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CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +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 + +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 nighttime 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, air?" 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. + +"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 systems 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 is it 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 Balsam, 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--as 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 sap, 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, +whereat 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 + +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 +epithet's 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 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 over-loud; 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 beginning' 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 gapes, 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. Feverel. 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 gal! 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 superinduced 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 tomorrow!" 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 + +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 set +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 +debtor ship for a thing done. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +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 aboveground." + +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 distension 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 +grandnephew 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, + With 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 neckcloth, 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, elicitating 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 forties, +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 aboveground, 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 coetera." + +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 filing 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 were 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 + +On the stroke of the hour when Ripton Thompson was accustomed to consult +his gold 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 flourished 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 certificated 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 set 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 halfway up the stairs, +a door opened, and his old comrade in adventure rushed down. Richard +allowed no 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 doorstep 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 +overriding 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'm 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. "hook 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 Torn 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 over shot +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 + +"In all cases where two have joined to commit an offence, punish one of +the two lightly," is the dictum of The Pilgrim's'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 un-removed, 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 today." + +"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. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A young philosopher's an old fool! +Cold charity to all +I cannot get on with Gibbon +In our House, my son, there is peculiar blood. 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