pursued Brandon. "Perhaps if you could arrest and
+divide them before nightfall, and make affidavit of certain
+facts"....
+
+"Yes?" the eager woman hastened his lagging mouth.
+
+"Well ... hm! a ... in that case ... a.... Or if a lunatic, you
+could prove him to have been of unsound mind."...
+
+"Oh! there's no doubt of his madness on _my_ mind, Brandon."
+
+"Yes! well! in that case.... Or if of different religious
+persuasions"....
+
+"She _is_ a Catholic!" Mrs. Doria joyfully interjected.
+
+"Yes! well! in that case ... objections might be taken to the form
+of the marriage.... Might be proved fictitious.... Or if he's under,
+say, eighteen years."
+
+"He _can't_ be much more," cried Mrs. Doria. "I think," she appeared
+to reflect, and then faltered imploringly to Adrian, "What is
+Richard's age?"
+
+The kind wise youth could not find it in his heart to strike away
+the phantom straw she caught at.
+
+"Oh! about that, I should fancy," he muttered, and found it
+necessary at the same time to duck and turn his head for
+concealment. Mrs. Doria surpassed his expectations.
+
+"Yes! well, then...." Brandon was resuming with a shrug, which was
+meant to say he still pledged himself to nothing, when Clare's voice
+was heard from out the buzzing circle of her cousins: "Richard is
+nineteen years and six months old to-day, mama."
+
+"Nonsense, child."
+
+"He is, mama." Clare's voice was very steadfast.
+
+"Non_sense_, I tell you. How _can_ you know?"
+
+"Richard is one year and nine months older than me, mama."
+
+Mrs. Doria fought the fact by years and finally by months. Clare was
+too strong for her.
+
+"Singular child!" she mentally apostrophized the girl who scornfully
+rejected straws while drowning.
+
+"But there's the religion still!" she comforted herself, and sat
+down to cogitate.
+
+The men smiled and looked vacuous.
+
+Music was proposed. There are times when soft music hath not charms;
+when it is put to as base uses as Imperial Cæsar's dust and is taken
+to fill horrid pauses. Angelica Forey thumped the piano, and sang:
+"_I'm a laughing Gitana, ha--ha! ha--ha!_" Matilda Forey and her
+cousin Mary Bransburne wedded their voices, and songfully incited
+all young people to _Haste to the bower that love has built_, and
+defy the wise ones of the world; but the wise ones of the world were
+in a majority there, and very few places of assembly will be found
+where they are not; so the glowing appeal of the British
+ballad-monger passed into the bosom of the emptiness he addressed.
+Clare was asked to entertain the company. The singular child calmly
+marched to the instrument, and turned over the appropriate
+illustrations to the ballad-monger's repertory.
+
+Clare sang a little Irish air. Her duty done, she marched from the
+piano. Mothers are rarely deceived by their daughters in these
+matters; but Clare deceived her mother; and Mrs. Doria only
+persisted in feeling an agony of pity for her child, that she might
+the more warrantably pity herself--a not uncommon form of the
+emotion, for there is no juggler like that heart the ballad-monger
+puts into our mouths so boldly. Remember that she saw years of
+self-denial, years of a ripening scheme, rendered fruitless in a
+minute, and by the System which had almost reduced her to the
+condition of constitutional hypocrite. She had enough of bitterness
+to brood over, and some excuse for self-pity.
+
+Still, even when she was cooler, Mrs. Doria's energetic nature
+prevented her from giving up. Straws were straws, and the frailer
+they were the harder she clutched them.
+
+She rose from her chair, and left the room, calling to Adrian to
+follow her.
+
+"Adrian," she said, turning upon him in the passage, "you mentioned
+a house where this horrible cake ... where he was this morning. I
+desire you to take me to that woman immediately."
+
+The wise youth had not bargained for personal servitude. He had
+hoped he should be in time for the last act of the opera that night,
+after enjoying the comedy of real life.
+
+"My dear aunt" ... he was beginning to insinuate.
+
+"Order a cab to be sent for, and get your hat," said Mrs. Doria.
+
+There was nothing for it but to obey. He stamped his assent to the
+PILGRIM'S dictum, that Women are practical creatures, and now
+reflected on his own account, that relationship to a young fool may
+be a vexation and a nuisance. However, Mrs. Doria compensated him.
+
+What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature did not
+plainly know; but her energy positively demanded to be used in some
+way or other, and her instinct directed her to the offender on whom
+she could use it in wrath. She wanted somebody to be angry with,
+somebody to abuse. She dared not abuse her brother to his face: him
+she would have to console. Adrian was a fellow-hypocrite to the
+System, and would, she was aware, bring her into painfully delicate,
+albeit highly philosophic, ground by a discussion of the case. So
+she drove to Bessy Berry simply to inquire whither her nephew had
+flown.
+
+When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is matched with a
+woman of energy, she does not show much fight, and she meets no
+mercy. Bessy Berry's creditor came to her in female form that night.
+She then beheld it in all its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to
+her as a male, a disembodied spirit of her imagination possessing
+male attributes, and the peculiar male characteristic of being
+moved, and ultimately silenced, by tears. As female, her creditor
+was terrible indeed. Still, had it not been a late hour, Bessy Berry
+would have died rather than speak openly that her babes had sped to
+make their nest in the Isle of Wight. They had a long start, they
+were out of the reach of pursuers, they were safe, and she told what
+she had to tell. She told more than was wise of her to tell. She
+made mention of her early service in the family, and of her little
+pension. Alas! her little pension! Her creditor had come expecting
+no payment--come, as creditors are wont in such moods, just to take
+it out of her--to employ the familiar term. At once Mrs. Doria
+pounced upon the pension.
+
+"That, of course, you know is at an end," she said in the calmest
+manner, and Berry did not plead for the little bit of bread to her.
+She only asked a little consideration for her feelings.
+
+True admirers of women had better stand aside from the scene.
+Undoubtedly it was very sad for Adrian to be compelled to witness
+it. Mrs. Doria was not generous. The PILGRIM may be wrong about the
+sex not growing; but its fashion of conducting warfare we must allow
+to be barbarous, and according to what is deemed the pristine, or
+wild cat, method. Ruin, nothing short of it, accompanied poor Berry
+to her bed that night, and her character bled till morning on her
+pillow.
+
+The scene over, Adrian reconducted Mrs. Doria to her home. Mice had
+been at the cake during her absence apparently. The ladies and
+gentlemen present put it on the greedy mice, who were accused of
+having gorged and gone to bed.
+
+"I'm sure they're quite welcome," said Mrs. Doria. "It's a farce,
+this marriage, and Adrian has quite come to my way of thinking. I
+would not touch an atom of it. Why, they were married in a married
+woman's ring! Can _that_ be legal, as you call it? Oh, I'm
+convinced! Don't tell me. Austin will be in town to-morrow, and if
+he is true to his principles, he will instantly adopt measures to
+rescue his son from infamy. I want no legal advice. I go upon common
+sense, common decency. This marriage is false."
+
+Mrs. Doria's fine scheme had become so much a part of her life, that
+she could not give it up. She took Clare to her bed, and caressed
+and wept over her, as she would not have done had she known the
+singular child, saying, "Poor Richard! my dear poor boy! we must
+save him, Clare! we must save him!" Of the two the mother showed the
+greater want of iron on this occasion. Clare lay in her arms rigid
+and emotionless, with one of her hands tight-locked. All she said
+was: "I knew it in the morning, mama." She slept clasping Richard's
+nuptial ring.
+
+By this time all specially concerned in the System knew it. The
+honeymoon was shining placidly above them. Is not happiness like
+another circulating medium? When we have a very great deal of it,
+some poor hearts are aching for what is taken away from them. When
+we have gone out and seized it on the highways, certain inscrutable
+laws are sure to be at work to bring us to the criminal bar, sooner
+or later. Who knows the honeymoon that did not steal somebody's
+sweetness? Richard Turpin went forth, singing "Money or life" to the
+world: Richard Feverel has done the same, substituting "Happiness"
+for "Money," frequently synonyms. The coin he wanted he would have,
+and was just as much a highway robber as his fellow Dick, so that
+those who have failed to recognize him as a hero before, may now
+regard him in that light. Meanwhile the world he has squeezed looks
+exceedingly patient and beautiful. His coin chinks delicious music
+to him. Nature and the order of things on earth have no warmer
+admirer than a jolly brigand or a young man made happy by the Jews.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+NURSING THE DEVIL
+
+
+And now the author of the System was on trial under the eyes of the
+lady who loved him. What so kind as they? Yet are they very
+rigorous, those soft watchful woman's eyes. If you are below the
+measure they have made of you, you will feel it in the fulness of
+time. She cannot but show you that she took you for a giant, and has
+had to come down a bit. You feel yourself strangely diminishing in
+those sweet mirrors, till at last they drop on you complacently
+level. But, oh, beware, vain man, of ever waxing enamoured of that
+wonderful elongation of a male creature you saw reflected in her
+adoring upcast orbs! Beware of assisting to delude her! A woman who
+is not quite a fool will forgive your being but a man, if you are
+surely that: she will haply learn to acknowledge that no mortal
+tailor could have fitted that figure she made of you respectably,
+and that practically (though she sighs to think it) her ideal of
+you was on the pattern of an overgrown charity-boy in the regulation
+jacket and breech. For this she first scorns the narrow capacities
+of the tailor, and then smiles at herself. But shouldst thou, when
+the hour says plainly, Be thyself, and the woman is willing to take
+thee as thou art, shouldst thou still aspire to be that thing of
+shanks and wrists, wilt thou not seem contemptible as well as
+ridiculous? And when the fall comes, will it not be flat on thy
+face, instead of to the common height of men? You may fall miles
+below her measure of you, and be safe: nothing is damaged save an
+overgrown charity-boy; but if you fall below the common height of
+men, you must make up your mind to see her rustle her gown, spy at
+the looking-glass, and transfer her allegiance. The moral of which
+is, that if we pretend to be what we are not, woman, for whose
+amusement the farce is performed, will find us out and punish us for
+it. And it is usually the end of a sentimental dalliance.
+
+Had Sir Austin given vent to the pain and wrath it was natural he
+should feel, he might have gone to unphilosophic excesses, and,
+however much he lowered his reputation as a sage, Lady Blandish
+would have excused him: she would not have loved him less for seeing
+him closer. But the poor gentleman tasked his soul and stretched his
+muscles to act up to her conception of him. He, a man of science in
+life, who was bound to be surprised by nothing in nature, it was not
+for him to do more than lift his eyebrows and draw in his lips at
+the news delivered by Ripton Thompson, that ill bird at Raynham.
+
+All he said, after Ripton had handed the letters and carried his
+penitential headache to bed, was: "You see, Emmeline, it is useless
+to base any system on a human being."
+
+A very philosophical remark for one who has been busily at work
+building for nearly twenty years. Too philosophical to seem genuine.
+It revealed where the blow struck sharpest. Richard was no longer
+the Richard of his creation--his pride and his joy--but simply a
+human being with the rest. The bright star had sunk among the mass.
+
+And yet, what had the young man done? And in what had the System
+failed?
+
+The lady could not but ask herself this, while she condoled with the
+offended father.
+
+"My friend," she said, tenderly taking his hand before she retired,
+"I know how deeply you must be grieved. I know what your
+disappointment must be. I do not beg of you to forgive him now. You
+cannot doubt his love for this young person, and according to his
+light, has he not behaved honourably, and as you would have wished,
+rather than bring her to shame? You will think of that. It has been
+an accident--a misfortune--a terrible misfortune"....
+
+"The God of this world is in the machine--not out of it," Sir Austin
+interrupted her, and pressed her hand to get the good-night over.
+
+At any other time her mind would have been arrested to admire the
+phrase; now it seemed perverse, vain, false, and she was tempted to
+turn the meaning that was in it against himself, much as she pitied
+him.
+
+"You know, Emmeline," he added, "I believe very little in the
+fortune, or misfortune, to which men attribute their successes and
+reverses. They are useful impersonations to novelists; but my
+opinion is sufficiently high of flesh and blood to believe that we
+make our own history without intervention. Accidents?--Terrible
+misfortunes?--What are they?--Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," she said, looking sad and troubled. "When I said,
+'misfortune,' I meant, of course, that he is to blame, but--shall I
+leave you his letter to me?"
+
+"I think I have enough to meditate upon," he replied, coldly bowing.
+
+"God bless you," she whispered. "And--may I say it? do not shut your
+heart."
+
+He assured her that he hoped not to do so, and the moment she was
+gone he set about shutting it as tight as he could.
+
+If, instead of saying, Base no system on a human being, he had said,
+Never experimentalize with one, he would have been nearer the truth
+of his own case. He had experimented on humanity in the person of
+the son he loved as his life, and at once, when the experiment
+appeared to have failed, all humanity's failings fell on the
+shoulders of his son. Richard's parting laugh in the train--it was
+explicable now: it sounded in his ears like the mockery of this base
+nature of ours at every endeavor to exalt and chasten it. The young
+man had plotted this. From step to step Sir Austin traced the plot.
+The curious mask he had worn since his illness; the selection of his
+incapable uncle Hippias for a companion in preference to Adrian; it
+was an evident, well-perfected plot. That hideous laugh would not be
+silenced. Base, like the rest, treacherous, a creature of passions
+using his abilities solely to gratify them--never surely had
+humanity such chances as in him! A Manichæan tendency, from which
+the sententious eulogist of nature had been struggling for years
+(and which was partly at the bottom of the System), now began to
+cloud and usurp dominion of his mind. As he sat alone in the forlorn
+dead-hush of his library, he saw the devil.
+
+How are we to know when we are at the head and fountain of the fates
+of them we love?
+
+There by the springs of Richard's future, his father sat: and the
+devil said to him: "Only be quiet: do nothing: resolutely do
+nothing: your object now is to keep a brave face to the world, so
+that all may know you superior to this human nature that has
+deceived you. For it is the shameless deception, not the marriage,
+that has wounded you."
+
+"Ay!" answered the baronet, "the shameless deception, not the
+marriage: wicked and ruinous as it must be; a destroyer of my
+tenderest hopes! my dearest schemes! Not the marriage--the shameless
+deception!" and he crumpled up his son's letter to him, and tossed
+it into the fire.
+
+How are we to distinguish the dark chief of the Manichæans when he
+talks our own thoughts to us?
+
+Further he whispered, "And your System:--if you would be brave to
+the world, have courage to cast the dream of it out of you:
+relinquish an impossible project; see it as it is--dead: too good
+for men!"
+
+"Ay!" muttered the baronet: "all who would save them perish on the
+Cross!"
+
+And so he sat nursing the devil.
+
+By and by he took his lamp, and put on the old cloak and cap, and
+went to gaze at Ripton. That exhausted debauchee and youth without a
+destiny slept a dead sleep. A handkerchief was bound about his
+forehead, and his helpless sunken chin and snoring nose projected up
+the pillow, made him look absurdly piteous. The baronet remembered
+how often he had compared his boy with this one: his own bright boy!
+And where was the difference between them?
+
+"Mere outward gilding!" said his familiar.
+
+"Yes," he responded, "I daresay this one never positively plotted to
+deceive his father: he followed his appetites unchecked, and is
+internally the sounder of the two."
+
+Ripton, with his sunken chin and snoring nose under the light of the
+lamp, stood for human nature, honest, however abject.
+
+"Miss Random, I fear very much, is a necessary establishment!"
+whispered the monitor.
+
+"Does the evil in us demand its natural food, or it corrupts the
+whole?" ejaculated Sir Austin. "And is no angel of avail till that
+is drawn off? And is that our conflict--to see whether we can escape
+the contagion of its embrace, and come uncorrupted out of that?"
+
+"The world is wise in its way," said the voice.
+
+"Though it look on itself through Port wine?" he suggested,
+remembering his lawyer Thompson.
+
+"Wise in not seeking to be too wise," said the voice.
+
+"And getting intoxicated on its drug of comfort!"
+
+"Human nature is weak."
+
+"And Miss Random is an establishment, and Wild Oats an institution!"
+
+"It always has been so."
+
+"And always will be?"
+
+"So I fear! in spite of your very noble efforts."
+
+"And leads--whither? And ends--where?"
+
+Richard's laugh, taken up by horrid reverberations, as it were
+through the lengths of the Lower Halls, replied.
+
+This colloquy of two voices in a brain was concluded by Sir Austin
+asking again if there were no actual difference between the flower
+of his hopes and yonder drunken weed, and receiving for answer that
+there was a decided dissimilarity in the smell of the couple;
+becoming cognizant of which he retreated.
+
+Sir Austin did not battle with the tempter. He took him into his
+bosom at once, as if he had been ripe for him, and received his
+suggestions and bowed to his dictates. Because he suffered, and
+decreed that he would suffer silently, and be the only sufferer, it
+seemed to him that he was great-minded in his calamity. He had stood
+against the world. The world had beaten him. What then? He must shut
+his heart and mask his face; that was all. To be far in advance of
+the mass, is as fruitless to mankind, he reflected, as straggling in
+the rear. For how do we know that they move behind us at all, or
+move in our track? What we win for them is lost; and where we are
+overthrown we lie!
+
+It was thus that a fine mind and a fine heart at the bounds of a
+nature not great, chose to colour his retrogression and countenance
+his shortcoming; and it was thus that he set about ruining the work
+he had done. He might well say, as he once did, that there are hours
+when the clearest soul becomes a cunning fox. For a grief that was
+private and peculiar, he unhesitatingly cast the blame upon
+humanity; just as he had accused it in the period of what he termed
+his own ordeal. How had he borne that? By masking his face. And he
+prepared the ordeal for his son by doing the same. This was by no
+means his idea of a man's duty in tribulation, about which he could
+be strenuously eloquent. But it was his instinct so to act, and in
+times of trial great natures alone are not at the mercy of their
+instincts. Moreover it would cost him pain to mask his face; pain
+worse than that he endured when there still remained an object for
+him to open his heart to in proportion; and he always reposed upon
+the Spartan comfort of bearing pain and being passive. "Do nothing,"
+said the devil he nursed; which meant in his case, "Take me into you
+and don't cast me out." Excellent and sane is the outburst of wrath
+to men, when it stops short of slaughter. For who that locks it up
+to eat in solitary, can say that it is consumed? Sir Austin had as
+weak a digestion for wrath, as poor Hippias for a green duckling.
+Instead of eating it, it ate him. The wild beast in him was not the
+less deadly because it did not roar, and the devil in him not the
+less active because he resolved to do nothing.
+
+He sat at the springs of Richard's future, in the forlorn dead-hush
+of his library there, hearing the cinders click in the extinguished
+fire, and that humming stillness in which one may fancy one hears
+the midnight Fates busily stirring their embryos. The lamp glowed
+mildly on the bust of Chatham.
+
+Toward morning a gentle knock fell at his door. Lady Blandish glided
+in. With hasty step she came straight to him, and took both his
+hands.
+
+"My friend," she said, speaking tearfully, and trembling, "I feared
+I should find you here. I could not sleep. How is it with you?"
+
+"Well! Emmeline, well!" he replied, torturing his brows to fix the
+mask.
+
+He wished it had been Adrian who had come to him. He had an
+extraordinary longing for Adrian's society. He knew that the wise
+youth would divine how to treat him, and he mentally confessed to
+just enough weakness to demand a certain kind of management.
+Besides, Adrian, he had not a doubt, would accept him entirely as he
+seemed, and not pester him in any way by trying to unlock his heart;
+whereas a woman, he feared, would be waxing too womanly, and
+swelling from tears and supplications to a scene, of all things
+abhorred by him the most. So he rapped the floor with his foot, and
+gave the lady no very welcome face when he said it was well with
+him.
+
+She sat down by his side, still holding one hand firmly, and softly
+detaining the other.
+
+"Oh, my friend! may I believe you? May I speak to you?" She leaned
+close to him. "You know my heart. I have no better ambition than to
+be your friend. Surely I divide your grief, and may I not claim your
+confidence? Who has wept more over your great and dreadful sorrows?
+I would not have come to you, but I do believe that sorrow shared
+relieves the burden, and it is now that you may feel a woman's aid,
+and something of what a woman could be to you." ...
+
+"Be assured," he gravely said, "I thank you, Emmeline, for your
+intentions."
+
+"No, no! not for my intentions! And do not thank me. Think of him ...
+think of your dear boy.... Our Richard, as we have called him.--Oh!
+do not think it a foolish superstition of mine, but I have had a
+thought this night that has kept me in torment till I rose to speak
+to you.... Tell me first you have forgiven him."
+
+"A father bears no malice to his son, Emmeline."
+
+"Your heart has forgiven him?"
+
+"My heart has taken what he gave."
+
+"And quite forgiven him?"
+
+"You will hear no complaints of mine."
+
+The lady paused despondingly, and looked at him in a wistful manner,
+saying with a sigh, "Yes! I know how noble you are, and different
+from others!"
+
+He drew one of his hands from her relaxed hold.
+
+"You ought to be in bed, Emmeline."
+
+"I cannot sleep."
+
+"Go, and talk to me another time."
+
+"No, it must be now. You have helped me when I struggled to rise
+into a clearer world, and I think, humble as I am, I can help you
+now. I have had a thought this night that if you do not pray for him
+and bless him ... it will end miserably. My friend, have you done
+so?"
+
+He was stung and offended, and could hardly help showing it in spite
+of his mask.
+
+"Have you done so, Austin?"
+
+"This is assuredly a new way of committing fathers to the follies of
+their sons, Emmeline!"
+
+"No, not that. But will you pray for your boy, and bless him, before
+the day comes?"
+
+He restrained himself to pronounce his words calmly:--"And I must do
+this, or it will end in misery? How else can it end? Can I save him
+from the seed he has sown? Consider, Emmeline, what you say. He has
+repeated his cousin's sin. You see the end of that."...
+
+"Oh, so different! This young person is _not_, is _not_ of the class
+poor Austin Wentworth allied himself to. Indeed it is different. And
+he--be just and admit his nobleness. I fancied you did. This young
+person has great beauty, she has the elements of good breeding,
+she--indeed I think, had she been in another position, you would not
+have looked upon her unfavourably."
+
+"She may be too good for my son!" The baronet spoke with sublime
+bitterness.
+
+"No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it."
+
+"Pass her."
+
+"Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal accident. We
+thought his love dead, and so did he till he saw her again. He met
+her, he thought we were plotting against him, he thought he should
+lose her for ever, and in the madness of an hour he did this." ...
+
+"My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches."
+
+"Ah! do not trifle, my friend. Say: would you have had him act as
+young men in his position generally do to young women beneath them?"
+
+Sir Austin did not like the question. It probed him very severely.
+
+"You mean," he said, "that fathers must fold their arms, and either
+submit to infamous marriages, or have these creatures ruined."
+
+"I do _not_ mean that," exclaimed the lady, striving for what she
+did mean, and how to express it. "I mean that ... he loved her. Is
+it not a madness at his age? But what I chiefly mean is--save him
+from the consequences. No, you shall not withdraw your hand. Think
+of his pride, his sensitiveness, his great wild nature--wild when he
+is set wrong: think how intense it is, set upon love; think, my
+friend, do not forget his love for you."
+
+Sir Austin smiled an admirable smile of pity.
+
+"That I should save him, or any one, from consequences, is asking
+more than the order of things will allow to you, Emmeline, and is
+not in the disposition of this world. I cannot. Consequences are the
+natural offspring of acts. My child, you are talking sentiment,
+which is the distraction of our modern age in everything--a
+phantasmal vapour distorting the image of the life we live. You ask
+me to give him a golden age in spite of himself. All that could be
+done, by keeping him in the paths of virtue and truth, I did. He is
+become a man, and as a man he must reap his own sowing."
+
+The baffled lady sighed. He sat so rigid: he spoke so securely, as
+if wisdom were to him more than the love of his son. And yet he did
+love his son. Feeling sure that he loved his son while he spoke so
+loftily, she reverenced him still, baffled as she was, and sensible
+that she had been quibbled with.
+
+"All I ask of you is to open your heart to him," she said.
+
+He kept silent.
+
+"Call him a man,--he is, and must ever be the child of your
+education, my friend."
+
+"You would console me, Emmeline, with the prospect that, if he ruins
+himself, he spares the world of young women. Yes, that is
+something!"
+
+Closely she scanned the mask. It was impenetrable. He could meet her
+eyes, and respond to the pressure of her hand, and smile, and not
+show what he felt. Nor did he deem it hypocritical to seek to
+maintain his elevation in her soft soul, by simulating supreme
+philosophy over offended love. Nor did he know that he had an angel
+with him then: a blind angel, and a weak one, but one who struck
+upon his chance.
+
+"Am I pardoned for coming to you?" she said, after a pause.
+
+"Surely I can read my Emmeline's intentions," he gently replied.
+
+"Very poor ones. I feel my weakness. I cannot utter half I have been
+thinking. Oh, if I could!"
+
+"You speak very well, Emmeline."
+
+"At least, I am pardoned!"
+
+"Surely so."
+
+"And before I leave you, dear friend, shall I be forgiven?--may I
+beg it?--will you bless him?"
+
+He was again silent.
+
+"Pray for him, Austin! pray for him ere the night is over."
+
+As she spoke she slid down to his feet and pressed his hand to her
+bosom.
+
+The baronet was startled. In very dread of the soft fit that wooed
+him, he pushed back his chair, and rose, and went to the window.
+
+"It's day already!" he said with assumed vivacity, throwing open the
+shutters, and displaying the young light on the lawn.
+
+Lady Blandish dried her tears as she knelt, and then joined him, and
+glanced up silently at Richard's moon standing in wane toward the
+West. She hoped it was because of her having been premature in
+pleading so earnestly, that she had failed to move him, and she
+accused herself more than the baronet. But in acting as she had
+done, she had treated him as no common man, and she was compelled to
+perceive that his heart was at present hardly superior to the hearts
+of ordinary men, however composed his face might be, and apparently
+serene his wisdom. From that moment she grew critical of him, and
+began to study her idol--a process dangerous to idols. He, now that
+she seemed to have relinquished the painful subject, drew to her,
+and as one who wished to smooth a foregone roughness, murmured:
+"God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman! My Emmeline
+bears her sleepless night well. She does not shame the day." He
+gazed down on her with a fondling tenderness.
+
+"I could bear many, many!" she replied, meeting his eyes, "and you
+would see me look better and better, if ... if only ..." but she had
+no encouragement to end the sentence.
+
+Perhaps he wanted some mute form of consolation; perhaps the
+handsome placid features of the dark-eyed dame touched him: at any
+rate their Platonism was advanced by his putting an arm about her.
+She felt the arm and talked of the morning.
+
+Thus proximate, they by and by both heard something very like a
+groan behind them, and looking round, beheld the Saurian eye. Lady
+Blandish smiled, but the baronet's discomposure was not to be
+concealed. By a strange fatality every stage of their innocent loves
+was certain to have a human beholder.
+
+"Oh, I'm sure I beg pardon," Benson mumbled, arresting his head in a
+melancholy pendulosity. He was ordered out of the room.
+
+"And I think I shall follow him, and try to get forty winks," said
+Lady Blandish. They parted with a quiet squeeze of hands.
+
+The baronet then called in Benson.
+
+"Get me my breakfast as soon as you can," he said, regardless of the
+aspect of injured conscience Benson sombrely presented to him. "I am
+going to town early. And, Benson," he added, "you will also go to
+town this afternoon, or to-morrow, if it suits you, and take your
+book with you to Mr. Thompson. You will not return here. A provision
+will be made for you. You can go."
+
+The heavy butler essayed to speak, but the tremendous blow and the
+baronet's gesture choked him. At the door he made another effort
+which shook the rolls of his loose skin pitiably. An impatient
+signal sent him out dumb,--and Raynham was quit of the one believer
+in the Great Shaddock dogma.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE
+
+
+It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green waves before a
+full-blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts bounded out like foam,
+and flashed their sails, light as sea-nymphs. A crown of deep Summer
+blue topped the flying mountains of cloud.
+
+By an open window that looked on the brine through nodding roses,
+our young bridal pair were at breakfast, regaling worthily, both of
+them. Had the Scientific Humanist observed them, he could not have
+contested the fact, that as a couple who had set up to be father and
+mother of Britons, they were doing their duty. Files of egg-cups
+with disintegrated shells bore witness to it, and they were still at
+work, hardly talking from rapidity of exercise. Both were dressed
+for an expedition. She had her bonnet on, and he his yachting-hat.
+His sleeves were turned over at the wrists, and her gown showed its
+lining on her lap. At times a chance word might spring a laugh, but
+eating was the business of the hour, as I would have you to know it
+always will be where Cupid is in earnest. Tribute flowed in to them
+from the subject land. Neglected lies Love's penny-whistle on which
+they played so prettily and charmed the spheres to hear them. What
+do they care for the spheres, who have one another? Come, eggs!
+come, bread and butter! come, tea with sugar in it and milk! and
+welcome, the jolly hours. That is a fair interpretation of the music
+in them just now. Yonder instrument was good only for the overture.
+After all, what finer aspiration can lovers have, than to be free
+man and woman in the heart of plenty? And is it not a glorious level
+to have attained? Ah, wretched Scientific Humanist! not to be by and
+mark the admirable sight of these young creatures feeding. It would
+have been a spell to exorcise the Manichee, methinks.
+
+The mighty performance came to an end, and then, with a flourish of
+his table-napkin, husband stood over wife, who met him on the
+confident budding of her mouth. The poetry of mortals is their daily
+prose. Is it not a glorious level to have attained? A short,
+quick-blooded kiss, radiant, fresh, and honest as Aurora, and then
+Richard says without lack of cheer, "No letter to-day, my Lucy!"
+whereat her sweet eyes dwell on him a little seriously, but he
+cries, "Never mind! he'll be coming down himself some morning. He
+has only to know her, and all's well! eh?" and so saying he puts a
+hand beneath her chin, and seems to frame her fair face in fancy,
+she smiling up to be looked at.
+
+"But one thing I do want to ask my darling," says Lucy, and dropped
+into his bosom with hands of petition. "Take me on board his yacht
+with him to-day--not leave me with those people! Will he? I'm a good
+sailor, he knows!"
+
+"The best afloat!" laughs Richard, hugging her, "but, you know, you
+darling bit of a sailor, they don't allow more than a certain number
+on board for the race, and if they hear you've been with me,
+there'll be cries of foul play! Besides, there's Lady Judith to talk
+to you about Austin, and Lord Mountfalcon's compliments for you to
+listen to, and Mr. Morton to take care of you."
+
+Lucy's eyes fixed sideways an instant.
+
+"I hope I don't frown and blush as I did?" she said, screwing her
+pliable brows up to him winningly, and he bent his cheek against
+hers, and murmured something delicious.
+
+"And we shall be separated for--how many hours? one, two, three
+hours!" she pouted to his flatteries.
+
+"And then I shall come on board to receive my bride's
+congratulations."
+
+"And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady Judith."
+
+"And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at Lord
+Mountfalcon."
+
+"Am I so foolish, Richard?" she forgot her trifling to ask in an
+earnest way, and had another Aurorean kiss, just brushing the dew on
+her lips, for answer.
+
+After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy sinners had
+wandered forth one day to look on men and marvel at them, and had
+chanced to meet Mr. Morton of Poer Hall, Austin Wentworth's friend,
+and Ralph's uncle. Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the
+baronet, but had given him up for many years as impracticable and
+hopeless, for which reason he was the more inclined to regard
+Richard's misdemeanour charitably, and to lay the faults of the son
+on the father; and thinking society to be the one thing requisite to
+the young man, he had introduced him to the people he knew in the
+island; among others to the Lady Judith Felle, a fair young dame,
+who introduced him to Lord Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman; who
+introduced him to the yachtsmen beginning to congregate; so that in
+a few weeks he found himself in the centre of a brilliant company,
+and for the first time in his life tasted what it was to have free
+intercourse with his fellow-creatures of both sexes. The son of a
+System was, therefore, launched; not only through the surf, but in
+deep waters.
+
+Now the baronet had so far compromised between the recurrence of his
+softer feelings and the suggestions of his new familiar, that he had
+determined to act toward Richard with justness. The world called it
+magnanimity, and even Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same
+kind when she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome
+allowance, and had scouted Mrs. Doria's proposal for him to contest
+the legality of the marriage; but Sir Austin knew well he was simply
+just in not withholding money from a youth so situated. And here
+again the world deceived him by embellishing his conduct. For what
+is it to be just to whom we love! He knew it was not magnanimous,
+but the cry of the world somehow fortified him in the conceit that
+in dealing perfect justice to his son he was doing all that was
+possible, because so much more than common fathers would have done.
+He had shut his heart.
+
+Consequently Richard did not want money. What he wanted more, and
+did not get, was a word from his father, and though he said nothing
+to sadden his young bride, she felt how much it preyed upon him to
+be at variance with the man whom, now that he had offended him and
+gone against him, he would have fallen on his knees to; the man who
+was as no other man to him. She heard him of nights when she lay by
+his side, and the darkness, and the broken mutterings, of those
+nights clothed the figure of the strange stern man in her mind. Not
+that it affected the appetites of the pretty pair. We must not
+expect that of Cupid enthroned and in condition; under the influence
+of sea-air, too. The files of egg-cups laugh at such an idea. Still
+the worm did gnaw them. Judge, then, of their delight when, on this
+pleasant morning, as they were issuing from the garden of their
+cottage to go down to the sea, they caught sight of Tom Bakewell
+rushing up the road with a portmanteau on his shoulders, and, some
+distance behind him, discerned Adrian.
+
+"It's all right!" shouted Richard, and ran off to meet him, and
+never left his hand till he had hauled him up, firing questions at
+him all the way, to where Lucy stood.
+
+"Lucy! this is Adrian, my cousin."--"Isn't he an angel?" his eyes
+seemed to add; while Lucy's clearly answered, "That he is!"
+
+The full-bodied angel ceremoniously bowed to her, and acted with
+reserved unction the benefactor he saw in their greetings. "I think
+we are not strangers," he was good enough to remark, and very
+quickly let them know he had not breakfasted; on hearing which they
+hurried him into the house, and Lucy put herself in motion to have
+him served.
+
+"Dear old Rady," said Richard, tugging at his hand again, "how glad
+I am you've come! I don't mind telling you we've been horridly
+wretched."
+
+"Six, seven, eight, nine eggs," was Adrian's comment on a survey of
+the breakfast-table.
+
+"Why wouldn't he write? Why didn't he answer one of my letters? But
+here you are, so I don't mind now. He wants to see us, does he?
+We'll go up to-night. I've a match on at eleven; my little
+yacht--I've called her the 'Blandish'--against Fred Currie's
+'Begum.' I shall beat, but whether I do or not, we'll go up
+to-night. What's the news? What are they all doing?"
+
+"My dear boy!" Adrian returned, sitting comfortably down, "let me
+put myself a little more on an equal footing with you before I
+undertake to reply. Half that number of eggs will be sufficient for
+an unmarried man, and then we'll talk. They're all very well, as
+well as I can recollect after the shaking my total vacuity has had
+this morning. I came over by the first boat, and the sea, the sea
+has made me love mother earth, and desire of her fruits."
+
+Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative.
+
+"Adrian! what did he say when he heard of it? I want to know exactly
+what words he said."
+
+"Well says the sage, my son! 'Speech is the small change of
+Silence.' He said less than I do."
+
+"That's how he took it!" cried Richard, and plunged in meditation.
+
+Soon the table was cleared, and laid out afresh, and Lucy preceded
+the maid bearing eggs on the tray, and sat down unbonneted, and like
+a thorough-bred housewife, to pour out the tea for him.
+
+"Now, we'll commence," said Adrian, tapping his egg with meditative
+cheerfulness; but his expression soon changed to one of pain, all
+the more alarming for his benevolent efforts to conceal it. Could it
+be possible the egg was bad? oh, horror! Lucy watched him, and
+waited in trepidation.
+
+"This egg has boiled three minutes and three-quarters," he observed,
+ceasing to contemplate it.
+
+"Dear, dear!" said Lucy, "I boiled them myself exactly that time.
+Richard likes them so. And you like them hard, Mr. Harley?"
+
+"On the contrary, I like them soft. Two minutes and a half, or
+three-quarters at the outside. An egg should never rashly verge upon
+hardness--never. Three minutes is the excess of temerity."
+
+"If Richard had told me! If I had only known!" the lovely little
+hostess interjected ruefully, biting her lip.
+
+"We mustn't expect him to pay attention to such matters," said
+Adrian, trying to smile.
+
+"Hang it! there are more eggs in the house," cried Richard, and
+pulled savagely at the bell.
+
+Lucy jumped up, saying, "Oh, yes! I will go and boil some exactly
+the time you like. Pray let me go, Mr. Harley."
+
+Adrian restrained her departure with a motion of his hand. "No," he
+said, "I will be ruled by Richard's tastes, and heaven grant me his
+digestion!"
+
+Lucy threw a sad look at Richard, who stretched on a sofa, and left
+the burden of the entertainment entirely to her. The eggs were a
+melancholy beginning, but her ardour to please Adrian would not be
+damped, and she deeply admired his resignation. If she failed in
+pleasing this glorious herald of peace, no matter by what small
+misadventure, she apprehended calamity; so there sat this fair dove
+with brows at work above her serious smiling blue eyes, covertly
+studying every aspect of the plump-faced epicure, that she might
+learn to propitiate him. "He shall not think me timid and stupid,"
+thought this brave girl, and indeed Adrian was astonished to find
+that she could both chat and be useful, as well as look ornamental.
+When he had finished one egg, behold, two fresh ones came in, boiled
+according to his prescription. She had quietly given her orders to
+the maid, and he had them without fuss. Possibly his look of dismay
+at the offending eggs had not been altogether involuntary, and her
+woman's instinct, inexperienced as she was, may have told her that
+he had come prepared to be not very well satisfied with anything in
+Love's cottage. There was mental faculty in those pliable brows to
+see through, and combat, an unwitting wise youth.
+
+How much she had achieved already she partly divined when Adrian
+said: "I think now I'm in case to answer your questions, my dear
+boy--thanks to Mrs. Richard," and he bowed to her his first direct
+acknowledgment of her position. Lucy thrilled with pleasure.
+
+"Ah!" cried Richard, and settled easily on his back.
+
+"To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has been
+persuaded to offer a reward which shall maintain the happy finder
+thereof in an asylum for life. Benson--superlative Benson--has
+turned his shoulders upon Raynham. None know whither he has
+departed. It is believed that the sole surviving member of the sect
+of the Shaddock-Dogmatists is under a total eclipse of Woman."
+
+"Benson gone?" Richard exclaimed. "What a tremendous time it seems
+since I left Raynham!"
+
+"So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet's minute; or say,
+the Persian King's water-pail that you read of in the story: You dip
+your head in it, and when you draw it out, you discover that you
+have lived a life. To resume: your uncle Algernon still roams in
+pursuit of the lost one--I should say, hops. Your uncle Hippias has
+a new and most perplexing symptom: a determination of bride-cake to
+the nose. Ever since your generous present to him, though he
+declares he never consumed a morsel of it, he has been under the
+distressing illusion that his nose is enormous, and I assure you he
+exhibits quite a maidenly timidity in following it--through a
+doorway, for instance. He complains of its terrible weight. I have
+conceived that Benson invisible might be sitting on it. His hand,
+and the doctor's, are in hourly consultation with it, but I fear it
+will not grow smaller. The Pilgrim has begotten upon it a new
+Aphorism: that Size is a matter of opinion."
+
+"Poor uncle Hippy!" said Richard, "I wonder he doesn't believe in
+magic. There's nothing supernatural to rival the wonderful
+sensations he does believe in. Good God! fancy coming to that!"
+
+"I'm sure I'm very sorry," Lucy protested, "but I can't help
+laughing."
+
+Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter sounded.
+
+"The Pilgrim has your notion, Richard. Whom does he not forestall?
+'Confirmed dyspepsia is the apparatus of illusions,' and he accuses
+the Ages that put faith in sorcery, of universal indigestion, which
+may have been the case, owing to their infamous cookery. He says
+again, if you remember, that our own Age is travelling back to
+darkness and ignorance through dyspepsia. He lays the seat of wisdom
+in the centre of our system, Mrs. Richard: for which reason you will
+understand how sensible I am of the vast obligation I am under to
+you at the present moment, for your especial care of mine."
+
+Richard looked on at Lucy's little triumph, attributing Adrian's
+subjugation to her beauty and sweetness. She had latterly received a
+great many compliments on that score, which she did not care to
+hear, and Adrian's homage to a practical quality was far pleasanter
+to the young wife, who shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not
+help her much in the struggle she had now to maintain. Adrian
+continuing to lecture on the excelling virtues of wise cookery, a
+thought struck her: Where, where had she tossed Mrs. Berry's book?
+
+"So that's all about the home-people?" said Richard.
+
+"All!" replied Adrian. "Or stay: you know Clare's going to be
+married? Not? Your Aunt Helen"----
+
+"Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had the
+impertinence to write--but never mind! Is it to Ralph?"
+
+"Your Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is an
+extraordinary woman. It was from her originally that the Pilgrim
+first learnt to call the female the practical animal. He studies us
+all, you know. THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP is the abstract portraiture of
+his surrounding relatives. Well, your Aunt Helen"----
+
+"Mrs. Doria Battledoria!" laughed Richard.
+
+"----being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own--call it a
+System if you like--of some ten or fifteen years' standing, with
+regard to Miss Clare!"----
+
+"The fair Shuttlecockiana!"
+
+"----instead of fretting like a man, and questioning Providence, and
+turning herself and everybody else inside out, and seeing the world
+upside down, what does the practical animal do? She wanted to marry
+her to somebody she couldn't marry her to, so she resolved instantly
+to marry her to somebody she could marry her to: and as old
+gentlemen enter into these transactions with the practical animal
+the most readily, she fixed upon an old gentleman; an unmarried old
+gentleman, a rich old gentleman, and now a captive old gentleman.
+The ceremony takes place in about a week from the present time. No
+doubt you will receive your invitation in a day or two."
+
+"And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to marry an old
+man!" groaned Richard. "I'll put a stop to that when I go to town."
+
+Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he bethought him it
+was time to go on board and make preparations.
+
+"I'm off," he said. "Adrian, you'll take her. She goes in the Empress,
+Mountfalcon's vessel. He starts us. A little schooner-yacht--such a
+beauty! I'll have one like her some day. Good-bye, darling!" he
+whispered to Lucy, and his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on
+him, seeking to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred
+from. But she quickly looked away from him as he held her:--Adrian
+stood silent: his brows were up, and his mouth dubiously contracted.
+He spoke at last.
+
+"Go on the water?"
+
+"Yes. It's only to St. Helen's. Short and sharp."
+
+"Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system has just received,
+my son?"
+
+"Oh, bother your system! Put on your hat, and come along. I'll put
+you on board in my boat."
+
+"Richard! I have already paid the penalty of them who are condemned
+to come to an island. I will go with you to the edge of the sea, and
+I will meet you there when you return, and take up the Tale of the
+Tritons: but, though I forfeit the pleasure of Mrs. Richard's
+company, I refuse to quit the land."
+
+"Yes, oh, Mr. Harley!" Lucy broke from her husband, "and I will stay
+with you, if you please. I don't want to go among those people, and
+we can see it all from the shore. Dearest! I don't want to go. You
+don't mind? Of course, I will go if you wish, but I would so much
+rather stay;" and she lengthened her plea in her attitude and look
+to melt the discontent she saw gathering.
+
+Adrian protested that she had much better go; that he could amuse
+himself very well till their return, and so forth; but she had
+schemes in her pretty head, and held to it to be allowed to stay in
+spite of Lord Mountfalcon's disappointment, cited by Richard, and at
+the great risk of vexing her darling, as she saw. Richard pished,
+and glanced contemptuously at Adrian. He gave way ungraciously.
+
+"There, do as you like. Get your things ready to leave this evening.
+No, I'm not angry."--Who could be? he seemed as he looked up from
+her modest fondling to ask Adrian, and seized the indemnity of a
+kiss on her forehead, which, however, did not immediately disperse
+the shade of annoyance he felt.
+
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Such a day as this, and a fellow
+refuses to come on the water! Well, come along to the edge of the
+sea." Adrian's angelic quality had quite worn off to him. He never
+thought of devoting himself to make the most of the material there
+was: but somebody else did, and that fair somebody succeeded
+wonderfully in a few short hours. She induced Adrian to reflect that
+the baronet had only to see her, and the family muddle would be
+smoothed at once. He came to it by degrees; still the gradations
+were rapid. Her manner he liked; she was certainly a nice picture:
+best of all, she was sensible. He forgot the farmer's niece in her,
+she was so very sensible. She appeared really to understand that it
+was a woman's duty to know how to cook.
+
+But the difficulty was, by what means the baronet could be brought
+to consent to see her. He had not yet consented to see his son, and
+Adrian, spurred by Lady Blandish, had ventured something in coming
+down. He was not inclined to venture more. The small debate in his
+mind ended by his throwing the burden on time. Time would bring the
+matter about. Christians as well as Pagans are in the habit of
+phrasing this excuse for folding their arms; "forgetful," says THE
+PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "that the devil's imps enter into no such
+armistice."
+
+As she loitered along the shore with her amusing companion, Lucy had
+many things to think of. There was her darling's match. The yachts
+were started by pistol-shot by Lord Mountfalcon on board the
+Empress, and her little heart beat after Richard's straining sails.
+Then there was the strangeness of walking with a relative of
+Richard's, one who had lived by his side so long. And the thought
+that perhaps this night she would have to appear before the dreaded
+father of her husband.
+
+"O Mr. Harley!" she said, "is it true--are we to go to-night? And
+me," she faltered, "will he see me?"
+
+"Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about," said Adrian. "I
+made some reply to our dear boy which he has slightly misinterpreted.
+Our second person plural is liable to misconstruction by an ardent
+mind. I said 'see you,' and he supposed--now, Mrs. Richard, I am
+sure you will understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be
+advisable--when the father and son have settled their accounts, the
+daughter-in-law can't be a debtor."...
+
+Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at the chance
+of a respite from the awful interview made her quickly apprehensive.
+
+"O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?"
+
+"Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an excellent
+husband that I fancy it will require more than a man's power of
+persuasion to get him to go."
+
+"But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley."
+
+"Perhaps, if you would...."
+
+"There is nothing I would not do for his happiness," murmured Lucy.
+
+The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation. They
+walked on till the yachts had rounded the point.
+
+"Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?" she asked with some trouble in her
+voice now that her darling was out of sight.
+
+"I don't imagine your eloquence even will get him to leave you
+to-night," Adrian replied gallantly. "Besides, I must speak for
+myself. To achieve the passage to an island is enough for one day.
+No necessity exists for any hurry, except in the brain of that
+impetuous boy. You must correct it, Mrs. Richard. Men are made to be
+managed, and women are born managers. Now, if you were to let him
+know that you don't want to go to-night, and let him guess, after a
+day or two, that you would very much rather ... you might affect a
+peculiar repugnance. By taking it on yourself, you see, this wild
+young man will not require such frightful efforts of persuasion.
+Both his father and he are exceedingly delicate subjects, and his
+father unfortunately is not in a position to be managed directly.
+It's a strange office to propose to you, but it appears to devolve
+upon you to manage the father through the son. Prodigal having made
+his peace, you, who have done all the work from a distance,
+naturally come into the circle of the paternal smile, knowing it due
+to you. I see no other way. If Richard suspects that his father
+objects for the present to welcome his daughter-in-law, hostilities
+will be continued, the breach will be widened, bad will grow to
+worse, and I see no end to it."
+
+Adrian looked in her face, as much as to say: Now are you capable of
+this piece of heroism? And it did seem hard to her that she should
+have to tell Richard she shrank from any trial. But the proposition
+chimed in with her fears and her wishes: she thought the wise youth
+very wise: the poor child was not insensible to his flattery, and
+the subtler flattery of making herself in some measure a sacrifice
+to the home she had disturbed. She agreed to simulate as Adrian had
+suggested.
+
+Victory is the commonest heritage of the hero, and when Richard came
+on shore proclaiming that the Blandish had beaten the Begum by seven
+minutes and three-quarters, he was hastily kissed and congratulated
+by his bride with her fingers among the leaves of Dr. Kitchener, and
+anxiously questioned about wine.
+
+"Dearest! Mr. Harley wants to stay with us a little, and he thinks
+we ought not to go immediately--that is, before he has had some
+letters, and I feel ... I would so much rather...."
+
+"Ah! that's it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then, to-morrow.
+We had a splendid race. Did you see us?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I saw you and was sure my darling would win." And again
+she threw on him the cold water of that solicitude about wine. "Mr.
+Harley must have the best, you know, and we never drink it, and I'm
+so silly, I don't know good wine, and if you would send Tom where he
+can get _good_ wine. I have seen to the dinner."
+
+"So that's why you didn't come to meet me?"
+
+"Pardon me, darling."
+
+"Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn't, and Lady Judith thinks you
+ought to have been there."
+
+"Ah, but my heart was with you!"
+
+Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart: her eyelids
+softened, and she ran away.
+
+It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no fault with it,
+and was in perfect good humour at the conclusion of the service. He
+did not abuse the wine they were able to procure for him, which was
+also much. The coffee, too, had the honour of passing without
+comment. These were sound first steps toward the conquest of an
+epicure, and as yet Cupid did not grumble.
+
+After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from Lady Judith's
+grounds. The wind had dropped. The clouds had rolled from the
+zenith, and ranged in amphitheatre with distant flushed bodies over
+sea and land: Titanic crimson head and chest rising from the wave
+faced Hyperion falling. There hung Briareus with deep-indented trunk
+and ravined brows, stretching all his hands up to unattainable blue
+summits. North-west the range had a rich white glow, as if shining
+to the moon, and westward, streams of amber, melting into upper
+rose, shot out from the dipping disk.
+
+"What Sandoe calls the passion-flower of heaven," said Richard under
+his breath to Adrian, who was serenely chanting Greek hexameters,
+and answered, in the swing of the cæsura, "He might as well have
+said cauliflower."
+
+Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head, met them in
+the walk. She was tall and dark; dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet and
+persuasive in her accent and manner. "A second edition of the
+Blandish," thinks Adrian. She welcomed him as one who had claims on
+her affability. She kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking on the
+wonders of the evening, appropriated her husband. Adrian and Lucy
+found themselves walking behind them.
+
+The sun was under. All the spaces of the sky were alight, and
+Richard's fancy flamed.
+
+"So you're not intoxicated with your immense triumph this morning?"
+said Lady Judith.
+
+"Don't laugh at me. When it's over I feel ashamed of the trouble
+I've taken. Look at that glory!--I'm sure you despise me for it."
+
+"Was I not there to applaud you? I only think such energies should
+be turned into some definitely useful channel. But you must not go
+into the Army."
+
+"What else can I do?"
+
+"You are fit for so much that is better."
+
+"I never can be anything like Austin."
+
+"But I think you can do more."
+
+"Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Something I will
+do. A man must deserve to live, as you say."
+
+"Sauces," Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in the rear,
+"Sauces are the top tree of this science. A woman who has mastered
+sauces sits on the apex of civilization."
+
+Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The West was all a burning rose.
+
+"How can men see such sights as those, and live idle?" Richard
+resumed. "I feel ashamed of asking my men to work for me.--Or I feel
+so now."
+
+"Not when you're racing the Begum, I think. There's no necessity for
+you to turn democrat like Austin. Do you write now?"
+
+"No. What is writing like mine? It doesn't deceive me. I know it's
+only the excuse I'm making to myself for remaining idle. I haven't
+written a line since--lately."
+
+"Because you are so happy."
+
+"No, not because of that. Of course I'm very happy...." He did not
+finish.
+
+Vague, shapeless ambition had replaced love in yonder skies. No
+Scientific Humanist was by to study the natural development, and
+guide him. This lady would hardly be deemed a very proper guide to
+the undirected energies of the youth, yet they had established
+relations of that nature. She was five years older than he, and a
+woman, which may explain her serene presumption.
+
+The cloud-giants had broken up: a brawny shoulder smouldered over
+the sea.
+
+"We'll work together in town, at all events," said Richard. "Why
+can't we go about together at night and find out people who want
+help?"
+
+Lady Judith smiled, and only corrected his nonsense by saying, "I
+think we mustn't be too romantic. You will become a knight-errant, I
+suppose. You have the characteristics of one."
+
+"Especially at breakfast," Adrian's unnecessarily emphatic
+gastronomical lessons to the young wife here came in.
+
+"You must be our champion," continued Lady Judith: "the rescuer and
+succourer of distressed dames and damsels. We want one badly."
+
+"You do," said Richard, earnestly: "from what I hear: from what I
+know!" His thoughts flew off with him as knight-errant hailed
+shrilly at exceeding critical moments by distressed dames and
+damsels. Images of airy towers hung around. His fancy performed
+miraculous feats. The towers crumbled. The stars grew larger, seemed
+to throb with lustre. His fancy crumbled with the towers of the
+air, his heart gave a leap, he turned to Lucy.
+
+"My darling! what have you been doing?" And as if to compensate her
+for his little knight-errant infidelity, he pressed very tenderly to
+her.
+
+"We have been engaged in a charming conversation on domestic
+cookery," interposed Adrian.
+
+"Cookery! such an evening as this?" His face was a handsome likeness
+of Hippias at the presentation of bride-cake.
+
+"Dearest! you know it's very useful," Lucy mirthfully pleaded.
+
+"Indeed I quite agree with you, child," said Lady Judith, "and I
+think you have the laugh of us. I certainly will learn to cook some
+day."
+
+"Woman's mission, in so many words," ejaculated Adrian.
+
+"And pray, what is man's?"
+
+"To taste thereof, and pronounce thereupon."
+
+"Let us give it up to them," said Lady Judith to Richard. "You and I
+never will make so delightful and beautifully balanced a world of
+it."
+
+Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to give everything
+up to the fair face, his bridal Hesper.
+
+Next day Lucy had to act the coward anew, and, as she did so, her
+heart sank to see how painfully it affected him that she should
+hesitate to go with him to his father. He was patient, gentle; he
+sat down by her side to appeal to her reason, and used all the
+arguments he could think of to persuade her.
+
+"If we go together and make him see us both: if he sees he has
+nothing to be ashamed of in you--rather everything to be proud of;
+if you are only near him, you will not have to speak a word, and I'm
+certain--as certain as that I live--that in a week we shall be
+settled happily at Raynham. I know my father so well, Lucy. Nobody
+knows him but I."
+
+Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not.
+
+"Adrian? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of people, Lucy; and
+not the best part."
+
+Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of her
+conquest.
+
+"Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy?"
+
+"No, no, Richard; oh, dear no;" she cried, and looked at him more
+tenderly because she was not quite truthful.
+
+"He doesn't know my father at all," said Richard. But Lucy had
+another opinion of the wise youth, and secretly maintained it. She
+could not be won to imagine the baronet a man of human mould,
+generous, forgiving, full of passionate love at heart, as Richard
+tried to picture him, and thought him, now that he beheld him again
+through Adrian's embassy. To her he was that awful figure, shrouded
+by the midnight. "Why are you so harsh?" she had heard Richard cry
+more than once. She was sure that Adrian must be right.
+
+"Well, I tell you I won't go without you," said Richard, and Lucy
+begged for a little more time.
+
+Cupid now began to grumble, and with cause. Adrian positively
+refused to go on the water unless that element were smooth as a
+plate. The South-west still joked boisterously at any comparison of
+the sort; the days were magnificent; Richard had yachting
+engagements; and Lucy always petitioned to stay to keep Adrian
+company, conceiving it her duty as hostess. Arguing with Adrian was
+an absurd idea. If Richard hinted at his retaining Lucy, the wise
+youth would remark: "It's a wholesome interlude to your extremely
+Cupidinous behaviour, my dear boy."
+
+Richard asked his wife what they could possibly find to talk about.
+
+"All manner of things," said Lucy; "not only cookery. He is so
+amusing, though he does make fun of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, and I think
+he ought not. And then, do you know, darling--you won't think me
+vain?--I think he is beginning to like me a little."
+
+Richard laughed at the humble mind of his Beauty.
+
+"Doesn't everybody like you, admire you? Doesn't Lord Mountfalcon,
+and Mr. Morton, and Lady Judith?"
+
+"But he is one of your family, Richard."
+
+"And they all will, if she isn't a coward."
+
+"Ah, no!" she sighs, and is chidden.
+
+The conquest of an epicure, or any young wife's conquest beyond her
+husband, however loyally devised for their mutual happiness, may be
+costly to her. Richard in his hours of excitement was thrown very
+much with Lady Judith. He consulted her regarding what he termed
+Lucy's cowardice. Lady Judith said: "I think she's wrong, but you
+must learn to humour little women."
+
+"Then would you advise me to go up alone?" he asked, with a cloudy
+forehead.
+
+"What else can you do? Be reconciled yourself as quickly as you can.
+You can't drag her like a captive, you know?"
+
+It is not pleasant for a young husband, fancying his bride the
+peerless flower of Creation, to learn that he must humour a little
+woman in her. It was revolting to Richard.
+
+"What I fear," he said, "is, that my father will make it smooth with
+me, and not acknowledge her: so that whenever I go to him, I shall
+have to leave her, and tit for tat--an abominable existence, like a
+ball on a billiard-table. I won't bear that ignominy. And this I
+know, I know! she might prevent it at once, if she would only be
+brave, and face it. You, you, Lady Judith, you wouldn't be a
+coward?"
+
+"Where my old lord tells me to go, I go," the lady coldly replied.
+"There's not much merit in that. Pray, don't cite me. Women are born
+cowards, you know."
+
+"But I love the women who are not cowards."
+
+"The little thing--your wife has not refused to go?"
+
+"No--but tears! Who can stand tears?"
+
+Lucy had come to drop them. Unaccustomed to have his will thwarted,
+and urgent where he saw the thing to do so clearly, the young
+husband had spoken strong words: and she, who knew that she would
+have given her life by inches for him; who knew that she was playing
+a part for his happiness, and hiding for his sake the nature that
+was worthy his esteem; the poor little martyr had been weak a
+moment.
+
+She had Adrian's support. The wise youth was very comfortable. He
+liked the air of the Island, and he liked being petted. "A nice
+little woman! a very nice little woman!" Tom Bakewell heard him
+murmur to himself according to a habit he had; and his air of rather
+succulent patronage as he walked or sat beside the innocent Beauty,
+with his head thrown back and a smile that seemed always to be in
+secret communion with his marked abdominal prominence, showed that
+she was gaining part of what she played for. Wise youths who buy
+their loves, are not unwilling, when opportunity offers, to try and
+obtain the commodity for nothing. Examinations of her hand, as for
+some occult purpose, and unctuous pattings of the same, were not
+infrequent. Adrian waxed now and then Anacreontic in his
+compliments. Lucy would say: "That's worse than Lord Mountfalcon."
+
+"Better English than the noble lord deigns to employ--allow that?"
+quoth Adrian.
+
+"He is very kind," said Lucy.
+
+"To all save to our noble vernacular," added Adrian. "He seems to
+scent a rival to his dignity there."
+
+It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic emotions.
+
+"We are at our ease here in excellent society," he wrote to Lady
+Blandish. "I am bound to confess that the Huron has a happy fortune,
+or a superlative instinct. Blindfold he has seized upon a suitable
+mate. She can look at a lord, and cook for an epicure. Besides Dr.
+Kitchener, she reads and comments on THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP. The 'Love'
+chapter, of course, takes her fancy. That picture of Woman, '_Drawn
+by Reverence and coloured by Love_,' she thinks beautiful, and
+repeats it, tossing up pretty eyes. Also the lover's petition:
+'_Give me purity to be worthy the good in her, and grant her
+patience to reach the good in me._' 'Tis quite taking to hear her
+lisp it. Be sure that I am repeating the petition! I make her read
+me her choice passages. She has not a bad voice.
+
+"The Lady Judith I spoke of is Austin's Miss Menteith, married to
+the incapable old Lord Felle, or Fellow, as the wits here call him.
+Lord Mountfalcon is his cousin, and her--what? She has been trying
+to find out, but they have both got over their perplexity, and act
+respectively the bad man reproved and the chaste counsellor; a
+position in which our young couple found them, and haply diverted
+its perils. They had quite taken them in hand. Lady Judith
+undertakes to cure the fair Papist of a pretty, modest trick of
+frowning and blushing when addressed, and his lordship directs the
+exuberant energies of the original man. 'Tis thus we fulfil our
+destinies, and are content. Sometimes they change pupils; my lord
+educates the little dame, and my lady the hope of Raynham. Joy and
+blessings unto all! as the German poet sings. Lady Judith accepted
+the hand of her decrepit lord that she might be of potent service to
+her fellow-creatures. Austin, you know, had great hopes of her.
+
+"I have for the first time in my career a field of lords to study. I
+think it is not without meaning that I am introduced to it by a
+yeoman's niece. The language of the two social extremes is similar.
+I find it to consist in an instinctively lavish use of vowels and
+adjectives. My lord and Farmer Blaize speak the same tongue, only my
+lord's has lost its backbone, and is limp, though fluent. Their
+pursuits are identical; but that one has money, or, as the Pilgrim
+terms it, _vantage_, and the other has not. Their ideas seem to have
+a special relationship in the peculiarity of stopping where they
+have begun. Young Tom Blaize with _vantage_ would be Lord
+Mountfalcon. Even in the character of their parasites I see a
+resemblance, though I am bound to confess that the Hon. Peter
+Brayder, who is my lord's parasite, is by no means noxious.
+
+"This sounds dreadfully democratic. Pray, don't be alarmed. The
+discovery of the affinity between the two extremes of the Royal
+British Oak has made me thrice conservative. I see now that the
+national love of a lord is less subservience than a form of
+self-love; putting a gold-lace hat on one's image, as it were, to
+bow to it. I see, too, the admirable wisdom of our system:--could
+there be a finer balance of power than in a community where men
+intellectually nil, have lawful vantage and a gold-lace hat on? How
+soothing it is to intellect--that noble rebel, as the PILGRIM has
+it--to stand, and bow, and know itself superior! This exquisite
+compensation maintains the balance: whereas that period anticipated
+by the PILGRIM, when science shall have produced an _intellectual
+aristocracy_, is indeed horrible to contemplate. For what despotism
+is so black as one the mind cannot challenge? 'Twill be an iron Age.
+Wherefore, madam, I cry, and shall continue to cry, '_Vive_ Lord
+Mountfalcon! long may he sip his Burgundy! long may the bacon-fed
+carry him on their shoulders!'
+
+"Mr. Morton (who does me the honour to call me Young Mephisto, and
+Socrates missed) leaves to-morrow to get Master Ralph out of a
+scrape. Our Richard has just been elected member of a Club for the
+promotion of nausea. Is he happy? you ask. As much so as one who has
+had the misfortune to obtain what he wanted can be. Speed is his
+passion. He races from point to point. In emulation of Leander and
+Don Juan, he swam, I hear, to the opposite shores the other day, or
+some world-shaking feat of the sort: himself the Hero whom he went
+to meet: or, as they who pun say, his Hero was a Bet. A pretty
+little domestic episode occurred this morning. He finds her
+abstracted in the fire of his caresses: she turns shy and seeks
+solitude: green jealousy takes hold of him: he lies in wait, and
+discovers her with his new rival--a veteran edition of the culinary
+Doctor! Blind to the Doctor's great national services, deaf to her
+wild music, he grasps the intruder, dismembers him, and performs
+upon him the treatment he has recommended for dressed cucumber.
+Tears and shrieks accompany the descent of the gastronome. Down she
+rushes to secure the cherished fragments: he follows: they find him,
+true to his character, alighted and straggling over a bed of
+blooming flowers. Yet ere a fairer flower can gather him, a heel
+black as Pluto stamps him into earth, flowers and all:--happy
+burial! Pathetic tribute to his merit is watering his grave, when by
+saunters my Lord Mountfalcon. 'What's the mattah?' says his
+lordship, soothing his moustache. They break apart, and 'tis left to
+me to explain from the window. My lord looks shocked, Richard is
+angry with her for having to be ashamed of himself, Beauty dries her
+eyes, and after a pause of general foolishness, the business of life
+is resumed. I may add that the Doctor has just been dug up, and we
+are busy, in the enemy's absence, renewing old Æson with enchanted
+threads. By the way, a Papist priest has blest them."
+
+A month had passed when Adrian wrote this letter. He was very
+comfortable; so of course he thought Time was doing his duty. Not a
+word did he say of Richard's return, and for some reason or other
+neither Richard nor Lucy spoke of it now.
+
+Lady Blandish wrote back: "His father thinks he has refused to come
+to him. By your utter silence on the subject, I fear that it must
+be so. Make him come. Bring him by force. _Insist_ on his coming. Is
+he mad? He must come _at once_."
+
+To this Adrian replied, after a contemplative comfortable lapse of a
+day or two, which might be laid to his efforts to adopt the lady's
+advice, "The point is that the half man declines to come without the
+whole man. The terrible question of sex is our obstruction."
+
+Lady Blandish was in despair. She had no positive assurance that the
+baronet would see his son; the mask put them all in the dark; but
+she thought she saw in Sir Austin irritation that the offender, at
+least when the opening to come and make his peace seemed to be
+before him, should let days and weeks go by. She saw through the
+mask sufficiently not to have any hope of his consenting to receive
+the couple at present; she was sure that his equanimity was
+fictitious; but she pierced no farther, or she might have started
+and asked herself, Is this the heart of a woman?
+
+The lady at last wrote to Richard. She said: "Come instantly, and
+come alone." Then Richard, against his judgment, gave way. "My
+father is not the man I thought him!" he exclaimed sadly, and Lucy
+felt his eyes saying to her: "And you, too, are not the woman I
+thought you." Nothing could the poor little heart reply but strain
+to his bosom and sleeplessly pray in his arms all the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+CLARE'S MARRIAGE
+
+
+Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin Clare was
+married, under the blessings of her energetic mother, and with the
+approbation of her kinsfolk, to the husband that had been
+expeditiously chosen for her. The gentleman, though something more
+than twice the age of his bride, had no idea of approaching senility
+for many long connubial years to come. Backed by his tailor and his
+hairdresser, he presented no such bad figure at the altar, and none
+would have thought that he was an ancient admirer of his bride's
+mama, as certainly none knew he had lately proposed for Mrs. Doria
+before there was any question of her daughter. These things were
+secrets; and the elastic and happy appearance of Mr. John Todhunter
+did not betray them at the altar. Perhaps he would rather have
+married the mother. He was a man of property, well born, tolerably
+well educated, and had, when Mrs. Doria rejected him for the first
+time, the reputation of being a fool--which a wealthy man may have
+in his youth; but as he lived on, and did not squander his
+money--amassed it, on the contrary, and did not seek to go into
+Parliament, and did other negative wise things, the world's opinion,
+as usual, veered completely round, and John Todhunter was esteemed a
+shrewd, sensible man--only not brilliant; that he was brilliant
+could not be said of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk, and it
+was a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were required
+of him in the marriage-service.
+
+Mrs. Doria had her own reasons for being in a hurry. She had
+discovered something of the strange impassive nature of her child;
+not from any confession of Clare's, but from signs a mother can read
+when her eyes are not resolutely shut. She saw with alarm and
+anguish that Clare had fallen into the pit she had been digging for
+her so laboriously. In vain she entreated the baronet to break the
+disgraceful, and, as she said, illegal alliance his son had
+contracted. Sir Austin would not even stop the little pension to
+poor Berry. "At least you will do that, Austin," she begged
+pathetically. "You will show your sense of that horrid woman's
+conduct?" He refused to offer up any victim to console her. Then
+Mrs. Doria told him her thoughts,--and when an outraged energetic
+lady is finally brought to exhibit these painfully hoarded
+treasures, she does not use half words as a medium. His System, and
+his conduct generally were denounced to him, without analysis. She
+let him understand that the world laughed at him; and he heard this
+from her at a time when his mask was still soft and liable to be
+acted on by his nerves. "You are weak, Austin! weak, I tell you!"
+she said, and, like all angry and self-interested people, prophecy
+came easy to her. In her heart she accused him of her own fault, in
+imputing to him the wreck of her project. The baronet allowed her
+to revel in the proclamation of a dire future, and quietly
+counselled her to keep apart from him, which his sister assured him
+she would do.
+
+But to be passive in calamity is the province of no woman. Mark the
+race at any hour. "What revolution and hubbub does not that little
+instrument, the needle, avert from us!" says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP.
+Alas, that in calamity women cannot stitch! Now that she saw Clare
+wanted other than iron, it struck her she must have a husband, and
+be made secure as a woman and a wife. This seemed the thing to do:
+and, as she had forced the iron down Clare's throat, so she forced
+the husband, and Clare gulped at the latter as she had at the
+former. On the very day that Mrs. Doria had this new track shaped
+out before her, John Todhunter called at the Foreys'. "Old John!"
+sang out Mrs. Doria, "show him up to me. I want to see him
+particularly." He sat with her alone. He was a man multitudes of
+women would have married--whom will they not?--and who would have
+married any presentable woman: but women do want asking, and John
+never had the word. The rape of such men is left to the practical
+animal. So John sat alone with his old flame. He had become resigned
+to her perpetual lamentation and living Suttee for his defunct
+rival. But, ha! what meant those soft glances now--addressed to him?
+His tailor and his hairdresser gave youth to John, but they had not
+the art to bestow upon him distinction, and an undistinguished man
+what woman looks at? John was an indistinguishable man. For that
+reason he was dry wood to a soft glance.
+
+And now she said: "It is time you should marry; and you are the man
+to be the guide and helper of a young woman, John. You are well
+preserved--younger than most of the young men of our day. You are
+eminently domestic, a good son, and will be a good husband and good
+father. Some one you must marry.--What do you think of Clare for a
+wife for you?"
+
+At first John Todhunter thought it would be very much like his
+marrying a baby. However, he listened to it, and that was enough for
+Mrs. Doria.
+
+She went down to John's mother, and consulted with her on the
+propriety of the scheme of wedding her daughter to John in
+accordance with his proposition. Mrs. Todhunter's jealousy of any
+disturbing force in the influence she held over her son Mrs. Doria
+knew to be one of the causes of John's remaining constant to the
+impression she had aforetime produced on him. She spoke so kindly of
+John, and laid so much stress on the ingrained obedience and passive
+disposition of her daughter, that Mrs. Todhunter was led to admit
+she did think it almost time John should be seeking a mate, and that
+he--all things considered--would hardly find a fitter one. And this,
+John Todhunter--old John no more--heard to his amazement when, a day
+or two subsequently, he instanced the probable disapproval of his
+mother.
+
+The match was arranged. Mrs. Doria did the wooing. It consisted in
+telling Clare that she had come to years when marriage was
+desirable, and that she had fallen into habits of moping which might
+have the worse effect on her future life, as it had on her present
+health and appearance, and which a husband would cure. Richard was
+told by Mrs. Doria that Clare had instantaneously consented to
+accept Mr. John Todhunter as lord of her days, and with more than
+obedience--with alacrity. At all events, when Richard spoke to
+Clare, the strange passive creature did not admit constraint on her
+inclinations. Mrs. Doria allowed Richard to speak to her. She
+laughed at his futile endeavours to undo her work, and the boyish
+sentiments he uttered on the subject. "Let us see, child," she said,
+"let us see which turns out the best; a marriage of passion, or a
+marriage of common sense."
+
+Heroic efforts were not wanting to arrest the union. Richard made
+repeated journeys to Hounslow, where Ralph was quartered, and if
+Ralph could have been persuaded to carry off a young lady who did
+not love him, from the bridegroom her mother averred she did love,
+Mrs. Doria might have been defeated. But Ralph in his cavalry
+quarters was cooler than Ralph in the Bursley meadows. "Women are
+oddities, Dick," he remarked, running a finger right and left along
+his upper lip. "Best leave them to their own freaks. She's a dear
+girl, though she doesn't talk: I like her for that. If she cared for
+me I'd go the race. She never did. It's no use asking a girl twice.
+_She_ knows whether she cares a fig for a fellow."
+
+The hero quitted him with some contempt. As Ralph Morton was a young
+man, and he had determined that John Todhunter was an old man, he
+sought another private interview with Clare, and getting her alone,
+said: "Clare, I've come to you for the last time. Will you marry
+Ralph Morton?"
+
+To which Clare replied, "I cannot marry two husbands, Richard."
+
+"Will you refuse to marry this old man?"
+
+"I must do as mama wishes."
+
+"Then you're going to marry an old man--a man you don't love, and
+can't love! Oh, good God! do you know what you're doing?" He flung
+about in a fury. "Do you know what it is? Clare!" he caught her two
+hands violently, "have you any idea of the horror you're going to
+commit?"
+
+She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed nor
+stammered: answering: "I see nothing wrong in doing what mama thinks
+right, Richard."
+
+"Your mother! I tell you it's an infamy, Clare! It's a miserable
+sin! I tell you, if I had done such a thing I would not live an hour
+after it. And coldly to prepare for it! to be busy about your
+dresses! They told me when I came in that you were with the
+milliner. To be smiling over the horrible outrage! decorating
+yourself!"...
+
+"Dear Richard," said Clare, "you will make me very unhappy."
+
+"That one of my blood should be so debased!" he cried, brushing
+angrily at his face. "Unhappy! I beg you to feel for yourself,
+Clare. But I suppose," and he said it scornfully, "girls don't feel
+this sort of shame."
+
+She grew a trifle paler.
+
+"Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear Richard."
+
+"Have you no will of your own?" he exclaimed.
+
+She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the meekness he
+detested in her.
+
+"No, I believe you have none!" he added. "And what can I do? I can't
+step forward and stop this accursed marriage. If you would but say a
+word I would save you; but you tie my hands. And they expect me to
+stand by and see it done!"
+
+"Will you not be there, Richard?" said Clare, following the question
+with her soft eyes. It was the same voice that had so thrilled him
+on his marriage morn.
+
+"Oh, my darling Clare!" he cried in the kindest way he had ever used
+to her, "if you knew how I feel this!" and now as he wept she wept,
+and came insensibly into his arms. "My darling Clare!" he repeated.
+
+She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping.
+
+"You _will_ do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So lovely as you
+are, too!... Clare! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to
+you, and tell you all.... Look up. Can you still consent?"
+
+"I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without looking up from
+the nest her cheek had made on his bosom.
+
+"Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. "I'll never kiss you
+after it, Clare."
+
+He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her arms wildly
+round him, and kissed him convulsively, and clung to his lips,
+shutting her eyes, her face suffused with a burning red.
+
+Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses.
+
+Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets against a
+stone wall. To her indeed the young married hero spoke almost
+indecorously, and that which his delicacy withheld him from speaking
+to Clare. He could provoke nothing more responsive from the
+practical animal than "Pooh-pooh! Tush, tush! and Fiddlededee!"
+
+"Really," Mrs. Doria said to her intimates, "that boy's education
+acts like a disease on him. He cannot regard anything sensibly. He
+is for ever in some mad excess of his fancy, and what he will come
+to at last heaven only knows! I sincerely pray that Austin will be
+able to bear it."
+
+Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity, are not
+very well worth having. Mrs. Doria had embarked in a practical
+controversy, as it were, with her brother. Doubtless she did trust
+he would be able to bear his sorrows to come, but one who has
+uttered prophecy can barely help hoping to see it fulfilled: she had
+prophesied much grief to the baronet.
+
+Poor John Todhunter, who would rather have married the mother, and
+had none of your heroic notions about the sacred necessity for love
+in marriage, moved as one guiltless of offence, and deserving his
+happiness. Mrs. Doria shielded him from the hero. To see him smile
+at Clare's obedient figure, and try not to look paternal, was
+touching.
+
+Meantime Clare's marriage served one purpose. It completely occupied
+Richard's mind, and prevented him from chafing at the vexation of
+not finding his father ready to meet him when he came to town. A
+letter had awaited Adrian at the hotel, which said, "Detain him till
+you hear further from me. Take him about with you into every form of
+society." No more than that. Adrian had to extemporize, that the
+baronet had gone down to Wales on pressing business, and would be
+back in a week or so. For ulterior inventions and devices wherewith
+to keep the young gentleman in town, he applied to Mrs. Doria.
+"Leave him to me," said Mrs. Doria, "I'll manage him." And she did.
+
+"Who can say," asks THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "when he is not walking a
+puppet to some woman?"
+
+Mrs. Doria would hear no good of Lucy. "I believe," she observed, as
+Adrian ventured a shrugging protest in her behalf,--"it is my firm
+opinion, that a scullery-maid would turn any of you men round her
+little finger--only give her time and opportunity." By dwelling on
+the arts of women, she reconciled it to her conscience to do her
+best to divide the young husband from his wife till it pleased his
+father they should live their unhallowed union again. Without
+compunction, or a sense of incongruity, she abused her brother and
+assisted the fulfilment of his behests.
+
+So the puppets were marshalled by Mrs. Doria, happy, or sad, or
+indifferent. Quite against his set resolve and the tide of his
+feelings, Richard found himself standing behind Clare in the
+church--the very edifice that had witnessed his own marriage, and
+heard, "I, Clare Doria, take thee John Pemberton," clearly
+pronounced. He stood, with black brows dissecting the arts of the
+tailor and hairdresser on unconscious John. The back, and much of
+the middle, of Mr. Todhunter's head was bald; the back shone like
+an egg-shell, but across the middle the artist had drawn two long
+dabs of hair from the sides, and plastered them cunningly, so that
+all save wilful eyes would have acknowledged the head to be covered.
+The man's only pretension was to a respectable juvenility. He had a
+good chest, stout limbs, a face inclined to be jolly. Mrs. Doria had
+no cause to be put out of countenance at all by the exterior of her
+son-in-law: nor was she. Her splendid hair and gratified smile made
+a light in the church. Playing puppets must be an immense pleasure
+to the practical animal. The Forey bridesmaids, five in number, and
+one Miss Doria, their cousin, stood as girls do stand at these
+sacrifices, whether happy, sad, or indifferent; a smile on their
+lips and tears in attendance. Old Mrs. Todhunter, an exceedingly
+small ancient woman, was also there. "I can't have my boy John
+married without seeing it done," she said, and throughout the
+ceremony she was muttering audible encomiums on her John's manly
+behaviour.
+
+The ring was affixed to Clare's finger; there was no ring lost in
+this common-sense marriage. The instant the clergyman bade him
+employ it, John drew the ring out, and dropped it on the finger of
+the cold passive hand in a business-like way, as one who had studied
+the matter. Mrs. Doria glanced aside at Richard. Richard observed
+Clare spread out her fingers that the operation might be the more
+easily effected.
+
+He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said to his aunt:
+
+"Now I'll go."
+
+"You'll come to the breakfast, child? The Foreys"----
+
+He cut her short. "I've stood for the family, and I'll do no more. I
+won't pretend to eat and make merry over it."
+
+"Richard!"
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+She had attained her object and she wisely gave way.
+
+"Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray, pray be civil."
+
+She turned to Adrian, and said: "He is going. You must go with him,
+and find some means of keeping him, or he'll be running off to that
+woman. Now, no words--go!"
+
+Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to him humbly, but
+he kissed her on the forehead.
+
+"Do not cease to love me," she said in a quavering whisper in his
+ear.
+
+Mr. Todhunter stood beaming and endangering the art of the
+hairdresser with his pocket-handkerchief. Now he positively was
+married, he thought he would rather have the daughter than the
+mother, which is a reverse of the order of human thankfulness at a
+gift of the Gods.
+
+"Richard, my boy!" he said heartily, "congratulate me."
+
+"I should be happy to, if I could," sedately replied the hero, to
+the consternation of those around. Nodding to the bridesmaids and
+bowing to the old lady, he passed out.
+
+Adrian, who had been behind him, deputed to watch for a possible
+unpleasantness, just hinted to John: "You know, poor fellow, he has
+got into a mess with his marriage."
+
+"Oh! ah! yes!" kindly said John, "poor fellow!"
+
+All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast.
+
+Adrian hurried after Richard in an extremely discontented state of
+mind. Not to be at the breakfast and see the best of the fun,
+disgusted him. However, he remembered that he was a philosopher, and
+the strong disgust he felt was only expressed in concentrated
+cynicism on every earthly matter engendered by the conversation.
+They walked side by side into Kensington Gardens. The hero was
+mouthing away to himself, talking by fits.
+
+Presently he faced Adrian, crying: "And I might have stopped it! I
+see it now! I might have stopped it by going straight to him, and
+asking him if he dared marry a girl who did not love him. And I
+never thought of it. Good heavens! I feel this miserable affair on
+my conscience."
+
+"Ah!" groaned Adrian. "An unpleasant cargo for the conscience, that!
+I would rather carry anything on mine than a married couple. Do you
+purpose going to him now?"
+
+The hero soliloquized: "He's not a bad sort of man."...
+
+"Well, he's not a Cavalier," said Adrian, "and that's why you wonder
+your aunt selected him, no doubt? He's decidedly of the Roundhead
+type, with the Puritan extracted, or inoffensive, if latent."
+
+"There's the double infamy!" cried Richard, "that a man you can't
+call bad, should do this damned thing!"
+
+"Well, it's hard we can't find a villain."
+
+"He would have listened to me, I'm sure."
+
+"Go to him now, Richard, my son. Go to him now. It's not yet too late.
+Who knows? If he really has a noble elevated superior mind--though not a
+Cavalier in person, he may be one at heart--he might, to please you, and
+since you put such stress upon it, abstain ... perhaps with some loss of
+dignity, but never mind. And the request might be singular, or seem so,
+but everything has happened before in this world, you know, my dear boy.
+And what an infinite consolation it is for the eccentric, that
+reflection!"
+
+The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared at him as if he
+were but a speck in the universe he visioned.
+
+It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian's best subject for
+cynical pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies he started, and
+his worst in the way he took it; and the wise youth, against his
+will, had to feel as conscious of the young man's imaginative mental
+armour, as he was of his muscular physical.
+
+"The same sort of day!" mused Richard, looking up. "I suppose my
+father's right. We make our own fates, and nature has nothing to do
+with it."
+
+Adrian yawned.
+
+"Some difference in the trees, though," Richard continued
+abstractedly.
+
+"Growing bald at the top," said Adrian.
+
+"Will you believe that my aunt Helen compared the conduct of that
+wretched slave Clare to Lucy's, who, she had the cruel insolence to
+say, entangled me into marriage?" the hero broke out loudly and
+rapidly. "You know--I told you, Adrian--how I had to threaten and
+insist, and how she pleaded, and implored me to wait."
+
+"Ah! hum!" mumbled Adrian.
+
+"You remember my telling you?" Richard was earnest to hear her
+exonerated.
+
+"Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she did. Where's
+the lass that doesn't."
+
+"Call my wife by another name, if you please."
+
+"The generic title can't be cancelled because of your having married
+one of the body, my son."
+
+"She did all she could to persuade me to wait!" emphasized Richard.
+
+Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile.
+
+"Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!"
+
+Richard bellowed: "What more could she have done?"
+
+"She could have shaved her head, for instance."
+
+This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation Richard shot
+in front, Adrian following him; and asking him (merely to have his
+assumption verified), whether he did not think she might have shaved
+her head? and, presuming her to have done so, whether, in candour,
+he did not think he would have waited--at least till she looked less
+of a rank lunatic?
+
+After a minute or so, the wise youth was but a fly buzzing about
+Richard's head. Three weeks of separation from Lucy, and an
+excitement deceased, caused him to have soft yearnings for the dear
+lovely home-face. He told Adrian it was his intention to go down
+that night. Adrian immediately became serious. He was at a loss what
+to invent to detain him, beyond the stale fiction that his father
+was coming to-morrow. He rendered homage to the genius of woman in
+these straits. "My aunt," he thought, "would have the lie ready; and
+not only that, but she would take care it did its work."
+
+At this juncture the voice of a cavalier in the Row hailed them,
+proving to be the Honourable Peter Brayder, Lord Mountfalcon's
+parasite. He greeted them very cordially; and Richard, remembering
+some fun they had in the Island, asked him to dine with them;
+postponing his return till the next day. Lucy was his. It was even
+sweet to dally with the delight of seeing her.
+
+The Hon. Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to.
+Though not so tall as a West of London footman, he was as shapely;
+and he had a power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as
+it suited the exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of
+money in the world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended
+largely. The world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his
+Lordship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he exercised
+the ancient companion profession. This the world said, and still
+smiled at the Hon. Peter; for he was an engaging fellow, and where
+he went not Lord Mountfalcon would not go.
+
+They had a quiet little hotel dinner, ordered by Adrian, and made a
+square at the table, Ripton Thompson being the fourth. Richard sent
+down to his office to fetch him, and the two friends shook hands for
+the first time since the great deed had been executed. Deep was the
+Old Dog's delight to hear the praises of his Beauty sounded by such
+aristocratic lips as the Hon. Peter Brayder's. All through the
+dinner he was throwing out hints and small queries to get a fuller
+account of her; and when the claret had circulated, he spoke a word
+or two himself, and heard the Hon. Peter eulogize his taste, and
+wish him a bride as beautiful; at which Ripton blushed, and said, he
+had no hope of that, and the Hon. Peter assured him marriage did not
+break the mould.
+
+After the wine this gentleman took his cigar on the balcony, and
+found occasion to get some conversation with Adrian alone.
+
+"Our young friend here--made it all right with the governor?" he
+asked carelessly.
+
+"Oh yes!" said Adrian. But it struck him that Brayder might be of
+assistance in showing Richard a little of the "society in every
+form," required by his chief's prescript. "That is," he continued,
+"we are not yet permitted an interview with the august author of our
+being, and I have rather a difficult post. 'Tis mine both to keep
+him here, and also to find him the opportunity to measure himself
+with his fellow-man. In other words, his father wants him to see
+something of life before he enters upon housekeeping. Now I am proud
+to confess that I'm hardly equal to the task. The demi, or
+damnedmonde--if it's that he wants him to observe--is one that I
+have not got the walk to."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Brayder. "You do the keeping, I offer to parade
+the demi. I must say, though, it's a queer notion of the old
+gentleman."
+
+"It's the continuation of a philosophic plan," said Adrian.
+
+Brayder followed the curvings of the whiff of his cigar with his
+eyes, and ejaculated, "Infernally philosophic!"
+
+"Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island?" Adrian inquired.
+
+"Mount? to tell the truth I don't know where he is. Chasing some
+light craft, I suppose. That's poor Mount's weakness. It's his ruin,
+poor fellow! He's so confoundedly in earnest at the game."
+
+"He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true," remarked
+Adrian.
+
+"He's a baby about women, and always will be," said Brayder. "He's
+been once or twice wanting to marry them. Now there's a
+woman--you've heard of Mrs. Mount? All the world knows her.--If that
+woman hadn't scandalized."--The young man joined them, and checked
+the communication. Brayder winked to Adrian, and pitifully indicated
+the presence of an innocent.
+
+"A married man, you know," said Adrian.
+
+"Yes, yes!--we won't shock him," Brayder observed. He appeared to
+study the young man while they talked.
+
+Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his aunt. Mrs.
+Doria took a seat by his side, and spoke as follows:
+
+"My dear nephew. Now you know I have always loved you, and thought
+of your welfare as if you had been my own child. More than that, I
+fear. Well, now, you are thinking of returning to--to that
+place--are you not? Yes. It is as I thought. Very well now, let me
+speak to you. You are in a much more dangerous position than you
+imagine. I don't deny your father's affection for you. It would be
+absurd to deny it. But you are of an age now to appreciate his
+character. Whatever you may do he will always give you money. That
+you are sure of; that you know. Very well. But you are one to want
+more than money: you want his love. Richard, I am convinced you will
+never be happy, whatever base pleasures you may be led into, if he
+should withhold his love from you. Now, child, you know you have
+grievously offended him. I wish not to animadvert on your
+conduct.--You fancied yourself in love, and so on, and you were
+rash. The less said of it the better now. But you must now--it is
+your duty now to do something--to do everything that lies in your
+power to show him you repent. No interruptions! Listen to me. You
+must consider him. Austin is not like other men. Austin requires
+the most delicate management. You must--whether you feel it or
+no--present an appearance of contrition. I counsel it for the good
+of all. He is just like a woman, and where his feelings are offended
+he wants utter subservience. He has you in town, and he does not see
+you:--now you know that he and I are not in communication: we have
+likewise our differences:--Well, he has you in town, and he holds
+aloof:--he is trying you, my dear Richard. No: he is not at Raynham:
+I do not know where he is. He is trying you, child, and you must be
+patient. You must convince him that you do not care utterly for your
+own gratification. If this person--I wish to speak of her with
+respect, for your sake--well, if she loves you _at all_--if, I say,
+she loves you _one atom_, she will repeat my solicitations for you
+to stay and patiently wait here till he consents to see you. I tell
+you candidly, it's your only chance of ever getting him to receive
+_her_. That you should know. And now, Richard, I may add that there
+is something else you should know. You should know that it depends
+entirely upon your conduct now, whether you are to see your father's
+heart for ever divided from you, and a new family at Raynham. You do
+not understand? I will explain. Brothers and sisters are excellent
+things for young people, but a new brood of them can hardly be
+acceptable to a young man. In fact, they are, and must be, aliens. I
+only tell you what I have heard on good authority. Don't you
+understand now? Foolish boy! if you do not humour him, he will marry
+her. Oh! I am sure of it. I know it. And this you will drive him to.
+I do not warn you on the score of your prospects, but of your
+feelings. I should regard such a contingency, Richard, as a final
+division between you. Think of the scandal! but alas, that is the
+least of the evils."
+
+It was Mrs. Doria's object to produce an impression, and avoid an
+argument. She therefore left him as soon as she had, as she
+supposed, made her mark on the young man. Richard was very silent
+during the speech, and save for an exclamation or so, had listened
+attentively. He pondered on what his aunt said. He loved Lady
+Blandish, and yet he did not wish to see her Lady Feverel. Mrs.
+Doria laid painful stress on the scandal, and though he did not
+give his mind to this, he thought of it. He thought of his mother.
+Where was she? But most his thoughts recurred to his father, and
+something akin to jealousy slowly awakened his heart to him. He had
+given him up, and had not latterly felt extremely filial; but he
+could not bear the idea of a division in the love of which he had
+ever been the idol and sole object. And such a man, too! so good! so
+generous! If it was jealousy that roused the young man's heart to
+his father, the better part of love was also revived in it. He
+thought of old days: of his father's forbearance, his own
+wilfulness. He looked on himself, and what he had done, with the
+eyes of such a man. He determined to do all he could to regain his
+favour.
+
+Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her nephew
+intended waiting in town another week.
+
+"That will do," smiled Mrs. Doria. "He will be more patient at the
+end of a week."
+
+"Oh! does patience beget patience?" said Adrian. "I was not aware it
+was a propagating virtue. I surrender him to you. I shan't be able
+to hold him in after one week more. I assure you, my dear aunt, he's
+already"....
+
+"Thank you, no explanation," Mrs. Doria begged.
+
+When Richard saw her next, he was informed that she had received a
+most satisfactory letter from Mrs. John Todhunter: quite a glowing
+account of John's behaviour: but on Richard's desiring to know the
+words Clare had written, Mrs. Doria objected to be explicit, and
+shot into worldly gossip.
+
+"Clare seldom glows," said Richard.
+
+"No, I mean _for her_," his aunt remarked. "Don't look like your
+father, child."
+
+"I should like to have seen the letter," said Richard.
+
+Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND
+
+
+A lady driving a pair of greys was noticed by Richard in his rides
+and walks. She passed him rather obviously and often. She was very
+handsome; a bold beauty, with shining black hair, red lips, and eyes
+not afraid of men. The hair was brushed from her temples, leaving
+one of those fine reckless outlines which the action of driving, and
+the pace, admirably set off. She took his fancy. He liked the air of
+petulant gallantry about her, and mused upon the picture, rare to
+him, of a glorious dashing woman. He thought, too, she looked at
+him. He was not at the time inclined to be vain, or he might have
+been sure she did. Once it struck him she nodded slightly.
+
+He asked Adrian one day in the park--who she was.
+
+"I don't know her," said Adrian. "Probably a superior priestess of
+Paphos."
+
+"Now that's my idea of Bellona," Richard exclaimed. "Not the fury
+they paint, but a spirited, dauntless, eager-looking creature like
+that."
+
+"Bellona?" returned the wise youth. "I don't think her hair was
+black. Red, wasn't it? I shouldn't compare her to Bellona; though,
+no doubt, she's as ready to spill blood. Look at her! She does seem
+to scent carnage. I see your idea. No; I should liken her to Diana
+emerged from the tutorship of Master Endymion, and at nice play
+among the gods. Depend upon it--they tell us nothing of the
+matter--Olympus shrouds the story--but you may be certain that when
+she left the pretty shepherd she had greater vogue than Venus up
+aloft."
+
+Brayder joined them.
+
+"See Mrs. Mount go by?" he said.
+
+"Oh, that's Mrs. Mount!" cried Adrian.
+
+"Who's Mrs. Mount?" Richard inquired.
+
+"A sister to Miss Random, my dear boy."
+
+"Like to know her?" drawled the Hon. Peter.
+
+Richard replied indifferently, "No," and Mrs. Mount passed out of
+sight and out of the conversation.
+
+The young man wrote submissive letters to his father. "I have
+remained here waiting to see you now five weeks," he wrote. "I have
+written to you three letters, and you do not reply to them. Let me
+tell you again how sincerely I desire and pray that you will come,
+or permit me to come to you and throw myself at your feet, and beg
+my forgiveness, and hers. She as earnestly implores it. Indeed, I am
+very wretched, sir. Believe me, there is nothing I would not do to
+regain your esteem and the love I fear I have unhappily forfeited. I
+will remain another week in the hope of hearing from you, or seeing
+you. I beg of you, sir, not to drive me mad. Whatever you ask of me
+I will consent to."
+
+"Nothing he would not do!" the baronet commented as he read. "There
+is nothing he would not do! He will remain another week and give me
+that final chance! And it is I who drive him mad! Already he is
+beginning to cast his retribution on my shoulders."
+
+Sir Austin had really gone down to Wales to be out of the way. A
+Shaddock-Dogmatist does not meet misfortune without hearing of it,
+and the author of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP in trouble found London too
+hot for him. He quitted London to take refuge among the mountains;
+living there in solitary commune with a virgin Note-book.
+
+Some indefinite scheme was in his head in this treatment of his son.
+Had he construed it, it would have looked ugly; and it settled to a
+vague principle that the young man should be tried and tested.
+
+"Let him learn to deny himself something. Let him live with his
+equals for a term. If he loves me he will read my wishes." Thus he
+explained his principle to Lady Blandish.
+
+The lady wrote: "You speak of a term. Till when? May I name one to
+him? It is the dreadful _uncertainty_ that reduces him to despair.
+That, and nothing else. Pray be explicit."
+
+In return, he distantly indicated Richard's majority.
+
+How could Lady Blandish go and ask the young man to wait a year away
+from his wife? Her instinct began to open a wide eye on the idol she
+worshipped.
+
+When people do not themselves know what they mean, they succeed in
+deceiving and imposing upon others. Not only was Lady Blandish
+mystified; Mrs. Doria, who pierced into the recesses of everybody's
+mind, and had always been in the habit of reading off her brother
+from infancy, and had never known herself to be once wrong about
+him, she confessed she was quite at a loss to comprehend Austin's
+principle. "For principle he has," said Mrs. Doria; "he never acts
+without one. But what it is, I cannot at present perceive. If he
+would write, and command the boy to await his return, all would be
+clear. He allows us to go and fetch him, and then leaves us all in a
+quandary. It must be some woman's influence. That is the only way to
+account for it."
+
+"Singular!" interjected Adrian, "what pride women have in their sex!
+Well, I have to tell you, my dear aunt, that the day after to-morrow
+I hand my charge over to your keeping. I can't hold him in an hour
+longer. I've had to leash him with lies till my invention's
+exhausted. I petition to have them put down to the chief's account,
+but when the stream runs dry I can do no more. The last was, that I
+had heard from him desiring me to have the South-west bedroom ready
+for him on Tuesday proximate. 'So!' says my son, 'I'll wait till
+then,' and from the gigantic effort he exhibited in coming to it, I
+doubt any human power's getting him to wait longer."
+
+"We must, we must detain him," said Mrs. Doria. "If we do not, I am
+convinced Austin will do something rash that he will for ever
+repent. He will marry that woman, Adrian. Mark my words. Now with
+any other young man!... But Richard's education! that ridiculous
+System!... Has he no distraction? nothing to amuse him?"
+
+"Poor boy! I suppose he wants his own particular playfellow."
+
+The wise youth had to bow to a reproof.
+
+"I tell you, Adrian, he will marry that woman."
+
+"My dear aunt! Can a chaste man do aught more commendable?"
+
+"Has the boy no object we can induce him to follow?--If he had but a
+profession!"
+
+"What say you to the regeneration of the streets of London, and the
+profession of moral-scavenger, aunt? I assure you I have served a
+month's apprenticeship with him. We sally forth on the tenth hour
+of the night. A female passes. I hear him groan. 'Is _she_ one of
+them, Adrian?' I am compelled to admit she is not the saint he deems
+it the portion of every creature wearing petticoats to be. Another
+groan; an evident internal, 'It cannot be--and yet!' ... that we
+hear on the stage. Rollings of eyes: impious questionings of the
+Creator of the universe; savage mutterings against brutal males; and
+then we meet a second young person, and repeat the performance--of
+which I am rather tired. It would be all very well, but he turns
+upon me, and lectures me because I don't hire a house, and furnish
+it for all the women one meets to live in in purity. Now that's too
+much to ask of a quiet man. Master Thompson has latterly relieved
+me, I'm happy to say."
+
+Mrs. Doria thought her thoughts.
+
+"Has Austin written to you since you were in town?"
+
+"Not an Aphorism!" returned Adrian.
+
+"I must see Richard to-morrow morning," Mrs. Doria ended the
+colloquy by saying.
+
+The result of her interview with her nephew was, that Richard made
+no allusion to a departure on the Tuesday; and for many days
+afterward he appeared to have an absorbing business on his hands:
+but what it was Adrian did not then learn, and his admiration of
+Mrs. Doria's genius for management rose to a very high pitch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a morning in October they had an early visitor in the person of
+the Hon. Peter, whom they had not seen for a week or more.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, flourishing his cane in his most affable
+manner, "I've come to propose to you to join us in a little
+dinner-party at Richmond. Nobody's in town, you know. London's as
+dead as a stock-fish. Nothing but the scrapings to offer you. But
+the weather's fine: I flatter myself you'll find the company
+agreeable. What says my friend Feverel?"
+
+Richard begged to be excused.
+
+"No, no: positively you must come," said the Hon. Peter. "I've had
+some trouble to get them together to relieve the dulness of your
+incarceration. Richmond's within the rules of your prison. You can
+be back by night. Moonlight on the water--lovely woman. We've
+engaged a city-barge to pull us back. Eight oars--I'm not sure it
+isn't sixteen. Come--the word!"
+
+Adrian was for going. Richard said he had an appointment with
+Ripton.
+
+"You're in for another rick, you two," said Adrian. "Arrange that we
+go. You haven't seen the cockney's Paradise. Abjure Blazes, and
+taste of peace, my son."
+
+After some persuasion, Richard yawned wearily, and got up, and threw
+aside the care that was on him, saying, "Very well. Just as you
+like. We'll take old Rip with us."
+
+Adrian consulted Brayder's eye at this. The Hon. Peter briskly
+declared he should be delighted to have Feverel's friend, and
+offered to take them all down in his drag.
+
+"If you don't get a match on to swim there with the tide--eh,
+Feverel, my boy?"
+
+Richard replied that he had given up that sort of thing, at which
+Brayder communicated a queer glance to Adrian, and applauded the
+youth.
+
+Richmond was under a still October sun. The pleasant landscape,
+bathed in Autumn, stretched from the foot of the hill to a red
+horizon haze. The day was like none that Richard vividly remembered.
+It touched no link in the chain of his recollection. It was quiet,
+and belonged to the spirit of the season.
+
+Adrian had divined the character of the scrapings they were to meet.
+Brayder introduced them to one or two of the men, hastily and in
+rather an undervoice, as a thing to get over. They made their bow to
+the first knot of ladies they encountered. Propriety was observed
+strictly, even to severity. The general talk was of the weather.
+Here and there a lady would seize a button-hole or any little bit of
+the habiliments, of the man she was addressing; and if it came to
+her to chide him, she did it with more than a forefinger. This,
+however, was only here and there, and a privilege of intimacy.
+
+Where ladies are gathered together, the Queen of the assemblage may
+be known by her Court of males. The Queen of the present gathering
+leaned against a corner of the open window, surrounded by a stalwart
+Court, in whom a practised eye would have discerned guardsmen, and
+Ripton, with a sinking of the heart, apprehended lords. They were
+fine men, offering inanimate homage. The trim of their whiskerage,
+the cut of their coats, the high-bred indolence in their aspect,
+eclipsed Ripton's sense of self-esteem. But they kindly looked over
+him. Occasionally one committed a momentary outrage on him with an
+eye-glass, seeming to cry out in a voice of scathing scorn, "Who's
+this?" and Ripton got closer to his hero to justify his humble
+pretensions to existence and an identity in the shadow of him.
+Richard gazed about. Heroes do not always know what to say or do;
+and the cold bath before dinner in strange company is one of the
+instances. He had recognized his superb Bellona in the lady by the
+garden window. For Brayder the men had nods and jokes, the ladies a
+pretty playfulness. He was very busy, passing between the groups,
+chatting, laughing, taking the feminine taps he received, and
+sometimes returning them in sly whispers. Adrian sat down and
+crossed his legs, looking amused and benignant.
+
+"Whose dinner is it?" Ripton heard a mignonne beauty ask of a
+cavalier.
+
+"Mount's, I suppose," was the answer.
+
+"Where is he? Why don't he come?"
+
+"An affaire, I fancy."
+
+"There he is again! How shamefully he treats Mrs. Mount!"
+
+"She don't seem to cry over it."
+
+Mrs. Mount was flashing her teeth and eyes with laughter at one of
+her Court, who appeared to be Fool.
+
+Dinner was announced. The ladies proclaimed extravagant appetites.
+Brayder posted his three friends. Ripton found himself under the lee
+of a dame with a bosom. On the other side of him was the mignonne.
+Adrian was at the lower end of the table. Ladies were in profusion,
+and he had his share. Brayder drew Richard from seat to seat. A
+happy man had established himself next to Mrs. Mount. Him Brayder
+hailed to take the head of the table. The happy man objected,
+Brayder continued urgent, the lady tenderly insisted, the happy man
+grimaced, dropped into the post of honour, strove to look placable.
+Richard usurped his chair, and was not badly welcomed by his
+neighbour.
+
+Then the dinner commenced, and had all the attention of the company,
+till the flying of the first champagne-cork gave the signal, and a
+hum began to spread. Sparkling wine, that looseneth the tongue, and
+displayeth the verity, hath also the quality of colouring it. The
+ladies laughed high; Richard only thought them gay and natural. They
+flung back in their chairs and laughed to tears; Ripton thought only
+of the pleasure he had in their society. The champagne-corks
+continued a regular file-firing.
+
+"Where have you been lately? I haven't seen you in the park," said
+Mrs. Mount to Richard.
+
+"No," he replied, "I've not been there." The question seemed odd:
+she spoke so simply that it did not impress him. He emptied his
+glass, and had it filled again.
+
+The Hon. Peter did most of the open talking, which related to
+horses, yachting, opera, and sport generally: who was ruined, by
+what horse, or by what woman. He told one or two of Richard's feats.
+Fair smiles rewarded the hero.
+
+"Do you bet?" said Mrs. Mount.
+
+"Only on myself," returned Richard.
+
+"Bravo!" cried his Bellona, and her eye sent a lingering delirious
+sparkle across her brimming glass at him.
+
+"I'm sure you're a safe one to back," she added, and seemed to scan
+his points approvingly.
+
+Richard's cheeks mounted bloom.
+
+"Don't you adore champagne?" quoth the dame with a bosom to Ripton.
+
+"Oh, yes!" answered Ripton, with more candour than accuracy, "I
+always drink it."
+
+"Do you indeed?" said the enraptured bosom, ogling him. "You would
+be a friend, now! I hope you don't object to a lady joining you now
+and then. Champagne's my folly."
+
+A laugh was circling among the ladies of whom Adrian was the centre;
+first low, and as he continued some narration, peals resounded, till
+those excluded from the fun demanded the cue, and ladies leaned
+behind gentlemen to take it up, and formed an electric chain of
+laughter. Each one, as her ear received it, caught up her
+handkerchief, and laughed, and looked shocked afterwards, or looked
+shocked and then spouted laughter. The anecdote might have been
+communicated to the bewildered cavaliers, but coming to a lady of a
+demurer cast, she looked shocked without laughing, and reproved the
+female table, in whose breasts it was consigned to burial: but here
+and there a man's head was seen bent, and a lady's mouth moved,
+though her face was not turned toward him, and a man's broad laugh
+was presently heard, while the lady gazed unconsciously before her,
+and preserved her gravity if she could escape any other lady's eyes;
+failing in which, handkerchiefs were simultaneously seized, and a
+second chime arose, till the tickling force subsided to a few chance
+bursts.
+
+What nonsense it is that my father writes about women! thought
+Richard. He says they can't laugh, and don't understand humour. It
+comes, he reflected, of his shutting himself from the world. And the
+idea that he was seeing the world, and feeling wiser, flattered him.
+He talked fluently to his dangerous Bellona. He gave her some
+reminiscences of Adrian's whimsies.
+
+"Oh!" said she, "that's your tutor, is it!" She eyed the young man
+as if she thought he must go far and fast.
+
+Ripton felt a push. "Look at that," said the bosom, fuming utter
+disgust. He was directed to see a manly arm round the waist of the
+mignonne. "Now that's what I don't like in company," the bosom
+inflated to observe with sufficient emphasis. "She always will allow
+it with everybody. Give her a nudge."
+
+Ripton protested that he dared not; upon which she said, "Then I
+will"; and inclined her sumptuous bust across his lap, breathing
+wine in his face, and gave the nudge. The mignonne turned an
+inquiring eye on Ripton; a mischievous spark shot from it. She
+laughed, and said: "Aren't you satisfied with the old bird?"
+
+"Impudence!" muttered the bosom, growing grander and redder.
+
+"Do, do fill her glass, and keep her quiet--she drinks port when
+there's no more champagne," said the mignonne.
+
+The bosom revenged herself by whispering to Ripton scandal of the
+mignonne, and between them he was enabled to form a correcter
+estimate of the company, and quite recovered from his original awe:
+so much so as to feel a touch of jealousy at seeing his lively
+little neighbour still held in absolute possession.
+
+Mrs. Mount did not come out much; but there was a deferential manner
+in the bearing of the men toward her, which those haughty creatures
+accord not save to clever women; and she contrived to hold the talk
+with three or four at the head of the table while she still had
+passages aside with Richard.
+
+The port and claret went very well after the champagne. The ladies
+here did not ignominiously surrender the field to the gentlemen;
+they maintained their position with honour. Silver was seen far out
+on Thames. The wine ebbed, and the laughter. Sentiment and cigars
+took up the wondrous tale.
+
+"Oh, what a lovely night!" said the ladies, looking above.
+
+"Charming," said the gentlemen, looking below.
+
+The faint-smelling cool Autumn air was pleasant after the feast.
+Fragrant weeds burned bright about the garden.
+
+"We are split into couples," said Adrian to Richard, who was
+standing alone, eying the landscape. "'Tis the influence of the
+moon! Apparently we are in Cyprus. How has my son enjoyed himself?
+How likes he the society of Aspasia? I feel like a wise Greek
+to-night."
+
+Adrian was jolly, and rolled comfortably as he talked. Ripton had
+been carried off by the sentimental bosom. He came up to them and
+whispered: "By Jove, Ricky! do you know what sort of women these
+are?"
+
+Richard said he thought them a nice sort.
+
+"Puritan!" exclaimed Adrian, slapping Ripton on the back. "Why
+didn't you get tipsy, sir? Don't you ever intoxicate yourself except
+at lawful marriages? Reveal to us what you have done with the portly
+dame?"
+
+Ripton endured his bantering that he might hang about Richard, and
+watch over him. He was jealous of his innocent Beauty's husband
+being in proximity with such women. Murmuring couples passed them to
+and fro.
+
+"By Jove, Ricky!" Ripton favoured his friend with another hard
+whisper, "there's a woman smoking!"
+
+"And why not, O Riptonus?" said Adrian. "Art unaware that woman
+cosmopolitan is woman consummate? and dost grumble to pay the small
+price for the splendid gem?"
+
+"Well, I don't like women to smoke," said plain Ripton.
+
+"Why mayn't they do what men do?" the hero cried impetuously. "I
+hate that contemptible narrow-mindedness. It's that makes the ruin
+and horrors I see. Why mayn't they do what men do? I like the women
+who are brave enough not to be hypocrites. By heaven! if these women
+are bad, I like them better than a set of hypocritical creatures who
+are all show, and deceive you in the end."
+
+"Bravo!" shouted Adrian. "There speaks the regenerator."
+
+Ripton, as usual, was crushed by his leader. He had no argument. He
+still thought women ought not to smoke; and he thought of one far
+away, lonely by the sea, who was perfect without being cosmopolitan.
+
+THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP remarks that: "Young men take joy in nothing so
+much as the thinking women Angels: and nothing sours men of
+experience more than knowing that all are not quite so."
+
+The Aphorist would have pardoned Ripton Thompson his first Random
+extravagance, had he perceived the simple warm-hearted worship of
+feminine goodness Richard's young bride had inspired in the breast
+of the youth. It might possibly have taught him to put deeper trust
+in our nature.
+
+Ripton thought of her, and had a feeling of sadness. He wandered
+about the grounds by himself, went through an open postern, and
+threw himself down among some bushes on the slope of the hill. Lying
+there, and meditating, he became aware of voices conversing.
+
+"What does he want?" said a woman's voice. "It's another of his
+villainies, I know. Upon my honour, Brayder, when I think of what I
+have to reproach him for, I think I must go mad, or kill him."
+
+"Tragic!" said the Hon. Peter. "Haven't you revenged yourself,
+Bella, pretty often? Best deal openly. This is a commercial
+transaction. You ask for money, and you are to have it--on the
+conditions: double the sum, and debts paid."
+
+"He applies to me!"
+
+"You know, my dear Bella, it has long been all up between you. I
+think Mount has behaved very well, considering all he knows. He's
+not easily hoodwinked, you know. He resigns himself to his fate, and
+follows other game."
+
+"Then the condition is, that I am to seduce this young man?"
+
+"My dear Bella! you strike your bird like a hawk. I didn't say
+seduce. Hold him in--play with him. Amuse him."
+
+"I don't understand half-measures."
+
+"Women seldom do."
+
+"How I hate you, Brayder!"
+
+"I thank your ladyship."
+
+The two walked farther. Ripton had heard some little of the
+colloquy. He left the spot in a serious mood, apprehensive of
+something dark to the people he loved, though he had no idea of what
+the Hon. Peter's stipulation involved.
+
+On the voyage back to town, Richard was again selected to sit by
+Mrs. Mount. Brayder and Adrian started the jokes. The pair of
+parasites got on extremely well together. Soft fell the plash of the
+oars; softly the moonlight curled around them; softly the banks
+glided by. The ladies were in a state of high sentiment. They sang
+without request. All deemed the British ballad-monger an appropriate
+interpreter of their emotions. After good wine, and plenty thereof,
+fair throats will make men of taste swallow that remarkable
+composer. Eyes, lips, hearts; darts and smarts and sighs; beauty,
+duty; bosom, blossom; false one, farewell! To this pathetic strain
+they melted. Mrs. Mount, though strongly requested, declined to
+sing. She preserved her state. Under the tall aspens of
+Brentford-ait, and on they swept, the white moon in their wake.
+Richard's hand lay open by his side. Mrs. Mount's little white hand
+by misadventure fell into it. It was not pressed, or soothed for its
+fall, or made intimate with eloquent fingers. It lay there like a
+bit of snow on the cold ground. A yellow leaf wavering down from the
+aspens struck Richard's cheek, and he drew away the very hand to
+throw back his hair and smooth his face, and then folded his arms,
+unconscious of offence. He was thinking ambitiously of his life: his
+blood was untroubled, his brain calmly working.
+
+"Which is the more perilous?" is a problem put by the PILGRIM: "To
+meet the temptings of Eve, or to pique her?"
+
+Mrs. Mount stared at the young man as at a curiosity, and turned to
+flirt with one of her Court. The Guardsmen were mostly sentimental.
+One or two rattled, and one was such a good-humoured fellow that
+Adrian could not make him ridiculous. The others seemed to give
+themselves up to a silent waxing in length of limb. However far they
+sat removed, everybody was entangled in their legs. Pursuing his
+studies, Adrian came to the conclusion, that the same close
+intellectual and moral affinity which he had discovered to exist
+between our nobility and our yeomanry, is to be observed between the
+Guardsman class, and that of the corps de ballet: they both live by
+the strength of their legs, where also their wits, if they do not
+altogether reside there, are principally developed: both are volage;
+wine, tobacco, and the moon, influence both alike; and admitting the
+one marked difference that does exist, it is, after all, pretty
+nearly the same thing to be coquetting and sinning on two legs as on
+the point of a toe.
+
+A long Guardsman with a deep bass voice sang a doleful song about
+the twining tendrils of the heart ruthlessly torn, but required
+urgent persuasions and heavy trumpeting of his lungs to get to the
+end: before he had accomplished it, Adrian had contrived to raise a
+laugh in his neighbourhood, so that the company was divided, and the
+camp split: jollity returned to one-half, while sentiment held the
+other. Ripton, blotted behind the bosom, was only lucky in securing
+a higher degree of heat than was possible for the rest. "Are you
+cold?" she would ask, smiling charitably.
+
+"_I_ am," said the mignonne, as if to excuse her conduct.
+
+"You always appear to be," the fat one sniffed and snapped.
+
+"Won't you warm two, Mrs. Mortimer?" said the naughty little woman.
+
+Disdain prevented any further notice of her. Those familiar with the
+ladies enjoyed their sparring, which was frequent. The mignonne was
+heard to whisper: "That poor fellow will certainly be stewed."
+
+Very prettily the ladies took and gave warmth, for the air on the
+water was chill and misty. Adrian had beside him the demure one who
+had stopped the circulation of his anecdote. She in nowise objected
+to the fair exchange, but said "Hush!" betweenwhiles.
+
+Past Kew and Hammersmith, on the cool smooth water; across Putney
+reach; through Battersea bridge; and the City grew around them, and
+the shadows of great mill-factories slept athwart the moonlight.
+
+All the ladies prattled sweetly of a charming day when they alighted
+on land. Several cavaliers crushed for the honour of conducting Mrs.
+Mount to her home.
+
+"My brougham's here; I shall go alone," said Mrs. Mount. "Some one
+arrange my shawl."
+
+She turned her back to Richard, who had a view of a delicate neck as
+he manipulated with the bearing of a mailed knight.
+
+"Which way are you going?" she asked carelessly, and, to his reply
+as to the direction, said: "Then I can give you a lift," and she
+took his arm with a matter-of-course air, and walked up the stairs
+with him.
+
+Ripton saw what had happened. He was going to follow: the portly
+dame retained him, and desired him to get her a cab.
+
+"Oh, you happy fellow!" said the bright-eyed mignonne, passing by.
+
+Ripton procured the cab, and stuffed it full without having to get
+into it himself.
+
+"Try and let him come in too?" said the persecuting creature, again
+passing.
+
+"Take liberties with your men--you shan't with me," retorted the
+angry bosom, and drove off.
+
+"So she's been and gone and run away and left him after all his
+trouble!" cried the pert little thing, peering into Ripton's eyes.
+"Now you'll never be so foolish as to pin your faith to fat women
+again. There! he shall be made happy another time." She gave his
+nose a comical tap, and tripped away with her possessor.
+
+Ripton rather forgot his friend for some minutes: Random thoughts
+laid hold of him. Cabs and carriages rattled past. He was sure he
+had been among members of the nobility that day, though when they
+went by him now they only recognized him with an effort of the
+eyelids. He began to think of the day with exultation, as an event.
+Recollections of the mignonne were captivating. "Blue eyes--just
+what I like! And such a little impudent nose, and red lips,
+pouting--the very thing I like! And her hair? darkish, I think--say
+brown. And so saucy, and light on her feet. And kind she is, or she
+wouldn't have talked to me like that." Thus, with a groaning soul,
+he pictured her. His reason voluntarily consigned her to the
+aristocracy as a natural appanage: but he did amorously wish that
+Fortune had made a lord of him.
+
+Then his mind reverted to Mrs. Mount, and the strange bits of the
+conversation he had heard on the hill. He was not one to suspect
+anybody positively. He was timid of fixing a suspicion. It hovered
+indefinitely, and clouded people, without stirring him to any
+resolve. Still the attentions of the lady toward Richard were queer.
+He endeavoured to imagine they were in the nature of things, because
+Richard was so handsome that any woman must take to him. "But he's
+married," said Ripton, "and he mustn't go near these people if he's
+married." Not a high morality, perhaps: better than none at all:
+better for the world were it practised more. He thought of Richard
+along with that sparkling dame, alone with her. The adorable beauty
+of his dear bride, her pure heavenly face, swam before him. Thinking
+of her, he lost sight of the mignonne who had made him giddy.
+
+He walked to Richard's hotel, and up and down the street there,
+hoping every minute to hear his step; sometimes fancying he might
+have returned and gone to bed. Two o'clock struck. Ripton could not
+go away. He was sure he should not sleep if he did. At last the cold
+sent him homeward, and leaving the street, on the moonlight side of
+Piccadilly he met his friend patrolling with his head up and that
+swing of the feet proper to men who are chanting verses.
+
+"Old Rip!" cried Richard, cheerily. "What on earth are you doing
+here at this hour of the morning?"
+
+Ripton muttered of his pleasure at meeting him. "I wanted to shake
+your hand before I went home."
+
+Richard smiled on him in an amused kindly way. "That all? You may
+shake my hand any day, like a true man as you are, old Rip! I've
+been speaking about you. Do you know, that--Mrs. Mount--never saw
+you all the time at Richmond, or in the boat!"
+
+"Oh!" Ripton said, well assured that he was a dwarf: "you saw her
+safe home?"
+
+"Yes. I've been there for the last couple of hours--talking. She
+talks capitally: she's wonderfully clever. She's very like a man,
+only much nicer. I like her."
+
+"But, Richard, excuse me--I'm sure I don't mean to offend you--but
+now you're married ... perhaps you couldn't help seeing her home,
+but I think you really indeed oughtn't to have gone upstairs."
+
+Ripton delivered this opinion with a modest impressiveness.
+
+"What do you mean?" said Richard. "You don't suppose I care for any
+woman but my little darling down there." He laughed.
+
+"No; of course not. That's absurd. What I mean is, that people
+perhaps will--you know, they do--they say all manner of things, and
+that makes unhappiness, and ... I do wish you were going home
+to-morrow, Ricky. I mean, to your dear wife." Ripton blushed and
+looked away as he spoke.
+
+The hero gave one of his scornful glances. "So you're anxious about
+my reputation. I hate that way of looking on women. Because they
+have been once misled--look how much weaker they are!--because the
+world has given them an ill fame, you would treat them as
+contagious, and keep away from them for the sake of your character!"
+
+"It would be different with me," quoth Ripton.
+
+"How?" asked the hero.
+
+"Because I'm worse than you," was all the logical explanation Ripton
+was capable of.
+
+"I do hope you will go home soon," he added.
+
+"Yes," said Richard, "and I, so do I hope so. But I've work to do
+now. I dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy would be the last to ask
+me;--you saw her letter yesterday. Now listen to me, Rip. I want to
+make you be just to women."
+
+Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking of them as
+if he had known them and studied them for years. Clever, beautiful,
+but betrayed by love, it was the first duty of all true men to
+cherish and redeem them. "We turn them into curses, Rip; these
+divine creatures." And the world suffered for it. That--that was the
+root of all the evil in the world!
+
+"I don't feel anger or horror at these poor women, Rip! It's
+strange. I knew what they were when we came home in the boat. But I
+do--it tears my heart to see a young girl given over to an old
+man--a man she doesn't love. That's shame!--Don't speak of it."
+
+Forgetting to contest the premise, that all betrayed women are
+betrayed by love, Ripton was quite silenced. He, like most young
+men, had pondered somewhat on this matter, and was inclined to be
+sentimental when he was not hungry. They walked in the moonlight by
+the railings of the park. Richard harangued at leisure, while
+Ripton's teeth chattered. Chivalry might be dead, but still there
+was something to do, went the strain. The lady of the day had not
+been thrown in the hero's path without an object, he said; and he
+was sadly right there. He did not express the thing clearly;
+nevertheless Ripton understood him to mean, he intended to rescue
+that lady from further transgressions, and show a certain scorn of
+the world. That lady, and then other ladies unknown, were to be
+rescued. Ripton was to help. He and Ripton were to be the knights of
+this enterprise. When appealed to, Ripton acquiesced, and shivered.
+Not only were they to be knights, they would have to be Titans, for
+the powers of the world, the spurious ruling Social Gods, would have
+to be defied and overthrown. And Titan number one flung up his
+handsome bold face as if to challenge base Jove on the spot; and
+Titan number two strained the upper button of his coat to meet
+across his pocket-handkerchief on his chest, and warmed his fingers
+under his coat-tails. The moon had fallen from her high seat and was
+in the mists of the West, when he was allowed to seek his blankets,
+and the cold acting on his friend's eloquence made Ripton's flesh
+very contrite. The poor fellow had thinner blood than the hero; but
+his heart was good. By the time he had got a little warmth about
+him, his heart gratefully strove to encourage him in the conception
+of becoming a knight and a Titan; and so striving Ripton fell asleep
+and dreamed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY
+
+
+Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beautiful
+woman.
+
+     "Alas!" writes the Pilgrim at this very time to Lady Blandish,
+     "I cannot get that legend of the Serpent from me, the more I
+     think. Has he not caught you, and ranked you foremost in his
+     legions? For see: till you were fashioned, the fruits hung
+     immobile on the boughs. They swayed before us, glistening and
+     cold. The hand must be eager that plucked them. They did not
+     come down to us, and smile, and speak our language, and read
+     our thoughts, and know when to fly, when to follow! how surely
+     to have us!
+
+     "Do but mark one of you standing openly in the track of the
+     Serpent. What shall be done with her? I fear the world is wiser
+     than its judges! Turn from her, says the world. By day the sons
+     of the world do. It darkens, and they dance together downward.
+     Then comes there one of the world's elect who deems old counsel
+     devilish; indifference to the end of evil worse than its
+     pursuit. He comes to reclaim her. From deepest bane will he
+     bring her back to highest blessing. Is not that a bait already?
+     Poor fish! 'tis wondrous flattering. The Serpent has slimed her
+     so to secure him! With slow weary steps he draws her into
+     light: she clings to him; she is human; part of his work, and
+     he loves it. As they mount upward, he looks on her more, while
+     she, it may be, looks above. What has touched him? What has
+     passed out of her, and into him? The Serpent laughs below. At
+     the gateways of the Sun they fall together!"
+
+This alliterative production was written without any sense of the
+peril that makes prophecy.
+
+It suited Sir Austin to write thus. It was a channel to his acrimony
+moderated through his philosophy. The letter was a reply to a
+vehement entreaty from Lady Blandish for him to come up to Richard
+and forgive him thoroughly: Richard's name was not mentioned in it.
+
+"He tries to be more than he is," thought the lady: and she began
+insensibly to conceive him less than he was.
+
+The baronet was conscious of a certain false gratification in his
+son's apparent obedience to his wishes and complete submission; a
+gratification he chose to accept as his due, without dissecting or
+accounting for it. The intelligence reiterating that Richard waited,
+and still waited; Richard's letters, and more his dumb abiding and
+practical penitence; vindicated humanity sufficiently to stop the
+course of virulent aphorisms. He could speak, we have seen, in
+sorrow for this frail nature of ours, that he had once stood forth
+to champion. "But how long will this last?" he demanded, with the
+air of Hippias. He did not reflect how long it had lasted. Indeed,
+his indigestion of wrath had made of him a moral Dyspepsy.
+
+It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the arms of his
+young wife: nor was it this new knightly enterprise he had presumed
+to undertake. Hero as he was, a youth, open to the insane promptings
+of hot blood, he was not a fool. There had been talk between him and
+Mrs. Doria of his mother. Now that he had broken from his father,
+his heart spoke for her. She lived, he knew: he knew no more. Words
+painfully hovering along the borders of plain speech had been
+communicated to him, filling him with moody imaginings. If he
+thought of her, the red was on his face, though he could not have
+said why. But now, after canvassing the conduct of his father, and
+throwing him aside as a terrible riddle, he asked Mrs. Doria to tell
+him of his other parent. As softly as she could she told the story.
+To her the shame was past: she could weep for the poor lady. Richard
+dropped no tears. Disgrace of this kind is always present to a son,
+and, educated as he had been, these tidings were a vivid fire in his
+brain. He resolved to hunt her out, and take her from the man. Here
+was work set to his hand. All her dear husband did was right to
+Lucy. She encouraged him to stay for that purpose, thinking it also
+served another. There was Tom Bakewell to watch over Lucy: there
+was work for him to do. Whether it would please his father he did
+not stop to consider. As to the justice of the act, let us say
+nothing.
+
+On Ripton devolved the humbler task of grubbing for Sandoe's place
+of residence; and as he was unacquainted with the name by which the
+poet now went in private, his endeavours were not immediately
+successful. The friends met in the evening at Lady Blandish's
+town-house, or at the Foreys', where Mrs. Doria procured the reverer
+of the Royal Martyr, and staunch conservative, a favourable
+reception. Pity, deep pity for Richard's conduct Ripton saw
+breathing out of Mrs. Doria. Algernon Feverel treated his nephew
+with a sort of rough commiseration, as a young fellow who had run
+off the road.
+
+Pity was in Lady Blandish's eyes, though for a different cause. She
+doubted if she did well in seconding his father's unwise
+scheme--supposing him to have a scheme. She saw the young husband
+encompassed by dangers at a critical time. Not a word of Mrs. Mount
+had been breathed to her, but the lady had some knowledge of life.
+She touched on delicate verges to the baronet in her letters, and he
+understood her well enough. "If he loves this person to whom he has
+bound himself, what fear for him? Or are you coming to think it
+something that bears the name of love because we have to veil the
+rightful appellation?" So he responded, remote among the mountains.
+She tried very hard to speak plainly. Finally he came to say, that
+he denied himself the pleasure of seeing his son specially, that he
+for a time might be put to the test the lady seemed to dread. This
+was almost too much for Lady Blandish. Love's charity boy so loftily
+serene now that she saw him half denuded--a thing of shanks and
+wrists--was a trial for her true heart.
+
+Going home at night Richard would laugh at the faces made about his
+marriage. "We'll carry the day, Rip, my Lucy and I! or I'll do it
+alone--what there is to do." He slightly adverted to a natural want
+of courage in women, which Ripton took to indicate that his Beauty
+was deficient in that quality. Up leapt the Old Dog; "I'm sure there
+never was a braver creature upon earth, Richard! She's as brave as
+she's lovely, I'll swear she is! Look how she behaved that day! How
+her voice sounded! She was trembling.... Brave? She'd follow you
+into battle Richard!"
+
+And Richard rejoined: "Talk on, dear old Rip! She's my darling love,
+whatever she is! And she is gloriously lovely. No eyes are like
+hers. I'll go down to-morrow morning the first thing."
+
+Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could remain
+apart from it. So thought Richard for a space.
+
+"But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a day even I
+shall have undone all my work with my father. She says it
+herself--you saw it in her last letter."
+
+"Yes," Ripton assented, and the words "Please remember me to dear
+Mr. Thompson," fluttered about the Old Dog's heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business that led
+her through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure that she had once
+dandled in long clothes, and helped make a man of, if ever woman
+did. He was walking under the trees beside a lady, talking to her,
+not indifferently. The gentleman was her bridegroom and her babe. "I
+know his back," said Mrs. Berry, as if she had branded a mark on it
+in infancy. But the lady was not her bride. Mrs. Berry diverged from
+the path, and got before them on the left flank; she stared,
+retreated, and came round upon the right. There was that in the
+lady's face which Mrs. Berry did not like. Her innermost question
+was, why he was not walking with his own wife? She stopped in front
+of them. They broke, and passed about her. The lady made a laughing
+remark to him, whereat he turned to look, and Mrs. Berry bobbed. She
+had to bob a second time, and then he remembered the worthy
+creature, and hailed her Penelope, shaking her hand so that he put
+her in countenance again. Mrs. Berry was extremely agitated. He
+dismissed her, promising to call upon her in the evening. She heard
+the lady slip out something from a side of her lip, and they both
+laughed as she toddled off to a sheltering tree to wipe a corner of
+each eye. "I don't like the looks of that woman," she said, and
+repeated it resolutely.
+
+"Why doesn't he walk arm-in-arm with her?" was her next inquiry.
+"Where's his wife?" succeeded it. After many interrogations of the
+sort, she arrived at naming the lady a bold-faced thing; adding
+subsequently, brazen. The lady had apparently shown Mrs. Berry that
+she wished to get rid of her, and had checked the outpouring of her
+emotions on the breast of her babe. "I know a lady when I see one,"
+said Mrs. Berry. "I haven't lived with 'em for nothing; and if she's
+a lady bred and born, I wasn't married in the church alive."
+
+Then, if not a lady, what was she? Mrs. Berry desired to know.
+"She's imitation lady, I'm sure she is!" Berry vowed. "I say she
+don't look proper."
+
+Establishing the lady to be a spurious article, however, what was
+one to think of a married man in company with such? "Oh no! it ain't
+that!" Mrs. Berry returned immediately on the charitable tack.
+"Belike it's some one of his acquaintance 've married her for her
+looks, and he've just met her.... Why it'd be as bad as my Berry!"
+the relinquished spouse of Berry ejaculated, in horror at the idea
+of a second man being so monstrous in wickedness. "Just coupled,
+too!" Mrs. Berry groaned on the suspicious side of the debate. "And
+such a sweet young thing for his wife! But no, I'll never believe
+it. Not if he tell me so himself! And men don't do that," she
+whimpered.
+
+Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these matters; soft
+women exceedingly swift: and soft women who have been betrayed are
+rapid beyond measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she
+pronounced distinctly and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion
+is--married or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up--she's
+nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant
+she forthwith registered the lady in the botanical note-book of her
+brain. It would have astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person
+so accurately hit off at a glance.
+
+In the evening Richard made good his promise, accompanied by Ripton.
+Mrs. Berry opened the door to them. She could not wait to get him
+into the parlour. "You're my own blessed babe; and I'm as good as
+your mother,--though I didn't suck ye, bein' a maid!" she cried,
+falling into his arms, while Richard did his best to support the
+unexpected burden. Then reproaching him tenderly for his guile--at
+mention of which Ripton chuckled, deeming it his own most honourable
+portion of the plot--Mrs. Berry led them into the parlour, and
+revealed to Richard who she was, and how she had tossed him, and
+hugged him, and kissed him all over, when he was only that
+big--showing him her stumpy fat arm. "I kissed ye from head to tail,
+I did," said Mrs. Berry, "and you needn't be ashamed of it. It's be
+hoped you'll never have nothin' worse come t'ye, my dear!"
+
+Richard assured her he was not a bit ashamed, but warned her that
+she must not do it now, Mrs. Berry admitting it was out of the
+question now, and now that he had a wife, moreover. The young men
+laughed, and Ripton laughing over-loudly drew on himself Mrs.
+Berry's attention: "But that Mr. Thompson there--however he can look
+me in the face after his inn'cence! helping blindfold an old
+woman!--though I ain't sorry for what I did--that I'm free for to
+say, and it's over, and blessed be all! Amen! So now where is she
+and how is she, Mr. Richard, my dear--it's only cuttin' off the 's'
+and you are as you was.--Why didn't ye bring her with ye to see her
+old Berry?"
+
+Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of
+Wight.
+
+"Oh! and you've left her for a day or two?" said Mrs. Berry.
+
+"Good God! I wish it had been a day or two," cried Richard.
+
+"Ah! and how long have it been?" asked Mrs. Berry, her heart
+beginning to beat at his manner of speaking.
+
+"Don't talk about it," said Richard.
+
+"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you haven't been peckin'
+at one another yet?" Mrs. Berry exclaimed.
+
+Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.
+
+"Then how long ha' you been divided?"
+
+In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September."
+
+"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers,
+"September, October, Nov--two months and more! nigh three! A young
+married husband away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months!
+Oh my! Oh my! what do that mean?"
+
+"My father sent for me--I'm waiting to see him," said Richard. A few
+more words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs.
+Then Mrs. Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her
+eyes, and spoke.
+
+"My dear young gentleman!--I'd like to call ye my darlin' babe! I'm
+going to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and
+what old Berry says, you won't mind, for she's had ye when there was
+no conventionals about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother to
+you, though humble her state. If there's one that know matrimony
+it's me, my dear, though Berry did give me no more but nine months
+of it: and I've known the worst of matrimony, which, if you wants to
+be woful wise, there it is for ye. For what have been my gain? That
+man gave me nothin' but his name; and Bessy Andrews was as good as
+Bessy Berry, though both is 'Bs,' and says he, you was 'A,' and now
+you's 'B,' so you're my A B, he says, write yourself down that, he
+says, the bad man, with his jokes!--Berry went to service." Mrs.
+Berry's softness came upon her. "So I tell ye, Berry went to
+service. He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he went to
+service; because he were al'ays an ambitious man, and wasn't, so to
+speak, happy out of his uniform--which was his livery--not even in
+my arms: and he let me know it. He got among them kitchen sluts,
+which was my mournin' ready made, and worse than a widow's cap to
+me, which is no shame to wear, and some say becoming. There's no man
+as ever lived known better than my Berry how to show his legs to
+advantage, and gals look at 'em. I don't wonder now that Berry was
+prostrated. His temptations was strong, and his flesh was weak. Then
+what I say is, that for a young married man--be he whomsoever he may
+be--to be separated from the wife of his bosom--a young sweet thing,
+and he an innocent young gentleman!--so to sunder, in their state,
+and be kep' from each other, I say it's as bad as bad can be! For
+what is matrimony, my dears? We're told it's a holy Ordnance. And
+why are ye so comfortable in matrimony? For that ye are not a
+sinnin'! And they that severs ye they tempts ye to stray: and you
+learn too late the meanin' o' them blessin's of the priest--as it was
+ordained. Separate--what comes? Fust it's like the circulation of your
+blood a-stoppin'--all goes wrong. Then there's misunderstandings--ye've
+both lost the key. Then, behold ye, there's birds o' prey hoverin' over
+each on ye, and it's which'll be snapped up fust. Then--Oh, dear! Oh,
+dear! it be like the devil come into the world again." Mrs. Berry
+struck her hands and moaned. "A day I'll give ye: I'll go so far as a
+week: but there's the outside. Three months dwellin' apart! That's not
+matrimony, it's divorcin'! what can it be to her but widowhood?
+widowhood with no cap to show for it! And what can it be to you, my
+dear? Think! you been a bachelor three months! and a bachelor man,"
+Mrs. Berry shook her head most dolefully, "he ain't a widow woman.
+I don't go to compare you to Berry, my dear young gentleman. Some
+men's hearts is vagabonds born--they must go astray--it's their natur'
+to. But all men are men, and I know the foundation of 'em, by reason
+of my woe."
+
+Mrs. Berry paused. Richard was humorously respectful to the sermon.
+The truth in the good creature's address was not to be disputed, or
+despised, notwithstanding the inclination to laugh provoked by her
+quaint way of putting it. Ripton nodded encouragingly at every
+sentence, for he saw her drift, and wished to second it.
+
+Seeking for an illustration of her meaning, Mrs. Berry solemnly
+continued: "We all know what checked prespiration is." But neither
+of the young gentlemen could resist this. Out they burst in a roar
+of laughter.
+
+"Laugh away," said Mrs. Berry. "I don't mind ye. I say agin, we all
+do know what checked prespiration is. It fly to the lungs, it gives
+ye mortal inflammation, and it carries ye off. Then I say checked
+matrimony is as bad. It fly to the heart, and it carries off the
+virtue that's in ye, and you might as well be dead! Them that is
+joined it's their salvation not to separate! It don't so much matter
+before it. That Mr. Thompson there--if he go astray, it ain't from
+the blessed fold. He hurt himself alone--not double, and belike
+treble, for who can say now what may be? There's time for it. I'm
+for holding back young people so that they knows their minds,
+howsomever they rattles about their hearts. I ain't a speeder of
+matrimony, and good's my reason! but where it's been done--where
+they're lawfully joined, and their bodies made one, I do say this,
+that to put division between 'em then, it's to make wanderin' comets
+of 'em--creatures without a objeck, and no soul can say what they's
+good for but to rush about!"
+
+Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has said her utmost
+for the time being.
+
+"My dear old girl," Richard went up to her and, applauding her on
+the shoulder, "you're a very wise old woman. But you mustn't speak
+to me as if I wanted to stop here. I'm compelled to. I do it for her
+good chiefly."
+
+"It's your father that's doin' it, my dear?"
+
+"Well, I'm waiting his pleasure."
+
+"A pretty pleasure! puttin' a snake in the nest of young
+turtle-doves! And why don't she come up to you?"
+
+"Well, that you must ask her. The fact is, she's a little timid
+girl--she wants me to see him first, and when I've made all right,
+then she'll come."
+
+"A little timid girl!" cried Mrs. Berry. "Oh, lor', how she must ha'
+deceived ye to make ye think that! Look at that ring," she held out
+her finger, "he's a stranger: he's not my lawful! You know what ye
+did to me, my dear. Could I get my own wedding-ring back from her?
+'No!' says she, firm as a rock, 'he said, _with this ring_ I thee
+wed'--I think I see her now, with her pretty eyes and lovesome
+locks--a darlin'!--And that ring she'd keep to, come life, come
+death. And she must ha' been a rock for me to give in to her in
+that. For what's the consequence? Here am I," Mrs. Berry smoothed
+down the back of her hand mournfully, "here am I in a strange ring,
+that's like a strange man holdin' of me, and me a-wearin' of it just
+to seem decent, and feelin' all over no better than a b---- a
+big--that nasty name I can't abide!--I tell you, my dear, she ain't
+soft, no!--except to the man of her heart; and the best of women's
+too soft there--more's our sorrow!"
+
+"Well, well!" said Richard, who thought he knew.
+
+"I agree with you, Mrs. Berry," Ripton struck in, "Mrs. Richard
+would do anything in the world her husband asked her, I'm quite
+sure."
+
+"Bless you for your good opinion, Mr. Thompson! Why, see her! she
+ain't frail on her feet; she looks ye straight in the eyes; she
+ain't one of your hang-down misses. Look how she behaved at the
+ceremony!"
+
+"Ah!" sighed Ripton.
+
+"And if you'd ha' seen her when she spoke to me about my ring!
+Depend upon it, my dear Mr. Richard, if she blinded you about the
+nerve she've got, it was somethin' she thought she ought to do for
+your sake, and I wish I'd been by to counsel her, poor blessed
+babe!--And how much longer, now, can ye stay divided from that
+darlin'?"
+
+Richard paced up and down.
+
+"A father's will," urged Mrs. Berry, "that's a son's law; but he
+mustn't go again' the laws of his nature to do it."
+
+"Just be quiet at present--talk of other things, there's a good
+woman," said Richard.
+
+Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms.
+
+"How strange, now, our meetin' like this! meetin' at all, too!" she
+remarked contemplatively. "It's them advertisements! They brings
+people together from the ends of the earth, for good or for bad. I
+often say, there's more lucky accidents, or unlucky ones, since
+advertisements was the rule, than ever there was before. They make a
+number of romances, depend upon it! Do you walk much in the Gardens,
+my dear?"
+
+"Now and then," said Richard.
+
+"Very pleasant it is there with the fine folks and flowers and
+titled people," continued Mrs. Berry. "That was a handsome woman you
+was a-walkin' beside, this mornin'."
+
+"Very," said Richard.
+
+"She was a handsome woman! or I should say, is, for her day ain't
+past, and she know it. I thought at first--by her back--it might ha'
+been your aunt, Mrs. Forey; for she do step out well and hold up her
+shoulders: straight as a dart she be! But when I come to see her
+face--Oh, dear me! says I, this ain't one of the family. They none
+of 'em got such bold faces--nor no _lady_ as I know have. But she's
+a fine woman--that nobody can gainsay."
+
+Mrs. Berry talked further of the fine woman. It was a liberty she
+took to speak in this disrespectful tone of her, and Mrs. Berry was
+quite aware that she was laying herself open to rebuke. She had her
+end in view. No rebuke was uttered, and during her talk she observed
+intercourse passing between the eyes of the young men.
+
+"Look here, Penelope," Richard stopped her at last. "Will it make
+you comfortable if I tell you I'll obey the laws of my nature and go
+down at the end of the week?"
+
+"I'll thank the Lord of heaven if you do!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Very well, then--be happy--I will. Now listen. I want you to keep
+your rooms for me--those she had. I expect, in a day or two, to
+bring a lady here"----
+
+"A lady?" faltered Mrs. Berry.
+
+"Yes. A lady."
+
+"May I make so bold as to ask what lady?"
+
+"You may not. Not now. Of course you will know."
+
+Mrs. Berry's short neck made the best imitation it could of an
+offended swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not
+like so many ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying
+that there was only one lady.
+
+"And Mrs. Berry," he added, dropping his voice. "You will treat her
+as you did my dear girl, for she will require not only shelter but
+kindness. I would rather leave her with you than with any one. She
+has been very unfortunate."
+
+His serious air and habitual tone of command fascinated the softness
+of Berry, and it was not until he had gone that she spoke out.
+"Unfort'nate! He's going to bring me an unfort'nate female! Oh! not
+from my babe can I bear that! Never will I have her here! I see it.
+It's that bold-faced woman he's got mixed up in, and she've been and
+made the young man think he'll go for to reform her. It's one o'
+their arts--that is; and he's too innocent a young man to mean
+anythin' else. But I ain't a house of Magdalens--no! and sooner than
+have her here I'd have the roof fall over me, I would."
+
+She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve.
+
+In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the law, and
+this is the case with many of her sisters. The PILGRIM sneers at
+them for it, and would have us credit that it is their admirable
+instinct which, at the expense of every virtue save one, preserves
+the artificial barrier simply to impose upon us. Men, I presume, are
+hardly fair judges, and should stand aside and mark.
+
+Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel to let him
+know her determination. She did not find him there. Returning
+homeward through the park, she beheld him on horseback riding by the
+side of the identical lady. The sight of this public exposure
+shocked her more than the secret walk under the trees. "You don't
+look near your reform yet," Mrs. Berry apostrophized her. "You don't
+look to me one that'd come the Fair Penitent till you've left off
+bein' fair--if then you do, which some of ye don't. Laugh away and
+show yer airs! Spite o' your hat and feather, and your ridin' habit,
+you're a Bella Donna." Setting her down again absolutely for such,
+whatever it might signify, Mrs. Berry had a virtuous glow.
+
+In the evening she heard the noise of wheels stopping at the door.
+"Never!" she rose from her chair to exclaim. "He ain't rided her out
+in the mornin', and been and made a Magdalen of her afore dark?"
+
+A lady veiled was brought into the house by Richard. Mrs. Berry
+feebly tried to bar his progress in the passage. He pushed past her,
+and conducted the lady into the parlour without speaking. Mrs. Berry
+did not follow. She heard him murmur a few sentences within. Then he
+came out. All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously, "Mr.
+Richard! if that woman stay here, I go forth. My house ain't a
+penitentiary for unfort'nate females, sir"----
+
+He frowned at her curiously; but as she was on the point of renewing
+her indignant protest, he clapped his hand across her mouth, and
+spoke words in her ear that had awful import to her. She trembled,
+breathing low: "My God, forgive me! Lady Feverel is it? Your mother,
+Mr. Richard?" And her virtue was humbled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+AN ENCHANTRESS
+
+
+One may suppose that a prematurely aged, oily little man; a poet in
+bad circumstances; a decrepit butterfly chained to a disappointed
+inkstand, will not put out strenuous energies to retain his ancient
+paramour when a robust young man comes imperatively to demand his
+mother of him in her person. The colloquy was short between Diaper
+Sandoe and Richard. The question was referred to the poor spiritless
+lady, who, seeing that her son made no question of it, cast herself
+on his hands. Small loss to her was Diaper; but he was the loss of
+habit, and that is something to a woman who has lived. The blood of
+her son had been running so long alien from her that the sense of
+her motherhood smote her now with strangeness, and Richard's stern
+gentleness seemed like dreadful justice come upon her. Her heart had
+almost forgotten its maternal functions. She called him Sir, till he
+bade her remember he was her son. Her voice sounded to him like that
+of a broken-throated lamb, so painful and weak it was, with the
+plaintive stop in the utterance. When he kissed her, her skin was
+cold. Her thin hand fell out of his when his grasp relaxed. "Can sin
+hunt one like this?" he asked, bitterly reproaching himself for the
+shame she had caused him to endure, and a deep compassion filled his
+breast.
+
+Poetic justice had been dealt to Diaper the poet. He thought of all
+he had sacrificed for this woman--the comfortable quarters, the
+friend, the happy flights. He could not but accuse her of
+unfaithfulness in leaving him in his old age. Habit had legalized
+his union with her. He wrote as pathetically of the break of habit
+as men feel at the death of love; and when we are old and have no
+fair hope tossing golden locks before us, a wound to this our second
+nature is quite as sad. I know not even if it be not actually
+sadder.
+
+Day by day Richard visited his mother. Lady Blandish and Ripton
+alone were in the secret. Adrian let him do as he pleased. He
+thought proper to tell him that the public recognition he accorded
+to a particular lady was, in the present state of the world,
+scarcely prudent.
+
+"'Tis a proof to me of your moral rectitude, my son, but the world
+will not think so. No one character is sufficient to cover two--in a
+Protestant country especially. The divinity that doth hedge a Bishop
+would have no chance in contact with your Madam Danaë. Drop the
+woman, my son. Or permit _me_ to speak what you would have her
+hear."
+
+Richard listened to him with disgust.
+
+"Well, you've had my doctorial warning," said Adrian, and plunged
+back into his book.
+
+When Lady Feverel had revived to take part in the consultations Mrs.
+Berry perpetually opened on the subject of Richard's matrimonial
+duty, another chain was cast about him. "Do not, oh, do not offend
+your father!" was her one repeated supplication. Sir Austin had
+grown to be a vindictive phantom in her mind. She never wept but
+when she said this.
+
+So Mrs. Berry, to whom Richard had once made mention of Lady
+Blandish as the only friend he had among women, bundled off in her
+black-satin dress to obtain an interview with her, and an ally.
+After coming to an understanding on the matter of the visit, and
+reiterating many of her views concerning young married people, Mrs.
+Berry said: "My lady, if I may speak so bold, I'd say the sin that's
+bein' done is the sin o' the lookers-on. And when everybody appear
+frightened by that young gentleman's father, I'll say--hopin' your
+pardon--they no cause be frighted at all. For though it's nigh
+twenty year since I knew him, and I knew him then just sixteen
+months--no more--I'll say his heart's as soft as a woman's, which
+I've cause for to know. And that's it. That's where everybody's
+deceived by him, and I was. It's because he keeps his face, and
+makes ye think you're dealin' with a man of iron, and all the while
+there's a woman underneath. And a man that's like a woman he's the
+puzzle o' life! We can see through ourselves, my lady, and we can
+see through men, but one o' that sort--he's like somethin' out of
+nature. Then I say--hopin' be excused--what's to do is for to treat
+him _like_ a woman, and not for to let him 'ave his own way--which
+he don't know himself, and is why nobody else do. Let that sweet
+young couple come together, and be wholesome in spite of him, I say;
+and then give him time to come round, just like a woman; and round
+he'll come, and give 'em his blessin', and we shall know we've made
+him comfortable. He's angry because matrimony have come between him
+and his son, and he, woman-like, he's wantin' to treat what is as if
+it isn't. But matrimony's a holier than him. It began long long
+before him, and it's be hoped will endoor long's the time after, if
+the world's not coming to rack--wishin' him no harm."
+
+Now Mrs. Berry only put Lady Blandish's thoughts in bad English. The
+lady took upon herself seriously to advise Richard to send for his
+wife. He wrote, bidding her come. Lucy, however, had wits, and
+inexperienced wits are as a little knowledge. In pursuance of her
+sage plan to make the family feel her worth, and to conquer the
+members of it one by one, she had got up a correspondence with
+Adrian, whom it tickled. Adrian constantly assured her all was going
+well: time would heal the wound if both the offenders had the
+fortitude to be patient: he fancied he saw signs of the baronet's
+relenting: they must do nothing to arrest those favourable symptoms.
+Indeed the wise youth was languidly seeking to produce them. He
+wrote, and felt, as Lucy's benefactor. So Lucy replied to her
+husband a cheerful rigmarole he could make nothing of, save that she
+was happy in hope, and still had fears. Then Mrs. Berry trained her
+fist to indite a letter to her bride. Her bride answered it by
+saying she trusted to time. "You poor marter," Mrs. Berry wrote
+back, "I know what your sufferin's be. They is the only kind a wife
+should never hide from her husband. He thinks all sorts of things if
+she can abide being away. And you trusting to time, why it's like
+trusting not to catch cold out of your natural clothes." There was
+no shaking Lucy's firmness.
+
+Richard gave it up. He began to think that the life lying behind him
+was the life of a fool. What had he done in it? He had burnt a rick
+and got married! He associated the two acts of his existence. Where
+was the hero he was to have carved out of Tom Bakewell!--a wretch he
+had taught to lie and chicane: and for what? Great heavens! how
+ignoble did a flash from the light of his aspirations make his
+marriage appear! The young man sought amusement. He allowed his aunt
+to drag him into society, and sick of that he made late evening
+calls on Mrs. Mount, oblivious of the purpose he had in visiting her
+at all. Her man-like conversation, which he took for honesty, was a
+refreshing change on fair lips.
+
+"Call me Bella: I'll call you Dick," said she. And it came to be
+Bella and Dick between them. No mention of Bella occurred in
+Richard's letters to Lucy.
+
+Mrs. Mount spoke quite openly of herself. "I pretend to be no better
+than I am," she said, "and I know I'm no worse than many a woman who
+holds her head high." To back this she told him stories of blooming
+dames of good repute, and poured a little social sewerage into his
+ears.
+
+Also she understood him. "What you want, my dear Dick, is something
+to do. You went and got married like a--hum!--friends must be
+respectful. Go into the Army. Try the turf. I can put you up to a
+trick or two--friends should make themselves useful."
+
+She told him what she liked in him. "You're the only man I was ever
+alone with who don't talk to me of love and make me feel sick. I
+hate men who can't speak to a woman sensibly.--Just wait a minute."
+She left him and presently returned with, "Ah, Dick! old fellow! how
+are you?"--arrayed like a cavalier, one arm stuck in her side, her
+hat jauntily cocked, and a pretty oath on her lips to give reality
+to the costume. "What do you think of me? Wasn't it a shame to make
+a woman of me when I was born to be a man?"
+
+"I don't know that," said Richard, for the contrast in her attire to
+those shooting eyes and lips, aired her sex bewitchingly.
+
+"What! you think I don't do it well?"
+
+"Charming! but I can't forget...."
+
+"Now that is too bad!" she pouted.
+
+Then she proposed that they should go out into the midnight streets
+arm-in-arm, and out they went and had great fits of laughter at her
+impertinent manner of using her eye-glass, and outrageous
+affectation of the supreme dandy.
+
+"They take up men, Dick, for going about in women's clothes, and
+vice versaw, I suppose. You'll bail me, old fellaa, if I have to
+make my bow to the beak, won't you? Say it's becas I'm an honest
+woman and don't care to hide the--a--unmentionables when I wear
+them--as the t'others do," sprinkled with the dandy's famous
+invocations.
+
+He began to conceive romance in that sort of fun.
+
+"You're a wopper, my brave Dick! won't let any peeler take me? by
+Jove!"
+
+And he with many assurances guaranteed to stand by her, while she
+bent her thin fingers trying the muscle of his arm, and reposed upon
+it more. There was delicacy in her dandyism. She was a graceful
+cavalier.
+
+"Sir Julius," as they named the dandy's attire, was frequently
+called for on his evening visits to Mrs. Mount. When he beheld Sir
+Julius he thought of the lady, and "vice versaw," as Sir Julius was
+fond of exclaiming.
+
+Was ever hero in this fashion wooed?
+
+The woman now and then would peep through Sir Julius. Or she would
+sit, and talk, and altogether forget she was impersonating that
+worthy fop.
+
+She never uttered an idea or a reflection, but Richard thought her
+the cleverest woman he had ever met.
+
+All kinds of problematic notions beset him. She was cold as ice, she
+hated talk about love, and she was branded by the world.
+
+A rumour spread that reached Mrs. Doria's ears. She rushed to Adrian
+first. The wise youth believed there was nothing in it. She sailed
+down upon Richard. "Is this true? that you have been seen going
+publicly about with an infamous woman, Richard? Tell me! pray,
+relieve me!"
+
+Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt's description in
+whose company he could have been seen.
+
+"Tell me, I say! Don't quibble. Do you know _any_ woman of bad
+character?"
+
+The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and ill-used by the
+world, Richard admitted to.
+
+Urgent grave advice Mrs. Doria tendered her nephew, both from the
+moral and the worldly point of view, mentally ejaculating all the
+while: "That ridiculous System! That disgraceful marriage!" Sir
+Austin in his mountain solitude was furnished with serious stuff to
+brood over.
+
+The rumour came to Lady Blandish. She likewise lectured Richard, and
+with her he condescended to argue. But he found himself obliged to
+instance something he had quite neglected. "Instead of her doing me
+harm, it's I that will do her good."
+
+Lady Blandish shook her head and held up her finger. "This person
+must be very clever to have given you that delusion, dear."
+
+"She _is_ clever. And the world treats her shamefully."
+
+"She complains of her position to you?"
+
+"Not a word. But I will stand by her. She has no friend but me."
+
+"My poor boy! has she made you think that?"
+
+"How unjust you all are!" cried Richard.
+
+"How mad and wicked is the man who can let him be tempted so!"
+thought Lady Blandish.
+
+He would pronounce no promise not to visit her, not to address her
+publicly. The world that condemned her and cast her out was no
+better--worse for its miserable hypocrisy. He knew the world now,
+the young man said.
+
+"My child! the world may be very bad. I am not going to defend it.
+But you have some one else to think of. Have you forgotten you have
+a wife, Richard?"
+
+"Ay! you all speak of her now. There's my aunt: 'Remember you have a
+wife!' Do you think I love any one but Lucy? poor little thing!
+Because I am married am I to give up the society of women?"
+
+"Of women!"
+
+"Isn't she a woman?"
+
+"Too much so!" sighed the defender of her sex.
+
+Adrian became more emphatic in his warnings. Richard laughed at him.
+The wise youth sneered at Mrs. Mount. The hero then favoured him
+with a warning equal to his own in emphasis, and surpassing it in
+sincerity.
+
+"We won't quarrel, my dear boy," said Adrian. "I'm a man of peace.
+Besides, we are not fairly proportioned for a combat. Ride your
+steed to virtue's goal! All I say is, that I think he'll upset you,
+and it's better to go a slow pace and in companionship with the
+children of the sun. You have a very nice little woman for a
+wife--well, good-bye!"
+
+To have his wife and the world thrown at his face, was unendurable
+to Richard; he associated them somewhat after the manner of the rick
+and the marriage. Charming Sir Julius, always gay, always honest,
+dispersed his black moods.
+
+"Why, you're taller," Richard made the discovery.
+
+"Of course I am. Don't you remember you said I was such a little
+thing when I came out of my woman's shell?"
+
+"And how have you done it?"
+
+"Grown to please you."
+
+"Now, if you can do that, you can do anything."
+
+"And so I would do anything."
+
+"You would?"
+
+"Honour!"
+
+"Then" ... his project recurred to him. But the incongruity of
+speaking seriously to Sir Julius struck him dumb.
+
+"Then what?" asked she.
+
+"Then you're a gallant fellow."
+
+"That all?"
+
+"Isn't it enough?"
+
+"Not quite. You were going to say something. I saw it in your eyes."
+
+"You saw that I admired you."
+
+"Yes, but a man mustn't admire a man."
+
+"I suppose I had an idea you were a woman."
+
+"What! when I had the heels of my boots raised half an inch," Sir
+Julius turned one heel, and volleyed out silver laughter.
+
+"I don't come much above your shoulder even now," she said, and
+proceeded to measure her height beside him with arch up-glances.
+
+"You must grow more."
+
+"'Fraid I can't, Dick! Bootmakers can't do it."
+
+"I'll show you how," and he lifted Sir Julius lightly, and bore the
+fair gentleman to the looking-glass, holding him there exactly on a
+level with his head. "Will that do?"
+
+"Yes! Oh, but I can't stay here."
+
+"Why can't you?"
+
+"Why can't I?"
+
+He should have known then--it was thundered at a closed door in him,
+that he played with fire. But the door being closed, he thought
+himself internally secure.
+
+Their eyes met. He put her down instantly.
+
+Sir Julius, charming as he was, lost his vogue. Seeing that, the
+wily woman resumed her shell. The memory of Sir Julius breathing
+about her still, doubled the feminine attraction.
+
+"I ought to have been an actress," she said.
+
+Richard told her he found all natural women had a similar wish.
+
+"Yes! Ah! then! if I had been!" sighed Mrs. Mount, gazing on the
+pattern of the carpet.
+
+He took her hand, and pressed it.
+
+"You are not happy as you are?"
+
+"No."
+
+"May I speak to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Her nearest eye, setting a dimple of her cheek in motion, slid to
+the corner toward her ear, as she sat with her head sideways to him,
+listening. When he had gone, she said to herself: "Old hypocrites
+talk in that way; but I never heard of a young man doing it, and not
+making love at the same time."
+
+Their next meeting displayed her quieter: subdued as one who had
+been set thinking. He lauded her fair looks. "Don't make me thrice
+ashamed," she petitioned.
+
+But it was not only that mood with her. Dauntless defiance, that
+splendidly befitted her gallant outline and gave a wildness to her
+bright bold eyes, when she would call out: "Happy? who dares say I'm
+not happy? D'you think if the world whips me I'll wince? D'you think
+I care for what they say or do? Let them kill me! they shall never
+get one cry out of me!" and flashing on the young man as if he were
+the congregated enemy, add: "There! now you know me!"--that was a
+mood that well became her, and helped the work. She ought to have
+been an actress.
+
+"This must not go on," said Lady Blandish and Mrs. Doria in unison.
+A common object brought them together. They confined their talk to
+it, and did not disagree. Mrs. Doria engaged to go down to the
+baronet. Both ladies knew it was a dangerous, likely to turn out a
+disastrous, expedition. They agreed to it because it was something
+to do, and doing anything is better than doing nothing. "Do it,"
+said the wise youth, when they made him a third, "do it, if you want
+him to be a hermit for life. You will bring back nothing but his
+dead body, ladies--a Hellenic, rather than a Roman, triumph. He will
+listen to you--he will accompany you to the station--he will hand
+you into the carriage--and when you point to his seat he will bow
+profoundly, and retire into his congenial mists."
+
+Adrian spoke their thoughts. They fretted; they relapsed.
+
+"Speak to him, you, Adrian," said Mrs. Doria. "Speak to the boy
+solemnly. It would be almost better he should go back to that little
+thing he has married."
+
+"Almost?" Lady Blandish opened her eyes. "I have been advising it
+for the last month and more."
+
+"A choice of evils," said Mrs. Doria's sour-sweet face and shake of
+the head.
+
+Each lady saw a point of dissension, and mutually agreed, with
+heroic effort, to avoid it by shutting their mouths. What was more,
+they preserved the peace in spite of Adrian's artifices.
+
+"Well, I'll talk to him again," he said. "I'll try to get the Engine
+on the conventional line."
+
+"Command him!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria.
+
+"Gentle means are, I think, the only means with Richard," said Lady
+Blandish.
+
+Throwing banter aside, as much as he could, Adrian spoke to Richard.
+"You want to reform this woman. Her manner is open--fair and
+free--the traditional characteristic. We won't stop to canvass how
+that particular honesty of deportment that wins your approbation has
+been gained. In her college it is not uncommon. Girls, you know, are
+not like boys. At a certain age they can't be quite natural. It's a
+bad sign if they don't blush, and fib, and affect this and that. It
+wears off when they're women. But a woman who speaks like a man, and
+has all those excellent virtues you admire--where has she learned
+the trick? She tells you. You don't surely approve of the school?
+Well, what is there in it, then? Reform her, of course. The task is
+worthy of your energies. But, if you are appointed to do it, don't
+do it publicly, and don't attempt it just now. May I ask you whether
+your wife participates in this undertaking?"
+
+Richard walked away from the interrogation. The wise youth, who
+hated long unrelieved speeches and had healed his conscience, said
+no more.
+
+Dear tender Lucy! Poor darling! Richard's eyes moistened. Her
+letters seemed sadder latterly. Yet she never called to him to come,
+or he would have gone. His heart leapt up to her. He announced to
+Adrian that he should wait no longer for his father. Adrian placidly
+nodded.
+
+The enchantress observed that her knight had a clouded brow and an
+absent voice.
+
+"Richard--I can't call you Dick now, I really don't know why"--she
+said, "I want to beg a favour of you."
+
+"Name it. I can still call you Bella, I suppose?"
+
+"If you care to. What I want to say is this: when you meet me
+out--to cut it short--please not to recognize me."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Do you ask to be told _that_?"
+
+"Certainly I do."
+
+"Then look: I won't compromise you."
+
+"I see no harm, Bella."
+
+"No," she caressed his hand, "and there is none. I know that. But,"
+modest eyelids were drooped, "other people do," struggling eyes were
+raised.
+
+"What do we care for other people?"
+
+"Nothing. I don't. Not that!" snapping her finger, "I care for you,
+though." A prolonged look followed the declaration.
+
+"You're foolish, Bella."
+
+"Not quite so giddy--that's all."
+
+He did not combat it with his usual impetuosity. Adrian's abrupt
+inquiry had sunk in his mind, as the wise youth intended it should.
+He had instinctively refrained from speaking to Lucy of this lady.
+But what a noble creature the woman was!
+
+So they met in the park; Mrs. Mount whipped past him; and secrecy
+added a new sense to their intimacy.
+
+Adrian was gratified at the result produced by his eloquence.
+
+Though this lady never expressed an idea, Richard was not mistaken
+in her cleverness. She could make evenings pass gaily, and one was
+not the fellow to the other. She could make you forget she was a
+woman, and then bring the fact startlingly home to you. She could
+read men with one quiver of her half-closed eye-lashes. She could
+catch the coming mood in a man, and fit herself to it. What does a
+woman want with ideas, who can do thus much? Keenness of perception,
+conformity, delicacy of handling, these be all the qualities
+necessary to parasites.
+
+Love would have scared the youth: she banished it from her tongue.
+It may also have been true that it sickened her. She played on his
+higher nature. She understood spontaneously what would be most
+strange and taking to him in a woman. Various as the Serpent of old
+Nile, she acted fallen beauty, humorous indifference, reckless
+daring, arrogance in ruin. And acting thus, what think you?--She did
+it so well because she was growing half in earnest.
+
+"Richard! I am not what I was since I knew you. You will not give me
+up quite?"
+
+"Never, Bella."
+
+"I am not so bad as I'm painted!"
+
+"You are only unfortunate."
+
+"Now that I know you I think so, and yet I am happier."
+
+She told him her history when this soft horizon of repentance seemed
+to throw heaven's twilight across it. A woman's history, you know:
+certain chapters expunged. It was dark enough to Richard.
+
+"Did you love the man?" he asked. "You say you love no one now."
+
+"Did I love him? He was a nobleman and I a tradesman's daughter. No.
+I did not love him. I have lived to learn it. And now I should hate
+him, if I did not despise him."
+
+"Can you be deceived in love?" said Richard, more to himself than to
+her.
+
+"Yes. When we're young we can be very easily deceived. If there is
+such a thing as love, we discover it after we have tossed about and
+roughed it. Then we find the man, or the woman, that suits us:--and
+then it's too late! we can't have him."
+
+"Singular!" murmured Richard, "she says just what my father said."
+
+He spoke aloud: "I could forgive you if you had loved him."
+
+"Don't be harsh, grave judge! How is a girl to distinguish?"
+
+"You had some affection for him? He was the first?"
+
+She chose to admit that. "Yes. And the first who talks of love to a
+girl must be a fool if he doesn't blind her."
+
+"That makes what is called first love nonsense."
+
+"Isn't it?"
+
+He repelled the insinuation. "Because I know it is not, Bella."
+
+Nevertheless she had opened a wider view of the world to him, and a
+colder. He thought poorly of girls. A woman--a sensible, brave,
+beautiful woman seemed, on comparison, infinitely nobler than those
+weak creatures.
+
+She was best in her character of lovely rebel accusing foul
+injustice. "What am I to do? You tell me to be different. How can I?
+What am I to do? Will virtuous people let me earn my bread? I could
+not get a housemaid's place! They wouldn't have me--I see their
+noses smelling! Yes: I can go to the hospital and sing behind a
+screen! Do you expect me to bury myself alive? Why, man, I have
+blood: I can't become a stone. You say I am honest, and I will be.
+Then let me tell you that I have been used to luxuries, and I can't
+do without them. I might have married men--lots would have had me.
+But who marries one like me but a fool? and I could not marry a
+fool. The man I marry I must respect. He could not respect me--I
+should know him to be a fool, and I should be worse off than I am
+now. As I am now, they may look as pious as they like--I laugh at
+them!"
+
+And so forth: direr things. Imputations upon wives: horrible
+exultation at the universal peccancy of husbands. This lovely
+outcast almost made him think she had the right on her side, so
+keenly her Parthian arrows pierced the holy centres of society, and
+exposed its rottenness.
+
+Mrs. Mount's house was discreetly conducted: nothing ever occurred
+to shock him there. The young man would ask himself where the
+difference was between her and the women of society? How base, too,
+was the army of banded hypocrites! He was ready to declare war
+against them on her behalf. His casus belli, accurately worded,
+would have read curiously. Because the world refused to lure the
+lady to virtue with the offer of a housemaid's place, our knight
+threw down his challenge. But the lady had scornfully rebutted this
+prospect of a return to chastity. Then the form of the challenge
+must be: Because the world declined to support the lady in luxury
+for nothing! But what did that mean? In other words: she was to
+receive the devil's wages without rendering him her services. Such
+an arrangement appears hardly fair on the world or on the devil.
+Heroes will have to conquer both before they will get them to
+subscribe to it.
+
+Heroes, however, are not in the habit of wording their declarations
+of war at all. Lance in rest they challenge and they charge. Like
+women they trust to instinct, and graft on it the muscle of men.
+Wide fly the leisurely-remonstrating hosts: institutions are
+scattered, they know not wherefore, heads are broken that have not
+the balm of a reason why. 'Tis instinct strikes! Surely there is
+something divine in instinct.
+
+Still, war declared, where were these hosts? The hero could not
+charge down on the ladies and gentlemen in a ballroom, and spoil the
+quadrille. He had sufficient reticence to avoid sounding his
+challenge in the Law Courts; nor could he well go into the Houses of
+Parliament with a trumpet, though to come to a tussle with the
+nation's direct representatives did seem the likelier method. It was
+likewise out of the question that he should enter every house and
+shop, and battle with its master in the cause of Mrs. Mount. Where,
+then, was his enemy? Everybody was his enemy, and everybody was
+nowhere. Shall he convoke multitudes on Wimbledon Common? Blue
+Policemen, and a distant dread of ridicule, bar all his projects.
+Alas for the hero in our day!
+
+Nothing teaches a strong arm its impotence so much as knocking at
+empty air.
+
+"What can I do for this poor woman?" cried Richard, after fighting
+his phantom enemy till he was worn out.
+
+"O Rip! old Rip!" he addressed his friend, "I'm distracted. I wish I
+was dead! What good am I for? Miserable! selfish! What have I done
+but make every soul I know wretched about me? I follow my own
+inclinations--I make people help me by lying as hard as they
+can--and I'm a liar. And when I've got it I'm ashamed of myself. And
+now when I do see something unselfish for me to do, I come upon
+grins--I don't know where to turn--how to act--and I laugh at myself
+like a devil!"
+
+It was only friend Ripton's ear that was required, so his words went
+for little: but Ripton did say he thought there was small matter to
+be ashamed of in winning and wearing the Beauty of Earth. Richard
+added his customary comment of "Poor little thing!"
+
+He fought his duello with empty air till he was exhausted. A last
+letter written to his father procured him no reply. Then, said he, I
+have tried my utmost. I have tried to be dutiful--my father won't
+listen to me. One thing I can do--I can go down to my dear girl, and
+make her happy, and save her at least from some of the consequences
+of my rashness.
+
+"There's nothing better for me!" he groaned. His great ambition must
+be covered by a house-top: he and the cat must warm themselves on
+the domestic hearth! The hero was not aware that his heart moved him
+to this. His heart was not now in open communion with his mind.
+
+Mrs. Mount heard that her friend was going--would go. She knew he
+was going to his wife. Far from discouraging him, she said nobly:
+"Go--I believe I have kept you. Let us have an evening together, and
+then go: for good, if you like. If not, then to meet again another
+time. Forget me. I shan't forget you. You're the best fellow I ever
+knew, Richard. You are, on my honour! I swear I would not step in
+between you and your wife to cause either of you a moment's
+unhappiness. When I can be another woman I will, and I shall think
+of you then."
+
+Lady Blandish heard from Adrian that Richard was positively going to
+his wife. The wise youth modestly veiled his own merit in bringing
+it about by saying: "I couldn't see that poor little woman left
+alone down there any longer."
+
+"Well! Yes!" said Mrs. Doria, to whom the modest speech was
+repeated, "I suppose, poor boy, it's the best he can do now."
+
+Richard bade them adieu, and went to spend his last evening with
+Mrs. Mount.
+
+The enchantress received him in state.
+
+"Do you know this dress? No? It's the dress I wore when I first met
+you--not when I first saw you. I think I remarked you, sir, before
+you deigned to cast an eye upon humble me. When we first met we
+drank champagne together, and I intend to celebrate our parting in
+the same liquor. Will you liquor with me, old boy?"
+
+She was gay. She revived Sir Julius occasionally. He, dispirited,
+left the talking all to her.
+
+Mrs. Mount kept a footman. At a late hour the man of calves dressed
+the table for supper. It was a point of honour for Richard to sit
+down to it and try to eat. Drinking, thanks to the kindly mother
+nature, who loves to see her children made fools of, is always an
+easier matter. The footman was diligent; the champagne corks feebly
+recalled the file-firing at Richmond.
+
+"We'll drink to what we might have been, Dick," said the
+enchantress.
+
+Oh, the glorious wreck she looked.
+
+His heart choked as he gulped the buzzing wine.
+
+"What! down, my boy?" she cried. "They shall never see me hoist
+signals of distress. We must all die, and the secret of the thing is
+to die game, by Jove! Did you ever hear of Laura Fenn? a superb
+girl! handsomer than your humble servant--if you'll believe it--a
+'Miss' in the bargain, and as a consequence, I suppose, a much
+greater rake. She was in the hunting-field. Her horse threw her, and
+she fell plump on a stake. It went into her left breast. All the
+fellows crowded round her, and one young man, who was in love with
+her--he sits in the House of Peers now--we used to call him 'Duck'
+because he was such a dear--he dropped from his horse to his knees:
+'Laura! Laura! my darling! speak a word to me!--the last!' She
+turned over all white and bloody! 'I--I shan't be in at the death!'
+and gave up the ghost! Wasn't that dying game? Here's to the example
+of Laura Fenn! Why, what's the matter? See! it makes a man turn pale
+to hear how a woman can die. Fill the glasses, John. Why, you're as
+bad!"
+
+"It's give me a turn, my lady," pleaded John, and the man's hand was
+unsteady as he poured out the wine.
+
+"You ought not to listen. Go, and drink some brandy."
+
+John footman went from the room.
+
+"My brave Dick! Richard! what a face you've got!"
+
+He showed a deep frown on a colourless face.
+
+"Can't you bear to hear of blood? You know, it was only one naughty
+woman out of the world. The clergyman of the parish didn't refuse to
+give her decent burial. We are Christians! Hurrah!"
+
+She cheered, and laughed. A lurid splendour glanced about her like
+lights from the pit.
+
+"Pledge me, Dick! Drink, and recover yourself. Who minds? We must
+all die--the good and the bad. Ashes to ashes--dust to dust--and
+wine for living lips! That's poetry--almost. Sentiment: 'May we
+never say die till we've drunk our fill!' Not bad--eh? A little
+vulgar, perhaps, by Jove! Do you think me horrid?"
+
+"Where's the wine?" Richard shouted. He drank a couple of glasses in
+succession, and stared about. Was he in hell, with a lost soul
+raving to him?
+
+"Nobly spoken! and nobly acted upon, my brave Dick! Now we'll be
+companions. 'She wished that heaven had made her such a man.' Ah,
+Dick! Dick! too late! too late!"
+
+Softly fell her voice. Her eyes threw slanting beams.
+
+"Do you see this?"
+
+She pointed to a symbolic golden anchor studded with gems and coiled
+with a rope of hair in her bosom. It was a gift of his.
+
+"Do you know when I stole the lock? Foolish Dick! you gave me an
+anchor without a rope. Come and see."
+
+She rose from the table, and threw herself on the sofa.
+
+"Don't you recognize your own hair! I should know a thread of mine
+among a million."
+
+Something of the strength of Samson went out of him as he inspected
+his hair on the bosom of Delilah.
+
+"And you knew nothing of it! You hardly know it now you see it! What
+couldn't a woman steal from you? But you're not vain, and that's a
+protection. You're a miracle, Dick: a man that's not vain! Sit
+here." She curled up her feet to give him place on the sofa. "Now
+let us talk like friends that part to meet no more. You found a ship
+with fever on board, and you weren't afraid to come alongside and
+keep her company. The fever isn't catching, you see. Let us mingle
+our tears together. Ha! ha! a man said that once to me. The
+hypocrite wanted to catch the fever, but he was too old. How old are
+you, Dick?"
+
+Richard pushed a few months forward.
+
+"Twenty-one? You just look it, you blooming boy. Now tell me my age,
+Adonis!--Twenty--_what_?"
+
+Richard had given the lady twenty-five years.
+
+She laughed violently. "You don't pay compliments, Dick. Best to be
+honest; guess again. You don't like to? Not twenty-five, or twenty-four,
+or twenty-three, or--see how he begins to start!--twenty-two. Just
+twenty-one, my dear. I think, my birthday's somewhere in next month.
+Why, look at me, close--closer. Have I a wrinkle?"
+
+"And when, in heaven's name!" ... he stopped short.
+
+"I understand you. When did I commence for to live? At the ripe age
+of sixteen I saw a nobleman in despair because of my beauty. He
+vowed he'd die. I didn't want him to do that. So to save the poor
+man for his family, I ran away with him, and I dare say they didn't
+appreciate the sacrifice, and he soon forgot to, if he ever did.
+It's the way of the world!"
+
+Richard seized some dead champagne, emptied the bottle into a
+tumbler, and drank it off.
+
+John footman entered to clear the table, and they were left without
+further interruption.
+
+"Bella! Bella!" Richard uttered in a deep sad voice, as he walked
+the room.
+
+She leaned on her arm, her hair crushed against a reddened cheek,
+her eyes half-shut and dreamy.
+
+"Bella!" he dropped beside her. "You are unhappy."
+
+She blinked and yawned, as one who is awakened suddenly. "I think
+you spoke," said she.
+
+"You are unhappy, Bella. You can't conceal it. Your laugh sounds
+like madness. You must be unhappy. So young, too! Only twenty-one!"
+
+"What does it matter? Who cares for me?"
+
+The mighty pity falling from his eyes took in her whole shape. She
+did not mistake it for tenderness, as another would have done.
+
+"Who cares for you, Bella? I do. What makes my misery now, but to
+see you there, and know of no way of helping you? Father of mercy!
+it seems too much to have to stand by powerless while such ruin is
+going on!"
+
+Her hand was shaken in his by the passion of torment with which his
+frame quaked.
+
+Involuntarily a tear started between her eyelids. She glanced up at
+him quickly, then looked down, drew her hand from his, and smoothed
+it, eying it.
+
+"Bella! you have a father alive!"
+
+"A linen draper, dear. He wears a white neck-cloth."
+
+This article of apparel instantaneously changed the tone of the
+conversation, for he, rising abruptly, nearly squashed the lady's
+lap-dog, whose squeaks and howls were piteous, and demanded the
+most fervent caresses of its mistress. It was: "Oh, my poor pet
+Mumpsy, and he didn't like a nasty great big ugly heavy foot on
+his poor soft silky--mum--mum--back, he didn't, and he soodn't
+that he--mum--mum--soodn't; and he cried out and knew the place
+to come to, and was oh so sorry for what had happened to
+him--mum--mum--mum--and now he was going to be made happy, his
+mistress make him happy--mum--mum--mum--moo-o-o-o."
+
+"Yes!" said Richard, savagely, from the other end of the room, "you
+care for the happiness of your dog."
+
+"A course se does," Mumpsy was simperingly assured in the thick of
+his silky flanks.
+
+Richard looked for his hat. Mumpsy was deposited on the sofa in a
+twinkling.
+
+"Now," said the lady, "you must come and beg Mumpsy's pardon,
+whether you meant to do it or no, because little doggies can't tell
+that--how should they? And there's poor Mumpsy thinking you're a
+great terrible rival that tries to squash him all flat to nothing,
+on purpose, pretending you didn't see; and he's trembling, poor dear
+wee pet! And I may love my dog, sir, if I like; and I do; and I
+won't have him ill-treated, for he's never been jealous of you, and
+he is a darling, ten times truer than men, and I love him fifty
+times better. So come to him with me."
+
+First a smile changed Richard's face; then laughing a melancholy
+laugh, he surrendered to her humour, and went through the form of
+begging Mumpsy's pardon.
+
+"The dear dog! I do believe he saw we were getting dull," said she.
+
+"And immolated himself intentionally? Noble animal!"
+
+"Well, we'll act as if we thought so. Let us be gay, Richard, and
+not part like ancient fogies. Where's your fun? You can rattle; why
+don't you? You haven't seen me in one of my characters--not Sir
+Julius: wait a couple of minutes." She ran out.
+
+A white visage reappeared behind a spring of flame. Her black hair
+was scattered over her shoulders and fell half across her brows. She
+moved slowly, and came up to him, fastening weird eyes on him,
+pointing a finger at the region of witches. Sepulchral cadences
+accompanied the representation. He did not listen, for he was
+thinking what a deadly charming and exquisitely horrid witch she
+was. Something in the way her underlids worked seemed to remind him
+of a forgotten picture; but a veil hung on the picture. There could
+be no analogy, for this was beautiful and devilish, and that, if he
+remembered rightly, had the beauty of seraphs.
+
+His reflections and her performance were stayed by a shriek. The
+spirits of wine had run over the plate she held to the floor. She
+had the coolness to put the plate down on the table, while he
+stamped out the flame on the carpet. Again she shrieked: she thought
+she was on fire. He fell on his knees and clasped her skirts all
+round, drawing his arms down them several times.
+
+Still kneeling, he looked up, and asked, "Do you feel safe now?"
+
+She bent her face glaring down till the ends of her hair touched his
+cheek.
+
+Said she, "Do you?"
+
+Was she a witch verily? There was sorcery in her breath; sorcery in
+her hair: the ends of it stung him like little snakes.
+
+"How do I do it, Dick?" she flung back, laughing.
+
+"Like you do everything, Bella," he said, and took a breath.
+
+"There! I won't be a witch; I won't be a witch: they may burn me to
+a cinder, but I won't be a witch!"
+
+She sang, throwing her hair about, and stamping her feet.
+
+"I suppose I look a figure. I must go and tidy myself."
+
+"No, don't change. I like to see you so." He gazed at her with a
+mixture of wonder and admiration. "I can't think you the same
+person--not even when you laugh."
+
+"Richard," her tone was serious, "you were going to speak to me of
+my parents."
+
+"How wild and awful you looked, Bella!"
+
+"My father, Richard, was a very respectable man."
+
+"Bella, you'll haunt me like a ghost."
+
+"My mother died in my infancy, Richard."
+
+"Don't put up your hair, Bella."
+
+"I was an only child!"
+
+Her head shook sorrowfully at the glistening fire-irons. He followed
+the abstracted intentness of her look, and came upon her words.
+
+"Ah, yes! speak of your father, Bella. Speak of him."
+
+"Shall I haunt you, and come to your bedside, and cry, ''Tis time'?"
+
+"Dear Bella! if you will tell me where he lives, I will go to him.
+He shall receive you. He shall not refuse--he shall forgive you."
+
+"If I haunt you, you can't forget me, Richard."
+
+"Let me go to your father, Bella--let me go to him to-morrow. I'll
+give you my time. It's all I can give. O Bella! let me save you."
+
+"So you like me best dishevelled, do you, you naughty boy! Ha! ha!"
+and away she burst from him, and up flew her hair, as she danced
+across the room, and fell at full length on the sofa.
+
+He felt giddy: bewitched.
+
+"We'll talk of everyday things, Dick," she called to him from the
+sofa. "It's our last evening. Our last? Heigho! It makes me
+sentimental. How's that Mr. Ripson, Pipson, Nipson?--it's not
+complimentary, but I can't remember names of that sort. Why do you
+have friends of that sort? He's not a gentleman. Better is he? Well,
+he's rather _too_ insignificant for me. Why do you sit off there?
+Come to me instantly. There--I'll sit up, and be proper, and you'll
+have plenty of room. Talk, Dick!"
+
+He was reflecting on the fact that her eyes were brown. They had a
+haughty sparkle when she pleased, and when she pleased a soft
+languor circled them. Excitement had dyed her cheeks deep red. He
+was a youth, and she an enchantress. He a hero; she a female
+will-o'-the-wisp.
+
+The eyes were languid now, set in rosy colour.
+
+"You will not leave me yet, Richard? not yet?"
+
+He had no thought of departing.
+
+"It's our last night--I suppose it's our last hour together in this
+world--and I don't want to meet you in the next, for poor Dick will
+have to come to such a very, very disagreeable place to make the
+visit."
+
+He grasped her hand at this.
+
+"Yes, he will! too true! can't be helped: they say I'm handsome."
+
+"You're lovely, Bella."
+
+She drank in his homage.
+
+"Well, we'll admit it. His Highness below likes lovely women, I hear
+say. A gentleman of taste! You don't know all my accomplishments
+yet, Richard."
+
+"I shan't be astonished at anything new, Bella."
+
+"Then hear, and wonder." Her voice trolled out some lively roulades.
+"Don't you think he'll make me his prima donna below? It's nonsense
+to tell me there's no singing there. And the atmosphere will be
+favourable to the voice. No _damp_, you know. You saw the piano--why
+didn't you ask me to sing before? I can sing Italian. I had a
+master--who made love to me. I forgave him because of the
+music-stool--men can't help it on a music-stool, poor dears!"
+
+She went to the piano, struck the notes, and sang--
+
+    "'My heart, my heart--I think 'twill break.'
+
+"Because I'm such a rake. I don't know any other reason. No; I hate
+sentimental songs. Won't sing that. Ta-tiddy-tiddy-iddy--a ... e!
+How ridiculous those women were, coming home from Richmond!
+
+    'Once the sweet romance of story
+      Clad thy moving form with grace;
+    Once the world and all its glory
+      Was but framework to thy face.
+    Ah, too fair!--what I remember,
+      Might my soul recall--but no!
+    To the winds this wretched ember
+      Of a fire that falls so low!'
+
+"Hum! don't much like that. Tum-te-tum-tum--accanto al
+fuoco--heigho! I don't want to show off, Dick--or to break down--so
+I won't try that.
+
+    'Oh! but for thee, oh! but for thee,
+      I might have been a happy wife,
+    And nursed a baby on my knee,
+      And never blushed to give it life.'
+
+"I used to sing that when I was a girl, sweet Richard, and didn't
+know at all, at all, what it meant. Mustn't sing that sort of song
+in company. We're oh! so proper--even we!
+
+    'If I had a husband, what think you I'd do?
+      I'd make it my business to keep him a lover;
+    For when a young gentleman ceases to woo,
+      Some other amusement he'll quickly discover.'
+
+"For such are young gentlemen made of--made of: such are young
+gentlemen made of!"
+
+After this trifling she sang a Spanish ballad sweetly. He was in the
+mood when imagination intensely vivifies everything. Mere suggestion
+of music sufficed. The lady in the ballad had been wronged. Lo! it
+was the lady before him; and soft horns blew; he smelt the languid
+night-flowers; he saw the stars crowd large and close above the arid
+plain: this lady leaning at her window desolate, pouring out her
+abandoned heart.
+
+Heroes know little what they owe to champagne.
+
+The lady wandered to Venice. Thither he followed her at a leap. In
+Venice she was not happy. He was prepared for the misery of any
+woman anywhere. But, oh! to be with her! To glide with phantom-motion
+through throbbing street; past houses muffled in shadow and gloomy
+legends; under storied bridges; past palaces charged with full life in
+dead quietness; past grand old towers, colossal squares, gleaming
+quays, and out, and on with her, on into the silver infinity shaking
+over seas!
+
+Was it the champagne? the music? or the poetry? Something of the two
+former, perhaps: but most the enchantress playing upon him. How many
+instruments cannot clever women play upon at the same moment! And
+this enchantress was not too clever, or he might have felt her
+touch. She was no longer absolutely bent on winning him, or he might
+have seen a manoeuvre. She liked him--liked none better. She
+wished him well. Her pique was satisfied. Still he was handsome, and
+he was going. What she liked him for, she rather--very slightly--wished
+to do away with, or see if it could be done away with: just as one
+wishes to catch a pretty butterfly, without hurting its patterned
+wings. No harm intended to the innocent insect, only one wants to
+inspect it thoroughly, and enjoy the marvel of it, in one's tender
+possession, and have the felicity of thinking one could crush it,
+if one would.
+
+He knew her what she was, this lady. In Seville, or in Venice, the
+spot was on her. Sailing the pathways of the moon it was not
+celestial light that illumined her beauty. Her sin was there: but in
+dreaming to save, he was soft to her sin--drowned it in deep
+mournfulness.
+
+Silence, and the rustle of her dress, awoke him from his musing. She
+swam wave-like to the sofa. She was at his feet.
+
+"I have been light and careless to-night, Richard. Of course I meant
+it. I _must_ be happy with my best friend going to leave me."
+
+Those witch underlids were working brightly.
+
+"You will not forget me? and I shall try ... try...."
+
+Her lips twitched. She thought him such a very handsome fellow.
+
+"If I change--if I can change.... Oh! if you could know what a net
+I'm in, Richard!"
+
+Now at those words, as he looked down on her haggard loveliness, not
+divine sorrow but a devouring jealousy sprang like fire to his
+breast, and set him rocking with horrid pain. He bent closer to her
+pale beseeching face. Her eyes still drew him down.
+
+"Bella! No! no! promise me! swear it!"
+
+"Lost, Richard! lost for ever! give me up!"
+
+He cried: "I never will!" and strained her in his arms, and kissed
+her passionately on the lips.
+
+She was not acting now as she sidled and slunk her half-averted head
+with a kind of maiden shame under his arm, sighing heavily, weeping,
+clinging to him. It was wicked truth.
+
+Not a word of love between them!
+
+Was ever hero in this fashion won?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON; A BERRY TO THE RESCUE!
+
+
+At a season when the pleasant South-western Island has few
+attractions to other than invalids and hermits enamoured of wind and
+rain, the potent nobleman, Lord Mountfalcon, still lingered there to
+the disgust of his friends and special parasite. "Mount's in for it
+again," they said among themselves. "Hang the women!" was a natural
+sequence. For, don't you see, what a shame it was of the women to be
+always kindling such a very inflammable subject! All understood that
+Cupid had twanged his bow, and transfixed a peer of Britain for the
+fiftieth time: but none would perceive, though he vouched for it
+with his most eloquent oaths, that this was a totally different case
+from the antecedent ones. So it had been sworn to them too
+frequently before. He was as a man with mighty tidings, and no
+language: intensely communicative, but inarticulate. Good round
+oaths had formerly compassed and expounded his noble emotions. They
+were now quite beyond the comprehension of blasphemy, even when
+emphasized, and by this the poor lord divinely felt the case was
+different. There is something impressive in a great human hulk
+writhing under the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot
+contend with, or account for, or explain by means of intelligible
+words. At first he took refuge in the depths of his contempt for
+women. Cupid gave him line. When he had come to vent his worst of
+them, the fair face now stamped on his brain beamed the more
+triumphantly: so the harpooned whale rose to the surface, and after
+a few convulsions, surrendered his huge length. My lord was in love
+with Richard's young wife. He gave proofs of it by burying himself
+beside her. To her, could she have seen it, he gave further proofs
+of a real devotion, in affecting, and in her presence feeling,
+nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being. This wonder,
+that when near her he should be cool and composed, and when away
+from her wrapped in a tempest of desires, was matter for what powers
+of cogitation the heavy nobleman possessed.
+
+The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged him to press
+the business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, or more scrupulous, than
+his parasite. Almost every evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced
+little wife apprehended no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had
+commended her to the care of Lord Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. Lady
+Judith had left the Island for London: Lord Mountfalcon remained.
+There could be no harm. If she had ever thought so, she no longer
+did. Secretly, perhaps, she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as
+well educated as it is the fortune of the run of titled elder sons
+to be: he could talk and instruct: he was a lord: and he let her
+understand that he was wicked, very wicked, and that she improved
+him. The heroine, in common with the hero, has her ambition to be of
+use in the world--to do some good; and the task of reclaiming a bad
+man is extremely seductive to good women. Dear to their tender
+bosoms as old china is a bad man they are mending! Lord Mountfalcon
+had none of the arts of a libertine: his gold, his title, and his
+person had hitherto preserved him from having long to sigh in vain,
+or sigh at all, possibly: the Hon. Peter did his villainies for him.
+No alarm was given to Lucy's pure instinct, as might have been the
+case had my lord been over-adept. It was nice in her martyrdom to
+have a true friend to support her, and really to be able to do
+something for that friend. Too simple-minded to think much of his
+lordship's position, she was yet a woman. "He, a great nobleman,
+does not scorn to acknowledge me, and think something of me," may
+have been one of the half-thoughts passing through her now and then,
+as she reflected in self-defence on the proud family she had married
+into.
+
+January was watering and freezing old earth by turns, when the Hon.
+Peter travelled down to the sun of his purse with great news. He had
+no sooner broached his lordship's immediate weakness, than
+Mountfalcon began to plunge like a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He
+swore by this and that he had come across an angel for his sins, and
+would do her no hurt. The next moment he swore she must be his,
+though she cursed like a cat. His lordship's illustrations were not
+choice. "I haven't advanced an inch," he groaned. "Brayder! upon my
+soul, that little woman could do anything with me. By heaven! I'd
+marry her to-morrow. Here I am, seeing her every day in the week out
+or in, and what do you think she gets me to talk about?--history!
+Isn't it enough to make a fellow mad? and there am I lecturing like
+a prig, and by heaven! while I'm at it I feel a pleasure in it; and
+when I leave the house I should feel an immense gratification in
+shooting somebody. What do they say in town?"
+
+"Not much," said Brayder, significantly.
+
+"When's that fellow--her husband--coming down?"
+
+"I rather hope we've settled him for life, Mount."
+
+Nobleman and parasite exchanged looks.
+
+"How d'ye mean?"
+
+Brayder hummed an air, and broke it to say, "He's in for Don Juan at
+a gallop, that's all."
+
+"The deuce! Has Bella got him?" Mountfalcon asked with eagerness.
+
+Brayder handed my lord a letter. It was dated from the Sussex coast,
+signed "Richard," and was worded thus:
+
+"My beautiful Devil!--
+
+"Since we're both devils together, and have found each other out,
+come to me at once, or I shall be going somewhere in a hurry. Come,
+my bright hell-star! I ran away from you, and now I ask you to come
+to me! You have taught me how devils love, and I can't do without
+you. Come an hour after you receive this."
+
+Mountfalcon turned over the letter to see if there was any more.
+"Complimentary love-epistle!" he remarked, and rising from his chair
+and striding about, muttered, "The dog! how infamously he treats his
+wife!"
+
+"Very bad," said Brayder.
+
+"How did you get hold of this?"
+
+"Strolled into Bella's dressing-room, waiting for her--turned over
+her pincushion haphazard. You know her trick."
+
+"By Jove! I think that girl does it on purpose. Thank heaven, I
+haven't written her any letters for an age. Is she going to him!"
+
+"Not she! But it's odd, Mount!--did you ever know her refuse money
+before? She tore up the cheque in style, and presented me the
+fragments with two or three of the delicacies of language she learnt
+at your Academy. I rather like to hear a woman swear. It embellishes
+her!"
+
+Mountfalcon took counsel of his parasite as to the end the letter
+could be made to serve. Both conscientiously agreed that Richard's
+behaviour to his wife was infamous, and that he at least deserved no
+mercy. "But," said his lordship, "it won't do to show the letter. At
+first she'll be swearing it's false, and then she'll stick to him
+closer. I know the sluts."
+
+"The rule of contrary," said Brayder, carelessly. "She must see the
+trahison with her eyes. They believe their eyes. There's your
+chance, Mount. You step in: you give her revenge and consolation--two
+birds at one shot. That's what they like."
+
+"You're an ass, Brayder," the nobleman exclaimed. "You're an
+infernal blackguard. You talk of this little woman as if she and
+other women were all of a piece. I don't see anything I gain by this
+confounded letter. Her husband's a brute--that's clear."
+
+"Will you leave it to me, Mount?"
+
+"Be damned before I do!" muttered my lord.
+
+"Thank you. Now see how this will end. You're too soft, Mount.
+You'll be made a fool of."
+
+"I tell you, Brayder, there's nothing to be done. If I carry her
+off--I've been on the point of doing it every day--what'll come of
+that? She'll look--I can't stand her eyes--I shall be a fool--worse
+off with her than I am now."
+
+Mountfalcon yawned despondently. "And what do you think?" he pursued.
+"Isn't it enough to make a fellow gnash his teeth? She's" ... he
+mentioned something in an underbreath, and turned red as he said it.
+
+"Hm!" Brayder put up his mouth and rapped the handle of his cane on
+his chin. "That's disagreeable, Mount. You don't exactly want to act
+in that character. You haven't got a diploma. Bother!"
+
+"Do you think I love her a bit less?" broke out my lord in a frenzy.
+"By heaven! I'd read to her by her bedside, and talk that infernal
+history to her, if it pleased her, all day and all night."
+
+"You're evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount."
+
+The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation.
+
+"What do they say in town?" he asked again.
+
+Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was maid, wife, or
+widow.
+
+"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon resumed, after--to judge
+by the cast of his face--reflecting deeply. "I'll go to her this
+evening. She shall know what infernal torment she makes me suffer."
+
+"Do you mean to say she don't know it?"
+
+"Hasn't an idea--thinks me a friend. And so, by heaven! I'll be to
+her."
+
+"A--hm!" went the Honourable Peter. "This way to the sign of the
+Green Man, ladies!"
+
+"Do you want to be pitched out of the window, Brayder?"
+
+"Once was enough, Mount. The Salvage Man is strong. I may have
+forgotten the trick of alighting on my feet. There--there! I'll be
+sworn she's excessively innocent, and thinks you a disinterested
+friend."
+
+"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon repeated. "She shall know
+what damned misery it is to see her in such a position. I can't hold
+out any longer. Deceit's horrible to such a girl as that. I'd rather
+have her cursing me than speaking and looking as she does. Dear
+little girl!--she's only a child. You haven't an idea how sensible
+that little woman is."
+
+"Have you?" inquired the cunning one.
+
+"My belief is, Brayder, that there are angels among women," said
+Mountfalcon, evading his parasite's eye as he spoke.
+
+To the world, Lord Mountfalcon was the thoroughly wicked man; his
+parasite simply ingeniously dissipated. Full many a man of God had
+thought it the easier task to reclaim the Hon. Peter.
+
+Lucy received her noble friend by firelight that evening, and sat
+much in the shade. She offered to have the candles brought in. He
+begged her to allow the room to remain as it was. "I have something
+to say to you," he observed with a certain solemnity.
+
+"Yes--to me?" said Lucy, quickly.
+
+Lord Mountfalcon knew he had a great deal to say, but how to say it,
+and what it exactly was, he did not know.
+
+"You conceal it admirably," he began, "but you must be very lonely
+here--I fear, unhappy."
+
+"I should have been lonely, but for your kindness, my lord," said
+Lucy. "I am not unhappy." Her face was in shade and could not belie
+her.
+
+"Is there any help that one who would really be your friend might
+give you, Mrs. Feverel?"
+
+"None indeed that I know of," Lucy replied. "Who can help us to pay
+for our sins?"
+
+"At least you may permit me to endeavour to pay my debts, since you
+have helped me to wash out some of _my_ sins."
+
+"Ah, my lord!" said Lucy, not displeased. It is sweet for a woman to
+believe she has drawn the serpent's teeth.
+
+"I tell you the truth," Lord Mountfalcon went on. "What object could
+I have in deceiving you? I know you quite above flattery--so
+different from other women!"
+
+"Oh, pray, do not say that," interposed Lucy.
+
+"According to my experience, then."
+
+"But you say you have met such--such very bad women."
+
+"I have. And now that I meet a good one, it is my misfortune."
+
+"Your misfortune, Lord Mountfalcon?"
+
+"Yes, and I might say more."
+
+His lordship held impressively mute.
+
+"How strange men are!" thought Lucy. "He has some unhappy secret."
+
+Tom Bakewell, who had a habit of coming into the room on various
+pretences during the nobleman's visits, put a stop to the
+revelation, if his lordship intended to make any.
+
+When they were alone again, Lucy said, smiling: "Do you know, I am
+always ashamed to ask you to begin to read."
+
+Mountfalcon stared. "To read?--oh! ha! yes!" he remembered his
+evening duties. "Very happy, I'm sure. Let me see. Where were we?"
+
+"The life of the Emperor Julian. But indeed I feel quite ashamed to
+ask you to read, my lord. It's new to me; like a new world--hearing
+about Emperors, and armies, and things that really have been on the
+earth we walk upon. It fills my mind. But it must have ceased to
+interest you, and I was thinking that I would not tease you any
+more."
+
+"Your pleasure is mine, Mrs. Feverel. 'Pon my honour, I'd read till
+I was hoarse, to hear your remarks."
+
+"Are you laughing at me?"
+
+"Do I look so?"
+
+Lord Mountfalcon had fine full eyes, and by merely dropping the lids
+he could appear to endow them with mental expression.
+
+"No, you are not," said Lucy. "I must thank you for your
+forbearance."
+
+The nobleman went on his honour loudly.
+
+Now it was an object of Lucy's to have him reading; for his sake,
+for her sake, and for somebody else's sake; which somebody else was
+probably considered first in the matter. When he was reading to her,
+he seemed to be legitimizing his presence there; and though she had
+no doubts or suspicions whatever, she was easier in her heart while
+she had him employed in that office. So she rose to fetch the book,
+laid it open on the table at his lordship's elbow, and quietly
+waited to ring for candles when he should be willing to commence.
+
+That evening Lord Mountfalcon could not get himself up to the farce,
+and he felt a pity for the strangely innocent unprotected child with
+anguish hanging over her, that withheld the words he wanted to
+speak, or insinuate. He sat silent and did nothing.
+
+"What I do not like him for," said Lucy, meditatively, "is his
+changing his religion. He would have been such a hero, but for that.
+I could have loved him."
+
+"Who is it you could have loved, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord Mountfalcon
+asked.
+
+"The Emperor Julian."
+
+"Oh! the Emperor Julian! Well, he was an apostate: but then, you
+know, he meant what he was about. He didn't even do it for a woman."
+
+"For a woman!" cried Lucy. "What man would for a woman?"
+
+"I would."
+
+"You, Lord Mountfalcon?"
+
+"Yes. I'd turn Catholic to-morrow."
+
+"You make me very unhappy if you say that, my lord."
+
+"Then I'll unsay it."
+
+Lucy slightly shuddered. She put her hand upon the bell to ring for
+lights.
+
+"Do you reject a convert, Mrs. Feverel?" said the nobleman.
+
+"Oh yes! yes! I do. One who does not give his conscience I would not
+have."
+
+"If he gives his heart and body, can he give more?"
+
+Lucy's hand pressed the bell. She did not like the doubtful light
+with one who was so unscrupulous. Lord Mountfalcon had never spoken
+in this way before. He spoke better, too. She missed the
+aristocratic twang in his voice, and the hesitation for words, and
+the fluid lordliness with which he rolled over difficulties in
+speech.
+
+Simultaneously with the sounding of the bell the door opened, and
+presented Tom Bakewell. There was a double knock at the same instant
+at the street door. Lucy delayed to give orders.
+
+"Can it be a letter, Tom?--so late?" she said, changing colour.
+"Pray run and see."
+
+"That an't a powst," Tom remarked, as he obeyed his mistress.
+
+"Are you very anxious for a letter, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord Mountfalcon
+inquired.
+
+"Oh, no--yes, I am, very!" said Lucy. Her quick ear caught the tones
+of a voice she remembered. "That dear old thing has come to see me,"
+she cried, starting up.
+
+Tom ushered a bunch of black satin into the room.
+
+"Mrs. Berry!" said Lucy, running up to her and kissing her.
+
+"Me, my darlin'!" Mrs. Berry, breathless and rosy with her journey,
+returned the salute. "Me truly it is, in fault of a better, for I
+ain't one to stand by and give the devil his licence--roamin'! and
+the salt sure enough have spilte my bride-gown at the beginnin',
+which ain't the best sign. Bless ye!--Oh, here he is." She beheld a
+male figure in a chair by the half light, and swung round to address
+him. "You bad man!" she held aloft one of her fat fingers, "I've
+come on ye like a bolt, I have, and goin' to make ye do your duty,
+naughty boy! But you're my darlin' babe," she melted, as was her
+custom, "and I'll never meet you and not give to ye the kiss of a
+mother."
+
+Before Lord Mountfalcon could find time to expostulate the soft
+woman had him by the neck, and was down among his luxurious
+whiskers.
+
+"Ha!" She gave a smothered shriek, and fell back. "What hair's
+that?"
+
+Tom Bakewell just then illumined the transaction.
+
+"Oh, my gracious!" Mrs. Berry breathed with horror, "I been and kiss
+a strange man!"
+
+Lucy, half-laughing, but in dreadful concern, begged the noble lord
+to excuse the woful mistake.
+
+"Extremely flattered, highly favoured, I'm sure," said his lordship,
+re-arranging his disconcerted moustache; "may I beg the pleasure of
+an introduction?"
+
+"My husband's dear old nurse--Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, taking her
+hand to lend her countenance. "Lord Mountfalcon, Mrs. Berry."
+
+Mrs. Berry sought grace while she performed a series of apologetic
+bobs, and wiped the perspiration from her forehead.
+
+Lucy put her in a chair: Lord Mountfalcon asked for an account of
+her passage over to the Island; receiving distressingly full
+particulars, by which it was revealed that the softness of her heart
+was only equalled by the weakness of her stomach. The recital calmed
+Mrs. Berry down.
+
+"Well, and where's my--where's Mr. Richard? yer husband, my dear?"
+Mrs. Berry turned from her tale to question.
+
+"Did you expect to see him here?" said Lucy, in a broken voice.
+
+"And where else, my love? since he haven't been seen in London a
+whole fortnight."
+
+Lucy did not speak.
+
+"We will dismiss the Emperor Julian till to-morrow, I think," said
+Lord Mountfalcon, rising and bowing.
+
+Lucy gave him her hand with mute thanks. He touched it distantly,
+embraced Mrs. Berry in a farewell bow, and was shown out of the
+house by Tom Bakewell.
+
+The moment he was gone, Mrs. Berry threw up her arms. "Did ye ever
+know sich a horrid thing to go and happen to a virtuous woman!" she
+exclaimed. "I could cry at it, I could! To be goin' and kissin' a
+strange hairy man! Oh, dear me! what's comin' next, I wonder?
+Whiskers! thinks I--for I know the touch o' whiskers--'t ain't like
+other hair--what! have he growed a crop that sudden, I says to
+myself; and it flashed on me I been and made a awful mistake! and
+the lights come in, and I see that great hairy man--beggin' his
+pardon--nobleman, and if I could 'a dropped through the floor out o'
+sight o' men, drat 'em! they're al'ays in the way, that they
+are!"----
+
+"Mrs. Berry," Lucy checked her, "did you expect to find him here?"
+
+"Askin' that solemn?" retorted Berry. "What him? your husband? Of
+course I did! and you got him--somewheres hid."
+
+"I have not heard from my husband for fifteen days," said Lucy, and
+her tears rolled heavily off her cheeks.
+
+'Not heer from him!--fifteen days!" Berry echoed.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! dear kind Mrs. Berry! have you no news? nothing to
+tell me! I've borne it so long. They're cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh,
+do you know if I have offended him--my husband? While he wrote I did
+not complain. I could live on his letters for years. But not to hear
+from him! To think I have ruined him, and that he repents! Do they
+want to take him from me? Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I've
+had no one to speak out my heart to all this time, and I cannot,
+cannot help crying, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she heard from
+Lucy's lips, and she was herself full of dire apprehension; but it
+was never this excellent creature's system to be miserable in
+company. The sight of a sorrow that was not positive, and could not
+refer to proof, set her resolutely the other way.
+
+"Fiddle-faddle," she said. "I'd like to see him repent! He won't
+find anywheres a beauty like his own dear little wife, and he know
+it. Now, look you here, my dear--you blessed weepin' pet--the man
+that could see ye with that hair of yours there in ruins, and he
+backed by the law, and not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed
+for life, he ain't got much man in him, I say; and no one can say
+that of my babe! I was sayin', look here, to comfort ye--oh, why,
+to be sure he've got some surprise for ye. And so've I, my lamb!
+Hark, now! His father've come to town, like a good reasonable man at
+last, to u-nite, ye both, and bring your bodies together, as your
+hearts is, for ever-lastin'. Now ain't that news?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Lucy, "that takes my last hope away. I thought he had
+gone to his father." She burst into fresh tears.
+
+Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed.
+
+"Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested.
+
+"Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sich a man as that. He's a
+regular meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey. Well, so hark
+you here. I says to myself, that knows him--for I did think my babe
+_was_ in his natural nest--I says, the bar'net'll never write for
+you both to come up and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch
+you up. For there was your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your
+husband to go away from ye one hour in a young marriage. It's
+dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong, and it's only to be righted by your
+obeyin' of me, as I commands it: for I has my fits, though I _am_ a
+soft 'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy to-morrow--or the next to it."
+
+Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her self-inflicted
+martyrdom, and glad to give herself up to somebody else's guidance
+utterly.
+
+"But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?"
+
+"'Cause, 'cause--who can tell the why of men, my dear? But that he
+love ye faithful, I'll swear. Haven't he groaned in my arms that he
+couldn't come to ye?--weak wretch! Hasn't he swore how he loved ye
+to me, poor young man! But this is your fault, my sweet. Yes, it be.
+You should 'a followed my 'dvice at the fust--'stead o' going into
+your 'eroics about this and t'other." Here Mrs. Berry poured forth
+fresh sentences on matrimony, pointed especially at young couples.
+"I should 'a been a fool if I hadn't suffered myself," she
+confessed, "so I'll thank my Berry if I makes you wise in season."
+
+Lucy smoothed her ruddy plump cheeks, and gazed up affectionately
+into the soft woman's kind brown eyes. Endearing phrases passed
+from mouth to mouth. And as she gazed Lucy blushed, as one who has
+something very secret to tell, very sweet, very strange, but cannot
+quite bring herself to speak it.
+
+"Well! there's three men in my life I kissed," said Mrs. Berry, too
+much absorbed in her extraordinary adventure to notice the young
+wife's struggling bosom, "three men, and one nobleman! He've got
+more whisker than my Berry. I wonder what the man thought. Ten to
+one he'll think, now, I was glad o' my chance--they're that vain,
+whether they's lords or commons. How was I to know? I nat'ral thinks
+none but her husband'd sit in that chair. Ha! and in the dark? and
+alone with ye?" Mrs. Berry hardened her eyes, "and your husband
+away? What do this mean? Tell to me, child, what it mean his bein'
+here alone without ere a candle?"
+
+"Lord Mountfalcon is the only friend I have here," said Lucy. "He is
+very kind. He comes almost every evening."
+
+"Lord Muntfalcon--that his name!" Mrs. Berry exclaimed. "I been that
+flurried by the man, I didn't mind it at first. He comes every
+evenin', and your husband out o' sight! My goodness me! it's gettin'
+worse and worse. And what do he come for, now, ma'am? Now tell me
+candid what ye do together here in the dark of an evenin'."
+
+Mrs. Berry glanced severely.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! please not to speak in that way--I don't like it,"
+said Lucy, pouting.
+
+"What do he come for, I ask?"
+
+"Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very lonely, and wishes
+to amuse me. And he tells me of things I know nothing about and"----
+
+"And wants to be a-teachin' some of his things, mayhap," Mrs. Berry
+interrupted with a ruffled breast.
+
+"You are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old woman," said
+Lucy, chiding her.
+
+"And you're a silly, unsuspectin' little bird," Mrs. Berry retorted,
+as she returned her taps on the cheek. "You haven't told me what ye
+do together, and what's his excuse for comin'."
+
+"Well, then, Mrs. Berry, almost every evening that he comes we read
+History, and he explains the battles, and talks to me about the
+great men. And _he_ says I'm not silly, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"That's one bit o' lime on your wings, my bird. History, indeed!
+History to a young married lovely woman alone in the dark! a pretty
+History! Why, I know that man's name, my dear. He's a notorious
+living rake, that Lord Muntfalcon. No woman's safe with him."
+
+"Ah, but he hasn't deceived me, Mrs. Berry. He has not pretended he
+was good."
+
+"More's his art," quoth the experienced dame. "So you read History
+together in the dark, my dear!"
+
+"I was unwell to-night, Mrs. Berry. I wanted him not to see my face.
+Look! there's the book open ready for him when the candles come in.
+And now, you dear kind darling old thing, let me kiss you for coming
+to me. I do love you. Talk of other things."
+
+"So we will," said Mrs. Berry softening to Lucy's caresses. "So let
+us. A nobleman, indeed! alone with a young wife in the dark, and she
+sich a beauty! I say this shall be put a stop to now and henceforth,
+on the spot it shall! He won't meneuvele Bessy Berry with his arts.
+There! I drop him. I'm dyin' for a cup o' tea, my dear."
+
+Lucy got up to ring the bell, and as Mrs. Berry, incapable of quite
+dropping him, was continuing to say: "Let him go and boast I kiss
+him; he ain't nothin' to be 'shamed of in a chaste woman's
+kiss--unawares--which men don't get too often in their lives, I can
+assure 'em;"--her eye surveyed Lucy's figure.
+
+Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded her with her
+arms, and drew her into feminine depths. "Oh, you blessed!" she
+cried in most meaning tone, "you good, lovin', proper little wife,
+you!"
+
+"What is it, Mrs. Berry!" lisps Lucy, opening the most innocent blue
+eyes.
+
+"As if _I_ couldn't see, you pet! It was my flurry blinded me, or
+I'd 'a marked ye the fust shock. Thinkin' to deceive me!"
+
+Mrs. Berry's eyes spoke generations. Lucy's wavered; she coloured
+all over, and hid her face on the bounteous breast that mounted to
+her.
+
+"You're a sweet one," murmured the soft woman, patting her back, and
+rocking her. "You're a rose, you are! and a bud on your stalk.
+Haven't told a word to your husband, my dear?" she asked quickly.
+
+Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy.
+
+"That's right. We'll give him a surprise; let it come all at once on
+him, and thinks he--losin' breath--'I'm a father!' Nor a hint even
+you haven't give him?"
+
+Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret.
+
+"Oh! you _are_ a sweet one," said Bessy Berry, and rocked her more
+closely and lovingly.
+
+Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which let all of
+male persuasion retire a space nothing under one mile.
+
+Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry counting on her
+fingers' ends. Concluding the sum, she cries prophetically: "Now
+this right everything--a baby in the balance! Now I say this
+angel-infant come from on high. It's God's messenger, my love! and
+it's not wrong to say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn't 'a
+had one--not for all the tryin' in the world, you wouldn't, and some
+tries hard enough, poor creatures! How let us rejice and make merry!
+I'm for cryin' and laughin', one and the same. This is the blessed
+seal of matrimony, which Berry never stamp on me. It's be hoped it's
+a boy. Make that man a grandfather, and his grandchild a son, and
+you got him safe. Oh! this is what I call happiness, and I'll have
+my tea a little stronger in consequence. I declare I could get tipsy
+to know this joyful news."
+
+So Mrs. Berry carolled. She had her tea a little stronger. She ate
+and she drank; she rejoiced and made merry. The bliss of the chaste
+was hers.
+
+Says Lucy demurely: "Now you know why I read History, and that sort
+of books."
+
+"Do I?" replies Berry. "Belike I do. Since what you done's so good,
+my darlin', I'm agreeable to anything. A fig for all the lords! They
+can't come anigh a baby. You may read Voyages and Travels, my dear,
+and Romances, and Tales of Love and War. You cut the riddle in your
+own dear way, and that's all I cares for."
+
+"No, but you don't understand," persists Lucy. "I only read sensible
+books, and talk of serious things, because I'm sure ... because I
+have heard say ... dear Mrs. Berry! don't you understand now?"
+
+Mrs. Berry smacked her knees. "Only to think of her bein' that
+thoughtful! and she a Catholic, too! Never tell me that people of
+one religion ain't as good as another, after that. Why, you want to
+make him a historian, to be sure! And that rake of a lord who've
+been comin' here playin' at wolf, you been and made him--unbeknown
+to himself--sort o' tutor to the unborn blessed! Ha! ha! say that
+little women ain't got art ekal to the cunningest of 'em. Oh! I
+understand. Why, to be sure, didn't I know a lady, a widow of a
+clergyman: he was a postermost child, and afore his birth that woman
+read nothin' but Blair's 'Grave' over and over again, from the end
+to the beginnin';--that's a serious book!--very hard readin'!--and
+at four years of age that child that come of it reelly was the
+piusest infant!--he was like a little curate. His eyes was up; he
+talked so solemn." Mrs. Berry imitated the little curate's
+appearance and manner of speaking. "So she got her wish, for one!"
+
+But at this lady Lucy laughed.
+
+They chattered on happily till bedtime. Lucy arranged for Mrs. Berry
+to sleep with her. "If it's not dreadful to ye, my sweet, sleepin'
+beside a woman," said Mrs. Berry. "I know it were to me shortly
+after my Berry, and I felt it. It don't somehow seem nat'ral after
+matrimony--a woman in your bed! I was obliged to have somebody, for
+the cold sheets do give ye the creeps when you've been used to that
+that's different."
+
+Upstairs they went together, Lucy not sharing these objections. Then
+Lucy opened certain drawers, and exhibited pretty caps, and laced
+linen, all adapted for a very small body, all the work of her own
+hands: and Mrs. Berry praised them and her. "You been guessing a
+boy--woman-like," she said. Then they cooed, and kissed, and
+undressed by the fire, and knelt at the bedside, with their arms
+about each other, praying; both praying for the unborn child; and
+Mrs. Berry pressed Lucy's waist the moment she was about to breathe
+the petition to heaven to shield and bless that coming life; and
+thereat Lucy closed to her, and felt a strong love for her. Then
+Lucy got into bed first, leaving Berry to put out the light, and
+before she did so, Berry leaned over her, and eyed her roguishly,
+saying, "I never see ye like this, but I'm half in love with ye
+myself, you blushin' beauty! Sweet's your eyes, and your hair do
+take one so--lyin' back. I'd never forgive my father if he kep me
+away from ye four-and-twenty hours just. Husband o' that!" Berry
+pointed at the young wife's loveliness. "Ye look so ripe with
+kisses, and there they are a-languishin'!-- ... You never look so
+but in your bed, ye beauty!--just as it ought to be." Lucy had to
+pretend to rise to put out the light before Berry would give up her
+amorous chaste soliloquy. Then they lay in bed, and Mrs. Berry
+fondled her, and arranged for their departure to-morrow, and
+reviewed Richard's emotions when he came to hear he was going to be
+made a father by her, and hinted at Lucy's delicious shivers when
+Richard was again in his rightful place, which she, Bessy Berry, now
+usurped; and all sorts of amorous sweet things; enough to make one
+fancy the adage subverted, that stolen fruits are sweetest; she drew
+such glowing pictures of bliss within the law and the limits of the
+conscience, till at last, worn out, Lucy murmured "Peepy, dear
+Berry," and the soft woman gradually ceased her chirp.
+
+Bessy Berry did not sleep. She lay thinking of the sweet brave heart
+beside her, and listening to Lucy's breath as it came and went;
+squeezing the fair sleeper's hand now and then, to ease her love as
+her reflections warmed. A storm of wind came howling over the
+Hampshire hills, and sprang white foam on the water, and shook the
+bare trees. It passed, leaving a thin cloth of snow on the wintry
+land. The moon shone brilliantly. Berry heard the house-dog bark.
+His bark was savage and persistent. She was roused by the noise. By
+and by she fancied she heard a movement in the house; then it seemed
+to her that the house-door opened. She cocked her ears, and could
+almost make out voices in the midnight stillness. She slipped from
+the bed, locked and bolted the door of the room, assured herself of
+Lucy's unconsciousness, and went on tiptoe to the window. The trees
+all stood white to the north; the ground glittered; the cold was
+keen. Berry wrapped her fat arms across her bosom, and peeped as
+close over the garden as the situation of the window permitted.
+Berry was a soft, not a timid, woman: and it happened this night
+that her thoughts were above the fears of the dark. She was sure of
+the voices; curiosity without a shade of alarm held her on the
+watch; and gathering bundles of her day-apparel round her neck and
+shoulders, she silenced the chattering of her teeth as well as she
+could, and remained stationary. The low hum of the voices came to a
+break; something was said in a louder tone; the house-door quietly
+shut; a man walked out of the garden into the road. He paused
+opposite her window, and Berry let the blind go back to its place,
+and peeped from behind an edge of it. He was in the shadow of the
+house, so that it was impossible to discern much of his figure.
+After some minutes he walked rapidly away, and Berry returned to the
+bed an icicle, from which Lucy's limbs sensitively shrank.
+
+Next morning Mrs. Berry asked Tom Bakewell if he had been disturbed
+in the night. Tom, the mysterious, said he had slept like a top.
+Mrs. Berry went to the garden. The snow was partially melted; all
+save one spot just under the portal, and there she saw the print of
+a man's foot. By some strange guidance it occurred to her to go and
+find one of Richard's boots. She did so, and, unperceived, she
+measured the sole of the boot in that solitary footmark. There could
+be no doubt that it fitted. She tried it from heel to toe a dozen
+times.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+CLARE'S DIARY
+
+
+Sir Austin Feverel had come to town with the serenity of a
+philosopher who says, 'Tis now time; and the satisfaction of a man
+who has not arrived thereat without a struggle. He had almost
+forgiven his son. His deep love for him had well-nigh shaken loose
+from wounded pride and more tenacious vanity. Stirrings of a remote
+sympathy for the creature who had robbed him of his son and hewed at
+his System, were in his heart of hearts. This he knew; and in his
+own mind he took credit for his softness. But the world must not
+suppose him soft; the world must think he was still acting on his
+System. Otherwise what would his long absence signify?--Something
+highly unphilosophical. So, though love was strong, and was moving
+him to a straightforward course, the last tug of vanity drew him
+still aslant.
+
+The Aphorist read himself so well, that to juggle with himself was a
+necessity. As he wished the world to see him, he beheld himself: one
+who entirely put aside mere personal feelings: one in whom parental
+duty, based on the science of life, was paramount: a Scientific
+Humanist, in short.
+
+He was, therefore, rather surprised at a coldness in Lady Blandish's
+manner when he did appear. "At last!" said the lady, in a sad way
+that sounded reproachfully. Now the Scientific Humanist had, of
+course, nothing to reproach himself with.
+
+But where was Richard?
+
+Adrian positively averred he was not with his wife.
+
+"If he had gone," said the baronet, "he would have anticipated me by
+a few hours."
+
+This, when repeated to Lady Blandish, should have propitiated her,
+and shown his great forgiveness. She, however, sighed, and looked at
+him wistfully.
+
+Their converse was not happy and deeply intimate. Philosophy did not
+seem to catch her mind; and fine phrases encountered a rueful
+assent, more flattering to their grandeur than to their influence.
+
+Days went by. Richard did not present himself. Sir Austin's pitch of
+self-command was to await the youth without signs of impatience.
+
+Seeing this, the lady told him her fears for Richard, and mentioned
+the rumour of him that was about.
+
+"If," said the baronet, "this person, his wife, is what you paint
+her, I do not share your fears for him. I think too well of him. If
+she is one to inspire the sacredness of that union, I think too well
+of him. It is impossible."
+
+The lady saw one thing to be done.
+
+"Call her to you," she said. "Have her with you at Raynham.
+Recognize her. It is the disunion and doubt that so confuses him and
+drives him wild. I confess to you I hoped he had gone to her. It
+seems not. If she is with you his way will be clear. Will you do
+that?"
+
+Science is notoriously of slow movement. Lady Blandish's
+proposition was far too hasty for Sir Austin. Women, rapid by
+nature, have no idea of science.
+
+"We shall see her there in time, Emmeline. At present let it be
+between me and my son."
+
+He spoke loftily. In truth it offended him to be asked to do
+anything, when he had just brought himself to do so much.
+
+A month elapsed, and Richard appeared on the scene.
+
+The meeting between him and his father was not what his father had
+expected and had crooned over in the Welsh mountains. Richard shook
+his hand respectfully, and inquired after his health with the common
+social solicitude. He then said: "During your absence, sir, I have
+taken the liberty, without consulting you, to do something in which
+you are more deeply concerned than myself. I have taken upon myself
+to find out my mother and place her under my care. I trust you will
+not think I have done wrong. I acted as I thought best."
+
+Sir Austin replied: "You are of an age, Richard, to judge for
+yourself in such a case. I would have you simply beware of deceiving
+yourself in imagining that you considered any one but yourself in
+acting as you did."
+
+"I have not deceived myself, sir," said Richard, and the interview
+was over. Both hated an exposure of the feelings, and in that both
+were satisfied: but the baronet, as one who loves, hoped and looked
+for tones indicative of trouble and delight in the deep heart; and
+Richard gave him none of those. The young man did not even face him
+as he spoke: if their eyes met by chance, Richard's were defiantly
+cold. His whole bearing was changed.
+
+"This rash marriage has altered him," said the very just man of
+science in life: and that meant: "it has debased him."
+
+He pursued his reflections. "I see in him the desperate maturity of
+a suddenly-ripened nature: and but for my faith that good work is
+never lost, what should I think of the toil of my years? Lost,
+perhaps to me! lost to him! It may show itself in his children."
+
+The Philosopher, we may conceive, has contentment in benefiting
+embryos: but it was a somewhat bitter prospect to Sir Austin.
+Bitterly he felt the injury to himself.
+
+One little incident spoke well of Richard. A poor woman called at
+the hotel while he was missing. The baronet saw her, and she told
+him a tale that threw Christian light on one part of Richard's
+nature. But this might gratify the father in Sir Austin; it did not
+touch the man of science. A Feverel, his son, would not do less, he
+thought. He sat down deliberately to study his son.
+
+No definite observation enlightened him. Richard ate and drank;
+joked and laughed. He was generally before Adrian in calling for a
+fresh bottle. He talked easily of current topics; his gaiety did not
+sound forced. In all he did, nevertheless, there was not the air of
+a youth who sees a future before him. Sir Austin put that down. It
+might be carelessness, and wanton blood, for no one could say he had
+much on his mind. The man of science was not reckoning that Richard
+also might have learned to act and wear a mask. Dead subjects--this
+is to say, people not on their guard--he could penetrate and
+dissect. It is by a rare chance, as scientific men well know, that
+one has an opportunity of examining the structure of the living.
+
+However, that rare chance was granted to Sir Austin. They were
+engaged to dine with Mrs. Doria at the Foreys', and walked down to
+her in the afternoon, father and son arm-in-arm, Adrian beside them.
+Previously the offended father had condescended to inform his son
+that it would shortly be time for him to return to his wife,
+indicating that arrangements would ultimately be ordered to receive
+her at Raynham. Richard had replied nothing; which might mean excess
+of gratitude, or hypocrisy in concealing his pleasure, or any one of
+the thousand shifts by which gratified human nature expresses itself
+when all is made to run smooth with it. Now Mrs. Berry had her
+surprise ready charged for the young husband. She had Lucy in her
+own house waiting for him. Every day she expected him to call and be
+overcome by the rapturous surprise, and every day, knowing his habit
+of frequenting the park, she marched Lucy thither, under the plea
+that Master Richard, whom she had already christened, should have an
+airing.
+
+The round of the red winter sun was behind the bare Kensington
+chestnuts, when these two parties met. Happily for Lucy and the
+hope she bore in her bosom, she was perversely admiring a fair
+horsewoman galloping by at the moment. Mrs. Berry plucked at her
+gown once or twice, to prepare her eyes for the shock, but Lucy's
+head was still half averted, and thinks Mrs. Berry, "'Twon't hurt
+her if she go into his arms head foremost." They were close; Mrs.
+Berry performed the bob preliminary. Richard held her silent with a
+terrible face; he grasped her arm, and put her behind him. Other
+people intervened. Lucy saw nothing to account for Berry's excessive
+flutter. Berry threw it on the air and some breakfast bacon, which,
+she said, she knew in the morning while she ate it, was bad for the
+bile, and which probably was the cause of her bursting into tears,
+much to Lucy's astonishment.
+
+"What you ate makes you cry, Mrs. Berry?"
+
+"It's all----" Mrs. Berry pressed at her heart and leaned sideways,
+"it's all stomach, my dear. Don't ye mind," and becoming aware of
+her unfashionable behaviour, she trailed off to the shelter of the
+elms.
+
+"You have a singular manner with old ladies," said Sir Austin to his
+son, after Berry had been swept aside. "Scarcely courteous. She
+behaved like a mad woman, certainly.--Are you ill, my son?"
+
+Richard was death-pale, his strong form smitten through with
+weakness. The baronet sought Adrian's eye. Adrian had seen Lucy as
+they passed, and he had a glimpse of Richard's countenance while
+disposing of Berry. Had Lucy recognized them, he would have gone to
+her unhesitatingly. As she did not, he thought it well, under the
+circumstances, to leave matters as they were. He answered the
+baronet's look with a shrug.
+
+"Are you ill, Richard?" Sir Austin again asked his son.
+
+"Come on, sir! come on!" cried Richard.
+
+His father's further meditations, as they stepped briskly to the
+Foreys', gave poor Berry a character which one who lectures on
+matrimony, and has kissed but three men in her life, shrieks to hear
+the very title of.
+
+"Richard will go to his wife to-morrow," Sir Austin said to Adrian
+some time before they went in to dinner.
+
+Adrian asked him if he had chanced to see a young fair-haired lady
+by the side of the old one Richard had treated so peculiarly; and to
+the baronet's acknowledgment that he remembered to have observed
+such a person, Adrian said: "That was his wife, sir."
+
+Sir Austin could not dissect the living subject. As if a bullet had
+torn open the young man's skull, and some blast of battle laid his
+palpitating organization bare, he watched every motion of his brain
+and his heart; and with the grief and terror of one whose mental
+habit was ever to pierce to extremes. Not altogether conscious that
+he had hitherto played with life, he felt that he was suddenly
+plunged into the stormful reality of it. He projected to speak
+plainly to his son on all points that night.
+
+"Richard is very gay," Mrs. Doria whispered her brother.
+
+"All will be right with him to-morrow," he replied; for the game had
+been in his hands so long, so long had he been the God of the
+machine, that having once resolved to speak plainly and to act, he
+was to a certain extent secure, bad as the thing to mend might be.
+
+"I notice he has rather a wild laugh--I don't exactly like his
+eyes," said Mrs. Doria.
+
+"You will see a change in him to-morrow," the man of science
+remarked.
+
+It was reserved for Mrs. Doria herself to experience that change. In
+the middle of the dinner a telegraphic message from her son-in-law,
+worthy John Todhunter, reached the house, stating that Clare was
+alarmingly ill, bidding her come instantly. She cast about for some
+one to accompany her, and fixed on Richard. Before he would give his
+consent for Richard to go, Sir Austin desired to speak with him
+apart, and in that interview he said to his son: "My dear Richard!
+it was my intention that we should come to an understanding together
+this night. But the time is short--poor Helen cannot spare many
+minutes. Let me then say that you deceived me, and that I forgive
+you. We fix our seal on the past. You will bring your wife to me
+when you return." And very cheerfully the baronet looked down on the
+generous future he thus founded.
+
+"Will you have her at Raynham at once, sir?" said Richard.
+
+"Yes, my son, when you bring her."
+
+"Are you mocking me, sir?" "Pray, what do you mean?"
+
+"I ask you to receive her at once."
+
+"Well! the delay cannot be long. I do not apprehend that you will be
+kept from your happiness many days."
+
+"I think it will be some time, sir!" said Richard, sighing deeply.
+
+"And what mental freak is this that can induce you to postpone it
+and play with your first duty?"
+
+"What is my first duty, sir?"
+
+"Since you are married, to be with your wife."
+
+"I have heard that from an old woman called Berry!" said Richard to
+himself, not intending irony.
+
+"Will you receive her at once?" he asked resolutely.
+
+The baronet was clouded by his son's reception of his graciousness.
+His grateful prospect had formerly been Richard's marriage--the
+culmination of his System. Richard had destroyed his participation
+in that. He now looked for a pretty scene in recompense:--Richard
+leading up his wife to him, and both being welcomed by him
+paternally, and so held one ostentatious minute in his embrace.
+
+He said: "Before you return, I demur to receiving her."
+
+"Very well, sir," replied his son, and stood as if he had spoken
+all.
+
+"Really you tempt me to fancy you already regret your rash
+proceeding!" the baronet exclaimed; and the next moment it pained
+him he had uttered the words, Richard's eyes were so sorrowfully
+fierce. It pained him, but he divined in that look a history, and he
+could not refrain from glancing acutely and asking: "Do you?"
+
+"Regret it, sir?" The question aroused one of those struggles in the
+young man's breast which a passionate storm of tears may still, and
+which sink like leaden death into the soul when tears come not.
+Richard's eyes had the light of the desert.
+
+"Do you?" his father repeated. "You tempt me--I almost fear you do."
+At the thought--for he expressed his mind--the pity that he had for
+Richard was not pure gold.
+
+"Ask me what I think of her, sir! Ask me what she is! Ask me what it
+is to have taken one of God's precious angels and chained her to
+misery! Ask me what it is to have plunged a sword into her heart,
+and to stand over her and see such a creature bleeding! Do I regret
+that? Why, yes, I do! Would you?"
+
+His eyes flew hard at his father under the ridge of his eyebrows.
+
+Sir Austin winced and reddened. Did he understand? There is ever in
+the mind's eye a certain wilfulness. We see and understand; we see
+and won't understand.
+
+"Tell me why you passed by her as you did this afternoon," he said
+gravely: and in the same voice Richard answered: "I passed her
+because I could not do otherwise."
+
+"Your wife, Richard?"
+
+"Yes! my wife!"
+
+"If she had seen you, Richard?"
+
+"God spared her that!"
+
+Mrs. Doria, bustling in practical haste, and bearing Richard's hat
+and greatcoat in her energetic hands, came between them at this
+juncture. Dimples of commiseration were in her cheeks while she
+kissed her brother's perplexed forehead. She forgot her trouble
+about Clare, deploring his fatuity.
+
+Sir Austin was forced to let his son depart. As of old, he took
+counsel with Adrian, and the wise youth was soothing. "Somebody has
+kissed him, sir, and the chaste boy can't get over it." This absurd
+suggestion did more to appease the baronet than if Adrian had given
+a veritable reasonable key to Richard's conduct. It set him thinking
+that it might be a prudish strain in the young man's mind, due to
+the System in difficulties.
+
+"I may have been wrong in one thing," he said, with an air of the
+utmost doubt of it. "I, perhaps, was wrong in allowing him so much
+liberty during his probation."
+
+Adrian pointed out to him that he had distinctly commanded it.
+
+"Yes, yes; that is on me."
+
+His was an order of mind that would accept the most burdensome
+charges, and by some species of moral usury make a profit out of
+them.
+
+Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employment of the
+telegraph to John Todhunter's uxorious distress at a toothache, or
+possibly the first symptoms of an heir to his house.
+
+"That child's mind has disease in it. She is not sound," said the
+baronet.
+
+On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood Mrs. Berry.
+Her wish to speak a few words with the baronet reverentially
+communicated, she was ushered upstairs into his room.
+
+Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was beckoned to
+occupy.
+
+"Well, ma'am, you have something to say," observed the baronet, for
+she seemed loath to commence.
+
+"Wishin' I hadn't:" Mrs. Berry took him up, and mindful of the good
+rule to begin at the beginning, pursued: "I dare say, Sir Austin,
+you don't remember me, and I little thought when last we parted our
+meeting'd be like this. Twenty year don't go over one without
+showin' it, no more than twenty ox. It's a might o' time,--twenty
+year! Leastways not quite twenty, it ain't."
+
+"Round figures are best," Adrian remarked.
+
+"In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, and got
+himself married!" said Mrs. Berry, diving straight into the case.
+
+Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the culprit who had
+assisted his son in that venture. It was a stretch of his patience
+to hear himself addressed on a family matter, but he was naturally
+courteous.
+
+"He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger! If twenty year alters
+us as have knowed each other on the earth, how must they alter they
+that we parted with just come from heaven! And a heavenly babe he
+were! se sweet! se strong! _so_ fat!"
+
+Adrian laughed aloud.
+
+Mrs. Berry bumped a curtsey to him in her chair, continuing: "I
+wished afore I spoke to say how thankful am I bound to be for my
+pension not cut short, as have offended so, but that I know Sir
+Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey, ain't one o' them that likes to hear
+their good deeds published. And a pension to me now, it's something
+more than it were. For a pension and pretty rosy cheeks in a maid,
+which I was--that's a bait many a man'll bite, that won't so a
+forsaken wife!"
+
+"If you will speak to the point, ma'am, I will listen to you," the
+baronet interrupted her.
+
+"It's the beginnin' that's the worst, and that's over, thank the
+Lord! So I'll speak, Sir Austin, and say my say:--Lord speed me!
+Believin' our idees o' matrimony to be sim'lar, then, I'll say, once
+married--married for life! Yes! I don't even like widows. For I
+can't stop at the grave. Not at the tomb I can't stop. My husband's
+my husband, and if I'm a body at the Resurrection, I say speaking
+humbly, my Berry is the husband o' my body; and to think of two
+claimin' of me then--it makes me hot all over. Such is my notion of
+that state 'tween man and woman. No givin' in marriage, o' course I
+know, and if so I'm single."
+
+The baronet suppressed a smile. "Really, my good woman, you wander
+very much."
+
+"Beggin' pardon, Sir Austin; but I has my point before me all the
+same, and I'm comin' to it. Ac-knowledgin' our error, it's done, and
+bein' done, it's writ aloft. Oh! if you only knew what a sweet young
+creature she be! Indeed 'taint all of humble birth that's unworthy,
+Sir Austin. And she got her idees, too. She reads History! She talk
+that sensible as would surprise ye. But for all that she's a prey to
+the artful o' men--unpertected. And it's a young marriage--but
+there's no fear for her, as far as she go. The fear's t'other way.
+There's that in a man--at the commencement--which make of him Lord
+knows what, if you any way interferes: whereas a woman bides quiet!
+It's consolation catch her, which is what we mean by seducin'.
+Whereas a man--he's a savage!"
+
+Sir Austin turned his face to Adrian, who was listening with huge
+delight.
+
+"Well, ma'am, I see you have something in your mind, if you would
+only come to it quickly."
+
+"Then here's my point, Sir Austin. I say you bred him so as there
+ain't another young gentleman like him in England, and proud he make
+me. And as for her, I'll risk sayin'--it's done, and no harm--you
+might search England through, and nowhere will ye find a maid that's
+his match like his own wife. Then there they be. Are they together
+as should be? O Lord no! Months they been divided. Then she all
+lonely and exposed, I went, and fetched her out of seducers'
+ways--which they may say what they like, but the inn'cent is most
+open to when they're healthy and confidin'--I fetch her, and--the
+liberty--boxed her safe in my own house. So much for that sweet!
+That you may do with women. But it's him--Mr. Richard--I _am_ bold,
+I know, but there--I'm in for it, and the Lord'll help me! It's him,
+Sir Austin, in this great metropolis, warm from a young marriage.
+It's him, and--I say nothin' of her, and how sweet she bears it, and
+it's eating her at a time when Natur' should have no other trouble
+but the one that's goin' on--it's him, and I ask--so bold--shall
+there--and a Christian gentleman his father--shall there be a tug
+'tween him as a son and him as a husband--soon to be somethin' else?
+I speak bold out--I'd have sons obey their fathers, but the priest's
+words spoke over him, which they're now in my ears, I say I ain't a
+doubt on earth--I'm sure there ain't one in heaven--which dooty's
+the holier of the two."
+
+Sir Austin heard her to an end. Their views on the junction of the
+sexes were undoubtedly akin. To be lectured on his prime subject,
+however, was slightly disagreeable, and to be obliged mentally to
+assent to this old lady's doctrine was rather humiliating, when it
+could not be averred that he had latterly followed it out. He sat
+cross-legged and silent, a finger to his temple.
+
+"One gets so addle-pated thinkin' many things," said Mrs. Berry,
+simply. "That's why we see wonder clever people goin' wrong--to my
+mind. I think it's al'ays the plan in a dielemmer to pray God and
+walk forward."
+
+The keen-witted soft woman was tracking the baronet's thoughts, and
+she had absolutely run him down and taken an explanation out of his
+mouth, by which Mrs. Berry was to have been informed that he had
+acted from a principle of his own, and devolved a wisdom she could
+not be expected to comprehend.
+
+Of course he became advised immediately that it would be waste of
+time to direct such an explanation to her inferior capacity.
+
+He gave her his hand, saying, "My son has gone out of town to see
+his cousin, who is ill. He will return in two or three days, and
+then they will both come to me at Raynham."
+
+Mrs. Berry took the tips of his fingers, and went half-way to the
+floor perpendicularly. "He pass her like a stranger in the park this
+evenin'," she faltered.
+
+"Ah?" said the baronet. "Yes, well! they will be at Raynham before
+the week is over."
+
+Mrs. Berry was not quite satisfied. "Not of his own accord he pass
+that sweet young wife of his like a stranger this day, Sir Austin!"
+
+"I must beg you not to intrude further, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Berry bobbed her bunch of a body out of the room.
+
+"All's well as ends well," she said to herself. "It's bad inquirin' too
+close among men. We must take 'em somethin' like Providence--_as_
+they come. Thank heaven! I kep' back the baby."
+
+In Mrs. Berry's eyes the baby was the victorious reserve.
+
+Adrian asked his chief what he thought of that specimen of women.
+
+"I think I have not met a better in my life," said the baronet,
+mingling praise and sarcasm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Clare lies in her bed as placid as in the days when she breathed;
+her white hands stretched their length along the sheets, at peace
+from head to feet. She needs iron no more. Richard is face to face
+with death for the first time. He sees the sculpture of clay--the
+spark gone.
+
+Clare gave her mother the welcome of the dead. This child would have
+spoken nothing but kind commonplaces had she been alive. She was
+dead, and none knew her malady. On her fourth finger were two
+wedding-rings.
+
+When hours of weeping had silenced the mother's anguish, she, for
+some comfort she saw in it, pointed out that strange thing to
+Richard, speaking low in the chamber of the dead; and then he learnt
+that it was his own lost ring Clare wore in the two worlds. He
+learnt from her husband that Clare's last request had been that
+neither of the rings should be removed. She had written it; she
+would not speak it.
+
+"I beg of my husband, and all kind people who may have the care of
+me between this and the grave, to bury me with my hands untouched."
+
+The tracing of the words showed the bodily torment she was
+suffering, as she wrote them on a scrap of paper found beside her
+pillow.
+
+In wonder, as the dim idea grew from the waving of Clare's dead
+hand, Richard paced the house, and hung about the awful room;
+dreading to enter it, reluctant to quit it. The secret Clare had
+buried while she lived, arose with her death. He saw it play like
+flame across her marble features. The memory of her voice was like a
+knife at his nerves. His coldness to her started up accusingly: her
+meekness was bitter blame.
+
+On the evening of the fourth day, her mother came to him in his
+bedroom, with a face so white that he asked himself if aught worse
+could happen to a mother than the loss of her child. Choking she
+said to him, "Read this," and thrust a leather-bound pocket-book
+trembling in his hand. She would not breathe to him what it was. She
+entreated him not to open it before her.
+
+"Tell me," she said, "tell me what you think. John must not hear of
+it. I have nobody to consult but you--O Richard!"
+
+"MY DIARY" was written in the round hand of Clare's childhood on the
+first page. The first name his eye encountered was his own.
+
+"Richard's fourteenth birthday. I have worked him a purse and put it
+under his pillow, because he is going to have plenty of money. He
+does not notice me now because he has a friend now, and he is ugly,
+but Richard is not, and never will be."
+
+The occurrences of that day were subsequently recorded, and a
+childish prayer to God for him set down. Step by step he saw her
+growing mind in his history. As she advanced in years she began to
+look back, and made much of little trivial remembrances, all bearing
+upon him.
+
+"We went into the fields and gathered cowslips together, and pelted
+each other, and I told him he used to call them 'coals-sleeps' when
+he was a baby, and he was angry at my telling him, for he does not
+like to be told he was ever a baby."
+
+He remembered the incident, and remembered his stupid scorn of her
+meek affection. Little Clare! how she lived before him in her white
+dress and pink ribbons, and soft dark eyes! Upstairs she was lying
+dead. He read on:
+
+"Mama says there is no one in the world like Richard, and I am sure
+there is not, not in the whole world. He says he is going to be a
+great General and going to the wars. If he does I shall dress myself
+as a boy and go after him, and he will not know me till I am
+wounded. Oh I pray he will never, never be wounded. I wonder what I
+should feel if Richard was ever to die."
+
+Upstairs Clare was lying dead.
+
+"Lady Blandish said there was a likeness between Richard and me.
+Richard said I hope I do not hang down my head as she does. He is
+angry with me because I do not look people in the face and speak
+out, but I know I am not looking after earthworms."
+
+Yes. He had told her that. A shiver seized him at the recollection.
+
+Then it came to a period when the words: "Richard kissed me," stood
+by themselves, and marked a day in her life.
+
+Afterwards it was solemnly discovered that Richard wrote poetry. He
+read one of his old forgotten compositions penned when he had that
+ambition.
+
+    "Thy truth to me is truer
+      Than horse, or dog, or blade;
+    Thy vows to me are fewer
+      Than ever maiden made.
+
+    Thou steppest from thy splendour
+      To make my life a song:
+    My bosom shall be tender
+      As thine has risen strong."
+
+All the verses were transcribed. "It is he who is the humble
+knight," Clare explained at the close, "and his lady is a Queen. Any
+Queen would throw her crown away for him."
+
+It came to that period when Clare left Raynham with her mother.
+
+"Richard was not sorry to lose me. He only loves boys and men.
+Something tells me I shall never see Raynham again. He was dressed
+in blue. He said Good-bye, Clare, and kissed me on the cheek.
+Richard never kisses me on the mouth. He did not know I went to his
+bed and kissed him while he was asleep. He sleeps with one arm
+under his head, and the other out on the bed. I moved away a bit of
+his hair that was over his eyes. I wanted to cut it. I have one
+piece. I do not let anybody see I am unhappy, not even mama. She
+says I want iron. I am sure I do not. I like to write my name. Clare
+Doria Forey. Richard's is Richard Doria Feverel."
+
+His breast rose convulsively. Clare Doria Forey! He knew the music
+of that name. He had heard it somewhere. It sounded faint and mellow
+now behind the hills of death.
+
+He could not read for tears. It was midnight. The hour seemed to
+belong to her. The awful stillness and the darkness were Clare's.
+Clare's voice clear and cold from the grave possessed it.
+
+Painfully, with blinded eyes, he looked over the breathless pages.
+She spoke of his marriage, and her finding the ring.
+
+"I knew it was his. I knew he was going to be married that morning.
+I saw him stand by the altar when they laughed at breakfast. His
+wife must be so beautiful! Richard's wife! Perhaps he will love me
+better now he is married. Mama says they must be separated. That is
+shameful. If I can help him I will. I pray so that he may be happy.
+I hope God hears poor sinners' prayers. I am very sinful. Nobody
+knows it as I do. They say I am good, but I know. When I look on the
+ground I am not looking after earthworms, as he said. Oh, do forgive
+me, God!"
+
+Then she spoke of her own marriage, and that it was her duty to obey
+her mother. A blank in the Diary ensued.
+
+"I have seen Richard. Richard despises me," was the next entry.
+
+But now as he read his eyes were fixed, and the delicate feminine
+handwriting like a black thread drew on his soul to one terrible
+conclusion.
+
+"I cannot live. Richard despises me. I cannot bear the touch of my
+fingers or the sight of my face. Oh! I understand him now. He should
+not have kissed me so that last time. I wished to die while his
+mouth was on mine."
+
+Further: "I have no escape. Richard said he would die rather than
+endure it. I know he would. Why should I be afraid to do what he
+would do? I think if my husband whipped me I could bear it better.
+He is so kind, and tries to make me cheerful. He will soon be very
+unhappy. I pray to God half the night. I seem to be losing sight of
+my God the more I pray."
+
+Richard laid the book open on the table. Phantom surges seemed to be
+mounting and travelling for his brain. Had Clare taken his wild
+words in earnest? Did she lie there dead--he shrouded the thought.
+
+He wrapped the thoughts in shrouds, but he was again reading.
+
+"A quarter to one o'clock. I shall not be alive this time to-morrow.
+I shall never see Richard now. I dreamed last night we were in the
+fields together, and he walked with his arm round my waist. We were
+children, but I thought we were married, and I showed him I wore his
+ring, and he said--if you always wear it, Clare, you are as good as
+my wife. Then I made a vow to wear it for ever and ever.... It is
+not mama's fault. She does not think as Richard and I do of these
+things. He is not a coward, nor am I. He hates cowards.
+
+"I have written to his father to make him happy. Perhaps when I am
+dead he will hear what I say.
+
+"I heard just now Richard call distinctly--Clari, come out to me.
+Surely he has not gone. I am going I know not where. I cannot think.
+I am very cold."
+
+The words were written larger, and staggered towards the close, as
+if her hand had lost mastery over the pen.
+
+"I can only remember Richard now a boy. A little boy and a big boy.
+I am not sure now of his voice. I can only remember certain words.
+'Clari,' and 'Don Ricardo,' and his laugh. He used to be full of
+fun. Once we laughed all day together tumbling in the hay. Then he
+had a friend and began to write poetry, and be proud. If I had
+married a young man he would have forgiven me, but I should not have
+been happier. I must have died. God never looks on me.
+
+"It is past two o'clock. The sheep are bleating outside. It must be
+very cold in the ground. Good-bye, Richard."
+
+With his name it began and ended. Even to herself Clare was not
+over-communicative. The book was slender, yet her nineteen years of
+existence left half the number of pages white.
+
+Those last words drew him irresistibly to gaze on her. There she
+lay, the same impassive Clare. For a moment he wondered she had not
+moved--to him she had become so different. She who had just filled
+his ears with strange tidings--it was not possible to think her
+dead! She seemed to have been speaking to him all through his life.
+His image was on that still heart.
+
+He dismissed the night-watchers from the room, and remained with her
+alone, till the sense of death oppressed him, and then the shock
+sent him to the window to look for sky and stars. Behind a low broad
+pine, hung with frosty mist, he heard a bell-wether of the flock in
+the silent fold. Death in life it sounded.
+
+The mother found him praying at the foot of Clare's bed. She knelt
+by his side, and they prayed, and their joint sobs shook their
+bodies, but neither of them shed many tears. They held a dark
+unspoken secret in common. They prayed God to forgive her.
+
+Clare was buried in the family vault of the Todhunters. Her mother
+breathed no wish to have her lying at Lobourne.
+
+After the funeral, what they alone upon earth knew brought them
+together.
+
+"Richard," she said, "the worst is over for me. I have no one to
+love but you, dear. We have all been fighting against God, and
+this.... Richard! you will come with me, and be united to your wife,
+and spare my brother what I suffer."
+
+He answered the broken spirit: "I have killed one. She sees me as I
+am. I cannot go with you to my wife, because I am not worthy to
+touch her hand, and were I to go, I should do _this_ to silence my
+self-contempt. Go you to her, and when she asks of me, say I have a
+death upon my head that----No! say that I am abroad, seeking for
+that which shall cleanse me. If I find it I shall come to claim her.
+If not, God help us all!"
+
+She had no strength to contest his solemn words, or stay him, and he
+went forth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+AUSTIN RETURNS
+
+
+A man with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in the full blaze
+of Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder. Adrian glanced leisurely
+behind.
+
+"Do you want to try my nerves, my dear fellow? I'm not a man of
+fashion, happily, or you would have struck the seat of them. How are
+you?"
+
+That was his welcome to Austin Wentworth after his long absence.
+
+Austin took his arm, and asked for news, with the hunger of one who
+had been in the wilderness five years.
+
+"The Whigs have given up the ghost, my dear Austin. The free Briton
+is to receive Liberty's pearl, the Ballot. The Aristocracy has had a
+cycle's notice to quit. The Monarchy and old Madeira are going out;
+Demos and Cape wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you
+see, your absence has worked wonders. Depart for another five years,
+and you will return to ruined stomachs, cracked sconces, general
+upset, an equality made perfect by universal prostration."
+
+Austin indulged him in a laugh. "I want to hear about ourselves. How
+is old Ricky?"
+
+"You know of his--what do they call it when greenhorns are licenced
+to jump into the milkpails of dairymaids?--a very charming little
+woman she makes, by the way--presentable! quite old Anacreon's rose
+in milk. Well! everybody thought the System must die of it. Not a
+bit. It continued to flourish in spite. It's in a consumption now,
+though--emaciated, lean, raw, spectral! I've this morning escaped
+from Raynham to avoid the sight of it. I have brought our genial
+uncle Hippias to town--a delightful companion! I said to him: 'We've
+had a fine Spring.' 'Ugh!' he answers, 'there's a time when you come
+to think the Spring old.' You should have heard how he trained out
+the 'old.' I felt something like decay in my sap just to hear him.
+In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our uncle Hippias has
+been unfairly hit below the belt. Let's guard ourselves there, and
+go and order dinner."
+
+"But where's Ricky now, and what is he doing?" said Austin.
+
+"Ask what he has done. The miraculous boy has gone and got a baby!"
+
+"A child? Richard has one?" Austin's clear eyes shone with pleasure.
+
+"I suppose it's not common among your tropical savages. He has one:
+one as big as two. That has been the death-blow to the System. It
+bore the marriage--the baby was too much for it. Could it swallow
+the baby, 'twould live. She, the wonderful woman, has produced a
+large boy. I assure you it's quite amusing to see the System opening
+its mouth every hour of the day, trying to gulp him down, aware that
+it would be a consummate cure, or happy release."
+
+By degrees Austin learnt the baronet's proceedings, and smiled
+sadly.
+
+"How has Ricky turned out?" he asked. "What sort of a character has
+he?"
+
+"The poor boy is ruined by his excessive anxiety about it.
+Character? he has the character of a bullet with a treble charge of
+powder behind it. Enthusiasm is the powder. That boy could get up an
+enthusiasm for the maiden days of Ops! He was going to reform the
+world, after your fashion, Austin,--you have something to answer
+for. Unfortunately he began with the feminine side of it. Cupid
+proud of Phoebus newly slain, or Pluto wishing to people his
+kingdom, if you like, put it into the soft head of one of the
+guileless grateful creatures to kiss him for his good work. Oh,
+horror! he never expected that. Conceive the System in the flesh,
+and you have our Richard. The consequence is, that this male Peri
+refuses to enter his Paradise, though the gates are open for him,
+the trumpets blow, and the fair unspotted one awaits him fruitful
+within. We heard of him last that he was trying the German
+waters--preparatory to his undertaking the release of Italy from the
+subjugation of the Teuton. Let's hope they'll wash him. He is in the
+company of Lady Judith Felle--your old friend, the ardent female
+Radical who married the decrepit lord to carry out her principles.
+They always marry English lords, or foreign princes. I admire their
+tactics."
+
+"Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but she was
+always too sentimental," said Austin.
+
+"Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose? I like her _for_
+her sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people are sure to live long and
+die fat. Feeling, that's the slayer, coz. Sentiment! 'tis the
+cajolery of existence: the soft bloom which whoso weareth, he or she
+is enviable. Would that I had more!"
+
+"You're not much changed, Adrian."
+
+"I'm not a Radical, Austin."
+
+Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian's figurative speech,
+instructed Austin that the baronet was waiting for his son, in a
+posture of statuesque offended paternity, before he would receive
+his daughter-in-law and grandson. That was what Adrian meant by the
+efforts of the System to swallow the baby.
+
+"We're in a tangle," said the wise youth. "Time will extricate us, I
+presume, or what is the venerable signor good for?"
+
+Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy's place of residence.
+
+"We'll go to her by and by," said Adrian.
+
+"I shall go and see her now," said Austin.
+
+"Well, we'll go and order the dinner first, coz."
+
+"Give me her address."
+
+"Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a beard," Adrian
+objected. "Don't you care what you eat?" he roared hoarsely, looking
+humorously hurt. "I daresay not. A slice out of him that's
+handy--sauce du ciel! Go, batten on the baby, cannibal. Dinner at
+seven."
+
+Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy's, and strolled off to do
+the better thing.
+
+Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in her tea-cup.
+Posting him on her fingers and starting him with a smack, he had
+vaulted lightly and thereby indicated that he was positively coming
+the next day. She forgot him in the bustle of her duties and the
+absorption of her faculties in thoughts of the incomparable stranger
+Lucy had presented to the world, till a knock at the street-door
+reminded her. "There he is!" she cried, as she ran to open to him.
+"There's my stranger come!" Never was a woman's faith in omens so
+justified. The stranger desired to see Mrs. Richard Feverel. He
+said his name was Mr. Austin Wentworth. Mrs. Berry clasped her
+hands, exclaiming, "Come at last!" and ran bolt out of the house to
+look up and down the street. Presently she returned with many
+excuses for her rudeness, saying: "I expected to see her comin'
+home, Mr. Wentworth. Every day twice a day she go out to give her
+blessed angel an airing. No leavin' the child with nursemaids for
+her! She _is_ a mother! and good milk, too, thank the Lord! though
+her heart's so low."
+
+Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the history of the
+young couple, and her participation in it, and admired the beard.
+"Though I'd swear you don't wear it for ornament, now!" she said,
+having in the first impulse designed a stroke at man's vanity.
+
+Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication, and with
+dejected head and joined hands threw out dark hints about Richard.
+
+While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the case, Lucy came
+in, preceding the baby.
+
+"I am Austin Wentworth," he said, taking her hand. They read each
+other's faces, these two, and smiled kinship.
+
+"Your name is Lucy?"
+
+She affirmed it softly.
+
+"And mine is Austin, as you know."
+
+Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy's charms to subdue him, and
+presented Richard's representative, who, seeing a new face, suffered
+himself to be contemplated before he commenced crying aloud and
+knocking at the doors of Nature for something that was due to him.
+
+"Ain't he a lusty darlin'?" says Mrs. Berry. "Ain't he like his own
+father? There can't be no doubt about zoo, zoo pitty pet. Look at
+his fists. Ain't he got passion? Ain't he a splendid roarer? Oh!"
+and she went off rapturously into baby-language.
+
+A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for further
+proof, desiring Austin's confirmation as to their being dumplings.
+
+Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid roarer out of
+the room.
+
+"She might a done it here," said Mrs. Berry. "There's no prettier
+sight, I say. If her dear husband could but see that! He's off in
+his heroics--he want to be doin' all sort o' things: I say he'll
+never do anything grander than that baby. You should 'a seen her
+uncle over that baby--he came here, for I said, you _shall_ see your
+own fam'ly, my dear, and so she thinks. He come, and he laughed over
+the baby in the joy of his heart, poor man! he cried, he did. You
+should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth--a friend o' Mr.
+Richard's, and a very modest-minded young gentleman--he worships her
+in his innocence. It's a sight to see him with that baby. My belief
+is he's unhappy 'cause he can't anyways be nurse-maid to him. O Mr.
+Wentworth! what _do_ you think of her, sir?"
+
+Austin's reply was as satisfactory as a man's poor speech could make
+it. He heard that Lady Feverel was in the house, and Mrs. Berry
+prepared the way for him to pay his respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry
+ran to Lucy, and the house buzzed with new life. The simple
+creatures felt in Austin's presence something good among them. "He
+don't speak much," said Mrs. Berry, "but I see by his eye he mean a
+deal. He ain't one o' yer long-word gentry, who's all gay deceivers,
+every one of 'em."
+
+Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. "I wonder what he
+thinks of me, Mrs. Berry? I could not speak to him. I loved him
+before I saw him. I knew what his face was like."
+
+"He looks proper even with a beard, and that's a trial for a
+virtuous man," said Mrs. Berry. "One sees straight _through_ the
+hair with him. Think! he'll think what any _man_'d think--you
+a-suckin' spite o' all your sorrow, my sweet,--and my Berry talkin'
+of his Roman matrons!--here's a English wife'll match 'em all!
+that's what he thinks. And now that leetle dark under yer eye'll
+clear, my darlin', now he've come."
+
+Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no more than the
+peace she had in being near Richard's best friend. When she sat down
+to tea it was with a sense that the little room that held her was
+her home perhaps for many a day.
+
+A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin's dinner.
+During the meal he entertained them with anecdotes of his travels.
+Poor Lucy had no temptation to try to conquer Austin. That heroic
+weakness of hers was gone.
+
+Mrs. Berry had said: "Three cups--I goes no further," and Lucy had
+rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, who was in the thick
+of a Brazilian forest, asked her if she was a good traveller.
+
+"I mean, can you start at a minute's notice?"
+
+Lucy hesitated, and then said, "Yes," decisively, to which Mrs.
+Berry added, that she was not a "luggage-woman."
+
+"There used to be a train at seven o'clock," Austin remarked,
+consulting his watch.
+
+The two women were silent.
+
+"Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten minutes?"
+
+Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question.
+
+Lucy's lips parted to speak. She could not answer.
+
+Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry's dropping hands.
+
+"Joy and deliverance!" she exclaimed with a foundering voice.
+
+"Will you come?" Austin kindly asked again.
+
+Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered, "Yes." Mrs.
+Berry cunningly pretended to interpret the irresolution in her tones
+with a mighty whisper: "She's thinking what's to be done with baby."
+
+"He must learn to travel," said Austin.
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Berry, "and I'll be his nuss, and bear him, a
+sweet! Oh! and think of it! me nurse-maid once more at Raynham
+Abbey! but it's nurse-woman now, you must say. Let us be goin' on
+the spot."
+
+She started up and away in hot haste, fearing delay would cool the
+heaven-sent resolve. Austin smiled, eying his watch and Lucy
+alternately. She was wishing to ask a multitude of questions. His
+face reassured her, and saying: "I will be dressed instantly," she
+also left the room. Talking, bustling, preparing, wrapping up my
+lord, and looking to their neatnesses, they were nevertheless ready
+within the time prescribed by Austin, and Mrs. Berry stood humming
+over the baby. "He'll sleep it through," she said. "He's had enough
+for an alderman, and goes to sleep sound after his dinner, he do, a
+duck!" Before they departed, Lucy ran up to Lady Feverel. She
+returned for the small one.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Wentworth!"
+
+"Just two," said Austin.
+
+Master Richard was taken up, and when Lucy came back her eyes were
+full of tears.
+
+"She thinks she is never to see him again, Mr. Wentworth."
+
+"She shall," Austin said simply.
+
+Off they went, and with Austin near her, Lucy forgot to dwell at all
+upon the great act of courage she was performing.
+
+"I do hope baby will not wake," was her chief solicitude.
+
+"He!" cries nurse-woman Berry from the rear, "his little tum-tum's
+_as_ tight _as_ he can hold, a pet! a lamb! a bird! a beauty! and ye
+may take yer oath he never wakes till that's slack. He've got
+character of his own, a blessed!"
+
+There are some tremendous citadels that only want to be taken by
+storm. The baronet sat alone in his library, sick of resistance, and
+rejoicing in the pride of no surrender; a terror to his friends and
+to himself. Hearing Austin's name sonorously pronounced by the man
+of calves, he looked up from his book, and held out his hand. "Glad
+to see you, Austin." His appearance betokened complete security. The
+next minute he found himself escaladed.
+
+It was a cry from Mrs. Berry that told him others were in the room
+besides Austin. Lucy stood a little behind the lamp; Mrs. Berry
+close to the door. The door was half open, and passing through it
+might be seen the petrified figure of a fine man. The baronet
+glancing over the lamp rose at Mrs. Berry's signification of a
+woman's personality. Austin stepped back and led Lucy to him by the
+hand. "I have brought Richard's wife, sir," he said with a pleased,
+perfectly uncalculating, countenance, that was disarming. Very pale
+and trembling Lucy bowed. She felt her two hands taken, and heard a
+kind voice. Could it be possible it belonged to the dreadful father
+of her husband? She lifted her eyes nervously: her hands were still
+detained. The baronet contemplated Richard's choice. Had he ever had
+a rivalry with those pure eyes? He saw the pain of her position
+shooting across her brows, and, uttering gentle inquiries as to her
+health, placed her in a seat. Mrs. Berry had already fallen into a
+chair.
+
+"What aspect do you like for your bedroom?--East?" said the baronet.
+
+Lucy was asking herself wonderingly: "Am I to stay?"
+
+"Perhaps you had better take to Richard's room at once," he pursued.
+"You have the Lobourne valley there and a good morning air, and will
+feel more at home."
+
+Lucy's colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough, as one who
+should say, "The day is ours!" Undoubtedly--strange as it was to
+think it--the fortress was carried.
+
+"Lucy is rather tired," said Austin, and to hear her Christian name
+thus bravely spoken brought grateful dew to her eyes.
+
+The baronet was about to touch the bell. "But have you come alone?"
+he asked.
+
+At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately: it seemed to
+require effort for her to move, and when she was within the region
+of the lamp, her agitation could not escape notice. The blissful
+bundle shook in her arms.
+
+"By the way, what is he to me?" Austin inquired generally as he went
+and unveiled the younger hope of Raynham. "My relationship is not so
+defined as yours, sir."
+
+An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped at his
+grandson with the courteous indifference of one who merely wished to
+compliment the mother of anybody's child.
+
+"I really think he's like Richard," Austin laughed. Lucy looked: I
+am sure he is!
+
+"As like as one to one," Mrs. Berry murmured feebly; but Grandpapa
+not speaking she thought it incumbent on her to pluck up. "And he's
+as healthy as his father was, Sir Austin--spite o' the might 'a
+beens. Reg'lar as the clock! We never want a clock since he come. We
+knows the hour o' the day, and _of_ the night."
+
+"You nurse him yourself, of course?" the baronet spoke to Lucy, and
+was satisfied on that point.
+
+Mrs. Berry was going to display his prodigious legs. Lucy, fearing
+the consequent effect on the prodigious lungs, begged her not to
+wake him. "'T'd take a deal to do that," said Mrs. Berry, and
+harped on Master Richard's health and the small wonder it was that
+he enjoyed it, considering the superior quality of his diet, and the
+lavish attentions of his mother, and then suddenly fell silent on a
+deep sigh.
+
+"He looks healthy," said the baronet, "but I am not a judge of
+babies."
+
+Thus, having capitulated, Raynham chose to acknowledge its new
+commandant, who was now borne away, under the directions of the
+housekeeper, to occupy the room Richard had slept in when an infant.
+
+Austin cast no thought on his success. The baronet said: "She is
+extremely well-looking." He replied: "A person you take to at once."
+There it ended.
+
+But a much more animated colloquy was taking place aloft, where Lucy
+and Mrs. Berry sat alone. Lucy expected her to talk about the
+reception they had met with, and the house, and the peculiarities of
+the rooms, and the solid happiness that seemed in store. Mrs. Berry
+all the while would persist in consulting the looking-glass. Her
+first distinct answer was, "My dear! tell me candid, how do I look?"
+
+"Very nice indeed, Mrs. Berry; but could you have believed he would
+be so kind, so considerate?"
+
+"I am sure I looked a frump," returned Mrs. Berry. "Oh dear! two
+birds at a shot. What _do_ you think, now?"
+
+"I never saw so wonderful a likeness," says Lucy.
+
+"Likeness! look at me." Mrs. Berry was trembling and hot in the
+palms.
+
+"You're very feverish, dear Berry. What can it be?"
+
+"Ain't it like the love-flutters of a young gal, my dear."
+
+"Go to bed, Berry, dear," says Lucy, pouting in her soft caressing
+way. "I will undress you, and see to you, dear heart! You've had so
+much excitement."
+
+"Ha! ha!" Berry laughed hysterically; "she thinks it's about this
+business of hers. Why, it's child's-play, my darlin'. But I didn't
+look for tragedy, to-night. Sleep in this house I can't, my love!"
+
+Lucy was astonished. "Not sleep here, Mrs. Berry?--Oh! why, you
+silly old thing? I know."
+
+"Do ye!" said Mrs. Berry, with a sceptical nose.
+
+"You're afraid of ghosts."
+
+"Belike I am when they're six foot two in their shoes, and bellows
+when you stick a pin into their calves. I seen my Berry!"
+
+"Your husband?"
+
+"Large as life!"
+
+Lucy meditated on optical delusions, but Mrs. Berry described him as
+the Colossus who had marched them into the library, and vowed that
+he had recognized her and quaked. "Time ain't aged him," said Mrs.
+Berry, "whereas me! he've got his excuse now. I _know_ I look a
+frump."
+
+Lucy kissed her: "You look the nicest, dearest old thing."
+
+"You may say an old thing, my dear."
+
+"And your husband is really here?"
+
+"Berry's below!"
+
+Profoundly uttered as this was, it chased every vestige of
+incredulity.
+
+"What will you do, Mrs. Berry?"
+
+"Go, my dear. Leave him to be happy in his own way. It's over atween
+us, I see that. When I entered the house I felt there was something
+comin' over me, and lo and behold ye! no sooner was we in the
+hall-passage--if it hadn't been for that blessed infant I should 'a
+dropped. I must 'a known his step, for my heart began thumpin', and
+I knew I hadn't got my hair straight--that Mr. Wentworth was in such
+a hurry--nor my best gown. I knew he'd scorn me. He hates frumps."
+
+"Scorn you!" cried Lucy, angrily. "He who has behaved so wickedly!"
+
+Mrs. Berry attempted to rise. "I may as well go at once," she
+whimpered. "If I see him I shall only be disgracin' of myself. I
+feel it all on my side already. Did ye mark him, my dear? I know I
+was vexin' to him at times, I was. Those big men are se touchy about
+their dignity--nat'ral. Hark at me! I'm goin' all soft in a minute.
+Let me leave the house, my dear. I daresay it was good half my
+fault. Young women don't understand men sufficient--not
+altogether--and I was a young woman then; and then what they goes
+and does they ain't quite answerable for: they feel, I daresay,
+pushed from behind. Yes. I'll go. I'm a frump. I'll go. 'Tain't in
+natur' for me to sleep in the same house."
+
+Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry's shoulders, and forcibly fixed
+her in her seat. "Leave baby, naughty woman? I tell you he shall
+come to you, and fall on his knees to you and beg your forgiveness."
+
+"Berry on his knees!"
+
+"Yes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him."
+
+"If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away words, great'll
+be my wonder!" said Mrs. Berry.
+
+"We will see," said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do something for
+the good creature that had befriended her.
+
+Mrs. Berry examined her gown. "Won't it seem we're runnin' after
+him?" she murmured faintly.
+
+"He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting to come to you
+now."
+
+"Oh! Where is all I was goin' to say to that man when we met!" Mrs.
+Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room.
+
+On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed in black,
+who stopped her and asked if she was Richard's wife, and kissed her,
+passing from her immediately. Lucy despatched a message for Austin,
+and related the Berry history. Austin sent for the great man, and
+said: "Do you know your wife is here?" Before Berry had time to draw
+himself up to enunciate his longest, he was requested to step
+upstairs, and as his young mistress at once led the way, Berry could
+not refuse to put his legs in motion and carry the stately edifice
+aloft.
+
+Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night.
+"He began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and
+plain words, Martin Berry. So there he cuts himself and his Johnson
+short, and down he goes--down _on_ his knees. I never could 'a
+believed it. I kep my dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but
+that done for me. I was a ripe apple in his arms 'fore I knew where
+I was. There's something about a fine man on his knees that's too
+much for us women. And it reely was the penitent on his two knees,
+not the lover on his one. If he mean it! But ah! what do you think
+he begs of me, my dear?--not to make it known in the house just yet!
+I can't, I can't say that look well."
+
+Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs.
+Berry did her best to look on it in that light.
+
+"Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him good-night?" she
+asked. Lucy said he had not. "Then bide awake as long as ye can,"
+was Mrs. Berry's rejoinder. "And now let us pray blessings on that
+simple-speaking gentleman who does so much 'cause he says so
+little."
+
+Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only silly where her
+own soft heart was concerned. As she secretly anticipated, the
+baronet came into her room when all was quiet. She saw him go and
+bend over Richard the Second, and remain earnestly watching him. He
+then went to the half-opened door of the room where Lucy slept,
+leaned his ear a moment, knocked gently, and entered. Mrs. Berry
+heard low words interchanging within. She could not catch a
+syllable, yet she would have sworn to the context. "He've called her
+his daughter, promised her happiness, and given a father's kiss to
+her." When Sir Austin passed out she was in a deep sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+NATURE SPEAKS
+
+
+Briareus reddening angrily over the sea--what is that vaporous
+Titan? And Hesper set in his rosy garland--why looks he so
+implacably sweet? It is that one has left that bright home to go
+forth and do cloudy work, and he has got a stain with which he dare
+not return. Far in the West fair Lucy beckons him to come. Ah,
+heaven! if he might! How strong and fierce the temptation is! how
+subtle the sleepless desire! it drugs his reason, his honour. For he
+loves her; she is still the first and only woman to him. Otherwise
+would this black spot be hell to him? otherwise would his limbs be
+chained while her arms are spread open to him. And if he loves her,
+why then what is one fall in the pit, or a thousand? Is not love the
+password to that beckoning bliss? So may we say; but here is one
+whose body has been made a temple to him, and it is desecrated.
+
+A temple, and desecrated! For what is it fit for but for a dance of
+devils? His education has thus wrought him to think.
+
+He can blame nothing but his own baseness. But to feel base and
+accept the bliss that beckons--he has not fallen so low as that.
+
+Ah, happy English home! sweet wife! what mad miserable Wisp of the
+Fancy led him away from you, high in his conceit? Poor wretch! that
+thought to be he of the hundred hands, and war against the absolute
+Gods. Jove whispered a light commission to the Laughing Dame; she
+met him; and how did he shake Olympus? with laughter?
+
+Sure it were better to be Orestes, the Furies howling in his ears,
+than one called to by a heavenly soul from whom he is for ever
+outcast. He has not the oblivion of madness. Clothed in the lights
+of his first passion, robed in the splendour of old skies, she meets
+him everywhere; morning, evening, night, she shines above him;
+waylays him suddenly in forest depths; drops palpably on his heart.
+At moments he forgets; he rushes to embrace her; calls her his
+beloved, and lo, her innocent kiss brings agony of shame to his
+face.
+
+Daily the struggle endured. His father wrote to him, begging him by
+the love he had for him to return. From that hour Richard burnt
+unread all the letters he received. He knew too well how easily he
+could persuade himself: words from without might tempt him and quite
+extinguish the spark of honourable feeling that tortured him, and
+that he clung to in desperate self-vindication.
+
+To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is both a dangerous
+and thankless office. It is, nevertheless, one that fair women
+greatly prize, and certain of them professionally follow. Lady
+Judith, as far as her sex would permit, was also of the Titans in
+their battle against the absolute Gods; for which purpose, mark you,
+she had married a lord incapable in all save his acres. Her
+achievements she kept to her own mind: she did not look happy over
+them. She met Richard accidentally in Paris; she saw his state; she
+let him learn that she alone on earth understood him. The
+consequence was that he was forthwith enrolled in her train. It
+soothed him to be near a woman. Did she venture her guess as to the
+cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a facility women have,
+and cast on it a melancholy hue he was taught to participate in. She
+spoke of sorrows, personal sorrows, such as he might speak of
+his--vaguely, and with self-blame. And she understood him. How the
+dark unfathomed wealth within us gleams to a woman's eye! We are at
+compound interest immediately: so much richer than we knew!--almost
+as rich as we dreamed! But then the instant we are away from her we
+find ourselves bankrupt, beggared. How is that? We do not ask. We
+hurry to her and bask hungrily in her orbs. The eye must be feminine
+to be thus creative: I cannot say why. Lady Judith understood
+Richard, and he feeling infinitely vile, somehow held to her more
+feverishly, as one who dreaded the worst in missing her. The spirit
+must rest; he was weak with what he suffered.
+
+Austin found them among the hills of Nassau in Rhineland: Titans,
+male and female, who had not displaced Jove, and were now adrift,
+prone on floods of sentiment. The blue-frocked peasant swinging
+behind his oxen of a morning, the gaily-kerchiefed fruit-woman, the
+jackass-driver, even the doctor of those regions, have done more for
+their fellows. Horrible reflection! Lady Judith is serene above it,
+but it frets at Richard when he is out of her shadow. Often
+wretchedly he watches the young men of his own age trooping to their
+work. Not cloud-work theirs! Work solid, unambitious, fruitful!
+
+Lady Judith had a nobler in prospect for the hero. He gaped
+blindfolded for anything, and she gave him the map of Europe in
+tatters. He swallowed it comfortably. It was an intoxicating
+cordial. Himself on horseback over-riding wrecks of Empires! Well
+might common sense cower with the meaner animals at the picture.
+Tacitly they agreed to recast the civilized globe. The quality of
+vapour is to melt and shape itself anew; but it is never the quality
+of vapour to reassume the same shapes. Briareus of the hundred
+unoccupied hands may turn to a monstrous donkey with his hind legs
+aloft, or twenty thousand jabbering apes. The phantasmic groupings
+of the young brain are very like those we see in the skies, and
+equally the sport of the wind. Lady Judith blew. There was plenty of
+vapour in him, and it always resolved into some shape or other. You
+that mark those clouds of eventide, and know youth, will see the
+similitude: it will not be strange, it will barely seem foolish to
+you, that a young man of Richard's age, Richard's education and
+position, should be in this wild state. Had he not been nursed to
+believe he was born for great things? Did she not say she was sure
+of it? And to feel base, yet born for better, is enough to make one
+grasp at anything cloudy. Suppose the hero with a game leg. How
+intense is his faith in quacks! with what a passion of longing is he
+not seized to break somebody's head! They spoke of Italy in low
+voices. "The time will come," said she. "And I shall be ready," said
+he. What rank was he to take in the liberating army? Captain,
+colonel, general in chief, or simple private? Here, as became him,
+he was much more positive and specific than she was. Simple private,
+he said. Yet he saw himself caracoling on horseback. Private in the
+cavalry, then, of course. Private in the cavalry over-riding wrecks
+of Empires. She looked forth under her brows with mournful
+indistinctness at that object in the distance. They read Petrarch to
+get up the necessary fires. Italia mia! Vain indeed was this
+speaking to those thick and mortal wounds in her fair body, but
+their sighs went with the Tiber, and Arno, and the Po, and their
+hands joined. Who has not wept for Italy? I see the aspirations of a
+world arise for her, thick and frequent as the puffs of smoke from
+cigars of Pannonian sentries!
+
+So when Austin came Richard said he could not leave Lady Judith,
+Lady Judith said she could not part with him. For his sake, mind!
+This Richard verified. Perhaps he had reason to be grateful. The
+high road of Folly may have led him from one that terminates worse.
+He is foolish, God knows; but for my part I will not laugh at the
+hero because he has not got his occasion. Meet him when he is, as it
+were, anointed by his occasion, and he is no laughing matter.
+
+Richard felt his safety in this which, to please the world, we must
+term folly. Exhalation of vapours was a wholesome process to him,
+and somebody who gave them shape and hue a beneficent Iris. He told
+Austin plainly he could not leave her, and did not anticipate the
+day when he could.
+
+"Why can't you go to your wife, Richard?"
+
+"For a reason you would be the first to approve, Austin."
+
+He welcomed Austin with every show of manly tenderness, and sadness
+at heart. Austin he had always associated with his Lucy in that
+Hesperian palace of the West. Austin waited patiently. Lady Judith's
+old lord played on all the baths in Nassau without evoking the tune
+of health. Whithersoever he listed she changed her abode. So
+admirable a wife was to be pardoned for espousing an old man. She
+was an enthusiast even in her connubial duties. She had the brows of
+an enthusiast. With occasion she might have been a Charlotte Corday.
+So let her also be shielded from the ban of ridicule. Nonsense of
+enthusiasts is very different from nonsense of ninnies. She was
+truly a high-minded person, of that order who always do what they
+see to be right, and always have confidence in their optics. She was
+not unworthy of a young man's admiration, if she was unfit to be his
+guide. She resumed her ancient intimacy with Austin easily, while
+she preserved her new footing with Richard. She and Austin were not
+unlike, only Austin never dreamed, and had not married an old lord.
+
+The three were walking on the bridge at Limburg on the Lahn, where
+the shadow of a stone bishop is thrown by the moonlight on the water
+brawling over slabs of slate. A woman passed them bearing in her
+arms a baby, whose mighty size drew their attention.
+
+"What a wopper!" Richard laughed.
+
+"Well, that is a fine fellow," said Austin, "but I don't think he's
+much bigger than your boy."
+
+"He'll do for a nineteenth-century Arminius," Richard was saying.
+Then he looked at Austin.
+
+"What was that you said?" Lady Judith asked of Austin.
+
+"What have I said that deserves to be repeated?" Austin
+counterqueried quite innocently.
+
+"Richard has a son?"
+
+"You didn't know it?"
+
+"His modesty goes very far," said Lady Judith, sweeping the shadow
+of a curtsey to Richard's paternity.
+
+Richard's heart throbbed with violence. He looked again in Austin's
+face. Austin took it so much as a matter of course that he said
+nothing more on the subject.
+
+"Well!" murmured Lady Judith.
+
+When the two men were alone, Richard said in a quick voice: "Austin!
+you were in earnest?"
+
+"You didn't know it, Richard?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why, they all wrote to you. Lucy wrote to you: your father, your
+aunt. I believe Adrian wrote too."
+
+"I tore up their letters," said Richard.
+
+"He's a noble fellow, I can tell you. You've nothing to be ashamed
+of. He'll soon be coming to ask about you. I made sure you knew."
+
+"No, I never knew." Richard walked away, and then said: "What is he
+like?"
+
+"Well, he really is like you, but he has his mother's eyes."
+
+"And she's----"
+
+"Yes. I think the child has kept her well."
+
+"They're both at Raynham?"
+
+"Both."
+
+Hence fantastic vapours! What are ye to this! Where are the dreams
+of the hero when he learns he has a child? Nature is taking him to
+her bosom. She will speak presently. Every domesticated boor in
+these hills can boast the same, yet marvels the hero at none of his
+visioned prodigies as he does when he comes to hear of this most
+common performance. A father? Richard fixed his eyes as if he were
+trying to make out the lineaments of his child.
+
+Telling Austin he would be back in a few minutes, he sallied into
+the air, and walked on and on. "A father!" he kept repeating to
+himself: "a child!" And though he knew it not, he was striking the
+key-notes of Nature. But he did know of a singular harmony that
+suddenly burst over his whole being.
+
+The moon was surpassingly bright: the summer air heavy and still. He
+left the high road and pierced into the forest. His walk was rapid:
+the leaves on the trees brushed his cheeks; the dead leaves heaped
+in the dells noised to his feet. Something of a religious joy--a
+strange sacred pleasure--was in him. By degrees it wore; he
+remembered himself: and now he was possessed by a proportionate
+anguish. A father! he dared never see his child. And he had no
+longer his phantasies to fall upon. He was utterly bare to his sin.
+In his troubled mind it seemed to him that Clare looked down on
+him--Clare who saw him as he was; and that to her eyes it would be
+infamy for him to go and print his kiss upon his child. Then came
+stern efforts to command his misery and make the nerves of his face
+iron.
+
+By the log of an ancient tree half buried in dead leaves of past
+summers, beside a brook, he halted as one who had reached his
+journey's end. There he discovered he had a companion in Lady
+Judith's little dog. He gave the friendly animal a pat of
+recognition and both were silent in the forest-silence.
+
+It was impossible for Richard to return; his heart was surcharged.
+He must advance, and on he footed, the little dog following.
+
+An oppressive slumber hung about the forest-branches. In the dells
+and on the heights was the same dead heat. Here where the brook
+tinkled it was no cool-lipped sound, but metallic, and without the
+spirit of water. Yonder in a space of moonlight on lush grass, the
+beams were as white fire to sight and feeling. No haze spread
+around. The valleys were clear, defined to the shadows of their
+verges; the distances sharply distinct, and with the colours of day
+but slightly softened. Richard beheld a roe moving across a slope of
+sward far out of rifle-mark. The breathless silence was significant,
+yet the moon shone in a broad blue heaven. Tongue out of mouth
+trotted the little dog after him; couched panting when he stopped an
+instant; rose weariedly when he started afresh. Now and then a large
+white night-moth flitted through the dusk of the forest.
+
+On a barren corner of the wooded highland looking inland stood grey
+topless ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. Richard
+mechanically sat down on the crumbling flints to rest, and listened
+to the panting of the dog. Sprinkled at his feet were emerald
+lights: hundreds of glow-worms studded the dark dry ground.
+
+He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies were
+expended in action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and the moon
+turned his shadow Westward from the South. Overhead, as she
+declined, long ripples of silver cloud were imperceptibly stealing
+toward her. They were the van of a tempest. He did not observe them
+or the leaves beginning to chatter. When he again pursued his course
+with his face to the Rhine, a huge mountain appeared to rise sheer
+over him, and he had it in his mind to scale it. He got no nearer to
+the base of it for all his vigorous outstepping. The ground began to
+dip; he lost sight of the sky. Then heavy thunder-drops struck his
+cheek, the leaves were singing, the earth breathed, it was black
+before him and behind. All at once the thunder spoke. The mountain
+he had marked was bursting over him.
+
+Up started the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the country at
+the foot of the hills to the bounding Rhine gleam, quiver,
+extinguished. Then there were pauses; and the lightning seemed as
+the eye of heaven, and the thunder as the tongue of heaven, each
+alternately addressing him; filling him with awful rapture. Alone
+there--sole human creature among the grandeurs and mysteries of
+storm--he felt the representative of his kind, and his spirits rose,
+and marched, and exulted, let it be glory, let it be ruin! Lower
+down the lightened abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash: then
+white thrusts of light were darted from the sky, and great curving
+ferns, seen steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally
+agitated, and vanished. Then a shrill song roused in the leaves and
+the herbage. Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier
+the deluge pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire of
+the earth. Even in this, drenched as he was by the first outpouring,
+Richard had a savage pleasure. Keeping in motion, he was scarcely
+conscious of the wet, and the grateful breath of the weeds was
+refreshing. Suddenly he stopped short, lifting a curious nostril. He
+fancied he smelt meadow-sweet. He had never seen the flower in
+Rhineland--never thought of it; and it would hardly be met with in a
+forest. He was sure he smelt it fresh in dews. His little companion
+wagged a miserable wet tail some way in advance. He went on slowly,
+thinking indistinctly. After two or three steps he stooped and
+stretched out his hand to feel for the flower, having, he knew not
+why, a strong wish to verify its growth there. Groping about, his
+hand encountered something warm that started at his touch, and he,
+with the instinct we have, seized it, and lifted it to look at it.
+The creature was very small, evidently quite young. Richard's eyes,
+now accustomed to the darkness, were able to discern it for what it
+was, a tiny leveret, and he supposed that the dog had probably
+frightened its dam just before he found it. He put the little thing
+on one hand in his breast, and stepped out rapidly as before.
+
+The rain was now steady; from every tree a fountain poured. So cool
+and easy had his mind become that he was speculating on what kind of
+shelter the birds could find, and how the butterflies and moths
+saved their coloured wings from washing. Folded close they might
+hang under a leaf, he thought. Lovingly he looked into the dripping
+darkness of the coverts on each side, as one of their children. He
+was next musing on a strange sensation he experienced. It ran up one
+arm with an indescribable thrill, but communicated nothing to his
+heart. It was purely physical, ceased for a time, and recommenced,
+till he had it all through his blood, wonderfully thrilling. He grew
+aware that the little thing he carried in his breast was licking his
+hand there. The small rough tongue going over and over the palm of
+his hand produced the strange sensation he felt. Now that he knew
+the cause, the marvel ended; but now that he knew the cause, his
+heart was touched and made more of it. The gentle scraping continued
+without intermission as on he walked. What did it say to him? Human
+tongue could not have said so much just then.
+
+A pale grey light on the skirts of the flying tempest displayed the
+dawn. Richard was walking hurriedly. The green drenched weeds lay
+all about in his path, bent thick, and the forest drooped
+glimmeringly. Impelled as a man who feels a revelation mounting
+obscurely to his brain, Richard was passing one of these little
+forest-chapels, hung with votive wreaths, where the peasant halts to
+kneel and pray. Cold, still, in the twilight it stood, rain-drops
+pattering round it. He looked within, and saw the Virgin holding her
+Child. He moved by. But not many steps had he gone ere his strength
+went out of him, and he shuddered. What was it? He asked not. He was
+in other hands. Vivid as lightning the Spirit of Life illumined
+him. He felt in his heart the cry of his child, his darling's touch.
+With shut eyes he saw them both. They drew him from the depths; they
+led him a blind and tottering man. And as they led him he had a
+sense of purification so sweet he shuddered again and again.
+
+When he looked out from his trance on the breathing world, the small
+birds hopped and chirped: warm fresh sunlight was over all the
+hills. He was on the edge of the forest, entering a plain clothed
+with ripe corn under a spacious morning sky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT
+
+
+They heard at Raynham that Richard was coming. Lucy had the news
+first in a letter from Ripton Thompson, who met him at Bonn. Ripton
+did not say that he had employed his vacation holiday on purpose to
+use his efforts to induce his dear friend to return to his wife; and
+finding Richard already on his way, of course Ripton said nothing to
+him, but affected to be travelling for his pleasure like any
+cockney. Richard also wrote to her. In case she should have gone to
+the sea he directed her to send word to his hotel that he might not
+lose an hour. His letter was sedate in tone, very sweet to her.
+Assisted by the faithful female Berry, she was conquering an
+Aphorist.
+
+"Woman's reason is in the milk of her breasts," was one of his rough
+notes, due to an observation of Lucy's maternal cares. Let us
+remember, therefore, we men who have drunk of it largely there, that
+she has it.
+
+Mrs. Berry zealously apprised him how early Master Richard's
+education had commenced, and the great future historian he must
+consequently be. This trait in Lucy was of itself sufficient to win
+Sir Austin.
+
+"Here my plan with Richard was false," he reflected: "in presuming
+that anything save blind fortuity would bring him such a mate as he
+should have." He came to add: "And has got!"
+
+He could admit now that instinct had so far beaten science; for as
+Richard was coming, as all were to be happy, his wisdom embraced
+them all paternally as the author of their happiness. Between him
+and Lucy a tender intimacy grew.
+
+"I told you she could talk, sir," said Adrian.
+
+"She thinks!" said the baronet.
+
+The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle, he settled
+generously. Farmer Blaize should come up to Raynham when he would:
+Lucy must visit him at least three times a week. He had Farmer
+Blaize and Mrs. Berry to study, and really excellent Aphorisms
+sprang from the plain human bases this natural couple presented.
+
+"It will do us no harm," he thought, "some of the honest blood of
+the soil in our veins." And he was content in musing on the
+parentage of the little cradled boy. A common sight for those who
+had the entry to the library was the baronet cherishing the hand of
+his daughter-in-law.
+
+So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham were beating
+quicker measures as the minutes progressed. That night he would be
+with them. Sir Austin gave Lucy a longer, warmer salute when she
+came down to breakfast in the morning. Mrs. Berry waxed thrice
+amorous. "It's your second bridals, ye sweet livin' widow!" she
+said. "Thanks be the Lord! it's the same man too! and a baby over
+the bed-post," she appended seriously.
+
+"Strange," Berry declared it to be, "strange I feel none o' this to
+my Berry now. All my feelin's o' love seem t'ave gone into you two
+sweet chicks."
+
+In fact, the faithless male Berry complained of being treated badly,
+and affected a superb jealousy of the baby; but the good dame told
+him that if he suffered at all he suffered his due. Berry's position
+was decidedly uncomfortable. It could not be concealed from the
+lower household that he had a wife in the establishment, and for the
+complications this gave rise to, his wife would not legitimately
+console him. Lucy did intercede, but Mrs. Berry was obdurate. She
+averred she would not give up the child till he was weaned. "Then,
+perhaps," she said prospectively. "You see I ain't so soft as you
+thought for."
+
+"You're a very unkind, vindictive old woman," said Lucy.
+
+"Belike I am," Mrs. Berry was proud to agree. We like a new
+character, now and then. Berry had delayed too long.
+
+Were it not notorious that the straightlaced prudish dare not listen
+to the natural chaste, certain things Mrs. Berry thought it
+advisable to impart to the young wife with regard to Berry's
+infidelity, and the charity women should have towards sinful men,
+might here be reproduced. Enough that she thought proper to broach
+the matter, and cite her own Christian sentiments, now that she was
+indifferent in some degree.
+
+Oily calm is on the sea. At Raynham they look up at the sky and
+speculate that Richard is approaching fairly speeded. He comes to
+throw himself on his darling's mercy. Lucy irradiated over forest
+and sea, tempest and peace--to her the hero comes humbly. Great is
+that day when we see our folly! Ripton and he were the friends of
+old. Richard encouraged him to talk of the two he could be eloquent
+on, and Ripton, whose secret vanity was in his powers of speech,
+never tired of enumerating Lucy's virtues, and the peculiar
+attributes of the baby.
+
+"She did not say a word against me, Rip?"
+
+"Against you, Richard! The moment she knew she was to be a mother,
+she thought of nothing but her duty to the child. She's one who
+can't think of herself."
+
+"You've seen her at Raynham, Rip?"
+
+"Yes, once. They asked me down. And your father's so fond of
+her--I'm sure he thinks no woman like her, and he's right. She is so
+lovely, and so good."
+
+Richard was too full of blame of himself to blame his father: too
+British to expose his emotions. Ripton divined how deep and changed
+they were by his manner. He had cast aside the hero, and however
+Ripton had obeyed him and looked up to him in the heroic time, he
+loved him tenfold now. He told his friend how much Lucy's mere
+womanly sweetness and excellence had done for him, and Richard
+contrasted his own profitless extravagance with the patient beauty
+of his dear home angel. He was not one to take her on the easy terms
+that offered. There was that to do which made his cheek burn as he
+thought of it, but he was going to do it, even though it lost her to
+him. Just to see her and kneel to her was joy sufficient to sustain
+him, and warm his blood in the prospect. They marked the white
+cliffs growing over the water. Nearer, the sun made them lustrous.
+Houses and people seemed to welcome the wild youth to common sense,
+simplicity, and home.
+
+They were in town by mid-day. Richard had a momentary idea of not
+driving to his hotel for letters. After a short debate he determined
+to go there. The porter said he had two letters for Mr. Richard
+Feverel--one had been waiting some time. He went to the box and
+fetched them. The first Richard opened was from Lucy, and as he read
+it, Ripton observed the colour deepen on his face, while a quivering
+smile played about his mouth. He opened the other indifferently. It
+began without any form of address. Richard's forehead darkened at
+the signature. This letter was in a sloping feminine hand, and
+flourished with light strokes all over, like a field of the bearded
+barley. Thus it ran:
+
+     "I know you are in a rage with me because I would not consent
+     to ruin you, you foolish fellow. What do you call it? Going to
+     that unpleasant place together. Thank you, my milliner is not
+     ready yet, and I want to make a good appearance when I do go. I
+     suppose I shall have to some day. Your health, Sir Richard. Now
+     let me speak to you seriously. _Go home to your wife at once._
+     But I know the sort of fellow you are, and I must be plain with
+     you. Did I ever say I loved you? You may hate me as much as you
+     please, but I will save you from being a fool.
+
+     "Now listen to me. You know my relations with Mount. _That
+     beast Brayder_ offered to pay all my debts and set me afloat,
+     if I would keep you in town. I declare on my honour I had no
+     idea why, and I did not agree to it. But you were such a
+     handsome fellow--I noticed you in the park before I heard a
+     word of you. But then you fought shy--you were just as tempting
+     as a girl. You _stung_ me. Do you know what that is? I would
+     make you care for me, and we know how it ended, without any
+     intention of mine, I _swear_. I'd have cut off my hand rather
+     than do you any harm, upon my honour. Circumstances! Then I saw
+     it was all up between us. Brayder came and began to chaff about
+     you. I dealt the animal a stroke on the face with my
+     riding-whip--I shut him up pretty quick. Do you think I would
+     let a man speak about you?--I was going to swear. You see I
+     remember Dick's lessons. O my God! I do feel unhappy.--Brayder
+     offered me money. Go and think I took it, if you like. What do
+     I care what anybody thinks! Something that blackguard said made
+     me suspicious. I went down to the Isle of Wight where Mount
+     was, and your wife was just gone with an old lady who came and
+     took her away. I should so have liked to see her. You said, you
+     remember, she would take me as a sister, and treat me--I
+     laughed at it then. My God! how I could cry now, if water did
+     any good to a _devil_, as you politely call poor me. I called
+     at your house and saw your man-servant, who said Mount had just
+     been there. In a minute it struck me. I was sure Mount was
+     after a woman, but it never struck me that woman was your wife.
+     Then I saw why they wanted me to keep you away. I went to
+     Brayder. You know how I hate him. I made love to the man to get
+     it out of him. Richard! my word of honour, they have planned to
+     carry her off, if Mount finds he cannot seduce her. Talk of
+     devils! He's one; but he is not so bad as Brayder. I cannot
+     forgive a mean dog his villainy.
+
+     "Now after this, I am quite sure you are too much of a man to
+     stop away from her another moment. I have no more to say. I
+     suppose we shall not see each other again, so good-bye, Dick! I
+     fancy I hear you cursing me. Why can't you feel like other men
+     on the subject? But if you were like the rest of them I should
+     not have cared for you a farthing. I have not worn lilac since
+     I saw you last. I'll be buried in your colour, Dick. That will
+     not offend you--will it?
+
+     "You are not going to believe I took the money? If I thought
+     you thought that--it makes me _feel_ like a devil only to fancy
+     you think it.
+
+     "The first time you meet Brayder, _cane him publicly_.
+
+     "Adieu! Say it's because you don't like his face. I suppose
+     devils must not say _Adieu_. Here's plain old good-bye, then,
+     between you and me. Good-bye, dear Dick! You won't think that
+     of me?
+
+     "May I eat dry bread to the day of my death if I took or ever
+     will touch a scrap of their money.
+
+                                                             BELLA."
+
+Richard folded up the letter silently.
+
+"Jump into the cab," he said to Ripton.
+
+"Anything the matter, Richard?"
+
+"No."
+
+The driver received instructions. Richard sat without speaking. His
+friend knew that face. He asked whether there was bad news in the
+letter. For answer, he had the lie circumstantial. He ventured to
+remark that they were going the wrong way.
+
+"It's the right way," cried Richard, and his jaws were hard and
+square, and his eyes looked heavy and full.
+
+Ripton said no more, but thought.
+
+The cabman pulled up at a Club. A gentleman, in whom Ripton
+recognized the Hon. Peter Brayder, was just then swinging a leg over
+his horse, with one foot in the stirrup. Hearing his name called,
+the Hon. Peter turned about, and stretched an affable hand.
+
+"Is Mountfalcon in town?" said Richard, taking the horse's reins
+instead of the gentlemanly hand. His voice and aspect were quite
+friendly.
+
+"Mount?" Brayder replied, curiously watching the action; "yes. He's
+off this evening."
+
+"He _is_ in town?" Richard released his horse. "I want to see him.
+Where is he?"
+
+The young man looked pleasant: that which might have aroused
+Brayder's suspicions was an old affair in parasitical register by
+this time. "Want to see him? What about?" he said carelessly, and
+gave the address.
+
+"By the way," he sang out, "we thought of putting your name down,
+Feverel." He indicated the lofty structure. "What do you say?"
+
+Richard nodded back at him, crying, "Hurry." Brayder returned the
+nod, and those who promenaded the district soon beheld his body in
+elegant motion to the stepping of his well-earned horse.
+
+"What do you want to see Lord Mountfalcon for, Richard?" said
+Ripton.
+
+"I just want to see him," Richard replied.
+
+Ripton was left in the cab at the door of my lord's residence. He
+had to wait there a space of about ten minutes, when Richard
+returned with a clearer visage, though somewhat heated. He stood
+outside the cab, and Ripton was conscious of being examined by those
+strong grey eyes. As clear as speech he understood them to say to
+him, "You won't do," but which of the many things on earth he would
+not do for he was at a loss to think.
+
+"Go down to Raynham, Ripton. Say I shall be there to-night
+certainly. Don't bother me with questions. Drive off at once. Or
+wait. Get another cab. I'll take this."
+
+Ripton was ejected, and found himself standing alone in the street.
+As he was on the point of rushing after the galloping cab-horse to
+get a word of elucidation, he heard some one speak behind him.
+
+"You are Feverel's friend?"
+
+Ripton had an eye for lords. An ambrosial footman, standing at the
+open door of Lord Mountfalcon's house, and a gentleman standing on
+the door-step, told him that he was addressed by that nobleman. He
+was requested to step into the house. When they were alone, Lord
+Mountfalcon, slightly ruffled, said: "Feverel has insulted me
+grossly. I must meet him, of course. It's a piece of infernal
+folly!--I suppose he is not quite mad?"
+
+Ripton's only definite answer was a gasping iteration of "My lord."
+
+My lord resumed: "I am perfectly guiltless of offending him, as far
+as I know. In fact, I had a friendship for him. Is he liable to fits
+of this sort of thing?"
+
+Not yet at conversation-point, Ripton stammered: "Fits, my lord?"
+
+"Ah!" went the other, eying Ripton in lordly cognizant style. "You
+know nothing of this business, perhaps!"
+
+Ripton said he did not.
+
+"Have you any influence with him?"
+
+"Not much, my lord. Only now and then--a little."
+
+"You are not in the Army?"
+
+The question was quite unnecessary. Ripton confessed to the law, and
+my lord did not look surprised.
+
+"I will not detain you," he said, distantly bowing.
+
+Ripton gave him a commoner's obeisance; but getting to the door, the
+sense of the matter enlightened him.
+
+"It's a duel, my lord?"
+
+"No help for it, if his friends don't shut him up in Bedlam between
+this and to-morrow morning."
+
+Of all horrible things a duel was the worst in Ripton's imagination.
+He stood holding the handle of the door, revolving this last chapter
+of calamity suddenly opened where happiness had promised.
+
+"A duel! but he won't, my lord,--he mustn't fight, my lord."
+
+"He must come on the ground," said my lord, positively.
+
+Ripton ejaculated unintelligible stuff. Finally Lord Mountfalcon
+said: "I went out of my way, sir, in speaking to you. I saw you from
+the window. Your friend is mad. Deuced methodical, I admit, but mad.
+I have particular reasons to wish not to injure the young man, and
+if an apology is to be got out of him when we're on the ground, I'll
+take it, and we'll stop the damned scandal, if possible. You
+understand? I'm the insulted party, and I shall only require of him
+to use formal words of excuse to come to an amicable settlement. Let
+him just say he regrets it. Now, sir," the nobleman spoke with
+considerable earnestness, "should anything happen--I have the honour
+to be known to Mrs. Feverel--and I beg you will tell her. I very
+particularly desire you to let her know that I was not to blame."
+
+Mountfalcon rang the bell, and bowed him out. With this on his mind
+Ripton hurried down to those who were waiting in joyful trust at
+Raynham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+THE LAST SCENE
+
+
+The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his pulse, in occult
+calculation hideous to mark, said half-past eleven on the midnight.
+Adrian, wearing a composedly amused expression on his dimpled plump
+face,--held slightly sideways, aloof from paper and pen,--sat
+writing at the library table. Round the baronet's chair, in a
+semi-circle, were Lucy, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, and Ripton, that
+very ill bird at Raynham. They were silent as those who question the
+flying minutes. Ripton had said that Richard was sure to come; but
+the feminine eyes reading him ever and anon, had gathered matter for
+disquietude, which increased as time sped. Sir Austin persisted in
+his habitual air of speculative repose.
+
+Remote as he appeared from vulgar anxiety, he was the first to speak
+and betray his state.
+
+"Pray, put up that watch. Impatience serves nothing," he said,
+half-turning hastily to his brother behind him.
+
+Hippias relinquished his pulse and mildly groaned: "It's no
+nightmare, this!"
+
+His remark was unheard, and the bearing of it remained obscure.
+Adrian's pen made a louder flourish on his manuscript; whether in
+commiseration or infernal glee, none might say.
+
+"What are you writing?" the baronet inquired testily of Adrian,
+after a pause; twitched, it may be, by a sort of jealousy of the
+wise youth's coolness.
+
+"Do I disturb you, sir?" rejoined Adrian. "I am engaged on a portion
+of a Proposal for uniting the Empires and Kingdoms of Europe under
+one Paternal Head, on the model of the ever-to-be-admired and
+lamented Holy Roman. This treats of the management of Youths and
+Maids, and of certain magisterial functions connected therewith. 'It
+is decreed that these officers be all and every men of science,'
+etc." And Adrian cheerily drove his pen afresh.
+
+Mrs. Doria took Lucy's hand, mutely addressing encouragement to
+her, and Lucy brought as much of a smile as she could command to
+reply with.
+
+"I fear we must give him up to-night," observed Lady Blandish.
+
+"If he said he would come, he will come," Sir Austin interjected.
+Between him and the lady there was something of a contest secretly
+going on. He was conscious that nothing save perfect success would
+now hold this self-emancipating mind. She had seen him through.
+
+"He declared to me he would be certain to come," said Ripton; but he
+could look at none of them as he said it, for he was growing aware
+that Richard might have deceived him, and was feeling like a black
+conspirator against their happiness. He determined to tell the
+baronet what he knew, if Richard did not come by twelve.
+
+"What is the time?" he asked Hippias in a modest voice.
+
+"Time for me to be in bed," growled Hippias, as if everybody present
+had been treating him badly.
+
+Mrs. Berry came in to apprise Lucy that she was wanted above. She
+quietly rose. Sir Austin kissed her on the forehead, saying: "You
+had better not come down again, my child." She kept her eyes on him.
+"Oblige me by retiring for the night," he added. Lucy shook their
+hands, and went out, accompanied by Mrs. Doria.
+
+"This agitation will be bad for the child," he said, speaking to
+himself aloud.
+
+Lady Blandish remarked: "I think she might just as well have
+returned. She will not sleep."
+
+"She will control herself for the child's sake."
+
+"You ask too much of her."
+
+"Of her, not," he emphasized.
+
+It was twelve o'clock when Hippias shut his watch, and said with
+vehemence: "I'm convinced my circulation gradually and steadily
+decreases!"
+
+"Going back to the pre-Harvey period?" murmured Adrian as he wrote.
+
+Sir Austin and Lady Blandish knew well that any comment would
+introduce them to the interior of his machinery, the external view
+of which was sufficiently harrowing; so they maintained a discreet
+reserve. Taking it for acquiescence in his deplorable condition,
+Hippias resumed despairingly: "It's a fact. I've brought you to see
+that. No one can be more moderate than I am, and yet I get worse.
+My system is organically sound--I believe: I do every possible
+thing, and yet I get worse. Nature never forgives! I'll go to bed."
+
+The Dyspepsy departed unconsoled.
+
+Sir Austin took up his brother's thought: "I suppose nothing short
+of a miracle helps us when we have offended her."
+
+"Nothing short of a quack satisfies us," said Adrian, applying wax
+to an envelope of official dimensions.
+
+Ripton sat accusing his soul of cowardice while they talked; haunted
+by Lucy's last look at him. He got up his courage presently and went
+round to Adrian, who, after a few whispered words, deliberately rose
+and accompanied him out of the room, shrugging. When they had gone,
+Lady Blandish said to the baronet: "He is not coming."
+
+"To-morrow, then, if not to-night," he replied. "But I say he will
+come to-night."
+
+"You do really wish to see him united to his wife?"
+
+The question made the baronet raise his brows with some displeasure.
+
+"Can you ask me?"
+
+"I mean," said the ungenerous woman, "your System will require no
+further sacrifices from either of them?"
+
+When he did answer, it was to say: "I think her altogether a
+superior person. I confess I should scarcely have hoped to find one
+like her."
+
+"Admit that your science does not accomplish everything."
+
+"No: it was presumptuous--beyond a certain point," said the baronet,
+meaning deep things.
+
+Lady Blandish eyed him. "Ah me!" she sighed, "if we would always be
+true to our own wisdom!"
+
+"You are very singular to-night, Emmeline," Sir Austin stopped his
+walk in front of her.
+
+In truth, was she not unjust? Here was an offending son freely
+forgiven. Here was a young woman of humble birth freely accepted
+into his family and permitted to stand upon her qualities. Who would
+have done more--or as much? This lady, for instance, had the case
+been hers, would have fought it. All the people of position that he
+was acquainted with would have fought it, and that without feeling
+it so peculiarly. But while the baronet thought this, he did not
+think of the exceptional education his son had received. He took the
+common ground of fathers, forgetting his System when it was
+absolutely on trial. False to his son it could not be said that he
+had been: false to his System he was. Others saw it plainly, but he
+had to learn his lesson by and by.
+
+Lady Blandish gave him her face; then stretched her hand to the
+table, saying, "Well! well!" She fingered a half-opened parcel lying
+there, and drew forth a little book she recognized. "Ha! what is
+this?" she said.
+
+"Benson returned it this morning," he informed her. "The stupid
+fellow took it away with him--by mischance, I am bound to believe."
+
+It was nothing other than the old Note-book. Lady Blandish turned
+over the leaves, and came upon the later jottings.
+
+She read: "A maker of Proverbs--what is he but a narrow mind with
+the mouthpiece of narrower?"
+
+"I do not agree with that," she observed. He was in no humour for
+argument.
+
+"Was your humility feigned when you wrote it?"
+
+He merely said: "Consider the sort of minds influenced by set
+sayings. A proverb is the half-way-house to an Idea, I conceive; and
+the majority rest there content: can the keeper of such a house be
+flattered by his company?"
+
+She felt her feminine intelligence swaying under him again. There
+must be greatness in a man who could thus speak of his own special
+and admirable aptitude.
+
+Further she read, "Which is the coward among us?--_He who sneers at
+the failings of Humanity!_"
+
+"Oh! that is true! How much I admire that!" cried the dark-eyed dame
+as she beamed intellectual raptures.
+
+Another Aphorism seemed closely to apply to him: "There is no more
+grievous sight, as there is no greater perversion, than a wise man
+at the mercy of his feelings."
+
+"He must have written it," she thought, "when he had himself for an
+example--strange man that he is!"
+
+Lady Blandish was still inclined to submission, though decidedly
+insubordinate. She had once been fairly conquered: but if what she
+reverenced as a great mind could conquer her, it must be a great man
+that should hold her captive. The Autumn Primrose blooms for the
+loftiest manhood; is a vindictive flower in lesser hands.
+Nevertheless Sir Austin had only to be successful, and this lady's
+allegiance was his for ever. The trial was at hand.
+
+She said again: "He is not coming to-night," and the baronet, on
+whose visage a contemplative pleased look had been rising for a
+minute past, quietly added: "He is come."
+
+Richard's voice was heard in the hall.
+
+There was commotion all over the house at the return of the young
+heir. Berry, seizing every possible occasion to approach his Bessy
+now that her involuntary coldness had enhanced her value--"Such is
+men!" as the soft woman reflected--Berry ascended to her and
+delivered the news in pompous tones and wheedling gestures. "The
+best word you've spoke for many a day," says she, and leaves him
+unfee'd, in an attitude, to hurry and pour bliss into Lucy's ears.
+
+"Lord be praised!" she entered the adjoining room exclaiming, "we're
+goin' to be happy at last. They men have come to their senses. I
+could cry to your Virgin and kiss your Cross, you sweet!"
+
+"Hush!" Lucy admonished her, and crooned over the child on her
+knees. The tiny open hands, full of sleep, clutched; the large blue
+eyes started awake; and his mother, all trembling and palpitating,
+knowing, but thirsting to hear it, covered him with her tresses, and
+tried to still her frame, and rocked, and sang low, interdicting
+even a whisper from bursting Mrs. Berry.
+
+Richard had come. He was under his father's roof, in the old home
+that had so soon grown foreign to him. He stood close to his wife
+and child. He might embrace them both; and now the fulness of his
+anguish and the madness of the thing he had done smote the young
+man: now first he tasted hard earthly misery.
+
+Had not God spoken to him in the tempest? Had not the finger of
+heaven directed him homeward? And he had come: here he stood:
+congratulations were thick in his ears: the cup of happiness was
+held to him, and he was invited to drink of it. Which was the dream?
+his work for the morrow, or this? But for a leaden load that he felt
+like a bullet in his breast, he might have thought the morrow with
+death sitting on it was the dream. Yes; he was awake. Now first the
+cloud of phantasms cleared away: he beheld his real life, and the
+colours of true human joy: and on the morrow perhaps he was to close
+his eyes on them. That leaden bullet dispersed all unrealities.
+
+They stood about him in the hall, his father, Lady Blandish, Mrs.
+Doria, Adrian, Ripton; people who had known him long. They shook his
+hand: they gave him greetings he had never before understood the
+worth of or the meaning. Now that he did they mocked him. There was
+Mrs. Berry in the background bobbing, there was Martin Berry bowing,
+there was Tom Bakewell grinning. Somehow he loved the sight of these
+better.
+
+"Ah, my old Penelope!" he said, breaking through the circle of his
+relatives to go to her. "Tom! how are you?"
+
+"Bless ye, my Mr. Richard," whimpered Mrs. Berry, and whispered
+rosily, "all's agreeable now. She's waiting up in bed for ye, like a
+new-born."
+
+The person who betrayed most agitation was Mrs. Doria. She held
+close to him, and eagerly studied his face and every movement, as
+one accustomed to masks. "You are pale, Richard?" He pleaded
+exhaustion. "What detained you, dear?" "Business," he said. She drew
+him imperiously apart from the others. "Richard! is it over?" He
+asked what she meant. "The dreadful duel, Richard." He looked
+darkly. "Is it over? is it done, Richard?" Getting no immediate
+answer, she continued--and such was her agitation that the words
+were shaken by pieces from her mouth: "Don't pretend not to
+understand me, Richard! Is it over? Are you going to die the death
+of my child--Clare's death? Is not one in a family enough? Think of
+your dear young wife--we love her so!--your child!--your father!
+Will you kill us all?"
+
+Mrs. Doria had chanced to overhear a trifle of Ripton's
+communication to Adrian, and had built thereon with the dark forces
+of a stricken soul.
+
+Wondering how this woman could have divined it, Richard calmly said:
+"It's arranged--the matter you allude to."
+
+"Indeed! truly, dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell me"--but he broke away from her, saying: "You shall hear the
+particulars to-morrow," and she, not alive to double meaning just
+then, allowed him to leave her.
+
+He had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and called for food, but he
+would take only dry bread and claret, which was served on a tray in
+the library. He said, without any show of feeling, that he must eat
+before he saw the younger hope of Raynham: so there he sat, breaking
+bread, and eating great mouthfuls, and washing them down with wine,
+talking of what they would. His father's studious mind felt itself
+years behind him, he was so completely altered. He had the precision
+of speech, the bearing of a man of thirty. Indeed he had all that
+the necessity for cloaking an infinite misery gives. But let things
+be as they might he was _there_. For one night in his life Sir
+Austin's perspective of the future was bounded by the night.
+
+"Will you go to your wife now?" he had asked, and Richard had
+replied with a strange indifference. The baronet thought it better
+that their meeting should be private, and sent word for Lucy to wait
+upstairs. The others perceived that father and son should now be
+left alone. Adrian went up to him, and said: "I can no longer
+witness this painful sight, so Good-night, Sir Famish! You may cheat
+yourself into the belief that you've made a meal, but depend upon it
+your progeny--and it threatens to be numerous--will cry aloud and
+rue the day. Nature never forgives! A lost dinner can never be
+replaced! Good-night, my dear boy. And here--oblige me by taking
+this," he handed Richard the enormous envelope containing what he
+had written that evening. "Credentials!" he exclaimed humorously,
+slapping Richard on the shoulder. Ripton heard also the words
+"propagator--species," but had no idea of their import. The wise
+youth looked: You see we've made matters all right for you here, and
+quitted the room on that unusual gleam of earnestness.
+
+Richard shook his hand, and Ripton's. Then Lady Blandish said her
+good-night, praising Lucy, and promising to pray for their mutual
+happiness. The two men who knew what was hanging over him, spoke
+together outside. Ripton was for getting a positive assurance that
+the duel would not be fought, but Adrian said: "Time enough
+to-morrow. He's safe enough while he's here. I'll stop it
+to-morrow:" ending with banter of Ripton and allusions to his
+adventures with Miss Random, which must, Adrian said, have led him
+into many affairs of the sort. Certainly Richard was there, and
+while he was there he must be safe. So thought Ripton, and went to
+his bed. Mrs. Doria deliberated likewise, and likewise thought him
+safe while he was there. For once in her life she thought it better
+not to trust to her instinct, for fear of useless disturbance where
+peace should be. So she said not a syllable of it to her brother.
+She only looked more deeply into Richard's eyes, as she kissed him,
+praising Lucy. "I have found a second daughter in her, dear. Oh! may
+you both be happy!"
+
+They all praised Lucy, now. His father commenced the moment they
+were alone. "Poor Helen! Your wife has been a great comfort to her,
+Richard. I think Helen must have sunk without her. So lovely a young
+person, possessing mental faculty, and a conscience for her duties,
+I have never before met."
+
+He wished to gratify his son by these eulogies of Lucy, and some
+hours back he would have succeeded. Now it had the contrary effect.
+
+"You compliment me on my choice, sir?"
+
+Richard spoke sedately, but the irony was perceptible, and he could
+speak no other way, his bitterness was so intense.
+
+"I think you very fortunate," said his father.
+
+Sensitive to tone and manner as he was, his ebullition of paternal
+feeling was frozen. Richard did not approach him. He leaned against
+the chimney-piece, glancing at the floor, and lifting his eyes only
+when he spoke. Fortunate! very fortunate! As he revolved his later
+history, and remembered how clearly he had seen that his father must
+love Lucy if he but knew her, and remembered his efforts to persuade
+her to come with him, a sting of miserable rage blackened his brain.
+But could he blame that gentle soul? Whom could he blame? Himself?
+Not utterly. His father? Yes, and no. The blame was here, the blame
+was there: it was everywhere and nowhere, and the young man cast it
+on the Fates, and looked angrily at heaven, and grew reckless.
+
+"Richard," said his father, coming close to him, "It is late
+to-night. I do not wish Lucy to remain in expectation longer, or I
+should have explained myself to you thoroughly, and I think--or at
+least hope--you would have justified me. I had cause to believe that
+you had not only violated my confidence, but grossly deceived me. It
+was not so, I now know. I was mistaken. Much of our misunderstanding
+has resulted from that mistake. But you were married--a boy: you
+knew nothing of the world, little of yourself. To save you in
+after-life--for there is a period when mature men and women who have
+married young are more impelled to temptation than in youth,--though
+not so exposed to it,--to save you, I say, I decreed that you should
+experience self-denial and learn something of your fellows of both
+sexes, before settling into a state that must have been otherwise
+precarious, however excellent the woman who is your mate. My System
+with you would have been otherwise imperfect, and you would have
+felt the effects of it. It is over now. You are a man. The dangers
+to which your nature was open are, I trust, at an end. I wish you to
+be happy, and I give you both my blessing, and pray God to conduct
+and strengthen you both."
+
+Sir Austin's mind was unconscious of not having spoken devoutly.
+True or not, his words were idle to his son: his talk of dangers
+over, and happiness, mockery.
+
+Richard coldly took his father's extended hand.
+
+"We will go to her," said the baronet. "I will leave you at her
+door."
+
+Not moving: looking fixedly at his father with a hard face on which
+the colour rushed, Richard said: "A husband who has been unfaithful
+to his wife may go to her there, sir?"
+
+It was horrible, it was cruel: Richard knew that. He wanted no
+advice on such a matter, having fully resolved what to do. Yesterday
+he would have listened to his father, and blamed himself alone, and
+done what was to be done humbly before God and her: now in the
+recklessness of his misery he had as little pity for any other soul
+as for his own. Sir Austin's brows were deep drawn down.
+
+"What did you say, Richard?"
+
+Clearly his intelligence had taken it, but this--the worst he could
+hear--this that he had dreaded once and doubted, and smoothed over,
+and cast aside--could it be?
+
+Richard said: "I told you all but the very words when we last
+parted. What else do you think would have kept me from her?"
+
+Angered at his callous aspect, his father cried: "What brings you to
+her now?"
+
+"That will be between us two," was the reply.
+
+Sir Austin fell into his chair. Meditation was impossible. He spoke
+from a wrathful heart: "You will not dare to take her without"----
+
+"No, sir," Richard interrupted him, "I shall not. Have no fear."
+
+"Then you did not love your wife?"
+
+"Did I not?" A smile passed faintly over Richard's face.
+
+"Did you care so much for this--this other person?"
+
+"So much? If you ask me whether I had affection for her, I can say I
+had none."
+
+O base human nature! Then how? then why? A thousand questions rose
+in the baronet's mind. Bessy Berry could have answered them every
+one.
+
+"Poor child! poor child!" he apostrophized Lucy, pacing the room.
+Thinking of her, knowing her deep love for his son--her true
+forgiving heart--it seemed she should be spared this misery.
+
+He proposed to Richard to spare her. Vast is the distinction between
+women and men in this one sin, he said, and supported it with
+physical and moral citations. His argument carried him so far, that
+to hear him one would have imagined he thought the sin in men small
+indeed. His words were idle.
+
+"She must know it," said Richard, sternly. "I will go to her now,
+sir, if you please."
+
+Sir Austin detained him, expostulated, contradicted himself,
+confounded his principles, made nonsense of all his theories. He
+could not induce his son to waver in his resolve. Ultimately, their
+good-night being interchanged, he understood that the happiness of
+Raynham depended on Lucy's mercy. He had no fears of her sweet
+heart, but it was a strange thing to have come to. On which should
+the accusation fall--on science, or on human nature?
+
+He remained in the library pondering over the question, at times
+breathing contempt for his son, and again seized with unwonted
+suspicion of his own wisdom: troubled, much to be pitied, even if he
+deserved that blow from his son which had plunged him into
+wretchedness.
+
+Richard went straight to Tom Bakewell, roused the heavy sleeper, and
+told him to have his mare saddled and waiting at the park gates East
+within an hour. Tom's nearest approach to a hero was to be a
+faithful slave to his master, and in doing this he acted to his
+conception of that high and glorious character. He got up and
+heroically dashed his head into cold water. "She shall be ready,
+sir," he nodded.
+
+"Tom! if you don't see me back here at Raynham, your money will go
+on being paid to you."
+
+"Rather see you than the money, Mr. Richard," said Tom.
+
+"And you will always watch and see no harm comes to her, Tom."
+
+"Mrs. Richard, sir?" Tom stared. "God bless me, Mr. Richard"----
+
+"No questions. You'll do what I say."
+
+"Ay, sir; that I will. Did'n Isle o' Wight."
+
+The very name of the Island shocked Richard's blood, and he had to
+walk up and down before he could knock at Lucy's door. That infamous
+conspiracy to which he owed his degradation and misery scarce left
+him the feelings of a man when he thought of it.
+
+The soft beloved voice responded to his knock. He opened the door,
+and stood before her. Lucy was half-way toward him. In the moment
+that passed ere she was in his arms, he had time to observe the
+change in her. He had left her a girl: he beheld a woman--a blooming
+woman: for pale at first, no sooner did she see him than the colour
+was rich and deep on her face and neck and bosom half shown through
+the loose dressing-robe, and the sense of her exceeding beauty made
+his heart thump and his eyes swim.
+
+"My darling!" each cried, and they clung together, and her mouth was
+fastened on his.
+
+They spoke no more. His soul was drowned in her kiss. Supporting
+her, whose strength was gone, he, almost as weak as she, hung over
+her, and clasped her closer, closer, till they were as one body, and
+in the oblivion her lips put upon him he was free to the bliss of
+her embrace. Heaven granted him that. He placed her in a chair and
+knelt at her feet with both arms around her. Her bosom heaved; her
+eyes never quitted him: their light as the light on a rolling wave.
+This young creature, commonly so frank and straightforward, was
+broken with bashfulness in her husband's arms--womanly bashfulness
+on the torrent of womanly love; tenfold more seductive than the
+bashfulness of girlhood. Terrible tenfold the loss of her seemed
+now, as distantly--far on the horizon of memory--the fatal truth
+returned to him.
+
+Lose her? lose this? He looked up as if to ask God to confirm it.
+
+The same sweet blue eyes! the eyes that he had often seen in the
+dying glories of evening; on him they dwelt, shifting, and
+fluttering, and glittering, but constant: the light of them as the
+light on a rolling wave.
+
+And true to him! true, good, glorious, as the angels of heaven! And
+his she was! a woman--his wife! The temptation to take her, and be
+dumb, was all powerful: the wish to die against her bosom so strong
+as to be the prayer of his vital forces. Again he strained her to
+him, but this time it was as a robber grasps priceless treasure--with
+exultation and defiance. One instant of this. Lucy, whose pure
+tenderness had now surmounted the first wild passion of their
+meeting, bent back her head from her surrendered body, and said
+almost voicelessly, her underlids wistfully quivering: "Come and
+see him--baby;" and then in great hope of the happiness she was
+going to give her husband, and share with him, and in tremour and
+doubt of what his feelings would be, she blushed, and her brows
+worked: she tried to throw off the strangeness of a year of
+separation, misunderstanding, and uncertainty.
+
+"Darling! come and see him. He is here." She spoke more clearly,
+though no louder.
+
+Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he suffered
+himself to be led to the other side of the bed. His heart began
+rapidly throbbing at the sight of a little rosy-curtained cot
+covered with lace like milky summer cloud.
+
+It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he looked on that
+child's face.
+
+"Stop!" he cried suddenly.
+
+Lucy turned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing it should
+have been disturbed.
+
+"Lucy, come back."
+
+"What is it, darling?" said she, in alarm at his voice and the grip
+he had unwittingly given her hand.
+
+O God! what an Ordeal was this! that to-morrow he must face death,
+perhaps die and be torn from his darling--his wife and his child;
+and that ere he went forth, ere he could dare to see his child and
+lean his head reproachfully on his young wife's breast--for the last
+time, it might be--he must stab her to the heart, shatter the image
+she held of him.
+
+"Lucy!" She saw him wrenched with agony, and her own face took the
+whiteness of his--she bending forward to him, all her faculties
+strung to hearing.
+
+He held her two hands that she might look on him and not spare the
+horrible wounds he was going to lay open to her eyes.
+
+"Lucy. Do you know why I came to you to-night?"
+
+She moved her lips repeating his words.
+
+"Lucy. Have you guessed why I did not come before?"
+
+Her head shook widened eyes.
+
+"Lucy. I did not come because I was not worthy of my wife! Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Darling," she faltered plaintively, and hung crouching under him,
+"what have I done to make you angry with me?"
+
+"O beloved!" cried he, the tears bursting out of his eyes. "O
+beloved!" was all he could say, kissing her hands passionately.
+
+She waited, reassured, but in terror.
+
+"Lucy. I stayed away from you--I could not come to you, because ...
+I dared not come to you, my wife, my beloved! I could not come
+because I was a coward: because--hear me--this was the reason: I
+have broken my marriage oath."
+
+Again her lips moved. She caught at a dim fleshless meaning in
+them. "But you love me? Richard! My husband! you love me?"
+
+"Yes. I have never loved, I never shall love, woman but you."
+
+"Darling! Kiss me."
+
+"Have you understood what I have told you?"
+
+"Kiss me," she said.
+
+He did not join lips. "I have come to you to-night to ask your
+forgiveness."
+
+Her answer was: "Kiss me."
+
+"Can you forgive a man so base?"
+
+"But you love me, Richard?"
+
+"Yes: that I can say before God. I love you, and I have betrayed
+you, and am unworthy of you--not worthy to touch your hand, to kneel
+at your feet, to breathe the same air with you."
+
+Her eyes shone brilliantly. "You love me! you love me, darling!" And
+as one who has sailed through dark fears into daylight, she said:
+"My husband! my darling! you will never leave me? We never shall be
+parted again?"
+
+He drew his breath painfully. To smooth her face growing rigid with
+fresh fears of his silence, he met her mouth. That kiss in which she
+spoke what her soul had to say, calmed her, and she smiled happily
+from it, and in her manner reminded him of his first vision of her
+on the summer morning in the field of the meadow-sweet. He held her
+to him, and thought then of a holier picture: of Mother and Child:
+of the sweet wonders of the life she had made real to him.
+
+Had he not absolved his conscience? At least the pangs to come made
+him think so. He now followed her leading hand. Lucy whispered: "You
+mustn't disturb him--mustn't touch him, dear!" and with dainty
+fingers drew off the covering to the little shoulder. One arm of the
+child was out along the pillow; the small hand open. His baby-mouth
+was pouted full; the dark lashes of his eyes seemed to lie on his
+plump cheeks. Richard stooped lower down to him, hungering for some
+movement as a sign that he lived. Lucy whispered. "He sleeps like
+you, Richard--one arm under his head." Great wonder, and the stir of
+a grasping tenderness was in Richard. He breathed quick and soft,
+bending lower, till Lucy's curls, as she nestled and bent with him,
+rolled on the crimson quilt of the cot. A smile went up the plump
+cheeks: forthwith the bud of a mouth was in rapid motion. The young
+mother whispered, blushing: "He's dreaming of me," and the simple
+words did more than Richard's eyes to make him see what was. Then
+Lucy began to hum and buzz sweet baby-language, and some of the tiny
+fingers stirred, and he made as if to change his cosy position, but
+reconsidered, and deferred it, with a peaceful little sigh. Lucy
+whispered: "He is such a big fellow. Oh! when you see him awake he
+is so like you, Richard."
+
+He did not hear her immediately: it seemed a bit of heaven dropped
+there in his likeness: the more human the fact of the child grew the
+more heavenly it seemed. His son! his child! should he ever see him
+awake? At the thought, he took the words that had been spoken, and
+started from the dream he had been in. "Will he wake soon, Lucy?"
+
+"Oh no! not yet, dear: not for hours. I would have kept him awake
+for you, but he was _so_ sleepy."
+
+Richard stood back from the cot. He thought that if he saw the eyes
+of his boy, and had him once on his heart, he never should have
+force to leave him. Then he looked down on him, again struggled to
+tear himself away. Two natures warred in his bosom, or it may have
+been the Magian Conflict still going on. He had come to see his
+child once and to make peace with his wife before it should be too
+late. Might he not stop with them? Might he not relinquish that
+devilish pledge? Was not divine happiness here offered to him?--If
+foolish Ripton had not delayed to tell him of his interview with
+Mountfalcon all might have been well. But pride said it was
+impossible. And then injury spoke. For why was he thus base and
+spotted to the darling of his love? A mad pleasure in the prospect
+of wreaking vengeance on the villain who had laid the trap for him,
+once more blackened his brain. If he would stay he could not. So he
+resolved, throwing the burden on Fate. The struggle was over, but
+oh, the pain!
+
+Lucy beheld the tears streaming hot from his face on the child's
+cot. She marvelled at such excess of emotion. But when his chest
+heaved, and the extremity of mortal anguish appeared to have seized
+him, her heart sank, and she tried to get him in her arms. He turned
+away from her and went to the window. A half-moon was over the lake.
+
+"Look!" he said, "do you remember our rowing there one night, and we
+saw the shadow of the cypress? I wish I could have come early
+to-night that we might have had another row, and I have heard you
+sing there!"
+
+"Darling!" said she, "will it make you happier if I go with you now?
+I will."
+
+"No, Lucy. Lucy, you are brave!"
+
+"Oh, no! that I'm not. I thought so once. I know I am not now."
+
+"Yes! to have lived--the child on your heart--and never to have
+uttered a complaint!--you are brave. O my Lucy! my wife! you that
+have made me man! I called you a coward. I remember it. I was the
+coward--_I_ the wretched vain fool! Darling! I am going to leave you
+now. You are brave, and you will bear it. Listen: in two days, or
+three, I may be back--back for good, if you will accept me. Promise
+me to go to bed quietly. Kiss the child for me, and tell him his
+father has seen him. He will learn to speak soon. Will he soon
+speak, Lucy?"
+
+Dreadful suspicion kept her speechless; she could only clutch one
+arm of his with both her hands.
+
+"Going?" she presently gasped.
+
+"For two or three days. No more--I hope."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes. Now."
+
+"Going now? my husband!" her faculties abandoned her.
+
+"You will be brave, my Lucy!"
+
+"Richard! my darling husband! Going? What is it takes you from me?"
+But questioning no further, she fell on her knees, and cried
+piteously to him to stay--not to leave them. Then she dragged him to
+the little sleeper, and urged him to pray by his side, and he did,
+but rose abruptly from his prayer when he had muttered a few broken
+words--she praying on with tight-strung nerves, in the faith that
+what she said to the interceding Mother above would be stronger than
+human hands on him. Nor could he go while she knelt there.
+
+And he wavered. He had not reckoned on her terrible suffering. She
+came to him, quiet. "I knew you would remain." And taking his hand,
+innocently fondling it: "Am I so changed from her he loved? You will
+not leave me, dear?" But dread returned, and the words quavered as
+she spoke them.
+
+He was almost vanquished by the loveliness of her womanhood. She
+drew his hand to her heart, and strained it there under one breast.
+"Come: lie on my heart," she murmured with a smile of holy
+sweetness.
+
+He wavered more, and drooped to her, but summoning the powers of
+hell, kissed her suddenly, cried the words of parting, and hurried
+to the door. It was over in an instant. She cried out his name,
+clinging to him wildly, and was adjured to be brave, for he would be
+dishonoured if he did not go. Then she was shaken off.
+
+Mrs. Berry was aroused by an unusual prolonged wailing of the child,
+which showed that no one was comforting it, and failing to get any
+answer to her applications for admittance, she made bold to enter.
+There she saw Lucy, the child in her lap, sitting on the floor
+senseless:--she had taken it from its sleep and tried to follow her
+husband with it as her strongest appeal to him, and had fainted.
+
+"Oh my! oh my!" Mrs. Berry moaned, "and I just now thinkin' they was
+so happy!"
+
+Warming and caressing the poor infant, she managed by degrees to
+revive Lucy, and heard what had brought her to that situation.
+
+"Go to his father," said Mrs. Berry. "Ta-te-tiddle-te-heighty-O! Go,
+my love, and every horse in Raynham shall be out after 'm. This is
+what men brings us to! Heighty-oighty-iddlety-Ah! Or you take
+blessed baby, and I'll go."
+
+The baronet himself knocked at the door. "What is this?" he said. "I
+heard a noise and a step descend."
+
+"It's Mr. Richard have gone, Sir Austin! have gone from his wife and
+babe! Rum-te-um-te-iddledy--Oh, my goodness! what sorrow's come on
+us!" and Mrs. Berry wept, and sang to baby, and baby cried
+vehemently, and Lucy, sobbing, took him and danced him and sang to
+him with drawn lips and tears dropping over him. And if the
+Scientific Humanist to the day of his death forgets the sight of
+those two poor true women jigging on their wretched hearts to calm
+the child, he must have very little of the human in him.
+
+There was no more sleep for Raynham that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH
+
+
+"His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room and seen him
+bear the worst that could be. Return at once--he has asked for you.
+I can hardly write intelligibly, but I will tell you what we know.
+
+"Two days after the dreadful night when he left us, his father heard
+from Ralph Morton. Richard had fought a duel in France with Lord
+Mountfalcon, and was lying wounded at a hamlet on the coast. His
+father started immediately with his poor wife, and I followed in
+company with his aunt and his child. The wound was not dangerous. He
+was shot in the side somewhere, but the ball injured no vital part.
+We thought all would be well. Oh! how sick I am of theories, and
+Systems, and the pretensions of men! There was his son lying all but
+dead, and the man was still unconvinced of the folly he had been
+guilty of. I could hardly bear the sight of his composure. I shall
+hate the name of Science till the day I die. Give me nothing but
+commonplace unpretending people!
+
+"They were at a wretched French cabaret, smelling vilely, where we
+still remain, and the people try as much as they can do to
+compensate for our discomforts by their kindness. The French poor
+people are very considerate where they see suffering. I will say
+that for them. The doctors had not allowed his poor Lucy to go near
+him. She sat outside his door, and none of us dared disturb her.
+That was a sight for Science. His father and myself, and Mrs. Berry,
+were the only ones permitted to wait on him, and whenever we came
+out, there she sat, not speaking a word--for she had been told it
+would endanger his life--but she looked such awful eagerness. She
+had the sort of eye I fancy mad persons have. I was sure her reason
+was going. We did everything we could think of to comfort her. A bed
+was made up for her and her meals were brought to her there. Of
+course there was no getting her to eat. What do you suppose _his_
+alarm was fixed on? He absolutely said to me--but I have not
+patience to repeat his words. He thought her to blame for not
+_commanding_ herself for the sake of her _maternal duties_. He had
+absolutely an idea of insisting that she should make an effort to
+suckle the child. I shall love that Mrs. Berry to the end of my
+days. I really believe she has _twice_ the sense of any of
+us--Science and all. She asked him plainly if he wished to poison
+the child, and then he gave way, but with a bad grace.
+
+"Poor man! perhaps I am hard on him. I remember that you said
+Richard had done wrong. Yes; well, that may be. But his father
+eclipsed his wrong in a greater wrong--a crime, or quite as bad; for
+if he deceived himself in the belief that he was acting righteously
+in separating husband and wife, and exposing his son as he did, I
+can only say that there are some who are worse than people who
+deliberately commit _crimes_. No doubt Science will benefit by it.
+They kill little animals for the sake of Science.
+
+"We have with us Doctor Bairam, and a French physician from Dieppe,
+a very skilful man. It was he who told us where the real danger lay.
+We thought all would be well. A week had passed, and no fever
+supervened. We told Richard that his wife was coming to him, and he
+could bear to hear it. I went to her and began to circumlocute,
+thinking she listened--she had the same eager look. When I told her
+she might go in with me to see her dear husband, her features did
+not change. M. Després, who held her pulse at the time, told me, in
+a whisper, it was cerebral fever--brain fever coming on. We have
+talked of her since. I noticed that though she did not seem to
+understand me, her bosom heaved, and she appeared to be trying to
+repress it, and choke something. I am sure now, from what I know of
+her character, that she--even in the approaches of delirium--was
+preventing herself from crying out. Her last hold of reason was a
+thought for Richard. It was against a creature like this that we
+plotted! I have the comfort of knowing that I did my share in
+helping to destroy her. Had she seen her husband a day or two
+before--but no! there was a new _System_ to interdict that! Or had
+she not so violently controlled her nature as she did, I believe she
+might have been saved.
+
+"He said once of a man, that his conscience was a coxcomb. Will you
+believe that when he saw his son's wife--poor victim! lying
+delirious, he could not even then see his error. You said he wished
+to take Providence out of God's hands. His mad self-deceit would not
+leave him. I am positive, that while he was standing over her, he
+was blaming her for not having considered the child. Indeed he made
+a remark to me that it was unfortunate--'disastrous,' I think he
+said--that the child should have to be fed by hand. I dare say it
+is. All I pray is that this young child may be saved from him. I
+cannot bear to see him look on it. He does not spare himself
+_bodily_ fatigue--but what is that? that is the vulgarest form of
+love. I know what you will say. You will say I have lost all
+charity, and I have. But I should not feel so, Austin, if I could be
+_quite sure_ that he is an altered man even now the blow has struck
+him. He is reserved and simple in his speech, and his grief is
+evident, but I have doubts. He heard her while she was senseless
+call him cruel and harsh, and cry that she had suffered, and I saw
+then his mouth contract as if he had been touched. Perhaps, when he
+thinks, his mind will be clearer, but what he has done cannot be
+undone. I do not imagine he will abuse women any more. The doctor
+called her a 'forte et belle jeune femme:' and _he_ said she was as
+noble a soul as ever God moulded clay upon. A noble soul 'forte et
+belle!' She lies upstairs. If he can look on her and not see his
+_sin_, I almost fear God will never enlighten him.
+
+"She died five days after she had been removed. The shock had
+utterly deranged her. I was with her. She died very quietly,
+breathing her last breath without pain--asking for no one--a death I
+should like to die.
+
+"Her cries at one time were dreadfully loud. She screamed that she
+was 'drowning in fire,' and that her husband would not come to her
+to save her. We deadened the sound as much as we could, but it was
+impossible to prevent Richard from hearing. He knew her voice, and
+it produced an effect like fever on him. Whenever she called he
+answered. You could not hear them without weeping. Mrs. Berry sat
+with her, and I sat with him, and his father moved from one to the
+other.
+
+"But the trial for us came when she was gone. How to communicate it
+to Richard--or whether to do so at all! His father consulted with
+us. We were quite decided that it would be madness to breathe it
+while he was in that state. I can admit now--as things have turned
+out--we were wrong. His father left us--I believe he spent the time
+in prayer--and then leaning on me, he went to Richard, and said in
+so many words, that his Lucy was no more. I thought it must kill
+him. He listened, and smiled. I never saw a smile so sweet and so
+sad. He said he had seen her die, as if he had passed through his
+suffering a long time ago. He shut his eyes. I could see by the
+motion of his eyeballs up that he was straining his sight to some
+inner heaven.--I cannot go on.
+
+"I think Richard is safe. Had we postponed the tidings, till he came
+to his clear senses, it must have killed him. His father was right
+for once, then. But if he has saved his son's body, he has given the
+death-blow to his heart. Richard will never be what he promised.
+
+"A letter found on his clothes tells us the origin of the quarrel. I
+have had an interview with Lord M. this morning. I cannot say I
+think him exactly to blame: Richard forced him to fight. At least I
+do not select him the foremost for blame. He was deeply and
+sincerely affected by the calamity he has caused. Alas! he was only
+an instrument. Your poor aunt is utterly prostrate and talks strange
+things of her daughter's death. She is only happy in _drudging_. Dr.
+Bairam says we must under any circumstances keep her employed.
+Whilst she is doing something, she can chat freely, but the moment
+her hands are not occupied she gives me an idea that she is going
+into a fit.
+
+"We expect the dear child's uncle to-day. Mr. Thompson is here. I
+have taken him upstairs to look at her. That poor young man has a
+true heart.
+
+"Come at once. You will not be in time to see her. She will lie at
+Raynham. If you could you would see an angel. _He_ sits by her side
+for hours. I can give you no description of her beauty.
+
+"You will not delay, I know, dear Austin, and I want you, for your
+presence will make me more charitable than I find it possible to be.
+Have you noticed the expression in the eyes of blind men? That is
+just how Richard looks, as he lies there silent in his bed--striving
+to image her on his brain."
+
+
+
+
+The Modern Student's Library
+
+
+NOVELS
+
+  AUSTEN: Pride and Prejudice
+  With an introduction by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
+
+  BUNYAN: The Pilgrim's Progress
+  With an introduction by SAMUEL MCCHORD CROTHERS
+
+  COOPER: The Spy
+  With an introduction by TREMAINE MCDOWELL, Associate Professor
+  of English, University of Minnesota
+
+  ELIOT: Adam Bede
+  With an introduction by LAURA JOHNSON WYLIE, formerly Professor
+  of English, Vassar College
+
+  FIELDING: The Adventures of Joseph Andrews
+  With an introduction by BRUCE MCCULLOUGH, Associate Professor
+  of English, New York University
+
+  GALSWORTHY: The Patrician
+  With an introduction by BLISS PERRY, Professor of English
+  Literature, Harvard University
+
+  HARDY: The Return of the Native
+  With an introduction by J. W. CUNLIFFE, Professor of English,
+  Columbia University
+
+  HAWTHORNE: The Scarlet Letter
+  With an introduction by STUART P. SHERMAN, late Literary Editor of
+  the New York _Herald Tribune_
+
+  MEREDITH: Evan Harrington
+  With an introduction by GEORGE F. REYNOLDS, Professor of English
+  Literature, University of Colorado
+
+  MEREDITH: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
+  With an introduction by FRANK W. CHANDLER, Professor of English
+  and Comparative Literature, and Dean of the College of Liberal
+  Arts, University of Cincinnati
+
+  SCOTT: The Heart of Midlothian
+  With an introduction by WILLIAM P. TRENT, Professor of English
+  Literature, Columbia University
+
+  STEVENSON: The Master of Ballantrae
+  With an introduction by H. S. CANBY, Assistant Editor of the
+  _Yale Review_  and Editor of the _Saturday Review_
+
+  THACKERAY: The History of Pendennis
+  With an introduction by ROBERT MORSS LOVETT, Professor of
+  English, University of Chicago. 2 vols.
+
+  TROLLOPE: Barchester Towers
+  With an introduction by CLARENCE D. STEVENS, Professor of
+  English, University of Cincinnati
+
+  WHARTON: Ethan Frome
+  With a special introduction by EDITH WHARTON
+
+  THREE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ROMANCES: The Castle of Otranto, Vathek,
+  The Romance of the Forest
+  With an introduction by HARRISON R. STEEVES, Professor of
+  English, Columbia University
+
+
+POETRY
+
+  BROWNING: Poems and Plays
+  Edited by HEWETTE E. JOYCE, Assistant Professor of English,
+  Dartmouth College
+
+  BROWNING: The Ring and the Book
+  Edited by FREDERICK MORGAN PADEIFORD, Professor of English,
+  University of Washington
+
+  TENNYSON: Poems
+  Edited by J. F. A. PYRE, Professor of English, University of
+  Wisconsin
+
+  WHITMAN: Leaves of Grass
+  Edited by STUART P. SHERMAN, late Literary Editor of the
+  New York _Herald Tribune_
+
+  WORDSWORTH: Poems
+  Edited by GEORGE M. HARPER, Professor of English, Princeton
+  University
+
+  AMERICAN SONGS AND BALLADS
+  Edited by LOUISE POUND, Professor of English, University of
+  Nebraska
+
+  ENGLISH POETS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by ERNEST BERNBAUM, Professor of English, University
+  of Illinois
+
+  MINOR VICTORIAN POETS
+  Edited by JOHN D. COOKE, Professor of English, University of
+  Southern California
+
+  ROMANTIC POETRY OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by ARTHUR BEATTY, Professor of English, University of
+  Wisconsin
+
+
+ESSAYS AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
+
+  ADDISON AND STEELE: Selections
+  Edited by WILL D. HOWE, formerly head of the Department of
+  English, Indiana University
+
+  ARNOLD: Prose and Poetry
+  Edited by ARCHIBALD L. BOUTON, Professor of English and Dean
+  of the Graduate School, New York University
+
+  BACON: Essays
+  Edited by MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT, late Professor of the English
+  Language and Literature, Smith College
+
+  BROWNELL: American Prose Masters
+  Edited by STUART P. SHERMAN, late Literary Editor of the New
+  York _Herald Tribune_
+
+  BURKE: Selections
+  Edited by LESLIE NATHAN BROUGHTON, Assistant Professor of English,
+  Cornell University
+
+  CARLYLE: Past and Present
+  Edited by EDWIN MIMS, Professor of English, Vanderbilt University
+
+  CARLYLE: Sartor Resartus
+  Edited by ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, Professor of English, Columbia
+  University
+
+  EMERSON: Essays and Poems
+  Edited by ARTHUR HOBSON QUINN, Professor of English, University
+  of Pennsylvania
+
+  FRANKLIN AND EDWARDS: Selections
+  Edited by CARL VAN DOREN, Associate Professor of English,
+  Columbia University
+
+  HAZLITT: Essays
+  Edited by PERCY V. D. SHELLY, Professor of English, University
+  of Pennsylvania
+
+  LINCOLN: Selections
+  Edited by NATHANIEL WRIGHT STEPHENSON, author of "Lincoln: His
+  Personal Life"
+
+  MACAULAY: Historical Essays
+  Edited by CHARLES DOWNER HAZEN, Professor of History, Columbia
+  University
+
+  MEREDITH: An Essay on Comedy
+  Edited by LANE COOPER, Professor of the English Language
+  and Literature, Cornell University
+
+  PARKMAN: The Oregon Trail
+  Edited by JAMES CLOYD BOWMAN, Professor of English, Northern State
+  Normal College, Marquette, Mich.
+
+  POE: Tales
+  Edited by JAMES SOUTHALL WILSON, Edgar Allan Poe Professor of
+  English, University of Virginia
+
+  RUSKIN: Selections and Essays
+  Edited by FREDERICK WILLIAM ROE, Professor of English,
+  University of Wisconsin
+
+  STEVENSON: Essays
+  Edited by WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, Lampson Professor of English
+  Literature, Yale University
+
+  SWIFT: Selections
+  Edited by HARDIN CRAIG, Professor of English, University of Iowa
+
+  THOREAU: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
+  Edited by ODELL SHEPARD, James J. Goodwin Professor of
+  English, Trinity College
+
+  CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS
+  Edited by ODELL SHEPARD, James J. Goodwin Professor of English,
+  Trinity College
+
+  CRITICAL ESSAYS OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by RAYMOND M. ALDEN, late Professor of English, Leland
+  Stanford University
+
+  SELECTIONS FROM THE FEDERALIST
+  Edited by JOHN S. BASSETT, late Professor of History, Smith College
+
+  NINETEENTH CENTURY LETTERS
+  Edited by BYRON JOHNSON REES, late Professor of English,
+  Williams College
+
+  ROMANTIC PROSE OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by CARL H. GRABO, Professor of English, University of
+  Chicago
+
+  SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS
+  Edited by JACOB ZEITLIN, Associate Professor of English,
+  University of Illinois
+
+
+BIOGRAPHY
+
+  BOSWELL: Life of Johnson
+  Abridged and Edited by CHARLES GROSVENOR OSGOOD, Professor
+  of English, Princeton University
+
+  CROCKETT: Autobiography of David Crockett
+  Edited by HAMLIN GARLAND
+
+
+PHILOSOPHY SERIES
+
+  =Editor, Ralph Barton Perry=
+  _Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University_
+
+  ARISTOTLE: Selections
+  Edited by W. D. ROSS, Professor of Philosophy, Oriel College,
+  University of Oxford
+
+  BACON: Selections
+  Edited by MATTHEW THOMPSON MCCLURE, Professor of Philosophy,
+  University of Illinois
+
+  BERKELEY: Selections
+  Edited by MARY W. CALKINS, late Professor of Philosophy and
+  Psychology, Wellesley College
+
+  DESCARTES: Selections
+  Edited by RALPH M. EATON, late Assistant Professor of Philosophy,
+  Harvard University
+
+  HEGEL: Selections
+  Edited by JACOB LOEWENBERG, Professor of Philosophy, University
+  of California
+
+  HOBBES: Selections
+  Edited by FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE, Johnsonian Professor
+  of Philosophy, Columbia University
+
+  HUME: Selections
+  Edited by CHARLES W. HENDEL, JR., Professor of Philosophy, McGill
+  University
+
+  KANT: Selections
+  Edited by THEODORE M. GREENE, Associate Professor of Philosophy,
+  Princeton University
+
+  LOCKE: Selections
+  Edited by STERLING P. LAMPRECHT, Professor of Philosophy, Amherst
+  College
+
+  PLATO: The Republic
+  With an introduction by C. M. BAKEWELL, Professor of Philosophy, Yale
+  University
+
+  PLATO: Selections
+  Edited by RAPHAEL DEMOS, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Harvard
+  University
+
+  SCHOPENHAUER: Selections
+  Edited by DEWITT H. PARKER, Professor of Philosophy, University of
+  Michigan
+
+  SPINOZA: Selections
+  Edited by JOHN D. WILD, Instructor in Philosophy, Harvard University
+
+  MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
+  Edited by RICHARD MCKEON, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Columbia
+  University
+
+
+FRENCH SERIES
+
+  =Editor, Horatio Smith=
+  _Professor of French Language and Literature, Brown University_
+
+  BALZAC: Le Père Goriot
+  With an introduction by HORATIO SMITH, Brown University
+
+  CORNEILLE: Le Cid, Horace, Polyeucte, Le Menteur
+  Edited by C. H. C. WRIGHT, Professor of French Language and
+  Literature, Harvard University
+
+  FLAUBERT: Madame Bovary
+  With an introduction by CHRISTIAN GAUSS, Dean of the College,
+  Princeton University
+
+  MADAME DE LA FAYETTE: La Princesse de Clèves
+  With an introduction by H. ASHTON, Professor of French Language and
+  Literature, University of British Columbia
+
+  MOLIÈRE: Les Précieuses Ridicules, Le Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope
+  Edited by WILLIAM A. NITZE and HILDA L. NORMAN, University of Chicago
+
+  PRÉVOST: Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut
+  With an introduction by LOUIS LANDRÉ, Associate Professor of French,
+  Brown University
+
+  RACINE: Andromaque, Britannicus, Phèdre
+  Edited by H. CARRINGTON LANCASTER, Professor of French Literature,
+  Johns Hopkins University, and EDMOND A. MÉRAS, Professor of French
+  Literature, Adelphi College
+
+  GEORGE SAND: Indiana
+  With an introduction by HERMANN H. THORNTON, Associate Professor of
+  French and Italian, Oberlin College
+
+  STENDHAL: Le Rouge et le Noir
+  With an introduction by PAUL HAZARD, Collège de France
+
+  VOLTAIRE: Candide and Other Philosophical Tales
+  Edited by MORRIS BISHOP, Assistant Professor of the Romance Languages
+  and Literature, Cornell University
+
+  FRENCH ROMANTIC PLAYS: Dumas's "Antony," Hugo's "Hernani"
+  and "Ruy Blas," Vigny's "Chatterton," Musset's "On ne badine pas
+  avec l'amour."
+  Edited by W. W. COMFORT, President, Haverford College
+
+  FRENCH ROMANTIC PROSE
+  Edited by W. W. COMFORT, President, Haverford College
+
+  FOUR FRENCH COMEDIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: Lesage's
+  "Turcaret," Marivaux's "Le jeu de l'amour et du hasard,"
+  Sedaine's "Le philosophe sans le savoir," Beaumarchais's "Le
+  barbier de Séville"
+  Edited by CASIMIR D. ZDANOWICZ, Professor of French, University of
+  Wisconsin
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+1. Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
+
+2. Passages in bold are indicated by =.
+
+3. Other than the corrections listed below, printer's inconsistencies
+in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation usage have been retained:
+
+  Pg. 3 "Feveral" corrected to "Feverel" (Hippias Feverel)
+  Pg. 25 "run" corrected to "rung" (bell was rung)
+  Pg. 38 "pursuade" corrected to "persuade" (persuade her to disrobe)
+  Pg. 44 "Said" corrected to "said" (coward?" said)
+  Pg. 52 "Feveral" corrected to "Feverel" (a Feverel asking this)
+  Pg. 75 "Parliment" corrected to "Parliament" (hero of our Parliament,)
+  Pg. 119 "agree" corrected to "agrees" (it agrees with me)
+  Pg. 455 "sparating" corrected to "separating" (in separating)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith
+
+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 Ordeal of Richard Feverel
+       A History of a Father and Son
+
+Author: George Meredith
+
+Editor: Frank W. Chandler
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2011 [EBook #34858]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Dianne Nolan, Louise Setzer and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3>THE MODERN<br />
+STUDENT'S LIBRARY</h3>
+
+<p class='center'>EACH VOLUME EDITED BY A LEADING<br />
+AMERICAN AUTHORITY</p>
+
+<p>This series is composed of such works as
+are conspicuous in the province of literature
+for their enduring influence. Every volume
+is recognized as essential to a liberal education
+and will tend to infuse a love for true
+literature and an appreciation of the qualities
+which cause it to endure.</p>
+
+<p class='center'><i>A descriptive list of the volumes published in
+this series appears in the last pages
+of this volume</i></p>
+
+<h4>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h4><i>THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY</i></h4>
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL</h1>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h1>THE ORDEAL</h1>
+<h3>OF</h3>
+<h1>RICHARD FEVEREL</h1>
+<h3>A HISTORY OF A FATHER AND SON</h3>
+<h4>BY</h4>
+<h2>GEORGE MEREDITH</h2>
+
+<h5>EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION</h5>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+<h3>FRANK W. CHANDLER</h3>
+<h6>PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND DEAN OF THE<br />
+COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI</h6>
+
+<h2>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h2>
+<p class='center'>NEW YORK&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;     CHICAGO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;     BOSTON&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;     ATLANTA<br />
+&nbsp;       SAN FRANCISCO&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;              DALLAS<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1896, 1917, by</span><br />
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS<br />
+Printed in the United States of America</h4>
+
+<h5><i>All rights reserved. No part of this book<br />
+may be reproduced in any form without<br />
+the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons</i></h5>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<div class="center">
+<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left' colspan='2'>CHAPTER</td><td align="right">PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">I.</td><td align="left">THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">II.</td><td align="left">SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">III.</td><td align="left">THE MAGIAN CONFLICT</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">IV.</td><td align="left">ARSON</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">V.</td><td align="left">ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VI.</td><td align="left">JUVENILE STRATAGEMS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_35">35</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VII.</td><td align="left">DAPHNE'S BOWER</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td><td align="left">THE BITTER CUP</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">IX.</td><td align="left">A FINE DISTINCTION</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">X.</td><td align="left">RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS THE OCCASION OF AN APHORISM</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XI.</td><td align="left">IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN A LETTER</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XII.</td><td align="left">THE BLOSSOMING SEASON</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIII.</td><td align="left"> THE MAGNETIC AGE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIV.</td><td align="left">AN ATTRACTION</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XV.</td><td align="left">FERDINAND AND MIRANDA</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_97">97</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVI.</td><td align="left">UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_106">106</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVII.</td><td align="left">GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVIII.</td><td align="left">THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS SPECIAL PLEA</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIX.</td><td align="left"> A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY WHISTLE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XX.</td><td align="left"> CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON BY THE HERO</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXI.</td><td align="left">RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXII.</td><td align="left"> INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIII.</td><td align="left"> CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIV.</td><td align="left"> OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXV.</td><td align="left"> IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_180">180</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXVI.</td><td align="left"> RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXVII.</td><td align="left"> CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXVIII.</td><td align="left"> RELATES HOW PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE CONDUCTED UNDER THE APRIL OF LOVERS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_216">216</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIX.</td><td align="left"> IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE OF THE FIRST</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXX.</td><td align="left"> CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_246">246</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXI.</td><td align="left"> THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_255">255</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXII.</td><td align="left"> PROCESSION OF THE CAKE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXIII.</td><td align="left"> NURSING THE DEVIL</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXIV.</td><td align="left"> CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXV.</td><td align="left"> CLARE'S MARRIAGE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_310">310</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXVI.</td><td align="left"> A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_325">325</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXVII.</td><td align="left"> MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_341">341</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXVIII.</td><td align="left">AN ENCHANTRESS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXXIX.</td><td align="left"> THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON: A BERRY TO THE RESCUE!</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_376">376</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XL.</td><td align="left"> CLARE'S DIARY</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_392">392</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XLI.</td><td align="left"> AUSTIN RETURNS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_409">409</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XLII.</td><td align="left"> NATURE SPEAKS</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_420">420</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XLIII.</td><td align="left"> AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_429">429</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XLIV.</td><td align="left"> THE LAST SCENE</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_437">437</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XLV.</td><td align="left"> LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_454">454</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>INTRODUCTION</h2>
+
+
+<h4>I</h4>
+
+<p>Among the Victorian novelists, George Meredith occupies
+a place apart. Unlike Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot, he
+appeals to a select few. Those who appreciate him are folk
+of his own temper&mdash;cultivated, intellectual, urbane. They
+are persons of taste and discernment. They are generally
+the middle-aged rather than the young. They are those
+who, aloof and contemplative, relish the comedy of life,
+rather than those who throw themselves whole-heartedly into
+the game. It is not to be marvelled at, therefore, that Meredith
+should have won his way slowly, or that recognition,
+when it came, should have rendered his position unique and
+secure.</p>
+
+<p>Meredith's career as a writer of prose was opened, in 1856,
+with <i>The Shaving of Shagpat</i>, an experiment in fantastic Oriental
+romance. In the following year, he exploited German
+romance less successfully in <i>Farina, a Legend of Cologne</i>.
+Having thus trained his 'prentice hand, he passed to mastery
+of his craft in <i>The Ordeal of Richard Feverel</i>, published in
+1859. This was his first modern novel, and probably his
+best. It showed him, not only expert in the use of language
+and original in literary technic, but distinguished, also, as an
+observer of the world and an analyst of character. The
+psychological novel of George Eliot, just emerging, found
+here a rival even more subtle. <i>Adam Bede</i>, a twin-birth
+with <i>Feverel</i>, although detailed in its exploration of motive
+and feeling, demanded less mental effort on the part of its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span>
+readers; it accordingly attracted much greater attention.
+Whereas it was often reprinted, no second edition of <i>Feverel</i>
+came from the press for nearly two decades.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, Meredith had continued his course undeterred
+by lack of popular approval, writing six other
+novels before the appearance, in 1879, of <i>The Egoist</i>&mdash;most
+characteristic of all. Two novels in particular reflected his
+experience of Italy, gained while acting there as war correspondent
+in 1866. The first was <i>Emilia in England</i> (1864),
+later rechristened <i>Sandra Belloni</i>. The second was its sequel
+<i>Vittoria</i> (1867). The other works of the period comprise
+the semi-farcical <i>Evan Harrington</i> (1861); the serious
+<i>Rhoda Fleming</i> (1865); the clever <i>Harry Richmond</i> (1870-71);
+and Meredith's favorite&mdash;<i>Beauchamp's Career</i> (1874-75).
+It is <i>The Egoist</i>, however, that most completely illustrates
+its author's conception of the novel of types. In this work,
+with rare skill and comic <i>élan</i>, if with a persistency a little
+wearisome, he lays bare the secrets of a heart and intellect
+thoroughly self-centered, proceeding so obviously from the
+desire to make out a case that he is likely to displease those
+who value story, yet satisfying those who enjoy brilliant
+comment on character and a study of its intricacies.</p>
+
+<p>In his later novels, Meredith never forgot the typical in
+attending to the particular, even though <i>The Tragic Comedians</i>
+(1880) reflected incidents in the life of the socialist
+leader Lassalle, and <i>Diana of the Crossways</i> (1885) certain
+traits of Sheridan's granddaughter, Mrs. Norton. <i>One of
+Our Conquerors</i> (1891), <i>Lord Ormont and his Aminta</i> (1894),
+and <i>The Amazing Marriage</i> (1895) bring to a close the catalogue
+of Meredith's fiction, except for the unfinished <i>Celt and
+Saxon</i> published after his death.</p>
+
+<p>Of Meredith as a poet this is not the place to speak. Suffice
+it to say that he did his first writing in verse, issuing a
+volume when twenty-three, and several others later in life,
+the best known being his sequence of irregular sonnets entitled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span>
+<i>Modern Love</i> (1867). His poetry, like his prose, is
+rich in content but difficult at times by reason of its crabbed
+and meticulous expression&mdash;a trait due to no obscurity of
+thought or lack of feeling, but rather to the desire to compress
+much meaning within a cryptic phrase. As a playwright,
+Meredith attempted comedy in The <i>Sentimentalists</i>,
+which was acted posthumously. As an essayist, he fathered
+a memorable discussion of the comic spirit and its uses, made
+concrete in his novels.</p>
+
+<p>Meredith's life was comparatively uneventful. He was
+born in 1828 at Portsmouth, the son of a naval outfitter.
+Early left an orphan, he was educated in Germany, and, returning
+to England, studied law, experimented in journalism,
+and fell in with a group of intellectuals led by Frederic Harrison
+and John Morley. He became literary adviser to the
+publishers Chapman and Hall; he edited for a short period
+<i>The Fortnightly Review</i>, and served abroad as correspondent
+for <i>The Morning Post</i>. But most of his maturity was passed
+in rural retirement in Surrey. He was twice married, at
+first unhappily to a daughter of the novelist, Thomas Love
+Peacock, and then more fortunately to a Miss Vulliamy, who
+bore him two children. His fame grew very slowly. Not
+until the age of sixty was he recognized as among the chief
+English novelists. But at the time of his death, in 1909, he
+was admittedly the foremost man of letters in Great Britain.</p>
+
+
+<h4>II</h4>
+
+<p>Meredith is first and last an intellectualist. Hence his
+preference for the psychological novel, for the novel of types,
+for the novel that is half essay, for the novel of distinctive
+style. Hence, also, his conception of the importance for
+the novelist of comedy and the comic spirit. Comedy, according
+to Meredith, is embodied mind, and its function is
+to expose violations of rational law. It is common sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span>
+chastising with the laughter of reason aberrations from the
+sensible. Comedy measures individual shortcomings by the
+social norm. It results from "the broad Alpine survey of
+the spirit born of our united social intelligence." It is "a
+game played to throw reflections upon social life, and it deals
+with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men and
+women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world,
+no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the
+representation convincing." Comedy is thus refined rather
+than Rabelaisian; it is impartial rather than sentimental.
+It relies upon creating ideal figures that epitomize mankind
+in certain follies. It is typical and general in character,
+whereas tragedy is concerned primarily with the individual.</p>
+
+<p>"The comic spirit conceives a definite situation for a number
+of characters, and rejects all accessories in the exclusive
+pursuit of them and their speech." On the stage, the great
+master of such comedy is Molière, and in the novel, we might
+add, Meredith. Meredith's confession of faith in the efficacy
+of the comic spirit is given in the prelude to <i>The Egoist</i>, and
+in these words of his famous <i>Essay</i>: "If you believe that our
+civilization is founded in common-sense, you will, when contemplating
+men, discern a Spirit overhead.... It has the
+sage's brows, and the sunny malice of a faun lurks at the
+corners of the half-closed lips.... Its common aspect is
+one of unsolicitous observation.... Men's future upon
+earth does not attract it; their honesty and shapeliness in
+the present does; and whenever they wax out of proportion,
+overblown...; whenever they offend sound reason, fair
+justice; are false in humility or mined with conceit,... the
+Spirit overhead will look humanly malign and cast an oblique
+light on them, followed by volleys of silvery laughter. That
+is the Comic Spirit."</p>
+
+<p>Unquestionably it is by the aid of this spirit that Meredith
+writes his novels, even including such a tragedy from
+the victim's point of view as <i>Richard Feverel</i>. For Meredith<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span>
+is theoretic or nothing. Conceiving of a folly to be displayed
+and made ridiculous, he invents persons and situations
+best to accomplish his purpose. He is, therefore, no
+mere realist examining the confused detail of actual life "by
+the watchmaker's eye in luminous rings eruptive of the infinitesimal."
+He is rather an idealist, who holds it to be
+the business of art to render life in quintessence. The artist
+must both simplify and elaborate. First, he must simplify
+experience into typical deeds and persons, eliminating from
+his scheme the merely accidental and particular. Second,
+he must elaborate his simplification, presenting it through
+representative concrete instances that it may lose the aspect
+of an abstract formula and acquire emotional significance.
+Meredith is thus an intellectualist engaged in playing a game
+of literary chess. He has made the pattern on his board
+and designed the pieces, and he moves them according to
+a pre-arranged plan. Just as his Sir Austin seeks to enact
+the rôle of Providence in determining the career of Richard
+Feverel, so Meredith plays Providence to his personages,
+and, more than most novelists, he visibly controls their fate.</p>
+
+<p>Since Meredith's folk are etherealized specimens of humanity
+set and kept in motion by their creator, it is his attitude
+toward them that interests us quite as much as their
+actions. Meredith's attitude is determined by his comic
+outlook upon life. Unswayed by the petty prejudices of
+his people, he surveys them with Olympian serenity, aware
+of a hundred impulses and errors in their conduct that will
+lead to conclusions undreamt of by themselves but clearly
+foreseen by the novelist and his readers. From a rarer atmosphere
+than that in which his people move, Meredith
+looks down upon their whimsies and their deeds with a
+smile of calm omniscience.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, he separates himself from them by a wall of
+clever comment, sometimes sparkling and ironical, sometimes
+soberly extended to the proportions of an essay. Indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span>
+his novels are sometimes one-third narrative and two-thirds
+essay, with the dissertational manner infecting the
+narrative parts incurably. No one, I suppose, would continue
+reading <i>The Egoist</i> merely from interest in its plot.
+To enjoy it one must relish inspecting at leisure the artificial
+attitudes of artificial people and listening, not merely to their
+smart chatter, but to the smarter discourse of the master of
+the puppets, who, while making them dance, lectures for the
+edification of the elect. Thus Meredith, having shown his
+hero touched by jealousy, lapses into a little essay on the
+theme. "Remember the poets upon Jealousy," he writes.
+"It is to be haunted in the heaven of two by a Third; preceded
+or succeeded, therefore surrounded, embraced, hugged
+by this infernal Third; it is love's bed of burning marl; to
+see and taste the withering Third in the bosom of sweetness;
+to be dragged through the past and find the fair Eden of it
+sulphurous; to be dragged to the gates of the future and
+glory to behold them blood; to adore the bitter creature
+trebly and with treble power to clutch her by the windpipe;
+it is to be cheated, derided, shamed, and abject and supplicating,
+and consciously demoniacal in treacherousness, and
+victoriously self-justified in revenge." Needless to say, generalizations
+of this sort, intruding upon the narrative at
+every turn, choke its progress and prove distracting.</p>
+
+<p>Almost equally distracting is Meredith's predilection for
+resorting to the methods of comedy while writing fiction.
+As W. C. Brownell has put it; "The necessities of comedy,
+the irruption of new characters, their disappearance after
+they have done their turn, expectation balked by shifting
+situations, the frequent postponement of the dénouement
+when it particularly impends, and the alleviation of impatience
+by a succession of subordinate climaxes&mdash;all the machinery
+of the stage, in fact&mdash;impair the narrative."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>III</h4>
+
+<p>But if the tricks of the essayist and the playwright are
+freely borrowed by Meredith, sometimes to his disadvantage
+and to ours, they are nevertheless in a measure appropriate
+to the kind of fiction he affects. For Meredith is a
+psychological novelist. He is bent upon displaying the inward
+process of the mind. As Richard Le Galliene has said
+of him: "The passion of his genius is ... the tracing of the
+elemental in the complex; the registration of the infinitesimal
+vibrations of first causes, the tracking in human life
+of the shadowiest trail of primal instinct, the hairbreadth
+measurement of subtle psychological tangents: and the embodiment
+of these results in artistic form." Meredith, in
+<i>Richard Feverel</i>, declares that for the novel "An audience
+will come to whom it will be given to see the elementary
+machinery at work.... To them nothing will be trivial....
+They will see the links of things as they pass, and
+wonder not, as foolish people now do, that this great matter
+came out of that small one." Certainly Meredith's efforts
+have tended to realize that time. But the psychology of
+his characters is general rather than individual. You are
+conscious that these minds are typical, or even symbolic.
+They belong to an imaginary and rational world treated
+as though it were real.</p>
+
+<p>An incidental passage in <i>Beauchamp's Career</i> shows that
+Meredith has understood both his limitations and his peculiar
+ability. "My way," he writes, "is like a Rhone island
+in the summer drought, stony, unattractive, and difficult
+between the two forceful streams of the unreal and the over-real
+which delight mankind&mdash;honour to the conjurors! My
+people conquer nothing, win none! they are actual yet uncommon.
+It is the clockwork of the brain that they are directed
+to set in motion, and&mdash;poor troop of actors to vacant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[Pg xvi]</a></span>
+benches!&mdash;the conscience residing in thoughtfulness which
+they would appeal to; and if you are there impervious to
+them we are lost."</p>
+
+<p>In Meredith's novels, which indeed reveal in operation
+"the clockwork of the brain," the author has taken care still
+further to intellectualize his appeal by means of his style.
+His technic holds attention; he is an artificer of style, and,
+as such, he writes a style of artifice. He seeks to express
+himself with novelty and distinction. If a boy runs, Meredith
+speaks of him as being seen to bound "and taking a
+lift of arms, fly aloft, clapping heels." If a woman runs,
+Meredith writes: "She was fleet; she ran as though a hundred
+little feet were bearing her onward smooth as water
+over the lawn and the sweeps of grass of the park, so swiftly
+did the hidden pair multiply one another to speed her....
+Suddenly her flight wound to an end in a dozen twittering
+steps, and she sank." If a heroine of eighteen would take
+leave of her admirer, she says: "We have met. It is more
+than I have merited. We part. In mercy let it be forever.
+Oh, terrible word! Coined by the passions of our youth,
+it comes to us for our sole riches when we are bankrupt of
+earthly treasures, and is the passport given by Abnegation
+unto Woe that prays to quit this probationary sphere."</p>
+
+<p>Fancy any human being&mdash;least of all a girl&mdash;discoursing
+thus! But, no matter how simple a thought or action, Meredith
+sends it forth arrayed in finer gear than Solomon in all
+his glory. It is beribboned with metaphor and personification;
+it is beflounced with epigram and allegory. It is truth
+rendered more precious, as the medieval critics advised,
+by being wrapped in sayings not to be lightly understood
+by the vulgar. So, when a lover admires the chasteness of
+his lady, Meredith remarks: "He saw the Goddess Modesty
+guarding Purity; and one would be bold to say that he did not
+hear the precepts, Purity's aged grannams maternal and paternal,
+cawing approval of her over their munching gums."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But Meredith's gift of phrase and his knack of knocking
+out epigrams, and his mastery over metaphor and lyrical
+description cannot be too highly commended. Diana is
+"wind-blown but ascending." When Redworth sees her
+kindling a fire, "a little mouse of a thought scampered out
+of one of the chambers of his head and darted along the passages,
+fetching a sweat to his brows." After Sandra's singing,
+the stillness settled back again "like one folding up a
+precious jewel." A dull professor "pores over a little inexactitude
+in phrases and pecks at it like a domestic fowl."
+Of one who has ceased to love we hear that "the passion in
+her was like a place of waves evaporated to a crust of salt."
+Of a lady's letter we learn that it "flourished with light
+strokes all over, like a field of the bearded barley." Of a
+heroine we are told that: "She was not of the creatures who
+are excited by an atmosphere of excitement; she took it
+as the nymph of the stream her native wave, and swam on
+the flood with expansive languor, happy to have the master
+passions about her; one or two of which her dainty hand
+caressed fearless of a sting; the lady patted them as her
+swans." There is brilliant illumination in such comparisons,
+a light shed instantaneously upon traits and mental
+experiences otherwise not to be revealed. When the Egoist
+would affectionately approach his shrinking Clara, nothing
+could better deliver the situation than Meredith's simile:
+"The gulf of a caress hove in view like an enormous billow
+hollowing under the curled ridge. She stooped to a buttercup;
+the monster swept by."</p>
+
+<p>It is felicity in the use of rhetorical figure that enables
+Meredith to characterize the style of a Carlyle as, "resembling
+either early architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose
+and rough it seemed; a wind-in-the-orchard style, that tumbled
+down here and there an appreciable fruit with uncouth
+bluster; sentences without commencement running
+to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against a sea wall,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span>
+learned dictionary words giving a hand to street slang, and
+accents falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving
+clouds; all the pages in a breeze, the whole book producing
+a kind of electrical agitation in the mind and the
+joints." It is Meredith's gift for phrase that enables him
+to paint those wonderful backgrounds for action which are
+the despair of common writers. Sometimes the scenes are
+sketched in with but a touch or two of suggestion. So,
+when Richard Feverel and Lucy spend an evening afloat,
+Meredith writes: "Hanging between two heavens on the
+lake: floating to her voice: the moon stepping over and
+through white shoals of soft high clouds above and below:
+floating to her voice&mdash;no other breath abroad! His soul
+went out of his body as he listened." Or, when Richard, in
+gay company, passes a night at Richmond, Meredith says
+simply: "Silver was seen far out on Thames. The wine
+ebbed, and the laughter. Sentiment and cigars took up the
+wondrous tale."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the description is long and minute, but always
+it is beautifully fresh. Thus the coming of dawn is pictured
+in <i>The Amazing Marriage</i>: "The smell of rock-waters
+and roots of herb and moss grew keen; air became a wine
+that raised the breast high to drink it; an uplifting coolness
+pervaded the heights.... The plumes of cloud now slowly
+entered into the lofty arch of dawn and melted from brown
+to purple black.... The armies of the young sunrise in
+mountain-lands neighbouring the plains, vast shadows, were
+marching over woods and meads, black against the edge of
+golden; and great heights were cut with them, and bounding
+waters took the leap in a silvery radiance to gloom; the
+bright and dark-banded valleys were like night and morning
+taking hands down the sweep of their rivers."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xix" id="Page_xix">[Pg xix]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h4>IV</h4>
+
+<p>Meredith's style receives its final and distinctive flavor,
+however, from the liberal dash of aphorism with which his
+books are sprinkled. Often an epigram will turn upon some
+metaphor. Such is the statement that: "A bone in a boy's
+mind for him to gnaw and worry corrects the vagrancies and
+promotes the healthy activities, whether there be marrow
+in it or not," or the exclamation: "Who are not fools to be
+set spinning, if we choose to whip them with their vanity!
+It is the consolation of the great to watch them spin." Such,
+too, is the reflection that: "Most of the people one has at
+table are drums. A rub-a-dub-dub on them is the only way
+to get a sound. When they can be persuaded to do it upon
+one another, they call it conversation." More frequently,
+the epigram is a neat generalization left abstract, as for example:
+"Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is
+answered"; "Cynics are only happy in making the world
+as barren to others as they have made it for themselves";
+"Fools run jabbering of the irony of fate to escape the annoyance
+of tracing the causes"; "Expediency is man's wisdom;
+doing right is God's"; "Women cannot repose on a
+man who is not positive; nor have they much gratification
+in confounding him"; "Convictions are generally first impressions
+sealed with later prejudices"; "The hero of two
+women must die and be wept over in common before they
+can appreciate one another."</p>
+
+<p>A thousand such jewels glitter in the richly wrought tapestry
+of Meredith's style. That he painstakingly inserted
+them and wove this fabric to attract attention by its singularity
+and beauty, he cheerfully admits in a passage of
+<i>Emilia in England</i>. "The point to be considered," he there
+remarks, "is whether fiction demands a perfectly smooth
+surface. Undoubtedly a scientific work does, and a philosophical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xx" id="Page_xx">[Pg xx]</a></span>
+work should. When we ask for facts simply we
+feel the intrusion of style. Of fiction it is a part. In the
+one case the classical robe, in the other any medieval phantasy
+of clothing."</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty with a style so artificial and intellectualized
+is obvious. Meredith, according to Brownell, "flatters one's
+cleverness at first, but in the end he fatigues it." The perpetual
+crackle of aphorism and metaphor surprises, gratifies,
+and then wearies; for a writer who will never say a
+plain thing plainly, not only keeps his readers under strain,
+but soon seems himself to be straining. Nowhere is this
+more evident than in Meredith's predilection for repeating
+a single happy phrase such as the epithet "rogue in porcelain"
+applied to a heroine. Since the phrase tickles his
+fancy, he plays with it, drops it, picks it up, mumbles it over
+and over as a dog might a bone, and through chapter after
+chapter is ready at any pretext to run round and round
+with it barking. Despite his assiduous striving for novelty,
+therefore, Meredith is often tedious, an effect induced, not
+merely by his style (whether repetitious or gasping after
+eccentricity), but also by his method. He is so intent upon
+weaving his commentary upon every speech and action
+that the occasion of the commentary is smothered. A
+phrase becomes the text of a sermon, a gesture the excuse
+for paragraphs of oblique reflection. Thus he forfeits the
+advantage of downright sincerity and of forthright progress,
+and teases interest out of all patience.</p>
+
+
+<h4>V</h4>
+
+<p>Since Meredith is an intellectualist, we naturally ask
+what may be his philosophy. Unlike Ibsen or Browning,
+he preaches no doctrine. He offers no explicit theory of
+life. Nor does he, like Dickens or Reade or Brieux, advocate
+any special reform. He is never a propagandist. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxi" id="Page_xxi">[Pg xxi]</a></span>
+have lamented this fact; more have seen in it an argument
+for his universality and permanence. Though he fight no
+battles for specific causes, his influence is arrayed in general
+against certain tendencies that he disapproves and would
+laugh to defeat. Egoism, sentimentalism, hypocrisy, are
+fair game for his comedy. As an intellectualist he dislikes
+and distrusts excess of emotion&mdash;feeling indulged for its own
+sake. "Sentimentalists," he declares, "are they who seek
+to enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a
+thing done."</p>
+
+<p>Well might Mrs. Carlyle complain that Meredith's work
+lacked tears. That it does so he would be the first to admit,
+for he questions the worth of pathos for any true captain
+of his soul. "Pathos is a tide; often it carries the awakener
+of it off his feet," Meredith writes. "We cannot quite preserve
+our dignity when we stoop to the work of calling forth
+tears. Moses had probably to take a nimble jump away
+from the rock after that venerable lawgiver had knocked
+the water out of it." So Meredith sacrifices passion to
+analysis. His heroes and heroines rarely love so simply
+and so ardently as do Richard and Lucy; but the affection
+of even this delectable pair is modified in presentation by
+the playful cynicism of the narrator of their story. On the
+other hand, it is futile to cavil at Meredith or any other
+artist for lacking such qualities as are incompatible with
+those he most notably possesses. You cannot expect abandon
+of passion in the characters of a novelist whose forte is
+detachment and sublimated common sense. Your intellectualist
+is not to be blamed if he fails to write as a sentimentalist.</p>
+
+<p>Meredith's positive philosophy has been formulated by
+Elmer J. Bailey in terms that may be briefly paraphrased:
+Meredith thinks of man as torn between Nature and Circumstance.
+By Nature is meant the world of instinct, of
+healthy normal impulse. By Circumstance is meant the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxii" id="Page_xxii">[Pg xxii]</a></span>
+world of artificial laws erected by society as the machinery
+for its conduct and control. Nature is spontaneous; Circumstance
+is traditional. Man may err by allowing to
+either undue dominance. His only safety lies in the use of
+his reason which will enable him to keep both Nature and
+Circumstance in proper equipoise. And the most serviceable
+instrument of reason for detecting the follies of convention
+or of feeling is the comic spirit. Without this spirit
+we are not truly intellectual, for, as Meredith has said:
+"Not to have a sympathy with the playful mind is not to
+have a mind." Let us possess mind, he seems to urge, and
+through mind cultivate the soul. In <i>The Tragic Comedians</i>
+he remarks: "It is the soul which does things in life&mdash;the
+rest is vapor.... Action means life to the soul as to the
+body.... Compromise is virtual death; it is the pact between
+cowardice and comfort, under the title of expediency.
+So do we gather dead matter about us. So are we gradually
+self-stifled, corrupt. The war with evil in every form
+must be incessant; we cannot have peace." The serious
+note here sounded may be heard again in his letter to a friend,
+Mrs. Gilman. There Meredith says: "I have written always
+with the perception that there is no life but of the
+spirit; that the concrete is the shadowy; yet that the way
+to spiritual life lies in the complete unfolding of the creature,
+not in the nipping of his passions. An outrage to
+nature helps to extinguish his light."</p>
+
+
+<h4>VI</h4>
+
+<p>Just such an outrage to nature perpetrated with the best
+intentions, but in blind folly, is the subject of Meredith's
+novel, <i>The Ordeal of Richard Feverel</i>. A dogmatic and conventional
+father endeavors to determine his son's life according
+to an infallible system of parental dictation. Instead
+of allowing the boy to develop naturally from within,
+Sir Austin seeks to mould him absolutely from without.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiii" id="Page_xxiii">[Pg xxiii]</a></span>
+The failure of this experiment makes the story. The first
+eleven chapters are in a sense introductory. They present
+to the reader the members of the Feverel family and describe
+with gusto a poaching escapade of Richard's youth.
+From this first ordeal he emerges triumphant by obeying
+the impulse of his heart to make frank confession, despite
+his father's endeavor to patch up the matter by plotting.
+Then, in the next twenty chapters, follows the account of
+Richard's passion for the lovely Lucy and of the machinations
+of those who would nip it in the bud. All these checks
+are for the moment overcome when Richard, after having
+suffered separation from Lucy, is again thrown with her by
+chance and impulsively marries her.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapters next ensuing Sir Austin, instead of gracefully
+accepting defeat, masks and crushes his emotions and
+permits his Mephistophelian nephew, the cynical Adrian,
+to scheme for Richard's alienation from his bride. Richard
+is lured away and succumbs to the spell of a wicked enchantress
+whom at first he has thought to reform; and then,
+shamed and distraught, he wanders abroad, seeking a purge
+for his sin. Meanwhile, the deserted wife, at Adrian's instigation,
+has been assailed by a villain, the husband of
+Richard's enchantress. Issuing unscathed from her ordeal,
+Lucy is tardily accepted by the complacent Sir Austin and
+received, with her child, at his house. Since Richard has
+at length achieved self-mastery and has resolved to return
+and confess to his wife, and plead for her grace, a general
+reconciliation seems imminent. But the novelist will not
+allow his tale to end happily lest its moral be frustrate. Accordingly,
+although Richard returns for an hour to be freely
+forgiven by Lucy, he dashes away forthwith, despite her entreaties,
+to duel with her persecutor. Joy, even yet, might
+emerge from disaster, since Richard escapes from the duel
+with only a wound, but the author continues implacable.
+His heroine, in nursing her husband, succumbs to a strain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxiv" id="Page_xxiv">[Pg xxiv]</a></span>
+long protracted, and Richard, though recovered in body, is
+left but a wreck of his former self. Such is the desolating
+outcome of attempting to regulate healthy human loves by
+a worldly system.</p>
+
+<p>What is tragic for hero and heroine is gravely comic to
+the eye of the intellectualist surveying the folly of men from
+a height far above the troubled waves of their passion. For
+Meredith, Sir Austin incarnates a comic error. His story
+is the comedy of one who theorizes at length upon life, but
+utterly fails to deal with it practically. Of course Sir Austin
+takes no blame to himself. It is useless, he reflects, "to
+base any system on a human being," even though this is
+precisely what he has done. And when Richard is to return
+to his wife, and Sir Austin has at last grown kind to her, we
+hear that: "He could now admit that instinct had so far
+beaten science; for, as Richard was coming, as all were to
+be happy, his wisdom embraced them all paternally as the
+author of their happiness." Of Sir Austin, Meredith remarks:
+"He had experimented on humanity in the person
+of the son he loved as his life, and at once, when the experiment
+appeared to have failed, all humanity's failings fell on
+the shoulders of his son." The reader's inevitable reaction
+to the novel is expressed by Lady Blandish: "Oh! how sick
+I am of theories and systems and the pretensions of men!...
+I shall hate the name of science till the day I die.
+Give me nothing but commonplace, unpretending people!"</p>
+
+<p>That the plot of <i>Richard Feverel</i> unduly tantalizes goes
+without saying. The author keeps his hero and heroine
+apart by main force. Granting that Richard is the victim
+of rascals, as well as of a ridiculous system, his easy desertion
+of the wife whom he loves and his continued separation
+from her seem to lie in Meredith's will rather than in that
+of his hero. Richard's yielding to Mrs. Mount, described
+with remarkable power, is more natural, but his mooning
+about Germany while Lucy is left to struggle alone is as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxv" id="Page_xxv">[Pg xxv]</a></span>
+exasperating as her failure to apprise him of the fact that
+she is to bear him a child. Splendid as is the last meeting
+of Richard and Lucy, declared by Stevenson to be "the
+strongest scene since Shakespeare in the English tongue,"
+it forfeits something of greatness because of perversity.
+More natural is the faint sub-plot intended to echo the central
+theme of the book in its story of Clare's hopeless love
+for Richard, at first reciprocated, and then blocked by Sir
+Austin and the girl's mother.</p>
+
+
+<h4>VII</h4>
+
+<p>In characterization, this novel excels. Its folk are persons
+and not alone types. Chief of the Feverel clan is Richard's
+father, Sir Austin, wounded by the infidelity of his
+wife and his friend, yet an intellectual egoist, proud of his
+plans for ruling the family and equally proud of his epigrams.
+Given less fully are Richard's aunt, the worldly mother of
+Clare, and his uncles&mdash;the guardsman Algernon, who has
+lost a leg at cricket, and crochety Hippias, "the dyspepsy."
+Of Richard's cousins one is sympathetic, and the other is
+Satanic. The first, Austin Wentworth, lives in disgrace for
+having repaired a youthful indiscretion by marrying a housemaid.
+As for the second, Adrian Harley, "the Wise Youth,"
+he is Richard's tutor, whose heart has dropped to his stomach,
+a clever worldling and the contemner of honest passion, one
+of the most accomplished cynics of all literature. There
+are minor characters, too, but equally vital, from blunt
+Farmer Blaize and his son, and the disgruntled farm-hand
+Tom Bakewell, to Sir Austin's sentimental companion Lady
+Blandish, and Ripton, the faithful old dog.</p>
+
+<p>Of the women three stand to the fore&mdash;Lucy, Mrs. Mount,
+and Mrs. Berry. The adorable Lucy is a northern Juliet
+brought to sudden maturity by her passion for Richard.
+Beneath him in birth, she is more than his equal in manner
+and mind and spirit. Though shown only in glimpses, she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvi" id="Page_xxvi">[Pg xxvi]</a></span>
+is never less than entrancing. Mrs. Mount is the dashing
+temptress, a little worn and half-hearted until piqued by
+Richard's indifference into playing her game more earnestly,
+and then exerting all the fascinations of the wicked. Most
+original of the three is Lucy's vulgar befriender, Mrs. Berry,
+a lovable "old-black-satin bunch," as Meredith tags her,
+wise but irrelevant, aware of the sensual springs beneath our
+polite pretenses, a Juliet's nurse grown mellow. It is to be
+noted, however, that none of these characters is really dynamic,
+unless it be Mrs. Doria Forey, who suffers a change of
+heart after sacrificing that of her daughter, and Richard
+who somewhat alters under the stress of his ordeal.</p>
+
+<p>Subordinate to character, plot, and central idea, yet
+scarcely less effective in producing the total effect of the
+novel, are its setting, its style, and its author's point of
+view. Already Meredith's point of view has been defined
+as that of the writer of comedy. In the dinner scene at
+Richmond, for example, you are conscious of the author
+smiling apart upon callow Richard and Ripton caught in the
+snares of the demi-monde. It is Thackeray over again, letting
+us see the self-deception of Pendennis in his admiration
+of the Fotheringay. Sometimes, in this novel, Meredith
+apostrophizes his people, emitting lyrical exclamations of
+admiration or disgust at their conduct. More often, he remains
+aloof, though none the less present in spirit. Rarely
+does he here conform to Brownell's statement, more applicable
+to his later fictions, that: "He is not merely detached,
+he is obliterated. All he shows us of himself is his talent;
+his standpoint is to be divined."</p>
+
+<p>That which especially reveals the author's standpoint is
+what Professor Saintsbury, in referring to this novel, has
+termed its "style saturated with epigrammatic quality; and
+of strange ironic persiflage permeating thought, picture,
+and expression." The persiflage appears, above all, in the
+speeches of the saturnine Adrian.  As for the epigrams,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxvii" id="Page_xxvii">[Pg xxvii]</a></span>
+their number is justified in part by supposing them to come
+from Sir Austin's collection entitled "The Pilgrim's Scrip."
+They abound, however, in the speech of others and in the
+narrative proper. Typical spicings of style are the following:
+"To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half
+traversed the world is youth's foolishness"; "It is difficult
+for those who think very earnestly for their children to know
+when their children are thinking on their own account";
+"If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human
+being might almost impersonate Providence to another";
+"The ways of women, which are involution, and their practices,
+which are opposition, are generally best hit upon by
+guesswork and a bold word"; "The God of this world is in
+the machine, not out of it"; "Sentimentalism is a happy
+pastime and an important science to the timid, the idle, and
+the heartless; but a damning one to them who have anything
+to forfeit"; "The task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely
+seductive to good women. Dear to their tender
+hearts as old china is a bad man they are mending." Even
+illiterate Mrs. Berry talks in epigram, now on checked matrimony,
+which she holds to be as injurious as checked perspiration,
+and now on the wickedness of old people, which,
+she affirms, is the excuse for the wildness of young ones. "I
+think it's always the plan in a 'dielemmer,'" she says, "to
+pray God and walk forward." To Lucy, the bride, she
+gives this advice: "When the parlour fire gets low, put coals
+on the kitchen fire.... Don't neglect your cookery. Kissing
+don't last; cookery do."</p>
+
+<p>Aside from its aphorisms, the style of <i>Feverel</i> is essentially
+clever, but by no means so artificial as that of Meredith's
+later novels. If a stage direction seem occasionally over-elaborate,
+as: "Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced withdrawal,"
+others are felicitous, as: "At last Hippias perspired
+in conviction," or: "He set his sight hard at the blue ridges
+of the hills," or, of Ripton draining a bumper at a gulp: "The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xxviii" id="Page_xxviii">[Pg xxviii]</a></span>
+farthing rushlight of his reason leapt and expired. He tumbled
+to the sofa and there stretched." There are fine passages,
+too, of description, like those concerned with the boyish
+adventures of Richard and Ripton, the Ferdinand and
+Miranda meeting of hero and heroine, the temptation episode,
+and the storm in the German forest by night. "Up
+started the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the country
+at the foot of the hills to the bounding Rhine gleam, quiver,
+extinguished.... Lower down the abysses of air rolled
+the wrathful crash; then white thrusts of light were darted
+from the sky, and great curving ferns, seen steadfast in
+pallor a second, were supernaturally agitated and vanished.
+Then a shrilling song roused in the leaves and the herbage.
+Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier the
+deluge pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire
+of the earth." Admirable, also, are the mere hints of
+background given in a flashing phrase that conjures up the
+scene: "Look at those old elm branches! How they seem to
+mix among the stars!&mdash;glittering prints of winter."</p>
+
+<p>Taken all in all, <i>The Ordeal of Richard Feverel</i> may be reckoned
+as Meredith's masterpiece. "My old conviction grows
+stronger," writes Le Galliene, "that it will be <i>Richard Feverel</i>
+and perhaps no other of his novels ... that will keep his
+name alive in English literature." Certainly, Meredith has
+here allowed to his characters a charm of personality that
+later he tends to sacrifice in stressing their purely typical
+traits. He shows here a fire of sincerity rarely afterwards
+burning so brightly. He is less the mere essayist and more
+the lyric and dramatic tale-teller. He has set forth with
+skill the elements of a large problem, confirming the truth
+of Chesterton's remark that he combines subtlety with
+primal energy, and criticizes life without losing his appetite
+for it.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:right">
+<span class="smcap">Frank Wadleigh Chandler.</span><br /></p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><span class="smcap">University of Cincinnati.</span></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h1>THE ORDEAL OF<br />
+RICHARD FEVEREL</h1>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Some years ago a book was published under the title
+of "The Pilgrim's Scrip." It consisted of a selection of
+original aphorisms by an anonymous gentleman, who in
+this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to the world.</p>
+
+<p>He made no pretension to novelty. "Our new thoughts
+have thrilled dead bosoms," he wrote; by which avowal
+it may be seen that youth had manifestly gone from
+him, since he had ceased to be jealous of the ancients.
+There was a half-sigh floating through his pages for
+those days of intellectual coxcombry, when ideas come
+to us affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear to us
+they are ours alone, and no one else have they ever
+visited: and we believe them.</p>
+
+<p>For an example of his ideas of the sex he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized
+by Man."</p>
+
+<p>Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies
+by so monstrous a scorn of them.</p>
+
+<p>One adventurous person betook herself to the Heralds'
+College, and there ascertained that a Griffin between two
+Wheatsheaves, which stood on the title-page of the book,
+formed the crest of Sir Austin Absworthy Bearne Feverel,
+Baronet, of Raynham Abbey, in a certain Western county
+folding Thames: a man of wealth and honour, and a somewhat
+lamentable history.</p>
+
+<p>The outline of the baronet's story was by no means new.
+He had a wife, and he had a friend. His marriage was for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>
+love; his wife was a beauty; his friend was a sort of poet.
+His wife had his whole heart, and his friend all his confidence.
+When he selected Denzil Somers from among his
+college chums, it was not on account of any similarity of
+disposition between them, but from his intense worship of
+genius, which made him overlook the absence of principle
+in his associate for the sake of such brilliant promise.
+Denzil had a small patrimony to lead off with, and that he
+dissipated before he left college; henceforth he was dependent
+upon his admirer, with whom he lived, filling a
+nominal post of bailiff to the estates, and launching forth
+verse of some satiric and sentimental quality; for being
+inclined to vice, and occasionally, and in a quiet way,
+practising it, he was of course a sentimentalist and a
+satirist, entitled to lash the Age and complain of human
+nature. His earlier poems, published under the pseudonym
+of Diaper Sandoe, were so pure and bloodless in
+their love passages, and at the same time so biting in
+their moral tone, that his reputation was great among the
+virtuous, who form the larger portion of the English book-buying
+public. Election-seasons called him to ballad-poetry
+on behalf of the Tory party. Diaper possessed
+undoubted fluency, but did little, though Sir Austin
+was ever expecting much of him.</p>
+
+<p>A languishing, inexperienced woman, whose husband in
+mental and in moral stature is more than the ordinary
+height above her, and who, now that her first romantic
+admiration of his lofty bearing has worn off; and her fretful
+little refinements of taste and sentiment are not instinctively
+responded to, is thrown into no wholesome
+household collision with a fluent man, fluent in prose and
+rhyme. Lady Feverel, when she first entered on her
+duties at Raynham, was jealous of her husband's friend.
+By degrees she tolerated him. In time he touched his
+guitar in her chamber, and they played Rizzio and Mary
+together.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"For I am not the first who found<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The name of Mary fatal!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>says a subsequent sentimental alliterative love-poem of
+Diaper's.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the outline of the story. But the baronet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>
+could fill it up. He had opened his soul to these two.
+He had been noble Love to the one, and to the other
+perfect Friendship. He had bid them be brother and
+sister whom he loved, and live a Golden Age with him at
+Raynham. In fact, he had been prodigal of the excellences
+of his nature, which it is not good to be, and, like
+Timon, he became bankrupt, and fell upon bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>The faithless lady was of no particular family; an
+orphan daughter of an admiral who educated her on his
+half-pay, and her conduct struck but at the man whose
+name she bore.</p>
+
+<p>After five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship,
+Sir Austin was left to his loneliness with nothing to ease
+his heart of love upon save a little baby boy in a cradle.
+He forgave the man: he put him aside as poor for his
+wrath. The woman he could not forgive; she had sinned
+every way. Simple ingratitude to a benefactor was a
+pardonable transgression, for he was not one to recount
+and crush the culprit under the heap of his good deeds.
+But her he had raised to be his equal, and he judged her
+as his equal. She had blackened the world's fair aspect
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>In the presence of that world, so different to him now,
+he preserved his wonted demeanour, and made his features
+a flexible mask. Mrs. Doria Forey, his widowed sister,
+said that Austin might have retired from his Parliamentary
+career for a time, and given up gaieties and that
+kind of thing; her opinion, founded on observation of him
+in public and private, was, that the light thing who had
+taken flight was but a feather on her brother's Feverel-heart,
+and his ordinary course of life would be resumed.
+There are times when common men cannot bear the
+weight of just so much. Hippias <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Feveral'">Feverel</ins>, one of his
+brothers, thought him immensely improved by his misfortune,
+if the loss of such a person could be so designated;
+and seeing that Hippias received in consequence
+free quarters at Raynham, and possession of the wing of
+the Abbey she had inhabited, it is profitable to know his
+thoughts. If the baronet had given two or three blazing
+dinners in the great hall he would have deceived people
+generally, as he did his relatives and intimates. He was
+too sick for that: fit only for passive acting.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The nurse-maid waking in the night beheld a solitary
+figure darkening a lamp above her little sleeping charge,
+and became so used to the sight as never to wake with a
+start. One night she was strangely aroused by a sound
+of sobbing. The baronet stood beside the cot in his long
+black cloak and travelling cap. His fingers shaded a lamp,
+and reddened against the fitful darkness that ever and
+anon went leaping up the wall. She could hardly believe
+her senses to see the austere gentleman, dead silent, dropping
+tear upon tear before her eyes. She lay stone-still
+in a trance of terror and mournfulness, mechanically
+counting the tears as they fell, one by one. The hidden
+face, the fall and flash of those heavy drops in the light
+of the lamp he held, the upright, awful figure, agitated at
+regular intervals like a piece of clockwork by the low
+murderous catch of his breath: it was so piteous to her
+poor human nature that her heart began wildly palpitating.
+Involuntarily the poor girl cried out to him, "Oh,
+sir!" and fell a-weeping. Sir Austin turned the lamp
+on her pillow, and harshly bade her go to sleep, striding
+from the room forthwith. He dismissed her with a purse
+the next day.</p>
+
+<p>Once, when he was seven years old, the little fellow
+woke up at night to see a lady bending over him. He
+talked of this the next day, but it was treated as a dream;
+until in the course of the day his uncle Algernon was
+driven home from Lobourne cricket-ground with a broken
+leg. Then it was recollected that there was a family
+ghost; and, though no member of the family believed in
+the ghost, none would have given up a circumstance that
+testified to its existence; for to possess a ghost is a distinction
+above titles.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman
+in the Guards. Of the other uncles of young Richard,
+Cuthbert, the sailor, perished in a spirited boat expedition
+against a slaving negro chief up the Niger. Some of the
+gallant lieutenant's trophies of war decorated the little
+boy's play-shed at Raynham, and he bequeathed his sword
+to Richard, whose hero he was. The diplomatist and beau,
+Vivian, ended his flutterings from flower to flower by making
+an improper marriage, as is the fate of many a beau,
+and was struck out of the list of visitors. Algernon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>
+generally occupied the baronet's disused town-house, a
+wretched being, dividing his time between horse and card
+exercise: possessed, it was said, of the absurd notion that
+a man who has lost his balance by losing his leg may
+regain it by sticking to the bottle. At least, whenever
+he and his brother Hippias got together, they never failed
+to try whether one leg, or two, stood the bottle best. Much
+of a puritan as Sir Austin was in his habits, he was too
+good a host, and too thorough a gentleman, to impose
+them upon his guests. The brothers, and other relatives,
+might do as they would while they did not disgrace the
+name, and then it was final: they must depart to behold
+his countenance no more.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent
+to his misfortune, as he had perhaps dimly fancied
+it before, that his career lay in his legs, and was now
+irrevocably cut short. He taught the boy boxing, and
+shooting, and the arts of fence, and superintended the
+direction of his animal vigour with a melancholy vivacity.
+The remaining energies of Algernon's mind were devoted
+to animadversions on swift bowling. He preached it over
+the county, struggling through laborious literary compositions,
+addressed to sporting newspapers, on the Decline
+of Cricket. It was Algernon who witnessed and
+chronicled young Richard's first fight, which was with
+young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three years the
+boy's senior.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius
+of the family. It was his ill luck to have strong appetites
+and a weak stomach; and, as one is not altogether
+fit for the battle of life who is engaged in a perpetual
+contention with his dinner, Hippias forsook his prospects
+at the Bar, and, in the embraces of dyspepsia, compiled his
+ponderous work on the Fairy Mythology of Europe. He
+had little to do with the Hope of Raynham beyond what
+he endured from his juvenile tricks.</p>
+
+<p>A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who
+had money to bequeath to the heir, occupied with Hippias
+the background of the house and shared her caudles with
+him. These two were seldom seen till the dinner-hour,
+for which they were all day preparing; and probably all
+night remembering, for the Eighteenth Century was an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+admirable trencherman, and cast age aside while there
+was a dish on the table.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria Forey was the eldest of the three sisters of
+the baronet, a florid affable woman, with fine teeth, exceedingly
+fine light wavy hair, a Norman nose, and a reputation
+for understanding men; and that, with these
+practical creatures, always means the art of managing
+them. She had married an expectant younger son of a good
+family, who deceased before the fulfilment of his prospects;
+and, casting about in her mind the future chances
+of her little daughter and sole child, Clare, she marked
+down a probability. The far sight, the deep determination,
+the resolute perseverance of her sex, where a daughter is
+to be provided for and a man to be overthrown, instigated
+her to invite herself to Raynham, where, with that daughter,
+she fixed herself.</p>
+
+<p>The other two Feverel ladies were the wife of Colonel
+Wentworth and the widow of Mr. Justice Harley: and
+the only thing remarkable about them was that they were
+mothers of sons of some distinction.</p>
+
+<p>Austin Wentworth's story was of that wretched character
+which to be comprehended, that justice should be
+dealt him, must be told out and openly; which no one
+dares now do.</p>
+
+<p>For a fault in early youth, redeemed by him nobly,
+according to his light, he was condemned to undergo the
+world's harsh judgment: not for the fault&mdash;for its atonement.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Married his mother's housemaid," whispered Mrs.
+Doria, with a ghastly look, and a shudder at young men
+of republican sentiments, which he was reputed to entertain.</p>
+
+<p>"The compensation for Injustice," says the "Pilgrim's
+Scrip," "is, that in that dark Ordeal we gather the
+worthiest around us."</p>
+
+<p>And the baronet's fair friend, Lady Blandish, and some
+few true men and women, held Austin Wentworth high.</p>
+
+<p>He did not live with his wife; and Sir Austin, whose
+mind was bent on the future of our species, reproached
+him with being barren to posterity, while knaves were
+propagating.</p>
+
+<p>The principal characteristic of the second nephew,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>
+Adrian Harley, was his sagacity. He was essentially the
+wise youth, both in counsel and in action.</p>
+
+<p>"In action," the "Pilgrim's Scrip" observes, "Wisdom
+goes by majorities."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian had an instinct for the majority, and, as the
+world invariably found him enlisted in its ranks, his
+appellation of wise youth was acquiesced in without
+irony.</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no
+friends. Nor did he wish for those troublesome appendages
+of success. He caused himself to be required by
+people who could serve him; feared by such as could
+injure. Not that he went out of the way to secure his
+end, or risked the expense of a plot. He did the work
+as easily as he ate his daily bread. Adrian was an epicurean;
+one whom Epicurus would have scourged out of
+his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our modern notions.
+To satisfy his appetites without rashly staking his
+character, was the wise youth's problem for life. He had
+no intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the society
+of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him to accept
+humanity as it had been, and was; a supreme ironic
+procession, with laughter of Gods in the background.
+Why not laughter of mortals also? Adrian had his laugh
+in his comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar attributes
+of a heathen God. He was a disposer of men:
+he was polished, luxurious, and happy&mdash;at their cost. He
+lived in eminent self-content, as one lying on soft cloud,
+lapt in sunshine. Nor Jove, nor Apollo, cast eye upon
+the maids of earth with cooler fire of selection, or pursued
+them in the covert with more sacred impunity.
+And he enjoyed his reputation for virtue as something
+additional. Stolen fruits are said to be sweet; undeserved
+rewards are exquisite.</p>
+
+<p>The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He
+did not solicit the favourable judgment of the world.
+Nature and he attempted no other concealment than the
+ordinary mask men wear. And yet the world would
+proclaim him moral, as well as wise, and the pleasing
+converse every way of his disgraced cousin Austin.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy
+at the early age of one-and-twenty. Many would be glad<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>
+to say the same at that age twice-told: they carry in
+their breasts a burden with which Adrian's was not
+loaded. Mrs. Doria was nearly right about his heart. A
+singular mishap (at his birth, possibly, or before it) had
+unseated that organ, and shaken it down to his stomach,
+where it was a much lighter, nay, an inspiring weight, and
+encouraged him merrily onward. Throned there it looked
+on little that did not arrive to gratify it. Already that
+region was a trifle prominent in the person of the wise
+youth, and carried, as it were, the flag of his philosophical
+tenets in front of him. He was charming after dinner,
+with men or with women: delightfully sarcastic: perhaps
+a little too unscrupulous in his moral tone, but that his
+moral reputation belied him, and it must be set down to
+generosity of disposition.</p>
+
+<p>Such was Adrian Harley, another of Sir Austin's intellectual
+favourites, chosen from mankind to superintend
+the education of his son at Raynham. Adrian had been
+destined for the Church. He did not enter into Orders.
+He and the baronet had a conference together one day,
+and from that time Adrian became a fixture in the Abbey.
+His father died in his promising son's college term, bequeathing
+him nothing but his legal complexion, and
+Adrian became stipendiary officer in his uncle's household.</p>
+
+<p>A playfellow of Richard's occasionally, and the only
+comrade of his age that he ever saw, was Master Ripton
+Thompson, the son of Sir Austin's solicitor, a boy without
+a character.</p>
+
+<p>A comrade of some description was necessary, for
+Richard was neither to go to school nor to college. Sir
+Austin considered that the schools were corrupt, and
+maintained that young lads might by parental vigilance
+be kept pretty secure from the Serpent until Eve sided
+with him: a period that might be deferred, he said. He
+had a system of education for his son. How it worked we
+shall see.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH<br />
+BIRTHDAY TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF
+THE SYSTEM</h3>
+
+
+<p>October shone royally on Richard's fourteenth birthday.
+The brown beechwoods and golden birches glowed to a
+brilliant sun. Banks of moveless cloud hung about the
+horizon, mounded to the west, where slept the wind.
+Promise of a great day for Raynham, as it proved to be,
+though not in the manner marked out.</p>
+
+<p>Already archery-booths and cricketing-tents were rising
+on the lower grounds towards the river, whither the lads
+of Bursley and Lobourne, in boats and in carts, shouting
+for a day of ale and honour, jogged merrily to match
+themselves anew, and pluck at the living laurel from each
+other's brows, like manly Britons. The whole park was
+beginning to be astir and resound with holiday cries.
+Sir Austin Feverel, a thorough good Tory, was no game-preserver,
+and could be popular whenever he chose, which
+Sir Miles Papworth, on the other side of the river, a
+fast-handed Whig and terror to poachers, never could be.
+Half the village of Lobourne was seen trooping through
+the avenues of the park. Fiddlers and gipsies clamoured
+at the gates for admission; white smocks, and slate, surmounted
+by hats of serious brim, and now and then a
+scarlet cloak, smacking of the old country, dotted the
+grassy sweeps to the levels.</p>
+
+<p>And all the time the star of these festivities was receding
+further and further, and eclipsing himself with
+his reluctant serf Ripton, who kept asking what they were
+to do and where they were going, and how late it was in
+the day, and suggesting that the lads of Lobourne would
+be calling out for them, and Sir Austin requiring their
+presence, without getting any attention paid to his misery
+or remonstrances. For Richard had been requested by
+his father to submit to medical examination like a boor
+enlisting for a soldier, and he was in great wrath.</p>
+
+<p>He was flying as though he would have flown from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+shameful thought of what had been asked of him. By-and-by
+he communicated his sentiments to Ripton, who
+said they were those of a girl: an offensive remark, remembering
+which, Richard, after they had borrowed a
+couple of guns at the bailiff's farm, and Ripton had fired
+badly, called his friend a fool.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonderfully
+like one, Ripton lifted his head and retorted
+defiantly, "I'm not!"</p>
+
+<p>This angry contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed
+Richard, who was still smarting at the loss of the
+birds, owing to Ripton's bad shot, and was really the injured
+party. He therefore bestowed the abusive epithet
+on Ripton anew, and with increase of emphasis.</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't call me so, then, whether I am or not,"
+says Ripton, and sucks his lips.</p>
+
+<p>This was becoming personal. Richard sent up his
+brows, and stared at his defier an instant. He then informed
+him that he certainly should call him so, and
+would not object to call him so twenty times.</p>
+
+<p>"Do it, and see!" returns Ripton, rocking on his feet,
+and breathing quick.</p>
+
+<p>With a gravity of which only boys and other barbarians
+are capable, Richard went through the entire number,
+stressing the epithet to increase the defiance and avoid
+monotony, as he progressed, while Ripton bobbed his head
+every time in assent, as it were, to his comrade's accuracy,
+and as a record for his profound humiliation. The dog
+they had with them gazed at the extraordinary performance
+with interrogating wags of the tail.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty times, duly and deliberately, Richard repeated
+the obnoxious word.</p>
+
+<p>At the twentieth solemn iteration of Ripton's capital
+shortcoming, Ripton delivered a smart back-hander on
+Richard's mouth, and squared precipitately; perhaps sorry
+when the deed was done, for he was a kind-hearted lad,
+and as Richard simply bowed in acknowledgment of the
+blow he thought he had gone too far. He did not know
+the young gentleman he was dealing with. Richard was
+extremely cool.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we fight here?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere you like," replied Ripton.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A little more into the wood, I think. We may be interrupted."
+And Richard led the way with a courteous
+reserve that somewhat chilled Ripton's ardour for the
+contest. On the skirts of the wood, Richard threw off his
+jacket and waistcoat, and, quite collected, waited for
+Ripton to do the same. The latter boy was flushed and
+restless; older and broader, but not so tight-limbed and
+well-set. The Gods, sole witnesses of their battle, betted
+dead against him. Richard had mounted the white cockade
+of the Feverels, and there was a look in him that
+asked for tough work to extinguish. His brows, slightly
+lined upward at the temples, converging to a knot about
+the well-set straight nose; his full grey eyes, open nostrils,
+and planted feet, and a gentlemanly air of calm and alertness,
+formed a spirited picture of a young combatant.
+As for Ripton, he was all abroad, and fought in schoolboy
+style&mdash;that is, he rushed at the foe head foremost,
+and struck like a windmill. He was a lumpy boy. When
+he did hit, he made himself felt; but he was at the mercy
+of science. To see him come dashing in, blinking and
+puffing and whirling his arms abroad while the felling
+blow went straight between them, you perceived that he
+was fighting a fight of desperation, and knew it. For the
+dreaded alternative glared him in the face that, if he
+yielded, he must look like what he had been twenty times
+calumniously called; and he would die rather than yield,
+and swing his windmill till he dropped. Poor boy! he
+dropped frequently. The gallant fellow fought for appearances,
+and down he went. The Gods favour one of
+two parties. Prince Turnus was a noble youth; but he had
+not Pallas at his elbow. Ripton was a capital boy; he
+had no science. He could not prove he was not a fool!
+When one comes to think of it, Ripton did choose the only
+possible way, and we should all of us have considerable
+difficulty in proving the negative by any other. Ripton
+came on the unerring fist again and again; and if it was
+true, as he said in short colloquial gasps, that he required
+as much beating as an egg to be beaten thoroughly, a
+fortunate interruption alone saved our friend from resembling
+that substance. The boys heard summoning
+voices, and beheld Mr. Morton of Poer Hall and Austin
+Wentworth stepping towards them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A truce was sounded, jackets were caught up, guns
+shouldered, and off they trotted in concert through the
+depths of the wood, not stopping till that and half-a-dozen
+fields and a larch plantation were well behind them.</p>
+
+<p>When they halted to take breath, there was a mutual
+study of faces. Ripton's was much discoloured, and
+looked fiercer with its natural war-paint than the boy
+felt. Nevertheless, he squared up dauntlessly on the new
+ground, and Richard, whose wrath was appeased, could
+not refrain from asking him whether he had not really
+had enough.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" shouts the noble enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, look here," said Richard, appealing to common
+sense, "I'm tired of knocking you down. I'll say you're
+not a fool, if you'll give me your hand."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton demurred an instant to consult with honour,
+who bade him catch at his chance.</p>
+
+<p>He held out his hand. "There!" and the boys grasped
+hands and were fast friends. Ripton had gained his
+point, and Richard decidedly had the best of it. So they
+were on equal ground. Both could claim a victory, which
+was all the better for their friendship.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton washed his face and comforted his nose at a
+brook, and was now ready to follow his friend wherever
+he chose to lead. They continued to beat about for birds.
+The birds on the Raynham estates were found singularly
+cunning, and repeatedly eluded the aim of these prime
+shots, so they pushed their expedition into the lands of
+their neighbours, in search of a stupider race, happily
+oblivious of the laws and conditions of trespass; unconscious,
+too, that they were poaching on the demesne of
+the notorious Farmer Blaize, the free-trade farmer under
+the shield of the Papworths, no worshipper of the Griffin
+between two Wheatsheaves; destined to be much allied
+with Richard's fortunes from beginning to end. Farmer
+Blaize hated poachers, and especially young chaps poaching,
+who did it mostly from impudence. He heard the
+audacious shots popping right and left, and going forth
+to have a glimpse at the intruders, and observing their
+size, swore he would teach my gentlemen a thing, lords
+or no lords.</p>
+
+<p>Richard had brought down a beautiful cock-pheasant,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>
+and was exulting over it, when the farmer's portentous
+figure burst upon them, cracking an avenging horsewhip.
+His salute was ironical.</p>
+
+<p>"Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just bagged a splendid bird!" radiant Richard informed
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Farmer Blaize gave an admonitory flick of the
+whip.</p>
+
+<p>"Just let me clap eye on't, then."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, please," interposed Ripton, who was not blind to
+doubtful aspects.</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize threw up his chin, and grinned grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Please to you, sir? Why, my chap, you looks as if ye
+didn't much mind what come t'yer nose, I reckon. You
+looks an old poacher, you do. Tall ye what 'tis!" He
+changed his banter to business, "That bird's mine! Now
+you jest hand him over, and sheer off, you dam young
+scoundrels! I know ye!" And he became exceedingly
+opprobrious, and uttered contempt of the name of Feverel.</p>
+
+<p>Richard opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"If you wants to be horsewhipped, you'll stay where
+y'are!" continued the farmer. "Giles Blaize never stands
+nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll stay," quoth Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! so be't! If you will have't, have't, my men!"</p>
+
+<p>As a preparatory measure, Farmer Blaize seized a wing
+of the bird, on which both boys flung themselves desperately,
+and secured it minus the pinion.</p>
+
+<p>"That's your game," cried the farmer. "Here's a taste
+of horsewhip for ye. I never stands nonsense!" and
+sweetch went the mighty whip, well swayed. The boys
+tried to close with him. He kept his distance and lashed
+without mercy. Black blood was made by Farmer Blaize
+that day! The boys wriggled, in spite of themselves. It
+was like a relentless serpent coiling, and biting, and stinging
+their young veins to madness. Probably they felt the
+disgrace of the contortions they were made to go through
+more than the pain, but the pain was fierce, for the farmer
+laid about from a practised arm, and did not consider
+that he had done enough till he was well breathed and his
+ruddy jowl inflamed. He paused, to receive the remainder
+of the cock-pheasant in his face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Take your beastly bird," cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Money, my lads, and interest," roared the farmer,
+lashing out again.</p>
+
+<p>Shameful as it was to retreat, there was but that
+course open to them. They decided to surrender the
+field.</p>
+
+<p>"Look! you big brute," Richard shook his gun, hoarse
+with passion, "I'd have shot you, if I'd been loaded.
+Mind! if I come across you when I'm loaded, you coward,
+I'll fire!"</p>
+
+<p>The un-English nature of this threat exasperated
+Farmer Blaize, and he pressed the pursuit in time to bestow
+a few farewell stripes as they were escaping tight-breeched
+into neutral territory. At the hedge they parleyed
+a minute, the farmer to inquire if they had had a
+mortal good tanning and were satisfied, for when they
+wanted a further instalment of the same they were to
+come for it to Belthorpe Farm, and there it was in pickle:
+The boys meantime exploding in menaces and threats of
+vengeance, on which the farmer contemptuously turned
+his back. Ripton had already stocked an armful of flints
+for the enjoyment of a little skirmishing. Richard, however,
+knocked them all out, saying, "No! Gentlemen don't
+fling stones; leave that to the blackguards."</p>
+
+<p>"Just one shy at him!" pleaded Ripton, with his eye
+on Farmer Blaize's broad mark, and his whole mind
+drunken with a sudden revelation of the advantages of
+light troops in opposition to heavies.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Richard, imperatively, "no stones," and
+marched briskly away. Ripton followed with a sigh. His
+leader's magnanimity was wholly beyond him. A good
+spanking mark at the farmer would have relieved Master
+Ripton; it would have done nothing to console Richard
+Feverel for the ignominy he had been compelled to submit
+to. Ripton was familiar with the rod, a monster much
+despoiled of his terrors by intimacy. Birch-fever was
+past with this boy. The horrible sense of shame, self-loathing,
+universal hatred, impotent vengeance, as if the
+spirit were steeped in abysmal blackness, which comes
+upon a courageous and sensitive youth condemned for the
+first time to taste this piece of fleshly bitterness, and
+suffer what he feels is a defilement, Ripton had weathered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>
+and forgotten. He was seasoned wood, and took the world
+pretty wisely; not reckless of castigation, as some boys
+become, nor oversensitive as to dishonour, as his friend
+and comrade beside him was.</p>
+
+<p>Richard's blood was poisoned. He had the fever on
+him severely. He would not allow stone-flinging, because
+it was a habit of his to discountenance it. Mere gentlemanly
+considerations had scarce shielded Farmer Blaize,
+and certain very ungentlemanly schemes were coming to
+ghastly heads in the tumult of his brain; rejected solely
+from their glaring impracticability even to his young
+intelligence. A sweeping and consummate vengeance for
+the indignity alone should satisfy him. Something tremendous
+must be done, and done without delay. At one
+moment he thought of killing all the farmer's cattle; next
+of killing him; challenging him to single combat with the
+arms, and according to the fashion of gentlemen. But
+the farmer was a coward; he would refuse. Then he,
+Richard Feverel, would stand by the farmer's bedside, and
+rouse him; rouse him to fight with powder and ball in his
+own chamber, in the cowardly midnight, where he might
+tremble, but dare not refuse.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" cried simple Ripton, while these hopeful plots
+were raging in his comrade's brain, now sparkling for immediate
+execution, and anon lapsing disdainfully dark in
+their chances of fulfilment, "how I wish you'd have let
+me notch him, Ricky! I'm a safe shot. I never miss. I
+should feel quite jolly if I'd spanked him once. We should
+have had the best of him at that game. I say!" and a
+sharp thought drew Ripton's ideas nearer home, "I wonder
+whether my nose is as bad as he says! Where can I see
+myself?"</p>
+
+<p>To these exclamations Richard was deaf, and he trudged
+steadily forward, facing but one object.</p>
+
+<p>After tearing through innumerable hedges, leaping
+fences, jumping dykes, penetrating brambly copses, and
+getting dirty, ragged, and tired, Ripton awoke from his
+dream of Farmer Blaize and a blue nose to the vivid
+consciousness of hunger; and this grew with the rapidity
+of light upon him, till in the course of another minute he
+was enduring the extremes of famine, and ventured to
+question his leader whither he was being conducted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>
+Raynham was out of sight. They were a long way down
+the valley, miles from Lobourne, in a country of sour
+pools, yellow brooks, rank pasturage, desolate heath. Solitary
+cows were seen; the smoke of a mud cottage; a cart
+piled with peat; a donkey grazing at leisure, oblivious of
+an unkind world; geese by a horse-pond, gabbling as in
+the first loneliness of creation; uncooked things that a
+famishing boy cannot possibly care for, and must despise.
+Ripton was in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"Where <i>are</i> you going to?" he inquired with a voice of
+the last time of asking, and halted resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>Richard now broke his silence to reply, "Anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Anywhere!" Ripton took up the moody word. "But
+ain't you awfully hungry?" he gasped vehemently, in a
+way that showed the total emptiness of his stomach.</p>
+
+<p>"No," was Richard's brief response.</p>
+
+<p>"Not hungry!" Ripton's amazement lent him increased
+vehemence. "Why, you haven't had anything to eat since
+breakfast! Not hungry? I declare I'm starving. I feel
+such a gnawing I could eat dry bread and cheese!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard sneered: not for reasons that would have
+actuated a similar demonstration of the philosopher.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," cried Ripton, "at all events, tell us where
+you're going to stop."</p>
+
+<p>Richard faced about to make a querulous retort. The
+injured and hapless visage that met his eye disarmed him.
+The lad's nose, though not exactly of the dreaded hue,
+was really becoming discoloured. To upbraid him would
+be cruel. Richard lifted his head, surveyed the position,
+and exclaiming "Here!" dropped down on a withered bank,
+leaving Ripton to contemplate him as a puzzle whose every
+new move was a worse perplexity.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAGIAN CONFLICT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous
+codes, not written or formally taught, but intuitively
+understood by all, and invariably acted upon by the loyal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>
+and the true. The race is not nearly civilized, we must
+remember. Thus, not to follow your leader whithersoever
+he may think proper to lead; to back out of an expedition
+because the end of it frowns dubious, and the present
+fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the road,
+and return home without him: these are tricks which no
+boy of spirit would be guilty of, let him come to any description
+of mortal grief in consequence. Better so than
+have his own conscience denouncing him sneak. Some
+boys who behave boldly enough are not troubled by this
+conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their fellows
+have to supply the deficiency. They do it with just as
+haunting, and even more horrible pertinacity, than the
+inner voice, and the result, if the probation be not very
+severe and searching, is the same. The leader can rely on
+the faithfulness of his host: the comrade is sworn to serve.
+Master Ripton Thompson was naturally loyal. The idea
+of turning off and forsaking his friend never once crossed
+his mind, though his condition was desperate, and his
+friend's behaviour that of a Bedlamite. He announced
+several times impatiently that they would be too late for
+dinner. His friend did not budge. Dinner seemed nothing
+to him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the
+old dog's nose, as if incapable of conceiving what a thing
+hunger was. Ripton took half-a-dozen turns up and down,
+and at last flung himself down beside the taciturn boy,
+accepting his fate.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a
+smart shower from the sinking sun, and the wet sent two
+strangers for shelter in the lane behind the hedge where
+the boys reclined. One was a travelling tinker, who lit a
+pipe and spread a tawny umbrella. The other was a burly
+young countryman, pipeless and tentless. They saluted
+with a nod, and began recounting for each other's benefit
+the day-long doings of the weather, as it had affected their
+individual experience and followed their prophecies. Both
+had anticipated and foretold a bit of rain before night,
+and therefore both welcomed the wet with satisfaction.
+A monotonous betweenwhiles kind of talk they kept droning,
+in harmony with the still hum of the air. From the
+weather theme they fell upon the blessings of tobacco;
+how it was the poor man's friend, his company, his consolation,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>
+his comfort, his refuge at night, his first thought
+in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>"Better than a wife!" chuckled the tinker. "No curtain-lecturin'
+with a pipe. Your pipe an't a shrew."</p>
+
+<p>"That be it!" the other chimed in. "Your pipe doan't
+mak' ye out wi' all the cash Saturday evenin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Take one," said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the
+moment, handing a grimy short clay. Speed-the-Plough
+filled from the tinker's pouch, and continued his praises.</p>
+
+<p>"Penny a day, and there y'are, primed! Better than a
+wife? Ha, ha!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when
+ye wants," added tinker.</p>
+
+<p>"So ye can!" Speed-the-Plough took him up. "And ye
+doan't want for to. Leastways, t'other case. I means pipe."</p>
+
+<p>"And," continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly,
+"it don't bring repentance after it."</p>
+
+<p>"Not nohow, master, it doan't! And"&mdash;Speed-the-Plough
+cocked his eye&mdash;"it doan't eat up half the victuals,
+your pipe doan't."</p>
+
+<p>Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of
+a clincher, which the tinker acknowledged; and having,
+so to speak, sealed up the subject by saying the best thing
+that could be said, the two smoked for some time in silence
+to the drip and patter of the shower.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton solaced his wretchedness by watching them
+through the briar hedge. He saw the tinker stroking a
+white cat, and appealing to her, every now and then, as
+his missus, for an opinion or a confirmation; and he
+thought that a curious sight. Speed-the-Plough was
+stretched at full length, with his boots in the rain, and his
+head amidst the tinker's pots, smoking, profoundly contemplative.
+The minutes seemed to be taken up alternately
+by the grey puffs from their mouths.</p>
+
+<p>It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he,
+"Times is bad!"</p>
+
+<p>His companion assented, "Sure-ly!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it somehow comes round right," resumed the
+tinker. "Why, look here. Where's the good o' moping?
+I sees it all come round right and tight. Now I travels
+about. I've got my beat. 'Casion calls me t'other day
+to Newcastle!&mdash;Eh?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Coals!" ejaculated Speed-the-Plough sonorously.</p>
+
+<p>"Coals!" echoed the tinker. "You ask what I goes there
+for, mayhap? Never you mind. One sees a mort o' life
+in my trade. Not for coals it isn't. And I don't carry
+'em there, neither. Anyhow, I comes back. London's my
+mark. Says I, I'll see a bit o' the sea, and steps aboard
+a collier. We were as nigh wrecked as the prophet Paul."</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;A&mdash;who's him?" the other wished to know.</p>
+
+<p>"Read your Bible," said the tinker. "We pitched and
+tossed&mdash;'tain't that game at sea 'tis on land, I can tell
+ye! I thinks, down we're a-going&mdash;say your prayers, Bob
+Tiles! That was a night, to be sure! But God's above
+the devil, and here I am, ye see."</p>
+
+<p>Speed-the-Plough lurched round on his elbow and regarded
+him indifferently. "D'ye call that doctrin'? He
+bean't al'ays, or I shoo'n't be scrapin' my heels wi' nothin'
+to do, and, what's warse, nothin' to eat. Why, look heer.
+Luck's luck, and bad luck's the contrary. Varmer Bollop,
+t'other day, has's rick burnt down. Next night his
+gran'ry's burnt. What do he tak' and go and do? He
+takes and goes and hangs unsel', and turns us out of his
+employ. God warn't above the devil then, I thinks, or
+I can't make out the reckonin'."</p>
+
+<p>The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad
+case.</p>
+
+<p>"And a darn'd bad case. I'll tak' my oath on't!" cried
+Speed-the-Plough. "Well, look heer! Heer's another
+darn'd bad case. I threshed for Varmer Blaize&mdash;Blaize
+o' Beltharpe&mdash;afore I goes to Varmer Bollop. Varmer
+Blaize misses pilkins. He swears our chaps steals pilkins.
+'Twarn't me steals 'em. What do <i>he</i> tak' and go and do?
+He takes and tarns us off, me and another, neck and crop,
+to scuffle about and starve, for all <i>he</i> keers. God warn't
+above the devil then, I thinks. Not nohow, as I can see!"</p>
+
+<p>The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case
+also.</p>
+
+<p>"And you can't mend it," added Speed-the-Plough.
+"It's bad, and there it be. But I'll tell ye what, master.
+Bad wants payin' for." He nodded and winked mysteriously.
+"Bad has its wages as well's honest work, I'm
+thinkin'. Varmer Bollop I don't owe no grudge to:
+Varmer Blaize I do. And I shud like to stick a Lucifer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>
+in his rick some dry windy night." Speed-the-Plough
+screwed up an eye villainously. "He wants hittin' in the
+wind,&mdash;jest where the pocket is, master, do Varmer Blaize,
+and he'll cry out 'O Lor'!' Varmer Blaize will. You won't
+get the better o' Varmer Blaize by no means, as I makes
+out, if ye doan't hit into him jest there."</p>
+
+<p>The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from
+his mouth, and said that would be taking the devil's side
+of a bad case. Speed-the-Plough observed energetically
+that, if Farmer Blaize was on the other, he should be on
+that side.</p>
+
+<p>There was a young gentleman close by, who thought
+with him. The hope of Raynham had lent a careless half-compelled
+attention to the foregoing dialogue, wherein a
+common labourer and a travelling tinker had propounded
+and discussed one of the most ancient theories of transmundane
+dominion and influence on mundane affairs. He
+now started to his feet, and came tearing through the
+briar hedge, calling out for one of them to direct them
+the nearest road to Bursley. The tinker was kindling preparations
+for his tea, under the tawny umbrella. A loaf
+was set forth, on which Ripton's eyes, stuck in the hedge,
+fastened ravenously. Speed-the-Plough volunteered information
+that Bursley was a good three mile from
+where they stood, and a good eight mile from Lobourne.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow,"
+said Richard to the tinker.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a bargain," quoth the tinker, "eh, missus?"</p>
+
+<p>His cat replied by humping her back at the dog.</p>
+
+<p>The half-crown was tossed down, and Ripton, who had
+just succeeded in freeing his limbs from the briar, prickly
+as a hedgehog, collared the loaf.</p>
+
+<p>"Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake,"
+said the tinker to his companion. "Come! we'll to Bursley
+after 'em, and talk it out over a pot o' beer." Speed-the-Plough
+was nothing loath, and in a short time they
+were following the two lads on the road to Bursley, while
+a horizontal blaze shot across the autumn land from the
+Western edge of the rain-cloud.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>ARSON</h3>
+
+
+<p>Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere
+over Raynham, and Sir Austin was in grievous discontent.
+None had seen them save Austin Wentworth and
+Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their account of
+the flight of the lads when they were hailed, and resolved
+it into an act of rebellion on the part of his son. At
+dinner he drank the young heir's health in ominous
+silence. Adrian Harley stood up in his place to propose
+the health. His speech was a fine piece of rhetoric. He
+warmed in it till, after the Ciceronic model, inanimate
+objects were personified, and Richard's table-napkin and
+vacant chair were invoked to follow the steps of a peerless
+father, and uphold with his dignity the honour of the
+Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier's death compelled
+to take his father's place in support of the toast,
+was tame after such magniloquence. But the reply, the
+thanks which young Richard should have delivered in person
+were not forthcoming. Adrian's oratory had given but
+a momentary life to napkin and chair. The company of
+honoured friends, and aunts, and uncles, and remotest
+cousins, were glad to disperse and seek amusement in
+music and tea. Sir Austin did his utmost to be hospitably
+cheerful, and requested them to dance. If he had desired
+them to laugh he would have been obeyed, and in
+as hearty a manner.</p>
+
+<p>"How triste!" said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's
+curate, as that most enamoured automaton went through
+his paces beside her with professional stiffness.</p>
+
+<p>"One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate
+answered, basking in her beams.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you are good!" exclaimed the lady. "Look at my
+Clare. She will not dance on her cousin's birthday with
+any one but him. What are we to do to enliven these
+people?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>
+one," the curate sighed, and wherever she wandered in
+discourse, drew her back with silken strings to gaze on
+his enamoured soul.</p>
+
+<p>He was the only gratified stranger present. The others
+had designs on the young heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford
+House had brought her highly-polished specimen of
+marketware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a first introduction
+to him, thinking he had arrived at an age to estimate
+and pine for her black eyes and pretty pert mouth. The
+Lady Juliana had to pair off with a dapper Papworth,
+and her mama was subjected to the gallantries of Sir
+Miles, who talked land and steam-engines to her till she
+was sick, and had to be impertinent in self-defence. Lady
+Blandish, the delightful widow, sat apart with Adrian,
+and enjoyed his sarcasms on the company. By ten at
+night the poor show ended, and the rooms were dark,
+dark as the prognostics multitudinously hinted by the disappointed
+and chilled guests concerning the probable
+future of the hope of Raynham. Little Clare kissed her
+mama, curtsied to the lingering curate, and went to bed
+like a very good girl. Immediately the maid had departed,
+little Clare deliberately exchanged night attire for that of
+day. She was noted as an obedient child. Her light was
+always allowed to burn in her room for half-an-hour, to
+counteract her fears of the dark. She took the light, and
+stole on tiptoe to Richard's room. No Richard was there.
+She peeped in further and further. A trifling agitation
+of the curtains shot her back through the door and along
+the passage to her own bedchamber with extreme expedition.
+She was not much alarmed, but feeling guilty she
+was on her guard. In a short time she was prowling about
+the passages again. Richard had slighted and offended
+the little lady, and was to be asked whether he did not
+repent such conduct toward his cousin; not to be asked
+whether he had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss from
+her; for, if he did not choose to remember that, Miss
+Clare would never remind him of it, and to-night should
+be his last chance of a reconciliation. Thus she meditated,
+sitting on a stair, and presently heard Richard's voice
+below in the hall, shouting for supper.</p>
+
+<p>"Master Richard has returned," old Benson the butler
+tolled out intelligence to Sir Austin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>"He complains of being hungry," the butler hesitated,
+with a look of solemn disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him eat."</p>
+
+<p>Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced
+that the boy had called for wine. It was an unprecedented
+thing. Sir Austin's brows were portending an arch, but
+Adrian suggested that he wanted possibly to drink his
+birthday, and claret was conceded.</p>
+
+<p>The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when
+Adrian strolled in to them. They had now changed characters.
+Richard was uproarious. He drank a health with
+every glass; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes brilliant.
+Ripton looked very much like a rogue on the tremble of
+detection, but his honest hunger and the partridge-pie
+shielded him awhile from Adrian's scrutinizing glance.
+Adrian saw there was matter for study, if it were only
+on Master Ripton's betraying nose, and sat down to hear
+and mark.</p>
+
+<p>"Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?" he began his
+quiet banter, and provoked a loud peal of laughter from
+Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha! I say, Rip: 'Havin' good sport, gentlemen,
+are ye?' You remember the farmer! Your health,
+parson! We haven't had our sport yet. We're going to
+have some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we haven't much
+show of birds. We shot for pleasure, and returned them
+to the proprietors. You're fond of game, parson! Ripton
+is a dead shot in what Cousin Austin calls the Kingdom
+of 'would-have-done' and 'might-have-been.' Up went the
+birds, and cries Rip, 'I've forgotten to load!' Oh, ho!&mdash;Rip!
+some more claret&mdash;Do just leave that nose of yours
+alone.&mdash;Your health, Ripton Thompson! The birds hadn't
+the decency to wait for him, and so, parson, it's their
+fault, and not Rip's, you haven't a dozen brace at your
+feet. What have you been doing at home, Cousin Rady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark.
+The day without you, my dear boy, must be dull,
+you know."</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere?<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">There's an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+
+<p>Sandoe's poems! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. Why
+shouldn't I quote Sandoe? You know you like him, Rady.
+But, if you've missed me, I'm sorry. Rip and I have had
+a beautiful day. We've made new acquaintances. We've
+seen the world. I'm the monkey that has seen the world,
+and I'm going to tell you all about it. First, there's a
+gentleman who takes a rifle for a fowling-piece. Next,
+there's a farmer who warns everybody, gentleman and
+beggar, off his premises. Next, there's a tinker and a
+ploughman, who think that God is always fighting with
+the devil which shall command the kingdoms of the earth.
+The tinker's for God, and the ploughman"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'll drink your health, Ricky," said Adrian, interrupting.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I forgot, parson;&mdash;I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm
+only telling what I've heard."</p>
+
+<p>"No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. "I'm perfectly
+aware that Zoroaster is not dead. You have been
+listening to a common creed. Drink the Fire-worshippers,
+if you will."</p>
+
+<p>"Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say,
+Rippy! we'll drink the Fire-worshippers to-night, won't
+we?"</p>
+
+<p>A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced
+Guido Fawkes, was darted back from the plastic
+features of Master Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>Richard gave his lungs loud play.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn't
+you say it was fun?"</p>
+
+<p>Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton's
+answer. Adrian watched the innocent youths, and knew
+that there was talking under the table. "See," thought
+he, "this boy has tasted his first scraggy morsel of life
+to-day, and already he talks like an old stager, and has,
+if I mistake not, been acting too. My respected chief,"
+he apostrophized Sir Austin, "combustibles are only the
+more dangerous for compression. This boy will be ravenous
+for Earth when he is let loose, and very soon make
+his share of it look as foolish as yonder game-pie!"&mdash;a
+prophecy Adrian kept to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before
+the supper was finished, and his more genial presence
+brought out a little of the plot.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Look here, uncle!" said Richard. "Would you let a
+churlish old brute of a farmer strike you without making
+him suffer for it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad," replied
+his uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you would! So would I. And he shall
+suffer for it." The boy looked savage, and his uncle
+patted him down.</p>
+
+<p>"I've boxed his son; I'll box him," said Richard, shouting
+for more wine.</p>
+
+<p>"What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, uncle!" The boy nodded mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>Look there! Adrian read on Ripton's face, he says
+"never mind," and lets it out!</p>
+
+<p>"Did we beat to-day, uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, boy; and we'd beat them any day they bowl fair.
+I'd beat them on one leg. There's only Natkins and
+Featherdene among them worth a farthing."</p>
+
+<p>"We beat!" cries Richard. "Then we'll have some more
+wine, and drink their healths."</p>
+
+<p>The bell was <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'run'">rung</ins>; wine ordered. Presently comes in
+heavy Benson, to say supplies are cut off. One bottle,
+and no more. The Captain whistled; Adrian shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently.
+He liked studying intoxicated urchins.</p>
+
+<p>One subject was at Richard's heart, about which he
+was reserved in the midst of his riot. Too proud to inquire
+how his father had taken his absence, he burned to
+hear whether he was in disgrace. He led to it repeatedly,
+and it was constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian.
+At last, when the boy declared a desire to wish his father
+good-night, Adrian had to tell him that he was to go
+straight to bed from the supper-table. Young Richard's
+face fell at that, and his gaiety forsook him. He marched
+to his room without another word.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son's
+behaviour and adventures; dwelling upon this sudden
+taciturnity when he heard of his father's resolution not
+to see him. The wise youth saw that his chief was mollified
+behind his moveless mask, and went to bed, and
+Horace, leaving Sir Austin in his study. Long hours the
+baronet sat alone. The house had not its usual influx<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>
+of Feverels that day. Austin Wentworth was staying at
+Poer Hall, and had only come over for an hour. At midnight
+the house breathed sleep. Sir Austin put on his
+cloak and cap, and took the lamp to make his rounds.
+He apprehended nothing special, but with a mind never
+at rest he constituted himself the sentinel of Raynham.
+He passed the chamber where the Great-Aunt Grantley
+lay, who was to swell Richard's fortune, and so perform
+her chief business on earth. By her door he murmured,
+"Good creature! you sleep with a sense of duty done,"
+and paced on, reflecting, "She has not made money a
+demon of discord," and blessed her. He had his thoughts
+at Hippias's somnolent door, and to them the world might
+have subscribed.</p>
+
+<p>A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in
+slumber! thinks Adrian Harley, as he hears Sir Austin's
+footfall, and truly that was a strange object to see.&mdash;Where
+is the fortress that has not one weak gate? where
+the man who is sound at each particular angle? Ay,
+meditates the recumbent cynic, more or less mad is not
+every mother's son? Favourable circumstances&mdash;good air,
+good company, two or three good rules rigidly adhered
+to&mdash;keep the world out of Bedlam. But, let the world fly
+into a passion, and is not Bedlam the safest abode for it?</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely
+toward the chamber where his son was lying in the
+left wing of the Abbey. At the end of the gallery which led
+to it he discovered a dim light. Doubting it an illusion,
+Sir Austin accelerated his pace. This wing had aforetime
+a bad character. Notwithstanding what years had done to
+polish it into fair repute, the Raynham kitchen stuck to
+tradition, and preserved certain stories of ghosts seen
+there, that effectually blackened it in the susceptible minds
+of new housemaids and under-cooks, whose fears would
+not allow the sinner to wash his sins. Sir Austin had
+heard of the tales circulated by his domestics underground.
+He cherished his own belief, but discouraged
+theirs, and it was treason at Raynham to be caught
+traducing the left wing. As the baronet advanced, the
+fact of a light burning was clear to him. A slight descent
+brought him into the passage, and he beheld a poor human
+candle standing outside his son's chamber. At the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>
+moment a door closed hastily. He entered Richard's
+room. The boy was absent. The bed was unpressed: no
+clothes about: nothing to show that he had been there that
+night. Sir Austin felt vaguely apprehensive. Has he
+gone to my room to await me? thought the father's heart.
+Something like a tear quivered in his arid eyes as he
+meditated and hoped this might be so. His own sleeping-room
+faced that of his son. He strode to it with a quick
+heart. It was empty. Alarm dislodged anger from his
+jealous heart, and dread of evil put a thousand questions
+to him that were answered in air. After pacing up and
+down his room he determined to go and ask the boy
+Thompson, as he called Ripton, what was known to him.</p>
+
+<p>The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was
+at the northern extremity of the passage, and overlooked
+Lobourne and the valley to the West. The bed stood between
+the window and the door. Sir Austin found the
+door ajar, and the interior dark. To his surprise, the
+boy Thompson's couch, as revealed by the rays of his lamp,
+was likewise vacant. He was turning back when he
+fancied he heard the sibilation of a whispering in the
+room. Sir Austin cloaked the lamp and trod silently toward
+the window. The heads of his son Richard and the
+boy Thompson were seen crouched against the glass,
+holding excited converse together. Sir Austin listened,
+but he listened to a language of which he possessed not
+the key. Their talk was of fire, and of delay: of expected
+agrarian astonishment: of a farmer's huge wrath: of violence
+exercised upon gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk
+that the boys jerked out by fits, and that came as broken
+links of a chain impossible to connect. But they awoke
+curiosity. The baronet condescended to play the spy upon
+his son.</p>
+
+<p>Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable
+stars.</p>
+
+<p>"How jolly I feel!" exclaimed Ripton, inspired by
+claret; and then, after a luxurious pause&mdash;"I think that
+fellow has pocketed his guinea, and cut his lucky."</p>
+
+<p>Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which
+the baronet waited anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing
+it when he heard its altered tones.</p>
+
+<p>"If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You would?" returned Master Ripton. "Well, I'm
+hanged!&mdash;I say, if you went to school, wouldn't you get
+into rows! Perhaps he hasn't found the place where the
+box was stuck in. I think he funks it. I almost wish you
+hadn't done it, upon my honour&mdash;eh? Look there! what
+was that? That looked like something.&mdash;I say! do you
+think we shall ever be found out?"</p>
+
+<p>Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation very
+seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties
+bent on signs from Lobourne.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but," Ripton persisted, "suppose we are found
+out?"</p>
+
+<p>"If we are, I must pay for it."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was
+beginning to gather a clue to the dialogue. His son was
+engaged in a plot, and was, moreover, the leader of the
+plot. He listened for further enlightenment.</p>
+
+<p>"What was the fellow's name?" inquired Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>His companion answered, "Tom Bakewell."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what," continued Ripton. "You let it all
+clean out to your cousin and uncle at supper. How capital
+claret is with partridge-pie! What a lot I ate!&mdash;Didn't
+you see me frown?"</p>
+
+<p>The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to
+his late refection, and the slightest word recalled him to
+it. Richard answered him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's
+safe, and uncle never blabs."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my plan is to keep it close. You're never safe if
+you don't.&mdash;I never drank much claret before," Ripton
+was off again. "Won't I now, though! claret's my wine.
+You know, it may come out any day, and then we're done
+for," he rather incongruously appended.</p>
+
+<p>Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's
+rambling chatter, and answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You've got nothing to do with it, if we are."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't I, though! I didn't stick in the box, but I'm
+an accomplice, that's clear. Besides," added Ripton, "do
+you think I should leave you to bear it all on your
+shoulders? I ain't that sort of chap, Ricky, I can tell
+you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson.
+Still it looked a detestable conspiracy, and the altered
+manner of his son impressed him strangely. He was not
+the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it seemed as if a gulf
+had suddenly opened between them. The boy had embarked,
+and was on the waters of life in his own vessel.
+It was as vain to call him back as to attempt to erase
+what Time has written with the Judgment Blood! This
+child, for whom he had prayed nightly in such a fervour
+and humbleness to God, the dangers were about him, the
+temptations thick on him, and the devil on board piloting.
+If a day had done so much, what would years do? Were
+prayers and all the watchfulness he had expended of no
+avail?</p>
+
+<p>A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor
+gentleman&mdash;a thought that he was fighting with a fate in
+this beloved boy.</p>
+
+<p>He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on
+the spot, and make them confess, and absolve themselves;
+but it seemed to him better to keep an unseen eye over
+his son: Sir Austin's old system prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that
+Sir Austin wished to be Providence to his son.</p>
+
+<p>If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human
+being might almost impersonate Providence to another.
+Alas! love, divine as it is, can do no more than lighten
+the house it inhabits&mdash;must take its shape, sometimes intensify
+its narrowness&mdash;can spiritualize, but not expel, the
+old life-long lodgers above-stairs and below.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent.</p>
+
+<p>The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal
+stars, and the exclamations of the boys were becoming
+fevered and impatient. By-and-by one insisted that he
+had seen a twinkle. The direction he gave was out of
+their anticipations. Again the twinkle was announced.
+Both boys started to their feet. It was a twinkle in the
+right direction now.</p>
+
+<p>"He's done it!" cried Richard, in great heat. "Now
+you may say old Blaize'll soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope
+he's asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure he's snoring!&mdash;Look there! He's alight fast
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>enough. He's dry. He'll burn.&mdash;I say," Ripton re-assumed
+the serious intonation, "do you think they'll ever
+suspect us?"</p>
+
+<p>"What if they do? We must brunt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we will. But, I say! I wish you hadn't
+given them the scent, though. I like to look innocent.
+I can't when I know people suspect me. Lord! look there!
+Isn't it just beginning to flare up!"</p>
+
+<p>The farmer's grounds were indeed gradually standing
+out in sombre shadows.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll fetch my telescope," said Richard. Ripton, somehow
+not liking to be left alone, caught hold of him.</p>
+
+<p>"No; don't go and lose the best of it. Here, I'll throw
+open the window, and we can see."</p>
+
+<p>The window was flung open, and the boys instantly
+stretched half their bodies out of it; Ripton appearing to
+devour the rising flames with his mouth: Richard with
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet
+behind them. The wind was low. Dense masses of smoke
+hung amid the darting snakes of fire, and a red malign
+light was on the neighbouring leafage. No figures could
+be seen. Apparently the flames had nothing to contend
+against, for they were making terrible strides into the
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, "if I
+had my telescope! We must have it! Let me go and
+fetch it! I will!"</p>
+
+<p>The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped
+back. As he did so, a cry was heard in the passage. He
+hurried out, closed the chamber, and came upon little
+Clare lying senseless along the floor.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the morning that followed this night, great gossip
+was interchanged between Raynham and Lobourne. The
+village told how Farmer Blaize, of Belthorpe Farm, had
+his rick feloniously set fire to; his stables had caught fire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+himself had been all but roasted alive in the attempt to
+rescue his cattle, of which numbers had perished in the
+flames. Raynham counterbalanced arson with an authentic
+ghost seen by Miss Clare in the left wing of the
+Abbey&mdash;the ghost of a lady, dressed in deep mourning,
+a scar on her forehead, and a bloody handkerchief at her
+breast, frightful to behold! and no wonder the child was
+frightened out of her wits, and lay in a desperate State
+awaiting the arrival of the London doctors. It was added
+that the servants had all threatened to leave in a body,
+and that Sir Austin to appease them had promised to pull
+down the entire left wing, like a gentleman; for no decent
+creature, said Lobourne, could consent to live in a haunted
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Rumour for the nonce had a stronger spice of truth than
+usual. Poor little Clare lay ill, and the calamity that had
+befallen Farmer Blaize, as regards his rick, was not much
+exaggerated. Sir Austin caused an account of it to be
+given him at breakfast, and appeared so scrupulously
+anxious to hear the exact extent of injury sustained by
+the farmer that heavy Benson went down to inspect the
+scene. Mr. Benson returned, and, acting under Adrian's
+malicious advice, framed a formal report of the catastrophe,
+in which the farmer's breeches figured, and certain
+cooling applications to a part of the farmer's person.
+Sir Austin perused it without a smile. He took occasion
+to have it read out before the two boys, who listened very
+demurely, as to an ordinary newspaper incident; only
+when the report particularized the garments damaged, and
+the unwonted distressing position Farmer Blaize was reduced
+to in his bed, an indecorous fit of sneezing laid
+hold of Master Ripton Thompson, and Richard bit his
+lip and burst into loud laughter, Ripton joining him, lost
+to consequences.</p>
+
+<p>"I trust you feel for this poor man," said Sir Austin
+to his son, somewhat sternly. He saw no sign of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>It was a difficult task for Sir Austin to keep his old
+countenance toward the hope of Raynham, knowing him
+the accomplice-incendiary, and believing the deed to have
+been unprovoked and wanton. But he must do so, he
+knew, to let the boy have a fair trial against himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>
+Be it said, moreover, that the baronet's possession of his
+son's secret flattered him. It allowed him to act, and in
+a measure to feel, like Providence; enabled him to observe
+and provide for the movements of creatures in the dark.
+He therefore treated the boy as he commonly did, and
+Richard saw no change in his father to make him think
+he was suspected.</p>
+
+<p>The youngster's game was not so easy against Adrian.
+Adrian did not shoot or fish. Voluntarily he did nothing
+to work off the destructive nervous fluid, or whatever it
+may be, which is in man's nature; so that two culprit
+boys once in his power were not likely to taste the gentle
+hand of mercy, and Richard and Ripton paid for many
+a trout and partridge spared. At every minute of the day
+Ripton was thrown into sweats of suspicion that discovery
+was imminent, by some stray remark or message from
+Adrian. He was as a fish with the hook in his gills,
+mysteriously caught without having nibbled; and dive
+into what depths he would he was sensible of a summoning
+force that compelled him perpetually towards the
+gasping surface, which he seemed inevitably approaching
+when the dinner-bell sounded. There the talk was all of
+Farmer Blaize. If it dropped, Adrian revived it, and his
+caressing way with Ripton was just such as a keen
+sportsman feels toward the creature that has owned his
+skill, and is making its appearance for the world to
+acknowledge the same. Sir Austin saw the man[oe]uvres,
+and admired Adrian's shrewdness. But he had to check
+the young natural lawyer, for the effect of so much masked
+examination upon Richard was growing baneful. This
+fish also felt the hook in his gills, but this fish was more
+of a pike, and lay in different waters, where there were
+old stumps and black roots to wind about, and defy alike
+strong pulling and delicate handling. In other words,
+Richard showed symptoms of a disposition to take refuge
+in lies.</p>
+
+<p>"You know the grounds, my dear boy," Adrian observed
+to him. "Tell me; do you think it easy to get to the rick
+unperceived? I hear they suspect one of the farmer's
+turned-off hands."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I don't know the grounds," Richard sullenly
+replied.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not?" Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment.
+"I thought Mr. Thompson said you were over there yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton, glad to speak a truth, hurriedly assured Adrian
+that it was not he had said so.</p>
+
+<p>"Not? You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" mumbled the wretched victims, reddening as
+they remembered, in Adrian's slightly drawled rusticity of
+tone, Farmer Blaize's first address to them.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were among the Fire-worshippers last
+night, too?" persisted Adrian. "In some countries, I hear,
+they manage their best sport at night-time, and beat up
+for game with torches. It must be a fine sight. After
+all, the country would be dull if we hadn't a rip here
+and there to treat us to a little conflagration."</p>
+
+<p>"A rip!" laughed Richard, to his friend's disgust and
+alarm at his daring. "You don't mean this Rip, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Thompson fire a rick? I should as soon suspect
+you, my dear boy.&mdash;You are aware, young gentlemen, that
+it is rather a serious thing&mdash;eh? In this country, you
+know, the landlord has always been the pet of the Laws.
+By the way," Adrian continued, as if diverging to another
+topic, "you met two gentlemen of the road in your explorations
+yesterday, Magians. Now, if I were a magistrate
+of the county, like Sir Miles Papworth, my suspicions
+would light upon those gentlemen. A tinker and a
+ploughman, I think you said, Mr. Thompson. Not?
+Well, say two ploughmen."</p>
+
+<p>"More likely two tinkers," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! if you wish to exclude the ploughman&mdash;was he
+out of employ?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton, with Adrian's eyes inveterately fixed on him,
+stammered an affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>"The tinker, or the ploughman?"</p>
+
+<p>"The ploughm&mdash;" Ingenuous Ripton looking about, as
+if to aid himself whenever he was able to speak the truth,
+beheld Richard's face blackening at him, and swallowed
+back half the word.</p>
+
+<p>"The ploughman!" Adrian took him up cheerily. "Then
+we have here a ploughman out of employ. Given a ploughman
+out of employ, and a rick burnt. The burning of a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>rick is an act of vengeance, and a ploughman out of employ<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">is a vengeful animal. The rick and the ploughman</span><br />
+are advancing to a juxtaposition. Motive being established,
+we have only to prove their proximity at a certain
+hour, and our ploughman voyages beyond seas."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it transportation for rick-burning?" inquired Ripton
+aghast.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian spoke solemnly: "They shave your head. You
+are manacled. Your diet is sour bread and cheese-parings.
+You work in strings of twenties and thirties. <span class="smcap">Arson</span> is
+branded on your backs in an enormous A. Theological
+works are the sole literary recreation of the well-conducted
+and deserving. Consider the fate of this poor fellow, and
+what an act of vengeance brings him to! Do you know
+his name?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know his name?" said Richard, with an
+assumption of innocence painful to see.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin remarked that no doubt it would soon be
+known, and Adrian perceived that he was to quiet his
+line, marvelling a little at the baronet's blindness to
+what was so clear. He would not tell, for that would
+ruin his future influence with Richard; still he wanted
+some present credit for his discernment and devotion.
+The boys got away from dinner, and, after deep consultation,
+agreed upon a course of conduct, which was to commiserate
+Farmer Blaize loudly, and make themselves look
+as much like the public as it was possible for two young
+malefactors to look, one of whom already felt Adrian's
+enormous A devouring his back with the fierceness of the
+Promethean eagle, and isolating him for ever from mankind.
+Adrian relished their novel tactics sharply, and
+led them to lengths of lamentation for Farmer Blaize.
+Do what they might, the hook was in their gills. The
+farmer's whip had reduced them to bodily contortions:
+these were decorous compared with the spiritual writhings
+they had to perform under Adrian's manipulation. Ripton
+was fast becoming a coward, and Richard a liar, when
+next morning Austin Wentworth came over from Poer
+Hall bringing news that one Mr. Thomas Bakewell, yeoman,
+had been arrested on suspicion of the crime of
+Arson and lodged in jail, awaiting the magisterial pleasure
+of Sir Miles Papworth. Austin's eye rested on Richard
+as he spoke these terrible tidings. The hope of Raynham<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>
+returned his look, perfectly calm, and had, moreover, the
+presence of mind not to look at Ripton.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>JUVENILE STRATAGEMS</h3>
+
+
+<p>As soon as they could escape, the boys got away together
+into an obscure corner of the park, and there took counsel
+of their extremity.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever shall we do now?" asked Ripton of his
+leader.</p>
+
+<p>Scorpion girt with fire was never in a more terrible
+prison-house than poor Ripton, around whom the raging
+element he had assisted to create seemed to be drawing
+momentary narrower circles.</p>
+
+<p>"There's only one chance," said Richard, coming to a
+dead halt, and folding his arms resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>His comrade inquired with the utmost eagerness what
+that chance might be.</p>
+
+<p>Richard fixed his eyes on a flint, and replied: "We must
+rescue that fellow from jail."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton gazed at his leader, and fell back with astonishment.
+"My dear Ricky! but how are we to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard, still perusing his flint, replied: "We must
+manage to get a file in to him and a rope. It can be
+done, I tell you. I don't care what I pay. I don't care
+what I do. He must be got out."</p>
+
+<p>"Bother that old Blaize!" exclaimed Ripton, taking off
+his cap to wipe his frenzied forehead, and brought down
+his friend's reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind old Blaize now. Talk about letting it
+out! Look at you. I'm ashamed of you. You talk about
+Robin Hood and King Richard! Why, you haven't an
+atom of courage. Why, you let it out every second of
+the day. Whenever Rady begins speaking you start; I
+can see the perspiration rolling down you. Are you
+afraid?&mdash;And then you contradict yourself. You never
+keep to one story. Now, follow me. We must risk
+everything to get him out. Mind that! And keep out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+of Adrian's way as much as you can. And keep to
+one story."</p>
+
+<p>With these sage directions the young leader marched
+his companion-culprit down to inspect the jail where Tom
+Bakewell lay groaning over the results of the super-mundane
+conflict, and the victim of it that he was.</p>
+
+<p>In Lobourne Austin Wentworth had the reputation of
+the poor man's friend; a title he earned more largely ere
+he went to the reward God alone can give to that supreme
+virtue. Dame Bakewell, the mother of Tom, on hearing
+of her son's arrest, had run to comfort him and render
+him what help she could; but this was only sighs and
+tears, and, oh deary me! which only perplexed poor Tom,
+who bade her leave an unlucky chap to his fate, and not
+make himself a thundering villain. Whereat the dame
+begged him to take heart, and he should have a true comforter.
+"And though it's a gentleman that's coming to
+you, Tom&mdash;for he never refuses a poor body," said Mrs.
+Bakewell, "it's a true Christian, Tom! and the Lord knows
+if the sight of him mayn't be the saving of you, for he's
+light to look on, and a sermon to listen to, he is!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom was not prepossessed by the prospect of a sermon,
+and looked a sullen dog enough when Austin entered his
+cell. He was surprised at the end of half-an-hour to find
+himself engaged in man-to-man conversation with a gentleman
+and a Christian. When Austin rose to go, Tom
+begged permission to shake his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Take and tell young master up at the Abbey that I
+an't the chap to peach. He'll know. He's a young gentleman
+as'll make any man do as he wants 'em! He's a
+mortal wild young gentleman! And I'm a Ass! That's
+where 'tis. But I an't a blackguard. Tell him that,
+sir!"</p>
+
+<p>This was how it came that Austin eyed young Richard
+seriously while he told the news at Raynham. The boy
+was shy of Austin more than of Adrian. Why, he did
+not know; but he made it a hard task for Austin to catch
+him alone, and turned sulky that instant. Austin was not
+clever like Adrian: he seldom divined other people's ideas,
+and always went the direct road to his object; so instead
+of beating about and setting the boy on the alert at all
+points, crammed to the muzzle with lies, he just said,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>
+"Tom Bakewell told me to let you know he does not
+intend to peach on you," and left him.</p>
+
+<p>Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried
+aloud that Tom was a brick.</p>
+
+<p>"He shan't suffer for it," said Richard, and pondered
+on a thicker rope and sharper file.</p>
+
+<p>"But will your cousin tell?" was Ripton's reflection.</p>
+
+<p>"He!" Richard's lip expressed contempt. "A ploughman
+refuses to peach, and you ask if one of our family
+will?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproved on this
+point.</p>
+
+<p>The boys had examined the outer walls of the jail, and
+arrived at the conclusion that Tom's escape might be managed
+if Tom had spirit, and the rope and file could be
+anyway reached to him. But to do this, somebody must
+gain admittance to his cell, and who was to be taken into
+their confidence?</p>
+
+<p>"Try your cousin," Ripton suggested, after much debate.</p>
+
+<p>Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" Ripton hurriedly reassured him. "Austin."</p>
+
+<p>The same idea was knocking at Richard's head.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get the rope and file first," said he, and to Bursley
+they went for those implements to defeat the law, Ripton
+procuring the file at one shop and Richard the rope at
+another, with such masterly cunning did they lay their
+measures for the avoidance of every possible chance of detection.
+And better to assure this, in a wood outside
+Bursley Richard stripped to his shirt and wound the rope
+round his body, tasting the tortures of anchorites and
+penitential friars, that nothing should be risked to make
+Tom's escape a certainty. Sir Austin saw the marks at
+night as his son lay asleep, through the half-opened folds
+of his bed-gown.</p>
+
+<p>It was a severe stroke when, after all their stratagems
+and trouble, Austin Wentworth refused the office the boys
+had zealously designed for him. Time pressed. In a few
+days poor Tom would have to face the redoubtable Sir
+Miles, and get committed, for rumours of overwhelming
+evidence to convict him were rife about Lobourne, and
+Farmer Blaize's wrath was unappeasable. Again and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>
+again young Richard begged his cousin not to see him
+disgraced, and to help him in this extremity. Austin
+smiled on him.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Ricky," said he, "there are two ways of getting
+out of a scrape: a long way and a short way. When
+you've tried the roundabout method, and failed, come to
+me, and I'll show you the straight route."</p>
+
+<p>Richard was too entirely bent upon the roundabout
+method to consider this advice more than empty words,
+and only ground his teeth at Austin's unkind refusal.</p>
+
+<p>He imparted to Ripton, at the eleventh hour, that they
+must do it themselves, to which Ripton heavily assented.</p>
+
+<p>On the day preceding poor Tom's doomed appearance
+before the magistrate, Dame Bakewell had an interview
+with Austin, who went to Raynham immediately, and
+sought Adrian's counsel upon what was to be done.
+Homeric laughter and nothing else could be got out of
+Adrian when he heard of the doings of these desperate
+boys: how they had entered Dame Bakewell's smallest of
+retail shops, and purchased tea, sugar, candles, and comfits
+of every description, till the shop was clear of customers:
+how they had then hurried her into her little
+back-parlour, where Richard had torn open his shirt and
+revealed the coils of rope, and Ripton displayed the point
+of a file from a serpentine recess in his jacket: how they
+had then told the astonished woman that the rope she saw
+and the file she saw were instruments for the liberation
+of her son; that there existed no other means on earth
+to save him, they, the boys, having unsuccessfully attempted
+all: how upon that Richard had tried with the
+utmost earnestness to <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'pursuade'">persuade</ins> her to disrobe and wind
+the rope round her own person: and Ripton had aired
+his eloquence to induce her to secrete the file: how, when
+she resolutely objected to the rope, both boys began backing
+the file, and in an evil hour, she feared, said Dame
+Bakewell, she had rewarded the gracious permission given
+her by Sir Miles Papworth to visit her son, by tempting
+Tom to file the Law. Though, thanks be to the Lord!
+Dame Bakewell added, Tom had turned up his nose at
+the file, and so she had told young Master Richard, who
+swore very bad for a young gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys are like monkeys," remarked Adrian, at the close<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>
+of his explosions, "the gravest actors of farcical nonsense
+that the world possesses. May I never be where there are
+no boys! A couple of boys left to themselves will furnish
+richer fun than any troop of trained comedians. No: no
+Art arrives at the artlessness of nature in matters of
+comedy. You can't simulate the ape. Your antics are
+dull. They haven't the charming inconsequence of the
+natural animal. Look at these two! Think of the shifts
+they are put to all day long! They know I know all
+about it, and yet their serenity of innocence is all but
+unruffled in my presence. You're sorry to think about
+the end of the business, Austin? So am I! I dread the
+idea of the curtain going down. Besides, it will do Ricky
+a world of good. A practical lesson is the best lesson."</p>
+
+<p>"Sinks deepest," said Austin, "but whether he learns
+good or evil from it is the question at stake."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian stretched his length at ease.</p>
+
+<p>"This will be his first nibble at experience, old Time's
+fruit, hateful to the palate of youth! for which season only
+hath it any nourishment! Experience! You know Coleridge's
+capital simile?&mdash;Mournful you call it? Well! all
+wisdom is mournful. 'Tis therefore, coz, that the wise do
+love the Comic Muse. Their own high food would kill
+them. You shall find great poets, rare philosophers, night
+after night on the broad grin before a row of yellow lights
+and mouthing masks. Why? Because all's dark at home.
+The stage is the pastime of great minds. That's how it
+comes that the stage is now down. An age of rampant
+little minds, my dear Austin! How I hate that cant of
+yours about an Age of Work&mdash;you, and your Mortons,
+and your parsons Brawnley, rank radicals all of you, base
+materialists! What does Diaper Sandoe sing of your Age
+of Work? Listen!</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'An Age of petty tit for tat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">An Age of busy gabble:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">An age that's like a brewer's vat,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Fermenting for the rabble!<br /></span></div>
+<br />
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'An Age that's chaste in Love, but lax<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To virtuous abuses:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose gentlemen and ladies wax<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Too dainty for their uses.<br /></span></div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'An Age that drives an Iron Horse,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of Time and Space defiant;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Exulting in a Giant's Force,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And trembling at the Giant.<br /></span></div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'An Age of Quaker hue and cut,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">By Mammon misbegotten;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">See the mad Hamlet mouth and strut!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And mark the Kings of Cotton!<br /></span></div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'From this unrest, lo, early wreck'd,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">A Future staggers crazy,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ophelia of the Ages, deck'd<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With woeful weed and daisy!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Murmuring, "Get your parson Brawnley to answer
+that!" Adrian changed the resting-place of a leg, and
+smiled. The <span class="smcap">Age</span> was an old battle-field between him and
+Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"My parson Brawnley, as you call him, has answered
+it," said Austin, "not by hoping his best, which would
+probably leave the Age to go mad to your satisfaction,
+but by doing it. And he has and will answer your Diaper
+Sandoe in better verse, as he confutes him in a better
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't see Sandoe's depth," Adrian replied. "Consider
+that phrase, 'Ophelia of the Ages'! Is not Brawnley,
+like a dozen other leading spirits&mdash;I think that's your
+term&mdash;just the metaphysical Hamlet to drive her mad?
+She, poor maid! asks for marriage and smiling babes,
+while my lord lover stands questioning the Infinite, and
+rants to the Impalpable."</p>
+
+<p>Austin laughed. "Marriage and smiling babes she
+would have in abundance, if Brawnley legislated. Wait
+till you know him. He will be over at Poer Hall shortly,
+and you will see what a Man of the Age means. But now,
+pray, consult with me about these boys."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, those boys!" Adrian tossed a hand. "Are there
+boys of the Age as well as men? Not? Then boys are
+better than men: boys are for all Ages. What do you
+think, Austin? They've been studying Latude's Escape.
+I found the book open in Ricky's room, on the top of
+Jonathan Wild. Jonathan preserved the secrets of his
+profession, and taught them nothing. So they're going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>
+make a Latude of Mr. Tom Bakewell. He's to be Bastille
+Bakewell, whether he will or no. Let them. Let the wild
+colt run free! We can't help them. We can only look
+on. We should spoil the play."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian always made a point of feeding the fretful beast
+Impatience with pleasantries&mdash;a not congenial diet; and
+Austin, the most patient of human beings, began to lose
+his self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"You talk as if Time belonged to you, Adrian. We
+have but a few hours left us. Work first, and joke afterwards.
+The boy's fate is being decided now."</p>
+
+<p>"So is everybody's, my dear Austin!" yawned the epicurean.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but this boy is at present under our guardianship&mdash;under
+yours especially."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet! not yet!" Adrian interjected languidly. "No
+getting into scrapes when I have him. The leash, young
+hound! the collar, young colt! I'm perfectly irresponsible
+at present."</p>
+
+<p>"You may have something different to deal with when
+you are responsible, if you think that."</p>
+
+<p>"I take my young prince as I find him, coz: a Julian,
+or a Caracalla: a Constantine, or a Nero. Then, if he
+will play the fiddle to a conflagration, he shall play it well:
+if he must be a disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall
+understand logic and men, and have the habit of saying
+his prayers."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you leave me to act alone?" said Austin, rising.</p>
+
+<p>"Without a single curb!" Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced
+withdrawal. "I'm sure you would not, still more
+certain you cannot, do harm. And be mindful of my prophetic
+words: Whatever's done, old Blaize will have to be
+bought off. There's the affair settled at once. I suppose
+I must go to the chief to-night and settle it myself. We
+can't see this poor devil condemned, though it's nonsense
+to talk of a boy being the prime instigator."</p>
+
+<p>Austin cast an eye at the complacent languor of the
+wise youth, his cousin, and the little that he knew of his
+fellows told him he might talk for ever here, and not be
+comprehended. The wise youth's two ears were stuffed
+with his own wisdom. One evil only Adrian dreaded, it
+was clear&mdash;the action of the law.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As he was moving away, Adrian called out to him,
+"Stop, Austin! There! don't be anxious! You invariably
+take the glum side. I've done something. Never mind
+what. If you go down to Belthorpe, be civil, but not
+obsequious. You remember the tactics of Scipio Africanus
+against the Punic elephants? Well, don't say a
+word&mdash;in thine ear, coz: I've turned Master Blaize's
+elephants. If they charge, 'twill be a feint, and back to
+the destruction of his serried ranks! You understand.
+Not? Well, 'tis as well. Only, let none say that I sleep.
+If I must see him to-night, I go down knowing he has
+not got us in his power." The wise youth yawned, and
+stretched out a hand for any book that might be within
+his reach. Austin left him to look about the grounds for
+Richard.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>DAPHNE'S BOWER</h3>
+
+
+<p>A little laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked
+out on the river from a knoll bordering the Raynham
+beechwoods, and was dubbed by Adrian Daphne's Bower.
+To this spot Richard had retired, and there Austin found
+him with his head buried in his hands, a picture of desperation,
+whose last shift has been defeated. He allowed
+Austin to greet him and sit by him without lifting his
+head. Perhaps his eyes were not presentable.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's your friend?" Austin began.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone!" was the answer, sounding cavernous from behind
+hair and fingers. An explanation presently followed,
+that a summons had come for him in the morning from
+Mr. Thompson; and that Mr. Ripton had departed against
+his will.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, Ripton had protested that he would defy his
+parent and remain by his friend in the hour of adversity
+and at the post of danger. Sir Austin signified his opinion
+that a boy should obey his parent, by giving orders to
+Benson for Ripton's box to be packed and ready before
+noon; and Ripton's alacrity in taking the baronet's view
+of filial duty was as little feigned as his offer to Richard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>
+to throw filial duty to the winds. He rejoiced that the
+Fates had agreed to remove him from the very hot neighbourhood
+of Lobourne, while he grieved, like an honest
+lad, to see his comrade left to face calamity alone. The
+boys parted amicably, as they could hardly fail to do, when
+Ripton had sworn fealty to the Feverels with a warmth
+that made him declare himself bond, and due to appear
+at any stated hour and at any stated place to fight all the
+farmers in England, on a mandate from the heir of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're left alone," said Austin, contemplating the
+boy's shapely head. "I'm glad of it. We never know
+what's in us till we stand by ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>There appeared to be no answer forthcoming. Vanity,
+however, replied at last, "He wasn't much support."</p>
+
+<p>"Remember his good points now he's gone, Ricky."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! he was staunch," the boy grumbled.</p>
+
+<p>"And a staunch friend is not always to be found. Now,
+have you tried your own way of rectifying this business,
+Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have done everything."</p>
+
+<p>"And failed!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause, and then the deep-toned evasion&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tom Bakewell's a coward!"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, poor fellow," said Austin, in his kind way,
+"he doesn't want to get into a deeper mess. I don't think
+he's a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a coward," cried Richard. "Do you think if I
+had a file I would stay in prison? I'd be out the first
+night! And he might have had the rope, too&mdash;a rope
+thick enough for a couple of men his size and weight.
+Ripton and I and Ned Markham swung on it for an hour,
+and it didn't give way. He's a coward, and deserves his
+fate. I've no compassion for a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I much," said Austin.</p>
+
+<p>Richard had raised his head in the heat of his denunciation
+of poor Tom. He would have hidden it had he known
+the thought in Austin's clear eyes while he faced them.</p>
+
+<p>"I never met a coward myself," Austin continued. "I
+have heard of one or two. One let an innocent man die
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>"How base!" exclaimed the boy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was bad," Austin acquiesced.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad!" Richard scorned the poor contempt. "How I
+would have spurned him! He was a coward!"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he pleaded the feelings of his family in his
+excuse, and tried every means to get the man off. I have
+read also in the confessions of a celebrated philosopher,
+that in his youth he committed some act of pilfering, and
+accused a young servant-girl of his own theft, who was
+condemned and dismissed for it, pardoning her guilty
+accuser."</p>
+
+<p>"What a coward!" shouted Richard. "And he confessed
+it publicly?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may read it yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"He actually wrote it down, and printed it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have the book in your father's library. Would
+you have done so much?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard faltered. No! he admitted that he never could
+have told people.</p>
+
+<p>"Then who is to call that man a coward?" <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Said'">said</ins>
+Austin. "He expiated his cowardice as all who give way
+in moments of weakness, and are not cowards, must do.
+The coward chooses to think 'God does not see. I shall
+escape.' He who is not a coward, and has succumbed,
+knows that God has seen all, and it is not so hard a
+task for him to make his heart bare to the world. Worse,
+I should fancy it, to know myself an impostor when men
+praised me."</p>
+
+<p>Young Richard's eyes were wandering on Austin's
+gravely cheerful face. A keen intentness suddenly fixed
+them, and he dropped his head.</p>
+
+<p>"So I think you're wrong, Ricky, in calling this poor
+Tom a coward because he refuses to try your means of
+escape," Austin resumed. "A coward hardly objects to
+drag in his accomplice. And, where the person involved
+belongs to a great family, it seems to me that for a poor
+plough-lad to volunteer not to do so speaks him anything
+but a coward."</p>
+
+<p>Richard was dumb. Altogether to surrender his rope
+and file was a fearful sacrifice, after all the time, trepidation,
+and study he had spent on those two saving instruments.
+If he avowed Tom's manly behaviour, Richard
+Feverel was in a totally new position. Whereas, by keeping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>
+Tom a coward, Richard Feverel was the injured one,
+and to seem injured is always a luxury; sometimes a
+necessity, whether among boys or men.</p>
+
+<p>In Austin the Magian conflict would not have lasted
+long. He had but a blind notion of the fierceness with
+which it raged in young Richard. Happily for the boy,
+Austin was not a preacher. A single instance, a cant
+phrase, a fatherly manner, might have wrecked him, by
+arousing ancient or latent opposition. The born preacher
+we feel instinctively to be our foe. He may do some good
+to the wretches that have been struck down and lie gasping
+on the battlefield: he rouses antagonism in the strong.
+Richard's nature, left to itself, wanted little more than
+an indication of the proper track, and when he said,
+"Tell me what I can do, Austin?" he had fought the best
+half of the battle. His voice was subdued. Austin put
+his hand on the boy's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"You must go down to Farmer Blaize."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" said Richard, sullenly divining the deed of
+penance.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll know what to say to him when you're there."</p>
+
+<p>The boy bit his lip and frowned. "Ask a favour of
+that big brute, Austin? I can't!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just tell him the whole case, and that you don't intend
+to stand by and let the poor fellow suffer without a friend
+to help him out of his scrape."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Austin," the boy pleaded, "I shall have to ask
+him to help off Tom Bakewell! How can I ask him, when
+I hate him?"</p>
+
+<p>Austin bade him go, and think nothing of the consequences
+till he got there.</p>
+
+<p>Richard groaned in soul.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no pride, Austin."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know what it is to ask a favour of a brute
+you hate."</p>
+
+<p>Richard stuck to that view of the case, and stuck to it
+the faster the more imperatively the urgency of a movement
+dawned upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," continued the boy, "I shall hardly be able to
+keep my fists off him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you've punished him enough, boy!" said Austin.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He struck me!" Richard's lip quivered. "He dared
+not come at me with his hands. He struck me with a
+whip. He'll be telling everybody that he horsewhipped
+me, and that I went down and begged his pardon. Begged
+his pardon! A Feverel beg his pardon! Oh, if I had
+my will!"</p>
+
+<p>"The man earns his bread, Ricky. You poached on his
+grounds. He turned you off, and you fired his rick."</p>
+
+<p>"And I'll pay him for his loss. And I won't do any
+more."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you won't ask a favour of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! I will not ask a favour of him."</p>
+
+<p>Austin looked at the boy steadily. "You prefer to receive
+a favour from poor Tom Bakewell?"</p>
+
+<p>At Austin's enunciation of this obverse view of the
+matter Richard raised his brow. Dimly a new light broke
+in upon him. "Favour from Tom Bakewell, the ploughman?
+How do you mean, Austin?"</p>
+
+<p>"To save yourself an unpleasantness you permit a
+country lad to sacrifice himself for you? I confess I
+should not have so much pride."</p>
+
+<p>"Pride!" shouted Richard, stung by the taunt, and set
+his sight hard at the blue ridges of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Not knowing for the moment what else to do, Austin
+drew a picture of Tom in prison, and repeated Tom's
+volunteer statement. The picture, though his intentions
+were far from designing it so, had to Richard, whose perception
+of humour was infinitely keener, a horrible chaw-bacon
+smack about it. Visions of a grinning lout, open
+from ear to ear, unkempt, coarse, splay-footed, rose before
+him and afflicted him with the strangest sensations of
+disgust and comicality, mixed up with pity and remorse&mdash;a
+sort of twisted pathos. There lay Tom; hob-nail Tom!
+a bacon-munching, reckless, beer-swilling animal! and yet
+a man; a dear brave human heart notwithstanding; capable
+of devotion and unselfishness. The boy's better
+spirit was touched, and it kindled his imagination to
+realize the abject figure of poor clodpole Tom, and surround
+it with a halo of mournful light. His soul was
+alive. Feelings he had never known streamed in upon him
+as from an ethereal casement, an unwonted tenderness,
+an embracing humour, a consciousness of some ineffable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>
+glory, an irradiation of the features of humanity. All
+this was in the bosom of the boy, and through it all the
+vision of an actual hob-nail Tom, coarse, unkempt, open
+from ear to ear; whose presence was a finger of shame to
+him and an oppression of clodpole; yet toward whom he
+felt just then a loving-kindness beyond what he felt for
+any living creature. He laughed at him, and wept over
+him. He prized him, while he shrank from him. It was
+a genial strife of the angel in him with constituents less
+divine; but the angel was uppermost and led the van&mdash;extinguished
+loathing, humanized laughter, transfigured
+pride&mdash;pride that would persistently contemplate the corduroys
+of gaping Tom, and cry to Richard, in the very
+tone of Adrian's ironic voice, "Behold your benefactor!"</p>
+
+<p>Austin sat by the boy, unaware of the sublimer tumult
+he had stirred. Little of it was perceptible in Richard's
+countenance. The lines of his mouth were slightly drawn;
+his eyes hard set into the distance. He remained thus
+many minutes. Finally he jumped to his legs, saying,
+"I'll go at once to old Blaize and tell him."</p>
+
+<p>Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out
+of Daphne's Bower, in the direction of Lobourne.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BITTER CUP</h3>
+
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of
+Richard Feverel as that young gentleman expected him to
+be. The farmer, seated in his easy-chair in the little low-roofed
+parlour of an old-fashioned farm-house, with a long
+clay pipe on the table at his elbow, and a veteran pointer
+at his feet, had already given audience to three distinguished
+members of the Feverel blood, who had come
+separately, according to their accustomed secretiveness,
+and with one object. In the morning it was Sir Austin
+himself. Shortly after his departure, arrived Austin
+Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about
+Lobourne as the Captain, popular wherever he was known.
+Farmer Blaize reclined in considerable elation. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>
+brought these great people to a pretty low pitch. He had
+welcomed them hospitably, as a British yeoman should;
+but not budged a foot in his demands: not to the baronet:
+not to the Captain: not to good young Mr. Wentworth.
+For Farmer Blaize was a solid Englishman; and, on hearing
+from the baronet a frank confession of the hold he
+had on the family, he determined to tighten his hold,
+and only relax it in exchange for tangible advantages&mdash;compensation
+to his pocket, his wounded person, and his
+still more wounded sentiments: the total indemnity being,
+in round figures, three hundred pounds, and a spoken
+apology from the prime offender, young Mister Richard.
+Even then there was a reservation. Provided, the farmer
+said, nobody had been tampering with any of his witnesses.
+In that case Farmer Blaize declared the money might go,
+and he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had sworn
+he would. And it goes hard, too, with an accomplice, by
+law, added the farmer, knocking the ashes leisurely out
+of his pipe. He had no wish to bring any disgrace anywhere;
+he respected the inmates of Raynham Abbey, as
+in duty bound; he should be sorry to see them in trouble.
+Only no tampering with his witnesses. He was a man
+for Law. Rank was much: money was much: but Law
+was more. In this country Law was above the sovereign.
+To tamper with the Law was treason to the realm.</p>
+
+<p>"I come to you direct," the baronet explained. "I tell
+you candidly in what way I discovered my son to be mixed
+up in this miserable affair. I promise you indemnity for
+your loss, and an apology that shall, I trust, satisfy your
+feelings, assuring you that to tamper with witnesses is
+not the province of a Feverel. All I ask of you in return
+is, not to press the prosecution. At present it rests with
+you. I am bound to do all that lies in my power for this
+imprisoned man. How and wherefore my son was
+prompted to suggest, or assist in, such an act, I cannot
+explain, for I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"Hum!" said the farmer. "I think I do."</p>
+
+<p>"You know the cause?" Sir Austin stared. "I beg you
+to confide it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"'Least, I can pretty nigh neighbour it with a guess,"
+said the farmer. "We an't good friends, Sir Austin, me
+and your son, just now&mdash;not to say cordial. I, ye see, Sir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>
+Austin, I'm a man as don't like young gentlemen
+a-poachin' on his grounds without his permission,&mdash;in
+special when birds is plentiful on their own. It appear
+he do like it. Consequently I has to flick this whip&mdash;as
+them fellers at the races: All in this 'ere Ring's mine!
+as much as to say; and who's been hit, he's had fair
+warnin'. I'm sorry for't, but that's just the case."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when
+he should find him.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon's interview passed off in ale and promises.
+He also assured Farmer Blaize that no Feverel could be
+affected by his proviso.</p>
+
+<p>No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was
+satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"Money's safe, I know," said he; "now for the 'pology!"
+and Farmer Blaize thrust his legs further out, and his
+head further back.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer naturally reflected that the three separate
+visits had been conspired together. Still the baronet's
+frankness, and the baronet's not having reserved himself
+for the third and final charge, puzzled him. He was considering
+whether they were a deep, or a shallow lot, when
+young Richard was announced.</p>
+
+<p>A pretty little girl with the roses of thirteen springs in
+her cheeks, and abundant beautiful bright tresses, tripped
+before the boy, and loitered shyly by the farmer's armchair
+to steal a look at the handsome new-comer. She
+was introduced to Richard as the farmer's niece, Lucy
+Desborough, the daughter of a lieutenant in the Royal
+Navy, and, what was better, though the farmer did not
+pronounce it so loudly, a real good girl.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the excellence of her character, nor her rank in
+life, tempted Richard to inspect the little lady. He made
+an awkward bow, and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer's eyes twinkled. "Her father," he continued,
+"fought and fell for his coontry. A man as fights
+for's coontry's a right to hould up his head&mdash;ay! with
+any in the land. Desb'roughs o' Dorset! d'ye know that
+family, Master Feverel?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not
+desire to become acquainted with any offshoot of that
+family.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She can make puddens and pies," the farmer went on,
+regardless of his auditor's gloom. "She's a lady, as good
+as the best of 'em. I don't care about their being Catholics&mdash;the
+Desb'roughs o' Dorset are gentlemen. And
+she's good for the pianer, too! She strums to me of
+evenin's. I'm for the old tunes: she's for the new. Gal-like!
+While she's with me she shall be taught things
+use'l. She can parley-voo a good 'un and foot it, as it
+goes; been in France a couple of year. I prefer the singin'
+of 't to the talkin' of 't. Come, Luce! toon up&mdash;eh?&mdash;Ye
+wun't? That song about the Viffendeer&mdash;a female"&mdash;Farmer
+Blaize volunteered the translation of the title&mdash;"who
+wears the&mdash;you guess what! and marches along with
+the French sojers: a pretty brazen bit o' goods, I sh'd
+fancy."</p>
+
+<p>Mademoiselle Lucy corrected her uncle's French, but
+objected to do more. The handsome cross boy had almost
+taken away her voice for speech, as it was, and sing in his
+company she could not; so she stood, a hand on her uncle's
+chair to stay herself from falling, while she wriggled a
+dozen various shapes of refusal, and shook her head at the
+farmer with fixed eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Aha!" laughed the farmer, dismissing her, "they soon
+learn the difference 'twixt the young 'un and the old 'un.
+Go along, Luce! and learn yer lessons for to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Reluctantly the daughter of the Royal Navy glided
+away. Her uncle's head followed her to the door, where
+she dallied to catch a last impression of the young
+stranger's lowering face, and darted through.</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize laughed and chuckled. "She an't so
+fond of her uncle as that, every day! Not that she an't
+a good nurse&mdash;the kindest little soul you'd meet of a winter's
+walk! She'll read t' ye, and make drinks, and sing,
+too, if ye likes it, and she won't be tired. A obstinate
+good 'un, she be! Bless her!"</p>
+
+<p>The farmer may have designed, by these eulogies of his
+niece, to give his visitor time to recover his composure,
+and establish a common topic. His diversion only irritated
+and confused our shame-eaten youth. Richard's
+intention had been to come to the farmer's threshold: to
+summon the farmer thither, and in a loud and haughty
+tone then and there to take upon himself the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>
+burden of the charge against Tom Bakewell. He had
+strayed, during his passage to Belthorpe, somewhat back
+to his old nature; and his being compelled to enter the
+house of his enemy, sit in his chair, and endure an introduction
+to his family, was more than he bargained for.
+He commenced blinking hard in preparation for the horrible
+dose to which delay and the farmer's cordiality added
+inconceivable bitters. Farmer Blaize was quite at his
+ease; nowise in a hurry. He spoke of the weather and the
+harvest: of recent doings up at the Abbey: glanced over
+that year's cricketing; hoped that no future Feverel would
+lose a leg to the game. Richard saw and heard Arson in
+it all. He blinked harder as he neared the cup. In a
+moment of silence, he seized it with a gasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Blaize! I have come to tell you that I am the person
+who set fire to your rick the other night."</p>
+
+<p>An odd contraction formed about the farmer's mouth.
+He changed his posture, and said, "Ay? that's what ye're
+come to tell me, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" said Richard, firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"And that be all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" Richard reiterated.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer again changed his posture. "Then, my lad,
+ye've come to tell me a lie!"</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed
+by the dark flush of ire he had kindled.</p>
+
+<p>"You dare to call me a liar!" cried Richard, starting
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"I say," the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and
+smacked his thigh thereto, "that's a lie!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard held out his clenched fist. "You have twice
+insulted me. You have struck me: you have dared to
+call me a liar. I would have apologized&mdash;I would have
+asked your pardon, to have got off that fellow in prison.
+Yes! I would have degraded myself that another man
+should not suffer for my deed"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Quite proper!" interposed the farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh.
+You're a coward, sir! nobody but a coward would have
+insulted me in his own house."</p>
+
+<p>"Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master," said the
+farmer, indicating the chair and cooling the outburst with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>
+his hand. "Sit ye down. Don't ye be hasty. If ye hadn't
+been hasty t'other day, we sh'd a been friends yet. Sit ye
+down, sir. I sh'd be sorry to reckon you out a liar, Mr.
+Feverel, or anybody o' your name. I respects yer father
+though we're opp'site politics. I'm willin' to think well
+o' you. What I say is, that as you say an't the trewth.
+Mind! I don't like you none the worse for't. But it an't
+what is. That's all! You knows it as well's I!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified,
+angrily reseated himself. The farmer spoke sense, and
+the boy, after his late interview with Austin, had become
+capable of perceiving vaguely that a towering passion is
+hardly the justification for a wrong course of conduct.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," continued the farmer, not unkindly, "what else
+have you to say?"</p>
+
+<p>Here was the same bitter cup he had already once
+drained brimming at Richard's lips again! Alas, poor
+human nature! that empties to the dregs a dozen of these
+evil drinks, to evade the single one which Destiny, less
+cruel, had insisted upon.</p>
+
+<p>The boy blinked and tossed it off.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken
+on you for your striking me."</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And now ye've done, young gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>Still another cupful!</p>
+
+<p>"I should be very much obliged," Richard formally
+began, but his stomach was turned; he could but sip and
+sip, and gather a distaste which threatened to make the
+penitential act impossible. "Very much obliged," he repeated:
+"much obliged, if you would be so kind," and it
+struck him that had he spoken this at first he would have
+given it a wording more persuasive with the farmer and
+more worthy of his own pride: more honest, in fact: for
+a sense of the dishonesty of what he was saying caused
+him to cringe and simulate humility to deceive the farmer,
+and the more he said the less he felt his words, and, feeling
+them less, he inflated them more. "So kind," he stammered,
+"so kind" (fancy a <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Feveral'">Feverel</ins> asking this big brute
+to be so kind!) "as to do me the favour" (<i>me</i> the favour!)
+"to exert yourself" (it's all to please Austin) "to endeavour
+to&mdash;hem! to" (there's no saying it!)&mdash;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again.</p>
+
+<p>"What I came to ask is, whether you would have the
+kindness to try what you could do" (what an infamous
+shame to have to beg like this!) "do to save&mdash;do to ensure&mdash;whether
+you would have the kindness"&mdash;&mdash; It
+seemed out of all human power to gulp it down. The
+draught grew more and more abhorrent. To proclaim
+one's iniquity, to apologize for one's wrongdoing; thus
+much could be done; but to beg a favour of the offended
+party&mdash;that was beyond the self-abasement any Feverel
+could consent to. Pride, however, whose inevitable battle
+is against itself, drew aside the curtains of poor Tom's
+prison, crying a second time, "Behold your Benefactor!"
+and, with the words burning in his ears, Richard swallowed
+the dose:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,&mdash;if you don't mind&mdash;will
+you help me to get this man Bakewell off his punishment?"</p>
+
+<p>To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently
+for the boy, though he could not quite see why he did not
+take the gate at the first offer.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said he, when he heard and had pondered on the
+request. "Hum! ha! we'll see about it t'morrow. But if
+he's innocent, you know, we shan't mak'n guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"It was I did it!" Richard declared.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer's half-amused expression sharpened a bit.</p>
+
+<p>"So, young gentleman! and you're sorry for the night's
+work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your
+losses."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank'ee," said the farmer drily.</p>
+
+<p>"And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don't
+care what the amount is."</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. "Bribery,"
+one motion expressed: "Corruption," the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said he, leaning forward, and fixing his elbows
+on his knees, while he counted the case at his fingers'
+ends, "excuse the liberty, but wishin' to know where this
+'ere money's to come from, I sh'd like jest t'ask if so be
+Sir Austin know o' this?"</p>
+
+<p>"My father knows nothing of it," replied Richard.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer flung back in his chair. "Lie number Two,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>
+said his shoulders, soured by the British aversion to being
+plotted at, and not dealt with openly.</p>
+
+<p>"And ye've the money ready, young gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall ask my father for it."</p>
+
+<p>"And he'll hand't out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly he will!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting
+his father into his counsels.</p>
+
+<p>"A good three hundred pounds, ye know?" the farmer
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p>No consideration of the extent of damages, and the size
+of the sum, affected young Richard, who said boldly, "He
+will not object when I tell him I want that sum."</p>
+
+<p>It was natural Farmer Blaize should be a trifle suspicious
+that a youth's guarantee would hardly be given for
+his father's readiness to disburse such a thumping bill,
+unless he had previously received his father's sanction and
+authority.</p>
+
+<p>"Hum!" said he, "why not 'a told him before?"</p>
+
+<p>The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his
+query, that caused Richard to compress his mouth and
+glance high.</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize was positive 'twas a lie.</p>
+
+<p>"Hum! Ye still hold to't you fired the rick?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The blame is mine!" quoth Richard, with the loftiness
+of a patriot of old Rome.</p>
+
+<p>"Na, na!" the straightforward Briton put him aside.
+"Ye did't, or ye didn't do't. Did ye do't, or no?"</p>
+
+<p>Thrust in a corner, Richard said, "I did it."</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was
+answered in an instant by little Lucy, who received orders
+to fetch in a dependent at Belthorpe going by the name of
+the Bantam, and made her exit as she had entered, with
+her eyes on the young stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the farmer, "these be my principles. I'm
+a plain man, Mr. Feverel. Above board with me, and
+you'll find me handsome. Try to circumvent me, and I'm
+a ugly customer. I'll show you I've no animosity. Your
+father pays&mdash;you apologize. That's enough for me! Let
+Tom Bakewell fight't out with the Law, and I'll look on.
+The Law wasn't on the spot, I suppose? so the Law ain't
+much witness. But I am. Leastwise the Bantam is. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>
+tell you, young gentleman, the Bantam saw't! It's no
+moral use whatever your denyin' that ev'dence. And
+where's the good, sir, I ask? What comes of 't? Whether
+it be you, or whether it be Tom Bakewell&mdash;ain't all one?
+If I holds back, ain't it sim'lar? It's the trewth I want!
+And here't comes," added the farmer, as Miss Lucy
+ushered in the Bantam, who presented a curious figure for
+that rare divinity to enliven.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A FINE DISTINCTION</h3>
+
+
+<p>In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the
+Bantam, was a tolerably fair representative of the Punic
+elephant, whose part, with diverse anticipations, the generals
+of the Blaize and Feverel forces, from opposing
+ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed the Bantam,
+on account of some forgotten sally of his youth or infancy,
+moved and looked elephantine. It sufficed that Giles was
+well fed to assure that Giles was faithful&mdash;if uncorrupted.
+The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender
+had all his vast capacity for work in willing exercise: the
+farmer who held the farm his instinct reverenced as the
+fountain-source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of beer,
+which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This Farmer
+Blaize well knew, and he reckoned consequently that here
+was an animal always to be relied on&mdash;a sort of human
+composition out of dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each
+of these quadrupeds in usefulness, and costing proportionately
+more, but on the whole worth the money, and
+therefore invaluable, as everything worth its money must
+be to a wise man. When the stealing of grain had been
+made known at Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher
+with Tom Bakewell, had shared with him the shadow of
+the guilt. Farmer Blaize, if he hesitated which to suspect,
+did not debate a second as to which he would discard;
+and, when the Bantam said he had seen Tom secreting
+pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>
+off went poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that
+spared his appearance at Sessions.</p>
+
+<p>The Bantam's small sleepy orbits saw many things, and
+just at the right moment, it seemed. He was certainly the
+first to give the clue at Belthorpe on the night of the
+conflagration, and he may, therefore, have seen poor Tom
+retreating stealthily from the scene, as he averred he did.
+Lobourne had its say on the subject. Rustic Lobourne
+hinted broadly at a young woman in the case, and moreover,
+told a tale of how these fellow-threshers had, in
+noble rivalry, one day turned upon each other to see
+which of the two threshed the best; whereof the Bantam
+still bore marks, and malice, it was said. However, there
+he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company, and if
+Truth really had concealed herself in him she must have
+been hard set to find her unlikeliest hiding-place.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant
+with the confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps,
+"tell this young gentleman what ye saw on the night of
+the fire, Bantam!"</p>
+
+<p>The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and
+then swung round, fully obscuring him from Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam
+in rudest Doric commenced his narrative. Knowing what
+was to come, and thoroughly nerved to confute the main
+incident, Richard barely listened to his barbarous locution:
+but when the recital arrived at the point where the
+Bantam affirmed he had seen "T'm Baak'll wi's owen
+hoies," Richard faced him, and was amazed to find himself
+being mutely addressed by a series of intensely significant
+grimaces, signs, and winks.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? Why are you making those faces
+at me?" cried the boy indignantly.</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look
+at him, and beheld the stolidest mask ever given to man.</p>
+
+<p>"Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky
+elephant.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer commanded him to face about and finish.</p>
+
+<p>"A see T'm Baak'll," the Bantam recommenced, and
+again the contortions of a horrible wink were directed at
+Richard. The boy might well believe this churl was lying,
+and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!"</p>
+
+<p>The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," said Richard, "I put the lucifers there
+myself!"</p>
+
+<p>The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to
+telegraph to the young gentleman that he was loyal and
+true to certain gold pieces that had been given him, and
+that in the right place and at the right time he should
+prove so. Why was he thus suspected? Why was he not
+understood?</p>
+
+<p>"A thowt I see 'un, then," muttered the Bantam, trying
+a middle course.</p>
+
+<p>This brought down on him the farmer, who roared,
+"Thought! Ye thought! What d'ye mean? Speak out,
+and don't be thinkin'. Thought? What the devil's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?"
+Richard put in.</p>
+
+<p>"Thought!" the farmer bellowed louder. "Thought&mdash;Devil
+take ye, when ye took yer oath on't. Hulloa! What
+are ye screwin' yer eye at Mr. Feverel for?&mdash;I say, young
+gentleman, have you spoken to this chap before now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?" replied Richard. "I have not seen him before."</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat
+on, and glared his doubts.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said he to the Bantam, "speak out, and ha'
+done wi't. Say what ye saw, and none o' yer thoughts.
+Damn yer thoughts! Ye saw Tom Bakewell fire that there
+rick!" The farmer pointed at some musk-pots in the
+window. "What business ha' you to be a-thinkin'? You're
+a witness? Thinkin' an't ev'dence. What'll ye say to-morrow
+before magistrate! Mind! what you say to-day,
+you'll stick by to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What
+on earth the young gentleman meant he was at a loss to
+speculate. He could not believe that the young gentleman
+wanted to be transported, but if he had been paid to help
+that, why, he would. And considering that this day's
+evidence rather bound him down to the morrow's, he determined,
+after much ploughing and harrowing through
+obstinate shocks of hair, to be not altogether positive as
+to the person. It is possible that he became thereby more
+a mansion of truth than he previously had been; for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>
+night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see your
+hand before your face; and though, as he expressed it,
+you might be mortal sure of a man, you could not identify
+him upon oath, and the party he had taken for Tom
+Bakewell, and could have sworn to, might have been the
+young gentleman present, especially as he was ready to
+swear it upon oath.</p>
+
+<p>So ended the Bantam.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped
+up from his chair, and made a fine effort to lift him out
+of the room from the point of his toe. He failed, and
+sank back groaning with the pain of the exertion and
+disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>"They're liars, every one!" he cried. "Liars, perj'rers,
+bribers, and c'rrupters!&mdash;Stop!" to the Bantam, who was
+slinking away. "You've done for yerself already! You
+swore to it!"</p>
+
+<p>"A din't!" said the Bantam, doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>"You swore to't," the farmer vociferated afresh.</p>
+
+<p>The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door,
+and still affirmed that he did not; a double contradiction
+at which the farmer absolutely raged in his chair, and was
+hoarse, as he called out a third time that the Bantam had
+sworn to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Noa!" said the Bantam, ducking his poll. "Noa!" he
+repeated in a lower note; and then, while a sombre grin
+betokening idiotic enjoyment of his profound casuistical
+quibble worked at his jaw:</p>
+
+<p>"Not up'n o-ath!" he added, with a twitch of the
+shoulder and an angular jerk of the elbow.</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask
+him what he thought of England's peasantry after the
+sample they had there. Richard would have preferred not
+to laugh, but his dignity gave way to his sense of the
+ludicrous, and he let fly a shout. The farmer was in no
+laughing mood. He turned a wide eye back to the door.
+"Lucky for'm," he exclaimed, seeing the Bantam had
+vanished, for his fingers itched to break that stubborn
+head. He grew very puffy, and addressed Richard
+solemnly:</p>
+
+<p>"Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You've been a-tampering
+with my witness. It's no use denyin'! I say y' 'ave,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>
+sir! You, or some of ye. I don't care about no Feverel!
+My witness there has been bribed. The Bantam's been
+bribed," and he shivered his pipe with an energetic thump
+on the table&mdash;"bribed! I knows it! I could swear
+to't!"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Upon oath?" Richard inquired, with a grave face.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, upon oath!" said the farmer, not observing the
+impertinence.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd take my Bible oath on't! He's been corrupted,
+my principal witness! Oh, it's dam cunnin', but it won't
+do the trick. I'll transpoort Tom Bakewell, sure as a gun.
+He shall travel, that man shall. Sorry for you, Mr.
+Feverel&mdash;sorry you haven't seen how to treat me proper&mdash;you,
+or yours. Money won't do everything&mdash;no! it won't.
+It'll c'rrupt a witness, but it won't clear a felon. I'd ha'
+'scused you, sir! You're a boy and'll learn better. I
+asked no more than payment and a 'pology; and that I'd
+ha' taken content&mdash;always provided my witnesses weren't
+tampered with. Now you must stand yer luck, all o' ye."</p>
+
+<p>Richard stood up and replied, "Very well, Mr. Blaize."</p>
+
+<p>"And if," continued the farmer, "Tom Bakewell don't
+drag you into't after 'm, why, you're safe, as I hope ye'll
+be, sincere!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was not in consideration of my own safety that
+I sought this interview with you," said Richard, head
+erect.</p>
+
+<p>"Grant ye that," the farmer responded. "Grant ye
+that! Yer bold enough, young gentleman&mdash;comes of the
+blood that should be! If y' had only ha' spoke trewth!&mdash;I
+believe yer father&mdash;believe every word he said. I do
+wish I could ha' said as much for Sir Austin's son and
+heir."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly
+to be feigned, "you have seen my father?"</p>
+
+<p>But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that
+he could detect them where they did not exist, and mumbled
+gruffly,</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, we knows all about that!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy's perplexity saved him from being irritated.
+Who could have told his father? An old fear of his
+father came upon him, and a touch of an old inclination
+to revolt.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My father knows of this?" said he, very loudly, and
+staring, as he spoke, right through the farmer. "Who has
+played me false? Who would betray me to him? It was
+Austin! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and it was
+Austin who persuaded me to come here and submit to
+these indignities. Why couldn't he be open with me? I
+shall never trust him again!"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And why not you with me, young gentleman?" said the
+farmer. "I sh'd trust you if ye had."</p>
+
+<p>Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and
+bade him good afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. "'Company the young
+gentleman out, Lucy," he waved to the little damsel in
+the doorway. "Do the honours. And, Mr. Richard, ye
+might ha' made a friend o' me, sir, and it's not too late
+so to do. I'm not cruel, but I hate lies. I whipped my
+boy Tom, bigger than you, for not bein' above board,
+only yesterday,&mdash;ay! made 'un stand within swing o'
+this chair, and take's measure. Now, if ye'll come down
+to me, and speak trewth before the trial&mdash;if it's only five
+minutes before't; or if Sir Austin, who's a gentleman, 'll
+say there's been no tamperin' with any o' my witnesses,
+his word for't&mdash;well and good! I'll do my best to help
+off Tom Bakewell. And I'm glad, young gentleman,
+you've got a conscience about a poor man, though he's a
+villain. Good afternoon, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through
+the garden, never so much as deigning a glance at his
+wistful little guide, who hung at the garden gate to watch
+him up the lane, wondering a world of fancies about the
+handsome proud boy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY
+ORDEAL, AND IS THE OCCASION OF AN APHORISM</h3>
+
+
+<p>To have determined upon an act something akin to
+heroism in its way, and to have fulfilled it by lying heartily,
+and so subverting the whole structure built by good
+resolution, seems a sad downfall if we forget what human<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+nature, in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Young
+Richard had quitted his cousin Austin fully resolved to do
+his penance and drink the bitter cup; and he had drunk
+it; drained many cups to the dregs; and it was to no purpose.
+Still they floated before him, brimmed, trebly bitter.
+Away from Austin's influence, he was almost the
+same boy who had slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell's
+hand, and the lucifers into Farmer Blaize's rick. For
+good seed is long ripening; a good boy is not made in a
+minute. Enough that the seed was in him. He chafed
+on his road to Raynham at the scene he had just endured,
+and the figure of Belthorpe's fat tenant burnt like hot
+copper on the tablet of his brain, insufferably condescending,
+and, what was worse, in the right. Richard, obscured
+as his mind's eye was by wounded pride, saw that clearly,
+and hated his enemy for it the more.</p>
+
+<p>Heavy Benson's tongue was knelling dinner as Richard
+arrived at the Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress.
+Accident, or design, had laid the book of Sir Austin's
+aphorisms open on the dressing-table. Hastily combing
+his hair, Richard glanced down and read&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat
+his Lie."</p>
+
+<p>Underneath was interjected in pencil: "The Devil's
+mouthful!"</p>
+
+<p>Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father
+had struck him in the face.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son's cheek-bones.
+He sought the youth's eye, but Richard would not
+look, and sat conning his plate, an abject copy of Adrian's
+succulent air at that employment. How could he pretend
+to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully endeavouring
+to masticate The Devil's mouthful?</p>
+
+<p>Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias,
+usually the silent member, as if awakened by the unnatural
+stillness, became sprightly, like the goatsucker
+owl at night, and spoke much of his book, his digestion,
+and his dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and
+Adrian. One inconsequent dream he related, about fancying
+himself quite young and rich, and finding himself
+suddenly in a field cropping razors around him, when,
+just as he had, by steps dainty as those of a French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>
+dancing-master, reached the middle, he to his dismay beheld
+a path clear of the bloodthirsty steel-crop, which he
+might have taken at first had he looked narrowly; and
+there he was.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias's brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly
+said they wished he had remained there. Sir Austin,
+however, drew forth his note-book, and jotted down a reflection.
+A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms
+even from a razor-crop. Was not Hippias's dream the
+very counterpart of Richard's position? He, had he
+looked narrowly, might have taken the clear path: he,
+too, had been making dainty steps till he was surrounded
+by the grinning blades. And from that text Sir Austin
+preached to his son when they were alone. Little Clare
+was still too unwell to be permitted to attend the dessert,
+and father and son were soon closeted together.</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been
+separated so long. The father took his son's hand; they
+sat without a word passing between them. Silence said
+most. The boy did not understand his father: his father
+frequently thwarted him: at times he thought his father
+foolish: but that paternal pressure of his hand was eloquent
+to him of how warmly he was beloved. He tried
+once or twice to steal his hand away, conscious it was
+melting him. The spirit of his pride, and old rebellion,
+whispered him to be hard, unbending, resolute. Hard
+he had entered his father's study: hard he had met his
+father's eyes. He could not meet them now. His father
+sat beside him gently; with a manner that was almost
+meekness, so he loved this boy. The poor gentleman's
+lips moved. He was praying internally to God for him.</p>
+
+<p>By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy's bosom. Love
+is that blessed wand which wins the waters from the hardness
+of the heart. Richard fought against it, for the
+dignity of old rebellion. The tears would come; hot and
+struggling over the dams of pride. Shamefully fast they
+began to fall. He could no longer conceal them, or check
+the sobs. Sir Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till
+the beloved head was on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth,
+and Algernon Feverel were summoned to the baronet's
+study.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipotence
+about the wise youth as he slung himself into a
+chair, and made an arch of the points of his fingers,
+through which to gaze on his blundering kinsmen. Careless
+as one may be whose sagacity has foreseen, and whose
+benevolent efforts have forestalled, the point of danger at
+the threshold, Adrian crossed his legs, and only intruded
+on their introductory remarks so far as to hum half audibly
+at intervals&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Ripton and Richard were two pretty men,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>in parody of the old ballad. Young Richard's red eyes,
+and the baronet's ruffled demeanour, told him that an explanation
+had taken place, and a reconciliation. That was
+well. The baronet would now pay cheerfully. Adrian
+summed and considered these matters, and barely listened
+when the baronet called attention to what he had to say:
+which was elaborately to inform all present, what all present
+very well knew, that a rick had been fired, that his
+son was implicated as an accessory to the fact, that the
+perpetrator was now imprisoned, and that Richard's family
+were, as it seemed to him, bound in honour to do their
+utmost to effect the man's release.</p>
+
+<p>Then the baronet stated that he had himself been down
+to Belthorpe, his son likewise: and that he had found
+every disposition in Blaize to meet his wishes.</p>
+
+<p>The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to
+illumine the acts of this secretive race began slowly to
+dispread its rays; and, as statement followed statement,
+they saw that all had known of the business: that all
+had been down to Belthorpe: all save the wise youth
+Adrian, who, with due deference and a sarcastic shrug,
+objected to the proceeding, as putting them in the hands
+of the man Blaize. His wisdom shone forth in an oration
+so persuasive and aphoristic that had it not been based
+on a plea against honour, it would have made Sir Austin
+waver. But its basis was expediency, and the baronet
+had a better aphorism of his own to confute him with.</p>
+
+<p>"Expediency is man's wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing
+right is God's."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>
+attempt to counteract the just working of the law was
+doing right. The direct application of an aphorism was
+unpopular at Raynham.</p>
+
+<p>"I am to understand then," said he, "that Blaize consents
+not to press the prosecution."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he won't," Algernon remarked. "Confound
+him! he'll have his money, and what does he want
+besides?"</p>
+
+<p>"These agricultural gentleman are delicate customers
+to deal with. However, if he really consents"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I have his promise," said the baronet, fondling his son.</p>
+
+<p>Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished
+to speak. He said nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a
+mute reply to his caresses, and caressed him the more.
+Adrian perceived a reserve in the boy's manner, and as
+he was not quite satisfied that his chief should suppose
+him to have been the only idle, and not the most acute
+and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a
+cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken
+with the tenant of Belthorpe?</p>
+
+<p>"I think I saw him last," murmured Richard, and relinquished
+his father's hand.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian fastened on his prey. "And left him with a
+distinct and satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Not?" the Feverels joined in astounded chorus.</p>
+
+<p>Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a
+shamefaced "No."</p>
+
+<p>"Was he hostile?" inquired Adrian, smoothing his
+palms, and smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the boy confessed.</p>
+
+<p>Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian,
+generally patient of results, triumphed strongly at having
+evoked it, and turned upon Austin Wentworth, reproving
+him for inducing the boy to go down to Belthorpe. Austin
+looked grieved. He feared that Richard had failed in
+his good resolve.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it his duty to go," he observed.</p>
+
+<p>"It was!" said the baronet, emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"And you see what comes of it, sir," Adrian struck in.
+"These agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+to deal with. For my part I would prefer being
+in the hands of a policeman. We are decidedly collared
+by Blaize. What were his words, Ricky? Give it in his
+own Doric."</p>
+
+<p>"He said he would transport Tom Bakewell."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then
+they could afford to defy Mr. Blaize, he informed them
+significantly, and made once more a mysterious allusion
+to the Punic elephant, bidding his relatives be at peace.
+They were attaching, in his opinion, too much importance
+to Richard's complicity. The man was a fool, and a very
+extraordinary arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It
+was a thing unknown in the annals of rick-burning.
+But one would be severer than law itself to say that a boy
+of fourteen had instigated to crime a full-grown man.
+At that rate the boy was "father of the man" with a vengeance,
+and one might hear next that "the baby was
+father of the boy." They would find common sense a more
+benevolent ruler than poetical metaphysics.</p>
+
+<p>When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness,
+asked him what he meant.</p>
+
+<p>"I confess, Adrian," said the baronet, hearing him expostulate
+with Austin's stupidity, "I for one am at a loss.
+I have heard that this man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily
+not to inculpate my son. Seldom have I heard anything
+that so gratified me. It is a view of innate nobleness in
+the rustic's character which many a gentleman might
+take example from. We are bound to do our utmost for
+the man." And, saying that he should pay a second visit
+to Belthorpe, to inquire into the reasons for the farmer's
+sudden exposition of vindictiveness, Sir Austin rose.</p>
+
+<p>Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the
+farmer had vouchsafed any reasons, and the boy then
+spoke of the tampering with the witnesses, and the Bantam's
+"Not upon oath!" which caused Adrian to choke
+with laughter. Even the baronet smiled at so cunning
+a distinction as that involved in swearing a thing, and not
+swearing it upon oath.</p>
+
+<p>"How little," he exclaimed, "does one yeoman know
+another! To elevate a distinction into a difference is the
+natural action of their minds. I will point that out to
+Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native born."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill
+at ease.</p>
+
+<p>"This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all," said he.
+"The affair would pass over to-morrow&mdash;Blaize has no
+witnesses. The old rascal is only standing out for more
+money."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he isn't," Richard corrected him. "It's not that.
+I'm sure he believes his witnesses have been tampered
+with, as he calls it."</p>
+
+<p>"What if they have, boy?" Adrian put it boldly. "The
+ground is cut from under his feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Blaize told me that if my father would give his word
+there had been nothing of the sort, he would take it. My
+father will give his word."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Adrian, "you had better stop him from
+going down."</p>
+
+<p>Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him
+whether he thought the farmer was justified in his suspicions.
+The wise youth was not to be entrapped. He
+had only been given to understand that the witnesses were
+tolerably unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready to swear
+lustily, but not upon the Book. How given to understand,
+he chose not to explain, but he reiterated that the chief
+should not be allowed to go down to Belthorpe.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when
+he heard steps of some one running behind him. It was
+dark, and he shook off the hand that laid hold of his cloak,
+roughly, not recognizing his son.</p>
+
+<p>"It's I, sir," said Richard panting. "Pardon me. You
+mustn't go in there."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" said the baronet, putting his arm about
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Not now," continued the boy. "I will tell you all to-night.
+I must see the farmer myself. It was my fault,
+sir. I&mdash;I lied to him&mdash;the Liar must eat his Lie. Oh,
+forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did it&mdash;I hope I did
+it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak
+the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Go, and I will wait for you here," said his father.</p>
+
+<p>The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the
+dead leaves in the air, had a voice and a meaning for the
+baronet during that half-hour's lonely pacing up and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>
+down under the darkness, awaiting his boy's return. The
+solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a tongue.
+Through the desolation flying overhead&mdash;the wailing of
+the Mother of Plenty across the bare-swept land&mdash;he
+caught intelligible signs of the beneficent order of the
+universe, from a heart newly confirmed in its grasp of
+the principle of human goodness, as manifested in the
+dear child who had just left him; confirmed in its belief
+in the ultimate victory of good within us, without which
+nature has neither music nor meaning, and is rock, stone,
+tree, and nothing more.</p>
+
+<p>In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had
+a word for his note-book: "There is for the mind but one
+grasp of happiness: from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom,
+whence we see that this world is well designed."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL
+COMEDY IS CLOSED IN A LETTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master
+Ripton Thompson awaited the fearful morning which was
+to decide Tom's fate, in dolefullest mood, and suffered
+the gravest mental terrors. Adrian, on parting with him,
+had taken casual occasion to speak of the position of the
+criminal in modern Europe, assuring him that International
+Treaty now did what Universal Empire had aforetime
+done, and that among Atlantic barbarians now, as
+among the Scythians of old, an offender would find precarious
+refuge and an emissary haunting him.</p>
+
+<p>In the paternal home, under the roofs of Law, and
+removed from the influence of his conscienceless young
+chief, the staggering nature of the act he had put his
+hand to, its awful felonious aspect, overwhelmed Ripton.
+He saw it now for the first time. "Why, it's next to murder!"
+he cried out to his amazed soul, and wandered about
+the house with a prickly skin. Thoughts of America, and
+commencing life afresh as an innocent gentleman, had
+crossed his disordered brain. He wrote to his friend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>
+Richard, proposing to collect disposable funds, and embark,
+in case of Tom's breaking his word, or of accidental
+discovery. He dared not confide the secret to his family,
+as his leader had sternly enjoined him to avoid any weakness
+of that kind; and, being by nature honest and communicative,
+the restriction was painful, and melancholy
+fell upon the boy. Mama Thompson attributed it to love.
+The daughters of parchment rallied him concerning Miss
+Clare Forey. His hourly letters to Raynham, and silence
+as to everything and everybody there, his nervousness,
+and unwonted propensity to sudden inflammation of the
+cheeks, were set down for sure signs of the passion. Miss
+Letitia Thompson, the pretty and least parchmenty one,
+destined by her Papa for the heir of Raynham, and perfectly
+aware of her brilliant future, up to which she had,
+since Ripton's departure, dressed and grimaced, and
+studied cadences (the latter with such success, though not
+yet fifteen, that she languished to her maid, and melted
+the small factotum footman)&mdash;Miss Letty, whose insatiable
+thirst for intimations about the young heir Ripton
+could not satisfy, tormented him daily in revenge, and
+once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful turn; for
+after dinner, when Mr. Thompson read the paper by the
+fire, preparatory to sleeping at his accustomed post, and
+Mama Thompson and her submissive female brood sat
+tasking the swift intricacies of the needle, and emulating
+them with the tongue, Miss Letty stole behind Ripton's
+chair, and introduced between him and his book the Latin
+initial letter, large and illuminated, of the theme she supposed
+to be absorbing him, as it did herself. The unexpected
+vision of this accusing Captain of the Alphabet,
+this resplendent and haunting A, fronting him bodily,
+threw Ripton straight back in his chair, while Guilt, with
+her ancient indecision what colours to assume on detection,
+flew from red to white, from white to red, across his
+fallen chaps. Letty laughed triumphantly. Amor, the
+word she had in mind, certainly has a connection with
+Arson.</p>
+
+<p>But the delivery of a letter into Master Ripton's hands,
+furnished her with other and likelier appearances to study.
+For scarce had Ripton plunged his head into the missive
+than he gave way to violent transports, such as the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>
+healthy-minded little damsel, for all her languishing cadences,
+deemed she really could express were a downright
+declaration to be made to her. The boy did not stop at
+table. Quickly recollecting the presence of his family, he
+rushed to his own room. And now the girl's ingenuity was
+taxed to gain possession of that letter. She succeeded, of
+course, she being a huntress with few scruples and the
+game unguarded. With the eyes of amazement she read
+this foreign matter:</p>
+
+<blockquote>"Dear Ripton,&mdash;If Tom had been committed I would
+have shot old Blaize. Do you know my father was behind
+us that night when Clare saw the ghost and heard all we
+said before the fire burst out. It is no use trying to conceal
+anything from him. Well as you are in an awful
+state I will tell you all about it. After you left Ripton I
+had a conversation with Austin and he persuaded me to
+go down to old Blaize and ask him to help off Tom. I
+went, for I would have done anything for Tom after what
+he said to Austin and I defied the old churl to do his
+worst. Then he said if my father paid the money and nobody
+had tampered with his witnesses he would not mind
+if Tom did get off and he had his chief witness in called
+the Bantam very like his master I think and the Bantam
+began winking at me tremendjously as you say, and said
+he had sworn he saw Tom Bakewell but not upon oath.
+He meant not on the Bible. He could swear to it
+but not on the Bible. I burst out laughing and you should
+have seen the rage old Blaize was in. It was splendid
+fun. Then we had a consultation at home Austin Rady
+my father Uncle Algernon who has come down to us
+again and your friend in prosperity and adversity R. D. F.
+My father said he would go down to old Blaize and give
+him the word of a gentleman we had not tampered with
+his witnesses and when he was gone we were all talking
+and Rady says he must not see the farmer. I am as certain
+as I live that it was Rady bribed the Bantam. Well I ran
+and caught up with my father and told him not to go in
+to old Blaize but I would and eat my words and tell him
+the truth. He waited for me in the lane. Never mind
+what passed between me and old Blaize. He made me beg
+and pray of him not to press it against Tom and then to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+complete it he brought in a little girl a niece of his and
+says to me she's your best friend after all and told me to
+thank her. A little girl twelve years of age. What business
+had she to mix herself up in my matters. Depend
+upon it Ripton wherever there is mischief there are girls
+I think. She had the insolence to notice my face, and
+ask me not to be unhappy. I was polite of course but I
+would not look at her. Well the morning came and Tom
+was had up before Sir Miles Papworth. It was Sir Miles
+gout gave us the time or Tom would have been had up before
+we could do anything. Adrian did not want me to
+go but my father said I should accompany him and held
+my hand all the time. I shall be careful about getting
+into these scrapes again. When you have done anything
+honourable you do not mind but getting among policemen
+and magistrates makes you ashamed of yourself. Sir
+Miles was very attentive to my father and me and dead
+against Tom. We sat beside him and Tom was brought
+in. Sir Miles told my father that if there was one thing
+that showed a low villain it was rick-burning. What do
+you think of that. I looked him straight in the face and
+he said to me he was doing me a service in getting Tom
+committed and clearing the country of such fellows and
+Rady began laughing. I hate Rady. My father said his
+son was not in haste to inherit and have estates of his
+own to watch and Sir Miles laughed too. I thought we
+were discovered at first. Then they began the examination
+of Tom. The Tinker was the first witness and he
+proved that Tom had spoken against old Blaize and said
+something about burning his rick. I wished I had stood
+in the lane to Bursley with him alone. Our country
+lawyer we engaged for Tom cross-questioned him and then
+he said he was not ready to swear to the exact words that
+had passed between him and Tom. I should think not.
+Then came another who swore he had seen Tom lurking
+about the farmer's grounds that night. Then came the
+Bantam and I saw him look at Rady. I was tremendjously
+excited and my father kept pressing my hand. Just
+fancy my being brought to feel that a word from that
+fellow would make me miserable for life and he must
+perjure himself to help me. That comes of giving way to
+passion. My father says when we do that we are calling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>
+in the devil as doctor. Well the Bantam was told to state
+what he had seen and the moment he began Rady who
+was close by me began to shake and he was laughing I
+knew though his face was as grave as Sir Miles. You
+never heard such a rigmarole but I could not laugh. He
+said he thought he was certain he had seen somebody by
+the rick and it was Tom Bakewell who was the only man
+he knew who had a grudge against Farmer Blaize and
+if the object had been a little bigger he would not mind
+swearing to Tom and would swear to him for he was dead
+certain it was Tom only what he saw looked smaller and
+it was pitch-dark at the time. He was asked what time
+it was he saw the person steal away from the rick and then
+he began to scratch his head and said supper-time. Then
+they asked what time he had supper and he said nine
+o'clock by the clock and we proved that at nine o'clock
+Tom was drinking in the ale-house with the Tinker at
+Bursley and Sir Miles swore and said he was afraid he
+could not commit Tom and when he heard that Tom
+looked up at me and I say he is a noble fellow and no one
+shall sneer at Tom while I live. Mind that. Well Sir
+Miles asked us to dine with him and Tom was safe and I
+am to have him and educate him if I like for my servant
+and I will. And I will give money to his mother and make
+her rich and he shall never repent he knew me. I say Rip.
+The Bantam must have seen <i>me</i>. It was when I went to
+stick in the lucifers. As we were all going home from Sir
+Miles's at night he has lots of redfaced daughters but I did
+not dance with them though they had music and were full
+of fun and I did not care to I was so delighted and almost
+let it out. When we left and rode home Rady said to my
+father the Bantam was not such a fool as he was thought
+and my father said one must be in a state of great personal
+exaltation to apply that epithet to any man and
+Rady shut his mouth and I gave my pony a clap of the
+heel for joy. I think my father suspects what Rady did
+and does not approve of it. And he need not have done
+it after all and might have spoilt it. I have been obliged
+to order him not to call me Ricky for he stops short at
+Rick so that everybody knows what he means. My dear
+Austin is going to South America. My pony is in capital
+condition. My father is the cleverest and best man in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>
+world. Clare is a little better. I am quite happy. I
+hope we shall meet soon my dear Old Rip and we will not
+get into any more tremendjous scrapes will we.&mdash;I remain,
+Your sworn friend,
+
+<p style="text-align:right">
+"<span class="smcap">Richard Doria Feverel</span>."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"<i>P.S.</i> I am to have a nice River Yacht. Good-bye,
+Rip. Mind you learn to box. Mind you are not to show
+this to any of your friends on pain of my displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"N.B. Lady B. was so angry when I told her that I
+had not come to her before. She would do anything in
+the world for me. I like her next best to my father and
+Austin. Good-bye old Rip."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Poor little Letitia, after three perusals of this ingenuous
+epistle, where the laws of punctuation were so disregarded,
+resigned it to one of the pockets of her brother
+Ripton's best jacket, deeply smitten with the careless composer.
+And so ended the last act of the Bakewell Comedy,
+on which the curtain closes with Sir Austin's pointing out
+to his friends the beneficial action of the System in it
+from beginning to end.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BLOSSOMING SEASON</h3>
+
+
+<p>Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and as the mystery
+of the apparition that had frightened little Clare was never
+solved on the stage of events at Raynham, where dread
+walked the Abbey, let us go behind the scenes a moment.
+Morally superstitious as the baronet was, the character of
+his mind was opposed to anything like spiritual agency in
+the affairs of men, and, when the matter was made clear to
+him, it shook off a weight of weakness and restored his
+mental balance; so that from this time he went about
+more like the man he had once been, grasping more thoroughly
+the great truth, that This World is well designed.
+Nay, he could laugh on hearing Adrian, in reminiscence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>
+of the ill luck of one of the family members at its first
+manifestation, call the uneasy spirit, Algernon's Leg.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria was outraged. She maintained that her
+child had seen&mdash;&mdash;. Not to believe in it was almost to
+rob her of her personal property. After satisfactorily
+studying his old state of mind in her, Sir Austin, moved
+by pity, took her aside one day and showed her that her
+Ghost could write words in the flesh. It was a letter from
+the unhappy lady who had given Richard birth,&mdash;brief
+cold lines, simply telling him his house would be disturbed
+by her no more. Cold lines, but penned by what heart-broken
+abnegation, and underlying them with what anguish
+of soul! Like most who dealt with him, Lady
+Feverel thought her husband a man fatally stern and implacable,
+and she acted as silly creatures will act when
+they fancy they see a fate against them: she neither
+petitioned for her right nor claimed it: she tried to ease
+her heart's yearning by stealth, and now she renounced
+all. Mrs. Doria, not wanting in the family tenderness
+and softness, shuddered at him for accepting the sacrifice
+so composedly: but he bade her to think how distracting
+to this boy would be the sight of such relations between
+mother and father. A few years, and as man he should
+know, and judge, and love her. "Let this be her penance,
+not inflicted by me!" Mrs. Doria bowed to the System
+for another, not opining when it would be her turn to bow
+for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Further behind the scenes we observe Rizzio and Mary
+grown older, much disenchanted: she discrowned, dishevelled,&mdash;he
+with gouty fingers on a greasy guitar. The
+Diaper Sandoe of promise lends his pen for small hires.
+His fame has sunk; his bodily girth has sensibly increased.
+What he can do, and will do, is still his
+theme; meantime the juice of the juniper is in requisition,
+and it seems that those small hires cannot be performed
+without it. Returning from her wretched journey
+to her wretcheder home, the lady had to listen to a mild
+reproof from easy-going Diaper,&mdash;a reproof so mild that
+he couched it in blank verse: for, seldom writing metrically
+now, he took to talking it. With a fluent sympathetic
+tear, he explained to her that she was damaging her interests
+by these proceedings; nor did he shrink from undertaking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>
+to elucidate wherefore. Pluming a smile upon his
+succulent mouth, he told her that the poverty she lived
+in was utterly unbefitting her gentle nurture, and that he
+had reason to believe&mdash;could assure her&mdash;that an annuity
+was on the point of being granted her by her husband.
+And Diaper broke his bud of a smile into full
+flower as he delivered this information. She learnt that
+he had applied to her husband for money. It is hard to
+have one's prop of self-respect cut away just when we are
+suffering a martyr's agony at the stake. There was a five
+minutes tragic colloquy in the recesses behind the scenes,&mdash;totally
+tragic to Diaper, who had fondly hoped to bask
+in the warm sun of that annuity, and re-emerge from his
+state of grub. The lady then wrote the letter Sir Austin
+held open to his sister. The atmosphere behind the scenes
+is not wholesome, so, having laid the Ghost, we will return
+and face the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>That infinitesimal dose of <span class="smcap">The World</span> which Master
+Ripton Thompson had furnished to the System with such
+instantaneous and surprising effect was considered by Sir
+Austin to have worked well, and to be for the time quite
+sufficient, so that Ripton did not receive a second invitation
+to Raynham, and Richard had no special intimate of
+his own age to rub his excessive vitality against, and
+wanted none. His hands were full enough with Tom
+Bakewell. Moreover, his father and he were heart in
+heart. The boy's mind was opening, and turned to his
+father affectionately reverent. At this period, when the
+young savage grows into higher influences, the faculty
+of worship is foremost in him. At this period Jesuits will
+stamp the future of their chargeling flocks; and all who
+bring up youth by a System, and watch it, know that it
+is the malleable moment. Boys possessing any mental or
+moral force to give them a tendency, then predestinate
+their careers; or, if under supervision, take the impress
+that is given them: not often to cast it off, and seldom to
+cast it off altogether.</p>
+
+<p>In Sir Austin's Note-book was written: "Between
+Simple Boyhood and Adolescence&mdash;The Blossoming Season&mdash;on
+the threshold of Puberty, there is one Unselfish
+Hour&mdash;say, Spiritual Seed-time."</p>
+
+<p>He took care that good seed should be planted in Richard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>
+and that the most fruitful seed for a youth, namely,
+Example, should be of a kind to germinate in him the love
+of every form of nobleness.</p>
+
+<p>"I am only striving to make my son a Christian," he
+said, answering them who persisted in expostulating with
+the System. And to these instructions he gave an aim:
+"First be virtuous," he told his son, "and then serve your
+country with heart and soul." The youth was instructed
+to cherish an ambition for statesmanship, and he and his
+father read history and the speeches of British orators
+to some purpose; for one day Sir Austin found him leaning
+cross-legged, and with his hand to his chin, against
+a pedestal supporting the bust of Chatham, contemplating
+the hero of our <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Parliment'">Parliament</ins>, his eyes streaming with tears.</p>
+
+<p>People said the baronet carried the principle of Example
+so far that he only retained his boozing dyspeptic brother
+Hippias at Raynham in order to exhibit to his son the
+woeful retribution nature wreaked upon a life of indulgence;
+poor Hippias having now become a walking complaint.
+This was unjust, but there is no doubt he made
+use of every illustration to disgust or encourage his son
+that his neighbourhood afforded him, and did not spare his
+brother, for whom Richard entertained a contempt in proportion
+to his admiration of his father, and was for flying
+into penitential extremes which Sir Austin had to
+soften.</p>
+
+<p>The boy prayed with his father morning and night.</p>
+
+<p>"How is it, sir," he said one night, "I can't get Tom
+Bakewell to pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does he refuse?" Sir Austin asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He seems to be ashamed to," Richard replied. "He
+wants to know what is the good? and I don't know what
+to tell him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid it has gone too far with him," said Sir
+Austin, "and until he has had some deep sorrows he will
+not find the divine want of Prayer. Strive, my son, when
+you represent the people, to provide for their education.
+He feels everything now through a dull impenetrable rind.
+Culture is half-way to heaven. Tell him, my son, should
+he ever be brought to ask how he may know the efficacy
+of Prayer, and that his prayer will be answered, tell him
+(he quoted <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>):<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"'Who rises from Prayer a better man, his prayer is
+answered.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I will, sir," said Richard, and went to sleep happy.</p>
+
+<p>Happy in his father and in himself, the youth now
+lived. Conscience was beginning to inhabit him, and he
+carried some of the freightage known to men; though in
+so crude a form that it overweighed him, now on this
+side, now on that.</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth Adrian observed these further progressionary
+developments in his pupil, soberly cynical. He
+was under Sir Austin's interdict not to banter him, and
+eased his acrid humours inspired by the sight of a felonious
+young rick-burner turning saint, by grave affectations
+of sympathy and extreme accuracy in marking the
+not widely-distant dates of his various changes. The
+Bread-and-water phase lasted a fortnight: the Vegetarian
+(an imitation of his cousin Austin), a little better than
+a month: the religious, somewhat longer: the religious-propagandist
+(when he was for converting the heathen of
+Lobourne and Bursley, and the domestics of the Abbey,
+including Tom Bakewell), longer still, and hard to bear;&mdash;he
+tried to convert Adrian! All the while Tom was
+being exercised like a raw recruit. Richard had a drill-sergeant
+from the nearest barracks down for him, to give
+him a proper pride in himself, and marched him to and
+fro with immense satisfaction, and nearly broke his heart
+trying to get the round-shouldered rustic to take in the
+rudiments of letters: for the boy had unbounded hopes
+for Tom, as a hero in grain.</p>
+
+<p>Richard's pride also was cast aside. He affected to be,
+and really thought he was, humble. Whereupon Adrian,
+as by accident, imparted to him the fact that men were
+animals, and he an animal with the rest of them.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> an animal!" cried Richard in scorn, and for weeks he
+was as troubled by this rudiment of self-knowledge as
+Tom by his letters. Sir Austin had him instructed in
+the wonders of anatomy, to restore his self-respect.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Seed-time</span> passed thus smoothly, and adolescence came
+on, and his cousin Clare felt what it was to be of an opposite
+sex to him. She too was growing, but nobody cared
+how she grew. Outwardly even her mother seemed absorbed
+in the sprouting of the green off-shoot of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>
+Feverel tree, and Clare was his handmaiden, little marked
+by him.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish honestly loved the boy. She would tell
+him: "If I had been a girl, I would have had you for my
+husband." And he with the frankness of his years
+would reply: "And how do you know I would have had
+you?" causing her to laugh and call him a silly boy,
+for had he not heard her say she would have had him?
+Terrible words, he knew not then the meaning of!</p>
+
+<p>"You don't read your father's Book," she said. Her
+own copy was bound in purple velvet, gilt-edged, as decorative
+ladies like to have holier books, and she carried it
+about with her, and quoted it, and (Adrian remarked to
+Mrs. Doria) hunted a noble quarry, and deliberately aimed
+at him therewith, which Mrs. Doria chose to believe, and
+regretted her brother would not be on his guard.</p>
+
+<p>"See here," said Lady Blandish, pressing an almondy
+finger-nail to one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how
+age and adversity must clay-enclose us ere we can effectually
+resist the magnetism of any human creature in our
+path. "Can you understand it, child?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard informed her that when she read he could.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, my squire," she touched his cheek and ran
+her fingers through his hair, "learn as quick as you can
+not to be all hither and yon with a hundred different
+attractions, as I was before I met a wise man to guide me."</p>
+
+<p>"Is my father very wise?" Richard asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," the lady emphasized her individual judgment.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you&mdash;&mdash;" Richard broke forth, and was stopped
+by a beating of his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I&mdash;what?" she calmly queried.</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to say, do you&mdash;I mean, I love him so
+much."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish smiled and slightly coloured.</p>
+
+<p>They frequently approached this theme, and always retreated
+from it; always with the same beating of heart to
+Richard, accompanied by the sense of a growing mystery,
+which, however, did not as yet generally disturb him.</p>
+
+<p>Life was made very pleasant to him at Raynham, as it
+was part of Sir Austin's principle of education that his
+boy should be thoroughly joyous and happy; and whenever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>
+Adrian sent in a satisfactory report of his pupil's
+advancement, which he did pretty liberally, diversions
+were planned, just as prizes are given to diligent schoolboys,
+and Richard was supposed to have all his desires
+gratified while he attended to his studies. The System
+flourished. Tall, strong, bloomingly healthy, he took the
+lead of his companions on land and water, and had more
+than one bondsman in his service besides Ripton Thompson&mdash;the
+boy without a Destiny! Perhaps the boy with a
+Destiny was growing up a trifle too conscious of it. His
+generosity to his occasional companions was princely, but
+was exercised something too much in the manner of a
+prince; and, notwithstanding his contempt for baseness,
+he would overlook that more easily than an offence to his
+pride, which demanded an utter servility when it had once
+been rendered susceptible. If Richard had his followers
+he had also his feuds. The Papworths were as subservient
+as Ripton, but young Ralph Morton, the nephew of Mr.
+Morton, and a match for Richard in numerous promising
+qualities, comprising the noble science of fisticuffs, this
+youth spoke his mind too openly, and moreover would not
+be snubbed. There was no middle course for Richard's
+comrades between high friendship or absolute slavery. He
+was deficient in those cosmopolite habits and feelings
+which enable boys and men to hold together without caring
+much for each other; and, like every insulated mortal,
+he attributed the deficiency, of which he was quite aware,
+to the fact of his possessing a superior nature. Young
+Ralph was a lively talker: therefore, argued Richard's
+vanity, he had no intellect. He was affable: therefore he
+was frivolous. The women liked him: therefore he was
+a butterfly. In fine, young Ralph was popular, and our
+superb prince, denied the privilege of despising, ended by
+detesting him.</p>
+
+<p>Early in the days of their contention for leadership,
+Richard saw the absurdity of affecting to scorn his rival.
+Ralph was an Eton boy, and hence, being robust, a swimmer
+and a cricketer. A swimmer and a cricketer is nowhere
+to be scorned in youth's republic. Finding that
+man[oe]uvre would not do, Richard was prompted once or
+twice to entrench himself behind his greater wealth and
+his position; but he soon abandoned that also, partly because<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>
+his chilliness to ridicule told him he was exposing
+himself, and chiefly that his heart was too chivalrous.
+And so he was dragged into the lists by Ralph, and experienced
+the luck of champions. For cricket, and for diving,
+Ralph bore away the belt: Richard's middle-stump
+tottered before his ball, and he could seldom pick up more
+than three eggs under water to Ralph's half-dozen. He
+was beaten, too, in jumping and running. Why will silly
+mortals strive to the painful pinnacles of championship?
+Or why, once having reached them, not have the magnanimity
+and circumspection to retire into private life
+immediately? Stung by his defeats, Richard sent one of
+his dependent Papworths to Poer Hall, with a challenge
+to Ralph Barthrop Morton; matching himself to swim
+across the Thames and back, once, twice, or thrice, within
+a less time than he, Ralph Barthrop Morton, would require
+for the undertaking. It was accepted, and a reply returned,
+equally formal in the trumpeting of Christian
+names, wherein Ralph Barthrop Morton acknowledged the
+challenge of Richard Doria Feverel, and was his man.
+The match came off on a midsummer morning, under the
+direction of Captain Algernon. Sir Austin was a spectator
+from the cover of a plantation by the river-side, unknown
+to his son, and, to the scandal of her sex, Lady
+Blandish accompanied the baronet. He had invited her
+attendance, and she, obeying her frank nature, and knowing
+what <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span> said about prudes, at once
+agreed to view the match, pleasing him mightily. For was
+not here a woman worthy the Golden Ages of the world?
+one who could look upon man as a creature divinely made,
+and look with a mind neither tempted, nor taunted, by the
+Serpent! Such a woman was rare. Sir Austin did not
+discompose her by uttering his praises. She was conscious
+of his approval only in an increased gentleness of
+manner, and something in his voice and communications,
+as if he were speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment
+from him. While the lads were standing ready for
+the signal to plunge from the steep decline of greensward
+into the shining water, Sir Austin called upon her to
+admire their beauty, and she did, and even advanced her
+head above his shoulder delicately. In so doing, and just
+as the start was given, a bonnet became visible to Richard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>
+Young Ralph was heels in air before he moved, and then
+he dropped like lead. He was beaten by several lengths.</p>
+
+<p>The result of the match was unaccountable to all present,
+and Richard's friends unanimously pressed him to
+plead a false start. But though the youth, with full confidence
+in his better style and equal strength, had backed
+himself heavily against his rival, and had lost his little
+river-yacht to Ralph, he would do nothing of the sort.
+It was the Bonnet had beaten him, not Ralph. The Bonnet,
+typical of the mystery that caused his heart those
+violent palpitations, was his dear, detestable enemy.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as he progressed from mood to mood, his ambition
+turned towards a field where Ralph could not rival
+him, and where the Bonnet was etherealized, and reigned
+glorious mistress. A check to the pride of a boy will frequently
+divert him to the path where lie his subtlest
+powers. Richard gave up his companions, servile or antagonistic:
+he relinquished the material world to young
+Ralph, and retired into himself, where he was growing to
+be lord of kingdoms: where Beauty was his handmaid, and
+History his minister, and Time his ancient harper, and
+sweet Romance his bride; where he walked in a realm
+vaster and more gorgeous than the great Orient, peopled
+with the heroes that have been. For there is no princely
+wealth, and no loftiest heritage, to equal this early one
+that is made bountifully common to so many, when the
+ripening blood has put a spark to the imagination, and
+the earth is seen through rosy mists of a thousand fresh-awakened
+nameless and aimless desires; panting for bliss
+and taking it as it comes; making of any sight or sound,
+perforce of the enchantment they carry with them, a key
+to infinite, because innocent, pleasure. The passions then
+are gambolling cubs; not the ravaging gluttons they grow
+to. They have their teeth and their talons, but they
+neither tear nor bite. They are in counsel and fellowship
+with the quickened heart and brain. The whole sweet
+system moves to music.</p>
+
+<p>Something akin to the indications of a change in the
+spirit of his son, which were now seen, Sir Austin had
+marked down to be expected, as due to his plan. The
+blushes of the youth, his long vigils, his clinging to solitude,
+his abstraction, and downcast but not melancholy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>
+air, were matters for rejoicing to the prescient gentleman.
+"For it comes," said he to Dr. Clifford of Lobourne, after
+consulting him medically on the youth's behalf and being
+assured of his soundness, "it comes of a thoroughly sane
+condition. The blood is healthy, the mind virtuous:
+neither instigates the other to evil, and both are perfecting
+toward the flower of manhood. If he reach that pure&mdash;in
+the untainted fulness and perfection of his natural
+powers&mdash;I am indeed a happy father! But one thing he
+will owe to me: that at one period of his life he knew paradise,
+and could read God's handwriting on the earth!
+Now those abominations whom you call precocious boys&mdash;your
+little pet monsters, doctor!&mdash;and who can wonder
+that the world is what it is? when it is full of them&mdash;as
+they will have no divine time to look back upon in their
+own lives, how can they believe in innocence and goodness,
+or be other than sons of selfishness and the Devil? But
+my boy," and the baronet dropped his voice to a key that
+was touching to hear, "my boy, if he fall, will fall from
+an actual region of purity. He dare not be a sceptic as to
+that. Whatever his darkness, he will have the guiding
+light of a memory behind him. So much is secure."</p>
+
+<p>To talk nonsense, or poetry, or the dash between the two,
+in a tone of profound sincerity, and to enunciate solemn
+discordances with received opinion so seriously as to convey
+the impression of a spiritual insight, is the peculiar
+gift by which monomaniacs, having first persuaded themselves,
+to contrive to influence their neighbours, and
+through them to make conquest of a good half of the
+world, for good or for ill. Sir Austin had this gift. He
+spoke as if he saw the truth, and, persisting in it so long,
+he was accredited by those who did not understand him,
+and silenced them that did.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see," was all the argument left to Dr. Clifford,
+and other unbelievers.</p>
+
+<p>So far certainly the experiment had succeeded. A
+comelier, braver, better boy was nowhere to be met. His
+promise was undeniable. The vessel, too, though it lay
+now in harbour and had not yet been proved by the buffets
+of the elements on the great ocean, had made a good trial
+trip, and got well through stormy weather, as the records
+of the Bakewell Comedy witnessed to at Raynham. No<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>
+augury could be hopefuller. The Fates must indeed be
+hard, the Ordeal severe, the Destiny dark, that could destroy
+so bright a Spring! But, bright as it was, the baronet
+relaxed nothing of his vigilant supervision. He said
+to his intimates: "Every act, every fostered inclination,
+almost every thought in this Blossoming Season, bears
+its seed for the Future. The living Tree now requires
+incessant watchfulness." And, acting up to his light,
+Sir Austin did watch. The youth submitted to an examination
+every night before he sought his bed; professedly
+to give an account of his studies, but really to
+recapitulate his moral experiences of the day. He could
+do so, for he was pure. Any wildness in him that his father
+noted, any remoteness or richness of fancy in his expressions,
+was set down as incidental to the Blossoming
+Season. There is nothing like a theory for binding the
+wise. Sir Austin, despite his rigid watch and ward, knew
+less of his son than the servant of his household. And he
+was deaf, as well as blind. Adrian thought it his duty to
+tell him that the youth was consuming paper. Lady
+Blandish likewise hinted at his mooning propensities. Sir
+Austin from his lofty watch-tower of the System had
+foreseen it, he said. But when he came to hear that the
+youth was writing poetry, his wounded heart had its reasons
+for being much disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely," said Lady Blandish, "you knew he scribbled?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very different thing from writing poetry," said the
+baronet. "No Feverel has ever written poetry."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it's a sign of degeneracy," the lady remarked.
+"He rhymes very prettily to me."</p>
+
+<p>A London phrenologist, and a friendly Oxford Professor
+of poetry, quieted Sir Austin's fears.</p>
+
+<p>The phrenologist said he was totally deficient in the
+imitative faculty; and the Professor, that he was equally
+so in the rhythmic, and instanced several consoling false
+quantities in a few effusions submitted to him. Added
+to this, Sir Austin told Lady Blandish that Richard had,
+at his best, done what no poet had ever been known to be
+capable of doing: he had, with his own hands, and in cold
+blood, committed his virgin manuscript to the flames:
+which made Lady Blandish sigh forth, "Poor boy!"</p>
+
+<p>Killing one's darling child is a painful imposition. For<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>
+a youth in his Blossoming Season, who fancies himself
+a poet, to be requested to destroy his first-born, without a
+reason (though to pretend a reason cogent enough to justify
+the request were a mockery), is a piece of abhorrent
+despotism, and Richard's blossoms withered under it. A
+strange man had been introduced to him, who traversed
+and bisected his skull with sagacious stiff fingers, and
+crushed his soul while, in an infallible voice, declaring
+him the animal he was: making him feel such an animal!
+Not only his blossoms withered, his being seemed to draw
+in its shoots and twigs. And when, coupled thereunto
+(the strange man having departed, his work done), his
+father, in his tenderest manner, stated that it would give
+him pleasure to see those same precocious, utterly valueless,
+scribblings among the cinders, the last remaining
+mental blossom spontaneously fell away. Richard's spirit
+stood bare. He protested not. Enough that it could be
+wished! He would not delay a minute in doing it. Desiring
+his father to follow him, he went to a drawer in his
+room, and from a clean-linen recess, never suspected by
+Sir Austin, the secretive youth drew out bundle after
+bundle: each neatly tied, named, and numbered: and
+pitched them into flames. And so Farewell my young
+Ambition! and with it farewell all true confidence between
+Father and Son.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAGNETIC AGE</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was now, as Sir Austin had written it down, The
+Magnetic Age: the Age of violent attractions, when to
+hear mention of love is dangerous, and to see it, a communication
+of the disease. People at Raynham were
+put on their guard by the baronet, and his reputation for
+wisdom was severely criticized in consequence of the injunctions
+he thought fit to issue through butler and
+housekeeper down to the lower household, for the preservation
+of his son from any visible symptom of the passion.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>
+A footman and two housemaids are believed to have been
+dismissed on the report of heavy Benson that they were
+in or inclining to the state; upon which an under-cook and
+a dairymaid voluntarily threw up their places, averring
+that "they did not want no young men, but to have their
+sex spied after by an old wretch like that," indicating the
+ponderous butler, "was a little too much for a Christian
+woman," and then they were ungenerous enough to glance
+at Benson's well-known marital calamity, hinting that
+some men met their deserts. So intolerable did heavy
+Benson's espionage become, that Raynham would have
+grown depopulated of its womankind had not Adrian
+interfered, who pointed out to the baronet what a fearful
+arm his butler was wielding. Sir Austin acknowledged
+it despondently. "It only shows," said he, with a
+fine spirit of justice, "how all but impossible it is to legislate
+where there are women!"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not object," he added; "I hope I am too just to
+object to the exercise of their natural inclinations. All
+I ask from them is discreetness."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay," said Adrian, whose discreetness was a marvel.</p>
+
+<p>"No gadding about in couples," continued the baronet,
+"no kissing in public. Such occurrences no boy should
+witness. Whenever people of both sexes are thrown together,
+they will be silly; and where they are high-fed, uneducated,
+and barely occupied, it must be looked for as
+a matter of course. Let it be known that I only require
+discreetness."</p>
+
+<p>Discreetness, therefore, was instructed to reign at the
+Abbey. Under Adrian's able tuition the fairest of its
+domestics acquired that virtue.</p>
+
+<p>Discreetness, too, was enjoined to the upper household.
+Sir Austin, who had not previously appeared to notice the
+case of Lobourne's hopeless curate, now desired Mrs.
+Doria to interdict, or at least discourage, his visits, for
+the appearance of the man was that of an embodied sigh
+and groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Austin!" said Mrs. Doria, astonished to find
+her brother more awake than she had supposed, "I have
+never allowed him to hope."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him see it, then," replied the baronet; "let him
+see it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The man amuses me," said Mrs. Doria. "You know,
+we have few amusements here, we inferior creatures. I
+confess I should like a barrel-organ better; that reminds
+one of town and the opera; and besides, it plays more
+than one tune. However, since you think my society bad
+for him, let him stop away."</p>
+
+<p>With the self-devotion of a woman she grew patient
+and sweet the moment her daughter Clare was spoken of,
+and the business of her life in view. Mrs. Doria's maternal
+heart had betrothed the two cousins, Richard and
+Clare; had already beheld them espoused and fruitful.
+For this she yielded the pleasures of town; for this she
+immured herself at Raynham; for this she bore with a
+thousand follies, exactions, inconveniences, things abhorrent
+to her, and heaven knows what forms of torture and
+self-denial, which are smilingly endured by that greatest
+of voluntary martyrs&mdash;a mother with a daughter to
+marry. Mrs. Doria, an amiable widow, had surely married
+but for her daughter Clare. The lady's hair no woman
+could possess without feeling it her pride. It was the daily
+theme of her lady's-maid,&mdash;a natural aureole to her head.
+She was gay, witty, still physically youthful enough to
+claim a destiny; and she sacrificed it to accomplish her
+daughter's! sacrificed, as with heroic scissors, hair, wit,
+gaiety&mdash;let us not attempt to enumerate how much! more
+than may be said. And she was only one of thousands;
+thousands who have no portion of the hero's reward; for
+he may reckon on applause, and condolence, and sympathy,
+and honour; they, poor slaves! must look for nothing
+but the opposition of their own sex and the sneers
+of ours. O, Sir Austin! had you not been so blinded,
+what an Aphorism might have sprung from this point
+of observation! Mrs. Doria was coolly told, between sister
+and brother, that during the Magnetic Age her daughter's
+presence at Raynham was undesirable. Instead of nursing
+offence, her sole thought was the mountain of prejudice
+she had to contend against. She bowed, and said,
+Clare wanted sea-air&mdash;she had never quite recovered the
+shock of that dreadful night. How long, Mrs. Doria
+wished to know, might the Peculiar Period be expected
+to last?</p>
+
+<p>"That," said Sir Austin, "depends. A year, perhaps,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>
+he is entering on it. I shall be most grieved to lose you,
+Helen. Clare is now&mdash;how old?"</p>
+
+<p>"Seventeen."</p>
+
+<p>"She is marriageable."</p>
+
+<p>"Marriageable, Austin! at seventeen! don't name such
+a thing. My child shall not be robbed of her youth."</p>
+
+<p>"Our women marry early, Helen."</p>
+
+<p>"My child shall not!"</p>
+
+<p>The baronet reflected a moment. He did not wish to
+lose his sister.</p>
+
+<p>"As you are of that opinion, Helen," said he, "perhaps
+we may still make arrangements to retain you with us.
+Would you think it advisable to send Clare&mdash;she should
+know discipline&mdash;to some establishment for a few
+months?"...</p>
+
+<p>"To an asylum, Austin?" cried Mrs. Doria, controlling
+her indignation as well as she could.</p>
+
+<p>"To some select superior seminary, Helen. There are
+such to be found."</p>
+
+<p>"Austin!" Mrs. Doria exclaimed, and had to fight with
+a moisture in her eyes. "Unjust! absurd!" she murmured.
+The baronet thought it a natural proposition
+that Clare should be a bride or a schoolgirl.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot leave my child." Mrs. Doria trembled.
+"Where she goes, I go. I am aware that she is only one of
+our sex, and therefore of no value to the world, but she
+is my child. I will see, poor dear, that you have no cause
+to complain of her."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," Sir Austin remarked, "that you acquiesced
+in my views with regard to my son."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;generally," said Mrs. Doria, and felt culpable
+that she had not before, and could not then, tell her
+brother that he had set up an Idol in his house&mdash;an Idol
+of flesh! more retributive and abominable than wood or
+brass or gold. But she had bowed to the Idol too long&mdash;she
+had too entirely bound herself to gain her project by
+subserviency. She had, and she dimly perceived it, committed
+a greater fault in tactics, in teaching her daughter
+to bow to the Idol also. Love of that kind Richard took
+for tribute. He was indifferent to Clare's soft eyes. The
+parting kiss he gave her was ready and cold as his father
+could desire. Sir Austin now grew eloquent to him in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>
+laudation of manly pursuits: but Richard thought his
+eloquence barren, his attempts at companionship awkward,
+and all manly pursuits and aims, life itself, vain and
+worthless. To what end? sighed the blossomless youth,
+and cried aloud, as soon as he was relieved of his father's
+society, what was the good of anything? Whatever he
+did&mdash;whichever path he selected, led back to Raynham.
+And whatever he did, however wretched and wayward he
+showed himself, only confirmed Sir Austin more and more
+in the truth of his previsions. Tom Bakewell, now the
+youth's groom, had to give the baronet a report of his
+young master's proceedings, in common with Adrian, and
+while there was no harm to tell, Tom spoke out. "He
+do ride like fire every day to Pig's Snout," naming the
+highest hill in the neighbourhood, "and stand there and
+stare, never movin', like a mad 'un. And then hoam agin
+all slack as if he'd been beaten in a race by somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no woman in that!" mused the baronet.
+"He would have ridden back as hard as he went," reflected
+this profound scientific humanist, "had there been a woman
+in it. He would shun vast expanses, and seek shade,
+concealment, solitude. The desire for distances betokens
+emptiness and undirected hunger: when the heart is possessed
+by an image we fly to wood and forest, like the
+guilty."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian's report accused his pupil of an extraordinary
+access of cynicism.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," said the baronet. "As I foresaw. At this
+period an insatiate appetite is accompanied by a fastidious
+palate. Nothing but the quintessences of existence, and
+those in exhaustless supplies, will satisfy this craving,
+which is not to be satisfied! Hence his bitterness. Life
+can furnish no food fitting for him. The strength and
+purity of his energies have reached to an almost divine
+height, and roam through the Inane. Poetry, love, and
+such-like, are the drugs earth has to offer to high natures,
+as she offers to low ones debauchery. 'Tis a sign, this
+sourness, that he is subject to none of the empiricisms
+that are afloat. Now to keep him clear of them!"</p>
+
+<p>The Titans had an easier task in storming Olympus.
+As yet, however, it could not be said that Sir Austin's
+System had failed. On the contrary, it had reared a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>
+youth, handsome, intelligent, well-bred, and, observed the
+ladies, with acute emphasis, innocent. Where, they asked,
+was such another young man to be found?</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Lady Blandish to Sir Austin, "if men could
+give their hands to women unsoiled&mdash;how different would
+many a marriage be! She will be a happy girl who calls
+Richard husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Happy, indeed!" was the baronet's caustic ejaculation.
+"But where shall I meet one equal to him, and his match?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was innocent when I was a girl," said the lady.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin bowed a reserved opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think no girls innocent?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin gallantly thought them all so.</p>
+
+<p>"No, that you know they are not," said the lady, stamping.
+"But they are more innocent than boys, I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Because of their education, madam. You see now
+what a youth can be. Perhaps, when my System is published,
+or rather&mdash;to speak more humbly&mdash;when it is
+practised, the balance may be restored, and we shall have
+virtuous young men."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too late for poor me to hope for a husband from
+one of them," said the lady, pouting and laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"It is never too late for beauty to waken love," returned
+the baronet, and they trifled a little. They were approaching
+Daphne's Bower, which they entered, and sat there to
+taste the coolness of a descending midsummer day.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet seemed in a humour for dignified fooling;
+the lady for serious converse.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall believe again in Arthur's knights," she said.
+"When I was a girl I dreamed of one."</p>
+
+<p>"And he was in quest of the San Greal?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you like."</p>
+
+<p>"And showed his good taste by turning aside for the
+more tangible San Blandish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you consider it would have been so," sighed
+the lady, ruffling.</p>
+
+<p>"I can only judge by our generation," said Sir Austin,
+with a bend of homage.</p>
+
+<p>The lady gathered her mouth. "Either we are very
+mighty or you are very weak."</p>
+
+<p>"Both, madam."</p>
+
+<p>"But whatever we are, and if we are bad, bad! we love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>
+virtue, and truth, and lofty souls, in men: and, when we
+meet those qualities in them, we are constant, and would
+die for them&mdash;die for them. Ah! you know men but not
+women."</p>
+
+<p>"The knights possessing such distinctions must be
+young, I presume?" said Sir Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"Old, or young!"</p>
+
+<p>"But if old, they are scarce capable of enterprise?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are loved for themselves, not for their deeds."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;ah!" said the lady. "Intellect may subdue women&mdash;make
+slaves of them; and they worship beauty perhaps
+as much as you do. But they only love for ever and
+are mated when they meet a noble nature."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin looked at her wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>"And did you encounter the knight of your dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not then." She lowered her eyelids. It was prettily
+done.</p>
+
+<p>"And how did you bear the disappointment?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dream was in the nursery. The day my frock was
+lengthened to a gown I stood at the altar. I am not the
+only girl that has been made a woman in a day, and
+given to an ogre instead of a true knight."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" exclaimed Sir Austin, "women have much
+to bear."</p>
+
+<p>Here the couple changed characters. The lady became
+gay as the baronet grew earnest.</p>
+
+<p>"You know it is our lot," she said. "And we are allowed
+many amusements. If we fulfil our duty in producing
+children, that, like our virtue, is its own reward. Then,
+as a widow, I have wonderful privileges."</p>
+
+<p>"To preserve which, you remain a widow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," she responded. "I have no trouble now in
+patching and piecing that rag the world calls&mdash;a character.
+I can sit at your feet every day unquestioned.
+To be sure, others do the same, but they are female
+eccentrics, and have cast off the rag altogether."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin drew nearer to her. "You would have made
+an admirable mother, madam."</p>
+
+<p>This from Sir Austin was very like positive wooing.</p>
+
+<p>"It is," he continued, "ten thousand pities that you are
+not one."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" She spoke with humility.</p>
+
+<p>"I would," he went on, "that heaven had given you a
+daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have thought her worthy of Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our blood, madam, should have been one!"</p>
+
+<p>The lady tapped her toe with her parasol. "But I am
+a mother," she said. "Richard is my son. Yes! Richard
+is my boy," she reiterated.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin most graciously appended, "Call him ours,
+madam," and held his head as if to catch the word from
+her lips, which, however, she chose to refuse, or defer.
+They made the coloured West a common point for their
+eyes, and then Sir Austin said:</p>
+
+<p>"As you will not say 'ours,' let me. And, as you have
+therefore an equal claim on the boy, I will confide to you
+a project I have lately conceived."</p>
+
+<p>The announcement of a project hardly savoured of a
+coming proposal, but for Sir Austin to confide one to a
+woman was almost tantamount to a declaration. So Lady
+Blandish thought, and so said her soft, deep-eyed smile,
+as she perused the ground while listening to the project.
+It concerned Richard's nuptials. He was now nearly
+eighteen. He was to marry when he was five-and-twenty.
+Meantime a young lady, some years his junior, was to be
+sought for in the homes of England, who would be every
+way fitted by education, instincts, and blood&mdash;on each of
+which qualifications Sir Austin unreservedly enlarged&mdash;to
+espouse so perfect a youth and accept the honourable
+duty of assisting in the perpetuation of the Feverels.
+The baronet went on to say that he proposed to set forth
+immediately, and devote a couple of months, to the first
+essay in his C[oe]lebite search.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear," said Lady Blandish, when the project had
+been fully unfolded, "you have laid down for yourself a
+difficult task. You must not be too exacting."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it." The baronet's shake of the head was
+piteous.</p>
+
+<p>"Even in England she will be rare. But I confine myself
+to no class. If I ask for blood it is for untainted, not
+what you call high blood. I believe many of the middle
+classes are frequently more careful&mdash;more pure-blooded&mdash;than
+our aristocracy. Show me among them a God-fearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>
+family who educate their children&mdash;I should prefer a
+girl without brothers and sisters&mdash;as a Christian damsel
+should be educated&mdash;say; on the model of my son, and she
+may be penniless, I will pledge her to Richard Feverel."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish bit her lip. "And what do you do with
+Richard while you are absent on this expedition?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said the baronet, "he accompanies his father."</p>
+
+<p>"Then give it up. His future bride is now pinafored
+and bread-and-buttery. She romps, she cries, she dreams
+of play and pudding. How can he care for her? He
+thinks more at his age of old women like me. He will
+be certain to kick against her, and destroy your plan,
+believe me, Sir Austin."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay? ay? do you think that?" said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish gave him a multitude of reasons.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! true," he muttered. "Adrian said the same. He
+must not see her. How could I think of it! The child is
+naked woman. He would despise her. Naturally!"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally!" echoed the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, madam," and the baronet rose, "there is one
+thing for me to determine upon. I must, for the first
+time in his life, leave him."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you, indeed?" said the lady.</p>
+
+<p>"It is my duty, having thus brought him up, to see that
+he is properly mated,&mdash;not wrecked upon the quicksands
+of marriage, as a youth so delicately trained might be;
+more easily than another! Betrothed, he will be safe from
+a thousand snares. I may, I think, leave him for a term.
+My precautions have saved him from the temptations of
+his season."</p>
+
+<p>"And under whose charge will you leave him?" Lady
+Blandish inquired.</p>
+
+<p>She had emerged from the temple, and stood beside
+Sir Austin on the upper steps, under a clear summer
+twilight.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam!" he took her hand, and his voice was gallant
+and tender, "under whose but yours?"</p>
+
+<p>As the baronet said this, he bent above her hand, and
+raised it to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish felt that she had been wooed and asked
+in wedlock. She did not withdraw her hand. The baronet's
+salute was flatteringly reverent. He deliberated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>
+over it, as one going through a grave ceremony. And
+he, the scorner of women, had chosen her for his homage!
+Lady Blandish forgot that she had taken some trouble
+to arrive at it. She received the exquisite compliment in
+all its unique honey-sweet: for in love we must deserve
+nothing or the fine bloom of fruition is gone.</p>
+
+<p>The lady's hand was still in durance, and the baronet
+had not recovered from his profound inclination, when a
+noise from the neighbouring beechwood startled the two
+actors in this courtly pantomime. They turned their
+heads, and beheld the hope of Raynham on horseback
+surveying the scene. The next moment he had galloped
+away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ATTRACTION</h3>
+
+
+<p>All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a
+rapid canter, and his brain bestriding it, traversing the
+rich untasted world, and the great Realm of Mystery, from
+which he was now restrained no longer. Months he had
+wandered about the gates of the Bonnet, wondering, sighing,
+knocking at them, and getting neither admittance
+nor answer. He had the key now. His own father had
+given it to him. His heart was a lightning steed, and
+bore him on and on over limitless regions bathed in super-human
+beauty and strangeness, where cavaliers and ladies
+leaned whispering upon close green swards, and knights
+and ladies cast a splendour upon savage forests, and tilts
+and tourneys were held in golden courts lit to a glorious
+day by ladies' eyes, one pair of which, dimly visioned,
+constantly distinguishable, followed him through the
+boskage and dwelt upon him in the press, beaming while
+he bent above a hand glittering white and fragrant as the
+frosted blossom of a May night.</p>
+
+<p>Awhile the heart would pause and flutter to a shock: he
+was in the act of consummating all earthly bliss by pressing
+his lips to the small white hand. Only to do that,
+and die! cried the Magnetic Youth: to fling the Jewel of
+Life into that one cup and drink it off! He was intoxicated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>
+by anticipation. For that he was born. There was,
+then, some end in existence, something to live for! to
+kiss a woman's hand, and die! He would leap from the
+couch, and rush to pen and paper to relieve his swarming
+sensations. Scarce was he seated when the pen was
+dashed aside, the paper sent flying with the exclamation,
+"Have I not sworn I would never write again?" Sir
+Austin had shut that safety-valve. The nonsense that
+was in the youth might have poured harmlessly out, and
+its urgency for ebullition was so great that he was repeatedly
+oblivious of his oath, and found himself seated
+under the lamp in the act of composition before pride
+could speak a word. Possibly the pride even of Richard
+Feverel had been swamped if the act of composition were
+easy at such a time, and a single idea could stand clearly
+foremost; but myriads were demanding the first place;
+chaotic hosts, like ranks of stormy billows, pressed impetuously
+for expression, and despair of reducing them
+to form, quite as much as pride, to which it pleased him
+to refer his incapacity, threw down the powerless pen, and
+sent him panting to his outstretched length and another
+headlong career through the rosy-girdled land.</p>
+
+<p>Toward morning the madness of the fever abated somewhat,
+and he went forth into the air. A lamp was still
+burning in his father's room, and Richard thought, as he
+looked up, that he saw the ever-vigilant head on the
+watch. Instantly the lamp was extinguished, the window
+stood cold against the hues of dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Strong pulling is an excellent medical remedy for certain
+classes of fever. Richard took to it instinctively.
+The clear fresh water, burnished with sunrise, sparkled
+against his arrowy prow; the soft deep shadows curled
+smiling away from his gliding keel. Overhead solitary
+morning unfolded itself, from blossom to bud, from bud
+to flower; still, delicious changes of light and colour, to
+whose influences he was heedless as he shot under willows
+and aspens, and across sheets of river-reaches, pure mirrors
+to the upper glory, himself the sole tenant of the
+stream. Somewhere at the founts of the world lay the
+land he was rowing toward; something of its shadowed
+lights might be discerned here and there. It was not a
+dream, now he knew. There was a secret abroad. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>
+woods were full of it; the waters rolled with it, and the
+winds. Oh, why could not one in these days do some
+high knightly deed which should draw down ladies' eyes
+from their heaven, as in the days of Arthur! To such
+a meaning breathed the unconscious sighs of the youth,
+when he had pulled through his first feverish energy.</p>
+
+<p>He was off Bursley, and had lapsed a little into that
+musing quietude which follows strenuous exercise, when
+he heard a hail and his own name called. It was no lady,
+no fairy, but young Ralph Morton, an irruption of miserable
+masculine prose. Heartily wishing him abed with
+the rest of mankind, Richard rowed in and jumped ashore.
+Ralph immediately seized his arm, saying that he desired
+earnestly to have a talk with him, and dragged the Magnetic
+Youth from his water-dreams, up and down the wet
+mown grass. That he had to say seemed to be difficult
+of utterance, and Richard, though he barely listened, soon
+had enough of his old rival's gladness at seeing him, and
+exhibited signs of impatience; whereat Ralph, as one who
+branches into matter somewhat foreign to his mind, but
+of great human interest and importance, put the question
+to him:</p>
+
+<p>"I say, what woman's name do you like best?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know any," quoth Richard, indifferently.
+"Why are you out so early?"</p>
+
+<p>In answer to this, Ralph suggested that the name of
+Mary might be considered a pretty name.</p>
+
+<p>Richard agreed that it might be; the housekeeper at
+Raynham, half the women cooks, and all the housemaids
+enjoyed that name; the name of Mary was equivalent for
+women at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," said Ralph. "We have lots of Marys.
+It's so common. Oh! I don't like Mary best. What do
+you think of Lucy?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard thought it just like another.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know," Ralph continued, throwing off the mask
+and plunging into the subject, "I'd do anything on earth
+for some names&mdash;one or two. It's not Mary, nor Lucy.
+Clarinda's pretty, but it's like a novel. Claribel, I like.
+Names beginning with 'Cl' I prefer. The 'Cl's' are always
+gentle and lovely girls you would die for! Don't
+you think so?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Richard had never been acquainted with any of them to
+inspire that emotion. Indeed these urgent appeals to his
+fancy in feminine names at five o'clock in the morning
+slightly surprised him, though he was but half awake to
+the outer world. By degrees he perceived that Ralph was
+changed. Instead of the lusty boisterous boy, his rival in
+manly sciences, who spoke straightforwardly and acted up
+to his speech, here was an abashed and blush-persecuted
+youth, who sued piteously for a friendly ear wherein to
+pour the one idea possessing him. Gradually, too, Richard
+apprehended that Ralph likewise was on the frontiers of
+the Realm of Mystery, perhaps further toward it than he
+himself was; and then, as by a sympathetic stroke, was
+revealed to him the wonderful beauty and depth of meaning
+in feminine names. The theme appeared novel and
+delicious, fitted to the season and the hour. But the
+hardship was, that Richard could choose none from
+the number; all were the same to him; he loved them
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you really prefer the 'Cl's'?" said Ralph, persuasively.</p>
+
+<p>"Not better than the names ending in 'a' and 'y,'" Richard
+replied, wishing he could, for Ralph was evidently
+ahead of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Come under these trees," said Ralph. And under the
+trees Ralph unbosomed. His name was down for the
+army: Eton was quitted for ever. In a few months he
+would have to join his regiment, and before he left he
+must say good-bye to his friends.... Would Richard
+tell him Mrs. Forey's address? he had heard she was somewhere
+by the sea. Richard did not remember the address,
+but said he would willingly take charge of any
+letter and forward it.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph dived his hand into his pocket. "Here it is. But
+don't let anybody see it."</p>
+
+<p>"My aunt's name is not Clare," said Richard, perusing
+what was composed of the exterior formula. "You've
+addressed it to Clare herself."</p>
+
+<p>That was plain to see.</p>
+
+<p>"Emmeline Clementina Matilda Laura, Countess Blandish,"
+Richard continued in a low tone, transferring the
+names, and playing on the musical strings they were to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>
+him. Then he said: "Names of ladies! How they
+sweeten their names!"</p>
+
+<p>He fixed his eyes on Ralph. If he discovered anything
+further he said nothing, but bade the good fellow good-bye,
+jumped into his boat, and pulled down the tide. The
+moment Ralph was hidden by an abutment of the banks,
+Richard perused the address. For the first time it struck
+him that his cousin Clare was a very charming creature:
+he remembered the look of her eyes, and especially the
+last reproachful glance she gave him at parting. What
+business had Ralph to write to her? Did she not belong
+to Richard Feverel? He read the words again and again:
+Clare Doria Forey. Why, Clare was the name he liked
+best&mdash;nay, he loved it. Doria, too&mdash;she shared his own
+name with him. Away went his heart, not at a canter
+now, at a gallop, as one who sights the quarry. He felt
+too weak to pull. Clare Doria Forey&mdash;-oh, perfect melody!
+Sliding with the tide, he heard it fluting in the bosom of
+the hills.</p>
+
+<p>When nature has made us ripe for love, it seldom occurs
+that the Fates are behindhand in furnishing a temple for
+the flame.</p>
+
+<p>Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by
+the thunder below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying
+at anchor among the reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from
+the banks thick with weed and trailing bramble, and there
+also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was shaded by a
+broad straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and
+chin in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a
+light of promising eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind,
+flowed large loose curls, brown in shadow, almost golden
+where the ray touched them. She was simply dressed, befitting
+decency and the season. On a closer inspection
+you might see that her lips were stained. This blooming
+young person was regaling on dewberries. They grew between
+the bank and the water. Apparently she found the
+fruit abundant, for her hand was making pretty progress
+to her mouth. Fastidious youth, which revolts at woman
+plumping her exquisite proportions on bread-and-butter,
+and would (we must suppose) joyfully have her scraggy
+to have her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries. Indeed
+the act of eating them is dainty and induces musing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+The dewberry is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent
+sister. You eat: mouth, eye, and hand are occupied, and
+the undrugged mind free to roam. And so it was with the
+damsel who knelt there. The little skylark went up above
+her, all song, to the smooth southern cloud lying along
+the blue: from a dewy copse dark over her nodding hat
+the blackbird fluted, calling to her with thrice mellow
+note: the kingfisher flashed emerald out of green osiers:
+a bow-winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude: a
+boat slipped toward her, containing a dreamy youth; and
+still she plucked the fruit, and ate, and mused, as if no
+fairy prince were invading her territories, and as if she
+wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded
+by the green shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz,
+the weir-fall's thundering white, amid the breath and
+beauty of wild flowers, she was a bit of lovely human life
+in a fair setting; a terrible attraction. The Magnetic
+Youth leaned round to note his proximity to the weir-piles,
+and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller grew
+nature, as at the meeting of two electric clouds. Her
+posture was so graceful, that though he was making
+straight for the weir, he dared not dip a scull. Just then
+one enticing dewberry caught her eyes. He was floating
+by unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched low, and
+could not gather what it sought. A stroke from his
+right brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up
+dismayed, and her whole shape trembled over the brink.
+Richard sprang from his boat into the water. Pressing
+a hand beneath her foot, which she had thrust against
+the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself, he
+enabled her to recover her balance, and gain safe earth,
+whither he followed her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>FERDINAND AND MIRANDA</h3>
+
+
+<p>He had landed on an island of the still-vexed Bermoothes.
+The world lay wrecked behind him: Raynham
+hung in mists, remote, a phantom to the vivid reality of
+this white hand which had drawn him thither away thousands<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>
+of leagues in an eye-twinkle. Hark, how Ariel
+sang overhead! What splendour in the heavens! What
+marvels of beauty about his enchanted brows! And, O
+you wonder! Fair Flame! by whose light the glories of
+being are now first seen.... Radiant Miranda! Prince
+Ferdinand is at your feet.</p>
+
+<p>Or is it Adam, his rib taken from his side in sleep,
+and thus transformed, to make him behold his Paradise,
+and lose it?...</p>
+
+<p>The youth looked on her with as glowing an eye. It
+was the First Woman to him.</p>
+
+<p>And she&mdash;mankind was all Caliban to her, saving this
+one princely youth.</p>
+
+<p>So to each other said their changing eyes in the moment
+they stood together; he pale, and she blushing.</p>
+
+<p>She was indeed sweetly fair, and would have been held
+fair among rival damsels. On a magic shore, and to a
+youth educated by a System, strung like an arrow drawn
+to the head, he, it might be guessed, could fly fast and far
+with her. The soft rose in her cheeks, the clearness of
+her eyes, bore witness to the body's virtue; and health
+and happy blood were in her bearing. Had she stood
+before Sir Austin among rival damsels, that Scientific
+Humanist, for the consummation of his System, would
+have thrown her the handkerchief for his son. The wide
+summer-hat, nodding over her forehead to her brows,
+seemed to flow with the flowing heavy curls, and those
+fire-threaded mellow curls, only half-curls, waves of hair
+call them, rippling at the ends, went like a sunny red-veined
+torrent down her back almost to her waist: a
+glorious vision to the youth, who embraced it as a flower
+of beauty, and read not a feature. There were curious
+features of colour in her face for him to have read. Her
+brows, thick and brownish against a soft skin showing the
+action of the blood, met in the bend of a bow, extending
+to the temples long and level: you saw that she was fashioned
+to peruse the sights of earth, and by the pliability
+of her brows that the wonderful creature used her faculty,
+and was not going to be a statue to the gazer. Under the
+dark thick brows an arch of lashes shot out, giving a
+wealth of darkness to the full frank blue eyes, a mystery
+of meaning&mdash;more than brain was ever meant to fathom:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+richer, henceforth, than all mortal wisdom to Prince Ferdinand.
+For when nature turns artist, and produces contrasts
+of colour on a fair face, where is the Sage, or what
+the Oracle, shall match the depth of its lightest look?</p>
+
+<p>Prince Ferdinand was also fair. In his slim boating-attire
+his figure looked heroic. His hair, rising from the
+parting to the right of his forehead, in what his admiring
+Lady Blandish called his plume, fell away slanting silkily
+to the temples across the nearly imperceptible upward
+curve of his brows there&mdash;felt more than seen, so slight
+it was&mdash;and gave to his profile a bold beauty, to which
+his bashful, breathless air was a flattering charm. An
+arrow drawn to the head, capable of flying fast and far
+with her! He leaned a little forward, drinking her in
+with all his eyes, and young Love has a thousand. Then
+truly the System triumphed, just ere it was to fall; and
+could Sir Austin have been content to draw the arrow
+to the head, and let it fly, when it would fly, he might
+have pointed to his son again, and said to the world,
+"Match him!" Such keen bliss as the youth had in the
+sight of her, an innocent youth alone has powers of soul
+in him to experience.</p><br />
+
+
+
+<p>"O Women!" says <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, in one of its
+solitary outbursts, "Women, who like, and will have for
+hero, a rake! how soon are you not to learn that you have
+taken bankrupts to your bosoms, and that the putrescent
+gold that attracted you is the slime of the Lake of Sin!"</p><br />
+
+
+
+<p>If these two were Ferdinand and Miranda, Sir Austin
+was not Prospero, and was not present, or their fates
+might have been different.</p>
+
+<p>So they stood a moment, changing eyes, and then
+Miranda spoke, and they came down to earth, feeling
+no less in heaven.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke to thank him for his aid. She used quite
+common simple words; and used them, no doubt, to express
+a common simple meaning: but to him she was uttering
+magic, casting spells, and the effect they had on him was
+manifested in the incoherence of his replies, which were
+too foolish to be chronicled.</p>
+
+<p>The couple were again mute. Suddenly Miranda, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>
+an exclamation of anguish, and innumerable lights and
+shadows playing over her lovely face, clapped her hands,
+crying aloud, "My book! my book!" and ran to the bank.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Ferdinand was at her side. "What have you
+lost?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"My book!" she answered, her delicious curls swinging
+across her shoulders to the stream. Then turning to him,
+"Oh, no, no! let me entreat you not to," she said; "I do
+not so very much mind losing it." And in her eagerness
+to restrain him she unconsciously laid her gentle hand
+upon his arm, and took the force of motion out of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I do not really care for the silly book," she
+continued, withdrawing her hand quickly, and reddening.
+"Pray, do not!"</p>
+
+<p>The young gentleman had kicked off his shoes. No
+sooner was the spell of contact broken than he jumped
+in. The water was still troubled and discoloured by his
+introductory adventure, and, though he ducked his head
+with the spirit of a dabchick, the book was missing. A
+scrap of paper floating from the bramble just above the
+water, and looking as if fire had caught its edges and
+it had flown from one adverse element to the other, was
+all he could lay hold of; and he returned to land disconsolately,
+to hear Miranda's murmured mixing of thanks
+and pretty expostulations.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me try again," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed!" she replied, and used the awful threat:
+"I will run away if you do," which effectually restrained
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Her eye fell on the fire-stained scrap of paper, and
+brightened, as she cried, "There, there! you have what I
+want. It is that. I do not care for the book. No, please!
+You are not to look at it. Give it me."</p>
+
+<p>Before her playfully imperative injunction was fairly
+spoken, Richard had glanced at the document and discovered
+a Griffin between two Wheatsheaves: his crest in
+silver: and below&mdash;O wonderment immense! his own handwriting!</p>
+
+<p>He handed it to her. She took it, and put it in her
+bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Who would have thought, that, where all else perished,
+Odes, Idyls, Lines, Stanzas, this one Sonnet to the stars<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>
+should be miraculously reserved for such a starry fate&mdash;passing
+beatitude!</p>
+
+<p>As they walked silently across the meadow, Richard
+strove to remember the hour and the mood of mind in
+which he had composed the notable production. The
+stars were invoked, as seeing and foreseeing all, to tell
+him where then his love reclined, and so forth; Hesper
+was complacent enough to do so, and described her in
+a couplet&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Through sunset's amber see me shining fair,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">As her blue eyes shine through her golden hair."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>And surely no words could be more prophetic. Here
+were two blue eyes and golden hair; and by some strange
+chance, that appeared like the working of a divine finger,
+she had become the possessor of the prophecy, she that
+was to fulfil it! The youth was too charged with emotion
+to speak. Doubtless the damsel had less to think of,
+or had some trifling burden on her conscience, for she
+seemed to grow embarrassed. At last she drew up her
+chin to look at her companion under the nodding brim
+of her hat (and the action gave her a charmingly freakish
+air), crying, "But where are you going to? You are wet
+through. Let me thank you again; and, pray, leave me,
+and go home and change instantly."</p>
+
+<p>"Wet?" replied the magnetic muser, with a voice of
+tender interest; "not more than one foot, I hope. I will
+leave you while you dry your stockings in the sun."</p>
+
+<p>At this she could not withhold a shy laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I, but you. You would try to get that silly book
+for me, and you are dripping wet. Are you not very
+uncomfortable?"</p>
+
+<p>In all sincerity he assured her that he was not.</p>
+
+<p>"And you really do not feel that you are wet?"</p>
+
+<p>He really did not: and it was a fact that he spoke truth.</p>
+
+<p>She pursed her dewberry mouth in the most comical
+way, and her blue eyes lightened laughter out of the half-closed
+lids.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot help it," she said, her mouth opening, and
+sounding harmonious bells of laughter in his ears. "Pardon
+me, won't you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His face took the same soft smiling curves in admiration
+of her.</p>
+
+<p>"Not to feel that you have been in the water, the very
+moment after!" she musically interjected, seeing she was
+excused.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true," he said; and his own gravity then touched
+him to join a duet with her, which made them no longer
+feel strangers, and did the work of a month of intimacy.
+Better than sentiment, laughter opens the breast to love;
+opens the whole breast to his full quiver, instead of a
+corner here and there for a solitary arrow. Hail the
+occasion propitious, O British young! and laugh and
+treat love as an honest God, and dabble not with the
+sentimental rouge. These two laughed, and the souls of
+each cried out to the other, "It is I, it is I."</p>
+
+<p>They laughed and forgot the cause of their laughter,
+and the sun dried his light river clothing, and they strolled
+toward the blackbird's copse, and stood near a stile in
+sight of the foam of the weir and the many-coloured rings
+of eddies streaming forth from it.</p>
+
+<p>Richard's boat, meanwhile, had contrived to shoot the
+weir, and was swinging, bottom upward, broadside with
+the current down the rapid backwater.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you let it go?" said the damsel, eyeing it curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be stopped," he replied, and could have added:
+"What do I care for it now!"</p>
+
+<p>His old life was whirled away with it, dead, drowned.
+His new life was with her, alive, divine.</p>
+
+<p>She flapped low the brim of her hat. "You must really
+not come any farther," she softly said.</p>
+
+<p>"And will you go, and not tell me who you are?" he
+asked, growing bold as the fears of losing her came across
+him. "And will you not tell me before you go"&mdash;his face
+burned&mdash;"how you came by that&mdash;that paper?"</p>
+
+<p>She chose to select the easier question for answer:
+"You ought to know me; we have been introduced." Sweet
+was her winning off-hand affability.</p>
+
+<p>"Then who, in heaven's name, are you? Tell me! I
+never could have forgotten you."</p>
+
+<p>"You have, I think," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible that we could ever have met, and I forget
+you!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She looked up at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember Belthorpe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Belthorpe! Belthorpe!" quoth Richard, as if he had
+to touch his brain to recollect there was such a place.
+"Do you mean old Blaize's farm?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then I am old Blaize's niece." She tripped him a
+soft curtsey.</p>
+
+<p>The magnetized youth gazed at her. By what magic
+was it that this divine sweet creature could be allied with
+that old churl!</p>
+
+<p>"Then what&mdash;what is your name?" said his mouth,
+while his eyes added, "O wonderful creature! How came
+you to enrich the earth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you forgot the Desboroughs of Dorset, too?" she
+peered at him from a side-bend of the flapping brim.</p>
+
+<p>"The Desboroughs of Dorset?" A light broke in on
+him. "And have you grown to this? That little girl I
+saw there!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew close to her to read the nearest features of
+the vision. She could no more laugh off the piercing
+fervour of his eyes. Her volubility fluttered under his
+deeply wistful look, and now neither voice was high, and
+they were mutually constrained.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she murmured, "we are old acquaintances."</p>
+
+<p>Richard, with his eyes still intently fixed on her, returned,
+"You are very beautiful!"</p>
+
+<p>The words slipped out. Perfect simplicity is unconsciously
+audacious. Her overpowering beauty struck his
+heart, and, like an instrument that is touched and answers
+to the touch, he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Desborough made an effort to trifle with this terrible
+directness; but his eyes would not be gainsaid, and
+checked her lips. She turned away from them, her bosom
+a little rebellious. Praise so passionately spoken, and by
+one who has been a damsel's first dream, dreamed of
+nightly many long nights, and clothed in the virgin silver
+of her thoughts in bud, praise from him is coin the heart
+cannot reject, if it would. She quickened her steps.</p>
+
+<p>"I have offended you!" said a mortally wounded voice
+across her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>That he should think so were too dreadful.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, no! you would never offend me." She gave
+him her whole sweet face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then why&mdash;why do you leave me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," she hesitated, "I must go."</p>
+
+<p>"No. You must not go. Why must you go? Do not
+go."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I must," she said, pulling at the obnoxious
+broad brim of her hat; and, interpreting a pause he made
+for his assent to her rational resolve, shyly looking at him,
+she held her hand out, and said, "Good-bye," as if it were
+a natural thing to say.</p>
+
+<p>The hand was pure white&mdash;white and fragrant as the
+frosted blossom of a Maynight. It was the hand whose
+shadow, cast before, he had last night bent his head reverentially
+above, and kissed&mdash;resigning himself thereupon
+over to execution for payment of the penalty of such daring&mdash;by
+such bliss well rewarded.</p>
+
+<p>He took the hand, and held it, gazing between her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," she said again, as frankly as she could,
+and at the same time slightly compressing her fingers on
+his in token of adieu. It was a signal for his to close
+firmly upon hers.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, let me," she pleaded, her sweet brows suing in
+wrinkles.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not go?" Mechanically he drew the white
+hand nearer his thumping heart.</p>
+
+<p>"I must," she faltered piteously.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me. Do you wish to go?"</p>
+
+<p>The question was a subtle one. A moment or two she
+did not answer, and then forswore herself, and said, Yes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you&mdash;you wish to go?" He looked with quivering
+eyelids under hers.</p>
+
+<p>A fainter Yes responded.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish&mdash;wish to leave me?" His breath went with
+the words.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I must."</p>
+
+<p>Her hand became a closer prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>All at once an alarming delicious shudder went through
+her frame. From him to her it coursed, and back from
+her to him. Forward and back love's electric messenger
+rushed from heart to heart, knocking at each, till it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>
+surged tumultuously against the bars of its prison, crying
+out for its mate. They stood trembling in unison,
+a lovely couple under these fair heavens of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>When he could get his voice it said, "Will you go?"</p>
+
+<p>But she had none to reply with, and could only mutely
+bend upward her gentle wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, farewell!" he said, and, dropping his lips to the
+soft fair hand, kissed it, and hung his head, swinging
+away from her, ready for death.</p>
+
+<p>Strange, that now she was released she should linger
+by him. Strange, that his audacity, instead of the executioner,
+brought blushes and timid tenderness to his
+side, and the sweet words, "You are not angry with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"With you, O Beloved!" cried his soul. "And you forgive
+me, fair charity!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it was rude of me to go without thanking you
+again," she said, and again proffered her hand.</p>
+
+<p>The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song above him.
+The gracious glory of heaven fell upon his soul. He
+touched her hand, not moving his eyes from her, nor
+speaking, and she, with a soft word of farewell, passed
+across the stile, and up the pathway through the dewy
+shades of the copse, and out of the arch of the light,
+away from his eyes.</p><br />
+
+
+<p>And away with her went the wild enchantment. He
+looked on barren air. But it was no more the world of
+yesterday. The marvellous splendours had sown seeds in
+him, ready to spring up and bloom at her gaze; and in his
+bosom now the vivid conjuration of her tones, her face,
+her shape, makes them leap and illumine him like fitful
+summer lightnings&mdash;ghosts of the vanished sun.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to tell him that he had been making
+love and declaring it with extraordinary rapidity; nor did
+he know it. Soft flushed cheeks! sweet mouth! strange
+sweet brows! eyes of softest fire! how could his ripe eyes
+behold you, and not plead to keep you? Nay, how could
+he let you go? And he seriously asked himself that
+question.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow this place will have a memory&mdash;the river
+and the meadow, and the white falling weir: his heart will
+build a temple here; and the skylark will be its high-priest,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>
+and the old blackbird its glossy-gowned chorister,
+and there will be a sacred repast of dewberries. To-day
+the grass is grass: his heart is chased by phantoms and
+finds rest nowhere. Only when the most tender freshness
+of his flower comes across him does he taste a moment's
+calm; and no sooner does it come than it gives place to
+keen pangs for fear that she may not be his for ever.</p>
+
+<p>Erelong he learns that her name is Lucy. Erelong he
+meets Ralph, and discovers that in a day he has distanced
+him by a sphere. He and Ralph and the curate of Lobourne
+join in their walks, and raise classical discussions
+on ladies' hair, fingering a thousand delicious locks, from
+those of Cleopatra to the Borgia's. "Fair! fair! all of
+them fair!" sighs the melancholy curate, "as are those
+women formed for our perdition! I think we have in
+this country what will match the Italian or the Greek."
+His mind flutters to Mrs. Doria, Richard blushes before
+the vision of Lucy, and Ralph, whose heroine's hair is a
+dark luxuriance, dissents, and claims a noble share in
+the slaughter of men for dark-haired Wonders. They
+have no mutual confidences, but they are singularly kind
+to each other, these three children of instinct.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON</h3>
+
+
+<p>Lady Blandish, and others who professed an interest in
+the fortunes and future of the systematized youth, had occasionally
+mentioned names of families whose alliance
+according to apparent calculations, would not degrade his
+blood: and over these names, secretly preserved on an open
+leaf of the note-book, Sir Austin, as he neared the metropolis,
+distantly dropped his eye. There were names
+historic and names mushroomic; names that the Conqueror
+might have called in his muster-roll; names that
+had been, clearly, tossed into the upper stratum of civilized
+life by a mill-wheel or a merchant-stool. Against them
+the baronet had written M., or Po. or Pr.&mdash;signifying,
+Money, Position, Principles, favouring the latter with
+special brackets. The wisdom of a worldly man, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>
+he could now and then adopt, determined him, before he
+commenced his round of visits, to consult and sound his
+solicitor and his physician thereanent; lawyers and doctors
+being the rats who know best the merits of a house,
+and on what sort of foundation it may be standing.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin entered the great city with a sad mind.
+The memory of his misfortune came upon him vividly,
+as if no years had intervened, and it were but yesterday
+that he found the letter telling him that he had no wife
+and his son no mother. He wandered on foot through the
+streets the first night of his arrival, looking strangely at
+the shops and shows and bustle of the world from which
+he had divorced himself; feeling as destitute as the poorest
+vagrant. He had almost forgotten how to find his
+way about, and came across his old mansion in his efforts
+to regain his hotel. The windows were alight&mdash;signs of
+merry life within. He stared at it from the shadow of
+the opposite side. It seemed to him he was a ghost gazing
+upon his living past. And then the phantom which had
+stood there mocking while he felt as other men&mdash;the
+phantom, now flesh and blood reality, seized and convulsed
+his heart, and filled its unforgiving crevices with bitter
+ironic venom. He remembered by the time reflection returned
+to him that it was Algernon, who had the house
+at his disposal, probably giving a card-party, or something
+of the sort. In the morning, too, he remembered that he
+had divorced the world to wed a System, and must be
+faithful to that exacting Spouse, who, now alone of things
+on earth, could fortify and recompense him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson received his client with the dignity and
+emotion due to such a rent-roll and the unexpectedness
+of the honour. He was a thin stately man of law, garbed
+as one who gave audience to sacred bishops, and carrying
+on his countenance the stamp of paternity to the parchment-skins,
+and of a virtuous attachment to Port wine
+sufficient to increase his respectability in the eyes of moral
+Britain. After congratulating Sir Austin on the fortunate
+issue of two or three suits, and being assured that the
+baronet's business in town had no concern therewith, Mr.
+Thompson ventured to hope that the young heir was all
+his father could desire him to be, and heard with satisfaction
+that he was a pattern to the youth of the Age.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A difficult time of life, Sir Austin!" said the old lawyer,
+shaking his head. "We must keep our eyes on them&mdash;keep
+awake! The mischief is done in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"We must take care to have seen where we planted, and
+that the root was sound, or the mischief will do itself in
+spite of, or under the very spectacles of, supervision,"
+said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>His legal adviser murmured "Exactly," as if that were
+his own idea, adding, "It is my plan with Ripton, who has
+had the honour of an introduction to you, and a very
+pleasant time he spent with my young friend, whom he
+does not forget. Ripton follows the Law. He is articled
+to me, and will, I trust, succeed me worthily in your
+confidence. I bring him into town in the morning; I take
+him back at night. I think I may say that I am quite
+content with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think," said Sir Austin, fixing his brows, "that
+you can trace every act of his to its motive?"</p>
+
+<p>The old lawyer bent forward and humbly requested that
+this might be repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you"&mdash;Sir Austin held the same searching expression&mdash;"do
+you establish yourself in a radiating centre of
+intuition: do you base your watchfulness on so thorough
+an acquaintance with his character, so perfect a knowledge
+of the instrument, that all its movements&mdash;even the eccentric
+ones&mdash;are anticipated by you, and provided for?"</p>
+
+<p>The explanation was a little too long for the old lawyer
+to entreat another repetition. Winking with the painful
+deprecation of a deaf man, Mr. Thompson smiled urbanely,
+coughed conciliatingly, and said he was afraid he could
+not affirm that much, though he was happily enabled to
+say that Ripton had borne an extremely good character
+at school.</p>
+
+<p>"I find," Sir Austin remarked, as sardonically he relaxed
+his inspecting pose and mien, "there are fathers
+who are content to be simply obeyed. Now I require not
+only that my son should obey; I would have him guiltless
+of the impulse to gainsay my wishes&mdash;feeling me in him
+stronger than his undeveloped nature, up to a certain
+period, where my responsibility ends and his commences.
+Man is a self-acting machine. He cannot cease to be a
+machine; but, though self-acting, he may lose the powers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>
+of self-guidance, and in a wrong course his very vitalities
+hurry him to perdition. Young, he is an organism ripening
+to the set mechanic diurnal round, and while so he
+needs all the angels to hold watch over him that he grow
+straight and healthy, and fit for what machinal duties he
+may have to perform." ...</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson agitated his eyebrows dreadfully. He was
+utterly lost. He respected Sir Austin's estates too much
+to believe for a moment he was listening to downright
+folly. Yet how otherwise explain the fact of his excellent
+client being incomprehensible to him? For a middle-aged
+gentleman, and one who has been in the habit of
+advising and managing, will rarely have a notion of accusing
+his understanding; and Mr. Thompson had not the
+slightest notion of accusing his. But the baronet's condescension
+in coming thus to him, and speaking on the
+subject nearest his heart, might well affect him, and he
+quickly settled the case in favour of both parties, pronouncing
+mentally that his honoured client had a meaning,
+and so deep it was, so subtle, that no wonder he experienced
+difficulty in giving it fitly significant words.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin elaborated his theory of the Organism and
+the Mechanism, for his lawyer's edification. At a recurrence
+of the world "healthy" Mr. Thompson caught him
+up&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I apprehended you! Oh, I agree with you, Sir Austin!
+entirely! Allow me to ring for my son Ripton. I think,
+if you condescend to examine him, you will say that
+regular habits, and a diet of nothing but law-reading&mdash;for
+other forms of literature I strictly interdict&mdash;have
+made him all that you instance."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson's hand was on the bell. Sir Austin arrested
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me to see the lad at his occupation," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Our old friend Ripton sat in a room apart with the
+confidential clerk, Mr. Beazley, a veteran of law, now
+little better than a document, looking already signed and
+sealed, and shortly to be delivered, who enjoined nothing
+from his pupil and companion save absolute silence, and
+sounded his praises to his father at the close of days when
+it had been rigidly observed&mdash;not caring, or considering,
+the finished dry old document that he was, under what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>
+kind of spell a turbulent commonplace youth could be
+charmed into stillness for six hours of the day. Ripton
+was supposed to be devoted to the study of Blackstone.
+A tome of the classic legal commentator lay extended
+outside his desk, under the partially lifted lid of which
+nestled the assiduous student's head&mdash;law being thus
+brought into direct contact with his brainpan. The office-door
+opened, and he heard not; his name was called, and
+he remained equally moveless. His method of taking in
+Blackstone seemed absorbing as it was novel.</p>
+
+<p>"Comparing notes, I daresay," whispered Mr. Thompson
+to Sir Austin. "I call that study!"</p>
+
+<p>The confidential clerk rose, and bowed obsequious
+senility.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it like this every day, Beazley?" Mr. Thompson
+asked with parental pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Ahem!" the old clerk replied, "he is like this every
+day, sir. I could not ask more of a mouse."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin stepped forward to the desk. His proximity
+roused one of Ripton's senses, which blew a call to the
+others. Down went the lid of the desk. Dismay, and the
+ardours of study, flashed together in Ripton's face. He
+slouched from his perch with the air of one who means
+rather to defend his position than welcome a superior,
+the right hand in his waistcoat pocket fumbling a key,
+the left catching at his vacant stool.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin put two fingers on the youth's shoulder, and
+said, leaning his head a little on one side, in a way
+habitual to him, "I am glad to find my son's old comrade
+thus profitably occupied. I know what study is myself.
+But beware of prosecuting it too excitedly! Come! you
+must not be offended at our interruption; you will soon
+take up the thread again. Besides, you know, you must
+get accustomed to the visits of your client."</p>
+
+<p>So condescending and kindly did this speech sound to
+Mr. Thompson, that, seeing Ripton still preserve his appearance
+of disorder and sneaking defiance, he thought
+fit to nod and frown at the youth, and desired him to
+inform the baronet what particular part of Blackstone he
+was absorbed in mastering at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton hesitated an instant, and blundered out, with
+dubious articulation, "The Law of Gravelkind."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What Law?" said Sir Austin, perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>"Gravelkind," again rumbled Ripton's voice.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin turned to Mr. Thompson for an explanation.
+The old lawyer was shaking his law-box.</p>
+
+<p>"Singular!" he exclaimed. "He will make that mistake!
+What law, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton read his error in the sternly painful expression
+of his father's face, and corrected himself. "Gavelkind,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Mr. Thompson, with a sigh of relief.
+"Gravelkind, indeed! Gavelkind! An old Kentish"&mdash;&mdash;He
+was going to expound, but Sir Austin assured him he
+knew it, and a very absurd law it was, adding, "I should
+like to look at your son's notes, or remarks on the judiciousness
+of that family arrangement, if he has any."</p>
+
+<p>"You were making notes, or referring to them, as we
+entered," said Mr. Thompson to the sucking lawyer; "a
+very good plan, which I have always enjoined on you.
+Were you not?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton stammered that he was afraid he had not any
+notes to show, worth seeing.</p>
+
+<p>"What were you doing then, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Making notes," muttered Ripton, looking incarnate
+subterfuge.</p>
+
+<p>"Exhibit!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton glanced at his desk and then at his father; at Sir
+Austin, and at the confidential clerk. He took out his
+key. It would not fit the hole.</p>
+
+<p>"Exhibit!" was peremptorily called again.</p>
+
+<p>In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole,
+Ripton discovered that the desk was already unlocked.
+Mr. Thompson marched to it, and held the lid
+aloft. A book was lying open within, which Ripton immediately
+hustled among a mass of papers and tossed
+into a dark corner, not before the glimpse of a coloured
+frontispiece was caught by Sir Austin's eye.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet smiled, and said, "You study Heraldry,
+too? Are you fond of the science?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton replied that he was very fond of it&mdash;extremely
+attached, and threw a further pile of papers into the dark
+corner.</p>
+
+<p>The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>
+search for them was tedious and vain. Papers, not legal,
+or the fruits of study, were found, that made Mr. Thompson
+more intimate with the condition of his son's exchequer;
+nothing in the shape of a remark on the Law
+of Gavelkind.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson suggested to his son that they might be
+among those scraps he had thrown carelessly into the dark
+corner. Ripton, though he consented to inspect them, was
+positive they were not there.</p>
+
+<p>"What have we here?" said Mr. Thompson, seizing a
+neatly folded paper addressed to the Editor of a law publication,
+as Ripton brought them forth, one by one. Forthwith
+Mr. Thompson fixed his spectacles and read aloud:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<i>To the Editor of the 'Jurist.'</i></p>
+
+<p>"Sir,&mdash;In your recent observations on the great case
+of Crim"&mdash;&mdash;</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson hem'd! and stopped short, like a man
+who comes unexpectedly upon a snake in his path. Mr.
+Beazley's feet shuffled. Sir Austin changed the position
+of an arm.</p>
+
+<p>"It's on the other side, I think," gasped Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson confidently turned over, and intoned
+with emphasis.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"To Absalom, the son of David, the little Jew usurer of
+Bond Court, Whitecross Gutters, for his introduction to
+Venus, I O U Five pounds, when I can pay.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:right">"Signed: <span class="smcap">Ripton Thompson</span>."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Underneath this fictitious legal instrument was discreetly
+appended:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"(Mem. Document not binding.)"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There was a pause: an awful under-breath of sanctified
+wonderment and reproach passed round the office. Sir
+Austin assumed an attitude. Mr. Thompson shed a
+glance of severity on his confidential clerk, who parried
+by throwing up his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton, now fairly bewildered, stuffed another paper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>
+under his father's nose, hoping the outside perhaps would
+satisfy him: it was marked "Legal Considerations." Mr.
+Thompson had no idea of sparing or shielding his son.
+In fact, like many men whose self-love is wounded by
+their offspring, he felt vindictive, and was ready to
+sacrifice him up to a certain point, for the good of both.
+He therefore opened the paper, expecting something worse
+than what he had hitherto seen, despite its formal heading,
+and he was not disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>The "Legal Considerations" related to the Case regarding
+which Ripton had conceived it imperative upon him to
+address a letter to the Editor of the "Jurist," and was indeed
+a great case, and an ancient; revived apparently for
+the special purpose of displaying the forensic abilities of
+the Junior Counsel for the Plaintiff, Mr. Ripton Thompson,
+whose assistance the Attorney-General, in his opening
+statement, congratulated himself on securing, a rather
+unusual thing, due probably to the eminence and renown
+of that youthful gentleman at the Bar of his country.
+So much was seen from the copy of a report purporting
+to be extracted from a newspaper, and prefixed to the
+Junior Counsel's remarks, or Legal Considerations, on
+the conduct of the Case, the admissibility and non-admissibility
+of certain evidence, and the ultimate decision
+of the judges.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson, senior, lifted the paper high, with the
+spirit of one prepared to do execution on the criminal, and
+in the voice of a town-crier, varied by a bitter accentuation
+and satiric sing-song tone, deliberately read:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Vulcan <i>v.</i> Mars.</p>
+
+<p>"The Attorney-General, assisted by Mr. Ripton Thompson,
+appeared on behalf of the Plaintiff. Mr. Serjeant
+Cupid, Q.C., and Mr. Capital Opportunity, for the Defendant."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Oh!" snapped Mr. Thompson, senior, peering venom at
+the unfortunate Ripton over his spectacles, "your notes
+are on that issue, sir! Thus you employ your time, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>With another side-shot at the confidential clerk, who
+retired immediately behind a strong entrenchment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>
+shrugs, Mr. Thompson was pushed by the devil of his
+rancour to continue reading:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"This Case is too well known to require more than
+a partial summary of particulars"....</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Ahem! we will skip the particulars, however partial,"
+said Mr. Thompson. "Ah!&mdash;what do you mean here, sir,&mdash;but
+enough! I think we may be excused your Legal
+Considerations on such a Case. This is how you employ
+your law-studies, sir! You put them to this purpose?
+Mr. Beazley! you will henceforward sit alone. I must have
+this young man under my own eye. Sir Austin! permit
+me to apologize to you for subjecting you to a scene so
+disagreeable. It was a father's duty not to spare him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson wiped his forehead, as Brutus might
+have done after passing judgment on the scion of his
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"These papers," he went on, fluttering Ripton's precious
+lucubrations in a waving judicial hand, "I shall retain.
+The day will come when he will regard them with shame.
+And it shall be his penance, his punishment, to do so!
+Stop!" he cried, as Ripton was noiselessly shutting his
+desk, "have you more of them, sir; of a similar description?
+Rout them out! Let us know you at your worst.
+What have you there&mdash;in that corner?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton was understood to say he devoted that corner
+to old briefs on important cases.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson thrust his trembling fingers among the
+old briefs, and turned over the volume Sir Austin had
+observed, but without much remarking it, for his suspicions
+had not risen to print.</p>
+
+<p>"A Manual of Heraldry?" the baronet politely, and it
+may be ironically, inquired, before it could well escape.</p>
+
+<p>"I like it very much," said Ripton, clutching the book
+in dreadful torment.</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me to see that you have our arms and crest
+correct." The baronet proffered a hand for the book.</p>
+
+<p>"A Griffin between two Wheatsheaves," cried Ripton,
+still clutching it nervously.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson, without any notion of what he was doing,
+drew the book from Ripton's hold; whereupon the two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>
+seniors laid their grey heads together over the title-page.
+It set forth in attractive characters beside a coloured
+frontispiece, which embodied the promise displayed there,
+the entrancing adventures of Miss Random, a strange
+young lady.</p>
+
+<p>Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those
+law regions to consign Ripton to there and then, or an
+Iron Rod handy to mortify his sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson
+would have used them. As it was, he contented himself
+by looking Black Holes and Iron Rods at the detected
+youth, who sat on his perch insensible to what might
+happen next, collapsed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson cast the wicked creature down with a
+"Pah!" He, however, took her up again, and strode away
+with her. Sir Austin gave Ripton a forefinger, and kindly
+touched his head, saying, "Good-bye, boy! At some future
+date Richard will be happy to see you at Raynham."</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly this was a great triumph to the System!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD</h3>
+
+
+<p>The conversation between solicitor and client was resumed.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible," quoth Mr. Thompson, the moment he
+had ushered his client into his private room, "that you will
+consent, Sir Austin, to see him and receive him again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," the baronet replied. "Why not? This by
+no means astonishes me. When there is no longer danger
+to my son he will be welcome as he was before. He is a
+schoolboy. I knew it. I expected it. The results of your
+principle, Thompson!"</p>
+
+<p>"One of the very worst books of that abominable class!"
+exclaimed the old lawyer, opening at the coloured frontispiece,
+from which brazen Miss Random smiled bewitchingly
+out, as if she had no doubt of captivating Time and
+all his veterans on a fair field. "Pah!" he shut her to
+with the energy he would have given to the office of publicly
+slapping her face; "from this day I diet him on bread<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>
+and water&mdash;rescind his pocket-money!&mdash;How he could
+have got hold of such a book! How he&mdash;! And what
+ideas! Concealing them from me as he has done so
+cunningly! He trifles with vice! His mind is in a putrid
+state! I might have believed&mdash;I did believe&mdash;I might
+have gone on believing&mdash;my son Ripton to be a moral
+young man!" The old lawyer interjected on the delusion
+of fathers, and sat down in a lamentable abstraction.</p>
+
+<p>"The lad has come out!" said Sir Austin. "His adoption
+of the legal form is amusing. He trifles with vice,
+true: people newly initiated are as hardy as its intimates,
+and a young sinner's amusements will resemble those of a
+confirmed debauchee. The satiated, and the insatiate, appetite
+alike appeal to extremes. You are astonished at
+this revelation of your son's condition. I expected it;
+though assuredly, believe me, not this sudden and indisputable
+proof of it. But I knew that the seed was in
+him, and therefore I have not latterly invited him to
+Raynham. School, and the corruption there, will bear
+its fruits sooner or later. I could advise you, Thompson,
+what to do with him: it would be my plan."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson murmured, like a true courtier, that he
+should esteem it an honour to be favoured with Sir Austin
+Feverel's advice: secretly resolute, like a true Briton, to
+follow his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him, then," continued the baronet, "see vice in its
+nakedness. While he has yet some innocence, nauseate
+him! Vice, taken little by little, usurps gradually the
+whole creature. My counsel to you, Thompson, would be,
+to drag him through the sinks of town."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson began to blink again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I shall punish him, Sir Austin! Do not fear me,
+sir. I have no tenderness for vice."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not what is wanted, Thompson. You mistake
+me. He should be dealt with gently. Heavens! do you
+hope to make him hate vice by making him a martyr for
+its sake? You must descend from the pedestal of age to
+become his Mentor: cause him to see how certainly and
+pitilessly vice itself punishes: accompany him into its
+haunts"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Over town?" broke forth Mr. Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"Over town," said the baronet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And depend upon it," he added, "that, until fathers act
+thoroughly up to their duty, we shall see the sights we see
+in great cities, and hear the tales we hear in little villages,
+with death and calamity in our homes, and a legacy of
+sorrow and shame to the generations to come. I do aver,"
+he exclaimed, becoming excited, "that, if it were not for
+the duty to my son, and the hope I cherish in him, I, seeing
+the accumulation of misery we are handing down to
+an innocent posterity&mdash;to whom, through our sin, the fresh
+breath of life will be foul&mdash;I&mdash;yes! I would hide my
+name! For whither are we tending? What home is pure
+absolutely? What cannot our doctors and lawyers tell
+us?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson acquiesced significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is to come of this?" Sir Austin continued.
+"When the sins of the fathers are multiplied by the sons,
+is not perdition the final sum of things? And is not life,
+the boon of heaven, growing to be the devil's game utterly?
+But for my son, I would hide my name. I would not bequeath
+it to be cursed by them that walk above my grave!"</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed a terrible view of existence. Mr.
+Thompson felt uneasy. There was a dignity in his client,
+an impressiveness in his speech, that silenced remonstrating
+reason and the cry of long years of comfortable
+respectability. Mr. Thompson went to church regularly;
+paid his rates and dues without overmuch, or at least
+more than common, grumbling. On the surface he was
+a good citizen, fond of his children, faithful to his wife,
+devoutly marching to a fair seat in heaven on a path
+paved by something better than a thousand a year. But
+here was a man sighting him from below the surface,
+and though it was an unfair, unaccustomed, not to say
+un-English, method of regarding one's fellow-man, Mr.
+Thompson was troubled by it. What though his client
+exaggerated? Facts were at the bottom of what he said.
+And he was acute&mdash;he had unmasked Ripton! Since Ripton's
+exposure he winced at a personal application in the
+text his client preached from. Possibly this was the secret
+source of part of his anger against that peccant youth.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson shook his head, and, with dolefully puckered
+visage and a pitiable contraction of his shoulders,
+rose slowly up from his chair. Apparently he was about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>
+to speak, but he straightway turned and went meditatively
+to a side-recess in the room, whereof he opened a door,
+drew forth a tray and a decanter labelled <span class="smcap">PORT</span>, filled a
+glass for his client, deferentially invited him to partake
+of it; filled another glass for himself, and drank.</p>
+
+<p>That was his reply.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin never took wine before dinner. Thompson
+had looked as if he meant to speak: he waited for Thompson's
+words.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson saw that, as his client did not join him
+in his glass, the eloquence of that Porty reply was lost
+on his client.</p>
+
+<p>Having slowly ingurgitated and meditated upon this
+precious draught, and turned its flavour over and over
+with an aspect of potent Judicial wisdom (one might
+have thought that he was weighing mankind in the balance),
+the old lawyer heaved, and said, sharpening his
+lips over the admirable vintage, "The world is in a very
+sad state, I fear, Sir Austin!"</p>
+
+<p>His client gazed at him queerly.</p>
+
+<p>"But that," Mr. Thompson added immediately, ill-concealing
+by his gaze the glowing intestinal congratulations
+going on within him, "that is, I think you would say, Sir
+Austin&mdash;if I could but prevail upon you&mdash;a tolerably
+good character wine!"</p>
+
+<p>"There's virtue somewhere, I see, Thompson!" Sir
+Austin murmured, without disturbing his legal adviser's
+dimples.</p>
+
+<p>The old lawyer sat down to finish his glass, saying, that
+such a wine was not to be had everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>They were then outwardly silent for a space. Inwardly
+one of them was full of riot and jubilant uproar: as if the
+solemn fields of law were suddenly to be invaded and
+possessed by troops of Bacchanals: and to preserve a
+decently wretched physiognomy over it, and keep on terms
+with his companion, he had to grimace like a melancholy
+clown in a pantomime.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson brushed back his hair. The baronet was
+still expectant. Mr. Thompson sighed deeply, and emptied
+his glass. He combated the change that had come over
+him. He tried not to see Ruby. He tried to feel miserable,
+and it was not in him. He spoke, drawing what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>
+appropriate inspirations he could from his client's countenance,
+to show that they had views in common: "Degenerating
+sadly, I fear!"</p>
+
+<p>The baronet nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"According to what my wine-merchants say," continued
+Mr. Thompson, "there can be no doubt about it."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin stared.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the grape, or the ground, or something," Mr.
+Thompson went on. "All I can say is, our youngsters
+will have a bad look-out! In my opinion Government
+should be compelled to send out a Commission to inquire
+into the cause. To Englishmen it would be a public
+calamity. It surprises me&mdash;I hear men sit and talk
+despondently of this extraordinary disease of the vine, and
+not one of them seems to think it incumbent on him to
+act, and do his best to stop it." He fronted his client
+like a man who accuses an enormous public delinquency.
+"Nobody makes a stir! The apathy of Englishmen will
+become proverbial. Pray, try it, Sir Austin! Pray, allow
+me. Such a wine cannot disagree at any hour. Do! I
+am allowanced two glasses three hours before dinner.
+Stomachic. I find it <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'agree'">agrees</ins> with me surprisingly: quite
+a new man. I suppose it will last our time. It must!
+What should we do? There's no Law possible without it.
+Not a lawyer of us could live. Ours is an occupation
+which dries the blood."</p>
+
+<p>The scene with Ripton had unnerved him, the wine had
+renovated, and gratitude to the wine inspired his tongue.
+He thought that his client, of the whimsical mind, though
+undoubtedly correct moral views, had need of a glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Now that very wine&mdash;Sir Austin&mdash;I think I do not err
+in saying, that very wine your respected father, Sir
+Pylcher Feverel, used to taste whenever he came to consult
+my father, when I was a boy. And I remember one
+day being called in, and Sir Pylcher himself poured me
+out a glass. I wish I could call in Ripton now, and do
+the same. No! Leniency in such a case as that!&mdash;The
+wine would not hurt him&mdash;I doubt if there be much left
+for him to welcome his guests with. Ha! ha! Now if
+I could persuade you, Sir Austin, as you do not take
+wine before dinner, some day to favour me with your
+company at my little country cottage&mdash;I have a wine there&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>
+fellow to that&mdash;I think you would, I do think you
+would"&mdash;Mr. Thompson meant to say, he thought his
+client would arrive at something of a similar jocund
+contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that inspirited
+lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual
+promise into "highly approve."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour
+mouth comically compressed.</p>
+
+<p>It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port,
+and Thompson after, were two different men. To indoctrinate
+him now was too late: it was perhaps the time
+to make the positive use of him he wanted.</p>
+
+<p>He pencilled on a handy slip of paper: "Two prongs
+of a fork; the World stuck between them&mdash;Port and the
+Palate: 'Tis one which fails first&mdash;Down goes World;"
+and again the hieroglyph&mdash;"Port-spectacles." He said,
+"I shall gladly accompany you this evening, Thompson,"
+words that transfigured the delighted lawyer, and ensigned
+the skeleton of a great Aphorism to his pocket, there to
+gather flesh and form, with numberless others in a like
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to visit my lawyer," he said to himself. "I
+think I have been dealing with The World in epitome!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS
+SPECIAL PLEA</h3>
+
+
+<p>The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse
+of Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet,
+was in town, looking out a bride for his only son and
+uncorrupted heir. Doctor Benjamin Bairam was the excellent
+authority. Doctor Bairam had safely delivered
+Mrs. Deborah Gossip of this interesting bantling, which
+was forthwith dandled in dozens of feminine laps. Doctor
+Bairam could boast the first interview with the famous
+recluse. He had it from his own lips that the object
+of the baronet was to look out a bride for his only son
+and uncorrupted heir; "and," added the doctor, "she'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>
+be lucky who gets him." Which was interpreted to mean,
+that he would be a catch; the doctor probably intending
+to allude to certain extraordinary difficulties in the way
+of a choice.</p>
+
+<p>A demand was made on the publisher of <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's
+Scrip</span> for all his outstanding copies. Conventionalities
+were defied. A summer-shower of cards fell on the
+baronet's table.</p>
+
+<p>He had few male friends. He shunned the Clubs as
+nests of scandal. The cards he contemplated were mostly
+those of the sex, with the husband, if there was a
+husband, evidently dragged in for propriety's sake. He
+perused the cards and smiled. He knew their purpose.
+What terrible light Thompson, and Bairam had thrown
+on some of them! Heavens! in what a state was the
+blood of this Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Before commencing his campaign he called on two
+ancient intimates, Lord Heddon, and his distant cousin
+Darley Absworthy, both Members of Parliament, useful
+men, though gouty, who had sown in their time a fine
+crop of wild oats, and advocated the advantage of doing
+so, seeing that they did not fancy themselves the worse
+for it. He found one with an imbecile son and the other
+with consumptive daughters. "So much," he wrote in
+the Note-book, "for the Wild Oats theory!"</p>
+
+<p>Darley was proud of his daughters' white and pink
+skins. "Beautiful complexions," he called them. The
+eldest was in the market, immensely admired. Sir Austin
+Was introduced to her. She talked fluently and sweetly.
+A youth not on his guard, a simple schoolboy youth, or
+even a man, might have fallen in love with her, she was
+so affable and fair. There was something poetic about
+her. And she was quite well, she said, the baronet frequently
+questioning her on that point. She intimated
+that she was robust; but towards the close of their conversation
+her hand would now and then travel to her
+side, and she breathed painfully an instant, saying, "Isn't
+it odd? Dora, Adela, and myself, we all feel the same
+queer sensation&mdash;about the heart, I think it is&mdash;after
+talking much."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin nodded and blinked sadly, exclaiming to his
+soul, "Wild oats! wild oats!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all nonsense, Feverel," he said, "about bringing up
+a lad out of the common way. He's all the better for a
+little racketing when he's green&mdash;feels his bone and muscle&mdash;learns
+to know the world. He'll never be a man if
+he hasn't played at the old game one time in his life,
+and the earlier the better. I've always found the best
+fellows were wildish once. I don't care what he does
+when he's a greenhorn; besides, he's got an excuse for it
+then. You can't expect to have a man, if he doesn't take
+a man's food. You'll have a milksop. And, depend upon
+it, when he does break out he'll go to the devil, and
+nobody pities him. Look what those fellows, the grocers,
+do when they get hold of a young&mdash;what d'ye call 'em?&mdash;apprentice.
+They know the scoundrel was born with a
+sweet tooth. Well! they give him the run of the shop,
+and in a very short time he soberly deals out the goods,
+a devilish deal too wise to abstract a morsel even for
+the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary
+theories. You hold that the young grocer should have a
+soul above sugar. It won't do! Take my word for it,
+Feverel, it's a dangerous experiment, that of bringing up
+flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or he's
+a tame beast. And look you: take it on medical grounds.
+Early excesses the frame will recover from: late ones
+break the constitution. There's the case in a nutshell.
+How's your son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sound and well!" replied Sir Austin. "And yours?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lipscombe's always the same!" Lord Heddon
+sighed peevishly. "He's quiet&mdash;that's one good thing;
+but there's no getting the country to take him, so I
+must give up hopes of that."</p>
+
+<p>Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin
+surveyed him, and was not astonished at the refusal of
+the country to take him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wild oats!" he thought, as he contemplated the headless,
+degenerate, weedy issue and result.</p>
+
+<p>Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the
+marriage of their offspring as a matter of course. "And
+if I were not a coward," Sir Austin confessed to himself,
+"I should stand forth and forbid the banns! This universal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>
+ignorance of the inevitable consequence of sin is
+frightful! The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems
+to have struck the world, and rendered it morally insensible."
+However, they silenced him. He was obliged to
+spare their feelings on a subject to him so deeply sacred.
+The healthful image of his noble boy rose before him, a
+triumphant living rejoinder to any hostile argument.</p>
+
+<p>He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought
+the third generation of wild oats would be a pretty thin
+crop!</p>
+
+<p>Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor
+Bairam physician could recollect a progenitorial blot,
+either on the male or female side, were not numerous.
+"Only," said the doctor, "you really must not be too
+exacting in these days, my dear Sir Austin. It is impossible
+to contest your principle, and you are doing mankind
+incalculable service in calling its attention to this the
+gravest of its duties: but as the stream of civilization
+progresses we must be a little taken in the lump, as it
+were. The world is, I can assure you&mdash;and I do not
+look only above the surface, you can believe&mdash;the world
+is awakening to the vital importance of the question."</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," replied Sir Austin, "if you had a pure-blood
+Arab barb would you cross him with a screw?"</p>
+
+<p>"Decidedly not," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to
+match my son according to his merits," Sir Austin returned.
+"I trust the world is awakening, as you observe.
+I have been to my publisher, since my arrival in town,
+with a manuscript 'Proposal for a New System of Education
+of our British Youth,' which may come in opportunely.
+I think I am entitled to speak on that subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said the doctor. "You will admit, Sir
+Austin, that, compared with continental nations&mdash;our
+neighbours, for instance&mdash;we shine to advantage, in
+morals, as in everything else. I hope you admit that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I find no consolation in shining by comparison with
+a lower standard," said the baronet. "If I compare the
+enlightenment of your views&mdash;for you admit my principle&mdash;with
+the obstinate incredulity of a country doctor's,
+who sees nothing of the world, you are hardly flattered,
+I presume?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a
+comparison, assuredly, he interjected.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," added the baronet, "the French make no
+pretences, and thereby escape one of the main penalties
+of hypocrisy. Whereas we!&mdash;but I am not their advocate,
+credit me. It is better, perhaps, to pay our homage to
+virtue. At least it delays the spread of entire corruptness."</p>
+
+<p>Doctor Bairam wished the baronet success, and diligently
+endeavoured to assist his search for a mate worthy
+of the pure-blood barb, by putting several mamas, whom
+he visited, on the alert.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY-WHISTLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Away with Systems! Away with a corrupt World! Let
+us breathe the air of the Enchanted Island.</p>
+
+<p>Golden lie the meadows: golden run the streams; red
+gold is on the pine-stems. The sun is coming down to
+earth, and walks the fields and the waters.</p>
+
+<p>The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the
+waters shout to him golden shouts. He comes, and his
+heralds run before him, and touch the leaves of oaks and
+planes and beeches lucid green, and the pine-stems redder
+gold; leaving brightest footprints upon thickly-weeded
+banks, where the foxglove's last upper-bells incline, and
+bramble-shoots wander amid moist rich herbage. The
+plumes of the woodland are alight; and beyond them, over
+the open, 'tis a race with the long-thrown shadows; a race
+across the heaths and up the hills, till, at the farthest
+bourne of mounted eastern cloud, the heralds of the sun
+lay rosy fingers and rest.</p>
+
+<p>Sweet are the shy recesses of the woodland. The ray
+treads softly there. A film athwart the pathway quivers
+many-hued against purple shade fragrant with warm
+pines, deep moss-beds, feathery ferns. The little brown
+squirrel drops tail, and leaps; the inmost bird is startled
+to a chance tuneless note. From silence into silence things
+move.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Peeps of the revelling splendour above and around
+enliven the conscious full heart within. The flaming
+West, the crimson heights, shower their glories through
+voluminous leafage. But these are bowers where deep
+bliss dwells, imperial joy, that owes no fealty to yonder
+glories, in which the young lamb gambols and the spirits
+of men are glad. Descend, great Radiance! embrace
+creation with beneficent fire, and pass from us! You and
+the vice-regal light that succeeds to you, and all heavenly
+pageants, are the ministers and the slaves of the throbbing
+content within.</p>
+
+<p>For this is the home of the enchantment. Here, secluded
+from vexed shores, the prince and princess of the
+island meet: here like darkling nightingales they sit, and
+into eyes and ears and hands pour endless ever-fresh
+treasures of their souls.</p>
+
+<p>Roll on, grinding wheels of the world: cries of ships
+going down in a calm, groans of a System which will not
+know its rightful hour of exultation, complain to the
+universe. You are not heard here.</p>
+
+<p>He calls her by her name, Lucy: and she, blushing at
+her great boldness, has called him by his, Richard. Those
+two names are the key-notes of the wonderful harmonies
+the angels sing aloft.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy! my beloved!"</p>
+
+<p>"O Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>Out in the world there, on the skirts of the woodland,
+a sheep-boy pipes to meditative eye on a penny-whistle.</p>
+
+<p>Love's musical instrument is as old, and as poor: it has
+but two stops; and yet, you see, the cunning musician does
+thus much with it!</p>
+
+<p>Other speech they have little; light foam playing upon
+waves of feeling, and of feeling compact, that bursts only
+when the sweeping volume is too wild, and is no more
+than their sigh of tenderness spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps love played his tune so well because their
+natures had unblunted edges, and were keen for bliss,
+confiding in it as natural food. To gentlemen and ladies
+he fine-draws upon the viol, ravishingly; or blows into
+the mellow bassoon; or rouses the heroic ardours of the
+trumpet; or, it may be, commands the whole Orchestra<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>
+for them. And they are pleased. He is still the cunning
+musician. They languish, and taste ecstasy: but it is,
+however sonorous, an earthly concert. For them the
+spheres move not to two notes. They have lost, or forfeited
+and never known, the first supersensual spring of
+the ripe senses into passion; when they carry the soul
+with them, and have the privileges of spirits to walk disembodied,
+boundlessly to feel. Or one has it, and the
+other is a dead body. Ambrosia let them eat, and drink
+the nectar: here sit a couple to whom Love's simple bread
+and water is a finer feast.</p>
+
+<p>Pipe, happy sheep-boy, Love! Irradiated angels, unfold
+your wings and lift your voices!</p>
+
+<p>They have outflown philosophy. Their instinct has shot
+beyond the ken of science. They were made for their
+Eden.</p>
+
+<p>"And this divine gift was in store for me!"</p>
+
+<p>So runs the internal outcry of each, clasping each: it
+is their recurring refrain to the harmonies. How it
+illumined the years gone by and suffused the living
+Future!</p>
+
+<p>"You for me: I for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"We are born for each other!"</p>
+
+<p>They believe that the angels have been busy about them
+from their cradles. The celestial hosts have worthily
+striven to bring them together. And, O Victory! O
+wonder! after toil and pain, and difficulties exceeding, the
+celestial hosts have succeeded!</p>
+
+<p>"Here we two sit who are written above as one!"</p>
+
+<p>Pipe, happy Love! pipe on to these dear innocents!</p>
+
+<p>The tide of colour has ebbed from the upper sky. In
+the West the sea of sunken fire draws back; and the
+stars leap forth, and tremble, and retire before the advancing
+moon, who slips the silver train of cloud from her
+shoulders, and, with her foot upon the pine-tops, surveys
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, did you never dream of meeting me?"</p>
+
+<p>"O Richard! yes; for I remembered you."</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy! and did you pray that we might meet?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did!"</p>
+
+<p>Young as when she looked upon the lovers in Paradise,
+the fair Immortal journeys onward. Fronting her, it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>
+not night but veiled day. Full half the sky is flushed.
+Not darkness, not day, but the nuptials of the two.</p>
+
+<p>"My own! my own for ever! You are pledged to me?
+Whisper!"</p>
+
+<p>He hears the delicious music.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are mine?"</p>
+
+<p>A soft beam travels to the fern-covert under the pine-wood
+where they sit, and for answer he has her eyes:
+turned to him an instant, timidly fluttering over the
+depths of his, and then downcast; for through her eyes
+her soul is naked to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy! my bride! my life!"</p>
+
+<p>The night-jar spins his dark monotony on the branch of
+the pine. The soft beam travels round them, and listens
+to their hearts. Their lips are locked.</p>
+
+<p>Pipe no more, Love, for a time! Pipe as you will you
+cannot express their first kiss; nothing of its sweetness,
+and of the sacredness of it nothing. St. Cecilia up aloft,
+before the silver organ-pipes of Paradise, pressing fingers
+upon all the notes of which Love is but one, from her
+you may hear it.</p>
+
+<p>So Love is silent. Out in the world there, on the skirts
+of the woodland, the self-satisfied sheep-boy delivers a
+last complacent squint down the length of his penny-whistle,
+and, with a flourish correspondingly awry, he also
+marches into silence, hailed by supper. The woods are
+still. There is heard but the night-jar spinning on the
+pine-branch, circled by moonlight.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF
+A DRAGON BY THE HERO</h3>
+
+
+<p>Enchanted Islands have not yet rooted out their old
+brood of dragons. Wherever there is romance, these monsters
+come by inimical attraction. Because the heavens
+are certainly propitious to true lovers, the beasts of the
+abysses are banded to destroy them, stimulated by innumerable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>
+sad victories; and every love-tale is an Epic War
+of the upper and lower powers. I wish good fairies were
+a little more active. They seem to be cajoled into security
+by the happiness of their favourites; whereas the wicked
+are always alert, and circumspect. They let the little ones
+shut their eyes to fancy they are not seen, and then commence.</p>
+
+<p>These appointments and meetings, involving a start
+from the dinner-table at the hour of contemplative digestion
+and prime claret; the hour when the wise youth
+Adrian delighted to talk at his ease&mdash;to recline in dreamy
+consciousness that a work of good was going on inside
+him; these abstractions from his studies, excesses of
+gaiety, and glumness, heavings of the chest, and other odd
+signs, but mainly the disgusting behaviour of his pupil
+at the dinner-table, taught Adrian to understand, though
+the young gentleman was clever in excuses, that he had
+somehow learnt there was another half to the divided
+Apple of Creation, and had embarked upon the great
+voyage of discovery of the difference between the two
+halves. With his usual coolness Adrian debated whether
+he might be in the observatory or the practical stage of
+the voyage. For himself, as a man and a philosopher,
+Adrian had no objection to its being either; and he had
+only to consider which was temporarily most threatening
+to the ridiculous System he had to support. Richard's
+absence annoyed him. The youth was vivacious, and his
+enthusiasm good fun; and besides, when he left table,
+Adrian had to sit alone with Hippias and the Eighteenth
+Century, from both of whom he had extracted all the
+amusement that could be got, and he saw his digestion
+menaced by the society of two ruined stomachs, who bored
+him just when he loved himself most. Poor Hippias was
+now so reduced that he had profoundly to calculate
+whether a particular dish, or an extra glass of wine, would
+have a bitter effect on him and be felt through the remainder
+of his years. He was in the habit of uttering
+his calculations half aloud, wherein the prophetic doubts
+of experience, and the succulent insinuations of appetite,
+contended hotly. It was horrible to hear him, so let us
+pardon Adrian for tempting him to a decision in favour
+of the moment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Happy to take wine with you," Adrian would say, and
+Hippias would regard the decanter with a pained forehead,
+and put up the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Drink, nephew Hippy, and think of the doctor to-morrow!"
+the Eighteenth Century cheerily ruffles her cap
+at him, and recommends her own practice.</p>
+
+<p>"It's this literary work!" interjects Hippias, handling
+his glass of remorse. "I don't know what else it can be.
+You have no idea how anxious I feel. I have frightful
+dreams. I'm perpetually anxious."</p>
+
+<p>"No wonder," says Adrian, who enjoys the childish
+simplicity to which an absorbed study of his sensational
+existence has brought poor Hippias. "No wonder. Ten
+years of Fairy Mythology! Could any one hope to sleep
+in peace after that? As to your digestion, no one has a
+digestion who is in the doctor's hands. They prescribe
+from dogmas, and don't count on the system. They have
+cut down from two bottles to two glasses. It's absurd.
+You can't sleep, because your system is crying out for
+what it's accustomed to."</p>
+
+<p>Hippias sips his Madeira with a niggardly confidence,
+but assures Adrian that he really should not like to
+venture on a bottle now: it would be rank madness to
+venture on a bottle now, he thinks. Last night only, after
+partaking, under protest, of that rich French dish, or
+was it the duck?&mdash;Adrian advised him to throw the blame
+on that vulgar bird.&mdash;Say the duck, then. Last night, he
+was no sooner stretched in bed, than he seemed to be of
+an enormous size: all his limbs&mdash;his nose, his mouth, his
+toes&mdash;were elephantine! An elephant was a pigmy to
+him. And his hugeousness seemed to increase the instant
+he shut his eyes. He turned on this side; he turned on
+that. He lay on his back; he tried putting his face to the
+pillow; and he continued to swell. He wondered the room
+could hold him&mdash;he thought he must burst it&mdash;and absolutely
+lit a candle, and went to the looking-glass to see
+whether he was bearable.</p>
+
+<p>By this time Adrian and Richard were laughing uncontrollably.
+He had, however, a genial auditor in the Eighteenth
+Century, who declared it to be a new disease, not
+known in her day, and deserving investigation. She was
+happy to compare sensations with him, but hers were not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>
+of the complex order, and a potion soon righted her. In
+fact, her system appeared to be a debatable ground for
+aliment and medicine, on which the battle was fought,
+and, when over, she was none the worse, as she joyfully
+told Hippias. Never looked ploughman on prince, or
+village belle on Court Beauty, with half the envy poor
+Nineteenth-century Hippias expended in his gaze on the
+Eighteenth. He was too serious to note much the laughter
+of the young men.</p>
+
+<p>This "Tragedy of a Cooking-Apparatus," as Adrian designated
+the malady of Hippias, was repeated regularly
+every evening. It was natural for any youth to escape as
+quick as he could from such a table of stomachs.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian bore with his conduct considerately, until a
+letter from the baronet, describing the house and maternal
+System of a Mrs. Caroline Grandison, and the rough
+grain of hopefulness in her youngest daughter, spurred
+him to think of his duties, and see what was going on. He
+gave Richard half-an-hour's start, and then put on his
+hat to follow his own keen scent, leaving Hippias and the
+Eighteenth Century to piquet.</p>
+
+<p>In the lane near Belthorpe he met a maid of the farm
+not unknown to him, one Molly Davenport by name, a
+buxom lass, who, on seeing him, invoked her Good Gracious,
+the generic maid's familiar, and was instructed by
+reminiscences vivid, if ancient, to giggle.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you looking for your young gentleman?" Molly
+presently asked.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian glanced about the lane like a cool brigand, to
+see if the coast was clear, and replied to her, "I am, miss.
+I want you to tell me about him."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear!" said the buxom lass, "was you coming for me
+to-night to know?"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian rebuked her: for her bad grammar, apparently.</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause I can't stop out long to-night," Molly explained,
+taking the rebuke to refer altogether to her bad
+grammar.</p>
+
+<p>"You may go in when you please, miss. Is that any
+one coming? Come here in the shade."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, get along!" said Miss Molly.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian spoke with resolution. "Listen to me, Molly
+Davenport!" He put a coin in her hand, which had a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>
+medical effect in calming her to attention. "I want to
+know whether you have seen him at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who? Your young gentleman? I sh'd think I did.
+I seen him to-night only. Ain't he growed handsome.
+He's al'ays about Beltharp now. It ain't to fire no more
+ricks. He's afire 'unself. Ain't you seen 'em together?
+He's after the missis"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Adrian requested Miss Davenport to be respectful, and
+confine herself to particulars. This buxom lass then told
+him that her young missis and Adrian's young gentleman
+were a pretty couple, and met one another every night.
+The girl swore for their innocence.</p>
+
+<p>"As for Miss Lucy, she haven't a bit of art in her, nor
+have he."</p>
+
+<p>"They're all nature, I suppose," said Adrian. "How
+is it I don't see her at church?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's Catholic, or somethink," said Molly. "Her
+feyther was, and a leftenant. She've a Cross in her bedroom.
+She don't go to church. I see you there last
+Sunday a-lookin' so solemn," and Molly stroked her hand
+down her chin to give it length.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian insisted on her keeping to facts. It was dark,
+and in the dark he was indifferent to the striking contrasts
+suggested by the lass, but he wanted to hear facts,
+and he again bribed her to impart nothing but facts.
+Upon which she told him further, that her young lady
+was an innocent artless creature who had been to school
+upwards of three years with the nuns, and had a little
+money of her own, and was beautiful enough to be a lord's
+lady, and had been in love with Master Richard ever since
+she was a little girl. Molly had got from a friend of hers
+up at the Abbey, Mary Garner, the housemaid who
+cleaned Master Richard's room, a bit of paper once with
+the young gentleman's handwriting, and had given it to
+her Miss Lucy, and Miss Lucy had given her a gold
+sovereign for it&mdash;just for his handwriting! Miss Lucy
+did not seem happy at the farm, because of that young
+Tom, who was always leering at her, and to be sure she
+was quite a lady, and could play, and sing, and dress with
+the best.</p>
+
+<p>"She looks like angels in her nightgown!" Molly wound
+up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The next moment she ran up close, and speaking for the
+first time as if there were a distinction of position between
+them, petitioned: "Mr. Harley! you won't go for doin'
+any harm to 'em 'cause of what I said, will you now?
+Do say you won't now, Mr. Harley! She is good, though
+she's a Catholic. She was kind to me when I was ill, and
+I wouldn't have her crossed&mdash;I'd rather be showed up myself,
+I would!"</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth gave no positive promise to Molly, and
+she had to read his consent in a relaxation of his austerity.
+The noise of a lumbering foot plodding down the lane
+caused her to be abruptly dismissed. Molly took to flight,
+the lumbering foot accelerated its pace, and the pastoral
+appeal to her flying skirts was heard&mdash;"Moll! yau theyre!
+It be I&mdash;Bantam!" But the sprightly Silvia would not
+stop to his wooing, and Adrian turned away laughing at
+these Arcadians.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian was a lazy dragon. All he did for the present
+was to hint and tease. "It's the Inevitable!" he said, and
+asked himself why he should seek to arrest it. He had no
+faith in the System. Heavy Benson had. Benson of the
+slow thick-lidded antediluvian eye and loose-crumpled
+skin; Benson, the Saurian, the woman-hater; Benson was
+wide awake. A sort of rivalry existed between the wise
+youth and heavy Benson. The fidelity of the latter dependant
+had moved the baronet to commit to him a portion
+of the management of the Raynham estate, and this
+Adrian did not like. No one who aspires to the honourable
+office of leading another by the nose can tolerate
+a party in his ambition. Benson's surly instinct told him
+he was in the wise youth's way, and he resolved to give
+his master a striking proof of his superior faithfulness.
+For some weeks the Saurian eye had been on the two
+secret creatures. Heavy Benson saw letters come and
+go in the day, and now the young gentleman was off and
+out every night, and seemed to be on wings. Benson
+knew whither he went, and the object he went for. It
+was a woman&mdash;that was enough. The Saurian eye had
+actually seen the sinful thing lure the hope of Raynham
+into the shades. He composed several epistles of warning
+to the baronet of the work that was going on; but before
+sending one he wished to record a little of their guilty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+conversation; and for this purpose the faithful fellow
+trotted over the dews to eavesdrop, and thereby aroused
+the good fairy, in the person of Tom Bakewell, the sole
+confidant of Richard's state.</p>
+
+<p>Tom said to his young master, "Do you know what,
+sir? You be watched!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard, in a fury, bade him name the wretch, and Tom
+hung his arms, and aped the respectable protrusion of the
+butler's head.</p>
+
+<p>"It's he, is it?" cried Richard. "He shall rue it, Tom.
+If I find him near me when we're together he shall never
+forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't hit too hard, sir," Tom suggested. "You hit
+mortal hard when you're in earnest, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Richard averred he would forgive anything but that,
+and told Tom to be within hail to-morrow night&mdash;he
+knew where. By the hour of the appointment it was out
+of the lover's mind.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish dined that evening at Raynham, by
+Adrian's pointed invitation. According to custom, Richard
+started up and off, with few excuses. The lady exhibited
+no surprise. She and Adrian likewise strolled
+forth to enjoy the air of the Summer night. They had
+no intention of spying. Still they may have thought, by
+meeting Richard and his inamorata, there was a chance
+of laying a foundation of ridicule to sap the passion.
+They may have thought so&mdash;they were on no spoken understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen the little girl," said Lady Blandish. "She
+is pretty&mdash;she would be telling if she were well set up.
+She speaks well. How absurd it is of that class to educate
+their women above their station! The child is really too
+good for a farmer. I noticed her before I knew of this;
+she has enviable hair. I suppose she doesn't paint her
+eyelids. Just the sort of person to take a young man. I
+thought there was something wrong. I received, the day
+before yesterday, an impassioned poem evidently not intended
+for me. My hair was gold. My meeting him was
+foretold. My eyes were homes of light fringed with
+night. I sent it back, correcting the colours."</p>
+
+<p>"Which was death to the rhymes," said Adrian. "I saw
+her this morning. The boy hasn't bad taste. As you say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>
+she is too good for a farmer. Such a spark would explode
+any System. She slightly affected mine. The Huron is
+stark mad about her."</p>
+
+<p>"But we must positively write and tell his father," said
+Lady Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth did not see why they should exaggerate
+a trifle. The lady said she would have an interview with
+Richard, and then write, as it was her duty to do. Adrian
+shrugged, and was for going into the scientific explanation
+of Richard's conduct, in which the lady had to discourage
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor boy!" she sighed. "I am really sorry for him. I
+hope he will not feel it too strongly. They feel strongly,
+father and son."</p>
+
+<p>"And select wisely," Adrian added.</p>
+
+<p>"That's another thing," said Lady Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>Their talk was then of the dulness of neighbouring
+county people, about whom, it seemed, there was little or
+no scandal afloat: of the lady's loss of the season in town,
+which she professed not to regret, though she complained
+of her general weariness: of whether Mr. Morton of Poer
+Hall would propose to Mrs. Doria, and of the probable
+despair of the hapless curate of Lobourne; and other
+gossip, partly in French.</p>
+
+<p>They rounded the lake, and got upon the road through
+the park to Lobourne. The moon had risen. The atmosphere
+was warm and pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite a lover's night," said Lady Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>"And I, who have none to love&mdash;pity me!" The wise
+youth attempted a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"And never will have," said Lady Blandish, curtly.
+"You <i>buy</i> your loves."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian protested. However, he did not plead verbally
+against the impeachment, though the lady's decisive insight
+astonished him. He began to respect her, relishing
+her exquisite contempt, and he reflected that widows could
+be terrible creatures.</p>
+
+<p>He had hoped to be a little sentimental with Lady
+Blandish, knowing her romantic. This mixture of the
+harshest common sense and an air of "<i>I</i> know you men,"
+with romance and refined temperament, subdued the wise
+youth more than a positive accusation supported by witnesses
+would have done. He looked at the lady. Her face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>
+was raised to the moon. She knew nothing&mdash;she had
+simply spoken from the fulness of her human knowledge,
+and had forgotten her words. Perhaps, after all, her
+admiration, or whatever feeling it was, for the baronet,
+was sincere, and really the longing for a virtuous man.
+Perhaps she had tried the opposite set pretty much.
+Adrian shrugged. Whenever the wise youth encountered
+a mental difficulty he instinctively lifted his shoulders to
+equal altitudes, to show that he had no doubt there was a
+balance in the case&mdash;plenty to be said on both sides, which
+was the same to him as a definite solution.</p>
+
+<p>At their tryst in the wood, abutting on Raynham Park,
+wrapped in themselves, piped to by tireless Love, Richard
+and Lucy sat, toying with eternal moments. How they
+seem as if they would never end! What mere sparks they
+are when they have died out! And how in the distance
+of time they revive, and extend, and glow, and make us
+think them full the half, and the best of the fire, of our
+lives!</p>
+
+<p>With the onward flow of intimacy, the two happy lovers
+ceased to be so shy of common themes, and their speech
+did not reject all as dross that was not pure gold of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was very inquisitive about everything and everybody
+at Raynham. Whoever had been about Richard since
+his birth, she must know the history of, and he for a kiss
+will do her bidding.</p>
+
+<p>Thus goes the tender duet:</p>
+
+<p>"You should know my cousin Austin, Lucy.&mdash;Darling!
+Beloved!"</p>
+
+<p>"My own! Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"You should know my cousin Austin. You shall know
+him. He would take to you best of them all, and you to
+him. He is in the tropics now, looking out a place&mdash;it's
+a secret&mdash;for poor English working-men to emigrate to
+and found a colony in that part of the world:&mdash;my white
+angel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear love!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is such a noble fellow! Nobody here understands
+him but me. Isn't it strange? Since I met you I love
+him better! That's because I love all that's good and
+noble better now&mdash;Beautiful! I love&mdash;I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>"My Richard!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do you think I've determined, Lucy? If my
+father&mdash;&mdash;but no! my father does love me.&mdash;No! he will
+not; and we will be happy together here. And I will win
+my way with you. And whatever I win will be yours;
+for it will be owing to you. I feel as if I had no strength
+but yours&mdash;none! and you make me&mdash;O Lucy!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice ebbs. Presently Lucy murmurs&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Your father, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest Richard! I feel so afraid of him."</p>
+
+<p>"He loves me, and will love you, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"But I am so poor and humble, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"No one I have ever seen is like you, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"You think so, because you"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Love me," comes the blushing whisper, and the duet
+gives place to dumb variations, performed equally in concert.</p>
+
+<p>It is resumed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are fond of the knights, Lucy. Austin is as brave
+as any of them.&mdash;My own bride! Oh, how I adore you!
+When you are gone, I could fall upon the grass you tread
+upon, and kiss it. My breast feels empty of my heart&mdash;Lucy!
+if we lived in those days, I should have been a
+knight, and have won honour and glory for you. Oh!
+one can do nothing now. My lady-love! My lady-love!&mdash;A
+tear?&mdash;Lucy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! Ah, Richard! I am not a lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Who dares say that? Not a lady&mdash;the angel I love!"</p>
+
+<p>"Think, Richard, who I am."</p>
+
+<p>"My beautiful! I think that God made you, and has
+given you to me."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes fill with tears, and, as she lifts them heavenward
+to thank her God, the light of heaven strikes on
+them, and she is so radiant in her pure beauty that the
+limbs of the young man tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy! O heavenly spirit! Lucy!"</p>
+
+<p>Tenderly her lips part&mdash;"I do not weep for sorrow."</p>
+
+<p>The big bright drops lighten, and roll down, imaged in
+his soul.</p>
+
+<p>They lean together&mdash;shadows of ineffable tenderness
+playing on their thrilled cheeks and brows.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He lifts her hand, and presses his mouth to it. She has
+seen little of mankind, but her soul tells her this one is
+different from others, and at the thought, in her great
+joy, tears must come fast, or her heart will break&mdash;tears
+of boundless thanksgiving. And he, gazing on those soft,
+ray-illumined, dark-edged eyes, and the grace of her loose
+falling tresses, feels a scarce-sufferable holy fire streaming
+through his members.</p>
+
+<p>It is long ere they speak in open tones.</p>
+
+<p>"O happy day when we met!"</p>
+
+<p>What says the voice of one, the soul of the other echoes.</p>
+
+<p>"O glorious heaven looking down on us!"</p>
+
+<p>Their souls are joined, are made one for evermore beneath
+that bending benediction.</p>
+
+<p>"O eternity of bliss!"</p>
+
+<p>Then the diviner mood passes, and they drop to earth.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy! come with me to-night, and look at the place
+where you are some day to live. Come, and I will row
+you on the lake. You remember what you said in your
+letter that you dreamt?&mdash;that we were floating over the
+shadow of the Abbey to the nuns at work by torchlight
+felling the cypress, and they handed us each a sprig. Why,
+darling, it was the best omen in the world, their felling
+the old trees. And you write such lovely letters. So pure
+and sweet they are. I love the nuns for having taught
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Richard! See! we forget! Ah!" she lifts up her
+face pleadingly, as to plead against herself, "even if your
+father forgives my birth, he will not my religion. And,
+dearest, though I would die for you I cannot change it. It
+would seem that I was denying God; and&mdash;oh! it would
+make me ashamed of my love."</p>
+
+<p>"Fear nothing!" He winds her about with his arm.
+"Come! He will love us both, and love you the more for
+being faithful to your father's creed. You don't know
+him, Lucy. He seems harsh and stern&mdash;he is full of
+kindness and love. He isn't at all a bigot. And besides,
+when he hears what the nuns have done for you, won't
+he thank them, as I do? And&mdash;oh! I must speak to him
+soon, and you must be prepared to see him soon, for I
+cannot bear your remaining at Belthorpe, like a jewel in
+a sty. Mind! I'm not saying a word against your uncle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>
+I declare I love everybody and everything that sees you
+and touches you. Stay! it <i>is</i> a wonder how you could
+have grown there. But you were not born there, and
+your father had good blood. Desborough!&mdash;there was a
+Colonel Desborough&mdash;never mind! Come!"</p>
+
+<p>She dreads to. She begs not to. She is drawn away.</p>
+
+<p>The woods are silent, and then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What think you of that for a pretty pastoral?" says a
+very different voice.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian reclined against a pine overlooking the fern-covert.
+Lady Blandish was recumbent upon the brown
+pine-droppings, gazing through a vista of the lower greenwood
+which opened out upon the moon-lighted valley, her
+hands clasped round one knee, her features almost stern
+in their set hard expression.</p>
+
+<p>They had heard, by involuntarily overhearing about as
+much as may be heard in such positions, a luminous word
+or two.</p>
+
+<p>The lady did not answer. A movement among the ferns
+attracted Adrian, and he stepped down the decline across
+the pine-roots to behold heavy Benson below, shaking fern-seed
+and spidery substances off his crumpled skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that you, Mr. Hadrian?" called Benson, starting,
+as he puffed, and exercised his handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it <i>you</i>, Benson, who have had the audacity to spy
+upon these Mysteries?" Adrian called back, and coming
+close to him, added, "You look as if you had just been
+well thrashed."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it dreadful, sir?" snuffled Benson. "And his
+father in ignorance, Mr. Hadrian!"</p>
+
+<p>"He shall know, Benson! He shall know how you have
+endangered your valuable skin in his service. If Mr. Richard
+had found you there just now I wouldn't answer for
+the consequences."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" Benson spitefully retorted. "This won't go on,
+Mr. Hadrian. It shan't, sir. It will be put a stop to
+to-morrow, sir. I call it corruption of a young gentleman
+like him, and harlotry, sir, I call it. I'd have every jade
+flogged that made a young innocent gentleman go on
+like that, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why didn't you stop it yourself, Benson? Ah, I
+see! you waited&mdash;what? This is not the first time you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+have been attendant on Apollo and Miss Dryope? You
+have written to headquarters?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did my duty, Mr. Hadrian."</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth returned to Lady Blandish, and informed
+her of Benson's zeal. The lady's eyes flashed.
+"I hope Richard will treat him as he deserves," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we home?" Adrian inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Do me a favour," the lady replied. "Get my carriage
+sent round to meet me at the park-gates."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you?"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I want to be alone."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian bowed and left her. She was still sitting with
+her hands clasped round one knee, gazing towards the dim
+ray-strewn valley.</p>
+
+<p>"An odd creature!" muttered the wise youth. "She's
+as odd as any of them. She ought to be a Feverel. I
+suppose she's graduating for it. Hang that confounded
+old ass of a Benson! He has had the impudence to steal
+a march on me!"</p>
+
+<p>The shadow of the cypress was lessening on the lake.
+The moon was climbing high. As Richard rowed the boat,
+Lucy sang to him softly. She sang first a fresh little
+French song, reminding him of a day when she had been
+asked to sing to him before, and he did not care to hear.
+"Did I live?" he thinks. Then she sang to him a bit of
+one of those majestic old Gregorian chants, that, wherever
+you may hear them, seem to build up cathedral walls about
+you. The young man dropped the sculls. The strange
+solemn notes gave a religious tone to his love, and wafted
+him into the knightly ages and the reverential heart of
+chivalry.</p>
+
+<p>Hanging between two heavens on the lake: floating to
+her voice: the moon stepping over and through white
+shoals of soft high clouds above and below: floating to her
+voice&mdash;no other breath abroad! His soul went out of his
+body as he listened.</p>
+
+<p>They must part. He rows her gently shoreward.</p>
+
+<p>"I never was so happy as to-night," she murmurs.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, my Lucy. The lights of the old place are on
+the lake. Look where you are to live."</p>
+
+<p>"Which is your room, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>He points it out to her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"O Richard! that I were one of the women who wait on
+you! I should ask nothing more. How happy she must
+be!"</p>
+
+<p>"My darling angel-love. You shall be happy; but all
+shall wait on you, and I foremost, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! may I hope for a letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"By eleven to-morrow. And I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you will have mine, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Tom shall wait for it. A long one, mind! Did you
+like my last song?"</p>
+
+<p>She puts her hand quietly against her bosom, and he
+knows where it rests. O love! O heaven!</p>
+
+<p>They are aroused by the harsh grating of the bow of
+the boat against the shingle. He jumps out, and lifts her
+ashore.</p>
+
+<p>"See!" she says, as the blush of his embrace subsides&mdash;"See!"
+and prettily she mimics awe and feels it a little,
+"the cypress does point towards us. O Richard! it does!"</p>
+
+<p>And he, looking at her rather than at the cypress, delighting
+in her arch grave ways&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, there's hardly any shadow at all, Lucy. She
+mustn't dream, my darling! or dream only of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! but I do."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, Lucy! The letter in the morning, and
+you at night. O happy to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will be sure to be there, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I am not dead, Lucy."</p>
+
+<p>"O Richard! pray, pray do not speak of that. I shall
+not survive you."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us pray, Lucy, to die together, when we are to die.
+Death or life, with you! Who is it yonder? I see some
+one&mdash;is it Tom? It's Adrian!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it Mr. Harley?" The fair girl shivered.</p>
+
+<p>"How dares he come here!" cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>The figure of Adrian, instead of advancing, discreetly
+circled the lake. They were stealing away when he called.
+His call was repeated. Lucy entreated Richard to go to
+him; but the young man preferred to summon his attendant,
+Tom, from within hail, and send him to know what
+was wanted.</p>
+
+<p>"Will he have seen me? Will he have known me?"
+whispered Lucy, tremulously.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And if he does, love?" said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! if he does, dearest&mdash;I don't know, but I feel such
+a presentiment. You have not spoken of him to-night,
+Richard. Is he good?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good?" Richard clutched her hand for the innocent
+maiden phrase. "He's very fond of eating; that's all I
+know of Adrian."</p>
+
+<p>Her hand was at his lips when Tom returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Adrian wishes particular to speak to you, sir,"
+said Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"Do go to him, dearest! Do go!" Lucy begs him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how I hate Adrian!" The young man grinds his
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Do go!" Lucy urges him. "Tom&mdash;good Tom&mdash;will
+see me home. To-morrow, dear love! To-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to part from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, unkind! but you must not come with me now. It
+may be news of importance, dearest. Think, Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tom! go back!"</p>
+
+<p>At the imperious command the well-drilled Tom
+strides off a dozen paces, and sees nothing. Than the
+precious charge is confided to him. A heart is cut in
+twain.</p>
+
+<p>Richard made his way to Adrian. "What is it you want
+with me, Adrian?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are we seconds, or principals, O fiery one?" was
+Adrian's answer. "I want nothing with you, except to
+know whether you have seen Benson."</p>
+
+<p>"Where should I see Benson? What do I know of Benson's
+doings?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not&mdash;such a secret old fist as he is! I want
+some one to tell him to order Lady Blandish's carriage to
+be sent round to the park-gates. I thought he might be
+round your way over there&mdash;I came upon him accidentally
+just now in Abbey-wood. What's the matter, boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"You saw him <i>there</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hunting Diana, I suppose. He thinks she's not so
+chaste as they say," continued Adrian. "Are you going
+to knock down that tree?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard had turned to the cypress, and was tugging at
+the tough wood. He left it and went to an ash.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You'll spoil that weeper," Adrian cried. "Down she
+comes! But good-night, Ricky. If you see Benson mind
+you tell him."</p>
+
+<p>Doomed Benson following his burly shadow hove in
+sight on the white road while Adrian spoke. The wise
+youth chuckled and strolled round the lake, glancing over
+his shoulder every now and then.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before he heard a bellow for help&mdash;the
+roar of a dragon in his throes. Adrian placidly sat down
+on the grass, and fixed his eyes on the water. There, as
+the roar was being repeated amid horrid resounding
+echoes, the wise youth mused in this wise&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'The Fates are Jews with us when they delay a punishment,'
+says <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, or words to that effect.
+The heavens evidently love Benson, seeing that he gets
+his punishment on the spot. Master Ricky is a peppery
+young man. He gets it from the apt Gruffudh. I rather
+believe in race. What a noise that old ruffian makes!
+He'll require poulticing with <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>. We
+shall have a message to-morrow, and a hubbub, and perhaps
+all go to town, which won't be bad for one who's
+been a prey to all the desires born of dulness. Benson
+howls: there's life in the old dog yet! He bays the moon.
+Look at her. She doesn't care. It's the same to her
+whether we coo like turtle-doves or roar like twenty lions.
+How complacent she looks! And yet she has just as much
+sympathy for Benson as for Cupid. She would smile on
+if both were being birched. Was that a raven or Benson?
+He howls no more. It sounds guttural: frog-like&mdash;something
+between the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven's
+croak. The fellow'll be killing him. It's time to go to
+the rescue. A deliverer gets more honour by coming in
+at the last gasp than if he forestalled catastrophe.&mdash;Ho,
+there, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>So saying, the wise youth rose, and leisurely trotted to
+the scene of battle, where stood St. George puffing over
+the prostrate Dragon.</p>
+
+<p>"Holloa, Ricky! is it you?" said Adrian. "What's
+this? Whom have we here?&mdash;Benson, as I live!"</p>
+
+<p>"Make this beast get up," Richard returned, breathing
+hard, and shaking his great ash-branch.</p>
+
+<p>"He seems incapable, my dear boy. What have you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>
+been up to?&mdash;Benson! Benson!&mdash;I say, Ricky, this looks
+bad."</p>
+
+<p>"He's shamming!" Richard clamoured like a savage.
+"Spy upon me, will he? I tell you, he's shamming. He
+hasn't had half enough. Nothing's too bad for a spy.
+Let him get up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Insatiated youth! do throw away that enormous
+weapon."</p>
+
+<p>"He has written to my father," Richard shouted. "The
+miserable spy! Let him get up!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ooogh! I won't!" huskily groaned Benson. "Mr.
+Hadrian, you're a witness he's&mdash;my back!"&mdash;&mdash;  Cavernous
+noises took up the tale of his maltreatment.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you love your back better than any part of
+your body now," Adrian muttered. "Come, Benson! be a
+man. Mr. Richard has thrown away the stick. Come, and
+get off home, and let's see the extent of the damage."</p>
+
+<p>"Ooogh! he's a devil! Mr. Hadrian, sir, he's a devil!"
+groaned Benson, turning half over in the road to ease his
+aches.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian caught hold of Benson's collar and lifted him
+to a sitting posture. He then had a glimpse of what his
+hopeful pupil's hand could do in wrath. The wretched
+butler's coat was slit and welted; his hat knocked in; his
+flabby spirit so broken that he started and trembled if his
+pitiless executioner stirred a foot. Richard stood over
+him, grasping his great stick; no dawn of mercy for
+Benson in any corner of his features.</p>
+
+<p>Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and
+immediately gasped, "I won't get up! I won't! He's
+ready to murder me again!&mdash;Mr. Hadrian! if you stand
+by and see it, you're liable to the law, sir&mdash;I won't get up
+while he's near." No persuasion could induce Benson to
+try his legs while his executioner stood by.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian took Richard aside: "You've almost killed the
+poor devil, Ricky. You must be satisfied with that. Look
+at his face."</p>
+
+<p>"The coward bobbed while I struck," said Richard. "I
+marked his back. He ducked. I told him he was getting
+it worse."</p>
+
+<p>At so civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his
+mouth wide.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Did you really? I admire that. You told him he was
+getting it worse?"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll
+of laughter out.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, "Excalibur has done his work. Pitch
+him into the lake. And see&mdash;here comes the Blandish.
+You can't be at it again before a woman. Go and meet
+her, and tell her the noise was an ox being slaughtered.
+Or say Argus."</p>
+
+<p>With a whirr that made all Benson's bruises moan and
+quiver, the great ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard
+swung off to intercept Lady Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian got Benson on his feet. The heavy butler was
+disposed to summon all the commiseration he could feel
+for his bruised flesh. Every half-step he attempted was
+like a dislocation. His groans and grunts were frightful.</p>
+
+<p>"How much did that hat cost, Benson?" said Adrian,
+as he put it on his head.</p>
+
+<p>"A five-and-twenty shilling beaver, Mr. Hadrian!"
+Benson caressed its injuries.</p>
+
+<p>"The cheapest policy of insurance I remember to have
+heard of!" said Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>Benson staggered, moaning at intervals to his cruel
+comforter&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He's a devil, Mr. Hadrian! He's a devil, sir, I do
+believe, sir. Ooogh! he's a devil!&mdash;I can't move, Mr.
+Hadrian. I must be fetched. And Dr. Clifford must be
+sent for, sir. I shall never be fit for work again. I
+haven't a sound bone in my body, Mr. Hadrian."</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Benson, this comes of your declaring war
+upon Venus. I hope the maids will nurse you properly.
+Let me see: you are friends with the housekeeper, aren't
+you? All depends upon that."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only a faithful servant, Mr. Hadrian," the miserable
+butler snarled.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you've got no friend but your bed. Get to it as
+quick as possible, Benson."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't move." Benson made a resolute halt. "I must
+be fetched," he whinnied. "It's a shame to ask me to
+move, Mr. Hadrian."</p>
+
+<p>"You will admit that you are heavy, Benson," said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>
+Adrian, "so I can't carry you. However, I see Mr. Richard
+is very kindly returning to help me."</p>
+
+<p>At these words heavy Benson instantly found his legs,
+and shambled on.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish met Richard in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been horribly frightened," she said. "Tell me,
+what was the meaning of those cries I heard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only some one doing justice on a spy," said Richard,
+and the lady smiled, and looked on him fondly, and put
+her hand through his hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Was that all? I should have done it myself if I had
+been a man. Kiss me."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR
+A SERMON</h3>
+
+
+<p>By twelve o'clock at noon next day the inhabitants of
+Raynham Abbey knew that Berry, the baronet's man, had
+arrived post-haste from town, with orders to conduct Mr.
+Richard thither, and that Mr. Richard had refused to go,
+had sworn he would not, defied his father, and despatched
+Berry to the Shades. Berry was all that Benson was not.
+Whereas Benson hated woman, Berry admired her warmly.
+Second to his own stately person, woman occupied his
+reflections, and commanded his homage. Berry was of
+majestic port, and used dictionary words. Among the
+maids of Raynham his conscious calves produced all the
+discord and the frenzy those adornments seem destined to
+create in tender bosoms. He had, moreover, the reputation
+of having suffered for the sex; which assisted his
+object in inducing the sex to suffer for him. What with
+his calves, and his dictionary words, and the attractive
+halo of the mysterious vindictiveness of Venus surrounding
+him, this Adonis of the lower household was a mighty
+man below, and he moved as one.</p>
+
+<p>On hearing the tumult that followed Berry's arrival,
+Adrian sent for him, and was informed of the nature of
+his mission, and its result.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You should come to me first," said Adrian. "I should
+have imagined you were shrewd enough for that, Berry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, Mr. Adrian," Berry doubled his elbow to
+explain. "Pardon me, sir. Acting recipient of special
+injunctions I was not a free agent."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to Mr. Richard again, Berry. There will be a little
+confusion if he holds back. Perhaps you had better throw
+out a hint or so of apoplexy. A slight hint will do. And
+here&mdash;Berry! when you return to town, you had better not
+mention anything&mdash;to quote Johnson&mdash;of Benson's spiflication."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth's hint had the desired effect on Richard.</p>
+
+<p>He dashed off a hasty letter by Tom to Belthorpe, and,
+mounting his horse, galloped to the Bellingham station.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin was sitting down to a quiet early dinner at
+his hotel, when the Hope of Raynham burst into his room.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was not angry with his son. On the contrary,
+for he was singularly just and self-accusing while
+pride was not up in arms, he had been thinking all day
+after the receipt of Benson's letter that he was deficient in
+cordiality, and did not, by reason of his excessive anxiety,
+make himself sufficiently his son's companion: was not
+enough, as he strove to be, mother and father to him; preceptor
+and friend; previsor and associate. He had not to
+ask his conscience where he had lately been to blame towards
+the System. He had slunk away from Raynham in
+the very crisis of the Magnetic Age, and this young woman
+of the parish (as Benson had termed sweet Lucy in his
+letter) was the consequence.</p>
+
+<p>Yes! pride and sensitiveness were his chief foes, and
+he would trample on them. To begin, he embraced his
+son: hard upon an Englishman at any time&mdash;doubly so
+to one so shamefaced at emotion in cool blood, as it were.
+It gave him a strange pleasure, nevertheless. And the
+youth seemed to answer to it; he was excited. Was his
+love, then, beginning to correspond with his father's as
+in those intimate days before the Blossoming Season?</p>
+
+<p>But when Richard, inarticulate at first in his haste,
+cried out, "My dear, dear father! You are safe! I feared&mdash;&mdash;You
+are better, sir? Thank God!" Sir Austin stood
+away from him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Safe?" he said. "What has alarmed you?"</p>
+
+<p>Instead of replying, Richard dropped into a chair, and
+seized his hand and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin took a seat, and waited for his son to explain.</p>
+
+<p>"Those doctors are such fools!" Richard broke out. "I
+was sure they were wrong. They don't know headache
+from apoplexy. It's worth the ride, sir, to see you. You
+left Raynham so suddenly.&mdash;But you are well! It was not
+an attack of real apoplexy?"</p>
+
+<p>His father's brows contorted, and he said, No, it was
+not. Richard pursued:</p>
+
+<p>"If you were ill, I couldn't come too soon, though, if
+coroners' inquests sat on horses, those doctors would be
+found guilty of mare-slaughter. Cassandra'll be knocked
+up. I was too early for the train at Bellingham, and I
+wouldn't wait. She did the distance in four hours and
+three-quarters. Pretty good, sir, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has given you appetite for dinner, I hope," said the
+baronet, not so well pleased to find that it was not
+simple obedience that had brought the youth to him in
+such haste.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ready," replied Richard. "I shall be in time to
+return by the last train to-night. I will leave Cassandra
+in your charge for a rest."</p>
+
+<p>His father quietly helped him to soup, which he commenced
+gobbling with an eagerness that might pass for
+appetite.</p>
+
+<p>"All well at Raynham?" said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing new?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"The same as when I left?"</p>
+
+<p>"No change whatever!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be glad to get back to the old place," said the
+baronet. "My stay in town has certainly been profitable.
+I have made some pleasant acquaintances who may probably
+favour us with a visit there in the late autumn&mdash;people
+you may be pleased to know. They are very anxious
+to see Raynham."</p>
+
+<p>"I love the old place," cried Richard. "I never wish to
+leave it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Why, boy, before I left you were constantly begging to
+see town."</p>
+
+<p>"Was I, sir? How odd! Well! I don't want to remain
+here. I've seen enough of it."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you find your way to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard laughed, and related his bewilderment at the
+miles of brick, and the noise, and the troops of people,
+concluding, "There's no place like home!"</p>
+
+<p>The baronet watched his symptomatic brilliant eyes,
+and favoured him with a double-dealing sentence&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half
+traversed the world, is youth's foolishness, my son. Reverence
+time! A better maxim that than your Horatian."</p>
+
+<p>"He knows all!" thought Richard, and instantly drew
+away leagues from his father, and threw up fortifications
+round his love and himself.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner over, Richard looked hurriedly at his watch,
+and said, with much briskness, "I shall just be in time,
+sir, if we walk. Will you come with me to the station?"</p>
+
+<p>The baronet did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>Richard was going to repeat the question, but found his
+father's eyes fixed on him so meaningly that he wavered,
+and played with his empty glass.</p>
+
+<p>"I think we will have a little more claret," said the
+baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Claret was brought, and they were left alone.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet then drew within arm's-reach of his son,
+and began:</p>
+
+<p>"I am not aware what you may have thought of me,
+Richard, during the years we have lived together; and
+indeed I have never been in a hurry to be known to you;
+and, if I had died before my work was done, I should not
+have complained at losing half my reward, in hearing you
+thank me. Perhaps, as it is, I never may. Everything,
+save selfishness, has its recompense. I shall be content if
+you prosper."</p>
+
+<p>He fetched a breath and continued: "You had in your
+infancy a great loss." Father and son coloured simultaneously.
+"To make that good to you I chose to isolate
+myself from the world, and devote myself entirely to your
+welfare; and I think it is not vanity that tells me now
+that the son I have reared is one of the most hopeful of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>
+God's creatures. But for that very reason you are open
+to be tempted the most, and to sink the deepest. It was
+the first of the angels who made the road to hell."</p>
+
+<p>He paused again. Richard fingered at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"In our House, my son, there is peculiar blood. We go
+to wreck very easily. It sounds like superstition; I cannot
+but think we are tried as most men are not. I see it in us
+all. And you, my son, are compounded of two races.
+Your passions are violent. You have had a taste of
+revenge. You have seen, in a small way, that the pound
+of flesh draws rivers of blood. But there is now in you
+another power. You are mounting to the table-land of
+life, where mimic battles are changed to real ones. And
+you come upon it laden equally with force to create and
+to destroy." He deliberated to announce the intelligence,
+with deep meaning: "There are women in the world, my
+son!"</p>
+
+<p>The young man's heart galloped back to Raynham.</p>
+
+<p>"It is when you encounter them that you are thoroughly
+on trial. It is when you know them that life is either a
+mockery to you, or, as some find it, a gift of blessedness.
+They are our ordeal. Love of any human object is the
+soul's ordeal; and they are ours, loving them, or not."</p>
+
+<p>The young man heard the whistle of the train. He
+saw the moon-lighted wood, and the vision of his beloved.
+He could barely hold himself down and listen.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe," the baronet spoke with little of the cheerfulness
+of belief, "good women exist."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, if he knew Lucy!</p>
+
+<p>"But," and he gazed on Richard intently, "it is given
+to very few to meet them on the threshold&mdash;I may say, to
+none. We find them after hard buffeting, and usually,
+when we find the one fitted for us, our madness has misshaped
+our destiny, our lot is cast. For women are not the
+end, but the means, of life. In youth we think them the
+former, and thousands, who have not even the excuse of
+youth, select a mate&mdash;or worse&mdash;with that sole view. I
+believe women punish us for so perverting their uses.
+They punish Society."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet put his hand to his brow as his mind
+travelled into consequences.</p>
+
+<p>"Our most diligent pupil learns not so much as an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>
+earnest teacher," says The Pilgrim's Scrip; and Sir
+Austin, in schooling himself to speak with moderation of
+women, was beginning to get a glimpse of their side of
+the case.</p>
+
+<p>Cold Blood now touched on love to Hot Blood.</p>
+
+<p>Cold Blood said, "It is a passion coming in the order
+of nature, the ripe fruit of our animal being."</p>
+
+<p>Hot Blood felt: "It is a divinity! All that is worth
+living for in the world."</p>
+
+<p>Cold Blood said: "It is a fever which tests our strength,
+and too often leads to perdition."</p>
+
+<p>Hot Blood felt: "Lead whither it will, I follow it."</p>
+
+<p>Cold Blood said: "It is a name men and women are
+much in the habit of employing to sanctify their appetites."</p>
+
+<p>Hot Blood felt: "It is worship; religion; life!"</p>
+
+<p>And so the two parallel lines ran on.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet became more personal:</p>
+
+<p>"You know my love for you, my son. The extent of it
+you cannot know; but you must know that it is something
+very deep, and&mdash;I do not wish to speak of it&mdash;but a father
+must sometimes petition for gratitude, since the only true
+expression of it is his son's moral good. If you care for
+my love, or love me in return, aid me with all your energies
+to keep you what I have made you, and guard you
+from the snares besetting you. It was in my hands once.
+It is ceasing to be so. Remember, my son, what my love
+is. It is different, I fear, with most fathers: but I am
+bound up in your welfare: what you do affects me vitally.
+You will take no step that is not intimate with my happiness,
+or my misery. And I have had great disappointments,
+my son."</p>
+
+<p>So far it was well. Richard loved his father, and even
+in his frenzied state he could not without emotion hear
+him thus speak.</p>
+
+<p>Unhappily, the baronet, who by some fatality never
+could see when he was winning the battle, thought proper
+in his wisdom to water the dryness of his sermon with a
+little jocoseness, on the subject of young men fancying
+themselves in love, and, when they were raw and green,
+absolutely wanting to be&mdash;that most awful thing, which,
+the wisest and strongest of men undertake in hesitation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>
+and after self-mortification and penance&mdash;married! He
+sketched the Foolish Young Fellow&mdash;the object of general
+ridicule and covert contempt. He sketched the Woman&mdash;the
+strange thing made in our image, and with all our
+faculties&mdash;passing to the rule of one who in taking her
+proved that he could not rule himself, and had no knowledge
+of her save as a choice morsel which he would burn
+the whole world, and himself in the bargain, to possess.
+He harped upon the Foolish Young Fellow, till the foolish
+young fellow felt his skin tingle and was half-suffocated
+with shame and rage.</p>
+
+<p>After this, the baronet might be as wise as he pleased:
+he had quite undone his work. He might analyze Love
+and anatomize Woman. He might accord to her her due
+position, and paint her fair: he might be shrewd, jocose,
+gentle, pathetic, wonderfully wise: he spoke to deaf ears.</p>
+
+<p>Closing his sermon with the question, softly uttered:
+"Have you anything to tell me, Richard?" and hoping for
+a confession, and a thorough re-establishment of confidence,
+the callous answer struck him cold: "I have not."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet relapsed in his chair, and made diagrams
+of his fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Richard turned his back on further dialogue by going
+to the window. In the section of sky over the street
+twinkled two or three stars; shining faintly, feeling the
+moon. The moon was rising: the woods were lifting up
+to her: his star of the woods would be there. A bed of
+moss set about flowers in a basket under him breathed
+to his nostril of the woodland keenly, and filled him with
+delirious longing.</p>
+
+<p>A succession of hard sighs brought his father's hand on
+his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"You have nothing you could say to me, my son? Tell
+me, Richard! Remember, there is no home for the soul
+where dwells a shadow of untruth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all, sir," the young man replied, meeting
+him with the full orbs of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet withdrew his hand, and paced the room.</p>
+
+<p>At last it grew impossible for Richard to control his
+impatience, and he said: "Do you intend me to stay here,
+sir? Am I not to return to Raynham at all to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>His father was again falsely jocular:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What? and catch the train after giving it ten minutes'
+start?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cassandra will take me," said the young man earnestly.
+"I needn't ride her hard, sir. Or perhaps you would lend
+me your Winkelried? I should be down with him in little
+better than three hours."</p>
+
+<p>"Even then, you know, the park-gates would be locked."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I could stable him in the village. Dowling knows
+the horse, and would treat him properly. May I have
+him, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The cloud cleared off Richard's face as he asked. At
+least, if he missed his love that night he would be near
+her, breathing the same air, marking what star was above
+her bedchamber, hearing the hushed night-talk of the
+trees about her dwelling: looking on the distances that
+were like hope half-fulfilled and a bodily presence bright
+as Hesper, since he knew her. There were two swallows
+under the eaves shadowing Lucy's chamber-windows: two
+swallows, mates in one nest, blissful birds, who twittered
+and cheep-cheeped to the sole-lying beauty in her bed.
+Around these birds the lover's heart revolved, he knew
+not why. He associated them with all his close-veiled
+dreams of happiness. Seldom a morning passed when he
+did not watch them leave the nest on their breakfast-flight,
+busy in the happy stillness of dawn. It seemed to
+him now that if he could be at Raynham to see them in
+to-morrow's dawn he would be compensated for his incalculable
+loss of to-night: he would forgive and love his
+father, London, the life, the world. Just to see those
+purple backs and white breasts flash out into the quiet
+morning air! He wanted no more.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet's trifling had placed this enormous boon
+within the young man's visionary grasp.</p>
+
+<p>He still went on trying the boy's temper.</p>
+
+<p>"You know there would be nobody ready for you at
+Raynham. It is unfair to disturb the maids."</p>
+
+<p>Richard overrode every objection.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, my son," said the baronet, preserving his
+half-jocular air, "I must tell you that it is my wish to
+have you in town."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you have not been ill at all, sir!" cried Richard,
+as in his despair he seized the whole plot.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have been as well as you could have desired me to
+be," said his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did they lie to me?" the young man wrathfully
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Richard, you can best answer that," rejoined
+Sir Austin, kindly severe.</p>
+
+<p>Dread of being signalized as the Foolish Young Fellow
+prevented Richard from expostulating further. Sir Austin
+saw him grinding his passion into powder for future explosion,
+and thought it best to leave him for awhile.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER</h3>
+
+
+<p>For three weeks Richard had to remain in town and
+endure the teachings of the System in a new atmosphere.
+He had to sit and listen to men of science who came to
+renew their intimacy with his father, and whom of all men
+his father wished him to respect and study; practically
+scientific men being, in the baronet's estimation, the only
+minds thoroughly mated and enviable. He had to endure
+an introduction to the Grandisons, and meet the eyes of
+his kind, haunted as he was by the Foolish Young Fellow.
+The idea that he might by any chance be identified with
+him held the poor youth in silent subjection. And it was
+horrible. For it was a continued outrage on the fair
+image he had in his heart. The notion of the world laughing
+at him because he loved sweet Lucy stung him to
+momentary frenzies, and developed premature misanthropy
+in his spirit. Also the System desired to show him
+whither young women of the parish lead us, and he was
+dragged about at night-time to see the sons and daughters
+of darkness, after the fashion prescribed to Mr. Thompson;
+how they danced and ogled down the high road to
+perdition. But from this sight possibly the teacher learnt
+more than his pupil, since we find him seriously asking
+his meditative hours, in the Note-book: "Wherefore Wild
+Oats are only of one gender?" a question certainly not
+suggested to him at Raynham; and again&mdash;"Whether men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>
+might not be attaching too rigid an importance?" ...
+to a subject with a dotted tail apparently, for he gives
+it no other in the Note-book. But, as I apprehend, he
+had come to plead in behalf of women here, and had
+deduced something from positive observation. To Richard
+the scenes he witnessed were strange wild pictures, likely
+if anything to have increased his misanthropy, but for
+his love.</p>
+
+<p>Certain sweet little notes from Lucy sustained the lover
+during the first two weeks of exile. They ceased; and now
+Richard fell into such despondency that his father in
+alarm had to take measures to hasten their return to
+Raynham. At the close of the third week Berry laid a
+pair of letters, bearing the Raynham post-mark, on the
+breakfast-table, and, after reading one attentively, the
+baronet asked his son if he was inclined to quit the
+metropolis.</p>
+
+<p>"For Raynham, sir?" cried Richard, and relapsed, saying,
+"As you will!" aware that he had given a glimpse
+of the Foolish Young Fellow.</p>
+
+<p>Berry accordingly received orders to make arrangements
+for their instant return to Raynham.</p>
+
+<p>The letter Sir Austin lifted his head from to bespeak
+his son's wishes was a composition of the wise youth
+Adrian's, and ran thus:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Benson is doggedly recovering. He requires great indemnities.
+Happy when a faithful fool is the main sufferer
+in a household! I quite agree with you that our
+faithful fool is the best servant of great schemes. Benson
+is now a piece of history. I tell him that this is indemnity
+enough, and that the sweet Muse usually insists upon
+gentlemen being half-flayed before she will condescend to
+notice them; but Benson, I regret to say, rejects the comfort
+so fine a reflection should offer, and had rather keep
+his skin and live opaque. Heroism seems partly a matter
+of training. Faithful folly is Benson's nature: the rest
+has been thrust upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"The young person has resigned the neighbourhood. I
+had an interview with the fair Papist myself, and also
+with the man Blaize. They were both sensible, though
+one swore and the other sighed. She is pretty. I hope<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>
+she does not paint. I can affirm that her legs are strong,
+for she walks to Bellingham twice a week to take her
+Scarlet bath, when, having confessed and been made clean
+by the Romish unction, she walks back the brisker, of
+which my Protestant muscular system is yet aware. It
+was on the road to Bellingham I engaged her. She is
+well in the matter of hair. Madam Godiva might challenge
+her, it would be a fair match. Has it never struck
+you that Woman is nearer the <i>vegetable</i> than Man?&mdash;Mr.
+Blaize intends her for his son&mdash;a junction that every lover
+of fairy mythology must desire to see consummated.
+Young Tom is heir to all the <i>agrémens</i> of the Beast. The
+maids of Lobourne say (I hear) that he is a very Proculus
+among them. Possibly the envious men say it for the
+maids. Beauty does not speak bad grammar&mdash;and altogether
+she is better out of the way."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The other letter was from Lady Blandish, a lady's letter,
+and said:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have fulfilled your commission to the best of my
+ability, and heartily sad it has made me. She is indeed
+very much above her station&mdash;pity that it is so! She is
+almost beautiful&mdash;<i>quite</i> beautiful at times, and not in <i>any
+way</i> what you have been led to fancy. The poor child
+had no story to tell. I have again seen her, and talked
+with her for an hour as kindly as I could. I could gather
+nothing more than we know. It is just a woman's history
+as it invariably commences. Richard is the god of her
+idolatry. She will renounce him, and sacrifice herself for
+his sake. Are we so bad? She asked me what she was
+to do. She would do whatever was imposed upon her&mdash;all
+but pretend to love another, and that she never would,
+and, I believe, <i>never will</i>. You know I am sentimental,
+and I confess we dropped a <i>few tears</i> together. Her uncle
+has sent her for the Winter to the institution where it
+appears she was educated, and where they are very fond
+of her and want to keep her, which it would be a good
+thing if they were to do. The man is a good sort of man.
+She was entrusted to him by her father, and he never
+interferes with her religion, and is very scrupulous about
+all that pertains to it, though, as he says, he is a Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>
+himself. In the Spring (but the poor child does not
+know this) she is to come back, and be married to his
+lout of a son. I am <i>determined</i> to prevent that. May I
+not reckon on your promise to aid me? When you see
+her, I am sure you will. It would be sacrilege to look
+on and permit such a thing. You know, they are <i>cousins</i>.
+She asked me, where in the world there was one like
+Richard? What could I answer? They were your own
+words, and spoken with a depth of conviction! I hope
+he is really calm. I shudder to think of him when he
+comes, and discovers what I have been doing. I hope I
+have been really doing right! A good deed, you say,
+never dies; but we cannot always know&mdash;I must rely on
+you. Yes, it is, I should think, easy to suffer martyrdom
+when one is sure of one's cause! but then one <i>must</i> be
+sure of it. I have done nothing lately but to repeat to
+myself that saying of yours, No. 54, C. 7, P.S.; and it
+has consoled me, I cannot say why, except that all wisdom
+consoles, whether it applies directly or not:</p>
+
+<p>"'<i>For this reason so many fall from God, who have attained
+to Him; that they cling to Him with their Weakness,
+not with their Strength.</i>'</p>
+
+<p>"I like to know of what you are thinking when you
+composed this or that saying&mdash;what <i>suggested</i> it. May
+not one be admitted to inspect the machinery of wisdom?
+I feel curious to know how thoughts&mdash;<i>real</i> thoughts&mdash;are
+born. Not that I hope to win the secret. Here is the
+beginning of one (but we poor women can never put together
+even two of the three ideas which you say go to
+form a thought): 'When a wise man makes a false step,
+will he not go farther than a fool?' It has just flitted
+through me.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot get on with Gibbon, so wait your return to
+recommence the readings. I dislike the <i>sneering essence</i>
+of his writings. I keep referring to his face, until the
+dislike seems to become personal. How different it is
+with Wordsworth! And yet I cannot escape from the
+thought that he is always solemnly thinking of himself
+(but I <i>do</i> reverence him). But this is curious; Byron
+was a greater egoist, and yet I do not feel the same with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>
+him. He reminds me of a beast of the desert, savage and
+beautiful; and the former is what one would imagine
+a superior donkey reclaimed from the heathen to be&mdash;a
+<i>very</i> superior donkey, I mean, with great power of speech
+and great natural complacency, and whose stubbornness
+you must admire as part of his mission. The worst is
+that no one will imagine anything sublime in a superior
+donkey, so my simile is unfair and false. Is it not
+strange? I love Wordsworth best, and yet Byron has the
+greater power over me. How is that?"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>("Because," Sir Austin wrote beside the query in pencil,
+"women are cowards, and succumb to Irony and Passion,
+rather than yield their hearts to Excellence and Nature's
+Inspiration.")</p>
+
+<p>The letter pursued:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I have finished Boiardo and have taken up Berni. The
+latter offends me. I suppose we women do not really care
+for humour. You are right in saying we have none ourselves,
+and 'cackle' instead of laugh. It is true (of me,
+at least) that 'Falstaff is only to us an incorrigible fat
+man.' I want to know what he <i>illustrates</i>. And Don
+Quixote&mdash;what end can be served in making a noble mind
+ridiculous?&mdash;I hear you say&mdash;practical! So it is. We
+are very narrow, I know. But we like wit&mdash;practical
+again! Or in your words (when I really <i>think</i> they generally
+come to my aid&mdash;perhaps it is that it is often all
+<i>your thought</i>); we 'prefer the rapier thrust, to the broad
+embrace, of Intelligence.'"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>He trifled with the letter for some time, re-reading
+chosen passages as he walked about the room, and considering
+he scarce knew what. There are ideas language
+is too gross for, and shape too arbitrary, which come to
+us and have a definite influence upon us, and yet we
+cannot fasten on the filmy things and make them visible
+and distinct to ourselves, much less to others. Why did
+he twice throw a look into the glass in the act of passing
+it? He stood for a moment with head erect facing it.
+His eyes for the nonce seemed little to peruse his outer
+features; the grey gathered brows, and the wrinkles much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>
+action of them had traced over the circles half up his
+high straight forehead; the iron-grey hair that rose over
+his forehead and fell away in the fashion of Richard's
+plume. His general appearance showed the tints of years;
+but none of their weight, and nothing of the dignity of
+his youth, was gone. It was so far satisfactory, but
+his eyes were wide, as one who looks at his essential self
+through the mask we wear. Perhaps he was speculating
+as he looked on the sort of aspect he presented to the
+lady's discriminative regard. Of her feelings he had not
+a suspicion. But he knew with what extraordinary lucidity
+women can, when it pleases them, and when their
+feelings are not quite boiling under the noonday sun,
+seize all the sides of a character, and put their fingers
+on its weak point. He was cognizant of the total absence
+of the humorous in himself (the want that most shut
+him out from his fellows), and perhaps the clear-thoughted,
+intensely self-examining gentleman filmily conceived,
+Me also, in common with the poet, she gazes on
+as one of the superior&mdash;grey beasts!</p>
+
+<p>He may have so conceived the case; he was capable of
+that great-mindedness, and could snatch at times very
+luminous glances at the broad reflector which the world
+of fact lying outside our narrow compass holds up for us
+to see ourselves in when we will. Unhappily, the faculty
+of laughter, which is due to this gift, was denied him;
+and having seen, he, like the companion of friend Balaam,
+could go no farther. For a good wind of laughter had
+relieved him of much of the blight of self-deception, and
+oddness, and extravagance; had given a healthier view
+of our atmosphere of life; but he had it not.</p>
+
+<p>Journeying back to Bellingham in the train, with the
+heated brain and brilliant eye of his son beside him, Sir
+Austin tried hard to feel infallible, as a man with a
+System should feel; and because he could not do so, after
+much mental conflict, he descended to entertain a personal
+antagonism to the young woman who had stepped in between
+his experiment and success. He did not think
+kindly of her. Lady Blandish's encomiums of her behaviour
+and her beauty annoyed him. Forgetful that he
+had in a measure forfeited his rights to it, he took the
+common ground of fathers, and demanded, "Why he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>
+not justified in doing all that lay in his power to prevent
+his son from casting himself away upon the first creature
+with a pretty face he encountered?" Deliberating thus,
+he lost the tenderness he should have had for his experiment&mdash;the
+living, burning youth at his elbow, and his
+excessive love for him took a rigorous tone. It appeared
+to him politic, reasonable, and just, that the uncle of
+this young woman, who had so long nursed the prudent
+scheme of marrying her to his son, should not only not
+be thwarted in his object but encouraged and even assisted.
+At least, not thwarted. Sir Austin had no glass
+before him while these ideas hardened in his mind, and
+he had rather forgotten the letter of Lady Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>Father and son were alone in the railway carriage.
+Both were too preoccupied to speak. As they neared
+Bellingham, the dark was filling the hollows of the
+country. Over the pine-hills beyond the station a last
+rosy streak lingered across a green sky. Richard eyed
+it while they flew along. It caught him forward: it
+seemed full of the spirit of his love, and brought tears
+of mournful longing to his eyelids. The sad beauty of
+that one spot in the heavens seemed to call out to his
+soul to swear to his Lucy's truth to him: was like the
+sorrowful visage of his fleur-de-luce, as he called her,
+appealing to him for faith. That tremulous tender way
+she had of half-closing and catching light on the nether-lids,
+when sometimes she looked up in her lover's face&mdash;a
+look so mystic-sweet that it had grown to be the fountain
+of his dreams: he saw it yonder, and his blood thrilled.</p>
+
+<p>Know you those wand-like touches of I know not what,
+before which our grosser being melts, and we, much as we
+hope to be in the Awaking, stand etherealized, trembling
+with new joy? They come but rarely; rarely even in love,
+when we fondly think them revelations. Mere sensations
+they are, doubtless: and we rank for them no higher in the
+spiritual scale than so many translucent glorious <i>polypi</i>
+that quiver on the shores, the hues of heaven running
+through them. Yet in the harvest of our days it is
+something for the animal to have had such mere fleshly
+polypian experiences to look back upon, and they give him
+an horizon&mdash;pale seas of luring splendour. One who has
+had them (when they do not bound him) may find the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>
+Isles of Bliss sooner than another. Sensual faith in the
+upper glories is something. "Let us remember," says <span class="smcap">The
+Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, "that Nature, though heathenish, reaches
+at her best to the footstool of the Highest. She is not
+all dust, but a living portion of the spheres. In aspiration
+it is our error to despise her, forgetting that through
+Nature only can we <i>ascend</i>. Cherished, trained, and
+purified, she is then partly worthy the divine mate who
+is to make her wholly so. St. Simeon saw the Hog in
+Nature, and took Nature for the Hog."</p>
+
+<p>It was one of these strange bodily exaltations which
+thrilled the young man, he knew not how it was, for sadness
+and his forebodings vanished. The soft wand touched
+him. At that moment, had Sir Austin spoken openly,
+Richard might have fallen upon his heart. He could not.
+He chose to feel injured on the common ground of fathers,
+and to pursue his System by plotting. Lady Blandish
+had revived his jealousy of the creature who menaced it,
+and jealousy of a System is unreflecting and vindictive
+as jealousy of woman.</p>
+
+<p>Heath-roots and pines breathed sharp in the cool
+autumn evening about the Bellingham station. Richard
+stood a moment as he stepped from the train, and drew
+the country air into his lungs with large heaves of the
+chest. Leaving his father to the felicitations of the station-master,
+he went into the Lobourne road to look for
+his faithful Tom, who had received private orders through
+Berry to be in attendance with his young master's mare,
+Cassandra, and was lurking in a plantation of firs unenclosed
+on the borders of the road, where Richard,
+knowing his retainer's zest for conspiracy too well to
+seek him anywhere but in the part most favoured with
+shelter and concealment, found him furtively whiffing
+tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>"What news, Tom? Is there an illness?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom sent his undress cap on one side to scratch at
+dilemma, an old agricultural habit to which he was still
+a slave in moments of abstract thought or sudden difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't want the rake, Mr. Richard," he whinnied
+with a false grin, as he beheld his master's eye vacantly
+following the action.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Speak out!" he was commanded. "I haven't had a
+letter for a week!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard learnt the news. He took it with surprising
+outward calm, only getting a little closer to Cassandra's
+neck, and looking very hard at Tom without seeing a
+speck of him, which had the effect on Tom of making him
+sincerely wish his master would punch his head at once
+rather than fix him in that owl-like way.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" said Richard, huskily. "Yes? She's gone!
+Well?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom was brought to understand he must make the most
+of trifles, and recited how he had heard from a female
+domestic at Belthorpe of the name of Davenport, formerly
+known to him, that the young lady never slept a wink
+from the hour she knew she was going, but sat up in her
+bed till morning crying most pitifully, though she never
+complained. Hereat the tears unconsciously streamed
+down Richard's cheeks. Tom said he had tried to see
+her, but Mr. Adrian kept him at work, ciphering at a terrible
+sum&mdash;that and nothing else all day! saying, it was
+to please his young master on his return. "Likewise
+something in Lat'n," added Tom. "Nom'tive Mouser!&mdash;'nough
+to make ye mad, sir!" he exclaimed with pathos.
+The wretch had been put to acquire a Latin declension.</p>
+
+<p>Tom saw her on the morning she went away, he said:
+she was very sorrowful-looking, and nodded kindly to him
+as she passed in the fly along with young Tom Blaize.
+"She have got uncommon kind eyes, sir," said Tom,
+"and cryin' don't spoil them." For which his hand was
+wrenched.</p>
+
+<p>Tom had no more to tell, save that, in rounding the
+road, the young lady had hung out her hand, and seemed
+to move it forward and back, as much as to say, Good-bye,
+Tom! "And though she couldn't see me," said Tom,
+"I took off my hat. I did take it so kind of her to think
+of a chap like me." He was at high-pressure sentiment&mdash;what
+with his education for a hero and his master's love-stricken
+state.</p>
+
+<p>"You saw no more of her, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. That was the last!"</p>
+
+<p>"That was the last you saw of her, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, I saw nothin' more."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And so she went out of sight!"</p>
+
+<p>"Clean gone, that she were, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did they take her away? what have they done
+with her? where have they taken her to?"</p>
+
+<p>These red-hot questionings were addressed to the universal
+heaven rather than to Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't she write?" they were resumed. "Why did
+she leave? She's mine. She belongs to me! Who dared
+take her away? Why did she leave without writing?&mdash;&mdash;Tom!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said the well-drilled recruit, dressing himself
+up to the word of command. He expected a variation of
+the theme from the change of tone with which his name
+had been pronounced, but it was again, "Where have they
+taken her to?" and this was even more perplexing to Tom
+than his hard sum in arithmetic had been. He could
+only draw down the corners of his mouth hard, and glance
+up queerly.</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>had</i> been crying&mdash;you saw that, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"No mistake about that, Mr. Richard. Cryin' all night
+and all day, I sh'd say."</p>
+
+<p>"And she was crying when you saw her?"</p>
+
+<p>"She look'd as if she'd just done for a moment, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But her face was white?"</p>
+
+<p>"White as a sheet."</p>
+
+<p>Richard paused to discover whether his instinct had
+caught a new view from these facts. He was in a cage,
+always knocking against the same bars, fly as he might.
+Her tears were the stars in his black night. He clung to
+them as golden orbs. Inexplicable as they were, they were
+at least pledges of love.</p>
+
+<p>The hues of sunset had left the West. No light was
+there but the steadfast pale eye of twilight. Thither he
+was drawn. He mounted Cassandra, saying: "Tell them
+something, Tom. I shan't be home to dinner," and rode
+off toward the forsaken home of light over Belthorpe,
+wherein he saw the wan hand of his Lucy, waving farewell,
+receding as he advanced. His jewel was stolen,&mdash;he
+must gaze upon the empty box.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Night had come on as Richard entered the old elm-shaded,
+grass-bordered lane leading down from Raynham
+to Belthorpe. The pale eye of twilight was shut. The
+wind had tossed up the bank of Western cloud, which was
+now flying broad and unlighted across the sky, broad and
+balmy&mdash;the charioted South-west at full charge behind his
+panting coursers. As he neared the farm his heart fluttered
+and leapt up. He was sure she must be there.
+She must have returned. Why should she have left for
+good without writing? He caught suspicion by the
+throat, making it voiceless, if it lived: he silenced reason.
+Her not writing was now a proof that she had returned.
+He listened to nothing but his imperious passion, and
+murmured sweet words for her, as if she were by: tender
+cherishing epithets of love in the nest. She was there&mdash;she
+moved somewhere about like a silver flame in the dear
+old house, doing her sweet household duties. His blood
+began to sing: O happy those within, to see her, and be
+about her! By some extraordinary process he contrived
+to cast a sort of glory round the burly person of Farmer
+Blaize himself. And oh! to have companionship with a
+seraph one must know a seraph's bliss, and was not young
+Tom to be envied? The smell of late clematis brought
+on the wind enwrapped him, and went to his brain, and
+threw a light over the old red-brick house, for he remembered
+where it grew, and the winter rose-tree, and the
+jessamine, and the passion-flower: the garden in front
+with the standard roses tended by her hands; the long
+wall to the left striped by the branches of the cherry, the
+peep of a further green garden through the wall, and then
+the orchard, and the fields beyond&mdash;the happy circle of her
+dwelling! it flashed before his eyes while he looked on the
+darkness. And yet it was the reverse of hope which
+kindled this light and inspired the momentary calm he
+experienced: it was despair exaggerating delusion, wilfully
+building up on a groundless basis. "For the tenacity of
+true passion is terrible," says <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>: "it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>
+will stand against the hosts of heaven, God's great array
+of Facts, rather than surrender its aim, and must be
+crushed before it will succumb&mdash;sent to the lowest pit!"
+He knew she was not there; she was gone. But the
+power of a will strained to madness fought at it, kept
+it down, conjured forth her ghost, and would have it as
+he dictated. Poor youth! the great array of facts was
+in due order of march.</p>
+
+<p>He had breathed her name many times, and once overloud;
+almost a cry for her escaped him. He had not
+noticed the opening of a door and the noise of a foot
+along the gravel walk. He was leaning over Cassandra's
+uneasy neck watching the one window intently, when a
+voice addressed him out of the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Be that you, young gentleman?&mdash;Mr. Fev'rel?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard's trance was broken. "Mr. Blaize!" he said,
+recognizing the farmer's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Good even'n t'you, sir," returned the farmer. "I knew
+the mare though I didn't know you. Rather bluff to-night
+it be. Will ye step in, Mr. Fev'rel? it's beginnin'
+to spit&mdash;going to be a wildish night, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>Richard dismounted. The farmer called one of his men
+to hold the mare, and ushered the young man in. Once
+there, Richard's conjurations ceased. There was a deadness
+about the rooms and passages that told of her absence.
+The walls he touched&mdash;these were the vacant shells
+of her. He had never been in the house since he knew
+her, and now what strange sweetness, and what pangs!</p>
+
+<p>Young Tom Blaize was in the parlour, squared over the
+table in open-mouthed examination of an ancient book of
+the fashions for a summer month which had elapsed during
+his mother's minority. Young Tom was respectfully
+studying the aspects of the radiant beauties of the polite
+work. He also was a thrall of woman, newly enrolled,
+and full of wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"What, Tom!" the farmer sang out as soon as he had
+opened the door; "there ye be! at yer Folly agin, are ye?
+What good'll them fashens do to you, I'd like t'know?
+Come, shut up, and go and see to Mr. Fev'rel's mare. He's
+al'ays at that ther' Folly now. I say there never were a
+better name for a book than that ther' Folly! Talk about
+attitudes!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The farmer laughed his fat sides into a chair, and
+motioned his visitor to do likewise.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a comfort they're most on 'em females," he pursued,
+sounding a thwack on his knee as he settled himself
+agreeably in his seat. "It don't matter much what they
+does, except pinchin' in&mdash;waspin' it&mdash;at the waist. Give
+me nature, I say&mdash;woman as she's made! eh, young gentleman?"</p>
+
+<p>"You seem very lonely here," said Richard, glancing
+round, and at the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Lonely?" quoth the farmer. "Well, for the matter o'
+that, we be!&mdash;jest now, so't happens; I've got my pipe,
+and Tom've got his Folly. He's on one side the table,
+and I'm on t'other. He gaapes, and I gazes. We are a
+bit lonesome. But there&mdash;it's <i>for</i> the best!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard resumed, "I hardly expected to see you to-night,
+Mr. Blaize."</p>
+
+<p>"Y'acted like a man in coming, young gentleman, and
+I does ye honour for it!" said Farmer Blaize with
+sudden energy and directness.</p>
+
+<p>The thing implied by the farmer's words caused Richard
+to take a quick breath. They looked at each other, and
+looked away, the farmer thrumming on the arm of his
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>Above the mantel-piece, surrounded by tarnished indifferent
+miniatures of high-collared, well-to-do yeomen of
+the anterior generation, trying their best not to grin, and
+high-waisted old ladies smiling an encouraging smile
+through plentiful cap-puckers, there hung a passably executed
+half-figure of a naval officer in uniform, grasping
+a telescope under his left arm, who stood forth clearly
+as not of their kith and kin. His eyes were blue, his
+hair light, his bearing that of a man who knows how
+to carry his head and shoulders. The artist, while giving
+him an epaulette to indicate his rank, had also recorded
+the juvenility which a lieutenant in the naval service
+can retain after arriving at that position, by painting
+him with smooth cheeks and fresh ruddy lips. To this
+portrait Richard's eyes were directed. Farmer Blaize
+observed it, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Her father, sir!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard moderated his voice to praise the likeness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the farmer, "pretty well. Next best to
+havin' <i>her</i>, though it's a long way off that!"</p>
+
+<p>"An old family, Mr. Blaize&mdash;is it not?" Richard asked
+in as careless a tone as he could assume.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlefolks&mdash;what's left of 'em," replied the farmer
+with an equally affected indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's her father?" said Richard, growing bolder
+to speak of her.</p>
+
+<p>"That's her father, young gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Blaize," Richard turned to face him, and burst
+out, "where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone, sir! packed off!&mdash;Can't have her here now."
+The farmer thrummed a step brisker, and eyed the young
+man's wild face resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Blaize," Richard leaned forward to get closer to
+him. He was stunned, and hardly aware of what he was
+saying or doing: "Where has she gone? Why did she
+leave?"</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't to ask, sir&mdash;ye know," said the farmer,
+with a side shot of his head.</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>she</i> did not&mdash;it was not her wish to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! I think she likes the place. Mayhap she likes't
+too well!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you send her away to make her unhappy,
+Mr. Blaize?"</p>
+
+<p>The farmer bluntly denied it was he was the party who
+made her unhappy. "Nobody can't accuse <i>me</i>. Tell ye
+what, sir. I wunt have the busybodies set to work about
+her, and there's all the matter. So let you and I come to
+an understandin'."</p>
+
+<p>A blind inclination to take offence made Richard sit
+upright. He forgot it the next minute, and said humbly:
+"Am I the cause of her going?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" returned the farmer, "to speak straight&mdash;ye
+be!"</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do, Mr. Blaize, that she may come back
+again?" the young hypocrite asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the farmer, "you're coming to business.
+Glad to hear ye talk in that sensible way, Mr. Fev'rel.
+You may guess I wants her bad enough. The house ain't
+itself now she's away, and I ain't myself. Well, sir!
+This ye can do. If you gives me your promise not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>
+meddle with her at all&mdash;I can't mak' out how you come
+to be acquainted; not to try to get her to be meetin' you&mdash;and
+if you'd a seen her when she left, you would&mdash;when
+did ye meet?&mdash;last grass, wasn't it?&mdash;your word as a
+gentleman not to be writing letters, and spyin' after her&mdash;I'll
+have her back at once. Back she shall come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Give her up!" cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, that's it!" said the farmer. "Give her up."</p>
+
+<p>The young man checked the annihilation of time that
+was on his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"You sent her away to protect her from me, then?" he
+said savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not quite it, but that'll do," rejoined the farmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I shall harm her, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"People seem to think she'll harm you, young gentleman,"
+the farmer said with some irony.</p>
+
+<p>"Harm <i>me</i>&mdash;she? What people?"</p>
+
+<p>"People pretty intimate with you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What people? Who spoke of us?" Richard began to
+scent a plot, and would not be balked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, look here," said the farmer. "It ain't no
+secret, and if it be, I don't see why I'm to keep it. It
+appears your education's peculiar!" The farmer drawled
+out the word as if he were describing the figure of a snake.
+"You ain't to be as other young gentlemen. All the
+better! You're a fine bold young gentleman, and your
+father's a right to be proud of ye. Well, sir&mdash;I'm sure
+I thank him for't&mdash;he comes to hear of you and Luce, and
+of course he don't want nothin' o' that&mdash;more do I. I
+meets him there! What's more I won't have nothin'
+of it. She be my gal. She were left to my protection.
+And she's a lady, sir. Let me tell ye, ye won't find many
+on 'em so well looked to as she be&mdash;my Luce! Well, Mr.
+Fev'rel, it's you, or it's her&mdash;one of ye must be out o'
+the way. So we're told. And Luce&mdash;I do believe she's
+just as anxious about yer education as yer father&mdash;she
+says she'll go, and wouldn't write, and'd break it off for
+the sake o' your education. And she've kep' her word,
+haven't she?&mdash;She's a true'n. What she says she'll do!&mdash;True
+blue she be, my Luce! So now, sir, you do the
+same, and I'll thank ye."</p>
+
+<p>Any one who has tossed a sheet of paper into the fire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>
+and seen it gradually brown with heat, and strike to
+flame, may conceive the mind of the lover as he listened
+to this speech.</p>
+
+<p>His anger did not evaporate in words, but condensed
+and sank deep. "Mr. Blaize," he said, "this is very kind
+of the people you allude to, but I am of an age now to
+think and act for myself&mdash;I love her, sir!" His whole
+countenance changed, and the muscles of his face quivered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" said the farmer, appeasingly, "we all do at your
+age&mdash;somebody or other. It's natural!"</p>
+
+<p>"I love her!" the young man thundered afresh, too
+much possessed by his passion to have a sense of shame
+in the confession. "Farmer!" his voice fell to supplication,
+"will you bring her back?"</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize made a queer face. He asked&mdash;what
+for? and where was the promise required?&mdash;But was not
+the lover's argument conclusive? He said he loved her!
+and he could not see why her uncle should not in consequence
+immediately send for her, that they might be
+together. All very well, quoth the farmer, but what's
+to come of it?&mdash;What was to come of it? Why, love, and
+more love! And a bit too much! the farmer added grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you refuse me, farmer," said Richard. "I must
+look to you for keeping her away from me, not to&mdash;to&mdash;these
+people. You will not have her back, though I tell
+you I love her better than my life?"</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize now had to answer him plainly, he had a
+reason and an objection of his own. And it was, that her
+character was at stake, and God knew whether she herself
+might not be in danger. He spoke with a kindly candour,
+not without dignity. He complimented Richard personally,
+but young people were young people; baronets' sons
+were not in the habit of marrying farmers' nieces.</p>
+
+<p>At first the son of a System did not comprehend him.
+When he did, he said: "Farmer! if I give you my word of
+honour, as I hope for heaven, to marry her when I am
+of age, will you have her back?"</p>
+
+<p>He was so fervid that, to quiet him, the farmer only
+shook his head doubtfully at the bars of the grate, and let
+his chest fall slowly. Richard caught what seemed to him
+a glimpse of encouragement in these signs, and observed:
+"It's not because you object to me, Mr. Blaize?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The farmer signified it was not that.</p>
+
+<p>"It's because my father is against me," Richard went
+on, and undertook to show that love was so sacred a matter
+that no father could entirely and for ever resist his son's
+inclinations. Argument being a cool field where the
+farmer could meet and match him, the young man got
+on the tramroad of his passion, and went ahead. He
+drew pictures of Lucy, of her truth, and his own. He
+took leaps from life to death, from death to life, mixing
+imprecations and prayers in a torrent. Perhaps he did
+move the stolid old Englishman a little, he was so vehement,
+and made so visible a sacrifice of his pride.</p>
+
+<p>Farmer Blaize tried to pacify him, but it was useless.
+His jewel he must have.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer stretched out his hand for the pipe that
+allayeth botheration. "May smoke heer now," he said.
+"Not when&mdash;somebody's present. Smoke in the kitchen
+then. Don't mind smell?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard nodded, and watched the operations while the
+farmer filled, and lighted, and began to puff, as if his
+fate hung on them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who'd a' thought, when you sat over there once, of
+its comin' to this?" ejaculated the farmer, drawing ease
+and reflection from tobacco. "You didn't think much of
+her that day, young gentleman! I introduced ye. Well!
+things comes about. Can't you wait till she returns in
+due course, now?"</p>
+
+<p>This suggestion, the work of the pipe, did but bring on
+him another torrent.</p>
+
+<p>"It's queer," said the farmer, putting the mouth of the
+pipe to his wrinkled-up temples.</p>
+
+<p>Richard waited for him, and then he laid down the pipe
+altogether, as no aid in perplexity, and said, after leaning
+his arm on the table and staring at Richard an instant:</p>
+
+<p>"Look, young gentleman! My word's gone. I've spoke
+it. I've given 'em the 'surance she shan't be back till the
+Spring, and then I'll have her, and then&mdash;well! I do
+hope, for more reasons than one, ye'll both be wiser&mdash;I've
+got my own notions about her. But I an't the
+man to force a gal to marry 'gainst her inclines. Depend
+upon it I'm not your enemy, Mr. Fev'rel. You're
+jest the one to mak' a young gal proud. So wait,&mdash;and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>
+see. That's my 'dvice. Jest tak' and wait. I've no more
+to say."</p>
+
+<p>Richard's impetuosity had made him really afraid of
+speaking his notions concerning the projected felicity of
+young Tom, if indeed they were serious.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer repeated that he had no more to say;
+and Richard, with "Wait till the Spring! Wait till the
+Spring!" dinning despair in his ears, stood up to depart.
+Farmer Blaize shook his slack hand in a friendly way,
+and called out at the door for young Tom, who, dreading
+allusions to his Folly, did not appear. A maid rushed
+by Richard in the passage, and slipped something into
+his grasp, which fixed on it without further consciousness
+than that of touch. The mare was led forth by the Bantam.
+A light rain was falling down strong warm gusts,
+and the trees were noisy in the night. Farmer Blaize
+requested Richard at the gate to give him his hand, and
+say all was well. He liked the young man for his earnestness
+and honest outspeaking. Richard could not say all
+was well, but he gave his hand, and knitted it to the
+farmer's in a sharp squeeze, when he got upon Cassandra,
+and rode into the tumult.</p>
+
+<p>A calm, clear dawn succeeded the roaring West, and
+threw its glowing grey image on the waters of the Abbey-lake.
+Before sunrise Tom Bakewell was abroad, and
+met the missing youth, his master, jogging Cassandra
+leisurely along the Lobourne park-road, a sorry couple
+to look at. Cassandra's flanks were caked with mud, her
+head drooped: all that was in her had been taken out
+by that wild night. On what heaths and heavy fallows
+had she not spent her noble strength, recklessly fretting
+through the darkness!</p>
+
+<p>"Take the mare," said Richard, dismounting and patting
+her between the eyes. "She's done up, poor old
+girl! Look to her, Tom, and then come to me in my
+room."</p>
+
+<p>Tom asked no questions.</p>
+
+<p>Three days would bring the anniversary of Richard's
+birth, and though Tom was close, the condition of the
+mare, and the young gentleman's strange freak in riding
+her out all night becoming known, prepared everybody
+at Raynham for the usual bad-luck birthday, the prophets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>
+of which were full of sad gratification. Sir Austin had
+an unpleasant office to require of his son; no other than
+that of humbly begging Benson's pardon, and washing
+out the undue blood he had spilt in taking his Pound of
+Flesh. Heavy Benson was told to anticipate the demand
+for pardon, and practised in his mind the most melancholy
+Christian deportment he could assume on the occasion.
+But while his son was in this state, Sir Austin considered
+that he would hardly be brought to see the virtues of the
+act, and did not make the requisition of him, and heavy
+Benson remained drawn up solemnly expectant at doorways,
+and at the foot of the staircase, a Saurian Caryatid,
+wherever he could get a step in advance of the
+young man, while Richard heedlessly passed him, as he
+passed everybody else, his head bent to the ground, and
+his legs bearing him like random instruments of whose
+service he was unconscious. It was a shock to Benson's
+implicit belief in his patron; and he was not consoled by
+the philosophic explanation, "That Good in a strong many-compounded
+nature is of slower growth than any other
+mortal thing, and must not be forced." Damnatory doctrines
+best pleased Benson. He was ready to pardon,
+as a Christian should, but he did want his enemy before
+him on his knees. And now, though the Saurian Eye
+saw more than all the other eyes in the house, and saw
+that there was matter in hand between Tom and his
+master to breed exceeding discomposure to the System,
+Benson, as he had not received his indemnity, and did
+not wish to encounter fresh perils for nothing, held his
+peace.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin partly divined what was going on in the
+breast of his son, without conceiving the depths of distrust
+his son cherished or quite measuring the intensity
+of the passion that consumed him. He was very kind and
+tender with him. Like a cunning physician who has,
+nevertheless, overlooked the change in the disease super-induced
+by one false dose, he meditated his prescriptions
+carefully and confidently, sure that he knew the case, and
+was a match for it. He decreed that Richard's erratic
+behaviour should pass unnoticed. Two days before the
+birthday, he asked him whether he would object to having
+company? To which Richard said: "Have whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>
+you will, sir." The preparation for festivity commenced
+accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>On the birthday eve he dined with the rest. Lady
+Blandish was there, and sat penitently at his right.
+Hippias prognosticated certain indigestion for himself on
+the morrow. The Eighteenth Century wondered whether
+she should live to see another birthday. Adrian drank
+the two-years' distant term of his tutorship, and Algernon
+went over the list of the Lobourne men who would cope
+with Bursley on the morrow. Sir Austin gave ear and
+a word to all, keeping his mental eye for his son. To
+please Lady Blandish also, Adrian ventured to make
+trifling jokes about London's Mrs. Grandison; jokes delicately
+not decent, but so delicately so, that it was not
+decent to perceive it.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner Richard left them. Nothing more than
+commonly peculiar was observed about him, beyond the
+excessive glitter of his eyes, but the baronet said, "Yes,
+yes! that will pass." He and Adrian, and Lady Blandish,
+took tea in the library, and sat till a late hour discussing
+casuistries relating mostly to the Apple-disease.
+Converse very amusing to the wise youth, who could
+suggest to the two chaste minds situations of the shadiest
+character, with the air of a seeker after truth, and lead
+them, unsuspecting, where they dared not look about
+them. The Aphorist had elated the heart of his constant
+fair worshipper with a newly rounded if not newly conceived
+sentence, when they became aware that they were
+four. Heavy Benson stood among them. He said he
+had knocked, but received no answer. There was, however,
+a vestige of surprise and dissatisfaction on his face
+beholding Adrian of the company, which had not quite
+worn away, and gave place, when it did vanish, to an
+aspect of flabby severity.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Benson? well?" said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>The unmoving man replied: "If you please, Sir Austin&mdash;Mr.
+Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's out!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"With Bakewell!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And a carpet-bag!"</p>
+
+<p>The carpet-bag might be supposed to contain that funny
+thing called a young hero's romance in the making.</p>
+
+<p>Out Richard was, and with a carpet-bag, which Tom
+Bakewell carried. He was on the road to Bellingham,
+under heavy rain, hasting like an escaped captive, wild
+with joy, while Tom shook his skin, and grunted at his
+discomforts. The mail train was to be caught at Bellingham.
+He knew where to find her now, through the
+intervention of Miss Davenport, and thither he was flying,
+an arrow loosed from the bow: thither, in spite of
+fathers and friends and plotters, to claim her, and take
+her, and stand with her against the world.</p>
+
+<p>They were both thoroughly wet when they entered
+Bellingham, and Tom's visions were of hot drinks. He
+hinted the necessity for inward consolation to his master,
+who could answer nothing but "Tom! Tom! I shall see
+her to-morrow!" It was bad&mdash;travelling in the wet, Tom
+hinted again, to provoke the same insane outcry, and have
+his arm seized and furiously shaken into the bargain.
+Passing the principal inn of the place, Tom spoke plainly
+for brandy.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" cried Richard, "there's not a moment to be
+lost!" and as he said it, he reeled, and fell against Tom,
+muttering indistinctly of faintness, and that there was
+no time to lose. Tom lifted him in his arms, and got
+admission to the inn. Brandy, the country's specific, was
+advised by host and hostess, and forced into his mouth,
+reviving him sufficiently to cry out, "Tom! the bell's
+ringing: we shall be late," after which he fell back insensible
+on the sofa where they had stretched him. Excitement
+of blood and brain had done its work upon him.
+The youth suffered them to undress him and put him
+to bed, and there he lay, forgetful even of love; a
+drowned weed borne onward by the tide of the hours.
+There his father found him.</p>
+
+<p>Was the Scientific Humanist remorseful? He had
+looked forward to such a crisis as that point in the
+disease his son was the victim of, when the body would
+fail and give the spirit calm to conquer the malady,
+knowing very well that the seeds of the evil were not
+of the spirit. Moreover, to see him and have him was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>
+a repose after the alarm Benson had sounded. "Mark!"
+he said to Lady Blandish, "when he recovers he will not
+care for her."</p>
+
+<p>The lady had accompanied him to the Bellingham inn
+on first hearing of Richard's seizure.</p>
+
+<p>"What an iron man you can be," she exclaimed,
+smothering her intuitions. She was for giving the boy
+his bauble; promising it him, at least, if he would only
+get well and be the bright flower of promise he once was.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you look on him," she pleaded, "can you look on
+him and persevere?"</p>
+
+<p>It was a hard sight for this man who loved his son so
+deeply. The youth lay in his strange bed, straight and
+motionless, with fever on his cheeks, and altered eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Old Dr. Clifford of Lobourne was the medical attendant,
+who, with head-shaking, and gathering of lips, and reminiscences
+of ancient arguments, guaranteed to do all
+that leech could do in the matter. The old doctor did
+admit that Richard's constitution was admirable, and
+answered to his prescriptions like a piano to the musician.
+"But," he said at a family consultation, for Sir Austin
+had told him how it stood with the young man, "drugs
+are not much in cases of this sort. Change! That's
+what's wanted, and as soon as may be. Distraction!
+He ought to see the world, and know what he is made
+of. It's no use my talking, I know," added the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," said Sir Austin, "I am quite of
+your persuasion. And the world he shall see&mdash;now."</p>
+
+<p>"We have dipped him in Styx, you know, doctor,"
+Adrian remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"But, doctor," said Lady Blandish, "have you known
+a case of this sort before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, my lady," said the doctor, "they're not common
+in these parts. Country people are tolerably healthy-minded."</p>
+
+<p>"But people&mdash;and country people&mdash;have died for love,
+doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had not met any of them.</p>
+
+<p>"Men, or women?" inquired the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish believed mostly women.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask the doctor whether they were healthy-minded
+women," said the baronet. "No! you are both looking at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+the wrong end. Between a highly-cultured being, and
+an emotionless animal, there is all the difference in the
+world. But of the two, the doctor is nearer the truth.
+The healthy nature is pretty safe. If he allowed for
+organization he would be right altogether. To feel, but
+not to feel to excess, that is the problem."</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"If I can't have the one I chose,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To some fresh maid I will propose,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>Adrian hummed a country ballad.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the young Experiment again knew the hours that
+rolled him onward, he was in his own room at Raynham.
+Nothing had changed: only a strong fist had knocked him
+down and stunned him, and he opened his eyes to a grey
+world: he had forgotten what he lived for. He was weak
+and thin, and with a pale memory of things. His functions
+were the same, everything surrounding him was the
+same: he looked upon the old blue hills, the far-lying
+fallows, the river, and the woods: he knew them, they
+seemed to have lost recollection of him. Nor could he find
+in familiar human faces the secret of intimacy of heretofore.
+They were the same faces: they nodded and smiled
+to him. What was lost he could not tell. Something had
+been knocked out of him! He was sensible of his father's
+sweetness of manner, and he was grieved that he could
+not reply to it, for every sense of shame and reproach had
+strangely gone. He felt very useless. In place of the
+fiery love for one, he now bore about a cold charity to
+all.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in the heart of the young man died the Spring
+Primrose, and while it died another heart was pushing
+forth the Primrose of Autumn.</p>
+
+<p>The wonderful change in Richard, and the wisdom of
+her admirer, now positively proved, were exciting matters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>
+to Lady Blandish. She was rebuked for certain little
+rebellious fancies concerning him that had come across
+her enslaved mind from time to time. For was he not
+almost a prophet? It distressed the sentimental lady that
+a love like Richard's could pass off in mere smoke, and
+words such as she had heard him speak in Abbey-wood
+resolve to emptiness. Nay, it humiliated her personally,
+and the baronet's shrewd prognostication humiliated her.
+For how should he know, and dare to say, that love was
+a thing of the dust that could be trodden out under the
+heel of science? But he had said so, and he had proved
+himself right. She heard with wonderment that Richard
+of his own accord had spoken to his father of the folly
+he had been guilty of, and had begged his pardon. The
+baronet told her this, adding that the youth had done it
+in a cold unwavering way, without a movement of his
+features: had evidently done it to throw off the burden
+of the duty he had conceived. He had thought himself
+bound to acknowledge that he had been the Foolish Young
+Fellow, wishing, possibly, to abjure the fact by an act of
+penance. He had also given satisfaction to Benson, and
+was become a renovated peaceful spirit, whose main object
+appeared to be to get up his physical strength by exercise
+and no expenditure of speech.</p>
+
+<p>In her company he was composed and courteous; even
+when they were alone together, he did not exhibit a trace
+of melancholy. Sober he seemed, as one who has recovered
+from a drunkenness and has determined to drink no more.
+The idea struck her that he might be playing a part, but
+Tom Bakewell, in a private conversation they had, informed
+her that he had received an order from his young
+master, one day while boxing with him, not to mention
+the young lady's name to him as long as he lived; and
+Tom could only suppose that she had offended him. Theoretically
+wise Lady Blandish had always thought the
+baronet; she was unprepared to find him thus practically
+sagacious. She fell many degrees; she wanted something
+to cling to; so she clung to the man who struck her low.
+Love, then, was earthly; its depth could be probed by
+science! A man lived who could measure it from end
+to end; foretell its term; handle the young cherub as were
+he a shot owl! We who have flown into cousinship with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>
+the empyrean, and disported among immortal hosts, our
+base birth as a child of Time is made bare to us!&mdash;our
+wings are cut! Oh, then, if science is this victorious
+enemy of love, let us love science! was the logic of the
+lady's heart; and secretly cherishing the assurance that
+she should confute him yet, and prove him utterly wrong,
+she gave him the fruits of present success, as it is a habit
+of women to do; involuntarily partly. The fires took hold
+of her. She felt soft emotions such as a girl feels, and
+they flattered her. It was like youth coming back. Pure
+women have a second youth. The Autumn primrose
+flourished.</p>
+
+<p>We are advised by <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span> that&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The ways of women, which are Involution, and their
+practices, which are Opposition, are generally best hit
+upon by guess work, and a bold word;"&mdash;it being impossible
+to track them and hunt them down in the ordinary
+style.</p>
+
+<p>So that we may not ourselves become involved and opposed,
+let us each of us venture a guess and say a bold
+word as to how it came that the lady, who trusted love to
+be eternal, grovelled to him that shattered her tender faith,
+and loved him.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto it had been simply a sentimental dalliance, and
+gossips had maligned the lady. Just when the gossips
+grew tired of their slander, and inclined to look upon her
+charitably, she set about to deserve every word they had
+said of her; which may instruct us, if you please, that
+gossips have only to persist in lying to be crowned with
+verity, or that one has only to endure evil mouths for a
+period to gain impunity. She was always at the Abbey
+now. She was much closeted with the baronet. It seemed
+to be understood that she had taken Mrs. Doria's place.
+Benson in his misogynic soul perceived that she was taking
+Lady Feverel's: but any report circulated by Benson
+was sure to meet discredit, and drew the gossips upon
+himself; which made his meditations tragic. No sooner
+was one woman defeated than another took the field!
+The object of the System was no sooner safe than its
+great author was in danger!</p>
+
+<p>"I can't think what has come to Benson," he said to
+Adrian.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He seems to have received a fresh legacy of several
+pounds of lead," returned the wise youth, and imitating
+Dr. Clifford's manner. "Change is what he wants! distraction!
+send him to Wales for a month, sir, and let Richard
+go with him. The two victims of woman may do each
+other good."</p>
+
+<p>"Unfortunately I can't do without him," said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we must continue to have him on our shoulders
+all day, and on our chests all night!" Adrian ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"I think while he preserves this aspect we won't have
+him at the dinner-table," said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian thought that would be a relief to their digestions;
+and added: "You know, sir, what he says?"</p>
+
+<p>Receiving a negative, Adrian delicately explained to
+him that Benson's excessive ponderosity of demeanour
+was caused by anxiety for the safety of his master.</p>
+
+<p>"You must pardon a faithful fool, sir," he continued,
+for the baronet became red, and exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"His stupidity is past belief! I have absolutely to bolt
+my study-door against him."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian at once beheld a charming scene in the interior
+of the study, not unlike one that Benson had visually witnessed.
+For, like a wary prophet, Benson, that he might
+have warrant for what he foretold of the future, had a
+care to spy upon the present: warned haply by <span class="smcap">The
+Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, of which he was a diligent reader, and
+which says, rather emphatically: "Could we see Time's
+full face, we were wise of him." Now to see Time's full
+face, it is sometimes necessary to look through keyholes,
+the veteran having a trick of smiling peace to you on one
+cheek and grimacing confusion on the other behind the
+curtain. Decency and a sense of honour restrain most
+of us from being thus wise and miserable for ever. Benson's
+excuse was that he believed in his master, who was
+menaced. And moreover, notwithstanding his previous
+tribulation, to spy upon Cupid was sweet to him. So
+he peeped, and he saw a sight. He saw Time's full face;
+or, in other words, he saw the wiles of woman and the
+weakness of man: which is our history, as Benson would
+have written it, and a great many poets and philosophers
+have written it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Yet it was but the plucking of the Autumn primrose
+that Benson had seen: a somewhat different operation
+from the plucking of the Spring one: very innocent! Our
+staid elderly sister has paler blood, and has, or thinks
+she has, a reason or two about the roots. She is not all
+instinct. "For this high cause, and for that I know men,
+and know him to be the flower of men, I give myself to
+him!" She makes that lofty inward exclamation while
+the hand is detaching her from the roots. Even so strong
+a self-justification she requires. She has not that blind
+glory in excess which her younger sister can gild the
+longest leap with. And if, moth-like, she desires the star,
+she is nervously cautious of candles. Hence her circles
+about the dangerous human flame are wide and shy. She
+must be drawn nearer and nearer by a fresh <i>reason</i>. She
+loves to sentimentalize. Lady Blandish had been sentimentalizing
+for ten years. She would have preferred to
+pursue the game. The dark-eyed dame was pleased with
+her smooth life and the soft excitement that did not
+ruffle it. Not willingly did she let herself be won.</p>
+
+<p>"Sentimentalists," says <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, "are they
+who seek to enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship
+for a thing done."</p>
+
+<p>"It is," the writer says of Sentimentalism elsewhere, "a
+happy pastime and an important science to the timid, the
+idle, and the heartless; but a damning one to them who
+have anything to forfeit."</p>
+
+<p>However, one who could set down the dying for love, as
+a sentimentalism, can hardly be accepted as a clear authority.
+Assuredly he was not one to avoid the incurring of
+the immense debtorship in any way: but he was a bondsman
+still to the woman who had forsaken him, and a
+spoken word would have made it seem his duty to face that
+public scandal which was the last evil to him. What had
+so horrified the virtuous Benson, Richard had already beheld
+in Daphne's Bower; a simple kissing of the fair
+white hand! Doubtless the keyhole somehow added to
+Benson's horror. The two similar performances, so very
+innocent, had wondrous opposite consequences. The first
+kindled Richard to adore Woman; the second destroyed
+Benson's faith in Man. But Lady Blandish knew the
+difference between the two. She understood why the baronet<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>
+did not speak; excused, and respected him for it.
+She was content, since she must love, to love humbly, and
+she had, besides, her pity for his sorrows to comfort her.
+A hundred fresh reasons for loving him arose and multiplied
+every day. He read to her the secret book in his
+own handwriting, composed for Richard's Marriage
+Guide: containing Advice and Directions to a Young
+Husband, full of the most tender wisdom and delicacy;
+so she thought; nay, not wanting in poetry, though neither
+rhymed nor measured. He expounded to her the distinctive
+character of the divers ages of love, giving the
+palm to the flower she put forth, over that of Spring, or
+the Summer rose. And while they sat and talked, "My
+wound has healed," he said. "How?" she asked. "At
+the fountain of your eyes," he replied, and drew the joy
+of new life from her blushes, without incurring further
+debtorship for a thing done.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP</h3>
+
+
+<p>Let it be some apology for the damage caused by the
+careering hero, and a consolation to the quiet wretches,
+dragged along with him at his chariot-wheels, that he is
+generally the last to know when he has made an actual
+start; such a mere creature is he, like the rest of us, albeit
+the head of our fates. By this you perceive the true hero,
+whether he be a prince or a pot-boy, that he does not plot;
+Fortune does all for him. He may be compared to one to
+whom, in an electric circle, it is given to carry the <i>battery</i>.
+We caper and grimace at his will; yet not his the will, not
+his the power. 'Tis all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She
+deals her dispensations through him. Yea, though our
+capers be never so comical, he laughs not. Intent upon
+his own business, the true hero asks little services of us
+here and there; thinks it quite natural that they should
+be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable
+contortions we must go through to fulfil them.
+Probably he is the elect of Fortune, because of that notable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>
+faculty of being intent upon his own business: "Which
+is," says <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, "with men to be valued
+equal to that force which in water <i>makes a stream</i>." This
+prelude was necessary to the present chapter of Richard's
+history.</p><br />
+
+
+<p>It happened that in the turn of the year, and while old
+earth was busy with her flowers, the fresh wind blew, the
+little bird sang, and Hippias Feverel, the Dyspepsy,
+amazed, felt the Spring move within him. He communicated
+his delightful new sensations to the baronet, his
+brother, whose constant exclamation with regard to him,
+was: "Poor Hippias! All his machinery is bare!" and
+had no hope that he would ever be in a condition to defend
+it from view. Nevertheless Hippias had that hope, and
+so he told his brother, making great exposure of his machinery
+to effect the explanation. He spoke of all his
+physical experiences exultingly, and with wonder. The
+achievement of common efforts, not usually blazoned, he
+celebrated as triumphs, and, of course, had Adrian on his
+back very quickly. But he could bear him, or anything,
+now. It was such ineffable relief to find himself looking
+out upon the world of mortals instead of into the black
+phantasmal abysses of his own complicated frightful
+structure. "My mind doesn't so much seem to haunt
+itself, now," said Hippias, nodding shortly and peering
+out of intense puckers to convey a glimpse of what hellish
+sufferings his had been: "I feel as if I had come above-ground."</p>
+
+<p>A poor Dyspepsy may talk as he will, but he is the one
+who never gets sympathy, or experiences compassion: and
+it is he whose groaning petitions for charity do at last
+rout that Christian virtue. Lady Blandish, a charitable
+soul, could not listen to Hippias, though she had a heart
+for little mice and flies, and Sir Austin had also small
+patience with his brother's gleam of health, which was
+just enough to make his disease visible. He remembered
+his early follies and excesses, and bent his ear to him as
+one man does to another who complains of having to pay
+a debt legally incurred.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Adrian, seeing how the communications
+of Hippias were received, "that when our Nemesis takes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>
+lodgings in the stomach, it's best to act the Spartan, smile
+hard, and be silent."</p>
+
+<p>Richard alone was decently kind to Hippias; whether
+from opposition, or real affection, could not be said, as the
+young man was mysterious. He advised his uncle to take
+exercise, walked with him, cultivated cheerful impressions
+in him, and pointed out innocent pursuits. He made Hippias
+visit with him some of the poor old folk of the village,
+who bewailed the loss of his cousin Austin Wentworth,
+and did his best to waken him up, and give the outer world
+a stronger hold on him. He succeeded in nothing but in
+winning his uncle's gratitude. The season bloomed scarce
+longer than a week for Hippias, and then began to languish.
+The poor Dyspepsy's eager grasp at beatification
+relaxed: he went underground again. He announced that
+he felt "spongy things"&mdash;one of the more constant throes
+of his malady. His bitter face recurred: he chewed the
+cud of horrid hallucinations. He told Richard he must
+give up going about with him: people telling of their
+ailments made him so uncomfortable&mdash;the birds were so
+noisy, pairing&mdash;the rude bare soil sickened him.</p>
+
+<p>Richard treated him with a gravity equal to his father's.
+He asked what the doctors said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! the doctors!" cried Hippias with vehement scepticism.
+"No man of sense believes in medicine for chronic
+disorder. Do you happen to have heard of any new remedy
+then, Richard? No? They advertise a great many cures
+for indigestion, I assure you, my dear boy. I wonder
+whether one can rely upon the authenticity of those signatures?
+I see no reason why there should be <i>no</i> cure for
+such a disease?&mdash;Eh? And it's just one of the things a
+quack, as they call them, would hit upon sooner than one
+who is in the beaten track. Do you know, Richard, my
+dear boy, I've often thought that if we could by any means
+appropriate to our use some of the extraordinary digestive
+power that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices,
+there is really no manner of reason why we should not
+comfortably dispose of as much of an ox as our stomachs
+will hold, and one might eat French dishes without the
+wretchedness of thinking what's to follow. And this
+makes me think that those fellows <i>may</i>, after all, have
+got some truth in them: some secret that, of course, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>
+require to be paid for. We distrust each other in this
+world too much, Richard. I've felt inclined once or
+twice&mdash;but it's absurd!&mdash;If it only alleviated a few of my
+sufferings <i>I</i> should be satisfied. I've no hesitation in
+saying that I should be quite satisfied if it only did
+away with one or two, and left me free to eat and drink
+as other people do. Not that I mean to try them. It's
+only a fancy&mdash;Eh? What a thing health is, my dear boy!
+Ah! if I were like you! I was in love once!"</p>
+
+<p>"Were you!" said Richard, coolly regarding him.</p>
+
+<p>"I've forgotten what I felt!" Hippias sighed. "You've
+very much improved, my dear boy."</p>
+
+<p>"So people say," quoth Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias looked at him anxiously: "If I go to town and
+get the doctor's opinion, about trying a new course&mdash;Eh,
+Richard? will you come with me? I should like your company.
+We could see London together, you know. Enjoy
+ourselves," and Hippias rubbed his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Richard smiled at the feeble glimmer of enjoyment
+promised by his uncle's eyes, and said he thought it better
+they should stay where they were&mdash;an answer that might
+mean anything. Hippias immediately became possessed
+by the beguiling project. He went to the baronet, and put
+the matter before him, instancing doctors as the object
+of his journey, not quacks, of course; and requesting leave
+to take Richard. Sir Austin was getting uneasy about
+his son's manner. It was not natural. His heart seemed
+to be frozen: he had no confidences: he appeared to have no
+ambition&mdash;to have lost the virtues of youth with the
+poison that had passed out of him. He was disposed to
+try what effect a little travelling might have on him, and
+had himself once or twice hinted to Richard that it would
+be good for him to move about, the young man quietly
+replying that he did not wish to quit Raynham at all,
+which was too strict a fulfilment of his father's original
+views in educating him there entirely. On the day that
+Hippias made his proposal, Adrian, seconded by Lady
+Blandish, also made one. The sweet Spring season stirred
+in Adrian as well as in others: not to pastoral measures:
+to the joys of the operatic world and bravura glories. He
+also suggested that it would be advisable to carry Richard
+to town for a term, and let him know his position, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>
+some freedom. Sir Austin weighed the two proposals.
+He was pretty certain that Richard's passion was consumed,
+and that the youth was now only under the burden
+of its ashes. He had found against his heart, at the Bellingham
+inn: a great lock of golden hair. He had taken
+it, and the lover, after feeling about for it with faint
+hands, never asked for it. This precious lock (Miss
+Davenport had thrust it into his hand at Belthorpe as
+Lucy's last gift), what sighs and tears it had weathered!
+The baronet laid it in Richard's sight one day, and beheld
+him take it up, turn it over, and drop it down again
+calmly, as if he were handling any common curiosity.
+It pacified him on that score. The young man's love was
+dead. Dr. Clifford said rightly: he wanted distractions.
+The baronet determined that Richard should go. Hippias
+and Adrian then pressed their several suits as to which
+should have him. Hippias, when he could forget himself,
+did not lack sense. He observed that Adrian was not at
+present a proper companion for Richard, and would teach
+him to look on life from the false point.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't understand a young philosopher," said the
+baronet.</p>
+
+<p>"A young philosopher's an old fool!" returned Hippias,
+not thinking that his growl had begotten a phrase.</p>
+
+<p>His brother smiled with gratification, and applauded
+him loudly: "Excellent! worthy of your best days! You're
+wrong, though, in applying it to Adrian. He has never
+been precocious. All he has done has been to bring sound
+common sense to bear upon what he hears and sees. I
+think, however," the baronet added, "he may want faith
+in the better qualities of men." And this reflection inclined
+him not to let his son be alone with Adrian. He
+gave Richard his choice, who saw which way his father's
+wishes tended, and decided so to please him. Naturally
+it annoyed Adrian extremely. He said to his chief:</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you know what you are doing, sir. I don't
+see that we derive any advantage from the family name
+being made notorious for twenty years of obscene suffering,
+and becoming a byword for our constitutional tendency
+to stomachic distention before we fortunately encountered
+Quackem's Pill. My uncle's tortures have been
+huge, but I would rather society were not intimate with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>
+them under their several headings." Adrian enumerated
+some of the most abhorrent. "You know him, sir. If he
+conceives a duty, he will do it in the face of every decency&mdash;all
+the more obstinate because the conception is rare.
+If he feels a little brisk the morning after the pill, he
+sends the letter that makes us famous! We go down to
+posterity with heightened characteristics, to say nothing
+of a contemporary celebrity nothing less than our being
+turned inside-out to the rabble. I confess I don't desire
+to have my machinery made bare to them."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin assured the wise youth that Hippias had arranged
+to go to Dr. Bairam. He softened Adrian's
+chagrin by telling him that in about two weeks they
+would follow to London: hinting also at a prospective
+Summer campaign. The day was fixed for Richard to
+depart, and the day came. Madame the Eighteenth Century
+called him to her chamber and put into his hand
+a fifty-pound note, as her contribution toward his pocket-expenses.
+He did not want it, he said, but she told him
+he was a young man, and would soon make that fly when
+he stood on his own feet. The old lady did not at all
+approve of the System in her heart, and she gave her
+grand-nephew to understand that, should he require more,
+he knew where to apply, and secrets would be kept. His
+father presented him with a hundred pounds&mdash;which also
+Richard said he did not want&mdash;he did not care for money.
+"Spend it or not," said the baronet, perfectly secure in
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias had few injunctions to observe. They were to
+take up quarters at the hotel, Algernon's general run of
+company at the house not being altogether wholesome.
+The baronet particularly forewarned Hippias of the imprudence
+of attempting to restrict the young man's movements,
+and letting him imagine he was under surveillance.
+Richard having been, as it were, pollarded by despotism,
+was now to grow up straight, and bloom again, in complete
+independence, as far as he could feel. So did the sage
+decree; and we may pause a moment to reflect how wise
+were his previsions, and how successful they must have
+been, had not Fortune, the great foe to human cleverness,
+turned against him, or he against himself.</p>
+
+<p>The departure took place on a fine March morning. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>
+bird of Winter sang from the budding tree; in the blue
+sky sang the bird of Summer. Adrian rode between Richard
+and Hippias to the Bellingham station, and vented
+his disgust on them after his own humorous fashion,
+because it did not rain and damp their ardour. In the
+rear came Lady Blandish and the baronet, conversing on
+the calm summit of success.</p>
+
+<p>"You have shaped him exactly to resemble yourself,"
+she said, pointing with her riding-whip to the grave,
+stately figure of the young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Outwardly, perhaps," he answered, and led to a discussion
+on Purity and Strength, the lady saying that she
+preferred Purity.</p>
+
+<p>"But you do not," said the baronet. "And there I admire
+the always true instinct of women, that they all
+worship Strength in whatever form, and seem to know it
+to be the child of heaven; whereas Purity is but a characteristic,
+a garment, and can be spotted&mdash;how soon! For
+there are questions in this life with which we must grapple
+or be lost, and when, hunted by that cold eye of intense
+inner-consciousness, the clearest soul becomes a cunning
+fox, if it have not courage to stand and do battle.
+Strength indicates a boundless nature&mdash;like the Maker.
+Strength is a God to you&mdash;Purity a toy. A pretty one,
+and you seem to be fond of playing with it," he added,
+with unaccustomed slyness.</p>
+
+<p>The lady listened, pleased at the sportive malice which
+showed that the constraint on his mind had left him. It
+was for women to fight their fight now; she only took part
+in it for amusement. This is how the ranks of our
+enemies are thinned; no sooner do poor women put up a
+champion in their midst than she betrays them.</p>
+
+<p>"I see," she said archly, "we are the lovelier vessels;
+you claim the more direct descent. Men are seedlings:
+Women&mdash;slips! Nay, you have said so," she cried out at
+his gestured protestation, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"But I never printed it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! what you speak answers for print with me."</p>
+
+<p>Exquisite Blandish! He could not choose but love her.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me what are your plans?" she asked. "May a
+woman know?"</p>
+
+<p>He replied, "I have none or you would share them. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>
+shall study him in the world. This indifference must wear
+off. I shall mark his inclinations now, and he shall be
+what he inclines to. Occupation will be his prime safety.
+His cousin Austin's plan of life appears most to his taste,
+and he can serve the people that way as well as in Parliament,
+should he have no stronger ambition. The clear
+duty of a man of any wealth is to serve the people as he
+best can. He shall go among Austin's set, if he wishes
+it, though personally I find no pleasure in rash imaginations,
+and undigested schemes built upon the mere instinct
+of principles."</p>
+
+<p>"Look at him now," said the lady. "He seems to care
+for nothing; not even for the beauty of the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Or Adrian's jokes," added the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian could be seen to be trying zealously to torment
+a laugh, or a confession of irritation, out of his hearers,
+stretching out his chin to one, and to the other, with
+audible asides. Richard he treated as a new instrument
+of destruction about to be let loose on the slumbering
+metropolis; Hippias as one in an interesting condition;
+and he got so much fun out of the notion of these two
+journeying together, and the mishaps that might occur
+to them, that he esteemed it almost a personal insult for
+his hearers not to laugh. The wise youth's dull life at
+Raynham had afflicted him with many peculiarities of the
+professional joker.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! the Spring! the Spring!" he cried, as in scorn of
+his sallies they exchanged their unmeaning remarks on the
+sweet weather across him. "You seem both to be uncommonly
+excited by the operations of turtles, rooks, and daws.
+Why can't you let them alone?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Wind bloweth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Cock croweth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Doodle-doo;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hippy verteth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ricky sterteth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sing Cuckoo!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>There's an old native pastoral!&mdash;Why don't you write a
+Spring sonnet, Ricky? The asparagus-beds are full of
+promise, I hear, and eke the strawberry. Berries I fancy
+your Pegasus has a taste for. What kind of berry was that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>
+I saw some verses of yours about once?&mdash;amatory verses
+to some kind of berry&mdash;yewberry, blueberry, glueberry!
+Pretty verses, decidedly warm. Lips, eyes, bosom, legs&mdash;legs?
+I don't think you gave her any legs. No legs and
+no nose. That appears to be the poetic taste of the day.
+It shall be admitted that you create the very beauties for a
+chaste people.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'O might I lie where leans her lute!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and offend no moral community. That's not a bad image
+of yours, my dear boy:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Her shape is like an antelope<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the Eastern hills.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But as a candid critic, I would ask you if the likeness can
+be considered correct when you give her no legs? You will
+see at the ballet that you are in error about women at
+present, Richard. That admirable institution which our
+venerable elders have imported from Gallia for the instruction
+of our gaping youth, will edify and astonish you. I
+assure you I used, from reading <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, to
+imagine all sorts of things about them, till I was taken
+there, and learnt that they are very like us after all, and
+then they ceased to trouble me. Mystery is the great
+danger to youth, my son! Mystery is woman's redoubtable
+weapon, O Richard of the Ordeal! I'm aware that you've
+had your lessons in anatomy, but nothing will persuade
+you that an anatomical figure means flesh and blood. You
+can't realize the fact. Do you intend to publish when
+you're in town? It'll be better not to put your name.
+Having one's name to a volume of poems is as bad as to
+an advertising pill."</p>
+
+<p>"I will send you an early copy, Adrian, when I publish,"
+quoth Richard. "Hark at that old blackbird, uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" Hippias quavered, looking up from the usual
+subject of his contemplation, and trying to take an interest
+in him, "fine old fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>"What a chuckle he gives out before he flies! Not
+unlike July nightingales. You know that bird I told
+you of&mdash;the blackbird that had its mate shot, and used
+to come to sing to old Dame Bakewell's bird from the tree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>
+opposite. A rascal knocked it over the day before yesterday,
+and the dame says her bird hasn't sung a note
+since."</p>
+
+<p>"Extraordinary!" Hippias muttered abstractedly. "I
+remember the verses."</p>
+
+<p>"But where's your moral?" interposed the wrathful
+Adrian. "Where's constancy rewarded?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'The ouzel-cock so black of hue,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The orange-tawny bill;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The rascal with his aim so true;<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The Poet's little quill!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Where's the moral of that? except that all's game to the
+poet! Certainly we have a noble example of the devotedness
+of the female, who for three entire days refuses to
+make herself heard, on account of a defunct male. I
+suppose that's what Ricky dwells on."</p>
+
+<p>"As you please, my dear Adrian," says Richard, and
+points out larch-buds to his uncle, as they ride by the
+young green wood.</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth was driven to extremity. Such a lapse
+from his pupil's heroics to this last verge of Arcadian coolness,
+Adrian could not believe in. "Hark at this old
+blackbird!" he cried, in his turn, and pretending to, interpret
+his fits of song:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a pretty comedy!&mdash;Don't we wear the mask
+well, my Fiesco?&mdash;Genoa will be our own to-morrow!&mdash;Only
+wait until the train has started&mdash;jolly! jolly! jolly!
+We'll be winners yet!</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bad verse&mdash;eh, Ricky? my Lucius Junius!"</p>
+
+<p>"You do the blackbird well," said Richard, and looked
+at him in a manner mildly affable.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian shrugged. "You're a young man of wonderful
+powers," he emphatically observed; meaning to say that
+Richard quite beat him; for which opinion Richard
+gravely thanked him, and with this they rode into Bellingham.</p>
+
+<p>There was young Tom Blaize at the station, in his Sunday
+beaver and gala waistcoat and neck-cloth, coming the
+lord over Tom Bakewell, who had preceded his master in
+charge of the baggage. He likewise was bound for London.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+Richard, as he was dismounting, heard Adrian say
+to the baronet: "The Beast, sir, appears to be going to
+fetch Beauty;" but he paid no heed to the words.
+Whether young Tom heard them or not, Adrian's look
+took the lord out of him, and he shrunk away into obscurity,
+where the nearest approach to the fashions which
+the tailors of Bellingham could supply to him, sat upon
+him more easily, and he was not stiffened by the eyes of
+the superiors whom he sought to rival. The baronet, Lady
+Blandish, and Adrian remained on horseback, and received
+Richard's adieux across the palings. He shook hands with
+each of them in the same kindly cold way, eliciting from
+Adrian a marked encomium on his style of doing it. The
+train came up, and Richard stepped after his uncle into
+one of the carriages.</p>
+
+<p>Now surely there will come an age when the presentation
+of science at war with Fortune and the Fates will
+be deemed the true epic of modern life; and the aspect of
+a scientific humanist who, by dint of incessant watchfulness,
+has maintained a System against those active forces,
+cannot be reckoned less than sublime, even though at the
+moment he but sit upon his horse, on a fine March morning
+such as this, and smile wistfully to behold the son
+of his heart, his System incarnate, wave a serene adieu to
+tutelage, neither too eager nor morbidly unwilling to try
+his luck alone for a term of two weeks. At present, I am
+aware, an audience impatient for blood and glory scorns
+the stress I am putting on incidents so minute, a picture
+so little imposing. An audience will come to whom it will
+be given to see the elementary machinery at work: who,
+as it were, from some slight hint of the straws, will feel
+the winds of March when they do not blow. To them will
+nothing be trivial, seeing that they will have in their eyes
+the invisible conflict going on around us, whose features
+a nod, a smile, a laugh of ours perpetually changes. And
+they will perceive, moreover, that in real life all hangs
+together: the train is laid in the lifting of an eyebrow,
+that bursts upon the field of thousands. They will see
+the links of things as they pass, and wonder not, as foolish
+people now do, that this great matter came out of that
+small one.</p>
+
+<p>Such an audience, then, will participate in the baronet's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>
+gratification at his son's demeanour, wherein he noted the
+calm bearing of experience not gained in the usual wanton
+way: and will not be without some excited apprehension
+at his twinge of astonishment, when, just as the train
+went sliding into swiftness, he beheld the grave, cold,
+self-possessed young man throw himself back in the carriage
+violently laughing. Science was at a loss to account
+for that. Sir Austin checked his mind from inquiring,
+that he might keep suspicion at a distance, but he thought
+it odd, and the jarring sensation that ran along his nerves
+at the sight, remained with him as he rode home.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish's tender womanly intuition bade her say:
+"You see it was the very thing he wanted. He has got his
+natural spirits already."</p>
+
+<p>"It was," Adrian put in his word, "the exact thing he
+wanted. His spirits have returned miraculously."</p>
+
+<p>"Something amused him," said the baronet, with an eye
+on the puffing train.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably something his uncle said or did," Lady Blandish
+suggested, and led off at a gallop.</p>
+
+<p>Her conjecture chanced to be quite correct. The cause
+for Richard's laughter was simple enough. Hippias, on
+finding the carriage-door closed on him, became all at once
+aware of the bright-haired hope which dwells in Change,
+for one who does not woo her too frequently; and to express
+his sudden relief from mental despondency at the
+amorous prospect, the Dyspepsy bent and gave his hands
+a sharp rub between his legs: which unlucky action
+brought Adrian's pastoral,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hippy verteth,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Sing cuckoo!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>in such comic colours before Richard, that a demon of
+laughter seized him.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Hippy verteth!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Every time he glanced at his uncle the song sprang up,
+and he laughed so immoderately that it looked like madness
+come upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, why, why, what are you laughing at, my dear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>
+boy," said Hippias, and was provoked by the contagious
+exercise to a modest "ha! ha!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what are <i>you</i> laughing at, uncle?" cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know," Hippias chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I, uncle! Sing, cuckoo!"</p>
+
+<p>They laughed themselves into the pleasantest mood
+imaginable. Hippias not only came above-ground, he flew
+about in the very skies, <i>verting</i> like any blithe creature of
+the season. He remembered old legal jokes, and anecdotes
+of Circuit; and Richard laughed at them all, but more at
+him&mdash;he was so genial, and childishly fresh, and innocently
+joyful at his own transformation, while a lurking
+doubt in the bottom of his eyes, now and then, that it
+might not last, and that he must go underground again,
+lent him a look of pathos and humour which tickled his
+youthful companion irresistibly, and made his heart warm
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you what, uncle," said Richard, "I think travelling's
+a capital thing."</p>
+
+<p>"The best thing in the world, my dear boy," Hippias
+returned. "It makes me wish I had given up that Work
+of mine, and tried it before, instead of chaining myself
+to a task. We're quite different beings in a minute. I
+am. Hem! what shall we have for dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Leave that to me, uncle. I shall order for you. You
+know, I intend to make you well. How gloriously we go
+along! I should like to ride on a railway every day."</p>
+
+<p>Hippias remarked: "They say it rather injures the digestion."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! see how you'll digest to-night and to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I shall do something yet," sighed Hippias,
+alluding to the vast literary fame he had aforetime
+dreamed of. "I hope I shall have a good night to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you will! What! after laughing like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" Hippias grunted, "I daresay, Richard, you sleep
+the moment you get into bed!"</p>
+
+<p>"The instant my head's on my pillow, and up the
+moment I wake. Health's everything!"</p>
+
+<p>"Health's everything!" echoed Hippias, from his immense
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>"And if you'll put yourself in my hands," Richard continued,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>
+"you shall do just as I do. You shall be well and
+strong, and sing 'Jolly!' like Adrian's blackbird. You
+shall, upon my honour, uncle!"</p>
+
+<p>He specified the hours of devotion to his uncle's recovery&mdash;no
+less than twelve a day&mdash;that he intended to expend,
+and his cheery robustness almost won his uncle to
+leap up recklessly and clutch health as his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Mind," quoth Hippias, with a half-seduced smile,
+"mind your dishes are not too savoury!"</p>
+
+<p>"Light food and claret! Regular meals and amusement!
+Lend your heart to all, but give it to none!" exclaims
+young Wisdom, and Hippias mutters, "Yes! yes!" and
+intimates that the origin of his malady lay in his not following
+that maxim earlier.</p>
+
+<p>"Love ruins us, my dear boy," he said, thinking to
+preach Richard a lesson, and Richard boisterously broke
+out&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"The love of Monsieur Francatelli,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">It was the ruin of&mdash;<i>et cætera</i>."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Hippias blinked, exclaiming, "Really, my dear boy! I
+never saw you so excited."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the railway! It's the fun, uncle!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" Hippias wagged a melancholy head, "you've got
+the Golden Bride! Keep her if you can. That's a pretty
+fable of your father's. I gave him the idea, though.
+Austin filches a great many of my ideas!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the idea in verse, uncle&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'O sunless walkers by the tide!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O have you seen the Golden Bride!<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">They say that she is fair beyond<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">All women; faithful, and more fond!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>You know, the young inquirer comes to a group of penitent
+sinners by the brink of a stream. They howl, and
+answer:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i1">'Faithful she is, but she forsakes:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And fond, yet endless woe she makes:<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And fair! but with this curse she's cross'd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To know her not till she is lost!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>
+Then the doleful party march off in single file solemnly,
+and the fabulist pursues&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'She hath a palace in the West:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bright Hesper lights her to her rest:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And him the Morning Star awakes<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whom to her charmed arms she takes.<br /></span>
+</div>
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'So lives he till he sees, alas!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The maids of baser metal pass.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>And prodigal of the happiness she lends him, he asks to
+share it with one of them. There is the Silver Maid, and
+the Copper, and the Brassy Maid, and others of them.
+First, you know, he tries Argentine, and finds her only
+twenty to the pound, and has a worse experience with
+Copperina, till he descends to the scullery; and the lower
+he goes, the less obscure become the features of his Bride
+of Gold, and all her radiance shines forth, my uncle!"</p>
+
+<p>"Verse rather blunts the point. Well, keep to her, now
+you've got her," says Hippias.</p>
+
+<p>"We will, uncle! Look how the farms fly past! Look
+at the cattle in the fields! And how the lines duck, and
+swim up!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'She claims the whole, and not the part&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The coin of an unusëd heart!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To gain his Golden Bride again,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">He hunts with melancholy men,'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>&mdash;and is waked no longer by the Morning Star!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if he doesn't sleep till an hour before it rises!"
+Hippias interjected. "You don't rhyme badly. But stick
+to prose. Poetry's a Base-metal maid. I'm not sure that
+any writing's good for the digestion. I'm afraid it has
+spoilt mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Fear nothing, uncle!" laughed Richard. "You shall
+ride in the park with me every day to get an appetite.
+You and I and the Golden Bride. You know that little
+poem of Sandoe's?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'She rides in the park on a prancing bay,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">She and her squires together;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Her dark locks gleam from a bonnet of grey,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And toss with the tossing feather.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a><br /></span>
+<span class="i0">'Too calmly proud for a glance of pride<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Is the beautiful face as it passes;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The cockneys nod to each other aside,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The coxcombs lift their glasses.<br /></span>
+<br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'And throng to her, sigh to her, you that can breach<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">The ice-wall that guards her securely;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You have not such bliss, though she smile on you each,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As the heart that can image her purely.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Wasn't Sandoe once a friend of my father's? I suppose
+they quarrelled. He understands the heart. What does
+he make his 'Humble Lover' say?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'True, Madam, you may think to part<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Conditions by a glacier-ridge,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But Beauty's for the largest heart,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And all abysses Love can bridge!'"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Hippias now laughed; grimly, as men laugh at the
+emptiness of words.</p>
+
+<p>"Largest heart!" he sneered. "What's a 'glacier-ridge'?
+I've never seen one. I can't deny it rhymes with 'bridge.'
+But don't go parading your admiration of that person,
+Richard. Your father will speak to you on the subject
+when he thinks fit."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought they had quarrelled," said Richard. "What
+a pity!" and he murmured to a pleased ear:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Beauty's for the largest heart!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The flow of their conversation was interrupted by the
+entrance of passengers at a station. Richard examined
+their faces with pleasure. All faces pleased him. Human
+nature sat tributary at the feet of him and his Golden
+Bride. As he could not well talk his thoughts before them,
+he looked out at the windows, and enjoyed the changing
+landscape, projecting all sorts of delights for his old friend
+Ripton, and musing hazily on the wondrous things he was
+to do in the world; of the great service he was to be to
+his fellow-creatures. In the midst of his reveries he was
+landed in London. Tom Bakewell stood at the carriage
+door. A glance told Richard that his squire had something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>
+curious on his mind, and he gave Tom the word
+to speak out. Tom edged his master out of hearing, and
+began sputtering a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Dash'd if I can help it, sir!" he said. "That young
+Tom! He've come to town dressed that spicy! and he
+don't know his way about no more than a stag. He's come
+to fetch somebody from another rail, and he don't know
+how to get there, and he ain't sure about which rail 'tis.
+Look at him, Mr. Richard! There he goes."</p>
+
+<p>Young Tom appeared to have the weight of all London
+on his beaver.</p>
+
+<p>"Who has he come for?" Richard asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know, sir? You don't like me to mention
+the name," mumbled Tom, bursting to be perfectly intelligible.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it for her, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Lucy, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Richard turned away, and was seized by Hippias, who
+begged him to get out of the noise and pother, and caught
+hold of his slack arm to bear him into a conveyance; but
+Richard, by wheeling half to the right, or left, always got
+his face round to the point where young Tom was man[oe]uvring
+to appear at his ease. Even when they were seated
+in the conveyance, Hippias could not persuade him to drive
+off. He made the excuse that he did not wish to start till
+there was a clear road. At last young Tom cast anchor
+by a policeman, and, doubtless at the official's suggestion,
+bashfully took seat in a cab, and was shot into the whirlpool
+of London. Richard then angrily asked his driver
+what he was waiting for.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill, my boy?" said Hippias. "Where's your
+colour?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed oddly, and made a random answer that he
+hoped the fellow would drive fast.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate slow motion after being in the railway," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias assured him there was something the matter
+with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, uncle! nothing!" said Richard, looking
+fiercely candid.</p>
+
+<p>They say, that when the skill and care of men rescue
+a drowned wretch from extinction, and warm the flickering
+spirit into steady flame, such pain it is, the blood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>
+forcing its way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking
+nerves, and the sullen heart&mdash;the struggle of life
+and death in him&mdash;grim death relaxing his gripe; such
+pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him
+by inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who
+has thought a love extinct, and is surprised by the old
+fires, and the old tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight
+clear of the cloud of forgotten sensations that settle on
+him; such pain it is, the old sweet music reviving through
+his frame, and the charm of his passion fixing him afresh.
+Still was fair Lucy the one woman to Richard. He had
+forbidden her name but from an instinct of self-defence.
+Must the maids of baser metal dominate him anew, it is
+in Lucy's shape. Thinking of her now so near him&mdash;his
+darling! all her graces, her sweetness, her truth; for,
+despite his bitter blame of her, he knew her true&mdash;swam
+in a thousand visions before his eyes; visions pathetic,
+and full of glory, that now wrung his heart, and now
+elated it. As well might a ship attempt to calm the sea,
+as this young man the violent emotion that began to rage
+in his breast. "I shall not see her!" he said to himself
+exultingly, and at the same instant thought, how black
+was every corner of the earth but that one spot where
+Lucy stood! how utterly cheerless the place he was going
+to! Then he determined to bear it; to live in darkness;
+there was a refuge in the idea of a voluntary martyrdom.
+"For if I chose I could see her&mdash;this day within an hour!&mdash;I
+could see her, and touch her hand, and, oh, heaven!&mdash;But
+I do not choose." And a great wave swelled through
+him, and was crushed down only to swell again more
+stormily.</p>
+
+<p>Then Tom Bakewell's words recurred to him that young
+Tom Blaize was uncertain where to go for her, and that
+she might be thrown on this Babylon alone. And flying
+from point to point, it struck him that they had known
+at Raynham of her return, and had sent him to town to
+be out of the way&mdash;they had been miserably plotting
+against him once more. "They shall see what right they
+have to fear me. I'll shame them!" was the first turn
+taken by his wrathful feelings, as he resolved to go, and
+see her safe, and calmly return to his uncle, whom he
+sincerely believed not to be one of the conspirators.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>
+Nevertheless, after forming that resolve, he sat still, as
+if there was something fatal in the wheels that bore him
+away from it&mdash;perhaps because he knew, as some do when
+passion is lord, that his intelligence juggled with him;
+though none the less keenly did he feel his wrongs and
+suspicions. His Golden Bride was waning fast. But
+when Hippias ejaculated to cheer him: "We shall soon
+be there!" the spell broke. Richard stopped the cab,
+saying he wanted to speak to Tom, and would ride with
+him the rest of the journey. He knew well enough which
+line of railway his Lucy must come by. He had studied
+every town and station on the line. Before his uncle
+could express more than a mute remonstrance, he jumped
+out and hailed Tom Bakewell, who came behind with the
+boxes and baggage in a companion cab, his head a yard
+beyond the window to make sure of his ark of safety, the
+vehicle preceding.</p>
+
+<p>"What an extraordinary, impetuous boy it is," said Hippias.
+"We're in the very street!"</p>
+
+<p>Within a minute the stalwart Berry, despatched by the
+baronet to arrange everything for their comfort, had
+opened the door, and made his bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Richard, sir?&mdash;evaporated?" was Berry's modulated
+inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"Behind&mdash;among the boxes, fool!" Hippias growled, as
+he received Berry's muscular assistance to alight. "Lunch
+ready&mdash;eh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Luncheon was ordered precise at two o'clock, sir&mdash;been
+in attendance one quarter of an hour. Heah!" Berry sang
+out to the second cab, which, with its pyramid of luggage,
+remained stationary some thirty paces distant. At his
+voice the majestic pile deliberately turned its back on
+them, and went off in a contrary direction.</p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the stroke of the hour when Ripton Thompson was
+accustomed to consult his good watch for practical purposes,
+and sniff freedom and the forthcoming dinner, a
+burglarious foot entered the clerk's office where he sat,
+and a man of a scowling countenance, who looked a villain,
+and whom he was afraid he knew, slid a letter into his
+hands, nodding that it would be prudent for him to read,
+and be silent. Ripton obeyed in alarm. Apparently the
+contents of the letter relieved his conscience; for he
+reached down his hat, and told Mr. Beazley to inform his
+father that he had business of pressing importance in the
+West, and should meet him at the station. Mr. Beazley
+zealously waited upon the paternal Thompson without
+delay, and together making their observations from the
+window, they beheld a cab of many boxes, into which
+Ripton darted and was followed by one in groom's dress.
+It was Saturday, the day when Ripton gave up his law-readings,
+magnanimously to bestow himself upon his
+family, and Mr. Thompson liked to have his son's arm as
+he walked down to the station; but that third glass of
+Port which always stood for his second, and the groom's
+suggestion of aristocratic acquaintances, prevented Mr.
+Thompson from interfering: so Ripton was permitted to
+depart.</p>
+
+<p>In the cab Ripton made a study of the letter he held.
+It had the preciseness of an imperial mandate.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Ripton</span>,&mdash;You are to get lodgings for a lady
+immediately. Not a word to a soul. Then come along
+with Tom.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:right">R. D. F."
+</p></blockquote><br />
+
+<p>"Lodgings for a lady!" Ripton meditated aloud: "What
+sort of lodgings? Where am I to get lodgings? Who's
+the lady?&mdash;I say!" he addressed the mysterious messenger.
+"So you're Tom Bakewell, are you, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom grinned his identity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the rick, Tom? Ha! ha! We got
+out of that neatly. We might all have been transported,
+though. I could have convicted you, Tom, safe! It's no
+use coming across a practised lawyer. Now tell me."
+Ripton having nourished his powers, commenced his examination:
+"Who's this lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"Better wait till you see Mr. Richard, sir," Tom resumed
+his scowl to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" Ripton acquiesced. "Is she young, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom said she was not old.</p>
+
+<p>"Handsome, Tom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some might think one thing, some another," Tom
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"And where does she come from now?" asked Ripton
+with the friendly cheerfulness of a baffled counsellor.</p>
+
+<p>"Comes from the country, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"A friend of the family, I suppose? a relation?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton left this insinuating query to be answered by a
+look. Tom's face was a dead blank.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" Ripton took a breath, and eyed the mask opposite
+him. "Why, you're quite a scholar, Tom! Mr.
+Richard is well? All right at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come to town this mornin' with his uncle," said Tom.
+"All well, thank ye, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" cried Ripton, more than ever puzzled, "now I
+see. You all came to town to-day, and these are your
+boxes outside. So, so! But Mr. Richard writes for me to
+get lodgings for a lady. There must be some mistake&mdash;he
+wrote in a hurry. He wants lodgings for you all&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"'M sure I d'n know what he wants," said Tom. "You'd
+better go by the letter, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton re-consulted that document. "'Lodgings for a
+lady, and then come along with Tom. Not a word to a
+soul.' I say! that looks like&mdash;but he never cared for
+<i>them</i>. You don't mean to say, Tom, he's been running
+away with anybody?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom fell back upon his first reply: "Better wait till ye
+see Mr. Richard, sir," and Ripton exclaimed: "Hanged if
+you ain't the tightest witness I ever saw! I shouldn't
+like to have you in a box. Some of you country fellows
+beat any number of cockneys. You do!"</p>
+
+<p>Tom received the compliment stubbornly on his guard,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>
+and Ripton, as nothing was to be got out of him, set about
+considering how to perform his friend's injunctions; deciding
+firstly, that a lady fresh from the country ought to
+lodge near the parks, in which direction he told the cabman
+to drive. Thus, unaware of his high destiny, Ripton
+joined the hero, and accepted his character in the New
+Comedy.</p>
+
+<p>It is, nevertheless, true that certain favoured people do
+have beneficent omens to prepare them for their parts
+when the hero is in full career, so that they really may
+be nerved to meet him; ay, and to check him in his course,
+had they that signal courage. For instance, Mrs. Elizabeth
+Berry, a ripe and wholesome landlady of advertised
+lodgings, on the borders of Kensington, noted, as she sat
+rocking her contemplative person before the parlour fire
+this very March afternoon, a supernatural tendency in
+that fire to burn <i>all on one side</i>: which signifies that a
+wedding approaches the house. Why&mdash;who shall say?
+Omens are as impassable as heroes. It may be because in
+these affairs the fire is thought to be all on one side.
+Enough that the omen exists, and spoke its solemn warning
+to the devout woman. Mrs. Berry, in her circle, was
+known as a certified lecturer against the snares of matrimony.
+Still that was no reason why she should not like a
+wedding. Expectant, therefore, she watched the one glowing
+cheek of Hymen, and with pleasing tremours beheld
+a cab of many boxes draw up by her bit of garden, and a
+gentleman emerge from it in the act of consulting an advertisement
+paper. The gentleman required lodgings for
+a lady. Lodgings for a lady Mrs. Berry could produce,
+and a very roseate smile for a gentleman; so much so that
+Ripton forgot to ask about the terms, which made the
+landlady in Mrs. Berry leap up to embrace him as the
+happy man. But her experienced woman's eye checked
+her enthusiasm. He had not the air of a bridegroom:
+he did not seem to have a weight on his chest, or an itch
+to twiddle everything with his fingers. At any rate, he
+was not the bridegroom for whom omens fly abroad.
+Promising to have all ready for the lady within an hour,
+Mrs. Berry fortified him with her card, curtsied him back
+to his cab, and floated him off on her smiles.</p>
+
+<p>The remarkable vehicle which had woven this thread of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>
+intrigue through London streets, now proceeded sedately
+to finish its operations. Ripton was landed at a hotel in
+Westminster. Ere he was half-way up the stairs, a door
+opened, and his old comrade in adventure rushed down.
+Richard allowed up time for salutations. "Have you done
+it?" was all he asked. For answer Ripton handed him
+Mrs. Berry's card. Richard took it, and left him standing
+there. Five minutes elapsed, and then Ripton heard the
+gracious rustle of feminine garments above. Richard
+came a little in advance, leading and half supporting a
+figure in a black-silk mantle and small black straw bonnet;
+young&mdash;that was certain, though she held her veil so close
+he could hardly catch the outlines of her face; girlishly
+slender, and sweet and simple in appearance. The hush
+that came with her, and her soft manner of moving, stirred
+the silly youth to some of those ardours that awaken the
+Knight of Dames in our bosoms. He felt that he would
+have given considerable sums for her to lift her veil. He
+could see that she was trembling&mdash;perhaps weeping. It
+was the master of her fate she clung to. They passed
+him without speaking. As she went by, her head passively
+bent, Ripton had a glimpse of noble tresses and a lovely
+neck; great golden curls hung loosely behind, pouring
+from under her bonnet. She looked a captive borne to the
+sacrifice. What Ripton, after a sight of those curls, would
+have given for her just to lift her veil an instant and
+strike him blind with beauty, was, fortunately for his
+exchequer, never demanded of him. And he had absolutely
+been composing speeches as he came along in the
+cab! gallant speeches for the lady, and sly congratulatory
+ones for his friend, to be delivered as occasion should
+serve, that both might know him a man of the world, and
+be at their ease. He forgot the smirking immoralities
+he had revelled in. This was clearly serious. Ripton did
+not require to be told that his friend was in love, and
+meant that life and death business called marriage, parents
+and guardians consenting or not.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Richard returned to him, and said hurriedly,
+"I want you now to go to my uncle at our hotel. Keep
+him quiet till I come. Say I had to see you&mdash;say anything.
+I shall be there by the dinner hour. Rip! I
+must talk to you alone after dinner."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ripton feebly attempted to reply that he was due at
+home. He was very curious to hear the plot of the New
+Comedy; and besides, there was Richard's face questioning
+him sternly and confidently for signs of unhesitating
+obedience. He finished his grimaces by asking the name
+and direction of the hotel. Richard pressed his hand.
+It is much to obtain even that recognition of our devotion
+from the hero.</p>
+
+<p>Tom Bakewell also received his priming, and, to judge
+by his chuckles and grins, rather appeared to enjoy the
+work cut out for him. In a few minutes they had driven
+to their separate destinations; Ripton was left to the unusual
+exercise of his fancy. Such is the nature of youth
+and its thirst for romance, that only to act as a subordinate
+is pleasant. When one unfurls the standard of defiance
+to parents and guardians, he may be sure of raising
+a lawless troop of adolescent ruffians, born rebels, to any
+amount. The beardless crew know that they have not a
+chance of pay; but what of that when the rosy prospect
+of thwarting their elders is in view? Though it is to see
+another eat the Forbidden Fruit, they will run all his
+risks with him. Gaily Ripton took rank as lieutenant
+in the enterprise, and the moment his heart had sworn
+the oaths, he was rewarded by an exquisite sense of the
+charms of existence. London streets wore a sly laugh to
+him. He walked with a dandified heel. The generous
+youth ogled aristocratic carriages, and glanced intimately
+at the ladies, overflowingly happy. The crossing-sweepers
+blessed him. He hummed lively tunes, he turned over
+old jokes in his mouth unctuously, he hugged himself, he
+had a mind to dance down Piccadilly, and all because a
+friend of his was running away with a pretty girl, and
+he was in the secret.</p>
+
+<p>It was only when he stood on the door-step of Richard's
+hotel, that his jocund mood was a little dashed by remembering
+that he had then to commence the duties of his
+office, and must fabricate a plausible story to account for
+what he knew nothing about&mdash;a part that the greatest
+of sages would find it difficult to perform. The young,
+however, whom sages well may envy, seldom fail in lifting
+their inventive faculties to the level of their spirits,
+and two minutes of Hippias's angry complaints against<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>
+the friend he serenely inquired for, gave Ripton his
+cue.</p>
+
+<p>"We're in the very street&mdash;within a stone's-throw of
+the house, and he jumps like a harlequin out of my cab
+into another; he must be mad&mdash;that boy's got madness in
+him!&mdash;and carries off all the boxes&mdash;my dinner-pills, too!
+and keeps away the whole of the day, though he promised
+to go to the doctor, and had a dozen engagements with
+me," said Hippias, venting an enraged snarl to sum up
+his grievances.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton at once told him that the doctor was not at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you don't mean to say he's been to the doctor?"
+Hippias cried out.</p>
+
+<p>"He has called on him twice, sir," said Ripton, expressively.
+"On leaving me he was going a third time. I
+shouldn't wonder that's what detains him&mdash;he's so determined."</p>
+
+<p>By fine degrees Ripton ventured to grow circumstantial,
+saying that Richard's case was urgent and required immediate
+medical advice; and that both he and his father
+were of opinion Richard should not lose an hour in obtaining
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"He's alarmed about himself," said Ripton, and tapped
+his chest.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias protested he had never heard a word from his
+nephew of any physical affliction.</p>
+
+<p>"He was afraid of making you anxious, I think, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon Feverel and Richard came in while he was
+hammering at the alphabet to recollect the first letter of
+the doctor's name. They had met in the hall below, and
+were laughing heartily as they entered the room. Ripton
+jumped up to get the initiative.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen the doctor?" he asked, significantly
+plucking at Richard's fingers.</p>
+
+<p>Richard was all abroad at the question.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon clapped him on the back. "What the deuce
+do you want with doctor, boy?"</p>
+
+<p>The solid thump awakened him to see matters as they
+were. "Oh, ay! the doctor!" he said, smiling frankly at
+his lieutenant. "Why, he tells me he'd back me to do
+Milo's trick in a week from the present day.&mdash;Uncle," he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>
+came forward to Hippias, "I hope you'll excuse me for
+running off as I did. I was in a hurry. I left something
+at the railway. This stupid Rip thinks I went to the
+doctor about myself. The fact was, I wanted to fetch
+the doctor to see you here&mdash;so that you might have no
+trouble, you know. You can't bear the sight of his instruments
+and skeletons&mdash;I've heard you say so. You
+said it set all your marrow in revolt&mdash;'fried your marrow,'
+I think were the words, and made you see twenty
+thousand different ways of sliding down to the chambers
+of the Grim King. Don't you remember?"</p>
+
+<p>Hippias emphatically did not remember, and he did not
+believe the story. Irritation at the mad ravishment of his
+pill-box rendered him incredulous. As he had no means
+of confuting his nephew, all he could do safely to express
+his disbelief in him, was to utter petulant remarks on his
+powerlessness to appear at the dinner-table that day: upon
+which&mdash;Berry just then trumpeting dinner&mdash;Algernon
+seized one arm of the Dyspepsy, and Richard another, and
+the laughing couple bore him into the room where dinner
+was laid, Ripton sniggering in the rear, the really happy
+man of the party.</p>
+
+<p>They had fun at the dinner-table. Richard would have
+it; and his gaiety, his by-play, his princely superiority to
+truth and heroic promise of over-riding all our laws, his
+handsome face, the lord and possessor of beauty that he
+looked, as it were a star shining on his forehead, gained
+the old complete mastery over Ripton, who had been,
+mentally at least, half patronizing him till then, because
+he knew more of London and life, and was aware that his
+friend now depended upon him almost entirely.</p>
+
+<p>After a second circle of the claret, the hero caught his
+lieutenant's eye across the table, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"We must go out and talk over that law-business, Rip,
+before you go. Do you think the old lady has any
+chance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit!" said Ripton, authoritatively.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's worth fighting&mdash;eh, Rip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, certainly!" was Ripton's mature opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Richard observed that Ripton's father seemed doubtful.
+Ripton cited his father's habitual caution. Richard made
+a playful remark on the necessity of sometimes acting in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>
+opposition to fathers. Ripton agreed to it&mdash;in certain
+cases.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! in certain cases," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty legal morality, gentlemen!" Algernon interjected;
+Hippias adding: "And lay, too!"</p>
+
+<p>The pair of uncles listened further to the fictitious dialogue,
+well kept up on both sides, and in the end desired
+a statement of the old lady's garrulous case; Hippias
+offering to decide what her chances were in law, and Algernon
+to give a common-sense judgment.</p>
+
+<p>"Rip will tell you," said Richard, deferentially signalling
+the lawyer. "I've a bad hand at these matters. Tell
+them how it stands, Rip."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton disguised his excessive uneasiness under endeavours
+to right his position on his chair, and, inwardly praying
+speed to the claret jug to come and strengthen his
+wits, began with a careless aspect: "Oh, nothing! She&mdash;very
+curious old character! She&mdash;a&mdash;wears a wig. She&mdash;a&mdash;very
+curious old character indeed! She&mdash;a&mdash;quite the
+old style. There's no doing anything with her!" and
+Ripton took a long breath to relieve himself after his
+elaborate fiction.</p>
+
+<p>"So it appears," Hippias commented, and Algernon
+asked: "Well? and about her wig? Somebody stole it?"
+while Richard, whose features were grim with suppressed
+laughter, bade the narrator continue.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton lunged for the claret jug. He had got an old
+lady like an oppressive bundle on his brain, and he was as
+helpless as she was. In the pangs of ineffectual authorship
+his ideas shot at her wig, and then at her one characteristic
+of extreme obstinacy, and tore back again at her
+wig, but she would not be animated. The obstinate old
+thing would remain a bundle. Law studies seemed light
+in comparison with this tremendous task of changing an
+old lady from a doll to a human creature. He flung off
+some claret, perspired freely, and, with a mental tribute
+to the cleverness of those author fellows, recommenced:
+"Oh, nothing! She&mdash;Richard knows her better than I
+do&mdash;an old lady&mdash;somewhere down in Suffolk. I think
+we had better advise her not to proceed. The expenses
+of litigation are enormous! She&mdash;I think we had better
+advise her to stop short, and not make any scandal."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And not make any scandal!" Algernon took him up.
+"Come, come! there's something more than a wig, then?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton was commanded to proceed, whether she did or
+no. The luckless fictionist looked straight at his pitiless
+leader, and blurted out dubiously, "She&mdash;there's a daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Born with effort!" ejaculated Hippias. "Must give
+her pause after that! and I'll take the opportunity to
+stretch my length on the sofa. Heigho! that's true what
+Austin says: 'The general prayer should be for a full
+stomach, and the individual for one that works well; for
+on that basis only are we a match for temporal matters,
+and able to contemplate eternal.' Sententious, but true.
+I gave him the idea, though! Take care of your stomachs,
+boys! and if ever you hear of a monument proposed to a
+scientific cook or gastronomic doctor, send in your subscriptions.
+Or say to him while he lives, Go forth, and be
+a Knight. Ha! They have a good cook at this house.
+He suits me better than ours at Raynham. I almost wish
+I had brought my manuscript to town, I feel so much
+better. Aha! I didn't expect to digest at all without my
+regular incentive. I think I shall give it up.&mdash;What do
+you say to the theatre to-night, boys!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard shouted, "Bravo, uncle!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let Mr. Thompson finish first," said Algernon. "I
+want to hear the conclusion of the story. The old girl
+has a wig and a daughter. I'll swear somebody runs away
+with one of the two! Fill your glass, Mr. Thompson, and
+forward!"</p>
+
+<p>"So somebody does," Ripton received his impetus. "And
+they're found in town together," he made a fresh jerk.
+"She&mdash;a&mdash;that is, the old lady&mdash;found them in company."</p>
+
+<p>"She finds him with her wig on in company!" said
+Algernon. "Capital! Here's matter for the lawyers!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you advise her not to proceed, under such circumstances
+of aggravation?" Hippias observed, humorously
+twinkling with his stomachic contentment.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the daughter," Ripton sighed, and surrendering to
+pressure, hurried on recklessly, "A runaway match&mdash;beautiful
+girl!&mdash;the only son of a baronet&mdash;married by special
+licence. A&mdash;the point is," he now brightened and spoke
+from his own element, "the point is whether the marriage
+can be annulled, as she's of the Catholic persuasion and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>
+he's a Protestant, and they're both married under age.
+That's the point."</p>
+
+<p>Having come to the point he breathed extreme relief,
+and saw things more distinctly; not a little amazed at his
+leader's horrified face.</p>
+
+<p>The two elders were making various absurd inquiries,
+when Richard sent his chair to the floor, crying, "What
+a muddle you're in, Rip! You're mixing half-a-dozen
+stories together. The old lady I told you about was old
+Dame Bakewell, and the dispute was concerning a neighbour
+of hers who encroached on her garden, and I said
+I'd pay the money to see her righted!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said Ripton, humbly, "I was thinking of the other.
+Her garden! Cabbages don't interest me"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here, come along," Richard beckoned to him savagely.
+"I'll be back in five minutes, uncle," he nodded coolly to
+either.</p>
+
+<p>The young men left the room. In the hall-passage they
+met Berry, dressed to return to Raynham. Richard
+dropped a helper to the intelligence into his hand, and
+warned him not to gossip much of London. Berry bowed
+perfect discreetness.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth induced you to talk about Protestants
+and Catholics marrying, Rip?" said Richard, as soon as
+they were in the street.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," Ripton answered, "I was so hard pushed for it,
+'pon my honour, I didn't know what to say. I ain't an
+author, you know; I can't make a story. I was trying to
+invent a point, and I couldn't think of any other, and I
+thought that was just the point likely to make a jolly
+good dispute. Capital dinners they give at those crack
+hotels. Why did you throw it all upon me? I didn't
+begin on the old lady."</p>
+
+<p>The hero mused, "It's odd! It's impossible you could
+have known! I'll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try
+you. You fib well at long range, but you don't do at close
+quarters and single combat. You're good behind walls,
+but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what you're
+fit for. You're staunch&mdash;that I am certain of. You always
+were. Lead the way to one of the parks&mdash;down in
+that direction. You know?&mdash;where she is!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton led the way. His dinner had prepared this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>
+young Englishman to defy the whole artillery of established
+morals. With the muffled roar of London around
+them, alone in a dark slope of green, the hero, leaning
+on his henchman, and speaking in a harsh clear undertone,
+delivered his explanations. Doubtless the true heroic
+insignia and point of view will be discerned, albeit in
+common private's uniform.</p>
+
+<p>"They've been plotting against me for a year, Rip!
+When you see her, you'll know what it was to have such
+a creature taken away from you. It nearly killed me.
+Never mind what she is. She's the most perfect and noble
+creature God ever made! It's not only her beauty&mdash;I
+don't care so much about that!&mdash;but when you've once
+seen her, she seems to draw music from all the nerves
+of your body; but she's such an angel. I worship her.
+And her mind's like her face. She's pure gold. There,
+you'll see her to-night.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he pursued, after inflating Ripton with this rapturous
+prospect, "they got her away, and I recovered. It
+was Mister Adrian's work. What's my father's objection
+to her? Because of her birth? She's educated; her manners
+are beautiful&mdash;full of refinement&mdash;quick and soft!
+Can they show me one of their ladies like her?&mdash;she's the
+daughter of a naval lieutenant! Because she's a Catholic?
+What has religion to do with"&mdash;he pronounced "Love!" a
+little modestly&mdash;as it were a blush in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, when I recovered I thought I did not care for
+her. It shows how we know ourselves! And I cared
+for nothing. I felt as if I had no blood. I tried to
+imitate my dear Austin. I wish to God he were
+here. I love Austin. He would understand her. He's
+coming back this year, and then&mdash;but it'll be too late
+then.&mdash;Well, my father's always scheming to make me
+perfect&mdash;he has never spoken to me a word about her,
+but I can see her in his eyes&mdash;he wanted to give me a
+change, he said, and asked me to come to town with
+my uncle Hippy, and I consented. It was another plot to
+get me out of the way! As I live, I had no more idea
+of meeting her than of flying to heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his face. "Look at those old elm branches!
+How they seem to mix among the stars!&mdash;glittering; fruits
+of Winter!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ripton tipped his comical nose upward, and was in duty
+bound to say, Yes! though he observed no connection
+between them and the narrative.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," the hero went on, "I came to town. There I
+heard she was coming, too&mdash;coming home. It must have
+been fate, Ripton! Heaven forgive me! I was angry with
+her, and I thought I should like to see her once&mdash;only
+once&mdash;and reproach her for being false&mdash;for she never
+wrote to me. And, oh, the dear angel! what she must have
+suffered!&mdash;I gave my uncle the slip, and got to the railway
+she was coming by. There was a fellow going to meet
+her&mdash;a farmer's son&mdash;and, good God! they were going to
+try and make her marry him! I remembered it all then.
+A servant of the farm had told me. That fellow went
+to the wrong station, I suppose, for we saw nothing of
+him. There she was&mdash;not changed a bit!&mdash;looking lovelier
+than ever! And when she saw me, I knew in a minute
+that she must love me till death!&mdash;You don't know what
+it is yet, Rip!&mdash;Will you believe it?&mdash;Though I was as
+sure she loved me and had been true as steel, as that I
+shall see her to-night, I spoke bitterly to her. And she
+bore it meekly&mdash;she looked like a saint. I told her there
+was but one hope of life for me&mdash;she must prove she was
+true, and as I give up all, so must she. I don't know
+what I said. The thought of losing her made me mad.
+She tried to plead with me to wait&mdash;it was for my sake,
+I know. I pretended, like a miserable hypocrite, that
+she did not love me at all. I think I said shameful things.
+Oh what noble creatures women are! She hardly had
+strength to move. I took her to that place where you
+found us.&mdash;Rip! she went down on her knees to me. I
+never dreamed of anything in life so lovely as she looked
+then. Her eyes were thrown up, bright with a crowd of
+tears&mdash;her dark brows bent together, like Pain and Beauty
+meeting in one; and her glorious golden hair swept off
+her shoulders as she hung forward to my hands.&mdash;Could
+I lose such a prize?&mdash;If anything could have persuaded
+me, would not that?&mdash;I thought of Dante's Madonna&mdash;Guido's
+Magdalen.&mdash;Is there sin in it? I see none! And
+if there is, it's all mine! I swear she's spotless of a
+thought of sin. I see her very soul! Cease to love her?
+Who dares ask me? Cease to love her? Why, I live on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>
+her!&mdash;To see her little chin straining up from her throat,
+as she knelt to me!&mdash;there was one curl that fell across
+her throat"....</p>
+
+<p>Ripton listened for more. Richard had gone off in a
+muse at the picture.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said Ripton, "and how about that young farmer
+fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>The hero's head was again contemplating the starry
+branches. His lieutenant's question came to him after an
+interval.</p>
+
+<p>"Young Tom? Why, it's young Tom Blaize&mdash;son of
+our old enemy, Rip! I like the old man now. Oh! I saw
+nothing of the fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" cried Ripton, "are we going to get into a mess
+with Blaizes again? I don't like that!"</p>
+
+<p>His commander quietly passed his likes or dislikes.</p>
+
+<p>"But when he goes to the train, and finds she's not
+there?" Ripton suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"I've provided for that. The fool went to the South-east
+instead of the South-west. All warmth, all sweetness,
+comes with the South-west!&mdash;I've provided for that,
+friend Rip. My trusty Tom awaits him there, as if by
+accident. He tells him he has not seen her, and advises
+him to remain in town, and go for her there to-morrow,
+and the day following. Tom has money for the work.
+Young Tom ought to see London, you know, Rip!&mdash;like
+you. We shall gain some good clear days. And when
+old Blaize hears of it&mdash;what then? I have her! she's
+mine!&mdash;Besides, he won't hear for a week. This Tom
+beats that Tom in cunning, I'll wager. Ha! ha!" the hero
+burst out at a recollection. "What do you think, Rip?
+My father has some sort of System with me, it appears,
+and when I came to town the time before, he took me
+to some people&mdash;the Grandisons&mdash;and what do you think?
+one of the daughters is a little girl&mdash;a nice little thing
+enough&mdash;very funny&mdash;and he wants me to wait for her!
+He hasn't said so, but I know it. I know what he means.
+Nobody understands him but me. I know he loves me,
+and is one of the best of men&mdash;but just consider!&mdash;a
+<i>little girl</i> who just comes up to my elbow. Isn't it
+ridiculous? Did you ever hear such nonsense?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ripton emphasized his opinion that it certainly was
+foolish.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! The die's cast!" said Richard. "They've been
+plotting for a year up to this day, and this is what comes
+of it! If my father loves me, he will love her. And if
+he loves me, he'll forgive my acting against his wishes,
+and see it was the only thing to be done. Come! step
+out! what a time we've been!" and away he went, compelling
+Ripton to the sort of strides a drummer-boy has
+to take beside a column of grenadiers.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton began to wish himself in love, seeing that it
+endowed a man with wind so that he could breathe great
+sighs, while going at a tremendous pace, and experience
+no sensation of fatigue. The hero was communing with
+the elements, his familiars, and allowed him to pant as
+he pleased. Some keen-eyed Kensington urchins, noticing
+the discrepancy between the pedestrian powers of the
+two, aimed their wit at Mr. Thompson junior's expense.
+The pace, and nothing but the pace, induced Ripton to
+proclaim that they had gone too far, when they discovered
+that they had overshot the mark by half a mile.
+In the street over which stood love's star, the hero
+thundered his presence at a door, and evoked a flying
+housemaid, who knew not Mrs. Berry. The hero attached
+significance to the fact that his instincts should have betrayed
+him, for he could have sworn to that house. The
+door being shut he stood in dead silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you got her card?" Ripton inquired, and heard
+that it was in the custody of the cabman. Neither of
+them could positively bring to mind the number of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to have chalked it, like that fellow in the
+Forty Thieves," Ripton hazarded a pleasantry which met
+with no response.</p>
+
+<p>Betrayed by his instincts, the magic slaves of Love!
+The hero heavily descended the steps.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton murmured that they were done for. His commander
+turned on him, and said: "Take all the houses
+on the opposite side, one after another. I'll take these."
+With a wry face Ripton crossed the road, altogether subdued
+by Richard's native superiority to adverse circumstances.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then were families aroused. Then did mortals dimly
+guess that something portentous was abroad. Then were
+labourers all day in the vineyard, harshly wakened from
+their evening's nap. Hope and Fear stalked the street,
+as again and again the loud companion summonses resounded.
+Finally Ripton sang out cheerfully. He had
+Mrs. Berry before him, profuse of mellow curtsies.</p>
+
+<p>Richard ran to her and caught her hands: "She's
+well?&mdash;upstairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite well! only a trifle tired with her journey, and
+fluttering-like," Mrs. Berry replied to Ripton alone. The
+lover had flown aloft.</p>
+
+<p>The wise woman sagely ushered Ripton into her own
+private parlour, there to wait till he was wanted.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"In all cases where two have joined to commit an offence,
+punish one of the two lightly," is the dictum of
+<span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>.</p><br />
+
+
+
+<p>It is possible for young heads to conceive proper plans
+of action, and occasionally, by sheer force of will, to check
+the wild horses that are ever fretting to gallop off with
+them. But when they have given the reins and the whip
+to another, what are they to do? They may go down
+on their knees, and beg and pray the furious charioteer
+to stop, or moderate his pace. Alas! each fresh thing
+they do redoubles his ardour. There is a power in their
+troubled beauty women learn the use of, and what wonder?
+They have seen it kindle Ilium to flames so often! But
+ere they grow matronly in the house of Menelaus, they
+weep, and implore, and do not, in truth, know how terribly
+two-edged is their gift of loveliness. They resign
+themselves to an incomprehensible frenzy; pleasant to
+them, because they attribute it to excessive love. And so
+the very sensible things which they can and do say, are
+vain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I reckon it absurd to ask them to be quite in earnest.
+Are not those their own horses in yonder team? Certainly,
+if they were quite in earnest, they might soon have
+my gentleman as sober as a carter. A hundred different
+ways of disenchanting him exist, and Adrian will point
+you out one or two that shall be instantly efficacious.
+For Love, the charioteer, is easily tripped, while honest
+jog-trot Love keeps his legs to the end. Granted dear
+women are not quite in earnest, still the mere words
+they utter should be put to their good account. They
+do mean them, though their hearts are set the wrong
+way. 'Tis a despairing, pathetic homage to the judgment
+of the majority, in whose faces they are flying.
+Punish Helen, very young, lightly. After a certain age
+you may select her for special chastisement. An innocent
+with Theseus, with Paris she is an advanced incendiary.</p>
+
+<p>The fair young girl was sitting as her lover had left
+her; trying to recall her stunned senses. Her bonnet
+was unremoved, her hands clasped on her knees; dry tears
+in her eyes. Like a dutiful slave, she rose to him. And
+first he claimed her mouth. There was a speech, made
+up of all the pretty wisdom her wild situation and true
+love could gather, awaiting him there; but his kiss scattered
+it to fragments. She dropped to her seat weeping,
+and hiding her shamed cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>By his silence she divined his thoughts, and took his
+hand and drew it to her lips.</p>
+
+<p>He bent beside her, bidding her look at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your eyes so."</p>
+
+<p>She could not.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you fear me, Lucy?"</p>
+
+<p>A throbbing pressure answered him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love me, darling?"</p>
+
+<p>She trembled from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do you turn from me?"</p>
+
+<p>She wept: "O Richard, take me home! take me home!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me, Lucy!"</p>
+
+<p>Her head shrank timidly round.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your eyes on me, darling! Now speak!"</p>
+
+<p>But she could not look and speak too. The lover knew
+his mastery when he had her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish me to take you home?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She faltered: "O Richard? it is not too late."</p>
+
+<p>"You regret what you have done for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! it is ruin."</p>
+
+<p>"You weep because you have consented to be mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for me! O Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"For me you weep? Look at me! For me?"</p>
+
+<p>"How will it end! O Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"You weep for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! I would die for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you see me indifferent to everything in the
+world? Would you have me lost? Do you think I will
+live another day in England without you? I have staked
+all I have on you, Lucy. You have nearly killed me
+once. A second time, and the earth will not be troubled
+by me. You ask me to wait, when they are plotting
+against us on all sides? Darling Lucy! look on me. Fix
+your fond eyes on me. You ask me to wait when here
+you are given to me&mdash;when you have proved my faith&mdash;when
+we know we love as none have loved. Give me your
+eyes! Let them tell me I have your heart!"</p>
+
+<p>Where was her wise little speech? How could she
+match such mighty eloquence? She sought to collect a
+few more of the scattered fragments.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! your father may be brought to consent by
+and by, and then&mdash;oh! if you take me home now"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The lover stood up. "He who has been arranging that
+fine scheme to disgrace and martyrize you? True, as I
+live! that's the reason of their having you back. Your
+old servant heard him and your uncle discussing it. He!&mdash;Lucy!
+he's a good man, but he must not step in between
+you and me. I say God has given you to me."</p>
+
+<p>He was down by her side again, his arms enfolding her.</p>
+
+<p>She had hoped to fight a better battle than in the morning,
+and she was weaker and softer.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! why should she doubt that his great love was the
+first law to her? Why should she not believe that she
+would wreck him by resisting? And if she suffered, oh
+sweet to think it was for his sake! Sweet to shut out
+wisdom; accept total blindness, and be led by him!</p>
+
+<p>The hag Wisdom annoyed them little further. She
+rustled her garments ominously, and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my own Richard!" the fair girl just breathed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He whispered, "Call me that name."</p>
+
+<p>She blushed deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"Call me that name," he repeated. "You said it once
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that."</p>
+
+<p>"O darling!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that."</p>
+
+<p>"Husband!"</p>
+
+<p>She was won. The rosy gate from which the word had
+issued was closed with a seal.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton did not enjoy his introduction to the caged bird
+of beauty that night. He received a lesson in the art of
+pumping from the worthy landlady below, up to an hour
+when she yawned, and he blinked, and their common
+candle wore with dignity the brigand's hat of midnight,
+and cocked a drunken eye at them from under it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>RELATES HOW PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE
+CONDUCTED UNDER THE APRIL OF LOVERS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Beauty, of course, is for the hero. Nevertheless, it is
+not always he on whom beauty works its most conquering
+influence. It is the dull commonplace man into whose
+slow brain she drops like a celestial light, and burns
+lastingly. The poet, for instance, is a connoisseur of
+beauty: to the artist she is a model. These gentlemen by
+much contemplation of her charms wax critical. The
+days when they had hearts being gone, they are haply
+divided between the blonde and the brunette; the aquiline
+nose and the Proserpine; this shaped eye and that. But
+go about among simple unprofessional fellows, boors,
+dunderheads, and here and there you shall find some
+barbarous intelligence which has had just enough to
+conceive, and has taken Beauty as its Goddess, and knows
+but one form to worship, in its poor stupid fashion, and
+would perish for her. Nay, more: the man would devote
+all his days to her, though he is dumb as a dog. And,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>
+indeed, he is Beauty's Dog. Almost every Beauty has
+her Dog. The hero possesses her; the poet proclaims her;
+the painter puts her upon canvas; and the faithful Old
+Dog follows her: and the end of it all is that the faithful
+Old Dog is her single attendant. Sir Hero is revelling
+in the wars, or in Armida's bowers; Mr. Poet has spied
+a wrinkle; the brush is for the rose in its season. She
+turns to her Old Dog then. She hugs him; and he, who has
+subsisted on a bone and a pat till there he squats decrepit,
+he turns his grateful old eyes up to her, and has not
+a notion that she is hugging sad memories in him: Hero,
+Poet, Painter, in one scrubby one! Then is she buried,
+and the village hears languid howls, and there is a paragraph
+in the newspapers concerning the extraordinary
+fidelity of an Old Dog.</p>
+
+<p>Excited by suggestive recollections of Nooredeen and
+the Fair Persian, and the change in the obscure monotony
+of his life by his having quarters in a crack hotel, and
+living familiarly with West-End people&mdash;living on the fat
+of the land (which forms a stout portion of an honest
+youth's romance), Ripton Thompson breakfasted next
+morning with his chief at half-past eight. The meal had
+been fixed overnight for seven, but Ripton slept a great
+deal more than the nightingale, and (to chronicle his
+exact state) even half-past eight rather afflicted his new
+aristocratic senses and reminded him too keenly of law
+and bondage. He had preferred to breakfast at Algernon's
+hour, who had left word for eleven. Him, however,
+it was Richard's object to avoid, so they fell to,
+and Ripton no longer envied Hippias in bed. Breakfast
+done, they bequeathed the consoling information for Algernon
+that they were off to hear a popular preacher,
+and departed.</p>
+
+<p>"How happy everybody looks!" said Richard, in the
+quiet Sunday streets.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;jolly!" said Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"When I'm&mdash;when this is over, I'll see that they are,
+too&mdash;as many as I can make happy," said the hero;
+adding softly: "Her blind was down at a quarter to six.
+I think she slept well!"</p>
+
+<p>"You've been there this morning?" Ripton exclaimed;
+and an idea of what love was dawned upon his dull brain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Will she see me, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. She'll see you to-day. She was tired last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Positively?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard assured him that the privilege would be his.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," he said, coming under some trees in the park,
+"here's where I talked to you last night. What a time
+it seems! How I hate the night!"</p>
+
+<p>On the way, that Richard might have an exalted opinion
+of him, Ripton hinted decorously at a somewhat intimate
+and mysterious acquaintance with the sex. Headings of
+certain random adventures he gave.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" said his chief, "why not marry her?"</p>
+
+<p>Then was Ripton shocked, and cried, "Oh!" and had a
+taste of the feeling of superiority, destined that day to
+be crushed utterly.</p>
+
+<p>He was again deposited in Mrs. Berry's charge for a
+term that caused him dismal fears that the Fair Persian
+still refused to show her face, but Richard called out to
+him, and up Ripton went, unaware of the transformation
+he was to undergo. Hero and Beauty stood together to
+receive him. From the bottom of the stairs he had his
+vivaciously agreeable smile ready for them, and by the
+time he entered the room his cheeks were painfully stiff,
+and his eyes had strained beyond their exact meaning.
+Lucy, with one hand anchored to her lover, welcomed
+him kindly. He relieved her shyness by looking so extremely
+silly. They sat down, and tried to commence a
+conversation, but Ripton was as little master of his tongue
+as he was of his eyes. After an interval, the Fair Persian
+having done duty by showing herself, was glad to quit
+the room. Her lord and possessor then turned inquiringly
+to Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't wonder now, Rip?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Richard!" Ripton waited to reply with sufficient
+solemnity, "indeed I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke differently; he looked differently. He had the
+Old Dog's eyes in his head. They watched the door she
+had passed through; they listened for her, as dogs' eyes
+do. When she came in, bonneted for a walk, his agitation
+was dog-like. When she hung on her lover timidly,
+and went forth, he followed without an idea of envy, or
+anything save the secret raptures the sight of her gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>
+him, which are the Old Dog's own. For beneficent Nature
+requites him. His sensations cannot be heroic, but they
+have a fulness and a wagging delight as good in their
+way. And this capacity for humble unaspiring worship
+has its peculiar guerdon. When Ripton comes to think of
+Miss Random now, what will he think of himself? Let
+no one despise the Old Dog. Through him doth Beauty
+vindicate her sex.</p>
+
+<p>It did not please Ripton that others should have the
+bliss of beholding her, and as, to his perceptions, everybody
+did, and observed her offensively, and stared, and
+turned their heads back, and interchanged comments on
+her, and became in a minute madly in love with her, he
+had to smother low growls. They strolled about the
+pleasant gardens of Kensington all the morning, under
+the young chestnut buds, and round the windless waters,
+talking, and soothing the wild excitement of their hearts.
+If Lucy spoke, Ripton pricked up his ears. She, too,
+made the remark that everybody seemed to look happy,
+and he heard it with thrills of joy. "So everybody is,
+where you are!" he would have wished to say, if he
+dared, but was restrained by fears that his burning eloquence
+would commit him. Ripton knew the people he
+met twice. It would have been difficult to persuade him
+they were the creatures of accident.</p>
+
+<p>From the Gardens, in contempt of Ripton's frowned
+protest, Richard boldly struck into the park, where solitary
+carriages were beginning to perform the circuit.
+Here Ripton had some justification for his jealous pangs.
+The young girl's golden locks of hair; her sweet, now
+dreamily sad, face; her gentle graceful figure in the black
+straight dress she wore; a sort of half-conventional air
+she had&mdash;a mark of something not of class, that was
+partly beauty's, partly maiden innocence growing conscious,
+partly remorse at her weakness and dim fear of
+the future it was sowing&mdash;did attract the eye-glasses.
+Ripton had to learn that eyes are bearable, but eye-glasses
+an abomination. They fixed a spell upon his courage;
+for somehow the youth had always ranked them as
+emblems of our nobility, and hearing two exquisite eye-glasses,
+who had been to front and rear several times, drawl
+in gibberish generally imputed to lords, that his heroine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>
+was a charming little creature, just the size, but had
+no style,&mdash;he was abashed; he did not fly at them and
+tear them. He became dejected. Beauty's dog is affected
+by the eye-glass in a manner not unlike the common
+animal's terror of the human eye.</p>
+
+<p>Richard appeared to hear nothing, or it was homage
+that he heard. He repeated to Lucy Diaper Sandoe's
+verses&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The cockneys nod to each other aside,<br /></span>
+<span>The coxcombs lift their glasses,"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>and projected hiring a horse for her to ride every day in
+the park, and shine among the highest.</p>
+
+<p>They had turned to the West, against the sky glittering
+through the bare trees across the water, and the bright-edged
+rack. The lover, his imagination just then occupied
+in clothing earthly glories in celestial, felt where his
+senses were sharpest the hand of his darling falter, and
+instinctively looked ahead. His uncle Algernon was
+leisurely jolting towards them on his one sound leg. The
+dismembered Guardsman talked to a friend whose arm
+supported him, and speculated from time to time on the
+fair ladies driving by. The two white faces passed him
+unobserved. Unfortunately Ripton, coming behind, went
+plump upon the Captain's live toe&mdash;or so he pretended,
+crying, "Confound it, Mr. Thompson! you might have
+chosen the other."</p>
+
+<p>The horrible apparition did confound Ripton, who
+stammered that it was extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said Algernon. "Everybody makes up to
+that fellow. Instinct, I suppose!"</p>
+
+<p>He had not to ask for his nephew. Richard turned
+to face the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry I couldn't wait for you this morning, uncle,"
+he said, with the coolness of relationship. "I thought you
+never walked so far."</p>
+
+<p>His voice was in perfect tone&mdash;the heroic mask admirable.</p>
+
+<p>Algernon examined the downcast visage at his side, and
+contrived to allude to the popular preacher. He was instantly
+introduced to Ripton's sister, Miss Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain bowed, smiling melancholy approval of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>
+his nephew's choice of a minister. After a few stray
+remarks, and an affable salute to Miss Thompson, he
+hobbled away, and then the three sealed volcanoes
+breathed, and Lucy's arm ceased to be squeezed quite
+so much up to the heroic pitch.</p>
+
+<p>This incident quickened their steps homeward to the
+sheltering wings of Mrs. Berry. All that passed between
+them on the subject comprised a stammered excuse from
+Ripton for his conduct, and a good-humoured rejoinder
+from Richard, that he had gained a sister by it: at which
+Ripton ventured to wish aloud Miss Desborough would
+only think so, and a faint smile twitched poor Lucy's lips
+to please him. She hardly had strength to reach her cage.
+She had none to eat of Mrs. Berry's nice little dinner.
+To be alone, that she might cry and ease her heart of its
+accusing weight of tears, was all she prayed for. Kind
+Mrs. Berry, slipping into her bedroom to take off her
+things, found the fair body in a fevered shudder, and
+finished by undressing her completely and putting her
+to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"Just an hour's sleep, or so," the mellifluous woman
+explained the case to the two anxious gentlemen. "A
+quiet sleep and a cup of warm tea goes for more than
+twenty doctors, it do&mdash;when there's the flutters," she pursued.
+"I know it by myself. And a good cry before-hand's
+better than the best of medicine."</p>
+
+<p>She nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and
+retired to her softer charge and sweeter babe, reflecting,
+"Lord! Lord! the three of 'em don't make fifty! I'm as
+old as two and a half of 'em, to say the least." Mrs.
+Berry used her apron, and by virtue of their tender years
+took them all three into her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Left alone, neither of the young men could swallow
+a morsel.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the change come over her?" Richard
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>The lover flung down his knife and fork: "What could
+I do? If I had said nothing, we should have been
+suspected. I was obliged to speak. And she hates a lie!
+See! it has struck her down. God forgive me!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton affected a serene mind: "It was a fright, Richard,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>
+he said. "That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters.
+Those old women talk in that way. You heard what she
+said. And these old women know. I'll tell you what it
+is. It's this, Richard!&mdash;it's because you've got a fool for
+your friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"She regrets it," muttered the lover. "Good God! I
+think she fears me." He dropped his face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton went to the window, repeating energetically for
+his comfort: "It's because you've got a fool for your
+friend!"</p>
+
+<p>Sombre grew the street they had last night aroused.
+The sun was buried alive in cloud. Ripton saw himself
+no more in the opposite window. He watched the deplorable
+objects passing on the pavement. His aristocratic
+visions had gone like his breakfast. Beauty had
+been struck down by his egregious folly, and there he
+stood&mdash;a wretch!</p>
+
+<p>Richard came to him: "Don't mumble on like that,
+Rip!" he said. "Nobody blames you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you're very kind, Richard," interposed the wretch,
+moved at the face of misery he beheld.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to me, Rip! I shall take her home to-night.
+Yes! If she's happier away from me!&mdash;do you think me
+a brute, Ripton? Rather than have her shed a tear,
+I'd!&mdash;--I'll take her home to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton suggested that it was sudden; adding from his
+larger experience, people perhaps might talk.</p>
+
+<p>The lover could not understand what they should talk
+about, but he said: "If I give him who came for her
+yesterday the clue? If no one sees or hears of me, what
+can they say? O Rip! I'll give her up. I'm wrecked
+for ever! What of that? Yes&mdash;let them take her! The
+world in arms should never have torn her from me, but
+when she cries&mdash;Yes! all's over. I'll find him at once."</p>
+
+<p>He searched in out-of-the-way corners for the hat of
+resolve. Ripton looked on, wretcheder than ever.</p>
+
+<p>The idea struck him:&mdash;"Suppose, Richard, she doesn't
+want to go?"</p>
+
+<p>It was a moment when, perhaps, one who sided with
+parents and guardians and the old wise world, might have
+inclined them to pursue their righteous wretched course,
+and have given small Cupid a smack and sent him home<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>
+to his naughty Mother. Alas! (it is <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>
+interjecting) women are the born accomplices of mischief!
+In bustles Mrs. Berry to clear away the refection,
+and find the two knights helmed, and sees, though 'tis
+dusk, that they wear doubtful brows, and guesses bad
+things for her dear God Hymen in a twinkling.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear! dear!" she exclaimed, "and neither of you eaten
+a scrap! And there's my dear young lady off into the
+prettiest sleep you ever see!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha?" cried the lover, illuminated.</p>
+
+<p>"Soft as a baby!" Mrs. Berry averred. "I went to
+look at her this very moment, and there's not a bit of
+trouble in her breath. It come and it go like the sweetest
+regular instrument ever made. The Black Ox haven't
+trod on <i>her</i> foot yet! Most like it was the air of London.
+But only fancy, if you had called in a doctor! Why,
+I shouldn't have let her take any of his quackery. Now,
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff
+his hat with a curious caution, and peer into its recess,
+from which, during Mrs. Berry's speech, he drew forth a
+little glove&mdash;dropped there by some freak of chance.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep me, keep me, now you have me!" sang the little
+glove, and amused the lover with a thousand conceits.</p>
+
+<p>"When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! we mustn't go for disturbing her," said the guileful
+good creature. "Bless ye! let her sleep it out. And if
+you young gentlemen was to take my advice, and go and
+take a walk for to get a appetite&mdash;everybody should eat!
+it's their sacred duty, no matter what their feelings be!
+and I say it who'm no chicken!&mdash;I'll frickashee this&mdash;which
+is a chicken&mdash;against your return. I'm a cook, I
+can assure ye!"</p>
+
+<p>The lover seized her two hands. "You're the best old
+soul in the world!" he cried. Mrs. Berry appeared willing
+to kiss him. "We won't disturb her. Let her sleep.
+Keep her in bed, Mrs. Berry. Will you? And we'll call
+to inquire after her this evening, and come and see her
+to-morrow. I'm sure you'll be kind to her. There!
+there!" Mrs. Berry was preparing to whimper. "I trust
+her to you, you see. Good-bye, you dear old soul."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and
+went to dine with his uncles, happy and hungry.</p>
+
+<p>Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw
+Mrs. Berry into their confidence, telling her (with embellishments)
+all save their names, so that they might
+enjoy the counsel and assistance of that trump of a woman,
+and yet have nothing to fear from her. Lucy was to
+receive the name of Letitia, Ripton's youngest and best-looking
+sister. The heartless fellow proposed it in cruel
+mockery of an old weakness of hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Letitia!" mused Richard. "I like the name. Both
+begin with L. There's something soft&mdash;womanlike&mdash;in
+the L.'s."</p>
+
+<p>Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds
+on paper. The lover roamed through his golden groves.
+"Lucy Feverel! that sounds better! I wonder where
+Ralph is. I should like to help him. He's in love with
+my cousin Clare. He'll never do anything till he marries.
+No man can. I'm going to do a hundred things when
+it's over. We shall travel first. I want to see the Alps.
+One doesn't know what the earth is till one has seen
+the Alps. What a delight it will be to her! I fancy I
+see her eyes gazing up at them.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'And oh, your dear blue eyes, that heavenward glance<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">With kindred beauty, banished humbleness,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Past weeping for mortality's distress&mdash;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Yet from your soul a tear hangs there in trance,<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">And fills, but does not fall;<br /></span>
+<span class="i3">Softly I hear it call<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">At heaven's gate, till Sister Seraphs press<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To look on you their old love from the skies:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Those are the eyes of Seraphs bright on your blue eyes!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Beautiful! These lines, Rip, were written by a man who
+was once a friend of my father's. I intend to find him
+and make them friends again. You don't care for poetry.
+It's no use your trying to swallow it, Rip!"</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds very nice," said Ripton, modestly shutting
+his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"The Alps! Italy! Rome! and then I shall go to the
+East," the hero continued. "She's ready to go anywhere
+with me, the dear brave heart! Oh, the glorious golden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>
+East! I dream of the desert. I dream I'm chief of an
+Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on our
+mares, and hurry to the rescue of my darling! And we
+push the spears, and we scatter them, and I come to the
+tent where she crouches, and catch her to my saddle, and
+away!&mdash;Rip! what a life!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it.</p>
+
+<p>"And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin's
+life, with her to help me. First be virtuous, Rip! and
+then serve your country heart and soul. A wise man told
+me that. I think I shall do something."</p>
+
+<p>Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the
+lover. Now life was a narrow ring; now the distances
+extended, were winged, flew illimitably. An hour ago
+and food was hateful. Now he manfully refreshed his
+nature, and joined in Algernon's encomiums on Miss
+Letitia Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer
+of the hero's band. Lucy awoke from dreams
+which seemed reality, to the reality which was a dream.
+She awoke calling for some friend, "Margaret!" and heard
+one say, "My name is Bessy Berry, my love! not Margaret."
+Then she asked piteously where she was, and
+where was Margaret, her dear friend, and Mrs. Berry
+whispered, "Sure you've got a dearer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed
+by the strangeness of her state.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted
+the bedclothes quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Her name was breathed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my love?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he here?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Gone?&mdash;Oh, where?" The young girl started up in
+disorder.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone, to be back, my love! Ah! that young gentleman!"
+Mrs. Berry chanted: "Not a morsel have he eat;
+not a drop have he drunk!"</p>
+
+<p>"O Mrs. Berry! why did you not make him?" Lucy
+wept for the famine-struck hero, who was just then feeding
+mightily.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>
+the darling of his heart like to die, was a sheer impossibility
+for the cleverest of women; and on this deep truth
+Lucy reflected, with her eyes wide at the candle. She
+wanted one to pour her feelings out to. She slid her
+hand from under the bedclothes, and took Mrs. Berry's,
+and kissed it. The good creature required no further
+avowal of her secret, but forthwith leaned her consummate
+bosom to the pillow, and petitioned heaven to bless
+them both!&mdash;Then the little bride was alarmed, and wondered
+how Mrs. Berry could have guessed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Mrs. Berry, "your love is out of your eyes,
+and out of everything ye do." And the little bride wondered
+more. She thought she had been so very cautious
+not to betray it. The common woman in them made
+cheer together after their own April fashion. Following
+which Mrs. Berry probed for the sweet particulars of
+this beautiful love-match; but the little bride's lips were
+locked. She only said her lover was above her in station.</p>
+
+<p>"And you're a Catholic, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mrs. Berry!"</p>
+
+<p>"And him a Protestant."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mrs. Berry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear!&mdash;And why shouldn't ye be?" she ejaculated,
+seeing sadness return to the bridal babe. "So as
+you was born, so shall ye be! But you'll have to make
+your arrangements about the children. The girls to worship
+with you, the boys with him. It's the same God,
+my dear! You mustn't blush at it, though you do look
+so pretty. If my young gentleman could see you now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Please, Mrs. Berry!" Lucy murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he will, you know, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please, Mrs. Berry!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you that can't bear the thoughts of it! Well, I
+do wish there was fathers and mothers on both sides and
+dockments signed, and bridesmaids, and a breakfast! but
+love is love, and ever will be, in spite of them."</p>
+
+<p>She made other and deeper dives into the little heart,
+but though she drew up pearls, they were not of the kind
+she searched for. The one fact that hung as a fruit upon
+her tree of Love, Lucy had given her; she would not,
+in fealty to her lover, reveal its growth and history, however<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+sadly she yearned to pour out all to this dear old
+Mother Confessor.</p>
+
+<p>Her conduct drove Mrs. Berry from the rosy to the
+autumnal view of matrimony, generally heralded by the
+announcement that it is a lottery.</p>
+
+<p>"And when you see your ticket," said Mrs. Berry, "you
+shan't know whether it's a prize or a blank. And, Lord
+knows! some go on thinking it's a prize when it turns on
+'em and tears 'em. I'm one of the blanks, my dear! I
+drew a blank in Berry. He was a black Berry to me,
+my dear! Smile away! he truly was, and I a-prizin' him
+as proud as you can conceive! My dear!" Mrs. Berry
+pressed her hands flat on her apron. "We hadn't been
+a three months man and wife, when that man&mdash;it wasn't
+the honeymoon, which some can't say&mdash;that man&mdash;Yes!
+he kicked me. His wedded wife he kicked! Ah!" she
+sighed to Lucy's large eyes, "I could have borne that.
+A blow don't touch the heart," the poor creature tapped
+her sensitive side. "I went on loving of him, for I'm
+a soft one. Tall as a Grenadier he is, and when out of
+service grows his moustache. I used to call him my
+body-guardsman&mdash;like a Queen! I flattered him like the
+fools we women are. For, take my word for it, my dear,
+there's nothing here below so vain as a man! That I
+know. But I didn't deserve it.... I'm a superior
+cook.... I did not deserve that noways." Mrs. Berry
+thumped her knee, and accentuated up her climax: "I
+mended his linen. I saw to his adornments&mdash;he called
+his clothes, the bad man! I was a servant to him, my
+dear! and there&mdash;it was nine months&mdash;nine months from
+the day he swear to protect and cherish and that&mdash;nine
+calendar months, and my gentleman is off with another
+woman! Bone of his bone!&mdash;pish!" exclaimed Mrs. Berry,
+reckoning her wrongs over vividly. "Here's my ring. A
+pretty ornament! What do it mean? I'm for tearin' it
+off my finger a dozen times in the day. It's a symbol?
+I call it a tomfoolery for the dead-alive to wear it, that's
+a widow and not a widow, and haven't got a name for
+what she is in any Dixonary. I've looked, my dear, and"&mdash;she
+spread out her arms&mdash;"Johnson haven't got a name
+for me!"</p>
+
+<p>At this impressive woe Mrs. Berry's voice quavered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>
+into sobs. Lucy spoke gentle words to the poor outcast
+from Johnson. The sorrows of Autumn have no warning
+for April. The little bride, for all her tender pity, felt
+happier when she had heard her landlady's moving tale
+of the wickedness of man, which cast in bright relief
+the glory of that one hero who was hers. Then from a
+short flight of inconceivable bliss, she fell, shot by one on
+her hundred Argus-eyed fears.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mrs. Berry! I'm so young! Think of me&mdash;only
+just seventeen!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry immediately dried her eyes to radiance.
+"Young, my dear! Nonsense! There's no so much harm
+in being young, here and there. I knew an Irish lady was
+married at fourteen. Her daughter married close over
+fourteen. She was a grandmother by thirty! When any
+strange man began, she used to ask him what pattern caps
+grandmothers wore. They'd stare! Bless you! the grandmother
+could have married over and over again. It was
+her daughter's fault, not hers, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"She was three years younger," mused Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"She married beneath her, my dear. Ran off with her
+father's bailiff's son. 'Ah, Berry!' she'd say, 'if I hadn't
+been foolish, I should be my lady now&mdash;not Granny!'
+Her father never forgave her&mdash;left all his estates out of
+the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Did her husband always love her?" Lucy preferred to
+know.</p>
+
+<p>"In his way, my dear, he did," said Mrs. Berry, coming
+upon her matrimonial wisdom. "He couldn't help himself.
+If he left off, he began again. She was so clever,
+and did make him so comfortable. Cook! there wasn't
+such another cook out of a Alderman's kitchen; no, indeed!
+And she a born lady! That tells ye it's the duty
+of all women! She had her saying&mdash;'When the parlour
+fire gets low, put coals on the ketchen fire!' and a good
+saying it is to treasure. Such is man! no use in havin'
+their hearts if ye don't have their stomachs."</p>
+
+<p>Perceiving that she grew abstruse, Mrs. Berry added
+briskly: "You know nothing about that yet, my dear.
+Only mind me and mark me: don't neglect your cookery
+Kissing don't last: cookery do!"</p>
+
+<p>Here, with an aphorism worthy a place in <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+Scrip</span>, she broke off to go posseting for her dear
+invalid. Lucy was quite well; very eager to be allowed
+to rise and be ready when the knock should come. Mrs.
+Berry, in her loving considerateness for the little bride,
+positively commanded her to lie down, and be quiet, and
+submit to be nursed and cherished. For Mrs. Berry well
+knew that ten minutes alone with the hero could only
+be had while the little bride was in that unattainable
+position.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to her strategy, as she thought, her object was
+gained. The night did not pass before she learnt, from
+the hero's own mouth, that Mr. Richards, the father of
+the hero, and a stern lawyer, was averse to his union
+with this young lady he loved, because of a ward of his,
+heiress to an immense property, whom he desired his son
+to espouse; and because his darling Letitia was a Catholic&mdash;Letitia,
+the sole daughter of a brave naval officer
+deceased, and in the hands of a savage uncle, who wanted
+to sacrifice this beauty to a brute of a son. Mrs. Berry
+listened credulously to the emphatic narrative, and spoke
+to the effect that the wickedness of old people formed the
+excuse for the wildness of young ones. The ceremonious
+administration of oaths of secrecy and devotion over, she
+was enrolled in the hero's band, which now numbered
+three, and entered upon the duties with feminine energy,
+for there are no conspirators like women. Ripton's lieutenancy
+became a sinecure, his rank merely titular. He
+had never been married&mdash;he knew nothing about licences,
+except that they must be obtained, and were not difficult&mdash;he
+had not an idea that so many days' warning must
+be given to the clergyman of the parish where one of the
+parties was resident. How should he? All his forethought
+was comprised in the ring, and whenever the
+discussion of arrangements for the great event grew particularly
+hot and important, he would say, with a shrewd
+nod: "We mustn't forget the ring, you know, Mrs. Berry!"
+and the new member was only prevented by natural
+complacence from shouting: "Oh, drat ye! and your ring,
+too." Mrs. Berry had acted conspicuously in fifteen marriages,
+by banns, and by licence, and to have such an
+obvious requisite dinned in her ears was exasperating.
+They could not have contracted alliance with an auxiliary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>
+more invaluable, an authority so profound; and they
+acknowledged it to themselves. The hero marched like
+an automaton at her bidding; Lieutenant Thompson was
+rejoiced to perform services as errand-boy in the enterprise.</p>
+
+<p>"It's in hopes you'll be happier than me, I do it," said
+the devout and charitable Berry. "Marriages is made in
+heaven, they say; and if that's the case, I say they don't
+take much account of us below!"</p>
+
+<p>Her own woful experiences had been given to the hero
+in exchange for his story of cruel parents.</p>
+
+<p>Richard vowed to her that he would henceforth hold
+it a duty to hunt out the wanderer from wedded bonds,
+and bring him back bound and suppliant.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he'll come!" said Mrs. Berry, pursing prophetic
+wrinkles: "he'll come of his own accord. Never anywheres
+will he meet such a cook as Bessy Berry! And he know
+her value in his heart of hearts. And I do believe, when
+he do come, I shall be opening these arms to him again,
+and not slapping his impidence in the face&mdash;I'm that soft!
+I always was&mdash;in matrimony, Mr. Richards!"</p>
+
+<p>As when nations are secretly preparing for war, the
+docks and arsenals hammer night and day, and busy contractors
+measure time by inches, and the air hums around
+for leagues as it were myriads of bees, so the house and
+neighbourhood of the matrimonial soft one resounded in
+the heroic style, and knew little of the changes of light
+decreed by Creation. Mrs. Berry was the general of the
+hour. Down to Doctors' Commons she expedited the hero,
+instructing him how boldly to face the Law, and fib:
+for that the Law never could resist a fib and a bold face.
+Down the hero went, and proclaimed his presence. And
+lo! the Law danced to him its sedatest lovely bear's-dance.
+Think ye the Law less susceptible to him than flesh and
+blood? With a beautiful confidence it put the few familiar
+questions to him, and nodded to his replies: then stamped
+the bond, and took the fee. It must be an old vagabond
+at heart that can permit the irrevocable to go so cheap,
+even to a hero. For only mark him when he is petitioned
+by heroes and heroines to undo what he does so easily!
+That small archway of Doctors' Commons seems the eye
+of a needle, through which the lean purse has a way,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>
+somehow, of slipping more readily than the portly; but
+once through, all are camels alike, the lean purse an
+especially big camel. Dispensing tremendous marriage as
+it does, the Law can have no conscience.</p>
+
+<p>"I hadn't the slightest difficulty," said the exulting hero.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!" returns Mrs. Berry. "It's as easy, if
+ye're in earnest, as buying a plum bun."</p>
+
+<p>Likewise the ambassador of the hero went to claim the
+promise of the Church to be in attendance on a certain
+spot, on a certain day, and there hear oath of eternal
+fealty, and gird him about with all its forces: which the
+Church, receiving a wink from the Law, obsequiously
+engaged to do, for less than the price of a plum-cake.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime, while craftsmen and skilled women, directed
+by Mrs. Berry, were toiling to deck the day at hand,
+Raynham and Belthorpe slept,&mdash;the former soundly; and
+one day was as another to them. Regularly every morning
+a letter arrived from Richard to his father, containing
+observations on the phenomena of London; remarks
+(mainly cynical) on the speeches and acts of Parliament;
+and reasons for not having yet been able to call on the
+Grandisons. They were certainly rather monotonous and
+spiritless. The baronet did not complain. That cold dutiful
+tone assured him there was no internal trouble or
+distraction. "The letters of a healthful physique!" he said
+to Lady Blandish, with sure insight. Complacently he
+sat and smiled, little witting that his son's ordeal was
+imminent, and that his son's ordeal was to be his own.
+Hippias wrote that his nephew was killing him by making
+appointments which he never kept, and altogether neglecting
+him in the most shameless way, so that his ganglionic
+centre was in a ten times worse state than when he left
+Raynham. He wrote very bitterly, but it was hard to feel
+compassion for his offended stomach.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, young Tom Blaize was not forthcoming,
+and had despatched no tidings whatever. Farmer
+Blaize smoked his pipe evening after evening, vastly disturbed.
+London was a large place&mdash;young Tom might be
+lost in it, he thought; and young Tom had his weaknesses.
+A wolf at Belthorpe, he was likely to be a sheep in
+London, as yokels have proved. But what had become
+of Lucy? This consideration almost sent Farmer Blaize<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+off to London direct, and he would have gone had not
+his pipe enlightened him. A young fellow might play
+truant and get into a scrape, but a young man and a
+young woman were sure to be heard of, <i>unless</i> they were
+acting in complicity. Why, of course, young Tom had
+behaved like a man, the rascal! and married her outright
+there, while he had the chance. It was a long
+guess. Still it was the only reasonable way of accounting
+for his extraordinary silence, and therefore the farmer
+held to it that he had done the deed. He argued as
+modern men do who think the hero, the upsetter of
+ordinary calculations, is gone from us. So, after despatching
+a letter to a friend in town to be on the outlook
+for son Tom, he continued awhile to smoke his pipe,
+rather elated than not, and mused on the shrewd manner
+he should adopt when Master Honeymoon did appear.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the middle of the second week of Richard's
+absence, Tom Bakewell came to Raynham for Cassandra,
+and privately handed a letter to the Eighteenth Century,
+containing a request for money, and a round sum. The
+Eighteenth Century was as good as her word, and gave
+Tom a letter in return, enclosing a cheque on her bankers,
+amply providing to keep the heroic engine in motion at
+a moderate pace. Tom went back, and Raynham and
+Lobourne slept and dreamed not of the morrow. The
+System, wedded to Time, slept, and knew not how he
+had been outraged&mdash;anticipated by seven pregnant seasons.
+For Time had heard the hero swear to that legalizing
+instrument, and had also registered an oath. Ah me!
+venerable Hebrew Time! he is unforgiving. Half the
+confusion and fever of the world comes of this vendetta
+he declares against the hapless innocents who have once
+done him a wrong. They cannot escape him. They will
+never outlive it. The father of jokes, he is himself no
+joke; which it seems the business of men to discover.</p>
+
+<p>The days roll round. He is their servant now. Mrs.
+Berry has a new satin gown, a beautiful bonnet, a gold
+brooch, and sweet gloves, presented to her by the hero,
+wherein to stand by his bride at the altar to-morrow; and,
+instead of being an old wary hen, she is as much a chicken
+as any of the party, such has been the magic of these
+articles. Fathers she sees accepting the facts produced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>
+for them by their children; a world content to be carved
+out as it pleases the hero.</p>
+
+<p>At last Time brings the bridal eve, and is blest as a
+benefactor. The final arrangements are made; the bridegroom
+does depart; and Mrs. Berry lights the little bride
+to her bed. Lucy stops on the landing where there is
+an old clock eccentrically correct that night. 'Tis the
+palpitating pause before the gates of her transfiguration.
+Mrs. Berry sees her put her rosy finger on the <span class="smcap">One</span> about
+to strike, and touch all the hours successively till she
+comes to the <span class="smcap">Twelve</span> that shall sound "Wife" in her ears
+on the morrow, moving her lips the while, and looking
+round archly solemn when she has done; and that sight
+so catches at Mrs. Berry's heart that, not guessing Time
+to be the poor child's enemy, she endangers her candle
+by folding Lucy warmly in her arms, whimpering, "Bless
+you for a darling! you innocent lamb! You shall be
+happy! You shall!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Time gazes grimly ahead.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY TAKES THE
+PLACE OF THE FIRST</h3>
+
+
+<p>Although it blew hard when Cæsar crossed the Rubicon,
+the passage of that river is commonly calm; calm as
+Acheron. So long as he gets his fare, the ferryman
+does not need to be told whom he carries: he pulls with
+a will, and heroes may be over in half-an-hour. Only
+when they stand on the opposite bank, do they see what
+a leap they have taken. The shores they have relinquished
+shrink to an infinite remoteness. There they have
+dreamed: here they must act. There lie youth and irresolution:
+here manhood and purpose. They are veritably
+in another land: a moral Acheron divides their life.
+Their memories scarce seem their own! The <span class="smcap">Philosophical
+Geography</span> (about to be published) observes that
+each man has, one time or other, a little Rubicon&mdash;a
+clear or a foul water to cross. It is asked him: "Wilt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>
+thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind thee?" And
+"I will," firmly pronounced, speeds him over. The above-named
+manuscript authority informs us, that by far the
+greater number of carcases rolled by this heroic flood
+to its sister stream below, are those of fellows who have
+repented their pledge, and have tried to swim back to the
+bank they have blotted out. For though every man of
+us may be a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain
+so after a day's march even: and who wonders that
+Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the features of the
+terrible Universal Fate to him? Fail before her, either
+in heart or in act, and lo, how the alluring loves in her
+visage wither and sicken to what it is modelled on! Be
+your Rubicon big or small, clear or foul, it is the same:
+you shall not return. On&mdash;or to Acheron!&mdash;I subscribe
+to that saying of <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>:</p>
+
+<p>"The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable:
+<i>but beware the little knowledge of one's self!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal.
+Already the mists were stealing over the land he
+had left: his life was cut in two, and he breathed but the
+air that met his nostrils. His father, his father's love,
+his boyhood and ambition, were shadowy. His poetic
+dreams had taken a living attainable shape. He had a
+distincter impression of the Autumnal Berry and her
+household than of anything at Raynham. And yet the
+young man loved his father, loved his home: and I daresay
+Cæsar loved Rome: but whether he did or no, Cæsar
+when he killed the Republic was quite bald, and the hero
+we are dealing with is scarce beginning to feel his
+despotic moustache. Did he know what he was made of?
+Doubtless, nothing at all. But honest passion has an
+instinct that can be safer than conscious wisdom. He
+was an arrow drawn to the head, flying to the bow. His
+audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not strike
+him as in any way criminal; for he was perfectly sure
+that the winning and securing of Lucy would in the end
+be boisterously approved of, and in that case, were not
+the means justified? Not that he took trouble to argue
+thus, as older heroes and self-convicting villains are in
+the habit of doing, to deduce a clear conscience. Conscience
+and Lucy went together.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the
+morning sun. One of those days when London embraces
+the prospect of summer, and troops forth all its babies.
+The pavement, the squares, the parks, were early alive
+with the cries of young Britain. Violet and primrose
+girls, and organ boys with military monkeys, and systematic
+bands very determined in tone if not in tune,
+filled the atmosphere, and crowned the blazing procession
+of omnibuses, freighted with business men, Cityward,
+where a column of reddish brown smoke,&mdash;blown aloft
+by the South-west, marked the scene of conflict to which
+these persistent warriors repaired. Richard had seen
+much of early London that morning. His plans were
+laid. He had taken care to ensure his personal liberty
+against accidents, by leaving his hotel and his injured
+uncle Hippias at sunrise. To-day or to-morrow his father
+was to arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell reported
+to him, was raging in town. Another day and she might
+be torn from him: but to-day this miracle of creation
+would be his, and then from those glittering banks yonder,
+let them summon him to surrender her who dared!
+The position of things looked so propitious that he
+naturally thought the powers waiting on love conspired in
+his behalf. And she, too&mdash;since she must cross this river,
+she had sworn to him to be brave, and do him honour,
+and wear the true gladness of her heart in her face. Without
+a suspicion of folly in his acts, or fear of results,
+Richard strolled into Kensington Gardens, breakfasting
+on the foreshadow of his great joy, now with a vision of
+his bride, now of the new life opening to him. Mountain
+masses of clouds, rounded in sunlight, swung up the blue.
+The flowering chestnut pavilions overhead rustled and
+hummed. A sound in his ears as of a banner unfolding
+in the joyful distance lulled him.</p>
+
+<p>He was to meet his bride at the church at a quarter
+past eleven. His watch said a quarter to ten. He strolled
+on beneath the long-stemmed trees toward the well dedicated
+to a saint obscure. Some people were drinking at
+the well. A florid lady stood by a younger one, who had
+a little silver mug half-way to her mouth, and evinced
+undisguised dislike to the liquor of the salutary saint.</p>
+
+<p>"Drink, child!" said the maturer lady. "That is only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>
+your second mug. I insist upon your drinking three full
+ones every morning we're in town. Your constitution
+positively requires iron!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, mama," the other expostulated, "it's so nasty. I
+shall be sick."</p>
+
+<p>"Drink!" was the harsh injunction. "Nothing to the
+German waters, my dear. Here, let me taste." She took
+the mug and gave it a flying kiss. "I declare I think it
+almost nice&mdash;not at all objectionable. Pray, taste it," she
+said to a gentleman standing below them to act as cup-bearer.</p>
+
+<p>An unmistakable cis-Rubicon voice replied: "Certainly,
+if it's good fellowship; though I confess I don't
+think mutual sickness a very engaging ceremony."</p>
+
+<p>Can one never escape from one's relatives? Richard
+ejaculated inwardly.</p>
+
+<p>Without a doubt those people were Mrs. Doria, Clare,
+and Adrian. He had them under his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Clare, peeping up from her constitutional dose to make
+sure no man was near to see the possible consequence of
+it, was the first to perceive him. Her hand dropped.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, pray, drink, and do not fuss!" said Mrs. Doria.</p>
+
+<p>"Mama!" Clare gasped.</p>
+
+<p>Richard came forward and capitulated honourably,
+since retreat was out of the question. Mrs. Doria swam
+to meet him: "My own boy! My dear Richard!" profuse
+of exclamations. Clare shyly greeted him. Adrian kept
+in the background.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we were coming for you to-day, Richard," said
+Mrs. Doria, smiling effusion; and rattled on, "We want
+another cavalier. This is delightful! My dear nephew!
+You have grown from a boy to a man. And there's down
+on his lip! And what brings you here at such an hour
+in the morning? Poetry, I suppose! Here, take my arm,
+child.&mdash;Clare! finish that mug and thank your cousin for
+sparing you the third. I always bring her, when we are
+by a chalybeate, to take the waters before breakfast. We
+have to get up at unearthly hours. Think, my dear boy!
+Mothers are sacrifices! And so you've been alone a fortnight
+with your agreeable uncle! A charming time of
+it you must have had! Poor Hippias! what may be his
+last nostrum?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nephew!" Adrian stretched his head round to the
+couple. "Doses of nephew taken morning and night fourteen
+days! And he guarantees that it shall destroy an
+iron constitution in a month."</p>
+
+<p>Richard mechanically shook Adrian's hand as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite well, Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes: well enough," Richard answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with
+him, while Clare and Adrian followed. "I really never
+saw you looking so handsome. There's something about
+your face&mdash;look at me&mdash;you needn't blush. You've grown
+to an Apollo. That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes
+you admirably&mdash;and those gloves, and that easy neck-tie.
+Your style is irreproachable, quite a style of your own!
+And nothing eccentric. You have the instinct of dress.
+Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as much as anything
+else. Boy!&mdash;you see, I can't forget old habits. You
+were a boy when I left, and now!&mdash;Do you see any
+change in him, Clare?" she turned half round to her
+daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard is looking very well, mama," said Clare,
+glancing at him under her eyelids.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.&mdash;Take
+my arm, Richard. Are you afraid of your aunt? I want
+to get used to you. Won't it be pleasant, our being all in
+town together in the season? How fresh the Opera will
+be to you! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. You can come
+to the Forey's box when you like. We are staying with
+the Foreys close by here. I think it's a little too far
+out, you know; but they like the neighbourhood. This
+is what I have always said: Give him more liberty!
+Austin has seen it at last. How do you think Clare
+looking?"</p>
+
+<p>The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed
+his cousin hastily, and praised her looks.</p>
+
+<p>"Pale!" Mrs. Doria sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather pale, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Grown very much&mdash;don't you think, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very tall girl indeed, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard!
+I'm sure I give her all the iron she can swallow, but that
+pallor still continues. I think she does not prosper away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>
+from her old companion. She was accustomed to look
+up to you, Richard"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Did you get Ralph's letter, aunt?" Richard interrupted
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Absurd!" Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. "The nonsense
+of a boy! Why did you undertake to forward such
+stuff?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm certain he loves her," said Richard, in a serious
+way.</p>
+
+<p>The maternal eyes narrowed on him. "Life, my dear
+Richard, is a game of cross-purposes," she observed, dropping
+her fluency, and was rather angered to hear him
+laugh. He excused himself by saying that she spoke so
+like his father.</p>
+
+<p>"You breakfast with us," she freshened off again. "The
+Foreys wish to see you; the girls are dying to know you.
+Do you know, you have a reputation on account of that"&mdash;she
+crushed an intruding adjective&mdash;"System you were
+brought up on. You mustn't mind it. For my part, I
+think you look a credit to it. Don't be bashful with young
+women, mind! As much as you please with the old ones.
+You know how to behave among men. There you have
+your Drawing-room Guide! I'm sure I shall be proud
+of you. Am I not?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly.</p>
+
+<p>A benevolent idea struck Richard, that he might employ
+the minutes to spare, in pleading the case of poor
+Ralph; and, as he was drawn along, he pulled out his
+watch to note the precise number of minutes he could
+dedicate to this charitable office.</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me," said Mrs. Doria. "You want manners,
+my dear boy. I think it never happened to me before
+that a man consulted his watch in my presence."</p>
+
+<p>Richard mildly replied that he had an engagement at a
+particular hour, up to which he was her servant.</p>
+
+<p>"Fiddlededee!" the vivacious lady sang. "Now I've got
+you, I mean to keep you. Oh! I've heard all about you.
+This ridiculous indifference that your father makes so
+much of! Why, of course, you wanted to see the world!
+A strong, healthy young man shut up all his life in a
+lonely house&mdash;no friends, no society, no amusements but
+those of rustics! Of course you were indifferent! Your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>
+intelligence and superior mind alone saved you from
+becoming a dissipated country boor.&mdash;Where are the
+others?"</p>
+
+<p>Clare and Adrian came up at a quick pace.</p>
+
+<p>"My damozel dropped something," Adrian explained.</p>
+
+<p>Her mother asked what it was.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, mama," said Clare, demurely, and they proceeded
+as before.</p>
+
+<p>Overborne by his aunt's fluency of tongue, and occupied
+in acute calculation of the flying minutes, Richard
+let many pass before he edged in a word for Ralph.
+When he did, Mrs. Doria stopped him immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such
+rank idiotcy."</p>
+
+<p>"It's nothing of the kind, aunt."</p>
+
+<p>"The fancy of a boy."</p>
+
+<p>"He's not a boy. He's half-a-year older than I am!"</p>
+
+<p>"You silly child! The moment you fall in love, you
+all think yourselves men."</p>
+
+<p>"On my honour, aunt! I believe he loves her thoroughly."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he tell you so, child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Men don't speak openly of those things," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys do," said Mrs. Doria.</p>
+
+<p>"But listen to me in earnest, aunt. I want you to be
+kind to Ralph. Don't drive him to&mdash;You may be sorry
+for it. Let him&mdash;do let him write to her, and see her. I
+believe women are as cruel as men in these things."</p>
+
+<p>"I never encourage absurdity, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"What objection have you to Ralph, aunt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they're both good families. It's not that absurdity,
+Richard. It will be to his credit to remember that his
+first fancy wasn't a dairymaid." Mrs. Doria pitched her
+accent tellingly. It did not touch her nephew.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you want Clare ever to marry?" He put the
+last point of reason to her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria laughed. "I hope so, child. We must find
+some comfortable old gentleman for her."</p>
+
+<p>"What infamy!" mutters Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her
+wedding, or eat a hearty breakfast&mdash;We don't dance at
+weddings now, and very properly. It's a horrid sad business,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>
+not to be treated with levity.&mdash;Is that his regiment?"
+she said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled gardens.
+"Tush, tush, child; Master Ralph will recover, as&mdash;hem!
+others have done. A little headache&mdash;you call it
+heartache&mdash;and up you rise again, looking better than
+ever. No doubt, to have a grain of sense forced into
+your brains, you poor dear children! must be painful.
+Girls suffer as much as boys, I assure you. More, for
+their heads are weaker, and their appetites less constant.
+Do I talk like your father now? Whatever makes the
+boy fidget at his watch so?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go," he said.</p>
+
+<p>His face did not seem good for trifling. Mrs. Doria
+would trifle in spite.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Clare! Richard is going. He says he has an
+engagement. What possible engagement can a young
+man have at eleven o'clock in the morning?&mdash;unless it's
+to be married!" Mrs. Doria laughed at the ingenuity of
+her suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the church handy, Ricky?" said Adrian. "You can
+still give us half-an-hour if it is. The celibate hours
+strike at Twelve." And he also laughed in his fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you stay with us, Richard?" Clare asked. She
+blushed timidly, and her voice shook.</p>
+
+<p>Something indefinite&mdash;a sharp-edged thrill in the tones
+made the burning bridegroom speak gently to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I would, Clare; I should like to please you,
+but I have a most imperative appointment&mdash;that is, I
+promised&mdash;I must go. I shall see you again"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria took forcible possession of him. "Now, do
+come, and don't waste words. I insist upon your having
+some breakfast first, and then, if you really must go, you
+shall. Look! there's the house. At least you will accompany
+your aunt to the door."</p>
+
+<p>Richard conceded this. She little imagined what she
+required of him. Two of his golden minutes melted into
+nothingness. They were growing to be jewels of price,
+one by one more and more precious as they ran, and now
+so costly-rare&mdash;rich as his blood! not to kindest relations,
+dearest friends, could he give another. The die is cast!
+Ferryman! push off.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye!" he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as
+one, and fled.</p>
+
+<p>They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the
+grounds of the house. He looked like resolution on the
+march. Mrs. Doria, as usual with her out of her brother's
+hearing, began rating the System.</p>
+
+<p>"See what becomes of that nonsensical education! The
+boy really does not know how to behave like a common
+mortal. He has some paltry appointment, or is mad after
+some ridiculous idea of his own, and everything must be
+sacrificed to it! That's what Austin calls concentration
+of the faculties. I think it's more likely to lead to downright
+insanity than to greatness of any kind. And so I
+shall tell Austin. It's time he should be spoken to seriously
+about him."</p>
+
+<p>"He's an engine, my dear aunt," said Adrian. "He
+isn't a boy, or a man, but an engine. And he appears to
+have been at high pressure since he came to town&mdash;out
+all day and half the night."</p>
+
+<p>"He's mad!" Mrs. Doria interjected.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and
+carries as open an eye ahead of him as the ships before
+Troy. He's more than a match for any of us. He is for
+me, I confess."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Mrs. Doria, "he does astonish me!"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the
+right season, which would not be long arriving.</p>
+
+<p>Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the
+Foreys of their hopeful relative's ungracious behaviour.
+Clare had left them. When Mrs. Doria went to her room
+her daughter was there, gazing down at something in her
+hand, which she guiltily closed.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take
+off her things, Clare said she was not hungry. Mrs. Doria
+lamented the obstinacy of a constitution that no quantity
+of iron could affect, and eclipsed the looking-glass, saying:
+"Take them off here, child, and learn to assist
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her
+spreading hair, talking of Richard, and his handsome
+appearance, and extraordinary conduct. Clare kept
+opening and shutting her hand, in an attitude half pensive,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>
+half-listless. She did not stir to undress. A joyous
+dimple hung in one pale cheek, and she drew long, even
+breaths.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to
+show, came to her daughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, really," she said, "you are too helpless, my dear.
+You cannot do a thing without a dozen women at your
+elbow. What will become of you? You will have to
+marry a millionaire.&mdash;What's the matter with you, child?"</p>
+
+<p>Clare undid her tight-shut fingers, as if to some attraction
+of her eyes, and displayed a small gold hoop on the
+palm of a green glove.</p>
+
+<p>"A wedding-ring!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria, inspecting
+the curiosity most daintily.</p>
+
+<p>There on Clare's pale green glove lay a wedding-ring!</p>
+
+<p>Rapid questions as to where, when, how, it was found,
+beset Clare, who replied: "In the Gardens, mama. This
+morning. When I was walking behind Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure he did not give it you, Clare?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, mama! he did not give it me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not! only he does such absurd things! I
+thought, perhaps&mdash;these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous!"
+Mrs. Doria had an idea that it might have been
+concerted between the two young gentlemen, Richard and
+Ralph, that the former should present this token of
+hymeneal devotion from the latter to the young lady of
+his love; but a moment's reflection, exonerated boys even
+from such preposterous behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I wonder," she speculated on Clare's cold face,
+"I do wonder whether it's lucky to find a wedding-ring.
+What very quick eyes you have, my darling!" Mrs. Doria
+kissed her. She thought it must be lucky, and the circumstance
+made her feel tender to her child. Her child
+did not move to the kiss.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see whether it fits," said Mrs. Doria, almost infantine
+with surprise and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Clare suffered her glove to be drawn off. The ring slid
+down her long thin finger, and settled comfortably.</p>
+
+<p>"It does!" Mrs. Doria whispered. To find a wedding-ring
+is open to any woman; but to find a wedding-ring
+that fits may well cause a superstitious emotion. Moreover,
+that it should be found while walking in the neighbourhood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>
+of the identical youth whom a mother has
+destined for her daughter, gives significance to the gentle
+perturbation of ideas consequent on such a hint from
+Fortune.</p>
+
+<p>"It really fits!" she pursued. "Now I never pay any
+attention to the nonsense of omens and that kind of
+thing" (had the ring been a horseshoe Mrs. Doria would
+have picked it up and dragged it obediently home), "but
+this, I must say, is odd&mdash;to find a ring that fits!&mdash;singular!
+It never happened to me. Sixpence is the most I
+ever discovered, and I have it now. Mind you keep it,
+Clare&mdash;this ring. And," she laughed, "offer it to Richard
+when he comes; say, you think he must have dropped it."</p>
+
+<p>The dimple in Clare's cheek quivered.</p>
+
+<p>Mother and daughter had never spoken explicitly of
+Richard. Mrs. Doria, by exquisite management, had contrived
+to be sure that on one side there would be no
+obstacle to her project of general happiness, without, as
+she thought, compromising her daughter's feelings unnecessarily.
+It could do no harm to an obedient young
+girl to hear that there was no youth in the world like a
+certain youth. He the prince of his generation, she might
+softly consent, when requested, to be his princess; and
+if never requested (for Mrs. Doria envisaged failure),
+she might easily transfer her softness to squires of lower
+degree. Clare had always been blindly obedient to her
+mother (Adrian called them Mrs. Doria Battledoria and
+the fair Shuttlecockiana), and her mother accepted in
+this blind obedience the text of her entire character. It
+is difficult for those who think very earnestly for their
+children to know when their children are thinking on
+their own account. The exercise of their volition we
+construe as revolt. Our love does not like to be invalided
+and deposed from its command, and here I think yonder
+old thrush on the lawn who has just kicked the last of her
+lank offspring out of the nest to go shift for itself, much
+the kinder of the two, though sentimental people do shrug
+their shoulders at these unsentimental acts of the creatures
+who never wander from nature. Now, excess of
+obedience is, to one who manages most exquisitely, as bad
+as insurrection. Happily Mrs. Doria saw nothing in her
+daughter's manner save a want of iron. Her pallor, her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+lassitude, the tremulous nerves in her face, exhibited an
+imperious requirement of the mineral.</p>
+
+<p>"The reason why men and women are mysterious to us,
+and prove disappointing," we learn from <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's
+Scrip</span>, "is, that we will read them from our own book;
+just as we are perplexed by reading ourselves from theirs."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria read her daughter from her own book, and
+she was gay; she laughed with Adrian at the breakfast-table,
+and mock-seriously joined in his jocose assertion
+that Clare was positively and by all hymeneal auspices
+betrothed to the owner of that ring, be he who he may,
+and must, whenever he should choose to come and claim
+her, give her hand to him (for everybody agreed the
+owner must be masculine, as no <i>woman</i> would drop a
+wedding-ring), and follow him whither he listed all the
+world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called Clare,
+The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian
+threw off the first strophe of Clare's fortune in burlesque
+rhymes, with an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt
+Forey warned her to have her dresses in readiness. Her
+grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at bridal presents
+being expected from grandpapas. This one smelt orange-flower,
+another spoke solemnly of an old shoe. The finding
+of a wedding-ring was celebrated through all the palpitating
+accessories and rosy ceremonies involved by that
+famous instrument. In the midst of the general hilarity,
+Clare showed her deplorable want of iron by bursting into
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>Did the poor mocked-at heart divine what might be then
+enacting? Perhaps, dimly, as we say: that is, without
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>At an altar stand two fair young creatures, ready with
+their oaths. They are asked to fix all time to the moment,
+and they do so. If there is hesitation at the immense
+undertaking, it is but maidenly. She conceives as little
+mental doubt of the sanity of the act as he. Over them
+hangs a cool young curate in his raiment of office. Behind
+are two apparently lucid people, distinguished from
+each other by sex and age; the foremost a bunch of simmering
+black satin; under her shadow a cock-robin in
+the dress of a gentleman, big joy swelling out his chest,
+and pert satisfaction cocking his head. These be they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>
+who stand here in place of parents to the young couple.
+All is well. The service proceeds.</p>
+
+<p>Firmly the bridegroom tells forth his words. This hour
+of the complacent giant at least is his, and that he means
+to hold him bound through the eternities, men may hear.
+Clearly, and with brave modesty, speaks she: no less
+firmly, though her body trembles: her voice just vibrating
+while the tone travels on, like a smitten vase.</p>
+
+<p>Time hears sentence pronounced on him: the frail hands
+bind his huge limbs and lock the chains. He is used to it:
+he lets them do as they will.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes that period when they are to give their troth
+to each other. The Man with his right hand takes the
+Woman by her right hand: the Woman with her right
+hand takes the Man by his right hand.&mdash;Devils dare not
+laugh at whom Angels crowd to contemplate.</p>
+
+<p>Their hands are joined; their blood flows as one stream.
+Adam and fair Eve front the generations. Are they not
+lovely? Purer fountains of life were never in two bosoms.</p>
+
+<p>And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate
+doth bid the Man to put a ring on the Woman's fourth
+finger, counting thumb. And the Man thrusts his hand
+into one pocket, and into another, forward and back many
+times: into all his pockets. He remembers that he felt
+for it, and felt it in his waistcoat pocket, when in the
+Gardens. And his hand comes forth empty. And the Man
+is ghastly to look at!</p>
+
+<p>Yet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh! The
+curate deliberates. The black satin bunch ceases to simmer.
+He in her shadow changes from a beaming cock-robin
+to an inquisitive sparrow. Eyes multiply questions:
+lips have no reply. Time ominously shakes his chain,
+and in the pause a sound of mockery stings their ears.</p>
+
+<p>Think ye a hero is one to be defeated in his first battle?
+Look at the clock! there are but seven minutes to the
+stroke of the celibate hours: the veteran is surely lifting
+his two hands to deliver fire, and his shot will sunder
+them in twain so nearly united. All the jewellers of
+London speeding down with sacks full of the nuptial
+circlet cannot save them!</p>
+
+<p>The battle must be won on the field, and what does the
+hero now? It is an inspiration! For who else would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>
+dream of such a reserve in the rear? None see what he
+does; only that the black-satin bunch is remonstratingly
+agitated, stormily shaken, and subdued: and as though the
+menacing cloud had opened, and dropped the dear token
+from the skies at his demand, he produces the symbol of
+their consent, and the service proceeds: "With this ring
+I thee wed."</p>
+
+<p>They are prayed over and blest. For good, or for ill,
+this deed is done. The names are registered; fees fly
+right and left: they thank, and salute, the curate, whose
+official coolness melts into a smile of monastic gallantry:
+the beadle on the steps waves off a gaping world as they
+issue forth: bridegroom and bridesman recklessly scatter
+gold on him: carriage doors are banged to: the coachmen
+drive off, and the scene closes, everybody happy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST</h3>
+
+
+<p>And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she
+would dissolve to one of Dian's Virgin Fountains from
+the clasp of the Sun-God. She has nobly preserved the
+mask imposed by comedies, till the curtain has fallen, and
+now she weeps, streams with tears. Have patience, O impetuous
+young man! It is your profession to be a hero.
+This poor heart is new to it, and her duties involve such
+wild acts, such brigandage, such terrors and tasks, she is
+quite unnerved. She did you honour till now. Bear with
+her now. She does not cry the cry of ordinary maidens
+in like cases. While the struggle went on her tender face
+was brave; but alas! Omens are against her: she holds
+an ever-present dreadful one on that fatal fourth finger
+of hers, which has coiled itself round her dream of delight,
+and takes her in its clutch like a horrid serpent. And yet
+she must love it. She dares not part from it. She must
+love and hug it, and feed on its strange honey, and all
+the bliss it gives her casts all the deeper shadow on what
+is to come.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Say: Is it not enough to cause feminine apprehension,
+for a woman to be married in another woman's ring?</p>
+
+<p>You are amazons, ladies, at Saragossa, and a thousand
+citadels&mdash;wherever there is strife, and Time is to be taken
+by the throat. Then shall few men match your sublime
+fury. But what if you see a vulture, visible only to
+yourselves, hovering over the house you are gaily led by
+the torch to inhabit? Will you not crouch and be cowards?</p>
+
+<p>As for the hero, in the hour of victory he pays no heed
+to omens. He does his best to win his darling to confidence
+by caresses. Is she not his? Is he not hers? And
+why, when the battle is won, does she weep? Does she
+regret what she has done?</p>
+
+<p>Oh, never! never! her soft blue eyes assure him, steadfast
+love seen swimming on clear depths of faith in them,
+through the shower.</p>
+
+<p>He is silenced by her exceeding beauty, and sits perplexed
+waiting for the shower to pass.</p>
+
+<p>Alone with Mrs. Berry, in her bedroom, Lucy gave
+tongue to her distress, and a second character in the
+comedy changed her face.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry! what has happened! what
+has happened!"</p>
+
+<p>"My darlin' child!" The bridal Berry gazed at the
+finger of doleful joy. "I'd forgot all about it! And that's
+what've made me feel so queer ever since, then! I've
+been seemin' as if I wasn't myself somehow, without my
+ring. Dear! dear! what a wilful young gentleman! We
+ain't a match for men in that state&mdash;Lord help us!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry sat on the edge of a chair: Lucy on the edge
+of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it, Mrs. Berry? Is it not
+terrible?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't say I should'a liked it myself, my dear," Mrs.
+Berry candidly responded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! why, why, why did it happen!" the young bride
+bent to a flood of fresh tears, murmuring that she felt
+already old&mdash;forsaken.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you got a comfort in your religion for all accidents?"
+Mrs. Berry inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"None for this. I know it's wrong to cry when I am so
+happy. I hope he will forgive me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry vowed her bride was the sweetest, softest,
+beautifulest thing in life.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll cry no more," said Lucy. "Leave me, Mrs. Berry,
+and come back when I ring."</p>
+
+<p>She drew forth a little silver cross, and fell upon her
+knees to the bed. Mrs. Berry left the room tiptoe.</p>
+
+<p>When she was called to return, Lucy was calm and tearless,
+and smiled kindly to her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's over now," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry sedately looked for her ring to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"He does not wish me to go in to the breakfast you
+have prepared, Mrs. Berry. I begged to be excused. I
+cannot eat."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry very much deplored it, as she had laid out
+a superior nuptial breakfast, but with her mind on her
+ring she nodded assentingly.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall not have much packing to do, Mrs. Berry."</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear. It's pretty well all done."</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Berry."</p>
+
+<p>"And a very suitable spot ye've chose, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"He loves the sea. He wishes to be near it."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ye cross to-night, if it's anyways rough, my dear.
+It isn't advisable." Mrs. Berry sank her voice to say,
+"Don't ye be soft and give way to him there, or you'll
+both be repenting it."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had only been staving off the unpleasantness she
+had to speak. She saw Mrs. Berry's eyes pursuing her
+ring, and screwed up her courage at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Berry."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Berry, you shall have another ring."</p>
+
+<p>"Another, my dear?" Berry did not comprehend.
+"One's quite enough for the objeck," she remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," Lucy touched her fourth finger, "I cannot
+part with this." She looked straight at Mrs. Berry.</p>
+
+<p>That bewildered creature gazed at her, and at the ring,
+till she had thoroughly exhausted the meaning of the
+words, and then exclaimed, horror-struck: "Deary me,
+now! you don't say that? You're to be married again in
+your own religion."</p>
+
+<p>The young wife repeated: "I can never part with it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear!" the wretched Berry wrung her hands,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>
+divided between compassion and a sense of injury. "My
+dear!" she kept expostulating like a mute.</p>
+
+<p>"I know all that you would say, Mrs. Berry. I am very
+grieved to pain you. It is mine now, and must be mine.
+I cannot give it back."</p>
+
+<p>There she sat, suddenly developed to the most inflexible
+little heroine in the three Kingdoms.</p>
+
+<p>From her first perception of the meaning of the young
+bride's words, Mrs. Berry, a shrewd physiognomist, knew
+that her case was hopeless, unless she treated her as she
+herself had been treated, and seized the ring by force of
+arms; and that she had not heart for.</p>
+
+<p>"What!" she gasped faintly, "one's own lawful wedding-ring
+you wouldn't give back to a body?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is mine, Mrs. Berry. It was yours, but it is
+mine now. You shall have whatever you ask for but that.
+Pray, forgive me! It must be so."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry rocked on her chair, and sounded her hands
+together. It amazed her that this soft little creature could
+be thus firm. She tried argument.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ye know, my dear, it's the fatalest thing you're
+inflictin' upon me, reelly! Don't ye know that bein' bereft
+of one's own lawful wedding-ring's the fatalest thing in
+life, and there's no prosperity after it! For what stands
+in place o' that, when that's gone, my dear? And what
+<i>could</i> ye give me to compensate a body for the loss o' that!
+Don't ye know&mdash;Oh, deary me!" The little bride's face
+was so set that poor Berry wailed off in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," said Lucy. "I know it all. I know what
+I do to you. Dear, dear Mrs. Berry! forgive me! If I
+parted with my ring I know it would be fatal."</p>
+
+<p>So this fair young freebooter took possession of her
+argument as well as her ring.</p>
+
+<p>Berry racked her distracted wits for a further appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my child," she counterargued, "you don't understand.
+It ain't as you think. It ain't a hurt to you now.
+Not a bit, it ain't. It makes no difference now! Any ring
+does while the wearer's a maid. And your Mr. Richard'll
+find the very ring he intended for ye. And, of course,
+that's the one you'll wear as his wife. It's all the same
+now, my dear. It's no shame to a maid. Now do&mdash;now
+do&mdash;there's a darlin'!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Wheedling availed as little as argument.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, "you know what my&mdash;he
+spoke: 'With this ring I thee wed.' It was with <i>this</i> ring.
+Then how could it be with another?"</p>
+
+<p>Berry was constrained despondently to acknowledge that
+was logic.</p>
+
+<p>She hit upon an artful conjecture:</p>
+
+<p>"Won't it be unlucky your wearin' of the ring which
+served me so? Think o' that!"</p>
+
+<p>"It may! it may! it may!" cried Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"And arn't you rushin' into it, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Berry," Lucy said again, "it was this ring. It
+cannot&mdash;it never can be another. It was this. What it
+brings me I must bear. I shall wear it till I die!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then what am <i>I</i> to do?" the ill-used woman groaned.
+"What shall I tell my husband when he come back to me,
+and see I've got a new ring waitin' for him? Won't that
+be a welcome?"</p>
+
+<p>Quoth Lucy: "How can he know it is not the same, in
+a plain gold ring?"</p>
+
+<p>"You never see so keen a eyed man in joolry as my
+Berry!" returned his solitary spouse. "Not know, my
+dear? Why, any one would know that 've got eyes in his
+head. There's as much difference in wedding-rings as
+there's in wedding people! Now, do pray be reasonable,
+my own sweet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, do not ask me," pleads Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, do think better of it," urges Berry.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, pray, Mrs. Berry!" pleads Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And not leave your old Berry all forlorn just when
+you're so happy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I would not, you dear, kind old creature!"
+Lucy faltered.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry thought she had her.</p>
+
+<p>"Just when you're going to be the happiest wife on
+earth&mdash;all you want yours!" she pursued the tender strain.
+"A handsome young gentleman! Love and Fortune
+smilin' on ye!"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Lucy rose up.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Berry," she said, "I think we must not lose time
+in getting ready, or he will be impatient."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Berry surveyed her in abject wonder from the edge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>
+of her chair. Dignity and resolve were in the ductile
+form she had hitherto folded under her wing. In an hour
+the heroine had risen to the measure of the hero. Without
+being exactly aware what creature she was dealing
+with, Berry acknowledged to herself it was not one of the
+common run, and sighed, and submitted.</p>
+
+<p>"It's like a divorce, that it is!" she sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>After putting the corners of her apron to her eyes,
+Berry bustled humbly about the packing. Then Lucy,
+whose heart was full to her, came and kissed her, and
+Berry bumped down and regularly cried. This over, she
+had recourse to fatalism.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it was to be, my dear! It's my punishment
+for meddlin' wi' such matters. No, I'm not sorry. Bless
+ye both. Who'd 'a thought you was so wilful?&mdash;you that
+any one might have taken for one of the silly-softs!
+You're a pair, my dear! indeed you are! You was made
+to meet! But we mustn't show him we've been crying.&mdash;Men
+don't like it when they're happy. Let's wash our
+faces and try to bear our lot."</p>
+
+<p>So saying the black-satin bunch careened to a renewed
+deluge. She deserved some sympathy, for if it is sad to
+be married in another person's ring, how much sadder to
+have one's own old accustomed lawful ring violently torn
+off one's finger and eternally severed from one! But
+where you have heroes and heroines, these terrible complications
+ensue.</p>
+
+<p>They had now both fought their battle of the ring, and
+with equal honour and success.</p>
+
+<p>In the chamber of banquet Richard was giving Ripton
+his last directions. Though it was a private wedding, Mrs.
+Berry had prepared a sumptuous breakfast. Chickens
+offered their breasts: pies hinted savoury secrets: things
+mystic, in a mash, with Gallic appellatives, jellies, creams,
+fruits, strewed the table: as a tower in the midst, the
+cake colossal: the priestly vesture of its nuptial white relieved
+by hymeneal splendours.</p>
+
+<p>Many hours, much labour and anxiety of mind, Mrs.
+Berry had expended upon this breakfast, and why? There
+is one who comes to all feasts that have their basis in
+Folly, whom criminals of trained instinct are careful to
+provide against: who will speak, and whose hateful voice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+must somehow be silenced while the feast is going on.
+This personage is <span class="smcap">The Philosopher</span>. Mrs. Berry knew
+him. She knew that he would come. She provided
+against him in the manner she thought most efficacious:
+that is, by cheating her eyes and intoxicating her conscience
+with the due and proper glories incident to weddings
+where fathers dilate, mothers collapse, and marriage
+settlements are flourished on high by the family lawyer:
+and had there been no show of the kind to greet her on
+her return from the church, she would, and she foresaw
+she would, have stared at squalor and emptiness, and
+repented her work. The Philosopher would have laid hold
+of her by the ear, and called her bad names. Entrenched
+behind a breakfast-table so legitimately adorned, Mrs.
+Berry defied him. In the presence of that cake he dared
+not speak above a whisper. And there were wines to
+drown him in, should he still think of protesting; fiery
+wines, and cool: claret sent purposely by the bridegroom
+for the delectation of his friend.</p>
+
+<p>For one good hour, therefore, the labour of many hours
+kept him dumb. Ripton was fortifying himself so as to
+forget him altogether, and the word as well, till the next
+morning. Ripton was excited, overdone with delight. He
+had already finished one bottle, and listened, pleasantly
+flushed, to his emphatic and more abstemious chief. He
+had nothing to do but to listen, and to drink. The hero
+would not allow him to shout Victory! or hear a word of
+toasts; and as, from the quantity of oil poured on it, his
+eloquence was becoming a natural force in his bosom, the
+poor fellow was afflicted with a sort of elephantiasis of
+suppressed emotion. At times he half-rose from his chair,
+and fell vacuously into it again; or he chuckled in the
+face of weighty, severely-worded instructions; tapped his
+chest, stretched his arms, yawned, and in short behaved
+so singularly that Richard observed it, and said: "On
+my soul, I don't think you know a word I'm saying."</p>
+
+<p>"Every word, Ricky!" Ripton spirted through the opening.
+"I'm going down to your governor, and tell him:
+Sir Austin! Here's your only chance of being a happy
+father&mdash;no, no!&mdash;Oh! don't you fear me, Ricky! I shall
+talk the old gentleman over."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>His chief said:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here. You had better not go down to-night. Go
+down the first thing to-morrow, by the six o'clock train.
+Give him my letter. Listen to me&mdash;give him my letter,
+and don't speak a word till he speaks. His eyebrows will
+go up and down, he won't say much. I know him. If he
+asks you about her, don't be a fool, but say what you
+think of her sensibly"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>No cork could hold in Ripton when she was alluded to
+He shouted: "She's an angel!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard checked him: "Speak sensibly, I say&mdash;quietly.
+You can say how gentle and good she is&mdash;my fleur-de-luce!
+And say, this was not her doing. If any one's to blame,
+it's I. I made her marry me. Then go to Lady Blandish,
+if you don't find her at the house. You may say whatever
+you please to her. Give her my letter, and tell her I
+want to hear from her immediately. She has seen Lucy,
+and I know what she thinks of her. You will then go to
+Farmer Blaize. I told you Lucy happens to be his niece&mdash;she
+has not lived long there. She lived with her aunt
+Desborough in France while she was a child, and can
+hardly be called a relative to the farmer&mdash;there's not a
+point of likeness between them. Poor darling! she never
+knew her mother. Go to Mr. Blaize, and tell him. You
+will treat him just as you would treat any other gentleman.
+If you are civil, he is sure to be. And if he
+abuses me, for my sake and hers you will still treat him
+with respect. You hear? And then write me a full account
+of all that has been said and done. You will have
+my address the day after to-morrow. By the way, Tom
+will be here this afternoon. Write out for him where to
+call on you the day after to-morrow, in case you have
+heard anything in the morning you think I ought to
+know at once, as Tom will join me that night. Don't
+mention to anybody about my losing the ring, Ripton.
+I wouldn't have Adrian get hold of that for a thousand
+pounds. How on earth I came to lose it! How well she
+bore it, Rip! How beautifully she behaved!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton again shouted: "An angel!" Throwing up the
+heels of his second bottle, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"You may trust your friend, Richard. Aha! when you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+pulled at old Mrs. Berry I didn't know what was up. I do
+wish you'd let me drink her health?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here's to Penelope!" said Richard, just wetting his
+mouth. The carriage was at the door: a couple of dire
+organs, each grinding the same tune, and a vulture-scented
+itinerant band (from which not the secretest veiled wedding
+can escape) worked harmoniously without in the
+production of discord, and the noise acting on his nervous
+state made him begin to fume and send in messages for
+his bride by the maid.</p>
+
+<p>By and by the lovely young bride presented herself
+dressed for her journey, and smiling from stained eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry was requested to drink some wine, which
+Ripton poured out for her, enabling Mrs. Berry thereby to
+measure his condition.</p>
+
+<p>The bride now kissed Mrs. Berry, and Mrs. Berry kissed
+the bridegroom, on the plea of her softness. Lucy gave
+Ripton her hand, with a musical "Good-bye, Mr. Thompson,"
+and her extreme graciousness made him just sensible
+enough to sit down before he murmured his fervent
+hopes for her happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall take good care of him," said Mrs. Berry, focussing
+her eyes to the comprehension of the company.</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell, Penelope!" cried Richard. "I shall tell the
+police everywhere to look out for your lord."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my dears! good-bye, and Heaven bless ye both!"</p>
+
+<p>Berry quavered, touched with compunction at the
+thoughts of approaching loneliness. Ripton, his mouth
+drawn like a bow to his ears, brought up the rear to the
+carriage, receiving a fair slap on the cheek from an old
+shoe precipitated by Mrs. Berry's enthusiastic female
+domestic.</p>
+
+<p>White handkerchiefs were waved, the adieux had fallen
+to signs: they were off. Then did a thought of such
+urgency illumine Mrs. Berry, that she telegraphed, hand
+in air, awakening Ripton's lungs, for the coachman to
+stop, and ran back to the house. Richard chafed to be
+gone, but at his bride's intercession he consented to wait.
+Presently they beheld the old black-satin bunch stream
+through the street-door, down the bit of garden, and up
+the astonished street, halting, panting, capless at the
+carriage door, a book in her hand,&mdash;a much-used, dog-leaved,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>
+steamy, greasy book, which, at the same time
+calling out in breathless jerks, "There! never ye mind
+looks! I ain't got a new one. Read it, and don't ye forget
+it!" she discharged into Lucy's lap, and retreated to the
+railings, a signal for the coachman to drive away for
+good.</p>
+
+<p>How Richard laughed at the Berry's bridal gift! Lucy,
+too, lost the omen at her heart as she glanced at the title
+of the volume. It was Dr. Kitchener on Domestic
+Cookery!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON</h3>
+
+
+<p>General withdrawing of heads from street-windows,
+emigration of organs and bands, and a relaxed atmosphere
+in the circle of Mrs. Berry's abode, proved that Dan
+Cupid had veritably flown to suck the life of fresh regions.
+With a pensive mind she grasped Ripton's arm to regulate
+his steps, and returned to the room where her creditor
+awaited her. In the interval he had stormed her undefended
+fortress, the cake, from which altitude he shook a
+dolorous head at the guilty woman. She smoothed her
+excited apron, sighing. Let no one imagine that she
+regretted her complicity. She was ready to cry torrents,
+but there must be absolute castigation before this criminal
+shall conceive the sense of regret; and probably then she
+will cling to her wickedness the more&mdash;such is the born
+Pagan's tenacity! Mrs. Berry sighed, and gave him back
+his shake of the head. O you wanton, improvident
+creature! said he. O you very wise old gentleman! said
+she. He asked her the thing she had been doing. She
+enlightened him with the fatalist's reply. He sounded a
+bogey's alarm of contingent grave results. She retreated
+to the entrenched camp of the fact she had helped to make.</p>
+
+<p>"It's done!" she exclaimed. How could she regret what
+she felt comfort to know was done? Convinced that events
+alone could stamp a mark on such stubborn flesh, he determined
+to wait for them, and crouched silent on the cake,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>
+with one finger downward at Ripton's incision there,
+showing a crumbling chasm and gloomy rich recess.</p>
+
+<p>The eloquent indication was understood. "Dear! dear!"
+cried Mrs. Berry, "what a heap o' cake, and no one to send
+it to!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton had resumed his seat by the table and his embrace
+of the claret. Clear ideas of satisfaction had left
+him and resolved to a boiling geysir of indistinguishable
+transports. He bubbled, and waggled, and nodded amicably
+to nothing, and successfully, though not without
+effort, preserved his uppermost member from the seductions
+of the nymph, Gravitation, who was on the look-out
+for his whole length shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" he shouted, about a minute after Mrs. Berry
+had spoken, and almost abandoned himself to the nymph
+on the spot. Mrs. Berry's words had just reached his wits.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you laugh, young man?" she inquired, familiar
+and motherly on account of his condition.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton laughed louder, and caught his chest on the
+edge of the table and his nose on a chicken. "That's goo'!"
+he said, recovering, and rocking under Mrs. Berry's eyes.
+"No friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not say, no friend," she remarked. "I said, no
+one; meanin', I know not where for to send it to."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton's response to this was: "You put a Griffin on
+that cake. Wheatsheaves each side."</p>
+
+<p>"His crest?" Mrs. Berry said sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oldest baronetcy 'n England!" waved Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" Mrs. Berry encouraged him on.</p>
+
+<p>"You think he's Richards. We're oblige' be very close.
+And she's the most lovely!&mdash;If I hear man say thing
+'gainst her."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't for to cry over her, young man," said Mrs.
+Berry. "I wanted for to drink their right healths by their
+right names, and then go about my day's work, and I do
+hope you won't keep me."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton stood bolt upright at her words.</p>
+
+<p>"You do?" he said, and filling a bumper he with cheerfully
+vinous articulation and glibness of tongue proposed
+the health of Richard and Lucy Feverel, of Raynham
+Abbey! and that mankind should not require an expeditious
+example of the way to accept the inspiring toast,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>
+he drained his bumper at a gulp. It finished him. The
+farthing rushlight of his reason leapt and expired. He
+tumbled to the sofa and there stretched.</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes subsequent to Ripton's signalization of
+his devotion to the bridal pair, Mrs. Berry's maid entered
+the room to say that a gentleman was inquiring below
+after the young gentleman who had departed, and found
+her mistress with a tottering wineglass in her hand, exhibiting
+every symptom of unconsoled hysterics. Her
+mouth gaped, as if the fell creditor had her by the swallow.
+She ejaculated with horrible exultation that she had been
+and done it, as her disastrous aspect seemed to testify,
+and her evident, but inexplicable, access of misery induced
+the sympathetic maid to tender those caressing words that
+were all Mrs. Berry wanted to go off into the self-caressing
+fit without delay; and she had already given the preluding
+demoniac ironic outburst, when the maid called heaven to
+witness that the gentleman would hear her; upon which
+Mrs. Berry violently controlled her bosom, and ordered
+that he should be shown upstairs instantly to see her the
+wretch she was. She repeated the injunction.</p>
+
+<p>The maid did as she was told, and Mrs. Berry, wishing
+first to see herself as she was, mutely accosted the looking-glass,
+and tried to look a very little better. She dropped a
+shawl on Ripton and was settled, smoothing her agitation
+when her visitor was announced.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman was Adrian Harley. An interview with
+Tom Bakewell had put him on the track, and now a momentary
+survey of the table, and its white-vestured cake,
+made him whistle.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry plaintively begged him to do her the favour
+to be seated.</p>
+
+<p>"A fine morning, ma'am," said Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"It have been!" Mrs. Berry answered, glancing over her
+shoulder at the window, and gulping as if to get her heart
+down from her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"A very fine Spring," pursued Adrian, calmly anatomizing
+her countenance.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry smothered an adjective to "weather" on a
+deep sigh. Her wretchedness was palpable. In proportion
+to it, Adrian waxed cheerful and brisk. He divined
+enough of the business to see that there was some strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>
+intelligence to be fished out of the culprit who sat compressing
+hysterics before him; and as he was never more
+in his element than when he had a sinner, and a repentant
+prostrate abject sinner in hand, his affable countenance
+might well deceive poor Berry.</p>
+
+<p>"I presume these are Mr. Thompson's lodgings?" he
+remarked, with a look at the table.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry's head and the whites of her eyes informed
+him that they were not Mr. Thompson's lodgings.</p>
+
+<p>"No?" said Adrian, and threw a carelessly inquisitive
+eye about him. "Mr. Feverel is out, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>A convulsive start at the name, and two corroborating
+hands dropped on her knees, formed Mrs. Berry's reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Feverel's man," continued Adrian, "told me I
+should be certain to find him here. I thought he would
+be with his friend, Mr. Thompson. I'm too late, I perceive.
+Their entertainment is over. I fancy you have
+been having a party of them here, ma'am?&mdash;a bachelors'
+breakfast!"</p>
+
+<p>In the presence of that cake this observation seemed to
+mask an irony so shrewd that Mrs. Berry could barely
+contain herself. She felt she must speak. Making her
+face as deplorably propitiating as she could, she began:</p>
+
+<p>"Sir, may I beg for to know your name?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harley accorded her request.</p>
+
+<p>Groaning in the clutch of a pitiless truth, she continued:</p>
+
+<p>"And you are Mr. Harley, that was&mdash;oh! and you've
+come for Mr.?"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Richard Feverel was the gentleman Mr. Harley had
+come for.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! and it's no mistake, and he's of Raynham Abbey?"
+Mrs. Berry inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian, very much amused, assured her that he was
+born and bred there.</p>
+
+<p>"His father's Sir Austin?" wailed the black-satin bunch
+from behind her handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian verified Richard's descent.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then, what have I been and done!" she cried, and
+stared blankly at her visitor. "I been and married my
+baby! I been and married the bread out of my own mouth.
+O Mr. Harley! Mr. Harley! I knew you when you was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>
+boy that big, and wore jackets; and all of you. And it's
+my softness that's my ruin, for I never can resist a man's
+asking. Look at that cake, Mr. Harley!"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian followed her directions quite coolly. "Wedding-cake,
+ma'am!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Bride-cake it is, Mr. Harley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you make it yourself, ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>The quiet ease of the question overwhelmed Mrs. Berry,
+and upset that train of symbolic representations by which
+she was seeking to make him guess the catastrophe and
+spare her the furnace of confession.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not make it myself, Mr. Harley," she replied.
+"It's a bought cake, and I'm a lost woman. Little I
+dreamed when I had him in my arms a baby that I should
+some day be marrying him out of my own house! I little
+dreamed that! Oh, why did he come to me! Don't you
+remember his old nurse, when he was a baby in arms,
+that went away so sudden, and no fault of hers, Mr.
+Harley! The very mornin' after the night you got into
+Mr. Benson's cellar, and got so tipsy on his Madeary
+I remember it as clear as yesterday!&mdash;and Mr. Benson was
+that angry he threatened to use the whip to you, and I
+helped put you to bed. I'm that very woman."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian smiled placidly at these reminiscences of his
+guileless youthful life.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ma'am! well?" he said. He would bring her to
+the furnace.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you see it all, kind sir?" Mrs. Berry appealed
+to him in pathetic dumb show.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was
+mentally cursing at Folly, and reckoning the immediate
+consequences, but he looked uninstructed, his peculiar
+dimple-smile was undisturbed, his comfortable full-bodied
+posture was the same. "Well, ma'am?" he spurred her on.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry burst forth: "It were done this mornin',
+Mr. Harley, in the church, at half-past eleven of the clock,
+or twenty to, by licence."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matrimony.
+"Oh!" he said, like one who is as hard as facts,
+and as little to be moved: "Somebody was married this
+morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr. Feverel?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>
+from him, saying: "Do he look like a new married bridegroom,
+Mr. Harley?"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic
+gravity.</p>
+
+<p>"This young gentleman was at church this morning?"
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite reasonable and proper then," Mrs. Berry
+begged him to understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, ma'am." Adrian lifted and let fall the
+stupid inanimate limbs of the gone wretch, puckering his
+mouth queerly. "You were all reasonable and proper,
+ma'am. The principal male performer, then, is my cousin,
+Mr. Feverel? He was married by you, this morning, by
+licence at your parish church, and came here, and ate a
+hearty breakfast, and left intoxicated."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry flew out. "He never drink a drop, sir. A
+more moderate young gentleman you never see. Oh! don't
+ye think that now, Mr. Harley. He was as upright and
+master of his mind as you be."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay!" the wise youth nodded thanks to her for the comparison,
+"I mean the other form of intoxication."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry sighed. She could say nothing on that
+score.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian desired her to sit down, and compose herself,
+and tell him circumstantially what had been done.</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed, in utter perplexity at his perfectly composed
+demeanour.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than
+that identical woman who once in old days had dared to
+behold the baronet behind his mask, and had ever since
+lived in exile from the Raynham world on a little pension
+regularly paid to her as an indemnity. She was that
+woman, and the thought of it made her almost accuse
+Providence for the betraying excess of softness it had
+endowed her with. How was she to recognize her baby
+grown a man? He came in a feigned name; not a word
+of the family was mentioned. He came like an ordinary
+mortal, though she felt something more than ordinary to
+him&mdash;she knew she did. He came bringing a beautiful
+young lady, and on what grounds could she turn her back
+on them? Why, seeing that all was chaste and legal, why
+<i>should</i> she interfere to make them unhappy&mdash;so few the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span>
+chances of happiness in this world! Mrs. Berry related
+the seizure of her ring.</p>
+
+<p>"One wrench," said the sobbing culprit, "one, and my
+ring was off!"</p>
+
+<p>She had no suspicions, and the task of writing her name
+in the vestry-book had been too enacting for a thought
+upon the other signatures.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you were exceedingly sorry for what you had
+done," said Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, sir," moaned Berry, "I were, and am."</p>
+
+<p>"And would do your best to rectify the mischief&mdash;eh,
+ma'am?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, and indeed, sir, I would," she protested solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;As, of course, you should&mdash;knowing the family.
+Where may these lunatics have gone to spend the Moon?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry swimmingly replied: "To the Isle&mdash;&mdash;I
+don't quite know, sir!" she snapped the indication short,
+and jumped out of the pit she had fallen into. Repentant
+as she might be, those dears should not be pursued and
+cruelly balked of their young bliss! "To-morrow, if you
+please, Mr. Harley: not to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"A pleasant spot," Adrian observed, smiling at his easy
+prey.</p>
+
+<p>By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom
+had brought his bride to the house on the day he
+had quitted Raynham, and this was enough to satisfy
+Adrian's mind that there had been concoction and chicanery.
+Chance, probably, had brought him to the old
+woman: chance certainly had not brought him to the
+young one.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, ma'am," he said, in answer to her petitions
+for his favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her
+little pension and the bridal pair, "I will tell him you were
+only a blind agent in the affair, being naturally soft, and
+that you trust he will bless the consummation. He will
+be in town to-morrow morning; but one of you two must
+see him to-night. An emetic kindly administered will set
+our friend here on his legs. A bath and a clean shirt, and
+he might go. I don't see why your name should appear at
+all. Brush him up, and send him to Bellingham by the
+seven o'clock train. He will find his way to Raynham;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>
+he knows the neighbourhood best in the dark. Let him
+go and state the case. Remember, one of you must go."</p>
+
+<p>With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition
+between the couple of unfortunates, for them to fight and
+lose all their virtue over, Adrian said, "Good morning."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. "You won't refuse
+a piece of his cake, Mr. Harley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, no, ma'am," Adrian turned to the cake with
+alacrity. "I shall claim a very large piece. Richard has
+a great many friends who will rejoice to eat his wedding-cake.
+Cut me a fair quarter, Mrs. Berry. Put it in paper,
+if you please. I shall be delighted to carry it to them,
+and apportion it equitably according to their several degrees
+of relationship."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry cut the cake. Somehow, as she sliced
+through it, the sweetness and hapless innocence of the
+bride was presented to her, and she launched into eulogies
+of Lucy, and clearly showed how little she regretted her
+conduct. She vowed that they seemed made for each
+other; that both were beautiful; both had spirit; both were
+innocent; and to part them, or make them unhappy,
+would be, Mrs. Berry wrought herself to cry aloud, oh,
+such a pity!</p>
+
+<p>Adrian listened to it as the expression of a matter-of-fact
+opinion. He took the huge quarter of cake, nodded
+multitudinous promises, and left Mrs. Berry to bless his
+good heart.</p>
+
+<p>"So dies the System!" was Adrian's comment in the
+street. "And now let prophets roar! He dies respectably
+in a marriage-bed, which is more than I should have foretold
+of the monster. Meantime," he gave the cake a
+dramatic tap, "I'll go sow nightmares."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>PROCESSION OF THE CAKE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Adrian really bore the news he had heard with creditable
+disinterestedness, and admirable repression of anything
+beneath the dignity of a philosopher. When one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>
+has attained that felicitous point of wisdom from which
+one sees all mankind to be fools, the diminutive objects
+may make what new moves they please, one does not
+marvel at them: their sedateness is as comical as their
+frolic, and their frenzies more comical still. On this
+intellectual eminence the wise youth had built his castle,
+and he had lived in it from an early period. Astonishment
+never shook the foundations, nor did envy of greater
+heights tempt him to relinquish the security of his stronghold,
+for he saw none. Jugglers he saw running up
+ladders that overtopped him, and air-balloons scaling
+the empyrean; but the former came precipitately down
+again, and the latter were at the mercy of the winds;
+while he remained tranquil on his solid unambitious
+ground, fitting his morality to the laws, his conscience to
+his morality, his comfort to his conscience. Not that
+voluntarily he cut himself off from his fellows: on the
+contrary, his sole amusement was their society. Alone he
+was rather dull, as a man who beholds but one thing must
+naturally be. Study of the animated varieties of that
+one thing excited him sufficiently to think life a pleasant
+play; and the faculties he had forfeited to hold his elevated
+position he could serenely enjoy by contemplation
+of them in others. Thus:&mdash;wonder at Master Richard's
+madness: though he himself did not experience it, he was
+eager to mark the effect on his beloved relatives. As he
+carried along his vindictive hunch of cake, he shaped out
+their different attitudes of amaze, bewilderment, horror;
+passing by some personal chagrin in the prospect. For
+his patron had projected a journey, commencing with
+Paris, culminating on the Alps, and lapsing in Rome: a
+delightful journey to show Richard the highways of
+History and tear him from the risk of further ignoble
+fascinations, that his spirit might be altogether bathed
+in freshness and revived. This had been planned during
+Richard's absence to surprise him.</p>
+
+<p>Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of
+woman is to the race of young men. It supplanted that
+foolishness. It was his Romance, as we say; that buoyant
+anticipation on which in youth we ride the airs, and
+which, as we wax older and too heavy for our atmosphere,
+hardens to the Hobby, which, if an obstinate animal, is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>
+a safer horse, and conducts man at a slower pace to the
+sexton. Adrian had never travelled. He was aware that
+his romance was earthly and had discomforts only to be
+evaded by the one potent talisman possessed by his patron.
+His Alp would hardly be grand to him without an obsequious
+landlord in the foreground: he must recline on
+Mammon's imperial cushions in order to moralize becomingly
+on the ancient world. The search for pleasure at
+the expense of discomfort, as frantic lovers woo their
+mistresses to partake the shelter of a hut and batten on
+a crust, Adrian deemed the bitterness of beggarliness.
+Let his sweet mistress be given him in the pomp and
+splendour due to his superior emotions, or not at all.
+Consequently the wise youth had long nursed an ineffectual
+passion, and it argued a great nature in him, that
+at the moment when his wishes were to be crowned, he
+should look with such slight touches of spleen at the gorgeous
+composite fabric of Parisian cookery and Roman
+antiquities crumbling into unsubstantial mockery. Assuredly
+very few even of the philosophers would have turned
+away uncomplainingly to meaner delights the moment
+after.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias received the first portion of the cake.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading. He
+had fought down his breakfast with more than usual success,
+and was looking forward to his dinner at the Foreys'
+with less than usual timidity.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! glad you've come, Adrian," he said, and expanded
+his chest. "I was afraid I should have to ride down.
+This is kind of you. We'll walk down together through
+the park. It's absolutely dangerous to walk alone in these
+streets. My opinion is, that orange-peel lasts all through
+the year now, and will till legislation puts a stop to it. I
+give you my word I slipped on a piece of orange-peel yesterday
+afternoon in Piccadilly, and I thought I was down!
+I saved myself by a miracle."</p>
+
+<p>"You have an appetite, I hope?" asked Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall get one, after a bit of a walk," chirped
+Hippias. "Yes. I think I feel hungry now."</p>
+
+<p>"Charmed to hear it," said Adrian, and began unpinning
+his parcel on his knees. "How should you define
+Folly?" he checked the process to inquire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" Hippias meditated; he prided himself on being
+oracular when such questions were addressed to him. "I
+think I should define it to be a slide."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good definition. In other words, a piece of
+orange-peel; once on it, your life and limbs are in danger,
+and you are saved by a miracle. You must present that
+to the <span class="smcap">Pilgrim</span>. And the monument of folly, what would
+that be?"</p>
+
+<p>Hippias meditated anew. "All the human race on one
+another's shoulders." He chuckled at the sweeping sourness
+of the instance.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good," Adrian applauded, "or in default of that,
+some symbol of the thing, say; such as this of which I
+have here brought you a chip."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian displayed the quarter of the cake.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the monument made portable&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cake!" cried Hippias, retreating to his chair to dramatize
+his intense disgust. "You're right of them that eat
+it. If I&mdash;if I don't mistake," he peered at it, "the noxious
+composition bedizened in that way is what they call wedding-cake.
+It's arrant poison! Who is it you want to
+kill? What are you carrying such stuff about for?"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian rang the bell for a knife. "To present you with
+your due and proper portion. You will have friends and
+relatives, and can't be saved from them, not even by
+miracle. It is a habit which exhibits, perhaps, the unconscious
+inherent cynicism of the human mind, for
+people who consider that they have reached the acme of
+mundane felicity, to distribute this token of esteem to
+their friends, with the object probably" (he took the
+knife from a waiter and went to the table to slice the
+cake) "of enabling those friends (these edifices require
+very delicate incision&mdash;each particular currant and subtle
+condiment hangs to its neighbour&mdash;a wedding-cake is
+evidently the most highly civilized of cakes, and partakes
+of the evils as well as the advantages of civilization!)&mdash;I
+was saying, they send us these love-tokens, no doubt
+(we shall have to weigh out the crumbs, if each is to
+have his fair share) that we may the better estimate their
+state of bliss by passing some hours in purgatory. This,
+as far as I can apportion it without weights and scales,
+is your share, my uncle!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He pushed the corner of the table bearing the cake
+towards Hippias.</p>
+
+<p>"Get away!" Hippias vehemently motioned, and started
+from his chair. "I'll have none of it, I tell you! It's
+death! It's fifty times worse than that beastly compound
+Christmas pudding! What fool has been doing this, then?
+Who dares send me cake? Me! It's an insult."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not compelled to eat any before dinner,"
+said Adrian, pointing the corner of the table after him,
+"but your share you must take, and appear to consume.
+One who has done so much to bring about the marriage
+cannot in conscience refuse his allotment of the fruits.
+Maidens, I hear, first cook it under their pillows, and extract
+nuptial dreams therefrom&mdash;said to be of a lighter
+class, taken that way. It's a capital cake, and, upon my
+honour, you have helped to make it&mdash;you have indeed!
+So here it is."</p>
+
+<p>The table again went at Hippias. He ran nimbly round
+it, and flung himself on a sofa exhausted, crying: "There!...
+My appetite's gone for to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then shall I tell Richard that you won't touch a
+morsel of his cake?" said Adrian, leaning on his two hands
+over the table and looking at his uncle.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, your nephew: my cousin: Richard! Your companion
+since you've been in town. He's married, you
+know. Married this morning at Kensington parish
+church, by licence, at half-past eleven of the clock, or
+twenty to twelve. Married, and gone to spend his honeymoon
+in the Isle of Wight: a very delectable place for a
+month's residence. I have to announce to you that, thanks
+to your assistance, the experiment is launched, sir!"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Richard married!"</p>
+
+<p>There was something to think and to say in objection
+to it, but the wits of poor Hippias was softened by the
+shock. His hand travelled half-way to his forehead,
+spread out to smooth the surface of that seat of reason,
+and then fell.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely you knew all about it? you were so anxious to
+have him in town under your charge."</p>
+
+<p>"Married?" Hippias jumped up&mdash;he had it. "Why,
+he's under age! he's an infant."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So he is. But the infant is not the less married. Fib
+like a man and pay your fee&mdash;what does it matter? Any
+one who is breeched can obtain a licence in our noble country.
+And the interests of morality demand that it should
+not be difficult. Is it true&mdash;can you persuade anybody
+that you have known nothing about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! infamous joke! I wish, sir, you would play your
+pranks on somebody else," said Hippias, sternly, as he
+sank back on the sofa. "You've done me up for the day,
+I can assure you."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian sat down to instil belief by gentle degrees, and
+put an artistic finish to the work. He had the gratification
+of passing his uncle through varied contortions, and at
+last Hippias perspired in conviction, and exclaimed, "This
+accounts for his conduct to me. That boy must have a
+cunning nothing short of infernal! I feel ... I feel
+it just here," he drew a hand along his midriff.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not equal to this world of fools," he added faintly,
+and shut his eyes. "No, I can't dine. Eat? ha! ... no.
+Go without me!"</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after Hippias went to bed, saying to himself, as
+he undressed, "See what comes of our fine schemes! Poor
+Austin!" and as the pillow swelled over his ears, "I'm not
+sure that a day's fast won't do me good." The Dyspepsy
+had bought his philosophy at a heavy price; he had a right
+to use it.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian resumed the procession of the cake.</p>
+
+<p>He sighted his melancholy uncle Algernon hunting an
+appetite in the Row, and looking as if the hope ahead of
+him were also one-legged. The Captain did not pass without
+querying the ungainly parcel.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I carry it ostentatiously enough?" said Adrian.
+"Enclosed is wherewithal to quiet the alarm of the land.
+Now may the maids and wives of Merry England sleep secure.
+I had half a mind to fix it on a pole, and engage a
+band to parade it. This is our dear Richard's wedding-cake.
+Married at half-past eleven this morning, by licence,
+at the Kensington parish church; his own ring
+being lost he employed the ring of his beautiful bride's
+lachrymose landlady, she standing adjacent by the altar.
+His farewell to you as a bachelor, and hers as a maid, you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>
+can claim on the spot, if you think proper, and digest according
+to your powers."</p>
+
+<p>Algernon let off steam in a whistle. "Thompson, the
+solicitor's daughter!" he said. "I met them the other day,
+somewhere about here. He introduced me to her. A
+pretty little baggage."</p>
+
+<p>"No." Adrian set him right. "'Tis a Miss Desborough,
+a Roman Catholic dairymaid. Reminds one of pastoral
+England in the time of the Plantagenets! He's quite
+equal to introducing her as Thompson's daughter, and
+himself as Beelzebub's son. However, the wild animal is
+in Hymen's chains, and the cake is cut. Will you have
+your morsel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by all means!&mdash;not now." Algernon had an unwonted
+air of reflection.&mdash;"Father know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet. He will to-night by nine o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I must see him by seven. Don't say you met
+me." He nodded, and pricked his horse.</p>
+
+<p>"Wants money!" said Adrian, putting the combustible
+he carried once more in motion.</p>
+
+<p>The women were the crowning joy of his contemplative
+mind. He had reserved them for his final discharge. Dear
+demonstrative creatures! Dyspepsia would not weaken
+their poignant outcries, or self-interest check their fainting
+fits. On the generic woman one could calculate. Well
+might <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span> say of her that, "She is always
+at Nature's breast"; not intending it as a compliment.
+Each woman is Eve throughout the ages; whereas the
+<span class="smcap">Pilgrim</span> would have us believe that the Adam in men has
+become warier, if not wiser; and weak as he is, has learnt
+a lesson from time. Probably the <span class="smcap">Pilgrim's</span> meaning may
+be taken to be, that Man grows, and Woman does not.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, Adrian hoped for such natural choruses as
+you hear in the nursery when a bauble is lost. He was
+awake to Mrs. Doria's maternal predestinations, and
+guessed that Clare stood ready with the best form of filial
+obedience. They were only a poor couple to gratify his
+Mephistophelian humour, to be sure, but Mrs. Doria was
+equal to twenty, and they would proclaim the diverse ways
+with which maidenhood and womanhood took disappointment,
+while the surrounding Forey girls and other females
+of the family assembly were expected to develop the finer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>
+shades and tapering edges of an agitation to which no
+woman could be cold.</p>
+
+<p>All went well. He managed cleverly to leave the cake
+unchallenged in a conspicuous part of the drawing-room,
+and stepped gaily down to dinner. Much of the conversation
+adverted to Richard. Mrs. Doria asked him if he
+had seen the youth, or heard of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Seen him? no! Heard of him? yes!" said Adrian. "I
+have heard of him. I heard that he was sublimely happy,
+and had eaten such a breakfast that dinner was impossible;
+claret and cold chicken, cake and"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Cake at breakfast!" they all interjected.</p>
+
+<p>"That seems to be his fancy just now."</p>
+
+<p>"What an extraordinary taste!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know, he is educated on a System."</p>
+
+<p>One fast young male Forey allied the System and the
+cake in a miserable pun. Adrian, a hater of puns, looked
+at him, and held the table silent, as if he were going to
+speak; but he said nothing, and the young gentleman vanished
+from the conversation in a blush, extinguished by his
+own spark.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria peevishly exclaimed, "Oh! fish-cake, I suppose!
+I wish he understood a little better the obligations
+of relationship."</p>
+
+<p>"Whether he understands them, I can't say," observed
+Adrian, "but I assure you he is very energetic in extending
+them."</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth talked innuendoes whenever he had an
+opportunity, that his dear relative might be rendered sufficiently
+inflammable by and by at the aspect of the cake;
+but he was not thought more than commonly mysterious
+and deep.</p>
+
+<p>"Was his appointment at the house of those Grandison
+people?" Mrs. Doria asked, with a hostile upper-lip.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian warmed the blindfolded parties by replying,
+"Do they keep a beadle at the door?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria's animosity to Mrs. Grandison made her
+treat this as a piece of satirical ingenuousness. "I daresay
+they do," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"And a curate on hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I should think a dozen!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Mr. Forey advised his punning grandson Clarence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>
+to give that house a wide berth, where he might be disposed
+of and dished-up at a moment's notice, and the
+scent ran off at a jest.</p>
+
+<p>The Foreys gave good dinners, and with the old gentleman
+the excellent old fashion remained in permanence of
+trooping off the ladies as soon as they had taken their
+sustenance and just exchanged a smile with the flowers
+and the dessert, when they rose to fade with a beautiful
+accord, and the gallant males breathed under easier waistcoats,
+and settled to the business of the table, sure that
+an hour for unbosoming and imbibing was their own.
+Adrian took a chair by Brandon Forey, a barrister of
+standing.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to ask you," he said, "whether an infant in
+law can legally bind himself."</p>
+
+<p>"If he's old enough to affix his signature to an instrument,
+I suppose he can," yawned Brandon.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he responsible for his acts?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've no doubt we could hang him."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what he could do for himself, you could do for
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite so much; pretty near."</p>
+
+<p>"For instance, he can marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's not a criminal case, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"And the marriage is valid?"</p>
+
+<p>"You can dispute it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and the Greeks and the Trojans can fight. It
+holds then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both water and fire!"</p>
+
+<p>The patriarch of the table sang out to Adrian that he
+stopped the vigorous circulation of the claret.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, sir!" said Adrian, "I beg pardon. The circumstances
+must excuse me. The fact is, my cousin
+Richard got married to a dairymaid this morning, and I
+wanted to know whether it held in law."</p>
+
+<p>It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which
+the announcement was taken. Nothing was heard more
+energetic than, "Deuce he has!" and, "A dairymaid!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it better to let the ladies dine in peace,"
+Adrian continued. "I wanted to be able to console my
+aunt"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but&mdash;well, but," the old gentleman, much the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>
+most excited, puffed&mdash;"eh, Brandon? He's a boy, this
+young ass! Do you mean to tell me a boy can go and
+marry when he pleases, and any trull he pleases, and the
+marriage is good? If I thought that I'd turn every
+woman off my premises. I would! from the housekeeper
+to the scullery-maid. I'd have no woman near him till&mdash;till"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Till the young greenhorn was grey, sir?" suggested
+Brandon.</p>
+
+<p>"Till he knew what women are made of, sir!" the old
+gentleman finished his sentence vehemently. "What, d'ye
+think, will Feverel say to it, Mr. Adrian?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has been trying the very System you have proposed,
+sir&mdash;one that does not reckon on the powerful action of
+curiosity on the juvenile intelligence. I'm afraid it's the
+very worst way of solving the problem."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is," said Clarence. "None but a fool!"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"At your age," Adrian relieved his embarrassment, "it
+is natural, my dear Clarence, that you should consider
+the idea of an isolated or imprisoned manhood something
+monstrous, and we do not expect you to see what amount
+of wisdom it contains. You follow one extreme, and we
+the other. I don't say that a middle course exists. The
+history of mankind shows our painful efforts to find one,
+but they have invariably resolved themselves into asceticism,
+or laxity, acting and reacting. The moral question
+is, if a naughty little man, by reason of his naughtiness,
+releases himself from foolishness, does a foolish little man,
+by reason of his foolishness, save himself from naughtiness?"</p>
+
+<p>A discussion, peculiar to men of the world, succeeded
+the laugh at Mr. Clarence. Then coffee was handed round
+and the footman informed Adrian, in a low voice, that
+Mrs. Doria Forey particularly wished to speak with him.
+Adrian preferred not to go in alone. "Very well," he
+said, and sipped his coffee. They talked on, sounding the
+depths of law in Brandon Forey, and receiving nought
+but hollow echoes from that profound cavity. He would
+not affirm that the marriage was invalid: he would not
+affirm that it could not be annulled. He thought not:
+still he thought it would be worth trying. A consummated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>
+and a non-consummated union were two
+different things....</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Adrian, "does the Law recognize that?
+Why, that's almost human!"</p>
+
+<p>Another message was brought to Adrian that Mrs.
+Doria Forey <i>very</i> particularly wished to speak with him.</p>
+
+<p>"What can be the matter?" he exclaimed, pleased to
+have his faith in woman strengthened. The cake had exploded,
+no doubt.</p>
+
+<p>So it proved, when the gentlemen joined the fair society.
+All the younger ladies stood about the table, whereon the
+cake stood displayed, gaps being left for those sitting to
+feast their vision, and intrude the comments and speculations
+continually arising from fresh shocks of wonder at
+the unaccountable apparition. Entering with the half-guilty
+air of men who know they have come from a grosser
+atmosphere, the gallant males also ranged themselves
+round the common object of curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"Here! Adrian!" Mrs. Doria cried. "Where is Adrian?
+Pray, come here. Tell me! Where did this cake come
+from? Whose is it? What does it do here? You know
+all about it, for you brought it. Clare saw you bring it
+into the room. What does it mean? I insist upon a
+direct answer. Now do not make me impatient, Adrian."</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty. By her concentrated
+rapidity and volcanic complexion it was evident
+that suspicion had kindled.</p>
+
+<p>"I was really bound to bring it," Adrian protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer me!"</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth bowed: "Categorically. This cake came
+from the house of a person, a female, of the name of
+Berry. It belongs to you partly, partly to me, partly to
+Clare, and to the rest of our family, on the principle of
+equal division: for which purpose it is present...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Speak!"</p>
+
+<p>"It means, my dear aunt, what that kind of cake usually
+does mean."</p>
+
+<p>"This, then, is the Breakfast! And the ring! Adrian!
+where is Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria still clung to unbelief in the monstrous
+horror.</p>
+
+<p>But when Adrian told her that Richard had left town,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>
+her struggling hope sank. "The wretched boy has ruined
+himself!" she said, and sat down trembling.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! that System! The delicate vituperations gentle
+ladies use instead of oaths, Mrs. Doria showered on that
+System. She hesitated not to say that her brother had got
+what he deserved. Opinionated, morbid, weak, justice had
+overtaken him. Now he would see! but at what a price!
+at what a sacrifice!</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria commanded Adrian to confirm her fears.</p>
+
+<p>Sadly the wise youth recapitulated Berry's words. "He
+was married this morning at half-past eleven of the clock,
+or twenty to twelve, by licence, at the Kensington parish
+church."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that was his appointment!" Mrs. Doria murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"That was the cake for breakfast!" breathed a second of
+her sex.</p>
+
+<p>"And it was his ring!" exclaimed a third.</p>
+
+<p>The men were silent, and made long faces.</p>
+
+<p>Clare stood cold and sedate. She and her mother
+avoided each other's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it that abominable country person, Adrian?"</p>
+
+<p>"The happy damsel is, I regret to say, the Papist dairymaid,"
+said Adrian, in sorrowful but deliberate accents.</p>
+
+<p>Then arose a feminine hum, in the midst of which Mrs.
+Doria cried, "Brandon!" She was a woman of energy.
+Her thoughts resolved to action spontaneously.</p>
+
+<p>"Brandon," she drew the barrister a little aside, "can
+they not be followed, and separated? I want your advice.
+Cannot we separate them? A boy! it is really shameful
+if he should be allowed to fall into the toils of a designing
+creature to ruin himself irrevocably. Can we not, Brandon?"</p>
+
+<p>The worthy barrister felt inclined to laugh, but he answered
+her entreaties: "From what I hear of the young
+groom I should imagine the office perilous."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm speaking of law, Brandon. Can we not obtain an
+order from one of your Courts to pursue them and separate
+them instantly?"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!"</p>
+
+<p>Brandon was sorry to say she decidedly could not.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You might call on one of your Judges, Brandon."</p>
+
+<p>Brandon assured her that the Judges were a hard-worked
+race, and to a man slept heavily after dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you do so to-morrow, the first thing in the morning?
+Will you promise me to do so, Brandon?&mdash;Or a
+magistrate! A magistrate would send a policeman after
+them. My dear Brandon! I beg&mdash;I beg you to assist us
+in this dreadful extremity. It will be the death of my
+poor brother. I believe he would forgive anything but
+this. You have no idea what his notions are of blood."</p>
+
+<p>Brandon tipped Adrian a significant nod to step in and
+aid.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, aunt?" asked the wise youth. "You want
+them followed and torn asunder by wild policemen?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow;" Brandon queerly interposed.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't that be&mdash;just too late?" Adrian suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria sighed out her last spark of hope.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said Adrian....</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! yes!" Mrs. Doria did not require any of his
+elucidations. "Pray be quiet, Adrian, and let me speak.
+Brandon! it cannot be! it's quite impossible! Can you
+stand there and tell me that boy is legally married? I
+never will believe it! The law cannot be so shamefully
+bad as to permit a boy&mdash;a mere child&mdash;to do such absurd
+things. Grandpapa!" she beckoned to the old gentleman.
+"Grandpapa! pray do make Brandon speak. These lawyers
+never will. He might stop it, if he would. If I were
+a man, do you think I would stand here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear," the old gentleman toddled to compose
+her, "I'm quite of your opinion. I believe he knows no
+more than you or I. My belief is they none of them know
+anything till they join issue and go into Court. I want
+to see a few female lawyers."</p>
+
+<p>"To encourage the bankrupt perruquier, sir?" said
+Adrian. "They would have to keep a large supply of wigs
+on hand."</p>
+
+<p>"And you can jest, Adrian!" his aunt reproached him.
+"But I will not be beaten. I know&mdash;I am firmly convinced
+that no law would ever allow a boy to disgrace his family
+and ruin himself like that, and nothing shall persuade me
+that it is so. Now, tell me, Brandon, and pray do speak in
+answer to my questions, and please to forget you are dealing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>
+with a woman. <i>Can</i> my nephew be rescued from the
+consequences of his folly? <i>Is</i> what he has done legitimate?
+<i>Is</i> he bound for life by what he has done while a boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;a," Brandon breathed through his teeth.
+"A&mdash;hm! the matter's so very delicate, you see, Helen."</p>
+
+<p>"You're to forget that," Adrian remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"A&mdash;hm! well!" pursued Brandon. "Perhaps if you
+could arrest and divide them before nightfall, and make
+affidavit of certain facts"....</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?" the eager woman hastened his lagging mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Well ... hm! a ... in that case ... a.... Or
+if a lunatic, you could prove him to have been of unsound
+mind."...</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! there's no doubt of his madness on <i>my</i> mind,
+Brandon."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! well! in that case.... Or if of different religious
+persuasions"....</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>is</i> a Catholic!" Mrs. Doria joyfully interjected.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! well! in that case ... objections might be taken
+to the form of the marriage.... Might be proved fictitious....
+Or if he's under, say, eighteen years."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>can't</i> be much more," cried Mrs. Doria. "I think,"
+she appeared to reflect, and then faltered imploringly to
+Adrian, "What is Richard's age?"</p>
+
+<p>The kind wise youth could not find it in his heart to
+strike away the phantom straw she caught at.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! about that, I should fancy," he muttered, and
+found it necessary at the same time to duck and turn his
+head for concealment. Mrs. Doria surpassed his expectations.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! well, then...." Brandon was resuming with a
+shrug, which was meant to say he still pledged himself to
+nothing, when Clare's voice was heard from out the buzzing
+circle of her cousins: "Richard is nineteen years and
+six months old to-day, mama."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, child."</p>
+
+<p>"He is, mama." Clare's voice was very steadfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Non<i>sense</i>, I tell you. How <i>can</i> you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Richard is one year and nine months older than me,
+mama."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria fought the fact by years and finally by
+months. Clare was too strong for her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Singular child!" she mentally apostrophized the girl
+who scornfully rejected straws while drowning.</p>
+
+<p>"But there's the religion still!" she comforted herself,
+and sat down to cogitate.</p>
+
+<p>The men smiled and looked vacuous.</p>
+
+<p>Music was proposed. There are times when soft music
+hath not charms; when it is put to as base uses as Imperial
+Cæsar's dust and is taken to fill horrid pauses. Angelica
+Forey thumped the piano, and sang: "<i>I'm a laughing
+Gitana, ha&mdash;ha! ha&mdash;ha!</i>" Matilda Forey and her cousin
+Mary Bransburne wedded their voices, and songfully incited
+all young people to <i>Haste to the bower that love has
+built</i>, and defy the wise ones of the world; but the wise
+ones of the world were in a majority there, and very few
+places of assembly will be found where they are not; so
+the glowing appeal of the British ballad-monger passed
+into the bosom of the emptiness he addressed. Clare was
+asked to entertain the company. The singular child
+calmly marched to the instrument, and turned over the
+appropriate illustrations to the ballad-monger's repertory.</p>
+
+<p>Clare sang a little Irish air. Her duty done, she
+marched from the piano. Mothers are rarely deceived by
+their daughters in these matters; but Clare deceived her
+mother; and Mrs. Doria only persisted in feeling an agony
+of pity for her child, that she might the more warrantably
+pity herself&mdash;a not uncommon form of the emotion, for
+there is no juggler like that heart the ballad-monger puts
+into our mouths so boldly. Remember that she saw years
+of self-denial, years of a ripening scheme, rendered fruitless
+in a minute, and by the System which had almost
+reduced her to the condition of constitutional hypocrite.
+She had enough of bitterness to brood over, and some
+excuse for self-pity.</p>
+
+<p>Still, even when she was cooler, Mrs. Doria's energetic
+nature prevented her from giving up. Straws were
+straws, and the frailer they were the harder she clutched
+them.</p>
+
+<p>She rose from her chair, and left the room, calling to
+Adrian to follow her.</p>
+
+<p>"Adrian," she said, turning upon him in the passage,
+"you mentioned a house where this horrible cake ...<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>
+where he was this morning. I desire you to take me to
+that woman immediately."</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth had not bargained for personal servitude.
+He had hoped he should be in time for the last act
+of the opera that night, after enjoying the comedy of
+real life.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear aunt" ... he was beginning to insinuate.</p>
+
+<p>"Order a cab to be sent for, and get your hat," said Mrs.
+Doria.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing for it but to obey. He stamped his
+assent to the <span class="smcap">Pilgrim's</span> dictum, that Women are practical
+creatures, and now reflected on his own account, that relationship
+to a young fool may be a vexation and a nuisance.
+However, Mrs. Doria compensated him.</p>
+
+<p>What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature
+did not plainly know; but her energy positively demanded
+to be used in some way or other, and her instinct directed
+her to the offender on whom she could use it in wrath.
+She wanted somebody to be angry with, somebody to
+abuse. She dared not abuse her brother to his face: him
+she would have to console. Adrian was a fellow-hypocrite
+to the System, and would, she was aware, bring her into
+painfully delicate, albeit highly philosophic, ground by a
+discussion of the case. So she drove to Bessy Berry simply
+to inquire whither her nephew had flown.</p>
+
+<p>When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is
+matched with a woman of energy, she does not show much
+fight, and she meets no mercy. Bessy Berry's creditor
+came to her in female form that night. She then beheld
+it in all its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to her as a
+male, a disembodied spirit of her imagination possessing
+male attributes, and the peculiar male characteristic of
+being moved, and ultimately silenced, by tears. As
+female, her creditor was terrible indeed. Still, had it not
+been a late hour, Bessy Berry would have died rather
+than speak openly that her babes had sped to make their
+nest in the Isle of Wight. They had a long start, they
+were out of the reach of pursuers, they were safe, and she
+told what she had to tell. She told more than was wise
+of her to tell. She made mention of her early service in
+the family, and of her little pension. Alas! her little
+pension! Her creditor had come expecting no payment&mdash;come,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>
+as creditors are wont in such moods, just to take
+it out of her&mdash;to employ the familiar term. At once Mrs.
+Doria pounced upon the pension.</p>
+
+<p>"That, of course, you know is at an end," she said in
+the calmest manner, and Berry did not plead for the little
+bit of bread to her. She only asked a little consideration
+for her feelings.</p>
+
+<p>True admirers of women had better stand aside from
+the scene. Undoubtedly it was very sad for Adrian to be
+compelled to witness it. Mrs. Doria was not generous.
+The <span class="smcap">Pilgrim</span> may be wrong about the sex not growing;
+but its fashion of conducting warfare we must allow to
+be barbarous, and according to what is deemed the
+pristine, or wild cat, method. Ruin, nothing short of it,
+accompanied poor Berry to her bed that night, and her
+character bled till morning on her pillow.</p>
+
+<p>The scene over, Adrian reconducted Mrs. Doria to her
+home. Mice had been at the cake during her absence
+apparently. The ladies and gentlemen present put it on
+the greedy mice, who were accused of having gorged and
+gone to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure they're quite welcome," said Mrs. Doria. "It's
+a farce, this marriage, and Adrian has quite come to my
+way of thinking. I would not touch an atom of it. Why,
+they were married in a married woman's ring! Can <i>that</i>
+be legal, as you call it? Oh, I'm convinced! Don't tell
+me. Austin will be in town to-morrow, and if he is true
+to his principles, he will instantly adopt measures to
+rescue his son from infamy. I want no legal advice. I
+go upon common sense, common decency. This marriage
+is false."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria's fine scheme had become so much a part of
+her life, that she could not give it up. She took Clare to
+her bed, and caressed and wept over her, as she would not
+have done had she known the singular child, saying, "Poor
+Richard! my dear poor boy! we must save him, Clare! we
+must save him!" Of the two the mother showed the
+greater want of iron on this occasion. Clare lay in her
+arms rigid and emotionless, with one of her hands tight-locked.
+All she said was: "I knew it in the morning,
+mama." She slept clasping Richard's nuptial ring.</p>
+
+<p>By this time all specially concerned in the System knew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>
+it. The honeymoon was shining placidly above them. Is
+not happiness like another circulating medium? When
+we have a very great deal of it, some poor hearts are
+aching for what is taken away from them. When we have
+gone out and seized it on the highways, certain inscrutable
+laws are sure to be at work to bring us to the criminal
+bar, sooner or later. Who knows the honeymoon that
+did not steal somebody's sweetness? Richard Turpin went
+forth, singing "Money or life" to the world: Richard
+Feverel has done the same, substituting "Happiness"
+for "Money," frequently synonyms. The coin he wanted
+he would have, and was just as much a highway robber
+as his fellow Dick, so that those who have failed to
+recognize him as a hero before, may now regard him
+in that light. Meanwhile the world he has squeezed looks
+exceedingly patient and beautiful. His coin chinks delicious
+music to him. Nature and the order of things on
+earth have no warmer admirer than a jolly brigand or
+a young man made happy by the Jews.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>NURSING THE DEVIL</h3>
+
+
+<p>And now the author of the System was on trial under
+the eyes of the lady who loved him. What so kind as
+they? Yet are they very rigorous, those soft watchful
+woman's eyes. If you are below the measure they have
+made of you, you will feel it in the fulness of time.
+She cannot but show you that she took you for a giant,
+and has had to come down a bit. You feel yourself
+strangely diminishing in those sweet mirrors, till at last
+they drop on you complacently level. But, oh, beware,
+vain man, of ever waxing enamoured of that wonderful
+elongation of a male creature you saw reflected in her
+adoring upcast orbs! Beware of assisting to delude her!
+A woman who is not quite a fool will forgive your being
+but a man, if you are surely that: she will haply learn
+to acknowledge that no mortal tailor could have fitted
+that figure she made of you respectably, and that practically<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>
+(though she sighs to think it) her ideal of you
+was on the pattern of an overgrown charity-boy in the
+regulation jacket and breech. For this she first scorns
+the narrow capacities of the tailor, and then smiles at
+herself. But shouldst thou, when the hour says plainly,
+Be thyself, and the woman is willing to take thee as
+thou art, shouldst thou still aspire to be that thing of
+shanks and wrists, wilt thou not seem contemptible as
+well as ridiculous? And when the fall comes, will it
+not be flat on thy face, instead of to the common height
+of men? You may fall miles below her measure of you,
+and be safe: nothing is damaged save an overgrown
+charity-boy; but if you fall below the common height
+of men, you must make up your mind to see her rustle
+her gown, spy at the looking-glass, and transfer her
+allegiance. The moral of which is, that if we pretend
+to be what we are not, woman, for whose amusement the
+farce is performed, will find us out and punish us for it.
+And it is usually the end of a sentimental dalliance.</p>
+
+<p>Had Sir Austin given vent to the pain and wrath it
+was natural he should feel, he might have gone to unphilosophic
+excesses, and, however much he lowered his
+reputation as a sage, Lady Blandish would have excused
+him: she would not have loved him less for seeing him
+closer. But the poor gentleman tasked his soul and
+stretched his muscles to act up to her conception of
+him. He, a man of science in life, who was bound to
+be surprised by nothing in nature, it was not for him
+to do more than lift his eyebrows and draw in his lips
+at the news delivered by Ripton Thompson, that ill bird
+at Raynham.</p>
+
+<p>All he said, after Ripton had handed the letters and
+carried his penitential headache to bed, was: "You see,
+Emmeline, it is useless to base any system on a human
+being."</p>
+
+<p>A very philosophical remark for one who has been busily
+at work building for nearly twenty years. Too philosophical
+to seem genuine. It revealed where the blow struck
+sharpest. Richard was no longer the Richard of his creation&mdash;his
+pride and his joy&mdash;but simply a human being
+with the rest. The bright star had sunk among the
+mass.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And yet, what had the young man done? And in what
+had the System failed?</p>
+
+<p>The lady could not but ask herself this, while she condoled
+with the offended father.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," she said, tenderly taking his hand before
+she retired, "I know how deeply you must be grieved. I
+know what your disappointment must be. I do not beg of
+you to forgive him now. You cannot doubt his love for
+this young person, and according to his light, has he not
+behaved honourably, and as you would have wished, rather
+than bring her to shame? You will think of that. It
+has been an accident&mdash;a misfortune&mdash;a terrible misfortune"....</p>
+
+<p>"The God of this world is in the machine&mdash;not out of
+it," Sir Austin interrupted her, and pressed her hand to
+get the good-night over.</p>
+
+<p>At any other time her mind would have been arrested to
+admire the phrase; now it seemed perverse, vain, false, and
+she was tempted to turn the meaning that was in it against
+himself, much as she pitied him.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Emmeline," he added, "I believe very little
+in the fortune, or misfortune, to which men attribute
+their successes and reverses. They are useful impersonations
+to novelists; but my opinion is sufficiently high of
+flesh and blood to believe that we make our own history
+without intervention. Accidents?&mdash;Terrible misfortunes?&mdash;What
+are they?&mdash;Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night," she said, looking sad and troubled.
+"When I said, 'misfortune,' I meant, of course, that he is
+to blame, but&mdash;shall I leave you his letter to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think I have enough to meditate upon," he replied,
+coldly bowing.</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you," she whispered. "And&mdash;may I say it?
+do not shut your heart."</p>
+
+<p>He assured her that he hoped not to do so, and the moment
+she was gone he set about shutting it as tight as
+he could.</p>
+
+<p>If, instead of saying, Base no system on a human being,
+he had said, Never experimentalize with one, he would
+have been nearer the truth of his own case. He had
+experimented on humanity in the person of the son he
+loved as his life, and at once, when the experiment appeared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>
+to have failed, all humanity's failings fell on the
+shoulders of his son. Richard's parting laugh in the
+train&mdash;it was explicable now: it sounded in his ears like
+the mockery of this base nature of ours at every endeavor
+to exalt and chasten it. The young man had
+plotted this. From step to step Sir Austin traced the
+plot. The curious mask he had worn since his illness;
+the selection of his incapable uncle Hippias for a companion
+in preference to Adrian; it was an evident, well-perfected
+plot. That hideous laugh would not be silenced.
+Base, like the rest, treacherous, a creature of passions
+using his abilities solely to gratify them&mdash;never surely
+had humanity such chances as in him! A Manichæan
+tendency, from which the sententious eulogist of nature
+had been struggling for years (and which was partly at
+the bottom of the System), now began to cloud and usurp
+dominion of his mind. As he sat alone in the forlorn
+dead-hush of his library, he saw the devil.</p>
+
+<p>How are we to know when we are at the head and fountain
+of the fates of them we love?</p>
+
+<p>There by the springs of Richard's future, his father sat:
+and the devil said to him: "Only be quiet: do nothing:
+resolutely do nothing: your object now is to keep a brave
+face to the world, so that all may know you superior to
+this human nature that has deceived you. For it is the
+shameless deception, not the marriage, that has wounded
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay!" answered the baronet, "the shameless deception,
+not the marriage: wicked and ruinous as it must be; a
+destroyer of my tenderest hopes! my dearest schemes!
+Not the marriage&mdash;the shameless deception!" and he
+crumpled up his son's letter to him, and tossed it into
+the fire.</p>
+
+<p>How are we to distinguish the dark chief of the Manichæans
+when he talks our own thoughts to us?</p>
+
+<p>Further he whispered, "And your System:&mdash;if you
+would be brave to the world, have courage to cast the
+dream of it out of you: relinquish an impossible project;
+see it as it is&mdash;dead: too good for men!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay!" muttered the baronet: "all who would save them
+perish on the Cross!"</p>
+
+<p>And so he sat nursing the devil.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>By and by he took his lamp, and put on the old cloak
+and cap, and went to gaze at Ripton. That exhausted
+debauchee and youth without a destiny slept a dead sleep.
+A handkerchief was bound about his forehead, and his
+helpless sunken chin and snoring nose projected up the
+pillow, made him look absurdly piteous. The baronet remembered
+how often he had compared his boy with this
+one: his own bright boy! And where was the difference
+between them?</p>
+
+<p>"Mere outward gilding!" said his familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he responded, "I daresay this one never positively
+plotted to deceive his father: he followed his appetites
+unchecked, and is internally the sounder of the
+two."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton, with his sunken chin and snoring nose under
+the light of the lamp, stood for human nature, honest,
+however abject.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Random, I fear very much, is a necessary establishment!"
+whispered the monitor.</p>
+
+<p>"Does the evil in us demand its natural food, or it
+corrupts the whole?" ejaculated Sir Austin. "And is no
+angel of avail till that is drawn off? And is that our conflict&mdash;to
+see whether we can escape the contagion of its
+embrace, and come uncorrupted out of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The world is wise in its way," said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Though it look on itself through Port wine?" he suggested,
+remembering his lawyer Thompson.</p>
+
+<p>"Wise in not seeking to be too wise," said the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"And getting intoxicated on its drug of comfort!"</p>
+
+<p>"Human nature is weak."</p>
+
+<p>"And Miss Random is an establishment, and Wild Oats
+an institution!"</p>
+
+<p>"It always has been so."</p>
+
+<p>"And always will be?"</p>
+
+<p>"So I fear! in spite of your very noble efforts."</p>
+
+<p>"And leads&mdash;whither? And ends&mdash;where?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard's laugh, taken up by horrid reverberations, as
+it were through the lengths of the Lower Halls, replied.</p>
+
+<p>This colloquy of two voices in a brain was concluded by
+Sir Austin asking again if there were no actual difference
+between the flower of his hopes and yonder drunken weed,
+and receiving for answer that there was a decided dissimilarity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>
+in the smell of the couple; becoming cognizant of
+which he retreated.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin did not battle with the tempter. He took
+him into his bosom at once, as if he had been ripe for
+him, and received his suggestions and bowed to his dictates.
+Because he suffered, and decreed that he would
+suffer silently, and be the only sufferer, it seemed to him
+that he was great-minded in his calamity. He had stood
+against the world. The world had beaten him. What
+then? He must shut his heart and mask his face; that
+was all. To be far in advance of the mass, is as fruitless
+to mankind, he reflected, as straggling in the rear. For
+how do we know that they move behind us at all, or move
+in our track? What we win for them is lost; and where
+we are overthrown we lie!</p>
+
+<p>It was thus that a fine mind and a fine heart at the
+bounds of a nature not great, chose to colour his retrogression
+and countenance his shortcoming; and it was
+thus that he set about ruining the work he had done. He
+might well say, as he once did, that there are hours when
+the clearest soul becomes a cunning fox. For a grief that
+was private and peculiar, he unhesitatingly cast the blame
+upon humanity; just as he had accused it in the period of
+what he termed his own ordeal. How had he borne that?
+By masking his face. And he prepared the ordeal for his
+son by doing the same. This was by no means his idea
+of a man's duty in tribulation, about which he could be
+strenuously eloquent. But it was his instinct so to act,
+and in times of trial great natures alone are not at the
+mercy of their instincts. Moreover it would cost him
+pain to mask his face; pain worse than that he endured
+when there still remained an object for him to open his
+heart to in proportion; and he always reposed upon the
+Spartan comfort of bearing pain and being passive. "Do
+nothing," said the devil he nursed; which meant in his
+case, "Take me into you and don't cast me out." Excellent
+and sane is the outburst of wrath to men, when
+it stops short of slaughter. For who that locks it up to
+eat in solitary, can say that it is consumed? Sir Austin
+had as weak a digestion for wrath, as poor Hippias for a
+green duckling. Instead of eating it, it ate him. The
+wild beast in him was not the less deadly because it did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>
+not roar, and the devil in him not the less active because
+he resolved to do nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He sat at the springs of Richard's future, in the forlorn
+dead-hush of his library there, hearing the cinders click in
+the extinguished fire, and that humming stillness in which
+one may fancy one hears the midnight Fates busily stirring
+their embryos. The lamp glowed mildly on the bust
+of Chatham.</p>
+
+<p>Toward morning a gentle knock fell at his door. Lady
+Blandish glided in. With hasty step she came straight to
+him, and took both his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," she said, speaking tearfully, and trembling,
+"I feared I should find you here. I could not sleep.
+How is it with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well! Emmeline, well!" he replied, torturing his brows
+to fix the mask.</p>
+
+<p>He wished it had been Adrian who had come to him.
+He had an extraordinary longing for Adrian's society.
+He knew that the wise youth would divine how to treat
+him, and he mentally confessed to just enough weakness
+to demand a certain kind of management. Besides,
+Adrian, he had not a doubt, would accept him entirely
+as he seemed, and not pester him in any way by trying to
+unlock his heart; whereas a woman, he feared, would be
+waxing too womanly, and swelling from tears and supplications
+to a scene, of all things abhorred by him the most.
+So he rapped the floor with his foot, and gave the lady
+no very welcome face when he said it was well with him.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down by his side, still holding one hand firmly,
+and softly detaining the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my friend! may I believe you? May I speak to
+you?" She leaned close to him. "You know my heart.
+I have no better ambition than to be your friend. Surely
+I divide your grief, and may I not claim your confidence?
+Who has wept more over your great and dreadful sorrows?
+I would not have come to you, but I do believe that sorrow
+shared relieves the burden, and it is now that you may
+feel a woman's aid, and something of what a woman
+could be to you." ...</p>
+
+<p>"Be assured," he gravely said, "I thank you, Emmeline,
+for your intentions."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! not for my intentions! And do not thank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>
+me. Think of him ... think of your dear boy....
+Our Richard, as we have called him.&mdash;Oh! do not think
+it a foolish superstition of mine, but I have had a thought
+this night that has kept me in torment till I rose to
+speak to you.... Tell me first you have forgiven
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"A father bears no malice to his son, Emmeline."</p>
+
+<p>"Your heart has forgiven him?"</p>
+
+<p>"My heart has taken what he gave."</p>
+
+<p>"And quite forgiven him?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will hear no complaints of mine."</p>
+
+<p>The lady paused despondingly, and looked at him in
+a wistful manner, saying with a sigh, "Yes! I know how
+noble you are, and different from others!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew one of his hands from her relaxed hold.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to be in bed, Emmeline."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Go, and talk to me another time."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it must be now. You have helped me when I struggled
+to rise into a clearer world, and I think, humble as I
+am, I can help you now. I have had a thought this night
+that if you do not pray for him and bless him ... it will
+end miserably. My friend, have you done so?"</p>
+
+<p>He was stung and offended, and could hardly help showing
+it in spite of his mask.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you done so, Austin?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is assuredly a new way of committing fathers to
+the follies of their sons, Emmeline!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not that. But will you pray for your boy, and bless
+him, before the day comes?"</p>
+
+<p>He restrained himself to pronounce his words calmly:&mdash;"And
+I must do this, or it will end in misery? How else
+can it end? Can I save him from the seed he has sown?
+Consider, Emmeline, what you say. He has repeated his
+cousin's sin. You see the end of that."...</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so different! This young person is <i>not</i>, is <i>not</i> of
+the class poor Austin Wentworth allied himself to. Indeed
+it is different. And he&mdash;be just and admit his nobleness.
+I fancied you did. This young person has great
+beauty, she has the elements of good breeding, she&mdash;indeed
+I think, had she been in another position, you would
+not have looked upon her unfavourably."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"She may be too good for my son!" The baronet spoke
+with sublime bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it."</p>
+
+<p>"Pass her."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal
+accident. We thought his love dead, and so did he till he
+saw her again. He met her, he thought we were plotting
+against him, he thought he should lose her for ever, and in
+the madness of an hour he did this." ...</p>
+
+<p>"My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! do not trifle, my friend. Say: would you have had
+him act as young men in his position generally do to
+young women beneath them?"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin did not like the question. It probed him
+very severely.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean," he said, "that fathers must fold their
+arms, and either submit to infamous marriages, or have
+these creatures ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"I do <i>not</i> mean that," exclaimed the lady, striving for
+what she did mean, and how to express it. "I mean that ...
+he loved her. Is it not a madness at his age? But
+what I chiefly mean is&mdash;save him from the consequences.
+No, you shall not withdraw your hand. Think of his
+pride, his sensitiveness, his great wild nature&mdash;wild when
+he is set wrong: think how intense it is, set upon love;
+think, my friend, do not forget his love for you."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin smiled an admirable smile of pity.</p>
+
+<p>"That I should save him, or any one, from consequences,
+is asking more than the order of things will allow to you,
+Emmeline, and is not in the disposition of this world. I
+cannot. Consequences are the natural offspring of acts.
+My child, you are talking sentiment, which is the distraction
+of our modern age in everything&mdash;a phantasmal
+vapour distorting the image of the life we live. You ask
+me to give him a golden age in spite of himself. All that
+could be done, by keeping him in the paths of virtue and
+truth, I did. He is become a man, and as a man he must
+reap his own sowing."</p>
+
+<p>The baffled lady sighed. He sat so rigid: he spoke so
+securely, as if wisdom were to him more than the love of
+his son. And yet he did love his son. Feeling sure that
+he loved his son while he spoke so loftily, she reverenced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>
+him still, baffled as she was, and sensible that she had been
+quibbled with.</p>
+
+<p>"All I ask of you is to open your heart to him," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>He kept silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Call him a man,&mdash;he is, and must ever be the child of
+your education, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"You would console me, Emmeline, with the prospect
+that, if he ruins himself, he spares the world of young
+women. Yes, that is something!"</p>
+
+<p>Closely she scanned the mask. It was impenetrable.
+He could meet her eyes, and respond to the pressure of her
+hand, and smile, and not show what he felt. Nor did he
+deem it hypocritical to seek to maintain his elevation in
+her soft soul, by simulating supreme philosophy over
+offended love. Nor did he know that he had an angel
+with him then: a blind angel, and a weak one, but one
+who struck upon his chance.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I pardoned for coming to you?" she said, after a
+pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely I can read my Emmeline's intentions," he
+gently replied.</p>
+
+<p>"Very poor ones. I feel my weakness. I cannot utter
+half I have been thinking. Oh, if I could!"</p>
+
+<p>"You speak very well, Emmeline."</p>
+
+<p>"At least, I am pardoned!"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely so."</p>
+
+<p>"And before I leave you, dear friend, shall I be forgiven?&mdash;may
+I beg it?&mdash;will you bless him?"</p>
+
+<p>He was again silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray for him, Austin! pray for him ere the night is
+over."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke she slid down to his feet and pressed his
+hand to her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was startled. In very dread of the soft fit
+that wooed him, he pushed back his chair, and rose, and
+went to the window.</p>
+
+<p>"It's day already!" he said with assumed vivacity,
+throwing open the shutters, and displaying the young
+light on the lawn.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish dried her tears as she knelt, and then
+joined him, and glanced up silently at Richard's moon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>
+standing in wane toward the West. She hoped it was because
+of her having been premature in pleading so earnestly,
+that she had failed to move him, and she accused
+herself more than the baronet. But in acting as she had
+done, she had treated him as no common man, and she
+was compelled to perceive that his heart was at present
+hardly superior to the hearts of ordinary men, however
+composed his face might be, and apparently serene his
+wisdom. From that moment she grew critical of him, and
+began to study her idol&mdash;a process dangerous to idols. He,
+now that she seemed to have relinquished the painful
+subject, drew to her, and as one who wished to smooth a
+foregone roughness, murmured: "God's rarest blessing is,
+after all, a good woman! My Emmeline bears her sleepless
+night well. She does not shame the day." He gazed
+down on her with a fondling tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"I could bear many, many!" she replied, meeting his
+eyes, "and you would see me look better and better, if ...
+if only ..." but she had no encouragement to end the
+sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he wanted some mute form of consolation; perhaps
+the handsome placid features of the dark-eyed dame
+touched him: at any rate their Platonism was advanced
+by his putting an arm about her. She felt the arm and
+talked of the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Thus proximate, they by and by both heard something
+very like a groan behind them, and looking round, beheld
+the Saurian eye. Lady Blandish smiled, but the baronet's
+discomposure was not to be concealed. By a strange fatality
+every stage of their innocent loves was certain to have
+a human beholder.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm sure I beg pardon," Benson mumbled, arresting
+his head in a melancholy pendulosity. He was
+ordered out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"And I think I shall follow him, and try to get forty
+winks," said Lady Blandish. They parted with a quiet
+squeeze of hands.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet then called in Benson.</p>
+
+<p>"Get me my breakfast as soon as you can," he said,
+regardless of the aspect of injured conscience Benson
+sombrely presented to him. "I am going to town early.
+And, Benson," he added, "you will also go to town this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>
+afternoon, or to-morrow, if it suits you, and take your
+book with you to Mr. Thompson. You will not return
+here. A provision will be made for you. You can go."</p>
+
+<p>The heavy butler essayed to speak, but the tremendous
+blow and the baronet's gesture choked him. At the door
+he made another effort which shook the rolls of his loose
+skin pitiably. An impatient signal sent him out dumb,&mdash;and
+Raynham was quit of the one believer in the Great
+Shaddock dogma.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green
+waves before a full-blowing South-wester. Gay little
+yachts bounded out like foam, and flashed their sails, light
+as sea-nymphs. A crown of deep Summer blue topped the
+flying mountains of cloud.</p>
+
+<p>By an open window that looked on the brine through
+nodding roses, our young bridal pair were at breakfast,
+regaling worthily, both of them. Had the Scientific Humanist
+observed them, he could not have contested the
+fact, that as a couple who had set up to be father and
+mother of Britons, they were doing their duty. Files of
+egg-cups with disintegrated shells bore witness to it, and
+they were still at work, hardly talking from rapidity of
+exercise. Both were dressed for an expedition. She had
+her bonnet on, and he his yachting-hat. His sleeves were
+turned over at the wrists, and her gown showed its lining
+on her lap. At times a chance word might spring a laugh,
+but eating was the business of the hour, as I would have
+you to know it always will be where Cupid is in earnest.
+Tribute flowed in to them from the subject land. Neglected
+lies Love's penny-whistle on which they played
+so prettily and charmed the spheres to hear them. What
+do they care for the spheres, who have one another?
+Come, eggs! come, bread and butter! come, tea with
+sugar in it and milk! and welcome, the jolly hours. That
+is a fair interpretation of the music in them just now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>
+Yonder instrument was good only for the overture. After
+all, what finer aspiration can lovers have, than to be free
+man and woman in the heart of plenty? And is it not a
+glorious level to have attained? Ah, wretched Scientific
+Humanist! not to be by and mark the admirable sight of
+these young creatures feeding. It would have been a spell
+to exorcise the Manichee, methinks.</p>
+
+<p>The mighty performance came to an end, and then, with
+a flourish of his table-napkin, husband stood over wife,
+who met him on the confident budding of her mouth. The
+poetry of mortals is their daily prose. Is it not a glorious
+level to have attained? A short, quick-blooded kiss, radiant,
+fresh, and honest as Aurora, and then Richard
+says without lack of cheer, "No letter to-day, my Lucy!"
+whereat her sweet eyes dwell on him a little seriously,
+but he cries, "Never mind! he'll be coming down himself
+some morning. He has only to know her, and all's well!
+eh?" and so saying he puts a hand beneath her chin, and
+seems to frame her fair face in fancy, she smiling up to
+be looked at.</p>
+
+<p>"But one thing I do want to ask my darling," says Lucy,
+and dropped into his bosom with hands of petition. "Take
+me on board his yacht with him to-day&mdash;not leave me with
+those people! Will he? I'm a good sailor, he knows!"</p>
+
+<p>"The best afloat!" laughs Richard, hugging her, "but,
+you know, you darling bit of a sailor, they don't allow
+more than a certain number on board for the race, and if
+they hear you've been with me, there'll be cries of foul
+play! Besides, there's Lady Judith to talk to you about
+Austin, and Lord Mountfalcon's compliments for you to
+listen to, and Mr. Morton to take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's eyes fixed sideways an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I don't frown and blush as I did?" she said,
+screwing her pliable brows up to him winningly, and he
+bent his cheek against hers, and murmured something
+delicious.</p>
+
+<p>"And we shall be separated for&mdash;how many hours? one,
+two, three hours!" she pouted to his flatteries.</p>
+
+<p>"And then I shall come on board to receive my bride's
+congratulations."</p>
+
+<p>"And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady
+Judith."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at
+Lord Mountfalcon."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I so foolish, Richard?" she forgot her trifling to
+ask in an earnest way, and had another Aurorean kiss,
+just brushing the dew on her lips, for answer.</p>
+
+<p>After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy
+sinners had wandered forth one day to look on men and
+marvel at them, and had chanced to meet Mr. Morton of
+Poer Hall, Austin Wentworth's friend, and Ralph's uncle.
+Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the baronet, but
+had given him up for many years as impracticable and
+hopeless, for which reason he was the more inclined to regard
+Richard's misdemeanour charitably, and to lay the
+faults of the son on the father; and thinking society to be
+the one thing requisite to the young man, he had introduced
+him to the people he knew in the island; among
+others to the Lady Judith Felle, a fair young dame, who
+introduced him to Lord Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman;
+who introduced him to the yachtsmen beginning to
+congregate; so that in a few weeks he found himself in
+the centre of a brilliant company, and for the first time
+in his life tasted what it was to have free intercourse with
+his fellow-creatures of both sexes. The son of a System
+was, therefore, launched; not only through the surf, but
+in deep waters.</p>
+
+<p>Now the baronet had so far compromised between the
+recurrence of his softer feelings and the suggestions of his
+new familiar, that he had determined to act toward Richard
+with justness. The world called it magnanimity, and
+even Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same kind
+when she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome
+allowance, and had scouted Mrs. Doria's proposal
+for him to contest the legality of the marriage; but Sir
+Austin knew well he was simply just in not withholding
+money from a youth so situated. And here again the
+world deceived him by embellishing his conduct. For
+what is it to be just to whom we love! He knew it was
+not magnanimous, but the cry of the world somehow
+fortified him in the conceit that in dealing perfect justice
+to his son he was doing all that was possible, because so
+much more than common fathers would have done. He
+had shut his heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Consequently Richard did not want money. What he
+wanted more, and did not get, was a word from his
+father, and though he said nothing to sadden his young
+bride, she felt how much it preyed upon him to be at
+variance with the man whom, now that he had offended
+him and gone against him, he would have fallen on his
+knees to; the man who was as no other man to him. She
+heard him of nights when she lay by his side, and the
+darkness, and the broken mutterings, of those nights
+clothed the figure of the strange stern man in her mind.
+Not that it affected the appetites of the pretty pair. We
+must not expect that of Cupid enthroned and in condition;
+under the influence of sea-air, too. The files of egg-cups
+laugh at such an idea. Still the worm did gnaw them.
+Judge, then, of their delight when, on this pleasant morning,
+as they were issuing from the garden of their cottage
+to go down to the sea, they caught sight of Tom Bakewell
+rushing up the road with a portmanteau on his shoulders,
+and, some distance behind him, discerned Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right!" shouted Richard, and ran off to meet
+him, and never left his hand till he had hauled him up,
+firing questions at him all the way, to where Lucy stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy! this is Adrian, my cousin."&mdash;"Isn't he an
+angel?" his eyes seemed to add; while Lucy's clearly
+answered, "That he is!"</p>
+
+<p>The full-bodied angel ceremoniously bowed to her, and
+acted with reserved unction the benefactor he saw in their
+greetings. "I think we are not strangers," he was good
+enough to remark, and very quickly let them know he had
+not breakfasted; on hearing which they hurried him into
+the house, and Lucy put herself in motion to have him
+served.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear old Rady," said Richard, tugging at his hand
+again, "how glad I am you've come! I don't mind telling
+you we've been horridly wretched."</p>
+
+<p>"Six, seven, eight, nine eggs," was Adrian's comment
+on a survey of the breakfast-table.</p>
+
+<p>"Why wouldn't he write? Why didn't he answer one of
+my letters? But here you are, so I don't mind now. He
+wants to see us, does he? We'll go up to-night. I've a
+match on at eleven; my little yacht&mdash;I've called her the
+'Blandish'&mdash;against Fred Currie's 'Begum.' I shall beat,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>
+but whether I do or not, we'll go up to-night. What's the
+news? What are they all doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy!" Adrian returned, sitting comfortably
+down, "let me put myself a little more on an equal footing
+with you before I undertake to reply. Half that number
+of eggs will be sufficient for an unmarried man, and then
+we'll talk. They're all very well, as well as I can recollect
+after the shaking my total vacuity has had this morning.
+I came over by the first boat, and the sea, the sea has made
+me love mother earth, and desire of her fruits."</p>
+
+<p>Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative.</p>
+
+<p>"Adrian! what did he say when he heard of it? I want
+to know exactly what words he said."</p>
+
+<p>"Well says the sage, my son! 'Speech is the small
+change of Silence.' He said less than I do."</p>
+
+<p>"That's how he took it!" cried Richard, and plunged in
+meditation.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the table was cleared, and laid out afresh, and
+Lucy preceded the maid bearing eggs on the tray, and sat
+down unbonneted, and like a thorough-bred housewife, to
+pour out the tea for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, we'll commence," said Adrian, tapping his egg
+with meditative cheerfulness; but his expression soon
+changed to one of pain, all the more alarming for his
+benevolent efforts to conceal it. Could it be possible the
+egg was bad? oh, horror! Lucy watched him, and waited
+in trepidation.</p>
+
+<p>"This egg has boiled three minutes and three-quarters,"
+he observed, ceasing to contemplate it.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, dear!" said Lucy, "I boiled them myself exactly
+that time. Richard likes them so. And you like them
+hard, Mr. Harley?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, I like them soft. Two minutes and a
+half, or three-quarters at the outside. An egg should
+never rashly verge upon hardness&mdash;never. Three minutes
+is the excess of temerity."</p>
+
+<p>"If Richard had told me! If I had only known!" the
+lovely little hostess interjected ruefully, biting her lip.</p>
+
+<p>"We mustn't expect him to pay attention to such matters,"
+said Adrian, trying to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it! there are more eggs in the house," cried
+Richard, and pulled savagely at the bell.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucy jumped up, saying, "Oh, yes! I will go and boil
+some exactly the time you like. Pray let me go, Mr.
+Harley."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian restrained her departure with a motion of his
+hand. "No," he said, "I will be ruled by Richard's tastes,
+and heaven grant me his digestion!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy threw a sad look at Richard, who stretched on a
+sofa, and left the burden of the entertainment entirely to
+her. The eggs were a melancholy beginning, but her
+ardour to please Adrian would not be damped, and she
+deeply admired his resignation. If she failed in pleasing
+this glorious herald of peace, no matter by what small
+misadventure, she apprehended calamity; so there sat this
+fair dove with brows at work above her serious smiling
+blue eyes, covertly studying every aspect of the plump-faced
+epicure, that she might learn to propitiate him. "He shall
+not think me timid and stupid," thought this brave girl,
+and indeed Adrian was astonished to find that she could
+both chat and be useful, as well as look ornamental. When
+he had finished one egg, behold, two fresh ones came in,
+boiled according to his prescription. She had quietly
+given her orders to the maid, and he had them without
+fuss. Possibly his look of dismay at the offending eggs
+had not been altogether involuntary, and her woman's
+instinct, inexperienced as she was, may have told her that
+he had come prepared to be not very well satisfied with
+anything in Love's cottage. There was mental faculty
+in those pliable brows to see through, and combat, an
+unwitting wise youth.</p>
+
+<p>How much she had achieved already she partly divined
+when Adrian said: "I think now I'm in case to answer
+your questions, my dear boy&mdash;thanks to Mrs. Richard,"
+and he bowed to her his first direct acknowledgment of
+her position. Lucy thrilled with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" cried Richard, and settled easily on his back.</p>
+
+<p>"To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has
+been persuaded to offer a reward which shall maintain the
+happy finder thereof in an asylum for life. Benson&mdash;superlative
+Benson&mdash;has turned his shoulders upon Raynham.
+None know whither he has departed. It is believed
+that the sole surviving member of the sect of the Shaddock-Dogmatists
+is under a total eclipse of Woman."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Benson gone?" Richard exclaimed. "What a tremendous
+time it seems since I left Raynham!"</p>
+
+<p>"So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet's
+minute; or say, the Persian King's water-pail that you
+read of in the story: You dip your head in it, and when
+you draw it out, you discover that you have lived a life.
+To resume: your uncle Algernon still roams in pursuit
+of the lost one&mdash;I should say, hops. Your uncle Hippias
+has a new and most perplexing symptom: a determination
+of bride-cake to the nose. Ever since your generous
+present to him, though he declares he never consumed a
+morsel of it, he has been under the distressing illusion that
+his nose is enormous, and I assure you he exhibits quite
+a maidenly timidity in following it&mdash;through a doorway,
+for instance. He complains of its terrible weight. I have
+conceived that Benson invisible might be sitting on it.
+His hand, and the doctor's, are in hourly consultation with
+it, but I fear it will not grow smaller. The Pilgrim has
+begotten upon it a new Aphorism: that Size is a matter
+of opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor uncle Hippy!" said Richard, "I wonder he doesn't
+believe in magic. There's nothing supernatural to rival
+the wonderful sensations he does believe in. Good God!
+fancy coming to that!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I'm very sorry," Lucy protested, "but I can't
+help laughing."</p>
+
+<p>Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter
+sounded.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pilgrim has your notion, Richard. Whom does
+he not forestall? 'Confirmed dyspepsia is the apparatus
+of illusions,' and he accuses the Ages that put faith in sorcery,
+of universal indigestion, which may have been the
+case, owing to their infamous cookery. He says again, if
+you remember, that our own Age is travelling back to
+darkness and ignorance through dyspepsia. He lays the
+seat of wisdom in the centre of our system, Mrs. Richard:
+for which reason you will understand how sensible I am
+of the vast obligation I am under to you at the present
+moment, for your especial care of mine."</p>
+
+<p>Richard looked on at Lucy's little triumph, attributing
+Adrian's subjugation to her beauty and sweetness. She
+had latterly received a great many compliments on that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>
+score, which she did not care to hear, and Adrian's homage
+to a practical quality was far pleasanter to the young
+wife, who shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not
+help her much in the struggle she had now to maintain.
+Adrian continuing to lecture on the excelling virtues of
+wise cookery, a thought struck her: Where, where had she
+tossed Mrs. Berry's book?</p>
+
+<p>"So that's all about the home-people?" said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"All!" replied Adrian. "Or stay: you know Clare's
+going to be married? Not? Your Aunt Helen"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had
+the impertinence to write&mdash;but never mind! Is it to Ralph?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is
+an extraordinary woman. It was from her originally that
+the Pilgrim first learnt to call the female the practical
+animal. He studies us all, you know. <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's
+Scrip</span> is the abstract portraiture of his surrounding relatives.
+Well, your Aunt Helen"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Doria Battledoria!" laughed Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash;being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own&mdash;call
+it a System if you like&mdash;of some ten or fifteen years'
+standing, with regard to Miss Clare!"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The fair Shuttlecockiana!"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;&mdash;instead of fretting like a man, and questioning
+Providence, and turning herself and everybody else inside
+out, and seeing the world upside down, what does the practical
+animal do? She wanted to marry her to somebody
+she couldn't marry her to, so she resolved instantly to
+marry her to somebody she could marry her to: and as
+old gentlemen enter into these transactions with the practical
+animal the most readily, she fixed upon an old
+gentleman; an unmarried old gentleman, a rich old gentleman,
+and now a captive old gentleman. The ceremony
+takes place in about a week from the present time. No
+doubt you will receive your invitation in a day or two."</p>
+
+<p>"And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to
+marry an old man!" groaned Richard. "I'll put a stop to
+that when I go to town."</p>
+
+<p>Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he
+bethought him it was time to go on board and make preparations.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm off," he said. "Adrian, you'll take her. She goes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>
+in the Empress, Mountfalcon's vessel. He starts us. A
+little schooner-yacht&mdash;such a beauty! I'll have one like
+her some day. Good-bye, darling!" he whispered to Lucy,
+and his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on him,
+seeking to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred
+from. But she quickly looked away from him as
+he held her:&mdash;Adrian stood silent: his brows were up,
+and his mouth dubiously contracted. He spoke at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on the water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It's only to St. Helen's. Short and sharp."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system
+has just received, my son?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother your system! Put on your hat, and come
+along. I'll put you on board in my boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard! I have already paid the penalty of them who
+are condemned to come to an island. I will go with you
+to the edge of the sea, and I will meet you there when you
+return, and take up the Tale of the Tritons: but, though I
+forfeit the pleasure of Mrs. Richard's company, I refuse
+to quit the land."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oh, Mr. Harley!" Lucy broke from her husband,
+"and I will stay with you, if you please. I don't want to
+go among those people, and we can see it all from the
+shore. Dearest! I don't want to go. You don't mind?
+Of course, I will go if you wish, but I would so much
+rather stay;" and she lengthened her plea in her attitude
+and look to melt the discontent she saw gathering.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian protested that she had much better go; that he
+could amuse himself very well till their return, and so
+forth; but she had schemes in her pretty head, and held
+to it to be allowed to stay in spite of Lord Mountfalcon's
+disappointment, cited by Richard, and at the great
+risk of vexing her darling, as she saw. Richard pished,
+and glanced contemptuously at Adrian. He gave way
+ungraciously.</p>
+
+<p>"There, do as you like. Get your things ready to leave
+this evening. No, I'm not angry."&mdash;Who could be? he
+seemed as he looked up from her modest fondling to ask
+Adrian, and seized the indemnity of a kiss on her forehead,
+which, however, did not immediately disperse the
+shade of annoyance he felt.</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Such a day as this,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>
+and a fellow refuses to come on the water! Well, come
+along to the edge of the sea." Adrian's angelic quality
+had quite worn off to him. He never thought of devoting
+himself to make the most of the material there was: but
+somebody else did, and that fair somebody succeeded wonderfully
+in a few short hours. She induced Adrian to
+reflect that the baronet had only to see her, and the family
+muddle would be smoothed at once. He came to it by
+degrees; still the gradations were rapid. Her manner he
+liked; she was certainly a nice picture: best of all, she
+was sensible. He forgot the farmer's niece in her, she
+was so very sensible. She appeared really to understand
+that it was a woman's duty to know how to cook.</p>
+
+<p>But the difficulty was, by what means the baronet could
+be brought to consent to see her. He had not yet consented
+to see his son, and Adrian, spurred by Lady
+Blandish, had ventured something in coming down. He
+was not inclined to venture more. The small debate in
+his mind ended by his throwing the burden on time.
+Time would bring the matter about. Christians as well
+as Pagans are in the habit of phrasing this excuse for
+folding their arms; "forgetful," says <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip,</span>
+"that the devil's imps enter into no such armistice."</p>
+
+<p>As she loitered along the shore with her amusing companion,
+Lucy had many things to think of. There was
+her darling's match. The yachts were started by pistol-shot
+by Lord Mountfalcon on board the Empress, and her
+little heart beat after Richard's straining sails. Then
+there was the strangeness of walking with a relative of
+Richard's, one who had lived by his side so long. And
+the thought that perhaps this night she would have to
+appear before the dreaded father of her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mr. Harley!" she said, "is it true&mdash;are we to go to-night?
+And me," she faltered, "will he see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about," said
+Adrian. "I made some reply to our dear boy which he has
+slightly misinterpreted. Our second person plural is liable
+to misconstruction by an ardent mind. I said 'see you,'
+and he supposed&mdash;now, Mrs. Richard, I am sure you will
+understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be advisable&mdash;when
+the father and son have settled their accounts,
+the daughter-in-law can't be a debtor."...<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight
+at the chance of a respite from the awful interview made
+her quickly apprehensive.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an
+excellent husband that I fancy it will require more than
+a man's power of persuasion to get him to go."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, if you would...."</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing I would not do for his happiness,"
+murmured Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation.
+They walked on till the yachts had rounded the
+point.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?" she asked with some
+trouble in her voice now that her darling was out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't imagine your eloquence even will get him to
+leave you to-night," Adrian replied gallantly. "Besides, I
+must speak for myself. To achieve the passage to an
+island is enough for one day. No necessity exists for any
+hurry, except in the brain of that impetuous boy. You
+must correct it, Mrs. Richard. Men are made to be managed,
+and women are born managers. Now, if you were
+to let him know that you don't want to go to-night, and
+let him guess, after a day or two, that you would very
+much rather ... you might affect a peculiar repugnance.
+By taking it on yourself, you see, this wild young man
+will not require such frightful efforts of persuasion. Both
+his father and he are exceedingly delicate subjects, and
+his father unfortunately is not in a position to be managed
+directly. It's a strange office to propose to you, but it
+appears to devolve upon you to manage the father through
+the son. Prodigal having made his peace, you, who have
+done all the work from a distance, naturally come into the
+circle of the paternal smile, knowing it due to you. I
+see no other way. If Richard suspects that his father
+objects for the present to welcome his daughter-in-law,
+hostilities will be continued, the breach will be widened,
+bad will grow to worse, and I see no end to it."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian looked in her face, as much as to say: Now are
+you capable of this piece of heroism? And it did seem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>
+hard to her that she should have to tell Richard she shrank
+from any trial. But the proposition chimed in with her
+fears and her wishes: she thought the wise youth very
+wise: the poor child was not insensible to his flattery, and
+the subtler flattery of making herself in some measure a
+sacrifice to the home she had disturbed. She agreed to
+simulate as Adrian had suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Victory is the commonest heritage of the hero, and
+when Richard came on shore proclaiming that the Blandish
+had beaten the Begum by seven minutes and three-quarters,
+he was hastily kissed and congratulated by his
+bride with her fingers among the leaves of Dr. Kitchener,
+and anxiously questioned about wine.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! Mr. Harley wants to stay with us a little, and
+he thinks we ought not to go immediately&mdash;that is, before
+he has had some letters, and I feel ... I would so much
+rather...."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! that's it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then,
+to-morrow. We had a splendid race. Did you see us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! I saw you and was sure my darling would
+win." And again she threw on him the cold water of that
+solicitude about wine. "Mr. Harley must have the best,
+you know, and we never drink it, and I'm so silly, I don't
+know good wine, and if you would send Tom where he can
+get <i>good</i> wine. I have seen to the dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"So that's why you didn't come to meet me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pardon me, darling."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn't, and Lady Judith
+thinks you ought to have been there."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but my heart was with you!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart: her
+eyelids softened, and she ran away.</p>
+
+<p>It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no
+fault with it, and was in perfect good humour at the conclusion
+of the service. He did not abuse the wine they
+were able to procure for him, which was also much. The
+coffee, too, had the honour of passing without comment.
+These were sound first steps toward the conquest of an
+epicure, and as yet Cupid did not grumble.</p>
+
+<p>After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from
+Lady Judith's grounds. The wind had dropped. The
+clouds had rolled from the zenith, and ranged in amphitheatre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>
+with distant flushed bodies over sea and land:
+Titanic crimson head and chest rising from the wave
+faced Hyperion falling. There hung Briareus with deep-indented
+trunk and ravined brows, stretching all his hands
+up to unattainable blue summits. North-west the range
+had a rich white glow, as if shining to the moon, and
+westward, streams of amber, melting into upper rose, shot
+out from the dipping disk.</p>
+
+<p>"What Sandoe calls the passion-flower of heaven," said
+Richard under his breath to Adrian, who was serenely
+chanting Greek hexameters, and answered, in the swing
+of the cæsura, "He might as well have said cauliflower."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head,
+met them in the walk. She was tall and dark; dark-haired,
+dark-eyed, sweet and persuasive in her accent and
+manner. "A second edition of the Blandish," thinks
+Adrian. She welcomed him as one who had claims on
+her affability. She kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking
+on the wonders of the evening, appropriated her husband.
+Adrian and Lucy found themselves walking behind
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was under. All the spaces of the sky were
+alight, and Richard's fancy flamed.</p>
+
+<p>"So you're not intoxicated with your immense triumph
+this morning?" said Lady Judith.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't laugh at me. When it's over I feel ashamed of
+the trouble I've taken. Look at that glory!&mdash;I'm sure you
+despise me for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Was I not there to applaud you? I only think such
+energies should be turned into some definitely useful channel.
+But you must not go into the Army."</p>
+
+<p>"What else can I do?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are fit for so much that is better."</p>
+
+<p>"I never can be anything like Austin."</p>
+
+<p>"But I think you can do more."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Something
+I will do. A man must deserve to live, as you
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"Sauces," Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in
+the rear, "Sauces are the top tree of this science. A
+woman who has mastered sauces sits on the apex of
+civilization."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The West was all a
+burning rose.</p>
+
+<p>"How can men see such sights as those, and live idle?"
+Richard resumed. "I feel ashamed of asking my men to
+work for me.&mdash;Or I feel so now."</p>
+
+<p>"Not when you're racing the Begum, I think. There's
+no necessity for you to turn democrat like Austin. Do
+you write now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What is writing like mine? It doesn't deceive
+me. I know it's only the excuse I'm making to myself for
+remaining idle. I haven't written a line since&mdash;lately."</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are so happy."</p>
+
+<p>"No, not because of that. Of course I'm very happy...."
+He did not finish.</p>
+
+<p>Vague, shapeless ambition had replaced love in yonder
+skies. No Scientific Humanist was by to study the natural
+development, and guide him. This lady would hardly
+be deemed a very proper guide to the undirected energies
+of the youth, yet they had established relations of that
+nature. She was five years older than he, and a woman,
+which may explain her serene presumption.</p>
+
+<p>The cloud-giants had broken up: a brawny shoulder
+smouldered over the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll work together in town, at all events," said Richard.
+"Why can't we go about together at night and find
+out people who want help?"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Judith smiled, and only corrected his nonsense
+by saying, "I think we mustn't be too romantic. You will
+become a knight-errant, I suppose. You have the characteristics
+of one."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially at breakfast," Adrian's unnecessarily emphatic
+gastronomical lessons to the young wife here came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be our champion," continued Lady Judith:
+"the rescuer and succourer of distressed dames and damsels.
+We want one badly."</p>
+
+<p>"You do," said Richard, earnestly: "from what I hear:
+from what I know!" His thoughts flew off with him as
+knight-errant hailed shrilly at exceeding critical moments
+by distressed dames and damsels. Images of airy towers
+hung around. His fancy performed miraculous feats.
+The towers crumbled. The stars grew larger, seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>
+throb with lustre. His fancy crumbled with the towers
+of the air, his heart gave a leap, he turned to Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling! what have you been doing?" And as if
+to compensate her for his little knight-errant infidelity, he
+pressed very tenderly to her.</p>
+
+<p>"We have been engaged in a charming conversation on
+domestic cookery," interposed Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"Cookery! such an evening as this?" His face was a
+handsome likeness of Hippias at the presentation of bride-cake.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest! you know it's very useful," Lucy mirthfully
+pleaded.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I quite agree with you, child," said Lady
+Judith, "and I think you have the laugh of us. I certainly
+will learn to cook some day."</p>
+
+<p>"Woman's mission, in so many words," ejaculated
+Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"And pray, what is man's?"</p>
+
+<p>"To taste thereof, and pronounce thereupon."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us give it up to them," said Lady Judith to Richard.
+"You and I never will make so delightful and beautifully
+balanced a world of it."</p>
+
+<p>Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to
+give everything up to the fair face, his bridal Hesper.</p>
+
+<p>Next day Lucy had to act the coward anew, and, as she
+did so, her heart sank to see how painfully it affected him
+that she should hesitate to go with him to his father. He
+was patient, gentle; he sat down by her side to appeal to
+her reason, and used all the arguments he could think of
+to persuade her.</p>
+
+<p>"If we go together and make him see us both: if he sees
+he has nothing to be ashamed of in you&mdash;rather everything
+to be proud of; if you are only near him, you will not have
+to speak a word, and I'm certain&mdash;as certain as that I live&mdash;that
+in a week we shall be settled happily at Raynham.
+I know my father so well, Lucy. Nobody knows
+him but I."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not.</p>
+
+<p>"Adrian? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of
+people, Lucy; and not the best part."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of
+her conquest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Richard; oh, dear no;" she cried, and looked
+at him more tenderly because she was not quite truthful.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't know my father at all," said Richard. But
+Lucy had another opinion of the wise youth, and secretly
+maintained it. She could not be won to imagine the baronet
+a man of human mould, generous, forgiving, full of
+passionate love at heart, as Richard tried to picture him,
+and thought him, now that he beheld him again through
+Adrian's embassy. To her he was that awful figure,
+shrouded by the midnight. "Why are you so harsh?" she
+had heard Richard cry more than once. She was sure
+that Adrian must be right.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I tell you I won't go without you," said Richard,
+and Lucy begged for a little more time.</p>
+
+<p>Cupid now began to grumble, and with cause. Adrian
+positively refused to go on the water unless that element
+were smooth as a plate. The South-west still joked boisterously
+at any comparison of the sort; the days were
+magnificent; Richard had yachting engagements; and
+Lucy always petitioned to stay to keep Adrian company,
+conceiving it her duty as hostess. Arguing with Adrian
+was an absurd idea. If Richard hinted at his retaining
+Lucy, the wise youth would remark: "It's a wholesome
+interlude to your extremely Cupidinous behaviour, my
+dear boy."</p>
+
+<p>Richard asked his wife what they could possibly find to
+talk about.</p>
+
+<p>"All manner of things," said Lucy; "not only cookery.
+He is so amusing, though he does make fun of <span class="smcap">The
+Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, and I think he ought not. And then,
+do you know, darling&mdash;you won't think me vain?&mdash;I think
+he is beginning to like me a little."</p>
+
+<p>Richard laughed at the humble mind of his Beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't everybody like you, admire you? Doesn't
+Lord Mountfalcon, and Mr. Morton, and Lady Judith?"</p>
+
+<p>"But he is one of your family, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"And they all will, if she isn't a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no!" she sighs, and is chidden.</p>
+
+<p>The conquest of an epicure, or any young wife's conquest
+beyond her husband, however loyally devised for
+their mutual happiness, may be costly to her. Richard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>
+in his hours of excitement was thrown very much with
+Lady Judith. He consulted her regarding what he termed
+Lucy's cowardice. Lady Judith said: "I think she's
+wrong, but you must learn to humour little women."</p>
+
+<p>"Then would you advise me to go up alone?" he asked,
+with a cloudy forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"What else can you do? Be reconciled yourself as
+quickly as you can. You can't drag her like a captive,
+you know?"</p>
+
+<p>It is not pleasant for a young husband, fancying his
+bride the peerless flower of Creation, to learn that he
+must humour a little woman in her. It was revolting
+to Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"What I fear," he said, "is, that my father will make it
+smooth with me, and not acknowledge her: so that whenever
+I go to him, I shall have to leave her, and tit for tat&mdash;an
+abominable existence, like a ball on a billiard-table.
+I won't bear that ignominy. And this I know, I know!
+she might prevent it at once, if she would only be brave,
+and face it. You, you, Lady Judith, you wouldn't be
+a coward?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where my old lord tells me to go, I go," the lady coldly
+replied. "There's not much merit in that. Pray, don't
+cite me. Women are born cowards, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"But I love the women who are not cowards."</p>
+
+<p>"The little thing&mdash;your wife has not refused to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;but tears! Who can stand tears?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy had come to drop them. Unaccustomed to have
+his will thwarted, and urgent where he saw the thing to
+do so clearly, the young husband had spoken strong
+words: and she, who knew that she would have given her
+life by inches for him; who knew that she was playing a
+part for his happiness, and hiding for his sake the nature
+that was worthy his esteem; the poor little martyr had
+been weak a moment.</p>
+
+<p>She had Adrian's support. The wise youth was very
+comfortable. He liked the air of the Island, and he liked
+being petted. "A nice little woman! a very nice little
+woman!" Tom Bakewell heard him murmur to himself
+according to a habit he had; and his air of rather succulent
+patronage as he walked or sat beside the innocent
+Beauty, with his head thrown back and a smile that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>
+seemed always to be in secret communion with his marked
+abdominal prominence, showed that she was gaining part
+of what she played for. Wise youths who buy their loves,
+are not unwilling, when opportunity offers, to try and
+obtain the commodity for nothing. Examinations of her
+hand, as for some occult purpose, and unctuous pattings
+of the same, were not infrequent. Adrian waxed now
+and then Anacreontic in his compliments. Lucy would
+say: "That's worse than Lord Mountfalcon."</p>
+
+<p>"Better English than the noble lord deigns to employ&mdash;allow
+that?" quoth Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"He is very kind," said Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"To all save to our noble vernacular," added Adrian.
+"He seems to scent a rival to his dignity there."</p>
+
+<p>It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic
+emotions.</p>
+
+<p>"We are at our ease here in excellent society," he wrote
+to Lady Blandish. "I am bound to confess that the Huron
+has a happy fortune, or a superlative instinct. Blindfold
+he has seized upon a suitable mate. She can look at a
+lord, and cook for an epicure. Besides Dr. Kitchener,
+she reads and comments on <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>. The
+'Love' chapter, of course, takes her fancy. That picture
+of Woman, '<i>Drawn by Reverence and coloured by Love</i>,'
+she thinks beautiful, and repeats it, tossing up pretty
+eyes. Also the lover's petition: '<i>Give me purity to be
+worthy the good in her, and grant her patience to reach
+the good in me.</i>' 'Tis quite taking to hear her lisp it. Be
+sure that I am repeating the petition! I make her read
+me her choice passages. She has not a bad voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lady Judith I spoke of is Austin's Miss Menteith,
+married to the incapable old Lord Felle, or Fellow, as the
+wits here call him. Lord Mountfalcon is his cousin, and
+her&mdash;what? She has been trying to find out, but they have
+both got over their perplexity, and act respectively the bad
+man reproved and the chaste counsellor; a position in
+which our young couple found them, and haply diverted
+its perils. They had quite taken them in hand. Lady
+Judith undertakes to cure the fair Papist of a pretty,
+modest trick of frowning and blushing when addressed,
+and his lordship directs the exuberant energies of the
+original man. 'Tis thus we fulfil our destinies, and are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>
+content. Sometimes they change pupils; my lord educates
+the little dame, and my lady the hope of Raynham. Joy
+and blessings unto all! as the German poet sings. Lady
+Judith accepted the hand of her decrepit lord that she
+might be of potent service to her fellow-creatures. Austin,
+you know, had great hopes of her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have for the first time in my career a field of lords
+to study. I think it is not without meaning that I am
+introduced to it by a yeoman's niece. The language of
+the two social extremes is similar. I find it to consist
+in an instinctively lavish use of vowels and adjectives.
+My lord and Farmer Blaize speak the same tongue, only
+my lord's has lost its backbone, and is limp, though fluent.
+Their pursuits are identical; but that one has money, or,
+as the Pilgrim terms it, <i>vantage</i>, and the other has not.
+Their ideas seem to have a special relationship in the
+peculiarity of stopping where they have begun. Young
+Tom Blaize with <i>vantage</i> would be Lord Mountfalcon.
+Even in the character of their parasites I see a resemblance,
+though I am bound to confess that the Hon. Peter
+Brayder, who is my lord's parasite, is by no means noxious.</p>
+
+<p>"This sounds dreadfully democratic. Pray, don't be
+alarmed. The discovery of the affinity between the two
+extremes of the Royal British Oak has made me thrice
+conservative. I see now that the national love of a lord
+is less subservience than a form of self-love; putting a gold-lace
+hat on one's image, as it were, to bow to it. I see,
+too, the admirable wisdom of our system:&mdash;could there be
+a finer balance of power than in a community where men
+intellectually nil, have lawful vantage and a gold-lace hat
+on? How soothing it is to intellect&mdash;that noble rebel, as
+the <span class="smcap">Pilgrim</span> has it&mdash;to stand, and bow, and know itself
+superior! This exquisite compensation maintains the
+balance: whereas that period anticipated by the <span class="smcap">Pilgrim</span>,
+when science shall have produced an <i>intellectual aristocracy</i>,
+is indeed horrible to contemplate. For what despotism
+is so black as one the mind cannot challenge? 'Twill
+be an iron Age. Wherefore, madam, I cry, and shall
+continue to cry, '<i>Vive</i> Lord Mountfalcon! long may he
+sip his Burgundy! long may the bacon-fed carry him on
+their shoulders!'</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Morton (who does me the honour to call me Young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>
+Mephisto, and Socrates missed) leaves to-morrow to get
+Master Ralph out of a scrape. Our Richard has just been
+elected member of a Club for the promotion of nausea. Is
+he happy? you ask. As much so as one who has had the
+misfortune to obtain what he wanted can be. Speed is
+his passion. He races from point to point. In emulation
+of Leander and Don Juan, he swam, I hear, to the opposite
+shores the other day, or some world-shaking feat
+of the sort: himself the Hero whom he went to meet: or,
+as they who pun say, his Hero was a Bet. A pretty little
+domestic episode occurred this morning. He finds her
+abstracted in the fire of his caresses: she turns shy and
+seeks solitude: green jealousy takes hold of him: he lies
+in wait, and discovers her with his new rival&mdash;a veteran
+edition of the culinary Doctor! Blind to the Doctor's
+great national services, deaf to her wild music, he grasps
+the intruder, dismembers him, and performs upon him the
+treatment he has recommended for dressed cucumber.
+Tears and shrieks accompany the descent of the gastronome.
+Down she rushes to secure the cherished fragments:
+he follows: they find him, true to his character, alighted
+and straggling over a bed of blooming flowers. Yet ere
+a fairer flower can gather him, a heel black as Pluto
+stamps him into earth, flowers and all:&mdash;happy burial!
+Pathetic tribute to his merit is watering his grave, when
+by saunters my Lord Mountfalcon. 'What's the mattah?'
+says his lordship, soothing his moustache. They break
+apart, and 'tis left to me to explain from the window. My
+lord looks shocked, Richard is angry with her for having
+to be ashamed of himself, Beauty dries her eyes, and after
+a pause of general foolishness, the business of life is resumed.
+I may add that the Doctor has just been dug up,
+and we are busy, in the enemy's absence, renewing old
+Æson with enchanted threads. By the way, a Papist
+priest has blest them."</p>
+
+<p>A month had passed when Adrian wrote this letter. He
+was very comfortable; so of course he thought Time was
+doing his duty. Not a word did he say of Richard's return,
+and for some reason or other neither Richard nor
+Lucy spoke of it now.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish wrote back: "His father thinks he has
+refused to come to him. By your utter silence on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>
+subject, I fear that it must be so. Make him come. Bring
+him by force. <i>Insist</i> on his coming. Is he mad? He
+must come <i>at once</i>."</p>
+
+<p>To this Adrian replied, after a contemplative comfortable
+lapse of a day or two, which might be laid to his
+efforts to adopt the lady's advice, "The point is that the
+half man declines to come without the whole man. The
+terrible question of sex is our obstruction."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish was in despair. She had no positive
+assurance that the baronet would see his son; the mask
+put them all in the dark; but she thought she saw in Sir
+Austin irritation that the offender, at least when the
+opening to come and make his peace seemed to be before
+him, should let days and weeks go by. She saw through
+the mask sufficiently not to have any hope of his consenting
+to receive the couple at present; she was sure that
+his equanimity was fictitious; but she pierced no farther,
+or she might have started and asked herself, Is this the
+heart of a woman?</p>
+
+<p>The lady at last wrote to Richard. She said: "Come
+instantly, and come alone." Then Richard, against his
+judgment, gave way. "My father is not the man I thought
+him!" he exclaimed sadly, and Lucy felt his eyes saying
+to her: "And you, too, are not the woman I thought you."
+Nothing could the poor little heart reply but strain to his
+bosom and sleeplessly pray in his arms all the night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>CLARE'S MARRIAGE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin
+Clare was married, under the blessings of her energetic
+mother, and with the approbation of her kinsfolk, to the
+husband that had been expeditiously chosen for her. The
+gentleman, though something more than twice the age of
+his bride, had no idea of approaching senility for many
+long connubial years to come. Backed by his tailor and
+his hairdresser, he presented no such bad figure at the
+altar, and none would have thought that he was an ancient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>
+admirer of his bride's mama, as certainly none knew he
+had lately proposed for Mrs. Doria before there was any
+question of her daughter. These things were secrets; and
+the elastic and happy appearance of Mr. John Todhunter
+did not betray them at the altar. Perhaps he would rather
+have married the mother. He was a man of property,
+well born, tolerably well educated, and had, when Mrs.
+Doria rejected him for the first time, the reputation of
+being a fool&mdash;which a wealthy man may have in his
+youth; but as he lived on, and did not squander his money&mdash;amassed
+it, on the contrary, and did not seek to go into
+Parliament, and did other negative wise things, the
+world's opinion, as usual, veered completely round, and
+John Todhunter was esteemed a shrewd, sensible man&mdash;only
+not brilliant; that he was brilliant could not be said
+of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk, and it was
+a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were
+required of him in the marriage-service.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria had her own reasons for being in a hurry.
+She had discovered something of the strange impassive
+nature of her child; not from any confession of Clare's,
+but from signs a mother can read when her eyes are not
+resolutely shut. She saw with alarm and anguish that
+Clare had fallen into the pit she had been digging for
+her so laboriously. In vain she entreated the baronet to
+break the disgraceful, and, as she said, illegal alliance
+his son had contracted. Sir Austin would not even stop
+the little pension to poor Berry. "At least you will do
+that, Austin," she begged pathetically. "You will show
+your sense of that horrid woman's conduct?" He refused
+to offer up any victim to console her. Then Mrs. Doria
+told him her thoughts,&mdash;and when an outraged energetic
+lady is finally brought to exhibit these painfully hoarded
+treasures, she does not use half words as a medium. His
+System, and his conduct generally were denounced to
+him, without analysis. She let him understand that the
+world laughed at him; and he heard this from her at a
+time when his mask was still soft and liable to be acted
+on by his nerves. "You are weak, Austin! weak, I tell you!"
+she said, and, like all angry and self-interested people,
+prophecy came easy to her. In her heart she accused him
+of her own fault, in imputing to him the wreck of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>
+project. The baronet allowed her to revel in the proclamation
+of a dire future, and quietly counselled her to keep
+apart from him, which his sister assured him she would do.</p>
+
+<p>But to be passive in calamity is the province of no
+woman. Mark the race at any hour. "What revolution
+and hubbub does not that little instrument, the needle,
+avert from us!" says <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>. Alas, that in
+calamity women cannot stitch! Now that she saw Clare
+wanted other than iron, it struck her she must have a
+husband, and be made secure as a woman and a wife.
+This seemed the thing to do: and, as she had forced the
+iron down Clare's throat, so she forced the husband, and
+Clare gulped at the latter as she had at the former. On
+the very day that Mrs. Doria had this new track shaped
+out before her, John Todhunter called at the Foreys'.
+"Old John!" sang out Mrs. Doria, "show him up to me.
+I want to see him particularly." He sat with her alone.
+He was a man multitudes of women would have married&mdash;whom
+will they not?&mdash;and who would have married any
+presentable woman: but women do want asking, and John
+never had the word. The rape of such men is left to the
+practical animal. So John sat alone with his old flame.
+He had become resigned to her perpetual lamentation and
+living Suttee for his defunct rival. But, ha! what meant
+those soft glances now&mdash;addressed to him? His tailor
+and his hairdresser gave youth to John, but they had not
+the art to bestow upon him distinction, and an undistinguished
+man what woman looks at? John was an indistinguishable
+man. For that reason he was dry wood to
+a soft glance.</p>
+
+<p>And now she said: "It is time you should marry; and
+you are the man to be the guide and helper of a young
+woman, John. You are well preserved&mdash;younger than
+most of the young men of our day. You are eminently
+domestic, a good son, and will be a good husband and
+good father. Some one you must marry.&mdash;What do you
+think of Clare for a wife for you?"</p>
+
+<p>At first John Todhunter thought it would be very much
+like his marrying a baby. However, he listened to it, and
+that was enough for Mrs. Doria.</p>
+
+<p>She went down to John's mother, and consulted with
+her on the propriety of the scheme of wedding her daughter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>
+to John in accordance with his proposition. Mrs.
+Todhunter's jealousy of any disturbing force in the influence
+she held over her son Mrs. Doria knew to be one
+of the causes of John's remaining constant to the impression
+she had aforetime produced on him. She spoke
+so kindly of John, and laid so much stress on the ingrained
+obedience and passive disposition of her daughter,
+that Mrs. Todhunter was led to admit she did think it
+almost time John should be seeking a mate, and that he&mdash;all
+things considered&mdash;would hardly find a fitter one. And
+this, John Todhunter&mdash;old John no more&mdash;heard to his
+amazement when, a day or two subsequently, he instanced
+the probable disapproval of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>The match was arranged. Mrs. Doria did the wooing.
+It consisted in telling Clare that she had come to years
+when marriage was desirable, and that she had fallen into
+habits of moping which might have the worse effect on
+her future life, as it had on her present health and appearance,
+and which a husband would cure. Richard was
+told by Mrs. Doria that Clare had instantaneously consented
+to accept Mr. John Todhunter as lord of her days,
+and with more than obedience&mdash;with alacrity. At all
+events, when Richard spoke to Clare, the strange passive
+creature did not admit constraint on her inclinations.
+Mrs. Doria allowed Richard to speak to her. She laughed
+at his futile endeavours to undo her work, and the boyish
+sentiments he uttered on the subject. "Let us see, child,"
+she said, "let us see which turns out the best; a marriage
+of passion, or a marriage of common sense."</p>
+
+<p>Heroic efforts were not wanting to arrest the union.
+Richard made repeated journeys to Hounslow, where
+Ralph was quartered, and if Ralph could have been persuaded
+to carry off a young lady who did not love him,
+from the bridegroom her mother averred she did love,
+Mrs. Doria might have been defeated. But Ralph in his
+cavalry quarters was cooler than Ralph in the Bursley
+meadows. "Women are oddities, Dick," he remarked,
+running a finger right and left along his upper lip. "Best
+leave them to their own freaks. She's a dear girl, though
+she doesn't talk: I like her for that. If she cared for me
+I'd go the race. She never did. It's no use asking a girl
+twice. <i>She</i> knows whether she cares a fig for a fellow."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The hero quitted him with some contempt. As Ralph
+Morton was a young man, and he had determined that
+John Todhunter was an old man, he sought another
+private interview with Clare, and getting her alone, said:
+"Clare, I've come to you for the last time. Will you marry
+Ralph Morton?"</p>
+
+<p>To which Clare replied, "I cannot marry two husbands,
+Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you refuse to marry this old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must do as mama wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're going to marry an old man&mdash;a man you
+don't love, and can't love! Oh, good God! do you know
+what you're doing?" He flung about in a fury. "Do you
+know what it is? Clare!" he caught her two hands
+violently, "have you any idea of the horror you're going
+to commit?"</p>
+
+<p>She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed
+nor stammered: answering: "I see nothing wrong in doing
+what mama thinks right, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother! I tell you it's an infamy, Clare! It's a
+miserable sin! I tell you, if I had done such a thing I
+would not live an hour after it. And coldly to prepare for
+it! to be busy about your dresses! They told me when I
+came in that you were with the milliner. To be smiling
+over the horrible outrage! decorating yourself!"...</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Richard," said Clare, "you will make me very
+unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"That one of my blood should be so debased!" he cried,
+brushing angrily at his face. "Unhappy! I beg you to
+feel for yourself, Clare. But I suppose," and he said it
+scornfully, "girls don't feel this sort of shame."</p>
+
+<p>She grew a trifle paler.</p>
+
+<p>"Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear
+Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no will of your own?" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the
+meekness he detested in her.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I believe you have none!" he added. "And what
+can I do? I can't step forward and stop this accursed
+marriage. If you would but say a word I would save you;
+but you tie my hands. And they expect me to stand by
+and see it done!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Will you not be there, Richard?" said Clare, following
+the question with her soft eyes. It was the same voice
+that had so thrilled him on his marriage morn.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my darling Clare!" he cried in the kindest way he
+had ever used to her, "if you knew how I feel this!" and
+now as he wept she wept, and came insensibly into his
+arms. "My darling Clare!" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>will</i> do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So
+lovely as you are, too!... Clare! you cannot be quite
+blind. If I dared speak to you, and tell you all....
+Look up. Can you still consent?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without
+looking up from the nest her cheek had made on his
+bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. "I'll
+never kiss you after it, Clare."</p>
+
+<p>He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her
+arms wildly round him, and kissed him convulsively, and
+clung to his lips, shutting her eyes, her face suffused with
+a burning red.</p>
+
+<p>Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate
+kisses.</p>
+
+<p>Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets
+against a stone wall. To her indeed the young married
+hero spoke almost indecorously, and that which his delicacy
+withheld him from speaking to Clare. He could provoke
+nothing more responsive from the practical animal
+than "Pooh-pooh! Tush, tush! and Fiddlededee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Really," Mrs. Doria said to her intimates, "that boy's
+education acts like a disease on him. He cannot regard
+anything sensibly. He is for ever in some mad excess
+of his fancy, and what he will come to at last heaven
+only knows! I sincerely pray that Austin will be able
+to bear it."</p>
+
+<p>Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity,
+are not very well worth having. Mrs. Doria had
+embarked in a practical controversy, as it were, with her
+brother. Doubtless she did trust he would be able to bear
+his sorrows to come, but one who has uttered prophecy can
+barely help hoping to see it fulfilled: she had prophesied
+much grief to the baronet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Poor John Todhunter, who would rather have married
+the mother, and had none of your heroic notions about
+the sacred necessity for love in marriage, moved as one
+guiltless of offence, and deserving his happiness. Mrs.
+Doria shielded him from the hero. To see him smile at
+Clare's obedient figure, and try not to look paternal, was
+touching.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Clare's marriage served one purpose. It completely
+occupied Richard's mind, and prevented him from
+chafing at the vexation of not finding his father ready to
+meet him when he came to town. A letter had awaited
+Adrian at the hotel, which said, "Detain him till you hear
+further from me. Take him about with you into every
+form of society." No more than that. Adrian had to extemporize,
+that the baronet had gone down to Wales on
+pressing business, and would be back in a week or so.
+For ulterior inventions and devices wherewith to keep the
+young gentleman in town, he applied to Mrs. Doria.
+"Leave him to me," said Mrs. Doria, "I'll manage him."
+And she did.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can say," asks <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span>, "when he is
+not walking a puppet to some woman?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria would hear no good of Lucy. "I believe,"
+she observed, as Adrian ventured a shrugging protest in
+her behalf,&mdash;"it is my firm opinion, that a scullery-maid
+would turn any of you men round her little finger&mdash;only
+give her time and opportunity." By dwelling on the arts
+of women, she reconciled it to her conscience to do her
+best to divide the young husband from his wife till it
+pleased his father they should live their unhallowed union
+again. Without compunction, or a sense of incongruity,
+she abused her brother and assisted the fulfilment of his
+behests.</p>
+
+<p>So the puppets were marshalled by Mrs. Doria, happy,
+or sad, or indifferent. Quite against his set resolve and
+the tide of his feelings, Richard found himself standing
+behind Clare in the church&mdash;the very edifice that had witnessed
+his own marriage, and heard, "I, Clare Doria,
+take thee John Pemberton," clearly pronounced. He
+stood, with black brows dissecting the arts of the tailor
+and hairdresser on unconscious John. The back, and
+much of the middle, of Mr. Todhunter's head was bald;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>
+the back shone like an egg-shell, but across the middle
+the artist had drawn two long dabs of hair from the
+sides, and plastered them cunningly, so that all save wilful
+eyes would have acknowledged the head to be covered.
+The man's only pretension was to a respectable juvenility.
+He had a good chest, stout limbs, a face inclined to be
+jolly. Mrs. Doria had no cause to be put out of countenance
+at all by the exterior of her son-in-law: nor was she.
+Her splendid hair and gratified smile made a light in the
+church. Playing puppets must be an immense pleasure to
+the practical animal. The Forey bridesmaids, five in number,
+and one Miss Doria, their cousin, stood as girls do
+stand at these sacrifices, whether happy, sad, or indifferent;
+a smile on their lips and tears in attendance. Old
+Mrs. Todhunter, an exceedingly small ancient woman, was
+also there. "I can't have my boy John married without
+seeing it done," she said, and throughout the ceremony she
+was muttering audible encomiums on her John's manly
+behaviour.</p>
+
+<p>The ring was affixed to Clare's finger; there was no
+ring lost in this common-sense marriage. The instant the
+clergyman bade him employ it, John drew the ring out,
+and dropped it on the finger of the cold passive hand in
+a business-like way, as one who had studied the matter.
+Mrs. Doria glanced aside at Richard. Richard observed
+Clare spread out her fingers that the operation might be
+the more easily effected.</p>
+
+<p>He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said
+to his aunt:</p>
+
+<p>"Now I'll go."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll come to the breakfast, child? The Foreys"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He cut her short. "I've stood for the family, and I'll do
+no more. I won't pretend to eat and make merry over it."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>She had attained her object and she wisely gave way.</p>
+
+<p>"Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray,
+pray be civil."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to Adrian, and said: "He is going. You
+must go with him, and find some means of keeping
+him, or he'll be running off to that woman. Now, no
+words&mdash;go!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to
+him humbly, but he kissed her on the forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not cease to love me," she said in a quavering
+whisper in his ear.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Todhunter stood beaming and endangering the art
+of the hairdresser with his pocket-handkerchief. Now he
+positively was married, he thought he would rather have
+the daughter than the mother, which is a reverse of the
+order of human thankfulness at a gift of the Gods.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard, my boy!" he said heartily, "congratulate me."</p>
+
+<p>"I should be happy to, if I could," sedately replied the
+hero, to the consternation of those around. Nodding to
+the bridesmaids and bowing to the old lady, he passed out.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian, who had been behind him, deputed to watch for
+a possible unpleasantness, just hinted to John: "You
+know, poor fellow, he has got into a mess with his
+marriage."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! ah! yes!" kindly said John, "poor fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian hurried after Richard in an extremely discontented
+state of mind. Not to be at the breakfast and see
+the best of the fun, disgusted him. However, he remembered
+that he was a philosopher, and the strong disgust
+he felt was only expressed in concentrated cynicism on
+every earthly matter engendered by the conversation.
+They walked side by side into Kensington Gardens. The
+hero was mouthing away to himself, talking by fits.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he faced Adrian, crying: "And I might have
+stopped it! I see it now! I might have stopped it by going
+straight to him, and asking him if he dared marry a girl
+who did not love him. And I never thought of it. Good
+heavens! I feel this miserable affair on my conscience."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" groaned Adrian. "An unpleasant cargo for the
+conscience, that! I would rather carry anything on mine
+than a married couple. Do you purpose going to him
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>The hero soliloquized: "He's not a bad sort of
+man."...</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he's not a Cavalier," said Adrian, "and that's
+why you wonder your aunt selected him, no doubt? He's
+decidedly of the Roundhead type, with the Puritan extracted,
+or inoffensive, if latent."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There's the double infamy!" cried Richard, "that a
+man you can't call bad, should do this damned thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's hard we can't find a villain."</p>
+
+<p>"He would have listened to me, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to him now, Richard, my son. Go to him now. It's
+not yet too late. Who knows? If he really has a noble
+elevated superior mind&mdash;though not a Cavalier in person,
+he may be one at heart&mdash;he might, to please you, and since
+you put such stress upon it, abstain ... perhaps with
+some loss of dignity, but never mind. And the request
+might be singular, or seem so, but everything has happened
+before in this world, you know, my dear boy. And
+what an infinite consolation it is for the eccentric, that
+reflection!"</p>
+
+<p>The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared
+at him as if he were but a speck in the universe he
+visioned.</p>
+
+<p>It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian's best
+subject for cynical pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies
+he started, and his worst in the way he took it;
+and the wise youth, against his will, had to feel as conscious
+of the young man's imaginative mental armour, as
+he was of his muscular physical.</p>
+
+<p>"The same sort of day!" mused Richard, looking up.
+"I suppose my father's right. We make our own fates,
+and nature has nothing to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian yawned.</p>
+
+<p>"Some difference in the trees, though," Richard continued
+abstractedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Growing bald at the top," said Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you believe that my aunt Helen compared the
+conduct of that wretched slave Clare to Lucy's, who, she
+had the cruel insolence to say, entangled me into marriage?"
+the hero broke out loudly and rapidly. "You
+know&mdash;I told you, Adrian&mdash;how I had to threaten and
+insist, and how she pleaded, and implored me to wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! hum!" mumbled Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember my telling you?" Richard was earnest
+to hear her exonerated.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she
+did. Where's the lass that doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Call my wife by another name, if you please."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The generic title can't be cancelled because of your
+having married one of the body, my son."</p>
+
+<p>"She did all she could to persuade me to wait!" emphasized
+Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard bellowed: "What more could she have done?"</p>
+
+<p>"She could have shaved her head, for instance."</p>
+
+<p>This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation
+Richard shot in front, Adrian following him; and
+asking him (merely to have his assumption verified),
+whether he did not think she might have shaved her head?
+and, presuming her to have done so, whether, in candour,
+he did not think he would have waited&mdash;at least till she
+looked less of a rank lunatic?</p>
+
+<p>After a minute or so, the wise youth was but a fly buzzing
+about Richard's head. Three weeks of separation from
+Lucy, and an excitement deceased, caused him to have soft
+yearnings for the dear lovely home-face. He told Adrian
+it was his intention to go down that night. Adrian immediately
+became serious. He was at a loss what to invent
+to detain him, beyond the stale fiction that his father was
+coming to-morrow. He rendered homage to the genius of
+woman in these straits. "My aunt," he thought, "would
+have the lie ready; and not only that, but she would take
+care it did its work."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture the voice of a cavalier in the Row
+hailed them, proving to be the Honourable Peter Brayder,
+Lord Mountfalcon's parasite. He greeted them very
+cordially; and Richard, remembering some fun they had
+in the Island, asked him to dine with them; postponing
+his return till the next day. Lucy was his. It was even
+sweet to dally with the delight of seeing her.</p>
+
+<p>The Hon. Peter was one who did honour to the body he
+belonged to. Though not so tall as a West of London footman,
+he was as shapely; and he had a power of making his
+voice insinuating, or arrogant, as it suited the exigencies
+of his profession. He had not a rap of money in the
+world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended largely.
+The world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his
+Lordship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he
+exercised the ancient companion profession. This the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span>
+world said, and still smiled at the Hon. Peter; for he was
+an engaging fellow, and where he went not Lord Mountfalcon
+would not go.</p>
+
+<p>They had a quiet little hotel dinner, ordered by Adrian,
+and made a square at the table, Ripton Thompson being
+the fourth. Richard sent down to his office to fetch him,
+and the two friends shook hands for the first time since
+the great deed had been executed. Deep was the Old Dog's
+delight to hear the praises of his Beauty sounded by such
+aristocratic lips as the Hon. Peter Brayder's. All through
+the dinner he was throwing out hints and small queries
+to get a fuller account of her; and when the claret had
+circulated, he spoke a word or two himself, and heard the
+Hon. Peter eulogize his taste, and wish him a bride as
+beautiful; at which Ripton blushed, and said, he had no
+hope of that, and the Hon. Peter assured him marriage
+did not break the mould.</p>
+
+<p>After the wine this gentleman took his cigar on the
+balcony, and found occasion to get some conversation with
+Adrian alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Our young friend here&mdash;made it all right with the
+governor?" he asked carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" said Adrian. But it struck him that Brayder
+might be of assistance in showing Richard a little of the
+"society in every form," required by his chief's prescript.
+"That is," he continued, "we are not yet permitted an interview
+with the august author of our being, and I have
+rather a difficult post. 'Tis mine both to keep him here,
+and also to find him the opportunity to measure himself
+with his fellow-man. In other words, his father wants
+him to see something of life before he enters upon housekeeping.
+Now I am proud to confess that I'm hardly
+equal to the task. The demi, or damnedmonde&mdash;if it's
+that he wants him to observe&mdash;is one that I have not got
+the walk to."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Brayder. "You do the keeping, I
+offer to parade the demi. I must say, though, it's a queer
+notion of the old gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the continuation of a philosophic plan," said
+Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>Brayder followed the curvings of the whiff of his cigar
+with his eyes, and ejaculated, "Infernally philosophic!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island?" Adrian inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Mount? to tell the truth I don't know where he is.
+Chasing some light craft, I suppose. That's poor Mount's
+weakness. It's his ruin, poor fellow! He's so confoundedly
+in earnest at the game."</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true,"
+remarked Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a baby about women, and always will be," said
+Brayder. "He's been once or twice wanting to marry
+them. Now there's a woman&mdash;you've heard of Mrs.
+Mount? All the world knows her.&mdash;If that woman hadn't
+scandalized."&mdash;The young man joined them, and checked
+the communication. Brayder winked to Adrian, and pitifully
+indicated the presence of an innocent.</p>
+
+<p>"A married man, you know," said Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!&mdash;we won't shock him," Brayder observed.
+He appeared to study the young man while they talked.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his
+aunt. Mrs. Doria took a seat by his side, and spoke as
+follows:</p>
+
+<p>"My dear nephew. Now you know I have always loved
+you, and thought of your welfare as if you had been my
+own child. More than that, I fear. Well, now, you are
+thinking of returning to&mdash;to that place&mdash;are you not?
+Yes. It is as I thought. Very well now, let me speak to
+you. You are in a much more dangerous position than
+you imagine. I don't deny your father's affection for you.
+It would be absurd to deny it. But you are of an age
+now to appreciate his character. Whatever you may do
+he will always give you money. That you are sure of;
+that you know. Very well. But you are one to want
+more than money: you want his love. Richard, I am
+convinced you will never be happy, whatever base pleasures
+you may be led into, if he should withhold his love
+from you. Now, child, you know you have grievously
+offended him. I wish not to animadvert on your conduct.&mdash;You
+fancied yourself in love, and so on, and you were
+rash. The less said of it the better now. But you must
+now&mdash;it is your duty now to do something&mdash;to do everything
+that lies in your power to show him you repent. No
+interruptions! Listen to me. You must consider him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>
+Austin is not like other men. Austin requires the most
+delicate management. You must&mdash;whether you feel it or
+no&mdash;present an appearance of contrition. I counsel it for
+the good of all. He is just like a woman, and where his
+feelings are offended he wants utter subservience. He has
+you in town, and he does not see you:&mdash;now you know that
+he and I are not in communication: we have likewise our
+differences:&mdash;Well, he has you in town, and he holds aloof:&mdash;he
+is trying you, my dear Richard. No: he is not at
+Raynham: I do not know where he is. He is trying you,
+child, and you must be patient. You must convince him
+that you do not care utterly for your own gratification.
+If this person&mdash;I wish to speak of her with respect, for
+your sake&mdash;well, if she loves you <i>at all</i>&mdash;if, I say, she loves
+you <i>one atom</i>, she will repeat my solicitations for you to
+stay and patiently wait here till he consents to see you. I
+tell you candidly, it's your only chance of ever getting
+him to receive <i>her</i>. That you should know. And now,
+Richard, I may add that there is something else you should
+know. You should know that it depends entirely upon
+your conduct now, whether you are to see your father's
+heart for ever divided from you, and a new family at
+Raynham. You do not understand? I will explain.
+Brothers and sisters are excellent things for young people,
+but a new brood of them can hardly be acceptable to
+a young man. In fact, they are, and must be, aliens. I
+only tell you what I have heard on good authority. Don't
+you understand now? Foolish boy! if you do not humour
+him, he will marry her. Oh! I am sure of it. I know it.
+And this you will drive him to. I do not warn you on the
+score of your prospects, but of your feelings. I should
+regard such a contingency, Richard, as a final division between
+you. Think of the scandal! but alas, that is the
+least of the evils."</p>
+
+<p>It was Mrs. Doria's object to produce an impression,
+and avoid an argument. She therefore left him as soon
+as she had, as she supposed, made her mark on the young
+man. Richard was very silent during the speech, and
+save for an exclamation or so, had listened attentively.
+He pondered on what his aunt said. He loved Lady
+Blandish, and yet he did not wish to see her Lady Feverel.
+Mrs. Doria laid painful stress on the scandal, and though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>
+he did not give his mind to this, he thought of it. He
+thought of his mother. Where was she? But most his
+thoughts recurred to his father, and something akin to
+jealousy slowly awakened his heart to him. He had
+given him up, and had not latterly felt extremely filial;
+but he could not bear the idea of a division in the love
+of which he had ever been the idol and sole object. And
+such a man, too! so good! so generous! If it was jealousy
+that roused the young man's heart to his father, the
+better part of love was also revived in it. He thought of
+old days: of his father's forbearance, his own wilfulness.
+He looked on himself, and what he had done, with the
+eyes of such a man. He determined to do all he could
+to regain his favour.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her
+nephew intended waiting in town another week.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," smiled Mrs. Doria. "He will be more
+patient at the end of a week."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! does patience beget patience?" said Adrian. "I
+was not aware it was a propagating virtue. I surrender
+him to you. I shan't be able to hold him in after one
+week more. I assure you, my dear aunt, he's already"....</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, no explanation," Mrs. Doria begged.</p>
+
+<p>When Richard saw her next, he was informed that she
+had received a most satisfactory letter from Mrs. John
+Todhunter: quite a glowing account of John's behaviour:
+but on Richard's desiring to know the words Clare had
+written, Mrs. Doria objected to be explicit, and shot into
+worldly gossip.</p>
+
+<p>"Clare seldom glows," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I mean <i>for her</i>," his aunt remarked. "Don't look
+like your father, child."</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to have seen the letter," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND</h3>
+
+
+<p>A lady driving a pair of greys was noticed by Richard
+in his rides and walks. She passed him rather obviously
+and often. She was very handsome; a bold beauty, with
+shining black hair, red lips, and eyes not afraid of men.
+The hair was brushed from her temples, leaving one of
+those fine reckless outlines which the action of driving,
+and the pace, admirably set off. She took his fancy. He
+liked the air of petulant gallantry about her, and mused
+upon the picture, rare to him, of a glorious dashing
+woman. He thought, too, she looked at him. He was
+not at the time inclined to be vain, or he might have been
+sure she did. Once it struck him she nodded slightly.</p>
+
+<p>He asked Adrian one day in the park&mdash;who she was.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know her," said Adrian. "Probably a superior
+priestess of Paphos."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that's my idea of Bellona," Richard exclaimed.
+"Not the fury they paint, but a spirited, dauntless, eager-looking
+creature like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Bellona?" returned the wise youth. "I don't think
+her hair was black. Red, wasn't it? I shouldn't compare
+her to Bellona; though, no doubt, she's as ready to spill
+blood. Look at her! She does seem to scent carnage. I
+see your idea. No; I should liken her to Diana emerged
+from the tutorship of Master Endymion, and at nice play
+among the gods. Depend upon it&mdash;they tell us nothing of
+the matter&mdash;Olympus shrouds the story&mdash;but you may be
+certain that when she left the pretty shepherd she had
+greater vogue than Venus up aloft."</p>
+
+<p>Brayder joined them.</p>
+
+<p>"See Mrs. Mount go by?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's Mrs. Mount!" cried Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's Mrs. Mount?" Richard inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"A sister to Miss Random, my dear boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Like to know her?" drawled the Hon. Peter.</p>
+
+<p>Richard replied indifferently, "No," and Mrs. Mount
+passed out of sight and out of the conversation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The young man wrote submissive letters to his father.
+"I have remained here waiting to see you now five weeks,"
+he wrote. "I have written to you three letters, and you do
+not reply to them. Let me tell you again how sincerely I
+desire and pray that you will come, or permit me to come
+to you and throw myself at your feet, and beg my forgiveness,
+and hers. She as earnestly implores it. Indeed, I
+am very wretched, sir. Believe me, there is nothing I
+would not do to regain your esteem and the love I fear
+I have unhappily forfeited. I will remain another week
+in the hope of hearing from you, or seeing you. I beg
+of you, sir, not to drive me mad. Whatever you ask of
+me I will consent to."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing he would not do!" the baronet commented as
+he read. "There is nothing he would not do! He will
+remain another week and give me that final chance! And
+it is I who drive him mad! Already he is beginning to
+cast his retribution on my shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin had really gone down to Wales to be out of
+the way. A Shaddock-Dogmatist does not meet misfortune
+without hearing of it, and the author of <span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's
+Scrip</span> in trouble found London too hot for him. He
+quitted London to take refuge among the mountains;
+living there in solitary commune with a virgin Note-book.</p>
+
+<p>Some indefinite scheme was in his head in this treatment
+of his son. Had he construed it, it would have
+looked ugly; and it settled to a vague principle that the
+young man should be tried and tested.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him learn to deny himself something. Let him live
+with his equals for a term. If he loves me he will read
+my wishes." Thus he explained his principle to Lady
+Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>The lady wrote: "You speak of a term. Till when?
+May I name one to him? It is the dreadful <i>uncertainty</i>
+that reduces him to despair. That, and nothing else.
+Pray be explicit."</p>
+
+<p>In return, he distantly indicated Richard's majority.</p>
+
+<p>How could Lady Blandish go and ask the young man
+to wait a year away from his wife? Her instinct began
+to open a wide eye on the idol she worshipped.</p>
+
+<p>When people do not themselves know what they mean,
+they succeed in deceiving and imposing upon others.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span>
+Not only was Lady Blandish mystified; Mrs. Doria, who
+pierced into the recesses of everybody's mind, and had
+always been in the habit of reading off her brother from
+infancy, and had never known herself to be once wrong
+about him, she confessed she was quite at a loss to comprehend
+Austin's principle. "For principle he has," said
+Mrs. Doria; "he never acts without one. But what it is,
+I cannot at present perceive. If he would write, and
+command the boy to await his return, all would be clear.
+He allows us to go and fetch him, and then leaves us
+all in a quandary. It must be some woman's influence.
+That is the only way to account for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Singular!" interjected Adrian, "what pride women
+have in their sex! Well, I have to tell you, my dear
+aunt, that the day after to-morrow I hand my charge over
+to your keeping. I can't hold him in an hour longer.
+I've had to leash him with lies till my invention's exhausted.
+I petition to have them put down to the chief's
+account, but when the stream runs dry I can do no more.
+The last was, that I had heard from him desiring me
+to have the South-west bedroom ready for him on Tuesday
+proximate. 'So!' says my son, 'I'll wait till then,'
+and from the gigantic effort he exhibited in coming to it,
+I doubt any human power's getting him to wait longer."</p>
+
+<p>"We must, we must detain him," said Mrs. Doria. "If
+we do not, I am convinced Austin will do something rash
+that he will for ever repent. He will marry that woman,
+Adrian. Mark my words. Now with any other young
+man!... But Richard's education! that ridiculous
+System!... Has he no distraction? nothing to amuse
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor boy! I suppose he wants his own particular
+playfellow."</p>
+
+<p>The wise youth had to bow to a reproof.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Adrian, he will marry that woman."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear aunt! Can a chaste man do aught more
+commendable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Has the boy no object we can induce him to follow?&mdash;If
+he had but a profession!"</p>
+
+<p>"What say you to the regeneration of the streets of
+London, and the profession of moral-scavenger, aunt?
+I assure you I have served a month's apprenticeship with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span>
+him. We sally forth on the tenth hour of the night. A
+female passes. I hear him groan. 'Is <i>she</i> one of them,
+Adrian?' I am compelled to admit she is not the saint
+he deems it the portion of every creature wearing petticoats
+to be. Another groan; an evident internal, 'It
+cannot be&mdash;and yet!' ... that we hear on the stage.
+Rollings of eyes: impious questionings of the Creator of
+the universe; savage mutterings against brutal males;
+and then we meet a second young person, and repeat the
+performance&mdash;of which I am rather tired. It would be
+all very well, but he turns upon me, and lectures me
+because I don't hire a house, and furnish it for all the
+women one meets to live in in purity. Now that's too
+much to ask of a quiet man. Master Thompson has
+latterly relieved me, I'm happy to say."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria thought her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Has Austin written to you since you were in town?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not an Aphorism!" returned Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"I must see Richard to-morrow morning," Mrs. Doria
+ended the colloquy by saying.</p>
+
+<p>The result of her interview with her nephew was, that
+Richard made no allusion to a departure on the Tuesday;
+and for many days afterward he appeared to have an
+absorbing business on his hands: but what it was Adrian
+did not then learn, and his admiration of Mrs. Doria's
+genius for management rose to a very high pitch.</p><br />
+
+
+<p>On a morning in October they had an early visitor in
+the person of the Hon. Peter, whom they had not seen
+for a week or more.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," he said, flourishing his cane in his most
+affable manner, "I've come to propose to you to join us
+in a little dinner-party at Richmond. Nobody's in town,
+you know. London's as dead as a stock-fish. Nothing
+but the scrapings to offer you. But the weather's fine:
+I flatter myself you'll find the company agreeable. What
+says my friend Feverel?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard begged to be excused.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no: positively you must come," said the Hon.
+Peter. "I've had some trouble to get them together to
+relieve the dulness of your incarceration. Richmond's
+within the rules of your prison. You can be back by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>
+night. Moonlight on the water&mdash;lovely woman. We've
+engaged a city-barge to pull us back. Eight oars&mdash;I'm
+not sure it isn't sixteen. Come&mdash;the word!"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian was for going. Richard said he had an appointment
+with Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"You're in for another rick, you two," said Adrian.
+"Arrange that we go. You haven't seen the cockney's
+Paradise. Abjure Blazes, and taste of peace, my son."</p>
+
+<p>After some persuasion, Richard yawned wearily, and
+got up, and threw aside the care that was on him, saying,
+"Very well. Just as you like. We'll take old Rip with us."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian consulted Brayder's eye at this. The Hon.
+Peter briskly declared he should be delighted to have
+Feverel's friend, and offered to take them all down in
+his drag.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't get a match on to swim there with the
+tide&mdash;eh, Feverel, my boy?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard replied that he had given up that sort of
+thing, at which Brayder communicated a queer glance
+to Adrian, and applauded the youth.</p>
+
+<p>Richmond was under a still October sun. The pleasant
+landscape, bathed in Autumn, stretched from the foot of
+the hill to a red horizon haze. The day was like none
+that Richard vividly remembered. It touched no link in
+the chain of his recollection. It was quiet, and belonged
+to the spirit of the season.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian had divined the character of the scrapings they
+were to meet. Brayder introduced them to one or two of
+the men, hastily and in rather an undervoice, as a thing to
+get over. They made their bow to the first knot of ladies
+they encountered. Propriety was observed strictly, even
+to severity. The general talk was of the weather. Here
+and there a lady would seize a button-hole or any little
+bit of the habiliments, of the man she was addressing;
+and if it came to her to chide him, she did it with more
+than a forefinger. This, however, was only here and
+there, and a privilege of intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>Where ladies are gathered together, the Queen of the
+assemblage may be known by her Court of males. The
+Queen of the present gathering leaned against a corner of
+the open window, surrounded by a stalwart Court, in whom
+a practised eye would have discerned guardsmen, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span>
+Ripton, with a sinking of the heart, apprehended lords.
+They were fine men, offering inanimate homage. The
+trim of their whiskerage, the cut of their coats, the high-bred
+indolence in their aspect, eclipsed Ripton's sense of
+self-esteem. But they kindly looked over him. Occasionally
+one committed a momentary outrage on him with an
+eye-glass, seeming to cry out in a voice of scathing scorn,
+"Who's this?" and Ripton got closer to his hero to justify
+his humble pretensions to existence and an identity in
+the shadow of him. Richard gazed about. Heroes do
+not always know what to say or do; and the cold bath
+before dinner in strange company is one of the instances.
+He had recognized his superb Bellona in the lady by the
+garden window. For Brayder the men had nods and
+jokes, the ladies a pretty playfulness. He was very busy,
+passing between the groups, chatting, laughing, taking
+the feminine taps he received, and sometimes returning
+them in sly whispers. Adrian sat down and crossed his
+legs, looking amused and benignant.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose dinner is it?" Ripton heard a mignonne beauty
+ask of a cavalier.</p>
+
+<p>"Mount's, I suppose," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he? Why don't he come?"</p>
+
+<p>"An affaire, I fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"There he is again! How shamefully he treats Mrs.
+Mount!"</p>
+
+<p>"She don't seem to cry over it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mount was flashing her teeth and eyes with
+laughter at one of her Court, who appeared to be Fool.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was announced. The ladies proclaimed extravagant
+appetites. Brayder posted his three friends. Ripton
+found himself under the lee of a dame with a bosom. On
+the other side of him was the mignonne. Adrian was at
+the lower end of the table. Ladies were in profusion, and
+he had his share. Brayder drew Richard from seat to
+seat. A happy man had established himself next to Mrs.
+Mount. Him Brayder hailed to take the head of the
+table. The happy man objected, Brayder continued urgent,
+the lady tenderly insisted, the happy man grimaced,
+dropped into the post of honour, strove to look placable.
+Richard usurped his chair, and was not badly welcomed
+by his neighbour.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then the dinner commenced, and had all the attention
+of the company, till the flying of the first champagne-cork
+gave the signal, and a hum began to spread. Sparkling
+wine, that looseneth the tongue, and displayeth the verity,
+hath also the quality of colouring it. The ladies laughed
+high; Richard only thought them gay and natural. They
+flung back in their chairs and laughed to tears; Ripton
+thought only of the pleasure he had in their society. The
+champagne-corks continued a regular file-firing.</p>
+
+<p>"Where have you been lately? I haven't seen you in
+the park," said Mrs. Mount to Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he replied, "I've not been there." The question
+seemed odd: she spoke so simply that it did not impress
+him. He emptied his glass, and had it filled again.</p>
+
+<p>The Hon. Peter did most of the open talking, which
+related to horses, yachting, opera, and sport generally:
+who was ruined, by what horse, or by what woman. He
+told one or two of Richard's feats. Fair smiles rewarded
+the hero.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you bet?" said Mrs. Mount.</p>
+
+<p>"Only on myself," returned Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" cried his Bellona, and her eye sent a lingering
+delirious sparkle across her brimming glass at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you're a safe one to back," she added, and
+seemed to scan his points approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>Richard's cheeks mounted bloom.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you adore champagne?" quoth the dame with
+a bosom to Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes!" answered Ripton, with more candour than
+accuracy, "I always drink it."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you indeed?" said the enraptured bosom, ogling
+him. "You would be a friend, now! I hope you don't
+object to a lady joining you now and then. Champagne's
+my folly."</p>
+
+<p>A laugh was circling among the ladies of whom Adrian
+was the centre; first low, and as he continued some narration,
+peals resounded, till those excluded from the fun demanded
+the cue, and ladies leaned behind gentlemen to
+take it up, and formed an electric chain of laughter.
+Each one, as her ear received it, caught up her handkerchief,
+and laughed, and looked shocked afterwards, or
+looked shocked and then spouted laughter. The anecdote<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>
+might have been communicated to the bewildered cavaliers,
+but coming to a lady of a demurer cast, she looked
+shocked without laughing, and reproved the female table,
+in whose breasts it was consigned to burial: but here
+and there a man's head was seen bent, and a lady's mouth
+moved, though her face was not turned toward him, and
+a man's broad laugh was presently heard, while the lady
+gazed unconsciously before her, and preserved her gravity
+if she could escape any other lady's eyes; failing in
+which, handkerchiefs were simultaneously seized, and a
+second chime arose, till the tickling force subsided to a
+few chance bursts.</p>
+
+<p>What nonsense it is that my father writes about women!
+thought Richard. He says they can't laugh, and don't
+understand humour. It comes, he reflected, of his shutting
+himself from the world. And the idea that he was seeing
+the world, and feeling wiser, flattered him. He talked
+fluently to his dangerous Bellona. He gave her some
+reminiscences of Adrian's whimsies.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said she, "that's your tutor, is it!" She eyed
+the young man as if she thought he must go far and fast.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton felt a push. "Look at that," said the bosom,
+fuming utter disgust. He was directed to see a manly
+arm round the waist of the mignonne. "Now that's what
+I don't like in company," the bosom inflated to observe
+with sufficient emphasis. "She always will allow it with
+everybody. Give her a nudge."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton protested that he dared not; upon which she
+said, "Then I will"; and inclined her sumptuous bust
+across his lap, breathing wine in his face, and gave the
+nudge. The mignonne turned an inquiring eye on Ripton;
+a mischievous spark shot from it. She laughed,
+and said: "Aren't you satisfied with the old bird?"</p>
+
+<p>"Impudence!" muttered the bosom, growing grander
+and redder.</p>
+
+<p>"Do, do fill her glass, and keep her quiet&mdash;she drinks
+port when there's no more champagne," said the mignonne.</p>
+
+<p>The bosom revenged herself by whispering to Ripton
+scandal of the mignonne, and between them he was enabled
+to form a correcter estimate of the company, and
+quite recovered from his original awe: so much so as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>
+to feel a touch of jealousy at seeing his lively little
+neighbour still held in absolute possession.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mount did not come out much; but there was a
+deferential manner in the bearing of the men toward her,
+which those haughty creatures accord not save to clever
+women; and she contrived to hold the talk with three or
+four at the head of the table while she still had passages
+aside with Richard.</p>
+
+<p>The port and claret went very well after the champagne.
+The ladies here did not ignominiously surrender the field
+to the gentlemen; they maintained their position with
+honour. Silver was seen far out on Thames. The wine
+ebbed, and the laughter. Sentiment and cigars took up
+the wondrous tale.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a lovely night!" said the ladies, looking above.</p>
+
+<p>"Charming," said the gentlemen, looking below.</p>
+
+<p>The faint-smelling cool Autumn air was pleasant after
+the feast. Fragrant weeds burned bright about the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"We are split into couples," said Adrian to Richard,
+who was standing alone, eying the landscape. "'Tis the
+influence of the moon! Apparently we are in Cyprus.
+How has my son enjoyed himself? How likes he the
+society of Aspasia? I feel like a wise Greek to-night."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian was jolly, and rolled comfortably as he talked.
+Ripton had been carried off by the sentimental bosom.
+He came up to them and whispered: "By Jove, Ricky!
+do you know what sort of women these are?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard said he thought them a nice sort.</p>
+
+<p>"Puritan!" exclaimed Adrian, slapping Ripton on the
+back. "Why didn't you get tipsy, sir? Don't you ever
+intoxicate yourself except at lawful marriages? Reveal to
+us what you have done with the portly dame?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton endured his bantering that he might hang about
+Richard, and watch over him. He was jealous of his
+innocent Beauty's husband being in proximity with such
+women. Murmuring couples passed them to and fro.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, Ricky!" Ripton favoured his friend with
+another hard whisper, "there's a woman smoking!"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not, O Riptonus?" said Adrian. "Art unaware
+that woman cosmopolitan is woman consummate?
+and dost grumble to pay the small price for the splendid
+gem?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't like women to smoke," said plain Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"Why mayn't they do what men do?" the hero cried
+impetuously. "I hate that contemptible narrow-mindedness.
+It's that makes the ruin and horrors I see. Why
+mayn't they do what men do? I like the women who
+are brave enough not to be hypocrites. By heaven! if
+these women are bad, I like them better than a set of
+hypocritical creatures who are all show, and deceive you
+in the end."</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo!" shouted Adrian. "There speaks the regenerator."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton, as usual, was crushed by his leader. He had
+no argument. He still thought women ought not to
+smoke; and he thought of one far away, lonely by the
+sea, who was perfect without being cosmopolitan.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Pilgrim's Scrip</span> remarks that: "Young men take
+joy in nothing so much as the thinking women Angels:
+and nothing sours men of experience more than knowing
+that all are not quite so."</p>
+
+<p>The Aphorist would have pardoned Ripton Thompson
+his first Random extravagance, had he perceived the
+simple warm-hearted worship of feminine goodness Richard's
+young bride had inspired in the breast of the youth.
+It might possibly have taught him to put deeper trust in
+our nature.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton thought of her, and had a feeling of sadness.
+He wandered about the grounds by himself, went through
+an open postern, and threw himself down among some
+bushes on the slope of the hill. Lying there, and meditating,
+he became aware of voices conversing.</p>
+
+<p>"What does he want?" said a woman's voice. "It's
+another of his villainies, I know. Upon my honour, Brayder,
+when I think of what I have to reproach him for, I
+think I must go mad, or kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"Tragic!" said the Hon. Peter. "Haven't you revenged
+yourself, Bella, pretty often? Best deal openly. This
+is a commercial transaction. You ask for money, and
+you are to have it&mdash;on the conditions: double the sum,
+and debts paid."</p>
+
+<p>"He applies to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know, my dear Bella, it has long been all up
+between you. I think Mount has behaved very well, considering<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>
+all he knows. He's not easily hoodwinked, you
+know. He resigns himself to his fate, and follows other
+game."</p>
+
+<p>"Then the condition is, that I am to seduce this young
+man?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Bella! you strike your bird like a hawk. I
+didn't say seduce. Hold him in&mdash;play with him. Amuse
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand half-measures."</p>
+
+<p>"Women seldom do."</p>
+
+<p>"How I hate you, Brayder!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thank your ladyship."</p>
+
+<p>The two walked farther. Ripton had heard some little
+of the colloquy. He left the spot in a serious mood, apprehensive
+of something dark to the people he loved,
+though he had no idea of what the Hon. Peter's stipulation
+involved.</p>
+
+<p>On the voyage back to town, Richard was again selected
+to sit by Mrs. Mount. Brayder and Adrian started the
+jokes. The pair of parasites got on extremely well together.
+Soft fell the plash of the oars; softly the moonlight
+curled around them; softly the banks glided by. The
+ladies were in a state of high sentiment. They sang
+without request. All deemed the British ballad-monger an
+appropriate interpreter of their emotions. After good
+wine, and plenty thereof, fair throats will make men of
+taste swallow that remarkable composer. Eyes, lips,
+hearts; darts and smarts and sighs; beauty, duty; bosom,
+blossom; false one, farewell! To this pathetic strain
+they melted. Mrs. Mount, though strongly requested,
+declined to sing. She preserved her state. Under the
+tall aspens of Brentford-ait, and on they swept, the white
+moon in their wake. Richard's hand lay open by his side.
+Mrs. Mount's little white hand by misadventure fell into
+it. It was not pressed, or soothed for its fall, or made
+intimate with eloquent fingers. It lay there like a bit of
+snow on the cold ground. A yellow leaf wavering down
+from the aspens struck Richard's cheek, and he drew away
+the very hand to throw back his hair and smooth his face,
+and then folded his arms, unconscious of offence. He
+was thinking ambitiously of his life: his blood was untroubled,
+his brain calmly working.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Which is the more perilous?" is a problem put by the
+<span class="smcap">Pilgrim</span>: "To meet the temptings of Eve, or to pique
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mount stared at the young man as at a curiosity,
+and turned to flirt with one of her Court. The Guardsmen
+were mostly sentimental. One or two rattled, and one
+was such a good-humoured fellow that Adrian could not
+make him ridiculous. The others seemed to give themselves
+up to a silent waxing in length of limb. However
+far they sat removed, everybody was entangled in their
+legs. Pursuing his studies, Adrian came to the conclusion,
+that the same close intellectual and moral affinity which
+he had discovered to exist between our nobility and our
+yeomanry, is to be observed between the Guardsman class,
+and that of the corps de ballet: they both live by the
+strength of their legs, where also their wits, if they do
+not altogether reside there, are principally developed:
+both are volage; wine, tobacco, and the moon, influence
+both alike; and admitting the one marked difference that
+does exist, it is, after all, pretty nearly the same thing to
+be coquetting and sinning on two legs as on the point of
+a toe.</p>
+
+<p>A long Guardsman with a deep bass voice sang a doleful
+song about the twining tendrils of the heart ruthlessly
+torn, but required urgent persuasions and heavy trumpeting
+of his lungs to get to the end: before he had accomplished
+it, Adrian had contrived to raise a laugh in
+his neighbourhood, so that the company was divided, and
+the camp split: jollity returned to one-half, while sentiment
+held the other. Ripton, blotted behind the bosom,
+was only lucky in securing a higher degree of heat than
+was possible for the rest. "Are you cold?" she would ask,
+smiling charitably.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> am," said the mignonne, as if to excuse her conduct.</p>
+
+<p>"You always appear to be," the fat one sniffed and
+snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you warm two, Mrs. Mortimer?" said the
+naughty little woman.</p>
+
+<p>Disdain prevented any further notice of her. Those
+familiar with the ladies enjoyed their sparring, which was
+frequent. The mignonne was heard to whisper: "That
+poor fellow will certainly be stewed."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Very prettily the ladies took and gave warmth, for the
+air on the water was chill and misty. Adrian had beside
+him the demure one who had stopped the circulation of
+his anecdote. She in nowise objected to the fair exchange,
+but said "Hush!" betweenwhiles.</p>
+
+<p>Past Kew and Hammersmith, on the cool smooth water;
+across Putney reach; through Battersea bridge; and the
+City grew around them, and the shadows of great mill-factories
+slept athwart the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>All the ladies prattled sweetly of a charming day when
+they alighted on land. Several cavaliers crushed for the
+honour of conducting Mrs. Mount to her home.</p>
+
+<p>"My brougham's here; I shall go alone," said Mrs.
+Mount. "Some one arrange my shawl."</p>
+
+<p>She turned her back to Richard, who had a view of a
+delicate neck as he manipulated with the bearing of a
+mailed knight.</p>
+
+<p>"Which way are you going?" she asked carelessly, and,
+to his reply as to the direction, said: "Then I can give you
+a lift," and she took his arm with a matter-of-course air,
+and walked up the stairs with him.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton saw what had happened. He was going to follow:
+the portly dame retained him, and desired him to
+get her a cab.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you happy fellow!" said the bright-eyed mignonne,
+passing by.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton procured the cab, and stuffed it full without
+having to get into it himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Try and let him come in too?" said the persecuting
+creature, again passing.</p>
+
+<p>"Take liberties with your men&mdash;you shan't with me,"
+retorted the angry bosom, and drove off.</p>
+
+<p>"So she's been and gone and run away and left him
+after all his trouble!" cried the pert little thing, peering
+into Ripton's eyes. "Now you'll never be so foolish as to
+pin your faith to fat women again. There! he shall be
+made happy another time." She gave his nose a comical
+tap, and tripped away with her possessor.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton rather forgot his friend for some minutes: Random
+thoughts laid hold of him. Cabs and carriages rattled
+past. He was sure he had been among members of the
+nobility that day, though when they went by him now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span>
+they only recognized him with an effort of the eyelids.
+He began to think of the day with exultation, as an event.
+Recollections of the mignonne were captivating. "Blue
+eyes&mdash;just what I like! And such a little impudent nose,
+and red lips, pouting&mdash;the very thing I like! And her
+hair? darkish, I think&mdash;say brown. And so saucy, and
+light on her feet. And kind she is, or she wouldn't have
+talked to me like that." Thus, with a groaning soul, he
+pictured her. His reason voluntarily consigned her to
+the aristocracy as a natural appanage: but he did amorously
+wish that Fortune had made a lord of him.</p>
+
+<p>Then his mind reverted to Mrs. Mount, and the strange
+bits of the conversation he had heard on the hill. He was
+not one to suspect anybody positively. He was timid of
+fixing a suspicion. It hovered indefinitely, and clouded
+people, without stirring him to any resolve. Still the attentions
+of the lady toward Richard were queer. He endeavoured
+to imagine they were in the nature of things,
+because Richard was so handsome that any woman must
+take to him. "But he's married," said Ripton, "and he
+mustn't go near these people if he's married." Not a
+high morality, perhaps: better than none at all: better for
+the world were it practised more. He thought of Richard
+along with that sparkling dame, alone with her. The
+adorable beauty of his dear bride, her pure heavenly face,
+swam before him. Thinking of her, he lost sight of the
+mignonne who had made him giddy.</p>
+
+<p>He walked to Richard's hotel, and up and down the
+street there, hoping every minute to hear his step; sometimes
+fancying he might have returned and gone to bed.
+Two o'clock struck. Ripton could not go away. He was
+sure he should not sleep if he did. At last the cold sent
+him homeward, and leaving the street, on the moonlight
+side of Piccadilly he met his friend patrolling with his
+head up and that swing of the feet proper to men who are
+chanting verses.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Rip!" cried Richard, cheerily. "What on earth
+are you doing here at this hour of the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton muttered of his pleasure at meeting him. "I
+wanted to shake your hand before I went home."</p>
+
+<p>Richard smiled on him in an amused kindly way.
+"That all? You may shake my hand any day, like a true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span>
+man as you are, old Rip! I've been speaking about you.
+Do you know, that&mdash;Mrs. Mount&mdash;never saw you all the
+time at Richmond, or in the boat!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Ripton said, well assured that he was a dwarf:
+"you saw her safe home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I've been there for the last couple of hours&mdash;talking.
+She talks capitally: she's wonderfully clever.
+She's very like a man, only much nicer. I like her."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Richard, excuse me&mdash;I'm sure I don't mean to
+offend you&mdash;but now you're married ... perhaps you
+couldn't help seeing her home, but I think you really indeed
+oughtn't to have gone upstairs."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton delivered this opinion with a modest impressiveness.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" said Richard. "You don't suppose
+I care for any woman but my little darling down
+there." He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"No; of course not. That's absurd. What I mean is,
+that people perhaps will&mdash;you know, they do&mdash;they say
+all manner of things, and that makes unhappiness, and
+... I do wish you were going home to-morrow, Ricky. I
+mean, to your dear wife." Ripton blushed and looked
+away as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>The hero gave one of his scornful glances. "So you're
+anxious about my reputation. I hate that way of looking
+on women. Because they have been once misled&mdash;look
+how much weaker they are!&mdash;because the world has given
+them an ill fame, you would treat them as contagious,
+and keep away from them for the sake of your character!"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be different with me," quoth Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" asked the hero.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I'm worse than you," was all the logical explanation
+Ripton was capable of.</p>
+
+<p>"I do hope you will go home soon," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Richard, "and I, so do I hope so. But I've
+work to do now. I dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy
+would be the last to ask me;&mdash;you saw her letter yesterday.
+Now listen to me, Rip. I want to make you be just
+to women."</p>
+
+<p>Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking
+of them as if he had known them and studied them
+for years. Clever, beautiful, but betrayed by love, it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span>
+the first duty of all true men to cherish and redeem them.
+"We turn them into curses, Rip; these divine creatures."
+And the world suffered for it. That&mdash;that was the root
+of all the evil in the world!</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel anger or horror at these poor women, Rip!
+It's strange. I knew what they were when we came home
+in the boat. But I do&mdash;it tears my heart to see a young
+girl given over to an old man&mdash;a man she doesn't love.
+That's shame!&mdash;Don't speak of it."</p>
+
+<p>Forgetting to contest the premise, that all betrayed
+women are betrayed by love, Ripton was quite silenced.
+He, like most young men, had pondered somewhat on this
+matter, and was inclined to be sentimental when he was
+not hungry. They walked in the moonlight by the railings
+of the park. Richard harangued at leisure, while Ripton's
+teeth chattered. Chivalry might be dead, but still there
+was something to do, went the strain. The lady of the
+day had not been thrown in the hero's path without an
+object, he said; and he was sadly right there. He did not
+express the thing clearly; nevertheless Ripton understood
+him to mean, he intended to rescue that lady from further
+transgressions, and show a certain scorn of the world.
+That lady, and then other ladies unknown, were to be
+rescued. Ripton was to help. He and Ripton were to be
+the knights of this enterprise. When appealed to, Ripton
+acquiesced, and shivered. Not only were they to be
+knights, they would have to be Titans, for the powers of
+the world, the spurious ruling Social Gods, would have to
+be defied and overthrown. And Titan number one flung
+up his handsome bold face as if to challenge base Jove on
+the spot; and Titan number two strained the upper button
+of his coat to meet across his pocket-handkerchief on
+his chest, and warmed his fingers under his coat-tails.
+The moon had fallen from her high seat and was in the
+mists of the West, when he was allowed to seek his
+blankets, and the cold acting on his friend's eloquence
+made Ripton's flesh very contrite. The poor fellow had
+thinner blood than the hero; but his heart was good. By
+the time he had got a little warmth about him, his heart
+gratefully strove to encourage him in the conception of
+becoming a knight and a Titan; and so striving Ripton
+fell asleep and dreamed.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an
+erring beautiful woman.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"Alas!" writes the Pilgrim at this very time to Lady Blandish, "I
+cannot get that legend of the Serpent from me, the more I
+think. Has he not caught you, and ranked you foremost in his
+legions? For see: till you were fashioned, the fruits hung
+immobile on the boughs. They swayed before us, glistening
+and cold. The hand must be eager that plucked them. They
+did not come down to us, and smile, and speak our language,
+and read our thoughts, and know when to fly, when to follow!
+how surely to have us!</p>
+
+<p>"Do but mark one of you standing openly in the track
+of the Serpent. What shall be done with her? I fear the
+world is wiser than its judges! Turn from her, says the
+world. By day the sons of the world do. It darkens, and
+they dance together downward. Then comes there one of
+the world's elect who deems old counsel devilish; indifference
+to the end of evil worse than its pursuit. He comes to
+reclaim her. From deepest bane will he bring her back
+to highest blessing. Is not that a bait already? Poor fish!
+'tis wondrous flattering. The Serpent has slimed her so
+to secure him! With slow weary steps he draws her into
+light: she clings to him; she is human; part of his work,
+and he loves it. As they mount upward, he looks on her
+more, while she, it may be, looks above. What has touched
+him? What has passed out of her, and into him? The
+Serpent laughs below. At the gateways of the Sun they
+fall together!"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>This alliterative production was written without any
+sense of the peril that makes prophecy.</p>
+
+<p>It suited Sir Austin to write thus. It was a channel to
+his acrimony moderated through his philosophy. The letter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span>
+was a reply to a vehement entreaty from Lady Blandish
+for him to come up to Richard and forgive him
+thoroughly: Richard's name was not mentioned in it.</p>
+
+<p>"He tries to be more than he is," thought the lady:
+and she began insensibly to conceive him less than he
+was.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was conscious of a certain false gratification
+in his son's apparent obedience to his wishes and
+complete submission; a gratification he chose to accept as
+his due, without dissecting or accounting for it. The intelligence
+reiterating that Richard waited, and still
+waited; Richard's letters, and more his dumb abiding and
+practical penitence; vindicated humanity sufficiently to
+stop the course of virulent aphorisms. He could speak, we
+have seen, in sorrow for this frail nature of ours, that he
+had once stood forth to champion. "But how long will
+this last?" he demanded, with the air of Hippias. He did
+not reflect how long it had lasted. Indeed, his indigestion
+of wrath had made of him a moral Dyspepsy.</p>
+
+<p>It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the
+arms of his young wife: nor was it this new knightly
+enterprise he had presumed to undertake. Hero as he
+was, a youth, open to the insane promptings of hot blood,
+he was not a fool. There had been talk between him and
+Mrs. Doria of his mother. Now that he had broken from
+his father, his heart spoke for her. She lived, he knew:
+he knew no more. Words painfully hovering along the
+borders of plain speech had been communicated to him,
+filling him with moody imaginings. If he thought of her,
+the red was on his face, though he could not have said
+why. But now, after canvassing the conduct of his
+father, and throwing him aside as a terrible riddle, he
+asked Mrs. Doria to tell him of his other parent. As
+softly as she could she told the story. To her the shame
+was past: she could weep for the poor lady. Richard
+dropped no tears. Disgrace of this kind is always present
+to a son, and, educated as he had been, these tidings were
+a vivid fire in his brain. He resolved to hunt her out,
+and take her from the man. Here was work set to his
+hand. All her dear husband did was right to Lucy. She
+encouraged him to stay for that purpose, thinking it also
+served another. There was Tom Bakewell to watch over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>
+Lucy: there was work for him to do. Whether it would
+please his father he did not stop to consider. As to the
+justice of the act, let us say nothing.</p>
+
+<p>On Ripton devolved the humbler task of grubbing for
+Sandoe's place of residence; and as he was unacquainted
+with the name by which the poet now went in private, his
+endeavours were not immediately successful. The friends
+met in the evening at Lady Blandish's town-house, or at
+the Foreys', where Mrs. Doria procured the reverer of the
+Royal Martyr, and staunch conservative, a favourable
+reception. Pity, deep pity for Richard's conduct Ripton
+saw breathing out of Mrs. Doria. Algernon Feverel
+treated his nephew with a sort of rough commiseration, as
+a young fellow who had run off the road.</p>
+
+<p>Pity was in Lady Blandish's eyes, though for a different
+cause. She doubted if she did well in seconding his
+father's unwise scheme&mdash;supposing him to have a scheme.
+She saw the young husband encompassed by dangers at a
+critical time. Not a word of Mrs. Mount had been
+breathed to her, but the lady had some knowledge of life.
+She touched on delicate verges to the baronet in her letters,
+and he understood her well enough. "If he loves
+this person to whom he has bound himself, what fear for
+him? Or are you coming to think it something that bears
+the name of love because we have to veil the rightful
+appellation?" So he responded, remote among the mountains.
+She tried very hard to speak plainly. Finally he
+came to say, that he denied himself the pleasure of seeing
+his son specially, that he for a time might be put to the
+test the lady seemed to dread. This was almost too much
+for Lady Blandish. Love's charity boy so loftily serene
+now that she saw him half denuded&mdash;a thing of shanks
+and wrists&mdash;was a trial for her true heart.</p>
+
+<p>Going home at night Richard would laugh at the faces
+made about his marriage. "We'll carry the day, Rip, my
+Lucy and I! or I'll do it alone&mdash;what there is to do." He
+slightly adverted to a natural want of courage in women,
+which Ripton took to indicate that his Beauty was deficient
+in that quality. Up leapt the Old Dog; "I'm sure
+there never was a braver creature upon earth, Richard!
+She's as brave as she's lovely, I'll swear she is! Look how
+she behaved that day! How her voice sounded! She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span>
+was trembling.... Brave? She'd follow you into battle
+Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>And Richard rejoined: "Talk on, dear old Rip! She's
+my darling love, whatever she is! And she is gloriously
+lovely. No eyes are like hers. I'll go down to-morrow
+morning the first thing."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure
+could remain apart from it. So thought Richard for a
+space.</p>
+
+<p>"But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a
+day even I shall have undone all my work with my father.
+She says it herself&mdash;you saw it in her last letter."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Ripton assented, and the words "Please remember
+me to dear Mr. Thompson," fluttered about the Old
+Dog's heart.</p><br />
+
+
+<p>It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business
+that led her through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure
+that she had once dandled in long clothes, and helped make
+a man of, if ever woman did. He was walking under the
+trees beside a lady, talking to her, not indifferently. The
+gentleman was her bridegroom and her babe. "I know
+his back," said Mrs. Berry, as if she had branded a mark
+on it in infancy. But the lady was not her bride. Mrs.
+Berry diverged from the path, and got before them on the
+left flank; she stared, retreated, and came round upon the
+right. There was that in the lady's face which Mrs. Berry
+did not like. Her innermost question was, why he was
+not walking with his own wife? She stopped in front of
+them. They broke, and passed about her. The lady made
+a laughing remark to him, whereat he turned to look, and
+Mrs. Berry bobbed. She had to bob a second time, and
+then he remembered the worthy creature, and hailed her
+Penelope, shaking her hand so that he put her in countenance
+again. Mrs. Berry was extremely agitated. He
+dismissed her, promising to call upon her in the evening.
+She heard the lady slip out something from a side of her
+lip, and they both laughed as she toddled off to a sheltering
+tree to wipe a corner of each eye. "I don't like the
+looks of that woman," she said, and repeated it resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't he walk arm-in-arm with her?" was her
+next inquiry. "Where's his wife?" succeeded it. After<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span>
+many interrogations of the sort, she arrived at naming
+the lady a bold-faced thing; adding subsequently, brazen.
+The lady had apparently shown Mrs. Berry that she wished
+to get rid of her, and had checked the outpouring of her
+emotions on the breast of her babe. "I know a lady when
+I see one," said Mrs. Berry. "I haven't lived with 'em
+for nothing; and if she's a lady bred and born, I wasn't
+married in the church alive."</p>
+
+<p>Then, if not a lady, what was she? Mrs. Berry desired
+to know. "She's imitation lady, I'm sure she is!" Berry
+vowed. "I say she don't look proper."</p>
+
+<p>Establishing the lady to be a spurious article, however,
+what was one to think of a married man in company with
+such? "Oh no! it ain't that!" Mrs. Berry returned immediately
+on the charitable tack. "Belike it's some one of
+his acquaintance 've married her for her looks, and he've
+just met her.... Why it'd be as bad as my Berry!" the
+relinquished spouse of Berry ejaculated, in horror at the
+idea of a second man being so monstrous in wickedness.
+"Just coupled, too!" Mrs. Berry groaned on the suspicious
+side of the debate. "And such a sweet young
+thing for his wife! But no, I'll never believe it. Not if
+he tell me so himself! And men don't do that," she
+whimpered.</p>
+
+<p>Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these matters;
+soft women exceedingly swift: and soft women who
+have been betrayed are rapid beyond measure. Mrs.
+Berry had not cogitated long ere she pronounced distinctly
+and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion is&mdash;married
+or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up&mdash;she's
+nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna!" as
+which poisonous plant she forthwith registered the lady
+in the botanical note-book of her brain. It would have
+astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person so accurately
+hit off at a glance.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening Richard made good his promise, accompanied
+by Ripton. Mrs. Berry opened the door to them.
+She could not wait to get him into the parlour. "You're
+my own blessed babe; and I'm as good as your mother,&mdash;though
+I didn't suck ye, bein' a maid!" she cried, falling
+into his arms, while Richard did his best to support the
+unexpected burden. Then reproaching him tenderly for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span>
+his guile&mdash;at mention of which Ripton chuckled, deeming
+it his own most honourable portion of the plot&mdash;Mrs.
+Berry led them into the parlour, and revealed to Richard
+who she was, and how she had tossed him, and hugged
+him, and kissed him all over, when he was only that big&mdash;showing
+him her stumpy fat arm. "I kissed ye from head
+to tail, I did," said Mrs. Berry, "and you needn't be
+ashamed of it. It's be hoped you'll never have nothin'
+worse come t'ye, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard assured her he was not a bit ashamed, but
+warned her that she must not do it now, Mrs. Berry admitting
+it was out of the question now, and now that he
+had a wife, moreover. The young men laughed, and Ripton
+laughing over-loudly drew on himself Mrs. Berry's
+attention: "But that Mr. Thompson there&mdash;however he
+can look me in the face after his inn'cence! helping blindfold
+an old woman!&mdash;though I ain't sorry for what I did&mdash;that
+I'm free for to say, and it's over, and blessed be all!
+Amen! So now where is she and how is she, Mr. Richard,
+my dear&mdash;it's only cuttin' off the 's' and you are as you
+was.&mdash;Why didn't ye bring her with ye to see her old
+Berry?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the
+Isle of Wight.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! and you've left her for a day or two?" said Mrs.
+Berry.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! I wish it had been a day or two," cried
+Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! and how long have it been?" asked Mrs. Berry,
+her heart beginning to beat at his manner of speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk about it," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you
+haven't been peckin' at one another yet?" Mrs. Berry
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.</p>
+
+<p>"Then how long ha' you been divided?"</p>
+
+<p>In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September."</p>
+
+<p>"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her
+fingers, "September, October, Nov&mdash;two months and more!
+nigh three! A young married husband away from the
+wife of his bosom nigh three months! Oh my! Oh my!
+what do that mean?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My father sent for me&mdash;I'm waiting to see him," said
+Richard. A few more words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend
+the condition of affairs. Then Mrs. Berry spread
+her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her eyes, and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear young gentleman!&mdash;I'd like to call ye my
+darlin' babe! I'm going to speak as a mother to ye,
+whether ye likes it or no; and what old Berry says, you
+won't mind, for she's had ye when there was no conventionals
+about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother
+to you, though humble her state. If there's one that
+know matrimony it's me, my dear, though Berry did give
+me no more but nine months of it: and I've known the
+worst of matrimony, which, if you wants to be woful
+wise, there it is for ye. For what have been my gain?
+That man gave me nothin' but his name; and Bessy
+Andrews was as good as Bessy Berry, though both is 'Bs,'
+and says he, you was 'A,' and now you's 'B,' so you're my
+A B, he says, write yourself down that, he says, the bad
+man, with his jokes!&mdash;Berry went to service." Mrs.
+Berry's softness came upon her. "So I tell ye, Berry went
+to service. He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he
+went to service; because he were al'ays an ambitious man,
+and wasn't, so to speak, happy out of his uniform&mdash;which
+was his livery&mdash;not even in my arms: and he let me know
+it. He got among them kitchen sluts, which was my
+mournin' ready made, and worse than a widow's cap to
+me, which is no shame to wear, and some say becoming.
+There's no man as ever lived known better than my Berry
+how to show his legs to advantage, and gals look at 'em.
+I don't wonder now that Berry was prostrated. His
+temptations was strong, and his flesh was weak. Then
+what I say is, that for a young married man&mdash;be he
+whomsoever he may be&mdash;to be separated from the wife
+of his bosom&mdash;a young sweet thing, and he an innocent
+young gentleman!&mdash;so to sunder, in their state, and be
+kep' from each other, I say it's as bad as bad can be! For
+what is matrimony, my dears? We're told it's a holy
+Ordnance. And why are ye so comfortable in matrimony?
+For that ye are not a sinnin'! And they that severs ye
+they tempts ye to stray: and you learn too late the meanin'
+o' them blessin's of the priest&mdash;as it was ordained. Separate&mdash;what
+comes? Fust it's like the circulation of your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span>
+blood a-stoppin'&mdash;all goes wrong. Then there's misunderstandings&mdash;ye've
+both lost the key. Then, behold ye,
+there's birds o' prey hoverin' over each on ye, and it's
+which'll be snapped up fust. Then&mdash;Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
+it be like the devil come into the world again." Mrs.
+Berry struck her hands and moaned. "A day I'll give ye:
+I'll go so far as a week: but there's the outside. Three
+months dwellin' apart! That's not matrimony, it's divorcin'!
+what can it be to her but widowhood? widowhood
+with no cap to show for it! And what can it be to you,
+my dear? Think! you been a bachelor three months! and
+a bachelor man," Mrs. Berry shook her head most dolefully,
+"he ain't a widow woman. I don't go to compare
+you to Berry, my dear young gentleman. Some men's
+hearts is vagabonds born&mdash;they must go astray&mdash;it's their
+natur' to. But all men are men, and I know the foundation
+of 'em, by reason of my woe."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry paused. Richard was humorously respectful
+to the sermon. The truth in the good creature's
+address was not to be disputed, or despised, notwithstanding
+the inclination to laugh provoked by her quaint way of
+putting it. Ripton nodded encouragingly at every sentence,
+for he saw her drift, and wished to second it.</p>
+
+<p>Seeking for an illustration of her meaning, Mrs. Berry
+solemnly continued: "We all know what checked prespiration
+is." But neither of the young gentlemen could resist
+this. Out they burst in a roar of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Laugh away," said Mrs. Berry. "I don't mind ye. I
+say agin, we all do know what checked prespiration is. It
+fly to the lungs, it gives ye mortal inflammation, and it
+carries ye off. Then I say checked matrimony is as bad.
+It fly to the heart, and it carries off the virtue that's in ye,
+and you might as well be dead! Them that is joined it's
+their salvation not to separate! It don't so much matter
+before it. That Mr. Thompson there&mdash;if he go astray, it
+ain't from the blessed fold. He hurt himself alone&mdash;not
+double, and belike treble, for who can say now what may
+be? There's time for it. I'm for holding back young
+people so that they knows their minds, howsomever they
+rattles about their hearts. I ain't a speeder of matrimony,
+and good's my reason! but where it's been done&mdash;where
+they're lawfully joined, and their bodies made one, I do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span>
+say this, that to put division between 'em then, it's to make
+wanderin' comets of 'em&mdash;creatures without a objeck, and
+no soul can say what they's good for but to rush about!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has
+said her utmost for the time being.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear old girl," Richard went up to her and, applauding
+her on the shoulder, "you're a very wise old
+woman. But you mustn't speak to me as if I wanted to
+stop here. I'm compelled to. I do it for her good chiefly."</p>
+
+<p>"It's your father that's doin' it, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm waiting his pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"A pretty pleasure! puttin' a snake in the nest of young
+turtle-doves! And why don't she come up to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that you must ask her. The fact is, she's a little
+timid girl&mdash;she wants me to see him first, and when I've
+made all right, then she'll come."</p>
+
+<p>"A little timid girl!" cried Mrs. Berry. "Oh, lor', how
+she must ha' deceived ye to make ye think that! Look at
+that ring," she held out her finger, "he's a stranger: he's
+not my lawful! You know what ye did to me, my dear.
+Could I get my own wedding-ring back from her? 'No!'
+says she, firm as a rock, 'he said, <i>with this ring</i> I thee
+wed'&mdash;I think I see her now, with her pretty eyes and
+lovesome locks&mdash;a darlin'!&mdash;And that ring she'd keep to,
+come life, come death. And she must ha' been a rock for
+me to give in to her in that. For what's the consequence?
+Here am I," Mrs. Berry smoothed down the back of her
+hand mournfully, "here am I in a strange ring, that's like
+a strange man holdin' of me, and me a-wearin' of it just to
+seem decent, and feelin' all over no better than a b&mdash;&mdash; a
+big&mdash;that nasty name I can't abide!&mdash;I tell you, my dear,
+she ain't soft, no!&mdash;except to the man of her heart; and
+the best of women's too soft there&mdash;more's our sorrow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well!" said Richard, who thought he knew.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you, Mrs. Berry," Ripton struck in, "Mrs.
+Richard would do anything in the world her husband
+asked her, I'm quite sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless you for your good opinion, Mr. Thompson!
+Why, see her! she ain't frail on her feet; she looks ye
+straight in the eyes; she ain't one of your hang-down
+misses. Look how she behaved at the ceremony!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" sighed Ripton.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And if you'd ha' seen her when she spoke to me about
+my ring! Depend upon it, my dear Mr. Richard, if she
+blinded you about the nerve she've got, it was somethin'
+she thought she ought to do for your sake, and I wish I'd
+been by to counsel her, poor blessed babe!&mdash;And how much
+longer, now, can ye stay divided from that darlin'?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard paced up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"A father's will," urged Mrs. Berry, "that's a son's law;
+but he mustn't go again' the laws of his nature to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Just be quiet at present&mdash;talk of other things, there's
+a good woman," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"How strange, now, our meetin' like this! meetin' at all,
+too!" she remarked contemplatively. "It's them advertisements!
+They brings people together from the ends of the
+earth, for good or for bad. I often say, there's more lucky
+accidents, or unlucky ones, since advertisements was the
+rule, than ever there was before. They make a number of
+romances, depend upon it! Do you walk much in the
+Gardens, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now and then," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Very pleasant it is there with the fine folks and flowers
+and titled people," continued Mrs. Berry. "That was a
+handsome woman you was a-walkin' beside, this mornin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Very," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"She was a handsome woman! or I should say, is, for her
+day ain't past, and she know it. I thought at first&mdash;by her
+back&mdash;it might ha' been your aunt, Mrs. Forey; for she do
+step out well and hold up her shoulders: straight as a
+dart she be! But when I come to see her face&mdash;Oh, dear
+me! says I, this ain't one of the family. They none of 'em
+got such bold faces&mdash;nor no <i>lady</i> as I know have. But
+she's a fine woman&mdash;that nobody can gainsay."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry talked further of the fine woman. It was a
+liberty she took to speak in this disrespectful tone of her,
+and Mrs. Berry was quite aware that she was laying herself
+open to rebuke. She had her end in view. No rebuke
+was uttered, and during her talk she observed intercourse
+passing between the eyes of the young men.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Penelope," Richard stopped her at last.
+"Will it make you comfortable if I tell you I'll obey the
+laws of my nature and go down at the end of the week?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'll thank the Lord of heaven if you do!" she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then&mdash;be happy&mdash;I will. Now listen. I
+want you to keep your rooms for me&mdash;those she had. I
+expect, in a day or two, to bring a lady here"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A lady?" faltered Mrs. Berry.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. A lady."</p>
+
+<p>"May I make so bold as to ask what lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may not. Not now. Of course you will know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry's short neck made the best imitation it could
+of an offended swan's action. She was very angry. She
+said she did not like so many ladies, which natural objection
+Richard met by saying that there was only one lady.</p>
+
+<p>"And Mrs. Berry," he added, dropping his voice. "You
+will treat her as you did my dear girl, for she will require
+not only shelter but kindness. I would rather leave her
+with you than with any one. She has been very unfortunate."</p>
+
+<p>His serious air and habitual tone of command fascinated
+the softness of Berry, and it was not until he had
+gone that she spoke out. "Unfort'nate! He's going to
+bring me an unfort'nate female! Oh! not from my babe
+can I bear that! Never will I have her here! I see it.
+It's that bold-faced woman he's got mixed up in, and
+she've been and made the young man think he'll go for to
+reform her. It's one o' their arts&mdash;that is; and he's too
+innocent a young man to mean anythin' else. But I ain't
+a house of Magdalens&mdash;no! and sooner than have her here
+I'd have the roof fall over me, I would."</p>
+
+<p>She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve.</p>
+
+<p>In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the
+law, and this is the case with many of her sisters. The
+<span class="smcap">Pilgrim</span> sneers at them for it, and would have us credit
+that it is their admirable instinct which, at the expense
+of every virtue save one, preserves the artificial barrier
+simply to impose upon us. Men, I presume, are hardly
+fair judges, and should stand aside and mark.</p>
+
+<p>Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel
+to let him know her determination. She did not find him
+there. Returning homeward through the park, she beheld
+him on horseback riding by the side of the identical lady.
+The sight of this public exposure shocked her more than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span>
+the secret walk under the trees. "You don't look near
+your reform yet," Mrs. Berry apostrophized her. "You
+don't look to me one that'd come the Fair Penitent till
+you've left off bein' fair&mdash;if then you do, which some of
+ye don't. Laugh away and show yer airs! Spite o' your
+hat and feather, and your ridin' habit, you're a Bella
+Donna." Setting her down again absolutely for such,
+whatever it might signify, Mrs. Berry had a virtuous glow.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening she heard the noise of wheels stopping
+at the door. "Never!" she rose from her chair to exclaim.
+"He ain't rided her out in the mornin', and been and made
+a Magdalen of her afore dark?"</p>
+
+<p>A lady veiled was brought into the house by Richard.
+Mrs. Berry feebly tried to bar his progress in the passage.
+He pushed past her, and conducted the lady into the parlour
+without speaking. Mrs. Berry did not follow. She
+heard him murmur a few sentences within. Then he came
+out. All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously,
+"Mr. Richard! if that woman stay here, I go forth. My
+house ain't a penitentiary for unfort'nate females, sir"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>He frowned at her curiously; but as she was on the
+point of renewing her indignant protest, he clapped his
+hand across her mouth, and spoke words in her ear that
+had awful import to her. She trembled, breathing low:
+"My God, forgive me! Lady Feverel is it? Your mother,
+Mr. Richard?" And her virtue was humbled.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ENCHANTRESS</h3>
+
+
+<p>One may suppose that a prematurely aged, oily little
+man; a poet in bad circumstances; a decrepit butterfly
+chained to a disappointed inkstand, will not put out strenuous
+energies to retain his ancient paramour when a
+robust young man comes imperatively to demand his
+mother of him in her person. The colloquy was short
+between Diaper Sandoe and Richard. The question was
+referred to the poor spiritless lady, who, seeing that her
+son made no question of it, cast herself on his hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span>
+Small loss to her was Diaper; but he was the loss of
+habit, and that is something to a woman who has lived.
+The blood of her son had been running so long alien from
+her that the sense of her motherhood smote her now with
+strangeness, and Richard's stern gentleness seemed like
+dreadful justice come upon her. Her heart had almost
+forgotten its maternal functions. She called him Sir, till
+he bade her remember he was her son. Her voice sounded
+to him like that of a broken-throated lamb, so painful
+and weak it was, with the plaintive stop in the utterance.
+When he kissed her, her skin was cold. Her thin hand
+fell out of his when his grasp relaxed. "Can sin hunt
+one like this?" he asked, bitterly reproaching himself for
+the shame she had caused him to endure, and a deep
+compassion filled his breast.</p>
+
+<p>Poetic justice had been dealt to Diaper the poet. He
+thought of all he had sacrificed for this woman&mdash;the comfortable
+quarters, the friend, the happy flights. He could
+not but accuse her of unfaithfulness in leaving him in his
+old age. Habit had legalized his union with her. He
+wrote as pathetically of the break of habit as men feel
+at the death of love; and when we are old and have no
+fair hope tossing golden locks before us, a wound to this
+our second nature is quite as sad. I know not even if it
+be not actually sadder.</p>
+
+<p>Day by day Richard visited his mother. Lady Blandish
+and Ripton alone were in the secret. Adrian let him do
+as he pleased. He thought proper to tell him that the
+public recognition he accorded to a particular lady was,
+in the present state of the world, scarcely prudent.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tis a proof to me of your moral rectitude, my son, but
+the world will not think so. No one character is sufficient
+to cover two&mdash;in a Protestant country especially. The
+divinity that doth hedge a Bishop would have no chance
+in contact with your Madam Danaë. Drop the woman,
+my son. Or permit <i>me</i> to speak what you would have her
+hear."</p>
+
+<p>Richard listened to him with disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you've had my doctorial warning," said Adrian,
+and plunged back into his book.</p>
+
+<p>When Lady Feverel had revived to take part in the consultations
+Mrs. Berry perpetually opened on the subject of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>
+Richard's matrimonial duty, another chain was cast about
+him. "Do not, oh, do not offend your father!" was her
+one repeated supplication. Sir Austin had grown to be a
+vindictive phantom in her mind. She never wept but
+when she said this.</p>
+
+<p>So Mrs. Berry, to whom Richard had once made mention
+of Lady Blandish as the only friend he had among
+women, bundled off in her black-satin dress to obtain an
+interview with her, and an ally. After coming to an understanding
+on the matter of the visit, and reiterating
+many of her views concerning young married people, Mrs.
+Berry said: "My lady, if I may speak so bold, I'd say
+the sin that's bein' done is the sin o' the lookers-on. And
+when everybody appear frightened by that young gentleman's
+father, I'll say&mdash;hopin' your pardon&mdash;they no cause
+be frighted at all. For though it's nigh twenty year since
+I knew him, and I knew him then just sixteen months&mdash;no
+more&mdash;I'll say his heart's as soft as a woman's, which
+I've cause for to know. And that's it. That's where
+everybody's deceived by him, and I was. It's because he
+keeps his face, and makes ye think you're dealin' with a
+man of iron, and all the while there's a woman underneath.
+And a man that's like a woman he's the puzzle o' life!
+We can see through ourselves, my lady, and we can see
+through men, but one o' that sort&mdash;he's like somethin' out
+of nature. Then I say&mdash;hopin' be excused&mdash;what's to do
+is for to treat him <i>like</i> a woman, and not for to let him
+'ave his own way&mdash;which he don't know himself, and is
+why nobody else do. Let that sweet young couple come
+together, and be wholesome in spite of him, I say; and
+then give him time to come round, just like a woman; and
+round he'll come, and give 'em his blessin', and we shall
+know we've made him comfortable. He's angry because
+matrimony have come between him and his son, and he,
+woman-like, he's wantin' to treat what is as if it isn't.
+But matrimony's a holier than him. It began long long
+before him, and it's be hoped will endoor long's the time
+after, if the world's not coming to rack&mdash;wishin' him no
+harm."</p>
+
+<p>Now Mrs. Berry only put Lady Blandish's thoughts in
+bad English. The lady took upon herself seriously to advise
+Richard to send for his wife. He wrote, bidding her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span>
+come. Lucy, however, had wits, and inexperienced wits
+are as a little knowledge. In pursuance of her sage plan
+to make the family feel her worth, and to conquer the
+members of it one by one, she had got up a correspondence
+with Adrian, whom it tickled. Adrian constantly assured
+her all was going well: time would heal the wound if both
+the offenders had the fortitude to be patient: he fancied
+he saw signs of the baronet's relenting: they must do
+nothing to arrest those favourable symptoms. Indeed the
+wise youth was languidly seeking to produce them. He
+wrote, and felt, as Lucy's benefactor. So Lucy replied to
+her husband a cheerful rigmarole he could make nothing
+of, save that she was happy in hope, and still had fears.
+Then Mrs. Berry trained her fist to indite a letter to her
+bride. Her bride answered it by saying she trusted to
+time. "You poor marter," Mrs. Berry wrote back, "I
+know what your sufferin's be. They is the only kind a
+wife should never hide from her husband. He thinks all
+sorts of things if she can abide being away. And you
+trusting to time, why it's like trusting not to catch cold
+out of your natural clothes." There was no shaking
+Lucy's firmness.</p>
+
+<p>Richard gave it up. He began to think that the life
+lying behind him was the life of a fool. What had he
+done in it? He had burnt a rick and got married! He
+associated the two acts of his existence. Where was the
+hero he was to have carved out of Tom Bakewell!&mdash;a
+wretch he had taught to lie and chicane: and for what?
+Great heavens! how ignoble did a flash from the light
+of his aspirations make his marriage appear! The young
+man sought amusement. He allowed his aunt to drag
+him into society, and sick of that he made late evening
+calls on Mrs. Mount, oblivious of the purpose he had in
+visiting her at all. Her man-like conversation, which he
+took for honesty, was a refreshing change on fair lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Call me Bella: I'll call you Dick," said she. And it
+came to be Bella and Dick between them. No mention of
+Bella occurred in Richard's letters to Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mount spoke quite openly of herself. "I pretend
+to be no better than I am," she said, "and I know I'm
+no worse than many a woman who holds her head high."
+To back this she told him stories of blooming dames of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span>
+good repute, and poured a little social sewerage into his
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>Also she understood him. "What you want, my dear
+Dick, is something to do. You went and got married like
+a&mdash;hum!&mdash;friends must be respectful. Go into the Army.
+Try the turf. I can put you up to a trick or two&mdash;friends
+should make themselves useful."</p>
+
+<p>She told him what she liked in him. "You're the only
+man I was ever alone with who don't talk to me of love
+and make me feel sick. I hate men who can't speak to
+a woman sensibly.&mdash;Just wait a minute." She left him
+and presently returned with, "Ah, Dick! old fellow! how
+are you?"&mdash;arrayed like a cavalier, one arm stuck in her
+side, her hat jauntily cocked, and a pretty oath on her lips
+to give reality to the costume. "What do you think of me?
+Wasn't it a shame to make a woman of me when I was
+born to be a man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that," said Richard, for the contrast in
+her attire to those shooting eyes and lips, aired her sex
+bewitchingly.</p>
+
+<p>"What! you think I don't do it well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Charming! but I can't forget...."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that is too bad!" she pouted.</p>
+
+<p>Then she proposed that they should go out into the
+midnight streets arm-in-arm, and out they went and had
+great fits of laughter at her impertinent manner of using
+her eye-glass, and outrageous affectation of the supreme
+dandy.</p>
+
+<p>"They take up men, Dick, for going about in women's
+clothes, and vice versaw, I suppose. You'll bail me, old
+fellaa, if I have to make my bow to the beak, won't you?
+Say it's becas I'm an honest woman and don't care to hide
+the&mdash;a&mdash;unmentionables when I wear them&mdash;as the
+t'others do," sprinkled with the dandy's famous invocations.</p>
+
+<p>He began to conceive romance in that sort of fun.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a wopper, my brave Dick! won't let any peeler
+take me? by Jove!"</p>
+
+<p>And he with many assurances guaranteed to stand by
+her, while she bent her thin fingers trying the muscle of
+his arm, and reposed upon it more. There was delicacy
+in her dandyism. She was a graceful cavalier.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sir Julius," as they named the dandy's attire, was frequently
+called for on his evening visits to Mrs. Mount.
+When he beheld Sir Julius he thought of the lady, and
+"vice versaw," as Sir Julius was fond of exclaiming.</p>
+
+<p>Was ever hero in this fashion wooed?</p>
+
+<p>The woman now and then would peep through Sir
+Julius. Or she would sit, and talk, and altogether forget
+she was impersonating that worthy fop.</p>
+
+<p>She never uttered an idea or a reflection, but Richard
+thought her the cleverest woman he had ever met.</p>
+
+<p>All kinds of problematic notions beset him. She was
+cold as ice, she hated talk about love, and she was branded
+by the world.</p>
+
+<p>A rumour spread that reached Mrs. Doria's ears. She
+rushed to Adrian first. The wise youth believed there was
+nothing in it. She sailed down upon Richard. "Is this
+true? that you have been seen going publicly about with
+an infamous woman, Richard? Tell me! pray, relieve
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt's description
+in whose company he could have been seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, I say! Don't quibble. Do you know <i>any</i>
+woman of bad character?"</p>
+
+<p>The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and
+ill-used by the world, Richard admitted to.</p>
+
+<p>Urgent grave advice Mrs. Doria tendered her nephew,
+both from the moral and the worldly point of view, mentally
+ejaculating all the while: "That ridiculous System!
+That disgraceful marriage!" Sir Austin in his mountain
+solitude was furnished with serious stuff to brood over.</p>
+
+<p>The rumour came to Lady Blandish. She likewise lectured
+Richard, and with her he condescended to argue. But
+he found himself obliged to instance something he had
+quite neglected. "Instead of her doing me harm, it's I
+that will do her good."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish shook her head and held up her finger.
+"This person must be very clever to have given you that
+delusion, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"She <i>is</i> clever. And the world treats her shamefully."</p>
+
+<p>"She complains of her position to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word. But I will stand by her. She has no
+friend but me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My poor boy! has she made you think that?"</p>
+
+<p>"How unjust you all are!" cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"How mad and wicked is the man who can let him be
+tempted so!" thought Lady Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>He would pronounce no promise not to visit her, not to
+address her publicly. The world that condemned her and
+cast her out was no better&mdash;worse for its miserable hypocrisy.
+He knew the world now, the young man said.</p>
+
+<p>"My child! the world may be very bad. I am not going
+to defend it. But you have some one else to think of.
+Have you forgotten you have a wife, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ay! you all speak of her now. There's my aunt:
+'Remember you have a wife!' Do you think I love any
+one but Lucy? poor little thing! Because I am married
+am I to give up the society of women?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of women!"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't she a woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Too much so!" sighed the defender of her sex.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian became more emphatic in his warnings. Richard
+laughed at him. The wise youth sneered at Mrs.
+Mount. The hero then favoured him with a warning
+equal to his own in emphasis, and surpassing it in sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>"We won't quarrel, my dear boy," said Adrian. "I'm a
+man of peace. Besides, we are not fairly proportioned for
+a combat. Ride your steed to virtue's goal! All I say
+is, that I think he'll upset you, and it's better to go a slow
+pace and in companionship with the children of the sun.
+You have a very nice little woman for a wife&mdash;well, goodbye!"</p>
+
+<p>To have his wife and the world thrown at his face, was
+unendurable to Richard; he associated them somewhat
+after the manner of the rick and the marriage. Charming
+Sir Julius, always gay, always honest, dispersed his black
+moods.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're taller," Richard made the discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am. Don't you remember you said I was
+such a little thing when I came out of my woman's shell?"</p>
+
+<p>"And how have you done it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Grown to please you."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, if you can do that, you can do anything."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I would do anything."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You would?"</p>
+
+<p>"Honour!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then" ... his project recurred to him. But the incongruity
+of speaking seriously to Sir Julius struck him
+dumb.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what?" asked she.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're a gallant fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"That all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it enough?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite. You were going to say something. I saw
+it in your eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw that I admired you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but a man mustn't admire a man."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I had an idea you were a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"What! when I had the heels of my boots raised half
+an inch," Sir Julius turned one heel, and volleyed out
+silver laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't come much above your shoulder even now,"
+she said, and proceeded to measure her height beside him
+with arch up-glances.</p>
+
+<p>"You must grow more."</p>
+
+<p>"'Fraid I can't, Dick! Bootmakers can't do it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you how," and he lifted Sir Julius lightly,
+and bore the fair gentleman to the looking-glass, holding
+him there exactly on a level with his head. "Will that
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Oh, but I can't stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't I?"</p>
+
+<p>He should have known then&mdash;it was thundered at a
+closed door in him, that he played with fire. But the
+door being closed, he thought himself internally secure.</p>
+
+<p>Their eyes met. He put her down instantly.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Julius, charming as he was, lost his vogue. Seeing
+that, the wily woman resumed her shell. The memory
+of Sir Julius breathing about her still, doubled the feminine
+attraction.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to have been an actress," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Richard told her he found all natural women had a
+similar wish.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Ah! then! if I had been!" sighed Mrs. Mount,
+gazing on the pattern of the carpet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He took her hand, and pressed it.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not happy as you are?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"May I speak to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Her nearest eye, setting a dimple of her cheek in motion,
+slid to the corner toward her ear, as she sat with her
+head sideways to him, listening. When he had gone, she
+said to herself: "Old hypocrites talk in that way; but I
+never heard of a young man doing it, and not making
+love at the same time."</p>
+
+<p>Their next meeting displayed her quieter: subdued as
+one who had been set thinking. He lauded her fair
+looks. "Don't make me thrice ashamed," she petitioned.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not only that mood with her. Dauntless
+defiance, that splendidly befitted her gallant outline and
+gave a wildness to her bright bold eyes, when she would
+call out: "Happy? who dares say I'm not happy? D'you
+think if the world whips me I'll wince? D'you think I
+care for what they say or do? Let them kill me! they
+shall never get one cry out of me!" and flashing on the
+young man as if he were the congregated enemy, add:
+"There! now you know me!"&mdash;that was a mood that well
+became her, and helped the work. She ought to have
+been an actress.</p>
+
+<p>"This must not go on," said Lady Blandish and Mrs.
+Doria in unison. A common object brought them together.
+They confined their talk to it, and did not disagree.
+Mrs. Doria engaged to go down to the baronet.
+Both ladies knew it was a dangerous, likely to turn out
+a disastrous, expedition. They agreed to it because it
+was something to do, and doing anything is better than
+doing nothing. "Do it," said the wise youth, when they
+made him a third, "do it, if you want him to be a hermit
+for life. You will bring back nothing but his dead body,
+ladies&mdash;a Hellenic, rather than a Roman, triumph. He
+will listen to you&mdash;he will accompany you to the station&mdash;he
+will hand you into the carriage&mdash;and when you point
+to his seat he will bow profoundly, and retire into his
+congenial mists."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian spoke their thoughts. They fretted; they relapsed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Speak to him, you, Adrian," said Mrs. Doria. "Speak
+to the boy solemnly. It would be almost better he should
+go back to that little thing he has married."</p>
+
+<p>"Almost?" Lady Blandish opened her eyes. "I have
+been advising it for the last month and more."</p>
+
+<p>"A choice of evils," said Mrs. Doria's sour-sweet face
+and shake of the head.</p>
+
+<p>Each lady saw a point of dissension, and mutually
+agreed, with heroic effort, to avoid it by shutting their
+mouths. What was more, they preserved the peace in
+spite of Adrian's artifices.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll talk to him again," he said. "I'll try to
+get the Engine on the conventional line."</p>
+
+<p>"Command him!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentle means are, I think, the only means with Richard,"
+said Lady Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>Throwing banter aside, as much as he could, Adrian
+spoke to Richard. "You want to reform this woman.
+Her manner is open&mdash;fair and free&mdash;the traditional characteristic.
+We won't stop to canvass how that particular
+honesty of deportment that wins your approbation has
+been gained. In her college it is not uncommon. Girls,
+you know, are not like boys. At a certain age they can't
+be quite natural. It's a bad sign if they don't blush,
+and fib, and affect this and that. It wears off when
+they're women. But a woman who speaks like a man,
+and has all those excellent virtues you admire&mdash;where has
+she learned the trick? She tells you. You don't surely
+approve of the school? Well, what is there in it, then?
+Reform her, of course. The task is worthy of your
+energies. But, if you are appointed to do it, don't do
+it publicly, and don't attempt it just now. May I ask
+you whether your wife participates in this undertaking?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard walked away from the interrogation. The wise
+youth, who hated long unrelieved speeches and had healed
+his conscience, said no more.</p>
+
+<p>Dear tender Lucy! Poor darling! Richard's eyes
+moistened. Her letters seemed sadder latterly. Yet she
+never called to him to come, or he would have gone. His
+heart leapt up to her. He announced to Adrian that he
+should wait no longer for his father. Adrian placidly
+nodded.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The enchantress observed that her knight had a clouded
+brow and an absent voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard&mdash;I can't call you Dick now, I really don't
+know why"&mdash;she said, "I want to beg a favour of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Name it. I can still call you Bella, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you care to. What I want to say is this: when you
+meet me out&mdash;to cut it short&mdash;please not to recognize me."</p>
+
+<p>"And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you ask to be told <i>that</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Then look: I won't compromise you."</p>
+
+<p>"I see no harm, Bella."</p>
+
+<p>"No," she caressed his hand, "and there is none. I
+know that. But," modest eyelids were drooped, "other
+people do," struggling eyes were raised.</p>
+
+<p>"What do we care for other people?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. I don't. Not that!" snapping her finger,
+"I care for you, though." A prolonged look followed
+the declaration.</p>
+
+<p>"You're foolish, Bella."</p>
+
+<p>"Not quite so giddy&mdash;that's all."</p>
+
+<p>He did not combat it with his usual impetuosity.
+Adrian's abrupt inquiry had sunk in his mind, as the wise
+youth intended it should. He had instinctively refrained
+from speaking to Lucy of this lady. But what a noble
+creature the woman was!</p>
+
+<p>So they met in the park; Mrs. Mount whipped past
+him; and secrecy added a new sense to their intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian was gratified at the result produced by his
+eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>Though this lady never expressed an idea, Richard was
+not mistaken in her cleverness. She could make evenings
+pass gaily, and one was not the fellow to the other. She
+could make you forget she was a woman, and then bring
+the fact startlingly home to you. She could read men
+with one quiver of her half-closed eye-lashes. She could
+catch the coming mood in a man, and fit herself to it.
+What does a woman want with ideas, who can do thus
+much? Keenness of perception, conformity, delicacy of
+handling, these be all the qualities necessary to parasites.</p>
+
+<p>Love would have scared the youth: she banished it from
+her tongue. It may also have been true that it sickened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span>
+her. She played on his higher nature. She understood
+spontaneously what would be most strange and taking to
+him in a woman. Various as the Serpent of old Nile,
+she acted fallen beauty, humorous indifference, reckless
+daring, arrogance in ruin. And acting thus, what think
+you?&mdash;She did it so well because she was growing half
+in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard! I am not what I was since I knew you.
+You will not give me up quite?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, Bella."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not so bad as I'm painted!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are only unfortunate."</p>
+
+<p>"Now that I know you I think so, and yet I am happier."</p>
+
+<p>She told him her history when this soft horizon of repentance
+seemed to throw heaven's twilight across it.
+A woman's history, you know: certain chapters expunged.
+It was dark enough to Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you love the man?" he asked. "You say you love
+no one now."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I love him? He was a nobleman and I a tradesman's
+daughter. No. I did not love him. I have lived
+to learn it. And now I should hate him, if I did not
+despise him."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you be deceived in love?" said Richard, more to
+himself than to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. When we're young we can be very easily deceived.
+If there is such a thing as love, we discover it
+after we have tossed about and roughed it. Then we find
+the man, or the woman, that suits us:&mdash;and then it's too
+late! we can't have him."</p>
+
+<p>"Singular!" murmured Richard, "she says just what
+my father said."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke aloud: "I could forgive you if you had loved
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be harsh, grave judge! How is a girl to distinguish?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had some affection for him? He was the first?"</p>
+
+<p>She chose to admit that. "Yes. And the first who talks
+of love to a girl must be a fool if he doesn't blind
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"That makes what is called first love nonsense."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He repelled the insinuation. "Because I know it is
+not, Bella."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless she had opened a wider view of the world
+to him, and a colder. He thought poorly of girls. A
+woman&mdash;a sensible, brave, beautiful woman seemed, on
+comparison, infinitely nobler than those weak creatures.</p>
+
+<p>She was best in her character of lovely rebel accusing
+foul injustice. "What am I to do? You tell me to be
+different. How can I? What am I to do? Will virtuous
+people let me earn my bread? I could not get a housemaid's
+place! They wouldn't have me&mdash;I see their noses
+smelling! Yes: I can go to the hospital and sing behind
+a screen! Do you expect me to bury myself alive? Why,
+man, I have blood: I can't become a stone. You say I
+am honest, and I will be. Then let me tell you that I
+have been used to luxuries, and I can't do without them.
+I might have married men&mdash;lots would have had me. But
+who marries one like me but a fool? and I could not
+marry a fool. The man I marry I must respect. He
+could not respect me&mdash;I should know him to be a fool,
+and I should be worse off than I am now. As I am now,
+they may look as pious as they like&mdash;I laugh at them!"</p>
+
+<p>And so forth: direr things. Imputations upon wives:
+horrible exultation at the universal peccancy of husbands.
+This lovely outcast almost made him think she had the
+right on her side, so keenly her Parthian arrows pierced
+the holy centres of society, and exposed its rottenness.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mount's house was discreetly conducted: nothing
+ever occurred to shock him there. The young man would
+ask himself where the difference was between her and the
+women of society? How base, too, was the army of banded
+hypocrites! He was ready to declare war against them on
+her behalf. His casus belli, accurately worded, would have
+read curiously. Because the world refused to lure the
+lady to virtue with the offer of a housemaid's place, our
+knight threw down his challenge. But the lady had scornfully
+rebutted this prospect of a return to chastity. Then
+the form of the challenge must be: Because the world
+declined to support the lady in luxury for nothing! But
+what did that mean? In other words: she was to receive
+the devil's wages without rendering him her services.
+Such an arrangement appears hardly fair on the world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span>
+or on the devil. Heroes will have to conquer both before
+they will get them to subscribe to it.</p>
+
+<p>Heroes, however, are not in the habit of wording their
+declarations of war at all. Lance in rest they challenge
+and they charge. Like women they trust to instinct, and
+graft on it the muscle of men. Wide fly the leisurely-remonstrating
+hosts: institutions are scattered, they know
+not wherefore, heads are broken that have not the balm
+of a reason why. 'Tis instinct strikes! Surely there is
+something divine in instinct.</p>
+
+<p>Still, war declared, where were these hosts? The hero
+could not charge down on the ladies and gentlemen in a
+ballroom, and spoil the quadrille. He had sufficient reticence
+to avoid sounding his challenge in the Law Courts;
+nor could he well go into the Houses of Parliament with
+a trumpet, though to come to a tussle with the nation's
+direct representatives did seem the likelier method. It
+was likewise out of the question that he should enter
+every house and shop, and battle with its master in the
+cause of Mrs. Mount. Where, then, was his enemy?
+Everybody was his enemy, and everybody was nowhere.
+Shall he convoke multitudes on Wimbledon Common?
+Blue Policemen, and a distant dread of ridicule, bar all
+his projects. Alas for the hero in our day!</p>
+
+<p>Nothing teaches a strong arm its impotence so much as
+knocking at empty air.</p>
+
+<p>"What can I do for this poor woman?" cried Richard,
+after fighting his phantom enemy till he was worn out.</p>
+
+<p>"O Rip! old Rip!" he addressed his friend, "I'm distracted.
+I wish I was dead! What good am I for? Miserable!
+selfish! What have I done but make every soul
+I know wretched about me? I follow my own inclinations&mdash;I
+make people help me by lying as hard as they
+can&mdash;and I'm a liar. And when I've got it I'm ashamed
+of myself. And now when I do see something unselfish
+for me to do, I come upon grins&mdash;I don't know where to
+turn&mdash;how to act&mdash;and I laugh at myself like a devil!"</p>
+
+<p>It was only friend Ripton's ear that was required, so
+his words went for little: but Ripton did say he thought
+there was small matter to be ashamed of in winning and
+wearing the Beauty of Earth. Richard added his customary
+comment of "Poor little thing!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He fought his duello with empty air till he was exhausted.
+A last letter written to his father procured him
+no reply. Then, said he, I have tried my utmost. I have
+tried to be dutiful&mdash;my father won't listen to me. One
+thing I can do&mdash;I can go down to my dear girl, and make
+her happy, and save her at least from some of the consequences
+of my rashness.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing better for me!" he groaned. His great
+ambition must be covered by a house-top: he and the cat
+must warm themselves on the domestic hearth! The hero
+was not aware that his heart moved him to this. His
+heart was not now in open communion with his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mount heard that her friend was going&mdash;would go.
+She knew he was going to his wife. Far from discouraging
+him, she said nobly: "Go&mdash;I believe I have kept you.
+Let us have an evening together, and then go: for good,
+if you like. If not, then to meet again another time.
+Forget me. I shan't forget you. You're the best fellow
+I ever knew, Richard. You are, on my honour! I swear
+I would not step in between you and your wife to cause
+either of you a moment's unhappiness. When I can be
+another woman I will, and I shall think of you then."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish heard from Adrian that Richard was
+positively going to his wife. The wise youth modestly
+veiled his own merit in bringing it about by saying: "I
+couldn't see that poor little woman left alone down there
+any longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Well! Yes!" said Mrs. Doria, to whom the modest
+speech was repeated, "I suppose, poor boy, it's the best
+he can do now."</p>
+
+<p>Richard bade them adieu, and went to spend his last
+evening with Mrs. Mount.</p>
+
+<p>The enchantress received him in state.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know this dress? No? It's the dress I wore
+when I first met you&mdash;not when I first saw you. I think
+I remarked you, sir, before you deigned to cast an eye
+upon humble me. When we first met we drank champagne
+together, and I intend to celebrate our parting in the
+same liquor. Will you liquor with me, old boy?"</p>
+
+<p>She was gay. She revived Sir Julius occasionally. He,
+dispirited, left the talking all to her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Mount kept a footman. At a late hour the man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span>
+of calves dressed the table for supper. It was a point of
+honour for Richard to sit down to it and try to eat.
+Drinking, thanks to the kindly mother nature, who loves
+to see her children made fools of, is always an easier
+matter. The footman was diligent; the champagne corks
+feebly recalled the file-firing at Richmond.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll drink to what we might have been, Dick," said
+the enchantress.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the glorious wreck she looked.</p>
+
+<p>His heart choked as he gulped the buzzing wine.</p>
+
+<p>"What! down, my boy?" she cried. "They shall never
+see me hoist signals of distress. We must all die, and the
+secret of the thing is to die game, by Jove! Did you ever
+hear of Laura Fenn? a superb girl! handsomer than your
+humble servant&mdash;if you'll believe it&mdash;a 'Miss' in the bargain,
+and as a consequence, I suppose, a much greater
+rake. She was in the hunting-field. Her horse threw
+her, and she fell plump on a stake. It went into her left
+breast. All the fellows crowded round her, and one young
+man, who was in love with her&mdash;he sits in the House of
+Peers now&mdash;we used to call him 'Duck' because he was
+such a dear&mdash;he dropped from his horse to his knees:
+'Laura! Laura! my darling! speak a word to me!&mdash;the
+last!' She turned over all white and bloody! 'I&mdash;I shan't
+be in at the death!' and gave up the ghost! Wasn't that
+dying game? Here's to the example of Laura Fenn!
+Why, what's the matter? See! it makes a man turn
+pale to hear how a woman can die. Fill the glasses,
+John. Why, you're as bad!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's give me a turn, my lady," pleaded John, and the
+man's hand was unsteady as he poured out the wine.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought not to listen. Go, and drink some brandy."</p>
+
+<p>John footman went from the room.</p>
+
+<p>"My brave Dick! Richard! what a face you've got!"</p>
+
+<p>He showed a deep frown on a colourless face.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you bear to hear of blood? You know, it was
+only one naughty woman out of the world. The clergyman
+of the parish didn't refuse to give her decent burial.
+We are Christians! Hurrah!"</p>
+
+<p>She cheered, and laughed. A lurid splendour glanced
+about her like lights from the pit.</p>
+
+<p>"Pledge me, Dick! Drink, and recover yourself. Who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span>
+minds? We must all die&mdash;the good and the bad. Ashes
+to ashes&mdash;dust to dust&mdash;and wine for living lips! That's
+poetry&mdash;almost. Sentiment: 'May we never say die till
+we've drunk our fill!' Not bad&mdash;eh? A little vulgar,
+perhaps, by Jove! Do you think me horrid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the wine?" Richard shouted. He drank a
+couple of glasses in succession, and stared about. Was
+he in hell, with a lost soul raving to him?</p>
+
+<p>"Nobly spoken! and nobly acted upon, my brave Dick!
+Now we'll be companions. 'She wished that heaven had
+made her such a man.' Ah, Dick! Dick! too late! too
+late!"</p>
+
+<p>Softly fell her voice. Her eyes threw slanting beams.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see this?"</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to a symbolic golden anchor studded with
+gems and coiled with a rope of hair in her bosom. It was
+a gift of his.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know when I stole the lock? Foolish Dick!
+you gave me an anchor without a rope. Come and see."</p>
+
+<p>She rose from the table, and threw herself on the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you recognize your own hair! I should know
+a thread of mine among a million."</p>
+
+<p>Something of the strength of Samson went out of him
+as he inspected his hair on the bosom of Delilah.</p>
+
+<p>"And you knew nothing of it! You hardly know it
+now you see it! What couldn't a woman steal from you?
+But you're not vain, and that's a protection. You're a
+miracle, Dick: a man that's not vain! Sit here." She
+curled up her feet to give him place on the sofa. "Now
+let us talk like friends that part to meet no more. You
+found a ship with fever on board, and you weren't afraid
+to come alongside and keep her company. The fever isn't
+catching, you see. Let us mingle our tears together. Ha!
+ha! a man said that once to me. The hypocrite wanted
+to catch the fever, but he was too old. How old are you,
+Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard pushed a few months forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-one? You just look it, you blooming boy.
+Now tell me my age, Adonis!&mdash;Twenty&mdash;<i>what</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard had given the lady twenty-five years.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed violently. "You don't pay compliments,
+Dick. Best to be honest; guess again. You don't like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span>
+to? Not twenty-five, or twenty-four, or twenty-three, or&mdash;see
+how he begins to start!&mdash;twenty-two. Just twenty-one,
+my dear. I think, my birthday's somewhere in next month.
+Why, look at me, close&mdash;closer. Have I a wrinkle?"</p>
+
+<p>"And when, in heaven's name!" ... he stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand you. When did I commence for to live?
+At the ripe age of sixteen I saw a nobleman in despair
+because of my beauty. He vowed he'd die. I didn't
+want him to do that. So to save the poor man for his
+family, I ran away with him, and I dare say they didn't
+appreciate the sacrifice, and he soon forgot to, if he
+ever did. It's the way of the world!"</p>
+
+<p>Richard seized some dead champagne, emptied the
+bottle into a tumbler, and drank it off.</p>
+
+<p>John footman entered to clear the table, and they
+were left without further interruption.</p>
+
+<p>"Bella! Bella!" Richard uttered in a deep sad voice,
+as he walked the room.</p>
+
+<p>She leaned on her arm, her hair crushed against a
+reddened cheek, her eyes half-shut and dreamy.</p>
+
+<p>"Bella!" he dropped beside her. "You are unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>She blinked and yawned, as one who is awakened suddenly.
+"I think you spoke," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"You are unhappy, Bella. You can't conceal it. Your
+laugh sounds like madness. You must be unhappy. So
+young, too! Only twenty-one!"</p>
+
+<p>"What does it matter? Who cares for me?"</p>
+
+<p>The mighty pity falling from his eyes took in her
+whole shape. She did not mistake it for tenderness, as
+another would have done.</p>
+
+<p>"Who cares for you, Bella? I do. What makes my
+misery now, but to see you there, and know of no way
+of helping you? Father of mercy! it seems too much to
+have to stand by powerless while such ruin is going on!"</p>
+
+<p>Her hand was shaken in his by the passion of torment
+with which his frame quaked.</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily a tear started between her eyelids. She
+glanced up at him quickly, then looked down, drew her
+hand from his, and smoothed it, eying it.</p>
+
+<p>"Bella! you have a father alive!"</p>
+
+<p>"A linen draper, dear. He wears a white neck-cloth."</p>
+
+<p>This article of apparel instantaneously changed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span>
+tone of the conversation, for he, rising abruptly, nearly
+squashed the lady's lap-dog, whose squeaks and howls were
+piteous, and demanded the most fervent caresses of its
+mistress. It was: "Oh, my poor pet Mumpsy, and he
+didn't like a nasty great big ugly heavy foot on his poor
+soft silky&mdash;mum&mdash;mum&mdash;back, he didn't, and he soodn't
+that he&mdash;mum&mdash;mum&mdash;soodn't; and he cried out and
+knew the place to come to, and was oh so sorry for what
+had happened to him&mdash;mum&mdash;mum&mdash;mum&mdash;and now he
+was going to be made happy, his mistress make him
+happy&mdash;mum&mdash;mum&mdash;mum&mdash;moo-o-o-o."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" said Richard, savagely, from the other end of
+the room, "you care for the happiness of your dog."</p>
+
+<p>"A course se does," Mumpsy was simperingly assured
+in the thick of his silky flanks.</p>
+
+<p>Richard looked for his hat. Mumpsy was deposited
+on the sofa in a twinkling.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the lady, "you must come and beg Mumpsy's
+pardon, whether you meant to do it or no, because little
+doggies can't tell that&mdash;how should they? And there's
+poor Mumpsy thinking you're a great terrible rival that
+tries to squash him all flat to nothing, on purpose, pretending
+you didn't see; and he's trembling, poor dear
+wee pet! And I may love my dog, sir, if I like; and I
+do; and I won't have him ill-treated, for he's never been
+jealous of you, and he is a darling, ten times truer than
+men, and I love him fifty times better. So come to him
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>First a smile changed Richard's face; then laughing
+a melancholy laugh, he surrendered to her humour, and
+went through the form of begging Mumpsy's pardon.</p>
+
+<p>"The dear dog! I do believe he saw we were getting
+dull," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"And immolated himself intentionally? Noble animal!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll act as if we thought so. Let us be gay,
+Richard, and not part like ancient fogies. Where's your
+fun? You can rattle; why don't you? You haven't seen
+me in one of my characters&mdash;not Sir Julius: wait a couple
+of minutes." She ran out.</p>
+
+<p>A white visage reappeared behind a spring of flame.
+Her black hair was scattered over her shoulders and fell
+half across her brows. She moved slowly, and came up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>
+to him, fastening weird eyes on him, pointing a finger
+at the region of witches. Sepulchral cadences accompanied
+the representation. He did not listen, for he
+was thinking what a deadly charming and exquisitely
+horrid witch she was. Something in the way her underlids
+worked seemed to remind him of a forgotten picture;
+but a veil hung on the picture. There could be no
+analogy, for this was beautiful and devilish, and that,
+if he remembered rightly, had the beauty of seraphs.</p>
+
+<p>His reflections and her performance were stayed by a
+shriek. The spirits of wine had run over the plate she
+held to the floor. She had the coolness to put the plate
+down on the table, while he stamped out the flame on
+the carpet. Again she shrieked: she thought she was on
+fire. He fell on his knees and clasped her skirts all
+round, drawing his arms down them several times.</p>
+
+<p>Still kneeling, he looked up, and asked, "Do you feel
+safe now?"</p>
+
+<p>She bent her face glaring down till the ends of her hair
+touched his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Said she, "Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>Was she a witch verily? There was sorcery in her
+breath; sorcery in her hair: the ends of it stung him like
+little snakes.</p>
+
+<p>"How do I do it, Dick?" she flung back, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Like you do everything, Bella," he said, and took a
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"There! I won't be a witch; I won't be a witch: they
+may burn me to a cinder, but I won't be a witch!"</p>
+
+<p>She sang, throwing her hair about, and stamping her
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose I look a figure. I must go and tidy myself."</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't change. I like to see you so." He gazed
+at her with a mixture of wonder and admiration. "I
+can't think you the same person&mdash;not even when you
+laugh."</p>
+
+<p>"Richard," her tone was serious, "you were going to
+speak to me of my parents."</p>
+
+<p>"How wild and awful you looked, Bella!"</p>
+
+<p>"My father, Richard, was a very respectable man."</p>
+
+<p>"Bella, you'll haunt me like a ghost."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"My mother died in my infancy, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't put up your hair, Bella."</p>
+
+<p>"I was an only child!"</p>
+
+<p>Her head shook sorrowfully at the glistening fire-irons.
+He followed the abstracted intentness of her look, and
+came upon her words.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes! speak of your father, Bella. Speak of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I haunt you, and come to your bedside, and cry,
+''Tis time'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Bella! if you will tell me where he lives, I will
+go to him. He shall receive you. He shall not refuse&mdash;he
+shall forgive you."</p>
+
+<p>"If I haunt you, you can't forget me, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go to your father, Bella&mdash;let me go to him
+to-morrow. I'll give you my time. It's all I can give. O
+Bella! let me save you."</p>
+
+<p>"So you like me best dishevelled, do you, you naughty
+boy! Ha! ha!" and away she burst from him, and up
+flew her hair, as she danced across the room, and fell at
+full length on the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>He felt giddy: bewitched.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll talk of everyday things, Dick," she called to him
+from the sofa. "It's our last evening. Our last? Heigho!
+It makes me sentimental. How's that Mr. Ripson, Pipson,
+Nipson?&mdash;it's not complimentary, but I can't remember
+names of that sort. Why do you have friends of
+that sort? He's not a gentleman. Better is he? Well,
+he's rather <i>too</i> insignificant for me. Why do you sit
+off there? Come to me instantly. There&mdash;I'll sit up, and
+be proper, and you'll have plenty of room. Talk, Dick!"</p>
+
+<p>He was reflecting on the fact that her eyes were brown.
+They had a haughty sparkle when she pleased, and when
+she pleased a soft languor circled them. Excitement had
+dyed her cheeks deep red. He was a youth, and she an
+enchantress. He a hero; she a female will-o'-the-wisp.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes were languid now, set in rosy colour.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not leave me yet, Richard? not yet?"</p>
+
+<p>He had no thought of departing.</p>
+
+<p>"It's our last night&mdash;I suppose it's our last hour together
+in this world&mdash;and I don't want to meet you in
+the next, for poor Dick will have to come to such a very,
+very disagreeable place to make the visit."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He grasped her hand at this.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he will! too true! can't be helped: they say I'm
+handsome."</p>
+
+<p>"You're lovely, Bella."</p>
+
+<p>She drank in his homage.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll admit it. His Highness below likes lovely
+women, I hear say. A gentleman of taste! You don't
+know all my accomplishments yet, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't be astonished at anything new, Bella."</p>
+
+<p>"Then hear, and wonder." Her voice trolled out some
+lively roulades. "Don't you think he'll make me his
+prima donna below? It's nonsense to tell me there's no
+singing there. And the atmosphere will be favourable
+to the voice. No <i>damp</i>, you know. You saw the piano&mdash;why
+didn't you ask me to sing before? I can sing
+Italian. I had a master&mdash;who made love to me. I forgave
+him because of the music-stool&mdash;men can't help it
+on a music-stool, poor dears!"</p>
+
+<p>She went to the piano, struck the notes, and sang&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'My heart, my heart&mdash;I think 'twill break.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>"Because I'm such a rake. I don't know any other
+reason. No; I hate sentimental songs. Won't sing that.
+Ta-tiddy-tiddy-iddy&mdash;a ... e! How ridiculous those
+women were, coming home from Richmond!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Once the sweet romance of story<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Clad thy moving form with grace;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Once the world and all its glory<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Was but framework to thy face.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Ah, too fair!&mdash;what I remember,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Might my soul recall&mdash;but no!<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">To the winds this wretched ember<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Of a fire that falls so low!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Hum! don't much like that. Tum-te-tum-tum&mdash;accanto
+al fuoco&mdash;heigho! I don't want to show off, Dick&mdash;or
+to break down&mdash;so I won't try that.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'Oh! but for thee, oh! but for thee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I might have been a happy wife,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And nursed a baby on my knee,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And never blushed to give it life.'<br /></span>
+</div></div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span>
+
+<p>"I used to sing that when I was a girl, sweet Richard,
+and didn't know at all, at all, what it meant. Mustn't
+sing that sort of song in company. We're oh! so proper&mdash;even
+we!</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">'If I had a husband, what think you I'd do?<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">I'd make it my business to keep him a lover;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For when a young gentleman ceases to woo,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Some other amusement he'll quickly discover.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"For such are young gentlemen made of&mdash;made of:
+such are young gentlemen made of!"</p>
+
+<p>After this trifling she sang a Spanish ballad sweetly.
+He was in the mood when imagination intensely vivifies
+everything. Mere suggestion of music sufficed. The lady
+in the ballad had been wronged. Lo! it was the lady
+before him; and soft horns blew; he smelt the languid
+night-flowers; he saw the stars crowd large and close
+above the arid plain: this lady leaning at her window
+desolate, pouring out her abandoned heart.</p>
+
+<p>Heroes know little what they owe to champagne.</p>
+
+<p>The lady wandered to Venice. Thither he followed her
+at a leap. In Venice she was not happy. He was prepared
+for the misery of any woman anywhere. But, oh!
+to be with her! To glide with phantom-motion through
+throbbing street; past houses muffled in shadow and
+gloomy legends; under storied bridges; past palaces
+charged with full life in dead quietness; past grand old
+towers, colossal squares, gleaming quays, and out, and on
+with her, on into the silver infinity shaking over seas!</p>
+
+<p>Was it the champagne? the music? or the poetry?
+Something of the two former, perhaps: but most the
+enchantress playing upon him. How many instruments
+cannot clever women play upon at the same moment!
+And this enchantress was not too clever, or he might
+have felt her touch. She was no longer absolutely bent
+on winning him, or he might have seen a man[oe]uvre.
+She liked him&mdash;liked none better. She wished him well.
+Her pique was satisfied. Still he was handsome, and
+he was going. What she liked him for, she rather&mdash;very
+slightly&mdash;wished to do away with, or see if it could be
+done away with: just as one wishes to catch a pretty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span>
+butterfly, without hurting its patterned wings. No harm
+intended to the innocent insect, only one wants to inspect
+it thoroughly, and enjoy the marvel of it, in one's tender
+possession, and have the felicity of thinking one could
+crush it, if one would.</p>
+
+<p>He knew her what she was, this lady. In Seville, or in
+Venice, the spot was on her. Sailing the pathways of
+the moon it was not celestial light that illumined her
+beauty. Her sin was there: but in dreaming to save, he
+was soft to her sin&mdash;drowned it in deep mournfulness.</p>
+
+<p>Silence, and the rustle of her dress, awoke him from his
+musing. She swam wave-like to the sofa. She was at his
+feet.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been light and careless to-night, Richard. Of
+course I meant it. I <i>must</i> be happy with my best friend
+going to leave me."</p>
+
+<p>Those witch underlids were working brightly.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not forget me? and I shall try ... try...."</p>
+
+<p>Her lips twitched. She thought him such a very handsome
+fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"If I change&mdash;if I can change.... Oh! if you could
+know what a net I'm in, Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>Now at those words, as he looked down on her haggard
+loveliness, not divine sorrow but a devouring jealousy
+sprang like fire to his breast, and set him rocking with
+horrid pain. He bent closer to her pale beseeching face.
+Her eyes still drew him down.</p>
+
+<p>"Bella! No! no! promise me! swear it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lost, Richard! lost for ever! give me up!"</p>
+
+<p>He cried: "I never will!" and strained her in his arms,
+and kissed her passionately on the lips.</p>
+
+<p>She was not acting now as she sidled and slunk her
+half-averted head with a kind of maiden shame under
+his arm, sighing heavily, weeping, clinging to him. It
+was wicked truth.</p>
+
+<p>Not a word of love between them!</p>
+
+<p>Was ever hero in this fashion won?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON; A BERRY TO
+THE RESCUE!</h3>
+
+
+<p>At a season when the pleasant South-western Island has
+few attractions to other than invalids and hermits enamoured
+of wind and rain, the potent nobleman, Lord
+Mountfalcon, still lingered there to the disgust of his
+friends and special parasite. "Mount's in for it again,"
+they said among themselves. "Hang the women!" was
+a natural sequence. For, don't you see, what a shame
+it was of the women to be always kindling such a very
+inflammable subject! All understood that Cupid had
+twanged his bow, and transfixed a peer of Britain for
+the fiftieth time: but none would perceive, though he
+vouched for it with his most eloquent oaths, that this
+was a totally different case from the antecedent ones.
+So it had been sworn to them too frequently before.
+He was as a man with mighty tidings, and no language:
+intensely communicative, but inarticulate. Good round
+oaths had formerly compassed and expounded his noble
+emotions. They were now quite beyond the comprehension
+of blasphemy, even when emphasized, and by this
+the poor lord divinely felt the case was different. There
+is something impressive in a great human hulk writhing
+under the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot
+contend with, or account for, or explain by means
+of intelligible words. At first he took refuge in the
+depths of his contempt for women. Cupid gave him
+line. When he had come to vent his worst of them, the
+fair face now stamped on his brain beamed the more
+triumphantly: so the harpooned whale rose to the surface,
+and after a few convulsions, surrendered his huge
+length. My lord was in love with Richard's young wife.
+He gave proofs of it by burying himself beside her. To
+her, could she have seen it, he gave further proofs of a
+real devotion, in affecting, and in her presence feeling,
+nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being. This
+wonder, that when near her he should be cool and composed,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span>
+and when away from her wrapped in a tempest of
+desires, was matter for what powers of cogitation the
+heavy nobleman possessed.</p>
+
+<p>The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged
+him to press the business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser,
+or more scrupulous, than his parasite. Almost every
+evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced little wife
+apprehended no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard
+had commended her to the care of Lord Mountfalcon,
+and Lady Judith. Lady Judith had left the Island for
+London: Lord Mountfalcon remained. There could be
+no harm. If she had ever thought so, she no longer did.
+Secretly, perhaps, she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon
+was as well educated as it is the fortune of the run of
+titled elder sons to be: he could talk and instruct: he was
+a lord: and he let her understand that he was wicked,
+very wicked, and that she improved him. The heroine, in
+common with the hero, has her ambition to be of use in
+the world&mdash;to do some good; and the task of reclaiming
+a bad man is extremely seductive to good women. Dear
+to their tender bosoms as old china is a bad man they are
+mending! Lord Mountfalcon had none of the arts of a
+libertine: his gold, his title, and his person had hitherto
+preserved him from having long to sigh in vain, or sigh
+at all, possibly: the Hon. Peter did his villainies for him.
+No alarm was given to Lucy's pure instinct, as might
+have been the case had my lord been over-adept. It was
+nice in her martyrdom to have a true friend to support
+her, and really to be able to do something for that friend.
+Too simple-minded to think much of his lordship's position,
+she was yet a woman. "He, a great nobleman, does
+not scorn to acknowledge me, and think something of me,"
+may have been one of the half-thoughts passing through
+her now and then, as she reflected in self-defence on the
+proud family she had married into.</p>
+
+<p>January was watering and freezing old earth by turns,
+when the Hon. Peter travelled down to the sun of his
+purse with great news. He had no sooner broached his
+lordship's immediate weakness, than Mountfalcon began
+to plunge like a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He swore
+by this and that he had come across an angel for his sins,
+and would do her no hurt. The next moment he swore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>
+she must be his, though she cursed like a cat. His lordship's
+illustrations were not choice. "I haven't advanced
+an inch," he groaned. "Brayder! upon my soul, that little
+woman could do anything with me. By heaven! I'd marry
+her to-morrow. Here I am, seeing her every day in the
+week out or in, and what do you think she gets me to
+talk about?&mdash;history! Isn't it enough to make a fellow
+mad? and there am I lecturing like a prig, and by heaven!
+while I'm at it I feel a pleasure in it; and when I leave
+the house I should feel an immense gratification in shooting
+somebody. What do they say in town?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," said Brayder, significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"When's that fellow&mdash;her husband&mdash;coming down?"</p>
+
+<p>"I rather hope we've settled him for life, Mount."</p>
+
+<p>Nobleman and parasite exchanged looks.</p>
+
+<p>"How d'ye mean?"</p>
+
+<p>Brayder hummed an air, and broke it to say, "He's in
+for Don Juan at a gallop, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"The deuce! Has Bella got him?" Mountfalcon asked
+with eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>Brayder handed my lord a letter. It was dated from
+the Sussex coast, signed "Richard," and was worded thus:</p>
+
+<p>"My beautiful Devil!&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Since we're both devils together, and have found each
+other out, come to me at once, or I shall be going somewhere
+in a hurry. Come, my bright hell-star! I ran
+away from you, and now I ask you to come to me! You
+have taught me how devils love, and I can't do without
+you. Come an hour after you receive this."</p>
+
+<p>Mountfalcon turned over the letter to see if there was
+any more. "Complimentary love-epistle!" he remarked,
+and rising from his chair and striding about, muttered,
+"The dog! how infamously he treats his wife!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very bad," said Brayder.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get hold of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Strolled into Bella's dressing-room, waiting for her&mdash;turned
+over her pincushion haphazard. You know her
+trick."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! I think that girl does it on purpose. Thank
+heaven, I haven't written her any letters for an age. Is
+she going to him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not she! But it's odd, Mount!&mdash;did you ever know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span>
+her refuse money before? She tore up the cheque in style,
+and presented me the fragments with two or three of the
+delicacies of language she learnt at your Academy. I
+rather like to hear a woman swear. It embellishes her!"</p>
+
+<p>Mountfalcon took counsel of his parasite as to the end
+the letter could be made to serve. Both conscientiously
+agreed that Richard's behaviour to his wife was infamous,
+and that he at least deserved no mercy. "But," said his
+lordship, "it won't do to show the letter. At first she'll
+be swearing it's false, and then she'll stick to him closer.
+I know the sluts."</p>
+
+<p>"The rule of contrary," said Brayder, carelessly. "She
+must see the trahison with her eyes. They believe their
+eyes. There's your chance, Mount. You step in: you give
+her revenge and consolation&mdash;two birds at one shot.
+That's what they like."</p>
+
+<p>"You're an ass, Brayder," the nobleman exclaimed.
+"You're an infernal blackguard. You talk of this little
+woman as if she and other women were all of a piece. I
+don't see anything I gain by this confounded letter. Her
+husband's a brute&mdash;that's clear."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you leave it to me, Mount?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be damned before I do!" muttered my lord.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. Now see how this will end. You're too
+soft, Mount. You'll be made a fool of."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Brayder, there's nothing to be done. If I
+carry her off&mdash;I've been on the point of doing it every day&mdash;what'll
+come of that? She'll look&mdash;I can't stand her
+eyes&mdash;I shall be a fool&mdash;worse off with her than I am
+now."</p>
+
+<p>Mountfalcon yawned despondently. "And what do you
+think?" he pursued. "Isn't it enough to make a fellow
+gnash his teeth? She's" ... he mentioned something
+in an underbreath, and turned red as he said it.</p>
+
+<p>"Hm!" Brayder put up his mouth and rapped the
+handle of his cane on his chin. "That's disagreeable,
+Mount. You don't exactly want to act in that character.
+You haven't got a diploma. Bother!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I love her a bit less?" broke out my
+lord in a frenzy. "By heaven! I'd read to her by her
+bedside, and talk that infernal history to her, if it pleased
+her, all day and all night."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You're evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount."</p>
+
+<p>The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation.</p>
+
+<p>"What do they say in town?" he asked again.</p>
+
+<p>Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was
+maid, wife, or widow.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon resumed,
+after&mdash;to judge by the cast of his face&mdash;reflecting deeply.
+"I'll go to her this evening. She shall know what infernal
+torment she makes me suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say she don't know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't an idea&mdash;thinks me a friend. And so, by
+heaven! I'll be to her."</p>
+
+<p>"A&mdash;hm!" went the Honourable Peter. "This way to
+the sign of the Green Man, ladies!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to be pitched out of the window,
+Brayder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Once was enough, Mount. The Salvage Man is strong.
+I may have forgotten the trick of alighting on my feet.
+There&mdash;there! I'll be sworn she's excessively innocent,
+and thinks you a disinterested friend."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon repeated.
+"She shall know what damned misery it is to see her in
+such a position. I can't hold out any longer. Deceit's
+horrible to such a girl as that. I'd rather have her cursing
+me than speaking and looking as she does. Dear little
+girl!&mdash;she's only a child. You haven't an idea how sensible
+that little woman is."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you?" inquired the cunning one.</p>
+
+<p>"My belief is, Brayder, that there are angels among
+women," said Mountfalcon, evading his parasite's eye as
+he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>To the world, Lord Mountfalcon was the thoroughly
+wicked man; his parasite simply ingeniously dissipated.
+Full many a man of God had thought it the easier task to
+reclaim the Hon. Peter.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy received her noble friend by firelight that evening,
+and sat much in the shade. She offered to have the candles
+brought in. He begged her to allow the room to
+remain as it was. "I have something to say to you," he
+observed with a certain solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;to me?" said Lucy, quickly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lord Mountfalcon knew he had a great deal to say, but
+how to say it, and what it exactly was, he did not know.</p>
+
+<p>"You conceal it admirably," he began, "but you must
+be very lonely here&mdash;I fear, unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>"I should have been lonely, but for your kindness, my
+lord," said Lucy. "I am not unhappy." Her face was in
+shade and could not belie her.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any help that one who would really be your
+friend might give you, Mrs. Feverel?"</p>
+
+<p>"None indeed that I know of," Lucy replied. "Who
+can help us to pay for our sins?"</p>
+
+<p>"At least you may permit me to endeavour to pay my
+debts, since you have helped me to wash out some of <i>my</i>
+sins."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my lord!" said Lucy, not displeased. It is sweet
+for a woman to believe she has drawn the serpent's teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you the truth," Lord Mountfalcon went on.
+"What object could I have in deceiving you? I know you
+quite above flattery&mdash;so different from other women!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, pray, do not say that," interposed Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"According to my experience, then."</p>
+
+<p>"But you say you have met such&mdash;such very bad
+women."</p>
+
+<p>"I have. And now that I meet a good one, it is my
+misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>"Your misfortune, Lord Mountfalcon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I might say more."</p>
+
+<p>His lordship held impressively mute.</p>
+
+<p>"How strange men are!" thought Lucy. "He has some
+unhappy secret."</p>
+
+<p>Tom Bakewell, who had a habit of coming into the room
+on various pretences during the nobleman's visits, put a
+stop to the revelation, if his lordship intended to make
+any.</p>
+
+<p>When they were alone again, Lucy said, smiling: "Do
+you know, I am always ashamed to ask you to begin to
+read."</p>
+
+<p>Mountfalcon stared. "To read?&mdash;oh! ha! yes!" he remembered
+his evening duties. "Very happy, I'm sure.
+Let me see. Where were we?"</p>
+
+<p>"The life of the Emperor Julian. But indeed I feel
+quite ashamed to ask you to read, my lord. It's new to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span>
+me; like a new world&mdash;hearing about Emperors, and
+armies, and things that really have been on the earth we
+walk upon. It fills my mind. But it must have ceased
+to interest you, and I was thinking that I would not tease
+you any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Your pleasure is mine, Mrs. Feverel. 'Pon my honour,
+I'd read till I was hoarse, to hear your remarks."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you laughing at me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I look so?"</p>
+
+<p>Lord Mountfalcon had fine full eyes, and by merely
+dropping the lids he could appear to endow them with
+mental expression.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you are not," said Lucy. "I must thank you for
+your forbearance."</p>
+
+<p>The nobleman went on his honour loudly.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was an object of Lucy's to have him reading;
+for his sake, for her sake, and for somebody else's sake;
+which somebody else was probably considered first in the
+matter. When he was reading to her, he seemed to be
+legitimizing his presence there; and though she had no
+doubts or suspicions whatever, she was easier in her heart
+while she had him employed in that office. So she rose
+to fetch the book, laid it open on the table at his lordship's
+elbow, and quietly waited to ring for candles when he
+should be willing to commence.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Lord Mountfalcon could not get himself
+up to the farce, and he felt a pity for the strangely innocent
+unprotected child with anguish hanging over her,
+that withheld the words he wanted to speak, or insinuate.
+He sat silent and did nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"What I do not like him for," said Lucy, meditatively,
+"is his changing his religion. He would have been such
+a hero, but for that. I could have loved him."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it you could have loved, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord
+Mountfalcon asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The Emperor Julian."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! the Emperor Julian! Well, he was an apostate:
+but then, you know, he meant what he was about. He
+didn't even do it for a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"For a woman!" cried Lucy. "What man would for a
+woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You, Lord Mountfalcon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'd turn Catholic to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"You make me very unhappy if you say that, my lord."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll unsay it."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy slightly shuddered. She put her hand upon the
+bell to ring for lights.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you reject a convert, Mrs. Feverel?" said the nobleman.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes! yes! I do. One who does not give his conscience
+I would not have."</p>
+
+<p>"If he gives his heart and body, can he give more?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's hand pressed the bell. She did not like the
+doubtful light with one who was so unscrupulous. Lord
+Mountfalcon had never spoken in this way before. He
+spoke better, too. She missed the aristocratic twang in his
+voice, and the hesitation for words, and the fluid lordliness
+with which he rolled over difficulties in speech.</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously with the sounding of the bell the door
+opened, and presented Tom Bakewell. There was a double
+knock at the same instant at the street door. Lucy delayed
+to give orders.</p>
+
+<p>"Can it be a letter, Tom?&mdash;so late?" she said, changing
+colour. "Pray run and see."</p>
+
+<p>"That an't a powst," Tom remarked, as he obeyed his
+mistress.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you very anxious for a letter, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord
+Mountfalcon inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no&mdash;yes, I am, very!" said Lucy. Her quick ear
+caught the tones of a voice she remembered. "That dear
+old thing has come to see me," she cried, starting up.</p>
+
+<p>Tom ushered a bunch of black satin into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Berry!" said Lucy, running up to her and kissing
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Me, my darlin'!" Mrs. Berry, breathless and rosy with
+her journey, returned the salute. "Me truly it is, in fault
+of a better, for I ain't one to stand by and give the devil
+his licence&mdash;roamin'! and the salt sure enough have spilte
+my bride-gown at the beginnin', which ain't the best sign.
+Bless ye!&mdash;Oh, here he is." She beheld a male figure in a
+chair by the half light, and swung round to address him.
+"You bad man!" she held aloft one of her fat fingers,
+"I've come on ye like a bolt, I have, and goin' to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span>
+ye do your duty, naughty boy! But you're my darlin'
+babe," she melted, as was her custom, "and I'll never meet
+you and not give to ye the kiss of a mother."</p>
+
+<p>Before Lord Mountfalcon could find time to expostulate
+the soft woman had him by the neck, and was down among
+his luxurious whiskers.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" She gave a smothered shriek, and fell back.
+"What hair's that?"</p>
+
+<p>Tom Bakewell just then illumined the transaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my gracious!" Mrs. Berry breathed with horror,
+"I been and kiss a strange man!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy, half-laughing, but in dreadful concern, begged the
+noble lord to excuse the woful mistake.</p>
+
+<p>"Extremely flattered, highly favoured, I'm sure," said
+his lordship, re-arranging his disconcerted moustache;
+"may I beg the pleasure of an introduction?"</p>
+
+<p>"My husband's dear old nurse&mdash;Mrs. Berry," said Lucy,
+taking her hand to lend her countenance. "Lord Mountfalcon,
+Mrs. Berry."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry sought grace while she performed a series of
+apologetic bobs, and wiped the perspiration from her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy put her in a chair: Lord Mountfalcon asked for
+an account of her passage over to the Island; receiving
+distressingly full particulars, by which it was revealed
+that the softness of her heart was only equalled by the
+weakness of her stomach. The recital calmed Mrs. Berry
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and where's my&mdash;where's Mr. Richard? yer
+husband, my dear?" Mrs. Berry turned from her tale to
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you expect to see him here?" said Lucy, in a
+broken voice.</p>
+
+<p>"And where else, my love? since he haven't been seen
+in London a whole fortnight."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"We will dismiss the Emperor Julian till to-morrow, I
+think," said Lord Mountfalcon, rising and bowing.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy gave him her hand with mute thanks. He touched
+it distantly, embraced Mrs. Berry in a farewell bow, and
+was shown out of the house by Tom Bakewell.</p>
+
+<p>The moment he was gone, Mrs. Berry threw up her arms.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span>
+"Did ye ever know sich a horrid thing to go and happen
+to a virtuous woman!" she exclaimed. "I could cry at it,
+I could! To be goin' and kissin' a strange hairy man!
+Oh, dear me! what's comin' next, I wonder? Whiskers!
+thinks I&mdash;for I know the touch o' whiskers&mdash;'t ain't like
+other hair&mdash;what! have he growed a crop that sudden,
+I says to myself; and it flashed on me I been and made
+a awful mistake! and the lights come in, and I see that
+great hairy man&mdash;beggin' his pardon&mdash;nobleman, and if
+I could 'a dropped through the floor out o' sight o' men,
+drat 'em! they're al'ays in the way, that they are!"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Berry," Lucy checked her, "did you expect to find
+him here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Askin' that solemn?" retorted Berry. "What him?
+your husband? Of course I did! and you got him&mdash;somewheres
+hid."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not heard from my husband for fifteen days,"
+said Lucy, and her tears rolled heavily off her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>'Not heer from him!&mdash;fifteen days!" Berry echoed.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mrs. Berry! dear kind Mrs. Berry! have you no
+news? nothing to tell me! I've borne it so long. They're
+cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh, do you know if I have
+offended him&mdash;my husband? While he wrote I did not
+complain. I could live on his letters for years. But not
+to hear from him! To think I have ruined him, and
+that he repents! Do they want to take him from me?
+Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I've had no one
+to speak out my heart to all this time, and I cannot,
+cannot help crying, Mrs. Berry!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she
+heard from Lucy's lips, and she was herself full of dire
+apprehension; but it was never this excellent creature's
+system to be miserable in company. The sight of a sorrow
+that was not positive, and could not refer to proof, set her
+resolutely the other way.</p>
+
+<p>"Fiddle-faddle," she said. "I'd like to see him repent!
+He won't find anywheres a beauty like his own dear little
+wife, and he know it. Now, look you here, my dear&mdash;you
+blessed weepin' pet&mdash;the man that could see ye with that
+hair of yours there in ruins, and he backed by the law, and
+not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed for life, he
+ain't got much man in him, I say; and no one can say that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span>
+of my babe! I was sayin', look here, to comfort ye&mdash;oh,
+why, to be sure he've got some surprise for ye. And so've
+I, my lamb! Hark, now! His father've come to town,
+like a good reasonable man at last, to u-nite, ye both, and
+bring your bodies together, as your hearts is, for ever-lastin'.
+Now ain't that news?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Lucy, "that takes my last hope away. I
+thought he had gone to his father." She burst into fresh
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sich a man as that.
+He's a regular meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham
+Abbey. Well, so hark you here. I says to myself, that
+knows him&mdash;for I did think my babe <i>was</i> in his natural
+nest&mdash;I says, the bar'net'll never write for you both to
+come up and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch
+you up. For there was your mistake, my dear, ever to
+leave your husband to go away from ye one hour in a
+young marriage. It's dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong,
+and it's only to be righted by your obeyin' of me, as I
+commands it: for I has my fits, though I <i>am</i> a soft
+'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy to-morrow&mdash;or the next
+to it."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her
+self-inflicted martyrdom, and glad to give herself up to
+somebody else's guidance utterly.</p>
+
+<p>"But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Cause, 'cause&mdash;who can tell the why of men, my dear?
+But that he love ye faithful, I'll swear. Haven't he
+groaned in my arms that he couldn't come to ye?&mdash;weak
+wretch! Hasn't he swore how he loved ye to me, poor
+young man! But this is your fault, my sweet. Yes, it
+be. You should 'a followed my 'dvice at the fust&mdash;'stead
+o' going into your 'eroics about this and t'other." Here
+Mrs. Berry poured forth fresh sentences on matrimony,
+pointed especially at young couples. "I should 'a been a
+fool if I hadn't suffered myself," she confessed, "so I'll
+thank my Berry if I makes you wise in season."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy smoothed her ruddy plump cheeks, and gazed up
+affectionately into the soft woman's kind brown eyes. Endearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span>
+phrases passed from mouth to mouth. And as
+she gazed Lucy blushed, as one who has something very
+secret to tell, very sweet, very strange, but cannot quite
+bring herself to speak it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! there's three men in my life I kissed," said Mrs.
+Berry, too much absorbed in her extraordinary adventure
+to notice the young wife's struggling bosom, "three men,
+and one nobleman! He've got more whisker than my
+Berry. I wonder what the man thought. Ten to one
+he'll think, now, I was glad o' my chance&mdash;they're that
+vain, whether they's lords or commons. How was I to
+know? I nat'ral thinks none but her husband'd sit in
+that chair. Ha! and in the dark? and alone with ye?"
+Mrs. Berry hardened her eyes, "and your husband away?
+What do this mean? Tell to me, child, what it mean his
+bein' here alone without ere a candle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Mountfalcon is the only friend I have here," said
+Lucy. "He is very kind. He comes almost every evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord Muntfalcon&mdash;that his name!" Mrs. Berry exclaimed.
+"I been that flurried by the man, I didn't mind
+it at first. He comes every evenin', and your husband out
+o' sight! My goodness me! it's gettin' worse and worse.
+And what do he come for, now, ma'am? Now tell me
+candid what ye do together here in the dark of an evenin'."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry glanced severely.</p>
+
+<p>"O Mrs. Berry! please not to speak in that way&mdash;I don't
+like it," said Lucy, pouting.</p>
+
+<p>"What do he come for, I ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very
+lonely, and wishes to amuse me. And he tells me of
+things I know nothing about and"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And wants to be a-teachin' some of his things, mayhap,"
+Mrs. Berry interrupted with a ruffled breast.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old
+woman," said Lucy, chiding her.</p>
+
+<p>"And you're a silly, unsuspectin' little bird," Mrs.
+Berry retorted, as she returned her taps on the cheek.
+"You haven't told me what ye do together, and what's
+his excuse for comin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, Mrs. Berry, almost every evening that he
+comes we read History, and he explains the battles, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span>
+talks to me about the great men. And <i>he</i> says I'm not
+silly, Mrs. Berry."</p>
+
+<p>"That's one bit o' lime on your wings, my bird. History,
+indeed! History to a young married lovely woman alone
+in the dark! a pretty History! Why, I know that man's
+name, my dear. He's a notorious living rake, that Lord
+Muntfalcon. No woman's safe with him."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but he hasn't deceived me, Mrs. Berry. He has
+not pretended he was good."</p>
+
+<p>"More's his art," quoth the experienced dame. "So you
+read History together in the dark, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was unwell to-night, Mrs. Berry. I wanted him not
+to see my face. Look! there's the book open ready for
+him when the candles come in. And now, you dear kind
+darling old thing, let me kiss you for coming to me. I
+do love you. Talk of other things."</p>
+
+<p>"So we will," said Mrs. Berry softening to Lucy's
+caresses. "So let us. A nobleman, indeed! alone with a
+young wife in the dark, and she sich a beauty! I say this
+shall be put a stop to now and henceforth, on the spot it
+shall! He won't meneuvele Bessy Berry with his arts.
+There! I drop him. I'm dyin' for a cup o' tea, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy got up to ring the bell, and as Mrs. Berry, incapable
+of quite dropping him, was continuing to say:
+"Let him go and boast I kiss him; he ain't nothin' to be
+'shamed of in a chaste woman's kiss&mdash;unawares&mdash;which
+men don't get too often in their lives, I can assure 'em;"&mdash;her
+eye surveyed Lucy's figure.</p>
+
+<p>Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded
+her with her arms, and drew her into feminine depths.
+"Oh, you blessed!" she cried in most meaning tone, "you
+good, lovin', proper little wife, you!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mrs. Berry!" lisps Lucy, opening the most
+innocent blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"As if <i>I</i> couldn't see, you pet! It was my flurry blinded
+me, or I'd 'a marked ye the fust shock. Thinkin' to deceive
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry's eyes spoke generations. Lucy's wavered;
+she coloured all over, and hid her face on the bounteous
+breast that mounted to her.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a sweet one," murmured the soft woman, patting
+her back, and rocking her. "You're a rose, you are!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span>
+and a bud on your stalk. Haven't told a word to your
+husband, my dear?" she asked quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy.</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. We'll give him a surprise; let it come
+all at once on him, and thinks he&mdash;losin' breath&mdash;'I'm a
+father!' Nor a hint even you haven't give him?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! you <i>are</i> a sweet one," said Bessy Berry, and rocked
+her more closely and lovingly.</p>
+
+<p>Then these two had a whispered conversation, from
+which let all of male persuasion retire a space nothing
+under one mile.</p>
+
+<p>Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry
+counting on her fingers' ends. Concluding the sum, she
+cries prophetically: "Now this right everything&mdash;a baby
+in the balance! Now I say this angel-infant come from
+on high. It's God's messenger, my love! and it's not wrong
+to say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn't 'a had
+one&mdash;not for all the tryin' in the world, you wouldn't,
+and some tries hard enough, poor creatures! How let us
+rejice and make merry! I'm for cryin' and laughin', one
+and the same. This is the blessed seal of matrimony,
+which Berry never stamp on me. It's be hoped it's a boy.
+Make that man a grandfather, and his grandchild a son,
+and you got him safe. Oh! this is what I call happiness,
+and I'll have my tea a little stronger in consequence. I
+declare I could get tipsy to know this joyful news."</p>
+
+<p>So Mrs. Berry carolled. She had her tea a little
+stronger. She ate and she drank; she rejoiced and made
+merry. The bliss of the chaste was hers.</p>
+
+<p>Says Lucy demurely: "Now you know why I read History,
+and that sort of books."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?" replies Berry. "Belike I do. Since what you
+done's so good, my darlin', I'm agreeable to anything. A
+fig for all the lords! They can't come anigh a baby. You
+may read Voyages and Travels, my dear, and Romances,
+and Tales of Love and War. You cut the riddle in your
+own dear way, and that's all I cares for."</p>
+
+<p>"No, but you don't understand," persists Lucy. "I
+only read sensible books, and talk of serious things, because
+I'm sure ... because I have heard say ... dear
+Mrs. Berry! don't you understand now?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry smacked her knees. "Only to think of her
+bein' that thoughtful! and she a Catholic, too! Never tell
+me that people of one religion ain't as good as another,
+after that. Why, you want to make him a historian, to
+be sure! And that rake of a lord who've been comin'
+here playin' at wolf, you been and made him&mdash;unbeknown
+to himself&mdash;sort o' tutor to the unborn blessed! Ha! ha!
+say that little women ain't got art ekal to the cunningest
+of 'em. Oh! I understand. Why, to be sure, didn't I
+know a lady, a widow of a clergyman: he was a postermost
+child, and afore his birth that woman read nothin' but
+Blair's 'Grave' over and over again, from the end to the
+beginnin';&mdash;that's a serious book!&mdash;very hard readin'!&mdash;and
+at four years of age that child that come of it reelly
+was the piusest infant!&mdash;he was like a little curate. His
+eyes was up; he talked so solemn." Mrs. Berry imitated
+the little curate's appearance and manner of speaking.
+"So she got her wish, for one!"</p>
+
+<p>But at this lady Lucy laughed.</p>
+
+<p>They chattered on happily till bedtime. Lucy arranged
+for Mrs. Berry to sleep with her. "If it's not dreadful to
+ye, my sweet, sleepin' beside a woman," said Mrs. Berry.
+"I know it were to me shortly after my Berry, and I felt
+it. It don't somehow seem nat'ral after matrimony&mdash;a
+woman in your bed! I was obliged to have somebody,
+for the cold sheets do give ye the creeps when you've been
+used to that that's different."</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs they went together, Lucy not sharing these objections.
+Then Lucy opened certain drawers, and exhibited
+pretty caps, and laced linen, all adapted for a
+very small body, all the work of her own hands: and Mrs.
+Berry praised them and her. "You been guessing a boy&mdash;woman-like,"
+she said. Then they cooed, and kissed, and
+undressed by the fire, and knelt at the bedside, with their
+arms about each other, praying; both praying for the
+unborn child; and Mrs. Berry pressed Lucy's waist the
+moment she was about to breathe the petition to heaven
+to shield and bless that coming life; and thereat Lucy
+closed to her, and felt a strong love for her. Then Lucy
+got into bed first, leaving Berry to put out the light, and
+before she did so, Berry leaned over her, and eyed her
+roguishly, saying, "I never see ye like this, but I'm half<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span>
+in love with ye myself, you blushin' beauty! Sweet's your
+eyes, and your hair do take one so&mdash;lyin' back. I'd never
+forgive my father if he kep me away from ye four-and-twenty
+hours just. Husband o' that!" Berry pointed at
+the young wife's loveliness. "Ye look so ripe with kisses,
+and there they are a-languishin'!&mdash; ... You never
+look so but in your bed, ye beauty!&mdash;just as it ought to
+be." Lucy had to pretend to rise to put out the light
+before Berry would give up her amorous chaste soliloquy.
+Then they lay in bed, and Mrs. Berry fondled her, and
+arranged for their departure to-morrow, and reviewed
+Richard's emotions when he came to hear he was going
+to be made a father by her, and hinted at Lucy's delicious
+shivers when Richard was again in his rightful place,
+which she, Bessy Berry, now usurped; and all sorts of
+amorous sweet things; enough to make one fancy the
+adage subverted, that stolen fruits are sweetest; she drew
+such glowing pictures of bliss within the law and the
+limits of the conscience, till at last, worn out, Lucy murmured
+"Peepy, dear Berry," and the soft woman gradually
+ceased her chirp.</p>
+
+<p>Bessy Berry did not sleep. She lay thinking of the
+sweet brave heart beside her, and listening to Lucy's
+breath as it came and went; squeezing the fair sleeper's
+hand now and then, to ease her love as her reflections
+warmed. A storm of wind came howling over the Hampshire
+hills, and sprang white foam on the water, and shook
+the bare trees. It passed, leaving a thin cloth of snow on
+the wintry land. The moon shone brilliantly. Berry
+heard the house-dog bark. His bark was savage and persistent.
+She was roused by the noise. By and by she
+fancied she heard a movement in the house; then it seemed
+to her that the house-door opened. She cocked her ears,
+and could almost make out voices in the midnight stillness.
+She slipped from the bed, locked and bolted the door of
+the room, assured herself of Lucy's unconsciousness, and
+went on tiptoe to the window. The trees all stood white
+to the north; the ground glittered; the cold was keen.
+Berry wrapped her fat arms across her bosom, and peeped
+as close over the garden as the situation of the window
+permitted. Berry was a soft, not a timid, woman: and it
+happened this night that her thoughts were above the fears<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span>
+of the dark. She was sure of the voices; curiosity without
+a shade of alarm held her on the watch; and gathering
+bundles of her day-apparel round her neck and shoulders,
+she silenced the chattering of her teeth as well as she
+could, and remained stationary. The low hum of the
+voices came to a break; something was said in a louder
+tone; the house-door quietly shut; a man walked out of
+the garden into the road. He paused opposite her window,
+and Berry let the blind go back to its place, and peeped
+from behind an edge of it. He was in the shadow of the
+house, so that it was impossible to discern much of his figure.
+After some minutes he walked rapidly away, and
+Berry returned to the bed an icicle, from which Lucy's
+limbs sensitively shrank.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning Mrs. Berry asked Tom Bakewell if he
+had been disturbed in the night. Tom, the mysterious,
+said he had slept like a top. Mrs. Berry went to the garden.
+The snow was partially melted; all save one spot
+just under the portal, and there she saw the print of a
+man's foot. By some strange guidance it occurred to her
+to go and find one of Richard's boots. She did so, and,
+unperceived, she measured the sole of the boot in that
+solitary footmark. There could be no doubt that it fitted.
+She tried it from heel to toe a dozen times.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+<h3>CLARE'S DIARY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sir Austin Feverel had come to town with the serenity
+of a philosopher who says, 'Tis now time; and the satisfaction
+of a man who has not arrived thereat without a
+struggle. He had almost forgiven his son. His deep love
+for him had well-nigh shaken loose from wounded pride
+and more tenacious vanity. Stirrings of a remote sympathy
+for the creature who had robbed him of his son
+and hewed at his System, were in his heart of hearts.
+This he knew; and in his own mind he took credit for his
+softness. But the world must not suppose him soft; the
+world must think he was still acting on his System.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span>
+Otherwise what would his long absence signify?&mdash;Something
+highly unphilosophical. So, though love was strong,
+and was moving him to a straightforward course, the last
+tug of vanity drew him still aslant.</p>
+
+<p>The Aphorist read himself so well, that to juggle with
+himself was a necessity. As he wished the world to see
+him, he beheld himself: one who entirely put aside mere
+personal feelings: one in whom parental duty, based on
+the science of life, was paramount: a Scientific Humanist,
+in short.</p>
+
+<p>He was, therefore, rather surprised at a coldness in
+Lady Blandish's manner when he did appear. "At last!"
+said the lady, in a sad way that sounded reproachfully.
+Now the Scientific Humanist had, of course, nothing to
+reproach himself with.</p>
+
+<p>But where was Richard?</p>
+
+<p>Adrian positively averred he was not with his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"If he had gone," said the baronet, "he would have anticipated
+me by a few hours."</p>
+
+<p>This, when repeated to Lady Blandish, should have propitiated
+her, and shown his great forgiveness. She, however,
+sighed, and looked at him wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>Their converse was not happy and deeply intimate.
+Philosophy did not seem to catch her mind; and fine
+phrases encountered a rueful assent, more flattering to
+their grandeur than to their influence.</p>
+
+<p>Days went by. Richard did not present himself. Sir
+Austin's pitch of self-command was to await the youth
+without signs of impatience.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing this, the lady told him her fears for Richard,
+and mentioned the rumour of him that was about.</p>
+
+<p>"If," said the baronet, "this person, his wife, is what
+you paint her, I do not share your fears for him. I think
+too well of him. If she is one to inspire the sacredness of
+that union, I think too well of him. It is impossible."</p>
+
+<p>The lady saw one thing to be done.</p>
+
+<p>"Call her to you," she said. "Have her with you at
+Raynham. Recognize her. It is the disunion and doubt
+that so confuses him and drives him wild. I confess to
+you I hoped he had gone to her. It seems not. If she is
+with you his way will be clear. Will you do that?"</p>
+
+<p>Science is notoriously of slow movement. Lady Blandish's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span>
+proposition was far too hasty for Sir Austin.
+Women, rapid by nature, have no idea of science.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see her there in time, Emmeline. At present
+let it be between me and my son."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke loftily. In truth it offended him to be asked
+to do anything, when he had just brought himself to do so
+much.</p>
+
+<p>A month elapsed, and Richard appeared on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>The meeting between him and his father was not what
+his father had expected and had crooned over in the Welsh
+mountains. Richard shook his hand respectfully, and inquired
+after his health with the common social solicitude.
+He then said: "During your absence, sir, I have taken the
+liberty, without consulting you, to do something in which
+you are more deeply concerned than myself. I have taken
+upon myself to find out my mother and place her under my
+care. I trust you will not think I have done wrong. I
+acted as I thought best."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin replied: "You are of an age, Richard, to
+judge for yourself in such a case. I would have you
+simply beware of deceiving yourself in imagining that you
+considered any one but yourself in acting as you did."</p>
+
+<p>"I have not deceived myself, sir," said Richard, and the
+interview was over. Both hated an exposure of the feelings,
+and in that both were satisfied: but the baronet, as
+one who loves, hoped and looked for tones indicative of
+trouble and delight in the deep heart; and Richard gave
+him none of those. The young man did not even face him
+as he spoke: if their eyes met by chance, Richard's were
+defiantly cold. His whole bearing was changed.</p>
+
+<p>"This rash marriage has altered him," said the very just
+man of science in life: and that meant: "it has debased
+him."</p>
+
+<p>He pursued his reflections. "I see in him the desperate
+maturity of a suddenly-ripened nature: and but for my
+faith that good work is never lost, what should I think of
+the toil of my years? Lost, perhaps to me! lost to him!
+It may show itself in his children."</p>
+
+<p>The Philosopher, we may conceive, has contentment in
+benefiting embryos: but it was a somewhat bitter prospect
+to Sir Austin. Bitterly he felt the injury to himself.</p>
+
+<p>One little incident spoke well of Richard. A poor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span>
+woman called at the hotel while he was missing. The
+baronet saw her, and she told him a tale that threw
+Christian light on one part of Richard's nature. But this
+might gratify the father in Sir Austin; it did not touch
+the man of science. A Feverel, his son, would not do
+less, he thought. He sat down deliberately to study his
+son.</p>
+
+<p>No definite observation enlightened him. Richard ate
+and drank; joked and laughed. He was generally before
+Adrian in calling for a fresh bottle. He talked easily of
+current topics; his gaiety did not sound forced. In all he
+did, nevertheless, there was not the air of a youth who sees
+a future before him. Sir Austin put that down. It might
+be carelessness, and wanton blood, for no one could say he
+had much on his mind. The man of science was not
+reckoning that Richard also might have learned to act
+and wear a mask. Dead subjects&mdash;this is to say, people
+not on their guard&mdash;he could penetrate and dissect. It is
+by a rare chance, as scientific men well know, that one
+has an opportunity of examining the structure of the
+living.</p>
+
+<p>However, that rare chance was granted to Sir Austin.
+They were engaged to dine with Mrs. Doria at the Foreys',
+and walked down to her in the afternoon, father and son
+arm-in-arm, Adrian beside them. Previously the offended
+father had condescended to inform his son that it would
+shortly be time for him to return to his wife, indicating
+that arrangements would ultimately be ordered to receive
+her at Raynham. Richard had replied nothing; which
+might mean excess of gratitude, or hypocrisy in concealing
+his pleasure, or any one of the thousand shifts by
+which gratified human nature expresses itself when all is
+made to run smooth with it. Now Mrs. Berry had her
+surprise ready charged for the young husband. She had
+Lucy in her own house waiting for him. Every day she
+expected him to call and be overcome by the rapturous
+surprise, and every day, knowing his habit of frequenting
+the park, she marched Lucy thither, under the plea that
+Master Richard, whom she had already christened, should
+have an airing.</p>
+
+<p>The round of the red winter sun was behind the bare
+Kensington chestnuts, when these two parties met. Happily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>
+for Lucy and the hope she bore in her bosom, she
+was perversely admiring a fair horsewoman galloping by
+at the moment. Mrs. Berry plucked at her gown once or
+twice, to prepare her eyes for the shock, but Lucy's head
+was still half averted, and thinks Mrs. Berry, "'Twon't
+hurt her if she go into his arms head foremost." They were
+close; Mrs. Berry performed the bob preliminary. Richard
+held her silent with a terrible face; he grasped her arm,
+and put her behind him. Other people intervened. Lucy
+saw nothing to account for Berry's excessive flutter.
+Berry threw it on the air and some breakfast bacon, which,
+she said, she knew in the morning while she ate it, was
+bad for the bile, and which probably was the cause of her
+bursting into tears, much to Lucy's astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"What you ate makes you cry, Mrs. Berry?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all&mdash;&mdash;" Mrs. Berry pressed at her heart and
+leaned sideways, "it's all stomach, my dear. Don't ye
+mind," and becoming aware of her unfashionable behaviour,
+she trailed off to the shelter of the elms.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a singular manner with old ladies," said Sir
+Austin to his son, after Berry had been swept aside.
+"Scarcely courteous. She behaved like a mad woman, certainly.&mdash;Are
+you ill, my son?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard was death-pale, his strong form smitten
+through with weakness. The baronet sought Adrian's
+eye. Adrian had seen Lucy as they passed, and he had a
+glimpse of Richard's countenance while disposing of
+Berry. Had Lucy recognized them, he would have gone to
+her unhesitatingly. As she did not, he thought it well,
+under the circumstances, to leave matters as they were.
+He answered the baronet's look with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ill, Richard?" Sir Austin again asked his son.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, sir! come on!" cried Richard.</p>
+
+<p>His father's further meditations, as they stepped briskly
+to the Foreys', gave poor Berry a character which one who
+lectures on matrimony, and has kissed but three men in
+her life, shrieks to hear the very title of.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard will go to his wife to-morrow," Sir Austin
+said to Adrian some time before they went in to dinner.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian asked him if he had chanced to see a young fair-haired
+lady by the side of the old one Richard had treated
+so peculiarly; and to the baronet's acknowledgment that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span>
+he remembered to have observed such a person, Adrian
+said: "That was his wife, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin could not dissect the living subject. As if a
+bullet had torn open the young man's skull, and some blast
+of battle laid his palpitating organization bare, he watched
+every motion of his brain and his heart; and with the
+grief and terror of one whose mental habit was ever to
+pierce to extremes. Not altogether conscious that he had
+hitherto played with life, he felt that he was suddenly
+plunged into the stormful reality of it. He projected to
+speak plainly to his son on all points that night.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard is very gay," Mrs. Doria whispered her
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"All will be right with him to-morrow," he replied; for
+the game had been in his hands so long, so long had he
+been the God of the machine, that having once resolved
+to speak plainly and to act, he was to a certain extent
+secure, bad as the thing to mend might be.</p>
+
+<p>"I notice he has rather a wild laugh&mdash;I don't exactly
+like his eyes," said Mrs. Doria.</p>
+
+<p>"You will see a change in him to-morrow," the man of
+science remarked.</p>
+
+<p>It was reserved for Mrs. Doria herself to experience that
+change. In the middle of the dinner a telegraphic message
+from her son-in-law, worthy John Todhunter, reached the
+house, stating that Clare was alarmingly ill, bidding her
+come instantly. She cast about for some one to accompany
+her, and fixed on Richard. Before he would give his
+consent for Richard to go, Sir Austin desired to speak
+with him apart, and in that interview he said to his son:
+"My dear Richard! it was my intention that we should
+come to an understanding together this night. But the
+time is short&mdash;poor Helen cannot spare many minutes.
+Let me then say that you deceived me, and that I forgive
+you. We fix our seal on the past. You will bring your
+wife to me when you return." And very cheerfully the
+baronet looked down on the generous future he thus
+founded.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you have her at Raynham at once, sir?" said
+Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my son, when you bring her."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mocking me, sir?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span>
+"Pray, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you to receive her at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Well! the delay cannot be long. I do not apprehend
+that you will be kept from your happiness many days."</p>
+
+<p>"I think it will be some time, sir!" said Richard, sighing
+deeply.</p>
+
+<p>"And what mental freak is this that can induce you to
+postpone it and play with your first duty?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is my first duty, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Since you are married, to be with your wife."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard that from an old woman called Berry!"
+said Richard to himself, not intending irony.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you receive her at once?" he asked resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was clouded by his son's reception of his
+graciousness. His grateful prospect had formerly been
+Richard's marriage&mdash;the culmination of his System.
+Richard had destroyed his participation in that. He now
+looked for a pretty scene in recompense:&mdash;Richard leading
+up his wife to him, and both being welcomed by him paternally,
+and so held one ostentatious minute in his embrace.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Before you return, I demur to receiving
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir," replied his son, and stood as if he had
+spoken all.</p>
+
+<p>"Really you tempt me to fancy you already regret your
+rash proceeding!" the baronet exclaimed; and the next
+moment it pained him he had uttered the words, Richard's
+eyes were so sorrowfully fierce. It pained him, but he
+divined in that look a history, and he could not refrain
+from glancing acutely and asking: "Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Regret it, sir?" The question aroused one of those
+struggles in the young man's breast which a passionate
+storm of tears may still, and which sink like leaden death
+into the soul when tears come not. Richard's eyes had the
+light of the desert.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you?" his father repeated. "You tempt me&mdash;I
+almost fear you do." At the thought&mdash;for he expressed
+his mind&mdash;the pity that he had for Richard was not pure
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask me what I think of her, sir! Ask me what she is!
+Ask me what it is to have taken one of God's precious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span>
+angels and chained her to misery! Ask me what it is to
+have plunged a sword into her heart, and to stand over
+her and see such a creature bleeding! Do I regret that?
+Why, yes, I do! Would you?"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes flew hard at his father under the ridge of his
+eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin winced and reddened. Did he understand?
+There is ever in the mind's eye a certain wilfulness. We
+see and understand; we see and won't understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me why you passed by her as you did this afternoon,"
+he said gravely: and in the same voice Richard
+answered: "I passed her because I could not do otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"Your wife, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! my wife!"</p>
+
+<p>"If she had seen you, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"God spared her that!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria, bustling in practical haste, and bearing
+Richard's hat and greatcoat in her energetic hands, came
+between them at this juncture. Dimples of commiseration
+were in her cheeks while she kissed her brother's perplexed
+forehead. She forgot her trouble about Clare, deploring
+his fatuity.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin was forced to let his son depart. As of old,
+he took counsel with Adrian, and the wise youth was
+soothing. "Somebody has kissed him, sir, and the chaste
+boy can't get over it." This absurd suggestion did more
+to appease the baronet than if Adrian had given a veritable
+reasonable key to Richard's conduct. It set him thinking
+that it might be a prudish strain in the young man's
+mind, due to the System in difficulties.</p>
+
+<p>"I may have been wrong in one thing," he said, with an
+air of the utmost doubt of it. "I, perhaps, was wrong in
+allowing him so much liberty during his probation."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian pointed out to him that he had distinctly commanded
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes; that is on me."</p>
+
+<p>His was an order of mind that would accept the most
+burdensome charges, and by some species of moral usury
+make a profit out of them.</p>
+
+<p>Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employment
+of the telegraph to John Todhunter's uxorious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span>
+distress at a toothache, or possibly the first symptoms of
+an heir to his house.</p>
+
+<p>"That child's mind has disease in it. She is not sound,"
+said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood
+Mrs. Berry. Her wish to speak a few words with the
+baronet reverentially communicated, she was ushered upstairs
+into his room.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was
+beckoned to occupy.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ma'am, you have something to say," observed the
+baronet, for she seemed loath to commence.</p>
+
+<p>"Wishin' I hadn't:" Mrs. Berry took him up, and mindful
+of the good rule to begin at the beginning, pursued:
+"I dare say, Sir Austin, you don't remember me, and I
+little thought when last we parted our meeting'd be like
+this. Twenty year don't go over one without showin' it,
+no more than twenty ox. It's a might o' time,&mdash;twenty
+year! Leastways not quite twenty, it ain't."</p>
+
+<p>"Round figures are best," Adrian remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up,
+and got himself married!" said Mrs. Berry, diving straight
+into the case.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the
+culprit who had assisted his son in that venture. It was
+a stretch of his patience to hear himself addressed on a
+family matter, but he was naturally courteous.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger! If
+twenty year alters us as have knowed each other on the
+earth, how must they alter they that we parted with just
+come from heaven! And a heavenly babe he were! se
+sweet! se strong! <i>so</i> fat!"</p>
+
+<p>Adrian laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry bumped a curtsey to him in her chair, continuing:
+"I wished afore I spoke to say how thankful am I
+bound to be for my pension not cut short, as have offended
+so, but that I know Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey,
+ain't one o' them that likes to hear their good deeds published.
+And a pension to me now, it's something more
+than it were. For a pension and pretty rosy cheeks in a
+maid, which I was&mdash;that's a bait many a man'll bite, that
+won't so a forsaken wife!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If you will speak to the point, ma'am, I will listen to
+you," the baronet interrupted her.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the beginnin' that's the worst, and that's over,
+thank the Lord! So I'll speak, Sir Austin, and say my
+say:&mdash;Lord speed me! Believin' our idees o' matrimony
+to be sim'lar, then, I'll say, once married&mdash;married for
+life! Yes! I don't even like widows. For I can't stop at
+the grave. Not at the tomb I can't stop. My husband's
+my husband, and if I'm a body at the Resurrection, I say
+speaking humbly, my Berry is the husband o' my body;
+and to think of two claimin' of me then&mdash;it makes me hot
+all over. Such is my notion of that state 'tween man and
+woman. No givin' in marriage, o' course I know, and if
+so I'm single."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet suppressed a smile. "Really, my good
+woman, you wander very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Beggin' pardon, Sir Austin; but I has my point before
+me all the same, and I'm comin' to it. Ac-knowledgin'
+our error, it's done, and bein' done, it's writ aloft. Oh!
+if you only knew what a sweet young creature she be!
+Indeed 'taint all of humble birth that's unworthy, Sir
+Austin. And she got her idees, too. She reads History!
+She talk that sensible as would surprise ye. But for all
+that she's a prey to the artful o' men&mdash;unpertected. And
+it's a young marriage&mdash;but there's no fear for her, as far
+as she go. The fear's t'other way. There's that in a man&mdash;at
+the commencement&mdash;which make of him Lord knows
+what, if you any way interferes: whereas a woman bides
+quiet! It's consolation catch her, which is what we mean
+by seducin'. Whereas a man&mdash;he's a savage!"</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin turned his face to Adrian, who was listening
+with huge delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ma'am, I see you have something in your mind,
+if you would only come to it quickly."</p>
+
+<p>"Then here's my point, Sir Austin. I say you bred him
+so as there ain't another young gentleman like him in
+England, and proud he make me. And as for her, I'll risk
+sayin'&mdash;it's done, and no harm&mdash;you might search England
+through, and nowhere will ye find a maid that's his
+match like his own wife. Then there they be. Are they
+together as should be? O Lord no! Months they been
+divided. Then she all lonely and exposed, I went, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span>
+fetched her out of seducers' ways&mdash;which they may say
+what they like, but the inn'cent is most open to when
+they're healthy and confidin'&mdash;I fetch her, and&mdash;the liberty&mdash;boxed
+her safe in my own house. So much for that
+sweet! That you may do with women. But it's him&mdash;Mr.
+Richard&mdash;I <i>am</i> bold, I know, but there&mdash;I'm in for
+it, and the Lord'll help me! It's him, Sir Austin, in this
+great metropolis, warm from a young marriage. It's him,
+and&mdash;I say nothin' of her, and how sweet she bears it, and
+it's eating her at a time when Natur' should have no other
+trouble but the one that's goin' on&mdash;it's him, and I ask&mdash;so
+bold&mdash;shall there&mdash;and a Christian gentleman his
+father&mdash;shall there be a tug 'tween him as a son and him
+as a husband&mdash;soon to be somethin' else? I speak bold
+out&mdash;I'd have sons obey their fathers, but the priest's
+words spoke over him, which they're now in my ears, I
+say I ain't a doubt on earth&mdash;I'm sure there ain't one in
+heaven&mdash;which dooty's the holier of the two."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin heard her to an end. Their views on the
+junction of the sexes were undoubtedly akin. To be lectured
+on his prime subject, however, was slightly disagreeable,
+and to be obliged mentally to assent to this old lady's
+doctrine was rather humiliating, when it could not be
+averred that he had latterly followed it out. He sat cross-legged
+and silent, a finger to his temple.</p>
+
+<p>"One gets so addle-pated thinkin' many things," said
+Mrs. Berry, simply. "That's why we see wonder clever
+people goin' wrong&mdash;to my mind. I think it's al'ays the
+plan in a dielemmer to pray God and walk forward."</p>
+
+<p>The keen-witted soft woman was tracking the baronet's
+thoughts, and she had absolutely run him down and taken
+an explanation out of his mouth, by which Mrs. Berry was
+to have been informed that he had acted from a principle
+of his own, and devolved a wisdom she could not be expected
+to comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>Of course he became advised immediately that it would
+be waste of time to direct such an explanation to her
+inferior capacity.</p>
+
+<p>He gave her his hand, saying, "My son has gone out of
+town to see his cousin, who is ill. He will return in two or
+three days, and then they will both come to me at Raynham."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry took the tips of his fingers, and went half-way
+to the floor perpendicularly. "He pass her like a
+stranger in the park this evenin'," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah?" said the baronet. "Yes, well! they will be at
+Raynham before the week is over."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry was not quite satisfied. "Not of his own
+accord he pass that sweet young wife of his like a stranger
+this day, Sir Austin!"</p>
+
+<p>"I must beg you not to intrude further, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry bobbed her bunch of a body out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"All's well as ends well," she said to herself. "It's bad
+inquirin' too close among men. We must take 'em somethin'
+like Providence&mdash;<i>as</i> they come. Thank heaven! I
+kep' back the baby."</p>
+
+<p>In Mrs. Berry's eyes the baby was the victorious reserve.</p>
+
+<p>Adrian asked his chief what he thought of that specimen
+of women.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I have not met a better in my life," said the
+baronet, mingling praise and sarcasm.</p><br />
+
+
+<p>Clare lies in her bed as placid as in the days when she
+breathed; her white hands stretched their length along the
+sheets, at peace from head to feet. She needs iron no
+more. Richard is face to face with death for the first
+time. He sees the sculpture of clay&mdash;the spark gone.</p>
+
+<p>Clare gave her mother the welcome of the dead. This
+child would have spoken nothing but kind commonplaces
+had she been alive. She was dead, and none knew her
+malady. On her fourth finger were two wedding-rings.</p>
+
+<p>When hours of weeping had silenced the mother's anguish,
+she, for some comfort she saw in it, pointed out
+that strange thing to Richard, speaking low in the chamber
+of the dead; and then he learnt that it was his own
+lost ring Clare wore in the two worlds. He learnt from
+her husband that Clare's last request had been that neither
+of the rings should be removed. She had written it; she
+would not speak it.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg of my husband, and all kind people who may have
+the care of me between this and the grave, to bury me with
+my hands untouched."</p>
+
+<p>The tracing of the words showed the bodily torment she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>
+was suffering, as she wrote them on a scrap of paper found
+beside her pillow.</p>
+
+<p>In wonder, as the dim idea grew from the waving of
+Clare's dead hand, Richard paced the house, and hung
+about the awful room; dreading to enter it, reluctant to
+quit it. The secret Clare had buried while she lived, arose
+with her death. He saw it play like flame across her
+marble features. The memory of her voice was like a
+knife at his nerves. His coldness to her started up accusingly:
+her meekness was bitter blame.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of the fourth day, her mother came to
+him in his bedroom, with a face so white that he asked
+himself if aught worse could happen to a mother than the
+loss of her child. Choking she said to him, "Read this,"
+and thrust a leather-bound pocket-book trembling in his
+hand. She would not breathe to him what it was. She
+entreated him not to open it before her.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," she said, "tell me what you think. John
+must not hear of it. I have nobody to consult but you&mdash;O
+Richard!"</p>
+
+<p>"<span class="smcap">My Diary</span>" was written in the round hand of Clare's
+childhood on the first page. The first name his eye encountered
+was his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard's fourteenth birthday. I have worked him a
+purse and put it under his pillow, because he is going to
+have plenty of money. He does not notice me now because
+he has a friend now, and he is ugly, but Richard is not,
+and never will be."</p>
+
+<p>The occurrences of that day were subsequently recorded,
+and a childish prayer to God for him set down. Step by
+step he saw her growing mind in his history. As she advanced
+in years she began to look back, and made much of
+little trivial remembrances, all bearing upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"We went into the fields and gathered cowslips together,
+and pelted each other, and I told him he used to call them
+'coals-sleeps' when he was a baby, and he was angry at
+my telling him, for he does not like to be told he was ever
+a baby."</p>
+
+<p>He remembered the incident, and remembered his stupid
+scorn of her meek affection. Little Clare! how she lived
+before him in her white dress and pink ribbons, and soft
+dark eyes! Upstairs she was lying dead. He read on:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Mama says there is no one in the world like Richard,
+and I am sure there is not, not in the whole world. He
+says he is going to be a great General and going to the
+wars. If he does I shall dress myself as a boy and go
+after him, and he will not know me till I am wounded.
+Oh I pray he will never, never be wounded. I wonder
+what I should feel if Richard was ever to die."</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs Clare was lying dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Blandish said there was a likeness between Richard
+and me. Richard said I hope I do not hang down my
+head as she does. He is angry with me because I do not
+look people in the face and speak out, but I know I am not
+looking after earthworms."</p>
+
+<p>Yes. He had told her that. A shiver seized him at the
+recollection.</p>
+
+<p>Then it came to a period when the words: "Richard
+kissed me," stood by themselves, and marked a day in her
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards it was solemnly discovered that Richard
+wrote poetry. He read one of his old forgotten compositions
+penned when he had that ambition.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Thy truth to me is truer<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than horse, or dog, or blade;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Thy vows to me are fewer<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Than ever maiden made.<br /></span>
+<br /></div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Thou steppest from thy splendour<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">To make my life a song:<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">My bosom shall be tender<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">As thine has risen strong."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>All the verses were transcribed. "It is he who is the
+humble knight," Clare explained at the close, "and his
+lady is a Queen. Any Queen would throw her crown
+away for him."</p>
+
+<p>It came to that period when Clare left Raynham with
+her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard was not sorry to lose me. He only loves boys
+and men. Something tells me I shall never see Raynham
+again. He was dressed in blue. He said Good-bye, Clare,
+and kissed me on the cheek. Richard never kisses me on
+the mouth. He did not know I went to his bed and kissed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span>
+him while he was asleep. He sleeps with one arm under
+his head, and the other out on the bed. I moved away a
+bit of his hair that was over his eyes. I wanted to cut it.
+I have one piece. I do not let anybody see I am unhappy,
+not even mama. She says I want iron. I am sure I do
+not. I like to write my name. Clare Doria Forey. Richard's
+is Richard Doria Feverel."</p>
+
+<p>His breast rose convulsively. Clare Doria Forey! He
+knew the music of that name. He had heard it somewhere.
+It sounded faint and mellow now behind the hills of
+death.</p>
+
+<p>He could not read for tears. It was midnight. The
+hour seemed to belong to her. The awful stillness and
+the darkness were Clare's. Clare's voice clear and cold
+from the grave possessed it.</p>
+
+<p>Painfully, with blinded eyes, he looked over the breathless
+pages. She spoke of his marriage, and her finding
+the ring.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it was his. I knew he was going to be married
+that morning. I saw him stand by the altar when they
+laughed at breakfast. His wife must be so beautiful!
+Richard's wife! Perhaps he will love me better now he
+is married. Mama says they must be separated. That is
+shameful. If I can help him I will. I pray so that he may
+be happy. I hope God hears poor sinners' prayers. I am
+very sinful. Nobody knows it as I do. They say I am
+good, but I know. When I look on the ground I am not
+looking after earthworms, as he said. Oh, do forgive me,
+God!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she spoke of her own marriage, and that it was her
+duty to obey her mother. A blank in the Diary ensued.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen Richard. Richard despises me," was the
+next entry.</p>
+
+<p>But now as he read his eyes were fixed, and the delicate
+feminine handwriting like a black thread drew on his soul
+to one terrible conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot live. Richard despises me. I cannot bear
+the touch of my fingers or the sight of my face. Oh! I
+understand him now. He should not have kissed me so
+that last time. I wished to die while his mouth was on
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>Further: "I have no escape. Richard said he would die<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span>
+rather than endure it. I know he would. Why should I
+be afraid to do what he would do? I think if my husband
+whipped me I could bear it better. He is so kind, and
+tries to make me cheerful. He will soon be very unhappy.
+I pray to God half the night. I seem to be losing sight
+of my God the more I pray."</p>
+
+<p>Richard laid the book open on the table. Phantom
+surges seemed to be mounting and travelling for his brain.
+Had Clare taken his wild words in earnest? Did she lie
+there dead&mdash;he shrouded the thought.</p>
+
+<p>He wrapped the thoughts in shrouds, but he was again
+reading.</p>
+
+<p>"A quarter to one o'clock. I shall not be alive this time
+to-morrow. I shall never see Richard now. I dreamed
+last night we were in the fields together, and he walked
+with his arm round my waist. We were children, but I
+thought we were married, and I showed him I wore his
+ring, and he said&mdash;if you always wear it, Clare, you are
+as good as my wife. Then I made a vow to wear it for
+ever and ever.... It is not mama's fault. She does
+not think as Richard and I do of these things. He is not
+a coward, nor am I. He hates cowards.</p>
+
+<p>"I have written to his father to make him happy. Perhaps
+when I am dead he will hear what I say.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard just now Richard call distinctly&mdash;Clari, come
+out to me. Surely he has not gone. I am going I know
+not where. I cannot think. I am very cold."</p>
+
+<p>The words were written larger, and staggered towards
+the close, as if her hand had lost mastery over the pen.</p>
+
+<p>"I can only remember Richard now a boy. A little boy
+and a big boy. I am not sure now of his voice. I can
+only remember certain words. 'Clari,' and 'Don Ricardo,'
+and his laugh. He used to be full of fun. Once we
+laughed all day together tumbling in the hay. Then he
+had a friend and began to write poetry, and be proud. If
+I had married a young man he would have forgiven me,
+but I should not have been happier. I must have died.
+God never looks on me.</p>
+
+<p>"It is past two o'clock. The sheep are bleating outside.
+It must be very cold in the ground. Good-bye, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>With his name it began and ended. Even to herself
+Clare was not over-communicative. The book was slender,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span>
+yet her nineteen years of existence left half the number
+of pages white.</p>
+
+<p>Those last words drew him irresistibly to gaze on her.
+There she lay, the same impassive Clare. For a moment
+he wondered she had not moved&mdash;to him she had become
+so different. She who had just filled his ears with strange
+tidings&mdash;it was not possible to think her dead! She
+seemed to have been speaking to him all through his life.
+His image was on that still heart.</p>
+
+<p>He dismissed the night-watchers from the room, and remained
+with her alone, till the sense of death oppressed
+him, and then the shock sent him to the window to look for
+sky and stars. Behind a low broad pine, hung with frosty
+mist, he heard a bell-wether of the flock in the silent fold.
+Death in life it sounded.</p>
+
+<p>The mother found him praying at the foot of Clare's
+bed. She knelt by his side, and they prayed, and their
+joint sobs shook their bodies, but neither of them shed
+many tears. They held a dark unspoken secret in common.
+They prayed God to forgive her.</p>
+
+<p>Clare was buried in the family vault of the Todhunters.
+Her mother breathed no wish to have her lying at Lobourne.</p>
+
+<p>After the funeral, what they alone upon earth knew
+brought them together.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard," she said, "the worst is over for me. I have
+no one to love but you, dear. We have all been fighting
+against God, and this.... Richard! you will come with
+me, and be united to your wife, and spare my brother what
+I suffer."</p>
+
+<p>He answered the broken spirit: "I have killed one. She
+sees me as I am. I cannot go with you to my wife, because
+I am not worthy to touch her hand, and were I to
+go, I should do <i>this</i> to silence my self-contempt. Go you
+to her, and when she asks of me, say I have a death upon
+my head that&mdash;&mdash;No! say that I am abroad, seeking for
+that which shall cleanse me. If I find it I shall come to
+claim her. If not, God help us all!"</p>
+
+<p>She had no strength to contest his solemn words, or stay
+him, and he went forth.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+
+<h3>AUSTIN RETURNS</h3>
+
+
+<p>A man with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in
+the full blaze of Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder.
+Adrian glanced leisurely behind.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to try my nerves, my dear fellow? I'm
+not a man of fashion, happily, or you would have struck
+the seat of them. How are you?"</p>
+
+<p>That was his welcome to Austin Wentworth after his
+long absence.</p>
+
+<p>Austin took his arm, and asked for news, with the
+hunger of one who had been in the wilderness five years.</p>
+
+<p>"The Whigs have given up the ghost, my dear Austin.
+The free Briton is to receive Liberty's pearl, the Ballot.
+The Aristocracy has had a cycle's notice to quit. The
+Monarchy and old Madeira are going out; Demos and
+Cape wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you
+see, your absence has worked wonders. Depart for another
+five years, and you will return to ruined stomachs, cracked
+sconces, general upset, an equality made perfect by universal
+prostration."</p>
+
+<p>Austin indulged him in a laugh. "I want to hear about
+ourselves. How is old Ricky?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know of his&mdash;what do they call it when greenhorns
+are licenced to jump into the milkpails of dairymaids?&mdash;a
+very charming little woman she makes, by the way&mdash;presentable!
+quite old Anacreon's rose in milk. Well! everybody
+thought the System must die of it. Not a bit. It
+continued to flourish in spite. It's in a consumption now,
+though&mdash;emaciated, lean, raw, spectral! I've this morning
+escaped from Raynham to avoid the sight of it. I have
+brought our genial uncle Hippias to town&mdash;a delightful
+companion! I said to him: 'We've had a fine Spring.'
+'Ugh!' he answers, 'there's a time when you come to think
+the Spring old.' You should have heard how he trained
+out the 'old.' I felt something like decay in my sap just to
+hear him. In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our
+uncle Hippias has been unfairly hit below the belt. Let's
+guard ourselves there, and go and order dinner."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But where's Ricky now, and what is he doing?" said
+Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask what he has done. The miraculous boy has gone
+and got a baby!"</p>
+
+<p>"A child? Richard has one?" Austin's clear eyes shone
+with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose it's not common among your tropical savages.
+He has one: one as big as two. That has been the
+death-blow to the System. It bore the marriage&mdash;the baby
+was too much for it. Could it swallow the baby, 'twould
+live. She, the wonderful woman, has produced a large
+boy. I assure you it's quite amusing to see the System
+opening its mouth every hour of the day, trying to gulp
+him down, aware that it would be a consummate cure, or
+happy release."</p>
+
+<p>By degrees Austin learnt the baronet's proceedings, and
+smiled sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"How has Ricky turned out?" he asked. "What sort
+of a character has he?"</p>
+
+<p>"The poor boy is ruined by his excessive anxiety about
+it. Character? he has the character of a bullet with a
+treble charge of powder behind it. Enthusiasm is the
+powder. That boy could get up an enthusiasm for the
+maiden days of Ops! He was going to reform the world,
+after your fashion, Austin,&mdash;you have something to
+answer for. Unfortunately he began with the feminine
+side of it. Cupid proud of Ph[oe]bus newly slain, or Pluto
+wishing to people his kingdom, if you like, put it into
+the soft head of one of the guileless grateful creatures to
+kiss him for his good work. Oh, horror! he never expected
+that. Conceive the System in the flesh, and you have
+our Richard. The consequence is, that this male Peri
+refuses to enter his Paradise, though the gates are open
+for him, the trumpets blow, and the fair unspotted one
+awaits him fruitful within. We heard of him last that
+he was trying the German waters&mdash;preparatory to his
+undertaking the release of Italy from the subjugation of
+the Teuton. Let's hope they'll wash him. He is in the
+company of Lady Judith Felle&mdash;your old friend, the
+ardent female Radical who married the decrepit lord to
+carry out her principles. They always marry English
+lords, or foreign princes. I admire their tactics."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but
+she was always too sentimental," said Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose? I
+like her <i>for</i> her sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people
+are sure to live long and die fat. Feeling, that's the
+slayer, coz. Sentiment! 'tis the cajolery of existence: the
+soft bloom which whoso weareth, he or she is enviable.
+Would that I had more!"</p>
+
+<p>"You're not much changed, Adrian."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a Radical, Austin."</p>
+
+<p>Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian's figurative
+speech, instructed Austin that the baronet was waiting for
+his son, in a posture of statuesque offended paternity,
+before he would receive his daughter-in-law and grandson.
+That was what Adrian meant by the efforts of the System
+to swallow the baby.</p>
+
+<p>"We're in a tangle," said the wise youth. "Time will
+extricate us, I presume, or what is the venerable signor
+good for?"</p>
+
+<p>Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy's place
+of residence.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll go to her by and by," said Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go and see her now," said Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll go and order the dinner first, coz."</p>
+
+<p>"Give me her address."</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a
+beard," Adrian objected. "Don't you care what you eat?"
+he roared hoarsely, looking humorously hurt. "I daresay
+not. A slice out of him that's handy&mdash;sauce du ciel! Go,
+batten on the baby, cannibal. Dinner at seven."</p>
+
+<p>Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy's, and
+strolled off to do the better thing.</p>
+
+<p>Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in
+her tea-cup. Posting him on her fingers and starting him
+with a smack, he had vaulted lightly and thereby indicated
+that he was positively coming the next day. She forgot
+him in the bustle of her duties and the absorption of her
+faculties in thoughts of the incomparable stranger Lucy
+had presented to the world, till a knock at the street-door
+reminded her. "There he is!" she cried, as she ran to
+open to him. "There's my stranger come!" Never was a
+woman's faith in omens so justified. The stranger desired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span>
+to see Mrs. Richard Feverel. He said his name was Mr.
+Austin Wentworth. Mrs. Berry clasped her hands, exclaiming,
+"Come at last!" and ran bolt out of the house to
+look up and down the street. Presently she returned with
+many excuses for her rudeness, saying: "I expected to see
+her comin' home, Mr. Wentworth. Every day twice a day
+she go out to give her blessed angel an airing. No leavin'
+the child with nursemaids for her! She <i>is</i> a mother! and
+good milk, too, thank the Lord! though her heart's so
+low."</p>
+
+<p>Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the history
+of the young couple, and her participation in it, and
+admired the beard. "Though I'd swear you don't wear it
+for ornament, now!" she said, having in the first impulse
+designed a stroke at man's vanity.</p>
+
+<p>Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication,
+and with dejected head and joined hands threw out dark
+hints about Richard.</p>
+
+<p>While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the
+case, Lucy came in, preceding the baby.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Austin Wentworth," he said, taking her hand.
+They read each other's faces, these two, and smiled kinship.</p>
+
+<p>"Your name is Lucy?"</p>
+
+<p>She affirmed it softly.</p>
+
+<p>"And mine is Austin, as you know."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy's charms to subdue
+him, and presented Richard's representative, who, seeing
+a new face, suffered himself to be contemplated before
+he commenced crying aloud and knocking at the doors of
+Nature for something that was due to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't he a lusty darlin'?" says Mrs. Berry. "Ain't
+he like his own father? There can't be no doubt about
+zoo, zoo pitty pet. Look at his fists. Ain't he got passion?
+Ain't he a splendid roarer? Oh!" and she went off
+rapturously into baby-language.</p>
+
+<p>A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for
+further proof, desiring Austin's confirmation as to their
+being dumplings.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid
+roarer out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"She might a done it here," said Mrs. Berry. "There's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>
+no prettier sight, I say. If her dear husband could but see
+that! He's off in his heroics&mdash;he want to be doin' all
+sort o' things: I say he'll never do anything grander than
+that baby. You should 'a seen her uncle over that baby&mdash;he
+came here, for I said, you <i>shall</i> see your own fam'ly,
+my dear, and so she thinks. He come, and he laughed
+over the baby in the joy of his heart, poor man! he cried,
+he did. You should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth&mdash;a
+friend o' Mr. Richard's, and a very modest-minded
+young gentleman&mdash;he worships her in his innocence.
+It's a sight to see him with that baby. My belief
+is he's unhappy 'cause he can't anyways be nurse-maid to
+him. O Mr. Wentworth! what <i>do</i> you think of her, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Austin's reply was as satisfactory as a man's poor speech
+could make it. He heard that Lady Feverel was in the
+house, and Mrs. Berry prepared the way for him to pay
+his respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry ran to Lucy, and
+the house buzzed with new life. The simple creatures felt
+in Austin's presence something good among them. "He
+don't speak much," said Mrs. Berry, "but I see by his eye
+he mean a deal. He ain't one o' yer long-word gentry,
+who's all gay deceivers, every one of 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. "I
+wonder what he thinks of me, Mrs. Berry? I could not
+speak to him. I loved him before I saw him. I knew
+what his face was like."</p>
+
+<p>"He looks proper even with a beard, and that's a trial
+for a virtuous man," said Mrs. Berry. "One sees straight
+<i>through</i> the hair with him. Think! he'll think what any
+<i>man</i>'d think&mdash;you a-suckin' spite o' all your sorrow, my
+sweet,&mdash;and my Berry talkin' of his Roman matrons!&mdash;here's
+a English wife'll match 'em all! that's what he
+thinks. And now that leetle dark under yer eye'll clear,
+my darlin', now he've come."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no
+more than the peace she had in being near Richard's best
+friend. When she sat down to tea it was with a sense that
+the little room that held her was her home perhaps for
+many a day.</p>
+
+<p>A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed
+Austin's dinner. During the meal he entertained them
+with anecdotes of his travels. Poor Lucy had no temptation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span>
+to try to conquer Austin. That heroic weakness
+of hers was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry had said: "Three cups&mdash;I goes no further,"
+and Lucy had rejected the proffer of more tea, when
+Austin, who was in the thick of a Brazilian forest, asked
+her if she was a good traveller.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, can you start at a minute's notice?"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy hesitated, and then said, "Yes," decisively, to
+which Mrs. Berry added, that she was not a "luggage-woman."</p>
+
+<p>"There used to be a train at seven o'clock," Austin
+remarked, consulting his watch.</p>
+
+<p>The two women were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham
+in ten minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's lips parted to speak. She could not answer.</p>
+
+<p>Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry's dropping
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Joy and deliverance!" she exclaimed with a foundering
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come?" Austin kindly asked again.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered,
+"Yes." Mrs. Berry cunningly pretended to interpret the
+irresolution in her tones with a mighty whisper: "She's
+thinking what's to be done with baby."</p>
+
+<p>"He must learn to travel," said Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Mrs. Berry, "and I'll be his nuss, and bear
+him, a sweet! Oh! and think of it! me nurse-maid once
+more at Raynham Abbey! but it's nurse-woman now, you
+must say. Let us be goin' on the spot."</p>
+
+<p>She started up and away in hot haste, fearing delay
+would cool the heaven-sent resolve. Austin smiled, eying
+his watch and Lucy alternately. She was wishing to ask
+a multitude of questions. His face reassured her, and
+saying: "I will be dressed instantly," she also left the
+room. Talking, bustling, preparing, wrapping up my
+lord, and looking to their neatnesses, they were nevertheless
+ready within the time prescribed by Austin, and
+Mrs. Berry stood humming over the baby. "He'll sleep
+it through," she said. "He's had enough for an alderman,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span>
+and goes to sleep sound after his dinner, he do, a
+duck!" Before they departed, Lucy ran up to Lady
+Feverel. She returned for the small one.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, Mr. Wentworth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just two," said Austin.</p>
+
+<p>Master Richard was taken up, and when Lucy came
+back her eyes were full of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks she is never to see him again, Mr. Wentworth."</p>
+
+<p>"She shall," Austin said simply.</p>
+
+<p>Off they went, and with Austin near her, Lucy forgot
+to dwell at all upon the great act of courage she was
+performing.</p>
+
+<p>"I do hope baby will not wake," was her chief solicitude.</p>
+
+<p>"He!" cries nurse-woman Berry from the rear, "his little
+tum-tum's <i>as</i> tight <i>as</i> he can hold, a pet! a lamb! a bird!
+a beauty! and ye may take yer oath he never wakes till
+that's slack. He've got character of his own, a blessed!"</p>
+
+<p>There are some tremendous citadels that only want to be
+taken by storm. The baronet sat alone in his library, sick
+of resistance, and rejoicing in the pride of no surrender;
+a terror to his friends and to himself. Hearing Austin's
+name sonorously pronounced by the man of calves, he
+looked up from his book, and held out his hand. "Glad
+to see you, Austin." His appearance betokened complete
+security. The next minute he found himself escaladed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a cry from Mrs. Berry that told him others were
+in the room besides Austin. Lucy stood a little behind
+the lamp; Mrs. Berry close to the door. The door was
+half open, and passing through it might be seen the petrified
+figure of a fine man. The baronet glancing over the
+lamp rose at Mrs. Berry's signification of a woman's personality.
+Austin stepped back and led Lucy to him by
+the hand. "I have brought Richard's wife, sir," he said
+with a pleased, perfectly uncalculating, countenance, that
+was disarming. Very pale and trembling Lucy bowed.
+She felt her two hands taken, and heard a kind voice.
+Could it be possible it belonged to the dreadful father
+of her husband? She lifted her eyes nervously: her hands
+were still detained. The baronet contemplated Richard's
+choice. Had he ever had a rivalry with those pure eyes?
+He saw the pain of her position shooting across her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span>
+brows, and, uttering gentle inquiries as to her health,
+placed her in a seat. Mrs. Berry had already fallen into
+a chair.</p>
+
+<p>"What aspect do you like for your bedroom?&mdash;East?"
+said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was asking herself wonderingly: "Am I to stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you had better take to Richard's room at
+once," he pursued. "You have the Lobourne valley there
+and a good morning air, and will feel more at home."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy's colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough,
+as one who should say, "The day is ours!" Undoubtedly&mdash;strange
+as it was to think it&mdash;the fortress was carried.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy is rather tired," said Austin, and to hear her
+Christian name thus bravely spoken brought grateful
+dew to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet was about to touch the bell. "But have
+you come alone?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately:
+it seemed to require effort for her to move, and when she
+was within the region of the lamp, her agitation could not
+escape notice. The blissful bundle shook in her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, what is he to me?" Austin inquired
+generally as he went and unveiled the younger hope of
+Raynham. "My relationship is not so defined as yours,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>An observer might have supposed that the baronet
+peeped at his grandson with the courteous indifference
+of one who merely wished to compliment the mother of
+anybody's child.</p>
+
+<p>"I really think he's like Richard," Austin laughed.
+Lucy looked: I am sure he is!</p>
+
+<p>"As like as one to one," Mrs. Berry murmured feebly;
+but Grandpapa not speaking she thought it incumbent
+on her to pluck up. "And he's as healthy as his father
+was, Sir Austin&mdash;spite o' the might 'a beens. Reg'lar
+as the clock! We never want a clock since he come.
+We knows the hour o' the day, and <i>of</i> the night."</p>
+
+<p>"You nurse him yourself, of course?" the baronet spoke
+to Lucy, and was satisfied on that point.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry was going to display his prodigious legs.
+Lucy, fearing the consequent effect on the prodigious
+lungs, begged her not to wake him. "'T'd take a deal to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span>
+do that," said Mrs. Berry, and harped on Master Richard's
+health and the small wonder it was that he enjoyed it,
+considering the superior quality of his diet, and the lavish
+attentions of his mother, and then suddenly fell silent on
+a deep sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"He looks healthy," said the baronet, "but I am not a
+judge of babies."</p>
+
+<p>Thus, having capitulated, Raynham chose to acknowledge
+its new commandant, who was now borne away, under
+the directions of the housekeeper, to occupy the room
+Richard had slept in when an infant.</p>
+
+<p>Austin cast no thought on his success. The baronet
+said: "She is extremely well-looking." He replied: "A
+person you take to at once." There it ended.</p>
+
+<p>But a much more animated colloquy was taking place
+aloft, where Lucy and Mrs. Berry sat alone. Lucy expected
+her to talk about the reception they had met with,
+and the house, and the peculiarities of the rooms, and
+the solid happiness that seemed in store. Mrs. Berry all
+the while would persist in consulting the looking-glass.
+Her first distinct answer was, "My dear! tell me candid,
+how do I look?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very nice indeed, Mrs. Berry; but could you have believed
+he would be so kind, so considerate?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure I looked a frump," returned Mrs. Berry.
+"Oh dear! two birds at a shot. What <i>do</i> you think, now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw so wonderful a likeness," says Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Likeness! look at me." Mrs. Berry was trembling and
+hot in the palms.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very feverish, dear Berry. What can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't it like the love-flutters of a young gal, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to bed, Berry, dear," says Lucy, pouting in her soft
+caressing way. "I will undress you, and see to you, dear
+heart! You've had so much excitement."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" Berry laughed hysterically; "she thinks it's
+about this business of hers. Why, it's child's-play, my
+darlin'. But I didn't look for tragedy, to-night. Sleep in
+this house I can't, my love!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy was astonished. "Not sleep here, Mrs. Berry?&mdash;Oh!
+why, you silly old thing? I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do ye!" said Mrs. Berry, with a sceptical nose.</p>
+
+<p>"You're afraid of ghosts."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Belike I am when they're six foot two in their shoes,
+and bellows when you stick a pin into their calves. I
+seen my Berry!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your husband?"</p>
+
+<p>"Large as life!"</p>
+
+<p>Lucy meditated on optical delusions, but Mrs. Berry
+described him as the Colossus who had marched them
+into the library, and vowed that he had recognized her and
+quaked. "Time ain't aged him," said Mrs. Berry, "whereas
+me! he've got his excuse now. I <i>know</i> I look a frump."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy kissed her: "You look the nicest, dearest old
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"You may say an old thing, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"And your husband is really here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Berry's below!"</p>
+
+<p>Profoundly uttered as this was, it chased every vestige
+of incredulity.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you do, Mrs. Berry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go, my dear. Leave him to be happy in his own way.
+It's over atween us, I see that. When I entered the house
+I felt there was something comin' over me, and lo and
+behold ye! no sooner was we in the hall-passage&mdash;if it
+hadn't been for that blessed infant I should 'a dropped.
+I must 'a known his step, for my heart began thumpin',
+and I knew I hadn't got my hair straight&mdash;that Mr.
+Wentworth was in such a hurry&mdash;nor my best gown. I
+knew he'd scorn me. He hates frumps."</p>
+
+<p>"Scorn you!" cried Lucy, angrily. "He who has behaved
+so wickedly!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry attempted to rise. "I may as well go at
+once," she whimpered. "If I see him I shall only be disgracin'
+of myself. I feel it all on my side already. Did
+ye mark him, my dear? I know I was vexin' to him at
+times, I was. Those big men are se touchy about their
+dignity&mdash;nat'ral. Hark at me! I'm goin' all soft in a
+minute. Let me leave the house, my dear. I daresay
+it was good half my fault. Young women don't understand
+men sufficient&mdash;not altogether&mdash;and I was a young
+woman then; and then what they goes and does they
+ain't quite answerable for: they feel, I daresay, pushed
+from behind. Yes. I'll go. I'm a frump. I'll go.
+'Tain't in natur' for me to sleep in the same house."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry's shoulders, and
+forcibly fixed her in her seat. "Leave baby, naughty
+woman? I tell you he shall come to you, and fall on
+his knees to you and beg your forgiveness."</p>
+
+<p>"Berry on his knees!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him."</p>
+
+<p>"If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away
+words, great'll be my wonder!" said Mrs. Berry.</p>
+
+<p>"We will see," said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do
+something for the good creature that had befriended her.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry examined her gown. "Won't it seem we're
+runnin' after him?" she murmured faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting
+to come to you now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Where is all I was goin' to say to that man when
+we met!" Mrs. Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room.</p>
+
+<p>On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed
+in black, who stopped her and asked if she was Richard's
+wife, and kissed her, passing from her immediately. Lucy
+despatched a message for Austin, and related the Berry
+history. Austin sent for the great man, and said: "Do
+you know your wife is here?" Before Berry had time to
+draw himself up to enunciate his longest, he was requested
+to step upstairs, and as his young mistress at once
+led the way, Berry could not refuse to put his legs in
+motion and carry the stately edifice aloft.</p>
+
+<p>Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch
+that night. "He began in the old way, my dear, and says
+I, a true heart and plain words, Martin Berry. So there
+he cuts himself and his Johnson short, and down he goes&mdash;down
+<i>on</i> his knees. I never could 'a believed it. I
+kep my dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but
+that done for me. I was a ripe apple in his arms 'fore
+I knew where I was. There's something about a fine
+man on his knees that's too much for us women. And
+it reely was the penitent on his two knees, not the lover
+on his one. If he mean it! But ah! what do you
+think he begs of me, my dear?&mdash;not to make it known
+in the house just yet! I can't, I can't say that look well."</p>
+
+<p>Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct,
+and Mrs. Berry did her best to look on it in that light.</p>
+
+<p>"Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him good-night?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span>
+she asked. Lucy said he had not. "Then bide
+awake as long as ye can," was Mrs. Berry's rejoinder.
+"And now let us pray blessings on that simple-speaking
+gentleman who does so much 'cause he says so little."</p>
+
+<p>Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only
+silly where her own soft heart was concerned. As she
+secretly anticipated, the baronet came into her room when
+all was quiet. She saw him go and bend over Richard
+the Second, and remain earnestly watching him. He
+then went to the half-opened door of the room where
+Lucy slept, leaned his ear a moment, knocked gently,
+and entered. Mrs. Berry heard low words interchanging
+within. She could not catch a syllable, yet she would
+have sworn to the context. "He've called her his daughter,
+promised her happiness, and given a father's kiss to
+her." When Sir Austin passed out she was in a deep
+sleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XLII</h2>
+
+<h3>NATURE SPEAKS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Briareus reddening angrily over the sea&mdash;what is that
+vaporous Titan? And Hesper set in his rosy garland&mdash;why
+looks he so implacably sweet? It is that one has
+left that bright home to go forth and do cloudy work,
+and he has got a stain with which he dare not return.
+Far in the West fair Lucy beckons him to come. Ah,
+heaven! if he might! How strong and fierce the temptation
+is! how subtle the sleepless desire! it drugs his
+reason, his honour. For he loves her; she is still the
+first and only woman to him. Otherwise would this black
+spot be hell to him? otherwise would his limbs be chained
+while her arms are spread open to him. And if he
+loves her, why then what is one fall in the pit, or a
+thousand? Is not love the password to that beckoning
+bliss? So may we say; but here is one whose body has
+been made a temple to him, and it is desecrated.</p>
+
+<p>A temple, and desecrated! For what is it fit for but
+for a dance of devils? His education has thus wrought
+him to think.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He can blame nothing but his own baseness. But to
+feel base and accept the bliss that beckons&mdash;he has not
+fallen so low as that.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, happy English home! sweet wife! what mad miserable
+Wisp of the Fancy led him away from you, high in
+his conceit? Poor wretch! that thought to be he of the
+hundred hands, and war against the absolute Gods. Jove
+whispered a light commission to the Laughing Dame; she
+met him; and how did he shake Olympus? with laughter?</p>
+
+<p>Sure it were better to be Orestes, the Furies howling
+in his ears, than one called to by a heavenly soul from
+whom he is for ever outcast. He has not the oblivion
+of madness. Clothed in the lights of his first passion,
+robed in the splendour of old skies, she meets him
+everywhere; morning, evening, night, she shines above
+him; waylays him suddenly in forest depths; drops palpably
+on his heart. At moments he forgets; he rushes to
+embrace her; calls her his beloved, and lo, her innocent
+kiss brings agony of shame to his face.</p>
+
+<p>Daily the struggle endured. His father wrote to him,
+begging him by the love he had for him to return. From
+that hour Richard burnt unread all the letters he received.
+He knew too well how easily he could persuade himself:
+words from without might tempt him and quite extinguish
+the spark of honourable feeling that tortured him, and
+that he clung to in desperate self-vindication.</p>
+
+<p>To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is
+both a dangerous and thankless office. It is, nevertheless,
+one that fair women greatly prize, and certain of them
+professionally follow. Lady Judith, as far as her sex
+would permit, was also of the Titans in their battle
+against the absolute Gods; for which purpose, mark you,
+she had married a lord incapable in all save his acres.
+Her achievements she kept to her own mind: she did
+not look happy over them. She met Richard accidentally
+in Paris; she saw his state; she let him learn that she
+alone on earth understood him. The consequence was
+that he was forthwith enrolled in her train. It soothed
+him to be near a woman. Did she venture her guess
+as to the cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a
+facility women have, and cast on it a melancholy hue
+he was taught to participate in. She spoke of sorrows,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>
+personal sorrows, such as he might speak of his&mdash;vaguely,
+and with self-blame. And she understood him. How
+the dark unfathomed wealth within us gleams to a
+woman's eye! We are at compound interest immediately:
+so much richer than we knew!&mdash;almost as rich as
+we dreamed! But then the instant we are away from
+her we find ourselves bankrupt, beggared. How is that?
+We do not ask. We hurry to her and bask hungrily in
+her orbs. The eye must be feminine to be thus creative:
+I cannot say why. Lady Judith understood Richard,
+and he feeling infinitely vile, somehow held to her more
+feverishly, as one who dreaded the worst in missing her.
+The spirit must rest; he was weak with what he suffered.</p>
+
+<p>Austin found them among the hills of Nassau in Rhineland:
+Titans, male and female, who had not displaced
+Jove, and were now adrift, prone on floods of sentiment.
+The blue-frocked peasant swinging behind his oxen of a
+morning, the gaily-kerchiefed fruit-woman, the jackass-driver,
+even the doctor of those regions, have done more
+for their fellows. Horrible reflection! Lady Judith is
+serene above it, but it frets at Richard when he is out
+of her shadow. Often wretchedly he watches the young
+men of his own age trooping to their work. Not cloud-work
+theirs! Work solid, unambitious, fruitful!</p>
+
+<p>Lady Judith had a nobler in prospect for the hero. He
+gaped blindfolded for anything, and she gave him the
+map of Europe in tatters. He swallowed it comfortably.
+It was an intoxicating cordial. Himself on horseback
+over-riding wrecks of Empires! Well might common
+sense cower with the meaner animals at the picture.
+Tacitly they agreed to recast the civilized globe. The
+quality of vapour is to melt and shape itself anew; but
+it is never the quality of vapour to reassume the same
+shapes. Briareus of the hundred unoccupied hands may
+turn to a monstrous donkey with his hind legs aloft,
+or twenty thousand jabbering apes. The phantasmic
+groupings of the young brain are very like those we see
+in the skies, and equally the sport of the wind. Lady
+Judith blew. There was plenty of vapour in him, and
+it always resolved into some shape or other. You that
+mark those clouds of eventide, and know youth, will see
+the similitude: it will not be strange, it will barely seem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span>
+foolish to you, that a young man of Richard's age, Richard's
+education and position, should be in this wild state.
+Had he not been nursed to believe he was born for
+great things? Did she not say she was sure of it? And
+to feel base, yet born for better, is enough to make one
+grasp at anything cloudy. Suppose the hero with a game
+leg. How intense is his faith in quacks! with what a
+passion of longing is he not seized to break somebody's
+head! They spoke of Italy in low voices. "The time
+will come," said she. "And I shall be ready," said he.
+What rank was he to take in the liberating army? Captain,
+colonel, general in chief, or simple private? Here,
+as became him, he was much more positive and specific
+than she was. Simple private, he said. Yet he saw himself
+caracoling on horseback. Private in the cavalry, then,
+of course. Private in the cavalry over-riding wrecks of
+Empires. She looked forth under her brows with mournful
+indistinctness at that object in the distance. They
+read Petrarch to get up the necessary fires. Italia mia!
+Vain indeed was this speaking to those thick and mortal
+wounds in her fair body, but their sighs went with the
+Tiber, and Arno, and the Po, and their hands joined.
+Who has not wept for Italy? I see the aspirations of
+a world arise for her, thick and frequent as the puffs
+of smoke from cigars of Pannonian sentries!</p>
+
+<p>So when Austin came Richard said he could not leave
+Lady Judith, Lady Judith said she could not part with
+him. For his sake, mind! This Richard verified. Perhaps
+he had reason to be grateful. The high road of
+Folly may have led him from one that terminates worse.
+He is foolish, God knows; but for my part I will not
+laugh at the hero because he has not got his occasion.
+Meet him when he is, as it were, anointed by his occasion,
+and he is no laughing matter.</p>
+
+<p>Richard felt his safety in this which, to please the
+world, we must term folly. Exhalation of vapours was
+a wholesome process to him, and somebody who gave them
+shape and hue a beneficent Iris. He told Austin plainly
+he could not leave her, and did not anticipate the day
+when he could.</p>
+
+<p>"Why can't you go to your wife, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"For a reason you would be the first to approve, Austin."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He welcomed Austin with every show of manly tenderness,
+and sadness at heart. Austin he had always associated
+with his Lucy in that Hesperian palace of the
+West. Austin waited patiently. Lady Judith's old lord
+played on all the baths in Nassau without evoking the
+tune of health. Whithersoever he listed she changed her
+abode. So admirable a wife was to be pardoned for
+espousing an old man. She was an enthusiast even in
+her connubial duties. She had the brows of an enthusiast.
+With occasion she might have been a Charlotte Corday.
+So let her also be shielded from the ban of ridicule. Nonsense
+of enthusiasts is very different from nonsense of
+ninnies. She was truly a high-minded person, of that
+order who always do what they see to be right, and always
+have confidence in their optics. She was not unworthy
+of a young man's admiration, if she was unfit
+to be his guide. She resumed her ancient intimacy with
+Austin easily, while she preserved her new footing with
+Richard. She and Austin were not unlike, only Austin
+never dreamed, and had not married an old lord.</p>
+
+<p>The three were walking on the bridge at Limburg on
+the Lahn, where the shadow of a stone bishop is thrown
+by the moonlight on the water brawling over slabs of
+slate. A woman passed them bearing in her arms a baby,
+whose mighty size drew their attention.</p>
+
+<p>"What a wopper!" Richard laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is a fine fellow," said Austin, "but I don't
+think he's much bigger than your boy."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll do for a nineteenth-century Arminius," Richard
+was saying. Then he looked at Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"What was that you said?" Lady Judith asked of
+Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"What have I said that deserves to be repeated?" Austin
+counterqueried quite innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard has a son?"</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't know it?"</p>
+
+<p>"His modesty goes very far," said Lady Judith, sweeping
+the shadow of a curtsey to Richard's paternity.</p>
+
+<p>Richard's heart throbbed with violence. He looked
+again in Austin's face. Austin took it so much as a
+matter of course that he said nothing more on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" murmured Lady Judith.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the two men were alone, Richard said in a quick
+voice: "Austin! you were in earnest?"</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't know it, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, they all wrote to you. Lucy wrote to you: your
+father, your aunt. I believe Adrian wrote too."</p>
+
+<p>"I tore up their letters," said Richard.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a noble fellow, I can tell you. You've nothing
+to be ashamed of. He'll soon be coming to ask about you.
+I made sure you knew."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I never knew." Richard walked away, and then
+said: "What is he like?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he really is like you, but he has his mother's
+eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"And she's&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I think the child has kept her well."</p>
+
+<p>"They're both at Raynham?"</p>
+
+<p>"Both."</p>
+
+<p>Hence fantastic vapours! What are ye to this! Where
+are the dreams of the hero when he learns he has a child?
+Nature is taking him to her bosom. She will speak presently.
+Every domesticated boor in these hills can boast
+the same, yet marvels the hero at none of his visioned
+prodigies as he does when he comes to hear of this most
+common performance. A father? Richard fixed his eyes
+as if he were trying to make out the lineaments of his
+child.</p>
+
+<p>Telling Austin he would be back in a few minutes, he
+sallied into the air, and walked on and on. "A father!"
+he kept repeating to himself: "a child!" And though he
+knew it not, he was striking the key-notes of Nature. But
+he did know of a singular harmony that suddenly burst
+over his whole being.</p>
+
+<p>The moon was surpassingly bright: the summer air
+heavy and still. He left the high road and pierced into
+the forest. His walk was rapid: the leaves on the trees
+brushed his cheeks; the dead leaves heaped in the dells
+noised to his feet. Something of a religious joy&mdash;a
+strange sacred pleasure&mdash;was in him. By degrees it wore;
+he remembered himself: and now he was possessed by
+a proportionate anguish. A father! he dared never see
+his child. And he had no longer his phantasies to fall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span>
+upon. He was utterly bare to his sin. In his troubled
+mind it seemed to him that Clare looked down on him&mdash;Clare
+who saw him as he was; and that to her eyes it
+would be infamy for him to go and print his kiss upon
+his child. Then came stern efforts to command his misery
+and make the nerves of his face iron.</p>
+
+<p>By the log of an ancient tree half buried in dead leaves
+of past summers, beside a brook, he halted as one who
+had reached his journey's end. There he discovered he
+had a companion in Lady Judith's little dog. He gave
+the friendly animal a pat of recognition and both were
+silent in the forest-silence.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for Richard to return; his heart was
+surcharged. He must advance, and on he footed, the
+little dog following.</p>
+
+<p>An oppressive slumber hung about the forest-branches.
+In the dells and on the heights was the same dead heat.
+Here where the brook tinkled it was no cool-lipped sound,
+but metallic, and without the spirit of water. Yonder in
+a space of moonlight on lush grass, the beams were as
+white fire to sight and feeling. No haze spread around.
+The valleys were clear, defined to the shadows of their
+verges; the distances sharply distinct, and with the
+colours of day but slightly softened. Richard beheld a
+roe moving across a slope of sward far out of rifle-mark.
+The breathless silence was significant, yet the moon shone
+in a broad blue heaven. Tongue out of mouth trotted the
+little dog after him; couched panting when he stopped
+an instant; rose weariedly when he started afresh. Now
+and then a large white night-moth flitted through the
+dusk of the forest.</p>
+
+<p>On a barren corner of the wooded highland looking inland
+stood grey topless ruins set in nettles and rank
+grass-blades. Richard mechanically sat down on the
+crumbling flints to rest, and listened to the panting of
+the dog. Sprinkled at his feet were emerald lights:
+hundreds of glow-worms studded the dark dry ground.</p>
+
+<p>He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies
+were expended in action. He sat as a part of the ruins,
+and the moon turned his shadow Westward from the
+South. Overhead, as she declined, long ripples of silver
+cloud were imperceptibly stealing toward her. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span>
+the van of a tempest. He did not observe them or the
+leaves beginning to chatter. When he again pursued his
+course with his face to the Rhine, a huge mountain
+appeared to rise sheer over him, and he had it in his
+mind to scale it. He got no nearer to the base of it
+for all his vigorous outstepping. The ground began to
+dip; he lost sight of the sky. Then heavy thunder-drops
+struck his cheek, the leaves were singing, the earth
+breathed, it was black before him and behind. All at once
+the thunder spoke. The mountain he had marked was
+bursting over him.</p>
+
+<p>Up started the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the
+country at the foot of the hills to the bounding Rhine
+gleam, quiver, extinguished. Then there were pauses;
+and the lightning seemed as the eye of heaven, and the
+thunder as the tongue of heaven, each alternately addressing
+him; filling him with awful rapture. Alone there&mdash;sole
+human creature among the grandeurs and mysteries
+of storm&mdash;he felt the representative of his kind, and his
+spirits rose, and marched, and exulted, let it be glory,
+let it be ruin! Lower down the lightened abysses of air
+rolled the wrathful crash: then white thrusts of light
+were darted from the sky, and great curving ferns, seen
+steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally agitated,
+and vanished. Then a shrill song roused in the leaves
+and the herbage. Prolonged and louder it sounded, as
+deeper and heavier the deluge pressed. A mighty force
+of water satisfied the desire of the earth. Even in this,
+drenched as he was by the first outpouring, Richard had
+a savage pleasure. Keeping in motion, he was scarcely
+conscious of the wet, and the grateful breath of the weeds
+was refreshing. Suddenly he stopped short, lifting a
+curious nostril. He fancied he smelt meadow-sweet. He
+had never seen the flower in Rhineland&mdash;never thought
+of it; and it would hardly be met with in a forest. He
+was sure he smelt it fresh in dews. His little companion
+wagged a miserable wet tail some way in advance. He
+went on slowly, thinking indistinctly. After two or three
+steps he stooped and stretched out his hand to feel for
+the flower, having, he knew not why, a strong wish to
+verify its growth there. Groping about, his hand encountered
+something warm that started at his touch, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span>
+he, with the instinct we have, seized it, and lifted it to
+look at it. The creature was very small, evidently quite
+young. Richard's eyes, now accustomed to the darkness,
+were able to discern it for what it was, a tiny leveret,
+and he supposed that the dog had probably frightened
+its dam just before he found it. He put the little thing
+on one hand in his breast, and stepped out rapidly as
+before.</p>
+
+<p>The rain was now steady; from every tree a fountain
+poured. So cool and easy had his mind become that
+he was speculating on what kind of shelter the birds
+could find, and how the butterflies and moths saved their
+coloured wings from washing. Folded close they might
+hang under a leaf, he thought. Lovingly he looked into
+the dripping darkness of the coverts on each side, as
+one of their children. He was next musing on a strange
+sensation he experienced. It ran up one arm with an
+indescribable thrill, but communicated nothing to his
+heart. It was purely physical, ceased for a time, and
+recommenced, till he had it all through his blood, wonderfully
+thrilling. He grew aware that the little thing he
+carried in his breast was licking his hand there. The
+small rough tongue going over and over the palm of
+his hand produced the strange sensation he felt. Now
+that he knew the cause, the marvel ended; but now that
+he knew the cause, his heart was touched and made
+more of it. The gentle scraping continued without intermission
+as on he walked. What did it say to him?
+Human tongue could not have said so much just then.</p>
+
+<p>A pale grey light on the skirts of the flying tempest displayed
+the dawn. Richard was walking hurriedly. The
+green drenched weeds lay all about in his path, bent
+thick, and the forest drooped glimmeringly. Impelled
+as a man who feels a revelation mounting obscurely to
+his brain, Richard was passing one of these little forest-chapels,
+hung with votive wreaths, where the peasant
+halts to kneel and pray. Cold, still, in the twilight it
+stood, rain-drops pattering round it. He looked within,
+and saw the Virgin holding her Child. He moved by.
+But not many steps had he gone ere his strength went
+out of him, and he shuddered. What was it? He asked
+not. He was in other hands. Vivid as lightning the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>
+Spirit of Life illumined him. He felt in his heart the
+cry of his child, his darling's touch. With shut eyes he
+saw them both. They drew him from the depths; they
+led him a blind and tottering man. And as they led him
+he had a sense of purification so sweet he shuddered
+again and again.</p>
+
+<p>When he looked out from his trance on the breathing
+world, the small birds hopped and chirped: warm fresh
+sunlight was over all the hills. He was on the edge of
+the forest, entering a plain clothed with ripe corn under
+a spacious morning sky.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XLIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT</h3>
+
+
+<p>They heard at Raynham that Richard was coming.
+Lucy had the news first in a letter from Ripton Thompson,
+who met him at Bonn. Ripton did not say that he
+had employed his vacation holiday on purpose to use his
+efforts to induce his dear friend to return to his wife;
+and finding Richard already on his way, of course Ripton
+said nothing to him, but affected to be travelling
+for his pleasure like any cockney. Richard also wrote
+to her. In case she should have gone to the sea he
+directed her to send word to his hotel that he might
+not lose an hour. His letter was sedate in tone, very
+sweet to her. Assisted by the faithful female Berry, she
+was conquering an Aphorist.</p>
+
+<p>"Woman's reason is in the milk of her breasts," was one
+of his rough notes, due to an observation of Lucy's
+maternal cares. Let us remember, therefore, we men
+who have drunk of it largely there, that she has it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry zealously apprised him how early Master
+Richard's education had commenced, and the great future
+historian he must consequently be. This trait in Lucy
+was of itself sufficient to win Sir Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"Here my plan with Richard was false," he reflected:
+"in presuming that anything save blind fortuity would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span>
+bring him such a mate as he should have." He came to
+add: "And has got!"</p>
+
+<p>He could admit now that instinct had so far beaten
+science; for as Richard was coming, as all were to be
+happy, his wisdom embraced them all paternally as the
+author of their happiness. Between him and Lucy a
+tender intimacy grew.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you she could talk, sir," said Adrian.</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks!" said the baronet.</p>
+
+<p>The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle,
+he settled generously. Farmer Blaize should come up to
+Raynham when he would: Lucy must visit him at least
+three times a week. He had Farmer Blaize and Mrs.
+Berry to study, and really excellent Aphorisms sprang
+from the plain human bases this natural couple presented.</p>
+
+<p>"It will do us no harm," he thought, "some of the
+honest blood of the soil in our veins." And he was
+content in musing on the parentage of the little cradled
+boy. A common sight for those who had the entry to
+the library was the baronet cherishing the hand of his
+daughter-in-law.</p>
+
+<p>So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham
+were beating quicker measures as the minutes progressed.
+That night he would be with them. Sir Austin
+gave Lucy a longer, warmer salute when she came down
+to breakfast in the morning. Mrs. Berry waxed thrice
+amorous. "It's your second bridals, ye sweet livin'
+widow!" she said. "Thanks be the Lord! it's the same
+man too! and a baby over the bed-post," she appended
+seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange," Berry declared it to be, "strange I feel none
+o' this to my Berry now. All my feelin's o' love seem
+t'ave gone into you two sweet chicks."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the faithless male Berry complained of being
+treated badly, and affected a superb jealousy of the baby;
+but the good dame told him that if he suffered at all he
+suffered his due. Berry's position was decidedly uncomfortable.
+It could not be concealed from the lower household
+that he had a wife in the establishment, and for the
+complications this gave rise to, his wife would not legitimately
+console him. Lucy did intercede, but Mrs. Berry
+was obdurate. She averred she would not give up the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span>
+child till he was weaned. "Then, perhaps," she said
+prospectively. "You see I ain't so soft as you thought
+for."</p>
+
+<p>"You're a very unkind, vindictive old woman," said
+Lucy.</p>
+
+<p>"Belike I am," Mrs. Berry was proud to agree. We
+like a new character, now and then. Berry had delayed
+too long.</p>
+
+<p>Were it not notorious that the straightlaced prudish
+dare not listen to the natural chaste, certain things Mrs.
+Berry thought it advisable to impart to the young wife
+with regard to Berry's infidelity, and the charity women
+should have towards sinful men, might here be reproduced.
+Enough that she thought proper to broach the
+matter, and cite her own Christian sentiments, now that
+she was indifferent in some degree.</p>
+
+<p>Oily calm is on the sea. At Raynham they look up at
+the sky and speculate that Richard is approaching fairly
+speeded. He comes to throw himself on his darling's
+mercy. Lucy irradiated over forest and sea, tempest and
+peace&mdash;to her the hero comes humbly. Great is that day
+when we see our folly! Ripton and he were the friends
+of old. Richard encouraged him to talk of the two he
+could be eloquent on, and Ripton, whose secret vanity
+was in his powers of speech, never tired of enumerating
+Lucy's virtues, and the peculiar attributes of the baby.</p>
+
+<p>"She did not say a word against me, Rip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Against you, Richard! The moment she knew she
+was to be a mother, she thought of nothing but her
+duty to the child. She's one who can't think of herself."</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen her at Raynham, Rip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, once. They asked me down. And your father's
+so fond of her&mdash;I'm sure he thinks no woman like her,
+and he's right. She is so lovely, and so good."</p>
+
+<p>Richard was too full of blame of himself to blame his
+father: too British to expose his emotions. Ripton divined
+how deep and changed they were by his manner. He
+had cast aside the hero, and however Ripton had obeyed
+him and looked up to him in the heroic time, he loved
+him tenfold now. He told his friend how much Lucy's
+mere womanly sweetness and excellence had done for
+him, and Richard contrasted his own profitless extravagance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span>
+with the patient beauty of his dear home angel.
+He was not one to take her on the easy terms that
+offered. There was that to do which made his cheek
+burn as he thought of it, but he was going to do it,
+even though it lost her to him. Just to see her and
+kneel to her was joy sufficient to sustain him, and warm
+his blood in the prospect. They marked the white cliffs
+growing over the water. Nearer, the sun made them
+lustrous. Houses and people seemed to welcome the wild
+youth to common sense, simplicity, and home.</p>
+
+<p>They were in town by mid-day. Richard had a momentary
+idea of not driving to his hotel for letters. After
+a short debate he determined to go there. The porter
+said he had two letters for Mr. Richard Feverel&mdash;one had
+been waiting some time. He went to the box and fetched
+them. The first Richard opened was from Lucy, and
+as he read it, Ripton observed the colour deepen on his
+face, while a quivering smile played about his mouth.
+He opened the other indifferently. It began without any
+form of address. Richard's forehead darkened at the
+signature. This letter was in a sloping feminine hand,
+and flourished with light strokes all over, like a field
+of the bearded barley. Thus it ran:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"I know you are in a rage with me because I would
+not consent to ruin you, you foolish fellow. What do
+you call it? Going to that unpleasant place together.
+Thank you, my milliner is not ready yet, and I want to
+make a good appearance when I do go. I suppose I
+shall have to some day. Your health, Sir Richard. Now
+let me speak to you seriously. <i>Go home to your wife
+at once.</i> But I know the sort of fellow you are, and I
+must be plain with you. Did I ever say I loved you?
+You may hate me as much as you please, but I will save
+you from being a fool.</p>
+
+<p>"Now listen to me. You know my relations with Mount.
+<i>That beast Brayder</i> offered to pay all my debts and set
+me afloat, if I would keep you in town. I declare on
+my honour I had no idea why, and I did not agree to it.
+But you were such a handsome fellow&mdash;I noticed you in
+the park before I heard a word of you. But then you
+fought shy&mdash;you were just as tempting as a girl. You
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span><i>stung</i> me. Do you know what that is? I would make
+you care for me, and we know how it ended, without
+any intention of mine, I <i>swear</i>. I'd have cut off my hand
+rather than do you any harm, upon my honour. Circumstances!
+Then I saw it was all up between us.
+Brayder came and began to chaff about you. I dealt
+the animal a stroke on the face with my riding-whip&mdash;I
+shut him up pretty quick. Do you think I would let
+a man speak about you?&mdash;I was going to swear. You
+see I remember Dick's lessons. O my God! I do feel
+unhappy.&mdash;Brayder offered me money. Go and think I
+took it, if you like. What do I care what anybody thinks!
+Something that blackguard said made me suspicious. I
+went down to the Isle of Wight where Mount was, and
+your wife was just gone with an old lady who came
+and took her away. I should so have liked to see her.
+You said, you remember, she would take me as a sister,
+and treat me&mdash;I laughed at it then. My God! how I
+could cry now, if water did any good to a <i>devil</i>, as you
+politely call poor me. I called at your house and saw
+your man-servant, who said Mount had just been there.
+In a minute it struck me. I was sure Mount was after
+a woman, but it never struck me that woman was your
+wife. Then I saw why they wanted me to keep you
+away. I went to Brayder. You know how I hate him.
+I made love to the man to get it out of him. Richard!
+my word of honour, they have planned to carry her
+off, if Mount finds he cannot seduce her. Talk of devils!
+He's one; but he is not so bad as Brayder. I cannot
+forgive a mean dog his villainy.</p>
+
+<p>"Now after this, I am quite sure you are too much of
+a man to stop away from her another moment. I have
+no more to say. I suppose we shall not see each other
+again, so good-bye, Dick! I fancy I hear you cursing
+me. Why can't you feel like other men on the subject?
+But if you were like the rest of them I should not have
+cared for you a farthing. I have not worn lilac since
+I saw you last. I'll be buried in your colour, Dick.
+That will not offend you&mdash;will it?</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going to believe I took the money? If
+I thought you thought that&mdash;it makes me <i>feel</i> like a
+devil only to fancy you think it.</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span></p>
+<p>"The first time you meet Brayder, <i>cane him publicly</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Adieu! Say it's because you don't like his face. I
+suppose devils must not say <i>Adieu</i>. Here's plain old
+good-bye, then, between you and me. Good-bye, dear
+Dick! You won't think that of me?</p>
+
+<p>"May I eat dry bread to the day of my death if I took
+or ever will touch a scrap of their money.</p>
+
+<p style="text-align:right"><span class="smcap">Bella.</span>"<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Richard folded up the letter silently.</p>
+
+<p>"Jump into the cab," he said to Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything the matter, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The driver received instructions. Richard sat without
+speaking. His friend knew that face. He asked whether
+there was bad news in the letter. For answer, he had the
+lie circumstantial. He ventured to remark that they were
+going the wrong way.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the right way," cried Richard, and his jaws were
+hard and square, and his eyes looked heavy and full.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton said no more, but thought.</p>
+
+<p>The cabman pulled up at a Club. A gentleman, in
+whom Ripton recognized the Hon. Peter Brayder, was
+just then swinging a leg over his horse, with one foot
+in the stirrup. Hearing his name called, the Hon. Peter
+turned about, and stretched an affable hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mountfalcon in town?" said Richard, taking the
+horse's reins instead of the gentlemanly hand. His voice
+and aspect were quite friendly.</p>
+
+<p>"Mount?" Brayder replied, curiously watching the action;
+"yes. He's off this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>is</i> in town?" Richard released his horse. "I want
+to see him. Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked pleasant: that which might
+have aroused Brayder's suspicions was an old affair in
+parasitical register by this time. "Want to see him?
+What about?" he said carelessly, and gave the address.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," he sang out, "we thought of putting
+your name down, Feverel." He indicated the lofty
+structure. "What do you say?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard nodded back at him, crying, "Hurry." Brayder
+returned the nod, and those who promenaded the district<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span>
+soon beheld his body in elegant motion to the stepping
+of his well-earned horse.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want to see Lord Mountfalcon for,
+Richard?" said Ripton.</p>
+
+<p>"I just want to see him," Richard replied.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton was left in the cab at the door of my lord's
+residence. He had to wait there a space of about ten
+minutes, when Richard returned with a clearer visage,
+though somewhat heated. He stood outside the cab, and
+Ripton was conscious of being examined by those strong
+grey eyes. As clear as speech he understood them to say
+to him, "You won't do," but which of the many things
+on earth he would not do for he was at a loss to think.</p>
+
+<p>"Go down to Raynham, Ripton. Say I shall be there
+to-night certainly. Don't bother me with questions.
+Drive off at once. Or wait. Get another cab. I'll take
+this."</p>
+
+<p>Ripton was ejected, and found himself standing alone in
+the street. As he was on the point of rushing after the
+galloping cab-horse to get a word of elucidation, he heard
+some one speak behind him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Feverel's friend?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton had an eye for lords. An ambrosial footman,
+standing at the open door of Lord Mountfalcon's house,
+and a gentleman standing on the door-step, told him that
+he was addressed by that nobleman. He was requested to
+step into the house. When they were alone, Lord Mountfalcon,
+slightly ruffled, said: "Feverel has insulted me
+grossly. I must meet him, of course. It's a piece of
+infernal folly!&mdash;I suppose he is not quite mad?"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton's only definite answer was a gasping iteration
+of "My lord."</p>
+
+<p>My lord resumed: "I am perfectly guiltless of offending
+him, as far as I know. In fact, I had a friendship for
+him. Is he liable to fits of this sort of thing?"</p>
+
+<p>Not yet at conversation-point, Ripton stammered: "Fits,
+my lord?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" went the other, eying Ripton in lordly cognizant
+style. "You know nothing of this business, perhaps!"</p>
+
+<p>Ripton said he did not.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any influence with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, my lord. Only now and then&mdash;a little."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are not in the Army?"</p>
+
+<p>The question was quite unnecessary. Ripton confessed
+to the law, and my lord did not look surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not detain you," he said, distantly bowing.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton gave him a commoner's obeisance; but getting
+to the door, the sense of the matter enlightened him.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a duel, my lord?"</p>
+
+<p>"No help for it, if his friends don't shut him up in Bedlam
+between this and to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>Of all horrible things a duel was the worst in Ripton's
+imagination. He stood holding the handle of the door,
+revolving this last chapter of calamity suddenly opened
+where happiness had promised.</p>
+
+<p>"A duel! but he won't, my lord,&mdash;he mustn't fight, my
+lord."</p>
+
+<p>"He must come on the ground," said my lord, positively.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton ejaculated unintelligible stuff. Finally Lord
+Mountfalcon said: "I went out of my way, sir, in speaking
+to you. I saw you from the window. Your friend is
+mad. Deuced methodical, I admit, but mad. I have particular
+reasons to wish not to injure the young man, and
+if an apology is to be got out of him when we're on the
+ground, I'll take it, and we'll stop the damned scandal, if
+possible. You understand? I'm the insulted party, and
+I shall only require of him to use formal words of excuse
+to come to an amicable settlement. Let him just say he
+regrets it. Now, sir," the nobleman spoke with considerable
+earnestness, "should anything happen&mdash;I have the
+honour to be known to Mrs. Feverel&mdash;and I beg you will
+tell her. I very particularly desire you to let her know
+that I was not to blame."</p>
+
+<p>Mountfalcon rang the bell, and bowed him out. With
+this on his mind Ripton hurried down to those who were
+waiting in joyful trust at Raynham.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XLIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST SCENE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his
+pulse, in occult calculation hideous to mark, said half-past
+eleven on the midnight. Adrian, wearing a composedly
+amused expression on his dimpled plump face,&mdash;held
+slightly sideways, aloof from paper and pen,&mdash;sat writing
+at the library table. Round the baronet's chair, in a semi-circle,
+were Lucy, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, and Ripton,
+that very ill bird at Raynham. They were silent as those
+who question the flying minutes. Ripton had said that
+Richard was sure to come; but the feminine eyes reading
+him ever and anon, had gathered matter for disquietude,
+which increased as time sped. Sir Austin persisted in his
+habitual air of speculative repose.</p>
+
+<p>Remote as he appeared from vulgar anxiety, he was the
+first to speak and betray his state.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, put up that watch. Impatience serves nothing,"
+he said, half-turning hastily to his brother behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Hippias relinquished his pulse and mildly groaned: "It's
+no nightmare, this!"</p>
+
+<p>His remark was unheard, and the bearing of it remained
+obscure. Adrian's pen made a louder flourish on his manuscript;
+whether in commiseration or infernal glee, none
+might say.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you writing?" the baronet inquired testily of
+Adrian, after a pause; twitched, it may be, by a sort of
+jealousy of the wise youth's coolness.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I disturb you, sir?" rejoined Adrian. "I am engaged
+on a portion of a Proposal for uniting the Empires
+and Kingdoms of Europe under one Paternal Head, on the
+model of the ever-to-be-admired and lamented Holy
+Roman. This treats of the management of Youths and
+Maids, and of certain magisterial functions connected
+therewith. 'It is decreed that these officers be all and every
+men of science,' etc." And Adrian cheerily drove his pen
+afresh.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria took Lucy's hand, mutely addressing encouragement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span>
+to her, and Lucy brought as much of a smile as
+she could command to reply with.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear we must give him up to-night," observed Lady
+Blandish.</p>
+
+<p>"If he said he would come, he will come," Sir Austin
+interjected. Between him and the lady there was something
+of a contest secretly going on. He was conscious
+that nothing save perfect success would now hold this self-emancipating
+mind. She had seen him through.</p>
+
+<p>"He declared to me he would be certain to come," said
+Ripton; but he could look at none of them as he said it,
+for he was growing aware that Richard might have deceived
+him, and was feeling like a black conspirator
+against their happiness. He determined to tell the baronet
+what he knew, if Richard did not come by twelve.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the time?" he asked Hippias in a modest voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Time for me to be in bed," growled Hippias, as if
+everybody present had been treating him badly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry came in to apprise Lucy that she was wanted
+above. She quietly rose. Sir Austin kissed her on the
+forehead, saying: "You had better not come down again,
+my child." She kept her eyes on him. "Oblige me by
+retiring for the night," he added. Lucy shook their hands,
+and went out, accompanied by Mrs. Doria.</p>
+
+<p>"This agitation will be bad for the child," he said,
+speaking to himself aloud.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish remarked: "I think she might just as
+well have returned. She will not sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"She will control herself for the child's sake."</p>
+
+<p>"You ask too much of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Of her, not," he emphasized.</p>
+
+<p>It was twelve o'clock when Hippias shut his watch, and
+said with vehemence: "I'm convinced my circulation
+gradually and steadily decreases!"</p>
+
+<p>"Going back to the pre-Harvey period?" murmured
+Adrian as he wrote.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin and Lady Blandish knew well that any comment
+would introduce them to the interior of his machinery,
+the external view of which was sufficiently harrowing;
+so they maintained a discreet reserve. Taking it for acquiescence
+in his deplorable condition, Hippias resumed
+despairingly: "It's a fact. I've brought you to see that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span>
+No one can be more moderate than I am, and yet I get
+worse. My system is organically sound&mdash;I believe: I do
+every possible thing, and yet I get worse. Nature never
+forgives! I'll go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>The Dyspepsy departed unconsoled.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin took up his brother's thought: "I suppose
+nothing short of a miracle helps us when we have offended
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing short of a quack satisfies us," said Adrian,
+applying wax to an envelope of official dimensions.</p>
+
+<p>Ripton sat accusing his soul of cowardice while they
+talked; haunted by Lucy's last look at him. He got up his
+courage presently and went round to Adrian, who, after a
+few whispered words, deliberately rose and accompanied
+him out of the room, shrugging. When they had gone,
+Lady Blandish said to the baronet: "He is not coming."</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, then, if not to-night," he replied. "But I
+say he will come to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"You do really wish to see him united to his wife?"</p>
+
+<p>The question made the baronet raise his brows with
+some displeasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you ask me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," said the ungenerous woman, "your System
+will require no further sacrifices from either of them?"</p>
+
+<p>When he did answer, it was to say: "I think her altogether
+a superior person. I confess I should scarcely have
+hoped to find one like her."</p>
+
+<p>"Admit that your science does not accomplish everything."</p>
+
+<p>"No: it was presumptuous&mdash;beyond a certain point,"
+said the baronet, meaning deep things.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish eyed him. "Ah me!" she sighed, "if we
+would always be true to our own wisdom!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are very singular to-night, Emmeline," Sir Austin
+stopped his walk in front of her.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, was she not unjust? Here was an offending
+son freely forgiven. Here was a young woman of humble
+birth freely accepted into his family and permitted to
+stand upon her qualities. Who would have done more&mdash;or
+as much? This lady, for instance, had the case been
+hers, would have fought it. All the people of position
+that he was acquainted with would have fought it, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span>
+that without feeling it so peculiarly. But while the
+baronet thought this, he did not think of the exceptional
+education his son had received. He took the common
+ground of fathers, forgetting his System when it was absolutely
+on trial. False to his son it could not be said
+that he had been: false to his System he was. Others
+saw it plainly, but he had to learn his lesson by and by.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish gave him her face; then stretched her
+hand to the table, saying, "Well! well!" She fingered a
+half-opened parcel lying there, and drew forth a little book
+she recognized. "Ha! what is this?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Benson returned it this morning," he informed her.
+"The stupid fellow took it away with him&mdash;by mischance,
+I am bound to believe."</p>
+
+<p>It was nothing other than the old Note-book. Lady
+Blandish turned over the leaves, and came upon the later
+jottings.</p>
+
+<p>She read: "A maker of Proverbs&mdash;what is he but a
+narrow mind with the mouthpiece of narrower?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not agree with that," she observed. He was in no
+humour for argument.</p>
+
+<p>"Was your humility feigned when you wrote it?"</p>
+
+<p>He merely said: "Consider the sort of minds influenced
+by set sayings. A proverb is the half-way-house to an
+Idea, I conceive; and the majority rest there content: can
+the keeper of such a house be flattered by his company?"</p>
+
+<p>She felt her feminine intelligence swaying under him
+again. There must be greatness in a man who could thus
+speak of his own special and admirable aptitude.</p>
+
+<p>Further she read, "Which is the coward among us?&mdash;<i>He
+who sneers at the failings of Humanity!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! that is true! How much I admire that!" cried
+the dark-eyed dame as she beamed intellectual raptures.</p>
+
+<p>Another Aphorism seemed closely to apply to him:
+"There is no more grievous sight, as there is no greater
+perversion, than a wise man at the mercy of his feelings."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have written it," she thought, "when he had
+himself for an example&mdash;strange man that he is!"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Blandish was still inclined to submission, though
+decidedly insubordinate. She had once been fairly conquered:
+but if what she reverenced as a great mind could
+conquer her, it must be a great man that should hold her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span>
+captive. The Autumn Primrose blooms for the loftiest
+manhood; is a vindictive flower in lesser hands. Nevertheless
+Sir Austin had only to be successful, and this
+lady's allegiance was his for ever. The trial was at hand.</p>
+
+<p>She said again: "He is not coming to-night," and the
+baronet, on whose visage a contemplative pleased look had
+been rising for a minute past, quietly added: "He is
+come."</p>
+
+<p>Richard's voice was heard in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>There was commotion all over the house at the return
+of the young heir. Berry, seizing every possible occasion
+to approach his Bessy now that her involuntary coldness
+had enhanced her value&mdash;"Such is men!" as the soft
+woman reflected&mdash;Berry ascended to her and delivered the
+news in pompous tones and wheedling gestures. "The
+best word you've spoke for many a day," says she, and
+leaves him unfee'd, in an attitude, to hurry and pour bliss
+into Lucy's ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord be praised!" she entered the adjoining room
+exclaiming, "we're goin' to be happy at last. They men
+have come to their senses. I could cry to your Virgin
+and kiss your Cross, you sweet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" Lucy admonished her, and crooned over the
+child on her knees. The tiny open hands, full of sleep,
+clutched; the large blue eyes started awake; and his
+mother, all trembling and palpitating, knowing, but
+thirsting to hear it, covered him with her tresses, and
+tried to still her frame, and rocked, and sang low, interdicting
+even a whisper from bursting Mrs. Berry.</p>
+
+<p>Richard had come. He was under his father's roof, in
+the old home that had so soon grown foreign to him. He
+stood close to his wife and child. He might embrace
+them both; and now the fulness of his anguish and the
+madness of the thing he had done smote the young man:
+now first he tasted hard earthly misery.</p>
+
+<p>Had not God spoken to him in the tempest? Had not
+the finger of heaven directed him homeward? And he had
+come: here he stood: congratulations were thick in his
+ears: the cup of happiness was held to him, and he was
+invited to drink of it. Which was the dream? his work
+for the morrow, or this? But for a leaden load that he
+felt like a bullet in his breast, he might have thought the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span>
+morrow with death sitting on it was the dream. Yes; he
+was awake. Now first the cloud of phantasms cleared
+away: he beheld his real life, and the colours of true
+human joy: and on the morrow perhaps he was to close
+his eyes on them. That leaden bullet dispersed all unrealities.</p>
+
+<p>They stood about him in the hall, his father, Lady
+Blandish, Mrs. Doria, Adrian, Ripton; people who had
+known him long. They shook his hand: they gave him
+greetings he had never before understood the worth of or
+the meaning. Now that he did they mocked him. There
+was Mrs. Berry in the background bobbing, there was
+Martin Berry bowing, there was Tom Bakewell grinning.
+Somehow he loved the sight of these better.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my old Penelope!" he said, breaking through the
+circle of his relatives to go to her. "Tom! how are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bless ye, my Mr. Richard," whimpered Mrs. Berry, and
+whispered rosily, "all's agreeable now. She's waiting up
+in bed for ye, like a new-born."</p>
+
+<p>The person who betrayed most agitation was Mrs. Doria.
+She held close to him, and eagerly studied his face and
+every movement, as one accustomed to masks. "You are
+pale, Richard?" He pleaded exhaustion. "What detained
+you, dear?" "Business," he said. She drew him imperiously
+apart from the others. "Richard! is it over?"
+He asked what she meant. "The dreadful duel, Richard."
+He looked darkly. "Is it over? is it done, Richard?"
+Getting no immediate answer, she continued&mdash;and such
+was her agitation that the words were shaken by pieces
+from her mouth: "Don't pretend not to understand me,
+Richard! Is it over? Are you going to die the death of
+my child&mdash;Clare's death? Is not one in a family enough?
+Think of your dear young wife&mdash;we love her so!&mdash;your
+child!&mdash;your father! Will you kill us all?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Doria had chanced to overhear a trifle of Ripton's
+communication to Adrian, and had built thereon with the
+dark forces of a stricken soul.</p>
+
+<p>Wondering how this woman could have divined it, Richard
+calmly said: "It's arranged&mdash;the matter you allude
+to."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! truly, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tell me"&mdash;but he broke away from her, saying: "You
+shall hear the particulars to-morrow," and she, not alive
+to double meaning just then, allowed him to leave her.</p>
+
+<p>He had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and called for
+food, but he would take only dry bread and claret, which
+was served on a tray in the library. He said, without any
+show of feeling, that he must eat before he saw the
+younger hope of Raynham: so there he sat, breaking
+bread, and eating great mouthfuls, and washing them
+down with wine, talking of what they would. His father's
+studious mind felt itself years behind him, he was so
+completely altered. He had the precision of speech, the
+bearing of a man of thirty. Indeed he had all that the
+necessity for cloaking an infinite misery gives. But let
+things be as they might he was <i>there</i>. For one night in
+his life Sir Austin's perspective of the future was
+bounded by the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you go to your wife now?" he had asked, and
+Richard had replied with a strange indifference. The baronet
+thought it better that their meeting should be private,
+and sent word for Lucy to wait upstairs. The others perceived
+that father and son should now be left alone.
+Adrian went up to him, and said: "I can no longer witness
+this painful sight, so Good-night, Sir Famish! You may
+cheat yourself into the belief that you've made a meal,
+but depend upon it your progeny&mdash;and it threatens to be
+numerous&mdash;will cry aloud and rue the day. Nature never
+forgives! A lost dinner can never be replaced! Good-night,
+my dear boy. And here&mdash;oblige me by taking this,"
+he handed Richard the enormous envelope containing
+what he had written that evening. "Credentials!" he
+exclaimed humorously, slapping Richard on the shoulder.
+Ripton heard also the words "propagator&mdash;species," but
+had no idea of their import. The wise youth looked: You
+see we've made matters all right for you here, and quitted
+the room on that unusual gleam of earnestness.</p>
+
+<p>Richard shook his hand, and Ripton's. Then Lady
+Blandish said her good-night, praising Lucy, and promising
+to pray for their mutual happiness. The two men
+who knew what was hanging over him, spoke together
+outside. Ripton was for getting a positive assurance that
+the duel would not be fought, but Adrian said: "Time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span>
+enough to-morrow. He's safe enough while he's here.
+I'll stop it to-morrow:" ending with banter of Ripton and
+allusions to his adventures with Miss Random, which
+must, Adrian said, have led him into many affairs of the
+sort. Certainly Richard was there, and while he was
+there he must be safe. So thought Ripton, and went to
+his bed. Mrs. Doria deliberated likewise, and likewise
+thought him safe while he was there. For once in her
+life she thought it better not to trust to her instinct, for
+fear of useless disturbance where peace should be. So she
+said not a syllable of it to her brother. She only looked
+more deeply into Richard's eyes, as she kissed him, praising
+Lucy. "I have found a second daughter in her, dear.
+Oh! may you both be happy!"</p>
+
+<p>They all praised Lucy, now. His father commenced the
+moment they were alone. "Poor Helen! Your wife has
+been a great comfort to her, Richard. I think Helen must
+have sunk without her. So lovely a young person, possessing
+mental faculty, and a conscience for her duties, I have
+never before met."</p>
+
+<p>He wished to gratify his son by these eulogies of Lucy,
+and some hours back he would have succeeded. Now it
+had the contrary effect.</p>
+
+<p>"You compliment me on my choice, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>Richard spoke sedately, but the irony was perceptible,
+and he could speak no other way, his bitterness was so
+intense.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you very fortunate," said his father.</p>
+
+<p>Sensitive to tone and manner as he was, his ebullition
+of paternal feeling was frozen. Richard did not approach
+him. He leaned against the chimney-piece, glancing at
+the floor, and lifting his eyes only when he spoke. Fortunate!
+very fortunate! As he revolved his later history,
+and remembered how clearly he had seen that his father
+must love Lucy if he but knew her, and remembered his
+efforts to persuade her to come with him, a sting of
+miserable rage blackened his brain. But could he blame
+that gentle soul? Whom could he blame? Himself? Not
+utterly. His father? Yes, and no. The blame was here,
+the blame was there: it was everywhere and nowhere,
+and the young man cast it on the Fates, and looked
+angrily at heaven, and grew reckless.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Richard," said his father, coming close to him, "It is
+late to-night. I do not wish Lucy to remain in expectation
+longer, or I should have explained myself to you thoroughly,
+and I think&mdash;or at least hope&mdash;you would have
+justified me. I had cause to believe that you had not
+only violated my confidence, but grossly deceived me. It
+was not so, I now know. I was mistaken. Much of our
+misunderstanding has resulted from that mistake. But
+you were married&mdash;a boy: you knew nothing of the world,
+little of yourself. To save you in after-life&mdash;for there is
+a period when mature men and women who have married
+young are more impelled to temptation than in youth,&mdash;though
+not so exposed to it,&mdash;to save you, I say, I decreed
+that you should experience self-denial and learn something
+of your fellows of both sexes, before settling into a state
+that must have been otherwise precarious, however excellent
+the woman who is your mate. My System with
+you would have been otherwise imperfect, and you would
+have felt the effects of it. It is over now. You are a
+man. The dangers to which your nature was open are,
+I trust, at an end. I wish you to be happy, and I give you
+both my blessing, and pray God to conduct and strengthen
+you both."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin's mind was unconscious of not having
+spoken devoutly. True or not, his words were idle to his
+son: his talk of dangers over, and happiness, mockery.</p>
+
+<p>Richard coldly took his father's extended hand.</p>
+
+<p>"We will go to her," said the baronet. "I will leave you
+at her door."</p>
+
+<p>Not moving: looking fixedly at his father with a hard
+face on which the colour rushed, Richard said: "A husband
+who has been unfaithful to his wife may go to her
+there, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>It was horrible, it was cruel: Richard knew that. He
+wanted no advice on such a matter, having fully resolved
+what to do. Yesterday he would have listened to his
+father, and blamed himself alone, and done what was to
+be done humbly before God and her: now in the recklessness
+of his misery he had as little pity for any other soul
+as for his own. Sir Austin's brows were deep drawn
+down.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say, Richard?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Clearly his intelligence had taken it, but this&mdash;the
+worst he could hear&mdash;this that he had dreaded once and
+doubted, and smoothed over, and cast aside&mdash;could it be?</p>
+
+<p>Richard said: "I told you all but the very words when
+we last parted. What else do you think would have kept
+me from her?"</p>
+
+<p>Angered at his callous aspect, his father cried: "What
+brings you to her now?"</p>
+
+<p>"That will be between us two," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin fell into his chair. Meditation was impossible.
+He spoke from a wrathful heart: "You will not dare
+to take her without"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," Richard interrupted him, "I shall not.
+Have no fear."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you did not love your wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not?" A smile passed faintly over Richard's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you care so much for this&mdash;this other person?"</p>
+
+<p>"So much? If you ask me whether I had affection for
+her, I can say I had none."</p>
+
+<p>O base human nature! Then how? then why? A thousand
+questions rose in the baronet's mind. Bessy Berry
+could have answered them every one.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child! poor child!" he apostrophized Lucy, pacing
+the room. Thinking of her, knowing her deep love for his
+son&mdash;her true forgiving heart&mdash;it seemed she should be
+spared this misery.</p>
+
+<p>He proposed to Richard to spare her. Vast is the distinction
+between women and men in this one sin, he said,
+and supported it with physical and moral citations. His
+argument carried him so far, that to hear him one would
+have imagined he thought the sin in men small indeed.
+His words were idle.</p>
+
+<p>"She must know it," said Richard, sternly. "I will go
+to her now, sir, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>Sir Austin detained him, expostulated, contradicted
+himself, confounded his principles, made nonsense of all
+his theories. He could not induce his son to waver in
+his resolve. Ultimately, their good-night being inter-*changed,
+he understood that the happiness of Raynham
+depended on Lucy's mercy. He had no fears of her sweet
+heart, but it was a strange thing to have come to. On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span>
+which should the accusation fall&mdash;on science, or on human
+nature?</p>
+
+<p>He remained in the library pondering over the question,
+at times breathing contempt for his son, and again seized
+with unwonted suspicion of his own wisdom: troubled,
+much to be pitied, even if he deserved that blow from his
+son which had plunged him into wretchedness.</p>
+
+<p>Richard went straight to Tom Bakewell, roused the
+heavy sleeper, and told him to have his mare saddled and
+waiting at the park gates East within an hour. Tom's
+nearest approach to a hero was to be a faithful slave to
+his master, and in doing this he acted to his conception
+of that high and glorious character. He got up and heroically
+dashed his head into cold water. "She shall be
+ready, sir," he nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Tom! if you don't see me back here at Raynham, your
+money will go on being paid to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Rather see you than the money, Mr. Richard," said
+Tom.</p>
+
+<p>"And you will always watch and see no harm comes to
+her, Tom."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Richard, sir?" Tom stared. "God bless me, Mr.
+Richard"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No questions. You'll do what I say."</p>
+
+<p>"Ay, sir; that I will. Did'n Isle o' Wight."</p>
+
+<p>The very name of the Island shocked Richard's blood,
+and he had to walk up and down before he could knock at
+Lucy's door. That infamous conspiracy to which he owed
+his degradation and misery scarce left him the feelings of
+a man when he thought of it.</p>
+
+<p>The soft beloved voice responded to his knock. He
+opened the door, and stood before her. Lucy was half-way
+toward him. In the moment that passed ere she was in
+his arms, he had time to observe the change in her. He
+had left her a girl: he beheld a woman&mdash;a blooming
+woman: for pale at first, no sooner did she see him than
+the colour was rich and deep on her face and neck and
+bosom half shown through the loose dressing-robe, and
+the sense of her exceeding beauty made his heart thump
+and his eyes swim.</p>
+
+<p>"My darling!" each cried, and they clung together, and
+her mouth was fastened on his.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They spoke no more. His soul was drowned in her kiss.
+Supporting her, whose strength was gone, he, almost as
+weak as she, hung over her, and clasped her closer, closer,
+till they were as one body, and in the oblivion her lips
+put upon him he was free to the bliss of her embrace.
+Heaven granted him that. He placed her in a chair and
+knelt at her feet with both arms around her. Her bosom
+heaved; her eyes never quitted him: their light as the
+light on a rolling wave. This young creature, commonly
+so frank and straightforward, was broken with bashfulness
+in her husband's arms&mdash;womanly bashfulness on the torrent
+of womanly love; tenfold more seductive than the
+bashfulness of girlhood. Terrible tenfold the loss of her
+seemed now, as distantly&mdash;far on the horizon of memory&mdash;the
+fatal truth returned to him.</p>
+
+<p>Lose her? lose this? He looked up as if to ask God to
+confirm it.</p>
+
+<p>The same sweet blue eyes! the eyes that he had often
+seen in the dying glories of evening; on him they dwelt,
+shifting, and fluttering, and glittering, but constant: the
+light of them as the light on a rolling wave.</p>
+
+<p>And true to him! true, good, glorious, as the angels of
+heaven! And his she was! a woman&mdash;his wife! The
+temptation to take her, and be dumb, was all powerful:
+the wish to die against her bosom so strong as to be the
+prayer of his vital forces. Again he strained her to him,
+but this time it was as a robber grasps priceless treasure&mdash;with
+exultation and defiance. One instant of this. Lucy,
+whose pure tenderness had now surmounted the first wild
+passion of their meeting, bent back her head from her
+surrendered body, and said almost voicelessly, her underlids
+wistfully quivering: "Come and see him&mdash;baby;" and
+then in great hope of the happiness she was going to give
+her husband, and share with him, and in tremour and
+doubt of what his feelings would be, she blushed, and her
+brows worked: she tried to throw off the strangeness of
+a year of separation, misunderstanding, and uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>"Darling! come and see him. He is here." She spoke
+more clearly, though no louder.</p>
+
+<p>Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he
+suffered himself to be led to the other side of the bed. His
+heart began rapidly throbbing at the sight of a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span>
+rosy-curtained cot covered with lace like milky summer
+cloud.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he
+looked on that child's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop!" he cried suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Lucy turned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing
+it should have been disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy, come back."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, darling?" said she, in alarm at his voice
+and the grip he had unwittingly given her hand.</p>
+
+<p>O God! what an Ordeal was this! that to-morrow he
+must face death, perhaps die and be torn from his darling&mdash;his
+wife and his child; and that ere he went forth,
+ere he could dare to see his child and lean his head reproachfully
+on his young wife's breast&mdash;for the last time,
+it might be&mdash;he must stab her to the heart, shatter the
+image she held of him.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy!" She saw him wrenched with agony, and her
+own face took the whiteness of his&mdash;she bending forward
+to him, all her faculties strung to hearing.</p>
+
+<p>He held her two hands that she might look on him and
+not spare the horrible wounds he was going to lay open
+to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy. Do you know why I came to you to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>She moved her lips repeating his words.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy. Have you guessed why I did not come before?"</p>
+
+<p>Her head shook widened eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy. I did not come because I was not worthy of
+my wife! Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Darling," she faltered plaintively, and hung crouching
+under him, "what have I done to make you angry with
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"O beloved!" cried he, the tears bursting out of his
+eyes. "O beloved!" was all he could say, kissing her hands
+passionately.</p>
+
+<p>She waited, reassured, but in terror.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucy. I stayed away from you&mdash;I could not come to
+you, because ... I dared not come to you, my wife, my
+beloved! I could not come because I was a coward: because&mdash;hear
+me&mdash;this was the reason: I have broken my
+marriage oath."</p>
+
+<p>Again her lips moved. She caught at a dim fleshless<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span>
+meaning in them. "But you love me? Richard! My husband!
+you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I have never loved, I never shall love, woman
+but you."</p>
+
+<p>"Darling! Kiss me."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you understood what I have told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kiss me," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He did not join lips. "I have come to you to-night to
+ask your forgiveness."</p>
+
+<p>Her answer was: "Kiss me."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you forgive a man so base?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you love me, Richard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes: that I can say before God. I love you, and I
+have betrayed you, and am unworthy of you&mdash;not worthy
+to touch your hand, to kneel at your feet, to breathe the
+same air with you."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes shone brilliantly. "You love me! you love
+me, darling!" And as one who has sailed through dark
+fears into daylight, she said: "My husband! my darling!
+you will never leave me? We never shall be parted
+again?"</p>
+
+<p>He drew his breath painfully. To smooth her face
+growing rigid with fresh fears of his silence, he met her
+mouth. That kiss in which she spoke what her soul had
+to say, calmed her, and she smiled happily from it, and in
+her manner reminded him of his first vision of her on the
+summer morning in the field of the meadow-sweet. He
+held her to him, and thought then of a holier picture: of
+Mother and Child: of the sweet wonders of the life she
+had made real to him.</p>
+
+<p>Had he not absolved his conscience? At least the pangs
+to come made him think so. He now followed her leading
+hand. Lucy whispered: "You mustn't disturb him&mdash;mustn't
+touch him, dear!" and with dainty fingers drew
+off the covering to the little shoulder. One arm of the
+child was out along the pillow; the small hand open. His
+baby-mouth was pouted full; the dark lashes of his eyes
+seemed to lie on his plump cheeks. Richard stooped lower
+down to him, hungering for some movement as a sign that
+he lived. Lucy whispered. "He sleeps like you, Richard&mdash;one
+arm under his head." Great wonder, and the stir
+of a grasping tenderness was in Richard. He breathed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span>
+quick and soft, bending lower, till Lucy's curls, as she
+nestled and bent with him, rolled on the crimson quilt
+of the cot. A smile went up the plump cheeks: forthwith
+the bud of a mouth was in rapid motion. The young
+mother whispered, blushing: "He's dreaming of me," and
+the simple words did more than Richard's eyes to make
+him see what was. Then Lucy began to hum and buzz
+sweet baby-language, and some of the tiny fingers stirred,
+and he made as if to change his cosy position, but reconsidered,
+and deferred it, with a peaceful little sigh. Lucy
+whispered: "He is such a big fellow. Oh! when you see
+him awake he is so like you, Richard."</p>
+
+<p>He did not hear her immediately: it seemed a bit of
+heaven dropped there in his likeness: the more human the
+fact of the child grew the more heavenly it seemed. His
+son! his child! should he ever see him awake? At the
+thought, he took the words that had been spoken, and
+started from the dream he had been in. "Will he wake
+soon, Lucy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no! not yet, dear: not for hours. I would have
+kept him awake for you, but he was <i>so</i> sleepy."</p>
+
+<p>Richard stood back from the cot. He thought that if
+he saw the eyes of his boy, and had him once on his heart,
+he never should have force to leave him. Then he looked
+down on him, again struggled to tear himself away. Two
+natures warred in his bosom, or it may have been the
+Magian Conflict still going on. He had come to see his
+child once and to make peace with his wife before it
+should be too late. Might he not stop with them? Might
+he not relinquish that devilish pledge? Was not divine
+happiness here offered to him?&mdash;If foolish Ripton had not
+delayed to tell him of his interview with Mountfalcon all
+might have been well. But pride said it was impossible.
+And then injury spoke. For why was he thus base and
+spotted to the darling of his love? A mad pleasure in the
+prospect of wreaking vengeance on the villain who had
+laid the trap for him, once more blackened his brain. If
+he would stay he could not. So he resolved, throwing the
+burden on Fate. The struggle was over, but oh, the pain!</p>
+
+<p>Lucy beheld the tears streaming hot from his face on
+the child's cot. She marvelled at such excess of emotion.
+But when his chest heaved, and the extremity of mortal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span>
+anguish appeared to have seized him, her heart sank, and
+she tried to get him in her arms. He turned away from
+her and went to the window. A half-moon was over the
+lake.</p>
+
+<p>"Look!" he said, "do you remember our rowing there
+one night, and we saw the shadow of the cypress? I wish
+I could have come early to-night that we might have had
+another row, and I have heard you sing there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Darling!" said she, "will it make you happier if I go
+with you now? I will."</p>
+
+<p>"No, Lucy. Lucy, you are brave!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! that I'm not. I thought so once. I know I
+am not now."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! to have lived&mdash;the child on your heart&mdash;and
+never to have uttered a complaint!&mdash;you are brave. O my
+Lucy! my wife! you that have made me man! I called
+you a coward. I remember it. I was the coward&mdash;<i>I</i> the
+wretched vain fool! Darling! I am going to leave you
+now. You are brave, and you will bear it. Listen: in
+two days, or three, I may be back&mdash;back for good, if you
+will accept me. Promise me to go to bed quietly. Kiss
+the child for me, and tell him his father has seen him. He
+will learn to speak soon. Will he soon speak, Lucy?"</p>
+
+<p>Dreadful suspicion kept her speechless; she could only
+clutch one arm of his with both her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Going?" she presently gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"For two or three days. No more&mdash;I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"To-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Now."</p>
+
+<p>"Going now? my husband!" her faculties abandoned her.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be brave, my Lucy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Richard! my darling husband! Going? What is it
+takes you from me?" But questioning no further, she fell
+on her knees, and cried piteously to him to stay&mdash;not to
+leave them. Then she dragged him to the little sleeper,
+and urged him to pray by his side, and he did, but rose
+abruptly from his prayer when he had muttered a few
+broken words&mdash;she praying on with tight-strung nerves, in
+the faith that what she said to the interceding Mother
+above would be stronger than human hands on him. Nor
+could he go while she knelt there.</p>
+
+<p>And he wavered. He had not reckoned on her terrible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span>
+suffering. She came to him, quiet. "I knew you would
+remain." And taking his hand, innocently fondling it:
+"Am I so changed from her he loved? You will not leave
+me, dear?" But dread returned, and the words quavered
+as she spoke them.</p>
+
+<p>He was almost vanquished by the loveliness of her
+womanhood. She drew his hand to her heart, and strained
+it there under one breast. "Come: lie on my heart," she
+murmured with a smile of holy sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>He wavered more, and drooped to her, but summoning
+the powers of hell, kissed her suddenly, cried the words of
+parting, and hurried to the door. It was over in an instant.
+She cried out his name, clinging to him wildly,
+and was adjured to be brave, for he would be dishonoured
+if he did not go. Then she was shaken off.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Berry was aroused by an unusual prolonged wailing
+of the child, which showed that no one was comforting it,
+and failing to get any answer to her applications for
+admittance, she made bold to enter. There she saw Lucy,
+the child in her lap, sitting on the floor senseless:&mdash;she
+had taken it from its sleep and tried to follow her husband
+with it as her strongest appeal to him, and had
+fainted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh my! oh my!" Mrs. Berry moaned, "and I just now
+thinkin' they was so happy!"</p>
+
+<p>Warming and caressing the poor infant, she managed
+by degrees to revive Lucy, and heard what had brought
+her to that situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Go to his father," said Mrs. Berry. "Ta-te-tiddle-te-heighty-O!
+Go, my love, and every horse in Raynham
+shall be out after 'm. This is what men brings us to!
+Heighty-oighty-iddlety-Ah! Or you take blessed baby,
+and I'll go."</p>
+
+<p>The baronet himself knocked at the door. "What is
+this?" he said. "I heard a noise and a step descend."</p>
+
+<p>"It's Mr. Richard have gone, Sir Austin! have gone
+from his wife and babe! Rum-te-um-te-iddledy&mdash;Oh, my
+goodness! what sorrow's come on us!" and Mrs. Berry
+wept, and sang to baby, and baby cried vehemently, and
+Lucy, sobbing, took him and danced him and sang to him
+with drawn lips and tears dropping over him. And if the
+Scientific Humanist to the day of his death forgets the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span>
+sight of those two poor true women jigging on their
+wretched hearts to calm the child, he must have very little
+of the human in him.</p>
+
+<p>There was no more sleep for Raynham that night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XLV</h2>
+
+<h3>LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH</h3>
+
+
+<p>"His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room
+and seen him bear the worst that could be. Return at once&mdash;he
+has asked for you. I can hardly write intelligibly,
+but I will tell you what we know.</p>
+
+<p>"Two days after the dreadful night when he left us, his
+father heard from Ralph Morton. Richard had fought a
+duel in France with Lord Mountfalcon, and was lying
+wounded at a hamlet on the coast. His father started
+immediately with his poor wife, and I followed in company
+with his aunt and his child. The wound was not
+dangerous. He was shot in the side somewhere, but the
+ball injured no vital part. We thought all would be well.
+Oh! how sick I am of theories, and Systems, and the pretensions
+of men! There was his son lying all but dead,
+and the man was still unconvinced of the folly he had been
+guilty of. I could hardly bear the sight of his composure.
+I shall hate the name of Science till the day I die. Give
+me nothing but commonplace unpretending people!</p>
+
+<p>"They were at a wretched French cabaret, smelling
+vilely, where we still remain, and the people try as much
+as they can do to compensate for our discomforts by their
+kindness. The French poor people are very considerate
+where they see suffering. I will say that for them. The
+doctors had not allowed his poor Lucy to go near him.
+She sat outside his door, and none of us dared disturb
+her. That was a sight for Science. His father and myself,
+and Mrs. Berry, were the only ones permitted to
+wait on him, and whenever we came out, there she sat,
+not speaking a word&mdash;for she had been told it would
+endanger his life&mdash;but she looked such awful eagerness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span>
+She had the sort of eye I fancy mad persons have. I was
+sure her reason was going. We did everything we could
+think of to comfort her. A bed was made up for her and
+her meals were brought to her there. Of course there was
+no getting her to eat. What do you suppose <i>his</i> alarm
+was fixed on? He absolutely said to me&mdash;but I have not
+patience to repeat his words. He thought her to blame
+for not <i>commanding</i> herself for the sake of her <i>maternal
+duties</i>. He had absolutely an idea of insisting that she
+should make an effort to suckle the child. I shall love that
+Mrs. Berry to the end of my days. I really believe she has
+<i>twice</i> the sense of any of us&mdash;Science and all. She asked
+him plainly if he wished to poison the child, and then he
+gave way, but with a bad grace.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor man! perhaps I am hard on him. I remember
+that you said Richard had done wrong. Yes; well, that
+may be. But his father eclipsed his wrong in a greater
+wrong&mdash;a crime, or quite as bad; for if he deceived himself
+in the belief that he was acting righteously in <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'sparating'">separating</ins>
+husband and wife, and exposing his son as he did, I can
+only say that there are some who are worse than people
+who deliberately commit <i>crimes</i>. No doubt Science will
+benefit by it. They kill little animals for the sake of
+Science.</p>
+
+<p>"We have with us Doctor Bairam, and a French
+physician from Dieppe, a very skilful man. It was he
+who told us where the real danger lay. We thought all
+would be well. A week had passed, and no fever supervened.
+We told Richard that his wife was coming to
+him, and he could bear to hear it. I went to her and
+began to circumlocute, thinking she listened&mdash;she had the
+same eager look. When I told her she might go in with
+me to see her dear husband, her features did not change.
+M. Després, who held her pulse at the time, told me, in
+a whisper, it was cerebral fever&mdash;brain fever coming on.
+We have talked of her since. I noticed that though she
+did not seem to understand me, her bosom heaved, and
+she appeared to be trying to repress it, and choke something.
+I am sure now, from what I know of her character,
+that she&mdash;even in the approaches of delirium&mdash;was
+preventing herself from crying out. Her last hold of
+reason was a thought for Richard. It was against a creature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span>
+like this that we plotted! I have the comfort of
+knowing that I did my share in helping to destroy her.
+Had she seen her husband a day or two before&mdash;but no!
+there was a new <i>System</i> to interdict that! Or had she
+not so violently controlled her nature as she did, I believe
+she might have been saved.</p>
+
+<p>"He said once of a man, that his conscience was a coxcomb.
+Will you believe that when he saw his son's wife&mdash;poor
+victim! lying delirious, he could not even then see his
+error. You said he wished to take Providence out of God's
+hands. His mad self-deceit would not leave him. I am
+positive, that while he was standing over her, he was blaming
+her for not having considered the child. Indeed he
+made a remark to me that it was unfortunate&mdash;'disastrous,'
+I think he said&mdash;that the child should have to be
+fed by hand. I dare say it is. All I pray is that this
+young child may be saved from him. I cannot bear to
+see him look on it. He does not spare himself <i>bodily</i>
+fatigue&mdash;but what is that? that is the vulgarest form of
+love. I know what you will say. You will say I have
+lost all charity, and I have. But I should not feel so,
+Austin, if I could be <i>quite sure</i> that he is an altered man
+even now the blow has struck him. He is reserved and
+simple in his speech, and his grief is evident, but I have
+doubts. He heard her while she was senseless call him
+cruel and harsh, and cry that she had suffered, and I saw
+then his mouth contract as if he had been touched. Perhaps,
+when he thinks, his mind will be clearer, but what
+he has done cannot be undone. I do not imagine he will
+abuse women any more. The doctor called her a 'forte et
+belle jeune femme:' and <i>he</i> said she was as noble a soul as
+ever God moulded clay upon. A noble soul 'forte et belle!'
+She lies upstairs. If he can look on her and not see his
+<i>sin</i>, I almost fear God will never enlighten him.</p>
+
+<p>"She died five days after she had been removed. The
+shock had utterly deranged her. I was with her. She died
+very quietly, breathing her last breath without pain&mdash;asking
+for no one&mdash;a death I should like to die.</p>
+
+<p>"Her cries at one time were dreadfully loud. She
+screamed that she was 'drowning in fire,' and that her
+husband would not come to her to save her. We deadened
+the sound as much as we could, but it was impossible to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span>
+prevent Richard from hearing. He knew her voice, and
+it produced an effect like fever on him. Whenever she
+called he answered. You could not hear them without
+weeping. Mrs. Berry sat with her, and I sat with him,
+and his father moved from one to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"But the trial for us came when she was gone. How to
+communicate it to Richard&mdash;or whether to do so at all!
+His father consulted with us. We were quite decided that
+it would be madness to breathe it while he was in that
+state. I can admit now&mdash;as things have turned out&mdash;we
+were wrong. His father left us&mdash;I believe he spent the
+time in prayer&mdash;and then leaning on me, he went to Richard,
+and said in so many words, that his Lucy was no
+more. I thought it must kill him. He listened, and
+smiled. I never saw a smile so sweet and so sad. He
+said he had seen her die, as if he had passed through his
+suffering a long time ago. He shut his eyes. I could see
+by the motion of his eyeballs up that he was straining his
+sight to some inner heaven.&mdash;I cannot go on.</p>
+
+<p>"I think Richard is safe. Had we postponed the tidings,
+till he came to his clear senses, it must have killed him.
+His father was right for once, then. But if he has saved
+his son's body, he has given the death-blow to his heart.
+Richard will never be what he promised.</p>
+
+<p>"A letter found on his clothes tells us the origin of the
+quarrel. I have had an interview with Lord M. this morning.
+I cannot say I think him exactly to blame: Richard
+forced him to fight. At least I do not select him the foremost
+for blame. He was deeply and sincerely affected by
+the calamity he has caused. Alas! he was only an instrument.
+Your poor aunt is utterly prostrate and talks
+strange things of her daughter's death. She is only happy
+in <i>drudging</i>. Dr. Bairam says we must under any circumstances
+keep her employed. Whilst she is doing something,
+she can chat freely, but the moment her hands are
+not occupied she gives me an idea that she is going into
+a fit.</p>
+
+<p>"We expect the dear child's uncle to-day. Mr. Thompson
+is here. I have taken him upstairs to look at her.
+That poor young man has a true heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Come at once. You will not be in time to see her. She
+will lie at Raynham. If you could you would see an angel.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span>
+<i>He</i> sits by her side for hours. I can give you no description
+of her beauty.</p>
+
+<p>"You will not delay, I know, dear Austin, and I want
+you, for your presence will make me more charitable than
+I find it possible to be. Have you noticed the expression
+in the eyes of blind men? That is just how Richard looks,
+as he lies there silent in his bed&mdash;striving to image her on
+his brain."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+<h2>The Modern<br />
+Student's Library</h2>
+
+<hr style="width: 15%;" />
+
+<h3>NOVELS</h3>
+
+<p>
+<b>AUSTEN: Pride and Prejudice</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">William Dean Howells</span><br />
+
+<b>BUNYAN: The Pilgrim's Progress</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Samuel McChord Crothers</span><br />
+
+<b>COOPER: The Spy</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Tremaine McDowell</span>, Associate Professor of
+English, University of Minnesota<br />
+
+<b>ELIOT: Adam Bede</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Laura Johnson Wylie</span>, formerly Professor of
+English, Vassar College<br />
+
+<b>FIELDING: The Adventures of Joseph Andrews</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Bruce McCullough</span>, Associate Professor of English,
+New York University<br />
+
+<b>GALSWORTHY: The Patrician</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Bliss Perry</span>, Professor of English Literature,
+Harvard University<br />
+
+<b>HARDY: The Return of the Native</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">J. W. Cunliffe</span>, Professor of English, Columbia
+University<br />
+
+<b>HAWTHORNE: The Scarlet Letter</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Stuart P. Sherman</span>, late Literary Editor of the
+New York <i>Herald Tribune</i><br />
+
+<b>MEREDITH: Evan Harrington</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">George F. Reynolds</span>, Professor of English Literature,
+University of Colorado<br />
+
+<b>MEREDITH: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Frank W. Chandler</span>, Professor of English and
+Comparative Literature, and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, University
+of Cincinnati<br />
+
+<b>SCOTT: The Heart of Midlothian</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">William P. Trent</span>, Professor of English Literature,
+Columbia University<br />
+
+<b>STEVENSON: The Master of Ballantrae</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">H. S. Canby</span>, Assistant Editor of the <i>Yale Review</i>
+and Editor of the <i>Saturday Review</i><br />
+
+<b>THACKERAY: The History of Pendennis</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Robert Morss Lovett</span>, Professor of English,
+University of Chicago. 2 vols.<br />
+
+<b>TROLLOPE: Barchester Towers</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Clarence D. Stevens</span>, Professor of English, University
+of Cincinnati<br />
+
+<b>WHARTON: Ethan Frome</b><br />
+With a special introduction by <span class="smcap">Edith Wharton</span><br />
+
+<b>THREE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ROMANCES: The Castle of Otranto,
+Vathek, The Romance of the Forest</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Harrison R. Steeves</span>, Professor of English, Columbia
+University<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<h3>POETRY</h3>
+
+<p>
+<b>BROWNING: Poems and Plays</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Hewette E. Joyce</span>, Assistant Professor of English, Dartmouth
+College<br />
+
+<b>BROWNING: The Ring and the Book</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Frederick Morgan Padeiford</span>, Professor of English, University
+of Washington<br />
+
+<b>TENNYSON: Poems</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">J. F. A. Pyre</span>, Professor of English, University of Wisconsin<br />
+
+<b>WHITMAN: Leaves of Grass</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Stuart P. Sherman</span>, late Literary Editor of the New York
+<i>Herald Tribune</i><br />
+
+<b>WORDSWORTH: Poems</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">George M. Harper</span>, Professor of English, Princeton University<br />
+
+<b>AMERICAN SONGS AND BALLADS</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Louise Pound</span>, Professor of English, University of Nebraska<br />
+
+<b>ENGLISH POETS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Ernest Bernbaum</span>, Professor of English, University of Illinois<br />
+
+<b>MINOR VICTORIAN POETS</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">John D. Cooke</span>, Professor of English, University of Southern
+California<br />
+
+<b>ROMANTIC POETRY OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Arthur Beatty</span>, Professor of English, University of Wisconsin<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<h3>ESSAYS AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE</h3>
+
+<p>
+<b>ADDISON AND STEELE: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Will D. Howe</span>, formerly head of the Department of English,
+Indiana University<br />
+
+<b>ARNOLD: Prose and Poetry</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Archibald L. Bouton</span>, Professor of English and Dean of the
+Graduate School, New York University<br />
+
+<b>BACON: Essays</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Mary Augusta Scott</span>, late Professor of the English Language
+and Literature, Smith College<br />
+
+<b>BROWNELL: American Prose Masters</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Stuart P. Sherman</span>, late Literary Editor of the New York
+<i>Herald Tribune</i><br />
+
+<b>BURKE: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Leslie Nathan Broughton</span>, Assistant Professor of English,
+Cornell University<br />
+
+<b>CARLYLE: Past and Present</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Edwin Mims</span>, Professor of English, Vanderbilt University<br />
+
+<b>CARLYLE: Sartor Resartus</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Ashley H. Thorndike</span>, Professor of English, Columbia University<br />
+
+<b>EMERSON: Essays and Poems</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Arthur Hobson Quinn</span>, Professor of English, University of
+Pennsylvania<br />
+
+<b>FRANKLIN AND EDWARDS: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Carl Van Doren</span>, Associate Professor of English, Columbia
+University<br />
+
+<b>HAZLITT: Essays</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Percy V. D. Shelly</span>, Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania<br />
+
+<b>LINCOLN: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Nathaniel Wright Stephenson</span>, author of "Lincoln: His
+Personal Life"<br />
+
+<b>MACAULAY: Historical Essays</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Charles Downer Hazen</span>, Professor of History, Columbia
+University<br />
+
+<b>MEREDITH: An Essay on Comedy</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Lane Cooper</span>, Professor of the English Language and Literature,<br />
+
+<b>PARKMAN: The Oregon Trail</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">James Cloyd Bowman</span>, Professor of English, Northern State
+Normal College, Marquette, Mich.<br />
+
+<b>POE: Tales</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">James Southall Wilson</span>, Edgar Allan Poe Professor of English,
+University of Virginia<br />
+
+<b>RUSKIN: Selections and Essays</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Frederick William Roe</span>, Professor of English, University of
+Wisconsin<br />
+
+<b>STEVENSON: Essays</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">William Lyon Phelps</span>, Lampson Professor of English Literature,
+Yale University<br />
+
+<b>SWIFT: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Hardin Craig</span>, Professor of English, University of Iowa<br />
+
+<b>THOREAU: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Odell Shepard</span>, James J. Goodwin Professor of English, Trinity
+College<br />
+
+<b>CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Odell Shepard</span>, James J. Goodwin Professor of English, Trinity
+College<br />
+
+<b>CRITICAL ESSAYS OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Raymond M. Alden</span>, late Professor of English, Leland Stanford
+University<br />
+
+<b>SELECTIONS FROM THE FEDERALIST</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">John S. Bassett</span>, late Professor of History, Smith College<br />
+
+<b>NINETEENTH CENTURY LETTERS</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Byron Johnson Rees</span>, late Professor of English, Williams
+College<br />
+
+<b>ROMANTIC PROSE OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Carl H. Grabo</span>, Professor of English, University of Chicago<br />
+
+<b>SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Jacob Zeitlin</span>, Associate Professor of English, University of<br />
+Illinois<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<h3>BIOGRAPHY</h3>
+
+<p>
+<b>BOSWELL: Life of Johnson</b><br />
+Abridged and Edited by <span class="smcap">Charles Grosvenor Osgood</span>, Professor of English,
+Princeton University<br />
+
+<b>CROCKETT: Autobiography of David Crockett</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Hamlin Garland</span><br />
+</p>
+
+
+<h3>PHILOSOPHY SERIES<br />
+Editor, Ralph Barton Perry</h3>
+<h4><i>Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University</i></h4>
+
+<p>
+<b>ARISTOTLE: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">W. D. Ross</span>, Professor of Philosophy, Oriel College, University of
+Oxford<br />
+
+<b>BACON: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Matthew Thompson McClure</span>, Professor of Philosophy, University
+of Illinois<br />
+
+<b>BERKELEY: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Mary W. Calkins</span>, late Professor of Philosophy and Psychology,
+Wellesley College<br />
+
+<b>DESCARTES: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Ralph M. Eaton</span>, late Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Harvard
+University<br />
+
+<b>HEGEL: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Jacob Loewenberg</span>, Professor of Philosophy, University of
+California<br />
+
+<b>HOBBES: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Frederick J. E. Woodbridge</span>, Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy,
+Columbia University<br />
+
+<b>HUME: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Charles W. Hendel, Jr.</span>, Professor of Philosophy, McGill
+University<br />
+
+<b>KANT: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Theodore M. Greene</span>, Associate Professor of Philosophy,
+Princeton University<br />
+
+<b>LOCKE: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Sterling P. Lamprecht</span>, Professor of Philosophy, Amherst
+College<br />
+
+<b>PLATO: The Republic</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">C. M. Bakewell</span>, Professor of Philosophy, Yale
+University<br />
+
+<b>PLATO: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Raphael Demos</span>, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Harvard
+University<br />
+
+<b>SCHOPENHAUER: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">DeWitt H. Parker</span>, Professor of Philosophy, University of
+Michigan<br />
+
+<b>SPINOZA: Selections</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">John D. Wild</span>, Instructor in Philosophy, Harvard University<br />
+
+<b>MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Richard McKeon</span>, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Columbia
+University<br />
+</p>
+
+
+<h3>FRENCH SERIES<br />
+Editor, Horatio Smith</h3>
+<h4><i>Professor of French Language and Literature, Brown University</i></h4>
+
+<p>
+<b>BALZAC: Le Père Goriot</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Horatio Smith</span>, Brown University<br />
+
+<b>CORNEILLE: Le Cid, Horace, Polyeucte, Le Menteur</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">C. H. C. Wright</span>, Professor of French Language and Literature,
+Harvard University<br />
+
+<b>FLAUBERT: Madame Bovary</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Christian Gauss</span>, Dean of the College, Princeton
+University<br />
+
+<b>MADAME DE LA FAYETTE: La Princesse de Clèves</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">H. Ashton</span>, Professor of French Language and
+Literature, University of British Columbia<br />
+
+<b>MOLIÈRE: Les Précieuses Ridicules, Le Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">William A. Nitze</span> and <span class="smcap">Hilda L. Norman</span>, University of Chicago<br />
+
+<b>PRÉVOST: Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Louis Landré</span>, Associate Professor of French,
+Brown University<br />
+
+<b>RACINE: Andromaque, Britannicus, Phèdre</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">H. Carrington Lancaster</span>, Professor of French Literature,
+Johns Hopkins University, and <span class="smcap">Edmond A. Méras</span>, Professor of French
+Literature, Adelphi College<br />
+
+<b>GEORGE SAND: Indiana</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Hermann H. Thornton</span>, Associate Professor of
+French and Italian, Oberlin College<br />
+
+<b>STENDHAL: Le Rouge et le Noir</b><br />
+With an introduction by <span class="smcap">Paul Hazard</span>, Collège de France<br />
+
+<b>VOLTAIRE: Candide and Other Philosophical Tales</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Morris Bishop</span>, Assistant Professor of the Romance Languages
+and Literature, Cornell University<br />
+
+<b>FRENCH ROMANTIC PLAYS: Dumas's "Antony," Hugo's "Hernani"
+and "Ruy Blas," Vigny's "Chatterton," Musset's "On
+ne badine pas avec l'amour."</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">W. W. Comfort</span>, President, Haverford College<br />
+
+<b>FRENCH ROMANTIC PROSE</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">W. W. Comfort</span>, President, Haverford College<br />
+
+<b>FOUR FRENCH COMEDIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: Lesage's
+"Turcaret," Marivaux's "Le jeu de l'amour et du hasard,"
+Sedaine's "Le philosophe sans le savoir," Beaumarchais's "Le
+barbier de Séville"</b><br />
+Edited by <span class="smcap">Casimir D. Zdanowicz</span>, Professor of French, University of
+Wisconsin<br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 100%;" />
+
+<div class='tnote'><h3>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h3>
+<p>Other than the corrections listed below, printer's inconsistencies in
+spelling, punctuation and hyphenation usage have been retained.</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>
+Pg. 3 "Feveral" corrected to "Feverel" (Hippias Feverel)<br />
+Pg. 25 "run" corrected to "rung" (bell was rung)<br />
+Pg. 38 "pursuade" corrected to "persuade" (persuade her to disrobe)<br />
+Pg. 44 "Said" corrected to "said" (coward?" said)<br />
+Pg. 52 "Feveral" corrected to "Feverel" (a Feverel asking this)<br />
+Pg. 75 "Parliment" corrected to "Parliament" (the hero of our Parliament,)<br />
+Pg. 119 "agree" corrected to "agrees" (it agrees with me)<br />
+Pg. 455 "sparating" corrected to "separating" (acting righteously in separating)</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 34858-h.htm or 34858-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
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+Project Gutenberg's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith
+
+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 Ordeal of Richard Feverel
+       A History of a Father and Son
+
+Author: George Meredith
+
+Editor: Frank W. Chandler
+
+Release Date: January 5, 2011 [EBook #34858]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Dianne Nolan, Louise Setzer and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE MODERN
+  STUDENT'S LIBRARY
+
+  EACH VOLUME EDITED BY A LEADING
+  AMERICAN AUTHORITY
+
+  This series is composed of such works as are conspicuous in the
+  province of literature for their enduring influence. Every volume
+  is recognized as essential to a liberal education and will tend to
+  infuse a love for true literature and an appreciation of the
+  qualities which cause it to endure.
+
+  _A descriptive list of the volumes published in this series appears
+  in the last pages of this volume_
+
+  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+
+
+  _THE MODERN STUDENT'S LIBRARY_
+
+  THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL
+
+
+
+
+    THE ORDEAL
+    OF
+    RICHARD FEVEREL
+
+    A HISTORY OF A FATHER AND SON
+
+    BY
+    GEORGE MEREDITH
+
+    EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION
+    BY
+
+    FRANK W. CHANDLER
+
+    PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE AND DEAN OF THE
+    COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
+
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+    NEW YORK   CHICAGO   BOSTON   ATLANTA
+
+    SAN FRANCISCO       DALLAS
+
+
+
+
+    COPYRIGHT, 1896, 1917, BY
+    CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+    Printed in the United States of America
+
+    _All rights reserved. No part of this book
+    may be reproduced in any form without
+    the permission of Charles Scribner's Sons_
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER                                                            PAGE
+
+       I.--THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY                              1
+
+      II.--SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY
+              TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM                      9
+
+     III.--THE MAGIAN CONFLICT                                      16
+
+      IV.--ARSON                                                    21
+
+       V.--ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK                                    30
+
+      VI.--JUVENILE STRATAGEMS                                      35
+
+     VII.--DAPHNE'S BOWER                                           42
+
+    VIII.--THE BITTER CUP                                           47
+
+      IX.--A FINE DISTINCTION                                       55
+
+       X.--RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS
+              THE OCCASION OF AN APHORISM                           60
+
+      XI.--IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED
+              IN A LETTER                                           67
+
+     XII.--THE BLOSSOMING SEASON                                    72
+
+    XIII.--THE MAGNETIC AGE                                         83
+
+     XIV.--AN ATTRACTION                                            92
+
+      XV.--FERDINAND AND MIRANDA                                    97
+
+     XVI.--UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON                     106
+
+    XVII.--GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD                                115
+
+   XVIII.--THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS SPECIAL PLEA        120
+
+     XIX.--A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY WHISTLE                   124
+
+      XX.--CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON
+              BY THE HERO                                          127
+
+     XXI.--RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON            145
+
+    XXII.--INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER                       153
+
+   XXIII.--CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE                             163
+
+    XXIV.--OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL                 175
+
+     XXV.--IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP                          180
+
+    XXVI.--RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO               199
+
+   XXVII.--CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE                213
+
+  XXVIII.--RELATES HOW PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE CONDUCTED
+              UNDER THE APRIL OF LOVERS                            216
+
+    XXIX.--IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE
+              OF THE FIRST                                         233
+
+     XXX.--CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST                                246
+
+    XXXI.--THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON                       255
+
+   XXXII.--PROCESSION OF THE CAKE                                  262
+
+  XXXIII.--NURSING THE DEVIL                                       279
+
+   XXXIV.--CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE                                  290
+
+    XXXV.--CLARE'S MARRIAGE                                        310
+
+   XXXVI.--A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND                              325
+
+  XXXVII.--MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY                                 341
+
+ XXXVIII.--AN ENCHANTRESS                                          352
+
+   XXXIX.--THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON: A BERRY TO THE
+              RESCUE!                                              376
+
+      XL.--CLARE'S DIARY                                           392
+
+     XLI.--AUSTIN RETURNS                                          409
+
+    XLII.--NATURE SPEAKS                                           420
+
+   XLIII.--AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT                               429
+
+    XLIV.--THE LAST SCENE                                          437
+
+     XLV.--LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH                       454
+
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I
+
+Among the Victorian novelists, George Meredith occupies a place apart.
+Unlike Dickens, Thackeray, and Eliot, he appeals to a select few. Those
+who appreciate him are folk of his own temper--cultivated, intellectual,
+urbane. They are persons of taste and discernment. They are generally
+the middle-aged rather than the young. They are those who, aloof and
+contemplative, relish the comedy of life, rather than those who throw
+themselves whole-heartedly into the game. It is not to be marvelled at,
+therefore, that Meredith should have won his way slowly, or that
+recognition, when it came, should have rendered his position unique
+and secure.
+
+Meredith's career as a writer of prose was opened, in 1856, with
+_The Shaving of Shagpat_, an experiment in fantastic Oriental
+romance. In the following year, he exploited German romance less
+successfully in _Farina, a Legend of Cologne_. Having thus trained
+his 'prentice hand, he passed to mastery of his craft in _The Ordeal
+of Richard Feverel_, published in 1859. This was his first modern
+novel, and probably his best. It showed him, not only expert in the
+use of language and original in literary technic, but distinguished,
+also, as an observer of the world and an analyst of character. The
+psychological novel of George Eliot, just emerging, found here a
+rival even more subtle. _Adam Bede_, a twin-birth with _Feverel_,
+although detailed in its exploration of motive and feeling, demanded
+less mental effort on the part of its readers; it accordingly
+attracted much greater attention. Whereas it was often reprinted, no
+second edition of _Feverel_ came from the press for nearly two
+decades.
+
+In the meantime, Meredith had continued his course undeterred by
+lack of popular approval, writing six other novels before the
+appearance, in 1879, of _The Egoist_--most characteristic of all.
+Two novels in particular reflected his experience of Italy, gained
+while acting there as war correspondent in 1866. The first was
+_Emilia in England_ (1864), later rechristened _Sandra Belloni_. The
+second was its sequel _Vittoria_ (1867). The other works of the
+period comprise the semi-farcical _Evan Harrington_ (1861); the
+serious _Rhoda Fleming_ (1865); the clever _Harry Richmond_
+(1870-71); and Meredith's favorite--_Beauchamp's Career_ (1874-75).
+It is _The Egoist_, however, that most completely illustrates its
+author's conception of the novel of types. In this work, with rare
+skill and comic _elan_, if with a persistency a little wearisome,
+he lays bare the secrets of a heart and intellect thoroughly
+self-centered, proceeding so obviously from the desire to make
+out a case that he is likely to displease those who value story, yet
+satisfying those who enjoy brilliant comment on character and a
+study of its intricacies.
+
+In his later novels, Meredith never forgot the typical in attending
+to the particular, even though _The Tragic Comedians_ (1880)
+reflected incidents in the life of the socialist leader Lassalle,
+and _Diana of the Crossways_ (1885) certain traits of Sheridan's
+granddaughter, Mrs. Norton. _One of Our Conquerors_ (1891), _Lord
+Ormont and his Aminta_ (1894), and _The Amazing Marriage_ (1895)
+bring to a close the catalogue of Meredith's fiction, except for the
+unfinished _Celt and Saxon_ published after his death.
+
+Of Meredith as a poet this is not the place to speak. Suffice it to
+say that he did his first writing in verse, issuing a volume when
+twenty-three, and several others later in life, the best known being
+his sequence of irregular sonnets entitled _Modern Love_ (1867).
+His poetry, like his prose, is rich in content but difficult at
+times by reason of its crabbed and meticulous expression--a trait
+due to no obscurity of thought or lack of feeling, but rather to the
+desire to compress much meaning within a cryptic phrase. As a
+playwright, Meredith attempted comedy in The _Sentimentalists_,
+which was acted posthumously. As an essayist, he fathered a
+memorable discussion of the comic spirit and its uses, made concrete
+in his novels.
+
+Meredith's life was comparatively uneventful. He was born in 1828 at
+Portsmouth, the son of a naval outfitter. Early left an orphan, he
+was educated in Germany, and, returning to England, studied law,
+experimented in journalism, and fell in with a group of intellectuals
+led by Frederic Harrison and John Morley. He became literary
+adviser to the publishers Chapman and Hall; he edited for a
+short period _The Fortnightly Review_, and served abroad as
+correspondent for _The Morning Post_. But most of his maturity was
+passed in rural retirement in Surrey. He was twice married, at first
+unhappily to a daughter of the novelist, Thomas Love Peacock, and
+then more fortunately to a Miss Vulliamy, who bore him two children.
+His fame grew very slowly. Not until the age of sixty was he
+recognized as among the chief English novelists. But at the time of
+his death, in 1909, he was admittedly the foremost man of letters in
+Great Britain.
+
+
+II
+
+Meredith is first and last an intellectualist. Hence his preference
+for the psychological novel, for the novel of types, for the novel
+that is half essay, for the novel of distinctive style. Hence, also,
+his conception of the importance for the novelist of comedy and the
+comic spirit. Comedy, according to Meredith, is embodied mind, and
+its function is to expose violations of rational law. It is common
+sense chastising with the laughter of reason aberrations from the
+sensible. Comedy measures individual shortcomings by the social
+norm. It results from "the broad Alpine survey of the spirit born of
+our united social intelligence." It is "a game played to throw
+reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the
+drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of
+the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the
+correctness of the representation convincing." Comedy is thus
+refined rather than Rabelaisian; it is impartial rather than
+sentimental. It relies upon creating ideal figures that epitomize
+mankind in certain follies. It is typical and general in character,
+whereas tragedy is concerned primarily with the individual.
+
+"The comic spirit conceives a definite situation for a number of
+characters, and rejects all accessories in the exclusive pursuit of
+them and their speech." On the stage, the great master of such
+comedy is Moliere, and in the novel, we might add, Meredith.
+Meredith's confession of faith in the efficacy of the comic spirit
+is given in the prelude to _The Egoist_, and in these words of his
+famous _Essay_: "If you believe that our civilization is founded in
+common-sense, you will, when contemplating men, discern a Spirit
+overhead.... It has the sage's brows, and the sunny malice of a faun
+lurks at the corners of the half-closed lips.... Its common aspect
+is one of unsolicitous observation.... Men's future upon earth does
+not attract it; their honesty and shapeliness in the present does;
+and whenever they wax out of proportion, overblown...; whenever they
+offend sound reason, fair justice; are false in humility or mined
+with conceit,... the Spirit overhead will look humanly malign and
+cast an oblique light on them, followed by volleys of silvery
+laughter. That is the Comic Spirit."
+
+Unquestionably it is by the aid of this spirit that Meredith writes
+his novels, even including such a tragedy from the victim's point of
+view as _Richard Feverel_. For Meredith is theoretic or nothing.
+Conceiving of a folly to be displayed and made ridiculous, he
+invents persons and situations best to accomplish his purpose. He
+is, therefore, no mere realist examining the confused detail of
+actual life "by the watchmaker's eye in luminous rings eruptive of
+the infinitesimal." He is rather an idealist, who holds it to be the
+business of art to render life in quintessence. The artist must both
+simplify and elaborate. First, he must simplify experience into
+typical deeds and persons, eliminating from his scheme the merely
+accidental and particular. Second, he must elaborate his
+simplification, presenting it through representative concrete
+instances that it may lose the aspect of an abstract formula and
+acquire emotional significance. Meredith is thus an intellectualist
+engaged in playing a game of literary chess. He has made the pattern
+on his board and designed the pieces, and he moves them according to
+a pre-arranged plan. Just as his Sir Austin seeks to enact the role
+of Providence in determining the career of Richard Feverel, so
+Meredith plays Providence to his personages, and, more than most
+novelists, he visibly controls their fate.
+
+Since Meredith's folk are etherealized specimens of humanity set and
+kept in motion by their creator, it is his attitude toward them that
+interests us quite as much as their actions. Meredith's attitude is
+determined by his comic outlook upon life. Unswayed by the petty
+prejudices of his people, he surveys them with Olympian serenity,
+aware of a hundred impulses and errors in their conduct that will
+lead to conclusions undreamt of by themselves but clearly foreseen
+by the novelist and his readers. From a rarer atmosphere than that
+in which his people move, Meredith looks down upon their whimsies
+and their deeds with a smile of calm omniscience.
+
+Moreover, he separates himself from them by a wall of clever
+comment, sometimes sparkling and ironical, sometimes soberly
+extended to the proportions of an essay. Indeed, his novels are
+sometimes one-third narrative and two-thirds essay, with the
+dissertational manner infecting the narrative parts incurably. No
+one, I suppose, would continue reading _The Egoist_ merely from
+interest in its plot. To enjoy it one must relish inspecting at
+leisure the artificial attitudes of artificial people and listening,
+not merely to their smart chatter, but to the smarter discourse of
+the master of the puppets, who, while making them dance, lectures
+for the edification of the elect. Thus Meredith, having shown his
+hero touched by jealousy, lapses into a little essay on the theme.
+"Remember the poets upon Jealousy," he writes. "It is to be haunted
+in the heaven of two by a Third; preceded or succeeded, therefore
+surrounded, embraced, hugged by this infernal Third; it is love's
+bed of burning marl; to see and taste the withering Third in the
+bosom of sweetness; to be dragged through the past and find the fair
+Eden of it sulphurous; to be dragged to the gates of the future and
+glory to behold them blood; to adore the bitter creature trebly and
+with treble power to clutch her by the windpipe; it is to be
+cheated, derided, shamed, and abject and supplicating, and
+consciously demoniacal in treacherousness, and victoriously
+self-justified in revenge." Needless to say, generalizations of this
+sort, intruding upon the narrative at every turn, choke its progress
+and prove distracting.
+
+Almost equally distracting is Meredith's predilection for resorting
+to the methods of comedy while writing fiction. As W. C. Brownell
+has put it; "The necessities of comedy, the irruption of new
+characters, their disappearance after they have done their turn,
+expectation balked by shifting situations, the frequent postponement
+of the denouement when it particularly impends, and the alleviation
+of impatience by a succession of subordinate climaxes--all the
+machinery of the stage, in fact--impair the narrative."
+
+
+III
+
+But if the tricks of the essayist and the playwright are freely
+borrowed by Meredith, sometimes to his disadvantage and to ours,
+they are nevertheless in a measure appropriate to the kind of
+fiction he affects. For Meredith is a psychological novelist. He is
+bent upon displaying the inward process of the mind. As Richard Le
+Galliene has said of him: "The passion of his genius is ... the
+tracing of the elemental in the complex; the registration of the
+infinitesimal vibrations of first causes, the tracking in human life
+of the shadowiest trail of primal instinct, the hairbreadth
+measurement of subtle psychological tangents: and the embodiment of
+these results in artistic form." Meredith, in _Richard Feverel_,
+declares that for the novel "An audience will come to whom it will
+be given to see the elementary machinery at work.... To them nothing
+will be trivial.... They will see the links of things as they pass,
+and wonder not, as foolish people now do, that this great matter
+came out of that small one." Certainly Meredith's efforts have
+tended to realize that time. But the psychology of his characters is
+general rather than individual. You are conscious that these minds
+are typical, or even symbolic. They belong to an imaginary and
+rational world treated as though it were real.
+
+An incidental passage in _Beauchamp's Career_ shows that Meredith
+has understood both his limitations and his peculiar ability. "My
+way," he writes, "is like a Rhone island in the summer drought,
+stony, unattractive, and difficult between the two forceful streams
+of the unreal and the over-real which delight mankind--honour to the
+conjurors! My people conquer nothing, win none! they are actual yet
+uncommon. It is the clockwork of the brain that they are directed to
+set in motion, and--poor troop of actors to vacant benches!--the
+conscience residing in thoughtfulness which they would appeal to;
+and if you are there impervious to them we are lost."
+
+In Meredith's novels, which indeed reveal in operation "the
+clockwork of the brain," the author has taken care still further to
+intellectualize his appeal by means of his style. His technic holds
+attention; he is an artificer of style, and, as such, he writes a
+style of artifice. He seeks to express himself with novelty and
+distinction. If a boy runs, Meredith speaks of him as being seen to
+bound "and taking a lift of arms, fly aloft, clapping heels." If a
+woman runs, Meredith writes: "She was fleet; she ran as though a
+hundred little feet were bearing her onward smooth as water over the
+lawn and the sweeps of grass of the park, so swiftly did the hidden
+pair multiply one another to speed her.... Suddenly her flight wound
+to an end in a dozen twittering steps, and she sank." If a heroine
+of eighteen would take leave of her admirer, she says: "We have met.
+It is more than I have merited. We part. In mercy let it be forever.
+Oh, terrible word! Coined by the passions of our youth, it comes to
+us for our sole riches when we are bankrupt of earthly treasures,
+and is the passport given by Abnegation unto Woe that prays to quit
+this probationary sphere."
+
+Fancy any human being--least of all a girl--discoursing thus! But,
+no matter how simple a thought or action, Meredith sends it forth
+arrayed in finer gear than Solomon in all his glory. It is
+beribboned with metaphor and personification; it is beflounced with
+epigram and allegory. It is truth rendered more precious, as the
+medieval critics advised, by being wrapped in sayings not to be
+lightly understood by the vulgar. So, when a lover admires the
+chasteness of his lady, Meredith remarks: "He saw the Goddess
+Modesty guarding Purity; and one would be bold to say that he did
+not hear the precepts, Purity's aged grannams maternal and paternal,
+cawing approval of her over their munching gums."
+
+But Meredith's gift of phrase and his knack of knocking out
+epigrams, and his mastery over metaphor and lyrical description
+cannot be too highly commended. Diana is "wind-blown but ascending."
+When Redworth sees her kindling a fire, "a little mouse of a thought
+scampered out of one of the chambers of his head and darted along
+the passages, fetching a sweat to his brows." After Sandra's
+singing, the stillness settled back again "like one folding up a
+precious jewel." A dull professor "pores over a little inexactitude
+in phrases and pecks at it like a domestic fowl." Of one who has
+ceased to love we hear that "the passion in her was like a place of
+waves evaporated to a crust of salt." Of a lady's letter we learn
+that it "flourished with light strokes all over, like a field of the
+bearded barley." Of a heroine we are told that: "She was not of the
+creatures who are excited by an atmosphere of excitement; she took
+it as the nymph of the stream her native wave, and swam on the flood
+with expansive languor, happy to have the master passions about her;
+one or two of which her dainty hand caressed fearless of a sting;
+the lady patted them as her swans." There is brilliant illumination
+in such comparisons, a light shed instantaneously upon traits and
+mental experiences otherwise not to be revealed. When the Egoist
+would affectionately approach his shrinking Clara, nothing could
+better deliver the situation than Meredith's simile: "The gulf of a
+caress hove in view like an enormous billow hollowing under the
+curled ridge. She stooped to a buttercup; the monster swept by."
+
+It is felicity in the use of rhetorical figure that enables Meredith
+to characterize the style of a Carlyle as, "resembling either early
+architecture or utter dilapidation, so loose and rough it seemed; a
+wind-in-the-orchard style, that tumbled down here and there an
+appreciable fruit with uncouth bluster; sentences without
+commencement running to abrupt endings and smoke, like waves against
+a sea wall, learned dictionary words giving a hand to street slang,
+and accents falling on them haphazard, like slant rays from driving
+clouds; all the pages in a breeze, the whole book producing a kind
+of electrical agitation in the mind and the joints." It is
+Meredith's gift for phrase that enables him to paint those wonderful
+backgrounds for action which are the despair of common writers.
+Sometimes the scenes are sketched in with but a touch or two of
+suggestion. So, when Richard Feverel and Lucy spend an evening
+afloat, Meredith writes: "Hanging between two heavens on the lake:
+floating to her voice: the moon stepping over and through white
+shoals of soft high clouds above and below: floating to her
+voice--no other breath abroad! His soul went out of his body as he
+listened." Or, when Richard, in gay company, passes a night at
+Richmond, Meredith says simply: "Silver was seen far out on Thames.
+The wine ebbed, and the laughter. Sentiment and cigars took up the
+wondrous tale."
+
+Sometimes the description is long and minute, but always it is
+beautifully fresh. Thus the coming of dawn is pictured in _The
+Amazing Marriage_: "The smell of rock-waters and roots of herb and
+moss grew keen; air became a wine that raised the breast high to
+drink it; an uplifting coolness pervaded the heights.... The plumes
+of cloud now slowly entered into the lofty arch of dawn and melted
+from brown to purple black.... The armies of the young sunrise in
+mountain-lands neighbouring the plains, vast shadows, were marching
+over woods and meads, black against the edge of golden; and great
+heights were cut with them, and bounding waters took the leap in a
+silvery radiance to gloom; the bright and dark-banded valleys were
+like night and morning taking hands down the sweep of their
+rivers."
+
+
+IV
+
+Meredith's style receives its final and distinctive flavor, however,
+from the liberal dash of aphorism with which his books are
+sprinkled. Often an epigram will turn upon some metaphor. Such is
+the statement that: "A bone in a boy's mind for him to gnaw and
+worry corrects the vagrancies and promotes the healthy activities,
+whether there be marrow in it or not," or the exclamation: "Who are
+not fools to be set spinning, if we choose to whip them with their
+vanity! It is the consolation of the great to watch them spin."
+Such, too, is the reflection that: "Most of the people one has at
+table are drums. A rub-a-dub-dub on them is the only way to get a
+sound. When they can be persuaded to do it upon one another, they
+call it conversation." More frequently, the epigram is a neat
+generalization left abstract, as for example: "Who rises from prayer
+a better man, his prayer is answered"; "Cynics are only happy in
+making the world as barren to others as they have made it for
+themselves"; "Fools run jabbering of the irony of fate to escape the
+annoyance of tracing the causes"; "Expediency is man's wisdom; doing
+right is God's"; "Women cannot repose on a man who is not positive;
+nor have they much gratification in confounding him"; "Convictions
+are generally first impressions sealed with later prejudices"; "The
+hero of two women must die and be wept over in common before they
+can appreciate one another."
+
+A thousand such jewels glitter in the richly wrought tapestry of
+Meredith's style. That he painstakingly inserted them and wove this
+fabric to attract attention by its singularity and beauty, he
+cheerfully admits in a passage of _Emilia in England_. "The point to
+be considered," he there remarks, "is whether fiction demands a
+perfectly smooth surface. Undoubtedly a scientific work does, and a
+philosophical work should. When we ask for facts simply we feel the
+intrusion of style. Of fiction it is a part. In the one case the
+classical robe, in the other any medieval phantasy of clothing."
+
+The difficulty with a style so artificial and intellectualized is
+obvious. Meredith, according to Brownell, "flatters one's cleverness
+at first, but in the end he fatigues it." The perpetual crackle of
+aphorism and metaphor surprises, gratifies, and then wearies; for a
+writer who will never say a plain thing plainly, not only keeps his
+readers under strain, but soon seems himself to be straining.
+Nowhere is this more evident than in Meredith's predilection for
+repeating a single happy phrase such as the epithet "rogue in
+porcelain" applied to a heroine. Since the phrase tickles his fancy,
+he plays with it, drops it, picks it up, mumbles it over and over as
+a dog might a bone, and through chapter after chapter is ready at
+any pretext to run round and round with it barking. Despite his
+assiduous striving for novelty, therefore, Meredith is often
+tedious, an effect induced, not merely by his style (whether
+repetitious or gasping after eccentricity), but also by his method.
+He is so intent upon weaving his commentary upon every speech and
+action that the occasion of the commentary is smothered. A phrase
+becomes the text of a sermon, a gesture the excuse for paragraphs of
+oblique reflection. Thus he forfeits the advantage of downright
+sincerity and of forthright progress, and teases interest out of all
+patience.
+
+
+V
+
+Since Meredith is an intellectualist, we naturally ask what may be
+his philosophy. Unlike Ibsen or Browning, he preaches no doctrine.
+He offers no explicit theory of life. Nor does he, like Dickens or
+Reade or Brieux, advocate any special reform. He is never a
+propagandist. Some have lamented this fact; more have seen in it an
+argument for his universality and permanence. Though he fight no
+battles for specific causes, his influence is arrayed in general
+against certain tendencies that he disapproves and would laugh to
+defeat. Egoism, sentimentalism, hypocrisy, are fair game for his
+comedy. As an intellectualist he dislikes and distrusts excess of
+emotion--feeling indulged for its own sake. "Sentimentalists," he
+declares, "are they who seek to enjoy without incurring the immense
+debtorship for a thing done."
+
+Well might Mrs. Carlyle complain that Meredith's work lacked tears.
+That it does so he would be the first to admit, for he questions the
+worth of pathos for any true captain of his soul. "Pathos is a tide;
+often it carries the awakener of it off his feet," Meredith writes.
+"We cannot quite preserve our dignity when we stoop to the work of
+calling forth tears. Moses had probably to take a nimble jump away
+from the rock after that venerable lawgiver had knocked the water
+out of it." So Meredith sacrifices passion to analysis. His heroes
+and heroines rarely love so simply and so ardently as do Richard and
+Lucy; but the affection of even this delectable pair is modified in
+presentation by the playful cynicism of the narrator of their story.
+On the other hand, it is futile to cavil at Meredith or any other
+artist for lacking such qualities as are incompatible with those he
+most notably possesses. You cannot expect abandon of passion in the
+characters of a novelist whose forte is detachment and sublimated
+common sense. Your intellectualist is not to be blamed if he fails
+to write as a sentimentalist.
+
+Meredith's positive philosophy has been formulated by Elmer J.
+Bailey in terms that may be briefly paraphrased: Meredith thinks of
+man as torn between Nature and Circumstance. By Nature is meant the
+world of instinct, of healthy normal impulse. By Circumstance is
+meant the world of artificial laws erected by society as the
+machinery for its conduct and control. Nature is spontaneous;
+Circumstance is traditional. Man may err by allowing to either undue
+dominance. His only safety lies in the use of his reason which will
+enable him to keep both Nature and Circumstance in proper equipoise.
+And the most serviceable instrument of reason for detecting the
+follies of convention or of feeling is the comic spirit. Without
+this spirit we are not truly intellectual, for, as Meredith has
+said: "Not to have a sympathy with the playful mind is not to have a
+mind." Let us possess mind, he seems to urge, and through mind
+cultivate the soul. In _The Tragic Comedians_ he remarks: "It is the
+soul which does things in life--the rest is vapor.... Action means
+life to the soul as to the body.... Compromise is virtual death; it
+is the pact between cowardice and comfort, under the title of
+expediency. So do we gather dead matter about us. So are we
+gradually self-stifled, corrupt. The war with evil in every form
+must be incessant; we cannot have peace." The serious note here
+sounded may be heard again in his letter to a friend, Mrs. Gilman.
+There Meredith says: "I have written always with the perception that
+there is no life but of the spirit; that the concrete is the
+shadowy; yet that the way to spiritual life lies in the complete
+unfolding of the creature, not in the nipping of his passions. An
+outrage to nature helps to extinguish his light."
+
+
+VI
+
+Just such an outrage to nature perpetrated with the best intentions,
+but in blind folly, is the subject of Meredith's novel, _The Ordeal
+of Richard Feverel_. A dogmatic and conventional father endeavors to
+determine his son's life according to an infallible system of
+parental dictation. Instead of allowing the boy to develop naturally
+from within, Sir Austin seeks to mould him absolutely from without.
+The failure of this experiment makes the story. The first eleven
+chapters are in a sense introductory. They present to the reader the
+members of the Feverel family and describe with gusto a poaching
+escapade of Richard's youth. From this first ordeal he emerges
+triumphant by obeying the impulse of his heart to make frank
+confession, despite his father's endeavor to patch up the matter by
+plotting. Then, in the next twenty chapters, follows the account of
+Richard's passion for the lovely Lucy and of the machinations of
+those who would nip it in the bud. All these checks are for the
+moment overcome when Richard, after having suffered separation from
+Lucy, is again thrown with her by chance and impulsively marries
+her.
+
+In the chapters next ensuing Sir Austin, instead of gracefully
+accepting defeat, masks and crushes his emotions and permits his
+Mephistophelian nephew, the cynical Adrian, to scheme for Richard's
+alienation from his bride. Richard is lured away and succumbs to the
+spell of a wicked enchantress whom at first he has thought to
+reform; and then, shamed and distraught, he wanders abroad, seeking
+a purge for his sin. Meanwhile, the deserted wife, at Adrian's
+instigation, has been assailed by a villain, the husband of
+Richard's enchantress. Issuing unscathed from her ordeal, Lucy is
+tardily accepted by the complacent Sir Austin and received, with her
+child, at his house. Since Richard has at length achieved
+self-mastery and has resolved to return and confess to his wife, and
+plead for her grace, a general reconciliation seems imminent. But
+the novelist will not allow his tale to end happily lest its moral
+be frustrate. Accordingly, although Richard returns for an hour to
+be freely forgiven by Lucy, he dashes away forthwith, despite her
+entreaties, to duel with her persecutor. Joy, even yet, might emerge
+from disaster, since Richard escapes from the duel with only a
+wound, but the author continues implacable. His heroine, in nursing
+her husband, succumbs to a strain long protracted, and Richard,
+though recovered in body, is left but a wreck of his former self.
+Such is the desolating outcome of attempting to regulate healthy
+human loves by a worldly system.
+
+What is tragic for hero and heroine is gravely comic to the eye of
+the intellectualist surveying the folly of men from a height far
+above the troubled waves of their passion. For Meredith, Sir Austin
+incarnates a comic error. His story is the comedy of one who
+theorizes at length upon life, but utterly fails to deal with it
+practically. Of course Sir Austin takes no blame to himself. It is
+useless, he reflects, "to base any system on a human being," even
+though this is precisely what he has done. And when Richard is to
+return to his wife, and Sir Austin has at last grown kind to her, we
+hear that: "He could now admit that instinct had so far beaten
+science; for, as Richard was coming, as all were to be happy, his
+wisdom embraced them all paternally as the author of their
+happiness." Of Sir Austin, Meredith remarks: "He had experimented on
+humanity in the person of the son he loved as his life, and at once,
+when the experiment appeared to have failed, all humanity's failings
+fell on the shoulders of his son." The reader's inevitable reaction
+to the novel is expressed by Lady Blandish: "Oh! how sick I am of
+theories and systems and the pretensions of men!... I shall hate the
+name of science till the day I die. Give me nothing but commonplace,
+unpretending people!"
+
+That the plot of _Richard Feverel_ unduly tantalizes goes without
+saying. The author keeps his hero and heroine apart by main force.
+Granting that Richard is the victim of rascals, as well as of a
+ridiculous system, his easy desertion of the wife whom he loves and
+his continued separation from her seem to lie in Meredith's will
+rather than in that of his hero. Richard's yielding to Mrs. Mount,
+described with remarkable power, is more natural, but his mooning
+about Germany while Lucy is left to struggle alone is as
+exasperating as her failure to apprise him of the fact that she is
+to bear him a child. Splendid as is the last meeting of Richard and
+Lucy, declared by Stevenson to be "the strongest scene since
+Shakespeare in the English tongue," it forfeits something of
+greatness because of perversity. More natural is the faint sub-plot
+intended to echo the central theme of the book in its story of
+Clare's hopeless love for Richard, at first reciprocated, and then
+blocked by Sir Austin and the girl's mother.
+
+
+VII
+
+In characterization, this novel excels. Its folk are persons and not
+alone types. Chief of the Feverel clan is Richard's father, Sir
+Austin, wounded by the infidelity of his wife and his friend, yet an
+intellectual egoist, proud of his plans for ruling the family and
+equally proud of his epigrams. Given less fully are Richard's aunt,
+the worldly mother of Clare, and his uncles--the guardsman Algernon,
+who has lost a leg at cricket, and crochety Hippias, "the dyspepsy."
+Of Richard's cousins one is sympathetic, and the other is Satanic.
+The first, Austin Wentworth, lives in disgrace for having repaired a
+youthful indiscretion by marrying a housemaid. As for the second,
+Adrian Harley, "the Wise Youth," he is Richard's tutor, whose heart
+has dropped to his stomach, a clever worldling and the contemner of
+honest passion, one of the most accomplished cynics of all
+literature. There are minor characters, too, but equally vital, from
+blunt Farmer Blaize and his son, and the disgruntled farm-hand Tom
+Bakewell, to Sir Austin's sentimental companion Lady Blandish, and
+Ripton, the faithful old dog.
+
+Of the women three stand to the fore--Lucy, Mrs. Mount, and Mrs.
+Berry. The adorable Lucy is a northern Juliet brought to sudden
+maturity by her passion for Richard. Beneath him in birth, she is
+more than his equal in manner and mind and spirit. Though shown only
+in glimpses, she is never less than entrancing. Mrs. Mount is the
+dashing temptress, a little worn and half-hearted until piqued by
+Richard's indifference into playing her game more earnestly, and
+then exerting all the fascinations of the wicked. Most original of
+the three is Lucy's vulgar befriender, Mrs. Berry, a lovable
+"old-black-satin bunch," as Meredith tags her, wise but irrelevant,
+aware of the sensual springs beneath our polite pretenses, a
+Juliet's nurse grown mellow. It is to be noted, however, that none
+of these characters is really dynamic, unless it be Mrs. Doria
+Forey, who suffers a change of heart after sacrificing that of her
+daughter, and Richard who somewhat alters under the stress of his
+ordeal.
+
+Subordinate to character, plot, and central idea, yet scarcely less
+effective in producing the total effect of the novel, are its
+setting, its style, and its author's point of view. Already
+Meredith's point of view has been defined as that of the writer of
+comedy. In the dinner scene at Richmond, for example, you are
+conscious of the author smiling apart upon callow Richard and Ripton
+caught in the snares of the demi-monde. It is Thackeray over again,
+letting us see the self-deception of Pendennis in his admiration of
+the Fotheringay. Sometimes, in this novel, Meredith apostrophizes
+his people, emitting lyrical exclamations of admiration or disgust
+at their conduct. More often, he remains aloof, though none the less
+present in spirit. Rarely does he here conform to Brownell's
+statement, more applicable to his later fictions, that: "He is not
+merely detached, he is obliterated. All he shows us of himself is
+his talent; his standpoint is to be divined."
+
+That which especially reveals the author's standpoint is what
+Professor Saintsbury, in referring to this novel, has termed its
+"style saturated with epigrammatic quality; and of strange ironic
+persiflage permeating thought, picture, and expression." The
+persiflage appears, above all, in the speeches of the saturnine
+Adrian. As for the epigrams, their number is justified in part by
+supposing them to come from Sir Austin's collection entitled "The
+Pilgrim's Scrip." They abound, however, in the speech of others and
+in the narrative proper. Typical spicings of style are the
+following: "To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half
+traversed the world is youth's foolishness"; "It is difficult for
+those who think very earnestly for their children to know when their
+children are thinking on their own account"; "If immeasurable love
+were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost impersonate
+Providence to another"; "The ways of women, which are involution,
+and their practices, which are opposition, are generally best hit
+upon by guesswork and a bold word"; "The God of this world is in the
+machine, not out of it"; "Sentimentalism is a happy pastime and an
+important science to the timid, the idle, and the heartless; but a
+damning one to them who have anything to forfeit"; "The task of
+reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women. Dear to
+their tender hearts as old china is a bad man they are mending."
+Even illiterate Mrs. Berry talks in epigram, now on checked
+matrimony, which she holds to be as injurious as checked
+perspiration, and now on the wickedness of old people, which, she
+affirms, is the excuse for the wildness of young ones. "I think it's
+always the plan in a 'dielemmer,'" she says, "to pray God and walk
+forward." To Lucy, the bride, she gives this advice: "When the
+parlour fire gets low, put coals on the kitchen fire.... Don't
+neglect your cookery. Kissing don't last; cookery do."
+
+Aside from its aphorisms, the style of _Feverel_ is essentially
+clever, but by no means so artificial as that of Meredith's later
+novels. If a stage direction seem occasionally over-elaborate, as:
+"Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced withdrawal," others are
+felicitous, as: "At last Hippias perspired in conviction," or: "He
+set his sight hard at the blue ridges of the hills," or, of Ripton
+draining a bumper at a gulp: "The farthing rushlight of his reason
+leapt and expired. He tumbled to the sofa and there stretched."
+There are fine passages, too, of description, like those concerned
+with the boyish adventures of Richard and Ripton, the Ferdinand and
+Miranda meeting of hero and heroine, the temptation episode, and the
+storm in the German forest by night. "Up started the whole forest in
+violet fire. He saw the country at the foot of the hills to the
+bounding Rhine gleam, quiver, extinguished.... Lower down the
+abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash; then white thrusts of
+light were darted from the sky, and great curving ferns, seen
+steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally agitated and
+vanished. Then a shrilling song roused in the leaves and the
+herbage. Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier the
+deluge pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire of the
+earth." Admirable, also, are the mere hints of background given in a
+flashing phrase that conjures up the scene: "Look at those old elm
+branches! How they seem to mix among the stars!--glittering prints
+of winter."
+
+Taken all in all, _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ may be reckoned as
+Meredith's masterpiece. "My old conviction grows stronger," writes Le
+Galliene, "that it will be _Richard Feverel_ and perhaps no other of
+his novels ... that will keep his name alive in English literature."
+Certainly, Meredith has here allowed to his characters a charm of
+personality that later he tends to sacrifice in stressing their purely
+typical traits. He shows here a fire of sincerity rarely afterwards
+burning so brightly. He is less the mere essayist and more the lyric
+and dramatic tale-teller. He has set forth with skill the elements of
+a large problem, confirming the truth of Chesterton's remark that he
+combines subtlety with primal energy, and criticizes life without losing
+his appetite for it.
+
+                                            FRANK WADLEIGH CHANDLER.
+  UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI.
+
+
+
+
+THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY
+
+
+Some years ago a book was published under the title of "The
+Pilgrim's Scrip." It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms
+by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manner gave a bruised
+heart to the world.
+
+He made no pretension to novelty. "Our new thoughts have thrilled
+dead bosoms," he wrote; by which avowal it may be seen that youth
+had manifestly gone from him, since he had ceased to be jealous of
+the ancients. There was a half-sigh floating through his pages for
+those days of intellectual coxcombry, when ideas come to us
+affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear to us they are ours
+alone, and no one else have they ever visited: and we believe them.
+
+For an example of his ideas of the sex he said:
+
+"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man."
+
+Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies by so monstrous
+a scorn of them.
+
+One adventurous person betook herself to the Heralds' College, and
+there ascertained that a Griffin between two Wheatsheaves, which
+stood on the title-page of the book, formed the crest of Sir Austin
+Absworthy Bearne Feverel, Baronet, of Raynham Abbey, in a certain
+Western county folding Thames: a man of wealth and honour, and a
+somewhat lamentable history.
+
+The outline of the baronet's story was by no means new. He had a
+wife, and he had a friend. His marriage was for love; his wife was
+a beauty; his friend was a sort of poet. His wife had his whole
+heart, and his friend all his confidence. When he selected Denzil
+Somers from among his college chums, it was not on account of any
+similarity of disposition between them, but from his intense worship
+of genius, which made him overlook the absence of principle in his
+associate for the sake of such brilliant promise. Denzil had a small
+patrimony to lead off with, and that he dissipated before he left
+college; henceforth he was dependent upon his admirer, with whom he
+lived, filling a nominal post of bailiff to the estates, and
+launching forth verse of some satiric and sentimental quality; for
+being inclined to vice, and occasionally, and in a quiet way,
+practising it, he was of course a sentimentalist and a satirist,
+entitled to lash the Age and complain of human nature. His earlier
+poems, published under the pseudonym of Diaper Sandoe, were so pure
+and bloodless in their love passages, and at the same time so biting
+in their moral tone, that his reputation was great among the
+virtuous, who form the larger portion of the English book-buying
+public. Election-seasons called him to ballad-poetry on behalf of
+the Tory party. Diaper possessed undoubted fluency, but did little,
+though Sir Austin was ever expecting much of him.
+
+A languishing, inexperienced woman, whose husband in mental and in
+moral stature is more than the ordinary height above her, and who,
+now that her first romantic admiration of his lofty bearing has worn
+off; and her fretful little refinements of taste and sentiment are
+not instinctively responded to, is thrown into no wholesome
+household collision with a fluent man, fluent in prose and rhyme.
+Lady Feverel, when she first entered on her duties at Raynham, was
+jealous of her husband's friend. By degrees she tolerated him. In
+time he touched his guitar in her chamber, and they played Rizzio
+and Mary together.
+
+    "For I am not the first who found
+    The name of Mary fatal!"
+
+says a subsequent sentimental alliterative love-poem of Diaper's.
+
+Such was the outline of the story. But the baronet could fill it
+up. He had opened his soul to these two. He had been noble Love to
+the one, and to the other perfect Friendship. He had bid them be
+brother and sister whom he loved, and live a Golden Age with him at
+Raynham. In fact, he had been prodigal of the excellences of his
+nature, which it is not good to be, and, like Timon, he became
+bankrupt, and fell upon bitterness.
+
+The faithless lady was of no particular family; an orphan daughter
+of an admiral who educated her on his half-pay, and her conduct
+struck but at the man whose name she bore.
+
+After five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship, Sir Austin
+was left to his loneliness with nothing to ease his heart of love
+upon save a little baby boy in a cradle. He forgave the man: he put
+him aside as poor for his wrath. The woman he could not forgive; she
+had sinned every way. Simple ingratitude to a benefactor was a
+pardonable transgression, for he was not one to recount and crush
+the culprit under the heap of his good deeds. But her he had raised
+to be his equal, and he judged her as his equal. She had blackened
+the world's fair aspect for him.
+
+In the presence of that world, so different to him now, he preserved
+his wonted demeanour, and made his features a flexible mask. Mrs.
+Doria Forey, his widowed sister, said that Austin might have retired
+from his Parliamentary career for a time, and given up gaieties and
+that kind of thing; her opinion, founded on observation of him in
+public and private, was, that the light thing who had taken flight
+was but a feather on her brother's Feverel-heart, and his ordinary
+course of life would be resumed. There are times when common men
+cannot bear the weight of just so much. Hippias Feverel, one of his
+brothers, thought him immensely improved by his misfortune, if the
+loss of such a person could be so designated; and seeing that
+Hippias received in consequence free quarters at Raynham, and
+possession of the wing of the Abbey she had inhabited, it is
+profitable to know his thoughts. If the baronet had given two or
+three blazing dinners in the great hall he would have deceived
+people generally, as he did his relatives and intimates. He was too
+sick for that: fit only for passive acting.
+
+The nurse-maid waking in the night beheld a solitary figure
+darkening a lamp above her little sleeping charge, and became so
+used to the sight as never to wake with a start. One night she was
+strangely aroused by a sound of sobbing. The baronet stood beside
+the cot in his long black cloak and travelling cap. His fingers
+shaded a lamp, and reddened against the fitful darkness that ever
+and anon went leaping up the wall. She could hardly believe her
+senses to see the austere gentleman, dead silent, dropping tear upon
+tear before her eyes. She lay stone-still in a trance of terror and
+mournfulness, mechanically counting the tears as they fell, one by
+one. The hidden face, the fall and flash of those heavy drops in the
+light of the lamp he held, the upright, awful figure, agitated at
+regular intervals like a piece of clockwork by the low murderous
+catch of his breath: it was so piteous to her poor human nature that
+her heart began wildly palpitating. Involuntarily the poor girl
+cried out to him, "Oh, sir!" and fell a-weeping. Sir Austin turned
+the lamp on her pillow, and harshly bade her go to sleep, striding
+from the room forthwith. He dismissed her with a purse the next day.
+
+Once, when he was seven years old, the little fellow woke up at
+night to see a lady bending over him. He talked of this the next
+day, but it was treated as a dream; until in the course of the day
+his uncle Algernon was driven home from Lobourne cricket-ground with
+a broken leg. Then it was recollected that there was a family ghost;
+and, though no member of the family believed in the ghost, none
+would have given up a circumstance that testified to its existence;
+for to possess a ghost is a distinction above titles.
+
+Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman in the
+Guards. Of the other uncles of young Richard, Cuthbert, the sailor,
+perished in a spirited boat expedition against a slaving negro chief
+up the Niger. Some of the gallant lieutenant's trophies of war
+decorated the little boy's play-shed at Raynham, and he bequeathed
+his sword to Richard, whose hero he was. The diplomatist and beau,
+Vivian, ended his flutterings from flower to flower by making an
+improper marriage, as is the fate of many a beau, and was struck out
+of the list of visitors. Algernon generally occupied the baronet's
+disused town-house, a wretched being, dividing his time between
+horse and card exercise: possessed, it was said, of the absurd
+notion that a man who has lost his balance by losing his leg may
+regain it by sticking to the bottle. At least, whenever he and his
+brother Hippias got together, they never failed to try whether one
+leg, or two, stood the bottle best. Much of a puritan as Sir Austin
+was in his habits, he was too good a host, and too thorough a
+gentleman, to impose them upon his guests. The brothers, and other
+relatives, might do as they would while they did not disgrace the
+name, and then it was final: they must depart to behold his
+countenance no more.
+
+Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent to his
+misfortune, as he had perhaps dimly fancied it before, that his
+career lay in his legs, and was now irrevocably cut short. He taught
+the boy boxing, and shooting, and the arts of fence, and
+superintended the direction of his animal vigour with a melancholy
+vivacity. The remaining energies of Algernon's mind were devoted to
+animadversions on swift bowling. He preached it over the county,
+struggling through laborious literary compositions, addressed to
+sporting newspapers, on the Decline of Cricket. It was Algernon who
+witnessed and chronicled young Richard's first fight, which was with
+young Tom Blaize of Belthorpe Farm, three years the boy's senior.
+
+Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the family. It
+was his ill luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach; and,
+as one is not altogether fit for the battle of life who is engaged
+in a perpetual contention with his dinner, Hippias forsook his
+prospects at the Bar, and, in the embraces of dyspepsia, compiled
+his ponderous work on the Fairy Mythology of Europe. He had little
+to do with the Hope of Raynham beyond what he endured from his
+juvenile tricks.
+
+A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who had money to
+bequeath to the heir, occupied with Hippias the background of the
+house and shared her caudles with him. These two were seldom seen
+till the dinner-hour, for which they were all day preparing; and
+probably all night remembering, for the Eighteenth Century was an
+admirable trencherman, and cast age aside while there was a dish on
+the table.
+
+Mrs. Doria Forey was the eldest of the three sisters of the baronet,
+a florid affable woman, with fine teeth, exceedingly fine light wavy
+hair, a Norman nose, and a reputation for understanding men; and
+that, with these practical creatures, always means the art of
+managing them. She had married an expectant younger son of a good
+family, who deceased before the fulfilment of his prospects; and,
+casting about in her mind the future chances of her little daughter
+and sole child, Clare, she marked down a probability. The far sight,
+the deep determination, the resolute perseverance of her sex, where
+a daughter is to be provided for and a man to be overthrown,
+instigated her to invite herself to Raynham, where, with that
+daughter, she fixed herself.
+
+The other two Feverel ladies were the wife of Colonel Wentworth and
+the widow of Mr. Justice Harley: and the only thing remarkable about
+them was that they were mothers of sons of some distinction.
+
+Austin Wentworth's story was of that wretched character which to be
+comprehended, that justice should be dealt him, must be told out and
+openly; which no one dares now do.
+
+For a fault in early youth, redeemed by him nobly, according to his
+light, he was condemned to undergo the world's harsh judgment: not
+for the fault--for its atonement.
+
+"--Married his mother's housemaid," whispered Mrs. Doria, with a
+ghastly look, and a shudder at young men of republican sentiments,
+which he was reputed to entertain.
+
+"The compensation for Injustice," says the "Pilgrim's Scrip," "is,
+that in that dark Ordeal we gather the worthiest around us."
+
+And the baronet's fair friend, Lady Blandish, and some few true men
+and women, held Austin Wentworth high.
+
+He did not live with his wife; and Sir Austin, whose mind was bent
+on the future of our species, reproached him with being barren to
+posterity, while knaves were propagating.
+
+The principal characteristic of the second nephew, Adrian Harley,
+was his sagacity. He was essentially the wise youth, both in counsel
+and in action.
+
+"In action," the "Pilgrim's Scrip" observes, "Wisdom goes by
+majorities."
+
+Adrian had an instinct for the majority, and, as the world
+invariably found him enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of wise
+youth was acquiesced in without irony.
+
+The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no friends. Nor
+did he wish for those troublesome appendages of success. He caused
+himself to be required by people who could serve him; feared by such
+as could injure. Not that he went out of the way to secure his end,
+or risked the expense of a plot. He did the work as easily as he ate
+his daily bread. Adrian was an epicurean; one whom Epicurus would
+have scourged out of his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our
+modern notions. To satisfy his appetites without rashly staking his
+character, was the wise youth's problem for life. He had no
+intimates except Gibbon and Horace, and the society of these fine
+aristocrats of literature helped him to accept humanity as it had
+been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, with laughter of Gods in
+the background. Why not laughter of mortals also? Adrian had his
+laugh in his comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar attributes of
+a heathen God. He was a disposer of men: he was polished, luxurious,
+and happy--at their cost. He lived in eminent self-content, as one
+lying on soft cloud, lapt in sunshine. Nor Jove, nor Apollo, cast
+eye upon the maids of earth with cooler fire of selection, or
+pursued them in the covert with more sacred impunity. And he enjoyed
+his reputation for virtue as something additional. Stolen fruits are
+said to be sweet; undeserved rewards are exquisite.
+
+The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He did not
+solicit the favourable judgment of the world. Nature and he
+attempted no other concealment than the ordinary mask men wear. And
+yet the world would proclaim him moral, as well as wise, and the
+pleasing converse every way of his disgraced cousin Austin.
+
+In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy at the early
+age of one-and-twenty. Many would be glad to say the same at that
+age twice-told: they carry in their breasts a burden with which
+Adrian's was not loaded. Mrs. Doria was nearly right about his
+heart. A singular mishap (at his birth, possibly, or before it) had
+unseated that organ, and shaken it down to his stomach, where it was
+a much lighter, nay, an inspiring weight, and encouraged him merrily
+onward. Throned there it looked on little that did not arrive to
+gratify it. Already that region was a trifle prominent in the person
+of the wise youth, and carried, as it were, the flag of his
+philosophical tenets in front of him. He was charming after dinner,
+with men or with women: delightfully sarcastic: perhaps a little too
+unscrupulous in his moral tone, but that his moral reputation belied
+him, and it must be set down to generosity of disposition.
+
+Such was Adrian Harley, another of Sir Austin's intellectual
+favourites, chosen from mankind to superintend the education of his
+son at Raynham. Adrian had been destined for the Church. He did not
+enter into Orders. He and the baronet had a conference together one
+day, and from that time Adrian became a fixture in the Abbey. His
+father died in his promising son's college term, bequeathing him
+nothing but his legal complexion, and Adrian became stipendiary
+officer in his uncle's household.
+
+A playfellow of Richard's occasionally, and the only comrade of his
+age that he ever saw, was Master Ripton Thompson, the son of Sir
+Austin's solicitor, a boy without a character.
+
+A comrade of some description was necessary, for Richard was neither
+to go to school nor to college. Sir Austin considered that the
+schools were corrupt, and maintained that young lads might by
+parental vigilance be kept pretty secure from the Serpent until Eve
+sided with him: a period that might be deferred, he said. He had a
+system of education for his son. How it worked we shall see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SHOWING HOW THE FATES SELECTED THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO TRY THE
+STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM
+
+
+October shone royally on Richard's fourteenth birthday. The brown
+beechwoods and golden birches glowed to a brilliant sun. Banks of
+moveless cloud hung about the horizon, mounded to the west, where
+slept the wind. Promise of a great day for Raynham, as it proved to
+be, though not in the manner marked out.
+
+Already archery-booths and cricketing-tents were rising on the lower
+grounds towards the river, whither the lads of Bursley and Lobourne,
+in boats and in carts, shouting for a day of ale and honour, jogged
+merrily to match themselves anew, and pluck at the living laurel
+from each other's brows, like manly Britons. The whole park was
+beginning to be astir and resound with holiday cries. Sir Austin
+Feverel, a thorough good Tory, was no game-preserver, and could be
+popular whenever he chose, which Sir Miles Papworth, on the other
+side of the river, a fast-handed Whig and terror to poachers, never
+could be. Half the village of Lobourne was seen trooping through the
+avenues of the park. Fiddlers and gipsies clamoured at the gates for
+admission; white smocks, and slate, surmounted by hats of serious
+brim, and now and then a scarlet cloak, smacking of the old country,
+dotted the grassy sweeps to the levels.
+
+And all the time the star of these festivities was receding further
+and further, and eclipsing himself with his reluctant serf Ripton,
+who kept asking what they were to do and where they were going, and
+how late it was in the day, and suggesting that the lads of Lobourne
+would be calling out for them, and Sir Austin requiring their
+presence, without getting any attention paid to his misery or
+remonstrances. For Richard had been requested by his father to
+submit to medical examination like a boor enlisting for a soldier,
+and he was in great wrath.
+
+He was flying as though he would have flown from the shameful
+thought of what had been asked of him. By-and-by he communicated his
+sentiments to Ripton, who said they were those of a girl: an
+offensive remark, remembering which, Richard, after they had
+borrowed a couple of guns at the bailiff's farm, and Ripton had
+fired badly, called his friend a fool.
+
+Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonderfully like
+one, Ripton lifted his head and retorted defiantly, "I'm not!"
+
+This angry contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed Richard, who
+was still smarting at the loss of the birds, owing to Ripton's bad
+shot, and was really the injured party. He therefore bestowed the
+abusive epithet on Ripton anew, and with increase of emphasis.
+
+"You shan't call me so, then, whether I am or not," says Ripton, and
+sucks his lips.
+
+This was becoming personal. Richard sent up his brows, and stared at
+his defier an instant. He then informed him that he certainly should
+call him so, and would not object to call him so twenty times.
+
+"Do it, and see!" returns Ripton, rocking on his feet, and breathing
+quick.
+
+With a gravity of which only boys and other barbarians are capable,
+Richard went through the entire number, stressing the epithet to
+increase the defiance and avoid monotony, as he progressed, while
+Ripton bobbed his head every time in assent, as it were, to his
+comrade's accuracy, and as a record for his profound humiliation.
+The dog they had with them gazed at the extraordinary performance
+with interrogating wags of the tail.
+
+Twenty times, duly and deliberately, Richard repeated the obnoxious
+word.
+
+At the twentieth solemn iteration of Ripton's capital shortcoming,
+Ripton delivered a smart back-hander on Richard's mouth, and squared
+precipitately; perhaps sorry when the deed was done, for he was a
+kind-hearted lad, and as Richard simply bowed in acknowledgment of
+the blow he thought he had gone too far. He did not know the young
+gentleman he was dealing with. Richard was extremely cool.
+
+"Shall we fight here?" he said.
+
+"Anywhere you like," replied Ripton.
+
+"A little more into the wood, I think. We may be interrupted." And
+Richard led the way with a courteous reserve that somewhat chilled
+Ripton's ardour for the contest. On the skirts of the wood, Richard
+threw off his jacket and waistcoat, and, quite collected, waited for
+Ripton to do the same. The latter boy was flushed and restless;
+older and broader, but not so tight-limbed and well-set. The Gods,
+sole witnesses of their battle, betted dead against him. Richard had
+mounted the white cockade of the Feverels, and there was a look in
+him that asked for tough work to extinguish. His brows, slightly
+lined upward at the temples, converging to a knot about the well-set
+straight nose; his full grey eyes, open nostrils, and planted feet,
+and a gentlemanly air of calm and alertness, formed a spirited
+picture of a young combatant. As for Ripton, he was all abroad, and
+fought in schoolboy style--that is, he rushed at the foe head
+foremost, and struck like a windmill. He was a lumpy boy. When he
+did hit, he made himself felt; but he was at the mercy of science.
+To see him come dashing in, blinking and puffing and whirling his
+arms abroad while the felling blow went straight between them, you
+perceived that he was fighting a fight of desperation, and knew it.
+For the dreaded alternative glared him in the face that, if he
+yielded, he must look like what he had been twenty times
+calumniously called; and he would die rather than yield, and swing
+his windmill till he dropped. Poor boy! he dropped frequently. The
+gallant fellow fought for appearances, and down he went. The Gods
+favour one of two parties. Prince Turnus was a noble youth; but he
+had not Pallas at his elbow. Ripton was a capital boy; he had no
+science. He could not prove he was not a fool! When one comes to
+think of it, Ripton did choose the only possible way, and we should
+all of us have considerable difficulty in proving the negative by
+any other. Ripton came on the unerring fist again and again; and if
+it was true, as he said in short colloquial gasps, that he required
+as much beating as an egg to be beaten thoroughly, a fortunate
+interruption alone saved our friend from resembling that substance.
+The boys heard summoning voices, and beheld Mr. Morton of Poer Hall
+and Austin Wentworth stepping towards them.
+
+A truce was sounded, jackets were caught up, guns shouldered, and
+off they trotted in concert through the depths of the wood, not
+stopping till that and half-a-dozen fields and a larch plantation
+were well behind them.
+
+When they halted to take breath, there was a mutual study of faces.
+Ripton's was much discoloured, and looked fiercer with its natural
+war-paint than the boy felt. Nevertheless, he squared up dauntlessly
+on the new ground, and Richard, whose wrath was appeased, could not
+refrain from asking him whether he had not really had enough.
+
+"Never!" shouts the noble enemy.
+
+"Well, look here," said Richard, appealing to common sense, "I'm
+tired of knocking you down. I'll say you're not a fool, if you'll
+give me your hand."
+
+Ripton demurred an instant to consult with honour, who bade him
+catch at his chance.
+
+He held out his hand. "There!" and the boys grasped hands and were
+fast friends. Ripton had gained his point, and Richard decidedly had
+the best of it. So they were on equal ground. Both could claim a
+victory, which was all the better for their friendship.
+
+Ripton washed his face and comforted his nose at a brook, and was
+now ready to follow his friend wherever he chose to lead. They
+continued to beat about for birds. The birds on the Raynham estates
+were found singularly cunning, and repeatedly eluded the aim of
+these prime shots, so they pushed their expedition into the lands of
+their neighbours, in search of a stupider race, happily oblivious of
+the laws and conditions of trespass; unconscious, too, that they
+were poaching on the demesne of the notorious Farmer Blaize, the
+free-trade farmer under the shield of the Papworths, no worshipper
+of the Griffin between two Wheatsheaves; destined to be much allied
+with Richard's fortunes from beginning to end. Farmer Blaize hated
+poachers, and especially young chaps poaching, who did it mostly
+from impudence. He heard the audacious shots popping right and left,
+and going forth to have a glimpse at the intruders, and observing
+their size, swore he would teach my gentlemen a thing, lords or no
+lords.
+
+Richard had brought down a beautiful cock-pheasant, and was
+exulting over it, when the farmer's portentous figure burst upon
+them, cracking an avenging horsewhip. His salute was ironical.
+
+"Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?"
+
+"Just bagged a splendid bird!" radiant Richard informed him.
+
+"Oh!" Farmer Blaize gave an admonitory flick of the whip.
+
+"Just let me clap eye on't, then."
+
+"Say, please," interposed Ripton, who was not blind to doubtful
+aspects.
+
+Farmer Blaize threw up his chin, and grinned grimly.
+
+"Please to you, sir? Why, my chap, you looks as if ye didn't much
+mind what come t'yer nose, I reckon. You looks an old poacher, you
+do. Tall ye what 'tis!" He changed his banter to business, "That
+bird's mine! Now you jest hand him over, and sheer off, you dam
+young scoundrels! I know ye!" And he became exceedingly opprobrious,
+and uttered contempt of the name of Feverel.
+
+Richard opened his eyes.
+
+"If you wants to be horsewhipped, you'll stay where y'are!"
+continued the farmer. "Giles Blaize never stands nonsense!"
+
+"Then we'll stay," quoth Richard.
+
+"Good! so be't! If you will have't, have't, my men!"
+
+As a preparatory measure, Farmer Blaize seized a wing of the bird,
+on which both boys flung themselves desperately, and secured it
+minus the pinion.
+
+"That's your game," cried the farmer. "Here's a taste of horsewhip
+for ye. I never stands nonsense!" and sweetch went the mighty whip,
+well swayed. The boys tried to close with him. He kept his distance
+and lashed without mercy. Black blood was made by Farmer Blaize that
+day! The boys wriggled, in spite of themselves. It was like a
+relentless serpent coiling, and biting, and stinging their young
+veins to madness. Probably they felt the disgrace of the contortions
+they were made to go through more than the pain, but the pain was
+fierce, for the farmer laid about from a practised arm, and did not
+consider that he had done enough till he was well breathed and his
+ruddy jowl inflamed. He paused, to receive the remainder of the
+cock-pheasant in his face.
+
+"Take your beastly bird," cried Richard.
+
+"Money, my lads, and interest," roared the farmer, lashing out
+again.
+
+Shameful as it was to retreat, there was but that course open to
+them. They decided to surrender the field.
+
+"Look! you big brute," Richard shook his gun, hoarse with passion,
+"I'd have shot you, if I'd been loaded. Mind! if I come across you
+when I'm loaded, you coward, I'll fire!"
+
+The un-English nature of this threat exasperated Farmer Blaize, and
+he pressed the pursuit in time to bestow a few farewell stripes as
+they were escaping tight-breeched into neutral territory. At the
+hedge they parleyed a minute, the farmer to inquire if they had had
+a mortal good tanning and were satisfied, for when they wanted a
+further instalment of the same they were to come for it to Belthorpe
+Farm, and there it was in pickle: The boys meantime exploding in
+menaces and threats of vengeance, on which the farmer contemptuously
+turned his back. Ripton had already stocked an armful of flints for
+the enjoyment of a little skirmishing. Richard, however, knocked
+them all out, saying, "No! Gentlemen don't fling stones; leave that
+to the blackguards."
+
+"Just one shy at him!" pleaded Ripton, with his eye on Farmer
+Blaize's broad mark, and his whole mind drunken with a sudden
+revelation of the advantages of light troops in opposition to
+heavies.
+
+"No," said Richard, imperatively, "no stones," and marched briskly
+away. Ripton followed with a sigh. His leader's magnanimity was
+wholly beyond him. A good spanking mark at the farmer would have
+relieved Master Ripton; it would have done nothing to console
+Richard Feverel for the ignominy he had been compelled to submit to.
+Ripton was familiar with the rod, a monster much despoiled of his
+terrors by intimacy. Birch-fever was past with this boy. The
+horrible sense of shame, self-loathing, universal hatred, impotent
+vengeance, as if the spirit were steeped in abysmal blackness, which
+comes upon a courageous and sensitive youth condemned for the first
+time to taste this piece of fleshly bitterness, and suffer what he
+feels is a defilement, Ripton had weathered and forgotten. He was
+seasoned wood, and took the world pretty wisely; not reckless of
+castigation, as some boys become, nor oversensitive as to dishonour,
+as his friend and comrade beside him was.
+
+Richard's blood was poisoned. He had the fever on him severely. He
+would not allow stone-flinging, because it was a habit of his to
+discountenance it. Mere gentlemanly considerations had scarce
+shielded Farmer Blaize, and certain very ungentlemanly schemes were
+coming to ghastly heads in the tumult of his brain; rejected solely
+from their glaring impracticability even to his young intelligence.
+A sweeping and consummate vengeance for the indignity alone should
+satisfy him. Something tremendous must be done, and done without
+delay. At one moment he thought of killing all the farmer's cattle;
+next of killing him; challenging him to single combat with the arms,
+and according to the fashion of gentlemen. But the farmer was a
+coward; he would refuse. Then he, Richard Feverel, would stand by
+the farmer's bedside, and rouse him; rouse him to fight with powder
+and ball in his own chamber, in the cowardly midnight, where he
+might tremble, but dare not refuse.
+
+"Lord!" cried simple Ripton, while these hopeful plots were raging
+in his comrade's brain, now sparkling for immediate execution, and
+anon lapsing disdainfully dark in their chances of fulfilment, "how
+I wish you'd have let me notch him, Ricky! I'm a safe shot. I never
+miss. I should feel quite jolly if I'd spanked him once. We should
+have had the best of him at that game. I say!" and a sharp thought
+drew Ripton's ideas nearer home, "I wonder whether my nose is as bad
+as he says! Where can I see myself?"
+
+To these exclamations Richard was deaf, and he trudged steadily
+forward, facing but one object.
+
+After tearing through innumerable hedges, leaping fences, jumping
+dykes, penetrating brambly copses, and getting dirty, ragged, and
+tired, Ripton awoke from his dream of Farmer Blaize and a blue nose
+to the vivid consciousness of hunger; and this grew with the
+rapidity of light upon him, till in the course of another minute he
+was enduring the extremes of famine, and ventured to question his
+leader whither he was being conducted. Raynham was out of sight.
+They were a long way down the valley, miles from Lobourne, in a
+country of sour pools, yellow brooks, rank pasturage, desolate
+heath. Solitary cows were seen; the smoke of a mud cottage; a cart
+piled with peat; a donkey grazing at leisure, oblivious of an unkind
+world; geese by a horse-pond, gabbling as in the first loneliness of
+creation; uncooked things that a famishing boy cannot possibly care
+for, and must despise. Ripton was in despair.
+
+"Where _are_ you going to?" he inquired with a voice of the last
+time of asking, and halted resolutely.
+
+Richard now broke his silence to reply, "Anywhere."
+
+"Anywhere!" Ripton took up the moody word. "But ain't you awfully
+hungry?" he gasped vehemently, in a way that showed the total
+emptiness of his stomach.
+
+"No," was Richard's brief response.
+
+"Not hungry!" Ripton's amazement lent him increased vehemence. "Why,
+you haven't had anything to eat since breakfast! Not hungry? I
+declare I'm starving. I feel such a gnawing I could eat dry bread
+and cheese!"
+
+Richard sneered: not for reasons that would have actuated a similar
+demonstration of the philosopher.
+
+"Come," cried Ripton, "at all events, tell us where you're going to
+stop."
+
+Richard faced about to make a querulous retort. The injured and
+hapless visage that met his eye disarmed him. The lad's nose, though
+not exactly of the dreaded hue, was really becoming discoloured. To
+upbraid him would be cruel. Richard lifted his head, surveyed the
+position, and exclaiming "Here!" dropped down on a withered bank,
+leaving Ripton to contemplate him as a puzzle whose every new move
+was a worse perplexity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE MAGIAN CONFLICT
+
+
+Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not
+written or formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and
+invariably acted upon by the loyal and the true. The race is not
+nearly civilized, we must remember. Thus, not to follow your leader
+whithersoever he may think proper to lead; to back out of an
+expedition because the end of it frowns dubious, and the present
+fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the road, and return
+home without him: these are tricks which no boy of spirit would be
+guilty of, let him come to any description of mortal grief in
+consequence. Better so than have his own conscience denouncing him
+sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are not troubled by this
+conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their fellows have to
+supply the deficiency. They do it with just as haunting, and even
+more horrible pertinacity, than the inner voice, and the result, if
+the probation be not very severe and searching, is the same. The
+leader can rely on the faithfulness of his host: the comrade is
+sworn to serve. Master Ripton Thompson was naturally loyal. The idea
+of turning off and forsaking his friend never once crossed his mind,
+though his condition was desperate, and his friend's behaviour that
+of a Bedlamite. He announced several times impatiently that they
+would be too late for dinner. His friend did not budge. Dinner
+seemed nothing to him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the
+old dog's nose, as if incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger
+was. Ripton took half-a-dozen turns up and down, and at last flung
+himself down beside the taciturn boy, accepting his fate.
+
+Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a smart shower
+from the sinking sun, and the wet sent two strangers for shelter in
+the lane behind the hedge where the boys reclined. One was a
+travelling tinker, who lit a pipe and spread a tawny umbrella. The
+other was a burly young countryman, pipeless and tentless. They
+saluted with a nod, and began recounting for each other's benefit
+the day-long doings of the weather, as it had affected their
+individual experience and followed their prophecies. Both had
+anticipated and foretold a bit of rain before night, and therefore
+both welcomed the wet with satisfaction. A monotonous betweenwhiles
+kind of talk they kept droning, in harmony with the still hum of the
+air. From the weather theme they fell upon the blessings of tobacco;
+how it was the poor man's friend, his company, his consolation, his
+comfort, his refuge at night, his first thought in the morning.
+
+"Better than a wife!" chuckled the tinker. "No curtain-lecturin'
+with a pipe. Your pipe an't a shrew."
+
+"That be it!" the other chimed in. "Your pipe doan't mak' ye out wi'
+all the cash Saturday evenin'."
+
+"Take one," said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the moment,
+handing a grimy short clay. Speed-the-Plough filled from the
+tinker's pouch, and continued his praises.
+
+"Penny a day, and there y'are, primed! Better than a wife? Ha, ha!"
+
+"And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants,"
+added tinker.
+
+"So ye can!" Speed-the-Plough took him up. "And ye doan't want for
+to. Leastways, t'other case. I means pipe."
+
+"And," continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, "it don't
+bring repentance after it."
+
+"Not nohow, master, it doan't! And"--Speed-the-Plough cocked his
+eye--"it doan't eat up half the victuals, your pipe doan't."
+
+Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of a clincher,
+which the tinker acknowledged; and having, so to speak, sealed up
+the subject by saying the best thing that could be said, the two
+smoked for some time in silence to the drip and patter of the
+shower.
+
+Ripton solaced his wretchedness by watching them through the briar
+hedge. He saw the tinker stroking a white cat, and appealing to her,
+every now and then, as his missus, for an opinion or a confirmation;
+and he thought that a curious sight. Speed-the-Plough was stretched
+at full length, with his boots in the rain, and his head amidst the
+tinker's pots, smoking, profoundly contemplative. The minutes seemed
+to be taken up alternately by the grey puffs from their mouths.
+
+It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, "Times is bad!"
+
+His companion assented, "Sure-ly!"
+
+"But it somehow comes round right," resumed the tinker. "Why, look
+here. Where's the good o' moping? I sees it all come round right and
+tight. Now I travels about. I've got my beat. 'Casion calls me
+t'other day to Newcastle!--Eh?"
+
+"Coals!" ejaculated Speed-the-Plough sonorously.
+
+"Coals!" echoed the tinker. "You ask what I goes there for, mayhap?
+Never you mind. One sees a mort o' life in my trade. Not for coals
+it isn't. And I don't carry 'em there, neither. Anyhow, I comes
+back. London's my mark. Says I, I'll see a bit o' the sea, and steps
+aboard a collier. We were as nigh wrecked as the prophet Paul."
+
+"--A--who's him?" the other wished to know.
+
+"Read your Bible," said the tinker. "We pitched and tossed--'tain't
+that game at sea 'tis on land, I can tell ye! I thinks, down we're
+a-going--say your prayers, Bob Tiles! That was a night, to be sure!
+But God's above the devil, and here I am, ye see."
+
+Speed-the-Plough lurched round on his elbow and regarded him
+indifferently. "D'ye call that doctrin'? He bean't al'ays, or I
+shoo'n't be scrapin' my heels wi' nothin' to do, and, what's warse,
+nothin' to eat. Why, look heer. Luck's luck, and bad luck's the
+contrary. Varmer Bollop, t'other day, has's rick burnt down. Next
+night his gran'ry's burnt. What do he tak' and go and do? He takes
+and goes and hangs unsel', and turns us out of his employ. God
+warn't above the devil then, I thinks, or I can't make out the
+reckonin'."
+
+The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case.
+
+"And a darn'd bad case. I'll tak' my oath on't!" cried
+Speed-the-Plough. "Well, look heer! Heer's another darn'd bad case.
+I threshed for Varmer Blaize--Blaize o' Beltharpe--afore I goes to
+Varmer Bollop. Varmer Blaize misses pilkins. He swears our chaps
+steals pilkins. 'Twarn't me steals 'em. What do _he_ tak' and go and
+do? He takes and tarns us off, me and another, neck and crop, to
+scuffle about and starve, for all _he_ keers. God warn't above the
+devil then, I thinks. Not nohow, as I can see!"
+
+The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case also.
+
+"And you can't mend it," added Speed-the-Plough. "It's bad, and
+there it be. But I'll tell ye what, master. Bad wants payin' for."
+He nodded and winked mysteriously. "Bad has its wages as well's
+honest work, I'm thinkin'. Varmer Bollop I don't owe no grudge to:
+Varmer Blaize I do. And I shud like to stick a Lucifer in his rick
+some dry windy night." Speed-the-Plough screwed up an eye
+villainously. "He wants hittin' in the wind,--jest where the pocket
+is, master, do Varmer Blaize, and he'll cry out 'O Lor'!' Varmer
+Blaize will. You won't get the better o' Varmer Blaize by no means,
+as I makes out, if ye doan't hit into him jest there."
+
+The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from his mouth,
+and said that would be taking the devil's side of a bad case.
+Speed-the-Plough observed energetically that, if Farmer Blaize was
+on the other, he should be on that side.
+
+There was a young gentleman close by, who thought with him. The hope
+of Raynham had lent a careless half-compelled attention to the
+foregoing dialogue, wherein a common labourer and a travelling
+tinker had propounded and discussed one of the most ancient theories
+of transmundane dominion and influence on mundane affairs. He now
+started to his feet, and came tearing through the briar hedge,
+calling out for one of them to direct them the nearest road to
+Bursley. The tinker was kindling preparations for his tea, under the
+tawny umbrella. A loaf was set forth, on which Ripton's eyes, stuck
+in the hedge, fastened ravenously. Speed-the-Plough volunteered
+information that Bursley was a good three mile from where they
+stood, and a good eight mile from Lobourne.
+
+"I'll give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow," said
+Richard to the tinker.
+
+"It's a bargain," quoth the tinker, "eh, missus?"
+
+His cat replied by humping her back at the dog.
+
+The half-crown was tossed down, and Ripton, who had just succeeded
+in freeing his limbs from the briar, prickly as a hedgehog, collared
+the loaf.
+
+"Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake," said the tinker
+to his companion. "Come! we'll to Bursley after 'em, and talk it out
+over a pot o' beer." Speed-the-Plough was nothing loath, and in a
+short time they were following the two lads on the road to Bursley,
+while a horizontal blaze shot across the autumn land from the
+Western edge of the rain-cloud.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ARSON
+
+
+Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham,
+and Sir Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save
+Austin Wentworth and Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their
+account of the flight of the lads when they were hailed, and
+resolved it into an act of rebellion on the part of his son. At
+dinner he drank the young heir's health in ominous silence. Adrian
+Harley stood up in his place to propose the health. His speech was a
+fine piece of rhetoric. He warmed in it till, after the Ciceronic
+model, inanimate objects were personified, and Richard's
+table-napkin and vacant chair were invoked to follow the steps of a
+peerless father, and uphold with his dignity the honour of the
+Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a soldier's death compelled to take
+his father's place in support of the toast, was tame after such
+magniloquence. But the reply, the thanks which young Richard should
+have delivered in person were not forthcoming. Adrian's oratory had
+given but a momentary life to napkin and chair. The company of
+honoured friends, and aunts, and uncles, and remotest cousins, were
+glad to disperse and seek amusement in music and tea. Sir Austin did
+his utmost to be hospitably cheerful, and requested them to dance.
+If he had desired them to laugh he would have been obeyed, and in as
+hearty a manner.
+
+"How triste!" said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne's curate, as that
+most enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with
+professional stiffness.
+
+"One who does not suffer can hardly assent," the curate answered,
+basking in her beams.
+
+"Ah, you are good!" exclaimed the lady. "Look at my Clare. She will
+not dance on her cousin's birthday with any one but him. What are we
+to do to enliven these people?"
+
+"Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for one," the
+curate sighed, and wherever she wandered in discourse, drew her back
+with silken strings to gaze on his enamoured soul.
+
+He was the only gratified stranger present. The others had designs
+on the young heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford House had brought her
+highly-polished specimen of marketware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a
+first introduction to him, thinking he had arrived at an age to
+estimate and pine for her black eyes and pretty pert mouth. The Lady
+Juliana had to pair off with a dapper Papworth, and her mama was
+subjected to the gallantries of Sir Miles, who talked land and
+steam-engines to her till she was sick, and had to be impertinent in
+self-defence. Lady Blandish, the delightful widow, sat apart with
+Adrian, and enjoyed his sarcasms on the company. By ten at night the
+poor show ended, and the rooms were dark, dark as the prognostics
+multitudinously hinted by the disappointed and chilled guests
+concerning the probable future of the hope of Raynham. Little Clare
+kissed her mama, curtsied to the lingering curate, and went to bed
+like a very good girl. Immediately the maid had departed, little
+Clare deliberately exchanged night attire for that of day. She was
+noted as an obedient child. Her light was always allowed to burn in
+her room for half-an-hour, to counteract her fears of the dark. She
+took the light, and stole on tiptoe to Richard's room. No Richard
+was there. She peeped in further and further. A trifling agitation
+of the curtains shot her back through the door and along the passage
+to her own bedchamber with extreme expedition. She was not much
+alarmed, but feeling guilty she was on her guard. In a short time
+she was prowling about the passages again. Richard had slighted and
+offended the little lady, and was to be asked whether he did not
+repent such conduct toward his cousin; not to be asked whether he
+had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss from her; for, if he did
+not choose to remember that, Miss Clare would never remind him of
+it, and to-night should be his last chance of a reconciliation. Thus
+she meditated, sitting on a stair, and presently heard Richard's
+voice below in the hall, shouting for supper.
+
+"Master Richard has returned," old Benson the butler tolled out
+intelligence to Sir Austin.
+
+"Well?" said the baronet.
+
+"He complains of being hungry," the butler hesitated, with a look of
+solemn disgust.
+
+"Let him eat."
+
+Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced that the boy had
+called for wine. It was an unprecedented thing. Sir Austin's brows
+were portending an arch, but Adrian suggested that he wanted
+possibly to drink his birthday, and claret was conceded.
+
+The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when Adrian strolled
+in to them. They had now changed characters. Richard was uproarious.
+He drank a health with every glass; his cheeks were flushed and his
+eyes brilliant. Ripton looked very much like a rogue on the tremble
+of detection, but his honest hunger and the partridge-pie shielded
+him awhile from Adrian's scrutinizing glance. Adrian saw there was
+matter for study, if it were only on Master Ripton's betraying nose,
+and sat down to hear and mark.
+
+"Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?" he began his quiet banter,
+and provoked a loud peal of laughter from Richard.
+
+"Ha, ha! I say, Rip: 'Havin' good sport, gentlemen, are ye?' You
+remember the farmer! Your health, parson! We haven't had our sport
+yet. We're going to have some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we haven't
+much show of birds. We shot for pleasure, and returned them to the
+proprietors. You're fond of game, parson! Ripton is a dead shot in
+what Cousin Austin calls the Kingdom of 'would-have-done' and
+'might-have-been.' Up went the birds, and cries Rip, 'I've forgotten
+to load!' Oh, ho!--Rip! some more claret--Do just leave that nose of
+yours alone.--Your health, Ripton Thompson! The birds hadn't the
+decency to wait for him, and so, parson, it's their fault, and not
+Rip's, you haven't a dozen brace at your feet. What have you been
+doing at home, Cousin Rady?"
+
+"Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark. The day
+without you, my dear boy, must be dull, you know."
+
+    "'He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere?
+    There's an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.'
+
+Sandoe's poems! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. Why shouldn't I
+quote Sandoe? You know you like him, Rady. But, if you've missed me,
+I'm sorry. Rip and I have had a beautiful day. We've made new
+acquaintances. We've seen the world. I'm the monkey that has seen
+the world, and I'm going to tell you all about it. First, there's a
+gentleman who takes a rifle for a fowling-piece. Next, there's a
+farmer who warns everybody, gentleman and beggar, off his premises.
+Next, there's a tinker and a ploughman, who think that God is always
+fighting with the devil which shall command the kingdoms of the
+earth. The tinker's for God, and the ploughman"----
+
+"I'll drink your health, Ricky," said Adrian, interrupting.
+
+"Oh, I forgot, parson;--I mean no harm, Adrian. I'm only telling
+what I've heard."
+
+"No harm, my dear boy," returned Adrian. "I'm perfectly aware that
+Zoroaster is not dead. You have been listening to a common creed.
+Drink the Fire-worshippers, if you will."
+
+"Here's to Zoroaster, then!" cried Richard. "I say, Rippy! we'll
+drink the Fire-worshippers to-night, won't we?"
+
+A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced Guido
+Fawkes, was darted back from the plastic features of Master Ripton.
+
+Richard gave his lungs loud play.
+
+"Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn't you say it was
+fun?"
+
+Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton's answer. Adrian
+watched the innocent youths, and knew that there was talking under
+the table. "See," thought he, "this boy has tasted his first scraggy
+morsel of life to-day, and already he talks like an old stager, and
+has, if I mistake not, been acting too. My respected chief," he
+apostrophized Sir Austin, "combustibles are only the more dangerous
+for compression. This boy will be ravenous for Earth when he is let
+loose, and very soon make his share of it look as foolish as yonder
+game-pie!"--a prophecy Adrian kept to himself.
+
+Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before the supper was
+finished, and his more genial presence brought out a little of the
+plot.
+
+"Look here, uncle!" said Richard. "Would you let a churlish old
+brute of a farmer strike you without making him suffer for it?"
+
+"I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad," replied his uncle.
+
+"Of course you would! So would I. And he shall suffer for it." The
+boy looked savage, and his uncle patted him down.
+
+"I've boxed his son; I'll box him," said Richard, shouting for more
+wine.
+
+"What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up?"
+
+"Never mind, uncle!" The boy nodded mysteriously.
+
+Look there! Adrian read on Ripton's face, he says "never mind," and
+lets it out!
+
+"Did we beat to-day, uncle?"
+
+"Yes, boy; and we'd beat them any day they bowl fair. I'd beat them
+on one leg. There's only Natkins and Featherdene among them worth a
+farthing."
+
+"We beat!" cries Richard. "Then we'll have some more wine, and drink
+their healths."
+
+The bell was rung; wine ordered. Presently comes in heavy Benson, to
+say supplies are cut off. One bottle, and no more. The Captain
+whistled; Adrian shrugged.
+
+The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. He liked
+studying intoxicated urchins.
+
+One subject was at Richard's heart, about which he was reserved in
+the midst of his riot. Too proud to inquire how his father had taken
+his absence, he burned to hear whether he was in disgrace. He led to
+it repeatedly, and it was constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian.
+At last, when the boy declared a desire to wish his father
+good-night, Adrian had to tell him that he was to go straight to bed
+from the supper-table. Young Richard's face fell at that, and his
+gaiety forsook him. He marched to his room without another word.
+
+Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son's behaviour and
+adventures; dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity when he heard of
+his father's resolution not to see him. The wise youth saw that his
+chief was mollified behind his moveless mask, and went to bed, and
+Horace, leaving Sir Austin in his study. Long hours the baronet sat
+alone. The house had not its usual influx of Feverels that day.
+Austin Wentworth was staying at Poer Hall, and had only come over
+for an hour. At midnight the house breathed sleep. Sir Austin put on
+his cloak and cap, and took the lamp to make his rounds. He
+apprehended nothing special, but with a mind never at rest he
+constituted himself the sentinel of Raynham. He passed the chamber
+where the Great-Aunt Grantley lay, who was to swell Richard's
+fortune, and so perform her chief business on earth. By her door he
+murmured, "Good creature! you sleep with a sense of duty done," and
+paced on, reflecting, "She has not made money a demon of discord,"
+and blessed her. He had his thoughts at Hippias's somnolent door,
+and to them the world might have subscribed.
+
+A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber! thinks
+Adrian Harley, as he hears Sir Austin's footfall, and truly that was
+a strange object to see.--Where is the fortress that has not one
+weak gate? where the man who is sound at each particular angle? Ay,
+meditates the recumbent cynic, more or less mad is not every
+mother's son? Favourable circumstances--good air, good company, two
+or three good rules rigidly adhered to--keep the world out of
+Bedlam. But, let the world fly into a passion, and is not Bedlam the
+safest abode for it?
+
+Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely toward
+the chamber where his son was lying in the left wing of the Abbey.
+At the end of the gallery which led to it he discovered a dim light.
+Doubting it an illusion, Sir Austin accelerated his pace. This wing
+had aforetime a bad character. Notwithstanding what years had done
+to polish it into fair repute, the Raynham kitchen stuck to
+tradition, and preserved certain stories of ghosts seen there, that
+effectually blackened it in the susceptible minds of new housemaids
+and under-cooks, whose fears would not allow the sinner to wash his
+sins. Sir Austin had heard of the tales circulated by his domestics
+underground. He cherished his own belief, but discouraged theirs,
+and it was treason at Raynham to be caught traducing the left wing.
+As the baronet advanced, the fact of a light burning was clear to
+him. A slight descent brought him into the passage, and he beheld a
+poor human candle standing outside his son's chamber. At the same
+moment a door closed hastily. He entered Richard's room. The boy was
+absent. The bed was unpressed: no clothes about: nothing to show
+that he had been there that night. Sir Austin felt vaguely
+apprehensive. Has he gone to my room to await me? thought the
+father's heart. Something like a tear quivered in his arid eyes as
+he meditated and hoped this might be so. His own sleeping-room faced
+that of his son. He strode to it with a quick heart. It was empty.
+Alarm dislodged anger from his jealous heart, and dread of evil put
+a thousand questions to him that were answered in air. After pacing
+up and down his room he determined to go and ask the boy Thompson,
+as he called Ripton, what was known to him.
+
+The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was at the northern
+extremity of the passage, and overlooked Lobourne and the valley to
+the West. The bed stood between the window and the door. Sir Austin
+found the door ajar, and the interior dark. To his surprise, the boy
+Thompson's couch, as revealed by the rays of his lamp, was likewise
+vacant. He was turning back when he fancied he heard the sibilation
+of a whispering in the room. Sir Austin cloaked the lamp and trod
+silently toward the window. The heads of his son Richard and the boy
+Thompson were seen crouched against the glass, holding excited
+converse together. Sir Austin listened, but he listened to a
+language of which he possessed not the key. Their talk was of fire,
+and of delay: of expected agrarian astonishment: of a farmer's huge
+wrath: of violence exercised upon gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk
+that the boys jerked out by fits, and that came as broken links of a
+chain impossible to connect. But they awoke curiosity. The baronet
+condescended to play the spy upon his son.
+
+Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable stars.
+
+"How jolly I feel!" exclaimed Ripton, inspired by claret; and then,
+after a luxurious pause--"I think that fellow has pocketed his
+guinea, and cut his lucky."
+
+Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the baronet
+waited anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing it when he heard
+its altered tones.
+
+"If he has, I'll go; and I'll do it myself."
+
+"You would?" returned Master Ripton. "Well, I'm hanged!--I say, if
+you went to school, wouldn't you get into rows! Perhaps he hasn't
+found the place where the box was stuck in. I think he funks it. I
+almost wish you hadn't done it, upon my honour--eh? Look there! what
+was that? That looked like something.--I say! do you think we shall
+ever be found out?"
+
+Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation very seriously.
+
+"I don't think about it," said Richard, all his faculties bent on
+signs from Lobourne.
+
+"Well, but," Ripton persisted, "suppose we are found out?"
+
+"If we are, I must pay for it."
+
+Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was beginning to
+gather a clue to the dialogue. His son was engaged in a plot, and
+was, moreover, the leader of the plot. He listened for further
+enlightenment.
+
+"What was the fellow's name?" inquired Ripton.
+
+His companion answered, "Tom Bakewell."
+
+"I'll tell you what," continued Ripton. "You let it all clean out to
+your cousin and uncle at supper. How capital claret is with
+partridge-pie! What a lot I ate!--Didn't you see me frown?"
+
+The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late
+refection, and the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard
+answered him--
+
+"Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn't matter. Rady's safe, and uncle
+never blabs."
+
+"Well, my plan is to keep it close. You're never safe if you
+don't.--I never drank much claret before," Ripton was off again.
+"Won't I now, though! claret's my wine. You know, it may come out
+any day, and then we're done for," he rather incongruously appended.
+
+Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend's rambling
+chatter, and answered--
+
+"You've got nothing to do with it, if we are."
+
+"Haven't I, though! I didn't stick in the box, but I'm an
+accomplice, that's clear. Besides," added Ripton, "do you think I
+should leave you to bear it all on your shoulders? I ain't that sort
+of chap, Ricky, I can tell you."
+
+Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. Still it looked
+a detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed
+him strangely. He was not the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it
+seemed as if a gulf had suddenly opened between them. The boy had
+embarked, and was on the waters of life in his own vessel. It was as
+vain to call him back as to attempt to erase what Time has written
+with the Judgment Blood! This child, for whom he had prayed nightly
+in such a fervour and humbleness to God, the dangers were about him,
+the temptations thick on him, and the devil on board piloting. If a
+day had done so much, what would years do? Were prayers and all the
+watchfulness he had expended of no avail?
+
+A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman--a
+thought that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy.
+
+He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the spot, and
+make them confess, and absolve themselves; but it seemed to him
+better to keep an unseen eye over his son: Sir Austin's old system
+prevailed.
+
+Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin
+wished to be Providence to his son.
+
+If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might
+almost impersonate Providence to another. Alas! love, divine as it
+is, can do no more than lighten the house it inhabits--must take its
+shape, sometimes intensify its narrowness--can spiritualize, but not
+expel, the old life-long lodgers above-stairs and below.
+
+Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent.
+
+The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal stars, and the
+exclamations of the boys were becoming fevered and impatient.
+By-and-by one insisted that he had seen a twinkle. The direction he
+gave was out of their anticipations. Again the twinkle was
+announced. Both boys started to their feet. It was a twinkle in the
+right direction now.
+
+"He's done it!" cried Richard, in great heat. "Now you may say old
+Blaize'll soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope he's asleep."
+
+"I'm sure he's snoring!--Look there! He's alight fast enough. He's
+dry. He'll burn.--I say," Ripton re-assumed the serious intonation,
+"do you think they'll ever suspect us?"
+
+"What if they do? We must brunt it."
+
+"Of course we will. But, I say! I wish you hadn't given them the
+scent, though. I like to look innocent. I can't when I know people
+suspect me. Lord! look there! Isn't it just beginning to flare up!"
+
+The farmer's grounds were indeed gradually standing out in sombre
+shadows.
+
+"I'll fetch my telescope," said Richard. Ripton, somehow not liking
+to be left alone, caught hold of him.
+
+"No; don't go and lose the best of it. Here, I'll throw open the
+window, and we can see."
+
+The window was flung open, and the boys instantly stretched half
+their bodies out of it; Ripton appearing to devour the rising flames
+with his mouth: Richard with his eyes.
+
+Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet behind them.
+The wind was low. Dense masses of smoke hung amid the darting snakes
+of fire, and a red malign light was on the neighbouring leafage. No
+figures could be seen. Apparently the flames had nothing to contend
+against, for they were making terrible strides into the darkness.
+
+"Oh!" shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, "if I had my
+telescope! We must have it! Let me go and fetch it! I will!"
+
+The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped back. As he did
+so, a cry was heard in the passage. He hurried out, closed the
+chamber, and came upon little Clare lying senseless along the floor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK
+
+
+In the morning that followed this night, great gossip was
+interchanged between Raynham and Lobourne. The village told how
+Farmer Blaize, of Belthorpe Farm, had his rick feloniously set fire
+to; his stables had caught fire, himself had been all but roasted
+alive in the attempt to rescue his cattle, of which numbers had
+perished in the flames. Raynham counterbalanced arson with an
+authentic ghost seen by Miss Clare in the left wing of the
+Abbey--the ghost of a lady, dressed in deep mourning, a scar on her
+forehead, and a bloody handkerchief at her breast, frightful to
+behold! and no wonder the child was frightened out of her wits, and
+lay in a desperate State awaiting the arrival of the London doctors.
+It was added that the servants had all threatened to leave in a
+body, and that Sir Austin to appease them had promised to pull down
+the entire left wing, like a gentleman; for no decent creature, said
+Lobourne, could consent to live in a haunted house.
+
+Rumour for the nonce had a stronger spice of truth than usual. Poor
+little Clare lay ill, and the calamity that had befallen Farmer
+Blaize, as regards his rick, was not much exaggerated. Sir Austin
+caused an account of it to be given him at breakfast, and appeared
+so scrupulously anxious to hear the exact extent of injury sustained
+by the farmer that heavy Benson went down to inspect the scene. Mr.
+Benson returned, and, acting under Adrian's malicious advice, framed
+a formal report of the catastrophe, in which the farmer's breeches
+figured, and certain cooling applications to a part of the farmer's
+person. Sir Austin perused it without a smile. He took occasion to
+have it read out before the two boys, who listened very demurely, as
+to an ordinary newspaper incident; only when the report
+particularized the garments damaged, and the unwonted distressing
+position Farmer Blaize was reduced to in his bed, an indecorous fit
+of sneezing laid hold of Master Ripton Thompson, and Richard bit his
+lip and burst into loud laughter, Ripton joining him, lost to
+consequences.
+
+"I trust you feel for this poor man," said Sir Austin to his son,
+somewhat sternly. He saw no sign of feeling.
+
+It was a difficult task for Sir Austin to keep his old countenance
+toward the hope of Raynham, knowing him the accomplice-incendiary,
+and believing the deed to have been unprovoked and wanton. But he
+must do so, he knew, to let the boy have a fair trial against
+himself. Be it said, moreover, that the baronet's possession of his
+son's secret flattered him. It allowed him to act, and in a measure
+to feel, like Providence; enabled him to observe and provide for the
+movements of creatures in the dark. He therefore treated the boy as
+he commonly did, and Richard saw no change in his father to make him
+think he was suspected.
+
+The youngster's game was not so easy against Adrian. Adrian did not
+shoot or fish. Voluntarily he did nothing to work off the
+destructive nervous fluid, or whatever it may be, which is in man's
+nature; so that two culprit boys once in his power were not likely
+to taste the gentle hand of mercy, and Richard and Ripton paid for
+many a trout and partridge spared. At every minute of the day Ripton
+was thrown into sweats of suspicion that discovery was imminent, by
+some stray remark or message from Adrian. He was as a fish with the
+hook in his gills, mysteriously caught without having nibbled; and
+dive into what depths he would he was sensible of a summoning force
+that compelled him perpetually towards the gasping surface, which he
+seemed inevitably approaching when the dinner-bell sounded. There
+the talk was all of Farmer Blaize. If it dropped, Adrian revived it,
+and his caressing way with Ripton was just such as a keen sportsman
+feels toward the creature that has owned his skill, and is making
+its appearance for the world to acknowledge the same. Sir Austin saw
+the manoeuvres, and admired Adrian's shrewdness. But he had to
+check the young natural lawyer, for the effect of so much masked
+examination upon Richard was growing baneful. This fish also felt
+the hook in his gills, but this fish was more of a pike, and lay in
+different waters, where there were old stumps and black roots to
+wind about, and defy alike strong pulling and delicate handling. In
+other words, Richard showed symptoms of a disposition to take refuge
+in lies.
+
+"You know the grounds, my dear boy," Adrian observed to him. "Tell
+me; do you think it easy to get to the rick unperceived? I hear they
+suspect one of the farmer's turned-off hands."
+
+"I tell you I don't know the grounds," Richard sullenly replied.
+
+"Not?" Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment. "I thought Mr.
+Thompson said you were over there yesterday?"
+
+Ripton, glad to speak a truth, hurriedly assured Adrian that it was
+not he had said so.
+
+"Not? You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn't you?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" mumbled the wretched victims, reddening as they
+remembered, in Adrian's slightly drawled rusticity of tone, Farmer
+Blaize's first address to them.
+
+"I suppose you were among the Fire-worshippers last night, too?"
+persisted Adrian. "In some countries, I hear, they manage their best
+sport at night-time, and beat up for game with torches. It must be a
+fine sight. After all, the country would be dull if we hadn't a rip
+here and there to treat us to a little conflagration."
+
+"A rip!" laughed Richard, to his friend's disgust and alarm at his
+daring. "You don't mean this Rip, do you?"
+
+"Mr. Thompson fire a rick? I should as soon suspect you, my dear
+boy.--You are aware, young gentlemen, that it is rather a serious
+thing--eh? In this country, you know, the landlord has always been
+the pet of the Laws. By the way," Adrian continued, as if diverging
+to another topic, "you met two gentlemen of the road in your
+explorations yesterday, Magians. Now, if I were a magistrate of the
+county, like Sir Miles Papworth, my suspicions would light upon
+those gentlemen. A tinker and a ploughman, I think you said, Mr.
+Thompson. Not? Well, say two ploughmen."
+
+"More likely two tinkers," said Richard.
+
+"Oh! if you wish to exclude the ploughman--was he out of employ?"
+
+Ripton, with Adrian's eyes inveterately fixed on him, stammered an
+affirmative.
+
+"The tinker, or the ploughman?"
+
+"The ploughm--" Ingenuous Ripton looking about, as if to aid himself
+whenever he was able to speak the truth, beheld Richard's face
+blackening at him, and swallowed back half the word.
+
+"The ploughman!" Adrian took him up cheerily. "Then we have here a
+ploughman out of employ. Given a ploughman out of employ, and a rick
+burnt. The burning of a rick is an act of vengeance, and a ploughman
+out of employ is a vengeful animal. The rick and the ploughman are
+advancing to a juxtaposition. Motive being established, we have only
+to prove their proximity at a certain hour, and our ploughman
+voyages beyond seas."
+
+"Is it transportation for rick-burning?" inquired Ripton aghast.
+
+Adrian spoke solemnly: "They shave your head. You are manacled. Your
+diet is sour bread and cheese-parings. You work in strings of
+twenties and thirties. ARSON is branded on your backs in an enormous
+A. Theological works are the sole literary recreation of the
+well-conducted and deserving. Consider the fate of this poor fellow,
+and what an act of vengeance brings him to! Do you know his name?"
+
+"How should I know his name?" said Richard, with an assumption of
+innocence painful to see.
+
+Sir Austin remarked that no doubt it would soon be known, and Adrian
+perceived that he was to quiet his line, marvelling a little at the
+baronet's blindness to what was so clear. He would not tell, for
+that would ruin his future influence with Richard; still he wanted
+some present credit for his discernment and devotion. The boys got
+away from dinner, and, after deep consultation, agreed upon a course
+of conduct, which was to commiserate Farmer Blaize loudly, and make
+themselves look as much like the public as it was possible for two
+young malefactors to look, one of whom already felt Adrian's
+enormous A devouring his back with the fierceness of the Promethean
+eagle, and isolating him for ever from mankind. Adrian relished
+their novel tactics sharply, and led them to lengths of lamentation
+for Farmer Blaize. Do what they might, the hook was in their gills.
+The farmer's whip had reduced them to bodily contortions: these were
+decorous compared with the spiritual writhings they had to perform
+under Adrian's manipulation. Ripton was fast becoming a coward, and
+Richard a liar, when next morning Austin Wentworth came over from
+Poer Hall bringing news that one Mr. Thomas Bakewell, yeoman, had
+been arrested on suspicion of the crime of Arson and lodged in jail,
+awaiting the magisterial pleasure of Sir Miles Papworth. Austin's
+eye rested on Richard as he spoke these terrible tidings. The hope
+of Raynham returned his look, perfectly calm, and had, moreover,
+the presence of mind not to look at Ripton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+JUVENILE STRATAGEMS
+
+
+As soon as they could escape, the boys got away together into an
+obscure corner of the park, and there took counsel of their
+extremity.
+
+"Whatever shall we do now?" asked Ripton of his leader.
+
+Scorpion girt with fire was never in a more terrible prison-house
+than poor Ripton, around whom the raging element he had assisted to
+create seemed to be drawing momentary narrower circles.
+
+"There's only one chance," said Richard, coming to a dead halt, and
+folding his arms resolutely.
+
+His comrade inquired with the utmost eagerness what that chance
+might be.
+
+Richard fixed his eyes on a flint, and replied: "We must rescue that
+fellow from jail."
+
+Ripton gazed at his leader, and fell back with astonishment. "My
+dear Ricky! but how are we to do it?"
+
+Richard, still perusing his flint, replied: "We must manage to get a
+file in to him and a rope. It can be done, I tell you. I don't care
+what I pay. I don't care what I do. He must be got out."
+
+"Bother that old Blaize!" exclaimed Ripton, taking off his cap to
+wipe his frenzied forehead, and brought down his friend's reproof.
+
+"Never mind old Blaize now. Talk about letting it out! Look at you.
+I'm ashamed of you. You talk about Robin Hood and King Richard! Why,
+you haven't an atom of courage. Why, you let it out every second of
+the day. Whenever Rady begins speaking you start; I can see the
+perspiration rolling down you. Are you afraid?--And then you
+contradict yourself. You never keep to one story. Now, follow me. We
+must risk everything to get him out. Mind that! And keep out of
+Adrian's way as much as you can. And keep to one story."
+
+With these sage directions the young leader marched his
+companion-culprit down to inspect the jail where Tom Bakewell lay
+groaning over the results of the super-mundane conflict, and the
+victim of it that he was.
+
+In Lobourne Austin Wentworth had the reputation of the poor man's
+friend; a title he earned more largely ere he went to the reward God
+alone can give to that supreme virtue. Dame Bakewell, the mother of
+Tom, on hearing of her son's arrest, had run to comfort him and
+render him what help she could; but this was only sighs and tears,
+and, oh deary me! which only perplexed poor Tom, who bade her leave
+an unlucky chap to his fate, and not make himself a thundering
+villain. Whereat the dame begged him to take heart, and he should
+have a true comforter. "And though it's a gentleman that's coming to
+you, Tom--for he never refuses a poor body," said Mrs. Bakewell,
+"it's a true Christian, Tom! and the Lord knows if the sight of him
+mayn't be the saving of you, for he's light to look on, and a sermon
+to listen to, he is!"
+
+Tom was not prepossessed by the prospect of a sermon, and looked a
+sullen dog enough when Austin entered his cell. He was surprised at
+the end of half-an-hour to find himself engaged in man-to-man
+conversation with a gentleman and a Christian. When Austin rose to
+go, Tom begged permission to shake his hand.
+
+"Take and tell young master up at the Abbey that I an't the chap to
+peach. He'll know. He's a young gentleman as'll make any man do as
+he wants 'em! He's a mortal wild young gentleman! And I'm a Ass!
+That's where 'tis. But I an't a blackguard. Tell him that, sir!"
+
+This was how it came that Austin eyed young Richard seriously while
+he told the news at Raynham. The boy was shy of Austin more than of
+Adrian. Why, he did not know; but he made it a hard task for Austin
+to catch him alone, and turned sulky that instant. Austin was not
+clever like Adrian: he seldom divined other people's ideas, and
+always went the direct road to his object; so instead of beating
+about and setting the boy on the alert at all points, crammed to the
+muzzle with lies, he just said, "Tom Bakewell told me to let you
+know he does not intend to peach on you," and left him.
+
+Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried aloud that
+Tom was a brick.
+
+"He shan't suffer for it," said Richard, and pondered on a thicker
+rope and sharper file.
+
+"But will your cousin tell?" was Ripton's reflection.
+
+"He!" Richard's lip expressed contempt. "A ploughman refuses to
+peach, and you ask if one of our family will?"
+
+Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproved on this point.
+
+The boys had examined the outer walls of the jail, and arrived at
+the conclusion that Tom's escape might be managed if Tom had spirit,
+and the rope and file could be anyway reached to him. But to do
+this, somebody must gain admittance to his cell, and who was to be
+taken into their confidence?
+
+"Try your cousin," Ripton suggested, after much debate.
+
+Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian.
+
+"No, no!" Ripton hurriedly reassured him. "Austin."
+
+The same idea was knocking at Richard's head.
+
+"Let's get the rope and file first," said he, and to Bursley they
+went for those implements to defeat the law, Ripton procuring the
+file at one shop and Richard the rope at another, with such masterly
+cunning did they lay their measures for the avoidance of every
+possible chance of detection. And better to assure this, in a wood
+outside Bursley Richard stripped to his shirt and wound the rope
+round his body, tasting the tortures of anchorites and penitential
+friars, that nothing should be risked to make Tom's escape a
+certainty. Sir Austin saw the marks at night as his son lay asleep,
+through the half-opened folds of his bed-gown.
+
+It was a severe stroke when, after all their stratagems and trouble,
+Austin Wentworth refused the office the boys had zealously designed
+for him. Time pressed. In a few days poor Tom would have to face the
+redoubtable Sir Miles, and get committed, for rumours of
+overwhelming evidence to convict him were rife about Lobourne, and
+Farmer Blaize's wrath was unappeasable. Again and again young
+Richard begged his cousin not to see him disgraced, and to help him
+in this extremity. Austin smiled on him.
+
+"My dear Ricky," said he, "there are two ways of getting out of a
+scrape: a long way and a short way. When you've tried the roundabout
+method, and failed, come to me, and I'll show you the straight
+route."
+
+Richard was too entirely bent upon the roundabout method to consider
+this advice more than empty words, and only ground his teeth at
+Austin's unkind refusal.
+
+He imparted to Ripton, at the eleventh hour, that they must do it
+themselves, to which Ripton heavily assented.
+
+On the day preceding poor Tom's doomed appearance before the
+magistrate, Dame Bakewell had an interview with Austin, who went to
+Raynham immediately, and sought Adrian's counsel upon what was to be
+done. Homeric laughter and nothing else could be got out of Adrian
+when he heard of the doings of these desperate boys: how they had
+entered Dame Bakewell's smallest of retail shops, and purchased tea,
+sugar, candles, and comfits of every description, till the shop was
+clear of customers: how they had then hurried her into her little
+back-parlour, where Richard had torn open his shirt and revealed the
+coils of rope, and Ripton displayed the point of a file from a
+serpentine recess in his jacket: how they had then told the
+astonished woman that the rope she saw and the file she saw were
+instruments for the liberation of her son; that there existed no
+other means on earth to save him, they, the boys, having
+unsuccessfully attempted all: how upon that Richard had tried with
+the utmost earnestness to persuade her to disrobe and wind the rope
+round her own person: and Ripton had aired his eloquence to induce
+her to secrete the file: how, when she resolutely objected to the
+rope, both boys began backing the file, and in an evil hour, she
+feared, said Dame Bakewell, she had rewarded the gracious permission
+given her by Sir Miles Papworth to visit her son, by tempting Tom to
+file the Law. Though, thanks be to the Lord! Dame Bakewell added,
+Tom had turned up his nose at the file, and so she had told young
+Master Richard, who swore very bad for a young gentleman.
+
+"Boys are like monkeys," remarked Adrian, at the close of his
+explosions, "the gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world
+possesses. May I never be where there are no boys! A couple of boys
+left to themselves will furnish richer fun than any troop of trained
+comedians. No: no Art arrives at the artlessness of nature in
+matters of comedy. You can't simulate the ape. Your antics are dull.
+They haven't the charming inconsequence of the natural animal. Look
+at these two! Think of the shifts they are put to all day long! They
+know I know all about it, and yet their serenity of innocence is all
+but unruffled in my presence. You're sorry to think about the end of
+the business, Austin? So am I! I dread the idea of the curtain going
+down. Besides, it will do Ricky a world of good. A practical lesson
+is the best lesson."
+
+"Sinks deepest," said Austin, "but whether he learns good or evil
+from it is the question at stake."
+
+Adrian stretched his length at ease.
+
+"This will be his first nibble at experience, old Time's fruit, hateful
+to the palate of youth! for which season only hath it any nourishment!
+Experience! You know Coleridge's capital simile?--Mournful you call
+it? Well! all wisdom is mournful. 'Tis therefore, coz, that the wise do
+love the Comic Muse. Their own high food would kill them. You shall
+find great poets, rare philosophers, night after night on the broad
+grin before a row of yellow lights and mouthing masks. Why? Because
+all's dark at home. The stage is the pastime of great minds. That's
+how it comes that the stage is now down. An age of rampant little
+minds, my dear Austin! How I hate that cant of yours about an Age of
+Work--you, and your Mortons, and your parsons Brawnley, rank radicals
+all of you, base materialists! What does Diaper Sandoe sing of your
+Age of Work? Listen!
+
+         'An Age of petty tit for tat,
+           An Age of busy gabble:
+         An age that's like a brewer's vat,
+           Fermenting for the rabble!
+
+         'An Age that's chaste in Love, but lax
+           To virtuous abuses:
+         Whose gentlemen and ladies wax
+           Too dainty for their uses.
+
+         'An Age that drives an Iron Horse,
+           Of Time and Space defiant;
+         Exulting in a Giant's Force,
+           And trembling at the Giant.
+
+         'An Age of Quaker hue and cut,
+           By Mammon misbegotten;
+         See the mad Hamlet mouth and strut!
+           And mark the Kings of Cotton!
+
+         'From this unrest, lo, early wreck'd,
+           A Future staggers crazy,
+         Ophelia of the Ages, deck'd
+           With woeful weed and daisy!'"
+
+Murmuring, "Get your parson Brawnley to answer that!" Adrian changed
+the resting-place of a leg, and smiled. The AGE was an old
+battle-field between him and Austin.
+
+"My parson Brawnley, as you call him, has answered it," said Austin,
+"not by hoping his best, which would probably leave the Age to go
+mad to your satisfaction, but by doing it. And he has and will
+answer your Diaper Sandoe in better verse, as he confutes him in a
+better life."
+
+"You don't see Sandoe's depth," Adrian replied. "Consider that
+phrase, 'Ophelia of the Ages'! Is not Brawnley, like a dozen other
+leading spirits--I think that's your term--just the metaphysical
+Hamlet to drive her mad? She, poor maid! asks for marriage and
+smiling babes, while my lord lover stands questioning the Infinite,
+and rants to the Impalpable."
+
+Austin laughed. "Marriage and smiling babes she would have in
+abundance, if Brawnley legislated. Wait till you know him. He will
+be over at Poer Hall shortly, and you will see what a Man of the Age
+means. But now, pray, consult with me about these boys."
+
+"Oh, those boys!" Adrian tossed a hand. "Are there boys of the Age
+as well as men? Not? Then boys are better than men: boys are for all
+Ages. What do you think, Austin? They've been studying Latude's
+Escape. I found the book open in Ricky's room, on the top of
+Jonathan Wild. Jonathan preserved the secrets of his profession, and
+taught them nothing. So they're going to make a Latude of Mr. Tom
+Bakewell. He's to be Bastille Bakewell, whether he will or no. Let
+them. Let the wild colt run free! We can't help them. We can only
+look on. We should spoil the play."
+
+Adrian always made a point of feeding the fretful beast Impatience
+with pleasantries--a not congenial diet; and Austin, the most
+patient of human beings, began to lose his self-control.
+
+"You talk as if Time belonged to you, Adrian. We have but a few
+hours left us. Work first, and joke afterwards. The boy's fate is
+being decided now."
+
+"So is everybody's, my dear Austin!" yawned the epicurean.
+
+"Yes, but this boy is at present under our guardianship--under yours
+especially."
+
+"Not yet! not yet!" Adrian interjected languidly. "No getting into
+scrapes when I have him. The leash, young hound! the collar, young
+colt! I'm perfectly irresponsible at present."
+
+"You may have something different to deal with when you are
+responsible, if you think that."
+
+"I take my young prince as I find him, coz: a Julian, or a
+Caracalla: a Constantine, or a Nero. Then, if he will play the
+fiddle to a conflagration, he shall play it well: if he must be a
+disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall understand logic and
+men, and have the habit of saying his prayers."
+
+"Then you leave me to act alone?" said Austin, rising.
+
+"Without a single curb!" Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced
+withdrawal. "I'm sure you would not, still more certain you cannot,
+do harm. And be mindful of my prophetic words: Whatever's done, old
+Blaize will have to be bought off. There's the affair settled at
+once. I suppose I must go to the chief to-night and settle it
+myself. We can't see this poor devil condemned, though it's nonsense
+to talk of a boy being the prime instigator."
+
+Austin cast an eye at the complacent languor of the wise youth, his
+cousin, and the little that he knew of his fellows told him he might
+talk for ever here, and not be comprehended. The wise youth's two
+ears were stuffed with his own wisdom. One evil only Adrian dreaded,
+it was clear--the action of the law.
+
+As he was moving away, Adrian called out to him, "Stop, Austin!
+There! don't be anxious! You invariably take the glum side. I've
+done something. Never mind what. If you go down to Belthorpe, be
+civil, but not obsequious. You remember the tactics of Scipio
+Africanus against the Punic elephants? Well, don't say a word--in
+thine ear, coz: I've turned Master Blaize's elephants. If they
+charge, 'twill be a feint, and back to the destruction of his
+serried ranks! You understand. Not? Well, 'tis as well. Only, let
+none say that I sleep. If I must see him to-night, I go down knowing
+he has not got us in his power." The wise youth yawned, and
+stretched out a hand for any book that might be within his reach.
+Austin left him to look about the grounds for Richard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DAPHNE'S BOWER
+
+
+A little laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked out on the
+river from a knoll bordering the Raynham beechwoods, and was dubbed
+by Adrian Daphne's Bower. To this spot Richard had retired, and
+there Austin found him with his head buried in his hands, a picture
+of desperation, whose last shift has been defeated. He allowed
+Austin to greet him and sit by him without lifting his head. Perhaps
+his eyes were not presentable.
+
+"Where's your friend?" Austin began.
+
+"Gone!" was the answer, sounding cavernous from behind hair and
+fingers. An explanation presently followed, that a summons had come
+for him in the morning from Mr. Thompson; and that Mr. Ripton had
+departed against his will.
+
+In fact, Ripton had protested that he would defy his parent and
+remain by his friend in the hour of adversity and at the post of
+danger. Sir Austin signified his opinion that a boy should obey his
+parent, by giving orders to Benson for Ripton's box to be packed and
+ready before noon; and Ripton's alacrity in taking the baronet's
+view of filial duty was as little feigned as his offer to Richard
+to throw filial duty to the winds. He rejoiced that the Fates had
+agreed to remove him from the very hot neighbourhood of Lobourne,
+while he grieved, like an honest lad, to see his comrade left to
+face calamity alone. The boys parted amicably, as they could hardly
+fail to do, when Ripton had sworn fealty to the Feverels with a
+warmth that made him declare himself bond, and due to appear at any
+stated hour and at any stated place to fight all the farmers in
+England, on a mandate from the heir of the house.
+
+"So you're left alone," said Austin, contemplating the boy's shapely
+head. "I'm glad of it. We never know what's in us till we stand by
+ourselves."
+
+There appeared to be no answer forthcoming. Vanity, however, replied
+at last, "He wasn't much support."
+
+"Remember his good points now he's gone, Ricky."
+
+"Oh! he was staunch," the boy grumbled.
+
+"And a staunch friend is not always to be found. Now, have you tried
+your own way of rectifying this business, Ricky?"
+
+"I have done everything."
+
+"And failed!"
+
+There was a pause, and then the deep-toned evasion--
+
+"Tom Bakewell's a coward!"
+
+"I suppose, poor fellow," said Austin, in his kind way, "he doesn't
+want to get into a deeper mess. I don't think he's a coward."
+
+"He is a coward," cried Richard. "Do you think if I had a file I
+would stay in prison? I'd be out the first night! And he might have
+had the rope, too--a rope thick enough for a couple of men his size
+and weight. Ripton and I and Ned Markham swung on it for an hour,
+and it didn't give way. He's a coward, and deserves his fate. I've
+no compassion for a coward."
+
+"Nor I much," said Austin.
+
+Richard had raised his head in the heat of his denunciation of poor
+Tom. He would have hidden it had he known the thought in Austin's
+clear eyes while he faced them.
+
+"I never met a coward myself," Austin continued. "I have heard of
+one or two. One let an innocent man die for him."
+
+"How base!" exclaimed the boy.
+
+"Yes, it was bad," Austin acquiesced.
+
+"Bad!" Richard scorned the poor contempt. "How I would have spurned
+him! He was a coward!"
+
+"I believe he pleaded the feelings of his family in his excuse, and
+tried every means to get the man off. I have read also in the
+confessions of a celebrated philosopher, that in his youth he
+committed some act of pilfering, and accused a young servant-girl of
+his own theft, who was condemned and dismissed for it, pardoning her
+guilty accuser."
+
+"What a coward!" shouted Richard. "And he confessed it publicly?"
+
+"You may read it yourself."
+
+"He actually wrote it down, and printed it?"
+
+"You have the book in your father's library. Would you have done so
+much?"
+
+Richard faltered. No! he admitted that he never could have told
+people.
+
+"Then who is to call that man a coward?" said Austin. "He expiated
+his cowardice as all who give way in moments of weakness, and are
+not cowards, must do. The coward chooses to think 'God does not see.
+I shall escape.' He who is not a coward, and has succumbed, knows
+that God has seen all, and it is not so hard a task for him to make
+his heart bare to the world. Worse, I should fancy it, to know
+myself an impostor when men praised me."
+
+Young Richard's eyes were wandering on Austin's gravely cheerful
+face. A keen intentness suddenly fixed them, and he dropped his
+head.
+
+"So I think you're wrong, Ricky, in calling this poor Tom a coward
+because he refuses to try your means of escape," Austin resumed. "A
+coward hardly objects to drag in his accomplice. And, where the
+person involved belongs to a great family, it seems to me that for a
+poor plough-lad to volunteer not to do so speaks him anything but a
+coward."
+
+Richard was dumb. Altogether to surrender his rope and file was a
+fearful sacrifice, after all the time, trepidation, and study he had
+spent on those two saving instruments. If he avowed Tom's manly
+behaviour, Richard Feverel was in a totally new position. Whereas,
+by keeping Tom a coward, Richard Feverel was the injured one, and
+to seem injured is always a luxury; sometimes a necessity, whether
+among boys or men.
+
+In Austin the Magian conflict would not have lasted long. He had but
+a blind notion of the fierceness with which it raged in young
+Richard. Happily for the boy, Austin was not a preacher. A single
+instance, a cant phrase, a fatherly manner, might have wrecked him,
+by arousing ancient or latent opposition. The born preacher we feel
+instinctively to be our foe. He may do some good to the wretches
+that have been struck down and lie gasping on the battlefield: he
+rouses antagonism in the strong. Richard's nature, left to itself,
+wanted little more than an indication of the proper track, and when
+he said, "Tell me what I can do, Austin?" he had fought the best
+half of the battle. His voice was subdued. Austin put his hand on
+the boy's shoulder.
+
+"You must go down to Farmer Blaize."
+
+"Well!" said Richard, sullenly divining the deed of penance.
+
+"You'll know what to say to him when you're there."
+
+The boy bit his lip and frowned. "Ask a favour of that big brute,
+Austin? I can't!"
+
+"Just tell him the whole case, and that you don't intend to stand by
+and let the poor fellow suffer without a friend to help him out of
+his scrape."
+
+"But, Austin," the boy pleaded, "I shall have to ask him to help off
+Tom Bakewell! How can I ask him, when I hate him?"
+
+Austin bade him go, and think nothing of the consequences till he
+got there.
+
+Richard groaned in soul.
+
+"You've no pride, Austin."
+
+"Perhaps not."
+
+"You don't know what it is to ask a favour of a brute you hate."
+
+Richard stuck to that view of the case, and stuck to it the faster
+the more imperatively the urgency of a movement dawned upon him.
+
+"Why," continued the boy, "I shall hardly be able to keep my fists
+off him!"
+
+"Surely you've punished him enough, boy!" said Austin.
+
+"He struck me!" Richard's lip quivered. "He dared not come at me
+with his hands. He struck me with a whip. He'll be telling everybody
+that he horsewhipped me, and that I went down and begged his pardon.
+Begged his pardon! A Feverel beg his pardon! Oh, if I had my will!"
+
+"The man earns his bread, Ricky. You poached on his grounds. He
+turned you off, and you fired his rick."
+
+"And I'll pay him for his loss. And I won't do any more."
+
+"Because you won't ask a favour of him?"
+
+"No! I will not ask a favour of him."
+
+Austin looked at the boy steadily. "You prefer to receive a favour
+from poor Tom Bakewell?"
+
+At Austin's enunciation of this obverse view of the matter Richard
+raised his brow. Dimly a new light broke in upon him. "Favour from
+Tom Bakewell, the ploughman? How do you mean, Austin?"
+
+"To save yourself an unpleasantness you permit a country lad to
+sacrifice himself for you? I confess I should not have so much
+pride."
+
+"Pride!" shouted Richard, stung by the taunt, and set his sight hard
+at the blue ridges of the hills.
+
+Not knowing for the moment what else to do, Austin drew a picture of
+Tom in prison, and repeated Tom's volunteer statement. The picture,
+though his intentions were far from designing it so, had to Richard,
+whose perception of humour was infinitely keener, a horrible
+chaw-bacon smack about it. Visions of a grinning lout, open from ear
+to ear, unkempt, coarse, splay-footed, rose before him and afflicted
+him with the strangest sensations of disgust and comicality, mixed
+up with pity and remorse--a sort of twisted pathos. There lay Tom;
+hob-nail Tom! a bacon-munching, reckless, beer-swilling animal! and
+yet a man; a dear brave human heart notwithstanding; capable of
+devotion and unselfishness. The boy's better spirit was touched, and
+it kindled his imagination to realize the abject figure of poor
+clodpole Tom, and surround it with a halo of mournful light. His
+soul was alive. Feelings he had never known streamed in upon him as
+from an ethereal casement, an unwonted tenderness, an embracing
+humour, a consciousness of some ineffable glory, an irradiation of
+the features of humanity. All this was in the bosom of the boy, and
+through it all the vision of an actual hob-nail Tom, coarse,
+unkempt, open from ear to ear; whose presence was a finger of shame
+to him and an oppression of clodpole; yet toward whom he felt just
+then a loving-kindness beyond what he felt for any living creature.
+He laughed at him, and wept over him. He prized him, while he shrank
+from him. It was a genial strife of the angel in him with
+constituents less divine; but the angel was uppermost and led the
+van--extinguished loathing, humanized laughter, transfigured
+pride--pride that would persistently contemplate the corduroys of
+gaping Tom, and cry to Richard, in the very tone of Adrian's ironic
+voice, "Behold your benefactor!"
+
+Austin sat by the boy, unaware of the sublimer tumult he had
+stirred. Little of it was perceptible in Richard's countenance. The
+lines of his mouth were slightly drawn; his eyes hard set into the
+distance. He remained thus many minutes. Finally he jumped to his
+legs, saying, "I'll go at once to old Blaize and tell him."
+
+Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out of Daphne's
+Bower, in the direction of Lobourne.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE BITTER CUP
+
+
+Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel
+as that young gentleman expected him to be. The farmer, seated in
+his easy-chair in the little low-roofed parlour of an old-fashioned
+farm-house, with a long clay pipe on the table at his elbow, and a
+veteran pointer at his feet, had already given audience to three
+distinguished members of the Feverel blood, who had come separately,
+according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one object. In
+the morning it was Sir Austin himself. Shortly after his departure,
+arrived Austin Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about
+Lobourne as the Captain, popular wherever he was known. Farmer
+Blaize reclined in considerable elation. He had brought these great
+people to a pretty low pitch. He had welcomed them hospitably, as a
+British yeoman should; but not budged a foot in his demands: not to
+the baronet: not to the Captain: not to good young Mr. Wentworth.
+For Farmer Blaize was a solid Englishman; and, on hearing from the
+baronet a frank confession of the hold he had on the family, he
+determined to tighten his hold, and only relax it in exchange for
+tangible advantages--compensation to his pocket, his wounded person,
+and his still more wounded sentiments: the total indemnity being, in
+round figures, three hundred pounds, and a spoken apology from the
+prime offender, young Mister Richard. Even then there was a
+reservation. Provided, the farmer said, nobody had been tampering
+with any of his witnesses. In that case Farmer Blaize declared the
+money might go, and he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had sworn
+he would. And it goes hard, too, with an accomplice, by law, added
+the farmer, knocking the ashes leisurely out of his pipe. He had no
+wish to bring any disgrace anywhere; he respected the inmates of
+Raynham Abbey, as in duty bound; he should be sorry to see them in
+trouble. Only no tampering with his witnesses. He was a man for Law.
+Rank was much: money was much: but Law was more. In this country Law
+was above the sovereign. To tamper with the Law was treason to the
+realm.
+
+"I come to you direct," the baronet explained. "I tell you candidly
+in what way I discovered my son to be mixed up in this miserable
+affair. I promise you indemnity for your loss, and an apology that
+shall, I trust, satisfy your feelings, assuring you that to tamper
+with witnesses is not the province of a Feverel. All I ask of you in
+return is, not to press the prosecution. At present it rests with
+you. I am bound to do all that lies in my power for this imprisoned
+man. How and wherefore my son was prompted to suggest, or assist in,
+such an act, I cannot explain, for I do not know."
+
+"Hum!" said the farmer. "I think I do."
+
+"You know the cause?" Sir Austin stared. "I beg you to confide it to
+me."
+
+"'Least, I can pretty nigh neighbour it with a guess," said the
+farmer. "We an't good friends, Sir Austin, me and your son, just
+now--not to say cordial. I, ye see, Sir Austin, I'm a man as don't
+like young gentlemen a-poachin' on his grounds without his
+permission,--in special when birds is plentiful on their own. It
+appear he do like it. Consequently I has to flick this whip--as them
+fellers at the races: All in this 'ere Ring's mine! as much as to
+say; and who's been hit, he's had fair warnin'. I'm sorry for't, but
+that's just the case."
+
+Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when he should find
+him.
+
+Algernon's interview passed off in ale and promises. He also assured
+Farmer Blaize that no Feverel could be affected by his proviso.
+
+No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was satisfied.
+
+"Money's safe, I know," said he; "now for the 'pology!" and Farmer
+Blaize thrust his legs further out, and his head further back.
+
+The farmer naturally reflected that the three separate visits had
+been conspired together. Still the baronet's frankness, and the
+baronet's not having reserved himself for the third and final
+charge, puzzled him. He was considering whether they were a deep, or
+a shallow lot, when young Richard was announced.
+
+A pretty little girl with the roses of thirteen springs in her
+cheeks, and abundant beautiful bright tresses, tripped before the
+boy, and loitered shyly by the farmer's armchair to steal a look at
+the handsome new-comer. She was introduced to Richard as the
+farmer's niece, Lucy Desborough, the daughter of a lieutenant in the
+Royal Navy, and, what was better, though the farmer did not
+pronounce it so loudly, a real good girl.
+
+Neither the excellence of her character, nor her rank in life,
+tempted Richard to inspect the little lady. He made an awkward bow,
+and sat down.
+
+The farmer's eyes twinkled. "Her father," he continued, "fought and
+fell for his coontry. A man as fights for's coontry's a right to
+hould up his head--ay! with any in the land. Desb'roughs o' Dorset!
+d'ye know that family, Master Feverel?"
+
+Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not desire to become
+acquainted with any offshoot of that family.
+
+"She can make puddens and pies," the farmer went on, regardless of
+his auditor's gloom. "She's a lady, as good as the best of 'em. I
+don't care about their being Catholics--the Desb'roughs o' Dorset
+are gentlemen. And she's good for the pianer, too! She strums to me
+of evenin's. I'm for the old tunes: she's for the new. Gal-like!
+While she's with me she shall be taught things use'l. She can
+parley-voo a good 'un and foot it, as it goes; been in France a
+couple of year. I prefer the singin' of 't to the talkin' of 't.
+Come, Luce! toon up--eh?--Ye wun't? That song about the
+Viffendeer--a female"--Farmer Blaize volunteered the translation of
+the title--"who wears the--you guess what! and marches along with
+the French sojers: a pretty brazen bit o' goods, I sh'd fancy."
+
+Mademoiselle Lucy corrected her uncle's French, but objected to do
+more. The handsome cross boy had almost taken away her voice for
+speech, as it was, and sing in his company she could not; so she
+stood, a hand on her uncle's chair to stay herself from falling,
+while she wriggled a dozen various shapes of refusal, and shook her
+head at the farmer with fixed eyes.
+
+"Aha!" laughed the farmer, dismissing her, "they soon learn the
+difference 'twixt the young 'un and the old 'un. Go along, Luce! and
+learn yer lessons for to-morrow."
+
+Reluctantly the daughter of the Royal Navy glided away. Her uncle's
+head followed her to the door, where she dallied to catch a last
+impression of the young stranger's lowering face, and darted
+through.
+
+Farmer Blaize laughed and chuckled. "She an't so fond of her uncle
+as that, every day! Not that she an't a good nurse--the kindest
+little soul you'd meet of a winter's walk! She'll read t' ye, and
+make drinks, and sing, too, if ye likes it, and she won't be tired.
+A obstinate good 'un, she be! Bless her!"
+
+The farmer may have designed, by these eulogies of his niece, to
+give his visitor time to recover his composure, and establish a
+common topic. His diversion only irritated and confused our
+shame-eaten youth. Richard's intention had been to come to the
+farmer's threshold: to summon the farmer thither, and in a loud and
+haughty tone then and there to take upon himself the whole burden
+of the charge against Tom Bakewell. He had strayed, during his
+passage to Belthorpe, somewhat back to his old nature; and his being
+compelled to enter the house of his enemy, sit in his chair, and
+endure an introduction to his family, was more than he bargained
+for. He commenced blinking hard in preparation for the horrible dose
+to which delay and the farmer's cordiality added inconceivable
+bitters. Farmer Blaize was quite at his ease; nowise in a hurry. He
+spoke of the weather and the harvest: of recent doings up at the
+Abbey: glanced over that year's cricketing; hoped that no future
+Feverel would lose a leg to the game. Richard saw and heard Arson in
+it all. He blinked harder as he neared the cup. In a moment of
+silence, he seized it with a gasp.
+
+"Mr. Blaize! I have come to tell you that I am the person who set
+fire to your rick the other night."
+
+An odd contraction formed about the farmer's mouth. He changed his
+posture, and said, "Ay? that's what ye're come to tell me, sir?"
+
+"Yes!" said Richard, firmly.
+
+"And that be all?"
+
+"Yes!" Richard reiterated.
+
+The farmer again changed his posture. "Then, my lad, ye've come to
+tell me a lie!"
+
+Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed by the dark
+flush of ire he had kindled.
+
+"You dare to call me a liar!" cried Richard, starting up.
+
+"I say," the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and smacked his
+thigh thereto, "that's a lie!"
+
+Richard held out his clenched fist. "You have twice insulted me. You
+have struck me: you have dared to call me a liar. I would have
+apologized--I would have asked your pardon, to have got off that
+fellow in prison. Yes! I would have degraded myself that another man
+should not suffer for my deed"----
+
+"Quite proper!" interposed the farmer.
+
+"And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh. You're a
+coward, sir! nobody but a coward would have insulted me in his own
+house."
+
+"Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master," said the farmer,
+indicating the chair and cooling the outburst with his hand. "Sit
+ye down. Don't ye be hasty. If ye hadn't been hasty t'other day, we
+sh'd a been friends yet. Sit ye down, sir. I sh'd be sorry to reckon
+you out a liar, Mr. Feverel, or anybody o' your name. I respects yer
+father though we're opp'site politics. I'm willin' to think well o'
+you. What I say is, that as you say an't the trewth. Mind! I don't
+like you none the worse for't. But it an't what is. That's all! You
+knows it as well's I!"
+
+Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily
+reseated himself. The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, after his
+late interview with Austin, had become capable of perceiving vaguely
+that a towering passion is hardly the justification for a wrong
+course of conduct.
+
+"Come," continued the farmer, not unkindly, "what else have you to
+say?"
+
+Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained brimming at
+Richard's lips again! Alas, poor human nature! that empties to the
+dregs a dozen of these evil drinks, to evade the single one which
+Destiny, less cruel, had insisted upon.
+
+The boy blinked and tossed it off.
+
+"I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for
+your striking me."
+
+Farmer Blaize nodded.
+
+"And now ye've done, young gentleman?"
+
+Still another cupful!
+
+"I should be very much obliged," Richard formally began, but his
+stomach was turned; he could but sip and sip, and gather a distaste
+which threatened to make the penitential act impossible. "Very much
+obliged," he repeated: "much obliged, if you would be so kind," and
+it struck him that had he spoken this at first he would have given
+it a wording more persuasive with the farmer and more worthy of his
+own pride: more honest, in fact: for a sense of the dishonesty of
+what he was saying caused him to cringe and simulate humility to
+deceive the farmer, and the more he said the less he felt his words,
+and, feeling them less, he inflated them more. "So kind," he
+stammered, "so kind" (fancy a Feverel asking this big brute to be so
+kind!) "as to do me the favour" (_me_ the favour!) "to exert
+yourself" (it's all to please Austin) "to endeavour to--hem! to"
+(there's no saying it!)----
+
+The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again.
+
+"What I came to ask is, whether you would have the kindness to try
+what you could do" (what an infamous shame to have to beg like
+this!) "do to save--do to ensure--whether you would have the
+kindness"---- It seemed out of all human power to gulp it down. The
+draught grew more and more abhorrent. To proclaim one's iniquity, to
+apologize for one's wrongdoing; thus much could be done; but to beg
+a favour of the offended party--that was beyond the self-abasement
+any Feverel could consent to. Pride, however, whose inevitable
+battle is against itself, drew aside the curtains of poor Tom's
+prison, crying a second time, "Behold your Benefactor!" and, with
+the words burning in his ears, Richard swallowed the dose:
+
+"Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,--if you don't mind--will you
+help me to get this man Bakewell off his punishment?"
+
+To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently for the boy,
+though he could not quite see why he did not take the gate at the
+first offer.
+
+"Oh!" said he, when he heard and had pondered on the request. "Hum!
+ha! we'll see about it t'morrow. But if he's innocent, you know, we
+shan't mak'n guilty."
+
+"It was I did it!" Richard declared.
+
+The farmer's half-amused expression sharpened a bit.
+
+"So, young gentleman! and you're sorry for the night's work?"
+
+"I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your losses."
+
+"Thank'ee," said the farmer drily.
+
+"And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don't care what the
+amount is."
+
+Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. "Bribery," one
+motion expressed: "Corruption," the other.
+
+"Now," said he, leaning forward, and fixing his elbows on his knees,
+while he counted the case at his fingers' ends, "excuse the liberty,
+but wishin' to know where this 'ere money's to come from, I sh'd
+like jest t'ask if so be Sir Austin know o' this?"
+
+"My father knows nothing of it," replied Richard.
+
+The farmer flung back in his chair. "Lie number Two," said his
+shoulders, soured by the British aversion to being plotted at, and
+not dealt with openly.
+
+"And ye've the money ready, young gentleman?"
+
+"I shall ask my father for it."
+
+"And he'll hand't out?"
+
+"Certainly he will!"
+
+Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting his father
+into his counsels.
+
+"A good three hundred pounds, ye know?" the farmer suggested.
+
+No consideration of the extent of damages, and the size of the sum,
+affected young Richard, who said boldly, "He will not object when I
+tell him I want that sum."
+
+It was natural Farmer Blaize should be a trifle suspicious that a
+youth's guarantee would hardly be given for his father's readiness
+to disburse such a thumping bill, unless he had previously received
+his father's sanction and authority.
+
+"Hum!" said he, "why not 'a told him before?"
+
+The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that
+caused Richard to compress his mouth and glance high.
+
+Farmer Blaize was positive 'twas a lie.
+
+"Hum! Ye still hold to't you fired the rick?" he asked.
+
+"The blame is mine!" quoth Richard, with the loftiness of a patriot
+of old Rome.
+
+"Na, na!" the straightforward Briton put him aside. "Ye did't, or ye
+didn't do't. Did ye do't, or no?"
+
+Thrust in a corner, Richard said, "I did it."
+
+Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was answered in an
+instant by little Lucy, who received orders to fetch in a dependent
+at Belthorpe going by the name of the Bantam, and made her exit as
+she had entered, with her eyes on the young stranger.
+
+"Now," said the farmer, "these be my principles. I'm a plain man,
+Mr. Feverel. Above board with me, and you'll find me handsome. Try
+to circumvent me, and I'm a ugly customer. I'll show you I've no
+animosity. Your father pays--you apologize. That's enough for me!
+Let Tom Bakewell fight't out with the Law, and I'll look on. The Law
+wasn't on the spot, I suppose? so the Law ain't much witness. But I
+am. Leastwise the Bantam is. I tell you, young gentleman, the
+Bantam saw't! It's no moral use whatever your denyin' that ev'dence.
+And where's the good, sir, I ask? What comes of 't? Whether it be
+you, or whether it be Tom Bakewell--ain't all one? If I holds back,
+ain't it sim'lar? It's the trewth I want! And here't comes," added
+the farmer, as Miss Lucy ushered in the Bantam, who presented a
+curious figure for that rare divinity to enliven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A FINE DISTINCTION
+
+
+In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a
+tolerably fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part,
+with diverse anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel
+forces, from opposing ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed
+the Bantam, on account of some forgotten sally of his youth or
+infancy, moved and looked elephantine. It sufficed that Giles was
+well fed to assure that Giles was faithful--if uncorrupted. The farm
+which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his vast capacity
+for work in willing exercise: the farmer who held the farm his
+instinct reverenced as the fountain-source of beef and bacon, to say
+nothing of beer, which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This
+Farmer Blaize well knew, and he reckoned consequently that here was
+an animal always to be relied on--a sort of human composition out of
+dog, horse, and bull, a cut above each of these quadrupeds in
+usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but on the whole worth
+the money, and therefore invaluable, as everything worth its money
+must be to a wise man. When the stealing of grain had been made
+known at Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher with Tom Bakewell,
+had shared with him the shadow of the guilt. Farmer Blaize, if he
+hesitated which to suspect, did not debate a second as to which he
+would discard; and, when the Bantam said he had seen Tom secreting
+pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, and off went
+poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that spared his appearance
+at Sessions.
+
+The Bantam's small sleepy orbits saw many things, and just at the
+right moment, it seemed. He was certainly the first to give the clue
+at Belthorpe on the night of the conflagration, and he may,
+therefore, have seen poor Tom retreating stealthily from the scene,
+as he averred he did. Lobourne had its say on the subject. Rustic
+Lobourne hinted broadly at a young woman in the case, and moreover,
+told a tale of how these fellow-threshers had, in noble rivalry, one
+day turned upon each other to see which of the two threshed the
+best; whereof the Bantam still bore marks, and malice, it was said.
+However, there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company,
+and if Truth really had concealed herself in him she must have been
+hard set to find her unlikeliest hiding-place.
+
+"Now," said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the
+confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, "tell this young
+gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!"
+
+The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung
+round, fully obscuring him from Richard.
+
+Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest
+Doric commenced his narrative. Knowing what was to come, and
+thoroughly nerved to confute the main incident, Richard barely
+listened to his barbarous locution: but when the recital arrived at
+the point where the Bantam affirmed he had seen "T'm Baak'll wi's
+owen hoies," Richard faced him, and was amazed to find himself being
+mutely addressed by a series of intensely significant grimaces,
+signs, and winks.
+
+"What do you mean? Why are you making those faces at me?" cried the
+boy indignantly.
+
+Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and
+beheld the stolidest mask ever given to man.
+
+"Bain't makin' no faces at nobody," growled the sulky elephant.
+
+The farmer commanded him to face about and finish.
+
+"A see T'm Baak'll," the Bantam recommenced, and again the
+contortions of a horrible wink were directed at Richard. The boy
+might well believe this churl was lying, and he did, and was
+emboldened to exclaim--
+
+"You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!"
+
+The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment.
+
+"I tell you," said Richard, "I put the lucifers there myself!"
+
+The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to telegraph to the
+young gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces
+that had been given him, and that in the right place and at the
+right time he should prove so. Why was he thus suspected? Why was he
+not understood?
+
+"A thowt I see 'un, then," muttered the Bantam, trying a middle
+course.
+
+This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, "Thought! Ye
+thought! What d'ye mean? Speak out, and don't be thinkin'. Thought?
+What the devil's that?"
+
+"How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?" Richard put in.
+
+"Thought!" the farmer bellowed louder. "Thought--Devil take ye, when
+ye took yer oath on't. Hulloa! What are ye screwin' yer eye at Mr.
+Feverel for?--I say, young gentleman, have you spoken to this chap
+before now?"
+
+"I?" replied Richard. "I have not seen him before."
+
+Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and
+glared his doubts.
+
+"Come," said he to the Bantam, "speak out, and ha' done wi't. Say
+what ye saw, and none o' yer thoughts. Damn yer thoughts! Ye saw Tom
+Bakewell fire that there rick!" The farmer pointed at some musk-pots
+in the window. "What business ha' you to be a-thinkin'? You're a
+witness? Thinkin' an't ev'dence. What'll ye say to-morrow before
+magistrate! Mind! what you say to-day, you'll stick by to-morrow."
+
+Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on earth the young
+gentleman meant he was at a loss to speculate. He could not believe
+that the young gentleman wanted to be transported, but if he had
+been paid to help that, why, he would. And considering that this
+day's evidence rather bound him down to the morrow's, he determined,
+after much ploughing and harrowing through obstinate shocks of hair,
+to be not altogether positive as to the person. It is possible that
+he became thereby more a mansion of truth than he previously had
+been; for the night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see
+your hand before your face; and though, as he expressed it, you
+might be mortal sure of a man, you could not identify him upon oath,
+and the party he had taken for Tom Bakewell, and could have sworn
+to, might have been the young gentleman present, especially as he
+was ready to swear it upon oath.
+
+So ended the Bantam.
+
+No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up from his
+chair, and made a fine effort to lift him out of the room from the
+point of his toe. He failed, and sank back groaning with the pain of
+the exertion and disappointment.
+
+"They're liars, every one!" he cried. "Liars, perj'rers, bribers,
+and c'rrupters!--Stop!" to the Bantam, who was slinking away.
+"You've done for yerself already! You swore to it!"
+
+"A din't!" said the Bantam, doggedly.
+
+"You swore to't," the farmer vociferated afresh.
+
+The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, and still
+affirmed that he did not; a double contradiction at which the farmer
+absolutely raged in his chair, and was hoarse, as he called out a
+third time that the Bantam had sworn to it.
+
+"Noa!" said the Bantam, ducking his poll. "Noa!" he repeated in a
+lower note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic
+enjoyment of his profound casuistical quibble worked at his jaw:
+
+"Not up'n o-ath!" he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and an
+angular jerk of the elbow.
+
+Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask him what he
+thought of England's peasantry after the sample they had there.
+Richard would have preferred not to laugh, but his dignity gave way
+to his sense of the ludicrous, and he let fly a shout. The farmer
+was in no laughing mood. He turned a wide eye back to the door.
+"Lucky for'm," he exclaimed, seeing the Bantam had vanished, for his
+fingers itched to break that stubborn head. He grew very puffy, and
+addressed Richard solemnly:
+
+"Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You've been a-tampering with my
+witness. It's no use denyin'! I say y' 'ave, sir! You, or some of
+ye. I don't care about no Feverel! My witness there has been bribed.
+The Bantam's been bribed," and he shivered his pipe with an
+energetic thump on the table--"bribed! I knows it! I could swear
+to't!"----
+
+"Upon oath?" Richard inquired, with a grave face.
+
+"Ay, upon oath!" said the farmer, not observing the impertinence.
+
+"I'd take my Bible oath on't! He's been corrupted, my principal
+witness! Oh, it's dam cunnin', but it won't do the trick. I'll
+transpoort Tom Bakewell, sure as a gun. He shall travel, that man
+shall. Sorry for you, Mr. Feverel--sorry you haven't seen how to
+treat me proper--you, or yours. Money won't do everything--no! it
+won't. It'll c'rrupt a witness, but it won't clear a felon. I'd ha'
+'scused you, sir! You're a boy and'll learn better. I asked no more
+than payment and a 'pology; and that I'd ha' taken content--always
+provided my witnesses weren't tampered with. Now you must stand yer
+luck, all o' ye."
+
+Richard stood up and replied, "Very well, Mr. Blaize."
+
+"And if," continued the farmer, "Tom Bakewell don't drag you into't
+after 'm, why, you're safe, as I hope ye'll be, sincere!"
+
+"It was not in consideration of my own safety that I sought this
+interview with you," said Richard, head erect.
+
+"Grant ye that," the farmer responded. "Grant ye that! Yer bold
+enough, young gentleman--comes of the blood that should be! If y'
+had only ha' spoke trewth!--I believe yer father--believe every word
+he said. I do wish I could ha' said as much for Sir Austin's son and
+heir."
+
+"What!" cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly to be feigned,
+"you have seen my father?"
+
+But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he could detect
+them where they did not exist, and mumbled gruffly,
+
+"Ay, we knows all about that!"
+
+The boy's perplexity saved him from being irritated. Who could have
+told his father? An old fear of his father came upon him, and a
+touch of an old inclination to revolt.
+
+"My father knows of this?" said he, very loudly, and staring, as he
+spoke, right through the farmer. "Who has played me false? Who would
+betray me to him? It was Austin! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and
+it was Austin who persuaded me to come here and submit to these
+indignities. Why couldn't he be open with me? I shall never trust
+him again!"----
+
+"And why not you with me, young gentleman?" said the farmer. "I sh'd
+trust you if ye had."
+
+Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and bade him good
+afternoon.
+
+Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. "'Company the young gentleman out,
+Lucy," he waved to the little damsel in the doorway. "Do the
+honours. And, Mr. Richard, ye might ha' made a friend o' me, sir,
+and it's not too late so to do. I'm not cruel, but I hate lies. I
+whipped my boy Tom, bigger than you, for not bein' above board, only
+yesterday,--ay! made 'un stand within swing o' this chair, and
+take's measure. Now, if ye'll come down to me, and speak trewth
+before the trial--if it's only five minutes before't; or if Sir
+Austin, who's a gentleman, 'll say there's been no tamperin' with
+any o' my witnesses, his word for't--well and good! I'll do my best
+to help off Tom Bakewell. And I'm glad, young gentleman, you've got
+a conscience about a poor man, though he's a villain. Good
+afternoon, sir."
+
+Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through the garden,
+never so much as deigning a glance at his wistful little guide, who
+hung at the garden gate to watch him up the lane, wondering a world
+of fancies about the handsome proud boy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL, AND IS THE OCCASION
+OF AN APHORISM
+
+
+To have determined upon an act something akin to heroism in its way, and
+to have fulfilled it by lying heartily, and so subverting the whole
+structure built by good resolution, seems a sad downfall if we forget
+what human nature, in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Young
+Richard had quitted his cousin Austin fully resolved to do his penance
+and drink the bitter cup; and he had drunk it; drained many cups to the
+dregs; and it was to no purpose. Still they floated before him, brimmed,
+trebly bitter. Away from Austin's influence, he was almost the same boy
+who had slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell's hand, and the lucifers
+into Farmer Blaize's rick. For good seed is long ripening; a good boy is
+not made in a minute. Enough that the seed was in him. He chafed on his
+road to Raynham at the scene he had just endured, and the figure of
+Belthorpe's fat tenant burnt like hot copper on the tablet of his brain,
+insufferably condescending, and, what was worse, in the right. Richard,
+obscured as his mind's eye was by wounded pride, saw that clearly, and
+hated his enemy for it the more.
+
+Heavy Benson's tongue was knelling dinner as Richard arrived at the
+Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress. Accident, or design, had
+laid the book of Sir Austin's aphorisms open on the dressing-table.
+Hastily combing his hair, Richard glanced down and read--
+
+"The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat his Lie."
+
+Underneath was interjected in pencil: "The Devil's mouthful!"
+
+Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had struck him
+in the face.
+
+Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son's cheek-bones. He sought
+the youth's eye, but Richard would not look, and sat conning his plate,
+an abject copy of Adrian's succulent air at that employment. How could
+he pretend to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully
+endeavouring to masticate The Devil's mouthful?
+
+Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias, usually the silent
+member, as if awakened by the unnatural stillness, became sprightly,
+like the goatsucker owl at night, and spoke much of his book, his
+digestion, and his dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and Adrian.
+One inconsequent dream he related, about fancying himself quite young
+and rich, and finding himself suddenly in a field cropping razors
+around him, when, just as he had, by steps dainty as those of a French
+dancing-master, reached the middle, he to his dismay beheld a path clear
+of the bloodthirsty steel-crop, which he might have taken at first had
+he looked narrowly; and there he was.
+
+Hippias's brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly said they wished
+he had remained there. Sir Austin, however, drew forth his note-book,
+and jotted down a reflection. A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms
+even from a razor-crop. Was not Hippias's dream the very counterpart of
+Richard's position? He, had he looked narrowly, might have taken the
+clear path: he, too, had been making dainty steps till he was surrounded
+by the grinning blades. And from that text Sir Austin preached to his
+son when they were alone. Little Clare was still too unwell to be
+permitted to attend the dessert, and father and son were soon closeted
+together.
+
+It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been separated so long.
+The father took his son's hand; they sat without a word passing between
+them. Silence said most. The boy did not understand his father: his
+father frequently thwarted him: at times he thought his father foolish:
+but that paternal pressure of his hand was eloquent to him of how warmly
+he was beloved. He tried once or twice to steal his hand away, conscious
+it was melting him. The spirit of his pride, and old rebellion,
+whispered him to be hard, unbending, resolute. Hard he had entered his
+father's study: hard he had met his father's eyes. He could not meet
+them now. His father sat beside him gently; with a manner that was
+almost meekness, so he loved this boy. The poor gentleman's lips moved.
+He was praying internally to God for him.
+
+By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy's bosom. Love is that blessed
+wand which wins the waters from the hardness of the heart. Richard
+fought against it, for the dignity of old rebellion. The tears would
+come; hot and struggling over the dams of pride. Shamefully fast they
+began to fall. He could no longer conceal them, or check the sobs. Sir
+Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till the beloved head was on his
+breast.
+
+An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, and Algernon
+Feverel were summoned to the baronet's study.
+
+Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipotence about the
+wise youth as he slung himself into a chair, and made an arch of the
+points of his fingers, through which to gaze on his blundering
+kinsmen. Careless as one may be whose sagacity has foreseen, and
+whose benevolent efforts have forestalled, the point of danger at
+the threshold, Adrian crossed his legs, and only intruded on their
+introductory remarks so far as to hum half audibly at intervals--
+
+    "Ripton and Richard were two pretty men,"
+
+in parody of the old ballad. Young Richard's red eyes, and the baronet's
+ruffled demeanour, told him that an explanation had taken place, and a
+reconciliation. That was well. The baronet would now pay cheerfully.
+Adrian summed and considered these matters, and barely listened when the
+baronet called attention to what he had to say: which was elaborately to
+inform all present, what all present very well knew, that a rick had
+been fired, that his son was implicated as an accessory to the fact,
+that the perpetrator was now imprisoned, and that Richard's family were,
+as it seemed to him, bound in honour to do their utmost to effect the
+man's release.
+
+Then the baronet stated that he had himself been down to Belthorpe, his
+son likewise: and that he had found every disposition in Blaize to meet
+his wishes.
+
+The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to illumine the
+acts of this secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays; and,
+as statement followed statement, they saw that all had known of the
+business: that all had been down to Belthorpe: all save the wise
+youth Adrian, who, with due deference and a sarcastic shrug,
+objected to the proceeding, as putting them in the hands of the man
+Blaize. His wisdom shone forth in an oration so persuasive and
+aphoristic that had it not been based on a plea against honour, it
+would have made Sir Austin waver. But its basis was expediency, and
+the baronet had a better aphorism of his own to confute him with.
+
+"Expediency is man's wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing right is God's."
+
+Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an attempt to
+counteract the just working of the law was doing right. The direct
+application of an aphorism was unpopular at Raynham.
+
+"I am to understand then," said he, "that Blaize consents not to
+press the prosecution."
+
+"Of course he won't," Algernon remarked. "Confound him! he'll have
+his money, and what does he want besides?"
+
+"These agricultural gentleman are delicate customers to deal with.
+However, if he really consents"----
+
+"I have his promise," said the baronet, fondling his son.
+
+Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to speak. He
+said nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute reply to his
+caresses, and caressed him the more. Adrian perceived a reserve in
+the boy's manner, and as he was not quite satisfied that his chief
+should suppose him to have been the only idle, and not the most
+acute and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a
+cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken with the
+tenant of Belthorpe?
+
+"I think I saw him last," murmured Richard, and relinquished his
+father's hand.
+
+Adrian fastened on his prey. "And left him with a distinct and
+satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?"
+
+"No," said Richard.
+
+"Not?" the Feverels joined in astounded chorus.
+
+Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced "No."
+
+"Was he hostile?" inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and smiling.
+
+"Yes," the boy confessed.
+
+Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, generally
+patient of results, triumphed strongly at having evoked it, and
+turned upon Austin Wentworth, reproving him for inducing the boy to
+go down to Belthorpe. Austin looked grieved. He feared that Richard
+had failed in his good resolve.
+
+"I thought it his duty to go," he observed.
+
+"It was!" said the baronet, emphatically.
+
+"And you see what comes of it, sir," Adrian struck in. "These
+agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers to deal
+with. For my part I would prefer being in the hands of a policeman.
+We are decidedly collared by Blaize. What were his words, Ricky?
+Give it in his own Doric."
+
+"He said he would transport Tom Bakewell."
+
+Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they could afford
+to defy Mr. Blaize, he informed them significantly, and made once
+more a mysterious allusion to the Punic elephant, bidding his
+relatives be at peace. They were attaching, in his opinion, too much
+importance to Richard's complicity. The man was a fool, and a very
+extraordinary arsonite, to have an accomplice at all. It was a thing
+unknown in the annals of rick-burning. But one would be severer than
+law itself to say that a boy of fourteen had instigated to crime a
+full-grown man. At that rate the boy was "father of the man" with a
+vengeance, and one might hear next that "the baby was father of the
+boy." They would find common sense a more benevolent ruler than
+poetical metaphysics.
+
+When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him
+what he meant.
+
+"I confess, Adrian," said the baronet, hearing him expostulate with
+Austin's stupidity, "I for one am at a loss. I have heard that this
+man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily not to inculpate my son. Seldom
+have I heard anything that so gratified me. It is a view of innate
+nobleness in the rustic's character which many a gentleman might
+take example from. We are bound to do our utmost for the man." And,
+saying that he should pay a second visit to Belthorpe, to inquire
+into the reasons for the farmer's sudden exposition of vindictiveness,
+Sir Austin rose.
+
+Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the farmer had
+vouchsafed any reasons, and the boy then spoke of the tampering with
+the witnesses, and the Bantam's "Not upon oath!" which caused Adrian
+to choke with laughter. Even the baronet smiled at so cunning a
+distinction as that involved in swearing a thing, and not swearing
+it upon oath.
+
+"How little," he exclaimed, "does one yeoman know another! To
+elevate a distinction into a difference is the natural action of
+their minds. I will point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the
+idea is native born."
+
+Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease.
+
+"This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all," said he. "The affair
+would pass over to-morrow--Blaize has no witnesses. The old rascal
+is only standing out for more money."
+
+"No, he isn't," Richard corrected him. "It's not that. I'm sure he
+believes his witnesses have been tampered with, as he calls it."
+
+"What if they have, boy?" Adrian put it boldly. "The ground is cut
+from under his feet."
+
+"Blaize told me that if my father would give his word there had been
+nothing of the sort, he would take it. My father will give his
+word."
+
+"Then," said Adrian, "you had better stop him from going down."
+
+Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him whether he
+thought the farmer was justified in his suspicions. The wise youth
+was not to be entrapped. He had only been given to understand that
+the witnesses were tolerably unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready
+to swear lustily, but not upon the Book. How given to understand, he
+chose not to explain, but he reiterated that the chief should not be
+allowed to go down to Belthorpe.
+
+Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps
+of some one running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the
+hand that laid hold of his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son.
+
+"It's I, sir," said Richard panting. "Pardon me. You mustn't go in
+there."
+
+"Why not?" said the baronet, putting his arm about him.
+
+"Not now," continued the boy. "I will tell you all to-night. I must
+see the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I--I lied to him--the
+Liar must eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did
+it--I hope I did it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and
+speak the truth."
+
+"Go, and I will wait for you here," said his father.
+
+The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in
+the air, had a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that
+half-hour's lonely pacing up and down under the darkness, awaiting
+his boy's return. The solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a
+tongue. Through the desolation flying overhead--the wailing of the
+Mother of Plenty across the bare-swept land--he caught intelligible
+signs of the beneficent order of the universe, from a heart newly
+confirmed in its grasp of the principle of human goodness, as
+manifested in the dear child who had just left him; confirmed in its
+belief in the ultimate victory of good within us, without which
+nature has neither music nor meaning, and is rock, stone, tree, and
+nothing more.
+
+In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for
+his note-book: "There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness:
+from that uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this
+world is well designed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN A LETTER
+
+
+Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton
+Thompson awaited the fearful morning which was to decide Tom's fate,
+in dolefullest mood, and suffered the gravest mental terrors.
+Adrian, on parting with him, had taken casual occasion to speak of
+the position of the criminal in modern Europe, assuring him that
+International Treaty now did what Universal Empire had aforetime
+done, and that among Atlantic barbarians now, as among the Scythians
+of old, an offender would find precarious refuge and an emissary
+haunting him.
+
+In the paternal home, under the roofs of Law, and removed from the
+influence of his conscienceless young chief, the staggering nature
+of the act he had put his hand to, its awful felonious aspect,
+overwhelmed Ripton. He saw it now for the first time. "Why, it's
+next to murder!" he cried out to his amazed soul, and wandered about
+the house with a prickly skin. Thoughts of America, and commencing
+life afresh as an innocent gentleman, had crossed his disordered
+brain. He wrote to his friend Richard, proposing to collect
+disposable funds, and embark, in case of Tom's breaking his word, or
+of accidental discovery. He dared not confide the secret to his
+family, as his leader had sternly enjoined him to avoid any weakness
+of that kind; and, being by nature honest and communicative, the
+restriction was painful, and melancholy fell upon the boy. Mama
+Thompson attributed it to love. The daughters of parchment rallied
+him concerning Miss Clare Forey. His hourly letters to Raynham, and
+silence as to everything and everybody there, his nervousness, and
+unwonted propensity to sudden inflammation of the cheeks, were set
+down for sure signs of the passion. Miss Letitia Thompson, the
+pretty and least parchmenty one, destined by her Papa for the heir
+of Raynham, and perfectly aware of her brilliant future, up to which
+she had, since Ripton's departure, dressed and grimaced, and studied
+cadences (the latter with such success, though not yet fifteen, that
+she languished to her maid, and melted the small factotum
+footman)--Miss Letty, whose insatiable thirst for intimations about
+the young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented him daily in
+revenge, and once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful turn;
+for after dinner, when Mr. Thompson read the paper by the fire,
+preparatory to sleeping at his accustomed post, and Mama Thompson
+and her submissive female brood sat tasking the swift intricacies of
+the needle, and emulating them with the tongue, Miss Letty stole
+behind Ripton's chair, and introduced between him and his book the
+Latin initial letter, large and illuminated, of the theme she
+supposed to be absorbing him, as it did herself. The unexpected
+vision of this accusing Captain of the Alphabet, this resplendent
+and haunting A, fronting him bodily, threw Ripton straight back in
+his chair, while Guilt, with her ancient indecision what colours to
+assume on detection, flew from red to white, from white to red,
+across his fallen chaps. Letty laughed triumphantly. Amor, the word
+she had in mind, certainly has a connection with Arson.
+
+But the delivery of a letter into Master Ripton's hands, furnished
+her with other and likelier appearances to study. For scarce had
+Ripton plunged his head into the missive than he gave way to violent
+transports, such as the healthy-minded little damsel, for all her
+languishing cadences, deemed she really could express were a
+downright declaration to be made to her. The boy did not stop at
+table. Quickly recollecting the presence of his family, he rushed to
+his own room. And now the girl's ingenuity was taxed to gain
+possession of that letter. She succeeded, of course, she being a
+huntress with few scruples and the game unguarded. With the eyes of
+amazement she read this foreign matter:
+
+  "Dear Ripton,--If Tom had been committed I would have shot
+  old Blaize. Do you know my father was behind us that night
+  when Clare saw the ghost and heard all we said before the fire
+  burst out. It is no use trying to conceal anything from him.
+  Well as you are in an awful state I will tell you all about it.
+  After you left Ripton I had a conversation with Austin and he
+  persuaded me to go down to old Blaize and ask him to help off
+  Tom. I went, for I would have done anything for Tom after what
+  he said to Austin and I defied the old churl to do his worst.
+  Then he said if my father paid the money and nobody had tampered
+  with his witnesses he would not mind if Tom did get off and he
+  had his chief witness in called the Bantam very like his master
+  I think and the Bantam began winking at me tremendjously as you
+  say, and said he had sworn he saw Tom Bakewell but not upon
+  oath. He meant not on the Bible. He could swear to it but not
+  on the Bible. I burst out laughing and you should have seen
+  the rage old Blaize was in. It was splendid fun. Then we had a
+  consultation at home Austin Rady my father Uncle Algernon who
+  has come down to us again and your friend in prosperity and
+  adversity R. D. F. My father said he would go down to old Blaize
+  and give him the word of a gentleman we had not tampered with
+  his witnesses and when he was gone we were all talking and Rady
+  says he must not see the farmer. I am as certain as I live that
+  it was Rady bribed the Bantam. Well I ran and caught up with my
+  father and told him not to go in to old Blaize but I would and
+  eat my words and tell him the truth. He waited for me in the
+  lane. Never mind what passed between me and old Blaize. He
+  made me beg and pray of him not to press it against Tom and
+  then to complete it he brought in a little girl a niece of his and
+  says to me she's your best friend after all and told me to thank
+  her. A little girl twelve years of age. What business had she
+  to mix herself up in my matters. Depend upon it Ripton wherever
+  there is mischief there are girls I think. She had the insolence
+  to notice my face, and ask me not to be unhappy. I was polite
+  of course but I would not look at her. Well the morning came
+  and Tom was had up before Sir Miles Papworth. It was Sir Miles
+  gout gave us the time or Tom would have been had up before we
+  could do anything. Adrian did not want me to go but my father
+  said I should accompany him and held my hand all the time. I
+  shall be careful about getting into these scrapes again. When
+  you have done anything honourable you do not mind but getting
+  among policemen and magistrates makes you ashamed of yourself.
+  Sir Miles was very attentive to my father and me and dead against
+  Tom. We sat beside him and Tom was brought in. Sir Miles told
+  my father that if there was one thing that showed a low villain
+  it was rick-burning. What do you think of that. I looked him
+  straight in the face and he said to me he was doing me a service
+  in getting Tom committed and clearing the country of such fellows
+  and Rady began laughing. I hate Rady. My father said his son
+  was not in haste to inherit and have estates of his own to watch
+  and Sir Miles laughed too. I thought we were discovered at first.
+  Then they began the examination of Tom. The Tinker was the first
+  witness and he proved that Tom had spoken against old Blaize and
+  said something about burning his rick. I wished I had stood in the
+  lane to Bursley with him alone. Our country lawyer we engaged
+  for Tom cross-questioned him and then he said he was not ready
+  to swear to the exact words that had passed between him and
+  Tom. I should think not. Then came another who swore he had
+  seen Tom lurking about the farmer's grounds that night. Then
+  came the Bantam and I saw him look at Rady. I was tremendjously
+  excited and my father kept pressing my hand. Just fancy my being
+  brought to feel that a word from that fellow would make me
+  miserable for life and he must perjure himself to help me. That
+  comes of giving way to passion. My father says when we do that
+  we are calling in the devil as doctor. Well the Bantam was told
+  to state what he had seen and the moment he began Rady who was
+  close by me began to shake and he was laughing I knew though
+  his face was as grave as Sir Miles. You never heard such a
+  rigmarole but I could not laugh. He said he thought he was
+  certain he had seen somebody by the rick and it was Tom Bakewell
+  who was the only man he knew who had a grudge against Farmer
+  Blaize and if the object had been a little bigger he would not
+  mind swearing to Tom and would swear to him for he was dead
+  certain it was Tom only what he saw looked smaller and it was
+  pitch-dark at the time. He was asked what time it was he saw
+  the person steal away from the rick and then he began to scratch
+  his head and said supper-time. Then they asked what time he had
+  supper and he said nine o'clock by the clock and we proved that
+  at nine o'clock Tom was drinking in the ale-house with the
+  Tinker at Bursley and Sir Miles swore and said he was afraid
+  he could not commit Tom and when he heard that Tom looked up
+  at me and I say he is a noble fellow and no one shall sneer at Tom
+  while I live. Mind that. Well Sir Miles asked us to dine with
+  him and Tom was safe and I am to have him and educate him if I
+  like for my servant and I will. And I will give money to his
+  mother and make her rich and he shall never repent he knew me.
+  I say Rip. The Bantam must have seen _me_. It was when I went
+  to stick in the lucifers. As we were all going home from Sir
+  Miles's at night he has lots of redfaced daughters but I did not
+  dance with them though they had music and were full of fun and
+  I did not care to I was so delighted and almost let it out. When
+  we left and rode home Rady said to my father the Bantam was not
+  such a fool as he was thought and my father said one must be in
+  a state of great personal exaltation to apply that epithet to
+  any man and Rady shut his mouth and I gave my pony a clap of the
+  heel for joy. I think my father suspects what Rady did and does
+  not approve of it. And he need not have done it after all and
+  might have spoilt it. I have been obliged to order him not to
+  call me Ricky for he stops short at Rick so that everybody
+  knows what he means. My dear Austin is going to South America.
+  My pony is in capital condition. My father is the cleverest and
+  best man in the world. Clare is a little better. I am quite happy.
+  I hope we shall meet soon my dear Old Rip and we will not get
+  into any more tremendjous scrapes will we.--I remain, Your sworn
+  friend,
+
+                                            "RICHARD DORIA FEVEREL."
+
+  "_P.S._ I am to have a nice River Yacht. Good-bye, Rip. Mind you
+  learn to box. Mind you are not to show this to any of your friends
+  on pain of my displeasure.
+
+  "N.B. Lady B. was so angry when I told her that I had not come to
+  her before. She would do anything in the world for me. I like her
+  next best to my father and Austin. Good-bye old Rip."
+
+Poor little Letitia, after three perusals of this ingenuous epistle,
+where the laws of punctuation were so disregarded, resigned it to
+one of the pockets of her brother Ripton's best jacket, deeply
+smitten with the careless composer. And so ended the last act of the
+Bakewell Comedy, on which the curtain closes with Sir Austin's
+pointing out to his friends the beneficial action of the System in
+it from beginning to end.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE BLOSSOMING SEASON
+
+
+Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and as the mystery of the
+apparition that had frightened little Clare was never solved on the
+stage of events at Raynham, where dread walked the Abbey, let us go
+behind the scenes a moment. Morally superstitious as the baronet
+was, the character of his mind was opposed to anything like
+spiritual agency in the affairs of men, and, when the matter was
+made clear to him, it shook off a weight of weakness and restored
+his mental balance; so that from this time he went about more like
+the man he had once been, grasping more thoroughly the great truth,
+that This World is well designed. Nay, he could laugh on hearing
+Adrian, in reminiscence of the ill luck of one of the family
+members at its first manifestation, call the uneasy spirit,
+Algernon's Leg.
+
+Mrs. Doria was outraged. She maintained that her child had seen----.
+Not to believe in it was almost to rob her of her personal property.
+After satisfactorily studying his old state of mind in her, Sir
+Austin, moved by pity, took her aside one day and showed her that
+her Ghost could write words in the flesh. It was a letter from the
+unhappy lady who had given Richard birth,--brief cold lines, simply
+telling him his house would be disturbed by her no more. Cold lines,
+but penned by what heart-broken abnegation, and underlying them with
+what anguish of soul! Like most who dealt with him, Lady Feverel
+thought her husband a man fatally stern and implacable, and she
+acted as silly creatures will act when they fancy they see a fate
+against them: she neither petitioned for her right nor claimed it:
+she tried to ease her heart's yearning by stealth, and now she
+renounced all. Mrs. Doria, not wanting in the family tenderness and
+softness, shuddered at him for accepting the sacrifice so
+composedly: but he bade her to think how distracting to this boy
+would be the sight of such relations between mother and father. A
+few years, and as man he should know, and judge, and love her. "Let
+this be her penance, not inflicted by me!" Mrs. Doria bowed to the
+System for another, not opining when it would be her turn to bow for
+herself.
+
+Further behind the scenes we observe Rizzio and Mary grown older,
+much disenchanted: she discrowned, dishevelled,--he with gouty
+fingers on a greasy guitar. The Diaper Sandoe of promise lends his
+pen for small hires. His fame has sunk; his bodily girth has
+sensibly increased. What he can do, and will do, is still his theme;
+meantime the juice of the juniper is in requisition, and it seems
+that those small hires cannot be performed without it. Returning
+from her wretched journey to her wretcheder home, the lady had to
+listen to a mild reproof from easy-going Diaper,--a reproof so mild
+that he couched it in blank verse: for, seldom writing metrically
+now, he took to talking it. With a fluent sympathetic tear, he
+explained to her that she was damaging her interests by these
+proceedings; nor did he shrink from undertaking to elucidate
+wherefore. Pluming a smile upon his succulent mouth, he told her
+that the poverty she lived in was utterly unbefitting her gentle
+nurture, and that he had reason to believe--could assure her--that
+an annuity was on the point of being granted her by her husband. And
+Diaper broke his bud of a smile into full flower as he delivered
+this information. She learnt that he had applied to her husband for
+money. It is hard to have one's prop of self-respect cut away just
+when we are suffering a martyr's agony at the stake. There was a
+five minutes tragic colloquy in the recesses behind the
+scenes,--totally tragic to Diaper, who had fondly hoped to bask in
+the warm sun of that annuity, and re-emerge from his state of grub.
+The lady then wrote the letter Sir Austin held open to his sister.
+The atmosphere behind the scenes is not wholesome, so, having laid
+the Ghost, we will return and face the curtain.
+
+That infinitesimal dose of THE WORLD which Master Ripton Thompson
+had furnished to the System with such instantaneous and surprising
+effect was considered by Sir Austin to have worked well, and to be
+for the time quite sufficient, so that Ripton did not receive a
+second invitation to Raynham, and Richard had no special intimate of
+his own age to rub his excessive vitality against, and wanted none.
+His hands were full enough with Tom Bakewell. Moreover, his father
+and he were heart in heart. The boy's mind was opening, and turned
+to his father affectionately reverent. At this period, when the
+young savage grows into higher influences, the faculty of worship is
+foremost in him. At this period Jesuits will stamp the future of
+their chargeling flocks; and all who bring up youth by a System, and
+watch it, know that it is the malleable moment. Boys possessing any
+mental or moral force to give them a tendency, then predestinate
+their careers; or, if under supervision, take the impress that is
+given them: not often to cast it off, and seldom to cast it off
+altogether.
+
+In Sir Austin's Note-book was written: "Between Simple Boyhood and
+Adolescence--The Blossoming Season--on the threshold of Puberty,
+there is one Unselfish Hour--say, Spiritual Seed-time."
+
+He took care that good seed should be planted in Richard, and that
+the most fruitful seed for a youth, namely, Example, should be of a
+kind to germinate in him the love of every form of nobleness.
+
+"I am only striving to make my son a Christian," he said, answering
+them who persisted in expostulating with the System. And to these
+instructions he gave an aim: "First be virtuous," he told his son,
+"and then serve your country with heart and soul." The youth was
+instructed to cherish an ambition for statesmanship, and he and his
+father read history and the speeches of British orators to some
+purpose; for one day Sir Austin found him leaning cross-legged, and
+with his hand to his chin, against a pedestal supporting the bust of
+Chatham, contemplating the hero of our Parliament, his eyes
+streaming with tears.
+
+People said the baronet carried the principle of Example so far that
+he only retained his boozing dyspeptic brother Hippias at Raynham in
+order to exhibit to his son the woeful retribution nature wreaked
+upon a life of indulgence; poor Hippias having now become a walking
+complaint. This was unjust, but there is no doubt he made use of
+every illustration to disgust or encourage his son that his
+neighbourhood afforded him, and did not spare his brother, for whom
+Richard entertained a contempt in proportion to his admiration of
+his father, and was for flying into penitential extremes which Sir
+Austin had to soften.
+
+The boy prayed with his father morning and night.
+
+"How is it, sir," he said one night, "I can't get Tom Bakewell to
+pray?"
+
+"Does he refuse?" Sir Austin asked.
+
+"He seems to be ashamed to," Richard replied. "He wants to know what
+is the good? and I don't know what to tell him."
+
+"I'm afraid it has gone too far with him," said Sir Austin, "and
+until he has had some deep sorrows he will not find the divine want
+of Prayer. Strive, my son, when you represent the people, to provide
+for their education. He feels everything now through a dull
+impenetrable rind. Culture is half-way to heaven. Tell him, my son,
+should he ever be brought to ask how he may know the efficacy of
+Prayer, and that his prayer will be answered, tell him (he quoted
+THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP):
+
+"'Who rises from Prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.'"
+
+"I will, sir," said Richard, and went to sleep happy.
+
+Happy in his father and in himself, the youth now lived. Conscience
+was beginning to inhabit him, and he carried some of the freightage
+known to men; though in so crude a form that it overweighed him, now
+on this side, now on that.
+
+The wise youth Adrian observed these further progressionary
+developments in his pupil, soberly cynical. He was under Sir
+Austin's interdict not to banter him, and eased his acrid humours
+inspired by the sight of a felonious young rick-burner turning
+saint, by grave affectations of sympathy and extreme accuracy in
+marking the not widely-distant dates of his various changes. The
+Bread-and-water phase lasted a fortnight: the Vegetarian (an
+imitation of his cousin Austin), a little better than a month: the
+religious, somewhat longer: the religious-propagandist (when he was
+for converting the heathen of Lobourne and Bursley, and the
+domestics of the Abbey, including Tom Bakewell), longer still, and
+hard to bear;--he tried to convert Adrian! All the while Tom was
+being exercised like a raw recruit. Richard had a drill-sergeant
+from the nearest barracks down for him, to give him a proper pride
+in himself, and marched him to and fro with immense satisfaction,
+and nearly broke his heart trying to get the round-shouldered rustic
+to take in the rudiments of letters: for the boy had unbounded hopes
+for Tom, as a hero in grain.
+
+Richard's pride also was cast aside. He affected to be, and really
+thought he was, humble. Whereupon Adrian, as by accident, imparted
+to him the fact that men were animals, and he an animal with the
+rest of them.
+
+"_I_ an animal!" cried Richard in scorn, and for weeks he was as
+troubled by this rudiment of self-knowledge as Tom by his letters.
+Sir Austin had him instructed in the wonders of anatomy, to restore
+his self-respect.
+
+SEED-TIME passed thus smoothly, and adolescence came on, and his
+cousin Clare felt what it was to be of an opposite sex to him. She
+too was growing, but nobody cared how she grew. Outwardly even her
+mother seemed absorbed in the sprouting of the green off-shoot of
+the Feverel tree, and Clare was his handmaiden, little marked by
+him.
+
+Lady Blandish honestly loved the boy. She would tell him: "If I had
+been a girl, I would have had you for my husband." And he with the
+frankness of his years would reply: "And how do you know I would
+have had you?" causing her to laugh and call him a silly boy, for
+had he not heard her say she would have had him? Terrible words, he
+knew not then the meaning of!
+
+"You don't read your father's Book," she said. Her own copy was
+bound in purple velvet, gilt-edged, as decorative ladies like to
+have holier books, and she carried it about with her, and quoted it,
+and (Adrian remarked to Mrs. Doria) hunted a noble quarry, and
+deliberately aimed at him therewith, which Mrs. Doria chose to
+believe, and regretted her brother would not be on his guard.
+
+"See here," said Lady Blandish, pressing an almondy finger-nail to
+one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how age and adversity must
+clay-enclose us ere we can effectually resist the magnetism of any
+human creature in our path. "Can you understand it, child?"
+
+Richard informed her that when she read he could.
+
+"Well, then, my squire," she touched his cheek and ran her fingers
+through his hair, "learn as quick as you can not to be all hither
+and yon with a hundred different attractions, as I was before I met
+a wise man to guide me."
+
+"Is my father very wise?" Richard asked.
+
+"I think so," the lady emphasized her individual judgment.
+
+"Do you----" Richard broke forth, and was stopped by a beating of
+his heart.
+
+"Do I--what?" she calmly queried.
+
+"I was going to say, do you--I mean, I love him so much."
+
+Lady Blandish smiled and slightly coloured.
+
+They frequently approached this theme, and always retreated from it;
+always with the same beating of heart to Richard, accompanied by the
+sense of a growing mystery, which, however, did not as yet generally
+disturb him.
+
+Life was made very pleasant to him at Raynham, as it was part of Sir
+Austin's principle of education that his boy should be thoroughly
+joyous and happy; and whenever Adrian sent in a satisfactory report
+of his pupil's advancement, which he did pretty liberally, diversions
+were planned, just as prizes are given to diligent schoolboys, and
+Richard was supposed to have all his desires gratified while he
+attended to his studies. The System flourished. Tall, strong,
+bloomingly healthy, he took the lead of his companions on land and
+water, and had more than one bondsman in his service besides Ripton
+Thompson--the boy without a Destiny! Perhaps the boy with a Destiny
+was growing up a trifle too conscious of it. His generosity to his
+occasional companions was princely, but was exercised something too
+much in the manner of a prince; and, notwithstanding his contempt for
+baseness, he would overlook that more easily than an offence to his
+pride, which demanded an utter servility when it had once been rendered
+susceptible. If Richard had his followers he had also his feuds. The
+Papworths were as subservient as Ripton, but young Ralph Morton,
+the nephew of Mr. Morton, and a match for Richard in numerous promising
+qualities, comprising the noble science of fisticuffs, this youth spoke
+his mind too openly, and moreover would not be snubbed. There was no
+middle course for Richard's comrades between high friendship or
+absolute slavery. He was deficient in those cosmopolite habits and
+feelings which enable boys and men to hold together without caring
+much for each other; and, like every insulated mortal, he attributed
+the deficiency, of which he was quite aware, to the fact of his
+possessing a superior nature. Young Ralph was a lively talker:
+therefore, argued Richard's vanity, he had no intellect. He was
+affable: therefore he was frivolous. The women liked him: therefore
+he was a butterfly. In fine, young Ralph was popular, and our superb
+prince, denied the privilege of despising, ended by detesting him.
+
+Early in the days of their contention for leadership, Richard saw
+the absurdity of affecting to scorn his rival. Ralph was an Eton
+boy, and hence, being robust, a swimmer and a cricketer. A swimmer
+and a cricketer is nowhere to be scorned in youth's republic.
+Finding that manoeuvre would not do, Richard was prompted once or
+twice to entrench himself behind his greater wealth and his
+position; but he soon abandoned that also, partly because his
+chilliness to ridicule told him he was exposing himself, and chiefly
+that his heart was too chivalrous. And so he was dragged into the
+lists by Ralph, and experienced the luck of champions. For cricket,
+and for diving, Ralph bore away the belt: Richard's middle-stump
+tottered before his ball, and he could seldom pick up more than
+three eggs under water to Ralph's half-dozen. He was beaten, too, in
+jumping and running. Why will silly mortals strive to the painful
+pinnacles of championship? Or why, once having reached them, not
+have the magnanimity and circumspection to retire into private life
+immediately? Stung by his defeats, Richard sent one of his dependent
+Papworths to Poer Hall, with a challenge to Ralph Barthrop Morton;
+matching himself to swim across the Thames and back, once, twice, or
+thrice, within a less time than he, Ralph Barthrop Morton, would
+require for the undertaking. It was accepted, and a reply returned,
+equally formal in the trumpeting of Christian names, wherein Ralph
+Barthrop Morton acknowledged the challenge of Richard Doria Feverel,
+and was his man. The match came off on a midsummer morning, under
+the direction of Captain Algernon. Sir Austin was a spectator from
+the cover of a plantation by the river-side, unknown to his son,
+and, to the scandal of her sex, Lady Blandish accompanied the
+baronet. He had invited her attendance, and she, obeying her frank
+nature, and knowing what THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP said about prudes, at
+once agreed to view the match, pleasing him mightily. For was not
+here a woman worthy the Golden Ages of the world? one who could look
+upon man as a creature divinely made, and look with a mind neither
+tempted, nor taunted, by the Serpent! Such a woman was rare. Sir
+Austin did not discompose her by uttering his praises. She was
+conscious of his approval only in an increased gentleness of manner,
+and something in his voice and communications, as if he were
+speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment from him. While the
+lads were standing ready for the signal to plunge from the steep
+decline of greensward into the shining water, Sir Austin called upon
+her to admire their beauty, and she did, and even advanced her head
+above his shoulder delicately. In so doing, and just as the start
+was given, a bonnet became visible to Richard. Young Ralph was
+heels in air before he moved, and then he dropped like lead. He was
+beaten by several lengths.
+
+The result of the match was unaccountable to all present, and
+Richard's friends unanimously pressed him to plead a false start.
+But though the youth, with full confidence in his better style and
+equal strength, had backed himself heavily against his rival, and
+had lost his little river-yacht to Ralph, he would do nothing of the
+sort. It was the Bonnet had beaten him, not Ralph. The Bonnet,
+typical of the mystery that caused his heart those violent
+palpitations, was his dear, detestable enemy.
+
+And now, as he progressed from mood to mood, his ambition turned
+towards a field where Ralph could not rival him, and where the
+Bonnet was etherealized, and reigned glorious mistress. A check to
+the pride of a boy will frequently divert him to the path where lie
+his subtlest powers. Richard gave up his companions, servile or
+antagonistic: he relinquished the material world to young Ralph, and
+retired into himself, where he was growing to be lord of kingdoms:
+where Beauty was his handmaid, and History his minister, and Time
+his ancient harper, and sweet Romance his bride; where he walked in
+a realm vaster and more gorgeous than the great Orient, peopled with
+the heroes that have been. For there is no princely wealth, and no
+loftiest heritage, to equal this early one that is made bountifully
+common to so many, when the ripening blood has put a spark to the
+imagination, and the earth is seen through rosy mists of a thousand
+fresh-awakened nameless and aimless desires; panting for bliss and
+taking it as it comes; making of any sight or sound, perforce of the
+enchantment they carry with them, a key to infinite, because
+innocent, pleasure. The passions then are gambolling cubs; not the
+ravaging gluttons they grow to. They have their teeth and their
+talons, but they neither tear nor bite. They are in counsel and
+fellowship with the quickened heart and brain. The whole sweet
+system moves to music.
+
+Something akin to the indications of a change in the spirit of his
+son, which were now seen, Sir Austin had marked down to be expected,
+as due to his plan. The blushes of the youth, his long vigils, his
+clinging to solitude, his abstraction, and downcast but not
+melancholy air, were matters for rejoicing to the prescient
+gentleman. "For it comes," said he to Dr. Clifford of Lobourne,
+after consulting him medically on the youth's behalf and being
+assured of his soundness, "it comes of a thoroughly sane condition.
+The blood is healthy, the mind virtuous: neither instigates the
+other to evil, and both are perfecting toward the flower of manhood.
+If he reach that pure--in the untainted fulness and perfection of
+his natural powers--I am indeed a happy father! But one thing he
+will owe to me: that at one period of his life he knew paradise, and
+could read God's handwriting on the earth! Now those abominations
+whom you call precocious boys--your little pet monsters,
+doctor!--and who can wonder that the world is what it is? when it is
+full of them--as they will have no divine time to look back upon in
+their own lives, how can they believe in innocence and goodness, or
+be other than sons of selfishness and the Devil? But my boy," and
+the baronet dropped his voice to a key that was touching to hear,
+"my boy, if he fall, will fall from an actual region of purity. He
+dare not be a sceptic as to that. Whatever his darkness, he will
+have the guiding light of a memory behind him. So much is secure."
+
+To talk nonsense, or poetry, or the dash between the two, in a tone
+of profound sincerity, and to enunciate solemn discordances with
+received opinion so seriously as to convey the impression of a
+spiritual insight, is the peculiar gift by which monomaniacs, having
+first persuaded themselves, to contrive to influence their
+neighbours, and through them to make conquest of a good half of the
+world, for good or for ill. Sir Austin had this gift. He spoke as if
+he saw the truth, and, persisting in it so long, he was accredited
+by those who did not understand him, and silenced them that did.
+
+"We shall see," was all the argument left to Dr. Clifford, and other
+unbelievers.
+
+So far certainly the experiment had succeeded. A comelier, braver,
+better boy was nowhere to be met. His promise was undeniable. The
+vessel, too, though it lay now in harbour and had not yet been
+proved by the buffets of the elements on the great ocean, had made a
+good trial trip, and got well through stormy weather, as the records
+of the Bakewell Comedy witnessed to at Raynham. No augury could be
+hopefuller. The Fates must indeed be hard, the Ordeal severe, the
+Destiny dark, that could destroy so bright a Spring! But, bright as
+it was, the baronet relaxed nothing of his vigilant supervision. He
+said to his intimates: "Every act, every fostered inclination,
+almost every thought in this Blossoming Season, bears its seed for
+the Future. The living Tree now requires incessant watchfulness."
+And, acting up to his light, Sir Austin did watch. The youth
+submitted to an examination every night before he sought his bed;
+professedly to give an account of his studies, but really to
+recapitulate his moral experiences of the day. He could do so, for
+he was pure. Any wildness in him that his father noted, any
+remoteness or richness of fancy in his expressions, was set down as
+incidental to the Blossoming Season. There is nothing like a theory
+for binding the wise. Sir Austin, despite his rigid watch and ward,
+knew less of his son than the servant of his household. And he was
+deaf, as well as blind. Adrian thought it his duty to tell him that
+the youth was consuming paper. Lady Blandish likewise hinted at his
+mooning propensities. Sir Austin from his lofty watch-tower of the
+System had foreseen it, he said. But when he came to hear that the
+youth was writing poetry, his wounded heart had its reasons for
+being much disturbed.
+
+"Surely," said Lady Blandish, "you knew he scribbled?"
+
+"A very different thing from writing poetry," said the baronet. "No
+Feverel has ever written poetry."
+
+"I don't think it's a sign of degeneracy," the lady remarked. "He
+rhymes very prettily to me."
+
+A London phrenologist, and a friendly Oxford Professor of poetry,
+quieted Sir Austin's fears.
+
+The phrenologist said he was totally deficient in the imitative
+faculty; and the Professor, that he was equally so in the rhythmic,
+and instanced several consoling false quantities in a few effusions
+submitted to him. Added to this, Sir Austin told Lady Blandish that
+Richard had, at his best, done what no poet had ever been known to
+be capable of doing: he had, with his own hands, and in cold blood,
+committed his virgin manuscript to the flames: which made Lady
+Blandish sigh forth, "Poor boy!"
+
+Killing one's darling child is a painful imposition. For a youth in
+his Blossoming Season, who fancies himself a poet, to be requested
+to destroy his first-born, without a reason (though to pretend a
+reason cogent enough to justify the request were a mockery), is a
+piece of abhorrent despotism, and Richard's blossoms withered under
+it. A strange man had been introduced to him, who traversed and
+bisected his skull with sagacious stiff fingers, and crushed his
+soul while, in an infallible voice, declaring him the animal he was:
+making him feel such an animal! Not only his blossoms withered, his
+being seemed to draw in its shoots and twigs. And when, coupled
+thereunto (the strange man having departed, his work done), his
+father, in his tenderest manner, stated that it would give him
+pleasure to see those same precocious, utterly valueless,
+scribblings among the cinders, the last remaining mental blossom
+spontaneously fell away. Richard's spirit stood bare. He protested
+not. Enough that it could be wished! He would not delay a minute in
+doing it. Desiring his father to follow him, he went to a drawer in
+his room, and from a clean-linen recess, never suspected by Sir
+Austin, the secretive youth drew out bundle after bundle: each
+neatly tied, named, and numbered: and pitched them into flames. And
+so Farewell my young Ambition! and with it farewell all true
+confidence between Father and Son.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE MAGNETIC AGE
+
+
+It was now, as Sir Austin had written it down, The Magnetic Age: the
+Age of violent attractions, when to hear mention of love is
+dangerous, and to see it, a communication of the disease. People at
+Raynham were put on their guard by the baronet, and his reputation
+for wisdom was severely criticized in consequence of the injunctions
+he thought fit to issue through butler and housekeeper down to the
+lower household, for the preservation of his son from any visible
+symptom of the passion. A footman and two housemaids are believed
+to have been dismissed on the report of heavy Benson that they were
+in or inclining to the state; upon which an under-cook and a
+dairymaid voluntarily threw up their places, averring that "they did
+not want no young men, but to have their sex spied after by an old
+wretch like that," indicating the ponderous butler, "was a little
+too much for a Christian woman," and then they were ungenerous
+enough to glance at Benson's well-known marital calamity, hinting
+that some men met their deserts. So intolerable did heavy Benson's
+espionage become, that Raynham would have grown depopulated of its
+womankind had not Adrian interfered, who pointed out to the baronet
+what a fearful arm his butler was wielding. Sir Austin acknowledged
+it despondently. "It only shows," said he, with a fine spirit of
+justice, "how all but impossible it is to legislate where there are
+women!"
+
+"I do not object," he added; "I hope I am too just to object to the
+exercise of their natural inclinations. All I ask from them is
+discreetness."
+
+"Ay," said Adrian, whose discreetness was a marvel.
+
+"No gadding about in couples," continued the baronet, "no kissing in
+public. Such occurrences no boy should witness. Whenever people of
+both sexes are thrown together, they will be silly; and where they
+are high-fed, uneducated, and barely occupied, it must be looked for
+as a matter of course. Let it be known that I only require
+discreetness."
+
+Discreetness, therefore, was instructed to reign at the Abbey. Under
+Adrian's able tuition the fairest of its domestics acquired that
+virtue.
+
+Discreetness, too, was enjoined to the upper household. Sir Austin,
+who had not previously appeared to notice the case of Lobourne's
+hopeless curate, now desired Mrs. Doria to interdict, or at least
+discourage, his visits, for the appearance of the man was that of an
+embodied sigh and groan.
+
+"Really, Austin!" said Mrs. Doria, astonished to find her brother
+more awake than she had supposed, "I have never allowed him to
+hope."
+
+"Let him see it, then," replied the baronet; "let him see it."
+
+"The man amuses me," said Mrs. Doria. "You know, we have few
+amusements here, we inferior creatures. I confess I should like a
+barrel-organ better; that reminds one of town and the opera; and
+besides, it plays more than one tune. However, since you think my
+society bad for him, let him stop away."
+
+With the self-devotion of a woman she grew patient and sweet the
+moment her daughter Clare was spoken of, and the business of her
+life in view. Mrs. Doria's maternal heart had betrothed the two
+cousins, Richard and Clare; had already beheld them espoused and
+fruitful. For this she yielded the pleasures of town; for this she
+immured herself at Raynham; for this she bore with a thousand
+follies, exactions, inconveniences, things abhorrent to her, and
+heaven knows what forms of torture and self-denial, which are
+smilingly endured by that greatest of voluntary martyrs--a mother
+with a daughter to marry. Mrs. Doria, an amiable widow, had surely
+married but for her daughter Clare. The lady's hair no woman could
+possess without feeling it her pride. It was the daily theme of her
+lady's-maid,--a natural aureole to her head. She was gay, witty,
+still physically youthful enough to claim a destiny; and she
+sacrificed it to accomplish her daughter's! sacrificed, as with
+heroic scissors, hair, wit, gaiety--let us not attempt to enumerate
+how much! more than may be said. And she was only one of thousands;
+thousands who have no portion of the hero's reward; for he may
+reckon on applause, and condolence, and sympathy, and honour; they,
+poor slaves! must look for nothing but the opposition of their own
+sex and the sneers of ours. O, Sir Austin! had you not been so
+blinded, what an Aphorism might have sprung from this point of
+observation! Mrs. Doria was coolly told, between sister and brother,
+that during the Magnetic Age her daughter's presence at Raynham was
+undesirable. Instead of nursing offence, her sole thought was the
+mountain of prejudice she had to contend against. She bowed, and
+said, Clare wanted sea-air--she had never quite recovered the shock
+of that dreadful night. How long, Mrs. Doria wished to know, might
+the Peculiar Period be expected to last?
+
+"That," said Sir Austin, "depends. A year, perhaps, he is entering
+on it. I shall be most grieved to lose you, Helen. Clare is now--how
+old?"
+
+"Seventeen."
+
+"She is marriageable."
+
+"Marriageable, Austin! at seventeen! don't name such a thing. My
+child shall not be robbed of her youth."
+
+"Our women marry early, Helen."
+
+"My child shall not!"
+
+The baronet reflected a moment. He did not wish to lose his sister.
+
+"As you are of that opinion, Helen," said he, "perhaps we may still
+make arrangements to retain you with us. Would you think it
+advisable to send Clare--she should know discipline--to some
+establishment for a few months?"...
+
+"To an asylum, Austin?" cried Mrs. Doria, controlling her
+indignation as well as she could.
+
+"To some select superior seminary, Helen. There are such to be
+found."
+
+"Austin!" Mrs. Doria exclaimed, and had to fight with a moisture in
+her eyes. "Unjust! absurd!" she murmured. The baronet thought it a
+natural proposition that Clare should be a bride or a schoolgirl.
+
+"I cannot leave my child." Mrs. Doria trembled. "Where she goes, I
+go. I am aware that she is only one of our sex, and therefore of no
+value to the world, but she is my child. I will see, poor dear, that
+you have no cause to complain of her."
+
+"I thought," Sir Austin remarked, "that you acquiesced in my views
+with regard to my son."
+
+"Yes--generally," said Mrs. Doria, and felt culpable that she had
+not before, and could not then, tell her brother that he had set up
+an Idol in his house--an Idol of flesh! more retributive and
+abominable than wood or brass or gold. But she had bowed to the Idol
+too long--she had too entirely bound herself to gain her project by
+subserviency. She had, and she dimly perceived it, committed a
+greater fault in tactics, in teaching her daughter to bow to the
+Idol also. Love of that kind Richard took for tribute. He was
+indifferent to Clare's soft eyes. The parting kiss he gave her was
+ready and cold as his father could desire. Sir Austin now grew
+eloquent to him in laudation of manly pursuits: but Richard thought
+his eloquence barren, his attempts at companionship awkward, and all
+manly pursuits and aims, life itself, vain and worthless. To what
+end? sighed the blossomless youth, and cried aloud, as soon as he
+was relieved of his father's society, what was the good of anything?
+Whatever he did--whichever path he selected, led back to Raynham.
+And whatever he did, however wretched and wayward he showed himself,
+only confirmed Sir Austin more and more in the truth of his
+previsions. Tom Bakewell, now the youth's groom, had to give the
+baronet a report of his young master's proceedings, in common with
+Adrian, and while there was no harm to tell, Tom spoke out. "He do
+ride like fire every day to Pig's Snout," naming the highest hill in
+the neighbourhood, "and stand there and stare, never movin', like a
+mad 'un. And then hoam agin all slack as if he'd been beaten in a
+race by somebody."
+
+"There is no woman in that!" mused the baronet. "He would have
+ridden back as hard as he went," reflected this profound scientific
+humanist, "had there been a woman in it. He would shun vast
+expanses, and seek shade, concealment, solitude. The desire for
+distances betokens emptiness and undirected hunger: when the heart
+is possessed by an image we fly to wood and forest, like the
+guilty."
+
+Adrian's report accused his pupil of an extraordinary access of
+cynicism.
+
+"Exactly," said the baronet. "As I foresaw. At this period an
+insatiate appetite is accompanied by a fastidious palate. Nothing
+but the quintessences of existence, and those in exhaustless
+supplies, will satisfy this craving, which is not to be satisfied!
+Hence his bitterness. Life can furnish no food fitting for him. The
+strength and purity of his energies have reached to an almost divine
+height, and roam through the Inane. Poetry, love, and such-like, are
+the drugs earth has to offer to high natures, as she offers to low
+ones debauchery. 'Tis a sign, this sourness, that he is subject to
+none of the empiricisms that are afloat. Now to keep him clear of
+them!"
+
+The Titans had an easier task in storming Olympus. As yet, however,
+it could not be said that Sir Austin's System had failed. On the
+contrary, it had reared a youth, handsome, intelligent, well-bred,
+and, observed the ladies, with acute emphasis, innocent. Where, they
+asked, was such another young man to be found?
+
+"Oh!" said Lady Blandish to Sir Austin, "if men could give their
+hands to women unsoiled--how different would many a marriage be! She
+will be a happy girl who calls Richard husband."
+
+"Happy, indeed!" was the baronet's caustic ejaculation. "But where
+shall I meet one equal to him, and his match?"
+
+"I was innocent when I was a girl," said the lady.
+
+Sir Austin bowed a reserved opinion.
+
+"Do you think no girls innocent?"
+
+Sir Austin gallantly thought them all so.
+
+"No, that you know they are not," said the lady, stamping. "But they
+are more innocent than boys, I am sure."
+
+"Because of their education, madam. You see now what a youth can be.
+Perhaps, when my System is published, or rather--to speak more
+humbly--when it is practised, the balance may be restored, and we
+shall have virtuous young men."
+
+"It's too late for poor me to hope for a husband from one of them,"
+said the lady, pouting and laughing.
+
+"It is never too late for beauty to waken love," returned the
+baronet, and they trifled a little. They were approaching Daphne's
+Bower, which they entered, and sat there to taste the coolness of a
+descending midsummer day.
+
+The baronet seemed in a humour for dignified fooling; the lady for
+serious converse.
+
+"I shall believe again in Arthur's knights," she said. "When I was a
+girl I dreamed of one."
+
+"And he was in quest of the San Greal?"
+
+"If you like."
+
+"And showed his good taste by turning aside for the more tangible
+San Blandish?"
+
+"Of course you consider it would have been so," sighed the lady,
+ruffling.
+
+"I can only judge by our generation," said Sir Austin, with a bend
+of homage.
+
+The lady gathered her mouth. "Either we are very mighty or you are
+very weak."
+
+"Both, madam."
+
+"But whatever we are, and if we are bad, bad! we love virtue, and
+truth, and lofty souls, in men: and, when we meet those qualities in
+them, we are constant, and would die for them--die for them. Ah! you
+know men but not women."
+
+"The knights possessing such distinctions must be young, I presume?"
+said Sir Austin.
+
+"Old, or young!"
+
+"But if old, they are scarce capable of enterprise?"
+
+"They are loved for themselves, not for their deeds."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Yes--ah!" said the lady. "Intellect may subdue women--make slaves
+of them; and they worship beauty perhaps as much as you do. But they
+only love for ever and are mated when they meet a noble nature."
+
+Sir Austin looked at her wistfully.
+
+"And did you encounter the knight of your dream?"
+
+"Not then." She lowered her eyelids. It was prettily done.
+
+"And how did you bear the disappointment?"
+
+"My dream was in the nursery. The day my frock was lengthened to a
+gown I stood at the altar. I am not the only girl that has been made
+a woman in a day, and given to an ogre instead of a true knight."
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Sir Austin, "women have much to bear."
+
+Here the couple changed characters. The lady became gay as the
+baronet grew earnest.
+
+"You know it is our lot," she said. "And we are allowed many
+amusements. If we fulfil our duty in producing children, that, like
+our virtue, is its own reward. Then, as a widow, I have wonderful
+privileges."
+
+"To preserve which, you remain a widow?"
+
+"Certainly," she responded. "I have no trouble now in patching and
+piecing that rag the world calls--a character. I can sit at your
+feet every day unquestioned. To be sure, others do the same, but
+they are female eccentrics, and have cast off the rag altogether."
+
+Sir Austin drew nearer to her. "You would have made an admirable
+mother, madam."
+
+This from Sir Austin was very like positive wooing.
+
+"It is," he continued, "ten thousand pities that you are not one."
+
+"Do you think so?" She spoke with humility.
+
+"I would," he went on, "that heaven had given you a daughter."
+
+"Would you have thought her worthy of Richard?"
+
+"Our blood, madam, should have been one!"
+
+The lady tapped her toe with her parasol. "But I am a mother," she
+said. "Richard is my son. Yes! Richard is my boy," she reiterated.
+
+Sir Austin most graciously appended, "Call him ours, madam," and
+held his head as if to catch the word from her lips, which, however,
+she chose to refuse, or defer. They made the coloured West a common
+point for their eyes, and then Sir Austin said:
+
+"As you will not say 'ours,' let me. And, as you have therefore an
+equal claim on the boy, I will confide to you a project I have
+lately conceived."
+
+The announcement of a project hardly savoured of a coming proposal,
+but for Sir Austin to confide one to a woman was almost tantamount
+to a declaration. So Lady Blandish thought, and so said her soft,
+deep-eyed smile, as she perused the ground while listening to the
+project. It concerned Richard's nuptials. He was now nearly
+eighteen. He was to marry when he was five-and-twenty. Meantime a
+young lady, some years his junior, was to be sought for in the homes
+of England, who would be every way fitted by education, instincts,
+and blood--on each of which qualifications Sir Austin unreservedly
+enlarged--to espouse so perfect a youth and accept the honourable
+duty of assisting in the perpetuation of the Feverels. The baronet
+went on to say that he proposed to set forth immediately, and devote
+a couple of months, to the first essay in his Coelebite search.
+
+"I fear," said Lady Blandish, when the project had been fully
+unfolded, "you have laid down for yourself a difficult task. You
+must not be too exacting."
+
+"I know it." The baronet's shake of the head was piteous.
+
+"Even in England she will be rare. But I confine myself to no class.
+If I ask for blood it is for untainted, not what you call high
+blood. I believe many of the middle classes are frequently more
+careful--more pure-blooded--than our aristocracy. Show me among them
+a God-fearing family who educate their children--I should prefer a
+girl without brothers and sisters--as a Christian damsel should be
+educated--say; on the model of my son, and she may be penniless, I
+will pledge her to Richard Feverel."
+
+Lady Blandish bit her lip. "And what do you do with Richard while
+you are absent on this expedition?"
+
+"Oh!" said the baronet, "he accompanies his father."
+
+"Then give it up. His future bride is now pinafored and
+bread-and-buttery. She romps, she cries, she dreams of play and
+pudding. How can he care for her? He thinks more at his age of old
+women like me. He will be certain to kick against her, and destroy
+your plan, believe me, Sir Austin."
+
+"Ay? ay? do you think that?" said the baronet.
+
+Lady Blandish gave him a multitude of reasons.
+
+"Ay! true," he muttered. "Adrian said the same. He must not see her.
+How could I think of it! The child is naked woman. He would despise
+her. Naturally!"
+
+"Naturally!" echoed the lady.
+
+"Then, madam," and the baronet rose, "there is one thing for me to
+determine upon. I must, for the first time in his life, leave him."
+
+"Will you, indeed?" said the lady.
+
+"It is my duty, having thus brought him up, to see that he is
+properly mated,--not wrecked upon the quicksands of marriage, as a
+youth so delicately trained might be; more easily than another!
+Betrothed, he will be safe from a thousand snares. I may, I think,
+leave him for a term. My precautions have saved him from the
+temptations of his season."
+
+"And under whose charge will you leave him?" Lady Blandish inquired.
+
+She had emerged from the temple, and stood beside Sir Austin on the
+upper steps, under a clear summer twilight.
+
+"Madam!" he took her hand, and his voice was gallant and tender,
+"under whose but yours?"
+
+As the baronet said this, he bent above her hand, and raised it to
+his lips.
+
+Lady Blandish felt that she had been wooed and asked in wedlock. She
+did not withdraw her hand. The baronet's salute was flatteringly
+reverent. He deliberated over it, as one going through a grave
+ceremony. And he, the scorner of women, had chosen her for his
+homage! Lady Blandish forgot that she had taken some trouble to
+arrive at it. She received the exquisite compliment in all its
+unique honey-sweet: for in love we must deserve nothing or the fine
+bloom of fruition is gone.
+
+The lady's hand was still in durance, and the baronet had not
+recovered from his profound inclination, when a noise from the
+neighbouring beechwood startled the two actors in this courtly
+pantomime. They turned their heads, and beheld the hope of Raynham
+on horseback surveying the scene. The next moment he had galloped
+away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AN ATTRACTION
+
+
+All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a rapid
+canter, and his brain bestriding it, traversing the rich untasted
+world, and the great Realm of Mystery, from which he was now
+restrained no longer. Months he had wandered about the gates of the
+Bonnet, wondering, sighing, knocking at them, and getting neither
+admittance nor answer. He had the key now. His own father had given
+it to him. His heart was a lightning steed, and bore him on and on
+over limitless regions bathed in super-human beauty and strangeness,
+where cavaliers and ladies leaned whispering upon close green
+swards, and knights and ladies cast a splendour upon savage forests,
+and tilts and tourneys were held in golden courts lit to a glorious
+day by ladies' eyes, one pair of which, dimly visioned, constantly
+distinguishable, followed him through the boskage and dwelt upon him
+in the press, beaming while he bent above a hand glittering white
+and fragrant as the frosted blossom of a May night.
+
+Awhile the heart would pause and flutter to a shock: he was in the
+act of consummating all earthly bliss by pressing his lips to the
+small white hand. Only to do that, and die! cried the Magnetic
+Youth: to fling the Jewel of Life into that one cup and drink it
+off! He was intoxicated by anticipation. For that he was born.
+There was, then, some end in existence, something to live for! to
+kiss a woman's hand, and die! He would leap from the couch, and rush
+to pen and paper to relieve his swarming sensations. Scarce was he
+seated when the pen was dashed aside, the paper sent flying with the
+exclamation, "Have I not sworn I would never write again?" Sir
+Austin had shut that safety-valve. The nonsense that was in the
+youth might have poured harmlessly out, and its urgency for
+ebullition was so great that he was repeatedly oblivious of his
+oath, and found himself seated under the lamp in the act of
+composition before pride could speak a word. Possibly the pride even
+of Richard Feverel had been swamped if the act of composition were
+easy at such a time, and a single idea could stand clearly foremost;
+but myriads were demanding the first place; chaotic hosts, like
+ranks of stormy billows, pressed impetuously for expression, and
+despair of reducing them to form, quite as much as pride, to which
+it pleased him to refer his incapacity, threw down the powerless
+pen, and sent him panting to his outstretched length and another
+headlong career through the rosy-girdled land.
+
+Toward morning the madness of the fever abated somewhat, and he went
+forth into the air. A lamp was still burning in his father's room,
+and Richard thought, as he looked up, that he saw the ever-vigilant
+head on the watch. Instantly the lamp was extinguished, the window
+stood cold against the hues of dawn.
+
+Strong pulling is an excellent medical remedy for certain classes of
+fever. Richard took to it instinctively. The clear fresh water,
+burnished with sunrise, sparkled against his arrowy prow; the soft
+deep shadows curled smiling away from his gliding keel. Overhead
+solitary morning unfolded itself, from blossom to bud, from bud to
+flower; still, delicious changes of light and colour, to whose
+influences he was heedless as he shot under willows and aspens, and
+across sheets of river-reaches, pure mirrors to the upper glory,
+himself the sole tenant of the stream. Somewhere at the founts of
+the world lay the land he was rowing toward; something of its
+shadowed lights might be discerned here and there. It was not a
+dream, now he knew. There was a secret abroad. The woods were full
+of it; the waters rolled with it, and the winds. Oh, why could not
+one in these days do some high knightly deed which should draw down
+ladies' eyes from their heaven, as in the days of Arthur! To such a
+meaning breathed the unconscious sighs of the youth, when he had
+pulled through his first feverish energy.
+
+He was off Bursley, and had lapsed a little into that musing
+quietude which follows strenuous exercise, when he heard a hail and
+his own name called. It was no lady, no fairy, but young Ralph
+Morton, an irruption of miserable masculine prose. Heartily wishing
+him abed with the rest of mankind, Richard rowed in and jumped
+ashore. Ralph immediately seized his arm, saying that he desired
+earnestly to have a talk with him, and dragged the Magnetic Youth
+from his water-dreams, up and down the wet mown grass. That he had
+to say seemed to be difficult of utterance, and Richard, though he
+barely listened, soon had enough of his old rival's gladness at
+seeing him, and exhibited signs of impatience; whereat Ralph, as one
+who branches into matter somewhat foreign to his mind, but of great
+human interest and importance, put the question to him:
+
+"I say, what woman's name do you like best?"
+
+"I don't know any," quoth Richard, indifferently. "Why are you out
+so early?"
+
+In answer to this, Ralph suggested that the name of Mary might be
+considered a pretty name.
+
+Richard agreed that it might be; the housekeeper at Raynham, half
+the women cooks, and all the housemaids enjoyed that name; the name
+of Mary was equivalent for women at home.
+
+"Yes, I know," said Ralph. "We have lots of Marys. It's so common.
+Oh! I don't like Mary best. What do you think of Lucy?"
+
+Richard thought it just like another.
+
+"Do you know," Ralph continued, throwing off the mask and plunging
+into the subject, "I'd do anything on earth for some names--one or
+two. It's not Mary, nor Lucy. Clarinda's pretty, but it's like a
+novel. Claribel, I like. Names beginning with 'Cl' I prefer. The
+'Cl's' are always gentle and lovely girls you would die for! Don't
+you think so?"
+
+Richard had never been acquainted with any of them to inspire that
+emotion. Indeed these urgent appeals to his fancy in feminine names
+at five o'clock in the morning slightly surprised him, though he was
+but half awake to the outer world. By degrees he perceived that
+Ralph was changed. Instead of the lusty boisterous boy, his rival in
+manly sciences, who spoke straightforwardly and acted up to his
+speech, here was an abashed and blush-persecuted youth, who sued
+piteously for a friendly ear wherein to pour the one idea possessing
+him. Gradually, too, Richard apprehended that Ralph likewise was on
+the frontiers of the Realm of Mystery, perhaps further toward it
+than he himself was; and then, as by a sympathetic stroke, was
+revealed to him the wonderful beauty and depth of meaning in
+feminine names. The theme appeared novel and delicious, fitted to
+the season and the hour. But the hardship was, that Richard could
+choose none from the number; all were the same to him; he loved them
+all.
+
+"Don't you really prefer the 'Cl's'?" said Ralph, persuasively.
+
+"Not better than the names ending in 'a' and 'y,'" Richard replied,
+wishing he could, for Ralph was evidently ahead of him.
+
+"Come under these trees," said Ralph. And under the trees Ralph
+unbosomed. His name was down for the army: Eton was quitted for
+ever. In a few months he would have to join his regiment, and before
+he left he must say good-bye to his friends.... Would Richard tell
+him Mrs. Forey's address? he had heard she was somewhere by the sea.
+Richard did not remember the address, but said he would willingly
+take charge of any letter and forward it.
+
+Ralph dived his hand into his pocket. "Here it is. But don't let
+anybody see it."
+
+"My aunt's name is not Clare," said Richard, perusing what was
+composed of the exterior formula. "You've addressed it to Clare
+herself."
+
+That was plain to see.
+
+"Emmeline Clementina Matilda Laura, Countess Blandish," Richard
+continued in a low tone, transferring the names, and playing on the
+musical strings they were to him. Then he said: "Names of ladies!
+How they sweeten their names!"
+
+He fixed his eyes on Ralph. If he discovered anything further he
+said nothing, but bade the good fellow good-bye, jumped into his
+boat, and pulled down the tide. The moment Ralph was hidden by an
+abutment of the banks, Richard perused the address. For the first
+time it struck him that his cousin Clare was a very charming
+creature: he remembered the look of her eyes, and especially the
+last reproachful glance she gave him at parting. What business had
+Ralph to write to her? Did she not belong to Richard Feverel? He
+read the words again and again: Clare Doria Forey. Why, Clare was
+the name he liked best--nay, he loved it. Doria, too--she shared his
+own name with him. Away went his heart, not at a canter now, at a
+gallop, as one who sights the quarry. He felt too weak to pull.
+Clare Doria Forey---oh, perfect melody! Sliding with the tide, he
+heard it fluting in the bosom of the hills.
+
+When nature has made us ripe for love, it seldom occurs that the
+Fates are behindhand in furnishing a temple for the flame.
+
+Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder
+below, lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the
+reeds. Meadow-sweet hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing
+bramble, and there also hung a daughter of earth. Her face was
+shaded by a broad straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips
+and chin in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of
+promising eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose
+curls, brown in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched them.
+She was simply dressed, befitting decency and the season. On a
+closer inspection you might see that her lips were stained. This
+blooming young person was regaling on dewberries. They grew between
+the bank and the water. Apparently she found the fruit abundant, for
+her hand was making pretty progress to her mouth. Fastidious youth,
+which revolts at woman plumping her exquisite proportions on
+bread-and-butter, and would (we must suppose) joyfully have her
+scraggy to have her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries.
+Indeed the act of eating them is dainty and induces musing. The
+dewberry is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent sister. You eat:
+mouth, eye, and hand are occupied, and the undrugged mind free to
+roam. And so it was with the damsel who knelt there. The little
+skylark went up above her, all song, to the smooth southern cloud
+lying along the blue: from a dewy copse dark over her nodding hat
+the blackbird fluted, calling to her with thrice mellow note: the
+kingfisher flashed emerald out of green osiers: a bow-winged heron
+travelled aloft, seeking solitude: a boat slipped toward her,
+containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the fruit, and ate,
+and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her territories, and
+as if she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded by
+the green shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weir-fall's
+thundering white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she
+was a bit of lovely human life in a fair setting; a terrible
+attraction. The Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his proximity to
+the weir-piles, and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller
+grew nature, as at the meeting of two electric clouds. Her posture
+was so graceful, that though he was making straight for the weir, he
+dared not dip a scull. Just then one enticing dewberry caught her
+eyes. He was floating by unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched
+low, and could not gather what it sought. A stroke from his right
+brought him beside her. The damsel glanced up dismayed, and her
+whole shape trembled over the brink. Richard sprang from his boat
+into the water. Pressing a hand beneath her foot, which she had
+thrust against the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself,
+he enabled her to recover her balance, and gain safe earth, whither
+he followed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+FERDINAND AND MIRANDA
+
+
+He had landed on an island of the still-vexed Bermoothes. The world
+lay wrecked behind him: Raynham hung in mists, remote, a phantom to
+the vivid reality of this white hand which had drawn him thither
+away thousands of leagues in an eye-twinkle. Hark, how Ariel sang
+overhead! What splendour in the heavens! What marvels of beauty
+about his enchanted brows! And, O you wonder! Fair Flame! by whose
+light the glories of being are now first seen.... Radiant Miranda!
+Prince Ferdinand is at your feet.
+
+Or is it Adam, his rib taken from his side in sleep, and thus
+transformed, to make him behold his Paradise, and lose it?...
+
+The youth looked on her with as glowing an eye. It was the First
+Woman to him.
+
+And she--mankind was all Caliban to her, saving this one princely
+youth.
+
+So to each other said their changing eyes in the moment they stood
+together; he pale, and she blushing.
+
+She was indeed sweetly fair, and would have been held fair among
+rival damsels. On a magic shore, and to a youth educated by a
+System, strung like an arrow drawn to the head, he, it might be
+guessed, could fly fast and far with her. The soft rose in her
+cheeks, the clearness of her eyes, bore witness to the body's
+virtue; and health and happy blood were in her bearing. Had she
+stood before Sir Austin among rival damsels, that Scientific
+Humanist, for the consummation of his System, would have thrown her
+the handkerchief for his son. The wide summer-hat, nodding over her
+forehead to her brows, seemed to flow with the flowing heavy curls,
+and those fire-threaded mellow curls, only half-curls, waves of hair
+call them, rippling at the ends, went like a sunny red-veined
+torrent down her back almost to her waist: a glorious vision to the
+youth, who embraced it as a flower of beauty, and read not a
+feature. There were curious features of colour in her face for him
+to have read. Her brows, thick and brownish against a soft skin
+showing the action of the blood, met in the bend of a bow, extending
+to the temples long and level: you saw that she was fashioned to
+peruse the sights of earth, and by the pliability of her brows that
+the wonderful creature used her faculty, and was not going to be a
+statue to the gazer. Under the dark thick brows an arch of lashes
+shot out, giving a wealth of darkness to the full frank blue eyes, a
+mystery of meaning--more than brain was ever meant to fathom:
+richer, henceforth, than all mortal wisdom to Prince Ferdinand. For
+when nature turns artist, and produces contrasts of colour on a fair
+face, where is the Sage, or what the Oracle, shall match the depth
+of its lightest look?
+
+Prince Ferdinand was also fair. In his slim boating-attire his
+figure looked heroic. His hair, rising from the parting to the right
+of his forehead, in what his admiring Lady Blandish called his
+plume, fell away slanting silkily to the temples across the nearly
+imperceptible upward curve of his brows there--felt more than seen,
+so slight it was--and gave to his profile a bold beauty, to which
+his bashful, breathless air was a flattering charm. An arrow drawn
+to the head, capable of flying fast and far with her! He leaned a
+little forward, drinking her in with all his eyes, and young Love
+has a thousand. Then truly the System triumphed, just ere it was to
+fall; and could Sir Austin have been content to draw the arrow to
+the head, and let it fly, when it would fly, he might have pointed
+to his son again, and said to the world, "Match him!" Such keen
+bliss as the youth had in the sight of her, an innocent youth alone
+has powers of soul in him to experience.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"O Women!" says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, in one of its solitary outbursts,
+"Women, who like, and will have for hero, a rake! how soon are you not
+to learn that you have taken bankrupts to your bosoms, and that the
+putrescent gold that attracted you is the slime of the Lake of Sin!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+If these two were Ferdinand and Miranda, Sir Austin was not Prospero,
+and was not present, or their fates might have been different.
+
+So they stood a moment, changing eyes, and then Miranda spoke, and
+they came down to earth, feeling no less in heaven.
+
+She spoke to thank him for his aid. She used quite common simple words;
+and used them, no doubt, to express a common simple meaning: but to him
+she was uttering magic, casting spells, and the effect they had on him
+was manifested in the incoherence of his replies, which were too foolish
+to be chronicled.
+
+The couple were again mute. Suddenly Miranda, with an exclamation of
+anguish, and innumerable lights and shadows playing over her lovely
+face, clapped her hands, crying aloud, "My book! my book!" and ran to
+the bank.
+
+Prince Ferdinand was at her side. "What have you lost?" he said.
+
+"My book!" she answered, her delicious curls swinging across her
+shoulders to the stream. Then turning to him, "Oh, no, no! let me
+entreat you not to," she said; "I do not so very much mind losing it."
+And in her eagerness to restrain him she unconsciously laid her gentle
+hand upon his arm, and took the force of motion out of him.
+
+"Indeed, I do not really care for the silly book," she continued,
+withdrawing her hand quickly, and reddening. "Pray, do not!"
+
+The young gentleman had kicked off his shoes. No sooner was the spell
+of contact broken than he jumped in. The water was still troubled and
+discoloured by his introductory adventure, and, though he ducked his
+head with the spirit of a dabchick, the book was missing. A scrap of
+paper floating from the bramble just above the water, and looking as if
+fire had caught its edges and it had flown from one adverse element to
+the other, was all he could lay hold of; and he returned to land
+disconsolately, to hear Miranda's murmured mixing of thanks and pretty
+expostulations.
+
+"Let me try again," he said.
+
+"No, indeed!" she replied, and used the awful threat: "I will run
+away if you do," which effectually restrained him.
+
+Her eye fell on the fire-stained scrap of paper, and brightened, as
+she cried, "There, there! you have what I want. It is that. I do not
+care for the book. No, please! You are not to look at it. Give it
+me."
+
+Before her playfully imperative injunction was fairly spoken,
+Richard had glanced at the document and discovered a Griffin between
+two Wheatsheaves: his crest in silver: and below--O wonderment
+immense! his own handwriting!
+
+He handed it to her. She took it, and put it in her bosom.
+
+Who would have thought, that, where all else perished, Odes, Idyls,
+Lines, Stanzas, this one Sonnet to the stars should be miraculously
+reserved for such a starry fate--passing beatitude!
+
+As they walked silently across the meadow, Richard strove to
+remember the hour and the mood of mind in which he had composed the
+notable production. The stars were invoked, as seeing and foreseeing
+all, to tell him where then his love reclined, and so forth; Hesper
+was complacent enough to do so, and described her in a couplet--
+
+    "Through sunset's amber see me shining fair,
+    As her blue eyes shine through her golden hair."
+
+And surely no words could be more prophetic. Here were two blue eyes
+and golden hair; and by some strange chance, that appeared like the
+working of a divine finger, she had become the possessor of the
+prophecy, she that was to fulfil it! The youth was too charged with
+emotion to speak. Doubtless the damsel had less to think of, or had
+some trifling burden on her conscience, for she seemed to grow
+embarrassed. At last she drew up her chin to look at her companion
+under the nodding brim of her hat (and the action gave her a
+charmingly freakish air), crying, "But where are you going to? You
+are wet through. Let me thank you again; and, pray, leave me, and go
+home and change instantly."
+
+"Wet?" replied the magnetic muser, with a voice of tender interest;
+"not more than one foot, I hope. I will leave you while you dry your
+stockings in the sun."
+
+At this she could not withhold a shy laugh.
+
+"Not I, but you. You would try to get that silly book for me, and
+you are dripping wet. Are you not very uncomfortable?"
+
+In all sincerity he assured her that he was not.
+
+"And you really do not feel that you are wet?"
+
+He really did not: and it was a fact that he spoke truth.
+
+She pursed her dewberry mouth in the most comical way, and her blue
+eyes lightened laughter out of the half-closed lids.
+
+"I cannot help it," she said, her mouth opening, and sounding
+harmonious bells of laughter in his ears. "Pardon me, won't you?"
+
+His face took the same soft smiling curves in admiration of her.
+
+"Not to feel that you have been in the water, the very moment
+after!" she musically interjected, seeing she was excused.
+
+"It's true," he said; and his own gravity then touched him to join a
+duet with her, which made them no longer feel strangers, and did the
+work of a month of intimacy. Better than sentiment, laughter opens
+the breast to love; opens the whole breast to his full quiver,
+instead of a corner here and there for a solitary arrow. Hail the
+occasion propitious, O British young! and laugh and treat love as an
+honest God, and dabble not with the sentimental rouge. These two
+laughed, and the souls of each cried out to the other, "It is I, it
+is I."
+
+They laughed and forgot the cause of their laughter, and the sun
+dried his light river clothing, and they strolled toward the
+blackbird's copse, and stood near a stile in sight of the foam of
+the weir and the many-coloured rings of eddies streaming forth from
+it.
+
+Richard's boat, meanwhile, had contrived to shoot the weir, and was
+swinging, bottom upward, broadside with the current down the rapid
+backwater.
+
+"Will you let it go?" said the damsel, eyeing it curiously.
+
+"It can't be stopped," he replied, and could have added: "What do I
+care for it now!"
+
+His old life was whirled away with it, dead, drowned. His new life
+was with her, alive, divine.
+
+She flapped low the brim of her hat. "You must really not come any
+farther," she softly said.
+
+"And will you go, and not tell me who you are?" he asked, growing
+bold as the fears of losing her came across him. "And will you not
+tell me before you go"--his face burned--"how you came by that--that
+paper?"
+
+She chose to select the easier question for answer: "You ought to
+know me; we have been introduced." Sweet was her winning off-hand
+affability.
+
+"Then who, in heaven's name, are you? Tell me! I never could have
+forgotten you."
+
+"You have, I think," she said.
+
+"Impossible that we could ever have met, and I forget you!"
+
+She looked up at him.
+
+"Do you remember Belthorpe?"
+
+"Belthorpe! Belthorpe!" quoth Richard, as if he had to touch his
+brain to recollect there was such a place. "Do you mean old Blaize's
+farm?"
+
+"Then I am old Blaize's niece." She tripped him a soft curtsey.
+
+The magnetized youth gazed at her. By what magic was it that this
+divine sweet creature could be allied with that old churl!
+
+"Then what--what is your name?" said his mouth, while his eyes
+added, "O wonderful creature! How came you to enrich the earth?"
+
+"Have you forgot the Desboroughs of Dorset, too?" she peered at him
+from a side-bend of the flapping brim.
+
+"The Desboroughs of Dorset?" A light broke in on him. "And have you
+grown to this? That little girl I saw there!"
+
+He drew close to her to read the nearest features of the vision. She
+could no more laugh off the piercing fervour of his eyes. Her
+volubility fluttered under his deeply wistful look, and now neither
+voice was high, and they were mutually constrained.
+
+"You see," she murmured, "we are old acquaintances."
+
+Richard, with his eyes still intently fixed on her, returned, "You
+are very beautiful!"
+
+The words slipped out. Perfect simplicity is unconsciously
+audacious. Her overpowering beauty struck his heart, and, like an
+instrument that is touched and answers to the touch, he spoke.
+
+Miss Desborough made an effort to trifle with this terrible
+directness; but his eyes would not be gainsaid, and checked her
+lips. She turned away from them, her bosom a little rebellious.
+Praise so passionately spoken, and by one who has been a damsel's
+first dream, dreamed of nightly many long nights, and clothed in the
+virgin silver of her thoughts in bud, praise from him is coin the
+heart cannot reject, if it would. She quickened her steps.
+
+"I have offended you!" said a mortally wounded voice across her
+shoulder.
+
+That he should think so were too dreadful.
+
+"Oh no, no! you would never offend me." She gave him her whole sweet
+face.
+
+"Then why--why do you leave me?"
+
+"Because," she hesitated, "I must go."
+
+"No. You must not go. Why must you go? Do not go."
+
+"Indeed I must," she said, pulling at the obnoxious broad brim of
+her hat; and, interpreting a pause he made for his assent to her
+rational resolve, shyly looking at him, she held her hand out, and
+said, "Good-bye," as if it were a natural thing to say.
+
+The hand was pure white--white and fragrant as the frosted blossom
+of a Maynight. It was the hand whose shadow, cast before, he had
+last night bent his head reverentially above, and kissed--resigning
+himself thereupon over to execution for payment of the penalty of
+such daring--by such bliss well rewarded.
+
+He took the hand, and held it, gazing between her eyes.
+
+"Good-bye," she said again, as frankly as she could, and at the same
+time slightly compressing her fingers on his in token of adieu. It
+was a signal for his to close firmly upon hers.
+
+"You will not go?"
+
+"Pray, let me," she pleaded, her sweet brows suing in wrinkles.
+
+"You will not go?" Mechanically he drew the white hand nearer his
+thumping heart.
+
+"I must," she faltered piteously.
+
+"You will not go?"
+
+"Oh yes! yes!"
+
+"Tell me. Do you wish to go?"
+
+The question was a subtle one. A moment or two she did not answer,
+and then forswore herself, and said, Yes.
+
+"Do you--you wish to go?" He looked with quivering eyelids under
+hers.
+
+A fainter Yes responded.
+
+"You wish--wish to leave me?" His breath went with the words.
+
+"Indeed I must."
+
+Her hand became a closer prisoner.
+
+All at once an alarming delicious shudder went through her frame.
+From him to her it coursed, and back from her to him. Forward and
+back love's electric messenger rushed from heart to heart, knocking
+at each, till it surged tumultuously against the bars of its
+prison, crying out for its mate. They stood trembling in unison, a
+lovely couple under these fair heavens of the morning.
+
+When he could get his voice it said, "Will you go?"
+
+But she had none to reply with, and could only mutely bend upward
+her gentle wrist.
+
+"Then, farewell!" he said, and, dropping his lips to the soft fair
+hand, kissed it, and hung his head, swinging away from her, ready
+for death.
+
+Strange, that now she was released she should linger by him.
+Strange, that his audacity, instead of the executioner, brought
+blushes and timid tenderness to his side, and the sweet words, "You
+are not angry with me?"
+
+"With you, O Beloved!" cried his soul. "And you forgive me, fair
+charity!"
+
+"I think it was rude of me to go without thanking you again," she
+said, and again proffered her hand.
+
+The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song above him. The gracious
+glory of heaven fell upon his soul. He touched her hand, not moving
+his eyes from her, nor speaking, and she, with a soft word of
+farewell, passed across the stile, and up the pathway through the
+dewy shades of the copse, and out of the arch of the light, away
+from his eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And away with her went the wild enchantment. He looked on barren
+air. But it was no more the world of yesterday. The marvellous
+splendours had sown seeds in him, ready to spring up and bloom at
+her gaze; and in his bosom now the vivid conjuration of her tones,
+her face, her shape, makes them leap and illumine him like fitful
+summer lightnings--ghosts of the vanished sun.
+
+There was nothing to tell him that he had been making love and
+declaring it with extraordinary rapidity; nor did he know it. Soft
+flushed cheeks! sweet mouth! strange sweet brows! eyes of softest
+fire! how could his ripe eyes behold you, and not plead to keep you?
+Nay, how could he let you go? And he seriously asked himself that
+question.
+
+To-morrow this place will have a memory--the river and the meadow,
+and the white falling weir: his heart will build a temple here; and
+the skylark will be its high-priest, and the old blackbird its
+glossy-gowned chorister, and there will be a sacred repast of
+dewberries. To-day the grass is grass: his heart is chased by
+phantoms and finds rest nowhere. Only when the most tender freshness
+of his flower comes across him does he taste a moment's calm; and no
+sooner does it come than it gives place to keen pangs for fear that
+she may not be his for ever.
+
+Erelong he learns that her name is Lucy. Erelong he meets Ralph, and
+discovers that in a day he has distanced him by a sphere. He and
+Ralph and the curate of Lobourne join in their walks, and raise
+classical discussions on ladies' hair, fingering a thousand
+delicious locks, from those of Cleopatra to the Borgia's. "Fair!
+fair! all of them fair!" sighs the melancholy curate, "as are those
+women formed for our perdition! I think we have in this country what
+will match the Italian or the Greek." His mind flutters to Mrs.
+Doria, Richard blushes before the vision of Lucy, and Ralph, whose
+heroine's hair is a dark luxuriance, dissents, and claims a noble
+share in the slaughter of men for dark-haired Wonders. They have no
+mutual confidences, but they are singularly kind to each other,
+these three children of instinct.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON
+
+
+Lady Blandish, and others who professed an interest in the fortunes
+and future of the systematized youth, had occasionally mentioned
+names of families whose alliance according to apparent calculations,
+would not degrade his blood: and over these names, secretly
+preserved on an open leaf of the note-book, Sir Austin, as he neared
+the metropolis, distantly dropped his eye. There were names historic
+and names mushroomic; names that the Conqueror might have called in
+his muster-roll; names that had been, clearly, tossed into the upper
+stratum of civilized life by a mill-wheel or a merchant-stool.
+Against them the baronet had written M., or Po. or Pr.--signifying,
+Money, Position, Principles, favouring the latter with special
+brackets. The wisdom of a worldly man, which he could now and then
+adopt, determined him, before he commenced his round of visits, to
+consult and sound his solicitor and his physician thereanent;
+lawyers and doctors being the rats who know best the merits of a
+house, and on what sort of foundation it may be standing.
+
+Sir Austin entered the great city with a sad mind. The memory of his
+misfortune came upon him vividly, as if no years had intervened, and
+it were but yesterday that he found the letter telling him that he
+had no wife and his son no mother. He wandered on foot through the
+streets the first night of his arrival, looking strangely at the
+shops and shows and bustle of the world from which he had divorced
+himself; feeling as destitute as the poorest vagrant. He had almost
+forgotten how to find his way about, and came across his old mansion
+in his efforts to regain his hotel. The windows were alight--signs
+of merry life within. He stared at it from the shadow of the
+opposite side. It seemed to him he was a ghost gazing upon his
+living past. And then the phantom which had stood there mocking
+while he felt as other men--the phantom, now flesh and blood
+reality, seized and convulsed his heart, and filled its unforgiving
+crevices with bitter ironic venom. He remembered by the time
+reflection returned to him that it was Algernon, who had the house
+at his disposal, probably giving a card-party, or something of the
+sort. In the morning, too, he remembered that he had divorced the
+world to wed a System, and must be faithful to that exacting Spouse,
+who, now alone of things on earth, could fortify and recompense him.
+
+Mr. Thompson received his client with the dignity and emotion due to
+such a rent-roll and the unexpectedness of the honour. He was a thin
+stately man of law, garbed as one who gave audience to sacred
+bishops, and carrying on his countenance the stamp of paternity to
+the parchment-skins, and of a virtuous attachment to Port wine
+sufficient to increase his respectability in the eyes of moral
+Britain. After congratulating Sir Austin on the fortunate issue of
+two or three suits, and being assured that the baronet's business in
+town had no concern therewith, Mr. Thompson ventured to hope that
+the young heir was all his father could desire him to be, and heard
+with satisfaction that he was a pattern to the youth of the Age.
+
+"A difficult time of life, Sir Austin!" said the old lawyer, shaking
+his head. "We must keep our eyes on them--keep awake! The mischief
+is done in a minute."
+
+"We must take care to have seen where we planted, and that the root
+was sound, or the mischief will do itself in spite of, or under the
+very spectacles of, supervision," said the baronet.
+
+His legal adviser murmured "Exactly," as if that were his own idea,
+adding, "It is my plan with Ripton, who has had the honour of an
+introduction to you, and a very pleasant time he spent with my young
+friend, whom he does not forget. Ripton follows the Law. He is
+articled to me, and will, I trust, succeed me worthily in your
+confidence. I bring him into town in the morning; I take him back at
+night. I think I may say that I am quite content with him."
+
+"Do you think," said Sir Austin, fixing his brows, "that you can
+trace every act of his to its motive?"
+
+The old lawyer bent forward and humbly requested that this might be
+repeated.
+
+"Do you"--Sir Austin held the same searching expression--"do you
+establish yourself in a radiating centre of intuition: do you base
+your watchfulness on so thorough an acquaintance with his character,
+so perfect a knowledge of the instrument, that all its movements--even
+the eccentric ones--are anticipated by you, and provided for?"
+
+The explanation was a little too long for the old lawyer to entreat
+another repetition. Winking with the painful deprecation of a deaf
+man, Mr. Thompson smiled urbanely, coughed conciliatingly, and said
+he was afraid he could not affirm that much, though he was happily
+enabled to say that Ripton had borne an extremely good character at
+school.
+
+"I find," Sir Austin remarked, as sardonically he relaxed his
+inspecting pose and mien, "there are fathers who are content to be
+simply obeyed. Now I require not only that my son should obey; I
+would have him guiltless of the impulse to gainsay my wishes--feeling
+me in him stronger than his undeveloped nature, up to a certain
+period, where my responsibility ends and his commences. Man is a
+self-acting machine. He cannot cease to be a machine; but, though
+self-acting, he may lose the powers of self-guidance, and in a wrong
+course his very vitalities hurry him to perdition. Young, he is an
+organism ripening to the set mechanic diurnal round, and while so he
+needs all the angels to hold watch over him that he grow straight  and
+healthy, and fit for what machinal duties he may have to perform." ...
+
+Mr. Thompson agitated his eyebrows dreadfully. He was utterly lost.
+He respected Sir Austin's estates too much to believe for a moment
+he was listening to downright folly. Yet how otherwise explain the
+fact of his excellent client being incomprehensible to him? For a
+middle-aged gentleman, and one who has been in the habit of advising
+and managing, will rarely have a notion of accusing his
+understanding; and Mr. Thompson had not the slightest notion of
+accusing his. But the baronet's condescension in coming thus to him,
+and speaking on the subject nearest his heart, might well affect
+him, and he quickly settled the case in favour of both parties,
+pronouncing mentally that his honoured client had a meaning, and so
+deep it was, so subtle, that no wonder he experienced difficulty in
+giving it fitly significant words.
+
+Sir Austin elaborated his theory of the Organism and the Mechanism,
+for his lawyer's edification. At a recurrence of the world "healthy"
+Mr. Thompson caught him up--
+
+"I apprehended you! Oh, I agree with you, Sir Austin! entirely!
+Allow me to ring for my son Ripton. I think, if you condescend to
+examine him, you will say that regular habits, and a diet of nothing
+but law-reading--for other forms of literature I strictly
+interdict--have made him all that you instance."
+
+Mr. Thompson's hand was on the bell. Sir Austin arrested him.
+
+"Permit me to see the lad at his occupation," said he.
+
+Our old friend Ripton sat in a room apart with the confidential
+clerk, Mr. Beazley, a veteran of law, now little better than a
+document, looking already signed and sealed, and shortly to be
+delivered, who enjoined nothing from his pupil and companion save
+absolute silence, and sounded his praises to his father at the close
+of days when it had been rigidly observed--not caring, or
+considering, the finished dry old document that he was, under what
+kind of spell a turbulent commonplace youth could be charmed into
+stillness for six hours of the day. Ripton was supposed to be
+devoted to the study of Blackstone. A tome of the classic legal
+commentator lay extended outside his desk, under the partially
+lifted lid of which nestled the assiduous student's head--law being
+thus brought into direct contact with his brainpan. The office-door
+opened, and he heard not; his name was called, and he remained
+equally moveless. His method of taking in Blackstone seemed
+absorbing as it was novel.
+
+"Comparing notes, I daresay," whispered Mr. Thompson to Sir Austin.
+"I call that study!"
+
+The confidential clerk rose, and bowed obsequious senility.
+
+"Is it like this every day, Beazley?" Mr. Thompson asked with
+parental pride.
+
+"Ahem!" the old clerk replied, "he is like this every day, sir. I
+could not ask more of a mouse."
+
+Sir Austin stepped forward to the desk. His proximity roused one of
+Ripton's senses, which blew a call to the others. Down went the lid
+of the desk. Dismay, and the ardours of study, flashed together in
+Ripton's face. He slouched from his perch with the air of one who
+means rather to defend his position than welcome a superior, the
+right hand in his waistcoat pocket fumbling a key, the left catching
+at his vacant stool.
+
+Sir Austin put two fingers on the youth's shoulder, and said,
+leaning his head a little on one side, in a way habitual to him, "I
+am glad to find my son's old comrade thus profitably occupied. I
+know what study is myself. But beware of prosecuting it too
+excitedly! Come! you must not be offended at our interruption; you
+will soon take up the thread again. Besides, you know, you must get
+accustomed to the visits of your client."
+
+So condescending and kindly did this speech sound to Mr. Thompson,
+that, seeing Ripton still preserve his appearance of disorder and
+sneaking defiance, he thought fit to nod and frown at the youth, and
+desired him to inform the baronet what particular part of Blackstone
+he was absorbed in mastering at that moment.
+
+Ripton hesitated an instant, and blundered out, with dubious
+articulation, "The Law of Gravelkind."
+
+"What Law?" said Sir Austin, perplexed.
+
+"Gravelkind," again rumbled Ripton's voice.
+
+Sir Austin turned to Mr. Thompson for an explanation. The old lawyer
+was shaking his law-box.
+
+"Singular!" he exclaimed. "He will make that mistake! What law,
+sir?"
+
+Ripton read his error in the sternly painful expression of his
+father's face, and corrected himself. "Gavelkind, sir."
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Thompson, with a sigh of relief. "Gravelkind, indeed!
+Gavelkind! An old Kentish"----He was going to expound, but Sir
+Austin assured him he knew it, and a very absurd law it was, adding,
+"I should like to look at your son's notes, or remarks on the
+judiciousness of that family arrangement, if he has any."
+
+"You were making notes, or referring to them, as we entered," said
+Mr. Thompson to the sucking lawyer; "a very good plan, which I have
+always enjoined on you. Were you not?"
+
+Ripton stammered that he was afraid he had not any notes to show,
+worth seeing.
+
+"What were you doing then, sir?"
+
+"Making notes," muttered Ripton, looking incarnate subterfuge.
+
+"Exhibit!"
+
+Ripton glanced at his desk and then at his father; at Sir Austin,
+and at the confidential clerk. He took out his key. It would not fit
+the hole.
+
+"Exhibit!" was peremptorily called again.
+
+In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole, Ripton
+discovered that the desk was already unlocked. Mr. Thompson marched
+to it, and held the lid aloft. A book was lying open within, which
+Ripton immediately hustled among a mass of papers and tossed into a
+dark corner, not before the glimpse of a coloured frontispiece was
+caught by Sir Austin's eye.
+
+The baronet smiled, and said, "You study Heraldry, too? Are you fond
+of the science?"
+
+Ripton replied that he was very fond of it--extremely attached, and
+threw a further pile of papers into the dark corner.
+
+The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the search for
+them was tedious and vain. Papers, not legal, or the fruits of
+study, were found, that made Mr. Thompson more intimate with the
+condition of his son's exchequer; nothing in the shape of a remark
+on the Law of Gavelkind.
+
+Mr. Thompson suggested to his son that they might be among those
+scraps he had thrown carelessly into the dark corner. Ripton, though
+he consented to inspect them, was positive they were not there.
+
+"What have we here?" said Mr. Thompson, seizing a neatly folded
+paper addressed to the Editor of a law publication, as Ripton
+brought them forth, one by one. Forthwith Mr. Thompson fixed his
+spectacles and read aloud:
+
+     "_To the Editor of the 'Jurist.'_
+
+     "Sir,--In your recent observations on the great case of Crim"----
+
+Mr. Thompson hem'd! and stopped short, like a man who comes
+unexpectedly upon a snake in his path. Mr. Beazley's feet shuffled.
+Sir Austin changed the position of an arm.
+
+"It's on the other side, I think," gasped Ripton.
+
+Mr. Thompson confidently turned over, and intoned with emphasis.
+
+     "To Absalom, the son of David, the little Jew usurer of Bond
+     Court, Whitecross Gutters, for his introduction to Venus, I O U
+     Five pounds, when I can pay.
+
+                                          "Signed: RIPTON THOMPSON."
+
+Underneath this fictitious legal instrument was discreetly appended:
+
+     "(Mem. Document not binding.)"
+
+There was a pause: an awful under-breath of sanctified wonderment
+and reproach passed round the office. Sir Austin assumed an
+attitude. Mr. Thompson shed a glance of severity on his confidential
+clerk, who parried by throwing up his hands.
+
+Ripton, now fairly bewildered, stuffed another paper under his
+father's nose, hoping the outside perhaps would satisfy him: it was
+marked "Legal Considerations." Mr. Thompson had no idea of sparing
+or shielding his son. In fact, like many men whose self-love is
+wounded by their offspring, he felt vindictive, and was ready to
+sacrifice him up to a certain point, for the good of both. He
+therefore opened the paper, expecting something worse than what he
+had hitherto seen, despite its formal heading, and he was not
+disappointed.
+
+The "Legal Considerations" related to the Case regarding which
+Ripton had conceived it imperative upon him to address a letter to
+the Editor of the "Jurist," and was indeed a great case, and an
+ancient; revived apparently for the special purpose of displaying
+the forensic abilities of the Junior Counsel for the Plaintiff, Mr.
+Ripton Thompson, whose assistance the Attorney-General, in his
+opening statement, congratulated himself on securing, a rather
+unusual thing, due probably to the eminence and renown of that
+youthful gentleman at the Bar of his country. So much was seen from
+the copy of a report purporting to be extracted from a newspaper,
+and prefixed to the Junior Counsel's remarks, or Legal Considerations,
+on the conduct of the Case, the admissibility and non-admissibility
+of certain evidence, and the ultimate decision of the judges.
+
+Mr. Thompson, senior, lifted the paper high, with the spirit of one
+prepared to do execution on the criminal, and in the voice of a
+town-crier, varied by a bitter accentuation and satiric sing-song
+tone, deliberately read:
+
+     "Vulcan _v._ Mars.
+
+     "The Attorney-General, assisted by Mr. Ripton Thompson,
+     appeared on behalf of the Plaintiff. Mr. Serjeant Cupid, Q.C.,
+     and Mr. Capital Opportunity, for the Defendant."
+
+"Oh!" snapped Mr. Thompson, senior, peering venom at the unfortunate
+Ripton over his spectacles, "your notes are on that issue, sir! Thus you
+employ your time, sir!"
+
+With another side-shot at the confidential clerk, who retired
+immediately behind a strong entrenchment of shrugs, Mr. Thompson
+was pushed by the devil of his rancour to continue reading:
+
+     "This Case is too well known to require more than a partial
+     summary of particulars"....
+
+"Ahem! we will skip the particulars, however partial," said Mr.
+Thompson. "Ah!--what do you mean here, sir,--but enough! I think we
+may be excused your Legal Considerations on such a Case. This is how
+you employ your law-studies, sir! You put them to this purpose? Mr.
+Beazley! you will henceforward sit alone. I must have this young man
+under my own eye. Sir Austin! permit me to apologize to you for
+subjecting you to a scene so disagreeable. It was a father's duty
+not to spare him."
+
+Mr. Thompson wiped his forehead, as Brutus might have done after
+passing judgment on the scion of his house.
+
+"These papers," he went on, fluttering Ripton's precious
+lucubrations in a waving judicial hand, "I shall retain. The day
+will come when he will regard them with shame. And it shall be his
+penance, his punishment, to do so! Stop!" he cried, as Ripton was
+noiselessly shutting his desk, "have you more of them, sir; of a
+similar description? Rout them out! Let us know you at your worst.
+What have you there--in that corner?"
+
+Ripton was understood to say he devoted that corner to old briefs on
+important cases.
+
+Mr. Thompson thrust his trembling fingers among the old briefs, and
+turned over the volume Sir Austin had observed, but without much
+remarking it, for his suspicions had not risen to print.
+
+"A Manual of Heraldry?" the baronet politely, and it may be
+ironically, inquired, before it could well escape.
+
+"I like it very much," said Ripton, clutching the book in dreadful
+torment.
+
+"Allow me to see that you have our arms and crest correct." The
+baronet proffered a hand for the book.
+
+"A Griffin between two Wheatsheaves," cried Ripton, still clutching
+it nervously.
+
+Mr. Thompson, without any notion of what he was doing, drew the book
+from Ripton's hold; whereupon the two seniors laid their grey heads
+together over the title-page. It set forth in attractive characters
+beside a coloured frontispiece, which embodied the promise displayed
+there, the entrancing adventures of Miss Random, a strange young
+lady.
+
+Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those law regions to
+consign Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod handy to mortify
+his sinful flesh, Mr. Thompson would have used them. As it was, he
+contented himself by looking Black Holes and Iron Rods at the
+detected youth, who sat on his perch insensible to what might happen
+next, collapsed.
+
+Mr. Thompson cast the wicked creature down with a "Pah!" He,
+however, took her up again, and strode away with her. Sir Austin
+gave Ripton a forefinger, and kindly touched his head, saying,
+"Good-bye, boy! At some future date Richard will be happy to see you
+at Raynham."
+
+Undoubtedly this was a great triumph to the System!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD
+
+
+The conversation between solicitor and client was resumed.
+
+"Is it possible," quoth Mr. Thompson, the moment he had ushered his
+client into his private room, "that you will consent, Sir Austin, to
+see him and receive him again?"
+
+"Certainly," the baronet replied. "Why not? This by no means
+astonishes me. When there is no longer danger to my son he will be
+welcome as he was before. He is a schoolboy. I knew it. I expected
+it. The results of your principle, Thompson!"
+
+"One of the very worst books of that abominable class!" exclaimed
+the old lawyer, opening at the coloured frontispiece, from which
+brazen Miss Random smiled bewitchingly out, as if she had no doubt
+of captivating Time and all his veterans on a fair field. "Pah!" he
+shut her to with the energy he would have given to the office of
+publicly slapping her face; "from this day I diet him on bread and
+water--rescind his pocket-money!--How he could have got hold of such
+a book! How he--! And what ideas! Concealing them from me as he has
+done so cunningly! He trifles with vice! His mind is in a putrid
+state! I might have believed--I did believe--I might have gone on
+believing--my son Ripton to be a moral young man!" The old lawyer
+interjected on the delusion of fathers, and sat down in a lamentable
+abstraction.
+
+"The lad has come out!" said Sir Austin. "His adoption of the legal
+form is amusing. He trifles with vice, true: people newly initiated
+are as hardy as its intimates, and a young sinner's amusements will
+resemble those of a confirmed debauchee. The satiated, and the
+insatiate, appetite alike appeal to extremes. You are astonished at
+this revelation of your son's condition. I expected it; though
+assuredly, believe me, not this sudden and indisputable proof of it.
+But I knew that the seed was in him, and therefore I have not
+latterly invited him to Raynham. School, and the corruption there,
+will bear its fruits sooner or later. I could advise you, Thompson,
+what to do with him: it would be my plan."
+
+Mr. Thompson murmured, like a true courtier, that he should esteem
+it an honour to be favoured with Sir Austin Feverel's advice:
+secretly resolute, like a true Briton, to follow his own.
+
+"Let him, then," continued the baronet, "see vice in its nakedness.
+While he has yet some innocence, nauseate him! Vice, taken little by
+little, usurps gradually the whole creature. My counsel to you,
+Thompson, would be, to drag him through the sinks of town."
+
+Mr. Thompson began to blink again.
+
+"Oh, I shall punish him, Sir Austin! Do not fear me, sir. I have no
+tenderness for vice."
+
+"That is not what is wanted, Thompson. You mistake me. He should be
+dealt with gently. Heavens! do you hope to make him hate vice by
+making him a martyr for its sake? You must descend from the pedestal
+of age to become his Mentor: cause him to see how certainly and
+pitilessly vice itself punishes: accompany him into its haunts"----
+
+"Over town?" broke forth Mr. Thompson.
+
+"Over town," said the baronet.
+
+"And depend upon it," he added, "that, until fathers act thoroughly
+up to their duty, we shall see the sights we see in great cities,
+and hear the tales we hear in little villages, with death and
+calamity in our homes, and a legacy of sorrow and shame to the
+generations to come. I do aver," he exclaimed, becoming excited,
+"that, if it were not for the duty to my son, and the hope I cherish
+in him, I, seeing the accumulation of misery we are handing down to
+an innocent posterity--to whom, through our sin, the fresh breath of
+life will be foul--I--yes! I would hide my name! For whither are we
+tending? What home is pure absolutely? What cannot our doctors and
+lawyers tell us?"
+
+Mr. Thompson acquiesced significantly.
+
+"And what is to come of this?" Sir Austin continued. "When the sins
+of the fathers are multiplied by the sons, is not perdition the
+final sum of things? And is not life, the boon of heaven, growing to
+be the devil's game utterly? But for my son, I would hide my name. I
+would not bequeath it to be cursed by them that walk above my
+grave!"
+
+This was indeed a terrible view of existence. Mr. Thompson felt
+uneasy. There was a dignity in his client, an impressiveness in his
+speech, that silenced remonstrating reason and the cry of long years
+of comfortable respectability. Mr. Thompson went to church
+regularly; paid his rates and dues without overmuch, or at least
+more than common, grumbling. On the surface he was a good citizen,
+fond of his children, faithful to his wife, devoutly marching to a
+fair seat in heaven on a path paved by something better than a
+thousand a year. But here was a man sighting him from below the
+surface, and though it was an unfair, unaccustomed, not to say
+un-English, method of regarding one's fellow-man, Mr. Thompson was
+troubled by it. What though his client exaggerated? Facts were at
+the bottom of what he said. And he was acute--he had unmasked
+Ripton! Since Ripton's exposure he winced at a personal application
+in the text his client preached from. Possibly this was the secret
+source of part of his anger against that peccant youth.
+
+Mr. Thompson shook his head, and, with dolefully puckered visage and
+a pitiable contraction of his shoulders, rose slowly up from his
+chair. Apparently he was about to speak, but he straightway turned
+and went meditatively to a side-recess in the room, whereof he
+opened a door, drew forth a tray and a decanter labelled PORT,
+filled a glass for his client, deferentially invited him to partake
+of it; filled another glass for himself, and drank.
+
+That was his reply.
+
+Sir Austin never took wine before dinner. Thompson had looked as if
+he meant to speak: he waited for Thompson's words.
+
+Mr. Thompson saw that, as his client did not join him in his glass,
+the eloquence of that Porty reply was lost on his client.
+
+Having slowly ingurgitated and meditated upon this precious draught,
+and turned its flavour over and over with an aspect of potent
+Judicial wisdom (one might have thought that he was weighing mankind
+in the balance), the old lawyer heaved, and said, sharpening his
+lips over the admirable vintage, "The world is in a very sad state,
+I fear, Sir Austin!"
+
+His client gazed at him queerly.
+
+"But that," Mr. Thompson added immediately, ill-concealing by his
+gaze the glowing intestinal congratulations going on within him,
+"that is, I think you would say, Sir Austin--if I could but prevail
+upon you--a tolerably good character wine!"
+
+"There's virtue somewhere, I see, Thompson!" Sir Austin murmured,
+without disturbing his legal adviser's dimples.
+
+The old lawyer sat down to finish his glass, saying, that such a
+wine was not to be had everywhere.
+
+They were then outwardly silent for a space. Inwardly one of them
+was full of riot and jubilant uproar: as if the solemn fields of law
+were suddenly to be invaded and possessed by troops of Bacchanals:
+and to preserve a decently wretched physiognomy over it, and keep on
+terms with his companion, he had to grimace like a melancholy clown
+in a pantomime.
+
+Mr. Thompson brushed back his hair. The baronet was still expectant.
+Mr. Thompson sighed deeply, and emptied his glass. He combated the
+change that had come over him. He tried not to see Ruby. He tried to
+feel miserable, and it was not in him. He spoke, drawing what
+appropriate inspirations he could from his client's countenance, to
+show that they had views in common: "Degenerating sadly, I fear!"
+
+The baronet nodded.
+
+"According to what my wine-merchants say," continued Mr. Thompson,
+"there can be no doubt about it."
+
+Sir Austin stared.
+
+"It's the grape, or the ground, or something," Mr. Thompson went on.
+"All I can say is, our youngsters will have a bad look-out! In my
+opinion Government should be compelled to send out a Commission to
+inquire into the cause. To Englishmen it would be a public calamity.
+It surprises me--I hear men sit and talk despondently of this
+extraordinary disease of the vine, and not one of them seems to
+think it incumbent on him to act, and do his best to stop it." He
+fronted his client like a man who accuses an enormous public
+delinquency. "Nobody makes a stir! The apathy of Englishmen will
+become proverbial. Pray, try it, Sir Austin! Pray, allow me. Such a
+wine cannot disagree at any hour. Do! I am allowanced two glasses
+three hours before dinner. Stomachic. I find it agrees with me
+surprisingly: quite a new man. I suppose it will last our time. It
+must! What should we do? There's no Law possible without it. Not a
+lawyer of us could live. Ours is an occupation which dries the
+blood."
+
+The scene with Ripton had unnerved him, the wine had renovated, and
+gratitude to the wine inspired his tongue. He thought that his
+client, of the whimsical mind, though undoubtedly correct moral
+views, had need of a glass.
+
+"Now that very wine--Sir Austin--I think I do not err in saying,
+that very wine your respected father, Sir Pylcher Feverel, used to
+taste whenever he came to consult my father, when I was a boy. And I
+remember one day being called in, and Sir Pylcher himself poured me
+out a glass. I wish I could call in Ripton now, and do the same. No!
+Leniency in such a case as that!--The wine would not hurt him--I
+doubt if there be much left for him to welcome his guests with. Ha!
+ha! Now if I could persuade you, Sir Austin, as you do not take wine
+before dinner, some day to favour me with your company at my little
+country cottage--I have a wine there--the fellow to that--I think
+you would, I do think you would"--Mr. Thompson meant to say, he
+thought his client would arrive at something of a similar jocund
+contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that inspirited
+lawyers after potation, but condensed the sensual promise into
+"highly approve."
+
+Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour mouth
+comically compressed.
+
+It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port, and Thompson
+after, were two different men. To indoctrinate him now was too late:
+it was perhaps the time to make the positive use of him he wanted.
+
+He pencilled on a handy slip of paper: "Two prongs of a fork; the
+World stuck between them--Port and the Palate: 'Tis one which fails
+first--Down goes World;" and again the hieroglyph--"Port-spectacles."
+He said, "I shall gladly accompany you this evening, Thompson,"
+words that transfigured the delighted lawyer, and ensigned the
+skeleton of a great Aphorism to his pocket, there to gather flesh
+and form, with numberless others in a like condition.
+
+"I came to visit my lawyer," he said to himself. "I think I have
+been dealing with The World in epitome!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS
+SPECIAL PLEA
+
+
+The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of
+Raynham, the rank misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking
+out a bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir. Doctor Benjamin
+Bairam was the excellent authority. Doctor Bairam had safely
+delivered Mrs. Deborah Gossip of this interesting bantling, which
+was forthwith dandled in dozens of feminine laps. Doctor Bairam
+could boast the first interview with the famous recluse. He had it
+from his own lips that the object of the baronet was to look out a
+bride for his only son and uncorrupted heir; "and," added the
+doctor, "she'll be lucky who gets him." Which was interpreted to
+mean, that he would be a catch; the doctor probably intending to
+allude to certain extraordinary difficulties in the way of a choice.
+
+A demand was made on the publisher of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP for all
+his outstanding copies. Conventionalities were defied. A
+summer-shower of cards fell on the baronet's table.
+
+He had few male friends. He shunned the Clubs as nests of scandal.
+The cards he contemplated were mostly those of the sex, with the
+husband, if there was a husband, evidently dragged in for
+propriety's sake. He perused the cards and smiled. He knew their
+purpose. What terrible light Thompson, and Bairam had thrown on some
+of them! Heavens! in what a state was the blood of this Empire.
+
+Before commencing his campaign he called on two ancient intimates,
+Lord Heddon, and his distant cousin Darley Absworthy, both Members
+of Parliament, useful men, though gouty, who had sown in their time
+a fine crop of wild oats, and advocated the advantage of doing so,
+seeing that they did not fancy themselves the worse for it. He found
+one with an imbecile son and the other with consumptive daughters.
+"So much," he wrote in the Note-book, "for the Wild Oats theory!"
+
+Darley was proud of his daughters' white and pink skins. "Beautiful
+complexions," he called them. The eldest was in the market,
+immensely admired. Sir Austin Was introduced to her. She talked
+fluently and sweetly. A youth not on his guard, a simple schoolboy
+youth, or even a man, might have fallen in love with her, she was so
+affable and fair. There was something poetic about her. And she was
+quite well, she said, the baronet frequently questioning her on that
+point. She intimated that she was robust; but towards the close of
+their conversation her hand would now and then travel to her side,
+and she breathed painfully an instant, saying, "Isn't it odd? Dora,
+Adela, and myself, we all feel the same queer sensation--about the
+heart, I think it is--after talking much."
+
+Sir Austin nodded and blinked sadly, exclaiming to his soul, "Wild
+oats! wild oats!"
+
+He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela.
+
+Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats.
+
+"It's all nonsense, Feverel," he said, "about bringing up a lad out
+of the common way. He's all the better for a little racketing when
+he's green--feels his bone and muscle--learns to know the world.
+He'll never be a man if he hasn't played at the old game one time in
+his life, and the earlier the better. I've always found the best
+fellows were wildish once. I don't care what he does when he's a
+greenhorn; besides, he's got an excuse for it then. You can't expect
+to have a man, if he doesn't take a man's food. You'll have a
+milksop. And, depend upon it, when he does break out he'll go to the
+devil, and nobody pities him. Look what those fellows, the grocers,
+do when they get hold of a young--what d'ye call 'em?--apprentice.
+They know the scoundrel was born with a sweet tooth. Well! they give
+him the run of the shop, and in a very short time he soberly deals
+out the goods, a devilish deal too wise to abstract a morsel even
+for the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary theories. You
+hold that the young grocer should have a soul above sugar. It won't
+do! Take my word for it, Feverel, it's a dangerous experiment, that
+of bringing up flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or
+he's a tame beast. And look you: take it on medical grounds. Early
+excesses the frame will recover from: late ones break the
+constitution. There's the case in a nutshell. How's your son?"
+
+"Sound and well!" replied Sir Austin. "And yours?"
+
+"Oh, Lipscombe's always the same!" Lord Heddon sighed peevishly.
+"He's quiet--that's one good thing; but there's no getting the
+country to take him, so I must give up hopes of that."
+
+Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin surveyed him,
+and was not astonished at the refusal of the country to take him.
+
+"Wild oats!" he thought, as he contemplated the headless,
+degenerate, weedy issue and result.
+
+Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the marriage of their
+offspring as a matter of course. "And if I were not a coward," Sir
+Austin confessed to himself, "I should stand forth and forbid the
+banns! This universal ignorance of the inevitable consequence of
+sin is frightful! The wild oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have
+struck the world, and rendered it morally insensible." However, they
+silenced him. He was obliged to spare their feelings on a subject to
+him so deeply sacred. The healthful image of his noble boy rose
+before him, a triumphant living rejoinder to any hostile argument.
+
+He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought the third
+generation of wild oats would be a pretty thin crop!
+
+Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor Bairam physician
+could recollect a progenitorial blot, either on the male or female
+side, were not numerous. "Only," said the doctor, "you really must
+not be too exacting in these days, my dear Sir Austin. It is
+impossible to contest your principle, and you are doing mankind
+incalculable service in calling its attention to this the gravest of
+its duties: but as the stream of civilization progresses we must be
+a little taken in the lump, as it were. The world is, I can assure
+you--and I do not look only above the surface, you can believe--the
+world is awakening to the vital importance of the question."
+
+"Doctor," replied Sir Austin, "if you had a pure-blood Arab barb
+would you cross him with a screw?"
+
+"Decidedly not," said the doctor.
+
+"Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to match my son
+according to his merits," Sir Austin returned. "I trust the world is
+awakening, as you observe. I have been to my publisher, since my
+arrival in town, with a manuscript 'Proposal for a New System of
+Education of our British Youth,' which may come in opportunely. I
+think I am entitled to speak on that subject."
+
+"Certainly," said the doctor. "You will admit, Sir Austin, that,
+compared with continental nations--our neighbours, for instance--we
+shine to advantage, in morals, as in everything else. I hope you
+admit that?"
+
+"I find no consolation in shining by comparison with a lower
+standard," said the baronet. "If I compare the enlightenment of your
+views--for you admit my principle--with the obstinate incredulity of
+a country doctor's, who sees nothing of the world, you are hardly
+flattered, I presume?"
+
+Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a comparison,
+assuredly, he interjected.
+
+"Besides," added the baronet, "the French make no pretences, and
+thereby escape one of the main penalties of hypocrisy. Whereas
+we!--but I am not their advocate, credit me. It is better, perhaps,
+to pay our homage to virtue. At least it delays the spread of entire
+corruptness."
+
+Doctor Bairam wished the baronet success, and diligently endeavoured
+to assist his search for a mate worthy of the pure-blood barb, by
+putting several mamas, whom he visited, on the alert.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY-WHISTLE
+
+
+Away with Systems! Away with a corrupt World! Let us breathe the air
+of the Enchanted Island.
+
+Golden lie the meadows: golden run the streams; red gold is on the
+pine-stems. The sun is coming down to earth, and walks the fields
+and the waters.
+
+The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout
+to him golden shouts. He comes, and his heralds run before him, and
+touch the leaves of oaks and planes and beeches lucid green, and the
+pine-stems redder gold; leaving brightest footprints upon
+thickly-weeded banks, where the foxglove's last upper-bells incline,
+and bramble-shoots wander amid moist rich herbage. The plumes of the
+woodland are alight; and beyond them, over the open, 'tis a race
+with the long-thrown shadows; a race across the heaths and up the
+hills, till, at the farthest bourne of mounted eastern cloud, the
+heralds of the sun lay rosy fingers and rest.
+
+Sweet are the shy recesses of the woodland. The ray treads softly
+there. A film athwart the pathway quivers many-hued against purple
+shade fragrant with warm pines, deep moss-beds, feathery ferns. The
+little brown squirrel drops tail, and leaps; the inmost bird is
+startled to a chance tuneless note. From silence into silence things
+move.
+
+Peeps of the revelling splendour above and around enliven the
+conscious full heart within. The flaming West, the crimson heights,
+shower their glories through voluminous leafage. But these are
+bowers where deep bliss dwells, imperial joy, that owes no fealty to
+yonder glories, in which the young lamb gambols and the spirits of
+men are glad. Descend, great Radiance! embrace creation with
+beneficent fire, and pass from us! You and the vice-regal light that
+succeeds to you, and all heavenly pageants, are the ministers and
+the slaves of the throbbing content within.
+
+For this is the home of the enchantment. Here, secluded from vexed
+shores, the prince and princess of the island meet: here like
+darkling nightingales they sit, and into eyes and ears and hands
+pour endless ever-fresh treasures of their souls.
+
+Roll on, grinding wheels of the world: cries of ships going down in
+a calm, groans of a System which will not know its rightful hour of
+exultation, complain to the universe. You are not heard here.
+
+He calls her by her name, Lucy: and she, blushing at her great
+boldness, has called him by his, Richard. Those two names are the
+key-notes of the wonderful harmonies the angels sing aloft.
+
+"Lucy! my beloved!"
+
+"O Richard!"
+
+Out in the world there, on the skirts of the woodland, a sheep-boy
+pipes to meditative eye on a penny-whistle.
+
+Love's musical instrument is as old, and as poor: it has but two
+stops; and yet, you see, the cunning musician does thus much with
+it!
+
+Other speech they have little; light foam playing upon waves of
+feeling, and of feeling compact, that bursts only when the sweeping
+volume is too wild, and is no more than their sigh of tenderness
+spoken.
+
+Perhaps love played his tune so well because their natures had
+unblunted edges, and were keen for bliss, confiding in it as natural
+food. To gentlemen and ladies he fine-draws upon the viol,
+ravishingly; or blows into the mellow bassoon; or rouses the heroic
+ardours of the trumpet; or, it may be, commands the whole Orchestra
+for them. And they are pleased. He is still the cunning musician.
+They languish, and taste ecstasy: but it is, however sonorous, an
+earthly concert. For them the spheres move not to two notes. They
+have lost, or forfeited and never known, the first supersensual
+spring of the ripe senses into passion; when they carry the soul
+with them, and have the privileges of spirits to walk disembodied,
+boundlessly to feel. Or one has it, and the other is a dead body.
+Ambrosia let them eat, and drink the nectar: here sit a couple to
+whom Love's simple bread and water is a finer feast.
+
+Pipe, happy sheep-boy, Love! Irradiated angels, unfold your wings
+and lift your voices!
+
+They have outflown philosophy. Their instinct has shot beyond the
+ken of science. They were made for their Eden.
+
+"And this divine gift was in store for me!"
+
+So runs the internal outcry of each, clasping each: it is their
+recurring refrain to the harmonies. How it illumined the years gone
+by and suffused the living Future!
+
+"You for me: I for you!"
+
+"We are born for each other!"
+
+They believe that the angels have been busy about them from their
+cradles. The celestial hosts have worthily striven to bring them
+together. And, O Victory! O wonder! after toil and pain, and
+difficulties exceeding, the celestial hosts have succeeded!
+
+"Here we two sit who are written above as one!"
+
+Pipe, happy Love! pipe on to these dear innocents!
+
+The tide of colour has ebbed from the upper sky. In the West the sea
+of sunken fire draws back; and the stars leap forth, and tremble,
+and retire before the advancing moon, who slips the silver train of
+cloud from her shoulders, and, with her foot upon the pine-tops,
+surveys heaven.
+
+"Lucy, did you never dream of meeting me?"
+
+"O Richard! yes; for I remembered you."
+
+"Lucy! and did you pray that we might meet?"
+
+"I did!"
+
+Young as when she looked upon the lovers in Paradise, the fair
+Immortal journeys onward. Fronting her, it is not night but veiled
+day. Full half the sky is flushed. Not darkness, not day, but the
+nuptials of the two.
+
+"My own! my own for ever! You are pledged to me? Whisper!"
+
+He hears the delicious music.
+
+"And you are mine?"
+
+A soft beam travels to the fern-covert under the pine-wood where
+they sit, and for answer he has her eyes: turned to him an instant,
+timidly fluttering over the depths of his, and then downcast; for
+through her eyes her soul is naked to him.
+
+"Lucy! my bride! my life!"
+
+The night-jar spins his dark monotony on the branch of the pine. The
+soft beam travels round them, and listens to their hearts. Their
+lips are locked.
+
+Pipe no more, Love, for a time! Pipe as you will you cannot express
+their first kiss; nothing of its sweetness, and of the sacredness of
+it nothing. St. Cecilia up aloft, before the silver organ-pipes of
+Paradise, pressing fingers upon all the notes of which Love is but
+one, from her you may hear it.
+
+So Love is silent. Out in the world there, on the skirts of the
+woodland, the self-satisfied sheep-boy delivers a last complacent
+squint down the length of his penny-whistle, and, with a flourish
+correspondingly awry, he also marches into silence, hailed by
+supper. The woods are still. There is heard but the night-jar
+spinning on the pine-branch, circled by moonlight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON BY THE HERO
+
+
+Enchanted Islands have not yet rooted out their old brood of
+dragons. Wherever there is romance, these monsters come by inimical
+attraction. Because the heavens are certainly propitious to true
+lovers, the beasts of the abysses are banded to destroy them,
+stimulated by innumerable sad victories; and every love-tale is an
+Epic War of the upper and lower powers. I wish good fairies were a
+little more active. They seem to be cajoled into security by the
+happiness of their favourites; whereas the wicked are always alert,
+and circumspect. They let the little ones shut their eyes to fancy
+they are not seen, and then commence.
+
+These appointments and meetings, involving a start from the
+dinner-table at the hour of contemplative digestion and prime
+claret; the hour when the wise youth Adrian delighted to talk at his
+ease--to recline in dreamy consciousness that a work of good was
+going on inside him; these abstractions from his studies, excesses
+of gaiety, and glumness, heavings of the chest, and other odd signs,
+but mainly the disgusting behaviour of his pupil at the
+dinner-table, taught Adrian to understand, though the young
+gentleman was clever in excuses, that he had somehow learnt there
+was another half to the divided Apple of Creation, and had embarked
+upon the great voyage of discovery of the difference between the two
+halves. With his usual coolness Adrian debated whether he might be
+in the observatory or the practical stage of the voyage. For
+himself, as a man and a philosopher, Adrian had no objection to its
+being either; and he had only to consider which was temporarily most
+threatening to the ridiculous System he had to support. Richard's
+absence annoyed him. The youth was vivacious, and his enthusiasm
+good fun; and besides, when he left table, Adrian had to sit alone
+with Hippias and the Eighteenth Century, from both of whom he had
+extracted all the amusement that could be got, and he saw his
+digestion menaced by the society of two ruined stomachs, who bored
+him just when he loved himself most. Poor Hippias was now so reduced
+that he had profoundly to calculate whether a particular dish, or an
+extra glass of wine, would have a bitter effect on him and be felt
+through the remainder of his years. He was in the habit of uttering
+his calculations half aloud, wherein the prophetic doubts of
+experience, and the succulent insinuations of appetite, contended
+hotly. It was horrible to hear him, so let us pardon Adrian for
+tempting him to a decision in favour of the moment.
+
+"Happy to take wine with you," Adrian would say, and Hippias would
+regard the decanter with a pained forehead, and put up the doctor.
+
+"Drink, nephew Hippy, and think of the doctor to-morrow!" the
+Eighteenth Century cheerily ruffles her cap at him, and recommends
+her own practice.
+
+"It's this literary work!" interjects Hippias, handling his glass of
+remorse. "I don't know what else it can be. You have no idea how
+anxious I feel. I have frightful dreams. I'm perpetually anxious."
+
+"No wonder," says Adrian, who enjoys the childish simplicity to
+which an absorbed study of his sensational existence has brought
+poor Hippias. "No wonder. Ten years of Fairy Mythology! Could any
+one hope to sleep in peace after that? As to your digestion, no one
+has a digestion who is in the doctor's hands. They prescribe from
+dogmas, and don't count on the system. They have cut down from two
+bottles to two glasses. It's absurd. You can't sleep, because your
+system is crying out for what it's accustomed to."
+
+Hippias sips his Madeira with a niggardly confidence, but assures
+Adrian that he really should not like to venture on a bottle now: it
+would be rank madness to venture on a bottle now, he thinks. Last
+night only, after partaking, under protest, of that rich French
+dish, or was it the duck?--Adrian advised him to throw the blame on
+that vulgar bird.--Say the duck, then. Last night, he was no sooner
+stretched in bed, than he seemed to be of an enormous size: all his
+limbs--his nose, his mouth, his toes--were elephantine! An elephant
+was a pigmy to him. And his hugeousness seemed to increase the
+instant he shut his eyes. He turned on this side; he turned on that.
+He lay on his back; he tried putting his face to the pillow; and he
+continued to swell. He wondered the room could hold him--he thought
+he must burst it--and absolutely lit a candle, and went to the
+looking-glass to see whether he was bearable.
+
+By this time Adrian and Richard were laughing uncontrollably. He
+had, however, a genial auditor in the Eighteenth Century, who
+declared it to be a new disease, not known in her day, and deserving
+investigation. She was happy to compare sensations with him, but
+hers were not of the complex order, and a potion soon righted her.
+In fact, her system appeared to be a debatable ground for aliment
+and medicine, on which the battle was fought, and, when over, she
+was none the worse, as she joyfully told Hippias. Never looked
+ploughman on prince, or village belle on Court Beauty, with half the
+envy poor Nineteenth-century Hippias expended in his gaze on the
+Eighteenth. He was too serious to note much the laughter of the
+young men.
+
+This "Tragedy of a Cooking-Apparatus," as Adrian designated the
+malady of Hippias, was repeated regularly every evening. It was
+natural for any youth to escape as quick as he could from such a
+table of stomachs.
+
+Adrian bore with his conduct considerately, until a letter from the
+baronet, describing the house and maternal System of a Mrs. Caroline
+Grandison, and the rough grain of hopefulness in her youngest
+daughter, spurred him to think of his duties, and see what was going
+on. He gave Richard half-an-hour's start, and then put on his hat to
+follow his own keen scent, leaving Hippias and the Eighteenth
+Century to piquet.
+
+In the lane near Belthorpe he met a maid of the farm not unknown to
+him, one Molly Davenport by name, a buxom lass, who, on seeing him,
+invoked her Good Gracious, the generic maid's familiar, and was
+instructed by reminiscences vivid, if ancient, to giggle.
+
+"Are you looking for your young gentleman?" Molly presently asked.
+
+Adrian glanced about the lane like a cool brigand, to see if the
+coast was clear, and replied to her, "I am, miss. I want you to tell
+me about him."
+
+"Dear!" said the buxom lass, "was you coming for me to-night to
+know?"
+
+Adrian rebuked her: for her bad grammar, apparently.
+
+"'Cause I can't stop out long to-night," Molly explained, taking the
+rebuke to refer altogether to her bad grammar.
+
+"You may go in when you please, miss. Is that any one coming? Come
+here in the shade."
+
+"Now, get along!" said Miss Molly.
+
+Adrian spoke with resolution. "Listen to me, Molly Davenport!" He
+put a coin in her hand, which had a medical effect in calming her
+to attention. "I want to know whether you have seen him at all?"
+
+"Who? Your young gentleman? I sh'd think I did. I seen him to-night
+only. Ain't he growed handsome. He's al'ays about Beltharp now. It
+ain't to fire no more ricks. He's afire 'unself. Ain't you seen 'em
+together? He's after the missis"----
+
+Adrian requested Miss Davenport to be respectful, and confine
+herself to particulars. This buxom lass then told him that her young
+missis and Adrian's young gentleman were a pretty couple, and met
+one another every night. The girl swore for their innocence.
+
+"As for Miss Lucy, she haven't a bit of art in her, nor have he."
+
+"They're all nature, I suppose," said Adrian. "How is it I don't see
+her at church?"
+
+"She's Catholic, or somethink," said Molly. "Her feyther was, and a
+leftenant. She've a Cross in her bedroom. She don't go to church. I
+see you there last Sunday a-lookin' so solemn," and Molly stroked
+her hand down her chin to give it length.
+
+Adrian insisted on her keeping to facts. It was dark, and in the
+dark he was indifferent to the striking contrasts suggested by the
+lass, but he wanted to hear facts, and he again bribed her to impart
+nothing but facts. Upon which she told him further, that her young
+lady was an innocent artless creature who had been to school upwards
+of three years with the nuns, and had a little money of her own, and
+was beautiful enough to be a lord's lady, and had been in love with
+Master Richard ever since she was a little girl. Molly had got from
+a friend of hers up at the Abbey, Mary Garner, the housemaid who
+cleaned Master Richard's room, a bit of paper once with the young
+gentleman's handwriting, and had given it to her Miss Lucy, and Miss
+Lucy had given her a gold sovereign for it--just for his
+handwriting! Miss Lucy did not seem happy at the farm, because of
+that young Tom, who was always leering at her, and to be sure she
+was quite a lady, and could play, and sing, and dress with the best.
+
+"She looks like angels in her nightgown!" Molly wound up.
+
+The next moment she ran up close, and speaking for the first time as
+if there were a distinction of position between them, petitioned:
+"Mr. Harley! you won't go for doin' any harm to 'em 'cause of what I
+said, will you now? Do say you won't now, Mr. Harley! She is good,
+though she's a Catholic. She was kind to me when I was ill, and I
+wouldn't have her crossed--I'd rather be showed up myself, I would!"
+
+The wise youth gave no positive promise to Molly, and she had to
+read his consent in a relaxation of his austerity. The noise of a
+lumbering foot plodding down the lane caused her to be abruptly
+dismissed. Molly took to flight, the lumbering foot accelerated its
+pace, and the pastoral appeal to her flying skirts was heard--"Moll!
+yau theyre! It be I--Bantam!" But the sprightly Silvia would not
+stop to his wooing, and Adrian turned away laughing at these
+Arcadians.
+
+Adrian was a lazy dragon. All he did for the present was to hint and
+tease. "It's the Inevitable!" he said, and asked himself why he
+should seek to arrest it. He had no faith in the System. Heavy
+Benson had. Benson of the slow thick-lidded antediluvian eye and
+loose-crumpled skin; Benson, the Saurian, the woman-hater; Benson
+was wide awake. A sort of rivalry existed between the wise youth and
+heavy Benson. The fidelity of the latter dependant had moved the
+baronet to commit to him a portion of the management of the Raynham
+estate, and this Adrian did not like. No one who aspires to the
+honourable office of leading another by the nose can tolerate a
+party in his ambition. Benson's surly instinct told him he was in
+the wise youth's way, and he resolved to give his master a striking
+proof of his superior faithfulness. For some weeks the Saurian eye
+had been on the two secret creatures. Heavy Benson saw letters come
+and go in the day, and now the young gentleman was off and out every
+night, and seemed to be on wings. Benson knew whither he went, and
+the object he went for. It was a woman--that was enough. The Saurian
+eye had actually seen the sinful thing lure the hope of Raynham into
+the shades. He composed several epistles of warning to the baronet
+of the work that was going on; but before sending one he wished to
+record a little of their guilty conversation; and for this purpose
+the faithful fellow trotted over the dews to eavesdrop, and thereby
+aroused the good fairy, in the person of Tom Bakewell, the sole
+confidant of Richard's state.
+
+Tom said to his young master, "Do you know what, sir? You be
+watched!"
+
+Richard, in a fury, bade him name the wretch, and Tom hung his arms,
+and aped the respectable protrusion of the butler's head.
+
+"It's he, is it?" cried Richard. "He shall rue it, Tom. If I find
+him near me when we're together he shall never forget it."
+
+"Don't hit too hard, sir," Tom suggested. "You hit mortal hard when
+you're in earnest, you know."
+
+Richard averred he would forgive anything but that, and told Tom to
+be within hail to-morrow night--he knew where. By the hour of the
+appointment it was out of the lover's mind.
+
+Lady Blandish dined that evening at Raynham, by Adrian's pointed
+invitation. According to custom, Richard started up and off, with
+few excuses. The lady exhibited no surprise. She and Adrian likewise
+strolled forth to enjoy the air of the Summer night. They had no
+intention of spying. Still they may have thought, by meeting Richard
+and his inamorata, there was a chance of laying a foundation of
+ridicule to sap the passion. They may have thought so--they were on
+no spoken understanding.
+
+"I have seen the little girl," said Lady Blandish. "She is
+pretty--she would be telling if she were well set up. She speaks
+well. How absurd it is of that class to educate their women above
+their station! The child is really too good for a farmer. I noticed
+her before I knew of this; she has enviable hair. I suppose she
+doesn't paint her eyelids. Just the sort of person to take a young
+man. I thought there was something wrong. I received, the day before
+yesterday, an impassioned poem evidently not intended for me. My
+hair was gold. My meeting him was foretold. My eyes were homes of
+light fringed with night. I sent it back, correcting the colours."
+
+"Which was death to the rhymes," said Adrian. "I saw her this
+morning. The boy hasn't bad taste. As you say, she is too good for
+a farmer. Such a spark would explode any System. She slightly
+affected mine. The Huron is stark mad about her."
+
+"But we must positively write and tell his father," said Lady
+Blandish.
+
+The wise youth did not see why they should exaggerate a trifle. The
+lady said she would have an interview with Richard, and then write,
+as it was her duty to do. Adrian shrugged, and was for going into
+the scientific explanation of Richard's conduct, in which the lady
+had to discourage him.
+
+"Poor boy!" she sighed. "I am really sorry for him. I hope he will
+not feel it too strongly. They feel strongly, father and son."
+
+"And select wisely," Adrian added.
+
+"That's another thing," said Lady Blandish.
+
+Their talk was then of the dulness of neighbouring county people,
+about whom, it seemed, there was little or no scandal afloat: of the
+lady's loss of the season in town, which she professed not to
+regret, though she complained of her general weariness: of whether
+Mr. Morton of Poer Hall would propose to Mrs. Doria, and of the
+probable despair of the hapless curate of Lobourne; and other
+gossip, partly in French.
+
+They rounded the lake, and got upon the road through the park to
+Lobourne. The moon had risen. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant.
+
+"Quite a lover's night," said Lady Blandish.
+
+"And I, who have none to love--pity me!" The wise youth attempted a
+sigh.
+
+"And never will have," said Lady Blandish, curtly. "You _buy_ your
+loves."
+
+Adrian protested. However, he did not plead verbally against the
+impeachment, though the lady's decisive insight astonished him. He
+began to respect her, relishing her exquisite contempt, and he
+reflected that widows could be terrible creatures.
+
+He had hoped to be a little sentimental with Lady Blandish, knowing
+her romantic. This mixture of the harshest common sense and an air
+of "_I_ know you men," with romance and refined temperament, subdued
+the wise youth more than a positive accusation supported by
+witnesses would have done. He looked at the lady. Her face was
+raised to the moon. She knew nothing--she had simply spoken from the
+fulness of her human knowledge, and had forgotten her words.
+Perhaps, after all, her admiration, or whatever feeling it was, for
+the baronet, was sincere, and really the longing for a virtuous man.
+Perhaps she had tried the opposite set pretty much. Adrian shrugged.
+Whenever the wise youth encountered a mental difficulty he
+instinctively lifted his shoulders to equal altitudes, to show that
+he had no doubt there was a balance in the case--plenty to be said
+on both sides, which was the same to him as a definite solution.
+
+At their tryst in the wood, abutting on Raynham Park, wrapped in
+themselves, piped to by tireless Love, Richard and Lucy sat, toying
+with eternal moments. How they seem as if they would never end! What
+mere sparks they are when they have died out! And how in the
+distance of time they revive, and extend, and glow, and make us
+think them full the half, and the best of the fire, of our lives!
+
+With the onward flow of intimacy, the two happy lovers ceased to be
+so shy of common themes, and their speech did not reject all as
+dross that was not pure gold of emotion.
+
+Lucy was very inquisitive about everything and everybody at Raynham.
+Whoever had been about Richard since his birth, she must know the
+history of, and he for a kiss will do her bidding.
+
+Thus goes the tender duet:
+
+"You should know my cousin Austin, Lucy.--Darling! Beloved!"
+
+"My own! Richard!"
+
+"You should know my cousin Austin. You shall know him. He would take
+to you best of them all, and you to him. He is in the tropics now,
+looking out a place--it's a secret--for poor English working-men to
+emigrate to and found a colony in that part of the world:--my white
+angel!"
+
+"Dear love!"
+
+"He is such a noble fellow! Nobody here understands him but me.
+Isn't it strange? Since I met you I love him better! That's because
+I love all that's good and noble better now--Beautiful! I love--I
+love you!"
+
+"My Richard!"
+
+"What do you think I've determined, Lucy? If my father----but no! my
+father does love me.--No! he will not; and we will be happy together
+here. And I will win my way with you. And whatever I win will be
+yours; for it will be owing to you. I feel as if I had no strength
+but yours--none! and you make me--O Lucy!"
+
+His voice ebbs. Presently Lucy murmurs--
+
+"Your father, Richard."
+
+"Yes, my father?"
+
+"Dearest Richard! I feel so afraid of him."
+
+"He loves me, and will love you, Lucy."
+
+"But I am so poor and humble, Richard."
+
+"No one I have ever seen is like you, Lucy."
+
+"You think so, because you"----
+
+"What?"
+
+"Love me," comes the blushing whisper, and the duet gives place to
+dumb variations, performed equally in concert.
+
+It is resumed.
+
+"You are fond of the knights, Lucy. Austin is as brave as any of
+them.--My own bride! Oh, how I adore you! When you are gone, I could
+fall upon the grass you tread upon, and kiss it. My breast feels
+empty of my heart--Lucy! if we lived in those days, I should have
+been a knight, and have won honour and glory for you. Oh! one can do
+nothing now. My lady-love! My lady-love!--A tear?--Lucy?"
+
+"Dearest! Ah, Richard! I am not a lady."
+
+"Who dares say that? Not a lady--the angel I love!"
+
+"Think, Richard, who I am."
+
+"My beautiful! I think that God made you, and has given you to me."
+
+Her eyes fill with tears, and, as she lifts them heavenward to thank
+her God, the light of heaven strikes on them, and she is so radiant
+in her pure beauty that the limbs of the young man tremble.
+
+"Lucy! O heavenly spirit! Lucy!"
+
+Tenderly her lips part--"I do not weep for sorrow."
+
+The big bright drops lighten, and roll down, imaged in his soul.
+
+They lean together--shadows of ineffable tenderness playing on their
+thrilled cheeks and brows.
+
+He lifts her hand, and presses his mouth to it. She has seen little
+of mankind, but her soul tells her this one is different from
+others, and at the thought, in her great joy, tears must come fast,
+or her heart will break--tears of boundless thanksgiving. And he,
+gazing on those soft, ray-illumined, dark-edged eyes, and the grace
+of her loose falling tresses, feels a scarce-sufferable holy fire
+streaming through his members.
+
+It is long ere they speak in open tones.
+
+"O happy day when we met!"
+
+What says the voice of one, the soul of the other echoes.
+
+"O glorious heaven looking down on us!"
+
+Their souls are joined, are made one for evermore beneath that
+bending benediction.
+
+"O eternity of bliss!"
+
+Then the diviner mood passes, and they drop to earth.
+
+"Lucy! come with me to-night, and look at the place where you are
+some day to live. Come, and I will row you on the lake. You remember
+what you said in your letter that you dreamt?--that we were floating
+over the shadow of the Abbey to the nuns at work by torchlight
+felling the cypress, and they handed us each a sprig. Why, darling,
+it was the best omen in the world, their felling the old trees. And
+you write such lovely letters. So pure and sweet they are. I love
+the nuns for having taught you."
+
+"Ah, Richard! See! we forget! Ah!" she lifts up her face pleadingly,
+as to plead against herself, "even if your father forgives my birth,
+he will not my religion. And, dearest, though I would die for you I
+cannot change it. It would seem that I was denying God; and--oh! it
+would make me ashamed of my love."
+
+"Fear nothing!" He winds her about with his arm. "Come! He will love
+us both, and love you the more for being faithful to your father's
+creed. You don't know him, Lucy. He seems harsh and stern--he is
+full of kindness and love. He isn't at all a bigot. And besides,
+when he hears what the nuns have done for you, won't he thank them,
+as I do? And--oh! I must speak to him soon, and you must be prepared
+to see him soon, for I cannot bear your remaining at Belthorpe, like
+a jewel in a sty. Mind! I'm not saying a word against your uncle. I
+declare I love everybody and everything that sees you and touches
+you. Stay! it _is_ a wonder how you could have grown there. But you
+were not born there, and your father had good blood. Desborough!--there
+was a Colonel Desborough--never mind! Come!"
+
+She dreads to. She begs not to. She is drawn away.
+
+The woods are silent, and then--
+
+"What think you of that for a pretty pastoral?" says a very
+different voice.
+
+Adrian reclined against a pine overlooking the fern-covert. Lady
+Blandish was recumbent upon the brown pine-droppings, gazing through
+a vista of the lower greenwood which opened out upon the
+moon-lighted valley, her hands clasped round one knee, her features
+almost stern in their set hard expression.
+
+They had heard, by involuntarily overhearing about as much as may be
+heard in such positions, a luminous word or two.
+
+The lady did not answer. A movement among the ferns attracted
+Adrian, and he stepped down the decline across the pine-roots to
+behold heavy Benson below, shaking fern-seed and spidery substances
+off his crumpled skin.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Hadrian?" called Benson, starting, as he puffed,
+and exercised his handkerchief.
+
+"Is it _you_, Benson, who have had the audacity to spy upon these
+Mysteries?" Adrian called back, and coming close to him, added, "You
+look as if you had just been well thrashed."
+
+"Isn't it dreadful, sir?" snuffled Benson. "And his father in
+ignorance, Mr. Hadrian!"
+
+"He shall know, Benson! He shall know how you have endangered your
+valuable skin in his service. If Mr. Richard had found you there
+just now I wouldn't answer for the consequences."
+
+"Ha!" Benson spitefully retorted. "This won't go on, Mr. Hadrian. It
+shan't, sir. It will be put a stop to to-morrow, sir. I call it
+corruption of a young gentleman like him, and harlotry, sir, I call
+it. I'd have every jade flogged that made a young innocent gentleman
+go on like that, sir."
+
+"Then why didn't you stop it yourself, Benson? Ah, I see! you
+waited--what? This is not the first time you have been attendant on
+Apollo and Miss Dryope? You have written to headquarters?"
+
+"I did my duty, Mr. Hadrian."
+
+The wise youth returned to Lady Blandish, and informed her of
+Benson's zeal. The lady's eyes flashed. "I hope Richard will treat
+him as he deserves," she said.
+
+"Shall we home?" Adrian inquired.
+
+"Do me a favour," the lady replied. "Get my carriage sent round to
+meet me at the park-gates."
+
+"Won't you?"--
+
+"I want to be alone."
+
+Adrian bowed and left her. She was still sitting with her hands
+clasped round one knee, gazing towards the dim ray-strewn valley.
+
+"An odd creature!" muttered the wise youth. "She's as odd as any of
+them. She ought to be a Feverel. I suppose she's graduating for it.
+Hang that confounded old ass of a Benson! He has had the impudence
+to steal a march on me!"
+
+The shadow of the cypress was lessening on the lake. The moon was
+climbing high. As Richard rowed the boat, Lucy sang to him softly.
+She sang first a fresh little French song, reminding him of a day
+when she had been asked to sing to him before, and he did not care
+to hear. "Did I live?" he thinks. Then she sang to him a bit of one
+of those majestic old Gregorian chants, that, wherever you may hear
+them, seem to build up cathedral walls about you. The young man
+dropped the sculls. The strange solemn notes gave a religious tone
+to his love, and wafted him into the knightly ages and the
+reverential heart of chivalry.
+
+Hanging between two heavens on the lake: floating to her voice: the
+moon stepping over and through white shoals of soft high clouds
+above and below: floating to her voice--no other breath abroad! His
+soul went out of his body as he listened.
+
+They must part. He rows her gently shoreward.
+
+"I never was so happy as to-night," she murmurs.
+
+"Look, my Lucy. The lights of the old place are on the lake. Look
+where you are to live."
+
+"Which is your room, Richard?"
+
+He points it out to her.
+
+"O Richard! that I were one of the women who wait on you! I should
+ask nothing more. How happy she must be!"
+
+"My darling angel-love. You shall be happy; but all shall wait on
+you, and I foremost, Lucy."
+
+"Dearest! may I hope for a letter?"
+
+"By eleven to-morrow. And I?"
+
+"Oh! you will have mine, Richard."
+
+"Tom shall wait for it. A long one, mind! Did you like my last
+song?"
+
+She puts her hand quietly against her bosom, and he knows where it
+rests. O love! O heaven!
+
+They are aroused by the harsh grating of the bow of the boat against
+the shingle. He jumps out, and lifts her ashore.
+
+"See!" she says, as the blush of his embrace subsides--"See!" and
+prettily she mimics awe and feels it a little, "the cypress does
+point towards us. O Richard! it does!"
+
+And he, looking at her rather than at the cypress, delighting in her
+arch grave ways--
+
+"Why, there's hardly any shadow at all, Lucy. She mustn't dream, my
+darling! or dream only of me."
+
+"Dearest! but I do."
+
+"To-morrow, Lucy! The letter in the morning, and you at night. O
+happy to-morrow!"
+
+"You will be sure to be there, Richard?"
+
+"If I am not dead, Lucy."
+
+"O Richard! pray, pray do not speak of that. I shall not survive
+you."
+
+"Let us pray, Lucy, to die together, when we are to die. Death or
+life, with you! Who is it yonder? I see some one--is it Tom? It's
+Adrian!"
+
+"Is it Mr. Harley?" The fair girl shivered.
+
+"How dares he come here!" cried Richard.
+
+The figure of Adrian, instead of advancing, discreetly circled the
+lake. They were stealing away when he called. His call was repeated.
+Lucy entreated Richard to go to him; but the young man preferred to
+summon his attendant, Tom, from within hail, and send him to know
+what was wanted.
+
+"Will he have seen me? Will he have known me?" whispered Lucy,
+tremulously.
+
+"And if he does, love?" said Richard.
+
+"Oh! if he does, dearest--I don't know, but I feel such a
+presentiment. You have not spoken of him to-night, Richard. Is he
+good?"
+
+"Good?" Richard clutched her hand for the innocent maiden phrase.
+"He's very fond of eating; that's all I know of Adrian."
+
+Her hand was at his lips when Tom returned.
+
+"Well, Tom?"
+
+"Mr. Adrian wishes particular to speak to you, sir," said Tom.
+
+"Do go to him, dearest! Do go!" Lucy begs him.
+
+"Oh, how I hate Adrian!" The young man grinds his teeth.
+
+"Do go!" Lucy urges him. "Tom--good Tom--will see me home.
+To-morrow, dear love! To-morrow!"
+
+"You wish to part from me?"
+
+"Oh, unkind! but you must not come with me now. It may be news of
+importance, dearest. Think, Richard!"
+
+"Tom! go back!"
+
+At the imperious command the well-drilled Tom strides off a dozen
+paces, and sees nothing. Than the precious charge is confided to
+him. A heart is cut in twain.
+
+Richard made his way to Adrian. "What is it you want with me,
+Adrian?"
+
+"Are we seconds, or principals, O fiery one?" was Adrian's answer.
+"I want nothing with you, except to know whether you have seen
+Benson."
+
+"Where should I see Benson? What do I know of Benson's doings?"
+
+"Of course not--such a secret old fist as he is! I want some one to
+tell him to order Lady Blandish's carriage to be sent round to the
+park-gates. I thought he might be round your way over there--I came
+upon him accidentally just now in Abbey-wood. What's the matter,
+boy?"
+
+"You saw him _there_?"
+
+"Hunting Diana, I suppose. He thinks she's not so chaste as they
+say," continued Adrian. "Are you going to knock down that tree?"
+
+Richard had turned to the cypress, and was tugging at the tough
+wood. He left it and went to an ash.
+
+"You'll spoil that weeper," Adrian cried. "Down she comes! But
+good-night, Ricky. If you see Benson mind you tell him."
+
+Doomed Benson following his burly shadow hove in sight on the white
+road while Adrian spoke. The wise youth chuckled and strolled round
+the lake, glancing over his shoulder every now and then.
+
+It was not long before he heard a bellow for help--the roar of a
+dragon in his throes. Adrian placidly sat down on the grass, and
+fixed his eyes on the water. There, as the roar was being repeated
+amid horrid resounding echoes, the wise youth mused in this wise--
+
+"'The Fates are Jews with us when they delay a punishment,' says THE
+PILGRIM'S SCRIP, or words to that effect. The heavens evidently love
+Benson, seeing that he gets his punishment on the spot. Master Ricky
+is a peppery young man. He gets it from the apt Gruffudh. I rather
+believe in race. What a noise that old ruffian makes! He'll require
+poulticing with THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP. We shall have a message
+to-morrow, and a hubbub, and perhaps all go to town, which won't
+be bad for one who's been a prey to all the desires born of dulness.
+Benson howls: there's life in the old dog yet! He bays the moon.
+Look at her. She doesn't care. It's the same to her whether we coo
+like turtle-doves or roar like twenty lions. How complacent she looks!
+And yet she has just as much sympathy for Benson as for Cupid. She
+would smile on if both were being birched. Was that a raven or Benson?
+He howls no more. It sounds guttural: frog-like--something between
+the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven's croak. The fellow'll be
+killing him. It's time to go to the rescue. A deliverer gets more
+honour by coming in at the last gasp than if he forestalled
+catastrophe.--Ho, there, what's the matter?"
+
+So saying, the wise youth rose, and leisurely trotted to the scene
+of battle, where stood St. George puffing over the prostrate Dragon.
+
+"Holloa, Ricky! is it you?" said Adrian. "What's this? Whom have we
+here?--Benson, as I live!"
+
+"Make this beast get up," Richard returned, breathing hard, and
+shaking his great ash-branch.
+
+"He seems incapable, my dear boy. What have you been up
+to?--Benson! Benson!--I say, Ricky, this looks bad."
+
+"He's shamming!" Richard clamoured like a savage. "Spy upon me, will
+he? I tell you, he's shamming. He hasn't had half enough. Nothing's
+too bad for a spy. Let him get up!"
+
+"Insatiated youth! do throw away that enormous weapon."
+
+"He has written to my father," Richard shouted. "The miserable spy!
+Let him get up!"
+
+"Ooogh! I won't!" huskily groaned Benson. "Mr. Hadrian, you're a
+witness he's--my back!"---- Cavernous noises took up the tale of his
+maltreatment.
+
+"I daresay you love your back better than any part of your body
+now," Adrian muttered. "Come, Benson! be a man. Mr. Richard has
+thrown away the stick. Come, and get off home, and let's see the
+extent of the damage."
+
+"Ooogh! he's a devil! Mr. Hadrian, sir, he's a devil!" groaned
+Benson, turning half over in the road to ease his aches.
+
+Adrian caught hold of Benson's collar and lifted him to a sitting
+posture. He then had a glimpse of what his hopeful pupil's hand
+could do in wrath. The wretched butler's coat was slit and welted;
+his hat knocked in; his flabby spirit so broken that he started and
+trembled if his pitiless executioner stirred a foot. Richard stood
+over him, grasping his great stick; no dawn of mercy for Benson in
+any corner of his features.
+
+Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and immediately
+gasped, "I won't get up! I won't! He's ready to murder me
+again!--Mr. Hadrian! if you stand by and see it, you're liable to
+the law, sir--I won't get up while he's near." No persuasion could
+induce Benson to try his legs while his executioner stood by.
+
+Adrian took Richard aside: "You've almost killed the poor devil,
+Ricky. You must be satisfied with that. Look at his face."
+
+"The coward bobbed while I struck," said Richard. "I marked his
+back. He ducked. I told him he was getting it worse."
+
+At so civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his mouth wide.
+
+"Did you really? I admire that. You told him he was getting it
+worse?"
+
+Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll of laughter out.
+
+"Come," he said, "Excalibur has done his work. Pitch him into the
+lake. And see--here comes the Blandish. You can't be at it again
+before a woman. Go and meet her, and tell her the noise was an ox
+being slaughtered. Or say Argus."
+
+With a whirr that made all Benson's bruises moan and quiver, the
+great ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard swung off to intercept Lady
+Blandish.
+
+Adrian got Benson on his feet. The heavy butler was disposed to
+summon all the commiseration he could feel for his bruised flesh.
+Every half-step he attempted was like a dislocation. His groans and
+grunts were frightful.
+
+"How much did that hat cost, Benson?" said Adrian, as he put it on
+his head.
+
+"A five-and-twenty shilling beaver, Mr. Hadrian!" Benson caressed
+its injuries.
+
+"The cheapest policy of insurance I remember to have heard of!" said
+Adrian.
+
+Benson staggered, moaning at intervals to his cruel comforter--
+
+"He's a devil, Mr. Hadrian! He's a devil, sir, I do believe, sir.
+Ooogh! he's a devil!--I can't move, Mr. Hadrian. I must be fetched.
+And Dr. Clifford must be sent for, sir. I shall never be fit for
+work again. I haven't a sound bone in my body, Mr. Hadrian."
+
+"You see, Benson, this comes of your declaring war upon Venus. I
+hope the maids will nurse you properly. Let me see: you are friends
+with the housekeeper, aren't you? All depends upon that."
+
+"I'm only a faithful servant, Mr. Hadrian," the miserable butler
+snarled.
+
+"Then you've got no friend but your bed. Get to it as quick as
+possible, Benson."
+
+"I can't move." Benson made a resolute halt. "I must be fetched," he
+whinnied. "It's a shame to ask me to move, Mr. Hadrian."
+
+"You will admit that you are heavy, Benson," said Adrian, "so I
+can't carry you. However, I see Mr. Richard is very kindly returning
+to help me."
+
+At these words heavy Benson instantly found his legs, and shambled
+on.
+
+Lady Blandish met Richard in dismay.
+
+"I have been horribly frightened," she said. "Tell me, what was the
+meaning of those cries I heard?"
+
+"Only some one doing justice on a spy," said Richard, and the lady
+smiled, and looked on him fondly, and put her hand through his hair.
+
+"Was that all? I should have done it myself if I had been a man.
+Kiss me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON
+
+
+By twelve o'clock at noon next day the inhabitants of Raynham Abbey
+knew that Berry, the baronet's man, had arrived post-haste from
+town, with orders to conduct Mr. Richard thither, and that Mr.
+Richard had refused to go, had sworn he would not, defied his
+father, and despatched Berry to the Shades. Berry was all that
+Benson was not. Whereas Benson hated woman, Berry admired her
+warmly. Second to his own stately person, woman occupied his
+reflections, and commanded his homage. Berry was of majestic port,
+and used dictionary words. Among the maids of Raynham his conscious
+calves produced all the discord and the frenzy those adornments seem
+destined to create in tender bosoms. He had, moreover, the
+reputation of having suffered for the sex; which assisted his object
+in inducing the sex to suffer for him. What with his calves, and his
+dictionary words, and the attractive halo of the mysterious
+vindictiveness of Venus surrounding him, this Adonis of the lower
+household was a mighty man below, and he moved as one.
+
+On hearing the tumult that followed Berry's arrival, Adrian sent for
+him, and was informed of the nature of his mission, and its result.
+
+"You should come to me first," said Adrian. "I should have imagined
+you were shrewd enough for that, Berry?"
+
+"Pardon me, Mr. Adrian," Berry doubled his elbow to explain. "Pardon
+me, sir. Acting recipient of special injunctions I was not a free
+agent."
+
+"Go to Mr. Richard again, Berry. There will be a little confusion if
+he holds back. Perhaps you had better throw out a hint or so of
+apoplexy. A slight hint will do. And here--Berry! when you return to
+town, you had better not mention anything--to quote Johnson--of
+Benson's spiflication."
+
+"Certainly not, sir."
+
+The wise youth's hint had the desired effect on Richard.
+
+He dashed off a hasty letter by Tom to Belthorpe, and, mounting his
+horse, galloped to the Bellingham station.
+
+Sir Austin was sitting down to a quiet early dinner at his hotel,
+when the Hope of Raynham burst into his room.
+
+The baronet was not angry with his son. On the contrary, for he was
+singularly just and self-accusing while pride was not up in arms, he
+had been thinking all day after the receipt of Benson's letter that
+he was deficient in cordiality, and did not, by reason of his
+excessive anxiety, make himself sufficiently his son's companion:
+was not enough, as he strove to be, mother and father to him;
+preceptor and friend; previsor and associate. He had not to ask his
+conscience where he had lately been to blame towards the System. He
+had slunk away from Raynham in the very crisis of the Magnetic Age,
+and this young woman of the parish (as Benson had termed sweet Lucy
+in his letter) was the consequence.
+
+Yes! pride and sensitiveness were his chief foes, and he would
+trample on them. To begin, he embraced his son: hard upon an
+Englishman at any time--doubly so to one so shamefaced at emotion in
+cool blood, as it were. It gave him a strange pleasure,
+nevertheless. And the youth seemed to answer to it; he was excited.
+Was his love, then, beginning to correspond with his father's as in
+those intimate days before the Blossoming Season?
+
+But when Richard, inarticulate at first in his haste, cried out, "My
+dear, dear father! You are safe! I feared----You are better, sir?
+Thank God!" Sir Austin stood away from him.
+
+"Safe?" he said. "What has alarmed you?"
+
+Instead of replying, Richard dropped into a chair, and seized his
+hand and kissed it.
+
+Sir Austin took a seat, and waited for his son to explain.
+
+"Those doctors are such fools!" Richard broke out. "I was sure they
+were wrong. They don't know headache from apoplexy. It's worth the
+ride, sir, to see you. You left Raynham so suddenly.--But you are
+well! It was not an attack of real apoplexy?"
+
+His father's brows contorted, and he said, No, it was not. Richard
+pursued:
+
+"If you were ill, I couldn't come too soon, though, if coroners'
+inquests sat on horses, those doctors would be found guilty of
+mare-slaughter. Cassandra'll be knocked up. I was too early for the
+train at Bellingham, and I wouldn't wait. She did the distance in
+four hours and three-quarters. Pretty good, sir, wasn't it?"
+
+"It has given you appetite for dinner, I hope," said the baronet,
+not so well pleased to find that it was not simple obedience that
+had brought the youth to him in such haste.
+
+"I'm ready," replied Richard. "I shall be in time to return by the
+last train to-night. I will leave Cassandra in your charge for a
+rest."
+
+His father quietly helped him to soup, which he commenced gobbling
+with an eagerness that might pass for appetite.
+
+"All well at Raynham?" said the baronet.
+
+"Quite, sir."
+
+"Nothing new?"
+
+"Nothing, sir."
+
+"The same as when I left?"
+
+"No change whatever!"
+
+"I shall be glad to get back to the old place," said the baronet.
+"My stay in town has certainly been profitable. I have made some
+pleasant acquaintances who may probably favour us with a visit there
+in the late autumn--people you may be pleased to know. They are very
+anxious to see Raynham."
+
+"I love the old place," cried Richard. "I never wish to leave it."
+
+"Why, boy, before I left you were constantly begging to see town."
+
+"Was I, sir? How odd! Well! I don't want to remain here. I've seen
+enough of it."
+
+"How did you find your way to me?"
+
+Richard laughed, and related his bewilderment at the miles of brick,
+and the noise, and the troops of people, concluding, "There's no
+place like home!"
+
+The baronet watched his symptomatic brilliant eyes, and favoured him
+with a double-dealing sentence--
+
+"To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half traversed the
+world, is youth's foolishness, my son. Reverence time! A better
+maxim that than your Horatian."
+
+"He knows all!" thought Richard, and instantly drew away leagues
+from his father, and threw up fortifications round his love and
+himself.
+
+Dinner over, Richard looked hurriedly at his watch, and said, with
+much briskness, "I shall just be in time, sir, if we walk. Will you
+come with me to the station?"
+
+The baronet did not answer.
+
+Richard was going to repeat the question, but found his father's
+eyes fixed on him so meaningly that he wavered, and played with his
+empty glass.
+
+"I think we will have a little more claret," said the baronet.
+
+Claret was brought, and they were left alone.
+
+The baronet then drew within arm's-reach of his son, and began:
+
+"I am not aware what you may have thought of me, Richard, during the
+years we have lived together; and indeed I have never been in a
+hurry to be known to you; and, if I had died before my work was
+done, I should not have complained at losing half my reward, in
+hearing you thank me. Perhaps, as it is, I never may. Everything,
+save selfishness, has its recompense. I shall be content if you
+prosper."
+
+He fetched a breath and continued: "You had in your infancy a great
+loss." Father and son coloured simultaneously. "To make that good to
+you I chose to isolate myself from the world, and devote myself
+entirely to your welfare; and I think it is not vanity that tells me
+now that the son I have reared is one of the most hopeful of God's
+creatures. But for that very reason you are open to be tempted the
+most, and to sink the deepest. It was the first of the angels who
+made the road to hell."
+
+He paused again. Richard fingered at his watch.
+
+"In our House, my son, there is peculiar blood. We go to wreck very
+easily. It sounds like superstition; I cannot but think we are tried
+as most men are not. I see it in us all. And you, my son, are
+compounded of two races. Your passions are violent. You have had a
+taste of revenge. You have seen, in a small way, that the pound of
+flesh draws rivers of blood. But there is now in you another power.
+You are mounting to the table-land of life, where mimic battles are
+changed to real ones. And you come upon it laden equally with force
+to create and to destroy." He deliberated to announce the
+intelligence, with deep meaning: "There are women in the world, my
+son!"
+
+The young man's heart galloped back to Raynham.
+
+"It is when you encounter them that you are thoroughly on trial. It
+is when you know them that life is either a mockery to you, or, as
+some find it, a gift of blessedness. They are our ordeal. Love of
+any human object is the soul's ordeal; and they are ours, loving
+them, or not."
+
+The young man heard the whistle of the train. He saw the
+moon-lighted wood, and the vision of his beloved. He could barely
+hold himself down and listen.
+
+"I believe," the baronet spoke with little of the cheerfulness of
+belief, "good women exist."
+
+Oh, if he knew Lucy!
+
+"But," and he gazed on Richard intently, "it is given to very few to
+meet them on the threshold--I may say, to none. We find them after
+hard buffeting, and usually, when we find the one fitted for us, our
+madness has misshaped our destiny, our lot is cast. For women are
+not the end, but the means, of life. In youth we think them the
+former, and thousands, who have not even the excuse of youth, select
+a mate--or worse--with that sole view. I believe women punish us for
+so perverting their uses. They punish Society."
+
+The baronet put his hand to his brow as his mind travelled into
+consequences.
+
+"Our most diligent pupil learns not so much as an earnest teacher,"
+says The Pilgrim's Scrip; and Sir Austin, in schooling himself to
+speak with moderation of women, was beginning to get a glimpse of
+their side of the case.
+
+Cold Blood now touched on love to Hot Blood.
+
+Cold Blood said, "It is a passion coming in the order of nature, the
+ripe fruit of our animal being."
+
+Hot Blood felt: "It is a divinity! All that is worth living for in
+the world."
+
+Cold Blood said: "It is a fever which tests our strength, and too
+often leads to perdition."
+
+Hot Blood felt: "Lead whither it will, I follow it."
+
+Cold Blood said: "It is a name men and women are much in the habit
+of employing to sanctify their appetites."
+
+Hot Blood felt: "It is worship; religion; life!"
+
+And so the two parallel lines ran on.
+
+The baronet became more personal:
+
+"You know my love for you, my son. The extent of it you cannot know;
+but you must know that it is something very deep, and--I do not wish
+to speak of it--but a father must sometimes petition for gratitude,
+since the only true expression of it is his son's moral good. If you
+care for my love, or love me in return, aid me with all your
+energies to keep you what I have made you, and guard you from the
+snares besetting you. It was in my hands once. It is ceasing to be
+so. Remember, my son, what my love is. It is different, I fear, with
+most fathers: but I am bound up in your welfare: what you do affects
+me vitally. You will take no step that is not intimate with my
+happiness, or my misery. And I have had great disappointments, my
+son."
+
+So far it was well. Richard loved his father, and even in his
+frenzied state he could not without emotion hear him thus speak.
+
+Unhappily, the baronet, who by some fatality never could see when he
+was winning the battle, thought proper in his wisdom to water the
+dryness of his sermon with a little jocoseness, on the subject of
+young men fancying themselves in love, and, when they were raw and
+green, absolutely wanting to be--that most awful thing, which, the
+wisest and strongest of men undertake in hesitation and after
+self-mortification and penance--married! He sketched the Foolish
+Young Fellow--the object of general ridicule and covert contempt. He
+sketched the Woman--the strange thing made in our image, and with
+all our faculties--passing to the rule of one who in taking her
+proved that he could not rule himself, and had no knowledge of her
+save as a choice morsel which he would burn the whole world, and
+himself in the bargain, to possess. He harped upon the Foolish Young
+Fellow, till the foolish young fellow felt his skin tingle and was
+half-suffocated with shame and rage.
+
+After this, the baronet might be as wise as he pleased: he had quite
+undone his work. He might analyze Love and anatomize Woman. He might
+accord to her her due position, and paint her fair: he might be
+shrewd, jocose, gentle, pathetic, wonderfully wise: he spoke to deaf
+ears.
+
+Closing his sermon with the question, softly uttered: "Have you
+anything to tell me, Richard?" and hoping for a confession, and a
+thorough re-establishment of confidence, the callous answer struck
+him cold: "I have not."
+
+The baronet relapsed in his chair, and made diagrams of his fingers.
+
+Richard turned his back on further dialogue by going to the window.
+In the section of sky over the street twinkled two or three stars;
+shining faintly, feeling the moon. The moon was rising: the woods
+were lifting up to her: his star of the woods would be there. A bed
+of moss set about flowers in a basket under him breathed to his
+nostril of the woodland keenly, and filled him with delirious
+longing.
+
+A succession of hard sighs brought his father's hand on his
+shoulder.
+
+"You have nothing you could say to me, my son? Tell me, Richard!
+Remember, there is no home for the soul where dwells a shadow of
+untruth!"
+
+"Nothing at all, sir," the young man replied, meeting him with the
+full orbs of his eyes.
+
+The baronet withdrew his hand, and paced the room.
+
+At last it grew impossible for Richard to control his impatience,
+and he said: "Do you intend me to stay here, sir? Am I not to return
+to Raynham at all to-night?"
+
+His father was again falsely jocular:
+
+"What? and catch the train after giving it ten minutes' start?"
+
+"Cassandra will take me," said the young man earnestly. "I needn't
+ride her hard, sir. Or perhaps you would lend me your Winkelried? I
+should be down with him in little better than three hours."
+
+"Even then, you know, the park-gates would be locked."
+
+"Well, I could stable him in the village. Dowling knows the horse,
+and would treat him properly. May I have him, sir?"
+
+The cloud cleared off Richard's face as he asked. At least, if he
+missed his love that night he would be near her, breathing the same
+air, marking what star was above her bedchamber, hearing the hushed
+night-talk of the trees about her dwelling: looking on the distances
+that were like hope half-fulfilled and a bodily presence bright as
+Hesper, since he knew her. There were two swallows under the eaves
+shadowing Lucy's chamber-windows: two swallows, mates in one nest,
+blissful birds, who twittered and cheep-cheeped to the sole-lying
+beauty in her bed. Around these birds the lover's heart revolved, he
+knew not why. He associated them with all his close-veiled dreams of
+happiness. Seldom a morning passed when he did not watch them leave
+the nest on their breakfast-flight, busy in the happy stillness of
+dawn. It seemed to him now that if he could be at Raynham to see
+them in to-morrow's dawn he would be compensated for his
+incalculable loss of to-night: he would forgive and love his father,
+London, the life, the world. Just to see those purple backs and
+white breasts flash out into the quiet morning air! He wanted no
+more.
+
+The baronet's trifling had placed this enormous boon within the
+young man's visionary grasp.
+
+He still went on trying the boy's temper.
+
+"You know there would be nobody ready for you at Raynham. It is
+unfair to disturb the maids."
+
+Richard overrode every objection.
+
+"Well, then, my son," said the baronet, preserving his half-jocular
+air, "I must tell you that it is my wish to have you in town."
+
+"Then you have not been ill at all, sir!" cried Richard, as in his
+despair he seized the whole plot.
+
+"I have been as well as you could have desired me to be," said his
+father.
+
+"Why did they lie to me?" the young man wrathfully exclaimed.
+
+"I think, Richard, you can best answer that," rejoined Sir Austin,
+kindly severe.
+
+Dread of being signalized as the Foolish Young Fellow prevented
+Richard from expostulating further. Sir Austin saw him grinding his
+passion into powder for future explosion, and thought it best to
+leave him for awhile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER
+
+
+For three weeks Richard had to remain in town and endure the
+teachings of the System in a new atmosphere. He had to sit and
+listen to men of science who came to renew their intimacy with his
+father, and whom of all men his father wished him to respect and
+study; practically scientific men being, in the baronet's
+estimation, the only minds thoroughly mated and enviable. He had to
+endure an introduction to the Grandisons, and meet the eyes of his
+kind, haunted as he was by the Foolish Young Fellow. The idea that
+he might by any chance be identified with him held the poor youth in
+silent subjection. And it was horrible. For it was a continued
+outrage on the fair image he had in his heart. The notion of the
+world laughing at him because he loved sweet Lucy stung him to
+momentary frenzies, and developed premature misanthropy in his
+spirit. Also the System desired to show him whither young women of
+the parish lead us, and he was dragged about at night-time to see
+the sons and daughters of darkness, after the fashion prescribed to
+Mr. Thompson; how they danced and ogled down the high road to
+perdition. But from this sight possibly the teacher learnt more than
+his pupil, since we find him seriously asking his meditative hours,
+in the Note-book: "Wherefore Wild Oats are only of one gender?" a
+question certainly not suggested to him at Raynham; and
+again--"Whether men might not be attaching too rigid an
+importance?" ... to a subject with a dotted tail apparently, for he
+gives it no other in the Note-book. But, as I apprehend, he had come
+to plead in behalf of women here, and had deduced something from
+positive observation. To Richard the scenes he witnessed were
+strange wild pictures, likely if anything to have increased his
+misanthropy, but for his love.
+
+Certain sweet little notes from Lucy sustained the lover during the
+first two weeks of exile. They ceased; and now Richard fell into
+such despondency that his father in alarm had to take measures to
+hasten their return to Raynham. At the close of the third week Berry
+laid a pair of letters, bearing the Raynham post-mark, on the
+breakfast-table, and, after reading one attentively, the baronet
+asked his son if he was inclined to quit the metropolis.
+
+"For Raynham, sir?" cried Richard, and relapsed, saying, "As you
+will!" aware that he had given a glimpse of the Foolish Young
+Fellow.
+
+Berry accordingly received orders to make arrangements for their
+instant return to Raynham.
+
+The letter Sir Austin lifted his head from to bespeak his son's
+wishes was a composition of the wise youth Adrian's, and ran thus:
+
+     "Benson is doggedly recovering. He requires great indemnities.
+     Happy when a faithful fool is the main sufferer in a household!
+     I quite agree with you that our faithful fool is the best
+     servant of great schemes. Benson is now a piece of history. I
+     tell him that this is indemnity enough, and that the sweet Muse
+     usually insists upon gentlemen being half-flayed before she
+     will condescend to notice them; but Benson, I regret to say,
+     rejects the comfort so fine a reflection should offer, and had
+     rather keep his skin and live opaque. Heroism seems partly a
+     matter of training. Faithful folly is Benson's nature: the rest
+     has been thrust upon him.
+
+     "The young person has resigned the neighbourhood. I had an
+     interview with the fair Papist myself, and also with the man
+     Blaize. They were both sensible, though one swore and the other
+     sighed. She is pretty. I hope she does not paint. I can affirm
+     that her legs are strong, for she walks to Bellingham twice a
+     week to take her Scarlet bath, when, having confessed and been
+     made clean by the Romish unction, she walks back the brisker,
+     of which my Protestant muscular system is yet aware. It was on
+     the road to Bellingham I engaged her. She is well in the matter
+     of hair. Madam Godiva might challenge her, it would be a fair
+     match. Has it never struck you that Woman is nearer the
+     _vegetable_ than Man?--Mr. Blaize intends her for his son--a
+     junction that every lover of fairy mythology must desire to see
+     consummated. Young Tom is heir to all the _agremens_ of the
+     Beast. The maids of Lobourne say (I hear) that he is a very
+     Proculus among them. Possibly the envious men say it for the
+     maids. Beauty does not speak bad grammar--and altogether she is
+     better out of the way."
+
+The other letter was from Lady Blandish, a lady's letter, and said:
+
+     "I have fulfilled your commission to the best of my ability,
+     and heartily sad it has made me. She is indeed very much
+     above her station--pity that it is so! She is almost
+     beautiful--_quite_ beautiful at times, and not in _any way_
+     what you have been led to fancy. The poor child had no story to
+     tell. I have again seen her, and talked with her for an hour as
+     kindly as I could. I could gather nothing more than we know. It
+     is just a woman's history as it invariably commences. Richard
+     is the god of her idolatry. She will renounce him, and
+     sacrifice herself for his sake. Are we so bad? She asked me
+     what she was to do. She would do whatever was imposed upon
+     her--all but pretend to love another, and that she never would,
+     and, I believe, _never will_. You know I am sentimental, and I
+     confess we dropped a _few tears_ together. Her uncle has sent
+     her for the Winter to the institution where it appears she was
+     educated, and where they are very fond of her and want to keep
+     her, which it would be a good thing if they were to do. The man
+     is a good sort of man. She was entrusted to him by her father,
+     and he never interferes with her religion, and is very
+     scrupulous about all that pertains to it, though, as he says,
+     he is a Christian himself. In the Spring (but the poor child
+     does not know this) she is to come back, and be married to his
+     lout of a son. I am _determined_ to prevent that. May I not
+     reckon on your promise to aid me? When you see her, I am sure
+     you will. It would be sacrilege to look on and permit such a
+     thing. You know, they are _cousins_. She asked me, where in the
+     world there was one like Richard? What could I answer? They
+     were your own words, and spoken with a depth of conviction! I
+     hope he is really calm. I shudder to think of him when he
+     comes, and discovers what I have been doing. I hope I have been
+     really doing right! A good deed, you say, never dies; but we
+     cannot always know--I must rely on you. Yes, it is, I should
+     think, easy to suffer martyrdom when one is sure of one's
+     cause! but then one _must_ be sure of it. I have done nothing
+     lately but to repeat to myself that saying of yours, No. 54, C.
+     7, P.S.; and it has consoled me, I cannot say why, except that
+     all wisdom consoles, whether it applies directly or not:
+
+     "'_For this reason so many fall from God, who have attained to
+     Him; that they cling to Him with their Weakness, not with their
+     Strength._'
+
+     "I like to know of what you are thinking when you composed this
+     or that saying--what _suggested_ it. May not one be admitted to
+     inspect the machinery of wisdom? I feel curious to know how
+     thoughts--_real_ thoughts--are born. Not that I hope to win the
+     secret. Here is the beginning of one (but we poor women can
+     never put together even two of the three ideas which you say go
+     to form a thought): 'When a wise man makes a false step, will
+     he not go farther than a fool?' It has just flitted through me.
+
+     "I cannot get on with Gibbon, so wait your return to recommence
+     the readings. I dislike the _sneering essence_ of his writings.
+     I keep referring to his face, until the dislike seems to become
+     personal. How different it is with Wordsworth! And yet I cannot
+     escape from the thought that he is always solemnly thinking of
+     himself (but I _do_ reverence him). But this is curious; Byron
+     was a greater egoist, and yet I do not feel the same with him.
+     He reminds me of a beast of the desert, savage and beautiful;
+     and the former is what one would imagine a superior donkey
+     reclaimed from the heathen to be--a _very_ superior donkey, I
+     mean, with great power of speech and great natural complacency,
+     and whose stubbornness you must admire as part of his mission.
+     The worst is that no one will imagine anything sublime in a
+     superior donkey, so my simile is unfair and false. Is it not
+     strange? I love Wordsworth best, and yet Byron has the greater
+     power over me. How is that?"
+
+("Because," Sir Austin wrote beside the query in pencil, "women are
+cowards, and succumb to Irony and Passion, rather than yield their
+hearts to Excellence and Nature's Inspiration.")
+
+The letter pursued:
+
+     "I have finished Boiardo and have taken up Berni. The latter
+     offends me. I suppose we women do not really care for humour.
+     You are right in saying we have none ourselves, and 'cackle'
+     instead of laugh. It is true (of me, at least) that 'Falstaff
+     is only to us an incorrigible fat man.' I want to know what he
+     _illustrates_. And Don Quixote--what end can be served in
+     making a noble mind ridiculous?--I hear you say--practical! So
+     it is. We are very narrow, I know. But we like wit--practical
+     again! Or in your words (when I really _think_ they generally
+     come to my aid--perhaps it is that it is often all _your
+     thought_); we 'prefer the rapier thrust, to the broad embrace,
+     of Intelligence.'"
+
+He trifled with the letter for some time, re-reading chosen passages
+as he walked about the room, and considering he scarce knew what.
+There are ideas language is too gross for, and shape too arbitrary,
+which come to us and have a definite influence upon us, and yet we
+cannot fasten on the filmy things and make them visible and distinct
+to ourselves, much less to others. Why did he twice throw a look
+into the glass in the act of passing it? He stood for a moment with
+head erect facing it. His eyes for the nonce seemed little to peruse
+his outer features; the grey gathered brows, and the wrinkles much
+action of them had traced over the circles half up his high straight
+forehead; the iron-grey hair that rose over his forehead and fell
+away in the fashion of Richard's plume. His general appearance
+showed the tints of years; but none of their weight, and nothing of
+the dignity of his youth, was gone. It was so far satisfactory, but
+his eyes were wide, as one who looks at his essential self through
+the mask we wear. Perhaps he was speculating as he looked on the
+sort of aspect he presented to the lady's discriminative regard. Of
+her feelings he had not a suspicion. But he knew with what
+extraordinary lucidity women can, when it pleases them, and when
+their feelings are not quite boiling under the noonday sun, seize
+all the sides of a character, and put their fingers on its weak
+point. He was cognizant of the total absence of the humorous in
+himself (the want that most shut him out from his fellows), and
+perhaps the clear-thoughted, intensely self-examining gentleman
+filmily conceived, Me also, in common with the poet, she gazes on as
+one of the superior--grey beasts!
+
+He may have so conceived the case; he was capable of that
+great-mindedness, and could snatch at times very luminous glances at
+the broad reflector which the world of fact lying outside our narrow
+compass holds up for us to see ourselves in when we will. Unhappily,
+the faculty of laughter, which is due to this gift, was denied him;
+and having seen, he, like the companion of friend Balaam, could go
+no farther. For a good wind of laughter had relieved him of much of
+the blight of self-deception, and oddness, and extravagance; had
+given a healthier view of our atmosphere of life; but he had it not.
+
+Journeying back to Bellingham in the train, with the heated brain
+and brilliant eye of his son beside him, Sir Austin tried hard to
+feel infallible, as a man with a System should feel; and because he
+could not do so, after much mental conflict, he descended to
+entertain a personal antagonism to the young woman who had stepped
+in between his experiment and success. He did not think kindly of
+her. Lady Blandish's encomiums of her behaviour and her beauty
+annoyed him. Forgetful that he had in a measure forfeited his rights
+to it, he took the common ground of fathers, and demanded, "Why he
+was not justified in doing all that lay in his power to prevent his
+son from casting himself away upon the first creature with a pretty
+face he encountered?" Deliberating thus, he lost the tenderness he
+should have had for his experiment--the living, burning youth at his
+elbow, and his excessive love for him took a rigorous tone. It
+appeared to him politic, reasonable, and just, that the uncle of
+this young woman, who had so long nursed the prudent scheme of
+marrying her to his son, should not only not be thwarted in his
+object but encouraged and even assisted. At least, not thwarted. Sir
+Austin had no glass before him while these ideas hardened in his
+mind, and he had rather forgotten the letter of Lady Blandish.
+
+Father and son were alone in the railway carriage. Both were too
+preoccupied to speak. As they neared Bellingham, the dark was
+filling the hollows of the country. Over the pine-hills beyond the
+station a last rosy streak lingered across a green sky. Richard eyed
+it while they flew along. It caught him forward: it seemed full of
+the spirit of his love, and brought tears of mournful longing to his
+eyelids. The sad beauty of that one spot in the heavens seemed to
+call out to his soul to swear to his Lucy's truth to him: was like
+the sorrowful visage of his fleur-de-luce, as he called her,
+appealing to him for faith. That tremulous tender way she had of
+half-closing and catching light on the nether-lids, when sometimes
+she looked up in her lover's face--a look so mystic-sweet that it
+had grown to be the fountain of his dreams: he saw it yonder, and
+his blood thrilled.
+
+Know you those wand-like touches of I know not what, before which
+our grosser being melts, and we, much as we hope to be in the
+Awaking, stand etherealized, trembling with new joy? They come but
+rarely; rarely even in love, when we fondly think them revelations.
+Mere sensations they are, doubtless: and we rank for them no higher
+in the spiritual scale than so many translucent glorious _polypi_
+that quiver on the shores, the hues of heaven running through them.
+Yet in the harvest of our days it is something for the animal to
+have had such mere fleshly polypian experiences to look back upon,
+and they give him an horizon--pale seas of luring splendour. One who
+has had them (when they do not bound him) may find the Isles of
+Bliss sooner than another. Sensual faith in the upper glories is
+something. "Let us remember," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "that
+Nature, though heathenish, reaches at her best to the footstool of
+the Highest. She is not all dust, but a living portion of the
+spheres. In aspiration it is our error to despise her, forgetting
+that through Nature only can we _ascend_. Cherished, trained, and
+purified, she is then partly worthy the divine mate who is to make
+her wholly so. St. Simeon saw the Hog in Nature, and took Nature for
+the Hog."
+
+It was one of these strange bodily exaltations which thrilled the
+young man, he knew not how it was, for sadness and his forebodings
+vanished. The soft wand touched him. At that moment, had Sir Austin
+spoken openly, Richard might have fallen upon his heart. He could
+not. He chose to feel injured on the common ground of fathers, and
+to pursue his System by plotting. Lady Blandish had revived his
+jealousy of the creature who menaced it, and jealousy of a System is
+unreflecting and vindictive as jealousy of woman.
+
+Heath-roots and pines breathed sharp in the cool autumn evening
+about the Bellingham station. Richard stood a moment as he stepped
+from the train, and drew the country air into his lungs with large
+heaves of the chest. Leaving his father to the felicitations of the
+station-master, he went into the Lobourne road to look for his
+faithful Tom, who had received private orders through Berry to be in
+attendance with his young master's mare, Cassandra, and was lurking
+in a plantation of firs unenclosed on the borders of the road, where
+Richard, knowing his retainer's zest for conspiracy too well to seek
+him anywhere but in the part most favoured with shelter and
+concealment, found him furtively whiffing tobacco.
+
+"What news, Tom? Is there an illness?"
+
+Tom sent his undress cap on one side to scratch at dilemma, an old
+agricultural habit to which he was still a slave in moments of
+abstract thought or sudden difficulty.
+
+"No, I don't want the rake, Mr. Richard," he whinnied with a false
+grin, as he beheld his master's eye vacantly following the action.
+
+"Speak out!" he was commanded. "I haven't had a letter for a week!"
+
+Richard learnt the news. He took it with surprising outward calm,
+only getting a little closer to Cassandra's neck, and looking very
+hard at Tom without seeing a speck of him, which had the effect on
+Tom of making him sincerely wish his master would punch his head at
+once rather than fix him in that owl-like way.
+
+"Go on!" said Richard, huskily. "Yes? She's gone! Well?"
+
+Tom was brought to understand he must make the most of trifles, and
+recited how he had heard from a female domestic at Belthorpe of the
+name of Davenport, formerly known to him, that the young lady never
+slept a wink from the hour she knew she was going, but sat up in her
+bed till morning crying most pitifully, though she never complained.
+Hereat the tears unconsciously streamed down Richard's cheeks. Tom
+said he had tried to see her, but Mr. Adrian kept him at work,
+ciphering at a terrible sum--that and nothing else all day! saying,
+it was to please his young master on his return. "Likewise something
+in Lat'n," added Tom. "Nom'tive Mouser!--'nough to make ye mad,
+sir!" he exclaimed with pathos. The wretch had been put to acquire a
+Latin declension.
+
+Tom saw her on the morning she went away, he said: she was very
+sorrowful-looking, and nodded kindly to him as she passed in the fly
+along with young Tom Blaize. "She have got uncommon kind eyes, sir,"
+said Tom, "and cryin' don't spoil them." For which his hand was
+wrenched.
+
+Tom had no more to tell, save that, in rounding the road, the young
+lady had hung out her hand, and seemed to move it forward and back,
+as much as to say, Good-bye, Tom! "And though she couldn't see me,"
+said Tom, "I took off my hat. I did take it so kind of her to think
+of a chap like me." He was at high-pressure sentiment--what with his
+education for a hero and his master's love-stricken state.
+
+"You saw no more of her, Tom?"
+
+"No, sir. That was the last!"
+
+"That was the last you saw of her, Tom?"
+
+"Well, sir, I saw nothin' more."
+
+"And so she went out of sight!"
+
+"Clean gone, that she were, sir."
+
+"Why did they take her away? what have they done with her? where
+have they taken her to?"
+
+These red-hot questionings were addressed to the universal heaven
+rather than to Tom.
+
+"Why didn't she write?" they were resumed. "Why did she leave? She's
+mine. She belongs to me! Who dared take her away? Why did she leave
+without writing?----Tom!"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the well-drilled recruit, dressing himself up to
+the word of command. He expected a variation of the theme from the
+change of tone with which his name had been pronounced, but it was
+again, "Where have they taken her to?" and this was even more
+perplexing to Tom than his hard sum in arithmetic had been. He could
+only draw down the corners of his mouth hard, and glance up queerly.
+
+"She _had_ been crying--you saw that, Tom?"
+
+"No mistake about that, Mr. Richard. Cryin' all night and all day, I
+sh'd say."
+
+"And she was crying when you saw her?"
+
+"She look'd as if she'd just done for a moment, sir."
+
+"But her face was white?"
+
+"White as a sheet."
+
+Richard paused to discover whether his instinct had caught a new
+view from these facts. He was in a cage, always knocking against the
+same bars, fly as he might. Her tears were the stars in his black
+night. He clung to them as golden orbs. Inexplicable as they were,
+they were at least pledges of love.
+
+The hues of sunset had left the West. No light was there but the
+steadfast pale eye of twilight. Thither he was drawn. He mounted
+Cassandra, saying: "Tell them something, Tom. I shan't be home to
+dinner," and rode off toward the forsaken home of light over
+Belthorpe, wherein he saw the wan hand of his Lucy, waving farewell,
+receding as he advanced. His jewel was stolen,--he must gaze upon
+the empty box.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE
+
+
+Night had come on as Richard entered the old elm-shaded,
+grass-bordered lane leading down from Raynham to Belthorpe. The pale
+eye of twilight was shut. The wind had tossed up the bank of Western
+cloud, which was now flying broad and unlighted across the sky,
+broad and balmy--the charioted South-west at full charge behind his
+panting coursers. As he neared the farm his heart fluttered and
+leapt up. He was sure she must be there. She must have returned. Why
+should she have left for good without writing? He caught suspicion
+by the throat, making it voiceless, if it lived: he silenced reason.
+Her not writing was now a proof that she had returned. He listened
+to nothing but his imperious passion, and murmured sweet words for
+her, as if she were by: tender cherishing epithets of love in the
+nest. She was there--she moved somewhere about like a silver flame
+in the dear old house, doing her sweet household duties. His blood
+began to sing: O happy those within, to see her, and be about her!
+By some extraordinary process he contrived to cast a sort of glory
+round the burly person of Farmer Blaize himself. And oh! to have
+companionship with a seraph one must know a seraph's bliss, and was
+not young Tom to be envied? The smell of late clematis brought on
+the wind enwrapped him, and went to his brain, and threw a light
+over the old red-brick house, for he remembered where it grew, and
+the winter rose-tree, and the jessamine, and the passion-flower: the
+garden in front with the standard roses tended by her hands; the
+long wall to the left striped by the branches of the cherry, the
+peep of a further green garden through the wall, and then the
+orchard, and the fields beyond--the happy circle of her dwelling! it
+flashed before his eyes while he looked on the darkness. And yet it
+was the reverse of hope which kindled this light and inspired the
+momentary calm he experienced: it was despair exaggerating delusion,
+wilfully building up on a groundless basis. "For the tenacity of
+true passion is terrible," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP: "it will stand
+against the hosts of heaven, God's great array of Facts, rather than
+surrender its aim, and must be crushed before it will succumb--sent
+to the lowest pit!" He knew she was not there; she was gone. But the
+power of a will strained to madness fought at it, kept it down,
+conjured forth her ghost, and would have it as he dictated. Poor
+youth! the great array of facts was in due order of march.
+
+He had breathed her name many times, and once overloud; almost a cry
+for her escaped him. He had not noticed the opening of a door and
+the noise of a foot along the gravel walk. He was leaning over
+Cassandra's uneasy neck watching the one window intently, when a
+voice addressed him out of the darkness.
+
+"Be that you, young gentleman?--Mr. Fev'rel?"
+
+Richard's trance was broken. "Mr. Blaize!" he said, recognizing the
+farmer's voice.
+
+"Good even'n t'you, sir," returned the farmer. "I knew the mare
+though I didn't know you. Rather bluff to-night it be. Will ye step
+in, Mr. Fev'rel? it's beginnin' to spit--going to be a wildish
+night, I reckon."
+
+Richard dismounted. The farmer called one of his men to hold the
+mare, and ushered the young man in. Once there, Richard's
+conjurations ceased. There was a deadness about the rooms and
+passages that told of her absence. The walls he touched--these were
+the vacant shells of her. He had never been in the house since he
+knew her, and now what strange sweetness, and what pangs!
+
+Young Tom Blaize was in the parlour, squared over the table in
+open-mouthed examination of an ancient book of the fashions for a
+summer month which had elapsed during his mother's minority. Young
+Tom was respectfully studying the aspects of the radiant beauties of
+the polite work. He also was a thrall of woman, newly enrolled, and
+full of wonder.
+
+"What, Tom!" the farmer sang out as soon as he had opened the door;
+"there ye be! at yer Folly agin, are ye? What good'll them fashens
+do to you, I'd like t'know? Come, shut up, and go and see to Mr.
+Fev'rel's mare. He's al'ays at that ther' Folly now. I say there
+never were a better name for a book than that ther' Folly! Talk
+about attitudes!"
+
+The farmer laughed his fat sides into a chair, and motioned his
+visitor to do likewise.
+
+"It's a comfort they're most on 'em females," he pursued, sounding a
+thwack on his knee as he settled himself agreeably in his seat. "It
+don't matter much what they does, except pinchin' in--waspin' it--at
+the waist. Give me nature, I say--woman as she's made! eh, young
+gentleman?"
+
+"You seem very lonely here," said Richard, glancing round, and at
+the ceiling.
+
+"Lonely?" quoth the farmer. "Well, for the matter o' that, we
+be!--jest now, so't happens; I've got my pipe, and Tom've got his
+Folly. He's on one side the table, and I'm on t'other. He gaapes,
+and I gazes. We are a bit lonesome. But there--it's _for_ the best!"
+
+Richard resumed, "I hardly expected to see you to-night, Mr.
+Blaize."
+
+"Y'acted like a man in coming, young gentleman, and I does ye honour
+for it!" said Farmer Blaize with sudden energy and directness.
+
+The thing implied by the farmer's words caused Richard to take a
+quick breath. They looked at each other, and looked away, the farmer
+thrumming on the arm of his chair.
+
+Above the mantel-piece, surrounded by tarnished indifferent
+miniatures of high-collared, well-to-do yeomen of the anterior
+generation, trying their best not to grin, and high-waisted old
+ladies smiling an encouraging smile through plentiful cap-puckers,
+there hung a passably executed half-figure of a naval officer in
+uniform, grasping a telescope under his left arm, who stood forth
+clearly as not of their kith and kin. His eyes were blue, his hair
+light, his bearing that of a man who knows how to carry his head and
+shoulders. The artist, while giving him an epaulette to indicate his
+rank, had also recorded the juvenility which a lieutenant in the
+naval service can retain after arriving at that position, by
+painting him with smooth cheeks and fresh ruddy lips. To this
+portrait Richard's eyes were directed. Farmer Blaize observed it,
+and said--
+
+"Her father, sir!"
+
+Richard moderated his voice to praise the likeness.
+
+"Yes," said the farmer, "pretty well. Next best to havin' _her_,
+though it's a long way off that!"
+
+"An old family, Mr. Blaize--is it not?" Richard asked in as careless
+a tone as he could assume.
+
+"Gentlefolks--what's left of 'em," replied the farmer with an
+equally affected indifference.
+
+"And that's her father?" said Richard, growing bolder to speak of
+her.
+
+"That's her father, young gentleman!"
+
+"Mr. Blaize," Richard turned to face him, and burst out, "where is
+she?"
+
+"Gone, sir! packed off!--Can't have her here now." The farmer
+thrummed a step brisker, and eyed the young man's wild face
+resolutely.
+
+"Mr. Blaize," Richard leaned forward to get closer to him. He was
+stunned, and hardly aware of what he was saying or doing: "Where has
+she gone? Why did she leave?"
+
+"You needn't to ask, sir--ye know," said the farmer, with a side
+shot of his head.
+
+"But _she_ did not--it was not her wish to go?"
+
+"No! I think she likes the place. Mayhap she likes't too well!"
+
+"Why did you send her away to make her unhappy, Mr. Blaize?"
+
+The farmer bluntly denied it was he was the party who made her
+unhappy. "Nobody can't accuse _me_. Tell ye what, sir. I wunt have
+the busybodies set to work about her, and there's all the matter. So
+let you and I come to an understandin'."
+
+A blind inclination to take offence made Richard sit upright. He
+forgot it the next minute, and said humbly: "Am I the cause of her
+going?"
+
+"Well!" returned the farmer, "to speak straight--ye be!"
+
+"What can I do, Mr. Blaize, that she may come back again?" the young
+hypocrite asked.
+
+"Now," said the farmer, "you're coming to business. Glad to hear ye
+talk in that sensible way, Mr. Fev'rel. You may guess I wants her
+bad enough. The house ain't itself now she's away, and I ain't
+myself. Well, sir! This ye can do. If you gives me your promise not
+to meddle with her at all--I can't mak' out how you come to be
+acquainted; not to try to get her to be meetin' you--and if you'd a
+seen her when she left, you would--when did ye meet?--last grass,
+wasn't it?--your word as a gentleman not to be writing letters, and
+spyin' after her--I'll have her back at once. Back she shall come!"
+
+"Give her up!" cried Richard.
+
+"Ay, that's it!" said the farmer. "Give her up."
+
+The young man checked the annihilation of time that was on his
+mouth.
+
+"You sent her away to protect her from me, then?" he said savagely.
+
+"That's not quite it, but that'll do," rejoined the farmer.
+
+"Do you think I shall harm her, sir?"
+
+"People seem to think she'll harm you, young gentleman," the farmer
+said with some irony.
+
+"Harm _me_--she? What people?"
+
+"People pretty intimate with you, sir."
+
+"What people? Who spoke of us?" Richard began to scent a plot, and
+would not be balked.
+
+"Well, sir, look here," said the farmer. "It ain't no secret, and if
+it be, I don't see why I'm to keep it. It appears your education's
+peculiar!" The farmer drawled out the word as if he were describing
+the figure of a snake. "You ain't to be as other young gentlemen.
+All the better! You're a fine bold young gentleman, and your
+father's a right to be proud of ye. Well, sir--I'm sure I thank him
+for't--he comes to hear of you and Luce, and of course he don't want
+nothin' o' that--more do I. I meets him there! What's more I won't
+have nothin' of it. She be my gal. She were left to my protection.
+And she's a lady, sir. Let me tell ye, ye won't find many on 'em so
+well looked to as she be--my Luce! Well, Mr. Fev'rel, it's you, or
+it's her--one of ye must be out o' the way. So we're told. And
+Luce--I do believe she's just as anxious about yer education as yer
+father--she says she'll go, and wouldn't write, and'd break it off
+for the sake o' your education. And she've kep' her word, haven't
+she?--She's a true'n. What she says she'll do!--True blue she be, my
+Luce! So now, sir, you do the same, and I'll thank ye."
+
+Any one who has tossed a sheet of paper into the fire, and seen it
+gradually brown with heat, and strike to flame, may conceive the
+mind of the lover as he listened to this speech.
+
+His anger did not evaporate in words, but condensed and sank deep.
+"Mr. Blaize," he said, "this is very kind of the people you allude
+to, but I am of an age now to think and act for myself--I love her,
+sir!" His whole countenance changed, and the muscles of his face
+quivered.
+
+"Well!" said the farmer, appeasingly, "we all do at your
+age--somebody or other. It's natural!"
+
+"I love her!" the young man thundered afresh, too much possessed by
+his passion to have a sense of shame in the confession. "Farmer!"
+his voice fell to supplication, "will you bring her back?"
+
+Farmer Blaize made a queer face. He asked--what for? and where was
+the promise required?--But was not the lover's argument conclusive?
+He said he loved her! and he could not see why her uncle should not
+in consequence immediately send for her, that they might be
+together. All very well, quoth the farmer, but what's to come of
+it?--What was to come of it? Why, love, and more love! And a bit too
+much! the farmer added grimly.
+
+"Then you refuse me, farmer," said Richard. "I must look to you for
+keeping her away from me, not to--to--these people. You will not
+have her back, though I tell you I love her better than my life?"
+
+Farmer Blaize now had to answer him plainly, he had a reason and an
+objection of his own. And it was, that her character was at stake,
+and God knew whether she herself might not be in danger. He spoke
+with a kindly candour, not without dignity. He complimented Richard
+personally, but young people were young people; baronets' sons were
+not in the habit of marrying farmers' nieces.
+
+At first the son of a System did not comprehend him. When he did, he
+said: "Farmer! if I give you my word of honour, as I hope for
+heaven, to marry her when I am of age, will you have her back?"
+
+He was so fervid that, to quiet him, the farmer only shook his head
+doubtfully at the bars of the grate, and let his chest fall slowly.
+Richard caught what seemed to him a glimpse of encouragement in
+these signs, and observed: "It's not because you object to me, Mr.
+Blaize?"
+
+The farmer signified it was not that.
+
+"It's because my father is against me," Richard went on, and
+undertook to show that love was so sacred a matter that no father
+could entirely and for ever resist his son's inclinations. Argument
+being a cool field where the farmer could meet and match him, the
+young man got on the tramroad of his passion, and went ahead. He
+drew pictures of Lucy, of her truth, and his own. He took leaps from
+life to death, from death to life, mixing imprecations and prayers
+in a torrent. Perhaps he did move the stolid old Englishman a
+little, he was so vehement, and made so visible a sacrifice of his
+pride.
+
+Farmer Blaize tried to pacify him, but it was useless. His jewel he
+must have.
+
+The farmer stretched out his hand for the pipe that allayeth
+botheration. "May smoke heer now," he said. "Not when--somebody's
+present. Smoke in the kitchen then. Don't mind smell?"
+
+Richard nodded, and watched the operations while the farmer filled,
+and lighted, and began to puff, as if his fate hung on them.
+
+"Who'd a' thought, when you sat over there once, of its comin' to
+this?" ejaculated the farmer, drawing ease and reflection from
+tobacco. "You didn't think much of her that day, young gentleman! I
+introduced ye. Well! things comes about. Can't you wait till she
+returns in due course, now?"
+
+This suggestion, the work of the pipe, did but bring on him another
+torrent.
+
+"It's queer," said the farmer, putting the mouth of the pipe to his
+wrinkled-up temples.
+
+Richard waited for him, and then he laid down the pipe altogether,
+as no aid in perplexity, and said, after leaning his arm on the
+table and staring at Richard an instant:
+
+"Look, young gentleman! My word's gone. I've spoke it. I've given
+'em the 'surance she shan't be back till the Spring, and then I'll
+have her, and then--well! I do hope, for more reasons than one,
+ye'll both be wiser--I've got my own notions about her. But I an't
+the man to force a gal to marry 'gainst her inclines. Depend upon it
+I'm not your enemy, Mr. Fev'rel. You're jest the one to mak' a young
+gal proud. So wait,--and see. That's my 'dvice. Jest tak' and wait.
+I've no more to say."
+
+Richard's impetuosity had made him really afraid of speaking his
+notions concerning the projected felicity of young Tom, if indeed
+they were serious.
+
+The farmer repeated that he had no more to say; and Richard, with
+"Wait till the Spring! Wait till the Spring!" dinning despair in his
+ears, stood up to depart. Farmer Blaize shook his slack hand in a
+friendly way, and called out at the door for young Tom, who,
+dreading allusions to his Folly, did not appear. A maid rushed by
+Richard in the passage, and slipped something into his grasp, which
+fixed on it without further consciousness than that of touch. The
+mare was led forth by the Bantam. A light rain was falling down
+strong warm gusts, and the trees were noisy in the night. Farmer
+Blaize requested Richard at the gate to give him his hand, and say
+all was well. He liked the young man for his earnestness and honest
+outspeaking. Richard could not say all was well, but he gave his
+hand, and knitted it to the farmer's in a sharp squeeze, when he got
+upon Cassandra, and rode into the tumult.
+
+A calm, clear dawn succeeded the roaring West, and threw its glowing
+grey image on the waters of the Abbey-lake. Before sunrise Tom
+Bakewell was abroad, and met the missing youth, his master, jogging
+Cassandra leisurely along the Lobourne park-road, a sorry couple to
+look at. Cassandra's flanks were caked with mud, her head drooped:
+all that was in her had been taken out by that wild night. On what
+heaths and heavy fallows had she not spent her noble strength,
+recklessly fretting through the darkness!
+
+"Take the mare," said Richard, dismounting and patting her between
+the eyes. "She's done up, poor old girl! Look to her, Tom, and then
+come to me in my room."
+
+Tom asked no questions.
+
+Three days would bring the anniversary of Richard's birth, and
+though Tom was close, the condition of the mare, and the young
+gentleman's strange freak in riding her out all night becoming
+known, prepared everybody at Raynham for the usual bad-luck
+birthday, the prophets of which were full of sad gratification. Sir
+Austin had an unpleasant office to require of his son; no other than
+that of humbly begging Benson's pardon, and washing out the undue
+blood he had spilt in taking his Pound of Flesh. Heavy Benson was
+told to anticipate the demand for pardon, and practised in his mind
+the most melancholy Christian deportment he could assume on the
+occasion. But while his son was in this state, Sir Austin considered
+that he would hardly be brought to see the virtues of the act, and
+did not make the requisition of him, and heavy Benson remained drawn
+up solemnly expectant at doorways, and at the foot of the staircase,
+a Saurian Caryatid, wherever he could get a step in advance of the
+young man, while Richard heedlessly passed him, as he passed
+everybody else, his head bent to the ground, and his legs bearing
+him like random instruments of whose service he was unconscious. It
+was a shock to Benson's implicit belief in his patron; and he was
+not consoled by the philosophic explanation, "That Good in a strong
+many-compounded nature is of slower growth than any other mortal
+thing, and must not be forced." Damnatory doctrines best pleased
+Benson. He was ready to pardon, as a Christian should, but he did
+want his enemy before him on his knees. And now, though the Saurian
+Eye saw more than all the other eyes in the house, and saw that
+there was matter in hand between Tom and his master to breed
+exceeding discomposure to the System, Benson, as he had not received
+his indemnity, and did not wish to encounter fresh perils for
+nothing, held his peace.
+
+Sir Austin partly divined what was going on in the breast of his
+son, without conceiving the depths of distrust his son cherished or
+quite measuring the intensity of the passion that consumed him. He
+was very kind and tender with him. Like a cunning physician who has,
+nevertheless, overlooked the change in the disease super-induced by
+one false dose, he meditated his prescriptions carefully and
+confidently, sure that he knew the case, and was a match for it. He
+decreed that Richard's erratic behaviour should pass unnoticed. Two
+days before the birthday, he asked him whether he would object to
+having company? To which Richard said: "Have whom you will, sir."
+The preparation for festivity commenced accordingly.
+
+On the birthday eve he dined with the rest. Lady Blandish was there,
+and sat penitently at his right. Hippias prognosticated certain
+indigestion for himself on the morrow. The Eighteenth Century
+wondered whether she should live to see another birthday. Adrian
+drank the two-years' distant term of his tutorship, and Algernon
+went over the list of the Lobourne men who would cope with Bursley
+on the morrow. Sir Austin gave ear and a word to all, keeping his
+mental eye for his son. To please Lady Blandish also, Adrian
+ventured to make trifling jokes about London's Mrs. Grandison; jokes
+delicately not decent, but so delicately so, that it was not decent
+to perceive it.
+
+After dinner Richard left them. Nothing more than commonly peculiar
+was observed about him, beyond the excessive glitter of his eyes,
+but the baronet said, "Yes, yes! that will pass." He and Adrian, and
+Lady Blandish, took tea in the library, and sat till a late hour
+discussing casuistries relating mostly to the Apple-disease.
+Converse very amusing to the wise youth, who could suggest to the
+two chaste minds situations of the shadiest character, with the air
+of a seeker after truth, and lead them, unsuspecting, where they
+dared not look about them. The Aphorist had elated the heart of his
+constant fair worshipper with a newly rounded if not newly conceived
+sentence, when they became aware that they were four. Heavy Benson
+stood among them. He said he had knocked, but received no answer.
+There was, however, a vestige of surprise and dissatisfaction on his
+face beholding Adrian of the company, which had not quite worn away,
+and gave place, when it did vanish, to an aspect of flabby severity.
+
+"Well, Benson? well?" said the baronet.
+
+The unmoving man replied: "If you please, Sir Austin--Mr. Richard!"
+
+"Well!"
+
+"He's out!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"With Bakewell!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And a carpet-bag!"
+
+The carpet-bag might be supposed to contain that funny thing called
+a young hero's romance in the making.
+
+Out Richard was, and with a carpet-bag, which Tom Bakewell carried.
+He was on the road to Bellingham, under heavy rain, hasting like an
+escaped captive, wild with joy, while Tom shook his skin, and
+grunted at his discomforts. The mail train was to be caught at
+Bellingham. He knew where to find her now, through the intervention
+of Miss Davenport, and thither he was flying, an arrow loosed from
+the bow: thither, in spite of fathers and friends and plotters, to
+claim her, and take her, and stand with her against the world.
+
+They were both thoroughly wet when they entered Bellingham, and
+Tom's visions were of hot drinks. He hinted the necessity for inward
+consolation to his master, who could answer nothing but "Tom! Tom! I
+shall see her to-morrow!" It was bad--travelling in the wet, Tom
+hinted again, to provoke the same insane outcry, and have his arm
+seized and furiously shaken into the bargain. Passing the principal
+inn of the place, Tom spoke plainly for brandy.
+
+"No!" cried Richard, "there's not a moment to be lost!" and as he
+said it, he reeled, and fell against Tom, muttering indistinctly of
+faintness, and that there was no time to lose. Tom lifted him in his
+arms, and got admission to the inn. Brandy, the country's specific,
+was advised by host and hostess, and forced into his mouth, reviving
+him sufficiently to cry out, "Tom! the bell's ringing: we shall be
+late," after which he fell back insensible on the sofa where they
+had stretched him. Excitement of blood and brain had done its work
+upon him. The youth suffered them to undress him and put him to bed,
+and there he lay, forgetful even of love; a drowned weed borne
+onward by the tide of the hours. There his father found him.
+
+Was the Scientific Humanist remorseful? He had looked forward to
+such a crisis as that point in the disease his son was the victim
+of, when the body would fail and give the spirit calm to conquer the
+malady, knowing very well that the seeds of the evil were not of the
+spirit. Moreover, to see him and have him was a repose after the
+alarm Benson had sounded. "Mark!" he said to Lady Blandish, "when he
+recovers he will not care for her."
+
+The lady had accompanied him to the Bellingham inn on first hearing
+of Richard's seizure.
+
+"What an iron man you can be," she exclaimed, smothering her
+intuitions. She was for giving the boy his bauble; promising it him,
+at least, if he would only get well and be the bright flower of
+promise he once was.
+
+"Can you look on him," she pleaded, "can you look on him and
+persevere?"
+
+It was a hard sight for this man who loved his son so deeply. The
+youth lay in his strange bed, straight and motionless, with fever on
+his cheeks, and altered eyes.
+
+Old Dr. Clifford of Lobourne was the medical attendant, who, with
+head-shaking, and gathering of lips, and reminiscences of ancient
+arguments, guaranteed to do all that leech could do in the matter.
+The old doctor did admit that Richard's constitution was admirable,
+and answered to his prescriptions like a piano to the musician.
+"But," he said at a family consultation, for Sir Austin had told him
+how it stood with the young man, "drugs are not much in cases of
+this sort. Change! That's what's wanted, and as soon as may be.
+Distraction! He ought to see the world, and know what he is made of.
+It's no use my talking, I know," added the doctor.
+
+"On the contrary," said Sir Austin, "I am quite of your persuasion.
+And the world he shall see--now."
+
+"We have dipped him in Styx, you know, doctor," Adrian remarked.
+
+"But, doctor," said Lady Blandish, "have you known a case of this
+sort before?"
+
+"Never, my lady," said the doctor, "they're not common in these
+parts. Country people are tolerably healthy-minded."
+
+"But people--and country people--have died for love, doctor?"
+
+The doctor had not met any of them.
+
+"Men, or women?" inquired the baronet.
+
+Lady Blandish believed mostly women.
+
+"Ask the doctor whether they were healthy-minded women," said the
+baronet. "No! you are both looking at the wrong end. Between a
+highly-cultured being, and an emotionless animal, there is all the
+difference in the world. But of the two, the doctor is nearer the
+truth. The healthy nature is pretty safe. If he allowed for
+organization he would be right altogether. To feel, but not to feel
+to excess, that is the problem."
+
+    "If I can't have the one I chose,
+    To some fresh maid I will propose,"
+
+Adrian hummed a country ballad.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL
+
+
+When the young Experiment again knew the hours that rolled him
+onward, he was in his own room at Raynham. Nothing had changed: only
+a strong fist had knocked him down and stunned him, and he opened
+his eyes to a grey world: he had forgotten what he lived for. He was
+weak and thin, and with a pale memory of things. His functions were
+the same, everything surrounding him was the same: he looked upon
+the old blue hills, the far-lying fallows, the river, and the woods:
+he knew them, they seemed to have lost recollection of him. Nor
+could he find in familiar human faces the secret of intimacy of
+heretofore. They were the same faces: they nodded and smiled to him.
+What was lost he could not tell. Something had been knocked out of
+him! He was sensible of his father's sweetness of manner, and he was
+grieved that he could not reply to it, for every sense of shame and
+reproach had strangely gone. He felt very useless. In place of the
+fiery love for one, he now bore about a cold charity to all.
+
+Thus in the heart of the young man died the Spring Primrose, and
+while it died another heart was pushing forth the Primrose of
+Autumn.
+
+The wonderful change in Richard, and the wisdom of her admirer, now
+positively proved, were exciting matters to Lady Blandish. She was
+rebuked for certain little rebellious fancies concerning him that
+had come across her enslaved mind from time to time. For was he not
+almost a prophet? It distressed the sentimental lady that a love
+like Richard's could pass off in mere smoke, and words such as she
+had heard him speak in Abbey-wood resolve to emptiness. Nay, it
+humiliated her personally, and the baronet's shrewd prognostication
+humiliated her. For how should he know, and dare to say, that love
+was a thing of the dust that could be trodden out under the heel of
+science? But he had said so, and he had proved himself right. She
+heard with wonderment that Richard of his own accord had spoken to
+his father of the folly he had been guilty of, and had begged his
+pardon. The baronet told her this, adding that the youth had done it
+in a cold unwavering way, without a movement of his features: had
+evidently done it to throw off the burden of the duty he had
+conceived. He had thought himself bound to acknowledge that he had
+been the Foolish Young Fellow, wishing, possibly, to abjure the fact
+by an act of penance. He had also given satisfaction to Benson, and
+was become a renovated peaceful spirit, whose main object appeared
+to be to get up his physical strength by exercise and no expenditure
+of speech.
+
+In her company he was composed and courteous; even when they were
+alone together, he did not exhibit a trace of melancholy. Sober he
+seemed, as one who has recovered from a drunkenness and has
+determined to drink no more. The idea struck her that he might be
+playing a part, but Tom Bakewell, in a private conversation they
+had, informed her that he had received an order from his young
+master, one day while boxing with him, not to mention the young
+lady's name to him as long as he lived; and Tom could only suppose
+that she had offended him. Theoretically wise Lady Blandish had
+always thought the baronet; she was unprepared to find him thus
+practically sagacious. She fell many degrees; she wanted something
+to cling to; so she clung to the man who struck her low. Love, then,
+was earthly; its depth could be probed by science! A man lived who
+could measure it from end to end; foretell its term; handle the
+young cherub as were he a shot owl! We who have flown into
+cousinship with the empyrean, and disported among immortal hosts,
+our base birth as a child of Time is made bare to us!--our wings are
+cut! Oh, then, if science is this victorious enemy of love, let us
+love science! was the logic of the lady's heart; and secretly
+cherishing the assurance that she should confute him yet, and prove
+him utterly wrong, she gave him the fruits of present success, as it
+is a habit of women to do; involuntarily partly. The fires took hold
+of her. She felt soft emotions such as a girl feels, and they
+flattered her. It was like youth coming back. Pure women have a
+second youth. The Autumn primrose flourished.
+
+We are advised by THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP that--
+
+"The ways of women, which are Involution, and their practices, which
+are Opposition, are generally best hit upon by guess work, and a
+bold word;"--it being impossible to track them and hunt them down in
+the ordinary style.
+
+So that we may not ourselves become involved and opposed, let us
+each of us venture a guess and say a bold word as to how it came
+that the lady, who trusted love to be eternal, grovelled to him that
+shattered her tender faith, and loved him.
+
+Hitherto it had been simply a sentimental dalliance, and gossips had
+maligned the lady. Just when the gossips grew tired of their
+slander, and inclined to look upon her charitably, she set about to
+deserve every word they had said of her; which may instruct us, if
+you please, that gossips have only to persist in lying to be crowned
+with verity, or that one has only to endure evil mouths for a period
+to gain impunity. She was always at the Abbey now. She was much
+closeted with the baronet. It seemed to be understood that she had
+taken Mrs. Doria's place. Benson in his misogynic soul perceived
+that she was taking Lady Feverel's: but any report circulated by
+Benson was sure to meet discredit, and drew the gossips upon
+himself; which made his meditations tragic. No sooner was one woman
+defeated than another took the field! The object of the System was
+no sooner safe than its great author was in danger!
+
+"I can't think what has come to Benson," he said to Adrian.
+
+"He seems to have received a fresh legacy of several pounds of
+lead," returned the wise youth, and imitating Dr. Clifford's manner.
+"Change is what he wants! distraction! send him to Wales for a
+month, sir, and let Richard go with him. The two victims of woman
+may do each other good."
+
+"Unfortunately I can't do without him," said the baronet.
+
+"Then we must continue to have him on our shoulders all day, and on
+our chests all night!" Adrian ejaculated.
+
+"I think while he preserves this aspect we won't have him at the
+dinner-table," said the baronet.
+
+Adrian thought that would be a relief to their digestions; and
+added: "You know, sir, what he says?"
+
+Receiving a negative, Adrian delicately explained to him that
+Benson's excessive ponderosity of demeanour was caused by anxiety
+for the safety of his master.
+
+"You must pardon a faithful fool, sir," he continued, for the
+baronet became red, and exclaimed:
+
+"His stupidity is past belief! I have absolutely to bolt my
+study-door against him."
+
+Adrian at once beheld a charming scene in the interior of the study,
+not unlike one that Benson had visually witnessed. For, like a wary
+prophet, Benson, that he might have warrant for what he foretold of
+the future, had a care to spy upon the present: warned haply by THE
+PILGRIM'S SCRIP, of which he was a diligent reader, and which says,
+rather emphatically: "Could we see Time's full face, we were wise of
+him." Now to see Time's full face, it is sometimes necessary to look
+through keyholes, the veteran having a trick of smiling peace to you
+on one cheek and grimacing confusion on the other behind the
+curtain. Decency and a sense of honour restrain most of us from
+being thus wise and miserable for ever. Benson's excuse was that he
+believed in his master, who was menaced. And moreover, notwithstanding
+his previous tribulation, to spy upon Cupid was sweet to him. So he
+peeped, and he saw a sight. He saw Time's full face; or, in other
+words, he saw the wiles of woman and the weakness of man: which is
+our history, as Benson would have written it, and a great many poets
+and philosophers have written it.
+
+Yet it was but the plucking of the Autumn primrose that Benson had
+seen: a somewhat different operation from the plucking of the Spring
+one: very innocent! Our staid elderly sister has paler blood, and
+has, or thinks she has, a reason or two about the roots. She is not
+all instinct. "For this high cause, and for that I know men, and
+know him to be the flower of men, I give myself to him!" She makes
+that lofty inward exclamation while the hand is detaching her from
+the roots. Even so strong a self-justification she requires. She has
+not that blind glory in excess which her younger sister can gild the
+longest leap with. And if, moth-like, she desires the star, she is
+nervously cautious of candles. Hence her circles about the dangerous
+human flame are wide and shy. She must be drawn nearer and nearer by
+a fresh _reason_. She loves to sentimentalize. Lady Blandish had
+been sentimentalizing for ten years. She would have preferred to
+pursue the game. The dark-eyed dame was pleased with her smooth life
+and the soft excitement that did not ruffle it. Not willingly did
+she let herself be won.
+
+"Sentimentalists," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "are they who seek to
+enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing done."
+
+"It is," the writer says of Sentimentalism elsewhere, "a happy
+pastime and an important science to the timid, the idle, and the
+heartless; but a damning one to them who have anything to forfeit."
+
+However, one who could set down the dying for love, as a
+sentimentalism, can hardly be accepted as a clear authority.
+Assuredly he was not one to avoid the incurring of the immense
+debtorship in any way: but he was a bondsman still to the woman who
+had forsaken him, and a spoken word would have made it seem his duty
+to face that public scandal which was the last evil to him. What had
+so horrified the virtuous Benson, Richard had already beheld in
+Daphne's Bower; a simple kissing of the fair white hand! Doubtless
+the keyhole somehow added to Benson's horror. The two similar
+performances, so very innocent, had wondrous opposite consequences.
+The first kindled Richard to adore Woman; the second destroyed
+Benson's faith in Man. But Lady Blandish knew the difference between
+the two. She understood why the baronet did not speak; excused, and
+respected him for it. She was content, since she must love, to love
+humbly, and she had, besides, her pity for his sorrows to comfort
+her. A hundred fresh reasons for loving him arose and multiplied
+every day. He read to her the secret book in his own handwriting,
+composed for Richard's Marriage Guide: containing Advice and
+Directions to a Young Husband, full of the most tender wisdom and
+delicacy; so she thought; nay, not wanting in poetry, though neither
+rhymed nor measured. He expounded to her the distinctive character
+of the divers ages of love, giving the palm to the flower she put
+forth, over that of Spring, or the Summer rose. And while they sat
+and talked, "My wound has healed," he said. "How?" she asked. "At
+the fountain of your eyes," he replied, and drew the joy of new life
+from her blushes, without incurring further debtorship for a thing
+done.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP
+
+
+Let it be some apology for the damage caused by the careering hero,
+and a consolation to the quiet wretches, dragged along with him at
+his chariot-wheels, that he is generally the last to know when he
+has made an actual start; such a mere creature is he, like the rest
+of us, albeit the head of our fates. By this you perceive the true
+hero, whether he be a prince or a pot-boy, that he does not plot;
+Fortune does all for him. He may be compared to one to whom, in an
+electric circle, it is given to carry the _battery_. We caper and
+grimace at his will; yet not his the will, not his the power. 'Tis
+all Fortune's, whose puppet he is. She deals her dispensations
+through him. Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he laughs
+not. Intent upon his own business, the true hero asks little
+services of us here and there; thinks it quite natural that they
+should be acceded to, and sees nothing ridiculous in the lamentable
+contortions we must go through to fulfil them. Probably he is the
+elect of Fortune, because of that notable faculty of being intent
+upon his own business: "Which is," says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "with
+men to be valued equal to that force which in water _makes a
+stream_." This prelude was necessary to the present chapter of
+Richard's history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It happened that in the turn of the year, and while old earth was
+busy with her flowers, the fresh wind blew, the little bird sang,
+and Hippias Feverel, the Dyspepsy, amazed, felt the Spring move
+within him. He communicated his delightful new sensations to the
+baronet, his brother, whose constant exclamation with regard to him,
+was: "Poor Hippias! All his machinery is bare!" and had no hope that
+he would ever be in a condition to defend it from view. Nevertheless
+Hippias had that hope, and so he told his brother, making great
+exposure of his machinery to effect the explanation. He spoke of all
+his physical experiences exultingly, and with wonder. The
+achievement of common efforts, not usually blazoned, he celebrated
+as triumphs, and, of course, had Adrian on his back very quickly.
+But he could bear him, or anything, now. It was such ineffable
+relief to find himself looking out upon the world of mortals instead
+of into the black phantasmal abysses of his own complicated
+frightful structure. "My mind doesn't so much seem to haunt itself,
+now," said Hippias, nodding shortly and peering out of intense
+puckers to convey a glimpse of what hellish sufferings his had been:
+"I feel as if I had come above-ground."
+
+A poor Dyspepsy may talk as he will, but he is the one who never
+gets sympathy, or experiences compassion: and it is he whose
+groaning petitions for charity do at last rout that Christian
+virtue. Lady Blandish, a charitable soul, could not listen to
+Hippias, though she had a heart for little mice and flies, and Sir
+Austin had also small patience with his brother's gleam of health,
+which was just enough to make his disease visible. He remembered his
+early follies and excesses, and bent his ear to him as one man does
+to another who complains of having to pay a debt legally incurred.
+
+"I think," said Adrian, seeing how the communications of Hippias
+were received, "that when our Nemesis takes lodgings in the
+stomach, it's best to act the Spartan, smile hard, and be silent."
+
+Richard alone was decently kind to Hippias; whether from opposition, or
+real affection, could not be said, as the young man was mysterious. He
+advised his uncle to take exercise, walked with him, cultivated cheerful
+impressions in him, and pointed out innocent pursuits. He made Hippias
+visit with him some of the poor old folk of the village, who bewailed
+the loss of his cousin Austin Wentworth, and did his best to waken him
+up, and give the outer world a stronger hold on him. He succeeded in
+nothing but in winning his uncle's gratitude. The season bloomed scarce
+longer than a week for Hippias, and then began to languish. The poor
+Dyspepsy's eager grasp at beatification relaxed: he went underground
+again. He announced that he felt "spongy things"--one of the more
+constant throes of his malady. His bitter face recurred: he chewed the
+cud of horrid hallucinations. He told Richard he must give up going
+about with him: people telling of their ailments made him so
+uncomfortable--the birds were so noisy, pairing--the rude bare soil
+sickened him.
+
+Richard treated him with a gravity equal to his father's. He asked
+what the doctors said.
+
+"Oh! the doctors!" cried Hippias with vehement scepticism. "No man
+of sense believes in medicine for chronic disorder. Do you happen to
+have heard of any new remedy then, Richard? No? They advertise a
+great many cures for indigestion, I assure you, my dear boy. I
+wonder whether one can rely upon the authenticity of those
+signatures? I see no reason why there should be _no_ cure for such a
+disease?--Eh? And it's just one of the things a quack, as they call
+them, would hit upon sooner than one who is in the beaten track. Do
+you know, Richard, my dear boy, I've often thought that if we could
+by any means appropriate to our use some of the extraordinary
+digestive power that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices,
+there is really no manner of reason why we should not comfortably
+dispose of as much of an ox as our stomachs will hold, and one might
+eat French dishes without the wretchedness of thinking what's to
+follow. And this makes me think that those fellows _may_, after all,
+have got some truth in them: some secret that, of course, they
+require to be paid for. We distrust each other in this world too
+much, Richard. I've felt inclined once or twice--but it's
+absurd!--If it only alleviated a few of my sufferings _I_ should be
+satisfied. I've no hesitation in saying that I should be quite
+satisfied if it only did away with one or two, and left me free to
+eat and drink as other people do. Not that I mean to try them. It's
+only a fancy--Eh? What a thing health is, my dear boy! Ah! if I were
+like you! I was in love once!"
+
+"Were you!" said Richard, coolly regarding him.
+
+"I've forgotten what I felt!" Hippias sighed. "You've very much
+improved, my dear boy."
+
+"So people say," quoth Richard.
+
+Hippias looked at him anxiously: "If I go to town and get the
+doctor's opinion, about trying a new course--Eh, Richard? will you
+come with me? I should like your company. We could see London
+together, you know. Enjoy ourselves," and Hippias rubbed his hands.
+
+Richard smiled at the feeble glimmer of enjoyment promised by his
+uncle's eyes, and said he thought it better they should stay where
+they were--an answer that might mean anything. Hippias immediately
+became possessed by the beguiling project. He went to the baronet,
+and put the matter before him, instancing doctors as the object of
+his journey, not quacks, of course; and requesting leave to take
+Richard. Sir Austin was getting uneasy about his son's manner. It
+was not natural. His heart seemed to be frozen: he had no
+confidences: he appeared to have no ambition--to have lost the
+virtues of youth with the poison that had passed out of him. He was
+disposed to try what effect a little travelling might have on him,
+and had himself once or twice hinted to Richard that it would be
+good for him to move about, the young man quietly replying that he
+did not wish to quit Raynham at all, which was too strict a
+fulfilment of his father's original views in educating him there
+entirely. On the day that Hippias made his proposal, Adrian,
+seconded by Lady Blandish, also made one. The sweet Spring season
+stirred in Adrian as well as in others: not to pastoral measures: to
+the joys of the operatic world and bravura glories. He also
+suggested that it would be advisable to carry Richard to town for a
+term, and let him know his position, and some freedom. Sir Austin
+weighed the two proposals. He was pretty certain that Richard's
+passion was consumed, and that the youth was now only under the
+burden of its ashes. He had found against his heart, at the
+Bellingham inn: a great lock of golden hair. He had taken it, and
+the lover, after feeling about for it with faint hands, never asked
+for it. This precious lock (Miss Davenport had thrust it into his
+hand at Belthorpe as Lucy's last gift), what sighs and tears it had
+weathered! The baronet laid it in Richard's sight one day, and
+beheld him take it up, turn it over, and drop it down again calmly,
+as if he were handling any common curiosity. It pacified him on that
+score. The young man's love was dead. Dr. Clifford said rightly: he
+wanted distractions. The baronet determined that Richard should go.
+Hippias and Adrian then pressed their several suits as to which
+should have him. Hippias, when he could forget himself, did not lack
+sense. He observed that Adrian was not at present a proper companion
+for Richard, and would teach him to look on life from the false
+point.
+
+"You don't understand a young philosopher," said the baronet.
+
+"A young philosopher's an old fool!" returned Hippias, not thinking
+that his growl had begotten a phrase.
+
+His brother smiled with gratification, and applauded him loudly:
+"Excellent! worthy of your best days! You're wrong, though, in
+applying it to Adrian. He has never been precocious. All he has done
+has been to bring sound common sense to bear upon what he hears and
+sees. I think, however," the baronet added, "he may want faith in
+the better qualities of men." And this reflection inclined him not
+to let his son be alone with Adrian. He gave Richard his choice, who
+saw which way his father's wishes tended, and decided so to please
+him. Naturally it annoyed Adrian extremely. He said to his chief:
+
+"I suppose you know what you are doing, sir. I don't see that we
+derive any advantage from the family name being made notorious for
+twenty years of obscene suffering, and becoming a byword for our
+constitutional tendency to stomachic distention before we
+fortunately encountered Quackem's Pill. My uncle's tortures have
+been huge, but I would rather society were not intimate with them
+under their several headings." Adrian enumerated some of the most
+abhorrent. "You know him, sir. If he conceives a duty, he will do it
+in the face of every decency--all the more obstinate because the
+conception is rare. If he feels a little brisk the morning after the
+pill, he sends the letter that makes us famous! We go down to
+posterity with heightened characteristics, to say nothing of a
+contemporary celebrity nothing less than our being turned inside-out
+to the rabble. I confess I don't desire to have my machinery made
+bare to them."
+
+Sir Austin assured the wise youth that Hippias had arranged to go to
+Dr. Bairam. He softened Adrian's chagrin by telling him that in
+about two weeks they would follow to London: hinting also at a
+prospective Summer campaign. The day was fixed for Richard to
+depart, and the day came. Madame the Eighteenth Century called him
+to her chamber and put into his hand a fifty-pound note, as her
+contribution toward his pocket-expenses. He did not want it, he
+said, but she told him he was a young man, and would soon make that
+fly when he stood on his own feet. The old lady did not at all
+approve of the System in her heart, and she gave her grand-nephew to
+understand that, should he require more, he knew where to apply, and
+secrets would be kept. His father presented him with a hundred
+pounds--which also Richard said he did not want--he did not care for
+money. "Spend it or not," said the baronet, perfectly secure in him.
+
+Hippias had few injunctions to observe. They were to take up
+quarters at the hotel, Algernon's general run of company at the
+house not being altogether wholesome. The baronet particularly
+forewarned Hippias of the imprudence of attempting to restrict the
+young man's movements, and letting him imagine he was under
+surveillance. Richard having been, as it were, pollarded by
+despotism, was now to grow up straight, and bloom again, in complete
+independence, as far as he could feel. So did the sage decree; and
+we may pause a moment to reflect how wise were his previsions, and
+how successful they must have been, had not Fortune, the great foe
+to human cleverness, turned against him, or he against himself.
+
+The departure took place on a fine March morning. The bird of
+Winter sang from the budding tree; in the blue sky sang the bird of
+Summer. Adrian rode between Richard and Hippias to the Bellingham
+station, and vented his disgust on them after his own humorous
+fashion, because it did not rain and damp their ardour. In the rear
+came Lady Blandish and the baronet, conversing on the calm summit of
+success.
+
+"You have shaped him exactly to resemble yourself," she said,
+pointing with her riding-whip to the grave, stately figure of the
+young man.
+
+"Outwardly, perhaps," he answered, and led to a discussion on Purity
+and Strength, the lady saying that she preferred Purity.
+
+"But you do not," said the baronet. "And there I admire the always true
+instinct of women, that they all worship Strength in whatever form,
+and seem to know it to be the child of heaven; whereas Purity is but a
+characteristic, a garment, and can be spotted--how soon! For there
+are questions in this life with which we must grapple or be lost,
+and when, hunted by that cold eye of intense inner-consciousness, the
+clearest soul becomes a cunning fox, if it have not courage to stand
+and do battle. Strength indicates a boundless nature--like the Maker.
+Strength is a God to you--Purity a toy. A pretty one, and you seem to
+be fond of playing with it," he added, with unaccustomed slyness.
+
+The lady listened, pleased at the sportive malice which showed that
+the constraint on his mind had left him. It was for women to fight
+their fight now; she only took part in it for amusement. This is how
+the ranks of our enemies are thinned; no sooner do poor women put up
+a champion in their midst than she betrays them.
+
+"I see," she said archly, "we are the lovelier vessels; you claim
+the more direct descent. Men are seedlings: Women--slips! Nay, you
+have said so," she cried out at his gestured protestation, laughing.
+
+"But I never printed it."
+
+"Oh! what you speak answers for print with me."
+
+Exquisite Blandish! He could not choose but love her.
+
+"Tell me what are your plans?" she asked. "May a woman know?"
+
+He replied, "I have none or you would share them. I shall study him
+in the world. This indifference must wear off. I shall mark his
+inclinations now, and he shall be what he inclines to. Occupation
+will be his prime safety. His cousin Austin's plan of life appears
+most to his taste, and he can serve the people that way as well as
+in Parliament, should he have no stronger ambition. The clear duty
+of a man of any wealth is to serve the people as he best can. He
+shall go among Austin's set, if he wishes it, though personally I
+find no pleasure in rash imaginations, and undigested schemes built
+upon the mere instinct of principles."
+
+"Look at him now," said the lady. "He seems to care for nothing; not
+even for the beauty of the day."
+
+"Or Adrian's jokes," added the baronet.
+
+Adrian could be seen to be trying zealously to torment a laugh, or a
+confession of irritation, out of his hearers, stretching out his
+chin to one, and to the other, with audible asides. Richard he
+treated as a new instrument of destruction about to be let loose on
+the slumbering metropolis; Hippias as one in an interesting
+condition; and he got so much fun out of the notion of these two
+journeying together, and the mishaps that might occur to them, that
+he esteemed it almost a personal insult for his hearers not to
+laugh. The wise youth's dull life at Raynham had afflicted him with
+many peculiarities of the professional joker.
+
+"Oh! the Spring! the Spring!" he cried, as in scorn of his sallies
+they exchanged their unmeaning remarks on the sweet weather across
+him. "You seem both to be uncommonly excited by the operations of
+turtles, rooks, and daws. Why can't you let them alone?
+
+    'Wind bloweth,
+    Cock croweth,
+      Doodle-doo;
+    Hippy verteth,
+    Ricky sterteth,
+      Sing Cuckoo!'
+
+There's an old native pastoral!--Why don't you write a Spring
+sonnet, Ricky? The asparagus-beds are full of promise, I hear, and
+eke the strawberry. Berries I fancy your Pegasus has a taste for.
+What kind of berry was that I saw some verses of yours about
+once?--amatory verses to some kind of berry--yewberry, blueberry,
+glueberry! Pretty verses, decidedly warm. Lips, eyes, bosom,
+legs--legs? I don't think you gave her any legs. No legs and no
+nose. That appears to be the poetic taste of the day. It shall be
+admitted that you create the very beauties for a chaste people.
+
+    'O might I lie where leans her lute!'
+
+and offend no moral community. That's not a bad image of yours, my
+dear boy:
+
+    'Her shape is like an antelope
+    Upon the Eastern hills.'
+
+But as a candid critic, I would ask you if the likeness can be
+considered correct when you give her no legs? You will see at the
+ballet that you are in error about women at present, Richard. That
+admirable institution which our venerable elders have imported from
+Gallia for the instruction of our gaping youth, will edify and
+astonish you. I assure you I used, from reading THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP,
+to imagine all sorts of things about them, till I was taken there,
+and learnt that they are very like us after all, and then they
+ceased to trouble me. Mystery is the great danger to youth, my son!
+Mystery is woman's redoubtable weapon, O Richard of the Ordeal! I'm
+aware that you've had your lessons in anatomy, but nothing will
+persuade you that an anatomical figure means flesh and blood. You
+can't realize the fact. Do you intend to publish when you're in
+town? It'll be better not to put your name. Having one's name to a
+volume of poems is as bad as to an advertising pill."
+
+"I will send you an early copy, Adrian, when I publish," quoth
+Richard. "Hark at that old blackbird, uncle."
+
+"Yes!" Hippias quavered, looking up from the usual subject of his
+contemplation, and trying to take an interest in him, "fine old
+fellow!"
+
+"What a chuckle he gives out before he flies! Not unlike July
+nightingales. You know that bird I told you of--the blackbird that
+had its mate shot, and used to come to sing to old Dame Bakewell's
+bird from the tree opposite. A rascal knocked it over the day
+before yesterday, and the dame says her bird hasn't sung a note
+since."
+
+"Extraordinary!" Hippias muttered abstractedly. "I remember the
+verses."
+
+"But where's your moral?" interposed the wrathful Adrian. "Where's
+constancy rewarded?
+
+    'The ouzel-cock so black of hue,
+      The orange-tawny bill;
+     The rascal with his aim so true;
+      The Poet's little quill!'
+
+Where's the moral of that? except that all's game to the poet!
+Certainly we have a noble example of the devotedness of the female,
+who for three entire days refuses to make herself heard, on account
+of a defunct male. I suppose that's what Ricky dwells on."
+
+"As you please, my dear Adrian," says Richard, and points out
+larch-buds to his uncle, as they ride by the young green wood.
+
+The wise youth was driven to extremity. Such a lapse from his
+pupil's heroics to this last verge of Arcadian coolness, Adrian
+could not believe in. "Hark at this old blackbird!" he cried, in his
+turn, and pretending to, interpret his fits of song:
+
+"Oh, what a pretty comedy!--Don't we wear the mask well, my
+Fiesco?--Genoa will be our own to-morrow!--Only wait until the train
+has started--jolly! jolly! jolly! We'll be winners yet!
+
+"Not a bad verse--eh, Ricky? my Lucius Junius!"
+
+"You do the blackbird well," said Richard, and looked at him in a
+manner mildly affable.
+
+Adrian shrugged. "You're a young man of wonderful powers," he
+emphatically observed; meaning to say that Richard quite beat him;
+for which opinion Richard gravely thanked him, and with this they
+rode into Bellingham.
+
+There was young Tom Blaize at the station, in his Sunday beaver and
+gala waistcoat and neck-cloth, coming the lord over Tom Bakewell,
+who had preceded his master in charge of the baggage. He likewise
+was bound for London. Richard, as he was dismounting, heard Adrian
+say to the baronet: "The Beast, sir, appears to be going to fetch
+Beauty;" but he paid no heed to the words. Whether young Tom heard
+them or not, Adrian's look took the lord out of him, and he shrunk
+away into obscurity, where the nearest approach to the fashions
+which the tailors of Bellingham could supply to him, sat upon him
+more easily, and he was not stiffened by the eyes of the superiors
+whom he sought to rival. The baronet, Lady Blandish, and Adrian
+remained on horseback, and received Richard's adieux across the
+palings. He shook hands with each of them in the same kindly cold
+way, eliciting from Adrian a marked encomium on his style of doing
+it. The train came up, and Richard stepped after his uncle into one
+of the carriages.
+
+Now surely there will come an age when the presentation of science
+at war with Fortune and the Fates will be deemed the true epic of
+modern life; and the aspect of a scientific humanist who, by dint of
+incessant watchfulness, has maintained a System against those active
+forces, cannot be reckoned less than sublime, even though at the
+moment he but sit upon his horse, on a fine March morning such as
+this, and smile wistfully to behold the son of his heart, his System
+incarnate, wave a serene adieu to tutelage, neither too eager nor
+morbidly unwilling to try his luck alone for a term of two weeks. At
+present, I am aware, an audience impatient for blood and glory
+scorns the stress I am putting on incidents so minute, a picture so
+little imposing. An audience will come to whom it will be given to
+see the elementary machinery at work: who, as it were, from some
+slight hint of the straws, will feel the winds of March when they do
+not blow. To them will nothing be trivial, seeing that they will
+have in their eyes the invisible conflict going on around us, whose
+features a nod, a smile, a laugh of ours perpetually changes. And
+they will perceive, moreover, that in real life all hangs together:
+the train is laid in the lifting of an eyebrow, that bursts upon the
+field of thousands. They will see the links of things as they pass,
+and wonder not, as foolish people now do, that this great matter
+came out of that small one.
+
+Such an audience, then, will participate in the baronet's
+gratification at his son's demeanour, wherein he noted the calm
+bearing of experience not gained in the usual wanton way: and will
+not be without some excited apprehension at his twinge of
+astonishment, when, just as the train went sliding into swiftness,
+he beheld the grave, cold, self-possessed young man throw himself
+back in the carriage violently laughing. Science was at a loss to
+account for that. Sir Austin checked his mind from inquiring, that
+he might keep suspicion at a distance, but he thought it odd, and
+the jarring sensation that ran along his nerves at the sight,
+remained with him as he rode home.
+
+Lady Blandish's tender womanly intuition bade her say: "You see it
+was the very thing he wanted. He has got his natural spirits
+already."
+
+"It was," Adrian put in his word, "the exact thing he wanted. His
+spirits have returned miraculously."
+
+"Something amused him," said the baronet, with an eye on the puffing
+train.
+
+"Probably something his uncle said or did," Lady Blandish suggested,
+and led off at a gallop.
+
+Her conjecture chanced to be quite correct. The cause for Richard's
+laughter was simple enough. Hippias, on finding the carriage-door
+closed on him, became all at once aware of the bright-haired hope
+which dwells in Change, for one who does not woo her too frequently;
+and to express his sudden relief from mental despondency at the
+amorous prospect, the Dyspepsy bent and gave his hands a sharp rub
+between his legs: which unlucky action brought Adrian's pastoral,
+
+    "Hippy verteth,
+       Sing cuckoo!"
+
+in such comic colours before Richard, that a demon of laughter
+seized him.
+
+    "Hippy verteth!"
+
+Every time he glanced at his uncle the song sprang up, and he
+laughed so immoderately that it looked like madness come upon him.
+
+"Why, why, why, what are you laughing at, my dear boy," said
+Hippias, and was provoked by the contagious exercise to a modest
+"ha! ha!"
+
+"Why, what are _you_ laughing at, uncle?" cried Richard.
+
+"I really don't know," Hippias chuckled.
+
+"Nor I, uncle! Sing, cuckoo!"
+
+They laughed themselves into the pleasantest mood imaginable.
+Hippias not only came above-ground, he flew about in the very skies,
+_verting_ like any blithe creature of the season. He remembered old
+legal jokes, and anecdotes of Circuit; and Richard laughed at them
+all, but more at him--he was so genial, and childishly fresh, and
+innocently joyful at his own transformation, while a lurking doubt
+in the bottom of his eyes, now and then, that it might not last, and
+that he must go underground again, lent him a look of pathos and
+humour which tickled his youthful companion irresistibly, and made
+his heart warm to him.
+
+"I tell you what, uncle," said Richard, "I think travelling's a
+capital thing."
+
+"The best thing in the world, my dear boy," Hippias returned. "It
+makes me wish I had given up that Work of mine, and tried it before,
+instead of chaining myself to a task. We're quite different beings
+in a minute. I am. Hem! what shall we have for dinner?"
+
+"Leave that to me, uncle. I shall order for you. You know, I intend
+to make you well. How gloriously we go along! I should like to ride
+on a railway every day."
+
+Hippias remarked: "They say it rather injures the digestion."
+
+"Nonsense! see how you'll digest to-night and to-morrow."
+
+"Perhaps I shall do something yet," sighed Hippias, alluding to the
+vast literary fame he had aforetime dreamed of. "I hope I shall have
+a good night to-night."
+
+"Of course you will! What! after laughing like that?"
+
+"Ugh!" Hippias grunted, "I daresay, Richard, you sleep the moment
+you get into bed!"
+
+"The instant my head's on my pillow, and up the moment I wake.
+Health's everything!"
+
+"Health's everything!" echoed Hippias, from his immense distance.
+
+"And if you'll put yourself in my hands," Richard continued, "you
+shall do just as I do. You shall be well and strong, and sing
+'Jolly!' like Adrian's blackbird. You shall, upon my honour, uncle!"
+
+He specified the hours of devotion to his uncle's recovery--no less
+than twelve a day--that he intended to expend, and his cheery
+robustness almost won his uncle to leap up recklessly and clutch
+health as his own.
+
+"Mind," quoth Hippias, with a half-seduced smile, "mind your dishes
+are not too savoury!"
+
+"Light food and claret! Regular meals and amusement! Lend your heart
+to all, but give it to none!" exclaims young Wisdom, and Hippias
+mutters, "Yes! yes!" and intimates that the origin of his malady lay
+in his not following that maxim earlier.
+
+"Love ruins us, my dear boy," he said, thinking to preach Richard a
+lesson, and Richard boisterously broke out--
+
+    "The love of Monsieur Francatelli,
+    It was the ruin of--_et caetera_."
+
+Hippias blinked, exclaiming, "Really, my dear boy! I never saw you
+so excited."
+
+"It's the railway! It's the fun, uncle!"
+
+"Ah!" Hippias wagged a melancholy head, "you've got the Golden
+Bride! Keep her if you can. That's a pretty fable of your father's.
+I gave him the idea, though. Austin filches a great many of my
+ideas!"
+
+"Here's the idea in verse, uncle--
+
+    'O sunless walkers by the tide!
+    O have you seen the Golden Bride!
+     They say that she is fair beyond
+    All women; faithful, and more fond!'
+
+You know, the young inquirer comes to a group of penitent sinners by
+the brink of a stream. They howl, and answer:
+
+     'Faithful she is, but she forsakes:
+     And fond, yet endless woe she makes:
+     And fair! but with this curse she's cross'd;
+    To know her not till she is lost!'
+
+Then the doleful party march off in single file solemnly, and the
+fabulist pursues--
+
+     'She hath a palace in the West:
+     Bright Hesper lights her to her rest:
+     And him the Morning Star awakes
+     Whom to her charmed arms she takes.
+
+    'So lives he till he sees, alas!
+    The maids of baser metal pass.'
+
+And prodigal of the happiness she lends him, he asks to share it
+with one of them. There is the Silver Maid, and the Copper, and the
+Brassy Maid, and others of them. First, you know, he tries
+Argentine, and finds her only twenty to the pound, and has a worse
+experience with Copperina, till he descends to the scullery; and the
+lower he goes, the less obscure become the features of his Bride of
+Gold, and all her radiance shines forth, my uncle!"
+
+"Verse rather blunts the point. Well, keep to her, now you've got
+her," says Hippias.
+
+"We will, uncle! Look how the farms fly past! Look at the cattle in
+the fields! And how the lines duck, and swim up!
+
+    'She claims the whole, and not the part--
+    The coin of an unused heart!
+    To gain his Golden Bride again,
+    He hunts with melancholy men,'
+
+--and is waked no longer by the Morning Star!"
+
+"Not if he doesn't sleep till an hour before it rises!" Hippias
+interjected. "You don't rhyme badly. But stick to prose. Poetry's a
+Base-metal maid. I'm not sure that any writing's good for the
+digestion. I'm afraid it has spoilt mine."
+
+"Fear nothing, uncle!" laughed Richard. "You shall ride in the park
+with me every day to get an appetite. You and I and the Golden
+Bride. You know that little poem of Sandoe's?
+
+         'She rides in the park on a prancing bay,
+           She and her squires together;
+         Her dark locks gleam from a bonnet of grey,
+           And toss with the tossing feather.
+
+         'Too calmly proud for a glance of pride
+           Is the beautiful face as it passes;
+         The cockneys nod to each other aside,
+           The coxcombs lift their glasses.
+
+         'And throng to her, sigh to her, you that can breach
+           The ice-wall that guards her securely;
+         You have not such bliss, though she smile on you each,
+           As the heart that can image her purely.'
+
+Wasn't Sandoe once a friend of my father's? I suppose they
+quarrelled. He understands the heart. What does he make his 'Humble
+Lover' say?
+
+        'True, Madam, you may think to part
+          Conditions by a glacier-ridge,
+         But Beauty's for the largest heart,
+          And all abysses Love can bridge!'"
+
+Hippias now laughed; grimly, as men laugh at the emptiness of words.
+
+"Largest heart!" he sneered. "What's a 'glacier-ridge'? I've never
+seen one. I can't deny it rhymes with 'bridge.' But don't go
+parading your admiration of that person, Richard. Your father will
+speak to you on the subject when he thinks fit."
+
+"I thought they had quarrelled," said Richard. "What a pity!" and he
+murmured to a pleased ear:
+
+    "Beauty's for the largest heart!"
+
+The flow of their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of
+passengers at a station. Richard examined their faces with pleasure.
+All faces pleased him. Human nature sat tributary at the feet of him
+and his Golden Bride. As he could not well talk his thoughts before
+them, he looked out at the windows, and enjoyed the changing
+landscape, projecting all sorts of delights for his old friend
+Ripton, and musing hazily on the wondrous things he was to do in the
+world; of the great service he was to be to his fellow-creatures. In
+the midst of his reveries he was landed in London. Tom Bakewell
+stood at the carriage door. A glance told Richard that his squire
+had something curious on his mind, and he gave Tom the word to
+speak out. Tom edged his master out of hearing, and began sputtering
+a laugh.
+
+"Dash'd if I can help it, sir!" he said. "That young Tom! He've come
+to town dressed that spicy! and he don't know his way about no more
+than a stag. He's come to fetch somebody from another rail, and he
+don't know how to get there, and he ain't sure about which rail
+'tis. Look at him, Mr. Richard! There he goes."
+
+Young Tom appeared to have the weight of all London on his beaver.
+
+"Who has he come for?" Richard asked.
+
+"Don't you know, sir? You don't like me to mention the name,"
+mumbled Tom, bursting to be perfectly intelligible.
+
+"Is it for her, Tom?"
+
+"Miss Lucy, sir."
+
+Richard turned away, and was seized by Hippias, who begged him to
+get out of the noise and pother, and caught hold of his slack arm to
+bear him into a conveyance; but Richard, by wheeling half to the
+right, or left, always got his face round to the point where young
+Tom was manoeuvring to appear at his ease. Even when they were
+seated in the conveyance, Hippias could not persuade him to drive
+off. He made the excuse that he did not wish to start till there was
+a clear road. At last young Tom cast anchor by a policeman, and,
+doubtless at the official's suggestion, bashfully took seat in a
+cab, and was shot into the whirlpool of London. Richard then angrily
+asked his driver what he was waiting for.
+
+"Are you ill, my boy?" said Hippias. "Where's your colour?"
+
+He laughed oddly, and made a random answer that he hoped the fellow
+would drive fast.
+
+"I hate slow motion after being in the railway," he said.
+
+Hippias assured him there was something the matter with him.
+
+"Nothing, uncle! nothing!" said Richard, looking fiercely candid.
+
+They say, that when the skill and care of men rescue a drowned
+wretch from extinction, and warm the flickering spirit into steady
+flame, such pain it is, the blood forcing its way along the dry
+channels, and the heavily-ticking nerves, and the sullen heart--the
+struggle of life and death in him--grim death relaxing his gripe;
+such pain it is, he cries out no thanks to them that pull him by
+inches from the depths of the dead river. And he who has thought a
+love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the old
+tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of
+forgotten sensations that settle on him; such pain it is, the old
+sweet music reviving through his frame, and the charm of his passion
+fixing him afresh. Still was fair Lucy the one woman to Richard. He
+had forbidden her name but from an instinct of self-defence. Must
+the maids of baser metal dominate him anew, it is in Lucy's shape.
+Thinking of her now so near him--his darling! all her graces, her
+sweetness, her truth; for, despite his bitter blame of her, he knew
+her true--swam in a thousand visions before his eyes; visions
+pathetic, and full of glory, that now wrung his heart, and now
+elated it. As well might a ship attempt to calm the sea, as this
+young man the violent emotion that began to rage in his breast. "I
+shall not see her!" he said to himself exultingly, and at the same
+instant thought, how black was every corner of the earth but that
+one spot where Lucy stood! how utterly cheerless the place he was
+going to! Then he determined to bear it; to live in darkness; there
+was a refuge in the idea of a voluntary martyrdom. "For if I chose I
+could see her--this day within an hour!--I could see her, and touch
+her hand, and, oh, heaven!--But I do not choose." And a great wave
+swelled through him, and was crushed down only to swell again more
+stormily.
+
+Then Tom Bakewell's words recurred to him that young Tom Blaize was
+uncertain where to go for her, and that she might be thrown on this
+Babylon alone. And flying from point to point, it struck him that
+they had known at Raynham of her return, and had sent him to town to
+be out of the way--they had been miserably plotting against him once
+more. "They shall see what right they have to fear me. I'll shame
+them!" was the first turn taken by his wrathful feelings, as he
+resolved to go, and see her safe, and calmly return to his uncle,
+whom he sincerely believed not to be one of the conspirators.
+Nevertheless, after forming that resolve, he sat still, as if there
+was something fatal in the wheels that bore him away from
+it--perhaps because he knew, as some do when passion is lord, that
+his intelligence juggled with him; though none the less keenly did
+he feel his wrongs and suspicions. His Golden Bride was waning fast.
+But when Hippias ejaculated to cheer him: "We shall soon be there!"
+the spell broke. Richard stopped the cab, saying he wanted to speak
+to Tom, and would ride with him the rest of the journey. He knew
+well enough which line of railway his Lucy must come by. He had
+studied every town and station on the line. Before his uncle could
+express more than a mute remonstrance, he jumped out and hailed Tom
+Bakewell, who came behind with the boxes and baggage in a companion
+cab, his head a yard beyond the window to make sure of his ark of
+safety, the vehicle preceding.
+
+"What an extraordinary, impetuous boy it is," said Hippias. "We're
+in the very street!"
+
+Within a minute the stalwart Berry, despatched by the baronet to
+arrange everything for their comfort, had opened the door, and made
+his bow.
+
+"Mr. Richard, sir?--evaporated?" was Berry's modulated inquiry.
+
+"Behind--among the boxes, fool!" Hippias growled, as he received
+Berry's muscular assistance to alight. "Lunch ready--eh!"
+
+"Luncheon was ordered precise at two o'clock, sir--been in
+attendance one quarter of an hour. Heah!" Berry sang out to the
+second cab, which, with its pyramid of luggage, remained stationary
+some thirty paces distant. At his voice the majestic pile
+deliberately turned its back on them, and went off in a contrary
+direction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO
+
+
+On the stroke of the hour when Ripton Thompson was accustomed to
+consult his good watch for practical purposes, and sniff freedom and
+the forthcoming dinner, a burglarious foot entered the clerk's
+office where he sat, and a man of a scowling countenance, who looked
+a villain, and whom he was afraid he knew, slid a letter into his
+hands, nodding that it would be prudent for him to read, and be
+silent. Ripton obeyed in alarm. Apparently the contents of the
+letter relieved his conscience; for he reached down his hat, and
+told Mr. Beazley to inform his father that he had business of
+pressing importance in the West, and should meet him at the station.
+Mr. Beazley zealously waited upon the paternal Thompson without
+delay, and together making their observations from the window, they
+beheld a cab of many boxes, into which Ripton darted and was
+followed by one in groom's dress. It was Saturday, the day when
+Ripton gave up his law-readings, magnanimously to bestow himself
+upon his family, and Mr. Thompson liked to have his son's arm as he
+walked down to the station; but that third glass of Port which
+always stood for his second, and the groom's suggestion of
+aristocratic acquaintances, prevented Mr. Thompson from interfering:
+so Ripton was permitted to depart.
+
+In the cab Ripton made a study of the letter he held. It had the
+preciseness of an imperial mandate.
+
+     "DEAR RIPTON,--You are to get lodgings for a lady immediately.
+     Not a word to a soul. Then come along with Tom.
+
+                                                           R. D. F."
+
+
+
+"Lodgings for a lady!" Ripton meditated aloud: "What sort of
+lodgings? Where am I to get lodgings? Who's the lady?--I say!" he
+addressed the mysterious messenger. "So you're Tom Bakewell, are
+you, Tom?"
+
+Tom grinned his identity.
+
+"Do you remember the rick, Tom? Ha! ha! We got out of that neatly.
+We might all have been transported, though. I could have convicted
+you, Tom, safe! It's no use coming across a practised lawyer. Now
+tell me." Ripton having nourished his powers, commenced his
+examination: "Who's this lady?"
+
+"Better wait till you see Mr. Richard, sir," Tom resumed his scowl
+to reply.
+
+"Ah!" Ripton acquiesced. "Is she young, Tom?"
+
+Tom said she was not old.
+
+"Handsome, Tom?"
+
+"Some might think one thing, some another," Tom said.
+
+"And where does she come from now?" asked Ripton with the friendly
+cheerfulness of a baffled counsellor.
+
+"Comes from the country, sir."
+
+"A friend of the family, I suppose? a relation?"
+
+Ripton left this insinuating query to be answered by a look. Tom's
+face was a dead blank.
+
+"Ah!" Ripton took a breath, and eyed the mask opposite him. "Why,
+you're quite a scholar, Tom! Mr. Richard is well? All right at
+home?"
+
+"Come to town this mornin' with his uncle," said Tom. "All well,
+thank ye, sir."
+
+"Ha!" cried Ripton, more than ever puzzled, "now I see. You all came
+to town to-day, and these are your boxes outside. So, so! But Mr.
+Richard writes for me to get lodgings for a lady. There must be some
+mistake--he wrote in a hurry. He wants lodgings for you all--eh?"
+
+"'M sure I d'n know what he wants," said Tom. "You'd better go by
+the letter, sir."
+
+Ripton re-consulted that document. "'Lodgings for a lady, and then
+come along with Tom. Not a word to a soul.' I say! that looks
+like--but he never cared for _them_. You don't mean to say, Tom,
+he's been running away with anybody?"
+
+Tom fell back upon his first reply: "Better wait till ye see Mr.
+Richard, sir," and Ripton exclaimed: "Hanged if you ain't the
+tightest witness I ever saw! I shouldn't like to have you in a box.
+Some of you country fellows beat any number of cockneys. You do!"
+
+Tom received the compliment stubbornly on his guard, and Ripton, as
+nothing was to be got out of him, set about considering how to
+perform his friend's injunctions; deciding firstly, that a lady
+fresh from the country ought to lodge near the parks, in which
+direction he told the cabman to drive. Thus, unaware of his high
+destiny, Ripton joined the hero, and accepted his character in the
+New Comedy.
+
+It is, nevertheless, true that certain favoured people do have
+beneficent omens to prepare them for their parts when the hero is in
+full career, so that they really may be nerved to meet him; ay, and
+to check him in his course, had they that signal courage. For
+instance, Mrs. Elizabeth Berry, a ripe and wholesome landlady of
+advertised lodgings, on the borders of Kensington, noted, as she sat
+rocking her contemplative person before the parlour fire this very
+March afternoon, a supernatural tendency in that fire to burn _all
+on one side_: which signifies that a wedding approaches the house.
+Why--who shall say? Omens are as impassable as heroes. It may be
+because in these affairs the fire is thought to be all on one side.
+Enough that the omen exists, and spoke its solemn warning to the
+devout woman. Mrs. Berry, in her circle, was known as a certified
+lecturer against the snares of matrimony. Still that was no reason
+why she should not like a wedding. Expectant, therefore, she watched
+the one glowing cheek of Hymen, and with pleasing tremours beheld a
+cab of many boxes draw up by her bit of garden, and a gentleman
+emerge from it in the act of consulting an advertisement paper. The
+gentleman required lodgings for a lady. Lodgings for a lady Mrs.
+Berry could produce, and a very roseate smile for a gentleman; so
+much so that Ripton forgot to ask about the terms, which made the
+landlady in Mrs. Berry leap up to embrace him as the happy man. But
+her experienced woman's eye checked her enthusiasm. He had not the
+air of a bridegroom: he did not seem to have a weight on his chest,
+or an itch to twiddle everything with his fingers. At any rate, he
+was not the bridegroom for whom omens fly abroad. Promising to have
+all ready for the lady within an hour, Mrs. Berry fortified him with
+her card, curtsied him back to his cab, and floated him off on her
+smiles.
+
+The remarkable vehicle which had woven this thread of intrigue
+through London streets, now proceeded sedately to finish its
+operations. Ripton was landed at a hotel in Westminster. Ere he was
+half-way up the stairs, a door opened, and his old comrade in
+adventure rushed down. Richard allowed up time for salutations.
+"Have you done it?" was all he asked. For answer Ripton handed him
+Mrs. Berry's card. Richard took it, and left him standing there.
+Five minutes elapsed, and then Ripton heard the gracious rustle of
+feminine garments above. Richard came a little in advance, leading
+and half supporting a figure in a black-silk mantle and small black
+straw bonnet; young--that was certain, though she held her veil so
+close he could hardly catch the outlines of her face; girlishly
+slender, and sweet and simple in appearance. The hush that came with
+her, and her soft manner of moving, stirred the silly youth to some
+of those ardours that awaken the Knight of Dames in our bosoms. He
+felt that he would have given considerable sums for her to lift her
+veil. He could see that she was trembling--perhaps weeping. It was
+the master of her fate she clung to. They passed him without
+speaking. As she went by, her head passively bent, Ripton had a
+glimpse of noble tresses and a lovely neck; great golden curls hung
+loosely behind, pouring from under her bonnet. She looked a captive
+borne to the sacrifice. What Ripton, after a sight of those curls,
+would have given for her just to lift her veil an instant and strike
+him blind with beauty, was, fortunately for his exchequer, never
+demanded of him. And he had absolutely been composing speeches as he
+came along in the cab! gallant speeches for the lady, and sly
+congratulatory ones for his friend, to be delivered as occasion
+should serve, that both might know him a man of the world, and be at
+their ease. He forgot the smirking immoralities he had revelled in.
+This was clearly serious. Ripton did not require to be told that his
+friend was in love, and meant that life and death business called
+marriage, parents and guardians consenting or not.
+
+Presently Richard returned to him, and said hurriedly, "I want you
+now to go to my uncle at our hotel. Keep him quiet till I come. Say
+I had to see you--say anything. I shall be there by the dinner hour.
+Rip! I must talk to you alone after dinner."
+
+Ripton feebly attempted to reply that he was due at home. He was
+very curious to hear the plot of the New Comedy; and besides, there
+was Richard's face questioning him sternly and confidently for signs
+of unhesitating obedience. He finished his grimaces by asking the
+name and direction of the hotel. Richard pressed his hand. It is
+much to obtain even that recognition of our devotion from the hero.
+
+Tom Bakewell also received his priming, and, to judge by his
+chuckles and grins, rather appeared to enjoy the work cut out for
+him. In a few minutes they had driven to their separate
+destinations; Ripton was left to the unusual exercise of his fancy.
+Such is the nature of youth and its thirst for romance, that only to
+act as a subordinate is pleasant. When one unfurls the standard of
+defiance to parents and guardians, he may be sure of raising a
+lawless troop of adolescent ruffians, born rebels, to any amount.
+The beardless crew know that they have not a chance of pay; but what
+of that when the rosy prospect of thwarting their elders is in view?
+Though it is to see another eat the Forbidden Fruit, they will run
+all his risks with him. Gaily Ripton took rank as lieutenant in the
+enterprise, and the moment his heart had sworn the oaths, he was
+rewarded by an exquisite sense of the charms of existence. London
+streets wore a sly laugh to him. He walked with a dandified heel.
+The generous youth ogled aristocratic carriages, and glanced
+intimately at the ladies, overflowingly happy. The crossing-sweepers
+blessed him. He hummed lively tunes, he turned over old jokes in his
+mouth unctuously, he hugged himself, he had a mind to dance down
+Piccadilly, and all because a friend of his was running away with a
+pretty girl, and he was in the secret.
+
+It was only when he stood on the door-step of Richard's hotel, that
+his jocund mood was a little dashed by remembering that he had then
+to commence the duties of his office, and must fabricate a plausible
+story to account for what he knew nothing about--a part that the
+greatest of sages would find it difficult to perform. The young,
+however, whom sages well may envy, seldom fail in lifting their
+inventive faculties to the level of their spirits, and two minutes
+of Hippias's angry complaints against the friend he serenely
+inquired for, gave Ripton his cue.
+
+"We're in the very street--within a stone's-throw of the house, and
+he jumps like a harlequin out of my cab into another; he must be
+mad--that boy's got madness in him!--and carries off all the
+boxes--my dinner-pills, too! and keeps away the whole of the day,
+though he promised to go to the doctor, and had a dozen engagements
+with me," said Hippias, venting an enraged snarl to sum up his
+grievances.
+
+Ripton at once told him that the doctor was not at home.
+
+"Why, you don't mean to say he's been to the doctor?" Hippias cried
+out.
+
+"He has called on him twice, sir," said Ripton, expressively. "On
+leaving me he was going a third time. I shouldn't wonder that's what
+detains him--he's so determined."
+
+By fine degrees Ripton ventured to grow circumstantial, saying that
+Richard's case was urgent and required immediate medical advice; and
+that both he and his father were of opinion Richard should not lose
+an hour in obtaining it.
+
+"He's alarmed about himself," said Ripton, and tapped his chest.
+
+Hippias protested he had never heard a word from his nephew of any
+physical affliction.
+
+"He was afraid of making you anxious, I think, sir."
+
+Algernon Feverel and Richard came in while he was hammering at the
+alphabet to recollect the first letter of the doctor's name. They
+had met in the hall below, and were laughing heartily as they
+entered the room. Ripton jumped up to get the initiative.
+
+"Have you seen the doctor?" he asked, significantly plucking at
+Richard's fingers.
+
+Richard was all abroad at the question.
+
+Algernon clapped him on the back. "What the deuce do you want with
+doctor, boy?"
+
+The solid thump awakened him to see matters as they were. "Oh, ay!
+the doctor!" he said, smiling frankly at his lieutenant. "Why, he
+tells me he'd back me to do Milo's trick in a week from the present
+day.--Uncle," he came forward to Hippias, "I hope you'll excuse me
+for running off as I did. I was in a hurry. I left something at the
+railway. This stupid Rip thinks I went to the doctor about myself.
+The fact was, I wanted to fetch the doctor to see you here--so that
+you might have no trouble, you know. You can't bear the sight of his
+instruments and skeletons--I've heard you say so. You said it set
+all your marrow in revolt--'fried your marrow,' I think were the
+words, and made you see twenty thousand different ways of sliding
+down to the chambers of the Grim King. Don't you remember?"
+
+Hippias emphatically did not remember, and he did not believe the
+story. Irritation at the mad ravishment of his pill-box rendered him
+incredulous. As he had no means of confuting his nephew, all he
+could do safely to express his disbelief in him, was to utter
+petulant remarks on his powerlessness to appear at the dinner-table
+that day: upon which--Berry just then trumpeting dinner--Algernon
+seized one arm of the Dyspepsy, and Richard another, and the
+laughing couple bore him into the room where dinner was laid, Ripton
+sniggering in the rear, the really happy man of the party.
+
+They had fun at the dinner-table. Richard would have it; and his
+gaiety, his by-play, his princely superiority to truth and heroic
+promise of over-riding all our laws, his handsome face, the lord and
+possessor of beauty that he looked, as it were a star shining on his
+forehead, gained the old complete mastery over Ripton, who had been,
+mentally at least, half patronizing him till then, because he knew
+more of London and life, and was aware that his friend now depended
+upon him almost entirely.
+
+After a second circle of the claret, the hero caught his
+lieutenant's eye across the table, and said:
+
+"We must go out and talk over that law-business, Rip, before you go.
+Do you think the old lady has any chance?"
+
+"Not a bit!" said Ripton, authoritatively.
+
+"But it's worth fighting--eh, Rip?"
+
+"Oh, certainly!" was Ripton's mature opinion.
+
+Richard observed that Ripton's father seemed doubtful. Ripton cited
+his father's habitual caution. Richard made a playful remark on the
+necessity of sometimes acting in opposition to fathers. Ripton
+agreed to it--in certain cases.
+
+"Yes, yes! in certain cases," said Richard.
+
+"Pretty legal morality, gentlemen!" Algernon interjected; Hippias
+adding: "And lay, too!"
+
+The pair of uncles listened further to the fictitious dialogue, well
+kept up on both sides, and in the end desired a statement of the old
+lady's garrulous case; Hippias offering to decide what her chances
+were in law, and Algernon to give a common-sense judgment.
+
+"Rip will tell you," said Richard, deferentially signalling the
+lawyer. "I've a bad hand at these matters. Tell them how it stands,
+Rip."
+
+Ripton disguised his excessive uneasiness under endeavours to right
+his position on his chair, and, inwardly praying speed to the claret
+jug to come and strengthen his wits, began with a careless aspect:
+"Oh, nothing! She--very curious old character! She--a--wears a wig.
+She--a--very curious old character indeed! She--a--quite the old
+style. There's no doing anything with her!" and Ripton took a long
+breath to relieve himself after his elaborate fiction.
+
+"So it appears," Hippias commented, and Algernon asked: "Well? and
+about her wig? Somebody stole it?" while Richard, whose features
+were grim with suppressed laughter, bade the narrator continue.
+
+Ripton lunged for the claret jug. He had got an old lady like an
+oppressive bundle on his brain, and he was as helpless as she was.
+In the pangs of ineffectual authorship his ideas shot at her wig,
+and then at her one characteristic of extreme obstinacy, and tore
+back again at her wig, but she would not be animated. The obstinate
+old thing would remain a bundle. Law studies seemed light in
+comparison with this tremendous task of changing an old lady from a
+doll to a human creature. He flung off some claret, perspired
+freely, and, with a mental tribute to the cleverness of those author
+fellows, recommenced: "Oh, nothing! She--Richard knows her better
+than I do--an old lady--somewhere down in Suffolk. I think we had
+better advise her not to proceed. The expenses of litigation are
+enormous! She--I think we had better advise her to stop short, and
+not make any scandal."
+
+"And not make any scandal!" Algernon took him up. "Come, come!
+there's something more than a wig, then?"
+
+Ripton was commanded to proceed, whether she did or no. The luckless
+fictionist looked straight at his pitiless leader, and blurted out
+dubiously, "She--there's a daughter."
+
+"Born with effort!" ejaculated Hippias. "Must give her pause after
+that! and I'll take the opportunity to stretch my length on the
+sofa. Heigho! that's true what Austin says: 'The general prayer
+should be for a full stomach, and the individual for one that works
+well; for on that basis only are we a match for temporal matters,
+and able to contemplate eternal.' Sententious, but true. I gave him
+the idea, though! Take care of your stomachs, boys! and if ever you
+hear of a monument proposed to a scientific cook or gastronomic
+doctor, send in your subscriptions. Or say to him while he lives, Go
+forth, and be a Knight. Ha! They have a good cook at this house. He
+suits me better than ours at Raynham. I almost wish I had brought my
+manuscript to town, I feel so much better. Aha! I didn't expect to
+digest at all without my regular incentive. I think I shall give it
+up.--What do you say to the theatre to-night, boys!"
+
+Richard shouted, "Bravo, uncle!"
+
+"Let Mr. Thompson finish first," said Algernon. "I want to hear the
+conclusion of the story. The old girl has a wig and a daughter. I'll
+swear somebody runs away with one of the two! Fill your glass, Mr.
+Thompson, and forward!"
+
+"So somebody does," Ripton received his impetus. "And they're found
+in town together," he made a fresh jerk. "She--a--that is, the old
+lady--found them in company."
+
+"She finds him with her wig on in company!" said Algernon. "Capital!
+Here's matter for the lawyers!"
+
+"And you advise her not to proceed, under such circumstances of
+aggravation?" Hippias observed, humorously twinkling with his
+stomachic contentment.
+
+"It's the daughter," Ripton sighed, and surrendering to pressure,
+hurried on recklessly, "A runaway match--beautiful girl!--the only
+son of a baronet--married by special licence. A--the point is," he
+now brightened and spoke from his own element, "the point is whether
+the marriage can be annulled, as she's of the Catholic persuasion
+and he's a Protestant, and they're both married under age. That's
+the point."
+
+Having come to the point he breathed extreme relief, and saw things
+more distinctly; not a little amazed at his leader's horrified face.
+
+The two elders were making various absurd inquiries, when Richard
+sent his chair to the floor, crying, "What a muddle you're in, Rip!
+You're mixing half-a-dozen stories together. The old lady I told you
+about was old Dame Bakewell, and the dispute was concerning a
+neighbour of hers who encroached on her garden, and I said I'd pay
+the money to see her righted!"
+
+"Ah," said Ripton, humbly, "I was thinking of the other. Her garden!
+Cabbages don't interest me"----
+
+"Here, come along," Richard beckoned to him savagely. "I'll be back
+in five minutes, uncle," he nodded coolly to either.
+
+The young men left the room. In the hall-passage they met Berry,
+dressed to return to Raynham. Richard dropped a helper to the
+intelligence into his hand, and warned him not to gossip much of
+London. Berry bowed perfect discreetness.
+
+"What on earth induced you to talk about Protestants and Catholics
+marrying, Rip?" said Richard, as soon as they were in the street.
+
+"Why," Ripton answered, "I was so hard pushed for it, 'pon my
+honour, I didn't know what to say. I ain't an author, you know; I
+can't make a story. I was trying to invent a point, and I couldn't
+think of any other, and I thought that was just the point likely to
+make a jolly good dispute. Capital dinners they give at those crack
+hotels. Why did you throw it all upon me? I didn't begin on the old
+lady."
+
+The hero mused, "It's odd! It's impossible you could have known!
+I'll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try you. You fib well at long
+range, but you don't do at close quarters and single combat. You're
+good behind walls, but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what
+you're fit for. You're staunch--that I am certain of. You always
+were. Lead the way to one of the parks--down in that direction. You
+know?--where she is!"
+
+Ripton led the way. His dinner had prepared this young Englishman
+to defy the whole artillery of established morals. With the muffled
+roar of London around them, alone in a dark slope of green, the
+hero, leaning on his henchman, and speaking in a harsh clear
+undertone, delivered his explanations. Doubtless the true heroic
+insignia and point of view will be discerned, albeit in common
+private's uniform.
+
+"They've been plotting against me for a year, Rip! When you see her,
+you'll know what it was to have such a creature taken away from you.
+It nearly killed me. Never mind what she is. She's the most perfect
+and noble creature God ever made! It's not only her beauty--I don't
+care so much about that!--but when you've once seen her, she seems
+to draw music from all the nerves of your body; but she's such an
+angel. I worship her. And her mind's like her face. She's pure gold.
+There, you'll see her to-night.
+
+"Well," he pursued, after inflating Ripton with this rapturous
+prospect, "they got her away, and I recovered. It was Mister
+Adrian's work. What's my father's objection to her? Because of her
+birth? She's educated; her manners are beautiful--full of
+refinement--quick and soft! Can they show me one of their ladies
+like her?--she's the daughter of a naval lieutenant! Because she's a
+Catholic? What has religion to do with"--he pronounced "Love!" a
+little modestly--as it were a blush in his voice.
+
+"Well, when I recovered I thought I did not care for her. It shows
+how we know ourselves! And I cared for nothing. I felt as if I had
+no blood. I tried to imitate my dear Austin. I wish to God he were
+here. I love Austin. He would understand her. He's coming back this
+year, and then--but it'll be too late then.--Well, my father's
+always scheming to make me perfect--he has never spoken to me a word
+about her, but I can see her in his eyes--he wanted to give me a
+change, he said, and asked me to come to town with my uncle Hippy,
+and I consented. It was another plot to get me out of the way! As I
+live, I had no more idea of meeting her than of flying to heaven!"
+
+He lifted his face. "Look at those old elm branches! How they seem
+to mix among the stars!--glittering; fruits of Winter!"
+
+Ripton tipped his comical nose upward, and was in duty bound to say,
+Yes! though he observed no connection between them and the
+narrative.
+
+"Well," the hero went on, "I came to town. There I heard she was
+coming, too--coming home. It must have been fate, Ripton! Heaven
+forgive me! I was angry with her, and I thought I should like to see
+her once--only once--and reproach her for being false--for she never
+wrote to me. And, oh, the dear angel! what she must have
+suffered!--I gave my uncle the slip, and got to the railway she was
+coming by. There was a fellow going to meet her--a farmer's
+son--and, good God! they were going to try and make her marry him! I
+remembered it all then. A servant of the farm had told me. That
+fellow went to the wrong station, I suppose, for we saw nothing of
+him. There she was--not changed a bit!--looking lovelier than ever!
+And when she saw me, I knew in a minute that she must love me till
+death!--You don't know what it is yet, Rip!--Will you believe
+it?--Though I was as sure she loved me and had been true as steel,
+as that I shall see her to-night, I spoke bitterly to her. And she
+bore it meekly--she looked like a saint. I told her there was but
+one hope of life for me--she must prove she was true, and as I give
+up all, so must she. I don't know what I said. The thought of losing
+her made me mad. She tried to plead with me to wait--it was for my
+sake, I know. I pretended, like a miserable hypocrite, that she did
+not love me at all. I think I said shameful things. Oh what noble
+creatures women are! She hardly had strength to move. I took her to
+that place where you found us.--Rip! she went down on her knees to
+me. I never dreamed of anything in life so lovely as she looked
+then. Her eyes were thrown up, bright with a crowd of tears--her
+dark brows bent together, like Pain and Beauty meeting in one; and
+her glorious golden hair swept off her shoulders as she hung forward
+to my hands.--Could I lose such a prize?--If anything could have
+persuaded me, would not that?--I thought of Dante's Madonna--Guido's
+Magdalen.--Is there sin in it? I see none! And if there is, it's all
+mine! I swear she's spotless of a thought of sin. I see her very
+soul! Cease to love her? Who dares ask me? Cease to love her? Why, I
+live on her!--To see her little chin straining up from her throat,
+as she knelt to me!--there was one curl that fell across her
+throat"....
+
+Ripton listened for more. Richard had gone off in a muse at the
+picture.
+
+"Well?" said Ripton, "and how about that young farmer fellow?"
+
+The hero's head was again contemplating the starry branches. His
+lieutenant's question came to him after an interval.
+
+"Young Tom? Why, it's young Tom Blaize--son of our old enemy, Rip! I
+like the old man now. Oh! I saw nothing of the fellow."
+
+"Lord!" cried Ripton, "are we going to get into a mess with Blaizes
+again? I don't like that!"
+
+His commander quietly passed his likes or dislikes.
+
+"But when he goes to the train, and finds she's not there?" Ripton
+suggested.
+
+"I've provided for that. The fool went to the South-east instead of
+the South-west. All warmth, all sweetness, comes with the
+South-west!--I've provided for that, friend Rip. My trusty Tom
+awaits him there, as if by accident. He tells him he has not seen
+her, and advises him to remain in town, and go for her there
+to-morrow, and the day following. Tom has money for the work. Young
+Tom ought to see London, you know, Rip!--like you. We shall gain
+some good clear days. And when old Blaize hears of it--what then? I
+have her! she's mine!--Besides, he won't hear for a week. This Tom
+beats that Tom in cunning, I'll wager. Ha! ha!" the hero burst out
+at a recollection. "What do you think, Rip? My father has some sort
+of System with me, it appears, and when I came to town the time
+before, he took me to some people--the Grandisons--and what do you
+think? one of the daughters is a little girl--a nice little thing
+enough--very funny--and he wants me to wait for her! He hasn't said
+so, but I know it. I know what he means. Nobody understands him but
+me. I know he loves me, and is one of the best of men--but just
+consider!--a _little girl_ who just comes up to my elbow. Isn't it
+ridiculous? Did you ever hear such nonsense?"
+
+Ripton emphasized his opinion that it certainly was foolish.
+
+"No, no! The die's cast!" said Richard. "They've been plotting for a
+year up to this day, and this is what comes of it! If my father
+loves me, he will love her. And if he loves me, he'll forgive my
+acting against his wishes, and see it was the only thing to be done.
+Come! step out! what a time we've been!" and away he went,
+compelling Ripton to the sort of strides a drummer-boy has to take
+beside a column of grenadiers.
+
+Ripton began to wish himself in love, seeing that it endowed a man
+with wind so that he could breathe great sighs, while going at a
+tremendous pace, and experience no sensation of fatigue. The hero
+was communing with the elements, his familiars, and allowed him to
+pant as he pleased. Some keen-eyed Kensington urchins, noticing the
+discrepancy between the pedestrian powers of the two, aimed their
+wit at Mr. Thompson junior's expense. The pace, and nothing but the
+pace, induced Ripton to proclaim that they had gone too far, when
+they discovered that they had overshot the mark by half a mile. In
+the street over which stood love's star, the hero thundered his
+presence at a door, and evoked a flying housemaid, who knew not Mrs.
+Berry. The hero attached significance to the fact that his instincts
+should have betrayed him, for he could have sworn to that house. The
+door being shut he stood in dead silence.
+
+"Haven't you got her card?" Ripton inquired, and heard that it was
+in the custody of the cabman. Neither of them could positively bring
+to mind the number of the house.
+
+"You ought to have chalked it, like that fellow in the Forty
+Thieves," Ripton hazarded a pleasantry which met with no response.
+
+Betrayed by his instincts, the magic slaves of Love! The hero
+heavily descended the steps.
+
+Ripton murmured that they were done for. His commander turned on
+him, and said: "Take all the houses on the opposite side, one after
+another. I'll take these." With a wry face Ripton crossed the road,
+altogether subdued by Richard's native superiority to adverse
+circumstances.
+
+Then were families aroused. Then did mortals dimly guess that
+something portentous was abroad. Then were labourers all day in the
+vineyard, harshly wakened from their evening's nap. Hope and Fear
+stalked the street, as again and again the loud companion summonses
+resounded. Finally Ripton sang out cheerfully. He had Mrs. Berry
+before him, profuse of mellow curtsies.
+
+Richard ran to her and caught her hands: "She's well?--upstairs?"
+
+"Oh, quite well! only a trifle tired with her journey, and
+fluttering-like," Mrs. Berry replied to Ripton alone. The lover had
+flown aloft.
+
+The wise woman sagely ushered Ripton into her own private parlour,
+there to wait till he was wanted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE
+
+
+"In all cases where two have joined to commit an offence, punish one
+of the two lightly," is the dictum of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is possible for young heads to conceive proper plans of action,
+and occasionally, by sheer force of will, to check the wild horses
+that are ever fretting to gallop off with them. But when they have
+given the reins and the whip to another, what are they to do? They
+may go down on their knees, and beg and pray the furious charioteer
+to stop, or moderate his pace. Alas! each fresh thing they do
+redoubles his ardour. There is a power in their troubled beauty
+women learn the use of, and what wonder? They have seen it kindle
+Ilium to flames so often! But ere they grow matronly in the house of
+Menelaus, they weep, and implore, and do not, in truth, know how
+terribly two-edged is their gift of loveliness. They resign
+themselves to an incomprehensible frenzy; pleasant to them, because
+they attribute it to excessive love. And so the very sensible things
+which they can and do say, are vain.
+
+I reckon it absurd to ask them to be quite in earnest. Are not those
+their own horses in yonder team? Certainly, if they were quite in
+earnest, they might soon have my gentleman as sober as a carter. A
+hundred different ways of disenchanting him exist, and Adrian will
+point you out one or two that shall be instantly efficacious. For
+Love, the charioteer, is easily tripped, while honest jog-trot Love
+keeps his legs to the end. Granted dear women are not quite in
+earnest, still the mere words they utter should be put to their good
+account. They do mean them, though their hearts are set the wrong
+way. 'Tis a despairing, pathetic homage to the judgment of the
+majority, in whose faces they are flying. Punish Helen, very young,
+lightly. After a certain age you may select her for special
+chastisement. An innocent with Theseus, with Paris she is an
+advanced incendiary.
+
+The fair young girl was sitting as her lover had left her; trying to
+recall her stunned senses. Her bonnet was unremoved, her hands
+clasped on her knees; dry tears in her eyes. Like a dutiful slave,
+she rose to him. And first he claimed her mouth. There was a speech,
+made up of all the pretty wisdom her wild situation and true love
+could gather, awaiting him there; but his kiss scattered it to
+fragments. She dropped to her seat weeping, and hiding her shamed
+cheeks.
+
+By his silence she divined his thoughts, and took his hand and drew
+it to her lips.
+
+He bent beside her, bidding her look at him.
+
+"Keep your eyes so."
+
+She could not.
+
+"Do you fear me, Lucy?"
+
+A throbbing pressure answered him.
+
+"Do you love me, darling?"
+
+She trembled from head to foot.
+
+"Then why do you turn from me?"
+
+She wept: "O Richard, take me home! take me home!"
+
+"Look at me, Lucy!"
+
+Her head shrank timidly round.
+
+"Keep your eyes on me, darling! Now speak!"
+
+But she could not look and speak too. The lover knew his mastery
+when he had her eyes.
+
+"You wish me to take you home?"
+
+She faltered: "O Richard? it is not too late."
+
+"You regret what you have done for me?"
+
+"Dearest! it is ruin."
+
+"You weep because you have consented to be mine?"
+
+"Not for me! O Richard!"
+
+"For me you weep? Look at me! For me?"
+
+"How will it end! O Richard!"
+
+"You weep for me?"
+
+"Dearest! I would die for you!"
+
+"Would you see me indifferent to everything in the world? Would you
+have me lost? Do you think I will live another day in England
+without you? I have staked all I have on you, Lucy. You have nearly
+killed me once. A second time, and the earth will not be troubled by
+me. You ask me to wait, when they are plotting against us on all
+sides? Darling Lucy! look on me. Fix your fond eyes on me. You ask
+me to wait when here you are given to me--when you have proved my
+faith--when we know we love as none have loved. Give me your eyes!
+Let them tell me I have your heart!"
+
+Where was her wise little speech? How could she match such mighty
+eloquence? She sought to collect a few more of the scattered
+fragments.
+
+"Dearest! your father may be brought to consent by and by, and
+then--oh! if you take me home now"----
+
+The lover stood up. "He who has been arranging that fine scheme to
+disgrace and martyrize you? True, as I live! that's the reason of
+their having you back. Your old servant heard him and your uncle
+discussing it. He!--Lucy! he's a good man, but he must not step in
+between you and me. I say God has given you to me."
+
+He was down by her side again, his arms enfolding her.
+
+She had hoped to fight a better battle than in the morning, and she
+was weaker and softer.
+
+Ah! why should she doubt that his great love was the first law to
+her? Why should she not believe that she would wreck him by
+resisting? And if she suffered, oh sweet to think it was for his
+sake! Sweet to shut out wisdom; accept total blindness, and be led
+by him!
+
+The hag Wisdom annoyed them little further. She rustled her garments
+ominously, and vanished.
+
+"Oh, my own Richard!" the fair girl just breathed.
+
+He whispered, "Call me that name."
+
+She blushed deeply.
+
+"Call me that name," he repeated. "You said it once to-day."
+
+"Dearest!"
+
+"Not that."
+
+"O darling!"
+
+"Not that."
+
+"Husband!"
+
+She was won. The rosy gate from which the word had issued was closed
+with a seal.
+
+Ripton did not enjoy his introduction to the caged bird of beauty
+that night. He received a lesson in the art of pumping from the
+worthy landlady below, up to an hour when she yawned, and he
+blinked, and their common candle wore with dignity the brigand's hat
+of midnight, and cocked a drunken eye at them from under it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+RELATES HOW PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE CONDUCTED UNDER THE APRIL
+OF LOVERS
+
+
+Beauty, of course, is for the hero. Nevertheless, it is not always
+he on whom beauty works its most conquering influence. It is the
+dull commonplace man into whose slow brain she drops like a
+celestial light, and burns lastingly. The poet, for instance, is a
+connoisseur of beauty: to the artist she is a model. These gentlemen
+by much contemplation of her charms wax critical. The days when they
+had hearts being gone, they are haply divided between the blonde and
+the brunette; the aquiline nose and the Proserpine; this shaped eye
+and that. But go about among simple unprofessional fellows, boors,
+dunderheads, and here and there you shall find some barbarous
+intelligence which has had just enough to conceive, and has taken
+Beauty as its Goddess, and knows but one form to worship, in its
+poor stupid fashion, and would perish for her. Nay, more: the man
+would devote all his days to her, though he is dumb as a dog. And,
+indeed, he is Beauty's Dog. Almost every Beauty has her Dog. The
+hero possesses her; the poet proclaims her; the painter puts her
+upon canvas; and the faithful Old Dog follows her: and the end of it
+all is that the faithful Old Dog is her single attendant. Sir Hero
+is revelling in the wars, or in Armida's bowers; Mr. Poet has spied
+a wrinkle; the brush is for the rose in its season. She turns to her
+Old Dog then. She hugs him; and he, who has subsisted on a bone and
+a pat till there he squats decrepit, he turns his grateful old eyes
+up to her, and has not a notion that she is hugging sad memories in
+him: Hero, Poet, Painter, in one scrubby one! Then is she buried,
+and the village hears languid howls, and there is a paragraph in the
+newspapers concerning the extraordinary fidelity of an Old Dog.
+
+Excited by suggestive recollections of Nooredeen and the Fair
+Persian, and the change in the obscure monotony of his life by his
+having quarters in a crack hotel, and living familiarly with
+West-End people--living on the fat of the land (which forms a stout
+portion of an honest youth's romance), Ripton Thompson breakfasted
+next morning with his chief at half-past eight. The meal had been
+fixed overnight for seven, but Ripton slept a great deal more than
+the nightingale, and (to chronicle his exact state) even half-past
+eight rather afflicted his new aristocratic senses and reminded him
+too keenly of law and bondage. He had preferred to breakfast at
+Algernon's hour, who had left word for eleven. Him, however, it was
+Richard's object to avoid, so they fell to, and Ripton no longer
+envied Hippias in bed. Breakfast done, they bequeathed the consoling
+information for Algernon that they were off to hear a popular
+preacher, and departed.
+
+"How happy everybody looks!" said Richard, in the quiet Sunday
+streets.
+
+"Yes--jolly!" said Ripton.
+
+"When I'm--when this is over, I'll see that they are, too--as many
+as I can make happy," said the hero; adding softly: "Her blind was
+down at a quarter to six. I think she slept well!"
+
+"You've been there this morning?" Ripton exclaimed; and an idea of
+what love was dawned upon his dull brain.
+
+"Will she see me, Ricky?"
+
+"Yes. She'll see you to-day. She was tired last night."
+
+"Positively?"
+
+Richard assured him that the privilege would be his.
+
+"Here," he said, coming under some trees in the park, "here's where
+I talked to you last night. What a time it seems! How I hate the
+night!"
+
+On the way, that Richard might have an exalted opinion of him,
+Ripton hinted decorously at a somewhat intimate and mysterious
+acquaintance with the sex. Headings of certain random adventures he
+gave.
+
+"Well!" said his chief, "why not marry her?"
+
+Then was Ripton shocked, and cried, "Oh!" and had a taste of the
+feeling of superiority, destined that day to be crushed utterly.
+
+He was again deposited in Mrs. Berry's charge for a term that caused
+him dismal fears that the Fair Persian still refused to show her
+face, but Richard called out to him, and up Ripton went, unaware of
+the transformation he was to undergo. Hero and Beauty stood together
+to receive him. From the bottom of the stairs he had his vivaciously
+agreeable smile ready for them, and by the time he entered the room
+his cheeks were painfully stiff, and his eyes had strained beyond
+their exact meaning. Lucy, with one hand anchored to her lover,
+welcomed him kindly. He relieved her shyness by looking so extremely
+silly. They sat down, and tried to commence a conversation, but
+Ripton was as little master of his tongue as he was of his eyes.
+After an interval, the Fair Persian having done duty by showing
+herself, was glad to quit the room. Her lord and possessor then
+turned inquiringly to Ripton.
+
+"You don't wonder now, Rip?" he said.
+
+"No, Richard!" Ripton waited to reply with sufficient solemnity,
+"indeed I don't!"
+
+He spoke differently; he looked differently. He had the Old Dog's
+eyes in his head. They watched the door she had passed through; they
+listened for her, as dogs' eyes do. When she came in, bonneted for a
+walk, his agitation was dog-like. When she hung on her lover
+timidly, and went forth, he followed without an idea of envy, or
+anything save the secret raptures the sight of her gave him, which
+are the Old Dog's own. For beneficent Nature requites him. His
+sensations cannot be heroic, but they have a fulness and a wagging
+delight as good in their way. And this capacity for humble
+unaspiring worship has its peculiar guerdon. When Ripton comes to
+think of Miss Random now, what will he think of himself? Let no one
+despise the Old Dog. Through him doth Beauty vindicate her sex.
+
+It did not please Ripton that others should have the bliss of
+beholding her, and as, to his perceptions, everybody did, and
+observed her offensively, and stared, and turned their heads back,
+and interchanged comments on her, and became in a minute madly in
+love with her, he had to smother low growls. They strolled about the
+pleasant gardens of Kensington all the morning, under the young
+chestnut buds, and round the windless waters, talking, and soothing
+the wild excitement of their hearts. If Lucy spoke, Ripton pricked
+up his ears. She, too, made the remark that everybody seemed to look
+happy, and he heard it with thrills of joy. "So everybody is, where
+you are!" he would have wished to say, if he dared, but was
+restrained by fears that his burning eloquence would commit him.
+Ripton knew the people he met twice. It would have been difficult to
+persuade him they were the creatures of accident.
+
+From the Gardens, in contempt of Ripton's frowned protest, Richard
+boldly struck into the park, where solitary carriages were beginning
+to perform the circuit. Here Ripton had some justification for his
+jealous pangs. The young girl's golden locks of hair; her sweet, now
+dreamily sad, face; her gentle graceful figure in the black straight
+dress she wore; a sort of half-conventional air she had--a mark of
+something not of class, that was partly beauty's, partly maiden
+innocence growing conscious, partly remorse at her weakness and dim
+fear of the future it was sowing--did attract the eye-glasses.
+Ripton had to learn that eyes are bearable, but eye-glasses an
+abomination. They fixed a spell upon his courage; for somehow the
+youth had always ranked them as emblems of our nobility, and hearing
+two exquisite eye-glasses, who had been to front and rear several
+times, drawl in gibberish generally imputed to lords, that his
+heroine was a charming little creature, just the size, but had no
+style,--he was abashed; he did not fly at them and tear them. He
+became dejected. Beauty's dog is affected by the eye-glass in a
+manner not unlike the common animal's terror of the human eye.
+
+Richard appeared to hear nothing, or it was homage that he heard. He
+repeated to Lucy Diaper Sandoe's verses--
+
+    "The cockneys nod to each other aside,
+    The coxcombs lift their glasses,"
+
+and projected hiring a horse for her to ride every day in the park,
+and shine among the highest.
+
+They had turned to the West, against the sky glittering through the
+bare trees across the water, and the bright-edged rack. The lover,
+his imagination just then occupied in clothing earthly glories in
+celestial, felt where his senses were sharpest the hand of his
+darling falter, and instinctively looked ahead. His uncle Algernon
+was leisurely jolting towards them on his one sound leg. The
+dismembered Guardsman talked to a friend whose arm supported him,
+and speculated from time to time on the fair ladies driving by. The
+two white faces passed him unobserved. Unfortunately Ripton, coming
+behind, went plump upon the Captain's live toe--or so he pretended,
+crying, "Confound it, Mr. Thompson! you might have chosen the
+other."
+
+The horrible apparition did confound Ripton, who stammered that it
+was extraordinary.
+
+"Not at all," said Algernon. "Everybody makes up to that fellow.
+Instinct, I suppose!"
+
+He had not to ask for his nephew. Richard turned to face the matter.
+
+"Sorry I couldn't wait for you this morning, uncle," he said, with
+the coolness of relationship. "I thought you never walked so far."
+
+His voice was in perfect tone--the heroic mask admirable.
+
+Algernon examined the downcast visage at his side, and contrived to
+allude to the popular preacher. He was instantly introduced to
+Ripton's sister, Miss Thompson.
+
+The Captain bowed, smiling melancholy approval of his nephew's
+choice of a minister. After a few stray remarks, and an affable
+salute to Miss Thompson, he hobbled away, and then the three sealed
+volcanoes breathed, and Lucy's arm ceased to be squeezed quite so
+much up to the heroic pitch.
+
+This incident quickened their steps homeward to the sheltering wings
+of Mrs. Berry. All that passed between them on the subject comprised
+a stammered excuse from Ripton for his conduct, and a good-humoured
+rejoinder from Richard, that he had gained a sister by it: at which
+Ripton ventured to wish aloud Miss Desborough would only think so,
+and a faint smile twitched poor Lucy's lips to please him. She
+hardly had strength to reach her cage. She had none to eat of Mrs.
+Berry's nice little dinner. To be alone, that she might cry and ease
+her heart of its accusing weight of tears, was all she prayed for.
+Kind Mrs. Berry, slipping into her bedroom to take off her things,
+found the fair body in a fevered shudder, and finished by undressing
+her completely and putting her to bed.
+
+"Just an hour's sleep, or so," the mellifluous woman explained the
+case to the two anxious gentlemen. "A quiet sleep and a cup of warm
+tea goes for more than twenty doctors, it do--when there's the
+flutters," she pursued. "I know it by myself. And a good cry
+before-hand's better than the best of medicine."
+
+She nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and retired to her
+softer charge and sweeter babe, reflecting, "Lord! Lord! the three
+of 'em don't make fifty! I'm as old as two and a half of 'em, to say
+the least." Mrs. Berry used her apron, and by virtue of their tender
+years took them all three into her heart.
+
+Left alone, neither of the young men could swallow a morsel.
+
+"Did you see the change come over her?" Richard whispered.
+
+Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity.
+
+The lover flung down his knife and fork: "What could I do? If I had
+said nothing, we should have been suspected. I was obliged to speak.
+And she hates a lie! See! it has struck her down. God forgive me!"
+
+Ripton affected a serene mind: "It was a fright, Richard," he said.
+"That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. Those old women talk in
+that way. You heard what she said. And these old women know. I'll
+tell you what it is. It's this, Richard!--it's because you've got a
+fool for your friend!"
+
+"She regrets it," muttered the lover. "Good God! I think she fears
+me." He dropped his face in his hands.
+
+Ripton went to the window, repeating energetically for his comfort:
+"It's because you've got a fool for your friend!"
+
+Sombre grew the street they had last night aroused. The sun was
+buried alive in cloud. Ripton saw himself no more in the opposite
+window. He watched the deplorable objects passing on the pavement.
+His aristocratic visions had gone like his breakfast. Beauty had
+been struck down by his egregious folly, and there he stood--a
+wretch!
+
+Richard came to him: "Don't mumble on like that, Rip!" he said.
+"Nobody blames you."
+
+"Ah! you're very kind, Richard," interposed the wretch, moved at the
+face of misery he beheld.
+
+"Listen to me, Rip! I shall take her home to-night. Yes! If she's
+happier away from me!--do you think me a brute, Ripton? Rather than
+have her shed a tear, I'd!----I'll take her home to-night!"
+
+Ripton suggested that it was sudden; adding from his larger
+experience, people perhaps might talk.
+
+The lover could not understand what they should talk about, but he
+said: "If I give him who came for her yesterday the clue? If no one
+sees or hears of me, what can they say? O Rip! I'll give her up. I'm
+wrecked for ever! What of that? Yes--let them take her! The world in
+arms should never have torn her from me, but when she cries--Yes!
+all's over. I'll find him at once."
+
+He searched in out-of-the-way corners for the hat of resolve. Ripton
+looked on, wretcheder than ever.
+
+The idea struck him:--"Suppose, Richard, she doesn't want to go?"
+
+It was a moment when, perhaps, one who sided with parents and
+guardians and the old wise world, might have inclined them to pursue
+their righteous wretched course, and have given small Cupid a smack
+and sent him home to his naughty Mother. Alas! (it is THE PILGRIM'S
+SCRIP interjecting) women are the born accomplices of mischief! In
+bustles Mrs. Berry to clear away the refection, and find the two
+knights helmed, and sees, though 'tis dusk, that they wear doubtful
+brows, and guesses bad things for her dear God Hymen in a twinkling.
+
+"Dear! dear!" she exclaimed, "and neither of you eaten a scrap! And
+there's my dear young lady off into the prettiest sleep you ever
+see!"
+
+"Ha?" cried the lover, illuminated.
+
+"Soft as a baby!" Mrs. Berry averred. "I went to look at her this
+very moment, and there's not a bit of trouble in her breath. It come
+and it go like the sweetest regular instrument ever made. The Black
+Ox haven't trod on _her_ foot yet! Most like it was the air of
+London. But only fancy, if you had called in a doctor! Why, I
+shouldn't have let her take any of his quackery. Now, there!"
+
+Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff his hat with
+a curious caution, and peer into its recess, from which, during Mrs.
+Berry's speech, he drew forth a little glove--dropped there by some
+freak of chance.
+
+"Keep me, keep me, now you have me!" sang the little glove, and
+amused the lover with a thousand conceits.
+
+"When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry?" he asked.
+
+"Oh! we mustn't go for disturbing her," said the guileful good
+creature. "Bless ye! let her sleep it out. And if you young
+gentlemen was to take my advice, and go and take a walk for to get a
+appetite--everybody should eat! it's their sacred duty, no matter
+what their feelings be! and I say it who'm no chicken!--I'll
+frickashee this--which is a chicken--against your return. I'm a
+cook, I can assure ye!"
+
+The lover seized her two hands. "You're the best old soul in the
+world!" he cried. Mrs. Berry appeared willing to kiss him. "We won't
+disturb her. Let her sleep. Keep her in bed, Mrs. Berry. Will you?
+And we'll call to inquire after her this evening, and come and see
+her to-morrow. I'm sure you'll be kind to her. There! there!" Mrs.
+Berry was preparing to whimper. "I trust her to you, you see.
+Good-bye, you dear old soul."
+
+He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and went to dine
+with his uncles, happy and hungry.
+
+Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw Mrs. Berry
+into their confidence, telling her (with embellishments) all save
+their names, so that they might enjoy the counsel and assistance of
+that trump of a woman, and yet have nothing to fear from her. Lucy
+was to receive the name of Letitia, Ripton's youngest and
+best-looking sister. The heartless fellow proposed it in cruel
+mockery of an old weakness of hers.
+
+"Letitia!" mused Richard. "I like the name. Both begin with L.
+There's something soft--womanlike--in the L.'s."
+
+Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds on paper. The
+lover roamed through his golden groves. "Lucy Feverel! that sounds
+better! I wonder where Ralph is. I should like to help him. He's in
+love with my cousin Clare. He'll never do anything till he marries.
+No man can. I'm going to do a hundred things when it's over. We
+shall travel first. I want to see the Alps. One doesn't know what
+the earth is till one has seen the Alps. What a delight it will be
+to her! I fancy I see her eyes gazing up at them.
+
+    'And oh, your dear blue eyes, that heavenward glance
+      With kindred beauty, banished humbleness,
+       Past weeping for mortality's distress--
+    Yet from your soul a tear hangs there in trance,
+          And fills, but does not fall;
+          Softly I hear it call
+    At heaven's gate, till Sister Seraphs press
+    To look on you their old love from the skies:
+    Those are the eyes of Seraphs bright on your blue eyes!'
+
+Beautiful! These lines, Rip, were written by a man who was once a
+friend of my father's. I intend to find him and make them friends
+again. You don't care for poetry. It's no use your trying to swallow
+it, Rip!"
+
+"It sounds very nice," said Ripton, modestly shutting his mouth.
+
+"The Alps! Italy! Rome! and then I shall go to the East," the hero
+continued. "She's ready to go anywhere with me, the dear brave
+heart! Oh, the glorious golden East! I dream of the desert. I dream
+I'm chief of an Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on
+our mares, and hurry to the rescue of my darling! And we push the
+spears, and we scatter them, and I come to the tent where she
+crouches, and catch her to my saddle, and away!--Rip! what a life!"
+
+Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it.
+
+"And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin's life, with
+her to help me. First be virtuous, Rip! and then serve your country
+heart and soul. A wise man told me that. I think I shall do
+something."
+
+Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the lover. Now
+life was a narrow ring; now the distances extended, were winged,
+flew illimitably. An hour ago and food was hateful. Now he manfully
+refreshed his nature, and joined in Algernon's encomiums on Miss
+Letitia Thompson.
+
+Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer of the
+hero's band. Lucy awoke from dreams which seemed reality, to the
+reality which was a dream. She awoke calling for some friend,
+"Margaret!" and heard one say, "My name is Bessy Berry, my love! not
+Margaret." Then she asked piteously where she was, and where was
+Margaret, her dear friend, and Mrs. Berry whispered, "Sure you've
+got a dearer!"
+
+"Ah!" sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed by the
+strangeness of her state.
+
+Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted the
+bedclothes quietly.
+
+Her name was breathed.
+
+"Yes, my love?" she said.
+
+"Is he here?"
+
+"He's gone, my dear."
+
+"Gone?--Oh, where?" The young girl started up in disorder.
+
+"Gone, to be back, my love! Ah! that young gentleman!" Mrs. Berry
+chanted: "Not a morsel have he eat; not a drop have he drunk!"
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! why did you not make him?" Lucy wept for the
+famine-struck hero, who was just then feeding mightily.
+
+Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought the darling
+of his heart like to die, was a sheer impossibility for the
+cleverest of women; and on this deep truth Lucy reflected, with her
+eyes wide at the candle. She wanted one to pour her feelings out to.
+She slid her hand from under the bedclothes, and took Mrs. Berry's,
+and kissed it. The good creature required no further avowal of her
+secret, but forthwith leaned her consummate bosom to the pillow, and
+petitioned heaven to bless them both!--Then the little bride was
+alarmed, and wondered how Mrs. Berry could have guessed it.
+
+"Why," said Mrs. Berry, "your love is out of your eyes, and out of
+everything ye do." And the little bride wondered more. She thought
+she had been so very cautious not to betray it. The common woman in
+them made cheer together after their own April fashion. Following
+which Mrs. Berry probed for the sweet particulars of this beautiful
+love-match; but the little bride's lips were locked. She only said
+her lover was above her in station.
+
+"And you're a Catholic, my dear!"
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"And him a Protestant."
+
+"Yes, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"Dear, dear!--And why shouldn't ye be?" she ejaculated, seeing
+sadness return to the bridal babe. "So as you was born, so shall ye
+be! But you'll have to make your arrangements about the children.
+The girls to worship with you, the boys with him. It's the same God,
+my dear! You mustn't blush at it, though you do look so pretty. If
+my young gentleman could see you now!"
+
+"Please, Mrs. Berry!" Lucy murmured.
+
+"Why, he will, you know, my dear!"
+
+"Oh, please, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"And you that can't bear the thoughts of it! Well, I do wish there
+was fathers and mothers on both sides and dockments signed, and
+bridesmaids, and a breakfast! but love is love, and ever will be, in
+spite of them."
+
+She made other and deeper dives into the little heart, but though
+she drew up pearls, they were not of the kind she searched for. The
+one fact that hung as a fruit upon her tree of Love, Lucy had given
+her; she would not, in fealty to her lover, reveal its growth and
+history, however sadly she yearned to pour out all to this dear old
+Mother Confessor.
+
+Her conduct drove Mrs. Berry from the rosy to the autumnal view of
+matrimony, generally heralded by the announcement that it is a
+lottery.
+
+"And when you see your ticket," said Mrs. Berry, "you shan't know
+whether it's a prize or a blank. And, Lord knows! some go on
+thinking it's a prize when it turns on 'em and tears 'em. I'm one of
+the blanks, my dear! I drew a blank in Berry. He was a black Berry
+to me, my dear! Smile away! he truly was, and I a-prizin' him as
+proud as you can conceive! My dear!" Mrs. Berry pressed her hands
+flat on her apron. "We hadn't been a three months man and wife, when
+that man--it wasn't the honeymoon, which some can't say--that
+man--Yes! he kicked me. His wedded wife he kicked! Ah!" she sighed
+to Lucy's large eyes, "I could have borne that. A blow don't touch
+the heart," the poor creature tapped her sensitive side. "I went on
+loving of him, for I'm a soft one. Tall as a Grenadier he is, and
+when out of service grows his moustache. I used to call him my
+body-guardsman--like a Queen! I flattered him like the fools we
+women are. For, take my word for it, my dear, there's nothing here
+below so vain as a man! That I know. But I didn't deserve it.... I'm
+a superior cook.... I did not deserve that noways." Mrs. Berry
+thumped her knee, and accentuated up her climax: "I mended his
+linen. I saw to his adornments--he called his clothes, the bad man!
+I was a servant to him, my dear! and there--it was nine months--nine
+months from the day he swear to protect and cherish and that--nine
+calendar months, and my gentleman is off with another woman! Bone of
+his bone!--pish!" exclaimed Mrs. Berry, reckoning her wrongs over
+vividly. "Here's my ring. A pretty ornament! What do it mean? I'm
+for tearin' it off my finger a dozen times in the day. It's a
+symbol? I call it a tomfoolery for the dead-alive to wear it, that's
+a widow and not a widow, and haven't got a name for what she is in
+any Dixonary. I've looked, my dear, and"--she spread out her
+arms--"Johnson haven't got a name for me!"
+
+At this impressive woe Mrs. Berry's voice quavered into sobs. Lucy
+spoke gentle words to the poor outcast from Johnson. The sorrows of
+Autumn have no warning for April. The little bride, for all her
+tender pity, felt happier when she had heard her landlady's moving
+tale of the wickedness of man, which cast in bright relief the glory
+of that one hero who was hers. Then from a short flight of
+inconceivable bliss, she fell, shot by one on her hundred Argus-eyed
+fears.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! I'm so young! Think of me--only just seventeen!"
+
+Mrs. Berry immediately dried her eyes to radiance. "Young, my dear!
+Nonsense! There's no so much harm in being young, here and there. I
+knew an Irish lady was married at fourteen. Her daughter married
+close over fourteen. She was a grandmother by thirty! When any
+strange man began, she used to ask him what pattern caps
+grandmothers wore. They'd stare! Bless you! the grandmother could
+have married over and over again. It was her daughter's fault, not
+hers, you know."
+
+"She was three years younger," mused Lucy.
+
+"She married beneath her, my dear. Ran off with her father's
+bailiff's son. 'Ah, Berry!' she'd say, 'if I hadn't been foolish, I
+should be my lady now--not Granny!' Her father never forgave
+her--left all his estates out of the family."
+
+"Did her husband always love her?" Lucy preferred to know.
+
+"In his way, my dear, he did," said Mrs. Berry, coming upon her
+matrimonial wisdom. "He couldn't help himself. If he left off, he
+began again. She was so clever, and did make him so comfortable.
+Cook! there wasn't such another cook out of a Alderman's kitchen;
+no, indeed! And she a born lady! That tells ye it's the duty of all
+women! She had her saying--'When the parlour fire gets low, put
+coals on the ketchen fire!' and a good saying it is to treasure.
+Such is man! no use in havin' their hearts if ye don't have their
+stomachs."
+
+Perceiving that she grew abstruse, Mrs. Berry added briskly: "You
+know nothing about that yet, my dear. Only mind me and mark me:
+don't neglect your cookery. Kissing don't last: cookery do!"
+
+Here, with an aphorism worthy a place in THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, she
+broke off to go posseting for her dear invalid. Lucy was quite well;
+very eager to be allowed to rise and be ready when the knock should
+come. Mrs. Berry, in her loving considerateness for the little
+bride, positively commanded her to lie down, and be quiet, and
+submit to be nursed and cherished. For Mrs. Berry well knew that ten
+minutes alone with the hero could only be had while the little bride
+was in that unattainable position.
+
+Thanks to her strategy, as she thought, her object was gained. The
+night did not pass before she learnt, from the hero's own mouth,
+that Mr. Richards, the father of the hero, and a stern lawyer, was
+averse to his union with this young lady he loved, because of a ward
+of his, heiress to an immense property, whom he desired his son to
+espouse; and because his darling Letitia was a Catholic--Letitia,
+the sole daughter of a brave naval officer deceased, and in the
+hands of a savage uncle, who wanted to sacrifice this beauty to a
+brute of a son. Mrs. Berry listened credulously to the emphatic
+narrative, and spoke to the effect that the wickedness of old people
+formed the excuse for the wildness of young ones. The ceremonious
+administration of oaths of secrecy and devotion over, she was
+enrolled in the hero's band, which now numbered three, and entered
+upon the duties with feminine energy, for there are no conspirators
+like women. Ripton's lieutenancy became a sinecure, his rank merely
+titular. He had never been married--he knew nothing about licences,
+except that they must be obtained, and were not difficult--he had
+not an idea that so many days' warning must be given to the
+clergyman of the parish where one of the parties was resident. How
+should he? All his forethought was comprised in the ring, and
+whenever the discussion of arrangements for the great event grew
+particularly hot and important, he would say, with a shrewd nod: "We
+mustn't forget the ring, you know, Mrs. Berry!" and the new member
+was only prevented by natural complacence from shouting: "Oh, drat
+ye! and your ring, too." Mrs. Berry had acted conspicuously in
+fifteen marriages, by banns, and by licence, and to have such an
+obvious requisite dinned in her ears was exasperating. They could
+not have contracted alliance with an auxiliary more invaluable, an
+authority so profound; and they acknowledged it to themselves. The
+hero marched like an automaton at her bidding; Lieutenant Thompson
+was rejoiced to perform services as errand-boy in the enterprise.
+
+"It's in hopes you'll be happier than me, I do it," said the devout
+and charitable Berry. "Marriages is made in heaven, they say; and if
+that's the case, I say they don't take much account of us below!"
+
+Her own woful experiences had been given to the hero in exchange for
+his story of cruel parents.
+
+Richard vowed to her that he would henceforth hold it a duty to hunt
+out the wanderer from wedded bonds, and bring him back bound and
+suppliant.
+
+"Oh, he'll come!" said Mrs. Berry, pursing prophetic wrinkles:
+"he'll come of his own accord. Never anywheres will he meet such a
+cook as Bessy Berry! And he know her value in his heart of hearts.
+And I do believe, when he do come, I shall be opening these arms to
+him again, and not slapping his impidence in the face--I'm that
+soft! I always was--in matrimony, Mr. Richards!"
+
+As when nations are secretly preparing for war, the docks and
+arsenals hammer night and day, and busy contractors measure time by
+inches, and the air hums around for leagues as it were myriads of
+bees, so the house and neighbourhood of the matrimonial soft one
+resounded in the heroic style, and knew little of the changes of
+light decreed by Creation. Mrs. Berry was the general of the hour.
+Down to Doctors' Commons she expedited the hero, instructing him how
+boldly to face the Law, and fib: for that the Law never could resist
+a fib and a bold face. Down the hero went, and proclaimed his
+presence. And lo! the Law danced to him its sedatest lovely
+bear's-dance. Think ye the Law less susceptible to him than flesh
+and blood? With a beautiful confidence it put the few familiar
+questions to him, and nodded to his replies: then stamped the bond,
+and took the fee. It must be an old vagabond at heart that can
+permit the irrevocable to go so cheap, even to a hero. For only mark
+him when he is petitioned by heroes and heroines to undo what he
+does so easily! That small archway of Doctors' Commons seems the eye
+of a needle, through which the lean purse has a way, somehow, of
+slipping more readily than the portly; but once through, all are
+camels alike, the lean purse an especially big camel. Dispensing
+tremendous marriage as it does, the Law can have no conscience.
+
+"I hadn't the slightest difficulty," said the exulting hero.
+
+"Of course not!" returns Mrs. Berry. "It's as easy, if ye're in
+earnest, as buying a plum bun."
+
+Likewise the ambassador of the hero went to claim the promise of the
+Church to be in attendance on a certain spot, on a certain day, and
+there hear oath of eternal fealty, and gird him about with all its
+forces: which the Church, receiving a wink from the Law,
+obsequiously engaged to do, for less than the price of a plum-cake.
+
+Meantime, while craftsmen and skilled women, directed by Mrs. Berry,
+were toiling to deck the day at hand, Raynham and Belthorpe
+slept,--the former soundly; and one day was as another to them.
+Regularly every morning a letter arrived from Richard to his father,
+containing observations on the phenomena of London; remarks (mainly
+cynical) on the speeches and acts of Parliament; and reasons for not
+having yet been able to call on the Grandisons. They were certainly
+rather monotonous and spiritless. The baronet did not complain. That
+cold dutiful tone assured him there was no internal trouble or
+distraction. "The letters of a healthful physique!" he said to Lady
+Blandish, with sure insight. Complacently he sat and smiled, little
+witting that his son's ordeal was imminent, and that his son's
+ordeal was to be his own. Hippias wrote that his nephew was killing
+him by making appointments which he never kept, and altogether
+neglecting him in the most shameless way, so that his ganglionic
+centre was in a ten times worse state than when he left Raynham. He
+wrote very bitterly, but it was hard to feel compassion for his
+offended stomach.
+
+On the other hand, young Tom Blaize was not forthcoming, and had
+despatched no tidings whatever. Farmer Blaize smoked his pipe
+evening after evening, vastly disturbed. London was a large
+place--young Tom might be lost in it, he thought; and young Tom had
+his weaknesses. A wolf at Belthorpe, he was likely to be a sheep in
+London, as yokels have proved. But what had become of Lucy? This
+consideration almost sent Farmer Blaize off to London direct, and
+he would have gone had not his pipe enlightened him. A young fellow
+might play truant and get into a scrape, but a young man and a young
+woman were sure to be heard of, _unless_ they were acting in
+complicity. Why, of course, young Tom had behaved like a man, the
+rascal! and married her outright there, while he had the chance. It
+was a long guess. Still it was the only reasonable way of accounting
+for his extraordinary silence, and therefore the farmer held to it
+that he had done the deed. He argued as modern men do who think the
+hero, the upsetter of ordinary calculations, is gone from us. So,
+after despatching a letter to a friend in town to be on the outlook
+for son Tom, he continued awhile to smoke his pipe, rather elated
+than not, and mused on the shrewd manner he should adopt when Master
+Honeymoon did appear.
+
+Toward the middle of the second week of Richard's absence, Tom
+Bakewell came to Raynham for Cassandra, and privately handed a
+letter to the Eighteenth Century, containing a request for money,
+and a round sum. The Eighteenth Century was as good as her word, and
+gave Tom a letter in return, enclosing a cheque on her bankers,
+amply providing to keep the heroic engine in motion at a moderate
+pace. Tom went back, and Raynham and Lobourne slept and dreamed not
+of the morrow. The System, wedded to Time, slept, and knew not how
+he had been outraged--anticipated by seven pregnant seasons. For
+Time had heard the hero swear to that legalizing instrument, and had
+also registered an oath. Ah me! venerable Hebrew Time! he is
+unforgiving. Half the confusion and fever of the world comes of this
+vendetta he declares against the hapless innocents who have once
+done him a wrong. They cannot escape him. They will never outlive
+it. The father of jokes, he is himself no joke; which it seems the
+business of men to discover.
+
+The days roll round. He is their servant now. Mrs. Berry has a new
+satin gown, a beautiful bonnet, a gold brooch, and sweet gloves,
+presented to her by the hero, wherein to stand by his bride at the
+altar to-morrow; and, instead of being an old wary hen, she is as
+much a chicken as any of the party, such has been the magic of these
+articles. Fathers she sees accepting the facts produced for them by
+their children; a world content to be carved out as it pleases the
+hero.
+
+At last Time brings the bridal eve, and is blest as a benefactor.
+The final arrangements are made; the bridegroom does depart; and
+Mrs. Berry lights the little bride to her bed. Lucy stops on the
+landing where there is an old clock eccentrically correct that
+night. 'Tis the palpitating pause before the gates of her
+transfiguration. Mrs. Berry sees her put her rosy finger on the ONE
+about to strike, and touch all the hours successively till she comes
+to the TWELVE that shall sound "Wife" in her ears on the morrow,
+moving her lips the while, and looking round archly solemn when she
+has done; and that sight so catches at Mrs. Berry's heart that, not
+guessing Time to be the poor child's enemy, she endangers her candle
+by folding Lucy warmly in her arms, whimpering, "Bless you for a
+darling! you innocent lamb! You shall be happy! You shall!"
+
+Old Time gazes grimly ahead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF A COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE OF THE FIRST
+
+
+Although it blew hard when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the passage of
+that river is commonly calm; calm as Acheron. So long as he gets his
+fare, the ferryman does not need to be told whom he carries: he
+pulls with a will, and heroes may be over in half-an-hour. Only when
+they stand on the opposite bank, do they see what a leap they have
+taken. The shores they have relinquished shrink to an infinite
+remoteness. There they have dreamed: here they must act. There lie
+youth and irresolution: here manhood and purpose. They are veritably
+in another land: a moral Acheron divides their life. Their memories
+scarce seem their own! The PHILOSOPHICAL GEOGRAPHY (about to be
+published) observes that each man has, one time or other, a little
+Rubicon--a clear or a foul water to cross. It is asked him: "Wilt
+thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind thee?" And "I will,"
+firmly pronounced, speeds him over. The above-named manuscript
+authority informs us, that by far the greater number of carcases
+rolled by this heroic flood to its sister stream below, are those of
+fellows who have repented their pledge, and have tried to swim back
+to the bank they have blotted out. For though every man of us may be
+a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day's march
+even: and who wonders that Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the
+features of the terrible Universal Fate to him? Fail before her,
+either in heart or in act, and lo, how the alluring loves in her
+visage wither and sicken to what it is modelled on! Be your Rubicon
+big or small, clear or foul, it is the same: you shall not return.
+On--or to Acheron!--I subscribe to that saying of THE PILGRIM'S
+SCRIP:
+
+"The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable: _but
+beware the little knowledge of one's self!_"
+
+Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal. Already
+the mists were stealing over the land he had left: his life was cut
+in two, and he breathed but the air that met his nostrils. His
+father, his father's love, his boyhood and ambition, were shadowy.
+His poetic dreams had taken a living attainable shape. He had a
+distincter impression of the Autumnal Berry and her household than
+of anything at Raynham. And yet the young man loved his father,
+loved his home: and I daresay Caesar loved Rome: but whether he did
+or no, Caesar when he killed the Republic was quite bald, and the
+hero we are dealing with is scarce beginning to feel his despotic
+moustache. Did he know what he was made of? Doubtless, nothing at
+all. But honest passion has an instinct that can be safer than
+conscious wisdom. He was an arrow drawn to the head, flying to the
+bow. His audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not strike him as
+in any way criminal; for he was perfectly sure that the winning and
+securing of Lucy would in the end be boisterously approved of, and
+in that case, were not the means justified? Not that he took trouble
+to argue thus, as older heroes and self-convicting villains are in
+the habit of doing, to deduce a clear conscience. Conscience and
+Lucy went together.
+
+It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the morning sun. One
+of those days when London embraces the prospect of summer, and
+troops forth all its babies. The pavement, the squares, the parks,
+were early alive with the cries of young Britain. Violet and
+primrose girls, and organ boys with military monkeys, and systematic
+bands very determined in tone if not in tune, filled the atmosphere,
+and crowned the blazing procession of omnibuses, freighted with
+business men, Cityward, where a column of reddish brown
+smoke,--blown aloft by the South-west, marked the scene of conflict
+to which these persistent warriors repaired. Richard had seen much
+of early London that morning. His plans were laid. He had taken care
+to ensure his personal liberty against accidents, by leaving his
+hotel and his injured uncle Hippias at sunrise. To-day or to-morrow
+his father was to arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell reported to
+him, was raging in town. Another day and she might be torn from him:
+but to-day this miracle of creation would be his, and then from
+those glittering banks yonder, let them summon him to surrender her
+who dared! The position of things looked so propitious that he
+naturally thought the powers waiting on love conspired in his
+behalf. And she, too--since she must cross this river, she had sworn
+to him to be brave, and do him honour, and wear the true gladness of
+her heart in her face. Without a suspicion of folly in his acts, or
+fear of results, Richard strolled into Kensington Gardens,
+breakfasting on the foreshadow of his great joy, now with a vision
+of his bride, now of the new life opening to him. Mountain masses of
+clouds, rounded in sunlight, swung up the blue. The flowering
+chestnut pavilions overhead rustled and hummed. A sound in his ears
+as of a banner unfolding in the joyful distance lulled him.
+
+He was to meet his bride at the church at a quarter past eleven. His
+watch said a quarter to ten. He strolled on beneath the long-stemmed
+trees toward the well dedicated to a saint obscure. Some people were
+drinking at the well. A florid lady stood by a younger one, who had
+a little silver mug half-way to her mouth, and evinced undisguised
+dislike to the liquor of the salutary saint.
+
+"Drink, child!" said the maturer lady. "That is only your second
+mug. I insist upon your drinking three full ones every morning we're
+in town. Your constitution positively requires iron!"
+
+"But, mama," the other expostulated, "it's so nasty. I shall be
+sick."
+
+"Drink!" was the harsh injunction. "Nothing to the German waters, my
+dear. Here, let me taste." She took the mug and gave it a flying
+kiss. "I declare I think it almost nice--not at all objectionable.
+Pray, taste it," she said to a gentleman standing below them to act
+as cup-bearer.
+
+An unmistakable cis-Rubicon voice replied: "Certainly, if it's good
+fellowship; though I confess I don't think mutual sickness a very
+engaging ceremony."
+
+Can one never escape from one's relatives? Richard ejaculated
+inwardly.
+
+Without a doubt those people were Mrs. Doria, Clare, and Adrian. He
+had them under his eyes.
+
+Clare, peeping up from her constitutional dose to make sure no man
+was near to see the possible consequence of it, was the first to
+perceive him. Her hand dropped.
+
+"Now, pray, drink, and do not fuss!" said Mrs. Doria.
+
+"Mama!" Clare gasped.
+
+Richard came forward and capitulated honourably, since retreat was
+out of the question. Mrs. Doria swam to meet him: "My own boy! My
+dear Richard!" profuse of exclamations. Clare shyly greeted him.
+Adrian kept in the background.
+
+"Why, we were coming for you to-day, Richard," said Mrs. Doria,
+smiling effusion; and rattled on, "We want another cavalier. This is
+delightful! My dear nephew! You have grown from a boy to a man. And
+there's down on his lip! And what brings you here at such an hour in
+the morning? Poetry, I suppose! Here, take my arm, child.--Clare!
+finish that mug and thank your cousin for sparing you the third. I
+always bring her, when we are by a chalybeate, to take the waters
+before breakfast. We have to get up at unearthly hours. Think, my
+dear boy! Mothers are sacrifices! And so you've been alone a
+fortnight with your agreeable uncle! A charming time of it you must
+have had! Poor Hippias! what may be his last nostrum?"
+
+"Nephew!" Adrian stretched his head round to the couple. "Doses of
+nephew taken morning and night fourteen days! And he guarantees that
+it shall destroy an iron constitution in a month."
+
+Richard mechanically shook Adrian's hand as he spoke.
+
+"Quite well, Ricky?"
+
+"Yes: well enough," Richard answered.
+
+"Well?" resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with him, while Clare
+and Adrian followed. "I really never saw you looking so handsome.
+There's something about your face--look at me--you needn't blush.
+You've grown to an Apollo. That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes
+you admirably--and those gloves, and that easy neck-tie. Your style
+is irreproachable, quite a style of your own! And nothing eccentric.
+You have the instinct of dress. Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as
+much as anything else. Boy!--you see, I can't forget old habits. You
+were a boy when I left, and now!--Do you see any change in him,
+Clare?" she turned half round to her daughter.
+
+"Richard is looking very well, mama," said Clare, glancing at him
+under her eyelids.
+
+"I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.--Take my arm, Richard.
+Are you afraid of your aunt? I want to get used to you. Won't it be
+pleasant, our being all in town together in the season? How fresh
+the Opera will be to you! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. You can come
+to the Forey's box when you like. We are staying with the Foreys
+close by here. I think it's a little too far out, you know; but they
+like the neighbourhood. This is what I have always said: Give him
+more liberty! Austin has seen it at last. How do you think Clare
+looking?"
+
+The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed his cousin
+hastily, and praised her looks.
+
+"Pale!" Mrs. Doria sighed.
+
+"Rather pale, aunt."
+
+"Grown very much--don't you think, Richard?"
+
+"Very tall girl indeed, aunt."
+
+"If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard! I'm sure I
+give her all the iron she can swallow, but that pallor still
+continues. I think she does not prosper away from her old
+companion. She was accustomed to look up to you, Richard"----
+
+"Did you get Ralph's letter, aunt?" Richard interrupted her.
+
+"Absurd!" Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. "The nonsense of a boy! Why
+did you undertake to forward such stuff?"
+
+"I'm certain he loves her," said Richard, in a serious way.
+
+The maternal eyes narrowed on him. "Life, my dear Richard, is a game
+of cross-purposes," she observed, dropping her fluency, and was
+rather angered to hear him laugh. He excused himself by saying that
+she spoke so like his father.
+
+"You breakfast with us," she freshened off again. "The Foreys wish
+to see you; the girls are dying to know you. Do you know, you have a
+reputation on account of that"--she crushed an intruding
+adjective--"System you were brought up on. You mustn't mind it. For
+my part, I think you look a credit to it. Don't be bashful with
+young women, mind! As much as you please with the old ones. You know
+how to behave among men. There you have your Drawing-room Guide! I'm
+sure I shall be proud of you. Am I not?"
+
+Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly.
+
+A benevolent idea struck Richard, that he might employ the minutes
+to spare, in pleading the case of poor Ralph; and, as he was drawn
+along, he pulled out his watch to note the precise number of minutes
+he could dedicate to this charitable office.
+
+"Pardon me," said Mrs. Doria. "You want manners, my dear boy. I
+think it never happened to me before that a man consulted his watch
+in my presence."
+
+Richard mildly replied that he had an engagement at a particular
+hour, up to which he was her servant.
+
+"Fiddlededee!" the vivacious lady sang. "Now I've got you, I mean to
+keep you. Oh! I've heard all about you. This ridiculous indifference
+that your father makes so much of! Why, of course, you wanted to see
+the world! A strong, healthy young man shut up all his life in a
+lonely house--no friends, no society, no amusements but those of
+rustics! Of course you were indifferent! Your intelligence and
+superior mind alone saved you from becoming a dissipated country
+boor.--Where are the others?"
+
+Clare and Adrian came up at a quick pace.
+
+"My damozel dropped something," Adrian explained.
+
+Her mother asked what it was.
+
+"Nothing, mama," said Clare, demurely, and they proceeded as before.
+
+Overborne by his aunt's fluency of tongue, and occupied in acute
+calculation of the flying minutes, Richard let many pass before he
+edged in a word for Ralph. When he did, Mrs. Doria stopped him
+immediately.
+
+"I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such rank
+idiotcy."
+
+"It's nothing of the kind, aunt."
+
+"The fancy of a boy."
+
+"He's not a boy. He's half-a-year older than I am!"
+
+"You silly child! The moment you fall in love, you all think
+yourselves men."
+
+"On my honour, aunt! I believe he loves her thoroughly."
+
+"Did he tell you so, child?"
+
+"Men don't speak openly of those things," said Richard.
+
+"Boys do," said Mrs. Doria.
+
+"But listen to me in earnest, aunt. I want you to be kind to Ralph.
+Don't drive him to--You may be sorry for it. Let him--do let him
+write to her, and see her. I believe women are as cruel as men in
+these things."
+
+"I never encourage absurdity, Richard."
+
+"What objection have you to Ralph, aunt?"
+
+"Oh, they're both good families. It's not that absurdity, Richard.
+It will be to his credit to remember that his first fancy wasn't a
+dairymaid." Mrs. Doria pitched her accent tellingly. It did not
+touch her nephew.
+
+"Don't you want Clare ever to marry?" He put the last point of
+reason to her.
+
+Mrs. Doria laughed. "I hope so, child. We must find some comfortable
+old gentleman for her."
+
+"What infamy!" mutters Richard.
+
+"And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her wedding, or eat a
+hearty breakfast--We don't dance at weddings now, and very properly.
+It's a horrid sad business, not to be treated with levity.--Is that
+his regiment?" she said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled
+gardens. "Tush, tush, child; Master Ralph will recover, as--hem!
+others have done. A little headache--you call it heartache--and up
+you rise again, looking better than ever. No doubt, to have a grain
+of sense forced into your brains, you poor dear children! must be
+painful. Girls suffer as much as boys, I assure you. More, for their
+heads are weaker, and their appetites less constant. Do I talk like
+your father now? Whatever makes the boy fidget at his watch so?"
+
+Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently.
+
+"I must go," he said.
+
+His face did not seem good for trifling. Mrs. Doria would trifle in
+spite.
+
+"Listen, Clare! Richard is going. He says he has an engagement. What
+possible engagement can a young man have at eleven o'clock in the
+morning?--unless it's to be married!" Mrs. Doria laughed at the
+ingenuity of her suggestion.
+
+"Is the church handy, Ricky?" said Adrian. "You can still give us
+half-an-hour if it is. The celibate hours strike at Twelve." And he
+also laughed in his fashion.
+
+"Won't you stay with us, Richard?" Clare asked. She blushed timidly,
+and her voice shook.
+
+Something indefinite--a sharp-edged thrill in the tones made the
+burning bridegroom speak gently to her.
+
+"Indeed, I would, Clare; I should like to please you, but I have a
+most imperative appointment--that is, I promised--I must go. I shall
+see you again"----
+
+Mrs. Doria took forcible possession of him. "Now, do come, and don't
+waste words. I insist upon your having some breakfast first, and
+then, if you really must go, you shall. Look! there's the house. At
+least you will accompany your aunt to the door."
+
+Richard conceded this. She little imagined what she required of him.
+Two of his golden minutes melted into nothingness. They were growing
+to be jewels of price, one by one more and more precious as they
+ran, and now so costly-rare--rich as his blood! not to kindest
+relations, dearest friends, could he give another. The die is cast!
+Ferryman! push off.
+
+"Good-bye!" he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as one, and fled.
+
+They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the grounds of the
+house. He looked like resolution on the march. Mrs. Doria, as usual
+with her out of her brother's hearing, began rating the System.
+
+"See what becomes of that nonsensical education! The boy really does
+not know how to behave like a common mortal. He has some paltry
+appointment, or is mad after some ridiculous idea of his own, and
+everything must be sacrificed to it! That's what Austin calls
+concentration of the faculties. I think it's more likely to lead to
+downright insanity than to greatness of any kind. And so I shall
+tell Austin. It's time he should be spoken to seriously about him."
+
+"He's an engine, my dear aunt," said Adrian. "He isn't a boy, or a
+man, but an engine. And he appears to have been at high pressure
+since he came to town--out all day and half the night."
+
+"He's mad!" Mrs. Doria interjected.
+
+"Not at all. Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and carries as open
+an eye ahead of him as the ships before Troy. He's more than a match
+for any of us. He is for me, I confess."
+
+"Then," said Mrs. Doria, "he does astonish me!"
+
+Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the right season,
+which would not be long arriving.
+
+Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the Foreys of their
+hopeful relative's ungracious behaviour. Clare had left them. When
+Mrs. Doria went to her room her daughter was there, gazing down at
+something in her hand, which she guiltily closed.
+
+In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take off her things,
+Clare said she was not hungry. Mrs. Doria lamented the obstinacy of
+a constitution that no quantity of iron could affect, and eclipsed
+the looking-glass, saying: "Take them off here, child, and learn to
+assist yourself."
+
+She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her spreading hair,
+talking of Richard, and his handsome appearance, and extraordinary
+conduct. Clare kept opening and shutting her hand, in an attitude
+half pensive, half-listless. She did not stir to undress. A joyous
+dimple hung in one pale cheek, and she drew long, even breaths.
+
+Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to show, came to
+her daughter.
+
+"Now, really," she said, "you are too helpless, my dear. You cannot
+do a thing without a dozen women at your elbow. What will become of
+you? You will have to marry a millionaire.--What's the matter with
+you, child?"
+
+Clare undid her tight-shut fingers, as if to some attraction of her
+eyes, and displayed a small gold hoop on the palm of a green glove.
+
+"A wedding-ring!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria, inspecting the curiosity
+most daintily.
+
+There on Clare's pale green glove lay a wedding-ring!
+
+Rapid questions as to where, when, how, it was found, beset Clare,
+who replied: "In the Gardens, mama. This morning. When I was walking
+behind Richard."
+
+"Are you sure he did not give it you, Clare?"
+
+"Oh no, mama! he did not give it me!"
+
+"Of course not! only he does such absurd things! I thought,
+perhaps--these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous!" Mrs. Doria had
+an idea that it might have been concerted between the two young
+gentlemen, Richard and Ralph, that the former should present this
+token of hymeneal devotion from the latter to the young lady of his
+love; but a moment's reflection, exonerated boys even from such
+preposterous behaviour.
+
+"Now, I wonder," she speculated on Clare's cold face, "I do wonder
+whether it's lucky to find a wedding-ring. What very quick eyes you
+have, my darling!" Mrs. Doria kissed her. She thought it must be
+lucky, and the circumstance made her feel tender to her child. Her
+child did not move to the kiss.
+
+"Let's see whether it fits," said Mrs. Doria, almost infantine with
+surprise and pleasure.
+
+Clare suffered her glove to be drawn off. The ring slid down her
+long thin finger, and settled comfortably.
+
+"It does!" Mrs. Doria whispered. To find a wedding-ring is open to
+any woman; but to find a wedding-ring that fits may well cause a
+superstitious emotion. Moreover, that it should be found while
+walking in the neighbourhood of the identical youth whom a mother
+has destined for her daughter, gives significance to the gentle
+perturbation of ideas consequent on such a hint from Fortune.
+
+"It really fits!" she pursued. "Now I never pay any attention to the
+nonsense of omens and that kind of thing" (had the ring been a
+horseshoe Mrs. Doria would have picked it up and dragged it
+obediently home), "but this, I must say, is odd--to find a ring that
+fits!--singular! It never happened to me. Sixpence is the most I
+ever discovered, and I have it now. Mind you keep it, Clare--this
+ring. And," she laughed, "offer it to Richard when he comes; say,
+you think he must have dropped it."
+
+The dimple in Clare's cheek quivered.
+
+Mother and daughter had never spoken explicitly of Richard. Mrs.
+Doria, by exquisite management, had contrived to be sure that on one
+side there would be no obstacle to her project of general happiness,
+without, as she thought, compromising her daughter's feelings
+unnecessarily. It could do no harm to an obedient young girl to hear
+that there was no youth in the world like a certain youth. He the
+prince of his generation, she might softly consent, when requested,
+to be his princess; and if never requested (for Mrs. Doria envisaged
+failure), she might easily transfer her softness to squires of lower
+degree. Clare had always been blindly obedient to her mother (Adrian
+called them Mrs. Doria Battledoria and the fair Shuttlecockiana),
+and her mother accepted in this blind obedience the text of her
+entire character. It is difficult for those who think very earnestly
+for their children to know when their children are thinking on their
+own account. The exercise of their volition we construe as revolt.
+Our love does not like to be invalided and deposed from its command,
+and here I think yonder old thrush on the lawn who has just kicked
+the last of her lank offspring out of the nest to go shift for
+itself, much the kinder of the two, though sentimental people do
+shrug their shoulders at these unsentimental acts of the creatures
+who never wander from nature. Now, excess of obedience is, to one
+who manages most exquisitely, as bad as insurrection. Happily Mrs.
+Doria saw nothing in her daughter's manner save a want of iron. Her
+pallor, her lassitude, the tremulous nerves in her face, exhibited
+an imperious requirement of the mineral.
+
+"The reason why men and women are mysterious to us, and prove
+disappointing," we learn from THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "is, that we will
+read them from our own book; just as we are perplexed by reading
+ourselves from theirs."
+
+Mrs. Doria read her daughter from her own book, and she was gay; she
+laughed with Adrian at the breakfast-table, and mock-seriously
+joined in his jocose assertion that Clare was positively and by all
+hymeneal auspices betrothed to the owner of that ring, be he who he
+may, and must, whenever he should choose to come and claim her, give
+her hand to him (for everybody agreed the owner must be masculine,
+as no _woman_ would drop a wedding-ring), and follow him whither he
+listed all the world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called
+Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian threw
+off the first strophe of Clare's fortune in burlesque rhymes, with
+an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt Forey warned her to have her
+dresses in readiness. Her grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at
+bridal presents being expected from grandpapas. This one smelt
+orange-flower, another spoke solemnly of an old shoe. The finding of
+a wedding-ring was celebrated through all the palpitating
+accessories and rosy ceremonies involved by that famous instrument.
+In the midst of the general hilarity, Clare showed her deplorable
+want of iron by bursting into tears.
+
+Did the poor mocked-at heart divine what might be then enacting?
+Perhaps, dimly, as we say: that is, without eyes.
+
+At an altar stand two fair young creatures, ready with their oaths.
+They are asked to fix all time to the moment, and they do so. If
+there is hesitation at the immense undertaking, it is but maidenly.
+She conceives as little mental doubt of the sanity of the act as he.
+Over them hangs a cool young curate in his raiment of office. Behind
+are two apparently lucid people, distinguished from each other by
+sex and age; the foremost a bunch of simmering black satin; under
+her shadow a cock-robin in the dress of a gentleman, big joy
+swelling out his chest, and pert satisfaction cocking his head.
+These be they who stand here in place of parents to the young
+couple. All is well. The service proceeds.
+
+Firmly the bridegroom tells forth his words. This hour of the
+complacent giant at least is his, and that he means to hold him
+bound through the eternities, men may hear. Clearly, and with brave
+modesty, speaks she: no less firmly, though her body trembles: her
+voice just vibrating while the tone travels on, like a smitten vase.
+
+Time hears sentence pronounced on him: the frail hands bind his huge
+limbs and lock the chains. He is used to it: he lets them do as they
+will.
+
+Then comes that period when they are to give their troth to each
+other. The Man with his right hand takes the Woman by her right
+hand: the Woman with her right hand takes the Man by his right
+hand.--Devils dare not laugh at whom Angels crowd to contemplate.
+
+Their hands are joined; their blood flows as one stream. Adam and
+fair Eve front the generations. Are they not lovely? Purer fountains
+of life were never in two bosoms.
+
+And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate doth bid the
+Man to put a ring on the Woman's fourth finger, counting thumb. And
+the Man thrusts his hand into one pocket, and into another, forward
+and back many times: into all his pockets. He remembers that he felt
+for it, and felt it in his waistcoat pocket, when in the Gardens.
+And his hand comes forth empty. And the Man is ghastly to look at!
+
+Yet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh! The curate
+deliberates. The black satin bunch ceases to simmer. He in her
+shadow changes from a beaming cock-robin to an inquisitive sparrow.
+Eyes multiply questions: lips have no reply. Time ominously shakes
+his chain, and in the pause a sound of mockery stings their ears.
+
+Think ye a hero is one to be defeated in his first battle? Look at
+the clock! there are but seven minutes to the stroke of the celibate
+hours: the veteran is surely lifting his two hands to deliver fire,
+and his shot will sunder them in twain so nearly united. All the
+jewellers of London speeding down with sacks full of the nuptial
+circlet cannot save them!
+
+The battle must be won on the field, and what does the hero now? It
+is an inspiration! For who else would dream of such a reserve in
+the rear? None see what he does; only that the black-satin bunch is
+remonstratingly agitated, stormily shaken, and subdued: and as
+though the menacing cloud had opened, and dropped the dear token
+from the skies at his demand, he produces the symbol of their
+consent, and the service proceeds: "With this ring I thee wed."
+
+They are prayed over and blest. For good, or for ill, this deed is
+done. The names are registered; fees fly right and left: they thank,
+and salute, the curate, whose official coolness melts into a smile
+of monastic gallantry: the beadle on the steps waves off a gaping
+world as they issue forth: bridegroom and bridesman recklessly
+scatter gold on him: carriage doors are banged to: the coachmen
+drive off, and the scene closes, everybody happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST
+
+
+And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she would dissolve to
+one of Dian's Virgin Fountains from the clasp of the Sun-God. She
+has nobly preserved the mask imposed by comedies, till the curtain
+has fallen, and now she weeps, streams with tears. Have patience, O
+impetuous young man! It is your profession to be a hero. This poor
+heart is new to it, and her duties involve such wild acts, such
+brigandage, such terrors and tasks, she is quite unnerved. She did
+you honour till now. Bear with her now. She does not cry the cry of
+ordinary maidens in like cases. While the struggle went on her
+tender face was brave; but alas! Omens are against her: she holds an
+ever-present dreadful one on that fatal fourth finger of hers, which
+has coiled itself round her dream of delight, and takes her in its
+clutch like a horrid serpent. And yet she must love it. She dares
+not part from it. She must love and hug it, and feed on its strange
+honey, and all the bliss it gives her casts all the deeper shadow on
+what is to come.
+
+Say: Is it not enough to cause feminine apprehension, for a woman to
+be married in another woman's ring?
+
+You are amazons, ladies, at Saragossa, and a thousand
+citadels--wherever there is strife, and Time is to be taken by the
+throat. Then shall few men match your sublime fury. But what if you
+see a vulture, visible only to yourselves, hovering over the house
+you are gaily led by the torch to inhabit? Will you not crouch and
+be cowards?
+
+As for the hero, in the hour of victory he pays no heed to omens. He
+does his best to win his darling to confidence by caresses. Is she
+not his? Is he not hers? And why, when the battle is won, does she
+weep? Does she regret what she has done?
+
+Oh, never! never! her soft blue eyes assure him, steadfast love seen
+swimming on clear depths of faith in them, through the shower.
+
+He is silenced by her exceeding beauty, and sits perplexed waiting
+for the shower to pass.
+
+Alone with Mrs. Berry, in her bedroom, Lucy gave tongue to her
+distress, and a second character in the comedy changed her face.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry! what has happened! what has happened!"
+
+"My darlin' child!" The bridal Berry gazed at the finger of doleful
+joy. "I'd forgot all about it! And that's what've made me feel so
+queer ever since, then! I've been seemin' as if I wasn't myself
+somehow, without my ring. Dear! dear! what a wilful young gentleman!
+We ain't a match for men in that state--Lord help us!"
+
+Mrs. Berry sat on the edge of a chair: Lucy on the edge of the bed.
+
+"What do you think of it, Mrs. Berry? Is it not terrible?"
+
+"I can't say I should'a liked it myself, my dear," Mrs. Berry
+candidly responded.
+
+"Oh! why, why, why did it happen!" the young bride bent to a flood
+of fresh tears, murmuring that she felt already old--forsaken.
+
+"Haven't you got a comfort in your religion for all accidents?" Mrs.
+Berry inquired.
+
+"None for this. I know it's wrong to cry when I am so happy. I hope
+he will forgive me."
+
+Mrs. Berry vowed her bride was the sweetest, softest, beautifulest
+thing in life.
+
+"I'll cry no more," said Lucy. "Leave me, Mrs. Berry, and come back
+when I ring."
+
+She drew forth a little silver cross, and fell upon her knees to the
+bed. Mrs. Berry left the room tiptoe.
+
+When she was called to return, Lucy was calm and tearless, and
+smiled kindly to her.
+
+"It's over now," she said.
+
+Mrs. Berry sedately looked for her ring to follow.
+
+"He does not wish me to go in to the breakfast you have prepared,
+Mrs. Berry. I begged to be excused. I cannot eat."
+
+Mrs. Berry very much deplored it, as she had laid out a superior
+nuptial breakfast, but with her mind on her ring she nodded
+assentingly.
+
+"We shall not have much packing to do, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"No, my dear. It's pretty well all done."
+
+"We are going to the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"And a very suitable spot ye've chose, my dear!"
+
+"He loves the sea. He wishes to be near it."
+
+"Don't ye cross to-night, if it's anyways rough, my dear. It isn't
+advisable." Mrs. Berry sank her voice to say, "Don't ye be soft and
+give way to him there, or you'll both be repenting it."
+
+Lucy had only been staving off the unpleasantness she had to speak.
+She saw Mrs. Berry's eyes pursuing her ring, and screwed up her
+courage at last.
+
+"Mrs. Berry."
+
+"Yes, my dear."
+
+"Mrs. Berry, you shall have another ring."
+
+"Another, my dear?" Berry did not comprehend. "One's quite enough
+for the objeck," she remarked.
+
+"I mean," Lucy touched her fourth finger, "I cannot part with this."
+She looked straight at Mrs. Berry.
+
+That bewildered creature gazed at her, and at the ring, till she had
+thoroughly exhausted the meaning of the words, and then exclaimed,
+horror-struck: "Deary me, now! you don't say that? You're to be
+married again in your own religion."
+
+The young wife repeated: "I can never part with it."
+
+"But, my dear!" the wretched Berry wrung her hands, divided between
+compassion and a sense of injury. "My dear!" she kept expostulating
+like a mute.
+
+"I know all that you would say, Mrs. Berry. I am very grieved to
+pain you. It is mine now, and must be mine. I cannot give it back."
+
+There she sat, suddenly developed to the most inflexible little
+heroine in the three Kingdoms.
+
+From her first perception of the meaning of the young bride's words,
+Mrs. Berry, a shrewd physiognomist, knew that her case was hopeless,
+unless she treated her as she herself had been treated, and seized
+the ring by force of arms; and that she had not heart for.
+
+"What!" she gasped faintly, "one's own lawful wedding-ring you
+wouldn't give back to a body?"
+
+"Because it is mine, Mrs. Berry. It was yours, but it is mine now.
+You shall have whatever you ask for but that. Pray, forgive me! It
+must be so."
+
+Mrs. Berry rocked on her chair, and sounded her hands together. It
+amazed her that this soft little creature could be thus firm. She
+tried argument.
+
+"Don't ye know, my dear, it's the fatalest thing you're inflictin'
+upon me, reelly! Don't ye know that bein' bereft of one's own lawful
+wedding-ring's the fatalest thing in life, and there's no prosperity
+after it! For what stands in place o' that, when that's gone, my
+dear? And what _could_ ye give me to compensate a body for the loss
+o' that! Don't ye know--Oh, deary me!" The little bride's face was
+so set that poor Berry wailed off in despair.
+
+"I know it," said Lucy. "I know it all. I know what I do to you.
+Dear, dear Mrs. Berry! forgive me! If I parted with my ring I know
+it would be fatal."
+
+So this fair young freebooter took possession of her argument as
+well as her ring.
+
+Berry racked her distracted wits for a further appeal.
+
+"But, my child," she counterargued, "you don't understand. It ain't
+as you think. It ain't a hurt to you now. Not a bit, it ain't. It
+makes no difference now! Any ring does while the wearer's a maid.
+And your Mr. Richard'll find the very ring he intended for ye. And,
+of course, that's the one you'll wear as his wife. It's all the same
+now, my dear. It's no shame to a maid. Now do--now do--there's a
+darlin'!"
+
+Wheedling availed as little as argument.
+
+"Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, "you know what my--he spoke: 'With this
+ring I thee wed.' It was with _this_ ring. Then how could it be with
+another?"
+
+Berry was constrained despondently to acknowledge that was logic.
+
+She hit upon an artful conjecture:
+
+"Won't it be unlucky your wearin' of the ring which served me so?
+Think o' that!"
+
+"It may! it may! it may!" cried Lucy.
+
+"And arn't you rushin' into it, my dear?"
+
+"Mrs. Berry," Lucy said again, "it was this ring. It cannot--it
+never can be another. It was this. What it brings me I must bear. I
+shall wear it till I die!"
+
+"Then what am _I_ to do?" the ill-used woman groaned. "What shall I
+tell my husband when he come back to me, and see I've got a new ring
+waitin' for him? Won't that be a welcome?"
+
+Quoth Lucy: "How can he know it is not the same, in a plain gold
+ring?"
+
+"You never see so keen a eyed man in joolry as my Berry!" returned
+his solitary spouse. "Not know, my dear? Why, any one would know
+that 've got eyes in his head. There's as much difference in
+wedding-rings as there's in wedding people! Now, do pray be
+reasonable, my own sweet!"
+
+"Pray, do not ask me," pleads Lucy.
+
+"Pray, do think better of it," urges Berry.
+
+"Pray, pray, Mrs. Berry!" pleads Lucy.
+
+"--And not leave your old Berry all forlorn just when you're so
+happy!"
+
+"Indeed I would not, you dear, kind old creature!" Lucy faltered.
+
+Mrs. Berry thought she had her.
+
+"Just when you're going to be the happiest wife on earth--all you
+want yours!" she pursued the tender strain. "A handsome young
+gentleman! Love and Fortune smilin' on ye!"----
+
+Lucy rose up.
+
+"Mrs. Berry," she said, "I think we must not lose time in getting
+ready, or he will be impatient."
+
+Poor Berry surveyed her in abject wonder from the edge of her
+chair. Dignity and resolve were in the ductile form she had hitherto
+folded under her wing. In an hour the heroine had risen to the
+measure of the hero. Without being exactly aware what creature she
+was dealing with, Berry acknowledged to herself it was not one of
+the common run, and sighed, and submitted.
+
+"It's like a divorce, that it is!" she sobbed.
+
+After putting the corners of her apron to her eyes, Berry bustled
+humbly about the packing. Then Lucy, whose heart was full to her,
+came and kissed her, and Berry bumped down and regularly cried. This
+over, she had recourse to fatalism.
+
+"I suppose it was to be, my dear! It's my punishment for meddlin'
+wi' such matters. No, I'm not sorry. Bless ye both. Who'd 'a thought
+you was so wilful?--you that any one might have taken for one of the
+silly-softs! You're a pair, my dear! indeed you are! You was made to
+meet! But we mustn't show him we've been crying.--Men don't like it
+when they're happy. Let's wash our faces and try to bear our lot."
+
+So saying the black-satin bunch careened to a renewed deluge. She
+deserved some sympathy, for if it is sad to be married in another
+person's ring, how much sadder to have one's own old accustomed
+lawful ring violently torn off one's finger and eternally severed
+from one! But where you have heroes and heroines, these terrible
+complications ensue.
+
+They had now both fought their battle of the ring, and with equal
+honour and success.
+
+In the chamber of banquet Richard was giving Ripton his last
+directions. Though it was a private wedding, Mrs. Berry had prepared
+a sumptuous breakfast. Chickens offered their breasts: pies hinted
+savoury secrets: things mystic, in a mash, with Gallic appellatives,
+jellies, creams, fruits, strewed the table: as a tower in the midst,
+the cake colossal: the priestly vesture of its nuptial white
+relieved by hymeneal splendours.
+
+Many hours, much labour and anxiety of mind, Mrs. Berry had expended
+upon this breakfast, and why? There is one who comes to all feasts
+that have their basis in Folly, whom criminals of trained instinct
+are careful to provide against: who will speak, and whose hateful
+voice must somehow be silenced while the feast is going on. This
+personage is THE PHILOSOPHER. Mrs. Berry knew him. She knew that he
+would come. She provided against him in the manner she thought most
+efficacious: that is, by cheating her eyes and intoxicating her
+conscience with the due and proper glories incident to weddings
+where fathers dilate, mothers collapse, and marriage settlements are
+flourished on high by the family lawyer: and had there been no show
+of the kind to greet her on her return from the church, she would,
+and she foresaw she would, have stared at squalor and emptiness, and
+repented her work. The Philosopher would have laid hold of her by
+the ear, and called her bad names. Entrenched behind a breakfast-table
+so legitimately adorned, Mrs. Berry defied him. In the presence of
+that cake he dared not speak above a whisper. And there were wines
+to drown him in, should he still think of protesting; fiery wines, and
+cool: claret sent purposely by the bridegroom for the delectation of
+his friend.
+
+For one good hour, therefore, the labour of many hours kept him
+dumb. Ripton was fortifying himself so as to forget him altogether,
+and the word as well, till the next morning. Ripton was excited,
+overdone with delight. He had already finished one bottle, and
+listened, pleasantly flushed, to his emphatic and more abstemious
+chief. He had nothing to do but to listen, and to drink. The hero
+would not allow him to shout Victory! or hear a word of toasts; and
+as, from the quantity of oil poured on it, his eloquence was
+becoming a natural force in his bosom, the poor fellow was afflicted
+with a sort of elephantiasis of suppressed emotion. At times he
+half-rose from his chair, and fell vacuously into it again; or he
+chuckled in the face of weighty, severely-worded instructions;
+tapped his chest, stretched his arms, yawned, and in short behaved
+so singularly that Richard observed it, and said: "On my soul, I
+don't think you know a word I'm saying."
+
+"Every word, Ricky!" Ripton spirted through the opening. "I'm going
+down to your governor, and tell him: Sir Austin! Here's your only
+chance of being a happy father--no, no!--Oh! don't you fear me,
+Ricky! I shall talk the old gentleman over."
+
+His chief said:
+
+"Look here. You had better not go down to-night. Go down the first
+thing to-morrow, by the six o'clock train. Give him my letter.
+Listen to me--give him my letter, and don't speak a word till he
+speaks. His eyebrows will go up and down, he won't say much. I know
+him. If he asks you about her, don't be a fool, but say what you
+think of her sensibly"----
+
+No cork could hold in Ripton when she was alluded to He shouted:
+"She's an angel!"
+
+Richard checked him: "Speak sensibly, I say--quietly. You can say
+how gentle and good she is--my fleur-de-luce! And say, this was not
+her doing. If any one's to blame, it's I. I made her marry me. Then
+go to Lady Blandish, if you don't find her at the house. You may say
+whatever you please to her. Give her my letter, and tell her I want
+to hear from her immediately. She has seen Lucy, and I know what she
+thinks of her. You will then go to Farmer Blaize. I told you Lucy
+happens to be his niece--she has not lived long there. She lived
+with her aunt Desborough in France while she was a child, and can
+hardly be called a relative to the farmer--there's not a point of
+likeness between them. Poor darling! she never knew her mother. Go
+to Mr. Blaize, and tell him. You will treat him just as you would
+treat any other gentleman. If you are civil, he is sure to be. And
+if he abuses me, for my sake and hers you will still treat him with
+respect. You hear? And then write me a full account of all that has
+been said and done. You will have my address the day after
+to-morrow. By the way, Tom will be here this afternoon. Write out
+for him where to call on you the day after to-morrow, in case you
+have heard anything in the morning you think I ought to know at
+once, as Tom will join me that night. Don't mention to anybody about
+my losing the ring, Ripton. I wouldn't have Adrian get hold of that
+for a thousand pounds. How on earth I came to lose it! How well she
+bore it, Rip! How beautifully she behaved!"
+
+Ripton again shouted: "An angel!" Throwing up the heels of his
+second bottle, he said:
+
+"You may trust your friend, Richard. Aha! when you pulled at old
+Mrs. Berry I didn't know what was up. I do wish you'd let me drink
+her health?"
+
+"Here's to Penelope!" said Richard, just wetting his mouth. The
+carriage was at the door: a couple of dire organs, each grinding the
+same tune, and a vulture-scented itinerant band (from which not the
+secretest veiled wedding can escape) worked harmoniously without in
+the production of discord, and the noise acting on his nervous state
+made him begin to fume and send in messages for his bride by the
+maid.
+
+By and by the lovely young bride presented herself dressed for her
+journey, and smiling from stained eyes.
+
+Mrs. Berry was requested to drink some wine, which Ripton poured out
+for her, enabling Mrs. Berry thereby to measure his condition.
+
+The bride now kissed Mrs. Berry, and Mrs. Berry kissed the
+bridegroom, on the plea of her softness. Lucy gave Ripton her hand,
+with a musical "Good-bye, Mr. Thompson," and her extreme
+graciousness made him just sensible enough to sit down before he
+murmured his fervent hopes for her happiness.
+
+"I shall take good care of him," said Mrs. Berry, focussing her eyes
+to the comprehension of the company.
+
+"Farewell, Penelope!" cried Richard. "I shall tell the police
+everywhere to look out for your lord."
+
+"Oh my dears! good-bye, and Heaven bless ye both!"
+
+Berry quavered, touched with compunction at the thoughts of
+approaching loneliness. Ripton, his mouth drawn like a bow to his
+ears, brought up the rear to the carriage, receiving a fair slap on
+the cheek from an old shoe precipitated by Mrs. Berry's enthusiastic
+female domestic.
+
+White handkerchiefs were waved, the adieux had fallen to signs: they
+were off. Then did a thought of such urgency illumine Mrs. Berry,
+that she telegraphed, hand in air, awakening Ripton's lungs, for the
+coachman to stop, and ran back to the house. Richard chafed to be
+gone, but at his bride's intercession he consented to wait.
+Presently they beheld the old black-satin bunch stream through the
+street-door, down the bit of garden, and up the astonished street,
+halting, panting, capless at the carriage door, a book in her
+hand,--a much-used, dog-leaved, steamy, greasy book, which, at the
+same time calling out in breathless jerks, "There! never ye mind
+looks! I ain't got a new one. Read it, and don't ye forget it!" she
+discharged into Lucy's lap, and retreated to the railings, a signal
+for the coachman to drive away for good.
+
+How Richard laughed at the Berry's bridal gift! Lucy, too, lost the
+omen at her heart as she glanced at the title of the volume. It was
+Dr. Kitchener on Domestic Cookery!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON
+
+
+General withdrawing of heads from street-windows, emigration of
+organs and bands, and a relaxed atmosphere in the circle of Mrs.
+Berry's abode, proved that Dan Cupid had veritably flown to suck the
+life of fresh regions. With a pensive mind she grasped Ripton's arm
+to regulate his steps, and returned to the room where her creditor
+awaited her. In the interval he had stormed her undefended fortress,
+the cake, from which altitude he shook a dolorous head at the guilty
+woman. She smoothed her excited apron, sighing. Let no one imagine
+that she regretted her complicity. She was ready to cry torrents,
+but there must be absolute castigation before this criminal shall
+conceive the sense of regret; and probably then she will cling to
+her wickedness the more--such is the born Pagan's tenacity! Mrs.
+Berry sighed, and gave him back his shake of the head. O you wanton,
+improvident creature! said he. O you very wise old gentleman! said
+she. He asked her the thing she had been doing. She enlightened him
+with the fatalist's reply. He sounded a bogey's alarm of contingent
+grave results. She retreated to the entrenched camp of the fact she
+had helped to make.
+
+"It's done!" she exclaimed. How could she regret what she felt
+comfort to know was done? Convinced that events alone could stamp a
+mark on such stubborn flesh, he determined to wait for them, and
+crouched silent on the cake, with one finger downward at Ripton's
+incision there, showing a crumbling chasm and gloomy rich recess.
+
+The eloquent indication was understood. "Dear! dear!" cried Mrs.
+Berry, "what a heap o' cake, and no one to send it to!"
+
+Ripton had resumed his seat by the table and his embrace of the
+claret. Clear ideas of satisfaction had left him and resolved to a
+boiling geysir of indistinguishable transports. He bubbled, and
+waggled, and nodded amicably to nothing, and successfully, though
+not without effort, preserved his uppermost member from the
+seductions of the nymph, Gravitation, who was on the look-out for
+his whole length shortly.
+
+"Ha! ha!" he shouted, about a minute after Mrs. Berry had spoken,
+and almost abandoned himself to the nymph on the spot. Mrs. Berry's
+words had just reached his wits.
+
+"Why do you laugh, young man?" she inquired, familiar and motherly
+on account of his condition.
+
+Ripton laughed louder, and caught his chest on the edge of the table
+and his nose on a chicken. "That's goo'!" he said, recovering, and
+rocking under Mrs. Berry's eyes. "No friend!"
+
+"I did not say, no friend," she remarked. "I said, no one; meanin',
+I know not where for to send it to."
+
+Ripton's response to this was: "You put a Griffin on that cake.
+Wheatsheaves each side."
+
+"His crest?" Mrs. Berry said sweetly.
+
+"Oldest baronetcy 'n England!" waved Ripton.
+
+"Yes?" Mrs. Berry encouraged him on.
+
+"You think he's Richards. We're oblige' be very close. And she's the
+most lovely!--If I hear man say thing 'gainst her."
+
+"You needn't for to cry over her, young man," said Mrs. Berry. "I
+wanted for to drink their right healths by their right names, and
+then go about my day's work, and I do hope you won't keep me."
+
+Ripton stood bolt upright at her words.
+
+"You do?" he said, and filling a bumper he with cheerfully vinous
+articulation and glibness of tongue proposed the health of Richard
+and Lucy Feverel, of Raynham Abbey! and that mankind should not
+require an expeditious example of the way to accept the inspiring
+toast, he drained his bumper at a gulp. It finished him. The
+farthing rushlight of his reason leapt and expired. He tumbled to
+the sofa and there stretched.
+
+Some minutes subsequent to Ripton's signalization of his devotion to
+the bridal pair, Mrs. Berry's maid entered the room to say that a
+gentleman was inquiring below after the young gentleman who had
+departed, and found her mistress with a tottering wineglass in her
+hand, exhibiting every symptom of unconsoled hysterics. Her mouth
+gaped, as if the fell creditor had her by the swallow. She
+ejaculated with horrible exultation that she had been and done it,
+as her disastrous aspect seemed to testify, and her evident, but
+inexplicable, access of misery induced the sympathetic maid to
+tender those caressing words that were all Mrs. Berry wanted to go
+off into the self-caressing fit without delay; and she had already
+given the preluding demoniac ironic outburst, when the maid called
+heaven to witness that the gentleman would hear her; upon which Mrs.
+Berry violently controlled her bosom, and ordered that he should be
+shown upstairs instantly to see her the wretch she was. She repeated
+the injunction.
+
+The maid did as she was told, and Mrs. Berry, wishing first to see
+herself as she was, mutely accosted the looking-glass, and tried to
+look a very little better. She dropped a shawl on Ripton and was
+settled, smoothing her agitation when her visitor was announced.
+
+The gentleman was Adrian Harley. An interview with Tom Bakewell had
+put him on the track, and now a momentary survey of the table, and
+its white-vestured cake, made him whistle.
+
+Mrs. Berry plaintively begged him to do her the favour to be seated.
+
+"A fine morning, ma'am," said Adrian.
+
+"It have been!" Mrs. Berry answered, glancing over her shoulder at
+the window, and gulping as if to get her heart down from her mouth.
+
+"A very fine Spring," pursued Adrian, calmly anatomizing her
+countenance.
+
+Mrs. Berry smothered an adjective to "weather" on a deep sigh. Her
+wretchedness was palpable. In proportion to it, Adrian waxed
+cheerful and brisk. He divined enough of the business to see that
+there was some strange intelligence to be fished out of the culprit
+who sat compressing hysterics before him; and as he was never more
+in his element than when he had a sinner, and a repentant prostrate
+abject sinner in hand, his affable countenance might well deceive
+poor Berry.
+
+"I presume these are Mr. Thompson's lodgings?" he remarked, with a
+look at the table.
+
+Mrs. Berry's head and the whites of her eyes informed him that they
+were not Mr. Thompson's lodgings.
+
+"No?" said Adrian, and threw a carelessly inquisitive eye about him.
+"Mr. Feverel is out, I suppose?"
+
+A convulsive start at the name, and two corroborating hands dropped
+on her knees, formed Mrs. Berry's reply.
+
+"Mr. Feverel's man," continued Adrian, "told me I should be certain
+to find him here. I thought he would be with his friend, Mr.
+Thompson. I'm too late, I perceive. Their entertainment is over. I
+fancy you have been having a party of them here, ma'am?--a
+bachelors' breakfast!"
+
+In the presence of that cake this observation seemed to mask an
+irony so shrewd that Mrs. Berry could barely contain herself. She
+felt she must speak. Making her face as deplorably propitiating as
+she could, she began:
+
+"Sir, may I beg for to know your name?"
+
+Mr. Harley accorded her request.
+
+Groaning in the clutch of a pitiless truth, she continued:
+
+"And you are Mr. Harley, that was--oh! and you've come for Mr.?"----
+
+Mr. Richard Feverel was the gentleman Mr. Harley had come for.
+
+"Oh! and it's no mistake, and he's of Raynham Abbey?" Mrs. Berry
+inquired.
+
+Adrian, very much amused, assured her that he was born and bred
+there.
+
+"His father's Sir Austin?" wailed the black-satin bunch from behind
+her handkerchief.
+
+Adrian verified Richard's descent.
+
+"Oh, then, what have I been and done!" she cried, and stared blankly
+at her visitor. "I been and married my baby! I been and married the
+bread out of my own mouth. O Mr. Harley! Mr. Harley! I knew you when
+you was a boy that big, and wore jackets; and all of you. And it's
+my softness that's my ruin, for I never can resist a man's asking.
+Look at that cake, Mr. Harley!"
+
+Adrian followed her directions quite coolly. "Wedding-cake, ma'am!"
+he said.
+
+"Bride-cake it is, Mr. Harley!"
+
+"Did you make it yourself, ma'am?"
+
+The quiet ease of the question overwhelmed Mrs. Berry, and upset
+that train of symbolic representations by which she was seeking to
+make him guess the catastrophe and spare her the furnace of
+confession.
+
+"I did not make it myself, Mr. Harley," she replied. "It's a bought
+cake, and I'm a lost woman. Little I dreamed when I had him in my
+arms a baby that I should some day be marrying him out of my own
+house! I little dreamed that! Oh, why did he come to me! Don't you
+remember his old nurse, when he was a baby in arms, that went away
+so sudden, and no fault of hers, Mr. Harley! The very mornin' after
+the night you got into Mr. Benson's cellar, and got so tipsy on his
+Madeary I remember it as clear as yesterday!--and Mr. Benson was
+that angry he threatened to use the whip to you, and I helped put
+you to bed. I'm that very woman."
+
+Adrian smiled placidly at these reminiscences of his guileless
+youthful life.
+
+"Well, ma'am! well?" he said. He would bring her to the furnace.
+
+"Won't you see it all, kind sir?" Mrs. Berry appealed to him in
+pathetic dumb show.
+
+Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was mentally
+cursing at Folly, and reckoning the immediate consequences, but he
+looked uninstructed, his peculiar dimple-smile was undisturbed, his
+comfortable full-bodied posture was the same. "Well, ma'am?" he
+spurred her on.
+
+Mrs. Berry burst forth: "It were done this mornin', Mr. Harley, in
+the church, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to, by
+licence."
+
+Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matrimony. "Oh!" he
+said, like one who is as hard as facts, and as little to be moved:
+"Somebody was married this morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr.
+Feverel?"
+
+Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl from him,
+saying: "Do he look like a new married bridegroom, Mr. Harley?"
+
+Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic gravity.
+
+"This young gentleman was at church this morning?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, quite reasonable and proper then," Mrs. Berry begged him to
+understand.
+
+"Of course, ma'am." Adrian lifted and let fall the stupid inanimate
+limbs of the gone wretch, puckering his mouth queerly. "You were all
+reasonable and proper, ma'am. The principal male performer, then, is
+my cousin, Mr. Feverel? He was married by you, this morning, by
+licence at your parish church, and came here, and ate a hearty
+breakfast, and left intoxicated."
+
+Mrs. Berry flew out. "He never drink a drop, sir. A more moderate
+young gentleman you never see. Oh! don't ye think that now, Mr.
+Harley. He was as upright and master of his mind as you be."
+
+"Ay!" the wise youth nodded thanks to her for the comparison, "I
+mean the other form of intoxication."
+
+Mrs. Berry sighed. She could say nothing on that score.
+
+Adrian desired her to sit down, and compose herself, and tell him
+circumstantially what had been done.
+
+She obeyed, in utter perplexity at his perfectly composed demeanour.
+
+Mrs. Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than that
+identical woman who once in old days had dared to behold the baronet
+behind his mask, and had ever since lived in exile from the Raynham
+world on a little pension regularly paid to her as an indemnity. She
+was that woman, and the thought of it made her almost accuse
+Providence for the betraying excess of softness it had endowed her
+with. How was she to recognize her baby grown a man? He came in a
+feigned name; not a word of the family was mentioned. He came like
+an ordinary mortal, though she felt something more than ordinary to
+him--she knew she did. He came bringing a beautiful young lady, and
+on what grounds could she turn her back on them? Why, seeing that
+all was chaste and legal, why _should_ she interfere to make them
+unhappy--so few the chances of happiness in this world! Mrs. Berry
+related the seizure of her ring.
+
+"One wrench," said the sobbing culprit, "one, and my ring was off!"
+
+She had no suspicions, and the task of writing her name in the
+vestry-book had been too enacting for a thought upon the other
+signatures.
+
+"I daresay you were exceedingly sorry for what you had done," said
+Adrian.
+
+"Indeed, sir," moaned Berry, "I were, and am."
+
+"And would do your best to rectify the mischief--eh, ma'am?"
+
+"Indeed, and indeed, sir, I would," she protested solemnly.
+
+"--As, of course, you should--knowing the family. Where may these
+lunatics have gone to spend the Moon?"
+
+Mrs. Berry swimmingly replied: "To the Isle----I don't quite know,
+sir!" she snapped the indication short, and jumped out of the pit
+she had fallen into. Repentant as she might be, those dears should
+not be pursued and cruelly balked of their young bliss! "To-morrow,
+if you please, Mr. Harley: not to-day!"
+
+"A pleasant spot," Adrian observed, smiling at his easy prey.
+
+By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom had
+brought his bride to the house on the day he had quitted Raynham,
+and this was enough to satisfy Adrian's mind that there had been
+concoction and chicanery. Chance, probably, had brought him to the
+old woman: chance certainly had not brought him to the young one.
+
+"Very well, ma'am," he said, in answer to her petitions for his
+favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her little pension
+and the bridal pair, "I will tell him you were only a blind agent in
+the affair, being naturally soft, and that you trust he will bless
+the consummation. He will be in town to-morrow morning; but one of
+you two must see him to-night. An emetic kindly administered will
+set our friend here on his legs. A bath and a clean shirt, and he
+might go. I don't see why your name should appear at all. Brush him
+up, and send him to Bellingham by the seven o'clock train. He will
+find his way to Raynham; he knows the neighbourhood best in the
+dark. Let him go and state the case. Remember, one of you must go."
+
+With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition between
+the couple of unfortunates, for them to fight and lose all their
+virtue over, Adrian said, "Good morning."
+
+Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. "You won't refuse a piece of his
+cake, Mr. Harley?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no, ma'am," Adrian turned to the cake with alacrity. "I
+shall claim a very large piece. Richard has a great many friends who
+will rejoice to eat his wedding-cake. Cut me a fair quarter, Mrs.
+Berry. Put it in paper, if you please. I shall be delighted to carry
+it to them, and apportion it equitably according to their several
+degrees of relationship."
+
+Mrs. Berry cut the cake. Somehow, as she sliced through it, the
+sweetness and hapless innocence of the bride was presented to her,
+and she launched into eulogies of Lucy, and clearly showed how
+little she regretted her conduct. She vowed that they seemed made
+for each other; that both were beautiful; both had spirit; both were
+innocent; and to part them, or make them unhappy, would be, Mrs.
+Berry wrought herself to cry aloud, oh, such a pity!
+
+Adrian listened to it as the expression of a matter-of-fact opinion.
+He took the huge quarter of cake, nodded multitudinous promises, and
+left Mrs. Berry to bless his good heart.
+
+"So dies the System!" was Adrian's comment in the street. "And now
+let prophets roar! He dies respectably in a marriage-bed, which is
+more than I should have foretold of the monster. Meantime," he gave
+the cake a dramatic tap, "I'll go sow nightmares."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+PROCESSION OF THE CAKE
+
+
+Adrian really bore the news he had heard with creditable
+disinterestedness, and admirable repression of anything beneath the
+dignity of a philosopher. When one has attained that felicitous
+point of wisdom from which one sees all mankind to be fools, the
+diminutive objects may make what new moves they please, one does not
+marvel at them: their sedateness is as comical as their frolic, and
+their frenzies more comical still. On this intellectual eminence the
+wise youth had built his castle, and he had lived in it from an
+early period. Astonishment never shook the foundations, nor did envy
+of greater heights tempt him to relinquish the security of his
+stronghold, for he saw none. Jugglers he saw running up ladders that
+overtopped him, and air-balloons scaling the empyrean; but the
+former came precipitately down again, and the latter were at the
+mercy of the winds; while he remained tranquil on his solid
+unambitious ground, fitting his morality to the laws, his conscience
+to his morality, his comfort to his conscience. Not that voluntarily
+he cut himself off from his fellows: on the contrary, his sole
+amusement was their society. Alone he was rather dull, as a man who
+beholds but one thing must naturally be. Study of the animated
+varieties of that one thing excited him sufficiently to think life a
+pleasant play; and the faculties he had forfeited to hold his
+elevated position he could serenely enjoy by contemplation of them
+in others. Thus:--wonder at Master Richard's madness: though he
+himself did not experience it, he was eager to mark the effect on
+his beloved relatives. As he carried along his vindictive hunch of
+cake, he shaped out their different attitudes of amaze,
+bewilderment, horror; passing by some personal chagrin in the
+prospect. For his patron had projected a journey, commencing with
+Paris, culminating on the Alps, and lapsing in Rome: a delightful
+journey to show Richard the highways of History and tear him from
+the risk of further ignoble fascinations, that his spirit might be
+altogether bathed in freshness and revived. This had been planned
+during Richard's absence to surprise him.
+
+Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of woman is to
+the race of young men. It supplanted that foolishness. It was his
+Romance, as we say; that buoyant anticipation on which in youth we
+ride the airs, and which, as we wax older and too heavy for our
+atmosphere, hardens to the Hobby, which, if an obstinate animal, is
+a safer horse, and conducts man at a slower pace to the sexton.
+Adrian had never travelled. He was aware that his romance was
+earthly and had discomforts only to be evaded by the one potent
+talisman possessed by his patron. His Alp would hardly be grand to
+him without an obsequious landlord in the foreground: he must
+recline on Mammon's imperial cushions in order to moralize
+becomingly on the ancient world. The search for pleasure at the
+expense of discomfort, as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to
+partake the shelter of a hut and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed
+the bitterness of beggarliness. Let his sweet mistress be given him
+in the pomp and splendour due to his superior emotions, or not at
+all. Consequently the wise youth had long nursed an ineffectual
+passion, and it argued a great nature in him, that at the moment
+when his wishes were to be crowned, he should look with such slight
+touches of spleen at the gorgeous composite fabric of Parisian
+cookery and Roman antiquities crumbling into unsubstantial mockery.
+Assuredly very few even of the philosophers would have turned away
+uncomplainingly to meaner delights the moment after.
+
+Hippias received the first portion of the cake.
+
+He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading. He had fought
+down his breakfast with more than usual success, and was looking
+forward to his dinner at the Foreys' with less than usual timidity.
+
+"Ah! glad you've come, Adrian," he said, and expanded his chest. "I
+was afraid I should have to ride down. This is kind of you. We'll
+walk down together through the park. It's absolutely dangerous to
+walk alone in these streets. My opinion is, that orange-peel lasts
+all through the year now, and will till legislation puts a stop to
+it. I give you my word I slipped on a piece of orange-peel yesterday
+afternoon in Piccadilly, and I thought I was down! I saved myself by
+a miracle."
+
+"You have an appetite, I hope?" asked Adrian.
+
+"I think I shall get one, after a bit of a walk," chirped Hippias.
+"Yes. I think I feel hungry now."
+
+"Charmed to hear it," said Adrian, and began unpinning his parcel on
+his knees. "How should you define Folly?" he checked the process to
+inquire.
+
+"Hm!" Hippias meditated; he prided himself on being oracular when
+such questions were addressed to him. "I think I should define it to
+be a slide."
+
+"Very good definition. In other words, a piece of orange-peel; once
+on it, your life and limbs are in danger, and you are saved by a
+miracle. You must present that to the PILGRIM. And the monument of
+folly, what would that be?"
+
+Hippias meditated anew. "All the human race on one another's
+shoulders." He chuckled at the sweeping sourness of the instance.
+
+"Very good," Adrian applauded, "or in default of that, some symbol
+of the thing, say; such as this of which I have here brought you a
+chip."
+
+Adrian displayed the quarter of the cake.
+
+"This is the monument made portable--eh?"
+
+"Cake!" cried Hippias, retreating to his chair to dramatize his
+intense disgust. "You're right of them that eat it. If I--if I don't
+mistake," he peered at it, "the noxious composition bedizened in
+that way is what they call wedding-cake. It's arrant poison! Who is
+it you want to kill? What are you carrying such stuff about for?"
+
+Adrian rang the bell for a knife. "To present you with your due and
+proper portion. You will have friends and relatives, and can't be
+saved from them, not even by miracle. It is a habit which exhibits,
+perhaps, the unconscious inherent cynicism of the human mind, for
+people who consider that they have reached the acme of mundane
+felicity, to distribute this token of esteem to their friends, with
+the object probably" (he took the knife from a waiter and went to
+the table to slice the cake) "of enabling those friends (these
+edifices require very delicate incision--each particular currant and
+subtle condiment hangs to its neighbour--a wedding-cake is evidently
+the most highly civilized of cakes, and partakes of the evils as
+well as the advantages of civilization!)--I was saying, they send us
+these love-tokens, no doubt (we shall have to weigh out the crumbs,
+if each is to have his fair share) that we may the better estimate
+their state of bliss by passing some hours in purgatory. This, as
+far as I can apportion it without weights and scales, is your share,
+my uncle!"
+
+He pushed the corner of the table bearing the cake towards Hippias.
+
+"Get away!" Hippias vehemently motioned, and started from his chair.
+"I'll have none of it, I tell you! It's death! It's fifty times
+worse than that beastly compound Christmas pudding! What fool has
+been doing this, then? Who dares send me cake? Me! It's an insult."
+
+"You are not compelled to eat any before dinner," said Adrian,
+pointing the corner of the table after him, "but your share you must
+take, and appear to consume. One who has done so much to bring about
+the marriage cannot in conscience refuse his allotment of the
+fruits. Maidens, I hear, first cook it under their pillows, and
+extract nuptial dreams therefrom--said to be of a lighter class,
+taken that way. It's a capital cake, and, upon my honour, you have
+helped to make it--you have indeed! So here it is."
+
+The table again went at Hippias. He ran nimbly round it, and flung
+himself on a sofa exhausted, crying: "There!... My appetite's gone
+for to-day!"
+
+"Then shall I tell Richard that you won't touch a morsel of his
+cake?" said Adrian, leaning on his two hands over the table and
+looking at his uncle.
+
+"Richard?"
+
+"Yes, your nephew: my cousin: Richard! Your companion since you've
+been in town. He's married, you know. Married this morning at
+Kensington parish church, by licence, at half-past eleven of the
+clock, or twenty to twelve. Married, and gone to spend his honeymoon
+in the Isle of Wight: a very delectable place for a month's
+residence. I have to announce to you that, thanks to your
+assistance, the experiment is launched, sir!"----
+
+"Richard married!"
+
+There was something to think and to say in objection to it, but the
+wits of poor Hippias was softened by the shock. His hand travelled
+half-way to his forehead, spread out to smooth the surface of that
+seat of reason, and then fell.
+
+"Surely you knew all about it? you were so anxious to have him in
+town under your charge."
+
+"Married?" Hippias jumped up--he had it. "Why, he's under age! he's
+an infant."
+
+"So he is. But the infant is not the less married. Fib like a man
+and pay your fee--what does it matter? Any one who is breeched can
+obtain a licence in our noble country. And the interests of morality
+demand that it should not be difficult. Is it true--can you persuade
+anybody that you have known nothing about it?"
+
+"Ha! infamous joke! I wish, sir, you would play your pranks on
+somebody else," said Hippias, sternly, as he sank back on the sofa.
+"You've done me up for the day, I can assure you."
+
+Adrian sat down to instil belief by gentle degrees, and put an
+artistic finish to the work. He had the gratification of passing his
+uncle through varied contortions, and at last Hippias perspired in
+conviction, and exclaimed, "This accounts for his conduct to me.
+That boy must have a cunning nothing short of infernal! I feel ... I
+feel it just here," he drew a hand along his midriff.
+
+"I'm not equal to this world of fools," he added faintly, and shut
+his eyes. "No, I can't dine. Eat? ha! ... no. Go without me!"
+
+Shortly after Hippias went to bed, saying to himself, as he
+undressed, "See what comes of our fine schemes! Poor Austin!" and as
+the pillow swelled over his ears, "I'm not sure that a day's fast
+won't do me good." The Dyspepsy had bought his philosophy at a heavy
+price; he had a right to use it.
+
+Adrian resumed the procession of the cake.
+
+He sighted his melancholy uncle Algernon hunting an appetite in the
+Row, and looking as if the hope ahead of him were also one-legged.
+The Captain did not pass without querying the ungainly parcel.
+
+"I hope I carry it ostentatiously enough?" said Adrian. "Enclosed is
+wherewithal to quiet the alarm of the land. Now may the maids and
+wives of Merry England sleep secure. I had half a mind to fix it on
+a pole, and engage a band to parade it. This is our dear Richard's
+wedding-cake. Married at half-past eleven this morning, by licence,
+at the Kensington parish church; his own ring being lost he employed
+the ring of his beautiful bride's lachrymose landlady, she standing
+adjacent by the altar. His farewell to you as a bachelor, and hers
+as a maid, you can claim on the spot, if you think proper, and
+digest according to your powers."
+
+Algernon let off steam in a whistle. "Thompson, the solicitor's
+daughter!" he said. "I met them the other day, somewhere about here.
+He introduced me to her. A pretty little baggage."
+
+"No." Adrian set him right. "'Tis a Miss Desborough, a Roman
+Catholic dairymaid. Reminds one of pastoral England in the time of
+the Plantagenets! He's quite equal to introducing her as Thompson's
+daughter, and himself as Beelzebub's son. However, the wild animal
+is in Hymen's chains, and the cake is cut. Will you have your
+morsel?"
+
+"Oh, by all means!--not now." Algernon had an unwonted air of
+reflection.--"Father know it?"
+
+"Not yet. He will to-night by nine o'clock."
+
+"Then I must see him by seven. Don't say you met me." He nodded, and
+pricked his horse.
+
+"Wants money!" said Adrian, putting the combustible he carried once
+more in motion.
+
+The women were the crowning joy of his contemplative mind. He had
+reserved them for his final discharge. Dear demonstrative creatures!
+Dyspepsia would not weaken their poignant outcries, or self-interest
+check their fainting fits. On the generic woman one could calculate.
+Well might THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP say of her that, "She is always at
+Nature's breast"; not intending it as a compliment. Each woman is
+Eve throughout the ages; whereas the PILGRIM would have us believe
+that the Adam in men has become warier, if not wiser; and weak as he
+is, has learnt a lesson from time. Probably the PILGRIM'S meaning
+may be taken to be, that Man grows, and Woman does not.
+
+At any rate, Adrian hoped for such natural choruses as you hear in
+the nursery when a bauble is lost. He was awake to Mrs. Doria's
+maternal predestinations, and guessed that Clare stood ready with
+the best form of filial obedience. They were only a poor couple to
+gratify his Mephistophelian humour, to be sure, but Mrs. Doria was
+equal to twenty, and they would proclaim the diverse ways with which
+maidenhood and womanhood took disappointment, while the surrounding
+Forey girls and other females of the family assembly were expected
+to develop the finer shades and tapering edges of an agitation to
+which no woman could be cold.
+
+All went well. He managed cleverly to leave the cake unchallenged in
+a conspicuous part of the drawing-room, and stepped gaily down to
+dinner. Much of the conversation adverted to Richard. Mrs. Doria
+asked him if he had seen the youth, or heard of him.
+
+"Seen him? no! Heard of him? yes!" said Adrian. "I have heard of
+him. I heard that he was sublimely happy, and had eaten such a
+breakfast that dinner was impossible; claret and cold chicken, cake
+and"----
+
+"Cake at breakfast!" they all interjected.
+
+"That seems to be his fancy just now."
+
+"What an extraordinary taste!"
+
+"You know, he is educated on a System."
+
+One fast young male Forey allied the System and the cake in a
+miserable pun. Adrian, a hater of puns, looked at him, and held the
+table silent, as if he were going to speak; but he said nothing, and
+the young gentleman vanished from the conversation in a blush,
+extinguished by his own spark.
+
+Mrs. Doria peevishly exclaimed, "Oh! fish-cake, I suppose! I wish he
+understood a little better the obligations of relationship."
+
+"Whether he understands them, I can't say," observed Adrian, "but I
+assure you he is very energetic in extending them."
+
+The wise youth talked innuendoes whenever he had an opportunity,
+that his dear relative might be rendered sufficiently inflammable by
+and by at the aspect of the cake; but he was not thought more than
+commonly mysterious and deep.
+
+"Was his appointment at the house of those Grandison people?" Mrs.
+Doria asked, with a hostile upper-lip.
+
+Adrian warmed the blindfolded parties by replying, "Do they keep a
+beadle at the door?"
+
+Mrs. Doria's animosity to Mrs. Grandison made her treat this as a
+piece of satirical ingenuousness. "I daresay they do," she said.
+
+"And a curate on hand?"
+
+"Oh, I should think a dozen!"
+
+Old Mr. Forey advised his punning grandson Clarence to give that
+house a wide berth, where he might be disposed of and dished-up at a
+moment's notice, and the scent ran off at a jest.
+
+The Foreys gave good dinners, and with the old gentleman the
+excellent old fashion remained in permanence of trooping off the
+ladies as soon as they had taken their sustenance and just exchanged
+a smile with the flowers and the dessert, when they rose to fade
+with a beautiful accord, and the gallant males breathed under easier
+waistcoats, and settled to the business of the table, sure that an
+hour for unbosoming and imbibing was their own. Adrian took a chair
+by Brandon Forey, a barrister of standing.
+
+"I want to ask you," he said, "whether an infant in law can legally
+bind himself."
+
+"If he's old enough to affix his signature to an instrument, I
+suppose he can," yawned Brandon.
+
+"Is he responsible for his acts?"
+
+"I've no doubt we could hang him."
+
+"Then what he could do for himself, you could do for him?"
+
+"Not quite so much; pretty near."
+
+"For instance, he can marry?"
+
+"That's not a criminal case, you know."
+
+"And the marriage is valid?"
+
+"You can dispute it."
+
+"Yes, and the Greeks and the Trojans can fight. It holds then?"
+
+"Both water and fire!"
+
+The patriarch of the table sang out to Adrian that he stopped the
+vigorous circulation of the claret.
+
+"Dear me, sir!" said Adrian, "I beg pardon. The circumstances must
+excuse me. The fact is, my cousin Richard got married to a dairymaid
+this morning, and I wanted to know whether it held in law."
+
+It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which the
+announcement was taken. Nothing was heard more energetic than,
+"Deuce he has!" and, "A dairymaid!"
+
+"I thought it better to let the ladies dine in peace," Adrian
+continued. "I wanted to be able to console my aunt"----
+
+"Well, but--well, but," the old gentleman, much the most excited,
+puffed--"eh, Brandon? He's a boy, this young ass! Do you mean to
+tell me a boy can go and marry when he pleases, and any trull he
+pleases, and the marriage is good? If I thought that I'd turn every
+woman off my premises. I would! from the housekeeper to the
+scullery-maid. I'd have no woman near him till--till"----
+
+"Till the young greenhorn was grey, sir?" suggested Brandon.
+
+"Till he knew what women are made of, sir!" the old gentleman
+finished his sentence vehemently. "What, d'ye think, will Feverel
+say to it, Mr. Adrian?"
+
+"He has been trying the very System you have proposed, sir--one that
+does not reckon on the powerful action of curiosity on the juvenile
+intelligence. I'm afraid it's the very worst way of solving the
+problem."
+
+"Of course it is," said Clarence. "None but a fool!"----
+
+"At your age," Adrian relieved his embarrassment, "it is natural, my
+dear Clarence, that you should consider the idea of an isolated or
+imprisoned manhood something monstrous, and we do not expect you to
+see what amount of wisdom it contains. You follow one extreme, and
+we the other. I don't say that a middle course exists. The history
+of mankind shows our painful efforts to find one, but they have
+invariably resolved themselves into asceticism, or laxity, acting
+and reacting. The moral question is, if a naughty little man, by
+reason of his naughtiness, releases himself from foolishness, does a
+foolish little man, by reason of his foolishness, save himself from
+naughtiness?"
+
+A discussion, peculiar to men of the world, succeeded the laugh at
+Mr. Clarence. Then coffee was handed round and the footman informed
+Adrian, in a low voice, that Mrs. Doria Forey particularly wished to
+speak with him. Adrian preferred not to go in alone. "Very well," he
+said, and sipped his coffee. They talked on, sounding the depths of
+law in Brandon Forey, and receiving nought but hollow echoes from
+that profound cavity. He would not affirm that the marriage was
+invalid: he would not affirm that it could not be annulled. He
+thought not: still he thought it would be worth trying. A
+consummated and a non-consummated union were two different
+things....
+
+"Dear me!" said Adrian, "does the Law recognize that? Why, that's
+almost human!"
+
+Another message was brought to Adrian that Mrs. Doria Forey _very_
+particularly wished to speak with him.
+
+"What can be the matter?" he exclaimed, pleased to have his faith in
+woman strengthened. The cake had exploded, no doubt.
+
+So it proved, when the gentlemen joined the fair society. All the
+younger ladies stood about the table, whereon the cake stood
+displayed, gaps being left for those sitting to feast their vision,
+and intrude the comments and speculations continually arising from
+fresh shocks of wonder at the unaccountable apparition. Entering
+with the half-guilty air of men who know they have come from a
+grosser atmosphere, the gallant males also ranged themselves round
+the common object of curiosity.
+
+"Here! Adrian!" Mrs. Doria cried. "Where is Adrian? Pray, come here.
+Tell me! Where did this cake come from? Whose is it? What does it do
+here? You know all about it, for you brought it. Clare saw you bring
+it into the room. What does it mean? I insist upon a direct answer.
+Now do not make me impatient, Adrian."
+
+Certainly Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty. By her concentrated
+rapidity and volcanic complexion it was evident that suspicion had
+kindled.
+
+"I was really bound to bring it," Adrian protested.
+
+"Answer me!"
+
+The wise youth bowed: "Categorically. This cake came from the house
+of a person, a female, of the name of Berry. It belongs to you
+partly, partly to me, partly to Clare, and to the rest of our
+family, on the principle of equal division: for which purpose it is
+present...."
+
+"Yes! Speak!"
+
+"It means, my dear aunt, what that kind of cake usually does mean."
+
+"This, then, is the Breakfast! And the ring! Adrian! where is
+Richard?"
+
+Mrs. Doria still clung to unbelief in the monstrous horror.
+
+But when Adrian told her that Richard had left town, her struggling
+hope sank. "The wretched boy has ruined himself!" she said, and sat
+down trembling.
+
+Oh! that System! The delicate vituperations gentle ladies use
+instead of oaths, Mrs. Doria showered on that System. She hesitated
+not to say that her brother had got what he deserved. Opinionated,
+morbid, weak, justice had overtaken him. Now he would see! but at
+what a price! at what a sacrifice!
+
+Mrs. Doria commanded Adrian to confirm her fears.
+
+Sadly the wise youth recapitulated Berry's words. "He was married
+this morning at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to twelve,
+by licence, at the Kensington parish church."
+
+"Then that was his appointment!" Mrs. Doria murmured.
+
+"That was the cake for breakfast!" breathed a second of her sex.
+
+"And it was his ring!" exclaimed a third.
+
+The men were silent, and made long faces.
+
+Clare stood cold and sedate. She and her mother avoided each other's
+eyes.
+
+"Is it that abominable country person, Adrian?"
+
+"The happy damsel is, I regret to say, the Papist dairymaid," said
+Adrian, in sorrowful but deliberate accents.
+
+Then arose a feminine hum, in the midst of which Mrs. Doria cried,
+"Brandon!" She was a woman of energy. Her thoughts resolved to
+action spontaneously.
+
+"Brandon," she drew the barrister a little aside, "can they not be
+followed, and separated? I want your advice. Cannot we separate
+them? A boy! it is really shameful if he should be allowed to fall
+into the toils of a designing creature to ruin himself irrevocably.
+Can we not, Brandon?"
+
+The worthy barrister felt inclined to laugh, but he answered her
+entreaties: "From what I hear of the young groom I should imagine
+the office perilous."
+
+"I'm speaking of law, Brandon. Can we not obtain an order from one
+of your Courts to pursue them and separate them instantly?"
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+Brandon was sorry to say she decidedly could not.
+
+"You might call on one of your Judges, Brandon."
+
+Brandon assured her that the Judges were a hard-worked race, and to
+a man slept heavily after dinner.
+
+"Will you do so to-morrow, the first thing in the morning? Will you
+promise me to do so, Brandon?--Or a magistrate! A magistrate would
+send a policeman after them. My dear Brandon! I beg--I beg you to
+assist us in this dreadful extremity. It will be the death of my
+poor brother. I believe he would forgive anything but this. You have
+no idea what his notions are of blood."
+
+Brandon tipped Adrian a significant nod to step in and aid.
+
+"What is it, aunt?" asked the wise youth. "You want them followed
+and torn asunder by wild policemen?"
+
+"To-morrow;" Brandon queerly interposed.
+
+"Won't that be--just too late?" Adrian suggested.
+
+Mrs. Doria sighed out her last spark of hope.
+
+"You see," said Adrian....
+
+"Yes! yes!" Mrs. Doria did not require any of his elucidations.
+"Pray be quiet, Adrian, and let me speak. Brandon! it cannot be!
+it's quite impossible! Can you stand there and tell me that boy is
+legally married? I never will believe it! The law cannot be so
+shamefully bad as to permit a boy--a mere child--to do such absurd
+things. Grandpapa!" she beckoned to the old gentleman. "Grandpapa!
+pray do make Brandon speak. These lawyers never will. He might stop
+it, if he would. If I were a man, do you think I would stand here?"
+
+"Well, my dear," the old gentleman toddled to compose her, "I'm
+quite of your opinion. I believe he knows no more than you or I. My
+belief is they none of them know anything till they join issue and
+go into Court. I want to see a few female lawyers."
+
+"To encourage the bankrupt perruquier, sir?" said Adrian. "They
+would have to keep a large supply of wigs on hand."
+
+"And you can jest, Adrian!" his aunt reproached him. "But I will not
+be beaten. I know--I am firmly convinced that no law would ever
+allow a boy to disgrace his family and ruin himself like that, and
+nothing shall persuade me that it is so. Now, tell me, Brandon, and
+pray do speak in answer to my questions, and please to forget you
+are dealing with a woman. _Can_ my nephew be rescued from the
+consequences of his folly? _Is_ what he has done legitimate? _Is_ he
+bound for life by what he has done while a boy?"
+
+"Well--a," Brandon breathed through his teeth. "A--hm! the matter's
+so very delicate, you see, Helen."
+
+"You're to forget that," Adrian remarked.
+
+"A--hm! well!" pursued Brandon. "Perhaps if you could arrest and
+divide them before nightfall, and make affidavit of certain
+facts"....
+
+"Yes?" the eager woman hastened his lagging mouth.
+
+"Well ... hm! a ... in that case ... a.... Or if a lunatic, you
+could prove him to have been of unsound mind."...
+
+"Oh! there's no doubt of his madness on _my_ mind, Brandon."
+
+"Yes! well! in that case.... Or if of different religious
+persuasions"....
+
+"She _is_ a Catholic!" Mrs. Doria joyfully interjected.
+
+"Yes! well! in that case ... objections might be taken to the form
+of the marriage.... Might be proved fictitious.... Or if he's under,
+say, eighteen years."
+
+"He _can't_ be much more," cried Mrs. Doria. "I think," she appeared
+to reflect, and then faltered imploringly to Adrian, "What is
+Richard's age?"
+
+The kind wise youth could not find it in his heart to strike away
+the phantom straw she caught at.
+
+"Oh! about that, I should fancy," he muttered, and found it
+necessary at the same time to duck and turn his head for
+concealment. Mrs. Doria surpassed his expectations.
+
+"Yes! well, then...." Brandon was resuming with a shrug, which was
+meant to say he still pledged himself to nothing, when Clare's voice
+was heard from out the buzzing circle of her cousins: "Richard is
+nineteen years and six months old to-day, mama."
+
+"Nonsense, child."
+
+"He is, mama." Clare's voice was very steadfast.
+
+"Non_sense_, I tell you. How _can_ you know?"
+
+"Richard is one year and nine months older than me, mama."
+
+Mrs. Doria fought the fact by years and finally by months. Clare was
+too strong for her.
+
+"Singular child!" she mentally apostrophized the girl who scornfully
+rejected straws while drowning.
+
+"But there's the religion still!" she comforted herself, and sat
+down to cogitate.
+
+The men smiled and looked vacuous.
+
+Music was proposed. There are times when soft music hath not charms;
+when it is put to as base uses as Imperial Caesar's dust and is taken
+to fill horrid pauses. Angelica Forey thumped the piano, and sang:
+"_I'm a laughing Gitana, ha--ha! ha--ha!_" Matilda Forey and her
+cousin Mary Bransburne wedded their voices, and songfully incited
+all young people to _Haste to the bower that love has built_, and
+defy the wise ones of the world; but the wise ones of the world were
+in a majority there, and very few places of assembly will be found
+where they are not; so the glowing appeal of the British
+ballad-monger passed into the bosom of the emptiness he addressed.
+Clare was asked to entertain the company. The singular child calmly
+marched to the instrument, and turned over the appropriate
+illustrations to the ballad-monger's repertory.
+
+Clare sang a little Irish air. Her duty done, she marched from the
+piano. Mothers are rarely deceived by their daughters in these
+matters; but Clare deceived her mother; and Mrs. Doria only
+persisted in feeling an agony of pity for her child, that she might
+the more warrantably pity herself--a not uncommon form of the
+emotion, for there is no juggler like that heart the ballad-monger
+puts into our mouths so boldly. Remember that she saw years of
+self-denial, years of a ripening scheme, rendered fruitless in a
+minute, and by the System which had almost reduced her to the
+condition of constitutional hypocrite. She had enough of bitterness
+to brood over, and some excuse for self-pity.
+
+Still, even when she was cooler, Mrs. Doria's energetic nature
+prevented her from giving up. Straws were straws, and the frailer
+they were the harder she clutched them.
+
+She rose from her chair, and left the room, calling to Adrian to
+follow her.
+
+"Adrian," she said, turning upon him in the passage, "you mentioned
+a house where this horrible cake ... where he was this morning. I
+desire you to take me to that woman immediately."
+
+The wise youth had not bargained for personal servitude. He had
+hoped he should be in time for the last act of the opera that night,
+after enjoying the comedy of real life.
+
+"My dear aunt" ... he was beginning to insinuate.
+
+"Order a cab to be sent for, and get your hat," said Mrs. Doria.
+
+There was nothing for it but to obey. He stamped his assent to the
+PILGRIM'S dictum, that Women are practical creatures, and now
+reflected on his own account, that relationship to a young fool may
+be a vexation and a nuisance. However, Mrs. Doria compensated him.
+
+What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature did not
+plainly know; but her energy positively demanded to be used in some
+way or other, and her instinct directed her to the offender on whom
+she could use it in wrath. She wanted somebody to be angry with,
+somebody to abuse. She dared not abuse her brother to his face: him
+she would have to console. Adrian was a fellow-hypocrite to the
+System, and would, she was aware, bring her into painfully delicate,
+albeit highly philosophic, ground by a discussion of the case. So
+she drove to Bessy Berry simply to inquire whither her nephew had
+flown.
+
+When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is matched with a
+woman of energy, she does not show much fight, and she meets no
+mercy. Bessy Berry's creditor came to her in female form that night.
+She then beheld it in all its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to
+her as a male, a disembodied spirit of her imagination possessing
+male attributes, and the peculiar male characteristic of being
+moved, and ultimately silenced, by tears. As female, her creditor
+was terrible indeed. Still, had it not been a late hour, Bessy Berry
+would have died rather than speak openly that her babes had sped to
+make their nest in the Isle of Wight. They had a long start, they
+were out of the reach of pursuers, they were safe, and she told what
+she had to tell. She told more than was wise of her to tell. She
+made mention of her early service in the family, and of her little
+pension. Alas! her little pension! Her creditor had come expecting
+no payment--come, as creditors are wont in such moods, just to take
+it out of her--to employ the familiar term. At once Mrs. Doria
+pounced upon the pension.
+
+"That, of course, you know is at an end," she said in the calmest
+manner, and Berry did not plead for the little bit of bread to her.
+She only asked a little consideration for her feelings.
+
+True admirers of women had better stand aside from the scene.
+Undoubtedly it was very sad for Adrian to be compelled to witness
+it. Mrs. Doria was not generous. The PILGRIM may be wrong about the
+sex not growing; but its fashion of conducting warfare we must allow
+to be barbarous, and according to what is deemed the pristine, or
+wild cat, method. Ruin, nothing short of it, accompanied poor Berry
+to her bed that night, and her character bled till morning on her
+pillow.
+
+The scene over, Adrian reconducted Mrs. Doria to her home. Mice had
+been at the cake during her absence apparently. The ladies and
+gentlemen present put it on the greedy mice, who were accused of
+having gorged and gone to bed.
+
+"I'm sure they're quite welcome," said Mrs. Doria. "It's a farce,
+this marriage, and Adrian has quite come to my way of thinking. I
+would not touch an atom of it. Why, they were married in a married
+woman's ring! Can _that_ be legal, as you call it? Oh, I'm
+convinced! Don't tell me. Austin will be in town to-morrow, and if
+he is true to his principles, he will instantly adopt measures to
+rescue his son from infamy. I want no legal advice. I go upon common
+sense, common decency. This marriage is false."
+
+Mrs. Doria's fine scheme had become so much a part of her life, that
+she could not give it up. She took Clare to her bed, and caressed
+and wept over her, as she would not have done had she known the
+singular child, saying, "Poor Richard! my dear poor boy! we must
+save him, Clare! we must save him!" Of the two the mother showed the
+greater want of iron on this occasion. Clare lay in her arms rigid
+and emotionless, with one of her hands tight-locked. All she said
+was: "I knew it in the morning, mama." She slept clasping Richard's
+nuptial ring.
+
+By this time all specially concerned in the System knew it. The
+honeymoon was shining placidly above them. Is not happiness like
+another circulating medium? When we have a very great deal of it,
+some poor hearts are aching for what is taken away from them. When
+we have gone out and seized it on the highways, certain inscrutable
+laws are sure to be at work to bring us to the criminal bar, sooner
+or later. Who knows the honeymoon that did not steal somebody's
+sweetness? Richard Turpin went forth, singing "Money or life" to the
+world: Richard Feverel has done the same, substituting "Happiness"
+for "Money," frequently synonyms. The coin he wanted he would have,
+and was just as much a highway robber as his fellow Dick, so that
+those who have failed to recognize him as a hero before, may now
+regard him in that light. Meanwhile the world he has squeezed looks
+exceedingly patient and beautiful. His coin chinks delicious music
+to him. Nature and the order of things on earth have no warmer
+admirer than a jolly brigand or a young man made happy by the Jews.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+NURSING THE DEVIL
+
+
+And now the author of the System was on trial under the eyes of the
+lady who loved him. What so kind as they? Yet are they very
+rigorous, those soft watchful woman's eyes. If you are below the
+measure they have made of you, you will feel it in the fulness of
+time. She cannot but show you that she took you for a giant, and has
+had to come down a bit. You feel yourself strangely diminishing in
+those sweet mirrors, till at last they drop on you complacently
+level. But, oh, beware, vain man, of ever waxing enamoured of that
+wonderful elongation of a male creature you saw reflected in her
+adoring upcast orbs! Beware of assisting to delude her! A woman who
+is not quite a fool will forgive your being but a man, if you are
+surely that: she will haply learn to acknowledge that no mortal
+tailor could have fitted that figure she made of you respectably,
+and that practically (though she sighs to think it) her ideal of
+you was on the pattern of an overgrown charity-boy in the regulation
+jacket and breech. For this she first scorns the narrow capacities
+of the tailor, and then smiles at herself. But shouldst thou, when
+the hour says plainly, Be thyself, and the woman is willing to take
+thee as thou art, shouldst thou still aspire to be that thing of
+shanks and wrists, wilt thou not seem contemptible as well as
+ridiculous? And when the fall comes, will it not be flat on thy
+face, instead of to the common height of men? You may fall miles
+below her measure of you, and be safe: nothing is damaged save an
+overgrown charity-boy; but if you fall below the common height of
+men, you must make up your mind to see her rustle her gown, spy at
+the looking-glass, and transfer her allegiance. The moral of which
+is, that if we pretend to be what we are not, woman, for whose
+amusement the farce is performed, will find us out and punish us for
+it. And it is usually the end of a sentimental dalliance.
+
+Had Sir Austin given vent to the pain and wrath it was natural he
+should feel, he might have gone to unphilosophic excesses, and,
+however much he lowered his reputation as a sage, Lady Blandish
+would have excused him: she would not have loved him less for seeing
+him closer. But the poor gentleman tasked his soul and stretched his
+muscles to act up to her conception of him. He, a man of science in
+life, who was bound to be surprised by nothing in nature, it was not
+for him to do more than lift his eyebrows and draw in his lips at
+the news delivered by Ripton Thompson, that ill bird at Raynham.
+
+All he said, after Ripton had handed the letters and carried his
+penitential headache to bed, was: "You see, Emmeline, it is useless
+to base any system on a human being."
+
+A very philosophical remark for one who has been busily at work
+building for nearly twenty years. Too philosophical to seem genuine.
+It revealed where the blow struck sharpest. Richard was no longer
+the Richard of his creation--his pride and his joy--but simply a
+human being with the rest. The bright star had sunk among the mass.
+
+And yet, what had the young man done? And in what had the System
+failed?
+
+The lady could not but ask herself this, while she condoled with the
+offended father.
+
+"My friend," she said, tenderly taking his hand before she retired,
+"I know how deeply you must be grieved. I know what your
+disappointment must be. I do not beg of you to forgive him now. You
+cannot doubt his love for this young person, and according to his
+light, has he not behaved honourably, and as you would have wished,
+rather than bring her to shame? You will think of that. It has been
+an accident--a misfortune--a terrible misfortune"....
+
+"The God of this world is in the machine--not out of it," Sir Austin
+interrupted her, and pressed her hand to get the good-night over.
+
+At any other time her mind would have been arrested to admire the
+phrase; now it seemed perverse, vain, false, and she was tempted to
+turn the meaning that was in it against himself, much as she pitied
+him.
+
+"You know, Emmeline," he added, "I believe very little in the
+fortune, or misfortune, to which men attribute their successes and
+reverses. They are useful impersonations to novelists; but my
+opinion is sufficiently high of flesh and blood to believe that we
+make our own history without intervention. Accidents?--Terrible
+misfortunes?--What are they?--Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," she said, looking sad and troubled. "When I said,
+'misfortune,' I meant, of course, that he is to blame, but--shall I
+leave you his letter to me?"
+
+"I think I have enough to meditate upon," he replied, coldly bowing.
+
+"God bless you," she whispered. "And--may I say it? do not shut your
+heart."
+
+He assured her that he hoped not to do so, and the moment she was
+gone he set about shutting it as tight as he could.
+
+If, instead of saying, Base no system on a human being, he had said,
+Never experimentalize with one, he would have been nearer the truth
+of his own case. He had experimented on humanity in the person of
+the son he loved as his life, and at once, when the experiment
+appeared to have failed, all humanity's failings fell on the
+shoulders of his son. Richard's parting laugh in the train--it was
+explicable now: it sounded in his ears like the mockery of this base
+nature of ours at every endeavor to exalt and chasten it. The young
+man had plotted this. From step to step Sir Austin traced the plot.
+The curious mask he had worn since his illness; the selection of his
+incapable uncle Hippias for a companion in preference to Adrian; it
+was an evident, well-perfected plot. That hideous laugh would not be
+silenced. Base, like the rest, treacherous, a creature of passions
+using his abilities solely to gratify them--never surely had
+humanity such chances as in him! A Manichaean tendency, from which
+the sententious eulogist of nature had been struggling for years
+(and which was partly at the bottom of the System), now began to
+cloud and usurp dominion of his mind. As he sat alone in the forlorn
+dead-hush of his library, he saw the devil.
+
+How are we to know when we are at the head and fountain of the fates
+of them we love?
+
+There by the springs of Richard's future, his father sat: and the
+devil said to him: "Only be quiet: do nothing: resolutely do
+nothing: your object now is to keep a brave face to the world, so
+that all may know you superior to this human nature that has
+deceived you. For it is the shameless deception, not the marriage,
+that has wounded you."
+
+"Ay!" answered the baronet, "the shameless deception, not the
+marriage: wicked and ruinous as it must be; a destroyer of my
+tenderest hopes! my dearest schemes! Not the marriage--the shameless
+deception!" and he crumpled up his son's letter to him, and tossed
+it into the fire.
+
+How are we to distinguish the dark chief of the Manichaeans when he
+talks our own thoughts to us?
+
+Further he whispered, "And your System:--if you would be brave to
+the world, have courage to cast the dream of it out of you:
+relinquish an impossible project; see it as it is--dead: too good
+for men!"
+
+"Ay!" muttered the baronet: "all who would save them perish on the
+Cross!"
+
+And so he sat nursing the devil.
+
+By and by he took his lamp, and put on the old cloak and cap, and
+went to gaze at Ripton. That exhausted debauchee and youth without a
+destiny slept a dead sleep. A handkerchief was bound about his
+forehead, and his helpless sunken chin and snoring nose projected up
+the pillow, made him look absurdly piteous. The baronet remembered
+how often he had compared his boy with this one: his own bright boy!
+And where was the difference between them?
+
+"Mere outward gilding!" said his familiar.
+
+"Yes," he responded, "I daresay this one never positively plotted to
+deceive his father: he followed his appetites unchecked, and is
+internally the sounder of the two."
+
+Ripton, with his sunken chin and snoring nose under the light of the
+lamp, stood for human nature, honest, however abject.
+
+"Miss Random, I fear very much, is a necessary establishment!"
+whispered the monitor.
+
+"Does the evil in us demand its natural food, or it corrupts the
+whole?" ejaculated Sir Austin. "And is no angel of avail till that
+is drawn off? And is that our conflict--to see whether we can escape
+the contagion of its embrace, and come uncorrupted out of that?"
+
+"The world is wise in its way," said the voice.
+
+"Though it look on itself through Port wine?" he suggested,
+remembering his lawyer Thompson.
+
+"Wise in not seeking to be too wise," said the voice.
+
+"And getting intoxicated on its drug of comfort!"
+
+"Human nature is weak."
+
+"And Miss Random is an establishment, and Wild Oats an institution!"
+
+"It always has been so."
+
+"And always will be?"
+
+"So I fear! in spite of your very noble efforts."
+
+"And leads--whither? And ends--where?"
+
+Richard's laugh, taken up by horrid reverberations, as it were
+through the lengths of the Lower Halls, replied.
+
+This colloquy of two voices in a brain was concluded by Sir Austin
+asking again if there were no actual difference between the flower
+of his hopes and yonder drunken weed, and receiving for answer that
+there was a decided dissimilarity in the smell of the couple;
+becoming cognizant of which he retreated.
+
+Sir Austin did not battle with the tempter. He took him into his
+bosom at once, as if he had been ripe for him, and received his
+suggestions and bowed to his dictates. Because he suffered, and
+decreed that he would suffer silently, and be the only sufferer, it
+seemed to him that he was great-minded in his calamity. He had stood
+against the world. The world had beaten him. What then? He must shut
+his heart and mask his face; that was all. To be far in advance of
+the mass, is as fruitless to mankind, he reflected, as straggling in
+the rear. For how do we know that they move behind us at all, or
+move in our track? What we win for them is lost; and where we are
+overthrown we lie!
+
+It was thus that a fine mind and a fine heart at the bounds of a
+nature not great, chose to colour his retrogression and countenance
+his shortcoming; and it was thus that he set about ruining the work
+he had done. He might well say, as he once did, that there are hours
+when the clearest soul becomes a cunning fox. For a grief that was
+private and peculiar, he unhesitatingly cast the blame upon
+humanity; just as he had accused it in the period of what he termed
+his own ordeal. How had he borne that? By masking his face. And he
+prepared the ordeal for his son by doing the same. This was by no
+means his idea of a man's duty in tribulation, about which he could
+be strenuously eloquent. But it was his instinct so to act, and in
+times of trial great natures alone are not at the mercy of their
+instincts. Moreover it would cost him pain to mask his face; pain
+worse than that he endured when there still remained an object for
+him to open his heart to in proportion; and he always reposed upon
+the Spartan comfort of bearing pain and being passive. "Do nothing,"
+said the devil he nursed; which meant in his case, "Take me into you
+and don't cast me out." Excellent and sane is the outburst of wrath
+to men, when it stops short of slaughter. For who that locks it up
+to eat in solitary, can say that it is consumed? Sir Austin had as
+weak a digestion for wrath, as poor Hippias for a green duckling.
+Instead of eating it, it ate him. The wild beast in him was not the
+less deadly because it did not roar, and the devil in him not the
+less active because he resolved to do nothing.
+
+He sat at the springs of Richard's future, in the forlorn dead-hush
+of his library there, hearing the cinders click in the extinguished
+fire, and that humming stillness in which one may fancy one hears
+the midnight Fates busily stirring their embryos. The lamp glowed
+mildly on the bust of Chatham.
+
+Toward morning a gentle knock fell at his door. Lady Blandish glided
+in. With hasty step she came straight to him, and took both his
+hands.
+
+"My friend," she said, speaking tearfully, and trembling, "I feared
+I should find you here. I could not sleep. How is it with you?"
+
+"Well! Emmeline, well!" he replied, torturing his brows to fix the
+mask.
+
+He wished it had been Adrian who had come to him. He had an
+extraordinary longing for Adrian's society. He knew that the wise
+youth would divine how to treat him, and he mentally confessed to
+just enough weakness to demand a certain kind of management.
+Besides, Adrian, he had not a doubt, would accept him entirely as he
+seemed, and not pester him in any way by trying to unlock his heart;
+whereas a woman, he feared, would be waxing too womanly, and
+swelling from tears and supplications to a scene, of all things
+abhorred by him the most. So he rapped the floor with his foot, and
+gave the lady no very welcome face when he said it was well with
+him.
+
+She sat down by his side, still holding one hand firmly, and softly
+detaining the other.
+
+"Oh, my friend! may I believe you? May I speak to you?" She leaned
+close to him. "You know my heart. I have no better ambition than to
+be your friend. Surely I divide your grief, and may I not claim your
+confidence? Who has wept more over your great and dreadful sorrows?
+I would not have come to you, but I do believe that sorrow shared
+relieves the burden, and it is now that you may feel a woman's aid,
+and something of what a woman could be to you." ...
+
+"Be assured," he gravely said, "I thank you, Emmeline, for your
+intentions."
+
+"No, no! not for my intentions! And do not thank me. Think of him ...
+think of your dear boy.... Our Richard, as we have called him.--Oh!
+do not think it a foolish superstition of mine, but I have had a
+thought this night that has kept me in torment till I rose to speak
+to you.... Tell me first you have forgiven him."
+
+"A father bears no malice to his son, Emmeline."
+
+"Your heart has forgiven him?"
+
+"My heart has taken what he gave."
+
+"And quite forgiven him?"
+
+"You will hear no complaints of mine."
+
+The lady paused despondingly, and looked at him in a wistful manner,
+saying with a sigh, "Yes! I know how noble you are, and different
+from others!"
+
+He drew one of his hands from her relaxed hold.
+
+"You ought to be in bed, Emmeline."
+
+"I cannot sleep."
+
+"Go, and talk to me another time."
+
+"No, it must be now. You have helped me when I struggled to rise
+into a clearer world, and I think, humble as I am, I can help you
+now. I have had a thought this night that if you do not pray for him
+and bless him ... it will end miserably. My friend, have you done
+so?"
+
+He was stung and offended, and could hardly help showing it in spite
+of his mask.
+
+"Have you done so, Austin?"
+
+"This is assuredly a new way of committing fathers to the follies of
+their sons, Emmeline!"
+
+"No, not that. But will you pray for your boy, and bless him, before
+the day comes?"
+
+He restrained himself to pronounce his words calmly:--"And I must do
+this, or it will end in misery? How else can it end? Can I save him
+from the seed he has sown? Consider, Emmeline, what you say. He has
+repeated his cousin's sin. You see the end of that."...
+
+"Oh, so different! This young person is _not_, is _not_ of the class
+poor Austin Wentworth allied himself to. Indeed it is different. And
+he--be just and admit his nobleness. I fancied you did. This young
+person has great beauty, she has the elements of good breeding,
+she--indeed I think, had she been in another position, you would not
+have looked upon her unfavourably."
+
+"She may be too good for my son!" The baronet spoke with sublime
+bitterness.
+
+"No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it."
+
+"Pass her."
+
+"Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal accident. We
+thought his love dead, and so did he till he saw her again. He met
+her, he thought we were plotting against him, he thought he should
+lose her for ever, and in the madness of an hour he did this." ...
+
+"My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches."
+
+"Ah! do not trifle, my friend. Say: would you have had him act as
+young men in his position generally do to young women beneath them?"
+
+Sir Austin did not like the question. It probed him very severely.
+
+"You mean," he said, "that fathers must fold their arms, and either
+submit to infamous marriages, or have these creatures ruined."
+
+"I do _not_ mean that," exclaimed the lady, striving for what she
+did mean, and how to express it. "I mean that ... he loved her. Is
+it not a madness at his age? But what I chiefly mean is--save him
+from the consequences. No, you shall not withdraw your hand. Think
+of his pride, his sensitiveness, his great wild nature--wild when he
+is set wrong: think how intense it is, set upon love; think, my
+friend, do not forget his love for you."
+
+Sir Austin smiled an admirable smile of pity.
+
+"That I should save him, or any one, from consequences, is asking
+more than the order of things will allow to you, Emmeline, and is
+not in the disposition of this world. I cannot. Consequences are the
+natural offspring of acts. My child, you are talking sentiment,
+which is the distraction of our modern age in everything--a
+phantasmal vapour distorting the image of the life we live. You ask
+me to give him a golden age in spite of himself. All that could be
+done, by keeping him in the paths of virtue and truth, I did. He is
+become a man, and as a man he must reap his own sowing."
+
+The baffled lady sighed. He sat so rigid: he spoke so securely, as
+if wisdom were to him more than the love of his son. And yet he did
+love his son. Feeling sure that he loved his son while he spoke so
+loftily, she reverenced him still, baffled as she was, and sensible
+that she had been quibbled with.
+
+"All I ask of you is to open your heart to him," she said.
+
+He kept silent.
+
+"Call him a man,--he is, and must ever be the child of your
+education, my friend."
+
+"You would console me, Emmeline, with the prospect that, if he ruins
+himself, he spares the world of young women. Yes, that is
+something!"
+
+Closely she scanned the mask. It was impenetrable. He could meet her
+eyes, and respond to the pressure of her hand, and smile, and not
+show what he felt. Nor did he deem it hypocritical to seek to
+maintain his elevation in her soft soul, by simulating supreme
+philosophy over offended love. Nor did he know that he had an angel
+with him then: a blind angel, and a weak one, but one who struck
+upon his chance.
+
+"Am I pardoned for coming to you?" she said, after a pause.
+
+"Surely I can read my Emmeline's intentions," he gently replied.
+
+"Very poor ones. I feel my weakness. I cannot utter half I have been
+thinking. Oh, if I could!"
+
+"You speak very well, Emmeline."
+
+"At least, I am pardoned!"
+
+"Surely so."
+
+"And before I leave you, dear friend, shall I be forgiven?--may I
+beg it?--will you bless him?"
+
+He was again silent.
+
+"Pray for him, Austin! pray for him ere the night is over."
+
+As she spoke she slid down to his feet and pressed his hand to her
+bosom.
+
+The baronet was startled. In very dread of the soft fit that wooed
+him, he pushed back his chair, and rose, and went to the window.
+
+"It's day already!" he said with assumed vivacity, throwing open the
+shutters, and displaying the young light on the lawn.
+
+Lady Blandish dried her tears as she knelt, and then joined him, and
+glanced up silently at Richard's moon standing in wane toward the
+West. She hoped it was because of her having been premature in
+pleading so earnestly, that she had failed to move him, and she
+accused herself more than the baronet. But in acting as she had
+done, she had treated him as no common man, and she was compelled to
+perceive that his heart was at present hardly superior to the hearts
+of ordinary men, however composed his face might be, and apparently
+serene his wisdom. From that moment she grew critical of him, and
+began to study her idol--a process dangerous to idols. He, now that
+she seemed to have relinquished the painful subject, drew to her,
+and as one who wished to smooth a foregone roughness, murmured:
+"God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman! My Emmeline
+bears her sleepless night well. She does not shame the day." He
+gazed down on her with a fondling tenderness.
+
+"I could bear many, many!" she replied, meeting his eyes, "and you
+would see me look better and better, if ... if only ..." but she had
+no encouragement to end the sentence.
+
+Perhaps he wanted some mute form of consolation; perhaps the
+handsome placid features of the dark-eyed dame touched him: at any
+rate their Platonism was advanced by his putting an arm about her.
+She felt the arm and talked of the morning.
+
+Thus proximate, they by and by both heard something very like a
+groan behind them, and looking round, beheld the Saurian eye. Lady
+Blandish smiled, but the baronet's discomposure was not to be
+concealed. By a strange fatality every stage of their innocent loves
+was certain to have a human beholder.
+
+"Oh, I'm sure I beg pardon," Benson mumbled, arresting his head in a
+melancholy pendulosity. He was ordered out of the room.
+
+"And I think I shall follow him, and try to get forty winks," said
+Lady Blandish. They parted with a quiet squeeze of hands.
+
+The baronet then called in Benson.
+
+"Get me my breakfast as soon as you can," he said, regardless of the
+aspect of injured conscience Benson sombrely presented to him. "I am
+going to town early. And, Benson," he added, "you will also go to
+town this afternoon, or to-morrow, if it suits you, and take your
+book with you to Mr. Thompson. You will not return here. A provision
+will be made for you. You can go."
+
+The heavy butler essayed to speak, but the tremendous blow and the
+baronet's gesture choked him. At the door he made another effort
+which shook the rolls of his loose skin pitiably. An impatient
+signal sent him out dumb,--and Raynham was quit of the one believer
+in the Great Shaddock dogma.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE
+
+
+It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green waves before a
+full-blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts bounded out like foam,
+and flashed their sails, light as sea-nymphs. A crown of deep Summer
+blue topped the flying mountains of cloud.
+
+By an open window that looked on the brine through nodding roses,
+our young bridal pair were at breakfast, regaling worthily, both of
+them. Had the Scientific Humanist observed them, he could not have
+contested the fact, that as a couple who had set up to be father and
+mother of Britons, they were doing their duty. Files of egg-cups
+with disintegrated shells bore witness to it, and they were still at
+work, hardly talking from rapidity of exercise. Both were dressed
+for an expedition. She had her bonnet on, and he his yachting-hat.
+His sleeves were turned over at the wrists, and her gown showed its
+lining on her lap. At times a chance word might spring a laugh, but
+eating was the business of the hour, as I would have you to know it
+always will be where Cupid is in earnest. Tribute flowed in to them
+from the subject land. Neglected lies Love's penny-whistle on which
+they played so prettily and charmed the spheres to hear them. What
+do they care for the spheres, who have one another? Come, eggs!
+come, bread and butter! come, tea with sugar in it and milk! and
+welcome, the jolly hours. That is a fair interpretation of the music
+in them just now. Yonder instrument was good only for the overture.
+After all, what finer aspiration can lovers have, than to be free
+man and woman in the heart of plenty? And is it not a glorious level
+to have attained? Ah, wretched Scientific Humanist! not to be by and
+mark the admirable sight of these young creatures feeding. It would
+have been a spell to exorcise the Manichee, methinks.
+
+The mighty performance came to an end, and then, with a flourish of
+his table-napkin, husband stood over wife, who met him on the
+confident budding of her mouth. The poetry of mortals is their daily
+prose. Is it not a glorious level to have attained? A short,
+quick-blooded kiss, radiant, fresh, and honest as Aurora, and then
+Richard says without lack of cheer, "No letter to-day, my Lucy!"
+whereat her sweet eyes dwell on him a little seriously, but he
+cries, "Never mind! he'll be coming down himself some morning. He
+has only to know her, and all's well! eh?" and so saying he puts a
+hand beneath her chin, and seems to frame her fair face in fancy,
+she smiling up to be looked at.
+
+"But one thing I do want to ask my darling," says Lucy, and dropped
+into his bosom with hands of petition. "Take me on board his yacht
+with him to-day--not leave me with those people! Will he? I'm a good
+sailor, he knows!"
+
+"The best afloat!" laughs Richard, hugging her, "but, you know, you
+darling bit of a sailor, they don't allow more than a certain number
+on board for the race, and if they hear you've been with me,
+there'll be cries of foul play! Besides, there's Lady Judith to talk
+to you about Austin, and Lord Mountfalcon's compliments for you to
+listen to, and Mr. Morton to take care of you."
+
+Lucy's eyes fixed sideways an instant.
+
+"I hope I don't frown and blush as I did?" she said, screwing her
+pliable brows up to him winningly, and he bent his cheek against
+hers, and murmured something delicious.
+
+"And we shall be separated for--how many hours? one, two, three
+hours!" she pouted to his flatteries.
+
+"And then I shall come on board to receive my bride's
+congratulations."
+
+"And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady Judith."
+
+"And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at Lord
+Mountfalcon."
+
+"Am I so foolish, Richard?" she forgot her trifling to ask in an
+earnest way, and had another Aurorean kiss, just brushing the dew on
+her lips, for answer.
+
+After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy sinners had
+wandered forth one day to look on men and marvel at them, and had
+chanced to meet Mr. Morton of Poer Hall, Austin Wentworth's friend,
+and Ralph's uncle. Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the
+baronet, but had given him up for many years as impracticable and
+hopeless, for which reason he was the more inclined to regard
+Richard's misdemeanour charitably, and to lay the faults of the son
+on the father; and thinking society to be the one thing requisite to
+the young man, he had introduced him to the people he knew in the
+island; among others to the Lady Judith Felle, a fair young dame,
+who introduced him to Lord Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman; who
+introduced him to the yachtsmen beginning to congregate; so that in
+a few weeks he found himself in the centre of a brilliant company,
+and for the first time in his life tasted what it was to have free
+intercourse with his fellow-creatures of both sexes. The son of a
+System was, therefore, launched; not only through the surf, but in
+deep waters.
+
+Now the baronet had so far compromised between the recurrence of his
+softer feelings and the suggestions of his new familiar, that he had
+determined to act toward Richard with justness. The world called it
+magnanimity, and even Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same
+kind when she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome
+allowance, and had scouted Mrs. Doria's proposal for him to contest
+the legality of the marriage; but Sir Austin knew well he was simply
+just in not withholding money from a youth so situated. And here
+again the world deceived him by embellishing his conduct. For what
+is it to be just to whom we love! He knew it was not magnanimous,
+but the cry of the world somehow fortified him in the conceit that
+in dealing perfect justice to his son he was doing all that was
+possible, because so much more than common fathers would have done.
+He had shut his heart.
+
+Consequently Richard did not want money. What he wanted more, and
+did not get, was a word from his father, and though he said nothing
+to sadden his young bride, she felt how much it preyed upon him to
+be at variance with the man whom, now that he had offended him and
+gone against him, he would have fallen on his knees to; the man who
+was as no other man to him. She heard him of nights when she lay by
+his side, and the darkness, and the broken mutterings, of those
+nights clothed the figure of the strange stern man in her mind. Not
+that it affected the appetites of the pretty pair. We must not
+expect that of Cupid enthroned and in condition; under the influence
+of sea-air, too. The files of egg-cups laugh at such an idea. Still
+the worm did gnaw them. Judge, then, of their delight when, on this
+pleasant morning, as they were issuing from the garden of their
+cottage to go down to the sea, they caught sight of Tom Bakewell
+rushing up the road with a portmanteau on his shoulders, and, some
+distance behind him, discerned Adrian.
+
+"It's all right!" shouted Richard, and ran off to meet him, and
+never left his hand till he had hauled him up, firing questions at
+him all the way, to where Lucy stood.
+
+"Lucy! this is Adrian, my cousin."--"Isn't he an angel?" his eyes
+seemed to add; while Lucy's clearly answered, "That he is!"
+
+The full-bodied angel ceremoniously bowed to her, and acted with
+reserved unction the benefactor he saw in their greetings. "I think
+we are not strangers," he was good enough to remark, and very
+quickly let them know he had not breakfasted; on hearing which they
+hurried him into the house, and Lucy put herself in motion to have
+him served.
+
+"Dear old Rady," said Richard, tugging at his hand again, "how glad
+I am you've come! I don't mind telling you we've been horridly
+wretched."
+
+"Six, seven, eight, nine eggs," was Adrian's comment on a survey of
+the breakfast-table.
+
+"Why wouldn't he write? Why didn't he answer one of my letters? But
+here you are, so I don't mind now. He wants to see us, does he?
+We'll go up to-night. I've a match on at eleven; my little
+yacht--I've called her the 'Blandish'--against Fred Currie's
+'Begum.' I shall beat, but whether I do or not, we'll go up
+to-night. What's the news? What are they all doing?"
+
+"My dear boy!" Adrian returned, sitting comfortably down, "let me
+put myself a little more on an equal footing with you before I
+undertake to reply. Half that number of eggs will be sufficient for
+an unmarried man, and then we'll talk. They're all very well, as
+well as I can recollect after the shaking my total vacuity has had
+this morning. I came over by the first boat, and the sea, the sea
+has made me love mother earth, and desire of her fruits."
+
+Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative.
+
+"Adrian! what did he say when he heard of it? I want to know exactly
+what words he said."
+
+"Well says the sage, my son! 'Speech is the small change of
+Silence.' He said less than I do."
+
+"That's how he took it!" cried Richard, and plunged in meditation.
+
+Soon the table was cleared, and laid out afresh, and Lucy preceded
+the maid bearing eggs on the tray, and sat down unbonneted, and like
+a thorough-bred housewife, to pour out the tea for him.
+
+"Now, we'll commence," said Adrian, tapping his egg with meditative
+cheerfulness; but his expression soon changed to one of pain, all
+the more alarming for his benevolent efforts to conceal it. Could it
+be possible the egg was bad? oh, horror! Lucy watched him, and
+waited in trepidation.
+
+"This egg has boiled three minutes and three-quarters," he observed,
+ceasing to contemplate it.
+
+"Dear, dear!" said Lucy, "I boiled them myself exactly that time.
+Richard likes them so. And you like them hard, Mr. Harley?"
+
+"On the contrary, I like them soft. Two minutes and a half, or
+three-quarters at the outside. An egg should never rashly verge upon
+hardness--never. Three minutes is the excess of temerity."
+
+"If Richard had told me! If I had only known!" the lovely little
+hostess interjected ruefully, biting her lip.
+
+"We mustn't expect him to pay attention to such matters," said
+Adrian, trying to smile.
+
+"Hang it! there are more eggs in the house," cried Richard, and
+pulled savagely at the bell.
+
+Lucy jumped up, saying, "Oh, yes! I will go and boil some exactly
+the time you like. Pray let me go, Mr. Harley."
+
+Adrian restrained her departure with a motion of his hand. "No," he
+said, "I will be ruled by Richard's tastes, and heaven grant me his
+digestion!"
+
+Lucy threw a sad look at Richard, who stretched on a sofa, and left
+the burden of the entertainment entirely to her. The eggs were a
+melancholy beginning, but her ardour to please Adrian would not be
+damped, and she deeply admired his resignation. If she failed in
+pleasing this glorious herald of peace, no matter by what small
+misadventure, she apprehended calamity; so there sat this fair dove
+with brows at work above her serious smiling blue eyes, covertly
+studying every aspect of the plump-faced epicure, that she might
+learn to propitiate him. "He shall not think me timid and stupid,"
+thought this brave girl, and indeed Adrian was astonished to find
+that she could both chat and be useful, as well as look ornamental.
+When he had finished one egg, behold, two fresh ones came in, boiled
+according to his prescription. She had quietly given her orders to
+the maid, and he had them without fuss. Possibly his look of dismay
+at the offending eggs had not been altogether involuntary, and her
+woman's instinct, inexperienced as she was, may have told her that
+he had come prepared to be not very well satisfied with anything in
+Love's cottage. There was mental faculty in those pliable brows to
+see through, and combat, an unwitting wise youth.
+
+How much she had achieved already she partly divined when Adrian
+said: "I think now I'm in case to answer your questions, my dear
+boy--thanks to Mrs. Richard," and he bowed to her his first direct
+acknowledgment of her position. Lucy thrilled with pleasure.
+
+"Ah!" cried Richard, and settled easily on his back.
+
+"To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has been
+persuaded to offer a reward which shall maintain the happy finder
+thereof in an asylum for life. Benson--superlative Benson--has
+turned his shoulders upon Raynham. None know whither he has
+departed. It is believed that the sole surviving member of the sect
+of the Shaddock-Dogmatists is under a total eclipse of Woman."
+
+"Benson gone?" Richard exclaimed. "What a tremendous time it seems
+since I left Raynham!"
+
+"So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet's minute; or say,
+the Persian King's water-pail that you read of in the story: You dip
+your head in it, and when you draw it out, you discover that you
+have lived a life. To resume: your uncle Algernon still roams in
+pursuit of the lost one--I should say, hops. Your uncle Hippias has
+a new and most perplexing symptom: a determination of bride-cake to
+the nose. Ever since your generous present to him, though he
+declares he never consumed a morsel of it, he has been under the
+distressing illusion that his nose is enormous, and I assure you he
+exhibits quite a maidenly timidity in following it--through a
+doorway, for instance. He complains of its terrible weight. I have
+conceived that Benson invisible might be sitting on it. His hand,
+and the doctor's, are in hourly consultation with it, but I fear it
+will not grow smaller. The Pilgrim has begotten upon it a new
+Aphorism: that Size is a matter of opinion."
+
+"Poor uncle Hippy!" said Richard, "I wonder he doesn't believe in
+magic. There's nothing supernatural to rival the wonderful
+sensations he does believe in. Good God! fancy coming to that!"
+
+"I'm sure I'm very sorry," Lucy protested, "but I can't help
+laughing."
+
+Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter sounded.
+
+"The Pilgrim has your notion, Richard. Whom does he not forestall?
+'Confirmed dyspepsia is the apparatus of illusions,' and he accuses
+the Ages that put faith in sorcery, of universal indigestion, which
+may have been the case, owing to their infamous cookery. He says
+again, if you remember, that our own Age is travelling back to
+darkness and ignorance through dyspepsia. He lays the seat of wisdom
+in the centre of our system, Mrs. Richard: for which reason you will
+understand how sensible I am of the vast obligation I am under to
+you at the present moment, for your especial care of mine."
+
+Richard looked on at Lucy's little triumph, attributing Adrian's
+subjugation to her beauty and sweetness. She had latterly received a
+great many compliments on that score, which she did not care to
+hear, and Adrian's homage to a practical quality was far pleasanter
+to the young wife, who shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not
+help her much in the struggle she had now to maintain. Adrian
+continuing to lecture on the excelling virtues of wise cookery, a
+thought struck her: Where, where had she tossed Mrs. Berry's book?
+
+"So that's all about the home-people?" said Richard.
+
+"All!" replied Adrian. "Or stay: you know Clare's going to be
+married? Not? Your Aunt Helen"----
+
+"Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had the
+impertinence to write--but never mind! Is it to Ralph?"
+
+"Your Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is an
+extraordinary woman. It was from her originally that the Pilgrim
+first learnt to call the female the practical animal. He studies us
+all, you know. THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP is the abstract portraiture of
+his surrounding relatives. Well, your Aunt Helen"----
+
+"Mrs. Doria Battledoria!" laughed Richard.
+
+"----being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own--call it a
+System if you like--of some ten or fifteen years' standing, with
+regard to Miss Clare!"----
+
+"The fair Shuttlecockiana!"
+
+"----instead of fretting like a man, and questioning Providence, and
+turning herself and everybody else inside out, and seeing the world
+upside down, what does the practical animal do? She wanted to marry
+her to somebody she couldn't marry her to, so she resolved instantly
+to marry her to somebody she could marry her to: and as old
+gentlemen enter into these transactions with the practical animal
+the most readily, she fixed upon an old gentleman; an unmarried old
+gentleman, a rich old gentleman, and now a captive old gentleman.
+The ceremony takes place in about a week from the present time. No
+doubt you will receive your invitation in a day or two."
+
+"And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to marry an old
+man!" groaned Richard. "I'll put a stop to that when I go to town."
+
+Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he bethought him it
+was time to go on board and make preparations.
+
+"I'm off," he said. "Adrian, you'll take her. She goes in the Empress,
+Mountfalcon's vessel. He starts us. A little schooner-yacht--such a
+beauty! I'll have one like her some day. Good-bye, darling!" he
+whispered to Lucy, and his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on
+him, seeking to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred
+from. But she quickly looked away from him as he held her:--Adrian
+stood silent: his brows were up, and his mouth dubiously contracted.
+He spoke at last.
+
+"Go on the water?"
+
+"Yes. It's only to St. Helen's. Short and sharp."
+
+"Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system has just received,
+my son?"
+
+"Oh, bother your system! Put on your hat, and come along. I'll put
+you on board in my boat."
+
+"Richard! I have already paid the penalty of them who are condemned
+to come to an island. I will go with you to the edge of the sea, and
+I will meet you there when you return, and take up the Tale of the
+Tritons: but, though I forfeit the pleasure of Mrs. Richard's
+company, I refuse to quit the land."
+
+"Yes, oh, Mr. Harley!" Lucy broke from her husband, "and I will stay
+with you, if you please. I don't want to go among those people, and
+we can see it all from the shore. Dearest! I don't want to go. You
+don't mind? Of course, I will go if you wish, but I would so much
+rather stay;" and she lengthened her plea in her attitude and look
+to melt the discontent she saw gathering.
+
+Adrian protested that she had much better go; that he could amuse
+himself very well till their return, and so forth; but she had
+schemes in her pretty head, and held to it to be allowed to stay in
+spite of Lord Mountfalcon's disappointment, cited by Richard, and at
+the great risk of vexing her darling, as she saw. Richard pished,
+and glanced contemptuously at Adrian. He gave way ungraciously.
+
+"There, do as you like. Get your things ready to leave this evening.
+No, I'm not angry."--Who could be? he seemed as he looked up from
+her modest fondling to ask Adrian, and seized the indemnity of a
+kiss on her forehead, which, however, did not immediately disperse
+the shade of annoyance he felt.
+
+"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Such a day as this, and a fellow
+refuses to come on the water! Well, come along to the edge of the
+sea." Adrian's angelic quality had quite worn off to him. He never
+thought of devoting himself to make the most of the material there
+was: but somebody else did, and that fair somebody succeeded
+wonderfully in a few short hours. She induced Adrian to reflect that
+the baronet had only to see her, and the family muddle would be
+smoothed at once. He came to it by degrees; still the gradations
+were rapid. Her manner he liked; she was certainly a nice picture:
+best of all, she was sensible. He forgot the farmer's niece in her,
+she was so very sensible. She appeared really to understand that it
+was a woman's duty to know how to cook.
+
+But the difficulty was, by what means the baronet could be brought
+to consent to see her. He had not yet consented to see his son, and
+Adrian, spurred by Lady Blandish, had ventured something in coming
+down. He was not inclined to venture more. The small debate in his
+mind ended by his throwing the burden on time. Time would bring the
+matter about. Christians as well as Pagans are in the habit of
+phrasing this excuse for folding their arms; "forgetful," says THE
+PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "that the devil's imps enter into no such
+armistice."
+
+As she loitered along the shore with her amusing companion, Lucy had
+many things to think of. There was her darling's match. The yachts
+were started by pistol-shot by Lord Mountfalcon on board the
+Empress, and her little heart beat after Richard's straining sails.
+Then there was the strangeness of walking with a relative of
+Richard's, one who had lived by his side so long. And the thought
+that perhaps this night she would have to appear before the dreaded
+father of her husband.
+
+"O Mr. Harley!" she said, "is it true--are we to go to-night? And
+me," she faltered, "will he see me?"
+
+"Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about," said Adrian. "I
+made some reply to our dear boy which he has slightly misinterpreted.
+Our second person plural is liable to misconstruction by an ardent
+mind. I said 'see you,' and he supposed--now, Mrs. Richard, I am
+sure you will understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be
+advisable--when the father and son have settled their accounts, the
+daughter-in-law can't be a debtor."...
+
+Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at the chance
+of a respite from the awful interview made her quickly apprehensive.
+
+"O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?"
+
+"Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an excellent
+husband that I fancy it will require more than a man's power of
+persuasion to get him to go."
+
+"But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley."
+
+"Perhaps, if you would...."
+
+"There is nothing I would not do for his happiness," murmured Lucy.
+
+The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation. They
+walked on till the yachts had rounded the point.
+
+"Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?" she asked with some trouble in her
+voice now that her darling was out of sight.
+
+"I don't imagine your eloquence even will get him to leave you
+to-night," Adrian replied gallantly. "Besides, I must speak for
+myself. To achieve the passage to an island is enough for one day.
+No necessity exists for any hurry, except in the brain of that
+impetuous boy. You must correct it, Mrs. Richard. Men are made to be
+managed, and women are born managers. Now, if you were to let him
+know that you don't want to go to-night, and let him guess, after a
+day or two, that you would very much rather ... you might affect a
+peculiar repugnance. By taking it on yourself, you see, this wild
+young man will not require such frightful efforts of persuasion.
+Both his father and he are exceedingly delicate subjects, and his
+father unfortunately is not in a position to be managed directly.
+It's a strange office to propose to you, but it appears to devolve
+upon you to manage the father through the son. Prodigal having made
+his peace, you, who have done all the work from a distance,
+naturally come into the circle of the paternal smile, knowing it due
+to you. I see no other way. If Richard suspects that his father
+objects for the present to welcome his daughter-in-law, hostilities
+will be continued, the breach will be widened, bad will grow to
+worse, and I see no end to it."
+
+Adrian looked in her face, as much as to say: Now are you capable of
+this piece of heroism? And it did seem hard to her that she should
+have to tell Richard she shrank from any trial. But the proposition
+chimed in with her fears and her wishes: she thought the wise youth
+very wise: the poor child was not insensible to his flattery, and
+the subtler flattery of making herself in some measure a sacrifice
+to the home she had disturbed. She agreed to simulate as Adrian had
+suggested.
+
+Victory is the commonest heritage of the hero, and when Richard came
+on shore proclaiming that the Blandish had beaten the Begum by seven
+minutes and three-quarters, he was hastily kissed and congratulated
+by his bride with her fingers among the leaves of Dr. Kitchener, and
+anxiously questioned about wine.
+
+"Dearest! Mr. Harley wants to stay with us a little, and he thinks
+we ought not to go immediately--that is, before he has had some
+letters, and I feel ... I would so much rather...."
+
+"Ah! that's it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then, to-morrow.
+We had a splendid race. Did you see us?"
+
+"Oh, yes! I saw you and was sure my darling would win." And again
+she threw on him the cold water of that solicitude about wine. "Mr.
+Harley must have the best, you know, and we never drink it, and I'm
+so silly, I don't know good wine, and if you would send Tom where he
+can get _good_ wine. I have seen to the dinner."
+
+"So that's why you didn't come to meet me?"
+
+"Pardon me, darling."
+
+"Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn't, and Lady Judith thinks you
+ought to have been there."
+
+"Ah, but my heart was with you!"
+
+Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart: her eyelids
+softened, and she ran away.
+
+It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no fault with it,
+and was in perfect good humour at the conclusion of the service. He
+did not abuse the wine they were able to procure for him, which was
+also much. The coffee, too, had the honour of passing without
+comment. These were sound first steps toward the conquest of an
+epicure, and as yet Cupid did not grumble.
+
+After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from Lady Judith's
+grounds. The wind had dropped. The clouds had rolled from the
+zenith, and ranged in amphitheatre with distant flushed bodies over
+sea and land: Titanic crimson head and chest rising from the wave
+faced Hyperion falling. There hung Briareus with deep-indented trunk
+and ravined brows, stretching all his hands up to unattainable blue
+summits. North-west the range had a rich white glow, as if shining
+to the moon, and westward, streams of amber, melting into upper
+rose, shot out from the dipping disk.
+
+"What Sandoe calls the passion-flower of heaven," said Richard under
+his breath to Adrian, who was serenely chanting Greek hexameters,
+and answered, in the swing of the caesura, "He might as well have
+said cauliflower."
+
+Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head, met them in
+the walk. She was tall and dark; dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet and
+persuasive in her accent and manner. "A second edition of the
+Blandish," thinks Adrian. She welcomed him as one who had claims on
+her affability. She kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking on the
+wonders of the evening, appropriated her husband. Adrian and Lucy
+found themselves walking behind them.
+
+The sun was under. All the spaces of the sky were alight, and
+Richard's fancy flamed.
+
+"So you're not intoxicated with your immense triumph this morning?"
+said Lady Judith.
+
+"Don't laugh at me. When it's over I feel ashamed of the trouble
+I've taken. Look at that glory!--I'm sure you despise me for it."
+
+"Was I not there to applaud you? I only think such energies should
+be turned into some definitely useful channel. But you must not go
+into the Army."
+
+"What else can I do?"
+
+"You are fit for so much that is better."
+
+"I never can be anything like Austin."
+
+"But I think you can do more."
+
+"Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Something I will
+do. A man must deserve to live, as you say."
+
+"Sauces," Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in the rear,
+"Sauces are the top tree of this science. A woman who has mastered
+sauces sits on the apex of civilization."
+
+Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The West was all a burning rose.
+
+"How can men see such sights as those, and live idle?" Richard
+resumed. "I feel ashamed of asking my men to work for me.--Or I feel
+so now."
+
+"Not when you're racing the Begum, I think. There's no necessity for
+you to turn democrat like Austin. Do you write now?"
+
+"No. What is writing like mine? It doesn't deceive me. I know it's
+only the excuse I'm making to myself for remaining idle. I haven't
+written a line since--lately."
+
+"Because you are so happy."
+
+"No, not because of that. Of course I'm very happy...." He did not
+finish.
+
+Vague, shapeless ambition had replaced love in yonder skies. No
+Scientific Humanist was by to study the natural development, and
+guide him. This lady would hardly be deemed a very proper guide to
+the undirected energies of the youth, yet they had established
+relations of that nature. She was five years older than he, and a
+woman, which may explain her serene presumption.
+
+The cloud-giants had broken up: a brawny shoulder smouldered over
+the sea.
+
+"We'll work together in town, at all events," said Richard. "Why
+can't we go about together at night and find out people who want
+help?"
+
+Lady Judith smiled, and only corrected his nonsense by saying, "I
+think we mustn't be too romantic. You will become a knight-errant, I
+suppose. You have the characteristics of one."
+
+"Especially at breakfast," Adrian's unnecessarily emphatic
+gastronomical lessons to the young wife here came in.
+
+"You must be our champion," continued Lady Judith: "the rescuer and
+succourer of distressed dames and damsels. We want one badly."
+
+"You do," said Richard, earnestly: "from what I hear: from what I
+know!" His thoughts flew off with him as knight-errant hailed
+shrilly at exceeding critical moments by distressed dames and
+damsels. Images of airy towers hung around. His fancy performed
+miraculous feats. The towers crumbled. The stars grew larger, seemed
+to throb with lustre. His fancy crumbled with the towers of the
+air, his heart gave a leap, he turned to Lucy.
+
+"My darling! what have you been doing?" And as if to compensate her
+for his little knight-errant infidelity, he pressed very tenderly to
+her.
+
+"We have been engaged in a charming conversation on domestic
+cookery," interposed Adrian.
+
+"Cookery! such an evening as this?" His face was a handsome likeness
+of Hippias at the presentation of bride-cake.
+
+"Dearest! you know it's very useful," Lucy mirthfully pleaded.
+
+"Indeed I quite agree with you, child," said Lady Judith, "and I
+think you have the laugh of us. I certainly will learn to cook some
+day."
+
+"Woman's mission, in so many words," ejaculated Adrian.
+
+"And pray, what is man's?"
+
+"To taste thereof, and pronounce thereupon."
+
+"Let us give it up to them," said Lady Judith to Richard. "You and I
+never will make so delightful and beautifully balanced a world of
+it."
+
+Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to give everything
+up to the fair face, his bridal Hesper.
+
+Next day Lucy had to act the coward anew, and, as she did so, her
+heart sank to see how painfully it affected him that she should
+hesitate to go with him to his father. He was patient, gentle; he
+sat down by her side to appeal to her reason, and used all the
+arguments he could think of to persuade her.
+
+"If we go together and make him see us both: if he sees he has
+nothing to be ashamed of in you--rather everything to be proud of;
+if you are only near him, you will not have to speak a word, and I'm
+certain--as certain as that I live--that in a week we shall be
+settled happily at Raynham. I know my father so well, Lucy. Nobody
+knows him but I."
+
+Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not.
+
+"Adrian? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of people, Lucy; and
+not the best part."
+
+Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of her
+conquest.
+
+"Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy?"
+
+"No, no, Richard; oh, dear no;" she cried, and looked at him more
+tenderly because she was not quite truthful.
+
+"He doesn't know my father at all," said Richard. But Lucy had
+another opinion of the wise youth, and secretly maintained it. She
+could not be won to imagine the baronet a man of human mould,
+generous, forgiving, full of passionate love at heart, as Richard
+tried to picture him, and thought him, now that he beheld him again
+through Adrian's embassy. To her he was that awful figure, shrouded
+by the midnight. "Why are you so harsh?" she had heard Richard cry
+more than once. She was sure that Adrian must be right.
+
+"Well, I tell you I won't go without you," said Richard, and Lucy
+begged for a little more time.
+
+Cupid now began to grumble, and with cause. Adrian positively
+refused to go on the water unless that element were smooth as a
+plate. The South-west still joked boisterously at any comparison of
+the sort; the days were magnificent; Richard had yachting
+engagements; and Lucy always petitioned to stay to keep Adrian
+company, conceiving it her duty as hostess. Arguing with Adrian was
+an absurd idea. If Richard hinted at his retaining Lucy, the wise
+youth would remark: "It's a wholesome interlude to your extremely
+Cupidinous behaviour, my dear boy."
+
+Richard asked his wife what they could possibly find to talk about.
+
+"All manner of things," said Lucy; "not only cookery. He is so
+amusing, though he does make fun of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, and I think
+he ought not. And then, do you know, darling--you won't think me
+vain?--I think he is beginning to like me a little."
+
+Richard laughed at the humble mind of his Beauty.
+
+"Doesn't everybody like you, admire you? Doesn't Lord Mountfalcon,
+and Mr. Morton, and Lady Judith?"
+
+"But he is one of your family, Richard."
+
+"And they all will, if she isn't a coward."
+
+"Ah, no!" she sighs, and is chidden.
+
+The conquest of an epicure, or any young wife's conquest beyond her
+husband, however loyally devised for their mutual happiness, may be
+costly to her. Richard in his hours of excitement was thrown very
+much with Lady Judith. He consulted her regarding what he termed
+Lucy's cowardice. Lady Judith said: "I think she's wrong, but you
+must learn to humour little women."
+
+"Then would you advise me to go up alone?" he asked, with a cloudy
+forehead.
+
+"What else can you do? Be reconciled yourself as quickly as you can.
+You can't drag her like a captive, you know?"
+
+It is not pleasant for a young husband, fancying his bride the
+peerless flower of Creation, to learn that he must humour a little
+woman in her. It was revolting to Richard.
+
+"What I fear," he said, "is, that my father will make it smooth with
+me, and not acknowledge her: so that whenever I go to him, I shall
+have to leave her, and tit for tat--an abominable existence, like a
+ball on a billiard-table. I won't bear that ignominy. And this I
+know, I know! she might prevent it at once, if she would only be
+brave, and face it. You, you, Lady Judith, you wouldn't be a
+coward?"
+
+"Where my old lord tells me to go, I go," the lady coldly replied.
+"There's not much merit in that. Pray, don't cite me. Women are born
+cowards, you know."
+
+"But I love the women who are not cowards."
+
+"The little thing--your wife has not refused to go?"
+
+"No--but tears! Who can stand tears?"
+
+Lucy had come to drop them. Unaccustomed to have his will thwarted,
+and urgent where he saw the thing to do so clearly, the young
+husband had spoken strong words: and she, who knew that she would
+have given her life by inches for him; who knew that she was playing
+a part for his happiness, and hiding for his sake the nature that
+was worthy his esteem; the poor little martyr had been weak a
+moment.
+
+She had Adrian's support. The wise youth was very comfortable. He
+liked the air of the Island, and he liked being petted. "A nice
+little woman! a very nice little woman!" Tom Bakewell heard him
+murmur to himself according to a habit he had; and his air of rather
+succulent patronage as he walked or sat beside the innocent Beauty,
+with his head thrown back and a smile that seemed always to be in
+secret communion with his marked abdominal prominence, showed that
+she was gaining part of what she played for. Wise youths who buy
+their loves, are not unwilling, when opportunity offers, to try and
+obtain the commodity for nothing. Examinations of her hand, as for
+some occult purpose, and unctuous pattings of the same, were not
+infrequent. Adrian waxed now and then Anacreontic in his
+compliments. Lucy would say: "That's worse than Lord Mountfalcon."
+
+"Better English than the noble lord deigns to employ--allow that?"
+quoth Adrian.
+
+"He is very kind," said Lucy.
+
+"To all save to our noble vernacular," added Adrian. "He seems to
+scent a rival to his dignity there."
+
+It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic emotions.
+
+"We are at our ease here in excellent society," he wrote to Lady
+Blandish. "I am bound to confess that the Huron has a happy fortune,
+or a superlative instinct. Blindfold he has seized upon a suitable
+mate. She can look at a lord, and cook for an epicure. Besides Dr.
+Kitchener, she reads and comments on THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP. The 'Love'
+chapter, of course, takes her fancy. That picture of Woman, '_Drawn
+by Reverence and coloured by Love_,' she thinks beautiful, and
+repeats it, tossing up pretty eyes. Also the lover's petition:
+'_Give me purity to be worthy the good in her, and grant her
+patience to reach the good in me._' 'Tis quite taking to hear her
+lisp it. Be sure that I am repeating the petition! I make her read
+me her choice passages. She has not a bad voice.
+
+"The Lady Judith I spoke of is Austin's Miss Menteith, married to
+the incapable old Lord Felle, or Fellow, as the wits here call him.
+Lord Mountfalcon is his cousin, and her--what? She has been trying
+to find out, but they have both got over their perplexity, and act
+respectively the bad man reproved and the chaste counsellor; a
+position in which our young couple found them, and haply diverted
+its perils. They had quite taken them in hand. Lady Judith
+undertakes to cure the fair Papist of a pretty, modest trick of
+frowning and blushing when addressed, and his lordship directs the
+exuberant energies of the original man. 'Tis thus we fulfil our
+destinies, and are content. Sometimes they change pupils; my lord
+educates the little dame, and my lady the hope of Raynham. Joy and
+blessings unto all! as the German poet sings. Lady Judith accepted
+the hand of her decrepit lord that she might be of potent service to
+her fellow-creatures. Austin, you know, had great hopes of her.
+
+"I have for the first time in my career a field of lords to study. I
+think it is not without meaning that I am introduced to it by a
+yeoman's niece. The language of the two social extremes is similar.
+I find it to consist in an instinctively lavish use of vowels and
+adjectives. My lord and Farmer Blaize speak the same tongue, only my
+lord's has lost its backbone, and is limp, though fluent. Their
+pursuits are identical; but that one has money, or, as the Pilgrim
+terms it, _vantage_, and the other has not. Their ideas seem to have
+a special relationship in the peculiarity of stopping where they
+have begun. Young Tom Blaize with _vantage_ would be Lord
+Mountfalcon. Even in the character of their parasites I see a
+resemblance, though I am bound to confess that the Hon. Peter
+Brayder, who is my lord's parasite, is by no means noxious.
+
+"This sounds dreadfully democratic. Pray, don't be alarmed. The
+discovery of the affinity between the two extremes of the Royal
+British Oak has made me thrice conservative. I see now that the
+national love of a lord is less subservience than a form of
+self-love; putting a gold-lace hat on one's image, as it were, to
+bow to it. I see, too, the admirable wisdom of our system:--could
+there be a finer balance of power than in a community where men
+intellectually nil, have lawful vantage and a gold-lace hat on? How
+soothing it is to intellect--that noble rebel, as the PILGRIM has
+it--to stand, and bow, and know itself superior! This exquisite
+compensation maintains the balance: whereas that period anticipated
+by the PILGRIM, when science shall have produced an _intellectual
+aristocracy_, is indeed horrible to contemplate. For what despotism
+is so black as one the mind cannot challenge? 'Twill be an iron Age.
+Wherefore, madam, I cry, and shall continue to cry, '_Vive_ Lord
+Mountfalcon! long may he sip his Burgundy! long may the bacon-fed
+carry him on their shoulders!'
+
+"Mr. Morton (who does me the honour to call me Young Mephisto, and
+Socrates missed) leaves to-morrow to get Master Ralph out of a
+scrape. Our Richard has just been elected member of a Club for the
+promotion of nausea. Is he happy? you ask. As much so as one who has
+had the misfortune to obtain what he wanted can be. Speed is his
+passion. He races from point to point. In emulation of Leander and
+Don Juan, he swam, I hear, to the opposite shores the other day, or
+some world-shaking feat of the sort: himself the Hero whom he went
+to meet: or, as they who pun say, his Hero was a Bet. A pretty
+little domestic episode occurred this morning. He finds her
+abstracted in the fire of his caresses: she turns shy and seeks
+solitude: green jealousy takes hold of him: he lies in wait, and
+discovers her with his new rival--a veteran edition of the culinary
+Doctor! Blind to the Doctor's great national services, deaf to her
+wild music, he grasps the intruder, dismembers him, and performs
+upon him the treatment he has recommended for dressed cucumber.
+Tears and shrieks accompany the descent of the gastronome. Down she
+rushes to secure the cherished fragments: he follows: they find him,
+true to his character, alighted and straggling over a bed of
+blooming flowers. Yet ere a fairer flower can gather him, a heel
+black as Pluto stamps him into earth, flowers and all:--happy
+burial! Pathetic tribute to his merit is watering his grave, when by
+saunters my Lord Mountfalcon. 'What's the mattah?' says his
+lordship, soothing his moustache. They break apart, and 'tis left to
+me to explain from the window. My lord looks shocked, Richard is
+angry with her for having to be ashamed of himself, Beauty dries her
+eyes, and after a pause of general foolishness, the business of life
+is resumed. I may add that the Doctor has just been dug up, and we
+are busy, in the enemy's absence, renewing old AEson with enchanted
+threads. By the way, a Papist priest has blest them."
+
+A month had passed when Adrian wrote this letter. He was very
+comfortable; so of course he thought Time was doing his duty. Not a
+word did he say of Richard's return, and for some reason or other
+neither Richard nor Lucy spoke of it now.
+
+Lady Blandish wrote back: "His father thinks he has refused to come
+to him. By your utter silence on the subject, I fear that it must
+be so. Make him come. Bring him by force. _Insist_ on his coming. Is
+he mad? He must come _at once_."
+
+To this Adrian replied, after a contemplative comfortable lapse of a
+day or two, which might be laid to his efforts to adopt the lady's
+advice, "The point is that the half man declines to come without the
+whole man. The terrible question of sex is our obstruction."
+
+Lady Blandish was in despair. She had no positive assurance that the
+baronet would see his son; the mask put them all in the dark; but
+she thought she saw in Sir Austin irritation that the offender, at
+least when the opening to come and make his peace seemed to be
+before him, should let days and weeks go by. She saw through the
+mask sufficiently not to have any hope of his consenting to receive
+the couple at present; she was sure that his equanimity was
+fictitious; but she pierced no farther, or she might have started
+and asked herself, Is this the heart of a woman?
+
+The lady at last wrote to Richard. She said: "Come instantly, and
+come alone." Then Richard, against his judgment, gave way. "My
+father is not the man I thought him!" he exclaimed sadly, and Lucy
+felt his eyes saying to her: "And you, too, are not the woman I
+thought you." Nothing could the poor little heart reply but strain
+to his bosom and sleeplessly pray in his arms all the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+CLARE'S MARRIAGE
+
+
+Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin Clare was
+married, under the blessings of her energetic mother, and with the
+approbation of her kinsfolk, to the husband that had been
+expeditiously chosen for her. The gentleman, though something more
+than twice the age of his bride, had no idea of approaching senility
+for many long connubial years to come. Backed by his tailor and his
+hairdresser, he presented no such bad figure at the altar, and none
+would have thought that he was an ancient admirer of his bride's
+mama, as certainly none knew he had lately proposed for Mrs. Doria
+before there was any question of her daughter. These things were
+secrets; and the elastic and happy appearance of Mr. John Todhunter
+did not betray them at the altar. Perhaps he would rather have
+married the mother. He was a man of property, well born, tolerably
+well educated, and had, when Mrs. Doria rejected him for the first
+time, the reputation of being a fool--which a wealthy man may have
+in his youth; but as he lived on, and did not squander his
+money--amassed it, on the contrary, and did not seek to go into
+Parliament, and did other negative wise things, the world's opinion,
+as usual, veered completely round, and John Todhunter was esteemed a
+shrewd, sensible man--only not brilliant; that he was brilliant
+could not be said of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk, and it
+was a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were required
+of him in the marriage-service.
+
+Mrs. Doria had her own reasons for being in a hurry. She had
+discovered something of the strange impassive nature of her child;
+not from any confession of Clare's, but from signs a mother can read
+when her eyes are not resolutely shut. She saw with alarm and
+anguish that Clare had fallen into the pit she had been digging for
+her so laboriously. In vain she entreated the baronet to break the
+disgraceful, and, as she said, illegal alliance his son had
+contracted. Sir Austin would not even stop the little pension to
+poor Berry. "At least you will do that, Austin," she begged
+pathetically. "You will show your sense of that horrid woman's
+conduct?" He refused to offer up any victim to console her. Then
+Mrs. Doria told him her thoughts,--and when an outraged energetic
+lady is finally brought to exhibit these painfully hoarded
+treasures, she does not use half words as a medium. His System, and
+his conduct generally were denounced to him, without analysis. She
+let him understand that the world laughed at him; and he heard this
+from her at a time when his mask was still soft and liable to be
+acted on by his nerves. "You are weak, Austin! weak, I tell you!"
+she said, and, like all angry and self-interested people, prophecy
+came easy to her. In her heart she accused him of her own fault, in
+imputing to him the wreck of her project. The baronet allowed her
+to revel in the proclamation of a dire future, and quietly
+counselled her to keep apart from him, which his sister assured him
+she would do.
+
+But to be passive in calamity is the province of no woman. Mark the
+race at any hour. "What revolution and hubbub does not that little
+instrument, the needle, avert from us!" says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP.
+Alas, that in calamity women cannot stitch! Now that she saw Clare
+wanted other than iron, it struck her she must have a husband, and
+be made secure as a woman and a wife. This seemed the thing to do:
+and, as she had forced the iron down Clare's throat, so she forced
+the husband, and Clare gulped at the latter as she had at the
+former. On the very day that Mrs. Doria had this new track shaped
+out before her, John Todhunter called at the Foreys'. "Old John!"
+sang out Mrs. Doria, "show him up to me. I want to see him
+particularly." He sat with her alone. He was a man multitudes of
+women would have married--whom will they not?--and who would have
+married any presentable woman: but women do want asking, and John
+never had the word. The rape of such men is left to the practical
+animal. So John sat alone with his old flame. He had become resigned
+to her perpetual lamentation and living Suttee for his defunct
+rival. But, ha! what meant those soft glances now--addressed to him?
+His tailor and his hairdresser gave youth to John, but they had not
+the art to bestow upon him distinction, and an undistinguished man
+what woman looks at? John was an indistinguishable man. For that
+reason he was dry wood to a soft glance.
+
+And now she said: "It is time you should marry; and you are the man
+to be the guide and helper of a young woman, John. You are well
+preserved--younger than most of the young men of our day. You are
+eminently domestic, a good son, and will be a good husband and good
+father. Some one you must marry.--What do you think of Clare for a
+wife for you?"
+
+At first John Todhunter thought it would be very much like his
+marrying a baby. However, he listened to it, and that was enough for
+Mrs. Doria.
+
+She went down to John's mother, and consulted with her on the
+propriety of the scheme of wedding her daughter to John in
+accordance with his proposition. Mrs. Todhunter's jealousy of any
+disturbing force in the influence she held over her son Mrs. Doria
+knew to be one of the causes of John's remaining constant to the
+impression she had aforetime produced on him. She spoke so kindly of
+John, and laid so much stress on the ingrained obedience and passive
+disposition of her daughter, that Mrs. Todhunter was led to admit
+she did think it almost time John should be seeking a mate, and that
+he--all things considered--would hardly find a fitter one. And this,
+John Todhunter--old John no more--heard to his amazement when, a day
+or two subsequently, he instanced the probable disapproval of his
+mother.
+
+The match was arranged. Mrs. Doria did the wooing. It consisted in
+telling Clare that she had come to years when marriage was
+desirable, and that she had fallen into habits of moping which might
+have the worse effect on her future life, as it had on her present
+health and appearance, and which a husband would cure. Richard was
+told by Mrs. Doria that Clare had instantaneously consented to
+accept Mr. John Todhunter as lord of her days, and with more than
+obedience--with alacrity. At all events, when Richard spoke to
+Clare, the strange passive creature did not admit constraint on her
+inclinations. Mrs. Doria allowed Richard to speak to her. She
+laughed at his futile endeavours to undo her work, and the boyish
+sentiments he uttered on the subject. "Let us see, child," she said,
+"let us see which turns out the best; a marriage of passion, or a
+marriage of common sense."
+
+Heroic efforts were not wanting to arrest the union. Richard made
+repeated journeys to Hounslow, where Ralph was quartered, and if
+Ralph could have been persuaded to carry off a young lady who did
+not love him, from the bridegroom her mother averred she did love,
+Mrs. Doria might have been defeated. But Ralph in his cavalry
+quarters was cooler than Ralph in the Bursley meadows. "Women are
+oddities, Dick," he remarked, running a finger right and left along
+his upper lip. "Best leave them to their own freaks. She's a dear
+girl, though she doesn't talk: I like her for that. If she cared for
+me I'd go the race. She never did. It's no use asking a girl twice.
+_She_ knows whether she cares a fig for a fellow."
+
+The hero quitted him with some contempt. As Ralph Morton was a young
+man, and he had determined that John Todhunter was an old man, he
+sought another private interview with Clare, and getting her alone,
+said: "Clare, I've come to you for the last time. Will you marry
+Ralph Morton?"
+
+To which Clare replied, "I cannot marry two husbands, Richard."
+
+"Will you refuse to marry this old man?"
+
+"I must do as mama wishes."
+
+"Then you're going to marry an old man--a man you don't love, and
+can't love! Oh, good God! do you know what you're doing?" He flung
+about in a fury. "Do you know what it is? Clare!" he caught her two
+hands violently, "have you any idea of the horror you're going to
+commit?"
+
+She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed nor
+stammered: answering: "I see nothing wrong in doing what mama thinks
+right, Richard."
+
+"Your mother! I tell you it's an infamy, Clare! It's a miserable
+sin! I tell you, if I had done such a thing I would not live an hour
+after it. And coldly to prepare for it! to be busy about your
+dresses! They told me when I came in that you were with the
+milliner. To be smiling over the horrible outrage! decorating
+yourself!"...
+
+"Dear Richard," said Clare, "you will make me very unhappy."
+
+"That one of my blood should be so debased!" he cried, brushing
+angrily at his face. "Unhappy! I beg you to feel for yourself,
+Clare. But I suppose," and he said it scornfully, "girls don't feel
+this sort of shame."
+
+She grew a trifle paler.
+
+"Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear Richard."
+
+"Have you no will of your own?" he exclaimed.
+
+She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the meekness he
+detested in her.
+
+"No, I believe you have none!" he added. "And what can I do? I can't
+step forward and stop this accursed marriage. If you would but say a
+word I would save you; but you tie my hands. And they expect me to
+stand by and see it done!"
+
+"Will you not be there, Richard?" said Clare, following the question
+with her soft eyes. It was the same voice that had so thrilled him
+on his marriage morn.
+
+"Oh, my darling Clare!" he cried in the kindest way he had ever used
+to her, "if you knew how I feel this!" and now as he wept she wept,
+and came insensibly into his arms. "My darling Clare!" he repeated.
+
+She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping.
+
+"You _will_ do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So lovely as you
+are, too!... Clare! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to
+you, and tell you all.... Look up. Can you still consent?"
+
+"I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without looking up from
+the nest her cheek had made on his bosom.
+
+"Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. "I'll never kiss you
+after it, Clare."
+
+He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her arms wildly
+round him, and kissed him convulsively, and clung to his lips,
+shutting her eyes, her face suffused with a burning red.
+
+Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses.
+
+Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets against a
+stone wall. To her indeed the young married hero spoke almost
+indecorously, and that which his delicacy withheld him from speaking
+to Clare. He could provoke nothing more responsive from the
+practical animal than "Pooh-pooh! Tush, tush! and Fiddlededee!"
+
+"Really," Mrs. Doria said to her intimates, "that boy's education
+acts like a disease on him. He cannot regard anything sensibly. He
+is for ever in some mad excess of his fancy, and what he will come
+to at last heaven only knows! I sincerely pray that Austin will be
+able to bear it."
+
+Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity, are not
+very well worth having. Mrs. Doria had embarked in a practical
+controversy, as it were, with her brother. Doubtless she did trust
+he would be able to bear his sorrows to come, but one who has
+uttered prophecy can barely help hoping to see it fulfilled: she had
+prophesied much grief to the baronet.
+
+Poor John Todhunter, who would rather have married the mother, and
+had none of your heroic notions about the sacred necessity for love
+in marriage, moved as one guiltless of offence, and deserving his
+happiness. Mrs. Doria shielded him from the hero. To see him smile
+at Clare's obedient figure, and try not to look paternal, was
+touching.
+
+Meantime Clare's marriage served one purpose. It completely occupied
+Richard's mind, and prevented him from chafing at the vexation of
+not finding his father ready to meet him when he came to town. A
+letter had awaited Adrian at the hotel, which said, "Detain him till
+you hear further from me. Take him about with you into every form of
+society." No more than that. Adrian had to extemporize, that the
+baronet had gone down to Wales on pressing business, and would be
+back in a week or so. For ulterior inventions and devices wherewith
+to keep the young gentleman in town, he applied to Mrs. Doria.
+"Leave him to me," said Mrs. Doria, "I'll manage him." And she did.
+
+"Who can say," asks THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "when he is not walking a
+puppet to some woman?"
+
+Mrs. Doria would hear no good of Lucy. "I believe," she observed, as
+Adrian ventured a shrugging protest in her behalf,--"it is my firm
+opinion, that a scullery-maid would turn any of you men round her
+little finger--only give her time and opportunity." By dwelling on
+the arts of women, she reconciled it to her conscience to do her
+best to divide the young husband from his wife till it pleased his
+father they should live their unhallowed union again. Without
+compunction, or a sense of incongruity, she abused her brother and
+assisted the fulfilment of his behests.
+
+So the puppets were marshalled by Mrs. Doria, happy, or sad, or
+indifferent. Quite against his set resolve and the tide of his
+feelings, Richard found himself standing behind Clare in the
+church--the very edifice that had witnessed his own marriage, and
+heard, "I, Clare Doria, take thee John Pemberton," clearly
+pronounced. He stood, with black brows dissecting the arts of the
+tailor and hairdresser on unconscious John. The back, and much of
+the middle, of Mr. Todhunter's head was bald; the back shone like
+an egg-shell, but across the middle the artist had drawn two long
+dabs of hair from the sides, and plastered them cunningly, so that
+all save wilful eyes would have acknowledged the head to be covered.
+The man's only pretension was to a respectable juvenility. He had a
+good chest, stout limbs, a face inclined to be jolly. Mrs. Doria had
+no cause to be put out of countenance at all by the exterior of her
+son-in-law: nor was she. Her splendid hair and gratified smile made
+a light in the church. Playing puppets must be an immense pleasure
+to the practical animal. The Forey bridesmaids, five in number, and
+one Miss Doria, their cousin, stood as girls do stand at these
+sacrifices, whether happy, sad, or indifferent; a smile on their
+lips and tears in attendance. Old Mrs. Todhunter, an exceedingly
+small ancient woman, was also there. "I can't have my boy John
+married without seeing it done," she said, and throughout the
+ceremony she was muttering audible encomiums on her John's manly
+behaviour.
+
+The ring was affixed to Clare's finger; there was no ring lost in
+this common-sense marriage. The instant the clergyman bade him
+employ it, John drew the ring out, and dropped it on the finger of
+the cold passive hand in a business-like way, as one who had studied
+the matter. Mrs. Doria glanced aside at Richard. Richard observed
+Clare spread out her fingers that the operation might be the more
+easily effected.
+
+He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said to his aunt:
+
+"Now I'll go."
+
+"You'll come to the breakfast, child? The Foreys"----
+
+He cut her short. "I've stood for the family, and I'll do no more. I
+won't pretend to eat and make merry over it."
+
+"Richard!"
+
+"Good-bye."
+
+She had attained her object and she wisely gave way.
+
+"Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray, pray be civil."
+
+She turned to Adrian, and said: "He is going. You must go with him,
+and find some means of keeping him, or he'll be running off to that
+woman. Now, no words--go!"
+
+Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to him humbly, but
+he kissed her on the forehead.
+
+"Do not cease to love me," she said in a quavering whisper in his
+ear.
+
+Mr. Todhunter stood beaming and endangering the art of the
+hairdresser with his pocket-handkerchief. Now he positively was
+married, he thought he would rather have the daughter than the
+mother, which is a reverse of the order of human thankfulness at a
+gift of the Gods.
+
+"Richard, my boy!" he said heartily, "congratulate me."
+
+"I should be happy to, if I could," sedately replied the hero, to
+the consternation of those around. Nodding to the bridesmaids and
+bowing to the old lady, he passed out.
+
+Adrian, who had been behind him, deputed to watch for a possible
+unpleasantness, just hinted to John: "You know, poor fellow, he has
+got into a mess with his marriage."
+
+"Oh! ah! yes!" kindly said John, "poor fellow!"
+
+All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast.
+
+Adrian hurried after Richard in an extremely discontented state of
+mind. Not to be at the breakfast and see the best of the fun,
+disgusted him. However, he remembered that he was a philosopher, and
+the strong disgust he felt was only expressed in concentrated
+cynicism on every earthly matter engendered by the conversation.
+They walked side by side into Kensington Gardens. The hero was
+mouthing away to himself, talking by fits.
+
+Presently he faced Adrian, crying: "And I might have stopped it! I
+see it now! I might have stopped it by going straight to him, and
+asking him if he dared marry a girl who did not love him. And I
+never thought of it. Good heavens! I feel this miserable affair on
+my conscience."
+
+"Ah!" groaned Adrian. "An unpleasant cargo for the conscience, that!
+I would rather carry anything on mine than a married couple. Do you
+purpose going to him now?"
+
+The hero soliloquized: "He's not a bad sort of man."...
+
+"Well, he's not a Cavalier," said Adrian, "and that's why you wonder
+your aunt selected him, no doubt? He's decidedly of the Roundhead
+type, with the Puritan extracted, or inoffensive, if latent."
+
+"There's the double infamy!" cried Richard, "that a man you can't
+call bad, should do this damned thing!"
+
+"Well, it's hard we can't find a villain."
+
+"He would have listened to me, I'm sure."
+
+"Go to him now, Richard, my son. Go to him now. It's not yet too late.
+Who knows? If he really has a noble elevated superior mind--though not a
+Cavalier in person, he may be one at heart--he might, to please you, and
+since you put such stress upon it, abstain ... perhaps with some loss of
+dignity, but never mind. And the request might be singular, or seem so,
+but everything has happened before in this world, you know, my dear boy.
+And what an infinite consolation it is for the eccentric, that
+reflection!"
+
+The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared at him as if he
+were but a speck in the universe he visioned.
+
+It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian's best subject for
+cynical pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies he started, and
+his worst in the way he took it; and the wise youth, against his
+will, had to feel as conscious of the young man's imaginative mental
+armour, as he was of his muscular physical.
+
+"The same sort of day!" mused Richard, looking up. "I suppose my
+father's right. We make our own fates, and nature has nothing to do
+with it."
+
+Adrian yawned.
+
+"Some difference in the trees, though," Richard continued
+abstractedly.
+
+"Growing bald at the top," said Adrian.
+
+"Will you believe that my aunt Helen compared the conduct of that
+wretched slave Clare to Lucy's, who, she had the cruel insolence to
+say, entangled me into marriage?" the hero broke out loudly and
+rapidly. "You know--I told you, Adrian--how I had to threaten and
+insist, and how she pleaded, and implored me to wait."
+
+"Ah! hum!" mumbled Adrian.
+
+"You remember my telling you?" Richard was earnest to hear her
+exonerated.
+
+"Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she did. Where's
+the lass that doesn't."
+
+"Call my wife by another name, if you please."
+
+"The generic title can't be cancelled because of your having married
+one of the body, my son."
+
+"She did all she could to persuade me to wait!" emphasized Richard.
+
+Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile.
+
+"Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!"
+
+Richard bellowed: "What more could she have done?"
+
+"She could have shaved her head, for instance."
+
+This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation Richard shot
+in front, Adrian following him; and asking him (merely to have his
+assumption verified), whether he did not think she might have shaved
+her head? and, presuming her to have done so, whether, in candour,
+he did not think he would have waited--at least till she looked less
+of a rank lunatic?
+
+After a minute or so, the wise youth was but a fly buzzing about
+Richard's head. Three weeks of separation from Lucy, and an
+excitement deceased, caused him to have soft yearnings for the dear
+lovely home-face. He told Adrian it was his intention to go down
+that night. Adrian immediately became serious. He was at a loss what
+to invent to detain him, beyond the stale fiction that his father
+was coming to-morrow. He rendered homage to the genius of woman in
+these straits. "My aunt," he thought, "would have the lie ready; and
+not only that, but she would take care it did its work."
+
+At this juncture the voice of a cavalier in the Row hailed them,
+proving to be the Honourable Peter Brayder, Lord Mountfalcon's
+parasite. He greeted them very cordially; and Richard, remembering
+some fun they had in the Island, asked him to dine with them;
+postponing his return till the next day. Lucy was his. It was even
+sweet to dally with the delight of seeing her.
+
+The Hon. Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to.
+Though not so tall as a West of London footman, he was as shapely;
+and he had a power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as
+it suited the exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of
+money in the world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended
+largely. The world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his
+Lordship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he exercised
+the ancient companion profession. This the world said, and still
+smiled at the Hon. Peter; for he was an engaging fellow, and where
+he went not Lord Mountfalcon would not go.
+
+They had a quiet little hotel dinner, ordered by Adrian, and made a
+square at the table, Ripton Thompson being the fourth. Richard sent
+down to his office to fetch him, and the two friends shook hands for
+the first time since the great deed had been executed. Deep was the
+Old Dog's delight to hear the praises of his Beauty sounded by such
+aristocratic lips as the Hon. Peter Brayder's. All through the
+dinner he was throwing out hints and small queries to get a fuller
+account of her; and when the claret had circulated, he spoke a word
+or two himself, and heard the Hon. Peter eulogize his taste, and
+wish him a bride as beautiful; at which Ripton blushed, and said, he
+had no hope of that, and the Hon. Peter assured him marriage did not
+break the mould.
+
+After the wine this gentleman took his cigar on the balcony, and
+found occasion to get some conversation with Adrian alone.
+
+"Our young friend here--made it all right with the governor?" he
+asked carelessly.
+
+"Oh yes!" said Adrian. But it struck him that Brayder might be of
+assistance in showing Richard a little of the "society in every
+form," required by his chief's prescript. "That is," he continued,
+"we are not yet permitted an interview with the august author of our
+being, and I have rather a difficult post. 'Tis mine both to keep
+him here, and also to find him the opportunity to measure himself
+with his fellow-man. In other words, his father wants him to see
+something of life before he enters upon housekeeping. Now I am proud
+to confess that I'm hardly equal to the task. The demi, or
+damnedmonde--if it's that he wants him to observe--is one that I
+have not got the walk to."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Brayder. "You do the keeping, I offer to parade
+the demi. I must say, though, it's a queer notion of the old
+gentleman."
+
+"It's the continuation of a philosophic plan," said Adrian.
+
+Brayder followed the curvings of the whiff of his cigar with his
+eyes, and ejaculated, "Infernally philosophic!"
+
+"Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island?" Adrian inquired.
+
+"Mount? to tell the truth I don't know where he is. Chasing some
+light craft, I suppose. That's poor Mount's weakness. It's his ruin,
+poor fellow! He's so confoundedly in earnest at the game."
+
+"He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true," remarked
+Adrian.
+
+"He's a baby about women, and always will be," said Brayder. "He's
+been once or twice wanting to marry them. Now there's a
+woman--you've heard of Mrs. Mount? All the world knows her.--If that
+woman hadn't scandalized."--The young man joined them, and checked
+the communication. Brayder winked to Adrian, and pitifully indicated
+the presence of an innocent.
+
+"A married man, you know," said Adrian.
+
+"Yes, yes!--we won't shock him," Brayder observed. He appeared to
+study the young man while they talked.
+
+Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his aunt. Mrs.
+Doria took a seat by his side, and spoke as follows:
+
+"My dear nephew. Now you know I have always loved you, and thought
+of your welfare as if you had been my own child. More than that, I
+fear. Well, now, you are thinking of returning to--to that
+place--are you not? Yes. It is as I thought. Very well now, let me
+speak to you. You are in a much more dangerous position than you
+imagine. I don't deny your father's affection for you. It would be
+absurd to deny it. But you are of an age now to appreciate his
+character. Whatever you may do he will always give you money. That
+you are sure of; that you know. Very well. But you are one to want
+more than money: you want his love. Richard, I am convinced you will
+never be happy, whatever base pleasures you may be led into, if he
+should withhold his love from you. Now, child, you know you have
+grievously offended him. I wish not to animadvert on your
+conduct.--You fancied yourself in love, and so on, and you were
+rash. The less said of it the better now. But you must now--it is
+your duty now to do something--to do everything that lies in your
+power to show him you repent. No interruptions! Listen to me. You
+must consider him. Austin is not like other men. Austin requires
+the most delicate management. You must--whether you feel it or
+no--present an appearance of contrition. I counsel it for the good
+of all. He is just like a woman, and where his feelings are offended
+he wants utter subservience. He has you in town, and he does not see
+you:--now you know that he and I are not in communication: we have
+likewise our differences:--Well, he has you in town, and he holds
+aloof:--he is trying you, my dear Richard. No: he is not at Raynham:
+I do not know where he is. He is trying you, child, and you must be
+patient. You must convince him that you do not care utterly for your
+own gratification. If this person--I wish to speak of her with
+respect, for your sake--well, if she loves you _at all_--if, I say,
+she loves you _one atom_, she will repeat my solicitations for you
+to stay and patiently wait here till he consents to see you. I tell
+you candidly, it's your only chance of ever getting him to receive
+_her_. That you should know. And now, Richard, I may add that there
+is something else you should know. You should know that it depends
+entirely upon your conduct now, whether you are to see your father's
+heart for ever divided from you, and a new family at Raynham. You do
+not understand? I will explain. Brothers and sisters are excellent
+things for young people, but a new brood of them can hardly be
+acceptable to a young man. In fact, they are, and must be, aliens. I
+only tell you what I have heard on good authority. Don't you
+understand now? Foolish boy! if you do not humour him, he will marry
+her. Oh! I am sure of it. I know it. And this you will drive him to.
+I do not warn you on the score of your prospects, but of your
+feelings. I should regard such a contingency, Richard, as a final
+division between you. Think of the scandal! but alas, that is the
+least of the evils."
+
+It was Mrs. Doria's object to produce an impression, and avoid an
+argument. She therefore left him as soon as she had, as she
+supposed, made her mark on the young man. Richard was very silent
+during the speech, and save for an exclamation or so, had listened
+attentively. He pondered on what his aunt said. He loved Lady
+Blandish, and yet he did not wish to see her Lady Feverel. Mrs.
+Doria laid painful stress on the scandal, and though he did not
+give his mind to this, he thought of it. He thought of his mother.
+Where was she? But most his thoughts recurred to his father, and
+something akin to jealousy slowly awakened his heart to him. He had
+given him up, and had not latterly felt extremely filial; but he
+could not bear the idea of a division in the love of which he had
+ever been the idol and sole object. And such a man, too! so good! so
+generous! If it was jealousy that roused the young man's heart to
+his father, the better part of love was also revived in it. He
+thought of old days: of his father's forbearance, his own
+wilfulness. He looked on himself, and what he had done, with the
+eyes of such a man. He determined to do all he could to regain his
+favour.
+
+Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her nephew
+intended waiting in town another week.
+
+"That will do," smiled Mrs. Doria. "He will be more patient at the
+end of a week."
+
+"Oh! does patience beget patience?" said Adrian. "I was not aware it
+was a propagating virtue. I surrender him to you. I shan't be able
+to hold him in after one week more. I assure you, my dear aunt, he's
+already"....
+
+"Thank you, no explanation," Mrs. Doria begged.
+
+When Richard saw her next, he was informed that she had received a
+most satisfactory letter from Mrs. John Todhunter: quite a glowing
+account of John's behaviour: but on Richard's desiring to know the
+words Clare had written, Mrs. Doria objected to be explicit, and
+shot into worldly gossip.
+
+"Clare seldom glows," said Richard.
+
+"No, I mean _for her_," his aunt remarked. "Don't look like your
+father, child."
+
+"I should like to have seen the letter," said Richard.
+
+Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND
+
+
+A lady driving a pair of greys was noticed by Richard in his rides
+and walks. She passed him rather obviously and often. She was very
+handsome; a bold beauty, with shining black hair, red lips, and eyes
+not afraid of men. The hair was brushed from her temples, leaving
+one of those fine reckless outlines which the action of driving, and
+the pace, admirably set off. She took his fancy. He liked the air of
+petulant gallantry about her, and mused upon the picture, rare to
+him, of a glorious dashing woman. He thought, too, she looked at
+him. He was not at the time inclined to be vain, or he might have
+been sure she did. Once it struck him she nodded slightly.
+
+He asked Adrian one day in the park--who she was.
+
+"I don't know her," said Adrian. "Probably a superior priestess of
+Paphos."
+
+"Now that's my idea of Bellona," Richard exclaimed. "Not the fury
+they paint, but a spirited, dauntless, eager-looking creature like
+that."
+
+"Bellona?" returned the wise youth. "I don't think her hair was
+black. Red, wasn't it? I shouldn't compare her to Bellona; though,
+no doubt, she's as ready to spill blood. Look at her! She does seem
+to scent carnage. I see your idea. No; I should liken her to Diana
+emerged from the tutorship of Master Endymion, and at nice play
+among the gods. Depend upon it--they tell us nothing of the
+matter--Olympus shrouds the story--but you may be certain that when
+she left the pretty shepherd she had greater vogue than Venus up
+aloft."
+
+Brayder joined them.
+
+"See Mrs. Mount go by?" he said.
+
+"Oh, that's Mrs. Mount!" cried Adrian.
+
+"Who's Mrs. Mount?" Richard inquired.
+
+"A sister to Miss Random, my dear boy."
+
+"Like to know her?" drawled the Hon. Peter.
+
+Richard replied indifferently, "No," and Mrs. Mount passed out of
+sight and out of the conversation.
+
+The young man wrote submissive letters to his father. "I have
+remained here waiting to see you now five weeks," he wrote. "I have
+written to you three letters, and you do not reply to them. Let me
+tell you again how sincerely I desire and pray that you will come,
+or permit me to come to you and throw myself at your feet, and beg
+my forgiveness, and hers. She as earnestly implores it. Indeed, I am
+very wretched, sir. Believe me, there is nothing I would not do to
+regain your esteem and the love I fear I have unhappily forfeited. I
+will remain another week in the hope of hearing from you, or seeing
+you. I beg of you, sir, not to drive me mad. Whatever you ask of me
+I will consent to."
+
+"Nothing he would not do!" the baronet commented as he read. "There
+is nothing he would not do! He will remain another week and give me
+that final chance! And it is I who drive him mad! Already he is
+beginning to cast his retribution on my shoulders."
+
+Sir Austin had really gone down to Wales to be out of the way. A
+Shaddock-Dogmatist does not meet misfortune without hearing of it,
+and the author of THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP in trouble found London too
+hot for him. He quitted London to take refuge among the mountains;
+living there in solitary commune with a virgin Note-book.
+
+Some indefinite scheme was in his head in this treatment of his son.
+Had he construed it, it would have looked ugly; and it settled to a
+vague principle that the young man should be tried and tested.
+
+"Let him learn to deny himself something. Let him live with his
+equals for a term. If he loves me he will read my wishes." Thus he
+explained his principle to Lady Blandish.
+
+The lady wrote: "You speak of a term. Till when? May I name one to
+him? It is the dreadful _uncertainty_ that reduces him to despair.
+That, and nothing else. Pray be explicit."
+
+In return, he distantly indicated Richard's majority.
+
+How could Lady Blandish go and ask the young man to wait a year away
+from his wife? Her instinct began to open a wide eye on the idol she
+worshipped.
+
+When people do not themselves know what they mean, they succeed in
+deceiving and imposing upon others. Not only was Lady Blandish
+mystified; Mrs. Doria, who pierced into the recesses of everybody's
+mind, and had always been in the habit of reading off her brother
+from infancy, and had never known herself to be once wrong about
+him, she confessed she was quite at a loss to comprehend Austin's
+principle. "For principle he has," said Mrs. Doria; "he never acts
+without one. But what it is, I cannot at present perceive. If he
+would write, and command the boy to await his return, all would be
+clear. He allows us to go and fetch him, and then leaves us all in a
+quandary. It must be some woman's influence. That is the only way to
+account for it."
+
+"Singular!" interjected Adrian, "what pride women have in their sex!
+Well, I have to tell you, my dear aunt, that the day after to-morrow
+I hand my charge over to your keeping. I can't hold him in an hour
+longer. I've had to leash him with lies till my invention's
+exhausted. I petition to have them put down to the chief's account,
+but when the stream runs dry I can do no more. The last was, that I
+had heard from him desiring me to have the South-west bedroom ready
+for him on Tuesday proximate. 'So!' says my son, 'I'll wait till
+then,' and from the gigantic effort he exhibited in coming to it, I
+doubt any human power's getting him to wait longer."
+
+"We must, we must detain him," said Mrs. Doria. "If we do not, I am
+convinced Austin will do something rash that he will for ever
+repent. He will marry that woman, Adrian. Mark my words. Now with
+any other young man!... But Richard's education! that ridiculous
+System!... Has he no distraction? nothing to amuse him?"
+
+"Poor boy! I suppose he wants his own particular playfellow."
+
+The wise youth had to bow to a reproof.
+
+"I tell you, Adrian, he will marry that woman."
+
+"My dear aunt! Can a chaste man do aught more commendable?"
+
+"Has the boy no object we can induce him to follow?--If he had but a
+profession!"
+
+"What say you to the regeneration of the streets of London, and the
+profession of moral-scavenger, aunt? I assure you I have served a
+month's apprenticeship with him. We sally forth on the tenth hour
+of the night. A female passes. I hear him groan. 'Is _she_ one of
+them, Adrian?' I am compelled to admit she is not the saint he deems
+it the portion of every creature wearing petticoats to be. Another
+groan; an evident internal, 'It cannot be--and yet!' ... that we
+hear on the stage. Rollings of eyes: impious questionings of the
+Creator of the universe; savage mutterings against brutal males; and
+then we meet a second young person, and repeat the performance--of
+which I am rather tired. It would be all very well, but he turns
+upon me, and lectures me because I don't hire a house, and furnish
+it for all the women one meets to live in in purity. Now that's too
+much to ask of a quiet man. Master Thompson has latterly relieved
+me, I'm happy to say."
+
+Mrs. Doria thought her thoughts.
+
+"Has Austin written to you since you were in town?"
+
+"Not an Aphorism!" returned Adrian.
+
+"I must see Richard to-morrow morning," Mrs. Doria ended the
+colloquy by saying.
+
+The result of her interview with her nephew was, that Richard made
+no allusion to a departure on the Tuesday; and for many days
+afterward he appeared to have an absorbing business on his hands:
+but what it was Adrian did not then learn, and his admiration of
+Mrs. Doria's genius for management rose to a very high pitch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a morning in October they had an early visitor in the person of
+the Hon. Peter, whom they had not seen for a week or more.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, flourishing his cane in his most affable
+manner, "I've come to propose to you to join us in a little
+dinner-party at Richmond. Nobody's in town, you know. London's as
+dead as a stock-fish. Nothing but the scrapings to offer you. But
+the weather's fine: I flatter myself you'll find the company
+agreeable. What says my friend Feverel?"
+
+Richard begged to be excused.
+
+"No, no: positively you must come," said the Hon. Peter. "I've had
+some trouble to get them together to relieve the dulness of your
+incarceration. Richmond's within the rules of your prison. You can
+be back by night. Moonlight on the water--lovely woman. We've
+engaged a city-barge to pull us back. Eight oars--I'm not sure it
+isn't sixteen. Come--the word!"
+
+Adrian was for going. Richard said he had an appointment with
+Ripton.
+
+"You're in for another rick, you two," said Adrian. "Arrange that we
+go. You haven't seen the cockney's Paradise. Abjure Blazes, and
+taste of peace, my son."
+
+After some persuasion, Richard yawned wearily, and got up, and threw
+aside the care that was on him, saying, "Very well. Just as you
+like. We'll take old Rip with us."
+
+Adrian consulted Brayder's eye at this. The Hon. Peter briskly
+declared he should be delighted to have Feverel's friend, and
+offered to take them all down in his drag.
+
+"If you don't get a match on to swim there with the tide--eh,
+Feverel, my boy?"
+
+Richard replied that he had given up that sort of thing, at which
+Brayder communicated a queer glance to Adrian, and applauded the
+youth.
+
+Richmond was under a still October sun. The pleasant landscape,
+bathed in Autumn, stretched from the foot of the hill to a red
+horizon haze. The day was like none that Richard vividly remembered.
+It touched no link in the chain of his recollection. It was quiet,
+and belonged to the spirit of the season.
+
+Adrian had divined the character of the scrapings they were to meet.
+Brayder introduced them to one or two of the men, hastily and in
+rather an undervoice, as a thing to get over. They made their bow to
+the first knot of ladies they encountered. Propriety was observed
+strictly, even to severity. The general talk was of the weather.
+Here and there a lady would seize a button-hole or any little bit of
+the habiliments, of the man she was addressing; and if it came to
+her to chide him, she did it with more than a forefinger. This,
+however, was only here and there, and a privilege of intimacy.
+
+Where ladies are gathered together, the Queen of the assemblage may
+be known by her Court of males. The Queen of the present gathering
+leaned against a corner of the open window, surrounded by a stalwart
+Court, in whom a practised eye would have discerned guardsmen, and
+Ripton, with a sinking of the heart, apprehended lords. They were
+fine men, offering inanimate homage. The trim of their whiskerage,
+the cut of their coats, the high-bred indolence in their aspect,
+eclipsed Ripton's sense of self-esteem. But they kindly looked over
+him. Occasionally one committed a momentary outrage on him with an
+eye-glass, seeming to cry out in a voice of scathing scorn, "Who's
+this?" and Ripton got closer to his hero to justify his humble
+pretensions to existence and an identity in the shadow of him.
+Richard gazed about. Heroes do not always know what to say or do;
+and the cold bath before dinner in strange company is one of the
+instances. He had recognized his superb Bellona in the lady by the
+garden window. For Brayder the men had nods and jokes, the ladies a
+pretty playfulness. He was very busy, passing between the groups,
+chatting, laughing, taking the feminine taps he received, and
+sometimes returning them in sly whispers. Adrian sat down and
+crossed his legs, looking amused and benignant.
+
+"Whose dinner is it?" Ripton heard a mignonne beauty ask of a
+cavalier.
+
+"Mount's, I suppose," was the answer.
+
+"Where is he? Why don't he come?"
+
+"An affaire, I fancy."
+
+"There he is again! How shamefully he treats Mrs. Mount!"
+
+"She don't seem to cry over it."
+
+Mrs. Mount was flashing her teeth and eyes with laughter at one of
+her Court, who appeared to be Fool.
+
+Dinner was announced. The ladies proclaimed extravagant appetites.
+Brayder posted his three friends. Ripton found himself under the lee
+of a dame with a bosom. On the other side of him was the mignonne.
+Adrian was at the lower end of the table. Ladies were in profusion,
+and he had his share. Brayder drew Richard from seat to seat. A
+happy man had established himself next to Mrs. Mount. Him Brayder
+hailed to take the head of the table. The happy man objected,
+Brayder continued urgent, the lady tenderly insisted, the happy man
+grimaced, dropped into the post of honour, strove to look placable.
+Richard usurped his chair, and was not badly welcomed by his
+neighbour.
+
+Then the dinner commenced, and had all the attention of the company,
+till the flying of the first champagne-cork gave the signal, and a
+hum began to spread. Sparkling wine, that looseneth the tongue, and
+displayeth the verity, hath also the quality of colouring it. The
+ladies laughed high; Richard only thought them gay and natural. They
+flung back in their chairs and laughed to tears; Ripton thought only
+of the pleasure he had in their society. The champagne-corks
+continued a regular file-firing.
+
+"Where have you been lately? I haven't seen you in the park," said
+Mrs. Mount to Richard.
+
+"No," he replied, "I've not been there." The question seemed odd:
+she spoke so simply that it did not impress him. He emptied his
+glass, and had it filled again.
+
+The Hon. Peter did most of the open talking, which related to
+horses, yachting, opera, and sport generally: who was ruined, by
+what horse, or by what woman. He told one or two of Richard's feats.
+Fair smiles rewarded the hero.
+
+"Do you bet?" said Mrs. Mount.
+
+"Only on myself," returned Richard.
+
+"Bravo!" cried his Bellona, and her eye sent a lingering delirious
+sparkle across her brimming glass at him.
+
+"I'm sure you're a safe one to back," she added, and seemed to scan
+his points approvingly.
+
+Richard's cheeks mounted bloom.
+
+"Don't you adore champagne?" quoth the dame with a bosom to Ripton.
+
+"Oh, yes!" answered Ripton, with more candour than accuracy, "I
+always drink it."
+
+"Do you indeed?" said the enraptured bosom, ogling him. "You would
+be a friend, now! I hope you don't object to a lady joining you now
+and then. Champagne's my folly."
+
+A laugh was circling among the ladies of whom Adrian was the centre;
+first low, and as he continued some narration, peals resounded, till
+those excluded from the fun demanded the cue, and ladies leaned
+behind gentlemen to take it up, and formed an electric chain of
+laughter. Each one, as her ear received it, caught up her
+handkerchief, and laughed, and looked shocked afterwards, or looked
+shocked and then spouted laughter. The anecdote might have been
+communicated to the bewildered cavaliers, but coming to a lady of a
+demurer cast, she looked shocked without laughing, and reproved the
+female table, in whose breasts it was consigned to burial: but here
+and there a man's head was seen bent, and a lady's mouth moved,
+though her face was not turned toward him, and a man's broad laugh
+was presently heard, while the lady gazed unconsciously before her,
+and preserved her gravity if she could escape any other lady's eyes;
+failing in which, handkerchiefs were simultaneously seized, and a
+second chime arose, till the tickling force subsided to a few chance
+bursts.
+
+What nonsense it is that my father writes about women! thought
+Richard. He says they can't laugh, and don't understand humour. It
+comes, he reflected, of his shutting himself from the world. And the
+idea that he was seeing the world, and feeling wiser, flattered him.
+He talked fluently to his dangerous Bellona. He gave her some
+reminiscences of Adrian's whimsies.
+
+"Oh!" said she, "that's your tutor, is it!" She eyed the young man
+as if she thought he must go far and fast.
+
+Ripton felt a push. "Look at that," said the bosom, fuming utter
+disgust. He was directed to see a manly arm round the waist of the
+mignonne. "Now that's what I don't like in company," the bosom
+inflated to observe with sufficient emphasis. "She always will allow
+it with everybody. Give her a nudge."
+
+Ripton protested that he dared not; upon which she said, "Then I
+will"; and inclined her sumptuous bust across his lap, breathing
+wine in his face, and gave the nudge. The mignonne turned an
+inquiring eye on Ripton; a mischievous spark shot from it. She
+laughed, and said: "Aren't you satisfied with the old bird?"
+
+"Impudence!" muttered the bosom, growing grander and redder.
+
+"Do, do fill her glass, and keep her quiet--she drinks port when
+there's no more champagne," said the mignonne.
+
+The bosom revenged herself by whispering to Ripton scandal of the
+mignonne, and between them he was enabled to form a correcter
+estimate of the company, and quite recovered from his original awe:
+so much so as to feel a touch of jealousy at seeing his lively
+little neighbour still held in absolute possession.
+
+Mrs. Mount did not come out much; but there was a deferential manner
+in the bearing of the men toward her, which those haughty creatures
+accord not save to clever women; and she contrived to hold the talk
+with three or four at the head of the table while she still had
+passages aside with Richard.
+
+The port and claret went very well after the champagne. The ladies
+here did not ignominiously surrender the field to the gentlemen;
+they maintained their position with honour. Silver was seen far out
+on Thames. The wine ebbed, and the laughter. Sentiment and cigars
+took up the wondrous tale.
+
+"Oh, what a lovely night!" said the ladies, looking above.
+
+"Charming," said the gentlemen, looking below.
+
+The faint-smelling cool Autumn air was pleasant after the feast.
+Fragrant weeds burned bright about the garden.
+
+"We are split into couples," said Adrian to Richard, who was
+standing alone, eying the landscape. "'Tis the influence of the
+moon! Apparently we are in Cyprus. How has my son enjoyed himself?
+How likes he the society of Aspasia? I feel like a wise Greek
+to-night."
+
+Adrian was jolly, and rolled comfortably as he talked. Ripton had
+been carried off by the sentimental bosom. He came up to them and
+whispered: "By Jove, Ricky! do you know what sort of women these
+are?"
+
+Richard said he thought them a nice sort.
+
+"Puritan!" exclaimed Adrian, slapping Ripton on the back. "Why
+didn't you get tipsy, sir? Don't you ever intoxicate yourself except
+at lawful marriages? Reveal to us what you have done with the portly
+dame?"
+
+Ripton endured his bantering that he might hang about Richard, and
+watch over him. He was jealous of his innocent Beauty's husband
+being in proximity with such women. Murmuring couples passed them to
+and fro.
+
+"By Jove, Ricky!" Ripton favoured his friend with another hard
+whisper, "there's a woman smoking!"
+
+"And why not, O Riptonus?" said Adrian. "Art unaware that woman
+cosmopolitan is woman consummate? and dost grumble to pay the small
+price for the splendid gem?"
+
+"Well, I don't like women to smoke," said plain Ripton.
+
+"Why mayn't they do what men do?" the hero cried impetuously. "I
+hate that contemptible narrow-mindedness. It's that makes the ruin
+and horrors I see. Why mayn't they do what men do? I like the women
+who are brave enough not to be hypocrites. By heaven! if these women
+are bad, I like them better than a set of hypocritical creatures who
+are all show, and deceive you in the end."
+
+"Bravo!" shouted Adrian. "There speaks the regenerator."
+
+Ripton, as usual, was crushed by his leader. He had no argument. He
+still thought women ought not to smoke; and he thought of one far
+away, lonely by the sea, who was perfect without being cosmopolitan.
+
+THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP remarks that: "Young men take joy in nothing so
+much as the thinking women Angels: and nothing sours men of
+experience more than knowing that all are not quite so."
+
+The Aphorist would have pardoned Ripton Thompson his first Random
+extravagance, had he perceived the simple warm-hearted worship of
+feminine goodness Richard's young bride had inspired in the breast
+of the youth. It might possibly have taught him to put deeper trust
+in our nature.
+
+Ripton thought of her, and had a feeling of sadness. He wandered
+about the grounds by himself, went through an open postern, and
+threw himself down among some bushes on the slope of the hill. Lying
+there, and meditating, he became aware of voices conversing.
+
+"What does he want?" said a woman's voice. "It's another of his
+villainies, I know. Upon my honour, Brayder, when I think of what I
+have to reproach him for, I think I must go mad, or kill him."
+
+"Tragic!" said the Hon. Peter. "Haven't you revenged yourself,
+Bella, pretty often? Best deal openly. This is a commercial
+transaction. You ask for money, and you are to have it--on the
+conditions: double the sum, and debts paid."
+
+"He applies to me!"
+
+"You know, my dear Bella, it has long been all up between you. I
+think Mount has behaved very well, considering all he knows. He's
+not easily hoodwinked, you know. He resigns himself to his fate, and
+follows other game."
+
+"Then the condition is, that I am to seduce this young man?"
+
+"My dear Bella! you strike your bird like a hawk. I didn't say
+seduce. Hold him in--play with him. Amuse him."
+
+"I don't understand half-measures."
+
+"Women seldom do."
+
+"How I hate you, Brayder!"
+
+"I thank your ladyship."
+
+The two walked farther. Ripton had heard some little of the
+colloquy. He left the spot in a serious mood, apprehensive of
+something dark to the people he loved, though he had no idea of what
+the Hon. Peter's stipulation involved.
+
+On the voyage back to town, Richard was again selected to sit by
+Mrs. Mount. Brayder and Adrian started the jokes. The pair of
+parasites got on extremely well together. Soft fell the plash of the
+oars; softly the moonlight curled around them; softly the banks
+glided by. The ladies were in a state of high sentiment. They sang
+without request. All deemed the British ballad-monger an appropriate
+interpreter of their emotions. After good wine, and plenty thereof,
+fair throats will make men of taste swallow that remarkable
+composer. Eyes, lips, hearts; darts and smarts and sighs; beauty,
+duty; bosom, blossom; false one, farewell! To this pathetic strain
+they melted. Mrs. Mount, though strongly requested, declined to
+sing. She preserved her state. Under the tall aspens of
+Brentford-ait, and on they swept, the white moon in their wake.
+Richard's hand lay open by his side. Mrs. Mount's little white hand
+by misadventure fell into it. It was not pressed, or soothed for its
+fall, or made intimate with eloquent fingers. It lay there like a
+bit of snow on the cold ground. A yellow leaf wavering down from the
+aspens struck Richard's cheek, and he drew away the very hand to
+throw back his hair and smooth his face, and then folded his arms,
+unconscious of offence. He was thinking ambitiously of his life: his
+blood was untroubled, his brain calmly working.
+
+"Which is the more perilous?" is a problem put by the PILGRIM: "To
+meet the temptings of Eve, or to pique her?"
+
+Mrs. Mount stared at the young man as at a curiosity, and turned to
+flirt with one of her Court. The Guardsmen were mostly sentimental.
+One or two rattled, and one was such a good-humoured fellow that
+Adrian could not make him ridiculous. The others seemed to give
+themselves up to a silent waxing in length of limb. However far they
+sat removed, everybody was entangled in their legs. Pursuing his
+studies, Adrian came to the conclusion, that the same close
+intellectual and moral affinity which he had discovered to exist
+between our nobility and our yeomanry, is to be observed between the
+Guardsman class, and that of the corps de ballet: they both live by
+the strength of their legs, where also their wits, if they do not
+altogether reside there, are principally developed: both are volage;
+wine, tobacco, and the moon, influence both alike; and admitting the
+one marked difference that does exist, it is, after all, pretty
+nearly the same thing to be coquetting and sinning on two legs as on
+the point of a toe.
+
+A long Guardsman with a deep bass voice sang a doleful song about
+the twining tendrils of the heart ruthlessly torn, but required
+urgent persuasions and heavy trumpeting of his lungs to get to the
+end: before he had accomplished it, Adrian had contrived to raise a
+laugh in his neighbourhood, so that the company was divided, and the
+camp split: jollity returned to one-half, while sentiment held the
+other. Ripton, blotted behind the bosom, was only lucky in securing
+a higher degree of heat than was possible for the rest. "Are you
+cold?" she would ask, smiling charitably.
+
+"_I_ am," said the mignonne, as if to excuse her conduct.
+
+"You always appear to be," the fat one sniffed and snapped.
+
+"Won't you warm two, Mrs. Mortimer?" said the naughty little woman.
+
+Disdain prevented any further notice of her. Those familiar with the
+ladies enjoyed their sparring, which was frequent. The mignonne was
+heard to whisper: "That poor fellow will certainly be stewed."
+
+Very prettily the ladies took and gave warmth, for the air on the
+water was chill and misty. Adrian had beside him the demure one who
+had stopped the circulation of his anecdote. She in nowise objected
+to the fair exchange, but said "Hush!" betweenwhiles.
+
+Past Kew and Hammersmith, on the cool smooth water; across Putney
+reach; through Battersea bridge; and the City grew around them, and
+the shadows of great mill-factories slept athwart the moonlight.
+
+All the ladies prattled sweetly of a charming day when they alighted
+on land. Several cavaliers crushed for the honour of conducting Mrs.
+Mount to her home.
+
+"My brougham's here; I shall go alone," said Mrs. Mount. "Some one
+arrange my shawl."
+
+She turned her back to Richard, who had a view of a delicate neck as
+he manipulated with the bearing of a mailed knight.
+
+"Which way are you going?" she asked carelessly, and, to his reply
+as to the direction, said: "Then I can give you a lift," and she
+took his arm with a matter-of-course air, and walked up the stairs
+with him.
+
+Ripton saw what had happened. He was going to follow: the portly
+dame retained him, and desired him to get her a cab.
+
+"Oh, you happy fellow!" said the bright-eyed mignonne, passing by.
+
+Ripton procured the cab, and stuffed it full without having to get
+into it himself.
+
+"Try and let him come in too?" said the persecuting creature, again
+passing.
+
+"Take liberties with your men--you shan't with me," retorted the
+angry bosom, and drove off.
+
+"So she's been and gone and run away and left him after all his
+trouble!" cried the pert little thing, peering into Ripton's eyes.
+"Now you'll never be so foolish as to pin your faith to fat women
+again. There! he shall be made happy another time." She gave his
+nose a comical tap, and tripped away with her possessor.
+
+Ripton rather forgot his friend for some minutes: Random thoughts
+laid hold of him. Cabs and carriages rattled past. He was sure he
+had been among members of the nobility that day, though when they
+went by him now they only recognized him with an effort of the
+eyelids. He began to think of the day with exultation, as an event.
+Recollections of the mignonne were captivating. "Blue eyes--just
+what I like! And such a little impudent nose, and red lips,
+pouting--the very thing I like! And her hair? darkish, I think--say
+brown. And so saucy, and light on her feet. And kind she is, or she
+wouldn't have talked to me like that." Thus, with a groaning soul,
+he pictured her. His reason voluntarily consigned her to the
+aristocracy as a natural appanage: but he did amorously wish that
+Fortune had made a lord of him.
+
+Then his mind reverted to Mrs. Mount, and the strange bits of the
+conversation he had heard on the hill. He was not one to suspect
+anybody positively. He was timid of fixing a suspicion. It hovered
+indefinitely, and clouded people, without stirring him to any
+resolve. Still the attentions of the lady toward Richard were queer.
+He endeavoured to imagine they were in the nature of things, because
+Richard was so handsome that any woman must take to him. "But he's
+married," said Ripton, "and he mustn't go near these people if he's
+married." Not a high morality, perhaps: better than none at all:
+better for the world were it practised more. He thought of Richard
+along with that sparkling dame, alone with her. The adorable beauty
+of his dear bride, her pure heavenly face, swam before him. Thinking
+of her, he lost sight of the mignonne who had made him giddy.
+
+He walked to Richard's hotel, and up and down the street there,
+hoping every minute to hear his step; sometimes fancying he might
+have returned and gone to bed. Two o'clock struck. Ripton could not
+go away. He was sure he should not sleep if he did. At last the cold
+sent him homeward, and leaving the street, on the moonlight side of
+Piccadilly he met his friend patrolling with his head up and that
+swing of the feet proper to men who are chanting verses.
+
+"Old Rip!" cried Richard, cheerily. "What on earth are you doing
+here at this hour of the morning?"
+
+Ripton muttered of his pleasure at meeting him. "I wanted to shake
+your hand before I went home."
+
+Richard smiled on him in an amused kindly way. "That all? You may
+shake my hand any day, like a true man as you are, old Rip! I've
+been speaking about you. Do you know, that--Mrs. Mount--never saw
+you all the time at Richmond, or in the boat!"
+
+"Oh!" Ripton said, well assured that he was a dwarf: "you saw her
+safe home?"
+
+"Yes. I've been there for the last couple of hours--talking. She
+talks capitally: she's wonderfully clever. She's very like a man,
+only much nicer. I like her."
+
+"But, Richard, excuse me--I'm sure I don't mean to offend you--but
+now you're married ... perhaps you couldn't help seeing her home,
+but I think you really indeed oughtn't to have gone upstairs."
+
+Ripton delivered this opinion with a modest impressiveness.
+
+"What do you mean?" said Richard. "You don't suppose I care for any
+woman but my little darling down there." He laughed.
+
+"No; of course not. That's absurd. What I mean is, that people
+perhaps will--you know, they do--they say all manner of things, and
+that makes unhappiness, and ... I do wish you were going home
+to-morrow, Ricky. I mean, to your dear wife." Ripton blushed and
+looked away as he spoke.
+
+The hero gave one of his scornful glances. "So you're anxious about
+my reputation. I hate that way of looking on women. Because they
+have been once misled--look how much weaker they are!--because the
+world has given them an ill fame, you would treat them as
+contagious, and keep away from them for the sake of your character!"
+
+"It would be different with me," quoth Ripton.
+
+"How?" asked the hero.
+
+"Because I'm worse than you," was all the logical explanation Ripton
+was capable of.
+
+"I do hope you will go home soon," he added.
+
+"Yes," said Richard, "and I, so do I hope so. But I've work to do
+now. I dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy would be the last to ask
+me;--you saw her letter yesterday. Now listen to me, Rip. I want to
+make you be just to women."
+
+Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking of them as
+if he had known them and studied them for years. Clever, beautiful,
+but betrayed by love, it was the first duty of all true men to
+cherish and redeem them. "We turn them into curses, Rip; these
+divine creatures." And the world suffered for it. That--that was the
+root of all the evil in the world!
+
+"I don't feel anger or horror at these poor women, Rip! It's
+strange. I knew what they were when we came home in the boat. But I
+do--it tears my heart to see a young girl given over to an old
+man--a man she doesn't love. That's shame!--Don't speak of it."
+
+Forgetting to contest the premise, that all betrayed women are
+betrayed by love, Ripton was quite silenced. He, like most young
+men, had pondered somewhat on this matter, and was inclined to be
+sentimental when he was not hungry. They walked in the moonlight by
+the railings of the park. Richard harangued at leisure, while
+Ripton's teeth chattered. Chivalry might be dead, but still there
+was something to do, went the strain. The lady of the day had not
+been thrown in the hero's path without an object, he said; and he
+was sadly right there. He did not express the thing clearly;
+nevertheless Ripton understood him to mean, he intended to rescue
+that lady from further transgressions, and show a certain scorn of
+the world. That lady, and then other ladies unknown, were to be
+rescued. Ripton was to help. He and Ripton were to be the knights of
+this enterprise. When appealed to, Ripton acquiesced, and shivered.
+Not only were they to be knights, they would have to be Titans, for
+the powers of the world, the spurious ruling Social Gods, would have
+to be defied and overthrown. And Titan number one flung up his
+handsome bold face as if to challenge base Jove on the spot; and
+Titan number two strained the upper button of his coat to meet
+across his pocket-handkerchief on his chest, and warmed his fingers
+under his coat-tails. The moon had fallen from her high seat and was
+in the mists of the West, when he was allowed to seek his blankets,
+and the cold acting on his friend's eloquence made Ripton's flesh
+very contrite. The poor fellow had thinner blood than the hero; but
+his heart was good. By the time he had got a little warmth about
+him, his heart gratefully strove to encourage him in the conception
+of becoming a knight and a Titan; and so striving Ripton fell asleep
+and dreamed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY
+
+
+Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beautiful
+woman.
+
+     "Alas!" writes the Pilgrim at this very time to Lady Blandish,
+     "I cannot get that legend of the Serpent from me, the more I
+     think. Has he not caught you, and ranked you foremost in his
+     legions? For see: till you were fashioned, the fruits hung
+     immobile on the boughs. They swayed before us, glistening and
+     cold. The hand must be eager that plucked them. They did not
+     come down to us, and smile, and speak our language, and read
+     our thoughts, and know when to fly, when to follow! how surely
+     to have us!
+
+     "Do but mark one of you standing openly in the track of the
+     Serpent. What shall be done with her? I fear the world is wiser
+     than its judges! Turn from her, says the world. By day the sons
+     of the world do. It darkens, and they dance together downward.
+     Then comes there one of the world's elect who deems old counsel
+     devilish; indifference to the end of evil worse than its
+     pursuit. He comes to reclaim her. From deepest bane will he
+     bring her back to highest blessing. Is not that a bait already?
+     Poor fish! 'tis wondrous flattering. The Serpent has slimed her
+     so to secure him! With slow weary steps he draws her into
+     light: she clings to him; she is human; part of his work, and
+     he loves it. As they mount upward, he looks on her more, while
+     she, it may be, looks above. What has touched him? What has
+     passed out of her, and into him? The Serpent laughs below. At
+     the gateways of the Sun they fall together!"
+
+This alliterative production was written without any sense of the
+peril that makes prophecy.
+
+It suited Sir Austin to write thus. It was a channel to his acrimony
+moderated through his philosophy. The letter was a reply to a
+vehement entreaty from Lady Blandish for him to come up to Richard
+and forgive him thoroughly: Richard's name was not mentioned in it.
+
+"He tries to be more than he is," thought the lady: and she began
+insensibly to conceive him less than he was.
+
+The baronet was conscious of a certain false gratification in his
+son's apparent obedience to his wishes and complete submission; a
+gratification he chose to accept as his due, without dissecting or
+accounting for it. The intelligence reiterating that Richard waited,
+and still waited; Richard's letters, and more his dumb abiding and
+practical penitence; vindicated humanity sufficiently to stop the
+course of virulent aphorisms. He could speak, we have seen, in
+sorrow for this frail nature of ours, that he had once stood forth
+to champion. "But how long will this last?" he demanded, with the
+air of Hippias. He did not reflect how long it had lasted. Indeed,
+his indigestion of wrath had made of him a moral Dyspepsy.
+
+It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the arms of his
+young wife: nor was it this new knightly enterprise he had presumed
+to undertake. Hero as he was, a youth, open to the insane promptings
+of hot blood, he was not a fool. There had been talk between him and
+Mrs. Doria of his mother. Now that he had broken from his father,
+his heart spoke for her. She lived, he knew: he knew no more. Words
+painfully hovering along the borders of plain speech had been
+communicated to him, filling him with moody imaginings. If he
+thought of her, the red was on his face, though he could not have
+said why. But now, after canvassing the conduct of his father, and
+throwing him aside as a terrible riddle, he asked Mrs. Doria to tell
+him of his other parent. As softly as she could she told the story.
+To her the shame was past: she could weep for the poor lady. Richard
+dropped no tears. Disgrace of this kind is always present to a son,
+and, educated as he had been, these tidings were a vivid fire in his
+brain. He resolved to hunt her out, and take her from the man. Here
+was work set to his hand. All her dear husband did was right to
+Lucy. She encouraged him to stay for that purpose, thinking it also
+served another. There was Tom Bakewell to watch over Lucy: there
+was work for him to do. Whether it would please his father he did
+not stop to consider. As to the justice of the act, let us say
+nothing.
+
+On Ripton devolved the humbler task of grubbing for Sandoe's place
+of residence; and as he was unacquainted with the name by which the
+poet now went in private, his endeavours were not immediately
+successful. The friends met in the evening at Lady Blandish's
+town-house, or at the Foreys', where Mrs. Doria procured the reverer
+of the Royal Martyr, and staunch conservative, a favourable
+reception. Pity, deep pity for Richard's conduct Ripton saw
+breathing out of Mrs. Doria. Algernon Feverel treated his nephew
+with a sort of rough commiseration, as a young fellow who had run
+off the road.
+
+Pity was in Lady Blandish's eyes, though for a different cause. She
+doubted if she did well in seconding his father's unwise
+scheme--supposing him to have a scheme. She saw the young husband
+encompassed by dangers at a critical time. Not a word of Mrs. Mount
+had been breathed to her, but the lady had some knowledge of life.
+She touched on delicate verges to the baronet in her letters, and he
+understood her well enough. "If he loves this person to whom he has
+bound himself, what fear for him? Or are you coming to think it
+something that bears the name of love because we have to veil the
+rightful appellation?" So he responded, remote among the mountains.
+She tried very hard to speak plainly. Finally he came to say, that
+he denied himself the pleasure of seeing his son specially, that he
+for a time might be put to the test the lady seemed to dread. This
+was almost too much for Lady Blandish. Love's charity boy so loftily
+serene now that she saw him half denuded--a thing of shanks and
+wrists--was a trial for her true heart.
+
+Going home at night Richard would laugh at the faces made about his
+marriage. "We'll carry the day, Rip, my Lucy and I! or I'll do it
+alone--what there is to do." He slightly adverted to a natural want
+of courage in women, which Ripton took to indicate that his Beauty
+was deficient in that quality. Up leapt the Old Dog; "I'm sure there
+never was a braver creature upon earth, Richard! She's as brave as
+she's lovely, I'll swear she is! Look how she behaved that day! How
+her voice sounded! She was trembling.... Brave? She'd follow you
+into battle Richard!"
+
+And Richard rejoined: "Talk on, dear old Rip! She's my darling love,
+whatever she is! And she is gloriously lovely. No eyes are like
+hers. I'll go down to-morrow morning the first thing."
+
+Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could remain
+apart from it. So thought Richard for a space.
+
+"But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a day even I
+shall have undone all my work with my father. She says it
+herself--you saw it in her last letter."
+
+"Yes," Ripton assented, and the words "Please remember me to dear
+Mr. Thompson," fluttered about the Old Dog's heart.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business that led
+her through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure that she had once
+dandled in long clothes, and helped make a man of, if ever woman
+did. He was walking under the trees beside a lady, talking to her,
+not indifferently. The gentleman was her bridegroom and her babe. "I
+know his back," said Mrs. Berry, as if she had branded a mark on it
+in infancy. But the lady was not her bride. Mrs. Berry diverged from
+the path, and got before them on the left flank; she stared,
+retreated, and came round upon the right. There was that in the
+lady's face which Mrs. Berry did not like. Her innermost question
+was, why he was not walking with his own wife? She stopped in front
+of them. They broke, and passed about her. The lady made a laughing
+remark to him, whereat he turned to look, and Mrs. Berry bobbed. She
+had to bob a second time, and then he remembered the worthy
+creature, and hailed her Penelope, shaking her hand so that he put
+her in countenance again. Mrs. Berry was extremely agitated. He
+dismissed her, promising to call upon her in the evening. She heard
+the lady slip out something from a side of her lip, and they both
+laughed as she toddled off to a sheltering tree to wipe a corner of
+each eye. "I don't like the looks of that woman," she said, and
+repeated it resolutely.
+
+"Why doesn't he walk arm-in-arm with her?" was her next inquiry.
+"Where's his wife?" succeeded it. After many interrogations of the
+sort, she arrived at naming the lady a bold-faced thing; adding
+subsequently, brazen. The lady had apparently shown Mrs. Berry that
+she wished to get rid of her, and had checked the outpouring of her
+emotions on the breast of her babe. "I know a lady when I see one,"
+said Mrs. Berry. "I haven't lived with 'em for nothing; and if she's
+a lady bred and born, I wasn't married in the church alive."
+
+Then, if not a lady, what was she? Mrs. Berry desired to know.
+"She's imitation lady, I'm sure she is!" Berry vowed. "I say she
+don't look proper."
+
+Establishing the lady to be a spurious article, however, what was
+one to think of a married man in company with such? "Oh no! it ain't
+that!" Mrs. Berry returned immediately on the charitable tack.
+"Belike it's some one of his acquaintance 've married her for her
+looks, and he've just met her.... Why it'd be as bad as my Berry!"
+the relinquished spouse of Berry ejaculated, in horror at the idea
+of a second man being so monstrous in wickedness. "Just coupled,
+too!" Mrs. Berry groaned on the suspicious side of the debate. "And
+such a sweet young thing for his wife! But no, I'll never believe
+it. Not if he tell me so himself! And men don't do that," she
+whimpered.
+
+Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these matters; soft
+women exceedingly swift: and soft women who have been betrayed are
+rapid beyond measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she
+pronounced distinctly and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion
+is--married or not married, and wheresomever he pick her up--she's
+nothin' more nor less than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant
+she forthwith registered the lady in the botanical note-book of her
+brain. It would have astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person
+so accurately hit off at a glance.
+
+In the evening Richard made good his promise, accompanied by Ripton.
+Mrs. Berry opened the door to them. She could not wait to get him
+into the parlour. "You're my own blessed babe; and I'm as good as
+your mother,--though I didn't suck ye, bein' a maid!" she cried,
+falling into his arms, while Richard did his best to support the
+unexpected burden. Then reproaching him tenderly for his guile--at
+mention of which Ripton chuckled, deeming it his own most honourable
+portion of the plot--Mrs. Berry led them into the parlour, and
+revealed to Richard who she was, and how she had tossed him, and
+hugged him, and kissed him all over, when he was only that
+big--showing him her stumpy fat arm. "I kissed ye from head to tail,
+I did," said Mrs. Berry, "and you needn't be ashamed of it. It's be
+hoped you'll never have nothin' worse come t'ye, my dear!"
+
+Richard assured her he was not a bit ashamed, but warned her that
+she must not do it now, Mrs. Berry admitting it was out of the
+question now, and now that he had a wife, moreover. The young men
+laughed, and Ripton laughing over-loudly drew on himself Mrs.
+Berry's attention: "But that Mr. Thompson there--however he can look
+me in the face after his inn'cence! helping blindfold an old
+woman!--though I ain't sorry for what I did--that I'm free for to
+say, and it's over, and blessed be all! Amen! So now where is she
+and how is she, Mr. Richard, my dear--it's only cuttin' off the 's'
+and you are as you was.--Why didn't ye bring her with ye to see her
+old Berry?"
+
+Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of
+Wight.
+
+"Oh! and you've left her for a day or two?" said Mrs. Berry.
+
+"Good God! I wish it had been a day or two," cried Richard.
+
+"Ah! and how long have it been?" asked Mrs. Berry, her heart
+beginning to beat at his manner of speaking.
+
+"Don't talk about it," said Richard.
+
+"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you haven't been peckin'
+at one another yet?" Mrs. Berry exclaimed.
+
+Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded.
+
+"Then how long ha' you been divided?"
+
+In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September."
+
+"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers,
+"September, October, Nov--two months and more! nigh three! A young
+married husband away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months!
+Oh my! Oh my! what do that mean?"
+
+"My father sent for me--I'm waiting to see him," said Richard. A few
+more words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs.
+Then Mrs. Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her
+eyes, and spoke.
+
+"My dear young gentleman!--I'd like to call ye my darlin' babe! I'm
+going to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and
+what old Berry says, you won't mind, for she's had ye when there was
+no conventionals about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother to
+you, though humble her state. If there's one that know matrimony
+it's me, my dear, though Berry did give me no more but nine months
+of it: and I've known the worst of matrimony, which, if you wants to
+be woful wise, there it is for ye. For what have been my gain? That
+man gave me nothin' but his name; and Bessy Andrews was as good as
+Bessy Berry, though both is 'Bs,' and says he, you was 'A,' and now
+you's 'B,' so you're my A B, he says, write yourself down that, he
+says, the bad man, with his jokes!--Berry went to service." Mrs.
+Berry's softness came upon her. "So I tell ye, Berry went to
+service. He left the wife of his bosom forlorn and he went to
+service; because he were al'ays an ambitious man, and wasn't, so to
+speak, happy out of his uniform--which was his livery--not even in
+my arms: and he let me know it. He got among them kitchen sluts,
+which was my mournin' ready made, and worse than a widow's cap to
+me, which is no shame to wear, and some say becoming. There's no man
+as ever lived known better than my Berry how to show his legs to
+advantage, and gals look at 'em. I don't wonder now that Berry was
+prostrated. His temptations was strong, and his flesh was weak. Then
+what I say is, that for a young married man--be he whomsoever he may
+be--to be separated from the wife of his bosom--a young sweet thing,
+and he an innocent young gentleman!--so to sunder, in their state,
+and be kep' from each other, I say it's as bad as bad can be! For
+what is matrimony, my dears? We're told it's a holy Ordnance. And
+why are ye so comfortable in matrimony? For that ye are not a
+sinnin'! And they that severs ye they tempts ye to stray: and you
+learn too late the meanin' o' them blessin's of the priest--as it was
+ordained. Separate--what comes? Fust it's like the circulation of your
+blood a-stoppin'--all goes wrong. Then there's misunderstandings--ye've
+both lost the key. Then, behold ye, there's birds o' prey hoverin' over
+each on ye, and it's which'll be snapped up fust. Then--Oh, dear! Oh,
+dear! it be like the devil come into the world again." Mrs. Berry
+struck her hands and moaned. "A day I'll give ye: I'll go so far as a
+week: but there's the outside. Three months dwellin' apart! That's not
+matrimony, it's divorcin'! what can it be to her but widowhood?
+widowhood with no cap to show for it! And what can it be to you, my
+dear? Think! you been a bachelor three months! and a bachelor man,"
+Mrs. Berry shook her head most dolefully, "he ain't a widow woman.
+I don't go to compare you to Berry, my dear young gentleman. Some
+men's hearts is vagabonds born--they must go astray--it's their natur'
+to. But all men are men, and I know the foundation of 'em, by reason
+of my woe."
+
+Mrs. Berry paused. Richard was humorously respectful to the sermon.
+The truth in the good creature's address was not to be disputed, or
+despised, notwithstanding the inclination to laugh provoked by her
+quaint way of putting it. Ripton nodded encouragingly at every
+sentence, for he saw her drift, and wished to second it.
+
+Seeking for an illustration of her meaning, Mrs. Berry solemnly
+continued: "We all know what checked prespiration is." But neither
+of the young gentlemen could resist this. Out they burst in a roar
+of laughter.
+
+"Laugh away," said Mrs. Berry. "I don't mind ye. I say agin, we all
+do know what checked prespiration is. It fly to the lungs, it gives
+ye mortal inflammation, and it carries ye off. Then I say checked
+matrimony is as bad. It fly to the heart, and it carries off the
+virtue that's in ye, and you might as well be dead! Them that is
+joined it's their salvation not to separate! It don't so much matter
+before it. That Mr. Thompson there--if he go astray, it ain't from
+the blessed fold. He hurt himself alone--not double, and belike
+treble, for who can say now what may be? There's time for it. I'm
+for holding back young people so that they knows their minds,
+howsomever they rattles about their hearts. I ain't a speeder of
+matrimony, and good's my reason! but where it's been done--where
+they're lawfully joined, and their bodies made one, I do say this,
+that to put division between 'em then, it's to make wanderin' comets
+of 'em--creatures without a objeck, and no soul can say what they's
+good for but to rush about!"
+
+Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has said her utmost
+for the time being.
+
+"My dear old girl," Richard went up to her and, applauding her on
+the shoulder, "you're a very wise old woman. But you mustn't speak
+to me as if I wanted to stop here. I'm compelled to. I do it for her
+good chiefly."
+
+"It's your father that's doin' it, my dear?"
+
+"Well, I'm waiting his pleasure."
+
+"A pretty pleasure! puttin' a snake in the nest of young
+turtle-doves! And why don't she come up to you?"
+
+"Well, that you must ask her. The fact is, she's a little timid
+girl--she wants me to see him first, and when I've made all right,
+then she'll come."
+
+"A little timid girl!" cried Mrs. Berry. "Oh, lor', how she must ha'
+deceived ye to make ye think that! Look at that ring," she held out
+her finger, "he's a stranger: he's not my lawful! You know what ye
+did to me, my dear. Could I get my own wedding-ring back from her?
+'No!' says she, firm as a rock, 'he said, _with this ring_ I thee
+wed'--I think I see her now, with her pretty eyes and lovesome
+locks--a darlin'!--And that ring she'd keep to, come life, come
+death. And she must ha' been a rock for me to give in to her in
+that. For what's the consequence? Here am I," Mrs. Berry smoothed
+down the back of her hand mournfully, "here am I in a strange ring,
+that's like a strange man holdin' of me, and me a-wearin' of it just
+to seem decent, and feelin' all over no better than a b---- a
+big--that nasty name I can't abide!--I tell you, my dear, she ain't
+soft, no!--except to the man of her heart; and the best of women's
+too soft there--more's our sorrow!"
+
+"Well, well!" said Richard, who thought he knew.
+
+"I agree with you, Mrs. Berry," Ripton struck in, "Mrs. Richard
+would do anything in the world her husband asked her, I'm quite
+sure."
+
+"Bless you for your good opinion, Mr. Thompson! Why, see her! she
+ain't frail on her feet; she looks ye straight in the eyes; she
+ain't one of your hang-down misses. Look how she behaved at the
+ceremony!"
+
+"Ah!" sighed Ripton.
+
+"And if you'd ha' seen her when she spoke to me about my ring!
+Depend upon it, my dear Mr. Richard, if she blinded you about the
+nerve she've got, it was somethin' she thought she ought to do for
+your sake, and I wish I'd been by to counsel her, poor blessed
+babe!--And how much longer, now, can ye stay divided from that
+darlin'?"
+
+Richard paced up and down.
+
+"A father's will," urged Mrs. Berry, "that's a son's law; but he
+mustn't go again' the laws of his nature to do it."
+
+"Just be quiet at present--talk of other things, there's a good
+woman," said Richard.
+
+Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms.
+
+"How strange, now, our meetin' like this! meetin' at all, too!" she
+remarked contemplatively. "It's them advertisements! They brings
+people together from the ends of the earth, for good or for bad. I
+often say, there's more lucky accidents, or unlucky ones, since
+advertisements was the rule, than ever there was before. They make a
+number of romances, depend upon it! Do you walk much in the Gardens,
+my dear?"
+
+"Now and then," said Richard.
+
+"Very pleasant it is there with the fine folks and flowers and
+titled people," continued Mrs. Berry. "That was a handsome woman you
+was a-walkin' beside, this mornin'."
+
+"Very," said Richard.
+
+"She was a handsome woman! or I should say, is, for her day ain't
+past, and she know it. I thought at first--by her back--it might ha'
+been your aunt, Mrs. Forey; for she do step out well and hold up her
+shoulders: straight as a dart she be! But when I come to see her
+face--Oh, dear me! says I, this ain't one of the family. They none
+of 'em got such bold faces--nor no _lady_ as I know have. But she's
+a fine woman--that nobody can gainsay."
+
+Mrs. Berry talked further of the fine woman. It was a liberty she
+took to speak in this disrespectful tone of her, and Mrs. Berry was
+quite aware that she was laying herself open to rebuke. She had her
+end in view. No rebuke was uttered, and during her talk she observed
+intercourse passing between the eyes of the young men.
+
+"Look here, Penelope," Richard stopped her at last. "Will it make
+you comfortable if I tell you I'll obey the laws of my nature and go
+down at the end of the week?"
+
+"I'll thank the Lord of heaven if you do!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Very well, then--be happy--I will. Now listen. I want you to keep
+your rooms for me--those she had. I expect, in a day or two, to
+bring a lady here"----
+
+"A lady?" faltered Mrs. Berry.
+
+"Yes. A lady."
+
+"May I make so bold as to ask what lady?"
+
+"You may not. Not now. Of course you will know."
+
+Mrs. Berry's short neck made the best imitation it could of an
+offended swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not
+like so many ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying
+that there was only one lady.
+
+"And Mrs. Berry," he added, dropping his voice. "You will treat her
+as you did my dear girl, for she will require not only shelter but
+kindness. I would rather leave her with you than with any one. She
+has been very unfortunate."
+
+His serious air and habitual tone of command fascinated the softness
+of Berry, and it was not until he had gone that she spoke out.
+"Unfort'nate! He's going to bring me an unfort'nate female! Oh! not
+from my babe can I bear that! Never will I have her here! I see it.
+It's that bold-faced woman he's got mixed up in, and she've been and
+made the young man think he'll go for to reform her. It's one o'
+their arts--that is; and he's too innocent a young man to mean
+anythin' else. But I ain't a house of Magdalens--no! and sooner than
+have her here I'd have the roof fall over me, I would."
+
+She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve.
+
+In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the law, and
+this is the case with many of her sisters. The PILGRIM sneers at
+them for it, and would have us credit that it is their admirable
+instinct which, at the expense of every virtue save one, preserves
+the artificial barrier simply to impose upon us. Men, I presume, are
+hardly fair judges, and should stand aside and mark.
+
+Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel to let him
+know her determination. She did not find him there. Returning
+homeward through the park, she beheld him on horseback riding by the
+side of the identical lady. The sight of this public exposure
+shocked her more than the secret walk under the trees. "You don't
+look near your reform yet," Mrs. Berry apostrophized her. "You don't
+look to me one that'd come the Fair Penitent till you've left off
+bein' fair--if then you do, which some of ye don't. Laugh away and
+show yer airs! Spite o' your hat and feather, and your ridin' habit,
+you're a Bella Donna." Setting her down again absolutely for such,
+whatever it might signify, Mrs. Berry had a virtuous glow.
+
+In the evening she heard the noise of wheels stopping at the door.
+"Never!" she rose from her chair to exclaim. "He ain't rided her out
+in the mornin', and been and made a Magdalen of her afore dark?"
+
+A lady veiled was brought into the house by Richard. Mrs. Berry
+feebly tried to bar his progress in the passage. He pushed past her,
+and conducted the lady into the parlour without speaking. Mrs. Berry
+did not follow. She heard him murmur a few sentences within. Then he
+came out. All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously, "Mr.
+Richard! if that woman stay here, I go forth. My house ain't a
+penitentiary for unfort'nate females, sir"----
+
+He frowned at her curiously; but as she was on the point of renewing
+her indignant protest, he clapped his hand across her mouth, and
+spoke words in her ear that had awful import to her. She trembled,
+breathing low: "My God, forgive me! Lady Feverel is it? Your mother,
+Mr. Richard?" And her virtue was humbled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+AN ENCHANTRESS
+
+
+One may suppose that a prematurely aged, oily little man; a poet in
+bad circumstances; a decrepit butterfly chained to a disappointed
+inkstand, will not put out strenuous energies to retain his ancient
+paramour when a robust young man comes imperatively to demand his
+mother of him in her person. The colloquy was short between Diaper
+Sandoe and Richard. The question was referred to the poor spiritless
+lady, who, seeing that her son made no question of it, cast herself
+on his hands. Small loss to her was Diaper; but he was the loss of
+habit, and that is something to a woman who has lived. The blood of
+her son had been running so long alien from her that the sense of
+her motherhood smote her now with strangeness, and Richard's stern
+gentleness seemed like dreadful justice come upon her. Her heart had
+almost forgotten its maternal functions. She called him Sir, till he
+bade her remember he was her son. Her voice sounded to him like that
+of a broken-throated lamb, so painful and weak it was, with the
+plaintive stop in the utterance. When he kissed her, her skin was
+cold. Her thin hand fell out of his when his grasp relaxed. "Can sin
+hunt one like this?" he asked, bitterly reproaching himself for the
+shame she had caused him to endure, and a deep compassion filled his
+breast.
+
+Poetic justice had been dealt to Diaper the poet. He thought of all
+he had sacrificed for this woman--the comfortable quarters, the
+friend, the happy flights. He could not but accuse her of
+unfaithfulness in leaving him in his old age. Habit had legalized
+his union with her. He wrote as pathetically of the break of habit
+as men feel at the death of love; and when we are old and have no
+fair hope tossing golden locks before us, a wound to this our second
+nature is quite as sad. I know not even if it be not actually
+sadder.
+
+Day by day Richard visited his mother. Lady Blandish and Ripton
+alone were in the secret. Adrian let him do as he pleased. He
+thought proper to tell him that the public recognition he accorded
+to a particular lady was, in the present state of the world,
+scarcely prudent.
+
+"'Tis a proof to me of your moral rectitude, my son, but the world
+will not think so. No one character is sufficient to cover two--in a
+Protestant country especially. The divinity that doth hedge a Bishop
+would have no chance in contact with your Madam Danae. Drop the
+woman, my son. Or permit _me_ to speak what you would have her
+hear."
+
+Richard listened to him with disgust.
+
+"Well, you've had my doctorial warning," said Adrian, and plunged
+back into his book.
+
+When Lady Feverel had revived to take part in the consultations Mrs.
+Berry perpetually opened on the subject of Richard's matrimonial
+duty, another chain was cast about him. "Do not, oh, do not offend
+your father!" was her one repeated supplication. Sir Austin had
+grown to be a vindictive phantom in her mind. She never wept but
+when she said this.
+
+So Mrs. Berry, to whom Richard had once made mention of Lady
+Blandish as the only friend he had among women, bundled off in her
+black-satin dress to obtain an interview with her, and an ally.
+After coming to an understanding on the matter of the visit, and
+reiterating many of her views concerning young married people, Mrs.
+Berry said: "My lady, if I may speak so bold, I'd say the sin that's
+bein' done is the sin o' the lookers-on. And when everybody appear
+frightened by that young gentleman's father, I'll say--hopin' your
+pardon--they no cause be frighted at all. For though it's nigh
+twenty year since I knew him, and I knew him then just sixteen
+months--no more--I'll say his heart's as soft as a woman's, which
+I've cause for to know. And that's it. That's where everybody's
+deceived by him, and I was. It's because he keeps his face, and
+makes ye think you're dealin' with a man of iron, and all the while
+there's a woman underneath. And a man that's like a woman he's the
+puzzle o' life! We can see through ourselves, my lady, and we can
+see through men, but one o' that sort--he's like somethin' out of
+nature. Then I say--hopin' be excused--what's to do is for to treat
+him _like_ a woman, and not for to let him 'ave his own way--which
+he don't know himself, and is why nobody else do. Let that sweet
+young couple come together, and be wholesome in spite of him, I say;
+and then give him time to come round, just like a woman; and round
+he'll come, and give 'em his blessin', and we shall know we've made
+him comfortable. He's angry because matrimony have come between him
+and his son, and he, woman-like, he's wantin' to treat what is as if
+it isn't. But matrimony's a holier than him. It began long long
+before him, and it's be hoped will endoor long's the time after, if
+the world's not coming to rack--wishin' him no harm."
+
+Now Mrs. Berry only put Lady Blandish's thoughts in bad English. The
+lady took upon herself seriously to advise Richard to send for his
+wife. He wrote, bidding her come. Lucy, however, had wits, and
+inexperienced wits are as a little knowledge. In pursuance of her
+sage plan to make the family feel her worth, and to conquer the
+members of it one by one, she had got up a correspondence with
+Adrian, whom it tickled. Adrian constantly assured her all was going
+well: time would heal the wound if both the offenders had the
+fortitude to be patient: he fancied he saw signs of the baronet's
+relenting: they must do nothing to arrest those favourable symptoms.
+Indeed the wise youth was languidly seeking to produce them. He
+wrote, and felt, as Lucy's benefactor. So Lucy replied to her
+husband a cheerful rigmarole he could make nothing of, save that she
+was happy in hope, and still had fears. Then Mrs. Berry trained her
+fist to indite a letter to her bride. Her bride answered it by
+saying she trusted to time. "You poor marter," Mrs. Berry wrote
+back, "I know what your sufferin's be. They is the only kind a wife
+should never hide from her husband. He thinks all sorts of things if
+she can abide being away. And you trusting to time, why it's like
+trusting not to catch cold out of your natural clothes." There was
+no shaking Lucy's firmness.
+
+Richard gave it up. He began to think that the life lying behind him
+was the life of a fool. What had he done in it? He had burnt a rick
+and got married! He associated the two acts of his existence. Where
+was the hero he was to have carved out of Tom Bakewell!--a wretch he
+had taught to lie and chicane: and for what? Great heavens! how
+ignoble did a flash from the light of his aspirations make his
+marriage appear! The young man sought amusement. He allowed his aunt
+to drag him into society, and sick of that he made late evening
+calls on Mrs. Mount, oblivious of the purpose he had in visiting her
+at all. Her man-like conversation, which he took for honesty, was a
+refreshing change on fair lips.
+
+"Call me Bella: I'll call you Dick," said she. And it came to be
+Bella and Dick between them. No mention of Bella occurred in
+Richard's letters to Lucy.
+
+Mrs. Mount spoke quite openly of herself. "I pretend to be no better
+than I am," she said, "and I know I'm no worse than many a woman who
+holds her head high." To back this she told him stories of blooming
+dames of good repute, and poured a little social sewerage into his
+ears.
+
+Also she understood him. "What you want, my dear Dick, is something
+to do. You went and got married like a--hum!--friends must be
+respectful. Go into the Army. Try the turf. I can put you up to a
+trick or two--friends should make themselves useful."
+
+She told him what she liked in him. "You're the only man I was ever
+alone with who don't talk to me of love and make me feel sick. I
+hate men who can't speak to a woman sensibly.--Just wait a minute."
+She left him and presently returned with, "Ah, Dick! old fellow! how
+are you?"--arrayed like a cavalier, one arm stuck in her side, her
+hat jauntily cocked, and a pretty oath on her lips to give reality
+to the costume. "What do you think of me? Wasn't it a shame to make
+a woman of me when I was born to be a man?"
+
+"I don't know that," said Richard, for the contrast in her attire to
+those shooting eyes and lips, aired her sex bewitchingly.
+
+"What! you think I don't do it well?"
+
+"Charming! but I can't forget...."
+
+"Now that is too bad!" she pouted.
+
+Then she proposed that they should go out into the midnight streets
+arm-in-arm, and out they went and had great fits of laughter at her
+impertinent manner of using her eye-glass, and outrageous
+affectation of the supreme dandy.
+
+"They take up men, Dick, for going about in women's clothes, and
+vice versaw, I suppose. You'll bail me, old fellaa, if I have to
+make my bow to the beak, won't you? Say it's becas I'm an honest
+woman and don't care to hide the--a--unmentionables when I wear
+them--as the t'others do," sprinkled with the dandy's famous
+invocations.
+
+He began to conceive romance in that sort of fun.
+
+"You're a wopper, my brave Dick! won't let any peeler take me? by
+Jove!"
+
+And he with many assurances guaranteed to stand by her, while she
+bent her thin fingers trying the muscle of his arm, and reposed upon
+it more. There was delicacy in her dandyism. She was a graceful
+cavalier.
+
+"Sir Julius," as they named the dandy's attire, was frequently
+called for on his evening visits to Mrs. Mount. When he beheld Sir
+Julius he thought of the lady, and "vice versaw," as Sir Julius was
+fond of exclaiming.
+
+Was ever hero in this fashion wooed?
+
+The woman now and then would peep through Sir Julius. Or she would
+sit, and talk, and altogether forget she was impersonating that
+worthy fop.
+
+She never uttered an idea or a reflection, but Richard thought her
+the cleverest woman he had ever met.
+
+All kinds of problematic notions beset him. She was cold as ice, she
+hated talk about love, and she was branded by the world.
+
+A rumour spread that reached Mrs. Doria's ears. She rushed to Adrian
+first. The wise youth believed there was nothing in it. She sailed
+down upon Richard. "Is this true? that you have been seen going
+publicly about with an infamous woman, Richard? Tell me! pray,
+relieve me!"
+
+Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt's description in
+whose company he could have been seen.
+
+"Tell me, I say! Don't quibble. Do you know _any_ woman of bad
+character?"
+
+The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and ill-used by the
+world, Richard admitted to.
+
+Urgent grave advice Mrs. Doria tendered her nephew, both from the
+moral and the worldly point of view, mentally ejaculating all the
+while: "That ridiculous System! That disgraceful marriage!" Sir
+Austin in his mountain solitude was furnished with serious stuff to
+brood over.
+
+The rumour came to Lady Blandish. She likewise lectured Richard, and
+with her he condescended to argue. But he found himself obliged to
+instance something he had quite neglected. "Instead of her doing me
+harm, it's I that will do her good."
+
+Lady Blandish shook her head and held up her finger. "This person
+must be very clever to have given you that delusion, dear."
+
+"She _is_ clever. And the world treats her shamefully."
+
+"She complains of her position to you?"
+
+"Not a word. But I will stand by her. She has no friend but me."
+
+"My poor boy! has she made you think that?"
+
+"How unjust you all are!" cried Richard.
+
+"How mad and wicked is the man who can let him be tempted so!"
+thought Lady Blandish.
+
+He would pronounce no promise not to visit her, not to address her
+publicly. The world that condemned her and cast her out was no
+better--worse for its miserable hypocrisy. He knew the world now,
+the young man said.
+
+"My child! the world may be very bad. I am not going to defend it.
+But you have some one else to think of. Have you forgotten you have
+a wife, Richard?"
+
+"Ay! you all speak of her now. There's my aunt: 'Remember you have a
+wife!' Do you think I love any one but Lucy? poor little thing!
+Because I am married am I to give up the society of women?"
+
+"Of women!"
+
+"Isn't she a woman?"
+
+"Too much so!" sighed the defender of her sex.
+
+Adrian became more emphatic in his warnings. Richard laughed at him.
+The wise youth sneered at Mrs. Mount. The hero then favoured him
+with a warning equal to his own in emphasis, and surpassing it in
+sincerity.
+
+"We won't quarrel, my dear boy," said Adrian. "I'm a man of peace.
+Besides, we are not fairly proportioned for a combat. Ride your
+steed to virtue's goal! All I say is, that I think he'll upset you,
+and it's better to go a slow pace and in companionship with the
+children of the sun. You have a very nice little woman for a
+wife--well, good-bye!"
+
+To have his wife and the world thrown at his face, was unendurable
+to Richard; he associated them somewhat after the manner of the rick
+and the marriage. Charming Sir Julius, always gay, always honest,
+dispersed his black moods.
+
+"Why, you're taller," Richard made the discovery.
+
+"Of course I am. Don't you remember you said I was such a little
+thing when I came out of my woman's shell?"
+
+"And how have you done it?"
+
+"Grown to please you."
+
+"Now, if you can do that, you can do anything."
+
+"And so I would do anything."
+
+"You would?"
+
+"Honour!"
+
+"Then" ... his project recurred to him. But the incongruity of
+speaking seriously to Sir Julius struck him dumb.
+
+"Then what?" asked she.
+
+"Then you're a gallant fellow."
+
+"That all?"
+
+"Isn't it enough?"
+
+"Not quite. You were going to say something. I saw it in your eyes."
+
+"You saw that I admired you."
+
+"Yes, but a man mustn't admire a man."
+
+"I suppose I had an idea you were a woman."
+
+"What! when I had the heels of my boots raised half an inch," Sir
+Julius turned one heel, and volleyed out silver laughter.
+
+"I don't come much above your shoulder even now," she said, and
+proceeded to measure her height beside him with arch up-glances.
+
+"You must grow more."
+
+"'Fraid I can't, Dick! Bootmakers can't do it."
+
+"I'll show you how," and he lifted Sir Julius lightly, and bore the
+fair gentleman to the looking-glass, holding him there exactly on a
+level with his head. "Will that do?"
+
+"Yes! Oh, but I can't stay here."
+
+"Why can't you?"
+
+"Why can't I?"
+
+He should have known then--it was thundered at a closed door in him,
+that he played with fire. But the door being closed, he thought
+himself internally secure.
+
+Their eyes met. He put her down instantly.
+
+Sir Julius, charming as he was, lost his vogue. Seeing that, the
+wily woman resumed her shell. The memory of Sir Julius breathing
+about her still, doubled the feminine attraction.
+
+"I ought to have been an actress," she said.
+
+Richard told her he found all natural women had a similar wish.
+
+"Yes! Ah! then! if I had been!" sighed Mrs. Mount, gazing on the
+pattern of the carpet.
+
+He took her hand, and pressed it.
+
+"You are not happy as you are?"
+
+"No."
+
+"May I speak to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Her nearest eye, setting a dimple of her cheek in motion, slid to
+the corner toward her ear, as she sat with her head sideways to him,
+listening. When he had gone, she said to herself: "Old hypocrites
+talk in that way; but I never heard of a young man doing it, and not
+making love at the same time."
+
+Their next meeting displayed her quieter: subdued as one who had
+been set thinking. He lauded her fair looks. "Don't make me thrice
+ashamed," she petitioned.
+
+But it was not only that mood with her. Dauntless defiance, that
+splendidly befitted her gallant outline and gave a wildness to her
+bright bold eyes, when she would call out: "Happy? who dares say I'm
+not happy? D'you think if the world whips me I'll wince? D'you think
+I care for what they say or do? Let them kill me! they shall never
+get one cry out of me!" and flashing on the young man as if he were
+the congregated enemy, add: "There! now you know me!"--that was a
+mood that well became her, and helped the work. She ought to have
+been an actress.
+
+"This must not go on," said Lady Blandish and Mrs. Doria in unison.
+A common object brought them together. They confined their talk to
+it, and did not disagree. Mrs. Doria engaged to go down to the
+baronet. Both ladies knew it was a dangerous, likely to turn out a
+disastrous, expedition. They agreed to it because it was something
+to do, and doing anything is better than doing nothing. "Do it,"
+said the wise youth, when they made him a third, "do it, if you want
+him to be a hermit for life. You will bring back nothing but his
+dead body, ladies--a Hellenic, rather than a Roman, triumph. He will
+listen to you--he will accompany you to the station--he will hand
+you into the carriage--and when you point to his seat he will bow
+profoundly, and retire into his congenial mists."
+
+Adrian spoke their thoughts. They fretted; they relapsed.
+
+"Speak to him, you, Adrian," said Mrs. Doria. "Speak to the boy
+solemnly. It would be almost better he should go back to that little
+thing he has married."
+
+"Almost?" Lady Blandish opened her eyes. "I have been advising it
+for the last month and more."
+
+"A choice of evils," said Mrs. Doria's sour-sweet face and shake of
+the head.
+
+Each lady saw a point of dissension, and mutually agreed, with
+heroic effort, to avoid it by shutting their mouths. What was more,
+they preserved the peace in spite of Adrian's artifices.
+
+"Well, I'll talk to him again," he said. "I'll try to get the Engine
+on the conventional line."
+
+"Command him!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria.
+
+"Gentle means are, I think, the only means with Richard," said Lady
+Blandish.
+
+Throwing banter aside, as much as he could, Adrian spoke to Richard.
+"You want to reform this woman. Her manner is open--fair and
+free--the traditional characteristic. We won't stop to canvass how
+that particular honesty of deportment that wins your approbation has
+been gained. In her college it is not uncommon. Girls, you know, are
+not like boys. At a certain age they can't be quite natural. It's a
+bad sign if they don't blush, and fib, and affect this and that. It
+wears off when they're women. But a woman who speaks like a man, and
+has all those excellent virtues you admire--where has she learned
+the trick? She tells you. You don't surely approve of the school?
+Well, what is there in it, then? Reform her, of course. The task is
+worthy of your energies. But, if you are appointed to do it, don't
+do it publicly, and don't attempt it just now. May I ask you whether
+your wife participates in this undertaking?"
+
+Richard walked away from the interrogation. The wise youth, who
+hated long unrelieved speeches and had healed his conscience, said
+no more.
+
+Dear tender Lucy! Poor darling! Richard's eyes moistened. Her
+letters seemed sadder latterly. Yet she never called to him to come,
+or he would have gone. His heart leapt up to her. He announced to
+Adrian that he should wait no longer for his father. Adrian placidly
+nodded.
+
+The enchantress observed that her knight had a clouded brow and an
+absent voice.
+
+"Richard--I can't call you Dick now, I really don't know why"--she
+said, "I want to beg a favour of you."
+
+"Name it. I can still call you Bella, I suppose?"
+
+"If you care to. What I want to say is this: when you meet me
+out--to cut it short--please not to recognize me."
+
+"And why?"
+
+"Do you ask to be told _that_?"
+
+"Certainly I do."
+
+"Then look: I won't compromise you."
+
+"I see no harm, Bella."
+
+"No," she caressed his hand, "and there is none. I know that. But,"
+modest eyelids were drooped, "other people do," struggling eyes were
+raised.
+
+"What do we care for other people?"
+
+"Nothing. I don't. Not that!" snapping her finger, "I care for you,
+though." A prolonged look followed the declaration.
+
+"You're foolish, Bella."
+
+"Not quite so giddy--that's all."
+
+He did not combat it with his usual impetuosity. Adrian's abrupt
+inquiry had sunk in his mind, as the wise youth intended it should.
+He had instinctively refrained from speaking to Lucy of this lady.
+But what a noble creature the woman was!
+
+So they met in the park; Mrs. Mount whipped past him; and secrecy
+added a new sense to their intimacy.
+
+Adrian was gratified at the result produced by his eloquence.
+
+Though this lady never expressed an idea, Richard was not mistaken
+in her cleverness. She could make evenings pass gaily, and one was
+not the fellow to the other. She could make you forget she was a
+woman, and then bring the fact startlingly home to you. She could
+read men with one quiver of her half-closed eye-lashes. She could
+catch the coming mood in a man, and fit herself to it. What does a
+woman want with ideas, who can do thus much? Keenness of perception,
+conformity, delicacy of handling, these be all the qualities
+necessary to parasites.
+
+Love would have scared the youth: she banished it from her tongue.
+It may also have been true that it sickened her. She played on his
+higher nature. She understood spontaneously what would be most
+strange and taking to him in a woman. Various as the Serpent of old
+Nile, she acted fallen beauty, humorous indifference, reckless
+daring, arrogance in ruin. And acting thus, what think you?--She did
+it so well because she was growing half in earnest.
+
+"Richard! I am not what I was since I knew you. You will not give me
+up quite?"
+
+"Never, Bella."
+
+"I am not so bad as I'm painted!"
+
+"You are only unfortunate."
+
+"Now that I know you I think so, and yet I am happier."
+
+She told him her history when this soft horizon of repentance seemed
+to throw heaven's twilight across it. A woman's history, you know:
+certain chapters expunged. It was dark enough to Richard.
+
+"Did you love the man?" he asked. "You say you love no one now."
+
+"Did I love him? He was a nobleman and I a tradesman's daughter. No.
+I did not love him. I have lived to learn it. And now I should hate
+him, if I did not despise him."
+
+"Can you be deceived in love?" said Richard, more to himself than to
+her.
+
+"Yes. When we're young we can be very easily deceived. If there is
+such a thing as love, we discover it after we have tossed about and
+roughed it. Then we find the man, or the woman, that suits us:--and
+then it's too late! we can't have him."
+
+"Singular!" murmured Richard, "she says just what my father said."
+
+He spoke aloud: "I could forgive you if you had loved him."
+
+"Don't be harsh, grave judge! How is a girl to distinguish?"
+
+"You had some affection for him? He was the first?"
+
+She chose to admit that. "Yes. And the first who talks of love to a
+girl must be a fool if he doesn't blind her."
+
+"That makes what is called first love nonsense."
+
+"Isn't it?"
+
+He repelled the insinuation. "Because I know it is not, Bella."
+
+Nevertheless she had opened a wider view of the world to him, and a
+colder. He thought poorly of girls. A woman--a sensible, brave,
+beautiful woman seemed, on comparison, infinitely nobler than those
+weak creatures.
+
+She was best in her character of lovely rebel accusing foul
+injustice. "What am I to do? You tell me to be different. How can I?
+What am I to do? Will virtuous people let me earn my bread? I could
+not get a housemaid's place! They wouldn't have me--I see their
+noses smelling! Yes: I can go to the hospital and sing behind a
+screen! Do you expect me to bury myself alive? Why, man, I have
+blood: I can't become a stone. You say I am honest, and I will be.
+Then let me tell you that I have been used to luxuries, and I can't
+do without them. I might have married men--lots would have had me.
+But who marries one like me but a fool? and I could not marry a
+fool. The man I marry I must respect. He could not respect me--I
+should know him to be a fool, and I should be worse off than I am
+now. As I am now, they may look as pious as they like--I laugh at
+them!"
+
+And so forth: direr things. Imputations upon wives: horrible
+exultation at the universal peccancy of husbands. This lovely
+outcast almost made him think she had the right on her side, so
+keenly her Parthian arrows pierced the holy centres of society, and
+exposed its rottenness.
+
+Mrs. Mount's house was discreetly conducted: nothing ever occurred
+to shock him there. The young man would ask himself where the
+difference was between her and the women of society? How base, too,
+was the army of banded hypocrites! He was ready to declare war
+against them on her behalf. His casus belli, accurately worded,
+would have read curiously. Because the world refused to lure the
+lady to virtue with the offer of a housemaid's place, our knight
+threw down his challenge. But the lady had scornfully rebutted this
+prospect of a return to chastity. Then the form of the challenge
+must be: Because the world declined to support the lady in luxury
+for nothing! But what did that mean? In other words: she was to
+receive the devil's wages without rendering him her services. Such
+an arrangement appears hardly fair on the world or on the devil.
+Heroes will have to conquer both before they will get them to
+subscribe to it.
+
+Heroes, however, are not in the habit of wording their declarations
+of war at all. Lance in rest they challenge and they charge. Like
+women they trust to instinct, and graft on it the muscle of men.
+Wide fly the leisurely-remonstrating hosts: institutions are
+scattered, they know not wherefore, heads are broken that have not
+the balm of a reason why. 'Tis instinct strikes! Surely there is
+something divine in instinct.
+
+Still, war declared, where were these hosts? The hero could not
+charge down on the ladies and gentlemen in a ballroom, and spoil the
+quadrille. He had sufficient reticence to avoid sounding his
+challenge in the Law Courts; nor could he well go into the Houses of
+Parliament with a trumpet, though to come to a tussle with the
+nation's direct representatives did seem the likelier method. It was
+likewise out of the question that he should enter every house and
+shop, and battle with its master in the cause of Mrs. Mount. Where,
+then, was his enemy? Everybody was his enemy, and everybody was
+nowhere. Shall he convoke multitudes on Wimbledon Common? Blue
+Policemen, and a distant dread of ridicule, bar all his projects.
+Alas for the hero in our day!
+
+Nothing teaches a strong arm its impotence so much as knocking at
+empty air.
+
+"What can I do for this poor woman?" cried Richard, after fighting
+his phantom enemy till he was worn out.
+
+"O Rip! old Rip!" he addressed his friend, "I'm distracted. I wish I
+was dead! What good am I for? Miserable! selfish! What have I done
+but make every soul I know wretched about me? I follow my own
+inclinations--I make people help me by lying as hard as they
+can--and I'm a liar. And when I've got it I'm ashamed of myself. And
+now when I do see something unselfish for me to do, I come upon
+grins--I don't know where to turn--how to act--and I laugh at myself
+like a devil!"
+
+It was only friend Ripton's ear that was required, so his words went
+for little: but Ripton did say he thought there was small matter to
+be ashamed of in winning and wearing the Beauty of Earth. Richard
+added his customary comment of "Poor little thing!"
+
+He fought his duello with empty air till he was exhausted. A last
+letter written to his father procured him no reply. Then, said he, I
+have tried my utmost. I have tried to be dutiful--my father won't
+listen to me. One thing I can do--I can go down to my dear girl, and
+make her happy, and save her at least from some of the consequences
+of my rashness.
+
+"There's nothing better for me!" he groaned. His great ambition must
+be covered by a house-top: he and the cat must warm themselves on
+the domestic hearth! The hero was not aware that his heart moved him
+to this. His heart was not now in open communion with his mind.
+
+Mrs. Mount heard that her friend was going--would go. She knew he
+was going to his wife. Far from discouraging him, she said nobly:
+"Go--I believe I have kept you. Let us have an evening together, and
+then go: for good, if you like. If not, then to meet again another
+time. Forget me. I shan't forget you. You're the best fellow I ever
+knew, Richard. You are, on my honour! I swear I would not step in
+between you and your wife to cause either of you a moment's
+unhappiness. When I can be another woman I will, and I shall think
+of you then."
+
+Lady Blandish heard from Adrian that Richard was positively going to
+his wife. The wise youth modestly veiled his own merit in bringing
+it about by saying: "I couldn't see that poor little woman left
+alone down there any longer."
+
+"Well! Yes!" said Mrs. Doria, to whom the modest speech was
+repeated, "I suppose, poor boy, it's the best he can do now."
+
+Richard bade them adieu, and went to spend his last evening with
+Mrs. Mount.
+
+The enchantress received him in state.
+
+"Do you know this dress? No? It's the dress I wore when I first met
+you--not when I first saw you. I think I remarked you, sir, before
+you deigned to cast an eye upon humble me. When we first met we
+drank champagne together, and I intend to celebrate our parting in
+the same liquor. Will you liquor with me, old boy?"
+
+She was gay. She revived Sir Julius occasionally. He, dispirited,
+left the talking all to her.
+
+Mrs. Mount kept a footman. At a late hour the man of calves dressed
+the table for supper. It was a point of honour for Richard to sit
+down to it and try to eat. Drinking, thanks to the kindly mother
+nature, who loves to see her children made fools of, is always an
+easier matter. The footman was diligent; the champagne corks feebly
+recalled the file-firing at Richmond.
+
+"We'll drink to what we might have been, Dick," said the
+enchantress.
+
+Oh, the glorious wreck she looked.
+
+His heart choked as he gulped the buzzing wine.
+
+"What! down, my boy?" she cried. "They shall never see me hoist
+signals of distress. We must all die, and the secret of the thing is
+to die game, by Jove! Did you ever hear of Laura Fenn? a superb
+girl! handsomer than your humble servant--if you'll believe it--a
+'Miss' in the bargain, and as a consequence, I suppose, a much
+greater rake. She was in the hunting-field. Her horse threw her, and
+she fell plump on a stake. It went into her left breast. All the
+fellows crowded round her, and one young man, who was in love with
+her--he sits in the House of Peers now--we used to call him 'Duck'
+because he was such a dear--he dropped from his horse to his knees:
+'Laura! Laura! my darling! speak a word to me!--the last!' She
+turned over all white and bloody! 'I--I shan't be in at the death!'
+and gave up the ghost! Wasn't that dying game? Here's to the example
+of Laura Fenn! Why, what's the matter? See! it makes a man turn pale
+to hear how a woman can die. Fill the glasses, John. Why, you're as
+bad!"
+
+"It's give me a turn, my lady," pleaded John, and the man's hand was
+unsteady as he poured out the wine.
+
+"You ought not to listen. Go, and drink some brandy."
+
+John footman went from the room.
+
+"My brave Dick! Richard! what a face you've got!"
+
+He showed a deep frown on a colourless face.
+
+"Can't you bear to hear of blood? You know, it was only one naughty
+woman out of the world. The clergyman of the parish didn't refuse to
+give her decent burial. We are Christians! Hurrah!"
+
+She cheered, and laughed. A lurid splendour glanced about her like
+lights from the pit.
+
+"Pledge me, Dick! Drink, and recover yourself. Who minds? We must
+all die--the good and the bad. Ashes to ashes--dust to dust--and
+wine for living lips! That's poetry--almost. Sentiment: 'May we
+never say die till we've drunk our fill!' Not bad--eh? A little
+vulgar, perhaps, by Jove! Do you think me horrid?"
+
+"Where's the wine?" Richard shouted. He drank a couple of glasses in
+succession, and stared about. Was he in hell, with a lost soul
+raving to him?
+
+"Nobly spoken! and nobly acted upon, my brave Dick! Now we'll be
+companions. 'She wished that heaven had made her such a man.' Ah,
+Dick! Dick! too late! too late!"
+
+Softly fell her voice. Her eyes threw slanting beams.
+
+"Do you see this?"
+
+She pointed to a symbolic golden anchor studded with gems and coiled
+with a rope of hair in her bosom. It was a gift of his.
+
+"Do you know when I stole the lock? Foolish Dick! you gave me an
+anchor without a rope. Come and see."
+
+She rose from the table, and threw herself on the sofa.
+
+"Don't you recognize your own hair! I should know a thread of mine
+among a million."
+
+Something of the strength of Samson went out of him as he inspected
+his hair on the bosom of Delilah.
+
+"And you knew nothing of it! You hardly know it now you see it! What
+couldn't a woman steal from you? But you're not vain, and that's a
+protection. You're a miracle, Dick: a man that's not vain! Sit
+here." She curled up her feet to give him place on the sofa. "Now
+let us talk like friends that part to meet no more. You found a ship
+with fever on board, and you weren't afraid to come alongside and
+keep her company. The fever isn't catching, you see. Let us mingle
+our tears together. Ha! ha! a man said that once to me. The
+hypocrite wanted to catch the fever, but he was too old. How old are
+you, Dick?"
+
+Richard pushed a few months forward.
+
+"Twenty-one? You just look it, you blooming boy. Now tell me my age,
+Adonis!--Twenty--_what_?"
+
+Richard had given the lady twenty-five years.
+
+She laughed violently. "You don't pay compliments, Dick. Best to be
+honest; guess again. You don't like to? Not twenty-five, or twenty-four,
+or twenty-three, or--see how he begins to start!--twenty-two. Just
+twenty-one, my dear. I think, my birthday's somewhere in next month.
+Why, look at me, close--closer. Have I a wrinkle?"
+
+"And when, in heaven's name!" ... he stopped short.
+
+"I understand you. When did I commence for to live? At the ripe age
+of sixteen I saw a nobleman in despair because of my beauty. He
+vowed he'd die. I didn't want him to do that. So to save the poor
+man for his family, I ran away with him, and I dare say they didn't
+appreciate the sacrifice, and he soon forgot to, if he ever did.
+It's the way of the world!"
+
+Richard seized some dead champagne, emptied the bottle into a
+tumbler, and drank it off.
+
+John footman entered to clear the table, and they were left without
+further interruption.
+
+"Bella! Bella!" Richard uttered in a deep sad voice, as he walked
+the room.
+
+She leaned on her arm, her hair crushed against a reddened cheek,
+her eyes half-shut and dreamy.
+
+"Bella!" he dropped beside her. "You are unhappy."
+
+She blinked and yawned, as one who is awakened suddenly. "I think
+you spoke," said she.
+
+"You are unhappy, Bella. You can't conceal it. Your laugh sounds
+like madness. You must be unhappy. So young, too! Only twenty-one!"
+
+"What does it matter? Who cares for me?"
+
+The mighty pity falling from his eyes took in her whole shape. She
+did not mistake it for tenderness, as another would have done.
+
+"Who cares for you, Bella? I do. What makes my misery now, but to
+see you there, and know of no way of helping you? Father of mercy!
+it seems too much to have to stand by powerless while such ruin is
+going on!"
+
+Her hand was shaken in his by the passion of torment with which his
+frame quaked.
+
+Involuntarily a tear started between her eyelids. She glanced up at
+him quickly, then looked down, drew her hand from his, and smoothed
+it, eying it.
+
+"Bella! you have a father alive!"
+
+"A linen draper, dear. He wears a white neck-cloth."
+
+This article of apparel instantaneously changed the tone of the
+conversation, for he, rising abruptly, nearly squashed the lady's
+lap-dog, whose squeaks and howls were piteous, and demanded the
+most fervent caresses of its mistress. It was: "Oh, my poor pet
+Mumpsy, and he didn't like a nasty great big ugly heavy foot on
+his poor soft silky--mum--mum--back, he didn't, and he soodn't
+that he--mum--mum--soodn't; and he cried out and knew the place
+to come to, and was oh so sorry for what had happened to
+him--mum--mum--mum--and now he was going to be made happy, his
+mistress make him happy--mum--mum--mum--moo-o-o-o."
+
+"Yes!" said Richard, savagely, from the other end of the room, "you
+care for the happiness of your dog."
+
+"A course se does," Mumpsy was simperingly assured in the thick of
+his silky flanks.
+
+Richard looked for his hat. Mumpsy was deposited on the sofa in a
+twinkling.
+
+"Now," said the lady, "you must come and beg Mumpsy's pardon,
+whether you meant to do it or no, because little doggies can't tell
+that--how should they? And there's poor Mumpsy thinking you're a
+great terrible rival that tries to squash him all flat to nothing,
+on purpose, pretending you didn't see; and he's trembling, poor dear
+wee pet! And I may love my dog, sir, if I like; and I do; and I
+won't have him ill-treated, for he's never been jealous of you, and
+he is a darling, ten times truer than men, and I love him fifty
+times better. So come to him with me."
+
+First a smile changed Richard's face; then laughing a melancholy
+laugh, he surrendered to her humour, and went through the form of
+begging Mumpsy's pardon.
+
+"The dear dog! I do believe he saw we were getting dull," said she.
+
+"And immolated himself intentionally? Noble animal!"
+
+"Well, we'll act as if we thought so. Let us be gay, Richard, and
+not part like ancient fogies. Where's your fun? You can rattle; why
+don't you? You haven't seen me in one of my characters--not Sir
+Julius: wait a couple of minutes." She ran out.
+
+A white visage reappeared behind a spring of flame. Her black hair
+was scattered over her shoulders and fell half across her brows. She
+moved slowly, and came up to him, fastening weird eyes on him,
+pointing a finger at the region of witches. Sepulchral cadences
+accompanied the representation. He did not listen, for he was
+thinking what a deadly charming and exquisitely horrid witch she
+was. Something in the way her underlids worked seemed to remind him
+of a forgotten picture; but a veil hung on the picture. There could
+be no analogy, for this was beautiful and devilish, and that, if he
+remembered rightly, had the beauty of seraphs.
+
+His reflections and her performance were stayed by a shriek. The
+spirits of wine had run over the plate she held to the floor. She
+had the coolness to put the plate down on the table, while he
+stamped out the flame on the carpet. Again she shrieked: she thought
+she was on fire. He fell on his knees and clasped her skirts all
+round, drawing his arms down them several times.
+
+Still kneeling, he looked up, and asked, "Do you feel safe now?"
+
+She bent her face glaring down till the ends of her hair touched his
+cheek.
+
+Said she, "Do you?"
+
+Was she a witch verily? There was sorcery in her breath; sorcery in
+her hair: the ends of it stung him like little snakes.
+
+"How do I do it, Dick?" she flung back, laughing.
+
+"Like you do everything, Bella," he said, and took a breath.
+
+"There! I won't be a witch; I won't be a witch: they may burn me to
+a cinder, but I won't be a witch!"
+
+She sang, throwing her hair about, and stamping her feet.
+
+"I suppose I look a figure. I must go and tidy myself."
+
+"No, don't change. I like to see you so." He gazed at her with a
+mixture of wonder and admiration. "I can't think you the same
+person--not even when you laugh."
+
+"Richard," her tone was serious, "you were going to speak to me of
+my parents."
+
+"How wild and awful you looked, Bella!"
+
+"My father, Richard, was a very respectable man."
+
+"Bella, you'll haunt me like a ghost."
+
+"My mother died in my infancy, Richard."
+
+"Don't put up your hair, Bella."
+
+"I was an only child!"
+
+Her head shook sorrowfully at the glistening fire-irons. He followed
+the abstracted intentness of her look, and came upon her words.
+
+"Ah, yes! speak of your father, Bella. Speak of him."
+
+"Shall I haunt you, and come to your bedside, and cry, ''Tis time'?"
+
+"Dear Bella! if you will tell me where he lives, I will go to him.
+He shall receive you. He shall not refuse--he shall forgive you."
+
+"If I haunt you, you can't forget me, Richard."
+
+"Let me go to your father, Bella--let me go to him to-morrow. I'll
+give you my time. It's all I can give. O Bella! let me save you."
+
+"So you like me best dishevelled, do you, you naughty boy! Ha! ha!"
+and away she burst from him, and up flew her hair, as she danced
+across the room, and fell at full length on the sofa.
+
+He felt giddy: bewitched.
+
+"We'll talk of everyday things, Dick," she called to him from the
+sofa. "It's our last evening. Our last? Heigho! It makes me
+sentimental. How's that Mr. Ripson, Pipson, Nipson?--it's not
+complimentary, but I can't remember names of that sort. Why do you
+have friends of that sort? He's not a gentleman. Better is he? Well,
+he's rather _too_ insignificant for me. Why do you sit off there?
+Come to me instantly. There--I'll sit up, and be proper, and you'll
+have plenty of room. Talk, Dick!"
+
+He was reflecting on the fact that her eyes were brown. They had a
+haughty sparkle when she pleased, and when she pleased a soft
+languor circled them. Excitement had dyed her cheeks deep red. He
+was a youth, and she an enchantress. He a hero; she a female
+will-o'-the-wisp.
+
+The eyes were languid now, set in rosy colour.
+
+"You will not leave me yet, Richard? not yet?"
+
+He had no thought of departing.
+
+"It's our last night--I suppose it's our last hour together in this
+world--and I don't want to meet you in the next, for poor Dick will
+have to come to such a very, very disagreeable place to make the
+visit."
+
+He grasped her hand at this.
+
+"Yes, he will! too true! can't be helped: they say I'm handsome."
+
+"You're lovely, Bella."
+
+She drank in his homage.
+
+"Well, we'll admit it. His Highness below likes lovely women, I hear
+say. A gentleman of taste! You don't know all my accomplishments
+yet, Richard."
+
+"I shan't be astonished at anything new, Bella."
+
+"Then hear, and wonder." Her voice trolled out some lively roulades.
+"Don't you think he'll make me his prima donna below? It's nonsense
+to tell me there's no singing there. And the atmosphere will be
+favourable to the voice. No _damp_, you know. You saw the piano--why
+didn't you ask me to sing before? I can sing Italian. I had a
+master--who made love to me. I forgave him because of the
+music-stool--men can't help it on a music-stool, poor dears!"
+
+She went to the piano, struck the notes, and sang--
+
+    "'My heart, my heart--I think 'twill break.'
+
+"Because I'm such a rake. I don't know any other reason. No; I hate
+sentimental songs. Won't sing that. Ta-tiddy-tiddy-iddy--a ... e!
+How ridiculous those women were, coming home from Richmond!
+
+    'Once the sweet romance of story
+      Clad thy moving form with grace;
+    Once the world and all its glory
+      Was but framework to thy face.
+    Ah, too fair!--what I remember,
+      Might my soul recall--but no!
+    To the winds this wretched ember
+      Of a fire that falls so low!'
+
+"Hum! don't much like that. Tum-te-tum-tum--accanto al
+fuoco--heigho! I don't want to show off, Dick--or to break down--so
+I won't try that.
+
+    'Oh! but for thee, oh! but for thee,
+      I might have been a happy wife,
+    And nursed a baby on my knee,
+      And never blushed to give it life.'
+
+"I used to sing that when I was a girl, sweet Richard, and didn't
+know at all, at all, what it meant. Mustn't sing that sort of song
+in company. We're oh! so proper--even we!
+
+    'If I had a husband, what think you I'd do?
+      I'd make it my business to keep him a lover;
+    For when a young gentleman ceases to woo,
+      Some other amusement he'll quickly discover.'
+
+"For such are young gentlemen made of--made of: such are young
+gentlemen made of!"
+
+After this trifling she sang a Spanish ballad sweetly. He was in the
+mood when imagination intensely vivifies everything. Mere suggestion
+of music sufficed. The lady in the ballad had been wronged. Lo! it
+was the lady before him; and soft horns blew; he smelt the languid
+night-flowers; he saw the stars crowd large and close above the arid
+plain: this lady leaning at her window desolate, pouring out her
+abandoned heart.
+
+Heroes know little what they owe to champagne.
+
+The lady wandered to Venice. Thither he followed her at a leap. In
+Venice she was not happy. He was prepared for the misery of any
+woman anywhere. But, oh! to be with her! To glide with phantom-motion
+through throbbing street; past houses muffled in shadow and gloomy
+legends; under storied bridges; past palaces charged with full life in
+dead quietness; past grand old towers, colossal squares, gleaming
+quays, and out, and on with her, on into the silver infinity shaking
+over seas!
+
+Was it the champagne? the music? or the poetry? Something of the two
+former, perhaps: but most the enchantress playing upon him. How many
+instruments cannot clever women play upon at the same moment! And
+this enchantress was not too clever, or he might have felt her
+touch. She was no longer absolutely bent on winning him, or he might
+have seen a manoeuvre. She liked him--liked none better. She
+wished him well. Her pique was satisfied. Still he was handsome, and
+he was going. What she liked him for, she rather--very slightly--wished
+to do away with, or see if it could be done away with: just as one
+wishes to catch a pretty butterfly, without hurting its patterned
+wings. No harm intended to the innocent insect, only one wants to
+inspect it thoroughly, and enjoy the marvel of it, in one's tender
+possession, and have the felicity of thinking one could crush it,
+if one would.
+
+He knew her what she was, this lady. In Seville, or in Venice, the
+spot was on her. Sailing the pathways of the moon it was not
+celestial light that illumined her beauty. Her sin was there: but in
+dreaming to save, he was soft to her sin--drowned it in deep
+mournfulness.
+
+Silence, and the rustle of her dress, awoke him from his musing. She
+swam wave-like to the sofa. She was at his feet.
+
+"I have been light and careless to-night, Richard. Of course I meant
+it. I _must_ be happy with my best friend going to leave me."
+
+Those witch underlids were working brightly.
+
+"You will not forget me? and I shall try ... try...."
+
+Her lips twitched. She thought him such a very handsome fellow.
+
+"If I change--if I can change.... Oh! if you could know what a net
+I'm in, Richard!"
+
+Now at those words, as he looked down on her haggard loveliness, not
+divine sorrow but a devouring jealousy sprang like fire to his
+breast, and set him rocking with horrid pain. He bent closer to her
+pale beseeching face. Her eyes still drew him down.
+
+"Bella! No! no! promise me! swear it!"
+
+"Lost, Richard! lost for ever! give me up!"
+
+He cried: "I never will!" and strained her in his arms, and kissed
+her passionately on the lips.
+
+She was not acting now as she sidled and slunk her half-averted head
+with a kind of maiden shame under his arm, sighing heavily, weeping,
+clinging to him. It was wicked truth.
+
+Not a word of love between them!
+
+Was ever hero in this fashion won?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON; A BERRY TO THE RESCUE!
+
+
+At a season when the pleasant South-western Island has few
+attractions to other than invalids and hermits enamoured of wind and
+rain, the potent nobleman, Lord Mountfalcon, still lingered there to
+the disgust of his friends and special parasite. "Mount's in for it
+again," they said among themselves. "Hang the women!" was a natural
+sequence. For, don't you see, what a shame it was of the women to be
+always kindling such a very inflammable subject! All understood that
+Cupid had twanged his bow, and transfixed a peer of Britain for the
+fiftieth time: but none would perceive, though he vouched for it
+with his most eloquent oaths, that this was a totally different case
+from the antecedent ones. So it had been sworn to them too
+frequently before. He was as a man with mighty tidings, and no
+language: intensely communicative, but inarticulate. Good round
+oaths had formerly compassed and expounded his noble emotions. They
+were now quite beyond the comprehension of blasphemy, even when
+emphasized, and by this the poor lord divinely felt the case was
+different. There is something impressive in a great human hulk
+writhing under the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot
+contend with, or account for, or explain by means of intelligible
+words. At first he took refuge in the depths of his contempt for
+women. Cupid gave him line. When he had come to vent his worst of
+them, the fair face now stamped on his brain beamed the more
+triumphantly: so the harpooned whale rose to the surface, and after
+a few convulsions, surrendered his huge length. My lord was in love
+with Richard's young wife. He gave proofs of it by burying himself
+beside her. To her, could she have seen it, he gave further proofs
+of a real devotion, in affecting, and in her presence feeling,
+nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being. This wonder,
+that when near her he should be cool and composed, and when away
+from her wrapped in a tempest of desires, was matter for what powers
+of cogitation the heavy nobleman possessed.
+
+The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged him to press
+the business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, or more scrupulous, than
+his parasite. Almost every evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced
+little wife apprehended no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had
+commended her to the care of Lord Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. Lady
+Judith had left the Island for London: Lord Mountfalcon remained.
+There could be no harm. If she had ever thought so, she no longer
+did. Secretly, perhaps, she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as
+well educated as it is the fortune of the run of titled elder sons
+to be: he could talk and instruct: he was a lord: and he let her
+understand that he was wicked, very wicked, and that she improved
+him. The heroine, in common with the hero, has her ambition to be of
+use in the world--to do some good; and the task of reclaiming a bad
+man is extremely seductive to good women. Dear to their tender
+bosoms as old china is a bad man they are mending! Lord Mountfalcon
+had none of the arts of a libertine: his gold, his title, and his
+person had hitherto preserved him from having long to sigh in vain,
+or sigh at all, possibly: the Hon. Peter did his villainies for him.
+No alarm was given to Lucy's pure instinct, as might have been the
+case had my lord been over-adept. It was nice in her martyrdom to
+have a true friend to support her, and really to be able to do
+something for that friend. Too simple-minded to think much of his
+lordship's position, she was yet a woman. "He, a great nobleman,
+does not scorn to acknowledge me, and think something of me," may
+have been one of the half-thoughts passing through her now and then,
+as she reflected in self-defence on the proud family she had married
+into.
+
+January was watering and freezing old earth by turns, when the Hon.
+Peter travelled down to the sun of his purse with great news. He had
+no sooner broached his lordship's immediate weakness, than
+Mountfalcon began to plunge like a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He
+swore by this and that he had come across an angel for his sins, and
+would do her no hurt. The next moment he swore she must be his,
+though she cursed like a cat. His lordship's illustrations were not
+choice. "I haven't advanced an inch," he groaned. "Brayder! upon my
+soul, that little woman could do anything with me. By heaven! I'd
+marry her to-morrow. Here I am, seeing her every day in the week out
+or in, and what do you think she gets me to talk about?--history!
+Isn't it enough to make a fellow mad? and there am I lecturing like
+a prig, and by heaven! while I'm at it I feel a pleasure in it; and
+when I leave the house I should feel an immense gratification in
+shooting somebody. What do they say in town?"
+
+"Not much," said Brayder, significantly.
+
+"When's that fellow--her husband--coming down?"
+
+"I rather hope we've settled him for life, Mount."
+
+Nobleman and parasite exchanged looks.
+
+"How d'ye mean?"
+
+Brayder hummed an air, and broke it to say, "He's in for Don Juan at
+a gallop, that's all."
+
+"The deuce! Has Bella got him?" Mountfalcon asked with eagerness.
+
+Brayder handed my lord a letter. It was dated from the Sussex coast,
+signed "Richard," and was worded thus:
+
+"My beautiful Devil!--
+
+"Since we're both devils together, and have found each other out,
+come to me at once, or I shall be going somewhere in a hurry. Come,
+my bright hell-star! I ran away from you, and now I ask you to come
+to me! You have taught me how devils love, and I can't do without
+you. Come an hour after you receive this."
+
+Mountfalcon turned over the letter to see if there was any more.
+"Complimentary love-epistle!" he remarked, and rising from his chair
+and striding about, muttered, "The dog! how infamously he treats his
+wife!"
+
+"Very bad," said Brayder.
+
+"How did you get hold of this?"
+
+"Strolled into Bella's dressing-room, waiting for her--turned over
+her pincushion haphazard. You know her trick."
+
+"By Jove! I think that girl does it on purpose. Thank heaven, I
+haven't written her any letters for an age. Is she going to him!"
+
+"Not she! But it's odd, Mount!--did you ever know her refuse money
+before? She tore up the cheque in style, and presented me the
+fragments with two or three of the delicacies of language she learnt
+at your Academy. I rather like to hear a woman swear. It embellishes
+her!"
+
+Mountfalcon took counsel of his parasite as to the end the letter
+could be made to serve. Both conscientiously agreed that Richard's
+behaviour to his wife was infamous, and that he at least deserved no
+mercy. "But," said his lordship, "it won't do to show the letter. At
+first she'll be swearing it's false, and then she'll stick to him
+closer. I know the sluts."
+
+"The rule of contrary," said Brayder, carelessly. "She must see the
+trahison with her eyes. They believe their eyes. There's your
+chance, Mount. You step in: you give her revenge and consolation--two
+birds at one shot. That's what they like."
+
+"You're an ass, Brayder," the nobleman exclaimed. "You're an
+infernal blackguard. You talk of this little woman as if she and
+other women were all of a piece. I don't see anything I gain by this
+confounded letter. Her husband's a brute--that's clear."
+
+"Will you leave it to me, Mount?"
+
+"Be damned before I do!" muttered my lord.
+
+"Thank you. Now see how this will end. You're too soft, Mount.
+You'll be made a fool of."
+
+"I tell you, Brayder, there's nothing to be done. If I carry her
+off--I've been on the point of doing it every day--what'll come of
+that? She'll look--I can't stand her eyes--I shall be a fool--worse
+off with her than I am now."
+
+Mountfalcon yawned despondently. "And what do you think?" he pursued.
+"Isn't it enough to make a fellow gnash his teeth? She's" ... he
+mentioned something in an underbreath, and turned red as he said it.
+
+"Hm!" Brayder put up his mouth and rapped the handle of his cane on
+his chin. "That's disagreeable, Mount. You don't exactly want to act
+in that character. You haven't got a diploma. Bother!"
+
+"Do you think I love her a bit less?" broke out my lord in a frenzy.
+"By heaven! I'd read to her by her bedside, and talk that infernal
+history to her, if it pleased her, all day and all night."
+
+"You're evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount."
+
+The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation.
+
+"What do they say in town?" he asked again.
+
+Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was maid, wife, or
+widow.
+
+"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon resumed, after--to judge
+by the cast of his face--reflecting deeply. "I'll go to her this
+evening. She shall know what infernal torment she makes me suffer."
+
+"Do you mean to say she don't know it?"
+
+"Hasn't an idea--thinks me a friend. And so, by heaven! I'll be to
+her."
+
+"A--hm!" went the Honourable Peter. "This way to the sign of the
+Green Man, ladies!"
+
+"Do you want to be pitched out of the window, Brayder?"
+
+"Once was enough, Mount. The Salvage Man is strong. I may have
+forgotten the trick of alighting on my feet. There--there! I'll be
+sworn she's excessively innocent, and thinks you a disinterested
+friend."
+
+"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon repeated. "She shall know
+what damned misery it is to see her in such a position. I can't hold
+out any longer. Deceit's horrible to such a girl as that. I'd rather
+have her cursing me than speaking and looking as she does. Dear
+little girl!--she's only a child. You haven't an idea how sensible
+that little woman is."
+
+"Have you?" inquired the cunning one.
+
+"My belief is, Brayder, that there are angels among women," said
+Mountfalcon, evading his parasite's eye as he spoke.
+
+To the world, Lord Mountfalcon was the thoroughly wicked man; his
+parasite simply ingeniously dissipated. Full many a man of God had
+thought it the easier task to reclaim the Hon. Peter.
+
+Lucy received her noble friend by firelight that evening, and sat
+much in the shade. She offered to have the candles brought in. He
+begged her to allow the room to remain as it was. "I have something
+to say to you," he observed with a certain solemnity.
+
+"Yes--to me?" said Lucy, quickly.
+
+Lord Mountfalcon knew he had a great deal to say, but how to say it,
+and what it exactly was, he did not know.
+
+"You conceal it admirably," he began, "but you must be very lonely
+here--I fear, unhappy."
+
+"I should have been lonely, but for your kindness, my lord," said
+Lucy. "I am not unhappy." Her face was in shade and could not belie
+her.
+
+"Is there any help that one who would really be your friend might
+give you, Mrs. Feverel?"
+
+"None indeed that I know of," Lucy replied. "Who can help us to pay
+for our sins?"
+
+"At least you may permit me to endeavour to pay my debts, since you
+have helped me to wash out some of _my_ sins."
+
+"Ah, my lord!" said Lucy, not displeased. It is sweet for a woman to
+believe she has drawn the serpent's teeth.
+
+"I tell you the truth," Lord Mountfalcon went on. "What object could
+I have in deceiving you? I know you quite above flattery--so
+different from other women!"
+
+"Oh, pray, do not say that," interposed Lucy.
+
+"According to my experience, then."
+
+"But you say you have met such--such very bad women."
+
+"I have. And now that I meet a good one, it is my misfortune."
+
+"Your misfortune, Lord Mountfalcon?"
+
+"Yes, and I might say more."
+
+His lordship held impressively mute.
+
+"How strange men are!" thought Lucy. "He has some unhappy secret."
+
+Tom Bakewell, who had a habit of coming into the room on various
+pretences during the nobleman's visits, put a stop to the
+revelation, if his lordship intended to make any.
+
+When they were alone again, Lucy said, smiling: "Do you know, I am
+always ashamed to ask you to begin to read."
+
+Mountfalcon stared. "To read?--oh! ha! yes!" he remembered his
+evening duties. "Very happy, I'm sure. Let me see. Where were we?"
+
+"The life of the Emperor Julian. But indeed I feel quite ashamed to
+ask you to read, my lord. It's new to me; like a new world--hearing
+about Emperors, and armies, and things that really have been on the
+earth we walk upon. It fills my mind. But it must have ceased to
+interest you, and I was thinking that I would not tease you any
+more."
+
+"Your pleasure is mine, Mrs. Feverel. 'Pon my honour, I'd read till
+I was hoarse, to hear your remarks."
+
+"Are you laughing at me?"
+
+"Do I look so?"
+
+Lord Mountfalcon had fine full eyes, and by merely dropping the lids
+he could appear to endow them with mental expression.
+
+"No, you are not," said Lucy. "I must thank you for your
+forbearance."
+
+The nobleman went on his honour loudly.
+
+Now it was an object of Lucy's to have him reading; for his sake,
+for her sake, and for somebody else's sake; which somebody else was
+probably considered first in the matter. When he was reading to her,
+he seemed to be legitimizing his presence there; and though she had
+no doubts or suspicions whatever, she was easier in her heart while
+she had him employed in that office. So she rose to fetch the book,
+laid it open on the table at his lordship's elbow, and quietly
+waited to ring for candles when he should be willing to commence.
+
+That evening Lord Mountfalcon could not get himself up to the farce,
+and he felt a pity for the strangely innocent unprotected child with
+anguish hanging over her, that withheld the words he wanted to
+speak, or insinuate. He sat silent and did nothing.
+
+"What I do not like him for," said Lucy, meditatively, "is his
+changing his religion. He would have been such a hero, but for that.
+I could have loved him."
+
+"Who is it you could have loved, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord Mountfalcon
+asked.
+
+"The Emperor Julian."
+
+"Oh! the Emperor Julian! Well, he was an apostate: but then, you
+know, he meant what he was about. He didn't even do it for a woman."
+
+"For a woman!" cried Lucy. "What man would for a woman?"
+
+"I would."
+
+"You, Lord Mountfalcon?"
+
+"Yes. I'd turn Catholic to-morrow."
+
+"You make me very unhappy if you say that, my lord."
+
+"Then I'll unsay it."
+
+Lucy slightly shuddered. She put her hand upon the bell to ring for
+lights.
+
+"Do you reject a convert, Mrs. Feverel?" said the nobleman.
+
+"Oh yes! yes! I do. One who does not give his conscience I would not
+have."
+
+"If he gives his heart and body, can he give more?"
+
+Lucy's hand pressed the bell. She did not like the doubtful light
+with one who was so unscrupulous. Lord Mountfalcon had never spoken
+in this way before. He spoke better, too. She missed the
+aristocratic twang in his voice, and the hesitation for words, and
+the fluid lordliness with which he rolled over difficulties in
+speech.
+
+Simultaneously with the sounding of the bell the door opened, and
+presented Tom Bakewell. There was a double knock at the same instant
+at the street door. Lucy delayed to give orders.
+
+"Can it be a letter, Tom?--so late?" she said, changing colour.
+"Pray run and see."
+
+"That an't a powst," Tom remarked, as he obeyed his mistress.
+
+"Are you very anxious for a letter, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord Mountfalcon
+inquired.
+
+"Oh, no--yes, I am, very!" said Lucy. Her quick ear caught the tones
+of a voice she remembered. "That dear old thing has come to see me,"
+she cried, starting up.
+
+Tom ushered a bunch of black satin into the room.
+
+"Mrs. Berry!" said Lucy, running up to her and kissing her.
+
+"Me, my darlin'!" Mrs. Berry, breathless and rosy with her journey,
+returned the salute. "Me truly it is, in fault of a better, for I
+ain't one to stand by and give the devil his licence--roamin'! and
+the salt sure enough have spilte my bride-gown at the beginnin',
+which ain't the best sign. Bless ye!--Oh, here he is." She beheld a
+male figure in a chair by the half light, and swung round to address
+him. "You bad man!" she held aloft one of her fat fingers, "I've
+come on ye like a bolt, I have, and goin' to make ye do your duty,
+naughty boy! But you're my darlin' babe," she melted, as was her
+custom, "and I'll never meet you and not give to ye the kiss of a
+mother."
+
+Before Lord Mountfalcon could find time to expostulate the soft
+woman had him by the neck, and was down among his luxurious
+whiskers.
+
+"Ha!" She gave a smothered shriek, and fell back. "What hair's
+that?"
+
+Tom Bakewell just then illumined the transaction.
+
+"Oh, my gracious!" Mrs. Berry breathed with horror, "I been and kiss
+a strange man!"
+
+Lucy, half-laughing, but in dreadful concern, begged the noble lord
+to excuse the woful mistake.
+
+"Extremely flattered, highly favoured, I'm sure," said his lordship,
+re-arranging his disconcerted moustache; "may I beg the pleasure of
+an introduction?"
+
+"My husband's dear old nurse--Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, taking her
+hand to lend her countenance. "Lord Mountfalcon, Mrs. Berry."
+
+Mrs. Berry sought grace while she performed a series of apologetic
+bobs, and wiped the perspiration from her forehead.
+
+Lucy put her in a chair: Lord Mountfalcon asked for an account of
+her passage over to the Island; receiving distressingly full
+particulars, by which it was revealed that the softness of her heart
+was only equalled by the weakness of her stomach. The recital calmed
+Mrs. Berry down.
+
+"Well, and where's my--where's Mr. Richard? yer husband, my dear?"
+Mrs. Berry turned from her tale to question.
+
+"Did you expect to see him here?" said Lucy, in a broken voice.
+
+"And where else, my love? since he haven't been seen in London a
+whole fortnight."
+
+Lucy did not speak.
+
+"We will dismiss the Emperor Julian till to-morrow, I think," said
+Lord Mountfalcon, rising and bowing.
+
+Lucy gave him her hand with mute thanks. He touched it distantly,
+embraced Mrs. Berry in a farewell bow, and was shown out of the
+house by Tom Bakewell.
+
+The moment he was gone, Mrs. Berry threw up her arms. "Did ye ever
+know sich a horrid thing to go and happen to a virtuous woman!" she
+exclaimed. "I could cry at it, I could! To be goin' and kissin' a
+strange hairy man! Oh, dear me! what's comin' next, I wonder?
+Whiskers! thinks I--for I know the touch o' whiskers--'t ain't like
+other hair--what! have he growed a crop that sudden, I says to
+myself; and it flashed on me I been and made a awful mistake! and
+the lights come in, and I see that great hairy man--beggin' his
+pardon--nobleman, and if I could 'a dropped through the floor out o'
+sight o' men, drat 'em! they're al'ays in the way, that they
+are!"----
+
+"Mrs. Berry," Lucy checked her, "did you expect to find him here?"
+
+"Askin' that solemn?" retorted Berry. "What him? your husband? Of
+course I did! and you got him--somewheres hid."
+
+"I have not heard from my husband for fifteen days," said Lucy, and
+her tears rolled heavily off her cheeks.
+
+'Not heer from him!--fifteen days!" Berry echoed.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! dear kind Mrs. Berry! have you no news? nothing to
+tell me! I've borne it so long. They're cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh,
+do you know if I have offended him--my husband? While he wrote I did
+not complain. I could live on his letters for years. But not to hear
+from him! To think I have ruined him, and that he repents! Do they
+want to take him from me? Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I've
+had no one to speak out my heart to all this time, and I cannot,
+cannot help crying, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she heard from
+Lucy's lips, and she was herself full of dire apprehension; but it
+was never this excellent creature's system to be miserable in
+company. The sight of a sorrow that was not positive, and could not
+refer to proof, set her resolutely the other way.
+
+"Fiddle-faddle," she said. "I'd like to see him repent! He won't
+find anywheres a beauty like his own dear little wife, and he know
+it. Now, look you here, my dear--you blessed weepin' pet--the man
+that could see ye with that hair of yours there in ruins, and he
+backed by the law, and not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed
+for life, he ain't got much man in him, I say; and no one can say
+that of my babe! I was sayin', look here, to comfort ye--oh, why,
+to be sure he've got some surprise for ye. And so've I, my lamb!
+Hark, now! His father've come to town, like a good reasonable man at
+last, to u-nite, ye both, and bring your bodies together, as your
+hearts is, for ever-lastin'. Now ain't that news?"
+
+"Oh!" cried Lucy, "that takes my last hope away. I thought he had
+gone to his father." She burst into fresh tears.
+
+Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed.
+
+"Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested.
+
+"Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!"
+
+"Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sich a man as that. He's a
+regular meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey. Well, so hark
+you here. I says to myself, that knows him--for I did think my babe
+_was_ in his natural nest--I says, the bar'net'll never write for
+you both to come up and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch
+you up. For there was your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your
+husband to go away from ye one hour in a young marriage. It's
+dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong, and it's only to be righted by your
+obeyin' of me, as I commands it: for I has my fits, though I _am_ a
+soft 'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy to-morrow--or the next to it."
+
+Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her self-inflicted
+martyrdom, and glad to give herself up to somebody else's guidance
+utterly.
+
+"But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?"
+
+"'Cause, 'cause--who can tell the why of men, my dear? But that he
+love ye faithful, I'll swear. Haven't he groaned in my arms that he
+couldn't come to ye?--weak wretch! Hasn't he swore how he loved ye
+to me, poor young man! But this is your fault, my sweet. Yes, it be.
+You should 'a followed my 'dvice at the fust--'stead o' going into
+your 'eroics about this and t'other." Here Mrs. Berry poured forth
+fresh sentences on matrimony, pointed especially at young couples.
+"I should 'a been a fool if I hadn't suffered myself," she
+confessed, "so I'll thank my Berry if I makes you wise in season."
+
+Lucy smoothed her ruddy plump cheeks, and gazed up affectionately
+into the soft woman's kind brown eyes. Endearing phrases passed
+from mouth to mouth. And as she gazed Lucy blushed, as one who has
+something very secret to tell, very sweet, very strange, but cannot
+quite bring herself to speak it.
+
+"Well! there's three men in my life I kissed," said Mrs. Berry, too
+much absorbed in her extraordinary adventure to notice the young
+wife's struggling bosom, "three men, and one nobleman! He've got
+more whisker than my Berry. I wonder what the man thought. Ten to
+one he'll think, now, I was glad o' my chance--they're that vain,
+whether they's lords or commons. How was I to know? I nat'ral thinks
+none but her husband'd sit in that chair. Ha! and in the dark? and
+alone with ye?" Mrs. Berry hardened her eyes, "and your husband
+away? What do this mean? Tell to me, child, what it mean his bein'
+here alone without ere a candle?"
+
+"Lord Mountfalcon is the only friend I have here," said Lucy. "He is
+very kind. He comes almost every evening."
+
+"Lord Muntfalcon--that his name!" Mrs. Berry exclaimed. "I been that
+flurried by the man, I didn't mind it at first. He comes every
+evenin', and your husband out o' sight! My goodness me! it's gettin'
+worse and worse. And what do he come for, now, ma'am? Now tell me
+candid what ye do together here in the dark of an evenin'."
+
+Mrs. Berry glanced severely.
+
+"O Mrs. Berry! please not to speak in that way--I don't like it,"
+said Lucy, pouting.
+
+"What do he come for, I ask?"
+
+"Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very lonely, and wishes
+to amuse me. And he tells me of things I know nothing about and"----
+
+"And wants to be a-teachin' some of his things, mayhap," Mrs. Berry
+interrupted with a ruffled breast.
+
+"You are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old woman," said
+Lucy, chiding her.
+
+"And you're a silly, unsuspectin' little bird," Mrs. Berry retorted,
+as she returned her taps on the cheek. "You haven't told me what ye
+do together, and what's his excuse for comin'."
+
+"Well, then, Mrs. Berry, almost every evening that he comes we read
+History, and he explains the battles, and talks to me about the
+great men. And _he_ says I'm not silly, Mrs. Berry."
+
+"That's one bit o' lime on your wings, my bird. History, indeed!
+History to a young married lovely woman alone in the dark! a pretty
+History! Why, I know that man's name, my dear. He's a notorious
+living rake, that Lord Muntfalcon. No woman's safe with him."
+
+"Ah, but he hasn't deceived me, Mrs. Berry. He has not pretended he
+was good."
+
+"More's his art," quoth the experienced dame. "So you read History
+together in the dark, my dear!"
+
+"I was unwell to-night, Mrs. Berry. I wanted him not to see my face.
+Look! there's the book open ready for him when the candles come in.
+And now, you dear kind darling old thing, let me kiss you for coming
+to me. I do love you. Talk of other things."
+
+"So we will," said Mrs. Berry softening to Lucy's caresses. "So let
+us. A nobleman, indeed! alone with a young wife in the dark, and she
+sich a beauty! I say this shall be put a stop to now and henceforth,
+on the spot it shall! He won't meneuvele Bessy Berry with his arts.
+There! I drop him. I'm dyin' for a cup o' tea, my dear."
+
+Lucy got up to ring the bell, and as Mrs. Berry, incapable of quite
+dropping him, was continuing to say: "Let him go and boast I kiss
+him; he ain't nothin' to be 'shamed of in a chaste woman's
+kiss--unawares--which men don't get too often in their lives, I can
+assure 'em;"--her eye surveyed Lucy's figure.
+
+Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded her with her
+arms, and drew her into feminine depths. "Oh, you blessed!" she
+cried in most meaning tone, "you good, lovin', proper little wife,
+you!"
+
+"What is it, Mrs. Berry!" lisps Lucy, opening the most innocent blue
+eyes.
+
+"As if _I_ couldn't see, you pet! It was my flurry blinded me, or
+I'd 'a marked ye the fust shock. Thinkin' to deceive me!"
+
+Mrs. Berry's eyes spoke generations. Lucy's wavered; she coloured
+all over, and hid her face on the bounteous breast that mounted to
+her.
+
+"You're a sweet one," murmured the soft woman, patting her back, and
+rocking her. "You're a rose, you are! and a bud on your stalk.
+Haven't told a word to your husband, my dear?" she asked quickly.
+
+Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy.
+
+"That's right. We'll give him a surprise; let it come all at once on
+him, and thinks he--losin' breath--'I'm a father!' Nor a hint even
+you haven't give him?"
+
+Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret.
+
+"Oh! you _are_ a sweet one," said Bessy Berry, and rocked her more
+closely and lovingly.
+
+Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which let all of
+male persuasion retire a space nothing under one mile.
+
+Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry counting on her
+fingers' ends. Concluding the sum, she cries prophetically: "Now
+this right everything--a baby in the balance! Now I say this
+angel-infant come from on high. It's God's messenger, my love! and
+it's not wrong to say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn't 'a
+had one--not for all the tryin' in the world, you wouldn't, and some
+tries hard enough, poor creatures! How let us rejice and make merry!
+I'm for cryin' and laughin', one and the same. This is the blessed
+seal of matrimony, which Berry never stamp on me. It's be hoped it's
+a boy. Make that man a grandfather, and his grandchild a son, and
+you got him safe. Oh! this is what I call happiness, and I'll have
+my tea a little stronger in consequence. I declare I could get tipsy
+to know this joyful news."
+
+So Mrs. Berry carolled. She had her tea a little stronger. She ate
+and she drank; she rejoiced and made merry. The bliss of the chaste
+was hers.
+
+Says Lucy demurely: "Now you know why I read History, and that sort
+of books."
+
+"Do I?" replies Berry. "Belike I do. Since what you done's so good,
+my darlin', I'm agreeable to anything. A fig for all the lords! They
+can't come anigh a baby. You may read Voyages and Travels, my dear,
+and Romances, and Tales of Love and War. You cut the riddle in your
+own dear way, and that's all I cares for."
+
+"No, but you don't understand," persists Lucy. "I only read sensible
+books, and talk of serious things, because I'm sure ... because I
+have heard say ... dear Mrs. Berry! don't you understand now?"
+
+Mrs. Berry smacked her knees. "Only to think of her bein' that
+thoughtful! and she a Catholic, too! Never tell me that people of
+one religion ain't as good as another, after that. Why, you want to
+make him a historian, to be sure! And that rake of a lord who've
+been comin' here playin' at wolf, you been and made him--unbeknown
+to himself--sort o' tutor to the unborn blessed! Ha! ha! say that
+little women ain't got art ekal to the cunningest of 'em. Oh! I
+understand. Why, to be sure, didn't I know a lady, a widow of a
+clergyman: he was a postermost child, and afore his birth that woman
+read nothin' but Blair's 'Grave' over and over again, from the end
+to the beginnin';--that's a serious book!--very hard readin'!--and
+at four years of age that child that come of it reelly was the
+piusest infant!--he was like a little curate. His eyes was up; he
+talked so solemn." Mrs. Berry imitated the little curate's
+appearance and manner of speaking. "So she got her wish, for one!"
+
+But at this lady Lucy laughed.
+
+They chattered on happily till bedtime. Lucy arranged for Mrs. Berry
+to sleep with her. "If it's not dreadful to ye, my sweet, sleepin'
+beside a woman," said Mrs. Berry. "I know it were to me shortly
+after my Berry, and I felt it. It don't somehow seem nat'ral after
+matrimony--a woman in your bed! I was obliged to have somebody, for
+the cold sheets do give ye the creeps when you've been used to that
+that's different."
+
+Upstairs they went together, Lucy not sharing these objections. Then
+Lucy opened certain drawers, and exhibited pretty caps, and laced
+linen, all adapted for a very small body, all the work of her own
+hands: and Mrs. Berry praised them and her. "You been guessing a
+boy--woman-like," she said. Then they cooed, and kissed, and
+undressed by the fire, and knelt at the bedside, with their arms
+about each other, praying; both praying for the unborn child; and
+Mrs. Berry pressed Lucy's waist the moment she was about to breathe
+the petition to heaven to shield and bless that coming life; and
+thereat Lucy closed to her, and felt a strong love for her. Then
+Lucy got into bed first, leaving Berry to put out the light, and
+before she did so, Berry leaned over her, and eyed her roguishly,
+saying, "I never see ye like this, but I'm half in love with ye
+myself, you blushin' beauty! Sweet's your eyes, and your hair do
+take one so--lyin' back. I'd never forgive my father if he kep me
+away from ye four-and-twenty hours just. Husband o' that!" Berry
+pointed at the young wife's loveliness. "Ye look so ripe with
+kisses, and there they are a-languishin'!-- ... You never look so
+but in your bed, ye beauty!--just as it ought to be." Lucy had to
+pretend to rise to put out the light before Berry would give up her
+amorous chaste soliloquy. Then they lay in bed, and Mrs. Berry
+fondled her, and arranged for their departure to-morrow, and
+reviewed Richard's emotions when he came to hear he was going to be
+made a father by her, and hinted at Lucy's delicious shivers when
+Richard was again in his rightful place, which she, Bessy Berry, now
+usurped; and all sorts of amorous sweet things; enough to make one
+fancy the adage subverted, that stolen fruits are sweetest; she drew
+such glowing pictures of bliss within the law and the limits of the
+conscience, till at last, worn out, Lucy murmured "Peepy, dear
+Berry," and the soft woman gradually ceased her chirp.
+
+Bessy Berry did not sleep. She lay thinking of the sweet brave heart
+beside her, and listening to Lucy's breath as it came and went;
+squeezing the fair sleeper's hand now and then, to ease her love as
+her reflections warmed. A storm of wind came howling over the
+Hampshire hills, and sprang white foam on the water, and shook the
+bare trees. It passed, leaving a thin cloth of snow on the wintry
+land. The moon shone brilliantly. Berry heard the house-dog bark.
+His bark was savage and persistent. She was roused by the noise. By
+and by she fancied she heard a movement in the house; then it seemed
+to her that the house-door opened. She cocked her ears, and could
+almost make out voices in the midnight stillness. She slipped from
+the bed, locked and bolted the door of the room, assured herself of
+Lucy's unconsciousness, and went on tiptoe to the window. The trees
+all stood white to the north; the ground glittered; the cold was
+keen. Berry wrapped her fat arms across her bosom, and peeped as
+close over the garden as the situation of the window permitted.
+Berry was a soft, not a timid, woman: and it happened this night
+that her thoughts were above the fears of the dark. She was sure of
+the voices; curiosity without a shade of alarm held her on the
+watch; and gathering bundles of her day-apparel round her neck and
+shoulders, she silenced the chattering of her teeth as well as she
+could, and remained stationary. The low hum of the voices came to a
+break; something was said in a louder tone; the house-door quietly
+shut; a man walked out of the garden into the road. He paused
+opposite her window, and Berry let the blind go back to its place,
+and peeped from behind an edge of it. He was in the shadow of the
+house, so that it was impossible to discern much of his figure.
+After some minutes he walked rapidly away, and Berry returned to the
+bed an icicle, from which Lucy's limbs sensitively shrank.
+
+Next morning Mrs. Berry asked Tom Bakewell if he had been disturbed
+in the night. Tom, the mysterious, said he had slept like a top.
+Mrs. Berry went to the garden. The snow was partially melted; all
+save one spot just under the portal, and there she saw the print of
+a man's foot. By some strange guidance it occurred to her to go and
+find one of Richard's boots. She did so, and, unperceived, she
+measured the sole of the boot in that solitary footmark. There could
+be no doubt that it fitted. She tried it from heel to toe a dozen
+times.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+CLARE'S DIARY
+
+
+Sir Austin Feverel had come to town with the serenity of a
+philosopher who says, 'Tis now time; and the satisfaction of a man
+who has not arrived thereat without a struggle. He had almost
+forgiven his son. His deep love for him had well-nigh shaken loose
+from wounded pride and more tenacious vanity. Stirrings of a remote
+sympathy for the creature who had robbed him of his son and hewed at
+his System, were in his heart of hearts. This he knew; and in his
+own mind he took credit for his softness. But the world must not
+suppose him soft; the world must think he was still acting on his
+System. Otherwise what would his long absence signify?--Something
+highly unphilosophical. So, though love was strong, and was moving
+him to a straightforward course, the last tug of vanity drew him
+still aslant.
+
+The Aphorist read himself so well, that to juggle with himself was a
+necessity. As he wished the world to see him, he beheld himself: one
+who entirely put aside mere personal feelings: one in whom parental
+duty, based on the science of life, was paramount: a Scientific
+Humanist, in short.
+
+He was, therefore, rather surprised at a coldness in Lady Blandish's
+manner when he did appear. "At last!" said the lady, in a sad way
+that sounded reproachfully. Now the Scientific Humanist had, of
+course, nothing to reproach himself with.
+
+But where was Richard?
+
+Adrian positively averred he was not with his wife.
+
+"If he had gone," said the baronet, "he would have anticipated me by
+a few hours."
+
+This, when repeated to Lady Blandish, should have propitiated her,
+and shown his great forgiveness. She, however, sighed, and looked at
+him wistfully.
+
+Their converse was not happy and deeply intimate. Philosophy did not
+seem to catch her mind; and fine phrases encountered a rueful
+assent, more flattering to their grandeur than to their influence.
+
+Days went by. Richard did not present himself. Sir Austin's pitch of
+self-command was to await the youth without signs of impatience.
+
+Seeing this, the lady told him her fears for Richard, and mentioned
+the rumour of him that was about.
+
+"If," said the baronet, "this person, his wife, is what you paint
+her, I do not share your fears for him. I think too well of him. If
+she is one to inspire the sacredness of that union, I think too well
+of him. It is impossible."
+
+The lady saw one thing to be done.
+
+"Call her to you," she said. "Have her with you at Raynham.
+Recognize her. It is the disunion and doubt that so confuses him and
+drives him wild. I confess to you I hoped he had gone to her. It
+seems not. If she is with you his way will be clear. Will you do
+that?"
+
+Science is notoriously of slow movement. Lady Blandish's
+proposition was far too hasty for Sir Austin. Women, rapid by
+nature, have no idea of science.
+
+"We shall see her there in time, Emmeline. At present let it be
+between me and my son."
+
+He spoke loftily. In truth it offended him to be asked to do
+anything, when he had just brought himself to do so much.
+
+A month elapsed, and Richard appeared on the scene.
+
+The meeting between him and his father was not what his father had
+expected and had crooned over in the Welsh mountains. Richard shook
+his hand respectfully, and inquired after his health with the common
+social solicitude. He then said: "During your absence, sir, I have
+taken the liberty, without consulting you, to do something in which
+you are more deeply concerned than myself. I have taken upon myself
+to find out my mother and place her under my care. I trust you will
+not think I have done wrong. I acted as I thought best."
+
+Sir Austin replied: "You are of an age, Richard, to judge for
+yourself in such a case. I would have you simply beware of deceiving
+yourself in imagining that you considered any one but yourself in
+acting as you did."
+
+"I have not deceived myself, sir," said Richard, and the interview
+was over. Both hated an exposure of the feelings, and in that both
+were satisfied: but the baronet, as one who loves, hoped and looked
+for tones indicative of trouble and delight in the deep heart; and
+Richard gave him none of those. The young man did not even face him
+as he spoke: if their eyes met by chance, Richard's were defiantly
+cold. His whole bearing was changed.
+
+"This rash marriage has altered him," said the very just man of
+science in life: and that meant: "it has debased him."
+
+He pursued his reflections. "I see in him the desperate maturity of
+a suddenly-ripened nature: and but for my faith that good work is
+never lost, what should I think of the toil of my years? Lost,
+perhaps to me! lost to him! It may show itself in his children."
+
+The Philosopher, we may conceive, has contentment in benefiting
+embryos: but it was a somewhat bitter prospect to Sir Austin.
+Bitterly he felt the injury to himself.
+
+One little incident spoke well of Richard. A poor woman called at
+the hotel while he was missing. The baronet saw her, and she told
+him a tale that threw Christian light on one part of Richard's
+nature. But this might gratify the father in Sir Austin; it did not
+touch the man of science. A Feverel, his son, would not do less, he
+thought. He sat down deliberately to study his son.
+
+No definite observation enlightened him. Richard ate and drank;
+joked and laughed. He was generally before Adrian in calling for a
+fresh bottle. He talked easily of current topics; his gaiety did not
+sound forced. In all he did, nevertheless, there was not the air of
+a youth who sees a future before him. Sir Austin put that down. It
+might be carelessness, and wanton blood, for no one could say he had
+much on his mind. The man of science was not reckoning that Richard
+also might have learned to act and wear a mask. Dead subjects--this
+is to say, people not on their guard--he could penetrate and
+dissect. It is by a rare chance, as scientific men well know, that
+one has an opportunity of examining the structure of the living.
+
+However, that rare chance was granted to Sir Austin. They were
+engaged to dine with Mrs. Doria at the Foreys', and walked down to
+her in the afternoon, father and son arm-in-arm, Adrian beside them.
+Previously the offended father had condescended to inform his son
+that it would shortly be time for him to return to his wife,
+indicating that arrangements would ultimately be ordered to receive
+her at Raynham. Richard had replied nothing; which might mean excess
+of gratitude, or hypocrisy in concealing his pleasure, or any one of
+the thousand shifts by which gratified human nature expresses itself
+when all is made to run smooth with it. Now Mrs. Berry had her
+surprise ready charged for the young husband. She had Lucy in her
+own house waiting for him. Every day she expected him to call and be
+overcome by the rapturous surprise, and every day, knowing his habit
+of frequenting the park, she marched Lucy thither, under the plea
+that Master Richard, whom she had already christened, should have an
+airing.
+
+The round of the red winter sun was behind the bare Kensington
+chestnuts, when these two parties met. Happily for Lucy and the
+hope she bore in her bosom, she was perversely admiring a fair
+horsewoman galloping by at the moment. Mrs. Berry plucked at her
+gown once or twice, to prepare her eyes for the shock, but Lucy's
+head was still half averted, and thinks Mrs. Berry, "'Twon't hurt
+her if she go into his arms head foremost." They were close; Mrs.
+Berry performed the bob preliminary. Richard held her silent with a
+terrible face; he grasped her arm, and put her behind him. Other
+people intervened. Lucy saw nothing to account for Berry's excessive
+flutter. Berry threw it on the air and some breakfast bacon, which,
+she said, she knew in the morning while she ate it, was bad for the
+bile, and which probably was the cause of her bursting into tears,
+much to Lucy's astonishment.
+
+"What you ate makes you cry, Mrs. Berry?"
+
+"It's all----" Mrs. Berry pressed at her heart and leaned sideways,
+"it's all stomach, my dear. Don't ye mind," and becoming aware of
+her unfashionable behaviour, she trailed off to the shelter of the
+elms.
+
+"You have a singular manner with old ladies," said Sir Austin to his
+son, after Berry had been swept aside. "Scarcely courteous. She
+behaved like a mad woman, certainly.--Are you ill, my son?"
+
+Richard was death-pale, his strong form smitten through with
+weakness. The baronet sought Adrian's eye. Adrian had seen Lucy as
+they passed, and he had a glimpse of Richard's countenance while
+disposing of Berry. Had Lucy recognized them, he would have gone to
+her unhesitatingly. As she did not, he thought it well, under the
+circumstances, to leave matters as they were. He answered the
+baronet's look with a shrug.
+
+"Are you ill, Richard?" Sir Austin again asked his son.
+
+"Come on, sir! come on!" cried Richard.
+
+His father's further meditations, as they stepped briskly to the
+Foreys', gave poor Berry a character which one who lectures on
+matrimony, and has kissed but three men in her life, shrieks to hear
+the very title of.
+
+"Richard will go to his wife to-morrow," Sir Austin said to Adrian
+some time before they went in to dinner.
+
+Adrian asked him if he had chanced to see a young fair-haired lady
+by the side of the old one Richard had treated so peculiarly; and to
+the baronet's acknowledgment that he remembered to have observed
+such a person, Adrian said: "That was his wife, sir."
+
+Sir Austin could not dissect the living subject. As if a bullet had
+torn open the young man's skull, and some blast of battle laid his
+palpitating organization bare, he watched every motion of his brain
+and his heart; and with the grief and terror of one whose mental
+habit was ever to pierce to extremes. Not altogether conscious that
+he had hitherto played with life, he felt that he was suddenly
+plunged into the stormful reality of it. He projected to speak
+plainly to his son on all points that night.
+
+"Richard is very gay," Mrs. Doria whispered her brother.
+
+"All will be right with him to-morrow," he replied; for the game had
+been in his hands so long, so long had he been the God of the
+machine, that having once resolved to speak plainly and to act, he
+was to a certain extent secure, bad as the thing to mend might be.
+
+"I notice he has rather a wild laugh--I don't exactly like his
+eyes," said Mrs. Doria.
+
+"You will see a change in him to-morrow," the man of science
+remarked.
+
+It was reserved for Mrs. Doria herself to experience that change. In
+the middle of the dinner a telegraphic message from her son-in-law,
+worthy John Todhunter, reached the house, stating that Clare was
+alarmingly ill, bidding her come instantly. She cast about for some
+one to accompany her, and fixed on Richard. Before he would give his
+consent for Richard to go, Sir Austin desired to speak with him
+apart, and in that interview he said to his son: "My dear Richard!
+it was my intention that we should come to an understanding together
+this night. But the time is short--poor Helen cannot spare many
+minutes. Let me then say that you deceived me, and that I forgive
+you. We fix our seal on the past. You will bring your wife to me
+when you return." And very cheerfully the baronet looked down on the
+generous future he thus founded.
+
+"Will you have her at Raynham at once, sir?" said Richard.
+
+"Yes, my son, when you bring her."
+
+"Are you mocking me, sir?" "Pray, what do you mean?"
+
+"I ask you to receive her at once."
+
+"Well! the delay cannot be long. I do not apprehend that you will be
+kept from your happiness many days."
+
+"I think it will be some time, sir!" said Richard, sighing deeply.
+
+"And what mental freak is this that can induce you to postpone it
+and play with your first duty?"
+
+"What is my first duty, sir?"
+
+"Since you are married, to be with your wife."
+
+"I have heard that from an old woman called Berry!" said Richard to
+himself, not intending irony.
+
+"Will you receive her at once?" he asked resolutely.
+
+The baronet was clouded by his son's reception of his graciousness.
+His grateful prospect had formerly been Richard's marriage--the
+culmination of his System. Richard had destroyed his participation
+in that. He now looked for a pretty scene in recompense:--Richard
+leading up his wife to him, and both being welcomed by him
+paternally, and so held one ostentatious minute in his embrace.
+
+He said: "Before you return, I demur to receiving her."
+
+"Very well, sir," replied his son, and stood as if he had spoken
+all.
+
+"Really you tempt me to fancy you already regret your rash
+proceeding!" the baronet exclaimed; and the next moment it pained
+him he had uttered the words, Richard's eyes were so sorrowfully
+fierce. It pained him, but he divined in that look a history, and he
+could not refrain from glancing acutely and asking: "Do you?"
+
+"Regret it, sir?" The question aroused one of those struggles in the
+young man's breast which a passionate storm of tears may still, and
+which sink like leaden death into the soul when tears come not.
+Richard's eyes had the light of the desert.
+
+"Do you?" his father repeated. "You tempt me--I almost fear you do."
+At the thought--for he expressed his mind--the pity that he had for
+Richard was not pure gold.
+
+"Ask me what I think of her, sir! Ask me what she is! Ask me what it
+is to have taken one of God's precious angels and chained her to
+misery! Ask me what it is to have plunged a sword into her heart,
+and to stand over her and see such a creature bleeding! Do I regret
+that? Why, yes, I do! Would you?"
+
+His eyes flew hard at his father under the ridge of his eyebrows.
+
+Sir Austin winced and reddened. Did he understand? There is ever in
+the mind's eye a certain wilfulness. We see and understand; we see
+and won't understand.
+
+"Tell me why you passed by her as you did this afternoon," he said
+gravely: and in the same voice Richard answered: "I passed her
+because I could not do otherwise."
+
+"Your wife, Richard?"
+
+"Yes! my wife!"
+
+"If she had seen you, Richard?"
+
+"God spared her that!"
+
+Mrs. Doria, bustling in practical haste, and bearing Richard's hat
+and greatcoat in her energetic hands, came between them at this
+juncture. Dimples of commiseration were in her cheeks while she
+kissed her brother's perplexed forehead. She forgot her trouble
+about Clare, deploring his fatuity.
+
+Sir Austin was forced to let his son depart. As of old, he took
+counsel with Adrian, and the wise youth was soothing. "Somebody has
+kissed him, sir, and the chaste boy can't get over it." This absurd
+suggestion did more to appease the baronet than if Adrian had given
+a veritable reasonable key to Richard's conduct. It set him thinking
+that it might be a prudish strain in the young man's mind, due to
+the System in difficulties.
+
+"I may have been wrong in one thing," he said, with an air of the
+utmost doubt of it. "I, perhaps, was wrong in allowing him so much
+liberty during his probation."
+
+Adrian pointed out to him that he had distinctly commanded it.
+
+"Yes, yes; that is on me."
+
+His was an order of mind that would accept the most burdensome
+charges, and by some species of moral usury make a profit out of
+them.
+
+Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employment of the
+telegraph to John Todhunter's uxorious distress at a toothache, or
+possibly the first symptoms of an heir to his house.
+
+"That child's mind has disease in it. She is not sound," said the
+baronet.
+
+On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood Mrs. Berry.
+Her wish to speak a few words with the baronet reverentially
+communicated, she was ushered upstairs into his room.
+
+Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was beckoned to
+occupy.
+
+"Well, ma'am, you have something to say," observed the baronet, for
+she seemed loath to commence.
+
+"Wishin' I hadn't:" Mrs. Berry took him up, and mindful of the good
+rule to begin at the beginning, pursued: "I dare say, Sir Austin,
+you don't remember me, and I little thought when last we parted our
+meeting'd be like this. Twenty year don't go over one without
+showin' it, no more than twenty ox. It's a might o' time,--twenty
+year! Leastways not quite twenty, it ain't."
+
+"Round figures are best," Adrian remarked.
+
+"In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, and got
+himself married!" said Mrs. Berry, diving straight into the case.
+
+Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the culprit who had
+assisted his son in that venture. It was a stretch of his patience
+to hear himself addressed on a family matter, but he was naturally
+courteous.
+
+"He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger! If twenty year alters
+us as have knowed each other on the earth, how must they alter they
+that we parted with just come from heaven! And a heavenly babe he
+were! se sweet! se strong! _so_ fat!"
+
+Adrian laughed aloud.
+
+Mrs. Berry bumped a curtsey to him in her chair, continuing: "I
+wished afore I spoke to say how thankful am I bound to be for my
+pension not cut short, as have offended so, but that I know Sir
+Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey, ain't one o' them that likes to hear
+their good deeds published. And a pension to me now, it's something
+more than it were. For a pension and pretty rosy cheeks in a maid,
+which I was--that's a bait many a man'll bite, that won't so a
+forsaken wife!"
+
+"If you will speak to the point, ma'am, I will listen to you," the
+baronet interrupted her.
+
+"It's the beginnin' that's the worst, and that's over, thank the
+Lord! So I'll speak, Sir Austin, and say my say:--Lord speed me!
+Believin' our idees o' matrimony to be sim'lar, then, I'll say, once
+married--married for life! Yes! I don't even like widows. For I
+can't stop at the grave. Not at the tomb I can't stop. My husband's
+my husband, and if I'm a body at the Resurrection, I say speaking
+humbly, my Berry is the husband o' my body; and to think of two
+claimin' of me then--it makes me hot all over. Such is my notion of
+that state 'tween man and woman. No givin' in marriage, o' course I
+know, and if so I'm single."
+
+The baronet suppressed a smile. "Really, my good woman, you wander
+very much."
+
+"Beggin' pardon, Sir Austin; but I has my point before me all the
+same, and I'm comin' to it. Ac-knowledgin' our error, it's done, and
+bein' done, it's writ aloft. Oh! if you only knew what a sweet young
+creature she be! Indeed 'taint all of humble birth that's unworthy,
+Sir Austin. And she got her idees, too. She reads History! She talk
+that sensible as would surprise ye. But for all that she's a prey to
+the artful o' men--unpertected. And it's a young marriage--but
+there's no fear for her, as far as she go. The fear's t'other way.
+There's that in a man--at the commencement--which make of him Lord
+knows what, if you any way interferes: whereas a woman bides quiet!
+It's consolation catch her, which is what we mean by seducin'.
+Whereas a man--he's a savage!"
+
+Sir Austin turned his face to Adrian, who was listening with huge
+delight.
+
+"Well, ma'am, I see you have something in your mind, if you would
+only come to it quickly."
+
+"Then here's my point, Sir Austin. I say you bred him so as there
+ain't another young gentleman like him in England, and proud he make
+me. And as for her, I'll risk sayin'--it's done, and no harm--you
+might search England through, and nowhere will ye find a maid that's
+his match like his own wife. Then there they be. Are they together
+as should be? O Lord no! Months they been divided. Then she all
+lonely and exposed, I went, and fetched her out of seducers'
+ways--which they may say what they like, but the inn'cent is most
+open to when they're healthy and confidin'--I fetch her, and--the
+liberty--boxed her safe in my own house. So much for that sweet!
+That you may do with women. But it's him--Mr. Richard--I _am_ bold,
+I know, but there--I'm in for it, and the Lord'll help me! It's him,
+Sir Austin, in this great metropolis, warm from a young marriage.
+It's him, and--I say nothin' of her, and how sweet she bears it, and
+it's eating her at a time when Natur' should have no other trouble
+but the one that's goin' on--it's him, and I ask--so bold--shall
+there--and a Christian gentleman his father--shall there be a tug
+'tween him as a son and him as a husband--soon to be somethin' else?
+I speak bold out--I'd have sons obey their fathers, but the priest's
+words spoke over him, which they're now in my ears, I say I ain't a
+doubt on earth--I'm sure there ain't one in heaven--which dooty's
+the holier of the two."
+
+Sir Austin heard her to an end. Their views on the junction of the
+sexes were undoubtedly akin. To be lectured on his prime subject,
+however, was slightly disagreeable, and to be obliged mentally to
+assent to this old lady's doctrine was rather humiliating, when it
+could not be averred that he had latterly followed it out. He sat
+cross-legged and silent, a finger to his temple.
+
+"One gets so addle-pated thinkin' many things," said Mrs. Berry,
+simply. "That's why we see wonder clever people goin' wrong--to my
+mind. I think it's al'ays the plan in a dielemmer to pray God and
+walk forward."
+
+The keen-witted soft woman was tracking the baronet's thoughts, and
+she had absolutely run him down and taken an explanation out of his
+mouth, by which Mrs. Berry was to have been informed that he had
+acted from a principle of his own, and devolved a wisdom she could
+not be expected to comprehend.
+
+Of course he became advised immediately that it would be waste of
+time to direct such an explanation to her inferior capacity.
+
+He gave her his hand, saying, "My son has gone out of town to see
+his cousin, who is ill. He will return in two or three days, and
+then they will both come to me at Raynham."
+
+Mrs. Berry took the tips of his fingers, and went half-way to the
+floor perpendicularly. "He pass her like a stranger in the park this
+evenin'," she faltered.
+
+"Ah?" said the baronet. "Yes, well! they will be at Raynham before
+the week is over."
+
+Mrs. Berry was not quite satisfied. "Not of his own accord he pass
+that sweet young wife of his like a stranger this day, Sir Austin!"
+
+"I must beg you not to intrude further, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Berry bobbed her bunch of a body out of the room.
+
+"All's well as ends well," she said to herself. "It's bad inquirin' too
+close among men. We must take 'em somethin' like Providence--_as_
+they come. Thank heaven! I kep' back the baby."
+
+In Mrs. Berry's eyes the baby was the victorious reserve.
+
+Adrian asked his chief what he thought of that specimen of women.
+
+"I think I have not met a better in my life," said the baronet,
+mingling praise and sarcasm.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Clare lies in her bed as placid as in the days when she breathed;
+her white hands stretched their length along the sheets, at peace
+from head to feet. She needs iron no more. Richard is face to face
+with death for the first time. He sees the sculpture of clay--the
+spark gone.
+
+Clare gave her mother the welcome of the dead. This child would have
+spoken nothing but kind commonplaces had she been alive. She was
+dead, and none knew her malady. On her fourth finger were two
+wedding-rings.
+
+When hours of weeping had silenced the mother's anguish, she, for
+some comfort she saw in it, pointed out that strange thing to
+Richard, speaking low in the chamber of the dead; and then he learnt
+that it was his own lost ring Clare wore in the two worlds. He
+learnt from her husband that Clare's last request had been that
+neither of the rings should be removed. She had written it; she
+would not speak it.
+
+"I beg of my husband, and all kind people who may have the care of
+me between this and the grave, to bury me with my hands untouched."
+
+The tracing of the words showed the bodily torment she was
+suffering, as she wrote them on a scrap of paper found beside her
+pillow.
+
+In wonder, as the dim idea grew from the waving of Clare's dead
+hand, Richard paced the house, and hung about the awful room;
+dreading to enter it, reluctant to quit it. The secret Clare had
+buried while she lived, arose with her death. He saw it play like
+flame across her marble features. The memory of her voice was like a
+knife at his nerves. His coldness to her started up accusingly: her
+meekness was bitter blame.
+
+On the evening of the fourth day, her mother came to him in his
+bedroom, with a face so white that he asked himself if aught worse
+could happen to a mother than the loss of her child. Choking she
+said to him, "Read this," and thrust a leather-bound pocket-book
+trembling in his hand. She would not breathe to him what it was. She
+entreated him not to open it before her.
+
+"Tell me," she said, "tell me what you think. John must not hear of
+it. I have nobody to consult but you--O Richard!"
+
+"MY DIARY" was written in the round hand of Clare's childhood on the
+first page. The first name his eye encountered was his own.
+
+"Richard's fourteenth birthday. I have worked him a purse and put it
+under his pillow, because he is going to have plenty of money. He
+does not notice me now because he has a friend now, and he is ugly,
+but Richard is not, and never will be."
+
+The occurrences of that day were subsequently recorded, and a
+childish prayer to God for him set down. Step by step he saw her
+growing mind in his history. As she advanced in years she began to
+look back, and made much of little trivial remembrances, all bearing
+upon him.
+
+"We went into the fields and gathered cowslips together, and pelted
+each other, and I told him he used to call them 'coals-sleeps' when
+he was a baby, and he was angry at my telling him, for he does not
+like to be told he was ever a baby."
+
+He remembered the incident, and remembered his stupid scorn of her
+meek affection. Little Clare! how she lived before him in her white
+dress and pink ribbons, and soft dark eyes! Upstairs she was lying
+dead. He read on:
+
+"Mama says there is no one in the world like Richard, and I am sure
+there is not, not in the whole world. He says he is going to be a
+great General and going to the wars. If he does I shall dress myself
+as a boy and go after him, and he will not know me till I am
+wounded. Oh I pray he will never, never be wounded. I wonder what I
+should feel if Richard was ever to die."
+
+Upstairs Clare was lying dead.
+
+"Lady Blandish said there was a likeness between Richard and me.
+Richard said I hope I do not hang down my head as she does. He is
+angry with me because I do not look people in the face and speak
+out, but I know I am not looking after earthworms."
+
+Yes. He had told her that. A shiver seized him at the recollection.
+
+Then it came to a period when the words: "Richard kissed me," stood
+by themselves, and marked a day in her life.
+
+Afterwards it was solemnly discovered that Richard wrote poetry. He
+read one of his old forgotten compositions penned when he had that
+ambition.
+
+    "Thy truth to me is truer
+      Than horse, or dog, or blade;
+    Thy vows to me are fewer
+      Than ever maiden made.
+
+    Thou steppest from thy splendour
+      To make my life a song:
+    My bosom shall be tender
+      As thine has risen strong."
+
+All the verses were transcribed. "It is he who is the humble
+knight," Clare explained at the close, "and his lady is a Queen. Any
+Queen would throw her crown away for him."
+
+It came to that period when Clare left Raynham with her mother.
+
+"Richard was not sorry to lose me. He only loves boys and men.
+Something tells me I shall never see Raynham again. He was dressed
+in blue. He said Good-bye, Clare, and kissed me on the cheek.
+Richard never kisses me on the mouth. He did not know I went to his
+bed and kissed him while he was asleep. He sleeps with one arm
+under his head, and the other out on the bed. I moved away a bit of
+his hair that was over his eyes. I wanted to cut it. I have one
+piece. I do not let anybody see I am unhappy, not even mama. She
+says I want iron. I am sure I do not. I like to write my name. Clare
+Doria Forey. Richard's is Richard Doria Feverel."
+
+His breast rose convulsively. Clare Doria Forey! He knew the music
+of that name. He had heard it somewhere. It sounded faint and mellow
+now behind the hills of death.
+
+He could not read for tears. It was midnight. The hour seemed to
+belong to her. The awful stillness and the darkness were Clare's.
+Clare's voice clear and cold from the grave possessed it.
+
+Painfully, with blinded eyes, he looked over the breathless pages.
+She spoke of his marriage, and her finding the ring.
+
+"I knew it was his. I knew he was going to be married that morning.
+I saw him stand by the altar when they laughed at breakfast. His
+wife must be so beautiful! Richard's wife! Perhaps he will love me
+better now he is married. Mama says they must be separated. That is
+shameful. If I can help him I will. I pray so that he may be happy.
+I hope God hears poor sinners' prayers. I am very sinful. Nobody
+knows it as I do. They say I am good, but I know. When I look on the
+ground I am not looking after earthworms, as he said. Oh, do forgive
+me, God!"
+
+Then she spoke of her own marriage, and that it was her duty to obey
+her mother. A blank in the Diary ensued.
+
+"I have seen Richard. Richard despises me," was the next entry.
+
+But now as he read his eyes were fixed, and the delicate feminine
+handwriting like a black thread drew on his soul to one terrible
+conclusion.
+
+"I cannot live. Richard despises me. I cannot bear the touch of my
+fingers or the sight of my face. Oh! I understand him now. He should
+not have kissed me so that last time. I wished to die while his
+mouth was on mine."
+
+Further: "I have no escape. Richard said he would die rather than
+endure it. I know he would. Why should I be afraid to do what he
+would do? I think if my husband whipped me I could bear it better.
+He is so kind, and tries to make me cheerful. He will soon be very
+unhappy. I pray to God half the night. I seem to be losing sight of
+my God the more I pray."
+
+Richard laid the book open on the table. Phantom surges seemed to be
+mounting and travelling for his brain. Had Clare taken his wild
+words in earnest? Did she lie there dead--he shrouded the thought.
+
+He wrapped the thoughts in shrouds, but he was again reading.
+
+"A quarter to one o'clock. I shall not be alive this time to-morrow.
+I shall never see Richard now. I dreamed last night we were in the
+fields together, and he walked with his arm round my waist. We were
+children, but I thought we were married, and I showed him I wore his
+ring, and he said--if you always wear it, Clare, you are as good as
+my wife. Then I made a vow to wear it for ever and ever.... It is
+not mama's fault. She does not think as Richard and I do of these
+things. He is not a coward, nor am I. He hates cowards.
+
+"I have written to his father to make him happy. Perhaps when I am
+dead he will hear what I say.
+
+"I heard just now Richard call distinctly--Clari, come out to me.
+Surely he has not gone. I am going I know not where. I cannot think.
+I am very cold."
+
+The words were written larger, and staggered towards the close, as
+if her hand had lost mastery over the pen.
+
+"I can only remember Richard now a boy. A little boy and a big boy.
+I am not sure now of his voice. I can only remember certain words.
+'Clari,' and 'Don Ricardo,' and his laugh. He used to be full of
+fun. Once we laughed all day together tumbling in the hay. Then he
+had a friend and began to write poetry, and be proud. If I had
+married a young man he would have forgiven me, but I should not have
+been happier. I must have died. God never looks on me.
+
+"It is past two o'clock. The sheep are bleating outside. It must be
+very cold in the ground. Good-bye, Richard."
+
+With his name it began and ended. Even to herself Clare was not
+over-communicative. The book was slender, yet her nineteen years of
+existence left half the number of pages white.
+
+Those last words drew him irresistibly to gaze on her. There she
+lay, the same impassive Clare. For a moment he wondered she had not
+moved--to him she had become so different. She who had just filled
+his ears with strange tidings--it was not possible to think her
+dead! She seemed to have been speaking to him all through his life.
+His image was on that still heart.
+
+He dismissed the night-watchers from the room, and remained with her
+alone, till the sense of death oppressed him, and then the shock
+sent him to the window to look for sky and stars. Behind a low broad
+pine, hung with frosty mist, he heard a bell-wether of the flock in
+the silent fold. Death in life it sounded.
+
+The mother found him praying at the foot of Clare's bed. She knelt
+by his side, and they prayed, and their joint sobs shook their
+bodies, but neither of them shed many tears. They held a dark
+unspoken secret in common. They prayed God to forgive her.
+
+Clare was buried in the family vault of the Todhunters. Her mother
+breathed no wish to have her lying at Lobourne.
+
+After the funeral, what they alone upon earth knew brought them
+together.
+
+"Richard," she said, "the worst is over for me. I have no one to
+love but you, dear. We have all been fighting against God, and
+this.... Richard! you will come with me, and be united to your wife,
+and spare my brother what I suffer."
+
+He answered the broken spirit: "I have killed one. She sees me as I
+am. I cannot go with you to my wife, because I am not worthy to
+touch her hand, and were I to go, I should do _this_ to silence my
+self-contempt. Go you to her, and when she asks of me, say I have a
+death upon my head that----No! say that I am abroad, seeking for
+that which shall cleanse me. If I find it I shall come to claim her.
+If not, God help us all!"
+
+She had no strength to contest his solemn words, or stay him, and he
+went forth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+AUSTIN RETURNS
+
+
+A man with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in the full blaze
+of Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder. Adrian glanced leisurely
+behind.
+
+"Do you want to try my nerves, my dear fellow? I'm not a man of
+fashion, happily, or you would have struck the seat of them. How are
+you?"
+
+That was his welcome to Austin Wentworth after his long absence.
+
+Austin took his arm, and asked for news, with the hunger of one who
+had been in the wilderness five years.
+
+"The Whigs have given up the ghost, my dear Austin. The free Briton
+is to receive Liberty's pearl, the Ballot. The Aristocracy has had a
+cycle's notice to quit. The Monarchy and old Madeira are going out;
+Demos and Cape wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you
+see, your absence has worked wonders. Depart for another five years,
+and you will return to ruined stomachs, cracked sconces, general
+upset, an equality made perfect by universal prostration."
+
+Austin indulged him in a laugh. "I want to hear about ourselves. How
+is old Ricky?"
+
+"You know of his--what do they call it when greenhorns are licenced
+to jump into the milkpails of dairymaids?--a very charming little
+woman she makes, by the way--presentable! quite old Anacreon's rose
+in milk. Well! everybody thought the System must die of it. Not a
+bit. It continued to flourish in spite. It's in a consumption now,
+though--emaciated, lean, raw, spectral! I've this morning escaped
+from Raynham to avoid the sight of it. I have brought our genial
+uncle Hippias to town--a delightful companion! I said to him: 'We've
+had a fine Spring.' 'Ugh!' he answers, 'there's a time when you come
+to think the Spring old.' You should have heard how he trained out
+the 'old.' I felt something like decay in my sap just to hear him.
+In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our uncle Hippias has
+been unfairly hit below the belt. Let's guard ourselves there, and
+go and order dinner."
+
+"But where's Ricky now, and what is he doing?" said Austin.
+
+"Ask what he has done. The miraculous boy has gone and got a baby!"
+
+"A child? Richard has one?" Austin's clear eyes shone with pleasure.
+
+"I suppose it's not common among your tropical savages. He has one:
+one as big as two. That has been the death-blow to the System. It
+bore the marriage--the baby was too much for it. Could it swallow
+the baby, 'twould live. She, the wonderful woman, has produced a
+large boy. I assure you it's quite amusing to see the System opening
+its mouth every hour of the day, trying to gulp him down, aware that
+it would be a consummate cure, or happy release."
+
+By degrees Austin learnt the baronet's proceedings, and smiled
+sadly.
+
+"How has Ricky turned out?" he asked. "What sort of a character has
+he?"
+
+"The poor boy is ruined by his excessive anxiety about it.
+Character? he has the character of a bullet with a treble charge of
+powder behind it. Enthusiasm is the powder. That boy could get up an
+enthusiasm for the maiden days of Ops! He was going to reform the
+world, after your fashion, Austin,--you have something to answer
+for. Unfortunately he began with the feminine side of it. Cupid
+proud of Phoebus newly slain, or Pluto wishing to people his
+kingdom, if you like, put it into the soft head of one of the
+guileless grateful creatures to kiss him for his good work. Oh,
+horror! he never expected that. Conceive the System in the flesh,
+and you have our Richard. The consequence is, that this male Peri
+refuses to enter his Paradise, though the gates are open for him,
+the trumpets blow, and the fair unspotted one awaits him fruitful
+within. We heard of him last that he was trying the German
+waters--preparatory to his undertaking the release of Italy from the
+subjugation of the Teuton. Let's hope they'll wash him. He is in the
+company of Lady Judith Felle--your old friend, the ardent female
+Radical who married the decrepit lord to carry out her principles.
+They always marry English lords, or foreign princes. I admire their
+tactics."
+
+"Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but she was
+always too sentimental," said Austin.
+
+"Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose? I like her _for_
+her sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people are sure to live long and
+die fat. Feeling, that's the slayer, coz. Sentiment! 'tis the
+cajolery of existence: the soft bloom which whoso weareth, he or she
+is enviable. Would that I had more!"
+
+"You're not much changed, Adrian."
+
+"I'm not a Radical, Austin."
+
+Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian's figurative speech,
+instructed Austin that the baronet was waiting for his son, in a
+posture of statuesque offended paternity, before he would receive
+his daughter-in-law and grandson. That was what Adrian meant by the
+efforts of the System to swallow the baby.
+
+"We're in a tangle," said the wise youth. "Time will extricate us, I
+presume, or what is the venerable signor good for?"
+
+Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy's place of residence.
+
+"We'll go to her by and by," said Adrian.
+
+"I shall go and see her now," said Austin.
+
+"Well, we'll go and order the dinner first, coz."
+
+"Give me her address."
+
+"Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a beard," Adrian
+objected. "Don't you care what you eat?" he roared hoarsely, looking
+humorously hurt. "I daresay not. A slice out of him that's
+handy--sauce du ciel! Go, batten on the baby, cannibal. Dinner at
+seven."
+
+Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy's, and strolled off to do
+the better thing.
+
+Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in her tea-cup.
+Posting him on her fingers and starting him with a smack, he had
+vaulted lightly and thereby indicated that he was positively coming
+the next day. She forgot him in the bustle of her duties and the
+absorption of her faculties in thoughts of the incomparable stranger
+Lucy had presented to the world, till a knock at the street-door
+reminded her. "There he is!" she cried, as she ran to open to him.
+"There's my stranger come!" Never was a woman's faith in omens so
+justified. The stranger desired to see Mrs. Richard Feverel. He
+said his name was Mr. Austin Wentworth. Mrs. Berry clasped her
+hands, exclaiming, "Come at last!" and ran bolt out of the house to
+look up and down the street. Presently she returned with many
+excuses for her rudeness, saying: "I expected to see her comin'
+home, Mr. Wentworth. Every day twice a day she go out to give her
+blessed angel an airing. No leavin' the child with nursemaids for
+her! She _is_ a mother! and good milk, too, thank the Lord! though
+her heart's so low."
+
+Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the history of the
+young couple, and her participation in it, and admired the beard.
+"Though I'd swear you don't wear it for ornament, now!" she said,
+having in the first impulse designed a stroke at man's vanity.
+
+Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication, and with
+dejected head and joined hands threw out dark hints about Richard.
+
+While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the case, Lucy came
+in, preceding the baby.
+
+"I am Austin Wentworth," he said, taking her hand. They read each
+other's faces, these two, and smiled kinship.
+
+"Your name is Lucy?"
+
+She affirmed it softly.
+
+"And mine is Austin, as you know."
+
+Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy's charms to subdue him, and
+presented Richard's representative, who, seeing a new face, suffered
+himself to be contemplated before he commenced crying aloud and
+knocking at the doors of Nature for something that was due to him.
+
+"Ain't he a lusty darlin'?" says Mrs. Berry. "Ain't he like his own
+father? There can't be no doubt about zoo, zoo pitty pet. Look at
+his fists. Ain't he got passion? Ain't he a splendid roarer? Oh!"
+and she went off rapturously into baby-language.
+
+A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for further
+proof, desiring Austin's confirmation as to their being dumplings.
+
+Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid roarer out of
+the room.
+
+"She might a done it here," said Mrs. Berry. "There's no prettier
+sight, I say. If her dear husband could but see that! He's off in
+his heroics--he want to be doin' all sort o' things: I say he'll
+never do anything grander than that baby. You should 'a seen her
+uncle over that baby--he came here, for I said, you _shall_ see your
+own fam'ly, my dear, and so she thinks. He come, and he laughed over
+the baby in the joy of his heart, poor man! he cried, he did. You
+should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth--a friend o' Mr.
+Richard's, and a very modest-minded young gentleman--he worships her
+in his innocence. It's a sight to see him with that baby. My belief
+is he's unhappy 'cause he can't anyways be nurse-maid to him. O Mr.
+Wentworth! what _do_ you think of her, sir?"
+
+Austin's reply was as satisfactory as a man's poor speech could make
+it. He heard that Lady Feverel was in the house, and Mrs. Berry
+prepared the way for him to pay his respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry
+ran to Lucy, and the house buzzed with new life. The simple
+creatures felt in Austin's presence something good among them. "He
+don't speak much," said Mrs. Berry, "but I see by his eye he mean a
+deal. He ain't one o' yer long-word gentry, who's all gay deceivers,
+every one of 'em."
+
+Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. "I wonder what he
+thinks of me, Mrs. Berry? I could not speak to him. I loved him
+before I saw him. I knew what his face was like."
+
+"He looks proper even with a beard, and that's a trial for a
+virtuous man," said Mrs. Berry. "One sees straight _through_ the
+hair with him. Think! he'll think what any _man_'d think--you
+a-suckin' spite o' all your sorrow, my sweet,--and my Berry talkin'
+of his Roman matrons!--here's a English wife'll match 'em all!
+that's what he thinks. And now that leetle dark under yer eye'll
+clear, my darlin', now he've come."
+
+Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no more than the
+peace she had in being near Richard's best friend. When she sat down
+to tea it was with a sense that the little room that held her was
+her home perhaps for many a day.
+
+A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin's dinner.
+During the meal he entertained them with anecdotes of his travels.
+Poor Lucy had no temptation to try to conquer Austin. That heroic
+weakness of hers was gone.
+
+Mrs. Berry had said: "Three cups--I goes no further," and Lucy had
+rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, who was in the thick
+of a Brazilian forest, asked her if she was a good traveller.
+
+"I mean, can you start at a minute's notice?"
+
+Lucy hesitated, and then said, "Yes," decisively, to which Mrs.
+Berry added, that she was not a "luggage-woman."
+
+"There used to be a train at seven o'clock," Austin remarked,
+consulting his watch.
+
+The two women were silent.
+
+"Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten minutes?"
+
+Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question.
+
+Lucy's lips parted to speak. She could not answer.
+
+Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry's dropping hands.
+
+"Joy and deliverance!" she exclaimed with a foundering voice.
+
+"Will you come?" Austin kindly asked again.
+
+Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered, "Yes." Mrs.
+Berry cunningly pretended to interpret the irresolution in her tones
+with a mighty whisper: "She's thinking what's to be done with baby."
+
+"He must learn to travel," said Austin.
+
+"Oh!" cried Mrs. Berry, "and I'll be his nuss, and bear him, a
+sweet! Oh! and think of it! me nurse-maid once more at Raynham
+Abbey! but it's nurse-woman now, you must say. Let us be goin' on
+the spot."
+
+She started up and away in hot haste, fearing delay would cool the
+heaven-sent resolve. Austin smiled, eying his watch and Lucy
+alternately. She was wishing to ask a multitude of questions. His
+face reassured her, and saying: "I will be dressed instantly," she
+also left the room. Talking, bustling, preparing, wrapping up my
+lord, and looking to their neatnesses, they were nevertheless ready
+within the time prescribed by Austin, and Mrs. Berry stood humming
+over the baby. "He'll sleep it through," she said. "He's had enough
+for an alderman, and goes to sleep sound after his dinner, he do, a
+duck!" Before they departed, Lucy ran up to Lady Feverel. She
+returned for the small one.
+
+"One moment, Mr. Wentworth!"
+
+"Just two," said Austin.
+
+Master Richard was taken up, and when Lucy came back her eyes were
+full of tears.
+
+"She thinks she is never to see him again, Mr. Wentworth."
+
+"She shall," Austin said simply.
+
+Off they went, and with Austin near her, Lucy forgot to dwell at all
+upon the great act of courage she was performing.
+
+"I do hope baby will not wake," was her chief solicitude.
+
+"He!" cries nurse-woman Berry from the rear, "his little tum-tum's
+_as_ tight _as_ he can hold, a pet! a lamb! a bird! a beauty! and ye
+may take yer oath he never wakes till that's slack. He've got
+character of his own, a blessed!"
+
+There are some tremendous citadels that only want to be taken by
+storm. The baronet sat alone in his library, sick of resistance, and
+rejoicing in the pride of no surrender; a terror to his friends and
+to himself. Hearing Austin's name sonorously pronounced by the man
+of calves, he looked up from his book, and held out his hand. "Glad
+to see you, Austin." His appearance betokened complete security. The
+next minute he found himself escaladed.
+
+It was a cry from Mrs. Berry that told him others were in the room
+besides Austin. Lucy stood a little behind the lamp; Mrs. Berry
+close to the door. The door was half open, and passing through it
+might be seen the petrified figure of a fine man. The baronet
+glancing over the lamp rose at Mrs. Berry's signification of a
+woman's personality. Austin stepped back and led Lucy to him by the
+hand. "I have brought Richard's wife, sir," he said with a pleased,
+perfectly uncalculating, countenance, that was disarming. Very pale
+and trembling Lucy bowed. She felt her two hands taken, and heard a
+kind voice. Could it be possible it belonged to the dreadful father
+of her husband? She lifted her eyes nervously: her hands were still
+detained. The baronet contemplated Richard's choice. Had he ever had
+a rivalry with those pure eyes? He saw the pain of her position
+shooting across her brows, and, uttering gentle inquiries as to her
+health, placed her in a seat. Mrs. Berry had already fallen into a
+chair.
+
+"What aspect do you like for your bedroom?--East?" said the baronet.
+
+Lucy was asking herself wonderingly: "Am I to stay?"
+
+"Perhaps you had better take to Richard's room at once," he pursued.
+"You have the Lobourne valley there and a good morning air, and will
+feel more at home."
+
+Lucy's colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough, as one who
+should say, "The day is ours!" Undoubtedly--strange as it was to
+think it--the fortress was carried.
+
+"Lucy is rather tired," said Austin, and to hear her Christian name
+thus bravely spoken brought grateful dew to her eyes.
+
+The baronet was about to touch the bell. "But have you come alone?"
+he asked.
+
+At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately: it seemed to
+require effort for her to move, and when she was within the region
+of the lamp, her agitation could not escape notice. The blissful
+bundle shook in her arms.
+
+"By the way, what is he to me?" Austin inquired generally as he went
+and unveiled the younger hope of Raynham. "My relationship is not so
+defined as yours, sir."
+
+An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped at his
+grandson with the courteous indifference of one who merely wished to
+compliment the mother of anybody's child.
+
+"I really think he's like Richard," Austin laughed. Lucy looked: I
+am sure he is!
+
+"As like as one to one," Mrs. Berry murmured feebly; but Grandpapa
+not speaking she thought it incumbent on her to pluck up. "And he's
+as healthy as his father was, Sir Austin--spite o' the might 'a
+beens. Reg'lar as the clock! We never want a clock since he come. We
+knows the hour o' the day, and _of_ the night."
+
+"You nurse him yourself, of course?" the baronet spoke to Lucy, and
+was satisfied on that point.
+
+Mrs. Berry was going to display his prodigious legs. Lucy, fearing
+the consequent effect on the prodigious lungs, begged her not to
+wake him. "'T'd take a deal to do that," said Mrs. Berry, and
+harped on Master Richard's health and the small wonder it was that
+he enjoyed it, considering the superior quality of his diet, and the
+lavish attentions of his mother, and then suddenly fell silent on a
+deep sigh.
+
+"He looks healthy," said the baronet, "but I am not a judge of
+babies."
+
+Thus, having capitulated, Raynham chose to acknowledge its new
+commandant, who was now borne away, under the directions of the
+housekeeper, to occupy the room Richard had slept in when an infant.
+
+Austin cast no thought on his success. The baronet said: "She is
+extremely well-looking." He replied: "A person you take to at once."
+There it ended.
+
+But a much more animated colloquy was taking place aloft, where Lucy
+and Mrs. Berry sat alone. Lucy expected her to talk about the
+reception they had met with, and the house, and the peculiarities of
+the rooms, and the solid happiness that seemed in store. Mrs. Berry
+all the while would persist in consulting the looking-glass. Her
+first distinct answer was, "My dear! tell me candid, how do I look?"
+
+"Very nice indeed, Mrs. Berry; but could you have believed he would
+be so kind, so considerate?"
+
+"I am sure I looked a frump," returned Mrs. Berry. "Oh dear! two
+birds at a shot. What _do_ you think, now?"
+
+"I never saw so wonderful a likeness," says Lucy.
+
+"Likeness! look at me." Mrs. Berry was trembling and hot in the
+palms.
+
+"You're very feverish, dear Berry. What can it be?"
+
+"Ain't it like the love-flutters of a young gal, my dear."
+
+"Go to bed, Berry, dear," says Lucy, pouting in her soft caressing
+way. "I will undress you, and see to you, dear heart! You've had so
+much excitement."
+
+"Ha! ha!" Berry laughed hysterically; "she thinks it's about this
+business of hers. Why, it's child's-play, my darlin'. But I didn't
+look for tragedy, to-night. Sleep in this house I can't, my love!"
+
+Lucy was astonished. "Not sleep here, Mrs. Berry?--Oh! why, you
+silly old thing? I know."
+
+"Do ye!" said Mrs. Berry, with a sceptical nose.
+
+"You're afraid of ghosts."
+
+"Belike I am when they're six foot two in their shoes, and bellows
+when you stick a pin into their calves. I seen my Berry!"
+
+"Your husband?"
+
+"Large as life!"
+
+Lucy meditated on optical delusions, but Mrs. Berry described him as
+the Colossus who had marched them into the library, and vowed that
+he had recognized her and quaked. "Time ain't aged him," said Mrs.
+Berry, "whereas me! he've got his excuse now. I _know_ I look a
+frump."
+
+Lucy kissed her: "You look the nicest, dearest old thing."
+
+"You may say an old thing, my dear."
+
+"And your husband is really here?"
+
+"Berry's below!"
+
+Profoundly uttered as this was, it chased every vestige of
+incredulity.
+
+"What will you do, Mrs. Berry?"
+
+"Go, my dear. Leave him to be happy in his own way. It's over atween
+us, I see that. When I entered the house I felt there was something
+comin' over me, and lo and behold ye! no sooner was we in the
+hall-passage--if it hadn't been for that blessed infant I should 'a
+dropped. I must 'a known his step, for my heart began thumpin', and
+I knew I hadn't got my hair straight--that Mr. Wentworth was in such
+a hurry--nor my best gown. I knew he'd scorn me. He hates frumps."
+
+"Scorn you!" cried Lucy, angrily. "He who has behaved so wickedly!"
+
+Mrs. Berry attempted to rise. "I may as well go at once," she
+whimpered. "If I see him I shall only be disgracin' of myself. I
+feel it all on my side already. Did ye mark him, my dear? I know I
+was vexin' to him at times, I was. Those big men are se touchy about
+their dignity--nat'ral. Hark at me! I'm goin' all soft in a minute.
+Let me leave the house, my dear. I daresay it was good half my
+fault. Young women don't understand men sufficient--not
+altogether--and I was a young woman then; and then what they goes
+and does they ain't quite answerable for: they feel, I daresay,
+pushed from behind. Yes. I'll go. I'm a frump. I'll go. 'Tain't in
+natur' for me to sleep in the same house."
+
+Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry's shoulders, and forcibly fixed
+her in her seat. "Leave baby, naughty woman? I tell you he shall
+come to you, and fall on his knees to you and beg your forgiveness."
+
+"Berry on his knees!"
+
+"Yes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him."
+
+"If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away words, great'll
+be my wonder!" said Mrs. Berry.
+
+"We will see," said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do something for
+the good creature that had befriended her.
+
+Mrs. Berry examined her gown. "Won't it seem we're runnin' after
+him?" she murmured faintly.
+
+"He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting to come to you
+now."
+
+"Oh! Where is all I was goin' to say to that man when we met!" Mrs.
+Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room.
+
+On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed in black,
+who stopped her and asked if she was Richard's wife, and kissed her,
+passing from her immediately. Lucy despatched a message for Austin,
+and related the Berry history. Austin sent for the great man, and
+said: "Do you know your wife is here?" Before Berry had time to draw
+himself up to enunciate his longest, he was requested to step
+upstairs, and as his young mistress at once led the way, Berry could
+not refuse to put his legs in motion and carry the stately edifice
+aloft.
+
+Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night.
+"He began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and
+plain words, Martin Berry. So there he cuts himself and his Johnson
+short, and down he goes--down _on_ his knees. I never could 'a
+believed it. I kep my dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but
+that done for me. I was a ripe apple in his arms 'fore I knew where
+I was. There's something about a fine man on his knees that's too
+much for us women. And it reely was the penitent on his two knees,
+not the lover on his one. If he mean it! But ah! what do you think
+he begs of me, my dear?--not to make it known in the house just yet!
+I can't, I can't say that look well."
+
+Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs.
+Berry did her best to look on it in that light.
+
+"Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him good-night?" she
+asked. Lucy said he had not. "Then bide awake as long as ye can,"
+was Mrs. Berry's rejoinder. "And now let us pray blessings on that
+simple-speaking gentleman who does so much 'cause he says so
+little."
+
+Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only silly where her
+own soft heart was concerned. As she secretly anticipated, the
+baronet came into her room when all was quiet. She saw him go and
+bend over Richard the Second, and remain earnestly watching him. He
+then went to the half-opened door of the room where Lucy slept,
+leaned his ear a moment, knocked gently, and entered. Mrs. Berry
+heard low words interchanging within. She could not catch a
+syllable, yet she would have sworn to the context. "He've called her
+his daughter, promised her happiness, and given a father's kiss to
+her." When Sir Austin passed out she was in a deep sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+NATURE SPEAKS
+
+
+Briareus reddening angrily over the sea--what is that vaporous
+Titan? And Hesper set in his rosy garland--why looks he so
+implacably sweet? It is that one has left that bright home to go
+forth and do cloudy work, and he has got a stain with which he dare
+not return. Far in the West fair Lucy beckons him to come. Ah,
+heaven! if he might! How strong and fierce the temptation is! how
+subtle the sleepless desire! it drugs his reason, his honour. For he
+loves her; she is still the first and only woman to him. Otherwise
+would this black spot be hell to him? otherwise would his limbs be
+chained while her arms are spread open to him. And if he loves her,
+why then what is one fall in the pit, or a thousand? Is not love the
+password to that beckoning bliss? So may we say; but here is one
+whose body has been made a temple to him, and it is desecrated.
+
+A temple, and desecrated! For what is it fit for but for a dance of
+devils? His education has thus wrought him to think.
+
+He can blame nothing but his own baseness. But to feel base and
+accept the bliss that beckons--he has not fallen so low as that.
+
+Ah, happy English home! sweet wife! what mad miserable Wisp of the
+Fancy led him away from you, high in his conceit? Poor wretch! that
+thought to be he of the hundred hands, and war against the absolute
+Gods. Jove whispered a light commission to the Laughing Dame; she
+met him; and how did he shake Olympus? with laughter?
+
+Sure it were better to be Orestes, the Furies howling in his ears,
+than one called to by a heavenly soul from whom he is for ever
+outcast. He has not the oblivion of madness. Clothed in the lights
+of his first passion, robed in the splendour of old skies, she meets
+him everywhere; morning, evening, night, she shines above him;
+waylays him suddenly in forest depths; drops palpably on his heart.
+At moments he forgets; he rushes to embrace her; calls her his
+beloved, and lo, her innocent kiss brings agony of shame to his
+face.
+
+Daily the struggle endured. His father wrote to him, begging him by
+the love he had for him to return. From that hour Richard burnt
+unread all the letters he received. He knew too well how easily he
+could persuade himself: words from without might tempt him and quite
+extinguish the spark of honourable feeling that tortured him, and
+that he clung to in desperate self-vindication.
+
+To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is both a dangerous
+and thankless office. It is, nevertheless, one that fair women
+greatly prize, and certain of them professionally follow. Lady
+Judith, as far as her sex would permit, was also of the Titans in
+their battle against the absolute Gods; for which purpose, mark you,
+she had married a lord incapable in all save his acres. Her
+achievements she kept to her own mind: she did not look happy over
+them. She met Richard accidentally in Paris; she saw his state; she
+let him learn that she alone on earth understood him. The
+consequence was that he was forthwith enrolled in her train. It
+soothed him to be near a woman. Did she venture her guess as to the
+cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a facility women have,
+and cast on it a melancholy hue he was taught to participate in. She
+spoke of sorrows, personal sorrows, such as he might speak of
+his--vaguely, and with self-blame. And she understood him. How the
+dark unfathomed wealth within us gleams to a woman's eye! We are at
+compound interest immediately: so much richer than we knew!--almost
+as rich as we dreamed! But then the instant we are away from her we
+find ourselves bankrupt, beggared. How is that? We do not ask. We
+hurry to her and bask hungrily in her orbs. The eye must be feminine
+to be thus creative: I cannot say why. Lady Judith understood
+Richard, and he feeling infinitely vile, somehow held to her more
+feverishly, as one who dreaded the worst in missing her. The spirit
+must rest; he was weak with what he suffered.
+
+Austin found them among the hills of Nassau in Rhineland: Titans,
+male and female, who had not displaced Jove, and were now adrift,
+prone on floods of sentiment. The blue-frocked peasant swinging
+behind his oxen of a morning, the gaily-kerchiefed fruit-woman, the
+jackass-driver, even the doctor of those regions, have done more for
+their fellows. Horrible reflection! Lady Judith is serene above it,
+but it frets at Richard when he is out of her shadow. Often
+wretchedly he watches the young men of his own age trooping to their
+work. Not cloud-work theirs! Work solid, unambitious, fruitful!
+
+Lady Judith had a nobler in prospect for the hero. He gaped
+blindfolded for anything, and she gave him the map of Europe in
+tatters. He swallowed it comfortably. It was an intoxicating
+cordial. Himself on horseback over-riding wrecks of Empires! Well
+might common sense cower with the meaner animals at the picture.
+Tacitly they agreed to recast the civilized globe. The quality of
+vapour is to melt and shape itself anew; but it is never the quality
+of vapour to reassume the same shapes. Briareus of the hundred
+unoccupied hands may turn to a monstrous donkey with his hind legs
+aloft, or twenty thousand jabbering apes. The phantasmic groupings
+of the young brain are very like those we see in the skies, and
+equally the sport of the wind. Lady Judith blew. There was plenty of
+vapour in him, and it always resolved into some shape or other. You
+that mark those clouds of eventide, and know youth, will see the
+similitude: it will not be strange, it will barely seem foolish to
+you, that a young man of Richard's age, Richard's education and
+position, should be in this wild state. Had he not been nursed to
+believe he was born for great things? Did she not say she was sure
+of it? And to feel base, yet born for better, is enough to make one
+grasp at anything cloudy. Suppose the hero with a game leg. How
+intense is his faith in quacks! with what a passion of longing is he
+not seized to break somebody's head! They spoke of Italy in low
+voices. "The time will come," said she. "And I shall be ready," said
+he. What rank was he to take in the liberating army? Captain,
+colonel, general in chief, or simple private? Here, as became him,
+he was much more positive and specific than she was. Simple private,
+he said. Yet he saw himself caracoling on horseback. Private in the
+cavalry, then, of course. Private in the cavalry over-riding wrecks
+of Empires. She looked forth under her brows with mournful
+indistinctness at that object in the distance. They read Petrarch to
+get up the necessary fires. Italia mia! Vain indeed was this
+speaking to those thick and mortal wounds in her fair body, but
+their sighs went with the Tiber, and Arno, and the Po, and their
+hands joined. Who has not wept for Italy? I see the aspirations of a
+world arise for her, thick and frequent as the puffs of smoke from
+cigars of Pannonian sentries!
+
+So when Austin came Richard said he could not leave Lady Judith,
+Lady Judith said she could not part with him. For his sake, mind!
+This Richard verified. Perhaps he had reason to be grateful. The
+high road of Folly may have led him from one that terminates worse.
+He is foolish, God knows; but for my part I will not laugh at the
+hero because he has not got his occasion. Meet him when he is, as it
+were, anointed by his occasion, and he is no laughing matter.
+
+Richard felt his safety in this which, to please the world, we must
+term folly. Exhalation of vapours was a wholesome process to him,
+and somebody who gave them shape and hue a beneficent Iris. He told
+Austin plainly he could not leave her, and did not anticipate the
+day when he could.
+
+"Why can't you go to your wife, Richard?"
+
+"For a reason you would be the first to approve, Austin."
+
+He welcomed Austin with every show of manly tenderness, and sadness
+at heart. Austin he had always associated with his Lucy in that
+Hesperian palace of the West. Austin waited patiently. Lady Judith's
+old lord played on all the baths in Nassau without evoking the tune
+of health. Whithersoever he listed she changed her abode. So
+admirable a wife was to be pardoned for espousing an old man. She
+was an enthusiast even in her connubial duties. She had the brows of
+an enthusiast. With occasion she might have been a Charlotte Corday.
+So let her also be shielded from the ban of ridicule. Nonsense of
+enthusiasts is very different from nonsense of ninnies. She was
+truly a high-minded person, of that order who always do what they
+see to be right, and always have confidence in their optics. She was
+not unworthy of a young man's admiration, if she was unfit to be his
+guide. She resumed her ancient intimacy with Austin easily, while
+she preserved her new footing with Richard. She and Austin were not
+unlike, only Austin never dreamed, and had not married an old lord.
+
+The three were walking on the bridge at Limburg on the Lahn, where
+the shadow of a stone bishop is thrown by the moonlight on the water
+brawling over slabs of slate. A woman passed them bearing in her
+arms a baby, whose mighty size drew their attention.
+
+"What a wopper!" Richard laughed.
+
+"Well, that is a fine fellow," said Austin, "but I don't think he's
+much bigger than your boy."
+
+"He'll do for a nineteenth-century Arminius," Richard was saying.
+Then he looked at Austin.
+
+"What was that you said?" Lady Judith asked of Austin.
+
+"What have I said that deserves to be repeated?" Austin
+counterqueried quite innocently.
+
+"Richard has a son?"
+
+"You didn't know it?"
+
+"His modesty goes very far," said Lady Judith, sweeping the shadow
+of a curtsey to Richard's paternity.
+
+Richard's heart throbbed with violence. He looked again in Austin's
+face. Austin took it so much as a matter of course that he said
+nothing more on the subject.
+
+"Well!" murmured Lady Judith.
+
+When the two men were alone, Richard said in a quick voice: "Austin!
+you were in earnest?"
+
+"You didn't know it, Richard?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Why, they all wrote to you. Lucy wrote to you: your father, your
+aunt. I believe Adrian wrote too."
+
+"I tore up their letters," said Richard.
+
+"He's a noble fellow, I can tell you. You've nothing to be ashamed
+of. He'll soon be coming to ask about you. I made sure you knew."
+
+"No, I never knew." Richard walked away, and then said: "What is he
+like?"
+
+"Well, he really is like you, but he has his mother's eyes."
+
+"And she's----"
+
+"Yes. I think the child has kept her well."
+
+"They're both at Raynham?"
+
+"Both."
+
+Hence fantastic vapours! What are ye to this! Where are the dreams
+of the hero when he learns he has a child? Nature is taking him to
+her bosom. She will speak presently. Every domesticated boor in
+these hills can boast the same, yet marvels the hero at none of his
+visioned prodigies as he does when he comes to hear of this most
+common performance. A father? Richard fixed his eyes as if he were
+trying to make out the lineaments of his child.
+
+Telling Austin he would be back in a few minutes, he sallied into
+the air, and walked on and on. "A father!" he kept repeating to
+himself: "a child!" And though he knew it not, he was striking the
+key-notes of Nature. But he did know of a singular harmony that
+suddenly burst over his whole being.
+
+The moon was surpassingly bright: the summer air heavy and still. He
+left the high road and pierced into the forest. His walk was rapid:
+the leaves on the trees brushed his cheeks; the dead leaves heaped
+in the dells noised to his feet. Something of a religious joy--a
+strange sacred pleasure--was in him. By degrees it wore; he
+remembered himself: and now he was possessed by a proportionate
+anguish. A father! he dared never see his child. And he had no
+longer his phantasies to fall upon. He was utterly bare to his sin.
+In his troubled mind it seemed to him that Clare looked down on
+him--Clare who saw him as he was; and that to her eyes it would be
+infamy for him to go and print his kiss upon his child. Then came
+stern efforts to command his misery and make the nerves of his face
+iron.
+
+By the log of an ancient tree half buried in dead leaves of past
+summers, beside a brook, he halted as one who had reached his
+journey's end. There he discovered he had a companion in Lady
+Judith's little dog. He gave the friendly animal a pat of
+recognition and both were silent in the forest-silence.
+
+It was impossible for Richard to return; his heart was surcharged.
+He must advance, and on he footed, the little dog following.
+
+An oppressive slumber hung about the forest-branches. In the dells
+and on the heights was the same dead heat. Here where the brook
+tinkled it was no cool-lipped sound, but metallic, and without the
+spirit of water. Yonder in a space of moonlight on lush grass, the
+beams were as white fire to sight and feeling. No haze spread
+around. The valleys were clear, defined to the shadows of their
+verges; the distances sharply distinct, and with the colours of day
+but slightly softened. Richard beheld a roe moving across a slope of
+sward far out of rifle-mark. The breathless silence was significant,
+yet the moon shone in a broad blue heaven. Tongue out of mouth
+trotted the little dog after him; couched panting when he stopped an
+instant; rose weariedly when he started afresh. Now and then a large
+white night-moth flitted through the dusk of the forest.
+
+On a barren corner of the wooded highland looking inland stood grey
+topless ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. Richard
+mechanically sat down on the crumbling flints to rest, and listened
+to the panting of the dog. Sprinkled at his feet were emerald
+lights: hundreds of glow-worms studded the dark dry ground.
+
+He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies were
+expended in action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and the moon
+turned his shadow Westward from the South. Overhead, as she
+declined, long ripples of silver cloud were imperceptibly stealing
+toward her. They were the van of a tempest. He did not observe them
+or the leaves beginning to chatter. When he again pursued his course
+with his face to the Rhine, a huge mountain appeared to rise sheer
+over him, and he had it in his mind to scale it. He got no nearer to
+the base of it for all his vigorous outstepping. The ground began to
+dip; he lost sight of the sky. Then heavy thunder-drops struck his
+cheek, the leaves were singing, the earth breathed, it was black
+before him and behind. All at once the thunder spoke. The mountain
+he had marked was bursting over him.
+
+Up started the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the country at
+the foot of the hills to the bounding Rhine gleam, quiver,
+extinguished. Then there were pauses; and the lightning seemed as
+the eye of heaven, and the thunder as the tongue of heaven, each
+alternately addressing him; filling him with awful rapture. Alone
+there--sole human creature among the grandeurs and mysteries of
+storm--he felt the representative of his kind, and his spirits rose,
+and marched, and exulted, let it be glory, let it be ruin! Lower
+down the lightened abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash: then
+white thrusts of light were darted from the sky, and great curving
+ferns, seen steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally
+agitated, and vanished. Then a shrill song roused in the leaves and
+the herbage. Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier
+the deluge pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire of
+the earth. Even in this, drenched as he was by the first outpouring,
+Richard had a savage pleasure. Keeping in motion, he was scarcely
+conscious of the wet, and the grateful breath of the weeds was
+refreshing. Suddenly he stopped short, lifting a curious nostril. He
+fancied he smelt meadow-sweet. He had never seen the flower in
+Rhineland--never thought of it; and it would hardly be met with in a
+forest. He was sure he smelt it fresh in dews. His little companion
+wagged a miserable wet tail some way in advance. He went on slowly,
+thinking indistinctly. After two or three steps he stooped and
+stretched out his hand to feel for the flower, having, he knew not
+why, a strong wish to verify its growth there. Groping about, his
+hand encountered something warm that started at his touch, and he,
+with the instinct we have, seized it, and lifted it to look at it.
+The creature was very small, evidently quite young. Richard's eyes,
+now accustomed to the darkness, were able to discern it for what it
+was, a tiny leveret, and he supposed that the dog had probably
+frightened its dam just before he found it. He put the little thing
+on one hand in his breast, and stepped out rapidly as before.
+
+The rain was now steady; from every tree a fountain poured. So cool
+and easy had his mind become that he was speculating on what kind of
+shelter the birds could find, and how the butterflies and moths
+saved their coloured wings from washing. Folded close they might
+hang under a leaf, he thought. Lovingly he looked into the dripping
+darkness of the coverts on each side, as one of their children. He
+was next musing on a strange sensation he experienced. It ran up one
+arm with an indescribable thrill, but communicated nothing to his
+heart. It was purely physical, ceased for a time, and recommenced,
+till he had it all through his blood, wonderfully thrilling. He grew
+aware that the little thing he carried in his breast was licking his
+hand there. The small rough tongue going over and over the palm of
+his hand produced the strange sensation he felt. Now that he knew
+the cause, the marvel ended; but now that he knew the cause, his
+heart was touched and made more of it. The gentle scraping continued
+without intermission as on he walked. What did it say to him? Human
+tongue could not have said so much just then.
+
+A pale grey light on the skirts of the flying tempest displayed the
+dawn. Richard was walking hurriedly. The green drenched weeds lay
+all about in his path, bent thick, and the forest drooped
+glimmeringly. Impelled as a man who feels a revelation mounting
+obscurely to his brain, Richard was passing one of these little
+forest-chapels, hung with votive wreaths, where the peasant halts to
+kneel and pray. Cold, still, in the twilight it stood, rain-drops
+pattering round it. He looked within, and saw the Virgin holding her
+Child. He moved by. But not many steps had he gone ere his strength
+went out of him, and he shuddered. What was it? He asked not. He was
+in other hands. Vivid as lightning the Spirit of Life illumined
+him. He felt in his heart the cry of his child, his darling's touch.
+With shut eyes he saw them both. They drew him from the depths; they
+led him a blind and tottering man. And as they led him he had a
+sense of purification so sweet he shuddered again and again.
+
+When he looked out from his trance on the breathing world, the small
+birds hopped and chirped: warm fresh sunlight was over all the
+hills. He was on the edge of the forest, entering a plain clothed
+with ripe corn under a spacious morning sky.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT
+
+
+They heard at Raynham that Richard was coming. Lucy had the news
+first in a letter from Ripton Thompson, who met him at Bonn. Ripton
+did not say that he had employed his vacation holiday on purpose to
+use his efforts to induce his dear friend to return to his wife; and
+finding Richard already on his way, of course Ripton said nothing to
+him, but affected to be travelling for his pleasure like any
+cockney. Richard also wrote to her. In case she should have gone to
+the sea he directed her to send word to his hotel that he might not
+lose an hour. His letter was sedate in tone, very sweet to her.
+Assisted by the faithful female Berry, she was conquering an
+Aphorist.
+
+"Woman's reason is in the milk of her breasts," was one of his rough
+notes, due to an observation of Lucy's maternal cares. Let us
+remember, therefore, we men who have drunk of it largely there, that
+she has it.
+
+Mrs. Berry zealously apprised him how early Master Richard's
+education had commenced, and the great future historian he must
+consequently be. This trait in Lucy was of itself sufficient to win
+Sir Austin.
+
+"Here my plan with Richard was false," he reflected: "in presuming
+that anything save blind fortuity would bring him such a mate as he
+should have." He came to add: "And has got!"
+
+He could admit now that instinct had so far beaten science; for as
+Richard was coming, as all were to be happy, his wisdom embraced
+them all paternally as the author of their happiness. Between him
+and Lucy a tender intimacy grew.
+
+"I told you she could talk, sir," said Adrian.
+
+"She thinks!" said the baronet.
+
+The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle, he settled
+generously. Farmer Blaize should come up to Raynham when he would:
+Lucy must visit him at least three times a week. He had Farmer
+Blaize and Mrs. Berry to study, and really excellent Aphorisms
+sprang from the plain human bases this natural couple presented.
+
+"It will do us no harm," he thought, "some of the honest blood of
+the soil in our veins." And he was content in musing on the
+parentage of the little cradled boy. A common sight for those who
+had the entry to the library was the baronet cherishing the hand of
+his daughter-in-law.
+
+So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham were beating
+quicker measures as the minutes progressed. That night he would be
+with them. Sir Austin gave Lucy a longer, warmer salute when she
+came down to breakfast in the morning. Mrs. Berry waxed thrice
+amorous. "It's your second bridals, ye sweet livin' widow!" she
+said. "Thanks be the Lord! it's the same man too! and a baby over
+the bed-post," she appended seriously.
+
+"Strange," Berry declared it to be, "strange I feel none o' this to
+my Berry now. All my feelin's o' love seem t'ave gone into you two
+sweet chicks."
+
+In fact, the faithless male Berry complained of being treated badly,
+and affected a superb jealousy of the baby; but the good dame told
+him that if he suffered at all he suffered his due. Berry's position
+was decidedly uncomfortable. It could not be concealed from the
+lower household that he had a wife in the establishment, and for the
+complications this gave rise to, his wife would not legitimately
+console him. Lucy did intercede, but Mrs. Berry was obdurate. She
+averred she would not give up the child till he was weaned. "Then,
+perhaps," she said prospectively. "You see I ain't so soft as you
+thought for."
+
+"You're a very unkind, vindictive old woman," said Lucy.
+
+"Belike I am," Mrs. Berry was proud to agree. We like a new
+character, now and then. Berry had delayed too long.
+
+Were it not notorious that the straightlaced prudish dare not listen
+to the natural chaste, certain things Mrs. Berry thought it
+advisable to impart to the young wife with regard to Berry's
+infidelity, and the charity women should have towards sinful men,
+might here be reproduced. Enough that she thought proper to broach
+the matter, and cite her own Christian sentiments, now that she was
+indifferent in some degree.
+
+Oily calm is on the sea. At Raynham they look up at the sky and
+speculate that Richard is approaching fairly speeded. He comes to
+throw himself on his darling's mercy. Lucy irradiated over forest
+and sea, tempest and peace--to her the hero comes humbly. Great is
+that day when we see our folly! Ripton and he were the friends of
+old. Richard encouraged him to talk of the two he could be eloquent
+on, and Ripton, whose secret vanity was in his powers of speech,
+never tired of enumerating Lucy's virtues, and the peculiar
+attributes of the baby.
+
+"She did not say a word against me, Rip?"
+
+"Against you, Richard! The moment she knew she was to be a mother,
+she thought of nothing but her duty to the child. She's one who
+can't think of herself."
+
+"You've seen her at Raynham, Rip?"
+
+"Yes, once. They asked me down. And your father's so fond of
+her--I'm sure he thinks no woman like her, and he's right. She is so
+lovely, and so good."
+
+Richard was too full of blame of himself to blame his father: too
+British to expose his emotions. Ripton divined how deep and changed
+they were by his manner. He had cast aside the hero, and however
+Ripton had obeyed him and looked up to him in the heroic time, he
+loved him tenfold now. He told his friend how much Lucy's mere
+womanly sweetness and excellence had done for him, and Richard
+contrasted his own profitless extravagance with the patient beauty
+of his dear home angel. He was not one to take her on the easy terms
+that offered. There was that to do which made his cheek burn as he
+thought of it, but he was going to do it, even though it lost her to
+him. Just to see her and kneel to her was joy sufficient to sustain
+him, and warm his blood in the prospect. They marked the white
+cliffs growing over the water. Nearer, the sun made them lustrous.
+Houses and people seemed to welcome the wild youth to common sense,
+simplicity, and home.
+
+They were in town by mid-day. Richard had a momentary idea of not
+driving to his hotel for letters. After a short debate he determined
+to go there. The porter said he had two letters for Mr. Richard
+Feverel--one had been waiting some time. He went to the box and
+fetched them. The first Richard opened was from Lucy, and as he read
+it, Ripton observed the colour deepen on his face, while a quivering
+smile played about his mouth. He opened the other indifferently. It
+began without any form of address. Richard's forehead darkened at
+the signature. This letter was in a sloping feminine hand, and
+flourished with light strokes all over, like a field of the bearded
+barley. Thus it ran:
+
+     "I know you are in a rage with me because I would not consent
+     to ruin you, you foolish fellow. What do you call it? Going to
+     that unpleasant place together. Thank you, my milliner is not
+     ready yet, and I want to make a good appearance when I do go. I
+     suppose I shall have to some day. Your health, Sir Richard. Now
+     let me speak to you seriously. _Go home to your wife at once._
+     But I know the sort of fellow you are, and I must be plain with
+     you. Did I ever say I loved you? You may hate me as much as you
+     please, but I will save you from being a fool.
+
+     "Now listen to me. You know my relations with Mount. _That
+     beast Brayder_ offered to pay all my debts and set me afloat,
+     if I would keep you in town. I declare on my honour I had no
+     idea why, and I did not agree to it. But you were such a
+     handsome fellow--I noticed you in the park before I heard a
+     word of you. But then you fought shy--you were just as tempting
+     as a girl. You _stung_ me. Do you know what that is? I would
+     make you care for me, and we know how it ended, without any
+     intention of mine, I _swear_. I'd have cut off my hand rather
+     than do you any harm, upon my honour. Circumstances! Then I saw
+     it was all up between us. Brayder came and began to chaff about
+     you. I dealt the animal a stroke on the face with my
+     riding-whip--I shut him up pretty quick. Do you think I would
+     let a man speak about you?--I was going to swear. You see I
+     remember Dick's lessons. O my God! I do feel unhappy.--Brayder
+     offered me money. Go and think I took it, if you like. What do
+     I care what anybody thinks! Something that blackguard said made
+     me suspicious. I went down to the Isle of Wight where Mount
+     was, and your wife was just gone with an old lady who came and
+     took her away. I should so have liked to see her. You said, you
+     remember, she would take me as a sister, and treat me--I
+     laughed at it then. My God! how I could cry now, if water did
+     any good to a _devil_, as you politely call poor me. I called
+     at your house and saw your man-servant, who said Mount had just
+     been there. In a minute it struck me. I was sure Mount was
+     after a woman, but it never struck me that woman was your wife.
+     Then I saw why they wanted me to keep you away. I went to
+     Brayder. You know how I hate him. I made love to the man to get
+     it out of him. Richard! my word of honour, they have planned to
+     carry her off, if Mount finds he cannot seduce her. Talk of
+     devils! He's one; but he is not so bad as Brayder. I cannot
+     forgive a mean dog his villainy.
+
+     "Now after this, I am quite sure you are too much of a man to
+     stop away from her another moment. I have no more to say. I
+     suppose we shall not see each other again, so good-bye, Dick! I
+     fancy I hear you cursing me. Why can't you feel like other men
+     on the subject? But if you were like the rest of them I should
+     not have cared for you a farthing. I have not worn lilac since
+     I saw you last. I'll be buried in your colour, Dick. That will
+     not offend you--will it?
+
+     "You are not going to believe I took the money? If I thought
+     you thought that--it makes me _feel_ like a devil only to fancy
+     you think it.
+
+     "The first time you meet Brayder, _cane him publicly_.
+
+     "Adieu! Say it's because you don't like his face. I suppose
+     devils must not say _Adieu_. Here's plain old good-bye, then,
+     between you and me. Good-bye, dear Dick! You won't think that
+     of me?
+
+     "May I eat dry bread to the day of my death if I took or ever
+     will touch a scrap of their money.
+
+                                                             BELLA."
+
+Richard folded up the letter silently.
+
+"Jump into the cab," he said to Ripton.
+
+"Anything the matter, Richard?"
+
+"No."
+
+The driver received instructions. Richard sat without speaking. His
+friend knew that face. He asked whether there was bad news in the
+letter. For answer, he had the lie circumstantial. He ventured to
+remark that they were going the wrong way.
+
+"It's the right way," cried Richard, and his jaws were hard and
+square, and his eyes looked heavy and full.
+
+Ripton said no more, but thought.
+
+The cabman pulled up at a Club. A gentleman, in whom Ripton
+recognized the Hon. Peter Brayder, was just then swinging a leg over
+his horse, with one foot in the stirrup. Hearing his name called,
+the Hon. Peter turned about, and stretched an affable hand.
+
+"Is Mountfalcon in town?" said Richard, taking the horse's reins
+instead of the gentlemanly hand. His voice and aspect were quite
+friendly.
+
+"Mount?" Brayder replied, curiously watching the action; "yes. He's
+off this evening."
+
+"He _is_ in town?" Richard released his horse. "I want to see him.
+Where is he?"
+
+The young man looked pleasant: that which might have aroused
+Brayder's suspicions was an old affair in parasitical register by
+this time. "Want to see him? What about?" he said carelessly, and
+gave the address.
+
+"By the way," he sang out, "we thought of putting your name down,
+Feverel." He indicated the lofty structure. "What do you say?"
+
+Richard nodded back at him, crying, "Hurry." Brayder returned the
+nod, and those who promenaded the district soon beheld his body in
+elegant motion to the stepping of his well-earned horse.
+
+"What do you want to see Lord Mountfalcon for, Richard?" said
+Ripton.
+
+"I just want to see him," Richard replied.
+
+Ripton was left in the cab at the door of my lord's residence. He
+had to wait there a space of about ten minutes, when Richard
+returned with a clearer visage, though somewhat heated. He stood
+outside the cab, and Ripton was conscious of being examined by those
+strong grey eyes. As clear as speech he understood them to say to
+him, "You won't do," but which of the many things on earth he would
+not do for he was at a loss to think.
+
+"Go down to Raynham, Ripton. Say I shall be there to-night
+certainly. Don't bother me with questions. Drive off at once. Or
+wait. Get another cab. I'll take this."
+
+Ripton was ejected, and found himself standing alone in the street.
+As he was on the point of rushing after the galloping cab-horse to
+get a word of elucidation, he heard some one speak behind him.
+
+"You are Feverel's friend?"
+
+Ripton had an eye for lords. An ambrosial footman, standing at the
+open door of Lord Mountfalcon's house, and a gentleman standing on
+the door-step, told him that he was addressed by that nobleman. He
+was requested to step into the house. When they were alone, Lord
+Mountfalcon, slightly ruffled, said: "Feverel has insulted me
+grossly. I must meet him, of course. It's a piece of infernal
+folly!--I suppose he is not quite mad?"
+
+Ripton's only definite answer was a gasping iteration of "My lord."
+
+My lord resumed: "I am perfectly guiltless of offending him, as far
+as I know. In fact, I had a friendship for him. Is he liable to fits
+of this sort of thing?"
+
+Not yet at conversation-point, Ripton stammered: "Fits, my lord?"
+
+"Ah!" went the other, eying Ripton in lordly cognizant style. "You
+know nothing of this business, perhaps!"
+
+Ripton said he did not.
+
+"Have you any influence with him?"
+
+"Not much, my lord. Only now and then--a little."
+
+"You are not in the Army?"
+
+The question was quite unnecessary. Ripton confessed to the law, and
+my lord did not look surprised.
+
+"I will not detain you," he said, distantly bowing.
+
+Ripton gave him a commoner's obeisance; but getting to the door, the
+sense of the matter enlightened him.
+
+"It's a duel, my lord?"
+
+"No help for it, if his friends don't shut him up in Bedlam between
+this and to-morrow morning."
+
+Of all horrible things a duel was the worst in Ripton's imagination.
+He stood holding the handle of the door, revolving this last chapter
+of calamity suddenly opened where happiness had promised.
+
+"A duel! but he won't, my lord,--he mustn't fight, my lord."
+
+"He must come on the ground," said my lord, positively.
+
+Ripton ejaculated unintelligible stuff. Finally Lord Mountfalcon
+said: "I went out of my way, sir, in speaking to you. I saw you from
+the window. Your friend is mad. Deuced methodical, I admit, but mad.
+I have particular reasons to wish not to injure the young man, and
+if an apology is to be got out of him when we're on the ground, I'll
+take it, and we'll stop the damned scandal, if possible. You
+understand? I'm the insulted party, and I shall only require of him
+to use formal words of excuse to come to an amicable settlement. Let
+him just say he regrets it. Now, sir," the nobleman spoke with
+considerable earnestness, "should anything happen--I have the honour
+to be known to Mrs. Feverel--and I beg you will tell her. I very
+particularly desire you to let her know that I was not to blame."
+
+Mountfalcon rang the bell, and bowed him out. With this on his mind
+Ripton hurried down to those who were waiting in joyful trust at
+Raynham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+THE LAST SCENE
+
+
+The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his pulse, in occult
+calculation hideous to mark, said half-past eleven on the midnight.
+Adrian, wearing a composedly amused expression on his dimpled plump
+face,--held slightly sideways, aloof from paper and pen,--sat
+writing at the library table. Round the baronet's chair, in a
+semi-circle, were Lucy, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, and Ripton, that
+very ill bird at Raynham. They were silent as those who question the
+flying minutes. Ripton had said that Richard was sure to come; but
+the feminine eyes reading him ever and anon, had gathered matter for
+disquietude, which increased as time sped. Sir Austin persisted in
+his habitual air of speculative repose.
+
+Remote as he appeared from vulgar anxiety, he was the first to speak
+and betray his state.
+
+"Pray, put up that watch. Impatience serves nothing," he said,
+half-turning hastily to his brother behind him.
+
+Hippias relinquished his pulse and mildly groaned: "It's no
+nightmare, this!"
+
+His remark was unheard, and the bearing of it remained obscure.
+Adrian's pen made a louder flourish on his manuscript; whether in
+commiseration or infernal glee, none might say.
+
+"What are you writing?" the baronet inquired testily of Adrian,
+after a pause; twitched, it may be, by a sort of jealousy of the
+wise youth's coolness.
+
+"Do I disturb you, sir?" rejoined Adrian. "I am engaged on a portion
+of a Proposal for uniting the Empires and Kingdoms of Europe under
+one Paternal Head, on the model of the ever-to-be-admired and
+lamented Holy Roman. This treats of the management of Youths and
+Maids, and of certain magisterial functions connected therewith. 'It
+is decreed that these officers be all and every men of science,'
+etc." And Adrian cheerily drove his pen afresh.
+
+Mrs. Doria took Lucy's hand, mutely addressing encouragement to
+her, and Lucy brought as much of a smile as she could command to
+reply with.
+
+"I fear we must give him up to-night," observed Lady Blandish.
+
+"If he said he would come, he will come," Sir Austin interjected.
+Between him and the lady there was something of a contest secretly
+going on. He was conscious that nothing save perfect success would
+now hold this self-emancipating mind. She had seen him through.
+
+"He declared to me he would be certain to come," said Ripton; but he
+could look at none of them as he said it, for he was growing aware
+that Richard might have deceived him, and was feeling like a black
+conspirator against their happiness. He determined to tell the
+baronet what he knew, if Richard did not come by twelve.
+
+"What is the time?" he asked Hippias in a modest voice.
+
+"Time for me to be in bed," growled Hippias, as if everybody present
+had been treating him badly.
+
+Mrs. Berry came in to apprise Lucy that she was wanted above. She
+quietly rose. Sir Austin kissed her on the forehead, saying: "You
+had better not come down again, my child." She kept her eyes on him.
+"Oblige me by retiring for the night," he added. Lucy shook their
+hands, and went out, accompanied by Mrs. Doria.
+
+"This agitation will be bad for the child," he said, speaking to
+himself aloud.
+
+Lady Blandish remarked: "I think she might just as well have
+returned. She will not sleep."
+
+"She will control herself for the child's sake."
+
+"You ask too much of her."
+
+"Of her, not," he emphasized.
+
+It was twelve o'clock when Hippias shut his watch, and said with
+vehemence: "I'm convinced my circulation gradually and steadily
+decreases!"
+
+"Going back to the pre-Harvey period?" murmured Adrian as he wrote.
+
+Sir Austin and Lady Blandish knew well that any comment would
+introduce them to the interior of his machinery, the external view
+of which was sufficiently harrowing; so they maintained a discreet
+reserve. Taking it for acquiescence in his deplorable condition,
+Hippias resumed despairingly: "It's a fact. I've brought you to see
+that. No one can be more moderate than I am, and yet I get worse.
+My system is organically sound--I believe: I do every possible
+thing, and yet I get worse. Nature never forgives! I'll go to bed."
+
+The Dyspepsy departed unconsoled.
+
+Sir Austin took up his brother's thought: "I suppose nothing short
+of a miracle helps us when we have offended her."
+
+"Nothing short of a quack satisfies us," said Adrian, applying wax
+to an envelope of official dimensions.
+
+Ripton sat accusing his soul of cowardice while they talked; haunted
+by Lucy's last look at him. He got up his courage presently and went
+round to Adrian, who, after a few whispered words, deliberately rose
+and accompanied him out of the room, shrugging. When they had gone,
+Lady Blandish said to the baronet: "He is not coming."
+
+"To-morrow, then, if not to-night," he replied. "But I say he will
+come to-night."
+
+"You do really wish to see him united to his wife?"
+
+The question made the baronet raise his brows with some displeasure.
+
+"Can you ask me?"
+
+"I mean," said the ungenerous woman, "your System will require no
+further sacrifices from either of them?"
+
+When he did answer, it was to say: "I think her altogether a
+superior person. I confess I should scarcely have hoped to find one
+like her."
+
+"Admit that your science does not accomplish everything."
+
+"No: it was presumptuous--beyond a certain point," said the baronet,
+meaning deep things.
+
+Lady Blandish eyed him. "Ah me!" she sighed, "if we would always be
+true to our own wisdom!"
+
+"You are very singular to-night, Emmeline," Sir Austin stopped his
+walk in front of her.
+
+In truth, was she not unjust? Here was an offending son freely
+forgiven. Here was a young woman of humble birth freely accepted
+into his family and permitted to stand upon her qualities. Who would
+have done more--or as much? This lady, for instance, had the case
+been hers, would have fought it. All the people of position that he
+was acquainted with would have fought it, and that without feeling
+it so peculiarly. But while the baronet thought this, he did not
+think of the exceptional education his son had received. He took the
+common ground of fathers, forgetting his System when it was
+absolutely on trial. False to his son it could not be said that he
+had been: false to his System he was. Others saw it plainly, but he
+had to learn his lesson by and by.
+
+Lady Blandish gave him her face; then stretched her hand to the
+table, saying, "Well! well!" She fingered a half-opened parcel lying
+there, and drew forth a little book she recognized. "Ha! what is
+this?" she said.
+
+"Benson returned it this morning," he informed her. "The stupid
+fellow took it away with him--by mischance, I am bound to believe."
+
+It was nothing other than the old Note-book. Lady Blandish turned
+over the leaves, and came upon the later jottings.
+
+She read: "A maker of Proverbs--what is he but a narrow mind with
+the mouthpiece of narrower?"
+
+"I do not agree with that," she observed. He was in no humour for
+argument.
+
+"Was your humility feigned when you wrote it?"
+
+He merely said: "Consider the sort of minds influenced by set
+sayings. A proverb is the half-way-house to an Idea, I conceive; and
+the majority rest there content: can the keeper of such a house be
+flattered by his company?"
+
+She felt her feminine intelligence swaying under him again. There
+must be greatness in a man who could thus speak of his own special
+and admirable aptitude.
+
+Further she read, "Which is the coward among us?--_He who sneers at
+the failings of Humanity!_"
+
+"Oh! that is true! How much I admire that!" cried the dark-eyed dame
+as she beamed intellectual raptures.
+
+Another Aphorism seemed closely to apply to him: "There is no more
+grievous sight, as there is no greater perversion, than a wise man
+at the mercy of his feelings."
+
+"He must have written it," she thought, "when he had himself for an
+example--strange man that he is!"
+
+Lady Blandish was still inclined to submission, though decidedly
+insubordinate. She had once been fairly conquered: but if what she
+reverenced as a great mind could conquer her, it must be a great man
+that should hold her captive. The Autumn Primrose blooms for the
+loftiest manhood; is a vindictive flower in lesser hands.
+Nevertheless Sir Austin had only to be successful, and this lady's
+allegiance was his for ever. The trial was at hand.
+
+She said again: "He is not coming to-night," and the baronet, on
+whose visage a contemplative pleased look had been rising for a
+minute past, quietly added: "He is come."
+
+Richard's voice was heard in the hall.
+
+There was commotion all over the house at the return of the young
+heir. Berry, seizing every possible occasion to approach his Bessy
+now that her involuntary coldness had enhanced her value--"Such is
+men!" as the soft woman reflected--Berry ascended to her and
+delivered the news in pompous tones and wheedling gestures. "The
+best word you've spoke for many a day," says she, and leaves him
+unfee'd, in an attitude, to hurry and pour bliss into Lucy's ears.
+
+"Lord be praised!" she entered the adjoining room exclaiming, "we're
+goin' to be happy at last. They men have come to their senses. I
+could cry to your Virgin and kiss your Cross, you sweet!"
+
+"Hush!" Lucy admonished her, and crooned over the child on her
+knees. The tiny open hands, full of sleep, clutched; the large blue
+eyes started awake; and his mother, all trembling and palpitating,
+knowing, but thirsting to hear it, covered him with her tresses, and
+tried to still her frame, and rocked, and sang low, interdicting
+even a whisper from bursting Mrs. Berry.
+
+Richard had come. He was under his father's roof, in the old home
+that had so soon grown foreign to him. He stood close to his wife
+and child. He might embrace them both; and now the fulness of his
+anguish and the madness of the thing he had done smote the young
+man: now first he tasted hard earthly misery.
+
+Had not God spoken to him in the tempest? Had not the finger of
+heaven directed him homeward? And he had come: here he stood:
+congratulations were thick in his ears: the cup of happiness was
+held to him, and he was invited to drink of it. Which was the dream?
+his work for the morrow, or this? But for a leaden load that he felt
+like a bullet in his breast, he might have thought the morrow with
+death sitting on it was the dream. Yes; he was awake. Now first the
+cloud of phantasms cleared away: he beheld his real life, and the
+colours of true human joy: and on the morrow perhaps he was to close
+his eyes on them. That leaden bullet dispersed all unrealities.
+
+They stood about him in the hall, his father, Lady Blandish, Mrs.
+Doria, Adrian, Ripton; people who had known him long. They shook his
+hand: they gave him greetings he had never before understood the
+worth of or the meaning. Now that he did they mocked him. There was
+Mrs. Berry in the background bobbing, there was Martin Berry bowing,
+there was Tom Bakewell grinning. Somehow he loved the sight of these
+better.
+
+"Ah, my old Penelope!" he said, breaking through the circle of his
+relatives to go to her. "Tom! how are you?"
+
+"Bless ye, my Mr. Richard," whimpered Mrs. Berry, and whispered
+rosily, "all's agreeable now. She's waiting up in bed for ye, like a
+new-born."
+
+The person who betrayed most agitation was Mrs. Doria. She held
+close to him, and eagerly studied his face and every movement, as
+one accustomed to masks. "You are pale, Richard?" He pleaded
+exhaustion. "What detained you, dear?" "Business," he said. She drew
+him imperiously apart from the others. "Richard! is it over?" He
+asked what she meant. "The dreadful duel, Richard." He looked
+darkly. "Is it over? is it done, Richard?" Getting no immediate
+answer, she continued--and such was her agitation that the words
+were shaken by pieces from her mouth: "Don't pretend not to
+understand me, Richard! Is it over? Are you going to die the death
+of my child--Clare's death? Is not one in a family enough? Think of
+your dear young wife--we love her so!--your child!--your father!
+Will you kill us all?"
+
+Mrs. Doria had chanced to overhear a trifle of Ripton's
+communication to Adrian, and had built thereon with the dark forces
+of a stricken soul.
+
+Wondering how this woman could have divined it, Richard calmly said:
+"It's arranged--the matter you allude to."
+
+"Indeed! truly, dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tell me"--but he broke away from her, saying: "You shall hear the
+particulars to-morrow," and she, not alive to double meaning just
+then, allowed him to leave her.
+
+He had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and called for food, but he
+would take only dry bread and claret, which was served on a tray in
+the library. He said, without any show of feeling, that he must eat
+before he saw the younger hope of Raynham: so there he sat, breaking
+bread, and eating great mouthfuls, and washing them down with wine,
+talking of what they would. His father's studious mind felt itself
+years behind him, he was so completely altered. He had the precision
+of speech, the bearing of a man of thirty. Indeed he had all that
+the necessity for cloaking an infinite misery gives. But let things
+be as they might he was _there_. For one night in his life Sir
+Austin's perspective of the future was bounded by the night.
+
+"Will you go to your wife now?" he had asked, and Richard had
+replied with a strange indifference. The baronet thought it better
+that their meeting should be private, and sent word for Lucy to wait
+upstairs. The others perceived that father and son should now be
+left alone. Adrian went up to him, and said: "I can no longer
+witness this painful sight, so Good-night, Sir Famish! You may cheat
+yourself into the belief that you've made a meal, but depend upon it
+your progeny--and it threatens to be numerous--will cry aloud and
+rue the day. Nature never forgives! A lost dinner can never be
+replaced! Good-night, my dear boy. And here--oblige me by taking
+this," he handed Richard the enormous envelope containing what he
+had written that evening. "Credentials!" he exclaimed humorously,
+slapping Richard on the shoulder. Ripton heard also the words
+"propagator--species," but had no idea of their import. The wise
+youth looked: You see we've made matters all right for you here, and
+quitted the room on that unusual gleam of earnestness.
+
+Richard shook his hand, and Ripton's. Then Lady Blandish said her
+good-night, praising Lucy, and promising to pray for their mutual
+happiness. The two men who knew what was hanging over him, spoke
+together outside. Ripton was for getting a positive assurance that
+the duel would not be fought, but Adrian said: "Time enough
+to-morrow. He's safe enough while he's here. I'll stop it
+to-morrow:" ending with banter of Ripton and allusions to his
+adventures with Miss Random, which must, Adrian said, have led him
+into many affairs of the sort. Certainly Richard was there, and
+while he was there he must be safe. So thought Ripton, and went to
+his bed. Mrs. Doria deliberated likewise, and likewise thought him
+safe while he was there. For once in her life she thought it better
+not to trust to her instinct, for fear of useless disturbance where
+peace should be. So she said not a syllable of it to her brother.
+She only looked more deeply into Richard's eyes, as she kissed him,
+praising Lucy. "I have found a second daughter in her, dear. Oh! may
+you both be happy!"
+
+They all praised Lucy, now. His father commenced the moment they
+were alone. "Poor Helen! Your wife has been a great comfort to her,
+Richard. I think Helen must have sunk without her. So lovely a young
+person, possessing mental faculty, and a conscience for her duties,
+I have never before met."
+
+He wished to gratify his son by these eulogies of Lucy, and some
+hours back he would have succeeded. Now it had the contrary effect.
+
+"You compliment me on my choice, sir?"
+
+Richard spoke sedately, but the irony was perceptible, and he could
+speak no other way, his bitterness was so intense.
+
+"I think you very fortunate," said his father.
+
+Sensitive to tone and manner as he was, his ebullition of paternal
+feeling was frozen. Richard did not approach him. He leaned against
+the chimney-piece, glancing at the floor, and lifting his eyes only
+when he spoke. Fortunate! very fortunate! As he revolved his later
+history, and remembered how clearly he had seen that his father must
+love Lucy if he but knew her, and remembered his efforts to persuade
+her to come with him, a sting of miserable rage blackened his brain.
+But could he blame that gentle soul? Whom could he blame? Himself?
+Not utterly. His father? Yes, and no. The blame was here, the blame
+was there: it was everywhere and nowhere, and the young man cast it
+on the Fates, and looked angrily at heaven, and grew reckless.
+
+"Richard," said his father, coming close to him, "It is late
+to-night. I do not wish Lucy to remain in expectation longer, or I
+should have explained myself to you thoroughly, and I think--or at
+least hope--you would have justified me. I had cause to believe that
+you had not only violated my confidence, but grossly deceived me. It
+was not so, I now know. I was mistaken. Much of our misunderstanding
+has resulted from that mistake. But you were married--a boy: you
+knew nothing of the world, little of yourself. To save you in
+after-life--for there is a period when mature men and women who have
+married young are more impelled to temptation than in youth,--though
+not so exposed to it,--to save you, I say, I decreed that you should
+experience self-denial and learn something of your fellows of both
+sexes, before settling into a state that must have been otherwise
+precarious, however excellent the woman who is your mate. My System
+with you would have been otherwise imperfect, and you would have
+felt the effects of it. It is over now. You are a man. The dangers
+to which your nature was open are, I trust, at an end. I wish you to
+be happy, and I give you both my blessing, and pray God to conduct
+and strengthen you both."
+
+Sir Austin's mind was unconscious of not having spoken devoutly.
+True or not, his words were idle to his son: his talk of dangers
+over, and happiness, mockery.
+
+Richard coldly took his father's extended hand.
+
+"We will go to her," said the baronet. "I will leave you at her
+door."
+
+Not moving: looking fixedly at his father with a hard face on which
+the colour rushed, Richard said: "A husband who has been unfaithful
+to his wife may go to her there, sir?"
+
+It was horrible, it was cruel: Richard knew that. He wanted no
+advice on such a matter, having fully resolved what to do. Yesterday
+he would have listened to his father, and blamed himself alone, and
+done what was to be done humbly before God and her: now in the
+recklessness of his misery he had as little pity for any other soul
+as for his own. Sir Austin's brows were deep drawn down.
+
+"What did you say, Richard?"
+
+Clearly his intelligence had taken it, but this--the worst he could
+hear--this that he had dreaded once and doubted, and smoothed over,
+and cast aside--could it be?
+
+Richard said: "I told you all but the very words when we last
+parted. What else do you think would have kept me from her?"
+
+Angered at his callous aspect, his father cried: "What brings you to
+her now?"
+
+"That will be between us two," was the reply.
+
+Sir Austin fell into his chair. Meditation was impossible. He spoke
+from a wrathful heart: "You will not dare to take her without"----
+
+"No, sir," Richard interrupted him, "I shall not. Have no fear."
+
+"Then you did not love your wife?"
+
+"Did I not?" A smile passed faintly over Richard's face.
+
+"Did you care so much for this--this other person?"
+
+"So much? If you ask me whether I had affection for her, I can say I
+had none."
+
+O base human nature! Then how? then why? A thousand questions rose
+in the baronet's mind. Bessy Berry could have answered them every
+one.
+
+"Poor child! poor child!" he apostrophized Lucy, pacing the room.
+Thinking of her, knowing her deep love for his son--her true
+forgiving heart--it seemed she should be spared this misery.
+
+He proposed to Richard to spare her. Vast is the distinction between
+women and men in this one sin, he said, and supported it with
+physical and moral citations. His argument carried him so far, that
+to hear him one would have imagined he thought the sin in men small
+indeed. His words were idle.
+
+"She must know it," said Richard, sternly. "I will go to her now,
+sir, if you please."
+
+Sir Austin detained him, expostulated, contradicted himself,
+confounded his principles, made nonsense of all his theories. He
+could not induce his son to waver in his resolve. Ultimately, their
+good-night being interchanged, he understood that the happiness of
+Raynham depended on Lucy's mercy. He had no fears of her sweet
+heart, but it was a strange thing to have come to. On which should
+the accusation fall--on science, or on human nature?
+
+He remained in the library pondering over the question, at times
+breathing contempt for his son, and again seized with unwonted
+suspicion of his own wisdom: troubled, much to be pitied, even if he
+deserved that blow from his son which had plunged him into
+wretchedness.
+
+Richard went straight to Tom Bakewell, roused the heavy sleeper, and
+told him to have his mare saddled and waiting at the park gates East
+within an hour. Tom's nearest approach to a hero was to be a
+faithful slave to his master, and in doing this he acted to his
+conception of that high and glorious character. He got up and
+heroically dashed his head into cold water. "She shall be ready,
+sir," he nodded.
+
+"Tom! if you don't see me back here at Raynham, your money will go
+on being paid to you."
+
+"Rather see you than the money, Mr. Richard," said Tom.
+
+"And you will always watch and see no harm comes to her, Tom."
+
+"Mrs. Richard, sir?" Tom stared. "God bless me, Mr. Richard"----
+
+"No questions. You'll do what I say."
+
+"Ay, sir; that I will. Did'n Isle o' Wight."
+
+The very name of the Island shocked Richard's blood, and he had to
+walk up and down before he could knock at Lucy's door. That infamous
+conspiracy to which he owed his degradation and misery scarce left
+him the feelings of a man when he thought of it.
+
+The soft beloved voice responded to his knock. He opened the door,
+and stood before her. Lucy was half-way toward him. In the moment
+that passed ere she was in his arms, he had time to observe the
+change in her. He had left her a girl: he beheld a woman--a blooming
+woman: for pale at first, no sooner did she see him than the colour
+was rich and deep on her face and neck and bosom half shown through
+the loose dressing-robe, and the sense of her exceeding beauty made
+his heart thump and his eyes swim.
+
+"My darling!" each cried, and they clung together, and her mouth was
+fastened on his.
+
+They spoke no more. His soul was drowned in her kiss. Supporting
+her, whose strength was gone, he, almost as weak as she, hung over
+her, and clasped her closer, closer, till they were as one body, and
+in the oblivion her lips put upon him he was free to the bliss of
+her embrace. Heaven granted him that. He placed her in a chair and
+knelt at her feet with both arms around her. Her bosom heaved; her
+eyes never quitted him: their light as the light on a rolling wave.
+This young creature, commonly so frank and straightforward, was
+broken with bashfulness in her husband's arms--womanly bashfulness
+on the torrent of womanly love; tenfold more seductive than the
+bashfulness of girlhood. Terrible tenfold the loss of her seemed
+now, as distantly--far on the horizon of memory--the fatal truth
+returned to him.
+
+Lose her? lose this? He looked up as if to ask God to confirm it.
+
+The same sweet blue eyes! the eyes that he had often seen in the
+dying glories of evening; on him they dwelt, shifting, and
+fluttering, and glittering, but constant: the light of them as the
+light on a rolling wave.
+
+And true to him! true, good, glorious, as the angels of heaven! And
+his she was! a woman--his wife! The temptation to take her, and be
+dumb, was all powerful: the wish to die against her bosom so strong
+as to be the prayer of his vital forces. Again he strained her to
+him, but this time it was as a robber grasps priceless treasure--with
+exultation and defiance. One instant of this. Lucy, whose pure
+tenderness had now surmounted the first wild passion of their
+meeting, bent back her head from her surrendered body, and said
+almost voicelessly, her underlids wistfully quivering: "Come and
+see him--baby;" and then in great hope of the happiness she was
+going to give her husband, and share with him, and in tremour and
+doubt of what his feelings would be, she blushed, and her brows
+worked: she tried to throw off the strangeness of a year of
+separation, misunderstanding, and uncertainty.
+
+"Darling! come and see him. He is here." She spoke more clearly,
+though no louder.
+
+Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he suffered
+himself to be led to the other side of the bed. His heart began
+rapidly throbbing at the sight of a little rosy-curtained cot
+covered with lace like milky summer cloud.
+
+It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he looked on that
+child's face.
+
+"Stop!" he cried suddenly.
+
+Lucy turned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing it should
+have been disturbed.
+
+"Lucy, come back."
+
+"What is it, darling?" said she, in alarm at his voice and the grip
+he had unwittingly given her hand.
+
+O God! what an Ordeal was this! that to-morrow he must face death,
+perhaps die and be torn from his darling--his wife and his child;
+and that ere he went forth, ere he could dare to see his child and
+lean his head reproachfully on his young wife's breast--for the last
+time, it might be--he must stab her to the heart, shatter the image
+she held of him.
+
+"Lucy!" She saw him wrenched with agony, and her own face took the
+whiteness of his--she bending forward to him, all her faculties
+strung to hearing.
+
+He held her two hands that she might look on him and not spare the
+horrible wounds he was going to lay open to her eyes.
+
+"Lucy. Do you know why I came to you to-night?"
+
+She moved her lips repeating his words.
+
+"Lucy. Have you guessed why I did not come before?"
+
+Her head shook widened eyes.
+
+"Lucy. I did not come because I was not worthy of my wife! Do you
+understand?"
+
+"Darling," she faltered plaintively, and hung crouching under him,
+"what have I done to make you angry with me?"
+
+"O beloved!" cried he, the tears bursting out of his eyes. "O
+beloved!" was all he could say, kissing her hands passionately.
+
+She waited, reassured, but in terror.
+
+"Lucy. I stayed away from you--I could not come to you, because ...
+I dared not come to you, my wife, my beloved! I could not come
+because I was a coward: because--hear me--this was the reason: I
+have broken my marriage oath."
+
+Again her lips moved. She caught at a dim fleshless meaning in
+them. "But you love me? Richard! My husband! you love me?"
+
+"Yes. I have never loved, I never shall love, woman but you."
+
+"Darling! Kiss me."
+
+"Have you understood what I have told you?"
+
+"Kiss me," she said.
+
+He did not join lips. "I have come to you to-night to ask your
+forgiveness."
+
+Her answer was: "Kiss me."
+
+"Can you forgive a man so base?"
+
+"But you love me, Richard?"
+
+"Yes: that I can say before God. I love you, and I have betrayed
+you, and am unworthy of you--not worthy to touch your hand, to kneel
+at your feet, to breathe the same air with you."
+
+Her eyes shone brilliantly. "You love me! you love me, darling!" And
+as one who has sailed through dark fears into daylight, she said:
+"My husband! my darling! you will never leave me? We never shall be
+parted again?"
+
+He drew his breath painfully. To smooth her face growing rigid with
+fresh fears of his silence, he met her mouth. That kiss in which she
+spoke what her soul had to say, calmed her, and she smiled happily
+from it, and in her manner reminded him of his first vision of her
+on the summer morning in the field of the meadow-sweet. He held her
+to him, and thought then of a holier picture: of Mother and Child:
+of the sweet wonders of the life she had made real to him.
+
+Had he not absolved his conscience? At least the pangs to come made
+him think so. He now followed her leading hand. Lucy whispered: "You
+mustn't disturb him--mustn't touch him, dear!" and with dainty
+fingers drew off the covering to the little shoulder. One arm of the
+child was out along the pillow; the small hand open. His baby-mouth
+was pouted full; the dark lashes of his eyes seemed to lie on his
+plump cheeks. Richard stooped lower down to him, hungering for some
+movement as a sign that he lived. Lucy whispered. "He sleeps like
+you, Richard--one arm under his head." Great wonder, and the stir of
+a grasping tenderness was in Richard. He breathed quick and soft,
+bending lower, till Lucy's curls, as she nestled and bent with him,
+rolled on the crimson quilt of the cot. A smile went up the plump
+cheeks: forthwith the bud of a mouth was in rapid motion. The young
+mother whispered, blushing: "He's dreaming of me," and the simple
+words did more than Richard's eyes to make him see what was. Then
+Lucy began to hum and buzz sweet baby-language, and some of the tiny
+fingers stirred, and he made as if to change his cosy position, but
+reconsidered, and deferred it, with a peaceful little sigh. Lucy
+whispered: "He is such a big fellow. Oh! when you see him awake he
+is so like you, Richard."
+
+He did not hear her immediately: it seemed a bit of heaven dropped
+there in his likeness: the more human the fact of the child grew the
+more heavenly it seemed. His son! his child! should he ever see him
+awake? At the thought, he took the words that had been spoken, and
+started from the dream he had been in. "Will he wake soon, Lucy?"
+
+"Oh no! not yet, dear: not for hours. I would have kept him awake
+for you, but he was _so_ sleepy."
+
+Richard stood back from the cot. He thought that if he saw the eyes
+of his boy, and had him once on his heart, he never should have
+force to leave him. Then he looked down on him, again struggled to
+tear himself away. Two natures warred in his bosom, or it may have
+been the Magian Conflict still going on. He had come to see his
+child once and to make peace with his wife before it should be too
+late. Might he not stop with them? Might he not relinquish that
+devilish pledge? Was not divine happiness here offered to him?--If
+foolish Ripton had not delayed to tell him of his interview with
+Mountfalcon all might have been well. But pride said it was
+impossible. And then injury spoke. For why was he thus base and
+spotted to the darling of his love? A mad pleasure in the prospect
+of wreaking vengeance on the villain who had laid the trap for him,
+once more blackened his brain. If he would stay he could not. So he
+resolved, throwing the burden on Fate. The struggle was over, but
+oh, the pain!
+
+Lucy beheld the tears streaming hot from his face on the child's
+cot. She marvelled at such excess of emotion. But when his chest
+heaved, and the extremity of mortal anguish appeared to have seized
+him, her heart sank, and she tried to get him in her arms. He turned
+away from her and went to the window. A half-moon was over the lake.
+
+"Look!" he said, "do you remember our rowing there one night, and we
+saw the shadow of the cypress? I wish I could have come early
+to-night that we might have had another row, and I have heard you
+sing there!"
+
+"Darling!" said she, "will it make you happier if I go with you now?
+I will."
+
+"No, Lucy. Lucy, you are brave!"
+
+"Oh, no! that I'm not. I thought so once. I know I am not now."
+
+"Yes! to have lived--the child on your heart--and never to have
+uttered a complaint!--you are brave. O my Lucy! my wife! you that
+have made me man! I called you a coward. I remember it. I was the
+coward--_I_ the wretched vain fool! Darling! I am going to leave you
+now. You are brave, and you will bear it. Listen: in two days, or
+three, I may be back--back for good, if you will accept me. Promise
+me to go to bed quietly. Kiss the child for me, and tell him his
+father has seen him. He will learn to speak soon. Will he soon
+speak, Lucy?"
+
+Dreadful suspicion kept her speechless; she could only clutch one
+arm of his with both her hands.
+
+"Going?" she presently gasped.
+
+"For two or three days. No more--I hope."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes. Now."
+
+"Going now? my husband!" her faculties abandoned her.
+
+"You will be brave, my Lucy!"
+
+"Richard! my darling husband! Going? What is it takes you from me?"
+But questioning no further, she fell on her knees, and cried
+piteously to him to stay--not to leave them. Then she dragged him to
+the little sleeper, and urged him to pray by his side, and he did,
+but rose abruptly from his prayer when he had muttered a few broken
+words--she praying on with tight-strung nerves, in the faith that
+what she said to the interceding Mother above would be stronger than
+human hands on him. Nor could he go while she knelt there.
+
+And he wavered. He had not reckoned on her terrible suffering. She
+came to him, quiet. "I knew you would remain." And taking his hand,
+innocently fondling it: "Am I so changed from her he loved? You will
+not leave me, dear?" But dread returned, and the words quavered as
+she spoke them.
+
+He was almost vanquished by the loveliness of her womanhood. She
+drew his hand to her heart, and strained it there under one breast.
+"Come: lie on my heart," she murmured with a smile of holy
+sweetness.
+
+He wavered more, and drooped to her, but summoning the powers of
+hell, kissed her suddenly, cried the words of parting, and hurried
+to the door. It was over in an instant. She cried out his name,
+clinging to him wildly, and was adjured to be brave, for he would be
+dishonoured if he did not go. Then she was shaken off.
+
+Mrs. Berry was aroused by an unusual prolonged wailing of the child,
+which showed that no one was comforting it, and failing to get any
+answer to her applications for admittance, she made bold to enter.
+There she saw Lucy, the child in her lap, sitting on the floor
+senseless:--she had taken it from its sleep and tried to follow her
+husband with it as her strongest appeal to him, and had fainted.
+
+"Oh my! oh my!" Mrs. Berry moaned, "and I just now thinkin' they was
+so happy!"
+
+Warming and caressing the poor infant, she managed by degrees to
+revive Lucy, and heard what had brought her to that situation.
+
+"Go to his father," said Mrs. Berry. "Ta-te-tiddle-te-heighty-O! Go,
+my love, and every horse in Raynham shall be out after 'm. This is
+what men brings us to! Heighty-oighty-iddlety-Ah! Or you take
+blessed baby, and I'll go."
+
+The baronet himself knocked at the door. "What is this?" he said. "I
+heard a noise and a step descend."
+
+"It's Mr. Richard have gone, Sir Austin! have gone from his wife and
+babe! Rum-te-um-te-iddledy--Oh, my goodness! what sorrow's come on
+us!" and Mrs. Berry wept, and sang to baby, and baby cried
+vehemently, and Lucy, sobbing, took him and danced him and sang to
+him with drawn lips and tears dropping over him. And if the
+Scientific Humanist to the day of his death forgets the sight of
+those two poor true women jigging on their wretched hearts to calm
+the child, he must have very little of the human in him.
+
+There was no more sleep for Raynham that night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH
+
+
+"His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room and seen him
+bear the worst that could be. Return at once--he has asked for you.
+I can hardly write intelligibly, but I will tell you what we know.
+
+"Two days after the dreadful night when he left us, his father heard
+from Ralph Morton. Richard had fought a duel in France with Lord
+Mountfalcon, and was lying wounded at a hamlet on the coast. His
+father started immediately with his poor wife, and I followed in
+company with his aunt and his child. The wound was not dangerous. He
+was shot in the side somewhere, but the ball injured no vital part.
+We thought all would be well. Oh! how sick I am of theories, and
+Systems, and the pretensions of men! There was his son lying all but
+dead, and the man was still unconvinced of the folly he had been
+guilty of. I could hardly bear the sight of his composure. I shall
+hate the name of Science till the day I die. Give me nothing but
+commonplace unpretending people!
+
+"They were at a wretched French cabaret, smelling vilely, where we
+still remain, and the people try as much as they can do to
+compensate for our discomforts by their kindness. The French poor
+people are very considerate where they see suffering. I will say
+that for them. The doctors had not allowed his poor Lucy to go near
+him. She sat outside his door, and none of us dared disturb her.
+That was a sight for Science. His father and myself, and Mrs. Berry,
+were the only ones permitted to wait on him, and whenever we came
+out, there she sat, not speaking a word--for she had been told it
+would endanger his life--but she looked such awful eagerness. She
+had the sort of eye I fancy mad persons have. I was sure her reason
+was going. We did everything we could think of to comfort her. A bed
+was made up for her and her meals were brought to her there. Of
+course there was no getting her to eat. What do you suppose _his_
+alarm was fixed on? He absolutely said to me--but I have not
+patience to repeat his words. He thought her to blame for not
+_commanding_ herself for the sake of her _maternal duties_. He had
+absolutely an idea of insisting that she should make an effort to
+suckle the child. I shall love that Mrs. Berry to the end of my
+days. I really believe she has _twice_ the sense of any of
+us--Science and all. She asked him plainly if he wished to poison
+the child, and then he gave way, but with a bad grace.
+
+"Poor man! perhaps I am hard on him. I remember that you said
+Richard had done wrong. Yes; well, that may be. But his father
+eclipsed his wrong in a greater wrong--a crime, or quite as bad; for
+if he deceived himself in the belief that he was acting righteously
+in separating husband and wife, and exposing his son as he did, I
+can only say that there are some who are worse than people who
+deliberately commit _crimes_. No doubt Science will benefit by it.
+They kill little animals for the sake of Science.
+
+"We have with us Doctor Bairam, and a French physician from Dieppe,
+a very skilful man. It was he who told us where the real danger lay.
+We thought all would be well. A week had passed, and no fever
+supervened. We told Richard that his wife was coming to him, and he
+could bear to hear it. I went to her and began to circumlocute,
+thinking she listened--she had the same eager look. When I told her
+she might go in with me to see her dear husband, her features did
+not change. M. Despres, who held her pulse at the time, told me, in
+a whisper, it was cerebral fever--brain fever coming on. We have
+talked of her since. I noticed that though she did not seem to
+understand me, her bosom heaved, and she appeared to be trying to
+repress it, and choke something. I am sure now, from what I know of
+her character, that she--even in the approaches of delirium--was
+preventing herself from crying out. Her last hold of reason was a
+thought for Richard. It was against a creature like this that we
+plotted! I have the comfort of knowing that I did my share in
+helping to destroy her. Had she seen her husband a day or two
+before--but no! there was a new _System_ to interdict that! Or had
+she not so violently controlled her nature as she did, I believe she
+might have been saved.
+
+"He said once of a man, that his conscience was a coxcomb. Will you
+believe that when he saw his son's wife--poor victim! lying
+delirious, he could not even then see his error. You said he wished
+to take Providence out of God's hands. His mad self-deceit would not
+leave him. I am positive, that while he was standing over her, he
+was blaming her for not having considered the child. Indeed he made
+a remark to me that it was unfortunate--'disastrous,' I think he
+said--that the child should have to be fed by hand. I dare say it
+is. All I pray is that this young child may be saved from him. I
+cannot bear to see him look on it. He does not spare himself
+_bodily_ fatigue--but what is that? that is the vulgarest form of
+love. I know what you will say. You will say I have lost all
+charity, and I have. But I should not feel so, Austin, if I could be
+_quite sure_ that he is an altered man even now the blow has struck
+him. He is reserved and simple in his speech, and his grief is
+evident, but I have doubts. He heard her while she was senseless
+call him cruel and harsh, and cry that she had suffered, and I saw
+then his mouth contract as if he had been touched. Perhaps, when he
+thinks, his mind will be clearer, but what he has done cannot be
+undone. I do not imagine he will abuse women any more. The doctor
+called her a 'forte et belle jeune femme:' and _he_ said she was as
+noble a soul as ever God moulded clay upon. A noble soul 'forte et
+belle!' She lies upstairs. If he can look on her and not see his
+_sin_, I almost fear God will never enlighten him.
+
+"She died five days after she had been removed. The shock had
+utterly deranged her. I was with her. She died very quietly,
+breathing her last breath without pain--asking for no one--a death I
+should like to die.
+
+"Her cries at one time were dreadfully loud. She screamed that she
+was 'drowning in fire,' and that her husband would not come to her
+to save her. We deadened the sound as much as we could, but it was
+impossible to prevent Richard from hearing. He knew her voice, and
+it produced an effect like fever on him. Whenever she called he
+answered. You could not hear them without weeping. Mrs. Berry sat
+with her, and I sat with him, and his father moved from one to the
+other.
+
+"But the trial for us came when she was gone. How to communicate it
+to Richard--or whether to do so at all! His father consulted with
+us. We were quite decided that it would be madness to breathe it
+while he was in that state. I can admit now--as things have turned
+out--we were wrong. His father left us--I believe he spent the time
+in prayer--and then leaning on me, he went to Richard, and said in
+so many words, that his Lucy was no more. I thought it must kill
+him. He listened, and smiled. I never saw a smile so sweet and so
+sad. He said he had seen her die, as if he had passed through his
+suffering a long time ago. He shut his eyes. I could see by the
+motion of his eyeballs up that he was straining his sight to some
+inner heaven.--I cannot go on.
+
+"I think Richard is safe. Had we postponed the tidings, till he came
+to his clear senses, it must have killed him. His father was right
+for once, then. But if he has saved his son's body, he has given the
+death-blow to his heart. Richard will never be what he promised.
+
+"A letter found on his clothes tells us the origin of the quarrel. I
+have had an interview with Lord M. this morning. I cannot say I
+think him exactly to blame: Richard forced him to fight. At least I
+do not select him the foremost for blame. He was deeply and
+sincerely affected by the calamity he has caused. Alas! he was only
+an instrument. Your poor aunt is utterly prostrate and talks strange
+things of her daughter's death. She is only happy in _drudging_. Dr.
+Bairam says we must under any circumstances keep her employed.
+Whilst she is doing something, she can chat freely, but the moment
+her hands are not occupied she gives me an idea that she is going
+into a fit.
+
+"We expect the dear child's uncle to-day. Mr. Thompson is here. I
+have taken him upstairs to look at her. That poor young man has a
+true heart.
+
+"Come at once. You will not be in time to see her. She will lie at
+Raynham. If you could you would see an angel. _He_ sits by her side
+for hours. I can give you no description of her beauty.
+
+"You will not delay, I know, dear Austin, and I want you, for your
+presence will make me more charitable than I find it possible to be.
+Have you noticed the expression in the eyes of blind men? That is
+just how Richard looks, as he lies there silent in his bed--striving
+to image her on his brain."
+
+
+
+
+The Modern Student's Library
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+NOVELS
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+
+  COOPER: The Spy
+  With an introduction by TREMAINE MCDOWELL, Associate Professor
+  of English, University of Minnesota
+
+  ELIOT: Adam Bede
+  With an introduction by LAURA JOHNSON WYLIE, formerly Professor
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+  FIELDING: The Adventures of Joseph Andrews
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+  of English, New York University
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+  GALSWORTHY: The Patrician
+  With an introduction by BLISS PERRY, Professor of English
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+  Columbia University
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+  HAWTHORNE: The Scarlet Letter
+  With an introduction by STUART P. SHERMAN, late Literary Editor of
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+
+  MEREDITH: Evan Harrington
+  With an introduction by GEORGE F. REYNOLDS, Professor of English
+  Literature, University of Colorado
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+  MEREDITH: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
+  With an introduction by FRANK W. CHANDLER, Professor of English
+  and Comparative Literature, and Dean of the College of Liberal
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+  SCOTT: The Heart of Midlothian
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+  THREE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ROMANCES: The Castle of Otranto, Vathek,
+  The Romance of the Forest
+  With an introduction by HARRISON R. STEEVES, Professor of
+  English, Columbia University
+
+
+POETRY
+
+  BROWNING: Poems and Plays
+  Edited by HEWETTE E. JOYCE, Assistant Professor of English,
+  Dartmouth College
+
+  BROWNING: The Ring and the Book
+  Edited by FREDERICK MORGAN PADEIFORD, Professor of English,
+  University of Washington
+
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+  Edited by J. F. A. PYRE, Professor of English, University of
+  Wisconsin
+
+  WHITMAN: Leaves of Grass
+  Edited by STUART P. SHERMAN, late Literary Editor of the
+  New York _Herald Tribune_
+
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+  University
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+  Edited by LOUISE POUND, Professor of English, University of
+  Nebraska
+
+  ENGLISH POETS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by ERNEST BERNBAUM, Professor of English, University
+  of Illinois
+
+  MINOR VICTORIAN POETS
+  Edited by JOHN D. COOKE, Professor of English, University of
+  Southern California
+
+  ROMANTIC POETRY OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by ARTHUR BEATTY, Professor of English, University of
+  Wisconsin
+
+
+ESSAYS AND MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
+
+  ADDISON AND STEELE: Selections
+  Edited by WILL D. HOWE, formerly head of the Department of
+  English, Indiana University
+
+  ARNOLD: Prose and Poetry
+  Edited by ARCHIBALD L. BOUTON, Professor of English and Dean
+  of the Graduate School, New York University
+
+  BACON: Essays
+  Edited by MARY AUGUSTA SCOTT, late Professor of the English
+  Language and Literature, Smith College
+
+  BROWNELL: American Prose Masters
+  Edited by STUART P. SHERMAN, late Literary Editor of the New
+  York _Herald Tribune_
+
+  BURKE: Selections
+  Edited by LESLIE NATHAN BROUGHTON, Assistant Professor of English,
+  Cornell University
+
+  CARLYLE: Past and Present
+  Edited by EDWIN MIMS, Professor of English, Vanderbilt University
+
+  CARLYLE: Sartor Resartus
+  Edited by ASHLEY H. THORNDIKE, Professor of English, Columbia
+  University
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+  EMERSON: Essays and Poems
+  Edited by ARTHUR HOBSON QUINN, Professor of English, University
+  of Pennsylvania
+
+  FRANKLIN AND EDWARDS: Selections
+  Edited by CARL VAN DOREN, Associate Professor of English,
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+  of Pennsylvania
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+  Edited by NATHANIEL WRIGHT STEPHENSON, author of "Lincoln: His
+  Personal Life"
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+  University
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+  MEREDITH: An Essay on Comedy
+  Edited by LANE COOPER, Professor of the English Language
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+  Edited by JAMES SOUTHALL WILSON, Edgar Allan Poe Professor of
+  English, University of Virginia
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+  Edited by FREDERICK WILLIAM ROE, Professor of English,
+  University of Wisconsin
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+  STEVENSON: Essays
+  Edited by WILLIAM LYON PHELPS, Lampson Professor of English
+  Literature, Yale University
+
+  SWIFT: Selections
+  Edited by HARDIN CRAIG, Professor of English, University of Iowa
+
+  THOREAU: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
+  Edited by ODELL SHEPARD, James J. Goodwin Professor of
+  English, Trinity College
+
+  CONTEMPORARY ESSAYS
+  Edited by ODELL SHEPARD, James J. Goodwin Professor of English,
+  Trinity College
+
+  CRITICAL ESSAYS OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by RAYMOND M. ALDEN, late Professor of English, Leland
+  Stanford University
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+  SELECTIONS FROM THE FEDERALIST
+  Edited by JOHN S. BASSETT, late Professor of History, Smith College
+
+  NINETEENTH CENTURY LETTERS
+  Edited by BYRON JOHNSON REES, late Professor of English,
+  Williams College
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+  ROMANTIC PROSE OF THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY
+  Edited by CARL H. GRABO, Professor of English, University of
+  Chicago
+
+  SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS
+  Edited by JACOB ZEITLIN, Associate Professor of English,
+  University of Illinois
+
+
+BIOGRAPHY
+
+  BOSWELL: Life of Johnson
+  Abridged and Edited by CHARLES GROSVENOR OSGOOD, Professor
+  of English, Princeton University
+
+  CROCKETT: Autobiography of David Crockett
+  Edited by HAMLIN GARLAND
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+
+PHILOSOPHY SERIES
+
+  =Editor, Ralph Barton Perry=
+  _Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University_
+
+  ARISTOTLE: Selections
+  Edited by W. D. ROSS, Professor of Philosophy, Oriel College,
+  University of Oxford
+
+  BACON: Selections
+  Edited by MATTHEW THOMPSON MCCLURE, Professor of Philosophy,
+  University of Illinois
+
+  BERKELEY: Selections
+  Edited by MARY W. CALKINS, late Professor of Philosophy and
+  Psychology, Wellesley College
+
+  DESCARTES: Selections
+  Edited by RALPH M. EATON, late Assistant Professor of Philosophy,
+  Harvard University
+
+  HEGEL: Selections
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+  of California
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+  HOBBES: Selections
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+  of Philosophy, Columbia University
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+  HUME: Selections
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+  University
+
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+  Edited by THEODORE M. GREENE, Associate Professor of Philosophy,
+  Princeton University
+
+  LOCKE: Selections
+  Edited by STERLING P. LAMPRECHT, Professor of Philosophy, Amherst
+  College
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+  PLATO: The Republic
+  With an introduction by C. M. BAKEWELL, Professor of Philosophy, Yale
+  University
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+  PLATO: Selections
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+  University
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+  SPINOZA: Selections
+  Edited by JOHN D. WILD, Instructor in Philosophy, Harvard University
+
+  MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY
+  Edited by RICHARD MCKEON, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Columbia
+  University
+
+
+FRENCH SERIES
+
+  =Editor, Horatio Smith=
+  _Professor of French Language and Literature, Brown University_
+
+  BALZAC: Le Pere Goriot
+  With an introduction by HORATIO SMITH, Brown University
+
+  CORNEILLE: Le Cid, Horace, Polyeucte, Le Menteur
+  Edited by C. H. C. WRIGHT, Professor of French Language and
+  Literature, Harvard University
+
+  FLAUBERT: Madame Bovary
+  With an introduction by CHRISTIAN GAUSS, Dean of the College,
+  Princeton University
+
+  MADAME DE LA FAYETTE: La Princesse de Cleves
+  With an introduction by H. ASHTON, Professor of French Language and
+  Literature, University of British Columbia
+
+  MOLIERE: Les Precieuses Ridicules, Le Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope
+  Edited by WILLIAM A. NITZE and HILDA L. NORMAN, University of Chicago
+
+  PREVOST: Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut
+  With an introduction by LOUIS LANDRE, Associate Professor of French,
+  Brown University
+
+  RACINE: Andromaque, Britannicus, Phedre
+  Edited by H. CARRINGTON LANCASTER, Professor of French Literature,
+  Johns Hopkins University, and EDMOND A. MERAS, Professor of French
+  Literature, Adelphi College
+
+  GEORGE SAND: Indiana
+  With an introduction by HERMANN H. THORNTON, Associate Professor of
+  French and Italian, Oberlin College
+
+  STENDHAL: Le Rouge et le Noir
+  With an introduction by PAUL HAZARD, College de France
+
+  VOLTAIRE: Candide and Other Philosophical Tales
+  Edited by MORRIS BISHOP, Assistant Professor of the Romance Languages
+  and Literature, Cornell University
+
+  FRENCH ROMANTIC PLAYS: Dumas's "Antony," Hugo's "Hernani"
+  and "Ruy Blas," Vigny's "Chatterton," Musset's "On ne badine pas
+  avec l'amour."
+  Edited by W. W. COMFORT, President, Haverford College
+
+  FRENCH ROMANTIC PROSE
+  Edited by W. W. COMFORT, President, Haverford College
+
+  FOUR FRENCH COMEDIES OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: Lesage's
+  "Turcaret," Marivaux's "Le jeu de l'amour et du hasard,"
+  Sedaine's "Le philosophe sans le savoir," Beaumarchais's "Le
+  barbier de Seville"
+  Edited by CASIMIR D. ZDANOWICZ, Professor of French, University of
+  Wisconsin
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+1. Passages in italics are indicated by _underscore_.
+
+2. Passages in bold are indicated by =.
+
+3. Other than the corrections listed below, printer's inconsistencies
+in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation usage have been retained:
+
+  Pg. 3 "Feveral" corrected to "Feverel" (Hippias Feverel)
+  Pg. 25 "run" corrected to "rung" (bell was rung)
+  Pg. 38 "pursuade" corrected to "persuade" (persuade her to disrobe)
+  Pg. 44 "Said" corrected to "said" (coward?" said)
+  Pg. 52 "Feveral" corrected to "Feverel" (a Feverel asking this)
+  Pg. 75 "Parliment" corrected to "Parliament" (hero of our Parliament,)
+  Pg. 119 "agree" corrected to "agrees" (it agrees with me)
+  Pg. 455 "sparating" corrected to "separating" (in separating)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith
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